VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Russia in the news of its neighbours: Cross border media influence in Ukraine and Belarus

This thesis investigates the nature and impact of Russian influence on Russian-language print and broadcast news in Ukraine and Belarus. TV channels and publications with shareholders or partners in Russia are widely available in both the countries studied; existing literature suggests that such ‘Russian’ media are a source of regional power for the Kremlin. To shed light on how Russian partners and shareholders affect editorial treatment of Russia, the thesis compares content samples from 27 TV news bulletins and newspapers available in Ukraine or Belarus, some of which have Russian partners or shareholders while others do not. It also draws on in-depth interviews with 46 journalists and other media professionals. The thesis then compares the cases of Ukraine and Belarus to explain how political and economic conditions in a ‘target’ state affect the Russian authorities’ scope for communicating messages to mass audiences abroad via pro-Kremlin broadcasters. The findings of the thesis serve as a basis for assessing whether Russian news exports might contribute to Russian foreign policy success in the way envisaged by the literature on soft power.
This research reveals complexities which have previously been overlooked in discussions about Russia’s media influence in the post-Soviet region. The news providers in Ukraine and Belarus which have Russian partners or shareholders are diverse and often vulnerable to constraints within their operating environment. Their utility as a source of soft power for the Kremlin is questionable, because the association between media and soft power is premised on public sentiments swaying foreign policy decisions. This premise is problematic, particularly in authoritarian Belarus. Pro-Kremlin Russian news exporters undoubtedly play a role in Moscow’s relations with Minsk and Kiev. However, their significance may lie at least as much in their capacity to provoke as their capacity to ‘softly’ attract and persuade a mass audience.

Keywords: Russia
Ukraine
soft power
television
media
news
newspapers
Belarus
Advisor: Chaisty, P
Menander and the expectations of his audience

How can a dramatist writing in a highly conventional genre 'imitate life'? I develop various aspects of the hypothesis that the stereotypes of New Comedy were put to a varied dramatic use through being questioned, reacted against, or commented upon - always in ways that eventually upheld them in such an intricate and polyphonous process that spectators' demand for novelty was fully satisfied. The thesis contains four larger sections; each is in a different way a commentary on the extant plays and their conventions.
Ch. I. 'Techniques of foreshadowing and character presentation in Menander's Aspis in the light of Greek dramatic traditions' In a running commentary on the chosen play I explore the problems of the spectators' expectations of what a newly staged play should be like, as they are shaped by the familiarity with the generic rules. The question of genre and its boundaries is particularly pronounced in this play since it chose Tragedy to carry its comic meaning.
Ch. II. 'Conventions in the theatre of life: Menander's Stagecraft' and Ch. III. 'The Oikos as a Dramatic Space' Even in the conventionally fixed stage space Menander could recreate miniatures symbolic of real life experiences. Through exquisite plotting, he could allow his spectators an insight into the deep recesses of the house and the minds of its inhabitants. I show how fixed and unchanging setting becomes a dynamic force in moving Menander's plots ahead.
Ch. IV. 'Familiar games and the poet's voice in self-advertisement.' How can a New Comedy playwright advertise and 'sell' to his audience a play if he works in a genre that does not destroy its Fiktion der Handlung? This highly conventional genre can, I claim, through both embracing and problematising its very conventionality express itself with irony and subtlety that is at least as effective as open self-praise by poets in comic genres that allow it.

Advisor: Brown, P
Experimental studies in simple choice behaviour

This thesis addresses decision mechanisms in foraging situations, using laboratory experiments with European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Building on previous work from the Behavioural Ecology Research Group, I chose the Sequential Choice Model (SCM; reviewed in Kacelnik et al., 2011 − Appendix 1) as a starting point, and tested its premises and predictions generalising it to different experimental protocols. Classical decision models do not relate choice preferences to behaviour towards isolated options, and assume that choices involve time-consuming evaluations of all alternatives. However, previous work found that starlings’ responses to isolated options predict preference in choices, and that response times to single-option encounters are not reliably longer than response times in choices. Since, in the wild, options are normally encountered sequentially, dealing with isolated options can be considered of greater biological, and possibly psychological, significance than simultaneous decisions. Following this rationale, the SCM postulates that when multiple simultaneous stimuli are met they are processed in parallel, each competing against the memory of background opportunities, rather than comparing present options to each other.
At the time of launching this research, these ideas had only been applied to protocols involving just two deterministic alternatives and offering no chance to explore the influence of learning history (i.e., how animals learn to choose; see Chapter 4). To increase their relevance and offer more rigorous tests, I generalised them to situations with multiple (see Chapters 2, 4 and 5), and in some cases probabilistic alternatives (see Chapter 3), controlling the learning regime. I combined these extensions with tests of economic rationality (see Chapter 6), a concept that is presently facing sustained debates.
Integrating the result of all experimental chapters (see Chapter 7), my results support the notion that behaviour in single-option encounters is fundamental to understand choice behaviour. The important issue of whether choices involve a decision time cost or the opposite, a shortening of response times, remains unsolved, as neither could be evidenced reliably.

