VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Gambling-think

Background: Cognitive perspectives suggest that gambling-related cognitive (GRC) biases contribute to the development and maintenance of gambling problems. Evidence has since accumulated to support these claims: GRCs tend to be stronger amongst problems (and pathological) gamblers, and can be effective therapeutic targets of talking treatments. However a richer account of how GRCs are conditioned by gamblers' game and group interactions might enhance their explanatory power and therapeutic value.
Methods: Here, I present the results of an extended programme of research involving: (i) laboratory-based experiments on action-based expressions of illusions of control (IOC; Studies 1-4) and value learning when making decisions under uncertainty (Study 5); (ii) online surveys of Chinese gamblers' participation patterns and beliefs in luck (Study 6); and finally, (iii) qualitative interviews of treatment-seeking professional footballers in the United Kingdom (Study 7).
Results: Studies 1-2 demonstrated that (non-problematic) gamblers displayed IOC biases by rolling a simulated die for longer when attempting to hit targets with larger prizes and numerical values. These action-based expressions of IOC were facilitated by congruent target numbers and prizes (Study 3), and heightened competition with gambling co-actors (Study 4). Additionally, computational models of gamblers' choices in Study 5 showed that self-report GRCs, and impulsivity, weaken gamblers' ability to learn the value of competing game options. Next, Study 6 reported that Chinese gamblers' GRCs were related to a broader range of gambling activities, and self-report IOCs mediated the association between beliefs in luck and the number of reported gambling problems. Finally, Study 7 found that social pressures, high income, and work-related frustrations precipitated problematic gambling involvement in treatment-seeking footballers.
Discussion: Overall, the results suggest that a richer account of GRCs can be achieved by considering the sensorimotor and sociocultural contexts of gamblers. My thesis concludes with a discussion of GRCs within more recent theoretical developments of the embodied and social cognitions paradigms.

Keywords: pathological gambling
Advisor: Rogers, RD
Mathematical modelling of surfactant adsorption structures at interfaces

In this thesis we derive and solve mathematical models for surfactant systems with differing adsorption structures at interfaces. The first part of this thesis considers two dynamic experimental set-ups for which we derive the associated mathematical surfactant–fluid description. Firstly we consider the behaviour of a weakly interacting polymer–surfactant solution under the influence of a steady straining flow. We reduce the model using asymptotic methods to predict the regimes under which we observe phase transitions of the species in the system and show how the bulk dynamics couple to the surfactant adsorption. Secondly we model an experiment to observe the desorption kinetics of a surfactant monolayer, designed to emulate the 'rinse mechanism' used for the removal of surfactant-containing products using water. Through the comparison of our model with experimental data we derive a semi-empirical relationship that describes the variation in depth of a near-surface diffusive boundary layer with the reduced Peclet number. We then employ a combination of asymptotic and numerical techniques that validate this result.
The second part of this thesis is concerned with surfactant systems that exhibit more pronounced adsorption at the interface due to the surfactant monomers no longer arranging themselves in a single layer, as is typically the case, but rather in multiple layers. Such self-assembled structures are commonly referred to as multilayers. We derive a simplified model that describes the rearrangement of surfactant within the multilayer structure and draw comparisons between the features of our model and experimental observations. We consider an extension of the theory to the situation of multilayer formation between two adsorbing interfaces, which is governed by an implicit free-boundary problem. We also consider incorporation of bulk solution effects, such as the addition of an electrolyte. Finally, we draw our conclusions and suggest further theoretical and experimental work related to the models presented in this thesis.

