VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Public health and state power in Pakistan: case studies of medical interventions from British Raj to military rule

This thesis provides the first historical survey of medical interventions and public health policies implemented by the governments that ruled in the territories of Pakistan over the 20th century. It sheds light on the objectives and challenges of governance during this period with respect to population health and welfare, and seeks to contribute to our understanding of the impact of colonial rule in the territories which became Pakistan—which are not well-represented in the literature on the history of medicine of British India—and to expand our knowledge of developments in the postcolonial period.
The narrative begins with the twilight of colonial rule, when the British Indian government was hindered from undertaking public health reform due to the growth of nationalist and anti-colonial sentiment in the North-West Frontier, Bengal, and the Punjab. The demand for local autonomy and public accountability in health decision-making in these provinces came at a time when Indians were simultaneously resisting Britain’s political dominance over India. Even after independence, the conflict between provincial governments and successive central governments with respect to health policymaking persisted. Such tensions were exacerbated by the economic pressures of scarcity in Pakistan’s early years which worsened pre-existing social and political cleavages between different groups. This material deprivation along with the historical legacy of tropical medicine in Asia resulted in acceptance of the country’s status as an underdeveloped, backwards state by the country’s leaders in return for international health aid from richer nations. Pakistan subsequently became a laboratory for developed world experiments on poverty and population control. The developments in health over the period from 1900 to 1960 make evident the manifold challenges to the sovereignty and authority of the colonial, parliamentary, and military rulers as they attempted to intervene in the lives of subjects and citizens of British India and Pakistan.

Advisor: Harrison, M
Halogen and chalcogen bonding host molecules for anion recognition and sensing

This thesis describes the preparation and study of acyclic, macrocyclic and mechanicallyinterlocked host molecules (MIMs) exploiting halogen and chalcogen bonding interactions for anion recognition and sensing.
Chapter 1 introduces the field of anion supramolecular chemistry and interlocked structures, with emphasis on halogen and chalcogen bonding receptors, as well as their applications in catalysis, molecular recognition and nanotechnology.
Chapter 2 explores the methodology development and synthesis of novel neutral and cationic macrocyclic and interlocked host molecules containing stable triazole-based halogen and chalcogen bonding motifs. The thermodynamic anion binding properties of these novel host molecules in wet and dry organic solvents are determined and compared.
Chapter 3 details the applications and influences of halogen and chalcogen bonding interactions for electrochemical anion sensing. The ability of ferrocene-based halogen bonding receptors to enhance the sensitivity of redox anion sensing compared with hydrogen bonding host analogues is demonstrated.
Chapter 4 investigates the unprecedented applications of halogen and chalcogen bonding interactions in enantioselective binding and sensing of chiral anions. The use of chiral [2]- and [3]rotaxanes for chiral anion discrimination is also demonstrated for the first time.
Chapter 5 describes the exploitation of hydrophilic polyether-based cationic halogen bonding receptors for anion binding and sensing in water. In particular, the halogen bondingmediated recognition of oxoanions such as perrhenate and biologically-relevant phosphate species are discussed.
Chapter 6 summarises the main conclusions of this thesis.
Chapter 7 details the experimental procedures employed in this work, including synthetic protocols and characterisation data for novel compounds.
Additional information pertaining to crystallographic data, electrochemical measurements and computational modelling procedures are provided in the Appendices.

Advisor: Beer, P
The jurisprudence of constitutional conflict in the European Union

The aim of the thesis is to address the jurisprudence of constitutional conflict between the Court of Justice and national courts with constitutional jurisdiction. It seeks to determine how the principle of primacy of EU law works in reality and whether the jurisprudence of the courts under analysis supports this concept. In so doing, the goal is to determine if the theory of constitutional pluralism can explain and guide the application of the principle of primacy of EU law in the jurisprudence of constitutional conflict.
The analysis has been carried out on two levels. First, by exploring sovereignty claims by the courts under analysis, as well as reconciliatory vocabulary they employ to manage and contain constitutional conflict. Second, by further studying the three areas of constitutional conflict – ultra vires review, identity review, and fundamental rights review – to provide more nuance in the analysis of the way the Court of Justice has expanded the self-referential system of the Treaties; the different limits that constitutional adjudicators have placed on the principle of primacy as a result; and what possible solutions they envisage in the event of a constitutional conflict.
All the courts under analysis have employed the vocabulary of mutual respect and self-restraint as principles guiding the resolution of constitutional conflict. Constitutional conflict is managed through incremental and permanent contestation and accommodation of their opposing claims to sovereignty (the auto-correct function of constitutional pluralism) that results in the uniform interpretation and application of Union law, but keeping in line with conferral as its defining principle. The analysis demonstrated the existence of a heterarchical constellation – the potential of all the courts involved for being ranked in a number of different ways at different times – grounded in mutual respect and self-restraint.

