VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The P-TECH model: an embedded case study of digital inequalities and private sector involvement in U.S. public education
Keywords: Education
Cultural capital
Political economy
Social capital
Social Network Analysis
Digital inequalities
Communication
Public private partnerships

Amidst a rapidly changing educational landscape that is increasingly becoming corporatised, technology companies and wealthy techno-venture-philanthropists have demonstrated significant interest in education reform. According to the 2012 American Revolution 2.0 report, the US K-12 education market is valued at over $2.2 trillion. The emphasis placed on 21st century skills and the continued fiscal starvation of public education has enabled technology companies to entrench themselves in education. Technical catalysts for education reform including affordable hardware such as Chromebooks and cloud computing with Google’s G-Suite have been the primary methods for technological integration in public schools. What is distinct about the contemporary reform movement is that it is being led and shaped by Silicon Valley values and interests. I refer to this contemporary movement as technocratic corporate reform.
Encapsulating the trends and characteristics of the technocratic corporate reform is IBM’s Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) model. The model, first implemented in 2011, is a STEM-focused six-year high school model built around a public-private partnership between industry, school districts, and community colleges. Notably, it was designed to serve marginalised students by providing the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree at no cost. P-TECH serves as the focus of this study.
This research entails a mixed-methods embedded case study research design examining three P-TECH model schools across the country. It includes 60 in-depth interviews with private partners, educators, and students across each school, participant observations, and a multi-level social network analysis of the P-TECH network. It employs a unique theoretical framework that combines the political economy of communication and cultural studies perspectives. By adopting both perspectives this research is able to capture what is happening in education at the macro and micro scales. Utilising theories of digital capitalism and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction this study provides an analysis of the underlying values, interests, and aims of P-TECH and its implications for the K-12 system. The micro level analysis unveils the ways in which P-TECH is influencing students’ identities and aspirations. It outlines the unintended consequences of this and the subsequent risk of reproducing the very inequalities the model was created to ameliorate. This thesis ultimately maps how the US K-12 education system is being reimagined and restructured according to the agenda of technology elites.
The post-apartheid politicisation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation
Keywords: Self-censorship
Group relations
Politicisation
Discourse theory
Lacan
South African Broadcasting Corporation
Organisational culture
Organisational ethnography
SABC
Journalism

This dissertation draws on concepts from political science, sociology, media studies, organisational studies, and psychoanalysis to describe and explain the manifestations and process of politicisation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) after the end of apartheid (1993-2013) through the lens of organisational culture. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2011, including six months participant observation in seven SABC newsrooms and 117 in-depth interviews with journalists and managers.
The study links an intra-organisational analysis of journalistic practice with the macro-level of the political field and the micro-level of individual actors. It explores in detail the unconscious processes inscribed in the SABC's culture and subcultures, as well as their interplay, before approaching the understudied problem of agency in newsrooms, in particular agency-as-resistance to politicisation.
The thesis makes three main contributions to the literature: (1) The most in-depth empirical account of the SABC's politicisation to date, and an example of an African public broadcaster in a post-authoritarian environment. Findings challenge conventional explanations for the failures of public broadcasting transformations by showing that politicisation is far more than a top-down phenomenon, and that organisational culture shapes susceptibility to it profoundly. (2) A systematic and chronological analysis of drivers, enablers and inhibitors of politicisation, highlighting the multi-causality and multi-directionality of the process. This contests the over-reliance on structural explanations in political science by emphasising culture and subjectivity, e.g. by introducing the concept of 'anticipatory politicisation'. (3) A conceptual framework that integrates group relations theories with Bionian concepts and Lacanian discourse theory to shed light on individual agency in the context of collective unconscious processes. Findings are of interest to scholars working on the SABC or media in transition, on politicised organisations, organisational culture, or agency.
Ties that bind: the role of family dynamics in the Islamization of the central Islamic lands, 700-900 CE
Keywords: Conversion
Family Networks
Women in Islam
Code Switching
Christian-Muslim Relations