Keywords: Surfactants
Advisor: Howell, P
Breward, C
Griffiths, I
Essays on rural-to-urban migration and urban industrial performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis consists of three independent but thematically related papers exploring the income determination process in African labour markets from spatial and sectoral perspectives.
Using long-run household panel data from rural Tanzania, chapter 2 investigates the extent to which education can explain migrants' income and consumption gains. We expect that the higher return to schooling at the destination primarily drives migrants' gains, suggesting that those who cannot afford the cost of schooling cannot reap the benefits of migration. We find that education indeed plays the role, but that it does not appear to be a major factor in limiting the internal migration as a source of raising income and consumption.
Exploiting data drawn from urban household panel surveys in Ghana and Tanzania, chapter 3 investigates how rural-to-urban migrants' earnings compare with those of natives in urban labour markets. The chapter attempts to identify the growth of migrants' earnings at the destination (assimilation), making a distinction between wage and self-employed migrants. We find that wage-dependent migrants would achieve higher lifetime earnings if they entered a self-employed sector from their arrival, conditional on individuals' attributes and the varying returns to those attributes across urban residents. The evidence points towards the importance of capital constraints in a decision to start a business.
Using firm-level data of manufacturing and retailing from the Enterprise Surveys conducted in seven Sub-Saharan African countries, chapter 4 attempts to improve our understanding of enterprise performance in urban Africa by investigating three aspects of firms' productive structure: technology, total factor productivity (TFP), and firm size. We find that the technology is similar between sectors, that retailing firms are smaller and less capital intensive but not, on average, ones with lower TFP, and that TFP differences are primarily within sectors. All these findings might point towards the importance of factor prices in characterising the industrial structure in urban Africa.

Keywords: Africa
demographic mobility
migration
productivity
Advisor: Teal, F
The role of the 5-HT2C receptor in emotional processing in healthy adults

Serotonin (5-HT) has long been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression and anxiety, and the therapeutic effect of treatments. Several drugs useful in treatment produce either acute or neuroadaptive changes in 5-HT2C receptor activity, and there has been growing interest in how alterations in the 5-HT2C receptor might be important in mediating antidepressant and anxiolytic activity. The neuropsychological hypothesis of drug action implies that the clinical effects of medications active in anxiety and depression are best understood through the effects of these agents on the processing of emotional information. Thus far, however, there has been no systematic attempt to identify the role of the 5-HT2C receptor in drug-induced changes in emotional processing in humans. The current research therefore investigated the effects of drug treatments with 5-HT2C blocking properties on neural and behavioural responses to emotional information in healthy volunteers. An fMRI study demonstrated that a single dose of mirtazapine, an antidepressant with action at the 5-HT2C receptor, reduces activation in regions important in emotional processing, such as the amygdala and the fusiform gyrus, to threat-relevant stimuli. A series of behavioural studies utilized drugs acting, at least in part, as 5-HT2C antagonists and agonists to show that these drugs are able to alter emotional processing, particularly emotional memory. A seven-day administration of mirtazapine was shown to increase the recall of positive versus negative personality characteristics. A single dose of agomelatine, also an antidepressant with putative action at the 5-HT2C receptor, did not increase slow wave sleep, suggesting, the drug had no effect of 5-HT2C blockade in the brain. In Chapter 4, agomelatine and mCPP, a 5-HT2C agonist, also shown to had no significant effect on emotional processing measures, but there was a statistical trend for agomelatine to increase memory for positive stimuli, and for mCPP to increase memory for negative stimuli. These findings suggest that antidepressants may work by altering the bias in emotional processing. Overall, the results of this exploration of the role of the 5-HT2C receptor in emotional processing have contributed to the understanding of antidepressant treatment, and raise new possibilities for the continuation of study in this field.

Keywords: serotonin
emotion processing
psychiatry
Advisor: Harmer, C
Aziridinations of tethered allenes

This thesis describes the synthesis and reactivity of previously unprecedented bicyclic methylene aziridines via rhodium(II) catalysed cyclisation of α-allenic N-tosyloxycarbamates. These aziridines undergo reaction with organocuprates to give cis- disubstituted oxazolidinones by nucleophillic attack at the vinylic centre; plausible mechanisms for this process are discussed.
Similar rhodium(II) catalysed cyclisations of β-allenic sulfamates afford cyclic enamines, aminocyclopropanes or bicyclic methylene aziridines; the product ratio depends on the allene substitution pattern. Suitably-designed substrates undergo trapping of the proposed intermediate amino allyl cation by internal nucleophiles or by cycloaddition.
Finally, thermally-induced intramolecular cycloadditions of γ-allenic azides are described that give triazolines or [1,2,3]-triazoles.

