VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Royalist Virtuosi: James VII and the patronage of learning in Scotland 1679-1689
Keywords: Scotland
Virtuosi
Scientific Revolution
C17
Patronage of learning
Professions

This thesis examines learned activity in Scotland between 1679 and 1689, with reference to its political and intellectual circumstances. During this decade, Scotland saw extensive patronage and institutionalisation of the learned professions. Professional men of letters sought, and benefited from, the patronage of James, Duke of Albany and York, and King, to enhance their identity and status. Such aspirations included the ‘advancement of learning’ in Scotland, led by ‘Royalist virtuosi’.
The patronage of learned activity in the 1680s responded to and accelerated existing aspirations among the professional classes in Scotland. Its form, its objects and its methods were shaped by the political and ideological contexts of the Stuart monarchy, and influenced by links with the pre-war court and by developments in England and Europe.
The thesis examines contemporary printed works, primary sources published subsequently, and manuscript correspondence, notes, and collections of documents, to build a comprehensive picture of the patronage of learned activity, its motivation and effects. These sources are placed in historiographical context to illuminate what is distinctive about Scottish learned activity during this decade.
Chapter One considers the significance to the patronage of learning of Stuart ideology and political praxis. Chapters Two and Three examine the ‘advancement of learning’, and its patronage, in medicine and law, discussing the influence of geographical, historical, political and social contexts on professional institution building, and on the structure and subject matter of related work and publications. Chapter Four compares this with the patronage of learned activity in the church and universities, and in the city of Edinburgh. In Chapter Five, this activity is situated in the domestic tradition of the ‘virtuoso’, and in extensive connections with the ‘republic of letters’ in England and Europe. The Conclusion looks at the longer-term effect of the patronage.
An investigation of stimulated emission processes in thin-film molecular materials and structures
Keywords: Optical gain
Organic semiconductor lasers
Amplified spontaneous emission

Molecular semiconductor materials are highly attractive as gain media for solid state lasers and amplifiers. Devices based on thin-film structures show great potential in miniaturised, tunable and flexible lasing applications at a low cost. The ultimate aim in this context is the realisation of electrically pumped organic semiconductor lasers. One of the main challenges is understanding the relationship between material properties and stimulated-device performance, i.e. identifying generally applicable molecular structures that facilitate amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) or lasing.
This thesis comprehensively investigates stimulated emission processes in thin-film molecular materials and structures by numerical modelling and experimental characterisation on amorphous and glassy spin-coated samples. Absorption and emission spectroscopies are used to obtain material properties in photo-physics, and excited state lifetime is extracted from transient photoluminescence measurement. A 2-level spatial-temporal model reveals some of the key material and structure parameters for ASE in planar thin-films, which is guided by nonuniformly distributed modal gain. Meanwhile, a semi-automated ASE measurement set-up is introduced, followed by a reliable gain characterisation based on a modified single-pass travelling wave approach with homogeneous saturation. New metrics, ‘gain versus pump’ and ‘gain length product’, are proposed to evaluate gain media independent of measurement conditions. Furthermore, resonance energy transfer in molecular blends is studied systematically. Results from a set of samples with varying donor-acceptor concentration ratios unambiguously link photoluminescence quantum efficiency and excited state lifetime to ASE performance, which opens the door to tailor-made materials for organic semiconductor lasers.
Gaetano Salvemini’s exile in Great Britain and the construction of a transnational anti-fascist network (1925-1934)
Keywords: Gaetano Salvemini
anti-Fascism in Great Britain
Italian anti-Fascist Exiles

Gaetano Salvemini was one of the most prominent intellectuals forced into exile during the Fascist period. The critical bibliography on Salvemini’s biography and intellectual production is already substantial, but the period of his European exile (1925- 1934) has remained largely unexplored. In-depth research carried out on archival sources in Britain, Italy, and the USA has allowed me to reappraise the importance of this period. Between 1925 and 1934, Salvemini benefitted from the support of a transnational network which had its headquarters in Britain. The network shared Salvemini’s anti-Fascist views and helped him to disseminate his work as a counterbalance to the propaganda machine of the Fascist regime.
This thesis is divided into two parts. The first investigates Salvemini’s decision to go into exile and his choice of London as his headquarters, and considers the vital role played by the Anglo-Florentine community in providing him with preliminary contacts in Britain between 1922 and 1925. British-Italian diplomatic relations are also taken into account as key factors influencing the importance Salvemini attributed to British public opinion in the anti-Fascist struggle.
The second part explores Salvemini’s network in Britain. It focuses on the vital role played by a group of British anti-Fascist women who inspired and coordinated Salvemini’s anti-Fascist activities, including the organisation of conferences and lectures, the publication of essays and articles, the creation of anti-Fascist committees, and clandestine trips to Italy. Analysis of these activities makes it possible to map the British and transnational ramifications of Salvemini’s network.
This thesis fills a distinct gap in Salvemini’s biography and contributes more broadly to research on political and cultural attitudes towards Fascism and anti-Fascism in Britain during the interwar period.
Cultures of political participation in late medieval cities
Keywords: Corporatism
Oligarchies
Banners
Direct Participation
Guilds
Commons
Political Participation
Burgos
Assemblies
Tournai
Representatives
Neighbourhoods

