VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The rights of official language minority communities in Canada

This thesis explores the meaning and content of s. 41 of the Official Languages Act of Canada, which imposes certain duties on all federal institutions towards French- and English-language minority communities. While vitally important as a component of Canada’s language rights archictecture, the nature and content of s. 41 as a legal norm remain woefully unclear. The immediate aim is to determine: (1) whether s. 41 confers a right to specific measures in particular cases; (2) whether such rights are individual or collective; and (3) if collective, what sort of interests are protected.
Section 41 presents a number of interpretive challenges. First, it uses terminology which is undefined in the Act and yet has no self-evident meaning. Thus, the nature of the primary legal subject, 'linguistic minority communities' (LMCs), is unclear, as are the nature of the protected interests, 'vitality' and 'development'. Second, the interpretive principles developed by the case-law for official language rights rely on a conceptual framework that is vague and under-theorized. Key components of that framework, like the concept of a necessary link between language and culture, have yet to be fully explored, either in the case-law or in legal scholarship. This presents an acute problem in the case of s. 41, where the content of these concepts will likely prove dispositive.
In order to grapple with these challenges, this thesis develops an account of language rights as collective rights. Drawing on the philosophical literature and existing case-law, I argue that LMCs should be conceived of as collectivities rather than mere aggregates of individuals, and that a number of language rights, such as s. 41 of the OLA, and ss. 16.1 and 23 of the Charter, aim to protect the collective interests of these collectivities. I then define some of these interests from both an empirical and a normative perspective. I conclude by arguing that s. 41 of the OLA protects an 'autonomy interest', which both prohibits federal institutions from interfering with existing LMC autonomy, and provides a basis for claiming enhancements to that autonomy, within the confines of the statutory mandate of the institution in question.

Keywords: Constitutional theory
Linguistic rights
Philosophy of Law
Collective rights
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Political theory - minority rights
Human rights
Constitutional law - Canada
Advisor: Ghanea-Hercock, N
Detection of volatile organic compounds in plant stress: a study on geraniol

Detection of plant volatile organic compounds as indicators of plant stress can improve crop yield and agricultural sustainability by enabling early-stage treatment of crop stress and by reducing the overall use of agricultural resources. In this work, the feasibility of detecting gaseous geraniol, a plant volatile, using cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS), a sensitive and non-destructive analytical technique, was assessed. For geraniol gas, a limit of detection of 147 ppb was achieved, and a limit of 25.5 ppb was calculated to be attainable with modifications to the experimental setup. For geraniol in solution, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) measurements were performed, and a detection limit of 2.6 μM was established. Rose (Rosa 'English Princess') petals, pelargonium (Pelargonium 'Attar of Roses') leaves, and genetically modified tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) leaves were analysed for their geraniol content. 8.2 μM of geraniol was detected in liquid extracts of 0.5 g of pelargonium leaf and, employing two different assumptions, upper limits of 670 and 1930 ppb were estimated for the concentration of geraniol expected in the headspace of this tissue. For 0.5 g of tobacco leaf, an emission rate of 117 ppb/h was calculated for a 20 mL headspace using data from previous studies. It was concluded that CEAS is a promising technique for sensitive detection of plant volatiles. In addition to geraniol measurements, chemical composition of the rose petals and the pelargonium leaves were analysed by headspace and liquid extract GC-MS measurements. Detected compounds were compared with compounds reported for related species and cultivars. Many of these compounds play key roles in stress signalling in various plants, and their detection could be instrumental in monitoring the health of these plants.

Advisor: Vallance, C
The literary reception of Old Norse myth in medieval Iceland

This thesis addresses the incorporation of mythological patterns, characters, and motifs in selected Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders) and fornaldarsögur (sagas of ancient times). Taking as its point of departure the conclusions of Margaret Clunies Ross in Prolonged Echoes, according to which Old Norse myth retained its cultural and conceptual relevance in medieval Iceland and Scandinavia even after conversion, this thesis explores the ideological implications of mythological patterns, characters, and motifs as they are used in saga literature. The thesis begins by demonstrating the way in which mythology was used by saga writers to conceive of and configure rulership and power, including coverage of Snorri's historicization of Old Norse myth to produce a typological model of right rulership in Ynglinga saga, while the assimilation of Óðinn to the figure of the foster-father is attributed to a focus on the god's associations with battle and heroes. Blanket categorizations of the poets of the skáldasögur (sagas of poets) as Odinic figures are revealed to be unwarranted, and non-Odinic material used in the representation of these poets, such as the employment of motifs borrowed from the swan-maiden tale-type in Gunnlaugs saga, is shown to be just as important as Odinic material in conceiving of poets in these sagas. In Chapter 4, a less oppositional binary between gods or humans and giants than has hitherto been acknowledged is suggested, and arguments are made in favour of considering giants to be representative of alternative, peripheral, and decentralizing ideologies. The final chapter argues that practitioners of magic are representative of potential social and political disruption and that that disruption is frequently configured in terms of the mythological outsider, such as the dwarf. This thesis concludes that Old Norse myth was of vital cognitive importance in constructing and negotiating social, cultural, and political ideologies from the twelfth century onwards.

