VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The past and present of Russian international arbitration law and their implications outside Russia: an appraisal of the Russian arbitration reform under the New York Convention

The 2016 Russian arbitration law reform introduced a licensing system for Russian arbitral institutes. Prior to the reform, Russian law had struggled to combat potential abuse by parties that owned their own arbitral institutes, which could appoint arbitrators that would decide disputes in favour of the institutes’ owners. The reform also introduced new rules for the arbitrability of Russian corporate and procurement disputes. These disputes must be arbitrated in licensed institutes, and most must be arbitrated with a Russian seat, for the arbitral award to be enforceable in Russia.
This thesis analyses whether the licensing system for Russian arbitral institutes makes it possible for the Russian government to exert pressure on arbitral institutes. The subordination of arbitral institutes to the Russian government through the licensing system creates the risk that the government can pressure arbitral institutes to appoint arbitrators that will decide disputes in line with government policy where an arbitration touches on government interests.
This thesis further analyses the framework for the enforcement of arbitral awards under the New York Convention. It investigates whether a court would be able to refuse enforcement of an arbitral award where it suspects that the Russian government has exerted pressure on the arbitral institute that administered the arbitration.
This thesis concludes that the regime under the New York Convention does not allow a court to refuse enforcement of an arbitral award in such circumstances. This thesis suggests a means of mitigating the risk of enforcing an award that has been issued in an arbitration administered by a Russian licensed arbitral institute in circumstances where the Russian government is suspected to have exerted pressure on the arbitral institute. The suggested means of doing this is to invoke the principles of reciprocity under the New York Convention to refuse enforcement of arbitral awards resolving those disputes that the Russian arbitration reform’s rules on arbitrability shepherd into Russian-seated arbitration within a licensed institute.

Keywords: international commercial Law
Russian law
international arbitration
comparative law
Advisor: Zuckerman, A
Determining the role of the human transient receptor potential subfamily A member 1 (hTRPA1) ion channel in pain sensation

TRPA1 is a thermosensitive, calcium permeable ion channel present in small diameter neurons present in most organs including the skin, lungs and trachea. TRPA1 is activated by small-molecule ligands, notably electrophiles including α,β-unsaturated aldehydes, tear gases, allyl isothiocyanate, iodoacetamide, and formaldehyde (HCHO). Deletion of TRPA1 in mice causes loss of sensitivity to HCHO. Modulation of TRPA1 activity is of interest as a target for pain treatment. GRC-17536 is in clinical trials, however, the mechanism by which it acts as a TRPA1 antagonist is unknown. The mechanism by which channel opening results from electrophile (e.g. HCHO) binding to cysteine residues within TRPA1 is unclear. The work described in this thesis attempted to explore these mechanisms.
The reaction of HCHO with biological nucleophiles is of interest from disease and regulatory perspectives. The reaction of cysteine containing peptides with HCHO was shown to involve selective formation of an S-hydroxymethyl adduct. The stability of these adducts was explored through the addition of the ubiquitous cellular nucleophile glutathione (GSH), which was found to remove HCHO from the adducts. A recombinant protein model of the TRPA1 electrophile binding domain was designed, purified and its reactions with electrophiles studied.
To investigate the binding site of GRC-17536, a series of photolabile ligands based on GRC-17536 were designed and synthesised. A structure-activity relationship was constructed from the compounds’ ability to inhibit cinnamaldehyde evoked TRPA1 activity. Binding of a compound showing the most potent inhibition (3-60) was studied by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). From a cryo-EM structure of 3-60 bound to TRPA1, it was possible to propose modifications to the ligand which would improve binding and pharmacokinetic properties of theophylline-based ligands such as GRC-17536.
TRPA1 shows a “U”-shaped sensitivity towards agonists under changing oxygen concentration. It is controversially reported that this is a result of hydroxylation of the channel by PHD2, a hydroxylase involved in the hypoxic response. Peptides corresponding to the ankyrin loops of TRPA1 were synthesised and screened against FIH, a different HIF-hydroxylase, the results reveal that TRPA1 ankyrin 8 is a substrate of FIH at the peptide level.
The combined results provide new insight into the reaction of HCHO with cysteine residues involved in signalling pathways and open up new avenues for modulating the activity of TRPA1.

