VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Cosmology, fashion, and good fortune: Chinese auspicious ornament in the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220)

This thesis studies ‘auspicious ornament’ in the tombs of Han dynasty China. It offers a new reading of highly decorated tombs found near the two imperial capital cities, Chang’an (Western Han) and Luoyang (Eastern Han), and the elite tombs in central and eastern China. The thesis argues that a system of varied decorations, motifs, and materials developed in the Han dynasty as a means to convey good wishes and engender favourable outcomes, such as protection and well-being in the afterlife, immortality, and blessings for offspring. It interprets the significance, functions, relevant historical perspectives, and symbolic associations of ornament in China through an account of ornamentation on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in tombs, which are contextualised within the cosmological and philosophical background of the Han period.
The transition to using more auspicious ornament in the Han period was related to the formation of correlative cosmology around the third century BC and Confucian rationalisation in the Western Han court, as well as other factors, including increasing concerns about an ideal afterlife. This is demonstrated through a critical analysis of pre-Han and Han dynasty historical sources to highlight the ideological development, and a contextual archaeological approach to the development of burial forms, materials and structures.
On this basis, the three main analytical chapters discuss ornament on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in Han tombs, all of which exhibit changes in their motifs and uses. The discussion compares relevant pre-Han discoveries to establish these changes and to reveal the potential origins of the auspicious ornament. The analysis also incorporates local and foreign traits in the material assemblage suggested to have been adapted by Han dynasty people as popular practices through communications both within the Empire and its border regions populated by outsiders. In addition, this thesis presents a theoretical interpretation of the material agency of objects to understand how ornament acted upon people, i.e. bringing auspiciousness. Overall, the thesis explores the Han repertoire of ornamental motifs which may have provided the basis for the development of the prominent concept of auspiciousness throughout Chinese art and culture.

Keywords: correlative cosmology
gold
immortality
good fortune
Han dynasty
ornament
fashion
China
Auspicious
jade
mural
Advisor: Hamerow, H
Rawson, J
Functional annotation of ion channel pores by molecular simulations

Ion channels constitute crucial components of biological membranes and represent a major class of pharmacological targets. In response to specific stimuli, conformational changes in these proteins may lead to expansion or constriction of the channel pore in its gate region(s) to permit or preclude transmembrane ion transport. With an increasing number of molecular structures being resolved for families of ion channels in alternative conformations, this thesis concerns the assessment of relative hydrophobicity of the pore lining to complement measurements of pore dimensions for predicting whether ion conduction is likely to be possible in each captured conformational state. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to examine the effect of hydrophobic gating, whereby the passage of water and ions through an apolar region may be energetically disfavoured without steric occlusion of the pore.
A hydrophobic gate was identified in the bestrophin-1 channel, with simulations upon in silico mutagenesis of its distinct pore-lining motif revealing a clear dependence of pore hydration on the polarity of the substituting amino acid. The combined influence of local hydrophobicity and pore radius was quantified based on simulations and machine learning-assisted analysis of 190 ion channel structures. A simple scoring model thus derived is able to rapidly detect the presence of hydrophobic barriers to permeation among channel structures. Evaluated against levels of ionic flux supported by channel structures, simulated via computational electrophysiology, the model performed reasonably reliably as a first indicator of ion channel conductive state. On the basis of the investigation, a three-tiered pipeline has been suggested to facilitate efficient annotation and classification of ion channel structures. This offers a starting point for more detailed functional and mechanistic studies. Furthermore, the approach is anticipated to be capable of aiding the design and engineering of peptide-based nanopores that contain switchable hydrophobic gates.

Advisor: Tucker, S
Sansom, M
Simulation and experimental results of an absorbent-enhanced ammonia synthesis reactor

