Thinking with attachments: Appreciating a generative analytic.

Much current work in Science and Technology Studies inflects knowing with care. Analyses of the ethos of objectivity, and of the practices by which objectivity is crafted, have shown that knowing and caring cannot be thought apart from each other. Using case studies from our own work we analyse how, in the sociotechnical relationships that we study, knowing and caring are entangled through 'attachments'. We appreciate - both in the sense of valuing or respecting and in the sense of evaluating or assessing - how the notion of 'attachment' invites re-imagining relations between the social and the technical, between knowers and objects known, and between sociotechnical work and the affective sensibilities that enable, and are brought to life by, such work. Our respective ethnographic engagements with dog-human relations, obesity surgery and dementia care demonstrate that it is agents' diverse and shifting attachments to technologies and techniques that shape the ways in which bodies, knowledge and practices form. The affects that arise in this process, or so we claim in neo-pragmatist fashion, are not preconditions to, but rather the result of such practices of attachment; rather than a prerequisite, they are an effect of the work of attaching itself. Thinking with attachments recognizes how techno-scientific work builds and shapes passions, aesthetics and sensory experience, allowing us to trace how varied sensibilities to what constitutes 'the good' come to be and come to matter in practices of relating between humans, animals and things

The Zimbabwe Bush Pump : Mechanics of a Fluid Technology.

In this paper we investigate the intricacies of an admirable water pumping device - the Zimbabwe Bush Pump `B' type - so as to find out what makes it an `appropriate technology'. This turns out to be what we call the `fluidity' of the pump (of its boundaries, or of its working order, and of its maker). We find that in travelling to intractable places, an object that isn't too rigorously bounded, that doesn't impose itself but tries to serve, that is adaptable, flexible and responsive - in short, a fluid object - may well prove to be stronger than one which is firm. By analyzing the success and failure of this device, its agency and the way in which it shapes new configurations in the Zimbabwean socio-technical landscape, we partake in the current move in science and technology studies to transform what it means to be an actor. And by mobilizing the term love for articulating our relation to the Bush Pump, we try to contribute to shaping novel ways of `doing' normativity. \ud \u

The Zimbabwe Bush pump : mechanics of a fluid technology

Laet, M. de y Mol, A. (2012) Dossier: La bomba Bush de Zimbabue. Mecánica de una tecnología fluida. Redes: Revista de estudios sociales de la ciencia, 18 (35), 105-158.En este documento investigamos las complejidades de un admirable dispositivo de bombeo de agua –la bomba Bush de Zimbabue tipo “B”– con el fin de averiguar qué la hace una “tecnología apropiada”. Esto resulta ser lo que llamamos la “fluidez” de la bomba (de sus límites, o de sus condiciones de funcionamiento, y de su creador). Encontramos que, al viajar a lugares difíciles, un objeto que no está muy rigurosamente limitado, que no se impone sino que trata de servir, que es adaptable, flexible y receptivo –en resumen, un objeto fluido– puede llegar a ser más fuerte que uno rígido. Al analizar el éxito y el fracaso de este dispositivo, su agencia y la maneraen que le da forma a nuevas configuraciones en el escenario sociotécnico de Zimbabue, participamos del movimiento actual de los estudios sobre la ciencia y la tecnología para transformar lo que significa ser un actor. Y utilizando el término “amor” para articular nuestra relación con la bomba Bush, tratamos de contribuir a dar forma a nuevas maneras de “hacer” normatividad.In this paper we investigate the intricacies of an admirable water pumping device – the Zimbabwe Bush Pump ‘B’ type – so as to find out what makes it an “appropriate technology”. This turns out to be what we call the “fluidity” of the pump (of its boundaries, or of its working order, and of its maker). We find that in travelling to intractable places an object that isn’t too rigorously bounded, that doesn’t impose itself but tries to serve, that is adaptable, flexible and responsive –in short, a fluid object– may well prove to be stronger than one which is firm. By analysing the success and failure of this device, its agency and the way in which it shapes new configurations in the Zimbabwean socio-technical landscape, we partake in the current move in science and technology studies to transform what it means to be an actor. And by mobilizing the term “love” for articulating our relation to the Bush Pump, we try to contribute to shaping novel ways of ‘doing’ normativity

Stability strengths and weaknesses in protein structures detected by statistical potentials. Application to bovine seminal ribonuclease

We present an in silico method to estimate the contribution of each residue in a protein to its overall stability using three database-derived statistical potentials that are based on inter-residue distances, backbone torsion angles and solvent accessibility, respectively. Residues that contribute very unfavorably to the folding free energy are defined as stability weaknesses, whereas residues that show a highly stabilizing contribution are called stability strengths. Strengths and/or weaknesses on residues that are in spatial contact are clustered into 3-dimensional (3D) stability patches. The identification and analysis of strength- and weakness-containing regions in a protein may reveal structural or functional characteristics, and/or interesting spots to introduce mutations. To illustrate the power of our method, we apply it to bovine seminal ribonuclease. This enzyme catalyzes the degradation of RNA strands, and has the peculiarity of undergoing 3D domain swapping in physiological conditions. The weaknesses and strengths were compared among the monomeric, dimeric and swapped dimeric forms. We identified weaknesses among the catalytic residues and a mixture of weaknesses and strengths among the substrate-binding residues in the three forms. In the regions involved in 3D swapping, we observed an accumulation of weaknesses in the monomer, which disappear in the dimer and especially in the swapped dimer. Moreover, monomeric homologous proteins were found to exhibit less weaknesses in these regions, whereas mutants known to favor unswapped dimerization appear stabilized in this form. Our method has several perspectives for functional annotation, rational prediction of targeted mutations, and mapping of stability changes upon conformational rearrangements.SCOPUS: ar.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Identification of protein stability patches that pinpoint key structural or functional sites

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe