VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Learning about academic writing through holistic peer assessment

While there is a consensus among researchers that assessment should and can serve learning, there is less understanding of how it supports learning at a fine-grained level. This thesis uses design-based research to investigate the role of comment-only, holistic peer assessment in writing development. The theory of action synthesises Sadler’s accounts of learning through assessment (1989, 2010) with Winne and Hadwin’s (1998, 2008) model of self-regulated learning. It is theorised that participating in peer assessment helps students to develop evaluative expertise, which in turn enriches task perceptions, metacognitive standards and ultimately large-scale adaptation: the changes students employ in subsequent essays. Drawing on the theory of action, I designed a series of workshops for first-year English Literature students learning to write examination essays. The thesis reports on the first of two iterations. 21 participants assessed and discussed example essays; criteria were not pre-determined but emerged from discussion of four examples. Students then wrote a timed essay, assessed three peer pieces and received three reviews. A range of data was generated during the workshops, including written comments, reflections and questionnaires. Ten case study writers also took part in pre- and post-workshops writing tasks, think-aloud protocols and interviews.
To trace the development of students’ evaluative expertise, I coded inductively students’ talk and comment about writing. Visualising the connections between emergent codes reveals writing quality as a complex web of criteria, with the essay question at the centre. There was a strong overlap between the official Faculty assessment criteria and the codes emerging from student data. However, students also frequently commented on procedural aspects of writing such as introductions and conclusions, which are left tacit or latent in Faculty criteria. Post-workshops, students’ own metacognitive standards became increasingly reader-oriented and question-focussed, and these procedural aspects of writing drove the adaptations they made to their approach. I use rich, in-depth case study data to trace how, why, and when students made such adaptations. I also examine the role of peer feedback, which rather than offering new information, often verified or complemented the judgements students formed of their own writing during the workshops. The thesis thus illuminates processes involved in learning through assessment. It also shows that peer assessment is a practicable way of developing within the discipline both evaluative expertise and writing, which are key to lifelong learning.

Keywords: feedback
peer review
peer assessment
English Studies
self-regulated learning
university students
task perceptions
assessment criteria
academic writing
metacognition
Advisor: Hopfenbeck, T
Quinlan, K
What are the risk, promotive and protective factors for the educational outcomes for children in foster and kinship care?

Background: Children in care are at risk of low educational attainment (Trout, Hagaman, Casey, Reid, & Epstein, 2008). Interventions have been developed to address this problem but systematic reviews of the evidence find that their effectiveness is currently limited (R. Evans, Brown, Rees, & Smith, 2017). Research suggests that the processes underlying low achievement for this population, which are key to informing theories of change in interventions, are poorly understood (Liabo, Gray, & Mulcahy, 2012; Stone, 2007). This thesis speaks to this gap in the literature by investigating risk, promotive and protective factors for children in care.
Methods The thesis includes two studies. In the first, a systematic review of risk, promotive and protective factors for the educational outcomes for children in care was conducted. It aimed to uncover variables that might be targeted in educational interventions. The second study analysed longitudinal secondary data on the educational outcomes of 690 teenagers in care in Ontario, Canada. It examined the relationship between carer involvement and the educational outcomes of young people they care for. Specifically, the study used descriptive statistics and two latent growth curve models to explore what carers do and whether carer involvement, specifically aspirations, is a promotive factor for educational outcomes for children in foster and kinship care. Moderation analysis was then carried out to determine whether carer’s high aspirations are a protective factor for children in care with special educational needs.
Results The review identified 33 studies for inclusion. Findings suggested that boys, those from minority backgrounds, children with special educational needs or behavioural problems were more likely to struggle academically than others. Length of time in care was not a risk factor. Finally, findings indicated that carer involvement in educational activities is associated with better school performance outcomes. In Study Two, analyses showed that carers are involved in the education of children, that high aspirations predict better school performance outcomes even after controlling for prior school performance and that carers’ aspirations are a protective factor for children with special educational needs.
Conclusion This thesis presents evidence that carers' involvement in children’s education, in particular high aspirations, is a promotive factor for children in care and a protective factor for children in care with special educational needs. However, it also highlighted a significant gap in the literature suggesting that carer involvement is not well understood for children in care. These findings may inform future interventions to promote the education of children in care.

