VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Three essays on the role of higher education in inequality
Keywords: UK
Class Inequality
US
Higher Education

Educational expansion has raised questions of whether higher education alleviates, maintains, or exacerbates inequality. This thesis discusses the role of higher edu- cation in socioeconomic inequality in contemporary societies, focusing on two types of inequality associated with higher education: first, intergenerational inequality among college graduates, and second, inter-household inequality originating from educational assortative mating among men and women with higher education. The first two chapters, which concern the first type, aim to identify potential locations and mechanisms of social origin gaps in socioeconomic outcomes among individuals with higher education in the UK. Results from the first chapter confirm substan- tial social origin gaps among college graduates but with extensive heterogeneity by educational attainment, labour market sector, socioeconomic outcome of interest, and gender. The second chapter reveals differentiated pathways through higher ed- ucation associated with unequal access to top occupations among individuals with a postgraduate degree. The third chapter addresses the second type of inequality using the most recent US data. Although there have been changes in factors determining inter-household economic inequality over the past two decades, results suggest that changes in educational assortative mating have not contributed to inter-household earnings inequality. Results of the thesis shed light on promising lines of future research that are relevant to higher education and inequality: the role of family formation in intergenerational inequality and heterogeneity among individuals or households of the same educational attainments.
Quantitative biophysical methods to study immune cell mechanobiology
Keywords: T-cells
Traction Force Microscopy
Mechanobiology
immunology
Machine learning
Calcium signalling
Structured Illumination Microscopy
Super-resolution microscopy

Mechanobiology is increasingly thought to critically underpin health and disease. During their lifetime, cells carry out their function interacting with the external biophysical environment through mechanical and biochemical events. This is the case for T cells of the adaptive immune system during their activation via interactions with Antigen Presenting Cells (APCs). T-cell activation critically depends on the binding of the T-cell receptor (TCR) to the foreign antigen presented by the APC at the immunological synapse, leading to an orchestrated series of events including cytoskeletal rearrangement, the release of calcium from the endoplasmic reticulum and a change in the expression of surface proteins. TCR cluster migration is a consequence of actin cytoskeleton mediated forces in the range of pico-Newton and sub-second time scale. Hence, dissecting the significance of mechanobiology during T-cell activation requires quantitative biophysical methods for force and calcium readouts. However, the existing technologies do not offer the required sensitivity, robust quantification, and high statistical power. In this work, we present three new methods for planar and axial force generation on the nanometre length scale and sub-second time scale, combining Traction Force Microscopy with Structured Illumination Microscopy. Next, we establish a new machine learning based single-cell high-throughput platform, to quantify automatically and simultaneously the calcium responses of > 100,000 cells. Taken together, these techniques represent a powerful quantitative biophysical platform, opening up new directions for interrogating the role of mechanobiology in health and diseases.
Digital materiality: creativity and collaboration in digital design at 3XN Architects and GXN Innovation
Keywords: digital materiality
philosophy of technology
computational design
philosophy of mind
anthropology
materiality
parametric design
architecture
material engagement theory
design
enactivism
cognition

This DPhil thesis is about digital design at the Copenhagen based architecture studio 3XN Architects and GXN Innovation. In it, I examine how digital tools saturate design practices at the studio to develop a framework for analysing how design software and studio institutions come to shape architects’ creative and collaborative work. The concept of digital materiality analyses the way successive layers of mathematics, code, and software come to mediate and shape creativity and collaboration for architects. I explore this through 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork at the studio where I interned and worked from 2017-2019. Taking the starting point that architects think with and through their social and technical environments, I argue that the organisation of these environments profoundly impact their creative capacity. The ethnographic side of this argument follows several design and research projects in the studio to analyse how social organisation and technics combine to enable creative and social extension of mind in design teams. I find that computational tools allow for intuitive creation of advanced 3D geometries. They integrate the mathematics and numerical calculations that underlie these into digital models that expand from being technical tools to also becoming vital design platforms at 3XN Architects and GXN Innovation. There is a certain flexibility to digital models and workflows in the studio. This flexibility is created from the combination of several software into one connected platform that can integrate the many moving parts of architectural practice and projects. This technical flexibility finds its parallel in the social organisation of the studio where different institutionalised practices allow architects to think about the same project in diverse ways, shifting between them by shifting relationships in their digital models. The wider theoretical contribution of the thesis examines productive overlaps between anthropological theory and enactive philosophy of mind by asking how these overlaps can help us study creativity as fundamentally enacted within shifting technical and social environments.
Characterization of non-apoptotic roles of Dronc (Caspase-2/9) as a tumor Suppressor in Drosophila wound-like tumors
Keywords: Immune Response
Drosophila
Non-apoptotic
Macrophages
Caspases
Microenvironement
Tumor

