VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Shadows on the Edge:  Eugenio Montale’s Afterlife

This thesis forms a monograph on the poetry of Eugenio Montale (Genoa, 1896 – Milan, 1981) which considers his principal collections: Ossi di seppia (1925), Le occasioni (1939), La bufera e altro (1956), Satura (1971), Diario del ’71 e del ’72 (1973), and Quaderno di quattro anni (1977). It focuses on the notion of ‘ombra’ as the key element through which a greater degree of insight into Montale’s eschatological vision can be achieved. Montale’s ‘shadow’ emerges as a paradoxical presence-in-absence, and as a constitutive element of his poetry, in so far as it conceives of the existence of a continuity between life and death. From as early as Ossi di seppia, the status of ‘ombra’ is two-fold. First of all, ‘ombra’ is the shadow with which the poetic subject identifies, and it represents the only possibility of attaining a desired existential and poetic self-effacement. Secondly, but no less importantly, ‘ombra’ is the shadow of the absent loved one, who is reduced to incorporeality, and from whom the poetic subject seeks not to be cruelly separated. By considering the relationship between poetry and mourning from the Derridean perspective of ‘demi-deuil’, I contribute an original viewpoint to the study of Montale’s ‘care ombre’ (‘Proda di Versilia’, La bufera e altro, 33, pp. 253-254), whereby subjects of mourning are no longer considered as negatively dominated by the Other’s death. They are, indeed, devoted to preserving the affect relationship with the dead, as opposed to the Freudian notion of ‘moving on’ after loss. The passage from one individual ‘ombra’ in Ossi di seppia to the plurality of the ‘care ombre’ in all of the following collections is shown here to delineate the exceptional continuity that marks Montale’s œuvre from the very beginning of his poetic journey. This thesis chooses to dialogue with existent scholarship by shifting the focus onto the textual aspect, making it the centre of analysis. This allows the shedding of further light onto specific poetic strategies of the Montalean exploration of the boundaries between life and death, and onto his very individual eschatology.

Advisor: Tandello, E
The Okeovers c.1100 - c.1300: a gentry family and their cartulary

This thesis studies the history of a family whose later generations were to become quintessential members of the gentry and how they managed their lands and lives. It is based on the early-fourteenth century cartulary left by Sir Roger of Okeover. The cartulary was probably motivated by Roger’s childhood experience of the disputes over the wardship of himself and his lands. The cartulary is supplemented by cognate sources including the cartulary of the Abbey of Burton upon Trent and original documents. These provide an exceptional record stretching back to the early twelfth century and beyond. Chapter 3 argues that the origins of the Okeovers and their occupation of the manor of Okeover, held from the Anglo-Saxon Abbey of Burton, probably predate the Conquest. The Okeovers held lands from several individuals and institutions. Most of the land probably had origins before the Conquest and was held on a basis that later came to be categorised as socage tenure. This differs from land held by military service, a tenurial practice probably introduced by the Normans. This distinction was particularly important in cases of wardship. Chapter 4 shows that the Okeover’s vertical social relationships with local magnates, particularly the Ferrers of Tutbury Castle, varied with the strength of the head of the Ferrers family at the time. Chapter 5 argues that the obligation to pay services in cash and to generate a cash income increased the relative independence of the family. Chapter 6 shows that support of younger siblings was an important objective resulting in horizontal alliances with other local families. Chapter 7 examines the problems of financial over-extension the family faced. This history of the Okeovers makes no claim to have produced results that necessarily apply more generally. It does, however, suggest that it would be productive to undertake further research into early twelfth-century deeds distinguishing tenures by socage from those by military service.

Keywords: Landholdings
Staffordshire
Cartulary
Gentry
Derbyshire
Social
Economic
Advisor: Thompson, B
The genetic regulation and subcellular dynamics of secretory and endolysosomal organelles of Drosophila secondary cells.

