VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Attitudes to writing and writing performance among bilingual and monolingual children
Keywords: Pupils' performance
Writing
Multilingual
Education
Bilingual
English as an Additional Language
EAL
Pupils' attitudes

Primary schools in UK continue to grow in linguistic diversity, yet we have limited knowledge about how the unique language experiences and contexts bilingual pupils bring to the classroom, can potentially impact the development of their writing skills. There is also an awareness of the importance that positive attitudes towards writing can possibly have on children’s subsequent outcomes. However, research seeking pupils’ attitudes on writing within a UK context, is scarce.
The present study aims to begin addressing these gaps, by investigating the role language background can play in bilingual children’s writing performance, in addition to understanding both bilingual and monolingual pupils’ attitudes towards writing.
A secondary analysis of data from Murphy et al. (2015) was undertaken. Quantitative data were analysed in investigating the relationships between 45 bilingual pupils’ language backgrounds and writing performance in the narrative and expository genres. Qualitative data consisted of interviews with 11 monolingual and bilingual pupils, that were analysed to ascertain pupils’ attitudes towards writing.
This study revealed that of the different domains of language background examined, bilingual pupils’ computer use in English was found to be positively related to their writing performance in the narrative genre, and less consistently so with the expository genre. Regarding attitudes towards writing, the study identified specific elements pupils enjoyed, disliked and found difficult about writing, but also highlighted the uncertainty some pupils expressed in their attitudes towards writing.
These findings have implications for teachers, researchers and parents in not only recognising the impact language background can have on pupils’ writing progress, but that writing tasks used to measure performance are subject to pupils’ attitudes, which may affect their engagement. We propose further research into measuring the nuances of language background, assessing the effectiveness of computer-based interventions in developing bilingual pupils’ writing, and quantifying attitudes to explore the possible relationships between pupils’ writing attitudes and their subsequent performance.
Children: an inheritance from the Lord. Infanticide and the value of life
Keywords: Moral anthropology
Value of life
Theological anthropology
infanticide
Paediatrics
Children

Arguing from preference utilitarianism, contemporary moral philosopher Peter Singer considers infanticide permissible because infants lack the cognitive capacity to prefer life over death. Christian theologians object that Singer’s general theory offers too thin a conception of ‘the good’, fails to recognise the dependence of value on purpose and abstracts moral value from common humanity. Few confront him directly on infanticide.
Singer’s empirical claims are unconvincing, but scientific evidence alone cannot refute his judgement that the properties which normatively distinguish infants from adults (‘childness’) offer no inherent value. I argue that a Christian moral anthropology, too, privileges adultness over childness if it holds imagehood to represent properties such as rationality that adults have in common with God, but not with infants.
I set out an alternative anthropology that draws on scripture, Christian eudaimonism, neuropsychological research, and the theology and philosophy of childhood. I suggest the value of present moral action in respect of any human is the extent to which it facilitates her vocation. I describe modes in which childness enables humans to flourish at any age, thus extending the range of cognitive properties that can confer personal value on the eudaimonist account beyond rationality to include many that infants possess.
I conclude that, even while infants, humans have a vocation and are equipped both to flourish and contribute to the flourishing of others. Killing humans during infancy imperils human flourishing as decisively as during adulthood and is usually wrong, irrespective of individual capacity to prefer to live.
The critical mean-field random cluster model
Keywords: Scaling limit
Mean-field random cluster model
Random cluster model
Metric space scaling limit

In this thesis we study the mean-field random cluster model, a random graph model in which, relative to the Erdős–Rényi model, graphs are biased to have a greater or lesser number of components, such that, in essence, large-deviations behaviour of the Erdős–Rényi model is seen. This model was independently proven to have an Erdős–Rényi-like phase transition by Stepanov [58, 59] and Bollobás, Grimmett and Janson [16], and was proven to have a critical window by Luczak and Łuczak [43]. We make progress towards demonstrating that the mean-field random cluster model also possesses a metric space scaling limit in its critical window, of the kind shown to exist for the Erdős–Rényi random graph by Addario-Berry, Broutin and Goldschmidt [3, 2].
We begin by reviewing results from the literature on scaling limits, and on limits of sequences of component sizes, for the Erdős–Rényi model; we also review existing results for the mean-field random cluster model. We go on to offer several results that form partial proofs of the existence of a scaling limit for the latter model, for differing values of the clustering parameter q, as well as some results which, while not proofs, are suggestive that the missing pieces can be filled. Along the way, we prove a number of results of independent interest about both models, including that the fixed-edge-count (as opposed to independent-edge) version of the Erdős–Rényi model has a scaling limit. We conclude by reviewing what would be necessary to complete the partial proofs, and make additional suggestions for future research.
Automated non-invasive brain stimulation parameter selection using bayesian optimisation
Keywords: tRNS
non-invasive brain stimulation
tACS
Bayesian Optimisation
tES

