VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Older single gay men: questioning the master narrative of coupledom

This thesis fills an important research gap in the sociology of ageing and life course, and the sociology of sexualities and intimacies by exploring the understudied experience of singlehood among older gay men. It is a qualitative study based on semi-structured in-depth life story interviews conducted with 25 self-identified gay men over the age of 50 who live in England and have been single for most of their lives.
The primary objective of the study is to investigate how older single gay men interpret and assign meanings to their lives in later life. In considering the role of narratives in bridging structure and agency, the thesis suggests that the older gay men’s narratives of singlehood need to be understood with reference to the master narrative in society that privileges couplehood. The master narrative undoubtedly informed and at times overshadowed the ways in which the older gay men understood their lives. But at the same time this thesis finds that the research participants engaged with the master narrative in a variety of creative ways – they did not only adopt, but also adapted and subverted the dominant story line.
These counter-stories do not only reproduce, but have the potential to reinvent, the meanings of relationships in contemporary societies. To achieve this, resources were needed in reframing the master narrative. From a life course perspective the thesis suggests that the older gay men’s earlier life experiences and current social locations influenced the narratives they told. Only some of the older single gay men were able to (re-)claim sexual citizenship while others were denied this. In addition, the older gay men’s story-telling was filled with ambivalence and ambiguities. As a whole, the thesis sees the older gay men’s stories as displaying agency within structure.

Keywords: older gay men
qualitative research
ageing and life course
singlehood
life story
sexuality
Advisor: Leeson, G
Incoherent neutron scattering studies of select inorganic systems

Spectroscopic measurements are detailed within this thesis, utilising incoherent neutron scattering to examine the dynamics of various condensed-matter systems, from nanosecond to sub-femtosecond timescales. The body of this work is divided into two distinct areas of research.
I. Nuclear Momentum Measurements of Multiple Masses
Deep inelastic neutron scattering (DINS) is used to probe the nuclear momentum distributions and kinetic energies of individual atomic species in sodium hydride (both in bulk and as nanoparticulates within a silica matrix), enriched lithium-7 fluoride and lithium tetra-ammoniate. Extension of DINS to examine heavier (M>4amu) nuclei is detailed, accomplished by the application of a simple stoichiometric fixing technique within the standard DINS theory and analysis protocols. The validity and accuracy of such simultaneous measurements are discussed.
II. The Dynamics of Coordinated Ammonia in Zeolite A
Inelastic neutron scattering (INS) and quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) are utilised in the examination of vibrational and stochastic dynamics of the ammonia molecule, as coordinated to the internal surface of a zeolite host. Both sodium and copper-exchanged forms of zeolite-A are studied, with proton-weighted, low energy phonon-modes and rotational processes being observed and assigned.

Keywords: inelastic neutron scattering
neutron compton scattering
dynamics
Advisor: Edwards, P
Archaic trade in the northern Aegean: the case of Methone in Pieria, Greece

Recent discoveries near the village of Nea Agathoupoli, in Pieria, Greece have revealed the remains of an ancient town, identifiable with the ancient town of Methone, a putative Eretrian colony founded, according to Plutarch, in ca. 733 BC. From the material excavated so far, the town’s zenith was in the Late Geometric and Archaic periods, well documented by the high amounts of imports from all regions of the ancient world, especially by imported transport vessels. The significant percentage of transport amphorae in comparison to that of fine pottery strongly indicates the settlement's commercial character and suggests that Methone was operating as a redistribution centre which supplied Macedonia's hinterland with goods. This study is based on unpublished pottery analyzed here, for the first time. Among the regions, whose products are most popular in Methone are Chios and Athens, although more Eastern Greek towns such as Samos and Miletus had trading relations with Methone, too. Settlers from the these regions may have established themselves in Methone, but the initiative for the foundation of the town was, most probably, taken by Euboeans, whose activity in the Northern Aegean, in the Geometric period, was strong. Alongside the abundant imported vessels, a large amount of locally made transport vessels was unearthed. These early archaic amphora types (early 6th century BC), which have also been found in other sites in the Northern Aegean and possibly Northern Ionia, have been known in literature by my study. The discovery of these local transport vessels reveals participation by the local population in trading transactions and manufacture of a product which was packaged and circulated among the Northern Aegean towns. A mixed cultural environment starts to form in archaic Methone and includes Euboeans, Eastern Greeks, local Thracians and others, including Macedonian neighbours. Having emerged as the most powerful military force of the area, the Macedonians residing in nearby Bottiaia, constantly expanding, were, arguably, involved in the commercial activities at Methone. This study suggests that because of Methone's geographical location and proximity to the capital of the Macedonian kingdom, Aigai (modern Vergina), Methone functioned as the capital's face to the sea, as the royal harbour of Macedonia, until it was destroyed by Philip II, in 354 BC when all activities related to trade moved to neighbouring Pydna. Methone's finds together with other Northern Aegean settlements mentioned in this study reveal how important, even indispensable, this part of the ancient world was to the commercial networks of the archaic Mediterranean. The Northern Aegean is, therefore, not only well integrated into networks connecting southern and Eastern Greece, Egypt and the Levantine coast, but constitutes a vital part of them from the 8th century BC, onwards.