This thesis investigates the design and performance of absorbent-enhanced ammonia synthesis reactors. The per-pass conversion of ammonia can be improved by the sequencing of ammonia synthesis catalyst and ammonia-selective absorbent beds in the reactor. A new perspective includes adjacent coupling and multi-bed coupled absorptive reactors which contributes to the exciting area of ammonia synthesis improvement. This type of reactors enable operation under conditions milder than those used in a traditional Haber-Bosch reactor. As part of the work a novel Ru catalyst with polar metallic oxide support was developed to meet the requirements of mild operating conditions of the absorptive reactor. An experimental unit was built to perform the synthesis of ammonia in a fixed-bed absorptive reactor, and an increased per-pass conversion was observed from experimental data. Mathematical models were also developed to provide insights into the reasons for the conversion improvement in the absorptive reactor. Our simulations of these two kinds of absorption-enhanced ammonia synthesis reactors contribute to their understanding and confirm the enhancement of their per-pass conversion. A preliminary mathematical model study of the adjacent coupling absorptive reactor was carried out first in which the influence of absorption on the per-pass ammonia conversion was linked to a hypothetical recycle stream. Based on the result of this preliminary model, a more detailed transient backflow cell model was developed to simulate the behaviour of the adjacent coupling absorptive reactor. Given the complexity of the reacting fluid through the fixed bed, a computational fluid dynamics simulation via ANSYS Fluent was also generated and resulted in similar results to those of the transient backflow cell model. On this basis, an improved absorptive reactor, i.e. the multi-bed absorptive reactor, was proposed and modelled in Fluent, achieving close to 100% per-pass conversion. This research improved the per-pass conversion of ammonia synthesis reactors and enabled milder operating conditions for process. Furthermore, a theoretical framework was provided through mathematical modelling for optimisation purposes.

Keywords: ammonia synthesis
mathematical model
absorptive reactor
Advisor: Banares-Alcantara, R
Tsang, SCE
Experiment in the architecture of Soviet mass housing, 1955–1990

This thesis explores professional practices and procedures within Soviet housing production in 1955–1990. The current history of late socialism suggests a mostly conservative view of Soviet public housing, with an emphasis on private flat construction for millions. The phenomenon of Soviet housing has been most commonly discussed within the framework of social history or ideological projection, yet has seldom been considered as part of architectural history, which by contrast has tended to operate within a narrative of singular monuments and exemplary practitioners, leaving standard (‘tipovye’) developments largely disregarded. The practice of standardised design is commonly perceived as an undesirable and uncreative activity, which leaves no space for an architect—it is literally considered as the end of architecture. This thesis argues that the architectural story of this understudied ‘bureaucratic modernism’ represents much more creative and influential development in the history of modern architecture as a whole. This thesis focuses on a particular typology—standardised and industrially produced large-panel ‘tower and slab’—which was used to provide over 50 million apartments in the Soviet Union. Looking at the evolution and adaptations of the typology, this thesis introduces complexity to the understanding of practices and procedures involved in standardised production, particularly by analysing the practices of ‘experimental design’: the design of new building types, carried out by scientific architectural institutes. Within post-war scientifically-oriented rhetoric, experiment emerged as an official category of projects intended to be a model for future examination prior to the start of the production of standard designs. A constant process of experimentation, used to develop new technical solutions or to articulate ambitions to transform society, reveals a hidden diversity beneath the perceived uniformity of Soviet housing. This thesis shows that these experiments, established as a vehicle for innovation, integration, and adaptation of housing, made housing more technically sound and responsive to the findings of sociologists.

Keywords: social project
mass housing
prefabrication
socialist
USSR
architecture
public housing
Advisor: Healey, D
Whyte, W
Between neutrality and solidarity: Swiss good offices in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979, the Swiss government initially concluded that as a neutral and unaffected country, Switzerland had no role to play in the crisis. However, not only did Switzerland begin to deliver humanitarian aid to the region in 1979, between 1982 and 1986, Switzerland also agreed to extend a protective power mandate to Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) on behalf of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In exchange for transferring these POWs to Switzerland for their internment, it was hoped that the ICRC would regain access to Afghanistan, from where it had been expelled in 1980. Finally, between 1990 and 1992, following the retreat of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the Swiss government accepted a request to mediate between a moderate faction of the Afghan resistance – commonly known as the mujahideen – and the Soviet-installed Afghan regime, both of which had remained at war after the Soviet retreat. This thesis asks, what the driving forces were behind this gradual evolution of policy and what this tells us about Switzerland’s role as a small neutral state during the last decade of the Cold War. It argues that between 1979 and 1992, the Swiss authorities gradually began to hope that their good offices might make a difference in the Afghan crisis. Moreover, they began to hope that this in turn could help tackle two underlying dilemmas in Swiss Cold War foreign policy: the predicament of diplomatic isolation that was inherent in permanent neutrality, and the resulting desire to compensate for this predicament by demonstrating solidarity vis-à-vis major developments of international politics. That said, this thesis shows that Switzerland’s involvement in Afghanistan highlighted rather than resolved these dilemmas. As such, it represented an instance of continuity, rather than change in Swiss foreign policy.

