VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Black democrats in white America: racial campaign strategies in majority-white contexts, 1989-2013
Keywords: US politics
Race
Campaign strategies
Political communications
African American politics

Black electoral politics has undergone a profound transformation in the half century since African Americans statutorily secured equal voting rights with whites. Once confined to a small number of exceptional cases, the population of black elected officials has multiplied dramatically. The genre which studies African American politics has, likewise, vigorously proliferated, but theoretical deficiencies persist. In particular, the dominant model used to explain the choice of racial campaign strategies by African American candidates in jurisdictions where most of their voters are white is incomplete. The model’s underlying hypothesis is premised on limited and increasingly outdated assumptions. Commentators continue to argue that successful black candidates must discard their racial identity in order to win white votes, yet a careful examination of the actual practices of black politicians in majority-white jurisdictions demonstrates that this argument is not substantiated empirically. As a result, scholars are mischaracterising the potential for black candidates to win elections in majority-white contexts.
This thesis is an attempt to advance the scholarship through a theoretical reconceptualisation of racial campaign strategies underpinned by original, empirical research. The thesis sets out to achieve two goals. The first goal is to provide a rich, analytical account based on primary research of the range of campaign strategies available to office-seeking African American candidates outside of majority-black election contexts. The thesis demonstrates the capacity for black candidates to embrace their racial identity and champion policies which redress racial inequality while still seeking support from white voters. The second objective is to offer plausible explanations as to the strategic decision-making process in these campaigns. The thesis highlights the shifting importance of three sets variables which candidates face when choosing their racial campaign strategies: racial context and history, the racial attitudes of supportive and opposing elite actors, and candidates' own racial biographies.
Aspirin affects early phases of metastasis through the inhibition of COX-1-thromboxane A2 axis
Keywords: Metastasis
COX-1
Platelets
Thromboxane A2
Aspirin

Metastasis is the major cause of cancer related mortality, due to a poor understanding of the metastatic process and a subsequent lack of effective anti-metastatic therapies. Evidence from experimental studies and clinical trials has shown that aspirin reduces the incidence of distant metastases. It is well established that aspirin inhibits cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2, triggering anti-thrombotic and anti-inflammatory effects, respectively. However, the mechanisms underlying the anti-metastatic effect of aspirin are still largely unknown.
By using an experimental model of pulmonary metastasis, we have found that the anti-metastatic effect of aspirin is associated with the inhibition of COX-1. In support of this, metastasis establishment was impaired in COX-1 deficient mice, suggesting a pivotal role of this isoform in the metastatic process. Looking in more detail into the metastatic cascade, we found that COX-1 contributes to the intravascular phase of metastasis and promotes the early persistence of tumour cells in the lung vasculature. In particular, COX-1 inhibition decreased the interaction of platelets with tumour cells and was associated with the reduction of endothelial activation, of tumour cell adhesion to the endothelium, of recruitment of metastasis-promoting monocytes/macrophages and of transendothelial migration. We have identified platelet-derived thromboxane A2 (TXA2) as the main product of COX-1 responsible for its permissive effect on metastasis. Indeed, TXA2 delivered to mice in combination with aspirin was able to abrogate the anti-metastatic effect of aspirin.
Taken together, our data suggest that the inhibition of COX-1:TXA2 axis by aspirin is sufficient to exert an anti-metastatic effect. In particular, the inhibition of platelet-derived TXA2 seems to affect multiple early steps of the haematogenous transit of tumour cells. In this perspective, TXA2 might represent a more selective therapeutic target for the prevention of metastasis.
Astrophysical signatures of axion-like particles
Keywords: Axions, dark matter, galaxy clusters, AGN

The Standard Model of particle physics has enjoyed unprecedented success in predicting experimental results. However, evidence from astrophysical observations points to the existence of a dark sector of particles that interact only very weakly with the Standard Model. In this work, we search for dark sector signatures in X-ray telescope data. Much of this work concerns a class of hypothetical particles, the axion-like particle (ALP). ALPs are a theoretically well-motivated extension of the Standard Model. If ALPs exist, they may lead to intriguing astrophysical signatures: in the presence of a background magnetic field, ALPs and photons can interconvert. We could detect ALPs by searching for photon to ALP conversion. For example, photons produced by point sources in or behind galaxy clusters may convert to ALPs in the cluster's magnetic field. This could lead to observable spectral anomalies. Using this strategy, we place world leading bounds on the ALP-photon coupling.
One potential signal of dark matter is an anomalous line in the spectra of galaxies and galaxy clusters. In 2014, an anomalous line was found at an energy of 3.5 keV. The nature and cause of this line is still under discussion. We analyse a scenario in which the 3.5 keV line arises from dark matter decay to ALPs, which interconvert with 3.5 keV photons in astrophysical magnetic fields. We further report an anomalous deficit at 3.5 keV in the spectrum of the Active Galactic Nucleus at the centre of the Perseus galaxy cluster. This motivates the study of a new model in which both features are caused by “fluorescent dark matter” which resonantly interacts with 3.5 keV photons. We analyse observations of Perseus at 3.5 keV to date, and show that they are well explained by this model. Further theoretical and experimental work is needed to discover or exclude fundamental physics effects in X-ray spectra.
Investigating the functional organisation of human visual cortex using ultra-high resolution fMRI
Keywords: Ultra-high resolution
MRI
Neuroscience
Vision
fMRI

