VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Water, civilisation and power: Sudan's hydropolitical economy and the Al-Ingaz revolution

This thesis argues that state-building in Sudan in the modern era cannot be understood without a multilevel analysis of the links between water, civilisation and power. More particularly, it focuses on the hydropolitical economy of the Al-Ingaz Revolution since its launch in 1989. I analyse the efforts by Sudan's military-Islamist leaders at material and immaterial transformation of society through visions of hydro-engineering civilisation. “Economic Salvation” -the rescue of Sudan’s economy through a “hydro-agricultural mission” that will create an ‘Islamic’ middle class- is central to this ideology. The hydro-agricultural mission is a revolutionary attempt at Islamist state-building through a hyper-ambitious Dam Programme and an Agricultural Revival in Sudan’s riverain core. It intends to entrench Al-Ingaz in power by delivering for those riverain constituencies and external partners on the Arabian Peninsula and in East Asia deemed critical to continued hegemony. This thesis is fundamentally about Islamist Sudan's hydropolitical economy, but makes broader contributions. First, it highlights how, far from being exceptional, the hydro-agricultural mission is deeply embedded in historical ways of thinking about water, civilisation and power in Sudan and the Nile Basin more broadly, echoing assumptions, policy prescriptions and logics of political control and high-modernist development that have been salient for almost 200 years. In the past, grand state-building projects, predicated on the dream of controlling the water to control the people, have been characterised by high levels of violence and developmental mirages in the desert. I show why, under military-Islamist rule, this experience is being repeated in Sudan. Second, this thesis is situated in wider debates in the early 21st century, with fears about resources crunches proliferating amidst rising global commodity prices and the impact of climate change. The idea that environmental scarcity, as an exogenous variable, is the main shaper of societies and their politics is enduring, but both theoretically and empirically misguided. Moreover, it has often been manipulated by elites in processes of power and wealth accumulation that reproduce the very societal and ecological problems they claim to be resolving. I argue that the links between water, civilisation and power in Sudan highlight not just the endogeneity of environmental scarcity to political-economic processes, but also the violent consequences of a modernist paradigm that is seen by ruling elites as both enlightened science and the route to hegemony while reproducing conflict at the local, national and regional level.

Keywords: hydropolitics
Islamism
Nile Basin
conflict in Sudan
water
Advisor: Soares de Oliveira, R
Introgression and the current status of the Scottish wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris)

Baseline data on a species' distribution and abundance are essential for developing practical conservation management plans. Such data are difficult to obtain for many low density cryptic carnivores. The Scottish wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris, is no exception with &LT;400 individuals thought to remain. Its conservation has been further complicated by extensive hybridisation and introgression with the domestic cat (F.s.catus). Hybridisation has also resulted in difficulties in discriminating between wildcats, wildcat x domestic hybrids (hybrids) and tabby coloured feral domestic cats. This has inhibited survey efforts, leading to a lack of general ecological information.
Using the most recent identification tools available, extensive surveys using various methods including camera trapping were carried out across Northern Scotland in order to examine the current status of the Scottish wildcat. Current distribution indicates a more restricted range than recent studies. Wildcats are at risk of hybridisation from feral domestic cats and in particular, hybrids, throughout their current probable range. The distribution of hybrids overlaps with both feral domestic cats and wildcats, pointing to a significant threat from hybrids acting as a bridge between wildcats and feral cats. Mean density estimates of 3.5 (SD=0.7) wildcats/100 km2 were comparable with those from other studies in Scotland using different survey methods. Total population size estimates ranged between 115-314 individuals depending on local densities and home range size. Population viability analysis (PVA) indicated the current population is not viable unless management actions are undertaken in the near future (Mean time to extinction = 48.2 years (SD = 9.39), probability of extinction=1, SE = 0), and that reducing mortality rates and/or supplementing populations from captive bred cats are likely to be necessary to achieve viability. Based on these data, the Scottish wildcat may be more endangered than many other species classified as Endangered and the current status of the Scottish wildcat should be reviewed.

