VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
War and associative duties

Combatants in war inflict untold devastation. They lay waste the environment, destroy cultural heritage, wound, maim, and kill. Most importantly, they kill. These deeds would be, in any other context, paradigmatically unjust. This thesis asks whether they can be justi-fied. There are two possible approaches: first, deny that killing in war is in fact unjust; sec-ond, argue that the injustice is overridden by weightier moral reasons. In Part I, I reject the view that principles of self-defence can render killing in war just. I argue that the most plausible theories of self-defence are hardest to apply in the cha-otic context of war, while the most practicable theories are least philosophically defensible. Moreover, none of them encompasses the inevitable noncombatant deaths that all wars bring. If killing in war is almost always unjust, perhaps we should advocate pacifism. In Part II, I propose an alternative, arguing that these injustices might be all things con-sidered justified. Combatants have morally important relationships: they have deep personal relationships with friends and family, and comrades-in-arms; if they are citizens of just communities, then that relationship is valuable too. I argue that they have associative duties to protect these relationships against the threat posed by war, and that these duties may override the injustices they must commit to avert that threat. After defending a conception of associative duties, I support this conclusion with the following argument. As well as our general duties not to harm, we have general duties to protect. Our general duties to protect sometimes override our general duties not to harm, in particular, in cases of justified humanitarian intervention. Our associative duties to protect, however, are stronger than our general duties to protect. If our associative duties to protect are stronger than our general duties to protect, and our general duties to protect can override our general duties not to harm, then our associative duties to protect should also be able to override our general duties not to harm.

Keywords: political theory
rights
self-defence
national defence
noncombatant immunity
war
associative duties
political philosophy
Advisor: Shue, H
Fragmented authoritarianism, selective control and the rise of entrepreneurs

The dynamics of state-NGO relations in China is viewed through the analytical lens of 'fragmented authoritarianism'. It is suggested that the fragmented political structure that results in interagency bargaining and problems of coordination is a main reason for the inconsistency in state behaviour. State actors form diverse and sometimes conflicting strategies towards social organizations based on their own interests as well as an NGO issue-framing, with service-based NGO receiving more favourable treatment and rights-base groups facing escalated pressure, a model summarized as 'selective control'. The ambiguity in the regulations and administration of NGOs gives the state maximum flexibility in handling NGOs. The leaders of the more persistent service-based and rights-based NGOs often act as effective social entrepreneurs and policy entrepreneurs respectively. They are joined by private entrepreneurs, who are becoming as a major source of funding for NGOs through private foundations. With similar preference to the state, they act as a proxy to the state with selective funding that favours serviced-based NGOs, which results in a more treacherous conditions and further stagnation of resources for rights-based NGOs.

Keywords: civil society
chinese politics
state-society relations
Advisor: Thornton, P
Hybrid remediation strategies for industrial effluents

Many industrial effluents are toxic, difficult to treat and contain potentially valuable resources. Current treatment methods are expensive and unsustainable. Bioprocess- ing is a promising alternative, but poses multiple challenges due to the chemically complex nature and high variability of different industrial effluents. As a result, it benefits from being combined with advanced oxidation processes. In this study, the potential benefit of coupling bioprocessing with nanoscale zero-valent iron and electron beam treatment was examined. Both processes have shown great promise individually in environmental applications but have not previously been applied in a hybrid system. This triple combination proved to be an effective approach when tested against two recalcitrant metalworking fluids, a textile dyeing effluent and a dis- tillery wastewater. Strategies to remediate the different industrial effluents included a selection of key performance indicators and their amalgamation into a novel remedia- tion index to assess treatment effectiveness. The different treatments were optimised both individually and in combination. Hybrid sequential e-beam, bioprocessing and nanoscale zero-valent iron treatment followed by bioprocessing synergistically detox- ified both metalworking fluids and reduced their chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 92.8 ± 1.4 % and 68.4 ± 1.6 % respectively. E-beam pre-treatment of the met- alworking fluids enabled high-COD bioprocessing at the expense of residence time. Hybrid treatment also remediated the textile dyeing wastewater achieving a 99.4 ± 0.4 % reduction in colour, a 54.6 ± 6.1 % reduction in COD, a 89.0 ± 3.5 % reduc- tion in sulphate and a 67.7 ± 4.2 % reduction in total nitrogen. E-beam treatment also enabled the recovery of copper from a distillery wastewater, whilst proving to have significant potential for the disinfection of industrial effluents post-bioprocessing. Overall process economics, footprint and sustainability were evaluated on a lab-scale and estimated for an industrial-scale implementation. The scope for improvements in the hybrid treatment system is discussed and suggests that future implementations of novel hybrid processes could provide tailor-made solutions for sustainable in situ treatment of a wide range of industrial effluents.

