VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A REST model for high throughput scheduling in computational grids
Keywords: computational science
scheduling
grid computing

Current grid computing architectures have been based on cluster management and batch queuing systems, extended to a distributed, federated domain. These have shown shortcomings in terms of scalability, stability, and modularity. To address these problems, this dissertation applies architectural styles from the Internet and Web to the domain of generic computational grids. Using the REST style, a flexible model for grid resource interaction is developed which removes the need for any centralised services or specific protocols, thereby allowing a range of implementations and layering of further functionality. The context for resource interaction is a generalisation and formalisation of the Condor ClassAd match-making mechanism. This set theoretic model is described in depth, including the advantages and features which it realises. This RESTful style is also motivated by operational experience with existing grid infrastructures, and the design, operation, and performance of a proto-RESTful grid middleware package named DIRAC. This package was designed to provide for the LHCb particle physics experiment’s “off-line” computational infrastructure, and was first exercised during a 6 month data challenge which utilised over 670 years of CPU time and produced 98 TB of data through 300,000 tasks executed at computing centres around the world. The design of DIRAC and performance measures from the data challenge are reported. The main contribution of this work is the development of a REST model for grid resource interaction. In particular, it allows resource templating for scheduling queues which provide a novel distributed and scalable approach to resource scheduling on the grid.
Inflation expectations, labour markets and EMU
Keywords: labour market institutions
time series
credibility
central banks
flexibility
nonwage labor costs
expert forecasts
wage differentials
wage level
unemployment
competitiveness
expectations
labor markets
equilibrium correction models
compensation
productivity
inflation
distribution
survey data
exchange rate mechanism
policy coordination
inflation expectations
wages
euro
econometric modeling
public policy
collective bargaining
consumers
perceptions
inflation targeting
Phillips curve
Europe
EMU
forecasting
trade unions
policy design
benefits
applied econometrics
rationality
European Monetary Union
inflation perceptions
macroeconomics
institutions
survey methods
unions
labour markets
European Union
expectations distribution
monetary policy
wage equations
labor costs
quantification
deflation
prices

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.
The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.
Accommodating the public interest in international investment treaties: police powers, expropriation and treaty interpretation
Keywords: Customary International Law
International Investment Law
Police Powers
Treaty Interpretation

This MPhil thesis analyses the extent to which customary international law principles that protect the right of States to regulate in the public interest are accommodated within international investment treaties (IITs). The thesis focuses on the police powers doctrine, which acknowledges that States have the right to enact reasonable, non-discriminatory regulation that is aimed at the public interest and enacted in accordance with good faith and due process. Such regulation will not constitute an expropriation. The thesis explores the concept of 'police power', articulates the police powers doctrine and situates the doctrine within customary international law.
The thesis then examines how the police powers doctrine can be accommodated within IITs using the principles of treaty interpretation in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). The police powers doctrine may be 'accommodated' in two ways: first, pursuant to Article 31(1) VCLT, by looking to the ordinary meaning of 'expropriation', and secondly via Article 31(3)(c) VCLT, which allows the police powers doctrine to be taken into account as a relevant rule of international law applicable between the parties. This approach is contrasted with the interpretation of annexures included in recent IITs, concluding that it is unlikely that these annexures provide greater accommodation than the proper application of the VCLT.
The conclusion of this thesis is that the principles of treaty interpretation allow the police powers doctrine to be considered when determining the meaning of an expropriation provision in an IIT. To this extent, the public interest is accommodated in IITs.
Expression and neural correlates of schizophrenia risk gene ZNF804A
Keywords: risk gene
ZNF804A
human brain tissue
schizophrenia
neuroimaging