Advisor: O’Donoghue, H
The Brontës and masculinity

This is the first comprehensive study of the Brontës' representations of masculinity. In it, I analyse the ways this family of writers depicted forms of masculinity as they developed from late-Romantic child writers to mature novelists and poets of the Victorian period. My chief concern is to situate the Brontës within the historical period of 1829-1855, from Charlotte's first Glass Town stories to the time of her death. This thesis examines the Brontë siblings' complete body of work, including Branwell's contributions to the Angrian saga, Emily's and Anne's Gondal poetry, and Charlotte's and Emily's Belgian devoirs. In undertaking this work, I model my approach on Heather Glen's precise, historical readings in Charlotte Brontë: The Imagination in History (2002), as well as John Tosh's social historical examination of Victorian masculinity, particularly in A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home (1999).
This study examines representations of masculinity in the modes of cultural production the Brontës were exposed to: contemporary periodicals, poetry, fiction, domestic handbooks, gift books, educational texts, clerical and medical handbooks, and labour management treatises. I track the Brontës' various engagements with and revisions of Byronic and Carlylean forms of masculinity, as well as the rise and fall of the silver fork dandy and the emergence of both the Victorian self-made man and the new professional.
This study considers how the Brontës' representations of gender formation were affected by different modes of familial literary production and collaboration. Though the Brontës shared their creative works from a young age and grew up within the same domestic literary culture, the siblings' depictions of masculinity diverge, and each sister situates herself within various cultural contexts relating, for example, to child-rearing, romance, and professional conduct. My thesis is organised thematically, with chapters examining heroic, domestic, and professional representations of masculinity in the Brontës' works.

Keywords: juvenilia
Brontës
Advisor: Shuttleworth, S
A critical review of the Hong Kong new competition regime: a comparative perspective of objectives, institutions, and scope

This thesis examines the effectiveness of the competition regime in Hong Kong (HK), which is one of the few remaining developed economies to yet implement a competition law. In its search for the optimal dynamics of the regime, the thesis offers a tripartite examination on its objectives, institutions and scope of application, and how these three distinct internal dimensions individually and jointly influence the effectiveness of the regime. Furthermore, a critical review is offered on two significant external factors, land hegemony and the political regime, both of which exert a strong force on the competition regime.
This interdisciplinary research project encompasses legal, political, economic, and market-contextualized analysis. Given that HK has a new competition regime, and is an international financial, communication, and transportation centre, it is appropriate and apposite to evaluate it by international standards.
The thesis begins with an examination of three internal dimensions. As a preliminary, it considers the extent to which HK benefits from a free economy with a sound competitive environment. It then moves on to investigate the first dimension, which is that of the objectives of the competition law in terms of its clarity, prioritization and consistency. Following this, the thesis investigates the second dimension, the institutions of the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal, by asking how the structure shapes the substance of enforcement. It explores the limitations and virtues of major institutional models and which model is the most appropriate for HK. In its third dimension, the thesis questions the adequacy of the scope of competition law, with a focus on the near blanket exclusion of public entities. Commentary is offered on how to achieve a level playing field between private and public sectors.
Following the evaluation of the three internal dimensions, the thesis focuses on their correlations. The discussion reviews the challenges and puts forward a wide range of measures to manage them. Finally, the thesis explores the significance of two external powers, land hegemony and political regime, and suggests several long-term solutions which the author believes would lead to the steady optimization of the competition regime.

Keywords: objectives
scope
politics
antitrust
institutions
economics
competition
Advisor: Ezrachi, A
Mathematical models of anti-angiogenic therapy and vessel normalisation

Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels from existing ones, and is a key characteristic of tumour progression. The purpose of antiangiogenic (AA) cancer therapies is to disrupt the tumour's blood supply in order to inhibit the delivery of oxygen and nutrients. However, such therapies have demonstrated limited benet to cancer patients: although they delay tumour progression for some types of cancer, they do not consistently improve survival. Several preclinical experimental studies have reported that AA therapies lead to a period of vessel normalisation, during which vessels transition from the leaky, tortuous state that is typical of tumour vasculature to a more stable state where blood perfusion is increased. It has been suggested that normalisation is the reason why some AA therapies lack effcacy. In this thesis, we develop and study mathematical models of various aspects of angiogenesis and vessel normalisation, and we use our results to suggest effective AA therapy regimens. Our first model represents the biochemical interactions and cellular dynamics involved in neovascularisation: we incorporate biological hypotheses to develop a spatially averaged ODE model of vessel formation, and we show that the model admits a number of vascular phenotypes characterised by their degrees of vessel normalisation. We showed that these phenotypes respond differently to different AA treatments. In our second model, we use preclinical tumour size data to develop and parametrise a mixed effects model of vascular tumour growth including vessel normalisation. We use our prediction about the timing of the transient normalisation window to further predict the potential benefits of combining chemotherapy and AA therapy. Lastly, we extend an existing PDE model of vascular tumour growth to incorporate AA therapy and vessel normalisation. We demonstrate that the oscillatory behaviour that arises in the spatially averaged version of the model induces spatial heterogeneity in the spatially extended version, and show that the vessel kill and normalisation parameters (among other parameters) can modulate tumour heterogeneity.

Keywords: normalisation
mathematical modelling
Advisor: Byrne, H
Maini, P
Gaffney, E
Functional genomics and compound mode-of-action screening in haploid human cells

More than a decade after the completion of the human genome project, the function of a large number of genes remains to be elucidated. Forward and reverse genetic approaches have proven to be powerful tools to study gene function and have provided insights into fundamental biological processes. Furthermore, functional genetic screening can lead to a better understanding of the action of endogenous and exogenous stimuli such as hormones or drugs on biological systems. Thus far, systematic and unbiased studies have largely been limited to model organisms. However, complex disease-relevant genotypes and phenotypes cannot be studied in entirety in lower organisms creating a need for systematic approaches in human cells. This thesis describes a series of studies using forward and reverse genetic approaches combined with state-of-the-art technology in haploid human cells. The first chapter describes the development of a quantitative phenotypic read-out using a novel application of RNA-sequencing that allows the functional annotation of genes in signalling pathways. The presented data demonstrate that the employed shallow RNA-sequencing method is scalable and suitable as a read-out for reverse genetic screening. The second chapter focuses on the implementation of this method in a large reverse genetic study in human cells to functionally annotate tyrosine kinases in signalling pathways upon stimulation with a set of ten polypeptides and small molecules. The screens revealed known and unexpected interactions between different signalling molecules and pathways, validating the technical approach in a biological context. The third chapter presents a pilot study describing the set-up of a forward genetic technique for compound mode-of-action screening using a pooled human mutant cell line collection. The chemical genetic approach displayed sufficient sensitivity and allowed to monitor thousands of gene-drug interactions simultaneously. Together, this thesis combines elements to advance technological and biological aspects of functional genomics and chemical genetics.

Keywords: Compound mode-of-action
Functional genomics
Reverse genetics
Genetic screening
Transcriptomics
RNA-sequencing
Haploid human cells
Advisor: Nijman, S
Dynamic DNA motors and structures

DNA nanotechnology uses the Watson-Crick base-pairing of DNA to self-assemble structures at the nanoscale. DNA nanomachines are active structures that take energy from the system to drive a programmed motion.
In this thesis, a new design for a reversible DNA motor and an automatically regenerating track is presented. Ensemble fluorescence measurements observe motors walking along the same 42nm track three times. A second new motor was designed to allow motors on intersecting tracks to block each other, which can be used to perform logical computation. Multiple design approaches are discussed. The chosen approach showed limited success during ensemble fluorescence measurements.
The 'burnt bridges' motor originally introduced by Bath et al. 2005 was also sent down tracks placed along the inside of stacked origami tubes that are able to polymerise to micrometre lengths. Preliminary optical microscopy experiments show promise in using such a system for observing micrometre motor movement.
Scaffold-based DNA origami is the technique of folding a long single-stranded DNA strand into a specific shape by adding small staple strands that hold it in place. Extended staple strands can be modified to functionalise the origami surface. In this thesis, the threading of staple extensions through a freely-floating origami tile was observed using single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET).
Threading was reduced by bracing the bottom of the extension or by using a multilayered origami. smFRET was also used to investigate the process of staple repair, whereby a missing staple is added to a pre-formed origami missing the staple. This was found to be successful when the staple is single-stranded, and imperfect when partially double-stranded.
Finally the idea for a new "DNA cage", a dynamic octahedron called the "Holliday Octahedron", is presented. The octahedron is made of eight strands, one running around each face. Mobile Holliday junctions at each face allow the stands to rotate causing a conformational change.

