VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Ground heave around driven piles in clay
Keywords: piles
clay
foundation

Large diameter piles have increasingly been used, especially for offshore foundations. Most of the piles that have been used offshore have been open-ended. There is evidence from previous work that closed-ended piles have merits over open-ended piles; they have a greater ultimate axial capacity and are easier to drive than open-ended piles of the same outer diameter. However, because a greater volume of soil is displaced, closed-ended piles give rise to much greater ground heave. This additional heave may cause unacceptable distortion to the structure as each leg is fixed to the sea-bed in turn. For this reason, this research was commissioned. Laboratory studies of ground heave around driven open- and closed-ended piles (16mm o.d.) were carried out. Two different types of specimen reconstituted from Speswhite Kaolin were prepared; semi-cylindrical and full cylindrical specimens each 450mm in diameter and about 450mm in height. The semi-cylindrical specimens were used to obtain qualitative data about the movements of soil around the driven pile. The full cylindrical specimens were used to take accurate measurements of the ground heave during pile driving and to study the influence of the ground heave on a small surcharged collar through which a pile was driven. A further series of tests investigated the effect of ground heave when a group of piles was driven through a larger surcharged collar which was used to represent the mudmat of an offshore structure. The lateral movement of soil at around the mid-depth of a driven pile agreed with the cavity expansion model (plane strain analysis) assuming undrained conditions and no vertical movement. Closed-ended piles were found to generate about four times the magnitude of ground heave compared to open-ended piles with an area ratio of 34%. Ground heave appeared to be unaffected by overconsolidation ratio and rate of pile driving (22 to 150 blows/min.). However, maximum vertical consolidation pressure seemed to have a small effect. A remarkably good agreement was obtained between the field data and the results of this investigation when both were made dimensionless. The surcharged collar and model mudmat generally settled during pile driving. However, when very low surcharge pressures were used, the collar and mudmat were lifted up. For pile groups, the surcharged mudmat tilted towards the pile being driven. The magnitude of this tilt for the mudmat was greater when closed-ended piles were used.
The use of, and controversy surrounding, the term atman in the Indian Buddhist tathagatagarbha literature.
Keywords: Sanskrit
tathagatagarbha
Buddhism
Mahayana
atman
tirthika.
sutra

The tathāgatagarbha doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism affirms the existence of some permanent, significant content of sentient beings that is of the same character as a Buddha. While this alone was an important innovation within Buddhist thought, some of its authors ventured further to deem this significant content an ātman: a ‘self’, in apparent contradiction to the central Buddhist teaching of the absence of self (anātman) in the constitution of all beings.
The aims of this thesis are two. Firstly, to examine usage of the term ātman in the Indian tathāgatagarbha sources which develop use of this expression. This entails a close reading of relevant sources (primarily Mahāyāna sūtra literature), and attention to how this term is used in the context of each. These sources present different perspectives on the tathāgatagarbha and its designation as a self; this study aims to examine significant differences between, and similarities across, these texts and their respective doctrines.
The second aim is to attempt an account of why authors of these texts ventured to designate the tathāgatagarbha with the term ātman, especially when some of our sources suggest that this innovation received some opposition, while others deem it in requirement of strong qualification, or to be simply inappropriate. It is not my objective to account for whether or not the tathāgatagarbha is or is not implicitly what we may deem ‘a self’ on the terms of Buddhist tradition; rather, I am concerned with the manner in which this expression itself was adopted, and – in light of clear difficulties raises by it – what may have motivated those authors responsible.
I argue not only that we can trace the development of this designation across the tathāgatagarbha literature, but also that those authors responsible for its earliest usage adopted an attitude towards non-Buddhist discourses on the self that requires special attention. This, I believe, had its roots in an account of the Buddha and his influence that advances our understanding of one tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhology, and its ambition to affirm its superiority over other Indian religious traditions.
Generation of chimeric P-glycoprotein for functional and structural investigations
Keywords: chimera
multidrug resistance
P-glycoprotein

