VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Revising supply and demand: Women's electoral participation and performance where parties are diverse, personalism prevails, and corruption is commonplace

Keywords: corruption
vote buying
supply and demand
spatial analysis
rerun elections
political parties
Brazil
gender

This dissertation has two ambitions. First, it presents renovations to the Supply and Demand Model for analysing variation in women’s descriptive outcomes in elective office. It advances these by demonstrating their utility in assessments of Brazilian mayoral elections. Second, by clarifying that the model should be considered porous to external influence, the project pursues the empirical ambition of bringing spatial econometrics to the study of women’s representation in a context with thousands of contiguous voting districts, and a diversity of party institutionalisation on par with global variation. My main revisions to the Supply and Demand Model are the inclusion of proportional comparison with the represented (whereas the original framework began with party voters), and the redefinition of stages of recruitment prior to candidacy in de facto terms, by what is routinised. Defining stages by routinisation elasticises the model, enabling the nature and number of stages to vary, and to exist outside of the party. This perspective brings out a distinction between the single route towards candidacy of highly institutionalised parties—whether these parties adhere to written recruitment rules or not—and the multiple, parallel recruitment pathways of weakly institutionalised parties. The revised model is sensitive to shifts in gendered voter demand, which can affect outcomes in candidate-centric systems. By analysing data from randomised, municipal government audits, I find that the scale of violations by a male incumbent who is seeking re-election predicts female candidates’ vote share and women’s proportional candidacies, but only in municipalities with AM radio stations in certain later stages of an electoral cycle. A novel dataset of rerun elections adds weight to the argument that the activation of the female incorruptibility stereotype among voters is driving these changes. I then demonstrate that women’s candidacies and incumbencies generate interdependence and spillover effects, respectively, using various spatial model specifications.
Burden and trends in cancers of the breast in sub-Saharan Africa 
Keywords: Risk factors
epidemiology
Breast cancer
Africa
trends
Survival
population-based cancer registry
treatment
cancer registration
Incidence
sub-Saharan Africa
systematic review

Despite breast cancer (BC) being the most common cancer in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there is insufficient evidence on its temporal trends across the continent, and on reasons for differences in the cancer burden observed. This thesis sets out to describe the BC burden and trends in SSA. Specifically, it aims at describing incidence trends and survival patterns across SSA using population-level cancer registry data from the African Cancer Registry Network and to summarise the aetiologic research from SSA.
The temporal trends in BC incidence rates in women from 10 SSA countries over the last 15 years are described. There are rising incidence rates in all registries; however, these temporal trends are of different magnitudes. Trends in registries with the longest temporal data show rising incidence rates across successive birth cohorts of women aged 45+.
Reasons for the differences observed in the incidence trends are explored. A systematic review was carried out summarising the evidence from SSA on reproductive, anthropometric, and lifestyle risk factors. The associations observed are similar to Western studies, however, quality aetiological research has been conducted in less than 75% of SSA countries. The population-level prevalence of these risk factors are described.
The short-term relative survival outcomes of women diagnosed with BC across 12 African countries are also estimated. There are large survival differences across the continent. Late-stage at diagnosis and limited access to quality care are drivers of survival differences. More than two-thirds of women present at stages III/IV, and approximately 50% of women with non-metastatic BC receive inadequate or no cancer-directed therapy. However, there are challenges of incomplete records and high rates of loss to follow-up.
In conclusion, the BC burden is rising in SSA. It is imperative to improve timeliness of diagnosis, access to care, aetiologic research, and the quality of cancer surveillance.
Local inference of Morse indices using finite point samples
Keywords: Magnitude
Maximum Diversity
Mathematical Modelling
Graph Classification
Topological Data Analysis
Computational Topology
Applied Topology
Topological Inference
Morse Index

We consider a smooth function f : M → R on a Riemannian submanifold M embedded in an ambient Euclidean space Rd. We provide theoretical guarantees for inferring the Morse index of a compact, dynamically isolated critical set of f using a pair of finite point clouds X and X− in Rd, and detail sufficient conditions which X and X− have to satisfy. We also outline a realisable computational procedure for obtaining X and X− and inferring the Morse index.
In a separate study with Jacob Leygonie, we discuss how persistent homology and wavelet signatures can be applied to graph classification problems in machine learning. We construct a supervised learning model which backpropagates through persistent homology to optimise over the space of wavelet signatures. We then apply this model to several benchmark graph classification problems and obtain accuracies in line with state of the art models.
The final portion of this thesis investigates how maximum diversity, a notion of effective cardinality in geometric measure theory, can be applied to industrial applications of interest to Elsevier, who sponsor this DPhil. In particular, we apply maximum diversity to assess the multi-disciplinarity of a collection of EPSRC grants, which takes relations between topics and grants into account. We also derive a generalised notion of Jaccard similarity such that we can measure the topical similarity between two grants, leveraging the pairwise similarities between their associated topics. We give recommendations on further industrial applications of maximum diversity in Elsevier’s business.
Deep Reinforcement Learning in complex environments
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence
Deep Learning
Reinforcement Learning
Machine Learning

