When we read books or essays about the dialogue between “religion and science,” or when we attend conferences on the theme of “religion and science,” we cannot avoid the impression that they actually are dealing, almost without exception, not with a dialogue between “religion and science,” but with a dialogue between “Christianity and science.” This could easily be affirmed by looking at the major publications in this field. But how can the science–religion dialogue take place in a world where conventional (...) Christian concepts of God, religion, and science are foreign and unfamiliar? Is the critique that the scientist plays God still valid when there is no “God” at all? This article tries to answer the questions mentioned above, and seeks to sketch out some aspects of the science–religion dialogue in Japan which I believe could contribute a new paradigm for understanding and describing ultimate reality. (shrink)

We may understand natural science as part of the attempt by human beings to understand themselves and their place in the world in which they find themselves. In this sense, as Karl Rahner has suggested, natural science flows naturally into anthropology. Consciously or unconsciously, science is always part of the drive to self-understanding. In an age of religious pluralism like ours, Christian faith in Asia is also brought face to face with the living reality of other religions, and that, too, (...) cannot but affect how we understand our shared humanity. (shrink)

This study assessed the knowledge and perception of human biological materials (HBM) and biorepositories among three study groups in South Korea. The relationship between the knowledge and the perception among different groups was also examined by using factor and regression analyses. In a self‐reporting survey of 440 respondents, the expert group was found more likely to be knowledgeable and positively perceived than the others. Four factors emerged: Sale and Consent, Flexible Use, Self‐Confidence, and Korean Bioethics and Biosafety Action restriction perception. (...) The results indicate that those who are well aware of the existence of biobanks were more positively inclined to receive the Sale and Consent perception. As a result of the need for high quality HBMs and the use of appropriate sampling procedures for every aspect of the collection and use process, the biorepository community should pay attention to ethical, legal, and policy issues. (shrink)

BackgroundElectronic cigarettes as substitute devices for regular tobacco cigarettes have been increasing in recent times. We investigated neuronal substrates of vaping e-cigs and smoking r-cigs from r-cig smokers.MethodsTwenty-two r-cig smokers made two visits following overnight smoking cessation. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired while participants watched smoking images. Participants were then allowed to smoke either an e-cig or r-cig until satiated and fMRI data were acquired. Their craving levels and performance on the Montreal Imaging Stress Task and a 3-back (...) alphabet/digit recognition task were obtained and analyzed using two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance. Regions-of-interest were identified by comparing the abstained and satiated conditions. Neuronal activation within ROIs was regressed on the craving and behavioral data separately.ResultsCraving was more substantially reduced by smoking r-cigs than by vaping e-cigs. The response time for the 3-back task was significantly shorter following smoking r-cigs than following vaping e-cigs = 5.3, p = 0.035). Neuronal activations of the right vermis, right caudate, and right superior frontal gyrus were significantly correlated with the RT for the 3-back task only for smoking r-cigs.ConclusionOur findings suggest that insufficient satiety from vaping e-cigs for r-cigs smokers may be insignificant effect on working memory function. (shrink)

In April 2011, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the results of an epidemiological investigation that an unknown cause of lung disease that occurred throughout Korea was caused by humidifier disinfectants. The unprecedented social catastrophe caused by humidifier disinfectants, a household chemical, has so far reported 1,784 deaths and 5,984 survivors in South Korea. This study was designed to investigate the multi-layer relationships between psychological symptoms and adaptive functioning in survivors of the Humidifier disinfectants in South Korea (...) caused by chemical toxic substances. Specifically, this study aimed to explore how psychological symptoms affect actual interpersonal relationships and job adjustment with two variable sets, six internalizing and externalizing subscales, and three adaptation subscales. A total of 224 survivors recruited from a program to support humidifier disinfectant survivors by the government participated in this study. This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of one of the Universities in South Korea. The age range of the participants was 18–73 years, 37.1% were male, and 62.9% were female. The participants responded to the Adult Self-Report of the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment. A Canonical Correlation Analysis generated three unique patterns in the relationships between psychological symptoms and adaptive functions. Humidifier disinfectant survivors in the first pattern were more vulnerable to psychological symptoms and showed maladaptive functioning in life. Survivors in the second pattern showed intrusive behaviors and appeared to be adaptive in relationships with friends. Finally, survivors in the third pattern showed aggressive behaviors and reported poor partner relationships while showing good relationships with friends. The practical implications of the interventions are also discussed. (shrink)

We investigate what determines a multinational enterprise’s propensity to engage in lobbying and bribing in host countries where the overall institutional development for market exchanges is insufficient, and thus, their governance systems are relatively weak. We extend the current literature on institutional strategies by theorizing and showing the persistent and significant impacts of home country institutions on an MNE’s choice of influencing activities to address institutional constraints overseas. More specifically, our results demonstrate that the MNEs from a home country with (...) a stronger governance system are less involved in bribery, but have a higher tendency to lobby in transition economy countries, which have been characterized by relatively weaker institutional development, particularly in the area of governance. This tendency still holds even when these MNEs rely more on the local market for sales. We draw theoretical and practical implications from these observations. (shrink)

The necessity of a coordination of rights and virtues is analyzed. Interpreting liberalism as a rights-based morality and Confucianism as a virtue-based morality, the author directs his criticism to the extremes found within both. Through a mutual criticism of liberalism and Confucianism, it is proposed that the coordination of these two moral systems is not only possible, but also necessary for a fulfilling moral society.

