VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Naval policy and cruiser design, 1865-1890

Naval history,like military history, has until recently concerned itself largely with battles, or at least with wars. The implicit assumption was presumably that the key to history was to be found in these turning-points, rather than in the piping times of peace. A fighting service was only really of interest when fighting. In recent years this approach has been largely abandoned, and it is now recognized that warfare is an extension, not only of politics, but of most other activities of man; that it is in itself one of his most characteristic activities, and may be studied to reveal most of his characteristics. The present study falls into this pattern. In that it traces the progress of warship design, it may be taken as a traditional technical study. In that it covers the formation of grand strategy and naval policy it may be thought of as an essay in the moulding of government decisions. As a survey of the administrative development of the Admiralty, it falls into another possible category. Finally, in charting the rise of professional studies and the intellectual growth of the Victorian naval officer it touches directly on social history. It is the writer's belief that a fighting service, especially one with so distinct and independent a character as the Navy, may be studied as a society in itself, or as a microcosm of society in general.
It was with these considerations in mind that the years 1865 to 1890 were chosen. Paradoxically enough from the viewpoint of the old approach to naval history,they were years of general peace; it is contended that they were not the less interesting for that,but rather the more. One may almost say that the absence of major naval battles or campaigns allowed naval development to proceed along a steady course,undisturbed by adventitious factors. The influences at work upon the Navy and its policy are the more easily discerned without the distractions of actual operational experience. It is this which lends peculiar interest to the period; in no other age of British history were naval officers more remote from the experience of naval war. Of the thirty or so officers who sat at the Board of Admiralty "between 1866 and 1890,none had ever fought in a naval battle of any importance. They had "been present at numerous "bombardments,they had led landing parties and boat actions,stormed cities and stockades, fought in river,swamp and jungle, against pirates, savages, and slavers; but they had no experience of naval warfare on the high seas. This gives a unique quality to the age; to borrow a metaphor from medicine, it was sterile, uncontaminated with reality.
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Regulation of MITF and Brn2 in melanoma

Melanoma is the most aggressive skin cancer with high recurrence and low survival rate. In addition to genetic mechanisms, resistance also arises from phenotypic heterogeneity in which a proportion of cells, the so-called melanoma stem or initiating cells, survive therapy. Due to a lack of reliable markers, however, there is still debate about the existence of these cells in melanoma. Consistent with phenotypic heterogeneity, previous observations in our laboratory have demonstrated that cells in melanoma can reversibly segregate in vivo into different subpopulations with different properties, such as differentiation or increased invasive capacity (potentially attributed to the existence of de-differentiated stem-like cells). To characterise these cells, a dual reporter lentiviral system was engineered, expressing fluorescent proteins under cell stage/phenotype-specific promoters. The promoters for the transcription factors POU3F2 (Brn2) (to mark de-differentiated cells) and the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) (to mark proliferating and differentiated cells) were chosen. Lentivirally-transduced cells were used to screen a library of kinase inhibitors for their potential to affect promoter activity in vitro. The RhoA/ROCK pathway, known to contribute to invasion and metastases, was identified to play a role in Brn2 promoter activity and exhibited differential effects on both the MITF and Brn2 promoters in 501mel and SKmel28 cell lines. Through investigation of other signalling pathways involved in melanoma metastasis, we also identified the co-activator Mastermind-like 1 (MAML1), previously reported to act in the Notch pathway, as an activator of the Brn2 promoter via the transcription factor TCF3, and the MITF promoter through the lymphoid-enhancer binding factor 1 (LEF1). The effects of MAML1 on Brn2 and MITF promoter activity were potentiated by β-catenin. These findings provide new opportunities for the identification of therapeutic targets to prevent metastases formation in melanoma.

Keywords: Melanoma
MITF
Cancer stem cells
Brn2
MAML1
Advisor: Seymour, L
Hydrological implications of stable isotope determinants in U.K. waters

The stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen have been employed worldwide as natural hydrological tracers, and most successfully in areas where extremes of climatic seasonality or relief exist. This project aims to assess the viability of the stable isotope technique for studies in the U.K.
Systematic sampling was undertaken over two years in the Malham (Carboniferous limestone) and Lambourn (Chalk) areas. The monthly isotopic input signal in precipitation was found to be clearly definable, but less strongly seasonal than found elsewhere. Larger isotopic variations were revealed in weekly and within-storm samples. Snowmelt appeared to provide the most reliable 'spike' for tracing purposes. An attempt to relate weekly precipitation δ180 values to air mass characteristics was encouraging for further investigations. Variations of isotope signal with altitude were erratic and not in accordance with normally accepted relationships.
Isotopic variations in groundwaters of both areas, and in surface waters of the Lambourn area, rarely exceeded measurement error, and were close to mean annual values in precipitation. This indicated complete mixing of the input waters over one year or more.
The isotopic range in precipitation was reduced by ~60% in surface waters of the Malham area. Early mixing and storage of water in the soil and/or upper karstic zone were indicated by comparison of the isotope data with conventional hydrological measurements at resurgences, and supported by strong signal attenuation measured in soil moisture. At certain sites, isotopic evidence revealed a persistence of winter recharge into summer baseflow.
A smooth and strongly seasonal isotope signal, discovered in the waters of Malham Tarn, was attributed to evaporation processes and suggests important practical uses.
It is concluded that the general application of the stable isotope technique may be more restricted in the U.K. than elsewhere, but that its provision of a new dimension to conventional data should contribute significantly in the future to selected hydrological studies.

