VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
'Witness William Strode': manuscript contexts, circulation and reception

This thesis is concerned with how we read, edit, and understand the socio-textual relationships between seventeenth-century literary manuscripts. It takes as its subject William Strode (1601?-1645), poet, preacher, and Public Orator of the University of Oxford. In particular, this study examines the transmission and reception of Strode’s English verse, predominantly by examining verse miscellanies of the 1620s, 1630s and 1640s.
Chapter 1 provides the most extensive account of Strode's life to date, situating his career as a manuscript-publishing poet alongside his academic and clerical careers and social and literary contexts. Chapter 2 studies Strode's autograph manuscripts in detail, focusing on an autograph notebook, in which Strode transcribed and revised his poems; a booklet of eight poems which provide insight into how Strode circulated his verse; and a no longer extant, authorial manuscript of Strode's verse, which raises the question of whether or not Strode intended to print his poems in a single-author collection. Chapter 3 follows Strode’s poems from these autograph manuscripts into four verse miscellanies compiled by his most prolific collectors, and makes original arguments about how Strode’s poems circulated in seventeenth-century Oxford. This chapter ends with a discussion of two poems by Strode, once thought lost to scholarship. Chapter 4 moves from Christ Church to consider the social and textual coordinates of Strode's Oxford, and non-Oxford readers, offering reconsiderations and revisions of arguments about the provenance of a range of verse miscellanies. Chapter 5 considers the reception of Strode's poetry in the verse miscellany, and uses this evidence to refine theorizations of 'social editing' and 'textual malleability', before offering guidelines towards an edition of Strode’s English verse.

Keywords: Manuscripts
Verse Miscellanies
Early Modern Literature
William Strode
Textual Transmission
Advisor: Smyth, A
Sex-specific genetic control of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus

"One of the deadliest animals in the world", is the description given to the mosquito by the World Health Organisation. Collectively mosquitoes are a vector for a range of pathogens to humans. Recent developments in genetic engineering have demonstrated that the transgenic self-limiting technology developed by Oxitec Ltd can be deployed to reduce populations of Aedes aegypti. The technology uses a transgene that, when inherited, causes lethality if the mosquito does not have access to tetracycline during development. Recent advancements at Oxitec Ltd involve targeting the self-limiting system specifically to females. This allows for males (which are required for a release) to be readily separated from females without the need for costly mechanical separation.
The work presented in this thesis aims primarily to further development of the Oxitec Ltd technology in Ae. aegypti and Aedes albopictus. In Ae. aegypti this is achieved through the development of paternal effect, a male specific construct which render the sperm inviable if reared in the absence of tetracycline. This paternal effect is subsequently combined with a genetic sexing strain in an 'all in one' construct, such that when reared in the absence of tetracycline only sterile males are produced. Development in Ae. albopictus comes through characterisation of certain life history traits of the wild type strains currently maintained at Oxitec Ltd. It is important to develop self-limiting insects in a background strain with certain traits, such as the ability to be produced under mass rearing conditions, and sensitivity to insecticides.
In conclusion the work presented here represents a major advancement of Oxitec Ltd's self-limiting technology in Ae. aegypti, through production of a genetic sexing strain capable of producing sterile males. In Ae. albopictus wild type characterisation has laid the foundations for future transgenic development in a suitable background strain.

Advisor: Shimeld, S
Matzen, K
Performing scientific naturalism: the popular scientific lecture and Victorian culture, c. 1860-1890

This thesis situates popular science lectures within broader Victorian cultures of public speech. In so doing, it argues that scientific naturalists such as Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall and Robert Stawell Ball, adopted the lecture form as a specific tool with which to persuade the public of the validity of empirical scientific methods. It establishes a literary theoretical, and historical framework through which the textual versions of their performances should be read, highlighting the ways in which the scientists' claims to objectivity were enhanced, or obfuscated, through translation into print.
Chapter one considers how Tyndall and Ball shaped their public performances in order to demonstrate their authority to speak for science. Technologies such as the lantern slide and demonstration apparatus, so integral to these scientists' performances, were represented in print in ways which complicated performers' presentations of scientific objectivity. Chapter two turns to Huxley, and examines the ways in which the scientist's self-presentation as an authoritative and morally upright figure drew on both early nineteenth-century science lecturing conventions, and pulpit oratory. It also shows that Victorian print cultures, including satires, and reporting of speech in newspapers, generated multiple versions of the same performance.
The first two chapters illustrate how the male performer's body was integral to their presentation of scientific authority. Chapter three provides a counter-voice to this by examining the public lectures of four women: Catherine Buckton, Arabella Buckley, Eleanor Ormerod and Lydia Becker. Their occupation of the lecture platform challenged the perception that women lacked the physical and intellectual strength to do science. Chapter four looks at scientific themes in the public lectures of two non-scientists, Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin, and the ways in which these men adopted the rhetoric of scientific naturalists to both agree with, and challenge, their claims to scientific authority. Finally, chapter five moves to the provinces, with an in-depth case study of lecture circuits in Manchester. It looks at the way in which public scientific speech moulded class relations in the city, and how scientific naturalists capitalized on the consolidation of civic identities.

