This paper examines the contents of Koji Fujii’s visit to Europe and the United States and its impact on his later design activities. As a result, the following points were clarified.1. About two ...months of staying in New Jersey and visits to about 40 equipment manufacturers had a major impact on his subsequent activities.2. Fujii was not very interested in the new architectural design of the same era.3. The experience of visiting Europe and the United States influenced the attitude of conducting research using his own house and presenting the research results as an actual house.
This paper demonstrates the following points:1. By the end of the 16th century, thick pillars began to emerge in kuri—meal preparation areas of temples—and kitchens of upper-class dwellings. These ...were known as daikokubashira, likely derived from the name of the guardian deity of a temple’s meal preparation area, Daikokuten. 2. In the early 17th century, thick pillars also appeared in the earthen floors of minka, Japanese vernacular houses of the non-ruling classes, and these were known as daikokubashira. 3. By the 17th century, the daikokubashira had already acquired symbolic meaning.
The empirical study of word learning is driven by a theoretical debate between lexical constraint and social-pragmatic accounts; it has still not been determined which of these two best explains the ...evidence. We investigated whether the markedness of a pointing accompanying a verbal reference could help to learn a part name. Participants were 35 two-and-a-half-year-olds, 42 four-and-a-half-year-olds, and 38 undergraduate university students in Japan. The experimenter pointed to a novel part (embedded in a novel whole object) with either "marked" pointing, which was touching the part with a small circular motion, or with usual pointing. Touch accompanied by circular motion reliably elicited learning of part names in all age groups. Usual distal pointing without motion reliably elicited learning of whole object names. The pattern of findings rejects a whole-object constraint in early word learning and demonstrates that marked pointing can promote learning novel part names, supporting a social-pragmatic account.
This study examined how human–human collaboration can be achieved through an exchange of verbal information in exchanging information about the referents in a joint action. Knowing other people’s ...referential intention is fundamental for joint action. Joint action can be achieved verbally by two types of referring expressions, namely, symbolic and deictic referring expressions. Using corpus data, we extracted nouns as typical symbolic references and demonstratives as typical deictic references. We examined whether the word usage of these terms changed when the robot vehicles controlled by the participants repeatedly performed the same collaborative task. We used a novel virtual space for the task because we wanted to control the common ground shared by the participants. The results of the performance indicate that the task completion became more efficient as the participants repeated the task. The referential word use was reduced in both symbolic and deictic references, and this reduction occurred with a grounding process among the collaborators. The study showed that reduction of referential expressions occurs with the grounding process in human–human collaboration and suggests that appropriate collaborative robot systems must deal with the reduction process of referencing in humans.
Discharge behavior of the Zn negative electrode was investigated to elucidate the effects of Li+ as an additive in Zn batteries. Li+ influenced the dissolution of Zn as well as the formation of ZnO ...(passivation). The dissolution reaction was enhanced by Li+; step-flow dissolution at the Zn surface changed to dissolution from the entire surface. SEM observations of the ZnO formed due to the supersaturation of zincate ions showed morphological changes from acicular crystals to particulate clusters upon introduction of Li+; also, ZnO peaks in XRD patterns decreased. These changes indicated that Li+ suppressed the growth of ZnO, which was caused by the adsorption or incorporation of Li+ into the ZnO crystallites. In situ Raman analysis was carried out to monitor such a difference in the nucleation and growth processes. An E2 mode corresponding to crystalline wurtzite ZnO was dominant in the solution without Li+, while this mode diminished and an E1 (LO) mode corresponding to excess Zn in the interstitial sites of ZnO became strong in the presence of Li+. It was suggested that the Zn excess was introduced due to dominance of nucleation (reactions between zincate species) over the growth process (zincate decomposition at the surface).