A major challenge in cancer treatment is acquired or intrinsic multidrug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapeutics. A notorious mediator of MDR is P-glycoprotein (P-gp, ABCB1), product of the human MDR1 gene, which actively effluxes cytotoxic drugs from cancer cells, resulting in sub-therapeutic intracellular concentrations. Understanding how P-gp interacts with drugs has been severely limited by the lack of high-resolution structures of P-gp. Although numerous efforts to obtain an X-ray crystal structure of P-gp have been attempted, human P-gp has never been crystallized. However, mouse P-gp (87% homologous to human P-gp) has been crystallized, and several structures of mouse P-gp have been recently reported. Despite a high degree of homology, it is currently unknown why mouse P-gp can be crystallized while human P-gp cannot. The studies presented in this thesis describe the creation of novel chimeras of mouse and human P-gp as an approach to investigate whether specific protein domains are responsible for differences in the ability to form crystals between mouse and human P-gp. A range of chimeras, created by protein domain swapping, were expressed in mammalian cells and all were found to retain MDR transport function demonstrating that P-gp can tolerate major structural changes. High-level expression of all chimeras was achieved by baculovirus-mediated heterologous protein expression. Chimeric proteins were purified by a multi-step process including immobilized metal affinity chromatography and size exclusion chromatography. Crystallization screening obtained protein crystals for two of the chimeras, indicating the approach adopted is a successful strategy, and an advance along the path towards a high-resolution structure of human P-gp.
Complicity in international law
Keywords: participation
international criminal law
state responsibility
aiding and abetting
complicity

This thesis is concerned with the ways in which international law regulates state and individual complicity. Complicity is a derivative form of responsibility that links an accomplice to wrongdoing by a principal actor. Whenever complicity is prohibited, certain questions arise about the scope and structure of the complicity rule. To answer these questions, this thesis proposes an analytical framework in which complicity rules may be assessed, and defends a normative claim as to their optimal structure. This framework and normative claim anchor the thesis’ analysis of complicity in international law. The thesis shows that international criminal law regulates individual complicity in a comprehensive way, using the doctrines of instigation and aiding and abetting to inculpate complicit participants in international crimes. These doctrines are marked by the breadth of the complicit conduct prohibited, a standard of knowledge in the fault required of the accomplice, and an underused nexus requirement between the accomplice’s acts and the principal’s wrong. In contrast, international law’s regulation of state complicity was historically marked by an absence of complicity rules. In respect of state complicity in the wrongdoing of another state, international law now imposes both specific and general complicity obligations, the latter prohibiting states from aiding or assisting another state in the commission of any internationally wrongful act. In respect of the ways that states participate in harms caused by non-state actors, the traditional normative structure of international law, which imposed obligations only on states, foreclosed the possibility of regulating the state’s participation as a form of complicity. As that traditional normative structure has evolved, so the possibility of holding states responsible for complicity in the wrongdoing of non-state actors has emerged. More and more, both the wrongs that international actors commit, and the wrongs they help or encourage others to commit, matter.
'Things that matter': missionaries, government, and patients in the shaping of Uganda's leprosy settlements, 1927-1951
Keywords: Leprosy
Uganda
Missionaries

This thesis examines the role of missionaries, the colonial government, and leprosy patients in the formation of leprosy settlements in Uganda, from the first inception of the settlements in 1927, until 1951 when the nature of leprosy control in Uganda changed, with the government appointment of a Protectorate leprologist and the creation of more treatment centres. It focuses on four leprosy settlements opened between 1930 and 1934 by the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the British and Irish Catholic Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa (FMSA) and Mill Hill Mission (MHM).
Firstly, this thesis explores the ways in which the differing goals, ideologies, and resources of the Protestant CMS and the Catholic FMSA and MHM shaped the formation of and social environment within leprosy settlements in a highly Christianised and denominationally divided Uganda. Secondly, it examines the relationship between the CMS and Franciscan leprosy missions and the government, exploring the cooperation and conflict that their spiritual and medical priorities had upon the social lives of patients within Uganda’s leprosy settlements. Thirdly, this thesis assesses the extent to which missionaries consciously endeavoured to engineer a social environment for leprosy patients within settlements that conformed to their ideal of Christianised, modern African communities, as well the roles that healthy and leprous Ugandans chose to play in response to these attempts at social engineering. Missionaries and Ugandan leprosy patients had different priorities, but far from being passive receptacles of the ‘civilising’ mission, most leprosy patients were active agents in pursuing their own medical, social, and economic priorities through life in the settlements.
Aspects of Yang-Mills theory in twistor space
Keywords: scattering
Yang-Mills
twistors

This thesis carries out a detailed investigation of the action for pure Yang-Mills theory which L. Mason formulated in twistor space. The rich structure of twistor space results in greater gauge freedom compared to the theory in ordinary space-time. One particular gauge choice, the CSW gauge, allows simplifications to be made at both the classical and quantum level. The equations of motion have an interesting form in the CSW gauge, which suggests a possible solution procedure. This is explored in three special cases. Explicit solutions are found in each case and connections with earlier work are examined. The equations are then reformulated in Minkowski space, in order to deal with an initial-value, rather than boundary-value, problem. An interesting form of the Yang-Mills equation is obtained, for which we propose an iteration procedure. The quantum theory is also simplified by adopting the CSW gauge. The Feynman rules are derived and are shown to reproduce the MHV diagram formalism straightforwardly, once LSZ reduction is taken into account. The three-point amplitude missing in the MHV formalism can be recovered in our theory. Finally, relations to Mansfield’s canonical transformation approach are elucidated.
Covenant and reformed identity in England 1525-1555
Keywords: covenant theology
soteriology
sacraments
Reformation

