VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Children's rights: a liberal framework
Keywords: Children's Rights
Age Discrimination
Voting Age

This thesis investigates children’s moral and political rights and, in particular, their rights to make decisions at various stages of development. Part I outlines and defends an empirically informed liberal framework for establishing children’s rights to make decisions (i.e. their ‘agency rights’). This framework is grounded within a respect- and autonomy-based approach to agency rights. It engages with empirical psychology, is attentive to the role of social structures in moulding children’s psychology and in creating adult-child power hierarchies, and provides a cost-benefit mechanism for deciding how to recognise moral rights in law. In so doing, this framework provides a practical way of establishing moral and political rights, while being sensitive to the empirical reality of children’s capabilities, including the ways those capabilities are socially constructed, all while keeping respect for children, and children’s autonomy, at its centre. I conclude that children should generally have more agency rights than are currently recognised: their psychological abilities are often better than is generally assumed; we can help develop their psychological abilities; and where weaknesses remain, we can facilitate their decision-making through support, advice and dialogue. Part II applies the framework to voting, sexual consent, and age discrimination. First, I conclude that the voting age should be lowered to (at least) 16. Second, I argue that children have a right to extensive sex and relationship education and that policies and cultural images of childhood asexuality can make children vulnerable to exploitation. I also defend legal ‘closeness-of-age’ exemptions, which allow some individuals below the age of consent to engage in consensual sexual relationships with people of a similar age. Finally, I argue that everyone (including children) should be protected against age discrimination and I provide a framework for deciding whether an agency right should be allocated universally, with age-restrictions, or using competence tests.
Quantitative analysis of regulated proteolysis and protein dephosphorylation during mitotic exit
Keywords: mitosis
APC/C
dephosphorylation
mass spectrometry
proteolysis
cyclin B
anaphase
phosphatase
PP1
mitotic exit

The critical function of the cell cycle is to enable the faithful inheritance of genetic material. Correct attachment of chromosomes triggers degradation of cyclin B and entry into anaphase, the cell subsequently undergoing a series of rapidly occurring changes. Precise regulation of these events is necessary to ensure that they take place in the correct order and is crucial for the success of mitotic exit. This regulation has been attributed to the activity of both phosphatases and the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C), but the relative contribution of each process remains unclear.
Using a quantitative, high-resolution mass spectrometric analysis, this work shows that the order of events in anaphase is controlled by a series of graded dephosphorylations whose rate is encoded into the system at the level of each individual phospho-site, based on the site’s sequence characteristics. Phospho-serines surrounded by acidic residues are seen to be dephosphorylated more slowly than more basic phospho-threonine sites. This preference also applies to PP1 dependent dephosphorylations and is consistent with the previously identified substrate specificity of PP2A-B55. This indicates a general rate-determining principle of phospho-protein phosphatase-mediated dephosphorylation. In addition, the results presented in this thesis indicate that PP1 activates itself following CDK1 inactivation, promoting the dephosphorylation of over 1000 phospho-sites. Finally, in the absence of CDK activity, APC/C-dependent proteolysis is not necessary for ordered dephosphorylation. A single proteolytic event, the destruction of cyclin B, is therefore sufficient for orderly mitotic exit through relieving inhibition of phosphatase activity.
Interaction and immune regulations of innate lymphoid cells and plasmacytoid dendritic cells in skin inflammatory diseases
Keywords: Skin

The skin is equipped with an immune network providing surveillance and effector function. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are found to accumulate in skin wounds, yet the mechanisms of their role in skin wound healing are hitherto unstudied. Here, BDCA-2+ DCs were shown to infiltrate in vivo human wounds, showing heterogeneity based on differential expression of CD123, with a CD123int DC subset expressing CD1a at high levels. The CD1a+-bearing subsets could be derived from blood pDCs and presented self-lipid antigens to CD1a-reactive T cells, inducing interleukin (IL)-22 production. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, human skin wound CD123intBDCA 2+ CD1a+ DCs were shown to acquire features compatible with a role in lymph node homing and antigen presentation.
Plasmacytoid DCs and group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) have emerged as important mediators of skin inflammation, but, the mechanisms of their interaction have remained elusive. Here, it was identified that type I interferons (IFN-I), produced by pDCs, negatively regulated IL-22 producing capability of ILC22, an ILC3 subset, and positively mediated their co-stimulatory marker expression. ILC22 also presented peptide antigens to CD4+ T cells. While exogenous IL 1beta and IL 23 dampened the antigen presenting capacity of ILC22, addition of IFN I rescued their ability, and the study of psoriatic ILC22 revealed a hyper responsiveness to IFN-I.
These data demonstrate early infiltration of a previously unrecognised subset of CD123intBDCA-2+CD1a+ DCs in human skin wounds which can present lipid antigens to autoreactive T cells, contributing to the wound healing process. Furthermore, the blood CD123hiBDCA 2+ pDCs produce IFN-I and regulate ILC22 to promote T cell functions. Overall, this study reveals a new route for potential therapeutic manipulations in maintaining skin homeostasis: the pDC-IFN-I-ILC22-T cell axis.
The unlawful refusal of emergency humanitarian aid
Keywords: emergency management
humanitarian assistance
disasters

