Beyond Japanese minimalistic versatility

Due to advances in industrial development, we are now living in an extremely consumeristic world. Every day, large volumes of products are purchased while others are thrown away. At the same time, consumers expect products to add value to their lives beyond mere aesthetics and basic functionality. In particular, the market for mass-produced furniture has grown oversaturated in recent decades. Thus, it is very difficult for designers to make a product that is sufficiently different from what already exists. However, regardless of this state of excess, superficial novelty designs are cast into the limelight every year in Milan and throughout the world. Whenever I visit design fairs I have to question whether people truly need new chairs that appear only nominally different from what already exists. Are these products really improving the quality of our lives and do we still need new chair designs? This Master’s thesis approaches this question by studying the context rather than only looking at the problem from an aesthetic angle, applying the minimalistic thinking of Japanese product design. The methodology investigates the shared values in Japanese and Finnish culture in order to create a new seating product that is both relevant and meaningful in the context of contemporary furniture design. The thesis first delves into the changing lifestyle in Japan over time and how this affected the development of modern furniture. In many cases, the Japanese brand of minimalistic design thinking is an effective method of finding solutions, because simplification is one way to improve user experience. This thesis aims to discover ways that neutrality in design can be utilised to create new value within product design in general and chair typologies in particular. This thesis project attempts to find a new relationship between a chair and its end user. Furthermore, my intention is to make a product possessing characteristics that makes the user want to keep it for longer and with greater intimacy. Thus, this thesis explores the simplicity that comes from Japanese tradition, and its application to today’s world and its myriad challenges. Even though the results may not be a perfectly formulated innovative design, the entire project can be seen as an experiment for a new chair typology rooted in the principles of Japanese minimalism

Observation of orbital pumping

Harnessing spin and orbital angular momentum is a fundamental concept in condensed matter physics, materials science, and quantum-device applications. In particular, the search for new phenomena that generate a flow of spin angular momentum, a spin current, has led to the development of spintronics, advancing the understanding of angular momentum dynamics at the nanoscale. In contrast to this success, the generation and detection of orbital currents, the orbital counterpart of spin currents, remains a significant challenge. Here, we report the observation of orbital pumping, a phenomenon in which magnetization dynamics pumps an orbital current, a flow of orbital angular momentum. The orbital pumping is the orbital counterpart of the spin pumping, which is one of the most versatile and powerful mechanisms for spin-current generation. We show that the orbital pumping in Ni/Ti bilayers injects an orbital current into the Ti layer, which is detected through the inverse orbital Hall effect. Our findings provide a promising approach for generating orbital currents and pave the way for exploring the physics of orbital transport in solids

Intrinsic Spin Decay Length in Antiferromagnetic Insulator

We report intrinsic spin decay length of an antiferromagnetic insulator. We found that at an antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic interface, a spin current generated by spin pumping is strongly suppressed by two-magnon scattering. By eliminating the two-magnon contribution, we discovered that the characteristic length of spin decay in NiO changes by two-orders of magnitude through the paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition. The spin decay length in the antiferromagnetic state is longer than 100 nm, which is an order of magnitude longer than previously believed. These results provide a crucial piece of information for the fundamental understanding of the physics of spin transport

Interaction of numerosity and time in prefrontal and parietal cortex

It has been proposed that numerical and temporal information are processed by partially overlapping magnitude systems. Interactions across different magnitude domains could occur both at the level of perception and decision-making. However, their neural correlates have been elusive. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, we show that the right intraparietal cortex (IPC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) are jointly activated by duration and numerosity discrimination tasks, with a congruency effect in the right IFG. To determine whether the IPC and the IFG are involved in response conflict (or facilitation) or modulation of subjective passage of time by numerical information, we examined their functional roles using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and two different numerosity-time interaction tasks: duration discrimination and time reproduction tasks. Our results show that TMS of the right IFG impairs categorical duration discrimination, whereas that of the right IPC modulates the degree of influence of numerosity on time perception and impairs precise time estimation. These results indicate that the right IFG is specifically involved at the categorical decision stage, whereas bleeding of numerosity information on perception of time occurs within the IPC. Together, our findings suggest a two-stage model of numerosity-time interactions whereby the interaction at the perceptual level occurs within the parietal region and the interaction at categorical decisions takes place in the prefrontal cortex

