VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Fevers in the garden: a history of malaria in colonial Assam from 1826 - 1939
Keywords: Friederich
Ethan
Medicine
Quinine
Colonial
Malaria
History
Epidemiology
Mosquito
Fevers
India
Public Health
Assam
Empire

Malaria was the deadliest infectious disease in colonial Assam, but the malady received less attention from government officials and medical officers than other diseases. Additionally, malaria in Assam has received relatively little attention from modern historians. This project sits at the intersection of medical, colonial, and environmental histories, and contributes to discussions in the history of malaria, Assam, and British India. It explores the history of malaria in colonial Assam between 1826 and 1939. The approach is largely one of historical epidemiology; it analyses mortality and morbidity data on ‘Fevers’ and attempts made by the government and medical officers to understand and prevent the disease.
Assam was transformed by British rule, and the trajectories of both malaria and society were strongly influenced by colonial rule during this time period. The ecology of Assam was heavily modified to support the province’s biggest industry- tea. In the process, jungles were cleared, millions of immigrant labourers were recruited, and malaria flourished. Efforts to reduce malaria across the province failed, and public health as a practice was often structured around keeping immigrant labourers healthy and industrial enclaves productive. Exploring anti-malarial measures in the province and the relationship between the creation of medical knowledge and public health praxis, this project touches on the topics of colonial ‘development’, quinine, mosquito control measures, and epidemiology.
This dissertation argues that malaria played a pivotal role in the history of colonial Assam; that historians are able to gain some understanding of the presence and effects of the disease even when knowledge in the past was limited; and that perceptions of the disease, attempts to control it, and that both human and non-human factors that contributed to malaria were heavily influenced by colonial forces.
Exploring the landscape of international organisation in TVET sector of Central Asia
Keywords: Qualitative
Vocational education
Stakeholder management
Comparative education
Central Asia
Interviews
CIE2022
CIE
TVET

According to Agenda 2030, partnerships among sectoral stakeholders have an important and instrumental role in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In fact, the lack of participation of actors is identified to be the biggest challenge in achieving the SDGs. Within educational policy, it is especially important for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as it significantly depends on the success of multistakeholder cooperation, in which international development organisations (IOs) are increasingly attaining their own stake and importance.
This study explores how IO employees navigate their relationships with other TVET stakeholders in five Central Asian countries. John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Model (1995) is employed to analyse in which cases TVET as an educational public policy receives attention and funding from stakeholders and how in other cases it is being neglected.
From semi-structured interviews with 17 IO employees, it has been revealed that the main stakeholders in all five countries are state ministries responsible for TVET, but not in all countries these ministries are the driving forces of TVET development. According to Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Model (1995), the problem stream can be applied on Uzbekistan’s high population growth and Kazakhstan’s social discontent about unemployment. These problems are putting TVET in a priority position in the agenda-setting. Whereas Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s low economic capacities together with failed political bodies are not allowing them to prioritise and pay due attention to TVET development which, in turn, is bringing larger contributions from IOs. Turkmenistan was described by participants as a country with a neutral political stance and difficult cooperation both with public and private stakeholders. Finally, the research respondents believe that for successful stakeholder relationships in Central Asia it is necessary to understand social and cultural structures, specific to the region, such as old clan/tribal or regional divisions. Due to differences in economic structures and current levels of TVET development, the participants explained that the idea of one regional TVET system is not possible in the region. Instead, they stressed the necessity to strengthen learning from each other and exchanging best practices.
Data-driven methods for social complex systems: social media, data assimilation and how they connect
Keywords: Bayesian statistics
natural language processing
polarization
Twitter
complex systems
model initialization
social &amp; behavioural sciences
chaotic systems
complex networks
data assimilation
dynamical systems
latent state estimation

