VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Modern tragedy

This thesis is an interpretation of three films by the Greek Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis: Στέλλα (Stella, 1955), Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα (To koritsi me ta mavra/A Girl in Black, 1956) and Το τελευταίο ψέμα (To teleftaio psema/A Matter of Dignity, 1958). These films appear early in Cacoyannis’ career and very little has been written on them. My thesis seeks to show that they are accomplished and complex films, which merit close attention, both in virtue of their dramatic form and because of the ethical questions they raise regarding individual autonomy and the force of archaic ethical norms.
The aim of this thesis is to interpret these films by examining the evolving motivations of their protagonists. The thesis seeks to show that the dramatic form of the films renders the agency of the protagonist partly intransparent.
In order to show this, my thesis examines, on the one hand, how characterisation, perspective, character relationships and the development of the drama provide an internal context for agency in each film. On the other hand, the interpretation seeks to tease out the ethical implications and stakes of the dramatic action in each film. These implications, I argue, are structured by a thematic ambivalence running through these films between modernity, understood as subjective freedom, and archaic ethical norms, implying a limit to subjective freedom.
In the approach to the films’ dramatic form and their ethical implications, I am indebted to Hegel’s aesthetic and ethical theory. I use the Hegelian term ‘modern tragedy’ to characterise both the dramatic form of these films and the ethical situation of their protagonists. I also situate these films within international auteur cinema of the 1950s and early 1960s.
The thesis aims, thus, to contribute to scholarship on European auteur cinema of the mid-20th century. It also aims to be a contribution to the study of agency and ethics in film in general.

Keywords: film ethics
film philosophy
tragedy
hermeneutics
modern tragedy
Michael Cacoyannis
Advisor: Due, R
Single-molecule electronics with graphene nano-electrodes

Single-molecule electronics have attracted widespread attention for both basic scientific interests and potential in technological applications. However, development has been limited by the difficulty in fabricating robust nano-electrodes suitable for contacting individual molecules. Carbon based materials have recently emerged as alternative electrode materials and possess several distinct advantages over conventional gold based electrodes. This DPhil project is undertaken with the goal of developing graphene nano-electrodes and the subsequent fabrication and characterisation of graphene based single-molecule devices.
By combining the best of two prevalent approaches for fabricating graphene nano-gaps: feedback controlled electroburning and plasma etching, it is possible to produce graphene nano-gap with sizes 1 − 2 nm. The fabrication procedure is performed at room temperature and in ambient conditions with a high yield. Furthermore, arrays can be produced which makes the technique suitable for integration with conventional semiconductor technologies for scalable applications.
The graphene nano-electrodes are used to fabricate single-molecule transistors using porphyrin molecules. Due to the stability of the graphene nano-electrodes, the porphyrin single-molecule transistors show reproducible single-electron charging behaviour even at room temperature. High bias and gate transport spectroscopy can be performed where the excited energy spectrum of the molecule is measured.
Graphene-fullerene single-molecule transistors are studied. We observe electron avalanche transport and redox-dependent Franck-Condon blockade as a result of the strong electron-vibron coupling and weak vibronic relaxation of the system. The vibrational modes of the molecule are found to be due to both intrinsic vibrational and center-of-mass motion as verified by transport spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and DFT calculations. The current stability diagram of our device compares well with a rate equation model from which we extract the electron-vibron coupling constant.

Advisor: Warner, J
Mol, J
Briggs, G
Ethnicity, equality, and education: a study of multilingual education in Nepal

This thesis explores the issue of ethno-linguistic identity through an examination of everyday practices in two mother-tongue schools in Nepal. While language and ethnicity have remained highly politicised subject in Nepal, the everyday cultural politics of language use inside minority language school has received very limited academic attention. In this thesis, I focus on the ways in which different people understand, experience, and interpret mother-tongue education in their everyday life. Drawing on Bourdieu's notion of social field, I argue that mother-tongue instruction not only concerns the introduction of minority languages in education, but also constitutes an 'arena of struggle', where the idea of an 'educated person' is (re)imagined, and the social positions of ethno-linguistic groups are negotiated. To explain this further, I show that minority language education function as a subfield within the larger social field of national education. On the one hand, everyday language practices in the schools display inward-looking characteristics through the everyday use of mother tongue and the construction of unified ethnic identity within the subfield of minority language education. On the other hand, there were outward-looking dynamics of actively engaging with the national education system. The salience of these processes is the simultaneous membership to multiple groups, claims over public spaces and in the spaces of nationalism, hitherto associated with Nepali. Using the idea of 'simultaneity', I show that social actors in minority language education might not necessarily select between subfield and social field, but instead thrive in their tense intersection. In this process, ethno-linguistic groups are able to construct their own subjectivities by negotiating what it means to be educated in a minority language. This emerging narrative of minority language education may help us to understand the issues of language and ethnicity in a more open-ended way and appreciate the multiple scales in which identities are expressed.