Advisor: Schofield, C
New methods to synthesise sulfur-containing compounds

In this thesis, novel methodologies towards the synthesis of a range of sulfur-containing compounds are documented. These compounds include sulfinamides, sulfonimidamides, sulfonimidoyl fluorides and a range of sulfonyl containing functional groups, for example, sulfones and sulfonamides. These developed methods employ easy-to-handle sulfur dioxide surrogates, DABSO, and the sulfinylamine, TrNSO, exploiting nickel catalysis and organometallic reagents.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the properties, applications and synthesis of sulfonyl-containing compounds and sulfonimidamides. An introduction to the use of sulfur dioxide in organic chemistry is given.
Chapter 2 describes the development of a new nickel-catalysed sulfination of (hetero)aryl boronic acids, using DABSO to synthesise aryl sulfinates in situ. The sulfinates are trapped using a range of electrophiles to form a variety of sulfonyl-containing compounds. This protocol tolerates an unprecedented range of electron-deficient and pharmaceutically relevant (hetero)aryl boronic acids, allowing the direct synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Chapter 3 documents the preparation of sulfinamides using organometallic reagents and nitrogen-based nucleophiles in a streamlined one-pot, three-step procedure. Metal sulfinates, first generated from the addition of organometallic reagents to DABSO, are reacted with thionyl chloride to form sulfinyl chlorides as the key intermediates. Subsequently treating the sulfinyl chlorides with a range of nitrogen-nucleophiles delivers sulfinamides.
Chapter 4 presents the discovery of a new method to synthesise sulfinamides from aryl boroxines and sulfinylamine, TrNSO, through a nickel-catalysed protocol. The sulfinamides are further converted into sulfonimidamides, sulfonamides and sulfonimidoyl fluorides in a one-pot multi-step reaction sequence. Deprotection of the trityl-protected sulfinamide is also demonstrated to give the primary sulfinamide.
Chapter 5 summarises the research and presents potential future work.
Chapter 6 documents the experimental procedures and data.

Keywords: sulfonimidoyl fluoride
sulfonamide
organometallic
sulfinamide
sulfonate ester
sulfone
Grignard
sulfur
sulfinate
sulfonimidamide
nickel
Advisor: Willis, M
Theistic metaphysics in the postmodal era

This thesis will provide a distinctive way of doing theistic metaphysics in light of the recent postmodal revolution in metaphysics. In Chapter I, I will undertake the preliminary task of figuring out what metaphysical tools we may need in the inquiries of theistic metaphysics. I will propose three postmodal concepts for theistic metaphysicians: (i) the concept of grounding, (ii) the concept of divine causation, and (iii) the concept of structure. In Chapter 2, I will go through various issues with regard these postmodal concepts including their formal properties and their relations to each other, before applying them to first-order questions in theistic metaphysics. After the second-order reflections on the postmodal concepts in question, I will turn to their applications in Chapters 3-5. The focus of Chapter 3 is theistic accounts of properties. I will demonstrate how various theistic accounts of properties may be formulated in terms of these postmodal concepts. I will also propose my own theistic account of properties which draws on some metaontological considerations raised in this chapter. In Chapter 4, I will turn to issues regarding theistic accounts of modality. I will show how the postmodal concepts may shed new light on several traditional questions about God and modality. A number of theistic accounts of modality will then be evaluated from a postmodal perspective. In Chapter 5, the postmodal concepts will be applied to issues with regard to God and time. I will defend the coherence of various positions about the relationship between God and time. In short, Chapters 3-5 will demonstrate how these postmodal concepts may help formulate, clarify, and answer various first-order questions of theistic metaphysics. Finally, in Chapter 6, I will summarize the previous chapters and say something about the limits of the postmodal approach proposed in this thesis.

Keywords: metaphysics
theism
god
fundamentality
postmodal concepts
grounding
naturalness
Advisor: Rodriguez-Pereyra, G
NanoSIMS analysis of arsenic uptake and detoxification mechanisms in angiosperms

