VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The present taxidermied: Soviet 'common unsaids' in Russian krayevedcheskiy museums
Keywords: kraevedenie
Russia
museums

This dissertation analyses the current state of the krayevedcheskiy museums network in Russia against the backdrop of the historical development of a (post-) Soviet knowledge production system known as krayevedeniye. These museums constitute one of the largest cultural networks in the post-Soviet space, and their aim is to create a representation of the place in which they are located. In the dissertation I explore the principles underpinning the structure of their departments and uncover the common principles on which they are based, including those inherited from the period of Soviet governance. The research I present draws on two types of data: the archival documents of Soviet institutions supervising krayevedeniye which constructed the central ideology informing the curation of kraevedcheskiy museums’ expositions, and field data collected from 2014 to 2017 in seven regions and twenty-five regional and local museums, which allowed the common patterns of museum expositions and underlying theoretical principles to be excavated.
The main theoretical challenge of the thesis was to bring together relevant debates in geography and cognate sciences concerning wilderness and nature, post-colonial approaches to issues of domination and submissson and memory, including trauma, silences, erasing narratives and forgetting. I present a critical theory of krayevedeniye and place krayevedcheskiy museums in the context of museum studies. In order to bring these concepts together this study, I develop the concept of ‘common unsaids’, based on the Barthes’ myth-creation techniques, which have further been developed by Svetlana Boym. With the aim to contribute to debates around Soviet knowledge production, museum studies, representation of nature, and area studies, I analyse one of the largest museum network in the post-Soviet space. My intention is to broaden our knowledge of post-Soviet institutional development and to add new and important detail to our understanding of regional identity production in present-day Russia.
Searches for new physics with leptons and invisible particles at the ATLAS experiment at the LHC
Keywords: artificial intelligence
leptons
physics
SM
particle physics
trigger
standard model of particle physics
Large Hadron Collider
CERN
supersymmetry
missing transverse energy
g-2
missing energy
ETmiss
ATLAS
machine learning
standard model
SUSY
search
R-parity

The Standard Model of Particle Physics (SM), while successful at describing almost all subatomic phenomena observed to date, has some glaring open questions: the Higgs boson mass is unstable at high energies, there is no dark matter candidate, and the prediction and measurement of (g-2)_mu are in tension. Supersymmetric (SUSY) extensions to the Standard Model could provide possible answers to all these problems, and some SUSY particles could be produced at the Large Hadron Collider. This thesis describes three areas of work aimed at finding evidence for SUSY at the ATLAS Experiment of the Large Hadron Collider. First, the performance and development of the ATLAS ETmiss trigger is discussed. Many theorised SUSY process are predicted to produce events with ETmiss, a large imbalance in the momentum sum of detectable particles, as SUSY particles could escape detection. The ETmiss trigger aims to select such events during data-taking to be saved to disk for analysis. Next, a search for new physics in events with four or more leptons is described. This search is optimised for certain SUSY models, but is also sensitive to a wide range of beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) processes. No significant deviation from the SM is observed. From this observation, limits are set on general gauge-mediated SUSY models, R-parity violating SUSY models, and BSM contributions. Finally, a machine-learning-based strategy is proposed to probe an experimentally challenging but phenomenologically favoured range of SUSY parameters in events with two leptons and ETmiss. The strategy is found to not only be competitive with a more traditional cuts-based strategy, but it also provides the event yields necessary for the measurement of SUSY particle properties.
Vernacular culture and musical life in suburban Vienna, 1870-1914
Keywords: sound
Vienna
music
modernity

This thesis argues for a recentring of musicological narratives on the subject of ‘Vienna 1900’ and offers four case studies that examine the transformation of vernacular culture alongside the expansion of the city from 1870 to the outbreak of the First World War. I propose an alternative set of paradigms for understanding Vienna during this period by exploring musical life in the suburbs and the impact of urban planning on street music and noise. The main themes covered in my four chapters are: a study of sound and noise abatement campaigns in relation to political theatre and social crisis, moving from the voices of working-class communities to the musical experimentation of suburban enclaves; an extended biography of the Schrammelmusik phenomenon, its position on the threshold of two musical worlds, and its urban-rural networks that contributed to a blurring of boundaries between mythology and reality; an analysis of Wienerlied texts which provide sharply etched commentaries on metropolitan life at the edge of liberal bourgeois experience and their role in tracing the shifting subjectivities of suburban dwellers; and a portrait of clocks and barrel organs that channels the familiar image of the organ grinder through the idea of fractured temporalities, as revealed in different approaches to time synchronisation and urban rhythms.
Throughout my four chapters, I emphasise the materiality of music-making at street level and the social fabric of suburban musical establishments. I aim to reposition narratives that stress fin-de-siècle Vienna as a place apart by adopting an expanded conception of centre and periphery relationships which reaches beyond the city and borderlands of neighbouring empires. I argue that by offering a more pluralistic notion of the vernacular, refracted through a study of acoustic and temporal environments, one can begin to understand more fully how the changing identities of Vienna’s population were intimately connected with the accelerated reconfiguration of the city towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Brain mechanisms in clinical apathy
Keywords: drift diffusion modelling
motivation
apathy
effort-based decision making

