VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The women's liberation movement in transnational perspective: the US, UK, and France, 1967-79
Keywords: France
1970s
social movements
oral history
feminist
United States
history of feminism
USA
activism
United States of America
transnational
UK
United Kingdom
feminism
women's liberation movement
1960s
WLM
women's liberation
US
activist
transnational history

Most histories of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) are nationally focused. Yet they contain glimpses of the transnational, from assertions that the American movement sparked European activity, to accounts of theory, protest tactics, and organisational ideas criss-crossing national borders throughout the movement. Transnational WLM histories have recently emerged, but they usually focus upon specific transfers. Even when taken together it is difficult to see what they tell us more broadly about how the movement operated across borders. To explore this topic, this thesis analyses links between the US, UK, and France. This provides a triangular case study, allowing the analysis of crosscurrents, multiple pathways, and entangled links.
This thesis focuses upon the first decade of the radical, grassroots WLM. It was a women-only, staunchly leaderless movement, with few overarching organisational instruments. Groups were varied, methods of struggle were diverse—from consciousness-raising, street theatre, and squatting, to refuges, healthcare centres, and bookshops. This lack of regulation provides fertile ground for transnational enquiry: how did such an informal movement manage to grow across different cities, regions, countries? To answer this question, a survey of archival material in all three countries was undertaken, and life history interviews with eighteen activists were conducted.
This thesis moves from activist awakenings and politicisation to movement formation and structure. It then explores different areas of activity: theory, protest, healthcare, and services. Throughout, this thesis highlights common networking mechanisms: periodicals, conferences, activist correspondence, and travel. It finds that ideas were primarily constructed and implemented at a local level, but that this does not minimise the importance of the transnational. Ideas which were formed in local contexts went on to travel and were adapted by activists to new contexts. It is precisely through a study of the local, regional, and national that this thesis uncovers the transnational.
The multipartite Muse: sectioned composition in Hellenistic long poems
Keywords: Hellenistic Poetry
'Sectioning'

The field of Hellenistic poetry has seen many interesting developments in recent years, but a very basic feature shared by the long poems of the period has yet to be given the attention it deserves. This feature is the division of the texts into large numbers of clearly marked sections. An examination of the processes of ‘sectioning’ demonstrates how significant a role this aspect of composition plays in shaping our experience of the poems. Engaging with sections allows for a fuller appreciation of the poets’ achievements, and helps us to understand the potential appeal of those poets less well received (or less well noticed) by modern scholarship. The study of this feature takes us to questions of great literary importance in the Hellenistic world, and places this varied group of poems firmly at the centre of Hellenistic literary culture.
Singlet fission in linear π-conjugated systems
Keywords: Density Matrix Renormalization Group
Photoexcitation
Photovoltaics
Singlet Fission
π-conjugated systems
Polyenes
Quantum Mechanics

Singlet fission (SF) is a process in which a singlet excitation splits into two uncoupled triplet excitations. SF represents one strategy to overcome the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit of solar cells, with photovoltaic devices utilising singlet fission having achieved quantum yields of over 100%. The singlet fission process is thought to involve triplet-pair singlet intermediates: one such intermediate is the 1(TT) state which forms after the initial photoexcitation, and another example is the 1(T · · · T) state which is produced when the constituent triplets of the 1(TT) state lose electronic interaction and only spin coherences persist.
One of the major classes of SF materials is conjugated linear polymers. In these systems, the first optically active excitation is to the 11Bu+ singlet state. However, this state is not the lowest energy singlet state. The 21Ag- , 31Ag- , 11Bu− states can fall below the optical 11Bu+ state depending on electronic screening and conjugation length. These states have triplet-pair character and this thesis explores which of the eigenstates contribute to the 1(TT) and 1(T ···T) states.
Firstly, using density matrix renormalisation group (DMRG) calculations of the Pariser-Parr-Pople-Peierls Hamiltonian, the Hellmann-Feynman relaxed geometries of the eigenstates are found. The 21Ag- , 11Bu− and 31Ag- states’ triplet-triplet characters are confirmed by calculations of bond dimerization, spin-spin correlation and wavefunction overlap with products of triplet states.
It is found that there is a family of singlet excitations (i.e., 21Ag-, 11Bu−, 31Ag- , ···), composed of both triplet-pair and electron-hole character, which are fundamentally the same excitation, but have different centre-of-mass energies. The lowest energy member of this family, the 21Ag- state, cannot undergo singlet fission. However, higher energy members (e.g., the 31Ag-) state, owing to their increased kinetic energy and reduced electron- lattice relaxation, can undergo singlet fission for specific chain lengths, with the 11Bu− and 31Ag− states being candidates for the 1(TT) state.
Following on from these calculations, the first step of singlet fission, where the photoexcited state evolves into the 1(TT) correlated triplet pair state, is probed. This step is referred to as state interconversion. Both Ehrenfest dynamics and dynamics with quantised phonons were performed for the UV-Peierls model using time-dependent density matrix renormalisation group (t-DMRG). State interconversion was found to be ultrafast, occurring in 10s fs. Additionally, it was found that the electronic environment determines to which triplet-pair eigenstate the photoexcited state evolves. Changing the Coulombic parameter, U , causes state interconversion shift from 11Bu+ → 21Ag- to 11Bu+ → 31Ag-. These are the first dynamics results that show the formation of the 31Ag- state and they have important consequences for explaining intramolecular singlet fission observed in carotenoids.
Patient safety culture in South African obstetric theatres
Keywords: Quality care
Africa surgery
safety attitudes questionnaire
SNA
simulation
Cape Town surgery
safe surgery
LMIC
South Africa surgery
patient safety culture
SAQ
global surgery
Africa
Obstetrics
low middle income country
low income country
patient safety
LIC
social network analysis
maternal mortality
Western Cape surgery
PSC

