Microautophagy is originally defined as lysosomal (vacuolar) membrane dynamics to directly enwrap and transport cytosolic components into the lumen of the lytic organelle. Molecular details of microautophagy had remained unknown until genetic studies in yeast identified a set of proteins required for the process. Subsequent studies with other experimental model organisms resulted in a series of discoveries that accompanied an expansion of the definition of microautophagy to also encompass endosomal membrane dynamics. These findings, however, still impose puzzling, non‐integrated images as (...) to the molecular mechanism of microautophagy. By reviewing recent studies on microautophagy in various experimental systems, we propose the classification of microautophagy into three types, as the basis for developing a comprehensive view of the process. (shrink)

We give an extender characterization of a very strong elementary embedding between transitive models of set theory, whose existence is known as the axiom I2. As an application, we show that the positive solution of a partition problem raised by Magidor would refute it.

Determining the relationship between the entire brain structure and individual differences is important in extending healthy life expectancy, which can be affected by brain atrophy. The entire brain structure has been gradually known to be correlated not only with age but also with individual differences, such as quality of life, general intelligence, and lifestyle. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between the entire brain structure and personal traits. We herein focused on one personal trait, namely spiritual growth, (...) and examined its relationship with the entire brain structure using two neuroimaging-derived measures, namely the gray matter Brain Healthcare Quotient, a measure of GM volume, and the fractional anisotropy Brain Healthcare Quotient, a measure of white matter integrity, in 229 healthy participants. The results indicated no significant relationship between the GM-BHQ and spiritual growth, but there was a significant positive correlation between the FA-BHQ and spiritual growth after controlling for age, sex, and body mass index with partial correlation analysis. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the FA-BHQ and spiritual growth after controlling for physical characteristics, such as age, sex, and BMI, as well as other variables related to lifestyle that were collected using the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile. These results support the idea that there is a relationship between the entire WM brain structure and spiritual growth. Further studies are required to clarify the causal relationship between the entire WM brain structure and spiritual growth with some interventions to improve spiritual growth. Such studies will help extend healthy life expectancy from a new perspective of personal trait. (shrink)

Résumé Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), un des plus représentatifs folkloristes japonais, considère les différents aspects d’une forêt comme un ensemble composite qui comprend les coutumes, légendes et modes de vie des habitants. Le regard de Yanagita est un regard proche, qui souhaite comprendre comment la forêt se rapporte à la vie et aux coutumes de la population qui y habite. Une attitude qui pourrait être celle d’une « compréhension de l’intérieur ». Face à la complexité de la question écologique de la (...) terre, Yanagita suggère d’adopter cette même attitude. (shrink)

In our former works, for a given concept of reduction, we study the following hypothesis: “For a random oracle A, with probability one, the degree of the one-query tautologies with respect to A is strictly higher than the degree of A.” In our former works (Suzuki in Kobe J. Math. 15, 91–102, 1998; in Inf. Comput. 176, 66–87, 2002; in Arch. Math. Logic 44, 751–762), the following three results are shown: The hypothesis for p-T (polynomial-time Turing) reduction is equivalent to (...) the assertion that the probabilistic complexity class R is not equal to NP; The hypothesis for p-tt (polynomial-time truth-table) reduction implies that P is not NP; The hypothesis holds for each of the following: disjunctive reduction, conjunctive reduction, and p-btt (polynomial-time bounded-truth-table) reduction. In this paper, we show the following three results: (1) Let c be a positive real number. We consider a concept of truth-table reduction whose norm is at most c times size of input, where for a relativized propositional formula F, the size of F denotes the total number of occurrences of propositional variables, constants and propositional connectives. Then, our main result is that the hypothesis holds for such tt-reduction, provided that c is small enough. How small c can we take so that the above holds? It depends on our syntactic convention on one-query tautologies. In our setting, the statement holds for all c < 1. (2) The hypothesis holds for monotone truth-table reduction (also called positive reduction). (3) Dowd (in Inf. Comput. 96, 65–76, 1992) shows a polynomial upper bound for the minimum sizes of forcing conditions associated with a random oracle. We apply the above result (1), and get a linear lower bound for the sizes. (shrink)

The concept of antinatalism is now becoming popular on the Internet. Many online newspaper articles deal with this topic, and numerous academic papers on antinatalism have been published over the past ten years in the fields of philosophy and ethics. The word “antinatalism” was first used in the current meaning in 2006, when the two books that justify the universal negation of procreation were published: one by David Benatar and the other by Théophile de Giraud. However, we can find various (...) prototypes of antinatalistic thoughts in ancient Greece, ancient India, and modern Europe. You might recall the name Schopenhauer. In this paper, I briefly summarize the history of antinatalistic thoughts and propose a set of categories on antinatalism and related thoughts. (shrink)

This is the translation of the so-called Morioka&Sugimoto proposal on brain death and transplantation. We proposed that the prior declaration of a brain dead child should be respected, and that when the child does not have a donor card the organ removal should be prohibited. A material for understanding an unprecedented bioethics debate now occurring in Japan.

