VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
On the comparability of different programming language routes through A-level Computer Science

Fairness in assessment is as important as validity and reliability. When question or paper choice is used in an assessment it is important that the various routes are comparable so that fairness to all students is maintained. Previous literature on question choice suggests that offering choice often leads to significant differences in exam performance by route, sometimes by several marks. This dissertation compares the five possible routes through a Computer Science A-level assessment. One paper was responded to using a choice of five different programming languages and it was possible that not all languages were equally accessible to students or equally applicable to the exam paper tasks. Test bias was evaluated using recently developed IRT-based differential test functioning procedures that were developed to assess unfairness due to demographic characteristics. These enabled a detailed test-level, sub-section, and item-level analysis at various levels of student ability. Some small differences between two routes were found but overall, the assessment behaved in a fair and equitable manner. It is likely that this was achieved through careful question design and the strict application of a common paper and generic mark scheme. It is recommended that the performance of the programming paper is monitored in future exam series.
A few anomalies observed in the data suggested the possibility that classroom experience might have had more of an impact on students’ performances than programming language choice. This suggests that there is a need for research targeted at better understanding how teachers are preparing their students for the exam, and how the students are approaching the paper.
While choice has not led to unfairness in this analysis, concerns around the use of choice in assessment remain. Further research is proposed to look at the impact of choice on exam fairness in a broader selection of subjects that do not use generic questions or mark schemes. In addition, research is suggested to better understand student and teacher attitudes to the pros and cons of offering choice in assessment.
Finally, it is suggested that as students are judged on their overall test scores, rather than their item scores, test fairness should be analysed at test level, rather than item level as is common practice. The use of differential test functioning analysis is recommended for any assessment where concerns of unfairness towards a sub-group of students exist.

Keywords: MEA 2020
MEA
Frictional half-plane contacts in partial slip in the steady-state

This thesis aims to understand how a number of real contact problems respond to local contact loads during cyclic loading and which combination of loads will give rise to a state of partial slip. At the core of this thesis lies a family of partial slip solutions for half-plane contact problems subject to different forms of periodic loading. This collection of partial slip solutions allows engineers and researchers alike to assess rapidly the contact behaviour, namely the position and extent of the zones of relative cyclic motion along the interface. While knowing the slip stick pattern, by itself, does not answer the question of whether an assembly is prone to fretting fatigue or not, it enables the user to set up simple laboratory experiments in order to determine the fretting fatigue strength of the design under consideration.
The thesis begins with a taxonomy of the different classes of contacts that can arise in mechanical assemblies. In many fretting fatigue problems, we encounter one particular contact class, the so-called incomplete contact, which is suited for being represented by half-planes. After exploring the properties and limitations of plane elasticity and half-plane theory, we look at half-plane partial slip contact problems under different types of loading. We will make use of three different solution approaches (a) an analytical description using a superposition of full sliding shear tractions, (b) an analytical description using glide dislocations starting from a fully adhered state, and (c) an asymptotic description of the contact edge behaviour. Where suitable, the research results are applied to example geometries in order to familiarise the reader with the methodologies presented. The thesis concludes with the proposal of a generalised approach to fretting fatigue strength utilising experimental results published in the literature. The test data is reinterpreted by applying the outlined asymptotic methods in order to provide generality and comparability across different geometries and loading scenarios.

Keywords: partial slip
friction
fretting
metal fatigue
Advisor: Hills, D
An analysis and interpretation of the life, writings and philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This study is a four chapter analysis and interpretation of the life, writings and philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapter I places it in proper historical and philosophical perspective with a review of the existing body of literature on King, a critical summary of its three types of analysis and interpretations of his life and work and an exposition and defense of the thesis underlying this work. Chapter II then provides an account of King the man, minister and political activist. Chapter III explains the intrinsic unity and fundamental tenets of his basic religious, metaphysical, moral and socio-political thinking. And Chapter IV conducts a systematic textual exegesis of his 25 key ideas and demonstrates how to read, analyse, explain and interpret his philosophy properly through a combined dictionary/concordance and syntopicon of his writings and speeches. Ultimately, the need, originality and contribution of this entire enterprise lies in the fact that it contains the most balanced and comprehensive analysis of King's life and the only published exposition of his complete philosophy, commentary on his collected writings and valid explanation of how his life, writings and philosophy should be read and interpreted as a whole.

