VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Ideologies and mass violence : the justificatory mechanics of deadly atrocities
Keywords: Ideology
Genocide
Violence
Mass Killing
Atrocities

This thesis seeks to provide an account of the role played by ideologies in acts of mass violence against civilians, such as genocides, murderous state repression, war crimes, and other ‘atrocities’. Mass violence of this kind has already received extensive study, with scholars frequently emphasising their belief that ideology is important. Until now, however, discussions of ideology have been held back by a lack of conceptual and theoretical development, leading to narrow portrayals of ideology’s role, vagueness over its relevance, and dubious assumptions about its theoretical implications.
This thesis addresses these problems by building a more focused and integrative theoretical framework for analysing the ideological dynamics of atrocities. I engage in an extensive conceptual and methodological discussion, to establish the best way of defining and utilising the concept of ideology. In doing so, I emphasise how ideology can be important even for that majority of atrocity perpetrators who do not meet classic but misleading stereotypes of fanatical killers driven by burning hatred. I then detail my actual account of the ideological dynamics of deadly atrocities, which centres around the identification of six ‘justificatory mechanisms’: dehumanisation, guilt-attribution, threat-construction, deagentification, virtuetalk, and future-bias. These justificatory mechanisms describe sets of ideological processes that recur across different cases of violence against civilians, and which make that violence look permissible or even desirable to those who, in a variety of roles, carry it out. I then substantiate this account through three case studies: of Nazi atrocities, Stalinist oppression, and Allied area bombing in World War II. These cases demonstrate the cross-case applicability of the six justificatory mechanisms, and illustrate how the framework I offer allows us to construct more causally explicit, psychologically plausible, and comprehensive pictures of the way key ideologies feed in to the most destructive campaigns of violence against civilians.
A precision measurement of nu _mu disappearance in the T2K experiment
Keywords: neutrino oscillation physics
T2K
Particle physics
neutrino physics

T2K is a long-baseline accelerator neutrino oscillation experiment using the high-intensity νμ beam produced at J-PARC. Sitting 295 km away, the giant Super-Kamiokande detector, a 50 kt water tank instrumented with 11,129 photosensitive detectors, sees a narrow band beam peaked at 600 MeV. The baseline to energy ratio is finely tuned for studying neutrino oscillations at the atmospheric neutrino squared-mass splitting. The beam is also sampled 280m downstream of the neutrino production target by a series of finely segmented solid scintillator and time projection chamber detectors. Observing changes in the neutrino beam between the two detectors allows oscillation parameters to be accurately extracted.
A νμ-disappearance analysis was performed on the combined T2K Run 1+2+3+4 dataset, corresponding to integrated J-PARC neutrino beam exposure of 6.57x1020 POT, in a framework of three active neutrino flavour oscillations including matter effects in constant-density matter. The observed reconstructed energy spectrum of 1 μ-like ring events was fitted, and separate fits were made for the normal and the inverted mass hierarchies. In these fits, sin2 θ23 and either |Δm232| (normal mass hierarchy) or |Δm231| (inverted mass hierarchy) were allowed to float. The oscillation parameters sin2 θ13, sin2 θ12, Δm2 21, δCP , and all 41 systematic parameters considered in this analysis were also allowed to float in the fit.
This analysis predicts 445.98±23.46(syst) 1 μ-like ring events in SK in the absence of any oscillation, but only 120 were observed. The observed deficit has a strong energy dependence; the ratio of observed to expected, under the no-oscillation hypothesis, is ∼26% < 0.5 GeV, ∼10% between 0.5 and 1 GeV and ∼72% > 1 GeV.
The 68% confidence intervals on the oscillation parameters can be summarised as sin2 θ23 = 0.514 +0:049 -0:050 |Δm232| = 2.51±0.10 eV2⁄c4 for the normal mass hierarchy, and sin2 θ23 = 0.511 +0:050 -0:049 |Δm231| = 2.48±0.10 eV2⁄c4 for the inverted mass hierarchy. This is the most precise measurement of sin2 θ23 to date.
The Cromwellian 'Other House' and the search for a settlement, 1656-1659
Keywords: Richard Cromwell
House of Lords
Oliver Cromwell
Other House
Cromwell

