DIY Methods 2022 Conference Proceedings

As the past years have proven, the methods for conducting and distributing research that we’ve inherited from our disciplinary traditions can be remarkably brittle in the face of rapidly changing social and mobility norms. The ways we work and the ways we meet are questions newly opened for practical and theoretical inquiry; we both need to solve real problems in our daily lives and account for the constitutive effects of these solutions on the character of the knowledge we produce. Methods are not neutral tools, and nor are they fixed ones. As such, the work of inventing, repairing, and hacking methods is a necessary, if often underexplored, part of the wider research process. This conference aims to better interrogate and celebrate such experiments with method. Borrowing from the spirit and circuits of exchange in earlier DIY cultures, it takes the form of a zine ring distributed via postal mail. Participants will craft zines describing methodological experiments and/or how-to guides, which the conference organisers will subsequently mail out to all participants. Feedback on conference proceedings will also proceed through the mail, as well as via an optional Twitter hashtag. The conference itself is thus an experiment with different temporalities and medialities of research exchange. As a practical benefit, this format guarantees that the experience will be free of Zoom fatigue, timezone difficulties, travel expenses, and visa headaches. More generatively, it may also afford slower thinking, richer aesthetic possibilities, more diverse forms of circulation, and perhaps even some amount of delight. The conference format itself is part of the DIY experiment

Paradise found : the settler colonial legacy of Beautiful British Columbia magazine

Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is often depicted in Canadian settler culture as an oasis in a desert, or a Garden of Eden, thanks to its exceptional climate and semi-arid shrub steppe biome. With its fruit, tourism, and wine industries, it is best known today as place of leisure and plenty. This idyllic and utopic image of the place is, however, complicated by the complex history of its cultural and material landscape. The Okanagan idealized by Canadians is, in fact, the traditional unceded territory of, primarily, the Syilx people. Since the late 19th century, through successive phases of settler colonialism in the Okanagan, the material and cultural landscape of the area has been written over, reshaped, transformed, and remains contested in many ways. This thesis contributes to a discussion on the making of environmental cultures through an ecocritical reading of the role of the Beautiful British Columbia magazine – with a focus on the years 1959-1983 when it was funded by the provincial government – in shaping the idealized narrative and landscape aesthetic of the Okanagan Valley that persist to this day. The visual and textual analysis of the magazine is framed by the socio-political, economic, and material history of the region from the mid to late decades of the 20th century. While international tourists were presumably the primary audience of the magazine, this thesis argues that the magazine also served the province’s campaign to attract Anglophone migrants and to ‘sell’ British Columbia and more specifically the Okanagan as an idyllic home for white settler populations. It traces and uncovers some of the recurring aesthetic tropes that have constructed and framed both the British Columbian landscape generally and within that, the Okanagan Valley, as an idyllic place to live. It contrasts the white settler colonial landscape aesthetic of the Okanagan with Indigenous imaginations of the place. It brings out the fault lines and contradictions between the imposed settler aesthetic and the material affordances of the environment.Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)Graduat

Novel ATPase activity of the polyprotein intermediate, Viral Protein genome-linked-Nuclear Inclusion-a protease, of Pepper vein banding potyvirus

Potyviruses temporally regulate their protein function by polyprotein processing. Previous studies have shown that VPg (Viral Protein genome-linked) of Pepper vein banding virus interacts with the NIa-Pro (Nuclear Inclusion-a protease) domain, and modulates the kinetics of the protease. In the present study, we report for the first time that VPg harbors the Walker motifs A and B, and the presence of NIa-Pro, especially in cis (cleavage site (E191A) VPg-Pro mutant), is essential for manifestation of the ATPase activity. Mutation of Lys47 (Walker motif A) and Asp88:Glu89 (Walker motif B) to alanine in E191A VPg-Pro lead to reduced ATPase activity, confirming that this activity was inherent to VPg. We propose that potyviral VPg, established as an intrinsically disordered domain, undergoes plausible structural alterations upon interaction with globular NIa-Pro which induces the ATPase activity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

The N-terminal region containing the zinc finger domain of tobacco streak virus coat protein is essential for the formation of virus-like particles

Tobacco streak virus (TSV), a member of the genus Ilarvirus (family Bromoviridae), has a tripartite genome and forms quasi-isometric virions. All three viral capsids, encapsidating RNA 1, RNA 2 or RNA 3 and subgenomic RNA 4, are constituted of a single species of coat protein (CP). Formation of virus-like particles (VLPs) could be observed when the TSV CP gene was cloned and the recombinant CP (rCP) was expressed in E. coli. TSV VLPs were found to be stabilized by Zn2+ ions and could be disassembled in the presence of 500 mM CaCl2. Mutational analysis corroborated previous studies that showed that an N-terminal arginine-rich motif was crucial for RNA binding; however, the results presented here demonstrate that the presence of RNA is not a prerequisite for assembly of TSV VLPs. Instead, the N-terminal region containing the zinc finger domain preceding the arginine-rich motif is essential for assembly of these VLPs

Enhancement in the performance of multi-walled carbon nanotube: poly(methylmethacrylate) composite thin film ethanol sensors through appropriate nanotube functionalization

We report for the first time, development of an efficient ethanol sensor using mild functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). A unique technique to functionalize MWCNT is reported to enhance the performance of the ethanol sensor based on it. The conventional functionalization techniques tend to damage physical structure of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to a large extent and convert most of their sp2 bonds into sp3 bonded carbon atoms. This results in reduction of the available adsorption sites for ethanol vapors on the CNT surface and hence deteriorates the sensitivity. In this work, the functionalization of nanotubes is achieved through direct cycloaddition to π electrons of the CNT that does not hamper the physical structure of the nanotube. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Raman spectroscopy studies were employed to confirm the appropriate functionalization for better performance of the sensor. Electrical transport properties of the composites were also studied to understand the quality of the established CNT network. Out of the other functionalization technique, Diels Alder cyclo addition reaction based composite sensor was found to exhibit excellent performance and has an edge over the other reported CNT based sensor.Funding from the Department of Science and Technology, India (31/11/2010-11/PVSE) and Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal (through PEST-C/CTM/LA0025/2013), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Indi