VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Politicians, patrons, and the people: influences on targeted government redistribution in Pakistan
Keywords: patronage
clientelism
targeting
Pakistan

Powerful individuals often influence the delivery of government services for their own purposes. Officials may prefer inherently to direct assistance to their own relatives and social contacts (nepotistic preferences). Alternatively, they may use government services strategically in exchange for favors (patronage) or to gain voter support (clientelism). Most existing literature examines these three phenomena separately, or does not distinguish the motivations for politicians’ influence on distribution. Causal identification has also been a problem in the empirical literature. In the first chapter of this thesis, I develop a theoretical model of interaction between three levels of actors: politicians, local patrons, and households. The model allows for politicians and patrons to influence government services for nepotistic, clientelistic, and patronage purposes. In chapters 2-4, I test the predictions of the model using two novel household survey datasets I collected along with my collaborators in rural Punjab, Pakistan. Chapter 2 tests the theoretical predictions for the interaction of politicians, patrons and voters. Chapters 3 and 4 provide quasi-experimental evidence on the causal effect of links with politicians on assistance. I find evidence that politicians exert dramatic influence on the targeting of government assistance in this setting. Consistent with the theoretical model, the most assistance goes to a small “inner circle” of their closest contacts. Politicians assist this “inner circle” based on their inherent preferences, regardless of electoral pressure. When politicians face electoral pressure, they also deliver assistance to a wider group, in particular members of the same clan. In contrast, local patrons do not appear to have significant independent influence over the targeting of the government assistance programs I study, but they do provide other types of assistance to households. Their behavior is more consistent with the idea that they are motivated by inherent preferences for assisting their contacts. The results have implications for the interpretation of empirical literature on nepotism, clientelism, and patronage. They can also inform the policies of donor agencies and civil society organizations who aim to engage or pressure governments to reduce corruption and improve public spending.
Catalytic properties of nano ceria in heterogeneous catalysis
Keywords: ceria
core shell

There have been many applications of cerium oxide in oxidation catalysis but the understanding of its role in catalysis is rather limited. This research is concerned with the use of nano-size cerium oxide in methane steam reforming reaction. It is found that addition of cerium oxide to the commercial supported Ni catalysts can dramatically reduce the undesirable carbon deposition (through surface oxidation), which is thermodynamically favorable under low steam conditions. In order to understanding the fundamental role of oxidation activity of the cerium oxide, different sizes of nano-crystallined cerium oxides have been carefully prepared by micro-emulsion technique. Their reactivity is clearly shown to be size dependent. We found that ceria particle sizes of lower than 5.1 nm are able to activate molecular oxygen, which accounts for the unprecedentedly reported critical size effect on oxidation. Characterizations by EPR, XPS, TPR suggest that a substantially large quantity of adsorbed oxygen species (O2 -) is preferentially formed in the small size ceria from air. Also, it is found that the oxygen vacancies are formed in the interface of metal and oxide, and the strength of the metal oxide interaction may influence the formation of the efficient oxygen vacancies, which are responsible for the adsorbed surface oxygen.
Non-linear analysis of jack-up structures subjected to random waves
Keywords: foundations
offshore
jack-up

There is a steadily increasing demand for the use of jack-up units in deeper water and harsher environments. Confidence in their use in these environments requires jack-up analysis techniques to reflect accurately the physical processes occurring. This thesis is concerned with the models appropriate for the dynamic assessment of jack-ups, an important issue in long-term reliability considerations. The motivation is to achieve a balanced approach in considering the non-linearities in the structure, foundations and wave loading. A work hardening plasticity model is outlined for the combined vertical, moment and horizontal loading of spudcan footings on dense sand. Empirical expressions for the yield surface in combined load space and a flow rule for prediction of footing displacements during yield are given. Theoretical lower bound bearing capacity factors for conical footings in sand have been derived and are used in a strain-hardening law to define the variation in size of the yield surface with the plastic component of vertical penetration. The complete incremental numerical model has been implemented into a plane frame analysis program named JAKUP. The spectral content of wave loading is considered using NewWave theory, and the importance of random wave histories shown by constraining the deterministic NewWave into a completely random surface elevation. Using this technique, a method for determining short-term extreme response statistics for a sea-state is demonstrated. A numerical experiment on an example jack-up and central North Sea location is shown to emphasise the difference in long-term extreme response according to various footing assumptions. The role of sea-state severity in the variation of short-term extreme response statistics is also highlighted. Finally, probabilistic methods are used to develop further understanding of the response behaviour of jack-ups. A sensitivity study of influential variables (with probabilistic formulations as opposed to deterministic values) has been conducted using the response surface methodology.
After civil war: the demobilization of armed forces in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala
Keywords: comparative politics
demobilization
civil war
Central America

