VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Producing Piers Plowman to 1475: author, scribe, and reader

My doctoral thesis, "Producing Piers Plowman to 1475: Author, Scribe, and Reader," charts a new material history of William Langland's fourteenth-century dream vision, Piers Plowman, from its earliest composition to the onset of print in England. The study is divided into three sections, which examine the production of Piers from three perspectives: textual history, manuscript circulation, and medieval reception. The first section of the thesis conducts a study of Langland's revisionary process, presenting a new theory of authorial revision from the A to B version that has important implications for our understanding of authorship in Piers Plowman and for the future editing of the poem. The second section transitions into an examination of the early circulation of the Piers manuscripts in various geographical and social milieux. It examines two case studies of manuscript circulation in the Southwest Midlands and East Anglia, linking them to regionalized networks of scribes and patrons. Finally, Section III moves into a discussion of the literary contexts in which Piers circulates, particularly in multi-text manuscripts, examining how the poem’s reception by a medieval audience affected its development as a literary text. This section treats production from a more theoretical standpoint, investigating the relationship between the poem's audience and the "production" of meaning in a social and historical context. As I will argue, each of these sections acts as an important frame of reference for understanding the multifaceted formation of Piers Plowman as a literary text and cultural landmark. In particular, the thesis emphasizes the importance of Piers's various contexts, from its textual genesis in the author's composition and revision to its circulation and reception in an unstable manuscript culture. It suggests that the people and the places that surrounded Piers Plowman in its early development fundamentally shaped the poem we have today.

Keywords: literature
history
piers plowman
manuscripts
medieval
textual history
scribes
Advisor: Horobin, S
Brain power: the political economy of higher education

This dissertation disputes conventional interpretations of the comparative political economy literature on higher education. In particular, I challenge the common assumption that access to higher education is structured by income. Instead, based on insights from the relevant psychology, sociology and economics literature, I argue that a child’s probability of entering higher education is predominantly a function of her abilities, and that her abilities are strongly related to her parents’ level of education. I develop a theory of the distributive politics of higher education solidly grounded in this relationship. The result of this model is the counter intuitive hypothesis that the initial expansions of higher education benefit the children of more highly educated parents. Moreover, more highly educated families are the net beneficiaries of free higher education and generous subsidies. Extensive survey evidence from Britain, Australia, Canada and Sweden of higher education policy preferences confirms this picture of the politics of higher education as a zero-sum distributive game between highly and lesser educated families. In order to analyse the consequences of these preference patterns for higher education policy, I develop a theoretical and empirical measure of voting power for multi-party systems. Voting power measures how many votes a party stands to gain from converting and mobilising voters by distributing resources from one group to another. Using data from 15 EU countries, I show that parliaments and cabinets, on average, stand to win more votes from pleasing highly educated voters than from targeting less educated voters. Furthermore, the conversion imperative is much stronger than the mobilisation imperative. Statistical analyses show that variations in the voting power of highly educated individuals over the government help to explain variations in higher education policy across countries and within countries over time. All in all, the theoretical and empirical analyses presented in this dissertation represent a significant contribution towards understanding the specific distributive politics of higher education, and the political economy of redistribution more generally.

Keywords: core voters
voter preferences
distributive politics
higher education
swing voters
policy preferences
voter mobilisation
voter conversion
turn out
voting power
Advisor: Rueda, D
How transnational actors change inter-state power asymmetries: The role of the Indian diaspora in Indo-Canadian relations on migration

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore what emigration state power means in relation to the rules that govern international migration. This thesis challenges the conventional view that within a bilateral migration relationship the migrant-sending state is a 'rule-taker' compelled to accept the consequences of the migrant-receiving state’s immigration and integration policies. Using India-Canada migration relations as its empirical case, this thesis examines how diaspora populations can serve as a transnational resource for the sending state to mitigate power asymmetries with the receiving state in bilateral migration relations. Part I of this thesis examines the Indo- Canadian diaspora’s use of Canadian tribunal, electoral and lobby channels to advance immigration and integration policy outcomes that further both the interests of the diaspora and the Indian state. Part II considers the diffuse and ideational mechanisms through which the Indian state influences the diaspora's political mobilisation abroad. The diaspora’s political activities in the host state, combined with the sending state's transnational influence over facets of diaspora identity, interests and organisational capacity, register important effects on Canadian migration policy that bear on the distribution of power between sending and receiving states. These effects cannot be explained on a purely inter-state model of migration relations, but are accounted for by the framework developed and applied in this thesis. The Conclusion addresses the scope conditions under which this thesis’ theoretical framework and conclusions derived within it from the single-case study may allow for a wider comparative approach across other cases in future research.

