VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Recognizing epiphany: exploring the theme of epiphany in the epics of Homer, Apollonius, and Vergil

This thesis explores the versatile theme of epiphany in the Iliad, Odyssey, Argonautica, and Aeneid. Chapter 1 sets forth the major scene patterns to be adopted, arguing that an understanding of the traditional narrative elements of epiphany helps to enhance, rather than limit, the reader’s appreciation of these scenes. Part I then considers how these motifs intersect with the themes of agency and recognition in the Homeric poems. Chapter 2 examines three scenes in which a mortal’s usurpation of a divine motif challenges the epiphanic hierarchy. The Iliad represents such attempts as transgressive, whereas the Odyssey shows Athena willingly transferring a motif to Odysseus before casting him as a divine agent in her plot against the suitors. Chapter 3 explores the extent to which the Ithacan recognition scenes evoke the theme of epiphany as a result of Odysseus’s “theoxenic” role. In Chapter 4, Nausicaa is discussed as a parallel example of a mortal who is authorised, as a divine agent, to appear temporarily as an epiphanic figure.
Part II turns to Apollonius and Vergil. As with other “typical” elements, Apollonius demonstrates his ability to reproduce Homeric narrative conventions of epiphany, but his interest in problematizing recognition leads him to reject any semblance of structural unity in his epiphanies. Chapter 6 examines how Vergil, by contrast, signals his intent to follow Homeric models through an excessive adherence to traditional motifs in his first epiphany. Chapter 7 explores questions of agency tied to Vergil’s extension of epiphanic roles to figures on the margins between humanity and divinity, focusing on the epiphanies of Tiberinus, Juturna, and Anchises. Finally, Chapter 8 considers how Vergil evokes both Odyssean and Iliadic models of “mortal epiphany” in his treatment of Aeneas’s future divinity, only to reject them in favour of a distinctly Roman model of apotheosis.

Keywords: Epiphany
Advisor: Rutherford, R
Exploring the impact of neurocriminological ideas on public sentencing preferences and moral behaviour

While the focus of criminology has traditionally been the sociological correlates of criminal behaviour, there is growing interest in the neurobiological correlates of offending. Theorists predict that this emerging area of research, known as neurocriminology, will change how people view crime, punishment and their own behaviour. The veracity of this prediction will rest on the question of whether neurocriminology can challenge the belief that offenders make a morally relevant choice to offend (or not). By suggesting that offenders are less able to make such choices, neurocriminology could lead offenders to appear more dangerous yet less blameworthy. Indeed, learning about neurocriminology may actually promote deviant behaviour, if people internalise the idea that they are not really responsible for their actions, because their brain ‘made them do it’. This thesis tested such hypotheses through two online survey experiments and three field experiments, with a total of 8153 participants. In every study, participants learned about some neurocriminological idea that could explain why a person, without any mental disorder, committed an impulsive offence – a common combination of factors in many individual acts of crime. The communication of neurocriminology significantly reduced attributions of blame, albeit to a small extent, and had no (or even an ameliorating) effect on perceived dangerousness. In the largest study, after exposure to neurocriminology, participants punished the offender significantly less, a response to ascribing him a significantly more moral character and significantly less self-control; though these effects remained small. Neurocriminological evidence also led participants to recall significantly more acts of prior deviance, but not to act less morally in the study. The fear that neurocriminology could promote deviance might explain the final finding: participants in the richest and poorest boroughs of London – but not those in between – were significantly more inclined to disrupt a scientific campaign aimed at communicating neurocriminology to offenders (rather than non-offenders). In sum, the implications of communicating neurocriminology were in the direction of promoting lenience for offenders, yet the effects were small. Hence this thesis concludes that lay people will not relinquish the notion that offenders deserve to be punished in the face of neurocriminology. Given its function in communicating censure, the human tendency to attribute blame may be too ingrained to be overthrown by science, at least at the present point in time.

