VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The reception of the Categories of Aristotle, c. 80 BC to AD 220

This thesis focuses on the ancient reception of the Categories of Aristotle, a work which served continuously, from late antiquity into the early modern period (Frede 1987), as the student’s introduction to philosophy.  There had previously been no comprehensive study of the reception of the Categories during the age of the first philosophical commentaries (c. 80 BC to AD 220). In this study, I have collected, assigned, and analyzed the relevant fragments of commentary belonging to this period, including some that were previously undocumented or inexplicit in the source texts, and sought to establish and characterize the influence of the early commentators’ activity on the subsequent Peripatetic tradition. In particular, I trace the early evolution of criticism and defense of the text through competing accounts of its aim (skopos), which would ultimately lead Stoic and Platonic philosophers to a partial acceptance of the Categories and frame its role in the later Neo-Platonic curriculum.

Keywords: nicostratus
andronicus
aristotelianism
boethus
simplicius
athenodorus
peripatetics
aristotle
lucius
categories
cornutus
herminus
Advisor: Reinhardt, T
Theory and structure of port competition

Global economic development has significantly increased the demand for container liner shipping which has led to its global restructuring. Under such a situation, hub-and-spoke liner shipping systems have become increasingly popular which cause more intense competition between major ports and thus transhipment traffic is perceived to play a more important role in deciding the competitive positions of ports. Although there was no shortage of studies investigating port competitiveness in the past decades, most of them had overlooked the necessity of theorising port competition while ignoring the importance of including less-readily quantifiable factors in the port competitiveness assessment process.
Thus, a research gap clearly exists and through investigating the competitiveness of Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Hamburg, Le Havre and Rotterdam acting as container transhipment hubs in North Europe, this thesis attempts to theorise port competition. Apart from providing a theoretical framework, Port Competitiveness Model, to future port research, this thesis also aims to identify the major factors affecting port attractiveness, to assess port choice behaviour, to investigate the current port competitiveness and to forecast their future prospects in the market. Research methodology involves various quantitative modelling techniques including generalized cost calculations (to assess port attractiveness), Multinomial Logit Model (to assess port choice behaviours of liners and the current competitive positions of ports) and Logistic Regression (to predict port competitiveness in the future), while data collection includes a questionnaire survey of major liners and various in-depth interviews with port and shipping experts in Europe.
Findings indicate that money and time are not sufficient to explain the choices of liners and other less-quantifiable factors like geography, quality of services, values and perceptions, inertia, limitations of liners are also significant. Rotterdam is currently the overall market leader in the North European transhipment market but may be fragile in resisting challenges from competitors while Hamburg is a regional leader in the Scandinavia-Baltic market. On the other hand, Bremerhaven is currently an underachiever but possesses potential if it changes its current competitive strategies while Antwerp also possesses potential but faces different problems in its developments. For poor performing ports like Felixstowe and Le Havre, they need to improve significantly before they can really compete. Also, results suggest that ports should not only focus on expensive physical improvements (like infrastructure) but should also pay attention to software aspects in port operations e.g. management, marketing, etc. The key to achieve port competitiveness does not depend on port's administrative system but on how it executes the system and makes things work. In the foreseeable future, the author firmly believes that this thesis will become one of the theoretical 'pillars' in the theory of port competition.

Advisor: Preston, J
The impact of preterm birth on the cardiovascular system in young adulthood

Advancements in clinical care have led to a growing cohort of preterm-born individuals now entering adulthood. Before birth, such adults were often exposed to a suboptimal intrauterine environment, and after delivery, key developmental stages that would normally occur in utero during the third trimester had to take place under ex utero physiological conditions. Through detailed cardiovascular phenotyping, this thesis investigates the cardiovascular changes in preterm-born young adults, utilising a cohort of individuals with data collection since recruitment at birth. The detailed perinatal information was first used to design nested case-control studies to investigate the effects of early lipid and glucocorticoid exposure on long-term cardiovascular physiology in individuals born preterm. It was demonstrated that intravenous lipid administration leads to an artificial elevation of total cholesterol levels in immediate postnatal life, which is associated with long-term changes in aortic and left ventricular function proportional to the degree of cholesterol elevation. Additionally, exposure to antenatal glucocorticoids relates to a regional increase in aortic arch stiffness in young adulthood, as well as changes in glucose metabolism. It was then shown that young adults born preterm have increased left ventricular mass, out of proportion to blood pressure, and a unique three-dimensional left ventricular geometry, with reduced systolic and diastolic function compared to term-born controls. Similarly, they also show distinct differences in the right ventricle, with increased right ventricular mass and a proportion having clinically impaired right ventricular systolic function. Finally, it was demonstrated that preterm-born individuals have increased circulating levels of antiangiogenic factors in young adulthood, which relate to capillary rarefaction and blood pressure elevation. These findings are of considerable public health relevance given that nearly 10% of births are now preterm. Understanding whether modification of these variations in cardiovascular structure and function prevent the development of cardiovascular disease in this growing subgroup of the population will be of future interest.

