Man is the measure of all things: of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not. In “The Age of the World Picture” Heidegger writes that the “essence of the modern age can be seen in the fact that man frees himself from the bonds of the Middle Ages in freeing himself to himself.”1 He goes on to explain that “What is decisive is not that man frees himself to himself from previous obligations, (...) but that the very essence of man itself changes in that man becomes subject.”2 According to Heidegger, when “man” becomes subject, for the first time is there any such thing as a “position” of man. Man makes depend upon himself the way in which he must take his stand in... (shrink)

For public health professionals, traumatic brain injury and its possible protracted repercussions are a significant source of worry. In opposed to patient neurorehabilitation with developed brain abnormalities of different etiologies, neurorehabilitation of affected persons has several distinct features. The clinical repercussions of the various types of TBI injuries will be discussed in detail in this paper. During severe TBI, the medical course frequently follows a familiar first sequence of coma, accompanied by disordered awareness, followed by agitation and forgetfulness, followed by (...) return of function. Clinicians must be aware of common medical issues that might occur throughout the various stages of neurorehabilitation, for example, posttraumatic hydrocephalus, paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity and posttraumatic neuroendocrine disorders, at each step of the process. Furthermore, we address problems about the scheduling of various rehabilitation programs as well as the availability of current data for comprehensive rehabilitative neuropsychology techniques. (shrink)

Experimental studies show that some corvids, apes, and rodents possess a common long-term memory system that allows them to take goal-directed actions on the basis of absent spatiotemporal contexts. In other words, evidence supports the hypothesis that Episodic Memory —far from being uniquely human— has evolved as a cross-species meaning making system. However, within this zoosemiotic breakthrough, neurocognitive studies now struggle characterizing the relations between teleological factors and phenomenological factors that would account for the episodic behavior displayed by these living (...) beings. Within such field, this paper identifies four epistemological gaps —the ‘Nagelian’, ‘de Waalian’, ‘Chomskyan’, and ‘semiotic’ gaps—, making a case for the need of a future biosemiotic model of Alloanimal Episodic Memory to come into the equation. As a whole, I conclude that experimental developments in AEM research, and philosophical advancements in biosemiotics could converge through the concept of semiosis. Introducing the latter would account for animal episodic agency as a causal influence and continuity between the above relations, outclassing the reductionist and Cartesian separation between ‘external’ bodily behavior and ‘internal’ computational operations. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that Asians allocate more attention to configuration information than Caucasian Americans do. Yet this cultural variation has been found only with stimuli such as natural scenes and objects that require both feature- and configuration-based processing. Here, we show that the cultural variation also exists in face perception—a domain that is typically viewed as configural in nature. When asked to identify a prototypic face for a set of disparate exemplars, Japanese were more likely than Caucasian Americans to use (...) overall resemblance rather than feature matching. Moreover, in a speeded identity-matching task, Japanese were more accurate than Americans in identifying the spatial configuration of features (e.g., eyes). Together, these findings underscore the robustness of culture’s influences on cognition. (shrink)

Moore introduced the Mapping Reflection Principle and proved that the Bounded Proper Forcing Axiom implies that the size of the continuum is ℵ2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\aleph _2$$\end{document}. The Mapping Reflection Principle follows from the Proper Forcing Axiom. To show this, Moore utilized forcing notions whose conditions are countable objects. Chodounský–Zapletal introduced the Y-Proper Forcing Axiom that is a weak fragments of the Proper Forcing Axiom but implies some important conclusions from the Proper Forcing Axiom, (...) for example, the P-ideal Dichotomy. In this article, it is proved that the Y-Proper Forcing Axiom implies the Mapping Reflection Principle by introducing forcing notions whose conditions are finite objects. (shrink)