Current thinking suggests that specialised modules process visual information in a hierarchical manner, using local circuitry in order to maximise efficiency both in terms of wiring costs and stimulus coverage (Reichl et al. (2012)). The resulting organisation has been shown to contain structure in the form of stripes, columns and pinwheels, which in animal models have been linked to functional segregation and specificity. In human cortex, post-mortem investigations have assisted in the visualisation of two such key features: ocular dominance columns (ODC) within V1, and a stripe system within V2 (Adams et al. (2007); Hockfield et al. (1990)). However, functional observations in humans have until recently been beyond the investigatory scope of in-vivo methodology, and as such, a role of these networks has yet to be conclusively determined.
In the small number of instances of in-vivo investigations of human ODC and V2 stripes (Cheng et al. (2001); Yacoub et al. (2001); Nasr et al. (2016)), data have been acquired for a small number of carefully selected participants over long scan durations. I aimed to overcome these limitations and explore the functional similarities further, employing a novel, ultra-high resolution fMRI sequence to do so.
I measured the cortical response to monocular stimulation and recorded a robust response within V1. However, the regular and repeating functional patterns of ODCs were not observed. Using multivariate techniques I concluded, based on robust classification, that reliable monocular signals were present but that they were subtle and difficult to differentiate from noise. I then investigated the segregation of colour, form and motion within V2, where I found evidence for spatially segregated signals in response to colour and motion, but not to form. I hypothesised that the form stimulus was sub-optimal in driving the neural population of the associated stripes. Based on a limited number of samples, activity in response to colour and motion stimulation conformed on average to the neuroanatomical profile of the V2 stripe system. I suggest that my results offer encouragement for in-vivo investigations of small-scale functional organisation in visual cortex.
Efficient simulation techniques for biochemical reaction networks
Keywords: Monte Carlo methods

Discrete-state, continuous-time Markov models are becoming commonplace in the modelling of biochemical processes. The mathematical formulations that such models lead to are opaque, and, due to their complexity, are often considered analytically intractable. As such, a variety of Monte Carlo simulation algorithms have been developed to explore model dynamics empirically. Whilst well-known methods, such as the Gillespie Algorithm, can be implemented to investigate a given model, the computational demands of traditional simulation techniques remain a significant barrier to modern research.
In order to further develop and explore biologically relevant stochastic models, new and efficient computational methods are required. In this thesis, high-performance simulation algorithms are developed to estimate summary statistics that characterise a chosen reaction network. The algorithms make use of variance reduction techniques, which exploit statistical properties of the model dynamics, so that the statistics can be computed efficiently.
The multi-level method is an example of a variance reduction technique. The method estimates summary statistics of well-mixed, spatially homogeneous models by using estimates from multiple ensembles of sample paths of different accuracies. In this thesis, the multi-level method is developed in three directions: firstly, a nuanced implementation framework is described; secondly, a reformulated method is applied to stiff reaction systems; and, finally, different approaches to variance reduction are implemented and compared.
The variance reduction methods that underpin the multi-level method are then re-purposed to understand how the dynamics of a spatially-extended Markov model are affected by changes in its input parameters. By exploiting the inherent dynamics of spatially-extended models, an efficient finite difference scheme is used to estimate parametric sensitivities robustly.
The new simulation methods are tested for functionality and efficiency with a range of illustrative examples. The thesis concludes with a discussion of our findings, and a number of future research directions are proposed.
The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1965-1982): exhibitions, spectatorship and social change
Keywords: Cultural history
1960s Art
Exhibition history
1970s Art
Museology
Postwar Britain