This study explores Islamization and conversion as a process of socialisation, one best illustrated in sources discussing daily human interaction, and argues for several nuances to the understanding of Islamization and conversion in the Islamic world. It focuses on the familial relationship as one of the most important types of social interactions that would have facilitated conversion in the central Islamic lands – the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, and Fars during the 8th-9th centuries CE.
This thesis is based upon the concept that it is integral to the study of conversion to Islam in the 700s-800s to be aware of a variety of behaviours associated with conversion ranging from Islamization of outward actions with no religious affiliation to Islam, to full religious conversion in the 8th-9th centuries. With this variety in mind, it has found, first, that the expectations of non-Muslim wives by Muslim husbands, in particular, encouraged religious code switching. Second, even when a person fully converted, family ties often kept them within the social and ritual world of their previous tradition. Third, conversion was not always a choice; women were often passively part of a household conversion. Fourth, Christian women in some communities may have sought conversion to Islam as a way to divorce their husband and retain the potential for remarriage. Fifth, a hierarchy based upon religious affiliation and social class formed in the 9th century; a Muslim man could either marry a woman or only keep her as a concubine depending on her religion and/or status. Sixth, in the 8th-9th centuries several Muslim jurists favoured matrilineal religious inheritance over patrilineal. Seventh, baptism may have been practiced by a majority of Muslims in the 8th-late-9th centuries suggesting not only a required change in how we view Islam in the 700s-800s, but also in how we view Islamization.
Community engagement for targeted malaria elimination in Lao PDR (Laos)
Keywords: Community Engagement
Malaria, Elimination
Elements of Community Engagement

The emergence of artemisinin-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia has prompted malaria control programs to expedite efforts to eliminate malaria. One suggested approach is the mass administration of antimalarials (MDA) to entire target population regardless of malaria infection. MDA is one of the central components of Targeted Malaria Elimination (TME), an approach recently piloted in Laos. For MDA to be successful (leading to interruption of local malaria transmission), a high population coverage is critical. Among myriad factors, community engagement has been recognized as critical to promoting high coverage. The main aim of this study was to design, execute and assess a locally suitable community engagement strategy that can promote the uptake of and adherence to MDA. This study utilized a longitudinal mixed method approach. In addition to the local social and cultural factors, five main elements of community engagement that contributed to high population coverage were identified: 1. Stakeholder and authority engagement: a stepwise approach from central to the local level; 2. Local human resources: recruitment and training of local community members to execute TME; 3. Formative research: an exploration of the local social and cultural context to guide the community engagement; 4. Responsiveness: flexible and adaptable approach based on the demands and needs of the community and 5. Sharing control/leadership with the community: joint decision making with the community members. Various factors contributed to the high population coverage recorded in the Lao TME study (above 85%): community engagement to promote the concept of asymptomatic malaria and the rationale for MDA, baseline understanding of malaria as a health concern, perceptions that TME was worthwhile, provision of free primary health care, partnering of the research with local volunteers and authorities, building social relationship with community members and the cohesive nature of the communities that boosted the trust and participation in MDA.
Agency in contemporary German cinema: Tykwer, Akın and Petzold
Keywords: contemporary
petzold
Akın
tykwer
twenty-first century
agency
german
film
cinema

This thesis demonstrates that an interest in human agency is a significant trend in contemporary German cinema. It includes analyses of Tom Tykwer’s Heaven (2002) and The International (2009), Fatih Akın’s Gegen die Wand (2004) and Auf der anderen Seite (2007) and Christian Petzold’s Barbara (2012) and Phoenix (2014), which illustrate that these three directors, who belong to different traditions in German cinema, have a focus on agency in common. A theoretical framework primarily made up of scholarship by Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, John Fiske and Laura Mulvey illuminates the portrayals of human control in the films. Tykwer, Akın and Petzold share a sense, also articulated in post-structuralist theory and theory which followed it, of the considerable limitations on human agency, which the three filmmakers work into their films for their characters to grapple with. I show that these filmmakers are investigating how individuals can be agents within this context.
The agency which is available to the characters in the films is personal rather than political, but the narratives are situated in political milieus, which complicates the idea of contemporary cinema simply turning towards the personal. Five of the films portray a mixture of scope for action and constraint, whereas The International paints a more pessimistic picture of agency, but illustrates the problems with such a negative portrayal, and problems that filmmakers must deal with when representing human control. This thesis addresses the question of how agency is portrayed in the filmic medium, illustrating how space and place, the gaze, the human body and characters’ appearances more widely are used to convey the phenomenon visually.
Legal culture, legality and the determination of the grounds of judicial review of administrative action in England and Australia
Keywords: Judicial Review of Administrative Action
Legal Culture
The Principle of Legality

