VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The political attitudes of the German protestant church leadership, November 1918 - July 1933

This thesis is a study of the policy of the Protestant churhc leadership towards the Weimar Republic and during the first six months of the Third Reich. The scope of the thesis is similar to that of existing studies of the Reichswehr, the Prussian civil service, and conservative political parties. Most work on the German Protestant church in the 20th century concentrates on the period of the Kirchenkampf under the Third Reich, but recently the part played by the church in the Republic has also attracted attention. The books on this subject, however, give only a general picture of the church as an anti-Republican institution. This thesis tries to show by a detailed study of the church leadership, based on manuscript sources, that there were also strong forces drawing the church towards an accommodation with the Republic. As in other comparable groups, there was an important Vernunftrepublikaner element within the church leadership.
[To continue reading the abstract please see the pdf]
Vacuum deposited coatings on polyester film

The work contained in this thesis examines how the properties of polyester film substrates affect the structure and performance of thin coatings vacuum-deposited upon them, particularly with regards to their function as gas barriers for use in packaging.
By modifying the surface of a PET film prior to deposition, with either oxygen or argon plasma, an increase in adhesion between the polymer and coating by 50% occurs for both aluminium and SiOₓ layers. A reduction in the density of pinhole defects is also observed after such treatment.
A set of silicon oxide (SiOₓ) coatings, deposited using a novel PECVD method, that display excellent barrier to water vapour permeation, impressive mechanical properties and good adhesion to the base film, is studied. Water vapour transmission rates as low as 2 x 10⁻⁴g m⁻² day⁻¹ are reported for these thin films as a result of their thickness and structure, where the deposition of the coating in several layers prevents defects extending throughout the coating. A high level of carbon incorporated in these films makes them flexible with relatively high strain to failure and low stress.
The properties of the SiOₓ coatings vary significantly depending on the substrate on which they are deposited. By tailoring the polyester film properties during manufacture, a wide range of substrates with differing properties is produced. The most relevant appear to be the surface thermal and mechanical properties. SiOₓ layers on heat stabilised PET (with or without an additional primer layer) and PEN outperform an equivalent coating on standard PET film by two orders of magnitude, in terms of gas barrier, and also possess superior mechanical properties. This is due to the enhanced thermal stability of the surfaces of these films as they undergo heating during deposition, as thermally induced motion of the chains at the surface of a plain PET film is thought to create defects. Substrate roughness is found to affect the morphology of deposited coatings but not the permeation of gas through them. The importance of substrate selection is illustrated by substituting PET with PEN, for example, where improvement in barrier is comparable to that achieved by coating a polymer film in the first place.
The transcriptional regulation of the gene for human clotting factor ix

Haemophilia B Leyden is a rare form of haemophilia B in which patients suffer from a bleeding disorder in childhood but completely recover in adulthood. These patients all have point mutations in the gene promoter between nucleotides -21→+13 which cause this altered expression pattern. An unusual patient with a -26 G→C mutation, haemophilia B Brandenburg, did not recover from his bleeding disorder during puberty. It was suggested that this was due to the disruption of the binding of the androgen receptor (AR) to an androgen response element (ARE) in the promoter (-36→- 22).
To obtain further evidence for the importance of the ARE in the Leyden recovery, a patient with a -26 G→A mutation, UK 232, was studied here. This mutation, like the -26 G→C, also disrupted the ARE. This patient is now aged 47 and has not recovered from his bleeding disorder, confirming the importance of this nucleotide in the ARE.
To determine the nucleotides important for the response to AR and testosterone in the factor IX ARE, mutations were introduced at each position in the ARE, some spacer positions, and in some flanking positions. These mutant ARE sequences were then tested firstly, in vitro, in a competition gel mobility shift assay with an E.coli produced protein A-AR DNA binding domain fusion protein, and secondly, in vivo in transient transfection assays. In these assays nucleotides -35, -32, -26, -25, and -23 were critical for the response to AR and testosterone, and -36, -31, and -27 impaired this response to a lesser degree. Conflicting evidence was obtained in the two assays concerning the importance of nucleotides -33 and -22.
These data were used to predict the adult phenotypes of two children with mutations in the factor IX promoter (HB 396 and HB 388). It was predicted that one of them, HB 396, would recover from his bleeding disorder as his mutation (-19 G→C) does not disrupt the ARE, whilst the other, HB 388 would not recover as his mutation ( - 23 C→T) does disrupt this element.
Patient Liverpool 2 with a mild haemophilia B Leyden phenotype was found to have a -6 G→A promoter mutation at a CpG dinucleotide which has been identified in 12 other patients. A haplotype study of 9 of these patients revealed that it is probable both recurrent mutation and a founder effect are responsible for the mutation's high frequency.
The role of Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, in the polity of the Lancastrian monarchy

