VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The repetition of originality : on the question of association between late antique ‘Gnostics’ and the medieval Kabbalah :  an argument for a revised methodology
Keywords: Gnostic(s)
Alchemy
Cathars
Gnosticism
Mysticism
Comparative Mythology
Kabbalah

This thesis aims to provide a critique of the conclusions of Gershom Scholem regarding the potential for ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic filiation, and to establish whether, in light of the available evidence, Scholem’s arguments (which have yet, to my mind, to be sufficiently challenged) can be reasonably supported. I strive to offer an arguably clearer definition of the relevant taxonomic terms than is often presented in scholarly analyses of this question, whilst also arguing for the applicability to this debate of certain pertinent methodological approaches drawn from the wider school of comparative mythology. As such, I also attempt to establish a clear methodology for judging the probability of the genetic descent of one ‘system’ from another, viz. that perhaps the most logical method for assessing potential similarities between different ‘systems’ is to assume in the first instance that all correspondences identified are essentially coincidental, dismissing this assumption only if one can identify a high level of exactness in these comparisons (such as would render pure coincidence relatively improbable) and/or establish a secure chain of transmission between two sources, a chain which renders the transmission of ideas not only possible but indeed probable. Applying this methodology to certain potential routes by which second century ‘Gnostic’ thought might have been transmitted to the origin point of the medieval Kabbalah, I attempt both to demonstrate the wider applicability of such a methodology beyond the narrow question of ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic relationships, and to illustrate the serious difficulties with advancing any of these potential routes as a reliable source for the transmission of ‘Gnostic’ ideas to the Kabbalah. Rather, I argue that it may be more logically defensible, in the absence of clear source evidence, to ascribe such correspondences as are located purely to coincidence, albeit a coincidence perhaps somewhat tempered by certain observations regarding the relative ubiquity of certain concepts and modes of thought.
Structural modelling of transmembrane domains
Keywords: protein structure
membrane insertion
membrane proteins
environment-specific substitution tables
protein modelling
three-dimensional structure prediction
loop modelling

Membrane proteins represent about one third of all known vertebrate proteins and over half of the current drug targets. Knowledge of their three-dimensional (3D) structure is worth millions of pounds to the pharmaceutical industry. Yet experimental structure elucidation of membrane proteins is a slow and expensive process. In the absence of experimental data, computational modelling tools can be used to close the gap between the numbers of known protein sequences and structures. However, currently available structure prediction tools were developed with globular soluble proteins in mind and perform poorly on membrane proteins. This thesis describes the development of a modelling approach able to predict accurately the structure of transmembrane domains of proteins.
In this thesis we build a template-based modelling framework especially for membrane proteins, which uses membrane protein-specific information to inform the modelling process.Firstly, we develop a tool to accurately determine a given membrane protein structure's orientation within the membrane. We offer an analysis of the preferred substitution patterns within the membrane, as opposed to non-membrane environments, and how these differences influence the structures observed. This information is then used to build a set of tools that produce better sequence alignments of membrane proteins, compared to previously available methods, as well as more accurate predictions of their 3D structures. Each chapter describes one new piece of software or information and uses the tools and knowledge described in previous chapters to build up to a complete accurate model of a transmembrane domain.
Franz Kafka's relation to Judaism
Keywords: Jewish mysticism
Franz Kafka
Judaism

Excerpt from introduction: This thesis aims to examine Kafka's life and work in relation to what is arguably the crucial factor in his complex historical, cultural, literary and religious background. The particular relevance of his Jewishness is a subject that has occasionally been discussed in the study of Kafka; attention has been drawn to it especially by his Jewish contemporaries and friends, but the issues involved in it have not yet received exhaustive investigation.
The main part of my thesis is devoted to the subject of Kafka's interest in Jewish mysticism, notably in its Hasidic form, in the later years of his life. It shows how his search to regain a sense of participation in Jewish tradition, combined with religious impulses deeply inclined towards an esoteric spirituality, led him to practise his art in the light of this interest as a religious pursuit with unmistakably mystical intent.
What I hope becomes clear from my work is the course of individual development by which growing concern for his relation to Jewish tradition led Kafka to deeper appreciation of his historical situation, and guided his increasing sense of moral and spiritual commitment to his time, despite (or because of?) the deficiencies he perceived in it, in a 'task' undertaken through the medium of his art.
In selecting nine stories from the Landarzt collection for commentary in the final chapter, I have chosen to concentrate on a crucial period in Kafka's literary development that began in 1916/17, when his continuing, earnest assessment of his position as a Jew had an evidence influence upon his choice of narrative subject and technique. The stories have been considered not in the published sequence of the Landarzt collection, but in an order that seems appropriate to discussion of various aspects of their Jewish context. Where possible, my commentaries upon these stories are related to themes previously identified in discussion of the Oktavhefte, which were begun soon after the collection was completed and contain the chief evidence of Kafka's growing mystical pre-occupation.
Building the Drosophila centriole: a structural investigation of the centriolar Proteins SAS-6, SAS-4 and Ana2
Keywords: Structural Biology
X-ray Crystallography
Biochemistry
Drosophila
Centriole
Cell Biology

