VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Mitochondrial disease with abnormal mitochondrial morphology
Keywords: mitochondrial transport
ER-mitochondria tethering
lactic acidosis
mitochondrial fusion
mitophagy
CMT4A
optic atrophy
CMT2A
mitochondrial morphology
AKAP149
encephalopathy
peroxisomes
mitochondrial fission
mitochondrial dynamics

Mitochondrial encephalopathies are a clinically, biochemically and genetically heterogeneous group of disorders and less than 50 % of patients receive a molecular diagnosis. Due to the bi-directional relationship between mitochondrial morphology and metabolic function, it is thought that in many of these cases the primary defect lies in a gene involved in the regulation of mitochondrial dynamics, rather than in a gene directly involved in mitochondrial metabolism. To date, patients diagnosed with diseases of mitochondrial dynamics present first and foremost with neurological symptoms and onset occurs in the first two decades of life. This project has characterised a novel group of previously undiagnosed patients with early-onset mitochondrial disease apparently due to a primary genetic defect in mitochondrial dynamics. Key common symptoms were lactic acidosis and acute encephalopathy. Primary skin fibroblasts showed abnormalities in the distributions and activities of multiple mitochondrial enzymes, in the content and distribution of mitochondrial DNA, and in the morphology of the mitochondria. In each case, the primary genetic defect was not identified but progress was made towards understanding the nature of the defect in the context of the cellular phenotype and suggestions were made for future work.
Empirical essays on political economy
Keywords: voting
political connections
political economy
decentralization
elections
the Philippines
electoral budget cycles

This thesis is about how elected politicians stay in power and about some of its economic and social consequences, fundamental political economy questions. It takes advantage of the decentralized political structure in the Philippines to test models of voter and politician behavior. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on clientelism and retrospective voting.
In Chapter One, I assess the impacts of targeted government transfers on a local incumbent's electoral performance. I use the randomized roll-out of a CCT program in the Philippines where a number of municipalities are tightly controlled by political dynasties. In a competitive political environment, incumbent vote share is 26 percentage-points higher in municipalities where the program was implemented in all villages than in municipalities where the program was implemented in half of them.The program had no impact in municipalities with low levels of political competition.
In Chapter Two, I test for the presence of political business cycles in Philippine municipalities over the period 2003-2009, a context where according to the literature such cycles are likely to be observed. I find robust evidence for the presence of political business. This effect is only present when I use quarterly data and vanishes when I aggregate the data at the yearly-level. The difference is not merely driven by a decline in statistical power due to aggregation: point estimates for the overall effects are 7 times larger when I use quarterly data than when I use yearly data. This discrepancy can be explained by a drop in employment post-election that dilutes the yearly effects.
In Chapter Three, we estimate the impacts of being connected to local politicians, either currently in office or in opposition, on occupational choice. We use a large administrative dataset collected between 2008 and 2010 on all individuals in 700 Philippine municipalities along with information on all candidates in the 2007 and 2010 municipal elections. We rely on local naming conventions to assess blood and marriage links between households. Using individuals connected to successful candidates in the 2010 elections that did not run in 2007 as a control group, we find that connections to current office-holders increase the likelihood of being employed in better paying occupations. Individuals connected to candidates that were close to being elected in 2007 are less likely to be employed in better paying occupations.
Visible light communications with single-photon avalanche diodes
Keywords: visible light communications (VLC)
multiresolution PPM.
pulse-position modulation (PPM)
broadcasting
photon-counting receivers
single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs)
on-off keying (OOK)

This thesis explores the use of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) for visible light communications (VLC). The high sensitivity of SPADs can potentially enhance the performance of VLC receivers. However, a SPAD-based system has challenges that need to be addressed before it can be considered as a viable option for VLC.
The first challenge is the susceptibility of SPAD-based receivers to variations in ambient light. The high sensitivity of SPADs is advantageous for signal detection, but also makes SPADs vulnerable to variations in ambient light. In this thesis, the performance of a SPAD-based receiver is investigated under changing lighting conditions. Analytical expressions to quantify performance are derived, and an experiment is conducted to gain further understanding of system performance. It is shown that a SPAD-based receiver is highly sensitive to illumination changes when on-off keying (OOK) is employed, and that pulse-position modulation (PPM) is a preferred modulation scheme as it is more robust.
The second challenge is broadcasting to SPAD-based receivers with different capabilities. A traditional broadcasting scheme is time-sharing, whereby a transmitter sends data to receivers in an alternating manner. Broadcasting to SPAD-based receivers is challenging as receivers may have diverse capabilities. In this thesis, a new multiresolution modulation scheme is proposed, which can potentially improve system performance over the traditional timesharing approach. The performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed, and a proof-of-concept experiment is performed to demonstrate its viability.
An investigation of the extended application of the Oxford Knee Score in research and clinical practice
Keywords: Validation
Oxford Knee Score
Patient Reported Outcomes
Osteoarthritis
NHS
Knee Replacement

