VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The financial administration of the French navy during the War of the Spanish Succession

The prevailing historical narrative of the collapse of Louis XIV’s naval power has emphasised the importance of political decision-making, either in the strategic shifts between the guerre d'escadre and the guerre de course, or in the decision to reduce the naval budget in the midst of war in 1694 and 1707. As France faced massive financial overextension and an increasing need to fight for territorial survival in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), it was inevitable that Louis XIV's government would fund its armies in preference to its naval capabilities. However, a shift in priorities at Versailles does not provide a full explanation for the navy's decline. Recent works emphasise the effectiveness of the state’s revenue-raising capabilities and the importance of the fiscal intermediaries who financed royal expenditure. Yet, these connections between French naval power and Louis XIV's fiscal capabilities remain only partially explored and this thesis presents a fresh examination of the navy’s financing arrangements.
It is argued that the difficulties that Louis XIV faced in maintaining the fleet were rooted in a unique set of issues embedded in the navy's financing mechanism and the way it was managed. The problem was four-fold: the naval ministry consistently overspent its allocated funds; the navy’s budget was increasingly underfunded as a result of the finance ministry’s mismanagement and also of wider fiscal instability; the naval treasury was not fit-for-purpose since the navy's fiscal intermediaries, the trésoriers généraux de la Marine, lacked the capacity to sustain costly levels of borrowing; and the crown failed to meet the organisational challenges of war by not controlling spending and the activities of the trésoriers. These structural issues surfaced internally early in the war and would be progressively and disastrously exposed by the loss of liquidity and the mounting debts that affected France in the 1700s.

Keywords: Role of the trésoriers généraux de la Marine
Financial analysis of Louis XIV's navy
French naval spending during the War of the Spanish Succession
Financial aspects of naval warfare
Collapse of the French navy under Louis XIV
Advisor: Parrott, D
The status of the girl child under international law: a semioethic analysis

This thesis engages in a semioethic analysis of the English text of international human rights treaties to assess whether the provisions as formulated clearly identify the girl child and take into account her unique condition. Its hypothesis is that the terminology employed to define the girl child and phrase her rights is insufficient to ensure her protection. The thesis firstly explores the unique status of the girl child as a female and a child, and the obstacles she faces in exercising her rights as a result of sexism, childism, and interactive intersectional discrimination. It also presents the semiotics theory, the Meaning Triad developed by Victoria Lady Welby, which allows for an analysis of the sense, meaning and significance of terminology, and the semioethic approach, which studies the import of signs for the purpose of improving the human condition. The thesis explains how intersectionality theory and semioethics shall be applied as methodologies to examine the content of international treaties as concerns the girl child. Secondly, the thesis explores the status of the girl child under international law. It examines the gradual recognition of the girl child in the international legal apparatus and the definition of the girl child in international law and the English language. Thirdly, the thesis analyses the right to life of the girl child as a case study to investigate whether its formulation under international law sufficiently tackles three key violations experienced by girl children: prenatal sex selection, female infanticide, and feminicide of adolescent girls. The thesis focuses on the two main treaties pertaining to the girl child, the CRC and the CEDAW, and a central treaty protecting the right to life, the ICCPR. At the end of each chapter, recommendations are provided, where applicable, to modify the wording of relevant provisions in order to strengthen the protection of the girl child. (99,500 Words)

Advisor: Herring, J
International taxation of cross-border digital commerce

This thesis discusses jurisdiction to tax cross-border digital commerce. The primary objective is to consider the reasons for the erosion of jurisdictional links, or nexus, between countries and taxpayers' digital activities and evaluate possible solutions for addressing such nexus erosion. Whilst it is argued that digital commerce is impossible to ring-fence due to digital technologies transcending all industries, the main focus of this research is on automated business models as case studies for the broader tax issues applicable across the entire digital economy. Using cloud computing, online advertising and e-tailing models as examples of digital commerce in the narrow sense, this thesis demonstrates that the proxies for establishing jurisdictional nexus have become increasingly fluid, thereby challenging the traditional international tax regimes for profits and consumption taxation. Numerous policy solutions have been proposed in order to rectify nexus erosion, including global and territorial tax models. Unlike the previous research in this area, this thesis focuses on the nexus elements of such proposals and assesses their viability in the light of the wider Internet governance jurisprudence. Global tax solutions, such as global e-commerce taxes and formulary apportionment, are analysed in the context of the international governance regime for the technical Internet infrastructure. Territorial virtual tax solutions, such as virtual permanent establishments, withholding taxes and destination cash flow taxes, are considered in the light of the Internet jurisprudence on the 'effects' and 'targeting' nexus standards. It is argued that, given the lack of technical and political infrastructure, none of the proposed routes would be viable from a practical perspective in the near future. It is concluded, therefore, that a practical solution would involve retaining the traditional profits and consumption tax models, whilst testing a narrow version of the digital targeting nexus standard as a backstop anti-abuse measure. It is envisaged that the limited anti-avoidance provision would subsequently pave the way for a comprehensive long-term solution, as digitisation continues to transform global commerce.

