VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Time and being in being and time

This thesis is about the relationship between time and being, and in particular, Martin Heidegger’s account of that relationship in Being and Time. It elaborates two central claims, in both exegetical and substantive terms, each of which challenges a dominant view of Heidegger’s work. First, most readers of Being and Time have focused upon what it says about being, and taken its claims about time as secondary. I challenge this view, arguing that for Heidegger, time is interrelated to being such that one cannot clarify the sense of the latter without first clarifying the sense of the former. I advance a novel conception of time, which I take to be the one Heidegger was working towards. Second, a prevailing interpretation of Being and Time holds that the issue at stake in Heidegger’s project is intelligibility. To be, the view goes, is to be intelligible or meaningful. Against this, I argue that the non-intelligible plays a privileged role in Heidegger’s account of what one is asking after, in asking after being.
The thesis proceeds in four chapters. In chapter 1, I investigate the connection between time and the traditional conception of being, developing in the process an account of Heidegger’s term “presence-at-hand” which shows how concerns about time frame Heidegger’s approach to the question of the meaning of being. In chapter 2, I challenge the completeness of the dominant view that for Heidegger being is the intelligibility of what is, arguing that Dasein’s fundamental disclosure of being does not procure entities at all, but a “non-intelligible” sheer presence. In chapter 3, I develop the problem with the traditional conception of time in the context of its incompatibility with Dasein’s disclosure (using Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness to illustrate that the difficulty lies in successfully articulating time’s dynamism, or “flow”), as well as discussing how the dominant reading of Heidegger’s “primordial temporality” falls short in this regard. Finally, in chapter 4, I provide an interpretation of Heidegger’s primordial temporality which resolves that problem, showing how Dasein’s “ecstatic” structure is able to articulate time’s dynamism, and how as such primordial temporality grounds those other temporal characters constitutive of practical and reflective comportment.

Keywords: time
being
intelligibility
non-intelligibility
Heidegger
Advisor: Schear, J
Philosophy and religion: the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur

During the 1970s, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur carried out two separate projects that came to be known as his philosophical hermeneutics and biblical hermeneutics. Until now, these two bodies of work have been perceived as broadly independent from one another. The current study sets out to offer a re- appraisal of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical outlook from this period, and to determine the role of religious reflection in it. By focusing on Ricoeur’s publications from 1968 to 1979, it is initially observed that his hermeneutics presents striking similarities with the, so called, Romantic model of the 19th century. Part 1 of the thesis therefore considers Ricoeur’s critique of the hermeneutical tradition and how, from the outset, he aligns his own research with the ‘universal’ principles of Friedrich Schleiermacher. It is specifically shown that Ricoeur appropriated from Schleiermacher the belief that only through a back-and-forth movement between general philosophical theory and regional interpretation can hermeneutics become a serviceable tool for the human sciences. It is further contended that, following this ‘general-regional’ outlook, Ricoeur’s hermeneutics took shape through a ‘constructed opposition’ between philosophical and biblical hermeneutics. Part 2 of the thesis provides a detailed examination of the individual investigations that Ricoeur carried out during the 1970s, in particular highlighting how his explorations of polysemy, metaphor and poetic language brought together the study of “language as discourse” and biblical exegesis. It is hoped that, by exposing the relationship between these two competing facets of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, this research allows for a more widespread re-appraisal of the compatibility between contemporary philosophy of language and biblical textuality.

Keywords: Schleiermacher
Heidegger
Hermeneutic Philosophy
Philosophical Hermeneutics
Gadamer
Hermeneutics
Ricoeur
Biblical Hermeneutics
Revelation
Parables
World of the text
Metaphor
Advisor: Anderson, P
Logical factorisation machines: probabilistic boolean factor models for binary data

Logical Factorisation Machines (LFMs) are a class of latent feature models, that aim to decompose binary matrices, tensors or higher-arity relations into an approximate logical product of low rank, binary matrices. These products are defined through the use of logical operators instead of arithmetic operations. The resulting factor matrices contain interpretable patterns that lend themselves to the discovery of hidden causal structure.
We frame LFMs as probabilistic generative models and derive sampling based posterior inference. Despite full uncertainty quantification, the inference procedure scales to Billions of data points which is possible through exploitation of the logical structure in the factor conditionals.
OrMachines are a particularly interesting subset of LFMs, where a single latent cause is sufficient to explain an outcome. They represent a probabilistic approach to the well-studied problems of Boolean Matrix Factorisation and Boolean Tensor Factorisation.
The proposed model and inference procedure yield decompositions of higher accuracy than the existing techniques throughout a wide range of conditions. Real-world examples include single-cell genomics, cancer genomics, relational and spatio-temporal data. We propose several extensions, including hierarchies of OrMachines for data integration and a Bayesian nonparametric approach to infer the latent dimensionality.
LFMs with less established logics, their relationships and interpretation are considered. While the latent structure in many of these models is inherently difficult to recover, we demonstrate that certain LFMs can provide complementary representations and reveal new findings. A fast and flexible implementation is introduced and publicly available on GitHub.

