VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The neuroendocrine control of gonadotrophin secretion in the female rat with special emphasis on the effects of continuous exposure to light

The effects of constant light (LL) exposure on different patterns of gonadotrophin release have been studied in the female rat. Exposure of animals with regular oestrous cycles to LL during the 3 days preceding pro-oestrous, results in a 3 h delay and a 40% reduction in the height of the pro-oestrous LH surge. This delay and reduction may involve a reduction in the sensitivity of the hypothalamo- hypophysial complex to oestradiol and progesterone. Diurnal and pulsatile patterns of LH release (seen in ovariectomized rats in the presence and absence of oestradiol) are driven by different neural mechanisms; LL inhibits diurnal but not pulsatile LH release. Analysis of tissue using HPLC suggests that in the suprachiasmatic nucleus alterations in the release and reuptake mechanisms of 5-HT may contribute to the loss of diurnal LH release. The pulsatile LH release found in rats ovariectomized after 60 days in LL, exhibits a lower mean plasma LH concentration, pulse amplitude, and pituitary responsiveness to LHRH, than rats ovariectomized in LD. Injection of oestradiol into gonadectomized animals shows that the centres upon which oestradiol acts to inhibit pulsatile LH release, are neither sexually differentiated nor affected by neonatal inhibitory action of oestradiol. LH release after progesterone treatment in LL exposed female rats, is accompanied by increases in the pituitary responsiveness to LHRH and the magnitude of the priming effect of LHRH. Analysis of plasma steroid concentrations after mating in females exposed to LL, suggests that progesterone may potentiate matinginduced ovulation. Studies using female rats with spontaneous degeneration of the retina, show that the effects of LL on gonadotrophin secretion are due to effects upon the brain, and are not a consequence of retinal degeneration.

Advisor: Fink, G
An archaeology of memory: the 'reinvention' of Roman sarcophagi in Provence during the Middle Ages

This thesis is an exercise in the archaeology of memory. It investigates the reuse and ‘reinvention’ of late antique sarcophagi during the Middle Ages in the southern part of Gaul, with a particular emphasis on their reinvention for saints. The region of Provence has a large number of sarcophagi reused for the burial of saints (at least 20), including many of its most important holy figures such as Mary Magdalene, Cassian and Honorat.
I shall analyse three groups of sites: the Alyscamps in Arles, Saint-Maximin and Tarascon (the sites connected with Mary Magdalene and her companions) and the monastery of Saint Victor in Marseille. In each case, the sarcophagi became part of an invented narrative created around the imagined antiquity of the site. These narratives varied significantly: some were monastic, others episcopal or biblical, still others heroic: but all were created around antique sarcophagi. Antiquities thus became monumental realms of memory for individuals and events that were thought to have been of significant historical importance in Provence. They formed part of the popular history and collective identity of the region. I will show that their association with saints changed the very function of these objects, as many were no longer seen simply as tombs but also as relics in their own right.
I use a variety of sources to help reconstruct this imagined history, particularly saints’ vitae that often provide information about cults, particularly regarding the location of sarcophagi and sometimes even details of miracles that they produced, but also medieval chartae, sermons, and pilgrims’ descriptions of sites and rituals.
The results of this study show that sarcophagi were of major importance in the religious history of Provence during the Middle Ages, as they became "proof" of the antiquity of local cults and of the histories based on these legends that the region created for itself. My work contributes to our knowledge of medieval Provence and the history of its collections of sarcophagi.

Keywords: Provence
sarcophagi
Roman
Middle Ages
medieval
Advisor: Elsner, J
Essays on semantic content and context-sensitivity

The thesis comprises three foundational studies on the topics named in its title, together with an introduction.
Ch. 1 argues against a popular combination of views in the philosophy of language: Propositionality, which says that the semantic values of natural language sentences (relative to contexts) are the propositions they express (in those contexts) and Compositionality, which says that the semantic value of a complex expression of a natural language (in a context) is determined by the semantic values its immediate constituents have (in that same context) together with their syntactic mode of combination. Ch. 1 argues that the Naïve Picture is inconsistent with the presence of variable-binding in natural languages.
Ch. 2 criticizes the strategy of using “operator arguments” to establish relativist conclusions such as: that the truth values of propositions vary with time (Time Relativism) or that they vary with location (Location Relativism). Operator arguments purport to derive the conclusion that propositions vary in truth value along some parameter P from the premise that there are, in some language, sentential operators that operate on or “shift” the P parameter. I identify two forms of operator argument, offer a reconstruction of each, and I argue that both they rely on an implausible, coarse-grained conception of propositions.
Ch. 3 is an assessment of the prospects for semantic internalism. It argues, first, that to accommodate Putnam’s famous Twin Earth examples, an internalist must maintain that narrow semantic content determines different extensions relative to agents and times. Second, that the most thoroughly worked out version of semantic internalism – the epistemic two-dimensionalism (E2D) of David Chalmers – can accommodate the original Twin Earth thought experiments but is refuted by similar thought experiments that involve temporally or spatially symmetric agents.

