VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Issues of control and causation in quantum information theory

Issues of control and causation are central to the Quantum Theory of Computation. Yet there is no place for them in fundamental laws of Physics when expressed in the prevailing conception, i.e., in terms of initial conditions and laws of motion.
This thesis aims at arguing that Constructor Theory, recently proposed by David Deutsch to generalise the quantum theory of computation, is a candidate to provide a theory of control and causation within Physics. To this end, I shall present a physical theory of information that is formulated solely in constructor-theoretic terms, i.e., in terms of which transformations of physical systems are possible and which are impossible. This theory solves the circularity at the foundations of existing information theory; it provides a unifying relation between classical and quantum information, revealing the single property underlying the most distinctive phenomena associated with the latter: the unpredictability of the outcomes of some deterministic processes, the lack of distinguishability of some states, the irreducible perturbation caused by measurement and the existence of locally inaccessible information in composite systems (entanglement).
This thesis also aims to investigate the restrictions that quantum theory imposes on copying-like tasks. To this end, I will propose a unifying, picture-independent formulation of the no-cloning theorem. I will also discuss a protocol to accomplish the closely related task of transferring perfectly a quantum state along a spin chain, in the presence of systematic errors. Furthermore, I will address the problem of whether self-replication (as it occurs in living organisms) is compatible with Quantum Mechanics. Some physicists, notably Wigner, have argued that this logic is in fact forbidden by Quantum Mechanics, thus claiming that the latter is not a universal theory. I shall prove that those claims are invalid and that the logic of self-replication is, of course, compatible with Quantum Mechanics.

Keywords: quantum computing
self-replication
quantum state transfer
constructor theory
Advisor: Ekert, A
Education, gender and cross-cultural experience with reference to elite Arab women

The core of the thesis investigates the role of education in the engendering of cultural change and leadership among a select group of a powerful 'first generation' of Arab women; specifically, the role of dual educational/cultural experiences, both Arab and Western. The broader aim of the study is to analyze the merging of cultural traditionalism and modernity and how dual education has enhanced the ability of women, especially Arab women, to become leaders in their professional careers, and within their respective communities, whilst still maintaining strong ties to their culture, religion and traditions, albeit to varying degrees.
The writer has chosen to investigate the association between cultural identity and educational experience of elite educated Arab women, through a small sample, who have had exposure to both Western and Arab educational systems at different points in their lives. The researcher's heritage has led to a fundamental ideological interest in the coexistence of traditionalism and modernisation and whether the two can complement one another. There are now a significant number of Arab women who have had the privilege of education and exposure to the two types of systems. Yet, gender constraints and predefined gender roles still very much dictate the socio-cultural contexts in which such women have to operate. The patriarchal 'system' is omnipresent in the West as well as in the Arab world. The challenges the writer has faced even as a 'Western' Arab to reconcile tradition and intellectual and educational exposure has served as a greater impetus for this investigation.
The investigation and the intent of this thesis as described above, is to test the preliminary hypothesis that, in the context of elite Arab women, their exposure to both West and Arab educational cultures is germane to their potential for influencing female professional development. How their educational experiences have influenced their own identities and their ability to adhere to the gender roles prescribed is of significant interest. What influence has such education had on these women's prospects for instituting and pioneering change in their respective societies and professions? Is the synergy of certain aspects of modernity and tradition possible? The general conclusion is that it is.

Advisor: Brock, C
Repeated tests on serially correlated data

Suppose two treatments are being compared in a clinical trial with a fixed number of subjects. Half the subjects receive treatment 1, while the other half receive treatment 2. Measurements of some relevant response variable are made on each subject at equally spaced time points. This thesis proposes a procedure for testing at each time point the null hypothesis H0 of no treatment differences, while controlling the overall probability of type I error.
Chapter 1 describes alternative methods for estimating the unknown parameters of models generating short series of measurements. Maximum likelihood estimation, and modified variance based estimation, are considered in 1.1 and 1.2 respectively. A 4 parameter model is described in 1.3. This allows for increasing or decreasing variances of measurements within subjects. In 1.4, maximum likelihood estimation is used in fitting the 4 parameter model to two data sets.
In Chapter 2, attention focuses on sequential testing, with data arising from the 4 parameter model. The possibility of using stopping rules based on posterior probabilities, rather than sequentially adjusted P values, is considered briefly in 2.1. Two methods for determining appropriate nominal significance levels for successive tests, when the model for data is assumed known, are described in 2.2. An algorithm for integrating quickly a special case of the multivariate normal density, in high dimensions, presented in 2.3, facilitates implementation of the two methods. In 2.4, test procedures based on the methods of 2.2 are described, in which model parameters are (re-) estimated at each time point, as data accumulate. Test statistics and z-values are adjusted for each test, according to the updated parameter estimates. Simulations show that these procedures give overall significance levels close to those required. One of the two procedures is preferred on the basis of power to detect deviations from H0.
Contribution of monocytes to immunopathology during influenza A virus infection

