Recent studies indicate a correlation between high expression of the POZ-ZF transcription factor Kaiso, and the aggressiveness of the triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtype. However, little is known about the biological roles of Kaiso in TNBC tumorigenesis and metastasis, which laid the foundation for this thesis. To elucidate Kaiso’s role in TNBC, we generated stable Kaiso depletion in two well-established TNBC cell lines – MDA-MB-231 and Hs578T – using RNA interference technology. Intriguingly, we observed that Kaiso depletion delayed the tumor onset of MDA-MB-231 but not Hs578T cells, and led to the reduced expression of the c-Myc oncoprotein in MDA-MB-231 but not Hs578T cells. We postulate that this reduction in c-Myc expression is partly responsible for the delayed tumor onset observed in MDA-MB-231 cells. Additionally, loss of Kaiso expression resulted in increased apoptosis of both MDA-MB-231 and Hs578T cells in vitro and in vivo, which was accompanied by reduced expression of the DNA repair protein BRCA1. Remarkably, bioinformatic analysis revealed that high Kaiso and BRCA1 mRNA expression correlates with the reduced survival rates of TNBC patients. Further characterization of the Kaiso-depleted cells revealed that loss of Kaiso expression strongly inhibited the metastatic abilities of MDA-MB-231 and Hs578T cells. Importantly, Kaiso depletion led to decreased TGFβ-receptor I and II (TGFβRI and II) expression that is essential for the activation of the TGFβ signaling cascade. Concomitantly, suppressing Kaiso led to reduced TGFβ signaling. As increased TGFβRI expression is independently associated with the poor prognostic outcome of breast tumors, and the TGFβ signaling pathway is highly involved in breast tumor metastasis, we hypothesize that Kaiso functions together with TGFβRI and the TGFβ signaling cascade to promote TNBC metastasis. An additional goal of this thesis was to investigate the role of Kaiso in the prevalence of TNBC in women of African ancestry (WAA) compared to Caucasian women – since increased Kaiso expression is implicated in the poor survival outcomes of breast cancer patients of African ancestry relative to their Caucasian counterparts. Using tissue microarray and immunohistochemical analyses, we revealed for the first time a high nuclear expression of Kaiso in TNBC tissues of WAA (Nigerian, Barbadian, African American) compared to TNBC tissues of Caucasian women. Collectively, these findings unveiled functional oncogenic roles for Kaiso in the tumorigenesis and metastasis of TNBC, and revealed a plausible link between high Kaiso expression, high African ancestry and the predisposition of young WAA to TNBC. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Yes / Consumers use online reviews to help make informed purchase decisions. This paper extends existing research by examining how content of online reviews influences perceptions of helpfulness by demonstrating how different emotions can influence helpfulness of both product and service online reviews beyond a valence-based approach using cognitive appraisal theory and attribution theory. This research contributes to existing knowledge regarding the theory of information processing, attribution theory, and cognitive appraisal theory of emotions. Using findings from this study, practitioners can make review websites more user-friendly which will help readers avoid information overload and make more informed purchase decisions.

Through three standalone essays, this dissertation addresses the current gap in tourism and hospitality literature on negative emotions. Existing literature prioritizes positive emotions over negative emotions (Nawijn & Biran, 2019) even though tourists experience both types of emotions in their consumption of tourism and hospitality services. Moreover, a theoretical understanding of negative emotions is not as simple as dichotomizing findings regarding positive emotions as both emotion types are theoretically distinct (Taylor, 1991) and hence, warrants further investigation. Essay 1 focuses on negative memorable tourism experiences. It employed an exploratory, mixed-methods approach towards the understanding of negative MTEs by identifying their accompanying range of negative emotions, associated contexts of occurrence and relevant emotion appraisal criteria. Data utilized included online user-generated contents crawled from Reddit.com and survey responses collected via qualitative and quantitative survey questions. Essay 2 examines tourists’ emotional and behavioral responses to different types of hotel crises. In conceptualizing how tourists react to crises, essay 2 presumed the central role of crisis typology. It built upon brand harm literature to conceptualize and validate a model that incorporated (i) negative emotions and tourist attitude as parallel mediators of the relationship between crisis typology and behavioral intentions of tourists, and (ii) Schwartz’s (2012) personal values of hedonism and universalism as potential moderators. Results of an online experiment demonstrate that both negative emotions and tourist attitude significantly influence the relationship between crisis typology and behavioral intentions; however, only universalism significantly moderated the same relationship. With essay 1 demonstrating that negative emotions are remembered and essay 2 revealing the influence of negative emotions on tourist behavior, essay 3 evaluated the efficacy of emotion regulation strategies that tourists use to manage anger and fear while vacationing. Two emotion regulation strategies – i.e. reappraisal and suppression, each of which relate to specific steps in Gross’ five-step emotion generation process (Gross, 1998) – were assessed through five online experiments utilizing video and text stimuli. The first set of experiments was conducted within the context of destination crowding and then replicated via tourist harassment. Results across both contexts are consistent. Within-subject analysis revealed the efficacy of different emotion regulation strategies in improving subjective well-being: reappraisal (vs. suppression) significantly decreased (vs. increased) the intensity of anger and fear felt. Similar outcomes are noted in assessing tourists’ behavioral tendency with reappraisal (vs. suppression) significantly moderating the relationship between anger/fear and negative word-of-mouth such that the relationship is weaker (vs. stronger). Notably, both emotion regulation strategies did not moderate the relationship between fear and revisit intention. / Tourism and Sport

