BackgroundThis study aimed to ask a sample of the general population about their preferences regarding doctors holding discretionary powers in relation to disclosing cancer diagnosis and prognosis.MethodsThe researchers mailed 443 questionnaires to registered voters in a ward of Tokyo which had a socio-demographic profile similar to greater Tokyo's average and received 246 responses (response rate 55.5%). We describe and analysed respondents' attitudes toward doctors and family members holding discretionary powers in relation to cancer diagnoses disclose.ResultsAmongst respondents who wanted full disclosure (...) about the diagnosis without delay, 117 (69.6 %) respondents agreed to follow the doctor's discretion, whilst 111 (66.1 %) respondents agreed to follow the family member's decision. For respondents who preferred to have the diagnosis and prognosis withheld, 59 (26.5 %) agreed to follow the doctor's decision, and 79 (35.3 %) of respondents agreed with following family member's wishes.ConclusionsThe greater proportion of respondents wants or permits disclosure of cancer diagnosis and prognosis. In patients who reveal negative attitudes toward being given a cancer disclosure directly, alternative options exist such as telling the family ahead of the patient or having a discussion of the cancer diagnosis with the patient together with the family. It is recommended that health professionals become more aware about the need to provide patients with their cancer diagnosis and prognosis in a variety of ways. (shrink)

古代の土俗的にカミ信仰は、中世になると仏教の影響を受けて、教説としての「神道」を形成する。そして近世には儒教の影響を受けて、広く学問と思想の世界を席巻していく。そこには、外来思想の流入に対する。民族の 文化的アイデンティティを追求しようとする日本人の思想的営為があった。カミ信仰の系譜。.

This book is an excellent book on business ethics and will be an invaluable resource for all readers who are keen to learn about the business ethics and key characteristics of a successful company. It focuses on the case study of a global company, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which oversees more than 250 operating units throughout the world. Through extensive interviews with top executives at J&J's headquarters, including Masami Atarashi and Mitsuo Hirose and attending workshops, Prof Hiroo Takahashi acquired (...) an in-depth understanding of the management style of J&J, grasped the company's ethics and the code of business conduct which is shared by J&J's members throughout the world. (shrink)

人間の愛は「不合理」なもの?自由だと勝手に信じている人間が実際には「不自由」なのではないか?なぜ人間は生まれて死ななければならないという「不条理」に遭遇しているのか?そもそも、人間とは何か...?―「 行為」「意志」「存在」の限界をテーマに、行動経済学者や認知科学者、進化論者、実存主義者など多様な分野の学者からカント主義者や急進的フェミニスト、会社員、運動選手、大学生も加わり、楽しく深い広い議論を繰 り広げる。そこから見えてくる人間の姿とは―。.

Hegel, in his work _Philosophy of Right_, defines ownership through three elements: acquisition by occupation, use, and transfer. To own something involves mere acquisition and encompasses its appropriate use and potential transfer to others. Subsequently, the final aspect mentioned was the concept of infinite judgement. The acts of owning and transferring to others are diametrically opposed, and Hegel’s unique logic forcibly connects these opposing concepts. This form of infinite judgement was advocated by the young Hegel during the era of _Phenomenology (...) of Spirit_. There, he stated, “Spirit is a bone”. However, when he later wrote _Science of Logic_ or _Encyclopedia_, the formulation of infinite judgement changed to “Spirit is not something that is bone”. This shift was influenced by Kant. In _Logic_, the discourse advances into syllogism, inferential theory, leading to “Spirit is a bone for such-and-such reasons”. In essence, Hegel binarily connected spirit and bone in his youth and introduced a mediating term in this connection later in his life, establishing inferential links. However, the notion of forcibly connecting opposing concepts remains. Therefore, the statement “Ownership is transfer” represents an infinite judgement while simultaneously signifying syllogism that “I truly own this object if I can transfer it to others”. This contributes to the reasoning that “I and objects can be connected through the intermediary of others”, progressing to the inference that “I and others can be connected through objects”, thereby laying the foundation for society. (shrink)

Recently, agent technologies have attracted a lot of interest as an emerging programming paradigm. With such agent technologies, services are provided through collaboration among agents. At the same time, the spread of mobile technologies and communication infrastructures has made it possible to access the network anytime and from anywhere. Using agents and mobile technologies to realize ubiquitous computing systems, we propose a new framework based on KODAMA and VPC. KODAMA provides distributed management mechanisms by using the concept of community and (...) communication infrastructure to deliver messages among agents without agents being aware of the physical network. VPC provides a method of defining peer-to-peer services based on agent communication with policy packages. By merging the characteristics of both KODAMA and VPC functions, we propose a new framework for ubiquitous computing environments. It provides distributed management functions according to the concept of agent communities, agent communications which are abstracted from the physical environment, and agent collaboration with policy packages. Using our new framework, we conducted a large-scale experiment in shopping malls in Nagoya, which sent advertisement e-mails to users' cellular phones according to user location and attributes. The empirical results showed that our new framework worked effectively for sales in shopping malls. (shrink)

人道的介入がもたらす非人道性、対テロ戦争における標的殺害の是非、平和構築や民主化の直面する矛盾―現代の国際社会が直面する、戦争と平和をめぐる「道義的難問」に挑む。.