Caspases are proteases best known for their ability to carry out the process of programmed cell death known as apoptosis. Through this function, caspases can act as tumor suppressors, and the evasion of apoptosis and cell death is an established hallmark of cancer. However, caspase activity has also been shown to be involved in a plethora of non-apoptotic physiological processes, and when deregulated, can also contribute to many other aspects of tumor initiation and progression. Because caspase functions are often context-dependent, the functional and mechanistic intricacies between caspase activity and tumorigenesis remain poorly characterized. To investigate the regulation and pleiotropic effects of non-apoptotic caspase activity in tumors, I took advantage of the powerful genetic tractability of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and a recently described Drosophila model of cooperative oncogenesis which is relevant for humans. This tumor model relies upon the upregulation of both the EGFR and JAK/STAT signaling pathways. My results indicate that widespread non-apoptotic activation of the initiator caspase Dronc (orthologous to mammalian caspase-2/9) limits tumor growth. Importantly, this caspase-dependent tumor-suppression occurs independently of apoptosis. Instead, I reveal that the tumor-suppressive function relies on Dronc negatively regulating the JNK-signaling pathway. Furthermore, my data show that JNK-signaling is responsible for several malignant features in the tumor model (e.g. hyperplasia and loss of cell identity) and contributes to the recruitment and potential in situ proliferation of tumor-associated macrophage-like cells, which further fuel tumor growth. Interestingly, the tumors bear several similarities to tissues undergoing regeneration, including regenerative signaling profiles as well as the presence of tumor-promoting inflammation. Therefore, my results indicate the suitability of the tumor model to further understand the complex relationship between caspases, cancer, and inflammation in a wound-like tumor. Altogether, my findings regarding novel non-apoptotic tumor-suppressing mechanisms provide details that broaden our understanding of caspase biology and tumors and can eventually lead to improved potential therapeutic strategies against cancer that involve caspase-modulation.
A mixed methods evaluation of a two-day cognitive behavioural therapy workshop for medicines-related consultations
Keywords: adherence
intervention
cognitive behaviuoral therapy,
medicines-adherence
compliance
CBT

Medication adherence describes the health-related behaviour of the ingestion of medicines by those prescribed them, and in the manner prescribed by their Health Care Professionals. Non-adherence and poor adherence to medication regimes is a common, highly complex problem that contributes to substantial worsening of disease, death and increased healthcare costs. In 2003 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a major public health concern.
There is a known psychological component to non-adherence and rates of non-adherence have been associated with patients’ beliefs about medication, specifically doubts about the need for medicines and concerns regarding their use.
There are no clear-cut, universally recommended, evidence-based guidelines or strategies to tackle the problem of adherence, but there is evidence to suggest that successful interventions often contain both cognitive and behavioural components, and when these are combined with traditional approaches (reminders and pill boxes etc.), outperform them.
A novel intervention aimed at addressing non-adherence was designed using principles and techniques drawn, primarily, from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which could be delivered by healthcare professionals (HCPs) during routine consultations with patients about medicines.
The intervention was taught to 93 HCPs. It was evaluated using parallel-design mixed methods, and utilised existing models for evaluating training impact, assessing various stages of outcome.
Numerous quantitative and qualitative investigations revealed that HCPs were highly satisfied with the course, that their knowledge and skills statistically significantly improved and that this effect lasted for at least 6-months. Furthermore, aspects of job satisfaction statistically significantly improved from the beginning to the end of the course. Qualitative investigations at 6-months reported behavioural change amongst course attendees leading to helpful, productive consultations with their patients. Patients who had received a consultation with trained HCPs found them to useful and empowering with regards to choices and actions about their health and treatment. The final study failed to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in self-reported adherence or beliefs change in regard to prescribed medication but showed trends that warrant further investigation.
Brain-wide cell assembly patterns for memory-guided behaviour
Keywords: Assemblies
VTA
memory
distributed processing
dopamine
glutamate

The brain uses functionally specialized regions to represent information in the sensory, motor, and cognitive domains. How does the brain integrate discrete representations spread across the brain to drive effective behaviour?
I trained male mice to approach or avoid a dispenser delivering either rewarding or aversive outcomes contingent on sets of visual and auditory cues. I found that groups of neurons scattered across the hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area cooperate to form cross-regional firing patterns of millisecond-timescale coactivity. These distributed assembly patterns report multimodal task-cue contingencies and require a common input from glutamatergic VTA neurons to support the expression of appropriate behaviour in our task relying on the integration of multiple external cues. Our findings uncover a diverging glutamatergic VTA pathway for organizing multiple local representations into brain-wide cell assemblies, dynamically adapting behaviour to environmental contingencies.
Instinctive synthesis: exploring and explaining the Australian model of sentencing
Keywords: Sentencing Guidelines
Sentencing - Australia
Instinctive Synthesis
Sentencing

