VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Automatic learning of British Sign Language from signed TV broadcasts

In this work, we will present several contributions towards automatic recognition of BSL signs from continuous signing video sequences. Specifically, we will address three main points: (i) automatic detection and tracking of the hands using a generative model of the image; (ii) automatic learning of signs from TV broadcasts using the supervisory information available from subtitles; and (iii) generalisation given sign examples from one signer to recognition of signs from different signers. Our source material consists of many hours of video with continuous signing and corresponding subtitles recorded from BBC digital television. This is very challenging material for a number of reasons, including self-occlusions of the signer, self-shadowing, blur due to the speed of motion, and in particular the changing background. Knowledge of the hand position and hand shape is a pre-requisite for automatic sign language recognition. We cast the problem of detecting and tracking the hands as inference in a generative model of the image, and propose a complete model which accounts for the positions and self-occlusions of the arms. Reasonable configurations are obtained by efficiently sampling from a pictorial structure proposal distribution. The results using our method exceed the state-of-the-art for the length and stability of continuous limb tracking. Previous research in sign language recognition has typically required manual training data to be generated for each sign, e.g. a signer performing each sign in controlled conditions - a time-consuming and expensive procedure. We show that for a given signer, a large number of BSL signs can be learned automatically from TV broadcasts using the supervisory information available from subtitles broadcast simultaneously with the signing. We achieve this by modelling the problem as one of multiple instance learning. In this way we are able to extract the sign of interest from hours of signing footage, despite the very weak and "noisy" supervision from the subtitles. Lastly, we show that automatic recognition of signs can be extended to multiple signers. Using automatically extracted examples from a single signer, we train discriminative classifiers and show that these can successfully classify and localise signs in new signers. This demonstrates that the descriptor we extract for each frame (i.e. hand position, hand shape, and hand orientation) generalises between different signers.

Keywords: Sign Language
computer vision
image processing
machine learning
pattern recognition
Advisor: Zisserman, A
Everingham, M
Brady, M
Cardiovascular impact of preeclampsia on mother and offspring 

Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity. Furthermore, women who have had preeclampsia have an increased risk of cardiovascular events over the next 10-15 years. Indeed, preeclampsia is associated with a four-fold increase in the risk of hypertension and double the risk of fatal and non fatal ischaemic heart disease and stroke.
In addition, offspring born to preeclampsia are more likely to have higher blood pressure from childhood and stroke in later life. The risk to mother and offspring is greatest when preeclampsia is diagnosed at an earlier gestation, suggesting a more severe form of preeclampsia.
As the long term cardiovascular risk to both mother and child is known from delivery, the main interest of my research was to identify key phenotypic variations in mothers and children during the years between the episode of preeclampsia and emergence of established cardiovascular disease, which might explain the link between the two conditions. This information could then be used to devise ways to identify subjects at greatest risk of later cardiovascular disease and to establish intermediate endpoints for future preventative interventions.
Therefore, in a case control study, women diagnosed with preeclampsia between 1998 and 2003 and their offspring were recruited and underwent comprehensive cardiovascular and metabolic phenotyping. Furthermore, young adults born preterm to hypertensive pregnancy were also investigated in their twenties.
The research demonstrates that early-onset preeclampsia, diagnosed before 34 weeks gestation, is associated with blood pressure patterns in mothers 6-13 years after pregnancy that are distinct from those seen following later-onset disease. Furthermore, there is evidence of distinct differences in cardiac, vascular and metabolic profiles in these individuals with women having evidence of increased arterial stiffness, changes in cardiac function and reduced capillary density. Preterm offspring of hypertensive pregnancies similarly have higher blood pressure than seen in those born following late-onset disease and, in young adult life, have reduced endothelial function and changes in cardiac size proportional to this dysfunction.
This research demonstrates adverse cardiac and vascular remodelling after preeclampsia in mothers and offspring that are evident before the development of clinical cardiovascular disease. The identified differences in cardiac and vascular function may be useful as surrogate endpoints in future preventive trials.