Advisor: Thompson, I
Between a nation and a state: the politics of Donbas displacement in Ukrainian and Russian state media

This thesis examines how the millions of people displaced from Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region are represented in Ukrainian and Russian state media. Articles from Ukrainian Uriadovyi Kurier and Russian Rossiiskaia Gazeta are analysed with qualitative content analysis and ideological discourse analysis to determine their attitudes towards the displaced people and to suggest what representations of displacement in these papers achieve vis-à-vis the state. Media analyses previously conducted in both countries have detected attempts to connect the mass displacement to questions of nationhood and state capacity. Also, tensions between the involuntary migrants and communities in the regions receiving large numbers of displaced people have been noted.
Analysis of the newspaper articles finds that whereas the Ukrainian publication uses the issue of displacement to construct a new national identity based on political loyalty toward the central state, the Russian paper takes the occasion to emphasise Russian state capacity, but does not deploy the topic of displacement for advancing a nation-building agenda, contrary to expectations.

Keywords: Politics of Russia
Nation-building
State practice
Politics of Ukraine
Measuring impacts of youth empowerment: an international systematic review and a randomized controlled trial with out-of-school youth in Jordan

Youth empowerment programs (YEPs)—programs that build on young people's strengths and engage them in decision-making—have gained global attention as a strategy to improve a range of emotional, social, and behavioral outcomes. Guided by the MRC Framework for Complex Interventions, this dissertation employed a mixed-methods approach to synthesize and contribute to the evidence base on impacts of YEPs on adolescent development.
This dissertation includes a systematic review of the effects of YEPs on self-efficacy and self-esteem and a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a YEP in Jordan. Implementation and process research was also integrated to better understand impact study results and investigate issues for the dissemination of youth empowerment methodology.
In the review, three studies were included from 8,789 citations. The limited data meta-analyzed did not show an effect on self-efficacy (95% CI = -0.42 to 1.86; z = 1.23). None of the three studies independently showed significant intervention effects on the primary outcomes. Secondary outcomes showed mixed results.
The RCT assessed the effects of an empowerment-based non-formal education program for out-of-school Arab youth. The study included 127 participants, mean age of 15.9 (SD = 1.62), and data were collected at baseline and 4-month follow-up. No significant intervention effects were observed for developmental assets (e.g., self-efficacy or social skills). Analysis did show a positive intervention effect on SDQ conduct problems (95% CI = 0.13 to 1.48; d = .57); effects were mostly attributable to changes in the younger (13-15) age group.
Subgroup analysis with implementation study data indicated that a higher level of program empowerment appeared related to better outcomes. Differences in implementation and attendance across program sites may have diluted intervention effects; relationships between these variables and outcomes should be investigated in future studies with appropriate statistical power and research design. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: experimental design
youth development
self-efficacy
adolescents
Advisor: Montgomery, P
Regulation of exosome secretion and functions by mTORC1 signalling and the microenvironment

Cancer cells require survival strategies to respond to microenviromental changes and out-compete their neighbours. They activate stress response mechanisms under extreme microenvironmental conditions, some of which are controlled by the amino acid-sensitive kinase complex, mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (mTORC1). Exosomes are secreted nanovesicles made inside intracellular endosomal compartments that mediate a specialised and complex form of intercellular signalling that can reprogramme target cells via the action of multiple active cargos. I investigated whether mTORC1 activity might modulate the type of exosome secreted in response to microenvironmental changes.
Here I identify a new form of mTORC1-regulated exosome biogenesis and signalling involving recycling multivesicular endosomes (rMVEs), a previously unrecognised site for exosome biogenesis. Reduced activity of a specific form of glutamine-sensitive mTORC1 in HCT116 colorectal cancer cells results in an ‘exosome switch’ in which exosomes are preferentially released from these compartments instead of late endosomes. Importantly, RAB11a is found in association with at least a proportion of rMVEs that generate these alternative exosomes and is loaded on to some of their ILVs, providing a RAB signature of compartmental origin. I provide evidence that this exosome switch is conserved in other cancer cell types.
My study also presents a proteomics analysis of extracellular vesicle (EV) preparations from normal and mTORC1-inhibited cells. I demonstrate that EV preparations isolated following exosome switching have enhanced pro-angiogenic properties and novel tumour growth-promoting activities. Activation of the receptor tyrosine kinase c-MET and its downstream mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) ERK via phosphorylation is stimulated by these EVs, providing a potential explanation for their growth-promoting effects. Subsequent studies in the lab have demonstrated that several of these pro-tumorigenic activities are mediated by exosomes. I conclude that stress-induced mTORC1 inhibition allows tumour cells to initiate a novel exosome secretion pathway that potentially mediates a cancer cell survival plan that reverses microenvironmental change and supports tumour adaptation. In the future, blocking this response could improve patient outcome following treatment with mTORC1-inhibitory or anti-angiogenic drugs that have currently met with limited success in the clinic.