Keywords: life
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King
philosophy
writings
Civil rights
Lessons from the front line : post qualification training for social workers

Several recent high profile cases (including the tragic death of Victoria Climbie) have highlighted perceived failures of child protection services. Post qualification training programmes have been introduced to provide front line social workers with contemporary specialised knowledge and skills in this complex field.
This project follows a cohort of 36 child protection social workers (and their line managers) over eighteen months while they undertook the Post Qualification Child Care Award for England and Wales.
A mixed methods, repeated measures, programme evaluation explored both the effectiveness and the impact of the training. Ipsative (self-referencing) evaluation data was triangulated against line manager, academic tutor and practice assessor evaluations. An action research philosophy ensured that formative findings were provided concurrently to the programme providers to effect timely redesign and remediation.
Statistically significant increases in candidates’ levels of competency were demonstrated at the conclusion of the programme and at six months post-programme, suggesting both programme efficacy and effectiveness. An inexpensive user-friendly methodology for quantifying and measuring the acquisition of competency is presented.
In general, respondents were enthusiastic about what they had learned and all respondents agreed that the programme improved standards for childcare work. Despite qualitative feedback expressing dissatisfaction with the delivery model, the candidates’ levels of enthusiasm for the programme decreased only slightly over the course, whilst line managers’ level of enthusiasm increased.
Ninety percent of candidates reported stress associated with the combined pressures of work and the programme, yet their quantitative distress levels at the end of the program were actually lower than at the beginning. A number of adverse effects were identified. The conflict between the qualitative and quantitative findings is explored.
The programme was further evaluated by means of a unique international comparison contrasting it to a parallel Canadian post-qualification educational programme.
The result is a series of LESSONS FROM THE FRONT LINE, which have implications for the design and delivery of post-qualification training programmes for social workers, as well as other front line service delivery professionals.

Keywords: training
social workers
Britain
Child care
Advisor: Buchanan, A
The place of the Macarian writings in the Eastern Christian tradition to AD 700

This thesis represents an assessment the place of the Macarian writings within the Eastern Christian tradition during the first three hundred years of their circulation. Part I (Chapters 1-4) is essentially introductory, beginning with an account of the manuscript tradition, the date and location of the (anonymous) author, and his relation to the Messalian tendency. I argue that the Macarian element within the anti-Messalian lists constitutes an additional layer of material drawn from the Macariana because of its superficial affinities with the primary layer of the anti-Messalian lists and on at least one point inconsistent with that layer. In order to emphasise the patently moderating and reforming character of the Macarian writings within the amorphous Messalian tendency, I underline the association between Macarius-Symeon and the Cappadocian Fathers. As a further prelude to the study of the Macarian legacy, I attempt a revision of the dichotomy conventionally posited of Macarius-Symeon and Evagrius of Pontus.
Part II (Chapters 5-8) constitutes the main body of the thesis, an examination of the relations obtaining between the Macariana and the works of Mark the Monk, Diadochus of Photice, Abba Isaiah and Maximus the Confessor. In Mark, I demonstrate not only the palpable reliance of that author upon Macarius-Symeon but also the important clarifications and revisions Mark offers of his predecessor’s teachings. In Diadochus, the influence of Macarius-Symeon is even more profound, but again we see the same pattern of reliance and constructive criticism. The fact that both Mark and Diadochus are generally held to be anti-Messalian writers confirms the fundamentally anti-Messalian character of the Macarian writings. The Asceticon of Abba Isaiah also relies to a significant degree upon the Macariana, although here the Macarian element appears to belong to a second redactional layer. Lastly, this thesis demonstrates the direct and indirect influence of the Macarian writings upon Maximus the Confessor and their key role within his work of theological and spiritual synthesis.

