<p>In today’s interconnected world, public health crises like COVID-19 have a widespread impact, transcending national borders, causing economic upheaval, the loss of trillions of dollars from the gross domestic product (GDP), and significant disruptions to health systems, and forcing millions of individuals into poverty. While countries may differ in their responses to these crises, their shared objective is to mitigate the damage and ultimately bring an end to the outbreak. Public health experts play a crucial role in these efforts, utilizing rhetorical strategies to effectively communicate with the public about the pandemic. Notably, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci in the United States and Dr. Wenhong Zhang in China emerged as revered figures, leading public health experts, and adept communicators in addressing the risks posed by the pandemic in their respective countries. This dissertation investigates the rhetorical practices of Dr. Zhang and Dr. Fauci in their communications about the pandemic to their respective publics. Employing a case study approach, contextualized comparative rhetoric as an inquiry method, and computer-assisted qualitative rhetorical analysis, this dissertation identifies the similarities and differences in the rhetorical strategies adopted by the two doctors. The findings reveal that both doctors utilize similar rhetorical tools, including ethos, kairos, narratives, and metaphors, to effectively communicate about the pandemic to the public. However, they also exhibit differences influenced by contextual factors such as political, social, and cultural contexts. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of rhetoric in public health experts’ communications about the pandemic in different countries during a global public health crisis.</p>

Bakgrund: Covid-19 pandemin och dess restriktioner har lett till begränsningar, vilka kan ge kort- och långsiktiga konsekvenser i unga vuxnas liv. Pandemin har genererat oro och ångest hos unga vuxna, något som kan ge psykiska följder såsom depression och posttraumatisk stress. Vid psykisk ohälsa hos unga vuxna bör ett hälsofrämjande synsätt tillämpas. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att belysa unga vuxnas erfarenheter av Covid-19 pandemins påverkan på psykisk hälsa. Metod: En litteraturstudie genomfördes innehållande 11 vetenskapliga artiklar, varav en av mixad metod, åtta av kvantitativ metod samt två av kvalitativ metod. Resultat: Unga vuxnas psykiska hälsa upplevdes ha försämrats från före Covid-19 pandemin till under pandemin. Symtom som ångest, stress och ensamhet sågs hos unga vuxna under pandemin. Däremot fanns det unga vuxna som beskrev att restriktionerna hade lett till mindre press från omgivningen och att den psykiska hälsan hade förbättrats. Konklusion: Unga vuxna som hade påverkats negativt uttryckte en önskan och ett behov av socialt stöd under pandemins restriktioner. Mer forskning kring området behövs för att ytterligare öka kunskapen. / Background: The Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions have led to limitations which can give both long- and short-term consequences in young adults’ lives. The pandemic has generated worry and anxiety in the lives of young adults and could cause psychological consequences such as depression and post-traumatic stress. In case of mental illness in young adults, a health promotion approach should be applied. Aim: The aim of the study was to illustrate young adults’ experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on mental health. Method: A literature study was conducted containing 11 scientific articles, whereof one with mixed method, eight of a quantitative method and two of a qualitative method. Result: The mental health in young adults was perceived to become worse from before the Covid-19 pandemic to during the pandemic. Symptoms as anxiety, stress and loneliness were found in young adults during the pandemic. In contrast there were young adults who described that the restrictions had led to less pressure from the environment and that the mental health had improved. Conclusion: Young adults who had been affected negatively expressed a wish and a need of social support during the restrictions of the pandemic. More research about the topic is needed to further increase the knowledge.

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Insider trading occurs daily and previous studies show that trading might even increase during volatile times. The market becomes especially volatile and uncertain during an economic crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to that, previous studies show that the information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders increases during economic crises, giving the insiders an information advantage. Due to that, we investigate whether insiders, specifically CEOs, can use their advantage to predict future profitability during the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to a time prior. The data consists of insider transactions on the Swedish stock market during 2017 and 2020. To test our hypothesis we use multiple linear regressions to see if there are any connections between our variables. Our results indicate that there is a connection between the volume of insider transactions and whether the pandemic is ongoing or not. However, our results do not indicate that insiders' ability to predict future profitability increases during an economic crisis. Despite that, the results seemingly differ depending on the industry.

