VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The mythopoetics of debt: exploring the works of Ismail Kadare
Keywords: debt
Ismail Kadare
national identity
Albanianness
mythopoetics

This thesis examines the novels of the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare. It studies four novels: Les Tambours de la pluie [Kështjella], Qui a ramené Doruntine ? [Kush e solli Doruntinën], Le Général de l’armée morte [Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur], and Le Palais des rêves [Pallati i Ëndrrave]. The methodological angle of this thesis is two-fold. It investigates the formal devices of repetition, circularity and intertextuality in these texts, but it does so with the aim of exploring one central thematic complex: the idea of Albanian identity as it is imagined and refracted through a variety of perspectives in the novels. This dual methodological perspective―textual and thematic―also means that the aim of this thesis is two-fold. It makes a contribution to scholarship on Kadare by demonstrating a formal and thematic coherence within some of his major works. It also makes a contribution to a wider context of critical and scholarly discourse on the Balkans. First, the intervention I make in this field is characterised by the decision to follow Kadare in his predominantly national, rather than a more broadly regional, perspective. In his works, this national perspective is self-reflexive. As his novels show in their rewriting of historical events and salient elements of folk morality, a reflection upon national identity is part of the national identity of Albania.
Second, and in continuity with this emphasis on self-reflexivity, the perspective that this thesis presents on cultural themes is always textual: it examines how themes are embedded in stories and how they become reinterpreted by narrative. Across this corpus of texts, and from the perspective of a movement from history to modernist abstraction, this thesis shows a fundamental continuity in Kadare’s artistic concern with questioning Albanian identity.
Ethics-based auditing of automated decision-making systems: considerations, challenges, na
Keywords: transparency
auditing
fairness
automated decision-making systems
regulation
ethics
policy
artificial intelligence
accountability
safety
governance

Decisions impacting human lives and livelihoods are increasingly being automated. While the use of automated decision-making systems (ADMS) improves efficiency, it is coupled with ethical risks. Previous research has pointed towards ethics-based auditing (EBA) as a promising governance mechanism for managing the ethical risks ADMS pose. However, the affordances and limitations of EBA have yet to be substantiated by empirical research.
This thesis seeks to clarify and resolve fundamental questions surrounding EBA. What are the limitations of EBA? How can feasible and effective EBA procedures be designed? These questions are approached on three levels. The conceptual level concerns what EBA is and how it works. The descriptive level focuses on the challenges organisations face when implementing EBA. The applied level concerns how to design EBA procedures that are feasible and effective in practice.
This is an integrated thesis, in which the substantive chapters (3–7) are based on published journal articles. Chapter 3 provides a theoretical explanation of how EBA contributes to good governance; Chapter 4 presents new empirical data from a case study of a real-world EBA implementation; Chapter 5 analyses the role of auditing in the proposed EU AI Act; Chapter 6 provides guidance on how to demarcate the material scope of EBA; and Chapter 7 outlines a blueprint for how to audit ADMS with highly general capabilities.
My findings suggest that EBA is subject to significant conceptual, technical, and institutional limitations. However, they also indicate that EBA – if properly designed and implemented – helps organisations identify and mitigate some of the ethical risks ADMS pose. I conclude by providing recommendations for how researchers, industry practitioners, auditors, and policymakers can facilitate the emergence of feasible and effective EBA procedures. This thesis thereby serves the purpose of better equipping societies to reap the benefits of ADMS while managing the associated risks.
Las cient novelas de Juan Bocacio: a critical edition of the medieval Castilan translation of Boccaccio's Decameron
Keywords: Castilian
Decameron
medieval
translation
critical edition

