Background: Advocacy is an important role of psychiatric nurses because their patients are ethically, socially, and legally vulnerable. This study of Japanese expert psychiatric nurses’ judgments of interventions for patient advocacy will show effective strategies for ethical nursing practice and their relationship with Japanese culture. Objectives: This article explores Japanese psychiatric nurses’ decision to intervene as a patient advocate and examine their ethical, cultural, and social implications. Research design: Using semi-structured interviews verbatim, themes of the problems that required interventions were (...) inductively summarized by a qualitative analysis and their contexts and nursing judgments were examined. Participants and research context: The participants were 21 nurses with 5 or more years of experience in psychiatric nursing. Ethical considerations: The research was approved by Institutional Review Board of research site and study facilities. The participants gave written informed consent. Findings: Analysis of 45 cases showed that nurses decided to intervene when (a) surrounding people’s opinions impeded patients’ safety, (b) healthcare professionals’ policies impeded patients’ decision-making, (c) own violent behaviors impeded treatment and welfare services for patients, (d) own or families’ low acceptance of illness impeded patients’ self-actualization, (e) inappropriate treatment or care impeded patients’ liberty, and (f) their families abused patients’ property. Discussion: To solve conflicts between patients and their surrounding people, the nurses sought reconciliation between them, which is in accordance with Japanese cultural norms respecting harmony. When necessary, however, they protected patients’ rights against cultural norms. Therefore, their judgments cannot be explained by cultural norms alone. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the nurses’ judgments were based on respect for patients’ rights apart from cultural norms, and they first sought solutions fitting the cultural norms before other solutions. This seems to be an ethical, effective strategy if advocates know the culture in depth. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effects of group interaction in a storytelling situation for children using two robots: a reader robot and a listener robot as a side-participant. We developed a storytelling system that consists of a reader robot, a listener robot, a display, a gaze model, a depth sensor, and a human operator who responds and provides easily understandable answers to the children’s questions. We experimentally investigated the effects of using a listener robot and either one or two children during (...) a storytelling situation on the children’s preferences and their speech activities. Our experimental results showed that the children preferred storytelling with the listener robot. Although two children obviously produced more speech than one child, the listener robot discouraged the children’s speech regardless of whether one or two were listening. (shrink)

In Book One of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume seems to acknowledge the existence of both internal and external worlds, in which perceptions, objects, and bodies, exist. In particular, Hume seems directly to affirm the existence of extra-mental bodies, when he says at the beginning of the section "Of scepticism with regard to the senses," "We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in theexistence of body? but 'tis in vain to ask, whether there be body or (...) not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings" (T 1.4.2.1; SBN 187).1 Furthermore, he thinks that the existence of body must be taken for granted because it is "an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our .. (shrink)

William James criticizes Hume for failing to adhere to the strictly empiricist method when he postulates discrete constituents of experience—which Hume calls perceptions—thereby making our experience a train of disconnected pieces. James argues that the discontinuity of experience in Hume results in part from his failure to recognize the immediate presence of relations in experience.1 Emphasizing a continuity and unity of experience, James thus differentiates his empiricism from Hume's as being radical in the sense that it recognizes relations as 'real' (...) parts of experience just as are things that are experienced to be so related.2 This raises a question concerning the experiential status of relations in Hume: is .. (shrink)

Research has documented the influence of ALS patients families’ attitudes on patients’ decision to accept or reject TIV, a treatment that in many cases will allow them to live long enough to experience locked-in syndrome ; under Japanese law the use of a ventilator cannot be terminated once it is essential to a patient’s survival, so to choose TIV means to choose the possibility of entering a locked-in state. Previous studies have not, however, elucidated the changes in family members’ attitudes (...) that take place after they receive pertinent information about the social systems and services available to them. This study aims to fill this gap by collecting and analyzing patients’ and family members’ narratives. In Japan, about 30% of ALS patients utilize TIV. This rate is much higher than in most other developed countries. Patients’ narratives illuminate the psychological and especially the contextual factors of their decision-making. Many Japanese patients who currently use a ventilator say that their family members encouraged them to prolong their lives through ventilation. These family members have done so because patients are able to use long-term ventilation for only ¥1000 per month, and can also access the latest communication devices and round the clock caregiver services in their homes at very low cost. Japanese caregivers who are supported by social systems and services including communication assistance, empowering factors such as patients’ associations, care provided by people outside the patient’s family, and a public nursing care system are able to encourage patients to decide to use longterm ventilation. (shrink)