This thesis seeks to illuminate a blind spot in the scholarship of the later Cromwellian Protectorate by focusing on an intriguing innovation in the parliamentary constitution of 1657 – the creation of an upper chamber or "Other House". The Other House may have filled the void left vacant by the defunct House of Lords, but it did not necessarily mean that the Protectorate was backsliding its way towards the ancient constitution of King, Lords and Commons. Although many aspects of ceremony and procedure remained exactly the same as its predecessor, its functions were reformulated and its membership was significantly different. The life peers nominated by Oliver Cromwell to sit there were politically, religiously, socially and geographically diverse. Yet, Cromwell's attempt to nominate a chamber that would please all sides ultimately ended up pleasing nobody; instead of bringing definition to the constitutional arrangement, his choices simply muddied the waters further. The resulting mood was one of apathy among civilian Cromwellian MPs in the second session of the second Protectorate Parliament towards both the Other House and the settlement as a whole. More importantly, the Other House was never a bulwark for the military Cromwellians; it did not institutionalise the army's position within the constitution. Although this posed no immediate problem under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, it came to the fore following the succession of his conservative-minded son Richard. When the Commons and Protector united behind an anti-military programme in April 1659, the military Cromwellians found themselves outnumbered and outmanoeuvred in the Other House. Unable to protect their interests by constitutional means, the military men turned to their ultimate source of strength – the army. In forcing the Protector to dissolve Parliament, they undermined completely the constitutional arrangement and effectively sealed the end of the Protectorate regime.
Problems in random walks in random environments
Keywords: stochastic analysis
random walks in random environments
invariance principles

Recent years have seen progress in the analysis of the heat kernel for certain reversible random walks in random environments. In particular the work of Barlow(2004) showed that the heat kernel for the random walk on the infinite component of supercritical bond percolation behaves in a Gaussian fashion. This heat kernel control was then used to prove a quenched functional central limit theorem. Following this work several examples have been analysed with anomalous heat kernel behaviour and, in some cases, anomalous scaling limits.
We begin by generalizing the first result - looking for sufficient conditions on the geometry of the environment that ensure standard heat kernel upper bounds hold. We prove that these conditions are satisfied with probability one in the case of the random walk on continuum percolation and use the heat kernel bounds to prove an invariance principle.
The random walk on dynamic environment is then considered. It is proven that if the environment evolves ergodically and is, in a certain sense, geometrically d-dimensional then standard on diagonal heat kernel bounds hold. Anomalous lower bounds on the heat kernel are also proven - in particular the random conductance model is shown to be "more anomalous" in the dynamic case than the static.
Finally, the reflected random walk amongst random conductances is considered. It is shown in one dimension that under the usual scaling, this walk converges to reflected Brownian motion.
The role of community in youth offender panels in England and Wales
Keywords: restorative justice
youth offender panels
community justice
youth justice
referral orders
communitarianism

The primary aim of this thesis is to reach a better empirical and theoretical understanding of what ‘community involvement’ means and what work it does in restorative justice. A case study approach was adopted to examine the involvement of the community in one selected practice of restorative justice, namely youth offender panels in England and Wales. Data collection comprised 127 interviews with key stakeholders involved in youth offender panels, as well as observation of 39 panel meetings, and analysis of related documents (e.g. panel reports and contracts). The role of ‘community’ in youth offender panels is argued to be more ‘theatrical’ (or rhetorical) than real: community panel members do not have a real say in the type or extent of reparation the offender should undergo, they do not clearly benefit from this reparation, and they do not support the reintegration of offenders into the community. The experience of youth offender panels suggests that the greater involvement of lay members of the community – or their changing role from mere witnesses/juries to facilitators – does not help to fully incorporate community harm into criminal justice practice. The English and Welsh experience also suggests that restorative justice advocates have placed unreasonably high expectations on the benefits of lay involvement. For example, this study found that lay members of the community do not have better ‘local knowledge’ than professionals. All in all, a key lesson from the experience of youth offender panels is that – while ignoring the kind of community that features in contemporary, urban contexts – restorative justice programmes run the risk of paying lip service to genuine community involvement. In conclusion, it is argued that restorative justice programmes need to start from a more concrete and up-to-date notion of community. While operationalizing community involvement, they need to acknowledge, all at once: the importance of place; the importance of family links, friendship and other social ties; and the importance of similar social traits and identities.
The epidemiology of stillbirth: The INTERGROWTH-21st Newborn Cross-Sectional Study
Keywords: Foetal death
risk factors
Stillbirth

