VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Manners cost nothing?  Civility on Twitter and political engagement, trust, and affective polarisation in Britain
Keywords: Misinformation
Polarisation
Online incivility
Democratic stability
Social media

The precise mechanisms through which social media affects democratic political discourse are academically underexplored, but pertinent given evidence that the online information environment is characterised by increasing polarisation, factual relativity, incivility, and disengagement. This thesis contributes to scholarly understanding of the implications of social media as a forum for public debate in advanced democracies, and tests the mediating role of issue salience on these effects. To do this, it employs two identically-structured experiments on issues of contrasting current salience in Britain (Brexit and poverty) using Twitter, a prominent social media platform for public debate. The experiments seek to measure the attitudinal effects of exposure to civil and uncivil debate on Twitter for political engagement and trust, focussing on the contrasting reactions of partisans and passive observers. Results indicate that civility in online political debate can significantly improve levels of trust and engagement, particularly for those with low political interest who are unsure of their political orientation. Interestingly, these findings are most consistent in the poverty-related condition and corresponding negative impacts of incivility are not as prominent in either experiment. Concerningly, this implies that incivility is becoming normalised on Twitter and that polarised issue contexts inhibit the ameliorating value of civility. Implications of these findings are discussed with reference to existing literature, and the thesis concludes that attempts to diffuse polarised topics offline while cultivating norms of civility online could help to recast social media as platforms for the inclusion of currently disengaged voices and a force for democratic stability.
Territory and state formation in the Archaic Peloponnese
Keywords: Greek archaeology
surface survey
Archaic Greece
Polis and Chora
The Polis
interdisciplinarity
state formation

During the Archaic period (C800-500), a key foundational era of Greek history, several paradigm shifts within society resulted in the ‘Rise of the Polis’, the development of this key institution of Greek life and culture. The last thirty years have seen dramatic changes in our understanding of the emergence of complex societies, new and more critical approaches to textual sources, and a broadening of archaeological research in Greece, particularly in the countryside, alongside the ever-increasing body of excavated material from early poleis. However, the nature and origins of the polis remains one of the most discussed and debated issues in the study of ancient Greece. This on-going lack of consensus stems partly from the under-utilisation of many of these advances. My research presented here aims to remedy this by focussing on data gathered from numerous surface survey projects and combining it with text and excavated material, in the context of new critical approaches to the past. Through synthesising and analysing this survey material, a resource currently under-used and largely overlooked in the study of Archaic Greece, this study casts new light on the vital changes in the chora, the territory of the polis; on the border areas between poleis, and on broad trends in social change and social organisation in the Archaic period. My research shows that the closer incorporation of survey material into the study and understanding of Archaic history is not only possible, it is vitally important for advancing the relationship between text, material culture and historical archaeology, thus opening up broad, innovative and exciting possibilities for future research.
Widening participation post-16: who participates? A case study of the Aim for Oxford programme
Keywords: IMD
Widening participation
Free School Meals
HE access
Russell Group
Local Authority Care
POLAR
first-generation student
educational disadvantage
outreach
IDACI
Oxbridge

Widening participation programmes at highly selective universities select their participants according to a variety of individual, area-level, and school-based indicators. Academic selection criteria also play a key role in selection at high tariff institutions, especially in post- 16 widening participation work. When contextual indicators are used ineffectively, there is a significant chance that only the most advantaged of ‘disadvantaged’ young people will have the opportunity to participate in widening participation schemes. The purpose of this study is to understand the life experiences associated with commonly used contextual indicators and explore what young people who have applied to the Aim for Oxford widening participation programme believe to have advantaged and disadvantaged them in their education. Twenty-seven young people completed a questionnaire delving into more detail about their contextual background and ten participated in semi-structured interviews to consider how they believe highly selective universities should select students onto their widening participation programmes. The study found that young people valued being selected onto widening participation programmes for their own merits as opposed to their adverse circumstances, feeling patronised by the idea of selection to meet “quotas.” Yet, the young people also recognised the role that their contextual background has played in their ambitions towards and expectations of accessing higher education. Synthesising the young people’s views, this study concludes with five recommendations for widening participation practice when selecting students, including: the use of multiple contextual indicators; prioritisation of students who might have ‘isolated knowledge’ through concurrent familial and school-based circumstances; avoidance of area-based metrics; more explicit consideration of individual circumstances not captured by indicators; and consideration of academic attainment in the context of the young person’s school.
Malware detection in security operation centres
Keywords: Detection
SOC
Malware
Network Security
Security Operation Centres

