VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Philosophy for Reading: to what extent can Philosophy for Children improve the way lower-attaining Year 3 readers answer inferential and evaluative questions?
Keywords: MLT 2020
MLT

My research aimed to assess whether the philosophy for children (P4C) programme could help to improve the ways in which a two lower-attaining Year 3 readers answered inferential and evaluative comprehension questions. Additionally, my review of the literature on P4C and reading comprehension revealed that most of the studies tended to focus on quantitative measures and were devoid of qualitive analysis which could have illuminated how P4C could have helped readers to develop their higher-level comprehension skills. In light of this, I wanted to address this qualitative deficit by focusing on a small number of pupils and analysing the potential impact of the intervention from multiple angles. Consequently, I present my finding using the case study approach, which allows me to shed some light on how the pedagogy could help to improve readers’ higher-level reading comprehension.
To monitor the impact of P4C on the pupils’ responses to higher-level questions, I conducted two semi-structured group interviews and constructed a repeated measures design proposed by Thomas (2016). This involved setting three assessments which were initially intended to have been taken in two 10-week intervals: during the first, no intervention would be run; in the second the P4C sessions would have taken place. However, school closures, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, reduced the intervention period by three weeks (which could have reduced its impact) and prevented me from collecting enough data on two pupils from the initial group of four: they had to self-isolate for two weeks prior to schools closing.
Despite this, the test results from the two remaining participants (to whom I allocated the pseudonyms Jade and Ben) indicated that the intervention appeared to help each of them to develop their ability to answer evaluative questions. In addition, the data suggested that the intervention might have had an impact on Ben’s inferential answers but perhaps had little impact on the Jade’s. In addition, my analyses of the pupils’ responses to inferential and evaluative questions, in conjunction with interview data, suggested that the P4C intervention might have helped the pupils to respond to higher-level questions by cultivating key critical thinking skills such as being able to present a line of reasoning which states and justifies a point of view. Moreover, Ben stated that the intervention had inspired him to use questioning to monitor his understanding of what he read more effectively. Using Kintsch and Rawson (2005)’ model of comprehension, I suggested that this could have given Ben the chance develop a more accurate text-base and situation model; thus making it easier for him to answer more challenging comprehension questions. Additionally, my discussion evaluates the likelihood of a number of alternative explanations before concluding.
Investigation of non-resonant HH production and couplings in the bbbb final state using the ATLAS detector
Keywords: bottom quark
HH
ATLAS
DiHiggs

The full Run 2 ATLAS HH → bbbb analysis targeted the simultaneous non-resonant production of two Higgs bosons (HH) in the bbbb final state. This analysis utilised 126 fb^-1 of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data from the ATLAS Experiment on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The increase in data, alongside a program of intensive research and development that I played a significant role in, produced a comprehensive set of important physics results that showed a marked improvement on predecessor ATLAS HH → bbbb analyses. An observed (expected) upper limit on HH production via Gluon-Gluon Fusion (ggF) and Vector Boson Fusion (VBF) was set at 5.4 (8.1) times the SM prediction at the 95% confidence level (CL). Constraints on the coupling modifiers κ_λ , κ_V and κ_2V (defined as κ = c/c_SM ) were set using two different statistical methods. Performing a comparison of the theoretical cross-section to the upper limit on HH production, κ_λ was constrained to −3.9 < κ_λ < 11.1 (−4.6 < κ_λ < 10.8) and κ_2V to −0.03 < κ_2V < 2.11 (−0.05 < κ_2V < 2.12) at the 95% CL. Performing a direct measurement of the log likelihood ratio, κ_λ was constrained to −3.5 < κ_λ < 11.3 (−5.4 < κ_λ < 11.4) and κ_2V to 0.0 < κ_2V < 2.1 (−0.1 < κ_2V < 2.1) at 2σ. Two-dimensional limits were also set on a range of values in κ_2V-κ_λ and κ_2V-κ_V space at the 95% CL, the former being the first of its kind.
Impact of using Fundamental 5 in classroom: an analysis of teacher’s engagement in professional development to enhance students engagement in learning in a Private School in Gulf Region
Keywords: MLT
MLT 2020

