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The project of world-making is carried out not only by professional world-makers, such as designers, architects, and manufacturers. We are all participants in this project through various decisions and judgments we make in our everyday life. Aesthetics has a surprisingly significant role to play in this regard, though not sufficiently recognized by ourselves or aestheticians. This paper first illustrates how our seemingly innocuous and trivial everyday aesthetic considerations have serious consequences which determine the quality of life and the state of the world, for better or worse. This power of the aesthetic should be harnessed to direct our cumulative and collective enterprise toward better world-making. Against objections to introducing a normative dimension to everyday aesthetics, I argue for the necessity of doing so and draw an analogy between everyday aesthetics and art-centered aesthetics which has dominated modern Western aesthetics discourse.

We predicted the energy balance (EB) of Holstein cows in Japan from milk traits obtained by herd testing. Records covered 156 lactations of 102 cows. The number of artificial inseminations was highest, and the first conception rate was lowest in the low-EB group. Four prediction models were developed-for the whole lactation and for the early, middle, and late stages of lactation-with 20 variables, covering days in milk (DIM), milk yield, and milk composition traits. The actual and predicted EB means agreed well within DIM classes; the means of the residuals were smaller in the lactation stage models than in the all-lactation model, but the standard deviations (SDs) of the residuals were similar among models. After data reduction, the SDs of the residuals for 100 iterations were1 throughout lactation in both types of models when n = 100. After model reduction, including the daily change of milk yield as a variable minimized the SDs of the residuals. Our equations for herd-level EB prediction have potential for use in genetic evaluation.

From fussing over your personal appearance to digging in the garden, Yuriko Saito shows us how we can improve the quality of everyday life by sharpening our aesthetic sensibility. Introducing us to the unseen assumptions and ideals guiding our daily actions and routines, Saito redirects our aesthetic focus back on objects, environments, and activities and away from the fine arts that have dominated Western discussions, opening the door to Chinese and Japanese ways of thinking about aesthetics. Using examples and situations we all recognise, Saito identifies core questions lying at the heart of the subject, such as: • How do you make informed, well-considered aesthetic judgements? • Are aesthetic experiences always gained as a spectator contemplating an object? • Can you gain aesthetic experience when you take part in an activity? By revealing how paying aesthetic attention to day-to-day matters impacts everything from how we hang laundry or weigh up the environmental consequences of eating meat, this introduction teaches us how we can enrich our understanding of philosophy and everyday life when we expand our aesthetic experience.

What can philosophy reveal about painting and how might it deepen our understanding of this enduring art form? Philosophy of Painting investigates the complex relationship between the painted surface and the depicted subject, opening up current debates to address questions concerning the historicality of art. Embracing contemporary painting, it examines topics such as the post-medium condition and the digital divide, and the work of artists such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Amy Sillman and Katharina Grosse. Illustrated with 24 colour plates and highly readable throughout, Philosophy of Painting provides a philosophically rigorous defence of the relevance of painting in the 21st century, making an original contribution to the major ideas informing painting as an art. Here is a clear and coherent account of the contemporary significance of painting and the pressures and possibilities that distinguish it from other art forms.

Article Summary Everyday aesthetics developed as a challenge to art-centred aesthetics that dominated the twentieth century Western discourse. It aims to restore aesthetics to a study of sense and sensibility by following the original Greek term, aisthesis. The arena of aesthetics understood this way includes all sensory modes involved in perception, everything the experiencing agents interact with in their daily life, and the diverse qualities that characterise the nature of the resultant affective experiences. These expanding reaches of aesthetics raise many issues and challenges. One controversy regards whether people can experience their mundane everyday life understood in its very ordinariness or whether it needs to be transformed into something special. Some emphasise that everyday aesthetics is continuous with art-centric aesthetics while others hold that experiencing the ordinary as ordinary defines everyday aesthetics as a new field of enquiry. Some criticise everyday aesthetics for what they regard as an overly zealous inclusion of those affective qualities generated in response to popular culture and negative qualities in life and environment. Despite their perceived inability to elevate one’s aesthetic sophistication and refinement, advocates in support of diversifying aesthetic experiences maintain that these qualities’ unavoidable presence in everyone’s lives deserves attention because of their significant impact on the quality of life and society. Everyday aesthetics is also criticised for deviating from the object-centred aesthetics by including atmosphere, social interactions, and activities experienced from within, thereby jeopardising intersubjectivity. Everyday aesthetics responds by pointing out that actively doing things and sharing those experiences constitute a large part of living, and aesthetic attentiveness is indispensable to the practice of good life.