Keywords: Ancient Macedonia
Ancient Euboeans
Archaic Greece
Trade
Amphorae
Ancient Greek Colonies of the Northern Aegean
Ancient Commerce
Methone
Geography and History of Ancient Macedonia
Advisor: Lemos, I
Within the limits: respectability, class and gender in Hyderabad

Drawing on twelve months of fieldwork in suburban Hyderabad, India, this thesis contributes to emerging debates on the Indian new middle classes and postcolonial middle classes more generally. I challenge images of a homogenous middle class enjoying the benefits of liberalization by highlighting the diversity in wealth, lifestyle and access to opportunities within this class sector. Contrary to the pervasive image of a hedonistic and morally corrupt new middle class, I assert the centrality of moral discourses to the construction of middle-class identity in Hyderabad. Middle-class Hyderabadis engage in moral discourses of ‘respectability’ and ‘open-mindedness’ in relation to caste, consumption, education, and women’s public and domestic roles. These discourses of morality are central to the reproduction of class and gender inequality as successfully balancing the demands of respectability and open-mindedness is particularly difficult for those with fewer resources such as the lower middle class and for women who are expected to embody authentic Indianness in their demure comportment, ‘traditional’ attire and commitment to ‘Indian’ family values, but are also liable to being judged ‘backward’ if their clothing and lack of education and paid employment are seen to be in conflict with fashion and open-mindedness. The focus on balance and compromise in middle-class Hyderabadis’ narratives echoes other work on postcolonial middle classes that has emphasised people’s efforts to adhere to local notions of respectable behaviour that are central to national identities while also attempting to align themselves with a ‘modern’ global consumer culture. In contrast to much of this literature, however, I challenge the notion that modernity and tradition, the local and the global are objects of desire in and of themselves and instead argue that they function as important reference points in discourses that legitimate the dominant position of men and those of upper class-caste status.

Keywords: education
social mobility
middle class
caste
gender
India
Advisor: Gellner, D
Still, C
Development of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in human heart at 3 Tesla

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a well established technique in clinical cardiology. Different MRI sequences are routinely used to assess cardiac anatomy, function, viability and other parameters that aid diagnosing cardiac disease. Conversely, cardiac magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), the only available method for a non-invasive study of human cardiac metabolism, has not evolved into a clinical tool yet. The combination of both techniques holds great potential to gain insight into the causality of cardiomyopathy diseases or other medical conditions with high cardiovascular risk profile, like diabetes or obesity and improve the clinical management of cardiac diseases.
Nowadays, high field clinical MR systems have the great potential of improving the low spatial and temporal resolution and reproducibility of MRS. The aim of this thesis was to develop and implement a cardiac 1H-MRS method at 3 T that can be applied in clinical routine for the assessment of creatine and lipid levels in the human myocardium. The methodological developments to advance cardiac MRS are presented first. A robust 1H-MRS method comprising an optimized single-voxel technique, phased-array coil combination routine, optimized water suppression, breath-hold averaging and post-processing methods were developed. First, reproducibility and feasibility of the method were validated in vivo by acquiring 1H-MRS of the liver in almost one hundred healthy subjects. Subsequently, myocardial lipids levels were obtained in healthy volunteers by single breath-hold 1H-MRS triggered to mid-diastole, showing good reproducibility in an acquisition time less than 12 s. The good spectral resolution achieved using this method was demonstrated by the ability to differentiate for the first time two pools of myocardial lipids in spectra from the septum of patients with suspected myocardial lipid excess. Finally, creatine levels for healthy volunteers were investigated using multiple breath-hold acquisitions. Thus, this study shows the practicality and feasibility to incorporate this rapid cardiac 1H-MRS method into clinical studies of the human myocardium.