Under certain conditions, the cell cycle can be arrested for a long period of time. Vertebrate oocytes are arrested at G2 phase, while somatic cells arrest at G0 phase. In both cells, nuclei have lost the ability to initiate DNA synthesis. In a pair of recently published papers,1,2 Méchali and colleagues and Coué and colleagues have clarified how frog oocytes prevent untimely DNA synthesis during the long G2 arrest. Intriguingly, they found only Cdc6 is responsible for the inability of immature (...) oocytes to replicate DNA. Cdc6 is a key component for replication licensing, and for G0 cells to re‐enter the proliferative stage. Strikingly similar strategies for preventing the untimely replication in both cells suggest that the suppression of replication licensing is a universal mechanism for securing the prolonged arrest of the cell cycle. BioEssays 25:313–316, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Det är stort, Europa, tycker urmakarn. Han har just inte tänkt på det förut. Tyskland, Frankrike, England, ett stycke Skandinavien, ett stycke Ryssland. Och gränserna förändras då och då; ljudlöst, nästan omärkligt på kartan, med buller och bråk där ute. Där ute—?... Långt uppe en liten prick, en liten stad. Hammar upptäcker att den verkligen hör till Europa, är en punkt i världen, ett litet centra, kring vilket en landsbygd sluter sig—en kärna.... Det är litet. Han måste erkänna, att det (...) är försvinnande. Stockholm är en helt annan sak, men detta är för litet.1[It is big, Europe, thinks the watchmaker. He hasn't happened to think about it before. Germany, France, England, a bit of Scandinavia, a bit of... (shrink)

Comparisons have been drawn between certain aspects of Hume’s philosophy and Buddhist philosophy, particularly concerning their views on the self. While it is intriguing to discover affinities between two philosophical systems that are separated far apart by both time and space, comparison would become superficial if similarities are found merely in their general, overall claims or doctrines. Although engaging in a comparative exploration between Hume and Buddhist philosophers on the self can reveal remarkable similarities in their accounts, it can also (...) provide valuable insights into their differences. The differences between Hume’s and Buddhist philosophers’ views become evident when considering the debates about the self among Buddhist philosophers, which have resulted in diverse accounts within the Buddhist tradition. Indeed, it is those differences that prove to be more illuminating for recognizing and understanding subtle aspects and various components of Hume’s account, which may not be adequately described or distinguished by Hume himself. These aspects are particularly revealed in Hume’s brief description of dissatisfaction with his own account in the Appendix. The primary objective of this paper is to uncover the system of reality underlying Hume’s account of the self, which creates a labyrinth for him, by drawing upon Buddhist ideas and debates regarding the self. (shrink)

Iconicity is a relationship of resemblance between the form and meaning of a sign. Compelling evidence from diverse areas of the cognitive sciences suggests that iconicity plays a pivotal role in the processing, memory, learning, and evolution of both spoken and signed language, indicating that iconicity is a general property of language. However, the language‐specific aspect of iconicity, illustrated by the fact that the meanings of ideophones in an unfamiliar language are hard to guess (e.g., shigeshige ‘staring at something’ in (...) Japanese), remains to be fully investigated. In the present study, native speakers of Japanese and English rated the iconicity and familiarity of Japanese ideophones (e.g., gatagata ‘rattling’, butsubutsu ‘murmuring’) and their English equivalents (e.g., rattle, murmur). Two main findings emerged: (1) individuals generally perceived their native language as more iconic than their non‐native language, replicating the previous findings in signed language, and (2) the familiarity of words in their native language boosted their perceived iconicity. These findings shed a light on the language‐specific, subjective, and acquired nature of iconicity. (shrink)

In the Appendix to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume famously retracts his account of personal identity by confessing that it involves a profound problem he cannot solve, which I have elsewhere identified and called the Bundling Problem. Neither of the two possible solutions that Hume himself considers in the Appendix is a viable option for him by his own lights, which might suggest that any successful account of a unified self must go beyond the empirical framework. In this paper, (...) I argue that we can find a strictly empiricist solution to Hume's problem in William James. I attempt to show that James's descriptions of our experience are phenomenologically more detailed and faithful to how experience is undergone from the first-person perspective, which allows him to explain our belief in an identical, unified self solely on empirical grounds. James finds unity and continuity right in the content of the stream of experience itself. A detailed investigation of James's accounts reveals that Hume's fundamental problem does not stem merely from his lack of empirical resources but, more importantly, from his tacit abandonment of the professed empiricist methodology. (shrink)

1. Ronri to gengo -- 2-3. Imi to yōsō -- 4. Shinri to imi.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

There are remarkable parallels between Hume and Nagarjuna in their denial of substantiality and independence in objects and their subsequent attitude toward our ordinary world. Acknowledging a deep-rooted human tendency to take objects as independent entities, they both argue that there is nothing intrinsic in those objects that make them unitary and independent, and that those characters are, strictly speaking, merely fictitious, mental constructs. They nonetheless affirm the existence of our ordinary world as real. Although their main purposes of the (...) philosophical inquiry are different (epistemological for Hume, and soteriological for Nagarjuna), their accounts of the nature of our world allow us to accept it in the way we ordinarily believe with the deeper understanding of it. It is only in this world where we think, act, and interact with others that an epistemology grounded in human sentiment and experience (for Hume) or humans liberation (for Nagarjuna) is possible. (shrink)