Introduction: Patient safety culture (PSC) in African surgical settings is not well described. This dissertation provides a foundational investigation into the origins and nature of PSC in South Africa and, building on that foundation, aims to propose a model for PSC suited to that context.
Methods: A multi-method approach comprising of a historical analysis of South African PSC, a literature review of PSC in sub-Saharan African obstetric surgery, qualitative interviews, semi- quantitative safety climate surveys and quantitative social network analysis was used to develop a model of PSC in three Cape Town obstetric theatres. As the thesis evolved, Schein’s model of organisational culture was used as a theoretical basis. Building on the results of chapters 5, 6 and 7, a pilot patient safety training intervention based on an intraoperative surgical crisis simulation, intended to be suitable for low resource settings, was designed and piloted.
Results: The historical review, PSC in sub-Saharan Africa review and qualitative interviews demonstrate that contemporary barriers to South African patient safety can be linked to a history of discrimination in medicine coupled with resource constraint. These barriers necessitated the adaption of Schein’s model to develop a conceptual framework of PSC in this context. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) six-factor construct achieved face and content validity, but failed to achieve construct validity (RMSEA 0.09), potentially due to poor local fit. The social network analysis study demonstrated its utility as a means of measuring collaboration and power dynamics in surgical teams and its potential for measuring change following PSC interventions. An in-situ simulated crisis intervention proved acceptable and feasible as a small pilot.
Conclusion: Contemporary South African PSC continues to be shaped by a legacy of discrimination and resource constraint. For these reasons, safety climate surveys, training interventions and models of PSC require considerable adaption to South African PSC settings in order to achieve validity.
An intra-organisational perspective on the role of consumer complaint handling in the UK retail investment regulatory regime (1981-2004)
Keywords: Consumer complaints
Financial ombudsman
Regulatory regime

The thesis examines the determinants of regulatory responsiveness to consumer complaints in the context of third-party complaint handling. In contrast to a rational choice hypothesis, according to which regulatory responsiveness is shaped by external pressures, the thesis hypothesises that the latter are mediated by intra-organisational institutions (ethos and control structures). It further challenges the expectation that regulatory complaint handling functions as an accountability mechanism.
The case of the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which handled consumer complaints regarding the retail selling of financial products, and its relationship with the Financial Services Authority (FSA), is employed to assess the above hypotheses. Data collection combined non-participant observation, sampling of complaint files, interviews and archival research. Data analysis combined quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings reveal the hypotheses’ strengths and limitations.
The FOS’s ethos stressed the individual nature of complaint handling. It embodied a strategic exchange between the Ombudsman and the financial industry, allowing the former broad discretion to respond to consumer grievances but restricted legal scope for its decisions.
In contrast to the hypothesis that ethos shapes responsiveness, the FOS’s emphasis upon the individuality of its decisions had limited impact upon complaint handlers’ decision making. Yet, the research findings further refute the expectation of ‘rational’ responsiveness to resistant firms and persistent complainants. Rather, complaint handlers’ decisions were shaped by their adherence to internal guidance and, in its absence, by their reliance upon heuristics for firms’ and complainants’ credibility.
The thesis highlights the FOS’s latent function as a pressure-releasing mechanism for some consumers’ high expectations for risk mitigation. It depicts the therapeutic nature of complaint handlers’ interpersonal communication with complainants, and the FSA’s disinclination to perceive FOS decisions as indicative of systemic failures. However, it also demonstrates how this function was undermined by media coverage of FOS decisions and by firms’ reputation sensitivity.
Aesthetic piety and the infant Christ: seeing and hearing in infancy traditions from the New Testament to Origen
Keywords: infancy narrative
reception
infant Christ
sense perception
aural piety
visual piety

