VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The written and the world in early medieval Iberia
Keywords: diplomatics
literacy
Iberia
charters
Early medieval history

The written was the world of early medieval Iberia. Literacy was limited, but textuality was extensive, in the authority conferred on text and the arrangements made to use it. Roman inheritance is manifest, in documentary and legal culture, engendering literate expectations which define the period; continuity across conquest by Visigoths and Arabs, and the weakness of states in the north of the Peninsula, must lay to rest the traditional coupling of literacy with politics which underlies the paradigm of the Middle Ages. Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, as estates expanded to surmount locality and enter communities which had made do with memory, engagement with documentation was incentivized for the laity. Organization to do so followed, at one remove: the person of the scribe, who wrote the charter and recorded all those involved in and present at it, before recycling the text back into the community by public reading. The scribe mediated the text, and as his occupation consolidated he became more fully a literate interpreter. The charter, once created, had an active afterlife of dynamic circulation, enabled by multiple and accessible archives, particularly in the hands of the clergy. Written evidence was the surest defence in case of dispute; charters were self-promoting in their mutual citation as well as practical efficacy. But they also diffused legal knowledge: as each rhetorical, pragmatic, silent, and legislative reference to written law was read aloud by the scribe, how to capitalize on its provisions became better known, so kings and counts seized the potential. For the clergy, the Bible, canon law, and monastic rules were the texts which bestowed identity, but as they interacted with the laity, they set the charter in the history of salvation, and modelled textuality to society, as their monasteries became the microcosms of its written framework.
Evaluation of channels for angiogenic cells ingrowth in collagen scaffolds in vitro and in vivo
Keywords: endothelial cells
smooth muscle cells
tissue engineering
vascularisation
angiogenesis
degradation
collagen scaffolds
macrophages

Pre-cellularised scaffolds are limited in volume due to the constraints of the time delay required for angiogenic cells ingrowth forming a vascular network and allowing for delivery of nutrients and waste exchange. Channels have the potential to improve the time taken for cellular penetration. The effectiveness of channels in improving angiogenic cells penetration was assessed in vitro and in vivo in porous 3-D collagen scaffolds. Initial studies conducted in vitro demonstrated that the scaffolds supported angiogenic cells ingrowth in culture and the channels improved the depth of penetration of cells into the scaffold. The cells reside mainly around the channels and migrate along the channels. In vivo, channels increased cell migration into the scaffolds and in particular angiogenic cells resulting in a clear branched vascular network of micro vessels in the channelled samples which was not apparent in the non-channelled samples. This correlated well with macrophage invasion into scaffolds since angiogenesis in vivo is usually accompanied by infiltration of macrophages which participate in organization of angiogenesis, and in regulation of tissue regeneration. Thus, macrophage-mediated biodegradation of collagen scaffolds in vitro was also assessed. Furthermore, pre-seeding channelled collagen scaffolds with endothelial cells implantation has potential of speeding up vascularisation of scaffolds compared to human bone marrow stromal cells.
The evolution of global fisheries governance, 1960-2010
Keywords: social network analysis
international institutions
global fisheries governance

Fisheries straddling or migrating between international maritime boundaries represent a typical case of the tragedy of the commons. Over two dozen Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) have been created to manage these fisheries, which means it also represents a typical case of 'regime complexity' or 'governance architecture'. These literatures recognise that such institutions do not operate independently and therefore institutional functions such as attracting participants, practising their regulatory role, and performing their mandate should be understood as interdependent.
This thesis proposes that we study such institutions together with actors and architectures of relations between and among them, which together I term 'governance complexes', by means of a relational approach. This relational approach combines relational theory, which posits the operation of endogenous relational mechanisms alongside exogenous explanations such as institutional design, with network methods that enable structural insights and robust inference that takes into account these interdependencies.
The dissertation comprises two main parts that describe and explain the global fisheries governance complex, respectively. The first describes how the governance complex's three main components, states, RFMOs, and states participation in these RFMOs, have evolved. A topological typology utilising key network concepts is proposed and employed to show that the global fisheries governance complex is not fragmenting but becoming more overlapped and nested.
The second part explains how this governance complex has evolved in terms of (1) participation, (2) practice, and (3) performance. First, it finds that while states find institutional design features such as an RFMO’s internal organisation attractive, relational mechanisms such as popularity and closure also provide important heuristics for participatory decisions in complex settings. Second, it finds that high levels of organisation also enables higher regulatory activity, but so do relational mechanisms such as coercion or imitation. Third, it proposes the concept of net effectiveness to gauge an institution’s "take-home" performance once its position in the broader governance complex has been taken into account. The result is not only an explanation of the evolution of global fisheries governance but also a developmental step towards an institutional relationalist theory of governance complexes.
Prediction of mortality in septic patients with hypotension
Keywords: prediction of mortality
sepsis
machine learning
intensive care unit
septic shock

