VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Spaces of paradox: The poetics of disruption in twenty-first century speculative fiction

How do speculative novels post-2008 signal paradigm shifting ambiguities and uncertainties about literary genres in the first two decades of the twenty-first century? How might the poetics of disruption in contemporary speculative fiction signal a complex mediated interaction between formal literary devices and the transitional period from neo-liberalism into an unknown future global system defined by the uneven distribution of urban modernity? The six novels treated in this dissertation, published between 2009 and 2020, present a poetics of disruption that complicates distinctions between genres and modes, and demands a negotiation of ongoing paradigm shifts. Disruption of the status quo is a crucial tactic in social organising: just as speculation has literary and real-world referents, so too does disruption defy the borders of the text. I focus on three key spaces of paradox that are produced by the speculative mode in Anglophone literature in this century: urban interstices as depicted in China Miéville’s The City & The City (2009) and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City (2010); hyperbole as a critical tool in Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 (2017) and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017); and writing as a resistant act of reproduction in apocalyptic narratives that renegotiate the binaries of urban and wilderness as portrayed in Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017) and Lauren Beukes’ Afterland (2020). Produced in the urgent socio-political contexts of the last two decades, these texts engage in discourse about the future, gesturing to an emerging paradigm in the literary market in which disruption is generative of literary activism through the imbrication of utopian ideals in the speculative mode. While presenting sometimes pessimistic outlooks, the speculative mode in this century interpolates a utopian impulse in its very form.

Keywords: speculative fiction
speculation
literature
narrative traction
urban sociology
poetics of disruption
Advisor: Mukherjee, A
Category theory for quantum natural language processing

This thesis introduces quantum natural language processing (QNLP) models based on a simple yet powerful analogy between computational linguistics and quantum mechanics: grammar as entanglement. The grammatical structure of text and sentences connects the meaning of words in the same way that entanglement structure connects the states of quantum systems. Category theory allows to make this language-to-qubit analogy formal: it is a monoidal functor from grammar to vector spaces. We turn this abstract analogy into a concrete algorithm that translates the grammatical structure onto the architecture of parameterised quantum circuits. We then use a hybrid classical-quantum algorithm to train the model so that evaluating the circuits computes the meaning of sentences in data-driven tasks.
The implementation of QNLP models motivated the development of DisCoPy (Distributional Compositional Python), the toolkit for applied category theory of which the first chapter gives a comprehensive overview. String diagrams are the core data structure of DisCoPy, they allow to reason about computation at a high level of abstraction. We show how they can encode both grammatical structures and quantum circuits, but also logical formulae, neural networks or arbitrary Python code. Monoidal functors allow to translate these abstract diagrams into concrete computation, interfacing with optimised task-specific libraries.
The second chapter uses DisCopy to implement QNLP models as parameterised functors from grammar to quantum circuits. It gives a first proof-of-concept for the more general concept of functorial learning: generalising machine learning from functions to functors by learning from diagram-like data. In order to learn optimal functor parameters via gradient descent, we introduce the notion of diagrammatic differentiation: a graphical calculus for computing the gradients of parameterised diagrams.

Keywords: category theory
natural language processing
quantum computing
Advisor: Coecke, B
Marsden, D
Electromagnetic instabilities and plasma turbulence driven by the electron-temperature gradient

Electromagnetic instabilities and turbulence driven by the electron-temperature gradient are considered in a local slab model of a tokamak-like plasma. Derived in a low-beta asymptotic limit of gyrokinetics, the model describes perturbations at scales both larger and smaller than the electron inertial length de, but below the ion Larmor scale rho i, capturing both electrostatic and electromagnetic regimes of turbulence. The well-known electrostatic instabilities --- slab and curvature-mediated ETG --- are recovered, and a new instability is found in the electromagnetic regime, called the Thermo-Alfv\'enic instability (TAI). It exists in both a slab version (sTAI, destabilising kinetic Alfv\'en waves) and a curvature-mediated version (cTAI), which is a cousin of the (electron-scale) kinetic ballooning mode (KBM). The cTAI turns out to be dominant at the largest scales covered by the model (greater than de but smaller than rho i), its physical mechanism hinging on the fast equalisation of the total temperature along perturbed magnetic field lines (in contrast to KBM, which is pressure balanced). A turbulent cascade theory is then constructed, with two energy-injection scales: de, where the drivers are slab ETG and sTAI, and a larger (parallel-system-size-dependent) scale, where the driver is cTAI. The latter dominates the turbulent transport if the temperature gradient is greater than a certain critical value, which scales inversely with the electron beta. The resulting heat flux scales more steeply with the temperature gradient than that due to electrostatic ETG turbulence, giving rise to stiffer transport. This can be viewed as a physical argument in favour of near-marginal steady-state in electron-transport-controlled plasmas (e.g., the pedestal) at sufficiently high values of the electron beta. Numerical simulations are then used to demonstrate that electrostatic turbulence driven by the slab ETG does indeed saturate via a critically-balanced, constant-flux cascade of free-energy, which is shown to be the dynamical manifestation of the scale-invariance of electrostatic drift kinetics. Data from simulations shows excellent agreement with the theoretically predicated one- and two-dimensional spectra of the perturbations. Failure of saturation in electromagnetic turbulence driven by the sTAI is then identified, characterised and discussed. While the model in which these results are derived is simplistic, the new physics that is revealed by it should be of interest to those attempting to model the effect of gradient-driven turbulence in tokamak-relevant configurations, particularly those with high beta and large electron-temperature gradients, in which electromagnetic effects play a significant role.