Keywords: Data Mining
Machine Learning
Genomics
Latent Variable Models
Advisor: Holmes, C
Yau, C
Manipulating the coupling between electronic and spin degrees of freedom in molecules

The miniaturisation of semiconductors is running into physical limitations. In order to further enhance computational powers, reaching the atomic or molecular level is both necessary and inevitable. At the nanometre scale, the quantum properties of materials become important. These can be used for qubits in quantum computers, which are able to process information significantly faster than traditional counterparts. One approach towards such novel nanoelectronic devices is realised via molecular magnetic materials. Single-molecule magnets, which represent the smallest possible molecular magnetic structures, are currently being tested in such devices. However, the physics of these materials is not yet completely understood. The magnetic property of electrons, known as the electron spin, plays a crucial role here. It is furthermore very sensitive to its surroundings. Interactions with neighbouring nuclear spins, for instance, lead to decoherence, which translates to a loss of stored quantum information. In order to promote the development of new elements for nanoelectronics or qubits, it is therefore essential to unravel the couplings of the spins and their surroundings, and learn how to control and manipulate them.
The present work focuses on how light, as an ultra-clean technique, can be used to manipulate the molecular spin states, and how magnetic centres interact when chemically attached to a graphene nanoribbon. We employ state-of-the-art electron spin resonance techniques and SQUID magnetometry to investigate the effect of light on a new cobalt valence tautomer, where we find an enhanced blocking temperature of a metastable light-excited state. Furthermore, we examine an Fe3Cr-based single-molecule magnet, where light causes a change in the giant spin. We then progress to graphene nanoribbons, which offer an interesting semiconducting backbone for magnetic molecules. Through a comprehensive analysis of spin-spin couplings in nitronyl-nitroxide graphene nanoribbons, we eventually prove the existence of an edge state, which allows for two-qubit applications.

Keywords: Single-molecule magnets
Graphene
Photomagnetism
Nanomagnetism
Graphene nanoribbons
Electron spin resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance
Magnetometry
Molecular magnets
Advisor: Bogani, L
New directions towards the synthesis of bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane derivatives

Bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanes have emerged as bioisosteres, used by medicinal chemists to replace 1,4-disubstituted arenes and improve the physicochemical properties of the drugs they synthesise. The existing methods to synthesise 1,3-disubstituted bicyclo- [1.1.1]pentane involve toxic reagents, hazardous chemistries and lengthy synthetic sequences. We present in this thesis a novel, modular way to access 1,3-disubstituted bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane as well as monosubstituted bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane (Figure 1). The first chapter presents a triethylborane-initiated atom transfer radical addition reaction of organohalides on tricyclo[1.1.1.01,3]pentane (1) to access in a rapid and efficient manner brominated and iodinated bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane (2). The reduction of the C–I bond of iodinated bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanes is presented in the second chapter. Tris(trimethylsilyl)silane was used as the reducing agent and triethylborane as the initiator, providing a less toxic alternative to tin hydride reductions and affording monosubstituted bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanes building blocks such as acids, amides, amines and amino acids (3). Nucleotides, peptides and drugs were successfully labelled with a bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane unit. The third chapter focusses on an iron-catalysed Kumada-Tamao-Corriu cross-coupling reaction of iodinated bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane to form arylated bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane (4). The reaction is particularly efficient with electron-rich organomagnesium reagents. A analogue to the drug Flurbiprofen was synthesised in excellent yield in just two steps from ethyl 2-iodopropionate and 1.

Advisor: Anderson, EA
Gender protection / protecting the gender order: rethinking responses to sexual violence in armed conflict and its aftermath

