The thesis examines the work of photographer Nick Hedges (b. 1953) who made photographs for the housing charity Shelter between 1968 and 1972. It concentrates on Hedges’ methodology, his representation of the homeless child, and how this was deployed in Shelter’s campaign strategy. Moreover, it examines the wider political, sociological and cultural debates surrounding the conception, production, dissemination and reception of the Shelter photographs. The thesis argues that Hedges’ photographs, although contextualised by an ostensibly radical charity agenda, were shaped by an established photographic and art historical tradition reaching back to the nineteenth century. This is examined in the light of a shifting conception of what constituted an ethically sound representation of homelessness amongst leftist critics in Britain from the 1970s onwards. The thesis equally discusses the archive as a site of photographic accession, interpretation and display, and outlines the issues that face archive professionals charged with the presentation of the Shelter photographs to a contemporary audience. By combining art historical analysis of Hedges’ photographs with research into their current framing in the archive, the thesis offers a distinctive contribution to scholarship, exploring how photographic meaning is shaped, subverted and disseminated by individuals, organisations and institutions alike.

An experimental attempt to consider the history of the London Missionary Society (LMS) from the lens of the artefacts that accumulated at its London headquarters, which included a museum from 1814 until 1910. The movement of these things through space and over time offers a rich perspective for considering the impacts on Britain of its history of overseas missionary activity. Building on anthropological debates about exchange, material culture, and the agency of things, the biographies of particular objects are explored in relation to the processes involved in the assemblage, circulation and dispersal of the LMS collection. Methodologically, the research is an attempt to develop what Latour has called a symmetrical anthropology, with archaeological approaches to the material products of historical processes as an important dimension of this. Drawing on attempts to study ‘along the grain’ in historical anthropology, and to move beyond iconoclasm as a critical stance, it is argued that museums should be understood as ‘other places’ in which objects are made by techniques of inscription and confinement which have a significant ceremonial dimension. At the same time, certain charismatic objects are shown to have transcended these contexts of confinement, affecting those they encounter, and shaping history around themselves.

My dissertation explores the formative stages of European interest in, engagement with and consumption of Indian pictorial art over a period of one hundred and fifty years, from the mid-16th century up to the early 18th century. During this period, European cabinets of curiosities witnessed the arrival of increasing numbers of a previously unknown class of collectible: Indian paintings on paper. Interest in these paintings was spurred by a growing curiosity about the East, combined with a general re-orientation of the European system of knowledge towards a more “scientific” methodology of inquiry, which encouraged a revision of the stereotypes that had informed medieval European conceptions of India through engagement with original sources. The relevance of this phenomenon to the history of early modern exchanges between India and Europe can hardly be overstated. Yet, modern scholarship has tended to ignore it, focusing instead on the Indian fascination with and reception of European artistic forms and techniques. This dissertation seeks to develop a more exhaustive picture of the early modern artistic encounter between India and the West, one in which European consumption of Indian paintings is dutifully represented and India plays an active role in the emerging system of knowledge. The starting and central point of my investigation consists of the vast and diversified collection of Indian paintings gathered by a Venetian traveler to India, Niccolò Manucci (1638-ca. 1720), as a visual accompaniment to his travel account, the so-called Storia do Mogor. This collection, which has remained largely ignored, makes a crucial case-study for approaching issues relative to the nature of European interest in Indian paintings in early modernity, the contexts and modalities through which this interest was articulated, as well as its relevance to processes of knowledge making and identity construction that were prompted by European encounters with alterities. The first part of my study provides an in-depth analysis of Manucci’s collection performed through a careful examination of the paintings it comprises along with contemporary textual sources, including the original manuscripts of the Storia do Mogor. My analysis exposes the interrelatedness of Manucci’s collecting enterprise with his authorial project, as well as assessing its broader scope and intended aims. The second part of the dissertation situates this collecting enterprise within its broader historical context by examining other European collections of Indian paintings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries and characterized by comparable subject matter: portraits of historical and living personages associated with Indo-Muslim dynasties, depictions of native Indian peoples and socio-religious customs, and representations of deities of the Hindu pantheon. Besides delving into the specifics of these collections, I explore their dialogic relation to one another and to descriptive practices and interpretative discourses that gained shape in European travel writing and print culture. In doing so, I highlight their participation in broader cultural trends and their contribution to evolving European approaches towards the Orient. This corpus of largely neglected works offers precious insights into the complex dynamics of cross-cultural encounter, as well as exposing the pivotal role played by early modernity in shaping later trends in Indo-European artistic interactions. Offering a direct antecedent to “Company painting,” a 19th-century Indian pictorial genre for European consumption, these works call for a revision of traditional understandings of the latter as an artistic development prompted by the rise of British colonial interests and agendas, and invite a broader reassessment of a unique historical era – the early modern one – that is key to understanding the roots of institutionalized Orientalism.