Keywords: Internet jurisdiction
E-commerce taxation
Internet governance
Jurisdiction to tax
Digital commerce taxation
Internet taxation
Nexus
Advisor: Freedman, J
Durham university: last of the ancient universities and first of the new (1831-1871)

This thesis is a study of Durham University, from its inception in 1831 to the opening of the College of Physical Science in Newcastle in 1871. It considers the foundation and early years of the University in the light of local and national developments, including movements for reform in the church and higher education. The approach is holistic, with the thesis based on extensive use of archival sources, parliamentary reports, local and national newspapers, and other primary printed sources as well as a newly-created and entirely unique database of Durham students.
The argument advanced in this thesis is that the desire of the Durham authorities was to establish a modern university that would be useful to northern interests, and that their clear failure to achieve this reflected the general issues of the developing higher education sector at least as much as it did internal mismanagement. This places Durham in a different position relative to the traditional understanding of how universities and colleges developed in England and therefore broadens and deepens the quality of that narrative. In the light of the University's swift decline, and poor reputation, from the mid-1850s what were the ambitions of the founders and how did this deterioration occur? Were the critics' accusations against the University – principally that it was a theologically-dominated, inadequate imitation of Oxford, bound to the Chapter of Durham and ruled autocratically by its Warden – based on fact or prejudice? And if the critics were wrong, what were the factors that lead to the University’s failings?

Keywords: Durham University
Nineteenth century universities
Advisor: Whyte, W
Synthesis and characterisation of large area monolayer tungsten disulphide

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), equipped with direct bandgaps in the visible range of electromagnetic spectrum have extended the promise of 2D materials (graphene) to optoelectronics. Towards facilitating the future industrialization of 2D TMDs, this project focused on developing chemical vapour deposition (CVD) techniques for the growth of large area monolayer tungsten disulphide (WS2), which was followed by characterisations of their structural and semiconducting properties.
It was demonstrated that controlling the introduction time and the amount of sulphur (S) vapour relative to the tungsten trioxide (WO3) precursor during the CVD growth of WS2 was critical to achieving large crystal domains on the surface of silicon wafers with a 300 nm oxide layer. This improvement for CVD techniques enabled the formation of single crystalline WS2 monolayers with edges up to 370 μm which were visible to the naked eye.
Synthetic 2D materials grown by CVD are typically polycrystalline, and determining grain size within domains and continuous films is crucial for determining their structure. The thesis showed that grain boundaries (GBs) in monolayer WS2, grown by CVD, could be preferentially oxidized by controlled heating in air. Under apposite conditions, the degradation of GBs led to their clear and rapid identification using a standard optical microscope.
Subsequent studies showed that how these monolayer WS2 GBs influenced the electroluminescence (EL) behaviour in lateral source-drain devices under bias. Real time imaging of the WS2 EL detected arcing between the electrodes when probing across a GB, which then localized at the GB region as it eroded under high bias conditions. Analysis of the eroded GB region showed the formation of micro- and nanoribbons across the monolayer WS2 domains. These results provide important insights into future EL devices that utilize CVD grown monolayer TMDs when GBs are present in the active device region.