The Oxford Knee Score (OKS) is a popular single summary questionnaire developed to measure the effect of knee replacement surgery from the patients' perspective. There has been a recent interest in the use of the OKS in populations of patients and in roles it has not been originally developed for. To date, no evidence has been provided about the measurement properties of the OKS when it is used outside the context or purpose for which it was originally designed.
The general aim of this thesis is to investigate the measurement properties of the OKS when used in extended roles: a) within the population for which the OKS was originally intended and developed for (knee replacement) and, b) when applied on a different population, viz. patients undergoing non-operative treatment for knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Four existing large-scale databases of patients undergoing knee replacement surgery and a database obtained from a prospective study on patients undergoing non-surgical management for knee OA were analyzed. The results demonstrate that: 1) it is possible to extract separate information on pain and functional disability from the OKS in a meaningful way (in the form of subscales). 2) For the first time, anchor-based Minimal Important Change (MIC) of 9 points and Minimal Important Difference (MID) of 5 points were established for joint replacement surgery. 3) The OKS demonstrated satisfactory evidence reliability, validity, responsiveness, and interpretability, when used in patients who are undergoing non-operative management for their knee OA. 4) Further evidence of validity was demonstrated by fitting the OKS to the Rasch model. 5) Lastly, it was demonstrated that thresholds can be applied on the OKS to distinguish between patients who consider their knee problem to be severe enough to warrant joint replacement surgery versus patients who do not. This supports the potential use of the OKS in decision making aids for secondary care referral.
Overall the thesis provides critical evidence, not previously existing, to support the continued use, and extended use, of the OKS in orthopaedic medicine.
The finance of climate change
Keywords: climate change
innovation
Economic geography

Financial markets play a vital role in the allocation of the world’s resources. Yet financial markets are also prone to booms and busts as financial intermediaries imperfectly respond to the world around them. This thesis examines the role of financial markets in the context of climate change. It examines how financial markets are slowly, though imperfectly, moving towards addressing one of the greatest economic and scientific challenges of our century. I examine in-depth a number of areas where financial markets are operating effectively to address the challenges of climate change. I also identify those areas where market failures signal the need for further government intervention. This thesis proceeds in four substantive chapters. My approach is empirical and employs both quantitative and qualitative techniques. I first address financial market theory on the role of information in efficient market operation (Chapter 3). I then examine behaviourally how financial markets are integrating new climate-related information in investment decisions (Chapter 4). This thesis then examines the two financial markets in depth. The first is an empirical examination of how carbon markets have influenced publicly listed markets in energy stocks within Europe (Chapter 5). The second is an empirical examination of direct investment (venture capital and private equity) in clean technologies in Europe and North America (Chapter 6). Four findings emerge from this thesis: Firstly, financial market reform must begin with greater information disclosure to the market on the physical and carbon-related risks facing corporations and the community. Secondly, large asset owners (such as pension funds) should demand greater integration of long-term systemic risk considerations in their asset allocation decisions if they are to adequately respond to climate change. Thirdly, market structure appears to materially influence the operation of a carbon price signal within an energy market. This indicates further empirical research is needed by governments to examine whether carbon markets achieve their intended aims. Fourthly, the flow of direct investment (private equity) in emerging clean technologies is highly contingent on geography. The size and direction of capital flows is influenced by regulation, capital market structures, and physical environmental variables. Government must bear this in mind when formulating appropriate technology and industry policy to spur clean technology investment.
‘The Standard-bearer of the Roman Church’: Lorenzo da Brindisi (1559-1619) and Capuchin Missions in the Holy Roman Empire
Keywords: theological disputations
doctors of the Roman Catholic Church
early modern preaching
Prague
Capuchin Order
Counter-Reformation
Lutheranismi hypotyposis
Graz
early modern religious polemics
Polykarp Leyser
early modern Catholicism
Commentariolum
religious orders
Rudolf II
Vienna
Lorenzo da Brindisi

