In the January edition of theJournal of Medical Ethics, Fujita and Tabuchi (hereafter, Authors) responded that we misunderstood the ‘facts’ in our previous article. Our article’s method was twofold. First, it appealed to normative analysis and publicly accessible materials, and second, it targeted a policy-making approach to public funding. We specifically did not focus on the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application or induced pluripotent stem stock projects. The Authors raised five criticisms, including transparency of our interpretation of public (...) funding policy. We reply to these criticisms by clarifying facts, and demonstrating new data (facts), and asking the Authors what qualifies as a ‘good fact’ in medical ethics. We note that in some cases, it might be possible to examine to what extent facts are ‘true’, while in other cases, ‘facts’ are laden with ‘values’, which cannot be confirmed or falsified with observation alone. The level of ‘good’ implicit in a fact is a challenging issue that goes well beyond science and makes metaethical assumptions about the relationships between facts and values more broadly. (shrink)

The pervasive use of distributional semantic models or word embeddings for both cognitive modeling and practical application is because of their remarkable ability to represent the meanings of words. However, relatively little effort has been made to explore what types of information are encoded in distributional word vectors. Knowing the internal knowledge embedded in word vectors is important for cognitive modeling using distributional semantic models. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to identify the knowledge encoded in word vectors by conducting (...) a computational experiment using Binder et al.'s (2016) featural conceptual representations based on neurobiologically motivated attributes. In an experiment, these conceptual vectors are predicted from text‐based word vectors using a neural network and linear transformation, and prediction performance is compared among various types of information. The analysis demonstrates that abstract information is generally predicted more accurately by word vectors than perceptual and spatiotemporal information, and specifically, the prediction accuracy of cognitive and social information is higher. Emotional information is also found to be successfully predicted for abstract words. These results indicate that language can be a major source of knowledge about abstract attributes, and they support the recent view that emphasizes the importance of language for abstract concepts. Furthermore, we show that word vectors can capture some types of perceptual and spatiotemporal information about concrete concepts and some relevant word categories. This suggests that language statistics can encode more perceptual knowledge than often expected. (shrink)

時間を超え、様々な遺物から過去の記憶を読みとり、未来に引き継ぐものとして、人文知の意義を問い直す。.

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)

of (from Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy).

L’article explore le tai chi, art martial d’origine chinoise aujourd’hui majoritairement suivi pour ses bienfaits sur la santé et ses implications spirituelles. Notre intérêt porte sur le fait que l’entraînement à des « formes », une série de mouvements exécutés en solitaire, souvent lentement, s’observe non seulement dans la plupart des écoles focalisées sur la santé, mais aussi dans une minorité portée sur l’aspect martial. Pour analyser le rôle des formes dans l’apprentissage des techniques de combat, l’article s’appuie sur l’émersiologie, (...) l’étude de l’activation involontaire du corps, permettant la focalisation sur les éléments propices à la transformation du schéma corporel. Cette analyse vise à concilier la dichotomie entre le tai chi comme art martial, de combat, et sa pratique à des fins de santé, apportant une meilleure compréhension de l’évolution historique du tai chi. (shrink)

The development of a coherent field-emission electron beam has made it possible to observe microscopic magnetic lines of force by detecting the electron-wave phase shifts that are due to vector potentials. Electron-holographic interference microscopy has been used to observe magnetic lines of force of magnetic vortices in superconductors, and Lorentz microscopy has been used to observe the dynamics of the vortices. The observation of vortices not only helps us understand the microscopic mechanism of flux pinning, which holds the key to (...) practical applications of superconductors, but also clarifies fundamental phenomena of superconductivity which have implications for more general physical phenomena. (shrink)

Debates concerning mask wearing continue in Japan. Here we critically examine the reasons for relaxing these regulations from a public health ethics perspective. We focus on three issues: government responsibility, political motivation, and cultural orientation, also discussing how these issues might have broader application in other parts of the world.

