Researchers are able to estimate what subjects attend to by using eye tracking systems. Existing approaches for analyzing eye movements are very useful to estimate attention to still objects. But they are inadequate to estimate attention to moving objects, although paying attention to moving objects is usual human behavior. Thus, we propose a novel approach and algorithm to estimate attention to moving objects more precisely. Our approach is to extract "eye tracking movements". We phrase both saccadic eye movements and smooth (...) pursuit eye movements as "eye tracking movements". Because previous works reveal that humans often track a moving object by the eye movements when they pay attention to the object, our approach seems to be appropriate. Our algorithm used for extracting eye tracking movements is called Path Stitching (PS) algorithm. The PS algorithm is a kind of Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) discovery algorithms using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) as a similarity measurement procedure. Eye tracking movements can be regarded as a situation that a subsequence of eye movements' trajectory is similar to a subsequence of the target's trajectory with a small or no time-difference. Because humans track a moving object by the eye movements with locally fluctuated time difference, we think the use of DTW is very appropriate. In addition, to make outputs more comprehensible, we employ the LCS discovery approach for the PS algorithm. The experimental results show that the PS algorithm is more able to extract eye tracking movements than the fixation extracting approach. The fixation extracting approach is the most popular and the strongest approach to analyze eye movements. Therefore, we conclude that our novel approach will advance the analysis of human behavior by the eye movements and human-computer interaction systems they utilize user's eye movements. (shrink)

The activity of the left and right central pattern generators is efficiently coordinated during locomotion. To achieve this coordination, the interplay between the CPG controlling one leg and that controlling another must be present. Previous findings in aquatic vertebrates and mammalians suggest that the alternate activation of the left and right CPGs is mediated by the commissural interneurons crossing the midline of the spinal cord. Especially, V0 commissural interneurons mediate crossed inhibition during the alternative activity of the left and right (...) CPGs. Even in humans, phase-dependent modulation of the crossed afferent inhibition during gait has been reported. Based on those previous findings, crossed inhibition of the CPG in one leg side caused by the activation of the contralateral CPG is a possible mechanism underlying the coordination of the anti-phase rhythmic movement of the legs. It has been hypothesized that the activity of the flexor half center in the CPG inhibits the contralateral flexor half center, but crossed inhibition of the extensor half center is not present because of the existence of the double limb support during gait. Nevertheless, previous findings on the phase-dependent crossed inhibition during anti-phase bilateral movement of the legs are not in line with this hypothesis. For example, extensor activity caused crossed inhibition of the flexor half center during bilateral cycling of the legs. In another study, the ankle extensor was inhibited at the period switching from extension to flexion during anti-phase rhythmic movement of the ankles. In this review article, I provide a critical discussion about crossed inhibition mediating the coordination of the anti-phase bilateral rhythmic movement of the legs. (shrink)

320年あまり続く不変不滅の「先用後利」は、いかに生まれ、いかに「富の山」を築いたか。仕事スタイルを一新する「完全な商人」の物語。.

This study posits that Bohr failed to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality against Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen’s paper. Although there are many papers in the literature that focus on Bohr’s argument in his reply to the EPR paper, the purpose of the current paper is not to clarify Bohr’s argument. Instead, I contend that regardless of which interpretation of Bohr’s argument is correct, his defense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality remained incomplete. For example, a (...) recent trend in studies of Bohr’s work is to suggest he considered the wave-function description to be epistemic. However, such an interpretation cannot be used to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description. (shrink)

The prevailing model for encouraging innovation based on patents and market-oriented raises at least two economic and ethical issues: it imposes barriers on individuals and developing countries governments' access to medicines by defining prices that do not match their income, and the unavailability of new or appropriate products to address the health problems of these populations. In the last decade, this scenario has undergone some changes due to the emergence of new actors, the contribution of aid resources, the introduction to (...) the market of new products against neglected diseases, the development of new governmental healthcare policies and research programs, etc. One example of such initiatives is the Fixed-Dose Artesunate Combination Therapy (FACT) project consortium, which brought together institutions with different natures from both the North and the South, for the development of two antimalarial fixed-dose combinations recommended by the WHO – artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) and artesunate-mefloquine (ASMQ). This paper proposes to describe and analyze the ASMQ consortium, which is the result of a new pharmaceutical development approach, based on a different paradigm – needs-driven instead of market-driven –, collaborative, with strategic participation of institutions from the South, funded by alternative resources (public and philanthropic). Thus, it represents an interesting object of study for bioethical debates on intellectual property and innovation, and its analysis is justified in light of the current debate on ways of stimulating needs-driven pharmaceutical innovation. (shrink)

The Miyashita experiments are very interesting and the results should be examined from a viewpoint of attractor dynamics. Amit's target article shows a path toward realistic modeling by artificial neural networks (ANN), but it is not necessarily the only one. I introduce another model that can explain a substantial part of the empirical observations and makes an interesting prediction. This model consists of such units that have nonmonotonic input-output characteristics with local inhibition neurons.

近世儒学思想史のなかで大塩平八郎に至る陽明学思想により、礼教的教養主義から仁政的政治学へと転換した思想的経緯や、神儒仏などの混交的思想からなる庶民思想と位置づけられてきた石田梅岩『都鄙問答』の思想的基 層が陽明学から構成されていたことなど、近世思想史研究に一石を投ずる問題作から構成。.

大塩思想はどのように語られ、大塩、ルソー、譚詞同、中江兆民と比較したときに分かったことなど、大塩研究の新局面を拓く論考。.

Parable is a literary genre. The knowledge of a literary parable makes us cognizant of the use of a technique used by the great philosophers to make known or transfer new ideas by making analogies or putting on one side a known fact to communicate a new or something incomprehensible. Jesus used the parable constantly, in his preaching and in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven.

We consider the problem of fair allocation in economies with indivisible goods. Our primary concept is that of an envy-free allocation, that is, an allocation such that no agent would prefer anyone else's bundle to his own. Since there typically is a large set (a continuum) of such allocations, the need arises to identify well-behaved selections from the no-envy solution. First we establish the non-existence of ‘population monotonic’ selections. Then we propose a variety of selections motivated by intuitive considerations of (...) fairness. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel argument for fatalism: if one accepts the logical possibility of fatalism, one must accept that fatalism is true. This argument has a similar structure to the ‘knowability paradox’, which proves that if every truth can be known by someone, then every truth is known by someone. In this paper, what I mean by ‘fatalism’ is that whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Existing arguments for fatalism assume that the principle of (...) bivalence holds even for future propositions, that past truths are necessarily true, and/or that possible propositions never change into impossible propositions. However, my argument does not assume such premises. It assumes only the logical possibility of fatalism. Here, what I mean by ‘fatalism is logically possible’ is that there is at least one possible world where whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Since this assumption is weak (thus is plausible), I believe it to be much stronger than the existing arguments for fatalism. In addition, I also show that what will happen in the future is determined now. (shrink)

偶然を「運命」として生きる生き方とは何か。九鬼周造が哲学的思索の果てにたどりついた世界観を明らかにする。.