VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The prehistory of material signification: tracing the nature and emergence of early body ornamentation through a pragmatic and enactive theory of cognitive semiotics
Keywords: Symbolism
Early body ornaments
Material Signification

This thesis explores the nature and emergence of early body ornamentation, which has long been at the forefront of the debate on modern human origins. According to most prehistorians, ornamental shell beads are unequivocal proxies for behavioural and cognitive "modernity", for they are considered the arbitrary products of symbolically-capable brains. In my dissertation, I argue against the "symbolic" dictum of reducing material signification to linguistic terms, and attributing its creation to a representational mechanism. For one, the significative meaning of material culture is not entirely arbitrary, because concepts can be founded on physical properties and affordances. Moreover, material signification is not the epiphenomenal product of innate cognitive modules, for the mind is not a computational device that processes internal representations before externalising them through behaviour.
I thus suggest that these theoretical fallacies about the nature and emergence of material signification can be overcome by combining a pragmatic semiotic approach with an enactive theory of cognition. Briefly put, a pragmatic semiotic theory describes the nature of material signification by recognising that significative concepts can be founded on physical qualities and relations, whereas an enactive theory of cognition accounts for the emergence of material signification by explaining how significative concepts are brought forth via the constitutive entwinement of mind and matter. Through the synergistic fusion of these theoretical tenets, the origins of early body ornamentation can be examined from a developmental perspective that treats the generation of significative meaning as the emergent product of material engagement. In its light, the preoccupation of most evolutionary archaeologists with the notion of "modernity" appears to be inherently problematic. It is therefore ultimately proposed that the dominant symbolic interpretation of material signification need be replaced with a pragmatic and enactive theory of cognitive semiotics that is suitably geared to trace the evolution of prehistoric material signs.
A theological defence of Burkean conservatism and a critique of contractarian liberalism
Keywords: common law
Contractarian Liberalism
Philosophes
Edmund Burke
John Fortescue
natural law
Burkean
Edward Coke
Political Theology
John Locke
Burkean conservatism
John Rawls
John Selden
Conservatism
Christianity

In this thesis I have provided a critique of the stream of contractarian liberalism which finds its source in the work of John Locke, tracing its influence through the French Revolution and into our own era in the work of the contemporary liberal theorist John Rawls. I have drawn particular attention to the substantive and methodological assumptions which unify these three instantiations of the contractarian tradition. I have challenged this stream of liberalism by offering an exposition of the thought of Edmund Burke. During the course of the thesis I have looked at the central themes which characterised Burke's thought, drawing particular attention to Burke's understanding of the British constitution, common law and his regard for the institutional church. Secondly, I have analysed the theological content of Burke's political thought, demonstrating that Burke's political thought emerged from his Christian faith and his concomitant belief in the natural law. I have argued that, as a result, there is a profound consonance between the central principles of the Christian faith and the conservative tradition which followed Burke. In the course of this argument I have defended the natural law school of Burkean scholarship and presented a clear link between Burke and the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Thirdly, I have unearthed some of the theological convictions which were historically resident in the British legal tradition that informed Burke's thought and I have shown how these assumptions run counter to the central ideas of the contractarian tradition. I have concluded by arguing that there are specifiable aspects of contractarian liberalism which should be treated with suspicion by Christians.
Dimensions of allusion synthesis affecting craft in the works of Huw Belling and in 20th and 21st century composition
Keywords: Allusion
Composition

This examination of my own works (presented largely in chronological order) and of related music by others, broadly concerns itself with appropriation and allusion on the part of twentieth and twenty-first century composers. It considers how the deliberate synthesis of existing works affects the responding composers' own output. To this end, whether surveying my own music or others', I do so within a four-pronged framework:
1. The philosophical premise and aesthetic of pieces which somehow appropriate existing composition (as claimed overtly by the composer, or inferred from available research).
2. The compositional procedure and techniques employed in the process of composing works which allude to or synthesise other pieces.
3. The product resulting from the interaction of the above two factors (naturally the latter is more concrete).
4. Critics' and scholars’ responses: the basic phenomenology of the allusive element, synthesis, or stylistic appropriation, and the ethical problems surrounding any appropriation.
My analyses address one or more of these connected points. They raise a number of significant questions. Is synthesis and re-composition (the latter taken to be more specifically referential) affective or effective? That is to say, is it aesthetically prescriptive? Can composers manage to quarantine 'Les objets trouvés' from their individual practice? Of interest are composers with individual credibility as innovators, whose craft is its own defence against criticism on dogmatic grounds. I consider what is to be gained, in terms of technique, and in terms of developing an aesthetic, from the process of specifically engaging with other pieces, and explore the effects of differing methods of synthesis as compared across compositional practices.
Why comply? The politics of the international refugee regime in non-party Southeast Asian states
Keywords: Philippines
Thailand
refugee convention
compliance
Malaysia
Indonesia