This thesis is a critical edition of the fifteenth-century Castilian translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron, based on Alberto Blecua’s neo-Lachmannian methodology: the first part presents the results of the recensio process, and the second is the critically edited text with the critical apparatus and linguistic variants. Due to the length of the text and the attention to detail required when preparing a critical edition, this thesis covers the first half of the text in the printed tradition (tabla, prologue, introduction and novelle I-LI).
The introduction provides the necessary contextual information, covering the Italian textual tradition of the Decameron, Boccaccio and the Decameron in Spain and other contemporary translations of the Decameron across Europe. Chapter 1 focuses on the Castilian translation, namely the questions addressed in previous scholarship and the obstacles encountered. Here I provide my first hypotheses as to the nature of the relationship between the two earliest witnesses, alongside a preliminary collatio externa. Chapter 2 provides the fontes criticae, in which I describe the material condition and ownership history of all seventeen exemplars, which sheds light on how and why this text was preserved. Chapter 3 presents the results of the collatio process: the examinatio and selectio phase of neo-Lachmannian textual criticism. Through the construction of a stemma codicum, I determine the archetype that should be reconstructed and the relationship between the printed editions of the text. Chapter 4 considers the linguistic variation in the printed tradition, which serves as a case study for this key period in the history of Spanish, and also provides evidence that negates common assumptions made about editorial practices. The conclusion lays the groundwork for further study in this field, including the literary value of the Castilian translation, as well as the implications for the reception of the Decameron in early modern Spain.
Conjunctive query answering over unrestricted OWL 2 ontologies
Keywords: HermiT
CQ
CQ answering
ontology
OWL
PAGOdA
conjunctive query

Conjunctive query (CQ) answering is one of the primary reasoning tasks over knowledge bases (KBs). However, when considering expressive description logics (DLs), query answering can be computationally very expensive; reasoners for CQ answering, although heavily optimized, often sacrifice expressive power of the input ontology or completeness of the computed answers in order to achieve tractability and scalability for the problem. In this work, we present a hybrid query answering architecture that combines black-box services to provide a CQ answering service for OWL (Web Ontology Language). Specifically, it combines scalable CQ answering services for tractable languages with a CQ answering service for a more expressive language approaching the full OWL 2. If the query can be fully answered by one of the tractable services, then that service is used. Otherwise, the tractable services are used to compute lower and upper bound approximations, taking the union of the lower bounds and the intersection of the upper bounds. If the bounds do not coincide, then the “gap” answers are checked using the “full” service. These techniques led to the development of two new systems: (i) RSAComb, an efficient implementation of a new tractable answering service for the RSA (role safety acyclic) ontology language; (ii) ACQuA, a reference implementation of the proposed hybrid architecture combining RSAComb, PAGOdA (Zhou, Cuenca Grau, Nenov, et al. 2015), and HermiT (Glimm, Horrocks, Motik, et al. 2014) to provide a CQ answering service for OWL. Our extensive evaluation shows how the additional computational cost introduced by reasoning over a more expressive language like RSA can still provide a significant improvement compared to relying on a fully-fledged reasoner. Additionally, we showed how ACQuA can reliably match PAGOdA’s performance and further limit its performance issues, especially when the latter extensively relies on the underlying fully-fledged reasoner.
Estimating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of body weight interventions for the prevention of non-communicable disease in local authority areas of England
Keywords: disease prevention
non-communicable disease
health economics
obesity
public health