The centriole is a complex cylindrical assembly found in the cells of ciliated eukaryotes. It serves two important roles in the cell: templating the growth of cilia, and forming the basis of the centrosome, which is the major microtubule organising centre in the cell. Cilia and centrosomes are involved in many cellular processes, from signalling to cell division and differentiation. As such, defects in centriole assembly can have downstream consequences on these processes and are linked to a variety of human diseases including cancer and microcephaly.
The complex superstructure of the centriole has fascinated biologists for decades. It comprises a nine-fold, radially symmetric array of microtubule triplet blades attached to a central cartwheel structure. During the last two decades, proteomic analyses have identified many proteins that are associated with the centriole. However, genetic studies have shown that only a surprisingly small number of these proteins are essential for the biogenesis of the centriole.
In Drosophila melanogaster, three such essential proteins, SAS-6, Ana2 and SAS-4 are required in the early stages of centriole biogenesis. In this thesis I have investigated the assembly steps involving these key players from a structural perspective. I have identified and recombinantly expressed functional domains of these proteins in order to characterise them in vitro. Using X-ray crystallography and other biophysical techniques, I have been able to define mechanisms for several steps involved in the assembly of these proteins. In collaboration with colleagues in the laboratory I have been able to investigate the biological significance of these essential assembly steps in vivo. This information has provided novel insights into the molecular, and even atomic, detail of the initial steps of centriole assembly, including an explanation of a natural point mutation involved in human microcephaly.
Indeterminacy: an investigation into the Soritical and semantical paradoxes
Keywords: vagueness
Sorites paradox
higher order vagueness
indeterminacy
Liar paradox
epistemology of vagueness

According to orthodoxy the study of the Soritical and semantical paradoxes belongs to the domain of the philosophy of language. To solve these paradoxes we need to investigate the nature of words like heap′and
true.'
In this thesis I criticise linguistic explanations of the state of ignorance we find ourselves in when confronted with indeterminate cases and develop a classical non-linguistic theory of indeterminacy in its stead. The view places the study of vagueness and indeterminacy squarely in epistemological terms, situating it within a theory of rational propositional attitudes. The resulting view is applied to a number of problems in the philosophy of vagueness and the semantic paradoxes.
On Galois correspondences in formal logic
Keywords: Mathematical logic
substructural logic
model theory

This thesis examines two approaches to Galois correspondences in formal logic. A standard result of classical first-order model theory is the observation that models of L-theories with a weak form of elimination of imaginaries hold a correspondence between their substructures and automorphism groups defined on them. This work applies the resultant framework to explore the practical consequences of a model-theoretic Galois theory with respect to certain first-order L-theories. The framework is also used to motivate an examination of its underlying model-theoretic foundations.
The model-theoretic Galois theory of pure fields and valued fields is compared to the algebraic Galois theory of pure and valued fields to point out differences that may hold between them. The framework of this logical Galois correspondence is also applied to the theory of pseudoexponentiation to obtain a sketch of the Galois theory of exponential fields, where the fixed substructure of the complex pseudoexponential field B is an exponential field with the field Qrab as its algebraic subfield. This work obtains a partial exponential analogue to the Kronecker-Weber theorem by describing the pure field-theoretic abelian extensions of Qrab, expanding upon work in the twelfth of Hilbert’s problems. This result is then used to determine some of the model-theoretic abelian extensions of the fixed substructure of B.
This work also incorporates the principles required of this model-theoretic framework in order to develop a model theory over substructural logics which is capable of expressing this Galois correspondence. A formal semantics is developed for quantified predicate substructural logics based on algebraic models for their propositional or nonquantified fragments. This semantics is then used to develop substructural forms of standard results in classical first-order model theory. This work then uses this substructural model theory to demonstrate the Galois correspondence that substructural first-order theories can carry in certain situations.
Voter turnout in Sub-Saharan Africa
Keywords: voter turnout
Africa
African politics
rational choice
elections

