VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Climate change and major plagues in the Roman period
Keywords: the Antonine Plague
Justinianic Plague
Roman climate
Plague of Cyprian
ancient disease

This thesis examines the climate of the ancient Mediterranean from the second century BC to the sixth century AD, as well as major outbreaks of disease, with the principal aim of investigating potential explanations for apparent connections between climate change and the major pandemics of the Roman world. In addition, I consider the influence of the three great Roman “plagues” on society, assessing whether their effects, or lack thereof, are as apparent as scholars suggest.
Incorporating paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental research into the study of ancient history and classical archaeology has become an important addition to the sphere of classical studies; as has the history of disease through the use of archaeogenetics and phylogenetics. These are the fields of science that I utilise in this thesis to explore possible relationships between climate and environmental change and outbreaks of the Antonine Plague (AD 165-190), the Plague of Cyprian (AD 251/2-270), and the first wave of the Justinianic Plague (AD 541-544). It becomes apparent that significant climatic and environmental variability probably contributed to the diseases of the Antonine and Justinianic pandemics reaching the Empire, while climate change does not appear to be linked with the Plague of Cyprian.
The debates concerning the impact of the three pestilences on Roman society continue to be vigorous. However, both exaggerated and understated interpretations of their effects dominate the histories of these pandemics, in spite of the evidence. This thesis approaches the question of impact with caution, by avoiding generalisations and focusing on case studies that depict local effects. I argue that impact should be assessed regionally, and that in many cases the consequences of the “plagues” are not at all clear.
Ultimately, the thesis provides a method to synthesise evidence from a range of historical and scientific disciplines with the aim of explaining how ecological calamities affected the Roman world.
The affective mind: essays on Nietzsche's philosophical psychology
Keywords: Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of emotion
19th century German philosophy
Nietzsche

This thesis comprises three stand-alone papers, each concerning the philosophical psychology that can be drawn from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. The thread running throughout the thesis is a focus on affective states.
The first paper (“The Heart of Flesh”) concerns the question of what exactly Nietzsche thinks emotions and moods are. I argue, contra received opinion, that Nietzsche had some rather sophisticated and substantive views about affects, comprising a somatic account of the role of the body and an interpretive account of the process through which we identify our own states. I also demonstrate some of the ways in which these views surface in works such as On the Genealogy of Morality and Twilight of the Idols.
The second paper (“Conscious and Unconscious Thought”) provides the first reconstruction of Nietzsche’s enigmatic claims about thinking. Starting from §354 of The Gay Science, I draw on the view of affects laid out in the preceding paper to explicate Nietzsche’s (broad-brushstroke, but philosophically interesting) account of non-linguistic, unconscious cognition. I then turn to his remarks on conscious thinking, addressing two influential readings of the claim that conscious thought alone “takes place in words” (GS §354). Neither, I argue, is entirely successful. I propose instead an alternative that draws on work on inner speech.
The third paper (“The Social Structure of Drives”) concerns Nietzsche’s suggestion in Beyond Good and Evil that the soul should be understood as a “social structure of drives and affects” (BGE §12). I first examine the only extant treatment of this metaphor in the literature, arguing that it is philosophically and textually problematic. In its place, I suggest a new reading, which draws on Nietzsche’s doctoral notes and his subsequent engagement with physiology. By the time of his remarks on the formation of the state in the Genealogy, I contend, Nietzsche’s view has developed considerably into a precise and interesting view.
Stratification of disease severity in patients with liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and portal hypertension using novel multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging techniques
Keywords: MRI
liver cT1
portal hypertension
spleen cT1
chronic liver disease

