VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Macroscopic dislocation modelling

Work-hardened metals typically possess large numbers of dislocations in complex three-dimensional configurations about which little is known theoretically. Here these large numbers of dislocations are accounted for by means of a dislocation density tensor, which is obtained by applying an averaging process to families of discrete dislocations. Some simple continuous distributions are examined and an analogy is drawn with solenoids in electromagnetism before the question of the equilibrium of dislocation configurations is studied. It is then proved that the only finite, simply-connected distribution of dislocations in equilibrium in the absence of applied stresses are ones in which all components of stress vanish everywhere. Some examples of these zero stress everywhere (ZSE) distributions are then given, and the concept of 'plastic distortion' is used to facilitate their interpretation as rotations of the crystal lattice.
Plastic distortion can also be understood as a distribution of infinitesimal dislocation loops ('Kroupa loops'), and this idea is used in Chapter 4 to investigate the dislocation distributions which correspond to elastic inclusions.
The evolution, under an applied stress, of some simple ZSEs is analysed, and the idea of 'polarisation' is introduced, again in analogy with electromagnetism. Finally, a mechanism is conjectured for the onset of plastic flow.

Advisor: Ockendon, J
Howison, S
Neuro-fuzzy predictive control of an information-poor system

While modern engineering systems have become increasingly integrated and complex over the years, interest in the application of control techniques which specifically attempt to formulate and solve the control problem in its inherently uncertain environment has been moderate, at best. More specifically, although many control schemes targeted at Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems have been reported in the literature, most seem to rely on conventional techniques which assume that a detailed, precise model of the HVAC plant exists, and that the control objectives of the controller are clearly defined. Experience with HVAC systems shows that these assumptions are not always justifiable, and that, in practice, these systems are usually characterized by a lack of detailed design data and a lack of a robust understanding of the processes involved.
Motivated by the need to more efficiently control complex, uncertain systems, this thesis focuses on the development and evaluation of a new neuro-fuzzy model-based predictive control scheme, where certain variables used in the optimization remain in the fuzzy domain. The method requires no training data from the actual plant under consideration, since detailed knowledge of the plant is unavailable.
Results of the application of the control scheme to the control of thermal comfort in a simulated zone and to the control of the supply air temperature of an air-handling unit in the laboratory are presented. It is concluded that precious resources (as measured by actuator activity, for example) need not be wasted when controlling these systems. In addition, it is also shown that a very precise (and sometimes not necessarily accurate) control value computed at each sample is unnecessary. Rather, by defining the system and its environment in the fuzzy domain, the fuzzy decision algorithms developed here may be employed to get an "acceptable" control performance.

Advisor: Dexter, A
The development of executive function in childhood

The experiments in this thesis explored the development of executive function in 5- to 11-year-old children. Developmentally-appropriate versions of the task-switching paradigm, go/no-go task and self-ordered pointing test were used to measure shifting, inhibition and working memory respectively. These executive skills were examined independently and within-task experimental manipulations were used to explore both the executive and non-executive processes that influenced children’s performance. These allowed the investigation of not only when, but also how executive function develops. It was found that shifting development, as measured by the task-switching paradigm was highly influenced by the specific tasks switched between and the conflict created by the overlap of the tasks, as well as by previous task experience. Working memory for pictures was also influenced by previous experience and task difficulty, however the predicted relationship between memory for nameable objects and language ability was not found. Inhibition on the go/no-go paradigm appeared to be driven by an improvement in the efficiency of response inhibition enabling older children to inhibit a response at an earlier stage during the movement. Shifting, inhibition and working memory all showed developmental improvements during mid-childhood, demonstrating the protracted development of executive function. Shifting and working memory showed a similar pattern of development whereas inhibition reached a stable level of performance at an earlier age. There were no correlations between the three executive skills studied in this thesis, supporting the fractionation of executive function.

Keywords: task-switching
development
cognitive control
inhibition
executive function
working memory
children
Advisor: Nation, K
The Cape Verdean "community" in Portugal

