VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Republicanism and the state between Brazil and the River Plate: Rio Grande do Sul, 1808-1845
Keywords: borderland
Latin America
Age of Revolutions
farrapo
River Plate
Brazil
state
Garibaldi
frontier
state-building
Rio Grande do Sul
republicanism
farroupilha

The Rio Grandense Republic rose and fell between 1836 and 1845 in Brazil’s southernmost province, Rio Grande do Sul. Its founders, known as ‘farroupilhas’, first rebelled in 1835, decrying the Brazilian Empire’s centralisation and taxation, but they soon turned to separatism. Their decade-long attempt to establish an independent state remains Brazil’s longest armed conflict, as well as its last separatist uprising. This thesis is centred on an analysis of this separatist republic, contextualising it against Brazilian and River Plate developments, while contending that the farroupilhas consciously embarked on a state-building experiment after their separatist turn. An emphasis on the farroupilha state and its administration sets this dissertation apart from much of the scholarship on the so-called ‘Farroupilha Revolution’, whose scholars have most often focused on particular aspects of the conflict, like military engagements, individuals’ trajectories, or the immediate causes of the conflict.
The Rio Grandense Republic also serves as a window to state-building processes beyond Brazil, as well as to the transnational entanglements underpinning River Plate frontier politics. The development of the Brazilian state (especially its province-metropole relations) is thus discussed here as the immediate context to the Farroupilha Revolution, including a series of provincial revolts whose non-separatism serve as a foil to the farroupilhas. But River Plate republicanism, too, influenced the farroupilhas, even though the Rio Grandense Republic was not recognised by its republican neighbours. Rio Grande do Sul’s ‘frontier’ society was deeply enmeshed with those of Argentina and Uruguay, providing avenues for commercial, political, and even family linkages, which predated and survived the revolutionary conflicts of the early nineteenth century. These connections facilitated mobility across the River Plate-Rio Grandense borderlands, allowing various political exiles, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, to participate in movements like the Farroupilha Revolution, acting as both soldiers and propagandists.
Investigation of haematopoietic cell growth and the impact of common mutations in myeloid malignancies
Keywords: CRISPR

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are disorders of the haematopoietic stem cell and are characterised by ineffective haematopoiesis. The TET2 and ASXL1 genes have been implicated to be important in the pathology of MDS, but their function has not yet been characterised as co-mutations in erythroid and myeloid human cell lines. In this light using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, we engineered erythroid and myeloid models of myeloid malignancy in HUDEP2 and KBM5 cells respectively, with homozygous TET2 or heterozygous ASXL1 singular or co-mutations. Here, HUDEP2 and KBM5 cell models were robustly generated to express mutations in the TET2 and/or ASXL1 gene(s). Our cellular models demonstrate decreased mRNA expression of TET2 in the homozygous TET2 cell variants and physiological mRNA expression of ASXL1 in the heterozygous ASXL1 cell variants. We found zero unintended off-targets of our TET2 and ASXL1 targeted sgRNAs in our HUDEP2 and KBM5 cell models. We next aimed to functionally characterise the effect of these mutations on key cellular function, such as proliferation, the cell cycle, apoptosis and differentiation. We demonstrate that cells exhibiting co-mutations of TET2 and ASXL1 gained a proliferative advantage. Studies on the cell cycle revealed that cells exhibiting co-mutations of TET2 and ASXL1 demonstrated an increase in cell cycle progression. We subsequently investigated apoptosis and differentiation in our cellular models. In our HUDEP2 cell model, the TET2 mutants demonstrated a decrease in apoptosis and our ASXL1 mutants demonstrated an increase in apoptosis. Next, we investigated differentiation; our HUDEP2 cell mutants demonstrated a block in erythroid differentiation. Finally, we expanded CD133+ cells using novel combinations of cytokines and small molecules, as a prelude to their gene editing.
Investigating and modelling early upper gastro-intestinal neoplasia
Keywords: intestinal metaplasia
Barrett's Oesophagus
single cell sequencing
Gastric neoplasia

