VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Humanitarianism and military force

This thesis examines the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention in the modern states system. Humanitarian intervention is defined as the use of military force across state boundaries, against the wishes of the target government, to protect the people from intolerable misrule and grave abuses of human rights. The aim of this thesis is to examine the problem of humanitarian intervention from the perspective of international society. This thesis is divided into two parts. Part One defines the concept, considers the historical and intellectual milieu in which the idea emerged and evolved, and examines the different grounds upon which states have justified a right of intervention. Part Two considers the implications for international society. International society exists when states have shared rules, values, and a mutual concern for order. Three primary arguments are made in Part Two: (1) Humanitarian intervention can co-exist with the rules of state sovereignty, non-intervention, and limitations on the use of force; (2) Humanitarian intervention has performed the historic function of expanding the values of international society; (3) Practised under the right circumstances, it can help promote international order rather than subvert it. As this thesis demonstrates, a more in-depth understanding of how past theorists and practitioners of humanitarian intervention have approached the problem can enrich the current discussion.
The reception of English government propaganda, c.1530-1603

Despite a wealth of scholarship on the Tudors’ printed and visual propaganda, little has been written on how the population received this material. Doubts over how far either media penetrated a largely illiterate society with questionable access to the visual arts have likely been partly responsible, but as studies increasingly disprove these assumptions the need to address this gap becomes more pressing.
After establishing that the governments from Henry VIII to Elizabeth were interested, to varying extents, in propagating particular messages to their subjects, this thesis employs a diverse range of sources to analyse popular responses to official pamphlets, portraits and other visual iconography. Primarily using inventories, the ownership of these different types is examined, in particular exploring the mixed motives that underlay the display of monarchical portraits and royal devices. Broadly positive reactions to propaganda are then discussed, similarly uncovering the different, potentially subversive reasons that drove people to accept government materials. The evidence of marginalia in surviving copies of polemical works is then used to show both the different approaches taken to reading official books, and how people engaged with several specific pamphlets, illuminating the success of particular arguments and propagandistic techniques. Finally, negative reactions to government images and books are investigated, highlighting not only opposition but, conversely, more evidence of propaganda’s positive impact.
Analysing reception in these ways not only permits judgements about the extent and nature of propaganda’s success; it also provides valuable insights into important historiographical debates, like the progress of the English Reformation and the potential emergence of a public sphere, besides more generally revealing widely-held attitudes that underpinned sixteenth-century society and conditioned the relationship between rulers and ruled.

Keywords: Propaganda
Advisor: Sowerby, T
Brigden, S
Micro-deformation and texture in engineering materials

This DPhil project is set in the context of single crystal elasticity-plasticity finite element modelling. Its core objective was to develop and implement a methodology for predicting the evolution of texture in single and dual-phase material systems. This core objective has been successfully achieved. Modelling texture evolution entails essentially modelling large deformations (as accurately as possible) and taking account of the deformation mechanisms that cause texture to change. The most important deformation mechanisms are slip and twinning. Slip has been modelled in this project and care has been taken to explore conditions where it is the dominant deformation mechanism for the materials studied. Modelling slip demands that one also models dislocations since slip is assumed to occur by the movement of dislocations. In this project a model for geometrically necessary dislocations has been developed and validated against experimental measurements.
A texture homogenisation technique which relies on interpretation of EBSD data in order to allocate orientation frequencies based on representative area fractions has been developed. This has been coupled with a polycrystal plasticity RVE framework allowing for arbitrarily sized RVEs and corresponding allocation of crystallographic orientation. This has enabled input of experimentally measured initial textures into the CPFE model allowing for comparison of predictions against measured post-deformation textures, with good agreement obtained. The effect of texture on polycrystal physical properties has also been studied. It has been confirmed that texture indeed has a significant role in determining the average physical properties of a polycrystal.
The thesis contributes to the following areas of micro-mechanics materials research: (i) 3D small deformation crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) modelling, (ii) geometrically necessary dislocation modelling, (iii) 3D large deformation CPFE modelling, (iv) texture homogenisation methods, (v) single and dual phase texture evolution modelling, (vi) prediction of polycrystal physical properties, (vii) systematic calibration of the power law for slip based on experimental data, and (viii) texture analysis software development (pole figures and Kearns factors).