Keywords: sulfamates
allenes
aziridines
rhodium
carbamates
Advisor: Robertson, J
Relaxation processes in cardiac muscle

The technique of laser flash photolysis was used in conjunction with diazo-2 to investigate the relaxation kinetics of skinned trabeculae from the guinea-pig. Diazo-2 is a caged Ca2+ chelator, based on BAPTA, which undergoes a rapid photochemical conversion (> 2000s-1), when exposed to ultraviolet light, from a Ca2+ chelator with low affinity (Kd=2.2μM) to one with a higher affinity (Kd=0.073μM). The resulting rapid Ca2+ uptake produces a rapid decline in the free Ca2+ concentration (within 2-3msec). Subsequent computer simulations have shown that this rate of Ca 2+ decline is independent of the Ca2+ off rate from the Ca2+ specific binding site on troponin C. The use of diazo-2 overcomes problems of diffusional delays of Ca2+ equilibration which were inherent in previous studies of muscle kinetics.
The half time of the relaxation of skinned trabeculae following the photolysis of diazo-2 was 72.3 ± 7.5msec (mean ± SD) at 12°C, and decreased to 53.4±5.2msec at 20°C, both several times faster than the relaxation rate of electrically stimulated trabeculae at the same temperature. The relaxation transients were closely fitted to two exponentials, suggesting that relaxation is governed by two rate limiting processes. Varying the degree of relaxation from 100% relaxation to 30% relaxation had no effect on the half time of the decline in force, indicating that, unlike activation, the processes of relaxation are not cooperative.
The effects of the metabolites H+, ADP and Pi (at concentrations similar to those reached during cardiac ischaemia and hypoxia) on the rate of relaxation were investigated. Pi increased the relaxation rate, in contrast with its effect in skeletal muscle, where a slowing of relaxation was seen; a discrepancy suggested to be due to differences in the muscle types. Both H+ and ADP decreased the relaxation rate; however, their effects on the relaxation transients were distinct, indicating that they altered the kinetics of relaxation by different mechanisms.
EMD 57033, a thiadiazinone derivative, is a novel cardiotonic agent which acts by increasing the apparent Ca2+ sensitivity of the myofibrils. Maximal Ca2+ activated force (Pmax) is increased by 10 μM EMD to 138±4.23% of control. EMD 57033 produces a slight increase in the rate of relaxation initiated by the photolysis of diazo-2, unlike the endogenous potentiator ADP. In experiments using caged Ca2+ (nitr-5), EMD 57033 markedly increases the rate of activation. This suggests that the Ca2+ sensitising effect of EMD 57033 is, at least partially, mediated by an increase in the rate at which crossbridges reach the force-generating state. In contrast, although ADP also increases Pmax it decreases the rate of transition out of the force-generating state.

Advisor: Ashley, C
Can God act in history?

