VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The anatomy of mesozoic carbonate platform-margins, southern Appenines, Italy

The stratigraphy and sedimentology of Mesozoic carbonate platform-margins cropping out in southern Italy are investigated. New strati graphic data are presented from northern and eastern slopes of the Apennine carbonate platform, based on locallycorrelated field sections. Thin-section petrography is used to demonstrate the spatial and temporal distribution of derived lithoclasts. Results indicate that southern Apennine platforms underwent repeated erosion during Cretaceous time and possible reasons for this are discussed. Petrographic studies also provided outline sediment parageneses for slopes and platforms, with special reference to the detailed geochemistry of secondary dolomite formation on the eastern margin of the Apulian platform, whose growth is indicated by proton microprobe microanalysis to have been influenced by redox changes.
The sedimentary facies and sediment geometries of Upper Cretaceous to Lower Tertiary slope sediments mapped in the Frosolone area are discussed in a case-study. Cross-sections showing geometries of key beds are presented, and depositional controls are discussed. Outcrop data suggest an Early to Middle Jurassic age of basin formation of this sector of the Lagonegro-Molise basin. A further case study from the Mesozoic slope in the Gran Sasso shows sediment geometries at reflection seismic scale, and relates them to possible depositional control by relative sea-level fluctuations.
Finally, data from southern Apennine platforms and basins are combined in a tentative sequence stratigraphic framework for the Middle Cretaceous. The results of onedimensional subsidence modelling are presented in order to separate and describe the signals of local tectonics and relative sea-level fluctuations affecting the southern passive-margin of Mesozoic Tethys.

Advisor: Jenkyns, H
Platt, J
The role and perception of the civitas in late Roman and Frankish Gaul

The thesis examines the role and perceptions of Gallic civitates from A.D. 340 to 840. Civitates are those urban centres which were distinguished as imperial administrative capitals and, later, as episcopal sees. The thesis addresses a number of general questions, among which the most fundamental is that of which urban functions were essential to the role and ideal of the civitas. Other questions raised include the importance of romanitas to urban-based functions and features, the relationship of the episcopal see to the civitas, and the changes brought about by the establishment of Germanic rule.
In order fully to examine the above issues, the thesis has been divided into four chapters each dealing with a specific urban function. Thus, civitates are considered in the light of their administrative, religious, military and economic roles. Within each chapter, attention is given not only to the practical operation of these functions, but also to their importance to the civitas in terms of status and prestige. Further efforts are made to distinguish this type of centre from other settlements. The first chapter, however, deals with the use and application of urban and regional terminology - a study which has demonstrated changing attitudes towards civitates and their dependent territories.
The thesis has relied, for the most part, on historical evidence. Archaeological material was omitted, because of the limits of time and because of the necessity to evaluate such evidence in detail and on its own. Despite this limitation, it has been possible to examine aspects of the subject not normally considered by urban historians. For, although there have been studies on civitates, most of these have dealt exclusively with their physical features, or have been restricted to limited geographical areas and/or time periods.
In the course of the thesis, it has been shown that the history of civitates closely reflects major events, ideals and developments within society. Thus, within the confines of this thesis, it has been possible to illuminate political, religious and cultural changes throughout the period. It is for this reason that a study of this type is important to the further understanding of an otherwise obscure and often neglected period of history.
Phosphate interactions with proteins

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been used to investigate the interaction of yeast phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) with its phosphate containing substrates, ATP and 3-phosphoglycerate (3-PG). The application of one-dimensional and, for the first time, two-dimensional proton NMR techniques to this large protein has enabled specific resonance assignments to be made. Assignment has been aided by the investigation of specifically deuterated protein and site-specific mutant forms of the protein, including the isolated N- and C-domains.
The effects of ATP and 3-PG binding on the proton NMR spectrum of yeast PGK have been characterised and the assigned resonances used as local probes of structural and dynamic changes. Two binding sites have been determined for the nucleotide substrate, ATP, the occupancies of which are dependent on Mg2+ concentration. One site corresponds to the catalytic site determined crystallographically. A single binding site was found for 3-PG. This binding was shown to cause highly specific conformational changes throughout the N-domain and the interdomain region, which involve the relative movement of at least three α-helices. Investigation of 3-PG binding to several site-specific mutant forms of yeast PGK revealed a critical role for arginine 168 in the propagation of these changes.
The general binding of anions to yeast PGK was investigated using the paramagnetic probes [Cr(CN)6]3- and [Fe(CN)6]3-, and the diamagnetic anion [Co(CN)6]3-. The primary anion binding site was determined from [Cr(CN)6]3- broadening data and found to share some side-chains involved in 3-PG binding, namely histidine 62 and arginine 168. Evidence for a secondary anion site was found. The anion binding data is discussed in view of the complex activation/inhibition effects of anions on the catalytic activity.
Investigation of the isolated N- and C-domains showed that both can fold independently and confirmed that the C-domain is a nucleotide binding domain. It appears that the presence of the interdomain residues and/or the C-terminal peptide are necessary for 3-PG binding to the N-domain.
This work shows that the specificity of the substrates is in binding, as expected, but also in the motions induced in the protein as a whole.