Beyza Şen and Ali Tacar's interview with Masahiro Morioka on painless civilization and his recent works. "In our contemporary civilization we can experience pleasure, pleasantness, and comfort, and can avoid pain and suffering, albeit at the sacrifice of joy of life, which is indispensable for acquiring our life without regret. Of course we have a lot of pain and suffering in our society, so our lives are not painless at all, but I cannot help feeling that our contemporary scientific (...) civilization is progressing in the direction of eliminating pain and suffering irreversibly. ...". (shrink)

The Japanese Transplantation Law is unique among others in that it allows us to choose between "brain death" and "traditional death" as our death. In every country 20 to 40 % of the popularion doubts the idea of brain death. This paper reconsiders the concept, and reports the ongoing rivision process of the current law. Published in Hastings Center Report, 2001.

An e-book devoted to 13 critical discussions of Thaddeus Metz's book "Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study", with a lengthy reply from the author. -/- Preface Masahiro Morioka i -/- Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study Thaddeus Metz ii-vi -/- Source and Bearer: Metz on the Pure Part-Life View of Meaning Hasko von Kriegstein 1-18 -/- Fundamentality and Extradimensional Final Value David Matheson 19-32 -/- Meaningful and More Meaningful: A Modest Measure Peter Baumann 33-49 -/- Is Meaning (...) in Life Comparable?: From the Viewpoint of ‘The Heart of Meaning in Life’ Masahiro Morioka 50-65 -/- Agreement and Sympathy: On Metz’s Meaning in Life Sho Yamaguchi 66-89 -/- Metz’s Quest for the Holy Grail James Tartaglia 90-111 -/- Meaning without Ego Christopher Ketcham 112-133 -/- Death and the Meaning of Life: A Critical Study of Metz’s Meaning in Life Fumitake Yoshizawa 134-149 -/- Metz’ Incoherence Objection: Some Epistemological Considerations Nicholas Waghorn 150-168 -/- Meaning in Consequences Mark Wells 169-179 -/- Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life Jason Poettcker 180-207 -/- Review of Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life Minao Kukita 208-214 -/- A Psychological Model to Determine Meaning in Life and Meaning of Life Yu Urata 215-227 -/- Assessing Lives, Giving Supernaturalism Its Due, and Capturing Naturalism: Reply to 13 Critics of Meaning in Life Thaddeus Metz 228-278 . (shrink)

The essence of human being resides not only in his/her brain, but also in every part of the body, therefore, the idea that brain-death equals human death can not be true in a certain context. Of course their arguments are not so strictly constructed, but if we take this theory seriously and develop it philosophically, it may have the possibility of criticize the very basis of contemporary civilization which is inclined to see humans only as a reasoning and calculating machine (...) made up of brain's complicated neuron-networks. (shrink)

In this review, I argue that Chōmei’s hermitism can be another realistic strategy to respond to Nagasawa's argument that only transcendentalism can constitute a potentially successful response to the problem of impermanence. Chōmei lived in a small house in the remote mountains and interacted with the surrounding nature. His lifestyle is considered a good example of reconciling one’s finite life with the impermanence of the world and human sufferings. I conclude that Nagasawa’s interpretation of hermitism might be one-sided.

People who have encountered a tragic event and suffered from traumatic experiences can sometimes achieve, in their later lives, an affirmation of having been born to such devastating lives. But what does this “affirmation” exactly mean in such cases? In this paper, I investigate this problem from the viewpoint of philosophy of life’s meaning. Firstly, I distinguish among three types of affirmations: the affirmation of survival, the affirmation of having had traumatic experiences, and the affirmation of the occurrence of a (...) tragic event. Secondly, I discuss the differences between the event that affects only one person and the event that affects many people, and which of the three aforementioned affirmations is the most important to victims. I would like to contribute to the discussion of this topic by analyzing some basic concepts concerning human suffering and despair. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a categorical model for Multiplicative Additive Polarized Linear Logic , which is the linear fragment of Olivier Laurent’s Polarized Linear Logic. Our model is based on an adjunction between reflective/coreflective full subcategories / of an ambient *-autonomous category . Similar structures were first introduced by M. Barr in the late 1970’s in abstract duality theory and more recently in work on game semantics for linear logic. The paper has two goals: to discuss concrete models and (...) to present various completeness theorems.As concrete examples, we present a hypercoherence model, using Ehrhard’s hereditary/anti-hereditary objects, a Chu-space model, a double gluing model over our categorical framework, and a model based on iterated double gluing over a *-autonomous category.For the multiplicative fragment of. (shrink)

