VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
‘Warlord’: a discursive history of the concept in British and American imperialism, 1815-1914 and 1989-2006
Keywords: Britain
Burma
Somalia
Sudan
colonial discourse
intervention
small wars
international relations
Afghanistan
Abyssinia
warlords
war
empire
Liberia
United States
order

The renewed interest in empire, particularly in its British and American variants, has brought into sharper relief the difficulties both metropoles faced in projecting order in the global south. Far from cohesive entities, the British and American empires tried to manage territories that defied many of the political, economic, and legal systems, as well as normative and moral understandings, that enabled their imperial ascendancy. Despite a considerable literature about how metropoles comprehended these frustrated imperial plans, limited insights can be found into the way Britain and the United States coped with the influence of war in the uneven expansion of order.
This challenge is brought into focus by examining one of the most direct formulations of the relationship between war and order in US and British imperialism, namely the concept of warlord. The concept’s history, it is argued, provides a glimpse into the far-reaching influence cultural constructions of war had in how US and British policymakers, journalists, and advocates conceived of and projected order in the non-European world. Such influential understandings also inspired overstated conclusions about the degree to which both imperial powers could realise their visions of order in the global south.
Drawing on discursive and historical methods, the dissertation develops a conceptual framework that distils the core features of ‘warlords’ in the US and British imperial imaginaries. This conceptual approach is used to revisit some of the most formative encounters with colonial and contemporary ‘warlords’, as captured in British and American policy debates, political commentary, and popular culture, during two highpoints in British and American imperial history, 1815-1914 and 1989-2006 respectively.
These arguments bring to the forefront how instead of an ancillary part of conclusions about the inferiority of non-European cultures, as suggested in much of the post-colonial literature, notions of war conditioned many of Britain and the United States’ enduring conception of and strategies for managing the uneven development of order in the global south.
Divine perfection and human potentiality: trinitarian anthropology in Hilary of Poitiers' De Trinitate
Keywords: trinity
fourth century
history of Christianity
patristics
early Christianity
trinitarian theology
theological anthropology
theology
Hilary of Poitiers

No figure of fourth-century Christianity seems to be at once so well known and so clouded in mystery as Hilary of Poitiers. His work as an historian provides invaluable knowledge of the mid-fourth century, and he was praised as a theologian throughout late antiquity. Today, however, discussions of his theology are founded upon less solid ground. This is largely due to methodological issues. Modern scholarship has often read Hilary through anachronistic historical and theological categories which have rendered his thought incomprehensible. Recent scholars have sought to overcome this and to reexamine Hilary within his own historical, polemical, and theological context. Much remains to be said, however, in regard to Hilary's actual theological contribution within these contextual parameters.
This thesis contends that in all of Hilary's polemical and constructive argumentation in De Trinitate, which is essentially trinitarian, he is inherently and necessarily developing an anthropology. In all he says about the divine, he is saying as much about what it means to be human. This thesis therefore seeks to reenvision Hilary's overall theological project in terms of the continual, and for him necessary, anthropological corollary of trinitarian theology-to reframe it in terms of a 'trinitarian anthropology'. My contention is that the coherence of Hilary's thought depends upon his understanding of divine-human relations. I will demonstrate this through following Hilary's main lines of trinitarian argument, out of which flows his anthropological vision. These main lines of argument, namely, divine generation, divine infinity, divine unity, the divine image, and divine humanity, each unfold into a progressive picture of humanity from potentiality to perfection.
This not only provides a new paradigm for understanding Hilary's own thought, but invites us to reexamine our approach to fourth-century theology entirely, as it disavows any reading of the trinitarian controversies in conceptual abstraction. Further, theological and religious anthropology are widely discussed in contemporary scholarship, and Hilary's profound exploration of divine-human relations, and what it means to be a human being as a result, has much to offer both historical and contemporary concerns.
The role of BMP signalling in HSC ontogeny
Keywords: xenopus
haematopoiesis
stem cell

The haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) is found in the adult human bone marrow, where it gives rise to all the circulating blood cells throughout adulthood. Understanding the signalling events that programme these cells during development will improve HSC in vitro culture, their generation from embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells, and their potential therapeutic application. HSCs bud from the floor of the dorsal aorta and seed the bone marrow via circulation. The precursors to the dorsal aorta and HSCs are called haemangioblasts, which are found in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm in Xenopus. The knowledge of the location of these precursors allows their programming to be studied in detail during embryonic development. A key pathway implicated in the programming of HSCs is the BMP signalling pathway.
Here, using both a small molecule inhibitor and a transgenic Xenopus line, BMP signalling has been inhibited post-gastrulation without perturbing the gross morphology of the embryo. This has shown that BMP signalling is required for HSC programming in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm via the expression of a critical haematopoietic transcription factor, gata2. Morpholino knockdown of evi3has revealed it to be essential for HSC programming in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm, where it is required for the expression of gata2. Furthermore, as evi3 is known to bind to the active BMP signalling complex, and as evi3 knockdown phenocopies post-gastrulation BMP inhibition, evi3 appears to be required for BMP signalling to initiate gata2 expression in the DLP.
Taken together, the findings presented here demonstrate an essential post-gastrulation role of BMP signalling and Evi3 for programming HSCs in Xenopus.
Yesterday's tomorrow is not today. Memory and place in an Algiers neighbourhood
Keywords: memory
Algiers
Algeria
postsocialism
1970s

Since the euphoria of a hard-won independence and the hopes attached to socialist nation-building, Algeria has experienced liberalisation, increasing inequality and civil war. This thesis sets out to explore memories of post-independence nation-building in the 1970s, interrogating the past-present relationship, by asking how Algerians remember their own recent past, and what these memories reveal about contemporary subjectivities. Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in the low-income Algiers neighbourhood of Bab el-Oued, the research focuses specifically on memories of politics, urban space and sociability.
While the authoritarianism of the period was rejected for its repression of civil liberties, the overwhelming narrative on the period was nostalgic, with the past routinely couched as more positive than the present. Memories of intense social mobility and rising living standards within the context of state-led development, competent urban management and warm neighbourhood relations governed by traditional morality and solidarity were used to critique the present; particularly the retreat of the state from its responsibilities since the 1980s and the fragmented, consumerist society that has emerged from civil conflict since the 1990s.
However, social memory also translated a series of principles that demonstrated the continued relevance of the egalitarian claims made by postcolonial nationalism. Popular notions of social justice mapped future aspirations for the Algerian polity. Nostalgia was not only a matter of the past, but of the lost future of material plenty and equality promised by industrial modernisation that once seemed just over the horizon, but is now divorced from present experience. Such memories translated the passing of the dream of mass utopia, even though the modernist principles of equality, justice and progress continued to underpin both daily interactions and the political aspirations of the present.
Cognitive developmental foundations of cultural acquisition: children's understanding of other minds
Keywords: cultural transmission
god concepts
theory of mind
cognitive science of religion
cognition and culture
cognitive development

Psychological research suggests that children acquire cultural concepts through early developing cognitive mechanisms combined with specific cultural learning. An understudied area of cultural acquisition is children’s understanding of non-human minds, such as God. This thesis gives evidence that young children need not anthropomorphize non-human minds in order to understand them. Instead, children have a general “theory of mind” that is tailored through experience to accommodate the various important minds in their cultural environment. The intuitive default is toward super-attributes, making children naturally inclined or “prepared” to acquire god concepts. Four empirical studies were conducted with 75 British and 66 Israeli preschool-aged children. In Study 1, children participated in an ignorance-based theory-of-mind task and were asked to consider the mental states of human and supernatural agents. Children at all ages attributed correct knowledge to the supernatural agents and ignorance to the human agents. In Study 2, children participated in two perception-based theory-of-mind tasks and were asked to consider the perspective of two super-perceiving animals, God, and two human agents. Three-year-olds attributed knowledge to the animals and God and, by age four, children could distinguish among agents correctly. Also, by age four, children recognized that aging limits the perception of human agents but not God’s. In Study 3, children participated in a memory-based theory-of-mind task in which they were asked to consider the memory of God and differently aged agents Children at all ages responded that God would remember something that the children themselves had forgotten. By age five, children responded that a baby and granddad would have forgotten. These results propose that preschool-aged children regard individual constraints when considering mental states. Study 4 focused on children’s notions of immortality. Cultural differences were found. British children attributed immortality to God before correctly attributing mortality to human agents, and Israeli children attributed immortality to God and mortality to humans more consistently than did British children. Collectively, these studies indicate that children do not have to resort to anthropomorphism to reason about non-human agents but instead have the cognitive capacity to represent other types of minds because of early cognitive capacities. It appears that concepts vary in their degree of fit with early-developing human conceptual systems, and hence, vary in their likelihood of successful cultural transmission.
Global connectivity, information diffusion, and the role of multilingual users in user-generated content platforms
Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction
Multilingualism
Information Diffusion