Keywords: TAI
ETG
plasma
turbulence
instabilities
Advisor: Roach, C
Whose triumph? The reception history of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s frieze ‘Alexander the Great’s entry into Babylon’ (1812)

The Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen’s (1770-1844) art has rarely been examined in a political context although his lifetime was characterised by major political upheaval and societal change in which art played an important role. Several reasons can help explain this negligence such as the modernist dismissal of the Neoclassical style as well as the conflicted view of Romanticism and politics, especially in Germany. In this dissertation, I’ll examine one of Thorvaldsen’s most famous works, the Alexander Frieze, and its reception history until c. 1850. The plaster frieze was commissioned in 1812 by Napoleon and installed the same year in the Quirinal Palace, the former papal residence, now the new imperial palace. I aim to show how the frieze reflects the relationship between art and power in the period and how this relationship evolved during the dramatic decades of Thorvaldsen’s lifetime.
Thorvaldsen had a conflicted relationship with Napoleon and was generally critical of monarchical power, an attitude which was probably cultivated both by his education and by his social circle which consisted of liberal intellectuals such as Wilhelm and Caroline von Humboldt and Friederike Brun, a close friend and confidante of Madame de Staël. Apart from the frieze itself my source material is comprised of a variety of text genres such as letters, diary entries, poems and newspaper articles concerning Thorvaldsen and the frieze.
This material will in the first chapter enable an inquiry into whether Thorvaldsen may have expressed criticism of Napoleon in the frieze as claimed by some contemporaries. In the second and third chapters I will delve into the reception history of the frieze. This will uncover how various factions perceived and used the frieze as part of their political communication and what this reveals of the political conflicts and mentalities of the era.

Keywords: Rome
Quirinal Palace
Romanticism
Alexander the Great
Political art
reception history of
Bertel Thorvaldsen
Napoleon
Neoclassicism
Testing deep image classifiers using generative machine learning

Although deep neural networks (DNNs) attain excellent performance on the specific tasks they are trained for, this often seems to be obtained using easier-to-learn proxies for the truly relevant concepts. The problem with proxies is that they cannot be relied on in new situations – the proxy departs from the true concept. And DNNs will very likely be deployed in new situations because the world is always changing, and training data are never exhaustive.
Unfortunately, existing approaches are limited in their ability to diagnose the bad proxies being relied on by a DNN. We also cannot accurately characterise a model’s generalisation performance on different kinds of data beyond its training task. These limitations additionally prevent us from developing systems that do not rely on bad proxies.
To improve this situation, this thesis introduces two new test generation procedures for image classification DNNs. These improve on existing approaches by identifying more kinds of inputs for which a particular DNN gives incorrect outputs. This is achieved by exploiting generative machine learning to solve the test oracle problem in new ways. The first new procedure trains a generative network to directly output test cases that identify failures. The second dynamically perturbs the activation values of a pretrained generative network as it generates new examples – the perturbations adjust the features of the generated data so that they also induce failures in the DNN being evaluated.
Besides the primary contribution of these algorithms, this thesis also presents an empirical finding: standard adversarial training that aims to increase model robustness surprisingly decreases DNNs’ ability to generalise correctly to changes in high-level features such as object position, orientation, shape or colour.