From the perspective of the system of systems development, system-level functional testing is required for designing subsystems. This study utilizes modeling and simulation techniques to analyze the operational behaviors of the subsystems and confirm data communication between them. The targeted system in the study is a naval combat system, which is a typical type of defense cyber-physical system. Three types of models were designed for the simulation testing of the NCS: a combat-management model for simulating the overall computational activities, physical (...) models to confirm the intrasubsystem behaviors, and data integration models to test the intersubsystem communications. These models are realized with the Model-View-ViewModel design pattern, which strongly facilitates graphical user interfaces being decoupled from model logic and data. We consider underwater combat scenarios as an application. Six significant physical subsystems within the NCS are simulated and tested: a ship-steering system, an inertial navigation system, a global navigation satellite system, a periscope, sonar systems, and a plotting board. We expect that the proposed work will play a principal role when analyzing the behaviors and communications of defense CPSs and providing an environment for functional testing as a digital twin. (shrink)

Results from three field network studies show that depending on individuals’ network positions (central or peripheral), experts and novices have varying ethical predispositions (EP). In particular, central experts (vs. peripheral experts) have higher EP, while novices in the same positions (vs. peripheral novices) have lower EP. Results demonstrate individuals’ relational-interdependent self-construal mediates these relationships. Importantly, this research suggests that the interaction between network and individual difference variables uniquely affect individuals’ ethical predisposition. Given the lack of research focus on the impact (...) of structural positions on EP, this article demonstrates the importance of combining network and individual variables to investigate individuals’ EP. (shrink)

Given corporate lobbying’s double-edged nature, previous research has been interested in what motivates firms to engage in lobbying. In this study, we build on previous works to analyze how two types of aspiration, historical aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given past self-performance, and social aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given competitors’ achievements, shape corporate lobbying decisions. Our premise is that when a firm’s product market performance is below historical (...) aspirations, then the firm is motivated to engage in lobbying because the benefits of lobbying outweigh the potential costs. However, when a firm’s product market performance is below social aspirations, then decision-makers perceive that the potential challenges of lobbying outweigh the benefits and decide not to engage in lobbying. By examining automotive firms in the U.S. light vehicle market from 1998 to 2013, we find significant empirical support for our general premise. Using Tobit regression analysis, we find that automotive firms present diverging motivations for lobbying depending on whether they attend to historical or social aspirations for sales performance. (shrink)

Today, the trend of "globalization" with the background of neo-liberalism, led by some economically developed countries around the U. S. is on the increase. However, while the ideology of the neo-liberalism plays a positive role in securing the individual rights independent from a group, it also causes diverse socialconflicts derived from the differences among groups and regions as well as individuals, according to its logic of competition, which evokes infinite egoism. For this reason, a group of scholars have been exerting (...) themselves to find out the wise solution for the social problems. And the "Zhongsu (忠恕)" Thought, which roughly means the consideration for "Zhong (忠)" and "Shu (恕)", has become a significant ideological resource to solve such problems. Traditionally, in Confucian world, "Zhong" is understood as the revelation of the pure good morality as an innate nature of the self, and "Shu" the expansion of the "Zhong" to others. Such point of view of traditional Confucian world regards the two areas not as separate spheres but as closely related ones. That is to say, it is maintained that the sphereof "Zhong", which covers the moral order of an individual and that of "Shu," which covers that of the society are organically related to establish a community based on morality resulted from the ideal relationship between an individual and a society. However, it is somewhat difficult to apply the idea of moral society of traditional Confucian world based on the relationship between "Zhong" and "Shu" to the present society, which emphasizes pluralism in the origin and the contents of its morality. For the nature of morality contained in the "Zhongshu" Thought of traditional Confucian world is based on the "Good Human Nature Principle," which covers the absolutist ethics emphasizing the immediate identification of existence and value, while many people of today regard such point ofview as a result of the false ideological system without any realistic foundation. Those who criticize the absolutist ethics maintain that morality is not a transcendental gift but an empirical product and the value and principle of life shaped by the heros of a historical period. For the reason they regard morality as a relative value restricted by time and space, not as an invariable transcendental value. They also maintain the point of view of limited or conditional universality thatthe universality of morality is a common conscious shaped by an organic relationship between specialities, which can be continued for a specific period of time and then would change or disappear. As mentioned above, the "Zhongshu" thought of traditional Confucian world has some difficulty in being adopted into the plural society of today, which means that it should be transformed into a new shape to be significantly utilized in today's society. (shrink)

In twentieth-century Kant scholarship, few have provided an account of the analytic-synthetic distinction and of the problem of the synthetic a priori that takes into consideration the views of Kant's idealist successors such as Maimon, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. I first explain how Kant formulates the analytic-synthetic distinction in terms of the determinate-indeterminate distinction, which, in turn, is based on the distinction between general and transcendental logic. Kant's problem of the synthetic a priori , then, is the problem of showing (...) how the logical forms of judgment can be employed determinately (and not merely indeterminately). I then show that Maimon also formulates the distinction and the problem in the same way, and that his interpretation will shape how Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel each construe and address Kant's question, How are synthetic judgments possible a priori ? (shrink)

The current moral education is focused on character building of Lickona. Several papers and books pointed out that his thesis has some drawbacks. As a teacher in charge of moral education in class, I have also found out them without effort. For these reasons, I simply pointed out disadvantages of Lickona’s thesis on this paper, then studied how to apply philosophical community of inquiry (PCOI) as the new model of moral education for Korean middle school classes (Now I teach students (...) moral subject at Wondong middle school in Gyeong-nam, Republic of Korea). This study is thought to be well-grounded as an alternative idea because it has been very successful when I have tried to apply PCOI model to Korean classroom for about 4 years. With this PCOI model, I won the first rank in Gyeong-nam secondary teaching contest in 2007. I have tried to apply PCOI model to Korean history, economy, the world history and geography class as well as moral class. And I have been studying how to apply to these subjects more effectively. (shrink)