This thesis addresses the question of who votes in Africa and why. It uses three sets of quantitative data at three different levels to test its claims: an original compilation of national level institutional and socioeconomic indicators for over 700 elections from independence until 2006 compiled by the author; the Afrobarometer survey of almost 50 000 voters in 17 multiparty African regimes; and the first ever purpose-built survey aimed at testing rational choice turnout models in an African case study, which was designed, administered and analysed by the author in 2005 in Durban, South Africa. It uses a mixture of statistical methods to test comprehensively the determinants of voting in pooled and multilevel, logistic and linear, individual and national level models.
It finds that the central claims of the rational choice model do not generally apply in African elections. Both the closeness of the election and the costs of participation are not found to be central to the voting calculus of African voters. Instead those citizens who face the highest barriers to participation in the West: the rural, poor and minimally educated, are the citizens who vote most in Africa. The thesis argues that this is because turnout in Africa is mobilised turnout and these are the groups of people targeted by mobilising agents. It further finds that three central institutions of African politics; ethnicity, clientelism and regime type further structure patterns of mobilisation in ways that have been entirely neglected in studies of turnout until now. Finally, it confirms that voting is habitual and that voters are socialised by formative experiences in their youth, especially the nature of the regime that they grow up in and how democratic they think the country is.
Political projects of unity in divided communities: discourse and performance of "Ubumwe" in post-genocide Rwanda
Keywords: Rwanda
nation-building
governance in Africa
post-genocide
reconciliation

The present thesis explores the politics of reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda by focusing on one of its little-studied aspects— the government-led project of ‘unity building.’ To uncover the type of unit(ies) that are actually produced (not just officially envisioned), the analysis operates at three interconnected levels— i) at the level of the discourse of unity and reconciliation (studying its proper logic in addition to the ways in which it is shaped/structured by other discourses, such as security or prosperity/development); ii) at the level of concrete strategies and policies; and finally iii) at the level of ‘enaction’ through a score of official (and purportedly ‘local’ and ‘traditional’) activities. Many of the activities considered here have received no in-depth study. The official activities are explored both in toto and through an in in-depth analysis of one key exemplar – the ingando camps – transitory and transient spaces of re-education/sensitisation and reintegration tailored for selected segments of the population.
The thesis demonstrates the ways in which the process of kubaka ubumwe / unity-building is profoundly politicised. Detailed attention is paid to exposing the way in which i) political dynamics affect the very conception of ‘unity’ and ‘reconciliation;’ ii) the manner in which power and the state mould unity and reconciliation activities, determining what can be achieved through them (or not); and finally iii) the ways in which the government appropriates the whole unity-building process for other than stated aims. The research shows how unity is shaped to imply consent, homogeneity and non-dissension, thus serving specific governmentality goals in the highly controlling environment of the authoritarian state (producing docile and legible subjects). Furthermore, the thesis shows how the process of unity and reconciliation is subsumed to the broader social engineering project of the state aimed at shaping citizens’ ‘mentalities’ and at their transformation into ‘perfect development subjects.’
Voting rights of recognised Geneva Convention refugees in their countries of asylum
Keywords: human rights
1951 convention
expatriates
durable solutions
right to vote
migration
recognised refugees

