VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The early farming communities of southern Mozambique

The thesis covers extensive and mostly unpublished archaeological evidence of the early farming communities of southern Mozambique. Environmental patterns and present-day human interactions are assessed, and the potentials of available ethno-historical source materials briefly estimated. The developments, aims and methodologies of the Archaeological Research Programme from 1976 to 1984 are described as providing the first contextual work from which we derive most of our present data.
The individual archaeological sites are evaluated within particular physiographic units conformable to location and environmental setting and described accordingly. The archaeological evidence is presented and discussed in relation to associated sites in the region, as well as related to commonly accepted archaeological traditions in southern Africa. An interpretative view of the data is put forward in relation to regional, physical and cultural parameters, and reconstructions of historical entities are suggested by discreet archaeological pottery traditions. An outline of the early farming community economy and organization is proposed. A review of the archaeology of the early farming communities of eastern and southern Africa is presented as providing a comparative frame of reference of overall historical processes of relevance to local developments.
Glassy behaviour in simple systems

In this thesis we study several different models which display glassy behaviour. Firstly, we investigate a simple, purely topological, cellular model for which the Hamiltonian is non-interacting but the dynamics are constrained. We find a non-thermodynamic transition to a glassy phase in which the energy fails to reach the equilibrium value below a characteristic temperature which is dependent on the cooling rate. This model involves activated processes and displays two-step relaxation in both the energy and the correlation functions; the latter also exhibit signs of aging. The relaxation time can be well-fitted at all temperatures by an offset Arrhenius law. Some predictions of Mode-coupling Theory are tested with some agreement found, but no convincing evidence that this description is the most fitting. By defining a suitable response function, we find that the equilibrium Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem (FDT) is upheld for all but very short waiting-times, despite the fact that the system is not in equilibrium.
This topological model is simplified to a hexagonally-based spin model, which also displays glassy behaviour, involves activated processes and exhibits two-step relaxation. This is a consequence of reaction-diffusion processes on two different time-scales, one temperature-independent and the other an exponential function of inverse temperature. We study two versions of this model, one with a single absorbing ground state, and the other with a highly degenerate ground state. These display qualitatively similar but quantitatively distinct macroscopic behaviour, and related but different microscopic behaviour. We extend this work to a square lattice, and find that the geometry of the lattice has a considerable impact on the behaviour, and to three dimensions, which provides support for the reaction-diffusion classification of the early behaviour. We find observable-dependent FDT plots; the observable can be chosen such that FDT is upheld for a region whilst the system is out of equilibrium — this observation is supported by some preliminary results for one-dimensional kinetically-constrained Ising chains.

Advisor: Sherrington, D
Lamprey neural Helix-Loop-Helix (HLH) genes and the evolution of the vertebrate nervous system

Transcription factors of the helix-loop-helix (HLH) gene family are widespread in the animal kingdom. Among them, members of HLH subfamilies such as ASCL, Neurogenin, NeuroD, COE, Atonal, Oligo, NSCL, Hairy/E(spl) and Hey (here referred to as neural HLH genes) have been shown to be fundamental for the development of the nervous system. They are expressed at different time periods of neuronal differentiation, from the specification of ectoderm towards a neural lineage, to the ultimate differentiation of neurons. Few HLH genes have been identified in the lamprey; however, considering the wide diversity of HLH gene subfamilies in metazoans, including vertebrates, it is very likely that lampreys possess a large repertoire of HLH genes in their genome. In the present study, the identification of several HLH genes in the lamprey genome, as well as the isolation and expression of different lamprey neural HLH genes is reported. As expected, a wide repertoire of HLH genes was identified in the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome. On the other hand, the identification and expression analysis of different neural HLH genes of the ASCL, Neurogenin, COE and Hairy/E(spl) in the brook lamprey Lampetra planeri showed an overall conservation with other vertebrates, both at the sequence and expression pattern levels. In addition, novel features of the lamprey nervous system are revealed, such as the identification of possible new sensory cranial placodes in pharyngeal arches. Furthermore, these genes can serve as molecular markers for different cranial placodes and dorsal root ganglia (DRG), and their expression also highlights the presence of a ventricular zone in the brain and spinal cord, along with a complementary marginal zone. Finally, with the use of a Notch pathway inhibitor in developing L. planeri embryos, the regulation of expression of the isolated genes by the Notch signaling pathway was shown to be generally conserved between lampreys and gnathostomes in the spinal cord. This functional study also revealed that the lamprey spinal cord likely presents an independent developmental programme from the brain. All together, the present study shows that the analysis of neural HLH genes represents an excellent tool to understand the lamprey nervous system.

