VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Young adults’ perspectives on their experiences of different types of placement in Romania

This study explores the childhood experiences and transitions to adulthood of 39 Romanian care leavers and adoptees, born around 1989 - 1990. In the past, Romania’s children in care became known to the world as 'the Romanian orphans' and some of them have been subjects to neurodevelopmental research studies focusing on the setbacks posed by institutionalisation in early life. This research project takes a different angle by:
• Using life history approach and therefore capturing the participants’ in-depth accounts of how they recall their childhoods and the challenges they encountered in their transition to independent life;
• Exploring four different types of placements and how they affect transition to independent life, from a user’s perspective.
The fact that Romania undertook reform of the child protection system within the timespan of this generation of children provided a research opportunity to collect the users’ views on different types of placement that belonged to the unreformed system of the 1990s (large residential care and intercountry adoption) and the new types of placement (small group homes and foster care). For comparison purposes, I also included domestic adoption, a type of placement that was less controversial than the others at the time reforms were being introduced. Thus, the types of placement that are analysed through the research participants’ accounts are:
• Residential care (institutions and small group homes)
• Foster Care
• Domestic Adoption
• Intercountry adoption
The study addressed two research questions:
1. How do Romanian born young people who grew up in care understand and narrate their experiences in different types of placement?
2. What narratives of agency are constructed by Romanian-born adults who grew up in different types of placement when they describe their transition to adulthood?
By taking an interpretive stance, this study brings in the academic arena the voices of care leavers and adoptees. By using narrative analysis and focussing on the concept of dignity by employing identity theories, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Capabilities Approach, the study makes an important contribution to knowledge, with implications for further research, policy and practice.
While interventions in child protection are influenced in each country by cultural, political and socio-legal factors, understanding the basic needs of children who are not raised by their birth families is important across different child protection systems. Therefore, the relevance of the research findings is not limited to Romania.

Keywords: foster care
children in care
domestic adoption
intercountry adoption
residential care
Romania
Advisor: Oancea, A
Sebba, J
Genetic analysis of DNA double-strand break mis-repair mechanisms using the human endogenous HPRT gene

DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are the most lethal radiation-induced lesions in response to which cells employ either the error free homologous recombination (HR) repair pathway or error prone mechanisms, such as non homologous end joining (NHEJ) and microhomology- mediated end joining (MMEJ). While MMEJ is suppressed by C-NHEJ, the relationship between HR and MMEJ is less clear. In this thesis, I have exploited the human endogenous HPRT gene to develop a novel genetic technology to detect mutation frequencies and signatures in response to DNA DSBs in different genetic backgrounds. Using a sensitive HPRT assay we describe a role for HR genes in suppressing MMEJ in human cells. By monitoring DSB mis-repair, we found that depletion of HR proteins, including RAD51, BRCA2, BRCA1 or SETD2, resulted in a distinct mutational signature associated with significant increases in break-induced mutation frequencies, deletion lengths and the annealing of short regions of microhomology (2–6 bp) across the break-site. This signature was dependent on CtIP, MRE11, POLQ and PARP, and thus indicative of MMEJ. In contrast to CtIP or MRE11, depletion of BRCA1 resulted in increased partial resection and MMEJ, thus revealing a functional distinction between these early acting HR factors. Together these findings indicate that HR factors suppress mutagenic MMEJ following DSB resection.
Further, I have defined a role for the SETD2 histone methyltransferase in suppressing break-induced mutations, and have shown that CRISPR/Cas9 and ISceI- induced DSBs resulted in different repair profiles.

Advisor: Humphrey, T
Porter, A
The patho-aetiology of hip osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis of the hip frequently occurs in the absence of osteoarthritis in other large joints, suggesting that local factors are important in its pathogenesis. Hip morphology has been recognised as a potential local biomechanical risk factor for the development of hip osteoarthritis. There are no adequate studies examining osteoarthritis development in the hip. Historical cohorts are either limited by a short follow up or by small numbers.
This thesis explores the natural history of hip osteoarthritis in a large population cohort with particular attention to hip morphology as a predictor of osteoarthritis development.
Software was developed which allows objective measurements of hip morphology in a reproducible manner. Hip morphology was then measured in a 1000 subject cohort. A detailed description of hip morphology is presented in this thesis, with interesting observations of wide variation and a bimodal distribution for alpha angle (a measure of cam-type femoroacetabular impingement). This is suggestive of a discrete pathological entity, which was associated with osteoarthritis in the cross-sectional analysis.
No signiﬁcant changes exist in terms of morphology during the course of the study and no signiﬁcant relationship exists between age and hip morphology.
Longitudinal analysis of hip morphology with radiographic osteoarthritis and total hip replacement revealed a signiﬁcant association between cam-type femoroacetabular impingement and acetabular dysplasia with both outcome measures. Measurements of hip morphology were independently predictive of outcome when controlling for baseline age, BMI and joint space width, and signiﬁcantly increased our ability to predict osteoarthritis and total hip replacement. Similar associations were seen when considering hip pain and symptomatic osteoarthritis as the outcome measures of interest.
Pincer-type femoroacetabular impingement was not signiﬁcantly associated with any of the outcome measures of interest and pain remains relatively poorly explained by both hip morphology and/or radiographic change.
The understanding of hip morphology and its role in the natural history of osteoarthritis is signiﬁcantly improved by this research. Further research is now required to determine whether these morphological abnormalities represent modiﬁable risk factors for osteoarthritis progression.