Keywords: Tungsten Disulphide
Electroluminescence
Grain boundaries
CVD synthesis
Characterisation
2D materials
2D semiconductors
Transition metal dichalcogenides
Advisor: Warner, J
Briggs, A
Epicardial signalling in mammalian heart regeneration

Whilst lower vertebrate species, such as newt and zebrafish, can regenerate their hearts following substantial injury throughout life, humans and other adult mammals undergo cardiac scarring and remodelling in response to myocardial infarction (MI), which leads to chronic heart failure. However, recent work has identified a 'regenerative window' in mammals such that the 1 day-old mouse (P1) was able to regenerate lost myocardium following MI induced by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) within three weeks, but an equivalent injury sustained on or after P7 resulted in adult-like wound healing. These findings suggest that developmental cues may be instructive towards regeneration.
The epicardium, the outer mesothelial lining of the heart, is an important source of cardiovascular cells and signals that respectively contribute directly to the major lineages of the forming heart and instruct muscle growth during heart development. Under normal conditions, the epicardium is quiescent in the adult heart, but is activated upon injury and can be ectopically stimulated to contribute to neovascularisation and myocardial repair in infarcted adult mouse hearts. Furthermore, organ-wide activation of the epicardium underpins zebrafish heart regeneration, functioning, in part, to contribute a vascular niche and regulate cardiomyocyte cell-cycle re-entry and proliferation. We, therefore, hypothesised that epicardial signalling may also influence heart regeneration in neonatal mice.
The aims of this project were to 1) establish the neonatal MI injury model in-house; 2) confirm and characterise neonatal mouse heart regeneration by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 3) investigate the role(s) of the epicardium and epicardial signalling in mammalian heart regeneration. In addressing these aims, novel anaesthetic and aseptic protocols were designed to refine cardiothoracic surgery in neonatal mice and establish the injury model. A protocol for MRI assessment of heart regeneration in neonatal mice was also established. Consistent with previous reports, we observed significant, although incomplete myocardial regeneration after 21 days with limited anterior wall scarring when MI was induced at P1, compared to significant collagen deposition and remodelling following MI at P7. Epicardial potential was lost coincident with closure of the 'regenerative window' and the epicardial response following injury induced at regenerative (P1) and reparative (P7) time-points was documented via retinoic acid signalling as a key developmental epicardial mitogen. This work furthers our understanding of the cell and molecular mediators of regeneration in neonatal mice, and may lead to therapeutic strategies for amplifying the regenerative response of adult mammalian hearts to injury.

Keywords: Heart
Epicardium
Retinoic acid
Regeneration
Neonatal mice
Advisor: Riley, P
Evaluation of a novel biomarker as a predictor of response, stratification tool, and measure of pharmacology for a disease-modifying osteoarthritis therapeutic

Introduction
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a leading cause of disability in developed countries and is independently associated with increased mortality. Aggrecan degradation is an early process in OA-related cartilage degradation, principally attributed to activity of the aggrecanase ADAMTS-5. One of the products of this activity is ARGS neoepitope which is proposed as a biomarker of OA disease burden. Biomarker measurement and correlation could advance research into effective intervention in OA. In this study we aim to assess ARGS neoepitope as a marker of OA disease burden through correlation with MRI-derived imaging outcome measures. We also assess an ADAMTS5-specific monoclonal antibody for its viability as an OA pharmaceutical intervention.
Methodology
This study is a cross-sectional cohort study of 95 knee surgical patients to measure ARGS neoepitope using electrochemiluminescent assay on serum, urine and synovial fluid. Specific software was used to generate MRI-derived outcome measures such as volume and intensity measures, allowing comparison of these two outcome measures. This study also investigated ARGS neoepitope response to an ADAMTS-5 blocking monoclonal antibody in vitro in a human explant model.
Results
A significantly higher level of ARGS neoepitope was found in urine samples (1.58-fold, P = 0.006) of patients with late compared to early disease, whilst no significant differences in neoepitope values were detected in synovial fluid and serum samples. With regard to disease burden, ARGS neoepitope was correlated with medial compartment cartilage loss in medial unicompartmental knee replacement patients (R2 = 0.249; P = 0.012) however in general it was not strongly related to imaging markers. In the in vitro work the ADAMTS-5 specific monoclonal antibody produced a dose-dependent reduction in ARGS neoepitope released from cartilage explants. Compared to the isotype control the mean reduction of ARGS neoepitope at 12 days was 43.6% (P &LT; 0.001).
Discussion
The relationship between serological biomarkers of OA and disease burden remains complex. ARGS neoepitope may reflect enzymatic turnover of cartilage within the joint but the relationship with OA disease burden cannot be fully established by this study. Many factors including physical activity, disease status in other joints and patient muscle mass, could cause single time-point results to become less reliable and impact on the findings of both this and all OA biomarker studies.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that ARGS neoepitope shows some promise as an OA biomarker and provides important information on conducting future studies assessing this and other biomarkers in OA.