Clinical apathy is a debilitating disorder of motivation that is increasingly recognised across neurological and psychiatric disorders. Current challenges remain in understanding the underlying mechanisms of the syndrome, and the lack of licensed treatment. Some evidence has associated apathy with reduced incentivisation by reward, possibly secondary to distinct brain changes in a well defined fronto-striatal network. However, it remains unclear exactly whether the behavioural and anatomical correlates of apathy are consistent across brain disorders.
This thesis attempts to clarify these questions by considering apathy as a behavioural disorder, which can be examined using effort-based decision making tasks. Behavioural and anatomical studies were performed across several conditions, including cerebrovascular small vessel disease, schizophrenia, stroke, and healthy people. Two decision making paradigms were used, one which probes how people evaluate costs and benefits of actions, and another which characterises how motivated behaviour dynamically varies over time in the face of unexpected setbacks or uplifts.
An association between apathy, reward insensitivity, and fronto-striatal pathology was found in small vessel disease. Behavioural phenotypes of amotivation varied across conditions depending on associated factors such as level of cognitive function in schizophrenia, and concurrent depression in patients with focal stroke. Finally, dopaminergic treatment may serve as a therapeutic option for some apathetic patients with subcortical lesions.
Polymer solubilisation and lipid characterisation of bacterial and fungal membranes
Keywords: SMA
SMALP
proton pump
native environment
membrane proteins
lipidome
neurospora crassa
structural biology
PMA
Pma1
DIBMA
lipid
lipid-polymer nanoparticles
lipodisq
lipidomics
fungal membranes
styrene-maleic acid copolymer
P-type ATPases

Fungal infections are a major threat to immunocompromised patients. A potential target for treating such invasive infections is Pma1, a P-Type ATPase that pumps protons across the plasma membrane of fungi to create an electrochemical gradient essential for the secondary transport of nutrients. As yet, efforts to study Pma1 in vitro have been focused on detergent solubilisation and purification, which does not necessarily preserve the native lipid environment and can potentially alter the native hexameric assembly and ATPase activity of Pma1. This study had two main aims: (i) to develop a protocol for purifying Neurospora crassa Pma1 from its native source using polymer-lipid-protein particles, with the aim of maintaining a native lipid environment, and (ii) to characterise the native lipidome of the host organism N. crassa, and identify those lipid species that co-purify with Pma1. The effectiveness of several commercially available polymers in solubilising fungal membranes under various conditions were evaluated and compared to bacterial membranes. The well-characterised polymer, styrene maleic acid (SMA 3:1), was identified as a potential candidate for solubilising Pma1 from N. crassa, and limitations of this polymer for assessing protein purity and activity for fungal membranes were investigated. Using LC/MS to analyse the full N. crassa lipidome, 420 different lipid species were identified. By analysing lipids present in different purification steps of Pma1 in detergent, it was observed that purified N. crassa Pma1 hexamers are characterised by an enrichment of inositol-containing ceramides. Knowing these tightly associated lipid species will aid with future efforts to preserve Pma1’s native lipid environment during purification.
Merchants and their cultural horizons in late medieval northern Italy
Keywords: medieval merchants
Fama
late medieval Italy
account books
merchants
Dante

