Design in the new Do-It-Yourself age: trialing workshops for repairing

Traces of a renovated interest in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) have been observed in relation to technological advances and lowered prices facilitating the access to the practice at different levels of skills. This research envisaged the DIY trend as an opportunity to foster sustainable impact in a society where everyone can and does design. In this paper the role of Design in this ‘new’ DIY age is addressed. In particular professional designer as facilitator in investigated when supporting the DIY practitioners in repairing, reusing and in general practices prolonging product lifespan (RE-DIY). The facilitator role is studied through action research approach by setting four workshops in Italy in which designers supported practitioners in repairing and repurposing in ideal workspaces. The repairing workshops validated the hypothesis of a positive contribution by design in supporting the development of RE-DIY practice by optimizing resources (e.g. saving materials), informing on processing (e.g. 3D printing), increasing quality (e.g. refining the aesthetics). Critical components of the workshops have been identified such as the relevance of facilities, availability of time, emotional attachment to the item. These can be overtaken through the use of professional Design expertise based on abductive approach, finding an ordering principle and reasoning on multiple levels

Auto-industrialism: DIY capitalism and the rise of the auto-industrial society

DIY check-outs, drones, self-driving cars, and e-government: all are signs of the coming auto-industrial age. Will this end in mass unemployment or will new kinds of work emerge? Will 3D print production, desktop workshops and mass customization make up for lost blue-collar jobs? What will happen to health and education in the auto-industrial age? Will machines replace teachers and doctors? What might the economic and social future dominated by self-employment and a large DIY industry look like? Peter Murphy’s lively, provocative book addresses these questions head-on

Unwrapping DIY enquiry: The study of 'enquiry' in DIY practice at individual, community & place levels

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enquiry represents ownership over learning and action: figuring things out by oneself, experimenting, and questioning the state of things to find potential solutions to local concerns. It is an identifiable collective behaviour of self-reliance exhibited throughout our history but in the digital age and in societies with increasing levels of education, the way DIY practice unfolds is little understood. Traditional studies on public engagement in science and technology and perspectives on production of knowledge and technology have focused primarily on institutionally mediated methods of public participation and the validity of public contributions to established fields. This thesis research makes empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions: using a multi-method approach and grounded theory for qualitative data analysis to explore DIY enquiry in practice, community, and place. The three in-depth case studies explore the nature of the production of knowledge, the role of technologies, and the barriers and opportunities to public engagement in DIY enquiry. Participant observation of a community of DIY practice reveals its inner processes, interactions, and framings of science and technology and how DIY practice is performed through DIY tool use and development. The design and facilitation of a DIY workshop series demonstrates the initial stages of engagement in DIY enquiry and reveals that barriers and opportunities to engagement are mediated by frame of mind, setting, facilitation, and interactions. The observation of place-based citizen initiatives of DIY enquiry reveals its range of interconnected actions: development of techniques and strategies for tool development, data interpretation, and leveraging of knowledge and stance for advocacy. Together the cases reveal the transformative power of DIY enquiry, how it builds knowledge, culture, and identity and that engagement requires curiosity, courage, commitment, and foundational competencies. They also reveal an inherent tension between DIY enquiry framed as a means (seeking collective/organised actionable goals) and as an end (enabling personal empowerment). This research facilitates a better understanding of the democratic potential of public engagement in science in our time but it also promotes the leveraging of knowledge production between professional/institutional science and civil society

Age, Parity and Birth Spacing to the Incidence of Preeclampsia

Preeklampsia is complication in pregnancy characterized by various symptoms as clinical hypertension and protein urine and usually occurs after the age of 20 weeks of pregnancy until 48 hours after labor. Highest Insidence of preeclampsia in DIY was in Sleman (22%- 30%). Preeclampsia was caused by multy factoral. Goal of this research aimed to know the the correlation between age, parity and birth spacing to the preeclampsia. The research used Cross sectional design with purposive sampling technique. The subject of this research was 381 labor patiens in RSUD Sleman in 2016. The data were collected from register book and medic record of labor in 2016. The data were analyzed using Chi squareand logistic regression. The analysis showed of most subjects aged ≥30 years, had parity 2, had a gestational distance of 2-5, and did not have preeclampsia.As the result showed age ≥30 years had a significant association with preeclampsia p value of 0.023 Exp B 10.630 95% CI: 1.378 to 82.005. Distance pregnancy <2 years had a significant association with preeclampsia p value 0,000 Exp B 3,201 95% CI: 1.862 to 5.503, and the distance Pregnancy >5 years had a p-value 0.013 with Exp B 3,622 95% CI: 1.308 to 10.026.The conclusion of this research shows that there is a relationship between age and the incidence of preeclampsia pregnancy spacing