Advisor: Taylor, P
Snelling, S
Developments in chiral counterion-directed asymmetric reactions

The research outlined herein consists of two projects, each relating to the investigation and development of asymmetric phase-transfer catalysed reactions.
The aim of the first project was to develop a two-component cascade reaction that would assemble the valuable pyrroloindoline framework from simple and readily available starting materials, namely an isocyanide-containing substrate and a Michael acceptor. Successfully, we were able to synthesise a variety of pyrroloindolines containing up to three stereocentres with excellent diastereo- and enantioselectivity.
This rapid strategy uses a chiral ammonium salt to control the selectivity and exploits the remarkable reactivity profile of acidic isocyanides. A mechanistic proposal involving hydrogen-bond activation of the isocyanide is described, originating from the specific design of the Michael acceptor component.
Meanwhile, the objective of the second project was to develop a desymmetrising SN2 reaction on achiral biaryl substrates under asymmetric phase-transfer conditions, offering a new pathway to axially chiral biaryls. We were able to generate such products, which can be subsequently derivatised, with tremendous enantioselectivity and pleasing diastereoselectivity, particularly when using a glycine Schiff base as the nucleophile.

Keywords: Atropisomerism
Axial chirality
Pyrroloindolines
Advisor: Smith, M
Strongly variable viscosity flows in mantle convection

Convection in the Earth's mantle is a complicated phenomenon that causes various tectonic activities and affects mantle evolution on geologic time scales (billions of years). It is a subject as yet not fully understood. The early success of the high Rayleigh number constant viscosity theory was later tempered by the absence of plate motion when the viscosity is more realistically strongly temperature dependent. A similar problem arises if the equally strong pressure dependence of viscosity is considered, since the classical isothermal core convection theory would then imply a strongly variable mantle viscosity, which is inconsistent with results from postglacial rebound studies. We consider a mathematical model for Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a basally heated layer of a fluid whose viscosity depends strongly on both temperature and pressure, defined in an Arrhenius form. The model is solved numerically for extremely large viscosity variations across a unit aspect ratio cell, and steady solutions are obtained. To improve the efficiency of numerical computation, we introduce a modified viscosity law with a low temperature cut-off. We demonstrate that this simplification results in markedly improved numerical convergence without compromising accuracy. Continued numerical experiments suggest that narrow cells are preferred at extreme viscosity contrasts. We are then able to determine the asymptotic structure of the solution, and it agrees well with the numerical results. Beneath a stagnant lid, there is a vigorous convection in the upper part of the cell, and a more sluggish, higher viscosity flow in the lower part of the cell. We then offer some comments on the meaning and interpretation of these results for planetary mantle convection.

Advisor: Fowler, A
Howell, P
Essays on firms and globalisation

This dissertation consists of three stand-alone substantive chapters. It examines how various aspects of globalisation – openness to international trade, inflows of foreign direct investment and exposure to foreign demand shocks – affect economic performance through their impact on individual firms.
The first substantive chapter presents a theoretical model of international trade with heterogeneous firms that differ not only by their productivity but also by the distortions they face. For a particular distribution of productivity and distortions, it shows that the distortions which affect the domestic and export sales in the same way and are correlated with productivity reduce the welfare gains from trade, while the distortions affecting only domestic sales tend to increase them. In addition, it documents that correlated distortions lead to a bias in an influential recent method for estimating the gains from trade.
The following chapter empirically examines the link between the presence of multinational companies and the export sophistication of domestic firms in an emerging economy. The analysis is based on the matched firm and customs panel data from Romania covering the period 2005-11. The results show a positive relationship between the unit values of goods exported and imported by Romanian firms and the multinational companies' presence in downstream (input sourcing) industries. These results are consistent with quality upgrading being an additional channel through which local suppliers benefit from contacts with their multinational customers.
The last chapter examines how Romanian manufacturing firms reacted to a dramatic drop in the export demand during the global trade collapse of 2008 and 2009. The exogenous effect of a fall in exports is identified by instrumenting exports with a firm-specific index of foreign demand. The results indicate that exporting firms were unable to redirect their sales to the domestic market and were forced to abruptly reduce their employment, material expenditure and investment, passing the shock to their suppliers. The results suggest that the export status of a firm may be a poor predictor of its vulnerability to a negative foreign demand shock.

Advisor: Javorcik, B