VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Essays in the economics of violence

In this thesis, I analyse the impact of economic shocks on violence, and the mechanisms underlying them. I also investigate the long-term effects of violence on economic outcomes.
In my first chapter, I introduce this thesis, and broadly outline its aims and contributions. In my second chapter, I examine lynchings of African Americans in the US South from 1882 to 1930, and show that cotton price shocks predict lynchings. Lynchings also predict more black out-migration from 1920 to 1930, and higher state-level wages. Using a simple model, I show that this is consistent with lynchings having labour market effects that benefitted whites: lynchings cause blacks to migrate away, lowering labour supply and increasing wages for white labourers. I then turn to the long-term effects of lynchings. I show that Mississippi counties with more violence during a 1964 Civil Rights campaign also had more lynchings during the earlier period. Finally, lynchings persist in labour market outcomes: present-day results show that lynchings predict higher black-white worker, family, and household income gaps.
In my third chapter, I turn to FrenchWest Africa, a co-authored work with James Fenske. We show that rainfall, temperature, and commodity price shocks predict unrest in colonial French West Africa between 1906 and 1956. We use a simple model of taxation and anti-tax resistance to explain these results. In the colonial period, the response of unrest to economic shocks was strongest in more remote areas and those lacking a history of pre-colonial states. In modern data spanning 1997 to 2011, the effect of economic shocks on unrest is weaker. Past patterns of heterogeneity are no longer present. The response of unrest to economic shocks, then, differs across institutional contexts within a single location.
In my fourth and last chapter, I find that favourable temperatures and favourable economic conditions predict more witchcraft trials in Early Modern Scotland (1563-1727), a largely agricultural economy. During this time, witchcraft was a secular crime, and it was incumbent on local elites to commit resources to trying witches. Consistent with this, I find that positive price shocks to export-heavy, taxable goods like herring and wool predict more witch trials, while price shocks to Scotland's main subsistence commodity, oats, do not.

Advisor: Fenske, J
Collier, P
Mechanisms of membrane fouling by macromolecules at multiple scales during ultrafiltration

The thesis aims to gain a better understanding on the mechanisms of the complicated macromolecular fouling in ultrafiltration (UF). The work is divided into three main parts. Firstly, comprehensive literature reviews on both membrane fouling and cleaning were carried out for a better overview on this problem. The findings such as the identification of the main foulants and the current knowledge on fundamental fouling mechanisms, directly contributed to further parts of the thesis.
Secondly, a multiscale approach was developed to form generalised framework for modelling complex fouling scenarios. Two complex fouling models combining multi- ple fouling mechanisms were derived accordingly. The models were then applied to the filtration data collected from UF experiments (constant-pressure and dead-end) on three individual macromolecular solutes, i.e., dextran blue (DB), polyethylene oxide (PEO), and humic acid (HA), respectively. During the experiments, the effect of macromolecular concentration and transmembrane pressure was investigated. Using the appropriate combined model, the overall and initial fouling behaviours and the predominant fouling mechanisms at different stages of filtration were identified. The fouling parameters in the combined models were determined and found to be consistent with the existing theories. The switch points between the dominant fouling mechanisms were assessed using two methods (integral and differential), respectively. Comparing all the information together gave a comprehensive understanding of the physics involved in the macromolecular fouling.
Finally, the effect of the deformability of a macromolecule on membrane fouling was studied. The sieving results from the experiments indicated a flux-dependent permeation during UF of the DB solution, hypothetically due to the elongational deformation of the large DB molecule (a linear polymer at 2000 kDa MWCO) under high velocity gradient at the pore entrance, allowing the molecule to adapt a smaller transversal size to enter pores at nominally 100 kDa cutoff. This not only increased the chances of permeation but also the probability of severe irreversible fouling. Subsequently, a mesoscopic model using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) was developed to investigate the blocking event at the pore entrance in the presence of a deformable linear macromolecule. The simulation results shed lights on the threshold permeating flux at which the molecular chains start to deform.

Keywords: fouling
membrane
ultrafiltration
Advisor: Field, R
Hankins, N
Role of CD8+ T cells in adult and paediatric HIV infection

