VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The recruitment and selection of young managers by British business 1930-2000

A pervasive critique argues that the educational and social background of senior managers, determined largely by recruitment policies and practices, was an important contributor to the relative economic decline of Britain. The current thesis argues that this critique, even in nuanced form, suffers from serious flaws. For example, long term results of recruitment are confused with information on recruitment processes. In fact, corporate performance can only be judged by understanding the challenges that faced companies, and the limits of the options available to them. The objective of the work, then, is to outline the steps sensible recruiters should have taken to secure their needs for bright young entrants, and to describe and measure what in fact happened. Key findings are that: the criteria used by companies to define high-flier entrants – intelligence, certain personal skills, and signs of character - have remained fundamentally unchanged even if emphasis has moved. Business pursued these attributes through proxies, the most important of which was that of educational qualifications. Business was rightly slow, until the 1950s, to recruit graduate entrants because most bright young people did not attend university. Although British peculiarity in terms of non-vocationalism has been exaggerated, a lesser focus on ‘relevant’ qualifications for non-technical positions was not an economic disadvantage. Proxies for personal qualities were less robust but, over time, were replaced by better direct measurement of individual qualities. The solution found in Britain to bring educated young people together with employers through regional and national recruitment institutions, including the graduate milkround, has proven highly successful. The selection of entrants has been approached at least as well as abroad, and notably unreliable tools were avoided. Business obtained an ever growing proportion of young talent, and did so by integrating educated young people from new social strata to an extent unmatched abroad.

Keywords: graduates
executives
recruitment
selection
Advisor: Offer, A
Writing for freedom: body, identity and power in Goliarda Sapienza's narrative

This thesis explores the theme of freedom in Goliarda Sapienza's narrative, focusing in particular on three works: Lettera aperta (1967), L'arte della gioia (1998, posthumous) and Io, Jean Gabin (2010, posthumous). The analysis concentrates on the interplay between body and power in processes of identity formation; the main aspects taken into consideration are gender, sexuality and political ideology, with specific attention to the power involved in human relationships.
This thesis comprises four chapters. The first three develop a close textual analysis of individual works, each one progressing from the exploration of the internal composition of the self to the analysis of identity in its interpersonal and socio-political dimension. The fourth chapter engages with a comparative analysis of the same works’ narrative structures, accounting for the role of writing in the evolution of Sapienza’s narrative.
I identify the pivotal tension of Sapienza's works in the ideal of freedom, and propose to define her narrative as Epicurean and anarchic, characteristics that place it at the intersection of post-structuralist and Marxist-feminist discourses. Overall, I argue in favour of Sapienza's originality and significance within the context of 20th-century Italian literature. I suggest an affinity between Sapienza's works and the literary legacy of Pirandello and Svevo, as well as certain tenets of postmodern fiction, but also a significant difference, concerning the presence of a tension towards agency and subjectivity, extraneous to the trajectory of the modern and postmodern subject.
From a position of marginality and ex-centricity, Sapienza gives voice to a radical aspiration to individual and social transformation, in which writing and literary communication are granted a central role. Her works trace the parable of a strenuous deconstruction of oppressive norms and structures, aimed at retrieving a space of powerful bodily desire, which constitutes the foundation of the process of becoming a subject.

Keywords: Goliarda Sapienza
Italian Studies
Literary Criticism
Women Writers
Advisor: Stellardi, G
Development of sindbis virus as an oncolytic agent

The poor stability of most therapeutic viruses in the human bloodstream is a major obstacle in the field of cancer virotherapy, preventing systemic intravenous delivery to treat tumour metastases. Delivery is typically limited by inactivation of virus particles by blood components and rapid scavenging by hepatic phagocytes. Members of the Alphavirus family are exposed to blood during natural infections; as such, we hypothesised that evolutionary pressure may have led to blood stability and clearance kinetics superior to those of other viruses currently in development for use as oncolytic agents.
Sindbis virus is a member of the Alphavirus family that has shown promising anti-cancer activity in pre-clinical models. A concern for the clinical use of Sindbis virus as an anticancer agent is its pathology in humans, known as Pogosta disease. The symptoms of Pogosta disease may be a result of Sindbis virus replication in neuronal, muscle or haematopoietic tissues. Inhibiting virus replication in these tissues could, therefore, alleviate such potential side effects of virotherapy treatment. Introduction of microRNA response elements, perfectly complementary to microRNAs specifically expressed in liver (miR122), neuronal (miR124), muscle (miR133 and miR206) and haematopoietic (miR142-3p) cells, successfully attenuated SV replication in these tissues.
In contrast to all other viruses studied, data presented in this thesis show that Sindbis virus infectivity in vitro is not significantly inhibited by incubation with neat, whole naïve human blood. Despite full infectivity in naïve mouse blood, virus particles were rapidly cleared from the circulation of mice in vivo by the liver. An attempt to decrease the clearance rate by depletion of Kupffer cells through pre-treatment of mice with clodronate liposomes was ineffective. We also explored the use of Sindbis virus packaged in mosquito cells to more closely mimic virus particles exposed to blood in the wild during mosquito mediated transmission, but this also failed to improve virus circulation kinetics in mice. Despite rapid clearance from the circulation, intravenous administration of Sindbis virus had significant anti-cancer efficacy in C57BL/6 mice bearing syngeneic B16F10 metastatic melanomas.
Overall, data presented support our proposed use of Sindbis virus as a systemically delivered oncolytic agent and suggest decreasing the rate of clearance by the liver could dramatically enhance therapeutic outcomes. In addition it is shown that microRNA targeting of Sindbis virus provides a means of alleviating potential side effects of the administration of large virus doses.

