VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Women and childbirth in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia

As the first analytic history of Ethiopian medicine, this thesis explores the interchange between the institutional development of a national medical network and the lived experiences of women as patients and practitioners of medicine from the years 1940-1975. Using birth and gender as mechanisms to explore the nation's public health history allows me to pursue alternative threads of enquiry: I ask questions not only about state activities and policy pursuits, but also about the relevance and acceptance of those actions in the lives of the citizenry. This thesis is also the first medical history of a non-colonial African country, opening up new questions about the role of non-Western actors in the expansion of Western medicine in the twentieth century. I explore the ways in which the exceptional history of Ethiopia can be couched in existing narratives of African modernity, medicine, and birth history. Issues of local agency and the creation of new social elites in the pursuit of modernity are all pertinent to the case of Ethiopia. Through both extensive archival research and oral interviews of nearly 200 participants in Haile Selassie's medical campaigns, I argue that the extent to which the imperial medical project in Ethiopia 'succeeded' was highly predicated on pre-existing conditions of gender, class, and geography.

Keywords: history of public health
gender
preventive medicine
childbirth
Ethiopia
women
Advisor: Mahone, S
Neural networks for meteorological satellite image interpretation

Meteorological satellite images at visible and infra-red wavelengths are an invaluable source of information on cloud systems because of their extensive coverage of the whole of the Earth's surface, providing data in areas that are only sparsely monitored, if at all, by other means. Although this information has been used subjectively by forecasters for many years, the lack of automatic, quantitative analysis techniques largely prevents its assimilation into numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, which are the basis of all modern weather forecasting. This thesis investigates the use of neural network techniques for the analysis of the images in order to make fuller use of the available data.
The recognition of a particular type of cloud is dependent on the determination of a set of features from the satellite image spectral bands that will give discriminating information. This feature extraction and selection process is dealt with in detail, and a feature selection process based on the radial basis function (RBF) neural network is presented. The high-dimensional feature space is visualized on a two-dimensional plane by the use of three techniques: the Kohonen map, the Sammon map, and a recently-developed technique known as the Generative Topographic Mapping (GTM). Classification results using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and an RBF neural network are presented.
The results of independently classifying each pixel in an image are compared with a method that makes use of contextual information, the Markov Random Field (MRF) model. The limitations of the pixel-based approach are highlighted, and a region-based approach is presented that enables the definition of large-scale regions of uniform cloud type. Two segmentation methods are used, the active contour (or snake) model, and the more recentlydeveloped level set technique. The latter method was found to provide many benefits over the former. The region-based approach will facilitate the assimilation of cloud system information into NWP models in the future.
Assessing the role of ADAM10 in Trastuzumab treatment and resistance

Overexpression of the HER2 receptor occurs in about 15-20% of all breast cancers and is correlated with poor prognosis. Trastuzumab (Herceptin®), a monoclonal antibody targeting HER2, was shown to prolong survival of these patients. However, primary or acquired resistance remains a drawback for the drug. Understanding the mechanisms behind Herceptin resistance is crucial in order to increase the efficacy of the treatment. Many factors have been shown to contribute to resistance, including the protein family of the ADAMs (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase). One of them, ADAM10, cleaves several pro-ligands for the HER-family, such as betacellulin and HB-EGF. It is also responsible for shedding the extracellular domain of HER2. The objective of my M.Sc. is to understand the role of ADAM10 in relation to Herceptin treatment and resistance. In this thesis, it was shown that Herceptin treatment increased ADAM10 levels via an AKT/PKB feedback loop in HER2 positive cells and xenograft tumour samples and that ADAM10 was increased in Herceptin resistant cell lines. The increase of ADAM10 was correlated with an upregulation of the ligand betacellulin in the media. Inhibition of ADAM10 enzymatic activity or knockdown of the protein decreased the activation of HER family members and downstream markers in sensitive and resistant cell lines and was additive to Herceptin treatment in decreasing cell viability in sensitive cells. The TMA samples from a cohort of HER2 positive breast cancer patients have been stained for ADAM10 expression and positive staining was significantly correlated to poorer relapse free as well as overall survival. Both in vitro and in vivo data of this project suggested an important role of ADAM10 in Herceptin treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer.