This thesis concerns persons recognised as refugees based on the criteria set by Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CSR1951) and residing in a Contracting State. It appraises the exclusion of CSR1951 refugees from participation in elections of their countries of asylum pursuant to a citizenship voting qualification, which most countries set. It is emphasised that, since neither the CSR1951 refugees nor their country of asylum know when or indeed whether cessation of CSR1951 refugee status may occur, their exclusion may last for an indeterminate period of time.
CSR1951 confers on recognised refugees a host of civil, social and economic rights in their country of asylum; voting rights are absent. Concomitantly, while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (and regional human rights treaties) pronounce that all persons are entitled to have their rights respected, protected and promoted, Contracting States are permitted to reserve two rights for their (full) members: the right to enter and remain in their country, and the right to vote in its elections.
The central claim of this thesis is that recognised CSR1951 refugees are a special category of non-citizen residents, due to their unique political predicament. They are unable to participate in elections of their country of origin, do not enjoy its diplomatic protection and consular assistance abroad, and – most fundamentally – are unable or unwilling, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, to return to it for an indeterminate (and potentially protracted) period. It is submitted that recognised CSR1951 refugees should be entitled to vote in elections of their countries of asylum, notwithstanding general citizenship qualifications imposed by these countries.
At present, treaty law does not require countries of asylum to enfranchise their recognised CSR1951 refugees. Hence, this thesis explores a gap in international refugee law and international human rights law between de lege lata and de lege ferenda; it is an exercise in ‘progressive development of the law’. Its inquiry is located in the international domain, and concerns, in principle, any Contracting State which admits and recognises CSR1951 refugees. References to national or regional practices serve solely an illustrative purpose.
Equivariant scanning and stable splittings of configuration spaces
Keywords: equivariant stable homotopy
scanning map
stable splittings
infinite loop spaces
algebraic topology
configuration spaces

We give a definition of the scanning map for configuration spaces that is equivariant under the action of the diffeomorphism group of the underlying manifold. We use this to extend the Bödigheimer-Madsen result for the stable splittings of the Borel constructions of certain mapping spaces from compact Lie group actions to all smooth actions. Moreover, we construct a stable splitting of configuration spaces which is equivariant under smooth group actions, completing a zig-zag of equivariant stable homotopy equivalences between mapping spaces and certain wedge sums of spaces. Finally we generalise these results to configuration spaces with twisted labels (labels in a fibre bundle subject to certain conditions) and extend the Bödigheimer-Madsen result to more mapping spaces.
Desert dune system response to Late Quaternary environmental change in the northeastern Rub’ al Khali:  Advances in the application of optically stimulated luminescence datasets
Keywords: Arabia
dunes
Quaternary
geomorphology
OSL dating

The application of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating to desert sand dunes has allowed accumulation histories to be used as tools to infer past environmental change. In response to issues facing the interpretation of these records, two research questions are addressed in this thesis. (i) Are dune chronologies representative of dune stratigraphies? And (ii) how can we most appropriately interpret dune chronologies as records of Quaternary environmental conditions?
Five dune profiles were sampled for OSL dating at two sites in the northeastern Rub’ al Khali in the southern Arabian Peninsula. The visible stratigraphy was used to guide sampling for three of the profiles and the effectiveness of this approach is assessed. A key finding is that bounding surfaces are not always identifiable as chronological hiatuses by OSL dating, given the level of precision that can be achieved. Using hierarchical relationships visible in two-dimensional exposures is therefore not guaranteed to identify the depositional units necessary to reconstruct dune histories.
Comparison of the depositional records from three sampled profiles shows that there is significant variability in chronologies at both the dune and dunefield scales. In light of these findings, the use of ‘range-finder’ OSL dating was investigated as a method of increasing sample throughput in the laboratory. It is concluded that the use of partially prepared samples and shortened measurement techniques can be used to rapidly assess the chronological context of samples and target those units most useful in constructing dune profiles.
A new method of presenting dunefield OSL datasets as net accumulation rates, incorporating accumulation thickness rather than relying on the frequency of ages, is presented. Within the last 30 ka, regional accumulation and preservation occurred at ~30-26, 22.5-18, 16-9, 6-2.7, 2.1-1.6, 1.1 and 0.7 ka. In conjunction with numerical model results and a review of other palaeoenvironmental archives, the regional aeolian record is interpreted as a response to changing forcing factors. High rates of net accumulation between ~16-9 ka are attributed to coeval increases in sediment supply and transport capacity. A hiatus in accumulation between ~9-6 ka is interpreted as a result of reduced sediment availability due to high moisture levels. The importance of both external forcing factors and local controls on dune accumulation processes is recognised, and therefore the importance of sampling at multiple locations to distinguish these factors is emphasised.