1. Ronri to gengo -- 2-3. Imi to yōsō -- 4. Shinri to imi.

This paper examines the history of Japanese genetics in the 1920s to 1950s as seen through the work of Hitoshi Kihara, a prominent wheat geneticist as well as a leader in the development of the discipline in Japan. As Kihara's career illustrates, Japanese genetics developed quickly in the early twentieth century through interactions with biologists outside Japan. The interactions, however, ceased due to the war in the late 1930s, and Japanese geneticists were mostly isolated from outside information until the late (...) 1940s. During the isolation in wartime and under the postwar U.S. Occupation, Kihara adapted to political changes. During wartime, he developed a research institute focusing on applied biology of various crops, which conformed to the national need to address food scarcity. After the war, he led the campaign for the establishment of a national institute of genetics and negotiated with American Occupation officers. The Americans viewed this Japanese effort with suspicion because of the rising popularity of the controversial theory of the Russian agronomist, Trofim Lysenko, in Japan. The institute was approved in 1949 partly because Kihara was able to bridge the gap between the American and Japanese sides. With Kihara's flexible and generous leadership, Japanese genetics steadily developed, survived the wartime, and recovered quickly in the postwar period. The article discusses Kihara's interest in cytoplasmic inheritance and his synthetic approach to genetics in this political context, and draws attention to the relation between Kihara's genetics and agricultural practice in Japan. (shrink)

The aims of this study were twofold, to: examine the behavior displayed by participants who expected to be nominated for donor roles in dictator games wherein initial endowments of players are determined by lottery and investigate the conduct of donors who were confident in their good fortune in relation to their power as they redistributed the rewards they had gained. Results from a dictator game in which a donor is accorded the absolute power to redistribute initial income and a random (...) dictator game in which both a donor and a recipient declare their redistributive preferences and one of them is selected randomly by a computer were compared. Confident donors made more self-serving redistribution decisions than did unconfident donors in both games, but the difference was clearer in the dictator game. In relation to their preferences exhibited before being informed of their roles, confident donors decreased their redistribution amounts after discovering their roles; the decrements in the dictator game were conspicuously larger than those in the random dictator game. In short, confident donors were greedier than unconfident donors; the difference became more pronounced when their redistributive power was unconditional even though their confidence had no rational basis. (shrink)

二〇世紀、論理学と哲学を横断して起きた「知の革命」。パラドクス・無限・不完全性と完全性・言語と論理・計算機科学と論理学などをキーワードに、論理をめぐる哲学探究の刺激に満ちた現在を、気鋭の著者陣が解説す る。.

Although logical positivism had been known before World War II, it was introduced into academic philosophy in Japan only after it. In this process, the US philosophers who came to Japan in order to participate in American Studies Seminar played an important role. The first generation of Japanese analytic philosophers, who were born in the 1920s and 1930s, began to have some influence in the 1960s, and some of them published original works of high quality in the 1970s. The second (...) generation of analytic philosophers were born in the 1940s and 1950s. They began to teach in the 1970s and 1980s, and went on to publish papers and books in analytic philosophy. For many years, analytic philosophy had been known as kagaku tetsugaku, which may mean either philosophy of science or scientific philosophy. It had been frequently criticized as “non-philosophy.” Analytic philosophy, however, has changed the style of philosophical discussion and made it possible to form a language that is sufficient to express philosophical ideas and arguments in an intelligible way. (shrink)

This study examined the effect of fake news on electoral outcome. Using post-election surveys, previous studies found associations between exposure to fake news and voting behavior, though these observational studies failed to show that these changes were actually caused by fake news. To examine whether fake news really affects voting behavior, we need to experimentally manipulate voters’ exposure to fake news in real elections and see if voters regret their vote choice knowing that the information was false. For this purpose, (...) our study focused on Mexico’s 2018 presidential election, which provided an ideal setting. During the campaign, false information about a scandal allegedly involving Ricardo Anaya, a candidate from the National Action Party, was widely disseminated. However, his innocence was officially acknowledged after the election. Using this correction of fake news as a treatment, we tested a sample of 1,561 individuals to assess whether the retraction of fake news caused post-election regret: would Mexican voters have voted differently if they had not been exposed to such false information. Our multivariate analyses found that the retraction of fake news did cause post-election regret among voters with lower internal political efficacy, but voters associated with higher political knowledge and internal political efficacy were not affected by the retraction and were less likely to experience regret. About 20% of the respondents experienced post-election regret, and of those, about 35% would have switched their vote to Anaya. The findings corroborate lasting effects of fake news, which may have non-negligible effects on electoral outcomes. (shrink)