This PhD aims to investigate the development of a character type, referred to in this thesis as the ‘administrator’ - the character used by authors as a means to reflect through character both the mundane processes of their contemporary soundings, and as a means through which to address contemporary discourses of power. This character has historically functioned to alter the course of plots, determine the fates of other characters, and dictate the pace of a narrative, yet despite having pervaded literature and wider culture over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the character of the administrator has evaded detailed academic analysis of how and why such characters appear to be both wholly implicated in the plot’s outcome and yet are powerless to prevent the outcomes that it heralds. The goal of this thesis is, then, to trace and analyse a major aspect of characterisation that has seldom been made explicit in literary studies: the importance of the role that characterisation plays in the text’s relationship with systematised power. By using the text's principal administrator character, or means of characterising systematised power, as a prism through which to view the text, we may attempt to separate those aspects of the text which critique contemporary social hierarchies from those aspects of the text which reflect, or even affirm them, from the period of the early Renaissance through to the beginning of the twentieth century. Through an 'archaeology' of such a character type, the thesis shows how administrator characters have been used historically to incorporate the author's impressions of new organisational structures and the growing influence of certain institutions, from Machiavelli, More and Shakespeare through to the beginnings of modernism. The primary texts of this thesis have been selected as those which coincide with and appear to address major reconfigurations of collective organisation. By tracing the roots of the administrator character trope, as a kind of pre-history of our contemporary power relations (both in artistic representation and in our own relationships with systematised power), back to their earliest appearances in the Early Modern period, this thesis also seeks to contribute to a greater understanding of both the historical production of, and forms of subjectivity incorporated into, literary texts.

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This thesis can be split into two sections. The first section is an argument against physicalism and its naturalistic pretensions. The second section presents an alternative to physicalism - pragmatic pluralism. The arguments for the first section are split into four chapters. In chapter one it is argued that an examination of science lends no support to physicalist ontology. The case of quantum chemistry is studied in some detail and its shown that higher-level chemical facts are needed to support the quantum mechanical explanations given. The second and third chapters look at various ways in which physicalist have sought to explain away the apparent lack of unity in the sciences. Various accounts of the supervenience relation and functionalism are discussed and shown to be either inadequate for the physicalist programme or empirically implausible. The final chapter of this section discusses the so called completeness of physics. It is shown that like physicalism in general, there is no way to formulate this doctrine to make it plausible in light of contemporary physics and able to underpin a physicalist ontology. The second section critically discusses alternatives to physicalism. The scientific pluralisms of John Dupre and Nancy Cartwright and the pragmatic pluralisms of Hilary Putnam and Nelson Goodman are discussed in detail. Drawing on the work of Putnam, in particular, and presenting Davidson's anomalous monism in a new guise, an original form of pragmatic or metaphysically deflationary pluralism is defended.

This dissertation examines Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of culture. Nietzsche held that all beliefs were arbitrary and culturally contingent; cultures were distinct, organic, homogeneous entities, whose values were mutually incommensurable. I trace the origins of this theory to Nietzsche's experience as a philologist; but I claim that, in deriving his theory from historical data, Nietzsche drew false conclusions. As a mature philosopher, Nietzsche developed a somewhat more subtle theory, according to which cultures functioned like the underlying rules of a game. Thus any cultural world-view was arbitrary, but served as a necessary precondition for thought and communication. I argue that Nietzsche's mature theory led to contradictions and depended upon false inferences which he drew from history. Several of Nietzsche's doctrines including perspectivism, the Eternal Return, and the Overman depend upon his mature theory of culture. A similar theory underlies the work of two representative followers of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Jacques Derrida; and I discuss its consequences for their work. I then propose an alternative theory which explains the phenomenon of historical diversity without invoking Nietzsche's picture of reified cultures. Instead of imagining cultures as organic wholes, this alternative paradigm views the cultural background of any person as a heterogeneous collection of ideas and prejudices, often derived from diverse sources. Thus "cultures" are simply ways of categorizing people according to similarities in their backgrounds; and we belong simultaneously to numerous overlapping cultures. This paradigm, I argue, provides support for pluralist and democratic cultural ideals which Nietzsche and his followers have repudiated. Finally, I trace Nietzsche's reasons for criticizing humanistic scholarship to his theory of culture; and I defend humanism on the basis of my alternative paradigm.

