VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The protection of fundamental rights in Bulgaria: revisiting the Kelsenian model for constitutional adjudication


This thesis seeks to contribute to the debate about constitutionalism and the rule of law in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on one of its core themes – the enforcement of fundamental rights. It does so with reference to a detailed exploration of an understudied jurisdiction in this region, Bulgaria. The thesis develops an analytical framework informed by institutional design, legal culture, and their interplay in the context of Bulgaria’s constitutional experience. It provides an original, in-depth study of the rights-based jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court. A core argument is that this Court has evaded its mandate to adjudicate fundamental rights, standing in contrast to the robust, rights-based activism that has been associated with the constitutional courts created in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe after World War II, and after the end of communism. All these constitutional frameworks adopted the centralised model of judicial review associated with Hans Kelsen. As initially designed by Kelsen, this model focused on the resolution of separation of powers disputes between governmental organs and not on individual rights protection. The latter function, however, has become a distinctive and central feature of the ‘modern Kelsenian courts’ that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. After considering two paradigmatic examples of such courts – the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Hungarian Constitutional Court – the thesis demonstrates that, thus far, the Bulgarian Constitutional Court has fulfilled a function more closely associated with Kelsen’s archetypal design as an umpire of intra-governmental disputes, rather than that of a human rights court. This development is explained with reference to Bulgaria’s constitutional history and legal culture, the post-communist constitution-making process and the adopted constitutional design, as well as the rights-based jurisprudence of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court.

Keywords: German constitutional law
Hans Kelsen
Rights-based review
Theory of adjudication
Socio-legal studies
Access to justice
Fundamental rights protections
Constitutional adjudication
Democratic transition
Comparative constitutional studies
Bulgarian constitutional law
Constitutional theory
Hungarian constitutional law
Post-communist constitutionalism
Law in context
Advisor: O’Regan, K
Mulcahy, L
Geometrical methods in dynamics of complex fluids and kinetic theory

In this thesis, we study three applications of the noncanonical Hamiltonian formalism to fluid dynamics and the kinetic theory of gases and polymers.
The first application is in polymer kinetic theory. A common model for a polymer solution is a suspension of multibead-chains in a Newtonian fluid. The configuration of the chains is described by a kinetic distribution function. We consider a double bracket formulation for the dynamics of this suspension. The reversible part is governed by a semidirect Lie--Poisson bracket, and the irreversible part is governed by a symmetric dissipation bracket. The Poisson bracket captures the kinematics of the beads being advected as Lagrangian markers. We find that chains with three or more beads can transmit angular momentum by bending, which produces an asymmetric couple stress. These terms support couple stress boundary layers at rigid boundaries. Finally, we derive closed macroscopic models that describe suspensions of Hookean multibead-chains.
The second application is in gas kinetic theory. An ideal gas is described by the Boltzmann equation, which becomes a noncanonical Hamiltonian system if we neglect collisions. A long-standing problem in gas kinetic theory is the derivation of reduced hydrodynamic descriptions. We analyse some of these reductions using Poisson geometry. In particular, we give a manifestly Hamiltonian derivation of the compressible Euler equations from kinetic theory using a Poisson map and an approximation to the Hamiltonian. We extend these results to electrostatic plasmas described by the Vlasov--Poisson system.
The final application is to active matter. We consider the ideal dynamics of a suspension of active rod-like swimmers. We establish a novel analogy between the active suspension and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in a nonlinear media. The magnetic field becomes the orientation field for the swimmers. Its magnitude then becomes a gauge degree of freedom, which we describe using Poisson geometry. The active suspension shares the noncanonical Hamiltonian formulation with MHD. Using the energy-Casimir and energy-momentum methods, we find force-free fields and finite amplitude Alfven waves in the active suspension.

Advisor: Dellar, PJ
The design and investigation of sulfur-based reagents for cross-coupling processes

