VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The British Conservative Party and the state, 1929-1940
Keywords: domestic policy
interwar
rationalisation
Conservatism
Conservative Party
welfare policy

This thesis examines the Conservative Party’s attitude towards the role of the state between its loss of the 1929 election and the downfall of the National Government in May 1940. The appropriate extent of government intervention was one of the most important political debates in the twentieth century, and is critical to understanding the social and economic policies of a controversial decade. Despite this, how the governing Conservatives viewed the state remains neglected. Historians of 1930s Tory domestic policy have variously argued it was too interventionist, not interventionist enough, or quite reasonable. This thesis answers this question by examining an extensive range of archival and other primary sources. In doing so, it provides the first overview of the National Government’s domestic policymaking.
The thesis has six chapters. Chapter one outlines the evolution of Conservatism from the advent of the mass electorate up to 1929. Chapter two explores the development of Conservative policy in opposition up until the party’s unexpected return to government via the multi-party National Government 1931. This is treated separately to the remaining chapters to better assess the impact being in coalition had on policymaking. For the 1931-40 period, the thesis breaks into four case studies: industrial reorganisation, welfare, housing, and education. These four topics were chosen because they were of great contemporary significance. Additionally, because the Conservatives reacted differently in each policy area, comparing them reveals where Tory ideological boundaries lay.
This thesis argues that while most Conservatives were reluctant to turn to the state at first instance, they would at least tolerate state intervention when they believed a key institution was threatened. It further argues that while Conservatism was open to outside influences, whether from coalition partners, ex-Liberals, or civil servants, this was only where those ideas were in accordance with what they understood as Conservative principles.
Legal and other fictions of civil recovery: is it possible to reconcile the civil recovery of the proceeds of grand corruption with criminal justice and human rights?
Keywords: asset recovery
social and economic rights
human rights
criminal justice
civil and political rights

Owing to corruption, between USD20 billion and USD40 billion is estimated to be in flight from developing countries annually - with only USD5 billion in stolen assets having been successfully repatriated in the past 15 years. The Arab Spring served only to strengthen the view that civil recovery is a helpful tool in the fight against the evils of corruption. However, difficult tensions exist between civil recovery and principles of criminal justice and human rights, including the presumption of innocence and the right to property. This thesis is centrally concerned with the civil classification of the civil recovery regime of England and Wales, as provided for in Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002), and its use to recover the proceeds of grand corruption. I conclude that grand corruption is a serious criminal wrong requiring it to be, except in a very limited number of exceptions, prosecuted in the criminal law. I also conclude that there are strong human rights-based objections to the court’s classification of civil recovery as ‘civil’, and that Part 5 powers ought to be considered criminal in substance thereby attracting the procedural protections of the criminal law and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The core values of liberty, autonomy and freedom that underpin human rights are threatened by Part 5 proceedings since assets are recovered without any criminal conviction or any of the enhanced protections of the criminal law. Yet, at the same time, the recovery and repatriation of illicit assets through civil recovery can enhance human rights, in particular social and economic rights, and corrupt acts can in themselves constitute a violation of human rights. The thesis concludes that despite the important potential human rights benefits of civil recovery, the weakening of certain protections of Article 6 by the use of civil recovery can only be justified in extreme cases when clear criteria are met.
Speciation and adaptation of senecio
Keywords: nucleocytoplasmic incompatibilities
genetic incompatibilities
speciation
senecio aethnensis
senecio chrysanthemifolius
selection
clines
Mount Etna
hybrids
adaptation

