In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 50-58 [Access article in PDF] Evolution in Qualitative Factors Used to Evaluate Japanese Students [Tables] Introduction Two basic viewpoints are typically taken in the evaluation of achievement in Japanese schools: either the focus is primarily on "field-content-basedevaluation" or on "ability-concept-based evaluation." I have compared the qualitative factors encompassed by these two viewpoints as reflected in the permanent school records of Japanese students. (...) These recordsinclude classes taken, grades earned, and school-related information. Kanten (in Japanese) has become a key word in the evaluation of academic achievement in Japan. It represents the qualitative factors that should be considered when evaluating a student's learning achievements. In this essay, I review how these qualitative factors have evolved, both for general subjects and for fine arts.From the beginning of the educational system (1872) to 1938, the "assessment" [Hyoutei] of a student depended on the comprehensiveness of the student's achievement in each subject. (Overall assessments are now usually made using a three-point scale; 1-3, a five-point scale; 1-5, or an ABC scale.) However, it was not clearly specified how scholastic ability and learning accomplishment should be assessed or which qualitative factors should be considered.Starting in 1941, teachers were required to evaluate, comprehensively assess, and record the student's learning, consideration, dealing, application, skill, appreciation, practice, and learning attitude through his or her daily learning and activity. 1 The factors seem to be basically equivalent to those recently used as "interest/aspiration/attitude," "thinking," "judgment," [End Page 50] and "expressive power." After 1941, the point of view in the area of fine arts gradually changed from focusing on the "field-content-based factor" to the "ability-concept-based factor" in both the educational content and in evaluation.This report focuses on the evolution in the qualitative factors used in evaluations in the postwar era. From 1949 to 1991 "Understanding," "attitude," and "skill" were specified as factors that shouldbe considered when evaluating a student's learning achievements in 1949. For a few years, these factors were considered independently in the non-referenced evaluation of five-point ratings. The two basic viewpoints, "field-content-based factor" and "ability-concept-based factor," coexisted in the course of study in the early 1950s, according to a tentative plan published in 1951. "Attitude" and "habits" carried the same weight as "understanding" and "skill." These factors received minimal attention at the elementary school level. Evaluations thus evolved from simply an overall assessment of the student's achievement in a subject to an assessment of these specific factors. For instance, at the elementary school level, drawing and handicrafts both had factors related to "field content difference" (for example, drawing, color, and pattern) and to "ability concept difference" (for example, attitude and habit). At the junior high level, the factors were represented by a double-layer structure (Table 1). The elements underlined in Table 1 reflect on the "ability concept difference" (for example, expression activities and understanding activities) instead on the "field content difference." Following the revision of the permanent cumulative records in 1955, students were evaluated based only on an overall assessment of their individual [End Page 51] performance in each subject (Japanese language, mathematics, social studies, music, and drawing and handicrafts). There were three main reasons for this change.The effort it takes to evaluate each factor analytically. The difficulty of evaluating "attitude." The demand by schools at the next level for a comprehensive and uniform evaluation for each student for each subject. 3Furthermore, although "interest" was added as one of factors to be considered in the evaluation, it was not to be dealt with analytically in the evaluation of what the student learned. Consequently, evaluations became clearer and more comprehensive, although the weights of the factors, referred to as the "affective domain," took a step backward. In 1961, the factor "interest/attitude toward fine arts" was added. At the same time, "interest" was given more weight. However, the higher weighting of the factor was short-lived because intangible factors such as... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 1-3 [Access article in PDF] Symposium:Aesthetic Education in Japan TodayThe purpose of this symposium is to provide readers with a general understanding of Japanese art and aesthetics education and its interaction with other cultures. The essays cover a variety of topics, including historical, cross-cultural, theoretical, and practical perspectives.First, the development and establishment of art education in the Japanese education system is introduced. (...) Kingo Masuda's essay provides a brief history of art education policy and how a formal system of art education has been organized from the modern era to the present. Takuya Kaneda examines the foundation for the historical evolution of the major reform movements in Japanese art education. He focuses on the philosophies of three pioneers who guided the movements and sheds light on to the role that "freedom" has played in the context of aesthetic education. Their historical studies show how the modern Japanese educational system incorporated the Western notion of art education into its foundation. Western art educators have given Japanese art educators the impetus to modernize the theory and practice of art education.The attempt to go beyond the modern framework of arts and aesthetic education is discussed in some authors' essays. Yoko Hino examines a key educational term, "Creative Play (Zokei Asobi)," and points out the dilemma educators face working within the modern framework that divides subject matter completely from individuality. Yasuaki Okamoto, in his philosophical essay, discusses the change in the nature of self-understanding in theage of media expansion. His point is that our sense of reality is no longer confined to physical existence, and that media provides us with a new kind of experience of self and reality. Kinichi Fukumoto illustrates the essential structure of art education with the metaphor of Disneyland, and emphasizes art education as an incomplete, further evolving project. Motoki Nagamori discusses Rousseau's concept of nature as a foundation for modern theory and practice of art education and suggests an alternative concept that incorporates cultural, linguistic, and media aspects. Based on a historical study on evaluation methods, Kazumi Yamada suggests that qualitative factors should play a significant role for improving art education.Some authors emphasize the current concern for integrating art with other disciplines in order to alter our understanding about aesthetic education. [End Page 1] Advocating for the integration of art and media literacy based on the educational principles of the Bauhaus, Kenta Motomura explores the possibility of media technology for a new type of expression. Kazuhiro Ishizaki and Wenchun Wang describe their cross-cultural study on children's aesthetic development to stress the importance of the communal, cultural, and linguistic considerations of integrated study, historically overlooked in traditional aesthetic education. Focusing on blending music and visual arts, Masashi Okada introduces his theory and practice of integrated study developed over many years.In addition, globalization and its effect on art education has become an important topic. Engaging in a cross-cultural dialogue is a critical part of this issue. Akio Okazaki discusses what Arthur Wesley Dow, an Americanart educator, recognized and learned by encountering the otherness of Japanese art. Yoshimasa Kaneko's study shows how Japanese aesthetics and Johannes Itten (the founder of Ittenschule in Germany) had a significant philosophical influence on each other. Toshio Naoe's comparativestudy between Japanese and British educational systems highlights somecrucial differences and similarities and points out overarching themes across the two countries. Mitsuru Fujie compares and contrasts the different educational meanings of "play" between Japan and the United States, and articulates the nature of play in the context of Japanese art education. Masako Iwano's study describes a case of cross-cultural aesthetic education in a small Japanese community and how this cultural interaction through art impacts that community.The perspectives of all of these authors are decidedly international. They are not only committed to, and engaged directly in, the current practice of Japanese education but have developed an international viewpoint through experiences overseas. Some have conducted research at educational institutions in other countries, and others have participated in the activities of international professional... (shrink)