Keywords: Compositionality
Variable binding
Narrow content
Quantifiers
Two-dimensionalism
Semantics
Semantic externalism
Semantic internalism
the a priori
Relativism
Operators
Advisor: Hawthorne, J
Cian, D
Gentlemen revolutionaries: power and justice in the new American Republic, 1781-1787

In the aftermath of the American revolution, elites sought to defend their power and status against newly empowered popular governments and egalitarian demands. They developed new discursive and political strategies, transforming pre-revolutionary ideas about authority and legitimacy, moving from traditional forms of hierarchy based on deference and allegiance, towards a structure of power relations based on the inviolability of property and contractual rights. A new American ruling class began to constitute itself through these strategies and ideas during the 1780s, replacing structures of British imperial rule. It did so in response to threats from popular and (white male) egalitarian politics—that is, class struggle and class formation drove each other. Both, in turn, generated identities and ideologies that were central to the development of capitalist ideology in the following century.
This thesis gives an account of that process from the perspective of a variety of American elites, focusing on the fragmented and contradictory nature of elite discourse and strategy as well as on the emergence of commonalities and the role of class interests. It deals with the formation and early controversy around the Society of the Cincinnati; with the development and debate over new conceptions of public education; with the elaboration of various legal and discursive mechanisms for the defence of property rights; with the interrelated roles of land claims, banking, corporations, and the rights of contract; and with the elite sense of the dual threat posed both by state legislative democracy (tyranny) and by rural insurrection (anarchy). It also assesses the role of the 1787 constitutional convention within this process, as a radical move that can be seen as both a culmination and a break from prior elite strategy.

Keywords: early American Republic
United States of America
American revolution
Advisor: Thompson, P
Cole, N
An investigation of neural and behavioural substrates of pathological gambling as an addictive disorder

Pathological gambling is a maladaptive behaviour associated with diminished self-control over persistent compulsive gambling behaviour despite negative consequences. A significant revision to the clinical perspective of pathological gambling is underway, and the disorder will likely be recognized as a behavioural addiction in the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, the neurobiological, cognitive and behavioural processes that drive a ‘behavioural addiction’ are unclear.
A series of five studies were conducted to investigate cognitive mechanisms associated with neural and behavioural substrates of addictive processes in disordered gambling. Studies 1 through 3 investigated neurobiological correlates of addiction in individuals with pathological gambling as compared to individuals with cocaine dependence, and as compared to non-addicted healthy controls. Study 1 investigated brain activity associated with anticipatory and consummatory reward processing during slot-machine gambling. Study 2 investigated executive control processes by examining functional brain networks associated with loss-chasing behaviour. Study 3 employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to explore alterations in grey-matter volumes in individuals with addictive disorders. Studies 4 and 5 investigated the behavioural substrates of addiction in regular gamblers utilizing emerging and novel research techniques. Study 4 examined continuous hand motion trajectories to explore approach biases and implicit processing. Study 5 employed an adaptive testing methodology to explore the influence of gaming machine preferences on cognitive processes and gambling behaviour.
Research identified neurobiological and behavioural substrates of gambling-related beliefs and biases that indicate significant contributions of cognitive mechanisms to the development and persistence of a behavioural addiction. Results suggest addictive disorders may share some common features of anticipatory reward processing and brain structure (Studies 1 and 3), while neural signals associated losing outcomes and decision-making during gambling may be specific to disordered gambling (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, cognitive distortions in regular gamblers may influence reinforcement and executive control processes (Study 4), and individual preferences for gaming speed may influence cognitions and behaviour during machine gambling.
As additional psychological disorders are being considered for classification as behavioural addictions, and clinicians will be faced with the challenges of treating individuals with these non-substance-related addictive disorders, a better understanding of behavioural addictions, through the study of disordered gambling, will be essential under the new diagnostic framework.

Keywords: disordered gambling
addictions
pathological gambling
substance use disorders
Advisor: Rogers, RD
Cosmology with power spectrum measurements from galaxy surveys

The nature of dark matter and dark energy are currently two of the most important questions in cosmology. In this thesis, we consider studying the dark universe with the redshifts and peculiar velocities of galaxies. In the first half of the thesis, we analyse current peculiar velocity measurements of the bulk flow of our local volume to estimate the underlying dark matter power spectrum. In the second half of the thesis, we consider the prospects for measuring dark matter and dark energy with future galaxy redshift surveys, particularly via redshift space distortions. Fundamentally, bulk flow measurements and redshift space distortions are both sensitive probes of the power spectrum and growth rate of cosmic structure. In the final chapter, we directly compare power spectrum measurements with both methods.

