VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Sir Thomas Tresham (1543-1605) and early modern Catholic culture and identity, 1580-1610
Keywords: History of the Book
Religious History
Cultural History
Early Modern Catholicism
Gentry
Identity
Library History

What did it mean to be a Catholic elite in Protestant England? The relationship between the Protestant crown and its Catholic subjects may be examined fruitfully through a study of an individual and his world. This thesis examines this relationship through the example of Sir Thomas Tresham, who has often been seen as the archetypal Catholic loyalist. It is argued that the notion of Catholic loyalism must be reconfigured to account for the complexities inherent in the relationship between Catholics and the government. The duty to honour the monarch's authority was bound up with social and national sentiment, but it often accompanied criticisms of the practice of that authority, and the ways in which it encroached on personal experience. Intractable tensions lay behind expressions of loyalty, and this thesis travels in these undercurrents of cultural, social, religious, and political conflict to investigate the nuanced relationship between English Catholics and English society.
Political resistance as classically understood — actions which directly opposed and undermined government policy — risks the exclusion of culture and identity, through which resistance was redefined. It is argued that Tresham’s participation in elite activities became vehicles for resistance in the Catholic context. Book-collecting, reading, and the donation of books to an institutional library are framed as forms of resistance which countered the spirit of government legislation, and provided for the continuation of a robust tradition of Catholic scholarship on English soil. Through artistic and architectural projects, Tresham found ways to participate in elite culture which were not closed off to him, and in which Catholicism and gentility could sit side by side. These activities were also avenues for resistance, whereby the erection of stone testaments to Tresham's faith defied the government's attempts to redefine Englishness and gentility in Protestant terms, to the devastation of Catholicism. These artistic works combined piety, gentility, and resistance, and, together with Tresham’s two Catholic libraries, they were to be his legacy.
Ethical issues surrounding access to care for BRCA mutations
Keywords: Breast cancer
Ethics
Ovarian cancer
Genetics
Access to care
BRCA
HBOC

Harmful BRCA (breast cancer susceptibility genes 1 and 2) mutations greatly increase women's risks of breast and/or ovarian cancer but are found in less than 1 per cent of the general population. Thus, care is targeted at women with strong family histories of breast and/or ovarian cancer. Genetic testing can determine if these high-risk women carry harmful mutations; if so, they may pursue care that facilitates cancer prevention, detection, and/or treatment.
In this thesis, I examine in which cases it is problematic that some British and American women do not access this potentially life-saving care. In recognition of the difficulty in measuring access, a view informed by preliminary interviews and a literature review, I use three complementary approaches to illustrate different aspects of access. First, a critical review surveys how British and American clinical guidelines, laws, policies, and legal rulings govern service availability. Second, a scoping study describes the US and UK literature on barriers and facilitators to access. Third, an empirical study involving focus groups with UK and US genetics professionals and support group members details how women provide and pursue care.
Using Beauchamp and Childress's 'four principles' framework, I analyse how these approaches inform four elements of access: availability of services, barriers to care, relevance and effectiveness of services, and equity of access. I distinguish between cases in which women do not want and/or need care and cases in which women are denied care they want and need, and I propose strategies to redress current inequities in access. I further suggest that offering Ashkenazi Jewish population screening alongside family history-based screening may be appropriate. I conclude that whilst most problematic cases are country-neutral, only US women are problematically constrained by insurance and legal loopholes, and only UK women are problematically constrained by regional variations in health authority funding.
Indifference to past human rights violations in Chile
Keywords: Chile
Human Rights
Transitional Justice
Indifference

The purpose of this thesis is to explain how and why a sector of the Chilean population is indifferent to past human rights violations committed during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), and also what the consequences of that indifference are in Chile today. An explanatory sequential and non-nested mixed methods design has been applied: the quantitative analysis is based on the 2013 National Bicentennial Survey (N=2,004), and the qualitative analysis is carried out from fifty-three in-depth and semi-structured interviews to indifferent and non-indifferent individuals. It is argued that indifference to past human rights violations is the result of various processes of socialization that influence the individual, being relevant life experiences and social interactions related to political issues. According to the survey, 16.02 percent of the sample is indifferent to past atrocities. Regarding the causes of indifference, binomial logistic regression highlights four variables: political orientation, socio-economic status, generational cohort, and perception of social conflict. The analysis of in-depth interviews shows that the three most common sets of variables that explain indifference to past human rights violations are: the predominant emphasis on search for family and personal well-being, discomfort with politics, and fear of a recurrence of the pre-coup d'état crisis and post-coup authoritarian experiences. Qualitative analysis shows that indifference is dynamic and visible. There are also different intensities in the spectrum of indifference. As the indifferent are a heterogeneous group, distinctions between disillusioned, submissive, depoliticized, and resigned indifferent are presented. It is also argued that the indifferent cynics are a problematic group for transitional justice, democratic consolidation, and the rule of law. Regarding the social consequences, the indifferent may actively promote social indifference in their interactions; indifference has become a socially accepted norm by other sectors, and indifference facilitates the persistence of the culture of impunity over time.
The evolution of early-type galaxies
Keywords: integral field unit
Galaxies
Early-Type Galaxies
kinematics
Galaxy Cluster
initial mass function
Stellar populations

