Secularity and Religiosity in Selected Fiction by Githa Hariharan

This thesis examines the construction of the boundaries between the secular and the religious in selected literary fiction by the Indian novelist Githa Hariharan (1954-). Combining insights from religious studies and the burgeoning field of narratology, I investigate the divergent historical and socio-cultural discourses that have contributed to the debate between the secular and the religious, and the role of religion in the public life of contemporary India. I consider how counter-discourses such as those of gender, history, and caste have redrawn the boundaries between the secular and the religious on the subcontinent, especially in light of the rise of politicized religion in the form of Hindutva. In doing so, I seek to articulate an ‘eloquent silence’ at the heart of Hariharan’s radical literary project, and, more broadly, at the heart of the secular-liberal project in postcolonial India. Put simply: religiosity is a blind spot of the secular imaginary in the context of Hindutva’s hegemony over the religious realm. Following an introduction in which I set out the key historical and intellectual contexts of religiosity and secularity in contemporary India, the thesis consists of three main chapters, each on one of Hariharan’s most important fictions: The Thousand Faces of Night (1992), In Times of Siege (2003), and I Have Become the Tide (2019). Through my reading of these texts, I demonstrate that the discourse surrounding the category of ‘religion’ has been largely produced by secular intellectual thought, and show that the blind spot of religiosity within the postcolonial secular imaginary has political, historical, conceptual and – most importantly for the fiction – narrative aspects. Overall, the thesis seeks to contribute to the extant literature on Indian Writing in English, applying the concepts of narrative voice and progression to investigate the relationship between the secular and the religious in literary fiction, and will be of interest to scholars working in the field of South Asian cultural and literary studies

A Monastic Sensorium: community experience and the built environment at eighth and ninth century Northern monastic sites.

The study of medieval Christian religious contexts has already benefited greatly from consideration of the historicity of cultural perceptions the senses and the spatial and sensory environments they create, however many of these studies pertain to the period subsequent to the writing of the Regularis Concordia in the late eighth century, for example (Gage 1982). For earlier periods, the sparsity of documentation relating specifically to liturgy (as noted by Harper 1997; Bedingfield 2002; Pfaff 2009) and problems in concretely identifying religious sites and buildings has made it difficult to link spatiality with action, thoughts and perceptions, let alone link this groundwork to wider narratives of the physical uses of the senses in the creation of abstract concepts such as community or place. This thesis aims to access this earlier period by focussing on key Northern monastic sites that have rich primary and secondary data and conducting various considerations of their sensory milieu, in order to comment on the extent to which sensory investigations can contribute to the narratives of these places

Explorations in Emoji-based P300 BCI-Spellers and Convolutional Neural Network Optimization for SSVEP-based Bio-Signals

The past decade has seen significant enhancements in the development of communication-based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) spellers. These devices often harness brain-based bio-signals via Electroencephalography (EEG) for speller control. To increase the scope of speller viability and functionality we first developed a simplistic emoji-based visual speller paradigm using the P300 bio-signal. The inclusion of emojis over traditional letters, numbers and characters is predicted to enable richer emotional communication capabilities to end-point users with the most severe forms of paralysis. Here is presented a staggered exploration of stimulus design formats ranging between 3, 5 and 7 target emoji arrays positioned from agreeable to disagreeable. In the final iteration of the experimental procedure, a closed-loop system is assessed using 3 neurotypical subjects. This necessitated the real-time capture, pre-processing, classification, and prediction presentation of subject dry-EEG data. The highest-performing single-subject achieved 83% offline classification accuracy for an analysis variant utilizing SMOTE oversampling data augmentation. The final chapter of the thesis focuses on the optimization of pre-processing frequency filters for SSVEP-based bio-signal classification using a range of convolutional neural networks (ShallowConvNet, DeepConvNet, EEGNet & EEGNetSSVEP). All analyses were computed utilizing the open-source 12-target, 10-subject Nakanishi SSVEP Numpad repository. These investigations revealed a positive trend in optimized low-pass filter cutoffs for networks presenting with a greater number of trainable parameters, or a higher model layer count. These results align with current cutting-edge CNN SSVEP classifier research and suggest the effective extraction of SSVEP harmonics is dependent on network complexity. Further, the optimization of aggregated, cross-subject data pre-processing frequency filter cutoffs is shown to enhance subject-level classification performance for both high and low-complexity networks. These methods provide a guideline for research into the optimization of cross-subject dataset pre-processing stages and outline a paradigm for the optimal comparison of CNNs for SSVEP classification

