VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Autofictional trauma in post-Imperial Portuguese literature
Keywords: autofiction
post-imperial
portuguese literature
gender
trauma

This thesis aims to situate the work of three contemporary Portuguese female authors, Lídia Jorge, Isabela Figueiredo, and Dulce Maria Cardoso, within the autofictional genre in order to interrogate how the trauma of their own personal experience of the Colonial Wars and decolonisation era is reflected within their writing. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Vincent Colonna, I propose that each of the works investigated can be positioned along a spectrum of autofictionality, due to the proximity or distance of the authors from their respective narrators and protagonists. I contend that an autofictional blurring of fact and fiction within A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988), Caderno de Memórias Coloniais (2009, 2015), and O Retorno (2011) is a productive strategy for the depiction of trauma and enables the traumatic memories of the authors to bleed onto the page, albeit from a protected distance.
This study draws on close textual analysis to assess the breadth, and severity, of the physical and mental trauma experienced during the Colonial Wars and decolonisation epoch. This thesis is careful to give equal weight to protagonists of different genders, with an integral dimension of the analysis being its innovative focus on masculinities. My close reading develops across four chapters, traversing themes of photography, gender, and sexuality, and examines the traumatic implications of this period ranging from PTSD and suicide to sexual assault. My assessment of a range of protagonists highlights that, through their depiction of trauma, Jorge, Figueiredo and Cardoso explode and problematise nostalgic notions of the Portuguese empire and Estado Novo ideologies of imperial power. This study questions the possibility of survival and recovery proposed by the three authors, not only for their traumatised characters, but also for themselves, and culminates with a reading of these works as a “protected” and cathartic reliving of trauma.
Atropisomeric fragments in drug discovery and probe compound development
Keywords: Fragment Based Drug Discovery
Synthesis
Atropisomerism

This thesis describes work on the use of atropisomeric biaryl compounds in fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) and probe compound development.
Part I describes the investigation of derivatisation methodologies and fragment growth methodologies to generate axially chiral biarylpyrimidines with high rotational barriers, for potential incorporation in FBDD screening libraries. We explored 6 derivatisation methodologies, yielding 23 examples. When carried out on enantioenriched substrates, conservation of the enantiomeric ratio was observed and the compounds displayed high enantiomeric stability in most cases (ΔG > 30 kcal/mol).
Part II describes the exploitation of axially chiral biarylpyrimidine fragments to synthesise molecular probes for KRas G12C covalent inhibition, following the discovery of sotorasib (AMG 510). Probe 120 was synthesised, assessed in biological studies, and optimised to lead to probe 150, active against KRas G12C in the low micromolar range as a racemate.
Novel molecular MRI approaches to the detection of brain metastasis

Keywords: brain metastasis
vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1)
activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM)
inflammation
magnetic resonance imaging
E-selectin
molecular imaging

Secondary brain cancer (brain metastasis) is a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality. As treatments for primary tumours and systemic metastatic disease improve, the significance of brain metastasis as a cause of death increases. The poor survival of patients with brain metastasis is partly attributed to the unique microenvironment of the brain, includes the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which limits penetration of systemics cancer therapies and imaging contrast agents, and partly to the late stage of diagnosis. Current diagnosis relies on breakdown of the BBB, which only occurs at later stages of metastasis progression and, thus, delaying the introduction of potential treatments. To address this critical issue, development of novel molecular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents for the detection of brain metastasis at the early stages of formation was the overall focus of this thesis.
Inflammation is a hallmark of many neurological disorders, and expression of cell adhesion molecules on blood vessels is a key component of this process. Brain endothelial activation can readily be targeted by iron oxide particles in vivo and unmasked using routine MRI acquisition methods. A number of different types of iron oxide particles, MRI sequences and magnetic field strengths have been used previously for visualising this endothelial activation. Hence, in this thesis, the initial aim was to optimise each of these parameters to further improve molecular MRI in mouse brain.
Endothelial activation is also an early event in the development of brain metastasis. Two adhesion molecules, activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) and E selectin, were assessed in brain metastasis models from three primary tumours (breast, melanoma and lung) as potential biomarkers for detection of brain micrometastases in the preclinical models. Iron oxide based microparticles against these surrogate biomarkers of brain metastases were developed, validated and applied in vivo.
The results of this work demonstrated that targeting both ALCAM and E selectin can reveal brain metastases at the microscopic level, and before conventional imaging methods. The advances in our ability to detect early brain metastatic stages using molecular MRI, and the presented contrast agents in this body of work is likely to yield substantial improvements in patient survival.
A second-quantised Shannon theory
Keywords: superposition of channels
Shannon theory
quantum information
indefinite causal order
quantum circuits
quantum communication
vacuum extension
quantum computation
quantum Shannon theory
time-correlated channels
interference of quantum channels
coherent control
quantum supermaps
higher-order processes
quantum foundations
resource theories