This study argues that the New Testament infancy narratives are notably attentive to the senses of seeing and hearing, specifically in relation to characters’ perception of divine revelation and the infant Christ himself. Furthermore, this attention to ‘aesthetic piety’ invites further reflection on the visual and aural senses in several streams of pre-Nicene Christian literature devoted to the infancy of Jesus. Part I lays the foundation of this argument through analyzing conceptions of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ in Matthew 1-2 (Chapter 2) and Luke 1-2 (Chapter 3). Matthew’s infancy narrative provides a high concentration of auditory forms of revelation in invoking the voices of prophetic Scripture and the angelic messages of dreams, while achieving its chief aesthetic moment in the visual revelation of the infant Christ to the magi. Luke contrasts modes of listening to revelation in his characterizations of Zechariah and Mary, records multiple visual encounters with the Child, and employs the ancient technique of ἐνάργεια to bring his infancy scenes vividly ‘before the eyes.’ While each gospel writer thus negotiates these concepts differently, both extend a certain ‘aesthetic invitation’ to subsequent literary productions seeking to further imagine or understand human perception of the Incarnation. This is confirmed in Part II, which examines three representative case studies of textual engagement with the New Testament infancy traditions. The early apocryphal infancy gospels, notably exemplified in the Protevangelium of James, respond creatively to the pre-canonical infancy traditions by expanding the reader’s visual and aural imagination of these events (Chapter 4). Irenaeus of Lyons demonstrates an aesthetic response in apologetic mode, interpreting visual witness of the Word made flesh against perceptual confusions of adoptionist and docetic interpretations (Chapter 5). Finally, Origen of Alexandria’s works illustrate explicit homiletic appeal to the aesthetic aspects of the infancy narratives, drawing listeners into an inner and embodied participation in their visual and aural piety (Chapter 6). A concluding chapter examines what this range of ‘aesthetic response’ to impulses present within the infancy narratives themselves can contribute to the study of ancient aesthetic piety and the interpretation of the infancy of Jesus in early Christianity.
Comparing the social structure in Beijing and London: Towards a more equal, cosmopolitan landscape of urban theories
Keywords: Global city
Comparative urban studies
Beijing
Social structure
London

The purpose of this thesis is to help reconfigure the landscape of urban theories to become more equal, cosmopolitan, and closer to that of the real urban world. Conceptually, this thesis criticises the Western-centred production of urban knowledge, suggests a new step to decentre this production, and highlights the comparative gesture that can be used to support this step. Empirically, this thesis puts this new step into practice. It compared Beijing and London, via the quantitative analysis of secondary data, in terms of the demographic compositions of the labour force, earnings inequality, and socio-spatial inequality, with each comparison confronting a conventional idea in urban research.
The step proposed in this thesis to interrupt the Western-centred knowledge production is that: imagined geographic divisions should be unlearned, places kept apart by these divides should be drawn into conversation, and the resulted conversation should be used to help urban theories achieve a more pluralistic universalism. The underpinning idea is that: urban research should preserve a sense of worldly curiosity, urban theories should be subject to constant remaking, and a world of cities should no longer be as crudely analytically divided as before. To take this step, comparative methods are suggested to be reformatted: comparisons should be rethought of as a way of thinking, be made across cities kept apart by the imagined geographic divides, and be used to reconstruct existing concepts.
Beijing and London, two cities kept apart so often today by these divides, were compared. Results show that urban life in the two cities is subject to the dialectics of global-local dynamics, and that the demography of the labour force of the two cities both resonates to, and differs from, each other. I confront the idea that cities across the geographic divides are too different to be compared. In addition, contrary to what is conventionally believed, the two cities did not follow a similar path to deal with inequalities, and their levels of inequalities changed differently. These results confirm how limited much of our existing urban knowledge is, and how great the potential of a wider set of urban comparisons could be in renewing them.
It is hoped that this thesis can encourage more research in this area, and provide future researchers with some additional conceptual and analytical tools to engage with the project of decolonising urban knowledge.
An eleventh-century liturgical homiliary : the Evergetis Katechetikon
Keywords: 11th century
homiliary
Evergetis Katechetikon
Paul, of Evergetis
11th-century
eleventh century
liturgical
eleventh-century
Paul of Evergetis