For too many years the common assumption has been that both Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, were simply the pious endeavours of a young and unworldly king, and were united in aim and conception in much the same way that the double foundation of William of Wykeham had been over six decades before. It is the aim of this thesis to show that this is a misconception, and to prove that far from being the private acts of a pious king, the foundations were, on the contrary, public acts of the Lancastrian monarchy, with their motivation owing more to the needs of government than to Henry VI' s personal will. The availability of alien priory resources, the anxiety felt by certain groups that such resources should be used towards socially useful purposes, the political legacy of Henry V, the burgeoning of humanistic studies in Italy and their uptake in England, and the key roles played by the Earl of Suffolk, Thomas Bekynton, and William Waynflete, all helped to shape the religious motives which lay behind royal patronage towards an educational end.
The thesis examines the way in which the aims of royal pious founders developed into a mature public concept of the religion of the state, reaching its apogee at Sheen Charterhouse and Syon Abbey, founded by Henry V in 1415. What has hitherto remained obscure is the way in which this vibrant state inspired religion developed after Henry V's death, in the absence of a mature king, and during the turbulent closing stages of the Hundred Years War. The thesis presents an examination of these concepts.
The thesis also reappraises the progress of the works at Henry VI' s foundations, offering fresh insight into the reasons why the plans were changed and enlarged at both colleges, and drawing a vital but hitherto virtually ignored distinction between the two royal foundations.
On the mechanism of the radiation effect at the cellular level

The effect of radiation on planarians, triclad platyhelminths known for their extensive powers of regeneration, has been studied with particular reference to the cellular basis of animal mortality probability. By reference to the literature we have shown that the planarian is an organism consisting of two cell populations: nonreplicating differentiated tissues interspersed with a population of morphologically identifiable stem cells. Postirradiation survival of the organism has been explained in terms of the rate of decay of function of the differentiated tissues and the reproductive integrity of the stem cell population.
Factors known to influence planarian regenerative ability have been examined for their influence on mortality probability.
Under standard conditions pre- and postirradiation, the change in per cent survivors as a function of radiation dose was taken as a measure of the reproductive integrity of the planarian stem cells. The survival of neoblast (stem cell) reproductive integrity for D. lugubris has been determined assuming a simple relationship between stem cell reproductive integrity and animal mortality probability (q.v. chapter VI), which necessitated the measurement of stem cell population size and repopulation probability (chapters VII and VIII respectively). This model represents the first successful quantitative description of animal mortality probability in terms of cellular reproductive integrity.
[Please see pdf. for full abstract.]
Prediction, design and characterisation of metal binding sites in antibodies

The design and creation of a functional metalloanti body is presented. A survey of metalloprotein structures was carried out to determine the common structural features of metal binding sites. Metal ligands were then introduced into hypervariable loop 11 of the anti-lysozyme antibody HyHEL-5 and the site comprehensively modelled. The final model was used as a basis for site-directed mutagenesis and mutant antibodies were produced using a Xenopus laevis oocyte expression system. Antigen binding studies showed the mutants to have an affinity for lysozyme equivalent to the parent antibody, while subsequent metal binding experiments have shown the new site to be capable of binding the transition metals cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc and cadmium.
A method for the rapid prediction and design of metal binding sites in proteins is described. A protein structure is screened for the location of putative metal sites by template matching. After the introduction of suitable liganding residues, the metal binding potential at each site is evaluated using hydrophobicity contrast. A point representing the metal ion within a new site may be optimised with-respect-to the ligands using multidimensional minimisation. The method has been tested on known metalloprotein structures. It was routinely able to identify the metal binding sites and position a metal point in the site to within 0.6A of the actual metal ion .
Competitive advantage, political advantage and shelter in the textile industry