The instinctive synthesis [IS] model of sentencing applied by Australian courts is a deliberately unstructured approach. It requires sentencers to consider all of the relevant factors in a single step to arrive at the appropriate sentence. There is no common decision-making process or methodology to which sentencers must adhere. Instead, IS is designed to allow sentencers maximum judicial discretion and flexibility so that they may deliver individualised justice with each sentence.
Using doctrinal analysis and data from interviews with judges from the Victorian County Court, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, this thesis examines how the unstructured IS model is applied in practice. Interview responses suggest that the majority of sentencers are willing to be guided in general ways, for example through the application of sentencing principles, but are opposed to hard limits on their discretion. Many are willing to overlook issues of transparency and consistency surrounding IS in order to preserve their very broad discretion.
Sentencing judges in Victoria appear to have developed their own informal means of structuring sentencing decision-making. Addressing relevant factors under wide headings such as ‘objective seriousness of the offence’ and ‘factors relating to the offender’ suggests that judges are not opposed to approaching sentencing decision-making in a structured manner. In fact, the vast majority find it a useful means of organising the many different, at times competing, factors.
The informal process applied by many interviewees is broadly similar to that in sentencing guidelines applied in England and Wales and proposed in Victoria. Such guidelines bring clarity, order and transparency to sentencing decision making but are heavily opposed by many sentencers, often mistaking the guiding or structuring judicial discretion as imposing strict limitations on discretion. This misunderstanding compromises the ability to secure judicial support for changes to the sentencing status quo.
Shape optimisation and robust solvers for incompressible flow
Keywords: Numerical Analysis
Computational Mathematics
Finite Element Method
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Navier Stokes Equations
Shape Optimisation
Applied Mathematics

When designing a new car or a plane, engineers need to solve the Navier-Stokes equations to understand how air flows around the object. Based on experience and intuition, they modify the design slightly, then solve the equations again, and inspect the changes. This process is iterated many times until a final design that minimises or maximises some quantity of interest, such as drag or lift, is found. The goal of shape optimisation is to automate this type of process.
In this thesis we address several issues related to shape optimisation. Focussing on the case when the shape is discretised using a mesh and when PDE constraints are solved using the finite element method, we describe a reformulation of the shape derivative as the derivative of the pushforward from the reference element. This viewpoint allows for automated calculation of shape derivatives in finite element software. When shape optimisation is performed by deforming an initial mesh, the choice of deformation is important. We propose a new Hilbert space structure on the space of deformations that results in high mesh quality of the deformed domains.
We then focus on the solution of a particular PDE constraint given by the steady, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations that govern laminar flow. The solution of these equations becomes challenging for large Reynolds number. We develop augmented Lagrangian based preconditioners that exhibit robust performance as the Reynolds number is increased. The effectiveness and scalability of the developed solvers is demonstrated for a range of test problems.
Crafting elections under authoritarianism: electoral manipulation as an authoritarian response to uncertainty in Russia’s regional legislative elections
Keywords: Russian regional elections
candidate exclusion
electoral authoritarianism
electoral manipulation
voter mobilisation
electoral fraud
spoiler candidates
authoritarian elections

Authoritarian elections are becoming a common phenomenon, at the heart of which lies a range of manipulative practices designed to perpetuate authoritarian victory. This dissertation examines the patterns in electoral manipulation and probes the existence of a systemic logic behind the use of such tactics in Russia. Conventional wisdom assumes that authoritarian elites engage in manipulation from a position of strength - they spot opportunities to exercise their power over a weak electorate and interfere with elections in order to obtain impressive results that serve to stabilise and prolong authoritarian rule. In contrast, this dissertation proposes that authoritarian regimes interfere with elections out of weakness - manipulation is a way of overcoming uncertainty over how voter sentiments will translate themselves at election time in difficult electoral contexts.
The study narrows down the concept of manipulation to four major strategies (electoral fraud, candidate exclusion, spoiler candidates and voter mobilisation), and uses a wide range of electoral and candidate data, citizen reports and court cases. Focusing on the sub-national elections to Russia’s regional legislatures, the thesis argues that there emerge common intra-regional trends in the use of electoral manipulation, which point to the existence of a regime-wide logic. Specifically, the dissertation explains how uncertainty affects the strategies adopted, with a particular focus on how strategies vary across urban and rural districts. I argue that electoral uncertainty increases with the level of urbanisation, and subsequently examine the extent to which the deployment of manipulative strategies varies according to the urban-rural divide. As a result, this thesis seeks to enhance our understanding of electoral authoritarianism by identifying the contexts in which certain strategies of manipulation are more likely to be used.
Affinoid enveloping algebras and their representations
Keywords: p-adic representation theory
Lie Algebras
Non-commutative rings
D-modules