Genome wide association studies have provided evidence for a significant association between ZNF804A (zinc finger protein 804A) - specifically the intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1344706 - and schizophrenia, but little is known about the function of the gene or the effects of the SNP. By studying post-mortem human brain tissue, I characterised ZNF804A immunoreactivity in adult and foetal human brain and investigated effects of diagnosis and rs1344706 genotype on ZNF804A mRNA and protein expression. Secondly, I looked in a large sample of healthy volunteers (n=922) at the effects of rs1344706 on brain structure using volumetry and voxel based morphometry (VBM). Furthermore, I recruited healthy volunteers who were either homozygous for the risk allele or homozygous for the non-risk allele (n=50). They participated in magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance (MR) sessions in which brain activity was measured during a working memory task, a visual processing task, and rest. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, also neurotransmitter levels were assessed. The experiments conducted for this thesis showed for the first time that ZNF804A immunoreactivity can be detected in both foetal and adult human brain and that it is mainly localised to layer III pyramidal cells, with a granular subcellular distribution throughout the cytoplasm. No effect of rs1344706 on mRNA and protein expression was found. In our structural MRI study, rs1344706 did not affect macroscopic brain structure as measured by volumetry and VBM, and given the large sample size, this seems a convincing negative. However, we did find that rs1344706 alters prefrontal-hippocampal connectivity, with increased connectivity being observed in risk homozygotes. Additionally, using MEG, we found an effect of ZNF804A genotype on hippocampal connectivity in the theta band (4-8Hz), with non-risk homozygotes displaying more connectivity. This finding provides a first clue as to the mechanisms that might underlie the previously observed effects of rs1344706 on prefrontal-hippocampal connectivity. Future studies will need to elucidate the actual function of the ZNF804A protein, in order to bridge the gap between the molecular and neuroimaging findings described in this thesis.
Abstract interpretation of domain-specific embedded languages
Keywords: program analysis
parametricity
attribute grammars
theorems for free
parser combinators
abstract interpretation
domain specific languages
functional programming

A domain-specific embedded language (DSEL) is a domain-specific programming language with no concrete syntax of its own. Defined as a set of combinators encapsulated in a module, it borrows the syntax and tools (such as type-checkers and compilers) of its host language; hence it is economical to design, introduce, and maintain. Unfortunately, this economy is counterbalanced by a lack of room for growth. DSELs cannot match sophisticated domain-specific languages that offer tools for domainspecific error-checking and optimisation. These tools are usually based on syntactic analyses, so they do not work on DSELs.
Abstract interpretation is a technique ideally suited to the analysis of DSELs, due to its semantic, rather than syntactic, approach. It is based upon the observation that analysing a program is equivalent to evaluating it over an abstract semantic domain. The mathematical properties of the abstract domain are such that evaluation reduces to solving a mutually recursive set of equations. This dissertation shows how abstract interpretation can be applied to a DSEL by replacing it with an abstract implementation of the same interface; evaluating a program with the abstract implementation yields an analysis result, rather than an executable.
The abstract interpretation of DSELs provides a foundation upon which to build sophisticated error-checking and optimisation tools. This is illustrated with three examples: an alphabet analyser for CSP, an ambiguity test for parser combinators, and a definedness test for attribute grammars. Of these, the ambiguity test for parser combinators is probably the most important example, due to the prominence of parser combinators and their rather conspicuous lack of support for the well-known LL(k) test.
In this dissertation, DSELs and their signatures are encoded using the polymorphic lambda calculus. This allows the correctness of the abstract interpretation of DSELs to be proved using the parametricity theorem: safety is derived for free from the polymorphic type of a program. Crucially, parametricity also solves a problem commonly encountered by other analysis methods: it ensures the correctness of the approach in the presence of higher-order functions.
Structural analysis of silk proteins using x–ray and neutron scattering
Keywords: proteins
structural analysis
AFM
scattering
silk