We examined the ethical justification for a national policy governing public funding for the induced pluripotent stem cell stock project in Japan and argue that the initiation of the iPSC stock project in 2012, when no clinical trial using iPSC-derived products had yet succeeded, was premature and unethical. Our analysis considers a generally accepted justice criterion and shows it fails to justify public funding of the iPSC stock project. We also raise concerns related to the massive amounts of public funding (...) at stake and the absence of evidence supporting claimed success rates. We conclude that the iPSC stock project should be re-considered and deferred until a substantial number of clinical trials using iPSC-derived products are deemed successful. This analysis should benefit others worldwide as they consider their own public funding policies. (shrink)

In Japan, modern biomedical ethics emerged in the early 1980s. One of the main triggers was the nationwide debate on organ transplantation and brain death. A lengthy process of academic, religious, and political discussion concerning organ transplantation, lasting well over a few decades, resulted in the enactment of the Organ Transplantation Law in 1997.1 The defining of death and other bioethical issues, including death with dignity and euthanasia, were also stimulating topics throughout the latter end of the twentieth century. For (...) instance, the death-with-dignity movement, which started around the late 1960s, developed into a hospice/palliative-care movement by the end of the 1980s. (shrink)

In April 2018, Japan’s first law regulating clinical research went into effect. The law aimed to strengthen regulations on research integrity and conflicts of interest, which had been limited under existing administrative guidelines; the law also provided stipulations for legal penalties. The scope of the new regulations, however, is limited entirely to studies that evaluate unapproved drugs or the off-label use of approved drugs, and those that receive funding from companies. On the other hand, the law’s application brings numerous complications, (...) including the establishment of new review committees, troublesome procedures for transitioning studies that are currently underway, and ambiguities about the scope of what constitutes best efforts. Thus, the change has led to substantial strain and confusion in the field. This paper offers an overview of the law and its background, and discusses its future prospects from the practical standpoint of managing ethics committees and providing research ethics support in the field. (shrink)

Adornos "asthetische theorie" ist als ambivalente theorie uber die autonomie der kunst charakterisiert. er verteidigt die autonomie der kunst als abgehobenheit von der gesellschaft, obwohl er den avantgardischen versuch der aufhebung der autonomen kunst als notwendigen anspruch vesteht. seine forderung ist nicht die verweigerung, sondern die rettung des asthetischen scheins, in dem das autonome kunstwerk das utopische moment als augenblicklichen gluck verspricht. aber adorno sagt nicht nur die massen- und engagierte kunst, sondern auch die rezeptive seite der kunst uberhaupt ab, (...) weil auch das autonome kunstwerk den gefahr nicht vermeiden kann, in heteronomie zur warenwelt zuruckzufallen, sobald der schein in beziehung zur wirklichkeit kommt. (edited). (shrink)

AbstractThe Belmont Report continues to be held in high regard, and most bioethical analyses conducted in recent years have presumed that it affects United States federal regulations. However, the assessments of the report’s creators are sharply divided. Understanding the historic reputation of this monumental report is thus crucial. We first recount the historical context surrounding the creation of this report. Subsequently, we review the process involved in developing ethical guidelines and describe the report’s features. Additionally, we analyze the effect of (...) unfolding events on the subsequent creation of federal regulations, especially on gene therapy clinical trials. Moreover, throughout this paper we evaluate the ethical principles outlined in this report and describe how they overlap with the issue of protecting socially vulnerable groups. Based on the analysis, we conclude that the features of the Belmont Report cannot be considered as having affected the basic sections of the federal regulations for ethical reviews that were made uniform in 1981. Nevertheless, regarding the regulations on gene therapy clinical trials—which were at first expected to be applicable to research involving children—in addition to implementing policies regarding the public review of protocols that passed ethical review, this report’s principles are clearly reflected in the key notes that should have been referred to when the report was created. (shrink)