VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Regulatory capacity and knowledge brokers in the decarbonisation of electricity systems

Many governments aim to rapidly expand the share of wind and solar energy in electricity generation as part of broader efforts to mitigate climate change. Despite being increasingly cost competitive, their integration into electricity systems requires adjusting a governance system intended for other technologies. This study contends that in order to better address technical and political challenges, regulators need to access scarce specialist knowledge. Regulators’ access to such knowledge is dependent on brokerage, the strategic intermediation of actors in the industry, which can happen through different organisational arrangements. Power-generator and grid companies broker knowledge by providing expertise in ways that advance their own interests; whether that interest is to halt decarbonisation or capture the largest possible share of a growing renewable energy market. Independent system operators and expert organisations are alternatives for knowledge brokering that can be crucial to successful regulatory innovations. This research explores the mechanisms and significance of knowledge brokerage through the use of process tracing, network analysis and the controlled comparison of two liberalised electricity systems –Chile and the UK– and two state dominated systems –China and Mexico. Each pairwise comparison shows, independently, that knowledge brokers have become increasingly important in devising and deploying new market governance instruments that are relevant to renewable energy deployment. In liberal markets this is the result of a need to coordinate investment and create new market products. In state-dominated markets this is the result of a pursue to fragment and balance the influence of the state-owned grid and generation companies. The study shows that independent system operators and expert organisations can become substitutes, in terms of brokering specialised knowledge, but only as long as expert organisations are actively integrated in the regulatory process through delegation of crucial functions. This research slows programmatic alternative for developing regulatory capacity through building on the existing and potential competence of expert organisations and the system operator that exist in every electricity system.

Keywords: knowledge brokers
United Kingdom
renewable energy
decarbonisation
China
network analysis
Mexico
Chile
regulatory capacity
Advisor: Hale, T
Digital forensic investigation of IoT devices: tools and methods

Consumer IoT devices are becoming omnipresent in our homes, traces generated by their continuous interactions creating a rich source of evidence, useful to forensic investigations in various types of oﬀences. However, existing research in IoT forensics has mainly focused on theoretical frameworks, as current tools and methods do not support newer IoT devices. In this thesis, we focused on developing practical generic solutions to improve the IoT forensic investigative process.
As a ﬁrst step, we undertook an online survey of the digital forensic community (n = 70) on their interpretation of a deﬁnition for IoT forensics and a roadmap for future research. We developed a uniﬁed understanding of the various terms used and drew a deﬁnite conclusion about the IoT technology and its subdomains in IoT forensics. Participants highlighted that research should focus on IoT forensic tools and data acquisition. As a result, we developed a generic acquisition method for smart healthcare devices and leveraged the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). We demonstrated the feasibility of this method by acquiring health-related traces from smart healthcare devices and the usefulness of these traces for forensic investigations e.g., establishing a historical proﬁle of the user’s health.
We dissected the lack of IoT forensic tool development further, through a systematic literature review of ∼ 800 articles on the shortcomings of research-based digital forensic tools. We found the requirement for an IoT device identiﬁcation approach. Consequently, we proposed a generic identiﬁcation approach that used machine learning and unique features extracted from the network packet. This created a unique “ﬁngerprint”, so forensic investigators can uniquely identify the device-type on the network without relying on traditional identiﬁers. Drawing upon ﬁndings from our previous studies, we developed and evaluated an automated IoT network analysis tool. Through a study of 32 IoT consumer devices, we analysed the network traﬃc metadata and showed its usefulness for forensic investigations. The results showed many devices used encryption, but smart cameras and smart healthcare devices were prone to sending unencrypted content. Finally, we found most IoT traﬃc was being sent to the U.S.
Overall, our research has novelty, in that we developed an identiﬁcation approach, acquisition method and a network analysis tool that can obtain traces from multiple consumer IoT devices. As the IoT expands, it is crucial we develop tools that can support the new devices coming on the market.

Keywords: Smart Home
Consumer
Definitions
IoT
Digital Forensic Tools
Network
Advisor: Martin, A
Variation in size and reproduction in Trinidadian guppies: ecological and evolutionary causes and effects

