VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Towards high-performance organic semiconductor devices: Microstructure, interlayers, and emerging applications

The field of organic electronics mainly focuses on the lightweight, flexible, and low-cost organic semiconductors, with ultimate goals of competing with or even substituting for the conventional silicon industries, and expanding the established success in xerography and displays to more fields. As a response to the persistent pursuit of high-performance organic semiconductor devices, in this thesis we exemplify three case studies from different perspectives, namely microstructure control, interlayer engineering, and emerging applications. First, the conformation of a light-emitting copolymer, 90F8:10BT, is regulated so that the β-phase, in which the intermonomer torsion angle of a fraction of chain segments is 180°, is generated. Recognised from its characteristic absorption peak, this typical microstructure shows significant impacts on charge transport, injection, and trapping in 90F8:10BT-based light-emitting diodes, leading to pronounced enhancements in device luminance, efficiencies, and lifetime. Second, we investigate a solution-processable hole injection/transport material, copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN), highlighting the effect of different solvents on its properties and applications. With a set of characterisation on thin-film topography, roughness, polymorphism, composition, and chemical bonding, as well as two critical hole-injection/transport-related properties, i.e. the surface energy and the ionisation potential, we demonstrate how CuSCN interlayers processed from six different solvents can be used in various organic semiconductor devices for improved performance. Third, we explore the possibility of using organic semiconductors to facilitate the Internet of Things, and a golden opportunity comes from organic rectifiers that can play an essential role in radio-frequency identification tags. Guided by simulation results thanks to our improved device model, we fabricate and optimise three organic rectifiers using different semiconducting materials, among which the best exhibits the potential of operating at a frequency towards the ultrahigh-frequency regime. We hope that these strategies of seeking high-performance organic semiconductor devices can make some contribution to the community of organic electronics, enriching the knowledge database and opening opportunities for the upcoming research.

Keywords: organic semiconductor devices
copolymer chain conformation
hole injection/transport materials
organic high-frequency rectifiers
organic semiconductors
Advisor: Bradley, D
Riede, M
Terra nova, provinciae novae? Roman intervention and Roman power in the western Mediterranean, ca.295-167 BC.

Between 295 and 167 BC, Rome’s position in the western Mediterranean changed hugely. This thesis asks how. It does this through the consideration of three specific regions: Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula, and Gallic northern Italy, each of which occupies a section, containing two chapters. The two chapters on each region aim to address two separate but related questions: how did Rome become directly involved in the region; and how did it subsequently manifest power there?
Section I introduces the ideas of Roman expansion, power, and imperialism, and rejects the latter as an analytical category. The three Weberian power types are also introduced: economic, ideological, and coercive.
Section II first discusses the period around 264 BC when Rome first entered Sicily with a military force. It argues for multipolarity in the island, involving Carthage, Syracuse, the Mamertines, and Ptolemaic presence. It then moves on to Roman power, arguing for the slow introduction of regular taxation and magisterial presence.
Section III first discusses events surrounding Rome’s entry to Iberia in 218, arguing for the importance of trade evidence in understanding the key role of Saguntum. It then argues for the central role of individuals in Roman power, and failure to introduce a regularised taxation system within the period.
Section IV first discusses the difficulties of understanding Rome’s move into the north of Italy, highlighting the difficulty of identifying populations and the need for context in discussing colonisation. It then argues that Rome’s exploitative and coercive behaviours reflect the productivity of power in creating the concept of Italy.
Section V discusses the role of the emergent themes of agency, provincial configuration, and individualism. It then argues that clusters of behaviours concerning coinage, settlements and land, manpower and militarisation, and ideological adaptation provide an image of Rome pursuing central goals while making intelligent use of the opportunities offered by the differing regions.

