VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Towards a principled doctrine of the margin of appreciation in international human rights law

When human rights cases are tried before an international court, judges must consider whether to follow a particular state's approach to the interpretation and application of its international human rights law obligations or to adopt their own approach. In this way, the international court is marking the limit of a state's freedom or sovereignty in the sphere of human rights. The margin of appreciation, a doctrine of judicial deference, significantly influences a court's approach to this adjudication. The doctrine has been criticised for causing relativism about human rights and the abdication of the judicial protection of human rights and its abandonment recommended. The thesis responds to such criticisms in three parts. Part One argues that the margin of appreciation does not lead to ethical relativism about human rights, arguing instead that universality is compatible with some kinds of differentiation. Part Two analyses the margin of appreciation by drawing on a study of the ethics of deference that finds reasons for deference in the value placed by the court on the state's involvement in determining its human rights law obligations. Part Two also argues that international institutions should value the state's involvement. Part Three presents factors for judicial consideration that both strengthen and curtail reasons for deference. The thesis thus defends the margin of appreciation as a doctrine beneficial to the international protection of human rights. The thesis goes further by offering an analytical approach to the doctrine that can lead to its principled application, namely that the court should weigh intrinsic reasons for deference transparently along with other relevant factors. This approach safeguards the role of international courts and at the same time recognises the essential part played by states in the protection of human rights.

Keywords: Proportionality
Margin of Appreciation
Deference
Advisor: Finnis, J
Sarooshi, D
The epidemiology of gallstones in women

A survey of 652 nonvegetarian and 130 vegetarian women aged 40-70 years using real-time ultrasonography was carried out to determine the prevalence of gallstones. 24.6% of nonvegetarian women were found to have gallstones compared with 11.5% of vegetarian women (p < 0.05). Each participant completed a postal questionnaire on general health aspects and dietary habits. Aetiological factors shown to have a strong influence on the development of gallstones included increasing age, obesity and positive family history. The prevalence of gallstones increased steadily with age (p < 0.01) and obesity (p < 0.001). Women with gallstones were much more likely to have a first degree relative with a history of gallstones (p < 0.01). The vegetarian participants were younger and less likely to be obese than the nonvegetarian participants but/ even after correction for these confounding influences/ gallstones were significantly less prevalent in vegetarian women (p < 0.05). Other aetiological factors that have been purported to to be risk factors in the pathogenesis of gallstones but were not shown to be so in this study were parity, exogenous oestrogen intake and a history of smoking.
In order to further study the effect of diet in the pathogenesis of gallstones, an age-matched case-control study was carried out using the women with gallstones identified in the prevalence survey as cases and women proven to be free of gallstones as the controls. 107 nonvegetarian and 12 vegetarian pairs completed a four-day dietary diary and were subsequently interviewed about their dietary habits, exogenous oestrogen intake and upper gastrointestinal symptomatology. There were no significant differences in energy intake/ total protein and animal and vegetable protein, fat and cholesterol, carbohydrate, simple sugars and fibre intake in the diet consumed by cases compared with controls. Vegetarian women, however, ate a very different diet to the nonvegetarian women suggesting that diet does play an important role in the pathogenesis of gallstones. Failure to demonstrate a dietary association in the case-control study may be due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in western communities consume a diet that is too high in fat, animal protein and simple sugar content and too low in unrefined starches to be able to detect any dietary differences between cases and controls - the threshold effect.
Another important aspect of gallstone disease revealed by the study was the proportion of cases shown to be asymptomatic. Over 70% of all cases had not been previously diagnosed. Moreover, the case-control study showed that cases were no more likely to suffer from "biliary" symptoms than controls except for those symptoms associated with acute cholecystitis or common bile duct obstruction. These data provide persuasive support for the conservative management of asymptomatic gallstones.

Advisor: Mann, J
Cloning and characterisation of myospryn, a novel dysbindin-binding protein in muscle

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a fatal muscle wasting disease caused by mutations in the gene encoding dystrophin. Loss of dystrophin leads to the disruption of the dystrophin-associated glycoprotein complex (DGC), membrane fragility and increased intracellular calcium. Disruption of the DGC has also been implicated in the development of other muscle disorders, including cardiomyopathy. The dystrobrevins are dystrophin-associated and -related proteins which are intracellular components of the DGC. α-Dystrobrevin-deficient mice develop skeletal muscle disease and cardiomyopathy without disruption of the DGC, suggesting a link between dystrobrevin and an unidentified protein complex. Previously, it has been shown that α-dystrobrevin binds to the coiled-coil containing protein dysbindin. To gain further insight into the function of α-dystrobrevin and dysbindin in skeletal muscle, a yeast two-hybrid screen was performed to identify dysbindin-interacting proteins. Dysbindin binds to a novel, 413 kDa protein, myospryn, which is expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscle. The transcript encoding myospryn encompasses genethonin-3, which is down-regulated in muscle from DMD patients, and stretch responsive protein 553, which is up-regulated in an experimental model of muscle hypertrophy. The C-terminus of myospryn is predicted to contain BBC, FN3, and SPRY domains in a configuration reminiscent of the tripartite motif protein family.