Body size and reproductive rates are key characteristics of any organism. Size and reproduction are strongly influenced by environmental conditions, but individuals also influences their environment. The resulting feedback loop can generate ecological and evolutionary dynamics. In this thesis, I explore the causes and consequences of intraspecific variation in size and reproduction. Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are an ideal system for this purpose. Natural populations of guppies have evolved two distinct ecotypes that differ in terms of the sizes at which they are born and reach maturity, and in their reproductive rates. These ecotypes are adapted to different environments that vary in the intensity of predation risk, and in the availability of food. In this thesis, I use a combination of genetic, phenotypic, and environmental data from natural populations, experimental introductions, and controlled laboratory experiments. To better understand the causes and consequences of variation in body size and reproduction, I apply and test methods from three distinct approaches: quantitative genetics, dynamic energy budget theory, and life history theory. I quantify evolutionary change in a wild populations, and show that phenotypic change is masked by environmental degradation. I demonstrate why predictions of evolution can fail when environments change over time. I show how size and reproduction are linked through energetic assimilation, and demonstrate that smaller guppies are resource-limited in the wild. Using dynamic energy budget theory, I identify consistent differences in energetic allocation strategies between guppy ecotypes. Finally, I construct evolutionarily-explicit population simulations, where ecological and evolutionary dynamics are emergent properties of individual rates of growth, survival, and reproduction. I show that size-dependent competitive ability determines the outcome of life-history evolution in these simulations. My thesis presents solutions to problems relevant to many studies of the eco-evolutionary dynamics of wild populations.

Keywords: reproductive rates
eco-evolutionary dynamics
life history evolution
Poecilia reticulata
body size
quantitative genetics
evolutionary ecology
Advisor: Coulson, T
Bassar, R
Auer, S
Platform governance: the transnational politics of online content regulation

Billions of people around the world use services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube every day to access information, engage in conversation, and stay in touch with friends and family. These hugely profitable and popular platforms for user-generated content, operated by large multinational technology companies, have in the past decade created complex systems of private regulatory standards that govern online behaviour and have a significant impact on the social, cultural, and political lives of their customers around the world. Where these systems --- which can be understood by International Relations (IR) scholars as an expression of private authority in global politics --- were once tacitly accepted or ignored by state actors, governments have in recent years increasingly sought to shape the rules and practices deployed by platform companies through various strategies. In some cases, governments have sought to `take back control' and re-assert state authority over this privately-managed domain, while in others they have opted rather to work directly with companies in more collaborative fashion. What explains the variation in how governments intervene in platform governance?
The thesis argues that how governments seek to shape, challenge, or contest private platform rule-making can be understood as either fitting in within a collaborative or a contested strategy. Building upon literatures from transnational regulatory politics, the thesis explains variation between these two strategies as the result of an interplay between three factors: domestic demand for change, the ability to supply that change (regulatory capacity and transnational or domestic institutional constraints on that capacity), and normative understandings of an actor's appropriate degree of policy intervention. The plausibility of the argument is demonstrated empirically through three qualitative case studies of key regulatory episodes (the German NetzDG, the Australian AVM Act, and New Zealand’s Christchurch Call) in which different governments have deployed different strategies to affect platform rule-making.

Keywords: platform regulation
digital policy
platform governance
transnational regulatory politics
online content regulation
Advisor: Kello, L
Hale, T
Understanding freshwater changes in the Arctic ocean

By enforcing a strong stratification at the ocean surface, freshwater is a key determiner of the physical and biogeochemical dynamics of the Arctic Ocean. In addition, fluxes of Arctic freshwater to the Atlantic have the potential to impact the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, with global implications for climate. The Arctic Ocean is understood to be freshening, but our grasp of its freshwater variability---in time and space---is hampered by the short duration and sparsity of observations.
We seek to explore the causes of recent changes in Arctic liquid freshwater content (FWC) and interpret the processes underpinning its variability on Arctic-wide and regional scales. We focus on the interactions between wind patterns, sea ice dynamics and thermodynamics, and FWC.
Through the application of linear response theory to a suite of coupled climate models, we demonstrate that Arctic FWC has a decadal memory of wind forcing, and that recent changes in FWC can be largely explained by variability in the leading modes of atmospheric circulation. Using forced ice-ocean model experiments, we show that---via dynamic thinning of sea ice in the interior Arctic basins---Fram Strait sea ice export can impact seasonal ice growth and melt, in a manner sensitive to wind forcing and ice dynamics. By constructing a linear model using data from a large ensemble of climate model simulations, we determine controls on forced changes in ice production in the Kara and Laptev seas with anthropogenic climate change, and highlight a pivotal role for September sea ice area changes. Relying on a series of coordinated model experiments, we demonstrate that sea ice import into the Beaufort gyre influences wind-driven FWC accumulation/flushing.
Our results emphasise the central importance of winds in controlling Arctic FWC variability, and elucidate significant roles for wind-driven sea ice dynamics in affecting liquid FWC via the hermodynamic growth and melt of sea ice.

