VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Computation of unipotent Albanese maps on elliptic and hyperelliptic curves

We study the unipotent Albanese map appearing in the non-abelian Chabauty method of Minhyong Kim. In particular we explore the explicit computation of the p-adic de Rham period map jndr on elliptic and hyperelliptic curves over number fields via their universal unipotent connections U.
Several algorithms forming part of the computation of finite level versions jndr of the unipotent Albanese maps are presented. The computation of the logarithmic extension of U in general requires a description in terms of an open covering, and can be regarded as a simple example of computational descent theory. We also demonstrate a constructive version of a result due to Vologodsky and Hadian on the computation of the Hodge filtration on U over affine elliptic and odd hyperelliptic curves.
We use these algorithms to present some new examples describing the co-ordinates of some of these period maps. This description will be given in terms iterated p-adic Coleman integrals. We also consider the computation of the co-ordinates if we replace the rational basepoint with a tangential basepoint, and present some new examples here as well.
Finally, we present the output of implementations of the aforementioned algorithms in Magma for small level on both elliptic curves and hyperelliptic curves.

Advisor: Kim, M
Lauder, A
Law and politics under the later Stuarts: Sir John Holt, the courts, and the constitutional crisis of 1688

This thesis examines the relationship between law and politics during the decades of constitutional turbulence either side of the Glorious Revolution through an analysis of the career of Lord Chief Justice Sir John Holt (1642-1710). It is not an exhaustive biography of Holt, although it does pursue a number of biographical themes: Holt’s family background; his rise to prominence in his legal career; the networks of patronage that advanced him. It also focuses on his jurisprudence, and on his constitutional and political thought. In doing so, this thesis helps to answer three interrelated questions: the significance of the law in the collapse of James II’s regime, the nature of the intellectual relationship between law, history, and politics at the turn of the eighteenth century, and whether the revolution led to the establishment of the ‘rule of law’ in any identifiable sense in the years after 1688.
This thesis offers new perspectives in three principal areas of historiography. First, it demonstrates how Holt’s career can help us to understand better the mechanics by which James lost the support of the judiciary. It suggests that Holt was not a whig, but rather a tory pushed to breaking point by James’s arbitrary behaviour. Second, it argues that doubts about the universal applicability of J.G.A. Pocock’s vision of common law intellectual and constitutional culture in this period, encapsulated in his theory of the ‘common law mind’, are well founded. This is achieved through a detailed analysis of Holt’s manuscript opinions, an approach which also helps to uncover the historical significance of such documents within the eighteenth- century legal profession. Finally, this thesis suggests that dominant accounts of the emergence of a judiciary independent from political manipulation, and a constitutional system in which executive will was subordinated to law after 1688, need to be radically reassessed.

Advisor: Holmes, C
Gauci, P
Exploring the functional interactions between the D2-receptors and L-type calcium channels in the control of striatal dopamine release

Dopamine (DA) release by nigrostriatal DA neurons is critical for selection and learning of movement and motivation. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of these neurons and the resultant decrease in DA. Release of DA is governed by presynaptic voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs). The entry of calcium to these DA neurons through the L-type VGCC has been hypothesised to be a possible cause of susceptibility to degeneration. Therefore, understanding the modulation of L-type VGCCs could be important to understanding their role in PD. DA release can be strongly regulated by D2 autoreceptors (D2Rs) which act through Gαi/o-PCR coupled mechanisms. They decrease transmitter release via a βγ-mediated inhibition of VGCCs. To investigate the functional interaction between D2 autoreceptors and L-type calcium channels in modulating release of dopamine, I use fast scan cyclic voltammetry to detect DA release in mouse acute striatal sections at carbon fibre microelectrodes with sub-second temporal resolution.
In the CPu, D2 receptors do not modulate L-type VGCCs; there is a lack of functional interaction between D2Rs and L-type VGCCs in controlling striatal DA release. The addition of an L-channel blocker in the presence of a D2 receptor antagonist did not reduce DA release in a manner significantly different from the addition of the L-channel blocker in the absence of the D2 antagonist. This lack of effect was maintained even in the presence of cocaine which increases extracellular DA and therefore the activation of D2 receptors. In the NAc, D2 autoreceptors inhibit the activity of the L-type calcium channels. The addition of isradipine in the presence of D2 antagonist in the NAc unmasked a role for the L-type channel which was previously shown to not participate in DA release. These experiments shed some light on the multiple layer of control of the L-type VGCCs in the NAc furthering our understanding of what factors render neurons susceptible to degeneration in PD,

