VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A rigorous examination of sequentially expressed algorithms to reveal their concurrency hierarchies

The methods of Scott-Strachey semantics are applied to the problem of writing programs for parallel computers, using serial languages such as are in common use, with compilers which attempt to discover and exploit potential parallelism in independent sections of program.
A mathematical model of a parallel computer is first developed in detail, and in chapters 1 and 2 three basic conditions are derived which together ensure determinacy of operation in a parallel machine, first in purely semantic terms, then in a form more related to the syntactic structure of a language.
The remaining chapters apply these basic conditions to three actual languages, showing how the conditions can be reduced to purely syntactic (hence compiler evaluable) tests. Chapter 3 uses a very simple language to introduce the techniques required. Chapter 4 adds procedures, with all the complexity they involve. Chapter 5 considers the rather more fruitful area of arrays and loops.
The result, in all but the most trivial cases, is a rather complicated set of conditions which, while they produce the desired effect, suggest that today's commonly used languages are not the most suitable method of exploiting parallel computers.

Advisor: Strachey, C
Stoy, J
Analysis of the brainstem auditory evoked potentials in neurological disease

Many phenomena in the BAEP are difficult to explain on the basis of the accepted hypothesis of its origin (after Jewett, 1970). The alternative mechanism of origin to which these phenomena point is summation of oscillations. Therefore, simulation of the BAEP by a mathematical model consisting of the addition of four sine waves was tested. The model did simulate a normal BAEP as well variations in the waveform produced by reversing click polarity. This simulation gives further clues to the origin of the BAEP. The four sine waves begin simultaneously; corresponding BAEP oscillations must, therefore, originate from a single structure. These oscillations begin in less than half a millisecond after the click. This suggests that the structure from which they arise is outside the brainstem. This alternative mechanism indicates that wave latencies do not reflect nervous conduction between discrete nuclei, and interpretation of BAEP abnormality need to be reconsidered. It also implies that mathematical frequency analysis is more appropriate, but this could be applied only when these methods have been perfected. Meanwhile, through visual analysis and recognition of oscillations, abnormality can be detected and described in terms that may have physiological significance.

Keywords: multiple sclerosis
neuronal oscillations
evoked potentials
click polarity
brainstem
waveform analysis
auditory
Advisor: Matthews, B
Kinetic resolution strategies

This thesis is concerned with the use of kinetic resolution strategies for the preparation of enantiomerically pure materials.
Chapter 1 introduces kinetic resolution. The limitations of conventional kinetic resolutions are described and the methods used to overcome these limitations are discussed.
Chapter 2 presents a double kinetic resolution strategy where the recovered reactant from the first kinetic resolution is used as starting material in a second kinetic resolution. In the second kinetic resolution the major enantiomer present in the starting material is the faster reacting enantiomer. Application of this double kinetic resolution strategy to the Sharpless epoxidation is shown to enable enhanced product enantiomeric excesses to be obtained.
Chapter 3 presents an alternative double kinetic resolution strategy where the product from the first kinetic resolution is used as starting material in a second kinetic resolution. In the second kinetic resolution the major enantiomer present in the starting material is the faster reacting enantiomer. Application of this double kinetic resolution strategy using lipase mediated esterification and hydrolysis reactions is shown to enable enhanced product yields to be obtained.
Chapter 4 describes the preparation of an enantiomerically pure 2-substituted monoprotected propan-1,3-diol derivative via combination of an asymmetric synthesis and a kinetic resolution.
Chapter 5 describes the preparation of the pheromone sulcatol in enantiomerically pure form via combination of an asymmetric synthesis and a kinetic resolution.
Chapter 6 presents an investigation into the structure of lithium(α-methylbenzyl)- benzyl amide.
Chapter 7 describes an attempted dynamic kinetic resolution of 2-substituted monoprotected propan-1,3-diol derivatives.
Chapter 8 describes an attempted preparation of the iron crotonyl complex E-[(η5-C5H5)Fe(CO)(PPh3)(COCH=CHCH3)] in enantiomerically pure form via enzymic kinetic resolution.

Advisor: Davies, S
Synthesis and elaboration of heterocycles via palladium-catalyzed C-H functionalization

Chapter 1 is a brief literature review of the most recent progress in the area of C-H functionalization via palladium catalysis. This covers the functionalization of electron deficient arenes and heterocycles with alkenyl and alkyl halides both using inter- and intra-molecular reactions. The chapter also contains an overview of recent work from the Willis group.
Chapter 2 presents the functionalization of electron deficient arenes and alkenyl bromides using palladium catalysis, as well as the use of statistical analysis software for optimizing the cross-coupling reaction.
Chapter 3 describes the cross-coupling of substituted benzoxazoles, benzothiazole and benzimidazole with a range of alkenyl iodides using palladium catalysis. The reaction can tolerate both (E) and (Z) disubstituted alkenes and tri-substituted alkenyl iodides, with retention of the double bond geometry.
Chapter 4 details the synthesis of sultams via an intramolecular C-H functionalization using palladium catalysis. The chapter covers the optimization of the starting material synthesis as well as the cross-coupling reaction. We can access the sulfonamides from cyclohexenone and were able to incorporate a large range of substitution patterns (Scheme 3).
Finally, Chapter 5 contains all the experimental details, general considerations and compound data. All the NMR spectra of novel compounds can be found in the appendix.