This paper reports research results of the proposed experiential learning using a game-based educational material. The educational material was an application running on a mobile device and was supported for learners to study university library instruction. During the experiential learning, the learners answered several quizzes provided from the educational material. The quizzes were including experiential contents such as actually to find an academic journal or to reserve a learning room. In order to evaluate learning effectiveness of the experiential learning, this research made a comparative experiment. The experimental group used the educational material and the control group used another educational material of e-learning (non-experiential) but the contents was almost same as the contents of the experiential learning. The comparative experiment took several evaluation elements such as pre-/post-test scores, delayed-test scores and learning motivation scores based on IMMS of ARCS model. The experimental results revealed that experiential learning was superior for the several elements of these metrics. This research, furthermore, analyzed learner's operation data to the educational material and learner's behavior data during the learning in the experimental group. The analyzing results showed three types of the learning behaviors and indicated that an instructor needs to adopt suitable instructional design to each type to bring superior learning effectiveness.

It was previously revealed that Wnt signaling is activated in mesothelioma cells. Although epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is expressed in mesothelioma cells, EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are not effective for mesothelioma treatment. However, in non-small cell lung cancer, the blocking of Wnt signaling has been identified to enhance the anticancer effect of EGFR-TKIs. To confirm the anticancer effect of blocking Wnt signaling in combination with EGFR-TKI treatment in mesothelioma, the present study evaluated the effect of simultaneous suppression of human dishevelled-3 (Dvl-3) expression with Dvl-3 small interfering RNA (siRNA) and of EGFR inhibition with gefitinib on mesothelioma cell viability. Mesothelioma cell lines with and without β-catenin gene expression were transfected with Dvl-3 siRNA and were cultured with gefitinib, and cell viability, colony formation and cell cycle analyses were performed. Dvl-3 siRNA downregulated the expression of Dvl-3 in mesothelioma cells. The combination of Dvl-3 siRNA with gefitinib acted synergistically to induce concomitant suppression of cell viability and colony formation, suggesting that inhibition of Wnt signaling by downregulating Dvl-3 with siRNA and inhibiting EGFR with gefitinib leads to significant antitumor effects.

In mouse development, differentiation of the inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE) during the transition from the morula to blastocyst stage is regulated by the Hippo pathway; however, the functions of the Hippo pathway in porcine embryogenesis have not been investigated. In the present study, we examined the gene expression patterns of the Hippo pathway members yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) and large tumor suppressor 2 (LATS2) and the functions of these genes during porcine preimplantation development using RNA interference. Both YAP1 and LATS2 mRNA levels were shown high in the in vitro matured oocytes and 1-cell stage embryos and fell progressively with development. YAP1 nuclear localization was detected at the morula and blastocyst stages. Downregulation of either YAP1 or LATS2 inhibited porcine preimplantation development and affected the expression levels of POU class 5 homeobox 1 (OCT-4) and SRY-related HMG-box gene 2 (SOX2), transcription factors necessary for the ICM/TE differentiation. Taken together, YAP1 and LATS2 are essential for porcine preimplantation development, and it is possible that the Hippo pathway has important roles in porcine ICM/TE segregation.