Rice irrigated with arsenic (As) contaminated groundwater can contain concentrations of As in the grain high enough to contribute significantly to dietary intake, leading to increased rates of adverse health effects including cancers of the liver, bladder and kidney.
The exact mechanisms by which As is transported from growth medium to grain are not fully understood. This thesis contains analyses of the distribution of As in the roots of transgenic rice and arabidopsis either defective in, or overexpressing, proteins that are thought to be involved in the transport or detoxification of As in angiosperms (flowering plants), in order to better determine their function.
The plant lines examined were rice mutants defective in Lsi3 transporter (lsi), a low silicon uptake transporter believed to share transport activity with arsenite (As(III)); rice mutants overexpressing PT8 transporter (PT8-Ov), a PHT1 family inorganic orthophosphate (Pi) transporter believed to share transport activity with arsenate (As(V)); arabidopsis mutants defective in phytochelatin (PC) synthase (cad1-3), a protein responsible for forming PCs that are used to chelate and detoxify As(III); and arabidopsis mutants defective in phytochelatin transporters (abcc1-2), that are believed to transport As-PC complexes into vacuoles for storage. All mutants were grown alongside wild type (WT) counterparts.
Analysis of As distributions was carried out by Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). The data from rice roots revealed strong co-localisation of As and sulphur (S) and high concentrations of these elements in the vacuoles of specific cells in the stele that increased with distance from the root tip and mutation on Lsi3, suggesting Lsi3 plays a role in As efflux.
As concentrations increased in the stele and decreased in the epidermis in PT8-Ov compared to WT supplied with As(V) in the nutrient solution, this could be due to rapid transport and reduction of As(V) to As(III) for detoxification in the stele with PCs.
High concentrations of As and S were also observed in lateral root junctions, in agreement with previous research suggesting that lateral roots play in important role in As uptake.
Within arabidopsis roots high As concentrations were measured in specific cells within the stele and increased with increasing distance from root tip. A higher proportion of As to S compared to WT was observed in cad1-3, suggesting existence of un-chelated As, and there was a significant difference recorded in the distribution of As in abcc1-2 compared to WT, likely due to a lack of available transport mechanisms for As-PC complexes.
Understanding the mechanisms by which As is taken up by rice plants is an important step in developing As mitigation strategies by developing the knowledge required to breed or molecularly engineer low uptake cultivars.

Keywords: arabidopsis thaliana
arsenic detoxification
nanoSIMS
oryza sativa
Advisor: Grovenor, CRM
Essays in applied microeconomics: behaviour and well-being

This thesis explores challenges related to measuring well-being and behaviour, presents novel ways to handle such data and offers some evidence from analysing these types of data which has implications for welfare. Across the three chapters I have two main objectives. Firstly, I present and justify methods to handle data on unobservable feelings, such as satisfaction, motivation or pride. Secondly, the research questions are connected through their preoccupations with understanding human welfare.
In Chapter 1, I ask what importance (weightings) do individuals attach to different areas (domains) of life in their overall life satisfaction? In my answer I tackle a fundamental question for economists regarding reported satisfaction data: if we do not wish to assume such data are inter-personally comparable, how can we extract information from them (such as domain weightings)? Existing work uses regression: pooling data across individuals in order to identify average weightings, hence making the inter-personal comparability assumption. I instead use a Maximum Entropy criterion function, which can find a solution for each individual separately: I can identify J domain weightings from a single report of J domain satisfactions and overall satisfaction, and hence find individual-specific weightings.
In Chapter 2, jointly with Séverine Toussaert, we investigate the effectiveness of incentives that emerge from a perceived threat to one's image, triggered by another's assessment: an ego threat. We study this in the context of a road-running race. We ask runners to tell us about their time goal for a race and then tell them we doubt they can achieve their goal, or we offer them a reward (a voucher) if they achieve it, or both, or neither. We find that the ego threat message boosts goal achievement by 12 percentage points, but no effect of the voucher. We look for evidence for the mechanisms through which the message may work, and try to evaluate the welfare effect of the treatment.
In Chapter 3, I present a method to quantify the ordinal differences between two welfare measurement techniques: traditional utility-based Revealed Preference orderings versus Subjective Well-being orderings (from non-incentivized self-reports of well-being). As a proof of concept, I apply the method to an international dataset, and also outline ideal datasets to which this method could be applied for future research on quantifying differences between well-being measures.

Keywords: subjective well-being
randomised controlled trial
applied microeconomics
behavioural economics
Advisor: Crawford, I
Cyber security assemblages: the theory and practice of diffuse security provision

Cyber security is typically provided by a highly complex and diffuse network of actors. Public, private, global, and local security providers operate within the same structures. The relationships between these actors are highly varied – cooperation, coordination and even conflict exist within these cyber security assemblages. Furthermore, the distinctions between actors are often blurred as hybrid structures emerge.
This thesis explores the implications of these trends on cyber security outputs and international relations. Three case studies examine the cyber security of critical national infrastructure in the UK, encryption in the US, and digital society in Estonia. The type of actors providing cyber security (including their incentive structures and resources), the relationships between actors, power dynamics, and levels of fusion are all found to have an influential bearing on the nature of cyber security provision.
In developing these ideas, it is argued that examining security actors is an important, yet often neglected component of cyber insecurity. While much attention is paid towards threat actors and the structure of cyber conflict, an examination of who provides cyber security and the dynamics discussed above remains comparatively underexplored. This thesis therefore seeks to develop theoretical, conceptual and empirical findings that emphasise the importance of thinking about security provision.