本居宣長が師とした儒学者堀景山の初めての研究書。現在調査可能な資料を詳細に検討し、学問観や人物像の全貌を明らかにする。.

3. Benshōhōteki yuibutsuron e no michi.

教育における「教養」のあり方を、思想史や教育史、文化概念の問題から多角的に考察。多文化時代に人間性を養うことの意義を論じる。.

The scientific, ethical, and policy issues raised by research involving the engraftment of human neural stem cells into the brains of nonhuman primates are explored by an interdisciplinary working group in this Policy Forum. The authors consider the possibility that this research might alter the cognitive capacities of recipient great apes and monkeys, with potential significance for their moral status.

Previous research suggested a role of gaze in preference formation, not merely as an expression of preference, but also as a causal influence. According to the gaze cascade hypothesis, the longer subjects look at an item, the more likely they are to develop a preference for it. However, to date the connection between viewing and liking has been investigated predominately with self-paced viewing conditions in which the subjects were required to select certain items from simultaneously presented stimuli on the basis (...) of perceived visual attractiveness. Such conditions might promote a default, but non-mandatory connection between viewing and liking. To explore whether the connection is separable, we examined the evaluative processing of single naturalistic food images in a 2 x 2 design, conducted completely within subjects, in which we varied both the type of exposure (self-paced versus time-controlled) and the type of evaluation (non-exclusive versus exclusive). In the self-paced exclusive evaluation, longer viewing was associated with a higher likelihood of a positive evaluation. However, in the self-paced non-exclusive evaluation, the trend reversed such that longer viewing durations were associated with lesser ratings. Furthermore, in the time-controlled tasks, both with non-exclusive and exclusive evaluation, there was no significant relationship between the viewing duration and the evaluation. The overall pattern of results was consistent for viewing times measured in terms of exposure duration (i.e., the duration of stimulus presentation on the screen) and in terms of actual gaze duration (i.e., the amount of time the subject effectively gazed at the stimulus on the screen). The data indicated that viewing does not intrinsically lead to a higher evaluation when evaluating single food images; instead, the relationship between viewing duration and evaluation depends on the type of task. We suggest that self-determination of exposure duration may be a prerequisite for any influence from viewing time on evaluative processing, regardless of whether the influence is facilitative. Moreover, the purported facilitative link between viewing and liking appears to be limited to exclusive evaluation, when only a restricted number of items can be included in a chosen set. (shrink)

We conduct an online survey experiment to determine the influence of multifunctionality recognition in agriculture on the price premiums of environmental-friendly agricultural products. We use the case of fish-friendly rice produced in Shiga prefecture, Japan, which contributes to the conservation of the water and ecosystem in rural areas around Lake Biwa by setting up fish ways and reducing the use of herbicides. We assume two conditions for consumers to pay premiums on environmental-friendly agricultural products. The first is that consumers recognize (...) multifunctionality in agriculture. The second condition is that consumers have a correct understanding of environment-friendly agricultural products. We thus examine the effects of respondents’ attributes on their responses to two types of visual stimuli: one associated with the multifunctionality of agriculture and information about environment-friendly agricultural products. In the analysis of the respondents; willingness to pay, the price premium of the group with both the stimulus and information is significantly higher than the price premium of the control group with no interventions. However, the price premium of the group with only the stimulus is not statistically different for the control group. The policy implication of this research is that consumers are more likely to support agri-environmental policies if they recognize both the multifunctionality of agriculture and the properties of environmental-friendly agricultural products. The two types of stimuli have complimentary effects on increasing price premiums. Promoting the recognition of multifunctionality is especially important for those who do not usually access information on agriculture. (shrink)

Specificities of enzymes involved in plant specialized metabolism, including flavonoid biosynthesis, are generally promiscuous. This enzyme promiscuity has served as an evolutionary basis for new enzyme functions and metabolic pathways in land plants adapting to environmental challenges. This phenomenon may lead, however, to inefficiency in specialized metabolism and adversely affect metabolite‐mediated plant survival. How plants manage enzyme promiscuity for efficient specialized metabolism is, thus, an open question. Recent studies of flavonoid biosynthesis addressing this issue have revealed a conserved strategy, namely, (...) a homolog of chalcone isomerase with no catalytic activity binds to chalcone synthase, a key flavonoid pathway enzyme, to narrow (or rectify) the enzyme's highly promiscuous product specificity. Reducing promiscuity via specific protein–protein interactions among metabolic enzymes and proteins may be a solution adopted by land plants to achieve efficient operation of specialized metabolism, while the intrinsic promiscuity of enzymes has likely been retained incidentally. (shrink)