Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting everyone’s daily life in unknown measures since its outbreak. Nearly all Universities around the globe were affected. Further, young people and University students in particular, are known to be vulnerable for developing mental disorders. This study aims to examine the mental health social and emotional well-being and perceived burdens of University students during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Germany. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional and anonymous online survey among University students assessed mental health status with standardized measures (depressive symptoms, alcohol and drug consumption, and eating disorder symptoms), attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic and perceived burdens, and social and emotional aspects of the pandemic (social support, perceived stress, loneliness, and self-efficacy). Results: In total, N = 3,382 German University students participated. Nearly half of the students (49%) reported that they are worried or very much worried about the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority supports the governmental lockdown measures (85%). A Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) sum score of 10 or above, indicating clinically relevant depressive symptoms, was reported by 37% (n = 1,249). The PHQ-9 sum score was on average 8.66 (SD = 5.46). Suicidal thoughts were indicated by 14.5%of the participants. Levels of depressive symptoms differed significantly for the different self-rated income changes during the pandemic (increase, decrease, no change in income). Further, levels of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation differed significantly for students from different faculties. Multiple regression analyses revealed that not being a parent, having no indirect social contact one or two times a week, higher perceived stress, higher experienced loneliness, lower social support, and lower self-efficacy significantly predicted higher scores of depressive symptoms, also higher hazardous alcohol use, and higher levels of eating disorder symptoms. Other aspects of lifestyle such as social and cultural activities, dating, and hobbies were reported to be negatively affected during the pandemic. Conclusion: The present study implies that University students are vulnerable and due to elevated depressive symptoms at risk, being hit hard by the pandemic, but are in general coping adaptively. Low-threshold online interventions promoting help-seeking and also targeting various mental health conditions might bridge the gap the COVID-19 pandemic opened up recently.

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COVID-19 has taken a major toll on the tourism industry. Traveler confidence has decreased as travel restrictions and fears regarding the virus have increased. As tourist destinations rely more on local tourism to survive the current crisis, communicating COVID-19 procedures is vital to mitigate tourist ́s safety concerns. Therefore, the objective of this study was to use content analysis to identify COVID-19 policy initiatives highlighted within tourism company websites and to compare regions to identify differences in website communication content. The study analyzed 100 various tourism company websites throughout Sweden. The findings and the supporting literature indicating that the websites should have information available about booking policy, operation limitations, social distance policy, and customer/staff responsibility to properly communicate their COVID-19 policies. Overall, the tourism company websites in this study were lacking in the communication of COVID-19 policies. To ameliorate communication of COVID-19 procedures, this study offers recommendations for tourism firms to incorporate.

COVID-19 continues to have a major impact on US health and society. Robust research on the epidemiology of acute and post-acute COVID-19 remains fundamentally important to informing policy makers, scientists, as well as the public. This dissertation reports on the development of a large, diverse, United States general population-based meta-cohort with standardized, prospective ascertainment of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, integrated with comprehensive pre-pandemic phenotyping from 14 extant cohort studies. Meta-cohort data were used to investigate risk and resilience factors for incident severe (hospitalized or fatal) and non-severe COVID-19 and correlates of time-to-recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results support the major acute and post-acute public health impact of COVID-19 and the vital role of modifiable (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease) and non-modifiable (e.g., age, sex) risk factors for adverse COVID-19 outcomes. Findings suggest that standard primary care interventions—including obesity and cardiometabolic disease prevention and treatment, depression care, and vaccination—remain fundamental to COVID-19 risk mitigation among US adults. Given its longitudinal design and comprehensive pre-pandemic and pandemic-era measurements, the meta-cohort is well suited to support ongoing work regarding the public health impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19, post-acute sequelae, and pandemic-related social and behavioral changes across multiple health domains.

Small molecules are powerful tools to probe biological systems and cure diseases. In the scope of this dissertation, small molecules were applied to study three distinct disease models: cancer, Sedaghatian-type spondylometaphyseal dysplasia (SSMD), and COVID-19. First, encouraged by the recently reported vulnerability of drug-resistant, metastatic cancers to GPX4 (Glutathione Peroxidase 4) inhibition, we examined the basis for nanomolar potency of proof-of-concept GPX4 inhibitors, which revealed an unexpected allosteric binding site. Through hierarchical screening of a lead-optimized compound library, we identified novel small molecules binding to this allosteric site. Second, a homozygous point mutation in the GPX4 gene was identified in three living patients with SSMD. With a structure-based analysis and cell models of the patient-derived variant, we found that the missense variant significantly changed the protein structure and caused substantial loss of enzymatic function. Proposed proof-of-concept treatments were subsequentially validated in patient fibroblasts. Our further structural investigation into the origin of the reduced enzymatic activity revealed a key residue modulating GPX4 enzymatic function. We also found that the variant alters the degradation of GPX4, unveiling the native degradation mechanism of GPX4 protein. Third, driven by the recent urgent need for COVID-19 antiviral therapeutics, we utilized the conservation of 3CL protease substrate-binding pockets across coronaviruses to identify four structurally divergent lead compounds that inhibit SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease. With structure-based optimization, we ultimately identified drug-like compounds with < 10 nM potency for inhibiting the SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease and blocking SARS-CoV-2 replication in human cells.