Keywords: peculiar velocities
dark matter
galaxies
cosmology
dark energy
Advisor: Dalton, G
Ferreira, P
Shakespearean arrivals: the irruption of character

This thesis re-examines Shakespeare’s creation of tragic character through the concept of ‘arrivals’. What arrives is not an ‘individual’ but what I call a ‘subject’, which is a diffused dramatic process of arriving, rather than a self-contained entity that arrives in a final form. Not all characters are ‘subjects’. A subject only arrives through dramatic ‘events’ that rupture the existing structures of the play-world and the play-text. The generators of these irruptions are found equally in the happenings of plot and in changes of poetic intensity and form. The ‘subject’ is thus a supra- individual irruption that configures new forms of language, structure, and action. Accordingly, I explain why scrupulous historicism’s need for nameable continuums is incommensurate to the irruptive quality of Shakespearean character.
The concepts of ‘process’, ‘subject’ and ‘event’ are informed by a variety of thinkers, most notably the contemporary French philosopher Alain Badiou. Badiou develops an ‘evental’ model of subjectivity in which the subject emerges in fidelity to a ‘truth- event’, which breaks into a situation from its ‘void’. Also important is the process- orientated philosophy of Bergson and Whitehead, which stresses that an entity is not a stable substance but a process of becoming. The underlying connection between the philosophers I embrace – also including the likes of Žižek, Kierkegaard, Latour, Benjamin, and Christian thinkers such as Saint Paul and Luther – is that they establish a creative alternative to the deadlock between treating the subject as either a stable substance (humanism) or a decentred product of its place in the world (postmodernism). The subject is not a pre-existing entity but something that comes to be. It is not reducible to its cultural and linguistic circumstances but is precisely what exceeds those circumstances. Such an excessive creativity is what gives rise to Shakespeare’s subjects and, I argue, underpins the continuing force of his drama. But it also produces profound dangers. In Shakespeare, ‘events’ consistently expose subjects to uncertainty, catastrophe, and horror. And these dangers imperil both the subject and the relationship between Shakespeare and the affirmative philosophy of the event.

Keywords: AC Bradley
rupture
Macbeth
drama
Cavell
Kierkegaard
Hamlet
event
subject
King Lear
arrival
tragedy
Zizek
Bergson
Shakespeare
void
Whitehead
Badiou
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
character
dramaturgy
criticism
Advisor: Palfrey, S
Euripides' Trojan women

In this dissertation, I approach the interpretation of a classical text in performance by examining the practical elements (directorial and design choices: set, costumes, lighting, music, etc.) and promotional materials (programmes, press releases, photographs, etc.) for a selection of significant test cases in order to determine how these production decisions engage with external factors of political, intellectual, and cultural import. Trojan Women is a particularly useful case study to explore within the parameters of this method because the dynamism and immediacy of the play is most powerfully articulated when production choices allow for it to be wielded as a weapon of protest or reaction against contemporary policy, especially the waging of war. Using a chronological approach, this analysis of Trojan Women as a text for performance provides a broad and in-depth discussion of the reception of the play in the twentieth century, the period in which the ancient text was most frequently performed. Through the investigation of several influential productions on the international stage, and through an examination of the roles of key players (particularly Gilbert Murray and Jean-Paul Sartre), Trojan Women emerges as a play that offers theatre artists a unique and effective forum for debating issues of human responsibility in times of war a central theme in the play and a considerable preoccupation during a century of armed conflict. Chapter One discusses how the play was used to criticize imperial activity and promote ideological causes in the first half of the century. Chapters Two and Three draw attention to a major cluster of performances reflecting the spirit of international war protest in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter Four addresses productions of the play affected by delayed responses to the Holocaust. Chapter Five features performances in the 1990s that respond to crises of civil conflict and genocide.