Cheek-splitting technique for marginal mandibulectomy : a novel approach

When performing marginal mandibulectomy, ensuring complete tumor removal and preventing postoperative iatrogenic mandibular fracture are essential. Pathological fracture can result due to stress concentration at the site requiring acute angle resection. To perform marginal mandibulectomy without making acute angles in patients with a lesion in the molar or more posterior region, a submandibular or transbuccal approach is necessary. Compared to the submandibular approach, the transbuccal approach is considered useful as it reduces operative time and prevents injury to the facial and mental nerves. Additionally, this approach does not leave a scar in the surgical field, which is beneficial in subsequent neck dissection for late neck metastasis. Here, we report 2 cases of lower gingival carcinoma in which satisfactory aesthetic outcomes were achieved with an improved cheek-splitting technique for marginal mandibulectomy using a transbuccal approach, taking into consideration the angle of the mouth, design of the triangular flap, and modiolus

Cavity magnomechanical coupling with coupled magnon modes in a synthetic antiferromagnet

On-chip cavity magnomechanics is an emerging field exploring acoustic and magnonic functionalities of various ferromagnetic materials and structures using strongly confined phonons. It is expected that such cavity magnomechanics can be extended to multilayer ferromagnets, especially synthetic antiferromagnets (SAFs) that exhibit zero net magnetization through interlayer exchange coupling. However, the conventional theoretical framework for a single ferromagnet cannot be used directly because of the antiferromagnetic magnetization dynamics associated with the interlayer exchange coupling. In this paper, we theoretically investigate phonon-magnon coupling with a three-layer SAF. Our formulation of the phonon-magnon coupling constants reveals that the acoustic (optical) magnon mode dominantly couples to the cavity phonon when the magnetization angles in the two ferromagnetic layers are antiparallel (orthogonal). Moreover, numerical calculations including the effects of dipole-dipole interactions and in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy allow us to predict phonon frequency shifts and linewidth broadening that can be detected in experiments. These theoretical insights would greatly help us to make a strategy for bringing the system into the strong coupling regime and to devise novel control protocols in analogy to cavity quantum electrodynamics and cavity optomechanics

A Model For Design Auto Instrumentation To Appeal To Young Male Customers

This paper applies statistical science to create a model for auto instrumentation, an aspect of vehicle design that has a powerful effect on young male customers. The authors develop an instrumentation design that will appeal to the target users to verify the effectiveness of an Auto Instrumentation Designing Approach Model

Spin-orbit torques originating from bulk and interface in Pt-based structures

We investigated spin-orbit torques in prototypical Pt-based spintronic devices. We found that, in Pt/Ni and Pt/Fe bilayers, the damping-like torque efficiency depends on the thickness of the Pt layer. We also found that the damping-like torque efficiency is almost identical in the Pt/Ni and Pt/Fe bilayers despite the stronger spin memory loss at the Pt/Fe interface. These results suggest that although the dominant source of the damping-like torque is the bulk spin Hall effect in the Pt layer, a sizable damping-like torque is generated by the interface in the Pt/Fe bilayer due to the stronger interfacial spin-orbit coupling. In contrast to the damping-like torque, whose magnitude and sign are almost identical in the Pt/Ni and Pt/Fe bilayers, the field-like torque strongly depends on the choice of the ferromagnetic layer. The sign of the field-like torque originating from the bulk spin Hall effect in the Pt layer is opposite between the Pt/Ni and Pt/Fe bilayers, which can be attributed to the opposite sign of the imaginary part of the spin-mixing conductance. These results demonstrate that the spin-orbit torques are quite sensitive to the electronic structure of the FM layer.Comment: The analysis has been revised based on the ST-FMR signals at higher frequencie