Keywords: multipolarity
types of power
Sicily
Iberian Peninsula
Italy as concept
Roman colonisation
Roman taxation
Gallic northern Italy
Roman imperialism
Advisor: Prag, J
Characterization of depleted monolithic active pixel sensors

Monolithic active pixel sensors are a viable detector option for many high energy particle physics experiments, as they reduce both the production cost and the amount of material required in a detector. They are produced in CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) processes, which are ubiquitous across consumer electronics and therefore have been the focus of development for several decades. The thesis focuses on a prototype device produced in a 180 nm TowerJazz high resistivity CMOS process, which was initially designed for the ATLAS experiment. Specifically, it investigates the radiation hardness of the sensor by measuring the capacitance of the collection electrode and the depletion region before and after irradiation. There are inefficiencies found at the pixel corners after irradiation, which are also confirmed by previous test-beam campaigns.
A new chip with additional modifications designed to combat those inefficiencies was produced. A novel measurement using an X-ray test-beam was conducted to measure the effect of the new modifications. It was found that they reduce the corner inefficiencies after irradiation. Furthermore, an extrapolation technique was used to compare and contrast the results from the X-ray test-beam with conventional charged particle test-beam done on the same chip.

Keywords: MALTA
pixel detector
CMOS
Investigator
monolithic
Advisor: Bortoletto, D
Shipsey, I
Single-walled carbon nanotube – polymer hybrids as hole transporting layers for organic solar cells

In this thesis, new types of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT)-Polymer/single molecule nanostructures were prepared and successfully used as hole transporting layers in both conventional and inverted organic solar cells thereby pushing the carbon nanotube based organic solar cell efficiency close to 10%. The first part of the thesis focuses on investigating the binding of nanotubes to Spiro-OMeTAD. A novel dual-shell nanostructure was prepared by first wrapping SWNTs with a monolayer of semiconducting polymer (F8BT/P3HT) that forms Type-I / Type-II heterojunctions with the nanotube, and subsequently binding a large number of small molecules (Spiro-OMeTAD) onto the [Polymer-NT] nanohybrids. This strong interaction leads to a significant improvement in PL emission intensity which we associate with the debundling of the nanotube. In the second part of the thesis, the properties of a new polymer wrapped single walled carbon nanotubes (C8-SWNTs) were investigated and shown to successfully remove metallic impurities from different carbon nanotube starting materials. In addition, highly selective wrapping (~99.3%) of only one SWNT species (6,5) can be made possible by optimising the chain length of the polymer. PLE studies show that there is a ~71 fold reduction in the intensity of other SWNT species compared to the SWNT starting material. Finally, the third part of the thesis focusses on the fabrication of high efficiency organic solar cells (~9.4%) using highly semi-conducting Polymer-SWNT nanohybrids as hole transporting layers. A simple polymer exchange technique was used to produce ~99.5% pure semiconducting P3HT-SWNT nanohybrids. We used these nanoybrids as Hole Transporting Material (HTM) in the fabrication of the devices and were able to achieve high efficiencies with improved stability.

Keywords: Carbon nanotube
Organic solar cells
SWNT
Advisor: Nicholas, R
Exploring the regulation of centriole size by CP110/Cep97 and their interaction network

Centrioles are cylindrical organelles that serve as templates for the assembly of centrosomes and cilia. They exhibit 9-fold symmetry and comprise a central cartwheel structure surrounded by nine microtubule (MT) blades. Within the same cell type, centriole length is consistent, suggesting that the growth of these organelles is regulated. While recent advances have been made in understanding how the growth of the cartwheel is controlled, less is known about the mechanisms mediating centriole MT length. The proteins CP110 and Cep97 localise at the distal-ends of centrioles, and are thought to ‘cap’ centriole MTs to inhibit their over-elongation. However, it is not clear whether this regulation takes place during the growth of the centriole, or afterwards to maintain proper centriole size.
In this thesis, I aimed to explore the regulation of centriole size by CP110/Cep97 and their interaction network. Development of an assay to track the dynamic growth of centriole MTs in early Drosophila embryos revealed that CP110/Cep97 overexpression slowed centriole MT growth. However, this may not be due to the direct effect of these proteins on MTs; rather, CP110/Cep97 play an unexpected role in affecting the growth rate and period of the underlying cartwheel structure, which is likely separate from their role in capping centriole MTs. Cep104 and Klp10A also localise to the distal-ends of centrioles and have been shown to interact with CP110/Cep97, yet I found that they do not affect daughter centriole growth dynamics. Indeed, Cep104 appears to act downstream of CP110/Cep97. These findings lead me to propose a model whereby centriole growth dynamics in Drosophila are primarily driven by the assembly of the cartwheel structure, with centriole MTs tracking the cartwheel’s growth. Once centrioles reach their final size, proper centriole length must be maintained, and this likely involves CP110/Cep97 (in their capping role) alongside Klp10A.

