In this thesis, we focus on the application of covariate reweighting with Lasso-style methods for regression in high dimensions, particularly where p ≥ n. We apply a particular focus to the case of sparse regression under a-priori grouping structures. In such problems, even in the linear case, accurate estimation is difficult. Various authors have suggested ideas such as the Group Lasso and the Sparse Group Lasso, based on convex penalties, or alternatively methods like the Group Bridge, which rely on convergence under repetition to some local minimum of a concave penalised likelihood. We propose in this thesis a methodology that uses concave penalties to inspire a procedure whereupon we compute weights from an initial estimate, and then do a single second reweighted Lasso. This procedure -- the Co-adaptive Lasso -- obtains excellent results in empirical experiments, and we present some theoretical prediction and estimation error bounds. Further, several extensions and variants of the procedure are discussed and studied. In particular, we propose a Lasso style method of doing additive isotonic regression in high dimensions, the Liso algorithm, and enhance it using the Co-adaptive methodology. We also propose a method of producing rules based regression estimates for high dimensional non-parametric regression, that often outperforms the current leading method, the RuleFit algorithm. We also discuss extensions involving robust statistics applied to weight computation, repeating the algorithm, and online computation.

The C-type lectin CD161 is expressed by a large number of T lymphocytes, with approximately a quarter of both T cell receptor (TCR)αβ+ and TCRγδ+ T cells expressing this marker. Within CD8+ T cells, a large proportion of these are comprised of Mucosal Associated Invariant T (MAIT) cells, a novel innate-like lymphocyte subset characterised by expression of a semi-invariant TCR together with high levels of CD161 (CD161++). These cells display a phenotype reflective of type 17 CD4+ helper T cells (Th17), which are also hallmarked by CD161 expression. Both MAIT and Th17 cells arise from preprogrammed progenitors, identifiable within umbilical cord blood by expression of CD161. Thus, CD161 appears to identify cells of a pre-determined and distinct phenotype. Whether this reflects a common transcriptional programme, developmentally induced within these cells, and further whether this extends to other CD161 positive T cells, was examined here by mRNA microarray analysis. This analysis identified a shared transcriptional signature and common innate-like function of all CD161 expressing T lymphocytes, and independent of TCR expression or lineage. Furthermore, a population of CD8+ T lymphocytes expressing lower levels of CD161 which overlap phenotypically with CD161++CD8+ MAIT cells was identified by both mRNA microarray analysis and mass cytometry (CyTOF); the CD161+CD8+ T cell population. TCR repertoire analysis, flow cytometry and cell culture experiments were utilised to investigate the origin of this subset, and its phenotype and function in both health and disease investigated in depth. This revealed a pre-programmed, tissue-resident memory population with potent effector functions. Both CD161++ MAIT and CD161+CD8+ T cells expressed high levels of the drug efflux pump MDR1, previously described to confer drug resistance to certain malignant cells. The significance of expression of this pump was hence investigated to determine its potential affect on the success of a variety of clinical therapies.

Since the collapse of the New Order regime in 1998, democratisation and economic liberalisation have combined to create both opportunities and constraints for the revival of organised labour in Indonesia. The picture of post-authoritarian labour movements painted by various scholars is almost universally bleak, portraying helpless trade unions in the face of economic impasse and the undemocratic remnants of the old forces. Being overtly cautious of the new democracy, this line of analysis has not done justice to Indonesian labour movements. It overestimates the ghost of the old dictatorship and underestimates the power of budding organised labour. Using trade union as the unit of analysis, this dissertation seeks to offer a different view of Indonesian labour movements. It looks at shifting political opportunities in the regions and the agency of trade unions which constitute a political force that is far from being consolidated but has certainly made a significant contribution to the broadening of democratic politics. In negotiating pressures that originate from an increasingly liberalised economy, trade unions have adopted a strategy which is called „playing politics‟ in this dissertation. The term means that in the absence of significant market power, trade unions enter into the realm of power politics primarily by organising labour as social movements and attempt to ally with political elites, exploit the conflicts that emerge within state institutions and between the state and business, and try to join the ruling classes. In developing this argument, this dissertation makes two contributions to the study of labour politics in Indonesia: its reassessment of the historiography of the first ten years of post-authoritarianism and its offer of insights into possible future directions of labour politics.

