VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The development of non-nominal expressions in 12-24-month-old children

The meaning of expressions other than names in the language of 9 12-24-month olds was studied. The children were audiotaped or videotaped regularly from about 15 months to about 24 months. The meaning of each early word was discovered. by looking at the contexts in which the children used that word. Changes in the meaning of each word were recorded. 11That 11 , "there", "no", "more", "oh dear", "gone", "down", "up", "in", "out", "on" and "off" were studied particularly closely.
"That" and/or "there" encodes the fact that the child perceives an object, that he successfully completes a plan, or that an object changes its location. "No" encodes the fact that the child does not successfully implement a plan, "more" that he intends to repeat a plan, and "oh dear" that his plan fails. "Gone" encodes the fact that the child does .not perceive an object, "down" and "up" encode downward and upward movement, "in" and "out" encode movement in to or out of a container, and "on" and "off" encode attachment and detachment. Children initially used these expressions in egocentric, action-oriented ways and later used them in more objective ways.
The cognitive literature provides the basis for an account of the development of the concepts encoded by these expressions, particularly, the concepts of abstract aspects of plans, of disappearance, balance, containment and attachment. These concepts appear to be developed at around 18 months, that is,at about the same time that the words that encode them first appear. This suggests that early nonnominal expressions encode new, problematic, concepts, rather than well-established concepts. It is argued that the development of early non-nominal expressions could facilitate the development of the abstract concepts they encode. This argument may also be applied to early names.

Advisor: Bruner, J
Cohen, G
Corporate religious liberty and Christian ethics

In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has heard a number of highly contentious religious liberty cases from a variety of corporate litigants, including houses of worship, religious non-profits, and for-profit enterprises. Concerning the primary legal subjects involved, theorists are in disagreement concerning to whom or to what legal rights to religious freedom should apply: Some argue that individuals and voluntary associations are most appropriate; others argue that groups of any type, whether voluntary or not, are of equal concern. How should the Christian tradition respond to these contentions? Judging the first position as unjustifiably narrow and the second as unduly broad, this doctoral thesis draws upon Christian ethical and group-ontological thought to argue that corporate religious liberty rights should apply to neither individuals nor groups per se, but rather to the religious, group-agential actions of coordinating individuals. Such a position finds a reasonable middle ground.
The thesis is divided into four substantive chapters. The introduction establishes the normative import of determining to whom or to what corporate religious liberty rights apply and emphasizes the pressing need for a Christian ethical account. Chapter 1 begins the development of this account by determining both the extent to which it already exists within Christian moral thought and the primary area in which it can be developed – namely, group ontology or the appropriate legal subjects concerned. After Chapter 2 anticipates objections to the use of group ontology in legal prescription, Chapter 3 constructs the promised Christian ethical account, using the modest group realism of Thomas Aquinas to prescribe protections (and limitations) of corporate religious exercise within church and non-church organizational contexts. Chapter 4 answers a remaining query concerning the integration of a Christian, strong group realism (applicable to the Church alone) into the proposed account. The conclusion summarizes the ontological work done and suggests areas for further normative development.

Keywords: Dignitatis Humanae
Obama
freedom of religion
Christian ethics
contraceptive mandate
John Calvin
Thomas Aquinas
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Hosanna Tabor
natural rights
Cécile Laborde
group agency
Jacques Maritain
corporate personhood
corporate religious liberty
Saint Augustine
Masterpiece Cakeshop
Henri de Lubac
group ontology
individual
US statutory law
Natural law
Free exercise
World Council of Churches
Richard Garnett
gay rights
institutional theory
Roger Scruton
corporate person
Vatican II
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Hobby Lobby
artificial entity theory
US constitutional law
religious freedom
Abraham Kuyper
John Finnis
James D Nelson
individual rights
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
group rights
moral theology
Eric W Orts
Richard Schragger
Micah Schwartzman
Corpus mysticum
group realism
John Dewey
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Citizens United
political theology
Advisor: Biggar, N
Probing protein structure and dynamics through native MS and H/D exchange