This dissertation is based on a fifteen months' period of multisite fieldwork and sets out to analyse the notions of Cape Verdean 'community' and 'identity' in Portugal by viewing their construction through three different perspectives: the perspective of an old colonial elite of Portuguese Cape Verdeans, the perspective of the Cape Verdean labour migrants, and the perspective of the Portuguese mainstream society.
The archipelago of Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is the homeland of the two groups who make up the Cape Verdean 'community' in Portugal. These two groups have separate identities based on linguistic, social and cultural differences, as well as time and place of origin. On the one side, there is an old Portuguese Cape Verdean colonial elite constituted by those who were born in Cape Verde while this was still a colony. Most of them left the archipelago at an early age to study in Portugal, then the metropole, and never returned. Some have remained in Portugal, but most found positions within the colonial administration of the other Portuguese colonies. They distinguish themselves from the other Cape Verdeans by their light complexion and their higher level of education. They view their Cape Verdeaness as part of an old colonial 'national' identity, seeing themselves as Portuguese and Cape Verdean at the same time without sensing any contradiction in this. On the other side, there are the Cape Verdean labour migrants who started to come to Portugal in the mid-1960s, when Cape Verde was still a colony. These are mostly uneducated peasants who were escaping the effects of drought and famine in Cape Verde. Most are black and come from the island of Santiago and speak Creole at home.
The elite and the labour migrants live in completely different worlds: the first in middle-class suburbs and the second in shantytowns and council housing projects. Notions of 'race' and 'class', based on differences in complexion, education and wealth, contribute to the existence of these two groups of Cape Verdeans as separate entities. While the elite Portuguese Cape Verdeans are almost invisible within the mainstream society, the Cape Verdean labour migrants are highly visible because of their poor social integration. While the descendants of the elite are diluting within the Portuguese mainstream, the descendants of the labour migrants are occupying the fringes of Portuguese society and developing an oppositional identity in relation to the Portuguese mainstream. The first part of this thesis gives a detailed description of the Cape Verde archipelago and the foundations of its colonial society, and of the important issue of Cape Verdean migration. The second part presents the life of the two groups of Cape Verdeans in postcolonial Portugal and the ways the Portuguese mainstream perceive them.

Advisor: Peter Rivière, S
Role of cdc21+ and related genes in eukaryotic chromosome replication

The Schizosaccharomyces pombe cdc21+ gene product is related to the Mcm2-3-5 family of replication proteins.
By phylogeny analysis of their protein sequences and screening for cdc21+-related sequences using molecular probes I have suggested that at least six types of cdc21+-related genes may be present in the yeast genome.
The isolation of interaction suppressors of the cdc21ts mutant was attempted by overexpression of an S. pombe cDNA library. Two cDNAs were isolated, ts11+ and dom1+, whose overexpression specifically affected the viability of cdc21ts cells under certain conditions. The predicted dom1 protein is 60% identical to the budding yeast HMG-like Nhp2 protein.
I have studied the phenotype of S. pombe cells overexpressing the cdc21+ gene and amino-terminal truncations of it. Overexpression of the cdc21+ gene caused cell elongation but cells were not significantly affected in growth rate. Cells overexpressing the carboxyl-terminal part of cdc21+ arrested in S phase and also entered mitosis in the absence of nuclear division.
The possibility that chromosomes in cdc21ts arrested cells may be damaged was investigated by pulsed field gel electrophoresis. No differences could be found compared to wild-type chromosomes. I have also studied the arrest phenotype of cdc21 rad1 and cdc21 cdc2.3w double mutants. Both strains entered mitosis at the restrictive temperature indicating that cdc21ts cells arrest in S phase and may contain DNA damage.
I have generated two new mutant alleles of cdc21+. The first allele was made by deleting most of the cdc21+ open reading frame (ORF). The second allele was constructed by placing the cdc21+ ORF under control a regulatable promoter. The resulting construct was used to complement the cdc21 deletion. Both mutants were inviable under appropriate conditions arresting in S phase as elongated cells, although a proportion of them (15-20%) entered mitosis in the absence of nuclear division.
Government beyond law: exploring charity regulation and spaces of order in China

This thesis examines the regulatory landscape relating to private orphanages, both foreign and domestically run, in China, and the formal and informal relationships between such homes and government which structure this space of order. Part A introduces the contextual factors shaping the gradual socialisation and privatisation of charitable activity generally, and the child welfare-specific social, economic and cultural dynamics influencing the emergence of private orphanages. Parts B and C set out the ethnographic findings of field-work examining the practical operations of private orphanages, and a theoretical analysis of the various interactions occurring with government orphanages, and local and central officials. It is shown that the ostensible government monopoly on institutional care of orphans, established in law and policy and consistent with the objective of maintaining tight control over civic organisations and religious-based and foreign-led activities, is belied by a proliferation of private orphanages emerging to address gaps in state welfare provision. This has led to the emergence of a delicate balance between top-down official discourse, rhetoric and law, and bottom-up pragmatic considerations. Further, the prima facie 'missing role' of the state in law, regulation and policy-making is contradicted in practice by evidence of a complexity of highly paternalistic state-orphanage relationships occurring beyond the normative framework of official laws and policies. Such extra-legal state-society interaction is characterised by informal, flexible and paternalistic negotiations with local officials, and mediated by structures of power and capacity. 'Law beyond government' and 'government beyond law' are central features of the multidimensional maintenance of this space of order, and point to several defining points of distinction of law as a cultural notion in the Chinese context, including a marked preoccupation with legitimacy over legality and paternalistic discipline and discretion over impartial adjudication.