The explosion of big, granular social data has enabled us to observe society from a microscopic perspective. With major events driving and reshaping our social systems, it is essential to exploit these data so that we can help drive these systems to a state of social well-being and sustainability. This thesis develops data-driven methods to study social systems from a bottom-up perspective. We divide it into two parts: one where granular, individual-level social data are available to analyze and one where they are not, so that we have to infer them.
In the first part, we analyze massive social media data containing Twitter discussions around Covid-19 and climate change. We study each of these discussions from distinct but complementary perspectives. For Covid-19, we quantify the public risk perception and emotion during the pandemic by exploiting the natural language used in the tweets. We find evidence of psychophysical numbing: Twitter users increasingly fixate on mortality, but in a decreasingly emotional and increasingly analytic tone. For climate change, we quantify the polarization dynamics based on the interaction structure between Twitter users. We find two stable, highly polarized groups: climate believers and climate skeptics, whose polarization drops significantly during the “FridaysForFuture“ strikes of September 2019. In the second part, we develop methods for inferring individual-level data of complex system models when the data available are noisy, aggregated, and incomplete. Assuming our model is a dynamical system, we investigate under which conditions we can infer accurate initial conditions using incomplete data. The way the data are aggregated, their levels of noise, and the model’s complexity highly influence the quality of the inference. We thus propose methods to estimate individual-level data on the fly as observations become available. We validate these methods for several chaotic systems and an agent-based model of social opinion dynamics. We hope this work helps bridge the gap in designing models that better predict possible societal pathways.
Algebraic properties of linear structural equation models
Keywords: graphical models
structural equation models
causal inference

In this thesis, we explore the problems of identifiability and finding constraints in linear structural equation models (SEMs) and explore the applications of such results.
We start by analysing the effects of interventions on linear SEMs and provide sufficient conditions for when the resulting distribution is identifiable. We then demonstrate how we could use a series of interventions to find constraints in linear SEMs, as long as each resulting distribution is identifiable.
Next, we study algebraic properties of a subset of linear SEMs that can be represented by an \emph{HTC-identifiable graph}. HTC-identifiable graphs are a large family of graphs known to be generically identifiable. We prove that a mixed graphs is HTC-identifiable if and only if all the parameters in the model can be recovered from the covariance matrix using straightforward linear algebra operations. We can then exploit this algebraic property to construct an algorithm that recovers the parameters of the model. We also find a set of polynomials, whose indeterminates are entries of the covariance matrix, that generates the zeroes of the model.
Finally, we prove that the maximum likelihood function is strictly convex in a local neighbourhood around the MLE for HTC-identifiable graphs. In particular, for large sample sizes and assuming we specify the correct model, we find a starting point that is in this convex neighbourhood. We then use hill-climbing to find the MLE of the covariance matrix associated with any HTC-identifiable graphical model G. Using this, we can test whether a particular graphical model G is a good fit for a particular data set.
Aspects of BSM theories in the early universe
Keywords: string theory
cosmic strings
axiverse
dark matter
axions

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics is a tremendously successful explanation of the nature we observe, both in Earth-based experiments and cosmological observations of the past history of the universe. However its failure to account for gravity, dark matter and dark energy, as well as for various hierarchy and naturalness problems, motivates the formulation and investigation of Beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) theories.
In this thesis we will first review the evidence for and current understanding of dark matter (DM), including the mechanisms of freeze-out and freeze-in, before discussing the idea of ‘secluded’ dark matter without non-gravitational interactions with the SM. This will form the motivation for chapter 2, where we consider the emission of such secluded DM from an early population of primordial black holes, and for chapter 3, where we present a new mechanism by which an initially underpopulated secluded DM population may account for the observed DM in the universe today.
We will also discuss the hypothetical axion particle, which arises from an elegant so- lution to one of the problems with the SM (the Strong CP problem), and its generalisation, the Axion-Like-Particle (ALP). We will also introduce the one-dimensional topological defects called cosmic strings, and show how they can arise from ALP fields. ALPs serve as a candidate DM particle, and, further, are expected to appear in great numbers in the 4-dimensional effective theories arising from string theory (ST), a multiplicity known as the ‘string axiverse’. We shall review the foundations of ST with a focus on the creation of the string axiverse by the compactification of extra dimensions; finally in chapter 4 we construct global cosmic string solutions arising from string axiverse ALPs and analyse aspects of the resulting physics. In particular, we include the physically-crucial presence of a stabilising potential.
Magnetic resonance imaging of oxygen nano-carriers for the treatment of hypoxic tumours
Keywords: oxygen
medical imaging
longitudinal relaxation
hypoxia
oxygen-enhanced MRI
targeted delivery
magnetic resonance imaging