Described in this thesis are new methodologies for the synthesis of important biaryl structures, with a focus on 2-arylpyridines and heteroaryls. This is achieved through the development and application of two novel sulfur-based reagents in palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions: firstly, heteroaromatic base-activated latent sulfinates, and secondly, primary aryl sulfinamides.
Chapter 1 is a literature review detailing the challenges and the recent strategies developed to access industrially important 2-(hetero)arylpyridine compounds. The use of (hetero)aryl sulfinates in palladium-catalysed desulfinative cross-coupling reactions is also discussed, as this forms the groundwork for the research described in this thesis.
Chapter 2 describes the development and use of base-activated latent sulfinate reagents, notably heteroaromatic β-nitrile and β-ester sulfones, in palladium-catalysed desulfinative (- SO2) cross-coupling arylation reactions. In this approach, neutral, masked reagents are activated under the basic cross-coupling conditions to give the heteroaryl sulfinate in situ, which then reacts with readily available aryl bromides to access a broad range of pyridine biaryls. The robustness of these latent sulfinate reagents is demonstrated and exploited through multi-step transformations to give complex pyridine structures.
Chapter 3 discusses the extension of the latent sulfinate approach from Chapter 2, towards the development of a palladium-catalysed cross-electrophilic coupling of two (hetero)aryl halides, via the in situ formation of masked sulfinate nucleophilic partner. Initial investigation has demonstrated the feasibility of this process and highlighted strategies for further optimisation.
Chapter 4 details the investigation of primary aryl sulfinamide reagents as nucleophiles in a novel desulfinamidative C(sp2)-C(sp2) cross-coupling reaction (-SONH). The use of sulfinamide reagents allows cross-coupling to proceed at a lower temperature than the aryl sulfinate reactions. The viability of carbocyclic aryl sulfinamides in these processes have been established, with the potential for extension to heteroaryl nucleophiles in the future.
Chapter 5 summaries the research in this thesis and suggests potential areas for future work.
Chapter 6 presents the experimental data and procedures for this research.

Keywords: Masked sulfinates
Desulfinamidative
2-arylpyridines
cross-coupling reactions
arylation reactions
palladium catalysis
biaryl
Desulfinative reactions
2-pyridyl
sulfinamides
reaction optimisation
Advisor: Willis, MC
Evolved P450 mutants as general oxidation catalysts for target synthesis via early-/late-stage hydroxylation 

This thesis describes the adoption of P450BM3 mutants as biocatalysts during target molecule synthesis in different stages and the efforts toward the synthesis of the azepane core type structure of natural product balanol and the enantiomer of natural product bulnesene.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the application of P450BM3 mutants as oxidation catalysts for various structures including simple cyclic amines and sesquiterpenes. A review of the significance and various synthetic studies toward natural products balanol and bulnesene was provided.
Chapter 2 describes a short demonstration of the feasibility of further functionalisation of P450BM3 hydroxylated cyclic amines by synthesising the azepane core of natural product balanol.
Finally, Chapter 3 details a short enantiospecific route to ent-dihydrobulnesene and an investigation into the use of P450BM3 mutants for late-stage oxidation of sesquiterpenes, along with a comparison of P450BM3-mediated oxidation profiles of a pair of enantiomers.

Keywords: enzymatic catalysis
natural compound synthesis
Advisor: Robertson, J
Honest, sober and willing: Oxford college servants 1850-1939

A comparative study of nineteen Oxford colleges, this thesis offers a novel contribution to the historiography of the University of Oxford: a history of the university ‘from below’. From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, colleges experimented with a variety of solutions to problems common to many employers. Labour contracts are compared across colleges to consider the role of wage forms and methods of pay in the management of college servants. Colleges and servants relied on family labour networks to mitigate the risks of uncertainty. These networks became particularly important after 1868, when the university began licensing lodging houses for undergraduates, and college servants and their families provided a trustworthy source of labour. Colleges were early adopters of contributory pension schemes. By the late nineteenth century, the employment contract reflected a fundamental shift in the apportionment of responsibility for managing the financial risk associated with death, illness, and most importantly, old age. Beginning with contributory savings schemes for the purchase of life insurance in the mid-nineteenth century, colleges experimented with a variety of strategies for managing the cost of servants’ retirement and by the 1920s, all colleges but two had contributory pension schemes. Contradicting longstanding characterizations of these workers, I find evidence of trade union activity among college servants in the early twentieth century that resulted in wage increases for many of these workers.

Keywords: University of Oxford
Nineteenth century British labour history
Oxford Colleges
Domestic servants
Advisor: Humphries, K
Epithelial cell intrinsic and extrinsic effects of WNT disruption in colorectal tumorigenesis

