VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Swinburne and the novel

This study examines Algernon Charles Swinburne’s work as a critic and creator of prose fiction, arguing that it deserves to play a larger role than it has done hitherto in our understanding of him as a writer. It considers a wide range of Swinburne’s prose, situating it in the intellectual movements of his time, and identifying recurrent themes and interests. Finally, it makes a case for a broader view of Swinburne that includes his literary criticism and imaginative prose.
The first chapter discusses Swinburne’s prescient criticism of the Brontës and his suggestion that the novel ought to aspire to the status of high art. The second chapter reviews Swinburne’s assessment of Wilkie Collins, which uses the language of the stage to draw comparisons between sensation fiction and drama. Turning to Swinburne’s continental European influences, the third chapter establishes Baudelaire and Hugo as inspirations for Swinburne’s theory of aesthetic practice, though neither directly shaped his serious prose fiction. Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin, which had a much more direct impact through its promotion of sexual and aesthetic autonomy, is discussed in Chapter Four. The fifth chapter studies Boccaccio and The Decameron as a significant source for Swinburne’s proposed Triameron and its surviving short stories. The sixth and seventh chapters focus on Laclos and Balzac, arguably the greatest influences on Swinburne’s novels. Laclos’s epistolary fiction and Balzac’s cycle of interlocking tales are immensely important for Swinburne’s theory of the novel and for his novels themselves. Chapter Eight is an extended study of Swinburne’s novel A Year’s Letters, which displays innovative epistolary form and incisive character studies. Chapter Nine interrogates Lesbia Brandon as a meditation on the youth of a poet and an avant-garde example of Swinburne’s hybrid, poetic prose.

Advisor: Shrimpton, N
Knowledge games: the achievement of ignorance in managing Olympic and Commonwealth mega-events

The concept of ignorance has been unfairly stigmatised in research and practice, and consequently has not received the attention it deserves as a powerful motivator of behaviour in organisations. To understand the role of ignorance, it must be examined as a productive force rather than a shameful weakness, an achievement instead of a failure.
This thesis develops an understanding of how ignorance is achieved and why it is perpetuated in the context of managing the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, a series of worldwide mega-events that are popular with proponents of urban development, but which have experienced persistent organisational problems in the form of cost overruns, schedule delays, and scope creep.
To do so, this research draws on literature about ignorance from the disciplines of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and organisational theory, to motivate an embedded case study of Games Organising Committees (OCs) in six host cities around the world. These OCs, which were actively planning the Games during the research, are studied through qualitative research, to develop a dynamic understanding of the role of ignorance in planning the Games. The findings and analysis are presented from two perspectives: the structure of the ‘Games system’ and of the OC; and, the substance of Games planning in the areas of cost, time and scope.
While other studies have focused on ignorance as necessary, strategic, and inadvertent, the original contribution to knowledge of this thesis is the proposal of a theoretical framework that focuses on the functional and detrimental outcomes of ignorance. This framework is also shown to be useful in understanding why ignorance persists between organisations, and suggests three basic principles for further research: ignorance as a productive force in management; structure as a scaffold for ignorance; and budget, time and scope as catalysts for ignorance.

Keywords: project management
Commonwealth Games
megaprojects
ignorance
Olympic Games
knowledge
Advisor: Rayner, S
Flyvbjerg, B
High jet multiplicity physics at the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN completed its first data-taking phase in 2013, after three years of remarkable performance. The high-energy proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS experiment provide a gateway to the world of subatomic particles. This thesis presents two analyses of the full 8 TeV dataset taken by ATLAS, inspired by two of the major physics goals of the experiment. The first analysis is a search for new phenomena that could explain the nature of Dark Matter and solve the hierarchy problem. In particular, the search is optimised to look for heavy supersymmetric particles decaying to large numbers (7 to ≥10) of jets. The events are further classified according to the number of jets identified as originating from a b quark. No evidence is found for physics beyond the Standard Model, so the results are interpreted in terms of exclusion limits on various simplified supersymmetry-inspired models where gluinos are pair produced, as well as a mSUGRA/CMSSM model. The main background to the search is due to multi-jet production via the strong force. This motivates the second analysis presented in this thesis, which is a measurement of the cross section of four-jet events. The measurement is performed differentially in a series of variables which describe the kinematics and spatial configuration of the events. The results are compared to existing theoretical predictions.