A majority of Southeast Asian states are not party to the international refugee regime, and thus have not formally consented to be bound by its normative obligations. This thesis examines changes in State refugee policies absent formal commitments to the regime, using process tracing and archival evidence in four case studies (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines) to inductively explain shifts in each states’ compliance. It employs rationalist and constructivist lenses, contributing to the literature on compliance absent formalised international legal commitments, and that on forced migration.
Linking ageing and arthritis: The role of the longevityrelated SIRT1 molecule in age-related cartilage degeneration and osteoarthritis
Keywords: SIRT1
Osteoarthritis
Inflammation
Autophagy
Ageing Biology
Experimental therapeutic

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis worldwide and is characterised by the progressive degradation of articular cartilage. Ageing is the primary risk factor associated with OA. However, the roles of ageing-related mechanisms in cartilage homeostasis are poorly understood. The class three histone deacetylase, Silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog (SIRT1) has been extensively shown to regulate lifespan in lower organisms and signalling pathways linked to mammalian ageing. My thesis explores the role of Sirtuin 1 in cartilage homeostasis and OA.
I used in vitro experiments with chondrocyte cell lines, human clinical samples, novel genetically modified cartilage specific and whole body SIRT1 deficient mice alongside molecular biological tools to investigate my research questions.
Human OA cartilage showed decreased SIRT1 compared to healthy cartilage. Mice with cartilage-specific SIRT1 deletion showed greater cartilage degradation during ageing and in an experimental OA model. In vitro and in vivo studies showed SIRT1 to directly regulate autophagy in chondrocytes. More importantly, the activation of autophagy using spermidine protected against experimental OA in wild-type mice but not in cartilage-specific SIRT1 deficient mice. In addition, my data revealed whole body SIRT1 deficient mice had increased early joint inflammation in repose to injury but displayed less cartilage loss over time in an experimental OA model.
Together I have shown that SIRT1 declines with age and contributes to OA due to dysregulated autophagy. However, chronic low grade inflammation caused by SIRT1 loss was protective. My data suggest these pathways can be targeted to treat OA.
Technology and employment: tasks, capabilities, and tastes
Keywords: automation
technological Unemployment
computerisation
technology
future of Work
economics

This thesis explores the consequences of 'increasingly capable machines' on earnings and employment. A new literature, the task-based approach, has been developed for this purpose. And this literature presents an optimistic account of the prospects for labour in the 21st century. The central claim in this literature is that "people tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for labour and ignore the complementarities".
This thesis challenges this optimism. I argue that such optimism is based on two assumptions, neither of which is justified. The first is that the supply-side analysis in this literature is based on outdated reasoning about how these machines operate. The result is that the models arbitrarily constrain what machines are capable of doing. The second is that the demand-side analysis in this literature is either altogether missing, or is carried out in a way that is constrained by the arbitrary supply-side assumption.
In this thesis I build a new range of task-based models that are based on more justifiable assumptions. The first set of models show that updated reasoning about how machines operate leads to a pessimistic account of the prospects for labour. The second set of models show that the demand-side has an important role in either strengthening, or weakening, this pessimism that is reached when the supply-side is looked at in isolation. This analysis leads to the identification of an important new 'race' in the labour market.
Genetic risk and resilience for Alzheimer’s disease: The effect of the three APOE alleles on brain function across life
Keywords: MRI
Ageing
APOE gene