Keywords: ADAM10
HER2
trastuzumab
Advisor: Kong, A
The written and the world in early medieval Iberia

The written was the world of early medieval Iberia. Literacy was limited, but textuality was extensive, in the authority conferred on text and the arrangements made to use it. Roman inheritance is manifest, in documentary and legal culture, engendering literate expectations which define the period; continuity across conquest by Visigoths and Arabs, and the weakness of states in the north of the Peninsula, must lay to rest the traditional coupling of literacy with politics which underlies the paradigm of the Middle Ages. Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, as estates expanded to surmount locality and enter communities which had made do with memory, engagement with documentation was incentivized for the laity. Organization to do so followed, at one remove: the person of the scribe, who wrote the charter and recorded all those involved in and present at it, before recycling the text back into the community by public reading. The scribe mediated the text, and as his occupation consolidated he became more fully a literate interpreter. The charter, once created, had an active afterlife of dynamic circulation, enabled by multiple and accessible archives, particularly in the hands of the clergy. Written evidence was the surest defence in case of dispute; charters were self-promoting in their mutual citation as well as practical efficacy. But they also diffused legal knowledge: as each rhetorical, pragmatic, silent, and legislative reference to written law was read aloud by the scribe, how to capitalize on its provisions became better known, so kings and counts seized the potential. For the clergy, the Bible, canon law, and monastic rules were the texts which bestowed identity, but as they interacted with the laity, they set the charter in the history of salvation, and modelled textuality to society, as their monasteries became the microcosms of its written framework.

Keywords: diplomatics
literacy
Iberia
charters
Early medieval history
Advisor: Wickham, C
Evaluation of channels for angiogenic cells ingrowth in collagen scaffolds in vitro and in vivo

Pre-cellularised scaffolds are limited in volume due to the constraints of the time delay required for angiogenic cells ingrowth forming a vascular network and allowing for delivery of nutrients and waste exchange. Channels have the potential to improve the time taken for cellular penetration. The effectiveness of channels in improving angiogenic cells penetration was assessed in vitro and in vivo in porous 3-D collagen scaffolds. Initial studies conducted in vitro demonstrated that the scaffolds supported angiogenic cells ingrowth in culture and the channels improved the depth of penetration of cells into the scaffold. The cells reside mainly around the channels and migrate along the channels. In vivo, channels increased cell migration into the scaffolds and in particular angiogenic cells resulting in a clear branched vascular network of micro vessels in the channelled samples which was not apparent in the non-channelled samples. This correlated well with macrophage invasion into scaffolds since angiogenesis in vivo is usually accompanied by infiltration of macrophages which participate in organization of angiogenesis, and in regulation of tissue regeneration. Thus, macrophage-mediated biodegradation of collagen scaffolds in vitro was also assessed. Furthermore, pre-seeding channelled collagen scaffolds with endothelial cells implantation has potential of speeding up vascularisation of scaffolds compared to human bone marrow stromal cells.

Keywords: endothelial cells
smooth muscle cells
tissue engineering
vascularisation
angiogenesis
degradation
collagen scaffolds
macrophages
Advisor: Czernuszka, J
Clover, J
The evolution of global fisheries governance, 1960-2010

Fisheries straddling or migrating between international maritime boundaries represent a typical case of the tragedy of the commons. Over two dozen Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) have been created to manage these fisheries, which means it also represents a typical case of 'regime complexity' or 'governance architecture'. These literatures recognise that such institutions do not operate independently and therefore institutional functions such as attracting participants, practising their regulatory role, and performing their mandate should be understood as interdependent.
This thesis proposes that we study such institutions together with actors and architectures of relations between and among them, which together I term 'governance complexes', by means of a relational approach. This relational approach combines relational theory, which posits the operation of endogenous relational mechanisms alongside exogenous explanations such as institutional design, with network methods that enable structural insights and robust inference that takes into account these interdependencies.
The dissertation comprises two main parts that describe and explain the global fisheries governance complex, respectively. The first describes how the governance complex's three main components, states, RFMOs, and states participation in these RFMOs, have evolved. A topological typology utilising key network concepts is proposed and employed to show that the global fisheries governance complex is not fragmenting but becoming more overlapped and nested.
The second part explains how this governance complex has evolved in terms of (1) participation, (2) practice, and (3) performance. First, it finds that while states find institutional design features such as an RFMO’s internal organisation attractive, relational mechanisms such as popularity and closure also provide important heuristics for participatory decisions in complex settings. Second, it finds that high levels of organisation also enables higher regulatory activity, but so do relational mechanisms such as coercion or imitation. Third, it proposes the concept of net effectiveness to gauge an institution’s "take-home" performance once its position in the broader governance complex has been taken into account. The result is not only an explanation of the evolution of global fisheries governance but also a developmental step towards an institutional relationalist theory of governance complexes.