Keywords: physical oceanography
sea ice
Arctic ocean
freshwater
climate
Advisor: Johnson, H
Kostov, Y
Investigation of the cytoplasmic pool of centriolar and centrosomal proteins

How cells control the size and number of their organelles is largely unclear. In the Raff laboratory, we study centriole and centrosome biogenesis to investigate how their assembly is dynamically regulated. Centrioles are barrel-shaped cell organelles that, in preparation for mitosis, can give rise to the centrosome, an amorphous, protein-dense structure. In Drosophila, only a small number of proteins are essential for the formation of both organelles: centrioles require the five core duplication proteins Asl, Plk4, Ana2, Sas-6 and Sas-4, and the underlying centrosomal scaffold is formed by an interplay of Polo, Spd-2, and Cnn. By using the early Drosophila embryo as a model system, we can simultaneously observe the incorporation dynamics of fluorescently tagged proteins of interest at a large number of centrioles and centrosomes. Ultimately, we would like to mathematically model both assembly processes, but we lack information regarding how the cytoplasmic pool of their individual building blocks behaves during organelle formation. I therefore optimised and developed novel spectroscopy techniques for the early Drosophila embryo, including Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, Fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy, and Peak counting spectroscopy. I then used these techniques to assess the biophysical properties of the embryo’s syncytial cytoplasm and conducted a systematic characterisation of the core proteins’ cytoplasmic concentration, diffusion dynamic, and average cytoplasmic stoichiometry.

Keywords: centrosome
FCS
microscopy
centriole
drosophila
Advisor: Raff, J
Carvalho, P
The long apprenticeship: Rodrigo Borgia as Papal Vice-Chancellor, 1457-1492

The initial purpose of this thesis was to examine Rodrigo Borgia (1431–1503) as vice–chancellor of the Church, head of the Apostolic Chancery. The Chancery was the one of the most important departments of the Roman Curia, responsible for the production of a multitude of papal documents. Borgia held the office of vice–chancellor from 1457 until his papal election in 1492, and the Chancery was housed in his palace, known as the Cancelleria. However, as the project progressed, it became clear that this objective was too narrow: the Chancery produced a wealth of documents, but they did not reflect the personal input of the vice–chancellor. Furthermore, Borgia was not a man of letters and left no record of his activities or even much in the way of personal correspondence. It was not possible to make a hard and fast division between his position as vice–chancellor and other aspects of his life as a cardinal, participating in the papal liturgy, advising the pope on matters of policy, being sent on legation, acting as a patron to clients within and beyond his household. Thus, the project evolved into a more rounded assessment of Borgia’s career between 1456, when he was made a cardinal, and his papal election in 1492. It asks why, given the notoriety of his private life, did all the other cardinals consider him suitable to be pope, the vicar of Christ? In order to answer that question, the thesis examines Borgia’s dealings with five popes – Calixtus III, Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII – and with the cardinals they created, the men who actually voted for him. One thing that distinguished Borgia from most of his fellow cardinals and from all the other electors in 1492 was his Spanish birth. He remained loyal to his homeland throughout his career, cultivating the monarchs of Aragon and Castile, sponsoring the monarchs’ candidates to vacant benefices, and acting as a patron to Spaniards in Rome, whether or not they had positions in the Chancery. The final chapter of the thesis is a lengthy historiographical survey relating to Borgia’s career before 1492, distinguishing his heroic status in Spain from the ‘black legend’ that developed in Italy and spread elsewhere.

Keywords: Papacy
history of the Papacy
Renaissance Italy
Alexander VI (1431-1503)
Borgias
Renaissance Rome
Renaissance
the Borgia family
Advisor: Davidson, N
Fletcher, S
Orbital angular momentum in high-intensity laser interactions

The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light is one of the most intriguing properties of electromagnetic radiation. Although OAM is more commonly associated with the mechanical movement of massive particles, researchers have shown that, under certain conditions, laser beams can carry it. This is not merely a theoretical proposition, this idea was almost immediately experimentally proven by showing that OAM can be transferred between light and matter. This has, in turn, spurred an ever-increasing interest in leveraging the interesting proprieties of the OAM of light for various technological applications. This work focuses on the effect that OAM has on high-intensity laser interactions.
High-intensity lasers have been a boon to scientific investigations in their own right. They have allowed us to experimentally research astrophysical phenomena inside of laboratories, opened the possibility to tabletop particle accelerators and gotten us closer to useful fusion energy sources. More recently, we have been able to reach extreme intensities that allow us to probe the most fundamental interactions in the universe. Predictions that had been theorized decades ago by the pioneers of the quantum theory of matter are now close to being experimentally verifiable.
In the coming chapters, I look at the fundamental nature of the OAM of light and the many discussions it has spurred. I then show that it modifies an interaction known as vacuum photon-photon scattering where beams of light can interact with each other in the absence of any mediating matter violating the constraints established by the classical theory of electromagnetism. OAM provides an extra signal that makes this light-light interaction more identifiable in an experiment. On a more practical note, I continue to look specifically at high-intensity lasers and how they can be manipulated to produce high-intensity OAM-carrying beams and how said beams can be characterized.

