The key mutation of the schizophrenic psyche can be described as a disturbance of the first person-ness of the I-sense, i.e., of the sense of the "I" as personal subject of experience and of action. Under these circumstances, representations of things are not definitively experienced as "my" representations—with the self-evidence of belonging to me. This uncertainty of selfhood, specific to schizophrenia, cannot be reduced to a disability of intellect, logic, judgment, or memory. In the course of developing his argument, the (...) author criticizes philosopher Michel Henry's critique of Heidegger's (1961) interpretation of Descartes's cogito ergo sum. (shrink)

Chef de file de la réflexion psychiatrique au Japon, le Professeur Kimura Bin s’oppose dans cet article aux réductionnismes physicalistes en découvrant au coeur de la subjectivité une articulation complexe entre le personnel et l’impersonnel qui simultanément confirme la conception spirituelle zen de la constitution de l’individualité et donne une base à la fondation d’une science psychiatrique véritable. Il démontre que l’orientation donnée par les sciences cognitives et la philosophie analytique conduit à ignorer la différence entre réalité et actualité, (...) et occulte ainsi le fait que chaque existant est unique, manquant de la sorte à la fois son unité et son unicité. Pour retrouver l’originalité propre à chacun, Kimura propose d’en retrouver l’originarité, esquissée dans le concept heideggérien de Befindlichkeit, et d’élargir la subjectivité au sens proposé par Victor von Weizsäcker en tant que rencontre avec le milieu. Il conclut cette étude phénoménologique en proposant de fonder une psychopathologie en première personne, c’est-à-dire d’introduire la subjectivité dans la science psychiatrique, seule voie pour comprendre l’existence et résoudre l’énigme de la schizophrénie. (shrink)

This paper reports on recent developments in the rise of bioethics in Japan. Much of the recent interest in bioethics in Japan is seen as a response to various civic movements. The women's liberation movement, access to equal opportunity, and the recognition of patients' rights and the importance of informed consent are among some of the movements influencing the development of bioethics in Japan. The author argues that this movement is to be encouraged and fostered by health care professionals, public (...) policy makers, as well as lay persons in Japan. Keywords: bioethics, Japan, patients' rights, informed consent CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Although ethics committees in Japan have been developing in major medical schools and in some hospitals, their members are usually medical professionals from the same institution. The lack of national legislation for setting up ethics committees permits only a voluntary code of standards for doing clinical research work in high tech medical applications. The author argues for the necessity of more open debate on bioethical issues and proposes the participation of the lay public and bioethicists in Ethics Committees in Japan. (...) Keywords: ethics committees, bioethics, Japan, patients' rights, high-tech medicine CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Death and Dying in JapanRihito Kimura (bio)A majority of Japanese, at present, feel that the modern biomedical and technological innovations pertaining to human life and death have been forcing a change in our common understanding of what, historically, was simply the natural event and process of death and dying. The meaning of death and the dying process in our lives is changing as have the traditional criteria for (...) determining death, namely, cessation of heartbeat and respiration.An individual’s death should be a personal and private matter as well as a familial, communal, and social matter. It has been regarded as such for many thousands of years in our Japanese society and culture. It is well understood that our traditional socio-cultural understanding of human life positively admits the natural process of death as the final event of life. The ideas expressed in Zen-Buddhist phrases such as “accept death as it is” and “life-death as one phenomenon” have been key motifs totally integrated into our traditional understanding of life (Tomomatsu 1939).However, the traditional perception of death as an acceptable process has [End Page 374] been vanishing as the Japanese have applied modern biomedical technologies more frequently in well-equipped hospital settings. Although the involvement of family members in the process of dying and particularly in the death event continues in a variety of ways, the care of dying patients in Japan is becoming much more similar to that delivered in advanced hospital settings in many countries of the world, than it is different. Now, in Japan, a majority of people end their lives in the hospital, surrounded by high-technology machines. Yet, in a survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun of 15 June 1991, half of the respondents said they would prefer to die at home.In addition, there has been a tradition of not explaining to terminally ill people the true nature of their condition, on the ground that this is most appropriate way to proceed (Kashiwagi 1994, pp. 78–85). However, views on this matter are changing. There is a gradual move toward telling patients the truth, and the notion of informed consent has been widely publicized in the clinical setting (Leflar 1996, pp. 96–107). In the 1991 nationwide opinion poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun, 65 percent of the participants said that they would like to be given full diagnostic information about themselves even if they were terminally ill. Nevertheless, only 22 percent of the people questioned said they themselves would definitely be prepared to disclose such information to a family member.The same survey indicated that 78 percent of people considered palliative care desirable, even though it might shorten life, while 16 percent thought life should be sustained as long as possible, irrespective of the pain that patients might be suffering.Challenges of Care for the DyingA special task force on terminal care, set up by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, issued a report in 1989 that encouraged the disclosure of diagnostic information to patients, provided that consideration was given to patients’ life histories, personalities, relationships with family members, and other factors. The report favored the use of drugs for pain control; it also dealt with matters such as spiritual requirements and the care of the family members.Traditionally, the physician-patient relationship in Japan is based on a complete and unquestioning trust of the physician by the patient, such that the physician acts to make health care decisions on behalf of the patient (Kimura 1991). However, increasingly it is believed that people should not have to accept without question the authority of doctors in the treatment of disease. Responsibility for the care of the dying should be shared between family members and all health professionals, not only physicians. Changes are needed in the mentalities of health care providers, patients, and family members, and it must be recognized that the medical system and institutions are not immutable (Annas and Miller 1994, pp. 374–76). [End Page 375]To complicate matters even further, although a patient’s family is informed of the incurable nature of the disease affecting their family member, the patient, as noted above, usually is not told of... (shrink)