Advisor: Williams, R
The literature of the boarding house: female transient space in the 1930s

This thesis investigates a neglected sub-genre of women’s writing, which I have termed the literature of the boarding house. Focusing on unmarried women, this is a study of the alternative rooms ‘of one’s own’ that existed in the nineteen thirties: from the boarding house and hotel, to the bed-sitting room or single room as a paying guest in another family’s house. The 1930s is defined by the conflict between women’s emerging social and economic independence and a dominant ideology that placed increased importance on domesticity, the idea of ‘home’ and women’s place within the familial structure. My research highlights the incompatibility between the idealised images of domestic life that dominated the period and the reality for the single woman living in temporary accommodation. The boarding house existed outside conventional notions of female domestic space with its connotations of stability and family life. Women within the boarding house were not only living outside traditional domestic structures; they were placing themselves outside socially and culturally defined domestic roles. The boarding house was both a new space of modernity, symbolising women’s independence, and a continued imitation of the bourgeois home modelled on rituals of middle-class behaviour. Through an examination of novels by Elizabeth Bowen, Lettice Cooper, Stella Gibbons, Storm Jameson, Rosamond Lehmann, Dorothy Richardson, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, and E. H. Young, this study privileges the literary as a way in which to understand the space of the boarding house. Not only does the boarding house blur the boundaries between public and private space, it also challenges the traditional conceptions of the family home as the sole location of private domestic space. I argue that by placing their characters in the in-between space of the boarding house, the authors can reflect on the liminal spaces that existed for women both socially and sexually. In the literature of the boarding house, the novel becomes a site for representing women’s experiences that were usually on the periphery of traditional narratives, as well as a literary medium for articulating the wider social and economic issues affecting the lives of unmarried women.

Keywords: women's writing
Stella Gibbons
Storm Jameson
Rosamond Lehmann
E. H. Young
Dorothy Richardson
Jean Rhys
1930s
Virginia Woolf
boarding house
Lettice Cooper
Elizabeth Bowen
Advisor: Beasley, R
Partial sum process of orthogonal series as rough process

In this thesis, we investigate the pathwise regularity of partial sum process of general orthogonal series, and prove that the partial sum process is a geometric 2-rough process under the same condition as in Menshov-Rademacher Theorem. For Fourier series, the condition can be improved, and an equivalent condition on the limit function is identified.

Keywords: harmonic analysis
orthogonal series
rough path theory
partial sum process
Advisor: Lyons, T
Essays in normative macroeconomics

This thesis is divided into two main parts. The first provides a novel analysis of dynamic optimal taxation under the assumption that individuals in an economy have ‘hidden’ idiosyncratic productivity levels. Specifically, it shows how to derive a complete set of optimality conditions characterising the solution to a problem of this kind. The method relies on constructing perturbations to the consumption-output allocations of agents in a manner that preserves all relevant incentive compatibility restrictions. We are able to use it to generalise the ‘inverse Euler condition’ to cases in which preferences are non-separable between consumption and labour supply, and to prove a number of novel results about optimal income and savings tax wedges.
The second main part investigates a more general problem. When policymakers are constrained in their present choices by expectations of future outcomes a well-known time-inconsistency problem hinders optimal decision-making: the preferences of policymakers who exist at different points in time are not in agreement with one another, because of differences in the constraints faced by each. We present a new approach to determining policy in this setting, based on asking: What policy would be chosen by a decisionmaker who did not know the time period in which their choice was to be implemented? This is akin to designing institutions from behind a Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’. The theory is used to obtain qualitative policy prescriptions across a number of environments; these policies have several appealing properties that we outline.