In cancer therapy, tumour hypoxia is an important predictor of disease progression, treatment outcomes, and metastatic potential. To date, methods for reducing tumour hypoxia have delivered limited success owing to either a lack of proven efficacy, unwanted side effects, or logistical limitations. Therefore, there remains an urgent requirement for an effective hypoxia reduction mechanism that is safe, cost effective, biocompatible, and easy to use. To address this, oxygen-filled micro and nanobubbles have been investigated as a method of oxygen delivery and have shown promising results in improving therapeutic response. To develop and optimise oxygen carriers and other hypoxia reduction strategies, however, consistent methods for measuring changes in tissue oxygenation need to be established. The ideal method should be noninvasive and quantitative, allowing tumour oxygen measurements to be obtained before, during, and after treatment. This thesis examines whether clinically available MRI techniques can be used to detect the change in tissue oxygenation caused by the nano-carriers.
A combination of phantom and preclinical experiments, mathematical modelling, and the analysis of data from two clinical trials are used. First, original results from phantom and preliminary in vivo MRI experiments are reported, which demonstrate the feasibility of detecting the effects of oxygen carriers. Second, three separate mathematical models are developed and presented in order of increasing complexity 2 first addressing simple bodily fluids, then blood, and finally, tissues 2 each of which are useful for areas of MRI research beyond the focus of this thesis. Third, original research results from recently completed clinical studies of oxygen-enhanced MRI are analysed and used to assess the viability of using these MRI measurements to monitor oxygen delivery from nanobubbles in a clinical MRI setting. Lastly, the broader potential applications of the conclusions and tools presented in this thesis are discussed.
Identifying epigenetic regulators of survival motor neuron protein to treat spinal muscular atrophy
Keywords: neuromuscular
SMA
epigenetics
PRMT
small molecules
spinal muscular atrophy
monogenic
arginine methylation

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare monogenic disease of mostly paediatric onset, affecting approximately 1:8,000 – 10,000 live births. If untreated, it leads to progressive muscle weakness and paralysis, due to degeneration of lower α-motor neurons in the spinal cord and brainstem. Three therapies are currently approved for SMA and while effective, they are extremely costly and not without limitations. It is becoming apparent that with SMA individuals living longer, new therapies, alone and/or in combination with the ones already on the market, are needed to improve quality of life and ensure sustained benefit for patients.
Epigenetic mechanisms have been implicated in several neuroprotection and neurodegeneration processes as well as SMA itself. The aim of this project is to identify novel epigenetic mechanisms involved in the regulation of SMN with the ultimate goal to identify new therapeutic targets. To this end, I have screened a library of epigenetic probes from the Structural Genomic Consortium, for their ability to modulate SMN2 in SMA patient-derived fibroblasts. Lead molecules have been further validated in the SMA mouse model. Among these molecules, I have identified MS023, an inhibitor of type I protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs), and IOX2, an inhibitor of prolyl hydroxylase domain 2 (PHD2), and characterized MS023 in depth. MS023 is able to increase the levels of SMN protein in vitro and in vivo, via a splice switching mechanism and improve survival and weights in a severe mouse model of SMA. Furthermore, the combinatorial treatment of oral MS023 and the market-approved antisense oligonucleotide nusinersen, is able to prolong the lifespan of severe SMA mice to a greater extent than the oligonucleotide treatment alone. MS023 alters the methylation pattern of hnRNPA1, the main negative regulator of exon 7 inclusion, weakening its binding to SMN2 pre-mRNA. Transcriptomic analysis in spinal cords of SMA mice identified correction of immune-related pathways by the combinatorial treatment but not nusinersen alone. These results provide a new insight into epigenetic regulation of SMN and PRMT function in splicing and justify moving forward with MS023 preclinical development as an add-on therapy for SMA.
Visually guided flight in Harris' hawks: a computer vision approach
Keywords: avian vision
obstacle avoidance
motion capture
pursuit
computer vision
bird flight

Animals with well-developed visual systems often use vision as an active sense. This means they can manipulate the position and orientation of their viewpoint to interrogate their visual environment. In this thesis, I investigate active vision in a particularly challenging scenario: birds in manoeuvring flight. I focus on Harris' hawks (Parabuteo unicinctus), which strongly rely on vision to coordinate their manoeuvres. I cover three key challenges of studying birds' gaze strategies in flight. First, I explore the problem of accurately tracking an animal's gaze direction. Marker-based motion capture is the most accurate species-agnostic method to track 3D movements in humans and animals, but commercial systems often underperform when applied to animals. I present a marker-labelling method that solves many of the existing problems, based on an arrangement of markers that is optimal for a custom per-frame labelling algorithm. Second, I explore how to capture the visual scene an animal experiences. I solve this computationally, using a 3D model of the flight environment, and a model of the birds' view during flight. I demonstrate how the proposed method allows us to define alternative gaze strategies for hypothesis testing, and explore different methods of modelling the environment, that adapt to varying levels of geometric complexity. Third, I investigate how we can use the generated synthetic data to analyse the hawks' behaviour. For N = 4 birds, I generate semantic maps of the visual scene the animals experience in flight, for a total of n = 97 perching and obstacle avoidance flights. I characterise the birds' gaze strategies around the landing perch and the obstacles, and discuss possible explanations as to why these strategies may be advantageous. Overall, my thesis demonstrates a novel and reliable method of investigating avian vision in flight and opens up new avenues for data-driven models of animal behaviour.
Derek Walcott's early writing (1948-1962): a critical reading
Keywords: diffusionism
1960s
poetry
Derek Walcott
global modernism
derivation
1940s
influence
writing back
cross-cultural
Caribbean
early writing
tidalectics
Japonisme
Anglophone
1950s
imitation
Juvenilia

