VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Carbon nanotubes In DC and microwave superconducting circuits
Keywords: Condensed Matter

This thesis presents an effort towards integration of superconductor-contacted carbon nanotubes into microwave circuits, as a new tool for building quantum circuits. Carbon nanotubes show a wealth of quantum phenomena demonstrated in transport experiments by different groups in the last two decades. With the development of circuit QED, one can study these phenomena using on-chip microwave circuits. Moreover, in superconductor-contacted nanotubes, Andreev reflection of the particles at the interfaces leads to the formation of Andreev bound states. A pair of such states can potentially serve as a new type of a qubit.
Here, fabrication and measurement techniques of superconductor contacted carbon nanotubes and superconductor/normal metal bilayer microwave circuits is developed, and their behaviour is studied.
In superconductor-contacted nanotubes the full range of contact transparencies is investigated, showing different transport phenomena such as Coulomb blockade, Kondo effect and Fabry-Pérot interference. In addition, the interplay of these effects with multiple Andreev reflection phenomena and the superconducting proximityinduced non-dissipative current transport through the nanotube is studied.
The proximity effect is studied using microwave resonators made of superconductor/ normal metal bilayers. Characteristic parameters of the bilayers, such as the critical temperature and the magnetic penetration depth are reliably extracted from the measurements.
Finally, the two experiments are brought together in the first step towards using superconductor-contacted nanotubes in quantum microwave circuits. The successful realization of such circuit is achieved, where the Coulomb blockade in a nanotube quantum dot is probed with a microwave field.
Ultra-thin oxide films
Keywords: 2D material
thin film
scanning tunnelling microscope
niobium oxide
nanomaterial
Au(111) substrate
surface reconstruction
surface science
epitaxial growth
titanium oxide
domain boundary

Oxide ultra-thin film surfaces have properties and structures that are significantly different from the terminations of the corresponding bulk crystals. For example, surface structures of epitaxial ultra-thin oxide films are highly influenced by the crystallinity and electronegativity of the metal substrates they grown on. Some enhanced properties of the novel reconstructions are related to catalysis, sensing and microelectronics, which has resulted in an increasing interest in this field.
Ultra-thin TiOx films were grown on Au(111) substrates in this work. Two well-ordered structures within monolayer coverage – honeycomb (HC) and pinwheel – were generated and investigated. Special attention has been paid to the uniform (2 × 2) Ti2O3 HC phase including its regular structure and imperfections such as domain boundaries (DBs) and point defects. Linear DBs with long-range repeating units have been observed; density functional theory (DFT) modelling has been used to simulate their atomic structures and calculate their formation energies. Rotational DBs/defects show up less frequently, however a six-fold symmetrical 'snowflake' DB loop stands out. Two types of point defects have been discovered and assigned to Ti vacancies and oxygen vacancies/hydroxyl groups. Their diffusion manners and pairing habits have been discussed within an experimental context.
The results of growing NbOx ultra-thin films on Au(111) are also presented in this thesis. An identical looking (2 × 2) HC structure to the Ti2O3 ultra-thin film has been formed; a stoichiometry of Nb2O3 is suggested. Another interesting reconstruction is a hollow triangle structure. Various sizes have been found, and sides of these equilateral triangles all show a double-line feature aligned along the 〈 1 ˉ1 0〉 directions of the Au(111) lattice. Chemical composition characterisations of NbOx thin films are still required as is DFT modelling.
Experimental techniques used in this thesis include scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), low energy electron diffraction (LEED), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Ultra-thin oxide films were created by physical vapour deposition (PVD) in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) systems.
The creation of literary character in the fiction of Theodor Fontane
Keywords: Der Stechlin
Thomas Mann
Unwiederbringlich
literary theory
Vor dem Sturm
Effi Briest
empathy
Frau Jenny Treibel
Mathilde Möhring
reader
figure
Buddenbrooks
Adultera
affective reading
Fontane
character
Irrungen, Wirrungen
Cecile

This thesis examines the creation of character in the work of Theodor Fontane. Although he is repeatedly praised as a great writer of human character, there is no comprehensive analysis of how Fontane's characters work. This thesis is intended to fill this surprising gap in Fontane research. Its analyses do not focus on the author-text interaction as many traditional critical approaches do, but instead look at what takes place between the text and the reader.
The first section, entitled 'Character in Theory', has two chapters presenting my concept of literary character. It draws on the findings of cognitive studies, including formerly neglected aspects such as affective reading and empathy. The second section, 'Character in Practice', contains four chapters. Chapter three demonstrates how our emotions can contribute to our understanding and what role is played by empathy. Chapter four shows the active role readers are required to play when putting together information about characters in Fontane's polyphonous novels. Chapter five focuses on character speech, and chapter six asks to what extent Fontane's characters can be seen to develop. The third section, ‘Character in Context’, takes a less hermeneutic approach. Chapter seven asks what our expectations of Realist characters are and how these influence our reading of Fontane. Chapter eight examines how our access to these characters has changed compared to the author's contemporary readership. Chapter nine presents an excursus, looking at the author’s development from renditions of 'real' people to fictional characters.
The last section compares this author's creations to the tentatively Modernist characters of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. My findings show that Fontane's characters demand and support a more active reading than Realism is usually given credit for. They suggest that the concept of Realist characters as largely descriptive creations needs to be examined critically.
The role of CD1a-restricted T cells and phospholipase in allergic disease
Keywords: Skin
T-cells
Lipids
Immunology

