15 research outputs found

    Computability Theory

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    Computability is one of the fundamental notions of mathematics, trying to capture the effective content of mathematics. Starting from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, it has now blossomed into a rich area with strong connections with other areas of mathematical logic as well as algebra and theoretical computer science

    The search for natural definability in the Turing degrees

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    On the structure of a formal grammar of literary Arabic

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    Rural structures in the tropics: Design and development

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    There is a growing awareness of the need for better rural structures and services in many developing countries. Here the FAO presents an up-to-date, comprehensive text focusing on structures for small- to medium-scale farms and, to some extent, village-scale agricultural infrastructure. The book will help to improve teaching on the subject of rural buildings in the tropics and will assist professionals engaged in providing technical advice. Importantly, it also provides guidance in the context of disaster recovery and rehabilitation, for rebuilding the sound rural structures and related services that are key to development and economic sustainability

    Mental physicians and their patients : Psychological medicine in the English pauper lunatic asylums of the later nineteenth century.

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    The objective of this thesis is to examine the pauper lunatic asylums of later Victorian England and assess the value of the psychological medicine which was carried on there. Broadly, it asks psychiatric, rather than strictly historical, questions in that it considers the benefits accruing to individual patients as being of central importance, whilst also evaluating the advantages gained by the medical profession and by outside society. After an introductory chapter there follows an analysis of medical theory on insanity. This considers the function of theory and assesses its usefulness in handling the problems posed by those labelled "insane". The third chapter analyses theories of treatment. It looks first at somatic therapies - electricity, showers and drugs - then considers what "moral treatment" had by then become, concluding with an overall interpretation of therapy in this period. In the section examining psychological medicine in practice, the first chapter is a reconstruction of asylum function using asylum admission registers. It shows mortality, lengths-of-stay, proportions of cures and so on according to various factors. Some analysis of patients' problems is also attempted. The following chapter pursues this theme with a study of asylum life as it affected the patient and, by implication, his or her course of treatment. The last section sets psychological medicine in its social contexts, first of professionalisation, with the advantages accruing to doctors and attendants and the conditions under which this branch of medicine operated, then of social provision. Asylums were supported by county rates and their patients by the Poor Law authorities and their influence on the enterprise is considered. It concludes that psychological medicine was self-defeating in its own terms because of the dominative nature of the relationship between the asylum and the patients. The perception of the patient as individual sufferer was occluded by a perception of him or her as social deviant. Thus the essential ingredient of the restoration of " normal" self-control - that the "self" be known and its needs recognised - was absent. The alternative to restoration, continued incarceration, was nevertheless socially acceptable and so persisted

    Putting nature in a box: Hans Sloane’s ‘Vegetable Substances’ collection

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    PhDThe ‘Vegetable Substances’ collection was formed by the physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) between the 1680s and the 1750s. All sorts of people ranging from ship’s captains in the Americas to surgeons in the East Indies sent natural material from around the world to London. Sometimes this involved a variety of means and intermediaries, and in other instances individuals, including aristocratic women in London and Royal Society Fellows across England, gave items directly to Sloane. When Sloane received these samples of botanical items, he had them sealed into small glass and wood boxes. He then numbered these items and described the sample in a three-volume manuscript catalogue. 12,523 items are listed in Sloane’s hand in this catalogue with varying degrees of information relating to their identification, contributor, provenance and use. Today, the Natural History Museum in London holds Sloane’s surviving catalogue and over 8000 of these ‘Vegetable Substances’ objects. Considering the collection as a whole, this thesis explores the role of the ‘Vegetable Substances’ in early eighteenth-century natural knowledge. Using data provided by the catalogue and Sloane’s surviving correspondence at the British Library, this thesis explores what is in the ‘Vegetable Substances’ and identifies how Sloane formed the collection by surveying the connections he developed with people across the world and how he managed these different relationships. Drawing on these exchanges, this thesis also focuses on the uses of the ‘Vegetable Substances’ by examining its contents in particular eighteenth-century contexts including gardening spaces and medicine.Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/J00989X/1) and supported by grants from the Natural History Museum, the Bodleian, and the British Society for the History of Scienc

    The Transmission of the Islamic Tradition in the Early Modern Era: The Life and Writings of Aḥmad Al-Dardīr

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    This thesis examines the role of tradition and discursive knowledge transmission on the formation of the ‘ulamā’, the learned scholarly class in Islam, and their approach to the articulation of the Islamic disciplines. The basis of this examination is the twelfth/eighteenth century scholar, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Dardīr, an Egyptian Azharī who wrote highly influential treatises in the disciplines of creedal theology, Mālikī jurisprudence, and taṣawwuf (Sufism). Additionally, he occupied a prominent role in the urban life of Cairo, accredited with several incidents of intercession with the rulers on behalf of the Cairo populace. This thesis argues that a useful framework for evaluating the intellectual contributions of post-classical scholars such as al-Dardīr involves the concept of an Islamic discursive tradition, where al-Dardīr’s specific contributions were aimed towards preserving, upholding, and maintaining the Islamic tradition, including the intellectual “sub-traditions” that came to define it. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to al-Dardīr, the social and intellectual climate of his era, and an overview of his writings. Chapter 2 analyses the educational paradigm that preceded al-Dardīr, and affected his approach to the Islamic disciplines. We then focus our attention to al-Dardīr’s contribution to the Islamic educational paradigm, in the form of taḥqīq (verification). Chapter 3 analyses al-Dardīr’s methodology in the synthesis of the rational and mystical approaches to knowledge located within the Islamic disciplines of creedal theology and Sufism. Chapter 4 analyses al-Dardīr’s to the Mālikī fiqh tradition, specifically his methodology of tarjīḥ (weighing of juristic evidence between different narrations). Chapter 5 examines his societal roles, and the influence of tradition on his relationships with the ruling elite, the ‘ulamā’ class, and the masses. The thesis ends with a conclusion that summarises the results of all of the above
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