This work examines the impact of the pandemic on a smaller society were cross-border shopping is a major player. The chosen location for the work is Töcksfors in Årgäng municipatly, were trade with Norway plays a central role for the location. We also want to investigate whether the shopping places established in Töcksfors function as important meeting places for the locals and whether this function and significance looks different due to the pandemic. As shops close and the access to premises is limited, we see it as interesting to investigate whether other places in the location have a different significance as meeting places than before the pandemic. What is the supply of alternative meeting places and what significance do these have when large facilities and premises that usually accommodate many people become empty? The work is based on previous facts about shopping as a meeting place, as well as collected data consisting of a survey where residents are given the opportunity to give their views on the social value of the shopping places. As a complement to the survey, an interview is also conducted with a business strategist who is active within the municipality, and a deacon within the Church of Sweden who is also one of two who is behind a citizen proposal that calls for meeting places. This is to further provide perspective on the situation.Based on our collected data in the form of literature, questionnaire study and two interviews, the conclusion is that trade is of importance as a meeting place in Töcksfors. But despite the trade's importance as a meeting place for the inhabitants, there is still a demand for new meeting places beyond shopping, which is partly something that could be stated extra muchduring the pandemic.

Expatriater beräknas vara cirka 90 miljoner runt om i världen. På grund av en globaliserad marknad förväntas antalet expatriater fortsätta att öka. Samtidigt har det noterats att expatriater i allmänhet har en dålig work-life balance (WLB). Denna studie syftar därmed till att undersöka huruvida distansarbete i samband med Covid-19 haft en positiv eller negativ inverkan på expatriaternas WLB. För att besvara studiens frågeställning intervjuades sju expatriater från sju olika länder. Målet var att få en djupare förståelse av expatriaternas erfarenheter gällande WLB i samband med Covid-19. Empirin visade att distansarbete har främjat expatriaternas WLB. Majoriteten av respondenterna påpekade att det är främst privatlivet som främjats genom distansarbete i samband med Covid-19. Likheterna mellan länderna vad gäller den positiva effekten av distansarbete var till exempel möjligheten till flexibilitet och självstyre. Detta underlättade för expatriaterna att kunna utföra spontana aktiviteter och hobbyaktiviteter som att laga mat, lära sig ett nytt språk, träna, umgås med familjen etcetera. Minskningen av stress framhölls också som en annan fördel med att inte behöva pendla till arbetet och resa till andra länder för yrkesändamål. De negativa aspekterna var bristen på den sociala kontakten vilket också resulterade i att en av respondenterna drabbades av panikattacker. Sammanfattningsvis visar empirin att även om WLB har förbättrats under pandemin, fanns det ett fåtal viktiga bakomliggande faktorer som spelade en betydande roll för expatriaterna. Studien visar även att ett möjligt negativt utfall av distansarbete i samband med Covid-19 var psykisk ohälsa.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to increase our knowledge on changes in women’s physical activity during the Covid-19 pandemic through a quantitative study among women between the ages of 18-64.Methods: This study is based on a deductive view where previous science use a theoretical model to test the empirical data within the theoretical framework. The empirical data has been collected using a quantitative method, where 100 women took a survey between 210419- 210503.Theory: This study is based on two theoretical models, the first is a theory on lockdown, what can happen with the daily routines when being home isolated for a longer period of time (King, et. Al, 2020). The second part is based on the World Health Organization recommendations for physical activity and sedentary (WHO, 2020).Result and conclusion: Women in the sample population had a lower level of physical activity in general during the pandemic compared to before the outbreak, and there was no significant differences between the age groups found in this study.Among the women that reached the level of physical activity according to WHOs recommendations before the pandemic, half of them reduced the activity during the pandemic. In the group of women that did not reach the level recommended by WHO, it was discovered that several women increase their level of physical activity during the pandemic, which could be a sign that the Covid-19 pandemic have been both a barrier and a motivator for physical activity

Objetivo: Explorar las prácticas de consumo de frutas y verduras durante la nueva normalidad por el COVID-19 en los estudiantes de la facultad de ingeniería de una universidad privada de Lima. Diseño: Es de tipo cualitativo y el diseño de estudio es fenomenológico. Que su propósito principal es explorar, describir y comprender las experiencias de las personas con respecto a un fenómeno y descubrir los elementos en común de tales vivencias.