This dissertation examines the gendered parameters of internationally driven responses to sexual violence in armed conflict. Responding to sexual violence in conflict is now an established priority across international policy agendas, including the United Nations Security Council’s framework on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Over the last decade, a vast multi-sectoral response architecture has been developed to address and redress the issue. At the level of scholarship, the targeted focus on sexual violence in international security gave new life to feminist debates around the boundaries of ‘gender’ in armed conflict. In particular, scholars point to the limits of dualistic assumptions of gender positioning women as the inevitable victims of sexual violence in conflict, and men as its inevitable perpetrators. While pervasive across conflict contexts, sexual violence documented in eastern DRC has been an important focus of these developments and attendant debates across scholarship, policy and practice.
Against the backdrop of the WPS agenda and through the case study of eastern DRC, this dissertation builds on this scholarship. Empirically, it explores the relationship between internationally developed responses to sexual violence in conflict and their implications in practice. Conceptually, it examines how, why, and with what effect gendered assumptions underpinning the response architecture bear upon understandings of ‘gender’ in conflict more broadly. Drawing on extensive qualitative research conducted at the UN Headquarters in New York and in eastern DRC, I demonstrate that responses to sexual violence reify the (perceived) inevitability of female ‘victim-survivorhood’ and male ‘perpetratorhood.’ In other words, and by calling particular attention to institutional politics of policymaking and operational constraints of policy implementation, I argue that gender protection mechanisms ultimately protect ‘gender.’ In doing so, this thesis adds empirical and conceptual weight to calls for more complex, intersectional, and inclusive understandings of gender (and) protection in armed conflict and its aftermath.

Keywords: Sexual violence in armed conflict
Men and masculinities
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gender and armed conflict
Advisor: Chatty, D
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E
Structural plasticity and network dynamics in the dorsal hippocampus - accumbal circuitry

The dorsal hippocampus has been implicated in the encoding of contextual information with particular involvement in spatial navigation. The nucleus accumbens is thought to promote the translation of higher order cognitive modalities into motor function directives. The dorsal hippocampus-accumbal circuitry has been postulated to promote the acquisition, consolidation and reinstatement of context specific reward seeking behaviour. However, the corresponding anatomical connectivity and physiological underpinnings of the translation of spatial representations into behavioural directives have not yet been established. This thesis entails the first study of the hippocampal dCA1-accumbal pathway whereby two complementary approaches were employed.
Synaptic plasticity mechanisms, believed to underly experience dependent functional adaptations in the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, have been shown to correlate with structural changes in dendritic spine morphology. For the sake of their study, invasive techniques have been established, however have been shown to incur significant damage to associated circuitries, rendering insights into structural plasticity in deep brain regions challenging. This thesis entails the first full in vitro and in vivo proof of principle of a new approach toward minimally invasive high resolution deep brain imaging of dendritic spines utilising adaptive optics and holographic light propagation through a single optical fibre, thinner than a human hair. This technology reduces the footprint and thus resulting tissue damage by two orders of magnitude while maintaining diffraction limited resolution. This work might facilitate future investigations of structural synaptic plasticity in deep brain circuitries such as the hippocampal dCA1-accumbal pathway (supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nigel Emptage).
There has been indication that spatial information guided behaviour might be dependent on a functionally intact integrated dorsal hippocampus - accumbal circuitry. In order to study the downstream effect of dorsal hippocampal spatial information processing on the network dynamics of the accumbal circuitry, large scale multichannel electrophysiological recordings combined with optogenetic stimulation were employed simultaneously in both structures. dCA1 pyramidal cell long range projections were shown to mono-synaptically drive the activity of parvalbumin expressing interneurones in the NAc which in turn orchestrate the activity of medium spiny neurons through feed forward inhibition in a context dependent manner. This facilitates the selective activity of discrete medium spiny neuron cohorts and supports the translation of neural representations of space into spatial appetitive behaviour. Furthermore, this work might help to conceptualise how the nucleus accumbens can act as a gateway for converging and potentially competing input from different corticolimbic systems (supervisor: Ass. Prof. Dr. David Dupret).

Advisor: Emptage, N
Dupret, D
Site-selective chemical phosphorylation and activation of kinases

Phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of proteins play an essential role in their cellular function. However, the study of protein phosphoforms in a molecular level is challenging, as the isolation and characterisation of homogeneous phosphoforms is not always possible. We propose to synthesise and study these phosphoforms using a tag-and-modify approach. This methodology allows the selective chemical phosphorylation of protein via the introduction of a phosphocysteine residue (pC).
The effect of individual phosphorylation of MEK1 kinase, which plays a central role in cell differentiation and proliferation, was examined. The selective formation of homogeneous MEK1pC218, MEK1pC222, as well as the doubly phosphorylated MEK1pC218pC222 mimics of the corresponding activate MEK1 phosphoforms, was successfully achieved. The engineering of new reactants and masking techniques was critical to the task. The development of a LCMS based procedure for kinetic studies unravelled the effect of phosphorylation on MEK1 binding to its substrates, ATP and ERK1. While initial crystallisation attempts showed that optimisation was still needed. Future work should stress the utility of such methodology towards the understanding of the structural variations created by phosphorylation.
The chemical mechanism of formation of dehydroalanine (Dha) was also investigated through the design and use of deuterated probes. The selective formation of α-deuterated cysteine residues in both amino-acid and protein models allowed the elucidation of an E1cB mechanism. Moreover, this study highlighted the particularity of 2,5-dibromohexane diamide (DBHDA) as a mild, water soluble and almost universal reagent for the modification of cysteine to Dha residues in protein.