The primary aim of this inquiry will be to explore the cultural horizons of merchants in late medieval northern Italy (c.1348 to c.1460). This exploration will dismantle the mythical figure of the merchant in late medieval northern Italy as herald of capitalist modernity. The secondary aim of this thesis is to propose a new methodology of cultural history that explores ‘cultural horizons’. These were the constantly shifting frames through which knowledge was categorised. I will investigate how a specific medium, quaderni, gave structure to those categories, and I will reunite material which has been artificially divided by the boundaries between disciplines. Merchants in late medieval Italy reasoned through the ethical and tensions that their profession generated, read tales, heard sermons and responded to art in particular ways through their cultural horizons. Yet, to explore these cultural horizons is not in any sense to posit a fixed or coherent mercantile world view. Both aims will offer new avenues of research, into merchants at different times and places, as well as in cultural history more widely.
The first chapter of this thesis, ‘Keeping Books’, will focus on the impact of quaderni on merchant culture. These paper books, sold as blank bound codices, were a versatile new medium that created a space not just for accounting but for many kinds of writing. The second chapter, ‘The Perfect Merchant’, will examine merchant education and the ideal models that merchants aspired to. The third chapter, ‘Measure’, will study the role of measure and measuring in merchant commerce, ethics, and eschatology. The fourth chapter, ‘Time’, will focus on the ways in which merchants perceived and ordered time. The fifth chapter, ‘Charting Horizons’, will explore the ways in which merchants navigated and contemplated trade routes and spiritual landscapes. The final chapter, ‘Fama’, will examine how merchants were perceived, how they established and lost their reputations, the circulation of information, and how they were remembered. For merchants, fama was distinctive; their businesses and their afterlives depended on it.
A mechanistic investigation of the neuropharmacological and metabolic actions of lithium
Keywords: circadian rhythms
lithium
bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a chronic mood disorder characterised by cycling episodes of mania and depression. These episodes can have devastating impacts on life quality and expectancy in patients. Currently, the ion lithium is the gold standard mood stabiliser in BD – alleviating both manic and depressive episodes. Lithium pharmacotherapy is accompanied with side effects, however, such as weight gain and nephrotoxicity which limit the application of treatment and patient compliance. Given that the mechanisms underlying lithium’s mood stabilisation and side effects remain unknown, we embarked on a detailed mechanistic investigation to shed light on lithium’s molecular interactions.
Previous research has focused on lithium’s inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) as a possible explanation for its mood stabilising properties. We explored the hypothesis that lithium inhibits a wide array of kinases beyond GSK- 3β and found that lithium is indeed capable of inhibiting 76 kinases in a cell-free assay in vitro. A functional consequence of the inhibition/knockout of 50 lithium- sensitive kinases was demonstrated by alterations to the circadian rhythms of immortalised cell lines in vitro. Upon administering lithium to mice in vivo, we made the surprising discovery that lithium tolerance is greater in female mice than male mice. Using cryptochrome knockout mice, we further established that period change mediated by cryptochrome does not play a role in lithium’s modulation of circadian wheel-running activity in vivo. Finally, lithium’s selective induction of weight gain in obese patients was examined using a diet-induced obesity mouse model. The transcription factor peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ was identified as a lithium-sensitive target which could be responsible for lithium-induced weight gain and improved insulin and glucose tolerance in obese patients. Thus this DPhil thesis proposes new cellular targets for lithium which explain how it drives widespread alterations of disparate signalling pathways and further explain lithium’s promotion of weight gain.
An exploratory investigation into socioemotional outcomes of children with disabilities in Vietnam
Keywords: secondary data analysis
CDE2022
Vietnam
socioemtional outcomes
disability
CDE

This exploratory investigation into the socioemotional outcomes of children with disabilities in Vietnam is the first of its kind to be conducted, thus the analysis within this study establishes empirical evidence which, at time of writing, has not yet been formally recorded and published. This study adopts a paradigmatic approach beyond that of a positivist-constructivist dichotomy, and is explicitly cognisant of the value of statistical modelling and academic standards of rigorous research, whilst critically engaging with the axiology of such standards and recognising that the findings stemming from small sample studies can be fundamental in the progression of a given field, particularly where there is limited research surrounding a given phenomenon.
This study explores socioemotional outcomes of disabled children through analysis of the Vietnamese younger cohort dataset within the Young Lives study (n=40), and aims to better understand the lived experiences of disabled youth in Vietnam through asking the question ‘which factors influence socioemotional outcomes of disabled children in Vietnam?’. This study finds that: there are differences between the socioemotional outcomes of disabled children and non-disabled children at age 15 (lower for children with disabilities); child-level factors can account for 79.4%-88.6% of variance in socioemotional outcomes of disabled children at 15; family-level factors can account for 8.6%-71.9% of variance in socioemotional outcomes of disabled children at 15, and community-level factors can account for 36.4%-84% of variance in socioemotional outcomes of disabled children at 15. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, it is recommended that further research is conducted to replicate the findings within this analysis, and that future research advances from the limitations posed within this empirical study, allowing for better-informed policy decision-making in Vietnam.
The contractualisation of care: the emergence of family agreements in an ageing world 
Keywords: family agreements
care contracts
validity of transfer
inter vivos transfer
equitable claims
intergenerational wealth transfer
populating ageing