The teikei movement is a Japanese version of the alternative food movement, which emerged around the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similar to now well-known Community Supported Agriculture, it is a farmer-consumer partnership that involves direct exchanges of organic foods. It also aims to build a community that coexists with the natural environment through mutually supportive relationships between farmers and consumers. This article examined the history of the teikei movement. The movement began as a reaction to negative impacts of mechanized (...) and chemically intensive agriculture promoted by the Japanese government. The movement experienced a rapid expansion in the early 1980s, and then gradually declined thereafter. The organic market expansion and certification system intersected with both cultural and gender role changes, impacting the teikei movement negatively. Consequently, the membership of teikei consumer groups has shrunk. Furthermore, the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident caused unprece dented damage to organic farmers in the affected regions. Despite the scientific uncertain about the safety level of radiation exposure, the organic farmers and the teikei consumer groups managed the situation and found a way to inspect radiation contamination. They did so with the support by networking with other teikei-related actors. This response to the nuclear power plant accident suggests that although the level of embeddedness presumably varies among teikei actors, ethics guided by the teikei principles are effective in forging a resilient partnership between farmers and consumers and in keeping the teikei system alive as an agent for social change. (shrink)

One prominent feature of belief is that a belief cannot be formed at will. This paper argues that the best explanation of this fact is that belief formation is a process that takes aim at the truth. Taking aim at the truth is to be understood as causal responsiveness of the processes constituting belief formation to what facilitates achieving true beliefs. The requirement for this responsiveness precludes the possibility of belief formation responding to intentions in a way that would count (...) as forming a belief at will. (shrink)