Keywords: Development
Helix-Loop-Helix Genes
Placodes
Vertebrate
Notch Signalling
Spinal Cord
Nervous System
Evolution
Lamprey
Dorsal Root Ganglia
Phylogenetics
Brain Compartments
Advisor: Shimeld, S
The progenitors of type Ia supernovae: what can we learn from the circumstellar medium around single degenerate systems?

While the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have long been thought to be thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars, what triggers the explosion are still a topic of debate. This thesis considers constraints on single-degenerate progenitors of SNe Ia based on the presence of a Roche-lobe filling companion. The ejecta strips material from the companion, that maybe detectable via Hα emission during the nebular phase. Using the full structure from simulations produces line widths are larger than those produced in simple models.
The structure formed by the ejecta-companion interaction produce a broken reverse shock that may be visible in X-rays via the Fe Kα line at the age of Tycho's supernova remnant (SNR). If the similar structures in Tycho’s SNR are produced this way then the companion star must have been massive, with M ~ 2 M&odot;.
Detections of circumstellar material within the supernova provides another way to indirectly probe the companion star. Mass loss through winds or novae are expected to shape the circumsteller medium for single-degenerate progenitors and the velocities, v ~ 100 km s-1 appear to be consistent with recurrent nova shells, a model that is tested by analysing simulations of RS Ophiuchi.
Models of RS Ophiuchi can explain the absorption lines seen around the 2006 outburst if the mass loss is 10−6 M&odot; yr-1,. The circumsteller medium is shown to produce in the velocity and relative strengths of the features seen in SN 2006X. However, whether density in the shells is high enough to produce the required recombination timescale and to overcome ionization by γ-rays for shells at 5 × 1016 cm remains uncertain.

Keywords: astrophysics
stars: winds
supernovae: type Ia
Advisor: Podsiadlowski, P
Optical sectioning in the aberration-corrected scanning transmission and scanning confocal electron microscope

This thesis concerns the experimental application of the technique of optical sectioning in the aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM). Another aim was to perform optical sectioning experiments on the still relatively new scanning confocal electron microscope (SCEM).
To test the feasibility of this technique, experiments were performed on a variety of samples to measure the achievable depth response. Deconvolution methods were explored in an attempt to further improve the depth response. Finally, some of the first optical sectioning experiments were performed in the SCEM using both elastic and inelastically scattered electrons.
The results showed a clear need to investigate confocal electron microscopy due to the missing cone problem for incoherent imaging in the STEM. This is particularly evident when imaging objects of greater width than the STEM probe. Confocal electron microscopy using inelastic electrons appeared to be a promising imaging mode for the future with this thesis consisting of early work in the field.

Keywords: scanning transmission electron microscopy
aberration-corrected
scanning confocal electron microscopy
optical sectioning
Advisor: Nellist, P
Skill development and youth aspirations in India

This doctoral thesis features two kinds of skill-training programmes implemented in Tamil Nadu (India) drawing on 18 months of fieldwork. The first explores how Nokia recruits and trains semi-skilled youth to work as Operators, in the Nokia SEZ, in Sriperumbudur. I contrast this with the case of Project SEAM: a state-funded skill-training programme, implemented by a private firm through a public-private partnership (PPP). SEAM trains rural, below-poverty-line youth, to work as sewing machine operators in India’s burgeoning garment clusters. I argue that contemporary India’s development trajectory is characterised by the confluence between an increasingly pluralised network state and rapidly proliferating network enterprises, which work together to establish new workplaces and design and implement skill-training programmes for India’s rural poor. Skill-training is used as a lens to examine the complex, symbiotic relationship between these two actors, who drive these new initiatives.
Skill development programmes are predicated on the idea that aspiration is a positive, transformative force – a view that is echoed by social scientists like Appadurai (2004; 2013). I demonstrate how the network state and network enterprise, shape and mould youth aspirations, across the skill-training cycle: transforming (within mere weeks) unemployed, unskilled rural youth – into semi skilled workers, ready to work in the manufacturing sector. Youth aspirations are consciously heightened as a marketing strategy, to maximize enrollments into skill-training programmes. Aspiration is also actively taught as a valuable soft-skill, that young people must possess, to become a part of India’s new workplaces. Through an exploration of how young people encounter such initiatives, I question the idea that aspirations are positively transformational. I highlight the tension in youth experience - between aspirations elevated by the training program, and factory work’s harder realities - to illustrate the dark side of aspiration: characterized by disillusionment, disappointment and personal failure.