This thesis examines how late medieval urban societies responded to the fundamental problem of how to organise an increasingly complex and unequal society, and what role to give to the different and unequal agents of that society in the common enterprise of governance. It studies the logic behind political participation, why it happened, when it happened, and for what purposes. Using the towns of Burgos and Tournai in the period c.1380 – c.1520 as case studies, it considers the ways in which medieval urban societies organised and structured the participation of the different members of the body politic in ways that were imperfect and unstable, but also strikingly intelligent, creative, and nuanced. It proposes that these towns developed a political culture, which I have called corporate republicanism, which was based on a pragmatic logic of common duty toward the common good, corporatism as an organisational logic, deliberation as the basic tool for collective political action, and consensus as the main goal of political processes.
This thesis has three primary objectives. First, it re-assesses what political participation meant, what forms it could take, and what role it played in late medieval urban societies. Second, it challenges ideas on political inclusion and exclusion and proposes a much more inclusive view of institutional politics. Finally, through the choice of the case studies of Burgos and Tournai, this thesis also challenges the dichotomy, very present in urban studies, between the study of the ‘city-states’ of the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy, versus the royal towns of France, England, and Castile. Most importantly, it studies civic political cultures beyond ‘national’ frameworks in order to provide a model of understanding of urban politics that, although not universal, can be applied to different polities across Europe.
Placing the post-extractive moment: experiential evidence and historical accounts in the Central Appalachian coalfields
Keywords: International development

Through concepts of space and place, this work considers at length the post-extractive moment in Central Appalachia as it relates to conceptions of identity and development. Complex historical trajectories of resource extraction complicate the Central Appalachian narrative, as evidenced and explored through the lens of community voices and community elites. Competing visions of 'development' for the region are apparent, giving credence and conversation to the concept of a single plan for development or a singular experience of resource extraction. Within these themes deeply located in the rich history and economic trajectory of Central Appalachia, this work also explores the discipline of 'development' as a whole, making arguments for a more robust and thick depiction of how 'development' is considered and labeled. Through post-development theories of power and place, this work argues that power and place are thickly entwined and defy easy categorization of places located in the Global North, but experiencing conditions of under-development more common in the Global South - thus challenging paradigms of development thought itself.
Rhodium "PONOP" pincer complexes for amine-borane dehydrogenation
Keywords: Rhodium
Pincer ligands
Catalysis
Amine-borane
PONOP ligands

This thesis explores the reactivity of the {Rh(PONOP)}+ fragment with the tertiary amine-borane, H3B·NMe3, and the secondary amine-borane, H3B·NMe2H, with an overall aim of gaining mechanistic insight into the transition metal-catalysed dehydrocoupling of amine-boranes.
Chapter One provides a thorough outline of the background that the work reported in this thesis follows on from. Chapter Two describes the synthesis of several {Rh(PONOP)}+–based complexes as potential pre-catalysts for amine-borane dehydrocoupling. Their stoichiometric reactivity with H3B·NMe3 and H3B·NMe2H is described and an amine-borane sigma complex is isolated and fully characterised. A neutral, monohydride complex, Rh(PONOP)H, is also synthesised and fully characterised. At the end of this chapter, adaptation of the PONOP ligand is preliminarily investigated. Chapter Three builds upon Chapter Two and describes an in-depth study of the catalytic dehydrocoupling of H3B·NMe2H with {Rh(PONOP)}+. Speciation studies, kinetic measurements and DFT calculations lead to a mechanistic proposal where neutral Rh(PONOP)H is a key intermediate. The roles of amine (NMe2H), boronium ([H2B(NMe2H)2][BArF4]), and ammonium ([NMe2H2][BArF4]) in catalysis are also probed. Finally, in Chapter Four the general reactivity of Rh(PONOP)H is explored. In particular, the potential of Rh(PONOP)H as a catalyst for the reduction of CO2 is probed and Rh(PONOP)H is found to catalytically react with H3B·NMe2H in the presence of CO2.
Contesting Armenianness: plurality, segregation and multilateral boundary making among Armenians in contemporary Turkey
Keywords: Boundary Making
Religion
Ethnicity
Armenians
Turkey
Nationalism