In recent years, gastro-oesophageal cancers have increased in incidence in the western world with no known cause. Barrett’s oesophagus (BO) is a premalignant lesion induced by chronic biliary reflux. The cell of origin of BO has been greatly contested yet elusive. Non-dysplastic BO is a poorly understood but highly heterogeneous metaplastic tissue with deranged differentiation and a high incidence of early P53 mutations. Intestinal metaplasia (IM) is an internationally accepted defining criterion for BO diagnosis. In this thesis, I have examined the role of early P53 mutation in the development of gastro-oesophageal cancers by using a combined P53 mutant transgenic mouse in combination with a biliary reflux model. Although gastric cancers did not consistently occur, I found evidence that P53 mutations may potentiate inflammation in non-dysplastic BO. Further investigation of BO cellular complexity using sc-RNA-seq also found that BO shared transcriptional similarity with a subset of oesophageal cells, but not with gastric or duodenal cells, and identified a number of potential biomarkers. Lastly, I have developed organoid models for BO, and demonstrated their ability to differentiate into cell populations see in the scRNA-seq data. In conclusion, my findings reveal a striking similarity between normal OSG cells and BO cells with the high expression of LEFTY1 and TFF3. I identify potential early markers for goblet cell differentiation, SPINK4 and ITLN1 and OLFM4 expression as a marker of BO progenitor cells, which may have clinical implications.
The reception of the work of Nicole Bozon via William Herebert: an analysis of London, British Library Additional MS 46919
Keywords: manuscripts
Anglo-Norman
medieval
Nicole Bozon William Herebert

Nicole Bozon, a Franciscan friar active in England at the turn of the fourteenth century, is the author of a number of Anglo-Norman texts ranging from saints’ lives to passion poems. Despite his large and varied corpus, his output remains critically neglected, and the scant scholarship devoted to him is often outdated. The picture which has emerged of Bozon focuses on his texts and use of Anglo-Norman as emblematic of Franciscan spiritual instruction, and pays little attention to manuscript context in responding to questions of audience or reception.
This thesis contends that a new approach is necessary in order to re-evaluate Bozon’s work in line with recent developments in manuscript studies and Anglo- Norman language and literature. This project therefore centres around the transmission of Bozon’s work in London, British Library Additional MS 46919, which forms the basis of his corpus, and its reception in this codex by William Herebert, another Franciscan author of the early fourteenth century. A close reading of texts in their manuscript context addresses the following research questions: i) what can Herebert’s compilation of, and interaction with this manuscript tell us about the composition of Bozon’s audience?, ii) how did Herebert use these texts, or envisage that they might be used?, and iii) how did Herebert understand Bozon’s language choice in the trilingual context of medieval England?
To answer these questions, Chapter I will outline and re-assess the conclusions of previous scholarship on Bozon. Chapter II will provide a detailed description of the of BL Add. 46919, which will be considered further in Chapter III which will discuss a number of views of the codex as a whole. Chapter IV will turn to the question of authorship, asking how the figure of Bozon is constructed by this manuscript and its compiler, William Herebert. The final two chapters of the manuscript will focus on language choice, in Chapter V through a reading of Bozon’s multilingual work, the Contes moralisés, and finally in Chapter VI with an analysis of Herebert’s translations of his work in this codex.
The behaviour and charging dynamics of concentrated electrolytes in confinement under potential control
Keywords: ionic liquids
surface force balance
surface force measurements
underscreening
charging dynamics
concentrated electrolytes

The current understanding of intermolecular and interfacial forces in concentrated electrolytes is limited. Their importance to fields such as medicine, biology, ecology and the energy industry means that the pursuit of better knowledge has a wide-ranging impact on other areas of science and technology. In particular, the ubiquitous nature of batteries and energy-storing devices makes the behaviour of concentrated electrolytes near charged surfaces of special interest. This thesis presents two novel surface force balance (SFB) methods to measure surface forces across electrolytes confined between charged surfaces, where one or both of the surfaces are under electrochemical control. The first method combines a muscovite mica surface and an ultra-smooth gold surface (gold/mica SFB), and the second uses two ultra-smooth gold surfaces. A large part of this work is concerned with the use of gold to fulfil the triple role of confining surface, working electrode and interferometric mirror. Improvements to surface fabrication methods yielded unique high-resolution (∼ 0.1 nm) force measurements in the gold/mica setups and electrochemical measurements where the gold surfaces were under potential control. These setups were used to measure force profiles in an ionic liquid (IL), 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (C4C1pyrr TFSI), and in a dilute electrolyte, potassium chloride in water (KCl (aq)) at 1.5 mM and 0.6 mM concentrations. In the gold/mica setup, unprecedented resolution was achieved, as evidenced by the presence of molecular layering in the force profiles.
Force measurements reported in this work show that underscreening, a long-range electrostatic force that has been observed in concentrated electrolytes, is independent of surface potential. It was also observed that the magnitude of the force does not scale with that of the applied potential. Potential step methods were used to show that the current decay in IL has three characteristic timescales corresponding to three different charge transport modes.
A historical geography of the Judean and Samarian Hill Country, 539 BCE–70 CE
Keywords: Historical geography
Palestine
History
Aramaic
Judaism
Hebrew
Samaritans
Israel
Numismatics
Jews
Environmental history
Ancient history