The silk fibres spun by insects and spiders have intrigued scientists for many years. Their mechanical performance is remarkable when one considers that the fibres are spun under ambient conditions from aqueous protein solutions without requiring many of the harsh processing conditions used in the production of man-made fibres. Yet, despite this interest, very little is known about the initial structure of the precursor proteins prior to spinning. One reason for this lies in the difficulty of handling the native proteins without accidental aggregation. Therefore in this thesis a novel sample preparation protocol for native silk is developed and small angle scattering (SAS) techniques are combined with circular dichroism (CD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) to examine the structure and morphology of the proteins with different mechanical properties and thus biological function in nature. This work highlights the importance of studying native, functional proteins, at close to in vivo conditions, since clear differences in the structure and interaction of native and reconstituted silks can be attributed to the additional processing which reconstituted silks have undergone in order to be solubilised. Indeed native silk proteins are found to be more inherently non-interacting at quite high protein concentrations than reconstituted silk. Upon dilution, inter-chain interactions can be observed by SAS and CD as the protein is driven from its equilibrium conformation. This interaction and the shear-induced assembly of these proteins are also followed by AFM. Interestingly, native silk proteins from spider and silkworms retain a semiflexible conformation in solution. Indeed by comparing the silks from the major and minor ampullate, flagelliform and cylindriform glands of Nephila edulis with the cocoon silk of Bombyx mori silkworms, important insights are gained into how their flexibility suggests similarities in the local environment of the protein chains thereby dictating the hierarchical structure of silk fibres.
Early twentieth-century discourses of violin playing
Keywords: tone
early twentieth century performance
voice
vitalism
cello
Auer
subjectivity
string playing
violin
performance discourse
performance practice
Joachim
late-nineteenth century performance
pathology
Flesch

The thesis is a critical reading of pedagogical and biographical texts by and on violinists, written in the early twentieth century. It contributes to historical and discursive studies by providing a limited engagement with a largely neglected group of historical sources relating to musical performance, and further advances the historical research on subjectivity, the body, pathology, and erotics, in relation to discourses of music. The thesis also contributes to studies of performance practice, and empirical and psychological studies of musical performance, in that it engages with discursive notions of theoretical and performance categories, such as tempo, melody, vibrato and portamento. By taking a hermeneutic approach to detailed discussions of performative practices, primarily found in pedagogical texts, the project aims to provide a more nuanced assessment of many of the topics that have played a central role in the ongoing research on early twentieth-century performance (which principally consists of recordings analysis). The project does this by demonstrating the extent to which these practices are culturally and historically mediated.
Following an introduction, chapter 2 demonstrates that notions of consciousness inform writers’ notions of musical virtuosity, and shows that Nietzschean and Wagnerian notions of self underpin the idea of the violinist as a superior producer of art. Chapter 3 argues that these ideas combine with metaphysical notions of melody to make the concept of ‘tone’/Ton the cornerstone of string playing during this period, which in turn has important implications for how writers conceive of tempo, rhythm, vibrato, portamento and dynamics. Chapter 4 demonstrates that writers perceive their ideal of tone to be threatened by moral and physiological disease, manifested in individual/social bodies, which leads to a very different articulation of these same practices. Chapter 5 explores traces of notions of intersubjectivity, arising from metaphors of erotic desire, which challenge the hegemonic ideal of universal mind. The conclusion frames the discourse as a problematic attempt to posit an authoritarian model of string playing. It also includes a preliminary study of early twentieth-century discourses of cello playing, and engages with the research to date on national styles of violin playing in the same period.
A different mimesis: the fantastic in Italy from the Scapigliati to the postmodern
Keywords: fantastic literature
nineteenth century
literary history
Ugo Tarchetti
Dino Buzzati
Giovanni Papini
fantasy literature
Italo Calvino
literary theory
Italy
twentieth century