Keywords: Nepal
ethnicity
minority language
education
Advisor: Gooptu, N
Gellner, D
Coevolutionary interactions between a defensive microbe and a pathogen within a Caenorhabditis elegans model host

Microbes can protect their plant and animal hosts against infection by pathogens, parasites and parasitoids. These ‘defensive microbes’ can provide a powerful line of defence beyond the host response and are becoming attractive candidates for disease control. In this thesis, I investigated how defensive microbes can interact with pathogens over evolutionary time by measuring the effects of co-passaging a defensive microbe (Enterococcus faecalis) and a pathogen (Staphylococcus aureus) within the Caenorhabditis elegans model host. In Chapter 1, I found that co-passaging drove the evolution of reduced pathogen virulence as a by-product of adaptation to microbe-mediated defence. Moreover, I show that the mechanism of pathogen resistance to the defensive microbe can determine the direction of virulence evolution. In chapter two, I discovered that the co-passaged defensive microbe and pathogen populations had undergone coevolutionary interactions within host populations via fluctuating selection dynamics. I then showed that these dynamics resulted in patterns of pathogen local adaptation and increased genetic divergence. Finally, in chapter three, I revealed that these coevolutionary interactions significantly affected the costs and benefits of the defensive microbes to their hosts, but that the relationship between these costs and benefits prevented the transition of defensive microbes across the mutualism-parasitism continuum. Together, this thesis uncovers the potential for defensive microbes to shape the evolution of pathogens and demonstrates that defensive microbes can be an evolutionarily dynamic but stable form of host resistance towards infectious disease. As such, the data presented in this thesis have important implications for how we study host-parasite interactions in nature and question our current understanding of virulence evolution, pathogen local adaptation and the origin of defensive microbes.

Keywords: Coevolution
Disease control
Experimental evolution
Virulence
Defensive mutualism
Host
Pathogen
Advisor: King, K
West, S
Colicin translocation: investigating the topology of the translocon and potential applications

Colicins are proteins produced by some strains of E. coli to achieve competitive advantage over related species. With MW in the range between 30-75 kDa they consist of receptor, translocator and cytotoxic domains. After being released from producing cells, colicins cross the outer and, in some cases, inner membrane to kill susceptible cells. This ability to cross the membrane in a species-specific manner has been extensively studied in hope to use the acquired knowledge to develop new antimicrobials. It is known that using the unstructured N-terminus and receptor domain, colicins contact common porins at the outer membrane such as OmpF and BtuB and components of Tol and Ton machinery in the periplasm assembling a translocon. Although several crystal structures of colicin fragments with effector proteins (BtuB, TolB, OmpF) have been published, the architecture of the translocon remains unclear. To address this issue, we’ve studied colicin E9 in complex with its receptor and translocator proteins BtuB, OmpF and TolB by crosslinking mass spectrometry. As well as numerous internal cross-links within individual proteins, seven inter-protein crosslinks were identified. These data largely agree with the available crystal structures and previous MD simulations. However, some inter- and intra-molecular links cannot be explained with our current knowledge of the complex, so in this work I suggest four alternative models of the translocon structure. Clear functional separation between the domains makes colicins attractive candidates to use as the delivery chassis for other peptide and protein antimicrobials, which cannot otherwise cross the membrane or are not specific to pathogenic bacteria. To test whether this is feasible, I used the intrinsically disordered N- terminus of colicin N as a vehicle to deliver a BamD-binding peptide into the periplasm of E. coli. The delivery of the BamD epitope to the periplasm was successful, however the cytotoxic effect of this delivery was limited.