Towards Quantum gas microscope for 87Rb133Cs molecules

This thesis reports on a new apparatus for a quantum gas microscope for ultracold molecules to study dipolar physics in lattices. The setup is capable of creating two species of quantum degenerate bi-alkali molecules in the absolute ground state: 87RbCs and KCs. We describe the setup of vacuum chambers, magnetic coils and laser systems to produce Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of Cs and Rb. We start with an optimisation of the Cs BEC. A cold sample is prepared with a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D-MOT+) which is then loaded to form a three-dimensional MOT (3D-MOT) in a separated main chamber. Next, we compress the 3D-MOT to increase the density and further cool and polarise atoms using 3D degenerate Raman sideband cooling (dRSC). Then, to increase the phase-space density (PSD) to reach quantum degeneracy we employ evaporative cooling by loading the atomic cloud into a a large volume dipole trap (reservoir trap) followed by a tighter dipole trap (dimple trap). Then, we demonstrate the laser system that combines two wavelengths for Cs and Rb Raman lattice on one optical fiber for each path of the lattice light. The Rb lattice light is generated using an injection locking technique to yield adequate power. We investigate two methods to stabilise the laser frequency which are digital beat locking using an optical phase-lock loop and off-resonance frequency locking using the Faraday effect. The latter method is ultimately implemented because it has the potential to stabilise the frequency far from the transition up to 19 GHz. Finally, we utilise the Cs BEC to perform a measurement of the tune-out wavelength at 880 nm. We measure the polarisability as a function of wavelength using Kapitza-Dirac scattering of the Cs BEC exposed by a pulse of a one-dimensional optical lattice. The next steps to make the lowest vibrational ground-state molecules will carry on from the work presented in this thesis. Those are optical transport of the two-species atomic clouds from the main chamber to the science cell, magnetoassociation and stimulated Raman adiabatic passage

Picturing the Worlds of Mediterranean Painting: The Kingdom of Aragon and its Cultural Mobility

This thesis explores the cultural mobility of the medieval Mediterranean through the Kingdom of Aragon’s religious paintings. In the fourteenth century, Aragon presided over an enormous portion of the Western Mediterranean. The dynastic union between the Houses of Aragon and Barcelona in 1150 provided its rulers with abundant access to Catalonia’s Mediterranean ports. The later absorption of the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Montpellier, Perpignan, Marseilles, and the Duchy of Athens into the Kingdom of Aragon solidified its mercantile identity and its significant influence on Mediterranean trade. Aragon’s mobility in the medieval Mediterranean is revealed in its material culture. Altarpieces, illuminated manuscripts, embroidered textiles, and portable panel paintings were shipped into its ports from Avignon, Florence, Siena, Genoa, and Byzantium. These goods acted as deposits of visual culture and had an immediate and long-lasting influence on local painters. However, this process of exchange was dynamic. Imported iconographies such as the Virgin of Humility and the Maestà were innovated on and adapted to complement the unique concerns of indigenous patrons. This thesis will investigate specific instances of cultural contact in the formation of Aragon’s painted traditions. This includes an examination of the principal agents who disseminated visual ideas, such as the mendicants (the Franciscan Order), the circulation of devotional literatures, and the role of patronage as an energetic act. The outcome is a systematic reassessment of the materiality of Aragon’s religious culture in the context of its Mediterranean mobility

Graphene Chemiresistors for Sensing Applications

Graphene has attracted significant attention since its discovery in 2004, as a result of its good mechanical, optical and electrical properties, that renders suitable for numerous applications. The most common method to produce high-quality monolayer graphene is chemical vapour deposition (CVD). However, the cold wall commercial equipment to synthesise it is too expensive, and even the cost of a small piece of graphene on copper could pose as a bottleneck for laboratories to study graphene. An alternative graphene production is the electrochemical exfoliation of graphite foil in inorganic salts; however, its quality is inherently compromised. On the other hand, gas sensors capable of detecting vapours markers in real-time are desirable. Graphene materials have attracted scientific interest for the fabrication of gas sensors because of their single atom thick two-dimensional structures, high conductivity, and large specific surface area. In addition to this, graphene can be functionalised, opening the door to make highly selective graphene-based gas sensors. In this work, two different approaches for graphene synthesis were used: low-pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) and simultaneous electrochemical exfoliation and functionalisation. Graphene films were grown on copper foil using methane as a carbon source. Herein a custom designed set up and an accompanying standard operation procedure is reported as well as the expected batch to batch variations and variation introduced by the position in the reactor. The synthesis of graphene films, comparable in quality and uniformity to those produced by commercial brands, has been achieved through the use of a cost-effective LPCVD setup and easily accessible copper foil without any pre-treatment. Despite the slight variations observed in the reported metrics, any residual strain and unintentional doping can partially explain these. Furthermore, the average spectrum of each sample exhibits a weak D peak signal, suggesting few defects comparable to those found in commercial samples. Electrochemical exfoliated graphene functionalised with azide groups was synthesised by simultaneous electrochemical exfoliation and functionalisation from graphite foil in sodium sulphate/sodium azide electrolyte. This method can be an alternative to easily produce azidated graphene in a larger scale. The azidated graphene flakes range from monolayer to few-layer and the electrical conductivity was preserved. Here, we used the azide groups on the surface of graphene to covalently attach a sensing molecule to the surface of graphene, demonstrating its convenient application in the development of graphene chemical resistors. Both materials, graphene produced by CVD and electrochemical exfoliation, were functionalized with a sensing molecule, that has shown selectivity to cyclohexanone, and tested as chemiresistor under cyclohexanone, acetone, hexane, and ethanol. CVD graphene and electrochemical exfoliated graphene-based sensors show a better sensitivity with functionalization than without functionalization when they are exposed to different concentrations of cyclohexanone vapour; however, the latter shown better performance in terms of response, and sensitivity, having a limit of detection of 4.55 ppm. Figure 1 describes the whole process of the work done

