VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The king, the Jesuits and the French Church, 1594-1615

This thesis offers a re-examination of the expulsion, return and subsequent integration of the Jesuits into France during the reign of Henry IV and the regency of Marie de Medicis (1594- 1615). Drawing on archival material from Paris, Rome and London, it argues that in order to understand the Society of Jesus's role in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century France one must understand the circumstances of their return. The critical moment for the Society in France, this study contends, was the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen in 1603, not their expulsion in 1594. The Edict and the royal goodwill which sanctioned it gave the Society a legal standing in France and established a set of conditions which formed the basis for a new Jesuit role in the French church and wider society. Moreover, the Edict of Rouen was more than just an attempt by Henry IV to bring peace to the Catholic church; it was also an important assertion of royal authority in the French church. Indeed, I argue that the return of the Society exclusively through royal clemency or grâce defined an important alliance between the monarchy and the Jesuits which was to be a significant feature of the French church for more than a century.
Although numerous historians have already looked at various aspects of this important topic, this thesis is the first to argue that the most important development of this period for our understanding of the Society's position and role in France was the accommodation of the Society by the French church and French royal administrative structures after the king's will was expressed in 1603. It also asserts that it was the reality of compromise not the rhetoric of conflict which should shape our understanding of the Society's integration into France and their role in the French church in the seventeenth century.
Interfacial instabilities and wetting behaviour in confinement

Interfacial instabilities and wetting phenomena of phase separated colloid-polymer mixtures are addressed in this study. Colloidal particles offer certain advantages over molecular systems, due to their larger lengthscales and slower timescales. Moreover, the phenomena can be directly visualised using laser scanning confocal microscopy, and a perfect match with soft-lithography fabrication techniques can be exploited.
In particular, we study the viscous fingering instability in three dimensions, focusing on the role of wetting conditions and of thermal fluctuations. Combined with results obtained by lattice Boltzmann simulations, we reveal that the cross-over of the meniscus in the direction across the channel thickness is controlled by the capillary and Peclet numbers, and viscosity contrast of the system. The curvature of the meniscus has a pronounced effect on the onset of the Saffman-Taylor instability, in which the formation of the viscous fingers is suppressed up to a certain threshold. Furthermore, we investigate a related contact line instability, which leads to entrainment and subsequent droplet pinch-off. A theoretical prediction for the onset of the instability is developed, which shows a good agreement with the experimental observations and yields a method to directly measure the slip length of the interface. The large thermal fluctuations of our interface play an important role in pinch-off events, leading to periodic emission of droplets of similar sizes.
Finally, we study wetting phenomena at geometrically sculpted walls. We focus on the shape, the thickness and the radius of curvature of the adsorbed liquid film, and find good agreement with theory. Changing the curvature of the wedge from a flat surface to a capil- lary slit furthermore smoothly connects wetting behaviour and capillary condensation, again in qualitative agreement with theory. Non-equilibrium effects may interfere with the data and are difficult to rule out. We end with recommendations for future work.

Keywords: droplet pinch-off
wetting
Saffman-Taylor instability
contact line instability
colloid-polymer mixtures
Physical and theoretical chemistry
Advisor: Aarts, D
Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with money, default and collateral

This D.Phil. dissertation investigates the areas in financial stability. The three comprising essays have a common ground: money, default and collateral in the theory of finance.
Chapter Two (co-authored with Prof. Dimitrios Tsomocos), which is titled “A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model to Analyse Financial Stability”, aims to refine and improve existing DSGE models in two ways. First, it incorporates hitherto neglected components such as endogenous default, money via cash-in-advance constraints and heterogeneous banking sectors. Thus, in contrast to the New Keynesian approach, here it is liquidity and default that are the driving forces behind our results. Second, in focusing on both monetary policy and fiscal policy, it elucidates how interactions between the two policy arenas affect macroeconomic fluctuations, particularly in regard to financial stability. Through these refinements, we put forward the policy response necessary to achieve a stable financial system using a calibrated DSGE model.
Chapter Three, entitled “Monetary Policy in a Time of Natural Disaster”, investigates the appropriate monetary policy response to natural disasters in the DSGE framework. I develop a realistic model for financial turmoil by evaluating the impact of natural disasters on credit markets by including financial frictions such as endogenous default and liquidity constraints. I show that the standard Taylor rule (1993) response in models with money and default is to increase the nominal interest rate after a disaster shock. However, in fact an inflation-targeting policy (i.e. monetary contraction) is not compatible with mitigating financial fragility in the highly indebted economy with near-zero interest rate, and arguably the `Taylor Principle' does not hold in such as economy (e.g. Japan in 2011). Nevertheless, expansionary monetary policy induces a debt overhang even further.
Chapter Four, “Collateral, Default and Asset Prices”, uses a DSGE framework to put forward a model of how agents adjust their asset holdings in response to deflationary shocks. By introducing collateral constraints in the default decision, I capture some original features of the early debt-deflation literature, such as distress selling and instability. The estimated model successfully delivers a procyclical feedback loop for the default channel, which consists of foreclosure, high borrowing costs, inefficient capital allocation, and a further decrease in the output level. I investigated recessionary shocks inducing deflation in commodity and/or asset prices for monetary policy experiments. This, therefore, underlines the importance of monetary policy in restoring financial stability during a deflationary period.