Centrosomes are the main microtubule organizing centres in animal cells and are formed by a pair of centrioles together with surrounding pericentriolar material (PCM). Cycling cells duplicate their centrosomes strictly once per cell cycle. This process is driven by the semi-conservative duplication of the centrioles that are found at the centrosome core. During the exit from mitosis the two centrioles within the single inherited centrosome separate, and upon the start of S-phase each of these inherited mother centrioles assembles an adjacent daughter at its side. This process results in two complete centrosomes that can form the poles of the mitotic spindle, and thus segregate evenly to the next cell generation. The formation of a daughter centriole suppresses the initiation of new duplication events from the same templating mother centriole until this daughter separates - disengages - at the end of the cell cycle. This regulation - that acts to repress centriole amplification - is summarized in the 'licensing model of centriole duplication' (Tsou and Stearns, 2006). This model states that centriole disengagement provides the license for the re-duplication of mother centrioles. Importantly, experiments show that while abolishing centriole engagement is sufficient to allow mother centrioles to re-duplicate within the same cycle, it is insufficient to allow daughter centrioles the assembly of a granddaughter before they mature into mothers towards the end of their first cell cycle. The molecular nature of this daughter-to-mother transition remains mysterious. In this thesis I show that in Drosophila embryos the essential centriole duplication protein Asl is not incorporated into daughter centrioles as they assemble during S-phase, but is only incorporated once mother and daughter separate at the end of mitosis. The initial incorporation of Asterless (Asl) is irreversible, and is dependent on centriolar DSas-4. Crucially, Asl incorporation is essential for daughter centrioles to mature into mothers that can support centriole duplication. I propose that Asl acts as a permanent primary license that allows new centrioles to duplicate for the first time. Once acquired, this primary license is not lost but rather further regulation is taken over by the reduplication licensing mechanism, disengagement. This work extends the previously proposed licensing model to also explain how new centrioles are licensed for their first duplication event.