The effect of government on competitive advantage theory has only been covered superficially in strategic management literature. This thesis incorporates government into competitive advantage and multinational enterprise (MNE) theory by demonstrating how politically derived firmspecific advantages (FSAs) and competitive advantages may accrue from noncommercial, political sources, to be manifested in commercial enterprises as 'political competitive advantages (PCAs)'.
The empirical background to this thesis is a study of the global textile industry and the complexity, multidimensional and multi-level nature of the relationship between the wider textile complex and governments. Examples demonstrate the significant impact of governments upon the textile industry, across the globe and over a wide variety of time horizons.
A review of the relevant strategic management and international business core theory forms a base on which the PCA concept is developed. A synthesis of the strategic positioning view (SPV) of competitive advantage, the resource-based view (RBV) and transaction cost/internalization theories is used to develop the PCA concept.
MNEs can derive superior operator surpluses (rents) from complex government externalities that, due to their asymmetrical impact, enable some profit-centres to gain PCAs. PCAs are non-market-related, chiefly government-derived, political competitive advantages and form a new subset of firm-specific advantages (FSAs). The international business concept of nonefficiency, shelter-based advantages form a subset of PCAs.
An eight-cell PCA analytical framework is developed and operationalized using case studies selected from the world-wide operations of Coats PLC, the world's largest producer and distributor of sewing thread, and one of Britain's oldest MNEs.
This analytical framework enables firms to better understand the significant and dynamic nature of those government externalities that have a major impact upon firm efficiency. The framework can be used to assist practitioners in the search for sustainable reactive and/or proactive ( endogenizing) strategies that can enhance PC As and reduce political competitive disadvantages (PCDs ).
British representatives to international parliamentary assemblies: 1949-1970

For over twenty years, beginning in 1949, more than a score of British Members of Parliament, and an additional handful of Peers, have absented themselves from Westminster for up to two months of the Parliamentary session with the approval, indeed upon authorisation of party leaders, in order to serve as delegates to one or more international parliamentary assemblies. Two of these assemblies, those of the Council of Europe and of Western European Union, have consistently concerned themselves with projects for bringing about closer British participation in the movement for European integration. Nevertheless, not only has virtually no attempt been made to discern a relationship between British parliamentary activity at these assemblies and the evolution of British attitudes toward European integration, but in fact no study has been expressly devoted to any aspect of British service in, or attitudes to, any of these bodies. The present study seeks to provide a clear picture of the nature of British involvement in the work of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe in particular, and to a lesser extent, that of the WEU Assembly and of the North Atlantic Assembly. It endeavours to determine the functions which British delegates, and the party leaders who directly or indirectly approved their appointment, ascribed to the assemblies, and to outline the way in which their view of the assemblies' functions affected their own activities at those bodies and their work at Westminster and in their constituencies. Clearly, parliamentary views about the functions of these assemblies may have undergone some change over time, and special attention therefore is devoted to the evolution of British governmental, party and delegate attitudes to the work of the assemblies, Particularly that of the Consultative Assembly - the oldest, best known and most active of the three - from 1961 onwards, that is, from teh year of Britain's first overture for EEC membership.
[to continue reading the abstract please view the pdf]
The grass roots organisation of the Liberal Party 1945-64

Studies of the survival and revival of the Liberal Party after 1945 have focused on the Party's strength in the UK's Celtic fringe, its efficacy as a vehicle for protest voting, and the role played by the Party's leaders, particularly Jo Grimond. The reasons why the Liberal Party's constituency associations continued in being and activists continued to be recruited to the Party after a series of disastrous general election results, and the factors explaining the Party's revival in local government have, so far, been overlooked.
This thesis draws on a number of new sources of information, including the records of Liberal constituency and district associations and interviews with ordinary Liberal activists from the 1945-64 period, to provide new perspectives on the survival and revival of the Party. It shows how the independence and self-sufficiency of Liberal associations, the recruitment of Liberal activists during the 1945-50 period, and the Party's strength in local government in Yorkshire and north west England were important reasons for the Party's survival.
A new wave of recruitment after 1955, inspired by the leadership ofGrimond and the new policies he and others devised and popularised, facilitated the Liberal revival, but a key factor previously unidentified was the development of early forms of community politics by Liberal activists in a number of towns and cities in England and Scotland. Decisions by activists to concentrate on local elections led to an explosion in the number of Liberal councillors, particularly in suburban areas, and drew more activists into the Party. This change in the Party's strategy, which has influenced the development of Liberal politics since 1964, was derived from grass-roots activists rather than the Liberal leadership, although the Party's Local Government Department had an important role to play after 1960.
Power spectrum analysis of Redshift surveys