Keywords: dynamic taxation
time inconsistency
optimal policy
veil of ignorance
Advisor: Wren-Lewis, S
The pious formulae of the Middle English romances

The prayers and oaths of the Middle English verse romances draw upon a range of pious formulae. These stock invocations rehearse key episodes from salvation history. Such formulae are widely viewed as mere line-fillers and they are rarely credited with stylistic influence. Yet the startling power of their apposite usage in charged narrative moments prompts further investigation.
The thesis aims to demonstrate how the use of pious formulae in the romances is not inevitably mechanical. It comprises a catalogue and stylistic study of such formulae. The catalogue records all examples appearing in a single witness to each of the pre-1500 verse romances. By furnishing information on prosodic context, it offers a reference tool with which to measure the extent of technical determination in the appearance of a formula. The thesis analyses this material and advances claims for the aesthetic value of pious formulae.
Chapter 1 reviews the evidence of the catalogue. It is shown how pious formulae embody an impressive range of devotional imagery.
Chapter 2 illustrates that cognate formulae are widely employed in Middle English religious literature. It is shown how therein they exhibit a theological significance and a stylistic saliency.
Chapter 3 shows how intermittent reflections of this serious stylistic usage are apparent in the pious romance, Guy of Warwick.
Chapters 4 and 5 show how the affective resonance of such formulae is consistently exploited in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and William of Palerne respectively.
Chapter 6 provides a brief summary. It concludes that the pious formulae of the romances can convey a strong aesthetic charge. They serve as more than mere line-fillers.
Three appendices are included. Appendix A explores the relation between pious formulae and medieval profane oaths. Appendix B lists the variant readings of the formulae of four romances. Appendix C comprises the catalogue.
Violence and dystopia

Violence and Dystopia is a critical examination of imitative desire, scapegoating and sacrifice in selected contemporary Western dystopian narratives through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory. The first chapter offers an overview of the history of Western utopia/dystopia with a special emphasis on the problem of conflictive mimesis and scapegoating violence, and a critical introduction to Girard’s theory. The second chapter is devoted to J.G. Ballard’s seminal novel Crash (1973). It is argued that the car crash functions as a metaphor for conflictive mimetic desire and leads to a quasi-sacrificial crisis as defined by Girard for archaic religion. The attempt of the medieval propheta-figure to resolve the crisis through violence fails and leads to potential violence without end. The third chapter focuses on the psychogeographical writings of Iain Sinclair. Walking the streets of London he represents the excluded underside of the world of Ballardian speed. The walking subject is portrayed in terms of the expelled victim of Girardian theory. The fourth chapter considers violent crowds as portrayed by Ballard’s late fiction, the writings of Stewart Home and David Peace’s GB84 (2004). In accordance with Girard’s hypothesis, the discussed narratives reveal the failure of scapegoat expulsion to restore peace to the potentially self-destructive violent crowds. The fifth chapter examines the post-apocalyptic environments resulting from failed scapegoat expulsion and mimetic conflict out of control, as portrayed in Sinclair’s Radon Daughters (1994), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003) and Will Self’s The Book of Dave (2006). In conclusion it will become evident that Girard’s theory forms an indispensable analytical tool uncovering the pivotal themes of imitation and scapegoating in the discussed narratives: themes largely ignored in current scholarship on dystopia and secondary literature on the focussed authors.

Advisor: Cunningham, V
The origins and nature of the Attic ephebeia to 200 B.C.

This thesis examines the Athenian ephebeia, from its creation to 200 B.C. The primary aim of the study is to examine the forces which led to the perception of a need for the ephebeia and which influenced its creation.
After describing the institution and then investigating the available evidence for its foundation date, I argue that the "formal ephebeia" was created in 335 B.C. and was substantially different in form from anything which had preceded it. There were, however, some antecedent aspects of the ephebeia which can be traced to earlier times.
The following two chapters examine forces in the fifth and early fourth century which contributed to the creation of the ephebeia. The first is an examination of Greek military innovation in the fourth century and of new Athenian defensive policy. The second investigates a "discourse" of educational thought which was present in the intellectual circles of Athens in the fourth century, the nature of which can be found in writings of the "Socratic" philosophers. In the fifth chapter I descrive the environment of "Lycurgan Athens" and argue that the ephebeia was a deliberately "invented tradition" which suited its ideological context. The final chapter examines all available evidence for the history of the organization from 322 to 200 B.C., charting a transformation of the institution. There are two appendices: one on the demography of late fourth century Athens and its relationship to the ephebeia, the other on the life-dates of Menander and the year of his ephebate. There are also two catalogues of inscriptions. The first provides all fourth century ephebic inscriptions since the publication of Reinmuth's collection (or changes to those). The second provides all published third century ephebic inscriptions and some from the early second century.