Malware has evolved from viruses attacking single victims to more sophisticated malware with disruptive purposes. For example, WannaCry ransomware attacks led to hundreds of disruption to NHS care in 2017. Although organizations might have invested in security technologies, their susceptibility to WannaCry hints that the problem goes beyond technology. Security Operations Centres (SOCs) are the first-line of defence in an organisation, providing 24/7 monitoring, detection, and response to security attacks. This thesis aims to explore the challenges in malware detection in Security Operation Centres (SOCs) providing recommendations for possible technological solutions.
We first start by investigating the workflow SOC practitioners follow. Through semi-structured interviews, we recognise the analysts' role in the SOC and their interactions with the technological solutions for malware monitoring, detection, investigation and response. Our results highlight the overwhelming reliance on analysts throughout the SOC operations, which might benefit from automation. We elicit the analysts analytical thinking when making decisions, identifying the influential factors that might impact their decision making.
Moreover, we investigate security practitioners' perspectives of the security monitoring tools deployed in SOCs and their perception of the high false-positive rates. By identifying the weaknesses and strengths in current SOC tools and challenges in deploying network-monitoring tools, we derive recommendations for future SOC tools development.
Understanding the type of malware is an essential step in determining the best response. Sometimes getting access to the infected host is not possible and analysts refer to the network traffic for analysis. Hence, we propose a system that classifies network flow sequences to a malware family. The proposed system is privacy-preserving and effective in classifying a binary to a malware family based on its network traffic, not requiring access to the malware binary itself.
Behavioural malware detection approaches are found to be the most reliable by analysts. We propose a behaviour-based malware detection system that improves over state-of-the-art by detecting new or unseen malware. The system uses behavioural high-level network features preserving the privacy of the monitored hosts. Using this system, malware's network activities are captured and modelled as a Markov Chain. Due to the modeling of general bot network behavior by the Markov Chains, the system can detect new malware that has not been seen before making it robust against malware evolution.
The novelty of this research is to provide a systematic study on SOCs processes, people, and technology; providing researchers with an understanding of the challenges and opportunities within; bridging that knowledge gap and thereby setting a better foundation for future research in the field.
Ordinary goodness for ordinary people: an essay on the Kantian system
Keywords: Determinism
Transcendental Compatibilism
Kant
Moral worth
Free will

Kant does not explicitly present an account of what one might call ordinary goodness for ordinary people, or the sense of moral worth one has in mind when one judges someone to be a “good person”: somewhat worryingly, when he does discuss the moral worth of people in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, he seems to stray very far from terms which can apply to ordinary people in their everyday lives. Indeed, there is a plausible line of reasoning that owing to, first, Kant’s thoroughgoing determinism and, second, his complete rejection of compatibilist conceptions of freedom, Kant cannot take ordinary people to be free and, as a result, morally responsible—a fortiori, he cannot have an account of ordinary goodness for ordinary people. I find that, ultimately, Kant can reject such reasoning through what I call his doctrine of Transcendental Compatibilism, which consists of three claims: (i) due to Transcendental Idealism, Kant’s determinism is compatible with a certain libertarian-style freedomcalled transcendental freedom; (ii) transcendental freedomis precisely that kind of freedom required for moral responsibility according to Kant’s moral theory, and; (iii) ordinary human beings actually are, under normal circumstances, transcendentally free and, as such, are morally responsible despite living in a deterministic world. By understanding this doctrine, one can derive an account of phenomenal moral worth—i.e., ordinary goodness for ordinary people—from Kant’s comments on noumenal moral worth. Therefore, in Chapter I, I explore Kant’s determinism and, through examining his resolution to the Third Antinomy of the first Critique, establish (i) above; in Chapter II, I examine the core of Kant’s moral theory, establish (ii) and (iii) above, and respond to three potent objections; finally, in Chapter III, I elucidate Kant’s account of noumenal moral worth so to derive a positive characterization of phenomenal moral worth—i.e., a Kantian account of ordinary goodness for ordinary people—therefrom.
Determination of prognostic factors in early rectal cancer and the implications for rectal preservation surgery
Keywords: Organ preservation
Rectal cancer
Prognostic factors