Past research has demonstrated that common ground is essential for effective verbal and non-verbal communication. In remote communication, establishing incremental common ground—that is, a common ...ground constructed by the flow of conversation—might be difficult because the speaker cannot sufficiently monitor the listener’s attentional cues. Therefore, in this study, we asked participants to do a route direction task via the remote meeting tool Zoom to investigate the effect of two types of common ground—personal common ground (shared knowledge between speaker and listener) and incremental common ground (shared knowledge through ongoing conversation). We counted the participants’ use of demonstratives (kore, sore, etc.) and gestures (iconic gesture and pointing), as these elements are important for grounding in conversation. Participants produced the greatest number of gestures when both personal and incremental common grounds were firmly established. When a personal common ground was well-established, participants used demonstratives more frequently if the incremental common ground was also firm. The findings suggest that both personal and incremental common grounds influenced participants’ use of gestures and demonstratives, indicating that common ground is essential for online communication.
Male moths discriminate conspecific female‐emitted sex pheromones. Although the chemical components of sex pheromones have been identified in more than 500 moth species, only three components in ...Bombyx mori and Heliothis virescens have had their receptors identified. Here we report the identification of receptors for the main sex‐pheromone components in three moth species, Plutella xylostella, Mythimna separata and Diaphania indica. We cloned putative sex‐pheromone receptor genes PxOR1, MsOR1 and DiOR1 from P. xylostella, M. separata and D. indica, respectively. Each of the three genes was exclusively expressed with an Or83b orthologous gene in male olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) that are surrounded by supporting cells expressing pheromone‐binding‐protein (PBP) genes. By two‐electrode voltage‐clamp recording, we tested the ligand specificity of Xenopus oocytes co‐expressing PxOR1, MsOR1 or DiOR1 with an OR83b family protein. Among the seven sex‐pheromone components of the three moth species, the oocytes dose‐dependently responded only to the main sex‐pheromone component of the corresponding moth species. In our study, PBPs were not essential for ligand specificity of the receptors. On the phylogenetic tree of insect olfactory receptors, the six sex‐pheromone receptors identified in the present and previous studies are grouped in the same subfamily but have no relation with the taxonomy of moths. It is most likely that sex‐pheromone receptors have randomly evolved from ancestral sex‐pheromone receptors before the speciation of moths and that their ligand specificity was modified by mutations of local amino acid sequences after speciation.
The study tested 13 individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 12 individuals with typical development (TD) using video clips that depicted interactions between an adult actor (who played ...the “mother” role) and a child. This study aimed to examine the use of pragmatic and relevant information in terms of ASD traits. The results demonstrated that the number of cues used by the participants differed between the two groups in which 60% of the ASD group used only one cue, whereas the majority of the TD group used multiple cues. We then classified all participants into two groups based on the number of cues used. The results of the cue-based analysis illustrated that the single-cue group looked at the eye area of the “mother” less frequently than did the multiple-cue group. The single-cue group exhibited a higher total AQ score and higher subtest scores. These results suggested that a relationship exists between the use of pragmatic information and ASD traits. Thus, we need to consider that information integration may vary according to the degree of ASD traits.
Anoplophora malasiaca
(Thomson) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is a serious pest that affects various crop trees and landscapes in Japan. We collected and analyzed volatiles from male and female
A. ...malasiaca
. 4-(
n
-Heptyloxy)butan-1-ol and its aldehyde, pheromone components in
A. glabripennis
and
A. chinensis,
were detected in the male volatile extracts and nonanal both in the male and female volatile extracts. Nonanal was absent from the extracts of twigs of the willow host plant. Gas chromatograph-electroantennographic responses showed that nonanal and 4-(
n
-heptyloxy)butan-1-ol elicited responses from both male and female antennae, but 4-(
n
-heptyloxy)butanal did not. Volatiles of eight artificially reared males, analyzed every 3 or 4 days for 60 days from adult emergence showed that they all produced nonanal and 4-(
n
-heptyloxy)butan-1-ol. The two compounds produced no short-range female attraction but in males, the short-range attraction to nonanal was dose dependent and significant in a higher dose, but did not depend on 4-(
n
-heptyloxy)butan-1-ol. When wounded willow twigs were added to nonanal and 4-(
n
-heptyloxy)butan-1-ol, the frequency of male responses was higher than in all other treatments, but the same as wounded willow twigs alone. The wounded host plant willow twigs might thus be enough for male attraction. The identified volatiles from the beetles in the present study might have a weaker function for attraction from the distance compared to their host plant volatiles.
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