Sepsis remains the second largest killer in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), giving rise to a significant economic burden ($17b per annum in the US, 0.3% of the gross domestic product). The aim of the work described in this thesis is to improve the estimation of severity in this population, with a view to improving the allocation of resources.
A cohort of 2,143 adult patients with sepsis and hypotension was identified from the MIMIC-II database (v2.26). The implementation of state-of-the-art models confirms the superiority of the APACHE-IV model (AUC=73.3%) for mortality prediction using ICU admission data. Using the same subset of features, state-of-the art machine learning techniques (Support Vector Machines and Random Forests) give equivalent results. More recent mortality prediction models are also implemented and offer an improvement in discriminatory power (AUC=76.16%).
A shift from expert-driven selection of variables to objective feature selection techniques using all available covariates leads to a major gain in performance (AUC=80.4%). A framework allowing simultaneous feature selection and parameter pruning is developed, using a genetic algorithm, and this offers similar performance. The model derived from the first 24 hours in the ICU is then compared with a “dynamic” model derived over the same time period, and this leads to a significant improvement in performance (AUC=82.7%). The study is then repeated using data surrounding the hypotensive episode in an attempt to capture the physiological response to hypotension and the effects of treatment. A significant increase in performance (AUC=85.3%) is obtained with the static model incorporating data both before and after the hypotensive episode. The equivalent dynamic model does not demonstrate a statistically significant improvement (AUC=85.6%).
Testing on other ICU populations with sepsis is needed to validate the findings of this thesis, but the results presented in it highlight the role that data mining will increasingly play in clinical knowledge generation.
Health impacts amongst carers of orphans and other children in a high HIV prevalence community in South Africa
Keywords: health
carer
South Africa
orphan
HIV/AIDS

Fifteen million children have been orphaned by AIDS. A growing body of evidence documents impacts of parental deaths on orphans, but little is known about impacts faced by AIDS-orphan carers. This study set out to: (a) investigate physical and mental health outcomes of adults caring for children in Umlazi, a high HIV prevalence township in South Africa; (b) assess whether AIDS-orphan carers face worse outcomes compared to other carers; and, (c) identify risk and protective factors for health. Using a cross-sectional survey, data was gathered from a representative community sample from August 2008 to March 2009 resulting in the largest known study conducted on AIDS-orphan carers to date (n=1599). The majority of carers looked after non-orphaned children (66.85%) followed by AIDS-orphan (22.45%) and other-orphan children (10.69%). Orphan carers had significantly worse general health and functioning, depression, and post-traumatic stress than non-orphan carers but patterns were less clear when orphan carers were disaggregated into AIDS-orphan and other-orphan carers for comparison. This suggests that health interventions might target orphan carers, rather than singling out AIDS-orphan carers. Differences in age, gender, education, economic assets, and source of household income fully accounted for the association between being an orphan carer and poor health. Social policy grants reduced negative health disparities between orphan carers and non-orphan carers. Social support, education, economic assets, food, access to water, and housing were iii also identified as risk and protective co-factors that might reduce orphan carer disparities in health. By highlighting health as a serious issue for orphan carers and identifying risk and protective factors for health, this study offers policy and program insights into how to mitigate negative impacts faced by carers in high HIV prevalence communities facing escalating numbers of orphans.
Non-equilibrium strongly-correlated dynamics
Keywords: strongly correlated
theory
tensor network
strongly-correlated
physics
Monte Carlo
variance
mixtures
Bose gas
non equilibrium
Time-Evolving Block Decimation
Esaki-Tsu
non-equilibrium
optical lattice
stochastic process
TEBD
impurities
cold atom