Keywords: international relations
critical security studies
security provision
security studies
cyber security
assemblages
A phenomenology of kenosis: Jean-Luc Nancy after the theological turn

This study outlines what Jean-Luc Nancy can offer the phenomenology of religion by reading his deconstruction of Christianity in the context of the so-called ‘theological turn’ of recent phenomenology. Following Derrida’s treatment of Nancy, it intends to think ‘after’ the theological turn by achieving a deconstruction of phenomenology’s inherent theological structure which made that turn possible: starting from the theological turn phenomenology was structurally inclined to produce, this study tries to move beyond it (i.e., to ‘de-theologise’ phenomenology). The engagement with phenomenology’s turn towards theology therefore parallels Nancy’s engagement with Christianity: he draws on the theological notion of kenosis—according to which God empties himself of his divinity in the Incarnation (Philippians 2:7)—to understand Christianity as deconstructing or de-theologising itself. This study therefore frames Nancy as providing a phenomenology of kenosis: in turning to theology, phenomenology is able de-theologise itself, comes into its own as phenomenology, for the God encountered there itself consists in the self-effacement of divinity.
Specifically, each half of the study critically engages the theologisation of respective aspects of Husserl’s leibhaftige Gegebenheit of phenomena: part I considers Jean-Luc Marion’s identification of givenness (Gegebenheit) with revelation, whilst part II considers Michel Henry’s identification of embodiment (Leibhaftigkeit) with incarnation. Each time, I show how Nancy provides reasons to question this identification, illustrating how philosophy and theology diverge rather than converge in matters of phenomenological analysis: i.e., givenness does not equal revelation, nor does embodiment equal incarnation. Moreover, I argue, an accurate understanding of the theological terms (revelation and incarnation) would itself indicate their divergence from the philosophical ones (givenness and embodiment). In short, only by turning to theology, can phenomenology come into its own as philosophy: by exploring the theological dimension, we can correct phenomenology’s structural theological inclination; only by passing through the theological, can phenomenology be de-theologised.

Keywords: revelation
body
theological turn
Emmanuel Falque
theology
Jean-Luc Nancy
Christianity
Michel Henry
kenosis
continental philosophy
religious experience
religion
Jean-Luc Marion
incarnation
phenomenology
deconstruction
Advisor: Zachhuber, J
Advancing the synthesis and reactivity of aza-sulfur functional groups

The work described herein documents several key advances in the field of aza-sulfur chemistry. Aza-sulfur chemistry encompasses a broad range of functional groups, where within this report, a particular focus has been placed on sulfoximines, sulfonimidamides and sulfonamides. In order to advance the synthesis and reactivity of these molecules a variety of projects have been undertaken, both using computational and experimental methods. On the account of these studies several key contributions to the field have been made and these will be outlined in the following chapters.
Chapter 1 is a literature review introducing the broad variety of aza-sulfur compounds which are of interest to the community. Specifically, this literature review focuses on the methods that are currently available to synthesise sulfoximines and sulfonamidamides.
Chapter 2 documents a density functional theory computational study on the reaction of a N arylalkoxysulfinylamine linchpin with a Grignard reagent to produce sulfoximine products. In particular, this implements various models to examine each individual step, and ultimately provides support for the involvement of a key sulfinyl nitrene intermediate in this divergent sequence.
Chapter 3 examines the current asymmetric synthesis of sulfoximines and sulfonmidamides and notes that there are only a handful of routes to enantioenriched sulfonimidamides. To address this, the work here examines the properties of configurationally labile sulfonimidamides. In gaining a deeper understanding of these molecules an enantioselective organocatalysed alkylation reaction was developed, where this sequence utilises a key desymmetrisation step of a sulfonimidamide anion.
Chapter 4 presents the current uses of the sulfonamide functional group and notes that these are often incorporated into commercial pharmaceuticals. Therefore, a late-stage functionalisation strategy was devised to allow primary sulfonamides to be used as synthetic handles. This methodology developed uses a photocatalytic procedure and allows access to a sulfonyl radical, hence diversifying the array of chemistries that can be accessed from sulfonamides.
Chapter 5 discusses the conclusions of these projects and provides potential future work.
Chapter 6 provides the experimental data and procedures used.

Keywords: organocatalysis
sulfur
sulfonamide
asymmetric catalysis
methodology
computational chemistry
sulfonimidamide
photochemistry
sulfoximine
DFT
Advisor: Willis, M