VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
What factors assist clinicians to determine dying in an acute setting?
Keywords: end of life
dying
terminal
fultility
palliative

Background: The End of Life Care Strategy stated that there should be a reduction of expected deaths in the acute setting. In order to achieve this goal, when it has been identified that where the patient's preferred place of care is home, clinicians need to be able to recognise when a patient is dying in order to achieve their preferred place of death. The aims of this study were to identify any factors that help or hinder a clinician when they are determining when irreversible dying begins and to seek consensus on which of these topics would be useful to include in an education programme.
Method: A 3 stage mixed methods study was developed. Phase 1was a Systematic Review of current primary research in order to provide an evidence base for the study. Phase 2 involved unstructured interviews with clinicians in the acute setting utilising the Grounded Theory approach to the analysis identify potential factors. Phase 3 was a Delphi study used to identify which of these factors would be useful in an education programme.
Conclusions: The Systematic Review identified four themes "Patient Observation", "Knowledge of the Patient", "Communication" and "Attitudes of the Clinician". These were confirmed by the interviews and a further theme "Experience" identified. The over-arching theme emerging from the findings of the interviews was that clinicians have a fear of getting the timing of the recognition of irreversible dying wrong because the decision making process is so complex and this is exacerbated by fear of missing the treatable. Many factors identified in the interviews were acknowledged as factors that could be included in an education package. It was also identified that there is the need for a culture shift in society regarding death and dying and a change in the philosophy of care for health care professionals.
Stochasticity in foraging theory: risk and information
Keywords: stochasticity
optimal foraging behaviour
environmental tracking

This thesis considers the importance of adding stochasticity to models of optimal foraging behaviour. The problem is divided into two elements, risk and information, which are treated separately.
Part One: Risk. The theoretical and empirical results concerning animal preferences in risky situations are reviewed. Animals are known to show both risk-averse and risk-prone preferences over food reward. It is shown, theoretically, that a simple optimality model mimimizing the probability of death due to starvation accounts for at least some of the observed patterns of preference. The model is generalized to consider preference from arbitrary combinations of mean and variance. Three limitations of the model are treated in detail, that is the importance of starvation by "ruin", mind-changing about risk preferences, and energetic carry-over are discussed. The implications and limitations of these models are outlined.
Part Two: Information. The theoretical literature is reviewed, and the problem of information is divided into three elements.
A simple model of environmental tracking is studied. The model suggests that there is a trade-off between sensitivity to change and the costs of sampling. The model is tested using great tits (Parus major) foraging in an aviary. The trend in sampling was as predicted, but the birds were less sensitive to change than predicted.
The problem of patch sampling is critically discussed. The value of sampling is defined, and this definition is used to compare the assumptions of previous models. Three such problems are treated: the importance of variance in the mixing distribution of patch sub-types; the importance of alternative and unambiguous patch types; and the importance of patch depression. It is concluded that previous models have often over-valued sampling. A simple and natural model of partial patch recognition is considered, and is shown to have empirical support. Implications and limitations of these models of information are discussed.
The Arnoldian element in Yeats's A Vision
Keywords: Arnold
A Vision
Yeats

In this study of the influence of Matthew Arnold on W.B. Yeats, I describe a tendency in the critical field to overlook the placement of Arnold at Phase 18, and the implications of his presence beside Yeats at Phase 17, in Yeats’s key philosophical treatise A Vision (1926, 1937). The central contribution of my thesis is to address this crucial blind spot but also the concomitant failure by critics to consider Arnold’s overall bearing on the ‘System’ itself. Chiefly through analysis of the gyres, two types of man, and lunar phases of the Great Wheel, I trace five main, interrelated aspects comprising ‘the Arnoldian element’ in A Vision: 1) Romanticism; 2) morbidity; 3) Celticism; 4) culture; and 5) the over-arching ideal of ancient Greek genius. My thesis that Arnold is paramount to Yeats’s poetical and political concerns in the treatise demonstrates how the Arnoldian element – including a covert extension of Yeats’s dialogue with Arnold in “The Celtic Element in Literature” (1897) – within its abstruse occult discourse partly but powerfully shapes: 1) the projection of Irish self-rule and unity, principally in the figure of the Daimonic Man of the ideal Phase 17 (Yeats) subversively juxtaposed with the fragmenting Emotional Man of Phase 18 (Arnold and Goethe), in a time of anarchy; and 2) the representation of a range of phasal examples (named and unnamed, encompassing both literature and sexual love). I argue that Yeats’s considerable indebtedness to Arnold 1) both spurs and troubles readings of Yeats as a poet of decolonization; 2) merits attention in the long-running ‘Orwellian’ debate over Yeats’s alleged fascism, coinciding with Yeats’s eugenics; 3) illuminates A Vision as an ‘anxiety of influence’ text in which Yeats ‘kills’ his critical fathers Arnold and J.B. Yeats; and 4) warrants Arnold’s routine inclusion among Yeats’s foremost influences like Nietzsche, Blake, Dante, and Shelley whose portrayals in A Vision are partly bound up, as I show, with Yeats’s engagement with Arnold.
Consumed yet quickened by the glance of God: John Henry Newman's Theology of Purgatory
Keywords: Eschatology
Oxford Movement
John Henry Newman
Doctrine
Dream of Gerontius
Purgatory