Keywords: Social psychology
Neuroscience
Public sentencing preferences
Neurocriminology
Moral behaviour
Public opinion
Advisor: Bradford, B
Condry, R
Melody and meaning: the semiotics of ancient Greek music in the late classical and early Hellenistic eras

Melody and Meaning asks what music can communicate, and how, according to critics and philosophers from the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods. What can melody express, if anything, and how does it exert its powerful emotional force on those who listen to it? These are among the most enduring and difficult questions in aesthetics – they have been subjects of lively debate among modern scholars such as (to name just a few) Eduard Hanslick, Susanne Langer, Kofi Agawu, Jenefer Robinson, and Roger Scruton. Much of this modern thought is rooted in theories of musical affect articulated by Plato and by others, such as Aristotle and Diogenes of Babylon, who took Plato’s work forward. The ideas which underlay such theories – ideas such as representation (μίμησις) and ethical disposition (ἦθος) – are issues of longstanding interest in Classical scholarship. But there has not yet been a monograph devoted directly to musical representation in the Hellenic tradition, despite the centrality of the subject to the subsequent philosophy of art. This dissertation fills that gap in the literature by offering an intellectual history of musical representation and expression in Greek thought from its seminal description in Plato until its fulsome rejection in the 1st century BC by Philodemus of Gadara.

Keywords: Mimesis
Philosophy
Music
Ethos Theory
Semiotics
Advisor: D'Angour, A
Obbink, D
Assembly of nucleic acids with site-specific modifications

The ability to synthesise large nucleic acids with site-specific chemical modifications would be invaluable for applications including therapeutics, epigenetics, and nanotechnology. Current approaches mainly rely on polymerase enzymes or solid-phase chemical synthesis, both of which have their limitations. The former is restricted to enzyme-tolerated modifications and cannot achieve site-specificity beyond the level of Watson-Crick base pairing; the latter is constrained to oligonucleotide lengths of around 150 nucleotides for DNA (75 nucleotides for RNA) due to imperfect monomer coupling. To address these issues, ligation of chemically synthesised oligonucleotides is investigated for the assembly of long nucleic acids (beyond 100 nucleotides) with site-specific modifications.
The limits of enzymatic ligation are determined by optimising DNA and RNA assembly using ligases, before chemical ligation is explored as a potentially more scalable and cost-effective alternative. In particular, copper(I)-catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) is investigated for the chemical ligation of RNA oligonucleotides. The reaction produces an unnatural triazole backbone at the ligation site. While the triazole backbone has been shown to be tolerated by DNA and RNA polymerases in replication and transcription, it has been unexplored for translation. An assay that involves rolling circle translation of a circular mRNA template, assembled by CuAAC and enzymatic ligation, is developed using a prokaryotic cell-free protein synthesis system. The effects of the local sequence environment and triazole position relative to the codon reading frame are examined, with special attention placed on the codon wobble position. Prokaryotic ribosomes are able to read triazole-containing mRNA to produce polypeptide translation products. The yields are lower than that of the natural backbone control, possibly due to destabilised hybridisation between the tRNA and mRNA, a feature that requires further optimisation.

Keywords: copper(I)-catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC)
nucleic acid ligation
rolling circle translation
Advisor: Brown, T
The Victorian intergenerational migrant cohort: Socioeconomic outcomes 1851-1901

