VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Maori ways of knowing

This research considers material culture, the politics of identity, and the role knowledge plays in a Maori community in relation to a nineteenth century historic collection held abroad. The Charles Smith collection came from the Nga Paerangi community in Whanganui, New Zealand. The importance of historic collections to Maori are described through the concept taonga, or treasured objects, which have been theorized in terms of kinship relationships to a certain class of social valuable. This research acknowledges that taonga uphold the continuity of historic relationships, but departs from other analyses in its focus on a previously unknown collection, introduced to the source community through photographs in an exploration of ways taonga interactions are historically and circumstantially informed. Visually focused research endeavors often present diverse responses in a meeting of the social life of objects and the politics of knowledge. Similarly, divergent responses to taonga arose that referenced the colonial contexts in which such taonga left Maori control, as well as losses to knowledge bases in the community. Endeavors to reclaim lands and cultural heritage through language and education initiatives operate at a local level of regeneration, but these goals become pertinent to larger issues of placing knowledge within a rights-based framework grounded in personal socializations of knowledge. The recognition that knowledge is taonga emerged as the framework for understanding ways Maori assert their authority over land, their language, and museum collections based in particular dispositions to knowledge. The control enacted over cultural representations in museums, land courts, and other political forums, asserts self-determinative positions, and also claims Maori knowledge as a scarce resource. Community speakers who have access to this powerful knowledge must therefore act on behalf of their communities as guardians of knowledge and taonga treasures, to redress historic losses, outsider appropriations of culture, and prevent further social disadvantages.

Keywords: New Zealand
identity politics
Maori
museum objects
Advisor: Peers, L
Innate sensing of bacterial flagellin in acute and chronic intestinal inflammation

Flagellin is a highly immunogenic, bacterial protein considered to be abundant in the intestinal lumen. It has been reported to be an immunodominant antigen in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In the work presented in this thesis several complementary murine models of IBD were employed to elucidate the role of innate immune sensing of flagellin in the development of intestinal inflammation. Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) enable mammals to discriminate self from non-self through the recognition of microbial signatures, such as bacterial flagellin. Flagellin is detected by at least two distinct PRRs, NOD-like receptor 4 (NLRC4) and Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5). Our experiments revealed that NLRC4 promoted protective effects during acute intestinal inflammation mediated by infection with Citrobacter rodentium, a close relative of enteropathogenic E. coli. Following infection with C. rodentium, Nlrc4-/- mice developed more severe weight loss, increased bacterial colonisation levels and exacerbated intestinal inflammation compared to WT counterparts. Bone marrow chimera experiments revealed that NLRC4 expression in non-hematopoietic cells provided protection and intestinal epithelial cells expressed high NLRC4 mRNA levels. These results suggest that NLRC4 inflammasome activation in the intestinal epithelium provides potent, protective effects during infection with a mucosal pathogen. In contrast, TLR5 was shown to promote protective effects during chronic, T-cell mediated intestinal inflammation driven by adoptive transfer of naïve CD4+ T-cells into lymphopenic Rag-/- hosts. The absence of TLR5 in Rag-/- recipients resulted in accelerated and exacerbated IBD. Furthermore, chronic T-cell dependent colitis driven by Helicobacter hepaticus, a flagellated, enteric bacterium, was more severe in mice deficient in TLR5. Finally, construction of a H.hepaticus Type 6 secretion system deletion mutant revealed delayed pathogenicity in an innate model of intestinal inflammation, most likely due to reduced initial colonisation of mutant H.hepaticus.

Keywords: inflammasome
Mucosal immunology
Advisor: Maloy, K
Single particle tracking as a tool to investigate the dynamics of integrated membrane complexes in vivo

The last decade has seen substantial advances in single-molecule tracking methods with nano-metre level precision. A powerful tool in single-molecule tracking is fluorescence imaging. One particular application, total internal reflection microscopy, can capture biological processes at high contrast video rate imaging at the single-particle level. This thesis presents methodologically novel methods in analysing single particle tracking data. Presented here is an application of a Bayesian statistical approach that can discriminate between the different diffusive modes that appear with the presence of membrane architecture. This algorithm is denoted BARD; a Bayesian Analysis to Ranking Diffusion. These algorithms are applied to a total internal fluorescence microscopy based experimental data of a novel membrane probe in Escherichia coli. This probe is a plasmid expressed, non-native membrane integrating trans-membrane helix and thus acts as an ideal protein based probe under no specific native control. Two experiments were performed using a combination of varying helix probe size and growth temperature experiments effectively altering the transition temperature of the membrane. These data are suggestive of a passive partitioning of the helix protein into mobile and immobile domains that emerge from the underlying phase behaviour of the membrane.