An increasingly utilised tool in cognitive neuroscience, which is capable of drawing causal relationships between brain function and behaviour, is transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). However, this non-invasive brain stimulation technique is commonly shown to have high levels of variability when used to modulate cognitive abilities. A potential cause of this variability is the requirement for researchers to select a number of stimulation parameters such as current intensity and frequency prior to delivering stimulation to an individual. As there is a very large number of possible parameter combinations, the selection of an optimal combination with which to modulate the behaviour of interest is highly challenging. In this thesis I employ a machine learning technique called Bayesian Optimisation (BO) to automatically search through the large stimulation parameter space to identify the optimal parameters for improving cognitive performance in complex behavioural tasks. Initially, I utilise a 'standard' BO algorithm to identify optimal parameters for improving performance in a behavioural task investigating rapid instructed task learning (Chapter 3). In a subsequent chapter I validate the results of this BO algorithm in a separate study (Chapter 4). I then attempt to extend the BO algorithm to enable it to suggest personalised stimulation parameters based on an individual's personal variables. I first apply this to a sustained attention task whilst utilising a personalised variable of individual theta:beta ratio (Chapter 5). Subsequently, I apply the personalised BO (pBO) to an arithmetic task whilst considering an individual's baseline ability as the personalised variable (Chapter 6). Finally, I validate the results of the pBO algorithm in a separate study (Chapter 7). Overall, this thesis explores the use of BO algorithms to suggest parameters for neurointerventions in complex cognitive behaviours, both at a 'one-size-fits-all' and a personalised level. Whilst results from initial optimisation studies are promising, conflicting results in validation studies highlight the difficulties of applying BO to complex human behaviour and the need for validation in further work.
Heaven on Earth: Explaining religious party formation and strength
Keywords: Political parties
Party formation
Religion and politics
Voting
Religious parties

Why do some countries have religious political parties while others do not? And why are religious parties electorally successful in some places but flop at the ballot box in others? This dissertation provides a holistic, integrated explanation of religious party development. Religious parties are formed defensively, in reaction to anticlerical campaigns by state-builders to wrest control of public services like education, poor relief, and healthcare, from religious providers. Once they are formed, the strength of religious parties is determined by the infrastructural power of the state. Weak states that fail to provide adequate public services open up space for religious communities to build a dense civil society network of private schools, hospitals, and charities. Recipients of religious largesse then support confessional parties at the ballot box. By contrast, strong states that provide efficient public services squeeze out private providers of welfare, undermining the electoral strength of religious political parties. I find strong empirical support for this argument in a statistical analysis of religious party formation and strength, using a new dataset on all religious parties that participated in national parliamentary elections between 1800 and 2015. Comparative historical analyses of Québec, Spain, Italy, France, Albania, and Turkey, also back my theoretical arguments. My findings have important implications for the literature on party formation, voting, state-building, and private welfare provision.
EFL teachers’ cognition of English as a global language: ideologies, identities, and practices
Keywords: Thailand
Higher education
English language teaching
Language teacher identity
Language teacher cognition
Global Englishes