This thesis examines the book and archival holdings of the Cottonian Collection – a national designated eighteenth-century collection of fine art and books – between 1791 and 1816, the period of William Cotton II’s custodianship. Prior to this thesis, the Cottonian Collection has not been the subject of a full-length academic study. Whilst the art holdings have received some attention, the book and archival contents have not been examined. This thesis addresses this imbalance by conducting a thorough examination of the archival holdings and the history of the book collection. Taking the actions of the collection’s penultimate private owner, William Cotton II, as its primary focus this thesis examines the curatorial practices of acquisition, preservation and disposal through three key lenses: the presentation of the collection as a symbol of gentlemanly status, the evolution of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism thought, and the rise of Anglican Evangelicalism during this period. In doing so, this thesis considers the effects of the broader societal, political and religion changes on a national designated collection during a period defined by ideological threat and revolutionary warfare. In the process, it seeks to embed the history of the Cottonian Collection within the broader context of late-eighteenth-century book collecting practices.

Orientador: Roberto Lyra Villas Bôas / Banca: João Carlos Cury Saad / Banca: Dálcio Ricardo Botelho Alves / Resumo: O presente trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de monitorar a concentração dos nutrientes N, P e K, a partir de variações no posicionamento dos extratores de solução tanto na vertical como na horizontal ao longo do bulbo molhado, e o tempo de vácuo e coleta da solução do solo em relação à fertirrigação, para cultura da laranja. O experimento foi conduzido na fazenda Emu, pertencente à empresa Citrovita, localizada na cidade de Reginópolis, estado de São Paulo. Adotou-se o delineamento experimental em blocos. O arranjo dos tratamentos constitui um fatorial 4 x 4 com cinco repetições, compreendendo quatro distâncias do emissor 5, 15, 25 e 35 cm, e quatro profundidades 15, 30, 60 e 90 cm. Foram instalados 16 extratores de solução do solo por bloco, totalizando 80 extratores no projeto. O vácuo aplicado aos extratores de solução foi realizado sob diferentes momentos 0, 2, 4, 6 e 12 horas após a irrigação e dois momentos distintos de coleta após a aplicação do vácuo, 2 e 12 horas. O monitoramento da concentração dos íons no solo foi realizado por meio da retirada da solução do solo com extratores de cápsulas porosas. Durante o período de condução do experimento foi avaliado o pH, CE, nitrato, potássio e fósforo na solução do solo e umidade do solo com auxílio de tensiômetros de punção. Os resultados indicam que não há necessidade de maiores tempos para aplicação de vácuo aos extratores e coleta da solução, sendo o tempo de vácuo e coleta 4-2 suficiente para realização do procedimento de extração... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The aim of this study was to monitor the concentration of nutrients N, P and K on citrus orchard through extractors positioned vertically and horizontally along with the wet bulb in the soil. The vacuum applied to the solution extractors and the soil solution extracting time of fertigation were measured. This research was conducted at Emu farm, which belongs to Citrovita Company, located in Reginópolis city, at São Paulo state, Brazil. Was used in the experimental design blocks, the arrangement of the treatments is a 4 x 4 factorial with five replications, including four distances from the transmitter 5, 15, 25 and 35 cm, and four depths 15, 30, 60 and 90 cm. 16 extractors have been installed in the soil solution per block, totaling 80 extractors in the project. The vacuum was applied to the solution extractors at different times as 0, 2, 4, 6 and 12 hours after the irrigation occurrence. The soil solution was collected 2 and 12 hours later the vacuum had been applied. The soil ions concentration was determined extracting the soil solution through porous ceramic cup extractors.During the research period, pH, CE, soil moisture, nitrate, potassium and phosphorus content were measured in the soil solution by tensiometros de punção (tensiometric batteries). The results indicated that it is necessary to wait a long time after the irrigation to apply the vacuum and to collect the soil solution. Respectively, 4 and 2 hours to apply the vacuum and to obtain the soil solution are enough to the extraction soil solution procedure.Based on ions mobility in the soil profile to determine P and K nutrients in the soil solution is recommended to place the soil solution... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