Speciation was thought to be initiated by geographical isolation only. However, more and more research has shown that there are other drivers of speciation, such as divergent selection, and that speciation could happen in the face of gene flow with mechanisms to maintain reproductive isolation. This thesis presents similar findings on a case of recent speciation with gene flow found on Mount Etna (Sicily), where closely related high- and low-elevation adapted species, Senecio aethnensis and S. chrysanthemifolius live and hybridise. I used different methods to examine the processes during their speciation and the maintenance of their reproductive isolation. Their homoploid hybrid species, S. squalidus, was also studied to explore various aspects of hybrid speciation. I started by exploring the demographic history of the two species, and revealed several crucial features during their speciation, including heterogenous gene flow, bidirectional gene flow and historical gene flow. Although a secondary contact scenario and a gene flow since divergence scenario could not be determined, the rest of the thesis focused on the evolutionary processes that happened during speciation. Cline analyses and genome scans revealed the presence of divergent selection and positive selection widespread across all linkage groups and that selective agents had various strengths and ages, supporting the multifarious selection hypothesis. These two analyses also provided a list of candidate genes that are related to adaptation to different elevations on Mount Etna, such as those regarding metal ions defence and UV response. In the final chapter of the thesis, I investigated hybrid breakdown using multiple F2 families. Not only was hybrid breakdown confirmed, new breakdown traits were discovered. I also uncovered phenotypic evidence of nucleocytoplasmic incompatibility in the system, and showed that the level of hybrid breakdown likely depended on the level of incompatibility between different S. aethnensis and S. chrysanthemifolius pairs. Last but not least, the hybrid species ex situ, S. squalidus, exhibited significant phenotypic differences from artificial F2 hybrids, hinting morphological novelties during its evolution and establishment in the UK. Overall, this thesis presents research on both the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms during the speciation of Etnean Senecio. At the same time, it illustrates the value of these young non-model systems in studying speciation and demonstrates that evolution of new traits for adaptation can happen very quickly.
Exploring the substrate scope of histone demethylases
Keywords: JmjC demethylases
histone demethylases
HIF1α
demethylases
G3BP1
Hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha
arginine hydroxylation
epigenetics
alpha-ketoglutarate oxygenase
arginine demethylation
2-oxoglutarate oxygenases
lysine N-methylation
KDM1A
Ras GTPase-activating protein-binding protein 1
histones
androgen receptor
lysine demethylation
KDM4E
histone H2a
JmjC proteins

Post-translational modifications of histones play key roles in regulation of eukaryotic transcription and in epigenetics. Lysine methylation of histones is a dynamic balance between activity of methyl transferases and demethylases (KDMs). Fe(II) 2-oxoglutarate (2OG)-dependent Jumonji C (JmjC)-KDMs are current targets for medical chemistry. Defining the extent and role of their substrates is important from a translational perspective and is of basic scientific interest.
The work described in this thesis concerned investigations into the substrate scope of the JmjC-KDM family of 2OG oxygenases. Catalysis by JmjC-KDMs was validated and extended to include new enzymes and substrates. The KDM and RDM activities of a JmjC-KDM (KDM4E) were shown to be inhibited by compounds developed to modulate KDM activity, raising questions about the biological effects of the inhibitors.
Novel non-histone protein substrates of lysine methyltransferase and demethylases were explored and identified using peptide fragments.
Although further investigations are required to determine whether the new findings are relevant in cells, the results highlight a need to consider activities of JmjC-KDMs beyond histone demethylation.
Microfluidics with fluid walls
Keywords: microfluidics
fluid walls

A high variety of microfluidic platforms that aim to miniaturize and automate biomedical assays have been developed in the last decades, but these have failed to be integrated as common equipment in laboratories. This is due to concerns about biocompatibility, issues about the ease of use and the limited range of readouts that the system can accommodate.
This thesis describes a powerful and versatile alternative to conventional microfluidics, in which solid, obscuring walls are replaced by morphing fluid walls. Various methods are used to reshape cell media on Petri dishes into almost any imaginable pattern. The simplicity of the technique eliminates the need for expensive machinery and equipment. The system is shown to be biocompatible and to have potential for high-throughput cell-based analysis. This technology allows the user to fabricate a wide variety of microfluidic devices truly on demand (within minutes).
Beyond simple proof-of-concept applications, this technology produces several important results: miniaturized CRISPR-Cas9 assays in volumes smaller than 1 µl, a fluorescent method for measuring small volumes, a method to reconfigure cellular environments around living cells, a way to accelerate single-cell cloning, beating the Poisson distribution in single-cell cloning, designing and creating a perfusion device which can continuously feed cells over days, and a method for dislodging attached cells and creating wounds in vitro. In its entirety, this thesis puts forward a set of methods to model and reshape cellular environments using apparatus accessible to common biology laboratories: a 3-axis traverse, syringe pumps, petri dishes, cell media and FC40.
Nikolai Yaponsky and the Russian Orthodox Mission to Japan during the Meiji Period: encounters and tensions between Russia, Japan and the West
Keywords: Orthodox Christianity in Japan
Russo-Japanese religious ties
St Nicholas of Japan
Nikolai Yaponsky