This thesis investigates the role of monocytes in mouse and human influenza A virus (IAV) infection and questions how they contribute to immunopathology. I first show in mice that Ly6Chi monocytes are dominant immune cells in the lungs during severe IAV infection. Comparison of the gene expression profiles in lungs of severe or mild IAV infection revealed enrichment of genes related to monocyte recruitment in severe disease, which were more rapidly expressed than in mild infection. There was also less representation of M2 macrophage polarisation genes in lungs during severe disease.
In human IAV infection, inflammatory monocytes and neutrophilic MDSCs were higher in fresh blood samples in severe compared to mild disease; but only monocyte frequency was specific to IAV infection. There were less IL-10 producing monocytes and more IL-6+TNFα- producing monocytes in severe compared to mild infection, and HLA-DR was markedly reduced on these monocytes. Increase in monocytes, but not neutrophilic MDSC, was sustained throughout infection and into recovery. Frequency of monocytes correlated with differentiation states of CD8+ T cells, and there was a negative association between iNKT cells and inflammatory monocytes in blood.
Focusing on the interaction between iNKT cells and monocytes, I questioned if monocyte number and function were regulated by iNKT cells. Using iNKT deficient mice (Jα18-/-) and deriving monocytes from blood and lungs following IAV infection and comparing to wild-type mice, I showed that iNKT cells influenced diverse monocyte characteristics including apoptosis, M1/M2 polarisation and inflammasome activation. Induction of monocyte apoptosis by activated iNKT cells was investigated in vitro as a possible mechanism by which activated iNKT cells controlled monocyte numbers.
This thesis established the role of monocytes in IAV immunopathology and provides a rationale for further studies in amelioration of monocyte number in severe IAV infection.

Keywords: immunology
influenza
monocyte
Advisor: Ho, L
A high order Discontinuous Galerkin - Fourier incompressible 3D Navier-Stokes solver with rotating sliding meshes for simulating cross-flow turbines

This thesis details the development, verification and validation of an unsteady unstructured high order (≥ 3) h/p Discontinuous Galerkin - Fourier solver for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on static and rotating meshes in two and three dimensions. This general purpose solver is used to provide insight into cross-flow (wind or tidal) turbine physical phenomena.
Simulation of this type of turbine for renewable energy generation needs to account for the rotational motion of the blades with respect to the fixed environment. This rotational motion implies azimuthal changes in blade aero/hydro-dynamics that result in complex flow phenomena such as stalled flows, vortex shedding and blade-vortex interactions. Simulation of these flow features necessitates the use of a high order code exhibiting low numerical errors. This thesis presents the development of such a high order solver, which has been conceived and implemented from scratch by the author during his doctoral work.
To account for the relative mesh motion, the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are written in arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian form and a non-conformal Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) formulation (i.e. Symmetric Interior Penalty Galerkin) is used for spatial discretisation. The DG method, together with a novel sliding mesh technique, allows direct linking of rotating and static meshes through the numerical fluxes. This technique shows spectral accuracy and no degradation of temporal convergence rates if rotational motion is applied to a region of the mesh. In addition, analytical mappings are introduced to account for curved external boundaries representing circular shapes and NACA foils.
To simulate 3D flows, the 2D DG solver is parallelised and extended using Fourier series. This extension allows for laminar and turbulent regimes to be simulated through Direct Numerical Simulation and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) type approaches. Two LES methodologies are proposed.
Various 2D and 3D cases are presented for laminar and turbulent regimes. Among others, solutions for: Stokes flows, the Taylor vortex problem, flows around square and circular cylinders, flows around static and rotating NACA foils and flows through rotating cross-flow turbines, are presented.