Keywords: Offspring
Mother
Aortic stiffness
Cardiac function
Preeclampsia
Child
Endothelial function
Flow mediated dilatation
Advisor: Leeson, P
Pattern formation in neural circuits by the interaction of travelling waves with spike-timing dependent plasticity

Spontaneous travelling waves of neuronal activity are a prominent feature throughout the developing brain and have been shown to be essential for achieving normal function, but the mechanism of their action on post-synaptic connections remains unknown. A well-known and widespread mechanism for altering synaptic strengths is spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP), whereby the temporal relationship between the pre- and post-synaptic spikes determines whether a synapse is strengthened or weakened. Here, I answer the theoretical question of how these two phenomenon interact: what types of connectivity patterns can emerge when travelling waves drive a downstream area that implements STDP, and what are the critical features of the waves and the plasticity rules that shape these patterns? I then demonstrate how the theory can be applied to the development of the visual system, where retinal waves are hypothesised to play a role in the refinement of downstream connections. My major findings are as follows. (1) Mathematically, STDP translates the correlated activity of travelling waves into coherent patterns of synaptic connectivity; it maps the spatiotemporal structure in waves into a spatial pattern of synaptic strengths, building periodic structures into feedforward circuits. This is analogous to pattern formation in reaction diffusion systems. The theory reveals a role for the wave speed and time scale of the STDP rule in determining the spatial frequency of the connectivity pattern. (2) Simulations verify the theory and extend it from one-dimensional to two-dimensional cases, and from simplified linear wavefronts to more complex realistic and noisy wave patterns. (3) With appropriate constraints, these pattern formation abilities can be harnessed to explain a wide range of developmental phenomena, including how receptive fields (RFs) in the visual system are refined in size and topography and how simple-cell and direction selective RFs can develop. The theory is applied to the visual system here but generalises across different brain areas and STDP rules. The theory makes several predictions that are testable using existing experimental paradigms.

Keywords: spike-timing dependent plasticity
cortex
vision
STDP
retinal wave
neural circuit
travelling waves
refinement
development
direction selectivity
receptive field
pattern formation
V1
superior colliculus
Turing instability
Advisor: Bair, W
Parker, A
Bressloff, P
'Ambushed by victory': allied strategy on how to win the First World War

This study examines the Allied notion of victory and how it was expressed in the depth of Allied strategic planning in 1918 for a campaign in 1919. Using the Supreme War Council (SWC) as a lens this study's arguments are threefold.
The first is that, with the creation of the SWC, the Allies pursued a notion of victory that was focused on a decisive military defeat of the German army. Their timeline to victory over the enemy was affected by their perception of the enemy’s strength, their assessment of the difficulties inherent in overcoming the military advantage offered by the Central Powers' interior lines, their appraisal of the European members' morale to continue the war, and their ability to gather the necessary superiority in material and manpower resources.
The second argument is that, through the SWC, the Allies were able to successfully coordinate strategy and resources. This study analyses the workings of the SWC as an international body and an early example of modern alliance warfare, comparing the perspectives of the British, French, American and Italian representatives in their willingness and unwillingness to coordinate national needs with alliance ones, arguing that the coalition did form a unified policy and strategy for the campaign in 1919. The abrupt ending of the war has obscured historians' understanding of coalition warfare in the First World War, as they have not sufficiently considered the serious planning that took place for 1919.
Third, it argues that at the SWC level, the coalition members recognized the interdependent nature of the theatres, and thus the importance of all them for the conduct of the war.

Keywords: Strategy
Permanent Military Representatives
Supreme War Council
Inter-Allied Transport Council
Italy
Allied and Associated Powers
Allied Maritime Transport Council
France
World War
United States
First World War
Inter-Allied Munitions Council
1914-1918
Great Britain
Advisor: Strachan, H
A closest point penalty method for evolution equations on surfaces

This thesis introduces and analyses a numerical method for solving time-dependent partial differential equations (PDEs) on surfaces. This method is based on the closest point method, and solves the surface PDE by solving a suitably chosen equation in a band surrounding the surface. As it uses an implicit closest point representation of the surface, the method has the advantages of being simple to implement for very general surfaces, and amenable to discretization with a broad class of numerical schemes.
The method proposed in this work introduces a new equation in the embedding space, which satisfies a key consistency property with the surface PDE. Rather than alternating between explicit time-steps and re-extensions of the surface function as in the original closest point method, we investigate an alternative approach, in which a single equation can be solved throughout the embedding space, without separate extension steps. This is achieved by creating a modified embedding equation with a penalty term, which enforces a constraint on the solution.
The resulting equation admits a method of lines discretization, and can therefore be discretized with implicit or explicit time-stepping schemes, and analysed with standard techniques. The method can be formulated in a straightforward way for a large class of problems, including equations featuring variable coefficients, higher-order terms or nonlinearities.
The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated with a range of examples, drawing from applications involving curvature-dependent diffusion and systems of reaction-diffusion equations, as well as equations arising in PDE-based image processing on surfaces.