Advisor: Cragg, S
The politics of the German pension-finance nexus

Over the last decades pension systems across the developed world have 'financialized.' This shift has meant that an increasing share of old age income is dependent on capital markets and managed by private financial service providers. This paper-based thesis revisits the central case of the (non)financialization of German pensions during the 1980s and 1990s. It advances an ideational institutionalist perspective on the pension-finance nexus, arguing that understanding these changes requires attention to ideas and discourse alongside traditional material and institutional incentives. The analyses in the three papers focus on the preferences and strategies pursued by segments of capital, with a particular emphasis on the three main factions of finance: banks, insurers and investment companies. The first paper is concerned with the genesis of German financial liberalization. It finds that the marginal build-up of finance capitalism was followed by a rapidly emerging tipping point of dominance that disparately affected sub-spheres of the financial system. The second paper examines the political battle over pension funds and shows that certain segments of both finance and business were powerful antagonists of pension financialization. The third paper probes into the origins of German policy ideas, including pension funds. It reveals that foreign pension ideas did not have a substantive impact on the crafting of pension policy innovations, but played a crucial role as framing devices. The analyses apply process tracing techniques and draw on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including parliamentary debates, newspaper archives, TV recordings and expert interviews. Collectively, the three papers show that actors at the pension-finance nexus undergo complex preference formations, have diverging interests and pursue these with adaptive political strategies. The theoretical perspectives developed and evidence uncovered contribute to efforts to disentangle how financialization may (or may not) make its way through different pockets of political economies.

Advisor: Gingrich, J
Rueda, D
Insulating, semiconducting and metallic 2D materials for flexible electronics

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have enjoyed significant attention in recent years as new materials for use in flexible electronics. Combining unique electronic properties with unparalleled strain resilience and transparency, they represent ideal candidates in a broad range of different applications. However, though significant progress has been made this field is still in its relative infancy and there is still much to discover. This project details aspects of the synthesis, fabrication, and physical processes and mechanisms that are pertinent to flexible electronics, with a focus on a subset of three materials: metallic graphene, semiconducting tungsten disulphide, and insulating boron nitride. All materials were synthesised by chemical vapour deposition.
'Bulk' heterostructures of the above materials in several different permutations were fabricated on flexible polymer substrates and studied during repeated strain cycling. A mechanism by which strain is accommodated by inhomogeneous debonding from the substrate and a time-dependent relaxation effect were identified and studied. With repeated strain cycling the response of the heterostructures was found to stabilise—an encouraging result for future device work.
Subsequent work explores two disparate flexible devices based on 2D materials. The first of these is an array of flexible photodetectors. Polymer substrates impose severe limitations on processing conditions and necessitated significant modification to existing fabrication techniques. Functional devices were demonstrated and their response to strain studied, revealing a transient enhancement of sensitivity followed by permanent failure. The mechanism behind this effect was explored.
The second device is a MRI and CT compatible cardio-respiratory monitor for use in preclinical imaging—a device which represents a significant improvement over existing technology. Its properties were studied in detail and its functionality confirmed through extensive in vivo testing, and a patent has since been filed. Several prototypes are already in use at the Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology.

Keywords: Graphene
Flexible Electronics
Two Dimensional Materials
Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
Friction
Photodetector
Thin Film
Heterostructure
MRI
Tungsten Disulphide
Transparent Electronics
Spectroscopy
2D Materials
Advisor: Warner, JH
Investigating the role of the Abruptex region within the Notch receptor

The aim of this project was to investigate the structure and function of the Abruptex (Ax) region within the Notch receptor. Previous data from D. melanogaster shows that missense mutations in this region (EGF24-29) lead to a phenotype indicative of increased signalling. A proposed mechanism for this involves an interaction between the Abruptex region and the ligand binding region of the receptor to negatively regulate signalling. In this project, hNotch1 protein constructs were expressed from prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems to investigate the structure of the region, and interactions with the ligand binding region. After establishing a pipeline for characterizing Ax EGF-like domain constructs by small angle X-ray scattering, structural analysis revealed an extended structure for human Notch1 and Notch2 EGF23-27, with a kink at the EGF25-26 interface inferred from bioinformatics analysis. This suggests that additional non-canonical cysteines in human Notch1 EGF25 and EGF27 do not have a structural role. Binding assays suggested an interaction between EGF12 and EGF24, with binding to EGF12 dissimilar to ligand binding and requiring both O-Fuc and O-Gluc modifications on opposite sides of the domain. A decrease in binding was observed for the EGF24 Abruptex mutant D909V suggesting involvement of the N-terminal of this domain. In addition, a cell-based transactivation assay utilizing hJagged1 as the ligand was established to investigate the impact of Abruptex variants on activation of the mammalian Notch1 receptor. This showed a decrease in activation associated with a variant containing Abruptex missense mutations in EGF24 and EGF25, and a lack of activation in an EGF24-25 deletion variant. These results suggest that in the case of Jagged1, the Abruptex region has a role in optimizing transactivation. The enhanced signalling phenotype indicative of Abruptex mutants may be mediated by other means such as modulating cis-inhibition.