Advisor: Blake, D
Reciprocal development in vocabulary and reading skills

Data are presented in seven chapters that address the reciprocal relationship between oral vocabulary and reading development. Chapter 2 explores exception word reading in poor comprehenders longitudinally, finding deficits that are pervasive over a period of two years. The results support the hypothesis that weak oral vocabulary skills are causally related to poor exception word reading in this group. In Chapter 3, orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders are investigated in a word learning paradigm. This chapter provides evidence that poor comprehenders have more difficulty learning and retaining semantic information than orthographic information. A similar paradigm is described in Chapter 4 to investigate predictors of orthographic and semantic learning. In a large group of typically developing readers, this demonstrates that decoding is the strongest predictor of orthographic learning while existing oral vocabulary knowledge is the strongest predictor of semantic learning. In Chapters 5 and 6 orthographic and semantic skills in poor comprehenders and children with dyslexia are compared using standard off-line tasks (Chapter 5) and an online word learning experiment (Chapter 6). These chapters indicate similarities as well as differences in the reading and language profiles of these groups. Chapter 7 adopts a different approach by using a word learning study to investigate the benefit of teaching new oral vocabulary in the presence of orthography.

Keywords: orthography
reading
language
word learning
vocabulary
Advisor: Nation, K
Bishop, D
Measuring the impact of using health-related websites: The eHealth impact questionnaire

Introduction:
Health-related websites have developed to be much more than information sites: they are used to exchange experiences and find support as well as information and advice. It is important that health professionals and website developers understand how content may impact users. This thesis documents the development and application of a tool to measure the impact of using health-related websites which contain experiential and/or factual information.
Methods:
A multi-method study with five stages. Stage 1: Questionnaire items based upon themes relating to the impact of using health-related websites were constructed following qualitative secondary analysis of 93 interviews relating to patient and carer experiences of health and a recent literature review. Items were assessed by an expert panel. Stage 2: Cognitive interviews were carried out to confirm acceptability of items. Stage 3: Item reduction steps were used to reduce the number of items. Stage 4: The validity and reliability of the remaining items were tested using traditional and modern psychometric methods. Stage 5: The new questionnaire was piloted in a randomised controlled trial.
Results:
Eighty-two items were constructed according to the key themes identified in Stage 1. Following expert and patient refinement, two independent item pools entered psychometric testing. The first item pool related to general views of using the internet in relation to health and the second item pool related to the impact of using a specific health-related website. Sub-scales and summary scores were found to have high construct validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The questionnaire showed high completion rates and low counts of missing data in a trial setting.
Conclusion:
Analysis confirmed good psychometric properties in the eHIQ-Part 1 (11 items) and the eHIQ-Part 2 (26 items). Preliminary findings of trial data demonstrate the acceptability and feasibility of including the eHIQ in randomised controlled trials. This tool will enable the measurement of the impact of health-related websites containing various styles of information and support across a range conditions and facilitate their accurate evaluation in clinical trials.

Keywords: secondary data analysis
cognitive interviews
psychometric
patients' experiences
e-health
exploratory factor analysis
Advisor: Jenkinson, C
Ziebland, S
CLIC drive beam phase stabilisation

