VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The politics of interpretation: language, philosophy, and authority in the Carolingian Empire (775-820)
Keywords: Medieval history
Charlemagne
Christian philosophy
philosophy
language
Carolingians

Is language a tool of empire or is empire a tool of language? This thesis examines the cultivation of Carolingian hegemony on a pan-European scale; one defined by a renewed interest in the study of language and its relationship to Carolingian eagerness for moral and spiritual authority. Intended to complement previous work on Carolingian cultural politics, this thesis reiterates the emergence of active philosophical speculation during the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Prior research has ignored the centrality of linguistic hermeneutics in the Carolingian literate programme. This thesis addresses this lacuna, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between spirituality, language, and politics within the Carolingian world.
The work appropriates prior investigations into the connection of semiotics and Christian philosophy and proposes the development of a renewed interest into ontology and epistemology by Carolingian scholars, notably Alcuin of York and Theodulf of Orléans. The correlation between linguistic philosophy and spiritual authority is confirmed by the 794 Synod of Frankfurt, at which accusations towards both the Adoptionist movement of northern Spain and the repeal of Byzantine Iconoclasm were based on the dangers of linguistic misinterpretation. The thesis also explores the manifestation of this emergent philosophy of language within the manuscript evidence, witnessed by the biblical pandects produced by Alcuin and Theodulf. Desire for the emendation of texts, not to mention the formation of a uniform script (Caroline Minuscule), abetted the larger goal of both infusing a text with authority (both secular and divine) and allowing for broader spiritual and intellectual understanding of a text. Increasing engagement with classical philosophy and rhetoric, the nature of Carolingian biblical revision, and the cultural politics as seen at the Synod of Frankfurt depict the primacy of language to the Carolingians, not only as a tool of imperialism, but the axis of their intellectual and spiritual world.
Developing gene knockdown-replacement therapies for spinocerebellar ataxia type 7
Keywords: miRNA
Mirtrons
Neurodegenerative disease
SCA7
Spinocerebellar Ataxia
Gene Therapy

For many dominant diseases, conventional treatment options are limited. This makes them attractive candidates for gene therapy, which may be directed to specifically silence a disease-causing allele. However, many mutations are not easily amenable to this technique, including nucleotide repeat expansions, which cause numerous neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease and several Spinocerebellar Ataxias. Combined gene knockdown and replacement (K&R;) may present a more practical approach for such conditions, whereby the gene of interest is subject to mutation-independent non-allele-specific silencing and concurrently replaced with a functional copy. Artificial mimics of naturally occurring intronic microRNAs are theoretically ideal for this purpose, since they can be nested within the replacement gene. This thesis investigates the development of mimics of two different intronic miRNA systems (mirtron miR-1224 and the miR-106b cluster) to silence Ataxin-7 and to be incorporated into novel single K&R; constructs for testing in vitro. Artificial mirtrons and intronic miRNAs were successfully developed and shown to silence Ataxin-7 mRNA in numerous cell lines. An RNAi-resistant gene was developed and mirtrons could be successfully incorporated as introns. Patient-derived fibroblasts and iPSC-derived neuronal cells were investigated as models for testing of gene silencing therapies. This work suggests that mirtron-based K&R; is achievable, and warrants further investigation.
Free-space optical communications with retro-reflecting acquisition and turbulence compensation
Keywords: SLM
retroreflector
atmosphere
communication
turbulence
holography
optical

Free-space optics (FSO), or wireless optical communications, has received extensive research due to its promise of practically limitless bandwidths. However, FSO has challenges yet to be met for a cost effective realisation. This D.Phil thesis explores a solution using a ferro-electric liquid crystal spatial light modulator (FLC SLM) and binary phase holograms to significantly reduce the hardware complexity of an FSO system with auto-alignment and turbulence compensation.
The theory of binary phase hologram is presented and extended to obtain a new algorithm that is suitable for a FLC SLM. The algorithm is able to be used in a demonstration system to broadcast data streams to multiple receivers, showing the capability of using FLC SLM to form any beam configuration. An FSO transmitter is then developed that uses retro-reflectors as markers for the receivers. The transmitter combines an imaging system with the FLC SLM as a reconfigurable beam steering system for acquiring the retro-reflector location. The FLC SLM is also used to reduce aberrations in the optics, resulting in a significant increase in the transmitted beam power density. The accuracy of the acquisition is measured to give a small steering error without the use of a closed loop controller.
An optical turbulence simulator, using the principals of binary phase hologram, is constructed to simulate optical beam propagation in turbulent conditions. The simulator accurately produces aberrations that have the same statistics with the theoretical prediction. Analysis of the phase distortion due to turbulence is performed and a wavefront sensorless turbulence compensation method based on the FLC SLM gives significant reduction in calculated bit error rates. New scintillation index derivation for multiple optical beams is described and then used to demonstrate further decrease in bit error rates.
Housing needs: power, subjectivity and public housing in England, 1920-1970
Keywords: council housing
social housing
governmentality
welfare state
Britain