Advisor: Shuttleworth, S
Diplomacy from below

Vietnamese fishermen exhibit what I call diplomacy from below in their resistance to a state-sponsored kidnapping network in the South China Sea. The fishermen’s resistance is dual: against the Vietnamese and Chinese governments. Once arrested and kidnapped on the sea by Chinese state-sponsored militia, the Vietnamese Government insufficently supports rescue operations and does not engage in high-level talks with the kidnappers. Nor does the Vietnamese Government provide sufficient financial support to cover ransom demands. This is contrary to some more progressive state practices internationally. Chinese economic influence has a great effect on Vietnamese fishermen and on the Vietnamese Government response and coverage of kidnappings in media and international fora.
Traditional diplomacy scholarship (Track 1, club diplomacy) only involves states representatives and has not studied subaltern negotiation with foreign government. Yet, given the vacuum of traditional diplomacy on behalf of the Vietnamese Government, the Vietnamese fishermen and their families have to be the autonomous demiurgic of their rescue operations, negotiation and communication, with a wide array of ostensibly state and foreign governmental actors. This is diplomacy from below.
First, diplomacy from below has an effect on the top level and creates an equilibrium process (in the case of a small country with an authoritarian regime, and foreign malign intervention). The theory also predicts a cycle. Second, regime type (democracy, hybrid, or autocracy) has an effect on diplomacy from below. Third, the type of intervention (in support of elites or subalterns) from foreign states respectively encourages or discourages diplomacy from below.
This thesis contributes to the existing scholarship in several ways. First, by looking both at the effect of the bottom level, the Vietnamese fishermen, to the international political environment of the South China Sea Conflict and the effect of that political environment on the Vietnamese fishermen. Second, by adding nuance to the social movements and diplomacy scholarship by introducing the theory of diplomacy from below, informed by Antonio Gramsci’s concept of subalternity ([1891-1937]1988) and James Scott’s theory of ‘everyday resistance’ (1985). Third, by highlighting human rights abuses, legal fictions and the denial of justice to non-state actors who are impeded from such access by their own governments, suggesting the need for a normative rechallenging of the legal definition of piracy to include that which is state-sponsored.

Advisor: Rival, L
Statistical issues in the study of fetal and neonatal growth

Human growth begins at conception and continues into adult life. Growth is usually classified as normal or abnormal using the expected attained size at a given age. The statistical analysis of growth data has been of interest to many academics from a wide range of disciplines over the last century. The study of fetal and neonatal growth is complex, and the many remaining clinical questions require complex statistical methodology. In this thesis, I have focused on growth in the prenatal period, namely fetal and newborn growth.
The thesis highlights the potential pitfalls in methodology, statistical methods, and reporting of studies aimed at creating fetal charts. I propose a checklist for evaluating the methodological quality of studies that provides a rough guide of the minimum information that should be reported in these studies. This checklist is not intended to commend or discard studies, but rather to act as a consensus guideline to improve consistency and as a guide for evaluating similar studies for future research in human growth studies. The thesis assesses approaches for developing charts of attained size at a given age and the velocity gain (rate or speed of growth) of a fetus. It aims to address some of the statistical issues that relate to fetal and neonatal growth studies.
The thesis also focuses on fetal velocity. This work is novel as there are currently no fetal velocity standards in existence. The methodologies discussed have previously been applied to child growth data, but not to fetal data, to the best of my knowledge. In this thesis, I construct the first fetal growth velocity standards. Such standards were not yet available largely due to lack of appropriate, good quality longitudinal fetal data.
All of the work and research carried out as part of the thesis was embedded within the International Fetal and Newborn Growth Consortium for the 21st Century (INTERGROWTH-21st Project). The primary aims of the INTERGROWTH- 21st project were to produce international growth standards for practical clinical applications and to monitor trends in populations using three sets of data describing fetal growth (n=4,321 women), postnatal growth of preterm infants (n=201 preterm infants), and newborn size (weight, length, and head circumference) for gestational age (n=20,486 newborns). The design and conduct of these studies are detailed elsewhere and have already resulted in numerous publications, including four papers published in The Lancet. I was the responsible statistician for these publications and undertook all of the statistical analyses.