Keywords: social network analysis
international institutions
global fisheries governance
Advisor: Snidal, D
Prediction of mortality in septic patients with hypotension

Sepsis remains the second largest killer in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), giving rise to a significant economic burden ($17b per annum in the US, 0.3% of the gross domestic product). The aim of the work described in this thesis is to improve the estimation of severity in this population, with a view to improving the allocation of resources.
A cohort of 2,143 adult patients with sepsis and hypotension was identified from the MIMIC-II database (v2.26). The implementation of state-of-the-art models confirms the superiority of the APACHE-IV model (AUC=73.3%) for mortality prediction using ICU admission data. Using the same subset of features, state-of-the art machine learning techniques (Support Vector Machines and Random Forests) give equivalent results. More recent mortality prediction models are also implemented and offer an improvement in discriminatory power (AUC=76.16%).
A shift from expert-driven selection of variables to objective feature selection techniques using all available covariates leads to a major gain in performance (AUC=80.4%). A framework allowing simultaneous feature selection and parameter pruning is developed, using a genetic algorithm, and this offers similar performance. The model derived from the first 24 hours in the ICU is then compared with a “dynamic” model derived over the same time period, and this leads to a significant improvement in performance (AUC=82.7%). The study is then repeated using data surrounding the hypotensive episode in an attempt to capture the physiological response to hypotension and the effects of treatment. A significant increase in performance (AUC=85.3%) is obtained with the static model incorporating data both before and after the hypotensive episode. The equivalent dynamic model does not demonstrate a statistically significant improvement (AUC=85.6%).
Testing on other ICU populations with sepsis is needed to validate the findings of this thesis, but the results presented in it highlight the role that data mining will increasingly play in clinical knowledge generation.

Keywords: prediction of mortality
sepsis
machine learning
intensive care unit
septic shock
Advisor: Tarassenko, L
Clifford, G
Annane, D
Health impacts amongst carers of orphans and other children in a high HIV prevalence community in South Africa

Fifteen million children have been orphaned by AIDS. A growing body of evidence documents impacts of parental deaths on orphans, but little is known about impacts faced by AIDS-orphan carers. This study set out to: (a) investigate physical and mental health outcomes of adults caring for children in Umlazi, a high HIV prevalence township in South Africa; (b) assess whether AIDS-orphan carers face worse outcomes compared to other carers; and, (c) identify risk and protective factors for health. Using a cross-sectional survey, data was gathered from a representative community sample from August 2008 to March 2009 resulting in the largest known study conducted on AIDS-orphan carers to date (n=1599). The majority of carers looked after non-orphaned children (66.85%) followed by AIDS-orphan (22.45%) and other-orphan children (10.69%). Orphan carers had significantly worse general health and functioning, depression, and post-traumatic stress than non-orphan carers but patterns were less clear when orphan carers were disaggregated into AIDS-orphan and other-orphan carers for comparison. This suggests that health interventions might target orphan carers, rather than singling out AIDS-orphan carers. Differences in age, gender, education, economic assets, and source of household income fully accounted for the association between being an orphan carer and poor health. Social policy grants reduced negative health disparities between orphan carers and non-orphan carers. Social support, education, economic assets, food, access to water, and housing were iii also identified as risk and protective co-factors that might reduce orphan carer disparities in health. By highlighting health as a serious issue for orphan carers and identifying risk and protective factors for health, this study offers policy and program insights into how to mitigate negative impacts faced by carers in high HIV prevalence communities facing escalating numbers of orphans.

Keywords: health
carer
South Africa
orphan
HIV/AIDS
Advisor: Operario, D
Cluver, L
German foreign policy towards Iran

The objective of this thesis is to show that after World War I, the National Bank of Persia emerged as an ideal accessory to Germany's desire to establish a foothold in Iran. It argues that the main motive behind Germany's involvement in the National Bank was to utilise the bank as a vehicle for extending German national interest into Iran. However, although Germany's main interest was to thereby gain economic influence in Iran, the National Bank provided Germany with a tool that furthered its desire for political participation and the establishing of authority within the spheres of interest of Britain and Russia.
The objective of this thesis is not to establish a comprehensive and complete overview of German foreign policy toward Iran and its interactions with the National Bank of Persia. It aims rather at highlighting a number of events that are significant for an examination of Germany's policy toward Iran and its evolution up until the outset of World War II. In pursuit of this task, emphasis is given to the opinion expressed at the time, as reflected in German sources, rather than the historical reality behind those sources.
German foreign policy towards Iran in the first half of the twentieth century can be divided into three distinct phases. The first phase, which was initiated before Word War I, collapsed as a consequence of the war and the Versailles Treaty, achieving little success. The second, more significant, phase began around 1924, and was marked by the creation of the National Bank of Persia in 1927, the appointment of the German national Lindenblatt as its director, the appointment of his compatriot Schniewind as financial advisor to the Persian government, the contracts granted to German companies and consortiums for the construction of the Trans Iranian Railway, the reestablishment of trade relations between Germany and Iran, and the wide-ranging flight concessions granted by the Iranian government to the German company Junkers. The third phase of Germany's involvement with Iran came about with the achievements that resulted from the trade agreements of 1935. From a German perspective after 1933 diplomacy started to replace the role of the National Bank, as the prime agent of Germany's relations with Iran. This phase lasted until the British-Russian invasion of Iran in 1941, and saw Germany lose almost its entire influence over the National Bank, while its influence over trade with Iran had progressively increased.
Germany's foreign political success during the inter-war period resulted in an expansion of its commercial relations, which elevated Germany from a country with almost no trade relations with Iran to its largest trading partner.
Non-equilibrium strongly-correlated dynamics