Keywords: Afghanistan
Red Cross
humanitarianism
Good Offices
Switzerland
Advisor: Deighton, A
Betts, P
Black bodies: racial representation and performance in Georgian-period drama

This thesis focuses on the shifting popular cultural representations of the black body in Georgian-period drama. It enquires into the form and function of the black body in a variety of theatrical racial representations (noble savage, grateful slave, comic servant, vengeful Moor, rebel slave, racial type). By analysing these specific manifestations of the black body in their historical contexts, the thesis reconstructs a narrative of the periodic shifts in the formalization of the black body from late Restoration drama through sentimental drama to melodrama and other illegitimate dramatic forms like pantomimes and monopolylogues. In this thesis, I argue that these black character types are but varying provisional solutions to the representational crisis of a liberal empire that is economically dependent upon the institution of slavery and the slave trade.
In considering the black body as a noble savage, the formal conflict between feudal notions of nobility and the more democratically sentimental notions of common humanity is staged in a manner in which popular narratives like Oroonoko and Inkle and Yarico were subtly altered, marking a shift from a noble body to a sentimental body during the eighteenth century. By the mid-eighteenth century, sentimental formalizations of the black body as grateful slaves and comic servants, under a representative regime of benevolent imperialism, supplanted the noble savage character. After the eruption of revolution in France, and Britain’s involvement in the Revolutionary Wars, the black body was reformulated as a melodramatic rebel slave, competing with other melodramatized performances of vengeful Moors and sentimental slaves. The melodramatization of the black body was accompanied by its increasing racialisation in the early-nineteenth century, with the emergence of the racial type, which was performed in freak shows, lampooned in racial burlesques, and ultimately challenged in the performance of monstrosity.

Keywords: Race
romantic drama
Georgian drama
black bodies
theatre
eighteenth century
representations
drama
nineteenth century
Advisor: Michael, T
The Dialectic of the sea and the desert: exile, commitment, and dissent in the novels of Abdulrahman Munif

This doctoral thesis explores and synthesizes the relationship between exile, commitment, and dissent in the novels of the late Saudi-Iraqi petroleum-economist and novelist, Abdulrahman Munif (‘Abd al-Raḥmān Munīf, 1933-2004). Munif, who transitioned from a career in politics to a career in literature in 1970, lived his entire life in a state of exile, a condition that significantly influenced the majority of his work. The Dialectic of the Sea and the Desert examines the thematic breadth of Munif’s literary corpus and the manner in which it was inherently guided by exile. I use the concept of commitment (itlizām/engagement) as the nucleus of the project, a question that lies at the core of the project’s whole. In turn, exile is at once the stimulant and the catalyst that drives a self-perpetuating cause and effect relationship, one that continues to inform and transform Munif’s evolving notions of intellectual commitment. Dissent is the natural outcome; the conclusion borne out of Munif’s socio-political and literary experiment of writing novels. As a medium, the novel is the vehicle that affords the writer the space to negotiate the aforementioned theoretical threads, while remaining committed to the representation of the popular strata in his works. As the title suggests, the two broad sub-regional divisions treated within the thesis are the Sea (the Arab Mediterranean, the Levant, Bilād al-shām) and the Desert (Arab Gulf, the Sahara, al-Khalīj al-‘arabī). The first half of the thesis, focusing on the Levant and Iraq, incorporates themes of migration and the formation of the native intellectual. By contrast, the second half, focusing on the Gulf and the North African Sahara, focuses on notions of ecologically oriented indigeneity and the history of the Petroleum industry as it is represented through literature. Each chapter should be considered an independent exploration of a genre and/or style of writing within Munif’s corpus rather than a continuation of the previous chapter. As such, each chapter utilizes its own set of methodologies and examines a number of fictional and non-fictional works from Munif’s writings. In spite of the differences between them, however, all chapters, like Munif’s books, are tied together by three common themes: exile, commitment, and dissent.