The skin is an important barrier against a range of different environmental challenges. The skin associated immune system is able to detect breaks in the barrier to initiate a protective immune response. Langerhans cells express a high density of CD1a, which presents lipid antigens to T-cells. However little is known about CD1a-restricted lipid antigens and the role of CD1a-restricted T-cells in inflammatory skin disease.
In order to investigate the role of T-cells that react to CD1a presenting lipid in skin disease, wasp and bee venom were studied as an antigen source. Venoms are able to cause allergic hypersensitivity reactions, associated with skin T-cell infiltration, a venom protein-specific T-cell response in allergic individuals and are independent of filaggrin. Using primary antigen presenting cells and target cells lacking surface MHC expression (K562 cells) transfected with CD1a, allowed investigation of polyclonal T-cells responses from unrelated donors.
Bee and wasp venoms were shown to induce CD1a-restricted T-cell responses in both peripheral blood and skin. Surprisingly this activity was not contained within the lipid fraction of the venoms, but instead was mediated through the generation of a lipid ligand by venom phospholipase. Furthermore, wasp venom delivery results in the production of phospholipase products in the skin of humans. A significantly increased frequency of IFN-, GM-CSF- and IL-13-producing venom specific CD1a-restricted T-cells was observed in allergic individuals compared to healthy controls. During subcutaneous immunotherapy, frequencies of CD1a-reactive T cells were initially induced, peaking by weeks 5, but then reduced despite escalation of antigen dose. CD1a-reactive T cells were further investigated to characterise their physiological role by generating T cell lines which produced a range of different cytokines, including IL-22 on stimulation with phospholipase and other phospholipase containing allergens.
In summary, we identified a novel pathway of skin inflammation where lipids generated by allergen-derived phospholipase can be recognised by CD1a-restricted T cells which produce type 1 and type 2 cytokines and associate with allergic reactivity. These findings have implications for novel therapeutic strategies for allergic disease.
A social history of domestic service in post-colonial Zambia, c. 1964-2014.
Keywords: Gender
Domestic service
African history
Zambia

This thesis examines the history of domestic service in Zambia from the 1960s to the present day. Domestic service was one of the largest sectors of urban employment throughout this period and involved large numbers of men, women and children selling and buying labour in a variety of working arrangements. The sector has, however, received little scholarly or official attention, reflecting a broader historiographical neglect of informal sector employment and the female workers who predominate in this area of the economy. The lack of attention paid to domestic service by academics and policy-makers has considerably limited the questions that have been asked about who workers are and how processes of reproduction and production have been organized at a household and societal level in Zambia, both historically and in the present. Most immediately, in order to work outside of the home, earn money and access crucial resources, thousands of Zambians needed to find someone else to take care of their homes and children.
Drawing on a wide range of source material, this study demonstrates the importance of domestic service to social and economic relations in post-colonial Zambia. The study centres on domestic service arrangements in black households in the capital city of Lusaka. It examines how and why men, women and children found work in service, how and why employers sought help with domestic and care labour, and the relationships that developed between these parties. The study illustrates the diversity of the sector, with working arrangements varying from seemingly-informal kinship-based labour relations at one end of the spectrum to formalised, contractual employment at the other. The study also explains the gendered and generational shifts that have reshaped domestic service over the last fifty years, drawing attention to the increased significance of women and female children’s labour. Overall this thesis provides new insights into class formation, rural-urban dependencies, gender relations, and the nature of inequality in a post-colonial African city.
Aleksandr A. Semenov (1873-1958): Colonial Power, Orientalism and Soviet Nation-building
Keywords: Tajikistan
Early Soviet Union
Soviet Nationalities Policy
Colonial Knowledge
Russian Orientalism
Central Asian History
Late Imperial Russia