The thesis seeks to set the question "Can God act in history" in a Whiteheadian perspective, but first seeks to clarify the question itself. The first chapter examines the concept of action in general terms, and goes on to explore Whitehead's understanding of it, before applying the 'findings' to talk of God's action. The second chapter similarly addresses the notion of history, asking what procedures the historian follows in giving his account of the past, and whether God could be properly used as a referent within such constraints. Again Whitehead's view on the subject is examined. Chapter Three examines more overtly theological issues necessary for consideration of divine action, such as the concepts of violation, intervention, and 'willing' and 'permitting', before reviewing the work of Farmer, Farrer and Peacocke.
The fourth and fifth chapters serve to direct our attention to Whitehead's cosmological system. The briefest biographical outline is followed by a selective exposition of his mature doctrines, and then an attempt to discern any movement or development in his thought through his corpus of writings. The whole of Chapter Five is then given over to an examination of particularly relevant interpretive problems in the system.
In order to see what use has been made of Whiteheadian resources in answering our question we next examine a pair of Process Theologians in each of Chapters Six and Seven. Firstly, Ogden and Williams are found to give too passive an impression of God's activity which struggles to accommodate the findings of our earlier chapters. Cobb and Griffin are, however, found to give more satisfactory accounts.
In the final chapter we pursue our own position, first by discussing the suitable components of a definition of miracle, then by considering the problem of theodicy in dialogue with Griffin. A brief conclusion follows.
Morphometric analysis of brain structures in MRI

Medical computer vision is a novel research discipline based on the application of computer vision methods to data sets acquired via medical imaging techniques. This work focuses on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data sets, particularly in studies of schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis. Research on these diseases is challenged by the lack of appropriate morphometric tools to accurately quantify lesion growth, assess the effectiveness of a drug treatment, or investigate anatomical information believed to be evidence of schizophrenia. Thus, most hypotheses involving these conditions remain unproven.
This thesis contributes towards the development of such morphometric techniques. A framework combining several tools is established, allowing for compensation of bias fields, boundary detection by modelling partial volume effects (PVE), and a combined statistical and geometrical segmentation method. Most importantly, it also allows for the computation of confidence bounds in the location of the object being segmented by bounding PVE voxels. Bounds obtained in such fashion encompass a significant percentage of the volume of the object (typically 20-60%).
A statistical model of the intensities contained in PVE voxels is used to provide insight into the contents of PVE voxels and further narrow confidence bounds. This not only permits a reduction by an order of magnitude in the width of the confidence intervals, but also establishes a statistical mechanism to obtain probability distributions on shape descriptors (e.g. volume), instead of just a raw magnitude or a set of confidence bounds. A challenging clinical study is performed using these tools: to investigate differences in asymmetry of the temporal horns in schizophrenia. This study is of high clinical relevance. The results show that our tools are sufficiently accurate for studies of this kind, thus providing clinicians, for the first time, with the means to corroborate unproven hypotheses or reliably assess patient evolution.

Keywords: multiple sclerosis
segmentation
partial volume effect
medical image analysis
schizophrenia
magnetic resonance imaging
Advisor: Brady, J
Zisserman, A
International collaboration in advanced technology

Governments have funded the development and production of advanced technology in order to establish supply security and/or to achieve economic growth. The policy of government funding includes three alternatives: the two basic options of maintaining a national project or participating in international collaboration involving a number of sovereign states, and the third option of doing both in parallel. The study examines international collaboration in such a way as to assist in the selection of the appropriate policy option. Particular attention is paid to the perspective of small and large, advanced and less advanced European countries.
The research problem is addressed by focusing exclusively on those results which distinguish international collaboration from a national project, summarised under the concepts of collaborative sharing and collaborative efficiency. The former identifies the sharing of funding and technology not to be found in a national project. The latter identifies the difference in efficiency between international collaboration and a national project. Efficiency, indicated by cost, quality and time, is examined under the headings of policy-making, executive management, industrial rationalisation and production volume. Furthermore, collaborative sharing and efficiency are examined in the context of parallel national projects. This focus on the differences between the policy options provides the basis for selecting the appropriate one.
Previous studies fail to give convincing answers to the research problem: they concentrate on collaborative efficiency while neglecting collaborative sharing, and they disagree over whether international collaboration or a national project is more efficient. This study attempts to overcome these shortcomings by examining a major case study of international collaboration, namely the European Communication Satellite Programme.
The following conclusions are established. To achieve supply security, the collaborative option is considered appropriate for the large, advanced European country, and the parallel option for the large, less advanced countries. To achieve economic growth, the national option is appropriate for the advanced European countries. The smaller, less advanced countries are seen to play only a limited role in government funding of advanced technology.
The war prerogative: history, reform and constitutional design