Local excision of early rectal cancer has benefits to patients, with reduced morbidity compared to radical surgery, but carries a higher risk of local recurrence. A detailed analysis of contemporary outcomes after local excision by TEM is presented. Currently, a coarse estimate of the recurrence risk is made on routine histopathological features and patients are advised regarding the options for subsequent management: radical surgery is the current standard if high risk; adjuvant radiotherapy is used in some places to reduce risk but is unproven; or close surveillance. Better, more accurate, and individualised means of predicting recurrence risk are sought to aid this decision process in this clearly defined group. Potential prognostic factors addressed in this work are sentinel lymph node biopsy (Chapter 3), more detailed histopathological analysis including routine mutation panel testing (Chapter 4), and digital pathology assessment and gene expression (Chapter 5). Areas of promise are perineural invasion, absence of common mutations, artificial intelligence-based assessment of the ratio of desmoplastic to inflamed stroma, and expression levels of certain genes, particularly those involved in the immune response. A search is also made for potential indicators of responsiveness to radiation which would help guide the decision to use this modality and spare patients with unresponsive tumours from potentially harmful exposure; this may also be of benefit to those with more advanced cancers considering neoadjuvant treatment, and some consideration is given to this group. Some of the early cancers display transition from adenoma, and differential molecular features that may cast light on this process are sought (Chapter 6). Finally, an assessment of functional outcomes after various rectal-preserving pathways is also made (Chapter7). More accurate and clinically practical recurrence prediction can be made now using readily accessible information, and further work on some of the gene signatures identified could improve this still further.
The right to speak a brand: rethinking the interaction between trade marks and freedom of expression in the age of expressive branding
Keywords: comparative law
intellectual property law and human rights
intellectual property
freedom of expression
law
US law
branding
human rights
EU law
trade mark

Trade marks no longer serve solely a source-identifying function, but rather have evolved to perform a plethora of functions. These range from signalling information about quality or reputation to conveying complex and varied meanings that can be relied upon by different individuals for expressive purposes. Because marks can be used expressively, courts and scholars are devoting increased attention to elucidating the relationship between marks and speech. An analysis of European and US case law reveals that the conceptual frameworks employed to date have a tendency to oversimplify their relationship. This is due, at least in part, to the widespread misconception that the interaction between marks and speech operates unidirectionally, in the sense that the protection afforded under freedom of expression advances solely the interests of one type of mark user. In infringement litigation involving use of recoded (i.e. modified) marks for expressive purposes (usually for parody or commentary), invocation of free speech is understood to advance only the expressive interests of recoders. By contrast, in litigation dealing with the validity of refusals to register marks or of measures encroaching on trade mark use, freedom of expression is conceived of as advancing solely the interest of trade mark applicants or owners, respectively. This view, however, fails to take into consideration the expressive richness involved in the use of trade marks –an expressive richness that allows individuals other than recoders and applicants/owners to make expressive use of marks to pursue their preferred identity projects. By factoring in all the expressive interests involved in trade mark use, this thesis advances a reconceptualization of the interaction between marks and speech that has the potential to bring more nuance and clarity to the adjudication exercise. Perhaps more importantly, it ensures adequate enforcement of human rights guarantees in interaction cases. In combination, these improvements can lead to better balanced, fairer outcomes, as well as increased consistency.
Spectroscopic characterisation of the effects of plasma geometry on the angular distribution of X-Ray emission in HED plasmas
Keywords: fusion
Helium
Inertial confinement fusion
plasma
geometry
spectroscopy

Understanding the plasma conditions inside hohlraums in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments is important to achieve ignition. However, obtaining actual measurements of those conditions is a complicated task. X-ray spectroscopy techniques offer a promising approach to these measurements, given the amount of information contained in the plasma spectra. Extracting this information from the data requires reliable spectral models that are experimentally benchmarked.
This thesis presents an analysis of the effects of the plasma geometry on its spectra, and their potential capabilities for spectroscopic diagnosis. By doing a detailed mathematical treatment of several geometries, it is shown that a cylindrical plasma is optimal to study these effects. The cylindrical geometry is therefore further studied with focus put on the emission from the He−α complex and how the line ratios are modified by the geometry. The potential use of these ratios as a measurement of the ion density of the plasma is described.
The ‘OpticalDepth’ experiments at OMEGA are then detailed. In these experiments, plasma cylinders in the High Energy Density (HED) regime were generated and characterised using time-resolved X-ray imaging and X-ray spectroscopy. The experimental results are compared with predictions from a 2-dimensional radiative transfer computational model, showing that the simulations reproduce the experimental results to a much better degree than models which do not include the plasma geometry.
The agreement found between experiment and simulations makes it possible to use cylindrical tracers in ICF experiments to obtain information about the plasma density from the geometry-modified line ratios. This is shown by analysing data from the Dot Spectroscopy campaign at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Direct comparison of the tracers’ spectra from these experiments with the predictions from the computational model developed in this work yields time-resolved measurements of the ion density of the plasma, without the need for additional diagnostics.
Civic networks and countering violent extremism in US and UK cities
Keywords: counter-terrorism
counter-extremism
urban politics