Keywords: Constitutional pluralism
Constitutional Review
Constitutional Theory
Judicial Dialogue
Constitutional Law
European Union Law
Advisor: Johnston, A
van Zeben, J
Beyond the perpetrator: tackling the varied underpinnings of domestic violence on the Tibetan plateau

This thesis explores domestic violence (DV) on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in Qinghai province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). (See Appendix 1 for maps of the study region.) It is based on fifteen months of fieldwork conducted in 2012 and 2013, and upon interviews with 100 women and men, participant observation, and a reading of local proverbs, song, and popular literature. As this is a thesis by publications, three stand-alone articles dealing with selected aspects of domestic violence (DV) in the study region, plus two articles dealing with social phenomena closely related to DV, are included in the subsequent pages...

Advisor: Walker, R
Murphy, R
Higgs bundles, Lagrangians and mirror symmetry

Let Σ be a compact Riemann surface of genus g ≥ 2. This thesis is dedicated to the study of certain loci of the Higgs bundle moduli space. After recalling basic facts in the first chapter about G-Higgs bundles for a reductive group G, we begin the first part of the work, which deals with Higgs bundles for the real forms G0 = SU* (2m), SO* (4m), and Sp(m, m) of G = SL(2m, C), SO(4m, C) and Sp(4m, C), respectively. The second part of the thesis deals with the Gaiotto Lagrangian.
Motivated by mirror symmetry, we give a detailed description of the fibres of the G-Hitchin fibration containing generic G0-Higgs bundles, for the real groups G0 = SU* (2m), SO* (4m) and Sp(m, m). The spectral curves associated to these fibres are examples of ribbons, i.e., non-reduced projective C-schemes of dimension one, whose reduced scheme are non-singular. Our description of these fibres is done in two different ways, each giving different and interesting insights about the fibre in question. One of the formulations is given in term of objects on the reduced curve, while the other in terms of the non-reduced spectral curve. A link is also provided between the two approaches. We use this description to give a proposal for the support of the dual BBB-brane inside the moduli space M(LG
) of Higgs bundles for the Langlands dual group LG of G.
In the second part of the thesis we discuss the Gaiotto Lagrangian, which is a Lagrangian subvariety of the moduli spaces of G-Higgs bundles, where G is a reductive group over C. This Lagrangian is obtained from a symplectic representation of G and we discuss some of its general properties. In Chapter 7 we focus our attention to the Gaiotto Lagrangian for the standard representation of the symplectic group. This is an irreducible component of the nilpotent cone for the symplectic Hitchin fibration. We describe this component by using the usual Morse function on the Higgs bundle moduli space, which is the norm squared of the Higgs field restricted to the Lagrangian in question.
Lastly, we discuss natural questions and applications of the ideas developed in this thesis. In particular, we say a few words about the hyperholomorphic bundle, how to generalize the Gaiotto Lagrangian to vector bundles which admit many sections and give an analogue of the Gaiotto Lagrangian for the orthogonal group.

Advisor: Hitchin, N
Kirwan, F
Dendritic integration of sensory information in perceptual decision-making

Perceptual decisions require the temporal integration of sensory evidence to a response threshold. How the brain performs this operation is unknown. In fruit flies, expression of the forkhead box P transcription factor (FoxP) in αβ core (αβc) Kenyon cells of the mushroom bodies influences decision times in odour discrimination tasks. Flies with a hypomorphic mutation in the FoxP locus take longer to commit to a choice than wild-type flies, especially in difficult tasks.
Using calcium imaging and patch clamp electrophysiology in vivo, I investigate how FoxP shapes the biophysical properties of αβc neurons and link these properties to the flies’ olfactory decision-making behaviour. I find that αβc Kenyon cells integrate individual odour-evoked synaptic inputs to action potential threshold at time scales matching the speed of olfactory discrimination. FoxP, by controlling the abundance of the voltage-gated potassium channel Shal (KV4) in αβc Kenyon cell dendrites, determines the integrative properties of these neurons and dictates decision times. Targeted expression of dominant-negative or functional Shal in αβc Kenyon cells is sufficient to correct or reproduce, respectively, the FoxP mutant phenotype.
Subthreshold dynamics in membrane voltage thus have a previously unrecognised influence on temporal aspects of decision-making.