Recognising that devastating consequences often flow from a State’s refusal of emergency humanitarian aid in times of disaster, States and scholars alike have called for and participated in efforts to define, interpret, and develop relevant primary obligations in this area. This thesis examines the extent to which existing international law conditions an affected State’s right to refuse. The work identifies and analyses existing primary obligations of States affected by disasters, considering in particular the direct regulation of refusal (principally in treaties but also customary law and non-binding instruments), human rights obligations (namely the right to life and the right to an adequate standard of living), and duties of co-operation (arising primarily from the Charter of the United Nations). The thesis further examines the work of the International Law Commission on the protection of persons in the event of disasters topic since 2007, with focus on its provision of a qualified consent regime for the refusal of emergency humanitarian aid in draft article 13 (adopted as part of a set of eighteen draft articles in 2016). Cognisant of proposals for a new international convention to be concluded on the basis of the Commission’s work, these examinations were undertaken with a view to ascertaining the potential for and of such an undertaking.
This thesis argues that despite considerable progress in recent years in developing rules on refusal, existing legal rules remain unsatisfactory and there is still some way to go before State consensus on key aspects of the International Law Commission’s draft articles is likely to be achieved such that a new international convention may result. Consideration of other forms of regulation of refusal (a framework convention or set of guiding principles, for example) may therefore be necessary.
Communities in annotated, multilayer, and correlated networks
Keywords: Multilayer Networks
Community Detection
Bipartite Networks
Network Science

Networks are abstract representations of systems in which objects called "nodes" interact with each other via "edges", typically in a pairwise fashion. Examples of networks include neurons interacting via synapses in the brain, people connected on an online social network, and cities linked by roads. Most real-world networks have a complex structure that is neither fully random nor fully regular, and characterising their "mesoscale" structures is an important topic in network science that is traditionally known as "community detection". Two of the most popular approaches for community detection are maximising an objective function called "modularity" and performing statistical inference using stochastic block models, and these both play a prominent role in our work.
For many applications, an ordinary graph is an inadequate representation of the underlying data. In this thesis, we study community detection in networks that incorporate additional features beyond a set of nodes linked together by edges. First, we study annotated networks, which include additional data as node labels that help describe the network architecture. We then consider multilayer networks, which combine a collection of related networks into a single object. We uncover a deep connection between multilayer modularity maximisation and some multilayer stochastic block models, and we use this result to guide the selection of tuning parameters in modularity maximisation. Finally, we study correlated multilayer networks, in which we sample edges that connect a given pair of nodes across multiple layers from multivariate distributions, rather than as independent events.
Throughout this thesis, we are guided by consumer-behaviour applications. Specifically, we study "bipartite" networks in which customers are linked to products that they previously purchased. Detecting communities in these networks is valuable for designing personalised recommendation systems and for other business insights. We illustrate our main methodological contributions on consumer–product networks that we construct using "pseudonymised" transaction data from several stores of a large UK retailer.
Refugee education between humanitarian and development assistance - a configurational comparative analysis across low- and middle-income host countries
Keywords: Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Refugees
Education

In the context of increasing and ever more protracted forced displacement within a globally shrinking asylum and solutions space, long-standing efforts to bridge the humanitarian- development divide in refugee assistance are on a periodical high. Amongst others, such efforts translate into a decisive policy shift away from parallel systems of refugee education supported by the humanitarian sector, towards the inclusion of refugees in host country national education systems supported by governments and development partners.
This policy shift comes with a clearly defined end goal: increased self-reliance levels through improved education access and quality for both refugee and host communities. It comes without an evidence base including understanding of current policy and practice and their variation across countries.
Against this backdrop, this doctoral research project builds a cross-country baseline of current policy and practice across 41 of the largest low- and middle-income refugee hosting countries. It sets out to examine under what conditions developmental approaches can lead to better access outcomes in primary and secondary education for refugees. It finds these to be stronger national education systems in host countries with more favourable protection environments ensuring basic socio-economic rights, thereby reducing opportunity costs and increasing demand for education amongst refugees. Set within the global policy context, the project analyses degrees of inclusion of refugees in national education policy and provides insights on implementation paths pursued along with resulting education outcomes for refugees.
The conceptual starting point for this study is refugees’ position within the global system of nation-states which defines their opportunities to access education and ultimately transform their skills into self-reliance outcomes. It adopts a configurational comparative research design that enables a broader global perspective while not overlooking contextual specificities and multidimensional complexities. As such, the study makes empirical but also theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of refugee education.
Improving our understanding of the socio-ecological complexity of human-carnivore interactions
Keywords: tolerance
tanzania
socio-ecological
Carnivore