Keywords: Hip
Ostheoarthritis
Femoroacetabular impingement
Dysplasia
Advisor: Jones, S
Murray, D
Carr, A
Shocks, the state, and support under electoral authoritarianism

The literature on authoritarian politics emphasises the threat unexpected shocks such as economic downturns or political and security challenges pose for regime stability. However, we know relatively little about how incumbents can influence the process by which citizens evaluate government performance and attribute blame in non-democratic regimes. To gain insights into these questions, I study how government responses to collective shocks to citizen income and security influence support for electoral authoritarian regimes, i.e. those that combine authoritarian practices with multiparty elections. I propose that when shocks make information about government performance publicly observable, illiberal governments can take action that moderates or ameliorates their effect on the levels of support they enjoy. Little constrained by constitutional rules, critical media or coalition partners, electoral authoritarians can use tactical redistribution to appease the discontented electorate on the one hand and propaganda to manipulate attributions of responsibility for the shock on the other. Repression against opposition parties and activists in this context is used rarely, and only after targeted transfers and propaganda have failed to prevent support from eroding and crowds from taking to the streets. The thesis illustrates arguments with the case of contemporary Russia – an electoral authoritarian regime with high levels of personalist rule – and leverages evidence from government and citizen responses to natural disasters, economic downturns, terror attacks and electoral protests. Empirical analysis combines original datasets on the framing of economic news in Kremlin-controlled media, the forced dismissals of government actors, the provision of tactical redistribution, and the use of repression against opposition parties and activists with over 60,000 responses from nationally and regionally representative public opinion surveys. Bringing new data and evidence from individual-level surveys to bear on the debate of how non-democratic governments manage public opinion, the thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship on authoritarian vulnerability and resilience.

Keywords: Authoritarian politics
Russia
Public opinion
Advisor: Ansell, B
De Vries, C
The internal conversation of Hamas: Salafism and the rise of the 'Ulama'

Over the last few decades and particularly since '9/11', Islamism has become a major actor in international relations with the rise of a wide variety of movements. There is however still a profound ignorance as to the differences between them and their internal dynamics. The case of the Palestinian Hamas is a particularly good example because it is one of the most renowned and influential Islamist movements globally—despite the very confined geographical space it operates in. And yet, it is little understood.
This thesis is an attempt to situate Hamas in the history of Islamism and among that spectrum of Islamist organisations that exist today. It does this by tracing some of the most influential voices in the Movement and reconstructing its internal conversation around a question that is central to Islamism: the role of revelation in politics. To answer it, this thesis focuses on the use of the religious reference in Hamas. It identifies a group of Salafi 'ulama' and analyses their discourse and the function that they performed in the Movement.
It argues that there are two major trends in Islamism, a modernist and a purist, and these compete over the legacy of the Salafi movement. It is the debates between them within Hamas that the argument in this thesis is structured around. Modernist Salafism is manifested in Hamas through the centrist trend, a regional movement that inherited the thought of nineteenth century Islamic reformists who tried to reconcile Islam with the Western liberal tradition. The purist Salafi trend is an offshoot of Saudi Wahhabism, and is represented in Hamas by its 'ulama'. Thus far, these two trends have been presented as competing, and only rarely has the influence of purist Salafism within the Muslim Brotherhood, or an offshoot thereof like Hamas, been discussed.
This thesis is structured chronologically around a set of key moments in the history of the Movement. Although extensive and detailed interviews have been carried out, the focus is on tapping into the main debates within the organisation that are hidden from the general public and that contrast with Hamas's external discourse. For this it analyses the newspaper al-Risala, one of its main media organs, as well as other publications written primarily for an internal audience.

