VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The free peasantry

This is a study of a German peasant pressure group of the 1920s. It is intended as a contribution to the debate about the role of the agrarian interest in the development of modern German politics. Its geographical scope is primarily the Bavarian Palatinate, but attention is also given to broader areas of the Rhineland and Bavaria. It is hoped too that light is cast upon issues common to large parts of Germany.
The Free Peasantry (Freie Bauernschaft) developed a new concept of peasant trade unionism, which it hoped would assert peasant interests against those of industrial labour. Taking hold in small-farm areas of western and southern Germany, it lasted only from its foundation on the Lower Rhine in 1919 to its dissolution in the Saar territory in 1934, and for the even shorter period of 1920-29 in the Palatinate itself. In the Palatinate, however, it had a huge impact, launching agricultural delivery strikes against the postwar controlled economy and in 1923 providing the leader of most successful of the Rhenish separatist Putsche.
The thesis places the Free Peasantry in the context of agrarian organisation and protest from the foundation of the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte) to the first year of National Socialist rule. These years saw the growth and then the disintegration of the freely organised peasant interest. Emphasis is placed on the agricultural economy, particularly during the inflation and the depression, and the central question posed is how the peasantry tried to find a satisfactory representation of its interests during these years of economic turmoil.
The main sources were official papers in the Bavarian and Rhineland archives, the newspapers of the peasant associations, and the author's interview with the former chairman of the Free Peasantry.
Of people, politics and profit: The political economy of Chinese industrial zone development in Nigeria

This project approaches ongoing debates over the impact of increased Chinese engagement in African countries through the lens of production and industrialisation. Emerging market FDI into Africa is growing rapidly, and an increasing proportion of this investment is into manufacturing and productive sectors. This trend is led by the commercial expansion of private Chinese manufacturing firms across the continent. The goal of this project is to examine the differentiated impacts on African industrialisation attempts of this phenomenon. It takes as its case study industrial zone development projects in Nigeria, namely, the two official economic and trade cooperation zones being developed as large-scale FDI projects by Chinese firms, with Chinese and Nigerian government support, in Lagos and Ogun states. Analytically, four dimensions of this process are identified for study: the home country context, the host country context, the zone structures and institutions, and the firms themselves. Special attention is paid to the interface between foreign actors and the particular political economy of Nigerian manufacturing, as well as the at times substantial gaps between policy and practice in terms of industrial planning, investment and production.
The thesis argues that SEZ projects in general, including the Chinese ETCZs, are industrial policy tools that operate on particular assumptions regarding the organisation of global production. As such, they incentivise the insertion of export-oriented firms into established global networks supplying international markets. However, a closer examination of industrial policy in China, the production environment in Nigeria and the behaviour of internationalising firms reveals that these assumptions are not always accurate. Thus, the SEZ institution as it is currently conceived in Nigeria is ill-suited to lend support to the trend towards Chinese relocation of producer firms, as well as to the reality of Nigerian production—both of which are predicated on domestic and regional markets as the primary driver of African industrialisation and productive sector growth.

Keywords: foreign direct investment
emerging markets
African industrialisation
Advisor: Mustapha, A
Patterns of resource distribution and exploitation by the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the Eurasian badger (Meles meles)

Thirteen badgers and 20 foxes were radio-tracked in the Wytham Estate, Oxfordshire, between 1981 and 1983. Thirteen badger and 10 fox groups were identified from radio-tracking and bait marking. Badger groups (mean size 1982: 4.45, 1983: 5.82) occupied contiguous territories (size: 22-75 ha) with boundaries marked by latrines. Seasonal variation in marking intensity and choice of marking sites presumably were responses to changing intrusion pressure. Fox groups (mean size: 2.6) occupied stable territories (size: 22- 104 ha) with little overlap. Faeces deposition by foxes facilitated territory marking.
Earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) dominated the diet of badgers (63 % estimated dry weight EDW, faeces), followed by cereals, fruits and other Invertebrates. Diet was highly variable between groups and seasons. For foxes, lagomorphs (20 % EDW) and earthworms (33 % EDW) were the most important prey, followed by scavenge and fruits. Variation in diet between groups and seasons was marked in lagomorphs but not earthworms. Multlvarlate analyses of habitat parameters revealed a low-dimensional 'resource space' that could be divided into conventional habitat categories. Censuses of prey species indicated that resource presence varied consistently between habitat categories.
Key habitats occurred at fairly constant proportions in territories of both species) their dispersion partly determined the configuration of territory boundaries. The proportions of specific habitats per territory were correlated with the proportions of certain prey items in diets. space use by individuals was analysed by spatial autocorrelation methods, variation in space use by foxes was attributed to variation in resource dispersion. In contrast, individual badgers were similar in their use of space. Here, small-scale heterogeneity in intensity of use may reflect local earthworm availability, in one studied fox group, males and females differed in range use. Individuals in one studied badger group coordinated their use of space probably to minimize foraging interference.
It is suggested that group living in Wytham badgers is a response to defending resources, and a model is proposed to explain how the spatial and social organisation of male and female badgers relate to the characteristics of the resources they require.