Keywords: Large Eddy Simulation (LES)
turbulence
Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian
cross-flow turbines (wind and tidal turbines)
Incompressible Navier-Stokes
Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS)
High order discontinuous Galerkin
sliding meshes
Advisor: Houlsby, G
Willden, R
Experimental philosophy and armchair philosophy

Experimental Philosophers argue that the credibility of armchair methodology is undermined by recent empirical findings that show that people's intuitive judgments about thought experiments vary systematically with a host of factors, such as cultural or socioeconomic background. In this thesis, I argue that the experimentalists’ sceptical challenge (ESC) must be understood and evaluated as a philosophical—specifically epistemological—claim, and not as (experimental philosophers maintain) a “merely methodological” claim. To that end, I (1) summarize the findings of experimental philosophy, (2) articulate a formalization of ESC on behalf of experimental philosophers, (3) distinguish ESC from traditional forms of scepticism, and explain why traditional responses to intuition scepticism fail to adequately address it; (4) argue that ESC suffers from a threat of incoherence, drawing on results of a survey on people’s meta-intuitions about the significance of divergence; (5) suggest that the proponent of ESC, in defending the coherence of his own position, opens up the possibility of parallel defences on behalf of armchair philosophy; and (6) lay out possible epistemological considerations that the armchair philosopher can use to defend her traditional methodology against the experimentalist’s challenge.

Keywords: experimental philosophy
intuitions
Advisor: Hawthorne, J
Livelihoods under stress: household assets and responses to environmental change in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

This thesis is a response to broad stroked claims that climate change and sea-level rise will cause mass displacements in areas such as the Mekong Delta. Instead, I argue for a more nuanced approach to understanding vulnerability and household response measures in contexts of environmental stress, and highlight the importance of deciphering differentiations of vulnerability across households of varying characteristics. I propose that in this way, by empirically understanding differentiated household vulnerabilities and response measures to stress rather than focusing on one type of stressor (environmental change) and response (migration), we would be better positioned to holistically address the root causes of vulnerability.
To this end, I take a micro household-level approach, using an asset vulnerability framework, to assess the role of various household assets in mediating vulnerability and resilience in the rural Mekong Delta context. As a result, we are able to understand the interactions of numerous elements, including the effects of environmental stress and mobility decision-making processes, within the context of household asset profiles, which are in turn shaped by the broader political ecology.
The main findings of this study furthermore include the ‘counterintuitive’ role of environmental stress, where it is found to be one of many stressors, often paling in comparison to the pressure of others. In the process of analysing resettlement outcomes, we encounter the process of vulnerability shifts, whereby some vulnerabilities are alleviated while others are increased as a result of resettlement. Finally, in terms of the link between environmental change and migration, a direct relationship is found to be tenuous. Instead, the key drivers, deterrents, and facilitators of migration are identified, pointing to the significance of assets and their role in shaping mobility decisions and outcomes for households. This leads us to not only think about those who move, but also those who do not have the option to move as a result of their poor asset profiles.

Keywords: Migration
Vietnam
Resettlement
Livelihoods
Vulnerability
Environmental Change
Advisor: Farrar, J
Zetter, R
Spatial correlation models for cell populations

Determining the emergent behaviour of a population from the interactions of its individuals is an ongoing challenge in the modelling of biological phenomena. Many classical models assume that the spatial location of each individual is independent of the locations of all other individuals. This mean-field assumption is not always realistic; in biological systems we frequently see clusters of individuals develop from uniform initial conditions. In this thesis, we explore situations in which the mean-field approximation is no longer valid for volume-excluding processes on a regular lattice. We provide methods which take into account the spatial correlations between lattice sites, thus more accurately reflecting the system's behaviour, and discuss methods which can provide information as to the validity of mean-field and other approximations.

Keywords: spatial correlation models
population models
cell biology
Advisor: Maini, P
Baker, R
Simpson, M
Gaffney, E
The nature of commonsense psychological explanation

This thesis is concerned with two kinds of 'singular' psychological phenomena. The first is the commonsense psychological explanation of action directed upon particular things and stuffs. The second is the nature of (visual) perceptual demonstrative thought. The two topics are brought together in an account of psychological explanation I call 'de re psychological explanation'. The primary aim of the thesis is to articulate and defend this account. The main thesis I seek to establish is that an adequate psychological explanation of an agent's action upon an object requires a relational or de re ascription of thought that (1) relates the agent to the object and (2) makes reference to a perceptual demonstrative mode of presentation of the object. This thesis is defended in two stages. In the first chapter I argue for the first half of the thesis, that relational ascriptions are necessary in any explanation of an action involving an object. In the fourth chapter I argue for the second half, that it is necessary that these relational ascriptions make reference to a perceptual demonstrative mode of presentation of the object acted on. The second half of the thesis involves the notion of a perceptual demonstrative mode of presentation. This necessitates an account of the nature of perceptual demonstrative thoughts, which is undertaken in chapters two and three. In the second chapter I explore two prominent theories of perceptual demonstrative thought. In the third chapter I sketch a new account 'property-dependent externalism' and argue that it is more adequate than the others. In chapter four, I return to de re
explanation and develop it further into a covering-law account of psychological explanation. The rest of the thesis is given over to defending the elaborated covering-law account against two objections. I draw the claws of the first objection in the second half of the fourth chapter and answer the second objection in the final chapter.