Advisor: Sebba, J
Gardner, F
Studies of ultrafast molecular photofragmentation and dynamics using fast imaging sensors

In this thesis, the three-dimensional (3D) and multi-mass imaging capabilities of the Pixel Imaging Mass Spectrometry (PImMS) camera are demonstrated in a range of ion imaging experiments. The full 3D velocity distributions of the CO+ and S+ fragments, resulting from the photodissociation of OCS, are shown to be successfully captured with the PImMS camera by recording time-resolved slices through the full Newton sphere.
In the laser-induced Coulomb explosion of difluoroiodobenzene (DFIB) and dihydroxybromobenzene (DHBB) isomers, two- and three-fold covariance analysis revealed angular correlations between recoil ions, recorded by the PImMS2 camera, which were used to unambiguously identify structural isomers present in pure and mixed molecular beam samples. The Coulomb explosion imaging (CEI) technique and covariance analysis was extended to a femtosecond-resolved pump-probe study of the trans-cis isomerization in 4,4′-difluoroazobenzene (DFAB). Using a background-subtraction method, two-colour time-dependent features are extracted and are tentatively assigned to cis-DFAB with vibrationally hot trans-DFAB following S2 ← S0 excitation of vibrationally cold trans-DFAB.
The Coulomb explosions of laser-aligned and mixed-field oriented 2,6-DFIB molecules induced by strong-field or inner-shell ionization were found to be comparable, with only subtle differences observed. Using multi-photon inner-shell ionization with an ultrabright, femtosecond 11.6 nm free-electron laser probe pulse, high charge states of iodine in CH3I and 2,6-DFIB are generated. The ensuing photodissociation, initiated by a 267 nm pump pulse, and charge transfer dynamics were observed in ‘real-time’ with the PImMS camera.

Advisor: Brouard, M
Small heat shock protein interactions with in vivo partners

Small heat-shock proteins (sHsps) are part of a broad cellular sys- tem that functions to maintain a stable proteome under stress. They also perform a variety of regulatory roles at physiological conditions. Despite the multitude of sHsp targets, their interactions with partners are not well understood due to highly dynamical structures. In this thesis, I apply a variety of biophysical and structural approaches to examine distinct interactions made by the abundant human sHsps αB-crystallin and Hsp27. First, I find that αB-crystallin binds a cardiac-specific domain of the muscle sarcomere protein titin. A cardiomyopathy-causative variant of αB-crystallin is shown to disrupt this interaction, with demonstrated implications for tissue biomechanics. Next, I investigate the conformation and unfolding behaviour of another sarcomere-associated protein, filamin C, finding support for the hypothesis that it is mechanosensitive. This leads into an interrogation of the interaction between filamin C and Hsp27, which we find is modulated by phosphorylation of Hsp27. This modulation only manifests during filamin C unfolding, pointing toward a protective chaperoning mode against over-extension during mechanical stress. This finding is bolstered by up-regulation and interaction of both proteins in a mouse model of heart failure. I establish a system for similar studies of a third sHsp, cvHsp, which is muscle-specific and implicated in various myopathies but scantly understood at the molecular level compared to αB-crystallin and Hsp27. Finally, I probe the stoichiometries and kinetics of complexes formed between αB-crystallin and Hsp27 themselves, which co-assemble into a highly polydisperse ensemble. This involved the development of a high-resolution native mass spectrometry method for disentangling heterogeneous systems. Together these findings add to our understanding of the roles and mechanisms of ATP-independent molecular chaperones.

Keywords: Heat shock proteins
Molecular chaperones
Cardiovascular disease
Mechanobiology
Native mass spectrometry
Advisor: Benesch, J
Essays in industrial organization

This thesis contains three main chapters, each providing analysis into topics in the area of industrial organization.
Unawareness and Communication in Vertical Relationships
I analyse communication in a setting where a distributor offers a contract to a produ- cer over the supply of a product. Both firms can exert effort, which may be observable or unobservable. The distributor is aware of a pay-off relevant contingency and can choose to communicate this to the unaware producer. The distributor may in com- municating face a trade-off between inducing optimal effort inputs and lowering the cost of ensuring participation. Communication occurs more often when effort is un- observable as the distributor is less able to benefit from his information. Joint surplus of the firms is higher when effort is unobservable than when effort is observable.
Markets with Differentiated Add-on Products
I analyse a duopoly market where firms supply differentiated core and add-on products. Some consumers are uninformed about preferences and prices of add-on products. I find that firms will price add-ons above marginal cost even with fully informed con- sumers and that add-on profits are not competed away in core market competition. The market outcome leads to inefficient matching between firms and consumers who purchase too few add-ons. The presence of uninformed consumers is harmful for in- formed consumers because of higher add-on prices. If consumers can decide whether to be informed or not, add-on prices rise with the fraction of informed consumers.
Competition and Bundling: An Empirical Analysis of European Telecom Markets
Using data on European telecom markets, I estimate a structural model of demand for mobile and broadband services. I use two data sources that provide choice information at different aggregation levels which the model is constructed to account for. The estimated model is used to conduct merger simulations. Issues focused on are the importance of pricing complementarities arising between firms' standalone product offers as well as the level of consumer demand for bundling. The simulations imply that merger outcomes can significantly depend on complementarity effects. I also find that higher demand for bundling leads to higher price increases from mergers, as firms become stronger substitutes.