Telehealth is needed urgently nationwide, given the COVID-19 pandemic. It isespecially urgent in rural and less populated areas where healthcare access is limited. Currently, because there are no pediatric handwriting assessments validated for telehealth use, the TeleWrite assessment would fill an unmet service need and expand the use of telehealth-based occupational therapy (OT) assessment in pediatric practice. This dissertation explored the preliminary psychometric properties of TeleWrite, a handwriting assessment tool designed to measure the legibility and fluency of handwriting for children in first through third grade administered via telehealth. A series of studies were completed to determine initial interrater reliability, content validity, and clinical utility using classical test theory. The Rasch model of measurement was used to determine the preliminary psychometric properties of TeleWrite using Winsteps® (v. 4.7.0). The quantitative Rasch analysis of TeleWrite included administration of the tool to 148 children from first to third grade. This study tested the initial construct validity (internal validity) and test reliability of TeleWrite using the Rasch model of measurement. The Partial Credit Model (PCM) was used for rating scale analysis because TeleWrite is composed of three distinct scales (handwriting rate, accuracy, and fluency) that differs per task (near point or far point) and per grade level. The Rasch analysis showed a generally good fit with the Rasch unidimensional model, indicating strong construct and internal validity and moderate ability to separate abilities of students reliably in terms of handwriting skills. However, following the Rasch model, a larger sample is necessary to obtain improved calibration, reliability, and validity measures. This study and supported by the literature described the need for a new handwriting evaluation tool validated for telehealth use. The findings of the current research contribute to the literature and OT practice as the first handwriting assessment specifically designed and validated for telehealth use that assesses all pertinent variables of handwriting associated with handwriting difficulties.

Branding in the age of social media is thriving as companies continue to pour resources into digital campaigns in the hope of engaging their customers. The onset of the COVID- 19 pandemic boosted the importance of digital communication channels as physical distancing and lockdown measures disrupted business-as-usual and limited in-person interactions between firms and their customers. By implication, the global crisis pressed companies to deliver brand messages via online content to sustain or build customer relationships. This research focuses first on the branded content of corporate communications during the pandemic, focusing specifically on whether firms used the opportunity to showcase shared personal values. Second, we examine whether using value words in social media messages impacts customer engagement with these messages. To address these related questions, we collected Twitter data from Fortune 500 firms posted between January 2020 until the end of August 2020, attending to 56,770 firm- initiated tweets (we excluded firm responses to customer messages). The first study examines the personal values expressed in the messages using the Personal Values Dictionary, based on Shalom Schwartz’s original ten-value typology. We argue that the unprompted expression of values in a text is a behavioural indicator of personal value priorities. The findings compare firms’ shifting value priorities over time and association with key events, namely the global pandemic declaration (March 11, 2020) and ensuing lockdowns and George Floyd’s murder (May 25, 2020), and BLM protests. We find that, indeed, companies did shift their value priorities. The second study assesses consumer response to the values companies put forth in their tweets, focusing on social media indicators of consumer engagement (CE), including the number of likes, retweets, replies, and CE correlation with the values promoted in the tweets. We observe a pre- post-crisis shift in CE with value-laden messages. Our findings provide managerial insights that can guide marketers to manage their social media content more efficiently and better align their marketing and branding efforts with customers' values in times of crisis.

