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The United Kingdom (UK) is the second most popular country for international students (ISs). The literature review and empirical paper highlight that there are limited studies that address the challenges faced by Asian international students (AISs) and Indian international students (IISs). The aim was to understand barriers to accessing university well-being and mental health services. Thematic synthesis was adopted for the systematic literature review. A record of the inclusion and exclusion criteria has also been published on the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) (registration number is: CRD42021249135). Reflexive thematic analysis was kept in mind during data analysis of the 11 individual interviews conducted online for the empirical paper. The themes generated under the results section shed light on the barriers and the challenges faced. ISs leave their home country to further their careers and face challenges with adjustment. Individually, these challenges may not appear to be difficult to manage but facing them altogether increases the pressure faced by both AISs and ISs. The study highlights the importance of viewing this population separately, so as to ensure the nuances of their culture are not overlooked. Their challenges led to struggles with feeling insecure when expressing themselves and conversing with peers. Lastly, participants have also provided suggestions for advertising well-being and mental health services.

This thesis comprises four papers on the economics of networks. The first provides a survey of methods for econometric work with networks, summarising what is known in the economics literature, and incorporating methods from other fields including mathematics, computer science, and sociology. The second explains why informal insurance networks are able to provide consumption smoothing, but not credit for investment. It develops a dynamic contracting model to explain the difference in these motivations, generates from this a number of testable predictions, and then provides evidence in support of the model using data from Bangladesh. The third examines the trade-off between economic and cultural incentives for migrants. It develops a model of network formation combined with a game-on-a-network, to capture this trade-off. The model's predictions are then tested using data from US censuses in the early 1900s. The fourth studies the impact of tax audits by HMRC, the UK tax authority, on the future tax reporting behaviour of self-assessment taxpayers. It shows that income sources which are not also reported by a third party are more likely to be initially underreported, and that being audited increases future reports for a number of years. Future work in this area will study the spillover effects of the audits onto taxpayers connected to those who are audited, where networks of connections can be measured by sharing a place of residence, place of work, being partners in a common business, and sharing a common accountant.

How genetic novelty arises is one of the most elusive questions within genetics and has implications across numerous and diverse fields. Although there are many possible answers, reading frame-shifts in protein-coding DNA are known to create dramatically different peptides and have the potential to enable large evolutionary steps. The radical nature of these mutations have led to the assumption that they do not often survive and are strongly selected against. Nevertheless, when they occur in a duplicated gene, many of the negative selective pressures are alleviated. In this thesis I use a conservative method which proves that this is a mechanism by which genetic material has been commonly introduced to the human genome. In addition, I determine the characteristics which human genes formed by this mechanism most commonly share and the roles they have played in human evolution. Finally, I discuss the effects of frameshifting and the cooption of frameshifted genes on human evolution and more broadly genomic adaptation across the tree of life.

This study investigated the role attachment style plays in preference for arranged marriage among single, non-married Indians. It was conducted online using a survey company (Survata) with the requirement that participants be interested in an arranged marriage, be between 18-40 years of age and not be married. The survey was accessed through an online - link which could be located via any internet browser. Respondents included two hundred and seven respondents, who completed three questionnaires concerning their preference for an arranged marriage, attachment style, and acculturation and religious commitment. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and ANCOVA. The results indicate that attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, religious commitment and acculturation play some role in arranged marriage preference. The Preoccupied attachment (high anxiety and low avoidance) style has the greatest impact on preference for arranged marriage. Acculturation also plays a role in preference for arranged marriage whereas an increase in religious commitment is correlated with a decline in arranged marriage preference. Attachment avoidance and acculturation to the Indian culture seem to play the biggest individual roles. Further analyses showed that the effect of attachment avoidance on preference for arranged marriage is mediated by acculturation but not be religious commitment. The results did not support expectations that attachment anxiety alone or religious commitment alone significantly predict preference for arranged marriage.

Anthropogenic climate warming is predicted to accelerate over the next century, with potentially dramatic consequences for wildlife. It is important to understand as well as possible how different organisms will respond to this stress. This project seeks to gain a better mechanistic understanding of the thermal biology of the Glanville Fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) at the latitudinal and elevational extremes of its range. Investigation of the temperatures at which adult butterflies took spontaneous flight revealed a significant difference between populations from the elevational extremes, with insects from high elevation taking flight at lower thoracic temperatures than those from low elevation. Contrary to expectation, there was no systematic effect of latitude on takeoff temperature. If these measures represent adaptation to climate, then these effects are not simple and the influences of elevation and latitude are not the same. Investigation of thermal tolerance across all life cycle stages found no difference in larval performance between the populations tested. There was however an effect of treatment. This suggests that in M. cinxia, even populations from different extremes of the range may not differ in their thermal tolerance. The effect of treatment suggests that there is temperature-induced plasticity. The adaptive significance of this has been explored to some extent. Investigation of heat shock protein expression between the latitudinal extremes finds no difference in Hsp21.4 expression when exposed to heat stress, however both Hsp20.4 and Hsp90 were upregulated in response to heat stress. For Hsp20.4, there were significant differences in expression between the populations. Finally, a species distribution model using maximum entropy techniques was conducted for M. cinxia, predicting both the current and future (2100) distributions of the species. The model closely matches the known current distribution, and predicts a clear northward range shift in response to climate change.