This study examines Reformed identity as an aspect of religious identity formation during the early Reformation period. It contributes towards an understanding of the character of the English Reformation by examining the reception of Swiss theology. The research is principally focussed upon the theological concept of covenant which blossomed in a distinctively bilateral and conditional form in early Reformation Switzerland. Patterns of thought discerned in English theology are related to this Swiss pattern, thereby assisting the process of identifying individual reformers according to continental models and elucidating an important theological development of the period. The concept of covenant had implications for contemporary discourses regarding the doctrines of justification and sanctification. It also made an impact upon sacramental theology in the way that sacraments were viewed as covenant signs. Despite the essential uniformity of the Swiss Reformed concept of covenant, three distinct emphases arose in Swiss Reformed sacramental theology with regard to the efficacy of the sacraments as means of grace. Having identified cases of English reception of the Swiss concept of covenant, their specific influences are determined using patterns of sacramental theology.
Chapter one considers the problems involved in discerning different forms of religious identity in this period. Evidence for Reformed identity in England from the 1520s to the 1550s is surveyed from various different angles. The transmission of Swiss ideas through the Low Countries is considered, and alternative explanations for the failure of English Lutheranism are evaluated, particularly Lollardy and humanism. Chapter two demonstrates the essential consistency of the concepts of covenant espoused by leading Swiss reformers. Chapter three examines the concepts of covenant of four English reformers. Chapter four highlights different patterns in Swiss sacramental theology, and chapter five analyses English cases in light of those Swiss models.
Real recurrence sets
Keywords: Recurrence

Classical theorems such as the Poincaré recurrence theorem, the van der Corput theorem about equidistribution of sequences or the F. and M. Riesz theorem about measures on the torus show properties of the set ℕ. However, In particular the Poincaré recurrence easily allows to extend the recurrence result to sets such as mℕ for any m ∈ ℕ.
This motivates the notion of recurrence sets, i.e. sets Ɗ ⊆ ℕ (or Ɗ ⊆ ℤ) which are "strong" enough to force certain recurrence properties, and a thorough study of these sets and their relations with each other has been undertaken since the late 1970s.
This thesis deals with real recurrence sets Ɗ ⊆ ℝ. Our first result shows that integer properties and most associated implications can be transferred to the real setting and allow a similar treatment.
For a set Ɗ⊆ ℤ, the integer and real recurrence property coincide for many properties. This gives non-trivial recurrence examples from the integer theory, but also yields some counterexamples showing that some recurrence properties are distinct.
Using continuity and appropriate product systems, we show that we can reduce recurrence sets such as Poincaré or operator recurrence sets, in particular, every such recurrence set has a countable subset ~D⊆   ∪|n|>N([sn-ε,sn+ε] ∩ Ɗ) for arbitrary small ε > 0 and arbitrarily large N ∈ ℕ having the same recurrence property.
We finally indicate how to further extend this topic by discussing topological dynamical systems, a quantitative analysis of recurrence sets and the use of locally compact abelian groups instead of ℤ and ℝ.
Matching with mismatches and assorted applications
Keywords: data compression
statistical matching

This thesis consists of three parts, each of independent interest, yet tied together by the problem of matching with mismatches. In the first chapter, we present a motivated exposition of a new randomized algorithm for indexed matching with mismatches which, for constant error (substitution) rates, locates a substring of length m within a string of length n faster than existing algorithms by a factor of O(m/ log(n)).
The second chapter turns from this theoretical problem to an entirely practical concern: delta compression of executable code. In contrast to earlier work which has either generated very large deltas when applied to executable code, or has generated small deltas by utilizing platform and processor-specific knowledge, we present a naïve approach — that is, one which does not rely upon any external knowledge — which nevertheless constructs deltas of size comparable to those produced by a platformspecific approach. In the course of this construction, we utilize the result from the first chapter, although it is of primary utility only when producing deltas between very similar executables.
The third chapter lies between the horn and ivory gates, being both highly interesting from a theoretical viewpoint and of great practical value. Using the algorithm for matching with mismatches from the first chapter, combined with error correcting codes, we give a practical algorithm for “universal” delta compression (often called “feedback-free file synchronization”) which can operate in the presence of multiple indels and a large number of substitutions.
Localisation using the appearance of prior structure
Keywords: robotics
computer vision
localisation
navigation