Keywords: dynamic stochastic general equilibrium
collateral
money
default
Advisor: Tsomocos, D
Non-invasive structural and functional connectivity of the in-vivo human brain

Neuroimaging enables us to image the human brain and reveal information about its structure and function. Diffusion imaging infers anatomical white matter trajectories. Resting state functional MRI indirectly measures neural activity by determining Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signal response at rest, inferring functional connections between brain areas. These independent neuroimaging modalities are advantageous due to their non-invasive and in-vivo nature, providing insight into the human connectome. Their relationship is yet not understood. We explored the structural and functional connectivity of the human brain at a macroscopic level, and the extent to which anatomical connections constrain functional connections. We analysed the correlations between functional and structural connectomes and found a strong correlation beyond the mere effect of distance between brain regions (Chapter 6). Next we delved into two different types of brain organisations - topographic and nuclear. Topographic connections between cortical areas are often ignored in macro-connectome models. We investigated such arrangements by modelling and simulating gradient of connectivity patterns as an example to encourage and bring awareness of their properties for future involvement into studying brain connectivity (Chapter 7). Finally we studied nuclear brain organisations in the human amygdala. The amygdala can be clustered into two main subdivisions, basolateral and centromedial. The basolateral complex consists of the lateral, basal and accessory basal subnuclei, whereas the centromedial complex comprises of the central and medial subnuclei. We utilised the two independent imaging modalities to parcellate the amygdala into its respective subnuclei in a data-driven approach using the Human Connectome Project (HCP) data. We studied the distinct afferent/efferent cortical projections of the human amygdala, and we parcellated the amygdala into its five subnuclei, anatomically and into two subdivisions, functionally (Chapter 8). Studying the structural and functional connectivity in-vivo and non-invasively has provided evidence of their similarities, at the cortical and subcortical level.

Keywords: functional MRI
brain connectivity
human connectome
MRI
diffusion imaging
Advisor: Behrens, T
Jbabdi, S
Descartes, Entretien avec Burman

The Conversation with Burman, a comprehensive and densely packed philosophical interview, is a work of extraordinary interest. In it, Descartes is closely questioned about some of the most central problems in his philosophy and expresses himself with a directness and informality which is not to be found in the published works or correspondence. Isolated references to the Conversation sprinkled through articles on Descartes, particularly in recent years, show that its importance is being increasingly recognised; but it has never been translated into English, and the work as a whole has received no systematic attention by philosophers. It is the aim of this thesis to fill both these gaps, by presenting and English version of the work and by providing a detailed philosophical commentary on the text. The main purpose of the Commentary is to show how the Conversation throws a fresh light on some of the most vexed and crucial issues in Descartes' philosophy. [...]

Keywords: Philosophy
Descartes, René, 1596-1650
Burman, Frans, 1628-1679
Do the middle shout loudest? Signs and (counter)signals of trustworthiness and toughness

What do we do when we realise that others with whom we interact already know something about relevant qualities of ours? Do we relying on the information that we naturally emit to get our message across, or do we take actions to try to change the situation in our favour? And, does the information that we emit, generated intentionally or unintentionally, allow us to cooperate with others and conflict to be resolved peacefully? Drawing on signalling and 'countersignalling' theories, and a recent behavioural theory, I explore these questions using two experiments in which the relevant qualities are trustworthiness and toughness, and observational data from the 1997 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities concerning violence among prisoners. In the experiments, subjects, who do not know what will follow, initially create a natural indicator of their qualities, and subsequently, have the opportunity to send another indicator, this time fully informed. In one experiment, consistent with countersignalling theory, subjects whose generosity is clear deign to send further information, while those whose generosity can be called under question choose to update their initial action the most. In the other, the toughest subjects put the most effort into getting their message across. Consistent among both, senders' actions correspond to receivers' evaluations. Finally, I find that pertinent information can allow conflicts to be resolved successfully; it is linked with less violence in prison and in a laboratory-based contest.