Advisor: Miesenboeck, G
Childhood meningitis: current and previous UK epidemiology, clinical and laboratory characteristics and outcomes

Introduction: Following reductions in bacterial meningitis which occurred in the UK due to the implementation of vaccine programmes, contemporary knowledge was needed about the current aetiology of childhood meningitis in the context of historical changes in epidemiology, how to reliably distinguish bacterial and aseptic meningitis at presentation to hospital, and outcomes particularly following viral meningitis.
Methods: Annual hospital admission rates were analysed for bacterial and viral meningitis in children &LT;15 years in England from the 1960s to 2011. Data from a prospective cohort study performed across 31 UK hospital sites from 2012-2016, recruiting children &LT;16 years with confirmed or suspected meningitis was used to investigate current aetiology, clinical and laboratory features, clinical decision models to distinguish bacterial and aseptic meningitis, short term outcomes at 3 months post-discharge and health-related quality of life until 18 months post-discharge. A study of enteroviral (EV) PCR from non-CSF sites in a subset of participants with suspected or confirmed viral meningitis was also performed.
Results: Hospital admissions datasets demonstrated a reduction in bacterial meningitis of different aetiologies after the introduction of different vaccines, a reduction in viral meningitis admissions in children &GT;1 year since the 1980s, but a recent increase in viral meningitis admissions in infants. Of 2754 prospectively recruited children with suspected meningitis, 892 had meningitis, of which 80.7% (720/892) were aseptic, 34.2% (305/892) were caused by enteroviruses and 31.3% (280/892) had no identified aetiology. Following analyses of clinical and laboratory features of meningitis of different aetiologies, a pre-existing bacterial meningitis score was assessed, and a new clinical decision model was developed to distinguish aseptic from bacterial meningitis at hospital presentation. In a subset of children, EV-PCR performed on non-CSF samples demonstrated that in EV meningitis all available stool samples were EV-PCR+, and 35% of children with aseptic meningitis of unknown aetiology had a stool EV-PCR+ result. Analysis of short term outcomes and health related quality of life indicated that although sequelae and lower quality of life scores occurred most often following bacterial meningitis, for enteroviral meningitis parental concern about sequalae and limited lower quality of life scores were reported compared with a control group.
Conclusion: These data could inform priorities for prevention and improve the care of children with meningitis.

Advisor: Pollard, A
Kelly, D
Sadarangani, M
Conquests of Egypt: making history in ʿAbbāsid Egypt

This dissertation is a study of the Futūḥ Miṣr (Conquest of Egypt) of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/871), the earliest extant Arabic history of Egypt. Its primary aim is not to assess whether its information is 'authentic' – i.e. corresponding to an objective historical reality – though my findings are of relevance for those engaged in debates over authenticity. My goal instead is to explore the ideas about the past which are conveyed by this particular conglomeration of historical information and to propose methods through which we can expose and analyse different layers and types of authorial activity within a multi-vocal text like Futūḥ Miṣr. Ultimately, I use this analysis as the basis of a case study suggesting how we might more effectively historicise the generation and transmission of historical ideas in the early Islamic period.
Part I of the thesis consists of three chapters which explore Futūḥ Miṣr as a whole, literary text which can be understood as an instantiation of the historical worldview of its composer. Part II of the thesis contains three chapters which each illuminate features of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam's historical practice which are important prerequisites for the stratigraphic reading of Futūḥ Miṣr performed in Part III. Part III of the thesis uses the understanding of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam's authorial techniques developed in Part II to expose the earlier packages of historical information which underpin Futūḥ Miṣr. These final three chapters demonstrate how Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam reinvested these pre-existing narratives with meaning at a micro-level – by interjecting commentary and accounts from other sources – and at a macro-level – by integrating them into the larger narrative structure of Futūḥ Miṣr.
In sum, this thesis is the first systematic study of the sources, structure, and authorship of an early Arabic history, which both tests and expands our current understanding of the dynamics of early Islamic historical writing, and sheds light on numerous aspects of the changing uses of the past among the Muslim scholars of Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid Egypt.

Keywords: Historiography
'Abbasid studies
Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam
Arabic historiography
Islamic historiography
Medieval historiography
Umayyad studies
Advisor: Whittow, M
Hoyland, R
Understanding early transcriptional events in Staphylococcus aureus infection

Staphylococcus aureus remains an important pathogen, which, due to its capability to develop antimicrobial resistance, imposes an increasing threat to human health. Developing preventive means to decrease disease burden is a major aim. However, the development of an S. aureus vaccine, which would be one strategy to achieve such goals, has been complicated through limited understanding of the bacterium’s pathogenic mechanisms. This work uses four approaches to address these limitations: Firstly, a reproducible RNA sequencing based method for the determination of gene transcription by S. aureus in vivo during mammalian infection. Secondly, examination of the impact of the bacterial transcription regulator “Rsp” on the bacterium, which shows that mutations in this gene have profound functional and transcriptional impacts. Thirdly, by examining the in vivo transcription of multiple S. aureus strains during infection, proposing a “core in vivo transcriptome” of induced genes under the conditions tested. Some of these genes are known to be involved in pathogenesis, others are not completely characterised and may represent suitable vaccine antigens. Finally, this work addresses limited understanding of S. aureus pathogenesis through defining transcriptional changes in vivo, which are induced by an altered immune response in immunised hosts. Together, this body of work contributes to the understanding of S. aureus pathogenesis and provides candidate antigens for future vaccine development.