Chronic liver diseases (CLDs) affect millions worldwide and are a major cause of mortality. Recently, multiparametric magnetic resonance (MR) methods have been proposed as a non-invasive, quantitative biomarker for assessment of CLD. CLD traverses a spectrum of severity, and the aim of this thesis was to apply MR methods across this spectrum for a quantitative assessment of disease severity. The primary variable of interest was the iron and field strength corrected T1 (cT1), generated by LiverMultiScanTM software from T1 and T2* mapping techniques. Liver cT1 was found to predict liver-related clinical outcomes in patients with CLD (p<0.0001), including in patients with compensated disease only. Liver cT1 performed especially well in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcohol-related liver disease (ArLD) and viral hepatitis (VH) with a cut-off of liver cT1>825ms having a negative predictive value (NPV) of 100%. Liver cT1 quantitatively assessed changes in fibroinflammation in 15 patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) undergoing treatment by direct acting antiviral (DAA) therapy. Liver cT1 showed significant decreases from baseline to 24 weeks after end of treatment (EoT) (876 vs 806 ms, p=0.002), from baseline to 48 weeks EoT (876 vs 788 ms, p=0.0002) and from 24 weeks EoT to 48 weeks EoT (806 vs 788ms, p=0.016). Spleen cT1 had good diagnostic accuracy for presence of portal hypertension in both an adult cohort with CLD and a paediatric cohort with autoimmune liver disease (area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) of 0.85 and 0.81 respectively). In another adult cohort, spleen cT1 was predictive of future episodes of variceal bleeding (AUC: 0.74), especially in those on non-selective beta-blocker treatments (AUC: 0.97). A reference range for spleen T1 and cT1 was established using data from the United Kingdom Biobank population health study and healthy volunteers from our centre. Higher spleen T1 /cT1 was observed in women vs men and in children vs adults. This thesis provided further evidence that multiparametric MR methods combining T1 and T2* relaxometry can be used across the spectrum of CLD for stratification of disease severity.
New Jerusalems : military chaplains and the ideal of redemptive sacrifice in the Great War
Keywords: military
War
Jerusalem
redemptive
sacrifice
chaplain
Jerusalems
chaplains

In 1914 the language of sacrifice and redemption was everywhere. This thesis compares the responses of English Anglican and German Protestant military chaplains to the Great War (1914-1918). Instead of reconstructing their relationship with combatants, it reconstructs their mental worlds. Examining their diaries, sermons, letters, articles, and meditations, it traces their religious ideals of redemption through blood. It argues that chaplains on both sides of the front shared a moral language of redemptive sacrifice, articulating different permutations of the same idea. That moral language initially comprehended the war as an episode of salvation, correcting a crisis of modernity through sacred violence. War was interpreted as the culmination of the 'social question,' the climax of the churches’ quest for community, social cohesion, the healing of class antagonism, the reclamation of the sacred. They proclaimed the war as a sacrament, a rite of purification that would purge modernity of its disorders, restore morality and renew piety. They commonly presumed a fallen, hedonistic and profane industrialised world, its social cohesion threatened by godless materialism, and its need for redemption. By blood the dead would purchase a cleansed, uplifted and redeemed society. Witnessing catastrophic bloodshed, the central moral problem for most chaplains was not high casualties alone. It was the threat that mass death would not morally and spiritually transform their societies. As the conflict escalated into attrition and stalemate, chaplains' increasingly doubted whether war could be intrinsically redemptive, redefining the ideal as a duty of civilians to repay their blood-debt to the dead and justify the sacrifices of their compatriots. Because chaplains were implicated in mass death by virtue of their office, the ideal of redemption through war became more an obligation than perception, an ideal that must be pursued lest the sacrifices of soldier-martyrs be cheapened. Divergences and nuanced differences emerged that distinguished Anglican and Protestant perceptions of the moral and spiritual impact of the war. Intraconfessional divergences emerged, in England over the relationship with French Catholic iconography and patri-passionism, in Germany over the meaning of defeat and the legitimacy of the new political order that replaced the Wilhelmine constitution. However, the common moral language of redemptive sacrifice outweighs the confessional and national differences in their responses to mechanised slaughter.
Multiple zeta values and iterated Eisenstein integrals
Keywords: motives
periods
iterated Eisenstein integrals
mixed Tate motives
multiple zeta values
multiple modular values
fundamental group
Galois theory

The affine ring of the motivic path torsor 0Πmot1:= π mot1 (P1\ {0, 1,∞},~10, −~11) is an ind-object in the Tannakian category MT(Z) of mixed Tate motives over the integers [16]. Its periods are Q[(2πi) ±]-linear combinations of multiple zeta values (MZVs). Brown showed that O(0mot1) generates MT(Z) by exhibiting a specific basis for the Q-vector space of motivic MZVs [5].
Brown also introduced a class of periods of fundamental groups called multiple modular values [7]. They are periods of the relative completion of the fundamental group of the moduli stack M1,1 of elliptic curves [22]. Among such quantities are iterated integrals of Eisenstein series along elements of the topological fundamental group of M1,1 based at the tangential basepoint ∂/∂q at the cusp, which is isomorphic to SL2(Z).
In this thesis we prove that all motivic MZVs may be expressed as certain Q[2πi]- linear combinations of motivic iterated Eisenstein integrals (Theorem 12.0.1). This uses a construction relating the (relative) de Rham fundamental groups of P1\ {0, 1,∞} and M1,1 via the de Rham fundamental group of the fiber E × ∂/∂q of the punctured Tate curve over ∂/∂q. We explain how the coefficients in this linear combination may be partially determined using the Galois coaction on motivic periods.
As a consequence we also obtain a new Tannakian generator for MT(Z) constructed from the universal monodromy representation of the relative fundamental group of M1,1 on the fundamental group of E × ∂/∂q (Theorem 13.1.1).
Solvent and additive engineering for low band gap perovskite solar cells
Keywords: perovskite
solvent
additive
tin fluoride
tin chloride
solar cell
low band gap

