Conditional Inclusion: Sexual Minorities,Tolerance, and Nationalism

This article discusses how the approach towards sexual minorities has shifted from exclusion to inclusion between the mid-1980s and the present, and explores how the view that Japan is more tolerant of sexual minorities than the USA and Europe actually limits discussions on citizenship. An examination of the AIDS crisis and the Fuchu Youth Center court case in the 1980s and 1990s shows that gay men were regarded as a threat to national identity, seen to endanger Japan and whose sexuality was deemed to be unintelligible. In a word, their citizenship was denied. In the 2010s the ruling Liberal Democratic party issued a report on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues, which examined measures aimed at achieving equality for those who suffer from SOGI discrimination. While sexual minorities became an object of inclusion, only partial and circumscribed citizenship was granted. Although the report ostensibly aims to promote SOGI diversity, it relegates the existence of minorities to the private sphere, and limits diversity by demanding the acceptance of a “tolerant culture” predicated on heterosexism and gender norms. By positioning their diversity effort in Japan's “tolerant traditional culture,” the party inadvertently incorporates nationalism and renders it central to their approach towards SOGI diversity. This article concludes that the discourse that the Japanese state is tolerant of sexual minorities undermines the recognition of sexual minorities’ citizenship.     

Context dependence and consistency in dynamic choice under uncertainty: the case of anticipated regret

We examine if and to what extent choice dispositions can allow dependence on contexts and maintain consistency over time, in a dynamic environment under uncertainty. We focus on one of the context dependence properties, opportunity dependence because of being affected by anticipated regret, where the consequentialist choice framework is maintained. There are two sources of potential inconsistency: one is arrival of information, and the other is changing opportunities. First, we go over the general method of resolution of potential inconsistency, by taking any kinds of inconsistency as given constraints. Second, we characterize a class of choice dispositions that are consistent to information arrival, but may be inconsistent to changing opportunities. Finally, we consider the overall requirement of dynamic consistency and show that it necessarily implies each of consistency to information arrival and independence of choice opportunities. The last result states that the two kinds of potential inconsistency cannot “compensate” each other to recover dynamic consistency overall.     

On the distributions of multivariate sample skewness

In this paper, we consider the multivariate normality test based on measure of multivariate sample skewness defined by Srivastava (1984). Srivastava derived asymptotic expectation up to the order N⁻¹ for the multivariate sample skewness and approximate χ²${\chi }^2$ test statistic, where N   is sample size. Under normality, we derive another expectation and variance for Srivastava's multivariate sample skewness in order to obtain a better test statistic. From this result, improved approximate χ²${\chi }^2$ test statistic using the multivariate sample skewness is also given for assessing multivariate normality. Finally, the numerical result by Monte Carlo simulation is shown in order to evaluate accuracy of the obtained expectation, variance and improved approximate χ²${\chi }^2$ test statistic. Furthermore, upper and lower percentiles of χ²${\chi }^2$ test statistic derived in this paper are compared with those of χ²${\chi }^2$ test statistic derived by Mardia (1974) which is used multivariate sample skewness defined by Mardia (1970).     

A pragmatic dose‐finding approach using short‐term surrogate efficacy outcomes to evaluate binary efficacy and toxicity outcomes in phase I cancer clinical trials

There is a growing need for study designs that can evaluate efficacy and toxicity outcomes simultaneously in phase I or phase I/II cancer clinical trials. Many dose‐finding approaches have been proposed; however, most of these approaches assume binary efficacy and toxicity outcomes, such as dose‐limiting toxicity (DLT), and objective responses. DLTs are often defined for short time periods. In contrast, objective responses are often defined for longer periods because of practical limitations on confirmation and the criteria used to define ‘confirmation’. This means that studies have to be carried out for unacceptably long periods of time. Previous studies have not proposed a satisfactory solution to this specific problem. Furthermore, this problem may be a barrier for practitioners who want to implement notable previous dose‐finding approaches. To cope with this problem, we propose an approach using unconfirmed early responses as the surrogate efficacy outcome for the confirmed outcome. Because it is reasonable to expect moderate positive correlation between the two outcomes and the method replaces the surrogate outcome with the confirmed outcome once it becomes available, the proposed approach can reduce irrelevant dose selection and accumulation of bias. Moreover, it is also expected that it can significantly shorten study duration. Using simulation studies, we demonstrate the positive utility of the proposed approach and provide three variations of it, all of which can be easily implemented with modified likelihood functions and outcome variable definitions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Augmenting a Submodular and Posi-modular Set Function by a Multigraph