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are typically thought of as `red and dead' with little to no star formation and old stellar populations. Their detailed kinematics measured locally suggest an interesting array of formation mechanisms and high-redshift observations are starting to reveal a two-phase evolutionary path for the most massive galaxies. In this thesis, I take a combined approach to studying the formation of ETGs. I look to distant quiescent galaxies in one of the densest regions of the early Universe and at the fossil record of a local galaxy to shed light on some of the unsolved mysteries of how ETGs evolved. Using the unique multiplexed instrument, the K-band Multi-Object Spectrograph (KMOS), the evolution of galaxies at both low and high redshift were studied as part of this thesis. I maximised the capabilities of this multi-integral field unit (IFU) near-infrared (NIR) instrument to study different aspects of ETG evolution. With 24 separate IFUs, many quiescent galaxies were efficiently observed in a massive high-redshift cluster as part of the KMOS Cluster Survey. Coupling KMOS spectroscopy with Hubble Space Telescope photometry, I studied the ages, kinematics, and structural properties of the galaxies. I then analysed the detailed properties of a massive local ETG with interesting kinematics, IC 1459. Coupling the NIR IFU data from KMOS with a large mosaic of optical data from the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, I was able to study the spatially resolved kinematics, stellar populations, and initial mass function of the galaxy. The work presented in this thesis provides some interesting clues as to the formation of ETGs and possible diversity of their evolutionary paths.
Why do they call it Raška when they mean Sandžak? On the synchrony and diachrony of identities in Southwest Serbia
Keywords: Balkan studies
Sandžak
Serbia
Identity building
Yugoslavia
Raška
Ethnic relations
Western Balkans

This thesis investigates the diverse ways in which social agents construct the relationship between past, present and future through a study of historical consciousness and its role in the negotiation of identity and shifting power relations in the border region of Southwest Serbia. The focus of the research falls on ethnic relations between Serbs and Bosniaks, who predominantly inhabit the area, and the boundaries that they imagine surround the world they live in. The goal has been to trace the life of these ethnic boundaries, and with it the relationships between those who imagine them by following their transformations in history, as well as to inquire into elements of social patterns that may be discernable within a contextualized and historicized analysis of the region. In order to achieve this, I have analysed the diverse pasts and futures that coalesce in the many 'time spaces' that Southwest Serbia’s social actors inhabit in any present moment and from which they (re)construct these boundaries and their identities. The research has been situated within the wider anthropological discussion about the relation of culture (memory) and history and draws on insights made by relevant studies and ethnographies conducted on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
The data presented demonstrates that ethnicity and nationality are not fully crystalized as concepts in Southwest Serbia, their contents are imagined in inconsistent ways in and between social groups, while ethno-national identities and histories are not on the whole felt to be crucial to one's personal sense of self, but are perceived and put to use as malleable political resources. As a result, the most dominant allegiance in Southwest Serbia is to one’s family, the only group whose 'essence' escapes political malleability and whose members share a common cross-temporal vision.
Immune regulatory networks in inflammation-driven cancer
Keywords: tumour immunology
regulatory T cell
stromal cell