Abstract The "Defective" Generation: Disability in Modernist Literature aims to provide an analysis of how Anglo-American authors in the early twentieth century conceived of, utilized, and portrayed disability in their fiction. Building on the existing scholarship in the field of Disability Studies, I argue that modernists revise the tradition of representation to make disabilities a generational trait rather than a sign of individual deviance. In novel after novel, multiple characters exhibit some form of illness or impairment, which appears as both cause and effect of the instabilities and traumas of modernity. Like many of their predecessors, then, these authors portray diverse health conditions as "defects" rather than natural variations in the human body, and most draw little distinction between the types of "disorders" they represent. This perspective, however, becomes particularly destructive in the era leading up to the Holocaust, when eugenical attitudes would lead to the murder or sterilization of over a million people with disabilities. Modernists also continue to exploit disability's potential for metaphor and sometimes evoke traditional stereotypes. Unlike traditional representations, however, these works do not resolve what the authors perceive as the "problem" of disability by curing or eliminating it; instead, they portray characters struggling to lead fulfilling lives despite feeling limited by their health. Working against the public's conception of disability as solely a medical condition, many of these authors further depict the social forces that turn a perceived "difference" into a "disability." The project is arranged into four chapters. In the first, "Idiots and Other Degenerates: Disability at the Dawn of Modernism," I use Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent to illustrate how disability becomes characteristic of a generation, primarily through the influence of degeneration theory. Mocking the popular conception of a society divided into the "fit" and "unfit," Conrad creates a circle of characters who judge others to be degenerate while ignoring their own similar traits. From that beginning, I move in chapter 2, "Modernist Style: The Inward Turn and Portrayals of Mental Illness," to an analysis of the effects of stylistic experimentation on depictions of disability in both Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. The authors' use of multiple points of view in these works leads to a representation of both an individual's experience of psychosis and the stigma that can accompany such illness, and, like Conrad, both writers elide the differences between the seemingly able-bodied characters and those they deem disabled. These authors also offer a contrast in perceptions. Whereas Woolf treats shell shock and emotional instability largely as the unavoidable effects of World War I, Fitzgerald links both schizophrenia and alcoholism to decadent behavior, thus aligning himself with the public's perception of illness as a matter of intent. Moving from style to theme, in chapter 3, "Impaired Relationships: Physical Injury and the Pursuit of Romance," I explore the ways in which authors depict physical impairments as obstacles to personal relationships. Through a comparison of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and the "Nausicaa" chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses, I discuss the intersection of gender identity, disability, and romance. I argue against the critical consensus that Jake Barnes feels emasculated by his injury and that Gerty MacDowell is "doomed" to spinsterhood because she limps, contending that both authors allow their characters to maintain a sense of masculinity or femininity consistent with the hegemonic ideals of their time. While Hemingway presents Jake's wound as a physical disability that prevents his having the relationship he desires, Joyce uses Gerty's limp to mark her as an imperfect beauty in preference to an array of idealized iconic images, and in her encounter with Leopold Bloom grants her the sexual attention that she desires. In my final chapter, "African American Modernism and a Deadly Game of Blind Man's Buff," I shift focus from mainstream to African American modernism with an analysis of Richard Wright's Native Son,, addressing the author's use of folklore in relation to the metaphor of blindness. Posing the literally blind Mrs. Dalton as a revenant of the American colonists who ignored the humanity of those they enslaved and as a symbol of continuing oppression, Wright develops Bigger Thomas as both a trickster who exploits the "blindness" of others and a badman who rebels against it. My conclusion then addresses the use of disability metaphors, the attitudes those metaphors expose, and the authors' apparent agreement with or challenges to contemporary perceptions of disability. Although critics have previously analyzed specific works or certain aspects of disability representations during this era, this project seeks a more comprehensive discussion of disability in modernist fiction than currently exists. My hope is that it will enhance our understanding of both the period's literature and the harmful attitudes that existed at the time, which the work of Disability Studies has endeavored to overturn.

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Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / This project is founded upon the premise that complaint and emotional expression are the marks of inadequacy in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926). These instances, however, do take place on a recurring basis between the principal characters, and are therefore of uttermost import. Providing that there are rigorous demands of a stoic code in the novel, the examination and analysis of these particular phenomena, which are shaped by the underlying notion of displacement, will be a means to gain insights into the literary texture of Hemingway's work itself. In Peter Conn's opinion, "action and language alike must be disciplined to maintain their grace under the inescapable pressure of reality's violence" in post-war Europe.

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This thesis examines the politics of narrative control, and how it relates to the formation of diasporic consciousness among Turkish migrants in the United States. It asks how Turkish diasporic identity is formed and shaped by discourses that frame Turks, and that interrogate who or what a ‘Turk’ is? This thesis suggests that this process of continual construction and re-construction of diasporic consciousness should be investigated as a matter of competitive identity formation, meaning that there is competition between multiple actors to impose a definition or label on a diasporic group and to achieve broad-based support for that label or definition. This also implies the attribution of specific values, ideas, and political agendas to that group. The thesis examines the roots, motivations and activities of Turkish American activists in Washington DC. Based on an analysis of their political orientations and internal fissures, it focuses on the current political debate over official recognition of the deportations and massacres of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a genocide. It argues that Turkish American activists have coalesced on the defensive around this issue, framing it as a matter critical to the identity of Turks. Their manifold activities to prevent the further institutionalisation of the ‘genocide’ label in American political discourse do not, however, always resonate with the passive majority of Turkish Americans.