VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Self and society in Mary McCarthy's writing
Keywords: American 1930s and 1950s
Psychoanalysis
Jewishness
Auto/biography
20th century American Women's Writing,

My thesis analyses the oeuvre of the American writer Mary McCarthy (1912-1989), with the focus on the figure of the outsider looking in. McCarthy uses outsider figures in her texts as prisms through which distinctive historical moments as well as problems of gender, race and religion are studied against the backdrop of the changing climate of the American "red" 1930s, the anxious '50s, and the late '60s torn by the Vietnam war. Examples of McCarthy's recurring protagonists are the New York Bohemian girl of the '30s in the predominantly male world marred by the Great Depression, the Jewish character stereotyped as the Other by the poorly hidden anti-Semitism of the American society of the early 1940s, and the orphan child exposed to adult cruelty, who finds her only solace in the Catholic religion. Their position of being outsiders who live in a society not their own by birthright, is shown to be crucial for their acquisition and knowledge of truth, and links insight to marginality, which is reinforced by McCarthy’s technique of ironically detached observation, the "cold eye” of her prose. McCarthy herself appears as an outsider character throughout her writing, both as the historical figure and as the protagonist of her autobiographies. Her self-image, shaped by her orphaned childhood and her youth as a Bohemian girl among leftist intellectuals, is subject to conflicting impulses of confession and concealment. McCarthy's wide use of autobiographical details in her fiction and elements of fiction in her autobiographies led most critics to study her work from a chiefly biographical point of view. My own approach to Mary McCarthy’s writing takes their findings into consideration, and includes the analysis of the historical, political, and social contexts of McCarthy’s texts, as well as the intertextual dialogue with a few select writings by McCarthy’s contemporaries such as Philip Roth and Sylvia Plath.
Investigating the effect of  melanopsin gene therapy in the degenerate retina
Keywords: Melanopsin, gene therapy

Retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa affect 1 in 3000 people causing visual loss and blindness. In these conditions, photoreceptors are lost whereas other retinal cells and central visual pathways remain largely intact. A strategy for restoring vision in patients with end-stage disease would be to introduce a light sensitive protein into remaining inner retinal cells to make them directly light sensitive.
The aim of this thesis was to assess whether the human photopigment melanopsin, normally present in intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells, could be delivered to other residual cells of the degenerate retina using an adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector, and whether this could restore visual function.
Several AAV serotypes were tested in the rd1 mouse model of end-stage retinal degeneration. The most effective was found to have a single tyrosine to phenylalanine mutation in the AAV capsid (rAAV2/8 Y733F), and this vector was also able to transduce bipolar cells in human retinal samples cultured ex-vivo. Further evaluation of the vector was then performed to identify whether delivery using a ubiquitous or bipolar cell specific promoter gave optimal expression, and that comparing a wild type to a codon optimised sequence was also assessed. Longevity of expression was also assessed with robust levels of melanopsin seen in the degenerate retina fifteen months after a single subretinal injection.
Retina transduced using the optimised vector was tested for functional light responses using ex-vivo multi-electrode array recordings and in vivo light pulsing, with results from both highly indicative of functional photosensitivity mediated by expressed melanopsin. Furthermore, laser speckle cortical imaging demonstrated a light-dependent change in blood flow in the visual cortex of treated mice.
Finally to assess whether visual function was restored, in vivo testing of the pupil light response revealed augmented pupil constriction compared to controls two months after subretinal injection of the vector. This effect was maintained and even greater at thirteen months. Further behavioural testing demonstrated that following vector administration both two and thirteen months previously, mice were able to detect a change in visual environment, whereas control rd1 mice were not.
These data indicate that the increased photosensitivity derived from expression of human melanopsin in the degenerate retina can generate functionally useful information, which can restore light-driven responses and even enhance performance in a test that relies on image–forming vision in mice with end-stage retinal degeneration. Therefore with further development, this optogenetic strategy has great potential for the treatment of patients with end-stage retinal degeneration.
Understanding the role of Neuregulin 1-erbB signalling in microglia in the context of neuropathic pain.
Keywords: microglia
animal behaviour
neuropathic pain
spared nerve injury

Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) is a growth factor required for peripheral nerve development and functional recovery following nerve injury. However, its importance in regulating neuropathic pain via microglial signaling remains unclear. Previous pharmacological studies suggest NRG1 regulates microglial proliferation, mechanical allodynia and cold hypersensitivity through binding to extracellular tyrosine kinase receptors (e.g. erbB2, erbB3 and erbB4) found on microglia.
The aim of this thesis was to further dissect the role of NRG1 in regulating pain behaviour during neuropathic pain by using transgenic systems that conditionally ablate NRG1 expression in adulthood or erbB receptor expression specifically within microglia. In our hands it was determined that the CX3CR1 Cre is more efficient than the Cd11b Cre system in effectively targeting tissue specific gene ablation.
Using animal models of nerve injury, gene expression analysis showed that NRG1 and erbB gene expression levels are dysregulated in the peripheral nervous system and the spinal cord, in neuropathic pain models. A novel cold pain behaviour assay was optimised to measure cold pain behaviour. With conditional NRG1 ablation, and the use of the spared nerve injury model, it was determined that NRG1 regulates cold hypersensitivity in the delayed stages of nerve injury but does not regulate mechanical hypersensitivity or attenuate microglial proliferation. Similarly, conditional ablation of erbB3 and erbB4 receptors in microglia suggests that the NRG1-erbB signaling pathway does not regulate mechanical hypersensitivity or microglial proliferation. However, NRG1-erbB signaling does regulate cold hypersensitivity in the delayed stages of nerve injury through microglia. The work presented in this thesis has further refined the role of the NRG1-erbB signaling pathway in the context of peripheral nerve injury neuropathic pain.
Rewriting context-free families of string diagrams
Keywords: graph rewriting
formal methods
string diagram
monoidal category
quantum information
quantum computing

String diagrams provide a convenient graphical framework which may be used for equational reasoning about morphisms of monoidal categories. However, unlike term rewriting, which is the standard way of reasoning about the morphisms of monoidal categories, rewriting string diagrams results in shorter equational proofs, because the string diagrammatic representation allows us to formally establish equalities modulo any rewrite steps which follow from the monoidal structure.
Manipulating string diagrams by hand is a time-consuming and error-prone process, especially for large string diagrams. This can be ameliorated by using software proof assistants, such as Quantomatic.
However, reasoning about concrete string diagrams may be limiting and in some scenarios it is necessary to reason about entire (infinite) families of string diagrams. When doing so, we face the same problems as for manipulating concrete string diagrams, but in addition, we risk making further mistakes if we are not precise enough about the way we represent (infinite) families of string diagrams.
The primary goal of this thesis is to design a mathematical framework for equational reasoning about infinite families of string diagrams which is amenable to computer automation. We will be working with context-free families of string diagrams and we will represent them using context-free graph grammars. We will model equations between infinite families of diagrams using rewrite rules between context-free grammars. Our framework represents equational reasoning about concrete string diagrams and context-free families of string diagrams using double-pushout rewriting on graphs and context-free graph grammars respectively. We will prove that our representation is sound by showing that it respects the concrete semantics of string diagrammatic reasoning and we will show that our framework is appropriate for software implementation by proving important decidability properties.
Spectroscopy and imaging of gas-phase transition metal clusters
Keywords: Metal Clusters
Photodissociation
Velocity Map Imaging

The field of transition metal clusters has proven to be fertile ground for study in recent years due to their interesting properties and reactivity. In this thesis, Velocity Map Imaging (VMI) has been used alongside spectroscopic techniques to study a range of diatomic metal-containing molecules which have relevance to cluster chemistry.
The photodissociation of Ag-RG complexes (RG = Ar, Kr, Xe), as well as AgO, have been studied in the 29900–31700 cm-1 spectral region using VMI. The electronic states of the fragments produced have been assigned in each case and new values for the dissociation energies determined. These are presented as an update to the most recent experimental values for each molecule, about which doubts have been expressed.
VMI has also been used to study the photodissociation dynamics of isotopically-selected 98MoO and 52CrO in multiple spectral regions. Assignments have been proposed for the processes generating the observed features, and values for the dissociation energies of these species determined which are consistent with literature values from other, older experimental techniques, or indirect measurements.
Finally, a comparison has been made of different image reconstruction algorithms in order to determine which is best suited to analysing the data recorded in our group. The experimental data from the rest of this thesis have been reanalysed using various approaches, and it is demonstrated that recently-developed maximum entropy programs produce better results than the onion peeling algorithm previously used.
An intellectual biography of Abba Ahimeir
Keywords: Fascism
Zionist Ideology
Zionism
Nationalism
Revolution