Advisor: Macdonald, D
The genesis of Clough's poetry

This thesis examines the early poetry of Clough, written between 1830 and 1841, in the light of the information about his personal and intellectual life provided by published and unpublished manuscripts, essays, letters and diaries. More specifically, it sets out to determine the degree to which the seeds (thematic and formal) of Clough’s more mature work can be discerned in the earlier.
Chapter One discusses the influence of Clough’s childhood reading, and particularly the heroic ideal as encouraged by his mother. It traces the way this developed, particularly under the historical ideas of Thomas Arnold and the Liberal Anglicans, and the fatalistic moral problems this created. Chapter Three considers Clough’s responses to the Oxford Movement. It teases out those elements that attracted Clough and those he came to reject, particularly in the light of Tractarian ideas about reserve, in relation to poetry, truth and personal behaviour.
Chapters Two and Four provide chronological, text-by-text accounts of the Rugby and Balliol poems respectively, offering judgments about influences, dates and sources, and interpretations in the light of Chapters One and Three respectively. Chapter Two argues that much of the Rugby poetry reflects an escapist lament for the past and a failure of will to restore it. Chapter Three argues that Clough’s engagement with Tractarian ideas about reserved truth provides the key context for many of these poems.
Chapter Five traces the way in which Clough’s early poetics, derived from Wordsworth via Thomas Arnold, were gradually replaced by his more mature, ambiguous approach which also emerged from his encounters with Tractarian reserve.
Two appendices collect ten poems and poetic fragments omitted from Mulhauser’s standard edition; three additional variant texts for poems included by Mulhauser; and four previously unpublished letters to Clough from his friend WilliamTylden.

Keywords: Clough
Advisor: Reynolds, M
An age of emotion: expertise and subjectivity in old age in Britain, 1937-1970

This thesis heeds W. Andrew Achenbaum’s call for historians of ageing to analyse the inner lives of their subjects. Building on and problematizing existing studies of health and welfare policies for the old, it explores the ways that mid-century public and private life shaped how individuals felt about old age. Both public discussions and private narratives of ageing are used to consider how older people understood and expressed their emotional experiences during a challenging period of the life cycle.
I argue that old age in general, and its emotional dimensions in particular, are missing from British historiography. Yet both were vital to social life in the mid-century, when the ageing population was an important political issue and a large number of experts hoped to manage the emotional and psychological aspects of this ‘problem’. This thesis begins by setting out this national context for old age, showing that heightened interest in ageing and emotion were significant influences over the expansion of the welfare state. However, contrary to the expectations of mid-century researchers and policy-makers, my subsequent chapters show that older people frequently maintained their social roles and relationships through informal means. This thesis explores how ageing men and women engaged with work, retirement, ill health, marriage, bereavement, fashion, beauty culture, and autobiography as opportunities to find meaning in late life.
Together, these varied perspectives on old age make a series of interventions in its history. I argue that historians could do much more to detail the significance of the life cycle for their subjects, whether they write political, social, or cultural history. As this thesis shows, such studies should approach ageing as a lifelong and personal process, which has been shaped by reminiscence and story-telling. I suggest that historians of emotion are best-equipped to write scholarship that is sensitive to the passing of time and personal biography in this way.

Keywords: history of emotions
old people
twentieth-century British history
elderly
ageing
old age
Advisor: Houlbrook, M
Anglo-Scandinavian literature and the post-conquest period

