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This research examines the scope and the extent of discrimination experienced by (New Arrival Women) NAW as well as its impact on their social adjustment in Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR). It has been argued that discrimination slow down the adjustment process. Institutionalized discrimination and individual discrimination are examined in relation to NAW social adjustment in the HKSAR society. The research framework is based on the concepts of institutionalized and individual discriminations. Unfair Government policies being seen as a socio-structural factor results in institutionalized discrimination while the unsatisfactory outcomes arising from the interaction between NAW and LPRs (Local Permanent Residents) brings about individual discrimination. These experiences have brought a sense of alienation and separation from the host population. This study is based on panel study that lasted from January 2001 through March 2002. In-depth interviews to NAW from Mainland China to Hong Kong were conducted twice within one year. The interviewees include 33 NAW who entered the HKSAR with one-way permit in the last 5 years under the family reunion policy. The time interval between the first and the second interview was at least ten months. Participant observation of two NAW for 9 months was also conducted to complement the interviews. Findings indicate that institutionalized discrimination arising from government policies such as policies on accreditation, Identity Card and public housing eligibility have adverse effect on the social adjustment of NAW. Furthermore, individual discrimination, as a result of NAW shortcomings in language fluency, differences in life style and dressing style, are manifested in cheating (non-verbal behaviour), scolding (verbal behaviour) and beating (violence). Another major observation is that individual discrimination, which may be attributed to the economic recession where NAW are regarded by LPRs as competitors in the sharing of the diminishing social resources such as jobs and other welfare facilities, gives rise to a sense of alienation and separation. However, proactive social service for NAW empowers their capability to adjustment in HKSAR, which enhance integration and assimilation to the receiving society. Surprisingly, wife abuse is found in NAW’s family. Concomitant to discrimination, NAW lacks support from the society and the family. Indeed, some experienced abuse in the homes, which challenges the notion that family provides social support. Their sense of powerlessness has becomes a catalyst for solidarity among themselves to face the unfavourable situation. In conclusion, institutionalized discrimination as well as individual discrimination do exist and have adverse effect to the social adjustment process of NAW typically reflected in alienation and separation from the host population.

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In this study, I establish myself as both researcher and respondent and I use the literal and figurative interpretations of the word ‘body' to discuss how canonical epistemological paradigms, through their construction of indigenous knowledge systems, construct African bodies and how this impacts knowledge and research methods. I discuss how the corporeal bodies of Sangomas have been constructed, particularly through problematic research approaches which focus on observations of the corporeal body. Critical here, is how the imperial gaze is unrelenting in its deconstruction and reconstruction of African bodies. By engaging with the cosmology of Sangomas and their interaction with ancestors, I discuss the ineptitude of western-centric hegemonic research approaches in providing substantial responses to the variety of social phenomena with which the Social Sciences grapple. I focus on Sangoma practices of inhlolo (divination), ukuphupha (dreams and dream analysis) and the valorization of umbilini (intuition) as useful tools for the reimagination of research methodologies which have the power to transcend the corporeal lens with which canonical research approaches have become synonymous. Critical to the cosmology of Sangomas is community and the communal production and sharing of knowledge which I propose is a useful framework for transcending the individualistic researcherfocused approach which dominates Social Science research. Through an engagement with the fallaciousness of bifurcated knowledge systems, I argue that it is untruthful to assume that indigenous knowledge systems and western knowledge systems do not interact with each other or have never interacted with each other in the past. I recommend an approach to research which invites an integration of various knowledge systems and diverse ways of knowing. Furthermore, I propose, through a discourse analysis on my reflexive practice as a Sangoma, the concept of Ubungoma (as praxis) with its related theoretical and methodical approaches to decolonising the knowledge archive through ukuphupha as a pathway to insights, inhlolo as a quest for knowledge and ukuphahla as a decolonial research methodology.

Thesis advisor: Joseph Quinn / Thesis advisor: Christopher Berger / In Economics, the concept of welfare, and specifically maximizing welfare, has been an important area of study since the inception of the field. Historically economists have used single indicators, like Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or Composite Indicators, like the Human Development Index (HDI), both to compare welfare across societies and understand the welfare level within one society. This paper presents a dashboard approach to welfare as an alternative and shows how a collection of indicators listed together gives the best picture of the welfare of a society. This project considers both the philosophical and theoretical background necessary for measuring welfare as well as the economic data to argue for this dashboard approach. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Economics.