Advisor: Taplin, O
Tumour vessel structural analysis and Its application in image analysis

Abnormal vascular structure has been identified as one of the major characteristics of tumours. In this thesis, we carry out quantitative analysis on different tumour vascular structures and research the relationship between vascular structure and its transportation efficiency.
We first study segmentation methods to extract the binary vessel representations from microscope images. We found that local phase-hysteresis thresholding is able to segment vessel objects from noisy microscope images. We also study methods to extract the centre lines of segmented vessel objects, a process termed as skeletonization. We modified the conventional thinning method to regularize the extremely asymmetrical structure found in the segmented vessel objects. We found this method is capable to produce vessel skeletons with satisfactory accuracy.
We have developed a software for 3D vessel structural analysis. This software is consisted of four major parts: image segmentation, vessel skeletonization, skeleton modification and structure quantification. This software has implemented local phase-hysteresis thresholding and structure regularization-thinning methods. A GUI was introduced to enable users to alter the skeleton structures based on their subjective judgements. Radius and inter branch length quantification can be conducted based on the segmentation and skeletonization results. The accuracy of segmentation, skeletonization and quantification methods have been tested on several synthesized data sets.
The change of tumour vascular structure after drug treatment was then investigated. We proposed metrics to quantify tumour vascular geometry and statistically analysed the effect of tested drugs on normalizing tumour vascular structure.
finally, we developed a spatio-temporal model to simulate the delivery of oxygen and 3-18 F-fluoro-1-(2-nitro-1-imidazolyl)-2-propanol (Fmiso), which is the hypoxia tracer that gives out PET signal in an Fmiso PET scanning. This model is based on compartmental models, but also considers the spatial diffusion of oxygen and Fmiso. We validated our model on in vitro spheroid data and simulated the oxygen and Fmiso distribution on the segmented vessel images.
We contend that the tumour Fmiso distribution (as observed in Fmiso PET imaging) is caused by the abnormal tumour vascular structure which is further aroused from tumour angiogenesis process. We depicted a modelling framework to research the relationships between tumour angiogenesis, vessel structure and Fmiso distribution, which is going to be the focus of our future work.

Keywords: computer simulation on GPU
vessel image segmentation and skeletonization
vessel structure quantification
spatiotemporal pharmacokinetic modelling
Advisor: Brady, M
Kelly, C
Protection of debtors on assignment under English and French law and the principles of European Contract Law

In an economy where the importance of receivables is continually increasing, the legalrules governing assignment can no longer be confined within national boundaries. Recently, several international texts with provisions on assignment have been adopted,including the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) and their heir presumptive,the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). These texts can be seen as intending to facilitate assignment and therefore to favour indirectly assignees, whereas traditionally English and French law seek to ensure an effective protection of debtors, though in different ways and to different extents. As the Principles of European Contract Law or the Draft Common Frame of Reference may in the future have a direct impact on English and French private law, including the law of assignment, it is important to assess their impact on the protection of debtors as compared to these two existing national laws. Three levels of protection of debtors can be distinguished: the legal and contractual restrictions on assignment, the determination of the quantum of the right assigned and the determination of the person entitled to performance. This tripartite comparative analysis reveals several remarkable common points between English and French law, most notably in the area of the defences available to debtors on assignment. The PECL replicate these convergences and generally do not bring any major innovations on the protection of debtors. By setting clear and detailed rules for aspects of assignment still unsettled in national laws, the PECL contribute to the increase of legal security and indirectly improve the debtors’ situation. However, the inherent limited scope of international academic texts and the complexity of assignment prevent the PECL from having an even more considerable impact on the progress of the protection of debtors in English and French law.

Advisor: Whittaker, S
The road not taken?: a longitudinal and interdisciplinary examination of energy behaviours

Albert Einstein believed “we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” This quote, in my opinion, is particularly relevant for the academic literature that examines individual energy use. I believe that we have historically taken a categorized approach towards looking at individual energy use. Instead of thinking about multiple behaviours widely, we tend to look at individual behaviours deeply - focusing on electricity use, gas use, or travel behaviour in isolation instead of examining them simultaneously. For this reason, this thesis explores if and how an intervention aimed at one energy behaviour may influence or have untargeted effects on other energy behaviours across household energy use and personal travel behaviour from an interdisciplinary research perspective. The relevant literature is reviewed and an innovative methodology is devised to answer the research questions. By examining quantitative and qualitative data, the thesis evaluates the targeted and untargeted effects of an electricity display study across household energy and travel behaviours, assesses the influence that social and technical experiences with the display may have on behaviour, and explores how individuals conceptualize their energy usage to better understand untargeted effects. The findings indicate that 1) in a sample of 19 participants, 15 had untargeted effects in gas and 4 had untargeted effects in gas and travel, 2) the combined effect of social and technical experiences with the display can explain why an untargeted effect did or did not take place, and 3) participants perceived household energy as a resource but perceived travel as a means to move from one place to another. These findings lead to the development of a novel contribution of this research, known as the tangential effect. Contributions to theory and policy, an assessment of the methodological approach, and future research areas are given.

Keywords: behaviour Change
environment
energy
Advisor: Banister, D
Brand, C