Secretory processes underpin the emergence of cellular diversity in complex multicellular organisms. However, our understanding of the basic mechanisms controlling the different secretory and endosomal compartments involved remains surprisingly incomplete. During my DPhil I have studied a specialised epithelial cell type in the male Drosophila accessory glands, the secondary cell, which contains unusually large intracellular compartments that are accessible to detailed morphological study. I characterise the organisation, ultrastructure and molecular composition of this cell’s secretory and endosomal compartments, and I employ specific Rab GTPases, conserved coordinators of membrane trafficking and identity, to define multiple compartmental subtypes.
By developing super-resolution and time-lapse microscopy approaches in these cells, I show that numerous intraluminal vesicles (ILVs) are formed within Rab11-labelled secretory compartments and released into the accessory gland lumen as exosomes, the first clear demonstration in eukaryotic cells of exosome biogenesis within a non-late endosomal compartment. Biogenesis of these ILVs is dependent on evolutionarily conserved Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport (ESCRT) 0-III genes and involves loading of compartment-specific cargoes. Work by others, some in collaboration with me, has shown that these novel mechanisms are conserved in human cells.
I show that dense-core granules, the structures employed to package proteins and other molecules destined for regulated secretion, form within large non-cored Rab6- positive compartments, in a process that seems to involve inputs from both the Golgi and recycling endosomal pathways. Further analysis has revealed roles for specific Rabs, for ILVs, and for the conserved fibrillar protein Mfas/TGFBI in different aspects of DCG formation. I also show that DCGs are not only secreted, but can also be degraded by fusion to acidic endosomal compartments. Remarkably, there is evidence that mammalian cells may employ all of these mechanisms and defects in these processes may be linked to diseases like cancer, diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders.
Hence my work has established a new system to study complex secretory mechanisms, which can now be developed to model specific disease processes in the future.
In summary, I have discovered several novel cell biological mechanisms controlling exosome biology, dense-core granule biogenesis, regulated secretion, and endolysosomal trafficking. Some of these already appear relevant to human health and disease, suggesting that the secondary cell system has considerable further potential for unravelling the fundamental processes underlying eukaryotic secretion in the future.

Keywords: 3D Structured Illumination Microscopy
Trafficking
Electron Microscopy
Endosome
Exosome
Rab GTPase
Fluorescence Microscopy
Lysosome
Secretion
Dense-Core Granule
Advisor: Wilson, C
Fragmentation and the European patent system: a substantive law perspective

Over fifty years after its original inception, the idea for a European unitary patent system has not yet been realised. Each attempt to introduce such a system has been met with fierce criticism. For the most recent proposal, the so-called unitary patent package, this tradition has continued.
One of the most significant issues at the core of a majority of criticisms is that the existing European patent system is fragmented and that the proposed system will further increase this fragmentation. The almost universal assumption of commentators has been that this is a shortcoming of the system. However, to date no proper consideration of the legitimacy of this assumption has been attempted. Commentators have not asked what might the consequences be for the European patent system if fragmentation is a significant feature of the proposed system.
This thesis considers the legitimacy of the assumption regarding the dangers of fragmentation for the European patent system, including substantive patent law. The conclusion reached has been that while fragmentation is a central feature of the existing European patent system, and is moreover likely to be a central feature of the proposed European unitary patent system, this is cause for neither criticism nor concern. On the contrary, fragmentation is not only an inherent feature of any European patent system, but also a desirable one. It is an inherent feature because no system has replaced the last, and rather than unifying the area, indirect law making has ensured a level of fragmentation. It is a desirable feature because the goals of European harmonisation and integration are not pursued entirely at the expense of national diversity.
The fragmentation that exists within the current and future European patent systems should not be perceived as a negative feature of those systems, but rather embraced as an inherent and positive feature of them.