Due to their tuneable band gaps, ease of processing and excellent optoelectronic properties, perovskite-based solar cells have attracted much attention in recent years, with rapidly increasing efficiencies which already match those of the industrially dominant multi-crystalline silicon. This work concerns modification of the perovskite semiconductor layer in low band gap materials containing the mixed metals tin and lead. These materials have promising commercial applications both in theoretically optimal single-junction solar cells and in multi-junction perovskite-perovskite tandem devices as a replacement for silicon.
An improved processing method by modification of the deposition solvent together with an appropriate antisolvent or stream of nitrogen is shown to slow crystallisation, leading to thin films with long diffusion length and high mobility. Use of a formamidinium cation rather than methylammonium is shown to improve efficiency, with further performance enhancement on substitution of a small amount of caesium. An optoelectronically defective region is identified with small amounts of substitution of lead for tin, with a recovery in film quality and lowest band gap values with 40-60% tin content. In collaboration with others, this processing enhancement leads to high efficiency single-junction low band gap perovskite solar cells and multi-junction perovskite- perovskite tandem devices.
The additives tin(II) fluoride and tin(II) chloride are shown to function as reducing agents in precursor solutions, and compensators in thin films for tin vacancies produced by the instability of tin(II). These additives are able to rebalance the stoichiometry of both tin(II) and iodide, allowing formation of perovskite films with less bulk vacancy defects, leading to improved morphology and optoelectronic quality, and less initial p-doping. A secondary phase seen on the surface of the films is identified as excess tin(II) fluoride. Over time in air, competing p-doping and degradation mechanisms are identified, and additives shown to slow the onset of degradation. High efficiency solar cells are fabricated with both additives, with tin(II) fluoride showing less sensitivity to precise processing concentration.
A compositional screening study of methylammonium, formamidinium and caesium cations in low band gap perovskite materials is performed, identifying thin film properties and fabricating solar cells from compositions with different combinations of these cations using a universal deposition protocol. The resulting compositional space is demonstrated to be almost fully accessible using this method, with all three cations substituting into the perovskite crystal lattice, although a compositional instability between formamidinium and caesium is identified. Power is generated from solar cells of all other compositions, laying the foundations for future optimisation work on new low band gap materials within this compositional space.
Unpaid care work and social norms: Gender, generation and change in northern Uganda
Keywords: Children's work
Domestic work
Division of labour
Northern Uganda
Gender
Gender norms
Social change
Time use
Social norms
Unpaid care work

There has been increasing interest in understanding care responsibilities in developing countries but there remains limited evidence on determinants of gendered participation in care. This thesis proposes social norms as an explanation for gender- and age-based differences in the time devoted to unpaid care work – including caring for people and domestic work. It investigates how social norms exert influence at different levels, why they are complied with and how they are contested and changing.
The research setting is northern Uganda, where researchers have observed socio-cultural changes resulting from a civil war, the rise of formal education, the increasing involvement of development agencies and new cultural and technological influences. I collected mixed-methods data from adults and children in this region between 2014 and 2019.
Building on theories of social norms, gender and childhood, this thesis argues that social norms dictate that females are supposed to do more unpaid care work than males, and boys more than men. I focus on three factors that shape whether individuals comply with, or deviate from, prevailing care-related norms. Individuals are more likely to deviate from these norms if (1) they are able to choose to deviate (agency); (2) they are aware of alternative options (awareness); and (3) if deviating is beneficial for them (advantage).
Some factors are reinforcing care-related norms in northern Uganda. However, shifts in agency, awareness and advantage suggest there is scope for change. It appears that care-related norms are changing subtly rather than radically. Whether these norms and the division of unpaid care work transform more fundamentally in the future will depend on the development of the region and remains to be explored in further research.
Who on earth wants global democracy – and why (not)? A theoretical and experimental study of international public opinion 
Keywords: attitudes
partisan cues
world government
preferences
global democracy
reform
public opinion
cognitive mobilization
world parliament
global governance
partisan mobilization
international organizations
survey experiment