Background. INTERGROWTH-21st is a prospective, multi-ethnic, population-based project exploring growth from early pregnancy to two years of age. The Newborn Cross- Sectional Study (NCSS) component of INTERGROWTH-21st was designed to evaluate the population characteristics and pregnancy outcomes for the 8 study sites included in the project. The INTERGROWTH-21st geographic areas were in: Pelotas, Brazil; Beijing, China; Nagpur, India; Torino, Italy; Nairobi, Kenya; Muscat, Oman; Oxford, United Kingdom; Seattle, United States.
Methods. Using the data gathered from the NCSS until the time that I completed my course work in Oxford, I attempted to identify potential risk factors for stillbirth in the INTERGROWTH-21st population. Stillbirth is defined as all foetal deaths occurring after at least 18 weeks gestation in order to capture stillbirths using the most inclusive definition. I also created the Foetal Death Supplementary Form to collect information on the causes of stillbirth that were not included in the original instrument according to Goldenberg et al.
Results/ Conclusions. I had available data from 6 study sites at the time of preparing this thesis. The population includes 43,078 pregnancies resulting in 43,781 total births. Of these, 295 were stillbirths representing an overall foetal death rate of 6.7 per 1000 births. Maternal education of primary school or lower [Odds ratio (OR): 2.10, 95% Confidence interval (CI): 1.45-3.04], maternal age >40 (OR: 2.52, 95% CI: 1.55-4.08), single marital status at parturition (OR: 1.70, 95% CI: 1.06-2.71) and maternal use of alcohol (OR: 4.60, 95% CI: 1.88-11.29), tobacco (OR: 1.83, CI: 1.18-2.83), or recreational drugs (OR: 4.27, CI: 1.57-11.63) during pregnancy independently increased the risk of stillbirth. Maternal medical conditions during pregnancy such as malaria (OR: 9.17, 95% CI: 3.69-22.76), HIV/AIDS (OR: 5.84, 95% CI: 2.72-12.54), and syphilis (OR: 7.11, 95% CI: 1.71-29.53) led to significantly higher stillbirth rates. Foetuses in breech presentation were at the greatest risk for stillbirth (OR: 5.00, 95% CI: 3.59-6.98). Caesarean delivery significantly reduced stillbirth risk (OR: 0.35, 95% CI: 0.27-0.47). The cause of death was unknown for 47% of stillbirths. Placental/cord complications, foetal genetic, structural, and karyotypic abnormalities, and maternal medical conditions accounted for 19%, 11%, and 9% of all stillbirths, respectively.
Conclusions. These analyses suggest a need for a more detailed stillbirth evaluation to understand the causes associated with half of all stillbirths. Expanding access to obstetric and antenatal care could reduce stillbirth, but this is a complex syndrome that requires multiple interventions for its prevention.
‘A minor atlantic Goethe’: W.H. Auden’s Germanic bias
Keywords: W.H. Auden
Berlin.
Klaus Geitel
Thomas Mann
Weimar Berlin
Ford Foundation
Hannah Arendt
Golo Mann
Erika Mann

