VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The role of conflict during the adoption of agriculture in the Southwestern Japanese Archipelago: late-final Jōmon and Yayoi Period traumatic lesions
Keywords: spatial analysis
statistical analysis
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
3D
Jomon
warfare
Bronze Age
Neolithic
agriculture
warriorhood
trauma
Japan
violence
hunter-gatherers
Mesolithic
Kofun
Yayoi

In the global literature on violence and warfare, the Jōmon period of the prehistoric Japanese archipelago is renowned as an example of a complex hunter-gatherer culture with little evidence of violent conflict through its duration, whereas the subsequent agricultural Yayoi period is marked by numerous indicators of violence, including formalised weaponry and fortified villages. How violence was prevented or utilised during large-scale cultural and technological transitions in prehistory is an ongoing area of research, but it is clear that they cannot simply be explained by external pressures, rather the cultural context in which conflict management strategies are played-out is also a large deciding factor in whether or not disputes result in violence.
In order to look at these dynamics with great resolution, this thesis aimed to systematically analyse the arguably most direct evidence for violence – traumatic skeletal lesion – from 29 sites dating to the Late–Final Jōmon (ca. 2540 – 435 BC) through the Yayoi (ca. 900 BC – 250 AD) periods, where agriculture first appeared in the Japanese archipelago. In total 250 Jōmon skulls and 174 Yayoi skeletons were examined for evidence of traumatic lesions likely related to violence. In order to facilitate the data analysis, a method of examining skeletal data in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) using an existing 3D model of the human skeleton was developed. The author modified a freely available 3D model of the skeleton (BodyParts3D licenced through Creative Commons) to be compatible with this thesis’ completeness recording methods. 3D features were then added to the model to represent instances of trauma. This novel method allowed for the creation of distinct analytical units which could be easily queried, compiled, and compared at the individual and group levels rather than simply representing completeness and trauma data in ad hoc diagrams or through singular 3D visualisations.
The results demonstrate that, although it has been underestimated, the overall rates of violent trauma during the Jōmon are low, but that there are as of yet unexplored patterns in the occurrence of antemortem and perimortem trauma among the males and females of the period. The transition to the Yayoi is marked by an increase in healed trauma among the sites dating to the beginnings of the period. Perimortem trauma and trauma related to weaponry increase from the Early–Middle Yayoi period, but indicators of healed intragroup trauma persist. The implications of these findings are critically evaluated in relation to previous studies in the region and to patterns of violence from two case studies from European prehistory – the Mesolithic-–Neolithic transition and the Bronze Age.
The norm of a canonical isomorphism of determinant line bundles
Keywords: quillen metric on the determinant of cohomology
involution formula
cube structures

We extend an involution formula given by a canonical isomorphism of determinant line bundles in Rössler’s [a] to the analytic case where the determinant of cohomology is endowed with the Quillen metric, in the case where the fixed point scheme is a Cartier divisor.
Additionally, we show the relation between Rössler’s main results in [a] and the Adams-Riemann-Roch theorem; and we extend the main result of Ducrot’s [b], which aims to extend Deligne’s pairing to the higher relative dimensional intersection bundle, to the analytic case.
[a] Damian Rössler, A local refinement of the Adams-Riemann-Roch theorem in degree 1, Arithmetic L-functions and differential geometric methods, Progr. Math., vol. 338, Birkhäuser/Springer, Cham, [2021], pp. 213–246.
[b] François Ducrot, Cube structures and intersection bundles, J. Pure Appl. Algebra, 195 (2005), no. 1, 33–73.
Data-driven methods for simulation and forecasting of financial time series
Keywords: cross impact
market simulator
volatility modeling
neural network
graph

This thesis develops data-driven methods for the simulation and forecasting of financial time series. The contributions are structured into four main components.
In the first part, we propose Tail-GAN, a novel nonparametric approach that combines a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) with the joint elicitability property of Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for learning to simulate price scenarios that preserve tail risk features for a set of benchmark trading strategies.
In the second part, we investigate the impact of order flow imbalance (OFI) on price movements in equity markets in a multi-asset setting. Our results show that, once the information from multiple levels is integrated into the OFI, multi-asset models with cross-impact do not provide additional explanatory power for contemporaneous impact compared to a sparse model without the cross-impact terms. We show however that cross-asset OFIs do improve the forecasting of future returns.
In the third part, we apply machine learning models to forecast intraday realized volatility (RV), by exploiting commonality in intraday volatility by pooling stocks together, and by incorporating a proxy for market volatility. Neural networks dominate linear regression and tree-based models in terms of performance, and remain robust and competitive on unseen stocks not included in the training set, thus providing new empirical evidence for a universal volatility mechanism among stocks. We also propose a new approach to forecasting one-day-ahead RVs using past intraday RVs as predictors, and expose interesting time-of-day effects that aid the forecasting mechanism.
In the last part, we develop a method for forecasting the realized covariance matrix of asset returns in the U.S. equity market by exploiting the predictive information of graphs in volatility and correlation. Specifically, we augment the Heterogeneous Autoregressive (HAR) model via neighborhood aggregation on these graphs. The results generally suggest that the augmented model incorporating graph information yields both statistically and economically significant improvements for out-of-sample performance over the traditional models.
Neutralization of BAFF and APRIL with engineered soluble BCMA decoy receptor for the treatment of B-cell malignancies
Keywords: BAFF
soluble receptor
multiple myeloma
decoy receptor
APRIL
lymphoma
ligand trap