This thesis studies the principle of legality in English and Australian administrative law relating to their legal systems’ legal culture and the determination of the scope of judicial review of administrative action. It demonstrates that the distinctive constitutional orders that are embedded in legal culture of England and Australia, influence the courts’ deep understanding of what legality means and covers. These different understandings result in the English and Australian courts applying different doctrinal approaches when determining the grounds of judicial review, namely, error of law, jurisdictional error, jurisdictional fact, rationality, proportionality and substantive legitimate expectations.
On the one hand, the English courts have flexibility to apply various justifications, doctrines and applications in their determination of the mentioned grounds of judicial review. These are products of the English legal culture based on the absence of a written constitution, the balancing process between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law, and the fluid separation of powers between court and executive. On the other hand, the Australian courts apply relatively fixed doctrinal approaches to determine these grounds under a central approach of jurisdictional error. This is because, whether empowered or limited, they rigidly follow the framework of separation of powers prescribed in the written constitution, discussed as distinctive elements of Australian legal culture.
Rather than supporting the way of one legal system over the other, this thesis upholds a comprehensive understanding of the English and Australian determination of the grounds of judicial review in the light of their deep understanding of legality and legal cultures. The implications of these methodological approaches constitute an in-depth explanation of the way common law judicial reviews are embedded in different legal systems.
The biomechanics of the dipteran wing hinge
Keywords: Flight
Biomechanics
Diptera
CT
Insect

Dipteran insects include some of the most aerobatic animals on the planet, including species such as drone flies (Eristalis tenax) which are able to hold a steady hover in the face of environmental perturbations before executing rapid and precise manoeuvres. A deep understanding of the mechanisms of wing kinematic control that afford such abilities is vital if we are to emulate these capabilities in our own bio-inspired machines. This thesis makes use of cutting-edge techniques to visualise these mechanisms in unparalleled detail and determine how they function to control the way in which the wings move. My work here begins by documenting the mechanical interaction of two exoskeletal components around the wing hinge that forms the gear change mechanism of dipteran wing kinematic control. I show its effects on the movement of the wings and explain how the mechanism acts to bring about these changes in Calliphora vicina and E. tenax. I then move on to study another enigmatic structure near the wing hinge, the Pterale C, and argue against a role of this component in mechanically altering wing movement. Instead, I conclude that the Pterale C may be a sensory structure which informs the insect's central nervous system of the position and speed of the wing during the latter half of the downstroke. Finally, I utilise time-resolved synchrotron X-ray computed microtomography to visualise the internal musculature of C. vicina during flight, where I assert that several muscles influence wing movements by restricting the motion of wing hinge components. Throughout this thesis, the inhibition of wing motion and energy absorption pervades each mechanism. Through the application of our understanding of dipteran flight, it may be possible to design bio-inspired machines which begin to approach the aerial capabilities of these insects.
On the role of receptor downregulation and costimulation in shaping the T cell response
Keywords: T Cell
TCR
Costimulation
CAR
Modelling

T cells are critical decision-makers in the immune system and their activation determines whether a cell or molecule constitutes a threat to the body and needs to be eliminated or whether it should be ignored and tolerated by the immune system. Many molecules that play a role in T cell activation and their interactions with each other have been identified, but an overall understanding of the decision-making processes that lead to changes in T cell behaviour remain enigmatic. We are studying human T cell activation through a combination of in vitro experimental stimulation experiments and mathematical modelling. Our minimal experimental platform allows us to systematically vary the input signals the T cell receives by modulating antigen dose, antigen affinity, stimulation time and costimulatory ligands, and by stimulating through either a TCR or a CAR. We show here that T cell activation (measured as cytokine production) shows an adaptation phenotype in response to all antigen doses and affinities. A detailed study of TCR downregulation and the incorporation into a mathematical model revealed that TCR downregulation is sufficient to explain this adaptation. The intrinsic inactivation of the T cells is contextdependent and the cells can be re-activated with a higher affinity ligand. Furthermore, we show that the inactivated cells can be re-activated when a non-stimulating pMHC is presented together with a costimulatory ligand. We generated a similar dataset for CAR T cells and showed that they can equally get desensitised by antigen and that the CAR is also downregulated depending on antigen dose and affinity, suggesting that a similar model may apply. We used the resulting mathematical model of T cell activation to predict the potential effects of costimulatory molecules on the dose response profiles, including, for example, adhesion effects or signal amplification. We then systematically stimulated T cells with ligands to CD2 and CD28 and compared the responses to the model predictions. We found that CD28 primarily lowers the threshold for T cell activation downstream of the TCR whereas CD2 showed a more complex phenotype with a strong adhesion effect combined with amplifying effects on downstream signalling.
Molecular imaging probes for 31P contrast
Keywords: 31P contrast media