This thesis studies the evolution of the war prerogative in England from 1600-2010. It traces the historical theory and practice of the war prerogative and proposes reform of the constitutional arrangements for its exercise. It addresses three key questions. First, what have writers on political and constitutional theory said about the constitutional arrangements for the war prerogative, and, in particular, what justifications have been advanced for those arrangements? Secondly, in practice, has the executive in fact possessed sole and exclusive powers over war and the deployment of force, or have Parliament and the courts had a role to play in their exercise and scrutiny? Thirdly, are there better ways to organise our constitutional arrangements for the war prerogative, to enable a more substantive role for Parliament (particularly the House of Commons) in its exercise and scrutiny? On the first question, I show that orthodox theoretical and political discourses have continuously asserted the executive’s exclusive power over war, but the justifications advanced for that arrangement have changed over time. Those changes reflect the varying influence of different political theories at different times. On the second question, I find that, contrary to orthodox theoretical and political discourses, Parliament has played an active and substantive role in the exercise and scrutiny of the war prerogative. The courts have refused to intervene in the exercise of the war prerogative, but have been more ready to intervene in cases involving the exercise of powers incidental to the war prerogative. On the third question, I argue that reform of the constitutional arrangements for the war prerogative is necessary and desirable. I recommend the use of ‘institutional mechanisms’, which are small-scale rules and institutional arrangements, within existing institutions, which aim to promote certain normative goals. In particular, I propose a statute which would impose conditions on the executive’s exercise of its war prerogative. I argue that these proposals show that, through careful institutional design, democratic values, national security and operational efficiency can each be reconciled and promoted.

Advisor: Craig, P
Absolute and relative generality

This thesis is concerned with the debate between absolutists and relativists about generality. Absolutists about quantification contend that we can quantify over absolutely everything; relativists deny this. The introduction motivates and elucidates the dispute. More familiar, restrictionist versions of relativism, according to which the range of quantifiers is always subject to restriction, are distinguished from the view defended in this thesis, an expansionist version of relativism, according to which the range of quantifiers is always open to expansion.
The remainder of the thesis is split into three parts. Part I focuses on generality. Chapter 2 is concerned with the semantics of quantifiers. Unlike the restrictionist, the expansionist need not disagree with the absolutist about the semantics of quantifier domain restriction. It is argued that the threat of a certain form of semantic pessimism, used as an objection against restrictionism, also arises, in some cases, for absolutism, but is avoided by expansionism. Chapter 3 is primarily engaged in a defensive project, responding to a number of objections in the literature: the objection that the relativist is unable to coherently state her view, the objection that absolute generality is needed in logic and philosophy, and the objection that relativism is unable to accommodate ‘kind generalisations’. To meet these objections, suitable schematic and modal resources are introduced and relativism is given a precise formulation.
Part II concerns issues in the philosophy of mathematics pertinent to the absolutism/relativism debate. Chapter 4 draws on the modal and schematic resources introduced in the previous chapter to regiment and generalise the key argument for relativism based on the set-theoretic paradoxes. Chapter 5 argues that relativism permits a natural motivation for Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. A new, bi-modal axiomatisation of the iterative conception of set is presented. It is argued that such a theory improves on both its non-modal and modal rivals.
Part III aims to meet a thus far unfulfilled explanatory burden facing expansionist relativism. The final chapter draws on principles from metasemantics to offer a positive account of how universes of discourse may be expanded, and assesses the prospects for a novel argument for relativism on this basis.

Keywords: modal set theory
quantification
Absolute generality
indefinite extensibility
Russell's paradox
set theory
metasemantics
modality
Advisor: Uzquiano, G
Paseau, A