This thesis examines the factors that explain success in demobilization efforts after the termination of civil conflict by evaluating the scope of the capstone peace agreement, degree of international brokerage, strength of political parties, and effectiveness of socioeconomic policies targeting ex-combatants across three Central American cases: Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It contributes to the post-conflict literature by providing insight into factors that facilitate or hinder the demobilization process, a subject that has heretofore only been addressed obliquely in the literature. The end of the Cold War precipitated the end of civil wars across several countries in Central America. The strategies used to meet the challenges of the post-conflict environment resulted in varying experiences with demobilization. Demobilization is the first step toward maintaining peace following the end of civil war but often one of the hardest tasks to achieve. At the most elementary level, what is missing is clear knowledge of those factors that make the difference between successful peace implementation and failure, between the assurance of peace and the resumption of war. This thesis redresses the shortcomings of the literature by attempting to identify those factors.
Fathoming the depths of Thoreauvian time
Keywords: C19th American Literature
Thoreau

This thesis endeavors to engage in contemporary Thoreauvian scholarship by providing an original reading of Thoreau’s works using a critical framework based on Wai Chee Dimock’s concept of “deep time.” As such, it argues that Thoreau’s infamous embrace of political and rhetorical dissent takes shape in his writings most strongly in his construction of time-frames that break with or stand against his contemporaries’ own use, sense, and measuring of time in antebellum New England. Focusing on two aspects of Henry David Thoreau’s work, the thesis argues firstly that Walden’s resistance to familiar, sequential understandings of time manifests in myth, wherein time and history are shaped holistically rather than sequentially. Secondly, it posits that Thoreau’s excursion narratives resist the dominant recordings of history of his time by forming alternative historiographies within their structures, accommodating otherwise silent or ignored historical elements, at the expense of otherwise smooth, uninterrupted narratives. Having thus established Thoreau’s temporal structures, the thesis goes on to look at Annie Dillard and Susan Howe in order to trace out Thoreau’s previously unacknowledged formation of temporal structures in his texts as a genealogy that emerges in late twentieth-century American literature. Consequently, the thesis provides an alternative reading of Thoreau that moves toward a rethinking of his location in nineteenth-century America and its twentieth-century literature.
The peopling of Europe: a genetic perspective
Keywords: Europe
Y chromosome
genomics
human evolutionary genetics
admixture

Following their dispersal out of Africa, humans colonised all continents of the world save one, Antarctica. Whilst Europe was initially peopled soon after this exodus, paleoclimatic, archaeological, and historical evidence suggest that successive waves and migrations of people have contributed to the population resident in Europe today. I therefore examined the impact of past events on the European population through the analysis of DNA sampled both from contemporary Europeans, and from worldwide populations pertinent to its history. I genotyped and analysed data from the Y chromosomes of over 2,000 haplogroup R-M269 European men from over 30 different populations and, in combination with comparable datasets gathered from the literature, show that there it is not possible to assign a date to the origin of this lineage in Europe, and thus that any conclusion as to the ancient or recent spread of this lineage in Europe is unfounded. I also show that commonly used Y chromosome lineage dating techniques based on STR variation are biased by the markers used and conclusions based on such dates should be viewed with a large amount of caution. I next use genome-wide SNP data from 1,550 individuals from 95 worldwide populations to explore the population structure of Europe and present an analysis of the detailed structure of Europe in a novel analytical framework using ChromoPainter and fineSTRUCTURE. Admixture analysis based this data reveals distinct genomic inputs to peripheral European populations, from North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, and provides dates for this admixture within the last 1,000 years that correspond to the emergence and decline of empires and kingdoms in these regions of Europe. This novel analysis highlights the importance of recent historical events on European population structure, but also suggests a degree of ancient structure across European populations. Taken together, these analyses demonstrate the substantial effects of both ancient and recent migrations and mixture on the contemporary genetic structure of Europe.
Rare monosaccharides and biologically active iminosugars from carbohydrate chirons
Keywords: Izumoring
carbohydrate
monosaccharide
Iminosugar
glycosidase inhibitor
hexosaminidase inhibitor