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), is becoming a popular and mature framework for learning to solve sequential decision making problems. The application of Deep Neural Networks, flexible and powerful function approximators, towards learning policies has effectively enabled RL to solve applications that were thought to be too difficult: from beating professional human players in hard games such as Go, to becoming the foundation for flexible embodied control. We explore what happens when one attempts to learn policies in environments that present complex dynamics and hard and structured tasks. As these environments provide challenges that lie fundamentally at the forefront what most state-of-the-art Reinforcement Learning methods try to tackle, they provide a general view of existing weaknesses, while also providing opportunities for improving the general framework as well as particular algorithms. Firstly, we study and develop methods for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, a setting in which multiple agents are interacting with an (often complex) environment and each other. The presence of multiple agents breaks some of the key assumptions that provide necessary stability to standard learning methods, creating unique and interesting problems. We test these methods by formulating a multi-agent version of the StarCraft micromanagement problem, an extremely complex real-time control and planning problem based on one of the hardest environments currently available in the literature. Secondly, in a single-agent version of the same problem, we investigate how DRL can be used to develop a set of parameter-efficient differentiable planning modules to solve path-planning tasks with complex environment dynamics and variable map sizes. We show that the modules enable learning to plan when the environment also includes stochastic elements, providing a cost-efficient learning system to build low-level size-invariant planners for a variety of interactive, hard navigation problems. Thirdly, and lastly, we present a novel RL benchmark based on one of the oldest and most complex video games ever developed: the NetHack Learning Environment (NLE). NLE provides an environment that is scalable, rich, and challenging for state-of-the-art RL, while maintaining familiarity with standard grid-worlds, and dramatically decreasing the computational requirements compared to existing environments of similar complexity and scope. We believe that this particular intersection of properties will enable the community to employ a single environment both as a debugging tool for increasingly complicated RL agents, and as a target for the next decade of RL research.
Topics in laboratory plasma instability and turbulence
Keywords: Turbulence
Plasma instabilities

The first part of this thesis investigates the growth of ion density perturbations in large-amplitude laser-driven wakefields via two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Growth rates and wave numbers of the perturbations are found to be consistent with a longitudinal strong-field modulational instability. We examine the transverse dependence of the instability for a Gaussian wakefield envelope and show that growth rates and wave numbers can be maximised off- axis. On-axis growth rates are found to decrease with increasing ion mass or electron temperature. These results are in close agreement with theoretical predictions obtained by solving the dispersion relation for a long-wavelength electrostatic oscillation in resonance with the plasma frequency and energy density that is large compared to the plasma thermal energy density. The implications for wakefield accelerators – in particular multi-pulse schemes – and methods to mitigate the effects of ion dynamics are discussed.
In the second part of the thesis, we develop a linearised Fokker-Planck collision model for gyrokinetic simulations that satisfies conservation laws and is accurate at arbitrary collisionality. The differential test-particle component of the operator is exact; the implementation of the integrodifferential field-particle component uses a spherical harmonic expansion and a modified Laguerre polynomial expansion introduced by Hirshman and Sigmar [S. P. Hirshman, D. J. Sigmar, Phys. Fluids 19, 1532 (1976)]. The numerical methods of the implementation in the δf-gyrokinetic code stella [M. Barnes, F. I. Parra, M. Landreman, Journal of Comp. Phys. 391, 365-380 (2019)] are discussed, and conservation properties of the operator are verified. The accuracy of the collision model is demonstrated by computing transport coefficients for the classical Spitzer problem and by performing benchmarks against the collision model of the gyrokinetic solver GS2.
The effect of disruptive light conditions on sleep and circadian rhythms
Keywords: Sleep, Circadian rhythms