Syfte: Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka och få en ökad förståelse för hur bankchefer har förändrat och anpassat sitt ledarskap och sin krishantering under covid-19. Vi vill därmed bringa klarhet kring vad bankchefer upplever är viktigt i deras krishantering och ledarskap för att fortsätta driva verksamheten på lämpligaste sätt till följd av coronapandemin. Metod: Studiens metodval har varit kvalitativ metod, där vi har tillämpat en abduktiv forskningsansats. Med hjälp av teori och datainsamling har vi haft möjlighet att göra en hermeneutisk tolkning för att uppnå en förståelse och ur detta sedan dra adekvata slutsatser.  Slutsats: Studiens slutsats är att olika kriser är unika, där coronakrisen inte är ett undantag. Ur empiri och analys kunde vi utläsa särskilda ledaregenskaper som är viktiga för den här typen av kris som covid-19 är. I studien fann vi också att krishantering är en väsentlig del i ledarskapet och för bankkontorens funktionalitet under krisen. Ur vår teoretiska referensram kunde vi härleda ett antal gemensamma nyckelegenskaper som ledare bör tillämpa i sitt ledarskap, där exempelvis att vara kommunikativ, närvarande och lyhörd är viktigt.

This essay is an analysis of a qualitative study made on 11 music teachers' view on distance learning during Covid-19. The purpose of this essay is, through a phenomenographic analysis, to see how music teachers who are working at the upper secondary school view distance learning and how they have worked with it since the spring of 2020.  The findings of this essay show that the delay and sound quality experienced during distance learning are the biggest issues according to the teachers. The findings also show that the students' motivation and grades have been affected negatively due to distance learning. The teachers' health has also been affected in such ways that their moral of work has been decreasing and the mental health for some has declined.

Introducción: La cuarentena por COVID-19 ha afectado de gran manera a los estudiantes universitarios del Perú, generando una serie de efectos físicos, psicológicos y conductuales. Objetivo: Determinar los factores asociados a ansiedad, depresión, somatización y evitación experiencial en estudiantes universitarios del Perú en cuarentena por COVID-19. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio observacional transversal. La muestra estuvo constituida por 1264 estudiantes universitarios de diversos departamentos del Perú, se tomó como variables dependientes a la ansiedad, depresión, somatización y evitación experiencial, las cuales se evaluaron con el cuestionario de “El Inventario de comportamiento psicosocial desajustado, ante la presencia del COVID-19 en la población peruana” y el AAQ II, para el análisis estadístico se empleó el chi cuadrado. Resultados: Más de la mitad de los estudiantes universitarios del Perú, presenta entre 3 y 6 de los 6 indicadores de ansiedad, y este mismo número de indicadores de depresión lo presenta el 45% de la muestra. El 30 % de la muestra presenta entre 3 y 6 indicadores de somatización y el 40,3% de la muestra se ubica de la mitad hacia arriba en la escala de evitación experiencial. Conclusiones: Existen diferencias en los niveles de ansiedad, somatización y evitación experiencial entre varones y mujeres, asimismo se encontró que los estudiantes de mayor edad presentaban niveles más bajos de ansiedad, depresión y evitación experiencial, pero no en somatización.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is responsible for millions of deaths around the world. To help contribute to the understanding of crucial knowledge and to further generate new hypotheses relevant to SARS-CoV-2 and human protein interactions, we make use of the information abundant Biomine probabilistic database and extend the experimentally identified SARS-CoV-2-human protein-protein interaction (PPI) network in silico. We generate an extended network by integrating information from the Biomine database and the PPI network. To generate novel hypotheses, we focus on the high-connectivity sub-communities that overlap most with the PPI network in the extended network. Therefore, we propose a new data analysis pipeline that can efficiently compute core decomposition on the extended network and identify dense subgraphs. We then evaluate the identified dense subgraph and the generated hypotheses in three contexts: literature validation for uncovered virus targeting genes and proteins, gene function enrichment analysis on subgraphs, and literature support on drug repurposing for identified tissues and diseases related to COVID-19. The majority types of the generated hypotheses are proteins with their encoding genes and we rank them by sorting their connections to known PPI network nodes. In addition, we compile a comprehensive list of novel genes, and proteins potentially related to COVID-19, as well as novel diseases which might be comorbidities. Together with the generated hypotheses, our results provide novel knowledge relevant to COVID-19 for further validation. / Graduate