Advisor: Handford, P
Finding joy in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

This thesis aims at finding joy in a poem long celebrated for its vivid representation and exaltation of sorrow. Yet joy forms the climactic centre of the poem. This sensual and amorous joy has often been dismissed by critics as ironic, immoral or vain in light of the poem’s Christian ending. Positive affect has therefore never been taken seriously as a crucial and shaping force in the poem. This thesis rectifies that and argues for the centrality of joy in the poem’s construction of language, themes, and characters. This project also makes space for joy in the field of emotion studies, where positive affect is also glaringly absent. In medieval studies, this can be explained by the uncertainty about whether joy, in medieval culture, is a physical emotion, an affective state, a philosophical value, or a spiritual destination. The study of joy in literature therefore has to take this uncertainty into account and be ready to recalibrate the definition of what an emotion is.
In this thesis, I argue that to study joy in past literature, one needs to bring the study of emotion beyond the body and focus primarily on language and the literary medium itself. In the first chapter of this thesis, I study the lexis of joy-related words in Middle English and its use in Chaucer’s corpus. This theoretical framework helps shape the contour of joy in the poem by delineating the different registers or fields of discourse to which the emotion belongs in Chaucer’s writing. The second chapter of this thesis shows that characters, as well as the narratorial voice, are created through these modes of discourses and their attitude towards joy. In the third chapter, the body is explored in order to understand its use and importance in the writing of emotions in the poem. What surfaces is that Chaucer writes the body both materially and physiologically as well as metaphorically and socially. The body of joy is primarily the latter. Finally, the study of joy in Troilus and Criseyde ends with a close analysis of its grammar – verbal, temporal, spatial, poetic, figurative. This grammar can be idiosyncratic at times but also belong to broader cultural and theoretical discourses. Crucially, it constructs a joy which is exterior to the body by turning it into a place.
Studying joy offers a new approach to the poem and opens a new area in the history of emotion; an area for the study of positive affectivity as distinct from embodied sorrow. Eventually, joy exceeds the very definition of emotion. My study redefines what a literary emotion is and, more specifically, how we determine and detect emotionality in Middle English writing. The poem’s writing of joy is fragmented. Joy is expressed as disembodied and yet it is amorous and earthly; it is an emotion and yet it is exterior and objective. I argue that the poet exposes an earthly joy which goes beyond the humoural body and which is (a) good in itself – eventually joy is written as a value, but a felt value.

Keywords: Emotion
Advisor: Barr, H
Completeness of the ZW and ZX calculi

This thesis looks at two quantum motivated graphical calculi, the ZW calculus and ZX calculus. These two calculi are intended to perform qubit calculations using string diagrams. Both calculi are universal in the sense that they are able to represent all qubit maps, but they lack the completeness which means that they don't allow all qubit computation. The main goal of the thesis is to address the completeness issue.
The ZW calculus was completed by Hadzihasanovic in his DPhil thesis. We build on his work to do a completion for a fragment of the ZW calculus which describes operations in the fermionic quantum circuits. In the process, we discovered an important family of maps, the even and odd projectors. The even projectors is particularly important for the completion process. Next, we further restrict the calculus to only "even" maps and complete this fragment too. The odd projectors are important for this completion process. We give an interesting story for the even fragment ZW calculus: it describes a world without "real" particles, and the fermionic particles are manifestation of the curvature of spacetime and self 'fermionic' intersection and interaction of spacetime.
The ZX calculus was not complete and we solve this issue in this thesis. The technique used is a refinement of the one used in the paper on 'A Complete Axiomatisation of the ZX-Calculus for Clifford+T Quantum Mechanics' by Jeandel, Perdrix, and Vilmart. The basic idea of the technique is to translate the ZX calculus to the ZW calculus to analyse the problem, then translate it back. We also obtained many interesting generalising results which includes the completeness for the Clifford+T fragment and any fragments containing the Clifford+T fragment.
Finally, we end off with some interesting possible continuation of the thesis. Many of them are low hanging fruits. One of them is the extension of the calculi to represent qudits maps. The other is to generalise the ZW calculus to take semi-ring parameters which may be suited for other areas of computer science.