Keywords: geometrically necessary dislocations
dual-phase zirconium alloys
texture
polycrystal plasticity
Advisor: Dunne, F
Lin, J
Personalised cardiovascular disease risk information as a motivator of behaviour change in individuals at high cardiovascular disease risk

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment is becoming increasingly common in routine clinical practice. Consequently many individuals are likely to be identified as being at increased CVD risk and risk reducing strategies implemented with a view to preventing future CVD. There are many steps along the pathway from CVD risk assessment to the prevention of CVD events. First, CVD risk needs to be accurately estimated using an appropriate CVD risk calculator. Secondly CVD risk information needs to be effectively communicated to the individual identified as being at increased risk. Thirdly, the risk information communicated needs to be capable of motivating behaviour change and finally behaviour change needs to result in a reduction in CVD risk. The evidence base for many of these steps has yet to be fully established. Aims: The overall aims of this work were first to adapt the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) Risk Engine to better display risk and achievable risk. Secondly to investigate lay perceptions of risk and to develop two interventions designed to reduce CVD risk. The two interventions were a personalised 10-year CVD risk estimate and a brief lifestyle advice intervention. Finally, the capacity of these interventions to increase physical activity and improve CVD risk factors in adults at increased CVD risk was tested. Methods: Three focus groups were held to investigate lay perceptions of risk and to inform the design of the UKPDS Risk Engine interface and a brief lifestyle advice intervention designed to motivate risk reducing behaviours. The two interventions were then tested in a 2x2 factorial randomised controlled trial. Results: The focus group results demonstrated that public interest and understanding of risk was high. In addition participants expressed clear views regarding how risk information and lifestyle advice should be presented. 194 participants at increased 10-year CVD risk (≥ 20%) were recruited from 4 Oxfordshire general practices. Neither a personalised 10-year CVD risk estimate nor a brief lifestyle advice intervention was capable of increasing physical activity or reducing estimated 10-year CVD risk in this group. Conclusions: Whilst public interest in CVD risk appeared to be high this study was unable to demonstrate that a 10-year personalised CVD risk estimate or a brief lifestyle advice intervention was able to increase physical activity in adults at increased CVD risk.

Keywords: physical activity
cardiovascular disease
risk communication
brief lifestyle advice
Advisor: Holman, R
Managerial incentives and control in public enterprises

The subject matter of the thesis is the study of managerial incentive schemes for public enterprises. The problem of incentives and control is characterized in Chapter I stressing asymmetric information and preferences between principal (Minister) and agent (Manager). Chapter II reconsiders the findings of some previous works on the use of simple mechanisms under certainty and it shows that incentive problems may be solved with a pure-rent type contract. One of the parameters of the contract (profit-sharing ratio) is central to the enforcement of 'managerial' efficiency while the relative weights given to profit and (an approximation to) consumer surplus will influence optimal pricing decisions. This feature is maintained in a risky environment (Chapter III) although reinterpreted in a second-best fashion due to the trade-off between incentives and risk-sharing. The weights given to each side of the contract depend on the impact of price changes upon the degree of profit-uncertainty and the managerially self-selected level of effort. In addition it is shown that, when providing incentives, the Minister will depart from the pricing rule derived under full information. Chapter IV shows that these results are valid when capacity choice and non-price rationing issues become relevant. Chapter V attempts to integrate the issues of performance indicators and efficiency audits into the previous framework. It is shown that there must exist an upper limit to the admissible number of performance indicators and that efficiency audits can be designed as conditional investigation procedures and used according to an expected cost-benefit characterization. Some central underlying factors affecting the form of the optimal investigation strategy are identified. Finally, Chapter VI attempts to consider the previous results and their implications within a brief discussion of U.K. policy for public enterprises in the last decades.
Defeasible knowledge

This dissertation collects five papers that discuss potential consequences of the defeasibility of knowledge. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 provide arguments for a number of important epistemological consequences of the defeasibility of knowledge. Chapter 4 discusses consequences that others have claimed the defeasibility of knowledge to have. Chapter 1 argues that closure principles for knowledge are in tension with the defeasibility of knowledge. Chapter 2 argues that one of Williamson's famous arguments against the KK principle relies in a problematic way on a closure principle that is incompatible with defeat. Chapter 3 argues that a view on which knowledge just is belief safe from error is in tension the defeasibility of knowledge. Chapter 4 discusses two arguments to the effect that defeat by higher-order evidence sometimes involves the violation of rational ideals or rules of rational belief formation. As part of a response to an objection to contextualism about 'know', Chapter 5 investigates a number of social epistemological consequences of the defeasibility of knowledge.