Keywords: creatine
cardiac magnetic resonace spectroscopy
quantification
3 Tesla
lipid
Advisor: Schneider, J
Robson, M
Neubauer, S
The prediction of surface settlements due to tunnelling in soft ground

The investigation of various soil models for the prediction of surface settlement profiles due to the excavation of a single tunnel in soft ground is described in this thesis. Both analytical and numerical methods are used. Emphasis is placed on the establishment of the width of the predicted settlement trough. In the analytical analysis the ground is assumed to be an elastic halfspace. The problem is approached using two methods: (i) the application of a line load to model the uplift of soil caused by the excavation; (ii) the application of Sagaseta's method which models the soil deformation due to ground loss. For the numerical analysis of the tunnelling problem, the finite element program OXFEM is used. Finite element modelling for the simulation of tunnelling is investigated. The mesh size used in the analysis found to have an important impact on the computed results. Parametric studies using linear elastic and elastic-plastic models are carried out. The effect of stress and strain amplitudes on the behaviour of soil is also investigated. The non-linear elastic model assumes a power law between the elastic moduli and the mean effective stress, and represents the increase of stiffness with increasing stress amplitudes in the elastic region of the soil. The effect of strain amplitudes on the behaviour of soil is considered using an elastic-plastic model with nested yield loci and an outer von Mises surface. Both models have been implemented in OXFEM, and parametric studies on tunnelling are carried out using both models. Comparison between the computed results and existing empirical values of the widths of settlement troughs were carried out.

Keywords: settlement
tunnelling
Advisor: Houlsby, G
Burd, H
Fire, boycott, threat and harm: social and political violence within the local community. A study of three Munster counties during the Irish Civil War, 1922-23.

In its investigation of social and political violence during the Irish Civil War, this thesis tackles the diverse range of deliberate, frightening and harmful actions—largely neglected by military and political histories of the conflict—that surfaced in local communities in Ireland during 1922–23. Through a three-county study of Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, in the province of Munster, this thesis examines and explains violence perpetrated alongside and away from armed encounters between the anti-Treaty republican army and Free State forces. It identifies three main categories of violence: arson (the burning of houses, crops and infrastructure), intimidation (including boycott, damage to property, verbal and written threats, animal maiming, cattle driving and land seizure) and violence against the person (bodily damage or death through physical contact or the use of weapons). The thesis charts, where possible, the frequency of the violent act and, in exploring the symbolism and strategies involved in arson, intimidation and violence against the person, identifies two key functions of social and political violence. For one, targeted violence was used, during the Irish Civil War, to regulate community relations: state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing did not take place, but the religious and political minority (Protestants, ex-Servicemen and other British Loyalists) were deliberately persecuted, resulting in their flight from Munster. Land is another powerful motif in the thesis; the second key function of violence was to challenge attitudes towards rural issues and force redistribution outside the official channels. The thesis also places the Irish Civil War in perspective: the prolific bloodshed, sexual violence and gruesome torture witnessed in Central Europe, after World War I, did not become the norm in Ireland. Animals and private property bore the brunt of the severest actions in the three Munster counties. By bringing to light victims’ experiences of violence recorded in largely unexplored compensation claims, this thesis captures the complex questions of loyalty and identity—facing armed actors and officials, as well as civilians—that beset the violent and chaotic establishment of independent Ireland.

Keywords: Irish Civil War
social violence
Ireland
political violence
civil war
Advisor: Foster, R
Wilson, T
Numerical studies of field theories on random lattices

In this thesis we shall be concerned with the study of models which arise as a consequence of adopting discrete regularisations for various Euclidean space quantum field theories. Specifically, we employ a random triangulation of the continuum space, and define the fields only over nodes or links of the mesh.
Lattice field theories, together with the Renormalisation Group, are introduced in the first chapter. Continuum physics is shown to depend on the positions and stabilities of zeroes of the β-function, which in turn requires a knowledge of the critical behaviour of the associated statistical model.
In Chapter 2. we examine a theory of Dirac fermions in 2 + 1 dimensions on a random lattice. We investigate the behaviour of the 2-pt function and fermion condensate in the absence of any background gauge field. The results indicate certain doubling problems, generic to regular lattice formulations of fermion field theories, are evaded, at least at tree graph level. We then go on to examine the fermion vacuum currents in the presence of background fields with non-zero winding number. We are able to demonstrate the existence of a Chern-Simon's topological term in the gauge field effective action which yields parity violating vacuum currents. The magnitude of these are in agreement with certain continuum calculations.
The final chapter concerns the properties of random surfaces. The particular class of models chosen originate as discretisations of Polyakov's string. The partition function is approximated by a sum over all possible random triangulations and an integral over vertex positions. The sum over random lattices is intended to mimick the functional integral over intrinsic metrics encountered in the continuum, and the model may also be pictured as 2D quantum gravity coupled to a scalar field. We consider the phase structure of the models when two forms of extrinsic curvature are added to the standard action. Monte-Carlo simulation indicates that with one type of curvature term a strong 2nd order phase transition exists at finite coupling, leading to a new continuum limit for the model possessing long-range correlation properties. With the other type a much weaker higher order transition is observed. In this case the surface will be crumpled at long distance. We discuss the implications of these results for continuum surfaces.

