This volume presents historical, contemporary, and theoretical perspectives on the role of local communities and social norms in the economic development process. Using historical evidence combined with recent developments in institutional economics involving game theory and contracts, it establishes that communities can enhance the development of a market economy under certain circumstances -- and sheds light on what those circumstances are.

The Miyashita experiments are very interesting and the results should be examined from a viewpoint of attractor dynamics. Amit's target article shows a path toward realistic modeling by artificial neural networks (ANN), but it is not necessarily the only one. I introduce another model that can explain a substantial part of the empirical observations and makes an interesting prediction. This model consists of such units that have nonmonotonic input-output characteristics with local inhibition neurons.

Let M be a model of first order Peano arithmetic and I an initial segment of M that is closed under multiplication. LetM0 be the {0, 1,+}-reduct ofM. We show that there is another model N of PA that is also an expansion of M0 such that a · Ma = a · Na if and only if a ∈ I for all a ∈ M.

A bounded ultrasheaf is a nonstandard universe constructed from a superstructure in a Boolean valued model of set theory. We consider the bounded elementary embeddings between bounded ultrasheaves. Then the standardization principle is true if and only if the ultrafilters are comparable by the Rudin-Frolik order. The base concept is that the bounded elementary embeddings correspond to the complete Boolean homomorphisms. We represent this by the Rudin-Keisler order of ultrafilters of Boolean algebras.

"The Full Picture of Frege’s Philosophy" (Keiso Shobo, 2012) by Kazuyuki Nomoto gives a detailed account of Gottlob Frege’s life devoted to a failed attempt to develop mathematics formally and entirely from scratch based upon his logicism and his semantical understanding of mathematical entities. In the present paper, I review the book and recommend it as a challenging and inspiring book to anyone who wishes to understand the modern meaning of Frege’s philosophy.

It is sometimes suggested thatthere is no conception of privacy in Japan orthat, if there is, it is completely differentfrom Western conceptions of privacy. If thiswere so, finding common ground between Japanand the West on which to establish privacypolicies for the internet would be extremelydifficult if not impossible. In this paper wedelineate some of the distinctive differencesin privacy practices in Japan, but we maintainthat these differences do not prevent theestablishment of sound, shared, ethicalinformation privacy policies. We distinguishbetween a minimal conception (...) of privacy that webelieve is shared by Japan and other societiesand richer conceptions of privacy that oftenreflect patterns of behavior distinctive ofparticular cultures. Although Japan and othersocieties share at least a minimal sense ofprivacy, a base on which to build, robustprivacy protection will not exist on theinternet until an internationally accepted richsense of privacy is developed. (shrink)

The role of government in East Asian economic development has been a contentious issue. Two competing views have shaped enquiries into the source of the rapid growth of the high-performing Asian economies and attempts to derive a general lesson for other developing economies: the market-friendly view, according to which government intervenes little in the market, and the developmental state view, in which it governs the market. What these views share in common is a conception of market and government as alternative (...) mechanisms for resource allocation. They are distinct only in their judgement of the extent to which market failures have been, and ought to be, remedied by direct government intervention. This collection of essays suggests a breakthrough, third view: the market-enhancing view. Instead of viewing government and the market as mutually exclusive substitutes, it examines the capacity of government policy to facilitate or complement private sector co-ordination. The book starts from the premiss that private sector institutions have important comparative advantages over government, in particular in their ability to process information available on site. At the same time, it recognizes that the capabilities of the private sector are more limited in developing economies. The market-enhancing view thus stresses the mechanisms whereby government policy is directed at improving the ability of the private sector to solve co-ordination problems and overcome other market imperfections. In presenting the market-enhancing view, the book recognizes the wide diversity of the roles of government across various East Asian economiesincluding Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China and its path-dependent and developmental stage nature. (shrink)

This paper introduces the notion of a “psychologically rich life”: a life characterized by complexity, in which people experience a variety of interesting things, and feel and appreciate a variety...