This thesis examines the first seventeen years of the history of the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (MOMA), from its founding in 1965 until c. 1982. It is concerned with the changing relationships between the museum and its audience, focusing on those aspects of the museum's programming that shed light on its role as a public mediator of recent art. This provides a means to consider the underlying values and commitments that informed MOMA's emergence as a leading contemporary art institution. Chapter one examines the museum’s relationship to utopian countercultures through the metaphor of the museum as 'garden'; chapter two considers the erstwhile 'permanent' collection and its connection to corporate patronage; chapter three investigates the parallel forces of institutional critique and institutionalization; and chapter four addresses didactic strains in the museum’s representation of an emergent multiculturalism.
Although dedicated to the history of a single regional gallery, the thematic structure of the thesis provides entry points into historical and theoretical issues of broader relevance. It is based on primary research in the previously neglected archive of what is now known as Modern Art Oxford, supplemented by interviews with artists and former staff members, and by close attention to British art periodicals and exhibition catalogues of the period. It is also informed by critical writings on museums and displays, and by artistic, social and museological histories, allowing the museum's activities to be situated within the cultural politics of these turbulent decades.
The thesis suggests that institutional identity – as exemplified by the history of MOMA from 1965-1982 – is porous and discontinuous: the development of the museum over this period is animated by multiple and often contradictory ideals, continuously shaped by pragmatic considerations, and subject to a rich variety of subjective responses.
The governance of adult defendants with autism through English criminal justice policy and criminal court practice
Keywords: Equality Act 2010
criminal justice system
disability law
vulnerability
autism

Foucault's 'governmentality approach' developed the notion of 'dividing practices' (1991; see Seddon 2007) which recognises that how individuals and groups are categorised determines how they are governed. This thesis draws on critical disability studies and criminological literature on 'doing justice to difference' to develop a disability perspective in criminology, in order to analyse the governance of offenders with autism. It argues that there is descriptive and normative value in proactively categorising these groups as 'disabled' under the 'social model' of disability. The social model of disability is helpful in enabling us to distinguish between impairment and disablement. It allows us to comprehend the 'psy' literature, which explores the link between the 'symptomatology' of autism and criminality (the 'impairment branch' of the distinction) in combination with the 'interconnecting variables' (Browning and Caulfield, 2011) which lead offenders with autism into the criminal justice system and their inequitable experiences (the ‘disablement branch’ of the distinction). This is timely given the entrenchment of this model in the Equality Act 2010 and the inception of the Autism Act 2009, Statutory Guidance (DOH, 2010; 2015) and related policy.
Using cross-method triangulation of qualitative data collected through interviews with elites and practitioners, textual analysis and court observation of eight adult defendants with autism through their court process, this thesis investigates why the status of this group as disabled under the Equality Act 2010 has been overlooked in criminal justice policy and criminal court decision-making. It examines the extent to which policy-makers and criminal justice decision-makers consider the defendant's autism in their decision-making about the defendant's case in the courts. Finally, it examines the impact of 'collateral' effects of the criminal justice process on family members who supported these defendants.
Youth networks and violence in the Niger delta
Keywords: networks of contingency
youth networks
respectability
Niger Delta

This study provides an alternative explanation for the nature of politics in the Niger Delta by focussing on the forms and contents of relationships within youth networks. While not repudiating previous narratives around historical and contemporary grievances, the study argues that a lot can be learnt from interrogating how social codes like respectability and self organizational tactics like provisionality, shape, not just the nature of youth politics, but also the ways in which youth imagine themselves and their place in fluid and extractive contexts like the Niger Delta. The implication of focussing on issues such as these, the study argues, is that it becomes possible to tease out the critical, yet often ignored, micro-politics of social categories which ultimately frame the way actors articulate their macro level grievances and aspirations. This study is driven by three main research questions. First, what pathways facilitate youth engagement with politics in the Niger Delta? Second, how do Niger Delta youth imagine and organize themselves as actors navigating its dynamic oil political economy? And finally, how has the Amnesty which was declared in 2009 for youth insurgents changed the nature of relationships within youth networks and how has it impacted on their roles as actors in the Niger Delta? As a way of engaging with these questions, the study used the 2009 Amnesty as a historical marker to periodize state interventions in the region and also to illustrate the impact and limits that formal interventions have when seeking to shape the politics of social shifters like youth.
The study's main contributions include a rethinking of the notion of youth which asks for a conscious analytical disaggregation of politically active youth from the general pool of the young. This implies that the idea of youth is dependent on acts of doing rather than of being. The study also challenged the idea that youth is marginal and argues that even the fact of marginality can be a useful resource for navigating uncertain social contexts like the Niger Delta. Through its engagement with the changing notion of respectability as well as the innovative deployment of provisionality as an organizing strategy by youth, the study provides new ways of analyzing the Niger Delta that can move it away from a fixation on rational choice narratives of scarcity, greed or grievance. Finally, the study provides the first comprehensive mapping of youth networks in the Niger Delta and does so across three pathways, showing how these complex relationships shape and are also shaped by the broader political economy of oil. The study concludes by arguing for new questions to be asked about how the shifting forms and geographies of the Niger Delta’s youth networks flow out to other areas of national and transnational life in ways that recognize the regions fluidity, uncertainty and permanence.
Sacred forests and conservation on a landscape scale
Keywords: Ethiopia
Shinto shrines
Borneo
conservation
Japan
religion and conservation
ICCA
human ecology
conservation biology
Malaysia
landscape conservation
spiritual ecology
sacred forests
forest patches
Gambia

