VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Vergence eye movements and dyslexia

Many theories have been proposed to explain why some otherwise intelligent children have unexpected problems with learning to read. In this thesis, evidence is presented -in support of the hypothesis that one cause of such children's difficulties is failure to develop accurate vergence eye movement control. This leads to impaired ability to localise small targets reliably, thus explaining the 'visual' nature of some of these children's reading problems.
In 432 dyslexic and normal children vergence eye movements were recorded during the Dunlop Test of visual direction sense. Poor vergence eye movements were associated with variable ('unstable') responses in the Dunlop Test whilst good vergence control concorded with stable Dunlop Test responses. Further analysis showed that many dyslexic children were significantly impaired in several measures of vergence control when compared with either chronological or reading age matched controls. The parameters which distinguished most clearly between dyslexic and normal children's binocular control were found to be a target 1 degree of angular subtense moving at 0.6 degrees/second.
A computer game was also developed to measure the accuracy of children's spatial localisation and to compare this with the results of the Dunlop Test. Children with unstable responses in the Dunlop Test were significantly worse in this test than children with stable responses. Overall, females were poorer at this test than males, with unstable females registering the lowest scores. A difference between the percentage error rate in the left and right hemifields was also shown. Females with unstable Dunlop Test responses were poorer than stable females in both visual fields, while unstable males made more errors than their stable counterparts only in the left visual field. These results provide confirmation of the hypothesis that females are less highly lateralised for visuospatial functions than males. A longitudinal study was carried out over 4 years on a cohort of 29 primary school children. The children were found to improve in the stability of their Dunlop Test responses, the stability of their vergence control and in their stereoacuity as they grew older. The children with unstable Dunlop Test responses and poor vergence control were found be significantly worse readers than those who showed good binocular control. Also children who took longer to develop stable responses to the Dunlop Test had poorer reading ability than those who developed good binocular control at an early age.
The results are discussed in relation to a model of the development of reading ability and other postulated causes of reading difficulties. It is concluded that impaired vergence control may be associated with unreliable spatial localisation of words and letters. This is thought to be a sufficient cause for the difficulties some children show when learning to read, though it may often appear in combination with impaired linguistic skills.

Advisor: Stein, J
Punishing the poor again? Irregularity, the 'criminalisation of migration' and precarious labour markets in the UK and Germany

The increasingly punitive nature of immigration control across the Western world and the overrepresentation of foreign nationals in European prisons has revitalised criminological interest in issues of migration. Alessandro De Giorgi (2010: 153) and others contend that restrictive, 'illegalising' immigration admission policies and 'hyper-criminalising' immigration controls create a population of migrant workers on European territory, whose legal precarity makes them ideal fodder for employment in post-Fordist neoliberal labour markets.
This thesis refines the neoliberal-materialist analysis of immigration policy, as described most succinctly by De Giorgi (2010), through a comparative case study of the UK and Germany. To this end, it explores the various economic, political and cultural factors that have driven the development of a punitive regulation of immigration in the two countries and compares immigration control practices. It also examines the ways in which immigration status siphons immigrants into precarious work and how this process occurs differently in the UK and Germany.
An underlying concern is to examine the extent to which differences in the underlying labour markets of the two countries, as described in Hall and Soskice's (2001) Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) typology, structure differences in the processes outlined in the neoliberal-materialist analysis. While the development of immigration controls is motivated by a wide variety of factors outside of the labour market, the fact that motivating factors are largely shared among countries of the same VoC type suggests some relationship with the underlying economic structure. In addition, the thesis argues that foreigners are vulnerable to specific forms of workplace exploitation and social marginalisation in 'coordinated' Germany because of factors associated with the VoC – a finding that also has important connotations for understanding the more intense overrepresentation of foreign nationals in German prisons. At the same time, it highlights the importance of other cultural and social factors, unique to each country, in the politics of immigration.
The final section reverses the previous line of the enquiry by examining whether immigration 'neoliberalises' industrial relations in Germany. It finds that immigration's effects depend, to a significant extent, on the degree to which foreigners are constructed as precarious workers through state policy. In turn, immigration policy's wider effects on the labour market suggest native workers might also have an interest in preventing the precaritisation of their immigrant counterparts. Finally, immigration status may become less and less important in understanding the exploitation of workers in Europe, as citizenship is associated with fewer rights.

