VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The effects of economic conditions on support for environmental protection

This thesis highlights the ways in which economic conditions affect support for environmental protection. The coincidence of a decrease in environmental attitudes and increase in climate scepticism with the Great Recession of 2008 had suggested that deteriorating economic conditions could have a negative effect on environmental attitudes. While previous literature has largely supported this, it has been limited in its ability to firmly establish the causal mechanisms at work.
The analysis contained in this thesis makes a number of important advances. Using cross-national data from before and after the onset of the economic crisis, I demonstrate that changing prioritisation of environmental protection is particularly sensitive to changes in unemployment rates and that its connection with changing economic growth would appear to be spurious. Through an innovative online survey experiment, I show that the salience of individuals' economic perceptions has an independent effect on their prioritisation of taking urgent action to tackle climate change – with those who are reminded of their positive economic perceptions being more likely to prioritise such action and vice versa for those who are reminded of their negative economic perceptions - but that it has no such effect on their belief in anthropogenic climate change. However, analysis of New Zealand panel data suggests that changes in economic perceptions and individuals' household financial situation cannot explain the decline in environmental attitudes witnessed in 2008.
I make a substantive methodological contribution by establishing that environmental-economic trade-off questions primarily capture environmental rather than economic attitudes. Finally, I demonstrate that environmental attitudes can have tangible effects on support for policies that are environmentally beneficial when such policies are not being primarily framed through an environmental lens using the case study of support for water charges in Ireland in 2011.

Keywords: economic recession
climate change
public opinion
environmental attitudes
Advisor: Fisher, S
Algorithmic models in quantum mechanics

We study classical and quantum learning algorithms with access to data produced by a quantum process. First, we consider the problem of learning quantum states and, in the framework of the probably approximately correct (PAC) model, prove that stabiliser states are efficiently learnable. Second, we introduce a generative model based on artificial neural networks capable of finding efficient representations of quantum states and assess its performance on states with varying levels of complexity. Third, we discuss the time complexity of classical and quantum learning algorithms and prove that Boolean functions in disjunctive normal form are efficiently quantum PAC learnable under product distributions.

Keywords: Machine Learning
Learning Theory
Quantum Computation
Advisor: Benjamin, S
Severini, S
Kanade, V
A Republican theory of political asylum

Political asylum is thought to be a distinctively liberal practice, its scope and limits uniquely justified with respect to the values and institutions of the liberal state. Yet liberal states repeatedly fail to live up to their commitments and there remains deep disagreement about the value and role of asylum in modern liberal societies. What role should the liberal state play in defining international practices of political asylum? How should citizens and governments of liberal states respond to the claims of asylum seekers and refugees? Should they support government efforts to preserve the liberal institutions that safeguard freedoms they currently enjoy or promote new forms of governance capable of meeting the demands and challenges of ever larger numbers and more overtly political asylum-seekers? In this work, I argue that the practices of political asylum should be evaluated and reformed based on their capacity to generate wider democratic effects. Part I explains how practices of asylum can best be guided towards democratic ends by pursuing a political ideal of republican freedom, freedom as non-domination. Part II highlights the institutional implications of the republican approach in the form of associational democratic control of asylum practices. The response of liberal states to the claims of vast numbers of persons displaced or threated by political persecution should be guided by a radical program of republican reforms that prescribes new institutions of popular assembly and voluntary secondary associations to respond to and represent the interests and political well-being of refugees and citizens alike. The democratic effects of asylum are thus tied to particular forms of political and economic association as well as institutional competencies that refugees enjoy within their host societies. By encouraging mixed forms of associational democratic reform refugees can achieve three dimensions of democratic control within their host societies: control against the arbitrary power of citizens and governments of host societies, control against the arbitrary power of governments of refugees’ states of origin, and control against the arbitrary power of other members of exiled communities. Since only democratic states can offer asylum in a way that is fully consistent with freedom as non-domination there is immense pressure on relatively few liberal states to take in ever more refugees and to adapt to increasingly pluralistic forms of governance. The response to refugees should not be to close the doors of the liberal state, but to devolve the powers of state institutions for asylum governance and adjudication to sub-national levels of decision-making and, simultaneously, to incorporate refugees into decision-making agencies based on voluntary, democratic consent and future planning in the midst of great uncertainty and social upheaval.