My thesis focuses on the ideological development of the Maximalist Revisionist Zionist leader Abba Ahimeir, and positions him more accurately within the contexts of the Zionist Right, the period of his political activity, and the Zionist movement in general.
Through an examination of his doctoral thesis on Oswald Spengler and first publications, I conclude that Spenglerian theory exerted a fundamental influence upon Ahimeir throughout his entire life, and that his embrace of Fascist ideology began six years earlier than is generally accepted. I thus contend that Ahimeir’s ideological path was already set in 1924, far earlier than is generally believed.
A survey of his journalistic output, while a member of the moderately socialist party HaPoel HaTzair, shows that Ahimeir’s apparent shift from Left to Right was not the radical defection that it is currently considered to be.
A study of primary source archival material allows me to demonstrate that as a leader of the Revisionist Youth Group Betar and instructor in its Leadership Training School, Ahimeir’s ideological influence upon Revisionist youth was far greater than is commonly accepted.
A discussion of more general intellectual-historical concepts – Spenglerian-, Fascist-, and Revolutionary- theory, Jewish Völkisch-nationalism, secular Messianism – allows me to re-weight certain ideological outlooks in the current body of research regarding Ahimeir, the Revisionist Party, and the Zionist Left. Notably, I suggest we view Ahimeir as a 'Revolutionary' who used Fascism merely as a modus operandi in the service of his revolution. This particularistic ideological outlook was exemplified in his semi-clandestine, anti-British resistance group Brit HaBiryonim, as a thorough examination of court documents from the group’s trial demonstrates.
The study provides the first intellectual biography of one of the most influential figures on the Zionist Right, and rights some historical wrongs that exist within Revisionist- and Labour-Zionist myths, and indeed, Israeli collective memory.
Mitigation in the law of damages
Keywords: Reasonableness
Loss
Compensation
Mitigation
Causation
Damages

This thesis is the first monograph on mitigation in the English law of damages. Mitigation concerns the effect of the claimant's post-breach conduct on the assessment of damages. The leading texts propose that the doctrine consists of two main rules: first, the claimant cannot recover damages for losses that it could reasonably have avoided (the 'avoidable loss rule'); and second, the claimant cannot recover damages for losses that it has in fact avoided, except where the benefit did not 'arise out of the breach' (the 'avoided loss rule').
This thesis proposes a new descriptive and explanatory account of mitigation. It argues that the apparent distinction between the avoidable and avoided loss rules is illusory; instead, the rules of mitigation apply symmetrically to both harms and benefits. Contrary to the leading texts, it is argued that judges have been correct to explain mitigation as an aspect of causation. However, to understand why, we must move beyond the 'but-for' concept of causation and instead seek to apply the ordinary causal principles that people use outside the law.
The implications of the thesis extend beyond the law of mitigation. First, the rules of mitigation also explain the so-called 'market rule', the 'betterment' rule, and 'supervening acts by the claimant'. Second, the thesis shows why the rights-based model of damages has overstretched in claiming that the law provides a universal entitlement to 'substitutive damages' for the infringement of rights. Third, the thesis revives and defends key arguments from Hart and Honoré's seminal investigation into ordinary causal concepts, with implications for every area of law where causal reasoning is invoked.
Author also known as Andrew Summers
Factors affecting hedgehog distribution and habitat selection in rural landscapes
Keywords: Diet
Hedgehogs
Mammal energetics
Radio-tracking
Predation
Doubly labelled water
Small mammal
Ranging behaviour