This thesis is an account of the poet and critic W.H. Auden's relations with Germany and Germans over the course of his life (1907-1973), presented through a selection of influences that have received little critical attention in the corpus of secondary literature to date. While these connections and influences are manifold and sometimes disparate, they can serve as a prism to tell Auden's life-story from a particular, relatively unexplored angle and to illuminate his work.
The thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One discusses Auden’s engagement with German literature before 1928, his reasons for spending nine months in Weimar Berlin 1928-29, and the formative influence of this experience on his life and work. Chapter Two explores Auden's relationship with his 'in-laws', the famous family of Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann, and Auden's choice of an international life-style. Chapter Three discusses various other, later German influences on Auden: his visit to Germany with the US Army and its traces in The Age of Anxiety; issues concerning the German translation of this text; his Ford Foundation residence in isolated West Berlin; and his intellectual friendship with Hannah Arendt. Introduction and Conclusion embed these three specific chapters, deliberating the topic more abstractly.
A number of appendices bring together a wide range of unpublished sources – and their translations into English, if the original is composed in German. Translations of all German appendix material can be found in the appendix itself.
Sustainability analysis of a transport system: the UK car fleet, 1995-2005
Keywords: INDICATORS
TRANSPORT
SUSTAINABILITY
METRICS
HEALTH EFFECTS
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

A sustainability analysis was performed on the UK car fleet in 1995 and 2005, which showed that the sustainability of the car fleet improved by 13% over the time period. The Process Analysis Method was applied to generate a reliable, consistent, and sufficient indicator set describing the sustainability impact of a transport system. As well as identifying conventional impacts, this analysis identified that the quality of the mobility produced has an important impact on sustainability. Quality affects how well mobility meets human needs, but also influences user choices, which drive system change. It is suggested that the indicator set that was produced should form the basis for future sustainability assessments. A study was carried out on the UK car fleet in 1995 and 2005 to test the indicator set and to investigate changes in environmental, human/social and economic sustainability over the period. Distance travelled increased, driven by a 28% increase in fleet size, which counteracted increases in fuel efficiency. Weight also increased, driven by increasing vehicle size, and additional safety and comfort-related features, increasing embodied energy and emissions. However, direct emissions of non- CO2 pollutants reduced due to increasingly stringent regulation, as did waste to landfill. CO2 emissions increased by 11% overall. The reduction in emissions had a positive impact on health, with emission related mortality reducing by 27%. Casualties from collisions involving cars reduced by 13%. Road accidents were found to represent an impact on mortality three times greater than emissions. The indicators of service quality showed a drop in average speed and reliability (from both the network and vehicle perspectives) but an increase in comfort and vehicle safety. The increase in fleet size and new registrations drove growth in the retail and maintenance sector, which saw growth of 25% in gross value added. The opposite happened to the manufacturing sector, which shrank by 26%, due to stagnant domestic production and an increasingly competitive market affecting profit margins. An indicator aggregation was performed to summarise changes in the sustainability of car-based mobility. The indicators were normalised to a percentage change, and weighted according to their monetary value.
Cadmium isotope fractionation in seawater: driving mechanisms and palaeoceanographic applications
Keywords: Cadmium Isotope
Isotope Fractionation
Cadmium
Seawater
Trace Metal