This thesis addresses two key questions: First, how did those involved in the provision of public housing in twentieth-century England conceptualise the people who they were providing houses for? Second, how did their ideas change over time?
These questions are important and need answering because, although there has been a great deal written about the history of public housing in England, there has up until now been very little thought given to the manner in which the council estate tenants themselves were actually identified and conceptualised as subjects in need of state-funded housing. My thesis begins to redress this imbalance by providing an overview of the changing forms and practices through which prospective tenants were conceptualised and acted upon by those in positions of power in England between 1920 and 1970. Using records from local authority archives, sociological surveys, architectural and town planning journals, central government publications, Mass Observation reports and tenant handbooks, and focusing primarily on council estates in London, Manchester and Sheffield, it shows how ideas about what prospective tenants needed from their homes changed dramatically over the course of this period, with the narrowly sanitary and biopolitical approaches of the 1920s and 1930s increasingly being challenged and complemented by a host of new ideas and discourses which placed far more emphasis upon the prospective tenant’s emotional, social and personal needs. As such, this thesis not only adds substantially to our understanding of the changes that took place in the English public housing sector between 1920 and 1970, but also adds to the burgeoning literature on questions of governmentality; contributing in the process to our understandings of modern modes of power.
Studies of earthquakes and microearthquakes using near-field seismic and geodetic observations
Keywords: GPS
geodesy
microseismicity
earthquakes
geophysics

The Centroid--Moment Tensor (CMT) method allows an optimal point-source description of an earthquake to be recovered from a set of seismic observations, and, for over 30 years, has been routinely applied to determine the location and source mechanism of teleseismically recorded earthquakes. The CMT approach is, however, entirely general: any measurements of seismic displacement fields could, in theory, be used within the CMT inversion formulation, so long as the treatment of the earthquake as a point source is valid for that data. We modify the CMT algorithm to enable a variety of near-field seismic observables to be inverted for the source parameters of an earthquake.
The first two data types that we implement are provided by Global Positioning System receivers operating at sampling frequencies of 1,Hz and above. When deployed in the seismic near field, these instruments may be used as long-period--strong-motion seismometers, recording displacement time series that include the static offset. We show that both the displacement waveforms, and static displacements alone, can be used to obtain CMT solutions for moderate-magnitude earthquakes, and that performing analyses using these data may be useful for earthquake early warning.
We also investigate using waveform recordings --- made by conventional seismometers deployed at the surface, or by geophone arrays placed in boreholes --- to determine CMT solutions, and their uncertainties, for microearthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing. A similar waveform inversion approach could be applied in many other settings where induced seismicity and microseismicity occurs.
Retrieval of atmospheric structure and composition of exoplanets from transit spectroscopy
Keywords: exoplanets
hot Jupiters
optimal estimation
retrieval
transit spectroscopy

Recent spectroscopic observations of transiting exoplanets have permitted the derivation of the thermal structure and molecular abundances of H2O, CO, CO2, CH4, metallic oxides and alkali metals in these extreme atmospheres. Here, for the first time, a fully-fledged retrieval algorithm has been applied to exoplanet spectra to determine the thermal structure and composition. The development of a suite of radiative transfer and retrieval tools for exoplanet atmospheres is described, building upon an optimal estimation retrieval algorithm extensively used in solar system studies. Firstly, the collection of molecular line lists and the pre-tabulation of the absorption coefficients (k-distribution tables) for high temperature application are discussed. Secondly, the best-fit spectra for hot Jupiters are demonstrated and discussed case by case. Available sets of primary and secondary transit observations of exoplanets are used to retrieve atmospheric properties from these spectra, quantifying the limits of our knowledge of exoplanetary atmospheres based on the current quality of the data. The contribution functions and the vertical sensitivity to the molecules are fully utilised to interpret these spectra, probing the structure and composition of the atmosphere. Finally, the retrievals provide our best estimates of the thermal and compositional structure to date, using the covariance matrices to properly assess the degeneracy between different parameters and the uncertainties on derived quantities for the first time. This sheds light on the range of diverse interpretations offered by other authors so far, and allows us to scrutinise further atmospheric features by maximising the capability of the current retrieval algorithm and to demonstrate the need for broadband spectroscopy from future missions.
Exploration, exploitation & complexity in biological evolution and self-assembly
Keywords: landscapes
search processes
genetic algorithms
self-assembly
Evolutionary dynamics