Intergenerational outcome (IO) studies model the transmission of socioeconomic status between familial generations. Given the balancing of time horizons and future expectations implicit in migration decisions, IO studies are particularly salient to an empirical understanding of migration. However, few datasets exist which provide the necessary longitudinal observations for migrant populations, therefore such IO studies remain rare.
This paper presents a novel cohort of 288,000 individuals from fifty years of English census data (1851-1861 and 1881-1901), representing some 36,000 core family groups who originated beyond the national boundary of England prior to 1851. The intercensal linking method employed here (network persistence linkage, or NPL) is also unique. It exploits persistent coresident proximity to enrich individual identifiers and includes an equal number of females as well as males.
Socioeconomic outcomes are defined with the HISCAM scale, a measure of social proximity derived by statistical correspondence analysis of occupations within historic civil and genealogical records. Descriptive analysis of outcomes over three generations shows that immigrants had significant socioeconomic mobility, especially females, although this was not always an upward move. Immigrant families with very advantaged positions may have experienced rapid regression to the mean. An ordinary least squares (OLS) estimate of intergenerational transmission finds that both males and females transmitted a significant effect to their children’s status through their own socioeconomic prestige. This effect is stronger between the immigrant and his/her child than between that child and the third generation. The country of origin had a significant effect on the status of both subsequent generations, although there is also evidence that this dissipated among the grandchildren of British Isles immigrants. This study demonstrates that it is possible to link females as well as males across historical population datasets, and that omitting them from intergenerational outcome models may overestimate inheritance and underestimate mobility.

Keywords: immigration
19th century
record linkage
England
Children's rights: a liberal framework

This thesis investigates children’s moral and political rights and, in particular, their rights to make decisions at various stages of development. Part I outlines and defends an empirically informed liberal framework for establishing children’s rights to make decisions (i.e. their ‘agency rights’). This framework is grounded within a respect- and autonomy-based approach to agency rights. It engages with empirical psychology, is attentive to the role of social structures in moulding children’s psychology and in creating adult-child power hierarchies, and provides a cost-benefit mechanism for deciding how to recognise moral rights in law. In so doing, this framework provides a practical way of establishing moral and political rights, while being sensitive to the empirical reality of children’s capabilities, including the ways those capabilities are socially constructed, all while keeping respect for children, and children’s autonomy, at its centre. I conclude that children should generally have more agency rights than are currently recognised: their psychological abilities are often better than is generally assumed; we can help develop their psychological abilities; and where weaknesses remain, we can facilitate their decision-making through support, advice and dialogue. Part II applies the framework to voting, sexual consent, and age discrimination. First, I conclude that the voting age should be lowered to (at least) 16. Second, I argue that children have a right to extensive sex and relationship education and that policies and cultural images of childhood asexuality can make children vulnerable to exploitation. I also defend legal ‘closeness-of-age’ exemptions, which allow some individuals below the age of consent to engage in consensual sexual relationships with people of a similar age. Finally, I argue that everyone (including children) should be protected against age discrimination and I provide a framework for deciding whether an agency right should be allocated universally, with age-restrictions, or using competence tests.

Keywords: Children's Rights
Age Discrimination
Voting Age
Advisor: Butt, D
U-Conservatism; or, nihilism, value, and the duty to conserve

The thesis roughly begins with the widespread belief that modern societies face and perhaps foster a problematic lack of commitment to moral objectivity. And it roughly ends with a blueprint for a utopian deliberative institution called U-Conservatism, which is my best go at attenuating the problem but has other important functions too. Moreover, the road to U-Conservatism establishes many independently weighty claims across practical philosophy; hence, the contributions of the thesis exceed its regulative aims.
I interpret the social problem in terms of credences in nihilism, argue that we should try to weaken them, and identify visible, extensive, deep moral disagreement as a leading cause. However, in light of certain features of moral belief, I recommend shifting focus to an ostensibly different region of categorical value. Narrowing disagreement there would plausibly weaken nihilistic credences regarding categorical normativity tout court. U-Conservatism – the ‘U’ standing for unforced, unpolitical, and relatively metaphysically unpresumptuous – is the best vehicle I can imagine. It would achieve and publicly present a large measure of consensus among a demographically and philosophically diverse range of people about what objects possess non-functional value. U-Conservatism’s conservative element reflects that conserving is a categorically warranted response to objects of non-functional value, which encompasses, inter alia, aesthetic and historical value. Indeed, there’s a duty to maximise the conservation of objects of non-functional value – applying to all agents – with implications for practical ethics and public policy.
Beyond weakening nihilistic credences, U-Conservatism would make the duty simpler and less demanding to discharge by indicating priorities for active schemes of conservation and showing what in or about the relevant objects should be maintained or altered during conservation. Given its epistemic credentials, U-Conservatism would also promote the fairness of conservationist schemes and ensure the legitimacy of state action to deter or punish wrongful violations of the duty.