The last comprehensive biography on Francesco Filelfo was written well over one hundred and fifty years ago. Since then the general state of knowledge about this humanist has been largely conditioned by G. Voigt's hostile assessment and G. Bendaucci's unsystematic and unreliable studies. Monographs on Filelfo's stay at Florence and Siena have been provided by G. Zippel and L. de Feo Corso, but the chief period in Filelfo's life, i.e. Filelfo at the court of Milan, has so far not been studied in adequate depth. E. Garin's recent account of Filelfo at Milan does not open up any new vistas. Yet Milan was the city where Filelfo spent half his life, where he wrote almost all his works and where he left a deep imprint in the development of humanistic culture. This thesis is therefore intended to fill this gap. The recent publication of P.O. Kristeller's 'Iter Italicum' made it possible to base such a reappraisal on an extensive survey of Filelfo manuscripts in Italian libraries. Almost all the existing Filelfo manuscripts at Rome, Florence, Milan, Pisa, Lucca, Bergamo, Venice, Munich, Oxford, Holkham Hall and London have been examined for this thesis. All unpublished material found there had to be copied and editions had to be prepared. Only Vienna, Paris and Wolfenbüttel seem to hold still unknown works. Particularly in the archives of Florence and Milan a large amount of entirely new material has been discovered which is being edited for the first time in the appendix of this thesis. It throws a significant light on Filelfo's social and economic situation. It allows us to penetrate the curtain of rhetorical declamations of Filelfo's letters and to understand the economic and cultural reality that lay behind them. Another purpose of this thesis consisted in the compilation of a bibliography in which all the various publications on Filelfo since about 1870 are listed, for they are scattered in periodicals and sometimes difficult to trace. [Continued in text ...]

I denna uppsats undersöks Gurstenstenen, en småländsk runsten från tidig vikingatid. Syftet är att granska tidigare läsningar och tolkningar och revidera dessa där det behövs, samt att utifrån en sannolik tolkning av inskriften säga något om dess sakliga bakgrund och syfte. Eftersom studien syftar till att läsa och förstå text utgår metoden från en beskrivning av läsandet som psykologisk process. I varje del av detta arbete har den mest sannolika lösningen valts utifrån en jämförelse med annat runmaterial. Resultatet innebär en nyläsning och -tolkning av en av inskriftens rader. Läsningen är kuþaskaki faþi sunuR naut smiþa kata uif siþaR un…, vilket tolkas Goða-Skeggi fáði. Sonr naut smíða Káta. Víf síðarr unn[i] och översätts ’Gode-Skägge (det vill säga godens eller godarnas Skägge) ristade. Sonen fick (eller fick nytta av) Kåtes smiden. Hustrun förunnade (eller gav lov) senare’. Sonen bör vara Kåtes son och hustrun Kåtes hustru. Möjligen är Skägge identisk med Kåtes son. Förleden Gode- är troligen samma ord som fvn. goði ’hednisk präst’. Inskriften är förmodligen en minnesinskrift över den döde Kåte, samt en manifestation av en betydelsefull händelse kopplad till att de föremål som nämns byter ägare.

This thesis attempts to advance the underappreciated thought of Erich Fromm as both a crucial contribution to twentieth century intellectual history and a potentially pivotal point from which to transcend current theoretical impasses. In particular, I argue that Fromm’s radical humanism can participate in the rejuvenation of contemporary social theory, which is still largely constrained by the dual reductionism of positivism and poststructuralism, and that a return to it will encourage renewed theorising of, and empirical engagement with, the connections that obtain between the ‘psychological’ and the ‘social’, the ‘essential’ and the ‘constructed’, and the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’. I try to show that Fromm’s qualified essentialism and ethical normativism are sensible, viable, and desirable, and that they, coupled with his analytic social psychology, which is based on his underlying humanism and elaborated through a unique fusion of Marx and Freud, provide the basis for the development of practical strategies to realise humanism in the world. Perhaps above all, I try to show that there is a deceptive complexity and sophistication to Fromm’s ideas, which are all too often taken as simple and naïve.

Undersökningens syfte är att försöka identifiera de objekt vilka omnämns som smiden i runtexten på Gurstenstenen (Sm 144). Studien genomförs utifrån antagandet att objekten är kopplade till ett förkristet godeämbete. Undersökningsmaterialet utgörs därmed av de källor som kan lämna upplysningar om goden och objekt knutna till denne. Framförallt används isländska medeltida texter, men även den fornvästnordiska poesin, ortnamnsmaterialet samt arkeologiskt material. Jag utgår från uppgifter i de mest utförliga källorna, d.v.s. den isländska litteraturen. Det är emellertid mycket osäkert om dessa texter kan berätta något om förhållanden i 800-talets Småland, där Sm 144 hör hemma. Jag försöker därför hitta bekräftelse på de isländska texternas information i de mer knapphändiga källor som ligger geografiskt, kulturellt och tidsmässigt närmare Sm 144. Bedömningen av huruvida de objekt som aktualiseras i studien kan identifieras med inskriftens smiden, utgår från i vilken mån det går att få sådan bekräftelse, men också från hur väl objekten passar med inskriftens ordval och den situation som jag tänker mig ligger bakom runtexten. Undersökningens resultat visar att det minst problematiska alternativet är att identifiera smidena med en typ av kultbyggnad som kallas hov (fvn. hof). Eftersom smidena omtalas i plural på Sm 144 skulle man kunna tänka sig att detta avser flera hov, alternativt hovet och de övriga byggnader som finns på godens gård.