Advisor: Wheater, J
The development of emotional rendering in Greek art, 525-400

This thesis explores the development of naturalistic rendering of emotion in the art of Greece through facial expression and body posture from 525 to 400. Why does emotional naturalism arise in the art of Greece, and in which particular regions? Why at this period? In which contexts and media? What restrictions on situation and type of figure can be interpolated or reconstructed?
The upper chronological limit is based on simple observation. It is about this time, in many media, that naturalistic emotional expression is employed, although there are exceptions that blur this line slightly. The lower limit marks a major historical turning point, a culmination in Beazley's chronology of Attic vase painting and a common dating threshold for small finds. Emotional expression accelerates from the fourth century, and requires a different set of questions. 400 is for this reason held as a strict end-point.
Many categories of physical object were considered; gems and coins did not offer substantial results, but are used for comparison. The rest have formed the armature of the thesis. Only original objects are included, as emotionality undergoes marked changes in Hellenistic and Roman copies. The first section treats publically-commissioned sculpture – sculpture integrated into architecture. The second section treats privately-commissioned sculpture, stone and terracotta; the third pottery: black-figure, red-figure and whiteground. Within these sections, material is arranged broadly chronologically. Human figures are the focus, and semi-humans such as Centaurs and satyrs are included; figures with essentially non-human faces such as the Gorgon are not.
Human anatomy is constant, so the method of analysis is physiological. Rather than putting facial expressions in folk terms – a frown, a smile – they are described anatomically for precision: by muscular contractions and extensions and their correspondent manifestations on the surface of the body. Moving beyond description to explanation, neurochemistry and psychology are the preferred tools, although neither discipline has a consensus on the nature of emotion or its expression. History, religion, location, maker, commissioner, viewer, medium and technique are brought to bear in order put expressivity in context.
An important methodological tool has been the separation of emotional 'input' and ‘output’. Output is the evocation or intended evocation of an emotional state in the viewer, and the thesis is constantly aware of the disconnect between the 'intended audience' and a modern one. It focuses instead on input – the methods used to render the inner state of the figures shown. This has twofold benefit: it avoids insurmountable subjectivity – one might laugh at the expression of fear on a maenad being raped by a satyr, while another might not – and allows for comparison across genre and medium.

Keywords: Emotions
Emotion in art
Emotion
Expression
Greek vases
Greek sculpture
Pathe
Iconography
Facial expression
Pathos
Physiognomy
Advisor: Kurtz, D
Macroscopic models of superconductivity

After giving a description of the basic physical phenomena to be modelled, we begin by formulating a sharp-interface free-boundary model for the destruction of superconductivity by an applied magnetic field, under isothermal and anisothermal conditions, which takes the form of a vectorial Stefan model similar to the classical scalar Stefan model of solid/liquid phase transitions and identical in certain two-dimensional situations. This model is found sometimes to have instabilities similar to those of the classical Stefan model. We then describe the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, in which the sharp interface is sm∞thedout′bythe∫roductionofanorderparameter,represent∈gtheνmberdensityof⊇rconduct∈ge≤ctrons.Byperformingaformalasymp→ticanalysisofthismodelasvariousparameters∈ittend→zerowef∈dt
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he≤ad∈gordersolutiondoes∈deedsatiythe
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rialStefanmodel.However,atthe≠xtorderwef∈dtheemer≥nceoftermsanalogous→thoseofsurface tension' and k∈eticunderc∞l∈g′∈thescalarStefanmodel.Moreover,thesurface energy' of a normal/superconducting interface is found to take both positive and negative values, defining Type I and Type II superconductors respectively. We discuss the response of superconductors to external influences by considering the nucleation of superconductivity with decreasing magnetic field and with decreasing temperature respectively, and find there to be a pitchfork bifurcation to a superconducting state which is subcritical for Type I superconductors and supercritical for Type II superconductors. We also examine the effects of boundaries on the nucleation field, and describe in more detail the nature of the superconducting solution in Type II superconductors - the so-called `mixed state'. Finally, we present some open questions concerning both the modelling and analysis of superconductors.