The human apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene has three alleles (ε2, ε3 and ε4). Relative to the most common ε3 allele, ε4 is associated with a higher risk of developing sporadic late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) whereas ε2 is believed to confer a protection to AD. Because of ε4's close association with cognitive decline, the majority of APOE-research has focused on this allele, with ε2 receiving little attention. This DPhil thesis used advanced multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging techniques in cognitively healthy young (20-40 years), middle-age (35-55 years) and older (60-85 years) adults to fulfil two objectives: (1) to present the first detailed examination of the effects of ε2 on brain structure and function across life, and (2) to study the early-life effects of APOE on cerebrovascular and neurochemical health, both of which are characteristically impaired in AD but have not been investigated in relation to APOE. We found that while APOE did not exert strong effects on brain structure or neurochemistry across the lifespan, there were significant allele-specific changes in brain function and vascular health. APOE’s effects on functional connectivity of the posterior cingulate cortex varied with age (connectivity in young adults: ε4 &GT; (ε2 and ε3); older adults: (ε2 and ε3) &GT; ε4). APOE ε2 carriers displayed an upward and ε4 carriers a declining trend in functional connectivity from young to older ages, with the middle-age range serving as a crossing point for the two opposing trajectories. Notably, similar increases in brain activity were observed within the hippocampus during a memory-encoding task in young ε4 carriers relative to non-carriers, suggesting a link between ε4 and early-life functional hyperactivity. We also found that young ε4 carriers had the worst and ε2 carriers the most robust measures of cerebrovascular reactivity (measured as the compensatory blood flow to the brain in response to breathing carbon dioxide, i.e. CO2-CVR). Early-life changes in cerebrovascular function may explain why ε4 carriers are more vulnerable to amyloid deposition and by contrast, why ε2 carriers remain relatively protected from AD-related neuropathology. Evidence suggests that impairments in CO2-CVR can be pharmacologically restored, making this measure a particularly useful preclinical marker of AD risk. Overall, this thesis provides valuable insights into the effects of APOE in the brain, and lends support to our growing understanding of AD as a vascular disorder.
Synthesis of deuterated phosphatidylinositol phosphates
Keywords: Deuterium Labelling
Phospholipids

Phosphatidylinositol phosphates (PtdInsPn) are intracellular signalling molecules that are important in many key biological processes, in particular Ca2+ signalling pathways. Dysfunction of these processes has been implicated in numerous diseases including diabetes and many cancers. Some aspects of PtdInsPn signalling have been heavily investigated; PTEN, PKC/Akt, PtdIns3K and PtdIns4K are all important therapeutic targets that have seen much attention in industrial endeavours. Inositol-based probes and tool compounds for these targets typically incorporate a fluorescent tag or photo-crosslinking group, usually at the lipid tails. It is increasingly apparent that the nature of the lipid chains plays a key role in determining the sub-cellular localisation of the PtdInsPn and hence modification of the lipids is potentially detrimental to the biological function of the tool compounds. An additional challenge in the development of inositol-based tools compounds is the difficult and lengthy syntheses that are employed to obtain the target compounds. To address this, we have developed a novel asymmetric route that allows rapid synthesis of PtdIns and PtdIns(4,5)P2. This route has been designed to allow incorporation of multiple deuterium atoms onto the myo-inositol ring (C-perdeuterated). To achieve this, we began with the aromatic compound quinol and built up the myo-inositol ring piecewise, allowing for deuterium incorporation. This methodology utilised a Pd-catalysed dynamic kinetic resolution on a conduritol B derivative to form optically-pure myo-inositol derivatives in high e.e. (&GT;99%) toward the synthesis of D6-PtdIns(4,5)P2. The incorporation of deuterium into these compounds should be minimally disruptive to their biological activity, while the difference in molecular mass between the endogenous and tool compounds enables their use in a range of biological assays. In addition, the incorporation of the deuterium onto the myo-inositol ring will allow for the detection of downstream effects relating to the myo-inositol ring post-hydrolysis of PtdIns(4,5)P2 to be observed, which is currently not possible with other probes.
Discourses of identity in contemporary East Asian Music: Chen Yi, Unsuk Chin and Karen Tanaka
Keywords: ecomusicology
cross-cultural confluence
contemporary opera
musical identity

Discourses of identity in East Asian new music are often limited to tracing ethnographic materials or conceptual influences from the composers' cultures of origin. Existing analytical approaches tend to look for the musical features that are emblematic of the cultures in question, and to map relationships between the contemporary and traditional musical aspects. Composers who resist employing their native traditions as musical tropes, however, problematise discussions of their identity and are consequently overlooked in studies of identity politics.
This thesis therefore examines questions of identity through a focus on three contemporary composers who, in diverse ways, challenge and complicate essentialising expressions of East Asian identity: Chinese composer Chen Yi (1953-), Korean composer Unsuk Chin (1961-) and Japanese composer Karen Tanaka (1961-). All of them came to Europe or the United States to hone their skills in the mid-1980s and have since developed their musical careers in the Western world. They have been selected for examination due to their radically different reactions to the East-meets-West question; namely, Chen Yi's embracing of cultural fusion; Unsuk Chin's reaction against cultural fusion; and Karen Tanaka’s lack of interest in cultural fusion. To demonstrate this variation, this thesis analyses the works of these composers, their personal viewpoints and the critical reception of their works. Beyond discussing conventional notions of identity and difference, this dissertation explores the ways in which these composers complicate their perceived dissimilarity by embracing a 'universal music' ideal.
Chapter One explores Chen Yi's musical identity as defined by her idea of 'cultural translation' and her musical goal of enhancing intercultural communication; where Chen Yi affirms cultural fusion, her work contributes to the traditional idea of 'East-meets-West'. Chapter Two examines an alternative approach in the case of Unsuk Chin, who consciously avoids the practice of cultural hybridity by locating her work squarely within the Western tradition. Chapters Three examines the works of two Japanese composers – Toru Takemitsu and Karen Tanaka – who focus their attention not on cultural fusion but on natural themes. The first section of Chapter Three presents Toru Takemitsu's Japanese-based philosophy of the co-creative bond between nature and humanity, which serves as a foil for Karen Tanaka's evolving, observational relationship with the natural world. To conclude, I compare the identity choices and the musical representations in the three case studies of Chen Yi, Unsuk Chin and Karen Tanaka. By gaining a better understanding of each composer’s music, this thesis aims to provide a more expansive discourse of identity formation in contemporary East Asian art music, and to offer a critical rethinking of what counts as an 'Asian perspective' in this field.
Model presswomen: ‘high-minded’ female journalism in the mid-Victorian era
Keywords: Nineteenth-century literature
Victorian journalism
Victorian feminism
Victorian women's professional authorship

