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The world of work was not only temporarily shaken in the beginning of year 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather rearranged the way no one probably had imagined before. The change towards work being remote-based in many organizations and even industries inspired this thesis, which was written within the Human Resources specialization. The overall purpose of this thesis was to study how companies’ remote onboarding of new hires could be developed further to provide the same possibilities as onsite onboarding. The goal was to find out, whether there were needs for related HR consultancy services that could be offered by the commissioning company Kulmia Group Oy. The thesis consists of a theory section and an empirical section. The theory section focused on the onboarding overall and included elements, such as, the process, the techniques and the legal requirements. Furthermore, assimilation and its elements, social integration and organizational commitment, were studied. Finally, the remote context regarding onboarding and assimilation was explored, and also onboarding’s connection to employee engagement was briefly introduced. The empirical section was completed after the theory section and it was carried out with qualitative interviews. Five Human Resources professionals were interviewed to obtain data of their companies’ remote and onsite onboarding processes to compare them and to identify general areas of development for remote onboarding. Finally, the data was analyzed with adapted dialogical thematization. The research showed, for example, that the difference between remote and onsite onboarding was not necessarily considered substantial and that most of the challenges existed within assimilation. Furthermore, a few areas of development for remote onboarding were identified and by paying more attention to them, organizations could develop their remote onboarding processes further. Based on the literature review and the findings of the research, recommendations to the commissioning company were produced, thus, it could be concluded that the need for HR consultancy services exists. The recommendations were directly connected to the areas of development and consisted of, for example, offering consultancy advice regarding monitoring of remote onboarding, promoting personality and behavioral assessments and helping clients in determining the overall approach to onboarding.

Currently, the entire globe is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2(SCV2). The ability to detect, monitor and assess the spread of the virus is imperative to controlling the effects of the pandemic. In order to meet the need for global testing, several methods have been developed. As a complement to individual testing, wastewater-based epidemiology represents a low-cost way to estimate the prevalence of the virus in a community. This information can be used to influence public policy regarding viral mitigation measures. This thesis documents our efforts at implementing wastewater testing in Santa Cruz County over the past 18 months. We sampled from the Watsonville Wastewater Treatment Plant on a weekly basis and quantified the presence of SCV2 using reverse transcriptase digital PCR normalized to Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMV). Our data showed a large discrepancy between reported case counts and SCV2 in wastewater. This data also revealed seasonal variation in PMMV, potentially hindering it as a reliable normalizer. In addition to our sewage work, we performed masked-based sampling for Pacific Elementary School and documented a probable positive. This work demonstrates the potential of sewage sampling for SARS-CoV-2 and some of the current unmet challenges in both sewage sampling and pandemic response as a whole.

This Issue Brief has been developed for the discussion at the International Forum for Sustainable Asia and the Pacific (ISAP2020), organized by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) from 9th -13rd November 2020. This Issue Brief aims to: (i) facilitate discussion on the need to properly address the existing issue of poor wastewater management in many Asian countries, in order to minimise the human health risks associated with SARS-COV-2 infections; (ii) identify possible routes of SARS-CoV-2 infections and contamination across water and wastewater service chain; (iii) propose preventive countermeasures to stop possible COVID-19 transmission; and (iv) highlight the potential roles of decentralised wastewater management in addressing the associated risks of COVID-19 infection along the water and wastewater service chain.

This publication analyzes the situation of businesses in the context of global pandemics. Business is an integral part of everyday life, facing risks and challenges daily, and in rare cases, such as pandemics and quarantine. Therefore, it is necessary for companies to have a contingency plan in place to deal with unexpected or expected challenges, i.e. what activities it would be possible to reorient to, how to perform activities by working remotely etc. Both the public sector and the private sector are closely interlinked. And every new environmental factor, be it state regulation, technological development, or the changing needs of humanity, and in this case, pandemic and quarantine, affects business in one way or another and leads to the success of some, the failure of others. At present, the coronavirus Covid-19, which is spreading all over the world, and the quarantine introduced in many countries are of great importance to business. This paper also presents a small-scale qualitative research data showing the impact on different types of businesses in Lithuania. The main scope of this paper is measuring the level of impact of the pandemic COVID-19 for businesses in Lithuania. Methods were used as follows: i) analysis, comparison and interpretation of scientific literature and documents; ii) qualitative approach applying structured interview with selected leaders/managers of the companies in Lithuania.

