Rho, a member of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases, has multiple biological roles: it regulates signal trasduction pathways linking extracellular growth factors to the assembly of actin stress fibres and focal adhesion complexes; it is required for G1 progression and activates the SRF transcription factor when quiescent fibroblasts are stimulated to grow; and it plays a role later in the cell cycle during cytokinesis. Two groups have recently succeeded in identifying downstream effectors of Rho that may mediate some of (...) these biological effects. One protein identified by both groups is protein kinase N (PKN), a serine/threonine kinase whose catalytic domain is closely related to that of protein kinase C(1,2). (shrink)

『日本唯物論史』などで知られるわが国の唯物論哲学の開拓者・永田廣志の生涯をまとめ、その理論活動の意義を解明。哲学研究者と在野の郷土史家との共同研究が生み出した成果。本邦初公開の貴重な資料や秘蔵写真も多 数紹介。.

Background Participants' understanding of clinical trials is important in informed consent. However, little is known about what information participants really want to know. Aims To demonstrate the existence of a discrepancy between participants' understanding and their desire to know. Methods The participants in clinical trials at Seoul National University Hospital were surveyed. The survey consisted of 11 statements based on the essential elements of informed consent. The participants gave two responses to each statement on a five-point Likert scale to rate (...) their subjective understanding and desire to know, respectively. Information discrepancy was defined as the difference between these two ratings: if understanding exceeded desire to know for a particular item, it was defined as ‘over-informed’; if desire to know exceeded understanding for a particular item, it was defined as ‘under-informed’. Results Participants reported good understanding of ‘voluntariness’, ‘duration’, ‘study involves research’ and poor understanding of ‘confidentiality’, ‘compensation’, ‘benefits’, ‘procedures’ and ‘risks or discomforts’. For ‘risks or discomforts’, ‘who to contact’, ‘voluntariness’, ‘duration’ and ‘procedures’, participants reported high desire to know compared with ‘confidentiality’, ‘purpose’, ‘study involves research’ and ‘benefits’. The elements ‘study involves research’, ‘voluntariness’, ‘duration’, ‘purpose’ and ‘who to contact’ were over-informed, while ‘compensation’, ‘risks or discomforts’, ‘procedures’, ‘confidentiality’ and ‘benefits’ were under-informed. Participants over 50 years of age, those without a college education and those whose participation was less voluntary were relatively less informed about the clinical trials. Conclusions An information discrepancy was observed between the participants' understanding and their desire to know. By putting more emphasis on under-informed elements, the quality of informed consent could be improved. (shrink)

Critical Conversations in Philosophy of Education presents a series of conversations expressing many of the multiple voices that currently constitute the field of philosophy of education. Philosophy of education as a discipline has undergone several turns--the once marginal perspectives of the various feminisms, critical Marxism, and poststructuralist, postmodernist and cultural theory have gained ground alongside those of Anglo-analytic and pragmatic thought. Just as western philosophers in general are coming to terms with the "end of philosophy" pronouncement implicit in postmodernism, so (...) too are philosophers of education faced with similar challenges--challenges to long-held moral, political, aesthetic and epistemological commitments. The contributors take up these challenges through a dialogical structure, expressing differing positions without engaging in destructive critique. There is no intention to come to consensus; rather the point is to expand the number and kind of participating voices in the conversation and engage in a lively intellectual exchange that will insure the vitality of educational theorizing. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham catalogued a wide variety of uses for dead bodies in what was likely his last essay, ‘Auto-Icon’. Dead bodies could be preserved and transformed into statues and used, among other ways, as theatrical props, commemorative statues, and building materials. Auto-Iconism would eliminate the need for coffins and graveyards – as well as funeral rituals, clerics to preside over the funerals, and, arguably, the entire religious establishment. This essay offers a reading of ‘Auto-Icon’ as a bad joke: impolite, unrefined, (...) and in bad taste. The thought is that ‘Auto-Icon’ makes fun of the religious desire for immortality – continuing Bentham’s attacks on the religious establishment in this regard – as well as Bentham’s own pretensions to immortality, and of pretensions to good taste generally. As a bad joke, ‘Auto-Icon’ is an exercise both in the liberty of opinion and in the liberty of taste. (shrink)

This article deals with Li Tongxuan's explication of the Avata asaka-s tra in terms of the Sinification of Buddhism. While the affirmation of the present human condition is shared by other Chinese Huayan masters as well, this attitude is most evident in Li Tongxuan's explication of the scripture where the Chinese symbolisms such as yin-yang and five phases are amply employed. For him, every scriptural description on ordinary objects and names, especially directions, had profound religious implications. In order to reveal (...) these meanings in a lively and concrete language, the lay exegete Li Tongxuan freely alluded to the non-Buddhist ideas when elucidating or justifying the scriptural phrases. Although his interpretation sometimes resulted in a forced one, his intuitive adoption of the indigenous philosophy served to illumine the vision that an ordinary human condition is the foundation of the ultimate realization. (shrink)

In the last few years, the molecular and genetic nature of the granulocyte colonystimulating factor, which controls proliferation and differentiation of neutrophils, has been characterized. Recent clinical application of G‐CSF proves that this hormone is effective in the treatment of patients suffering from neutropenia.

