VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
How we value animals: the psychology of speciesism
Keywords: Moral Judgments
Animals
Speciesism

In this thesis, consisting of three empirical projects (18 studies, total N = 8,218), I investigate how people morally value animals and why they value them less than humans. My central hypothesis is that people primarily value animals less than humans because of their mere species-membership, i.e. due to speciesism.
First, I develop and validate a Speciesism Scale, a psychological assessment instrument that measures the extent to which people value humans more than animals. I find that speciesism is a stable construct with large interpersonal differences. It shares psychological properties with other forms of prejudice and predicts behaviour directed towards animals.
Second, I experimentally investigate in more detail why people endorse speciesism. I develop a multi-factorial framework according to which people: a) believe that individuals should prioritise members of their owns species over others (Species-Relativism); b) have a slight tendency to consider humans to be of superior value in an absolute sense (Pro-Human Bias); and c) have a specific bias against animals (Anti-Animal Bias). I also show that people value animals less, the lower their perceived mental capacity levels are (Individual Mental Capacity View)—a principle that people selectively apply to animals but not to humans.
Third, I experimentally investigate when people consider it permissible to harm animals or humans in cases where harming a few could save many. My findings support a model which I call Multi-level Weighted Deontology: deontological protections against harm are not absolute and get weaker the less people value the respective being, but they do not completely disappear. They are strongest for humans, followed by dogs, chimpanzees, pigs, and finally inanimate objects.
Overall, my research shows that speciesism is a pervasive psychological phenomenon that strongly impacts our social lives and moral thinking. This thesis is one of the first attempts to transition speciesism from moral philosophy into psychology.
Justified emergency medicine research
Keywords: waiver of informed consent

My research uses the case of emergency medicine research to challenge established norms of governance and regulation which reflect an influential regulatory model of research ethics. This model has two foundational pillars: regulatory review and participant informed consent. Emergency research, where the possibility of consent is unclear, destabilises the pillar of consent and raises questions about the decision-making justification for emergency research. It asks how we may justifiably decide the research is permissible under a waiver of consent.
In Chapter 1, I outline the nature of the regulatory model of research ethics. I also offer key definitions and theoretical distinctions. These include the distinction between the ethics of research decision-making and the ethics of the research itself.
In Chapters 2 and 3, I characterise a landscape of issues relevant to the question of emergency research decision-making. For this I use case studies and regulatory responses arising in three research jurisdictions (the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom). Having developed themes from case and regulatory analysis, I argue there are two main areas of decision-making to be justified: at the general level of regulatory review, and the individual level of each participant’s enrolment.
In Chapter 4, I justify decision-making at the level of regulatory review, uniting my arguments with existing emergency research regulations. In particular, I examine whether the current formulation of the US regulatory requirement for prior consultation with communities about the research contributes to the justification. I argue that regulatory review is justified by reason of: securing commitment to emergency research under a consent waiver as a common purpose; judging the research’s risks appropriately; and considering the research’s impact on social injustice through an altered form of community consultation.
In Chapter 5, I turn to the justification for decision-making at the level of participant enrolment despite the emergency context and the participant’s likely mental incapacity. Here I carve out a key role for the physician-researcher. I argue she is uniquely positioned to make ethical decisions about whether or not to enrol the emergency patient. Her decision-making secures a modest level of respect for the patient as a person worthy of moral consideration despite his mental incapacity. Her role is sensitive to, and avoids provoking, a deep concern in research ethics. Namely the use of patients by researchers as merely a means to the ends of the research.
In Chapter 6, I describe a number of key findings arising from the justifications made, and some important policy implications. I also make recommendations for future work and scholarly thinking where regulatory models of research ethics are used.
Colloidal liquid crystals: phase behavior, dynamics and confinement
Keywords: Sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium
smectic
Confinement
osmotic pressure
confocal microscopy
Liquid crystals
equation of state
Colloids
brownian
nematic
tracking
isotropic
soft lithohraphy
Charged rods
Self-diffusion
Donnan
Packing
hard rods

