4,876 research outputs found
The Reformation in the burgh of St Andrews : property, piety and power
No full textThis thesis examines the impact of the Reformation on the estates of ecclesiastical
institutions and officials based in St Andrews. It argues that land and wealth were
redistributed and power structures torn apart, as St Andrews changed from Scotland’s
Catholic ecclesiastical capital to a conspicuously Protestant burgh. The rapid dispersal
of the pre-Reformation church’s considerable ecclesiastical lands and revenues had
long-term ramifications for the lives of local householders, for relations between
religious and secular authorities, and for St Andrews’ viability as an urban community.
Yet this major redistribution of wealth has had limited attention from scholars.
The first part of this study considers the role played by the Catholic Church in St
Andrews before the Reformation, and the means by which it was financed, examining
the funding of the city’s pre-Reformation ecclesiastical foundations and officials, and
arguing that (contrary to some traditional assumptions) the Catholic Church in St
Andrews was on a reasonably sound financial footing until the Reformation. The second
section considers the immediate disruption to St Andrews’ religious lands and revenues
caused by the burgh’s public conversion to Protestantism, and then explores the more
planned reorganisation of the 1560s. The disputes and difficulties triggered by the
redistribution of ecclesiastical wealth are examined, as well as the longer term impact
on St Andrews of the treatment of church revenues at the Reformation. Evidence for this
study is chiefly drawn from the extensive body of manuscripts concerning St Andrews
held by the National Library of Scotland, the National Records of Scotland, and the
University of St Andrews Special Collections
An embedded control and display system for a laser-based mid-infrared hyperspectral imager
No full textBack-scatter absorption gas imaging (BAGI) is a powerful laser-based detection technique whereby the strong spectroscopic absorption features in the gaseous species of interest are exploited in order to provide an image of the otherwise invisible (to the naked eye) gas. Such a device had been under development at the University of St. Andrews for the past three years. This thesis is concerned with the work carried out in the design, construction and testing of an electronic supervisory system for such a device to both control the electro-mechanical image acquisition hardware and display the image data upon an LCD module via an on-board video driver. Two different LCD display technologies, super twisted nematic (STN) and thin film transistor (TFT), have been demonstrated and their suitability for use in this system is assessed. It was found that the refresh rate and contrast ratio of the TFT display was greatly superior to that of the STN. Frame rates in excess of 10 fps have been demonstrated with this module. In addition to the scanner, a laser management system (LMS) was designed, constructed and tested to control the laser illumination system, which is based on an intracavity optical parametric oscillator (ICOPO). This involved the development of a dual-channel PID temperature controller to stabilise various optical components located within the ICOPO illumination source, a digitally-controlled constant current source to drive the pump diode laser and a digitally controlled system for an associated Q-switch driver module. The LMS was developed as part of the miniaturisation process and resulted in one dedicated instrument replacing six individual devices required in the laboratory demonstrator. The BAGI device has now been commercialised with elements of this research program being part of the overall instrument
St Andrews University Library in the eighteenth century : Scottish education and print-culture
No full textThe context of this thesis is the growth in size and significance of the St Andrews University Library, made possible by the University's entitlement, under the Copyright Acts between 1709 and 1836, to free copies of new publications. Chapter I shows how the University used its improving Library to present to clients and visitors an image of the University's social and intellectual ideology. Both medium and message in this case told of a migration into the printed book of the University's functions, intellectual, spiritual, and moral, a migration which was going forward likewise in the other Scottish universities and in Scottish culture at large. Chapters II and III chart that migration respectively in religious discourse and in moral education. This growing importance of the book prompted some Scottish professors to devise agencies other than consumer demand to control what was read in their universities and beyond, and indeed what was printed. Chapter IV reviews those devices, one of which was the subject Rhetoric, now being reformed to bring modern literature into its discipline. Chapter V argues that the new Rhetoric tended in fact to confirm the hegemony of print by turning literary study from a general literary apprenticeship into the specialist reading of canonical printed texts. That tendency was not without opposition. Chapter VI analyses the challenge from traditional oral culture as it was expressed in the marginalia added to the Library books at St Andrews University by its students, and argues that this dissident culture helped to form the voice of the poet Robert Fergusson while he was one of those students. Chapter VII goes on to show how Fergusson used that voice to warn his countrymen of the threat which print represented to their culture, and to show how it might be resisted in the interests of both literature and conviviality
Education and episcopacy : the universities of Scotland in the fifteenth century
No full textEducational provision in Scotland was revolutionised in the fifteenth century through the foundation of three universities, or studia generale, at St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. These institutions can be viewed as part of the general expansion in higher education across Europe from the late-fourteenth century, which saw the establishment of many new centres of learning, often intended to serve local needs. Their impact on Scotland ought to have been profound; in theory, they removed the need for its scholars to continue to seek higher education at the universities of England or the continent.
