VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Commercial diplomacy and investment protection: American diplomatic interventions to protect US assets overseas since 1990

In recent decades international economic disputes have become ever more legalized, which in principle allows states to compartmentalize individual disputes from broader diplomatic relations. Nowhere is this more true than in the international investment regime, where private investors have been empowered to directly sue host states in international arbitration, rather than relying on their home states for diplomatic support.
I challenge the standard narrative that investment protection has become "depoliticized", and reveal the persistent importance of informal commercial diplomacy in the settlement of investment disputes. I show that the US government continues to intervene diplomatically in disputes between American investors and developing country governments, despite the availability of institutional alternatives. Moreover, I argue such interventions are not primarily driven by pressure from private companies, but by government bureaucracies strategically pursuing their own interests, including advocating for investment climate reforms and demonstrating the value of commercial diplomacy to domestic constituencies.
The empirical support for these claims proceeds in three stages. First, I use zero-inflated negative binomial regressions to demonstrate that American investors are more likely to file formal arbitration claims when they are less able to rely on diplomatic support, namely when the position of ambassador to the host state is temporarily vacant. Second, I provide a behind-the-scenes look at American investment protection policy using an original dataset of US diplomatic interventions in 256 investment disputes discussed in internal State Department cables released via WikiLeaks. Third, I use structured, focused comparisons in seven case studies of investment disputes to probe the particular drivers of US intervention, and show that diplomatic engagement is most likely in cases where the state itself has strong interests in intervening, rather than when private pressure compels it to do so.
This thesis makes important and original contributions both to the literature on the international investment regime – which to date has broadly ignored the role of commercial diplomacy in contemporary dispute settlement – and to broader debates on the legalization of international economic disputes and the strategies firms use to shield themselves from political risks.

Keywords: Commercial Diplomacy
Depoliticization
Advisor: Milewicz, K
Manipulating dopaminergic activity with bupropion: effects on reward and emotional processing biases implicated in depression

Major depressive disorder is characterised by two core diagnostic symptoms, low mood and anhedonia, which have been suggested to be caused by negative biases in emotional processing and aberrant reward processing, respectively. Previous research using antidepressants predominantly affecting serotonin or noradrenaline activity suggests that antidepressants may act to reduce the negative biases in emotional processing, which then influences low mood; however, such antidepressants do not fully correct the anhedonia. This lack of efficacy underlines the need for further research to unravel the roles of various neurotransmitter systems in the modulation of processing biases implicated in major depressive disorder. For example, it is still unclear how the initial antidepressant effects on biases in emotional processing relate to effects on aberrant reward processing in major depressive disorder and whether they are also targeted by antidepressants affecting dopaminergic activity, such as bupropion. The current thesis aimed to delineate the role of the dopaminergic reward system in the cognitive neurobiological processes underlying the two symptom clusters of low mood and anhedonia in major depressive disorder. In order to do this, two experimental studies manipulating dopaminergic activity with the antidepressant bupropion were completed and the effects on reward and emotional processing biases implicated in major depressive disorder were assessed.
The first study investigated the acute effects of bupropion on behavioural measures of reward and emotional processing in a non-clinical population. Compared to placebo, an acute dose of bupropion was found to reduce negative and increase positive emotional processing with little effect on reward processing.
The second study investigated the early and longer-term effects of bupropion on behavioural and neural measures of reward and emotional processing in individuals suffering with major depressive disorder. Compared to untreated healthy controls, bupropion was again found to reduce negative and increase positive emotional processing but was found to worsen aberrant reward processing at 2 weeks prior to normalisation after the full 6 week treatment. Higher right lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity in response to happy faces and decreased right amygdala activity in response to sad faces at 2 weeks was associated with decreased HAM-D score at 6 weeks. This suggests a causal role for the early neural effects of bupropion in later change in subjective symptoms and has clinical implications providing further evidence for the potential to predict clinical outcome from the early effects of antidepressants.