Advisor: Leopold, D
Cooperation, exploitation, and trust: migration from Edo state, Nigeria into sex work in Europe

This thesis aims to understand cooperation and exploitation in human trafficking. The literature on human trafficking tends to regard these concepts as self-evident. This thesis argues that they are not self-evident and builds on sociological theories of trust in the context of criminal networks and the context of migration. The methodology of this thesis is a qualitative content analysis. It looks at the case study of sex trafficking from Edo State, Nigeria to Western Europe. The data consist of the court files of a large-scale law enforcement investigation, ‘Operation Koolvis’, from 2008. The analysis includes 826 manually extracted intercepted phone conversations between traffickers and migrants. These data are triangulated with life history interviews with 14 trafficked women and 40 anti-trafficking experts and informants, conducted between 2015 and 2017. The arguments are presented in the three core chapters of the thesis: hostage-taking and cooperation; markets and hierarchies; and exploitation, trust, and agency. The first chapter finds that trafficking between two regions starts through the mechanism of chain migration. A hostage-taking mechanism supports cooperation between traffickers and migrants. Hostage-taking is possible due to geographical clustering, social norms, and informal institutions for enforcement (traditional shrines in the case study). The second chapter presents a social network analysis, which shows that the network of the case study is market-oriented rather than hierarchical. The literature has typically argued that trafficking networks are hierarchical. Furthermore, I find that exploiters contract out transportation. The division of labour is such that transporters have no agreement with the migrants and do not monitor them. The third chapter explores why long-term exploitation of migrants is possible. High levels of trust in the migrant community, as well as monitoring, rather than coercion, contribute to exploitation.

Advisor: Varese, F
Kleemans, E
Quantitative analysis of regulated proteolysis and protein dephosphorylation during mitotic exit

The critical function of the cell cycle is to enable the faithful inheritance of genetic material. Correct attachment of chromosomes triggers degradation of cyclin B and entry into anaphase, the cell subsequently undergoing a series of rapidly occurring changes. Precise regulation of these events is necessary to ensure that they take place in the correct order and is crucial for the success of mitotic exit. This regulation has been attributed to the activity of both phosphatases and the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C), but the relative contribution of each process remains unclear.
Using a quantitative, high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis, this work shows that the order of events in anaphase is controlled by a series of graded dephosphorylations whose rate is encoded into the system at the level of each individual phospho-site, based on the site’s sequence characteristics. Phospho-serines surrounded by acidic residues are seen to be dephosphorylated more slowly than more basic phospho-threonine sites. This preference also applies to PP1 dependent dephosphorylations and is consistent with the previously identified substrate specificity of PP2A-B55. This indicates a general rate-determining principle of phospho-protein phosphatase-mediated dephosphorylation. In addition, the results presented in this thesis indicate that PP1 activates itself following CDK1 inactivation, promoting the dephosphorylation of over 1000 phospho-sites. Finally, in the absence of CDK activity, APC/C-dependent proteolysis is not necessary for ordered dephosphorylation. A single proteolytic event, the destruction of cyclin B, is therefore sufficient for orderly mitotic exit through relieving inhibition of phosphatase activity.