In this thesis, we report on the phase behaviour, dynamics and confinement of micron-sized colloidal silica rods with small gravitational length. In sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium, distinct isotropic, nematic, smectic and crystal phases are found to coexist within tens of micrometers. By combining confocal microscopy and tracer particles, the rods' phase behavior and dynamics are characterized across the whole phase diagram in a single sedimentation-diffusion experiment.
Our experimental approach allows to quantitatively compare the sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium of charged rods with theoretical predictions. All predicted phases are observed. However, the thickness of the upper sediment - counting the isotropic, nematic and smectic regions - is found to be inflated with respect to the hard rod prediction, up to a factor 2. We consider the possible effect of polydispersity, electrostatic repulsion and the entropy of counterions (Donnan effect). We conclude that only the Donnan effect can explain the observed inflation. To support the hypothesis, we independently determine the surface charge of silica rods and discuss the results.
Subsequently, we measure the self-diffusion of rod-like particles in sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium. Firstly, a molecular dynamic simulation is used to test the method. The self-diffusion coefficients are measured across the whole phase diagram and compared to bulk simulations -without gravity. We then present experimental results for an aspect ratio of 10, which has not been yet reported upon in literature. We reproduce most trends predicted by simulations. In particular, we find evidence of strong correlation between rotational and translational diffusion approaching the nematic phase, and a crossover between diffusion parallel and perpendicular to the nematic director in the smectic phase. However, we measure smaller diffusion coefficients than predicted by simulation, which is consistent with work on viral colloidal liquid crystals with larger aspect ratio.
Finally, we study sedimentation-diffusion equilibrium in confinement, with a focus on the smectic phase, and consider three geometries: the square, the lozenge and the annulus. The interplay between boundary conditions, elasticities and defects lead to a host of different structures. In squares and disks, we mostly observe the smectic bridge state. However, by transforming the shapes into annuli and lozenges, we force new configurations. The transitions are characterized in light of phenomenological models to extract the ratios between: the energy of an edge dislocation, the energy of a disclination line and the bending energy of smectic layers.
The effects of economic conditions on support for environmental protection
Keywords: economic recession
climate change
public opinion
environmental attitudes

This thesis highlights the ways in which economic conditions affect support for environmental protection. The coincidence of a decrease in environmental attitudes and increase in climate scepticism with the Great Recession of 2008 had suggested that deteriorating economic conditions could have a negative effect on environmental attitudes. While previous literature has largely supported this, it has been limited in its ability to firmly establish the causal mechanisms at work.
The analysis contained in this thesis makes a number of important advances. Using cross-national data from before and after the onset of the economic crisis, I demonstrate that changing prioritisation of environmental protection is particularly sensitive to changes in unemployment rates and that its connection with changing economic growth would appear to be spurious. Through an innovative online survey experiment, I show that the salience of individuals' economic perceptions has an independent effect on their prioritisation of taking urgent action to tackle climate change – with those who are reminded of their positive economic perceptions being more likely to prioritise such action and vice versa for those who are reminded of their negative economic perceptions - but that it has no such effect on their belief in anthropogenic climate change. However, analysis of New Zealand panel data suggests that changes in economic perceptions and individuals' household financial situation cannot explain the decline in environmental attitudes witnessed in 2008.
I make a substantive methodological contribution by establishing that environmental-economic trade-off questions primarily capture environmental rather than economic attitudes. Finally, I demonstrate that environmental attitudes can have tangible effects on support for policies that are environmentally beneficial when such policies are not being primarily framed through an environmental lens using the case study of support for water charges in Ireland in 2011.
Algorithmic models in quantum mechanics
Keywords: Machine Learning
Learning Theory
Quantum Computation

We study classical and quantum learning algorithms with access to data produced by a quantum process. First, we consider the problem of learning quantum states and, in the framework of the probably approximately correct (PAC) model, prove that stabiliser states are efficiently learnable. Second, we introduce a generative model based on artificial neural networks capable of finding efficient representations of quantum states and assess its performance on states with varying levels of complexity. Third, we discuss the time complexity of classical and quantum learning algorithms and prove that Boolean functions in disjunctive normal form are efficiently quantum PAC learnable under product distributions.
Fast and accurate detection of Identical-By-Descent segment sharing in large genomic datasets
Keywords: Identical-By-Descent

Identical-By-Descent (IBD) segments are a fundamental measure of ge- netic relatedness and IBD detection is of great interest in many applica- tions, including demographic inference and haplotype-based association. Algorithms that scale to large datasets (more than 10.000 diploid indi- viduals), such as GERMLINE and RaPID sacrifice modeling accuracy in favor of computational speed. Efficient model-based algorithms for IBD detection such as RefinedIBD, on the other hand, enable detecting shorter IBD segments, but do not scale as well in large data sets. In this thesis, we present two new approaches, called PASMC and GASMC, aiming to bridge the gap between these two paradigms. We introduce the basics of coalescent theory to understand IBD segments detection and then pro- vide an overview of a state-of-the art methods for detecting IBD segments, comparing the most commonly used and recent existing methods. We fi- nally present PASMC and GASMC. Both methods utilize efficient string matching to detect candidate IBD segments and subsequently apply the recently developed ASMC algorithm based on coalescent HMM to filter out candidate segments that are unlikely to be IBD.
Regulation of human vascular redox state in obesity and insulin resistance
Keywords: Endothelial nitric oxide synthase
NADPH oxidases
Wnt5a signalling
Endothelial function
Insulin resistance
Reactive oxygen species
Atherosclerosis
Diabetes
Obesity