Keywords: jets
QCD
particle physics
CERN
Physics
ATLAS
LHC
supersymmetry
Advisor: Barr, A
The politics of the Chilean right from the Popular Front to 1964

The right in Chile has been crucial to the democratic politics of the country ever since the development of the party system. In the period covered by this thesis (1939- 1964) the Chilean right faced the combined challenge of reformist governments and the emergence of mass political parties on the left.
This thesis describes the Chilean right as being composed by political parties, entrepreneurial associations and a leading newspaper, El Mercurio. which represented and expressed the interests, thoughts and common perspectives of the right as a whole. This thesis argues that the right in Chile was able not only to survive the reformist governments of the 1940s, but that it remained very influential politically and as an economic force. The strategies it successfully carried out were those of negotiation and co-optation, which rested in the right's congressional power. With the advent of populism at the beginning of the 1950s, the argument goes, the right faced new threats, especially the discredit of political parties and of Congress conceived as the arena par excellence for negotiation and compromise. The danger came both from within the right itself, threatening to divide it, and from populist governments, which put at risk the right's sources of influence. Thus, the rightist sectors had to develop new political strategies, which in essence pointed towards the formulation of a project of capitalist modernisation centered in private enterprise and free markets. With the election of Jorge Alessandri --an entrepreneurial figure-- as President of the Republic, the right had the opportunity to put into practice its novel economic ideas. In the long run, though, the results were negative. The thesis analises the political dimension of this failure. Once its project collapsed, the right became ideologically marginal, just at a time when Chilean politics had become strongly ideological as well as reformist if not revolutionary. This explains why the leaders of the long established parties of the right, the Conservatives and Liberals, dissolved themselves in 1965. Finally this dissertation speculates on the right at the present time looking for elements of continuity and change between today's right and the one studied for the 1939-1964 period.
The eastern frontier of the Roman Empire with special reference to the reign of Constantius II

The basic intention of the thesis is to provide a reassessment of Constantius as a military man, specifically in the prolonged war with the Sassanian king, Sapor II. However, it also encompasses many aspects of the social, economic and religious life of the communities which lay on the frontier between Rome and Persia.
In the first chapter I discuss the historical background upto the death of Constantine, attributing the major reorganization of the eastern limes to the time of Diocletian and Galerius. In chapter II I describe events on the frontier during Constantius 1 reign. I adduce reasons for his adoption of a defensive strategy against the Persians and consider the nature of the Roman forces and fortifications in northern Mesopotamia. Chapter III contains a survey of the frontier legions and the major centres which they defended. In the fourth chapter an analysis of Persian aims and capabilities is offered, and particular notice is paid to the campaign of 359, while chapter V looks at the role of Armenia and especially of its southern provinces, the regiones Transtigritanae, in the conflict. The local communities of Mesopotamia are investigated in chapter VI, and in the final chapter I give an impression of the effect which nomadic Saracens had on the imperial frontiers.
I conclude that Constantius should be judged as a responsible and careful emperor, who succeeded in preserving the integrity of the eastern frontier in the face of a formidable and determined enemy.
In six appendices I present observations on the distribution of auxiliary units in the Mesopotamian provinces, the Romans' retreat from Ctesiphon in 363, the Persians' use of war-elephants and their lack of artillery, the chronology of fourth century Armenia and dromadarii in the Roman army. Five maps, one plan and twelve photographs accompany the text.
Investigating the role of APOE-ε4, a risk gene for Alzheimer's disease, on functional brain networks using magnetoencephalography

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is developing into the single greatest healthcare challenge in the coming decades. The development of early and effective treatments that can prevent the pathological damage responsible for AD-related dementia is of utmost priority for healthcare authorities. The role of the APOE-ε4 genotype, which has been shown to increase an individual's risk of developing AD, is of central interest to this goal. Understanding the mechanism by which possession of this gene modulates brain function, leading to a predisposition towards AD is an active area of research. Functional connectivity (FC) is an excellent candidate for linking APOE-related differences in brain function to sites of AD pathology. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a neuroimaging tool that can provide a unique insight into the electrophysiology underpinning resting-state networks (RSNs) - whose dysfunction is postulated to lead to a predisposition to AD.
This thesis presents a range of methods for measuring functional connectivity in MEG data. We first develop a set of novel adaptations for preprocessing MEG data and performing source reconstruction using a beamformer (chapter 3). We then develop a range of analyses for measuring FC through correlations in the slow envelope oscillations of band-limited source-space MEG data (chapter 4). We investigate the optimum time scales for detecting FC. We then develop methods for extracting single networks (using seed-based correlation) and multiple networks (using ICA). We proceed to develop a group-statistical framework for detecting spatial differences in RSNs and present a preliminary finding for APOE-genotype-dependent differences in RSNs (chapter 5). We also develop a statistical framework for quantifying task-locked temporal differences in functional networks during task-positive experiments (chapter 6). Finally, we demonstrate a data-driven parcellation and network analysis pipeline that includes a novel correction for signal leakage between parcels. We use this framework to show evidence of stationary cross-frequency FC (chapter 7).

