CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Institute of Political Science Department of Geopolitical Studies Master's Thesis Populism and the Covid-19 Pandemic in Latin America: A Case Study of Brazil Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic confronted the world with a global health crisis like never before. Unlike some countries which were able to manage the crisis with little loss, some countries failed. This thesis offers an extensive analyses Brazil's Covid-19 response with a primary focus on President Bolsonaro's populist nature. It aims to discover a correlation between the political leadership style of populism and poor Covid-19 management in Brazil. In order to accomplish that, the two concepts of medical populism and the performance of crisis have been applied to the case study, by investigating Bolsonaro's social media presence and public statements. The results displayed that Bolsonaro attempted to perform a crisis by simplifying the crisis and propagating his performance, but untimely failed to successfully perform the crisis. In addition, the results also indicate that Bolsonaro exercised medical populism by attempting to pit the people against the establishment and creating a dramatic and spectacular depiction of a public health crisis. Ultimately, the research will conclude that Bolsonaro's...

Abstract Introduction: Obesity amongst children is a major health problem. At the outpatient paediatric clinic at Södertälje hospital in Region Stockholm, there is a large and well-established treatment model against childhood obesity. During spring 2020 all elective care in Region Stockholm, including visits to the obesity team, was cancelled for 3 months due to relocation of health care professionals because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Aim: To investigate whether the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic affected the outcome of childhood obesity treatment at one outpatient paediatric clinic in Region Stockholm. Methods: A retrospective controlled cohort study comparing two groups regarding results of first year of obesity treatment for children. One group had their first year of treatment during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and the control group before the pandemic. Data was retrieved from BORIS and complemented by a review of medical records. Results: Mean change in BMI SDS after one year of treatment in the Covid group was -0.10 units and in the control group -0.11 (ns). In the Covid group more patients quit the treatment programme and had a smaller number of visits to a nurse compared to controls. Conclusion: This study showed no difference in outcome regarding change in BMI SDS. However, it seems that the cancellation of visits might have affected the number of children lost to follow-up. Therefore, clinics should consider “digi-physical” care (e.g., via telephone, videocalls or other media) to secure the child and parents motivation and participation in the obesity treatment programme.

Modern supply chains are often characterized by carefully planned and interconnected processes that seamlessly integrate with each other. Supply chains are often efficientduring a stable business environment but are highly vulnerable to risks and disruptions.When any link in the supply chain is negatively impacted, challenges can arise for all the companies in the supply chain. This has expanded the goal of supply chain management tocreate resilient supply chains that incorporate event readiness, provide efficient and effective responses, and can return to their original state after a disruption. During Covid19 businesses all over the world were affected and the pandemic led to disruptions in supply chains. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) were especially affected because of lack in financial resources, technical capabilities, and low resilience. SMEs play a crucial role in the global economy but there is still a limited amount of research onhow SME can achieve resilience in their supply chains. Furthermore, there is a lack ofresearch comparing changes in supply chain resilience before and after Covid-19. To address this research gap, the purpose of the study is to explore how Covid-19 affected the supply chain resilience in Swedish SMEs. To understand the effects of Covid-19 we will examine supply chain resilience in SMEs before, during and after the pandemic. To address our purpose, we have conducted a qualitative study using an inductive approach and exploratory research design. We collected primary data from semi-structuredinterviews with nine managers from manufacturing Swedish SMEs. The data gathered through the interviews was analysed by using a thematic analysis that led us to our findings. Our findings revealed that prior to the pandemic, risk awareness was not a top priority for the respondent companies. However, Covid-19 exposed vulnerabilities in their supply chains highlighting the importance of both proactive and reactive strategies. Swedish SMEs experienced various challenges including transportation problems, component shortages and fluctuations in customer demand. Tomeet these challenges, the companies showed flexibility by changes in product assemblingand increased inventory levels during Covid-19. Furthermore, strengthened communication with suppliers and customers played a significant role in increasing supply chain visibility and collaboration. As a result of the Covid-19 disruption, our study show that the responding companies have become more aware of risks and incorporated practices into in their operations as adoption of alternative suppliers, optimization of safety stocks and improved communication. Overall, the findings suggested that the pandemic prompted the respondent SMEs to strengthen their supply chain resilience. By learning from the impact of the crisis, these companies have become more resilient and created supply chains that can better withstand future disruptions. This study contributes to understanding how supply chain resilience in Swedish SMEs was affected by Covid-19 and how SMEs can enhance their supply chain resilience

This study examines the prevalence of earnings management during the covid-19 pandemic in Swedish listed firms and aims to provide further evidence regarding earnings management practices during the pandemic. The study further investigates whether there are any differences between industries in terms of engaging in opportunistic accounting procedures. Previous research on earnings management during the covid-19 pandemic exclusively examines the year of 2020 as pandemic period. This study aims to contribute with further evidence by expanding the pandemic period and including the fiscal year of 2021, adding one additional fiscal year largely affected by the pandemic. Previous studies on the area finds contrasting results, where some studies find that firms tend to pursue income-increasing practices, while others deliberately decrease financial performance during a crisis. In order to perform this study, the modified Jones model is used to detect accrual-based earnings management through abnormal levels of discretionary accruals. The result of this study finds significantly increased levels of income-decreasing accrual-based earnings management, potentially suggesting that firms engaged in “big bath accounting” during the pandemic in order to boost financial performance in future periods. Additionally, the results show significantly increased levels of income-decreasing earnings management in 2/8 industries.

<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>

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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.

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.