Keywords: DNA computation
Holliday junction
DNA structures
DNA origami
smFRET
DNA motor
Advisor: Turberfield, A
Deterministic quantum feedback control in probabilistic atom-photon entanglement

The prospect of a universal quantum computer is alluring, yet formidable. Smaller scale quantum information processing, however, has been demonstrated. Quantum networks, interlinking flying and stationary qubits, and linear optical quantum computing (LOQC) are both good candidates for scaling up such computations. A strongly coupled atom-cavity system is a promising approach for applications in these fields, both as a node in a quantum network, and as a source of photons for LOQC. This thesis demonstrates the versatile capabilities of an atom-cavity system comprising a single 87Rb atom within a macroscopic high-finesse Fabry-Pérot cavity. It operates intermittently for periods of up to 100 μs, with single-photon repetition rates of 1 MHz and an intra-cavity production efficiency of up to 85%. Exploiting the long coherence time of around 500 ns, the photons are subdivided into d time bins, with arbitrary amplitudes and phases, thus encoding arbitrary qudits. High fidelity quantum logic is shown, operating a controlled-NOT gate integrated into a photonic chip with a classical fidelity of 95.9+1.4-1.7 %. Additionally, the generation of entanglement is verified and non-classical correlations between events separated by periods exceeding the travel time across the chip by three orders of magnitude are observed. Photonic quantum simulation is performed, using temporally encoded qudits to mimic the correlation statistics of both fermions and anyons, in addition to bosons. Finally measurement-based quantum feedback is demonstrated and used to actively control the routing of temporal qubits.

Keywords: Quantum Computing
Quantum Feedback
Cavity QED
Advisor: Kuhn, A
Mechanobiological analyses of healing tendons using computational approaches

The healing process of ruptured tendons is problematic due to scar tissue formation and deteriorated material properties. In some cases, it may take nearly a year to complete. Mechanical loading has been shown to positively influence tendon healing; however, the mechanisms remain unclear. Computational mechanobiology methods employed extensively to model bone healing have achieved high fidelity, but not yet been explored to understand tendon regeneration. The general objective of this thesis is to develop computational approaches to enhance the knowledge of the role that mechanical factors play in fibre re-organisation in healing tendons, by proposing an appropriate constitutive formulation, followed by analysing the mechano-adaptation of the models created when regulated by different biophysical stimuli. Curve fitting of an established hyperelastic fibre-reinforced continuum model introduced by Gasser, Ogden and Holzapfel (GOH) against experimental tensile testing data of rat Achilles tendons at four timepoints during the tendon repair was used and achieved excellent fits (0.9903 &LT; R2 &LT; 0.9986). A parametric sensitivity study using a three-level central composite design, which is a fractional factorial design method, showed that the collagen-fibre-related parameters in the GOH model had almost equal influence on the fitting. The mechano-adaptation of the healing tendons when regulated by axial and principal strain predicted fibre re-organisation comparable to experimental findings, in contrast to models regulated by deviatoric strain. Also, mechano-adaptive models regulated by deviatoric strain were more spatially and temporally sensitive to different boundary conditions - length and loading magnitudes - than those regulated by axial and principal strain. This thesis describes that a hyperelastic fibre-reinforced mechano-adaptive model regulated by axial or principal strain is generally capable of describing the mechanobiological behaviours of healing tendons, and that further experiments should focus on establishing the localised structural and material parameters of collagen fibres and their mechano-adaptive behaviours in the healing tissue.

Keywords: soft tissue
mechanobiology
continuum
tendon
finite element
biomechanics
healing
Advisor: Thompson, M
Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian tyrant and Hellenistic king

This thesis discusses Agathokles of Syracuse (r. 317-289), arguing that he should be understood in both the context of local Greek Sicilian traditions and contemporary Hellenistic developments, whereas previous studies have represented him as remaining apart from the Hellenistic world as a Sicilian dead end or embracing the Hellenistic world so enthusiastically that he abandoned his Sicilian context altogether. Thus this is a thesis about chronological continuity at the beginning of the Hellenistic period and geographical continuity between Sicily and the wider Mediterranean region.
The thesis is tripartite. The first part deals with literary and numismatic source material, arguing for a shift away from source criticism in order to emphasise the coherence and agency of the surviving literary texts and the relationship of characterisations of Agathokles to broader Greek representations of autocracy. I discuss the chronology, iconography, and circulation of Agathokles' coinage, as evidence for the combination of Sicilian and Hellenistic elements.
The second part discusses Agathokles' rulership style, arguing that the assumption of the royal title did not transform his rule and identifying substantial parallels with his predecessors and his contemporaries. This suggests that Sicilian tyranny and Hellenistic monarchy were aspects of a single Greek tradition of autocracy.
The third part of the thesis looks at Agathokles' interactions with Sicily, Carthage, Italy, Mainland Greece and the Diadochoi, identifying the dynamics which drove these interactions and showing how they continued older models of interaction and were shaped by contemporary developments. This demonstrates the degree to which Agathokles and his local Sicilian context were part of the wider Hellenistic world.

Advisor: Prag, J