This thesis concerns narratives about Anglo-Scandinavian contact and literary traditions of Scandinavian origin which circulated in England in the post-conquest period.  The argument of the thesis is that in the eleventh century, particularly during the reign of Cnut and his sons, literature was produced for a mixed Anglo-Danish audience which drew on shared cultural traditions, and that some elements of this largely oral literature can be traced in later English sources.  It is further argued that in certain parts of England, especially the East Midlands, an interest in Anglo-Scandinavian history continued for several centuries after the Viking Age and was manifested in the circulation of literary narratives dealing with Anglo-Scandinavian interaction, invasion and settlement.  The first chapter discusses some narratives about the reign of Cnut in later sources, including the Encomium Emmae Reginae, hagiographical texts by Goscelin and Osbern of Canterbury, and the Liber Eliensis; it is argued that they share certain thematic concerns with the literature known to have been produced at Cnut’s court.  The second chapter explores the literary reputation of the Danish Earl of Northumbria, Siward, and his son Waltheof in twelfth-century sources from the East Midlands and in thirteenth-century Norwegian and Icelandic histories.  The third chapter deals with an episode in the Middle English romance Guy of Warwick in which the hero helps to defeat a Danish invasion of England, and examines the romance’s references to a historical Danish right to rule in England.  The final chapter discusses the Middle English romance Havelok the Dane, and argues that the poet of Havelok, aware of the role of Danish settlement in the history of Lincolnshire, makes self-conscious use of stereotypes and literary tropes associated with Danes in order to offer an imaginative reconstruction of the history of Danish settlement in the area.

Keywords: medieval romance
oral literature
Anglo-Scandinavian
Middle English
Advisor: O'Donoghue, H
The regulation and inhibition of P-TEFb

Correct regulation of transcription is essential for maintaining a healthy cellular state. During transcription RNA polymerase II (Pol II) proceeds in a regulated manner through several transitions to ensure appropriate control of synthesis and enable correct processing of the pre-RNA. Shortly after initiation Pol II is caused to pause by the binding of factors, DSIF and NELF. To enable transition of Pol II into the elongation phase CDK9/cyclin T phosphorylates the C-terminal domain (CTD) of Pol II, DSIF and NELF. This phosphorylation releases the paused state and provides an alternative set of post-transcriptional modifications on the CTD to generate a binding platform for elongation, histone modifying and termination factors. CDK9/cyclin T is itself regulated within multicomponent complexes. A small activated complex, containing Brd4, recruits CDK9/cyclin T to active sites of transcription, thereby promoting the elongation of transcription. The role of CDK9/cyclin T in the regulation of transcription has resulted in its validation as a drug target against several disease states including cancer, HIV and cardiac hypertrophy.
In this thesis, I present the crystallographic structures of a series of 2-amino-4-heteroaryl-pyrimidine compounds and the roscovitine derivative, (S)-CR8, bound to CDK9/cyclin T and CDK2/cyclin A. In combination with thermal denaturation data and kinetic analysis, these structures have suggested chemical modifications that might be made to increase the CDK9 specificity of these compounds. I have also validated the use of a mutated form of cyclin T for use in the development of CDK9/cyclin T inhibitors.
In addition, I present both structural and kinetic analysis of the Brd4-CDK9/cyclin T interaction. I show that C-terminal fragments of Brd4 enhance the in vitro kinase activity of CDK9/cyclin T against the Pol II CTD. Furthermore, I demonstrate that this enhancement may be inhibited by Plk1-mediated phosphorylation of Brd4. Finally, I show that Brd4 binds to a site that spans CDK9 and cyclin T and I propose detailed molecular models of the Brd4-cyclin T interaction.

Keywords: cyclin dependent kinase
transcription
phosphorylation
Advisor: Noble, M
Endicott, J
Uses of satellite data in studies of stratospheric dynamics

Observations of the temperature structure of the stratosphere made by the selective chopper radiometer on the Nimbus 5 satellite are used to analyse the energetics of the sudden warming of January/February 1973.
A method of retrieving vertical profiles of zonal Fourier coefficients of temperature from the Fourier coefficients of the measured radiances is described. Some retrievals are compared with conventional observations and quite good agreement is obtained.
Comparison of independent estimates of the mean meridional circulation shows that the retrieved temperature and height fields are not sufficiently accurate to give precise values for the zonal mean vertical and meridional velocities. The implication of this result for the energy budget is demonstrated.
The sudden warming is analysed first in terms of wave structure and changes in temperature and zonal wind. No evidence for an upward propagating temperature or geopotential disturbance is found. Wave amplifications are observed to occur simultaneously at all levels or to propagate downwards. Largest temperature changes occur in the upper middle stratosphere and maximum zonal flow accelerations in the upper stratosphere.
The energy cycle of the lower middle stratosphere is found to be in agreement with observations of previous warmings except in that little increase in eddy energy occurs during the event. A marked baroclinic energy cycle below 10 mb in high latitudes is shown to enhance vertical energy propagation prior to the warming, leading to increased eddy available potential energy between 10 and 2 mb. The variation with latitude of the energetics during the warming is shown to be significant. In the upper stratosphere barotropic conversion from zonal to eddy kinetic energy dominates in mid-latitudes causing deceleration of the zonal flow there first. In high latitudes the deceleration of the zonal flow occurs through the action of the induced mean meridional circulation, while the major source of eddy kinetic energy here is convergence of the vertical eddy energy flux.
Examination of the relationship between the latitudinal distributions of the vertical eddy energy flux and the zonal flow reveals that maximum upward propagation of energy is centred con- sistently to the north of the polar night jet until the onset of the warming when coincidence occurs.
Some aspects of the observed warming are compared with numerical simulations of sudden warmings. Although the 1973 event is characterised by a wavenumber one disturbance some striking resemblances are found in two numerically simulated wavenumber two type warmings.

