VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Supporting data-driven software development life-cycles with bug bounty programmes

A growing number of organisations are utilising the skills of a global base of white-hat hackers in order to identify pre- and post-deployment vulnerabilities. Despite the widespread adoption of bug bounty programmes, there remain many uncertainties regarding the efficacy of this relatively novel security activity, especially when considering their adoption alongside existing software development lifecycles. This dissertation explores how bug bounty programmes can be used to support data-driven software development lifecycles. To achieve this outcome, the dissertation presents four distinct contributions. The first contribution concerns the usage of Crowdsourced Vulnerability Discovery (CVD) (of which bug bounty programmes are a part) within organisations. This includes the presentation of expert opinion pertaining to the benefits and shortcomings of existing approaches, and identification of the extent to which CVD programmes are used in software development lifecycles. The second contribution explores the benefits and drawbacks of hosting a programme on a bug bounty platform (a centralised repository of programmes operated by a third party). Empirical analysis of operating characteristics helps address concerns around the long-term viability of programme operation, and allows for a comparison to be made between the cost of expanding a security team and the cost of running a programme. The third contribution examines the extent to which participating in the search for vulnerabilities is a viable long-term strategy for hackers based on bug bounty platforms. The results demonstrate that participation is infeasible, even on a short-term basis, for significant numbers of hackers, highlighting the shortcomings of the current approach used by platforms. Building on the first three, the fourth contribution explores CVD programme policies, and the extent to which pertinent information, particularly in reference to legal constraints, is communicated to hackers. A systematic review reveals the commonplace elements that form current policy documents, enabling organisations to identify gaps within their own programme policies and form policies that are consistent with peers.

Advisor: Simpson, A
Gender, sexual discourse, and women's pleasure in later medieval England, c.1300-c.1550

This thesis brings multiple methodologies together to examine where we might find pleasure and sexual subjectivity for women in later medieval England. At once working to uncover the assumptions within historians’ theoretical frames and lay new groundwork, in the Introduction I explore the semantic and theoretical challenges, and propose some new methods, focussing on pleasure as an operative term.

Keywords: sexuality
England
gender
medieval
queer
Trials and penal sanctions by non-state armed groups

This thesis sets out the international legal framework applicable to the passing of penal sentences by armed groups during non-international armed conflicts and assesses the practical and normative challenges that it entails. It explains that international law neither explicitly prohibits nor explicitly permits the passing of penal sentences by armed groups and, therefore, that such groups enjoy a limited legal capacity to pass penal sentences. However, armed groups remain subject to exacting fair trial guarantees, most notably the requirement of a regularly constituted court providing all the necessary judicial guarantees recognised as indispensable. While not categorically outlawing the operation of courts and passing of penal sentences, these guarantees will often overstrain the factual capacities of armed groups in practice. Nevertheless, the thesis demonstrates that a downgrading of these guarantees is doctrinally problematic and normatively undesirable. Moreover, the thesis explains that international law, at present, does not place an obligation upon armed groups to use penal sanctions in order to enforce compliance with IHL. Neither the organisational threshold requirement under IHL, nor substantive customary law obligations or the doctrine of command responsibility can be interpreted to place such duty upon armed groups. Nevertheless, recent State practice indicates an increasing demand for accountability measures carried out by armed groups. While penal sanctions can play a role in meeting these demands in cases where the armed group in question operates a capable judicial system, alternative measures exist that allow for the implementation of accountability in situations where a fair trial cannot be provided.

Keywords: administration of justice
non-international armed conflict
armed groups
international law
international humanitarian law
What are our key assessment principles after a summer without assessment?


