VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Teacher codeswitching in a communicative EFL context : measuring effects on vocabulary learning
Keywords: English language
EFL
linguistics
codeswitching
Chinese speakers
second language acquisition
applied linguistics
code switching
learning
vocabulary

This study is focused on exploring the possible impact of the teacher’s use of codeswitching on learners’ second language vocabulary learning and judicious use of the mother tongue in second language classroom. Previous studies attempted to observe classroom codeswitching or hypothesize theoretically the possible effect of codeswitching on second language learning, rather than empirically testing its effects. While most studies examining classroom codeswitching behaviors indicate a wide range of teacher L1 use, one of the most important functions of L1 is to clarify the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items. A brief review indicates a clear gap in the literature on the exploration of the link between vocabulary learning, listening comprehension, meaning negotiation and form-focused instruction. In this way this study attempts to fill the gap by examining the role of codeswitching in vocabulary learning when learners are presented with listening materials and encouraged to interact with the teacher and negotiate meaning of the listening materials and new vocabulary without disrupting the communicative orientation of the lessons.
One hundred and seventeen first-year English-majors in a Chinese university were randomly assigned into three groups: the codeswitching group, in which codeswitching was used by the teacher to explain English vocabulary, that is, the teacher provided Chinese equivalents for the English target words, the non-codeswitching group, which received lessons without the teacher’s switching to Chinese, in other words, the teacher provided English information for the English target words; and a control group. During the two-month experiment, vocabulary and listening comprehension scores on pretests, immediate posttests and a delayed posttest were collected and analyzed statistically. Lexical episodes of the teacher-students interactions were collected through classroom observation. Thus, a mixed method research design was employed in this study.
Results show that it is in fact beneficial to focus on form on lexical items in a communicative language classroom. The students’ vocabulary learning was better facilitated by the teacher’s use of codeswitching for short term learning. However, this advantage disappeared when long term learning was considered. Further analysis shows the students with the lowest prior lexical knowledge and who have difficulties in understanding the listening passages benefited most from the teacher’s codeswitching use in the short term, but the students with the highest prior lexical knowledge retained more words from the teacher’s provision of L2 information in the long term. Qualitative analysis of the teacher’s lexical input and the students’ reactions during the lexical episodes of the teacher-students interactions supports the above results and provides further insights into the teacher’s decision-making.
Spin dynamics calculations applied to systems of potential biological significance
Keywords: Physical chemistry
Spin dynamics
Quantum biology
Magnetic field effects
Theoretical chemistry

Magnetic fields interact with biological systems, often in unexplored and surprising ways. In this thesis I develop and employ a range of quantum mechanical spin dynamics tools for simulating these magnetic spin interactions, modelling a diverse set of systems of potential biological relevance.
Nuclear spins in calcium phosphates known as Posner molecules form the basis of a proposed mechanism for human neural processing. This theory requires that phosphorus nuclei in different Posner molecules become entangled and remain so for periods far longer than typical nuclear spin relaxation times. In Chapter 3 I model the coherent and relaxation spin dynamics of this molecule, deriving a strict upper bound on the entanglement lifetime and arguing that other relaxation effects will further limit this lifetime.
Spin relaxation is also relevant to studies into the chemical compass sense possessed by migratory birds. Certain evidence indicates that a flavin-superoxide radical pair may be better suited for detecting the Earth’s magnetic field than the flavin-tryptophan system more commonly assumed. Studies into this alternative radical pair often ignore the particularly rapid electron spin relaxation expected for superoxide. In Chapter 4 I simulate the sensitivity of this superoxide radical pair to an Earth-strength magnetic field, deriving a set of strict conditions on the local environment and molecular dynamics of the radicals that will need to be satisfied if it does play a role in geomagnetic sensing.
In Chapter 5 I simulate the effect of a magnetic field on the electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide, demonstrating that an experimentally observed field effect cannot be accounted for by the mechanism originally proposed. By including spin relaxation, I am able to fit the experimental results and derive a set of physically reasonable parameters that quantitatively account for the observed field effect.
In many systems these observed magnetic effects are of a relatively small magnitude. In Chapter 6 I examine autocatalysis in oscillating chemical reactions as a means of amplifying weak field effects. A minute change in one of the rate constants for the initiation step in a model oscillating system that involves a radical pair is found to produce a dramatically large change in the amplitude of reaction intermediate oscillations.
Synthesis of Si=E containing compounds using novel silylene precursors (E = O, N, C and Se)
Keywords: Main Group Chemistry
Silylenes