Shannon's theory of information laid the groundwork for the rapid developments in information and communications technologies over the last century. Yet, it assumed that information carriers were described by the laws of classical physics, whilst at the most fundamental level, nature obeys the laws of quantum physics. Quantum Shannon theory, which describes information carriers as quantum states, has led to a new era of possibilities, such as perfectly secure cryptography without pre-established keys. Yet, there is a sense in which this transition from classical to quantum is incomplete. Traditionally, quantum Shannon theory has focused on scenarios where the internal states of information carriers are quantum, whilst their trajectories in spacetime have still been assumed to be classical.
This work presents a second level of quantisation where both the information itself and its propagation in spacetime are treated in a quantum fashion. The second-quantised Shannon theory describes the possibility of a single particle being simultaneously transmitted through multiple communication channels in a quantum superposition. The framework is developed using the tools of higher-order transformations and quantum resource theories, formally quantifying the resources required for communication between a sender and receiver in this setting.
The advantages of the second-quantised theory are illustrated in a series of examples, showcasing various counterintuitive phenomena that occur when information is simultaneously transmitted through multiple communication channels. In particular, when a single particle travels in a quantum superposition through two alternative transmission lines, the noisy processes in the two lines can destructively interfere, leading to a cleaner communication channel overall. Various different scenarios are encompassed in the framework, including transmission through a superposition of both independent and correlated channels, as well as through large-scale communication networks. This work concludes with a study of the robustness of these protocols to errors and a discussion of recent experimental demonstrations of their associated communication advantages.
Epidemiology of a sexually transmittable herpesvirus, the Mustelid gammaherpesvirus 1 (MusGHV-1), and its link to reproductive health and physiological stress in European badgers (Meles meles)
Keywords: conservation
molecular epidemiology
STD
climate change
Wildlife disease

Along with virulence and transmissibility, pathogen transmission mode can be decisive on host-pathogen dynamics, where sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are predicted to be more likely to drive vulnerable host population to extinction than infections transmitted mainly through other routes. Despite STIs being common among animals, and often associated with sterility, STIs have been poorly studied in wild animals. As a background introduction to the current state of knowledge about wildlife STIs, in Chapter 1 I reviewed studies reporting STIs in wild musteloids; a group substantially ignored in previous STI reviews. The high proportion of reported cases associated with reproductive diseases and failure, and disproportionally investigation effort in wild populations highlight the need for further research, especially in species of conservation concern. I established the need for systematic wild mammal host-STI models to better understand the actual impact of STIs on wildlife health and population dynamics. In Chapter 2, I laid the foundations for investigating a sexually transmittable pathogen, the Mustelid gammaherpesvirus 1 (MusGHV-1), in free-ranging European badgers (Meles meles), and reported that MusGHV-1 reactivation has a negative effect on female pregnancy success, but not on male sperm abundance. In Chapter 3, I explored influential host risk factors associated with higher MusGHV-1 shedding, such as age, body conditions and sex. In Chapter 4, I explored the effect of MusGHV-1 coinfection with a zoonotic bacterial pathogen, Clostridium perfringens. MusGHV-1 reactivation causes a predisposition to C. perfringens overgrowth in the gut, especially when infected with a novel MusGHV-1 variant. This led me to further explore the genetic and phenotypic differences between the two MusGHV-1 variants identified in this badger population in Chapter 5. I found social group-biased MusGHV-1 variant frequencies and blood viral load differences, implying different functional virulence between the two variants. In Chapter 6, I identified that weather-related stress experienced during prenatal life exacerbate the likelihood of MusGHV-1 reactivation in adulthood. Collectively, these chapters reveal the potential for host responses to viral STI’s to be complex, hinging on individual demographics, coinfection status, environmental conditions, and the viral strain involved; all factors needing proper consideration when attempting to mitigate the role of disease in conservation ecology.
Identifying regulators of chronic myeloid leukaemic (CML) stem cell quiescence and discovering effective novel therapies for CML relapse
Keywords: CML stem cell
Tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance
Quiescence

Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative neoplasm characterised by the presence of Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome. The standard treatment is tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), while they achieve remission in many patients, the majority will relapse on cessation of therapy. This indicates that TKI do not ablate the CML stem cells. In this study, I analysed a single-cell transcriptome dataset of CML stem cells published in our lab [1] and other public datasets trying to identify candidate targets that may mediate stem cells resistance to TKI. Growth Arrest Specific 2 (GAS2) was the ‘top hit’ and therefore the candidate I took forward for functional validation.
I first sought to develop an efficient gene knock-down (KD) or knock-out (KO) strategy. Four approaches were compared: 1. Inducible lentiviral shRNA, 2. Constitutive lentiviral shRNA, 3. Single Cas9-sgRNA ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex, 4. Dual Cas9-sgRNA RNPs. Comparing all approaches, constitutive shRNA achieved 67.2% of successfully transduced eYFP+ cells, 86.2% reduction of GAS2 mRNA level in CML CD34+ cells and was used for further experiments.
My preliminary functional analysis suggested that GAS2KD reduced quiescence and increased cell proliferation in both cell lines and primary CML CD34+ cells. Then I repeated lentiviral shRNA transduction in different CML samples. Slightly higher proliferation index occurred in the GAS2KD group than controlKD group. No significant changes in apoptosis or lineage differentiation were noted in GAS2KD group vs. controlKD group. In summary, knock-down of GAS2 modestly reduced the number of quiescent CML stem cells, suggesting potential therapeutic efficacy against TKI resistant CML stem cells. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to validate and extend this observation.
Rhetoric in 1 Esdras 3:1–5:6 (the story of the three bodyguards): integration of Greek and Jewish features
Keywords: Humour
The Story of the Three Bodyguards
Septuagint
1 Esdras

The origin and purpose of 1 Esdras have long been debated in relation to the canonical texts of 2 Chr 35–36, Ezra 1–10, and Neh 7:72[73]–8:13a, as well as the original language and composition process of 1 Esdras. The story of the Three Bodyguards (1 Esd 3:1–5:6) is a key text for illuminating these debates. My main objective is to demonstrate the purpose and function of the story of the Three Bodyguards in relation to the purpose and composition of 1 Esdras. To achieve this purpose, I employ rhetorical criticism to identify rhetorical features in the speeches of the story and to demonstrate that their significance in and beyond the story is associated. These rhetorical features help us to recognise the purpose and function of the Story and of 1 Esdras as a whole, and also shed light on the compositional development of the entire work. Further, I highlight the relationship of the Story to other Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, including the Jewish novella and the court tale (e.g., Greek Esther).
Through multi-layered rhetorical analyses, I demonstrate that all the speeches in the story contain rhetorical features that have been influenced by Greek culture (e.g., Greek rhetoric) as well as derived from the Hebrew Bible and/or the Septuagint. I argue that the Story’s mixed character represents the author’s selective scribal activity and reveals the literary aspect, theme, and motif of the story of the Three Bodyguards. All of which, I show, are of relevance to the structural features and purpose of 1 Esdras.
Through this process, I conclude that the book of 1 Esdras, including the story of the Three Bodyguards, was originally written in Greek and composed by the single author who acquired a Greek and Jewish education during the Hellenistic period. Further, the author’s purpose was to deliver the rhetorical message: Remember God’s truthful and salvific action and live together in accordance with God’s character, Law, and action.
The conquered and the conquerors: representations of warfare and combat in Greek and Egyptian literature
Keywords: New Kingdom
Inaros-Petubastis Cycle
Demotic Literature
Posthomerica
Hellenistic Literature

This thesis is a study of the ways in which Greek and Egyptian authors reacted to being conquered, focusing particularly on how these reactions were manifested in representations of war. The point of comparison is the Greek and Egyptian diachronic changes in their depictions of warfare and combat, and how these related to respective changes in geopolitical and military supremacy. To examine these changes, texts are selected from four periods: two Greek periods and two Egyptian; two periods of military supremacy (Greek texts from the early-mid Hellenistic period, c. 300–130 BC, Egyptian texts of the 18th and 19th Dynasties of the New Kingdom, c. 1550–1186 BC) and two later periods under foreign rule (Greek texts from the Imperial period, c. 200–300 AD, Egyptian Demotic texts from the Graeco-Roman period, c. 300 BC–200 AD). A Preface provides dates and locations for the sources, and sets out principles of transliteration and translation. After considering what the purpose and role of comparison is within studies of the ancient world in the Introduction, this thesis moves on to four chapters that cover important concepts repeatedly brought out in representations of war: the nature of war in terms of semantics and temporality; ethnicity (the identity given to both participants and audience by the authors, studied with particular attention paid to the use of similes and comparisons); gender and sexuality (the presence or absence of women in war, and the application of stereotypically masculine or feminine traits); social status (the structuring of society, from the gods down). The Conclusion draws these threads together, summarising how the Greeks and Egyptians reacted – or did not react – and to what extent ideas of resistance are present in the sources. Although the texts of the conquerors display similar attitudes to many of these concepts, a comparison of the changes that took place in Greek and Egyptian representations of war shows that their reactions to being conquered diverge, revealing different approaches to their culture’s loss of military power.
Spin(7) Instantons on asymptotically conical Calabi-Yau Fourfolds
Keywords: Calabi-Yau Fourfolds
Spin(7) Instantons
Exceptional Holonomy
Hermitian Yang-Mills Connections
Higher Dimensional Gauge Theory