The thesis presents phase stability studies for the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) and focuses in particular on CLIC Drive Beam longitudinal phase stabilisation. This topic constitutes one of the main feasibility challenges for CLIC construction and is an essential component of the current CLIC stabilisation campaign. The studies are divided into two large interrelated sections: the simulation studies for the CLIC Drive Beam stability, and measurements, data analysis and simulations of the CLIC Test Facility (CTF3) Drive Beam phase errors.
A dedicated software tool has been developed for a step-by-step analysis of the error propagation through the CLIC Drive Beam. It uses realistic RF potential and beam loading amplitude functions for the Drive and Main Beam accelerating structures, complete models of the recombination scheme and compressor chicane as well as of further CLIC Drive Beam modules. The tool has been tested extensively and its functionality has been verified.
The phase error propagation at CLIC has been analysed and the critical phase error frequencies have been identified. The impact of planned error filtering and stabilisation systems for the Drive Beam bunch charge and longitudinal phase has been simulated and the optimal specifications for these systems, such as bandwidth and latency time, have been calculated and discussed. It has been found that a realistic feed-forward system could sufficiently reduce the longitudinal phase error of the Drive Beam, hence verifying that a satisfactory CLIC luminosity recovery system is possible to develop.
Alternative designs of the Drive Beam accelerator, the recombination scheme and the phase signal distribution system have also been analysed.
Measurements of the CTF3 Drive Beam phase have been performed. The source of the phase and energy errors at CTF3 has been determined. The performance of the phase feed-forward system prototype for CTF3 has been simulated. The prototype's specifications have been defined so that it will provide a sufficient test of the feed-forward correction principle. The prototype based on the defined specifications is currently in development and is to be installed at CTF3 in the second half of 2013.

Keywords: stabilisation
compact linear collider
drive beam
accelerator
phase
ctf3
clic
linear
simulations
Advisor: Burrows, P
Schulte, D
Detection of stratospheric gravity waves using HIRDLS data

Temperature measurements from the HIRDLS instrument on NASA's Aura satellite are analysed for the purposes of detecting and studying internal gravity waves in the terrestrial stratosphere. A detailed description of the methodology used to obtain these data is given, including details of the instrument correction processes used to compensate for errors introduced by a blockage in the instrument optics. A short precis of the relevant theoretical considerations related to atmospheric gravity waves is then outlined. The thesis then discusses the use of the Stockwell (time-frequency) Transform for the detection of gravity waves in HIRDLS data, together with a detailed analysis of the limitations of this method, and the results obtained from this analysis are analysed by comparison to other instruments and climatology. It is concluded that the Stockwell Transform is an appropriate method for the analysis of the HIRDLS dataset, and that the results obtained are robust. We apply these results to analyse stratospheric gravity wave activity during the 2005/06 Arctic sudden stratospheric warming. By comparing the magnitude and form of the gravity wave results to local wind data obtained from ECMWF operational analyses, we conclude that a heavily deformed stratopause observed during this period by other instruments was most probably due to wind-based filtering of the gravity wave spectrum during this period.

Keywords: HIRDLS
planetary waves
gravity waves
Arctic
Advisor: Barnett, J
Credit Valuation Adjustment

Credit risk has become a topical issue since the 2007 Credit Crisis, particularly for its impact on the valuation of OTC derivatives. This becomes critical when the credit risk of entities involved in a contract either as underlying or counterparty become highly correlated as is the case during macroeconomic shocks. It impacts the valuation of such contracts through an additional term, the credit valuation adjustment (CVA). This can become large with such correlation. This thesis outlines the main approaches to credit risk modelling, intensity and structural. It gives important examples of both and particular examples useful in the calculation of CVA, the intensity model of Brigo and the structural model of Hull and White. It details Brigo's market standard model independent framework for derivatives valuation with CVA. It does this for both its unilateral form where only one counterparty is credit risky and also for its bilateral form where both counterparties are credit risky. This thesis then shows how these frameworks can be applied to the valuation of a credit default swap contract (CDS). Finally, it shows how Brigo's and Hull and White's model for credit risk apply to the valuation of the CVA of CDS and draws comparisons, especially based on their ability to capture correlation effects.
The reception of Kepler's astronomy in England

This thesis attempts to gather all the evidence bearing on the English reception of Kepler's astronomy from the time when Kepler might first have been read up to around 1650/ when foreign secondary influences changed the content of English keplerian astronomy. Kepler first attained fame in England in the early 1600s, and from that time, he was in direct communication with English mathematicians and other scholars. As a result, there was an audience awaiting his Astronomia Nova (1609), which contained his first two laws of planetary motion. Some of its readers adopted the first law, which states that the planetary orbits are elliptical. Over the following decade, there was little apparent promotion of keplerian astronomy in England, but in the universities, libraries were beginning to stock Kepler's books, and dons were recommending his writings to their students of astronomy. Thereafter, the assimilation of the first law into English astronomical thought was very rapid, owing to the work of mathematicians in the universities and in London. Some consideration was given also to Kepler's new celestial physics. Until his death in 1630, Englishmen continued to communicate directly with Kepler, for whom they felt fellowship in matters of religion. By 1640, English astronomy was very much keplerian. Kepler's second law of planetary motion, however, was never mentioned directly in this period, and his third, harmonic law was not adopted until, in the late 1630s, Jeremiah Horrox adopted it and verified it by independent observation. Horrox was also the first to attempt, to any great degree, to advance the physical foundation of keplerian astronomy. Kepler's astrology did not prove popular, with the exception of some of his forecasts, which were reprinted at the beginning of the turmoil of the 1640s. In 1645, there began a French influence on English astronomy when English astronomers took over, with modifications, the device of Ismael Boulliaud for circumventing the second law. The second and longer part of the thesis is a collection of six very detailed case studies in which an attempt is made to explicate each man's approach to the new astronomy.
Combination of a cold ion and cold molecular source

