VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Quixotic exceptionalism: British and US co-narratives, 1713-1823

Scholars have long since identified a quixotic mode in fiction, acknowledging the widespread influence of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605-15) on subsequent texts. In most cases, “quixotic” signifies a preponderance of allusions to Don Quixote in a given text, such that most studies of “quixotic fictions” or “quixotic influence” are primarily taxonomic in purpose and in outcome: they name and catalogue a text or group of texts as “quixotic,” then argue that, by virtue of the vast and protean influence of Don Quixote, the quixotic mode in fiction is always divided, lacking any semblance of ideological consistency. I argue, however, that the very characteristics of Don Quixote that make him such an attractive literary model for such a broad range of narratives—his bookish idealism, his fixation on the upper-classed grandiosity of the lives of noble knights—also form the consistent, ideological groundwork of quixotism: the exceptionalist substitution of fictive idealism for material reality. By tracing the ways in which quixotes become mouthpieces for various exceptionalist arguments in eighteenth-century British and American texts, like Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews (1742), Tobias Smollett's Launcelot Greaves (1760), Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752), Hugh Henry Brackenridge's Modern Chivalry (1792-1815), and Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive (1797), among others, I demonstrate the link between quixotism and exceptionalism, or between fictive idealism and the belief that one (or one's worldview) is an exception to the scrutiny of the surrounding world.

Keywords: Don Quixote
novel
transatlantic
exceptionalism
eighteenth century
quixote
quixotic
Cervantes
Advisor: Gerrard, C
Ballaster, R
Royal sculpture in Egypt 300 BC - AD 220

The aim of this thesis is to approach Ptolemaic and Imperial royal sculpture in Egypt dating between 300 BC and AD 220 (the reigns of Ptolemy I and Caracalla) from a contextual point of view. To collect together the statuary items (recognised as statues, statue heads and fragments, and inscribed bases and plinths) that are identifiably royal and have a secure archaeological context, that is a secure find spot or a recoverable provenance, within Egypt. I then used this material, alongside other types of evidence such as textual sources and numismatic material, to consider the distribution, style, placement, and functions of the royal statues, and to answer the primary questions of where were these statues located? what was the relationship between statue, especially statue style, and placement? And what changes can be identified between Ptolemaic and Imperial royal sculpture?
From analysis of the sculptural evidence, this thesis was able to create a catalogue of 103 entries composed of 157 statuary items, and use this to identify the different styles of royal statues that existed in Ptolemaic and Imperial Egypt and the primary spaces for the placement of such imagery, namely religious and urban space. The results of this thesis, based on the available evidence, was the identification of a division between sculptural style and context regarding the royal statues, with Egyptian-style material being placed in Egyptian contexts, Greek-style material in Greek, and Imperial-style statues associated with classical contexts. The functions of the statues appear to have also typically been closely related to statue style and placement. Many of the statues were often directly associated with their location, meaning they were an intrinsic part of the function and appearance of the context they occupied, as well as acting as representations of the monarchs. Primarily, the royal statues acted as a way to establish and maintain communication between different groups in Egypt.

Keywords: Hellenistic
Ptolemies
Ptolemaic
sculpture
Romans
Imperial
archaeology
Egyptian
statues
art
Advisor: Smith, R
Baines, J
Capital city and subject province

Between the conquest of Padua in 14O5 and its temporary rebellion in 1509, Venice built the strongest territorial state in Italy, expanding its apparatus of government to incorporate originally heterogeneous lands into an administrative whole. Military defeat in 1509 allowed Padua's secession, an anachronistic return to separate identity motivated by its political class's resentment at subjection to Venice: denied representation in mainstream public life, they enjoyed illusory local administrative autonomy.
In military terms Padua's passage under Venetian rule was marked by the adaptation of the terraferma provinces' systems of defence to their new territorial configuration, achieved firatly by the creation of a permanent, professional army. Its units had no particular territorial affiliation; their recruitment, conditions of service and dislocation were decided by central authority. The province of Padua, strategically placed in the terraferma, served to accomodate companies in transit and long-term billetting, and to supply conscript auxiliary forces. Local fortifications were of secondary importance, and in consequence poorly maintained.
The army was the main recipient of terraferma taxation, which was dogged by organizational difficulties, in the assignment of income to spending, and in co-ordination between capital and provinces, with a frequent excess of expenditure over effective revenue. Gross imbalance in the distribution of taxation, with delay and abuse in its collection, characterized Padua's fiscal system. Growing intervention by central government, and the diminution of Paduans' residual fiscal competence, were the constant elements in Venice's largely unsuccessful remedial action. Tax therefore became a point of conflict; Venice grew impatient with Paduan inefficiency and illwill, the Paduan political class showed anger at encroachment by Venetian authority, and fear for the loss of the city's fiscal privilege.
Pétrus Borel