Advisor: Davies, M
Investigation of arthropods associated with agroforestry in Machakos, Kenya

A survey of arthropods associated with exotic multipurpose trees and food crops used in agroforestry and indigenous tree species (Tamarindus indicus) grown in the wild was conducted in 1990 and 1991. The exotic multipurpose tree species (MPTs) used were: Gliricidia septum, Leucaena leucocephala and Cassia siamea growing in an alley cropping system and the food crops were Vigna unguiculata, Zea mays, and Cajanus cajan. The consequences of growing taxonomically related plant species in agroforestry systems were considered. Insecticidal knockdown technique was used to sample arthropods from the foliage. 92 species of arthropods belonging to 48 Families were found to be associated with tree species and the crops. Of these, 27 species were on MPTs, 3 species on crops, 12 species on the chosen wild tree, 13 species were shared amongst MPTs and crops while 14 species were shared between MPTs and the wild tree. A further 19 species were shared between all the groups of plant species (MPTs, crops and the wild tree) with 4 species being shared between the wild and the crop. The effect of tree pruning on arthropod communities on trees was also investigated and the results showed that pruned trees supported a richer arthropod fauna than unpruned trees.
Through simulated defoliation, the impact of insect defoliators on four MPTs was also investigated. There was a considerable reduction in overall growth rate, height and diameter increment depending on the level of defoliation. Several stress factors often predispose plants to insect attack. Pruning, as a stressing agent was investigated in relation to infestation of Cassia siamea by the stem borer Xyleutes capensis. Out of the 200 pruned trees surveyed, 90 % showed the signs of borer attack, compared with only 31.5 % of unpruned trees.
The role MPTs can play in aggravating infestation of stored pulses by a bruchid beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis was investigated by comparing its survival on seeds of three MPTs and Cajanus cajan. Whereas the bruchid was able to oviposit on both the MPT and crop seeds, no larval emergence was observed in any of the MPTs showing that the MPTs may not support reproduction and development of C. chinensis in the field.

Advisor: Speight, M
Thatcher's economists: ideas and opposition in 1980s Britain

This thesis is an historical study of the formation of Thatcherite economic thinking and policymaking with a particular focus upon investigating the part played by economic ideas and economists in Thatcherism. While some economists and economic ideas are closely associated with Thatcherism, Thatcherites were hostile to the bulk of Britain’s economists residing in universities and in the Government Economic Service and skeptical of the usefulness of economic theory in policymaking. Thatcherites thought that British academic and government economists supported a ‘Keynesian consensus’ which was purported to have been in operation since the Second World War and had allegedly retarded Britain’s growth from a quasi-mythical free-enterprise Victorian high-point. However, Thatcherites were keen to win the ‘battle of ideas’ and became eager ‘buyers’ of economic ideas – Keith Joseph particularly – in a ‘marketplace in economic ideas’ which developed over the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Yet, Thatcherites were not suddenly converted to neoliberal economic thinking by the marketplace in economic ideas. Instead, Thatcherites pragmatically sought out ideas which could be adopted and adapted in combination with long-standing ideological beliefs which were hostile to the size and role of the state and in favour of ‘sound money.’ Thatcherite economic thinking developed to include sometimes contradictory strands of supply-side economics, Austrian economics, monetarism/rational expectations and public choice economics but also contained, particularly for Margaret Thatcher, elements of ‘businessmen’s economics’ and ‘housewife economics.’ A case study of privatisation policy illustrates the point that pre-existing Thatcherite thinking, such as the desire to ‘roll back the state’, provided the core underlying rationale for economic policies. Yet, Thatcherites were also able to use a jumbled amalgam of economic ideas such as Austrian and neoclassical economics to promote secondary objectives such as introducing competition when conditions were judged as favourable by Thatcherites.

Keywords: privatisation
economic policy
Margaret Thatcher
1980s
Thatcherite
Government Economic Service
economists
history of economic thought
Thatcher
privatization
economic ideas
Advisor: Humphries, J
Pemberton, H