Keywords: Kinases
Phosphorylation
Mass spectrometry
Site-selective protein modification
Intellectual property enforcement: remedies, procedures and processes in an international and EU copyright context

Copyright regulation has become increasingly transnational, if not global, in its approach. All aspects of copyright law have been impacted by efforts among nations to coordinate and harmonise their copyright regimes. As the United Kingdom coordinates its intellectual property regime with that of the European Union and globally, domestic judges must grapple with an increasing number of treaties, directives, and regulatory inputs which colour every step in the process of copyright enforcement.
This research examines the expressions of how that coordination ought to, and does, impact domestic law. More specifically, this is a thesis about the Internationalisation and Europeanisation of remedies and procedures in UK copyright litigation.
This thesis approaches this topic in three parts:
Part One sets out the relevant framework of copyright regulation and protection in the United Kingdom from first principles (Chapter One). It explores the foundational instruments, the interaction between those instruments, and the overarching obligations stemming from those instruments which bear general application. This part identifes the inherent complexity and difficulties in properly applying these layered obligations (Chapter Two).
Part Two takes the layered obligations and interactions from Part One and investigates how those interactions are in fact applied across the full spectrum of remedies, sanctions, and procedures. This is considered from the perspective of monetary remedies (such as damages) (Chapter Three), tangible and injunctive relief (Chapter Four), and criminal and declaratory outcomes (Chapter Five). Part Two concludes by looking at the degree of Europeanisation and Internationalisation of procedural obligations in copyright proceedings (Chapter Six).
Part Three then reflects on the philosophy of such enforcement and its stated intended purposes (Chapter Seven) in light of the analysis undertaken in the previous chapters. The Part then argues that, based on the UK's experiences, the field of copyright remedies and procedure is, on an EU level, ripe for further harmonisation and reform to address systemic failures in properly applying transnational obligations. The Part makes a series of recommendations on improving outcomes, taking into account the purposes of copyright regulation by proposing the development of a harmonising EU regulation as the most viable course.

Keywords: EU Law
Copyright
Intellectual property
Remedies
TRIPs
WTO
Advisor: Pila, J
Topological and time based event classification for neutrinoless double beta decay in liquid scintillator

The SNO+ experiment is the successor to the SNO neutrino detector, which replaces its heavy water target with a liquid scintillator one. The primary physics goal is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0vββ) in 130Te, which will be loaded into the scintillator. Fitted with > 9300 photo-multiplier tubes, the SNO+ detector will have the highest photo-cathode coverage of any large liquid scintillator detector. This thesis shows that, at this light collection level, SNO+ is sensitive to differences in the scintillation pulses produced by electrons, positrons and gammas, and that these differences may be used to classify single-site 0vββ events and multi-site radioactive backgrounds which emit γ. This pulse shape discrimination technique (PSD) is applied to background events from radiation originating outside the detector, which limit the experiment's fiducial volume, and potential internal radioactive decays, like 60Co, which are otherwise difficult to distinguish from 0vββ. A new signal extraction framework is described and used to perform 2D fits in energy and event radius, which estimate an expected limit on the 0vββ half-life of T0v1/2 1.76 x 1026 yr, at 90% confidence, assuming an exposure of 4.0 tonne yr of 130Te. The corresponding limit on the effective Majorana mass is mββ < 49.7meV, using the IBM-2 nuclear model. Further, it is shown that adding PSD as an additional fit dimension can reduce the SNO+ 3 sigma discovery level on mββ from 190meV to 91 meV, assuming the same exposure. The final portion of this work discusses what more could be achieved using a liquid scintillator experiment which can separate scintillation and Cherenkov signals in time. A simulation of a SNO+ style detector, filled with a slow scintillator and equipped with a high coverage of fast, high quantum efficiency PMTs is used to demonstrate separation of Cherenkov and scintillation signals and reconstruction algorithms for electron and 0vββ events are described. Differences in Cherenkov signals are used to distinguish 0vββ from the solar neutrino elastic scattering background, and to demonstrate for the first time that, in principle, the 0vββ mechanism may be determined in liquid scintillator by fitting the angular separation and energy split of the two emitted electrons.

Keywords: Liquid Scintillator
Neutrinoless double beta decay
Particle identification
Advisor: Biller, S