Understanding children’s rights: Perspectives from street children in Dhaka

In this thesis, I critically aim to examine how rights are understood and articulated by street children in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The relationship between children’s rights as commissioned in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the implementation of them has garnered considerable attention from scholars in Geography and other cognate fields in social science such as sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and development studies. Yet, there are significant issues that have not been addressed in detail. My thesis aims to contribute to existing knowledge and understanding through providing further insight into children’s rights from their own perspectives that emerge from specific cultural contexts in Bangladesh. To this end, I will focus on the ways in which children discuss and understand the meaning of rights; the ways in which the meaning of rights is understood from children’s everyday lives; the daily struggle and power dynamics between adults and children that may affect the process of children’s understanding of rights. I engage with children in three sites in Dhaka, represented by three collaborating NGOs, using interviews, observations, and visual methods. Learning about children’s perspectives requires adopting strategies to understand their everyday lives. The methods I choose are particularly important to discovering the linkages between the lives of the children and that of adults who often have a dominant role in their lives. I discuss critically the linkages among children’s rights, children’s everyday lives, and adult intervention in Bangladesh. To engage with the aims and purposes of this thesis, I use an ethnographic approach, which helps me to understand children’s experiences and views of their lives in which the meaning of rights is intricately connected with participation and citizenship. The approach further draws me to children’s decision-making abilities and choices. These are often laden with children’s powerlessness. The interrogation of children’s lives exposes the challenges of promoting their voices within geographical circumstances of marginalisation and power struggle. The thesis demonstrated how street children imagined and articulated rights from their own lived experiences. However, there is a need to pay further attention to the opportunities they do not get to talk about their rights. In this vein, it concludes by recognising that further research in children’s geographies on how children’s voices can foreground new debates and discussions about enhancing the status of marginalised children and their rights across societies

Quantifying Present-Day Overpressure and its Development Through Time in Active and Passive Sedimentary Basins

Pore fluid pressure is a critical variable that needs to be assessed for many geological applications, including hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, geothermal energy, carbon capture and storage, H2, and nuclear waste storage. To further understand and mitigate the uncertainty of unexpected overpressured intervals or areas, this research assesses the occurrence of and the controls on pore fluid pressure in three geologically distinct regions: the East Coast Basin of New Zealand (ECB), the Magnolia Field in the Gulf of Mexico, and an Atlantic margin of the West African basin. The factors that contribute to overpressure generation, maintenance, and dissipation are assessed, as are the geological and geomechanical approaches used to identify the overpressure-generating mechanisms that contributed to the present-day overpressure. Simple approaches to overpressure evaluation, such as analytical equations and log-based well interpretations, were applied to the data; however, they are insufficient to explain the distribution of overpressure in areas with complex geological histories (e.g., erosive events, changes in sedimentation rates, tectonic compression, active tectonism). Geological data from each area were therefore used to construct 1D and 2D geomechanical (thermo-hydro-mechanical and hydro-mechanical) models that provide the evolution of porosity, stresses, and pore fluid pressure through time and facilitate the evaluation of each overpressure mechanism separately. Present-day overpressure in the three sedimentary basins results from different mechanisms acting at different periods of time. Overpressure dissipation occurs during erosive events and where lateral pressure drainage is present; the most recent events (e.g., 1,000 m) intervals of shale or thin (e.g., <85 m) successions of exceptionally low-permeability intervals are present. In tectonic active settings, tectonic compression acting during the most recent geological events (e.g., <6 Ma) has the greatest impact on porosity and pore fluid pressure; in the context of salt tectonics, this impact depends on the shape of the developing salt wall. Early geological clay diagenesis can locally reduce porosity and generate high overpressures due to the reduction of sediment permeability caused by a combination of chemical compaction (smectite to illite transformation) and mechanical compaction (post-diagenesis sedimentation). Finally, low (200 m/Ma) and high (3,000 m/Ma) sedimentation rates can generate overpressure when low-permeability intervals are present, also resulting in the preservation of high porosities. A detailed geological interpretation used as an input for the construction of geomechanical models can provide more realistic results, and consequently a better understanding of the present-day overpressure distribution within a basin. In addition, this information can be used to mitigate the level of uncertainty in seal failure of sites with the potential to store CO2, H2, and nuclear waste