This thesis outlines the development of the doctrine of Purgatory in the theology of the nineteenth century theologian John Henry Newman (1801-1890). I trace the beginning of this development from 1816-1828 by identifying key theological themes from Newman’s early Evangelical writings on holiness, purification and conversion. After rejecting the Evangelicalism of his youth, Newman moved progressively towards High-Church Anglicanism from 1828 onward, and adopted the Anglican teaching of the 'intermediate state'. From 1830 he began to preach on this teaching by presenting it as an alternative to the 'depressing prospect' to the 'Romish' doctrine of Purgatory. However from 1837-1845 his views on Purgatory shifted considerably after studying the Tridentine decrees. In 1841 he claimed in Tract XC of Tracts for the Times that significant changes in the formulation of Article XXII of the XXXIX Articles meant that the Church of England did not reject the doctrine of Purgatory in its primitive form, but rather only the 'Romish' extremes of mediaeval theology which had corrupted her teaching. His claim that there was no disparity between what Trent taught on Purgatory and what the Church of England held in Article XXII caused widespread controversy among his contemporaries.
In his early Roman Catholic years, from 1845-1853, he initially adopted the commonly held punitive model of Purgatory, but leaned increasingly towards an ameliorative understanding of the doctrine. By 1865 Newman had adumbrated a theology of Purgatory in The Dream of Gerontius, in which he showed how rather than being purged by material fire, the soul was purified by a singular and instantaneous experience of the holiness of God. I demonstrate how his theology of Purgatory in the Dream represents a significant contribution to a renewed understanding of the doctrine in Roman Catholic theology.
Ultrafast and continuous-wave spectroscopy of multiferroic oxide thin films
Keywords: spectroscopy
think film
multiferroic
oxide
THz
pump probe

Thin film multiferroic oxides with co-existing ferroelectric and ferromagnetic ordering have attracted much interest in recent years, partly as a result of the enhancements achieved through the adoption of strained thin film geometries. This thesis presents work on two such thin film oxides; lanthanide substituted BiFeO3 and Fe substituted PbTiO3.
Coherent magnons and acoustic phonons were impulsively excited and probed in thin films of the room temperature multiferroic Bi1-x-yDyxLayFeO3 using femtosecond laser pulses. The elastic moduli of rhombohedral, tetragonal and rare-earth doped BiFeO3 were determined from acoustic mode frequencies in conjunction with spectroscopic ellipsometry. A weak ferromagnetic order, induced alternately by magnetization in the growth direction or by tetragonality, created a magnon oscillation at 75 GHz, indicative of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction energy of 0.31 meV.
Bulk crystals and thin films of PbTi1-xFexO3 (PTFO) are multiferroic, exhibiting ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism at room temperature. Here we report that the Ruddlesden-Popper phase Pbn+1(Ti1-xFex)nO3n+1 forms spontaneously during pulsed laser deposition of PTFO on LaAlO3 substrates. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy, x-ray difraction and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy were utilised to perform a structural and ompositional analysis, demonstrating that n&sime;8 and x&sime;0.33. The complex dielectric function of the films was determined from far-infrared to ultraviolet energies using a combination of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, Fourier transform spectroscopy, and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The simultaneous Raman and infrared activity of phonon modes, and the observation of second harmonic generation, establishes a non-centrosymmetric point group for Pbn+1(Ti0.67Fe0.33)nO3n+1-δ consistent with ferroelectricity. No evidence of macroscopic ferromagnetism was found in SQUID magnetometry. The ultrafast optical response exhibited coherent magnon oscillations compatible with local magnetic order, and additionally was used to study photocarrier cooling on picosecond timescales. An optical gap smaller than that of BiFeO3 and long photocarrier lifetimes may make this system interesting as a ferroelectric photovoltaic.
A novel approach to the synthesis of the FG fragment of pectenotoxin-4
Keywords: cobalt
trans-Tetrahyrofuran
FG fragment
pectenotoxin
trans-THF
synthesis
Oxidative cyclisation