The present thesis examines the role of Hermitian Yang-Mills (HYM) connections in Spin(7) instanton moduli spaces over asymptotically conical (AC) Calabi-Yau (CY) fourfolds. The starting point is Lewis' energy estimate: Lewis: if a principal G-bundle P over a closed CY fourfold X8} admits HYM solutions, then all Spin(7) instantons on P are HYM. The question we are interested in is whether this result persists in the AC setting.
A first-order approach is to pass to the (Sasaki-Einstein) asymptotic link, which is not Ricci flat and could thus be homogeneous. The role of the Spin(7) instanton equation is assumed by the G2 instanton equation and that of the HYM equation by the contact instanton equation. It is easier to explore the relationship between these 7-dimensional systems instead. Imposing equivariance reduces the PDEs to representation theory. This allows us to exhibit an explicit non-contact G2 instanton on S7. This example agrees with the limiting connection of the standard octonionic instanton of Fubini and Nicolai. Prior to the results of this thesis, this was the only known non-HYM Spin(7) instanton on a CY fourfold. It originally appeared in the physics literature. We provide an alternative construction, in line with the modern framework for equivariant gauge theory. Because its limiting connection is not contact, its moduli space cannot contain HYM connections. Consequently, it does not help resolve the question we set out to answer.
We extend Lewis's theorem to the AC setting, conditioning on decay rates.
We construct the moduli space of SO(5)-invariant Spin(7) instantons with structure group SO(3) on the Stenzel space. These new instantons sit exactly at the slow-rate cut-off point of our extension of Lewis's theorem. They provide a negative answer to the question we set out to answer: the moduli space is one-dimensional and contains precisely two HYM connections. One of these is the epicentre of a removable singularity/ bubbling phenomenon and the development of a corresponding Fueter section. We compute this explicitly and verify (after suitable modifications) an infinite-energy version of Tian's energy conservation identity. This phenomenon hints at a possible relationship between the AC Spin(7) instanton and HYM systems.
Corporate action on climate change: perspectives on time, risk, and value
Keywords: accounting
climate risk
corporate strategy
climate change
risk management

Companies are increasingly under pressure from governments, investors, and consumers to act on climate change by reducing, and ultimately eliminating, carbon emissions (decarbonisation). Yet companies continue to be held accountable for generating strong financial results and safeguard, if not maximise, shareholder value. This raises an important question: How do companies act on climate change in the face of intensifying decarbonisation and ongoing commercial imperatives? This thesis examines corporate action on climate change through three complementary perspectives on time, risk, and value. Drawing on economic geography, organisation and management, and accounting research, the thesis investigates: (1) the relationship between organisational time orientation and cor-porate carbon emissions; (2) how companies reconcile institutional demands to reduce carbon emissions (climate-stewardship logic) with pressures to create shareholder value (market logic); and (3) the determinants and capital market implications of corporate climate risk disclosures.
The thesis finds that (1) long-term oriented companies generate less carbon emissions, (2) companies reconcile market and climate-stewardship logics by transforming the system-level problem of climate change into the managerial – and thus manageable – object of climate risk, and (3) self-reported corporate climate risk exposures are largely not reflected in stock market values. Together, these insights shed light on the antecedents, processes, and consequences of corporate action on climate change, an issue that has received limited attention by economic geographers to date. Overall, this thesis provides evidence on the contours of an emerging carbon economy through the eyes of its central actors – companies in carbon-intensive industries – and highlights the importance and potential of researching the ways in which companies navigate and shape the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Generalizing speech recognition techniques for monotonic sequence modeling applications
Keywords: speech recognition
recurrent neural networks
visual speech recognition
sequence modeling
lipreading

This thesis demonstrates how modeling techniques from speech recognition can be advantageous in a variety of other problems. The problems to which we apply these techniques include visual-only speech recognition (lipreading), restoration of characters missing from old Hawaiian orthography but present in the modern orthography, and an interactive lipreading-based keyboard.
In particular, modeling techniques from speech recognition carry two main benefits applied throughout this thesis. The first is their exploitation of monotonicity, a property found widely across sequence modeling problems besides just speech. The second is the separation of the problem into a combination of learned and fixed pieces, the latter of which facilitates the injection of expert knowledge (in the form of finite state transducers) at arbitrary places in a larger system. These features for encoding inductive biases about our problem improve data efficiency, which is especially beneficial when paired data for learning the end-to-end problem from scratch is insufficiently plentiful or entirely unavailable. We can thus get the best of both worlds: explicit representation of our expert knowledge and other inductive biases, and learned neural network components for those that are hard to model by hand and have plentiful data.