This study contributes to current critical discussions about the figure of the Victorian woman journalist. Most previous scholarship on nineteenth-century female journalism has focused either on women's anonymous writings or on their contributions to conventionally feminine genres like serial fiction and prose articles on domesticity and fashion. Although women's campaigning journalism has attracted some attention, especially from historians of feminism, its role in the professionalization of women writers has gone largely unexamined. Consequently, it has been assumed that female journalists did not write on social and political issues, unless they wrote anonymously or as reformers with little interest in developing careers as presswomen. This thesis radically revises this view by showing the mid-century rise of female journalists who wrote on serious social and political topics and earned national and international repute. They broke the codes of anonymity in a number of ways, including signing articles in their own names and developing distinctly female personae. They presented themselves as model middle-class professional authors: knowledgeable, financially independent and vocationally committed. They proved, by example, women's fitness for conventionally masculine lines of journalism. By examining their careers in the periodical press, my thesis offers the first in-depth analysis of 'high-minded' female journalism in Victorian England.
Beginning with the 1850s, the thesis is organised around certain key developments in the periodical press, such as the debates about professional authorship, discussions of the plight of single women and the nature of female work, and the advent of signed publication. It examines the rise of prestigious presswork by women through the study of three distinct, yet overlapping models of the female professional journalist: the feminist journalist, the mainstream reform journalist, and the foreign correspondent. It then discusses the representation of women's high-minded journalism in the domain of fiction. The study ends in the 1880s, noting how these mid-Victorian models of women's presswork influenced the discussion and practice of female professional journalism in the 1890s.
The catechumenate in late antique Africa: Augustine of Hippo, his contemporaries and early reception (ca. 360-530 AD)
Keywords: late antiquity
catechumens
initiation
conversion
baptism
Africa
history of christianity
christianisation
religious identity
augustine

In the late antique West, every individual becoming Christian first entered the community as a catechumen (catechumenus). Many spent several years in this status called the catechumenate, only ending with baptism and the acquisition of the membership of the faithful (fideles). This thesis considers the catechumenate not only as an initiation but as a peculiar way of being Christian. It demonstrates the fluid nature of Christian membership and shows how clerics strove to develop their authority over catechumens to build a cohesive community in a context of rivalry between churches and polemical controversies. The catechumenate both enabled converts to adhere progressively to the community and constituted an opportunity for clerics to set a standard path of progression, enforce discipline and define what it meant to be a Christian. This thesis opens up new avenues to study the process of Christianisation by stressing the continuous significance of the catechumenate for the formation of Christian communities in late antiquity. After an introduction, Chapter Two focuses on Augustine’s recollections of his time as a catechumen. Chapter Three looks at Augustine to investigate more broadly the practices of catechumeni, shedding light on the pervasive polemical context in which they are discussed. Chapter Four provides case studies on the cross put on the forehead to manifest Christian membership and the treatise De fide et operibus, exploring how Augustine aimed at shaping practices and ideas. Chapter Five investigates contemporary evidence: first an African canon regulating the ritual participation of catechumeni, then sermons describing unique rituals of the baptismal preparation and demonstrating that practices often varied locally. Chapter Six compares the sixth-century letter exchanges between Ferrandus and Fulgentius with John the Deacon’s letter to Senarius, showing the enduring importance of the catechumenate in the West and the creative reception of earlier African sources addressing recurrent pastoral problems.