Advisor: Gibney, M
Interpretable Models in Probabilistic Machine Learning

This thesis describes contributions to the field of interpretable models in probabilistic machine learning, by first outlining the desiderata and properties associated with the term interpretability. We claim that probabilistic models are suitable candidates for interpretable machine learning, and this claim is supported by examples of such models that satisfy two key properties of interpretability: transparency, that offers an understanding of the model's mechanism, and post-hoc interpretability, that gives other useful information about the model after training, such as explaining its predictions. Henceforth, we introduce relevant background literature in probabilistic machine learning, focusing on Bayesian inference of probabilistic models. Armed with these pre-requisites, we proceed to describe examples of probabilistic models that enjoy various interpretable properties. First, we propose a method for regression that is motivated from Gaussian Processes (GPs), that has applications to collaborative filtering with side-information and generalises classic probabilistic matrix factorisation methods in this context. Second, we develop a scalable algorithm for automated GP model selection, whereby the form of the selected GP models allows them to be translated into a natural language description of its properties. Third, we introduce a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) model that can disentangle independent factors of variations in a dataset of images by learning a factorisable latent distribution in an unsupervised fashion. Finally, we describe a model that can learn stochastic processes in a data-driven fashion with deep architectures by using the concept of attention.

Advisor: Teh, Y
Fast and accurate detection of Identical-By-Descent segment sharing in large genomic datasets

Identical-By-Descent (IBD) segments are a fundamental measure of ge- netic relatedness and IBD detection is of great interest in many applica- tions, including demographic inference and haplotype-based association. Algorithms that scale to large datasets (more than 10.000 diploid indi- viduals), such as GERMLINE and RaPID sacrifice modeling accuracy in favor of computational speed. Efficient model-based algorithms for IBD detection such as RefinedIBD, on the other hand, enable detecting shorter IBD segments, but do not scale as well in large data sets. In this thesis, we present two new approaches, called PASMC and GASMC, aiming to bridge the gap between these two paradigms. We introduce the basics of coalescent theory to understand IBD segments detection and then pro- vide an overview of a state-of-the art methods for detecting IBD segments, comparing the most commonly used and recent existing methods. We fi- nally present PASMC and GASMC. Both methods utilize efficient string matching to detect candidate IBD segments and subsequently apply the recently developed ASMC algorithm based on coalescent HMM to filter out candidate segments that are unlikely to be IBD.

Keywords: Identical-By-Descent
Advisor: Palamara, P
Regulation of human vascular redox state in obesity and insulin resistance

Insulin resistance (IR) and dysfunctional adipose tissue (AT) secretome are believed to mediate the mechanistic links between metabolic and vascular disease. However, the mechanistic details of the interactions between vascular IR, AT-derived products and vascular disease phenotypes in humans are poorly understood. In the first part of my thesis, I attempted to characterise downstream vascular insulin signalling in patients with atherosclerosis and how this could be modified to regulate vascular insulin sensitivity. In the second part of this work, I explored the role of AT-derived Wnt5a (a novel, AT-secreted glycoprotein with inadequately characterised vascular roles) as a link between metabolic and vascular disease via direct regulation of vascular redox state and endothelial function. For these purposes, I used the Oxford cohort for Fat, Vessels and Fat (OxHVF), a uniquely phenotyped cohort of >1,000 patients undergoing cardiac surgery) to perform observational association studies and functional ex vivo bioassays on intact vascular tissues, which were also complemented by appropriate in vitro mechanistic experiments. I firstly demonstrated that vascular IR is a universal feature of human atherosclerosis irrespectively of the presence of systemic IR, characterised by disproportionally increased Erk1&2 activation as opposed to Akt activation in response to insulin. This can be reversed by pre-treatment with a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DD4) inhibitor, thus identifying vascular insulin-sensitising roles for this class of drugs. In the second part of my thesis, I revealed that systemic Wnt5a bioavailability is increased in obesity, diabetes and vascular disease, while Wnt5a (partially originating from AT) can induce vascular NADPH-oxidase activation via a novel USP17 interaction through paracrine and endocrine ways, also accompanied by endothelial dysfunction, eNOS uncoupling and redox-sensitive VSMC phenotype changes. My findings provide novel links between obesity, insulin resistance and vascular disease mechanisms and pose significant therapeutic implications.