This thesis offers a critical reading of the poetry and drama Derek Walcott composed between 1948 and 1962. It contends that Walcott’s positions on imitation, hybridity and mimicry were influenced by his reading at school and changed little as he aged, but that the narrative currently employed to conceptualise his artistic trajectory has distorted this continuity. Largely comprising imitations of Anglo-European texts produced in the context of a self-avowed apprenticeship, his early writing was celebrated for its maturity and virtuosity in the 1940s and ’50s. However, it was retrospectively denigrated by detractors at the University of the West Indies in the 1960s and ’70s who framed it as beholden to Europe. Walcott defended his poetics amidst this criticism, but when discussions of hybridity’s positive potential gained critical currency in the West from the 1980s onwards, this earlier defence was misunderstood as a shift towards embracing Africa by scholars who could no longer access his earliest work. This gave rise to the idea that he departed from an overreliance on European writing in the early 1970s and developed an increasingly hybrid aesthetic thereafter. That narrative was generalised in the 1990s to formulate a model for Caribbean literature, which was then employed to theorise more widely about the interrelationship between modernist and postcolonial literatures.
By revisioning miscomprehensions about Walcott’s early work through a series of targeted close readings, the thesis challenges the predominant narrative for Caribbean literary history and probes the complex points of intersection that exist between metropolitan and peripheral literatures. In particular, it employs Walcott’s early work as a case study to evaluate the four most popular paradigms currently used to conceptualise global literary influence, which variously characterise the ideological traffic between centre and periphery in terms of cross-cultural osmotic diffusion, anti-imperial antagonism, regional polymodernity, and coeval anti-capitalism. Ultimately, it advocates the development of a “tidalectic” Caribbean literary historiography grounded in regionally specific notions of influence and spatiotemporality.
On the formation of singularities for the compressible Euler equations
Keywords: hyperbolic systems
compress Euler equations
PDEs

The purpose of this thesis is to study the phenomenon of singularity formation in large data problems for C^1 solutions to the Cauchy problem of the compressible Euler equations. The classical theory established by P. D. Lax in 1964 (J. Math. Phys. 5: 611-614) shows that, for 2x2 hyperbolic systems, the break-down of C^1 solutions occurs in finite time if initial data contain any compression in some truly nonlinear characteristic field under some additional conditions, which include genuine nonlinearity and the strict positivity of the difference between two corresponding eigenvalues. These strong structural assumptions mean that it is highly non-trivial to apply this theory to archetypal systems of conservation laws, such as the (1+1)-dimensional relativistic Euler equations.
Actually, in the (1+1)–dimensional spacetime setting, if the mass-energy density rho does not vanish initially at any finite point, the essential difficulty in considering the possible break-down is coming up with a way to obtain sharp enough control on the lower bound for rho.
In Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, we consider the (1+1)–dimensional isentropic Euler equations in both classical and relativistic settings. We will establish a sufficiently sharp lower bound of rho, and show Lax's theory indeed holds for these systems. Furthermore, we will give a better lower bound of rho, at the expense of restricting the class of initial data further.
In Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, we consider the (1+1)–dimensional non-isentropic Euler equations in both classical and relativistic settings. As the non-isentropic Euler equations are 3x3 systems, Lax's theory no longer directly applies. Instead, we will establish a sufficiently sharp lower bound of rho, and give a sufficient condition for the solution to break down in finite time.
In Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, we consider the multidimensional isentropic Euler equations with spherical symmetry in both classical and relativistic settings. With spherical symmetry, the system will have a singularity at the origin. To bypass this, we consider a specific set of initial data such that the local existence and uniqueness result can be established. Same as in the non-isentropic case, we will give a sufficient condition for the solution to break down in finite time.