In this paper, I explain how Bentham’s utilitarianism is at odds with Effective Altruism’s (EA) abstract use of numbers to calculate the most ‘effective’ ways to do good. This is interesting because Bentham is widely regarded as the father of modern utilitarianism and EA is a movement popularly associated with utilitarianism today. My paper is divided into 3 parts. In part 1, I explain how Bentham’s utilitarianism is built on a view of pleasure as widely varied and inherently subjective. In (...) part 2, I discuss a version of utilitarianism that bears a superficial resemblance to Bentham’s but diverges from his theory in crucial ways. I show that it is with this second version, rather than Bentham’s, that EA shares more in common. In part 3, I sketch out a Benthamite critique of EA. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham aurait dit, ou du moins John Stuart Mill lui fait dire, qu’à quantité de plaisir égale, le jeu de quilles a autant de valeur que la poésie. Le présent article se penche sur le lien entre plaisir et jugement dans la pensée politique de Bentham. J’avance que ce lien existe bel et bien et qu’on peut le déceler dans les écrits de Bentham sur le sexe: ceux-ci suggèrent qu’il est possible, d’une part, de penser tous les plaisirs comme (...) bons en tant que tels, _et_ d’autre part de considérer qu’il est possible de raisonner en termes de goût et de désir. Le concept charnière est celui de croyance: en effet, au moins certains goûts et désirs reposent sur des croyances qui peuvent évoluer lorsque des faits nouveaux sont découverts. Une étude du rôle de la croyance dans la construction du goût et du désir nous permet de considérer le rôle de l’environnement sociopolitique sur ces derniers. Nous pouvons ainsi questionner et penser nos goûts et désirs irréductiblement personnels. (shrink)

In this article, the author problematizes the process of “humanizing education” in the era of perestroika and glasnost. Identifying herself as a “democratic socialist,” Kohli invites her Soviet colleagues to acknowledge the criticisms of liberal capitalism before they move headlong in that direction. In deconstructing such taken-for-granted concepts as individualism, democracy, market economy, and community, Kohli suggests that both the West and the East could benefit from re-visiting their respective revolutionary traditions at this crucial historical time.

Sixteenth-century Christological debates sought to clarify the philosophical implications of the hypostatic union thesis formulated at Chalcedon. The genus maiesticatum, in particular, permitted that Christ’s created human nature could be said to possess divine attributes and powers. Other systematic regions like theological anthropology were implicated in this concept as well; the elevation of Christ’s human nature provided a conceptual framework for understanding the way divine indwelling might elevate human moral capacities in the elect. Medieval Scholastics after Lombard sought to clarify (...) what type of relation indwelling might be. Was it a hypostatic union as in Christology or something else? At the start of the sixteenth-century, Protestant reformers inherited this question. Their engagement with it demonstrates the systematic implications of Christological metaphysics and clarifies conceptual continuities and shifts that occurred across this historical moment of reform. (shrink)

いま、この危機と混迷の時代に、憲法学者・樋口陽一が、基本に立ち戻り、戦後日本を代表する英知・加藤周一と丸山眞男の「憲法論」と「思想」を再読し、その本質を語り尽くす。.

Building from J.L. Austin's concept of ‘performative,’ this essay explores the production of subjectivity and of educational subjects by applying important work from Judith Butler on Foucault, Derrida, and as centrally illustrative, through an analysis of sex and gender. Given this analytical framework, the turn is then to queer performativity and the possibility of performative power in pedagogy. The last draws assistance from Valerie Walkerdine, Homi Bhabha and especially James Donald.