This thesis studies contemporary China's heritage boom phenomenon as experienced through the everyday lives of antiquarian communities (collectors, antique dealers etc.) and heritage professionals in and around Beijing. Aiming to extend our vision beyond heritage sites and museums, which constitute the traditional subject of anthropological studies of heritage, the thesis explores the ways in which 'heritage' and 'treasure' are lived by wider Chinese urban residents, constituting a total social fact. Challenging the popular assumption made by heritage scholars in which heritage phenomenon is considered a by-product of modernity's tendency to contrast the current progress with the past as a benchmark, this thesis argues that contemporary China's heritage fever is, however, a social symptom of utopian replacement, in which the idea of linear progress promised by modernisation has been challenged by a recent nationwide utopian project of returning to 'the prosperous age' ('shengshi') with its emphasis on cyclical 'rise and fall'. Treasures of China, as 'Fragments of the Prosperous Age', have thus emerged as powerful imaginaries and resources to open up a utopian vision of ideal society based on fantastic imaginations of China's past glories. Foregrounding the relations between heritage and utopianism, the thesis subsequently investigates the complex ways in which heritage activists from state systems and antiquarian communities contribute to the utopian project from different pathways, bifurcating China's heritage phenomenon into formal and informal parts. Chapters one and two demonstrate that state-led imaginings have changed from the evolutionary perspective to one pursuing the glory of the past under the new spell of 'civilisational revival'. Officials and activists associated with formal heritage deploy a variety of discursive and bureaucratic technologies to securitise, manage and utilise China's ancient treasures, so as to legitimise the current regime. On the other hand, Chapters three and four show that collectors associated with informal heritage encounter fragments of the past in a bodily and joyful way. In ordinary antiquarian practices which juxtapose the cultivation of moral self with the patination of antique objects, collectors pursue an archaic yet neoliberal custodianship which has altered the ethics and sense of moral responsibility in the domains of market exchange. These two factions in China's heritage world may differ from each other in many aspects, but Chapter five suggests both of them, in fact, conspire to reproduce ancient 'prosperous age' ('shengshi') in the present and for the future. The thesis concludes with a discussion about the extent to which Hegel's future-oriented conception of 'capitalised History' that structures the writing of national history has transformed into a 'capitalised Heritage' in contemporary China. 'Capitalised Heritage' works to recast the importance of the Chinese nation in the contemporary world, reaching an ultimate reconciliation with the spectre and material legacies of the past.

This dissertation examines encounters between humans and snakes from the 1780s to the 1860s, principally focusing upon Britain and British India, to reassess the production and circulation of natural historical knowledge. Serpents were at once familiar and ambiguous in nineteenth-century Britain and its empire, present at every level of society through Scripture, works of natural history, and imperial print culture. They appeared across literary genres - in works of art, as dead specimens in museums, and living attractions in shows and menageries - and their material and figurative presence in London was dependent upon British imperial networks. Snakes loomed disproportionately large in the imperial imaginary, where they were entangled in a discourse of difference. The practices of the natural history of snakes were harnessed to personal ambition and colonial exigencies. By analyzing scientific books and papers, newspapers and periodicals, taxidermy and cartoons, travel accounts, and government archives from Britain and India, this study provides a connected account of how snakes were collected, transported, described, experimented with, and used for a variety of ends. Following an animal around, whether as material, textual, or visual representation, reveals a more comprehensive picture of how people engaged with animals in the nineteenth century, not confined by disciplinary or institutional boundaries at a time when these were being constructed. The cultural and emotive power of snakes makes visible the heterogeneous nature of those contributing to the production of natural historical knowledge. This thesis shows how the moral character of snakes was implicated in how they were encountered and understood by a range of actors, from museum naturalists to imperial agents, and Indian snake-charmers to working-class visitors to the zoo. The chapters examine different but overlapping modes of encounter with snakes: collecting, preserving, and presenting them in museum settings; the imbrication of anthropocentric concerns in attempts to classify and anatomize them; the mechanisms and motivations behind attempts to produce authoritative 'useful knowledge' incorporating vivisectional experiments in the Madras Presidency in the late eighteenth century; Orientalist representations of non-European interactions with snakes in nascent print culture; and the emotional economy of educational displays of living snakes in metropolitan Britain, especially with the emergence of new spaces for natural history, notably the first reptile house at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. The approach brings together insights from from history of science, animal history, and new imperial histories to recover an affective dimension of natural history in imperial encounters.