This thesis offers a full account—the first in a Western language—of the activities of the Russian Orthodox missionary Nikolai Kasatkin in Japan in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. In my study of this important page in the history of Christian missionary work, I draw on extensive resources—both archival and published—that Kasatkin left behind. His diaries provide the most sincere and detailed account of his work and have recently been published in Russian and Japanese, while most other sources are held in various archives in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Tokyo. On the basis of these sources, I demonstrate that Kasatkin’s work can be divided into three distinct periods.
The transitions between these periods are not strict but are by and large determined by the broader historical context. It is, therefore, important to contextualise Kasatkin’s work within the tripod scheme of historical developments in Japan and Russia—which he knew well—and in the West, which he observed through interactions with other missionaries, correspondence, and newspaper reports. This thesis is structured in three main chapters that correspond to the three periods, with a fourth chapter that addresses the core issue of Nikolai’s approach to the status of the Church, which remained unchanged throughout his life. The thesis forms a unique contribution to the history of Orthodox missionary work and Christian missiology in general for a number of reasons. In addition to the fact that the described encounter between Nikolai and Japan is different from most studies in the field, Nikolai was no simplistic evangeliser; he was a remarkable person with a sharp gift for observation who entrusted his soul to his diaries and provided an honest account of his life and work and the historical, political, and social events around him.
Visualization of multivalent binding events using α-hemolysin
Keywords: lectin
multivalent binding
single channel recording
α-Hemolysin

The work done in this thesis aims to visualize multivalent binding events of proteins and their ligands, more specifically lectins and sugar moieties. This visualization is done by single channel recording (SCR) via stochastic sensing. Herein, the binding is studied at a single molecular level. Two mannose moieties are covalently connected by linker molecules to an ion channel forming protein, forming bivalent mannopores. These bivalent mannopores are used in a SCR set-up, wherein different lectins are added to study their binding behaviour. The lectins differ in their valency, with monovalent, bivalent, trivalent and tetravalent lectins being used. For each of these lectins, a binding model was derived that shows the dynamic nature of a multivalent binding event. This work shows that lectin-sugar binding is much more dynamic than previous theories would suggest.
Linking reinforcement learning and cognitive maps to understand how the brain represents abstract tasks 
Keywords: cognitive maps
reinforcement learning
decision making

The terms “reinforcement learning” (RL) and “cognitive maps” are both commonly rooted in early behaviourist psychology. However, in neuroscience, these two subfields have largely progressed in parallel. In this thesis, I use ideas and techniques from one subfield to address open questions in the other.
While the theory of RL has dramatically advanced our understanding of the brain’s learning algorithms, we still don’t know how RL tasks are represented. Here, I take inspiration from the well-studied representations of the cognitive map in spatial tasks to investigate how abstract non-spatial RL tasks are represented and how task knowledge might be generalised to novel situations. I present converging results suggesting that the same areas that encode the structure of spatial tasks also encode the structure of abstract RL tasks. In addition, I use ideas from spatial cognitive maps to suggest novel interpretations of heavily-studied RL neural signals. Further, taking inspiration from the discovery of inference mechanisms over the structure of spatial tasks, I suggest a study, for which I already have a task and a model, that could shed light on similar structural inference mechanisms in RL tasks.
While navigation and planning in physical space have been thoroughly studied, it is not clear how animals can navigate through cognitive maps with arbitrary topology. Here I investigate spatial cognitive maps through the lens of RL formalism, and use ideas from RL to suggest a flexible and efficient planning algorithm that can be used in both spatial environments and environments with arbitrary topology.
This thesis demonstrates the progress that can be made by bringing these two subfields together, and hopefully brings us one step closer to understanding the mechanisms underlying the human capacity for flexible behaviour.
From trash to treasure: the recycling of glass in Roman and Early Medieval period Britain
Keywords: Recycling
Dorchester-on-Thames
Early Medieval
Glass
Archaeometry
Britain
Archaeology
Anglo-Saxon
Lyminge
Archaeological Science
England
Analysis
Roman