In the matrix of land uses beyond protected areas, people protect nature in a myriad of ways, and have, in some cases, for millennia.
With the growth of global databases of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs) and registries of sacred natural sites, opportunities are emerging for conservationists to engage custodians of sacred forests beyond protected areas.
As conservation expands beyond protected areas, successful engagement emerges from unities in the perspectives of conservationists and custodians of sacred forests. This thesis aims to identify unities for conservationists’ engagement with custodians of sacred forests on a landscape scale.
The thesis geolocates sacred forests and assesses the implications for conservation in four diverse landscapes in the Gambia, Ethiopia, Malaysia and Japan. The scale of inquiry varies across the papers, from the sub-district level to a national scale.
This research indicates that while sacred forests may be overlooked by conservationists due to their small size and autonomous management, when they are considered in concert on a landscape scale, opportunities for conservation engagement become apparent. This thesis demonstrates that sacred forests can be prevalent in diverse landscapes, persist over time, and provide ecosystem services due to their spatial distribution.
The term Synderesis and its transformations: a conceptual history of Synderesis, ca. 1150-1450
Keywords: Bonaventure
Synderesis
Scholasticism
Guillaume de Deguileville
Thomas Gallus
Thomas Aquinas
Conscience
Itinerarium mentis in Deum
Medieval Theology and Philosophy

This dissertation explores the development of the concept of synderesis between 1150 and 1450. In medieval moral psychology, synderesis referred to the innate capacity of the mind to know the first principles of natural law, or, alternatively, the will to follow these principles. But it was also interpreted as a mystical power of the soul, capable of uniting it to God. synderesis also appears in Late Medieval vernacular literature, as a character in moralising texts. By approaching synderesis from the point of view of conceptual history I synthesise these fields and explore how synderesis operated beyond the formal treatises of scholastic theology.
Chapter two explores how synderesis developed in medieval scholasticism from Peter Lombard up to Thomas Aquinas. Chapters three and four explore how the mystical interpretation of synderesis first proposed by Thomas Gallus of Vercelli was incorporated into the mystical treatise Itinerarium mentis in Deum by Bonaventure of Balneoregio. Here, I analyse when, where and how Bonaventure integrated this mystical interpretation into his pre-existing moral-psychological interpretation of it and how his use of synderesis relates to the historical context in which the Itinerarium was written. I argue that synderesis should be seen as existing on a continuum of interpretations between moral psychology and mysticism. After Bonaventure and Aquinas, the concept undergoes a period of stagnation in academia, which is the subject of Chapter five. However, synderesis also appears in a number of non-academic texts in which the moral-psychological and mystical interpretations of the term coexist. Chapter six explores how Late Medieval vernacular authors drew on previous scholastic discussions of the concept. I focus here in particular on Guillaume de Deguileville’s Le pèlerinage de l’âme, where synderesis appears not as the moral guide of the soul, but as the accuser of the soul before the court of heaven.
The neurobiological underpinnings of developmental stuttering
Keywords: neuropsychology
basal ganglia
MRI
rfMRI
cerebellum
DTI
stuttering
fMRI
fluency disorder
movement disorder

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the neural underpinnings of persistent developmental stuttering. We explored neural systems important for speech-motor integration and focused on subcortical control systems: the basal ganglia and cerebellum. A secondary aim of this work was to distinguish effects related to general traits of the disorder from those reflecting specific states of stuttered speech. To address these aims we used a variety of neuroimaging methodologies as well as an extensive neuropsychological and empirical test battery. Our examination of neural pathway microstructure using diffusion-tensor imaging replicated previous findings of widespread disorganisation of white matter in people who stutter. This disruption included all major white matter pathways leading in and out of the cerebellum. In our second, third, and fourth studies we examined functional activity at rest and during different types of speech. The brain networks used by people who stutter and controls largely overlapped. The brain regions that distinguished general traits and specific states of stuttering were somewhat task-specific. Subcortical activation in the basal ganglia and cerebellum was related to the frequency of dysfluent speech in the scanner. In our final study we examined performance on a variety of classical tasks of motor learning. We observed evidence of delayed learning in response to changes in environmental feedback in the stuttering group relative to controls. Within people who stutter, subgroups who differ according to heritability of the disorder may also differ in the balance of dopamine in the basal ganglia. Overall, we concluded that cerebellar alterations contribute to the general trait of stuttering, while basal ganglia disruption may reflect specific effects within stuttering. Our work supports a broader role of the subcortical system in speech production, generally.