This thesis describes the combination of two sources of cold atomic or molecular species which can be used to study a wide range of ion-molecule reactions. The challenges in forming these species and in determining the fate of reactive events are explored throughout.
Reactions occur in a volume within a radio-frequency ion trap, in which ions have previously been cooled to sub-Kelvin temperatures. Ions are laser-cooled, with migration of ions slowed sufficiently to form a quasi-crystalline spheroidal structure, deemed a Coulomb crystal. Fluorescence emitted as a consequence of laser-cooling is detected; the subsequent fluorescence profiles are used to determine the number of ions in the crystal and, in combination with complementary simulations, the temperature of these ions. Motion imparted by trapping fields can be substantial and simulations are required to accurately determine collision energies. A beam of decelerated molecules is aimed at this stationary ion target. An ammonia seeded molecular beam enters a Stark decelerator, based on the original design of Meijer and co-workers. The decelerator uses time-varying electric fields to remove kinetic energy from the molecules, which exit at speeds down to 35 m/s. A fast-opening shutter and focussing elements are subsequently used to maximise the decelerated flux in the reaction volume while minimising undecelerated molecule transmission. Substantial fluxes of decelerated ammonia are obtained with narrow velocity distributions to provide a suitable source of reactant molecules.
Combination of these two techniques permits studies of reactions between atomic ions and decelerated molecules that can be entirely state-specific. Changes in the Coulomb crystal fluorescence profile denote changes in the ion identities, the rate of these changes can be used to obtain rate constants. Determination of rate constants is even possible despite the fact that neither reactant nor product ions are directly observed. This work has studied reactions between sympathetically cooled Xe+ ions and guided ND3 and has obtained data consistent with prior studies. Determination of reactive events is complicated if ion identities can change without affecting the fluorescence profile, or if multiple reaction channels are possible. A range of spectroscopic techniques are discussed and considered in regards to determining rate constants and product identities. Pulsed axial excitation of trapped ions can follow rapid changes in average ion weights and subtle changes for small crystals. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry is also demonstrated using the trapping electrodes and is suitable for discrimination of ions formed within the trap.

Keywords: ion-molecule reactions
laser cooling
molecular deceleration
ion trapping
cold chemistry
mass spectrometry
Advisor: Softley, T
Ends of the Mahābhārata

The assertion that the Mahābhārata (MBh) narrative is innately incapable of achieving a conclusion has attained the status of a disciplinary truism in the epic’s study. My thesis challenges this prevalent assumption by proposing an un-investigated path of inquiry into the philological, historical, literary and semantic aspects of the epic. The thesis discusses the ending of the MBh, the Svargārohaṇa parvan (SĀ) by exploring several trajectories: the study of the SĀ in epic scholarship; its reception in the later tradition in Sanskrit literature; and finally, the problematic aspects of the SĀ and its relation to the rest of the narrative. It first points out that in comparison to other MBh episodes, the SĀ has been received with significant disregard or suppression in the literature commenting on the epic. Second, it characterizes the nature of the suppression of the SĀ in each of the three literary strands commenting on the MBh (epic scholarship, Sanskrit adaptations and theoretical discourses). It argues that all of these considerations, which are external to the MBh, have tended, in various modes, to suppress, ignore or overlook the importance of the SĀ. The thesis then proceeds to argue that on the most significant and internal level of the text itself, the SĀ is intrinsically consistent with the rest of the MBh narrative, and that this makes it thematically integral to the text as a whole. This argument derives from the importance with which this study addresses the moment of the condemnation of dharma in the SĀ, and is furthered by a philological and semantic study, as well as textual analyses of the multiple occurrences of the Sanskrit verb garh throughout the MBh. The use of this verb by the epic protagonist, Yudhiṣṭhira, in condemning his father, Dharma, at the last scenes of the SĀ comprises a key moment that bears significant and myriad implications upon the understanding of this pivotal concept (dharma), to which the entire epic is devoted.

Advisor: Minkowski, C