Keywords: Petroleum Economics
History of Oil
Abdulrahman Munif
Arab Mediterranean
Arabic Novel
Environmental Humanities
Syria
Commitment
Exile
North Africa
Dissent
Modern Arabic Literature
Iraq
Gulf
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Levant
Advisor: Omri, MS
Dissecting the immune environment in glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain tumour in adults. Unfortunately, it is also the most malignant, conferring a median survival of only 6 months, increasing to 14-24 months with maximal therapy. Despite much effort, there have been relatively little effective advances made for the treatment of GBM in the last decade. Immunotherapy, especially checkpoint inhibition, has revolutionised the management of some previously untreatable cancers, such as metastatic melanoma. However, such treatments have yet to be shown to have any significant effect for the treatment of GBM. This is in part due to the low tumour mutational burden and poor immunogenicity of this immune ‘cold’ tumour.
In this thesis I show that there are potential neoantigen encoding mutations, as well as a wide range of cancer testis antigens, that are not expressed or minimally expressed in GBM. Treatment of U87MG and GBM primary cell lines with the DNA methlytransferase inhibitor decitabine, leads to an increase in the expression of these immunogenic antigens due to hypomethylation. This increase in antigen expression leads to increased T cell recognition, activation and killing in a major histocompatibility complex – T cell receptor (TCR) dependent fashion. Further experiments are planned to translate these in vitro findings into an in vivo mouse model with a view to establishing a clinical trial.
Secondly, I also present single cell TCR sequencing data performed on primary and recurrent GBM samples from 13 patients. I show that the TCR diversity is much reduced in the tumour samples with many more expanded T cell clones. I further show that testing of the expanded TCR reveals some of these T cell clones are tumour reactive, but they are not the most significantly expanded clones. Further work is being undertaken to further characterise the tumour specific TCR identified in more detail as well as interrogate the clonal TCR seen in other patients.

Keywords: glioblastoma
tumour immunology
Advisor: Cerundolo, V
Another Ishin: Kunikida Doppo and the pursuit of freedom and equality in modern Japan

This dissertation uses the renowned literary writer Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908) to tell an unconventional story of war and revolution in modern Japan that was fought in order to safeguard human interiority from the Meiji state’s attempts to regulate and orient how and what people thought. Demonstrating his commitment to the principle of freedom and equality envisaged in the Meiji Ishin (‘Restoration’, 1868), it posits Doppo as a revolutionary. Specifically it articulates him as a cultural revolutionary since he chose to act in the field of literature, war journalism and publishing. This was a conscious choice to effect a transformation of human interiority in order to reinvigorate the progress after the Ishin that had become stagnant or even backward in the mid-Meiji period. In overturning our existing singular understanding of Doppo as a renowned literary writer of Meiji Japan (1868–1912), this thesis defies the longstanding concept of culture in the historiography of modern Japan as a category detached from politics. Rather, it illustrates that the realm of culture and thought, rather than the world of formal governmental politics, emerged as an important site for a great many people to pursue the betterment of society and mankind.
Focusing on the extensive—yet understudied—activities of Doppo and examining the kinds of sources that have been rarely studied in relation to him, this thesis gives entirely new historical significance to one of the most eminent cultural figures of Meiji Japan. As it situates him in the wider historical context, its rereading of Doppo is indicative of the broader current in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan, which will challenge us to rethink altogether this period of modern Japanese history. Reflecting Doppo’s interdisciplinary nature, it provides significant new insights into a range of phenomena including language, religion, visual culture, popular culture, wartime propaganda, and political thoughts of modern Japan and East Asia.

Keywords: intellectual history
transnational history
Kunikida Doppo
Japan
Advisor: Konishi, S
Aula communitatis: the community hall in England, c. 1400-1640

This thesis examines the architectural and contextual connections between twenty-nine extant late medieval and early modern community buildings to establish whether they are sufficiently similar to be identified as a single building type. The buildings are located across different regions of England, the South West and East Anglia, and demonstrate a whole range of historical and modern designations, including ‘church houses’, ‘guildhalls’, ‘town halls’, and ‘market houses’. Though the buildings are predominantly in rural settings, several in small towns are included. Together with the more frequently studied town halls and market halls of larger towns and cities, particularly from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, these permit an assessment of whether the building type can be applied across the town/country divide. Though buildings remain the primary source, the value of documentary and historical visual records is considered for their ability to provide images of lost or altered buildings, or details as to construction, plan-form, and use.
Previous research was found to be too narrow in scope to appreciate connections beyond artificial limits, such as analysis of individual buildings without reference to their wider architectural context, or buildings grouped by dint of their shared name (e.g. ‘Church Houses in…’) or their location in towns (e.g. urban ‘civic halls’). The study found a set of overarching characteristics relating to architectural form and plan with which the selected buildings across the towns and villages of South West and East Anglia conform, followed by a shared set of sub-areas in which variations occur. In addition, it was found that all the buildings are spatially, and most likely functionally, related to an extant or vestigial open space, such as a village square or marketplace. Not only does this have implications for function and use, but also for linking them to the similarly-sited buildings in larger towns.

Keywords: Devon
markets
vernacular architecture
Norfolk
Cambridgeshire
Somerset
architecture
Essex
buildings
Dorset
community
guildhall
architectural history
church house
economy
Cornwall
Suffolk
trade
Advisor: Gemmill, E
Barnwell, P