The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) is increasing and the prognosis for patients with advanced or metastatic disease is relatively poor. Immunotherapies hold great promise, but deploying them effectively in CRC patients will require further knowledge of the complex cellular and molecular interactions that occur between intestinal tumours and the host immune system. The objective of this study is to understand the mechanisms by which lack of immune cell regulation in the gut can drive the formation of colon adenocarcinomas. In addition, this work aims to identify new mechanisms involved in progression to metastatic disease.
Using mouse model systems, we found that aberrant activity of Treg cells deficient in IL-10 can promote inflammation-driven CRC. IL-10 deficient Tregs have increased capacity to drive tumourigenesis compared to their CD4+ effector T cell counterparts. RNA sequencing revealed specific upregulation of several genes, including a newly-described cytokine, in tumour-promoting Tregs. We explored cytokine regulation and the tumour microenvironment, and show that the inflammatory cytokine IL-6 and TGFβ are necessary for tumour formation in this model. Moreover, disease is associated with a marked stromal cell signature that is induced as a consequence of Treg deficiency in IL-10 production. Gp38+ stromal cells are dominant producers of IL-6, and potent ECM modellers. Furthermore, tumours driven by IL-10 deficient Tregs express high amounts of the pro-mesenchymal transcription factor Sox4. Using combined in vitro and in vivo analyses, we confirm that Sox4 is involved in tumour growth and characterise its expression in CRC patients.
Collectively, our findings suggest that Tregs and stromal cells act together to foster a microenvironment that promotes disease progression, notably through the expression of Sox4 in tumour cells. These findings open an exciting avenue to explore the phenotype of tumour-promoting Tregs and to study Sox4 function in metastatic disease.
Critical analysis of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer’s Christian-historical principle, with a comparative critical analysis of his argument of ‘history’ with that of Edmund Burke’s as used in their critique of the French revolution
Keywords: 'history' as polemical argument
anti-revolutionary principle
political theory
Belgian Revolt
Christian-historical principle
political theology
anthropocentric constitutional theory
unwritten constitution
right-order theory
theocentric constitutional theory
divine right of government
sphere sovereignty

This thesis provides an analytical interpretation of the critique Dutch nineteenth-century statesman-cum-historian Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876) articulated of French revolutionary ideology. It achieves an original reading of Groen’s thought as Protestant right-order theory. This reading achieves a clarification of the functions that Scripture, 'nature', and ‘history’ have in his thought, and connects his thinking to that of a small group of contemporary British-based political theologians, notably Oliver and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, and their minority view on the ontological grounding of justice. Our comparison of Groen's argument of 'history' with that of Edmund Burke achieves original critical leverage on their concepts of 'history', and draws out that Burke's critique of the Revolution purposes to re-affirm English common law, while Groen’s is an apologia for Christianity.
Intestinal stromal cell types in health and inflammatory bowel disease uncovered by single-cell transcriptomics
Keywords: ulcerative colitis
single cell RNA sequencing

Colonic stromal cells provide critical structural support but also regulate immunity, tolerance and inflammatory responses in the mucosa. Substantial variability and plasticity of mucosal stromal cells has been reported but a paucity of distinct marker genes exist to identify distinct cell states. Here single-cell RNA-sequencing is used to document heterogeneity and subtype specific markers of individual colonic stromal cells in human and mouse.
Marker-free transcriptional clustering of fibroblast-like cells derived from healthy human tissue reveals distinct populations corresponding to myofibroblasts and three transcriptionally and functionally dissimilar populations of fibroblasts. A SOX6 high fibroblast subset occupies a position adjacent to the epithelial basement membrane and expresses multiple epithelial morphogens including WNT5A and BMP2. Additional fibroblast subtypes show specific enrichment for chemokine signalling and prostaglandin E2 synthesis respectively.
In ulcerative colitis, substantial remodelling occurs with depletion of the SOX6 high population and emergence of an immune enriched population expressing genes associated with fibroblastic reticular cells including CCL19, CCL21 and IL33.
A large murine dataset comprising over 7,000 colonic mesenchymal cells from an acute colitis model and matched healthy controls reveals strong preservation of the SOX6 high and myofibroblast transcriptional signatures. Unsupervised pseudotemporal ordering is used to relate fibroblast subsets to one another producing a branched developmental hierarchy that includes a potential progenitor population with mesothelial characteristics at its origin. This work provides a molecular basis for re-classification of colonic stromal cells and identifies pathological changes in these cells underpinning inflammation in UC.
Inventing ritual: moving images of social reality in contemporary art
Keywords: video installation
art and anthropology
Pierre Huyghe
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch
contemporary art
ritual
Mike Kelley