Keywords: migration controls
exploitation
precarious work
Varieties of Capitalism
Advisor: Bosworth, M
Lacey, N
Law and religious organizations: exceptions, non-interference and justification

While the United Kingdom has a general commitment to religious freedom, there is currently very little written on what this commitment ought to mean for religious organizations. This thesis contributes to religious freedom literature by considering when United Kingdom law ought to apply to religious organizations. It answers this question by exploring certain potential conflicts between United Kingdom law and religious organizations paying particular attention to those that are under-examined and where the possibility of differential treatment is strongest.
The thesis is divided into three parts. Part One consists of Chapter One and sets out the doctrinal and theoretical foundations of religious freedom. Here the thesis accepts that autonomy is the liberal normative justification for religious freedom.
Part Two consists of Chapters Two to Chapter Seven and examines the interaction between United Kingdom law and religious organizations in six contexts: employment; the provision of goods and services; membership admission; internal discipline, internal property disputes; and family matters. Each chapter in Part Two is divided into two parts. The first part considers the legal doctrine that applies to religious organizations in that context. It then considers whether that approach can be justified in light of the commitment to religious freedom and autonomy identified in Part One.
Part Three consists of the final chapter, Chapter Eight. This chapter uses the conclusions from the preceding doctrinal chapters to suggest a general approach for determining when law should apply to religious organizations. The thesis concludes that a contextual approach, that considers the often competing interests involved, is the best way of determining when law should apply to religious organizations. Such consideration ought to pay special attention to the importance of the particular activity to ensuring that the option of a religious way of life is available.

Keywords: freedom of religion
Advisor: Craig, PP
Techniques and tools for the verification of concurrent systems

Model checking is an automatic formal verification technique for establishing correctness of systems. It has been widely used in industry for analysing and verifying complex safety-critical systems in application domains such as avionics, medicine and computer security, where manual testing is infeasible and even minor errors could have dire consequences.
In our increasingly parallelised world, concurrency has become pivotal and seamlessly woven within programming paradigms, however, extremely challenging when it comes to modelling and establishing correctness of intended behaviour. Tools for model checking concurrent systems face severe limitations due to scalability problems arising from the need to examine all possible interleavings (schedules) of executions of parallel components. Moreover, concurrency poses additional challenges to model checking, giving rise to phenomena such as nondeterminism, deadlock, livelock, etc.
In this thesis we focus on adapting and developing novel model-checking techniques for concurrent systems in the setting of the process algebra CSP and its primary model checker FDR. CSP allows for a compact modelling and precise analysis of event-based concurrency, grounded on synchronous message passing as a fundamental mechanism of inter-component communication. In particular, we investigate techniques based on symbolic model checking, static analysis and abstraction, all of them exploiting the compositionality inherent in CSP and targeting to increase the scale of systems that can be tractably analysed.
Firstly, we investigate symbolic model-checking techniques based on Boolean satisfiability (SAT), which we adapt for the traces model of CSP. We tailor bounded model checking (BMC), that can be used for bug detection, and temporal k-induction, which aims at establishing inductiveness of properties and is capable of both bug finding and establishing the correctness of systems.
Secondly, we propose a static analysis framework for establishing livelock freedom of CSP processes, with lessons for other concurrent formalisms. As opposed to traditional exhaustive state-space exploration, our framework employs a system of rules on the syntax of a process to calculate a sound approximation of its fair/co-fair sets of events. The rules either safely classify a process as livelock-free or report inconclusiveness, thereby trading accuracy for speed.
Finally, we develop a series of abstraction/refinement schemes for the traces, stable-failures and failures-divergences models of CSP and embed them into a fully automated and compositional CEGAR framework.
For each of those techniques we present an implementation and an experimental evaluation on a set of CSP benchmarks.

Keywords: process algebra
abstraction
model checking
SAT
automated verification
CSP
static analysis
FDR
concurrency
CEGAR
tools
livelock
symbolic techniques
Advisor: Roscoe, A
Ouaknine, J
Green Star Japan: language and internationalism in the Japanese Esperanto movement, 1905-1944

The planned language Esperanto achieved popularity in early twentieth century Japan, inspiring a national movement which was the largest outside Europe. Esperanto was designed to facilitate greater international and inter-cultural communication and understanding; the history of the language in Japan reveals a rich tradition of internationalism in Japan, stretching from the beginnings of the movement, in the wake of the Russo-Japanese war, through the end of the Pacific war, when, for a brief period, organised Esperanto in Japan ceased.
Building upon existing studies of internationalism amongst elite opinion makers in Japan, this history of Esperanto reveals unexpected examples of internationalism amongst the broader Japanese public, a number of competing conceptions of the international world, and their realisation through a range of transnational activities. Esperanto was at once an intellectual phenomenon, and a language which could be put into immediate and concrete practice. The diversity of social groups and intellectual positions within the Japanese Esperanto community reveals internationalism and cosmopolitanism, not as well defined, static concepts, but as broad spaces in which different ideas of the world and the community of mankind could be debated. What linked the various different groups and individuals drawn into the Japanese Esperanto movement was a shared desire to make contact with, and help to reform, the world beyond Japan's borders, as well as a shared realisation of the vital role of language in making this contact possible. From radical socialists to conservative academics, and from Japanese diplomats at the League of Nations to members of rural communities in the deep north of Japan, although their politics often differed, Japanese Esperantists came together to participate in the re-imagining of the modern world; in doing so they became part of a transnational community, one which reveals insights into both modern Japanese history, and the nature of internationalism.

