We can easily discriminate self-produced from externally generated sensory signals. Recent studies suggest that the prediction of the sensory consequences of one’s own actions made by forward model can be used to attenuate the sensory effects of self-produced movements, thereby enabling a differentiation of the self-produced sensation from the externally generated one. The present study showed that attenuation of sensation occurred both when participants themselves performed a goal-directed action and when they observed experimenter performing the same action, although they clearly (...) reported that the tones were produced by other during action observation and by themselves during their own action. These results suggest that sensory prediction of action modulates ongoing auditory processing irrespective of who produces the sounds and that the explicit judgment of agency does not necessarily rely on the same mechanisms on which implicit perceptual measures such as sensory attenuation rely. (shrink)

Research ethics consultation services (RECS), which function as an advisory service to facilitate the resolution of complex ethical issues in clinical research, have been proliferating over the last decade. However, the qualification of an individual who provides RECS, or “a research ethics consultant,” has not been thoroughly investigated, in contrast to healthcare ethics consultants, whose core competencies have been discussed and clarified to a great extent. In this study, we investigated core competencies necessary for research ethics consultants, referring to the (...) core competency models of ethics consultants developed in the healthcare practice context, and propose a competency model for research ethics consultants. (shrink)

1. Seikyō ronkō -- 2-3. Shibunrui -- 4-10. Rangai shorui -- 11-12. Genshi shiroku -- 13-14. Fukureki.

We introduce a new axiom called inductive dichotomy, a weak variant of the axiom of inductive definition, and analyze the relationships with other variants of inductive definition and with related axioms, in the general second order framework, including second order arithmetic, second order set theory and higher order arithmetic. By applying these results to the investigations on the determinacy axioms, we show the following. (i) Clopen determinacy is consistency-wise strictly weaker than open determinacy in these frameworks, except second order arithmetic; (...) this is an enhancement of Schweber–Hachtman separation of open and clopen determinacy into the consistency-wise separation. (ii) Hausdorff–Kuratowski hierarchy of differences of opens is faithfully reflected by the hierarchy of consistency strengths of corresponding parameter-free determinacies in the aforementioned frameworks; this result is valid also in second order arithmetic only except clopen determinacy. (shrink)

Given the growing centrality of interdisciplinarity to scientific research, gaining a better understanding of successful interdisciplinary collaborations has become imperative. Drawing on extensive case studies of nine research networks in the social, natural, and computational sciences, we propose a construct that captures the multidimensional character of such collaborations, that of a shared cognitive–emotional–interactional platform. We demonstrate its value as an integrative lens to examine markers of and conditions for successful interdisciplinary collaborations as defined by researchers involved in these groups. We (...) show that markers and conditions embody three different dimensions: cognitive, emotional, and interactional; these dimensions are present in all networks, albeit to different degrees; the dimensions are intertwined and mutually constitutive; and they operate in conjunction with institutional conditions created by funders. We compare the SCEI platforms to available frameworks for successful interdisciplinary work. (shrink)

The number of competing-brands changes by new product's entry. The new product introduction is endemic among consumer packaged goods firm and is an integral component of their marketing strategy. As a new product's entry affects markets, there is a pressing need to develop market response model that can adapt to such changes. In this paper, we develop a dynamic model that capture the underlying evolution of the buying behavior associated with the new product. This extends an application of a dynamic (...) linear model, which is used by a number of time series analyses, by allowing the observed dimension to change at some point in time. Our model copes with a problem that dynamic environments entail: changes in parameter over time and changes in the observed dimension. We formulate the model with framework of a state space model. We realize an estimation of the model using modified Kalman filter/fixed interval smoother. We find that new product's entry (1) decreases brand differentiation for existing brands, as indicated by decreasing difference between cross-price elasticities; (2) decreases commodity power for existing brands, as indicated by decreasing trend; and (3) decreases the effect of discount for existing brands, as indicated by a decrease in the magnitude of own-brand price elasticities. The proposed framework is directly applicable to other fields in which the observed dimension might be change, such as economic, bioinformatics, and so forth. (shrink)

Genshi shiroku -- Hakurokudō Shoin keijimon.

A growing body of recent research suggests that verbal categories, particularly labels, impact categorization and perception. These findings are commonly interpreted as demonstrating the involvement of language on cognition; however, whether these assumptions hold true for grammatical structures has yet to be investigated. In the present study, we investigated the extent to which linguistic information, namely, grammatical gender categories, structures cognition to subsequently influence categorical judgments and perception. In a nonverbal categorization task, French–English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers made gender‐associated (...) judgments about a set of image pairs while event‐related potentials were recorded. The image sets were composed of an object paired with either a female or male face, wherein the object was manipulated for their conceptual gender relatedness and grammatical gender congruency to the sex of the following target face. The results showed that grammatical gender modulated the N1 and P2/VPP, as well as the N300 exclusively for the French–English bilinguals, indicating the inclusion of language in the mechanisms associated with attentional bias and categorization. In contrast, conceptual gender information impacted the monolingual English speakers in the later N300 time window given the absence of a comparable grammatical feature. Such effects of grammatical categories in the early perceptual stream have not been found before, and further provide grounds to suggest that language shapes perception. (shrink)