The cobalt-catalysed oxidative cyclisation of 5-hydroxy alkenes has been demonstrated to be a powerful synthetic tool for the formation of trans-THFs with excellent diastereoselectivity. This thesis describes the utilisation of this methodology in the synthesis of the FG fragment of pectenotoxin-4, allowing the scope of the reaction to be further explored.
Introduction: This section introduces the pectenotoxins, a family of structurally complex closed-chain polyether macrolides with promising biological activities. The isolation, structural elucidation, and biological properties of the pectenotoxins are reviewed, along with a summary of previous syntheses towards the FG fragment of pectenotoxin-4. In addition, the cobalt-catalysed oxidative cyclisation of 5-hydroxy alkenes and its application in synthesis is discussed.
Results and Discussion: An outline of the synthetic strategy employed in this project and details of the novel retrosynthesis of the C31-C40 fragment of pectenotoxin-4 is described. The synthetic studies carried out towards the synthesis of the FG fragment of pectenotoxin-4 are discussed in detail, with the exploitation of a cobalt-catalysed oxidative cyclisation as the key step to form the trans-THF F-ring. Overall, the FG fragment, which contains six stereogenic centres, was achieved in 18 total synthetic steps (13 longest linear sequence).
On the importance of feedback in the stream-fed high redshift universe
Keywords: High Redshift Universe
Galaxy Formation

Cosmological hydrodynamic simulations have shown that galaxies are fed by dense, cold gas streams at high redshift. However, the presence of such gas has never been observationally confirmed.
Using the Horizon- MareNostrum simulation, I examined whether cold flows are detectable with low-ionisation metal absorption lines, such as C II 1334. It is concluded that due to their low metallicity and density, it is extremely difficult to prove/disprove the presence of cold flows using the metal absorption lines.
Revisiting the acquisition of angular momentum in disc galaxies using high resolution simulations, I found that at the time of accretion, gas and dark matter do carry a similar amount of specific angular momentum which is systematically and significantly higher (at minimum by a factor of 2) than that of the dark matter halo as a whole. Whereas cold streams directly deposit this large amount of angular momentum within a sphere of radius r~0.1 Rvir, dark matter particles easily pass through the central region, depositing their angular momentum over a much more spatially extended region.
As a result, in our simulations neither the total specific angular momentum of the baryons nor its radial profile ever follows that of the virialised dark matter halo, contrary to what is typically assumed in the standard theory of disc galaxy formation. In order to better understand the formation of disc galaxies and the missing baryon problem in a LCDM universe, continuous, collective galactic winds are implemented. It is demonstrated that stellar feedback processes are able to suppress star formation by ~30% at z=3, compared to that from the run without feedback sources, but it still produces an unrealistic central peak in the rotation curve. Although inclusion of hypernovae further suppresses star formation, it is unable to quench the formation of low-angular momentum stars enough to remove the peaked rotation curves at high redshift.
Finally, feedback from active galactic nuclei turns out to be effective at suppressing star formation in massive galaxies at 1
The genetics of handedness and dyslexia
Keywords: Handedness
CNV
Dyslexia
Genome-wide association study
Genetics
Genomics

The population level bias towards right-handedness in humans implies left-hemisphere dominance for fine motor control. Left-handedness and reduced cerebral asymmetry have been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia. Understanding the biology of these traits at a genetic level is crucial for understanding the relationship between handedness and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Here I present genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analyses for both relative hand skill (handedness, n = 728) and reading-related traits (n = 548) in individuals with dyslexia. I uncovered a genome-wide significant association in an intron of PCSK6 associated with relative hand skill. PCSK6 is a protease that cleaves NODAL proprotein into an active form, and NODAL determines the development of left/right (LR) asymmetry in bilaterians. I performed pathway analyses of the GWAS data that revealed handedness is determined in part by the mechanisms that establish left/right (LR) asymmetry early in development, such as NODAL signalling and ciliogenesis. This finding replicated in a general population cohort unaffected with neurodevelopmental disorders (n = 2,666).
A key stage in LR asymmetry development is the rotation of cilia that creates a leftward flow of NODAL. Candidate genes for dyslexia are involved in both neuronal migration and ciliogenesis. Ciliopathies can cause not only LR body asymmetry phenotypes, but also cerebral midline phenotypes such as an absent corpus callosum. Furthermore, I identified a genome-wide significant association with non-word reading located in an intron of MAP1B, a gene involved in neuronal migration that causes an absent corpus callosum when disrupted in mice. However, this finding did not replicate in two independent cohorts with dyslexia (n = 156 & 199), or in the general population cohort (n = 2,359). Though these cohorts had inadequate reading measures and poorly matched ascertainment for dyslexia.
I also performed copy number variation (CNV) pathway and burden analyses of 920 individuals with dyslexia and 1,366 unselected controls, but did not find that rare CNVs play a major role in the etiology of dyslexia.
Based on these results I propose that common variants in genes responsible for ciliogenesis and corpus callosum development influence traits such as handedness and reading ability.
Halogen bonding interlocked host systems for recognition and sensing of anions
Keywords: rotaxane
anion
halogen bonding

