VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The integration of earthquake engineering resources

Earthquake engineering is increasingly focusing on large international collaborations to address complex problems. Recent computing advances have greatly contributed to the way scientific collaborations are conducted, where web-based solutions are an emerging trend to manage and present results to the scientific community and the general public. However, collaborations in earthquake engineering lack a common interoperability framework, resulting in tedious and complex processes to integrate results, which cannot be efficiently used by third-party institutions.
The work described in this thesis applies novel computing techniques to enable the interoperability of earthquake engineering resources, by integrating data, distributed simulation services and laboratory facilities. This integration focuses on distributed approaches rather than centralised solutions, and has been materialised in a platform called Celestina, that supports the integration of hazard mitigation resources.
The prototype of Celestina has been implemented and validated within the context of two of the current largest earthquake engineering networks, the SERIES network in Europe and the NEES network in the USA. It has been divided into three sub-systems to address different problems: (i) Celestina Data, to develop best methods to define, store, integrate and share earthquake engineering experimental data. Celestina Data uses a novel approach based on Semantic Web technologies, and it has accomplished the first data integration between earthquake engineering institutions from the United States and Europe by means of a formalised infrastructure. (ii) Celestina Tools, to research applications that can be implemented on top of the data integration, in order to provide a practical benefit for the end user. (iii) Celestina Simulations, to create the most efficient methods to integrate distributed testing software and to support the planning, definition and execution of the experimental workflow from a high-level perspective. Celestina Simulations has been implemented and validated by conducting distributed simulations between the Universities of Oxford and Kassel. Such validation has demonstrated the feasibility to conduct both flexible, general-purpose and high performance simulations under the framework.
Celestina has enabled global analysis of data requirements for the whole community, the definition of global policies for data authorship, curation and preservation, more efficient use of efforts and funding, more accurate decision support systems and more efficient sharing and evaluation of data results in scientific articles.

Keywords: hybrid simulations
distributed simulations
Semantic Web
service-oriented architectures
ontologies
real-time
hazard mitigation
Integration
distributed systems
earthquake engineering
experimental data
distributed testing
interoperability
Advisor: Williams, M
Blakeborough, A
Krötzsch, M
The impact of air power on navies

This thesis examines how air power has affected navies using the case of the United Kingdom between 1945 and 1957. Air power has given rise to numerous theories about its effect on the use of force, in which its impact on navies has been a particular theme. Many thinkers have interpreted air power as a strategic, operational and tactical challenge to navies, which would render them redundant and obsolete. Such ideas originated between the two World Wars but have continually reappeared since 1945 and were often influential in the British debate.
During the period under consideration, the Royal Navy was challenged in a series of defence reviews. Although these serious and repeated attacks were generally motivated by financial considerations, they were justified primarily by claims relating to air power. It was argued that nuclear-armed air power would be sufficient to win wars, while any nuclear war would leave little role for navies. Later, this argument shifted to an emphasis on deterrence of war and it was suggested that naval forces were not vital to this deterrent. Although the Admiralty continued to justify a capability to defend sea communications as both a deterrent to war and vital in it, this case did not find favour with the government. During the mid-1950s, however, an alternative focus for the Navy emerged in the form of policing and limited wars, east of Suez. Conflicts in Korea and the Suez demonstrated that such conflicts could occur and that mobile naval forces, particularly carrier aviation, were well suited to intervention in them.
It was also argued that land-based aircraft could take over some of the roles traditionally performed by naval forces, notably that of strike (against warships and shore targets) but also that of protecting shipping. These arguments were successfully defeated by the Admiralty. Land-based aircraft proved a useful complement to warships and naval aviation in protecting shipping but could only replace them in very limited areas. The Royal Navy differed from the US Navy in its conception of power projection against the land. Its capability for this task was thrown increasingly into doubt by growing Soviet submarine and air power and came to be justified by east of Suez commitments.
Enhancing board motivation for sustainable competitive performance of Thailand’s business co-operatives