This thesis is a historical geography of the Judean and Samarian Hill Country between the 6th century BCE and 1st century CE. The Hill Country is a small region of Palestine bordered by the Jordan Valley in the east, the Shephelah and the Coastal Plains in the west, the Negev in the south, the Jezreel Valley in the north, and the Carmel Range in the northwest. Across six chapters, I explore the ways the environment shaped (and was shaped by) the society, economy and culture of the local population, drawing on a selection of literary, epigraphic and material evidence, and arguing for the coherence and value of this fascinating historical unit.
Art and aristocracy in late Stuart England
Keywords: late Stuart
art
art patronage
aristocracy
nobility

Art was integral to the lives of the late Stuart aristocracy. Through case studies of the art patronage of three aristocratic couples, this interdisciplinary thesis examines their stylistic influences, the strategies and networks that underlay their patronage, and why they invested so much time, effort, and money on buildings, interiors, gardens, and moveable works of art. In doing so, it illuminates the dynamics of late Stuart aristocratic society, while simultaneously deepening our understanding of the art itself. It explores the relationship between monarchy and aristocracy in the pivotal decades around the Glorious Revolution, finding that despite the profound political consequences of the Revolution, the court continued to attract the aristocracy as the leader of artistic fashion. It emphasises that aristocrats were integrated into wider European court culture, and shows how they adopted a range of strategies to obtain fashionable and exclusive foreign artworks in order to demonstrate their proximity to the centres of fashion and differentiate themselves from their peers. They employed immigrant artists and craftsmen, adopted European designs, and some travelled to the continent, modelling their patronage on the European potentates they encountered. This thesis dethrones the lone male patron by identifying the household staff and agents, and kinship, county, associational and political networks that were integral to art patronage. It also considers the dynamics of conjugal patronage, uncovering the important contribution of married women, while recognising that it was circumscribed within legal, economic, and social strictures. Finally, it questions previous assumptions that aristocratic art, particularly in country houses, was politically motivated and directed towards instrumental purposes. Differentiating between politics and power, it demonstrates that these aristocrats principally used art to demonstrate and maintain their status through displays of magnificence; to invest in their estates on behalf of the dynasty; and to commemorate their own achievements for posterity.
"Green are fields, not mines": the case of lithium mining and resistance in Serbia
Keywords: activism
electric vehicles
extractivism
Serbia
environmental justice
Balkans
sustainability
lithium

This research is concerned with the emerging lithium extractivist frontier in Serbia. In 2004, a new mineral jadarite was discovered by the multinational mining company Rio Tinto, and it was found to be unusually rich in lithium and boron. Since then, more lithium deposits have been discovered in Serbia, with companies seeking to extract the element that is one of the essential components for batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) as well as for renewable energy storage. It is thus central to the electrification of the transport and energy systems and for the green transition more broadly. The Jadar Project, led by Rio Tinto, was set to become the biggest lithium mine in Europe, with the planned start of construction in early 2022. Nevertheless, the project drew widespread resistance from locals, with escalating protests and thousands of people blocking roads towards the end of 2021, ultimately leading to the official cancellation of the lithium mining project in January 2022. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, this research examines the attitudes of locals and activists to lithium mining in Serbia. With a particular focus on the materiality of lithium as a “green” element, the spatiality of Serbia as a European periphery and the temporality of the Anthropocene as a state of emergency, this research seeks to address the largely neglected forms of harm that the global demand for lithium holds. The lithium mining initiatives in Serbia thus become key sites of contestation of what a sustainable future holds and present a fundamental challenge to the hegemonic view on sustainability that is based on mining and extractivism.
Modular Calabi-Yau manifolds, attractor points, and flux vacua
Keywords: zeta function
number theory and physics
flux vacua
black holes
modularity
mirror symmetry
Calabi-Yau manifolds
attractors