This thesis describes the synthesis of halogen bonding receptors for integration within interlocked anion host systems.
Chapter 1 introduces the field of supramolecular chemistry, with a particular focus on anion recognition and sensing, halogen bonding, and the synthesis of mechanically interlocked structures.
Chapter 2 describes the preparation and anion binding properties of carbazole-based receptor molecules. A systematic anion binding study on a series of halogen- and hydrogen-bonding 3,6-bis-triazolium carbazole acyclic receptors is described initially, followed by the development of a halogen bonding rotaxane. The anion and metal complexation properties of acyclic and macrocyclic systems incorporating the 1,8-bis-triazole carbazole motif are also presented.
Chapter 3 details the synthesis and anion complexation investigations of halogen and hydrogen bonding naphthalene-based acyclic and interlocked rotaxane host molecules.
Chapter 4 presents receptors based on the 4,4'-bis-triazole-2,2'-bipyridyl motif. A halogen bonding rhenium(I) bipyridyl complex is exploited in the development of a rotaxane host system which optically senses anions via luminescence purely through halogen bonding interactions. The anion recognition and sensing properties of diquat-based receptors are also investigated, and shown to exhibit optical and electrochemical responses to anions.
Chapter 5 summarises the major conclusions from Chapters 2-4.
Chapter 6 describes the experimental procedures used in the work, and includes characterisation data for the synthesised compounds.
Supplementary information relating to crystallographic data, and absorption, luminescence and electrochemical studies, is provided in the Appendices.
Immune modulation in normal and pathological human pregnancy
Keywords: immunology
pregnancy
recurrent miscarriage
NK cells
IL-33
ST2
implantation

The first half of this thesis addressed the clinical question of whether the phenotype of peripheral immune cells is affected by the normal menstrual cycle and whether there are differences in women with recurrent unexplained miscarriage. In chapter 2, a mid-luteal type 1 shift was demonstrated in NKdim and cytotoxic T cells in the menstrual cycle. In addition, women with recurrent miscarriage had increased numbers of type 1 (IL-18R+) cytotoxic lymphocytes and an increased number of NKdim and NKbright cells in the mid-luteal phase of the cycle.
The shift to type 2 immunity seen in normal pregnancy has been previously identified from the second half of the first trimester. In chapter 3 this type 2 shift was seen in NK and T cells as early as 9 days post implantation. ST2L (the ligand for IL-33 and a marker of type 2 cells) was consistently up regulated at this very early stage post implantation in women who were pregnant.
The second half of this thesis investigated IL-33 and ST2 in normal and pathological pregnancy. In chapter 4 it was shown that circulating IL-33 did not change over the course of pregnancy but that sST2 (the soluble decoy receptor) increased significantly in the 3rd trimester of normal pregnancy. Both IL-33 and ST2 were variably expressed by the pre-implantation human blastocyst, as well as by the 1st and 3rd trimester placenta.
Finally, chapter 5 showed a potential role for ST2 in pre-eclampsia, an inflammatory disease of pregnancy. sST2 was significantly elevated in the third trimester in women who went on to develop pre-eclampsia even prior to the onset of disease. Using an in vitro model of placental perfusion, it was shown that sST2 can be secreted by the placenta, suggesting that sST2 may play a significant role in pregnancies complicated by this disease.
Distributive justice and global public goods
Keywords: global public goods
distributive justice
global justice

Public goods are goods that are non-rival and non-excludable. One person enjoying the benefits of a public good will not reduce the value of the good for others. And nobody within a particular population can be excluded from enjoying those benefits. While we often think of the relevant population being co-citizens of a state - national defence is taken to be the archetypal public good - in recent years the importance of public goods that benefit individuals across different countries has increasingly been recognised. We can refer to these as "global public goods".
When global public goods are supplied, various costs and benefits are generated, and these costs and benefits can be shared among countries in different ways. This thesis explores how justice requires us to share them; I develop a theory of distributive justice for global public goods. I begin by developing two principles for assigning the costs and benefits of supplying public goods within a state, and then argue that these should, for the most part, also govern the distribution of costs and benefits arising from global public good production. Finally, I assess how certain private goods that the supply of public goods make possible should be shared among states. The fact that these goods rely for their production on the supply of global public goods, I argue, will affect the principles of distributive justice that should govern these.