We study non-equilibrium and strongly-correlated dynamics in two contexts. We begin by analysing quantum many-body systems out of equilibrium through the lens of cold atomic impurities in Bose gases. Such highly-imbalanced mixtures provide a controlled arena for the study of interactions, dissipation, decoherence and transport in a many-body quantum environment.
Specifically we investigate the oscillatory dynamics of a trapped and initially highly-localised impurity interacting with a weakly-interacting trapped quasi low-dimensional Bose gas. This relates to and goes beyond a recent experiment by the Inguscio group in Florence. We witness a delicate interplay between the self-trapping of the impurity and the inhomogeneity of the Bose gas, and describe the dissipation of the energy of the impurity through phononic excitations of the Bose gas.
We then study the transport of a driven, periodically-trapped impurity through a quasi one-dimensional Bose gas. We show that placing the weakly-interacting Bose gas in a separate periodic potential leads to a phononic excitation spectrum that closely mimics those in solid state systems. As a result we show that the impurity-Bose gas system exhibits phonon-induced resonances in the impurity current that were predicted to occur in solids decades ago but never clearly observed. Following this, allowing the bosons to interact strongly, we predict the effect of different strongly-correlated phases of the Bose gas on the motion of the impurity. We show that, by observing the impurity, properties of the excitation spectrum of the Bose gas, e.g., gap and bandwidth, may be inferred along with the filling of the bosonic lattice. In other words the impurity acts as a probe of its environment.
To describe the dynamics of such a strongly-correlated system we use the powerful and near-exact time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) method, which we describe in detail. The second part of this thesis then analyses, for the first time, the performance of this method when applied to simulate non-equilibrium classical stochastic processes. We study its efficacy for a well-understood model of transport, the totally-asymmetric exclusion process, and find it to be accurate.
Next, motivated by the inefficiency of sampling-based numerical methods for high variance observables we adapt and apply TEBD to simulate a path-dependent observable whose variance increases exponentially with system size. Specifically we calculate the expected value of the exponential of the work done by a varying magnetic field on a one-dimensional Ising model undergoing Glauber dynamics. We confirm using Jarzynski's equality that the TEBD method remains accurate and efficient. Therefore TEBD and related methods complement and challenge the usual Monte Carlo-based simulators of non-equilibrium stochastic processes.
The publisher Humphrey Moseley and royalist literature, 1640-1660
Keywords: Psalms
literature
publishing history
royalist
romance
royalism
politics
intertextuality
translation

The principal argument of this thesis is that royalist literary publishing in the civil wars and Interregnum was a more coherent and wider movement than has been recognised. It asserts the importance of print culture to royalists, both as a vehicle for personal responses to political circumstances, and as a means to criticize and undermine the opposition. The thesis uses the publisher Humphrey Moseley as a lens through which to examine the publisher's role in the dissemination of a wide range of royalist texts. It demonstrates that publishers, as well as authors, were driven by their political and ideological opinions.
The thesis begins by establishing that the royalist and Anglican convictions expressed within the texts published by Moseley corresponded with his own. This opening chapter also demonstrates the editorial control that he exerted when publishing a book. Next follow five case studies. In the second chapter I examine writings of Moseley's most prolific author, James Howell. I show that until the censorship legislation of September 1649, Howell published royalist polemical pamphlets. I argue that in response to the censorship act Howell shifted to a more subtle method of polemical writing, most notably when he embedded extracts from his polemical pamphlets in his historical allegory Dodona's Grove which Moseley published in 1650. Chapters Three to Six are genre-based case studies. These chapters analyse the ways that a variety of genres were used by royalists in support of the Stuart cause and the Anglican Church. In the final chapter I set Moseley within the context of royalist publishing more widely. I review the careers of Henry Seile and Richard Royston to demonstrate that Moseley was not the only publisher committed to the royalist cause and that his productions belonged to a broad spectrum of royalist publishing.
End of empire policies, and the politics of local elites: the British exit from south Arabia and the Gulf, 1951-1972.
Keywords: GCC
UAE
Aden
South Arabia
Persian Gulf
Yemen.
British Empire