Keywords: Endothelial nitric oxide synthase
NADPH oxidases
Wnt5a signalling
Endothelial function
Insulin resistance
Reactive oxygen species
Atherosclerosis
Diabetes
Obesity
Advisor: Antoniades, C
Channon, K
The function of PRC2 in MLL-AF4 acute lymphoid leukaemia

The MLL-AF4 fusion protein is the most prevalent MLL rearrangement in acute lymphoid leukaemia. It is associated with a very poor prognosis with median overall survival of 10 months in children. Epigenetic therapy is a promising new approach for the treatment haematological malignancies. Predicting response to epigenetic therapy has been difficult, in part due to the lack of sufficient knowledge regarding the molecular mechanism by which these inhibitors exert their anti-leukaemic effects. In this study, inhibition of the PRC2 complex by the EZH2/EZH1 specific small molecule inhibitor UNC1999 in an MLL-AF4 cell line, resulted in a potent anti-leukaemic effect in vitro. Quantitative ChIP-seq (ChIP-Rx) revealed a dose-dependent decrease in H3K27me3 levels following UNC1999 treatment of an MLL-AF4 leukaemic cell line, which was accompanied by a dose-dependent increase in gene expression. A combination of ATACseq, ChIPseq, and Nascent-RNAseq identified a signature of PRC2 target genes that are susceptible to upregulation following inhibition of PRC2; these were genes that were marked by H3K4me3, bound by both RING1B and PRC2 and were expressed at low levels. Knowledge of a signature of genes responsive to PRC2 inhibition may help in predicting responses to epigenetic therapies, which target this complex.

Advisor: Milne, T
Religion and the making of the later Stuart army, 1660–1714

This study explores the interactions between religion and the making of the later Stuart army. Regarded as the beginning of the modern British army, the later Stuart army was forged in the aftermath of the religious wars which had raged through the Three Kingdoms. As both primary career choices for gentry sons and hierarchical institutions connected to the monarchy, the army and the church were involved in the political and religious turmoil that shaped later Stuart Britain. The army was deployed to maintain the ascendancy of the established churches in a persecuting society, but the distinctive confessional identities within the army itself also raised sensitivity, until the Revolution settled the army as a Protestant institution. The churches attempted to establish their authority in the army through chaplaincy, while many churchmen published religious literature to articulate an ideal army which was characterised by loyalty, discipline and piety. Even though religion to some extent shaped soldiers’ identity and their understanding of war and service, the established churches with a strong sense of compulsion and formality failed to provide sufficient pastoral care for soldiers in the difficult military life.

Keywords: Religion
British Army
Later Stuart Period
Advisor: Wilson, PH
Essays on the scale-up of extensions to cash transfers

This thesis contributes to the scientific and policy debate surrounding the so-called graduation approach – an integrated development intervention that directly targets the poorest households in low-income countries and provides them with a combination of assets at no cost. Though the components vary, they always involve transfers (of a productive and/or monetary asset) alongside extended training and coaching activities (intended to cultivate some intangible asset).
Randomized evaluations of the graduation approach have demonstrated poverty reduction across contexts and in the long run. This has attracted policy attention, as training and coaching interventions could be expanded in widespread social protection schemes that already identify low-income households and provide them with cash transfers. The case for scaling up these intangible extensions could be strengthened through a better understanding of whether and why the integrated approach is more cost-effective than its constituent components, such as transfers alone.
Gaps also remain in the science of implementation. Past evaluations have been conducted mainly in nonprofit pilot settings and may not be predictive of the at-scale effects that will materialize in the institutional contexts of governments. Anticipating that the fidelity and impact of the intangible extensions will tend to suffer with scale, we evaluate two innovations to protect implementation quality. One involves the attempt to identify the most critical ingredients: all else equal, a simpler approach will be more scalable. The other innovation involves the design of the funding agreements: when funders pay implementers as a function of demonstrated impact, scale-up efforts will tend to accelerate where the critical success factors happen to be in place.
We add to recent evidence underlining the potential of the integrated graduation approach. We find that it tends to resist simplification attempts. Paying implementers as a function of demonstrated poverty impacts comes with complications, but some of these are mitigated with scale.

Advisor: Dercon, S
Fullerenes for single molecule electronics

Fullerenes have a number of unique properties that make them interesting for use in molecular electronics. They are readily functionalized to produce a wide range of physical and chemical properties as well as creating a number of methods by which they can be combined with an electrode for electron transport. Fullerenes are also able to encapsulate atoms or clusters of atoms to further expand their properties, leading to a number of materials which show huge potential for applications in the field of quantum information. In particular the endohedral fullerene N@C60 shows one of the longest coherence lifetimes of any molecular system, making it an ideal candidate for a qubit.
This thesis presents one method of functionalising fullerenes for combining their many attractive electronic properties with those of graphene. These functionalized fullerenes display a number of interesting properties in their own right. In particular, they show the possibility to selectively quench or sensitise the formation of singlet oxygen, which has dramatic implications for the use of fullerenes in medical applications. Electron transport measurements of the fullerene show excited vibrational states which confirm the presence of fullerene molecules. Finally, the presence of long-lived vibrational states makes fullerenes appealing for use in thermoelectrics, which is studied in detail.