Internet content and Internet users are becoming more linguistically diverse as more people speaking different languages come online and produce content on user-generated content platforms. Several platforms have emerged as truly global platforms with users speaking many different languages and coming from around the world. It is now possible to study human behavior on these platforms using the digital trace data the platforms make available about the content people are authoring.
Network literature suggests that people cluster together by language, but also that there is a small average path length between any two people on most Internet platforms (including two speakers of different languages). If so, multilingual users may play critical roles as bridges or brokers on these platforms by connecting clusters of monolingual users together across languages. The large differences in the content available in different languages online underscores the importance of such roles.
This thesis studies the roles of multilingual users and platform design on two large, user-generated content platforms: Wikipedia and Twitter. It finds that language has a strong role structuring each platform, that multilingual users do act as linguistic bridges subject to certain limitations, that the size of a language correlates with the roles its speakers play in cross-language connections, and that there is a correlation between activity and multilingualism. In contrast to the general understanding in linguistics of high levels of multilingualism offline, this thesis finds relatively low levels of multilingualism on Twitter (11%) and Wikipedia (15%).
The findings have implications for both platform design and social network theory. The findings suggest design strategies to increase multilingualism online through the identification and promotion of multilingual starter tasks, the discovery of related other-language information, and the promotion of user choice in linguistic filtering. While weak-ties have received much attention in the social networks literature, cross-language ties are often not distinguished from same-language weak ties. This thesis finds that cross-language ties are similar to same-language weak ties in that both connect distant parts of the network, have limited bandwidth, and yet transfer a non-trivial amount of information when considered in aggregate. At the same time, cross-language ties are distinct from same-language weak ties for the purposes of information diffusion. In general cross-language ties are smaller in number than same-language ties, but each cross-language tie may convey more diverse information given the large differences in the content available in different languages and the relative ease with which a multilingual speaker may access content in multiple languages compared to a monolingual speaker.
Contesting the humanitarian regime in political emergencies:  International NGO policies and practices in Sri Lanka &amp; Afghanistan, 1990-2010
Keywords: Sri Lanka
humanitarianism
non-governmental organizations
conflict emergencies
Afghanistan

The legal humanitarian regime, set out in the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, strives to alleviate human suffering through the provision of emergency goods and services, such as food supplies, water, temporary shelter, and medical treatment. This thesis examines how international non-government organizations (INGOs) contribute to the contestation of this regime in political emergencies, the effects of this contestation, and the factors driving INGO contestation.
The thesis develops an analytical framework for understanding the nature and functioning of the legal humanitarian regime, and argues that INGO contestation occurs through the two processes of regime interpretation and regime implementation. It then goes on to identify the substantive content and effects of contestation, and the factors driving INGO contestation of the regime, through a detailed study of the policies and practices of CARE, Médecins Sans Frontiers, Oxfam, and World Vision, in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, from 1990-2010.
The thesis argues that contestation has constitutive effects, as it re-defines the meaning of the formal humanitarian regime, and the underlying rules and norms that specify the regime’s function, scope, and operating principles. Contestation also has causal effects, as it can make INGOs participants in the conflict, eroding thereby the basis on which they negotiate access and their ability to respond to humanitarian needs, and the security of their staff. It has also facilitated the subordination of humanitarian assistance by donor states and combatants to their political and security objectives.
INGO identity - expressed in terms of the constituent rules and norms that define INGO membership, their mandate and goals, and the manner in which they distinguish themselves from other actors - is argued to be a necessary factor for explaining INGO contestation. The focus on identity highlights the agency of INGOs in shaping the humanitarian regime and demonstrates that INGOs are not simply at the mercy of more powerful actors or external constraints.
Speech and action in the Antiquitates Romanae of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: the question of historical change
Keywords: Coriolanus
historiography
Thucydides
Lucretia
Antiquitates Romanae
Rome
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Brutus
Isocrates