The overarching theme of this thesis is the relation of physics - specifically string theory compactifications - to Calabi-Yau modularity, which is a phenomenon where it is possible to associate a modular form to a Calabi-Yau manifold. The coefficients of this modular form can be related to the number of points on the manifold defined over finite fields.
We begin by studying the geometry of a five-parameter family of Calabi-Yau manifolds first studied in connection with modularity by Hulek and Verrill, focusing on aspects related to mirror symmetry. These Hulek-Verrill manifolds have an S6 symmetry group, which makes the seemingly daunting task of finding periods and computing instanton numbers and monodromies significantly easier.
Using the geometric results, we investigate the modular properties of these manifolds. Extending the existing computational methods to cover multiparameter families, we are able to compute the zeta function on various one-parameter subfamilies of Hulek-Verrill manifolds. We observe that along the locus of S5 symmetric manifolds, the zeta function numerator factorises, revealing that this locus consists of weight-two modular manifolds. This is related to existence of supersymmetric flux vacua in type IIB string theory compactified on these manifolds. We introduce a method of constructing families of such modular supersymmetric flux vacua by utilising the Z2 symmetry of the compactification manifold. As expected by modularity conjectures, the zeta function of the manifold can be related, in numerous examples we study, to elliptic, Hilbert, or Bianchi modular forms, depending on the number field the manifold is defined over. It is an interesting question whether these modular forms and their coefficients have a natural geometric of physical interpretation. We take steps towards answering this question by developing an iterative procedure for solving attractor equations in one-parameter compactifications. In some important special cases we find closed-form series solutions, which can be used to compute the entropy of associated black holes in terms of Gromov-Witten invariants of the compactification manifold. The entropy formula takes on a form very reminiscent of modular form asymptotics and can be shown to satisfy some properties expected of the asymptotic form of a modular form counting black hole microstates.
Mixed convective flows for future operation of power generation turbines
Keywords: buoyancy suppression
scale resolving simulations
turbine flexible operations
flow control
buoyant flows
new RANS treatment
NNR
power generation turbines
mixed convection
turbine cooling
casting roughness
facility development

There has been a fast uptake of renewable sources in power generation in the recent years to mitigate the climate change. However, steam and gas turbines are expected to be in use to provide load levelling capacity when the demand cannot be met by the renewables due to their intermittent nature. This intermittency with renewables pose a grand challenge to the conventional power generation systems which are designed to provide a base load but now must adapt to the presence of renewables with frequent start-ups and shut-downs. Therefore, the focus in turbine design is shifting away from overall efficiency towards more operational flexibility.
The fundamental change in turbine design philosophy necessitates a thorough understanding of mixed convective flows during shut-down regimes which are responsible for non-uniform cooling leading to thermal stresses and compromise clearances which directly limit the operational flexibility. Numerical methods are needed to investigate these flows since the direct measurements are often not possible. A novel experimental facility that operates at engine realistic conditions has been designed and commissioned to simulate the mixed convective flows inside turbine casings. A number of experimental campaigns for various mixed convection scenarios have been performed and unique data sets have been generated, which have served as validation cases for the numerical methods. Subsequently, wall resolved large eddy simulations have been performed to gain a deeper insight into the flow field and heat transfer characteristics. A new universal RANS based model which incorporates and blends Reynolds stress and turbulent heat flux treatments has been developed and found to improve flow field and heat transfer predictions in buoyancy influenced flows.
Since the buoyant flows which cause non-uniform flow field and cooling are undesirable, the experimental facility has been modified with a blockage plate to create a local jet effect to suppress large thermal boundary layer development. The results have suggested that a simple modification to turbine casings could remarkably reduce flow field non-uniformity by suppressing the buoyant flows.
Additionally, the influence of cast surface roughness which are commonly encountered in turbomachinery industry on heat transfer, flow field and aerodynamics has been investigated with scale resolving simulations of multiple scaled-up roughness heights. It has been concluded that these rough surfaces have a significant impact on heat transfer, and cause similar velocity and temperature deficit which would potentially be simulated by a single low-order turbulence model.
Novel approaches to targeting ATM-deficient tumours
Keywords: Ataxia Telangiectasia
DNA damage response
ATM deficiency
Ataxia Telangiectasia mutated (ATM)
radiation
Irinotecan

Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) is an apical kinase involved in the response to DNA damage through the coordination of DNA repair with temporary cell cycle arrest. Germline mutations in ATM give rise to ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a genome instability syndrome characterised by progressive neurodegeneration, profound radiosensitivity and susceptibility to cancer.
The role of ATM in the DNA damage response (DDR) to irradiation and irinotecan treatment was evaluated using both ATM-deficient cell lines and mice, and by using pharmacological inhibition of ATM.
This study revealed the frequent loss of ATM protein expression in human tumours, with the greatest extent reported in pancreatic cancers. Through a pharmacological kinase screen, compounds that can preferentially target ATM-deficient cells were identified including insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) inhibitors. Studies in ATM-deficient cells revealed potentially complex compensatory mechanisms for DDR signalling following irinotecan treatment. The characterisation of the DDR in vivo clearly demonstrated ATM-dependent S phase DNA damage signalling in normal tissues as a consequence of irinotecan treatment, with the surprising observation of an S phase-independent DDR in regions of the heart and lung.
Whilst the concept of targeting ATM loss in tumours remains promising, the complexities surrounding compensatory DDR signalling and the inconsistency of synthetic lethality in combination with topoisomerase I inhibition are confounding and will require further study to better understand the potential of irinotecan in the treatment of ATM-deficient tumours. Alternative targets, such as those identified in the compound screen, warrant further investigation.