VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Measuring implementation fidelity in independent living programs (ILPs) for youth leaving care: a systematic review of the literature
Keywords: ILP
systematic review
independent living program
transition
youth
care
adolescent
foster care

(For the review 'Measuring implementation fidelity in independent living programs (ILPs) for youth leaving care: A systematic review of the literature' by Tara Batista-Calderbank.)
Background: Youth exiting foster care experience poor outcomes across several domains in comparison to their peers from traditional family structures. ILPs are designed to help foster care youth transition to adulthood. Little is known about their implementation and effectiveness. This is an update of a Cochrane review first published in 2006.
Objectives: To examine implementation fidelity of independent living programs.
Search methods: The reviewer searched eight major electronic databases: Applied Social Science Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)(1980-July 2009); Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (Jan. 1980-July 2009); CINAHL (date); Dissertation and Theses Abstracts (date); EMBASE (1980-July 2009); Medline(1950-July 2009); PsychINFO (1967 to July 2009); Sociological Abstracts (1980-July, 2009) and reference lists of articles. The reviewer also contacted experts and researchers in the field.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials, quasi-randomised or quasi-experimental studies of the effectiveness of ILPs for foster care youth in the U.S. using contemporaneous controls. Outcomes were restricted to mental and physical health, criminality, housing, employment, and education.
Data collection: The author assessed trial quality, risk of bias and implementation fidelity and extracted data.
Main results: Seven studies involving 1,430 participants. Two studies were randomized control trials and five were quasi-experimental. The randomised control trials found no significant outcomes. The quasi-experimental studies found significant results for criminality, housing, employment and education. The risk of bias ranged from low to high. The methodological quality of the studies ranged from moderate to low. Four of the seven studies included information on implementation fidelity and three did not. Two studies demonstrated poor implementation fidelity, two demonstrated unclear-poor implementation fidelity and three studies demonstrated unclear implementation fidelity. The most substantial flaw was that in six of the seven studies, services available to controls were virtually indistinguishable from the intervention.
Authors' conclusions: The effectiveness and implementation fidelity of ILPs is impossible to assess if the intervention is indistinguishable from services as usual. The programs are not well defined. Before further evaluations are conducted, researchers and service providers need to clearly define the core components of the programs and re-develop the services incorporating theory, empirical evidence and client perspectives.
Frugal innovation: social entrepreneurs’ perceptions of innovation under institutional voids, resource scarcity and affordability constraints
Keywords: voids
resources
entrepreneurship
constraints
institutions
innovation
technology
affordability
social
frugal

Despite some understanding within the development literature about innovation in extreme contexts marked by challenges of institutional voids and resource scarcity, there exists little knowledge within organization theory and strategic management. To extend this understanding, I connect innovation in extreme contexts with research on social and purposeful innovation. But while the literature attributes social innovation to social entrepreneurs, we know little about how social entrepreneurs themselves view innovation. Questions that arise: How do social entrepreneurs conceptualize innovation broadly and specifically under extreme contexts marked by institutional voids and resource scarcity? I explore these questions using qualitative, descriptive and analytical methods by studying two communities of globally networked and formally recognized social entrepreneurs. Analysis is at meso level of innovation and value chains but observations are at micro level through document analysis, interviews, and observations.
I reveal perceptions by social entrepreneurs on conceptual drivers, determinants and key features of innovation. The findings help organizational theorists to frame models of innovation to understand innovation among social entrepreneurs broadly and in extreme contexts. In contrast to social innovation presented in current literature, I find innovation among social entrepreneurs is viewed as a disparate range of understandings that stem from varied motivations, means and outcomes related to social concerns as well as user, efficiency, and challenge concerns. I further find that social entrepreneurs turn to a mix of technology, social, and institutional innovations to deal with, make use of, or overcome constraints. The varied concerns and approaches to innovation can be condensed using the construct of 'frugal innovation' which helps provide some cohesion to the seemingly disparate notions of innovation among social entrepreneurs. I build propositions from the findings and suggest models of innovation that help develop a theory of frugal innovation with implications and lessons relevant for theory, practice, policy and future research.
Paediatric flexible flatfoot: a new stance - beyond static assessment
Keywords: asymptomatic
foot
feet
symptomatic
biomechanics