Keywords: palladium-catalysis
organic synthesis
organic
chemistry
heterocycles
Advisor: Willis, MC
The lectin pathway of complement activation

The complement system is an important immune system mechanism involved in both the recognition and elimination of invading pathogens. It is activated by three different pathways: The classical pathway, which relies on binding of C1, and results in the cleavage of C4 and C2 through activation of C1r and C1s; the alternative pathway that relies on the spontaneous hydrolysis of C3 and the lectin pathway. The lectin pathway is activated by binding of Mannan-binding lectin (MBL) or the ficolins (L-ficolin, H-ficolin and M-ficolin) to microbial binding motifs, and the subsequent activation of the MBL-associated serine proteases (MASP) 1/ 2/ 3. Of these MASP2 has been identified as the enzyme responsible for the activation of complement by C4 and C2 cleavage. The work presented here will focus on four different aspects of the lectin pathway: specificity and stoichiometry of the L-ficolin protein complex, expression of H-ficolin, substrate characterization for MASP1 and investigation of the prothrombin activation potential of MASP2. L-ficolin binding specificity was investigated using glycan array technology, and it was found that L-ficolin, instead of recognizing single monosaccharides like MBL, instead binds to extended oligosaccharide structures. The binding to these was dependent not only on the presence of acetyl groups, but also on their orientation in space. It was also found that L-ficolin in serum is found as a multimeric protein complex composed of 18 polypeptide chains and associated with one MASP dimer. The expression of H-ficolin resulted in the generation of a stable mammalian cell line producing oligomerized and biologically functional H-ficolin. MASP1 substrate specificity was investigated by two different procedures. Firstly fractionated plasma was subjected to MASP1 treatment in an attempt to identify a plasma protein substrate. This did not yield any substrate candidates, since only cleavage of the protease inhibitor α-2-macroglobulin could be detected. Additionally the thrombin-like activity of MASP1 was investigated through cleavage experiments done with factor XIII and fibrinogen. These experiments showed that the factor XIII cleavage site for MASP1 and thrombin is identical. This was also found for the fibrinogen β-chain but not for the α-chain showing that MASP1 interaction with fibrinogen is distinct from that of thrombin. An earlier observation that MASP2 was capable of activating prothrombin and generating thrombin was further characterized. Here it was shown that the activation of prothrombin by MASP2 is identical to that by factor Xa, which is the enzyme undertaking this role in the coagulation system, and that the activation can result in deposition of fibrin on the surface upon which MASP2 is bound. The prothrombin activation potential of MASP2 was also utilized to develop a new MASP2 activity assay, which was shown to be capable of measuring MASP2 activity, when MASP2 is bound, via MBL (or L-ficolin) to appropriate surfaces.

Keywords: ficolins
lectin pathway
coagulation system
MASPS
complement
Advisor: Sim, R
Investigating the viability of motoric task performance as a clinical biomarker in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease

Evaluating hand tapping as a clinical biomarker in Parkinson and Huntington’s diseases, using an Android device was the objective of the study. A novel hand -tapping tool using an Android OS was developed over a year, which included 5 tapping tasks. The application was meant for installation on Samsung Galaxy 7” tablet devices. The tasks included finger tapping; metronome based tapping, simple and choice reaction time and was used to study a cross section of 45 controls of three different age groups, from 20-30 years, 35 -45 years and 65-80 years. Age and gender matched controls to Parkinson’s subjects (n=21) and Huntington’s disease patients (n=17) were assessed using the same tapping tasks. Baseline values for various tapping measures such as tapping rate, inter-tap interval, force, pro-tap (simple) reaction time, anti-tap(choice) reaction time were obtained. The study reported a significant difference between 20-30 year olds and 65-80 year olds in tapping rates and inter-tap-interval of the double target tapping task. Displacement, pro-tap time and anti-tap times were lower in 20-30s and 35-45 year olds compared to the 65-80s group. PD patients showed markedly lower values and were significantly different from controls in tapping rates, displacement of single target tapping, tapping rates and inter-tap-interval of double target tapping, pro-tap and anti-tap times and their standard deviation. HD patients had significantly lower values in inter-tap-intervals, displacement of single finger tapping, tapping rates, inter-tap interval and displacement of double target tapping, pro-tap and anti-tap reaction times. In conclusion, the study enabled us to identify tapping parameters and reaction time tests which have the potential to differentiate between Parkinson’s and Huntington’s patients with controls, therefore making motoric task performance a potentially viable clinical biomarker in HD and PD.