Despite cancer initiation being attributed to specific pools of epithelial stem cells, tumorigenic transformation is a complex process that entails the co-evolution of the epithelial and stromal compartments. Here, I studied how the stem cell composition of a given malignancy shapes the interactions established between tissue compartments in Colorectal Cancer (CRC). For many years, Lgr5+ Crypt Base Columnar (CBC) cells have been acknowledged as the cell of origin of CRC. However, alternative pools of intestinal progenitors, the Regenerative Stem Cells (RSC), have been described in settings of regenerations. In this piece of work, I analysed the contribution of these pools of stem cells to colorectal neoplasia. Using a RNA sequencing-based analytics pipeline, a range of mouse and human pre-malignant lesions and cancers could be classified based on their Stem Cell composition. This revealed that lesions with different molecular characteristics preferentially select for the expansion of specific progenitors. Furthermore, I narrowed down the molecular drive that may be conferring CBC and RSC characteristics. Finally, I demonstrated that these populations are not static, but tumours can change their stem cell composition to adapt to therapeutic selective pressure. Using genetic models of colorectal disease, I investigated how alterations in epithelial-stromal interactions can drive colorectal transformation. In the Vil1-Grem1 mouse, epithelial upregulation of GREM1 was enough to cause the activation of fibroblast populations and modulate the production of niche factors within the intestinal stroma. This enabled the formation of polyps which presented pools of progenitors in ectopic locations. Importantly, these alterations could be reversed by a Gremlin-1 blocking antibody. Despite WNT-driven immune evasion being an acknowledged phenomena in CRC, the molecular mechanisms by which it operates are yet notcompletely understood. Here I used a range of models of WNT-driven intestinal transformation to investigate this phenomena. I found that WNT activation comes with the downregulation of pyroptosis, an immunogenic form of cell death. Furthermore, treatment of the Lgr5-Rspo3 mouse with a WNT inhibitor was enough to drive re-infiltration of polyps by T lymphocytes, which came together with upregulation of the pyroptosis effector Gsdmc4. However, in APCMin animals, lymphocytic infiltration after Lgr5+ cell ablation did not correlate with an increase in pyroptosis, suggesting that mouse models with different molecular drives/progenitor composition may possess alternative immune evasion mechanisms. Overall, in this piece of work, I present a tool to infer the Stem Cell admixture within colorectal lesions, which could be used to inform clinical practice and to facilitate CRC research in the future. Moreover, I provided evidence for mechanisms by which epithelial cell-intrinsic characteristics can alter the fibroblasts and immune compartment within colorectal polyps.

Advisor: Simon, L
The impact of the coexistence of multiple norms from different sources of international law on change to the jus ad bellum

This thesis analyses what would be required as a matter of international law to establish that a change to the jus ad bellum has occurred; that is, that states are permitted to use force in situations where it was previously unlawful under international law, or are prohibited from using force in situations where that conduct was previously lawful. More specifically, this thesis analyses how the international law norms that regulate the use of force may be modified, given that the jus ad bellum comprises multiple international law norms, from different sources of international law, some with distinctive characteristics such as jus cogens status, some of which address the same subject matter, and some of which refer to, limit the scope of, or provide exceptions to each other. It is argued that this coexistence of different kinds of international law norms impacts how those norms are modified, and so will affect how the jus ad bellum can change.
The thesis analyses each of the different kinds of norm in the jus ad bellum in turn, to determine how norms of customary international law, treaty law, and norms with jus cogens status may be modified. The thesis then analyses the structure of the jus ad bellum and the relationships between the different international law norms and considers how these processes of modification are impacted by the coexistence of different kinds of norms in the jus ad bellum. In this way, the thesis seeks to identify what would be required, in terms of the practice, opinio juris and/or agreement of states, to demonstrate that a new exception to or limitation on the scope of the prohibition on force has come into existence, or that the content or scope of self-defence and collective security have changed.

Keywords: use of force
jus ad bellum
sources of international law
self-defence
collective security
humanitarian intervention
UN Charter
jus cogens
public international law
international law
customary international law
peremptory norms
Advisor: Akande, D
Understanding the Landau equation as a gradient flow

This thesis provides and investigates the rigorous gradient flow viewpoint of the spatially homogeneous Landau equation for soft potentials. This extends the similar perspective recently developed for the Boltzmann equation with Maxwellian potentials by Erbar. Taking advantage of the H-theorem for the Landau equation, we construct a metric from a dynamic optimal transportation viewpoint (Benamou-Brenier and Dolbeault-Nazaret-Savaré) for which the Landau equation can be viewed as the gradient flow of the Boltzmann entropy with respect to this metric. The gradient flow description is further reinforced by recovering the grazing collision limit from the Boltzmann equation to the Landau equation with simpler arguments and intuition in the spirit of Gamma-convergence (Sandier-Serfaty). Finally, a robust and efficient particle approximation is numerically analysed for a regularised version of the Landau equation which preserves the gradient flow structure.
This thesis invites and advertises the use of gradient flow techniques to pursue some of the future research directions discussed here.

Keywords: Kinetic Theory
Gradient Flow
PDE
Plasma
Advisor: Carrillo De La Plata, J
The logic of consistency and the rise of human rights institutions