The rotation of our planet on its axis provides a rhythmic environment for almost all life on Earth, and most forms of life display daily cycles in physiology and behaviour. In mammals these circadian rhythms are entrained to the external environment by light through visual and non-visual pathways from the eyes. Circadian rhythms are important for many aspects of physiology and behaviour, and their disruption appears to cause many negative consequences, including heart disease, obesity, and cancer in humans. This is important as over the last two hundred years, the invention of artificial light has majorly changed our exposure to light, with increases in many of the negative side effects of circadian disruption. Abnormal light cycles are commonly used in nocturnal rodents to understand the effects of disrupted circadian rhythms. Here, we used a variety of different abnormal light cycles to investigate their effects on locomotor activity and sleep. First, we show that each light cycle has a unique effect on locomotor activity and sleep, which appears related to the amount of light they get at night. This suggests that their effects cannot be directly compared. Next, we show that constant light induces sleep in nocturnal rodents, and that this is likely mainly due to the direct effects of light. This effect highlights where our quantitative models of sleep-wake regulation are lacking. Finally, we show that after prolonged circadian disruption, locomotor activity is not altered. This suggests that the circadian system is more robust to disruption than we previously assumed, and highlights the problems of using light to induce disruption. Overall, the data presented here in this thesis help us understand the e�ects of abnormal light cycles on locomotor activity and sleep, and demonstrate where our understanding of sleep and circadian rhythms are lacking.
A new technique for diagnosing pulmonary embolism based on respiratory exchange
Keywords: lung heterogeneity
body gas stores
pulmonary embolism
non-invasive
human research
gravitational effects on lung physiology
blood gases
laser absorption spectroscopy
metabolism
mixed venous gas composition
pulmonary physiology
computational modelling

This thesis was primarily concerned with whether it would be possible to develop a technique for diagnosing pulmonary embolism without employing ionising radiation. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic halted experimental work in this area, and so a second aim of this thesis became to determine whether any residual physiological abnormalities in cardiopulmonary function could be detected in patients who had recovered from acute COVID-19 infection. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the hypotheses and goals of the research contained within the thesis. Chapter 2 outlines the key concepts explored by this thesis and reviews relevant literature relating to cardiopulmonary physiology, gas exchange, pulmonary embolism and COVID-19. Chapter 3 describes a pre-existing molecular flow sensing technology and model of the lungs that form the basis of the work in the following chapters. Chapter 4 covers development of a novel model of the circulation and body gas stores which gives estimates of blood gas states across the circulation (and allows recirculation when connected to a model of the lung). This model is validated in Chapter 5, with good reproduction of measured changes demonstrated using a number of experiments that perturb the storage of body gases. Chapter 6 presents a small study collecting gas exchange measurements from hospital patients with suspected pulmonary embolism. Significant differences are observed between pulmonary embolism positive and negative patients when circulatory model estimates of blood gas state are compared with measurements of blood gases from a venous cannula. Chapter 7 extracts data from a cohort of pulmonary embolism negative patients to further investigate the ability of the proposed method to correctly estimate blood gas states in health. In Chapter 8, data were collected from participants who had recovered from COVID-19 infection and several pathological changes to model lung parameters are shown to scale with the severity of initial COVID-19 infection. Chapter 9 presents validation work using enhanced gravity to induce changes in the distribution of lung compliance but not deadspace. The pre-existing lung model successfully disentangled these two sources of expired gas profile smearing. Finally, Chapter 10 concludes this thesis with a summary of my findings, their implications and potential future avenues of research.
The protection of fundamental rights in Bulgaria: revisiting the Kelsenian model for constitutional adjudication

Keywords: German constitutional law
Hans Kelsen
Rights-based review
Theory of adjudication
Socio-legal studies
Access to justice
Fundamental rights protections
Constitutional adjudication
Democratic transition
Comparative constitutional studies
Bulgarian constitutional law
Constitutional theory
Hungarian constitutional law
Post-communist constitutionalism
Law in context

This thesis seeks to contribute to the debate about constitutionalism and the rule of law in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on one of its core themes – the enforcement of fundamental rights. It does so with reference to a detailed exploration of an understudied jurisdiction in this region, Bulgaria. The thesis develops an analytical framework informed by institutional design, legal culture, and their interplay in the context of Bulgaria’s constitutional experience. It provides an original, in-depth study of the rights-based jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court. A core argument is that this Court has evaded its mandate to adjudicate fundamental rights, standing in contrast to the robust, rights-based activism that has been associated with the constitutional courts created in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe after World War II, and after the end of communism. All these constitutional frameworks adopted the centralised model of judicial review associated with Hans Kelsen. As initially designed by Kelsen, this model focused on the resolution of separation of powers disputes between governmental organs and not on individual rights protection. The latter function, however, has become a distinctive and central feature of the ‘modern Kelsenian courts’ that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. After considering two paradigmatic examples of such courts – the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Hungarian Constitutional Court – the thesis demonstrates that, thus far, the Bulgarian Constitutional Court has fulfilled a function more closely associated with Kelsen’s archetypal design as an umpire of intra-governmental disputes, rather than that of a human rights court. This development is explained with reference to Bulgaria’s constitutional history and legal culture, the post-communist constitution-making process and the adopted constitutional design, as well as the rights-based jurisprudence of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court.
The design and investigation of sulfur-based reagents for cross-coupling processes
Keywords: Masked sulfinates
Desulfinamidative
2-arylpyridines
cross-coupling reactions
arylation reactions
palladium catalysis
biaryl
Desulfinative reactions
2-pyridyl
sulfinamides
reaction optimisation