The Covid-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of 2020 public general qualification examinations in the United Kingdom (UK), and elsewhere. The implementation and subsequent rejection of policies of grade standardisation that followed across the UK’s four nations has the potential to have long-lasting effects on the UK’s qualification systems. The aim of this study was to explore the short- and long-term effects of the policies relating to the summer 2020 general qualification examination series, with respect to the key assessment principles of validity, reliability, fairness, and comparability. Validity arguments for the different approaches taken were developed, using a phased approach based on Crooks, Kane and Cohen’s (1996) validity chain model. Focused on Wales as a main ‘home-international’ case study, while drawing on other UK nations for elucidation and comparison, this study found that, as well as the validity argument for standardisation, there were also two distinct validity arguments for the awarding of centre assessment grades (CAGs) determined by teachers. Both arguments de-prioritised comparability between examination series and centres, previous students’ legitimate expectations that their grades would continue to represent an equivalent level of attainment to the grades awarded in future, and the relational sense of fairness. The first validity argument for CAGs was based on the impossibility of meeting the twin goals of awarding fair grades to individual students and achieving causal, cohort-level comparability of outcomes, given that teachers were known from previous years to be optimistic in their predicted grades. Analysis of grade data also suggested that teachers were faced with selecting a grade when, in many cases, a multitude of grades were possible, but none very likely. Student-level standards were prioritised, thus rejecting the logic of the standardisation model. As such, the first argument 2 represented a temporary re-prioritisation of key assessment principles to give more weight to CAGs, as the main source of student-level attainment data. The second validity argument for CAGs is a more fundamental departure from the usual balance of principles, stating that teachers are not so much more optimistic as more knowledgeable about a student’s level of attainment, which the normal general qualifications assessment process also fails to capture, either because some students will have a bad day, or because outcomes are unfairly capped as a result of predictions used to ensure statistical comparability (Casella et al., 2021). Thus, the attainment measure from previous years was presented as insufficiently valid, and the notion of maintaining the attainment standard was rejected. The validity arguments are then considered in relation to paradigms of assessment (Baird, 2018a) and paradigm change (Isaacs & Gorgen, 2018) to examine how the pandemic may affect proposals for future assessments and the balance of key principles they represent.

Keywords: MEA
MEA 2021
Sisters in Crime: Women and illicit sexual affairs in late imperial Chinese erotic fiction

This research aims to investigate the literary representation of the female relationships and illicit sexual affairs in late imperial China erotic fiction. Focusing on the plots of touqing 偷情 (having secret sexual affairs), this research utilises five selected examples of vernacular erotic fiction composed around 1572-1730 as the main source to investigate women’s lives and social activities in illegal circumstances: Langshi 浪史 (Chronicles of the Libertine), Xiuta yeshi 繡榻野史 (Unofficial History of the Embroidered Couch), Rou putuan 肉蒲團 (The Carnal Prayer Mat), Taohua ying 桃花影 (Shadow of Peach Blossoms), and Dengcao heshang zhuan 燈草和尚傳 (Legend of the Candlewick Monk).
Bonded with their own desire to be fulfilled, female participants of illicit affairs each have a specific role, function, and things to offer, forming a network comprised of these unlikely sisters in crime. To understand how such a network functions and sustains, female characters of the texts will first be grouped and analysed based on their image and common traits respective to their chief identity in the text. The discussion will then lead to an investigation of the interactions portrayed to reveal the respective role of each female type and their implications for the perceived female relationship under the exceptional circumstances of collaboration on sex crimes. The research will also compare the relationships portrayed in erotic fiction and other literature of the era, including Honglou meng and Jin Ping Mei, to illustrate the unique behaviour and network derived from the collective participation in illicit sexual affairs.

Keywords: Langshi
Ming fiction
erotic literature
桃花影
females in literature
Chinse erotic novels
Taohua ying
Late Imperial Chinese fiction
浪史
xiuta yeshi
dengcao heshang zhuan
Chinese novels
肉蒲團
Rou putuan
Qing fiction
繡榻野史
Female relationship in fiction
燈草和尚傳
Advisor: Tan, T
Optical engineering of colour centres in diamond

Ultrafast laser fabrication of NV− centres has been shown to produce highly coher- ent NV− centres within diamond with high fabrication accuracy, expanding the applicability of the defect within quantum technologies. However this technique is yield limited due to a required thermal annealing step. Within, this thesis presents the first, near-unity yield, fabrication of single NV− centres in commerically available high purity diamond using a homebuilt ultrafast fabrication system. Thermal annealing is replaced by a low energy ultrafast pulse train which allows for NV− generation to be monitored using confocal fluorescence microscopy. Each fabrication site showed a g(2)(0) < 0.5, demonstrating singularity. The fabrication precision has been calculated to be isotropically ∼250 nm, suggesting that nitrogen concentration is the limiting factor. This thesis details the construction and operating principles of the homebuilt fabrication system, which includes the use of adaptive optic elements. Additionally this thesis investigates phenomena observed during ultrafast farbication of NV− centres using ab initio calculations of defect interactions within diamond. These simulations suggest that hybridisation may be responsible for transient effects seen during fabrication. In addition, these simulations demonstrate that the ultrafast laser fabrication of defects may provide an invaluable window into defect formation and fabrication in the solid state.