The global presence of English as a lingua franca has raised substantial concerns regarding an urgent need for a shift in English language pedagogy. Teachers working within the immense English Language Teaching (ELT) enterprise are now expected to participate in an unprecedented endeavour to better equip learners with both the necessary language skills and the awareness of the ubiquity of English varieties currently used among speakers, native or non-native alike. In light of this changing sociolinguistic scenario, the emerging field of Global Englishes proposes a framework for action, calling for a re-appraisal of the beliefs about English that permeate all aspects of pedagogical practices (Galloway & Rose, 2015; Rose & Galloway, 2019). Such need for a paradigm shift has continued to be voiced in research, but rarely are the very voices of the teachers heard. Little has been discussed about their sense-making of the pedagogical implications of the ideological rhetoric underlying English teaching at the operational level.
Following the educational and professional journeys of seven in-service lecturers of the English language in two universities in Thailand, the study aims to understand how the global spread of English has impacted the teachers’ conceptualisations of English and how such perceptions surface in their local classrooms. Specifically, it seeks to answer three questions: (1) What are the teachers’ ideological views of English and its changing usage?; (2) In what way is the teachers’ cognition of English related to their sense of professional identities as an L2 English teacher?; and (3) How do the teachers interpret globally-oriented initiatives in light of their teaching contexts?
It explores these questions through an in-depth examination of on-the-ground ethnographically-informed multiple case studies data obtained over the course of fieldwork from multiple sources: semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, classroom and site observations, and document analysis.
Findings reveal that while the teachers display awareness of English as a global language, their views of the English language remain firmly rooted in standard language ideology, demonstrating clear propensities for the native speaker standards, especially British and American English. These perceptions are filtered through layers of ideological contradictions, which result in the teachers' varying sense of professional legitimacy and the approaches with which they use to prepare the students for real-life language use. Learning contexts factor into teachers’ pedagogical decisions, where students’ learning is given priority. The thesis raises questions about the potential of globally-informed English language teacher education curricula as a shared agenda and the roles teachers play in it.
Development of small-molecule, peptide-mimetic, activating ligands of the potassium efflux (Kef) system
Keywords: peptide-mimetic
antibiotic
bacteria
isostere
Kef
gram-negative
synthesis

More people are expected to die of antibiotic resistant infections than cancer by 2050. Resistance is seen in virtually all currently available antibiotics, and only two new classes have been developed since the 1960s. The Kef system is a novel prospective antibiotic target for a new antibiotic class. Kef is a H+/K+ antiporter found in Gram negative bacteria including the ESKAPE pathogens, which are difficult to treat. Kef is involved in bacterial homeostasis and protection mechanisms against electrophiles. Glutathione (GSH) is the native ligand of Kef and can react with electrophiles in the cell to form adducts (GSX) which activate the Kef system and protect the cell. The highest affinity GSX is tBuSG, a synthetic peptide based ligand, from which was derived the dipeptide ligand 70.
The focus of this research was to design peptide mimetic Kef ligands based on 70, that disrupt the function of the Kef system, and inhibit bacterial growth. The new scaffolds are designed to have improved chemical properties relative to the dipeptides and greater synthetic flexibility for ligand development. Three ligand scaffolds and analogues were designed using amide isosteres to replace the central amide bond: a pyridinone (71, Chapter 2), an oxazole (72, Chapter 3), and an imidazopyridine (73, Chapter 4).
Chapter 2 describes the synthesis of 71, and ten carboxylic acid analogues, using a late stage diversification route. Varying the headgroups allowed exploration of the structure activity relationship (SAR) around the ligand binding site. All the tested analogues were found to bind Kef using water ligand observed via gradient spectroscopy (waterLOGSY) NMR. Differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) indicated different pyridinone headgroups stabilised and destabilised the Kef system. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis of 72 from an optimised route based on prior literature, however binding was not observed by waterLOGSY NMR or DSF. Chapter 4 describes the synthesis of 73 from a substituted pyridine. The acid showed promising initial results as a peptide mimetic and bound during waterLOGSY NMR analysis. Investigation of the magnitude of stabilisation using DSF was inconclusive, suggesting 73 is weakly binding, and below the DSF detection limit.
Chapter 5 describes the use of the computational technique scaffold hopping to try and identify a new Kef ligand scaffold. ROCS, Spark, Blaze, and MOE programmes were used to search databases for a mimetic of the GSH backbone. A synthetically attractive hit 74 was selected and synthesised with three analogues, but these were not found to bind or activate Kef, from analysis by waterLOGSY NMR and Kirby Bauer disc assay.
The pyridinone and imidazopyridine scaffolds are the first peptide mimetic ligand families for SdKefQCTD. A high affinity Kef ligand could be developed into an antibiotic with a novel mode of action, providing a significant benefit to modern healthcare, with the increasing levels of antibiotic resistance.
A logical theranostic CRISPR/Cas system and novel carriers for its delivery
Keywords: Nanomedicine
gene therapy
nucleic acid delivery
CRISPR