This thesis examines the missionary work of the Italian Capuchin Lorenzo da Brindisi. Renowned in his own day as a preacher, Bible scholar, missionary, chaplain, and diplomat, as well as vicar general of his Order, Lorenzo led the first organised, papally-commissioned Capuchin mission among the non-Catholics of Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire from 1599 to 1602, and returned there, again under papal mandate, from 1606 to 1613. This thesis examines Lorenzo’s evangelistic and polemical activities in Central Europe in order to shed light on some of the ways the Capuchins laboured in religiously divided territories to confirm Catholics in their faith and to win over heretics.
The introduction explains, principally, the thesis’s purpose and the historiographical background. Chapter one provides a brief biographical sketch of Lorenzo’s life followed by details of his afterlife. Chapter two examines his leading role in establishing the Capuchins’ new Commissariate of Bohemia-Austria-Styria in 1600, and specifically its first three friaries in Prague, Vienna, and Graz. Chapter three treats his preaching against heresy. Chapter four focuses on how Lorenzo, while in Prague, involved himself directly in theological disputations with two different Lutheran preachers. The first dispute, with Polykarp Leyser, took place in July 1607, and dealt with good works and justification. The second, with a Lutheran whose name is not known for certain, and which occurred in August 1610, concerned Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary. Chapter five analyses the Lutheranismi hypotyposis, Lorenzo’s literary refutation of Lutheranism following additional contact with Polykarp Leyser in 1607. The conclusion considers briefly the effectiveness of Lorenzo’s apostolate and closes with a review of the thesis as a whole.
Palladium catalysed allene carbocyclisation
Keywords: Palladium
Carbocyclisation
Allene

In this thesis, firstly, a Pd-catalysed diastereoselective carbocyclisation of allenes with aryl halides or vinyl iodides was designed and developed to form arylative or vinylative spirolactam compounds. High yields and diastereoselectivities were obtained in the presence of Pd2(dba)3/dppe and K2CO3 in DMSO at 70 °C, particularly when spiropiperidin-2-ones were formed. The method is simple to perform and broad in scope.
Having established the diastereoselective methodology for the arylative or vinylative allene carbocyclisation, a Pd-catalysed enantioselective version was developed by using bisoxazolines as chiral ligands. Aryl halides and vinyl iodides were investigated in this carbocyclisation. High yields and enantioselectivities were obtained in the presence of Pd(OAc)2, a bisoxazoline ligand L7d derived from L-isoleucine and Ag3PO4 in 1,2-dichloroethane at 70 °C. No olefin isomerisation was observed when cis-vinyl iodides were used. The method is mild, efficient and broad in scope.
A palladium catalysed diastereoselective allene carbocyclisation reaction was developed via enamine catalysis and palladium catalysis, which allows for the efficient carbocyclisation of formyl or ketone allenes. Good yields and high diastereoselectivities were obtained in the presence of Pd(OAc)2 and pyrrolidine in toluene at 60 °C when formyl allenes were investigated.
The cyclisation is diastereoselective and can also performed as a catalytic asymmetric reaction by using prolinol derivatives as chiral catalysts. Good yields and high diastereo- and enantioselectivities were obtained in the presence of catalyst (S)-L19.
Additionally, a boronic acid catalysed ene carbocyclisation of acetylenic dicarbonyl compounds was developed. An attempted transesterification of a β-ketoester substrate bearing a pendent terminal alkyne substituent at the β-position led to the discovery of an efficient 3-nitrobenzeneboronic acid catalysed ene carbocyclisation of acetylenic dicarbonyl compounds. The reaction is easy to perform, efficient, broad in scope and provides a convenient transition metal-free alternative to existing catalytic protocols.
Dynamics, formation and segregation of the cytoplasmic chemoreceptor cluster in Rhodobacter sphaeroides
Keywords: Chemoreceptors
Chemotaxis
Rhodobacter sphaeroides

The internal organisation of bacteria is far more complex than originally thought. Many components of the cell have specific localisation patterns. Proteins are localised to many different regions of the cell by numerous mechanisms, and often their function depends on correct localisation.
Bacterial and plasmid DNA are also highly organised and actively positioned. These tightly regulated positioning patterns ensure stable maintenance of genetic material. Members of the ParA/MinD family of ATPases are responsible for the segregation of a large number of bacterial chromosomes and plasmids. Recently members of this family have been shown to position and segregate protein complexes. One such complex is the cytoplasmic chemosensory cluster of Rhodobacter sphaeroides. This large complexes are segregated from a single cluster positioned at the mid-cell to two clusters at 1/4, 3/4 positions by the ParA homologue PpfA using the nucleoid as a scaffold. This ensures that each daughter cell inherits a cluster.
This study sought to investigate this cytoplasmic chemosensory cluster, and its positioning and segregation by PpfA through the cell cycle.
The use of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching revealed that like membrane bound chemoreceptor arrays the cytoplasmic cluster of R. sphaeroides is a highly stable complex. The difference seen between the cytoplasmic cluster and the data reported for the membrane bound cluster of Escherichia coli is probably due to the lack of membrane helping hold the array together.
Investigation of the role of PpfA in segregation of the cytoplasmic cluster, using fluorescence imaging and single molecule tracking with a range of mutants through the cell cycle, suggest that it uses a mechanism unlike any reported for ParA homologues. Single molecule tracking of PpfA molecules shows that the chemoreceptor TlpT stabilises PpfA molecules resulting in slower diffusion of PpfA molecules at the cluster. The use of a ΔppfA mutant shows that PpfA restrains the movement of the cluster, together these results suggest a model in which TlpT stabilises PpfA’s interaction with the nucleoid and PpfA positions the cluster.
Essays in labour economics: Thailand’s labour market adjustment during the structural transformation process
Keywords: inequality
human capital
Thailand
labour markets
structural transformation