Advisor: Sweeting, M
Dissociable sources of uncertainty in perceptual decision making

The natural world provides sensory systems with noisy and ambiguous information, which is often transformed into a more stable categorical percept. This thesis aims to investigate the nature of the neural representations in the visual system that support this transformation. To do so, we will employ a behavioural task that requires participants to average several independent sources of perceptual information. This task allows for the dissociation of two theoretically orthogonal sources of decision uncertainty: the mean distance of the perceptual information from a category boundary and the variability of the evidence under consideration. Behaviourally, both decreasing the mean distance to bound of information and increasing information variability are associated with increased errors and prolonged response times. We will present a computational model that can account for the independent behavioural effects of these two sources of uncertainty by assuming that categorical decisions are made on the basis of a probabilistic transformation of perceptual evidence. BOLD measurements demonstrate that these effects of mean and variability are supported by a partially dissociable network of brain regions. Electroencephalography demonstrates the differential influence of mean and variance in the pre- and post-decision period. Furthermore, we show that there is adaptation at the level of the perceptual representation to the information variance. Not only does this show that the visual system must represent information at the summary level, in addition to individual feature-based representation, but it also suggests that the costs associated with this form of perceptual uncertainty can be largely mitigated by the adoption of a more suitable representational range.

Keywords: decision making
EEG
priming
perceptual adaptation
categorisation
gain control
fMRI
perception
summary representation
Advisor: Summerfield, C
Investigation on the swelling mechanics of hydrogel tissue expanders using a skin-mimicking apparatus

The concept of self-expanding hydrogel tissue expanders has opened a new pathway to the treatment of soft tissue defects. Traditionally designed to expand the skin, modifications to the swelling behaviour of these devices may lead to various new-found applications. Properties of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) /poly(methyl-methacrylate) (VP/MMA) hydrogel system such as the degree, rate, force generation, and anisotropic behaviour of swelling were investigated in this study as part of a preliminary understanding of the hydrogel material.
The swelling of hydrogel network is the balance between two main driving forces: 1) the relaxation of the gel network and 2) the osmotic diffusion of solvent via gel hydrophilicity. A direct relationship between the elastic modulus and the swelling pressure was found by measuring the swelling force over the hydration period. Despite reduction in the overall swelling ratio, gels with a larger modulus were observed to have a larger corresponding force generation. This is due to the straining of gels with higher cross-linking density. The results showed a maximum stress of 64.0 ± 3.2 kPa and 30.8 ± 1.5 kPa for 90:10 wt% and 99:1 wt% VP/MMA, respectively.
Specially modified anisotropic swelling gels were shown to have larger stress generation along the axis of directional swelling (~70-80 kPa). Limitation factors to the anisotropic modification are materialistic and geometrical. Shape-memory characteristics were found to be reduced at high compression ratio as a result of plastic deformation. Gels with slenderness ratio above 2.5 were evaluated to be susceptible to device slippage/buckling. These results provide useful design limitations for self-expanding tissue expanders.
The overall goal in creating a new testing system for self-swelling tissue expanders was achieved.A skin-mimicking apparatus was specially built to highlight the amount of skin expansion and simulate surface topography. Strain contours along the expanded skin were also plotted to represent skin tension. Prior to this study,these measurements were only possible under in vivo animal testing. The advantage in having this device is to support the prevention of related animal testing.

Keywords: tissue expander
soft tissue
dermal tissue
implants
swelling
hydrogels
Advisor: Czernuszka, J
Development of non-linear numerical models appropriate for the analysis of jack-up units

Jack-up units have considerable economic significance because they are used to carry out a large proportion of the world's oil and gas exploration in water depths less than 90.0m. Due to the increase in use of jack-ups in harsher environments, analysis techniques assuming quasi-static and linear structural behaviour have had to be reassessed. This thesis is concerned with non-linear dynamic analysis methods appropriate for a jack-up assessment. Jack-up modelling requires realistic representation of the structure, the foundations and the environmental loading, together with the implementation of appropriate dynamic analysis algorithms. Techniques for each of these aspects of jack-up analysis are reviewed and the implementation of several of the methods in an advanced plane frame analysis program called JAKUP is described. Geometric non-linearity in the structure and work hardening plasticity at the foundations are accounted for in the program. Test cases are presented to verify the implementation of the methods and then some illustrative plane frame quasi-static and dynamic analyses are described. These simple models highlight the importance of accounting for dynamic motions in a jack-up analysis. For the quasi-static analyses, the assumption of pinned footing behaviour is seen to always result in the most conservative displacement and moment predictions. However, the analyses show that this is not always the case when dynamic amplification is accounted for.