Scotland’s fifteenth-century universities were essentially episcopal foundations, formally instituted by bishops within the cathedral cities of their dioceses, designed to meet the educational needs and career aspirations of the clergy. They are not entirely neglected subjects; the previous generation of university historians – including A. Dunlop, J. Durkan and L. J. Macfarlane – did much to recover the institutional, organisational and curricular developments that shaped their character. Less well explored, are the over-arching political themes that influenced the evolution of university provision in fifteenth-century Scotland as a whole. Similarly under-researched, is the impact of these foundations on the scholarly community, and society more generally.
This thesis explores these comparatively neglected themes in two parts. Part I presents a short narrative, offering a more politically sensitive interpretation of the introduction and expansion of higher educational provision in Scotland. Part II explores the impact of these foundations on Scottish scholars. The nature of extant sources inhibits reconstruction of the full extent of their influence on student numbers and patterns of university attendance. Instead, Part II presents a thorough quantitative and qualitative prosopographical study of the Scottish episcopate within the context of this embryonic era of university provision in Scotland. In so doing, this thesis offers new insights into a neglected aspect of contemporary clerical culture as well as the politics of fifteenth-century academic learning
Treasures of the University : an examination of the identification, presentation and responses to artefacts of significance at the University of St Andrews, from 1410 to the mid-19th century; with an additional consideration of the development of the portrait collection to the early 21st century
No full textSince its foundation between 1410 and 1414 the University of St Andrews has acquired what can be considered to be ‘artefacts of significance’. This somewhat nebulous phrase is used to denote items that have, for a variety of reasons, been deemed to have some special import by the University, and have been displayed or otherwise presented in a context in which this status has been made apparent.
The types of artefacts in which particular meaning has been vested during the centuries under consideration include items of silver and gold (including the maces, sacramental vessels of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, collegiate plate and relics of the Silver Arrow archery competition); church and college furnishings; artworks (particularly portraits); sculpture; and ethnographic specimens and other items described in University records as ‘curiosities’ held in the University Library from c. 1700-1838.
The identification of particular artefacts as significant for certain reasons in certain periods, and their presentation and display, may to some extent reflect the University's values, preoccupations and aspirations in these periods, and, to some degree, its identity. Consciously or subconsciously, the objects can be employed or operate as signifiers of meaning, representing or reflecting matters such as the status, authority and history of the University, its breadth of learning and its interest and influence in spheres from science, art and world cultures to national affairs.
This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the growth and development of the University's holdings of 'artefacts of significance' from its foundation to the mid-19th century, and in some cases (especially portraits) beyond this date. It also offers insights into how the University viewed and presented these items and what this reveals about the University of St Andrews, its identity, which changed and developed as the living institution evolved, and the impressions that it wished to project
The Role of Evidence in Establishing Trust in Repositories
No full textThis article arises from work by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Working Group examining mechanisms to roll out audit and certification services for digital repositories in the United Kingdom. Our attempt to develop a program for applying audit and certification processes and tools took as its starting point the RLG-NARA Audit Checklist for Certifying Digital Repositories. Our intention was to appraise critically the checklist and conceive a means of applying its mechanics within a diverse range of repository environments. We were struck by the realization that while a great deal of effort has been invested in determining the characteristics of a 'trusted digital repository', far less effort has concentrated on the ways in which the presence of the attributes can be demonstrated and their qualities measured. With this in mind we sought to explore the role of evidence within the certification process, and to identify examples of the types of evidence (e.g., documentary, observational, and testimonial) that might be desirable during the course of a repository audit.