This thesis examines the synthesis of novel acyclic silylenes with amido, boryl, gallyl and/or boryloxyl substituents, and their reactivities towards small molecules such as H2 , CO2 , H2O, NH3 etc. The silylene systems were also used as precursors for compounds featuring silicon-heteroatom double bonds, with a focus on the attempted synthesis of molecules featuring a Si=O moiety (silanones).
Chapter 2 discusses the reactions between the gallyl anion [(DippNCH)2Ga] - and Si(II) precursors such as IDipp·SiCl2 and (NTMSDipp)(IiPrMe)SiCl. While an unexpected silyl anion formed when IDipp·SiCl2 is used, a novel NHC stabilized silylene can be synthesized by metathesis between [(DippNCH)2Ga]- and (NTMSDipp)(IiPrMe)SiCl. The gallyl-substituted silylene reacts with N2O, however, only a silyl migrated product can be isolated instead of the expected silanone. The reaction between Cy2NSiBr3 and [(DippNCH)2B] - , in attempt to install an amido substituent on a potential silylene system without a labile N-SiMe3 moiety, results instead in a C‒H activation product.
Chapter 3 reports the synthesis of a novel bisboryloxysilylene, together with its heavier Ge, Sn and Pb congeners (the latter in collaboration with Dr Ying Kai Loh). Structural parameters of these tetrylenes obtained by X-ray crystallography, including the E‒O, O‒B bond distances and O-E-O, E-O-B bond angles (E = Si, Ge, Sn or Pb) show a trend consistent with expected periodic trend for group 14 elements, resulting from relativistic effects and increasingly poor s-p mixing on descending group 14. Further investigation involves studies of the reactivity of the bisboryloxysilylene fowards small molecules possessing an E‒H bond (E = H, N or O). Although no reaction is detected with H2, the silylene is able to activate the polar E‒H bonds in water, ammonia and tert- butyl amine. Such processes most likely occur through a three-molecule transition state as shown by DFT calculations.
Chapter 4 explores the possibilities of synthesizing Si=E (E = C, N, O or Se) containing compounds using the bisboryloxysilylene as the precursor. The reaction between the silylene and N2O generates the first example of a silahyponitrite, which can be regarded as a masked silanone (by N2O) as the bound N 2 O can easily be substituted in reactions with CO2 and Ph3P=O. When the silylene is treated with an excess amount of selenium, a novel tetraselenosilolane can be isolated. Three out of the four selenium atoms in this compound can be removed by adding Ph3P to generate a silaselenone. Attempts have been made to synthesize a Si=N or Si=C double bond. In the former case Me3SiN3 was used as the source of Me3SiN. However, this reaction only gives a two-fold addition product, a silaazide. In the latter case Ph3P=CH2 was utilized to act as a :CH2 transferring agent. The reaction proceeds instead via a [4+1] cycloaddition process, yielding a dearomatized silaheterocyclic compound.
Evolving epistemology: a reconsideration of evolutionary debunking arguments against religion
Keywords: Evolution of Religion
Science and Religion
Cognitive Science of Religion
Evolutionary Debunking Arguments

The science of religion is an ever-expanding field, with major ramifications for religious belief and interactions between theology and biology. My thesis investigates the most intriguing philosophical controversies springing from scientific study of religion- Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (henceforth EDAs) and the justification of religious belief. Beginning with an assessment of current naturalistic explanations of religion, before addressing Aetiological arguments that use explanations to debunk, I demonstrate that merely explaining religious behaviour does not affect religion’s rationality. Although the subtler Faculties EDAs show initial promise by drawing an epistemic link between the evolution of religion and the faculties used to form religious beliefs, the link is philosophically unsustainable. This leads me to conclude that the science of religion does not debunk religious beliefs. Nonetheless, I retrieve philosophical insight from my investigation into the origins of religious beliefs, using it to evolve epistemology. I postulate a novel argument for the position that although religious beliefs are not debunked by their evolutionary history, they are made impossible to justify, because humans cannot know whether selective forces that influenced our capacities gave us the ability to discern religious truth. Hence, a proper consideration of humanity’s evolutionary past ought to lead to the conclusion that religious and other metaphysical beliefs are unjustifiable, due to cognitive constraints. I examine the justification of religious beliefs to defend this proposal from counters, before evaluating the impact and consequences of evolutionary agnosticism across theology and philosophy. Original facets of my thesis include my categorisation of various EDAs against religion, which illuminates common faults, as well as a new synthetic understanding of natural histories of religion. Moreover, I offer innovative critiques of discourse surrounding EDAs, and provide a more productive direction for debate on the evolved nature of religious belief, by offering my argument for evolutionary agnosticism.
John Christopher Smith Junior (1712-1795) : his life, selected works, and his association with Handel
Keywords: England
composers
John Christopher Smith Junior
Handel