Description: In this short treatise on Sikh Ethics, the Adi Granth has been taken as the basic and main sourcebook of the Sikh moralcode. The path of life enunciated by the Sikh Gurus is the path of self-realisation or perfectionism; it is neither self-gratification or hedonism nor self-denial or rationalism. Emphasis in Sikh Ethics is laid on the practice of godly qualities. Their observance makes a human being godlike. The field of the body is to be cultivated for truthful life (...) and spiritual advancement. All the senses are to be harnessed properly and the virtues of body, speech and mind are to be inculcated. The discipline enunciated by the Sikh Gurus is a universal discipline and requires the discipline to perform his worldly duties alongwith his spiritual progress; he has not to become a one-sided personality. He has to remain alert on all the three planes i.e., physical, mental and spiritual. The Sikh Ethics, in practice, brings before us an ideal person thoroughly balanced in physical, mental and spiritual cultures. Whereas he works as a healthy constituent of society, he also rises to spiritual zenith. In him, we find, an exact combination of action, knowledge and devotion. Contents Preface Chap. 1 : Sikhism-A Religion Chap. 2 : Justification of Sikh Ethics Chap. 3 : Godly Qualities-as Enunciated in the Adi Granth Chap. 4 : Sikh Concept of Virtue and Vice Chap. 5 : The Sikh Way of Life Chap. 6 : Social, Economic and Political Ethics Chap. 7 : The Ultimate Goal. (shrink)

Based on a survey of 237 managers in Singapore, three measures of organizational ethics (namely, top management support for ethical behavior, the organization''s ethical climate, and the association between ethical behavior and career success) are found to be associated with job satisfaction. The link between organizational ethics and job satisfaction is argued from Viswesvaran et al.''s (1998) organizational justice and cognitive dissonance theories. The findings imply that organizational leaders can favorably influence organizational outcomes by engaging in, supporting and rewarding ethical (...) behavior. (shrink)

This thesis focuses on the question of whether moral feelings are necessary to the making of moral judgments. This is an important question and the answer one gives has more interesting implications than one might initially expect. I will argue that an experientialist account of moral concepts, on which moral judgments are beliefs about objective facts represented by moral feelings, provides the best naturalistic answer to the question. To make my point, I anchor my arguments in a series of comparisons (...) between the experientialist account and its rivals, and how they handle metaethical puzzles to do with the moral status of psychopaths, moral twin earth, the nature of moral motivation, and issues of integrity and moral improvement. (shrink)

In the late 1810s, Jeremy Bentham wrote a set of texts entitled Not Paul, But Jesus, arguing against the religious authority of St. Paul, and the principle of asceticism he propagated. This paper argues that Bentham’s critique of the principle of asceticism was not only or primarily a religious one, but a political one. Bentham objected to the principle of asceticism because it could be used to provide practical and ideological support for tyranny. The principle of asceticism, as a principle (...) which repudiated common pleasures, provided a ‘cloak’ for tyranny, in giving rulers a reason to establish laws which penetrated further into the everyday activities of men and women (than would have been justified under the principle of utility), and so enabled them to increase their power over their subjects. The principle of asceticism also enabled rulers to create the conditions of fear and social isolation, which encouraged obedience to their laws. The Not Paul texts and related writings can be read as an extended argument against the principle of asceticism as a political principle, and as a defence of common pleasures. (shrink)

The definition of life has been one of the greatest philosophical questions of mankind. In recent years, this debate had intensified due to the discovery of naturally occurring biological entities, such as viruses and prions, which lie at the boundary of what we consider as living. “Are viruses alive?” has turned out to be the largest vote swinging debate in an introductory course to microbiology [1], with 79% of the students changing their opinions before and after the debate compared to (...) genetic engineering (56% opinion swing) and childhood immunization (25% opinion swing). Using boundary cases as classification criteria, also known as the decision boundary or decision surface, had been well established [2]. (shrink)

Since the turn of the 21st century, developing teachers' assessment literacy has been recognized as one of the key levers for improving instructional practice and student learning in light of the education reforms worldwide. A substantial body of literature is focused on teachers' assessment literacy or teachers' capacity in assessment, and teachers' continuing professional development in assessment. As we approach the third decade of the 21st century, developing teachers' assessment literacy needs to be more responsive to the need of both (...) preservice and inservice teachers who come from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The authors concur that both preservice and inservice teachers in today's complex educational contexts require a deeper level of understanding of assessment. Additionally, teachers are highly encouraged to appreciate the history of educational assessment in different sociocultural and political contexts, as well as to know how to determine the merits of a range of assessment practices best suited for their lesson planning and classroom teaching. In this book, the authors discuss significant aspects of developing teachers' assessment literacy in different sociocultural and political contexts. Based on their respective educational backgrounds, academic experiences, and applied fields of study, each of the authors presents a critical response to the topic of assessment. Their accounts represent the complexity of the subject through a breadth and range of content and perspectives. By expanding the terms of reference regarding assessment, the authors have developed a book with a far richer panorama on assessment as a springboard for inquiry. (shrink)