The unusual way in which Britain's empire in Arabia was connected politically and constitutionally to the metropole, and the perceived – in some instances exaggerated – view of its strategic and economic importance, created both an opportunity and a justification for the British disengagement from the region to happen differently than in most of the rest of the empire. Strong personalities – in the metropole, amongst the men on the spot, and among local elites – played a crucial role in decision-making, and this thesis argues that informal networks from among these three constituencies worked in parallel to the established formal channels, impacting policy and driving the decision-making process. These networks initially contributed to a break in the political consensus within the metropole, but eventually also helped to restore it. The manipulation of local elites was the tool of choice, used by Britain (under both Conservative and Labour Governments) and its "men on the spot", in their endeavour to secure a lasting privileged position in Arabia. How key actors adapted to change, both in their own societies and in the international system, often determined the success or otherwise of their endeavours.
This tangled tale of Britain’s last imperial stand in Arabia is far from being a unique case of how modern empires have handled unusual episodes of imperial retreat. The story has echoes in two other imperial exits of the late 20th century – the French disengagement from Algeria from 1954 to 1962, and Russian efforts to maintain a privileged position in Georgia, immediately before and after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and since. Even if it is too early to draw firm conclusions, similar patterns – as the ones discussed in this thesis with regards to the end of the British Empire in Arabia – can also be observed in the other two cases, allowing us to draw some observations and lessons.
Risking the flood: cartographies of things to come
Keywords: risk
insurance
simulation
STS
pragmatism
flooding
modelling

Reflecting on fieldwork carried out in the UK insurance sector, the thesis explores the role played by various types of actuarial and hydrological expertise in the performance of flooding as a matter of sustained public concern. In doing so, the question is raised: what analytical status to give the concept of risk when accounting for the epistemic doings involved in bringing yet unrealised future floods to bear on the present? Contrary to most other European countries the provision of flood insurance in the UK is left to the market and organised via an agreement under which insurers pledge to provide cover in areas protected by the Government to a standard of 1:75 years (the average return period between floods). What should be taken into account when mapping out this 1:75 year flood zone is subject to debates constantly revitalised by flood events with changing characteristics as well as new ways of modelling and anticipating what has yet to take place. How should we understand the knowledge claims hardwired into these debates through the involvement of actuarial and hydrological expertise? The thesis will argue that a reorientation of flood risk away from a status as the (multiple) object of these claims towards a status as an event in which a diverse variety of other things are brought into being (maps, futures, frequencies, anxieties, publics, geographies, things which are not necessarily very well understood as risk per se), will give rise to more productive and eventful questions. In the terminology of Isabelle Stengers, to risk is to create the possibility of bringing new things to life – the risking of floods seems to be constantly exciting such creativities.
Irish protestant travel to Europe, 1660-1727
Keywords: education
improvement
identity
Irish history
grand tour
European travel
British history
Irish Protestants

This thesis examines travel to continental Europe as undertaken by several generations of Irish Protestants between 1660 and 1727. Historians draw parallels between the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and other polities in ancien régime Europe, but these demand an exploration of contemporary encounters. Research on the Irish in Europe concentrates on Catholics without much regard to Protestant experiences, while work on English or British travel overlooks ways in which Irish Protestant voyages differed. This thesis analyses the experiences of Church-of-Ireland families from the gentry, nobility and aristocracy, especially the Southwells, Percevals, Molesworths, Molyneuxs, Boyles and Butlers. Correspondence, notebooks and financial accounts reconstruct their voyages, mainly to France, Italy, the Low Countries and Germany, and their attitudes towards the practice of travel. Journeys to other destinations are incorporated, as are the voyages of neighbours, acquaintances and employees. Purposes varied, but travel was consistently considered an opportunity for 'improvement'.
The thesis follows the successive preoccupations of travellers, beginning with demonstrations of 'fitness to travel'. Wealthy young men were judged according to criteria that privileged anglicisation and Protestantism, though linguistic skill was a more socially-comprehensive standard. Advisors emphasised civil conversation and written observation, but warnings to avoid 'countrymen' were ignored. The company of English-speaking travellers and Irish Catholic expatriates created distinctive European experiences. Foreign hosts often saw uncomplicated Englishmen, though some recognised Irish difference. Anglican travellers held qualified membership of a 'Protestant international', drawing on a cross-confessional 'stock of friends'. Travellers received tuition that complicates perceptions of travel as 'informal' education and they memorialised experiences through souvenirs and gifts. Voyages encouraged some into English residence and identifications, though others brought improvements home to Ireland. 'Improvement', as it related to wealthy Church-of-Ireland families, functioned not as a binary between approved England and disdained Ireland but a triangular exchange in which continental Europe featured prominently.