John Christopher Smith Junior (1712-95), often confused with his father of the same name, was Handel’s student, a teacher of music, a composer, and an accomplished keyboard player who sometimes played continuo for Handel’s Italian operas; he also acted as Handel’s assistant when the great man was stricken with blindness.
His early keyboard compositions (Opp. 1 and 2) are Handelian in style as also are his early large-scale works: three operas in English, two odes, a serenata, and one oratorio. Surprisingly, Smith himself took up Italian opera in the mid 1740s, writing three complete operas (two at least lacking recitatives) and arias for two more.
When, in 1751, Handel began to show symptoms of increasing blindness, he called on Smith to assist him with the oratorios. During these years Smith became the Foundling Hospital’s first organist, wrote two more sets of keyboard pieces heavily influenced by Scarlatti, composed four oratorios of his own, plus two English operas and an afterpiece in association with David Garrick.
Following Handel’s death, Smith went into partnership with John Stanley to continue the oratorio series, first at Covent Garden and later at Drury Lane. Smith composed one further collection of keyboard works, now firmly in the galant style, and two more oratorios (one incomplete), a burial service, and an unfinished English opera.
Smith’s chief importance lies in his connection with Handel’s oratorios, and the presence of his hand on various manuscripts (see Appendix I) strongly suggests that he was at least partially responsible for some of the late additions to these works. Other appendices cover the Foundling Hospital, oratorios performed in competition with the Smith-Stanley series, Smith’s oratorio singers, his family trees, and other Smiths.
Music examples are in Volume II, and Volume III is a catalogue of Smith’s works with musical incipits.
English solo keyboard music of the middle and late baroque
Keywords: Keyboard instrument music
solo
18th century
England
baroque
seventeenth century
eighteenth century
17th century

The music covered in this study contains much more variety, interest and artistic skill than one might be led to believe by most histories of music, even though certain standard forms prevail throughout the period.
In the field of harpsichord music, the period coincides more or less exactly with the rise and fall of the suite, Almands, corants and sarabands started to be grouped into suites---very loosely at first---in about the 160s, and William Lawes (d,1615) was one of the earliest composers of keyboard suites, By the Restoration the suite was firmly established and developed in the hands of Locke, Blow,Purcell and others. Blow was perhaps the finest harpsichord composer of this period, for in addition to several fine suites he wrote a number of excellent grounds and chacones which are hardly known today. In the early 18th century the French style of Blow and Purcell was replaced by the Italian style; Handel was the leading exponent of this, though other composers, like Loeillet, also helped to introduce it. From this time the suite began to absorb sonata elements, so that by the middle of the 18th century,partly through the influence of Scarlatti and Alberti, suite and sonata were almost indistinguishable.
Organ music throughout the period retained a more or less independent repertoire, and the only form, apart from a few psalm preludes, was the voluntary, which developed from the contrapuntal fantasia of the early 17th century. At first generally multi-sectional, this type gradually gave way to works in only one or two sections, such as those of Blow. In the early 18th century the bipartite voluntary gradually split into two distinct movements---an evolutionary process seen clearest in Croft's voluntaries. By about 1740 the two-movement structure had become the norm---a slow movement,usually in the style of Corelli, followed by either a loosely-constructed fugue or a movement emphasising a particular solo stop. Stanley (1713-86) emerged as the leading composer of voluntaries, having fully mastered the form by the age of 213and he continued writing new voluntaries and revising his early ones until his third collection was published in 175).His younger contemporaries composed organ music in a similar style, and it was not until about 1770 that signs of the Classical style began to permeate the voluntary.
The music of the period as a whole does not maintain the consistently high standards of the leading Jacobean virginalists, Yet there are many fine individual works: some have long been known in editions of little scholarly value; others have recently been published in several useful editions: while quite a number still await modern edition and performance, as well as detailed studies of how they relate to other works and composers of the period.
The place of scripture in the thought and writings of Anselm of Canterbury
Keywords: Anselm of Canterbury
reception of the Bible
Benedictine monasticism