Keywords: APOE
functional connectivity
resting-state networks
magnetoencephalography
independent component analysis
Advisor: Woolrich, M
Conservation and land use planning applications in Gabon, Central Africa

Spatial prioritization and systematic conservation planning methods are designed to improve land use decisions and conservation outcomes, yet remain underutilized in many biologically-rich places that need them most. This thesis applies the theory and methods developed in the discipline of spatial prioritization to conservation and land use decisions in the Central African country of Gabon. Creating a spatial information base of priority species, habitats and land uses in a region that is notoriously data-poor, I reveal that many features important for both conservation and natural resource production are highly localized; their coincidence has important implications for management. Setting conservation targets for species and habitats, I find that representation in existing protected areas is relatively low, and identify a number of near-optimal solutions that meet all targets, with minimal impact on land used for local livelihoods. I distill these solutions down to a handful of critical biodiversity sites that are top priority to protect, and make management actions explicit for the species and habitats they contain. To make the work more widely applicable, I also develop a novel method to identify where field surveys are most likely to improve decisions about protected area expansion, providing decision-makers with more options of places that could be protected to achieve conservation goals. This study contributes to the research, development and practice of conservation prioritization and spatial planning, particularly in data-poor contexts like Gabon, which still have a wealth of biodiversity, and need to carefully plan for its conservation alongside development.

Keywords: land use
conservation planning
Spatial prioritization
Advisor: Macdonald, D
Some inorganic chemistry of the new carbon cage cluster, Buckminsterfullerene, C₆₀

Chapter 1 reviews the relevant and particularly interesting chemistry of C60 and includes some chemical aspects of the other recently discovered new forms of carbon including the graphitic carbon nanotubules, concentric carbon spheres and amorphous carbon networks. An experimental section describes the techniques used for the synthesis of fullerene rich soot and the subsequent isolation and purification of C60 as performed in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford.
Chapter 2 describes the synthesis, characterisation, and some reaction chemistry of the new complex Rh(η2-C60)(CO)(H)(PPh3)2 and its activity with respect to the catalytic hydroformylation of ethene and propene, and is compared to the industrially used catalyst Rh(CO)(H)(PPh3)3. Studies to determine the thermal stability of Rh(η2-C60)(CO)(H)(PPh3)2 compared to Rh(CO)(H)(PPh3)3 during hydroformylation catalysis are also included.
Chapter 3 describes the synthesis and characterisation of the new complexes NaC60.5thf, NMe4C60.1.5thf and what could be the new complex Na0.9C60.3thf. These materials exhibit a magnetic transition at approximately 180K as determined by bulk static D.C. susceptibility measurements and electron spin resonance spectroscopy. This transition is discussed mainly in terms of a metal-metal or metal-insulator transition. Some reaction chemistry of these materials is also described.
Also described are studies into various aspects of the sodium C60 phase diagram at ambient temperature and pressure with regard to the proposed solid solution behaviour in the compositional range Na1C60 to Na3C60. The synthesis of the novel hexagonal close packed compounds Na6C60 and Na9C60 and consequences for the phase diagram of sodium C60 intercalates are discussed.
Chapter 4 describes the synthesis of various alkali metal C60 intercalates using a microwave induced argon plasma as the heat source. The developement of this technique for the bulk synthesis of other materials and attempts at the synthesis of novel lithium and ytterbium intercalates are also described.