Keywords: transnationalism
internationalism
Esperanto
modern Japan
Advisor: Konishi, S
Functional organisation of the Hrd1 ubiquitin ligase complex and its role in ERAD

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD) of misfolded proteins of the secretory pathway is crucial for ER homeostasis and the physiological importance of this mechanism is reflected by more than 60 diseases that have been linked to ERAD to date. The best characterised mammalian ERAD complex is centred on the ubiquitin ligase Hrd1, and for a complete understanding of the dynamics of the ERAD network it is important to thoroughly characterise the interactions within the Hrd1 complex and to decipher the functions of the individual accessory factors.
SEL1L is a well characterised interaction partner of Hrd1 and here we identify a highly hydrophobic region in the lumenal part of SEL1L as necessary, but not sufficient, to interact with Hrd1; as a consequence, the topology of SEL1L may need to be re-evaluated. Furthermore, we investigate the roles of the novel Hrd1 interaction partners AUP1 and FAM8A1 in ERAD. We establish here that AUP1 adds to the complexity of the ERAD network by making the cognate E2 of gp78, Ube2g2, accessible to Hrd1 and by regulating the access of polyubiquitinated proteins to the Hrd1 complex. Moreover, we demonstrate that Hrd1 is the regulator of FAM8A1 half-life and that the interaction between these two proteins is necessary for degradation of the lumenal ERAD model substrate TTRD18G.

Keywords: ERAD
Hrd1
FAM8A1
Advisor: Christianson, J
An empirical study of marriage and social stratification

The dual objectives of this thesis are to assess the merits of certain statistical methods as applied to sociological data and to use statistical methods to produce interesting and worthwhile substantive results.
The main statistical focus of the thesis is the analysis of two-way tables, for which purpose association models and correspondence analysis are used. Some of the tables analysed require the application of quasi-association models and association models with more than one dimension. Elsewhere in the thesis a proportional hazards model and various log-linear models are fitted.
The substantive focus of the thesis is the relationship between marital formation/dissolution and social stratification in modern Britain. Particular attention is paid to assortative marriage for social status, with the relationships between spouses' occupations, educational levels and social origins being considered in detail. Assortative marriage for religion and for party political identification/voting intention are also examined.
The data analysed come from a variety of social surveys, including both government surveys (e.g. various General Household Surveys, and the Family Formation Survey) and academic surveys (e.g. the Oxford Mobility Survey and the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative survey).
The thesis conclusively demonstrates the utility of association models, log-linear models and proportional hazards models as applied to data relating to marital formation/dissolution. Among the numerous substantive findings are that there was a significant post-war decline in the strength of the relationship between spouses' social origins, and that unemployment appears to cause an increase in the risk of marital dissolution.
Processing, microstructure and properties of polymer-based nano-composite dielectrics for capacitor applications

The processing and properties of novel polymer-based nano-composite (PNC) dielectrics for capacitor applications has been studied. PNCs were fabricated via a vacuum based deposition technique and their micro/nano-structure, chemical and dielectric properties investigated. After process development and optimisation, co-deposited Al and nylon-6 PNCs had a dielectric constant k∼7 at an approximate Al volume fraction of 0.3 that agreed with analytical predictions if it was assumed that the Al transformed to an oxide in-situ and/or after deposition. The significant effect of absorbed water vapour and temperature on PNC dielectric properties was revealed using different types of post-deposition heat treatment.
Alternately-deposited PNCs consisting of Al or Ag 2-20 nm layers sandwiched between nylon-6 layers were fabricated in which the overall PNC Al or Ag volume fraction was controlled by varying the nominal Al or Ag layer thickness. Ag layers comprised of discrete nano-islands that produced a nano-capacitor network effect that increased k to ∼11. In the case of Al layers, when the layer thickness was ≥ 5 nm, corresponding to a nominal volume fraction of 0.1, Al (core)-oxide (shell) nanoparticles were formed and the PNC dielectric constant increased to ∼19. The detailed nano-structure of the core-shell particles was studied using various types of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and the elevations in dielectric constant ascribed to multiple-interface polarisation effects dependent on the formation of the core-shell structure.
PNCs based on alternate deposition of Ti sandwiched in nylon-6, and then both Ti and Ag in nylon-6 were also fabricated, with k reaching ∼73 for Ag+Ti/nylon-6 PNCs. As well as Ti-based core (metal)-shell (oxide) particles, the Ag volume fraction was sufficiently high in the 10 nm nylon-6 layers to again form a nano-capacitor network that contributed to the overall device capacitance and effective dielectric constant. Again, various types of high magnification TEM were critical in resolving the Ti-based core-shell structure and its role in high-k behaviour.
The vacuum-based alternate deposition technique has been developed to offer ease of operation, reliability, flexibility and applicability to chemically different filler and matrix systems in the fabrication of high-k PNC based capacitors, in which high-k performance relies critically on the formation of core (metal)-shell (oxide) particles in both Al and Ti based systems.