Interactions between Receptor Kinases and PXY SUMOylation define Radial Pattern in Arabidopsis

In plant development, a receptor kinase may be active in disparate cell types, with each requiring different signalling outputs. The ERECTA (ER) receptor kinase and its homologs ERL1 and ERL2 exemplify this pleiotropy. In Arabidopsis, they influence stomatal patterning, shoot meristem function, ovule morphogenesis, xylem fiber differentiation, and cell division in the vascular cambium. Such diverse expression and functionality raise the question of how ER signalling can specify such distinct cell behaviours. One explanation is that cell-type specific interactions with co-receptors, ligands, or other proteins modulate signalling. However, little is known about ER interactors in the vascular cambium, a bifacial stem cell niche that generates phloem and xylem. Combinatorial mutations between ER, ERL1 and ERL2 and receptor kinases of a second family, PXY, PXL1, and PXL2, show severe cambial defects. Here I discovered that PXY and PXL proteins form heterodimers with ER and ERL2. PXY signalling can be manipulated by altering levels of its cognate ligand, TDIF. In genetic analysis, plant lines in which TDIF levels were altered had dramatic phenotypes that required the presence of ER or ERL2. These results demonstrate that PXY signalling mediated cambium regulation depends on ER signalling and explains ER function in the cambium. Because the cambium produces xylem, which constitutes the wood in vascular plants, our findings position PXY-ER heterodimers at the centre of the accumulation of this versatile biomaterial and carbon sink. The cambium and procambium are responsible for producing the majority of biomass in vascular plants. These meristems form a bifacial stem cell population, from which xylem and phloem are specified on opposing sides through positional signals. The PHLOEM INTERCALATED WITH XYLEM (PXY) receptor kinase plays a key role in promoting vascular cell division and organization. SUMO is a common post-translational protein decoration that affects many different biological processes such as plant immunity, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Here, PXY was found to be SUMOylated and SUMOylation sites were predicted. Mutation of PXY SUMO sites resulted in vascular defects including disorganized tissues, increased cell division and potential xylem differentiation defects. These data collectively indicate PXY SUMO is likely to be a negative regulator of PXY signaling and play crucial roles in vascular development. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of how PXY works at the plasma membrane may guide us in manipulating the system to increase or decrease signal transduction. A structural understanding of how PXY functions is therefore essential. The structure of the extracellular domain of PXY has been solved, but to fully understand its function, the structure of the cytoplasmic kinase domain would likely be informative. This could assist in understanding aspects of protein turnover and interactions with co-receptors

Structuring the State’s Voice of Contention in Harmonious Society: How Party Newspapers Cover Social Protests in China

During the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) campaign of building a ‘harmonious society’, how do the official newspapers cover the instances of social contention on the ground? Answering this question will shed light not only on how the party press works but also on how the state and the society interact in today’s China. This thesis conceptualises this phenomenon with a multi-faceted and multi-levelled notion of ‘state-initiated contentious public sphere’ to capture the complexity of mediated relations between the state and social contention in the party press. Adopting a relational approach, this thesis analyses 1758 news reports of ‘mass incident’ in the People’s Daily and the Guangming Daily between 2004 and 2020, employing cluster analysis, qualitative comparative analysis, and social network analysis. The thesis finds significant differences in the patterns of contentious coverage in the party press at the level of event and province and an uneven distribution of attention to social contention across incidents and regions. For ‘reported regions’, the thesis distinguishes four types of coverage and presents how party press responds differently to social contention in different scenarios at the provincial level. For ‘identified incidents’, the thesis distinguishes a cumulative type of visibility based on the quantity of coverage from a relational visibility based on the structure emerging from coverage and explains how different news-making rationales determine whether instances receive similar amounts of coverage or occupy similar positions within coverage. Eventually, by demonstrating how the Chinese state strategically uses party press to respond to social contention and how social contention is journalistically placed in different positions in the state’s eyes, this thesis argues that what social contention leads to is the establishment of complex state-contention relations channelled through the party press