VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The role of the complete Coriolis force in cross-equatorial transport of abyssal ocean currents
Keywords: geophysical fluid dynamics
shallow water equations
ocean currents
asymptotic analysis
Hamiltonian mechanics
computational applied mathematics
cross-equatorial flow
complete Coriolis force

In studies of the ocean it has become conventional to retain only the component of the Coriolis force associated with the radial component of the Earth’s rotation vector, the so-called “traditional approximation”. We investigate the role of the “non-traditional” component of the Coriolis force, corresponding to the non-radial component of the rotation vector, in transporting abyssal waters across the equator.
We first derive a non-traditional generalisation of the multi-layer shallow water equations, which describe the flow of multiple superposed layers of inviscid, incompressible fluid with constant densities over prescribed topography in a rotating frame. We derive these equations both by averaging the three-dimensional governing equations over each layer, and via Hamilton’s principle. The latter derivation guarantees that conservation laws for mass, momentum, energy and potential vorticity are preserved. Within geophysically realistic parameters, including the complete Coriolis force modifies the domain of hyperbolicity of the multi-layer equations by no more than 5%. By contrast, long linear plane waves exhibit dramatic structural changes due to reconnection of the surface and internal wave modes in the long-wave limit.
We use our non-traditional shallow water equations as an idealised model of an abyssal current flowing beneath a less dense upper ocean. We focus on the Antarctic Bottom Water, which crosses the equator in the western Atlantic ocean, where the bathymetry forms an almost-westward channel. Cross-equatorial flow is strongly constrained by potential vorticity conservation, which requires fluid to acquire a large relative vorticity in order to move between hemispheres. Including the complete Coriolis force accounts for the fact that fluid crossing the equator in an eastward/westward channel experiences a smaller change in angular momentum, and therefore acquires less relative vorticity. Our analytical and numerical solutions for shallow water flow over idealised channel topography show that the non-traditional component of the Coriolis force facilitates cross-equatorial flow through an almost-westward channel.
Autoantibodies to N-methyl D-aspartate receptors in autoimmune encephalitis
Keywords: CNS encephalitis
autoantibodies
NMDAR
Encephalitis
CNS autoimmunity
autoimmune encephalitis

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antibody encephalitis is a recently described autoimmune encephalopathy defined by the presence of serum antibodies that bind NMDARs (NMDAR-Abs). NMDAR-Ab encephalitis is a severe, but treatmentresponsive encephalitis with subacute onset. It can be associated with tumours and affects mainly young adults. Patients present with cognitive dysfunction, seizures, psychiatric and sleep disorders and most develop dyskinesias, autonomic instability and reduced consciousness. To explore further the NMDAR-Abs and their potential pathogenicity, a series of in vitro investigations were performed and preliminary attempts at passive transfer of disease. Human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells transfected with the NR1 and NR2B subunits, and live cultured neurons, were used first to detect NMDAR-Ab binding. Immunocytochemistry and ow cytometry demonstrated that binding to transfected HEK cells could be improved when NMDAR were presented in clusters by cotransfection with the postsynaptic density protein PSD-95. The NR1 subunit was identified as the target of NMDAR-Abs, and a novel quantitative assay based on immunoprecipitation of NR1 tagged by fusion with green uorescent protein was developed. Measurement of NMDAR-Ab levels showed that antibody levels corresponded to the clinical disease score within individual patients. Although the purification of full length NR1 was not successful, a secreted N-terminal construct was created and expressed in HEK cells. The binding of NMDAR-Abs was confirmed and this construct will be used for active immunisation in future. To explore pathogenic mechanisms in vitro, the main antibody subclasses were shown to be IgG1 and IgG3. Moreover the patients' autoantibodies, but not healthy control antibodies, were able to activate the complement cascade in vitro in cell lines and primary cultures. Finally, the NMDAR-Abs were shown to bind to primary microglial cultures and to cause morphological changes corresponding to early activation processes after prolonged exposure. The research has developed new assays that could be used for diagnosis and serial studies and revealed new potential mechanisms in NMDAR-Ab encephalitis.
A metathesis based approach to the synthesis of heteroaromatic compounds
Keywords: Heteroaromatic
Metathesis

The olefin metathesis reaction is a well established and powerful method for the synthesis of alkenes. This reaction can be further classified into the intermolecular process known as cross-metathesis and the intramolecular process known as ring-closing metathesis. The aim of these studies is the use of the two variants of the metathesis reaction for the development of new methods for the synthesis of heteroaromatic structures, in particular the synthesis of polysubstituted pyridines.
The existential dimension of the liberation theology of Juan Luis Segundo
Keywords: Liberation Theology
Systematic Theology
Juan Luis Segundo
Jean-Paul Sartre
Existentialism
Christian Doctrine
Nicholas Berdyaev
Martin Heidegger