Slicing the Pie: A Discussion of Seminary Book Budget Allocation at Andrews University
No full textThe allocation of a materials budget is a challenge. This paper discusses a solution for Andrews University that accounts for the more specialized needs of Ph.D. students, even though the materials may see less usage
Age, geographical distribution and taphonomy of an unusual occurrence of mummified crabeater seals on James Ross Island, Antarctica
No full textAn unusually dense collection of some 150 dead crabeater seals (Family Phocidae), in various stages of decay, occurs in the Brandy Bay hinterland, north-western James Ross Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula. Throughout the past 100 years, the presence of shelf ice (no longer present today) and sea ice in Prince Gustav Channel, between James Ross Island and the Antarctic Peninsula, has prevented seals from readily accessing the western side of James Ross Island. However, open water pools, some over one kilometre in diameter, remain accessible throughout the winter months, allowing seals to haul out onto the ice. It is likely that some of these seals may become disorientated as they wander away from the pools and instead head toward Brandy Bay and onto low-lying and snow-covered Abernethy Flats, easily mistaken for sea ice in early winter, where they perish. The large number of variably-decayed animals present suggests that this has probably happened on numerous occasions. However, some of the dead seals also probably perished during a documented mass dying event of crabeater seals in Prince Gustav Channel caused by an unidentified epidemic, possibly phocine distemper virus (PDV), during the spring of 1955
Erratum: Correction:Antibiotic use for Australian Aboriginal children in three remote Northern Territory communities (PloS one (2020) 15 4 (e0231798))
No full textThere is an error in affiliation 1 for authors Timothy Howarth and Therese M. Kearns, in affiliation 4 for author Ross M. Andrews, and in affiliation 7 for author Federica Barzi. The correct
affiliation 1 is: Child Health, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University,
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The correct affiliation 4 is: Tropical Health, Menzies
School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The
correct affiliation 7 is: Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Diseases, Menzies School of Health
Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
The inferior vena caval compression theory of hypotension in obstetric spinal anaesthesia: studies in normal and preeclamptic pregnancy, a literature review and revision of fundamental concepts
No full textFull metadata records and copyright statements for publications contained in this portfolio thesis are available at the identifiers listedThree clinical investigations together with a combined editorial and review of the cardiovascular physiology
of spinal anaesthesia in normal and preeclamptic pregnancy form the basis of a thesis to be submitted for the
degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of St Andrews. First, the longstanding consensus that spinal
anaesthesia could cause severe hypotension in severe preeclampsia was examined using three approaches.
The doses of ephedrine required to maintain systolic blood pressure above predetermined limits were first
compared in spinal versus epidural anaesthesia. The doses of ephedrine required were then similarly studied
during spinal anaesthesia in preeclamptic versus normal control subjects. The principal outcome of these
studies, that preeclamptic patients were resistant to hypotension after a spinal anaesthetic, was then further
investigated by studying pulse transit time (PTT) changes in normal versus preeclamptic pregnancy. PTT
was explored both as beat-to-beat monitor of cardiovascular function and also as an indicator of changes in
arterial stiffness. The cardiovascular physiology of obstetric spinal anaesthesia was then reviewed in the light
of the three clinical investigations, developments in reproductive vascular biology and the regulation of
venous capacitance. It is argued that the theory of a role for vena caval compression as the single cause of
spinal anaesthetic induced hypotension in obstetrics should be revised
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