Keywords: mTORC1 regulation, cancer survival , extracellular signalling, exosomes, reprogramming of cancer cells
Advisor: Wilson, C
Goberdhan, D
From the life: the art of Francis Barlow (c.1626-1704)

Francis Barlow (c.1626-1704) was one of the most prolific picture makers to work in England during the second half of the seventeenth century. Surprisingly, there has not been an account of his life and works in almost forty years, and even then Barlow was presented rather narrowly as the 'first master of English book illustration' (Hodnett, 1978). Barlow is now chiefly remembered for his illustrated Aesop's Fables (1666), but he has also gained attention as a satirist, and as a sporting artist. This dissertation attempts to piece together the many facets of wide-ranging oeuvre. Following the introduction, which reveals new information about his life, Barlow's works are investigated in eight chapters, arranged according to the heuristic categories of natural history; religion and politics; and hunting and travel. As the chapters proceed, the interconnectedness of Barlow's works is revealed, as is the lack of distinction between the aspects of seventeenth-century society and culture, which they reflect.
The dissertation mainly recovers Barlow as a painter. It is argued that Barlow has been forgotten as a painter due to a strong connoisseurial tradition in the history of British art, which has tended to underrate his painting. No less than forty-three paintings are interpreted and placed into a chronology. Striving to understand them in a seventeenth-century context reveals Barlow's craft, his relationships with a wide range of patrons, and the nature of his place in the London community. Extrapolating from what we know about Barlow’s activities as a graphic satirist, the politick of his patrons, and the 'internal' evidence of the narratives of his paintings, this study demonstrates how, at least for Barlow, painting was not merely decorative.

Keywords: etching
painting
Francis Barlow
political satire
birds
allegory
drawing
Aesop's Fables
Advisor: Kemp, M
Clunas, C
On combinatorial properties of nil-Bohr sets of integers and related problems

This thesis deals with six problems in additive combinatorics and ergodic theory. A brief introduction to this general area and a summary of included results is given in Chapter I.
In Chapter II, we consider sets of the form { n &straightepsilon; &Nopf;0 | |p(n) mod 1| ≤ &epsiv; (n) }, where p is a polynomial and &epsiv;(n) ≥ 0. We obtain various conditions under which any sufficiently large integer can be represented as a sum of 2 or 3 elements of a given set of this form.
In Chapter III, we study the class of weakly mixing sets of integers, and prove that a certain class of polynomial equations can always be solved in such a set.
In Chapter IV, we show that any nil--Bohr set contains a certain type of an additive pattern. Combined with earlier results of Host and Kra, his leads to a partial combinatorial characterisation of nil--Bohr sets.
In Chapter V, we study the combinatorial properties of generalised polynomials (expressions built from polynomials and the floor function). In contrast with results of Bergelson and Leibman, we show that if the set of integers where a given generalised polynomial takes a non-zero value has asymptotic density 0, then it does not contain any IP set. This leads to a partial characterisation of automatic sequences which are given by generalised polynomial formulas.
In Chapter V, we estimate the Gowers norms of the Thue-Morse sequence and the Rudin-Shapiro sequence. This gives some of the simplest deterministic examples of sequences with small Gowers norms of all orders.