This thesis proposes a theory to explain the conditions under which moral argument matters in world society, called the logic of consistency. The theory is the result of an examination into the rise of international scrutiny of national human rights practices, with a focus on the three United Nations monitoring institutions: the Treaty Bodies, the Special Procedures, and the Universal Periodic Review. The move to these institutions, which serve to identify, verify, and publicise the (in)ability of states to comply with their human rights obligations, represents a curious phenomenon that cannot be explained by IR middle-range or grand theories, but it can by the logic of consistency. The logic of consistency identifies and connects traces of political action in relation to international scrutiny of human rights over the last hundred years, offering a revisionist account of the rise of human rights institutions. Building exclusively on primary sources, the empirical analysis demonstrates how appeals of political actors to universal principles has generated a universal horizon that pulls them towards the spirit of the universal principles they invoke, irrespective of their intentions. This universal horizon has subverted the resistance of states to external scrutiny and has compelled them to embrace permanent scrutiny of all states, in relation to all rights at all times, with or without their consent. The logic of consistency reveals the immanent ground of universalism, beyond metaphysical principles or assumptions of cultural unity in world society. It draws on philosophy, sociology, history, legal theory, and politics and aspires to contribute to the understanding of the behaviour and significance of moral argument in all these fields. Its scope is so wide that it is hard to identify social norms and institutions not shaped by it. Indeed, the social world is unthinkable without consistency.

Keywords: Treaty Bodies
rhetoric
institutions
universalism
hypocrisy
Universal Periodic Review
consistency
Special Procedures
United Nations
monitoring
human rights
Advisor: Nicolaïdis, K
Evaluating the liking effect paradigm and the impact of realism in face processing among neurotypical and autistic populations

The face plays an important role in human interactions, from identifying others to their to understanding their emotions and mental state. Particularly, eyes play a significant role in human communication. Individuals tend to follow the direction of another’s eye gaze, resulting in faster more accurate processing. Furthermore, gaze cues may influence functional processing, such as improving memory and influencing affective judgments of objects. The observed preference for objects that have been cued by faces, referred to as the liking effect, only occurs when faces are used to cue objects. This notable difference between a gaze and a spatial cue opens the potential for this paradigm to investigate differences between faces of different levels of realism, a topic that could improve our understanding of face perception deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
A series of experiments are presented across four chapters. In Chapter 2, the liking effect is investigated in long-term memory. Initially there were issues in replicating the cueing bias for visuospatial measures. To overcome this, the complexity of task was raised, emphasising the importance of the task in gaze cueing experiments. There was no explicit liking effect found, although there was a preference for items that were presented as part of learning trials. Experiments in Chapter 3 replicated the original experiment to investigate whether the effect occurs in both Schematic and Photographic faces. Initially, experiments failed to replicate the liking effect. Further experiments were able to replicate the liking effect with more detailed Schematic stimuli, but only if the target objects were cued by multiple Photographic faces. Chapter 4 was unable to replicate these findings across individuals with High and Low levels of autistic traits. The complexity of the design and limitations with sample size make it difficult to extrapolate the results beyond the current experiment. Finally, in Chapter 5 an eye-tracking study is presented to investigate the effect in an ASD and a NT sample. It was found that the effect occurred in the NT group, but not in the ASD group. Insights from the eye tracking results suggest that explicit time observing each target may explain the effect and differences between the groups. In Chapter 6, findings are in the context of the wider literature. Conclusions are drawn about the efficacy of the liking effect as an index for studying the processing of facial realism in general and in ASD more specifically.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder
ASD
Face perception
Advisor: Scerif, G
“Wherever I could move around”: The worldmaking work of gays and girls in the archived photographs and testimony of Kewpie of District Six

In 1998, the recently established Gay and Lesbian Archive of South Africa acquired 600 photographs and three interviews conducted with their original collector, Kewpie. The Kewpie Collection, as it is now known, remains the only official archival resource that depicts and was created by the collective of people from District Six, Cape Town, who described themselves as gays and girls and referred to each other using she/her pronouns after being assigned male at birth. Classified “Coloured” under apartheid, the girls were forcibly removed from District Six after it was declared “Whites Only” in 1966. Three decades later, as legal apartheid was being dismantled, the constitution of the Kewpie Collection as such was informed by a proliferation of historiographical and archival practices coupled with the urgent emergence of the question of gay rights within the public sphere. Notwithstanding its intentions and successes, one effect of the Collection’s archivalisation has been to obscure the fundamental work gays and girls undertook to both survive and imagine other ways of being in the world.
As it is discernible in the Kewpie Collection, this necessarily collaborative labour is elaborated in this thesis as a theory-practice of worldmaking. Seeking to expand available possibilities and make diverse forms of existence more possible, the girls of District Six were not only producers of gay counterpublicity, but key agents in multiple and expansive projects to reformulate inherited conditions of social existence into new possible worlds. Worlds thus created may have been actualised, contingently and ephemerally, in the scenes of their creation. Because they were non-hegemonic, they could not be sustained. Yet these worlds are indexed, in virtual form, by the Kewpie Collection. Because they transform inherited conditions, meanings and materials the girls produce risk recuperation as evidence of enabling past or indeed present conditions. Ultimately, however, this worldmaking continues to unfold as the materials are circulated.

Keywords: Archive
Queer
South Africa
Worldmaking
Photography
Advisor: Pratt, L
Hoad, N