Advisor: Melham, T
Kroening, D
Essays on applied industrial organisation

The first chapter uses the conduct parameter approach to evaluate the sources of market power enjoyed by UK supermarkets from 1994-2006. During this period, the households rapidly shifted their purchase of fresh liquid milk from the milkmen to the supermarkets. At the same time, the supermarkets’ margin grew from negative to over 25 percent. The conduct parameter is used to investigate the sources of such market power. The analysis accounts for the change in consumers’ demand pattern, and uses direct measures of the marginal costs. My results suggest that the increase in the supermarkets’ margin was explained mainly by a significant decline in the price elasticity of demand for supermarket milk and, to a lesser extent, an increase in the market concentration. I do not find sufficient evident to support any significant improvement of collusion.
Chapter two further investigates collusion by accounting for different vertical arrangements. In 2007, the major dairy processors and retailers admitted to the UK competition commission that they were involved in anti-competitive practices, such as exchanging commercially-sensitive information. This chapter assesses the outcome of such anti-competitive behaviours. It generates a menu of outcomes under different vertical and horizontal competition scenarios. Then, it uses an encompassing test to find the scenario most consistent with the reality. The results suggest that the observed market prices are most consistent with two scenarios; 1) the perfectly competitive (Bertrand) manufacturers and noncooperative Cournot retailers under a linear vertical arrangement, and 2) the noncooperative Cournot retailers under a non-linear vertical contract with the manufacturers. Hence, I do not find sufficient evidence to support that the supermarkets achieved benefits beyond the static-noncoorporative level.
The final chapter investigates the agglomeration in quality-type among hotels in Texas. I adopt a discrete choice framework which allows for strategic interactions among firms. That is, a firm's decision could influence other firms' decisions, and vice-versa. After controlling for demand effects through area-specific variables and area-specific unobserved heterogeneity, the incentive to agglomerate in quality choice still exists. This suggests that hotels of the same quality type enjoy positive spillovers from the presence of one another.

Keywords: supermarket
collusion
demand estimation
hotel quality choice
agglomeration effects
milk market
Advisor: Smith, H
Synthesis and characterization of inorganic nanomaterials for applications in energy storage and catalysis

Inorganic nanomaterials are defined as materials with one or more dimension within 1 – 100 nm range. These materials possess unique optical, electronic, thermo-physical, physicochemical and mechanical properties, and represent intensively explored, studied and sought-after commodities for a large variety of applications and manufacturing processes. Heterogeneous catalysts are vital for many industrial processes and often take advantage of the unique reactivity properties of nanomaterials, while battery electrode materials composed of nanomaterials are explored to solve current limitations with higher power densities via stable rapid ion and electron transport, and with high energy density via maximization of the charge storage capability. This thesis provides an insight into synthetic methods, detailed characterization and properties study, and exemplary applications of engineered 2D MoS2 nanomaterials in Li and Na ion batteries, palladium nanoparticles supported on 2D MoS2 nanosheets as heterogeneous catalysts in Suzuki and Heck C-C coupling and 1-pentyne hydrogenation reactions and sulphate functionalized titanium oxide nanoparticles as solid superacid catalysts in the esterification reaction of levulinic acid and pyruvaldehyde Cannizzaro reactions.

Keywords: 2D MoS2 nanomaterials
organic coupling reaction
alkyne hydrogenation
Pd on support catalysis
Li-ion batteries
nanoparticles
solid acids
esterification reaction.
heterogeneous catalyst
Advisor: Tsang, SCE
The Fourth Republic and the practicing of democracy in Brazil, 1930-1968

This thesis offers a study of the Fourth Republic (1945-64), its origins, the nature and functioning of its democratic institutions, and its demise during the Cold War within the wider context of the history of democracy in Brazil. It shows that the Fourth Republic was built upon historical legacies and a compromise of competing conceptualizations of democracy as forwarded by leading contemporary political actors. The latter are central to the developments analyzed here, as the thesis examines the extent to which the manifested beliefs and behaviors of leading political actors shaped, enhanced and undermined the process of democratization during the existence of this regime. While firmly grounded in the history discipline, it dialogues with key works from the social sciences, particularly in the identification of conceptual tools to guide the enquiry. Furthermore, the thesis places the Brazilian case in the global context, in an effort to expand the historical study of democracy into the neglected post-war period. This thesis is organized into three parts and six chronological chapters, preceded by an introduction. Part I traces the origins of the Fourth Republic starting with the 1930 Revolution until 1945. Part II looks at the creation and functioning of the Fourth Republic itself up until 1961. Finally, Part III examines the demise of the regime and the consolidation of the military dictatorship that was complete by 1968. I close the thesis with some concluding reflections.