This study aims to answer the main questions "Does the motivation of Co-operative Board of Directors affect the Co-operative's performance in Thailand, and to what extent?", and "Which factors affect the motivation of Co-operative's Board of Directors?" The methods used consist of both quantitative and qualitative approaches: Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and in-depth interview, respectively.
The study result suggests that the motivation of Co-operative Board of Directors significantly affects the Co-operative's performance with a standardized factor loading of 0.144. Surprisingly, the types of motivation that affect the Co-operative's performance are not those of altruism, but they are those of personal interests, i.e. to gain reputation from the community or society, to obtain honors or awards, and to gain the feelings of accomplishment from working. However, this result is subject to the condition that cooperative performance is measured solely in financial terms and quality of management. This is due to the current limitation in standardizing the measurement of cooperative performance in social terms and should be left for future research.
Factors that are found to affect Board Member motivation include the knowledge, skills and experience possessed by the Board Members, Board authority and function, the composition of the Board (the presence of external persons) and lastly, the quality of the Board meetings. Specifically, Board authority and function is the characteristic determining whether the Board is involved in the Co-operative operation. Factors whose relationship with Board motivation was not found included the one person one vote principle, Board size, chairman-manager duality, Board term, and Board structure (the presence of a compound Board).

Keywords: Performance
Board motivation
Co-operative
Thailand
Advisor: Michie, J
The design of a fracture movement transducer

The literature on bone growth, fracture healing, fracture treatment and the effects of forces and movements on these is reviewed. Some methods of assessing the progress of fracture union are considered. The conclusion from this is that a fracture movement transducer is needed for use on an external fracture fixator, and the design criteria are outlined.
The possible types of transducers are considered and a system of light falling on lateral effect photodetectors was used. The linearizing algorithms applicable to the employed detectors are discussed and tested. The electronic circuits were designed and revised, initially to produce a reasonable power consumption, and then to give a system with reduced noise levels and improved linearity. Isolation amplifiers were required to prevent leakage currents reaching the patient from the mains powered computer.
The algorithms relating the movements of the transducer to the movements at the fracture site were derived, including the use of elasticity theory to calculate the bending of the fixator pins. The engineering descriptions of the patient tests and the methods of calculating the fracture stiffness are considered. The transducer was calibrated, and consideration was given to the effect of the fixator pins loosening in the bone.
Seven patients, all with tibial fractures, six injured in road traffic accidents and one footballing injury, were tested and their clinical histories were reviewed. Comparison was made between the results from the displacement transducer and a strain gauge transducer, related to the clinical history. It is concluded that this transducer, although useful, has more relevance as a research than as a clinical tool, but that further tests would lead to increased further understanding of fracture healing.

Advisor: Whittle, M
O'Connor, J
Kenwright, J
Development of polarizable force fields and hybrid QM/MM methods for the study of reaction mechanisms

Computational chemists have successfully simulated many systems by applying the principles of quantum mechanics, while approximate molecular mechanical models have seen great utility in problems of biochemical interest. In recent years, a number of methods have been developed to combine the advantages of both techniques. In this study the so-called QM/MM method is developed and applied to the determination of the free energy of a simple Menshutkin SN2 chemical reaction. This is an extremely demanding process, well beyond the computational capacity of an average workstation, and thus a Beowulf-class Linux cluster is constructed to perform the calculations, and tested for a variety of computational chemistry applications.
A number of methods for improving the QM/MM approach are considered in this work. The Fluctuating Charge, or FlucQ, polarizable molecular mechanics force field is implemented in a flexible manner within the CHARMM package and tested for a variety of systems, including the SN2 test case. Several drawbacks of the original method are addressed and overcome.
Both molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo techniques are used within the QM/MM framework to investigate the SN2 reaction, and the two methods are compared. Techniques are developed and tested to increase the efficiency of QM/MC calculations to the point where they become competitive with QM/MD.
Extremely expensive QM treatments are shown to be required to obtain accurate energies for the Menshutkin reaction. A method is developed and tested, and compared with the traditional ONIOM technique, for dramatically reducing the computational time required to use these treatments for QM/MC simulations, paving the way for fully ab initio high basis set QM/MM simulation.