This thesis details the development and application of mass spectrometry (MS) labelling strategies for use in structural biology, and, specifically, how they offer insight into the quaternary structure and dynamics of protein complexes.
Chapter 3 first demonstrates the utility of isotopic H/D exchange (HDX) strategies for probing the in solution dynamics and assembly of two protein systems. Firstly, I use solution HDX to probe the light-induced structural change of the FAD-binding protein cryptochrome. Through quantitative analysis, I discover a region at the C-terminus undergoes a long-lived conformational change with high specificity to blue light, suggesting a potential role in the signalling cascade of circadian processes. Secondly, I use HDX-MS to probe the interface of a homo-dimeric ancestor of extant haemoglobin. Differential HDX-MS revealed protected peptide regions consistent with the alpha/beta packing interface in the modernday hetero-tetramer.
Studying proteins in the gas-phase by using native MS has the distinct advantage of high resolution separations, manipulations and accurate mass determination, afforded by the exquisite control possible in vacuum. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 describe the implementation of performing gas-phase HDX (gpHDX) inside the spectrometer and how the technique may be used to interrogate protein ion structure with high specificity. I first demonstrate how gpHDX can be used to probe native proteins and show high sensitivity to the surface chemistry of exposed residues. Secondly, I use gpHDX to aid our understanding of how protein complexes asymmetrically dissociate through collisional activation and charge precipitated unfolding. Importantly, I show that the deuterium uptake of a dissociated subunit can be used as a proxy for the intact precursor. Finally I use gpHDX coupled to ion mobility (IM) to reveal how the conformational landscape of an activated protein changes at a global and local level.

Advisor: Benesch, J
Social bonding among children in joint physically active play

Children’s free play is often characterised by moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), touch, joint action, and enjoyment. Each of these features has been associated with interpersonal affiliation in either human or non-human primates. However, no research has examined how children’s joint physically active play is linked with social bonding (i.e., positive emotional states and behaviours that help create, maintain, and characterise affiliation and attachment among individuals). This thesis comprises three novel studies that were designed to explore this question. A naturalistic observation study (N = 50) was first conducted to assess links among physical activity (PA), smiling/laughing, touch, and prosociality in children’s play behaviour during school breaks. PA levels were also measured indirectly via heart rate monitors (HRM). We found that observed-PA was associated with frequency of smiling/laughing between pairs. PA (observed and HRM) was also associated with frequency of touch. A second study (N = 84) experimentally tested the effect of touch on helping behaviour in the context of physically-active play. In pairs, children ran to collect felt shapes, which they placed either onto each other (touch condition) or onto a board (no-touch condition). Subsequent helping behaviour was assessed in a separate task. There was a non-significant trend towards more helping in the touch condition. The final study (N = 252) tested the effect of physical exertion on children’s social bonding and behavioural inhibition. In pairs, children either ran (MVPA condition) or walked (light PA condition) around an area laid out with mats. One child could choose to stand either on the same mat as the other child and do actions together or stand on separate mats and do the actions separately. This was followed by a pictorial measure of social closeness, followed by a behavioural inhibition task in which one child was instructed to place their hand inside a box containing unknown stimuli. No significant differences were detected between the two conditions. The thesis contributes to filling in gaps within the literature on play, social bonding, and physical activity, spanning evolutionary anthropology, developmental psychology, and health, and highlights the need for more controlled experimental studies among diverse populations.

Keywords: Physical Activity
Touch
Play
Social bonding
Advisor: Cohen, E
Tuncgenc, B
Atom probe tomography of crystallographic defects in silicon

High performance multicrystalline silicon (HPMC-Si) is the dominant material used in photovoltaic (PV) devices. This material however contains a large number of defects, such as grain boundaries and dislocations. The decoration of such defects by transition metals and other impurities causes deep levels in the band gap, significantly affecting the performance and efficiency of PV devices. In the photovoltaic industry, processing techniques, such as hydrogen passivation and gettering, are used to increase the minority carrier lifetime, reducing the recombination activity of crystallographic defects. However, these techniques are not always effective and the reasons for this are currently not always well understood.
In this thesis, a correlative microscopy approach is developed, incorporating electron beam induced current (EBIC), electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD) and atom probe tomography (APT). This approach combines the characterisation of recombination activity, crystallographic information, and chemical composition of individual defects after various stages of processing. These methods were employed to determine the cause of contamination from room temperature colloidal silica polishing and also investigate the evolution of grain boundaries at various stages of gettering and hydrogenation. In addition, this approach was also applied to alternative PV materials of Red Zone HPMC-Si and n-type HMPC-Si, demonstrating wide-scale applicability.
Nitrogen was observed to correlate with an increase in recombination activity at certain grain boundaries. In addition, the light elements carbon and oxygen were also observed to decorate grain boundaries. No transition metals, except copper, were detected. This may be due to the detection limit of APT, which was calculated to be as high as 1015 cm-3 for Fe.
Furthermore, applying this new multiscale correlative microscopical approach to the analysis of deuterium (2H) passivated wafers, hydrogen has been directly observed to decorate crystallographic defects in silicon and the extent of segregation quantified. These new insights have the potential to directly address the question as to why some grain boundaries respond positively to hydrogenation, whereas others do not.