We develop the basic theory of Picard algebroids and twisted differential operators on a smooth, reduced, locally of finite type scheme over a commutative ring. We also give a new geometric proof of the classical Duflo's theorem. We next move to the study the affinoid enveloping algebra of a semisimple Lie algebra defined over a discrete valuation ring. We prove that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the lattice of submodules of an affinoid Verma module of a given weight and the corresponding classical Verma module. Finally, we classify all the primitive ideals in the affinoid enveloping algebra and prove that a large class of two-sided ideals in the affinoid enveloping algebra is controlled by two-sided ideals in the classical enveloping algebra.
Investigating chlorsulfuron toxicity and resistance in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha
Keywords: Cytochrome P450
Marchantia polymorpha
Glutathione S-transferase
Chlorsulfuron
Toxicity
Herbicide metabolic resistance

Herbicide metabolic resistance is defined as the enhanced ability to metabolically detoxify herbicides. Enzymes that metabolise herbicides belong to the 71 and 72 clans of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme family and the Tau and Phi classes of the glutathione s-transferase (GST) enzyme family. I show that the 71 and 72 clans and Tau and Phi classes arose before the evolution of land plants and rapidly expanded in seed plants.
Using RNA-Seq and over-expression constructs I show that a 71 clan CYP up-regulated by the herbicide chlorsulfuron in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha conferred a low level of resistance to chlorsulfuron when over-expressed. Chlorsulfuron treatment of sensitive plants caused the differential expression of hundreds of genes, while target site resistant (TSR) plants that possess a point mutation in the chlorsulfuron molecular target MpALS did not exhibit a transcriptional response to chlorsulfuron. This indicates that changes in steady state mRNA levels after chlorsulfuron treatment are caused by the chlorsulfuron-inhibition of ALS and not by the detection of the herbicide chemical in the plant. This suggests that the transcriptome response to chlorsulfuron represents a stress response to the disruption of the ALS enzyme, and is not a xenobiotic response. To test this, four of the most transcriptionally induced genes in response to chlorsulfuron were over-expressed in M. polymorpha. Only one gene conferred weak chlorsulfuron tolerance when over-expressed. This supports the hypothesis that plants do not possess a xenobiotic detoxifying suite of genes.
To determine how MpALS inhibition leads to plant death I generated loss of function (LOF) mutations in the MpALS gene. I show that the deletion of MpALS is lethal but the growth of Mpalslof mutants can be partially restored on medium supplemented with branched chain amino acids. Using targeted and untargeted metabolomics I show that chlorsulfuron-treatment reduces the abundance of some branched chain amino acids and increases pools of other amino acids and metabolites. I propose the hypothesis that chlorsulfuron lethality is due to a lack of branched chain amino acids which leads to large changes in gene expression.
Exploring art as a means for communication and connection: From technology-enhanced art experiences to the Paradox of Sad Art
Keywords: psychology of technology
emotion
media psychology
psychology of art

Art is a powerful form of communication between artists and audiences. In this thesis, I will explore two questions that emerge from the literature on art as a means of communication and connection between artist and audience: 1) how can technology be used to augment the sense of psychological connection between the audience and artist? and 2) why do we like sad art?
To answer the first question, Chapters 2 and 3 present experimental data showing that listening to music while wearing haptic devices (versus no haptics) and headphones (versus speakers) increases empathy, parasocial bond, and loyalty towards the artist and also decreases feelings of loneliness in the listener. Results indicate that feelings of social presence mediate the relationship between these immersive technologies and these measures of psychological connection to the artist. To answer the second question, Chapter 4 presents data from five experiments. Studies 1 and 2 show that framing a text as art versus not-art increases liking for the negative emotions expressed in it. Study 3 showed that there was an effect of art/not-art on liking even after controlling for differences in perceived fictionality between art/not-art. Study 4 found that appropriation mediates the effect of art/not-art on liking and, thus, explains liking for sad art. Study 5 controlled for a possible confound in the study design and found that the results replicated. Together, this thesis explores art as a means of communication and connection by providing new insights on the use of technology to enhance connection with artists and by finding empirical evidence to support the philosophical debate on the enjoyment of sad art. These studies shed light on the ways in which art can be used to connect with others and also connect with ourselves and our own emotions.