Keywords: camera trapping
Felis silvestris silvestris
population viability
occupancy modelling
density estimates
Advisor: Macdonald, D
Johnson, P
Currency and financial crises

Following the 1997 Asian Crisis, a number of economies have been burdened with so-called Twin Crises, facing both vulnerable exchange rates and a distressed financial sector. The three papers in this thesis examine the resolution of a twin crisis in one such country - Indonesia. In debt overhang and exchange rate collapse, I adopt the simplest representation of the economy and the Asian crisis. The model is a modified Hecksher-Ohlin framework with labour as the sole domestic factor. The crisis is triggered by a terms of trade shock. The analysis implies that workers have already suffered a wealth loss in the form of a wage cut. If they are inclined to pay all the overhang, they will take another cut - a large one - due to the so-called overhang multiplier. In Indonesian cronies' tardy crisis resolution skills, both the underlying model and the description of the crisis are made more realistic. The model has another domestic factor added to allow for the existence of domestic capitalists. The crisis is triggered by two additional factors; a loss of confidence by foreign investors and an end to a domestic subsidy on foreign capital. Until agreement is reached on the overhang, the economy suffers so-called corporate decay. I introduce the cronies, and show that it may be optimal for them to stall agreement, even if there is perfect information. Contrary to conventional wisdom, bankruptcy reforms do not necessarily hasten agreement, though they do improve the payoffs to the international creditors. In debt forgiveness, I examine the pessimistic scenario that Indonesia becomes like a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC), so that all the issues related to debt forgiveness become relevant. I improve a contract arising from a workhorse model of debt forgiveness, showing a better way to provide reform incentives for countries heavily in debt.

Advisor: Donald Hay, D
A community based approach to glucose optimisation for type 2 diabetes

Background: Attaining optimal glucose control in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is essential to minimise complications, but difficult to achieve in practice with declining β-cell function in patients. Aim: To evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of a protocol-led, treat-to-target approach emphasising earlier oral hypoglycaemic agent (OHA) combination and insulin use to target basal and prandial glucose in primary care.
Methods: T2DM patients aged 40-75 years, with glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1C) 6.4-10.0% on diet or oral monotherapy in 7 practices were asked to participate in a protocol-led, target-driven programme of care using early OHA and insulin therapy combinations to target basal and prandial glucose. Recruited patients were randomised to pre-specified algorithms with monthly therapy adjustment aiming for fasting plasma glucose values (FPG) <6mmol/L and 2-hour post-prandial (PPG) <8mmol/L. Isophane or humalog insulin was added where glucose targets were not attained. All patients were reviewed at one year. Glucose, weight and cardiovascular (CVS) risk factor outcomes were measured and the feasibility, acceptability and safety of the programme evaluated with validated questionnaires.
Results: 345 patients were studied. 60 participated in the glucose study and 285 received standard care. 65% of recruited patients were male, with mean (SD) age 61.0 (8.2) years, BMI 29.8 (5.3) kg/m2, HbA1C 7.5 (0.9)% and median (IQR) T2DM duration 3 (1-5) years. 41 completed the study. Glucose control was significantly improved in recruited compared to non-recruited patients with a mean overall 0.8% HbA1C reduction and 72% patients achieving HbA1C<7% and 64% <6.5% at 1 year. Therapy use was also significantly increased with 50% requiring 3 therapies, 30% 2 and 10% monotherapy. 24 (59%) of recruited patients received isophane and 16 (39%) humalog to achieve targets. Glucose optimisation was achieved without significant hypoglycaemia or adverse events and patient quality of life (QoL) and therapy satisfaction remained high. CVS risk was reduced in recruited patients.
Conclusions: A more structured, target-driven approach to glucose optimisation can successfully achieve normoglycaemia in a selected primary care T2DM population without significant adverse events, hypoglycaemia. or QoL impairment in patients. A principal barrier to wider implementation of this programme appears to be practice and patient participation.

Advisor: Turner, R
Holman, R
Heart disease and lung cancer risks after radiotherapy

Radiotherapy has been shown to increase the subsequent risk of heart disease among survivors of breast cancer, but little is known about factors, other than the dose of radiation delivered to the heart, which determine the magnitude of the risk. In addition, survivors of teenage and young adult cancer are internationally acknowledged as an understudied population, and limited information is available on their late health risks. This thesis sought to utilise the largest observational datasets available to date for these populations: the Collaborative Group on Observational Studies of Breast Cancer Survivors and the Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Survivor Study. These were used to firstly characterise the radiation-related risks of heart disease and lung cancer, and secondly to provide an overview of the long-term risk of heart disease for the entire spectrum of cancers diagnosed in teenagers and young adults aged 15 to 39.
Initially, a methodology study and systematic review demonstrated that selection effects and other biases can be very problematic during analyses of observational cohorts, particularly when using a radiotherapy comparison. However, in the case of heart disease and lung cancer, one can take advantage of the breast being a paired organ and use a laterality comparison, particularly when laterality played little effect in treatment selection. This comparison was used throughout the analyses of breast cancer patients.
This thesis demonstrated that adjuvant radiotherapy for breast cancer significantly increased the risk of heart disease among women with left-sided breast cancer and those patients with ipsilateral lung cancer. Interestingly, younger women were at the highest risk of heart disease, and a progressive proportional decrease in risk with increasing age at diagnosis was found, which has not been shown before. It also suggested that radiotherapy and chemotherapy combined may further increase the risk of heart disease among breast cancer patients. Survivors of teenage and young adult cancer, particularly Hodgkin lymphoma, were at a significantly raised cardiac mortality risk compared to the matched general population.
The findings of this thesis provide evidence to support continued follow-up for cancer patients, as survivors were found to be at a substantial risk into the second or third decade after treatment. It has permitted the detection of groups of individuals at particularly increased risks, for example younger patients and survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosed in teenagers and young adults, for whom closer monitoring for late effects or measures to reduce the risk, such as adaptations to treatment, may be appropriate. Finally, evidence was also presented to support the development of clinical follow-up guidelines specifically for survivors of teenage and young adult cancer.