This thesis describes a study of the clustering properties of galaxies and clusters of galaxies as measured by the power spectrum (P(k)) and the counts in cells statistic. The samples used are the optical Stromlo-APM galaxy survey, the APM cluster survey and the IRAS 1.2Jy, QDOT and PSCz surveys. Throughout, N-body simulations, for a variety of cosmological models, are used to test methods and to supplement analytic error estimates.
For the Stromlo-APM sample the amplitude of the power spectrum is dependent on galaxy morphology. Early-type galaxies show a higher clustering amplitude than late-type galaxies by a factor of ~ 1.8. There is also tentative evidence for some dependence of the clustering amplitude on galaxy luminosity. The parameter Ω⁰.⁶/b is estimated via a comparison with the real-space power spectrum of the two-dimensional APM galaxy survey.
For APM clusters the power spectrum is measured to very small wave numbers, with a possible detection of the expected turn-over. The results are inconsistent with the standard cold dark matter model. The shape of P( k) for clusters is approximately the same as that for Stromlo-APM galaxies but amplified by a factor of ~ 3.5.
The power spectrum of the QDOT sample depends sensitively on the galaxy weighting scheme, probably due the manner in which the region of the Hercules supercluster is sampled. A best estimate of the power spectrum of IRAS galaxies is computed by combining the IRAS l.2Jy and QDOT samples.
The PSCz galaxy power spectrum is also computed. The PSCz galaxies have a clustering amplitude twice that of optical galaxies. A similar result is found from a joint counts in cells analysis. Redshift-space distortions in the PSCz sample are analysed using a spherical harmonic decomposition of the density field. The value of Ω⁰.⁶/b = 1 is ruled out by this analysis at the 2σ significance level.
Experimental and theoretical studies of weakly bound complexes

This thesis is concerned with some experimental and theoretical studies of weakly bound complexes. These complexes have binding energies of the order of a few kilojoules per mole, and consequently do not behave like normal chemical substances. The KrHCl complex and its isotopic forms, and NeDCl and its isotopic forms are studied in detail in the microwave and radiofrequency regions by Molecular Beam Electric Resonance (MBER) spectroscopy. The NeDCl complex is the first neon complex to be studied by microwave spectroscopy. Several new spectroscopic constants are identified from the experimental data of both systems, and all spectral features down to the resolution of the apparatus (about 1.5 kHz) have been explained. A model for the large amplitude vibrations that these complexes exhibit is proposed. Equilibrium structures and vibrationally averaged structures are subsequently derived for them.
A more thorough analysis of atom-diatomic molecule interactions is made by deriving potential energy surfaces from the experimental data for the complexes. This method is analogous to the Born-Oppenheimer separation method for electronic and vibrational motion in molecules. The new experimental parameters, particularly DQ, the centrifugal distortion of the nuclear quadrupole coupling constant for the chlorine nucleus, help to fix the amount of coupling between the bending and stretching motions of the complex on the potential energy surface. The limitations of these derived surfaces are also examined. The method is extended to diatomic molecule - diatomic molecule complexes, and a potential energy surface for one of these complexes, (HF)2, is derived.
Refocussing studies on polyatomic complexes such as (CO2)2 are also presented, and the relationship between proposed gas phase structures and those of molecular crystals is discussed.
The social organisation of the Trio Indians of Surinam

The Trio are a group of Carib-speaking Amerindians who live on both sides of the Surinam.Brazilian Frontier. At present they number about 600 and they retain much of their traditional culture. This thesis deals with the social organisation of these people, and the subject is treated in three parts. The first part - Chapters I, II, and III - provides a background to the main part of the study which is to be found in teh second part - Chapters IV to X inclusive. The final part - Chapter XI - consists of certain comparative and theoretical points which arise from the thesis.
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A variational solution of the frictional unloading problem in linear elasticity

A numerical solution is obtained for the frictional unloading problem, of a circular cylindrical rigid punch being removed from a homogeneous, isotropic, incompressible, linear elastic half-space, when conditions of Coulomb friction act during both loading and unloading. Considering a variational formulation of the elasticity equations, it is shown that at the solution the complementary energy achieves a minimum within the subset of admissable stress states; that is those that obey the equilibrium equations and the boundary conditions on stress. By considering the general traction boundery value problem, the complementary energy is reduced to a quadratic functional of the unknown surface stresses alone, the frictional boundary conditions acting as linear constraints on the minimization. It is then shown that this reduces to a fairly simple analytical form for the stated problem. It is required to find a numerical solution of the frictional unloading problem, but first some known solutions to the loading problems in the frictionless, adhesive, and frictional cases are given, all on incompressible half-spaces. A numerical solution, based on a Finite Element approximation to the above energy principles, is then obtained, not only for the unloading problem, but also for the above loading ones. The solution for the three loading problems is known, the numerical solution comparing favourably, and that for the unloading problem confirms the prediction from a physical argument. During the derivation of the above energy principles, a solution to the general traction boundary value problem is obtained, using the Airy stress function. This is used to calculate the entire stress/displacement state from the numerical solutions. The results obtained for the radial stress are consistent with previously obtained empirical results.
A detailed description of the implementation of the numerical method, and the structure of the FORTRAN programme is given, and convergence of the numerical technique proved. Finally a brief attempt at an analytical solution is made, and some results obtained which further confirm the numerical ones.