B-cell activation factor (BAFF) and A proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL), two cytokines regulating B-cell homeostasis, are known to play important roles in the pathogenesis of B-cell malignancies. In B-cell malignancies, significant up-regulation and receptor-mediated signalling of BAFF and APRIL have been shown to facilitate tumour proliferation, treatment-resistance, and contribute to immune suppression in the tumour microenvironment (TME). Multiple myeloma (MM) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are two of the most prevalent types of B-cell malignancies. Despite recent approvals of novel therapeutics such as CAR T-cell therapy (CAR T), disease relapse and treatment resistance continue to pose clinical challenges, often resulting in patient mortality. Here, we found elevated expression levels of BAFF, APRIL and their receptors, and observed the resulting activation of critical survival signalling pathways in patient specimens of MM and DLBCL. To effectively neutralize BAFF and APRIL-mediated signalling, we adopted a ligand trap approach, and developed a decoy receptor by fusing the extracellular cysteine rich domain (ECD) of the BCMA (B-cell maturation antigen) receptor (soluble BCMA, or sBCMA) with a human IgG1 Fc domain, to initially test our hypothesis. Next, to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the approach, we engineered a mutant sBCMA, and developed a second-generation Fc fusion protein with significantly increased binding affinities toward BAFF and APRIL. In vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that our sBCMA-Fc ligand trap approach is efficacious at inhibiting tumour growth with minimal off-target normal tissue toxicities, providing preclinical evidence to support the use of our molecules as a treatment for MM and DLBCL.
Optimising arrival management in air traffic control
Keywords: optimisation
optimal transport
game theory
reinforcement learning

Efficient landing is a key component of improving air transport, both for passengers' experience and fuel consumption. With just two runways, Heathrow airport was running at 98% capacity before the pandemic. The existing queuing system allows buffer time for the aircraft to land on one runway, but this can add delays to journeys and be fuel inefficient. With the recovery of the travel industry after the 2020 pandemic, improving landing procedures remains a pertinent problem to NATS (who manages all the air traffic in UK airspace). In this thesis, we develop alternative methods to sequence aircraft as they approach for landing at Heathrow.
In the first part of this thesis, we cast the arrival management problem in a reinforcement learning framework. We design a basic air traffic model and apply both table representation methods and nonlinear approximation with a neural network. Specifically, we compare the performance of Q-learning, SARSA, and DDPG on this environment. Further we explore dimension reduction/feature representation through path signatures. Finally we design multi-grid inspired neural network structures and see that these lead to faster training but ultimately comparable performance.
For the second part, we look at the problem from a different perspective. We take inspiration from the theory of optimal transport and formulate an entropy-regularised optimisation problem. We design an algorithm with block gradient descent-like steps and note that the conflicts in the set-up of our problem introduces non-convexity even when working in the (convex) space of distributions over arrival times. By adding an additional 'considerate' cost, akin to a Pigouvian tax, the performance of the algorithm is enhanced.
Finally, the last part of this thesis shows the flexibility of our approach. We adapt our work to apply to a new air traffic design concept being researched at NATS.
What role do religious institutions play in Aristotle's ideal polis?
Keywords: Aristotle
politics
religion