In this paper, illocutionary acts of commanding will be differentiated from perlocutionary acts that affect preferences of addressees in a new dynamic logic which combines the preference upgrade introduced in DEUL (dynamic epistemic upgrade logic) by van Benthem and Liu with the deontic update introduced in ECL II (eliminative command logic II) by Yamada. The resulting logic will incorporate J. L. Austin’s distinction between illocutionary acts as acts having mere conventional effects and perlocutionary acts as acts having real effects (...) upon attitudes and actions of agents, and help us understand why saying so can make it so in explicit performative utterances. We will also discuss how acts of commanding give rise to so-called “deontic dilemmas” and how we can accommodate most deontic dilemmas without triggering so-called “deontic explosion”. (shrink)

An autonomous agent in the real world should learn its own sensor-motor coordination through interactions with the environment; otherwise the behaviors can not be grounded and they can easily be inappropriate in the variety of the environment. The sensor-motor signals are usually complex time sequence, therefore the cognitive action system of the agent has to handle them.In this paper, we propose a computational model of the cognitive action system that consists of a sensor space HMM-SOM, a motor space HMM-SOM and (...) connection mapping between the two HMM-SOMs. A HMM-SOM can be recognized as a set of HMMs that are placed in a SOM space. It can model a set of complex time series signal in a self-organizing manner.We apply this HMM-SOM based cognitive action system on vision-motion and auditory-articulation signals. The experimental results show that this system is basically capable of constructing sensor-motor coordination structure in a self-organizing manner, handling complex time series signals. (shrink)

Ben shu ji shu le ri ben xian xian er gong zun de de si xiang he shi ji,Nei rong bao kuo:er gong jia de shi fa,Fu bu jia de shi fa,Ying ding de shi fa,Qing mu cun de shi fa,Wu shan de shi fa,Xiao tian yuan shi fa,Xiang dou di qu de shi fa,Xia guan shi fa deng.

In this paper, we propose an annotated logic program called aVALPSN to dealwith defeasible reasoning. We propose a translation from Billington’s defeasible theory into VALPSN and clarify the relation between them based onthe translation.

SOCREAL 2007: International Workshop on Philosophy and Ethics of Social Reality. Sapporo, Japan, 2007-03-09/10. Session 2: Logical Dynamics of Social Interaction.

A dialectical contradiction can be appropriately described within the framework of classical formal logic. It is in harmony with the law of noncontradiction. According to our definition, two theories make up a dialectical contradiction if each of them is consistent and their union is inconsistent. It can happen that each of these two theories has an intended model. Plenty of examples are to be found in the history of science.

Crispin Wright in his 1982 paper argues for strict finitism, a constructive standpoint that is more restrictive than intuitionism. In its appendix, he proposes models of strict finitistic arithmetic. They are tree-like structures, formed in his strict finitistic metatheory, of equations between numerals on which concrete arithmetical sentences are evaluated. As a first step towards classical formalisation of strict finitism, we propose their counterparts in the classical metatheory with one additional assumption, and then extract the propositional part of ‘strict finitistic (...) logic’ from it and investigate. We will provide a sound and complete pair of a Kripke-style semantics and a sequent calculus, and compare with other logics. The logic lacks the law of excluded middle and Modus Ponens and is weaker than classical logic, but stronger than any proper intermediate logics in terms of theoremhood. In fact, all the other well-known classical theorems are found to be theorems. Finally, we will make an observation that models of this semantics can be seen as nodes of an intuitionistic model. (shrink)

Approximately one in two hundred persons in the Marshall Islands have active tuberculosis. We examine the historical antecedents of this situation in order to assign ethical responsibility for the present situation. Examining the antecedents in terms of Galtung’s dialectic of personal versus structural violence, we can identify instances in the history of the Marshall Islands when individual subjects made decisions with large-scale ecologic, social, and health consequences. The roles of medical experimenters, military commanders, captains of the weapons industry in particular, (...) and industrial capitalism in general are examined. In that, together with Lewontin, we also identify industrial capitalism as the cause of tuberculosis, we note that the distinction between personal versus structural violence is difficult to maintain. By identifying the cause of the tuberculosis in the Marshall Islands, we also identify what needs be done to treat and prevent it. (shrink)