Advisor: Green, M
Left-right ambiguity resolution of a towed array sonar

In this work, a method is proposed for resolving the Left-Right Ambiguity in Passive Sonar Systems with towed arrays. This problem arises in source localization when the array is straight. In practice, the array is not straight and a statistical analysis within the Neyman-Pearson framework is developed for a monochromatic signal in the presence of random noise, assuming that the exact array shape is known. For any given array shape, an expression for the Probability of Correct Resolution (PCR) is derived as a function of two parameters; the signal to noise ratio (SNR) and an array-lateral-displacement parameter. SNR measures the strength of the signal relative to the noise and the second parameter the curvature of the array relative to the acoustic wavelength. The PCR is calculated numerically for a variety of array shapes of practical importance. The model results are found to agree with intuition; the PCR is 0.5 when the array is straight and is increasing as the signal is becoming louder and the array more curved. It is explained why the method is useful in practice and the effects of correlation between beams are discussed. Furthermore, we look at the acoustical Sharpness Methods; these methods have originated from optical imaging, where they were used successfully to correct atmospherically degraded optical images of telescopes. The method entails that an appropriate function, called `Sharpness Function' is supposed to be maximised when the shape of the towed array, used to construct the beamformer image, is the true one. Reviewing carefully previous literature, which indicated that the method has good chances of producing a very good estimate of the array shape, we prove that the proposed Sharpness Function is in fact not maximised and we deduce that the Sharpness Method does not seem appropriate in the sonar context. Therefore, we conclude that, with the proposed Sharpness function, the Sharpness Method does not work, unlike what has been suggested in the literature. We prove however that, most crucially, Optical Imaging is the same as Beamforming. This opens avenues for further exploration of the sharpness analogy between optics and acoustics imaging.
Interaction of extreme ocean waves with offshore structures

With most of the world's untouched oil and gas resources offshore and the possibility that hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more intense, the risks associated with offshore oil and gas production are increasing. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve current understanding of extreme ocean waves and their interaction with structures.
This thesis is concerned with the modelling of extreme ocean waves and their diffraction by offshore structures, with the ultimate aim of proposing improved tools for guiding airgap design. The feasibility of using linear and second order diffraction solutions with a suitable incident wave field to predict extreme green water levels beneath multi-column structures is investigated. Such tools, when fully validated, could replace the need to carry out model tests during preliminary design.
When contemplating airgap design it is crucially important that consideration is given to the largest waves in a sea state, the so-called freak or rogue waves. This thesis studies the nature of one specific freak wave for which field data is available, namely the Draupner New Year wave. Unique features of this wave are identified, distinguishing it from a typical large wave, and an estimate of the probability of occurrence of the wave is given. Furthermore, a design wave, called NewWave, is proposed as a good model for large ocean waves and is validated against field and experimental data.
The diffraction of regular waves and NewWaves by a number of structural configurations is studied. In order to assess the validity of using diffraction solutions for the purposes of airgap design, comparisons are made with measured wave data from a programme of wave tank experiments. Wave data for a real platform configuration are examined to highlight the key issues complicating the validation of diffraction based design tools for real structures. The ability of diffraction theory to reproduce real wave measurements is discussed. The phenomenon of near-trapping is also investigated, allowing guidelines for airgap design to be established.

Advisor: Eatock Taylor, R
Taylor, P
Taylor, R
Subplate populations in  normal and pathological cortical development

The subplate layer of the cerebral cortex is comprised of a heterogeneous population of cells and contains some of the earliest-generated neurons. Subplate plays a fundamental role in cortical development. In the embryonic brain, subplate cells contribute to the guidance and areal targeting of corticofugal and thalamic axons. At later stages, these cells are involved in the maturation and plasticity of the cortical circuitry and the establishment of functional modules. In my thesis, I aimed to further characterize the embryonic murine subplate by establishing a gene expression profile of this population at embryonic day 15.5 (E15.5) using laser capture microdissection combined with microarrays. I found over 250 transcripts with presumed higher expression in the subplate at E15.5. Using quantitative RT-PCR, in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, I have confirmed specific expression in the E15.5 subplate for 13 selected genes which have not been previously associated with this compartment. In the reeler mutant, the expression pattern of a majority of these genes was shifted in accordance with the altered position of subplate cells. These genes belong to several functional groups and likely contribute to the maturation and electrophysiological properties of subplate cells and to axonal growth and guidance. The roles of two selected genes - cadherin 10 (Cdh10) and Unc5 homologue c (Unc5c) - were explored in more detail. Preliminary results suggest an involvement of Cdh10 in subplate layer organization while Unc5c could mediate the waiting period of subplate corticothalamic axons in the internal capsule. Finally, I compared the expression of a selection of subplate-specific genes (subplate markers) between mouse and rat and found some surprising species differences. Confirmed subplate markers were used to monitor subplate injury in a rat model of preterm hypoxiaischemia and it appeared that deep cortical layers including subplate showed an increased vulnerability over upper layers. Further characterization of subplate-specific genes will allow us to broaden our understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying subplate properties and functions in normal and pathological development.

Keywords: cortical layers
thalamocortical connectivity
gene expression
neocortex
cortex
thalamus
laser capture microdissection
microarray
cortical development
brain development
subplate
Advisor: Molnár, Z