Keywords: single-particle-tracking SPT TIRF diffusion membrane membrane-proteins
Advisor: Leake, M
Burrage, K
Mathematical problems relating to the fabrication of organic photovoltaic devices

The photoactive component of a polymeric organic solar cell can be produced by drying a mixture consisting of a volatile solvent and non-volatile polymers. As the solvent evaporates, the polymers demix and self-assemble into microscale structures, the morphology of which plays a pivotal role in determining the efficiency of the resulting device. Thus, a detailed understanding of the physical mechanisms that drive and influence structure formation in evaporating solvent-polymer mixtures is of high scientific and industrial value.
This thesis explores several problems that aim to produce novel insights into the dynamics of evaporating solvent-polymer mixtures. First, the role of compositional Marangoni instabilities in slowly evaporating binary mixtures is studied using the framework of linear stability theory. The analysis is non-trivial because evaporative mass loss naturally leads to a time-dependent base state. In the limit of slow evaporation compared to diffusion, a separation of time scales emerges in the linear stability problem, allowing asymptotic methods to be applied. In particular, an asymptotic solution to linear stability problems that have slowly evolving base states is derived. Using this solution, regions of parameter space where an oscillatory instability occurs are identified and used to formulate appropriate conditions for observing this phenomenon in future experiments.
The second topic of this thesis is the use of multiphase fluid models to study the dynamics of evaporating solvent-polymer mixtures. A two-phase model is used to assess the role of compositional buoyancy and to examine the formation of a polymer-rich skin at the free surface. Then, a three-phase model is used to conduct a preliminary investigation of the link between evaporation and phase separation.
Finally, this thesis explores the dynamics of a binary mixture that is confined between two horizontal walls using a diffusive phase-field model and its sharp-interface and thin-film approximations. We first determine the conditions under which a homogeneous mixture undergoes phase separation to form a metastable bilayer. We then present a novel mechanism for generating a repeating lateral sequence of alternating A-rich and B-rich domains from this bilayer.

Keywords: evaporating films
confined phase separation
multiphase flow
topological transformation
Marangoni instability
WKB approximation
multiple scales
sharp-interface asymptotics
Advisor: Muench, A
Breward, C
Please, C
Family size and educational consequences in the UK

This thesis investigates in what ways the family matters for educational outcomes. Six research questions are answered. First, is family size associated with familial resources? Second, is having a large family associated with lower levels of objective and subjective educational outcomes and has this changed over the 20th century? Third, is there evidence of an association between family size and emotional health and life perspectives of young people? Fourth, is there any evidence of an association between family size and the degree of confidence and sociability? Fifth, do parenting strategies vary by family size? Sixth, is there evidence if a causal relationship between family size and educational outcomes?
The British Household Panel Survey, the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England and the ONS Longitudinal Study are used to answer these questions.
The key findings from the observational studies are as follows. First, as family size increases there is a reduction in familial resources. Second, as a result of resource dilution there is a reduction in the highest qualification attained; this finding is robust to alternative measures of educational outcomes. Third, there is a positive relationship between family size and reporting poor emotional health and external locus of control. Fourth, there is some evidence that the manner in which the young person socialises varies by family size. Fifth, parenting strategies vary by family size; these strategies are positively associated with GCSE achievement and ameliorate the negative family size association. Sixth, testing the resource dilution model using twins as an exogenous increase in family size found that there is weak evidence of a causal relationship between family size and educational outcomes.
This thesis addresses the influence of the family on inequalities in education. The findings have important implications for future research on this topic.

Keywords: intergenerational relationships
households
children and youth
social mobility
statistics (social sciences)
sociology
families
Advisor: Chan, T
Essays in corporate restructuring, reputation and law