Keywords: Parkinson's disease
clinical neurology
Huntington's disease
technology in medicine
hand tapping
Android
neuroscience
Advisor: Kennard, C
Hicks, S
Antoniades, C
Continuous monitoring during haemodialysis

Intradialytic Hypotension (IDH) is the commonest complication of maintenance haemodialysis and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, there is no standardised definition of IDH, making comparisons between studies difficult.
This observational study with a total of 80 patients and over 600 dialysis sessions showed a poor correlation between symptoms and hypotension. Importantly, patients experienced low blood pressure without symptoms, so continuous intradialytic blood pressure monitoring is required to identify this asymptomatic group. In light of these findings, a revised definition of IDH is suggested. This study also aimed to identify predictors of IDH that could be detected in sufficient time to allow a mitigating intervention.
A novel non-invasive alternative for continuous blood pressure monitoring is introduced which uses intra-fistula pressure data from the sensors sited in the extracorporeal circuit of the dialysis machine. Results show that in the majority of patients, changes in intra-fistula pressure correlate with blood pressure measurements obtained by a standard oscillometric device.
To investigate whether IDH can be predicted, a photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveform was obtained from a pulse oximeter attached to the finger or ear. Continuous PPG monitoring of patients with IDH during dialysis demonstrated that some IDH episodes were predictable using the variation in the PPG baseline with respiration as a surrogate for low blood volume. Additionally, the area under the curve of the PPG waveform can be used as a surrogate for cardiac output and peripheral vascular tone, resulting in a reasonable predictor for potentially critical changes in blood pressure during dialysis.
Individually, the novel metrics described here are limited in their identification of IDH in all patients affected, but in combination they may be used to develop a multi-parameter predictive model. The relative merits of personalised versus population-based models are explored and a conclusion is drawn that personalised multi-parameter data fusion modelling for haemodialysis patients would be an important area for future work.

Keywords: haemodialysis
intradialytic hypotension
blood pressure
Advisor: Pugh, C
Tarassenko, L
Scattering studies of excitations and phase transitions

This thesis describes a diversity of scattering experiments on a number of different systems. Using time-of-flight neutron scattering, a study of polycrystalline sodium in the highmomentum limit known as the impulse approximation has been performed. The purpose of this study was to look for anharmonic effects in the neutron recoil scattering of sodium as the temperature was increased from 30K to 300K. No such effects were detected and the results agreed with an isotropic harmonic solid to an accuracy of about 4%. Two experiments were carried out on antiferromagnetic systems using triple-axis neutron scattering techniques to measure the spin-wave dispersion relations. The first was on CuO to verify its description as a spin 1/2 one-dimensional antiferromagnet. The dispersion relation was measured along the chain direction up to an energy transfer of 8OmeV. This was done above and below the Néel temperature (TN =240K). However, no evidence was seen to justify the description of CuO as a one-dimensional antiferromagnet, with the spin waves behaving like those in a classical three-dimensional system. The other spin-wave study examined the two-dimensional antiferromagnet KFeF4 . The measurement of the spin-wave dispersion relation at two temperatures (50K and 100K) below the Néel temperature (TN =136.75±0.25K), confirmed the description of KFeF4 as a two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet with small Ising anisotropy. Studies of the magnetic phase transition in KFeF4 revealed that below the Néel temperature, the critical behaviour is described by two-dimensional Ising models, and above a crossover to Heisenberg behaviour is seen. This crossover was detected by measuring the order parameter below TN, and the static and dynamic susceptibilities above TN using neutron scattering techniques. The results were compared to power-law behaviour and also to theories for the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet and the more recent quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnetic model. The final study of KFeF4 involved an x-ray experiment on the structural phase transition around 400K. It has been suggested that there is a second-order transition at 410K to an incommensurate phase, which then undergoes a first-order lock-in transition at 400K to the low-temperature structure. This single crystal x-ray scattering study confirms the existence of the first-order phase transition, but shows no evidence for a higher temperature second-order transition or for the incommensurate phase.