I examine the importance of human capital for economic development in Thailand during the period of high economic growth and structural transformation (1985-2000), using labour force survey data. The three main chapters attempt to estimate the effects of education, as a measure of human capital, on three major outcomes in the Thai labour market, namely (i) earnings; (ii) sector of employment; and (iii) earnings inequality. I address the endogeneity problem of education using an education policy shift—the change in the compulsory schooling law—that produces exogenous variation in education. The three main chapters adopt distinct modelling frameworks. The details of each of the main chapters are as follows.
The third chapter investigates how education increases earnings and the probability of being in the non-agricultural sector. As the education policy shift influences educational attainment in a discontinuous way, a regression discontinuity (RD) framework is adopted to identify the average returns to education and the effect of education on the sector of employment. It is important to emphasise that the RD technique constrains the effects of education on the two outcomes to be linear and to be applicable only to sub-populations. My results confirm significant effects of education on both earnings and the sectoral sorting process. In addition, there are heterogeneous effects of education by gender.
The fourth chapter is an extension of the previous chapter. I allow the returns to education to be heterogeneous across education levels and sectors of employment, while attempting to estimate the returns for the entire population. I use a control function (CF) approach and a double selection correction to estimate the sectoral earnings process, while jointly accounting for the choice of education and the selection into sectors and paid employment. I find that the returns to education are non-linear and higher in the non-agricultural sector especially for medium and highly educated workers. This suggests that human capital plays a crucial role in facilitating a structural transformation towards the non-agricultural sector.
In the final chapter, I study how the increased primary education completion rate affects earnings inequality. While there exists a burgeoning literature on the average returns to education, less attention has been devoted to estimating the effects of education on the distribution of earnings. I identify the effects of primary education completion on earnings at different points of the distribution, and thus earnings inequality, using a recently developed approach, called regression discontinuity distributional treatment effects. My results suggest that the increased primary education completion rate reduces earnings inequality as the returns to primary education are larger for the poor than the rich.
Synthesis and properties of giant porphyrin nanorings
Keywords: porphyrin chemistry
cyclic polymers
supramolecular chemistry

Fully conjugated porphyrin nanorings combine an end-free π-system with well defined size and shape. They provide models for testing our understanding of light harvesting in natural photosynthetic systems, and may lead to the creation of new functional materials. This thesis describes the template-directed synthesis of novel 10, 16, 18, 20, 24, 30, 40 and 50-porphyrin nanorings using small templates, as well as the investigation of their structure, electronic properties and supramolecular chemistry in solution and on surfaces. This work illustrates the scope of Vernier templating as a tool for the synthesis of monodisperse molecules of unprecedented sizes.
Chapter 1 introduces key properties of porphyrins and π-conjugated linear and cyclic porphyrin oligomers and describes the principle methods of preparing non-conjugated and conjugated cyclic polymers. It also covers recent advances in the synthesis of fully-conjugated porphyrin nanorings, in particular Vernier templating.
Chapter 2 discusses the formation of higher order porphyrin nanorings (18- and 24-porphyrin nanorings) in the classical synthesis of 6-porphyrin nanoring and the Vernier-templated synthesis of 12-porphyrin nanoring.
Chapter 3 describes the Vernier-templated synthesis of 24-porphyrin nanoring and its characterization.
Chapter 4 shows that the flexibility of 24-porphyrin nanoring can be locked by the formation of a “sandwich” complex in the presence of a bidentate ligand or by solvent-induced formation of aggregates.
Chapter 5 demonstrates the use of templates to control the cyclooligomerization of linear porphyrin oligomers. Vernier-templated synthetic routes to 10-, 30- and 40-porphyrin nanorings are investigated.
Chapter 6 reports the electronic properties of porphyrin nanorings as probed by electrochemistry (for 6 porphyrin nanoring) or fluorescence anisotropy measurements (for 24 porphyrin nanoring). Crystal structures of 6 and 12 porphyrin nanoring template complexes are presented.
Chapter 7 contains experimental procedures and characterization data of known and novel compounds synthesized in the course of this thesis.