Conflicts over the management of large carnivores, and their impacts on humans reduces well-being for human communities and threatens the persistence of large carnivore populations around the world. Improving our understanding of the complex ecological and social systems that create these conservation conflicts is vital if they are to be resolved. In this thesis we investigate ecological and social aspects of human-carnivore interactions in land bordering Ruaha National Park in Tanzania where there are conflicting views on how large carnivores should be managed.
Investigating the spatio-temporal patterns of carnivore attacks on livestock we found higher risk of attacks linked to increased rainfall, wild prey and proximity to protected areas. We found re-enforced wire enclosures to be more effective at protecting livestock compared to those of traditional construction. Using local ecological knowledge to investigate carnivore landscape use in community land we found occupancy of lions, wild dog, leopard and cheetah higher in the wet season, while hyenas are present all year round. However low detection rates and respondent availability during the dry season restricted our model's ability to accurately predict carnivore land use.
Studying tolerance towards lions and hyenas we found perceived benefits and positive beliefs were the most influential variables for both species, while experience of species and perceived risks only influenced tolerance towards hyenas. Engagements with conservation programs increased tolerance towards lions but had a complex relationship with risk perception for both species, highlighting how conservation interventions can interact with other socio-psychological variables with unexpected consequences. Simulating an African savannah community we found low levels of retaliatory killing of large carnivores drove them to extinction. This, however, had little impact on other simulated populations. We also found small herbivores to be responsible for the most damage to crops compared to large herbivores.
This work contributes to our understanding of some of the drivers of the human-carnivore interactions that conservation conflicts are often centred on. We highlight the complexity of these systems and the broad range of tools and disciplines required to study them.
The unbroken branch: who Congress hears and how it listens
Keywords: US Congress

Modern scholarship tells a story of Congressional degeneration (Mann and Ornstein 2006, Connor and Oppenheimer 1993.) My thesis focuses on Congressional committees as the focal point for Congressional learning and deliberation. I ask who Congress hears from and how listening to different perspectives affects committee members. The dissertation relies on an original dataset about committee hearings. I focused on a representative sample of four committees (Senate Foreign Relations, Senate Commerce, House Agriculture, and House Science) and used sentiment analysis and language analysis software to analyze a sample of over 700 transcripts of witness testimony from the 112th, 113th and 114th Congresses. I also constructed a dataset of the professional sectors of the witnesses who testified during this period. Finally, I conducted 53 interviews with Congresspeople, witnesses, staff, and other relevant actors. Drawing on this diverse data, I present a theory of the different types of witnesses who testify, hearings Congress holds, and the distinct effects that different hearings have on Congresspeople. My data reveals that Congress hears varied and analytical testimony and that Congressional committee hearings are in fact still educational and deliberative (under the right circumstances.)
Geography teachers’ subject knowledge: an ethnographic study of three secondary school geography departments
Keywords: Geography education
Ethnography
Curriculum

This thesis explores geography teachers’ subject knowledge, contributing a detailed empirical study to the geography education research knowledge debate. School geography has been criticised for holding an out-dated, objectivist view of knowledge, which is widely attributed to its disconnection from academic geography.
Conceptualising school geography using Bernstein’s (2000) pedagogic device, this thesis applies a distinction between the ORF (official recontextualising field) and the PRF (pedagogic recontextualising field), or between curriculum as intention and reality (Stenhouse, 1975). Existing critiques are reframed, and teachers’ role as recontextualisers of knowledge is examined through an ethnographic study of three secondary school geography departments.
A model of degrees of recontextualisation is presented, describing how teachers transform knowledge into the content of school geography lessons. Existing accounts of teachers’ conceptions of geography are developed through analysis of knowledge structures, knower structures, and the legitimation of knowledge claims. The role of perception, deductive reason, and testimony in the legitimation of knowledge claims is considered. I argue that these teachers describe geography as primarily based on empirical evidence: knowledge legitimated through perception (‘actually seeing’).
Deductive reason is used frequently by teachers, and tensions between deductive reason and perception are explored. Testimony was found to rarely be acknowledged as a source of knowledge, however, data generated in these departments suggest that it plays an significant role. Problematic aspects of testimonial knowledge are critically explored, and particular attention is given to the multiple, powerful roles played by chief examiners in the construction of school geography. I suggest that existing arrangements between examination boards and school subjects, and the importance given to accreditation may limit the extent to which students are given access to powerful knowledge.
Differences found between departments make similarities striking, including: a common, high use of Google searches; uses of Virtual Shared Areas (VSAs); and differentiation between control of the curriculum at different Key Stages (KS), with the PRF dominant at KS3 (most departments are argued to largely ignore the National Curriculum, or reduce it to an auditing role), and the ORF dominant at KS4/5 (through the heavily regulative function of examination boards). An argument is made for developing more geographical research on geography education, through a model of teachers participating in such geographical research in order to develop their disciplined judgement.
Investigating small non-coding RNA regulating the hallmarks of cancer
Keywords: circRNA
competing endogenous RNA
miRNA
circular RNA
Non-coding RNA
ceRNA