This study explores the life of the prominent Russian Orientalist and colonial administrator Aleksandr Semenov (1873-1958). In the course of his long and versatile career in Central Asia – where he came to in 1901 as a low-ranking member of Turkestan’s colonial administration, and where he died in 1958 as the first director of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences – Semenov participated in the transformation of the region from a Tsarist colony into part of what Francine Hirsch has called an “Empire of Nations.” His influence on national historiography and notions of national identity was especially marked in the case of the Soviet Union’s only Persian-speaking republic, Tajikistan, with which Semenov was connected through his interest and expertise in Persianate Central Asia. This thesis even goes so far as to argue that Semenov’s scholarship and his work as an advisor to the Soviet government facilitated the very establishment of Tajikistan, which Paul Bergne has described as a nation initially promoted by Russian Orientalists. Further research in Russian archives is required, however, to better substantiate this claim. Rather than focussing on the (early) Soviet period and on so-called national territorial delimitation of Central Asia, as scholars such as Hirsch and Arne Haugen have done, the present study, in the vein of scholars like Vera Tolz and Vladimir Genis, highlights the ways in which both Bolshevik nationalities policy and Soviet Oriental Studies grew out of the studying and ruling of Central Asia in the late imperial period. It does so through an examination of Semenov’s career, scholarship and personal networks, and on the basis of his personal archive in Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences, which has not been researched in any systematic way since the early 1970s, and in which no scholar from outside the former Soviet Union has ever worked.
Modern tragedy
Keywords: film ethics
film philosophy
tragedy
hermeneutics
modern tragedy
Michael Cacoyannis

This thesis is an interpretation of three films by the Greek Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis: Στέλλα (Stella, 1955), Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα (To koritsi me ta mavra/A Girl in Black, 1956) and Το τελευταίο ψέμα (To teleftaio psema/A Matter of Dignity, 1958). These films appear early in Cacoyannis’ career and very little has been written on them. My thesis seeks to show that they are accomplished and complex films, which merit close attention, both in virtue of their dramatic form and because of the ethical questions they raise regarding individual autonomy and the force of archaic ethical norms.
The aim of this thesis is to interpret these films by examining the evolving motivations of their protagonists. The thesis seeks to show that the dramatic form of the films renders the agency of the protagonist partly intransparent.
In order to show this, my thesis examines, on the one hand, how characterisation, perspective, character relationships and the development of the drama provide an internal context for agency in each film. On the other hand, the interpretation seeks to tease out the ethical implications and stakes of the dramatic action in each film. These implications, I argue, are structured by a thematic ambivalence running through these films between modernity, understood as subjective freedom, and archaic ethical norms, implying a limit to subjective freedom.
In the approach to the films’ dramatic form and their ethical implications, I am indebted to Hegel’s aesthetic and ethical theory. I use the Hegelian term ‘modern tragedy’ to characterise both the dramatic form of these films and the ethical situation of their protagonists. I also situate these films within international auteur cinema of the 1950s and early 1960s.
The thesis aims, thus, to contribute to scholarship on European auteur cinema of the mid-20th century. It also aims to be a contribution to the study of agency and ethics in film in general.
Ethnicity, equality, and education: a study of multilingual education in Nepal
Keywords: Nepal
ethnicity
minority language
education

This thesis explores the issue of ethno-linguistic identity through an examination of everyday practices in two mother-tongue schools in Nepal. While language and ethnicity have remained highly politicised subject in Nepal, the everyday cultural politics of language use inside minority language school has received very limited academic attention. In this thesis, I focus on the ways in which different people understand, experience, and interpret mother-tongue education in their everyday life. Drawing on Bourdieu's notion of social field, I argue that mother-tongue instruction not only concerns the introduction of minority languages in education, but also constitutes an 'arena of struggle', where the idea of an 'educated person' is (re)imagined, and the social positions of ethno-linguistic groups are negotiated. To explain this further, I show that minority language education function as a subfield within the larger social field of national education. On the one hand, everyday language practices in the schools display inward-looking characteristics through the everyday use of mother tongue and the construction of unified ethnic identity within the subfield of minority language education. On the other hand, there were outward-looking dynamics of actively engaging with the national education system. The salience of these processes is the simultaneous membership to multiple groups, claims over public spaces and in the spaces of nationalism, hitherto associated with Nepali. Using the idea of 'simultaneity', I show that social actors in minority language education might not necessarily select between subfield and social field, but instead thrive in their tense intersection. In this process, ethno-linguistic groups are able to construct their own subjectivities by negotiating what it means to be educated in a minority language. This emerging narrative of minority language education may help us to understand the issues of language and ethnicity in a more open-ended way and appreciate the multiple scales in which identities are expressed.
Coevolutionary interactions between a defensive microbe and a pathogen within a Caenorhabditis elegans model host
Keywords: Coevolution
Disease control
Experimental evolution
Virulence
Defensive mutualism
Host
Pathogen

