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This thesis presents results of laboratory investigations of stratospheric dust that have a direct bearing on the theory of cometary panspermia. Chapter 1 deals with the historical backdrop to panspermia theories, with a summary of recent relevant work on comets, meteorites and IDP's (Interplanetary Dust Particles). In Chapter 2 I describe the techniques that have been used over several decades to collect stratospheric dust with a view to identifying a cometary and possible biological components. The Cryosampler technique deployed by ISRO in 2001 provides the best hope for preserving small fragile particles of cometary origin, even those of possible biological provenance. The source material for my laboratory investigations was collected using the Cryosampler technique in a balloon flight on 21 January 2001. The description of techniques for stratospheric air collection, extraction of aerosols, analysis by SEM, EDX and the results of my investigations using these techniques form the main bulk of Chapter 3. Over 30 individual IDP's were imaged, analysed, catalogued and classified. Many biologically relevant particles including putative bacterial spores and nanobacteria were discovered. In Chapter 4 DNA extracts from the stratospheric samples were analysed using PCR amplification of 16S rRNA gene sequences. Evidence of actinobacteria (96% homology) and chloroplast sequences (99% homology) point to an extraterrestrial origin of these genes. Arguments for contamination are discussed, and ruled out. In Chapter 5 present a preliminary analysis of the 2001 Kerala Red Rain samples. SEM, TEM images were obtained, and staining tests for DNA carried out. The origin of the red rain cells remains inconclusive.

This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between music and sexuality within the context of urban lesbian and gay music and music-making practices. Theoretically, I am mainly informed by queer musicology, popular music studies, cultural and subcultural studies, and the sociology of music. Building upon existing queer and feminist understandings of music and sexuality, I problematise both the conflation of sexuality and gender in music, and the conceptualisation of sexuality as part of an erotic exchange in music. How might we think about the relationship between music and sexuality beyond questions of gender and the erotic? I attempt to answer this question through an ethnography of the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus, based in the city of Manchester. My practical research follows other ethnographers like Ruth Finnegan and Tia De Nora who chronicle the social process of music-making in everyday life. Through qualitative interviews and participant observations conducted with members of the MLGC, this project explores what part music plays in affirming, re-affirming or otherwise challenging the position of lesbians and gay men within a contemporary British city like Manchester. What kind of social, cultural, and political conditions are necessary in bringing music and sexuality together? During the course of my investigations, I also investigate what terms like queer, queerness, and queering mean in relation to the music-sexuality relationship. What does queer mean within the context of lesbian and gay music and music-making practices? What is queerness in music, and how might we read it? What does queering music and queering through music entail? This project seeks to answer such questions by taking an interdisciplinary approach to the ethnographic material and situating itself within the existing literature on music and sexuality.

A promising new strategy for cancer therapy is the use of engineered oncolytic viruses, adapted from their natural properties of seeking out and destroying cells to effectively find and specifically eliminate cancer cells. The overarching goal of the work presented here is to engineer powerful new adenoviruses that can preferentially infect tumor cells via disparate receptors, and replicate exclusively in cells that have lost tumor suppressor pathways.Since the creation of adenoviruses with novel tropism is limited by the ability to build and test new genetic designs, we desired targetable oncolytic adenoviruses with a modular platform that would enable rapid identification of new and controllable targeting moieties. We employed the property of rapamycin-induced FRB/FKBP heterodimerization to construct adenoviruses with chemically-controlled tropism by inserting FRB into the adenovirus and genetically encoding a functionalized FKBP fusion protein. We validated the targeting of this new class of viruses in culture using a panel of NCI breast cancer cell lines, targeting the frequently-upregulated cancer marker EGFR. We demonstrate that our targeting components are compatible with other virus modifications and that new adenoviruses with these mutations are able to infect and destroy a model of intractable triple negative breast cancer. Based on our findings, rapid discovery of effective targeting moieties for oncolytic adenoviruses should be possible, and we should avoid limiting the potency of future vectors by disrupting the highly evolved adenovirus capsid structure.While oncolytic adenoviruses have already shown to be safe in clinical trials, we have improved the replication specificity of an oncolytic virus based on the function of adenovirus genes that overlap with frequent tumor mutations. It has been shown that mutation in adenovirus E1A can prevent its inactivation of cell cycle-regulator retinoblastoma protein (Rb), and this mutation is the basis of selectivity for an oncolytic adenovirus in clinical trials. However, adenovirus also encodes E4orf6/7, which acts downstream of Rb by activating the cellular transcription factor E2F1 that also drives the cell cycle. We have combined mutations in E1A and E4orf6/7 and discovered highly selective oncolytic adenoviruses that have the promise to be the basis for safe and potent oncolytic cancer therapies.