Keywords: foundations
offshore
jack-up
Advisor: Houlsby, G
Williams, M
Electrostatic extraction of buffer-gas-cooled beams for studying ion-molecule chemistry at low temperatures

This thesis describes the design, construction, operation, and characterisation of an experimental apparatus that produces a source of internally cold, slow molecules that can be used for studying ion-molecule reactions at low temperatures. The apparatus combines buffer-gas cooling with a bent quadrupole velocity selector to cool both the translational and rotational degrees of freedom of the molecules.
A cold cell (6 K) is filled with a buffer gas, such as helium, that exhibits sufficiently high vapour pressure for cryogenic applications. Hot molecules (150 to 300 K) enter the cell and thermalise with the buffer gas through collisions. Molecules are subsequently loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole guide, which acts as a velocity filter; only translationally cold polar molecules are guided around the bend. Using a buffer-gas-cooled source of molecules for electrostatic velocity selection, rather than a 300 K effusive source, yields a rotationally cold sample, with J ≤ 3. This rotational selectivity will enable the dependence of reaction cross sections on the reactant rotational state to be examined.
Mass spectrometry is used to characterise cold molecular beams of ND3 and CH3F, while (2+1) REMPI spectra are recorded for the ammonia isotopologues. The peak velocity of guided ND3 is 75.86(0.70) ms-1 for standard conditions in a 6 K helium buffer gas cell (1.0 sccm ND3 flow rate, 0.6 mbar helium inlet pressure, ± 5 kV voltage). This corresponds to a peak kinetic energy of 6.92(0.13) K. (2+1) REMPI spectroscopy of the B1E''(v2'=5) ← X(1) transition enabled the rotational state distribution of guided ammonia molecules to be established. PGOPHER simulations of the experimental spectra suggest a rotational temperature of 10 K for ND3 molecules (from a 6 K helium buffer gas cell).
The extent of translational and rotational cooling can be controlled by varying the molecular and buffer gas densities within the cell, by changing the temperature of the buffer gas cell (we can operate at 6 K or 17 K), or by changing the buffer gas. The translational temperature of guided ND3 is similar in a 6 K helium and 17 K neon buffer gas cell (peak kinetic energies of 6.92(0.13) K and 5.90(0.01) K, respectively) because the heavier neon gas has a slightly lower thermal velocity at 17 K than helium does at 6 K. Despite similar translational temperatures, the rotational temperature of guided ND3 is lower for molecules exiting the 6 K helium cell compared to the 17 K neon buffer gas cell (10 K and 15 K, respectively).
The 6 K helium and 17 K neon buffer gas cells provide an excellent opportunity to investigate the effect of rotational cooling on branching ratios and reaction rates in low temperature ion-molecule reactions. The buffer gas cell and velocity guide described in this work will be combined with a linear Paul ion trap, to facilitate the study of cold ion-molecule reactions.

Keywords: electrostatic velocity selection
ammonia
buffer gas cooling
Cold molecules
Advisor: Softley, T
Representation and rationality

In this essay I consider the foundations of a particular approach to cognitive science. There is a belief, among some, that cognitive research ought to proceed in two steps. In the first step, cognitive systems ought to be interpreted as rational beings, endowed with knowledge of their environments and motivated by goals and desires. Questions about the modularity of knowledge and about the sort of knowledge that is necessary or sufficient for a given competence are addressed at this stage. In the second step, inferences are to be made about the design of control systems that might instantiate these kinds of knowledge states, goals and rationality. Studies at the knowledge level are meant to serve as guidelines in the search for mechanisms.
Problems arise as soon as one asks for the justification of this view. For instance, one often hears that knowledge is attributed by a process of interpretation that is subjective; it depends on the scientist having a 'manual' for interpreting behaviour that has no foundation in fact. Knowledge is essentially observer relative; it designates nothing intrinsic in a system. In Chapter Three I argue that this position is false. By introducing the notion of 'robustness 1 as the touchstone of realism I suggest that knowledge states are potentially as robust as any in science.
Moreover realism about knowledge does not entail accepting what Fodor has called the Language of Thought hypothesis. We can reason about knowledge states in abstraction from the various ways knowledge can be implemented in a system. The language of thought is just one of many ways that knowledge can be used by a system. Hence there is no simple way to move from an account of what a system knows to how it uses or has access to that knowledge. In Chapter One I argue that the step from 'knowledge theories' to 'process theories' is more complicated than language of thought theorists suppose.
In Chapter Two I discuss the basic methodology of research at the knowledge level. Any well-defined task imposes severe constraints on the way it can be accomplished. The discovery of these constraints and the consequences that flow from them is perhaps the central job of knowledge level research.
I conclude the thesis with two chapters on the limitations of knowledge level research. Given that the more structured and rigid a task environment is, the more determinate the knowledge that is necessary or sufficient for task competence, we would expect that tasks and environments which are more open-ended, less closed to intervention from outside interference, would not submit to knowledge level research. Relying on a distinction between peripheral and central cognitive faculties, I question the prospects for knowledge level research of central faculties. Unlike the problem of vision or muscular co-ordination, the problem of deliberation is radically open-ended. Too many factors might become relevant to bound the class of task knowledge that might become vital.
Vibrato Monte Carlo and the calculation of greeks