Advisor: Altman, D
Villar, J
The dissolution of constitutions: Aristotle in Italian political thought from Niccolo Machiavelli to Giovanni Botero

This thesis studies the reception of Aristotle's political thought in sixteenth-century Italy. It focuses on Aristotle's discussion of the dissolution of constitutions in Book 5 of the Politics and aims to show how Aristotle's political thought remained central to late Renaissance political discourse. No comprehensive study of the topic exists. Modern historiography on Renaissance political thought generally downplays the importance of Aristotle in the history of sixteenth-century Italian political thought and emphasises the Roman tradition over the Greek. This research aims to fill the gap in modern scholarship and revise modern interpretation of Renaissance political theory. This thesis is essentially divided into three parts, each part containing two chapters. Part I is largely introductory. Chapter 1 offers a historiographical review of modern scholarship on the reception of Aristotle in the Renaissance and early-modern political thought. Chapter 2 explores the revival of Greek studies in the fifteenth century and the changing perception of Aristotle's Politics in the Renaissance. Part II focuses on Aristotle and Machiavelli. Chapter 3 examines the similarities between Aristotle's analysis of the means of preserving tyranny and Machiavelli's discussion of how to mantenere lo stato in The Prince. Chapter 4 explores the effects that these similarities between Aristotle and Machiavelli had on the reception of Aristotle in Renaissance political thought. Part III centres on Aristotle in the republican and vernacular traditions. Chapter 5 explains the importance of Aristotle's discussion of the dissolution of constitutions to Renaissance republican political thought. Chapter 6 underlines the continuous relevance of Aristotle's Politics in the second half of the sixteenth century. The conclusion sums up the central argument of each chapter and invites us to explore the influence of Aristotle on reason of state literature.

Keywords: Aristotle
Segni
Machiavelli
Botero
Brucioli
Tyranny
Reason of State
Renaissance
Le Roy
Case
Aristotelianism
Settala
Republicanism
Prince
Bruni
Politics
Advisor: Davidson, N
Anti-Popery in early modern England: religion, war and print, c. 1617-1635

This thesis is about anti-popery in early modern England, how its meanings and political uses in printed literature changed in response to the dramatic developments of the Thirty Years' War. I contend that the languages of anti-popery, though structured by binary oppositions, were being used to express complex, multifaceted views about Catholic states in the 1620s and 1630s.
The new perspective that this research offers is two-fold. Firstly, it asserts that anti-popery was an active and flexible tool of English Protestant debate about foreign affairs. 'Popish' tyranny, variously embodied in the Counter-Reformation papacy or Habsburg imperialism, was a malleable concept that adapted its meanings and associations with the political circumstances. Our early modern subjects were capable of separating anti-Catholic beliefs about idolatrous worship from political questions of how to identify, and combat, the threat of papal tyranny. Thus, this thesis argues that a greater range of irenic attitudes towards relations with Catholic powers were circulating than previously thought.
Secondly, this thesis argues that several different anti-papal languages were operating alongside, and in competition with, one another in early Stuart political culture. As a fluid set of tropes, associations and prejudices, anti-popery had different meanings for different authors and incorporated a range of political and religious agendas. Anti-popery, therefore, was not simply a tool of Puritan opposition to the non-interventionist policy of the Stuarts, but, I argue, was also compatible with a more moderate or conciliatory attitude to Catholic states, including Habsburg Spain.
The printed debates of the 1620s and 1630s expose the tensions that existed between competing ideas about the nature of the external popish threat. By 1635 and the reversal of Protestant fortunes on the Continent, these competing anti-papal ideas were exposing the tensions within England about the nature of its Protestantism, and thus helped precipitate the Civil Wars.

Keywords: Print
17th century
Protestantism
Thirty Years' War
Anti-popery
Anti-Catholicism
Foreign relations-England-Europe
Political culture
Advisor: Gajda, A
Mortimer, S
The institutional structure of macroprudential policy in the UK: an assessment of the accountability mechanisms of the Financial Policy Committee

This thesis examines the accountability of the macroprudential policy (MPP) authorities, concentrating on the case study of the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) of the Bank of England (BoE). It explores the appropriate design of legal safeguards through which accountability of MPP authorities in the United Kingdom can be ensured.
Under its mandate, the FPC has been delegated a range of MPP instruments. These instruments are, in essence, mechanisms that control the overall level of risk-taking in the financial system and have an impact on economic growth as well as direct distributional consequences. The degree, therefore, to which MPP is used for socially beneficial purposes depends crucially on aligning the interests of this unelected authority with the interests of society for financial stability.
This thesis's analysis is conducted in two steps. The first part examines the analytical framework of MPP, the legal structure of the FPC and the political economy issues stemming from the delegation of MPP to an independent authority. The second part evaluates five accountability mechanisms: (i) the transparency framework; (ii) the Non- Executive Directors of the Court of the BoE; (iii) the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee; (iv) judicial review; (v) and peer review by international MPP authorities.
The main argument is that FPC members are susceptible to influence by the regulated sector which may cause the FPC to deviate from purely technocratic promotion of the public interest. Our study proposes an effective accountability regime for the FPC that should decrease the agency costs of delegation to an independent MPP authority and any subsequent welfare losses.

