No. 6 - 30th Anniversary Issue

With this issue of the Occasional Papers, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Dean Rusk Center, which bears the name of the late School of Law faculty member who served as secretary of state under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 until 1969. Our purpose in hosting the conference and lectures published in this volume was to provide a forum for developing the comprehensive new focus necessary to met the American foreign policy demands of the 21st century. In so doing, it is our intent that the advice and counsel of the former secretaries of state and speakers in this volume—each of whom has been, directly or indirectly, impacted by the life of Dean Rusk—will bring us closer to being “present at the creation” of a post-modern American foreign policy equipped to deal with the challenges ahead. We hope that this publication, under the auspices of the Center that bears his name, will have an impact that is worthy of the legacy of Dean Rusk

Virtual reality videos used in undergraduate palliative and oncology medical teaching: results of a pilot study

Background Virtual reality (VR) immersive environments have been shown to be effective in medical teaching. Our university hospital received funding from our deanery, Health Education in Wales, to film teaching videos with a 360-degree camera. Aims To evaluate whether VR is an effective and acceptable teaching environment. VR headsets were set up for medical students who rotated through Velindre Cancer Hospital’s Palliative Care department. Methods Students were asked to put on a VR headset and experience a pre-recorded 27 min presentation on nausea and vomiting in palliative care settings. They subsequently viewed a radiotherapy treatment experience from a patient’s point of view. Results Of the 72 medical students who participated, 70 found the experience comfortable, with two students stating they felt the experience uncomfortable (1=headset too tight; 1=blurry visuals). Numerical scoring on ability to concentrate in VR from 0 to 10 (0=worst, 10=best) scored an average of 8.44 (range, 7–10). Asked whether this format suited their learning style, average score was 8.31 (range 6–10). 97.2 % (n=70) students stated that they would recommend this form of learning to a colleague, with one student saying he/she would not recommend and another stating he/she was unsure. Students left anonymous free-text feedback comments which helped frame future needs in this emerging area. Discussion This study suggests that there is room for exploring new ways of delivering teaching and expanding it more widely in palliative care and oncology, but also provides feedback on areas that need further careful attention. Comments from students included: “Might have been the novelty factor but I learnt more from this 20 min VR thing than I have from many lectures”. Summary The project has proved sufficiently popular in medical student feedback, that the VR experience is now available on YouTube and has been permanently introduced into routine teaching. Further 360-degree teaching environments have been filmed. Of note is that our 360-degree videos have been viewed in Africa, so this format of teaching could prove valuable due to its global reach

Parasitic Cape honeybee workers, Apis mellifera capensis, evade policing

Relocation of the Cape honeybee, Apis mellifera capensis, by bee-keepers from southern to northern South Africa in 1990 has caused widespread death of managed African honeybee, A. m. scutellata, colonies. Apis mellifera capensis worker bees are able to lay diploid, female eggs without mating by means of automictic thelytoky (meiosis followed by fusion of two meiotic products to restore egg diploidy), whereas workers of other honeybee subspecies are able to lay only haploid, male eggs. The A. m. capensis workers, which are parasitizing and killing A. m. scutellata colonies in northern South Africa, are the asexual offspring of a single, original worker in which the small amount of genetic variation observed is due to crossing over during meiosis (P. Kryger, personal communication). Here we elucidate two principal mechanisms underlying this parasitism. Parasitic A. m. capensis workers activate their ovaries in host colonies that have a queen present (queenright colonies), and they lay eggs that evade being killed by other workers (worker policing)—the normal fate of worker-laid eggs in colonies with a queen. This unique parasitism by workers is an instance in which a society is unable to control the selfish actions of its members

The mortality of companies

The firm is a fundamental economic unit of contemporary human societies. Studies on the general quantitative and statistical character of firms have produced mixed results regarding their lifespans and mortality. We examine a comprehensive database of more than 25 000 publicly traded North American companies, from 1950 to 2009, to derive the statistics of firm lifespans. Based on detailed survival analysis, we show that the mortality of publicly traded companies manifests an approximately constant hazard rate over long periods of observation. This regularity indicates that mortality rates are independent of a company's age. We show that the typical half-life of a publicly traded company is about a decade, regardless of business sector. Our results shed new light on the dynamics of births and deaths of publicly traded companies and identify some of the necessary ingredients of a general theory of firms

Whole genome landscapes of uveal melanoma show an ultraviolet radiation signature in iris tumours

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common intraocular tumour in adults and despite surgical or radiation treatment of primary tumours, ~50% of patients progress to metastatic disease. Therapeutic options for metastatic UM are limited, with clinical trials having little impact. Here we perform whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 103 UM from all sites of the uveal tract (choroid, ciliary body, iris). While most UM have low tumour mutation burden (TMB), two subsets with high TMB are seen; one driven by germline MBD4 mutation, and another by ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, which is restricted to iris UM. All but one tumour have a known UM driver gene mutation (GNAQ, GNA11, BAP1, PLCB4, CYSLTR2, SF3B1, EIF1AX). We identify three other significantly mutated genes (TP53, RPL5 and CENPE)

Atypical processing of gaze cues and faces explains comorbidity between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

This study investigated the neurobiological basis of comorbidity between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We compared children with ASD, ADHD or ADHD+ASD and typically developing controls (CTRL) on behavioural and electrophysiological correlates of gaze cue and face processing. We measured effects of ASD, ADHD and their interaction on the EDAN, an ERP marker of orienting visual attention towards a spatially cued location and the N170, a right-hemisphere lateralised ERP linked to face processing. We identified atypical gaze cue and face processing in children with ASD and ADHD+ASD compared with the ADHD and CTRL groups. The findings indicate a neurobiological basis for the presence of comorbid ASD symptoms in ADHD. Further research using larger samples is needed

Whole genome landscapes of uveal melanoma show an ultraviolet radiation signature in iris tumours

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common intraocular tumour in adults and despite surgical or radiation treatment of primary tumours, ~50% of patients progress to metastatic disease. Therapeutic options for metastatic UM are limited, with clinical trials having little impact. Here we perform whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 103 UM from all sites of the uveal tract (choroid, ciliary body, iris). While most UM have low tumour mutation burden (TMB), two subsets with high TMB are seen; one driven by germline MBD4 mutation, and another by ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, which is restricted to iris UM. All but one tumour have a known UM driver gene mutation (GNAQ, GNA11, BAP1, PLCB4, CYSLTR2, SF3B1, EIF1AX). We identify three other significantly mutated genes (TP53, RPL5 and CENPE).This project was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC; 1093017), the Walking On Sunshine Foundation, Anne Stanton, Nicola Laws and Lloyd Owen in Memorial and Civic Solutions. This study was also funded by Fight for Sight, Denmark. A.L.P. is supported by Highland Island Enterprise (HMS9353763). This work was supported by an NHMRC Program Grant (G.V.L., G.J.M., R.A.S. and N.K.H.). G.V.L. is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship and The University of Sydney, Medical Foundation. R.A.S. is supported by an NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship. Support from Melanoma Institute Australia and The Ainsworth Foundation is also gratefully acknowledged. J.S.W. is supported by a NHMRC early career fellowship (1111678). N.W. is supported by an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship (1139071). N.K.H. is supported by an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship (1117663)

Reduced parahippocampal and lateral temporal GABA(A)-[C-11]flumazenil binding in major depression: preliminary results

Purpose: Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been related to both a dysfunctional γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) system and to hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). Although GABA has been suggested to inhibit HPA axis activity, their relationship has never been studied at the level of the central GAB