Keywords: QM/MM
GAMESS
CADPAC
polarizable force fields
MOPAC
fluctuating charge
CHARMM
Advisor: Richards, W
Professional practice and perspectives in the teaching of historical empathy

To empathise, in a historical sense, generally means to entertain the perspectives and values of people in the past through consideration of the circumstances they faced. Widely acknowledged as a fundamental part of the historian's craft, empathy has had a more tenuous place in school history due to the conceptual confusion of the term, its association with the promotion of a leftist political agenda, and its difficulty for pupils. Scholarship on empathy has focused upon its philosophical meaning and students' thought processes, but has largely neglected to explore teachers' knowledge and practice about how to cultivate it. Instead, it has tended to offer norms for good practice that take little account of differing contexts or the sometimes competing goals that teachers seek to achieve. It has been guided as well by a particular image of empathy teaching as dedicated exercises, often involving immersion in many historical sources.
My study begins to address the lack of attention to teachers' actual ideas and practices for fostering empathy by presenting a case study of four experienced history educators in England. Through extensive analysis of lesson and interview transcripts, I derive a new framework for thinking about empathy teaching that takes into account both the major activities and smallscale discourse strategies - heretofore largely unexamined - that the teachers use to promote understanding. It attends to their ways of conceptualising empathy, their means of establishing the conditions they view as essential, their negotiations of myriad factors helping or hindering their efforts, and their complex deployments of various types of relevant knowledge. The framework shows how, in making decisions about empathy teaching, they consider student factors such as capacities, preconceptions and motivation, structural factors such as time, resources, and examination priorities, and factors concerning their own knowledge, beliefs and state - then utilise a broad and flexible repertoire of strategies to address the shifting variables they encounter. Finally, the study explores curriculum as an interaction between teachers, pupils and educational context, recognising the influence of each on understanding in particular classrooms.
Significant divergences between how teachers think and practice and how empathy teaching is discussed in the educational literature emerge for a spectrum of issues. These include how empathy is conceptualised, what sorts of strategies are enacted, who the historical subjects of empathetic efforts are, how students' achievements are assessed, and how empathy-related dilemmas are construed and managed. All of these discrepancies suggest that research stands to benefit by attending more closely to teachers' ideas. For their part, the teachers appear to be oriented toward self-improvement - learning and changing through experience, collegial contact, and focused reflection of the sort prompted by this research. Implications for teachers' professional development and for future research approaches are explored.

Advisor: Pendry, A
Pre-charge detention of terrorist suspects and the right to liberty and security

This thesis assesses the UK Terrorism Act 2000’s stop and search and pre-charge detention powers against liberty and security rights. It proposes that criminalizing ‘terrorism’, and legitimacy of counter-terrorism laws, depends on moral and legal norms defining legitimate sovereign power. External norms of territorial sovereignty and non-intervention define and legitimize external defensive actions by the state to protect nation state security. Individual liberty and security rights, specifically pursuant to article 9, ICCPR and article 5 ECHR, have a special moral and legal status externally, but are not universally determinative of sovereign legitimacy. The thesis argues that these external norms accommodate contrasting paradigms of internal legitimacy, the ‘security state’ and the ‘liberal state’. Conceptually, sovereign legitimacy in the former is grounded on heteronymous collective or ideological values, grounding fundamental obligations legitimizing ‘balancing’ of individual liberty and security against security of those ultimate norms. The ‘balancing metaphor’ and exceptionalist theories are conceptually located within the security state paradigm. Conversely, political and individual autonomy (liberty and security of the person) circumscribe legitimacy of liberal state action, grounding fundamental obligations to prevent and punish harms, and to refrain from violating individual autonomy unless justified by those obligations. Liberal rule of law standards, including due process rights, are legitimized by the instrumental role of law as the primary source of justification in the liberal state. Evaluating the policy justifications, enactment, and scope of the TA provisions against those norms, the thesis concludes they contradict liberal norms, violate international norms and individual legal rights to liberty and security, and undermine the rule of law and due process rights. The pre-emptive counter-terrorism policy, balancing national security against individual liberty, and degradation of due process rights, belies a security state approach.

Keywords: liberty and security
human rights
counter-terrorism
terrorism
Advisor: Galligan, D
Third generation of reoxidant for osmium: extension and novel applications

This thesis describes the development of new osmium-mediated methodologies providing novel applications through the use of a third generation of reoxidant for osmium.
Chapter 1 The introduction
Summary of past and present methodologies towards the synthesis of the 1,2 amino alcohol motif.
Chapter 2 Intramolecular processes
The studies of the tethered aminohydroxylation (TA) of amide and urea derivatives are being investigated.
Chapter 3 Investigations towards an intermolecular process
The transposition of the TA methodology to an intermolecular process and the requirements involved are discussed. The role of acetamide is being investigated.
Chapter 4 Successful transition to an intermolecular process
Amino acid derivatives became for the first time possible nitrogen sources and were efficiently employed through osmium-mediated reaction to afford interesting biological scaffolds.
Chapter 5 Experimental
Full experimental procedures and characterisation of compounds are reported.
References
A complete list of citations employed in the previous five chapters is provided.
Appendix
Full documentation of X-ray crystal structures, key NMR spectra and HPLC traces is provided.