This paper presents a polarized phase semantics, with respect to which the linear fragment of second order polarized linear logic of Laurent [15] is complete. This is done by adding a topological structure to Girard's phase semantics [9]. The topological structure results naturally from the categorical construction developed by Hamano—Scott [12]. The polarity shifting operator ↓ (resp. ↑) is interpreted as an interior (resp. closure) operator in such a manner that positive (resp. negative) formulas correspond to open (resp. closed) facts. (...) By accommodating the exponentials of linear logic, our model is extended to the polarized fragment of the second order linear logic. Strong forms of completeness theorems are given to yield cut-eliminations for the both second order systems. As an application of our semantics, the first order conservativity of linear logic is studied over its polarized fragment of Laurent [16]. Using a counter model construction, the extension of this conservativity is shown to fail into the second order, whose solution is posed as an open problem in [16]. After this negative result, a second order conservativity theorem is proved for an eta expanded fragment of the second order linear logic, which fragment retains a focalized sequent property of [3]. (shrink)

Is, or has, democracy a universal value? This is the main question raised by this paper, which distinguishes between two aspects of democracy: political institution in opposition to despotism, and political belief against any kind of slavery and subordination. The role played by intellectuals in the development of contemporary democracy, and the relation of democracy to mass culture and the influence of mass media on a true democratic attitude, are studied within the frame of an overall 'mass aesthetization' which characterizes (...) contemporary societies. (shrink)

閉塞した現在の政治を担う主体を構想できるのか。世界秩序が揺れ動き、従来の国民概念・市民概念が変革を迫られる今、新たな理論的地平を切り開く。.

Increasing student involvement in classes has always been a challenge for teachers and school managers. In online learning, some interactivity mechanisms like quizzes are increasingly used to engage students during classes and tasks. However, there is a high demand for tools that evaluate the efficiency of these mechanisms. In order to distinguish between high and low levels of engagement in tasks, it is possible to monitor brain activity through functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The main advantages of this technique are portability, low (...) cost, and a comfortable way for students to concentrate and perform their tasks. This setup provides more natural conditions for the experiments if compared to the other acquisition tools. In this study, we investigated levels of task involvement through the identification of correct and wrong answers of typical quizzes used in virtual environments. We collected data from the prefrontal cortex region of 18 students while watching a video lecture. This data was modeled with supervised learning algorithms. We used random forests and penalized logistic regression to classify correct answers as a function of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration. These models identify which regions best predict student performance. The random forest and penalized logistic regression obtained, respectively, 0.67 and 0.65 area of the ROC curve. Both models indicate that channels F4-F6 and AF3-AFz are the most relevant for the prediction. The statistical significance of these models was confirmed through cross-validation and a permutation test. This methodology can be useful to better understand the teaching and learning processes in a video lecture and also provide improvements in the methodologies used in order to better adapt the presentation content. (shrink)

語ることによって出来事は過去になり、また現在になる。大災害に直面した人は、その極限状態をどのように記憶し、記録してゆくのか。震災や戦争、原発事故などを例に、博物館や語り、モニュメントや場といった形を介 してカタストロフが時間を渡っていくさまを描き出す。.

In this paper, I make two arguments: 1) There is a solipsistic layer in meaning in life, which I call the “heart of meaning in life” (HML). The bearer of the heart of meaning in life is the solipsistic being. The heart of meaning in life cannot be compared with anything else whatsoever. 2) The heart of meaning in life can be dynamically incorporated into the affirmation of having been born into this world, which I call “birth affirmation.” There can (...) be two interpretations of birth affirmation, the anti-anti-natalistic interpretation and the possible world interpretation. Birth affirmation can be an alternative to anti-natalism, which is destined to be frustrated in this universe. (shrink)

We introduce the Easton collapse and show that the two-stage iteration of Easton collapses gives a model in which the successor of a regular cardinal carries a strongly saturated filter. This allows one to get a model in which many successor cardinals carry saturated filters just by iterating Easton collapses.

To me, philosophy is the relentless pursuit of 1) how I am to live and die from this moment forward and 2) the meaning of my having been born. This pursuit does not stop until I reach an understanding that satisfies me. If I expand my field of view slightly, it is to understand where humanity came from and where it is going through an intellectual lens. When I entered the ethics program at the University of Tokyo, I thought I (...) could do this sort of thing at a university. This expectation, however, was utterly betrayed. The study of philosophy at Japanese universities in the 1980s was mainly the study of writings by Western philosophers. What was undertaken in the ethics program and neighboring philosophy program was the close reading and interpretation of detailed elements of texts by great philosophers, always in the original language, and this was considered to be philosophy and ethics. I strongly opposed this even as I entered graduate school, and my first presentation given to the Japanese Society for Ethics when I was a graduate student was a critique of this organization.... (This is an English translation of a slightly modified version of my Japanese essay “What Does Doing Philosophy Mean to Me?,” which was published in the August issue of Contemporary Thought (Special Feature: How Philosophy is Made). It offers insight not only into my way of thinking about philosophy but also into the world of contemporary Japanese philosophy.). (shrink)