Non-coding RNA are increasingly being implicated as key regulators of the human transcriptome, and are thought to play important roles in the pathogenesis and progression of cancer. Understanding how non-coding RNA, specifically microRNA (miRNA) and circular RNA (circRNA), contribute to cancer is an area of significant clinical interest.
In this work, I utilise existing large genomic datasets, generated from the Cancer Genome Atlas and Metabric projects to gain insight into the associations between coding and non-coding RNA. In the first chapter, I develop a statistical methodology (sigQC), by which the applicability of mRNA gene expression signatures to datasets and the quality of this application can be assessed. In a second chapter, I use this methodology to generate a statistical mapping from miRNA to gene signatures for the hallmarks of cancer. I show that there is a core set of miRNA statistically associated with these gene signatures, which preferentially and, in some cases, exclusively, anti-correlate across cancer types with a subset of tumour suppressor genes, such as PTEN, FAT4, and CDK12.
In the next chapter, I build upon emerging knowledge of the changes to miRNA biogenesis in hypoxia, involving amplification of AGO2 and codeletion of DICER1, and determine the miRNA statistically associated both with these copy number changes and with hypoxia gene expression. In doing so, I have statistically associated miRNA which have mature form associated with poor prognosis, increased invasiveness, and metastasis. Following this, I carry out an analysis of circRNA in breast cancers, uncovering statistical evidence which may be indicative of an autoregulatory feedback mechanism associated with hypoxia gene signature expression, involving a circRNA antisense to the HSP90AB1 gene.
Having identified the potential involvement of a circRNA, a species thought to function as repressors, or sponges for miRNA molecules, I characterised the possible effects of generalised miRNA sponges on the dynamics of a non-coding RNA (ncRNA) feedback loop. By analysing a system of delay differential equations in the deterministic and stochastic settings, I uncovered the range of potential dynamics that this feedback loop could exhibit. I showed that different kinetic properties for miRNA sponges gave rise to different behaviours of this network, including transient or sustained oscillations, which may have important roles in cancer and developmental biology.
Aleatory materialism: Louis Althusser and the necessity of contingency
Keywords: Althusser

This thesis examines the philosophy of aleatory materialism formulated by Louis Althusser. Aleatory materialism is an attempt to conceptualise history as open-ended but nevertheless amenable to scientific inquiry.
Althusser argued that theories of history which supposed their object had a fixed direction or telos rested on unscientific premises. Such theories were premised on circular reasoning. By taking particular patterns of events to be universal and timeless, those particular patterns could only be explained by pre-existing themselves. Consequently, such ‘origin’ categories were exempt from requiring explanation. In this way, subjective values were introduced into supposedly objective theories to provide not scientific comprehension but legitimation for particular forms of social power. A scientific theory must dispense with first movers without simultaneously making itself unable to explain change at all.
The way out of this impasse, Althusser argued, was to treat all social forms as contingent, rather than necessary, outcomes. Social structures included strategies and institutions to secure their continued reproduction. They were, however, unable to totally suppress the contingency that initially gave rise to them. It is because of contingency that the laws governing human behaviour can change. Social systems can transition into new systems comprised of new sets of laws. No particular configuration is destined to arise or persist indefinitely. Althusser showed that it is possible to accept both that history is amenable to scientific inquiry and that it is an open system, with a future that is not preordained but over which the actions of agents have a genuine influence. In doing so, this theory demonstrates how teleological theories are mechanisms of justification for prevailing forms of social power, by which they portray themselves as inevitable and natural outcomes, not accurate accounts of history.