L’acide valproïque (VPA) est un inhibiteur des histones désacétylases (HDACi), qui présente des propriétés anti-tumorales nsur différents types de cancers. Son utilisation depuis plusieurs décennies comme médicament antiépileptique a révélé des effets secondaires, notamment sur le système hématopoïétique. Dans la présente étude, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’effet du VPA sur les réseaux microARN (miR)/Facteurs de transcription (FT) spécifiquement impliqués dans la régulation des voies de différenciation érythro-mégacaryocytaires. Nous montrons que le VPA est capable d’inhiber la différenciation érythroïde dans les cellules érythroleucémiques humaines TF1 et K562 et dans les cellules souches hématopoïétiques (CSH) CD34+, stimulées par l’érythropoïétine recombinante (Epo) ou par l’aclacinomycine A. Cette inhibition se traduit par une diminution de l’expression de la glycophorine A, de la γ-globine, des miR-144/451 et du FT GATA-1. L’inhibition du pré-miR-144 suggère que le VPA est capable de réguler l’expression du gène miR-144/451 au niveau transcriptionnel, via GATA-1. Dans les cellules Epo/CD34+, le VPA induit l’augmentation du FT PU.1 en accord avec l’inhibition du miR-155 et favorise son interaction avec GATA-1 pour inhiber son activité. L’utilisation d’un analogue du VPA, sans activité HDACi (Valpromide) et d’un inhibiteur d’HDAC de classe I, le MS-275, a montré que l’activité HDACi du VPA n’est pas requise pour l’inhibition de la différenciation érythroïde. Le VPA affecte également la voie mégacaryocytaire issue d’un progéniteur commun aux cellules érythroïdes. Dans la lignée mégacaryoblastique Meg-01, le VPA induit des modifications morphologiques du type mégacaryocytaire, une augmentation du marqueur CD61, du FT GATA-2 et du miR-27a. En revanche, l’expression du FT GATA-1 et des miR-144/451 diminuent. L’augmentation du miR-27a coïncide avec la diminution de l’expression de l’ARNm du FT RUNX1, en accord avec l’induction de la voie mégacaryocytaire. En conclusion, le VPA est capable de moduler le programme de différenciation érythro-mégacaryocytaire, à travers un micro réseau de régulation miR/FT / Valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), exhibits anti-cancer properties against several tumor types. Its use as an anti-epileptic drug for several decades reveled side effects at the hematological level. In this study, we analyzed the effect of VPA on an erythro-megakaryocyte-specific miR/transcription factors network. VPA inhibited erythroid differentiation in the erythroleukemia cell lines TF1 and K562 as well as in CD34+/hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), induced by the recombinant erythropoietin (Epo) or aclacinomycin. This inhibition was characterized by glycophorin-A, γ-globin and GATA-1/miR-144/451 down-regulation. Inhibition of pre-miR-144 expression suggested that VPA regulates transcription of the miR-144/451 gene through GATA-1. In Epo-stimulated HSCs, VPA induced PU.1 expression in correlation with miR-155 inhibition and promoted GATA-1/PU.1 interaction. The use of valpromide, a VPA analogue without HDACi activity and the class-I HDACi MS-275, showed that HDAC inhibition by VPA was not required for its inhibitory activity on erythropoiesis. VPA also induced megakaryocyte features in Meg-01 cells, at both cellular and molecular levels. Notably, CD61, GATA-2 and miR-27a were over-expressed. RUNX1 mRNA expression and GATA-1/miR-144/451 axis decreased in accordance with megakaryocyte differentiation. In conclusion, VPA is able to modulate erythro-megakaryocytic differentiation program, through a regulatory micro-network involving miRs and TFs

APRS system is described are sent toin my essay, which is used for sending and receiving text messages. The text messages frequenc 144 MHz by using the modulation scheme AFSK. APRS communicate by using the protocol AX 25, which sends and receives the text messages in the area where are carried despatches and control bits as well. The whole area of high frequency part is in one integrated circuit. The control, coding and decoding of the area is the microcontroller’s job.