We study non-equilibrium and strongly-correlated dynamics in two contexts. We begin by analysing quantum many-body systems out of equilibrium through the lens of cold atomic impurities in Bose gases. Such highly-imbalanced mixtures provide a controlled arena for the study of interactions, dissipation, decoherence and transport in a many-body quantum environment.
Specifically we investigate the oscillatory dynamics of a trapped and initially highly-localised impurity interacting with a weakly-interacting trapped quasi low-dimensional Bose gas. This relates to and goes beyond a recent experiment by the Inguscio group in Florence. We witness a delicate interplay between the self-trapping of the impurity and the inhomogeneity of the Bose gas, and describe the dissipation of the energy of the impurity through phononic excitations of the Bose gas.
We then study the transport of a driven, periodically-trapped impurity through a quasi one-dimensional Bose gas. We show that placing the weakly-interacting Bose gas in a separate periodic potential leads to a phononic excitation spectrum that closely mimics those in solid state systems. As a result we show that the impurity-Bose gas system exhibits phonon-induced resonances in the impurity current that were predicted to occur in solids decades ago but never clearly observed. Following this, allowing the bosons to interact strongly, we predict the effect of different strongly-correlated phases of the Bose gas on the motion of the impurity. We show that, by observing the impurity, properties of the excitation spectrum of the Bose gas, e.g., gap and bandwidth, may be inferred along with the filling of the bosonic lattice. In other words the impurity acts as a probe of its environment.
To describe the dynamics of such a strongly-correlated system we use the powerful and near-exact time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) method, which we describe in detail. The second part of this thesis then analyses, for the first time, the performance of this method when applied to simulate non-equilibrium classical stochastic processes. We study its efficacy for a well-understood model of transport, the totally-asymmetric exclusion process, and find it to be accurate.
Next, motivated by the inefficiency of sampling-based numerical methods for high variance observables we adapt and apply TEBD to simulate a path-dependent observable whose variance increases exponentially with system size. Specifically we calculate the expected value of the exponential of the work done by a varying magnetic field on a one-dimensional Ising model undergoing Glauber dynamics. We confirm using Jarzynski's equality that the TEBD method remains accurate and efficient. Therefore TEBD and related methods complement and challenge the usual Monte Carlo-based simulators of non-equilibrium stochastic processes.

Keywords: strongly correlated
theory
tensor network
strongly-correlated
physics
Monte Carlo
variance
mixtures
Bose gas
non equilibrium
Time-Evolving Block Decimation
Esaki-Tsu
non-equilibrium
optical lattice
stochastic process
TEBD
impurities
cold atom
Advisor: Jaksch, DH
Vedral, V
The publisher Humphrey Moseley and royalist literature, 1640-1660

The principal argument of this thesis is that royalist literary publishing in the civil wars and Interregnum was a more coherent and wider movement than has been recognised. It asserts the importance of print culture to royalists, both as a vehicle for personal responses to political circumstances, and as a means to criticize and undermine the opposition. The thesis uses the publisher Humphrey Moseley as a lens through which to examine the publisher's role in the dissemination of a wide range of royalist texts. It demonstrates that publishers, as well as authors, were driven by their political and ideological opinions.
The thesis begins by establishing that the royalist and Anglican convictions expressed within the texts published by Moseley corresponded with his own. This opening chapter also demonstrates the editorial control that he exerted when publishing a book. Next follow five case studies. In the second chapter I examine writings of Moseley's most prolific author, James Howell. I show that until the censorship legislation of September 1649, Howell published royalist polemical pamphlets. I argue that in response to the censorship act Howell shifted to a more subtle method of polemical writing, most notably when he embedded extracts from his polemical pamphlets in his historical allegory Dodona's Grove which Moseley published in 1650. Chapters Three to Six are genre-based case studies. These chapters analyse the ways that a variety of genres were used by royalists in support of the Stuart cause and the Anglican Church. In the final chapter I set Moseley within the context of royalist publishing more widely. I review the careers of Henry Seile and Richard Royston to demonstrate that Moseley was not the only publisher committed to the royalist cause and that his productions belonged to a broad spectrum of royalist publishing.

Keywords: Psalms
literature
publishing history
royalist
romance
royalism
politics
intertextuality
translation
Advisor: Worden, B