We present infrared K'- (2.1 micron) and L'-band (3.8 micron) high-spatial-resolution (2 micron are used that should be sensitive to buried AGNs due to small dust extinction effects. For ULIRGs with resolved multiple nuclear K'-band emission, we estimate the activation of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at individual galaxy nuclei in the form of AGN luminosity normalized by SMBH mass inferred from host galaxy stellar luminosity. We confirm a trend that more massive SMBHs in K'-band brighter primary galaxy nuclei are generally more active, with higher SMBH-mass-normalized AGN luminosity than less massive SMBHs in K'-band fainter secondary galaxy nuclei, as predicted by numerical simulations of gas-rich major galaxy mergers. In two sources, the presence of even infrared elusive extremely deeply buried AGNs is indicated by comparisons with available (sub)millimeter data. Non-synchronous SMBH activation (i.e., less activation of less massive SMBHs) and the possible presence of such infrared elusive AGNs may be responsible for the small fraction of infrared-detected luminous dual AGNs in nearby merging ULIRGs., 29 pages, 6 Figures (preprint style). Accepted for publication in ApJ. Resolutions of some figures are degraded

One mission of everyday aesthetics is to unearth hidden potentials behind the façade of ordinariness that makes up our daily lives. The art of living includes cultivating a capacity and sensibility to shed light on the all-too-familiar and to be able to derive a fresh aesthetic experience. Enriching individual lives in this way is one important role of everyday aesthetics....

Capturing the realm of everyday aesthetics requires a wide net. The defamiliarized familiar certainly is its major ingredient. However, everyday aesthetics contains diverse modes of experience beyond defamiliarziation. The familiar experienced as familiar, often yielding a sense of comforting security and stability while at other times felt as sheer drudgery, also comprises an important dimension of everyday aesthetics. The only aspect of daily life that does not belong to everyday aesthetics is inattentiveness, as it prevents one from having any ‘experience’ to speak of. Everyday aesthetics thus embraces a rich array of different experiences, sometimes by turning the ordinary into something extraordinary, while at other times illuminating the familiar texture of daily life, and at other times exposing instances of negative aesthetics in everyday experience.

As one of the most mundane aspects of daily life, laundry rarely garners aesthetic attention. However, this practical chore turns out to contain numerous aesthetic considerations beyond ensuring hygiene and cleanliness. Furthermore, the aesthetics of laundry is not limited to the sensuous appearance of the laundered items. The activity of laundering also has aesthetic dimensions, including bodily engagement, imaginative camaraderie with women across cultural and historical boundaries, satisfaction with the tangible expression of love for the family, and appreciation of the outdoor environment when hanging laundry. Finally, the consequences of the aesthetics of laundry extend beyond personal experiences. Namely, the appearance of clothing is often regarded as a reflection of one’s moral character, and the ‘eyesore’ effect of outdoor laundry hanging leads to its prohibition in some communities in the United States.

Everyday aesthetics is becoming established as a subdiscipline of aesthetics. In one sense, it is ironic that such a subdiscipline be created anew, because neither the original Greek meaning of the term aesthesis nor Baumgarten’s formulation of aesthetics as a discourse regarding senses excluded any dimensions of our lives from deliberation. Furthermore, until about a century ago, the subject matters of aesthetics in the Western philosophical tradition ranged from natural objects and phenomena, built structures, utilitarian objects, and human actions, to what is today regarded as fine arts....

Despite the charge of triviality and insignificance, everyday aesthetics has a surprisingly powerful impact on the quality of life and the state of the world, for better or worse. From popular attraction to certain natural creatures, landscapes, and fashionable consumer goods to rejection of ‘inglorious’ fresh produce and landscaping with indigenous plants, this power of everyday aesthetics leads to environmental consequences, promotes nationalism, and exacerbates rampant consumerism. Aesthetics is also a vehicle through which to express moral virtues or lack thereof, such as respect, thoughtfulness, and care toward the other, whether it be an object or a human being. By exploring these examples, this chapter demonstrates how everyday aesthetics makes a significant contribution to humanity’s collective, cumulative, and ongoing project of world-making.

Art is the most effective vehicle for unearthing and highlighting the aesthetic potentials of the everyday life that generally do not garner attention because of their ubiquitous presence and ordinary familiarity. Recent art projects, termed ‘sky art’ for the purpose of discussion in this chapter, illuminate the aesthetics of the sky and celestial phenomena. This chapter analyzes several examples of ‘sky art’ by utilizing the notion of ‘emptiness,’ deriving an inspiration from the identical Chinese character used for both ‘sky’ and ‘emptiness,’ as well as the Buddhist notion of ‘emptiness.’ Despite the connotation of ‘emptiness’ that is devoid of any content or substance, different ways in which sky art facilitates the act of ‘emptying’ enrich the aesthetic experience of the sky and sky art. Sky art thus illustrates how art helps turn the otherwise ordinary into the extraordinary and facilitates its aesthetic appreciation.