Keywords: polymer nanocomposites
polarisation
dielectric thin films
layer-by-layer deposition
transmission electron microscopy
Advisor: Grant, P
Young, N
Copyright and collective authorship

Many scholars have suggested that current copyright law is ill-equipped to the challenges of determining the authorship of collaborative work. This thesis analyses four case studies of large scale collaboration (Wikipedia, Indigenous art, scientific collaborations and film) in order to consider how best to determine the authorship of the creative works that they produce for the purposes of copyright law. Current scholarship and much of the case law has tended to favour a restrictive approach to the grant of joint authorship status, in order to minimise the number of potential authors of a work. This is motivated by instrumental/pragmatic concerns related to the ease of exploiting a copyright work. As joint authors are often joint first owners of copyright, proponents of this approach fear that a minor contributor might cause hold-up problems by refusing to consent to licence or assign their copyright interest. This thesis argues that an instrumental/pragmatic approach to the application of the joint authorship test is undesirable, because it distances the test both from the creativity reality of collective authorship and from copyright’s notion of the author. In addition, the instrumental/pragmatic approach relies upon assumptions about creators, the creative process and the exploitation of creative works which are not borne out in the case studies.
Building on the insights from the four case studies, the thesis argues that the best approach to applying the joint authorship test to works of collective authorship is one that is inclusive (of all those who have made a more than de minimis contribution of creative choices to the protected expression) and contextual (in that it takes the context of creativity into account). In coming to this conclusion the thesis also offers broader lessons about the nature of authorship and the ongoing relevance of copyright law standards for the regulation of collaborative creativity.

Keywords: Collaboration
Social Norms
Intellectual Property law
Joint Authorship
Authorship
Intellectual Property
Law
Copyright
Ultrasound to assess lipid content in salmon muscle

In this thesis, ultrasound pulse transit time measurement techniques are applied to aquaculture, specifically to measure the intramuscular fat in salmon muscle tissue. The main advantages of this technique are that it is noninvasive and that it uses low-cost components.
Fat in salmon muscle exists as oil dispersed throughout the tissue. Therefore, a phantom was built to empirically model a dispersed fat system. The phantom was a mixture of low-fat milk and high-fat double cream. By varying the quantities of each component, the fat level of the phantom could be controlled. A trend of increasing speed of sound and attenuation with fat content was observed. Prom velocity measurements at a single temperature, it was possible to predict the fat content of the mixture to within ±1.5% fat. A measurement system was created to measure the sample thickness and the speed of sound through a sample at the same time. Velocity and attenuation measurements were made on fifty samples of salmon muscle tissue containing two distinct fat ranges. A trend of decreasing speed of sound with fat content was observed. Further measurements were taken on twelve more samples and compared to the results of chemical fat analysis to determine the strength of the correlation between fat content and speed of sound through the samples. Again, a trend of decreasing speed of sound with increasing fat content was observed (r=0.73, 71=12). This trend was not as strong as that observed for the phantom due to natural variation in the structure of the tissue. A conclusion drawn from this part of the research is that it may be possible to group the data into "high fat", "medium fat" and "low fat" categories. Attenuation measurements proved too dependent on muscle structure to yield a correlation between attenuation and fat content.
Ray-tracing techniques were used to model the propagation velocity of a wavefront travelling through a single salmon sample. The model provided an insight into how variations in temperature, fat content, myoseptum thickness and myosepta configuration affect measured velocity.
This thesis provides an insight into how ultrasound velocity measurement may be used to assess the fat content of salmon white muscle tissue. It also provides a starting point for future work in which these techniques may be combined with a vision system to enable similar measurements on live fish.

Advisor: Probert-Smith, P