Keywords: starlings
Sequential Choice Model
latencies
Choice
Decision making
foraging
rationality
Advisor: Kacelnik, A
Vasconcelos, M
Applications of DABSO for the delivery of sulfur dioxide in organic synthesis

This thesis documents the development of novel synthetic methodologies for the incorporation of sulfur dioxide into organic molecules employing the amine-sulfur dioxide complex DABSO (vide infra). These developed processes serve to access a range of sulfonyl-containing (-SO2-) compounds including sulfones and sulfonamides, via sulfinic acid precursors.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the synthesis and applications of sulfonyl-containing compounds and the organic chemistry of sulfur dioxide. A comprehensive introduction to the developed uses of sulfur dioxide surrogates in organic chemistry is given. The synthetic utility of metal sulfinates towards accessing sulfonyl-containing compounds is also discussed.
Chapter 2 details the development of a one-pot sulfone synthesis via metal sulfinates generated from organometallic reagents and DABSO. Alkyl, alkenyl and (hetero)aryl sulfinates prepared from organolithium and Grignard reagents can be efficiently coupled with a range of electrophiles to access a range of products including diaryl, aryl-heteroaryl and β-hydroxy sulfones.
Chapter 3 describes an array-compatible, one-pot sulfonamide synthesis employing metal sulfinates and N-chloroamines as in situ-generated intermediates. This employs DABSO and sodium hypochlorite (bleach) as simple reagents and organolithium, organozinc and Grignard reagents along with amines as readily-accessible building blocks. The robust nature of this methodology and its potential application in discovery chemistry is demonstrated with a 65-compound array synthesis.
Chapter 4 documents the development of a palladium-catalysed sulfination reaction of boronic acids to access a range of sulfonyl-containing compounds. This involved the establishment of a one-pot/one step synthesis of sulfones leading to the discovery of a redox-neutral, ligand-free sulfination procedure using DABSO and palladium(II) catalysis. Sulfinic acid derivatives can be generated and subsequently trapped in situ with a variety of electrophiles to furnish sulfones and sulfonamides.
Chapter 5 summarises the research and the potential future work.
Chapter 6 provides experimental details and data.

Keywords: Organic synthesis
organometallic chemistry
transition metal catalysis
Advisor: Willis, M
It's not fish you're buying, it's our rights: a case study of the UK's market-based fisheries management system

This thesis, submitted for the Doctor of Philosophy in Geography and Environment, presents a case study of the development of the UK's market-based management system for oceanic fisheries. Implemented gradually in the years since 1984, the informal nature of the UK's fisheries management system, which has developed through a number of incremental changes and government-industry "gentlemen’s agreements" rather than clear legislative moves, means that few official policy documents (and perhaps consequently, little academic literature) on the subject currently exist.
This thesis traces the material and political processes of market formation, looking at the origin of market-based policies in the theories of bioeconomics and wider economic history. It asks what the implicit assumptions of the economic discipline can – and can't – tell us about the impacts and outcomes of market creation, and using a Foucauldian inspired approach to economic performativity, discusses the role of ostensibly descriptive theories in shaping the world around them. Finally, it calls for a greater geographical engagement with marine issues, and proposes an action-research role for geographers in the politics of the sea.

Keywords: fisheries management
natural resource economics
marine policy
market-based environmental policy
Advisor: Thornton, T
Methodology for the synthesis of NP25302 and other bioactive natural products

Total synthesis of the pyrrolizidine alkaloid NP25302: (+)-NP25302 is an unusual vinylogous urea containing pyrrolizidine alkaloid shown to exhibit cell adhesion inhibition. It was envisaged that this natural product could be accessed by a novel 5-endo-dig cyclisation to construct the pyrrolizidine core, and a Curtius rearrangement to install the vinylogous urea motif. This methodology was first tested on a model system, furnishing nor-NP25302 from L-proline in 12 steps and 9% overall yield. The total synthesis of (±)-NP25302 was completed in 9 steps and 26% overall yield from ethyl 2-nitropropionate using similar methodology.
Studies into the stereospecificity of the Au(I)-catalysed cyclisation of monoallylic diols: During the synthesis of (+)-isoaltholactone in the Robertson group, the key Au(I)-catalysed cyclisation was observed to occur with some stereospecificity. Further investigations were therefore conducted into the stereochemical outcome of this reaction using stereodefined allylic alcohols, and from the combined results a mnemonic was proposed to predict the stereochemistry of the products of this reaction.
Studies into the total synthesis of ascospiroketals A and B: Investigations were conducted into the total synthesis of the recently isolated natural products ascospiroketals A and B. A second generation synthesis was used to construct advanced intermediates 1 and 2.