In computational ¯nance Monte Carlo simulation can be used to calculate the correct prices of ¯nancial options, and to compute the values of the as- sociated Greeks (the derivatives of the option price with respect to certain input parameters). The main methods used for the calculation of Greeks are finite difference, likelihood ratio, and pathwise sensitivity. Each of these has its limitations and in particular the pathwise sensitivity approach may not be used for an option whose payoff function is discontinuous. Vibrato Monte Carlo is a new idea that addresses the limitations of previous methods; it combines the pathwise sensitivity approach for the SDE path calculation with the likelihood ratio method for payoff evaluation. This thesis discusses Vibrato Monte Carlo approximations for a digital option on an asset follow- ing one-dimensional geometric Brownian motion.
Three essays in dynamic macroeconomics

This thesis presents three papers within the field of dynamic macroeconomics. The first paper, entitled “Medium-frequency cycles and the remarkable near trend-stationarity of output”, presents a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with endogenous growth, capable of reconciling the observed large medium-frequency fluctuations in output, with its long run (near) trend-stationarity. This requires a model in which standard business cycle shocks lead to highly persistent movements around trend, without significantly altering the trend itself. The robustness of the trend also requires that scale effects are eliminated both in the long and short runs. In an estimated version of the model, a financial-type shock to the stock of ideas emerges as the key driver of the medium frequency cycle.
The second paper, entitled “Learning from learners”, is an intervention into two long running debates: the first, on whether learnability may be used to rule out explosive paths for inflation in New Keynesian models, and the second, into whether Taylor rule parameters may be identified from observing the data. We find that in an economy populated with traditional macroeconomic learners, Taylor rule parameters can always be identified by sophisticated econometric techniques. Furthermore, when all agents in the economy use such sophisticated techniques, stationary sunspot solutions are readily learnable, and there is no guarantee of convergence to a stationary solution even in the “determinate” case. This implies that learnability cannot be used for equilibrium selection.
Finally, in the third paper, “Efficient simulation of DSGE models with inequality constraints” (joint with Michael Paetz), we present a new algorithm for the simulation of models subject to inequality constraints, such as the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. Our algorithm is shown to deliver higher accuracy than all other non-global algorithms, and leading speed. We go on to provide a number of applications of our algorithm.

Keywords: zero lower bound
learnability
indeterminacy
medium frequency cycles
precautionary motives
two-country models
inequality constraints
identification
patent protection
Taylor rules
limited Information
scale effects
Advisor: Wren-Lewis, S
Left/Right and thinking about politics

Since its birth at the time of the French Revolution, Left/Right has been a key tool for understanding politics. This thesis investigates how we think about politics using Left/Right: how it shapes, constrains and interacts with our most deeply-held conceptions of politics, how its meaning and implications have developed historically and in the British context, and why it might warrant the attention of the student of ideologies.
After outlining the methodological underpinnings of the study and histories of Left/Right, the thesis examines uses of Left/Right in a range of contexts of actual thinking about politics. Left/Right is widely used in both the academic study of politics and popular commentary on British politics. The early New Left in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s is studied as a group attempting to influence the discourse around the political label “the Left”; a section of the neo-conservative New Right in Britain in the 1980s, around The Salisbury Review, is analysed as a political group with a complicated relationship to the political label “the Right”.
Left/Right emerges as an element of the contested “common sense” of politics. Further, it is argued that some elements of common sense, such as Left/Right, may be expressed through narratives. Left/Right is theorized as a political narrative, or as a story about politics. The concept of political narrative explores the possibility that Left/Right may be susceptible to “interpretation”, both in terms of the assumptions about how politics is done and how politics should be done that underlie it, and more complexly in its relationship with a master narrative of political conflict understood as class struggle. Students of ideologies can learn much about how we think about and do our politics by attending to Left/Right.

Keywords: political narrative
political ideologies
Left/Right
Gramsci
Advisor: Freeden, M