Juan Luis Segundo (1925-1996) was a Uruguayan Jesuit priest who, I argue, based his liberation theology on his understanding of existentialism. The major contribution of this thesis is the exploration of unknown and unexplored sources in Segundo's work. These sources support my thesis of his basis in existentialism and are corroborated by his mature theology. This thesis is significant because the connection between existentialism and liberation theology has been widely overlooked. My starting point is Segundo's 1948 book, in which he combines existentialism with personalism and develops a transcendental method grounded in love and inter-subjectivity. The following three chapters develop my argument through his engagement with four existentialist thinkers: Berdyaev, Sartre and Camus, and Heidegger. Chapter 3 demonstrates how Segundo follows Berdyaev's primacy of freedom, which allows for human creativity, but Segundo takes it as a "quality of the will" and relates freedom to love. Berdyaev influences Segundo's preference for a methodology yielding consistent growth rather than a systematic approach to theology. Chapter 4 shows how Sartre's and Camus' understanding of freedom and limits influenced Segundo's sense that a person's lived reality must be the starting point for theological reflection (e.g. the hermeneutic circle). In chapter 5, I use an unpublished manuscript to show how Segundo uses the place of tradition in the Christian church and the role of tradition in Heidegger's phenomenological analysis of Dasein in order to build his theology of "liberative human seeking and divine revelation". In the final two chapters, I draw the new sources together with two of Segundo's widely read books: Faith and Ideologies (1982) in chapter 6 and The Liberation of Theology (1975) in chapter 7. In chapter 6, the transcendental method he first wrote about in 1948 returns and he addresses materialism and personalism. Chapter 7 serves as my conclusion and uses Segundo's hermeneutic circle as the fullest manifestation of my argument.
Distinct element modelling of jointed rock masses : algorithms and their verification
Keywords: rock slicing
block generation
polyhedral
discontinuities
contact detection
distinct element method
polygonal
jointed rock mass
tunnel
rock engineering
jointed beam
Vaiont rock slide
underground opening

The distinct element method (DEM) is a useful tool in rock engineering to model jointed rock masses. To simulate a jointed rock mass realistically, the main challenge is to be able to capture its complex geometry which consists of blocks with various shapes and sizes, and to model the interactions between these blocks.
The main contribution of this thesis is the development of novel algorithms in the DEM to model jointed rock masses, namely rock slicing procedures for block generation, and algorithms for contact detection between polygonal blocks in 2-D or polyhedral blocks in 3-D. These algorithms make use of convex optimisation techniques, for which there exist efficient solution procedures. They do not rely on conventional vertex-edge-face hierarchical data structures and tedious housekeeping algorithms. The algorithms have been verified against analytical and numerical solutions, as well as validated against experimental results published in the literature. Among those, the results of DEM simulations were compared against the experimental model tests and numerical simulations of jointed beams carried out by Talesnick et al. (2007) and Tsesarsky & Talesnick (2007) respectively. Emphasis was placed on modelling the stiffness of the block interfaces accurately, and this was accomplished by reinterpreting the laboratory data published by the investigators.
The capabilities of the numerical tools are also examined and demonstrated in areas for which the DEM has found practical application. A substantial fraction of this thesis is devoted to illustrating how these tools can assist the engineer in designing support systems; for example, designing the length and spacing of rock bolts and the lining thickness for a tunnel. Algorithms to model rock bolt and lining support were implemented for this purpose. Interesting comparisons with elastic solutions for supported openings were obtained. Further, it is shown that the relative benefit of introducing more rock bolts or thicker lining can be evaluated using the numerical tools with the aid of an interaction diagram. In the final part of this thesis, the case history of the 1963 Vaiont rock slide in Italy is studied. The 2-D analyses led to useful insights concerning the influence of the reservoir water level, the rock mass strength and deformability, and the slide surface shear stiffness. 3-D analyses were undertaken to investigate the influence of the eastern boundary of the slope, and interesting insights were obtained concerning the slope kinematics. Overall, the case study shows that the tools are capable of modelling problems with specific physical and geometrical detail in both 2-D and 3-D.
The development of a methodology to approach carbon neutrality using temperate and tropical climates as case studies
Keywords: Renewable Energy Resource Assessment
Solar Energy
Carbon Neutrality
Wind Energy
Maldives
Renewable Energy
Biomass