Nucleic acid-based therapies hold the promise to treat many diseases in a way that was not previously possible: at the genetic level. Unfortunately, these therapies are limited by a lack of efficient delivery systems. It is challenging to synthesise new delivery systems that can effciently reach specific tissues. This is because new delivery systems need to overcome many sophisticated biological barriers, from avoiding the immune system to escaping the endosomal pathway. Better delivery systems would make nucleic acid therapies a reality.
I tackle this fundamental issue by developing two novel nucleic acid delivery systems: the Polymeric Spherical Nucleic Acids (PSNAs) and the Cell-Derived Vesicles (CDVs). PSNAs are PMPC25-PDPA75 polymersomes decorated with intra- and extravesicular coronas of DNA oligos, which have a great potential as siRNA delivery systems. PSNAs have been designed to overcome the endosomal barrier, through an osmotic shock caused by their pH-dependent disassembly. Because of these characteristics, PSNAs are able to deliver therapeutic siRNA to an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in vitro model. CDVs are bio-inspired delivery systems produced from purified cellular plasma membrane, which confer on them a complex biological identity through their natural lipids and membrane proteins. These vesicles are readily engineered, as plasma membrane from different cell types can be isolated, or cells can be transfected/transduced to express heterologous proteins of interest. This versatility is enhanced by their ability to encapsulate small nucleic acids, such as DNA oligos or CRISPR/Cas9 sgRNA, and functionally deliver them. CDVs are promising delivery systems that may be applied to different diseases.
While delivery is a paramount issue, there is always unspecific in vivo accumulation, as seen by the typical retention of nanoparticles in the liver. For the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system, this is dangerous. Unspecific delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 components can result in off-target mutations. To address this problem, I have developed a theranostic CRISPR/Cas system that can perform logic computations with endogenous cell signals, in order to determine if it is in the right environment.
Invasive Caribbean lionfish: ecological impacts, behavioural interactions and habitat use
Keywords: Lionfish
Non-consumptive effects
Habitat association
Inter-specific competition
Pterois
Invasive species

Lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) have become invasive across the western Atlantic and are considered one of the most heavily impacting invasive marine vertebrates. Most lionfish research focuses on consumptive effects in small-scale patch reef studies, with little research on their behaviour, non-consumptive effects or regional impacts. Using binary choice laboratory experiments, I found that lionfish were not attracted to conspecific cues. Instead, habitat preference likely drives aggregation formation, as in situ observations revealed that lionfish avoid fine-scale complexity but are attracted to broad-scale complexity, such as caves and overhangs. Shelter use by lionfish may impact native shelter-using species, such as commercially important spiny lobsters and ecologically important long-spined sea urchins. I found that lionfish did not affect shelter use by either native species in laboratory experiments, indicating that negative impacts of lionfish from competition for shelter may not be as widespread as feared. Interestingly, lionfish reduced their shelter use in the presence of the native species. I also investigated herbivorous fish grazing as a potential non-consumptive effect of lionfish. By comparing the same small areas of reef with and without lionfish, I found that responses to lionfish varied even within a small reef system, indicating that lionfish presence is not the only driver of the observed changes. The highly variable results of small-scale studies like these highlight the urgent need for regional-scale studies to determine the true extent of lionfish impacts in their invaded range. Prior to this thesis, no research had been conducted into the impacts of lionfish on native fish communities that simultaneously considered sites with different invasion timelines across the western Atlantic. I took a novel approach to understanding large-scale impacts using temporally offset additive mixed models centred on year of first invasion, combining 11,000 transects from eight countries with 14 contextual variables known to affect reef fish communities. I found clear shifts in native fish communities between pre-invasion and two or more years post-invasion, indicating that lionfish invasion rapidly results in a stable change in native fish communities. I found pre-invasion increases in native fish abundance, species richness and diversity that continued in the initial years of the invasion, however, I detected simultaneous declines in all metrics at five years post lionfish invasion. This thesis provides new insights into invasive lionfish behaviour and non-consumptive effects and provides the first suggestion that lionfish exert region-wide impacts by using a novel approach for studying the large-scale impacts of invasive species.
Curved spaces admiting solutions to twistor equations
Keywords: twistor equations
Twistor theory
general relativity
twistor
curved spaces
relativity

This thesis comprises three sections. In the first, real space-times admitting a solution to the two-index twistor (Killing spinor) equation are constructed and the separability properties of solutions to zero rest-mass field equations within these space-times are derived. In addition conditions for differential relations between components of opposite helicity are derived.
In the second section class of half algebraically-special spaces is investigated, a class which may be characterised as those admitting a certain partial two-index twistor (Killing spinor). A formalism based on their structure as a two-dimensional family of flat null two-planes is developed and used to provide an explicit integration of the curvature equations, to discuss Hertz-type potentials for zero rest-mass fields and to examine a class of Einstein-Maxwell spaces and their perturbations.
In the third section we examine the relation between the space of solutions to the twistor equation restricted to a general space--like two-surface of spherical topology (two-surface twistor space) and its dual. This is then used to discuss the nature of the local embedding of the two-surface in a space conformally related to complex Minkowski space.