Keywords: Christian literature
Macarian
Pseudo-Macarius
Orthodox Eastern Church
Re-reading Camus's ethics

This study problematizes the dominance of the Temps modernes polemic in critical readings of Camus’s political and ethical thought, and offers a more nuanced reading of his contribution to both contemporary and modern ethical discourses. An exploration of critical readings of Camus’s theoretical work reveals a retrospection and return on the part of critics who perpetually revisit the same issues which caused so much contention in the 1950s - political engagement, historical absolutism, Marxism, the use of violence, ideological extremism - in order to defend or simply reassert Camus’s position in relation, or rather in opposition, to that of Sartre. Whilst this hermeneutic framework might, in some senses, still be pertinent, it neither allows for a breadth of perspective which the distance afforded by time offers, nor permits a consideration of Camus’s thought in the light of the theoretical shifts which have taken place in the intervening period. Engaging in this hermeneutic dialogue, the purpose of this thesis is to disrupt the binarism of the Camus/Sartre paradigm through a comparative study of Camus’s theory of revolt and Simone de Beauvoir’s ethic of ambiguity in the light of Maurice Blanchot’s critical perspective, in order firstly to offer a radically new reading of Camus’s position in relation to that of his contemporaries, and secondly to open up an alternative perspective on Camus’s thought in terms of the ethical concerns which have come to underpin more modern critical paradigms such as postcolonialism, feminism, poststructuralism and ethical criticism.

Keywords: ethics
Camus
Building a bureaucracy: the transfer of responsibility for refugee affairs from United Nations Refugee Agency to Government of Kenya

In this thesis, I explore the role of Refugee Affairs Secretariat (RAS), within the Government of Kenya, in the management of refugee affairs in Kenya, focusing on RAS’ role in refugee registration and refugee status determination (RSD). Methodologically, I seek to understand the state through the everyday practices of its ‘street-level’ and managerial-level bureaucrats.
My first argument is rooted in the observation that the Kenyan state’s engagement with refugee registration and RSD has been marked by what I argue can be called a 'procedural indifference' – defined as a lack of interest or concern. I use this to critique the theories of state power outlined by Foucault, Scott and Torpey whereby state power is achieved through the administrative penetration and embrace of society. I advance this argument by showing that historically the Kenyan state, and the African state more broadly, developed without a reliance on bureaucratic knowledge. Together, I argue that this shows the historical and political contingency of registration and RSD as central components of the so-called ‘international’ refugee regime, and the importance of questioning normative ideas of statehood and idealised notions of surveillance.
My second argument explores a capacity building project by UNHCR to facilitate the full transfer of RSD to RAS and unify registration (previously done by both UNHCR and RAS in parallel). I explore the empirical dynamics of how the development project played out, whose interests it served and theoretically consider how power was exercised. I show that capacity building was oriented around deliberately maintaining UNHCR’s influence over RAS. I argue this was done by UNHCR to resolve its own institutional tension between institutional demands to carry out the transfer and concerns about how this could jeopardise refugee protection. This control however fitted well with RAS’s indifference and their desire for the financial incentives offered by the project. I therefore argue that the official aims were not achieved because of how both partners designed the project. This case highlights the intriguing ways in which competing agendas of development partners can come together to facilitate a project but struggle to achieve its official aims.

Keywords: UNHCR
African state
refugee protection
Kenya
bureaucracy
refugee status determination
refugee registration
Advisor: Scott-Smith, T
Terms of gendered representation: reassessing the role of elite women in early‒mid 18th dynasty funerary iconography from Thebes and El-Kab

Past studies on iconographic funerary material from ancient Egypt have traditionally focused on the male tomb owner, leaving his female relatives primarily characterised through their sexuality and how this benefited the tomb owner’s rebirth. This thesis reassesses this androcentric perspective, exploring whether there is a representational decorum in how female relatives are portrayed in a corpus of two early‒mid 18th Dynasty family clusters of monuments from Thebes and El-Kab, and their associated artefacts (see Chapter 2). A female relative is defined in Chapter 1 based on the presence of the core kinship terms—mwt ‘mother’, Hmt ‘wife’, snt ‘sister’ or ‘wife’, and sAt ‘daughter’—in a female figure’s caption. The discussion encompasses both a terminological analysis according to kinship term in Chapter 3 and an individual analysis focusing on the women and monuments in each family cluster in Chapter 4. Are there set ways in which women with these different kinship terms are depicted and could this infer a hierarchy between these terminological groups? What can these iconographic hierarchies potentially articulate about idealised female familial power relationships? How did the representation of a single woman change according to monument or according to kinship term? Which women are shown multiple times across their families’ monuments and artefacts, and why? Are kinship terms fully representative of the depiction of kinship within funerary iconography? The presence of such decorums suggests that female relatives were portrayed as a vital aspect of the tomb owner’s social network and self-presentation alongside his male relatives and colleagues. In this way, traditional approaches to ancient Egyptian funerary contexts are problematised in Chapter 5, drawing on anthropological theories from Feminist and Gender Anthropology and performance theory, in order to suggest a more nuanced, multifaceted, and gender balanced interpretation of the role of elite women in ancient Egyptian funerary monuments.