Keywords: Laboratory experiments
Information
Trust
Costly signals
Toughness
Conflict
Advisor: Gambetta, D
The Oxford School of children’s fantasy literature

This thesis names the Oxford School of children’s fantasy literature as arising from the educational milieu of the University of Oxford’s English School during the mid-twentieth century. It argues that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis lay the foundations for the children’s fantasy genre by introducing an English curriculum at Oxford in 1931 (first examined 1933) that required extensive study in medieval literature, and by modelling the use of medieval source material in their own popular children’s fantasy works. The Oxford School’s creative use of its sources produces medieval ‘afterlives,’ lending the Middle Ages new relevance in popular culture. This research directly compares medieval literature to children’s fantasy works by Tolkien, Lewis, and four other Oxford-educated children’s fantasy authors in order to reveal the genre’s debt to actual medieval texts and to the Oxford English syllabus in particular. The four authors are Susan Cooper, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Diana Wynne Jones, and Philip Pullman.
This thesis situates the tendencies of medievalised children’s fantasy in relation to Lewis and Tolkien’s personal and scholarly convictions about the patriotic, moral, and aesthetic qualities of medieval literature and folklore. Building on the theories of Michel de Certeau, this thesis demonstrates how Oxford School fantasy produces new mythologies for England and argues that, as children’s literature, these works have an implicit didactic function that echoes that of the English School curriculum. This thesis traces the attempts of some Oxford School authors to navigate or explode generic conventions by drawing upon new source material, and contends that the structures and hierarchies that underpin the genre reassert themselves even in texts that set out to refute them. It suggests that such returns to the norm can produce pleasure and invite diverse reading, growing out of the intertextual associations of each new rewriting.

Keywords: Tolkien
children's literature
medievalism
fantasy
medieval
Lewis
Oxford
Advisor: Larrington, C
Purkiss, D
Applications of mathematical modelling in demand analgesia

This thesis describes applications of mathematical modelling to systems of demand analgesia for the relief of acute postoperative pain. It builds upon work described in the D.Phil. thesis of M.P. Reasbeck.
Following major surgery, patients are given a hand-held button which they press when in need of pain relief. The relief is afforded by automatic intravenous infusion of opiates. New clinical demand analgesia hardware, PRODAC, has been developed and data have been collected with it in two major trials involving a total of 80 patients. Patients' drug requirements have been found not to be correlated with body weight, contrary to conventional teaching. The type of operation was also found to have no significant influence upon drug requirements. The performance of transcutaneous nerve stimulation (TNS) as a method of analgesia for acute postoperative pain has been studied and found to be poor. Reasbeck's mathematical model of patients in pain has been corrected and extended. The representation of pharmacokinetics has been enhanced by modelling the transfer of drug between blood plasma and analgesic receptor sites as a first-order process. The time constant of this process has been calculated for morphine using a novel method and found to be 12 minutes. On line estimation of 2nd order pharmacokinetic time constants has been found in simulation not to be feasible. New software has been used to tune the revised model to the clinical data collected with PRODAC. Model behaviour is now demonstrably life-like, which was not previously the case. Blood samples taken during demand analgesia have permitted a comparison between measured and estimated drug concentrations, with good results.