Advisor: Green, B
Learning transformation-invariant visual representations in spiking neural networks

This thesis aims to understand the learning mechanisms which underpin the process of visual object recognition in the primate ventral visual system. The computational crux of this problem lies in the ability to retain specificity to recognize particular objects or faces, while exhibiting generality across natural variations and distortions in the view (DiCarlo et al., 2012). In particular, the work presented is focussed on gaining insight into the processes through which transformation-invariant visual representations may develop in the primate ventral visual system.
The primary motivation for this work is the belief that some of the fundamental mechanisms employed in the primate visual system may only be captured through modelling the individual action potentials of neurons and therefore, existing rate-coded models of this process constitute an inadequate level of description to fully understand the learning processes of visual object recognition. To this end, spiking neural network models are formulated and applied to the problem of learning transformation-invariant visual representations, using a spike-time dependent learning rule to adjust the synaptic efficacies between the neurons.
The ways in which the existing rate-coded CT (Stringer et al., 2006) and Trace (Földiák, 1991) learning mechanisms may operate in a simple spiking neural network model are explored, and these findings are then applied to a more accurate model using realistic 3-D stimuli. Three mechanisms are then examined, through which a spiking neural network may solve the problem of learning separate transformation-invariant representations in scenes composed of multiple stimuli by temporally segmenting competing input representations. The spike-time dependent plasticity in the feed-forward connections is then shown to be able to exploit these input layer dynamics to form individual stimulus representations in the output layer. Finally, the work is evaluated and future directions of investigation are proposed.

Keywords: STDP
Neuroscience
Spiking Neural Network
Visual System
Object Recognition
Advisor: Stringer, S
Braddick, O
Coming of age and changing institutional pathways across generations in Rwanda

This thesis offers an account of children's lived experiences in Rwanda (1930s-2016) in four key domains: kinship, education, economic transitions, and marriage. Based on historical and ethnographic fieldwork in rural and urban Rwanda from 2012 to 2014, this work explores how three generations of young people have experienced and navigated childhood and coming of age at the interface of 'traditional' and 'modern' institutional systems. Rather than focusing narrowly on 'crisis' childhoods, individual agency, or exogenous forces, as studies of young Africans and social change tend to, this work examines young people's 'everyday' actions – intentional and unintentional, individual and collective, compliant and non-compliant - and locates them within their broader historical, relational, and institutional environment. By focusing on the intensely reproductive period of childhood and coming of age, on Rwanda’s unexceptional majority rather than its exceptionally vulnerable minority, and on children’s everyday actions rather than the strategic actions of elites, this thesis shows us how children shape the institutions of childhood and marriage and, in so doing, influence how society is reproduced and changed.
Theoretically, this thesis explains how children and their institutional environment are mutually constituting: it examines how and why young people experience rapid change and structural violence differently and it traces how they reproduce and change these structural conditions as they engage with institutional mechanisms in (un)intended ways. The research reveals that children in central Rwanda navigate constraints and opportunities by drawing on established kinship relationships and institutions while also opportunistically engaging with modern institutions and their actors. However, in this context of 'institutional multiplicity', traditional and modern institutional systems each need Rwanda’s young majority to reproduce their institutions over others', and as intended, to achieve their power-distributional goals. This makes children’s actions particularly consequential and demands that we redefine what political action – and political actors – look like.

Keywords: Children and youth
Generations
Institutional theory
Marriage
Genocide
Africa
Ethnography
Youth bulge
Advisor: Boyden, J
Numerical algorithms for differential equations with periodicity

This thesis presents new numerical methods for solving differential equations with periodicity.
Spectral methods for solving linear and nonlinear ODEs, linear ODE eigenvalue problems and linear time-dependent PDEs on a periodic interval are reviewed, and a novel approach for computing multiplication matrices is presented.
Choreographies, periodic solutions of the n-body problem that share a common orbit, are computed for the first time to high accuracy using an algorithm based on approximation by trigonometric polynomials and optimization techniques with exact gradient and exact Hessian matrix. New choreographies in spaces of constant curvature are found.
Exponential integrators for solving periodic semilinear stiff PDEs in 1D, 2D and 3D periodic domains are reviewed, and 30 exponential integrators are compared on 11 PDEs. It is shown that the complicated fifth-, sixth- and seventh-order methods do not really outperform one of the simplest exponential integrators, the fourth-order ETDRK4 scheme of Cox and Matthews.
Finally, algorithms for solving semilinear stiff PDEs on the sphere with spectral accuracy in space and fourth-order accuracy in time are proposed. These are based on a new variant of the double Fourier sphere method in coefficient space and standard implicit-explicit time-stepping schemes. A comparison is made against exponential integrators and it is found that implicit-explicit schemes perform better.
The algorithms described in each chapter of this thesis have been implemented in MATLAB and made available as part of Chebfun.

Keywords: PDEs on the sphere
Choreographies
Periodic Differential Equations
Stiff PDEs
Nonlinear ODEs
Stiff ODEs
Fourier spectral methods
Advisor: Trefethen, N