31P magnetic resonance has yet to realise its clinical potential principally due to the relatively low sensitivity of the 31P nucleus. While 31P-MRS can uniquely provide vital information regarding in vivo phosphorus metabolism, the long acquisition times required are incompatible with observing dynamic changes in phosphorus speciation (e.g. monitoring ATP/phosphocreatine ratios in real time).
This thesis reports how heptadentate Gd.DO3A derivatives can be used to enhance 31P relaxivity reducing T1 values by more than an order of magnitude per millimolar Gd. This enables shorter repetition times markedly improving the signal to noise ratio (SNR) per unit time. These complexes bind in fast exchange with phosphate species, while linear commercial Gd complexes were found to demonstrate competitive binding of ATP to Gd.
Structural modifications of the DO3A complex were found to alter the affinity for specific phosphate species, as monitored by luminescence spectroscopy of the europium complexes, and also influenced the relaxivity of the Gd complex.
In vivo, the phosphate species of interest reside intracellularly and therefore cellular uptake of these complexes was investigated, using fluorescence microscopy on luminescent complexes and NMR diffusion methods for the gadolinium complexes themselves. The complexes were found to remain extracellular or display endosomal uptake. These results indicate that these systems have clear potential as extracellular 31P contrast agents. Alternative approaches will be required to achieve intracellular 31P contrast.
The association of natural resources and human conflict — natural gas and the peace process in Cyprus
Keywords: Political Geography
Process Philosophy
Commodity Industry
Materiality
Geopolitics
Natural Resources
Cyprus
Natural Gas
Energy
Causality

It is rare for a discussion of natural resources to solely refer to natural resources. Rather, to speak of natural resources often involves the entanglement of the matter with issues of a very political nature. This doctoral thesis revolves around a contemporary example of the above phenomenon with reference to the context of Cyprus and the global natural gas industry. Here, the question of “can natural gas be catalyst for peace?” has firmly taken root, largely as a result of a popularised association between a process to develop natural gas, and the seemingly intractable political peace process on the island. Indeed, the relationship espoused has been of serious commercial and political consequence. To understand exactly how, why, and exactly what has been at issue, I critically investigate the nature of the relationship established between these two expansive processes. Through over a hundred semi-structured interviews with international diplomats, industry professionals, local politicians, journalists, and academics, triangulated with detailed archival material and ethnographic work at relevant industry conferences and public forums, I explore the view of natural resources as a contingent socio-material assemblage. I expound the view of natural resources as ontologicallyrelational entities to be viewed in epistemologically processual terms. I evidence the complex ways that the axioms of time, relations of power, and the role of human emotion, have all coalesced to profoundly influence perceptions of the role, value, and nature, of natural gas.
In this thesis, I find that what natural gas is understood to be and the agency it can seemingly exercise, is intimately tied to the ebb and flow of the peace process on the island in a reciprocal manner. Fundamentally, I argue that the issue of natural gas is an epiphenomenon of a Gordian knot of latent passionate political disputes commonly referred to as the ‘Cyprus Problem’. Beyond the generation of knowledge controversies regarding the future trajectory of the global natural gas industry, forecasts of supply and demand, and various development pathways, it is in relation to this complex political situation on the island from which natural gas has initially acquired meaning, significance, and power. Ultimately, the saga evidenced in this doctoral thesis is of interest to those curious of: the perennial debate vis-àvis natural resources and human conflict, the use of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in this intellectual space, the potential political and commercial consequences of the extractive industries, and finally to those who seek a more critical appraisal of the Cyprus peace process.