The tools of ‘reason’ and their relation to biblical authority lay at the centre of the twelfth century’s intellectual renewals. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) occupied this contested territory, and his writings remain pivotal witnesses to the renegotiations of the relationship between ‘reason’, faith and the authority of sacred texts. Much of Anselm’s historical significance rests upon the presence or absence of scripture in his writings, as it was scripture’s alleged absence which characterised his most celebrated contributions to Christian thought. However, no comprehensive study of his approach to scripture exists in secondary scholarship.
This dissertation offers a detailed investigation of the place of scripture in Anselm’s thought and writings. Its methodology employs a conceptualisation of ‘scripture’ which seeks to remain faithful to Anselm’s monastic context. Biblical texts, when ‘inhaled’ and ‘exhaled’ by monastic liturgical performance, should not be shorn of the associations they thereby accumulated. These verbal and pictorial clusters, which this dissertation terms ‘signa’, are first uncovered Anselm’s prayers and meditations, the texts which best capture his monastic life. This study then scrutinises the works in which scripture’s role seems most ambiguous - Anselm’s Proslogion, containing his ‘proof’ for God’s existence, his three philosophical dialogues, allegedly ‘pertaining to the study of sacred scripture’, and the Cur Deus homo, featuring his theory of atonement – for traces of those, or related, signa.
These signa, standing out like braille from a page, reveal a more textured account of Anselm’s thought than many secondary reconstructions. Monastic themes, such as moral integration, purity of heart and the trajectory of humility overspill the boundaries of his devotional writings to shape his intellectual enquiry. What results is not only in a fresh interpretation of Anselm’s theology, but also in a more detailed picture of the movement from fides to intellectum, and of scripture’s place within it.
Towards high-performance organic semiconductor devices: Microstructure, interlayers, and emerging applications
Keywords: organic semiconductor devices
copolymer chain conformation
hole injection/transport materials
organic high-frequency rectifiers
organic semiconductors

The field of organic electronics mainly focuses on the lightweight, flexible, and low-cost organic semiconductors, with ultimate goals of competing with or even substituting for the conventional silicon industries, and expanding the established success in xerography and displays to more fields. As a response to the persistent pursuit of high-performance organic semiconductor devices, in this thesis we exemplify three case studies from different perspectives, namely microstructure control, interlayer engineering, and emerging applications. First, the conformation of a light-emitting copolymer, 90F8:10BT, is regulated so that the β-phase, in which the intermonomer torsion angle of a fraction of chain segments is 180°, is generated. Recognised from its characteristic absorption peak, this typical microstructure shows significant impacts on charge transport, injection, and trapping in 90F8:10BT-based light-emitting diodes, leading to pronounced enhancements in device luminance, efficiencies, and lifetime. Second, we investigate a solution-processable hole injection/transport material, copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN), highlighting the effect of different solvents on its properties and applications. With a set of characterisation on thin-film topography, roughness, polymorphism, composition, and chemical bonding, as well as two critical hole-injection/transport-related properties, i.e. the surface energy and the ionisation potential, we demonstrate how CuSCN interlayers processed from six different solvents can be used in various organic semiconductor devices for improved performance. Third, we explore the possibility of using organic semiconductors to facilitate the Internet of Things, and a golden opportunity comes from organic rectifiers that can play an essential role in radio-frequency identification tags. Guided by simulation results thanks to our improved device model, we fabricate and optimise three organic rectifiers using different semiconducting materials, among which the best exhibits the potential of operating at a frequency towards the ultrahigh-frequency regime. We hope that these strategies of seeking high-performance organic semiconductor devices can make some contribution to the community of organic electronics, enriching the knowledge database and opening opportunities for the upcoming research.
Terra nova, provinciae novae? Roman intervention and Roman power in the western Mediterranean, ca.295-167 BC.
Keywords: multipolarity
types of power
Sicily
Iberian Peninsula
Italy as concept
Roman colonisation
Roman taxation
Gallic northern Italy
Roman imperialism

Between 295 and 167 BC, Rome’s position in the western Mediterranean changed hugely. This thesis asks how. It does this through the consideration of three specific regions: Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula, and Gallic northern Italy, each of which occupies a section, containing two chapters. The two chapters on each region aim to address two separate but related questions: how did Rome become directly involved in the region; and how did it subsequently manifest power there?
Section I introduces the ideas of Roman expansion, power, and imperialism, and rejects the latter as an analytical category. The three Weberian power types are also introduced: economic, ideological, and coercive.
Section II first discusses the period around 264 BC when Rome first entered Sicily with a military force. It argues for multipolarity in the island, involving Carthage, Syracuse, the Mamertines, and Ptolemaic presence. It then moves on to Roman power, arguing for the slow introduction of regular taxation and magisterial presence.
Section III first discusses events surrounding Rome’s entry to Iberia in 218, arguing for the importance of trade evidence in understanding the key role of Saguntum. It then argues for the central role of individuals in Roman power, and failure to introduce a regularised taxation system within the period.
Section IV first discusses the difficulties of understanding Rome’s move into the north of Italy, highlighting the difficulty of identifying populations and the need for context in discussing colonisation. It then argues that Rome’s exploitative and coercive behaviours reflect the productivity of power in creating the concept of Italy.
Section V discusses the role of the emergent themes of agency, provincial configuration, and individualism. It then argues that clusters of behaviours concerning coinage, settlements and land, manpower and militarisation, and ideological adaptation provide an image of Rome pursuing central goals while making intelligent use of the opportunities offered by the differing regions.