Background
Non-Communicable Diseases related to Body Mass Index (BMI) account for approximately 10% of all disease burden in England. Addressing this burden and its associated health inequalities are major challenges for local and national policymakers, with increasing need to also understand how BMI interventions might affect local areas differently. The aim was set to develop a new local authority-level health model to estimate the disease burden and healthcare cost implications of BMI interventions.
Methods
Diseases included in the new model were asthma, low back pain, osteoarthritis of the hip, osteoarthritis of the knee, Ischaemic Heart Disease, stroke, hypertensive heart disease, type-2 diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation/ flutter, colorectal cancer, breast cancer and oesophageal cancer. Local-level data were estimated via different approaches: adult BMI distributions were produced via individual-level synthetic estimation, child BMI distributions were interpolated from measured BMI and healthcare costs estimated using new high-quality cost collection data. Disease epidemiology was estimated at the Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile level using a Bayesian modelling tool. A scenario on restricting television advertising of unhealthy foods in each of 315 local authorities in England was then used to explore the new model’s capabilities.
Findings
Patterns to adult and child BMI supported conventional ideas that raised BMI is associated with age and deprivation. Healthcare costs formed very positively skewed distributions without an obvious geographic pattern. Disease epidemiology showed burden was broadly higher in more deprived quintiles.
Modelling showed that restricting the advertising of unhealthy foods is likely to benefit more deprived areas more overall, but with overlaps between quintiles of deprivation. It is estimated that 0.0222-0.0521 Quality-Adjusted Life-Years per person could be saved over the lifetime of the 2018 population of children and £11.7-£42.8 per person in healthcare costs.
Conclusions
This model offers the most local-specific health modelling for BMI interventions in England. Some areas may be harder to reach with a given intervention, creating mismatch between need and ability to intervene.
The roles of phosphocholine expressed on NTHi bacteria and host CRP in acute otitis media
Keywords: regulatory T cells
acute otitis media
innate
non-typeable haemophilus influenzae
middle ear
macrophages

Otitis Media (OM) is inflammation of the middle ear (ME). Non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is one of the leading otopathogens causing OM. Phosphocholine (PCho) on the NTHi lipopolysaccharide influences host-pathogen interaction. C-Reactive Protein (CRP), an acute phase protein, recognizes PCho and can mediate bacterial killing. However, some strains of NTHi survive well in the presence of CRP. We aimed to study the interaction of CRP with NTHi to understand its role in bacterial survival in acute OM (AOM). NTHi can efficiently infect the Junbo mouse, a characterised model of chronic and AOM. We developed a CRP ELISA that showed PCho off heptose III on NTHi surface enhanced CRP binding compared to PCho off heptose I. This increased interaction made the NTHi more susceptible to serum bactericidal killing. Gene expression analysis of macrophages infected with NTHi 375 strains confirmed that PCho influenced inflammatory cytokine gene expression whereby having no PCho or PCho off heptose III drove a M1 macrophage response. We inoculated the Junbo mouse with NTHi 375 strains and studied infection and immune responses at days 1-, 3- and 7- post NTHi inoculation. The highest levels of acute response were measured at 1-day post infection. A greater than 90% infection rate of the Junbo mouse was measured for NTHi bacteria expressing PCho compared to the PCho mutant, which had an infection rate of approximately 50%. Immune cell profiling of the innate and adaptive cells in the middle ear fluid (MEF), blood and nasal associated lymphoid tissue showed interesting cellular changes in response to PCho presence and position. NTHi promoted anti-inflammatory immune cell types in the MEF by activating M2-like macrophages and regulatory T cells. NTHi expressing PCho off heptose I survive in the MEF of the Junbo mouse even in the presence of a T cell cytokine/chemokine response. Together, these data confirm that the presence of CRP in the Junbo mouse MEF may not contribute to NTHi killing because it does not bind well to PCho off specific heptoses on the bacterial surface. Thus, NTHi bacteria can survive in the presence of CRP dependent upon the presence and position of PCho on their surface-expressed LPS.
A reassessment of the significance of the life and work of George Savile 1st Marquis of Halifax, 1633-95
Keywords: trimming
trimmer
Marquis of Halifax