Keywords: Partial differential equations
Advisor: Macdonald, C
Optimal decisions in finance: passport options and the bonus problem

The object of this thesis is the study of some new financial models. The common feature is that they all involve optimal decisions. Some of the decisions take the form of a control and we enter the theory of stochastic optimal control and of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations. Other decisions are "binary" and we deal with the theory of optimal stopping and free boundary problems.
Throughout the thesis we will prefer a heuristic and intuitive approach to a too technical one which could hide the underlying ideas.
In the first part we introduce the reader to option pricing, HJB equations and free boundary problems, and we review briefly the use of these mathematical tools in finance.
The second part of the thesis deals with passport options. The pricing of these exotic options involves stochastic optimal control and free boundary problems. Finally, in the last part we study the end-of-the-year bonus for traders: how to optimally reward a trader?

Keywords: passport options
stochastic optimal control
bonus
Advisor: Wilmott, P
Howison, S
Port economies and maritime trade in the Roman Mediterranean: 166 BC to AD 300

This thesis focuses on the economies of Roman ports and their role in the facilitation and organization of maritime trade, combining both terrestrial and maritime archaeological evidence as well as literary and epigraphic material. The first half of the thesis examines Mediterranean ports from a panoptic level in order to address questions of systems of trade, connectivity and economic development. In doing so, I focus on three particular areas of material culture: ceramics, shipwreck cargoes (typically composed of amphorae, metal ingots or stone) and epigraphy.
The second half of the thesis focuses on two case studies, southern Turkey and southern France. For each region, I explore the economic factors which led to the development of each region and the ways in which ports enabled this development. I consider the impact of landscape, the usage of natural resources and the extent of production for both local consumption and export. Importantly, I examine the regional connections of the two regions and their interactions within the wider Mediterranean. I develop a model for the development of ports along each coastline and their degree of integration into the trading network of the Roman Mediterranean. Building on this, it becomes possible to assess the extent and scale of extra-regional interaction and market integration.
From the evidence presented in this thesis, I argue that ports were at the core of the Roman market economy and that the development of a port network allowed for the integration and interdependence of Mediterranean markets. This allowed for regional economic growth through the specialization in the production of goods for which a region had a comparative advantage.

Keywords: Roman economy
Roman maritime trade
Roman archaeology
Advisor: Wilson, A
Biodegradable microspheres for controlled drug/cell delivery and tissue engineering

The synthetic biodegradable polymer poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) has been widely explored as substrate biomaterials for controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering. ECM component heparin and bone mineral hydroxyapatite (HA) are attractive biomaterials which can functionalize the PLGA surface to improve cell cell response and to bring in the dual growth factor delivery, because heparin and HA both can improve cell responses and bind with various proteins.
To combine the osteoconductivity of HA and the controlled drug release of PLGA microspheres, HA coated PLGA microspheres were developed by a 3 hour rapid HA precipitation on the PLGA microsphere surface. Effects of various fabrication parameters on microsphere and HA coating morphology were evaluated. This core-shell composite worked as a dual drug delivery device and demonstrated better cell cell response than PLGA microspheres without HA coating.
Three different methods, including osmogen, extractable porogen and gas-foaming porogen, were evaluated to fabricate porous microspheres as injectable cell scaffolds in the tissue engineering. The gas-foaming method produced covered porous PLGA microspheres, on which a skin layer covered all the surface pores. The skin layer was hydrolysed by NaOH to control the surface porosity. The modified open porous microspheres have large continued surface areas between pores, which provided more continued areas for cell adhesion. The porous microspheres with controllable surface porosity and large surface continuity between pores could be novel injectable cell scaffolds.
Heparin was immobilized on the open porous PLGA microspheres by a facile layer-by-layer assemble to combine the advantages of porous structure and the protein binding from heparin. The heparin-coated porous microspheres promoted cell adhesion, spreading, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. Growth factor-like protein lactoferrin was immobilized on the heparin coated porous microspheres, which further enhanced MG-63 proliferation and osteogenic differentiation. The heparin-coated porous microspheres are promising multi-functional devices for controlled drug delivery and injectable cell delivery.