Keywords: mitosis
APC/C
dephosphorylation
mass spectrometry
proteolysis
cyclin B
anaphase
phosphatase
PP1
mitotic exit
Advisor: Barr, F
Investigating the molecular, metabolic, and cognitive effects of a prebiotic in psychosis

Psychosis patients with lifetime exposure to antipsychotic medications often develop severe cardio-metabolic disorders and worsening cognitive impairments, therefore adjunct therapies that mitigate or attenuate these conditions would greatly enhance patient care. In recent years, the intestinal microbiome has emerged as an exciting area of research where gut microbial communities could influence cognitive and metabolic processes. However, experimental evidence of the molecular interactions between the gut and the brain as well as the translational potential into humans is currently unavailable.
The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the molecular, metabolic and cognitive effects of the prebiotic BimunoTM galacto-oligosaccharide (B-GOS®) in psychosis. This was accomplished by establishing an olanzapine-induced weight gain rodent model and exploring the anti-obesity and pro-cognitive effects following daily prebiotics supplementation. Not only was increased levels of N-methy-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) subunit GluN1 observed, concomitant administration of prebiotics with olanzapine attenuated weight gain and increased circulating levels of acetate, a major product of prebiotics fermentation. The elevation of acetate imparts epigenetic changes involving the addition or removal of acetyl groups on histone molecules, therefore, an epigenetic effect of prebiotics was explored by comparing with direct sodium acetate administration. The prebiotic B-GOS® decreased brain activity of histone deacetylase (HDAC) and increased expression of HDAC-1 and HDAC-3, neither effects replicated by the supplementation of sodium acetate. Sodium acetate also did not attenuate olanzapine-induced weight gain and did not alter the expression of central NMDAR subunits suggesting that the therapeutic potential of the prebiotics B-GOS® may be mediated by alternative mechanisms. In psychosis patients after 12 weeks of BGOS ® supplementation, no significant changes on obesity-related anthropometric indices or serum immune biomarkers were observed. However, global cognitive functioning was beneficially affected and may have been driven by improvements in executive functioning, an NMDAR-dependent cognitive domain.
The findings reported in this thesis provides preliminary support for the clinical potential of B-GOS® to address cognitive impairments and weight gain in psychosis, and provides further precedent for microbiome-based strategies at large. Additional exploration of the indirect effects of other short-chain fatty acids and the involvement of the immune system will be required to confirm and extend the findings presented in this thesis.

Advisor: Burnet, P
Lennox, B
Interaction and immune regulations of innate lymphoid cells and plasmacytoid dendritic cells in skin inflammatory diseases

The skin is equipped with an immune network providing surveillance and effector function. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are found to accumulate in skin wounds, yet the mechanisms of their role in skin wound healing are hitherto unstudied. Here, BDCA-2+ DCs were shown to infiltrate in vivo human wounds, showing heterogeneity based on differential expression of CD123, with a CD123int DC subset expressing CD1a at high levels. The CD1a+-bearing subsets could be derived from blood pDCs and presented self-lipid antigens to CD1a-reactive T cells, inducing interleukin (IL)-22 production. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, human skin wound CD123intBDCA 2+ CD1a+ DCs were shown to acquire features compatible with a role in lymph node homing and antigen presentation.
Plasmacytoid DCs and group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) have emerged as important mediators of skin inflammation, but, the mechanisms of their interaction have remained elusive. Here, it was identified that type I interferons (IFN-I), produced by pDCs, negatively regulated IL-22 producing capability of ILC22, an ILC3 subset, and positively mediated their co-stimulatory marker expression. ILC22 also presented peptide antigens to CD4+ T cells. While exogenous IL 1beta and IL 23 dampened the antigen presenting capacity of ILC22, addition of IFN I rescued their ability, and the study of psoriatic ILC22 revealed a hyper responsiveness to IFN-I.
These data demonstrate early infiltration of a previously unrecognised subset of CD123intBDCA-2+CD1a+ DCs in human skin wounds which can present lipid antigens to autoreactive T cells, contributing to the wound healing process. Furthermore, the blood CD123hiBDCA 2+ pDCs produce IFN-I and regulate ILC22 to promote T cell functions. Overall, this study reveals a new route for potential therapeutic manipulations in maintaining skin homeostasis: the pDC-IFN-I-ILC22-T cell axis.

Keywords: Skin
Advisor: Ogg, G