Flatfoot is often asymptomatic but sometimes presents with symptoms, even in children. This thesis aimed to discover if there was a difference between children with and without symptoms, in the hope that this might aid treatment decisions.
Firstly, an audit was performed to discover the prevalence and type of symptoms, as well as current treatment protocols. Secondly, 107 volunteers from the general population and 20 patients were assessed in more detail. The participants were divided into groups and ANOVA tests were used to find the significant differences.
Pain and parental concern were frequently reported in the audit population. The majority of this population had moderate bilateral flexible flatfoot with an active Windlass mechanism and static heel valgus. Treatment was dependent on department.
The symptomatic group displayed reduced passive ankle dorsiflexion indicating tightness of the tendo-Achilles, as well as increased frequency of severe knee hyperextension and knee valgus upon clinical examination. During static stance, three differences were found between symptomatic and asymptomatic groups, two differences between flat feet and neutral feet.
During dynamic trials, the symptomatic group showed reduced stride length and percentage time spent in swing. The ground reaction profiles showed differences in early and late stance. Further investigation supported the idea that decreased late stance vertical ground reaction force peak was evidence of instability in the symptomatic group. Four kinematic parameters demonstrated significant differences at foot strike, five at midstance, and seven at foot off. In terms of kinetics, after controlling for relative stride length, four differences were found, but none between the asymptomatic and symptomatic flat feet. Plantar pressure was successfully used to estimate truncated foot length. The flat feet did not display increased peak midfoot pressure; it was actually lower in flat footed groups. Arch Index and Modified Arch Index were successfully used for instantaneous and continuous assessment of foot posture over stance.
The differences found between symptomatic and asymptomatic flat feet (particularly at foot off) shed some light upon the potential causes of symptoms.
Cloud cycling, scavenging and aerosol vertical profiles: process sensitivity and observational constraints
Keywords: Cloud
Atmospheric Physics
Aerosol

The effects of aerosol in the atmosphere account for some of the largest uncertainties in estimates of the human impact on climate. These effects depend not only on the total mass of aerosol, but also its size distribution, mixing state and vertical profile.
Previous studies have suggested that both the size distribution and mixing state of aerosol may be strongly influenced by repeated cycling through non-precipitating cloud. The extent of this process is assessed in the HadGEM3–UKCA model; although fewer cycles are seen for all aerosol than in previous studies, the figure varies considerably between aerosol types.
The role of scavenging by precipitating cloud is also considered, and several approaches to increasing the physical realism of its representation are considered. In particular, coupling convective scavenging into the convective transport scheme is shown to provide significant benefits over an operator-split approach (which underestimates removal and allows excess aerosol to reach the upper troposphere and be transported to remote regions).
To evaluate the alternative convective scavenging schemes, a method is developed for carrying out a pointwise evaluation against vertically-resolved in-situ observations from large-scale aircraft campaigns, based on nudging and flight-track sampling in the model. It is demonstrated that this approach can help to constrain the choice between different model configurations with a degree of statistical confidence.
Finally, the processes controlling the vertical profile of aerosol are investigated using a series of model-based sensitivity tests, along with the extent to which these processes can account for the large diversity in vertical profiles seen amongst current models. For mass profiles and number profiles of large particles (greater than about 100nm dry diameter), removal and secondary production processes are shown to be most important; for number profiles of smaller particles, microphysical processes are shown to become increasingly dominant.
Is the European short selling regulation a justifiable response to the concerns posed by short selling?
Keywords: Short Selling Regulation; Financial Regulation; Comparative Law; Law and Finance; Securities Law

Short selling came onto the centre stage during the recent financial crisis when the collapse in price of financial listed securities after the demise of Lehman Brothers led to the introduction of a number of temporary short selling bans. In Europe however it was the commencement of the recent European sovereign debt crisis that was the true stimulus for proposing new short selling rules, the culmination of which was the introduction of the European Short Selling Regulation (the 'Regulation').
The thesis asks whether the Regulation is a justifiable response to the concerns posed by short selling. Such issues are measured against the relevant economic literature that almost overwhelmingly demonstrates that short selling contributes to market efficiency, that restrictions generally make markets less efficient and that constraints do not achieve the desired objective of stabilising prices. The thesis then analyses the political economy and backdrop to the Regulation’s introduction that largely dictated the shape of the final rules. The precise legislative choices made by Europe, including with respect to sovereign credit default swaps, are analysed, and (where relevant) there is a comparative element with a consideration of the US short sale regulations. These rules are used as a contrast and as a means of commenting more effectively on the European provisions.
The doctorate concludes that the Regulation is not a justifiable response to policymakers' concerns and that the rules have suffered from the politicisation of the legislative process. The thesis suggests that short-term political point scoring has triumphed over the long-term benefits of market efficiency and that short sellers are now the subjects of highly technical rules that will negatively impair on market efficiency. Although, with time, parties may learn to use the new rules to their advantage, this does not justify the introduction of unreasonable rules in the first place.
The "responsibility to prevent": an international crimes approach to the prevention of mass atrocities
Keywords: Kenya
international criminal law
criminology
Libya
United Nations
Bosnia
responsibility to protect
atrocity crime prevention