The main aim of this thesis is twofold; first to asses the ability of material studies to identify and quantify recycling in ancient glass, and then to compare the nature and extent of recycling of glass in the first to fourth centuries in Britain, Roman Britain, to the following Early Medieval period, fifth to eighth centuries.
The first section of this thesis, the backbone, is a compilation of published values of glass analysed from English sites, and a comparative database from Europe. This also includes the expansion of the English database with the fresh analysis of glass from the sites of Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and Lyminge, Kent.
The next section is a theoretical discussion of recycling and particularly the re- cycling of ancient glass. This includes both the ramifications of different forms of recycling for artefacts, in terms of traditional archaeological concerns such as trade, deposition and object biography, but more importantly the material studies changes that one might expect to witness from such recycling.
This leads on to the chemistry of glass, and specifically how this can be used to demonstrate that recycling. Setting out and devising the material studies approaches to quantifying and qualifying ancient glass recycling, assessing which techniques are potentially of value. This synthesis and analysis includes both a large amount of legacy data, the database, as well as the small study of new glasses. In particular, the new glasses that will aim to increase the number of post-Roman glasses.
The final portion of the thesis uses the architecture of the previous sections to compare the patterns of recycling across time in Britain, specifically the geographical components. This demonstrates the relationship between geography and trade, and how this changes in England as Roman influence falls and a new power takes Britain.
Altered states: the politics of marijuana legalization in Latin America
Keywords: Comparative Politics
Drug Policy Reform
Cannabis
Counterfactual Analysis
Social Movements
Legalization
Legal Mobilisation
Morality Policy
Process Tracing
Chile
Politics of Policymaking
Marijuana
Uruguay
Mexico
Latin America

My thesis investigates how and why drug policy liberalization has moved from purported impossibility to political reality in Latin America. Specifically, I ask why do we see far reaching marijuana legalization in Uruguay and Mexico, and no reform at all in Chile? To answer this question, I study the role that actors, ideas and institutions play in the reform process. Based on unparalleled access to key actors, my thesis combines process tracing and counterfactual analysis to build and assess my argument.
Without disregarding the importance of state support or societal opposition, my thesis argues that civil society reform proponents are the driving force behind recent cannabis liberalization episodes in Latin America. Organizational resources and capacities, as well as coalitions with other actors, shape reform proponents’ ability to influence decision making. Professionalized and institutionalized advocates are more successful than grassroots activists in strategically framing cannabis reform. Both messages and messengers condition whether would-be reformers are more or less persuasive in agenda setting, maintenance and counteracting agenda denial, which in turn determine the attention and approval reform demands achieve.
My thesis finds that differences in organizational capacities of reform proponents, their strategic framing and agenda manipulation explain the variation in marijuana legalization in Latin America. Uruguayan reform proponents capitalized on insider agenda setting by the government, whereas Mexican and Chilean reform proponents had to pro-actively engage in agenda setting. In Uruguay, a professional campaign adopted focus group-tested messages. In Mexico, elite societal actors adapted their legal challenge according to the target audience. In Chile, “grassroots” activists failed to offer a coherent framing of cannabis liberalization. Whereas Uruguayan and Mexican reform proponents were highly professional and pragmatic, Chilean reform proponents’ efforts were mostly amateurish and idealistic. In combination, these differences in demand shaped the supply of drug policy reform in Latin America.
Dependable partners? Assessing reliability in alliance politics
Keywords: Cold War
threat perception
reliability
Emotions
Asian security
alliance
Affect

From the perspectives of both theory and practice, perceived reliability is often assumed to be integral to strategic considerations vis-a-vis the formation and management of alliances. It not only significantly shapes the credibility of alliance commitment, but also looms large in the context of extended and immediate deterrence between a state’s allies and adversaries. However, no systematic theorization of perceived reliability has been accomplished in the existing literature so far. To bridge this apparent gap, this D.Phil thesis is aimed at shedding light on a crucial question: How do states come to judge if their alliance partners are reliable? Specifically, it seeks to uncover the psychological mechanisms through which leaders assess each other’s re- liability. Drawing upon insights from three existing approaches regarding intention assessments, this thesis sets out to develop two competing theories of alliance reliability judgment: The Rational Choice Model (RCM) and the Affective Reasoning Model (ARM). Then, it comparatively tests the propositions derived from both models by examining the histories of three Asia-Pacific alliances during the Cold War: (1) The Sino-Soviet alliance from 1949 to 1969, (2) the US-ROC alliance from 1949 to 1975, and (3) the US-Japan alliance from 1945 to 1987. The findings of the thesis can potentially contribute to on-going scholarly discussions in the areas of threat perception, strategic deterrence and alliance theories. In terms of policy implications, this thesis is particularly relevant to intra-alliance communication and alliance management.