Japan is unusual among industrialized countries in its reluctance to use brain criteria to determine death and harvest transplant organs. This results from public distrust of the medical profession due to an earlier incident, and from concern that technological interventions will threaten religious and cultural traditions surrounding death and dying. Public acceptance is growing, however, as medical professional groups and universities develop brain criteria, and as pressure from patients who could benefit from a transplant, as well as from foreign countries, (...) increases. (shrink)

科学技術の発展とともに、バイオエシックスはいつも新しい課題に直面し、挑戦し続けている。このバイオエシックスの軌跡を「環境・自然」、「こどもの医療」、「生死の決断」等、私たちのいのちに関わる重要なテーマ に焦点をあてて検討、考察し、問題解決への提言を行った。.

Recent studies in pedestrian simulation have been able to construct a highly realistic navigation behaviour in many circumstances. However, when replicating the close interactions between pedestrians, the replicated behaviour is often unnatural and lacks human likeness. One of the possible reasons is that the current models often ignore the cognitive factors in the human thinking process. Another reason is that many models try to approach the problem by optimising certain objectives. On the other hand, in real life, humans do not (...) always take the most optimised decisions, particularly when interacting with other people. To improve the navigation behaviour in this circumstance, we proposed a pedestrian interacting model using reinforcement learning. Additionally, a novel cognitive prediction model, inspired by the predictive system of human cognition, is also incorporated. This helps the pedestrian agent in our model to learn to interact and predict the movement in a similar practice as humans. In our experimental results, when compared to other models, the path taken by our model’s agent is not the most optimised in certain aspects like path lengths, time taken and collisions. However, our model is able to demonstrate a more natural and human-like navigation behaviour, particularly in complex interaction settings. (shrink)

Foodways are important in understanding the bio-cultural dynamics of crop diversity. This paper examines the example of tsukemono and their importance for heirloom vegetables. Social histories of heirlooms and tsukemono were difficult to obtain, so various sources from archives, published reports, to interviews were used to stitch together the stories of the tsukemono-heirloom relationships. The paper finds that tsukemono has provided different opportunities for heirlooms. Tsukemono can enhance the taste and flavors of heirlooms. Pickling can make the best of heirloom’s (...) unique tastes even when they are not suited for other uses. Moreover, certain tsukemono has historically been associated with important social customs like gift-giving and seasonal events. The theoretical contribution of this study is to analyze the foodway-heirloom relationships from the vantage point of the political economy of agrofood systems. It is not enough to say a particular foodway is important for heirlooms. The paper reveals the necessity of analyses that situate the heirloom- foodway relationships in the modern agrofood systems. Changes not only in agriculture but also in consumption, retail, and processing are crucial in understanding the heirloom-foodway relationship. (shrink)

In recent times, international comparative studies on managers’ beliefs regarding ethical/unethical leadership have increased in number. These studies focus on both Eastern and Western countries. However, although these previous studies focused on the effects of national culture, they did not pay sufficient attention to the effects of institutions. Moreover, these studies covered only a few countries. Despite Japan’s strong influence on the world economy, it has not been included in previous studies on ethical leadership. Thus, to reveal unexplored factors—particularly cultural (...) and institutional factors—and to determine the generalizability of previous findings, this study used a qualitative research method to examine Japanese business managers’ beliefs about ethical/unethical leadership. The data revealed the convergence and divergence in beliefs regarding ethical/unethical leadership between managers in Japan and in other countries. The analysis identified mostly the same themes of ethical/unethical leadership as found in other countries albeit with different distributions. In addition, We identified new themes that may be specific to Japan or that were neglected in previous studies. Moreover, this study suggests the necessity of considering each society’s history of business ethics and current ethics-related institutional contexts in ethical/unethical leadership studies. (shrink)