The global marine distributions of Cd and phosphate are closely correlated, which has led to Cd being considered as a marine micronutrient. Recent developments in Cd stable isotope mass spectrometry have revealed that Cd uptake by phytoplankton causes isotopic fractionation in the open ocean and in culture. The explanation for this nutrient-like behaviour is unknown as there is only one identified biochemical function for Cd, an unusual Cd/Zn carbonic anhydrase (CdCA1). This thesis investigates why Cd appears to act as an algal nutrient by performing subcellular analyses of microorganisms genetically-modified to express the CdCA1 gene. It was found that CdCA1 was not a significant contributor to whole-cell Cd isotope compositions. Instead, a large proportion of the internalized Cd is sequestered into cell membranes with a similar direction and magnitude of Cd isotopic fractionation as seen in surface seawater. This observation is explained if Cd is mistakenly imported with other divalent metals and subsequently managed by binding within the cell to avoid toxicity. This result implies that surface seawater Cd isotope compositions, if captured by an appropriate archive, may be invaluable for reconstructions of past marine productivity. The role of environmental factors in modulating the inorganic partitioning of Cd isotopes into calcite was investigated through a series of laboratory analogue experiments. In seawater, the light isotopes of Cd are always preferred in calcite. The magnitude of fractionation showed no response to temperature, ambient [Mg], or precipitation rate. To further identify suitable palaeaoceanographic archives, the Cd isotopic composition of a suite of modern deep-sea corals were investigated. It was found that the Cd/Ca and Cd isotope composition of coralline calcium carbonate followed the predicted trend for closed-system Rayleigh fractionation in the calcifying space. The lack of isotopic offsets between some corals and seawater will simplify the application of Cd isotopes in deep-sea corals -- and potentially other marine calcifying organisms that vacuolize seawater prior to calcium carbonate precipitation -- to palaeoceanography.
Semi-synthesis and biological evaluations of tunicamycin lipid analogues and investigation of the tunicamycin biosynthetic pathway
Keywords: Streptomyces
biosynthesis
antimicrobial
antibiotic
natural product
Tunicamycin

Tunicamycins are potent antimicrobial agents but are also toxic to mammalian cells, which render them clinically impractical to use to treat infectious diseases. Instead, they have been used extensively as biochemical tools to study the N-linked glycosylation of proteins. However, despite such a routine application, their inhibitory mechanisms are still not clear. The central objective of this thesis was to develop novel tunicamycin analogues that are non-toxic to eukaryotic cells that could serve as potential antimicrobial drug candidates. We hypothesised that if we retain the lipid character of tunicamycin structure and modify the GlcNAc moiety then the antimicrobial activity would be retained but the tunicamycins inhibitory action towards GPT would be abolished, thus diminishing tunicamycins cytotoxicity towards mammalian cells.
I - Semi-synthesis of the Tunicamycin Core Scaffolds and Lipid Analogues
Semi-synthetic strategies were devised for isolating tunicamycin core scaffolds and for the selective addition of lipid chains at the 10'-N and 2"-N positions of tunicamycin, yielding the first library of novel tunicamycin lipid analogues.
II - Biological Evaluations of the Tunicamycin Core Scaffolds and Lipid Analogues
For the first time, the antibacterial activity of tunicamycins was shown to be dependent on the presence of a lipid chain. The tunicamycin core scaffolds were shown to lack antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity. More importantly, the library of tunicamycin lipid analogues with lipid chain length from seven to twelve carbons showed titrated antibacterial activity profile. Furthermore, the tunicamycin lipid analogues were not only found to have potent antibacterial and anti-M. tuberculosis activities but were non-cytotoxic compared to tunicamycins. The relative therapeutic index calculated for the tunicamycin lipid analogues was up to several thousand folds more than tunicamycins.
III - Investigation of the tunB and tunF Knockout in the tun Gene Cluster
The tunB and tunF single knockout mutations were made in the tun gene cluster by PCR-targeting and then heterologously expressed in S. coelicolor. The tunB knockout successfully abolished tunicamycin biosynthesis and showed evidence by MS the first existence of exo-glycal intermediates in sugar biology, further supporting the discovery of TunA as a novel NDP-sugar 5,6-dehydrogenase.
IV - Investigation of the TunD and TunE Enzymatic Activities in Tunicamycin Biosynthetic Pathway
The recapitulation of TunD glycosyltransferase and TunE deacetylase activities in vitro were attempted. Recombinant TunD was refolded from insoluble TunD inclusion bodies, while TunE was isolated in small quantities. However, no TunD and TunE activities were found using proposed intermediates. The co-translation of the tun gene cluster and the formation of multi-protein complex are proposed to be involved in the tunicamycin biosynthesis.