Keywords: NP25302
methodology
Gold catalysis
5-endo-dig
Total synthesis
spiroketal
Ascospiroketal B
tetrahydrofuran
pyrrolizidine
Ascospiroketal A
Advisor: Robertson, J
'E io a lui': dialogic models of conversion and self-representation in medieval Italian poetry

This thesis examines the role of dialogic processes in representations of conversion narratives and expressions of poetic subjectivity across the works of four poets: Guittone d’Arezzo (c.1235-1294), Guido Guinizzelli (c.1230-1276), Guido Cavalcanti (c.1255-1300) and Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).
The introduction proposes a definition of ‘dialogic processes’ drawing on theoretical models of performativity and dialogism. It presents the usefulness of these approaches to the analysis of narratives of conversion and accounts of subjectivity in poetry. Chapter 1 analyses Guittone’s conversion poetics in light of these processes and seeks to complicate the teleology of his narrative of self. Chapter 2 examines the poetry of Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti, first establishing the ‘poetic conversion’ of Guinizzelli in dialogue with his own and others’ poetry. It then examines Cavalcanti’s physiological performance of a polyphonic subjectivity and how far this poetic expression partakes in the dialogic processes previously discussed in relation to religiously inflected writing. Chapters 3 and 4 will explore the manifestations of these phenomena of dialogue and performance in Dante’s oeuvre with particular focus on the Commedia as a key site for intertextual interaction both with his own earlier texts and with the texts (and figures) of the other poets under discussion. These chapters will seek to reopen the teleological closure which Dante tries to impose on his vernacular predecessors, as well as on his own works.
The weight of critical engagement with Dante’s predecessors has treated them as sources or reference points for Dante’s own praxis. I aim to consider Guittone, Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti on their own terms and in dialogue with one another before approaching Dante through these poets, thus reconstructing the networks of poetic dialogue in late medieval Italy, and situating Dante firmly within a dialogic tradition of narratives of self and conversion.

Keywords: Guido Cavalcanti
Guittone d'Arezzo
dialogism
Divine Comedy
subjectivity
dialogic
Dante
lyric
commedia
convivio
poetry
vita nuova
conversion
Guido Guinizelli
medieval literature
Divina Commedia
Guido Guinizzelli
Advisor: Gragnolati, M
The human rights based approach to climate change mitigation: legal framework for addressing human rights questions in mitigation projects

Over the last decade, the effects of an unprecedented rise in global temperature due to climate change, on the enjoyment of human rights, especially the right to life, have been subjects of intensive scholarly attention. Gallons of juristic ink have been spilled on the need for States to adopt policy measures aimed at combating climate change. However, recent findings show that policy measures and projects aimed at mitigating climate change are in turn producing even more serious human rights concerns, especially in developing countries. These human rights issues include: mass displacement of citizens from their homes to allow for climate change mitigation projects; lack of participation by citizens in project planning and implementation; citing and concentration of projects in poor and vulnerable communities; lack of governmental accountability on projects and the absence of review and complaint mechanisms for victims to obtain redress for these problems. These secondary human rights impacts of policy measures and projects aimed at mitigating climate change have not received sufficient attention in existing literature.
The aim of this research is to examine and analyse the effects of climate change mitigation projects, specifically Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. It considers how lessons from the approval and execution of CDM projects could inform thoughts on the value and requirements for mainstreaming human rights safeguards into international climate change regimes in general. It analyses the legal and theoretical prospects and paradoxes of adopting the United Nations Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) as a framework through which human rights standards may be systemically integrated and mainstreamed into extant and emerging international legal regimes on climate change.