Advisor: Harmer, C
Browning, M
Support is the new service: gendered political obligation, the military, and collective subject formation in international relations

Military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq highlighted a key characteristic of contemporary Western civil- military relations. Today, a small group of volunteers fights a distant conflict while popular familiarity with military service and war declines. There is a disconnect between this way of war and enduring cultural understandings of the appropriate normative relationship between gender (particularly masculinity), military service, and citizenship. This study examines "support the troops" (StT) discourses in the United States and United Kingdom during the "global war on terror" (2001-2010) as a representation of this on-going transformation in gendered/ing civil-military relations. Methodologically, the study employs structured discourse analysis to map an original data set of previously unexamined documents produced by UK and US state and military officials, pro-military non-governmental organizations, peace and anti-war movements, and media. It is the first systematic social scientific study of the "support the troops" phenomenon. The patterns inductively generated within the mapping are interpreted using a poststructural (re)conceptualisation of the military as a discursive structural effect, as well a formal institution and social relation. The study argues that StT is a means of addressing the gendered civilian anxiety that accompanies non-service in wartime. It finds that StT is a political contestation over the appropriate normative structure of gendered civil-military relations. Through the articulation of three ideal-typical, intertwined logics of gendered political obligation, StT discourse reconstitutes military support, rather than military service, as the sine qua non of contemporary normative citizenship. Via a series of gendered associations and contrasts with "the troops", support is further produced as a means of military participation. Correspondingly, ostensibly separate "civil" society is (re)masculinised. Together, the underlying logics of gendered political obligation work to discursively instantiate and (re)produce an idealised vision of the political community, extending and legitimating the transnational liberal social order.

Keywords: Gender
Military
Troops
Citizenship
Obligation
Democracy
Civil-Military Relations
Advisor: Frazer, E
Genetic susceptibility to invasive nontyphoidal Salmonella disease in African children

Nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) causes invasive, and frequently fatal, disease in African children. The burden of disease secondary to NTS reflects inadequacy of Salmonella-control strategies in Africa, with expanding antibiotic resistance, and no licensed anti-NTS vaccine. The delivery of improved interventions to prevent, diagnose, and treat invasive NTS (iNTS) infection, will be facilitated by an improved understanding of the biological determinants of susceptibility to iNTS, including host genetic factors.
To identify host genetic determinants of iNTS disease, we performed a GWAS and replication analysis of NTS bacteraemia in African children. This analysis identified and validated a common genetic variant in STAT4 associated with increased iNTS risk.
To characterise the function of the NTS-associated STAT4 variant, we utilised a genotype-selectable bioresource of healthy European adults and samples from African children with iNTS disease. In these experiments, the risk genotype at STAT4 is associated with reduced STAT4 RNA expression in stimulated leukocytes, and reduced IFNγ production in both ex vivo stimulated natural killer cells and in the serum of African children with acute NTS bacteraemia.
To validate genetic variation suggestively associated with NTS bacteraemia in the GWAS, NTS-associated loci with evidence of regulatory function were prioritised for functional characterisation. Using in vitro models of intracellular Salmonella infection and RNA interference, I characterise the role of a candidate NTS-susceptibility determinant, EVI5L, in Salmonella infections.
Finally, applying a pathway enrichment analysis to the NTS bacteraemia GWAS demonstrated that NTS-associated genetic variation in African children is enriched for methionine salvage enzymes. I further investigate the potential for host-pathogen interaction in this pathway, generating and characterising Salmonella mutants deficient in methionine metabolism.
Taken together, these data represent the first unbiased assessment of genetic susceptibility to iNTS disease in unselected populations. These results have important implications for the design of Salmonella-control strategies for use in Africa.

Keywords: africa
children
infection
salmonella
genome-wide association studies
human genetics
Advisor: Hill, A
MacLennan, C
Burdens of a creditor nation: business elites and the transformation of US trade policy, 1917-62

My research seeks to explain the evolution of trade policy debates among American business leaders between World War I and the 1960s. The key finding is that a new framework for discussing trade policy was widely adopted after the United States became a creditor nation during World War I. This framework related tariffs and imports to exports, international lending and American foreign policy. High levels of imports ceased to be a threat and instead came to be seen as a pre-requisite for high levels of exports and a well-functioning global economy; raising the levels of imports, including through tariff cuts, became a strategy for providing American allies and debtors with dollar revenues. This new insight into the political economy of American foreign economic policy is based on new evidence from the archival records of business associations and a wide range of other primary and secondary sources. In addition to bringing to light new evidence, my research also addresses some of the gaps that still exist in the literature on the history of the foreign economic policy of the United States, the Cold War and transatlantic relations.