Keywords: MicroRNA
Virology
Oncolytic
Pharmacokinetics
Virotherapy
Advisor: Seymour, L
Numerical methods for approximating solutions to rough differential equations

The main motivation behind writing this thesis was to construct numerical methods to approximate solutions to differential equations driven by rough paths, where the solution is considered in the rough path-sense. Rough paths of inhomogeneous degree of smoothness as driving noise are considered. We also aimed to find applications of these numerical methods to stochastic differential equations.
After sketching the core ideas of the Rough Paths Theory in Chapter 1, the versions of the core theorems corresponding to the inhomogeneous degree of smoothness case are stated and proved in Chapter 2 along with some auxiliary claims on the continuity of the solution in a certain sense, including an RDE-version of Gronwall's lemma.
In Chapter 3, numerical schemes for approximating solutions to differential equations driven by rough paths of inhomogeneous degree of smoothness are constructed. We start with setting up some principles of approximations. Then a general class of local approximations is introduced. This class is used to construct global approximations by pasting together the local ones. A general sufficient condition on the local approximations implying global convergence is given and proved. The next step is to construct particular local approximations in finite dimensions based on solutions to ordinary differential equations derived locally and satisfying the sufficient condition for global convergence. These local approximations require strong conditions on the one-form defining the rough differential equation. Finally, we show that when the local ODE-based schemes are applied in combination with rough polynomial approximations, the conditions on the one-form can be weakened.
In Chapter 4, the results of Gyurko & Lyons (2010) on path-wise approximation of solutions to stochastic differential equations are recalled and extended to the truncated signature level of the solution. Furthermore, some practical considerations related to the implementation of high order schemes are described. The effectiveness of the derived schemes is demonstrated on numerical examples.
In Chapter 5, the background theory of the Kusuoka-Lyons-Victoir (KLV) family of weak approximations is recalled and linked to the results of Chapter 4. We highlight how the different versions of the KLV family are related. Finally, a numerical evaluation of the autonomous ODE-based versions of the family is carried out, focusing on SDEs in dimensions up to 4, using cubature formulas of different degrees and several high order numerical ODE solvers. We demonstrate the effectiveness and the occasional non-effectiveness of the numerical approximations in cases when the KLV family is used in its original version and also when used in combination with partial sampling methods (Monte-Carlo, TBBA) and Romberg extrapolation.

Keywords: rough differential equation
rough paths
numerical solution
cubature
Stochastic differential equations
Wiener space
weak approximation
Advisor: Lyons, T
Mechanisms of Type 2 diabetes susceptibility