This thesis investigates the literary fantastic in Italy from the late nineteenth century to the second half of the twentieth century. The purpose is to analyse the way in which the fantastic functions in a story—its ʻmechanicsʼ—and to see how the fantastic evolved structurally over the first century of its existence in Italy. This investigation is carried out by the development of a new theoretical methodology together with the close reading of a selection of texts from four key Italian authors of fantastic literature.
The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is a historical overview of the emergence of the fantastic in Italy in the late nineteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century; it examines the obstacles the fantastic has faced and some of the thematic and structural characteristics of texts which emerge. The second chapter is a literature review of the theoretical models used to analyse and understand the fantastic, followed by an outline of a new model, entitled Different Mimetics, which looks at the internal logic of the fantastic.
In the following four chapters Different Mimetics is applied to the study of a selection of fantastic texts by four authors. Chapter three focuses on Ugo Tarchetti, and shows that his stories are defined by coexistence and coincidence in both historical and thematic terms. Chapter four demonstrates how Giovanni Papini reverses the mechanics one might expect, and how his stories are structured as internal narratives. Chapter five looks at how Dino Buzzatiʼs stories are characterised by instability and stretched narrative paradigms; and finally, chapter six looks at how Italo Calvinoʼs narratives focus on world creation and paradox and how they question the stability of narrative paradigms.
The impact of climate change on the small island developing states of the Caribbean
Keywords: Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
Species Distribution Modelling
climate change
MaxEnt
biodiversity
Caribbean
forest cover
Protected Areas Network

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean are one of the world’s ‘hottest’ ‘biodiversity hotspots’. However, this biodiversity continues to be threatened by habitat loss, and now, by climate change.
The research reported here investigated the potential of species distribution modelling (SDM) as a plant conservation tool within Caribbean SIDS, using Trinidad as a case study. Prior to the application of SDM, ancillary analyses including: (i) quantification and mapping of forest cover change (1969 to 2007) and deforestation rates, and (ii) assessment of the island’s vegetation community distribution and associated drivers were carried out.
Community distribution and commercial importance and global/regional rarity were used to generate a list of species for assessing the potential of SDM within Trinidad. Species occurrence data were used to generate species distribution models for present climate conditions within the SDM algorithm, MaxEnt. These results were assessed through expert appraisal and concurrence with results of ecological analyses. These models were used to forecast suitable species climate space forty years into an SRES A2 future. Present and future models were then combined to produce a ‘collective change map’ which showed projected areas of species’ range expansion, contraction or stability for this group of species with respect to Trinidad’s Protected Areas (PAs) network.
Despite the models being indicative rather than accurate, it was concluded that species’ climate space is likely to decrease or disappear across Trinidad. Extended beyond Trinidad into the remainder of the Caribbean region, SDM may be a crucial tool in identifying which PAs within the region (and not individual islands) will facilitate future survival of given target species. Consideration of species conservation from a regional, rather than an individual island perspective, is strongly recommended for aiding the Caribbean SIDS to adapt in response to climate change.
Fat metabolism and the metabolic syndrome
Keywords: fat metabolism
metabolic syndrome

Background: The metabolic syndrome is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and vascular disease. In order to understand the pathophysiological processes underlying such risk, it is necessary to develop a better understanding of normal fat metabolism and abnormalities associated with the syndrome. The hypothesis tested in this thesis is that specific abnormalities in adipose tissue and muscle fat metabolism characterise the metabolic syndrome. Methods: Fasting biochemical parameters were measured in a cohort of overweight men with and without the metabolic syndrome. Stable-isotope labeling and arterio-venous difference measurements were conducted in 18 men to elucidate pathways of exogenous and endogenous fat metabolism under fasting and postprandial conditions in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle. In addition, a pilot study of the effects of heat and electrical stimulation on adipose tissue metabolism was undertaken. Results: Cohort study - The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome depended on the definition used. Total cholesterol and apoB were greater in those with the metabolic syndrome than in those without. There was no difference in fasting NEFAs. Metabolic investigation - There was significant postprandial uptake of NEFA from the circulating NEFA pool by adipose tissue. Chylomicrons were confirmed as the preferred substrate of LPL. There was preferential uptake of FAs derived from chylomicron hydrolysis. There was release of NEFA across muscle. In the metabolic syndrome, adipose tissue NEFA output is lower during fasting and falls less following a meal than in the healthy obese. Clearance of dietary-derived TG is lower across both adipose tissue and muscle in the metabolic syndrome. Pilot study – Heat increased measures of lipolysis whereas electrical stimulation had no effect. Conclusions: Fat metabolism in individuals with the metabolic syndrome is characterised by metabolic inflexibility but not insulin resistance.