This dissertation is a geography of a failed attempt to change state-society relations in Japanese agriculture, examining a policy that tried to require family farms to become corporate entities. The study traces the rationale for state neoliberalism in Japanese agriculture, the particular reform aimed at the practices of rural communities, and the fate of that policy. Neoliberalism is a range of economic policies favoring free markets, de-coupling from state support, and privatization. Japanese agriculture became a target of neoliberal thinkers because sub-sectors rely on state protections and farm scale and land use are thought inefficient. Anticipating that Japanese agriculture would face wider import streams and lower rice subsidies, neoliberal politicians adopted a 2007 national measure known as the Multi-Product Management Stabilization Plan, Hinmoku Ōdanteki Kei'ei Antei Taisaku. This "Multi-Product Plan" was neoliberal in that it declared only core farmers and Cooperative Farming above a certain size would be eligible for future subsidies, and tried to develop these bodies into profitable operations. The plan required Cooperative Farming land pools to rationalize and incorporate the management of small rice farmers. Small producers could not otherwise remain eligible for subsidies. I investigated how the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (MAFF) rolled out the Multi-Product Plan, how farmers tried to consolidate their management under the Multi-Product Plan; how farmers struggled with the plan in practice; and how politicians, agents, and researchers evaluated the plan's fit with the practices of farmers. Methods included interviews with staff in government agencies from national to local scales, and with leaders of rural communities. The Tōhoku Region was the site of the case study owing to its high dependency on rice farming. I interviewed staff of governments and related agencies across the six prefectures of that region. To understand the fit of the plan with local production and farmers' evaluation of the Multi-Product Plan, I chose Daisen City in the Senboku Region, Akita Prefecture, as a focus. My research found that the Multi-Product Plan could not succeed locally, continue politically, nor restructure Japanese agriculture. Farmers derailed Japan's developmental neoliberal policy in this instance.

The World Monument Fund listed KyoMachiya, the traditional merchant houses of Kyoto, as endangered sites in 2009. Modern, high-rise buildings of commercial and residential use have rapidly replaced the KyoMachiya. These replacements have resulted in the loss of urban identity, livability, and the traditional social network in the region. In 2007, the prefectural government of Kyoto issued a new urban policy with the intent to reverse such losses. Today, all new residential developments are required to incorporate traditional design elements of KyoMachiya in their design. However, the urban policy does not fully address the true characteristics of KyoMachiya, and the incorporation of the traditional design appears only on the façade and in the gabled roof forms of apartment buildings. Unlike KyoMachiya, apartment buildings are set apart from the streets by walls, security doors, and a lack of commercial activity on the street level floor. As a result, such apartment buildings are often unwelcome as they damage the integrity of the remaining KyoMachiya structures and result in a further loss of the urban identity of Kyoto. However, with the ongoing depopulation of the central city, housing boards also desire multifamily residences whose occupants can continue traditional activities. This project includes design guidelines for multifamily residences that may solve conflicts between developers and housing boards.

The Japanese prefix o, together with its allomorph go, has often been mentioned in linguists' discussions of the honorific system as well as in Japanese language textbooks. It has been discussed under the terms 'deferential prefix' (Miller 1967), 'honorific particle' (Martin 1964, Seward 1967, Goldstein and Tamura 1975), and 'honorific prefix' (Ide 1982, Shibatani 1990). However, the elusive and polysemic characteristics of o have also resulted in a lack of systematic discussion of its overall usage and function. It is often confusing to Japanese speakers themselves, let alone second language learners to try to determine which words should be prefixed with o by which speakers in which situations. This dissertation attempts to give a more systematic overview of the usage and function of o by investigating the semantic and sociolinguistic factors determining which words take o in which situations. Gender is central to this; women's roles, especially the traditional roles as cook, server, and caretaker, turn out to have deeply affected the set of factors which determine the words which most commonly take o, and it is shown that such a relationship between o usage and gender roles can be traced back at least to the 15 th century. I also report the results of a study which found that small and older children show apparent age grading which is, affected by gender, adolescent girls increase their usage in a transitional process from children's o to women's and mother's o, while adolescent boys drop the children's usage of o without adopting adult usages. Finally, I analyze several contexts such as newspapers, popular songs, cartoons, films, and TV shows and I argue that political changes bought about by the government we powerful enough to have affected the usage of o in the mass media. A comparative analysis of o in documents from pre-World War II, post-World War II, and the present day shows the semantic transformation of o from a deferential prefix that marks power difference to a multi-functional prefix that describes a variety of psychological situations or interpersonal relationships.