Keywords: Youth
Skill Development
Aspirations
Advisor: Gooptu, N
The role of the fool and the carnivalesque in post-1945 German prose fiction on the Third Reich

This thesis examines post-1945 German prose fiction dealing with the Third Reich in the light of Mikhail Bakhtin's Rabelais and his World. My review of the secondary literature in Chapter 1 shows how few Germanists have examined the role of the carnivalesque in such fiction or used Bakhtin's work systematically. Having set out the shortcomings of Bakhtin's theory and shown Carnival's ambivalent position in the Third Reich, Chapter 2 builds on this theoretical and historical foundation by giving an overview of the different ways in which authors deploy the Fool and the carnivalesque in post-1945 prose fiction.
This overview provides a context for the rest of the thesis, in which I discuss in detail how four authors use the topoi of the Fool and the carnivalesque in different ways to confront the past and encourage social change. Thus, Chapter 3 analyses Hans Hellmut Kirst's 08/15 trilogy (1954-55) which describes Asch's carnivalesque subversion of the NCOs who abuse power within the Army, and his subsequent development into a positive figure of authority. Chapter 4 argues that, beneath its bleak surface, Günter Grass's Hundejahre (1963) deploys the carnivalesque to transmit a sense of mourning and rebirth after the Holocaust. Chapter 5 deals with Edgar Hilsenrath's Der Nazi and der Friseur (1977), whose Fool-protagonist provokes the reader to laugh at earlier attempts to make sense of the Holocaust in order to prioritize the act of anamnesis as an end in itself. Chapter 6 examines Gert Hermann's Veilchenfeld (1987) and Der Kinoerzähler (1990). Veilchenfeld is a carnivalesque signifier of Nature whose persecution at the hands of the people of Limbach parallels the town's ecological destruction, so that the novel can be read as a critique of the exploitation of Nature. In Der Kinoerzähler Hofmann uses Karl, a Fool-figure who narrates silent films, to encourage the development of critical faculties which combat the fatalism and authoritarianism that hamper social change. It becomes clear that the authors of the above works have anticipated the shortcomings of Carnival as a model of resistance and have thus redefined the Fool and the carnivalesque. So in my view, although the way the authors deploy these topoi maps only partially with Bakhtin's ideas about Carnival, these authors have understood the central concepts of the carnivalesque's ambivalence and its powers to subvert authority and use them productively to deal with the issues raised by the Third Reich.

Advisor: Sheppard, R
Analysis of complete contacts subject to fatigue

Engineering assemblies are very frequently subject to fretting fatigue, which is a damage process that results when very small slip displacements arise at nominally stationary frictional interfaces. Fretting accelerates the initiation and early propagation of fatigue cracks, thereby causing significant reductions in the fatigue performance of many critical engineering components. A majority of the previous research on fretting fatigue has focused on incomplete (i.e. smooth-edged) contacts, while complete (i.e. sharp-edged) contacts have received less attention.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the theoretical understanding of complete contacts, especially when they are subject to fatigue conditions. This problem is addressed in two separate ways. First, because fretting failures almost invariably initiate from the edge of contact, a detailed understanding of the conditions in this region should enable more accurate assessments of fatigue performance to be made. Thus, an asymptotic analysis is presented, which provides an accurate description of the contact edge under many conditions. This is done by using the elasticity solution for a semi-infinite notch to represent the state of stress near the contact edge in an asymptotic sense.
Attention is then placed on the fact that cyclically loaded frictional contacts tend toward a steady-state response in which less frictional slip (and energy dissipation) occurs than in the first few load cycles. To investigate this effect, a numerical sub-structuring procedure is described, which significantly reduces the number of degrees of freedom in finite element models of frictional contact. This reduced model is then used to calculate the shakedown limit, i.e. the amplitude of cyclic load above which frictional slip is guaranteed to persist in the steady state. The sensitivity of the steady-state solution to the initial residual displacement state is then investigated, and it is shown that initial conditions can have a large influence on the steady-state behaviour of complete contacts.