Accurate and robust localisation is a fundamental aspect of any autonomous mobile robot. However, if these are to become widespread, it must also be available at low-cost. In this thesis, we develop a new approach to localisation using monocular cameras by leveraging a coloured 3D pointcloud prior of the environment, captured previously by a survey vehicle. We make no assumptions about the external conditions during the robot's traversal relative to those experienced by the survey vehicle, nor do we make any assumptions about their relative sensor configurations.
Our method uses no extracted image features. Instead, it explicitly optimises for the pose which harmonises the information, in a Shannon sense, about the appearance of the scene from the captured images conditioned on the pose, with that of the prior. We use as our objective the Normalised Information Distance (NID), a true metric for information, and demonstrate as a consequence the robustness of our localisation formulation to illumination changes, occlusions and colourspace transformations. We present how, by construction of the joint distribution of the appearance of the scene from the prior and the live imagery, the gradients of the NID can be computed and how these can be used to efficiently solve our formulation using Quasi-Newton methods.
In order to reliably identify any localisation failures, we present a new classifier using the local shape of the NID about the candidate pose and demonstrate the performance gains of the complete system from its use. Finally, we detail the development of a real-time capable implementation of our approach using commodity GPUs and demonstrate that it outperforms a high-grade, commercial GPS-aided INS on 57km of driving in central Oxford, over a range of different conditions, times of day and year.
Risk factors for haemorrhage in patients with haematological malignancies
Keywords: bleeding
transfusion
thrombocytopenia
haemorrhage
platelet
haematological malignancies

Haematological malignancies and their treatment lead to prolonged periods of severe thrombocytopenia (platelet count ≤ 50 x 109/l). Despite the use of prophylactic platelet transfusions, haemorrhage remains an important complication during this thrombocytopenic period. Within a 30 day period up to 70% of patients have clinically significant haemorrhage (World Health Organization (WHO) grade 2 or above bleeding) and up to 10% have severe or life-threatening haemorrhage (WHO grade 3 or 4 bleeding). Hence our current management of these patients to prevent haemorrhage is sub-optimal. The aim of this thesis was to identify clinical and laboratory factors that may predict the risk of haemorrhage in patients with haematological malignancies and severe thrombocytopenia.
This was achieved via several different study designs and assessed the effect of clinical and laboratory factors on any or clinically significant haemorrhage and their effect on intracranial haemorrhage.
This thesis has demonstrated that there is no consensus on how bleeding is assessed and graded in this patient group. Also it showed that the absolute immature platelet number may be a better alternative to the total platelet count to guide administration of platelet transfusions. Female sex, a previous history of a fungal infection, a high C-reactive protein, a high white cell count, a low platelet count, anaemia, impaired renal function, and recent clinically significant haemorrhage were all found to be independent risk factors for haemorrhage. Patients who were in complete remission from their haematological malignancy had a much lower risk of bleeding.
A cognitive approach to irritable bowel syndrome
Keywords: memory
episodic
interpretation
individual differences
cognitive science
comorbidity
attention
meta-analysis
mental disorders
irritable bowel syndrome

Within this thesis the role of cognitive processes in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) will be examined. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the rate of psychiatric comorbidity in IBS participants, relative to controls, was performed. Evidence supported heightened rates of psychiatric disorder. A novel hypothesis regarding overlapping cognitive vulnerability to IBS and psychiatric disorders was found to fit well with the pattern of comorbidity. Competing hypotheses and the potential moderators were examined. Overall, no single model of psychiatric morbidity in IBS could fully account for the results of the meta-analysis. The implications of this meta-analysis for a cognitive approach to IBS are discussed.
Cognitive processes were directly investigated in two experiments. First, in a modified exogenous cueing task, which assessed attention to pain words, there was faster orienting towards, and engagement with pain words in IBS participants relative to controls. Next, participants completed a primed lexical decision task, which indexed interpretation biases by measuring response times to targets after ambiguous illness primes. Relative to controls, IBS participants’ responses were slower to target words presented after ambiguous illness primes, and demonstrated priming for targets related to the neutral meaning of the illness prime. In the second study, different IBS and healthy control participants completed an internet-based survey of autobiographical memory. Participants described and rated painful and emotional autobiographical events. IBS participants reported pain memories from a more observer perspective relative to controls, suggesting a possible coping strategy for pain content. Finally, three cognitive styles, alexithymia, rumination and self-blame, were evaluated using existing and novel self-report measures. Overall, when compared with healthy participants, IBS participants reported: less difficulty identifying feelings as indexed by the alexithymia measure; increased pain-focused rumination; and a general, negative self-blame. These results may imply a vigilance-avoidance model of cognitive processing in IBS.