This chapter argues for the importance of cultivating aesthetic literacy and vigilance, as well as practicing aesthetic expressions of moral virtues. In light of the considerable power of the aesthetic to affect, sometimes determine, people’s choices, decisions, and actions in daily life, everyday aesthetics discourse has a social responsibility to guide its power toward enriching personal life, facilitating respectful and satisfying interpersonal relationships, creating a civil and humane society, and ensuring the sustainable future. As an aesthetics discourse, its distinct domain unencumbered by these life concerns needs to be protected. At the same time, denying or ignoring the connection with them decontextualizes and marginalizes aesthetics. Aesthetics is an indispensable instrument for assessing and improving the quality of life and the state of the world, and it behooves everyday aesthetics discourse to reclaim its rightful place and to actively engage with the world-making project.

As one of the sustainable forms of energy production, wind farms are becoming increasingly prevalent, changing the global landscapes and seascapes. They are often met with resistance, primarily because of their presumed ‘eyesore’ effect. This chapter reviews several arguments based upon imagination and comparison to art that are intended to mitigate the negative aesthetic impact of wind farms. It concludes that the most promising aesthetic argument in support of wind farms must be a part of a larger aesthetics of sustainability informed by life values, sometimes referred to as the ‘thick’ sense of aesthetics. At the same time, life values, such as sustainability, cannot by themselves determine the aesthetic values, since purely sensuous, ‘thin,’ considerations, such as colors, shapes, and spatial arrangements, constitute the core of aesthetic values. Most importantly, aesthetic disputes involving public space call for civic environmentalism: empowerment and inclusion of those whose aesthetic lives are affected.

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subtype α4β2 is considered important in the regulation of attention and memory, and cholinergic degeneration is known as one pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease. Brain amyloid-β protein deposition is also a key pathological marker of Alzheimer's disease. Recent amyloid-β imaging has shown many cognitively normal subjects with amyloid-β deposits, indicating a missing link between amyloid-β deposition and cognitive decline. To date, the relationship between the α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and amyloid-β burden has not been elucidated in vivo. In this study we investigated the relation between α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor availability in the brain, cognitive functions and amyloid-β burden in 20 non-smoking patients with Alzheimer's disease at an early stage and 25 age-matched non-smoking healthy elderly adults by measuring levels of α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor binding estimated from a simplified ratio method (BPRI) and Logan plot-based amyloid-β accumulation (BPND) using positron emission tomography with α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor tracer (18)F-2FA-85380 and (11)C-Pittsburgh compound B. The levels of tracer binding were compared with clinical measures for various brain functions (general cognition, episodic and spatial memory, execution, judgement, emotion) using regions of interest and statistical parametric mapping analyses. Between-group statistical parametric mapping analysis showed a significant reduction in (18)F-2FA-85380 BPRI in the cholinergic projection region in patients with Alzheimer's disease with a variety of (11)C-Pittsburgh compound B accumulation. Spearman rank correlation analyses showed positive correlations of (18)F-2FA-85380 BPRI values in the medial frontal cortex and nucleus basalis magnocellularis region with scores of the Frontal Assessment Battery (a test battery for executive functions and judgement) in the Alzheimer's disease group (P < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparison), and also positive correlations of the prefrontal and superior parietal (18)F-2FA-85380 BPRI values with the Frontal Assessment Battery score in the normal group (P < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparison). These positive correlations indicated an in vivo α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor role in those specific functions that may be different from memory. Both region of interest-based and voxelwise regression analyses showed a negative correlation between frontal (11)C-Pittsburgh compound B BPND and (18)F-2FA-85380 BPRI values in the medial frontal cortex and nucleus basalis magnocellularis region in patients with Alzheimer's disease (P < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparison). These findings suggest that an impairment of the cholinergic α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor system with the greater amount of amyloid deposition in the system plays an important role in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease.