In Metaphysics Λ, Aristotle defines a god as an intellect thinking itself, which is an entity not concerned with human affairs. However, in the Politics, he takes the provision of worship to be a necessary element of any self-sufficient polis, including the ideal polis. This thesis aims to answer the question, what role do religious institutions play in the ideal polis? Aristotle finds that the Greek traditional religion encourages the faithful to obey the law of the polis, while ceremonies provide them with opportunities to form friendships and enjoy rest and leisure. But we have reasons against ascribing to him advocacy of a policy of maintaining a cult of gods responsive to human actions even though there are no such gods. Passages from the Metaphysics and the Parts of Animals render unlikely Mor Segev’s suggestion that, on Aristotle’s view, exposure to anthropomorphic depictions of gods might inspire one to inquire into and contemplate the true divine nature. Limiting religious practice in the ideal polis to the traditional cult, elements of which are present there, makes us unable to explain how the ideal polis promotes the human good. Finally, this thesis argues that Aristotle takes theôria to be a religious practice which the ideal polis aims to foster. Sarah Broadie’s case for taking theôria to be our religious duty is modified in order to answer an objection to her reading of the theophilestatos argument, and expanded with more textual evidence.
Quality of life in pancreas transplantation
Keywords: Type 1 diabetes
Pancreas Transplantation
Complications of type 1 diabetes
Patient Reported Outcomes
Simultaneous Pancreas Kidney Transplantation
Health Related Quality of Life

Background: Pancreas transplantation is the only therapy capable of restoring long term insulin independence in patients with type 1 diabetes. However, it is still burdened by high rates of perioperative complications: surgical risks must be weighed against clinical benefits and health related quality of life gain (HRQOL).
Aim: The purpose of the DPhil was to assess HRQOL benefits after pancreas transplantation.
Methods: This research is based on two studies: a prospective longitudinal cohort study on patients undergoing pancreas transplantation, and a cross-sectional study on long term HRQOL in an historical group of pancreas transplant recipients. Participants of the prospective study completed patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) at multiple timepoints before and after surgery, while the cross-sectional study only required one set of post-operative PROMs. Results: A total of 57 patients undergoing Simultaneous Pancreas-Kidney transplantation were recruited into the prospective study. Baseline HRQOL was below population norms. After transplantation, HRQOL improved quicky and significantly, but, except for mental health, it remained below normative values. Results from the cross-sectional study on a mixed cohort of 98 pancreas recipient- at approximately of 8.6 years from surgery- depicted a similar scenario.
Conclusions: Successful Simultaneous Pancreas Kidney transplantation (SPK) significantly improves HRQOL, and changes seem sustained in time; however, it doesn’t restore patients to their former state before the onset of complications. Current PROMs don’t allow us to clarify which obstacles prevent our patients from thriving, despite longstanding euglycemia and freedom from dialysis: there is an urgent need for a bespoke pancreas transplant HRQOL instrument capable of capturing all the intricacies of this population.
The problematisation of autonomous weapon systems - a case study of the US Department of Defense
Keywords: artificial intelligence
operationalisation
lethal autonomous weapon systems
US DoD
human control
problematisation
socio-legal studies
USAF

Robotics systems play an increasingly important role in armed conflicts and there are already weapons in service that replace a human being at the point of engagement. The United States (US) is the first country to have adopted a policy on autonomous weapon systems (AWS) in the Directive 3000.09. The US policy on AWS is however poorly understood in the academic and policy circles. This thesis addresses the question of how the US Department of Defense (DoD) problematises the concept of AWS.
By applying a Bacchi’s poststructuralist approach to policy analysis, the thesis asks how the US DoD constructs the ‘problem’ of AWS, what assumptions underlie this representation of the ‘problem’, how has it come about, what effects it produces, what is left out of problem representation, and how could it be questioned.
The US DoD problematisation of AWS does not only clarifies the Department’s approach, but also it explores the role of human involvement over the use of AWS. The US policy states that AWS shall be used by ‘appropriate levels of human judgment’. This term is, however, open to different interpretations, and some argue that it prohibits a lethal use of AWS, while others disagree.
The thesis focuses not only on content of the US concept of human judgment, but primarily on how this concept relates to the wider US military understanding of ‘control.’ In that, it unpacks the concept of human judgment and distinguishes it from the concept of human control. I argue that both concepts are important in the debate on AWS as they represent alternative policy approaches to the use of such weapons. By making these concepts more explicit, my thesis contributes to the specific and emerging academic debate about the role of human involvement over the use of AWS.
Cosmopolitan culture and counterculture among Chinese youth: face-to-face communities in the smartphone era
Keywords: cosmopolitanism
youth culture
China
community
social interaction
ethnography
internet