During the last three decades, Turkey’s Armenian landscape witnessed an unprecedented process of diversification, triggered by developments on the national and regional levels. Whereas members of the Christian Armenian minority had traditionally been the sole representatives of Armenian identity in Turkey, they now find themselves next to two other groups of Armenians: first, officially Muslim and hence ‘non-Armenian’ citizens of the Republic of Turkey who, drawing on their Armenian ancestors Islamised or Alevised decades or centuries earlier, have recently started to publicly identify as Armenians in growing numbers and to approach the established Christian Armenian community; and second, citizens of neighbouring Armenia who engaged in a labour migration towards Turkey after the independence of their country and its sinking into a political, economic, and energy crisis in the early 1990s. Going beyond the official categorisation of Armenians in Turkey, limited in scope and imposing a particular interpretation of Armenianness, this ethnography studies the various people self-identifying as Armenians in contemporary Turkey, revealing their plurality, heterogeneity and internal divisions. It studies the often-differing meanings, interpretations, productions and experiences of Armenianness among the Christian Armenians, the Muslim/Alevi Armenians, and the migrant Armenians. Furthermore, it not only describes and illustrates, but also aims to understand and explain their segregation and internal boundary making processes. In that endeavour, it argues that the making of symbolic and social boundaries between the three Armenian factions is conditioned both by irreconcilable differences between each one’s understanding and expectations of Armenianness, and by practical factors related to interest and security. Finally, broadening its scope of analysis, the dissertation argues that the making of intra-Armenian boundaries is also influenced or conditioned by the particular Armenian factions’ relations and boundaries with third parties (e.g. the Turks, the Kurds, the Turkish state), thus advancing a theory of multilateral social boundary making.
Decadent Indochina and French Colonial Literature, 1880s to 1920s
Keywords: French Orientalism
Decadence
Fin de siècle
Occultism
Opium
Indochina
Ruins
Angkor
Colonial literature
Sexuality
Empire
Buddhism
Decadent literature
Belle époque

This thesis investigates the long-neglected relationship between Decadence and colonialism at the fin de siècle which also coincided with the age of France’s high imperialism. Generally considered a European literary and cultural movement, Decadence has rarely been examined outside its Western boundaries, not least in connection with the empire. The fin-de-siècle colonial literature of Indochina emerges as a particularly compelling case reflecting a complex interplay between Decadence and colonialism, aesthetics and politics, at a time when France was seeking to redefine its national identity in relation to the increasingly significant concept of la plus Grande France and in opposition to other European powers.
By combining colonial discourse analysis with postcolonial and cultural studies approaches, with special emphasis on a historicist approach, this thesis engages in close readings of novels, short stories and poetry written by a number of French travellers and colonisers, most notably Paul Bonnetain, Jules Boissière, Albert de Pouvourville, Claude Farrère, Myriam Harry, Clotilde Chivas-Baron, and Jeanne Leuba. In particular it focuses on three key decadent tropes: opium, subversive sexualities, and the allure of the néant seen in terms of both spirituality and the ruins of past civilisations. Reading Decadence against colonial ideology and in relation with a wide range of fin-de-siècle scholarly and popular discourses, reveals that the decadent articulation of the colonial encounter is fundamentally political, in contrast to its perceived aestheticist detachment. Through its ambiguous propensity for revelling in what it deprecates, decadent literature often introduces ambivalence and oppositional counter-narratives disrupting the colonialist foundations on which the French rule in Indochina and the neat boundaries between coloniser and colonised are built. A postcolonial reading of decadent literature suggests the presence of ‘critical Decadence’ that points to a need to reassess the monolithic pro-colonial view of colonial literature.
Search for electron neutrino anomalies with the MicroBooNE detector
Keywords: Low-energy excess
MicroBooNE
Accelerator
Booster Neutrino Beam
Neutrino
Electron Neutrino
Time Projection Chamber
LArTPC
Liquid argon

The Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment (MicroBooNE) is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) located in the Booster Neutrino Beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The experiment was devised to investigate a series of observed anomalies concerning short-baseline neutrino oscillation physics. The LArTPC technology enables the experiment to study neutrino-argon scattering with unprecedented detail.
This thesis presents a cosmic-ray characterisation and rate measurement. The understanding of cosmic activity in the detector - MicroBooNE's dominant background - is then used to develop cosmic rejection tools. A flavour-agnostic neutrino selection is constructed, which forms the cornerstone of this and further analyses. Inclusive muon and electron charged-current neutrino interaction selections with unprecedented purity and efficiency are presented.
The first fully-automated characterisation of electron neutrinos in a muon neutrino beam with the LArTPC detector technology is performed. The Booster Neutrino Beam has an energy peaking around 1GeV and an intrinsic electron content of approximately 0.5%. The analysis investigates electrons produced in charged-current electron neutrino interactions. The kinematics of the electrons are measured along with comparisons to simulation. Most of the systematic uncertainties are constrained using a data-driven sample of charged-current muon neutrino events. The measurement of electron neutrinos originating from the Booster Neutrino Beam is a crucial component towards understanding the nature of the observed excess of low-energy electromagnetic-like events at its predecessor, MiniBooNE.
Detection of cerebral small vessel disease signs on brain MR images
Keywords: image analysis
deep learning
small vessel disease
machine learning
white matter hyperintensities
segmentation
structural MRI
cerebral microbleeds