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has a genetic component which is only partially understood. The majority of genetic variance in disease susceptibility is unaccounted for, whilst the precise transcripts and molecular mechanisms through which most risk variants exert their effect is unclear. A complete understanding of T2D susceptibility mechanisms could have benefits in risk prediction, and in drug discovery through the identification of novel therapeutic targets. Work presented in this thesis aims to define relevant transcripts and disease mechanisms at known susceptibility loci, and to identify disease association with classes of genetic variation other than common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
KCNQ1 contains intronic variants associated with T2D susceptibility and β-cell dysfunction, but only maternally-inherited alleles confer increased disease risk. It maps within an imprinted domain with an established role in congenital and islet-specific growth phenotypes. Using human adult islet and foetal pancreas samples, I refined the transcripts and developmental stage at which T2D susceptibility must be conferred by demonstrating developmentally plastic monoallelic and biallelic expression. I identified a potential risk mechanism through the effect of T2D risk alleles upon DNA methylation.
The disease-associated regions identified through genome-wide association (GWA) studies often contain multiple transcripts. I performed mRNA expression profiling of genes within loci associated with raised proinsulin/insulin ratios in human islets and metabolically relevant tissues. Some genes (notably CT62) were not expressed and therefore excluded from consideration for a risk effect, whilst others (for example C2CD4A) were highlighted as good regional candidates due to specific expression in relevant tissues.
GWA studies for T2D risk have focused predominantly upon common single nucleotide polymorphisms. As part of a consortium conducing GWA analysis for copy number variation (CNV) and T2D risk, I optimised and compared alternative methods of CNV genotyping, before using this information to validate two signals of disease association. I genotyped three rare single nucleotide variants emerging from an association study with T2D risk based on imputed data, providing an indication of imputation accuracy and more powerful disease association analysis.
These data underscore the challenge of translating association signals to causal mechanisms, and of identifying alternative forms of genomic variation which contribute to T2D risk. My work highlights candidates for functional analysis around proinsulin-associated loci, and makes significant progress towards uncovering risk mechanisms at the KCNQ1 locus.

Keywords: Genome-wide association
Complex Disease Genetics
Type 2 Diabetes
Advisor: McCarthy, M
Gloyn, A
Studies on etching and polymer deposition in halocarbon plasmas

Plasma etching, the selective removal of materials by reaction with chemically active species formed in a glow-discharge, is widely used by the electronics industry because of the advantages over 'wet' processes. The full potential has yet to be realised because chemical processes occuring in the plasma and at the plasma/substrate interface are incompletely understood. In this work attention was focussed on the accumulation of polymers on surfaces during plasma etching in fluorocarbon gases.
An apparatus was designed and constructed to explore the conditions which give rise to these deposits by:
i) The detection of the excited species such as CF and CF2 (by optical emission spectroscopy);
and
ii) The rate of accumulation or removal of deposits (by means of a quartz crystal microbalance).
The gases CF4, C2F6, C3F8 and CHF3 were used at pressures between 200-600mT, together with mixtures with H2 and a few runs with other gases to vary the partial pressures of etching and polymerizing species. Both substrate effect of, viz silicon and thermally oxidised silicon (SiO2), and electrode materials effects have been examined.
Polymer production from C3F8 has been found to be more sensitive to electrode composition than that from CHF3, but the material formed is overall less thermally stable. On the other hand, polymers produced from C3F8 accumulate at similar rates on Si and SiO2, whereas those from CHF3 show a much greater liklihood of building up on Si than SiO2 . XPS and infra-red spectroscopy have been used to demonstrate that polymers arising from these two gases exhibit marked structural differences, which can be minimised by mixing H2 with C3F8. These effects can be correlated with the decomposition products expected in the plasma.

Advisor: Cheetham, A
Adjusted profile likelihood applied to estimation and testing of unit roots

A short review of unit-root econometrics is given from the point of view of testing. The adjusted likelihoods of Cox and Reid (1987, 1993) are presented and applied to the usual AR(1) with constant, an AR(1) process suggested by Bhargava (1986), and an AR(2) process. Biases of the associated maximum-likelihood estimates (MLEs) are pondered briefly. A Wald statistic based on adjusted profile likelihood is proposed.
The Cox-Reid adjusted estimate (AE) for the autoregressive coefficient of the unit-root AR(1) model with zero constant is even asymptotically more accurate, in terms of mean-square error (MSE), than the MLE. The derived tests are more powerful than the corresponding Dickey-Fuller tests if the starting value of the process deviates sufficiently from the unconditional mean. An iteratively adjusted estimate is introduced which can also be more accurate than the MLE. We obtain also an estimate and a Wald statistic which are asymptotically distributed compactly and symmetrically around zero under a unit root but the estimate is not consistent in general.
The MLE and the AE are consistent not only as the sample size tends to infinity but also when the (absolute value of the) deviation of the starting value from the unconditional mean of the time series is tuned towards infinity. The finding exposes why Wald-kind of tests are more powerful than tests based on standardised coefficients when the starting value lies far from the unconditional mean.
The AE and the corresponding Wald statistic are derived for the Bhargava AR(1) model. We obtain the asymptotic distributions of them and simulate the previously unknown finite sample distributions of the MLE and the usual Wald statistic under a unit root. Again the AE is the more accurate estimate. Distortion towards a unit root is pointed out.
The adjusted estimate and the Wald statistic follow their asymptotic distributions better than the unadjusted when the process is a unit-root AR(1) with drift or the Bhargava AR(1). Accuracy is gained also under the unit-root AR(2) model.
A practical advice is to apply a unit-root test based on the Bhargava model when the process can be assumed to have started from the unconditional mean under the alternative and otherwise a test based on the ordinary AR(1) with constant model. The adjustment often decreases the bias at the cost of variance but it can yield a reduction in both, too, which happens under the Bhargava model and 'typically' under the unit-root AR(2) model.
The two most distinctive findings are perhaps that the AE can be asymptotically more accurate than the corresponding MLE or in finite samples when the AE is calculated from an embedding model.
Some topics in functional differential equations

