The sophisticated function of the central nervous system (CNS) is largely supported by proper interactions between neural cells and blood vessels. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that neurons and glial cells support the formation of blood vessels, which in turn, act as migratory scaffolds for these cell types. Neural progenitors are also involved in the regulation of blood vessel formation. This mutual interaction between neural cells and blood vessels is elegantly controlled by several chemokines, growth factors, extracellular matrix, and adhesion molecules (...) such as integrins. Recent research has revealed that newly migrating cell types along blood vessels repel other preexisting migrating cell types, causing them to detach from the blood vessels. In this review, we discuss vascular formation and cell migration, particularly during development. Moreover, we discuss how the crosstalk between blood vessels and neurons and glial cells could be related to neurodevelopmental disorders. (shrink)

This article attempts to examine Nihonjinron, the popular essentialist genre in Japan, which purports to analyse Japan's quintessence and cultural core by using three concepts - nationality, ethnicity and culture - synonymously. The focus of the paper will be placed on: (1) the widespread political bases of Nihonjinron and its internal divisions; (2) its changing features in the face of globalization; (3) the possible productive uses of Nihonjinron at both conceptual and theoretical levels; and (4) the dilemma of inter-societal and (...) intra-societal cultural relativism, which the Nihonjinron debate has highlighted. The paper presents an outline of an inductive, pluralistic, multicultural model of analysis as a possible alternative. (shrink)

By focusing on players’ relative contributions, we study some properties for values in positive cooperative games with transferable utilities. The well-known properties of symmetry (also known as “equal treatment of equals”) and marginality are based on players’ marginal contributions to coalitions. Both Myerson’s balanced contributions property and its generalization of the balanced cycle contributions property (Kamijo and Kongo Int J of Game Theory 39:563–571, 2010; BCC) are based on players’ marginal contributions to other players. We define relative versions of marginality (...) and BCC by replacing marginal contributions with relative contributions, and examine efficient values satisfying each of the two properties. On the class of positive games, a relative variation of marginality is incompatible with efficiency, and together with efficiency and the invariance property with respect to the payoffs of players under a player deletion, a relative variation of BCC characterizes the proportional value and egalitarian value in a unified manner. (shrink)

We study the stable standard of behavior in a perfect foresight situation that was introduced by Xue. We assume that the inducement relations are invertible and coalition free. We show that the conditions are sufficient for the existence of the nonempty-valued optimistic/conservative stable standard of behavior for perfect foresight situation. Moreover, we find that an OSSB-PF supports a Pareto-efficient outcome as a stable outcome; if the preference relations are strict, only the Pareto-efficient outcomes are supported by the OSSB-PF.

November 4th-5th, 2012 at Kyoto University. Organizers: Hisashi Nakao & Pierre-Alain Braillard.

生命科学技術をめぐる倫理的・法的・社会的問題について、社会の意思決定に重要な役割を果たす「生命倫理委員会」。理論と事例をつなぐ立場から、公共政策としての生命倫理を体系的に論じる。.

As biomedical research with volunteers was expanded in the United States, the rule of subject selection, constituting scientific and ethical criteria, was generated in 1981 to resolve selection bias in research. Few historical studies, however, have investigated the role of this new hybrid rule in institutional review systems. This paper describes how bioethics commissions and federal agencies have created the subject selection rule based on the concept of justice. I argue that the standardization of this rule as temporal measures, linked (...) with risk-benefit assessment, has reformed the review mechanism, specifically investigators’ modification of research plans, thereby developing justice as balancing. (shrink)

This research examines the possibility of developing a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) auditing system based on the analysis of current CSR literature and interviews conducted with a number of interested and knowledgeable stakeholders. This work attempts to create a framework for social responsibility auditing compatible with an existing commercially successful environmental audit system. The project is unusual in that it tackles the complex issue of CSR auditing with a scientific approach using Grounded Theory. On the evidence discovered to date (...) in the literature review and the interviews, CSR seems to be perceived by many as the social strand of sustainable development. However, there is far less agreement regarding its measurement. Both the literature review and the interview analysis indicate that developing an applied CSR auditing procedure will be a challenging task. This is principally due to the lack of formal study of this complex subject, which, despite the widespread debate it has engendered, still lacks a single and broadly accepted definition. The concepts developed from the findings of this research, together with the key factors identified in a literature review of CSR, were developed into a prospective CSR audit protocol. (shrink)

The measurement of pain depends upon subjective reports, but we know very little about how research subjects or pain patients produce self-reported judgments. Representationalist assumptions dominate the field of pain research and lead to the critical conjecture that the person in pain examines the contents of consciousness before making a report about the sensory or affective magnitude of pain experience as well as about its nature. Most studies to date have investigated what Fechner termed “outer psychophysics”: the relationship between characteristics (...) of an external stimulus and the magnitude and nature of pain experience. In contrast, Fechner originally envisioned that “inner psychophysics” should investigate the relationship between physiological states and subjective experience. Despite the lack of established research tradition, inner psychophysics has a potential utility in elucidating underlying mechanisms for the production of phenomenal self-report. We illustrate this, using causal modeling analyses of the accuracy of self-reported pain ratings from our laboratory. We submit that the results are inconsistent with representationalist assumptions. Converging trends from several domains of consciousness studies seem to suggest that we need to abandon the unquestioned doctrine of representationalism and search for a more viable framework for understanding the generation of subjective self-report. (shrink)

歴史学をめぐる“方法論的な挑発者”として―自己省察的な小文、時評、書評等を精選して収録。巻末に、編者4人が著作集の意義と魅力を縦横に論じあう座談会の記録と、「安丸良夫著作目録」を付載。.

「通俗道徳」論をはじめ、著者の歴史研究の基軸をなす「民衆思想史」に関する代表的な論考を収める。.

Pain is an important focus for consciousness research because it is an avenue for exploring somatic awareness, emotion, and the genesis of subjectivity. In principle, pain is awareness of tissue trauma, but pain can occur in the absence of identifiable injury, and sometimes substantive tissue injury produces no pain. The purpose of this paper is to help bridge pain research and consciousness studies. It reviews the basic sensory neurophysiology associated with tissue injury, including transduction, transmission, modulation, and central representation. In (...) addition, it highlights the central mechanisms for the emotional aspects of pain, demonstrating the physiological link between tissue trauma and mechanisms of emotional arousal. Finally, we discuss several current issues in the field of pain research that bear on central issues in consciousness studies, such as sickness and sense of self. (shrink)