Identifying modifiable correlates of older adults’ preventive behaviors is contributable to the prevention of the COVID-19 and future pandemics. This study aimed to examine the associations of social-cognitive factors (motivational and volitional factors) with three preventive behaviors (hand washing, facemask wearing, and physical distancing) in a mixed sample of older adults from China and Germany and to evaluate the moderating effects of countries. A total of 578 older adults (356 Chinese and 222 German) completed the online cross-sectional study. The questionnaire included demographics, three preventive behaviors before and during the pandemic, motivational factors (health knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, risk perception, motivational self-efficacy (MSE), intention), and volitional factors (volitional self-efficacy (VSE), planning, and self-monitoring) of preventive behaviors. Results showed that most social-cognitive factors were associated with three behaviors with small-to-moderate effect sizes (f 2 = 0.02 to 0.17), controlled for demographics and past behaviors. Country moderated five associations, including VSE and hand washing, self-monitoring and facemask wearing, MSE and physical distancing, VSE and physical distancing, and planning and physical distancing. Findings underline the generic importance of modifiable factors and give new insights to future intervention and policymaking. Country-related mechanisms should be considered when aiming to learn from other countries about the promotion of preventive behaviors.

[pt] O estudo em tela integra o campo temático da gestão escolar tendo como foco de sua investigação a atuação da liderança escolar, representada na maioria das vezes, pelo(a) diretor(a), no contexto da pandemia do Covid-19. Buscou-se inicialmente identificar na literatura o conceito e as tipologias da liderança escolar e como estão associadas com a autonomia e com os resultados educacionais, tendo como referência principal os conceitos de Liderança instrucional e liderança distribuída (Leithwood e Sun, 2012; Spillane, 2005). Complementarmente foi feito um levantamento da produção nacional e internacional recente sobre a gestão escolar no contexto da pandemia. Por meio de um estudo de caso, de natureza qualitativa, foram investigadas as experiências da gestão de duas escolas públicas municipais de São José de Ribamar (MA) a fim de compreender como os gestores escolares mobilizaram diferentes recursos e desenvolveram ações para responder aos desafios gerados e intensificados pela pandemia no que diz respeito a garantia do direito à aprendizagem dos estudantes. Integra-se à pesquisa, a análise documental, entrevistas com supervisores da secretaria municipal de educação, diretoras e professoras, além de dados do Censo Escolar (2020) e dos questionários contextuais do professor e do diretor da Prova Brasil (2019). A análise foi construída a partir de três categorias: o contexto sociocultural, estrutura e organização de cada escola, percepções dos diretores e dos professores das escolas sobre o perfil e as ações desenvolvidas pela gestão escola e pela rede durante esse período. Os achados deste trabalho indicaram, inicialmente, uma considerável centralização das ações da secretaria com pouco espaço de orientação pedagógica para as escolas e diretores em contraste com a relevância do papel dos diretores para a reorganização da rotina escolar. Neste último aspecto, observou-se que o processo requereu a colaboração dos professores e apontou para uma liderança mais autônoma, distribuída e instrucional em um dos casos. No outro, indica uma escola dependente das orientações da secretaria e uma liderança focada nas questões mais administrativas. Pode-se perceber que, se de um lado os diretores desenvolvem diferentes ações e mobilizam recursos diversos conforme sua experiência, formação e conhecimento, de outro, a falta de formação e de apoio do órgão central se constitui em um dos maiores obstáculos para o desenvolvimento de sua autonomia e liderança. / [en] The study on screen integrates the thematic field of school management focusing its investigation on the performance of school leadership, represented in most cases by the principal, in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. Initially, we sought to identify in the literature the concept and typologies of school leadership and how they are associated with autonomy and educational outcomes, having as main reference the concepts of instructional leadership and distributed leadership (Leithwood e Sun, 2012; Spillane, 2005). In addition, a survey of recent national and international production on school management in the context of the pandemic was carried out. Through a case study of a qualitative nature, the experiences of managing two municipal public schools in São José de Ribamar (MA) were investigated to understand how school managers mobilized different resources and developed actions to respond to the challenges generated. and intensified by the pandemic regarding guaranteeing the right to learn for students. The research includes documentary analysis, interviews with supervisors of the municipal education department, principals, and teachers, as well as data from the School Census (2020) and the contextual questionnaires of the teacher and the director of Prova Brasil (2019). The analysis was built from three categories: the sociocultural context, structure and organization of each school, perceptions of school directors and teachers about the profile and actions developed by the school management and the network during this period. The findings of this work initially indicated a considerable centralization of actions in the secretariat with little space for pedagogical guidance for schools and principals, in contrast to the relevance of the role of principals for the reorganization of the school routine. In this last aspect, it was observed that the process required the collaboration of teachers and pointed to a more autonomous, distributed, and instructional leadership in one of the cases. In the other, it indicates a school dependent on the guidelines of the secretariat and a leadership focused on more administrative issues. If, on the one hand, directors develop different actions and mobilize different resources according to their experience, training, and knowledge, on the other hand, the lack of training and support from the central body constitutes one of the biggest obstacles to development of their autonomy and leadership.

