The Covid-19 pandemic has made a significant impact on both the stock market and the<br/>global economy. The resulting volatility in stock prices has provided an opportunity to examine<br/>the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This study aims to gain insights into the efficiency of markets<br/>based on stock price performance in the Covid era. Specifically, it investigates the market’s<br/>ability to anticipate significant events during the Covid-19 timeline beginning November 1, 2019<br/><br/>and ending March 31, 2021. To examine the efficiency of markets, our team created a Stay-at-<br/>Home Portfolio, experiencing economic tailwinds from the Covid lockdowns, and a Pandemic<br/><br/>Loser Portfolio, experiencing economic headwinds from the Covid lockdowns. Cumulative<br/>returns of each portfolio are benchmarked to the cumulative returns of the S&P 500. The results<br/>showed that the Efficient Market Hypothesis is likely to be valid, although a definitive<br/>conclusion cannot be made based on the scope of the analysis. There are recommendations for<br/>further research surrounding key events that may be able to draw a more direct conclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic began in March of 2020 and drastically affected the global human population. Millions of people died due to a SARS-CoV-2 infection while many who survived developed devastating sequelae of the disease. In addition, the closure of schools and businesses led to international economic struggle in the year 2020 as global economies declined. Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 200,000 scientific articles have been published and compiled into a database that grows daily— a rare occurrence within the scientific community. This thesis uses natural language processing tools via Python and VOSviewer software to perform a bibliometric analysis on 205,712 papers published between January of 2020 and February of 2021 pertaining to COVID-19. We first investigate how to analyze these publications most effectively in terms of title versus abstract keyword searches, we further obtain the focus of the current scientific literature via co-occurrence analysis and clustering, and we at last discuss the time evolution of these topics over the course of 14 months.

Home advantage affects the game in almost all team sports across the world. Due to<br/>COVID and all of the precautions being taken to keep games played, more extensive research is able to be conducted about what factors truly go into creating a home advantage. Some common factors of home advantage include the crowd, facility familiarity, and travel. In the English Premier League, there are no fans allowed at any of the games; furthermore, in the NBA, a bubble was created at one neutral venue with no fans in attendance. Even with the NBA being at a neutral site, there was still a “home team” at every game. The sports betting industry struggled due to failing to shift betting lines in accordance with this decreased home advantage. With these leagues removing some of the factors that are frequently associated with home advantage, analysts are able to better see what the results would be of removing these variables. The purpose of this research is to determine if these adjustments made due to COVID had an impact on the home advantage in different leagues around the world, and if they did, to what extent. Individual game data from the past 10 seasons were used for analysis of both the NBA and the Premier League. The results show that there is a significant difference in win percentage between prior seasons and seasons behind closed doors. In addition to win percentage, many other game statistics see a significant shift as well. Overall, the significance of being the home team disappears in games following the COVID-19 break.

Vaccines are modern medicine’s best way of combating the majority of viral and bacterial illnesses and contagions to date. Thanks to the introduction of vaccines since the first uses of them in 1796 (Jenner’s smallpox vaccine), they have drastically reduced figures of disease worldwide, turning once lethal and life changing conditions into minor annoyances; Some of these afflictions have even become nonexistent or even extinct in certain parts of the world outside of a controlled laboratory setting. With many advancements and overwhelming evidence proving their efficiency, it is clear that vaccines have become nothing less than a necessity for everyday healthcare in today’s world. <br/>The greatest contributor to the creation and evolution of vaccines throughout the years is by far the progress and work done in the field of molecular and cellular biology. These advancements have become the bedrock of modern vaccination, as shown by the differing types of vaccines and their methodology. The most common varieties of vaccines are include ‘dead’ or inactivated vaccines, one such example being the pertussis strain of vaccines, which have either dead or torn apart cells for the body to easily fight off, allowing the immune system to easily and quickly counter the illness; Additionally, there are also live attenuated vaccines (LAVs) in which a weaker version of the pathogen is introduced to the body to stimulate an immune response, or a recombinant mRNA vaccine where mRNA containing the coding for an antigen is presented for immunological response, the latter being what the current COVID-19 vaccines are based on. This is in part aided by the presence of immunological adjuvants, antigens and substances that the immune system can recognize, target, and remember for future infections. However, for more serious illnesses the body needs a bigger threat to analyze, which leads to live vaccines- instead of dead or individual components of a potential pathogen, a weakened version is created in the lab to allow the body to combat it. The idea behind this is the same, but to a larger degree so a more serious illness such as measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) do not infect us.<br/>However, for the past couple of decades the public’s views on vaccination has greatly varied, with the rise of fear and disinformation leading those to believe that modern medicine is a threat in disguise. The largest of these arguments began in the late 90’s, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield published an article under the Lancet with false information connecting vaccinations to the occurrence of autism in younger children- a theory which has since then been proven incorrect numerous times over. Unfortunately, the rise of hysteria and paranoia in people, along with more misinformation from misleading sources, have strengthened the anti-vaccination cause and has made it into a serious threat to the health of those world-wide.<br/>The aim of this thesis is to provide an accurate and thorough analysis on these three themes- the history of vaccines, their inner workings and machinations in providing immune defenses for the body, and the current controversy of the anti-vaccination movement. Additionally, there will be two other sections going in-depth on two specific areas where vaccination is highly important; The spread and fear of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has been around for nearly four decades, so it begs the question: what makes this such a difficult virus, and how can a vaccine be created to combat it? Additionally, in the last year the world has encountered a new virus that has evolved into a global pandemic, SARS-COV 2. This new strain of coronavirus has shown itself to be highly contagious and rapidly mutating, and the race to quickly develop a vaccine to counteract it has been on-going since its first major infections in Wuhan, China. Overall, this thesis will go in-depth in providing the most accurate, up-to-date, and critical information regarding vaccinations today.

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

The mental health of ASU students has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our research looks to prove that COVID-19 has caused an increase in stress levels while uncovering other relationships to stress. We obtained our data by conducting a survey through Google Forms that was exclusively accessible to ASU students. Stress levels were measured with the use of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). We find that the stress of ASU students from before the pandemic to during rises from 15 to 22 points, a 50% increase (n = 228). We discovered that women are more stressed than men before and during the pandemic. We also discovered that there is no difference between stresses among different races. We notice that there is a parabolic relationship between enrollment time and stress levels with the peak occurring during semesters 2-6. We also conclude that students who attended more than 5 events during the pandemic had lower stress scores, and those who had their videos on for at least 3 events had lower stress scores. Furthermore, students who utilized campus resources to manage their stress had higher stress levels than those who did not.

The nonprofit sector exists as one of three working groups which contribute to the flow of the economy and society. Unlike the government and for-profit sectors, the nonprofit world has faced a growing responsibility alongside a lack of emphasis on the sector’s importance. Nonprofits have often faced a lack of resources needed to combat these gaps. However, since Covid-19, resources have been diminishing even further. These resources can be identified as a variety of elements, from volunteers and paid staff to funds and access to overseas goods and services. A case study of the world-renowned Make-A-Wish Foundation and its Arizona Chapter perfectly illustrates the journey back to full mission-accomplishment in present times through their actions taken to combat common sector struggles. This case study proves importance of the nonprofit sector, accompanied by a call for education and re-emphasis of the nonprofit sector.