Self-assembly --- by which ordered structures spontaneously emerge from disordered components --- and biological evolution --- by which Charles Darwin's "endless forms most beautiful" have emerged from the simple chemistry of prehistoric Earth --- may both be pictured as search processes on high-dimensional landscapes, defined respectively by the concepts of energy and fitness. The rich dynamics of these search processes will be studied in order to explain biologically observed features of self-assembly and evolution.
This study will introduce and analyse the behaviour of a model for a paradigmatic example of self-assembly, the icosahedral virus capsid, a symmetric structure formed from interacting protein subunits. Results for the thermodynamics and kinetics of model virus assembly will be presented, and the model will be extended to include complicating effects such as different subunit types and cellular crowding. A more general formalism for analysing self-assembling systems will then be introduced and used to suggest a well-defined complexity measure of universal applicability to self-assembled structures.
The biological evolution of simple self-assembling structures will be studied using genetic algorithms. The suitability of this modelling approach and its dependence on the many parameters involved will be investigated. Several active areas of enquiry in the field of evolution, including the evolution of complexity, the presence and effect of neutral networks, fluctuations in evolutionary time series and the emergence of symmetry will be investigated within this framework.
Throughout this study, we will use the picture of "exploration and exploitation": different approaches to performing optimisation on an unknown landscape, essentially corresponding to a random search and a hill-climbing approach respectively . We will show that, both in self-assembly and evolution, finding an optimal combination of these two approaches gives rise to many of the observed features in this study.
St. Paul's Deuteronomy
Keywords: Second Temple Judaism
Apostle Paul
biblical interpretation
Deuteronomy
Old Testament in the New

Amid the recent turn to Paul’s reading of Scripture, the role Deuteronomy plays in his letters has generally been examined in individual citations without regard to the larger role Deuteronomy plays in Paul’s letters, or with an exclusive focus on either the theological or the ethical importance of Deuteronomy for Paul. In contrast, this study argues that Paul read Deuteronomy with three interlocking construals (as ethical authority, as theological authority, as an interpretation of Israel’s history), each equally basic. These construals can be combined to achieve a sense of the shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy as a whole. In order to ascertain and specify these construals, Paul’s engagement with Deuteronomy is examined as an instance of Jewish engagement with the book. Part I, therefore, supplies the historical conditions of Paul’s and other Jewish authors’ encounter with the scroll of Deuteronomy (Chap 2). On this basis, Part II proceeds to survey the major Jewish interpreters of Deuteronomy from the 3rd c. BCE to the 3rd c. CE (Chaps. 3-8). Because Paul is himself a Jewish author, this study foregoes the traditional bi-partite thesis division into “background” and Paul, opting instead to see Paul as one in a chain of Jews who turned to Deuteronomy to make sense of the present. These chapters thus also provide a sustained analysis of Deuteronomy’s broader effective history in Second Temple Jewish writings – and, in a few cases, beyond. In light of the range of interpretations to which Deuteronomy was susceptible, the concluding chapter examines what is distinctive about the shape of Paul’s Deuteronomy and what contribution this may make to debates on Pauline theology and to the study of Second Temple Jewish biblical interpretation.
Labour market insecurity and family relations in the United Kingdom
Keywords: Partnership Formation
Well-being
Labour Market Insecurity
Partnership Dissolution
Life Course
Temporary Work
Transition into Parenthood
Unemployment

This thesis investigates how the experience of labour market insecurity affects individuals’ life courses and family lives in the UK. It focuses on unemployment and temporary work as the two sources of insecurity and examines their consequences on partnership formation, transition into parenthood, the well-being within family, and partnership dissolution. It follows a longitudinal approach and uses a sample from the BHPS. The results showed that unemployment has serious negative consequences for individuals’ family outcomes. Temporary work also has some negative outcomes, particularly for the vulnerable groups. Unemployment and temporary employment seem to discourage young adults to form marital unions, whereas especially for the young and non-married men unemployment increased the risk of fatherhood. Temporary work has a similar effect for those with no educational qualification, who are more likely to have their first child. Unemployed individuals and their spouses report a drop in their life-satisfaction, psychological well-being and are more likely to feel depressed, and they face a greater risk of marital separation. Male temporary work is associated with poorer well-being for the low-skilled employees and those who report subjective job insecurity. The wives of men working on temporary contracts also suffer from a decline in the well-being. The thesis also looked into the consequences of insecurity at the couple level. Contrary to our initial assumption, dual-insecurity - where both of the spouses are in insecure employment - does not have the strongest effect on the family. Rather, role-reversal between the spouses has the largest impact for family outcomes. When a male partner is unemployed and the female partner is employed, or when the male partner is working on temporary basis and the female partner is working on permanent basis, then the couple delays transition into parenthood, it suffers from a decline in the well-being, and it is more likely to separate.
Simulation of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory neutral current detectors
Keywords: SNO
Monte Carlo
neutrino
proportional counter