Keywords: defects
NV centre
diamond
colour centres
laser fabrication
Advisor: Smith, J
Martin, B
Cyber-nations: the Cold War contest for cybernetics and automation in the US, USSR, and divided Germany

This dissertation explores how the United States, the USSR, and a divided Germany responded to the new science of cybernetics during the postwar. Invented by the MIT mathematician, Norbert Wiener, cybernetics offered a new quantitative framework for studying feedback loops across physical, biological, and sociological systems. The potential economic applications of cybernetics promised a future of increased mechanization which threatened to undermine the role of labor in both capitalist and socialist systems. The present study examines how thinkers across the Cold War divide received cybernetic ideas and developed socio-political, economic, and artistic responses to automation and productivity enhancements. Each chapter offers a case study focused on a particular state (The United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic), and analyzes socialist and liberal responses to cybernetic ideas. The wide-ranging applicability of cybernetic concepts prompted varied responses, which ranged from early forms of digital art in West Germany to proposals for networked computer systems in the Soviet Union. Through tracing cybernetic reception across ideological and geographic boundaries, this dissertation aims to uncover an important moment of cybernetic radicalism in the 1960s. This perspective provides much-needed historical context for current concerns about the dominance of big tech and potential changes in twenty-first century labor practices.

Advisor: Betts, P
Institutional music education and utopian futurity in Afghanistan's twenty-first century liberal peacebuilding era

For almost 100 years, institutional music education in Afghanistan has both thrived and been devastated as a result of the country’s political changes and upheavals. This thesis explores the place and role of institutional music education within Afghanistan’s recent liberal peacebuilding era (2001–2021) and considers how international agendas during this time were translated into educational initiatives on the ground. Despite increased academic and media interest in the country’s music education initiatives during the last decade, little attention has been paid to the experiences and motivations of the students themselves. Focussing on the case study of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), this research investigates what institutional music education afforded individuals and social groups, what stakeholders wanted to achieve by engaging with music education, and how individuals conceptualised their role as musicians within Afghan society and beyond. Using a critical ethnography approach, this research also looks beyond ANIM’s public narrative to interrogate taken-for-granted claims about social transformation and societal change through music. The research found that during the past two decades, institutional music education was used by ANIM’s community, collaborators, and supporters to contribute to three key themes associated with Afghanistan’s post-2001 reconstruction: first, the advancement of the liberal values of individualism and freedom; second, the promotion of women’s rights and freedoms within public space; and third, the development of cultural diplomacy efforts linked to Afghanistan’s global reputation and bilateral relations with other nations. In addressing and responding to many of the country’s historical and contemporary challenges, institutional music education functioned as a vehicle for imagining and projecting into alternative futures and for presenting a utopian image of Afghanistan. However, the findings of the research also elucidate asymmetrical power relations within ANIM’s educational processes and its interactions with other organisations and reveal tensions around the use of music education to further geopolitical agendas. Finally, this thesis reflects upon the recent return of the Taliban regime and the implications of this political change for the future of music education in Afghanistan.

Keywords: international development
Afghanistan
critical ethnography
global education
gender studies
music education
Neurocorrection: an offender-oriented defence

Soon, it may be possible to promote offender rehabilitation through neurointerventions – interventions that exert direct physical, chemical or biological effects on the brain. This thesis engages with the ethical debate surrounding neurointervention use within criminal justice and advances a distinctive offender-oriented approach to defending it. I argue firstly that offenders have a positive moral right to access what I call ‘neurorehabilitation’ or ‘neurocorrection’. I contend that arguments supporting offenders’ positive moral right to conventional rehabilitation imply a right to (affordable) neurorehabilitation when the latter would be part of the most effective package for facilitating rehabilitation. I next argue for a beneficence requirement in non-consensual (or dubiously consensual) neurocorrection. I contend this requirement is justified by the need to protect offenders against abuse because alternative candidate protections would be inadequate. I also identify five indicators of benefit that policy-makers might use when assessing whether neurocorrection benefits its target. Following this, I defend the compatibility of beneficial neurocorrection and punishment. I argue that punishment-neurocorrection combinations that leave their recipients overall better off need not undermine the realisation of an accompanying punishment’s retributive, deterrent and communicative goals, because these goals only require that punishment is pro tanto harmful for its recipients. I further argue there will be some occasions when beneficial neurocorrection can itself contribute to the realisation of punishment’s goals. I next consider whether and when neurocorrection impermissibly disrespects its targets. I argue non-consensual neurocorrection disrespects its targets in some respects, but not others. For example, I argue it disrespects its recipients’ rational and autonomous (RA) agency by virtue of its controlling influence and its expressive content; but maintain that it does not disrespect their RA agency by virtue of its ‘reason bypassing’ mode of influence so long as it is appropriately combined with reason engagement. Finally, I outline and defend the conditions under which I maintain beneficial, disrespectful neurocorrection would be permissible.