A small-scale explores the perceptions and views of teachers about professional development. Teachers learning in an intrinsic phenomenon and there are many factors involved in shaping the final outcomes of development programmes for teachers. Teachers learning is not linear, it should rather be taken as horizontal and vertical and is depended on many factors. The implementation of “Using Fundamental 5 to Deliver Quality Instructions”, it is concluded that teachers learning learn differently like their students and their learning can defined as a social experience. Teachers values peer learning and their personal professional needs to be taken into account in designing professional development programmes. After analysing the preferences and patterns of teachers’ professional development, the study concludes that teachers voice should be should be part of policy making for teachers learning. Coalition of integrated approaches, various methods and practices, differentiated mode of delivery and consideration of teachers’ professional needs and choices and learning context should be considered for teachers professional development plans.
The origins of Islamist insurgencies: the social-institutional foundations of an ideological shift
Keywords: Somalia
Islamism
Chechnya
rebellion
Pakistan
Civil War
insurgency

Islamism has become the predominant ideology of civil war in the post-Cold War order, and yet its significance for civil wars remain poorly understood. At the macro-historical level, it is unclear why it was Islamism, rather than something else, which replaced socialism as the foremost counter-hegemonic ideology among Muslim would-be revolutionaries. At the micro-level, there are no satisfactory explanations for why some rebel groups adopt Islamist ideology while others do not. This thesis is an attempt at theory-building to explain the historical rise of Islamism among rebel groups, through an inductively-derived theory of how group-ideology is determined by the process of mobilisation at the micro-level.
I do this by tracing the trajectories of Islamist groups from their pre-war social-institutional origins to the point of rebellion. I compare three sub-national regions which experienced Islamist rebellions to eight regions which did not in Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Russia. To this end, I argue that societies which do or do not experience rebellions can be distinguished according to their pre-war social landscape. This is defined by the degree to which the capacity for violence is fractionalised among multiple actors, and how capable governing institutions are at providing public goods.
I show, first, that ideological choice among rebel groups is strongly constrained by organisational legacies and the process of mobilisation. Second, that the ideological contours of a rebellion is defined by the types of pre-war networks which are best positioned to mobilise in response to a conflict-issue. Third, that broader processes of modernity in all cases undermined pre-existing institutions, paving the way for religious institutions as providers of welfare and security, implying a shift in social capital which made Islamist mobilisation viable. Fourth, the outbreak of violence represents a clash between such local experiments in religious governance, and states which seek to impose institutional uniformity. Finally, I provide a classification of pre-war social landscapes and argue that different mechanisms are tied to each landscape-type. I use this to set out a new agenda for studying both ideology and civil war, and the origins of civil wars more broadly.
Transport processes in multicomponent lithium-ion electrolytes
Keywords: solution thermodynamics
energy storage
mass transport
electrolytes
lithium-ion batteries

This dissertation attends to the processes by which charged and neutral species are transported in lithium-ion electrolytes. Within batteries, electrolytic solutions interact with electrodes to allow charge — and hence energy — to be harmoniously stored and transferred. Thus far, electrolyte engineering remains an underexploited frontier to advance energy storage technologies.
In this dissertation, I take a ‘middle-out’ approach, studying the responses of electrolytes at the continuum level to understand fundamental concentration and voltage polarisation phenomena. In this way, the work complements ‘top-down’ (device-level) and ‘bottom-up’ (molecular-scale) approaches. The insights presented can improve battery control, optimise cell architecture, and evaluate unique formulations.
The work first focuses on experimental design for property characterization. I develop a novel shifting-reference concentration-cell method, which I embed within a broader suite of tests to extract transport and thermodynamic properties of electrolytic solutions. These protocols, based on Newman’s concentrated-solution theory, were validated on disparate electrolyte solvation structures. Subsequent chapters build upon this foundation to analyse a range of carbonate solvents, both linear and cyclic, with lithium hexafluorophosphate from high dilution to saturation.
Potentiometric magnetic-resonance imaging is then used to study superconcentrated binary electrolytes. Despite the electrolyte systems of interest exhibiting severe thermodynamic nonideality and complex higher-order speciation, a three-species model — accounting for convective processes — proves to predict the measured microscopic ion distributions and voltages under applied currents. By deducting the solution-phase signal, lithium-metal interfaces can also be isolated to elucidate the confounding consequences of superconcentration on transport and reaction kinetics.
Next, I probed cosolvent segregation in multicomponent ternary (two solvent, one salt) electrolytes with the help of machine-learning techniques. Counter to what state-of-the-art continuum models of battery electrolytes assume, neutral species are shown to migrate under electric fields, such that electrodes encounter intra-cycle solvent-composition swings. This effect illuminates new guiding principles for electrolyte discovery.
More broadly, I posit that macroscopically observable transport phenomena should play an active role in informing battery development. The contributions presented here are expected to be generalisable to conceptually equivalent electrolyte chemistries comprising salts, solvents, and additives.
Ancestry, blood, and heredity. Attitudes towards biological descent in late medieval Tuscany, c.1250-1400
Keywords: biological descent
naturalisation
medieval
blood
natural love
natural nobility
heredity
Tuscany
adoption
ancestry
myths of origin

