The Covid-19 pandemic has made a significant impact on both the stock market and the<br/>global economy. The resulting volatility in stock prices has provided an opportunity to examine<br/>the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This study aims to gain insights into the efficiency of markets<br/>based on stock price performance in the Covid era. Specifically, it investigates the market’s<br/>ability to anticipate significant events during the Covid-19 timeline beginning November 1, 2019<br/><br/>and ending March 31, 2021. To examine the efficiency of markets, our team created a Stay-at-<br/>Home Portfolio, experiencing economic tailwinds from the Covid lockdowns, and a Pandemic<br/><br/>Loser Portfolio, experiencing economic headwinds from the Covid lockdowns. Cumulative<br/>returns of each portfolio are benchmarked to the cumulative returns of the S&P 500. The results<br/>showed that the Efficient Market Hypothesis is likely to be valid, although a definitive<br/>conclusion cannot be made based on the scope of the analysis. There are recommendations for<br/>further research surrounding key events that may be able to draw a more direct conclusion.

The application of Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a lens through which one can analyze intergenerational trauma on an individual and communal level results in a blueprint towards a remedial process. The characters and their experiences in her novel are representative of a myriad of ways in which trauma is manifested. I have broken down the concept of intergenerational trauma into the idea that it can be seen as the state where one is both simultaneously “falling” and “fallen” at the same time. Used here, the term “falling” refers to the consistent, individual trauma that one is experiencing. On the other hand, the term “fallen” refers to the trauma that a community as a whole has experienced and internalized. This framework that I establish based off of Beloved is a launching point for the conversation surrounding the topic of remedial actions in relation to intergenerational trauma that resulted from slavery. Using it as a basis of knowledge allows one to truly gather the weight of the situation regarding trauma postbellum. Considering the current climate surrounding any meaningful dialogue, knowledge is one of the most important aspects. Along with the concepts of “falling”/”fallen,” I also coined the term productive memory, which refers to the act of confrontation as well as the remembering of intergenerational trauma. The use of productive memory is imperative in addressing the prior ideas presented regarding intergenerational trauma and the possible pathways to move forward.

Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.

Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.

Covid-19 is unlike any coronavirus we have seen before, characterized mostly by the ease with which it spreads. This analysis utilizes an SEIR model built to accommodate various populations to understand how different testing and infection rates may affect hospitalization and death. This analysis finds that infection rates have a significant impact on Covid-19 impact regardless of the population whereas the impact that testing rates have in this simulation is not as pronounced. Thus, policy-makers should focus on decreasing infection rates through targeted lockdowns and vaccine rollout to contain the virus, and decrease its spread.

Late Victorian fiction presents scenes of near-death experience that places characters within the literature in a state of precarity. The precarious existence manifests itself as a perpetual near-death experience that makes visible the necropolitical power dynamic and the “death-in-life” condition. Key moments in H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau and Bram Stoker’s Dracula provide evidence for the precarity under which people live in late Victorian literature. Both novels uniquely feature a process of becoming-object, Moreau’s humanization process and Dracula’s vampirization process, that places the victims in a state of precarity and death-in-life. Previous scholars have examined these processes as a means of establishing precarity and as a near-death experience, yet none have contextualized these scenes of precarity within Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics. In an extended reading of both novels, this essay shows how Victorians function as administrators of necropolitics, victimizing non-Victorians to processes of becoming-object, and pushing these victim-objects to the brink of death, where they continue to live in a state of death-in-life. This essay focuses on these two novels because of their genre differences and their geographical differences, which further demonstrates the Victorian attentiveness towards scenes of precarity involving the marginalized and the “Oriental.” Despite scenes of precarity involving select Victorians, both novels inevitably reinforce the necropolitical Victorian hegemony. In the face of over a century of British colonialism, the threat of the colonized breaking the necropolitical hegemony of the Victorian empire is hyper-present in both late Victorian science fiction and gothic fiction, suggesting this anxiety of having precarity established over their own lives by the former oppressed was shared by the majority of the Victorian Empire.

The criminal justice system in the United States has recently come under intense scrutiny. To understand and critique the system it is important to understand the broader history and processes within the system. Looking specifically at the practice of juvenile detention, we see how the system developed parallel to the cruel practices applied to adults as punishment. Juvenile detention centers were modeled on adult prisons, both reflecting nineteenth-century ideas of redemptive suffering. The consistently coercive and oppressive features of the juvenile justice system also become apparent, when looking at the system through a historic lens. In contemporary juvenile detention centers, remnants of religious influence remain in the form of prison ministry programs. Throughout an examination of the historic and modern influence of evangelical Protestantism in prisons, the vulnerability of the individuals in these programs become apparent, as do the inequities within the system.

In 2006, the Chilean government began the implementation of a “program of integrated childhood protection” called Chile Crece Contigo. This program involves the cooperation of the public health, education, and legal systems of Chile in the support of the Rights of the Child ratified by the United Nations in 1989, and guarantees accessibility to the diverse historical and cultural communities of Chile. This study seeks to evaluate the cultural pertinence of Chile Crece Contigo as implemented in the public health system of the predominantly Aymaran community of Putre and recommend policy changes and further investigation for the improvement of its implementation in all Aymaran communities of Northern Chile. These objectives were pursued through three weeks of observation of program activities as well as interviews with key implementers of Chile Crece Contigo in Putre’s Rural Family Health Center, a practitioner of traditional Aymaran medicine and mothers whose children are enrolled or were enrolled in a variety of the services offered by the program. These results highlighted successful efforts by health practitioners in Putre to provide culturally relevant care through Chile Crece Contigo, but also policy failures and ongoing uncertainty considering best practices for cultural pertinence within the program. The conclusion was reached that several funding and logistical policies of Chile Crece Contigo need to be altered to better serve this rural, Aymaran community. Also, several in-depth longitudinal studies on traditional Aymaran upbringing and the common socioeconomic conditions of the Aymaran community in Chile should be carried out in order to determine further policy changes and best practices for Chile Crece Contigo.

Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, financial institutions faced regulatory changes due to inherent weaknesses that were exposed by the recession. Within the United States, regulation came via the passing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, which was heavily influenced by the internationally focused Basel III accord. A key component to both of these sets of regulations focused on raising the capital requirements for financial institutions, as well as creating capital buffers to help protect solvency during economic downturns in the future. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of these changes to capital requirements, and to hypothesize as to what would happen if the modern banking system experienced the COVID-19 pandemic recession with the capital and leverage levels of the banking institutions circa 2007. To accomplish this, data from the Federal Reserve describing the capital and leverage ratios of the banking industry will be evaluated during both the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, as well as during the COVID-19 Recession. Specifically, we will look at by how much capital was improved due to Dodd-Frank/Basel III, the resiliency of the capital and leverage ratios during the modern COVID-19 recession, and we will look at the average drop in capital levels caused by the COVID-19 recession and apply these percentage changes to the leverage/capital levels seen in 2007. Given the results, it is clear to see that the change in capital requirements along with the counter-cyclical buffers described in Dodd-Frank and Basel III allowed the banking system to function throughout the COVID recession without approaching insolvency in the slightest, something that ailed many large banks and firms during the Global Financial Crisis. As an answer to our hypothetical, we found that the drop seen affecting the measures of bank capital experienced during the COVID pandemic when applied to values seen at the beginning of the 2007 recession still led to a well-capitalized banking industry as a whole, highlighting the resiliency seen during the COVID recession thanks to the capital buffers put in place, as well as the direct assistance provided by the federal government (via PPP loans and stimulus checks) and the Federal Reserve in keeping the hit on capital to minimal values throughout the pandemic.