Keywords: Tissue Engineering
Biodegradable microsphere
Controlled Drug/Cell Delivery
Advisor: Czernuszka, J
Xia, Z
Franklin, S
The neuroses of the railway: trains, travel and trauma in Britain, c.1850-c.1900

This thesis explores some aspects of the cultural history of the railway during the latter half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. It argues that the railway was of central importance in creating and shaping Victorian attitudes to the machine and to mechanized civilization in a world increasingly dominated by large scale-technologies. In particular, it explores the significance of negative responses to the railway - fear, anxiety, nervousness, alarm, revulsion - in influencing a range of social, cultural and medical responses to the perceived degenerative threat of technological civilization. The four chapters of the thesis are organized so as to provide a progressive tightening of focus on particular aspects of the railway's significance in this context. The first, most wide-ranging, chapter explores the ways in which the Victorian railway was perceived as both an icon of progress and civilization and as a disruptive, threatening, destructive force. In particular, it seeks to establish the deep-rooted, enduring and influential nature of the fear and anxiety which the railway provoked. The second chapter is concerned with the railway journey as an experience, relating the ambivalence with which the railway was viewed to the journey as a sensory, physical and mental experience. The third chapter focuses on the accident as the most dramatic instance of the dangers of the railway, and relates its significance in contemporary culture to the wider context of the fears provoked by increasingly powerful and potentially destructive technologies. The fourth and final chapter explores the phenomenon of 'railway spine', the obscure nervous condition supposedly suffered by railway accident victims who had seemingly received no actual organic injury, but nonetheless displayed nervous, mental and physical symptoms of serious bodily disorder.

Keywords: railway accidents
transport history
railway history
railways
history of psychiatry
Victorian railways
railway spine
neuroses
Advisor: Harris, R
Untimely aesthetics

The thesis is two-fold. First, that Nietzsche's early writings owe more to Schiller than he subsequently wished to admit. This is demonstrated by evidence from Die Geburt der Tragödie and the Nachlass notes of the same period. Second, that there are tangible parallels of content and intent between Schiller's Ästhetische Briefe and Nietzsche's Die Geburt der Tragödie.
The thesis is not an 'influence study', although the issue is addressed. By examining his hitherto neglected attitude to Schiller, this study sheds light on Nietzsche's tactics when dealing with men and their ideas in his writings. This, however, is not the main point of the thesis, which is to analyse the connections between the two texts. The essential point of comparison is that Die Geburt der Tragödie and the Ästhetische Briefe both set out aesthetic prescriptions for a diseased culture. Certain kinds of art are deemed capable, by virtue of their timeless and incorruptible properties, of reforming the human psyche, and by extension of promoting cultural integrity and vitality.
After analysing Nietzsche's attitude to Schiller, particularly in connection with the argument of Die Geburt der Tragödie, the thesis compares the strategies adopted in the two texts: both present triadic schemes of historical development, in which the Greek experience is regarded as crucial; their aesthetic 'reform programmes' are predicated on psycho-metaphysical pictures of human nature; and both texts reject attempts to cure human ills by political means. The thesis is an attempt to articulate, compare, and criticise the respective projects and to see in what sense(s) they were untimely. Both projects were untimely, in the sense that they were deliberately out of step with their times. In each case, the alleged remedial properties of art themselves are characterised as untimely. They are borrowed from another time, or are said to be out of time altogether. The thesis concludes that the two texts, although outstanding contributions to aesthetic theory, were inappropriate (untimely) attempts to tackle larger problems.
'All is pure for the pure’: redefining purity and defilement in early Greek Christianity, from Paul to Origen

This thesis examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as they were articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. As purity and defilement are especially suited for articulating difference, hierarchy and change, these concepts were essential for early Christians, shaping their understanding of human nature, sin, history, and ritual. In parallel, the major Christian practices embodying difference and change, baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, emoted and shaped as instances of purification.
Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, were at the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was a substantive motivation: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion, and the integration of purity traditions and concepts into these worldviews and theories. The second was a polemic motivation: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking the purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagan or “heretics”) as false. I trace the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing food abstentions, death defilement, sexuality and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses.
This thesis demonstrates three central arguments. First, purity and defilement are central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those current in contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

Keywords: demon
purity
pollution
death defilement
baptism
dietary laws
early Christianity
Advisor: Stroumsa, G