To what extent and why do people want the world to be governed democratically – or not? This is the central question of my dissertation. I create a novel theoretical framework starting with genetic and socio-environmental influences such as parents and peers, moving to proximate motives such as cosmopolitan values and interests, as well as conditioning factors like political knowledge and feasibility beliefs. These are connected to individual attitudes and actions on global democracy, which is conceptualized as a directly elected world parliament and government focused on transnational issues like global poverty and climate change. Furthermore, I theorize potential interrelationships between individual preferences for political parties and their global democracy attitudes and actions. In order to evaluate arising expectations, I conducted survey experiments on nationwide samples of citizens in Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. My key findings are: First, once the proposals are considered, clear majorities of people in all five survey countries tend to support global democracy. Second, individual attitudes toward global democracy are significantly associated with the theorized factors of values and interests, especially the perceived necessity of global democracy to address problems like international peace and climate change, as well as the supposed importance of public participation in world politics. Third, while individual global democracy attitudes are affected by partisan cues in countries with long-established major parties, people’s global democracy attitudes tend to affect their voting intentions in more fluid multi-party systems – a finding with significant implications for domestic politics. My dissertation contributes to empirical and normative research on international organizations by providing the first social scientific study of world public opinion on global democracy. Moreover, my thesis bears important lessons for practitioners working on global governance, as the world struggles to address multiple transnational crises – from international mass migration to climate change.
Dialogue & empathy in middle school aged children - a configurative narrative review
Keywords: Dialogue
Empathy
Dialogic Teaching

The present study reports a configurative narrative review of studies pertaining to dialogue-based pedagogical practices and programmes with empathy in middle-school aged children. A total of 596 studies from three databases were found and, from pre-determined criteria, it was then decided that the data from nine eligible papers would be extracted, synthesised, and analysed. The data found in these papers varied greatly in design, methodological rigour, and the operationalisation of empathy as an outcome measure. Thematic extractions relating to the conceptualisations of empathy; an exploration of dialogic pedagogical practices adopted when seeking empathy as an outcome measure, and an examination of the evidence reported in these nine papers ensued. It was found that three key practices were adopted: facilitated dialogue, goal orientated dialogue and the implementation of small, collaborative work. Overall, the data revealed that there was conceptual and theoretical work associating dialogic practices and empathic arousal, behavioural change, and empathic enhancement. However, there was not enough robust empirical evidence to justify this linkage. Therefore, conclusions were drawn from the data to suggest further empirical, particularly quantitative, studies were required to better understand the relationship between dialogue and empathy. Subsequent to this finding, a description of a future mixed-methods study is outlined.
Modelling the effects of temporal variations of blood flow in tumours 
Keywords: Cancer ecology and evolution
Adaptive strategies
Dynamic environments
Phenotype-structured populations

Solid tumours have highly irregular vasculatures that are constantly re-modelled, giving rise to spatio-temporal heterogeneity in the level of nutrients, metabolites, and drugs. Such variability requires cells to adapt, and is hypothesised to select for more aggressive cancer phenotypes. Risk spreading through spontaneous phenotypic variations is an ecological concept which is used to explain how species may survive in temporally varying environments. It allows individuals within a species to diversify their phenotypes ensuring that at least some of them can survive in the face of sudden environmental change. In this thesis, we aim to investigate whether cancer cells may adopt this strategy when dealing with rapidly changing levels of nutrient due to temporally-varying blood flow.
Accordingly, we develop and analyse a series of mathematical models of increasing biological complexity in order to investigate, in a systematic way, the impact that temporal variations in the nutrient supply might have on cancer cell populations. First, we present a mathematical model consisting of a system of non-local partial differential equations modelling the evolutionary dynamics of two competing phenotypically-structured populations in the presence of periodically oscillating nutrient levels. The two populations undergo heritable, spontaneous phenotypic variations at different rates. The phenotypic state of each individual is represented by a continuous variable, and the phenotypic landscape of the populations evolves in time due to variations in the nutrient level. We then extend the model by modelling nutrient dynamics explicitly and evaluate the effects of cellular feedback on the environment. Moreover, we develop corresponding individual-based models and study the differences that arise between continuum and discrete approaches at low population sizes.
Exploiting the analytical tractability of our models, coupled with numerical simulations, we identify environmental regimes that select the population with higher rate of spontaneous phenotypic variation. In particular, we expect environmental conditions where cells experience periods of starvation followed by re-oxygenation to promote phenotypic heterogeneity, which is consistent with experimental observations. This allows us to predict how certain interventions, for example, the vascular normalisation strategy that aims at stabilising the blood flow within tumours, could reduce phenotypic heterogeneity and drive the tumour to a treatable phenotype. Furthermore, we apply our discrete model to study adaptive strategies during the metastatic colonisation of distant organs.