Described in this thesis are new methodologies for the synthesis of important biaryl structures, with a focus on 2-arylpyridines and heteroaryls. This is achieved through the development and application of two novel sulfur-based reagents in palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions: firstly, heteroaromatic base-activated latent sulfinates, and secondly, primary aryl sulfinamides.
Chapter 1 is a literature review detailing the challenges and the recent strategies developed to access industrially important 2-(hetero)arylpyridine compounds. The use of (hetero)aryl sulfinates in palladium-catalysed desulfinative cross-coupling reactions is also discussed, as this forms the groundwork for the research described in this thesis.
Chapter 2 describes the development and use of base-activated latent sulfinate reagents, notably heteroaromatic β-nitrile and β-ester sulfones, in palladium-catalysed desulfinative (- SO2) cross-coupling arylation reactions. In this approach, neutral, masked reagents are activated under the basic cross-coupling conditions to give the heteroaryl sulfinate in situ, which then reacts with readily available aryl bromides to access a broad range of pyridine biaryls. The robustness of these latent sulfinate reagents is demonstrated and exploited through multi-step transformations to give complex pyridine structures.
Chapter 3 discusses the extension of the latent sulfinate approach from Chapter 2, towards the development of a palladium-catalysed cross-electrophilic coupling of two (hetero)aryl halides, via the in situ formation of masked sulfinate nucleophilic partner. Initial investigation has demonstrated the feasibility of this process and highlighted strategies for further optimisation.
Chapter 4 details the investigation of primary aryl sulfinamide reagents as nucleophiles in a novel desulfinamidative C(sp2)-C(sp2) cross-coupling reaction (-SONH). The use of sulfinamide reagents allows cross-coupling to proceed at a lower temperature than the aryl sulfinate reactions. The viability of carbocyclic aryl sulfinamides in these processes have been established, with the potential for extension to heteroaryl nucleophiles in the future.
Chapter 5 summaries the research in this thesis and suggests potential areas for future work.
Chapter 6 presents the experimental data and procedures for this research.
Evolved P450 mutants as general oxidation catalysts for target synthesis via early-/late-stage hydroxylation 
Keywords: enzymatic catalysis
natural compound synthesis

This thesis describes the adoption of P450BM3 mutants as biocatalysts during target molecule synthesis in different stages and the efforts toward the synthesis of the azepane core type structure of natural product balanol and the enantiomer of natural product bulnesene.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the application of P450BM3 mutants as oxidation catalysts for various structures including simple cyclic amines and sesquiterpenes. A review of the significance and various synthetic studies toward natural products balanol and bulnesene was provided.
Chapter 2 describes a short demonstration of the feasibility of further functionalisation of P450BM3 hydroxylated cyclic amines by synthesising the azepane core of natural product balanol.
Finally, Chapter 3 details a short enantiospecific route to ent-dihydrobulnesene and an investigation into the use of P450BM3 mutants for late-stage oxidation of sesquiterpenes, along with a comparison of P450BM3-mediated oxidation profiles of a pair of enantiomers.
Honest, sober and willing: Oxford college servants 1850-1939
Keywords: University of Oxford
Nineteenth century British labour history
Oxford Colleges
Domestic servants

A comparative study of nineteen Oxford colleges, this thesis offers a novel contribution to the historiography of the University of Oxford: a history of the university ‘from below’. From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, colleges experimented with a variety of solutions to problems common to many employers. Labour contracts are compared across colleges to consider the role of wage forms and methods of pay in the management of college servants. Colleges and servants relied on family labour networks to mitigate the risks of uncertainty. These networks became particularly important after 1868, when the university began licensing lodging houses for undergraduates, and college servants and their families provided a trustworthy source of labour. Colleges were early adopters of contributory pension schemes. By the late nineteenth century, the employment contract reflected a fundamental shift in the apportionment of responsibility for managing the financial risk associated with death, illness, and most importantly, old age. Beginning with contributory savings schemes for the purchase of life insurance in the mid-nineteenth century, colleges experimented with a variety of strategies for managing the cost of servants’ retirement and by the 1920s, all colleges but two had contributory pension schemes. Contradicting longstanding characterizations of these workers, I find evidence of trade union activity among college servants in the early twentieth century that resulted in wage increases for many of these workers.