Advisor: Raff, J
The toponomy of the Targum with special reference to the Table of the nations and the boundaries of the Land of Israel

During the past two decades there has been growing appreciation of the importance of the Palestinian Targumim of the Pentateuch for the study both of the New Testament and of Tannaitic Judaism, However, these documents cannot be fully or properly used until they have been dated, Dating in this case is a complex problem,for each of them has many dates - the date of the basic translation,the dates when additions were made, the date of the final redaction,and the dates of the manuscripts. What, in fact, is required is a history of the development of the Palestinian Targumim.
The present study aims to provide the groundwork for such a history, It will attempt to sustain the thesis that the extant Palestinian Targumim of the Pentateuch are later elaborations of a complete Targum or Targumic tradition which originated in the period of the Second Temple.
The method which I have chosen has been to examine the equivalents given by the Targumim for Biblical geographical names, I have concentrated the inquiry on two important clusters of these terms, namely, the Targumim of the Table of the Nations in Genesis 10 and of the Boundaries of the Land of Israel in Numbers 34.
Section I discusses this method. There I have stressed the need for combining an examination of the names themselves with a comprehensive analysis of the material in which they are embedded. Thereafter, the study has two main aspects: (1) the identification of the Targumic geographical names; and (2) the use of this information for the purpose of dating.
Continued in thesis ...

Keywords: Bible
Pentateuch
toponomy
Aramaic
Israel
Palestinian
Targum
Land of Israel
On the analysis of isometric immersions of Riemannian manifolds

This thesis is a study of problems related to isometric immersions of Riemannian manifolds in Euclidean space. We address three main questions: the weak continuity of geometric invariants along sequences of immersions of Riemannian manifolds; the construction of isometric immersions by weak compactness methods; and the validity and regularity of the Gauss equation.
First, we investigate the validity of Cartan's equations for W1,p coframes on surfaces, for all 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞, and employ this to derive a version of the Gauß equation valid for W2,p immersed surfaces in R3. Under some additional regularity hypotheses, a distributional formulation of the Gauß equation on immersed surfaces in R3 is proved, and as a corollary, a new local regularity result is established for isometric immersions of positively curved surfaces.
Investigating the weak continuity properties of immersions of Riemannian manifolds, we first prove a general weak continuity result for curvatures of connections with Lp bounds on principal bundles. As a corollary, it is proved that when p>2, curvatures are weakly continuous for the weak W2,p convergence of immersions. In some cases, we also recover the weak continuity of the general Gauss equation when p=2.
Finally, we give a general viscosity framework for constructing isometric immersions in prescribed target spaces under natural boundedness assumptions in Lp spaces. Assuming this set-up, we prove a new weak compactness theorem for approximate solutions of the Gauss--Codazzi--Ricci equations.