Petrus Borel was a minor, French Romantic author who was involved with a small group of artists, the 'Petit cenacle', writing and working in early 1830s Paris. They styled themselves on the more famous 'Cenacle', but were more than imitators of the great names of the Romantic movemement. Members of the 'Petit cenacle', which included the young Gautier and Nerval, took their cues from the major figures of the movement, but often pushed the enthusiasm for aesthetic reform, the colorful exoticism and the rebelliousness of Romanticism far beyond what the major figures were willing to attempt. The 'Petit cenacle' became associated in the mind of the public with a small number of groups of political and artistic militants, whose period of greatest activity coincided with the upheaval in the few years following the July Revolution, and with the Romantic battles in the theatre. Borel's group was often confused with the bousingos, [1] a species of young political conspirator, and was at times synonymous with the jeunes-France, young men whose Romantic and medievalist literary pretensions were often nuanced with Utopian socialism or republicanism. The 'Petit cenacle' was well known and documented for its use of provocative political rhetoric, in addition to the group's tendency to express its ideals through raucous behaviour and outlandish costumes. In recent years, these minor Romantics have been considered important for having brought the aesthetic principles of Romanticism into play in everyday life. They were at turns idealistic, violently polemical and republican, or aggressivelyfatalistic as suited their ever-changing desire to shock the middle-class and the reading public. [Continues in thesis] 1There are a number of spellings of the word bousingo: bousingot. and bouzingot are both common variations. I shall discuss the etymology later in the first chapter. Throughout the thesis, I will employ the form that was agreed upon by the members of Borel's literary group, bousingo.
Strategic placement of viscous dampers for seismic structural design

Seismic design with viscous devices is an effective means of dissipating seismic energy and protecting the main structural system from permanent damage. Despite numerous damper placement methods available, there lacks consensus on the best method, thus leaving design engineers without recommended placement strategies.
The purpose of this research is to investigate strategic placement of viscous dampers for seismic design and to offer design recommendations for placing dampers, vertically and horizontally. Five damper placement techniques were selected for investigation, including standard methods, Uniform and Stiffness Proportional damping, and advanced methods, the Simplified Sequential Search Algorithm (SSSA method), the Optimal Damper Placement for Minimum Transfer Functions (Takewaki method), and the Fully-stressed Analysis/Redesign method (Lavan A/R method). Effectiveness of the techniques for distributing linear fluid viscous dampers for two building examples was evaluated under a suite of twenty ground motions, two seismic hazard levels, and in terms of peak interstorey drifts, absolute accelerations, and residual drifts using nonlinear time history analysis. The advanced methods showed comparable performance based on performance indicators. Therefore, usability is recommended as the selection criteria. The Lavan A/R method was found to be the most effective and usable method. It is recommended that multiple design ground motions be used for the SSSA Mode and Lavan A/R methods as well as caution against removal of upper storey damping, which prompts susceptibility to larger roof drifts due to higher-mode effects.
Various brace-damper arrangements were explored to determine strategic horizontal damper placement. It was found that brace-damper arrangements with diagonals and multiple brace- damper sets per floor pose effective means of distributing the axial damper force and protecting the lower-storey columns from overstressing.
Behavioural testing of two nonlinear viscous devices was performed, and results were used to determine analytical models for the nonlinear fluid viscous and fluid spring devices based on fitted parameters. It was found that the stress-relaxation models better captured the nonlinearity of the devices than standard models but yielded only marginally decreased energy dissipation per cycle. Thus, it is recommended that standard models are adequate for analysis of damped structures with these nonlinear viscous devices.

Keywords: viscous dampers
structural design
seismic
Advisor: Williams, M
Blakeborough, A
Interactions of carbon nanotubes and lipid bilayers

