The New Role of the JUAA in Japanese University Evaluation

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the JUAA in Japanese university evaluation, based upon its first progress evaluation. The underlying concept of university evaluation in Japan is a combination of self-monitoring and external valuation. It aims to move Japanese higher education systems from quantitative to qualitative development. There are many domains in university governance such as research, education, management, staff development, curriculum, admission policies, etc. This paper intends to examine how evaluation by the JUAA can provide incentive to improve them.     

Joint torque and mechanical energy flow in the support legs of skilled race walkers

This study analyzed the joint torque and the mechanical energy flow in the support legs of skilled male race walkers. Twelve race walkers were videotaped using a high-speed camera at a frame rate of 250 Hz set perpendicular to the sagittal plane of motion; their ground reaction forces were measured with two force platforms. A two-dimensional, 14-segment, linked model was used to calculate the kinetics of the support leg joints. In the initial part of the support phase, the mechanical energy flowed into the thigh and shank by the torque of the large hip extensors and knee flexors. In the middle part, the mechanical energy generated by the torque of the large plantar flexors flowed to the foot and from the foot to the shank by the ankle joint force. The mechanical energy flow by the forward joint force of the support hip was significantly related to the walking speed in the final part of the support phase. Our findings suggest that race walkers in the final part of the support phase should exert the torque of the knee extensors and hip flexors to transfer the mechanical energy more effectively to the support thigh and shank.     

Mechanical power flow changes during multijoint movement acquisition

We investigated the differences in mechanical power flow in early and late practice stages during a cyclic movement consisting of upper arm circumduction to clarify the change in mechanical energy use with skill acquisition. Seven participants practiced the task every other day until their joint angular movements conformed to those of an expert. During the practice sessions, participants' motions were digitally recorded once a week using four high-speed infrared cameras, and the joint kinematics and joint powers of the right arm were calculated. With practice, the inflow power derived from the net joint force increased at the hand, forearm, and upper arm segments by 143.1 +/- 17.2%, 57.1 +/- 7.3%, and 198.1 +/- 35.4%, respectively. In contrast, the power caused by the muscle joint moments was not significantly increased. These results suggested that participants acquired a motor pattern promoting transfer of the joint reaction forces. Results may provide some support for Bernstein's (1967) ideas that skill acquisition involves improving movement efficiency by greater use of nonmuscular forces.     

Query structuring and expansion with two-stage term dependence for Japanese web retrieval

In this paper, we propose a new term dependence model for information retrieval, which is based on a theoretical framework using Markov random fields. We assume two types of dependencies of terms given in a query: (i) long-range dependencies that may appear for instance within a passage or a sentence in a target document, and (ii) short-range dependencies that may appear for instance within a compound word in a target document. Based on this assumption, our two-stage term dependence model captures both long-range and short-range term dependencies differently, when more than one compound word appear in a query. We also investigate how query structuring with term dependence can improve the performance of query expansion using a relevance model. The relevance model is constructed using the retrieval results of the structured query with term dependence to expand the query. We show that our term dependence model works well, particularly when using query structuring with compound words, through experiments using a 100-gigabyte test collection of web documents mostly written in Japanese. We also show that the performance of the relevance model can be significantly improved by using the structured query with our term dependence model.

帮助还是勒索?

“漏洞猎人”的兴起引起了多方争议，他们的种种做法不能为许多研究者与厂商所接受。但无论方式如何，他们使得软件更加安全。     

Nonadmirable moral exemplars and virtue development

ABSTRACT

Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory claims that admiration for a person is a necessary condition for her to be a moral exemplar. I argue that this claim is empirically unsupported. I provide two counterexamples, astronauts and brain data. I demonstrate that they play the role of exemplars well but receive no admiration and, accordingly, are entitled to be called nonadmirable moral exemplars. I conclude that my argument suggests why Aristotle, distinct from Zagzebski, does not emphasise the role of the praiseworthiness of virtue in his theory of virtue development in the Nicomachean Ethics.     

论日本大学男子排球运动员体能训练的有效性

为了科学地验证了体能训练对排球的体力素质和竞技成绩的影响。以23名男子大学生为研究对象,并分为实验组11名和参照组12名。体能训练包括跳跃,力量和协调性训练。每周进行3次,总共进行12周。结果发现:1)肌力、背部肌肉力量和腿部肌肉力量得到提高。2)爆发力测试项目方面,拦网跳、扣球跳、摸高跳、实心球向前传球、向后传球项目中都有明显提高。3)从训练后的灵活性测试指标上看,网下6m往返跑2次运动,重复横向跳跃,两脚左右交叉踏步,这三项均有明显地缩短和提高。4)协调性的运动扩大了各关节的活动范围,进而也使柔韧性得到改善。5)经过体能训练后,拦网跳跃技术以及灵活性的提高可以改善每场比赛的拦网成功率。表明:体能训练对排球运动员来说,既提高了肌肉和神经系统的协调性,又证实了对排球动作的有效性。