This thesis examines the relationship between speech and action in Dionysius' Antiquitates Romanae. It consists of five main chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. In the introduction I establish the status quaestionis and consider different modes of presenting discourse. Chapter 2 is an intertextual analysis of Dionysius' first preface, AR I.1-8, exploring Dionysius' engagement with his Greek and Roman predecessors. I take one modern theory, concerning Dionysius apparent 'idealisation' of the Roman past, in order to examine the relationship between the Antiquities and Dionysius' rhetorical works. In the four chapters that follow, I trace the changing texture of narrative across the Antiquities, sinking shafts at moments to examine closely what is going on. First (ch. 3), I analyse speech in the Regal Period, focusing on the story of Lucretia and Brutus (AR IV.64-85), and the way that Herodotean allusion meshes with intratextual devices to narrate the fluctuations of the Regal Period. Chapter 4 is a paired reading of (4a) the story of Coriolanus' trial (VII.21-66) and (4b) the story of Coriolanus' encounter with his mother (VII.39-62). Ch. 4a concentrates on Thucydides and Isocrates, and how Coriolanus' trial binds the Greek literary past to the first-century Roman present. In 4b, I examine how Dionysius manages the shift between high politics and family relationships. Chapter 5, on the decemvirate (X.50-XI.44), explores again Roman tyranny, this time in a Republican frame; the power of the senate is consequently in point here. Chapter 6, on AR XIV-XX, probes the questions of Greek and Roman ethnicity and the individual which had arisen in the earlier chapters. In the conclusion I consider the precise question of Dionysius' Augustanism, relating it to Dionysius' apparent status in Rome.
Eternal existents: in defence of the Williamsonian view of time
Keywords: presentism
philosophy of time
Metaphysics
Timothy Williamson
the a-theory

My thesis is a development and defence of the "Williamsonian" view of time, a temporalmetaphysical theory based on Timothy Williamson’s (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002) views concerning modality. As far as I am aware, the theory has never been developed or defended in print. The Williamsonian view is a version of the "a-theory" of time based on acceptance of the thesis of eternal existence, according to which always, everything always exists (i.e. everything exists eternally). I defend the Williamsonian view by showing that every other plausible temporal-metaphysical theory is subject to serious objections that cannot be raised against the Williamsonian view. I conclude that the Williamsonian view is the only plausible theory of time.
Analysis of nucleotide synthesis and homologous recombination repair in Schizosaccharomyces pombe
Keywords: DNA double strand break
homologous recombination
Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Nucleotide synthesis is a conserved and highly regulated response to DNA damage, required for the efficient repair of DNA double strand breaks (DSB) by homologous recombination (HR). This is essential to prevent loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and maintain genome stability. The aim of this study was to identify new genes important for HR through roles in damage-induced nucleotide synthesis. A screen was performed to identify S. pombe gene deletion strains whose DSB sensitivity was suppressed by deleting the ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) inhibitor spd1+ to promote nucleotide synthesis. The screen identified a number of genes including ddb1+, cdt2+, rad3+ and csn1+ which have known roles in nucleotide synthesis.
Distinct roles were identified for the DNA damage checkpoint in suppressing LOH. rad3+, rad26+, rad17+ and the rad9+, rad1+ and hus1+ genes encoding the 9-1-1 complex were required for DNA damage-induced nucleotide synthesis through Cdt2 induction to promote Spd1 degradation. The HR repair defect of rad3+ and rad26+ deletion strains was partially suppressed by spd1+ deletion. However, the HR repair defect of rad17+, rad9+, rad1+ and hus1+ deletion strains was not suppressed. An additional role was confirmed for Rad17 and the 9-1-1 complex in preventing LOH by promoting DSB resection.
A role was identified for the Gcn5 histone acetyl transferase (HAT) protein module, consisting of Gcn5, Ngg1, Ada2 and Sgf29, in suppressing DSB sensitivity by promoting nucleotide synthesis. This was independent of Cdt2 or RNR protein levels. The Gcn5 HAT module was also found to regulate DSB repair pathway choice consistent with previous observations. Deletion of gcn5+, ngg1+ or ada2+ decreased HR and increased non-homologous end joining. Surprisingly, deletion of spd1+ in a gcn5∆, ngg1∆ or ada2∆ background also promoted HR. This predicts a role for nucleotide pools in regulating DSB repair pathway choice.
Eleven other candidates showed repeatable suppression of DSB sensitivity following spd1+ deletion. However many of these candidates did not show reduced nucleotide levels. This suggests deleting spd1+ may also suppress DSB sensitivity by a different mechanism.