Advisor: Armstrong, M
Smith, H
Quah, J
Functional annotation of variants in monogenic diabetes genes to support diagnostic interpretation

Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) is a monogenic form of hyperglycaemia that is both genetically and clinically heterogeneous. The majority of MODY cases (80%) are caused by heterozygous damaging alleles in clinically actionable genes (HNF1A, HNF4A and GCK). For carriers of these alleles, an accurate molecular diagnosis informs prognosis, management and treatment strategies, and is contingent upon understanding the functional consequences of known and novel variants. High-fidelity molecular assays, which enable comprehensive and contextual functional characterisation, at scale and speed, are needed to address the interpretive challenge. Herein, such efforts, with varying degrees of throughput, are described in the context of missense variants in HNF1A and GCK.
Using multi-dimensional functional data from 73 HNF1A missense alleles identified through exome-sequencing of &Tilde;13K T2D cases and controls, and a combination of unsupervised learning methods, I produced high resolution variant clusters along the HNF1A phenotypic spectrum. To demonstrate robustness of the approach, I used the functionally annotated allele subgroups to re-evaluate molecular diagnoses in a national MODY diagnostic registry (Exeter, UK). This resulted in confident reclassification of n=7 alleles from pathogenic/likely pathogenic to VUS/likely benign in the clinical database. I also established a systematic pipeline for building a transactivation-centric Multiplexed Assay of Variant Effects (MAVE) to characterize an HNF1A saturation mutagenesis library. Using TM4SF4 as an endogenous functional readout in flow cytometric analyses, I was able to segregate a series of HNF1A alleles (n=8) based on transactivation-dependent distributions of TM4SF4-positive HepG2 cell populations: 2-8% from MODY-causal loss-of-function alleles, 30% from a low frequency allele associated with T2D risk, and 60-70% from neutral alleles and wild-type. This discriminatory capacity suggests the assay is sufficiently robust to score a pooled HNF1A variant library using TM4SF4 expression as a molecular signature. For variants in GCK, I characterised the function of two previously unannotated missense variants (hypomorphic homozygous p.E157K/p.E157K and heterozygous p.F133L/N) identified through genetic testing to aid in their clinical interpretation. Both showed catalytic and/or stability defects in in vitro kinetic assays consistent with GCK-MODY (p.E157K relative activity index = 0.15; p.F133L relative stability index = 0.53).
Together, these functional genomic annotation efforts help resolve the complex relationship between genotype, molecular dysfunction and clinical phenotype for alleles in HNF1A and GCK and assist in medical diagnostic interpretation.

Advisor: Gloyn, A
McCarthy, M
The sound of metal: amateur brass bands in southern Benin

This thesis contributes an empirically informed understanding of postcolonial experience and musical expression in West Africa through an ethnographic study of amateur brass bands (fanfares) in the Republic of Benin. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Western hegemonic cultural tradition of the brass band was exported across the globe through imperialist institutions such as the military and the church. Music in colonial Dahomey was an integral part of the French civilizing mission, and the brass band took center stage. Brass bands remain pervasive in present-day Benin and perform in a multitude of political, social, and religious contexts. Previous scholarship subsumes postcolonial musical performance into social scripts of resistance, framing brass bands in particular within cultural modes of mimesis, indigenization, or appropriation. Pushing against these canonical narratives, this thesis illustrates apolitical, affective, and embodied modes of experiencing colonialism’s material and musical debris.
Broadly, the ethnography presented here speaks to four themes. The first of these is material. Evident in musicians’ accounts are materials’ sonic inclinations: how instrument design and disrepair constrain musical ideals, and how different metals encourage particular pitches and timbres. Present, too, is the social and affective capacity of material: how ideas about brass instruments shape histories, erect styles, construct tastes, move bodies, induce anxieties, and proffer futures. The second theme is precarity. Fanfare musicians “get by” in an exploitative (musical) economy, are made anxious by ambiguous understandings of brass instruments, and manage an undercurrent of uncertainty in a social milieu rife with rumor and distrust. A third theme arising is that of the body, broadly conceived. This thesis illustrates the corporeal demands of fanfare performance, the embodied experience of blowing brass instruments, and the social value of bodily strength and exertion. The fourth theme is entanglement. Beninese musicians’ experience of fanfare is entangled within (at times contradictory) ideas of the past, imaginings of the outside, emotions in the present, and expectations for the future. Entanglement likewise extends to musical instruments: the multiple valences of materials collide in brass instruments, as do histories, traditions, and feelings.