Keywords: neurocorrection
offender rehabilitation
neuroethics
offender rights
criminal justice ethics
beneficence
Advisor: Douglas, T
Devolder, K
Dislocation based modelling of engineering alloys

Plastic deformation in crystalline materials arises due to the nucleation and motion of line defects known as dislocations. Simulating large numbers of dislocations is a useful tool for understanding the plastic behaviour of metals and alloys. Discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) is a technique used to approximate the behaviour of dislocation networks in an infinite body. By combining DDD with Finite Element Modelling (FEM), it becomes possible to simulate dislocation behaviour in a finite domain allowing micromechanical tests to be performed virtually. With sufficient improvements and refinements, using this technique can predict how the microstructure will affect the plastic behaviour. I have been working on developing such improvements, including accurately and rapidly calculating the displacements caused by the growth of dislocation loops on a convex surface in order to satisfy FEM boundary conditions.

Keywords: dislocation
plasticity
FEM
DDD
Advisor: Tarleton, E
Wilkinson, A
Fast-evolving homeobox genes in mammalian preimplantation development

Transcription factor proteins containing the homeodomain motif orchestrate myriad key functions during embryonic development and are therefore often conserved to a spectacular degree over extensive evolutionary timescales. Given this paradigm, the recent discovery of several homeobox families with roles in embryogenesis but which appear to be rapidly-evolving is a puzzling development. In this thesis I focus on one such group, the mammalian-specific Eutherian Totipotent Cell Homeobox (ETCHbox) genes, with the overarching aim of advancing our understanding of the function fast- evolving genes perform in the embryo and the forces that have combined to produce their unusual evolutionary trajectories. Analysis of single-cell RNA-sequencing data finds that ETCHbox genes are activated during the major wave of embryonic genome activation across various mammalian species. Ectopic expression experiments of ETCHbox proteins in cell culture suggest them to be multifunctional regulators of several key processes during preimplantation development, including blastocyst formation; inner cell mass development; the activity of transposable elements; and cellular potency. From an evolutionary perspective, dramatic changes in ETCHbox protein-coding sequences and copy number have occurred between lineages, and this has been driven at least in part by positive selection. Rapid protein-coding sequence evolution has resulted in small alterations to gene functions between closely related species (e.g. within primates) but highly divergent transcription factor functions between humans and cattle. Overall, I conclude that the lability of preimplantation development, combined with functional redundancy of ETCHbox proteins and positive selection acting on ETCHbox sequences, have combined to produce the diverse repertoires we observe today.

Keywords: evo-devo
preimplantation embryo
homeobox
development
genomics
evolution
ETCHbox
Advisor: Holland, P
Science and religion as languages: using the "language" metaphor to understand science, religion, and their relationship

In the field of science and religion, there is a need for a model that represents the dynamic science-religion interface without curtailing its rich complexities. This thesis proposes the “language” metaphor to describe and explore science, religion, and their relationship and sets out to assess its potential in this respect by considering its application in six areas of interest—namely, the definition of language; its changes over time; variations within languages; the relation between language and worldview; the relation of language, identity and power; and the significance of bilingualism and the role of translation.
The systematic exploration of the metaphor reveals the multidimensional aspects of science and religion. Science and religion can both be seen as systems of communication made of mental constructs and rules. Science excels in communicating the knowledge of the physical world, while religion conveys faith, meaning, and life orientation. Science and religion change over time in response to factors that shift the needs of the linguistic community. Science and religion also structure people’s experiences of the world and shape their worldviews. Moreover, science and religion help to form people’s identities and power relations.
The metaphor also yields an understanding of the fluid and dynamic science-religion relationship. When seen as languages, science and religion are not always in conflict or separated independently. Rather, for bilinguals, they are an integrated whole, used for different purposes and in different contexts, and conveying advantages such as cultural sensitivity and an expanded worldview. Bilinguals can facilitate the science-religion dialogue as translators who relay accurate information between different communities. It is concluded that the “language” metaphor is an innovative model that not only provides a helpful way of envisaging the complexities of the science-religion relationship but also advances the quest for understanding through perceiving a wide range of connections and associations.

Keywords: science and theology
science and religion
science
language
religion
Advisor: McGrath, A