Advisor: Betts, A
Universal D-modules, and factorisation structures on Hilbert schemes of points

This thesis concerns the study of chiral algebras over schemes of arbitrary dimension 𝑛.
In Chapter I, we construct a chiral algebra over each smooth variety 𝑋 of dimension 𝑛. We do this via the Hilbert scheme of points of 𝑋, which we use to build a factorisation space over 𝑋. Linearising this space produces a factorisation algebra over 𝑋, and hence, by Koszul duality, the desired chiral algebra. We begin the chapter with an overview of the theory of factorisation and chiral algebras, before introducing our main constructions. We compute the chiral homology of our factorisation algebra, and show that the 𝒟-modules underlying the corresponding chiral algebras form a universal 𝒟-module of dimension 𝑛.
In Chapter II, we discuss the theory of universal 𝒟-modules and 𝒪𝒪- modules more generally. We show that universal modules are equivalent to sheaves on certain stacks of étale germs of 𝑛-dimensional varieties. Furthermore, we identify these stacks with the classifying stacks of groups of automorphisms of the 𝑛-dimensional disc, and hence obtain an equivalence between the categories of universal modules and the representation categories of these groups. We also define categories of convergent universal modules and study them from the perspectives of the stacks of étale germs and the representation theory of the automorphism groups.

Keywords: Factorisation algebras
Chiral algebras
Stacks of etale germs
Hilbert schemes
Advisor: Kremnitzer, Y
Development of a beam-based phase feedforward demonstration at the CLIC test facility (CTF3)

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a proposal for a future linear electron--positron collider that could achieve collision energies of up to 3 TeV. In the CLIC concept the main high energy beam is accelerated using RF power extracted from a high intensity drive beam, achieving an accelerating gradient of 100 MV/m. This scheme places strict tolerances on the drive beam phase stability, which must be better than 0.2 degrees at 12 GHz. To achieve the required phase stability CLIC proposes a high bandwidth (&GT;17.5 MHz), low latency drive beam "phase feedforward" (PFF) system. In this system electromagnetic kickers, powered by 500 kW amplifiers, are installed in a chicane and used to correct the phase by deflecting the beam on to longer or shorter trajectories. A prototype PFF system has been installed at the CLIC Test Facility, CTF3; the design, operation and commissioning of which is the focus of this work.
Two kickers have been installed in the pre-existing chicane in the TL2 transfer line at CTF3 for the prototype. New optics have been created for the line to take these changes in to account, incorporating new constraints to obtain the desired phase shifting behaviour. Three new phase monitors have also been installed, one for the PFF input and two to verify the system performance. The resolution of these monitors must be significantly better than 0.2 degrees to achieve CLIC-level phase stability. A point by point resolution as low as 0.13 degrees has been achieved after a series of measurements and improvements to the phase monitor electronics.
The performance of the PFF system depends on the correlation between the beam phase as measured at the input to the PFF system, and the downstream phase, measured after the correction chicane. Preliminary measurements found only 40% correlation. The source of the low correlation was determined to be energy dependent phase jitter, which has been mitigated after extensive efforts to measure, model and adjust the machine optics. A final correlation of 93% was achieved, improving the theoretical reduction in jitter using the PFF system from a factor 1.1 to a factor 2.7.
The performance and commissioning of the kicker amplifiers and PFF controller are also discussed. Beam based measurements are used to determine the optimal correction timing. With a maximum output of around 650 V the amplifiers provide a correction range of ±5.5 ± 0.3 degrees. Finally, results from operation of the complete system are presented. A mean phase jitter of 0.28 ± 0.02 degrees is achieved, in agreement with the theoretical prediction of 0.27 ± 0.02 degrees for an optimal system with the given beam conditions. The current limitations of the PFF system, and possible future improvements to the setup, are also discussed.

Keywords: FPGA
femtosecond
X band
phase monitor
bandwidth
Compact Linear Collider
latency
stability
electromagnetic kicker
Beam instrumentation
feedforward
CTF3
FONT
phase
resolution
beam-based feedback
amplifier
CLIC
Advisor: Christian, G
Designing and implementing a formative assessment system to support and track pupil progress. A pilot with Year 1 boys in writing.