Advisor: Stanyek, J
Pratten, D
Absolute quantification of human in vivo hepatic 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 7 tesla

Phosphorus (31P) metabolites are emerging liver disease biomarkers. This work aims to develop a quantification protocol for human hepatic 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) at 7 tesla (T). It should have high SNR, deliver robust measurements of metabolite concentrations with high reproducibility, and be feasible to use in clinical studies. This will allow detailed characterization of liver metabolism in diseases such as cirrhosis, increasing the utility of 31P-MRS as a clinical tool.
A 3D chemical shift imaging method using a 16 channel 31P array at 7 T is chosen to give high SNR 31P spectra from the human liver in vivo, while also providing good spatial localization and spectral resolution.
The Oxford Spectroscopy Analysis (OXSA) toolbox, our MATLAB-based processing software package, is introduced and adaptations for analysis of liver spectra are described.
Five volunteers were scanned to determine T1s for the ten visible 31P metabolites. Simulations were used to determine design criteria for calibration phantoms at 1.5, 3 and 7 T. I compare three candidate approaches to give "absolute" concentrations in mmol/L wet tissue using a 10 cm loop coil, and then extend these approaches to data acquired using the 16 element receive array.
The final protocol was applied to data acquired in ten healthy volunteers and eleven patients with cirrhosis to determine reproducibility and the differences between healthy and diseased livers. This protocol allows distinction between healthy and cirrhotic livers with 90% specificity and sensitivity, using cut-offs in either γ-adenosine triphosphate or inorganic phosphate concentrations.
This 31P-MRS absolute quantification protocol is an important first step in fully utilising the increased SNR afforded by the 7 T scanner, offering valuable insight into liver metabolism, and paving the way for other novel 31P-MRS methods to be developed in the liver at 7 T.

Keywords: phosphorus
liver
magnetic resonance spectroscopy
human
31P
in vivo
absolute quantification
Advisor: Rodgers, C
Valkovic, L
Making law matter: projectivism and Hart's normativity

This thesis explores a novel approach to understanding H.L.A.Hart's account of the 'normativity of law'. A successful account of the 'normativity of law' is meant to inter alia establish how legal requirements come to be morally binding. It will be argued that the internal point of view, key to Hart's account of normativity, can intelligibly constitute the 'source' of moral bindingness only if one assumes a projectivist model (resting on a non-cognitivist metaethic). The projectivist model understands moral bindingness as the motivational pull exerted by a moral judgment owing to the attitude of approval underlying it.
Hart never expressly endorsed projectivism—far from it: he refused to take any firm metaethical stance at all. This thesis argues, however, that there are semantic and metaethical elements in Hart's scheme that naturally lend themselves to a projectivist model. A good portion of this thesis comprises in setting out, aligning—and where appropriate, emending—those elements so as to yield a coherent projectivist model of the 'normativity of law'. While discussing Hart's account of normativity occupies a bulk of this thesis, its overarching telos would be to take the first steps towards attempting a new begrundung of the projectivist model of 'normativity of law'. It does so by setting out the conceptual underpinnings of the projectivist model and by allaying some of the misgivings surrounding it. The projectivist model used to be prominent in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the pioneering works of the Scandinavian Legal Realists, but has of late largely fallen into disrepute. Although Hart is widely credited with having taken apart the Scandinavian Legal Realists’ project—who themselves saw Hart’s project as contiguous with theirs—it will be argued that there is indeed a great deal convergence between the projects of Hart and the Scandinavian Legal Realists.

Advisor: Gardner, J
The future is not inevitable: judging the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in Australian climate change litigation

What is the relevance of replacement sources of coal, and the greenhouse gas emissions they may cause, to a decision on whether to approve a new coal mine under mining and environmental protection legislation in Queensland, Australia? The question is explored from two perspectives. Does the existence of replacement sources of coal have any bearing on the impact that the mine is anticipated to cause? If not, is it otherwise relevant as part of a deliberative process in balancing the benefits and drawbacks of approving the mine? To critically assess the causal perspective, insight is drawn from the Australian law of negligence and homicide and how those bodies of law deal with potential replacement sources of the same harm. Relevance to a deliberative process is assessed within the framework of administrative law and by examining the effect of permitting consideration of replacement sources. Insight is drawn from the evaluation of a number of other coal mines and greenhouse gas emitting developments at the state and federal level as well as the assessment of other environmental impacts. I argue that replacement sources are not relevant to assessing the impact of a mine on global greenhouse gas emissions levels from either perspective. The Queensland climate cases have received some attention in the literature, though minimal attention has been paid to the causal perspective and none to the deliberative approach. This thesis will contribute to the further understanding of climate change litigation in Australia.

Advisor: Lange, B