This thesis studies the career and political writings of George Savile, 1st Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695). Halifax played a significant role in the politics of Restoration England. An opposition politician who broke with the earl of Shaftesbury over the issue of Exclusion, he helped to ensure James II succeeded to the throne in 1685. After decisively intervening in the Revolution he proffered the Crown to William and Mary, under whom he served as Lord Privy Seal. His interventions in the politics of the period, though sporadic, were decisive, and helped to avert the three interlinked catastrophes he truly feared: renewed civil war, the destruction of European Protestantism, and the collapse of England into tyranny. An active politician he also wrote widely: seven of his pamphlets were published during his life, and he left a variety of unpublished notes and maxims. Known in subsequent centuries as ‘The Trimmer’ he has been depicted as an advocate of moderation. Despite his importance the only significant biography of him dates from 1898 and although a magisterial edition of his works was published in 1989 he has subsequently received comparatively little attention.
The thesis makes three arguments. First that Halifax was committed to comprehending Presbyterians within the Church of England, and therefore sits within an element of mainstream religious thought in Restoration England. Deeply concerned about the fate of Reformed Christians in continental Europe, his religious sentiments influenced his views on foreign policy. Second, that situating his writings within contemporary discourses on republicanism shows his sympathy with such ideas. His 1680 Limitations proposal would have effectively reduced the English monarch to a ‘Duke of Venice’. Third, that his disillusionment with the aftermath of the 1688 Revolution demonstrates his concern that the power of the nobility was being eclipsed by economic and military changes.
New approaches to treating cancer using immune-checkpoint blockade
Keywords: immuno-oncology
PD-1
antibody
immune-checkpoint blockade
CD200R

While immune-checkpoint blockade has truly revolutionised cancer treatment in many aspects, the benefits remain limited to certain tumour types. Furthermore, within those tumours that are likely to improve upon treatment, only a fraction of patients actually respond, which highlights the need for novel approaches to enhance this therapy. The work outlined in this thesis aimed to address this issue by employing two distinct strategies to improve on PD-1 blockade using the clinically-approved antibody nivolumab. As anti-PD-1 antibodies mostly act on T cells, the first approach trialled a new combination therapy comprising nivolumab mIgG1 and OX108, a CD200R blocking antibody. CD200R is an inhibitory immune receptor preferentially expressed on myeloid cells and, therefore, blocking PD-1 and CD200R should reactivate T cells and myeloid cells simultaneously. While the PD-1 blockade resistant model LLC1 did not exhibit any improvements upon combination therapy, the sensitive model MC38 produced a trend towards more complete responses, which might be linked to the expression of CD200 on these cells. The second strategy focused on improving the design of monoclonal antibodies used for immune-checkpoint blockade in order to enhance their efficacy. Based on the kinetic segregation model for receptor triggering, a potential agonistic effect of nivolumab mIgG1 on PD-1 was investigated, a phenomenon that should be reduced upon increasing the size of the receptor/antibody/FcγR complex. While nivolumab mIgG1 indeed exhibited FcγR-dependent agonistic activity in vitro, this could be diminished by (i) employing two different approaches to extend nivolumab mIgG1 or (ii) mutation of the FcγR-binding domain (nivolumab mIgG1 D265A). Intriguingly, whereas the extended antibodies produced a significantly decreased enrichment of PD-1 in ‘close contacts’ compared to nivolumab mIgG1 D265A, this did not translate into an increased T-cell activation. Finally, nivolumab mIgG1 D265A exhibited increased efficacy in the MC38 colorectal cancer model compared to nivolumab mIgG1, in accordance with previous studies investigating the confounding effects of FcγR binding on anti-PD-1 antibodies.
Enhancing microstructural specificity in diffusion MRI analysis
Keywords: MRI Methods
brain white matter
diffusion MRI
microstructural modelling

Enclosed within a protective bony shell, the human brain poses a significant challenge for direct physical examination. Therefore, non-invasive methods, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), have become very important tools for exploring the brain’s structure and functionality. Nevertheless, these indirect techniques are not without their limitations, notably a lack of specificity. Although they are sensitive to microstructural variations, their capacity to link changes in signals to meaningful biophysical processes is limited. Microstructural modelling has risen to address this problem, offering a means to correlate these otherwise abstract measurements with meaningful biophysical parameters. However, as the complexity of these models, either in terms of geometry or physical properties, improves, so does the number of free parameters required, posing a substantial challenge for reliable parameter estimation. This thesis seeks to address two substantial issues within the field of microstructural modelling of diffusion MRI data. Firstly, it proposes a novel approach to identify the microstructural parameter alterations that can explain observed differences in diffusion MRI between diseased and control group. This approach enables the application of highly specific models without the associated concerns about parameter estimation. Secondly, it advocates for the development of a tool that extracts fibre-specific features from diffusion MRI data in a manner that promotes comparability across different subjects, facilitated by the use of hierarchical Bayesian models. By offering these approaches to analyze diffusion MRI data, this research aims to circumventing the constraints imposed by existing microstructural modeling techniques, thus improve the precision of brain structure diagnosis and comprehension.
Multistability and switching dynamics in vascular networks
Keywords: fluid mechanics
stochasticity
Haematocrit
networks
multistability
rheology
red blood cells
microcirculation