Keywords: In vivo RNA transcription
Vaccine Development
Antigen Identification
rsp gene
Staphylococcus aureus
Advisor: Wyllie, D
Wilson, D
Using Class Memory Automata in Algorithmic Game Semantics

Automata over infinite alphabets are a powerful extension of traditional automata theory, which have begun to be used in solving problems in verification and databases. The infinite nature of the alphabet allows the automata to model potentially unbounded processes or structures at a higher level of precision than finite alphabet automata. Game semantics provides a powerful framework for ascribing fully abstract semantics to higher-order programs, by modelling programs as strategies for interaction between the program and the environment. Questions about properties of programs can then be reduced to checking properties of these strategies.
This thesis aims to continue the classification of the fragments of the higher-order call-by-value language RML for which observational equivalence is decidable. To do so, we will develop new variants of class memory automata that allow us to express and compare languages representing game semantic strategies.
We begin our contributions by looking at class memory automata, a natural form of automata over infinite alphabets. We identify a natural restriction – which we call weakness – that leads to better algorithmic and complexity properties. We then admit a tree-structure to the infi- nite alphabets being used, and present a decidable form of class memory automata over these structured inputs. We also introduce and study a form of automaton combining the class memory operation over infinite alphabets with a visibly pushdown stack.
Next, we use these form of class memory automata in deciding observational equivalence of RML programs. RML can be viewed as the restricton of Standard ML to ground-type references, with a “bad variable” construct. Using the game semantics of RML, we reduce observational equivalence to equivalence of these variants of class memory automata. These methods provide new results on which fragments of RML have decidable observational equivalence. We also present several new undecidability and results, showing fragments of RML to have an undecidable observational equivalence problem.

Advisor: Ong, L
Murawski, A
Examining the spatial occurrence of carnivores across a gradient of anthropogenic pressure in southern Tanzania, with a focus on the Ruaha landscape and adjacent areas

Tanzania’s Ruaha landscape harbours some of the most important carnivore population strongholds in East Africa. However, ongoing human-induced changes of natural habitat expose these carnivore populations to increased anthropogenic pressure, even within protected areas. Such habitat changes can disrupt carnivore distribution and species interactions, which can be detrimental for species conservation. Yet, there is limited understanding about how anthropogenic-related variables influence carnivore occurrence and interspecific interactions in this landscape, which hinders the development of strategies to conserve carnivores. In this thesis, I examined the spatial occurrence of carnivores across the gradient of anthropogenic pressure in the Ruaha landscape and adjacent areas. In the first data chapters I investigated how landscape and human-related variables influenced carnivore site occupancy and interspecific interactions in the Ruaha National Park (RNP), surrounding wildlife management area, and village lands through extensive camera-trapping data. I found a consistent and steady decline in carnivore detections with increasing distance from RNP, especially closer to human households. Large carnivores, specifically, were not detected anywhere in the village lands. There was a notable variation on the influence of anthropogenic and landscape variables to carnivore site use: large carnivores were influenced by prey biomass and anthropogenic variables, whereas mesocarnivores were largely influenced by distance to the Great Ruaha River. In addition, mesocarnivore detections were correlated with those of top-order carnivores. Furthermore, increased probability for interspecific interactions between mesocarnivores was influenced by proximity to households. Overall, I identified that the village lands were likely acting as a hard edge that limited carnivore distribution outside RNP. On my last data chapter, I investigated the determinants of carnivore habitat suitability beyond Ruaha, and generated a predictive map of highly suitable carnivore habitats for the human gradient between the Ruaha and Selous landscapes, using the lion (Panthera leo) as a key-species. Highly suitable habitats were associated with low human population density (<10 people/km2) and rainfall, and over 75% of these habitats were limited to protected areas, with the remainder patchily distributed across village lands. The results suggested limited potential for landscape connectivity between Ruaha and Selous. Overall, this thesis provides a rigorous assessment of the first comprehensive baseline data of carnivore spatial occurrence within a gradient of anthropogenic pressure in this landscape. The framework presented here can be used to help informing carnivore conservation planning in Ruaha, with applications elsewhere where carnivores and humans overlap.

Advisor: Macdonald, D
Dickman, A
Henschel, P