The collecting duct of the distal nephron marks the final location where adjustments to Na+ excretion can be made, therefore determining the final concentration of Na+ conserved in the extracellular fluid which plays a role in governing overall blood volume and pressure. This transport of Na+ is subject to hormonal regulation but the signalling pathways underpinning this regulation however, are not fully understood. In this thesis the signalling pathways allowing both basal and insulin-stimulated Na+ absorption were explored in the murine collecting duct cell line, mpkCCDcl4. The effects of two insulin-sensitizing drugs, TZDs, on ENaC-mediated Na+ transport were investigated and the signalling pathways underlying two other hormonal regulators of ENaC, dexamethasone and vasopressin, were also examined. Unstimulated monolayers of mpkCCDcl4 cells generated spontaneous Na+ absorption which was quantified by measuring equivalent short circuit current (Ieq). Selective inhibition of PI3-kinase, mTORC2 and SGK1 left ~80 % of the current intact, indicating these signalling molecules are not required for basal Na+ transport. Acute addition of insulin stimulated Ieq and this occurred with a concomitant increase in mTORC2, SGK1 and Akt activity. Inhibition of PI3-kinase abolished the insulin-stimulated response as well as phosphorylation of downstream substrates, indicating a crucial role of PI3-kinase. Inhibition of mTORC1 with rapamycin did not alter basal or insulin-stimulated Na+ transport. The mTOR inhibitors TORIN1 and PP242 could therefore be used to evaluate the role of mTORC2. These inhibitors greatly reduced insulin-stimulated ENaC-mediated Na+ transport and also abolished SGK1 and mTORC2 activity, indicating a novel role of mTORC2. An inhibitor of SGK1, GSK650394A abolished insulin-stimulated Na+ transport and specifically inhibited SGK1 acitivty demonstrating the importance of SGK1 in insulin signalling. The inhibitor Akti-1/2 also abolished insulin-mediated Na+ transport but this compound inhibited both Akt and SGK1 activity. The TZDs pioglitazone and rosiglitazone did not alter basal or insulin-stimulated Na+ transport and had no effect on SGK1 activity indicating these drugs do not alter Na+ absorption in this cell line. Dexamethasone stimulated ENaC-mediated Na+ transport in a similar manner to insulin and this could be blocked with rapamycin. This drug did not alter phosphorylation of NDRG1 indicating that dexamethasone stimulates Na+ transport in an mTORC1-dependent manner but without altering SGK1 activity. Arginine vasopressin also stimulated Ieq but did so by reducing Rt with an associated depolarisation of Vt. Ieq could be blocked with amiloride and vasopressin-stimulated Ieq was insensitive to TORIN1 and PP242. Vasopressin suppressed SGK1 phosphorylation of NDRG1 but did stimulate protein kinase A (PKA) activity. Therefore vasopressin stimulates Ieq via a PKA-dependent but mTOR- and SGK1-independent pathway.

Data collecting and preparing is generally considered a crucial process in data science projects. Especially for image data, adding semantic attributes when preparing image data provides much more insights for data scientists. In this project, we aim to implement a general-purpose central image data repository that allows image researchers to collect data with semantic properties as well as data query. One of our researchers has come up with the specific challenge of collecting images with weight data of infants in least developed countries with limited internet access. The rationale is to predict infant weights based on image data by applying Machine Learning techniques. To address the data collecting issue, I implemented a mobile application which features online and offline image and annotation upload and a web application which features image query functionality. This work is derived and partly decoupled from the previous project – ImageSfERe (Image Sharing for Epilepsy Research), which is a web-based platform to collect and share epilepsy patient imaging.

This study investigates the woodcuts of African dress in Cesare Vecellio's 1598 costume book Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo. While Vecellio's book has been previously studied to understand its contribution to sixteenth-century conceptions of human variation across geography and Venetian identity making, I concentrate instead on the book's intended function. In doing so, I show how its woodcuts of Africans, should be understood primarily as proposals for costumes to be used in new artistic productions. Vecellio situated his representations of African costume in a highly organized geographic framework that was shaped by travel narratives. These texts recorded voyages motivated, in part, by European political and economic interests in Africa. However, the resulting associations deposited in Vecellio's woodcuts are neutralized or at least complicated by the representations' hybridity, their inclusion in an early modern collection, and their status as models for artists to manipulate. Vecellio explained that all of the representations in Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo displayed antiquity (antichità), diversity (diuersità), and richness (la richezza). Sixteenth-century theater directors insisted on these qualities for costume, which promoted both the imitatio naturae and superatio naturae of artistic productions. Costumes could simultaneously contribute to a painting or a theatrical performance's decorum and propriety by differentiating and correctly identifying figures, and its grazia or pleasure with their exoticism and sumptuousness. This study suggests that in their intended use, the images of African costume were participating in "translations" of African dress into costumes for European paintings and theater. During this process, they accumulated new meanings. The dressed figures were copied from art objects with varying degrees of removal from immediate African encounters and combined with texts from published travel narratives to create mythic bricolages of Africans. The decontextualized costumes, organized into a sartorial collection with a categorization that readers understood as flexible, were tentatively defined vestmentary signs available for further signification within potential artistic contexts.