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The work in this thesis is concerned with the development and extension of techniques for the assessment of influence diagnostics in data that include censored observations. Various regression models with censored data are presented and we concentrate on two models which are the accelerated failure time model, where the errors are generated by mixtures of normal distributions,and the Cox proportional hazards model. For the former, both finite discrete and continuous mixtures are considered, and an EM algorithm is used to determine measures of influence for each case. For the Cox proportional hazards model, various approaches to approximating influence curves are investigated. One-step or few-step approximations are developed using an EM algorithm and compared with a Newton-Raphson approach. Cook's measures of local influence are also investigated for the detection of influential cases in the data. The validity of the proportional hazards assumptions is also investigated. The residuals of Schoenfeld are examined for the possibility of being used to detect time dependence of the covariates in the proportional hazards model. Estimates to describe the nature of the time dependency computed from these residuals are presented.

Over the last decade, the diesel engine has made dramatic progress in its performance and market penetration. However, in order to meet future emissions legislations, Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions will need to be reduced simultaneously. Nowadays researchers are focused on different combustion modes like homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion and premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) which have a great potential for both low soot and low NOx. In order to achieve these combustion modes, different injection strategies have been investigated. This study investigates the effects of split injection strategies with high levels of Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) on combustion performance and emissions in a high speed direct injection optical diesel engine. The investigation is focused on the effects of split injections at different injection pressures, injection timings and dwell angles using base diesel and biodiesel fuels. The effect of fuel properties has been also investigated as an attempt to reduce regulated exhaust emissions in diesel engines. Performance, emissions and combustion characteristics have been examined for two different biodiesel fuels, namely BTL 50 and BTL 46. A Ricardo Hydra single cylinder optical engine was used in which conventional experimental methods like cylinder pressure data, heat release analysis and exhaust emissions analysis were applied. Optical techniques like direct spray and combustion visualization were applied by means of a high speed imaging system with a copper vapour laser illumination system. A high-speed two-colour system has been developed and implemented to obtain in-cylinder diesel combustion temperature and soot measurements to gain better understanding of the mixture formation and combustion processes. This investigation concludes that the split injection strategies show potential to achieve low emissions combustion.

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