Keywords: circulating biomarkers
cardiovascular function
cardiovascular disease
hypertension
preeclampsia
perinatal risk factors
prevention
vascular development
preterm birth
cardiovascular structure
cardiac remodelling
perinatal complications
neonatal risk
perinatal interventions
paediatrics
angiogenesis
aortic stiffness
capillary density
cardiac development
blood pressure
Ring polymer molecular dynamics

This thesis presents the ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) approximation to the Kubo-transformed time correlation function and shows how it may be used as the basis of an approximate quantum-mechanical method for determining the dynamical properties of condensed-phase molecular systems.
The performance of the RPMD method is initially investigated by calculating the position (qˆ), and position-cubed (qˆ3), autocorrelation functions of a series of onedimensional potential wells of varying anharmonicity. It is then applied to the evaluation of the incoherent dynamic structure factors of liquid para-hydrogen at 14 K. Finally, the RPMD method is used to determine canonical rate coefficients for two onedimensional models of bimolecular chemical reactions and a multidimensional model of a solution-phase proton transfer reaction. For each application, the accuracy of the RPMD method is established by comparison with exact quantum-mechanical results and/or with experiment. Throughout this work, an emphasis is placed upon identifying the situations in which the RPMD approximation breaks down.
It is found that the RPMD method is capable of providing an accurate approximation to the time correlation functions of a variety of condensed-phase molecular systems. Situations for which it is inaccurate include correlation functions which correlate highly nonlinear operators and those involving significant quantum interference effects in the real-time dynamics.

Advisor: Manolopoulos, D
From Arma to Fama: the military record of Roman republican commanders in speech and text (219-19 BC)

There are three main scholarly approaches to the mechanisms by which the military record of Roman Republican commanders was disseminated in Rome: the ceremony of the triumph, the erection of monuments with their inscriptions, and finally the minting of coins. Alongside this ceremonial and material publicity this thesis investigates how and why more ephemeral media, as well as autobiographical texts, were employed to disseminate, promote and at times denigrate the Roman military record during the period of 219-19 BC. It encompasses five core chapters: introduction; oratory as praise; oratory as criticism; letters; and autobiographical prose. Chapter two argues that military achievements were orally disseminated in various contexts in Rome: it was a fundamental facet of the triumphal process; a regular part of attaining and maintaining military commands; and the military record was frequently employed in forensic defence speeches, particularly in the late Republic with the growth of the law-courts. Chapter three focuses on how and why the military record was criticised back in Rome in a variety of contexts, arguing that it was a key means by which the Roman elite regulated excessive claims of gloria. Owing in part to the increasing concerns about self-serving Roman magistrates, focusing on behaviour beyond the battlefield was a common means of undermining commanders’ military reputations. Chapter four details the heavy and regular dependence on dispatches for short-term, yet proficient, martial self-promotion. It emphasises the key role of letters in the triumphal process, including the passing of legislation aimed in part at regulating their exploitation. It also argues that private correspondence played a valuable role, particularly in the targeting of senators and other influential sections of Roman society. Chapter five investigates the role of commentaries, memoirs and historical literature in the promotion of military res gestae and how criticism alongside concerns about posterity influenced their composition. It addresses the influence of Greek biography on their composition as well as the Roman aristocratic practice of preserving correspondence and other documentation.

Keywords: Roman History
Advisor: Bispham, E
Characterisation of foams using vision systems