Advisor: Pila, J
Uniqueness results for viscous incompressible fluids

First, we provide new classes of initial data, that grant short time uniqueness of the associated weak Leray-Hopf solutions of the three dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. The main novelty here is the establishment of certain continuity properties near the initial time, for weak Leray-Hopf solutions with initial data in supercritical Besov spaces. The techniques used here build upon related ideas of Calderón.
Secondly, we prove local regularity up to the at part of the boundary, for certain classes of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations, provided that the velocity field belongs to L∞(-1; 0; L3, β(B(1) &xcap; &Ropf;3 +)) with 3 ≤ β < ∞. What enables us to build upon the work of Escauriaza, Seregin and Šverák [27] and Seregin [100] is the establishment of new scale-invariant estimates, new estimates for the pressure near the boundary and a convenient new &epsiv;-regularity criterion.
Third, we show that if a weak Leray-Hopf solution in &Ropf;3 +×]0,∞[ has a finite blow-up time T, then necessarily limt↑T&verbar;&verbar;v(·, t)&verbar;&verbar;L3,β(&Ropf;3 +) = ∞ with 3 < β < ∞. The proof hinges on a rescaling procedure from Seregin's work [106], a new stability result for singular points on the boundary, suitable a priori estimates and a Liouville type theorem for parabolic operators developed by Escauriaza, Seregin and Šverák [27].
Finally, we investigate a notion of global-in-time solutions to the Navier- Stokes equations in &Ropf;3, with solenoidal initial data in the critical Besov space Ḃ-1/44,∞(&Ropf;3), which has certain continuity properties with respect to weak&ast; convergence of the initial data. Such properties are motivated by the strategy used by Seregin [106] to show that if a weak Leray-Hopf solution in &Ropf;3×]0,∞[ has a finite blow-up time T, then necessarily limt↑T &verbar;&verbar;v(·, t)&verbar;&verbar;L3(&Ropf;3) = ∞. We prove new decomposition results for Besov spaces, which are key in the conception and existence theory of such solutions.

Keywords: Weak-Strong Uniqueness
Analysis of PDEs
Harmonic Analysis
Regularity Theory
Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations
Advisor: Seregin, G
Kristensen, J
Characterization of UHRF2 (RNF107) as a novel sensor for DNA ICLs in the Fanconi Anemia Pathway

The Fanconi Anemia (FA) pathway is important for repairing interstrand crosslinks (ICLs) between the Watson-Crick strands of the DNA helix. An initial and essential stage in the repair process is the detection of the ICL. In a previous study, UHRF1 was identified as an ICL sensor in humans, it was shown that downstream repair factors were not recruited normally to the ICL in the absence of UHRF1. However, the mechanism underlying this process was unknown. Here, we report the identification of UHRF2, a paralogue of UHRF1, as an ICL sensor protein. We show that UHRF2 cooperates with UHRF1, to ensure recruitment of FANCD2 to the ICL. We show that a direct protein-protein interaction with FANCD2 is formed via the SRA domain of UHRF1, and a direct interaction is formed between UHRF2 and UHRF1. Moreover, we demonstrate that the essential monoubiquitination of FANCD2 is stimulated by UHRF1/UHRF2, by mediating its retention on chromatin. Taken together, we uncover the mechanism of FANCD2 activation by monoubiquitination via recruitment and retention at ICLs dependent on an interaction with UHRF1/UHRF2.

Advisor: Cohn, MA
Battery management systems with active loading and decentralised control