Gendered retailing: a study of customer perceptions of front line staff in the DIY sector

This paper reports findings from a small scale study exploring the role gender plays in the interactions between customers and front-line staff in DIY retailing. Drawing on materials gathered through observations, informal discussions with staff and focus groups, this study suggests that “maleness” pervades many aspects of DIY retailing. For the respondents the image of the case retailer, B&Q, and the products sold had male connotations. Furthermore, male customers perceived male customer-facing staff to have better knowledge of technical DIY than female employees, even though this was not always the case. Given the rising interest from women in home improvements, it would appear that measures need to be put in place to create a more “inclusive” DIY store environment for female customers, and one that challenges the stereotypical assumptions held by many male home improvement customers

Major management factors associated with the variation in reproductive performance of Irish dairy herds

End of project reportThe results highlight the importance of BCS in achieving good reproductive performance. The likelihood of reproductive success was best predicted by BCS around the time of breeding and, for cows calving in good BCS (3.0 or greater) the level of BCS loss between calving and first service. A low BCS pre-calving (3.5) results in excessive BCS loss (>0.5) post-calving. On the basis of these findings a pre-calving BCS of no greater than 3.25 is a sensible target for pasture-based spring calving systems in Ireland. It is necessary to maintain BCS at 2.75 or greater during the breeding season, and loss of body condition between calving and first service should be restricted to 0.5 BCS units.National Development Plan (NDP

Who paints the house? Scotswomen as housepainters and decorators from 1820

In the early 21st century it is still considered unusual to find a woman in paid employment as a skilled housepainter and decorator. Tradeswomen, in these most domestic of building trades, were working throughout Scotland during the 19th and 20th centuries. The women were those whose work self-identities were sufficiently strong to be recorded in directories and census returns. These are women who worked, not middle class or amateur women interior decorators dabbling in the arts and crafts because it was fashionable. The historical record is compared with contemporary records of women taking paid employment in these fields and also with the strong market created in modern times by the many TV DIY programmes encouraging women into DIY. The high level of present and past involvement of women in house-painting and decorating shows that the aptitude and ability exists at both the professional and amateur levels. The factual reality is compared with perception and prejudice within the industry and the barriers that were and are placed in front of women wishing to do this work

Planning Obsolescence: Generational Labor, Welcoming Crisis, and Actualizing Immaterial Bonds

The 2008 economic crisis crippled the global public higher education sector, leaving a generation questioning the practicalities of pursuing higher education. In response to the neoliberalization of the public university, I examine the proliferation of DIY ethics and practices Millennials (AKA the Recession Generation) have strategically developed to evade institutions that further indebt their members. I further examine how the Recession Generation shapes affective labor, also described as immaterial labor, which serves as a necessary condition in the informational age of late capitalism. In examining a range of DIY sites, I show how Millennials strategically develop para-academic practices in order to rewrite harmful institutional practices that reify and weaponize static identitarian categories

Conflicts, integration, hybridization of subcultures: An ecological approach to the case of queercore

This paper investigates the case study of queercore, providing a socio-historical analysis of its subcultural production, in the terms of what Michel Foucault has called archaeology of knowledge (1969). In particular, we will focus on: the self-definition of the movement; the conflicts between the two merged worlds of punk and queer culture; the \u201cinternal-subcultural\u201d conflicts between both queercore and punk, and between queercore and gay\lesbian music culture; the political aspects of differentiation. In the conclusion, we will offer an innovative theoretical proposal about the interpretation of subcultures in ecological and semiotic terms, combining the contribution of the American sociologist Andrew Abbot and of the Russian semiologist Jurij Michajlovi\u10d Lotma