Young Chinese people have come of age in a communicative environment that is radically new, involving near-pervasive mobile broadband internet access and unprecedented exposure to global media. I employ a mix of ethnographic and computational methods to compare two groups of cosmopolitan Chinese youth – elite university students and subcultural bohemians – to explore the political implications of their cosmopolitan communications. The cosmopolitanism of Chinese youth, understood as both communicative diversity and globalized cultural engagement, is shaped in divergent ways by the influence of China’s orthodox Confucian and heterodox cultural traditions, with marked implications for patterns of online and offline communication. Constraints imposed by the university environment and Confucian social norms embed elite students in homogeneous networks that their extensive online communications do little to diversify. Exposure to the competing perspectives of global and domestic news and academic content generates both a normative relativism and a sophisticated grasp of practical political possibilities and constraints. This supports a hierarchical and pragmatic politics in which both national interests and those of their own social echelon, including progressive identity claims, are seen as being furthered by meritocratic authoritarianism. By contrast, bohemian proclivities for free-wheeling face-to-face interaction embed them in heterogeneous, cross-cutting networks, within which they synthesize discontents from diverse areas of Chinese society; combined with the influence of the heterodox tradition and the oppositional symbolic repertoires of global subcultures, this results in an egalitarian and reductively idealistic politics that supports opposition to the Party-State and its authoritarian system. The dominance of elite students’ orthodox cosmopolitanism suggests that the internet-mediated, globalized communications of Chinese youth constitute little immediate threat to the authoritarian system. However, the increasing scale and influence of bohemian heterodox cosmopolitanism and its idealistic politics, driven by factors beyond the control of Party-State, may ultimately undermine the manageability of Chinese youth.
Pessimistic Bayesianism for conservative optimization and imitation
Keywords: AI Safety
Gaussian Processes
Bayesian Inference

Subject to several assumptions, sufficiently advanced reinforcement learners would likely face an incentive and likely have an ability to intervene in the provision of their reward, with catastrophic consequences. In this thesis, I develop a theory of pessimism and show how it can produce safe advanced artificial agents. Not only do I demonstrate that the assumptions mentioned above can be avoided; I prove theorems which demonstrate safety. First, I develop an idealized pessimistic reinforcement learner. For any given novel event that a mentor would never cause, a sufficiently pessimistic reinforcement learner trained with the help of that mentor would probably avoid causing it. This result is without precedent in the literature. Next, on similar principles, I develop an idealized pessimistic imitation learner. If the probability of an event when the demonstrator acts can be bounded above, then the probability can be bounded above when the imitator acts instead; this kind of result is unprecedented when the imitator learns online and the environment never resets. In an environment that never resets, no one has previously demonstrated, to my knowledge, that an imitation learner even exists. Finally, both of the agents above demand more efficient algorithms for high-quality uncertainty quantification, so I have developed a new kernel for Gaussian process modelling that allows for log-linear time complexity and linear space complexity, instead of a naïve cubic time complexity and quadratic space complexity. This is not the first Gaussian process with this time complexity—inducing points methods have linear complexity—but we do outperform such methods significantly on regression benchmarks, as one might expect given the much higher dimensionality of our kernel. This thesis shows the viability of pessimism with respect to well-quantified epistemic uncertainty as a path to safe artificial agency.
From Bluebeard's castle to the white world of dreams : constrictions and constructions in Angela Carter's prose fiction
Keywords: constrictions
constructions
Angela Carter
dreams
white world of dreams
Bluebeard
Bluebeard's castle
prose fiction
Carter

Angela Carter's death in 1992 heralded a surge of popularity and tributes. These latter tended to cast her as a "fairy godmother" or "white witch", labels which this thesis takes as starting points in its examination of the roles of author, narrator, hero, environment and reader; their interchangeability; and mutual affect. It focuses on the construction of the subject and her or his environment in Carter's fiction, measuring their interaction by way of generic filters, criticism, interviews and journalism.
The introduction examines Carter's strategies and agenda within this context by way of a historical exploration of the Western subject's perception of her/his surroundings, with particular regard to the postmodern and feminist viewpoints. This is followed by an account of Carter's own publishing history envisaged as a landscaped, picaresque journey which typifies her characteristic blend of idealism and pragmatics. Her juxtaposition of the fantastical with the familiar continues to resurface as part of the debate in subsequent chapters, which use a succession of literary and cultural tools to illumine her texts in the light of the main project. Thus: her short fictions, radio plays and the film The Company of Wolves are examined as fairy tales; The Magic Toyshop and Heroes and Villainsexplored using theories of the Gothic and the dystopia; Love and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman assessed in light of pornography and the picaresque; The Passion of New Eve viewed in terms of constructions of gender; and Nights at the Circus and Wise Children seen alongside theories carnival and of time. Elements of film theory, urban studies and architecture are threaded throughout, and some conclusions are offered through a reading of the important tropes of dream and labyrinth in American Ghosts and Old World Wonders.
Always, subversive and unpredictable, Carter's writing can nevertheless be viewed as a succession of rewritings depicting an evolution of a subject initially vulnerable to but ultimately able to manipulate history. This is signalled most clearly by the early figure of the witch-hysteric. She is gradually transformed into the sibyl-prophetess of the later texts, while in a parallel dynamic, the environment's external threatening constructions have been dismantled in favour of a self-fashioning world full of possibility.