The UK population of hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) has halved in rural areas between 2005 and 2015, and hedgehogs select urban areas over arable land. Explanations for the unsuitability of arable land for hedgehogs include: high predation risk by badgers (Meles meles), low prey densities, cold microclimates and low availability of nest sites. I investigated the reasons for hedgehog avoidance of arable land by measuring hedgehog habitat use, ranging behaviour, daily energy expenditure (DEE) and diet along a gradient of habitats from rural villages to arable farmland, under varying predation threat and temperatures. I also examined which factors affected hedgehog presence and abundance nationally. Hedgehogs preferentially selected urban habitats for both foraging and nesting, including gardens and buildings. A hedgehog’s mean distance to buildings over a season was positively correlated with home range size and DEE, conceivably due to higher prey availability in rural villages and the need for increased movement on arable land to achieve sufficient food intake. I found little evidence that the prey taxa hedgehogs consumed changed along the gradient from buildings to arable land, although all hedgehogs consumed pet food, suggesting that supplementary feeding is one reason hedgehogs are attracted to buildings. On sites where badgers were present hedgehogs stayed closer to edge habitats and buildings, had smaller home ranges, spent less time on arable land, and had a lower DEE. Badger presence is one likely cause of hedgehogs’ avoidance of arable land and their selection of rural villages, where badgers are found at lower densities. Nationally, badger abundance and fox (Vulpes vulpes) abundance was negatively associated with hedgehog abundance. Landowners on farms under Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) were more likely to report having seen hedgehogs than landowners on farms not under HLS. I conclude that rural villages are a key habitat for sustaining hedgehog numbers in the countryside and the connectivity between these island populations should be enhanced through the implementation of agri-environment schemes. Higher-tier schemes may also increase habitat complexity, which could potentially reduce the predation pressure from badgers, as well as enhancing hedgehogs’ invertebrate food supply.
New phenomenology from asymmetric dark matter
Keywords: Dark matter

The properties of dark matter — its microphysical form, and its cosmological origin and history — are one of the most important mysteries in fundamental physics. So far, evidence for matter beyond the Standard Model comes entirely from gravitational effects. However, other experiments are reaching the point where the ‘simplest’ models of dark matter are coming into tension with data, and may be strongly constrained by medium-term observations. This, along with theoretical considerations, motivates the exploration of other possibilities for the history and composition of dark matter, especially those with the possibility of new, generic observational signatures. In this thesis, we explore some different classes of new dark matter models, focussing on regimes in which they may display approximately model-independent phenomenology.
Firstly, we look at a class of dark matter models featuring large-number, stable composite states, and investigate how these may be synthesised in the early universe. As the example of Standard Model nuclear physics and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis demonstrates, the properties of small-number composite states in strongly-coupled theories may be complicated, and sensitive to the precise details of the theory. However, it may reasonably be expected that the properties of large enough composite states will obey simple geometrical scaling laws. In this case, if large enough states are synthesised in the early universe, the overall results of the synthesis process may become broadly independent of the detailed parameters of the model, and of initial conditions. We model ‘dark nucleosynthesis’ in such a regime, and find that the late-time number distribution takes on one of two characteristic forms, in both cases with weak dependence on small-number initial conditions and behaviour.
Following on from this, we consider the scattering phenomenology that would result from dark matter being made up of such large composite states. This includes the coherent enhancement of scattering rates — for example, at direct detection experiments — compared to e.g. collider production processes. The spatially extended nature of composite dark matter states could also lead to characteristic momentum-dependent form factors in scattering processes, which may be identifiable in direct detection experiments. In addition, inelastic interactions between dark matter states may be important in astrophysical settings.
Illustrating the effects of dark-sector energy injections, we present calculations for dark matter halo modifications through velocity kicks. As an example application, we discuss a different class of asymmetric dark matter models, in which late-time decays of part of the dark matter can re-populate a symmetric component, giving annihilation signals in galactic halos. The velocity kicks arising from the decay process may modify the spatial profile of such signals, to the extent to eliminating them almost completely from low-escape-velocity systems such as dwarf galaxies.
Pride and virtue in the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Keywords: Virtue
Political Theory
Amour-Propre
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

This thesis examines the relationship between political virtue and moral virtue in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. After critically engaging with Rousseau's compelling yet complex theory of human sociability, focusing more particularly on the seminal relationship between the two forms of self-love, the "natural" amour de soi and "social" amour-propre, it is observed that the culmination of Rousseau's moral theory in Emile sees him espouse a particular kind of moral excellence called vertu, defined as a striving to master one's passions, and a particular type of freedom named liberté morale, inherent in the act of obeying the inner law originating in man's conscience. After further exploring Rousseau's conception of vertu, and insisting upon the ambitiousness of his moral theory, the thesis argues that Rousseau's political theory differs from it in "taking men as they are", and starting from the assumption that men are driven by their passions. That the hegemony of amour-propre is pre-supposed by Rousseau's political project is demonstrated through a detailed comparison of the civic education described in his prescriptive political writings with the moral education advocated in Emile. Finally, it draws the implications of the discrepancies between Rousseau's moral and political versions of virtue for his political theory, identifying a strong tension between two ideals that have generally been regarded as wedded within it, those of republican liberty and moral freedom.