This study investigates the resilience of coffee cooperatives and producer organizations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores their adaptations to the context in relation to their livelihood capitals. The changes to their operations are analyzed through the contexts of shocks, trends and stresses and how they perceived these threats. The topic of research is relevant given the economic and social importance of cooperatives in these communities and potential impacts to their operations during COVID-19, which is likely to have long-term impacts locally and within the global setting.There is a lack of consensus regarding the classification of cooperatives as resilient organizations, with much of the previous research focusing on financial crisis or natural disasters. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented event on a global scale with far-reaching impacts into social, economic and political spheres, and examining these effects is still a developing realm within academic research. The relationship of coffee producers and their organizations within the global commodity chains renders such organizations particularly vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 and government policy interventions. Investigating how coffee cooperatives in Honduras have been operating throughout the COVID-19 pandemic assesses their potential capacity for resilience by examining how they have been impacted and the manners in which they have overcome these challenges. This further allows for increased understanding of cooperative resilience and ways in which cooperatives’ capital have the potential to impact their resilience.This research follows an abductive qualitative case study and utilizes semi-structured interviews from various coffee cooperatives and organizations in Honduras as primary sources with existing literature as secondary sources. The interviews were conducted remotely. The findings include accounts from cooperatives and producer organizations, which focus primarily on coffee production, in addition to reports from a privately owned coffee production enterprise and a cooperative member. The Vulnerability Context and Asset Pentagon, components of the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework as described by the Department for International Development, were used to analyze the data, along with variables to assess organizational resilience. The study finds that investments to organizations’ human and social capital were prioritized and heavily relied upon during this crisis and the more established organizations had a larger range of resources from which to draw upon. Nevertheless, by continuing to develop and expand on human and social capital, cooperative organizations can increase their capacity for resilience.

Conversatorio de estudiantes, docentes y egresados de la Carrera de Comunicación e Imagen Empresarial de la UPC como parte del #ImagenWiiik: Inspira, Innova, Imagina.

Boletín que incluye información científica sobre el COVID-19, incluye artículos científicos y artículos preprint actualizados al 27 de Mayo de 2020.

This thesis explores boosting to improve decision-making in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic using a structured introspection. Structured introspection is an intervention where individuals are prompted with and are asked to estimate the importance of a set of attributes relevant to the decision in order to limit the prevalence of potential cognitive biases. To test the intervention, 281 participants divided into an intervention and control group answered an online survey with a dilemma about COVID-19. The dilemma was whether Sweden should shut down the economy or keep it open during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention group was asked to rate how important the attributes “saving lives”, “saving the economy”, “concern for the health of the elderly and risk groups”, and “concern for the quality of life and well-being of all citizens” should be for their decision. The control group was only prompted with the question and asked to think carefully. All participants were asked a set of control variables such as risk perception for self and others and emotions when thinking about COVID-19. The results did not show a significant influence on choice on decisions based on the intervention. They did however show a significant correlation with choice on risk perception as well as a correlation between choice on the dependent variable and the attributes in the intervention group.             The conclusion of the thesis is that structured introspection may not be suitable on a contemporary issue affecting participants directly, as they may already have strong opinions about the issue. Further and broader research needs to be conducted to determine in which circumstances this boost can be effective.

Covid-19 has had a major impact on the spring of 2020. Many countries around the world are fighting to suppress the spread of the virus through various means. One major way is to restrict people form traveling and meeting. This has had a large impact on certain aspects of society. One of those is the closure of events big and small. Every big event in Sweden has been closed and almost every small event also. This has a big impact on business that depend on events to stay successful. This thesis explores the effect the closure of all events, big and small, has on Wargamingshops that usually organise many small events every week. The thesis also seeks to catalogue the geographical spread different kinds of Wargaming shops have in Sweden and to understand the reasoning behind the owner’s choice of location. The study finds that Wargamingshops currently have not felt a major economic impact from the Covid-19 situation and that the shops are evenly distributed in Sweden’s cities and towns except for a few clusters, mainly in the south part, Skåne. The study also finds an interesting connection between the shop owners and customers wanting to support the shops during hard times.