Advisor: Chen, G
Nguyen, L
Hydrogen bonding phase-transfer catalysis with ionic reactants

The development of HB-PTC represented a significant step forward in the field of asymmetric nucleophilic fluorination. The initial applications of HB-PTC to β-bromosulfides and β-bromoamines substrates have in common the auto-ionisation of the starting material to generate ring-strained electrophiles. We aimed at expanding the scope of the HB-PTC methodology to other class of substrates, such as pre-formed ionic reactants. In particular, we became interested in azetidinium salts, that upon enantioselective nucleophilic fluorination would give access to enantioenriched γ-fluoroamines, important motifs in medicinal chemistry. In asymmetric catalysis, the use of ammonium salts as reactants in the presence of alkali metal fluorides is unprecedented and raised fundamental questions on their compatibility with HB-PTC. The use of two ionic reactants in HB-PTC is the main core of this thesis. Chapter 2 describes how the azetidinium salts have been prepared. In Chapter 3, the enantioselective nucleophilic fluorination of the azetidinium salts under HB-PTC is presented. This chapter is enriched by mechanistic insights and key computational studies. Chapter 4 discusses preliminary work on the application of HB-PTC with nucleophiles other than fluoride.

Advisor: Gouverneur, V
Elucidating the role of eIF6 in the endothelial response to shear stress

Haemodynamic forces generated by blood flow are critical determinants of vascular function in health and disease. Fluid shear stress (FSS) is defined as a force per unit area and is generated by blood flowing parallel to the vessel wall. FSS highly influences the endothelial cell (EC) phenotype. ECs lining straight vessel regions are exposed to steady laminar FSS which induces cytoskeletal alignment and this promotes a protective, anti-inflammatory EC phenotype. Conversely, ECs situated at vascular branch points or curvatures are exposed to complex flow patterns, such as flow reversal, oscillations, low flow and turbulence, which promotes inflammatory gene expression, high proliferation rates and a lack of cytoskeletal alignment. Given the dynamic mechanical environment that ECs are exposed to, remodelling of their cytoskeleton represents an important central cellular function, yet the mechanisms involved remain to be fully elucidated. Recent evidence has shown that components of the protein translation machinery such as ribosomes and eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs) are closely associated with the cell cytoskeleton. However, the importance of this interaction in regulating the EC phenotype and the relationship between haemodynamics and translational control are largely unexplored. The aim of my thesis project therefore was to investigate the differential effects of laminar and disturbed FSS on protein translation signalling and cytoskeletal remodelling and how one initiation factor, eIF6, mediates these processes. Previous work from the lab has shown that eIF6 co-localises along the Z-disks in cardiomyocytes but its role and potential function in EC biology has not been elucidated. The key findings from this work indicate an important novel role for eIF6 in mediating the EC response to shear stress including regulation of cytoskeletal alignment, focal adhesion dynamics and cell proliferation. Further, my results show that eIF6 itself is flow regulated and plays a differential role in EC protein translation mechanisms under laminar and disturbed FSS. The work outlined in this thesis provides a better understanding of how translational components like eIF6 regulate EC cellular processes which are relevant for vascular health and disease.

Keywords: endothelial
protein translation
mechanical forces
shear stress
blood flow
protein synthesis
mechanotransduction
signal transduction
vascular
eIF6
cytoskeleton
Advisor: Tzima, E
Reader, J
Variation of innovation: a review of income maintenance programmes available to the self-employed in nine European countries during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic

The pandemic and resulting deteriorating business and macroeconomic situation reinforced existing divisions as atypical workers like the self-employed experienced higher levels of shock exposure (Avlijaš, 2020; OECD, 2020a). The income maintenance schemes made available to the self-employed in response marked a historic moment of welfare state expansion, but provision varied widely. A Fuzzy-set Ideal Type Analysis of provision in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and the UK reveals empirical support for three theoretical models of income maintenance schemes though model memberships differ to the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism typology. The findings highlight the unique nature of the emergency provision but also of the self-employed and reinforces a need for more theoretical focus on this growing group of diverse, and often precarious, workers. Barriers to accessing these schemes underscores the need for more flexible social protection systems to accommodate non-standard forms of labour. This is an imperative if self-employment continues to increase as countries promote flexible labour markets as part of an economic recovery strategy.