This thesis is concerned with the asymptotic behaviour of solutions of the differential-difference equation:- w'(s) = g(s)[w(s - 1) - w(s)] where g(s) is a continuous real-valued function. g(s) is assumed to have one of the following asymptotic behaviours
algebraic
exponential algebraic
constant
zero
periodic
Chapter 2 covers the behaviour of solutions as s→ + ∝ for g(s) ≥ 0.
Chapter 3 covers the behaviour of solutions as s→ + ∝ for g(s) ≤ 0.
Chapter 4 covers s→ - ∝ and g(s) ≥ 0.
Chapter 5 covers s→ - ∝ and g(s) ≤ 0.
The politics of health care reform in Central and Eastern Europe: the case of the Czech Republic

This thesis examines the political process of health care reform between 1989 and 1998 in the most advanced sizable political economy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – the Czech Republic. Its aim is to explain the political process bringing about post-Communist health policy change and stimulate new debates on welfare state transformation in CEE. The thesis challenges the conventional view that post-Communist health care reform in CEE was designed and implemented to improve the health status of the people, as desired by the people themselves. I suggest that this is a dangerous over-rationalisation, and argue that post-Communist health care reform in the Czech Republic was the by-product of haphazard democratic political struggle between emerging elites for power and economic resources. The thesis employs the analytical narrative method to describe and analyse the actors, institutions, ideas and history behind the health policy change. The analysis is informed by welfare state theory, elite theory, interest group politics theory, the assumptions of methodological individualism and rational choice theory, and Schumpeter’s doctrine of democracy. Its focus is on the interests of health policy actors and how they interacted within an unhinged, but fast-consolidating, institutional framework. The results demonstrate that, while historical legacies and liberal ideas featured prominently in the rhetoric accompanying health policy change, in Realpolitik, these were merely the disposable, instrumental devices of opportunistic, self-interested elites. The resultant explanation of health policy change stresses the primacy of agency over structure and formulates four important mechanisms of health policy change: opportunism, tinkering, enterprise, and elitism. In conclusion, the relevance of major welfare state theories to the given case is assessed and implications for welfare state research in CEE are drawn.

Advisor: Lewis, J
Seeleib-Kaiser, M
Deictic categories in Toda Sedeq (Austronesian, Taiwan)

The purpose of this account of how deixis is encoded in Toda Sedeq, an Austronesian language indigenous to Taiwan, is two-fold; to contribute to 1) the description of a completely neglected dialect of a poorly understood language which faces language replacement and is in urgent need of description and 2) the theoretical understanding of deixis.
From a theoretical standpoint, deixis has five categories, with a hierarchy as to which are most often represented in various language phenomena, viz.,: 1) ‘space’, 2) ‘person’, 3) ‘time’, 4) ‘social relations’ and 5) ‘discourse’ (in descending order). This hierarchy helps explain numbers of phenomena representing each category in the grammar of a given language, and also how likely a given category is to serve as the ‘template’ for combinations with other categories (e.g., ‘space’ is a template for ‘spatio-personal deixis’).
For the target language, the categories are represented by numbers of phenomena that support the following hierarchy: 1) the most, with 2)-3) following, and practically nothing for 4)-5). Additionally, for two-way category combinations, 1) space was found to combine with all other categories, but 2) person with only two and the other three categories with none at all - also in keeping with the hierarchy. Finally, in the only triple category combination (spatio-personal-temporal deixis), categories 1) - 3) were all found to play important roles.
The Sedeq deictic morphemes work in groups rather than independently (seven morphemes are combined into eight groups, each of which forms a grammatical subsystem, with multiple membership for all morphemes).
The five-category deixis, category combinations, and morpheme grouping models have resulted in what I believe accounts for the deictic phenomena of the language more completely than any previous attempt. It also has implications for theoretical linguistics and raises questions to be addressed in the future description of other languages.

Keywords: deixis
time
Sedeq
person
place
Atayalic
Austronesian
linguistics
grammar
Taiwan
Advisor: Dalrymple, M