This aim of this research project was to design and implement a formative assessment system, to support and track the progress Year 1 pupils at The Boys' School make in their writing. This study began with an examination of the existing literature, exploring the impact formative assessment has on pupil progress, as well as existing initiatives for formative assessment. Two research questions were established and investigated, with close analysis of primary and secondary datasets. Primary data gathered included observations, pupil writing samples and data collected from the formative assessment system itself. Secondary data was gathered from pupil PIE (Progress In English), NGRT (New Group Reading Test) and spelling summative assessments. Data collection occurred in the case study class, where the system was implemented and the control group class, where the system had not been used. Overall, it was found that the formative assessment system was effective in supporting and tracking pupil progress, by creating an intrinsically motivating learning environment and enabling learning to be carefully monitored and navigated. The success of this investigation has resulted in the formative assessment system being implemented into the English curriculum across Key Stages 1 and 2 at The Boys' School.

Keywords: MLT
Formative Assessment
MLT2016
Exploiting metal-organic-microbial interactions for metal recovery in engineered systems

As global populations grow and become more demanding, resource limitation and the treatment of industrially generated waste constitute an escalating dual challenge. There is, however, a growing awareness of the potential of waste streams as a resource. Metal removal and recovery employing currently available physicochemical techniques are expensive, energy intensive and often unsuitable in cases of voluminous effluents containing complexing organics and low metal concentration. Immobilised biofilms have the potential to simultaneously biodegrade organics whilst in parallel immobilising and recovering metals: the focus of this research. In this study, the maximum metal uptake was 24.60 mg/g and 5.23 mg/g for Zn (II) and Mn (II), respectively, for an initial metal concentration of 80 mg/L. The biosorption of binary system was found to be competitive in nature; Zn (II) removal decreased up to 87% whereas the Mn (II) removal decreased up to 66%.
In order to improve the potential of biofilms as means of recovering resources, the mechanism by which they immobilise metals was investigated. This is the first study to investigate the potential of ultraviolet (UV) as an analytical tool for determining pollutant removal mechanisms by biofilms. A comparative assessment of chemical (sodium azide) and physical (UV) methods of cell inactivation was undertaken to determine the relative contributions of passive and metabolically active processes on organic and metal removal. Industrial effluents typically contain both organics and metals; therefore, the effect of organics on the metal removal ability of biofilms, which is poorly understood, was elucidated to help develop biologically-based treatment strategies for treating chemically mixed wastes. Chelation had by far the most inhibitory impact on the passive metal removal mechanism, reducing the zinc biosorption by 60% in fully chelated Zn-EDTA complex system. In contrast, nonionic surfactants were the only organics that increased the rate of metal removal, whilst having no detectable impact on biosorption capacity. Hence, they are potentially good candidates for reducing metal-organic competition, assisting metal recovery in the presence of organics. The recovery of biosorbed Zn (II) from microbial biofilms using sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate (SDBS) surfactant was another novel aspect of this study. This achieved high and stable Zn (II) recovery over four successive biosorption-recovery cycles. Moreover, 94% of the Zn (II) was cumulatively recovered over six successive wash cycles, confirming that SDBS is a potential zinc recovery agent for biofilms. The findings from this study have established that the employment of biofilms to remediate chemically mixed effluents is a favourable potential alternative to energy demanding physical and chemical treatment options.

Advisor: Thompson, I
Porcelli, D
The rhetoric of martyrdom in the Jesuit relations of New France, 1632-1650