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is the easiest and most widely used model nowadays in statistics. ANOVA however requires a set of assumptions for the model to be a valid choice and for the inferences to be accurate. Among many, ANOVA assumes the data in question is normally distributed and homogenous. However, data from most disciplines does not meet the assumption of normality and/or equal variance. Regrettably, researchers do not always check whether the assumptions are met, and if these assumptions are violated, inferences might well be wrong. We conducted a simulation study to compare the performance of standard ANOVA to Poisson and Negative Binomial models when applied to counts data. We considered different combination of sample sizes and underlying distributions. In this simulation study, we first assed Type I error for each model involved. We then compared power as well as the quality of the estimated parameters across the models.

published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Introduktion: Olika typer av sår skapar stort lidande för den drabbade och Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) är en behandlingsmetod som utvecklats för att effektivisera sårläkningsprocessen. Livskvaliteten och hälsan påverkas av såret och dess utveckling, vilket gör omvårdnaden vid sårbehandling grundläggande för patientens välmående. Syfte: Syftet var att belysa hur Negative Pressure Wound Therapy påverkar patientens livskvalitet och hälsa. Metod: Polit och Beck (2012) niostegsmodell användes för litteraturstudien. Artikelsökningarna gjordes i två olika databaser samt manuella sökningar och resultatet grundades på tolv artiklar som genomgick en kvalitetsgranskning. Resultat: Fem teman identifierades påverka patientens upplevelse av behandlingen. Behandlingen påverkar den fysiska förmågan att leva ett dagligt liv och tenderar att framkalla smärta vid omläggning. Behandlingen tenderar även att på ett psykiskt påfrestande sätt påverka både det allmänna välmåendet och det sociala livet. Kunskap och information, hos både personal och patient, visades ha en inverkan på patientens livskvalitet och hälsa. Slutsats: Denna avancerade sårbehandling påverkar patientens livskvalitet och hälsa. Behandlingen innebär en fysisk påfrestning där patienten behöver bära runt på en behandlingsmaskin samt uppleva smärta. Det innebär också en psykisk påfrestning som ger utryck i stress, oro och rädsla samt en risk för isolering i det sociala livet. Det är därför av största vikt att vårdpersonal införskaffar sig och tillgodoser patientens behov av information och kunskap för att förutsättningar för en optimal omvårdnad ska kunna skapas.

The present study examines the L1 influence on the adult acquisition of the negative concord parameter (two negative elements that agree to form a sentential negation without canceling each other) between the following groups of learners: (1) two groups of second language learners whose first and target languages are typologically similar (Lusophone and Hispanophone learners of Spanish and Portuguese respectively), and (2) two groups of learners whose first and target languages are typologically different (Anglophone learners of Spanish and Portuguese). The study compares the scores of the groups, and focuses on two goals: (1) to investigate the influence of L1 transfer on the acquisition of the negative concord parameter in adult L2 learners when the first and target languages are typologically similar and different, and (2) to attempt to find a correlation between L2 learners’ level of awareness on the similarities and differences of the negative concord parameter between languages, and its effect on their overall performance of the task. A total of 135 participants responded to a grammaticality judgment task, and independent sample t tests were used to determine whether there were differences between the groups. The results indicate that adult L2 learners of languages that are typologically similar to their native languages perform better than those adult L2 learners whose languages are typologically different than their native languages. The results imply that L1 transfer facilitates the acquisition of the negative concord parameter for adult second language learners when languages are typologically similar, which is relevant to current research on the developmental stages of L2 acquisition. As far as their level of awareness during the task, the results could not indicate whether or not there was any correlation between learners’ awareness of the grammatical typological similarities and differences of the languages involved and their overall performance on the task. It was also observed that learners responded in unpredictable ways to the specific question of their state of awareness during the task, which left the study inconclusive with regards to the level of these L2 learners’ consciousness. / text

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