This thesis examines intellectual and social attitudes to biological descent in late medieval Tuscany. In recent decades, historians have paid increasing attention to the body as a locus of experience, individuality, and identity. Yet bodies, like individuals, always have a genealogy. Thus, in this thesis, I set out to explore how ideas of biological descent shaped medieval understandings of the body and the significance of biological ties. First, I argue that medieval society developed a proto-materialistic approach to human personality that highlighted the role of hereditary physiological principles in the interpretation of character and behaviour. As a result, biological ancestry and blood emerged at the centre of individual and group identities. Subsequent chapters explore thinking about biological descent in the family, social units like the nobility, and political communities. A final chapter explores the diffusion of theories of natural love and demonstrates how similar patterns of thinking about biological descent can be identified across different dimensions of social life. In this thesis, intellectual and literary sources delineate the framework of ideas, beliefs, and values which informed attitudes to biological descent. On the other hand, normative and documentary sources illustrate how ideas of biological descent informed, and were informed by, social, legal, and political practices and structures. In this manner, biological descent emerges as a valuable category for the analysis of social relationships, offering fresh insights into a number of intertwined historiographical areas of concern. My study reveals that against dualist conceptions of human personhood, late medieval society held that human beings ‘were’ rather than ‘possessed’ bodies. As a result, the body and descent were perceived to be imbued with meaning and a source of normative values. Ultimately, this thesis lends support to the idea that late medieval society recovered nature as an ordering principle of society.
A stranger priority? Topics as the outer reaches of effective altruism
Keywords: simulation argument
effective altruism
longtermism
anthropic reasoning
infinite ethics

This thesis examines three philosophical topics relevant to the project of identifying and acting on the most effective ways of doing good: anthropic reasoning, simulation arguments, and infinite ethics. These topics are unified in their potential to disrupt the empirical and normative assumptions underlying the most straightforward case for “strong longtermism” (that is, the view that positively influencing the long-term future is the key moral priority of our time). The first chapter examines the debate between the Self-Indication Assumption (“SIA”) and the Self-Sampling Assumption (“SSA”) in the context of anthropic reasoning – a debate with important implications for the size of humanity’s future (and, plausibly, of the universe itself). I argue that SIA is the superior view, and that the most prominent objection to SIA – the so-called “Presumptuous Philosopher” – is a bullet that we should consider biting. The second chapter formulates what I see as the strongest version of a “simulation argument” – that is, an argument that we should be highly confident that at least one of the following is true: either the ratio of simulated beings (“sims”) to non-simulated beings (“non-sims”) of certain types is not high, or we are sims. I distinguish between ways of making this argument that rely on empirical assumptions (for example, about the computational power available to advanced civilizations) and those that do not; I suggest that the latter are superior and independently forceful; and I explore some of the complications and uncertainties that the latter lead to. The third chapter surveys a variety of problems that infinities create for ethics, and it reflects on the implications of those problems. In particular, I argue that these problems puncture the dream of a simple, bullet- biting utilitarianism, and that they put pressure on some of the broader intuitions underlying common arguments for strong longtermism as well.
Engineering a modular virus-like particle platform for enhanced vaccine assembly
Keywords: VLP
SpyCatcher003-mi3