This dissertation consists of three essays which examine topics at the intersection of law and finance.
The first essay investigates the role of regulatory sanctions and reputational damage in financial markets. We study the impact of the announcement of enforcement of financial and securities regulation by the UK’s financial regulators on the market price of penalized firms. We find that reputational sanctions are very real: their stock price impact is on average almost 9 times larger than the financial penalties imposed. Furthermore, reputational losses are confined to misconduct that directly affects parties who trade with the firm (such as customers and investors).
In the second essay we analyze the costs and benefits associated with secured creditor control in bankruptcy. We do it by studying the highly contested practice of UK pre-packs, where a deal to sell the business is agreed before publicly entering into bankruptcy. Contrary to widespread criticism that this procedure leads to collusion, we find no evidence of exploitation of conflict of interests and we find that it preserves the value of the business and maximizes recovery in circumstances in which a public announcement of bankruptcy would destroy value. In small businesses where secured creditors are concentrated the benefits of their control seem to outweigh the costs.
Finally, in the last essay we examine whether mandatory shareholder voting prevents wealth destruction in corporate acquisitions. We study the UK setting where all large transactions must have shareholder approval. We observe that such Class 1 transactions always get consent. Nevertheless, there is a striking difference between the performance of acquirers between Class 1 and other transactions. The finding is most pronounced for transactions in a narrow neighbourhood of the size threshold, and is robust to a large set of controls for confounding effects.

Keywords: Reputation
Finance
Law
Advisor: Mayer, C
The effects of ionic surfactants on expanding free surfaces

This study is based upon the `overflowing cylinder' experiment and develops an ionic theory for the advection-diffusion dynamics of surfactant in this experiment. It is hoped that a consideration of these ionic effects can account for discrepancies between theoretical and experimental results for the overflowing cylinder. We begin by describing in detail the general fluid and surfactant dynamics and produce a model for this ionic system. We apply the model to a range of different problems to gain an understanding of the ionic effects. Finally, we address the original nonionic model presented for the analysis of the overflowing cylinder experiment and decipher a parameter missing from some papers which study this experiment.
Raman spectroscopy of supported lipid bilayers and membrane proteins

Off-resonance unenhanced total internal reflection (TIR) Raman Spectroscopy was explored to investigate supported single lipid bilayers with incorporated membrane peptides/proteins at water/solid interface.
A model membrane was formed on a planar supported lipid layer (pslb) by the fusion of the reconstituted small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs), and the intensity of bilayer was confirmed by a comparison of Raman spectral intensity in the C-H stretching modes with C16TAB. With prominent Raman sensitivity attained, we studied the 2-D phase transition of DMPC and DPPC pslbs and the temperature-dependent polarised spectra revealed a broad transition range of ca. 10 °C commencing at the calorimetric phase transition temperature.
We applied polarised TIR-Raman Spectroscopy to pslbs formed by DMPC SUVs reconstituted with a model membrane-spanning peptide gramicidin D. A preferential channel structure formed by dissolution of trifluoroethanol could be probed by polarised Raman Spectroscopy qualitatively showing an antiparallel β-sheet conformation (different from "standard" one) and our Raman spectra by correlation with NMR and CD data confirmed single-stranded π6.3 β-helical channel structure in the single bilayer. We also studied the membrane-penetrating peptide indolicidin in the presence of DMPC pslb over the chain melting temperature and a β-turn structure was dominantly observed concomitant with membrane perturbation.
Dynamic adsorption of DPPC to form pslb from a micellar solution of n-dodecyl-β- D-maltoside could be examined with high sensitivity of every 1-min acquisition. Finally we used polarised TIR-Raman scattering to porcine pancreatic phospholipase A2 hydrolytic activity on DPPC pslbs and revealed lipid-active conformation different from that of the enzyme alone.

Advisor: Bain, C
State-to-state molecular photodissociation dynamics

The water molecule, rotationally state selected in the third and fourth streching overtone (|04>- and |05>-) and stretch-bend combination (|04>|2>-) levels, has been photodissociated at 𝜆 ≈ 282 nm via the Ã state. The OH photofragment rotational distributions, determined by OH(A-X) laser-induced fluoresence (LIF), are found to differ from those reported previously by Andresen and coworkers (H2O|01>- + 193 nm), Grim and coworkers (H2O|04>- + 239.5 nm) and Rosenwaks and coworkers (H2O|01>+ + 193 nm). These variations become more apparent with increasing angular momentum in the parent water molecule and with an increasing number of OH stretching quanta in the intermediate vibrational overtone. The Franck-Condon model of Balint-Kurti is able to qualitatively reproduce the observed trends, provided that dissociation at lower photolysis photon energies and via higher intermediate overtone states is assumed to occur preferentially from extended RH-OH configurations. The calculations suggest that the variation in the photofragment rotational distributions lies in a gradual change in the inertial properties of the bound state water molecule as the H-OH bond is stretched. In a second study, the partially deuterated water molecule, rotationally state selected in the third and fourth OH stretching vibrational overtone levels have been photodissociated via the Ã state at 𝜆 ≈ 288 nm. A branching ratio betweem the H + OD and D + OH dissociation channels is estimated from OD and OH (A-X) LIF measurements to be 𝜱(OD)/𝜱(OH) > 20; this compares well with the previous measurements of Grim and coworkers, and the theoretical work of Imre and coworkers. The small shift in the centre of mass in the water molecule arising from the substitution of of a deuterium atom for one of the hydrogen atoms is shown to have a marked effect on the rotational distributions of the OD photofragment. Calculations using a modified Franck-Condon model, which includes an approximate exit-torque, are able to reproduce qualitatively the experimental OD rotational distributions at sensible values of RR-OD(~ 1.4 Å). In addition to being sensitive to the dynamics of the parent molecule on the ground state potential, the product OD state distributions are shown to be very sensitive to even the smallest exit channel torque on the excited potential surface.