Keywords: Covid
Pandemic
Income support
Coronavirus
Self-employees
Covid-19
Self-employed
Income subsidy scheme
Income maintenance
Advisor: Ciccia, R
Investigation of the Plasmodium falciparum RH5-Interacting Protein (PfRIPR) as a blood-stage malaria vaccine target

Malaria is an ancient disease that still affects millions of people in endemic regions. Despite ongoing global efforts to produce a vaccine against the malaria parasite, chiefly Plasmodium falciparum, an effective vaccine is not yet available. In recent years, new highly conserved blood-stage vaccine candidates have emerged including PfRH5, now being investigated in clinical trials. PfRH5 forms the ‘RCR’ complex with two other proteins, PfRIPR and PfCyRPA; this essential and highly conserved complex is critical for merozoite invasion of erythrocytes. Here, PfRIPR is investigated as a potential new blood-stage vaccine candidate. PfRIPR is a large and complex protein containing of 10 EGF-like domains. Antibodies raised against full-length PfRIPR are effective at blocking merozoite invasion of erythrocytes in vitro, however, beyond this our knowledge is sorely lacking. My work shows that the epitopes of neutralising antibodies fall exclusively within a small region of PfRIPR corresponding to EGF-like domains 5-8. I demonstrate that immunisation with PfRIPR EGF (5-8) protein yields a four-fold improvement in antigen-specific IgG quality compared with full-length PfRIPR. In addition, I show that monoclonal antibodies raised against PfRIPR EGF (5-8) can block merozoite invasion of erythrocytes whereas antibodies that bind outside this region do not. Co-immunisation of PfRIPR with either PfRH5, PfCyRPA, or all three proteins has revealed a complex relationship between the antigens. PfRIPR is the most immunodominant of the three antigens but yields the least potent IgG. These experiments also strongly suggest that co-immunisation leads to inter-antigen synergy which improves the potency of the IgG response. This work provides a platform for second-generation PfRIPR vaccines based on PfRIPR EGF (5-8) to be developed and tested in conjunction with PfRH5 and PfCyRPA.

Keywords: Vaccine
Malaria
Advisor: Draper, S
Higgins, M
Regulation and heterogeneity of human mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells in blood and liver

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are an abundant population of innate-like, effector memory T cells, that secrete proinflammatory cytokines and exhibit direct cytotoxic activity. Given their semi-invariant T cell receptor (TCR) and characteristic phenotype, MAIT cells appear as a homogeneous population. However, recent studies report some heterogeneity in surface marker expression, response to stimulation and cytokine production, as well as tissue-specific functionality. Whether such diversity reflects variable activation states, or alternatively indicates the presence of multiple transcriptionally and functionally distinct MAIT cell subsets, is currently unknown. Moreover, while the semi-invariant TCR of MAIT cells is well defined, how TCR usage varies between tissues and individuals is yet to be defined. In this thesis, I have used bulk and single-cell genomic technologies to investigate the regulation and heterogeneity of human blood and liver MAIT cells, and to explore the transcriptional response of blood MAIT cells to TCR and cytokine stimulation. In the blood, CD8+ MAIT cells exhibited a distinct transcriptional and chromatin accessibility landscape relative to CD8+ conventional memory T cells, as well as altered regulation by known and novel TFs. Single-cell RNA-sequencing indicated that human MAIT cells essentially comprise a single subset. Previously reported phenotypic heterogeneity appears to reflect differences in activation state that depend in part on both clonal origin and tissue localisation. Following TCR or cytokine stimulation, MAIT cells responded as a single population, with observed differences in functionality between cells reflecting their relative degree of activation. Lastly, I have provided an in-depth characterisation of the MAIT cell TCR repertoire and demonstrated that TCR usage is highly shared between blood and liver, but essentially unique to each individual. Overall, this study has provided fundamental insights into human MAIT cell biology and will serve as a useful foundation for studies investigating the role of MAIT cells in health and disease.

Keywords: T cell receptor
T cells
RNA-sequencing
MAIT cells
single-cell RNA-sequencing
ATAC-sequencing
cytokines
Advisor: Klenerman, P
Provine, N