Keywords: osmium
intramolecular
aminoacids
amide
tethered aminohydroxylation
intermolecular
Advisor: Donohoe, T
Eschatology, history and mission in the social experience of Lucan Christians

The subject of this thesis is the relationship between eschatology and history in the Christian community for which Luke-Acts was written. Chapter 1 formulates the problem in terms of Luke's eschatology. It argues that Luke and his community thought of the End as 'near' and that Luke's historical perspective affected his eschatology. Luke-Acts represents a community that held a relevant eschatological hope and was aware of continuing history. This is the interpretive problem this thesis seeks to enlighten.
The perspective to be used in approaching this problem is that of sociological analysis. Chapter 2 explores the use of sociological perspectives in New Testament study and the benefits to be achieved by the use of the sociology of knowledge.
Chapter 3 is a sociological analysis of the community in terms of date, location, stratification, racial composition, boundaries, social institutions, and charismatic roles and functions. This material suggests that mission was an important community task.
Chapter 4 establishes a sociology of mission for the community, investigating commitment as the mechanism that motivated community members to pursue mission, the importance of mission to the community, the motivation of converts, and the problems encountered in mission.
Chapter 5 investigates the social functions of eschatology in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating numerous aspects of the community's mission experience.
Chapter 6 investigates the social functions of history in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating various aspects of the community's mission experience.
In the conclusion it is shown that history and eschatology were functionally related to one another in legitimating aspects of the community's mission experience. This functionality also provided a meaningful relationship in helping the community to make sense of its world. This further prepares us to try and understand these ideas theologically by placing them in a social context.
Markets and payments for ecosystem services: engaging REDD+ on Peru's Amazonian frontier

The impacts of tropical deforestation and forest degradation are felt at multiple levels, bringing about local ecosystem degradation, regional biome fragmentation and global contributions of 12-15% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In response to this, markets and payments for ecosystem services have emerged to financially value the services forests provide, most notably in the form of mechanisms to reduce deforestation and enhance forest conservation (REDD+). REDD+ has received much attention at the international level, but the pressing contemporary challenge is its engagement at the local scale.
This thesis examines the potential local-level engagement of REDD+ on the Amazon frontier as an approach to altering patterns of anthropogenic encroachment on the world's greatest expanse of tropical forest. Case studies are taken from the buffer zones of protected areas along Peru's Amazonian frontier, Yanachaga-Chemillen National Park (YChNP) in central Peru and Manu National Park (MNP) in the SE of the country. A political ecology approach is taken to examine the influences and implications of existing land use governance structures, local livelihoods and preferences, and smallholder production and land economy, in the context of REDD+. Adopting mixed methods comprising semi-structured interviewing and land user surveys, data were collected between July 2008 and September 2009.
I show that the two sites' histories and geographies have shaped distinct challenges for REDD+. The proximity of YChNP to Lima has fuelled agricultural expansion and higher land use incomes, yet institutions – particularly those belonging to the state – are exceedingly weak. The pace of land use change here obliges certain urgency for REDD+ interventions to provide livelihood alternatives, divert the current development path and restore the landscape. MNP’s rurality has protected it to date from expansive deforestation, yet weak institutions, poverty and increasing threats from national development processes highlight the importance of REDD+ interventions. In an analysis of land economy, an innovative conceptual framework is presented, the '3Rs' (rewarding, regulating and reshaping) to tackle local heterogeneity in REDD+ engagement. This thesis contributes knowledge to the practical and theoretical advancement of REDD+, and proposes the mechanism as an important new arena for academic investigation.

Keywords: buffer zone
tropical forest
climate change
Peru
Amazon
national park
REDD+
conservation
rural development
governance
Latin America
livelihoods
Advisor: Liverman, D
Malhi, Y