Ritual is a notion that the art world has increasingly reclaimed. From critical writing that zealously identifies rituals to artists who qualify their work as ritualistic, the notion circulates, poking at the boundaries of art practice. The pattern raises critical questions for art history: does it vanish the distinction between art and social practices, casting art’s separation from ritual as a passing historical phase? What are the distinctions in the first place between representing and producing a ritual? These concerns come to the fore with moving images, given that ritual has long been at the heart of ethnographic film, while the very act of filming is becoming central to a growing number of social customs. Addressing these relationships, this thesis focuses on video work since the late 1990s. The thematic research moves through three case studies: series of works by Mike Kelley, Pierre Huyghe, Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, while keeping a comparative view towards other observers and producers of ritual in premodern painting, ethnographic filmmaking, post-internet practices, mainstream cinema, and homemade videos. Among the most influential artists at the turn of this century, Kelley, Huyghe, Trecartin and Fitch share the singular practice of restaging, for and through film, the rituals that surround them, from high school hazing and carnivals to coronations, corporate team-building, Halloween, Valentine and May Days, suburban street fairs, birthdays, and the new observances of social media. Through close study of the artworks and of moving image tropes that shape social imaginaries, the thesis suggests that these artists produce new insights into contemporary human behaviour. While art and ritual tend to be tackled as coded objects to be deciphered, holding condensed information about the societies to which they point, anthropological theory that considers ritual for what it does (rather than what it symbolises) invites us to examine them instead as practices where portions of social reality are produced – formalised and reinvented.
Living in a dynamic world: semantic segmentation of large scale 3D environments
Keywords: Interactive segmentation and reconstruction
Smart glasses for partially sighted
Rotoscoping
Decision making
Video segmentation
Dense 3D reconstruction
Semantic segmentation

As we navigate the world, for example when driving a car from our home to the work place, we continuously perceive the 3D structure of our surroundings and intuitively recognise the objects we see. Such capabilities help us in our everyday lives and enable free and accurate movement even in completely unfamiliar places. We largely take these abilities for granted, but for robots, the task of understanding large outdoor scenes remains extremely challenging.
In this thesis, I develop novel algorithms for (near) real-time dense 3D reconstruction and semantic segmentation of large-scale outdoor scenes from passive cameras. Motivated by "smart glasses" for partially sighted users, I show how such modeling can be integrated into an interactive augmented reality system which puts the user in the loop and allows her to physically interact with the world to learn personalized semantically segmented dense 3D models. In the next part, I show how sparse but very accurate 3D measurements can be incorporated directly into the dense depth estimation process and propose a probabilistic model for incremental dense scene reconstruction. To relax the assumption of a stereo camera, I address dense 3D reconstruction in its monocular form and show how the local model can be improved by joint optimization over depth and pose.
The world around us is not stationary. However, reconstructing dynamically moving and potentially non-rigidly deforming texture-less objects typically require "contour correspondences" for shape-from-silhouettes. Hence, I propose a video segmentation model which encodes a single object instance as a closed curve, maintains correspondences across time and provide very accurate segmentation close to object boundaries.
Finally, instead of evaluating the performance in an isolated setup (IoU scores) which does not measure the impact on decision-making, I show how semantic 3D reconstruction can be incorporated into standard Deep Q-learning to improve decision-making of agents navigating complex 3D environments.
Ima deshō: the vacuum of immediacy in contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture
Keywords: Manga
Literature
Anime
Japan
Popular culture

The value of literature in the contemporary age is a controversial issue. The challenge posed by the interpretation of this era is expressed by the provocative remarks of critics such as Karatani Kōjin and Suzuki Sadami maintaining that after the 80s modern "pure" literature died (History and Repetition, 2012; The Concept of "Literature" in Japan, 2006). Reading Karatani and Suzuki's comments as merely provocative, signifying that a form of literature has died, this study enquires into how literature (and the arts) have changed and found new ways of expression after the historical break of 1989.
The dissertation offers immediacy as a possible answer. Immediacy is a theme, a literary device stressing the present moment submerging clear notions of past and present. The precondition for immediacy is an ideological vacuum, experienced by characters across age groups and genders, where they do not share social ideologies or collective purposes. In this isolation, they concentrate only on their local realities, on what they perceive directly (physically and emotionally), acting quickly and repeatedly in the absence of critical thought. The constant action is often carried out in response to corporeal stimuli, specifically violence and sex, that grant immediate gratification in the vacuum. However, at the core characters indulging in immediacy long for inter-personal connections. Building a community based on critical thought and mutual understanding is the solution to escape from immediacy.
The dissertation explores manifestations of immediacy in contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture (manga and anime) published or broadcast between 1995 and 2011. Through the analyses of cultural theories, literature by Takahashi Genichirō, Taguchi Randy and Hirano Keiichirō, and influential works in manga and anime (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Psycho-Pass and Shingeki no kyojin), it shows the theme’s relevance and discusses how it contributes to the broader fields of contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture. By doing so, the dissertation also provides a study of the current artistic panorama in Japan, one that is often neglected critically, but that speaks of its culture with great force and imagination.