Infection with HIV is a continuing global health problem. Antiretroviral therapy effectively suppresses viraemia, but the viral reservoir in latently infected CD4+ T-cells persists for decades and is the main obstacle to HIV eradication. The central role of CD8+ T-cellmediated immune control of natural adult HIV infection has long been established and recent studies suggest that CD8+ T-cells are likely to be crucial in eliminating reactivated reservoirs. However, the questions of what constitutes an effective anti-HIV CD8+ T-cell response and how to induce it therapeutically are outstanding. Moreover, even less is known about the antiviral function of CD8+ T-cells in paediatric HIV infection. Although outnumbered by adult infections, paediatric infection may offer opportunities to achieve HIV cure that could be more widely applicable to cure strategies in adults.
Here, I explore the specific aspects of the interplay between host and virus in order to gain a better understanding of the optimal CD8+ T-cell-mediated immune responses. I demonstrate that in contrast to the Gag-specific response that mediates viral control in the context of HLA-B&ast;57, among HLA-B&ast;14-restricted responses, Env-specific cells are more potent than those targeting Gag. This is associated with higher antigen sensitivity and stronger selection pressure in the Env-specific population. I define two broadly distinct phenotypes of HIV non-progression in children. These are characterised by differential protein specificity of the antiviral CD8+ T-cell response but children of both phenotypes demonstrate strong selection pressure exerted on the virus by CD8+ T-cells in the first weeks of life. Next, in the context of the HIV vaccine tested in the Phambili trial, I report an HLA-specific effect of vaccine on disease progression, as a result of altering the natural CD8+ T-cell immunodominance hierarchy. Finally, I demonstrate a new method which allows to selectively deplete human HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell in vitro, and thereby to evaluate the contribution and efficacy of particular CD8+ T-cell specificities to viral inhibition – a critical question to HIV vaccine design and reservoir eradication studies.
The work described here adds important insights to our understanding of the HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell responses that are generated from birth through childhood and into adulthood and is relevant to the future studies directed at harnessing the most effective CD8+ T-cell response to achieve HIV cure.

Advisor: Goulder, P
Matthews, P
A chordal sparsity approach to scalable linear and nonlinear systems analysis

In this thesis we investigate how the properties of chordal graphs can be used to exploit sparsity in several optimisation problems that arise in control theory. In particular, we focus on analysis and synthesis problems that involve semidefinite constraints and can be formulated as semidefinite programming (SDP) problems.
Using a relationship between chordal graphs and sparse semidefinite matrices, we decompose the semidefinite constraints in the associated SDP problems into multiple, smaller semidefinite constraints along with some additional equality constraints. The benefit of this approach is that for sparse dynamical systems we can solve significantly larger analysis and synthesis problems than is possible using traditional dense methods.
We begin by considering the properties of chordal graphs and their connection to sparse positive semidefinite matrices. We then turn our attention to the problem of constructing Lyapunov functions for linear time-invariant (LTI) systems. From this starting point, we derive methods of exploiting chordal sparsity in other analysis problems found in control theory. In particular, this approach is applied to the problem of bounding the input-output properties of systems via the KYP lemma for both continuous and discrete-time systems.
We then consider how the properties of chordal graphs can be exploited in the SDPs that arise in static state feedback controller synthesis problems for LTI systems. We show that the sparse inverse property of the maximum determinant completion of a partial positive matrix can be used to design controllers with a pre-specified sparsity pattern. We then consider how to exploit chordal sparsity when designing a static state feedback controller to minimise the H-infinity norm of an LTI system.
Next we shift from linear systems to nonlinear systems and develop a chordal sparsity approach to scalable stability analysis of systems with polynomial dynamics using the Sums of Squares (SOS) technique. We develop a method of exploiting chordal sparsity that avoids the computationally costly step of forming the coefficient matrix in the SOS problem. We then apply this method to the problem of constructing Lyapunov functions for systems with correlatively sparse polynomial vector fields. Finally, we conclude by discussing some directions for future research.

Keywords: Lyapunov
SDPs
Chordal
Graphs
Advisor: Papachristodoulou, A
The phonological encoding of complex morphosyntactic structures in native and non-native English speakers

Theories of phonological word formation (e.g. Selkirk 1980, 1986; Nespor & Vogel 1986; Lahiri & Plank 2010) assume that prosodic units are not isomorphic with syntactic units. However, the prosodic status of compounds remain uncertain, at least in so far as language planning and phonological encoding is concerned. Theories are not transparent about the prosodic status of compounds: although a noun-noun compound in English consists of two lexical words (and therefore two prosodic words), it can also act as a single prosodic item by exhibiting main stress on the first unit and carrying inflection. Thus the question remains controversial - should these items be treated as a single prosodic unit, similar to a monomorphemic word, or as two distinct units for the purpose of post-lexical representation? Recursive word formation may suggest that compounds are a single unit. Psycholinguistic evidence measuring speech onset latency in native speakers of Dutch and Portuguese also shows compounds being treated as single prosodic units (Wheeldon & Lahiri 1997, 2002; Vigario, 2010). Although recent studies have produced evidence for the prosodification of compounds in native speakers, little is known about the process in non-native speakers. Our research questions are as follows: what is the post-lexical planning unit in English, and how do non-native fluent speakers of English plan these units for the purpose of phonological encoding? To investigate our hypotheses, we focus on the phonological encoding of compounds with and without encliticisation, for native and non-native speakers of English. In a series of delayed priming tasks, we found overwhelming evidence that reaction times reflected the total number of prosodic units in the target sentence. In online tasks, however, speech latencies only reflected the size of the first prosodic unit. Taken together,these results suggest that, despite containing two lexical and prosodic words, English compounds are planned as single prosodic units, exhibiting encliticisation and reaction times similar to those of monomorphemic words. As shown by the results in this study, this naming paradigm has proved extremely beneficial for eliciting data about the structure of prosodic units in speech production. Not only was it successful for native speakers of Dutch, European Portuguese, and English, we also found that it was easily implemented into a study of post-lexical encoding in non-native speakers of English.