The formation of regions of low oxygen concentration, or hypoxia, within tumours is a hallmark of many types of cancer. Oxygen starvation of cancerous cells within tumours creates an environment that causes tumours to become more aggressive and more resistant to treatment. Hypoxia within tumours is described as chronic or cycling. Chronic-hypoxia describes permanently hypoxic regions of tissue, and cycling-hypoxia describes short term fluctuations of hypoxia. Counterintuitively, the short term application of oxygen to hypoxic regions does not reverse the negative impact of hypoxia and in many cases exacerbates the negative health impacts associated with hypoxia. A recent hypothesis for the formation of chronic-hypoxia based on the equilibria of steady-state models of blood flow in vasculature networks has been computationally verified. Blood flow within the vasculature dictates the distribution of RBCs (Red Blood Cells) within a tumour, and if the distribution of RBCs for a blood flow equilibrium is asymmetric and uneven, then the tissue surrounding vessels with fewer RBCs suffers hypoxia.
Our goal for this thesis is to expand upon blood flow models to propose a possible mechanistic explanation for the formation of cycling-hypoxia. We propose a model of blood flow switching between multiple stable equilibria of vascular networks. In this thesis we link the existence of multiple equilibria with the change in the flow direction in network motifs. After demonstrating the importance of flow direction for the existence of multiple equilibria, we show that stochastic fluctuations of RBC partitioning at vessel junctions can force the blood flow in vasculature to change direction, resulting in the blood flow switching between stable equilibria. We hypothesise that this switching of the blood flow between at least two equilibria may result in part of a tumour being exposed to cycles of normoxic and hypoxic conditions.
The Roman army in Syria, Judaea and Arabia
Keywords: Syria
Rome
Arabia
Judaea
Romans
Arabian Peninsula
West Bank
Roman Army

I have attempted to answer three questions in this thesis. Firstly, what was the identity of the garrisons of Syria, Judaea and Arabia from the reign of Augustus to the end of the fourth century? Secondly, what were the dispositions of these troops and the implications of these dispositions? In the first two chapters I discuss the evidence for the units in garrison in Syria and trace their changing role as Syria was pacified and Roman power expanded eastwards, gradually but relentlessly until the mid-third century, recovering under Diocletian but relapsing into a defensive posture by c. AD 400. ‘In chapters four, five and seven I examine the best-attested armies of the client-kings who ruled Judaea and its environs and those of the Roman provinces of Judaea, later Syria-Palaestine, and Arabia and trace their changing role from armies of pacification to forces of frontier defence.
I have thirdly, in chapters three, six and eight, examined recruitment to the auxilia of the provincial armies during the same period. Most commanders in Syria under the Julio-Claudian emperors came from Italy or Augustan colonies. By the later first century they are coming from the more civilised provinces of the empire and by the third century from Syria itself. Our slight evidence for Judaea and Arabia suggests similar trends, with evidence for local commanders in Arabia in the fourth century. A not inconsiderable proportion of the soldiers these officers commanded were during the early first century drawn from the west and, despite increasing local recruitment, recruits from outside Syria continued to be sent during the second century. Severus recruited on a vast scale from the east but local forces continued in the fourth century to be supplemented by units from the west.
In my concluding chapter nine I outline the development of the frontier in the light of my work and present my findings on recruitment against the background of evidence for legionary recruitment in the east and for auxiliary recruitment in the rest of the empire.