Insulin resistance (IR) and dysfunctional adipose tissue (AT) secretome are believed to mediate the mechanistic links between metabolic and vascular disease. However, the mechanistic details of the interactions between vascular IR, AT-derived products and vascular disease phenotypes in humans are poorly understood. In the first part of my thesis, I attempted to characterise downstream vascular insulin signalling in patients with atherosclerosis and how this could be modified to regulate vascular insulin sensitivity. In the second part of this work, I explored the role of AT-derived Wnt5a (a novel, AT-secreted glycoprotein with inadequately characterised vascular roles) as a link between metabolic and vascular disease via direct regulation of vascular redox state and endothelial function. For these purposes, I used the Oxford cohort for Fat, Vessels and Fat (OxHVF), a uniquely phenotyped cohort of >1,000 patients undergoing cardiac surgery) to perform observational association studies and functional ex vivo bioassays on intact vascular tissues, which were also complemented by appropriate in vitro mechanistic experiments. I firstly demonstrated that vascular IR is a universal feature of human atherosclerosis irrespectively of the presence of systemic IR, characterised by disproportionally increased Erk1&2 activation as opposed to Akt activation in response to insulin. This can be reversed by pre-treatment with a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DD4) inhibitor, thus identifying vascular insulin-sensitising roles for this class of drugs. In the second part of my thesis, I revealed that systemic Wnt5a bioavailability is increased in obesity, diabetes and vascular disease, while Wnt5a (partially originating from AT) can induce vascular NADPH-oxidase activation via a novel USP17 interaction through paracrine and endocrine ways, also accompanied by endothelial dysfunction, eNOS uncoupling and redox-sensitive VSMC phenotype changes. My findings provide novel links between obesity, insulin resistance and vascular disease mechanisms and pose significant therapeutic implications.
Religion and the making of the later Stuart army, 1660–1714
Keywords: Religion
British Army
Later Stuart Period

This study explores the interactions between religion and the making of the later Stuart army. Regarded as the beginning of the modern British army, the later Stuart army was forged in the aftermath of the religious wars which had raged through the Three Kingdoms. As both primary career choices for gentry sons and hierarchical institutions connected to the monarchy, the army and the church were involved in the political and religious turmoil that shaped later Stuart Britain. The army was deployed to maintain the ascendancy of the established churches in a persecuting society, but the distinctive confessional identities within the army itself also raised sensitivity, until the Revolution settled the army as a Protestant institution. The churches attempted to establish their authority in the army through chaplaincy, while many churchmen published religious literature to articulate an ideal army which was characterised by loyalty, discipline and piety. Even though religion to some extent shaped soldiers’ identity and their understanding of war and service, the established churches with a strong sense of compulsion and formality failed to provide sufficient pastoral care for soldiers in the difficult military life.
Repopulating the court of the seventh pylon at Karnak
Keywords: Southern processional way
Karnak temple
Egyptian graffiti
Secondary epigraphy
Material agency

The present work aims to demonstrate the relevance of the study of graffiti in a carefully defined temple context as a means to gain insights into the use and transformation of sacred space by the people who could access it. Access to temples was arguably highly controlled, and probably only restricted groups of people were allowed in certain areas of the temple. This raises important questions concerning temple accessibility, daily movements of temple staff, reactions to religious events, and the functioning of rules of decorum, which established what could conveniently be exhibited on the temple walls and what not, along with their possible breach.
Chapter 1 discusses potentials of the study of graffiti in temples and issues of definitions. Here, material agency is proposed as a productive theoretical framework. Comprised in Part I of the thesis are Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the architectural history of the southern processional way in its main phases of transformation (construction, decoration, and partial demolition), while Chapter 3 presents a survey of secondary epigraphy along the southern processional way, with detailed descriptions of graffiti in the court of the seventh pylon.
Part II, comprising Chapters 4, 5 and 6, introduces the three categories of graffiti that will be analysed through specific case studies: 1) graffiti as individual’s self-display (Chapter 4); 2) graffiti as individual expressions of devotions (Chapter 5); 3) community graffiti as possible votive loci (Chapter 6).
The results of this analysis, discussed in the concluding remarks in Chapter 7, are intended to serve as a point of reference for the study of similar corpora from other Egyptian temples, while providing an approach that may speak to figurative graffiti, still too often neglected, of other ancient civilizations (Nubia, ancient Greece, the Roman empire, etc.).
Imaging reward signals in the Drosophila brain
Keywords: reward
Drosophila
memory
learning
dopamine
imaging

