Given the frame ups are virtually the same, year after year, it's likely they were. If Takano was the head of research, that probably means she approved all of this.

...If she was afflicted with the Syndrome herself and that's why she started getting so extreme with her methods, she must've been running on some level of the Syndrome that makes her not right in the head. ...Or maybe she's just a huge bitch.

...It's probably a bit of both. But I do believe you're right in that acting on it without provocation here would be wrong.

Is there more to the story?