Advisor: Armour, J
Quantum dot lasers

Here we present direct investigation of the lasing behaviour by performing gain spectroscopy of solution-based CQDs enabled via in-situ tuning of the feedback wavelength of an open-access hemispherical microcavity. The investigation is performed on two different types of CQDs, namely spherical CdSe/CdS core-shell CQDs and nanopletelets (NPs). The lasing threshold and the differential gain/slope efficiency of the fundamental cavity mode are measured as a function of their spectral position over a spectral range of &Tilde; 32 nm and of &Tilde; 42 nm for the spherical CQDs and NPs, respectively. The results of the gain spectroscopy are described using theoretical models, providing insights into the mechanism governing the observed lasing behaviour. Furthermore, the open-access cavity architecture provides a very convenient way of producing in-situ tunable lasing, and single-mode lasing of the fundamental cavity mode over a spectral range of &Tilde; 25 nm and &Tilde; 37 nm is demonstrated using spherical CQDs and NPs, respectively. In addition, the stability of laser emission is investigated, with the lasing intensity of the fundamental cavity mode remaining constant over a time period of almost 6 mins. It is hoped that the results will provide a detailed understanding of the lasing behaviour of CQDs. This information can be fed back into the design of CQDs in which the lasing threshold can be reduced to the point where useful devices can be constructed, and in the design of resonant optical feedback structures for which the appropriate wavelength must be carefully selected.

Keywords: Colloidal Quantum Dots
Lasing
Microcavities
Gain Spectroscopy
Advisor: Smith, J
The role of the cellular membrane environment in mediating fibrillization and toxicity of islet amyloid polypeptide

Islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) is a peptide that is produced by the beta cells in the pancreas. A misfolded, aggregated form of this peptide is associated with Type 2 Diabetes and is found as large brils in pancreata, intimately associated with the islet architecture. The role of these brils is though to be benign in terms of membrane damage. However, smaller oligomers that assemble en-route to becoming brils are thought to be toxic to cells. In addition, the assembly of the peptide into amyloid is known to be accelerated by lipid and the assembly process itself has been shown to cause damage to cell and articial lipid membranes. The environment in which Islet amyloid polypeptide is produced is in secretory granules that are highly regulated, and various environmental factors have been shown to aect assembly of IAPP into brils. The work presented in this thesis looks at two important factors from these granules, zinc and pH, and their eect on the interaction of this peptide with the membrane. Using lipid membrane mimetics, I have shown a novel function of membrane fusion for human IAPP and in addition show that this function can be modulated by zinc. I have also investigated the consequences for membrane at the molecular scale using environment-sensitive uorophores that report on lipid order and viscosity. Finally, I show that depending on the lipid composition and the pH, hIAPP and rIAPP can increase the order of lipid membranes.

Advisor: Vaux, D
Exploring the reactivity of iridium and rhodium bisphosphine complexes with amine-boranes

This thesis details the reactivity of amine-boranes with iridium and rhodium bis-phosphine complexes and offers mechanistic insights into the catalytic dehydrocoupling of amineboranes to produce polyamino-boranes [H2BNRH]n that are isoelectronic to the societally ubiquitous polyolefins [H2CCRH]n.
The 18-electron cationic complexes [Ir(H)2(PCy3)(η2-H2)2][BArF 4] (II) and [Rh(PP)(η6- C6H5F)][BArF 4] (VI and VII) have been used to study the catalytic dehydrogenation of Nsubstituted amine-boranes (H3B∙NRH2, Chapter 2 and 3), B,N-substituted amine-boranes (PhH2B∙NRMe2, Chapter 4) and cyclic amine-boranes (Chapter 5).
The stoichiometric (1 equivalent) reactions of metal-complexes (II, III and VI) with amineboranes result in the formation of metal∙∙∙amine-borane complexes which have either been isolated in the solid state or characterised in situ in the solution state by NMR spectroscopy and ESI-MS. Further addition of amine-boranes to these metal∙∙∙amineborane complexes results in the dehydrogenation/dehydrocoupling of the amine-boranes. Direct intermediates involved in the catalytic dehydrogenation/dehydrocoupling processes have either been isolated or characterised in situ to gain insight into the dehydrogenation mechanism. Dehydrogenation mechanisms have been postulated based upon the observed intermediates, kinetic studies, and DFT calculations performed by Prof. Stuart A Macgregor (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh).
Overall, a detailed investigation into the coordination chemistry of metal∙∙∙amine-borane complexes and their subsequent dehydrogenation is reported.

Advisor: Weller, A