Keywords: Radiotherapy
Cancer
Lung cancer
Survivorship
Late effects
Heart disease
Advisor: Darby, S
McGale, P
Hawkins, M
Interlocked host structures for anion recognition and sensing in aqueous solutions

This thesis describes the synthesis of interlocked anion host systems which exploit hydrogen bonding, halogen bonding, and lanthanide-coordination for anion recognition and sensing in aqueous solution.
Chapter 1 introduces the field of anion supramolecular chemistry, with particular focus on areas of particular relevance to this thesis, namely anion recognition and sensing, anion templation and the synthesis of interlocked structures.
Chapter 2 describes the synthesis of hydrogen bonding rotaxane and catenane hosts for recognising and sensing oxoanions in aqueous solvent media. The novel use of nitrate anion templation for the synthesis of interlocked molecules is reported, and the unprecedented selective recognition of nitrate in aqueous solvent media is demonstrated.
Chapter 3 details the preparation of water soluble permethylated β-cyclodextrin-stoppered rotaxane hosts that utilise halogen bonding and hydrogen bonding interactions to bind anions in pure water. The first thermodynamic investigation into halogen bonding in water is reported, and the relative capabilities of halogen and hydrogen bonding for anion recognition in water are compared.
Chapter 4 investigates the incorporation of lanthanide cations into rotaxane hosts for optical anion sensing. The seminal use of lanthanide cation templation for interlocked molecule synthesis is described, before anion templation approaches towards the synthesis of lanthanide-based rotaxanes are discussed. The luminescence anion sensing capabilities of these interlocked hosts are investigated.
Chapter 5 describes the experimental procedures used in this work, and details the characterisation of compounds presented in Chapters 2–4.
Chapter 6 summarises the conclusions of this thesis.

Keywords: halogen bonding
anions
lanthanides
Supramolecular chemistry
interlocked molecules
Advisor: Beer, P
The spaces between places: a landscape study of foragers on the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape, southern Africa

Our understanding of the Later Stone Age (LSA) on the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape has until now been fairly limited. However, it is a landscape upon which foragers witnessed and partook in agriculturalist state formation between AD 900 and 1300, altering their cultural behaviour to suit their changing social and political topography. Nowhere else in southern Africa were foragers part of such developments. For this project a landscape approach was used to study the various changes in the regional LSA record as well as the way in which foragers interacted with farmers.
In order to address these issues, data were obtained from an archaeological survey followed by an excavation of seven sites in north-eastern Botswana, part of the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape. These finds indicate that the local forager record varies chronologically and spatially, which had not previously been recorded. Foragers also used a variety of site types and in each a different forager expression was deposited, providing indications of their changing settlement pattern. Notably, this included a gradual movement into agriculturalist homesteads beginning by at least AD 1000 and concluding by AD 1300, when the Mapungubwe capital was abandoned. Thus, interactions, at least in some cases, led to assimilation. There is also clear evidence of exchange with agriculturalists at many of the excavated sites, but this does not always seem to be related to their proximity with one another.
Performing a landscape study has also made it possible to make two general conclusions with regard to LSA research. First, these data challenge ethnography, displaying its limitations particularly with linking modern Bushman practices, such as aggregation and dispersal patterns or hxaro gift exchange, to LSA foragers. Second, a full landscape understanding combines the archaeology of multiple cultural landscapes and in this case also crosses national borders, two themes often neglected in southern African archaeological studies.