Keywords: psycholinguistics
phonology
phonological encoding
Advisor: Lahiri, A
Some combinatorial problems in group theory

We study a number of problems of a group-theoretic origin or nature, but from a strongly additive-combinatorial or analytic perspective. Specifically, we consider the following particular problems.
1. Given an arbitrary set of n positive integers, how large a subset can you be sure to find which is sum-free, i.e., which contains no two elements x and y as well as their sum x+y? More generally, given a linear homogeneous equation E, how large a subset can you be sure to find which contains no solutions to E?
2. Given a finite group G, suppose we measure the degree of abelianness of G by its commuting probability Pr(G), i.e., the proportion of pairs of elements x,y ∈ G which commute. What are the possible values of Pr(G)? What is the set of all possible values like as a subset of [0,1]?
3. What is the probability that a random permutation π ∈ 𝒮n has a fixed set of some predetermined size k? Particularly, how does this probability change as k grows? This problem is also related to the following one. Suppose we πck a few permutations π_1, ..., π_r ∈ 𝒮n at random. It is well known that π1,...,πr will generate at least 𝒜n with high probability as long as r ≥ 2, but what happens if we are allowed to replace π1,...,πr by arbitary conjugates π'1,..., π'r?
4. Pick two bijections π1,π2: &lcub;1,...,n&rcub; → Z/nZ uniformly at random. What is the probability that the pointwise sum π1 + π2 is also a bijection? This problem affords a fun interpretation ∈ terms of queens on a toroidal chessboard.
5. How big is the largest subset of the alternating group 𝒜n which is product-free, i.e., which contains no two elements x and y as well as their product xy?
We give satisfactory answers to each of these questions, using a range of methods. More detailed abstracts are included at the beginning of each chapter.

Advisor: Green, B
Spatial network structures of world migration:  heterogeneity of global and local connectivity

The landscape of world migration involves multiple interacting movements of people at various geographic scales, posing significant challenges to the dyadic-independence assumption underlying standard migration models. To account for emerging patterns of multilateral migration relationships, we represent world migration as a time-evolving, spatial network. The nodes in the World Migration Network (WMN) are countries located in geographic space, and the edges represent migratory movements for each decade from 1960-2000.
In the first part of the thesis, we characterise the spatial network structure of the WMN, with a particular focus on detecting and mapping mesoscopic structures called 'communities' (i.e., sets of countries with denser migration connections internally than to the rest of the WMN). We employ a method for community detection that simultaneously accounts for multilateral migration, spatial constraints, time-dependence, and directionality in the WMN.
We then introduce an approach for characterising local (intracommunity) and global (intercommunity) connectivity in the WMN. On this basis, we define a threefold typology that distinguishes 'cave', 'bi-regional', and 'bridging' communities. These are characterised with distinct migration patterns, spatial network structures, and temporal dynamics: cave communities are tightly-knit enduring structures that channel local migration between contiguous countries; bi-regional communities merge migration between two distinct geographic regions; bridging communities have hub-and-spoke dynamic structures that emerge from globe-spanning movements. Our results suggest that the WMN is neither a globally interconnected network nor reproducing geographic boundaries but involves heterogeneous patterns of global and local ('glocal') migration connectivity.
We examine a set of relational, homophily, and spatial mechanisms that could have possibly generated the 'glocal' structure we observe. We found that communities of different types arise from significantly different mechanisms. Our results suggest that migration communities can have important implications for world migration, as different types of community structure provide distinct opportunities and constraints, thereby distinctively shaping future migration patterns.