Advisor: Brouard, M
Political culture and urban space in early Tudor London

This thesis examines political culture in London, 1500–1550, by looking at different forms of political communication between the civic government and the city’s inhabitants, and at how these acts were situated within the urban environment. Based on the records of the civic government, the body of the work is divided into two halves addressing those acts conducted by the authorities – proclamations, processions, public punishments – and those directed towards the civic government by others, such as petitions, libels, and seditious talk. The study of these acts reveals two important things: first, that they were not only pragmatic attempts to communicate information, but also performances designed either to construct or contest particular images of authority; secondly, that these performances were spatially structured and that the urban environment was an integral aspect of the city’s political culture. It is then demonstrated that, just as political communication was inherently performative and spatial, so the urban environment was itself a medium of political communication.
These observations highlight the importance of political communication to an understanding of the city’s political culture as depicted in the historiography of early modern London. At the same time, recent scholarship on the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has identified an increasingly distinctive culture in towns typified by attitudes to political authority as communal and contingent, and to social identity as performative and self-fashioned. In London in particular, historians have pointed to a radical transformation in the city’s political culture in reaction to dramatic urban growth after 1550. The spatial aspect of this, however, has been neglected. It is argued here that the inherently political nature of urban space and its communicative potential, already in existence, was integral to changing urban values and part of what made rapid change in London after 1550 a politically traumatic and transformative process.

Keywords: urban environment
cities and towns
political communication
early modern
civic government
Advisor: Archer, IW
The function of NOD2 in antigen presenting cells

Crohn’s disease (CD), a chronic inflammatory condition of the gut affecting 1:1000 of western populations, is thought to arise from a dysregulated immune response in a genetically susceptible individual. Polymorphisms in the ligand recognition domain of an intracellular pattern recognition receptor (PRR), NOD2, remain the strongest genetic risk factor for the development of CD. NOD2 directs autophagy in human DCs to facilitate bacterial destruction and antigen presentation; the CD-variant-NOD2 shows defects in this pathway. Recent work in the laboratory has demonstrated NOD2 signals to control expression induction of microRNA-29, which is impaired in cells from CD patients expressing CD NOD2-variants, and among other immunoregulatory effects, microRNA-29 suppresses IL-12p40/IL-23. Thus NOD2 directs key anti-microbe and immunoregulatory functions whose breakdown in the presence of CD-variant-NOD2 could act as a trigger for inflammation in this disease.
In comparison with other PRRs, relatively little is understood of the hardwiring of NOD2 signalling, the mechanism of NOD2-mediated autophagy induction, the means by which NOD2 recruits a signalling platform within the cytosol and the mechanism of synergy with other PRRs and the inflammasome. In this work I used quantitative proteomics to map the NOD2 signalling cascade and its cross-talk with TLR2, demonstrating novel mediators: LCP1, a plastin, reduced phagocytosis of bacteria but did not alter bacterial killing, and aided control of the release of MCP1 and may be involved in IL-12p40 release. SHP1, a phospho-tyrosine phosphatase, is required for the propagation of signalling cascades via p38, p44/42 MAPK and NF-κB. It controls release of MIP1β and IL-12p40. HMGB1, an alarmin, is dephosphorylated on NOD2 stimulation and would result in changes to cellular location of HMGB1. Lastly, DAPK1, a serine/threonine kinase, is associated with HLA-DM loading compartment on NOD2 triggering, but does not alter CLIP levels on the surface of the cells. Thus, defining the hard wiring of NOD2 signalling in healthy donors, in comparison with CD donors expressing variant NOD2, is important to define targets amenable to drug design within this pathway.

Keywords: LCP1
proteomics
Crohn's disease
NOD2
SHP1
phosphoproteomics
autophagy
DAPK1
Advisor: Simmons, A
Powrie, F