In life one thing is certain: we will all age. Due to increased life expectancy, the number of people affected by age-related illnesses, particularly dementia, who require ongoing, extended care will increase. Therefore, the question of who will care for older people is significant. Currently, limited places in aged care facilities, coupled with government policies encouraging people to age in the community, means that there is pressure on adult children, particularly daughters, to provide unpaid care for their older parent(s). Today, however, many adult children cannot afford to reduce their working hours to care for their older parents. Older parents are therefore compensating their adult children for the care they provide (or will provide) by transferring assets to them during the parents’ lifetime. To facilitate these transactions, family care agreements (Family Agreements) are increasingly being entered into. This thesis considers some of the legal issues associated with Family Agreements to better understand whether (if at all) Family Agreements are giving effect to the intentions of the parties whilst adequately protecting them from harmful outcomes. The thesis outlines ways in which the law has responded to population ageing and identifies areas that require further attention. This thesis mainly considers the position in Queensland, Australia, but also draws on case law and research from countries with comparable legal, health and aged care systems, particularly the United Kingdom, New Zealand and British Columbia, Canada. It concludes that the law in Queensland inadequately protects older people who wish to enter into Family Agreements. Further, it demonstrates that caregiving adult children are vulnerable to post-mortem equitable claims challenging the validity of the transaction(s) under Family Agreements, particularly because the law does not sufficiently recognise or value care work.
Mathematical modelling for tendon tissue engineering in a humanoid robotic bioreactor
Keywords: integral constraints
mathematical modelling
homogenisation via multiscale asymptotics

Tendon tissue engineering aims to grow functional tissue in vitro. Tissue is grown in bioreactors which regulate the biochemical and mechanical environment of the growing cells. This thesis develops mathematical models motivated by the Humanoid Robotic Bioreactor under development at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences. Cells grow on a scaffold consisting of many aligned, flexible strings, surrounded by cell media. The focus of this work is modelling fluid-induced shear stresses and metabolite transport within this fluid-fibre composite.
We begin in chapter 1 by providing background on tissue engineering and introducing the humanoid robotic bioreactor. In chapter 2, we develop methods required in later chapters, identifying the correct way to treat integral constraints in multiple scales problems with a slowly varying domain. We consider a simple example from electrostatics, using a particular limit of the problem treated with standard multiple scales to identify the correct method to treat integral constraints directly. We apply this method in chapter 3, where we use homogenisation theory to obtain an effective model for the fluid-string interaction in the bioreactor scaffold. We solve the model in simple cases to explore how the cell shear stress depends on the imposed forcing. In chapter 4, we homogenise the metabolite transport problem, outlining the different effective models that arise for various regimes. We consider simple solutions to each case and identify the most relevant regime to the humanoid robotic bioreactor. We draw conclusions and outline directions for future work in chapter 5.
Standardizing the state: the IPSASB's role in transnational private regulation
Keywords: global governance
private authority
transnational private regulation
orchestration
private regulation of the public sector
private standard setting
financial reporting standards

The IPSASB, a private sector body, has quietly attained dominance in the field of public sector financial reporting: nearly 50% of countries, and all major IGOs, draw on its standards in some form. The astounding success of these private standards in public sector accounting is inherently puzzling, but is made even more so by the meaningful distributional consequences within societies adopting IPSAS: the standards create winners and losers among parliaments, politicians, and within the bureaucracy, and have the potential to mechanistically drive financial policymaking and financialization, thus benefiting accountants and big accounting firms while potentially disadvantaging labor and taking discretion away from elected representatives.
This puzzling regulatory relationship is understudied in the literature. Through an in-depth case study of this organization, this thesis explains why and how private actors successfully “standardize” states. Drawing on over 3400 pages of Board minutes, 37 elite interviews, and ethnographic observation of three in-person Board meetings, it argues that private rulers generate demand for their standards by pushing these standards through international and domestic “supply chains,” targeting both IGOs and national and subnational bodies, while depicting them as universally applicable and apolitical – even if they have clear distributional implications. In doing so, the thesis makes several contributions to the literature. First, it uncovers an understudied phenomenon in transnational private regulation (TPR), in which the state itself is a target of rulemaking by a private actor. Second, it provides for the first time an empirical exploration of a case of private regulation of the public sector. Introducing the IPSASB as its case, the thesis expands existing literature on financial reporting, filling and important empirical gap. Finally, it develops a novel theory for this new regulatory arrangement which puts the suppliers of standards in the center of analysis.