Advisor: Kleanthous, C
Damages for misrepresentation

This thesis is an investigation of the law of damages for misrepresentation at common law and under the Misrepresentation Act, 1967. It makes three principal claims. First, the relationship that must exist between the making of a false statement and the claimant’s reliance on it is one of necessity. In applying this test to individual cases, there is no rule of law that the non-breach position is always that the defendant would have said nothing or that he would have disclosed the truth: it simply depends on what a reasonable defendant would in fact have done.
Secondly, the scope of liability for negligent misrepresentation is governed by what this thesis describes as the 'falsity rule'. This is the rule that a loss must be a consequence not only of the making of a false statement but also of its falsity. The rule can be traced to the late nineteenth century and is the best explanation of the SAAMCO case. Contrary to the current orthodoxy, SAAMCO does not in fact endorse the risk theory of remoteness which, in any event, is flawed both as a description of the law and as a matter of principle.
Thirdly, the measure of damages under section 2(1) of the 1967 Act is the deceit measure and the measure under section 2(2) is the monetary equivalent of rescission. These provisions have given rise to difficulty principally because their legislative history has not been closely analysed. In truth, Parliament enacted section 2(1) in the mistaken belief that the common law distinguishes between deceit and negligence only for the purpose of actionability, not damages, but a mistake of this kind is conceptually distinct from a mistake about the conventional meaning of words or syntax. For these reasons, it is argued that Royscot is correctly decided but that William Sindall, with respect, is not.

Keywords: professional negligence
causation
deceit
damages
remoteness
misrepresentation
fraud
Advisor: Peel, E
Differential rotation, radiative equilibrium, and local hydrodynamic stability in stellar interiors

The problem of angular momentum transport in the radiative zone of the Sun and other stars is currently one of the most discussed in stellar astrophysics. A wide range of local and global instabilities acting in differentially rotating stars have been studied and incorporated in stellar evolutionary codes. In this thesis, I revisit two of the hydrodynamic processes that are thought to operate, namely the Eddington-Sweet (ES) circulation and a global motion induced by the Goldreich-Schubert-Fricke (GSF) instability, and investigate stellar models in which these mechanisms are suppressed. In particular:
The data from helioseismology show that the upper radiative zone of the Sun is in near-uniform rotation, but they have a significant uncertainty. I discuss the possibility of patterns of differential rotation compatible with the constraint of perfect radiative equilibrium, which implies the absence of ES circulation. I show that this constraint leads to a set of ordinary differential equations for the stellar rotation profile, which are solved numerically. I find that these models can be quite close to uniform rotation, and compatible with the data from helioseismology.
I investigate the dynamical stability of these models. It is shown that while a naive approach would suggest that the GSF instability would distrupt the rotation of these stars, this does not happen in reality. I present a study of the local stability of stratified, weakly magnetized, differentially rotating uids to non-axisymmetric perturbations with finite heat conductivity, kinematic viscosity, and resistivity. The models are found to be locally stable under rather general circumstances. Even if the molecular viscosity is very small compared to the heat conductivity, it suffices to suppress the GSF instability.
I examine the onset of the GSF instability in the core of red giant stars, where, according to recent observations, strong differential rotation may be present. I derive constraints on the amount of shear necessary for the GSF instability to operate at different depths, and show that very strong shear is required. In general, the effectiveness of the GSF instability in transporting angular momentum is currently overstated.

Advisor: Balbus, S
Tryptophan catabolism and amino acid transporter reprogramming in the tumour microenvironment

A large proportion of human tumours exploit tryptophan catabolism as a means to suppress T cell activity in the tumour microenvironment. However, the mechanisms that allow tumour cells to resist the detrimental effects of local tryptophan depletion have so far remained obscure. Here we demonstrate that shortage of tryptophan induced by the expression of tryptophan-degrading enzymes indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO) results in ATF4-dependent reprogramming of the amino acid transporter expression profile in tumour cells. Specifically, we show that tumour cells undergoing tryptophan starvation enhance the expression of several amino acid transporters including SLC1A5 and its truncated isoforms through activation of the ATF4 stress response pathway. While upregulation of SLC1A5 leads to improved glutamine and tryptophan uptake, the knockdown of this amino acid transporter inhibits tumour cell proliferation under low tryptophan conditions. In contrast to tumour cells, T cells fail to upregulate SLC1A5 during tryptophan starvation, but can enhance its expression upon cognate antigen T cell receptor engagement. SLC1A5 expression is also enriched in T regulatory cells and IDO-expressing dendritic cells, as well as in tumours growing under conditions of IDO-mediated tryptophan degradation in vivo. Finally, SLC1A5 expression correlates with IDO expression in several human tumours in silico, which is associated with poor prognosis in brain lower grade glioma. In conclusion, our results highlight key differences in the ability of tumour cells and T cells to adapt to tryptophan starvation and shed light on the previously unappreciated role of amino acid transport in IDO- and TDO-mediated immune escape.