Keywords: GATT
Cold War
American history
business history
Marshall Plan
business interest groups
balance of payments
Postwar Europe
trade policy
international trade
foreign aid
Economic history
World War II
political economy
Planning
Advisor: O’Rourke, K
Space use patterns and population dynamics in two common European rodents, Apodemus sylvaticus and Myodes glareolus

Space use patterns are driven by the individual’s need to acquire enough resources to survive and reproduce. Population dynamics, in turn, are determined by individual survival and reproduction. In rodents, these two key elements to a species’ ecology have been investigated for decades, but often data quality is insufficient to address important questions. This thesis aims to improve our understanding of space use patterns and population dynamics in the bank vole (Myodes glareolus) and the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus). I also try to overcome current methodological limitations by using a new method for field data collection and exploring the use of in-silico methods. In chapters 2 and 3, I analyse space use patterns of both species. My results highlight the importance of predation risk and food availability for space use patterns. Chapter 3 also reveals the advantage of using an individual based model to address space use related questions. In chapter 4, I analyse the density dependence of body weight and life history parameters in our wood mice population by constructing an integral projection model. I found mixed results for the density dependence of body weight but proof for changes of generation time and reproductive success at higher densities. Using an individual based model, I show in chapter 5 that sensitivity of space use estimates to low temporal resolution of location fixes varies between different movement types. This thesis shows that space use patterns are driven by interactions of many drivers, including sex, season, food availability and body weight, but are dominated by predation risk. It also supports the importance of population density for space use patterns and population dynamics. Finally, I highlight the potential of using in-silico methods to investigate the ecology of rodents and the current vulnerability of space use estimates to bias.

Advisor: Coulson, T
Malo, A
A rationalist theory of legitimacy

In this thesis, I argue for rationalism, the claim that political legitimacy should be distributed such that justice is promoted best.
In chapter 1, I define legitimacy as the permission to rule. I deny that political institutions generally enjoy authority, which is the moral power to directly impose duties on others. I then describe how legitimate political institutions without authority are possible in principle.
In the second chapter, I outline a major problem for rationalism. If individuals have strong, moral rights, then it seems that political institutions cannot legitimately operate without their subjects’ consent. I describe the key assumptions in this argument, and discuss a series of unconvincing proposals in the literature to escape it. In chapter 3, I argue that we can solve the problem if we look at theories of the moral justification of rights. There are two major such theories, the interest theory and the status theory. I outline the interest theory, and argue that it allows for non-consensual but legitimate political institutions. In chapter 4, I describe a Kantian claim about the nature of rights, according to which our rights are fully realised only if there are political institutions. If we accept this thought, then non-consensual political institutions can be legitimate on the status theory as well.
In chapter 5, I outline what it means to promote—rather than respect—justice, and argue that the promotion of justice enjoys primacy over other values. At first sight, rationalism appears to have very radical implications, given that it asks us to base legitimacy on justice. In chapter 6, I argue that this impression is mistaken. We should often pursue justice indirectly, for example, through methods which focus on legal validity or democratic procedure rather than justice.

Keywords: Legitimacy
Rights
Liberalism
Authority
Anarchism
Advisor: Bader, R
Green, L
Waldron, J
Quantifying radiation damage in X-ray diffraction experiments in structural biology

Quantitative studies of global radiation damage are presented for two different types of experiments in structural biology: macromolecular crystallography (MX) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)
MX is the most common technique to elucidate the atomic resolution structures of biological macromolecules. However, these molecules undergo radiation induced changes during the experiment that undesirably affect the data. Global radiation damage, which is characterised by an overall loss in the diffracted intensity of Bragg reflections, limits the amount of useful data that can be collected from a single crystal in an experiment. Furthermore, for experimental phasing experiments, the radiation induced intensity changes can be so significant that the phasing signal becomes undetectable, thereby hindering successful structure determination. This thesis investigates methods to track and correct the diffraction data that are affected as a result of global radiation damage. First, extensions to the diffraction weighted dose (DWD) metric are investigated for the ability of DWD to track the overall intensity decay of reflections. This metric then is combined with a new mathematical model of intensity decay to perform zero-dose extrapolation. An additional probabilistic extrapolation approach is incorporated into the traditional regression based approach to allow extrapolation of low multiplicity reflections. As an alternative approach, a new hidden Markov model representation of the data collection experiment is developed that allows the time-resolved calculation of structure factor amplitudes, with error estimates calculated explicitly. This method gives comparable refinement statistics to that obtained from data processed with the current data reduction pipeline, and improvements to the algorithm are proposed.
SAXS, on the other hand, is a complementary structural technique that results in low resolution information about macromolecules. However it still requires the probing of the macromolecules with ionising radiation, so radiation induced changes are still a problem. Unfortunately the tools for assessing radiation damage in SAXS experiments are not mature enough for them to be used routinely. This thesis presents extensions to RADDOSE-3D to perform dose calculations for SAXS samples. Additionally, a free, open source Python library has been developed to allow the exploration and visualisation of the results of a similarity analysis of frames within a dataset. These tools are then used to determine the efficacy of various radioprotectant compounds at different concentrations to mitigate radiation damage effects.