Keywords: non-governmental organisations
regulation
China
orphan and child welfare
Advisor: Pirie, F
Murphy, R
Nonlinear interfacial waves in two-phase flow

Large amplitude interfacial waves are an important feature of annular gas-liquid two-phase flow. They act as a source of entrainment for liquid droplets. They occur for liquid flow rates above a critical value which depends on the gas flow rate.
This thesis examines the formulation of a mathematical model to describe the behaviour of these nonlinear waves. Attention is focussed on the case of vertical upwards flow with reference to the experimental conditions for the rig at AERE Harwell.
A comprehensive account is given of the limitations and similarities of mathematical models proposed by earlier research workers and their applicability to vertical two-phase flow. The most suitable approaches are found to be kinematic wave theory and an integral method.
Experiments have been carried out at AERE Harwell to determine the relationship between liquid flux and film thickness required by kinematic wave theory and also to test some of the theory's predictions.
There is a discussion of the difficulties involved in modelling the stresses exerted by the turbulent gas core on disturbance waves. The applicability of Benjamin's 'quasi-laminar' theory is considered.
A linear stability analysis indicates that the interface is always unstable. The linear theory cannot provide a criterion for disturbance wave inception. Alternative explanations for wave inception are suggested.
The SMAC (Simplified Marker And Cell) numerical method has been developed to model the time dependent behaviour of large amplitude waves in vertical annular two-phase flow.
Finally, it is proposed that any realistic mathematical model for disturbance waves should be based upon kinematic wave theory and should take account of wave-breaking.

Advisor: Rae, J
Cardiovascular manifestations of Marfan syndrome: insights from advanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Marfan syndrome (MFS) is the commonest inherited disorder of connective tissue and is associated with a high risk of potentially life-threatening complications, including aortic aneurysm, dissection and rupture, and, perhaps, ventricular disease. This work describes the prospective application of advanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance techniques to the aorta and heart of consecutive, unselected subjects with MFS, and to appropriately matched control populations.
Comprehensive 3D visualisation of blood flow in the entire thoracic aorta of subjects with MFS was achieved using a time-resolved phase-contrast magnetic resonance technique with 3-directional velocity encoding (4D flow), demonstrating a high prevalence of major flow disturbance (87 ± 12%), compared to controls (28 ±18%), localising to those regions of the aorta known to be most prone to aortic dissection (sinuses of Valsalva and proximal descending aorta). Wall shear stress, recently identified as a potentially important determinant of aneurysm progression and rupture, was interrogated in these datasets at the sinuses of Valsalva (SOV), ascending aorta (AA), arch, and proximal (PDA) and distal descending aorta (DDA), using the 4D flow datasets, and was shown to be significantly reduced at each location (SOV -15%; AA -12%; Arch -17%; PDA -18%; and DDA -14%, p<0.05 for each), in subjects with MFS compared to healthy subjects.
4D flow datasets were used to generate relative pressure maps in healthy subjects and in subjects with several aortic diseases. A novel method for the separate evaluation of the components of relative pressure was applied, revealing marked differences in the relative contribution of the components of pressure (unsteady > convective >> viscous), and characteristic differences between subjects in overall relative pressure, and its components. Left ventricular volumes and function were evaluated in subjects with MFS, and did not differ significantly from healthy subjects in the absence of significant valvular regurgitation and / or shunt. Left ventricular end-diastolic volume varied markedly with degree of regurgitation (r=0.75, p=0.0001). The mechanistic implications of these findings, and the potential role of these techniques in the evaluation of cardiovascular disease, are discussed.