Keywords: String diagrams
ZX calculus
Applied category theory
Quantum computing
ZW calculus
Advisor: Coecke, B
The role of activity in remodelling area-specific neocortical circuits during development

How sensory activity contributes to the development of the brain has been a long-standing question in neuroscience (Katz & Shatz, 1996). A recent study by Marques-Smith et al. (2016) showed that a transient translaminar cortical circuit exists in the primary somatosensory barrel field (S1BF). This connection consists of a reciprocal connection between L5b somatostatin Lpar1-EGFP interneurons onto layer 4 spiny stellate neurons. This transient L5b-L4 connection was observed to be modulated by perturbations of sensory input and appeared to be required for correct integration of thalamic afferents into layer 4 of the adult mouse (Marques-Smith et al., 2016). This circuit was, therefore, an ideal candidate to examine the role of sensory activity on circuit refinement.
In this thesis I used laser scanning photo stimulation (LSPS) to map the developing L5b-L4 cortical circuit in the Celsr3jDlx5/6 mouse line, devoid of thalamocortical and corticothalamic connections, to investigate the role of sensory information during circuit development (Zhou et al., 2008). The presence and development of the L5b-L4 reciprocal circuit was found to occur independently of thalamic connections.
It was hypothesised that the L5b-L4 circuit may exist as a ubiquitous developmental mechanism in other sensory areas, therefore I mapped developing cortical circuitry in the primary visual cortex (V1) of mice. In V1, the L5b-L4 connection was not present in either WT or Celsr3jDlx5/6 mice, suggesting that intrinsic cortical properties have a central role in neonatal circuit development.
Due to S1BF and V1 circuitry differences, Lpar1-eGFP interneuron distributions and thalamic innervation were compared between the two regions. Both density and distribution of Lpar1-eGFP and SST+ cells differed between S1BF and V1. No timing differences in thalamic innervation were observed, however the cell types receiving direct thalamic input into layer 4 differed between S1BF and V1.
These findings suggest that although sensory-evoked activity can remodel features such as barrels and ODCs, some aspects of initial cortical circuit formation in the first 2-3 weeks of a mouse's life does not require thalamic-driven input.

Advisor: Butt, S
Molnar, Z
Staging language in Bermuda: phonology and parodic performance of Bermudian English

This thesis examines the link between social conditions and linguistic practice in Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda is an under-studied, often misunderstood context, home to a unique dialect of English which is under-represented in the literature on Lesser-Known Varieties (LKVEs). It is also an unusual, not-quite-post-colonial, ‘offshore’ setting with an unusual immigration pattern to match, which has led to intense debates about the meaning of national identity and ‘authentic’ Bermudian-ness. These debates are, inevitably, related to and reflected in language.
This thesis argues that Black Bermudian English (BBerE) is a sub-variety of BerE arising from a history of enslavement, segregation and socioeconomic inequality, and goes on to show that BBerE is both mocked and simplified in parodic dialect performances, both written and spoken, common among white Bermudian men. The first part of the thesis gives a phonological overview of BBerE, and introduces Bermuda as a sociolinguistic setting, providing a foundation for further analyses of the variety. The second part focuses on various forms of dialect performance among a white male community of practice well-known for theatrical stylisations of BerE.
Qualitative and quantitative analyses of performances which occurred during sociolinguistic interviews find them to be a form of racialised mock language. Contextual analysis shows that they construct a caricature with socially undesirable tastes, skills, and habits, and link these qualities to salient features of BBerE. Sociophonetic analysis compares the pronunciations of phonological variables among black and white speakers, and finds that white speakers’ performances target black variants missing from their own repertoire, while failing to produce the same complex patterning found in the black group.
The speakers interviewed for this thesis overtly express the view that their performances represent legitimate self-parody, based on the idea that all Bermudians are immigrants from somewhere or another; ‘there’s no such thing as a native Bermudian.’ I argue, however, that the performances themselves reveal contradictions in this ideology. A ‘colourblind’ political stance is invoked to justify the appropriation of a black variety which the performers do not themselves speak, and which they deploy in ways that reproduce racist stereotypes; at the same time this appropriation is motivated by an essentialist idea of black Bermudian speakers as being ‘authentic’ in a way white speakers are not. The thesis introduces a wealthy island context to the literature on racialised dialect parody, prompting further investigation into privileged peripheries like Bermuda and advocating a nuanced and particularistic approach to the difficult sociolinguistic problem of authenticity.

Keywords: Racialisation
Language mocking
Dialect parody
Bermuda
Advisor: Cameron, D
Temple, R