Keywords: Cold War
history of democracy
history
20th century
democratization
Brazil
polarization
World War II
democracy
political science
Interdisciplinary
Brasil
Advisor: Posada-Carbó, E
Investigating the role of TLDc proteins in neuroprotection and disease-associated comorbidities

The TLDc family of proteins is characterized by a conserved Tre2/Bub2/Cdc16 (TBC), lysin motif (LysM), domain catalytic (TLDc) domain. While the domain has been shown to protect against oxidative stress (OS), the mechanism of its protection and the distinct molecular functions of the TLDc family members are yet to be fully ascertained. In this thesis, the function and dysfunction of Tbc1d24 and Oxr1, two clinically important members of the TLDc family, are investigated.
Mutations in TBC1D24 are associated with a broad spectrum of neurological disorders, including epilepsy and the gene is implicated in synaptic transmission and neuronal development. Using knock-in mouse models, this thesis has studied the functional and physiological consequences of disruption in Tbc1d24, determining that loss-of-function mutations within Tbc1d24 result in a significant knock down of protein expression, ultimately resulting in seizures. Furthermore, a key interaction between Tbc1d24 and the V-ATPase has been confirmed, supporting a role for Tbc1d24 in the endolysosomal pathway. Unexpectedly, data from the new mouse models implicated Tbc1d24 in anaemia, revealing a novel role for the gene in the haematological system.
Oxr1 has been demonstrated to effectively protect against OS-induced cell death in neuronal cells, while overexpression of Oxr1 in vivo is able to delay neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation in mouse models of ALS. These findings support the promise of Oxr1 as a safe therapeutic target against OS-related neurodegeneration. This thesis has investigated the pharmacological induction of Oxr1 as a viable protective strategy, through generation of a stable cell line based on the highly conserved Oxr1 promoter element. Compound screening using this line has produced some early leads for exogenous upregulation of Oxr1. Furthermore, the in vivo genetic over-expression system was used to determine whether Oxr1 could functionally compensate for a loss-of-function Tbc1d24 mutation, shedding light on the lack of functional redundancy between TLDc family members.
This thesis addresses both the deleterious consequences of disruption, and the protective potential of overexpression of the TLDc family, combining new mouse genetic models with a range of molecular and cellular techniques. These studies have furthered understanding of the TLDc family and elucidated its therapeutic potential in protecting against OS and neurodegeneration.

Keywords: anaemia
mammalian genetics
epilepsy
neuroprotection
endolysosomal pathway
neurotransmission
compound screening
molecular biology
oxidative stress
mouse genetics
neurodegeneration
Advisor: Oliver, P
Szele, F
Cox, D
Corrochano, S
An examination of certain counterpart accounts

This work is closely tied to the metaphysical and formal work of David Lewis on modality. First, to Lewis’ reduction of modality in terms of his modal realism and mature counterpart machinery. Second, to Lewis’ 1968 formal account (and its subsequent developments) employing a notion of counterparthood, an account that is detachable from Lewis’ full-blooded metaphysics. This work is primarily an examination of both of these accounts, as well as five other formal accounts that, inspired by Lewis’ work, employ a notion of counterparthood.
The thesis divides into four chapters. The first chapter presents Lewis' reduction of modality in terms of his modal realism and mature counterpart machinery. It includes a presentation of an account that I take to be a straightforward regimentation of Lewis' sketch of joint possibilities in 1986.
The second chapter considers certain issues for this account. These concern existence, the combination of existence and iterated modality, and
contingent identity". The chapter ends with a discussion of alternatives to the machinery employed by the account.
The third chapter begins with a presentation and discussion of Lewis' 1968 formal account. That account employs formal machinery to deliver counterpart characterisations of natural language modal claims. First, Lewis presents a formal first-order theory, counterpart theory. Second, Lewis provides a method for translating natural language modal claims into sentences of the language of counterpart theory. This process has two steps. First, Lewis assumes a regimentation of natural language modal claims into sentences of
the language of quantified modal logic". Second, Lewis provides a translation scheme that maps sentences of this language of quantified modal logic to sentences of the language of counterpart theory.
This combination of (i) a theory and (ii) a translation scheme (that maps sentences of the language of quantified modal logic to sentences of the language of counterpart theory) generates a semantics for the language of quantified modal logic. Given this, I turn to a more foundational matter in the final part of the third chapter: comparing the usual direct model-theoretic approach and this indirect approach (presenting a theory and translation scheme) to presenting a semantics for a formal language.
The fourth chapter raises issues for five formal accounts in the literature that in some way appeal to a notion of counterparthood: Hazen's 1977 stipulational semantics; Russell's 2013 counterpart semantics; Bacon's 2014 counterpart semantics; Graff Fara's 2008 relative-sameness semantics; and Meyer's 2013 counterpart account.

Keywords: counterpart theory
modal logic
Advisor: Williamson, T