Keywords: Misleading Evidence
Knowledge
Williamson
Defeasibility
Advisor: Hawthorne, J
Financial optimization problems

The major objective of this thesis is to study optimization problems in finance. Most of the effort is directed towards studying the impact of transaction costs in those problems. In addition, we study dynamic meanvariance asset allocation problems. Stochastic HJB equations, Pontryagin Maximum Principle and perturbation analysis are the major mathematical techniques used. In Chapter 1, we introduce the background literature. Following that, we use the Pontryagin Maximum Principle to tackle the problem of dynamic mean-variance asset allocation and rediscover the doubling strategy. In Chapter 2, we present one of the major results of this thesis. In this chapter, we study a financial optimization problem based on a market model without transaction costs first. Then we study the equivalent problem based on a market model with transaction costs. We find that there is a relationship between these two solutions. Using this relationship, we can obtain the solution of one when we have the solution of another. In Chapter 3, we generalize the results of chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we use Pontryagin Maximum Principle to study the problem limit of the no-transaction region when transaction costs tend to 0. We find that the limit is the no-transaction cost solution.
Moduli in general SU(3)-structure heterotic compactifications

In this thesis, we study compactifiations of ten-dimensional heterotic supergravity at O(α'), focusing on the moduli of such compactifications. We begin by studying supersymmetric compactifications to four-dimensional maximally symmetric space, commonly referred to as the Strominger system. The compactifications are of the form M10 = M4 x X, where M4 is four-dimensional Minkowski space, and X is a six-dimensional manifold of what we refer to as heterotic SU(3)-structure. We show that this system can be put in terms of a holomorphic operator D on a bundle Q = T&ast; X ⊕ End(TX) ⊕ End(V ) ⊕ TX, defined by a series of extensions. Here V is the E8 x E8 gauge-bundle, and TX is the tangent bundle of the compact space X. We proceed to compute the infinitesimal deformation space of this structure, given by TM = H(0,1)(Q), which constitutes the infinitesimal spectrum of the lower energy four-dimensional theory. In doing so, we find an over counting of moduli by H(0,1)(End(TX)), which can be reinterpreted as O(α') field redefinitions.
In the next part of the thesis, we consider non-maximally symmetric compactifications of the form M10 = M3 x Y , where M3 is three-dimensional Minkowski space, and Y is a seven-dimensional non-compact manifold with a G2-structure. We write X → Y → &reals;, where X is a six dimensional compact space of half- at SU(3)-structure, non-trivially fibered over &reals;. These compactifications are known as domain wall compactifications. By focusing on coset compactifications, we show that the compact space X can be endowed with non-trivial torsion, which can be used in a combination with %alpha;'-effects to stabilise all geometric moduli. The domain wall can further be lifted to a maximally symmetric AdS vacuum by inclusion of non-perturbative effects in a heterotic KKLT scenario. Finally, we consider domain wall compactifications where X is a Calabi-Yau. We show that by considering such compactifications, one can evade the usual no-go theorems for flux in Calabi-Yau compactifications, allowing flux to be used as a tool in such compactifications, even when X is Kähler. The ultimate success of these compactifications depends on the possibility of lifting such vacua to maximally symmetric ones by means of e.g. non-perturbative effects.

Keywords: Heterotic Compactifications
Moduli
Holomorphic Structures
Advisor: Lukas, A
de la Ossa, X
Coherent control of spin systems for quantum information processing

Over the last few years, the GRAPE algorithm has become of central importance in the development of general purpose control sequences for several branches of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. In this thesis, the application of the GRAPE algorithm to quantum information processing tasks is considered. First the theory underlying the algorithm is reviewed in detail, then a number of extensions and improvements to the core technique are developed. An implementation of the GRAPE algorithm using GPUs is presented and compared with a standard CPU based implementation.
A variety of experimental results are presented covering many different aspects of the practical use of GRAPE. This includes an evaluation of some of the errors that can affect the performance of GRAPE sequences in real experiments, and their relative importance. The strengths and weaknesses of GRAPE compared to the other possible techniques are assessed, and some suggestions made regarding potential developments in this direction.
Pseudo-pure states are a crucial component of any NMR based quantum computer, but many current methods for preparing them sacrifice purity in exchange for simplicity in the preparation sequence. This thesis also presents a new method for robustly generating pseudo-pure states with the maximum possible purity.

Keywords: GRAPE algorithm
NMR
spin simulation
Advisor: Jones, J
Pindar's Prosodia: introduction, text, and commentary to selected fragments

This dissertation examines the surviving remains of the two books of Pindar’s Prosodia. The introduction falls into four parts. The first is concerned with gathering the evidence for the books, through a review of their ancient testimonia (Chapter 1) and of the indirect and direct transmission of their fragments (Chapter 2); the second is concerned with the prosodion as a poetic genre, with some introductory remarks (Chapter 3) followed by an investigation of the collected evidence for the notion of prosodion in describing poetic texts (Chapter 4) and in later scholarship and generic theory (Chapter 5); the third combines the results of the first two into an analysis of the surviving fragments of Pindar’s Prosodia and an inquiry on the generic principles that shaped the collection (Chapter 6); the fourth consists of a descriptive catalogue of the papyrus manuscripts that contribute to the text of Pindar’s Prosodia (Chapter 7). The critical text of the eighteen main fragments and groups of fragments is followed by an introduction and line-by-line commentary to six of them, nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, *6, and *7 (= fr. 89 Snell-Maehler and ‘Paeans’ 14, 15, 6.123-183, 17, and 18).