Advisor: Harwood, B
Houghton, J
Iron deficiency and susceptibility to infection: a prospective study of the effects of iron deficiency and iron prophylaxis in infants in Papua New Guinea

Investigation of the relationship between iron deficiency, iron supplementation and susceptibility to infection, was suggested by the author's initial observations of an association of anaemia with serious bacterial infections in infancy in Papua New Guinea. The bulk of previous longitudinal clinical intervention studies in infancy showed beneficial effects of iron supplementation. However, defects of control and design and recording in these studies and contradictory anecdotal reports left the question unresolved.
A prospective, placebo-controlled, randomised, double-blind trial of iron prophylaxis (3ml intramuscular iron dextran = 150mg Fe) to two month old infants was carried out on the North Coast of Papua New Guinea where there is high transmission of malaria.
A literature review, pilot studies, protocol, demography, geography and laboratory methods developed are described.
Findings indicate that the placebo control group became relatively iron deficient over the first year of life and that the iron dextran group had adequate, although not excessive iron stores and a higher mean haemoglobin; however, the prevalence and effects of malaria recorded in the field were higher in the iron dextran group. Analysis of field and hospital infectious morbidity in the trial indicated a deleterious association with iron dextran for all causes including respiratory infections (the main single reason for admission). Total duration of hospitalisation was significantly increased in the iron dextran group. Analysis of other factors showed (1) a higher admission rate associated with low weight-for-height recorded at the start of the trial; (2) a significant positive correlation between birth haemoglobin and hospital morbidity rates; (3) increased malaria rates in primiparous mothers of the cohort infants who received iron infusion during pregnancy; (4) lower relative risk of malaria associated with iron prophylaxis in individuals with alpha thalassaemia, which was found to be highly prevalent in this region.
In conclusion, it is suggested that policies of iron supplementation, total dose iron injection and routine presumptive iron therapy for anaemia which are widely in practice in malaria endemic areas should be closely reviewed.

Keywords: infectious disease
Iron nutrition
malaria
disease prevention
respiratory infections
Pulse shaping for broadband photoassociation of cold molecules

The development of the field of the science of ultra-cold matter has opened some exciting possibilities in exploring the quantum-mechanical processes which dominate matter interactions at the sub-microscopic scale. Although methods of cooling atoms are well established, molecular cooling is made difficult by molecules’ additional vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. It was the goal of the research in this work to approach molecular cooling indirectly, by using broadband shaped-pulse photoassociation for the generation of tightly bound ultracold Rb2 molecules.
The experiments towards this goal conducted by our group included a pumpdecay experiment to observe the generation of ground state singlet or triplet molecules. However, attempts to observe an increase in ground state population have been unsuccessful. A pump-probe study of wavepacket dynamics in the 5s+5p electronic state was conducted in order to determine the appropriate timing for the application of an additional pulse to dump population into the ground state. Although the attempt to observe wavepacket oscillations has been unsuccessful, pump-probe studies have yielded the observation of loosely bound excited state molecules as a result of the photoassociation pulse. These results are promising as a first stage in a fully coherent pump-dump approach to stabilisation into the lowest vibrational ground state.
This thesis will provide an introduction and overview to the concerns involved in addressing the problem of molecular cooling and generation. Experimental techniques will be discussed including pulsed laser systems, optical parametric amplifi- cation, and the presentation of an original design for pulse shaping with an acoustooptic modulator. The emphasis of these discussions will be on the principles and operating procedures required for the use of these devices as home-built systems. The thesis will conclude with the results of pump-probe experiments utilising the pulse shaper as a spectral cutting device.

Keywords: cold molecules
pulse shaping
ultrafast
pulsed lasers
Advisor: Walmsley, I