Traditional Japanese art-making aims at grasping and presenting what are considered to be the defining characteristics of the object, whether used as the subject matter or raw material. Successful articulation of such characteristics is made possible by the artist who lets the object lead the art-making process. The beauty of Japanese art is appreciated when art paradoxically appears artless, as if it spontaneously “became” rather than having been “made,” despite the arduous work and meticulous artifice that are necessarily involved in its creation.

We assessed the association of neutrophil function with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels in a Japanese general population. Participants were 809 males and females who were over 20 years old living in the Iwaki region in Aomori Prefecture located in northern Japan. Lifestyle parameters (smoking, alcohol consumption, and exercise habits), HbA1c and neutrophil function such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) production capability and phagocytic activity (PA) were measured. ROS production capability was measured before and after phagocytic stimulus to obtain basal ROS production and stimulated ROS production. Level of HbA1c had a positive correlation with basal ROS production (p=0.053), a negative correlation with stimulated ROS production (p=0.072) and PA (p=0.059) only in post-menopausal groups, and not in pre-menopausal groups. However, there were no correlations between levels of HbA1c and neutrophil functions in male. In conclusion, in the present study, despite the presence of diabetes, chronic hyperglycemia was found to cause an increase in daily basal ROS production of neutrophils, and increased susceptibility to infection caused by reduced neutrophilic reaction in females in their menopause. Therefore, from the oxidative point of view, strict glycemic control is necessary to prevent post-menopausal females from developing diabetic complications in spite of the presence of diabetes.

Background: The serum level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA is a marker of malignant disease but can also be increased in benign diseases. Patients with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA have bronchial asthma showing a wide variety of radiological findings. We measured serum CEA levels in patients with ABPA and evaluated the relationships of serum CEA levels with peripheral blood eosinophil counts total blood levels of immunoglobin (Ig E and findings of computed tomography (CT in ABPA. Methods: The subjects were 13 patients (6 men and 7 women aged 34 to 76 years who had been treated for ABPA at our hospital. Serum levels of CEA peripheral blood eosinophil counts total blood IgE levels and CT findings were examined before and after treatment with prednisolone. Results: Before the start of the treatment 7 of 13 patients had serum CEA levels higher than the upper limit of normal. The serum CEA level was not correlated with eosinophil counts or total IgE values. Serum CEA levels were examined after treatment in 9 patients and were found to have significantly decreased as pulmonary consolidation improved. Furthermore serum CEA levels before treatment in patients with pulmonary consolidation were significantly higher than those in patients without consolidation. Conclusion: Serum CEA levels are elevated in some patients with ABPA; these elevations might be associated with consolidation in the lung. Elevated serum CEA levels decrease as the consolidation decreases after treatment. The elevation of serum CEA might be attributed to the presence of local inflammation in the lung. (J Nippon Med Sch 2013; 80: 404―409

A 60-year-old man was admitted to our hospital experiencing difficulty in opening his mouth, and diplopia. Chest computed tomography showed a mass on the right lung. Transbronchial biopsy and scrutiny of the whole body resulted in the diagnosis of small cell lung cancer, cT2N2M1a stage IV. With chemotherapy including carboplatin and etoposide, the primary mass of the right lung shrank, and the patient no longer had diplopia or trouble opening his mouth. After the first-line chemotherapy, itching, ptosis, and dysphagia appeared, accompanied by tumor relapse. These symptoms improved with chemotherapy for lung cancer. After four lines of chemotherapy, the lung cancer was not controlled. The patient died 19 months after the first chemotherapy had started. Difficulty in opening the mouth is a rare symptom for lung cancer patients, but chemotherapy for lung cancer clearly improved this symptom. Therefore, we diagnosed this rare symptom as paraneoplastic neurological syndrome.

The sky and celestial phenomena surround us everywhere, all the time. However, they have not received due attention in philosophical discourses dealing with the environment, or in our daily experience. I explore some examples of recent art projects that facilitate our aesthetic experience of the sky and celestial events. These art pieces are analyzed in terms of the different ways in which they embody the notion of ‘emptiness’, a Buddhist term for reality that is written with the Chinese character for sky.