This thesis identifies in the Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France (Relations), written between 1632 and 1650, a comprehensive rhetoric of total selfoffering to Jesus Christ, a rhetoric of martyrdom, rooted in their authors' particular experience of the Christian tradition, their praying with the Spiritual Exercises (1548) of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), their encounters with the spirituality of the French Jesuit Louis Lallemant (1578-1635), and their exposure to various forms of Jesuit mission literature from around the world. Published annually, these Relations were the only consistent account of the unfolding French colonial project in Nouvelle- France, and a popular read among the noblesse, ecclesiastics, and pious Christians of the kingdom. Today they form an essential collection of primary sources that continue to provide a doorway into the earliest days of Canada's history. Identifying this rhetoric throughout the narratives, this study endeavours to provide a deeper historical understanding of these Relations by contextualising their content within the particular all-encompassing religious worldview of the authors who wrote them.
The religious imaginations of these Jesuit authors, Paul Le Jeune (1591-1664), Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649), Françoise-Joseph Le Mercier (1604-90), Barthélemy Vimont (1594-1667), Jérôme Lalemant (1593-1673), Isaac Jogues (1607-1673) and Paul Ragueneau (1608-1680), thus gives birth to a rhetoric in the Relations that presents Nouvelle-France as a land filled with Amerindian peoples who would only truly embrace Christianity if all of the missionaries lovingly offer their lives to Jesus Christ; just as He had done for the salvation of the entire world from sin and evil. They do so by placing their efforts on a metaphysical plane. There, the missionaries are presented as having been invited by God to join Christ crucified on a mission into a land filled with suffering and death. Where the Amerindians they evangelise must choose between a barbarous life of selfish material interest that is thought to imbue their traditions and a more human life of self-offering modelled on the Christian God. At the same time Satan, the devil, labours hard not to lose his grip on a part of the world that was as yet unaware of its true divine origins.
The 'divine', the 'missionary', 'Satan', and the 'Amerindians', locked in this cosmic battle for souls that can only be won through a self-sacrificing union with Jesus Christ, combine to form the rhetoric of martyrdom in the narratives that reaches its summit as the authors describe the murders of eight of their fallen comrades, tortured and killed by some of the very people they had come to evangelise. This rhetoric, present throughout the narratives, has yet to be acknowledged, analysed, and interpreted by historians. In doing so, it is hoped that this study will deepen any reading of the Relations, advancing our understanding of their full import for both the early modern and the present-day reader.

Advisor: Davidson, N
Ucerler, A
Local multipliers in tradables and non-tradables

In this thesis, I study the local employment multiplier effect; the effect of employment in the tradable sector on employment in the non-tradable sector of the same region. Using a reduced form regression with a shift-share instrument I find a significant local multiplier effect in Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the USA. I show that this result is robust to many different regional definitions, controls and ways of classifying tradable industries. I find larger multipliers for high-wage or high-skilled workers in the tradable sector and I find that most of the jobs created in the non-tradable sector are fulfilled by high-skilled workers who already reside in the region. A replication of the most influential paper in this literature, by Moretti (AER; 2010), demonstrates the sensitivity of his results to six idiosyncrasies of his analysis.
To better understand how these local multipliers work, I develop an efficiency wage model with rural-urban migration for the non-tradable sector. In this model, I consider the impact of a shock to employment in the tradable sector in the city and find a positive local employment multiplier effect. The model predicts that attracting tradable jobs to a city has a bigger positive impact on employment in the non-tradable sector in the same city when the unemployment rate is higher. The model also predicts that this increase is driven by a larger multiplier for current inhabitants and that there is no, or even a negative, effect of the unemployment rate on the multiplier for movers. Both these predictions are reflected in the results of my non-parametric analysis of the data. I find similar results for European TL3 regions. Policies that try to increase growth in less favoured regions by stimulating tradable firms to locate in areas with high unemployment, will both reduce disparities between regions and efficiently reduce unemployment across the board.

Keywords: nontraded
traded
Local multipliers
Advisor: Venables, A
Rauch, F
Movements between languages and histories in the autobiographies of Vladimir Nabokov, Georges Perec and Patrick Chamoiseau

What does it mean to link one's own history to that of another person or group of people? In what sense can a given history be 'one's own' or 'another's'? This thesis investigates movements between histories in three autobiographical texts which confront intergenerational shifts in language, triggered by the legacies of violent histories. Nabokov charts his movement from the Russian to the English language against the backdrop of the October Revolution, the Second World War and the Cold War. Perec's text confronts the silences in his family history produced by the death of his father in the Second World War and his mother's deportation to Auschwitz. His autobiography engages with a family history of displacement and movement between religious affiliations, countries, alphabets and languages, triggered by multiple waves of anti-Semitism, culminating with his mother's death in the Holocaust. Chamoiseau explores the ambivalent cultural and linguistic affiliations produced by a post- or neo-colonial childhood in Martinique. The thesis argues that in such contexts the links between the author's life and the lives of previous generations take on a central importance. Further, it demonstrates that each author goes beyond his own collective history to forge links between his life and those of other people who have lived through or are still suffering the legacies of different histories of violence and oppression. Though these movements have sometimes been noted, the original contribution of this thesis is that it argues such movements are central to the autobiographical texts under discussion. It looks at why and how inter-generational shifts in language inflect these authors' approach to the connections between their own histories and those of other people, and tests what is to be gained when the critic takes up the comparative interpretive framework these texts establish. By opening up a dialogue between these texts and a range of current theories of traumatic memory, inter-generational transmission of memory and 'multidirectional' memory, it finds that a comparative approach has the potential to enrich and nuance current debates in these areas.

Advisor: McGuinness, P
Curtis, J