This thesis presents novel battery pack designs and control methods to be used with battery packs enhanced with power electronics. There are two areas of focus: 1) intelligent battery packs that are constructed out of many hot swappable modules and 2) smart cells that form the foundation of a completely decentralised battery management system (BMS). In both areas, the concept of active loading/charging is introduced. Active loading/charging balances the cells in a battery pack by loading each cell in proportion to its capacity. In this way, the state of charge of all cells in a series string remain synchronized at all times and all of the energy storage potential from every cell is utilized, despite any differences in capacity there may be. Experimental results from the intelligent battery show how the capacity of a pack of variably degraded cells can be increased by 46% from 97 Wh to 142 Wh using active loading/charging.
Engineering design challenges of building a practical intelligent battery pack are addressed. Start up and shut down procedures, and their respective circuits, were carefully designed to ensure zero current draw from the battery cells in the off state, yet also provide a simple mechanism for turning on. Intra-pack communication was designed to provide adequate information flow and precise control. Thus, two intra-pack networks were designed: a real time communication network, and a data communication network.
The decentralised control algorithms of the smart cell use a small filtering inductor as a multi-purpose sensor. By analysing the voltage across this filtering inductor, the switching actions of a string of smart cells can be optimised. Experimental results show that the optimised switching actions reduce the output voltage ripple by 83% and they synchronize the terminal voltages of the smart cells, and by extension, their states of charge. This forms the basis of a decentralised BMS that does not require any communication between cells or with a centralised controller, but can still achieve cell balancing through active loading/charging.

Keywords: BMS
MOSFET
Battery management system
MMC
Advisor: Howey, D
Capturing changes: applying the Oxford system to further understand the movement of metal in Shang China

The Bronze Age China presents to us a significant contrast to the rest of Eurasia in two aspects, the great commitment to the complicated bronze ritual vessels and the immense scale of production. Both features reached their zenith in the late Shang period in the late second millennium BC but left a delicate puzzle to archaeologists: through what trajectories was the metal moved and engaged with human societies in China?
The traditional approach is heavily confined to either cultural-historic paradigms or text-oriented researches. Whilst the increasing number of scientific studies in recent decades allows scholars to be more precisely focused on bronze artefacts, their sometimes overwhelming obsession on the provenance of metal provokes criticism in many ways.
Drawing from approximately 3000 alloying analyses, 1000 trace elemental data and 1100 lead isotopes, this thesis delivers a series of systematic comparative studies on copper-based artefacts with the newly developed Oxford system. The waning and waxing of various types of metal in different time and space depict a constantly and unpredictably changing pattern. People inhabited along the borderlands appeared to be greatly dependent on local supply of metal whereas Anyang undoubtedly absorbed metal from a variety of regions. Intriguingly, seen from the current database, very little evidence can be highlighted in support of some large-scale mixing or recycling, particularly for ritual vessels of top elites at Anyang. The newly discovered compositional difference of bronzes between Zhengzhou and Panlongcheng calls into question on the classical model on the relation between the two sites. Striking domination of clean copper in southwestern China shed new light on the issues of local production and local supply of metal.
In conclusion, the chemical and isotopic analyses of copper-based objects carry a huge amount of information not just on provenance but many others. People living in various parts of China had chosen differing strategies to obtain metal. The elaborate data structures are a result of a highly efficient and dynamic network supplying system. Through combining the changes in metal compositions with other archaeological information, it becomes viable to reveal more subtle knowledge about this remote world and give us better-defined questions.

