The present study is intended to be, as far as possible, an exhaustive examination of sociometric status groupings in regard to the way in which members of the group rate themselves and the others in their groups concerning happiness, problems and worry.

Master of Science / Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Jessica L. Heier Stamm / During public health emergencies, organizations in charge require an immediate and e ffcient method of distributing supplies over a large scale area. Due to the uncertainty of where individuals will choose to receive supplies, these distribution strategies have to account for the unknown demand at each facility. Current techniques rely on population ratios or requests by health care providers. This can lead to an increased disparity in individuals' access to the medical supplies. This research proposes a mathematical programming model, along with a solution methodology to inform distribution system planning for public health emergency response. The problem is motivated by distribution planning for pandemic influenza vaccines or countermeasures. The model uses an individual choice constraint to determine what facility the individual will choose to receive their supplies. This model also determines where to allocate supplies in order to meet the demand of each facility. The model was solved using a decomposition method. This method allows large problems to be solved quickly without losing equity in the solution. In the absence of publicly-available data on actual distribution plans from previous pandemic response e fforts, the method is applied to another representative data set. A computational study of the equity and number of people served depict how the model performed compared to the actual data. The results show that implementing an individual choice constraint will improve the effectiveness of a public health emergency response campaign without losing equity. The thesis provides several contributions to prior research. The first contribution is an optimization model that implements individual choice in a constraint. This determines where individuals will choose to receive their supplies so improved decisions can be made about where to allocate the resources. Another contribution provided is a solution methodology to solve large problems using a decomposition method. This provides a faster response to the public health emergency by splitting the problem into smaller subproblems. This research also provides a computational study using a large data set and the impact of using a model that accounts for individual choice in a distribution campaign.

More than half of all the girls in India today are married before the age of 18. This derives from gender inequality and discrimination, which has lead to several health issues. At the same time, the Indian state has passed legislation prohibiting the practice of child marriage and made it possible for girls to void their marriages. The law gives the girls more empowerment even if they are minor, which poses some further issues related to age, consent and substantial freedom. The contradiction in the law’s implementation depends on a disparity between the state and customary laws as well as modern versus traditional norms. With the help of Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities approach, this study tries to understand the law prohibiting child marriage in India and its restrictions, focusing on girl child empowerment and individual choice. The findings show the limitations in the law in regards to parental consent and children’s rights against their parents. The reason why theories like ours, promoting universal norms should be justified, is contingent on the belief that child marriages are harmful to girls’ health. This is furthermore knowledge that should be taught through education for children and adults, which then might alter the gender inequalities developed within the realms of social customs.

This thesis investigates the implications of State control of citizenship upon the individual's ability to choose membership in a given State polity. It briefly examines how States gained absolute control over the granting, denying and revoking of citizenship and demonstrates how the acquisition of citizenship and statelessness are both State-determined statuses. The repercussions of statelessness at the individual, regional and global levels are presented to demonstrate the severity of being unable to choose a citizenship. Efforts made by States and the international community to prevent and reduce statelessness are examined in order to illustrate the lack of prioritization given to the subject of statelessness, and possible courses of action for States and the United Nations to undertake in order to better address this topic are introduced. The thesis concludes that citizenship is a human right and that States need to consider individual choice concerning citizenship matters. If such choice is not taken into account with regard to State membership, States will be performing a disservice to citizens, the stateless, and the system of States.

Traditionally, John Stuart Mill has been described as a transitional thinker who fails to fully understand the values he espouses. Critics contend that he cannot simultaneously espouse both utility maximization and the protection of individual choice-making as a non-trumpable value. Like his moral philosophy, Mill’s political thought is also rejected for interspersing, seemingly at random, elements of utilitarianism with concerns about respecting individual choice-making. More recent attempts to bring Mill’s commitment to utilitarianism into line with his respect for individual choice-making are not wholly successful. In this thesis, I offer an interpretation of Mill’s moral philosophy which reconciles the tension between utility maximization and respect for individual choice-making as a non-trumpable value. In addition, I argue that my interpretation of Mill’s moral philosophy also allows us to interpret his political thought. / Master of Arts