Keywords: Athens
Greek history
ephebeia
Advisor: Forrest, W
Lane Fox, R
An integrated metamorphic and geochronological study of the south-eastern Tibetan plateau

The Tibetan plateau is a vast, elevated region located in central Asia, which is underlain by the thickest crust known on Earth (up to 90 km). An outstanding question of importance to many fields within geology is how and why did the Tibetan plateau form? Models attribute the growth of the plateau to a consequence of the ongoing India-Asia continental collision, but differ in the details of how the crustal thickening was accommodated: was it by underplating of Indian lower crust or by homogeneous shortening? High-grade metamorphic rocks sampled from the region potentially hold the key to answering this question, as they contain a record of past tectonic events that can discriminate between the various proposed models. This record can be decoded by integrating field, thermobarometric and geochronological techniques, to elucidate a detailed thermotectonic understanding of a region. This methodology was applied to three case studies, each of which targeted rare tectonic windows into the mid-crust of the plateau. These regions comprise Danba in eastern Tibet, Basong Tso in south-eastern Tibet and the Western Nyainqentanglha in southern Tibet. Each case study documents previously unreported metamorphic events that have allowed original interpretations to be made regarding tectonic evolution: in Danba, all metamorphism is shown to be early Jurassic; in Basong Tso, two metamorphic belts are documented that reveal a late Triassic--early Jurassic orogenic event; and in the Western Nyainqengtanglha, Cretaceous--Neogene magmatism is shown to overprint late Triassic metamorphism. Integration of the results has enabled commentary on the large scale evolution of the Tibetan plateau from the Permian until the present day, and even hinted at its future. The results indicate that the closure of the Paleotethys played an important role in the construction of the Tibetan plateau, and suggest that homogeneous crustal thickening is not a viable model for the documented exposure levels.

Keywords: Lhasa terrane
zircon
garnet
Songpan-Garze terrane
Tibetan plateau
metamorphic petrology
monazite
U-Pb geochronology
phase diagram modelling
Advisor: St-Onge, M
Searle, M
Waters, D
The great powers and the struggle over Austria, 1945-1955

The Austrian State Treaty, achieved after ten years of occupation of Austria by France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, is a frequently cited example of the triumph of painstaking diplomacy between the great powers, but it can more accurately be depicted as the result of unilateral actions by the negotiating countries, particularly the Soviet Union. Careful examination of the records of the negotiations as well as available policy documents of the participants reveals that the highly publicized negotiations gradually became a sophisticated charade for the benefit of European and domestic audiences, while the critical decisions were made elsewhere. Indeed, as Europe grew increasingly polarized very little actual bargaining occurred between East and West; the Austrian negotiations became merely a forum for unilateral action. Thus, in describing the search for Austrian independence, the thesis is not simply a reiteration of the three hundred and seventy-nine meetings of the Foreign Ministers and Foreign Ministers' Deputies for Austria. Rather, it is a uniquely encapsulated version of the course of the Gold War in the ten critical years following the Second World War.
The purpose of the thesis is to study, through the prism of British and American documents, the behaviour of the four great powers in the struggle to determine the future of Austria. Examining allied behaviour towards this small but strategically important country, and understanding how the Austrians came to choose a third way between East and West, sheds light upon the great power arrangements in Europe which have persisted to this day.
The notion of philosophy in Wittgenstein's later writings

Wittgenstein's later view of philosophy centres on the claims that philosophy can make no discoveries and that philosophy should aim to describe the use of language. This thesis explores the hypothesis that these claims arise from the account of the nature of the internal relation in the later writings. The thesis falls into three parts. The first part examines the picture theory of representation in the Tractatus; it is argued that the theory takes its shape from Wittgenstein's early view of internal relations. The grounds for the rejection of the picture theory in the later writings are discussed; the argument against a private language is held to be based on the objections to the picture theory.
The second part of the thesis looks at the account of internal relatedness given in Wittgenstein's later writings. The failure of the picture theory leads to a non-realist account of the internal relation. A proposal to preserve realism based on a causal theory of representation is rejected and Kripke's account of Wittgenstein's position is criticised. The notions of a grammatical rule and a practice are the keys to the later theory. Grammatical rules depend on the existence of natural reactions to and with signs; such natural reactions constitute a practice, and only within such a practice are there internal relations. Wittgenstein's view of psychological states is explored against the background of the notion of a practice.
The third part of the thesis examines the doctrines on philosophy in the light of the account of internal relatedness which has emerged. It is argued that if this account is correct, there is no room for philosophical inquiry to discover objective truths. But if Wittgenstein's negative doctrines on philosophy are supported by these arguments, the same is not true for^ his proposals about the proper ambitions of philosophy: the task of describing rules of grammar is unproductive because there is no room for an interesting notion of a violation of a rule of grammar. Moreover, it is argued that Wittgenstein misadvertises the method one is to employ to reveal violations of grammatical rules. Finally it is asked whether the later account of philosophy suffers the same problems as beset philosophy in the Tractatus: can the negative doctrines really be stated? A way out of this problem is suggested.