Countering violent extremism (CVE) policies are an outgrowth of central government counter-terrorism efforts that aim to curb public support for terrorism and pre-emptively deter individuals from committing violence. The literature has heavily criticized CVE programs, yet central governments continue to expand them, tasking local governments and police with engaging predominately Muslim minority communities and establishing intervention efforts for individuals considered to be “at-risk” of becoming involved in terrorism.
Despite the same top-down pressures and widespread public opposition to these policies, local governments and city-level communities diverge in their approaches to counter-extremism programs, ranging from active collaboration around these agendas to evasion. The existing scholarship lacks a theory to explain this puzzling sub-national variation. I argue that the structure of local Muslim civil society networks, in particular, the pre-existing relationships between Muslim civil society leaders, state actors, and other co-religionists, shape how local actors navigate steep trade-offs associated with these programs and ultimately respond to CVE agendas. Muslim civil society leaders, in particular, act as the causal mechanism that translates network structures into local policy outcomes, determining both whether bureaucrats decide to invest in counter-extremism policies and how communities take part in the long term.
I test this theory in six cities over time, looking in-depth at CVE policy outcomes in four UK cities and two US cities, employing a mixed-methods approach that combines 139 interviews with local stakeholders and within-case social network analysis. The dissertation contributes to the literature on city governance and counter-terrorism, highlighting how sub-national community networks shape security policy outcomes, even amidst heavy top-down pressures and evolving terrorist threats.
Investigating molecular mechanisms underlying Marfan syndrome, based on fibrillin-1 secretion and assembly
Keywords: Neonatal Marfan Syndrome (nMFS)
Fibrillin-1
The Neonatal Region
Marfan Syndrome
Microfibrils

Fibrillin-1 is a major glycoprotein component of 10-12 nm microfibrils, consisting predominantly of calcium binding epidermal factor-like (cbEGF) and TGFß binding protein like (TB) domains. Mutations within the gene encoding fibrillin-1 cause Marfan Syndrome (MFS), an autosomal dominant disease of the connective tissue, characterized by a wide range of severity, with neonatal MFS (nMFS) lying at the most severe end of the spectrum. nMFS substitutions are clustered into domains TB3-cbEGF18, the ‘neonatal’ region of fibrillin-1. Thus far, the molecular pathology of MFS does not explain the severity associated with a dysfunctional neonatal region, especially since ‘classical’ MFS (cMFS) substitutions are also found in these domains.
This study aims to investigate the molecular and cellular factors that might contribute to disease severity in MFS. A set of cMFS and nMFS substitutions were investigated for their effect on the secretion of full-length GFP-Fbn expressed transiently in HEK293T cells, and of recombinant fragment NPro-TB3-cbEGF19 expressed stably in MSU1.1 fibroblasts and transiently in HEK293T cells. A microfibril assembly assay then tested the ability of the full-length GFP-Fbn variants to incorporate into FS2 assembled microfibrils.
Secretion results from the different systems were consistent, showing no effect of most of the cMFS and nMFS substitutions on the trafficking of fibrillin-1, with the exception of two cysteine variants that showed partial intracellular retention. Opposing secretion results of the same substitutions in different recombinant constructs provided insight into the role of domain TB3 in the folding of adjacent cbEGF domains. Microfibril assembly results distinguished, for the first time, the behavior of cMFS and nMFS variants. cMFS variants clearly assembled into FS2 microfibrils, suggesting that a dominant-negative effect involving mutant incorporation could contribute to the molecular pathology of MFS. nMFS variants, in contrast, did not incorporate into microfibrils, despite having the N- and C-termini implicated in early fibrillin multimerization, indicating that they may form non-productive complexes that are precluded from further assembly steps. These results indicate that phenotypic severity is correlated with the extent of microfibril assembly perturbation and suggest an important role for domains TB3-cbEGF19 in the lateral association of fibrillin-1 monomers during microfibril assembly.