Diogenes, Ahead of Print. The aim of this study is to elucidate the genesis of communality in the urban street. Although in the modern world cities have long been seen as research laboratories, in today’s context of globalization they are becoming more radical and dynamic; they are becoming experimental theatres of social change. Since the end of the twentieth century, the political and economic reorganization of the world order is producing dramatic changes in various societies throughout the globe. This is (...) bringing about changes which tend to standardize society and atomize individual subjects. These changes are seemingly connected, but they do exist alone, separately. In this complex situation, we are confronted with the fundamental question, how can people construct communality transcending differences among them? The present study looks for an answer to this question, paying special attention to collective violence in the urban street, where ‘emergent but real’ norms are constructed among the rioters and the communality genesis mechanism is activated. In order to make a case for this urban communality, the analysis focuses on events in the streets of Nairobi at the time of the Second Liberation of 1990s and during the Post-Election Violence of 2007–2008. People with different political and religious affiliation and ethnic identity were involved in violent urban riots. They were originally strangers, but they generated new social order and norms. In the street, they constructed and shared a provisional communality, which was emergent and fluid but also real and firm. (shrink)

Diogenes, Ahead of Print. The aim of this study is to elucidate the genesis of communality in the urban street. Although in the modern world cities have long been seen as research laboratories, in today’s context of globalization they are becoming more radical and dynamic; they are becoming experimental theatres of social change. Since the end of the twentieth century, the political and economic reorganization of the world order is producing dramatic changes in various societies throughout the globe. This is (...) bringing about changes which tend to standardize society and atomize individual subjects. These changes are seemingly connected, but they do exist alone, separately. In this complex situation, we are confronted with the fundamental question, how can people construct communality transcending differences among them? The present study looks for an answer to this question, paying special attention to collective violence in the urban street, where ‘emergent but real’ norms are constructed among the rioters and the communality genesis mechanism is activated. In order to make a case for this urban communality, the analysis focuses on events in the streets of Nairobi at the time of the Second Liberation of 1990s and during the Post-Election Violence of 2007–2008. People with different political and religious affiliation and ethnic identity were involved in violent urban riots. They were originally strangers, but they generated new social order and norms. In the street, they constructed and shared a provisional communality, which was emergent and fluid but also real and firm. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to elucidate the genesis of communality in the urban street. Although in the modern world cities have long been seen as research laboratories, in today’s context of globali...

Takahashi translation * is a translation which means reducing all of the redexes in a λ-term simultaneously. In [4] and [5], Takahashi gave a simple proof of the Church–Rosser confluence theorem by using the notion of parallel reduction and Takahashi translation. Our aim of this paper is to give a simpler proof of Church–Rosser theorem using only the notion of Takahashi translation.

This study reports an ecologic analysis of the relationship between mean birth weight (MBW) and nutritional, medical and social variables, using 1982 data for 47 prefectures in Japan.

To understand the public opinion concerning the genethics in culturally different populations, we conducted two focus groups in Japan, with one focus group each in China and Panama between April 2008 and August 2009. Generally, the participants in Japan were more cautious to disclose their personal thinking in a clear manner. Most participants in China and Panama hoped to have children free from any genetic disease if at all possible. The major difference between China and Panama seems to be whether (...) or not they will accept the issue of genetic abortion. Compared to China and Panama, fewer participants accepted a reprogenetics procedure in Japan. ―A goal of genetic counseling is to reduce the number of patients of genetic disease‖ is supported to a greater degree in China and Panama than in Japan. Most participants in China as well as Panama, and fewer participants in Japan accepted the concept of sharing genetic information with relatives, even though it is useful for preventing a possible genetic risk. The difference of the answers for the questions is depending on the cultural and value diversity in each country, while some of them are related into a paucity of knowing the principle of biogenetics. Education as to medical genetics and the principle of bioethics is most important to make genetics more accessible to the general public. (shrink)

Representing Place: Landscape Painting and Maps by Edward Casey Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic: From Britain's Renaissance to America's New World by Kenneth Robert Olwig.