Advisor: Briggs, A
Porfyrakis, K
Laird, E
Repopulating the court of the seventh pylon at Karnak

The present work aims to demonstrate the relevance of the study of graffiti in a carefully defined temple context as a means to gain insights into the use and transformation of sacred space by the people who could access it. Access to temples was arguably highly controlled, and probably only restricted groups of people were allowed in certain areas of the temple. This raises important questions concerning temple accessibility, daily movements of temple staff, reactions to religious events, and the functioning of rules of decorum, which established what could conveniently be exhibited on the temple walls and what not, along with their possible breach.
Chapter 1 discusses potentials of the study of graffiti in temples and issues of definitions. Here, material agency is proposed as a productive theoretical framework. Comprised in Part I of the thesis are Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the architectural history of the southern processional way in its main phases of transformation (construction, decoration, and partial demolition), while Chapter 3 presents a survey of secondary epigraphy along the southern processional way, with detailed descriptions of graffiti in the court of the seventh pylon.
Part II, comprising Chapters 4, 5 and 6, introduces the three categories of graffiti that will be analysed through specific case studies: 1) graffiti as individual’s self-display (Chapter 4); 2) graffiti as individual expressions of devotions (Chapter 5); 3) community graffiti as possible votive loci (Chapter 6).
The results of this analysis, discussed in the concluding remarks in Chapter 7, are intended to serve as a point of reference for the study of similar corpora from other Egyptian temples, while providing an approach that may speak to figurative graffiti, still too often neglected, of other ancient civilizations (Nubia, ancient Greece, the Roman empire, etc.).

Keywords: Southern processional way
Karnak temple
Egyptian graffiti
Secondary epigraphy
Material agency
Advisor: Frood, E
Imaging reward signals in the Drosophila brain

In the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, dopaminergic neurons are thought to convey teaching signals to synapses of the mushroom body during associative olfactory learning. Although rewarding dopaminergic neurons in mammals appear to encode prediction error, whether the equivalent neurons in Drosophila have a similar function remains unknown. Anatomically distinct subsets of dopaminergic neurons reinforce water and separate properties of sugars: sweet taste reinforces short-term memories while nutrient input is usually required for long-term memories. This thesis investigates dopaminergic reinforcement at the physiological level using two-photon in vivo calcium imaging of tethered flies during feeding, odour presentation, and appetitive conditioning.
One subset of dopaminergic neurons reinforces short-term sugar memory in starved flies and short-term water memory in dehydrated flies. During sugar-water droplet feeding, dopaminergic neurons show a calcium response that reflects salience and whose magnitude increases with sweetness of the droplet. In starved flies, dopaminergic neurons show differential responses to water and sugar, whereas in dehydrated flies, the neurons show uniform feeding responses. Moreover, sucrose-evoked responses in satiated flies are substantially lower than in either deprivation state. Such findings suggest a deprivation state-dependent valuation of reward not explained by current models of reward prediction error.
Feeding responses in the same dopaminergic neurons or other rewarding subsets involved in sugar reinforcement do not increase with the nutritious content of the droplet. However, feeding rapidly inhibits aversively reinforcing dopaminergic neurons that also control the state-dependent expression of sugar memories. Spontaneous calcium oscillations in the aversive reinforcing neurons become more frequent after feeding on sugars specifically, and their amplitude after feeding appears to be diminished by a possible rapid nutrient signal. Intriguingly, rewarding dopaminergic neurons also show substantial odour-evoked calcium responses that reflect both general and specific odour novelty; such activity is not yet accounted for in existing models of associative learning in Drosophila.
Rewarding dopaminergic neurons recorded during appetitive conditioning do not show acquired predictive capacity after training as expected from current models of reward prediction error. Although it remains unclear whether Drosophila dopaminergic neurons are inhibited by the unexpected omission of reward, one subset in particular appears to be excited by the unexpected presentation of reward. Taken together, these findings show that rewarding dopaminergic neurons in Drosophila may encode value, salience, novelty, and positive prediction error during associative learning.

Keywords: reward
Drosophila
memory
learning
dopamine
imaging
Advisor: Waddell, S