Keywords: Atom Probe Tomography
Silicon
Grain Boundaries
Correlative Microscopy
Hydrogen
Advisor: Moody, M
Wilshaw, P
Hamer, P
The politics of the Italian budgetary process

The thesis presents a descriptive analysis of Italian budgetary politics during the 1980s and 1990s. This work explores the institutional and political contexts of budgeting, and updates the literature on the Italian budgetary process. The dissertation identifies three periods of budgeting. The first period, from 1979 to 1992, was characterized by immobilism in budgetary politics. In this era, successive Italian governments failed to realize deficit containment policies. The 1992-94 period was marked by a transition in budgetary politics. In the sphere of budgeting, there were important changes to budget behaviour and budget outcomes. At the political level, a crisis in Italy’s political system gradually gave rise to a more adversarial party system. The post-1994 period witnessed more stable executive governance in budgetary politics.
During these years, Italian governments more successfully realized public finance objectives than did governments during the era of immobilism. This descriptive analysis of Italian budgeting highlights a number of key developments that took place over the course of the transition from immobilism to executive governance. These include growing treasury primacy in budget policy coordination, and the changing institutional and procedural circumstances governing parliamentary budgeting. Furthermore, the work presents two case studies to highlight these trends in Italian budgeting. The first is an examination of the politics of pension reform, and the second is a study of the politics of taxation.

Keywords: Italy
politics
budgetary
budget
Italian
Advisor: Hine, D
Some models from mathematical population genetics with fluctuations in the environment

We are interested in populations in which the fitness of different genetic types fluctuates in time and space, driven by temporal and spatial fluctuations in the environment. For simplicity, our population is assumed to be composed of just two genetic types. Short bursts of selection acting in opposing directions drive to maintain both types at intermediate frequencies, while the fluctuations due to ‘genetic drift’ work to eliminate variation in the population. We consider first a population with no spatial structure, modelled by an adaptation of the Lambda (or generalised) Fleming-Viot process, and derive a stochastic differential equation as a scaling limit. This amounts to a limit result for a Lambda-Fleming-Viot process in a rapidly fluctuating random environment. We then extend to a population that is distributed across a spatial continuum, which we model through a modification of the spatial Lambda-Fleming-Viot process with selection. In this setting we show that the scaling limit is a stochastic partial differential equation. As is usual with spatially distributed populations, in dimensions greater than one, the ’genetic drift’ disappears in the scaling limit, but here we retain some stochasticity due to the fluctuations in the environment, resulting in a stochastic partial differential equation driven by a noise that is white in time but coloured in space. We discuss the (rather limited) situations under which there is a duality with a system of branching and annihilating particles. We also write down a system of equations that captures the frequency of descendants of particular subsets of the population and use this same idea of ‘tracers’, which we learned from Hallatschek and Nelson (2008) and Durrett and Fan (2016), in numerical experiments with a closely related model based on the classical Moran model. We also investigate the behaviour of an establishing mutation which is subject to rapidly fluctuating selection under the Lambda-Fleming-Viot model and show that under a suitable scaling it converges to the Feller diffusion in a random environment. We then extend to a population that is distributed across a spatial continuum. In this setting the scaling limit is the SuperBrownian motion in a random environment. The scaling results for the behaviour of the rare allele are achieved via particle representations which belong to the family of ‘lookdown constructions’.

Keywords: Spatial Lambda Fleming-Viot model
stochastic growth model
Fluctuating selection
lookdown construction
Tracer dynamics
SuperBrownian motion
scaling limits
Advisor: Etheridge, A
The growth, regulation and environmental impact of green electricity tariffs