The threat of climate change has become one of the major issues facing mankind over recent decades and its severity is escalating significantly with increased atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, due to the combustion of fossil fuels, exacerbating the situation. This study develops a methodology to design a renewable energy supply mix to meet demand.
Economic and environmental factors are included in the decision-making process in order to be consistent with the definition of sustainability set out by the United Nations. The economic criterion is represented by the total annual cost and the environmental criterion is represented by the emissions reduction. Analytical techniques are applied to assess the temporal, climatic and growth factors of demand. The supply mix is examined as the potential resource and available conversion technology components. Resources are statistically categorized by availability as determinative, dispatchable and stochastic. This study considers biomass as a dispatchable resource; solar as a determinative resource and wind as a stochastic resource. A constrained exhaustive search algorithm is adapted for supply mix design, including a search space minimization method for greater computational efficiency. The Lagrangian multipliers of cost and emissions reduction are calculated to determine the optimum supply mix.
In order to assess this methodology at different locations with temperate and tropical climates as well as dissimilar demand characters, it is implemented in two case studies attempting to achieve carbon neutrality. The first location is the island of Hanimaadhoo in the Republic of the Maldives. The island is classed as a poor wind regime, but high wind availability is apparent with low solar availability and so both resources have been examined as potentially complementing one another. The annual demand is 1.5 GWhe and can achieve carbon neutrality at a cost of $ 582,000 per year with a supply mix comprised of 1710 kWe PV and 6500 kWhe lead-acid battery storage. The second case study is the county of Oxfordshire in the UK and the Christ Church site, located within the county, as a model smaller-scale site. Oxfordshire has been examined under a land usage scenario that maximizes biomass establishment and 52 % emissions reduction can be achieved at a total annual cost of £ 182 million. A second scenario is examined that aims to create a net food import/export position in the county and allocates remaining land for biomass. This scenario can achieve a 76 % emissions reduction at a total annual cost of £ 169 million. The 60 % emissions reduction target set by Christ Church can be achieved with a 250 kWe energy crop Anaerobic digester and a 93 kWe PV array.
Essays on economic mobility
Keywords: risk insurance
mobility indices
intergenerational mobility
non-parametric methods

This thesis is a collection of three essays with contributions to the intergenerational and intra-generational mobility literature. The essay on full risk insurance and measurement error examines the likelihood that measurement error may reconcile observed departures from perfect rank immobility in insurable consumption with the mobility predictions of full risk insurance, by generating spurious rank-breaking transitions. The essay shows that under certain assumptions full risk insurance predicts perfect rank immobility and that there exists ranges of error covariance matrices for which the mobility predictions of full risk insurance plus measurement error can not be rejected in the Peruvian data. A novel approach to test these mobility predictions is presented. The essay on discrete time-states Markov chain models applied to welfare dynamics shows that models with higher order may fit data better than the popular first-order, stationary model, and that the order of the chain, in turn, affects the estimation of equilibrium distributions. A best-practice methodology to conduct homogeneity tests between two samples with different optimal order is proposed, and an index by Shorrocks, based on the trace of the transition matrix, is extended to discrete Markov chain models with higher order. The essay on cohort heterogeneity in intergenerational mobility of education shows how cohort heterogeneity affects the analysis of cross-group homogeneity and long-term prospects of a welfare variable, based on transition matrix analysis. The essay compares the transition matrices of Peruvian groups divided by gender and ethnicity and finds genuine reductions in heterogeneity of the mobility regimes between male and female and between indigenous and non-indigenous groups among the youngest cohorts. The essay proposes a methodology to conduct first-order stochastic dominance analysis with equilibrium distributions and shows that among the youngest cohorts past stochastic dominance of male over females and non-indigenous over indigenous disappear in the long term.
Numerical and experimental studies of shallow cone penetration in clay
Keywords: rate-dependent behaviour
soil mechanics
finite element method (FEM)
laboratory testing
kaolin
particle image velocimetry (PIV)
cohesive soils

The fall-cone test is widely used in geotechnical practice to obtain rapid estimates of the undrained shear strength of cohesive soil, and as an index test to determine the liquid limit. This thesis is concerned with numerical modelling of the penetration of solids by conical indenters, and with interpretation of the numerical results in the context of the fall-cone test. Experimental studies of shallow cone penetration in clay are also reported, with the aim of verifying the numerical predictions. The practical significance of the results, in terms of the interpretation of fall-cone test results, is assessed. Results are reported from finite element analyses with the commercial codes ELFEN and Abaqus, in which an explicit dynamic approach was adopted for analysis of continuous cone indentation. Quasi-static analyses using an elastoplastic Tresca material model are used to obtain bearing capacity factors for shallow cone penetration, taking account of the material displaced, for various cone apex angles and adhesion factors. Further analyses are reported in which a simple extension of the Tresca material model, implemented as a user-defined material subroutine for Abaqus, is used to simulate viscous rate effects (known to be important in cohesive soils). Some analyses with the rate-dependent model are displacement-controlled, while others model the effect of rate-dependence on the dynamics of freefall cone indentation tests. Laboratory measurements of the forces required to indent clay samples in the laboratory are reported. Results from displacement-controlled tests with imposed step-changes in cone speed, and from freefall tests, confirm that the numerical rate-dependent strength model represents the observed behaviour well. Some results from experiments to observe plastic flow around conical indenters are also presented. Finally, additional numerical analyses are presented in which a critical state model of clay plasticity is used to study the variation of effective stress, strain and pore pressure around cones in indentation tests at various speeds.
Processing, structure and properties of Al-matrix composites
Keywords: deformation processed
plasma spray
metal composite