Advisor: Pollard, M
Rawson, J
Modelling protein-protein interaction networks

Proteins, the main motors of the cell, are in charge of performing a diverse array of biological functions. They rarely perform those functions alone, but generally work as groups of proteins that through a complex array of interactions perform a single biological function. These complex interactions between different proteins are often analysed via network theory, where a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network is created considering each protein as a node and each of their interactions as edges.
Different approaches from the perspective of network analysis have been proposed to describe, analyse, and predict PPI networks. Some methods focus on the use of network summary statistics, community detection, random graph models, and machine learning procedures. However, despite the large effort invested in PPI network research, current models fail to describe well the structure of PPI networks. Small overrepresented subgraphs, which have been thought as the building blocks of networks, have been shown to be important patterns in gene regulatory networks, and there is evidence that suggests they may be evolutionarily conserved across the PPI networks of different organisms. Hence, a first step to better understand the structure of protein-protein interaction networks, is to describe how the local structure of these networks, accounted by the occurrence of small connected subgraphs, is created.
We approach this problem in two stages. In the first stage, we provide a framework to statistically assess if a random graph model can describe the occurrence of different small connected subgraphs observed in PPI networks. Then, by applying this framework we find that state-of-the-art network comparison methods based on subgraph counts struggle at finding similarities between networks that have different numbers of nodes or edges. Hence, in joint work with Dr. Anatol Wegner, Dr. Robert Gaunt, Professor Gesine Reinert, and Professor Charlotte M. Deane, we propose a novel network comparison method, NetEmd, that tackles this problem indirectly by proposing a method that is invariant to translations and rescalings of subgraph count distributions, and which is better able to detect similarities across networks with different number of nodes or edges.
In the second stage, we use NetEmd, along with three other state-of-the-art network comparison methods, to test the ability of several random graph models to describe the occurrence of subgraphs counts in the PPI networks of six organisms, and in multiple smaller sections of these networks. We find that the overall occurrence of small connected subgraphs could potentially be described by two network generation mechanisms operating in complementary sections of the PPI networks. In addition we find that cellular compartment-specific PPI networks can be potentially described by a single model that captures, with only two parameters, both, the common properties between the different cellular compartment networks, and their individual structural features.

Advisor: Reinert, G
Deane, CM
High resolution paleo-monsoon records from peninsular Indian speleothems

The Indian Summer Monsoon is a major component of the global climatic system. Stalagmites have a proven ability to provide information of such monsoon systems. In this thesis, examination of cave records and field work provides a framework of the spatial and temporal distribution of stalagmites in peninsular India. Stable oxygen isotope records from stalagmites are supported by trace element records. An aragonite stalagmite from the west coast of India suggests that changes in growth surface can effect precipitation through time available for dissolved inorganic carbon removal. Calculation of empirical partition coefficients from the aragonite stalagmite indicates that U/Ca, Sr/Ca and P/Ca ratios may be paleo-aridity indicators through the process of Prior Aragonite Precipitation. There may also be source and/or temperature control on the partitioning of Sr/Ca into the aragonite stalagmite. These are the first trace element measurements for stalagmites from peninsular India and some of the few available from aragonite stalagmites. The δ18O composition of a calcite stalagmite from central India that grew from 3130 to 2100 years BP is consistent with the hypothesis that δ18O is controlled by air parcel trajectory and amount of rainout between source and cave site. P/Ca and U/Ca records from this stalagmite provide information on past rainfall conditions. Correlation analysis of δ18O, P/Ca and U/Ca indicates that rainfall amount was not the dominant control on δ18O composition at this cave site. Examination of a stalagmite that has diagenetically altered from aragonite to calcite shows that the δ18O system is extremely susceptible to diagenesis. Sr/Ca and U/Ca of the primary aragonite are retained in secondary calcite. Higher Mg/Ca ratios in secondary calcite compared to primary aragonite indicates that diagenetic fluid adds material to the primary carbonate. The variation in U-Th ages are caused by differential addition and losses of U and Th isotopes.

Advisor: Henderson, G
Rickaby, R
Development and mechanistic investigations into metal-catalysed cycloisomerisation of enynamides

This thesis reports the work on investigations into the mechanism of palladium-catalysed enynamide cycloisomerisations (with Pd(OAc)2 / bis(benzylidene)ethylenediamine (bbeda) catalyst system in particular). Herein, it has been shown that the mechanism of this catalyst system is likely to proceed via a hydropalladation mechanism. In the course of study, we have uncovered the crucial influences of water, the pre-catalyst, and the ligand (bbeda) in this reaction. One of the key highlights is bbeda itself serves as a source of palladium(II) hydride during the reaction. In addition, kinetic isotope effects obtained from theoretical analysis are consistent with the experimental data. The computational studies also offer enhanced understanding in the stereoselectivity of the reaction...

Advisor: Anderson, E