Iminosugars are polyhydroxylated alkaloids, and can be viewed as sugar analogues in which the endocyclic oxygen atom has been replaced with nitrogen. These compounds are highly medically relevant and their biological activity is largely due to their inhibition of glycosidases. Several examples of the iminosugar class are currently marketed as drugs, and many more are in earlier stages of development for a variety of diseases and disorders. The most fruitful approaches to the chemical synthesis of iminosugars have utilised carbohydrate starting materials as optically pure chiral building blocks, or chirons. Most of the monosaccharides are not readily available, but the relatively few naturally abundant cheap sugars have been exploited as chirons for over a century. The availability of the rare sugars is growing with the development of a new biotechnological approach to their synthesis, known as Izumoring.
This thesis is primarily concerned with the chemical synthesis of iminosugars from carbohydrate starting materials. The synthesis of unnaturally functionalised sugar polyols and their suitability as substrates for the Izumoring process is also discussed.
Chapter 1 provides a brief general overview of the history, natural occurrence and therapeutic application of iminosugars. General strategies for their synthesis from carbohydrate chirons are discussed.
Chapter 2 concerns divergent syntheses of several iminosugar targets from both enantiomers of glucuronolactone and their biological evaluation. A new scaleable synthesis of the natural product 1-deoxynojirimycin is presented that has since been adopted for commercial purposes, as well as an efficient strategy for the synthesis of both enantiomers of 2,5-dideoxy-2,5-imino- mannitol and their novel amino acid analogues. Access to hexosaminidase inhibiting acetamido- substituted piperidines is presented, including 2-acetamido-1,5-imino-1,2,5-trideoxy-D- galactitol, which has been found to be one of the few known potent and specific inhibitors of α- N-acetyl-galactosaminidase. This inhibitory profile may allow the compound’s use for further investigation of a strategy for cancer treatment.
Chapter 3 concerns the synthesis of carbon branched pyrrolidines and their biological evaluation. A novel and highly potent α-glycosidase inhibitor has been discovered, synthesised by a strategy that utilises the benzhydryl ether as key protecting group. A mild method for the introduction of this protecting group has been shown to be general to a range of sterically congested and/or acid/base sensitive carbohydrate lactones.
Chapter 4 concerns the synthesis of deoxygenated and fluorinated sugar alcohols and their successful biotechnological transformation into ketoses by the Izumoring process.
Publications arising from this work are included in the Appendix.
The dosimetry of small, megavoltage photon fields: correction factors, dose area products and detector designs
Keywords: small photon fields
megavoltage
detector designs
radiation
dosimetry
medical physics

In recent years, small fields have come to play a key role in advanced radiotherapy, yet protocols to perform dosimetry under small field conditions are still in their infancy. In 2008, the IAEA and AAPM published a formalism [Med. Phys. 35, 5179-5186] recommending the use of point-dose correction factors. This thesis uses Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that the values of these correction factors depend strongly on both detector design and field size, as well as other variables such as detector off-axis position and detector azimuthal angle.
Mass density is found to be the principal determinant of detector water non-equivalence. Furthermore, it is shown that it is possible to compensate for the mass-density of a detector cavity by incorporating additional components of contrasting mass-density into that detector’s design. For small cavities, such design modifications enable the detector’s small- to large- field response ratio to be matched to that of a “point-like” water-structure: ideal detector performance can be achieved across a variety of irradiation conditions.
For existing commercial detectors, a Dose Area Product (DAP) formalism is also developed and shown to be much more robust than the point-dose correction factor approach.
In conclusion, correction factor values for existing detector designs depend on a host of variables and their calculation typically relies on the use of time-intensive Monte Carlo methods. This thesis indicates that future moves towards density-compensated detector designs or DAP-based protocols can simplify the methodology of small field dosimetry.
Plasmodium falciparum population genetics in northern Ghana
Keywords: genetic
Population
diversity
malaria

The main thrust of this thesis was to characterize P.falciparum genetic diversity in northern Ghana. To do this, I used simple techniques to purify P. falciparum DNA from clinical samples across a rural setting for whole-genome sequencing. The goal was to provide a framework for exploring host-parasite genetic interactions. Utilizing Illumina deep sequencing data for 277 isolates I analyzed P. falciparum genetic diversity and described within-host diversity across this area.
I observed random mating (ie no population structure) in the local parasite population, and a high genetic diversity indicative of high out-crossing. Moreover, when I aggregated my data with similar published data from Burkina Faso and Mali (sites ≈500km apart), no population structure was evident. In contrast, sites sampled in Cambodia and Thailand (≈ 800km apart) were found to have greater population structure and high potential for inbreeding. This may be driven by differences in transmission intensity between the sites sampled in West Africa and southeast Asia.
To demonstrate the utility of deep sequencing data, I focused on the genomic regions of pfdhfr, pfdhps and pfcrt, known to be under antimalarial drug selection. I surveyed the full diversity of point mutations already characterized in these genes and discovered previously unknown variants. However, in order to provide a means to follow up on new variants or interesting candidate regions in large clinical samples with limited parasite DNA, I assessed the Sequenom iPLEX platform for high-throughput genotyping of P. falciparum polymorphisms. This necessitated developing a method appropriate for assigning genotypes in haploid genome mixtures common in natural infections. Finally, I used this method to type host and parasite markers in a case-control sample set from this region for exploring host-parasite genetic interactions. I found that children who have the sickle-cell trait and carry parasites that have pfdhfr resistant alleles lose their protection against severe malaria as compared to children who have normal haemoglobin and are infected with parasites with these resistant alleles.
Essays on forecast evaluation and financial econometrics
Keywords: Binary Response Panel Model; Equity Premium
Loss Function
Forecast Evaluation
Macroprudential Policy
James-Stein Estimator
Forecast Rationality
Term Structure of Forecasts; Systemic Risk