In the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, dopaminergic neurons are thought to convey teaching signals to synapses of the mushroom body during associative olfactory learning. Although rewarding dopaminergic neurons in mammals appear to encode prediction error, whether the equivalent neurons in Drosophila have a similar function remains unknown. Anatomically distinct subsets of dopaminergic neurons reinforce water and separate properties of sugars: sweet taste reinforces short-term memories while nutrient input is usually required for long-term memories. This thesis investigates dopaminergic reinforcement at the physiological level using two-photon in vivo calcium imaging of tethered flies during feeding, odour presentation, and appetitive conditioning.
One subset of dopaminergic neurons reinforces short-term sugar memory in starved flies and short-term water memory in dehydrated flies. During sugar-water droplet feeding, dopaminergic neurons show a calcium response that reflects salience and whose magnitude increases with sweetness of the droplet. In starved flies, dopaminergic neurons show differential responses to water and sugar, whereas in dehydrated flies, the neurons show uniform feeding responses. Moreover, sucrose-evoked responses in satiated flies are substantially lower than in either deprivation state. Such findings suggest a deprivation state-dependent valuation of reward not explained by current models of reward prediction error.
Feeding responses in the same dopaminergic neurons or other rewarding subsets involved in sugar reinforcement do not increase with the nutritious content of the droplet. However, feeding rapidly inhibits aversively reinforcing dopaminergic neurons that also control the state-dependent expression of sugar memories. Spontaneous calcium oscillations in the aversive reinforcing neurons become more frequent after feeding on sugars specifically, and their amplitude after feeding appears to be diminished by a possible rapid nutrient signal. Intriguingly, rewarding dopaminergic neurons also show substantial odour-evoked calcium responses that reflect both general and specific odour novelty; such activity is not yet accounted for in existing models of associative learning in Drosophila.
Rewarding dopaminergic neurons recorded during appetitive conditioning do not show acquired predictive capacity after training as expected from current models of reward prediction error. Although it remains unclear whether Drosophila dopaminergic neurons are inhibited by the unexpected omission of reward, one subset in particular appears to be excited by the unexpected presentation of reward. Taken together, these findings show that rewarding dopaminergic neurons in Drosophila may encode value, salience, novelty, and positive prediction error during associative learning.
Corporate religious liberty and Christian ethics
Keywords: Dignitatis Humanae
Obama
freedom of religion
Christian ethics
contraceptive mandate
John Calvin
Thomas Aquinas
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Hosanna Tabor
natural rights
Cécile Laborde
group agency
Jacques Maritain
corporate personhood
corporate religious liberty
Saint Augustine
Masterpiece Cakeshop
Henri de Lubac
group ontology
individual
US statutory law
Natural law
Free exercise
World Council of Churches
Richard Garnett
gay rights
institutional theory
Roger Scruton
corporate person
Vatican II
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Hobby Lobby
artificial entity theory
US constitutional law
religious freedom
Abraham Kuyper
John Finnis
James D Nelson
individual rights
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
group rights
moral theology
Eric W Orts
Richard Schragger
Micah Schwartzman
Corpus mysticum
group realism
John Dewey
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Citizens United
political theology

In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has heard a number of highly contentious religious liberty cases from a variety of corporate litigants, including houses of worship, religious non-profits, and for-profit enterprises. Concerning the primary legal subjects involved, theorists are in disagreement concerning to whom or to what legal rights to religious freedom should apply: Some argue that individuals and voluntary associations are most appropriate; others argue that groups of any type, whether voluntary or not, are of equal concern. How should the Christian tradition respond to these contentions? Judging the first position as unjustifiably narrow and the second as unduly broad, this doctoral thesis draws upon Christian ethical and group-ontological thought to argue that corporate religious liberty rights should apply to neither individuals nor groups per se, but rather to the religious, group-agential actions of coordinating individuals. Such a position finds a reasonable middle ground.
The thesis is divided into four substantive chapters. The introduction establishes the normative import of determining to whom or to what corporate religious liberty rights apply and emphasizes the pressing need for a Christian ethical account. Chapter 1 begins the development of this account by determining both the extent to which it already exists within Christian moral thought and the primary area in which it can be developed – namely, group ontology or the appropriate legal subjects concerned. After Chapter 2 anticipates objections to the use of group ontology in legal prescription, Chapter 3 constructs the promised Christian ethical account, using the modest group realism of Thomas Aquinas to prescribe protections (and limitations) of corporate religious exercise within church and non-church organizational contexts. Chapter 4 answers a remaining query concerning the integration of a Christian, strong group realism (applicable to the Church alone) into the proposed account. The conclusion summarizes the ontological work done and suggests areas for further normative development.