The biological membrane, which is composed of a lipid bilayer embedded with numerous proteins, defines the cell boundary, separating the cell interior from the external environment. It serves as a gatekeeper and entry point for various molecular and ionic species. This thesis describes experimental and simulation studies of the interactions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with model membranes (lipid bilayers). The unique properties of CNTs make them ideal candidates for many nanotechnological applications. They can, however, pose a potential risk as toxins. While research into the positive benefits of CNTs continues, very little is known about their basic interactions with cellular components. It is particularly important to understand the interaction of CNTs with biological membranes, which form the primary physical barrier surrounding a cell.
Coarse grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been used to study the interactions of CNTs and lipid bilayers. They are investigated in a controlled manner using MD simulations, while AFM has allowed the controlled approach-to-contact and insertion of CNTs into bilayers. A number of effects are reported, including lipid creep along the CNT and bilayer thickening upon contact. The robustness of this response is established using different force fields and lipid species.
The experimental results show an unusual reaction to mechanical indentation, and are further backed by MD simulations. The lipid bilayer response to multiple CNTs is studied and the effects of CNTs on bilayer conformation and lipid diffusion are reported. CNT internalisation from the solvent is observed in the simulations. Indeed, many of the observed phenomena are reminiscent of those known from the field of membrane protein. This project focuses on understanding the basic molecular interactions of CNTs with lipid bilayers and addresses the gap between experimental and computational work.

Keywords: Molecular simulation
AFM
Carbon Nanotubes
Molecular dynamics
Lipid bilayers
MD
CNT
Lipids
Atomic force microscopy
Advisor: Ryan, J
Sansom, M
Some applications of nuclear orientation

This thesis describes Nuclear Orientation and radiofrequency magnetic susceptibility experiments on the enhanced nuclear antiferromagnet holmium vanadate (HoVO4) from 1 K down to about 1 mK and in applied fields of up to 2.4 tesla.
Adiabatic demagnetisation of single crystals of HoVO4 allowed a mean nuclear spin temperature of about 1 mK to be reached. R.f. magnetic susceptibility measurements at approximately 2.4 mK and in an applied field of about 1.5 x 10-2 T identified the spin 'flop' phase of the nuclear anti-ferromagnet HoVO4. The Néel temperature TN was determined to be 4.0 (2) mK which is in good agreement with the value of 4.8 mK calculated for the dipole-dipole interaction of the enhanced magnetic moments at the Ho site.
Gamma-ray anisotropy measurements of 166mHoVO4 showed that in low applied fields (B ≮ 0.5 x 10-2 T) and temperatures of about 1 mK the antiferromagnetic domains were uniformly distributed in the a-a' plane of the tetragonal zircon crystal structure. This was interpreted in terms of pinning of the nuclei due to crystalline imperfections. The spin 'flop' phase was identified in an applied field of 1.2 x 10-2 T which is in good agreement with the susceptibility measurements. Demagnetisation experiments down to the relatively high residual fields of 4.2 x 10
-2 T and 7.4 x 10-2 T and temperatures of about 2 mK showed that the effective field at the nucleus was much smaller than the applied field thus indicating that there was some antiferromagnetic ordering even at these relatively high fields.
The magnetic dipole moment of 166mHo was estimated to be 3.60 (6) μN from gamma-ray anisotropy measurements of some gamma transitions of known NO parameters. This value is in good agreement with the value of 3.69μN calculated for the Nilsson configuration [6337./2]n [5237/2]p for the extra-core neutron and proton respectively. Mixing ratio (δ) measurements for gamma-ray transitions between the (Kπ = 2+) γ-vibrational and (Kπ = 0+) ground state rotational bands of the daughter nucleus 166Er showed that Ml transition probabilities are predominantly via ΔK = 1 band mixing which is in good agreement with systematics for deformed nuclei in this mass region.
Nuclear refrigeration experiments on a powdered compressed HoVO4 - copper pill allowed a lattice temperature of 3.9 (3) mK to be reached. Thermal contact measurements on a similar pill showed that the effective area of contact between the salt particles and copper was only about 30 cm2 which was a small fraction of the total surface area available. Preliminary work on a HoVO4 - gold pill enabled a 60Co ̲C̲o thermometer to be cooled to 6.0 (l) mK.

Advisor: Allsop, A
Development of high aspect ratio nano-focusing Si and diamond refractive x-ray optics using deep reactive ion etching