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The issue of food insecurity on college campuses has been explored in great depth in the last decade; however, there is much less research on the impacts of interventions such as food pantries. Some scholars suggest that food pantries alone are not enough to make an impact on food insecurity, asserting that, "not a single study has examined the effectiveness of food pantries at decreasing food insecurity on postsecondary education institutions" (Bruening, Argo, Payne-Sturges, and Laska 2017: 1788). This study aimed to gain insight into the student experience of using a food pantry and the impact that it has on their college experience. This study focused on what additional access to food and resources means to college students at a large, public, four-year institution. Interviews were conducted with twenty-eight UCF students who have used the Knights Pantry. The student experience using the pantry was explored, including entry to the pantry, barriers, how the pantry is used, and the emotions that students feel when using the pantry services. Further, the impact of the pantry on students was profound: students report more financial stability, more food security, and even, in some cases, better ability to perform in classes. In addition, a "ripple effect" of impact is seen, with services reaching others in the community, most often family members of students. Overall, this study serves as a model for future explorations of the impact of food insecurity interventions and provides the first insights into how additional food access impacts college students.

In prophet problems, two players with different levels of information make decisions to optimize their return from an underlying optimal stopping problem. The player with more information is called the "prophet" while the player with less information is known as the "gambler." In this thesis, as in the majority of the literature on such problems, we assume that the prophet is omniscient, and the gambler does not know future outcomes when making his decisions. Certainly, the prophet will get a better return than the gambler. But how much better? The goal of a prophet problem is to find the least upper bound on the difference (or ratio) between the prophet's return, M, and the gambler's return, V. In this thesis, we present new prophet problems where we seek the least upper bound on M-V when there is a fixed cost per observations. Most prophet problems in the literature compare M and V when prophet and gambler buy (or sell) one asset. The new prophet problems presented in Chapters 3 and 4 treat a scenario where prophet and gambler optimize their return from selling two assets, when there is a fixed cost per observation. Sharp bounds for the problems on small time horizons are given; for the n-day problem, rough bounds and a description of the distributions for the random variables that maximize M-V are presented.

Tax havens are denounced for eroding the sovereignty of states to tax in their jurisdictions. Using a critical interrogative lens of Empire and Imperialism, the aim of this investigation was to understand what the developmental history of the British Virgin Islands reveals about the function of tax havens in global political economy through traditions of state and taxation sovereignty. Drawing chiefly on a combination of tax, sociology and law scholarship anchored in international political economy, along with reviewing the minutes of the British Virgin Islands Legislative Council from 1950-1992, the study adopted a sociolegal perspective in exploring the relationship between tax havens, tax sovereignty and the aspirations of an equitable global tax regime. Beyond sovereign entitlement in allocating jurisdictional rights of states to tax income or capital, or a more expanded conception of tax equity through revenue sharing, the intervention of this thesis established the need to highlight the underpinnings of the international tax system by understanding the structures which maintain tax haven dependency and their development in the first instance. The basic thesis of this study is that dependency continues to the present as a function of unequal integration helping to order and maintain a hierarchical global political economy. This thesis was built on an account of post-colonial dependency through a structural lens of a reconstituting empire and neo-colonial imperialism in the development of the British Virgin Islands in two key phases. First, the political developments of the 1950 independence decade in the legislative council's relationship with sovereignty in a federated imperial structure, which then conditioned the socioeconomic development from 1960 up to 1984. Highlighting the economic apparatus of the colonial state which structurally depended on international investment through political links maintained to Britain, the second phase is demonstrated as neo-colonial imperialism and external reliance evinced through the function of the Executive Council. The thesis traced a consistent line of legislative amendments from the dawn of legislative independence providing tax incentives packages and exemptions aimed at attracting foreign capital through extensive tax holidays. This phase of neo-colonial imperialism reached its apogee in the International Business Companies Act of 1984. The parallels in the financial architecture imposed by the Foreign Commonwealth Office at the twilight of the 20th Century has striking similarities to the more recent initiatives targeted at tax havens, illustrating how the interests of metropolitan powers are maintained. Therefore, I argue and demonstrate that, the development of the British Virgin Islands as a tax haven and its integration in international political economy reveals a tradition of sovereignty in the post-colonial context which shapes neo-colonial imperialism wherein effective sovereignty remains located in the global north.