Recently, some studies revealed that transcranial direct current stimulation reduces dual-task interference. Since there are countless combinations of dual-tasks, it remains unclear whether stable effects by tDCS can be observed on dual-task interference. An aim of the present study was to investigate whether the effects of tDCS on dual-task interference change depend on the dual-task content. We adopted two combinations of dual-tasks, i.e., a word task while performing a tandem task and a classic Stroop task while performing a tandem task. (...) We expected that the Stroop task would recruit the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and require involvement of executive function to greater extent than the word task. Subsequently, we hypothesized that anodal tDCS over the DLPFC would improve executive function and result in more effective reduction of dual-task interference in the Stroop-tandem dual-task than in the word-tandem dual-task. Anodal or cathodal tDCS was applied over the DLPFC or the supplementary motor area using a constant current of 2.0 mA for 20 min. According to our results, dual-task interference and the task performances of each task under the single-task condition were not changed after applying any settings of tDCS. However, anodal tDCS over the left DLPFC significantly improved the word task performance immediately after tDCS under the dual-task condition. Our findings suggested that the effect of anodal tDCS over the left DLPFC varies on the task performance under the dual-task condition was changed depending on the dual-task content. (shrink)

Sehen und Sagen sind untrennbar. Diese Untrennbarkeit ist ein wesentlicher, aber bisher nicht so beachteter Streitpunkt der Fichtes WL. Das Sagen ist für Fichte wesentlich. Dies ist deutlich, wenn man darauf achtet, dass es in enger Beziehung zu dem Sehen steht.

For genetic algorithms, it is important to maintain the population diversity. Some genetic algorithms have been proposed, which have an ability to control the diversity. But these algorithms use the distance between two individuals to control the diversity. Therefore, these performances become worse on ill-scaled functions. In this paper, we propose a new genetic algorithm, DIDC(a genetic algorithm with Distance Independent Diversity Control), that does not use a distance to control the population diversity. For controlling the diversity, DIDC uses two (...) GAs that have different natures. For realizing different natures, one GA uses a crossover operator as a search operator, and the other GA uses a mutation operator in DIDC. By applying DIDC to several benchmark problems, we show that DIDC has a good performance on high dimensional, multimodal, non-separable and ill-scaled problems. Finally, we show that the control parameter of DIDC has the same effect on the search with the number of generating children n c. (shrink)

The mental fatigue elicited by working and studying consumed mental resources, thereby eliciting a declined performance and an increased mental stress. The long-term continuous work and study, which is typical for modern workers and students, can increase mental fatigue and health risks. Previous studies reported that the natural environment has a restorative of mental resources and reducing stress. However, it is difficult for urban workers and students to take sufficient breaks in real natural environment. We conducted an experiment to examine (...) whether brief and indirect exposure to the natural environment elicits a restorative of attention and reducing stress. Twenty-five undergraduate and graduate students from the university of modern city participated in the experiment. The experiment involved measuring the changes in the task performance of the participants and the subjective mental workload, while the attention restoration was indexed from physiological response over time. The participants had two types of resting periods in the middle of the task, i.e., by looking at a blank display or by watching a nature video having scenes of, e.g., a forest, small waterfall, and rustling leaves. The results indicate that the natural environment indirectly depicted through the nature videos does not affect the task performance and the subjective mental workload but decreases the SCL. The results of the physiological response suggest that having rest periods depicting the natural environment, even if indirectly and briefly, can restore the directed attention for the task. This experiment revealed a useful method of resting for urban workers and students to restore their attention to a task. (shrink)

This paper analyzes politics of food education in Japan where food education has become one of the central motifs of food policy in recent years. It describes the emergence of private enterprise institutions that offer credentials for people as “food education experts,” the majority of whom are women. Based on a survey of more than one hundred food education experts, the paper explores motivations of these women and finds that the reasons for the popularity of food education certifications are not (...) so much that women wanted to challenge the dominant food system—as agrofood scholars may have expected or hoped for—but for reasons related more to the gendered career expectations and pressures for women to conform to a culturally-scripted feminine ideal. The paper’s importance beyond Japan lies in the discussion of dynamics and implications of privatization of food education. “Privatization” indicates a shift in the location of control and in what is considered to be “necessary” knowledge about food. Subject to market logic, food education is at risk of becoming an exercise of superficial mastering of “sanitized” information. Furthermore, at the core of privatization of food education is an increasingly pervasive approach to food education that I term “food literacy” approach, based upon a deficiency framework which posits individual knowledge and skills as sole reasons for inappropriate food choices, dietary behaviors, and culinary practices. Not only is the food literacy approach highly individualistic and apolitical, but it also enables and exacerbates the privatization and gendered pressures of food education. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasingly popular chisan-chisho movement that has promoted the localization of food consumption in Japan since the late-1990s. Chisan-chisho emerged in the context of a perceived crisis in the Japanese food system, particularly the long-term decline of agriculture and rural community and more recent episodes of food scandals. Although initially started as a grassroots movement, many chisan-chisho initiatives are now organized by governments and farmers’ cooperatives. Acknowledging that the chisan-chisho movement has added some important resources and a (...) conceptual framework, we nonetheless point out that chisan-chisho has been refashioned as a producer movement by government as well as the Japan Agricultural Cooperative, capitalizing on local food’s marketing appeal. Chisan-chisho to date has not been able to become a full-fledged citizen-based political mobilization nor address the issue of marginality in the food system. (shrink)