This study aimed to investigate whether the effect of mental practice can be enhanced by providing neurofeedback based on transcranial magnetic stimulation -induced motor evoked potentials. Twenty-four healthy, right-handed subjects were enrolled in this study. The subjects were randomly allocated into two groups: a group that was given correct TMS feedback and a group that was given randomized false TMS feedback. The subjects imagined pushing the switch with just timing, when the target circle overlapped a cross at the center of (...) the computer monitor. In the Real-FB group, feedback was provided to the subjects based on the MEP amplitude measured in the trial immediately preceding motor imagery. In contrast, the subjects of the Sham-FB group were provided with a feedback value that was independent of the MEP amplitude. TMS was applied when the target, moving from right to left, overlapped the cross at the center of the screen, and the MEP amplitude was measured. The MEP was recorded in the right first dorsal interosseous muscle. We evaluated the pre-mental practice and post-mental practice motor performance in both groups. As a result, a significant difference was observed in the percentage change of error values between the Real-FB group and the Sham-FB group. Furthermore, the MEP was significantly different between the groups in the 4th and 5th sets. Therefore, it was suggested that TMS-induced MEP-based neurofeedback might enhance the effect of mental practice. (shrink)

Children often personify non-living objects, such as puppets and stars. This attribution is considered a healthy phenomenon, which can simulate social exchange and enhance children's understanding of social relationships. In this study, we considered that the tendency of children to engage in personification could potentially be observed in abstract entities, such as numbers. We hypothesized that children tend to attribute personalities to numbers, which diminishes during the course of development. By consulting the methodology to measure ordinal linguistic personification (OLP), which (...) is a type of synesthesia, we quantified the frequency with which child and adult populations engage in number personification. Questionnaires were completed by 151 non-synesthetic children (9--12 years old) and 55 non-synesthetic adults. Children showed a higher tendency than adults to engage in number personification, with respect to temporal consistency and the frequency of choosing meaningful answers. Additionally, children tended to assign unique and exclusive descriptions to each number from zero to nine. By synthesizing the series of analyses, we revealed the process in which number personification diminishes throughout development. In the discussion, we examined the possibility that number personification serves as a discrimination clue to aid children's comprehension of the relationships between numbers. (shrink)

The Komori–Kashima problem, that asks whether the implicational intermediate logics axiomatizable by formulas minimal in classical logic are only intuitionistic logic and classical logic, has stood for over a decade. In this paper, we give a counter-example to this problem. Additionally, we also give some open problems derived from this result.

Background:Information sharing is one of the most important means of public health nurses collaborating with other healthcare professionals and community members. There are complicated ethical issues in the process.Research objectives:To describe the ethical dilemmas associated with client information sharing that Japanese public health nurses experience in daily practice and to clarify their decision-making process to resolve these dilemmas.Research design:Data were collected using a three-phase consensus method consisting of semi-structured interviews, self-administered questionnaires and a group interview.Participants and research context:We surveyed administrative (...) public health nurses in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 administrative public health nurses, and the self-administered questionnaires were sent to all 899 administrative public health nurses. The group interview was carried out with eight administrative public health nurses.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the School of Health Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan (8-158, 9-130).Findings:Information-sharing ethical dilemmas occurred most often when clients’ decisions did not coincide with the nurses’ own professional assessments, particularly when they faced clinical issues that were inherently ambiguous. In their decision-making processes, nurses prioritised ‘protection of health and life’.Discussion:These findings suggest that, above all, they sought to address urgent risks to clients’ lives while upholding the principle of client autonomy as much as possible. In such cases, the nurses made decisions regarding whether to share information about the client depending on the individual situation.Conclusion:Public health nurses should protect the client’s health while taking into consideration their relationship with the client. (shrink)

A set F of Boolean functions is said to be functionally complete if every Boolean function is definable by combining functions in F. Post clarified when a set of Boolean functions is functionally complete (with respect to classical semantics). In this paper, by extending Post’s theorem, we clarify when a set of Boolean functions is functionally complete with respect to Kripke semantics.

Barendregt gave a sound semantics of the simple type assignment system λ → by generalizing Tait’s proof of the strong normalization theorem. In this paper, we aim to extend the semantics so that the completeness theorem holds.