The macroscopic behaviour of a two-phase foam depends on chemical properties such as surface tension, and physical properties such as the shape and size of the bubbles in the foam. The chemical properties of a foaming material may be deduced from experiments on the material in the single phase, for example surface tension or viscosity measurements. However, in order to measure structure the foam must clearly be present. This presents a difficult problem, especially for liquid foams which are often fast-moving and liable to collapse or rearrange on coming into contact with a probe.
Optical techniques for examining foam structures can be non-invasive and take advantage of the semi-transparent nature of many liquid and solid foams. In particular, the application of confocal and axial tomography systems to real three-dimensional cellular foams can resolve their local geometric structure. This thesis covers the application of new optical tomographic techniques to the imaging of foams and presents the first three-dimensional models of bubble structure in liquid and solid foams. Complete descriptions of the hardware and software are included; imaging systems are based on a personal computer with an inexpensive video digitising card and a CCD camera.
A clear advantage of optical systems is that the high data bandwidth required for tomography is available even on relatively slow computers by modern standards. Typically, all the data for a sixteen-million (256³) voxel model covering a world volume of 64mm³ can be acquired in a period of 30 seconds.
Results from this work include the first three-dimensional solid models of observed foams, both aqueous and polyurethane-based, including volume models of minimal energy cellular foam configurations. In particular, Kelvin's proposed minimal cell and also bubbles from the Weaire-Phelan structure have been resolved by the system.
Anatomy and poses of the human figure in Attic art from the last quarter of the sixth to the first quarter of the fifth centuries B.C

This thesis examines the extent to which a more accurate representation of the human body is developed from the last decades of the sixth century, and the reasons for this development. A sound knowledge of clinical anatomy is used to analyse closely the rendering of features and trace the way the Greek artist looked at his model. The study covers different media found in Attica (vases, sculpture in marble or in poros, bronzes, and terracottas) and shows that artists try to render the human body accurately in all, although the pace of development varies according to the cost, subject and technique used (painting, carving, casting, modelling). This move away from the conventional representation reflects a close observation of the life model even though the human figure is still rendered according to idealized proportions and features. In order to explain this change, literary evidence is gathered to reconstruct the knowledge of human anatomy and body at the time. A rich anatomical vocabulary is already developed in the Iliad and the Odyssey but is used in descriptions which combine imagination and reality, whereas, from the last decades of the sixth century, the extant philosophical and (slightly later) medical texts reflect a growing concern with anatomical features and internal organs in order to distinguish the human from the animal. This new approach may have influenced the way contemporary artists looked at, and represented the human figure, since it is probable that they knew these theories either from lay-texts, which often reproduce passages of philosophical or medical treatises, or from public lectures and readings.
The role of the IL23/IL17 pathway in inflammatory bowel disease

The aetiology of IBD is unknown, but available evidence suggests that an aberrant immune response towards the commensal microbial flora is responsible for intestinal inflammation in genetically susceptible individuals. Studies from animal models of intestinal inflammation have greatly advanced our understanding of the immunological basis of IBD. However, translation of results from animal research into human studies is essential in order to improve treatment options and patient quality of life. In this thesis we present the successful introduction of translational studies on human tissue in our laboratory. In particular, we evaluated the role of the IL23/IL17 pathway in the human immune response and its role in IBD. IL23-driven inflammation has been primarily linked to its activity on Th-17 cells; however, work from our laboratory has identified a novel population of IL23-responsive ILC, which are responsible for innate colitis in mice. Here we have analyzed the role of IL23-responsive innate cells in IBD. Our results show increased expression of Th-17 signature genes amongst intestinal CD3- cells in patients with IBD. Furthermore, we observed a marked and selective increase in IL17 producing CD56- ILC in the inflamed intestine of patients with CD. ILC may contribute to intestinal inflammation through secretion of cytokines, such as IL17A and IL17F, and recruitment of other inflammatory cells, representing a novel tissue-specific target for the treatment of IBD. In addition, we present here our preliminary data on the characterization of human intestinal and systemic DC populations. In particular, we aimed to evaluate if in the context of the intestinal microenvironment DC develop specific regulatory features, as observed in murine CD103+ DC. We show that human intestinal DC populations exhibit specific regulatory properties, such as expression of genes associated with TGF-β and RA activity. Furthermore, CD103+ DC are present in the human gut and are characterized by tolerogenic markers. Remarkably, patients with IBD have reduced frequencies of intestinal CD103+ DC, which display a more pro-inflammatory phenotype. Alteration in DC subset composition and functional activity may result in a distort balance between immune effector and regulatory responses, promoting the development of intestinal inflammation.

Keywords: IL-23
Intestine
Inflammation
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Advisor: Powrie, F
Molecular genetics of beta thalassaemia in Asian Indians