Advisor: Ramadan, T
Rehydroxylation dating

This thesis is concerned with a better understanding of issues which currently limit the precision, accuracy and robustness of rehydroxylation (RHX) dating. MC simulations and analytical expressions show that age uncertainties of previous studies are underes- timates. The ratio of sample mass to balance resolution should be of the order of 10−6 or less for measurement precision under 1%. A combined measurement uncertainty of &Tilde; 4 % should be possible, given well-designed experiments, appropriate samples, and a t1/N model with N = 4. Highly-fired materials have an age limit of &Tilde; Ma, but low α and ymax preclude dating materials such as porcelain. There is little correlation between non-stabilisation of m2 and factors such as porosity, specific heat capacity or density. The strongest effect is that of sample dimension (thickness), which is found to cause long times to stage II mass gain following 105 °C heating - roughly proportional to the thickness squared, suggesting some long-lived contribution from Fickian diffusion. Another strong effect is acceleration of the rehydroxylation reaction upon cooling from high temperatures, which is also dependent on sample size. This causes long times to stage II, and inaccuracies in fitting αm. Sample dimensions therefore pose a fundamental challenge for rehydroxylation dating by gravimetric analysis. Evidence is presented for a long-lived weakly-bound (T1) water regime in certain materials. A new apparatus for high-precision mass measurements of multiple samples under controlled conditions was used to investigate differences between meta-clay minerals, and to evaluate the efficiency of different pretreatments on fired clays of known age (1.1a). RHX age determinations, corrected for ELT, range from 30.1 ± 0.3 a to 1.51 ± 0.04, and some clear differences ap- pear for different meta-clay minerals. FTIR spectra indicate that treatment with 0.5M HCl at 70 °C for 30 minutes causes rehydroxylation of clay minerals, but 0.1M HCl seems suitable. Organic removal by chloroform/methanol solvent extraction or H2O2 treatment avoids alteration of structural OH, but is not as effective as supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) in the case of lipids. The RHX age determination of a sample of Werra pottery (MAN07) was 169 ± 30 a, with an activation energy of 82.7 kJ mol−1 and at an ELT of 10.5 °C, which is not in agreement with the result obtained in previous studies. The relationship between the t1/4 model and diffusion mechanisms is briefly discussed, and a discussion of the issues is entertained. Goodness-of-fit statistics are highest for a model with long-lived T1 and T2 regimes, but this mass gain behaviour is identical to that expected from an accelerated t1/4 process and slow cooling. It is therefore not possible to exclude the possibility of a t1/4 regime.

Advisor: Ramsey, C
Complex illusions of peace: an interdisciplinary approach to conflict reversion in Afghanistan, 1979-2014

Why do some intrastate conflict-affected states revert back to conflict, while others do not? This thesis aims to answer this question by proposing an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach to analyze the phenomenon of intrastate conflict reversion. I begin my analysis by highlighting the problematic approach of examining conflict reversion as 'frozen' or 'stuck' in equilibrium. Then, I address the shortcomings of applying 2-actor game theory models to the study of conflict reversion by linking ecological and social sciences under the theoretical framework of complexity theory. I introduce a novel model called the Competitive Efficiency Model (CEM) that embraces international relations (IR), ecology and complexity theory to simulate intrastate conflict dynamics through statistical and numerical modeling. I explain the applicability of the CEM by demonstrating mathematical principles of the model to both hypothetical scenarios and scenarios with real data. Next, I develop a set of cases from countries that experienced intrastate conflict (1946-2014). From these numerous cases, I select the case of Afghanistan (1979-2014) as an exploratory case study.
The thesis contributes to existing knowledge in four core areas of conflict dynamics within the IR discipline: (1) how the misconception of equilibrium to describe conflict dynamics can be detrimental to IR and conflict scholars' ability to interpret conflict processes; (2) how an interdisciplinary approach coalesced with IR, ecology, and complexity theory, can increase our understanding of conflict reversion; (3) how population dynamics from ecology theory can be applied to better understand conflict reversion; and (4) using a mixed methods approach of statistical, numerical and a historical narrative can uncover mechanisms behind conflict reversion.
This thesis concludes by summarizing key theoretical and empirical findings and main policy implications. I close by discussing some limitations within the thesis that has allowed room for future research on conflict reversion.