Paragraphs 138 to 140 of the Outcome Document of the 2005 UN World Summit not only elevated the element of prevention to a prominent place within the principle of “responsibility to protect” (R2P), but also restricted the scope of R2P to four specific crimes under international law: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This thesis explores the conceptual and practical consequences of linking R2P to the concept of international crimes, with a particular focus on the preventive dimension of R2P, the socalled “responsibility to prevent”.
To date, much of what has been written about the “responsibility to prevent” borrows primarily from conflict prevention theory and practice. Such conflict prevention inspired accounts of the “responsibility to prevent” tend to depict the principle as a long-term agenda that seeks to build societies resilient to atrocity crimes; that rests primarily on pillars one (state responsibility) and two (international assistance and capacity-building); that is supportive rather than undermining of state sovereignty; and that can largely adhere to the traditional conflict prevention principles of impartiality, consent, and minimal coercion should more direct prevention efforts become necessary.
Drawing on literature from criminology, this thesis develops an international crimes framework for operationalizing the preventive dimension of R2P. The framework, combined with three case studies of international crime prevention (Bosnia 1991-1995; Kenya 2007-08; and Libya 2011), challenges key assumptions of the conflict prevention accounts, arguing that linking R2P to the concept of international crimes turns the “responsibility to prevent” into a principle that is more focused on the short-term, rather than on so-called root causes of atrocity crimes; more focused on individuals, rather than on state structures and capacity; more partial regarding perpetrators and victims; and more coercive, intrusive, and controversial than is commonly acknowledged in academic writing and policy debates on the subject. More broadly, the thesis concludes that taking R2P’s focus on the prevention of international crimes seriously requires re-rethinking the “responsibility to prevent” in important respects.
Synthesis and reactions of titanium-nitrogen multiple bonds
Keywords: hydrazide
benzimidamide
titanium-nitrogen multiple bonds
alkoxyimide
diamination

This Thesis reports the synthesis and reactions of new hydrazide, alkoxyimide and benzimidamide complexes (L)Ti=NX (X = NAr2, NOtBu or C(Ar)NOtBu; L = dianionic supporting ligand or ligand set). The work is supported by DFT calculations which are used to rationalise the reaction outcomes observed and, in one case, the bonding in alkoxyimide complexes.
Chapter One provides a background to hydrazide complexes, starting with their relevance to nitrogen fixation. In addition, Group 4 imide, alkylidene hydrazide and alkoxyimide complexes are also reviewed. The Chapter focuses in particular on the synthesis, structure, and stoichiometric and catalytic reactions of these complexes with unsaturated substrates.
Chapter Two describes the development of the virtually unexplored 1,2-diamination reaction. The substrate scope and isolation of the vinylamine products are discussed. The protonation of the vinylimide complex Ti(N2NMe){NC(Ph)C(Me)NPh2}(py) and the overall diamination reaction itself is then explored through an in-depth experimental and computational study.
Chapter Three details the synthesis of cyclopentadienyl-amidinate supported alkoxyimide complexes. The first detailed reactivity study, supported by structural and computational studies, of any alkoxyimide complex is reported. Novel reactivity at Ti=Nα and, in one instance, Nα–Oβ reductive bond cleavage is observed.
Chapter Four describes the reactivity of the benzimidamide complex Cp*Ti{PhC(NiPr)2}{NC(ArF5)NOtBu} with a range of substrates including heterocumulenes, aldehydes, isonitriles and B(ArF5)3. Novel reactivity at Ti=Nα, and 3-component coupling is presented, and the experimental results supported by structural and computational studies.
Chapter Five presents full experimental procedures and characterising data for the new complexes reported.
Quantifying the sociality of wild tool-using New Caledonian crows through an animal-borne technology
Keywords: New Caledonia
biologging
behavioural ecology
birds
Corvus moneduloides
animal-borne technology
crows
field biology
social network analysis
sociality
Tool-use
animal behaviour