Public engagement in science and technology has grown in importance as developments in science and technology make increasingly significant impacts on people's lives. Now, efforts to engage publics in social decision-making or consensus-building regarding science and technology involve participation, learning or deliberation opportunities, as well as interactive or coproductive efforts among various sectors in society based on the recognition of scientific activities as a part of social operations - even those performed by scientific communities. We have conducted a community engagement (...) program in the HapMap project, the international human genome program, in Japan since 2002. Consequent upon our various approaches to engage Japanese publics, a range of observations were made, such as that: public engagement is not yet recognized or institutionalized in Japan; there is a wide gap between science and society; and the implications of public engagement in a Japanese context have not been examined enthusiastically, especially from the perspectives of political decision making, social consensus-building or self-determination. In this paper, we provide an overview of public engagement in Japan, and discuss issues and challenges raised by the HapMap community engagement project. We also discuss the implications of public engagement for social decision-making and self-determination, and explore the prospects for public engagement in science and technology in Japan. (shrink)

Secreted signaling molecules act as morphogens to control patterning and growth in many developing tissues. Since locally produced morphogens spread to form a concentration gradient in the surrounding tissue, spreading is generally thought to be the key step in the non‐autonomous actions. Here, we review recent advances in tool development to investigate morphogen function using the role of decapentaplegic (Dpp)/bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)‐type ligand in the Drosophila wing disc as an example. By applying protein binder tools to distinguish between the (...) roles of Dpp spreading and local Dpp signaling, we found that Dpp signaling in the source cells is important for wing patterning and growth but Dpp spreading from this source cells is not as strictly required as previously thought. Given recent studies showing unexpected requirements of long‐range action of different morphogens, manipulating endogenous morphogen gradients by synthetic protein binder tools could shed more light on how morphogens act in developing tissues. (shrink)

With growing globalization, the governments of many countries are tending to place a disproportionately large emphasis on economy, which often results in budget cuts in health, education and social welfare. Such a tendency has provoked arguments by many individuals concerned. The neo-conservatism represented by ex-US President Reagan and ex-UK Prime Minister Thatcher in the 1980s, known as Reaganomics and Thatcherism, caused public funds for health care and education to be substantially reduced. In developing countries a so-called structural adjustment policy, promoted (...) by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is leading to shrinking budgets for health, education and social security in general. (shrink)

Vera Schwarcz's Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden examines the moral, philosophical, and historical meanings of a garden built by a Manchu Chinese prince, subsequently destroyed by British imperialists, commandeered by Red Guard radicals, and finally transformed into the grounds of an art museum. Reading Singing Crane Garden in the context of Schwarcz's previous writings on Chinese intellectuals and Jewish traditions, as well as insights provided by critical philosophers and geographers, this essay explores the moral and ethical dimensions (...) of locating history in specific “emplacements”. The argument begins by examining the phenomenology of place articulated by Edward Casey, weaves through discussions of Chinese spatiality, embodiment, and garden aesthetics, and comments on Schwarcz's study of broken monuments and stele through comparisons with Classical Chinese writers and the contemporary American poet Louise Glück. Comparisons are made between the destruction of the garden by the British forces of James Elgin, the murder of the journalist Thomas Bowlby, and the purging, imprisonment, torture, and brutality against scholars and intellectuals by the Red Guards under Mao. The essay closes with commentaries on Schwarcz's reflections concerning continuing global atrocities, and new insights into the ways that understanding landscape architecture as a form of history can bring meaning to questions of memory, loss, and the desire to evoke unrecoverable experiences. (shrink)

A senior physician with a government role in Japan made a widely reported and misleading statement about Thailand’s policy on HIV/AIDS patients. He claimed that in Thailand the policy is to spend public money on the prevention of HIV infection while allowing AIDS patients to die untreated. The author, a community nursing specialist in Japan with first-hand knowledge of HIV/AIDS policy in Thailand, thought that this statement would influence attitudes negatively in Japan. However, speaking out about this misrepresentation of the (...) facts carried certain risks. Although freedom of expression is valued in Japan, in practice it is not easy to contradict senior medical professionals. The author uses his experience of this difficult professional situation to teach nurses how to approach speaking out in the public interest. (shrink)