In many retail electricity markets consumers are able to choose to purchase a green tariff, where the kWh consumed are matched by their retailer with electricity generated from renewable sources. These tariffs are sold to consumers as a way to reduce their own carbon footprints and as a way to help fight climate change. This thesis asks "what is the role of green electricity tariffs in reducing carbon emissions?" The question is answered by exploring the growth, regulation and environmental impact of markets for voluntary green electricity tariffs through four related areas:
•Chapter four undertakes an international comparison of markets for green electricity tariffs. Variation in enrolment levels is measured, which is then explained in reference to macro level variables including the regulatory environment, market competition and the types of supplier operating.
•Chapter five looks at one mechanism to increase consumer engagement with retail electricity markets, digital third-party intermediaries, and explores potential tradeoffs with the ability for consumers to discover and switch to green electricity tariffs.
•Chapter six uses a consumer survey to explore attitudes towards the environmental benefit of green electricity products. A census of the ‘additionality’ contributions made by retailers is undertaken to analyse whether the products available on the market meet consumers’ expectations.
•Chapter seven outlines the causal mechanisms whereby consumer demand for green tariffs translates into lowered carbon emissions, using a mixed methods approach.
The research highlights the importance of understanding the retail market context of green electricity tariffs, as enrolment is found to be affected by levels of competition in the market. It is also possible that increased use of intermediaries may present a challenge for the future green tariff market growth. An assessment of the environmental benefit finds that the green tariffs available in the UK have a negligible impact on lowering carbon emissions, with consumer research also suggesting that the tariffs currently on the market are not meeting customers’ expectations.

Keywords: green tariffs
green electricity tariffs
ethical consumption
retail electricity markets
sustainable consumption
green power
electricity market regulation
Advisor: Eyre, N
Darby, S
Directing structure through chirality

Chirality - or the absence of mirror symmetry - is a fundamental physical property that permeates geometrical structures in nature, from the double-helical shape of DNA to the macroscopic anatomy of entire organisms. However, the specific mechanisms underpinning the propagation of chirality across such wide differences in length-scales often remain poorly understood. In this thesis, we explore the quantitative link between molecular and supramolecular chirality in liquid crystal phases of elongated polymers, which are ubiquitously observed in both biological and artificial colloidal solutions. We investigate the self-assembling behaviour of such systems through the combination of detailed numerical simulations and classical density functional theory in the Onsager formalism. The quantitative accuracy of the latter and of its various extensions is thoroughly assessed in the case of both rigid and flexible particle models, and rigorous first-principle derivations of its underlying mathematical framework are systematically provided. An original virial integration scheme based on hierarchical bounding volumes is also introduced to accelerate non-bonded interaction energy computations by several orders of magnitude for complex, highly-anisotropic molecular systems. These developments allow us to tackle the cholesteric assembly of DNA origamis using a structurally- and mechanically-realistic representation of the particles, and enable us to provide theoretical evidence of a novel mechanism of chirality amplification in liquid crystals, whereby phase chirality is governed by fluctuation-stabilised helical deformations in the conformations of their constituent molecules. Our results compare favourably to recent experimental measurements and demonstrate the influence of intra-molecular mechanics on chiral supramolecular order, with potential implications for a broad class of experimentally-relevant colloidal systems.

Keywords: DNA nanotechnology
Cholesteric phases
Molecular modelling
Chirality
Self-assembly
Advisor: Doye, J
Reading the Qur’an in light of the Manār

Muḥammad ῾Abduh (d. 1905) and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s (d. 1935) Tafsīr al-Manār is widely considered a turning point in Qur’anic exegesis for its presumed departure from traditional Sunni Arabic commentaries on the Qur’an, both methodologically and intellectually. This thesis investigates this assumption by taking a closer look at the text of the Manār commentary itself. With a primary focus on the Tafsīr al-Manār’s exegesis of Sūrat al-Mā’ida—authorship of which should, along with most other parts of the commentary, be ascribed to Rashīd Riḍā—I argue that, although certain traditional exegetical techniques and features remain in this commentary, their presence and function appear to be superficial in many ways. Specifically, Rashīd Riḍā breaks with some of the conventions followed by classical mufassirūn not only by introducing a number of novel ideas, some of which stand in opposition to classical Sunni doctrine, but also by demonstrating a much more pronounced interest in the social and political realities of his day. In this context, the author often seems to use tradition in a way that serves the purpose of advancing his own agenda as a social reformer, although he does so in an arguably subtle and nuanced fashion. On the one hand, abiding by certain traditional exegetical rules allows him to showcase his own scholarly credentials to participate in the long-standing tafsīr genre. On the other hand, his proximity to and engagement with tradition seems to help him justify some of his more blatant departures in a manner that signals to the reader that his views are, in fact, not far-fetched at all, but intrinsically Islamic.

Keywords: Rashīd Riḍā
Advisor: Sinai, N