New Caledonian crows (NC crows; Corvus moneduloides) are the most prolific avian tool-users and crafters, using up to three unique tool types derived from numerous plant materials. Since the discovery that wild populations of NC crows use and manufacture different tools in different locations with no measured environmental correlates to these distributions, the process by which NC crows acquire their tool-oriented behavior has been investigated. Two major findings were discovered in 2005: NC crows have a genetic predisposition to manipulate stick like objects, and they increase their rate of manipulation when exposed to social influences. Since then, much of the research into the sociality of wild NC crows has focused on direct social influences, especially the parent-juvenile relationship, yet no social network of wild NC crows has been described. In my thesis, I characterized a new proximity-logging device, Encounternet, and outline a four-step plan to assess error in animal borne devices; uncovered drivers, such as relatedness, space-use, and environmental factors, of wild NC crow sociality, and experimentally manipulated the social network, revealing immediate changes to the number of day-time and roosting partners, the breakdown of first-order relatedness driving sociality, and an increase in the amount of time NC crows associate; and revealed an indirect pathway via tools left behind by conspecifics allowing for the transmission of tool-properties between unrelated NC crows. Altogether, I furthered our understanding of wild NC crow sociality through the use of an animal-borne device, experimental manipulation in the wild measuring the response of the NC crow social network, and demonstrated the utility of animal-borne devices in mapping the network of a population of wild birds.
Wind flow structures and wind forces in forests
Keywords: wind tunnel experiments
forest canopy
forests
trees
turbulence
wind engineering
wind loading

This thesis describes a series of 1:75 scale wind tunnel experiments investigating the wind flow over, and through, three different forest models and the resultant wind loading on individual model trees. The experiments were designed to lead to a quantitative assessment of the wind stability of the particular forest arrangements and also to permit a study of the coherent gust structures in the flow. Forest canopy flow is dominated by a plane mixing layer flow regime with a shear layer close to the canopy top. It has been confirmed that data can be correlated usefully in terms of a shear length, Ls, related to the form of this shear layer. Frequency analysis has confirmed that the flow structures have the same frequency as the swaying of the tallest trees in each forest. A mechanism is proposed whereby upstream turbulence induces swaying of trees at and near the upwind edge region of the forest, which in turn perturbs the air in the unstable shear layer. This leads to a roll-up of the shear layer and the creation of coherent flow structures. Conditional sampling of the gust structures, using wavelet analysis, has also supported the theory of a plane mixing layer type flow. An eddy-pair structure was revealed, the arrangement of which accounts for the intermittent strong downward sweeps of air into the canopy that have been reported by many observers. The large downward sweep of air was also shown to be responsible for the highest bending moments experienced by individual trees. Assessments of the different forest formations showed that in a forest consisting of a 50/50 mix of 200 mm and 100 mm model trees, gusts did not penetrate the lower forest. This arrangement should improve the protection of younger trees and may be worth investigating in field trials.
An integrated genomic approach for the identification and analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms that affect cancer in humans
Keywords: Transcription Factor Binding Sites
Survival Analysis
SNP
Random Survival Forest
Cancer

The identification of genetic variants such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which affect cancer progression, survival and response to treatments could help in the design of better prevention and treatment strategies. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have provided the first step of identifying SNPs associating with cancer risk. However, identifying the causal SNPs responsible for the associations has proven challenging, and GWAS have not been successful for time-to-event phenotypes such as cancer progression, due to the insurmountable obstacle of the large sample size needed. The aim of this thesis is to design and implement strategies that combine the identification of SNPs significantly associated with cancer, focusing on time-to-event phenotypes, with detailed bioinformatics analysis to allow for further experimental validation and modelling, to better understand cancer-associated genomic loci and accelerate their incorporation into the clinic.
First, a methodology that utilises the Random Survival Forest is developed and combined with a bioinformatics analysis that ranks SNPs according to their potential to result in differential protein levels or activity, in order to identify SNPs that affect the progression of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Next, an analysis that aims to extend our understanding of the role of SNPs in mediating the cellular responses to chemotherapeutic agents is applied. SNPs that could associate with differential cellular growth responses in cancer cell line panels are identified, and their association with the differential survival of cancer patients is explored. Finally, the potential roles of SNPs in affecting the transcriptional regulation of key cancer genes resulting in differential cancer risk are assessed. First, by focusing on SNPs in an important transcription factor binding motif that has been shown to be extremely sensitive to single base pair changes (the E-box) and next, by exploring the possibility that polymorphic transcription factor binding sites could underlie the significant associations noted in cancer GWAS.