The Katechetikon, a liturgical homiliary composed by Paul (†1054) higoumenos and founder, in 1048-49, of the monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis near Constantinople, is an unpublished collection of monastic catecheses dating to the middle of the eleventh century.
The collection is divided in two tomes. The first part is extant in two manuscripts, Marcianus graecus App. II. 40 and Atheniensis graecus 215, probably dating around the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. The second part is extant in codex Athos, Esphigmenou 45, dated by its colophon to 1108 and used at the monastery of Christ Philanthropos in Constantinople. Single catecheses are also preserved in the fragments of Athos, Vatopedi 1216, and among the catecheses of Theodore Studite in Atheniensis graecus 295, Serdicensis graecus Dujcev 222 and in Sinaiticus graecus 482. Codex Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Cromwell 22, signed by the hieromonachos Mark and dated 1315, bears the only explicit attribution of the catecheses to Paul of Evergetis. In it, the catecheses are adapted for a feminine audience.
The Katechetikon provides liturgical readings for the morning office for each day of the year and functions according to the movable cycle of the liturgical year dependent on Easter, just as a Gospel Lectionary. Texts are selected from the following authors: Theodore Studite, Maximos Confessor, Pseudo-Makarios, Dorotheos of Gaza, Ephrem, Mark the Monk and Pseudo-Mark (Marcian), Neilos/Evagrios, John of Karpathos, Diadochos of Photike. The sources are edited with varying degrees of alteration. The Apophthegmata Patrum and passages from John Klimakos' Ladder are also quoted. In addition, the sources of forty-two texts remain unidentified.
The purpose of the catecheses is to exhort the monks to virtue and assist them through difficulties in their monastic experience, thereby revealing the monastic ideals of the Evergetis founder.
Securities regulation, enforcement and market integration in the development of sub-Saharan Africa's capital markets
Keywords: Fintech
Market Integration
Securities Law
Sub-Saharan Africa
Capital Markets
Securities Law Enforcement
Africa

This thesis examines securities market development in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on securities law, securities law enforcement and securities markets integration.
Adopting a primarily comparative methodology, the thesis examines the continued relevance of securities markets in sub-Saharan Africa; the way selected countries in the region regulate their markets and enforce compliance with securities law; and the potential of market integration to promote market development.
This thesis advances 4 main claims. First, empirical evidence supports the link between liquid securities markets and economic growth, independent of the level of banking development. In this sense, securities markets can act as good complements to banks in providing capital to the real economy. Second, at the minimum, there is an arguable preliminary case that rules of securities regulation can hinder market development in select countries in sub-Saharan Africa, by imposing high compliance costs and eligibility requirements, without commensurate benefits in greater liquidity or reduced cost of capital. Third, enforcement of securities regulation in sub-Saharan Africa is generally weak. Whilst public regulators often have formal powers, budgets and staff; actual enforcement activity is sometimes limited by inadequate market monitoring and reliance on criminal as opposed to administrative sanctions. Poor public enforcement, in turn, reinforces poor private enforcement, leading to reduced market participation, illiquidity, and ultimately market underdevelopment. Fourth, although increased market integration can go a long way in facilitating market development in the region, integration cannot be a short/medium term solution to market underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa, given the significant economic, political and socio-cultural barriers to integration initiatives in the region.
Ultimately, to develop their securities markets, policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa must focus their attention on making and credibly enforcing market-friendly rules of securities regulation. The thesis explores some ways this may be realistically accomplished.
Marginal zone SIGN-R1(+) macrophages are essential for the maturation of germinal centre B cells in the spleen
Keywords: marginal zone
SIGN-R1
mouse spleen
macrophages
dendritic cells
germinal centre

The germinal centre (GC) response is an essential component of adaptive immunity, crucial for the generation of high-affinity antibodies, long-lived memory and plasma cells and is the basis for most current vaccines. While the dynamics of cognate B and T lymphocytes during the GC response are extensively studied, the roles of resident tissue macrophages in this process are less well understood, particularly in the spleen. A unique compartment to the spleen, called the marginal (MZ), is known to be important for adaptive immunity and harbours at least two distinct MZ-resident macrophage subsets. Both MZ macrophage populations are essential for capturing and preventing systemic dissemination of pathogens. However, their individual functions and potential role in adaptive immunity are not established.
Here we used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to deplete SIGN-R1+ MZ macrophages and showed that these cells were specifically required for the optimal development of germinal centre responses in the spleen. SIGN-R1+ macrophages were dispensable for the initial GC establishment but were required for optimal maintenance of the response. The GC defect could be partially corrected by boosting T follicular helper (Tfh) cell responses or by inducing Tfh help prior to macrophage ablation. Furthermore, in the absence of SIGN-R1+ macrophages, 33D1+ DCs, a key population involved in Tfh priming, was displaced from the interfollicular regions to the MZ. Reconstituting the SIGN-R1+ subset restored DC positioning and rescued the GC phenotype. This work advances our understanding of how the splenic marginal zone regulates adaptive immunity, highlights the functional diversification of MZ macrophages, and provides the first genetic mouse model allowing for the specific depletion and modification of SIGN-R1+ cells.