This thesis aims to analyse the presence of post-truth characteristics in the public sphere, using the case study of the highly debated COVID-19 vaccines in Europe. Since 2016, the concept of post-truth has received increased attention in academia, particularly around the intense polarization of issues such as partisan voting, climate change, and vaccination. While prior studies have focused significantly on the impacts and emergence conditions of the post-truth phenomenon, empirical studies on the prevalence of post-truth in everyday public activities have yet to be written. In response, this thesis conceptualises post-truth into five characteristics that are described in the existing literature: (i) disagreement about fact, (ii) personal experience and emotion, (iii) neglect of fact, (iv) truth-seeking, and (v) discredit of and distrust in experts. Based on these characteristics, this thesis qualitatively analyses the content of the comments on the European Commission’s Facebook posts concerning the COVID-19 vaccine. Descriptive analysis of 362 user-generated comments shows that groups with varying attitudes toward vaccination display most of the post-truth characteristics described in the existing literature. The results suggest that the group of people who are influenced by the post-truth culture is wider than anticipated. Furthermore, this thesis alters prior understandings of post-truth culture by showing that the opponents of vaccines do not display strong emotions or use personal experiences when discussing vaccination with the others. Public health authorities therefore might take these results into consideration for future vaccination campaigns. Lastly, this study posits some associations between post-truth characteristics and calls for further qualitative research on the matter.

13th March, 2020 - ST. JOHN’S, Antigua and Barbuda – 13th March, 2020Prime Minister the Hon. Gaston Browne today announced that the country has recorded its first confirmation of someone who has contracted the coronavirus (COVID-19). “I want to emphasize that there is no need for fear or panic, arising from this case. The person concerned is in self isolation at home, and a regime has been put in place today, not only to continue such isolation, but also to treat the condition,” noted the Prime Minister. He called on the nation to be more sensible in their behaviour and be their brother’s keeper. “Let us conjoin our efforts to prevent the spread of Covid 19 within the domestic population,” he said. “Considering the challenges of Covid 19, to include the economic impact and potential threat to our food security, we have to work diligently and collectively as a nation, of one people, with a common destiny to confront these challenges,” PM Browne concluded.

Mucins play an essential role in protecting the respiratory tract against microbial infections. The heavily O-glycosylated gel-forming mucins MUC5AC and MUC5B eliminate pathogens by mucociliary clearance while transmembrane mucins MUC1, MUC4, and MUC16 restrict microbial invasion at the apical surface of the epithelium. In this study, we determined the impact of host mucins and mucin glycans on SARS-CoV-2 spike-mediated epithelial entry. Human lung epithelial Calu-3 cells have endogenous expression of the SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor ACE2 and express high levels of glycosylated MUC1 on the surface but not MUC4 and MUC16. Removal of the MUC1 extracellular domain (ED) using the O-glycan-specific mucinase StcE greatly enhanced spike binding and viral infection. By contrast, removal of mucin glycans sialic acid and fucose did not impact viral invasion. This study implicates the glycosylated ED of MUC1 as an important component of the host defense that restricts the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The zoonotic SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 continues to spread worldwide, with devastating consequences. While the medical community has gained insight into the epidemiology of COVID-19, important questions remain about the clinical complexities and underlying mechanisms of disease phenotypes. Severe COVID-19 most commonly involves respiratory manifestations, although other systems are also affected, and acute disease is often followed by protracted complications. Such complex manifestations suggest that SARS-CoV-2 dysregulates the host response, triggering wide-ranging immuno-inflammatory, thrombotic, and parenchymal derangements. We review the intricacies of COVID-19 pathophysiology, its various phenotypes, and the anti-SARS-CoV-2 host response at the humoral and cellular levels. Some similarities exist between COVID-19 and respiratory failure of other origins, but evidence for many distinctive mechanistic features indicates that COVID-19 constitutes a new disease entity, with emerging data suggesting involvement of an endotheliopathy-centred pathophysiology. Further research, combining basic and clinical studies, is needed to advance understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms and to characterise immuno-inflammatory derangements across the range of phenotypes to enable optimum care for patients with COVID-19.

Due to the economic weakening of companies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that the activities on the takeover market will increase in the future. Chinese companies in particular are expected to play an important role. The takeover market is a highly regulated legal area under German law and every takeover is therefore accom- panied by a time-consuming and cost-intensive process. Of the expected takeovers, the majority will be friendly takeovers, but not every takeover will be consensual. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the appropriateness of measures taken by companies to fend off a hostile takeover from a legal and economic perspective and to recommend a course of action. The work, which is based on theoretical literature, explains the fundamentals of hostile takeovers, such as the German capital market, which the takeover market is part of. Subsequently, the legal framework of hostile takeovers is explained and the process as well as the financing of the takeover are explained. The measures are explained and incorporated into this framework. The WpÜG already severely restricts the measures, most of which originate in the United States of America, especially through §33 WpÜG, and thus often lose their deterrent factor. This showed that it is not possible to define a recommendation for action that is suitable for all companies. Rather, the particularities of the individual companies, especially their financial strength, must be taken into account and included in the strategy. It is advisable to assess the current market and the risk potential on a permanent basis and to prepare measures in advance in order to be prepared in the event of a potential bid.