Keywords: Prosodia
Pindar
fragments
Advisor: Currie, B
Obbink, D
The effect of the railways on the growth of the economy of England and Wales, 1840-1870

Although historians have usually acknowledged the importance of the railways for economic growth in England and Wales in the mid-nineteenth century, little research has been specifically devoted to this subject. Historians have investigated other aspects of railways, and writers whose interests centred on railways rather than on economic or historical development, have provided a large literature on technical matters and on inter-company rivalries. The economic impact of the railways has been relatively neglected.
Until recently, the position was similar in the U.S.A. although historians or the economic development of that country had given the railways a more central role in the process of growth and generalised judgements about their impact were more common. Professors Fogel and Fishlow have however re-examined the role of the railways with a more modern economic approach and have advanced substantial revisions of the orthodox interpretation. Fogel, for example, has suggested that the U.S. economy in 1890 depended on the existence of railways to a much smaller extent than is generally supposed. This American work has important implications for the historical problem of to what extent economic growth in England and Wales in the nineteenth century depended on railways, and on the related and more general problem of to what extent economic growth depends on specific innovations.
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Many-body effects in ionic systems

The electron density of an ion is strongly influenced by its environment in a condensed phase. When the environment changes, for example due to thermal motion, non-trivial changes in the electron density, and hence the interionic interactions occur. These interactions give rise to many-body effects in the potential. In order to represent this phenomenon in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations a method has been developed in which the environmentally-induced changes in the ionic properties are represented by extra dynamical variables. These extra variables are handled in an extended Lagrangian formalism by techniques analogous to those used in Car and Parrinello's ab initio MD method.
At its simplest level (the polarizable-ion model or PIM) induced dipoles are represented. With the PIM it has proven possible to quantitatively account for numerous properties of divalent metal halides, which had previously been attributed to unspecific "covalent" effects. In the solid-state the prevalence of layered crystal structures is explained. Analogous non-coulombic features in liquid structures, in particular network formation in "strong" liquids like ZnCl2 , have been studied as has network disruption by "modifiers" like RbCl. This work leads to an understanding of the relationship between the microscopic structure and anomalous peaks ("prepeaks") seen in diffraction data of such materials.
The PIM was extended to include induced quadrupoles and their effect studied in simulations of AgCl. In the solid-state it is found that the both are crucial in improving the phonon dispersion curves with respect to experiment. In the liquidstate polarization effects lower the melting point markedly.
For oxides the short-range energy has been further partitioned into overlap and rearrangement energies and electronic structure calculations are used to parameterize a model in which the radius of the anion is included as an additional degree of freedom. The Bl → B2 phase transition is studied in MgO and CaO and the differences between the new model and a rigid-ion model are analysed.

Advisor: Madden, P
Workers' participation and the French state, 1944-1948

This thesis explores attempts by state officials to enable workers and the principal trade union, the Confédération Générate du Travail, to participate at the workplace and in the French state from 1944 to 1948. At a time of increased state intervention and new social welfare policies, workers gained new responsibilities in the comités d'entreprises, or works councils. The regional government, the commissaires, helped to initiate worker control experiments, notably at the Berliet truck plant in Lyon. By the end of 1948, however, the strength of the French labour movement had not significantly increased, either at the workplace or in the state. In their demand for greater participation, workers faced resistance from state officials, employers and even unions.
State actors, such as labour inspectors, prefects, and commissaires, actively sought social peace and greater productivity in 1944-1946. At the level of the shopfloor, the new comités d'entreprises gave workers, for the first time, an official voice in the firm. However, they had no say over production decisions. Nor did worker participation extend to unskilled workers, immigrants, or women.
Worker participation did not go further at the time for three reasons. Employers intensified rationalisation measures at the workplace and refused to accept new powers given to the works councils. The CGT was insufficiently committed to workplace participation. Finally, the power of the centralised state was entrenched in the domain of economic planning but did not influence the workplace sufficiently to support participation, particularly in 1946-1948.
The postwar settlement that led to increased growth in the 1950s was structured around the private sector and the planning capabilities of the state, at the expense of any involvement by labour. The exclusion of workers from planning decisions and the failure of worker control attempts led not only to the strikes of 1947-1948, but to a profound degree of powerlessness that was to mark the labour movement for the next generation.