In this study, we discuss the psychological acceptability of an utterance strategy used by the Driving Support Agent. Previous literature regarding DSA suggests that the adoption of a small robot as a form will increase acceptability. However, the agent’s utterance has been reported as a problem faced by the user. Therefore, in this study, we designed the agent’s utterance using politeness strategy as described by Brown and Levinson’s famous sociolinguistics and pragmatics theory and analyzed its acceptability through a participant-based experiment. (...) In this experiment, we used positive and negative politeness strategies. In general, PPS is utilized to reflect the desire to be liked/recognized by others, whereas NPS is utilized to reflect the need for not wanting to be disturbed by others. Based on our results, PPS was rated high compared to NPS. Therefore, many participants highly evaluated PPS. However, there was a group of participants who appreciated NPS. There were also participants who evaluated the two strategies equally. The number of participants in these three groups was observed at 4:1:1. This result contributes as an index on the utterance design of the DSA. (shrink)

The ability of the mind to conceptualize what is not present is essential. It allows us to reason counterfactually about what might have happened had events unfolded differently or had another course of action been taken. It allows us to think about what might happen – to perform 'Gedankenexperimente' (thought experiments) – before we act. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms mediating this ability are poorly understood. We suggest that the frontopolar cortex (FPC) keeps track of and evaluates alternative choices (...) (what we might have done), whereas the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC) compares simulations of possible future scenarios (what we might do) and evaluates their reward values. Together, these brain regions support the construction of suppositional scenarios. (shrink)

Aspects of the Japanese human resources management system are discussed to illustrate the underly ing significance of human values in Japanese organizational management, with a particular aspect of Japanese human resource management used as an illustrative case. Relevant literature is reviewed to introduce the relational Japanese management and human resources management systems, and to explain the system of inter-firm employee transfer within the corporate group known as the 'shukko' system. The paper then discusses various impacts of this HRM practice upon (...) major stakehold ers and identifies otherwise redundant employees as major beneficiaries of the system, thereby demon strating that human values are critical to the conceptualization and application of Japanese human resources management practices. (shrink)

Study of Vaiśeṣika philosophy with special reference to Vaiśeṣikadaśapadārthaśāstra.

The $$\varepsilon $$ -elimination method of Hilbert’s $$\varepsilon $$ -calculus yields the up-to-date most direct algorithm for computing the Herbrand disjunction of an extensional formula. A central advantage is that the upper bound on the Herbrand complexity obtained is independent of the propositional structure of the proof. Prior (modern) work on Hilbert’s $$\varepsilon $$ -calculus focused mainly on the pure calculus, without equality. We clarify that this independence also holds for first-order logic with equality. Further, we provide upper bounds analyses (...) of the extended first $$\varepsilon $$ -theorem, even if the formalisation incorporates so-called $$\varepsilon $$ -equality axioms. (shrink)

Let T be an $\omega_{1}-Souslin$ tree. We show the property of forcing notions; "is $\lbrace\omega_{1}\rbrace-semi-proper$ and preserves T" is preserved by a new kind of revised countable support iteration of arbitrary length. As an application we have a forcing axiom which is compatible with the existence of an $\omega_{1}-Souslin$ tree for preorders as wide as possible.

We show that a coding principle introduced by J. Moore with respect to all ladder systems is equiconsistent with the existence of a strongly inaccessible cardinal. We also show that a coding principle introduced by S. Todorcevic has consistency strength at least of a strongly inaccessible cardinal.

人間は「生」を得た瞬間から「死」という「滅び」に向かって生きている。そうであるからこそ「生」を尊ぶという考え方が日本の美をつくってきた。日本の美意識の基層をなし、自然に美を見いだした「優美」。演技を七 分にとどめ、完全に演じ切らないことを説いた世阿弥の「幽玄」。慢心する秀吉を戒め、侘びることを説いた利休の「侘び」。旅の途中で寂びつくして命つきることを願った芭蕉の「さび」。西欧文化の影響が背景にある「 きれい」。そして、二一世紀に世界を席巻する「かわいい」とは―。日本の美の潮流を俯瞰し、心のふるさとに耳をすます。.

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)