We present an annotation scheme describing the argument structure of judgement documents, a central construct in Japanese law. To support the final goal of this work, namely summarisation aimed at the legal professions, we have designed blueprint models of summaries of various granularities, and our annotation model in turn is fitted around the information needed for the summaries. In this paper we report results of a manual annotation study, showing that the annotation is stable. The annotated corpus we created contains (...) 89 documents. We also designed and implemented the first two stages of an algorithm for the automatic extraction of argument structure, and present evaluation results. (shrink)

Analyses of the role of technological development in agriculture are central to an understanding of social change in agri-food systems. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the formation of a broader perspective of how farmers are positioning themselves with respect to controversial agricultural technologies through an empirical analysis of Washington State farmers’ willingness or unwillingness to try Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) technology on their farms. The use of this type of biotechnology in farming has been criticized for (...) its potential harmful effects on natural environments and socio-cultural systems, while proponents highlight the possibilities for increasing production with minimal use of other inputs. An analysis of the extent of farmers’ expressed willingness to use GMOs provides an opportunity to better understand how their diverse thoughts about controversial agricultural technologies are shaped not only by their own experiences but also by social context. The present study does this by analyzing data from a farm survey conducted on a random sample of farmers from across Washington State. The results show that the production practices farmers utilize and the market strategies they employ may be at least as useful as farmers’ socio-economic characteristics in explaining what types of farmers appear to be more or less interested in potentially using this technology. Furthermore, the relationship between level of formal education and willingness to use GMOs is not straightforward. It may hide differences between farmers with respect to where and how they received their formal education as well as the type(s) of knowledge they gained. It is argued that future research should recognize the diversity that exists in farmers’ interests vis-á-vis particular technologies and should also explore how these interests are shaped by farmers’ past and present social networks and life experiences. (shrink)

全国各地で活躍した近江商人の優れた経営手腕や活動の根底には、仏教があった。近江商人と成功に導いた、特有の生活態度を考察する。.

This paper considers fair betting odds for certain bets that might be placed in the situation discussed in the so-called Sleeping Beauty Problem. This paper examines what Thirders, Halfers, and Double Halfers must say about the odds as determined by various decision theoretic approaches and argues that Thirders and Halfers have difficulties formulating plausible and coherent positions concerning the relevant betting odds. Double Halfers do not face this problem and that is an important consideration in favor of Double Halfers.

SOCREAL 2010: 2nd International Workshop on Philosophy and Ethics of Social Reality. Sapporo, Japan, 2010-03-27/28. Keynote Lecture 3.

『哲学探究』以後、最晩期に独立した地位を与える。ウィトゲンシュタインの知識の哲学。.

In his “A new argument for evidentialism” (Shah, Philos Q 56(225): 481–498, 2006 ), Nishi Shah argues that the best explanation of a feature of deliberation whether to believe that p which he calls transparency entails that only evidence can be reason to believe that p. I show that his argument fails because a crucial lemma that his argument appeals to cannot be supported without assuming evidentialism to be true in the first place.

Backgrounds: Transcranial direct current stimulation is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique for the treatment of several psychiatric disorders, e.g., mood disorders and schizophrenia. Therapeutic effects of tDCS are suggested to be produced by bi-directional changes in cortical activities, i.e., increased/decreased cortical excitability via anodal/cathodal stimulation. Although tDCS provides a promising approach for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, its neurobiological mechanisms remain to be explored.Objectives: To review recent findings from neurophysiological, chemical, and brain-network studies, and consider how tDCS ameliorates psychiatric conditions.Findings: (...) Enhancement of excitatory synaptic transmissions through anodal tDCS stimulation is likely to facilitate glutamate transmission and suppress gamma-aminobutyric acid transmission in the cortex. On the other hand, it positively or negatively modulates the activities of dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine transmissions in the central nervous system. These neural events by tDCS may change the balance between excitatory and inhibitory inputs. Specifically, multi-session tDCS is thought to promote/regulate information processing efficiency in the cerebral cortical circuit, which induces long-term potentiation by synthesizing various proteins.Conclusions: This review will help understand putative mechanisms underlying the clinical benefits of tDCS from the perspective of neurotransmitters, network dynamics, intracellular events, and related modalities of the brain function. (shrink)