The primary aim of this thesis was to outline an approach for the prenatal diagnosis of β-thalassaemia in the Asian Indian population by DNA analysis. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based, nonradioactive and rapid technique, allele specific PCR, was successfully developed for the detection of β-thalassaemia mutations. A large sample of 656 unrelated carriers from seven different regions of the Indian subcontinent was studied by allele specific PCR and DNA sequence analysis. Sixteen different β-thalassaemia mutations were identified, two of which were new mutations. Of these five common mutations accounted for 91.7% of β-thalassaemia alleles.
The β-globin gene haplotypes of 419 β-Th and 196 β - A chromosomes were constructed. On analysis of which it was inferred that β-thalassaemia mutations occurred relatively recently on existing chromosomal backgrounds and then they experienced positive selection. A strong but not invariant haplotype-mutation linkage was observed. A regional variation in the distribution of β-thalassaemia mutations was found.
α-Globin gene mapping studies identifed the single α-globin gene deletion in 24 out of 51 unrelated Asian Indians who were suspected to have α-thalassaemia. It is likely that the remaining carriers have nondeletional α-thalassaemia determinants.
To perform preimplantation diagnosis of β-thalassaemia, by analysis of a 10-30 cell embryonic biopsy, a PCR protocol was developed. Using two rounds of PCR with nested primers, successful amplification of a 597 bp fragment of the β-globin gene was achieved from as few as two embryonic cells. The problem of false positive amplification was encountered which appeared to be resolved by UV transillumination of the pre-amplification PCR mix. By allele specific PCR with nested primers it was possible to identify the presence or absence of five β-thalassaemia mutations from 10 pg of template DNA (equivalent to approximately two diploid cells).
Thalassaemia control in India is a complex issue; the financial, social and demographic factors involved were considered and recommendations made.

Advisor: Old, J
Weatherall, D
Synthesis and alternating automata over real time

Alternating timed automata are a powerful extension of classical Alur-Dill timed automata that are closed under all Boolean operations. They have played a key role, among others, in providing verification algorithms for prominent specification formalisms such as Metric Temporal Logic. Unfortunately, when interpreted over an infinite dense time domain (such as the reals), alternating timed automata have an undecidable language emptiness problem. In this thesis we consider restrictions on this model that restore the decidability of the language emptiness problem.
We consider the restricted class of safety alternating timed automata, which can encode a corresponding Safety fragment of Metric Temporal Logic. This thesis connects these two formalisms with insertion channel machines, a model of faulty communication, and demonstrates that the three formalisms are interreducible. We thus prove a non-elementary lower bound for the language emptiness problem for 1-clock safety alternating timed automata and further obtain a new proof of decidability for this problem. Complementing the restriction to safety properties, we consider interpreting the automata over bounded dense time domains. We prove that the time-bounded language emptiness problem is decidable but non-elementary for unrestricted alternating timed automata.
The language emptiness problem for alternating timed automata is a special case of a much more general and abstract logical problem: Church's synthesis problem. Given a logical specification S(I,O), Church's problem is to determine whether there exists an operator F that implements the specification in the sense that S(I,F(I)) holds for all inputs I. It is a classical result that the synthesis problem is decidable in the case that the specification and implementation are given in monadic second-order logic over the naturals. We prove that this decidability extends to MSO over the reals with order and furthermore to MSO over every fixed bounded interval of the reals with order and the +1 relation.

Keywords: Church Synthesis
Real-time verification
Channel Machines
Alternating Timed Automata
Metric Temporal Logic
Advisor: Worrell, J
The war on language: language management and resistance in contemporary China

What explains institutional change in authoritarian regimes presiding over fragmented societies? A popular assumption is that, because the state is so powerful, major institutional change takes place only when certain actors within the state system see such change as beneficial for their personal or collective interests. In other words, institutional changes are necessarily top-down and elitist in nature. Challenging that position, this thesis articulates a theory of gradual institutional change in authoritarian regimes, arguing that authoritarian institutions, as distributional instruments laden with power implications, are likely to be unstable and ambiguous, allowing social actors to advance their personal or collective interests through gradual institutional modifications. As these resistances accumulate, the costs for state actors to maintain their increasingly ineffective institutions rise to an unsustainable level, incentivising them to revise their core practices—and, by extension, sometimes expand existing rights or extend new ones to their citizens. This argument is supported by a systematic examination of the Chinese state’s historic attempts to promote the use of a standardised language form—putonghua—and simplified Chinese characters on a national scale, and a range of popular resistance efforts against them. Drawing upon newly available archival materials, survey data, and in-depth interviews, I conduct process-tracing case studies of three successive language management regimes—namely, top-down (from the 1950s to 1980s), incentivising (from the 1990s to mid-2000s), and selective (from the mid-2000s), demonstrating how they were challenged and gradually modified by their subjects. From this position I argue that the deployment of official language policy in the PRC is determined endogenously by the ambiguities of existing language institutions as well as exogenously by levels of economic development and communication technology. The casual arguments are then evaluated in light of evidence from the history of language management in the former Soviet Union and Tawian.

Keywords: institutional change
language management
institution
Advisor: Thornton, P