Keywords: Contact Mechanics
Frictional Shakedown
Sub-structuring
Notch Fatigue
Asymptotic Analysis
Complete Contact
Fatigue
Fretting
Advisor: Hills, D
Upheaval buckling of offshore pipelines buried in loose and liquefiable soils

Pipelines used for the transportation of oil and gas products offshore are often buried beneath the seabed for protection from mechanical damage and for thermal insulation. During high temperature and high pressure operations, these pipelines are susceptible to resurfacing behaviour known as upheaval buckling, a structural response that is strongly influenced by the resistance of the surrounding soil. Despite much previous research on pipe uplift, the influence of the initial soil state – particularly in loose and liquefiable soil conditions – on the uplift resistance and corresponding buckling behaviour of the pipe is not well understood.
This thesis presents research that examines the implications of these backfill conditions in the context of the global behaviour of the pipeline. The work consists of plane-strain monotonic uplift experiments focusing on density, rate, and stress level effects on the initial pipe-soil response. This is followed by numerical modelling of the global buckling behaviour using the experimental data as inputs. Finally, plane-strain cyclic experiments examine the possibility of progressive upward displacements over a number of cycles causing eventual upheaval buckling.
A key finding from the uplift tests is that very loose backfill conditions may result in a localised flow-around failure mechanism, associated with lower peak resistance and a softer force-displacement response than with the sliding block mechanism that is typically assumed. This leads to lower peak buckling loads/temperatures than those predicted by current design guidelines. High quality data from both the monotonic and cyclic experiments was used to assess and suggest improvements to design guidance for these conditions.

Keywords: upheaval buckling
liquefaction
pipelines
sand
offshore geotechnics
Advisor: Byrne, B
Blakeborough, A
Development of bioreductive inhibitors of checkpoint kinase 1 to target hypoxic tumours

Hypoxia (low physiological O2 levels) is a characteristic of solid tumours. It not only alters the chemical microenvironment of a tumour but initiates a number of mechanisms which enable cells to cope and thrive under these conditions, resulting in therapy-resistant and aggressive tumours. The replication stress induced by severe hypoxia activates a DNA damage response which involves the kinases ATR and Chk1. Moreover, periods of hypoxia are often followed by reoxygenation, which induces DNA damage. Chk1 inhibitors have been used to potentiate chemotherapy with cytotoxic agents and have recently been proposed as single agents in tumours with high levels of replication stress. However, inhibition of Chk1 also affects normal DNA replication, cell cycle progression and DNA repair. The herein presented study chose known inhibitors of Chk1 and, with methods of synthetic organic chemistry, modified them into agents to selectively target hypoxic cells. Three different Chk1 inhibitors were selected and bioreductive analogues synthesised which were evaluated in chemical, biochemical and cellular assays. We found a convenient route to access a precursor of the bioreductive 2-nitroimidazole group and established a three-step protocol for the testing of bioreductive drugs. This protocol allows us to determine whether a bioreductive drug undergoes reduction and prodrug activation. In addition, bioreductive Chk1 inhibitors were shown to induce DNA damage and cellular toxicity in a hypoxia-selective fashion. While reduction of the prodrugs occurred in all three cases, fragmentation was always the rate-limiting step. We propose that the use of bioreductive Chk1 inhibitors is a promising strategy to target the most therapy-resistant tumour fraction while sparing normal tissue.

Keywords: hypoxia-activated prodrug
hypoxia
bioreductive drug
DNA damage response
checkpoint kinase 1
Chk1
Advisor: Hammond, EM
Conway, SJ
Establishing an international registration system for the assignment and security interest of receivables

Legal systems around the world vary widely in how they deal with the assignment of receivables. This legal variety makes it difficult for financiers to conduct their international receivables financing business. This thesis suggests an International Registration System for the Assignment and Security Interest of Receivables (‘IRSAR’) and proposes a model international convention for the IRSAR (‘proposed IRSAR Convention’), which could help financiers to overcome the obstacles they currently encounter. Under the proposed IRSAR Convention, the international assignment of receivables would be regulated by a unified legal system with respect to priority and perfection. The IRSAR would facilitate international project financing. Furthermore, the IRSAR would enable companies to raise finance from greater ranges of investors around the world through international receivables financing and to dispose of non-performing loans more easily.
The proposed IRSAR Convention would succeed the UN Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade in the attempt of establishing a registration system for international assignments of receivables. The proposed IRSAR Convention confines its scope of application by defining the assignor (or the security provider), inventing the concept of ‘Vehicle for the International Registration System’ (‘VIRS’). The proposed IRSAR Convention applies where the assignor or security provider is a VIRS. An assignment of a receivable where the assignor is a VIRS and a security interest in a receivable where the security provider is a VIRS could be registered in the IRSAR. Under the proposed IRSAR Convention, priority of assignments of and security interests in receivables is determined by the order of registration in the IRSAR.
The proposed IRSAR Convention would be a receivables version of the Cape Town Convention. With respect to the contents and effect of registration, it would prescribe a notice-filing system along the lines of that adopted in the UCC Article 9. With respect to the operation of the registration, it would adopt an automatic online registration system operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year like the International Registry under the Cape Town Convention.

Advisor: Gullifer, L