Keywords: X-ray crystallography
Advisor: Garman, E
On the performance of constrained amplify-and-forward networks

This thesis examines the effects of resource constraints on amplify-and-forward (AF) networks.
Chapters 3 and 4 are the first research chapters. Chapter 3 studies the outage probability performance of a two-hop two-way AF peak power constrained orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) network. Its performance is then optimized. Chapter 4 focuses on the one-way special case of the system studied in Chapter 3. It begins with an analysis of the network when nonlinear distortion produced by signal clipping dominates the additive noise in the system. To conclude Chapter 4, the theoretical study performed throughout Chapters 3 and 4 is used to optimize the performance of a one-way real world test bed.
Chapter 5 studies the n-hop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) AF relay network. Novel techniques are developed using random dynamical system (RDS) theory and Lyapunov exponents to establish capacity and power scaling laws for the network as n grows large. One of the main conclusions is that the average transmit power must grow at an exponential rate if capacity decay across the network is to be avoided.
Chapter 6 constitutes the final research chapter. In it, the techniques used to study peak-power constrained OFDM-based networks are combined with those developed in Chapter 5, which were used to study capacity and power scaling for multihop AF networks. The conclusion of this is that incorporating OFDM into peak-power constrained multihop AF relay networks will cause the capacity along each of the network's eigenchannels to decay exponentially. Finally, we show that the effects of distortion can be circumvented by ensuring the number of antennas at each node scales at a super-linear rate with the number of hops within the network.

Advisor: Coon, J
Hume’s dynamic system of the passions in the Treatise

This thesis is the first attempt to give an all-embracing survey of the second book of A Treatise of Human Nature. This masterpiece, published by David Hume in 1739-40, consists of three books, in which he discusses three operations of the mind, viz. the understanding, the passions, and morality, respectively. But unlike Books I and III, no book-length study of Book II has ever been produced in the secondary literature. This is unfortunate, because Hume’s accounts of the particular topics of the passions are delivered in a jigsaw puzzle manner, strewn here and there in various different places and contexts. This thesis aims to uncover Hume’s underlying intention, by providing a map or chart by which we can collect and connect the scattered pieces of his argument together, and thereby build them into a unified system. In pursuing this aim, I follow Hume’s lead and examine all subjects as they appear in Book II with my focus on Hume’s original distinction between the indirect and the direct passions. For, it is this indirect and direct division that functions as the key linkage that forms the whole system of the passions into a “new and extraordinary” structure by bridging between the other two systems. Here emerges a breathtakingly rich and profound system, filled with human warmth and a candidly expressed belief in human nature, clear of ostentation or dogmatism. No doubt Book II is the most fascinating and intriguing of the three books of the Treatise.

Advisor: Kail, P
Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Italian literature: the poetic translations of Camillo Sbarbaro and Giovanna Bemporad

This thesis deals with poetic translations of Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Italian literature, aiming to intertwine the discourse on poetics with the practice of translation and, in particular, exploring specimens of translations from the Greek tragedies of two twentieth-century Italian authors: Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) and Giovanna Bemporad (1923-2013).
Firstly, I locate Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's poetic translations within the Italian cultural scene of their times and discuss the role of poet-translators within the wider debate on the reception of Greek tragedy. Secondly, I analyse Sbarbaro and Bemporad's translation methodologies. Thirdly, I trace the impact of translations on their poetic works, unveiling the profound influence of Greek tragedy on Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's poetic discourse. Through textual and stylistic analysis, archival research and examination of their collected letters, my research shows the fundamental role of the translations of Greek tragedy in these authors' poetic trajectories.
While the thesis deals exclusively with Greek tragedy, I must note that the translations of Greek tragedies are but specific instances of the two poets' wider and systematic relationship with classical literature as a whole. In light of this, I consider the pedagogical commitment of these poets as being at the heart of their relationship with the Classics. Through an analysis of their experiences as teachers of Classics, which intensified while they translated Greek tragedy, I uncover an aspect of their thought on the relationship between the Classics and poetry which so far has remained unknown. My analysis of their translations of Greek tragedies reveals Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's intense negotiations with the Classics – shedding light on their poetics and asserting their key role in education.

Advisor: Gardini, N