Keywords: high-intensity laser interactions
photon-photon scattering
orbital angular momentum of light
Advisor: Norreys, P
Reputation and self-regulation in securities markets: A study of the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM)

The continual debate over the appropriateness of self-regulation in securities markets has largely focused on North American self-regulatory organizations (SROs). Proponents and detractors typically advocate for more or less ‘regulation’, which is taken to mean legislation or administrative agency rule-making backed by public enforcement. This thesis adds to the debate by conducting a case study of an often-overlooked securities market, AIM, which began in 1995 as the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. This thesis conducts a holistic analysis of AIM. It begins with an analysis of black-letter law and legally enforceable regulation, but it does not end there. It continues by gathering evidence of market practice, regulation ‘off the books’, and how private rule-making on AIM has evolved over time, bringing to light how AIM has significantly changed since its 2007 heyday.
The main contribution of this thesis is to provide empirical evidence and analysis of 25 years of self-regulation on AIM, which is operated and regulated by the London Stock Exchange plc (Exchange). AIM, despite boasts as ‘the world’s largest growth market’, has received little serious legal scholarly treatment in the past decade. A second contribution is to demonstrate how reputational incentives and informal regulation, such as norms and unwritten rules that are imposed by both local market participants and the Exchange as private regulator, constitute an integral part of securities regulation and profoundly influence market conduct. Taken as a whole, this thesis seeks to shift the focus from calls for more or less regulation, and instead emphasizes the need for contextual inquiry of how reputation and informal regulatory mechanisms contribute to self-regulation in any securities market, given its public regulatory environment and private rule-making incentives.

Keywords: London Stock Exchange
judicial review
self-regulation
reputation
AIM
securities
stock exchange
Alternative Investment Market
Advisor: Armour, J
Enriques, L
Improving transport and storage of mesenchymal stem cells through investigations into their energy metabolism

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are plastic adherent spindle shaped cells that express stem cell markers CD73, CD90 and CD105, while lacking leukocyte, endothelial and haematopoietic markers such as CD34 and CD45. They can differentiate into a range of different cell types. Compared to embryonic stem cells, they are easier to purify and can be used for allogenic therapy. As of 2021, over 900 trials have taken place, primarily involving tissue repair, treatment of immune disorders and more recently, COVID-19. Cryopreservation damages cells, while current non-freezing methods require cold temperatures, expensive special materials or serum, and have not been tested beyond 7 days. The project aims to improve on current work by using a simple and chemically defined medium to maintain cell survival, consisting of a DMEM base to provide the necessary substrates, vitamins, salts and amino acids, insulin supplement (ITSE) to keep cells viable in the absence of serum and a low bicarbonate buffer to maintain physiological pH at atmospheric CO2.
The medium was developed at 37°C using hTERT MSC monolayers. When hTERT human MSCs were cultured in the insulin based preservation medium, cells proliferated between day 6 and 12, while in DMEM basal medium cell death occurred. Cell monolayers in ITSE based medium displayed higher levels of oxidative stress, but no significant difference in autophagy compared to cells in expansion media (DMEM/FBS). hTERT MSCs in ITSE based media displayed lower levels of glucose consumption, lactate production and proliferation, and displayed a wire like morphology. When seeded in DMEM/FBS after 12 days in ITSE based media, metabolic and morphological changes were reversed, and cells retained proliferation and differentiation potential.
The ITSE based medium was then adapted to work at room temperature by lowering the bicarbonate concentration from 44 mM to 0.9 mM. The majority of hTERT human and primary bovine MSCs remained viable as monolayers by day 12. hTERT MSCs retained proliferation potential, but primary bovine MSCs remained permanently anchored to the flask. When preserved as 3D structures in alginate beads, at 12k cells/bead and 360k cells/mL of ITSE based media, both hTERT and primary MSCs remained viable and functional for 8 days. At this point the limiting factor was lack of serum and pH acidity. In alginate beads at atmospheric conditions, hTERT MSCs still underwent low levels of glycolysis over 6 days. For primary MSCs, metabolite changes over 6 days were too low to measure.

Keywords: preservation
metabolism
mesenchymal stem cells
Advisor: Ye, H
Cui, Z
Urban, J
Li, Z