Advisor: Cowley, R
Karl Barth's understanding of the Resurrection

The thesis argues that Barth's dogmatic theology provides the appropriate model for theology and the correct context for understanding his treatment of the resurrection: many critiques fail by attacking symptoms, not cause; and the underlying cause - his dogmatic method, while wide-ranging - is affirmed here. This is done without relapsing into uncritical "Barthian fundamentalism"; indeed, many aspects of his theology of resurrection are subjected to considerable criticism here.
Part One of this thesis covers Barth's earlier pilgrimage – from his "liberal" era, through his break with liberalism to his fully fledged "dialectical" theology. In this context, the resurrection is seen to move from the peripheral, via the realistic (as expression of God's power), to the epistemologically important.
In Part Two, Barth's virgin birth/empty tomb parallelism is discussed and shown to lack a biblical basis. His talk of the 'forty days' of the Easter period is seen as suppressing Pauline in favour of Lucan chronology, and his idea of this time as the 'pure presence of God' is problematic. The place of the resurrection in IV/1-4 is analysed and discussed. The Klappert/Pannenberg debate on the interpretation of §59 is explored, and Klappert's account is largely rejected. Barth's architectonics are explored, and seen to be a means of distortion in his theology, inflating the relevance of revelation. And Barth's reduction of resurrection to revelation alone is seen to have deleterious effects on his anthropology, pneumatology and ethics.
Finally, Barth's theology is set in contrast – first with Pannenberg, then more generally, Pannenberg's approach is shown to be suspect in the first chapter, and in the second, methodologies are differentiated: phenomenology, apologetics and merely apparent dogmatics are rejected. Barth's own consistent dogmatic method is affirmed, even if, as the recapitulation of conclusions shows, the details of his theology of resurrection can be challenged and improved.
Quantum control of donor spins in silicon and their environment

Donors in silicon, which combine an electron and nuclear spin, are some of the most promising candidates for quantum information. The electron spin has been proposed as a register with fast manipulation and the nuclear spin as a memory with long coherence times. However, this division reduces the complexity of the donor system, in particular behaviors emerging from their interaction. In natural silicon, there is also the presence of 29Si nuclear spins in the donor environment; though they are generally seen as a source of decoherence, they are quantum systems that can be investigated too. The main subject of this thesis is the study of the interactions between these various spins, using different methods to probe and control them.
I first concentrate on the coupling between the donor and the 29Si spins. This coupling can be perturbed by the application of dynamical decoupling on the donor electron spin, whose evolution can be made sensitive to the number of 29Si spins interacting together. I then propose an error correction scheme using the donor and 29Si spins, showing key requirements such as coherence times and methods for manipulation and initialization. Secondly, I focus on the donor itself, in a regime where the hyperfine and Zeeman couplings compete with each other. Here, the spin transitions can have different sensitivities to the magnetic environment, and can even be suppressed to first order, resulting in coherence times up to seconds with electron spin-like manipulation times. Controlling this sensitivity was also used to probe the effect of the donor on the 29Si spin bath evolution. Finally, I use electric fields to modulate the hyperfine coupling within the donor. I first characterize the spins’ sensitivity to the electric field, and then demonstrate electrical switching of the nuclear spin response to an external magnetic excitation.

Keywords: Donors in silicon
decoherence
spins
Advisor: Morton, J
Benjamin, S
Novel functional nano-coatings on glass by spray deposition

Nanocomposite thin films with gold nanoparticles embedded in a host metal oxide prepared by spray pyrolysis deposition have been investigated. A single-step process has been developed using a one-pot solution containing precursors for both gold nanoparticles and host metal oxides. The films obtained display combined features of colouration, electrical conductivity and solar control. In this study two precursors for gold nanoparticles were used: preformed gold colloids and HAuCl4. Three metal oxide host materials, TiO2, SnO2 and ZnO, were investigated. These films were deposited at a substrate temperature of 200-600 °C. Powder X-ray diffraction analysis reveals the presence of metallic gold. SEM inspection typically showed particulate gold of 5-20 nm in diameter, distributed at the surface or within the host matrix. Optical spectroscopy showed an intense absorption in the visible region due to the characteristic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effects of gold nanoparticles. The wavelength of the SPR peaks varies depending on the refractive index of surrounding host material which is significantly influenced by the substrate deposition temperature. On the other hand, SnO2 and ZnO, together with the introduction of dopants, were further investigated as suitable materials for transparent conducting oxides (TCO). SnO2:F films were found to attain very low electrical resistivity, while ZnO films exhibit higher transparency in the visible. A double layered structure with a TCO layer of SnO2:F on top of a layer embedded with gold nanoparticles has been employed to achieve the combined functionalities of conductivity and colouration. The electrical conductivity is significantly enhanced compared to a nanocomposite single layer film due to the introduction of the TCO top layer. In this thesis, spray pyrolysis deposition has demonstrated a simple and rapid approach to the production of a variety of thin films. It can be immediately integrated with current industrial coating equipment and scaled up for large-scale production process.

Keywords: Thin Film
Gold nanoparticles
Spray pyrolysis
Nanomaterials
Advisor: Dobson, P
Sheard, S