This quantitative study examined teacher perceptions on the relationship between technology, student academic behaviors, and performance in blended 9th-12th grade settings through pre-COVID-19 Pandemic and post-COVID-19 Pandemic learning experiences. This replicate study explored the relationship between teacher perceptions of student motivation and student autonomy and their relation to technology implementation in face-to-face instruction and blended learning environments. Particularly, this study analyzed how student motivation and student autonomy were affected by blended learning technologies and teaching strategies introduced after the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Data were examined to investigate teacher perceptions on the relationship between technology, student academic behaviors, and performance in blended learning 9th-12th grade settings through pre-COVID-19 Pandemic and post-COVID-19 Pandemic learning experiences in two east Tennessee school districts. Participants of this study included 42 high school teachers post-COVID-19 Pandemic in 2023 and 75 high school teachers pre-COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 within two school districts in east Tennessee. Statistical analyses of the data revealed significance on participant teacher perceptions of student motivation and student autonomy. Findings did not correlate to the original study. The research revealed there was a significant difference in teacher perceptions of student autonomy in the face-to-face instructional setting. Findings indicated teacher perceptions of student motivation were significantly higher post-COVID-19 Pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19 Pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in social media usage has elevated interestin sentiment analysis, especially for health-related applications. This bachelor thesisexplores the effectiveness of two lexicon-based sentiment analysis techniques, with afocus on enhancing the accuracy of the Valence Aware Dictionary for SentimentReasoning (VADER) algorithm. This bachelor's thesis delves into two lexicon-basedsentiment analysis methods, primarily aiming to enhance the accuracy of the ValenceAware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoning (VADER) algorithm. By assessing 5000manually labeled COVID-19-related tweets across four dataset versions, we gauge therelative effectiveness of these methods. The focus lies on understanding the rolepreprocessing techniques play in sentiment analysis and refining the VADER algorithm.The insights drawn can inform the design of more effective public health policies andcommunication approaches by capturing more accurately public sentiment expressed intweets. In health contexts like COVID-19, it's vital to gauge public sentiment, whichhelps identify and manage psychological distress, anxiety, and fear. Through thissentiment exploration, healthcare providers can offer comprehensive care and improvesupport systems and mechanisms during global health crises like COVID-19.