Given a finite set V and a set function , we consider the problem of constructing an undirected multigraph G = (V,E) such that the cut function together has value at least 2 for all non-empty and proper subsets of V. If f is intersecting submodular and posi-modular, and satisfies the tripartite inequality, then we show that such a multigraph G with the minimum number of edges can be found in time, where is the time to compute the value of f(X) for a subset .     

Estimating the Lyapunov exponent from chaotic time series with dynamic noise

In this paper, we propose an estimator of the Lyapunov exponent of the skeleton for chaotic time series with dynamic noise and prove the consistency of the estimator under some assumptions.     

Cross-Cultural Psychology in Japan

This article portrays the situation of cross-cultural psychology in Japan, including historical background, institutional aspects, and research findings by Japanese investigators. Reflecting the internationalization of Japanese society, cultural influences on human behavior have recently drawn the attention of Japanese psychologists, and the number of researchers engaged in cross-cultural investigations is steadily increasing. A review of articles in current Japanese journals suggests that most cross-cultural studies belong to the areas of social, educational, and developmental psychology where they increasingly focus on specific themes and hypotheses. Although cross-cultural psychologists interact in each research area, cross-cultural findings have only rarely been discussed or integrated on the common plane of cross-cultural psychology. In part, this is true because no association of cross-cultural psychology exists in Japan. The authors emphasize the importance of a systematic approach to response styles which influence research findings and the fruitfulness of comparing Japanese findings to those obtained in other non-Western societies.     

A simple test for the treatment effect in clinical trials with a sequential parallel comparison design and negative binomial outcomes

In placebo‐controlled, double‐blinded, randomized clinical trials, the presence of placebo responders reduces the effect size for comparison of the active drug group with the placebo group. An attempt to resolve this problem is to use the sequential parallel comparison design (SPCD). Although there are SPCDs with dichotomous or continuous outcomes, an SPCD with negative binomial outcomes—with which investigators deal eg, in clinical trials involving multiple sclerosis, where the investigators are still concerned about the presence of placebo responders—has not yet been discussed. In this article, we propose a simple test for the treatment effect in clinical trials with an SPCD and negative binomial outcomes. Through simulations, we show that the analysis method achieves the nominal type I error rate and power, whereas the sample size calculation provides the sample size with adequate power accuracy.     

The Mean Squared Error Optimum Design Criterion for Parameter Estimation in Nonlinear Regression Models

In the context of nonlinear regression models, we propose an optimal experimental design criterion for estimating the parameters that account for the intrinsic and parameter-effects nonlinearity. The optimal design criterion proposed in this article minimizes the determinant of the mean squared error matrix of the parameter estimator that is quadratically approximated using the curvature array. The design criterion reduces to the D-optimal design criterion if there are no intrinsic and parameter-effects nonlinearity in the model, and depends on the scale parameter estimator and on the reparameterization used. Some examples, using a well known nonlinear kinetics model, demonstrate the application of the proposed criterion to nonsequential design of experiments as compared with the D-optimal criterion.     

Choice with imprecise information: an experimental approach

This article provides an experimental analysis of attitude toward imprecise and variable information. Imprecise information is provided in the form of a set of possible probability values, such that it is virtually impossible for the subjects to guess or estimate, which one in the set is true or more likely to be true. We investigate how geometric features of such information pieces affect choices. We find that the subjects care about more features than the pairs of best-case and worst-case, which is a counter-evidence to the well-known models, maximin and α-maximin. We find that presence of nonextreme points in the set affects choice, which suggests that attitude toward imprecision is ‘nonlinear.’ We also obtain an observation, though not significant, that information pieces have a complementarity that may not be explained by the Bayesian view.