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), a heavy water Cherenkov experiment, was designed to detect solar Boron-8 neutrinos via their elastic scattering interactions on electrons, or charged current and neutral current (NC) interactions on deuterium. In the third phase of SNO, an array of Helium-3 proportional counters was deployed to detect neutrons produced in NC interactions.
A simulation of the current pulses and energy spectra of the main kinds of ionization events inside these Neutral Current Detectors (NCDs) was developed. To achieve this, electron drift times in NCDs were evaluated with a Monte Carlo method, and constrained by using wire alpha activity inside the counters. The pulse calculation algorithm applies to any ionization event, and takes into account processes such as straggling, electron diffusion, and propagation through the NCD hardware. A space charge model was developed to fully explain the energy spectra of neutron and alpha events. Comparisons with data allowed the various classes of alpha backgrounds to be identified, and gave evidence for the spatial non-uniformity of Uranium-238 and Thorium-232 chain nuclei in the counter walls.
The simulation was applied to determine the fractional contents of the main types of alpha backgrounds in each NCD string. The number of neutron capture events in the array was extracted via a statistical separation, using Monte Carlo generated alpha background pulse shape parameter distributions and minimal energy information. The inferred total Boron-8 solar neutrino flux is:
ΦNC< = 5.74 ± 0.77 (stat) ± 0.39 (sys) x 106 cm-2s-1
in agreement with Standard Solar predictions and previous SNO results.
A decision support system for the reading of ancient documents
Keywords: e-science
humanities IT
Roman Britain
decision support system
cognition
artificial intelligence
digital humanities
regular expressions

The research presented in this thesis is based in the Humanities discipline of Ancient History and begins by attempting to understand the interpretation process involved in reading ancient documents and how this process can be aided by computer systems such as Decision Support Systems (DSS). The thesis balances between the use of IT tools to aid Humanities research and the understanding that Humanities research must involve human beings. It does not attempt to develop a system that can automate the reading of ancient documents. Instead it seeks to demonstrate and develop tools that can support this process in the five areas: remembering complex reasoning, searching huge datasets, international collaboration, publishing editions, and image enhancement.
This research contains a large practical element involving the development of a DSS prototype. The prototype is used to illustrate how a DSS, by remembering complex reasoning, can aid the process of interpretation that is reading ancient documents. It is based on the idea that the interpretation process goes through a network of interpretation. The network of interpretation illustrates a recursive process where scholars move between reading levels such as ‘these strokes look like the letter c’ or ‘these five letters must be the word primo’. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates how technology such as Web Services and XML can be used to make a DSS even more powerful through the development of the APPELLO word search Web Service. Finally, the conclusion includes a suggestion for a future development of a working DSS that incorporates the idea of a layer-based system and focuses strongly on user interaction.
Model-driven development of information systems
Keywords: database development
language of substitutions
workflows
model-based testing
model-driven development
object modelling
formal methods
information systems
precondition

The research presented in this thesis is aimed at developing reliable information systems through the application of model-driven and formal techniques. These are techniques in which a precise, formal model of system behaviour is exploited as source code. As such a model may be more abstract, and more concise, than source code written in a conventional programming language, it should be easier and more economical to create, to analyse, and to change. The quality of the model of the system can be ensured through certain kinds of formal analysis and fixed accordingly if necessary. Most valuably, the model serves as the basis for the automated generation or configuration of a working system.
This thesis provides four research contributions. The first involves the analysis of a proposed modelling language targeted at the model-driven development of information systems. Logical properties of the language are derived, as are properties of its compiled form---a guarded substitution notation. The second involves the extension of this language, and its semantics, to permit the description of workflows on information systems. Workflows described in this way may be analysed to determine, in advance of execution, the extent to which their concurrent execution may introduce the possibility of deadlock or blocking: a condition that, in this context, is synonymous with a failure to achieve the specified outcome. The third contribution concerns the validation of models written in this language by adapting existing techniques of software testing to the analysis of design models. A methodology is presented for checking model consistency, on the basis of a generated test suite, against the intended requirements. The fourth and final contribution is the presentation of an implementation strategy for the language, targeted at standard, relational databases, and an argument for its correctness, based on a simple, set-theoretic semantics for structure and operations.