Titel: Från kris till möjlighet: En studie av ledarskapet inom byggbranschen under pandemin Författare: Aslan Ali &amp; Emma Lindberg  Färdigställd: 2023–05–26 Examinator: Jean-Charles Languilaire   » Bakgrund: Byggbranschen anses vara en av de viktigaste industrierna i världen och ansvarar för att bygga och underhålla bostäder, kontor, infrastruktur och offentliga byggnader. Covid-19 pandemin har ställt branschen inför många utmaningar däribland begränsad rörlighet, sjukdom och arbetsförlust. Ledarskapet har förändrats kontinuerligt under pandemins rådande situation. Det har varit avgörande för ledarna att hantera dessa utmaningar och bibehålla en hälsosam arbetsmiljö. Hur skulle man agera som ledare och vägleda sina medarbetare mot ljusa tider? Vi vill få en förståelse av utmaningarna och möjligheterna som uppstått i byggbranschen under pandemin och undersöka lärdomarna som följer med. Vi önskar att bidra till kunskapsluckan idag samt stärka branschen och ledarskapet i framtiden.  » Syfte: Syftet med vår studie är att få en mer nyanserad förståelse för hur ledarskapet har utförts och utformats under pandemin inom byggbranschen. Vilka utmaningar och möjligheter har förekommit samt hur ledare har anpassat sig efter pandemins utmaningar. » Frågeställningar: Hur har ledarskapet utförts under pandemin inom byggbranschen? Vilka utmaningar och möjligheter har byggbranschens ledare mött under pandemin? Finns det några lärdomar från pandemin som stärkt ledarskapet i byggbranschen?  » Metod: Studien baseras på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med en induktiv forskningsansats. Åtta ledare inom byggbranschen har intervjuats och efter det med hjälp av grundad teori analyseras. Det har resulterat i en modell som klargör vad som krävs för att upp nå hur man ska främja den fortsatta tillväxten.  » Slutsatser: Slutsatsen av studien resulterade i att trots vår undersökning finns mycket kvar att undersöka. Trots detta sammanfattas vilka egenskaper, problem, lösningar och lärdomar man lärt sig och kommer kunna ta med sig i framtiden. / Title: From crisis to opportunity: A study of leadership in the construction industry during the pandemic.  Authors: Aslan Ali &amp; Emma Lindberg  Published: 2023–05–26 Examinator: Jean-Charles Languilaire   » Background: The construction industry is considered one of the most important industries in the world and is responsible for building and maintaining homes, offices, infrastructure, and public buildings. The Covid-19 pandemic has posed many challenges to the industry, such as limited mobility, illness, and job loss. Leadership has continuously changed during the prevailing pandemic situation. It has been crucial for leaders to manage these challenges and maintain a healthy work environment. How should leaders act and guide their employees towards brighter times? We want to gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities that have arisen in the construction industry during the pandemic and explore the lessons learned. We wish to contribute to the knowledge gap today and strengthen the industry and leadership in the future. » Purpose: The purpose of our study is to gain a more nuanced understanding of how leadership has been carried out and shaped within the construction industry during the pandemic. We explore the challenges and opportunities that have emerged, as well as how leaders have adapted in response to the challenges of the pandemic. » Research Questions: How has leadership been carried out during the pandemic in the construction industry? What challenges and opportunities have construction industry leaders faced during the pandemic? Are there any lessons from the pandemic that have strengthened leadership in the construction industry? » Method: The study is based on a qualitative research method with an inductive research approach. Eight construction industry leaders have been interviewed, and their responses have been analyzed using grounded theory. This has resulted in a model that clarifies what is required to achieve how to promote continued growth. » Conclusions: The conclusion of the study resulted in the finding that despite our research, there is still much left to explore. Nevertheless, it summarizes the characteristics, problems, solutions, and lessons learned that can be carried forward into the future.

This study investigates how the international media framed Sweden's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its image during this time. By utilizing framing theory as an analytical framework, 42 articles from The Guardian and The Washington Post were analyzed. Hence, based on the existing framing research, by Semeteko and Valkenberg (2000), the coverage is classified into five frames: conflict, human interest, economic consequence, morality, and responsibility. The findings highlight how the media coverage of a nation during crises can shape its national image. Moreover, the study underscores the significance of comprehending how media can influence future global crisis reporting. This thesis contributes to the existing body of literature pertaining to the media framing of crises by analyzing the portrayal of Sweden's exceptionalism and image by the international media in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through an examination of news coverage from prominent outlets, the study identifies the dominant frames used to portray Sweden's response and shape its image. The findings reveal a diverse range of frames employed, including conflict, human interest, economic consequence, morality, and responsibility, reflecting the complexities surrounding Sweden's approach. This research emphasizes the importance of comprehending media framing in shaping national image during global crises and advocates for holistic approaches to address societal, economic, and public health impacts. Finally, the study’s findings indicated that Sweden's national image in the context of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic is multifaceted and complex, based on the analysis of the various frames used in the articles. The dominant frames shape Sweden's perception of itself as a nation characterized by opposing opinions, controversies, ongoing debates, personal experiences, moral considerations, and a delicate balance between economic and social concerns. Sweden is framed as a nation that values individual liberty, individual responsibility, and a distinctive approach to crisis management.  Overall, Sweden's national image reflects a dynamic and complex perspective, illuminating the complexities and diverse perspectives surrounding its response to the COVID-19 crisis.