Abstract: This thesis consists of three papers that makes independent contributions to the fields of forecast evaluation and financial econometrics. As such, the papers, chapter 1-3, can be read independently of each other.
In Chapter 1, “Inferring an agent’s loss function based on a term structure of forecasts”, we provide conditions for identification, estimation and inference of an agent’s loss function based on an observed term structure of point forecasts. The loss function specification is flexible as we allow the preferences to be both asymmetric and to vary non-linearly across the forecast horizon. In addition, we introduce a novel forecast rationality test based on the estimated loss function. We employ the approach to analyse the U.S. Government’s preferences over budget surplus forecast errors. Interestingly, we find that it is relatively more costly for the government to underestimate the budget surplus and that this asymmetry is stronger at long forecast horizons.
In Chapter 2, “Monitoring Systemic Risk”, we define systemic risk as the conditional probability of a systemic banking crisis. This conditional probability is modelled in a fixed effect binary response panel-model framework that allows for cross-sectional dependence (e.g. due to contagion effects). In the empirical application we identify several risk factors and it is shown that the level of systemic risk contains a predictable component which varies through time. Furthermore, we illustrate how the forecasts of systemic risk map into dynamic policy thresholds in this framework. Finally, by conducting a pseudo out-of-sample exercise we find that the systemic risk estimates provided reliable early-warning signals ahead of the recent financial crisis for several economies.
Finally, in Chapter 3, “Equity Premium Predictability”, we reassess the evidence of out-of- sample equity premium predictability. The empirical finance literature has identified several financial variables that appear to predict the equity premium in-sample. However, Welch & Goyal (2008) find that none of these variables have any predictive power out-of-sample. We show that the equity premium is predictable out-of-sample once you impose certain shrinkage restrictions on the model parameters. The approach is motivated by the observation that many of the proposed financial variables can be characterised as ’weak predictors’ and this suggest that a James-Stein type estimator will provide a substantial risk reduction. The out-of-sample explanatory power is small, but we show that it is, in fact, economically meaningful to an investor with time-invariant risk aversion. Using a shrinkage decomposition we also show that standard combination forecast techniques tends to ’overshrink’ the model parameters leading to suboptimal model forecasts.
Excluded-volume effects in stochastic models of diffusion
Keywords: Fokker-Planck equation
self- and collective diffusion coefficients
Brownian motion
interacting particle systems

Stochastic models describing how interacting individuals give rise to collective behaviour have become a widely used tool across disciplines—ranging from biology to physics to social sciences. Continuum population-level models based on partial differential equations for the population density can be a very useful tool (when, for large systems, particle-based models become computationally intractable), but the challenge is to predict the correct macroscopic description of the key attributes at the particle level (such as interactions between individuals and evolution rules).
In this thesis we consider the simple class of models consisting of diffusive particles with short-range interactions. It is relevant to many applications, such as colloidal systems and granular gases, and also for more complex systems such as diffusion through ion channels, biological cell populations and animal swarms. To derive the macroscopic model of such systems, previous studies have used ad hoc closure approximations, often generating errors. Instead, we provide a new systematic method based on matched asymptotic expansions to establish the link between the individual- and the population-level models.
We begin by deriving the population-level model of a system of identical Brownian hard spheres. The result is a nonlinear diffusion equation for the one-particle density function with excluded-volume effects enhancing the overall collective diffusion rate. We then expand this core problem in several directions. First, for a system with two types of particles (two species) we obtain a nonlinear cross-diffusion model. This model captures both alternative notions of diffusion, the collective diffusion and the self-diffusion, and can be used to study diffusion through obstacles. Second, we study the diffusion of finite-size particles through confined domains such as a narrow channel or a Hele–Shaw cell. In this case the macroscopic model depends on a confinement parameter and interpolates between severe confinement (e.g., a single- file diffusion in the narrow channel case) and an unconfined situation. Finally, the analysis for diffusive soft spheres, particles with soft-core repulsive potentials, yields an interaction-dependent non-linear term in the diffusion equation.