Keywords: kinship
self-presentation
gender
family
agency
tomb iconography
women
Advisor: Parkinson, RB
Isidoros, K
Regulation of eukaryotic DNA replication: genome architecture and polymerase switching

Eukaryotic DNA replication is tightly regulated, requiring the coordinated action of many different cellular processes and proteins to facilitate duplication of the entire genomic template.
This work investigates two different aspects of this coordination: the timing regulation that leads some genomic loci to replicate early in S phase and some late, and the enzymatic regulation that allows nascent strand synthesis to be carried out in an efficient and error-minimizing way by one of a family of distinct DNA polymerases.
First, the role of 3D genome architecture in human cell replication timing is analyzed with the use of a system for inducible cohesin degradation. Loss of cohesin has been shown to drive loss of topologically associating domain (TAD) structure across the genome. Thus, high throughput sequencing and microscopy were used to assess replication timing differences between wildtype and cohesin- ablated S phase conditions. Neither acute S phase cohesin ablation nor sustained ablation from G1 through S phase resulted in genome-wide changes to replication timing domains (RD). Furthermore, specific genomic loci hypothesized to show a replication timing response to cohesin loss – such as TAD boundaries, CTCF binding sites, and genes that showed differential expression in the absence of cohesin – showed no significant changes. Thus, it was concluded that cohesin is necessary for neither the establishment nor execution of replication timing domains.
Second, the potential for switching during ongoing leading strand synthesis by polymerase epsilon is investigated in budding yeast. A system was developed to incorporate (1) an inducible and tagged polymerase epsilon Pol2 subunit in addition to the endogenous Pol2 subunit, (2) a long replicon free of licensed replication origins, (3) robust cell cycle synchronization, and (4) a quantitative ChIP-Seq method for detection of the induced and endogenous Pol2 subunits on chromatin. Preliminary experimentation utilizing this system suggest an absence of rapid and widespread polymerase epsilon switching during ongoing replication. This opens the door for future experiments assessing polymerase switching in response to replication stress and obstacles such as UV-induced DNA damage.

Keywords: DNA replication
polymerase epsilon
Advisor: Muller, C
Raff, J
Norbury, C
"Da fügte es der Himmel oder der Zufall". Religiöses Wissen bei Adalbert Stifter

This thesis explores forms and functions of religious knowledge in the highly complex work of the Austrian prose writer Adalbert Stifter. Although there has been a dramatic increase in Stifter research over the last three decades, scholars have so far ignored a key element of his writing: In a variety of ways, almost all of Stifter’s texts deal with elements of religious knowledge. This study generically demonstrates that literature from the mid-19th-century by no means simply abandons metaphysics and confines itself to facts and science, but still strongly engages with religion. The theoretical framework for this endeavour is an eclectic mix of intellectual history, intertextuality studies, history of mentalities and discourse analysis. Based on overviews of Stifter’s personal belief and his education with the enlightened Benedictines from Kremsmuenster in Upper Austria, close readings of his short stories 'Das Haidedorf', 'Die Pechbrenner' and 'Kalkstein' shed new light on the role of biblical intertexts in Stifter, while readings of 'Der beschriebene Tännling', 'Der heilige Abend' as well as 'Der Waldgänger' and 'Das alte Siegel' recontextualise Stifter in the aftermath of Baroque Catholicism and Catholic Enlightenment. Whilst one chapter examines physico-theology as a distinctive, yet versatile category for the portrayal of nature in Stifter’s early and late work, an in-depth reading of his famous novella 'Abdias' focuses on the contemporary anti-Jewish discourse. In detecting the various traces of religious knowledge, the thesis uncovers an important semantic level of Stifter’s prose, yet it emphasises that these religious elements can by no means serve as single key to a full understanding of the nuanced, often ambiguous texts.

Keywords: biblical intertextuality
literature and religion
physico-theology
Adalbert Stifter
history of mentalities
religious knowledge
Advisor: Robertson, R