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are assemblies that resemble viruses in their size, shape, and multivalent display of protein subunits, but lack the genetic material to infect cells. VLP-displayed antigens are more immunogenic than in their uncoupled form. SpyCatcher003 is a protein engineered from a fibronectin-binding protein of Streptococcus pyogenes that rapidly forms an irreversible isopeptide bond with its peptide partner, SpyTag. This thesis presents SpyCatcher003-mi3 VLPs, which I generated by fusing SpyCatcher003 to the mi3 scaffold, a modified version of the computationally-designed i301 nanocage. I demonstrate that SpyCatcher003-mi3 can be solubly expressed in Escherichia coli, can be purified via ammonium sulfate precipitation to high yields, and remains stable at temperatures between 25 °C and 95 °C. This VLP can accommodate antigens of diverse sizes and symmetries. Assembly on SpyCatcher003-mi3 elicits high levels of neutralizing antibodies against influenza haemagglutinin and neuraminidase, as well as the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 and select betacoronavirus variants. I demonstrated that SpyCatcher003-mi3 can be expressed solubly in a mammalian cell-line. Then I engineered N-linked glycosylation sequons on flexible hydrophilic loops on the VLP with the goal of shielding antibody binding to the mi3 scaffold and SpyCatcher003, to focus antibody responses on the displayed antigen. I found no significant change in the level of antibody titers that bound specifically to the mi3 scaffold and the SpyCatcher003:SpyTag003 moiety, relative to that of the displayed antigen (SARS-CoV-2 RBD). Fusion of SpyCatcher003-mi3 with the albumin-binding sequence, ABD035, was also insufficient to change the relative induction of antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 RBD, the SpyCatcher003:SpyTag003 moiety and the mi3 scaffold. Further analysis and combination of blocking components will be required to maximize glycan and albumin-dependent antibody shielding. Nonetheless, the high stability, simple purification, and easy functionalization of the existing SpyCatcher003-mi3 platform can potentially accelerate the vaccine development process against many infectious diseases.
Enhancing oncolytic virotherapy of glioblastoma by targeting innate immune ligands with a bispecific T cell engager
Keywords: immunotherapy
oncolytic virotherapy
bispecific T cell engagers
glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly aggressive brain tumour in adults, often becoming resistant towards conventional therapy of radiotherapy and temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy. The oncolytic herpes simplex virus-1 (oHSV- 1) G207 is a promising approach for GBM immunotherapy, capable of selective infection, replication and causing cell lysis within GBM but not healthy cells. However, G207 has demonstrated only limited efficacy in GBM clinical trials.
The Natural Killer Group 2 Member D (NKG2D) receptor plays a key role in the innate immune control of cancers. The ligands for this receptor (NKG2DLs) are minimally expressed or absent on healthy cells, while stressed or malignant cells upregulate NKG2DLs, resulting in innate immune activation. We have developed a strategy targeting upregulated NKG2DLs on GBM cells with a bispecific T cell engager (BiTE) consisting of a recombinant NKG2D receptor linked to an anti-CD3 domain. Simultaneous binding of the NKG2D BiTE to NKG2DLs on GBM cells and CD3 on T cells causes antigen-independent T cell activation, pro-inflammatory cytokine release, and tumour cell death.
Here, we engineer G207 to express the NKG2D BiTE from infected GBM cells, allowing the G207-NKG2DBiTE virus to combine direct viral oncolysis and BiTE- mediated cytotoxicity via activation of local T cells. NKG2DL expression was elevated on GBM cells following pre-treatment with sublethal doses of TMZ and radiation, sensitising them to NKG2D BiTE activity and achieving synergistic cytotoxicity with G207-NKG2DBiTE virus.
We also demonstrate a novel strategy for targeting glioma stem-like cells (GSCs), which are a source of resistance to conventional therapies. In contrast to differentiated GBM cells, GSCs are non-permissive to G207 infection, but they remain sensitive to NKG2D BiTE. Therefore, we propose a potential model for targeting GSCs in heterogeneous tumours, whereby differentiated GBM cells infected with G207-NKG2DBiTE virus produce NKG2D BiTE locally, directing T cell cytotoxicity towards the GSC sub-populations in the tumour microenvironment.
Narratives, identity, and cases of non-recent child sexual abuse in football

Keywords: narrative victimology
football abuse
victims
hegemonic masculinity
intersectionality
non-recent child sexual abuse
criminal justice system
CSA
white working-class boys

In 2016, Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in football was brought into public consciousness when ex-professional footballer Andy Woodward waived his right to anonymity by speaking out about the abuse he suffered as a child at Crewe Alexandra Football Club. Woodward broke the silence that had long plagued the sport, resulting in a surge of disclosures of non-recent CSA across numerous grass-roots and professional football teams across the UK. Through drawing upon twenty-one interviews with victims, victim advocates, practitioners, and criminal justice professionals, as well as a victim questionnaire and victim autobiographies, this thesis explores the narratives of the victims of non-recent CSA in football who disclosed their abuse either privately or in the public domain. Victim questionnaire participants identified as male, White, over forty years old, and as coming from a working-class or lower middle-class background. This thesis, therefore, focuses on how their identity, including their gender, class, and age, and their own self-perception, has been impacted by, or impacted on, their experiences from abuse to the pursuit of justice. Although certain identities are more fixed, many are tied to societal constructions and expectations, with the role of the audience influencing an individual’s self-perception and experiences. Through using the theoretical tools of agency and communion (Bakan, 1966; Abele and Wojciszke, 2013; Pemberton et al., 2019a), I explore how the victim’s sense of self can be rebuilt by speaking out, either individually or collectively, about the abuse they suffered. I also introduce a third concept of ‘action’ to explore the crucial impact of victim-led advocacy and activism on victims’ narratives and identify how their intersectional identities impacted on their status in this space. Doing so highlights the significance of identity on every facet of the victims’ experiences.