Advisor: Cerundolo, V
Essays in behavioural economics

The thesis consists of three stand-alone essays.
Defaults are influential, cheap to change, and therefore of great interest to policymakers. However, it is still unclear what explains their influence. Optimal Defaults and Uncertainty presents a model in which uncertainty contributes to default inertia: decision makers may be content to stick with the default and avoid the costs of learning their optimal decision. The socially optimal default policy I find differs significantly from optimal policy in models where procrastination alone drives default inertia. I show that alternative policy measures may be more effective in improving welfare, and so the effectiveness of defaults may be more limited than previous models suggest.
In Screening Salient Thinkers, I explore a model of second-degree price discrimination in which consumers with context-dependent preferences choose from a menu of price-quality bundles. Specifically, the range of prices and qualities in the menu determines the weight that consumers give to the two attributes when they evaluate bundles. ‘Focusing thinkers’ place more weight on the attribute that varies the most within the menu; for ‘relative thinkers’ the opposite is true. The monopolist exploits both types of bounded rationality. In the focusing case the cost of asymmetric information is directly reduced; with relative thinkers the monopolist can use a ‘decoy good’ to extract higher revenues from all consumers.
Finally How Long Is Now? explores an important degree of freedom in models of present-biased preferences: when does the present end and the future begin? First I present evidence that illustrates how economists have used this degree of freedom to explain behaviour in a variety of different contexts. Second, using a novel, between-subjects experimental design, I test a hypothesis that endogenises the cut-off between the present and the future: the ‘as soon as possible’ effect. The effect predicts that the soonest option in a menu fixes the present horizon and implies a time-specific form of menu dependence. The experimental data collected does not support the hypothesis and this result appears robust to a number of analytical approaches.

Keywords: Pensions
Economic Policy
Salience
Intertemporal Choice
Advisor: Abeler, J
Mukerji, S
Women’s empowerment through entrepreneurship: an examination of theory and practice

Corporate-led programs aimed at increasing women’s entrepreneurship are rapidly proliferating across many industries. The gendered nature of this phenomenon suggests that feminist approaches may bring much to bear on analysis of management theory and practice. In particular, I argue that insights from feminist economics regarding the historically prevalent – but narrow and gendered – definition of work, which artificially separates production from reproduction, provide fruitful tools for theory building and analysis of practice. Through a systematic literature review of the entrepreneurship literature, I demonstrate that the gendered separation of production and reproduction is typically taken as given in mainstream management theory. Findings from two organizational cases, both featuring industry-embedded approaches to women’s empowerment, support the conclusion that unpaid/care work and market work are typically framed as forms of activity that are gendered, dichotomous, and existing in ontological conflict with one another in management practice. I present a conceptual framework of what is to be gained by examining management theory and practice in this light, and suggest how scholars and practitioners might use this framework for future work and research.

Advisor: Scott, L
Nicholls, A
Digging Deeper: Global Coal Prices and Industrial Growth, 1840-1960

This thesis investigates to what extent coal prices differed globally during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and whether those differences mattered for economic development. The backbone of my empirical investigation is a new dataset of annual coal prices spanning the years 1840 to 1960 for, on average, over 30 globally distributed ports. This dataset is complemented by pithead prices for all major coal-producing countries. My analysis includes all major steam coals and I eliminate quality differences by accounting for differences in their carbon content.
I construct my argument by examining two major drivers of differences in coal prices. First, I examine trade costs for Welsh steam coals, which were shipped to most regions of the world. Secondly, I estimate the effect of the spread of coal mining, for example to India, on local coal prices by initating competition between coals from different origins. While trade costs declined most during the late nineteenth century, the spread of coal mining led to continued price convergence in the interwar period. And yet, global coal price differences remained significant, especially between producing and importing countries.
Arguably, my most interesting finding is on the effect of those coal price differences. More specifically, I calculate the ratio of coal prices to wages, and explore whether countries where this ratio was closer to the British ratio were in the best position to use the most advanced steam technology. My econometric results indeed show that countries with a low coal price/wage ratio experienced higher manufacturing output growth during the period 1870 to 1940. This finding of my thesis highlights one potential way in which different levels of coal prices may have contributed to varying degrees of technology adoption between countries and ultimately economic growth.

Keywords: wage to coal price ratio
industrial growth
Historical coal prices
Price convergence
Advisor: O'Rourke, K
De Costa Esteves, R