Keywords: Community structure
Spatial networks
Human mobility
World migration
Globalization
Network science
Advisor: Porter, M
Keith, M
Die uralte moderne Lösung: Nation, space and modernity in Austro-German zionism before 1917

Zionism represents a turning point in the rise of the nation-state to its present near-ubiquity, a national movement which did not construct an identity concurrently with its embrace of nationalism, but reconstructed a diaspora to fit it. I explore how early Political Zionists, particularly Theodor Herzl, perceived both the push and pull of nationalism, and why they were drawn to adopt an ideology and political structure whose basic principles, I argue, were intrinsically hostile to Jews.
I begin by examining the socialist Moses Hess as a forerunner and microcosm of later Zionism, arguing his work is underpinned by anxiety about social heterogeneity. The second chapter focuses on portrayals of diaspora, its contradictions and the ambivalence they caused towards less assimilated Jews, nonetheless used as models for national identity. I continue by investigating the countries Herzl looked to as partners on the world stage and models of nationhood, arguing his vision of nationhood was far broader than that of most nationalists and involved a recognised role among other nations. The fourth chapter concerns understandings of 'homeland' and the relationship between people and territory, concluding Zionism’s effect is achieved, not just by inhabiting Palestine, but by public desire and effort to do so. I devote my final chapter to concepts of modernity, its perception as both paradoxical and inescapable, and how national historical narratives arrange history into a rational, linear structure.
While Zionists left many presumptions of nationalism and modernity unchallenged, most importantly that both nation and state transcend political divides, my conclusion stresses those presumptions they accepted, those aspects they saw as inescapable, and those they pragmatically performed belief in, to achieve Gentile acceptance of Jewish nationhood. I surmise that it was this sense of inevitability, along with the difficulties of diaspora, which gave Jews reason to make displays of accepting the nation-state.

Keywords: judenstaat
nordau
old new land
utopias
degeneration
pinsker
israeli history
herzl
dr kohn
austrian culture
das neue ghetto
rome and jerusalem
jewish state
german literature
altneuland
entartung
german history
austrian history
autoemanzipation
nationalism
austrian literature
rom und jerusalem
the new ghetto
german
german culture
zionism
hess
zionists
utopianism
Advisor: Robertson, R
Biases in information processing across perception and working memory

Research over the last decades has demonstrated an enormous flexibility of attentional mechanisms in the human brain and has revealed many forms of biases across perception and working memory. In this thesis, I extend our knowledge of the flexible role of attention, and ways in which information processing can be biased to guide perception and working memory (WM). In the General Introduction, I review perceptual, WM and attention literature to describe our current understanding of the many biases across different stages of information processing. In Chapter 2, I present a study that uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to contrast and compare neural mechanisms supporting spatial and feature-based attentional selection. Neural signatures of preparatory attention revealed that comparable neural mechanisms support both kinds of attention. However, brain activity is modulated relatively more globally for feature-based compared to spatial attention, consistent with representational differences between feature and spatial information. In Chapter 3, I describe four Experiments exploring the impact of incoming sensory information, presented supraliminally or subliminally, on performance in a WM task and a visuomotor priming task. While both subliminal and supraliminal information shaped performance in the visuomotor priming task, WM representations appeared to be protected against subliminal influences and performance was only affected by information presented supraliminally. In Chapter 4, I present three Experiments that examine how bottom-up stimulus differences during encoding modulate top-down attentional effects in WM. The results reveal that benefits of retrospective attentional selection in WM persist regardless of the quality of sensory information, but the underlying mechanisms vary along with changes in stimulus properties during encoding. In Chapter 5, the General Discussion, I place the results of this work in their wider context, and discuss limitations and future directions.

Advisor: Nobre, A
Humphreys, G
Stalinism and the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40: crisis management, censorship and control

In both western and Russian historiography the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 enjoys, at best, only a passing reference in any narrative of the period and is poorly integrated into existing scholarly analyses of the Soviet regime under Stalin. It is my contention that this conflict offers an invaluable opportunity to test for continuity and change in the form and function of the Stalinist system. Between the disastrous efforts of its forces and the condemnation of the international community, the Kremlin was confronted with the serious challenge of how to portray the events of the war in the media, while managing domestic and international opinion over the course of the fighting.
This thesis examines the extent to which the Soviet regime under Stalin had the institutions and agents in place at the close of the 1930s to cope with the crisis of war in Finland; to be in command of the military campaign, while simultaneously controlling the direction of the official narrative about the fighting; and to censor conflicting interpretations, experiences and information channels, which might expose the Red Army's woeful performance on Finnish territory. This mobilisation of press, propaganda and censorship organs in the face of widespread international condemnation and domestic disquiet constituted a significant challenge for a regime still dealing with the sudden reorientation of the Communist International, required after the Soviet Union’s conclusion of a non-aggression treat with Nazi Germany in August 1939. An international perspective is central to this thesis, with a view towards assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the public face and private practice of Soviet information controls.

Keywords: Leningrad
Finland
Public opinion
Comintern
Propaganda
Stalin
Mannerheim
Press
Soviet Union
Red Army
TASS
Advisor: Service, R