This thesis is devoted to the development of nano-focusing refractive optics for high energy X-rays using planar microelectronic technology. The availability of such optics is the key for the exploitation of high brilliance third and fourth generation X-ray sources. Advancements in the quality of optics available are commensurate with advancements in the fabrication technology. The fabrication process directly influences the quality and performance, so must be understood and controlled.
In the first part of this thesis, the development of high aspect ratio Si kinoform lenses is examined. It is shown that control of the re-entrance angle is critical for successful fabrication; in fact, a large re-entrance angle can destroy the lens during the fabrication process. Through an etch study, it was found that as aspect ratio increases, control of the re-entrance angle becomes harder. To control the re-entrance angle for very high aspect ratios, a novel approach based on sacrificial structures was proposed and initial results presented.
The second part is dedicated to an experimental study of refractive lenses made from diamond. Due to its low atomic number, relatively high density and very high thermal conductivity, diamond is one of the most desirable lens materials for refractive X-ray optics. However, due to its extreme hardness, it is very difficult to structure into a form suitable for X-ray lenses. To overcome this difficulty a Si moulding technique was used and focusing down to a 400 nm wide spot was achieved. Several obstacles were encountered and successfully overcome. The hardest obstacle was to obtain selective void-free filling in the Si moulds. Several methods were investigated. A method based on a sacrificial oxide layer and an Electrostatic Self-Assembly process was found to be the most useful. The approach discovered in this thesis is not limited to X-ray lenses, but can be applied to a wide variety of high aspect ratio MEMS requiring void-free diamond filling and smooth sidewalls.

Keywords: Deep Reactive Ion Etching
Nano-focusing
CVD diamond
X-ray lens
Silicon
Advisor: Korsunsky, A
Alianelli, L
Chen, Y
The life and work of Maurice Greene (1696-1755)

The purpose of the present work is to shed fresh light not only upon the life and work of Maurice Greene , but also upon the whole state of music in England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Thus, while the basic framework is that of a full-scale historical biography, whole sections are devoted to a detailed discussion of various aspects of the contemporary scene.
Chapter one traces the composer's family background end early career up to about 1710. His work at St. Paul's, and the general conditions which there obtained, are separately considered, as is also the musical history of the important Sons of the Clergy festival which Greene conducted from 1718 until 1750. The biographical narrative continues with an account of Greene's marriage and family affairs, and also deals with his influence as a teacher. In chapter four, the composer's career as a secular musician is surveyed against the background of London musical life, end special attention is given to the history of the Academy of Ancient Music with which he was for a time intimately connected. Throughout the 1720s, Greene's reputation grew. In 1727, he was appointed Organist and Composer of the Chapel Royal. Three years later, he took his doctorate at Cambridge, and was honoured with the title of Professor of Music in the University. In 1735, he succeeded Eccles as Master of the King's Band of Musick. Not yet thirty-nine, he now held every major musical appointment in the land. A detailed summary of this triumphal progress, and of those institutions in which Greens worked, forms the central core of the dissertation.
A thorough examination of Greene's relationship with Handel is contained in chapter six. The two final chapters deal with the period during which Greene's fame stood at its height, his gradual decline, death, and posthumous reputation. An extended postscript surveys Greene's contribution to Boyce'e Cathedral Music. Two short appendices and a bibliography complete the volume.
Volume two consists entirely of a Descriptive Catalogue of all Greene's knovn works, including those which are no longer extant. Both printed and MSS. sources are listed, end copyists identified wherever possible. Ten pages of plates provide examples of the composer's autograph, and those of his four chief pupil-copyists. There are also extensive notes containing any historical or bibliographical information which might possibly be of use to future researchers.
Palladium- and copper-catalysed heterocycle synthesis

A number of privileged starting materials based on aryl halide frameworks have emerged that allow access to a variety of different heterocyclic scaffolds through judicious choice of reaction conditions. This work describes efforts to develop and extend the utility of two of these general heterocycle precursors - ortho-(haloalkenyl)aryl halides A and α-(ortho-haloaryl) ketones B - in conjunction with cascade reactions involving the construction of key carbon-heteroatom bonds via palladium or copper catalysis.
Chapter 1 entails an overview of the development of palladium- and copper-catalysed carbon-heteroatom bond forming processes. The application of these processes in heterocycle synthesis using ortho-(haloalkenyl)aryl halide and ortho-haloacetanilides/ α-(ortho-haloaryl) ketone precursors is also described.
Chapter 2 focuses on the development of a two-step synthesis of cinnolines using ortho-(haloalkenyl)aryl halides via intermediate protected dihydrocinnoline derivatives C.
Chapter 3 demonstrates how the inherent reactivity of protected dihydrocinnoline derivatives C can be harnessed to provide access to functionalised products. A brief target synthesis of a pharmaceutically-relevent cinnoline is also described.
Chapter 4 details attempts to develop a novel synthesis of benzothiophenes D from both ortho-(haloalkenyl)aryl halide and α-(ortho-haloaryl) ketone precursors.

Keywords: heterocycle synthesis
Organic chemistry
organic synthesis
catalysis
palladium-catalysis
cinnolines
copper-catalysis
Advisor: Willis, M