Introduction: Accurate and automated detection of brain disease signs could aid in studying their clinical associations in large populations. This research aims to detect on magnetic resonance images two signs of cerebral small vessel disease- white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and cerebral microbleeds (CMBs)- and to analyse their spatial distribution and characteristics.
Methods: We modelled the distribution of WMHs at the population-level with respect to various parametric factors (e.g. age) using Bayesian inference. For improving the performance of FSL's WMH segmentation tool, BIANCA, we used the above population-level WMH distribution probabilities as an additional feature, tested different classiers and proposed a locally adaptive thresholding method (LOCATE). Furthermore, we developed a triplanar U-Net ensemble model (TrUE-Net), based on deep learning (DL), spatially-weighted cross-entropy and Dice loss functions to improve WMH segmentation, and explored various domain adaptation techniques. For CMBs, we developed an end-to-end analysis: CMB candidate subject preselection pipeline using machine learning, CMB detection using DL and atlas-based automated CMB rating.
Results and conclusions: Our distribution modelling provided comparable error values, with lower computational load, with respect to existing methods on simulated data. On real data, periventricular WMH probabilities showed signicant increases with age, while the probabilities for deep WMHs were higher in hypertensive subjects, in line with literature. Among the proposed improvements for BIANCA, LOCATE gave the highest performance increase on 7 datasets with dierent lesion characteristics. TrUE-Net performed better than BIANCA on 5 dierent datasets, especially on low lesion load subjects. The CMB preselection pipeline provided robust performance despite dierent training modalities. The CMB detection method provided performance comparable with existing methods and higher precision than the state-of-the-art method. Future directions for this work could include improving the DL-based CMB/WMH detection methods and studying the clinical impact of CMBs at the population-level.
A shift in time: music and temporality in 1913 Paris
Keywords: Maurice Ravel
Erik Satie
technology
time
Claude Debussy

Temporality is an integral—and often overlooked—aspect of music. This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between music and time. Rapid social, cultural and technological change affected the perception and experience of temporality in fin de siècle Paris. The year 1913 offers a fascinating case study for understanding the plethora of cultural and musical reactions to these changes. To that end, this thesis draws on a range of primary and secondary sources such as journalistic texts, letters, notes, philosophical texts, visual arts, cinematic and musical sources, and makes use of interdisciplinary methodology, drawing upon historical musicology, socio-cultural history and philosophies of time.
This thesis presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of musical life in 1913 Paris. Chapters 1 and 2 examine time and space respectively—the former details definitions of time, while the latter explores Paris as a city of temporal change, looking at changes in transport and architecture and its impact on musical culture. Chapter 3 examines landscape and Satie’s relationship with time; Chapter 4 considers the connections between Bergson, Proust and Ravel; and Chapter 5 looks closely at parallels between early cinema and Debussy’s Jeux. Finally, Chapter 6 brings together these cultural and musical moments. It is in 1913 that we can see the consequences of this rapid period of change in musical terms as a palpable trend for the first time, rather than as individual moments. By using the example of 1913 Paris, this thesis proposes that there are useful parallels to be drawn between experiences of time and the cultural and musical manifestations of temporality.
Neutrino cosmology and large scale structure
Keywords: relativistic effects
neutrino masses
dark energy
Neutrino physics

The topic of this thesis is neutrino cosmology and large scale structure. First, we introduce the concepts needed for the presentation in the following chapters.
We describe the role that neutrinos play in particle physics and cosmology, and the current status of the field. We also explain the cosmological observations that are commonly used to measure properties of neutrino particles.
Next, we present studies of the model-dependence of cosmological neutrino mass constraints. In particular, we focus on two phenomenological parameterisations of time-varying dark energy (early dark energy and barotropic dark energy) that can exhibit degeneracies with the cosmic neutrino background over extended periods of cosmic time. We show how the combination of multiple probes across cosmic time can help to distinguish between the two components.
Moreover, we discuss how neutrino mass constraints can change when neutrino masses are generated late in the Universe, and how current tensions between low- and high-redshift cosmological data might be affected from this.
Then we discuss whether lensing magnification and other relativistic effects that affect the galaxy distribution contain additional information about dark energy and neutrino parameters, and how much parameter constraints can be biased when these effects are neglected.
We conclude by describing current fields of active research in cosmology, and how the work presented in this thesis contributes to them.