This book is not another parable of Japan's economic success; it provides rich and systematic descriptions of Japanese microeconomic institutions and interprets their work in terms familiar to Western economists. A systematic, in-depth analysis of Japanese institutions of this kind has never been available before. In making his comparative analysis of the Japanese system, Professor Aoki critically examines conventional notions about the microstructure of the market economy that have strongly shaped and influenced economists' approach to industrial organization. While these notions (...) may constitute an appropriate foundation for the analysis of the highly market-oriented Western economies, the author has found that a more complete understanding of the Japanese economy requires us to broaden such 'specific' notions. At one level, therefore, this book may be regarded as a provocative exercise in comparative industrial organization and the theory of the firm. To the extent that this approach is convincing, the book suggests a reordering of focus and emphasis in these studies. (shrink)

We argue that the generation and enjoyment of imaginary worlds do not necessarily rely on an evolved preference for exploration. Rather, we suggest that culture is shaped by socioecological facts on the ground, and we hypothesize about the role of residential mobility, specifically, as an important factor in the popularity of imagined spaces.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 9, Page 20-21, September 2011.

It has long been observed that the superlative construction, exemplified by John climbed the highest mountain, has two readings. On the absolute reading, the heights of the relevant mountains in a relevant context are compared; on the comparative reading, relevant climbers’ achievements of mountain climbing are compared (Szabolcsi, Comparative superlatives, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 1986). Two theories have been proposed regarding this ambiguity. One theory holds that it results from movement of the superlative morpheme -est (movement theory) (Heim, Association (...) with focus, Doctoral Dissertation, 1985, Notes on superlatives, 1999; Szabolcsi 1986).The other theory holds that the ambiguity is derived by assignment of different values to the context variable C, keeping a single LF structure where -est stays in situ (in-situ theory) (Farkas and Kiss, Nat Lang Linguist Theory 18:417–455, 2000; Sharvit and Stateva, Linguist Philos 25:453–504, 2002). As is pointed out by Heim (1999), a choice between these theories is hard to make based solely on English. Through an investigation of Japanese superlative constructions, this paper argues that, in Japanese at least, a movement theory is required. (shrink)

This book departs from the premise that context represents a complex relational configuration which can no longer be conceived as an analytic prime but rather requires a parts-whole perspective to capture its inherent dynamism. The edited volume presents a collection of papers which examine the connectedness between context, contextualization and entextualization. They address the questions how meaning and speech acts are situated in context, how both are influenced by context, how context influences speech acts and meaning, how context is imported (...) into the discourse, and how context is entextualized in discourse. The papers cover institutional and non-institutional contexts, the language of Greek laws, political discourse, confrontational media discourse and task-oriented face-to-face and back-to-back interactions. They reflect current moves in pragmatics and discourse analysis to cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries by integrating relevant premises and insights, in particular cognition, adaptive action, negotiation of meaning, sequentiality, recipient design and genre. (shrink)

We emphasize the value of the socio-ecological approach in addressing the problem of population variances. The socio-ecological perspective studies how social and natural habitats shape human behaviors, and are in turn shaped by those behaviors. This focus on system-level factors is particularly well-suited to studying the origins of group differences in human behavior.

話題の『依頼者見舞金制度』スタート―弁護士会における依頼者保護はどうあるべきか―「法曹倫理国際シンポジウム2014年」における研究報告記録を、最新の情報と解説を交えて書籍化。欧米諸国を含む依頼者保護制 度の現状と課題を分析・検討し、今後のあり方を考える。.

The main goal of the present research is to examine socio-ecological hypothesis on apology and compensation. Specifically, we conducted four studies to test the idea that an apology is an effective means to induce reconciliation in a residentially stable community, whereas compensation is an effective means in a residentially mobile community. In Studies 1, 2a and 2b, American and Japanese participants (national difference in mobility; Study 1) or non-movers and movers (within-nation difference in mobility; Studies 2a and 2b) imagined the (...) situations in which they were hurt by their friends and rated to what extent they would be willing to maintain their friendships upon receipt of apology or compensation. The results showed that compensation was more effective in appeasing residentially mobile people (i.e., Americans and movers) than stable people (i.e., Japanese and non-movers), while apology was slightly more effective appeasing residentially stable people than residentially mobile people (significant in Study 1; not significant in Studies 2a and 2b). In Study 3, by conducting an economics game experiment, we directly tested the hypothesis that mobility would impair the effectiveness of apology and enhance the effectiveness of compensation. The results again partially supported our hypothesis: In the high mobility condition compensation increased one’s willingness to continue the relationship with the offender, when compared to willingness in the low mobility condition. The importance of socio-ecological perspective on the forgiveness literature is discussed. (shrink)

Background: Patients in different countries have different attitudes toward self‐determination and medical information. Little is known how much respect Japanese patients feel should be given for their wishes about medical care and for medical information, and what choices they would make in the face of disagreement. Methods: Ambulatory patients in six clinics of internal medicine at a university hospital were surveyed using a self‐administered questionnaire. Results: A total of 307 patients participated in our survey. Of the respondents, 47% would accept (...) recommendations made by physicians, even if such recommendations were against their wishes; 25% would try to persuade their physician to change their recommendations; and 14% would leave their physician to find a new one. Seventy‐six percent of the respondents thought that physicians should routinely ask patients if they would want to know about a diagnosis of cancer, while 5% disagreed; 59% responded that physicians should inform them of the actual diagnosis, even against the request of their family not to do so, while 24% would want their physician to abide by their family's request and 14% could not decide. One‐third of the respondents who initially said they would want to know the truth would yield to the desires of the family in a case of disagreement. Interpretations: In the face of disagreement regarding medical care and disclosure, Japanese patients tend to respond in a diverse and unpredictable manner. Medical professionals should thus be prudent and ask their patients explicitly what they want regarding medical care and information. (shrink)

BackgroundConventionally, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) aims to focalize the current reaching the target region-of-interest (ROI). The focality can be quantified by the dose-target-determination-index (DTDI). Despite having a uniform tDCS setup, some individuals receive focal stimulation (high DTDI) while others show reduced focality (“non-focal”). The volume of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gray matter (GM), and white matter (WM) underlying each ROI govern the tDCS current distribution inside the brain, thereby regulating focality.AimTo determine the regional volume parameters that differentiate the focal and (...) non-focal groups.MethodsT1-weighted images of the brain from 300 age-sex matched adults were divided into three equal groups- (a) Young (20 ≤ × < 40 years), (b) Middle (40 ≤ × < 60 years), and (c) Older (60 ≤ × < 80 years). For each group, inter and intra-hemispheric montages with electrodes at (1) F3 and right supraorbital region (F3-RSO), and (2) CP5 and Cz (CP5-Cz) were simulated, targeting the left- Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) and -Inferior Parietal Lobule (IPL), respectively. Both montages were simulated for two current doses (1 and 2 mA). For each individual head simulated for a tDCS configuration (montage and dose), the current density at each region-of-interest (ROI) and their DTDI were calculated. The individuals were categorized into two groups- (1) Focal (DTDI ≥ 0.75), and (2) Non-focal (DTDI < 0.75). The regional volume of CSF, GM, and WM of all the ROIs was determined. For each tDCS configuration and ROI, three 3-way analysis of variance was performed considering- (i) GM, (ii) WM, and (iii) CSF as the dependent variable (DV). The age group, sex, and focality group were the between-subject factors. For a given ROI, if any of the 3 DV’s showed a significant main effect or interaction involving the focality group, then that ROI was classified as a “focal ROI.”ResultsRegional CSF was the principal determinant of focality. For interhemispheric F3-RSO montage, interaction effect (p < 0.05) of age and focality was observed at Left Caudate Nucleus, with the focal group exhibiting higher CSF volume. The CSF volume of focal ROI correlated positively (r ∼ 0.16, p < 0.05) with the current density at the target ROI (DLPFC). For intrahemispheric CP5-Cz montage, a significant (p < 0.05) main effect was observed at the left pre- and post-central gyrus, with the focal group showing lower CSF volume. The CSF volume correlated negatively (r ∼ –0.16, p < 0.05) with current density at left IPL. The results were consistent for both current doses.ConclusionThe CSF channels the flow of tDCS current between electrodes with focal ROIs acting like reservoirs of current. The position of focal ROI in the channel determines the stimulation intensity at the target ROI. For focal stimulation in interhemispheric F3-RSO, the proximity of focal ROI reserves the current density at the target ROI (DLPFC). In contrast, for intrahemispheric montage (CP5-Cz), the far-end location of focal ROI reduces the current density at the target (IPL). (shrink)