Three classes of Al-matrix composite were manufactured to combine dissimilar metals and incorporate structural hierarchy, in an attempt to develop unusual combinations of mechanical properties.
The first class combined a brittle, nano-quasicrystalline forming Al-3Fe-2Cr-2Ti phase with a ductile Al-4Cu phase into a layered structure using low pressure plasma spraying (LPPS). By using a substrate with multi-scale topological features, an ultra-thick (>2mm) deposit was successfully sprayed, which was subsequently consolidated by hot rolling to reduce residual porosity. The microstructure comprised a 'brick-wall' structure consisting of a convoluted arrangement of inter-leaved discreet droplet splats. Structure-property relationships were studied for four volume fractions of ductile additions and in-situ electron microscopy of beams subjected to 3-point bending suggested the ductile additions were providing additional toughening to the composite by a crack-bridging mechanism.
The second class of composite investigated highly deformed microstructures of Al with 20vol% additions of either Sn or Ti. Nano-scale fibrous structures of the minority additions were achieved via an accumulative extrusion method, where extruded rod was abraded, degreased, bundled and re-extruded. This process was repeated to create refined microstructures while retaining a large material section. Fracture properties were studied in three point bending and crack growth monitored using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) to produce strain fields of the deforming beam surface. Modest changes were observed in mechanical properties with weak interfaces between poorly bonded extruded rods dominating fracture behaviour. Whiskers formed on polished surfaces of extruded Al-20vol%Sn and were monitored in real time by electron microscopy. Growth rates of up to 2.8nm/s were measured, which exceeds re- ported values in the literature on electroplated coatings by at least one order of magnitude. This may provide a convenient new means of studying whisker formation and calls into question current growth models.
The third class of composite combined heavily rolled sheets of Al-20vol%Sn and Al-20vol%Ti with glass fibre/epoxy sheets to produce a laminate with multi-scale architecture. This laminate was designed as a proof-of-concept hierarchical material with structures ranging from the near millimetre scale of the metal-polymer layers, to the micro-sized glass fibre reinforcement of the epoxy and the nano-scale filamentary/lamellar microstructure of the highly deformed metal sheets. Fracture of such laminates was investigated in 3-point bending with continuous optical monitoring.
The objectivity of freedom: a systematic commentary on the introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
Keywords: action theory
idealism
free will
Hegel

The introduction (§§1-33) to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is the key to the work’s structure, its argumentative strategy and it functions as a foundation for Hegel’s practical philosophy in general. Its explanatory potential is best realised by situating it within the systematic context of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences and the Science of Logic. This interpretative strategy reveals that for Hegel, the true site of agency is ‘the concept’ and that particular individuals and their arbitrary activity are at best the concept’s ‘appearance’. This does not render their activity ‘false’ but describes how willing and freedom are ‘for us’ as self-conscious subjects that confront an external world. For Hegel, ‘true’ freedom in the sense of ‘self-determination to itself’ resides with the universal and singular concept that negatively unites itself with its objectivity to form what he calls the ‘Idea of the will’ or ‘right’.
This interpretation contradicts the mainstream of contemporary Hegel scholarship since its proponents either deny the reality of the universal concept as agent or absolutely differentiate between the concept’s activity (subjective action) and its objective reality (norms, institutions). This prevents the interpreter from appreciating that it is Hegel’s concept that is manifest in form of particular willing subjects and their socio-political context. Since most commentators associate ‘activity’ or ‘freedom’ primarily with particular subjects, their notions of freedom are, by Hegel’s standards, either empty and fail to describe actual willing or they fall short of the standard of ‘true freedom’, viz. ‘self-determination to itself’ because their agents’ freedom depends on something that differs from the agents.1 The present commentary argues that such a dilemma can be avoided by an interpretation that attributes agency to Hegel’s concept. By determining itself to be Idea, the universal concept determines itself (as subject) to itself (as object) and rational agency and rational institutions are grasped as aspects of the same entity. This is what Hegel calls the unconditioned Idea of right or ‘objective freedom’.