Microbes can protect their plant and animal hosts against infection by pathogens, parasites and parasitoids. These ‘defensive microbes’ can provide a powerful line of defence beyond the host response and are becoming attractive candidates for disease control. In this thesis, I investigated how defensive microbes can interact with pathogens over evolutionary time by measuring the effects of co-passaging a defensive microbe (Enterococcus faecalis) and a pathogen (Staphylococcus aureus) within the Caenorhabditis elegans model host. In Chapter 1, I found that co-passaging drove the evolution of reduced pathogen virulence as a by-product of adaptation to microbe-mediated defence. Moreover, I show that the mechanism of pathogen resistance to the defensive microbe can determine the direction of virulence evolution. In chapter two, I discovered that the co-passaged defensive microbe and pathogen populations had undergone coevolutionary interactions within host populations via fluctuating selection dynamics. I then showed that these dynamics resulted in patterns of pathogen local adaptation and increased genetic divergence. Finally, in chapter three, I revealed that these coevolutionary interactions significantly affected the costs and benefits of the defensive microbes to their hosts, but that the relationship between these costs and benefits prevented the transition of defensive microbes across the mutualism-parasitism continuum. Together, this thesis uncovers the potential for defensive microbes to shape the evolution of pathogens and demonstrates that defensive microbes can be an evolutionarily dynamic but stable form of host resistance towards infectious disease. As such, the data presented in this thesis have important implications for how we study host-parasite interactions in nature and question our current understanding of virulence evolution, pathogen local adaptation and the origin of defensive microbes.
Damages for misrepresentation
Keywords: professional negligence
causation
deceit
damages
remoteness
misrepresentation
fraud

This thesis is an investigation of the law of damages for misrepresentation at common law and under the Misrepresentation Act, 1967. It makes three principal claims. First, the relationship that must exist between the making of a false statement and the claimant’s reliance on it is one of necessity. In applying this test to individual cases, there is no rule of law that the non-breach position is always that the defendant would have said nothing or that he would have disclosed the truth: it simply depends on what a reasonable defendant would in fact have done.
Secondly, the scope of liability for negligent misrepresentation is governed by what this thesis describes as the 'falsity rule'. This is the rule that a loss must be a consequence not only of the making of a false statement but also of its falsity. The rule can be traced to the late nineteenth century and is the best explanation of the SAAMCO case. Contrary to the current orthodoxy, SAAMCO does not in fact endorse the risk theory of remoteness which, in any event, is flawed both as a description of the law and as a matter of principle.
Thirdly, the measure of damages under section 2(1) of the 1967 Act is the deceit measure and the measure under section 2(2) is the monetary equivalent of rescission. These provisions have given rise to difficulty principally because their legislative history has not been closely analysed. In truth, Parliament enacted section 2(1) in the mistaken belief that the common law distinguishes between deceit and negligence only for the purpose of actionability, not damages, but a mistake of this kind is conceptually distinct from a mistake about the conventional meaning of words or syntax. For these reasons, it is argued that Royscot is correctly decided but that William Sindall, with respect, is not.
Essays in behavioural economics
Keywords: Pensions
Economic Policy
Salience
Intertemporal Choice

The thesis consists of three stand-alone essays.
Defaults are influential, cheap to change, and therefore of great interest to policymakers. However, it is still unclear what explains their influence. Optimal Defaults and Uncertainty presents a model in which uncertainty contributes to default inertia: decision makers may be content to stick with the default and avoid the costs of learning their optimal decision. The socially optimal default policy I find differs significantly from optimal policy in models where procrastination alone drives default inertia. I show that alternative policy measures may be more effective in improving welfare, and so the effectiveness of defaults may be more limited than previous models suggest.
In Screening Salient Thinkers, I explore a model of second-degree price discrimination in which consumers with context-dependent preferences choose from a menu of price-quality bundles. Specifically, the range of prices and qualities in the menu determines the weight that consumers give to the two attributes when they evaluate bundles. ‘Focusing thinkers’ place more weight on the attribute that varies the most within the menu; for ‘relative thinkers’ the opposite is true. The monopolist exploits both types of bounded rationality. In the focusing case the cost of asymmetric information is directly reduced; with relative thinkers the monopolist can use a ‘decoy good’ to extract higher revenues from all consumers.
Finally How Long Is Now? explores an important degree of freedom in models of present-biased preferences: when does the present end and the future begin? First I present evidence that illustrates how economists have used this degree of freedom to explain behaviour in a variety of different contexts. Second, using a novel, between-subjects experimental design, I test a hypothesis that endogenises the cut-off between the present and the future: the ‘as soon as possible’ effect. The effect predicts that the soonest option in a menu fixes the present horizon and implies a time-specific form of menu dependence. The experimental data collected does not support the hypothesis and this result appears robust to a number of analytical approaches.