Advisor: Johnson, D
Studying α-Synuclein pathology using iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterised by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the Substantia Nigra pars compacta in the midbrain and the presence of intracellular aggregates, known as Lewy bodies (LBs), in the surviving neurons. The aetiology of PD is unknown but a causative role for α-Synuclein (SNCA) has been proposed. Although the function of αSyn is not well understood, a number of pathological mechanisms associated with αSyn toxicity have been proposed. In this study, nine induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) lines from healthy individuals and PD patients carrying the A53T SNCA mutation or a triplication of SNCA were differentiated to dopaminergic neurons (iDAn). All iPSC lines differentiated with similar efficiency to iDAn, indicating that they could be used for phenotypic analysis. Quantification of αSyn expression showed increased αSyn intracellular staining and the novel detection of increased αSyn oligomerization in PD iDAn. Analysis of mitochondrial respiration found a decrease in basal respiration, maximal respiration, ATP production and spare capacity in PD iDAn, but not in undifferentiated iPSCs, indicating the cell-type specificity of these defects. Decreased phosphorylation of dynamin-1-like protein at Ser616 (DRP1Ser616) and increased levels of Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-α (PGC-1α) in A53T SNCA iDAn suggest a new pathological mechanism linking αSyn to the imbalance in mitochondria homeostasis. Markers of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress were found to be up-regulated, along with increased β- Glucocerebrosidase (GBA) activity, perturbation of autophagy and decreased expression of fatty acids binding protein 7 (FAPB7) in PD iDAn. Lastly, lentiviral vectors for RNAi-mediated knockdown of αSyn were developed and these reduced αSyn protein levels in iDAn, resulting in increased expression of FABP7. These results describe a novel functional link between αSyn and FABP7. This work demonstrates that iDAn are a promising and relevant in vitro cell model for studying cellular dysfunctions in PD pathology, and the phenotypic analysis of A53T SNCA and SNCA triplication iDAn enabled the detection of novel pathological mechanisms associated with PD.

Keywords: synuclein
dopaminergic neurons
Parkinson's disease
iPSC
Advisor: Wade-Martins, R
Cowley, S
The local governance of European social citizenship

This thesis is a study of EU migrant citizens' substantive social rights. Much research has concerned itself with the expansion of freedom of movement and cross-border social rights in the EU. However, most of this research has analysed only formal rights, overlooking substantive rights. In the multilevel setting that is the EU, social rights are being adjudicated at a supra-national level, but realised at the national and sub-national level. Numerous different regulations, actors and practices thus shape the substantive social rights of EU migrant citizens, making their rights especially prone to distortion in the process of practical implementation. Examining how formal rights translate into substantive ones is important to understand how and where the lines of exclusion and inclusion of European social citizenship are drawn.
Specifically, the thesis looks as how formal social rights translate into substantive rights with a focus on the local level. This is where any pressures from internal EU-migration on social provision are felt, where gaps in the social protection of EU migrant citizens make themselves evident, and where many social rights are exercised. The central research question of the thesis is thus: how are EU migrant citizens’ social rights governed at the local level?
The thesis adopts a qualitative and explorative method. More specifically, it examines barriers that EU migrant citizens face when trying to access social benefits and services. The study also takes a comparative approach, and contrasts localities across two member states that can be seen as critical cases: Germany and Sweden. In two cities in each country (Berlin and Hamburg, Gothenburg and Stockholm), interviews were conducted with local public administrators, welfare providers and advocacy organisations. The interviews were later related to relevant policy documents in a thematic analysis guided by the overarching research question.
The main contribution of the thesis lies in identifying certain direct and indirect factors that shape EU migrant citizens’ access to social benefits and services – and thus their substantive social rights. Specifically, the thesis argues that (1) certain structures of welfare systems (which become evident through a bottom-up study of supra-national social rights), and (2) the entrepreneurship of local actors, are crucial to understanding how formal rights of EU migrant citizens translate into substantive ones.

Keywords: European Union
migration
social rights
EU citizenship
Advisor: Seeleib-Kaiser, M
Asymmetric total synthesis of inthomycin c and studies towards the total synthesis of oxazolomycin b

This thesis describes research towards the total syntheses of two bacterial polyene natural products, inthomycin C and oxazolomycin B, as well as preliminary studies on the biological activity of inthomycin C and structural analogues against human cancer cell lines. A novel total synthesis of inthomycin C has been accomplished in 11.4% yield and 89% ee over ten linear steps from oxazole. This synthesis is the shortest and highest yielding asymmetric total synthesis of inthomycin C to date and, unlike all previous syntheses, it avoids the use of toxic organotin reagents. Main features of this synthesis include cross-metathesis as key C–C bond-forming step, methoxy group elimination to construct the triene moiety and asymmetric Mukaiyama–Kiyooka aldol addition to install the (3R) alcohol stereocenter on inthomycin C. Both NMR data and optical rotation data for the sample of inthomycin C synthesised in this work are in agreement with those previously reported. Viability and cytotoxicity assays of inthomycin C and analogues against various human cancer cell lines have been carried out for the first time. Despite all compounds tested having proved inactive against all cancer cell lines, an ester derivative of inthomycin C has been found to exhibit weak reversible proteasome inhibition activity against two cancer cell lines. On the other hand, and building on previous work in the Donohoe group, the synthesis of an advanced amide intermediate in the route towards oxazolomycin B has been achieved, which contains the complete carbon backbone of oxazolomycin B. Key features of this synthesis include a highly diastereoselective organocerium nucleophilic addition to an aldehyde precursor, a Nozaki–Hiyama–Kishi reaction and an amide coupling to access the final amide fragment.

Keywords: oxazolomycin
total synthesis
inthomycin
Advisor: Donohoe, T