Keywords: CDM
mitigation
climate change
human right
Advisor: Shacknove, A
Lucas, A
Large-scale genetic analysis of quantitative traits

Recent advances in genotyping technology coupled with an improved understanding of the architecture of linkage disequilibrium across the human genome have resulted in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) becoming a useful and widely applied tool for discovering common genetic variants associated with both quantitative traits and disease risk. After each GWAS was completed, it left behind a set of genotypes and phenotypes, often including anthropometric measures used as covariates. Genetic associations with anthropometric measures are not well characterized, perhaps due to lack of power to detect them in the sample sizes of individual studies. To improve power to detect variants associated with complex phenotypes such as anthropometric traits, data from multiple GWAS can be combined. This thesis describes the methods and results of several such analyses performed as part of the Genome-wide Investigation of ANThropemtric measures (GIANT) consortium, and compares various different methods that can be used to perform combined analyses of GWAS. In particular, the comparisons focus on comparing differences between meta-analysis methods, in which only summary statistics that result from within-study association testing are shared between studies, and mega-analysis methods in which individual-level genotype and phenotype data is analysed together. Finally, a brief discussion of technological means that have the potential to help overcome some of the challenges associated with performing mega-analyses is offered in order to suggest future work that could be undertaken in this area.

Keywords: anthropometric
genetics
meta-analysis
mega-analysis
Advisor: Lindgren, C
Holmes, C
Rural labour arrangements in West Bengal, India

The aim of this thesis is to explain the existence and coexistence of diverse hired labour arrangements in two contrasting localities in rural West Bengal (India). Hired labour arrangements for seasonal migrants are included in the analysis, the methods for which are drawn from a review of the contractual arrangements literature.
One study locality, in Bardhaman District, was characterised by double-cropping of paddy facilitated by groundwater irrigation, the other, in Purulia District, by rainfed paddy cultivation. The structure of landownership was skewed - more so in the Bardhaman locality. Daily employment records were kept by ninety-two sampled households over two seasons. In each locality six different indigenous types of hired labour arrangement were identified. Analysis of the rationales for the existence and coexistence of these labour arrangements and of the variation within each type confirmed the embeddedness of the terms and conditions of labour hire (including those for migrant labour) in the land-holding structure, in ideologies of gender and caste, and in party political allegiances. Possibilities for and constraints on hiring out labour in particular arrangements are explained in part by the logic of deployment of household labour to unwaged reproductive and productive work, which is also socially embedded in the same way.
The thesis thus sets a new agenda for research. It questions the received wisdom on rural labour exchange in India: i) that villages tend to have just one wage rate for 'casual' labour determined by supply and demand alone, ii) that stylised labour arrangements (eg 'casual' and 'attached') are appropriate occupational classifications for individuals and households, and iii) that rural labour is immobile. If the coexistence of diverse labour arrangements is to be explained, more, careful microstudies are required, so that a typology of socio-economic, political and agro-ecological contexts can be developed.
A survey of G protein-coupled receptor stoichiometry

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) represent the largest family of transmembrane proteins in the human genome. Their biological and medical significance has driven extensive research into their structure and function, yet a number of important aspects of their behaviour remain unresolved. Arguably the most contentious debate in the field concerns whether or not the receptors form stable homo- and hetero-oligomeric interactions, and there is currently no consensus on the extent or purpose of GPCR oligomerisation. In this thesis, the ‘typical’ stoichiometry of Rhodopsin family GPCRs is investigated via the examination of more than 60 receptors natively expressed by human HEK 293T cells using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). Assaying receptors in the cells in which they are natively expressed maximises the likelihood of authentic assembly and trafficking while simultaneously providing an unbiased cross-section of the whole GPCR family. In order to make such an investigation possible, the sensitivity of existing BRET approaches for partial homodimers had to be, and was, confirmed, and a complementary competition-based BRET method suitable for a semi high-throughput analysis was developed. Application of these assays to the HEK 293T GPCR repertoire revealed that the Rhodopsin family is very predominantly monomeric but contains a small fraction of independently evolved dimers comprising small phylogenetic clusters of receptors. The mechanism of Rhodopsin family dimerisation was in some cases found to be reliant on interactions between transmembrane helices, in contrast to other families of GPCRs, which were observed or are known to be exclusively dimeric due to interactions between their N-terminal domains. The mechanism of dimerisation in Rhodopsin family GPCRs may preclude constitutive dimerisation but allow heterodimerisation of closely related receptors, as observed for a subset of receptors using a third type of assay designed to detect heterodimers. Taken together, these observations suggest a model of GPCR evolution in which dimers either have a selective disadvantage compared to monomers, or for which dimerisation offers no apparent selective advantage. These findings suggest that receptor stoichiometry is at least partly responsible for several of the remarkable features of GPCR family structure, including the very large size of the family as a whole, the great diversity of Rhodopsin family GPCRs, and the origins of sensory receptors.

Keywords: Rhodopsin
GPCR
BRET
Advisor: Davis, S