Keywords: interaction
Later Stone Age
farmers
settlement patterns
landscape
Foragers
Mapungubwe
ethnography
Advisor: Mitchell, P
Computing Greeks with Multilevel Monte Carlo Methods using Importance Sampling

This paper presents a new efficient way to reduce the variance of an estimator of popular payoffs and greeks encounter in financial mathematics. The idea is to apply Importance Sampling with the Multilevel Monte Carlo recently introduced by M.B. Giles. So far, Importance Sampling was proved successful in combination with standard Monte Carlo method. We will show efficiency of our approach on the estimation of financial derivatives prices and then on the estimation of Greeks (i.e. sensitivities of the payoffs with regards to the model parameters). We will perform our analysis in the Black & Scholes’ framework. This study is then aimed to experiment and compare the impact of Importance Sampling on Multilevel Monte Carlo variance.
Using neuroimaging and histology to understand hyperexcitability and atypical connectivity in autism spectrum disorder

The aim of this thesis was to better understand hyperexcitability and atypical connectivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by using a combination of neuroimaging and histology techniques. Three regions of interest were of particular interest: primary visual cortex, the fusiform gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These functionally diverse regions have previously been implicated in ASD, and one of the goals was to determine whether the disorder is better characterized by primary sensory deficits or dysfunction in higher-order processing areas.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging results across two different datasets suggested that mean diffusivity in the cortex may be sensitive to detect microstructural differences in ASD. Gender and hemisphere were factors that significantly affected diagnostic differences in the first dataset. In the second dataset, ASD individuals (n = 14) compared to Typically Developing (TD) individuals (n = 25) showed reduced mean diffusivity across regions, which may be linked to increased neuropil or neuronal density. Magnetoencephalography findings suggested that both ASD (n = 13) and TD (n = 14) individuals showed no apparent differences in primary visual cortex activity in response to simple visual stimuli, whereas frontal regions of the ASD brain showed more deviations in gamma oscillations, providing some evidence for the executive dysfunction theory of ASD. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy results revealed elevated glutamate levels in primary visual cortex and medial prefrontal cortex in ASD (n = 11) compared to TD individuals (n = 13), as well as elevated creatine levels in the medial prefrontal cortex, which may be linked to hyperactivity of glial cells. ASD individuals also showed superior performance on a visual task, which correlated with glutamate levels in medial prefrontal cortex, and both of these measurements correlated with autism severity scores, providing evidence for the specificity of these findings to the disorder.
Immunohistochemistry was used to study the distribution of parvalbumin cells – a subset of fastspiking GABAergic cells – in 14 ASD and 15 TD post-mortem cases. No significant group differences were found in any of the three regions of interest. These results taken together with the neuroimaging findings support the idea that hyperexcitability in ASD is a complex interplay between several cell-types.

Keywords: MRS
excitation
autism spectrum disorder
MEG
DTI
neuroimaging
MRI
inhibition
immunohistochemistry
Advisor: Chance, S
Newton, C
The direct electoral connection in the European Union

The European Union is often criticized for having a democratic deficit, and most often cited are the shortcomings in citizen inputs. The complex institutional structure, in particular the dual channel of representation (supranational and intergovernmental), contributes to these concerns. This thesis thus examines what impacts the linkage between citizens and their elected representatives in the direct channel of representation. I refer to this linkage as the "electoral connection" and outline three related input criteria:
Competent Citizens: Citizens can competently assign policy responsibility and hold their representatives to account;
Meaningful Choices: Citizens have meaningful choices at election time; and
Substantive Representation: Elected officials are representative of their constituents.
The theoretical framework of the electoral connection is based in substantive representation, and focuses on the mandate conception of representation but also includes a discussion of accountability. I utilize European Election Studies (EES) voter, media, and candidate studies from 2009, EES voter and candidate studies from 1994, and a novel expert survey on EU responsibility (2010). The analyses of responsibility attributions and vote choice are conducted using multilevel modelling to assess individual- and contextual-level determinants.
I test the effect that information and political attitudes, specifically extreme attitudes have on the first two criteria of the direct electoral connection. The role of information is tested at the individual level through political sophistication, and at the contextual level through the politicization of the EU issue. The first criterion is tested by comparing citizen and expert attributions of responsibility. For the second criterion, two chapters which examine perceived party positions and issue-cross pressure assess how this impacts the electoral connection. The final empirical chapter is a descriptive analysis of congruence on policy priorities and preference for governmental responsibility to assess substantive representation. If there is some understanding of responsibility, and citizens have selected parties that align with their preferred policy positions, then we should expect government to be representative of its constituents.
One contribution is defining an expanded definition of the electoral connection. In addition I show that political sophistication and issue politicization have a positive impact on the electoral connection, while attitude extremity generally has a negative impact. Furthermore, the European Parliament is quite representative of its constituents. Concerns about democratic deficit and lack of representation in the European Union are overstated.

Keywords: responsibility
EES
attribution
European Union
polarization
multilevel governance
electoral connection
Advisor: Hobolt, S
Evans, G