Following the finitist’s rejection of the complete totality of the natural numbers, a finitist language allows only propositional connectives and bounded quantifiers in the formula-construction but not unbounded quantifiers. This is opposed to the currently standard framework, a first-order language. We conduct axiomatic studies on the notion of truth in the framework of finitist arithmetic in which at least smash function $\#$ is available. We propose finitist variants of Tarski ramified truth theories up to rank $\omega $, of Kripke–Feferman truth (...) theory and of Friedman–Sheard truth theory, and show that all of these have the same strength as the finitist arithmetic of one higher level along Grzegorczyk hierarchy. On the other hand, we also show that adding Burgess-style groundedness schema, adjusted to the finitist setting, makes Kripke–Feferman truth theory as strong as primitive recursive arithmetic. Meanwhile, we obtain some basic results on finitist theories of (full and hat) inductive definitions and on the second order axiom of hat inductive definitions for positive operators. (shrink)

A standard methodology in philosophy of language is to use intuitions as evidence. Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich challenged this methodology with respect to theories of reference by presenting empirical evidence that intuitions about one prominent example from the literature on the reference of proper names vary between Westerners and East Asians. In response, Sytsma and Livengood conducted experiments to show that the questions Machery and colleagues asked participants in their study were ambiguous, and that this ambiguity affected the responses (...) given by Westerners. Sytsma and Livengood took their results to cast doubt on the claim that the current evidence indicates that there is cross-cultural variation in intuitions about the Gödel case. In this paper we report on a new cross-cultural study showing that variation in intuitions remains even after controlling for the ambiguity noted by Sytsma and Livengood. (shrink)

Crew Pairing is one of the most important and difficult problems for airline companies. Nets to fuel costs, the crew costs constitute the largest cost of airlines, and the crew costs depend on the quality of the solution to the pairing problem. Conventional systems have been used to solve a daily model, which handles only regular flights with many simplifications, so a lot of corrections are needed to get a feasible solution and the quality of the solution is not so (...) high. A fully dated model, which handles regular flights and irregular flights simultaneously, is extremely hard and has not been solved directly hitherto. The number of irregular flights tend to increase in Europe and Japan, hence the resolution of the practical fully dated pairing system is desired. This paper presents a new approach which solves directly the fully dated crew pairing by Genetic Algorithms. GA is improved with stochastic processes to attack the fully dated model, and many heuristics are included in the decoding mecanism of the GA. For several hundred flights per day for fully dated 2 months scheduling period, the system found better or equivalent solutions to the human scheduler’s without any simplification from 5 to 20 times faster. (shrink)

Schedule planning is one of the most crucial issues for any airline company, because the profit of the company directly depends on the efficiency of the schedule. This paper presents a novel scheduling method which solves problems related to time scheduling, fleet assignment and maintenance routing simultaneously by Genetic Algorithms. Every schedule constraint is embeded in the fitness function, which is described as an object oriented model and works as a simulater developing itself over time, and whose solution is executable (...) without human correction. The schedular is able to solve the problems involving several hundred flights in a few hours, and the solutions are superior or equivalent to those by human experts in terms of the estimated profit. (shrink)

We introduce a new simple way of defining the forcing method that works well in the usual setting under FA, the Foundation Axiom, and moreover works even under Aczel's AFA, the Anti-Foundation Axiom. This new way allows us to have an intuition about what happens in defining the forcing relation. The main tool is H. Friedman's method of defining the extensional membership relation ∈ by means of the intensional membership relation ε .Analogously to the usual forcing and the usual generic (...) extension for FA-models, we can justify the existence of generic filters and can obtain the Forcing Theorem and the Minimal Model Theorem with some modifications. These results are on the line of works to investigate whether model theory for AFA-set theory can be developed in a similar way to that for FA-set theory.Aczel pointed out that the quotient of transition systems by the largest bisimulation and transition relations have the essentially same theory as the set theory with AFA. Therefore, we could hope that, by using our new method, some open problems about transition systems turn out to be consistent or independent. (shrink)

This paper argues for a virtue-based account of questioning. First, it delineates the unreflective yet rational aspects of questioning and demonstrates that “good” questions – that is, properly focused, pertinent questions – can be obtained not only in reflective but also in unreflective processes. This paper then argues that the unreflective yet rational mode of inquirers in questioning can be characterized by an automatic response to good questions and cues for relevant doubt and further questions, the active and standby modes (...) of responsiveness, and emotional stress on cues for relevant doubt and further questions. Finally, this article outlines how these features can fully be explicated in terms of exercising a sensitivity to good questions as a virtue. (shrink)

By forcing, we give a direct interpretation of into Avigad's. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is one of the simplest applications of forcing to “real problems”.