Advisor: Jacobs, O
Adaptive techniques for BSP Time Warp

Parallel simulation is a well developed technique for executing large and complex simulation models in order to obtain simulation output for analysis within an acceptable time frame. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of different adaptive techniques to improve the consistency, performance and resilience of the BSP Time Warp as a general purpose parallel simulation protocol.
We first study the problem of risk hazards in the BSP Time Warp optimistic simulation protocols. Successive refinements to the BSP Time Warp protocol are carried out to eliminate errors in simulation execution due to different risk hazards. We show that these refinements can be incorporated into the BSP Time Warp protocol with minimal performance degradation.
We next propose an adaptive scheme for the BSP Time Warp algorithm that automatically throttles the number of events to be executed per superstep. We show that the scheme, operating in a shared memory environment, can minimize computation load-imbalance and rollback overhead at the expense of incurring higher synchronization cost.
The next contribution of this thesis is the study of different techniques for dynamic load-balancing and process migration for Time Warp on a cluster of workstations. We propose different dynamic load-balancing algorithms for BSP Time Warp that seek to balance both computation workload and communication workload, optimizing lookaheads between processors, as well as manage interruption from external workload.
Finally, we propose an adaptive technique for BSP Time Warp that automatically varies the number of processors used for parallel computation based on the characteristics of the underlying parallel computing platform and the simulation workload.
A probabilistic approach to non-rigid medical image registration

Non-rigid image registration is an important tool for analysing morphometric differences in subjects with Alzheimer's disease from structural magnetic resonance images of the brain. This thesis describes a novel probabilistic approach to non-rigid registration of medical images, and explores the benefits of its use in this area of neuroimaging.
Many image registration approaches have been developed for neuroimaging. The vast majority suffer from two limitations: Firstly, the trade-off between image fidelity and regularisation requires selection. Secondly, only a point-estimate of the mapping between images is inferred, overlooking the presence of uncertainty in the estimation.
This thesis introduces a novel probabilistic non-rigid registration model and inference scheme. This framework allows the inference of the parameters that control the level of regularisation, and data fidelity in a data-driven fashion. To allow greater flexibility, this model is extended to allow the level of data fidelity to vary across space. A benefit of this approach, is that the registration can adapt to anatomical variability and other image acquisition differences.
A further advantage of the proposed registration framework is that it provides an estimate of the distribution of probable transformations. Additional novel contributions of this thesis include two proposals for exploiting the estimated registration uncertainty. The first of these estimates a local image smoothing filter, which is based on the registration uncertainty. The second approach incorporates the distribution of transformations into an ensemble learning scheme for statistical prediction. These techniques are integrated into standard frameworks for morphometric analysis, and are demonstrated to improve the ability to distinguish subjects with Alzheimer's disease from healthy controls.

Keywords: Bayesian inference
regularisation estimation
hierarchical models
variational Bayesian
registration uncertainty
image registration
Advisor: Schnabel, JA
Woolrich, MW
The making of a middle class liberalism in Manchester, c.1815-32

This thesis attempts to make a useful contribution to our picture of the development of early nineteenth-century provincial liberalism. It investigates various political, social and economic aspects of liberalism in Manchester and draws attention to the ideas and activities of a small and identifiable group of respectable reformers who were active in the town in the first half of the nineteenth century and who had a significant impact on local affairs. Much has been written about Victorian Manchester and about Manchester politics in the era of Chartism, the Anti-Corn Law League and the so-called 'Manchester School'. This thesis seeks to elucidate and explain some of the less explored developments which were antecedent to and shaped these later events and movements. The main avenue of inquiry is provided by the public careers of a 'small but determined band' of reformers (as they were called by one of their number, Richard Potter), men who involved themselves in numerous political campaigns and who also pioneered a new kind of political journalism in the provinces. Archibald Prentice and John Edward Taylor in particular made the newspaper a vital organ in the formation and direction of liberal opinion. These men represented prominent features of Mancunian liberalism in the years before parliamentary reform and incorporation, and the main concern of the thesis is to illustrate these features by investigating the principles and campaigns of this reformist vanguard. Attention is paid to the band's political and theological precepts and motivations, to the examples and encouragement provided by earlier Manchester reformers, to the key role of the local reformist press in the work of enlightenment and mobilisation, to the liberals' battles with Manchester's mainly Tory-Anglican ruling party on certain local government issues, to the band's involvement in campaigns and discussions relating to important social questions such as education, health and welfare, poverty and labour relations, to the band's participation in commercial campaigns and the movement against the corn laws, and to their views and activities on the central question of parliamentary reform.
The most important primary sources for this study are to be found in Manchester. The newspapers are invaluable; there are also substantial collections of contemporary pamphlets and miscellaneous ephemera which provide essential information as well as the material necessary for an appreciation of the wider Manchester setting. Members of the band have left certain materials - correspondence, scrapbooks, lectures, books and pamphlets, reminiscences and personal records - which are of importance when used alongside their letters, articles and editorials in the local newspapers.