Keywords: Marfan syndrome
cardiovascular magnetic resonance
Advisor: Neubauer, S
Petersen, S
Byzantium and the Bosporus: regionality, identity, institutions

This thesis presents a historical study of the relationship between the city of ancient Byzantium and the Thracian Bosporus. Structured around the themes of regional particularity and identity, it shows that local studies can be used to gain fresh insights into more general topics. Viewed through the lens of the relationship between strait and city, the history of the Bosporus sheds light on the nature of economic exploitation and ancient imperialism, and on the nature of ancient communities’ local identities.
Chapter 1 explores regionally specific geographical features in the strait, which directed and determined responses to life in the area, around which the regional economy revolved, and in response to which the identities of the local communities were created. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the history of economic exploitation of the region, exploring the attitude of the Athenian Empire toward the Bosporus, and the attempt by the local communities of the Bosporus to create a controlled monetary system in the third century BC. These efforts to exploit local opportunities and commodities, I show, transformed the Bosporus into an attractive economic resource. Chapter 4 examines the local fishing industries of the strait, and demonstrates that the extraordinary availability of fish in the region provoked responses which could not be emulated precisely elsewhere.
The thesis also shows that the cultural identity of a Greek city could be intensely local. Byzantium, a Greek colony typically characterized by its relationship to its mother-city, had a series of important local identities, explored in chapter 1. From this perspective, chapter 5 re-examines the difficult relationship between Greeks and Thracians in the region, and chapter 6 questions the validity of the traditional view of the relationship between a colony and its mother-city.

Keywords: Numismatics
Byzantium
Epigraphy
Regional History
Athenian Empire
Thrace
Byzantion
Ancient History
Greek History
Advisor: Thonemann, P
Statistical challenges in the detection of mutation and variation using high throughput sequencing

The aim of this thesis is to obtain a better understanding of mutation rates within as well as between the genomes of humans and chimpanzees using data generated by high throughput sequencers. I will start with a review of the field and an overview of the technologies and protocols used to generate and analyse high throughput sequencing data. I apply some of the discussed techniques to show that there is evidence of a selective advantage of pathogenic de novo mutations in the Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 3 gene in the male germ line of humans. Furthermore, I use some of the methods to generate a map of genome-wide sequence variation in Western chimpanzees. Ever since Darwin [Darwin, 1871] and Huxley [Huxley, 1863] postulated more than a century ago that African great apes are our closest living evolutionary relatives, the study of chimpanzee individuals is of great scientific interest from an evolutionary point of view, as comparisons between the genomes of human and chimpanzee offer the potential to help to understand the molecular basis for similarities and differences between the two species. I use the generated data to explore the breadth of the nucleotide diversity in the chimpanzee genome in order to shed light on whether or not the local variation in mutation rate has been conserved since the divergence of the two species and to place human nucleotide diversity into perspective with an evolutionary closely related species. I explore the relationship of nucleotide diversity in chimpanzees with specific large-scale genome features to reveal a number of highly significant correlations which explain over 40% of the observed variation. I use data from the 1000 Genomes Project to examine the occurrence of ancestral polymorphisms shared between human and chimpanzee on a genome-wide scale. These ancestral polymorphisms do not only influence fine-scale divergence rates across the genome in very closely related species, they are also good candidates for regions under balancing selection and thus, they are a useful tool to study long-time population demographics and speciation. Using these variants, I postulate that long-term balancing selection may be more common than previously believed. I conclude with a discussion of the results contained in the body of the thesis and suggest a number of areas for future research.

Keywords: high throughput sequencing
genome-wide sequence variation
mutation rate
long-term balancing selection
nucleotide diversity
Advisor: McVean, G
The intentionality, causality and metaphysics of naming

This thesis delineates the boundaries of theories of naming, placing particular emphasis on the demarcation of the semantic function of referring expressions from the pragmatics of referential usage. The need for such emphasis derives from frequent confusions in work on singular reference where pragmatic phenomena are used to refute semantic theories and vice versa.
Part One of the thesis examines various conceptions of the semantic function of names. Frege's notion of 'Sinn' is shown to be incoherent as are its reincarnations by modern, neo-Fregean commentators: a more modest role for sense is suggested. Kripke's intuitions about scope-insensitivity in modal contexts are amplified and criticised. An investigation of singular thought yields a discussion of Evans 1 views and the removal of the apparent impasse that substitutevity failure causes for Millian theories.
Part Two of the thesis concentrates on the mechanism of namereference, which works by connecting a contemporary use of a name via a causal umbilicus to some (or no) supposed referent. A number of anomalies are examined, from which the notion of a name-using practice and an elucidation of the criteria in virtue of which we judge a term to be a name are developed.
In Part Three of the thesis the artificial super imposition of logical structure onto natural language is explored. The argument hinges on a plausible generalization of Donnellan's referentialattributive distinction. From this there emerges a picture of the complex network of intentions that surround the referring process. The role of definite descriptions in grounding the use of names is explained.
Both the semantic and pragmatic pictures of name-reference are applied to the perennial puzzles of substitutivity failure and existential statements. The results underline the fact that a great deal of work needs to be done by those who subscribe to the growing orthodoxy of Millian theories, but that this is work in pragmatic areas that are too often ignored by those studying 'pure' semantics.