Designing Post Nature : Speculating on How Things Could Be

At least since the industrialization and its influential consequences in the twentieth century, it has become difficult or even impossible to perceive nature as untouched without perceiving and contemplating the influence of man. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to maintain the dichotomy nature and/culture, which makes it necessary for designers to expand their self-image. Throughout history, the relationship between man and nature has become evident in the efforts of the humanism in the 14th and 15th century and ecology movement since the 1970s. In the term of social design, since the end of the twentieth century, people have been trying to conceive of human beings and their natural, social, political, technical, and economic environment as unified which can only be optimized if all human needs are taken into account in the design. The trajectory of the artificiality from Klaus Krippendorff describes different dimensions of these semantics of design. With mankind’s growing dominance of its environment, the question now arises to what extent elements of a former autonomous nature such as animals, plants or landscapes have long since become cultural products that follow human design intentions through design interventions. Currently, these tendencies of new dimensions and configurations are reflected in the terms speculative design, critical design, or next nature design. The tasks go far beyond the classic design functions such as need fulfillment and problem solving. The requirements of the definition for a new nature shift from a philosophical to a creative question that becomes effective and meaningful through the use of intuition, interactive experiments, and collaborative encounters by means of a design discourse. This paper refers to a current self-image of historically evolved perceptions of mankind / nature relationships to broaden design as a fictional speculation about nature and culture.Theme I : Nature And Desig

Measurement, Reporting and Verification in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement

Considers options for the measurement, reporting, and verification of developed nations' mitigation commitments or actions, developing nations' mitigation actions, and support for the latter. Outlines basic issues and existing mechanisms and requirements

Cultural Diversity and the Impact of Acculturation and Personal Experience on Perceptions of Suicide

Many factors influence cross-cultural differences in suicide rates and behaviors. One potential explanation is that attitudes and values influence the way individuals perceive suicide. In addition, previous literature indicates that attitudes can change in response to individual experiences. Further research on cultural attitudes toward suicide and individual experiences that influence them could inform prevention and treatment efforts targeted toward multicultural populations. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of culture, acculturation, and personal experience (i.e., exposure to suicidal behavior through close relationship) on suicide attitudes. The hypotheses were (1) that significant differences in attitudes towards suicide will be observed between US and international students and (2) acculturation and experience knowing someone who has died by or attempted suicide will impact suicide attitudes in international students. Regression analyses indicated that there were significant differences between US and International students’ suicide attitudes. Moderation analyses indicated that more acculturated international students had more tolerant attitudes than less acculturated students and international students who had personal experience demonstrated more agreement with fictional suicide attempts

MUJI and the Aesthetics of Simplicity : A Comparative Study on Minimalist Product Images

Simplicity goes beyond being a physical facet to become a cultural phenomenon. Depending on the requirement of the given moment, a certain kind of simplicity has been found or produced, and has been assigned different meanings over time. Just as simplicity, minimalism is also nonuniform. Some believe that removing unnecessary elements can serve a specific purpose, whereas others believe in the widespread acceptance of appearances without conspicuous feature. Twentieth century’s claim of simplistic modern design was largely based on functionalism, which tried to design out unnecessary elements. Even today, simplicity is often argued to support optimization; however, as the number of simplified utilities increases, the market demands the perceived differentiation of products. Therefore, it has become crucial, especially now, to connote meaning to the beauty of simplicity, if not relying on styling to acquire higher sales. Moreover, more personalized products may draw greater empathetic consumers. When people are already aware of the meaning being expressed by a thing’s simple appearance, they tend to find sincerity in lean constructions, humility in restrained surfaces, and tenderness in the exposure of natural materials. Since its foundation in 1980, MUJI has consistently emphasized simplicity and its own ‘branding’, named ‘no brand’, expresses a type of postmodernist minimalism. MUJI inherited the modernist requirements of simplicity, but it was not all about function tout court. MUJI aims for a simplicity that accepts all kinds of concerns while allowing several diverse meanings to be attached to the quality. Moreover, MUJI advertisements have given various meanings to simplicity in a way that has increased its familiarity. Since 2002, communication designer Kenya Hara has played a significant role in establishing MUJI’s minimalist aesthetic, often referencing the rich resources of traditional Japanese culture. MUJI’s product images engender a kind of modern-day Orientalism in Western countries.Session VIII : Reviewing Product Desig

Indirect interactions of membrane-adsorbed cylinders

Biological and biomimetic membranes often contain aggregates of embedded or adsorbed macromolecules. In this article, the indirect interactions of cylindrical objects adhering to a planar membrane are considered theoretically. The adhesion of the cylinders causes a local perturbation of the equilibrium membrane shape, which leads to membrane-mediated interactions. For a planar membrane under lateral tension, the interaction is repulsive for a pair of cylinders adhering to the same side of the membrane, and attractive for cylinders adhering at opposite membrane sides. For a membrane in an external harmonic potential, the interaction of adsorbed cylinders is always attractive and increases if forces perpendicular to the membrane act on the cylinders.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures; typos correcte

Theoretical model for the formation of caveolae and similar membrane invaginations

We study a physical model for the formation of bud-like invaginations on fluid lipid membranes under tension, and apply this model to caveolae formation. We demonstrate that budding can be driven by membrane-bound proteins, provided that they exert asymmetric forces on the membrane that give rise to bending moments. In particular, caveolae formation does not necessarily require forces to be applied by the cytoskeleton. Our theoretical model is able to explain several features observed experimentally in caveolae, where proteins in the caveolin family are known to play a crucial role in the formation of caveolae buds. These include 1), the formation of caveolae buds with sizes in the 100-nm range and 2), that certain N- and C-termini deletion mutants result in vesicles that are an order-of-magnitude larger. Finally, we discuss the possible origin of the morphological striations that are observed on the surfaces of the caveolae