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Residual OXPHOS is required to drive primary and metastatic lung tumours in an orthotopic breast cancer model
No full textBackground: Fast adaptation of glycolytic and mitochondrial energy pathways to changes in the tumour microenvironment is a hallmark of cancer. Purely glycolytic ρ0 tumour cells do not form primary tumours unless they acquire healthy mitochondria from their micro-environment. Here we explored the effects of severely compromised respiration on the metastatic capability of 4T1 mouse breast cancer cells. Methods: 4T1 cell lines with different levels of respiratory capacity were generated; the Seahorse extracellular flux analyser was used to evaluate oxygen consumption rates, fluorescent confocal microscopy to assess the number of SYBR gold-stained mitochondrial DNA nucleoids, and the presence of the ATP5B protein in the cytoplasm and fluorescent in situ nuclear hybridization was used to establish ploidy. MinION nanopore RNA sequence analysis was used to compare mitochondrial DNA transcription between cell lines. Orthotopic injection was used to determine the ability of cells to metastasize to the lungs of female Balb/c mice. Results: OXPHOS-deficient ATP5B-KO3.1 cells did not generate primary tumours. Severely OXPHOS compromised ρ0D5 cells generated both primary tumours and lung metastases. Cells generated from lung metastasis of both OXPHOS-competent and OXPHOS-compromised cells formed primary tumours but no metastases when re-injected into mice. OXPHOS-compromised cells significantly increased their mtDNA content, but this did not result in increased OXPHOS capacity, which was not due to decreased mtDNA transcription. Gene set enrichment analysis suggests that certain cells derived from lung metastases downregulate their epithelial-to-mesenchymal related pathways. Conclusion: In summary, OXPHOS is required for tumorigenesis in this orthotopic mouse breast cancer model but even very low levels of OXPHOS are sufficient to generate both primary tumours and lung metastases
Surveying and resonating with teacher concerns during COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic jolted teachers to the front line of complex, under resourced negotiation of quality distance learning, whilst also being key communicators with students and families about how to be COVID safe. Media reports debated preschool and school closures and child safety, but scarcely considered teachers. Motivated by the silencing of teachers and extraordinary changes to education, we gathered as a group of nine educational researchers located in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and U.S.A to create a survey platform for teachers’ lived experiences of the impact of COVID-19. Our survey asked 22 questions and attracted 624 responses. This article focuses on question 12: What are the issues you are struggling with and need support with? Drawing from Latour’s provocation we distil key ‘matters of concern’ from the data, illustrated by excerpts from teacher responses and echoed by the authors’ COVID lived experiences as interwoven blackout poetry. Our collated experiences highlight struggles with online learning, connectivity/communication with students and families, quality of teaching, and workload, and the need to value and invest in education and the professionalism of teachers to address these struggles
Methods in causal inference. Part 1: causal diagrams and confounding
No full textCausal inference requires contrasting counterfactual states under specified interventions. Obtaining these contrasts from data depends on explicit assumptions and careful, multi-step workflows. Causal diagrams are crucial for clarifying the identifiability of counterfactual contrasts from data. Here, I explain how to use causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to determine if and how causal effects can be identified from non-experimental observational data, offering practical reporting tips and suggestions to avoid common pitfalls
Relational Encounters in Urban Public Spaces: A Feminist Posthuman Autoethnographic Becoming of a Site-Specific Performance
No full textThis paper presents a reimagination of urban public space through a site-specific performance. The work is transdisciplinary, engaging architecture and art practice, and is documented through a feminist posthuman autoethnographic approach. Urban spaces are reimagined through coalescing the author’s performative encounters, informed by collaborations with female Ewengki/Evenki shamanic practitioners from northern China, and female Rongoā Māori healers in Pōneke Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand. The performance, Healing Matrix, unfolds as a journey, traversing tangible and intangible relations in public spaces at the edge of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington Harbour, where the city meets the sea. Complex moments of becoming are drawn out as the performance moves around the harbour’s edge, captured through feminist posthuman autoethnographic techniques: through mapping sensory impressions, improvisations, presences of other-than human entities, such as Taniwha (spiritual beings), and the researcher’s embodied shamanic perceptions and experiences. These techniques are influenced by the female indigenous Rongoā Māori and Ewengki/Evenki collaborators. The research subjectivity is decentred, and intricately connects to a relational, embodied collective of women, colonial urban sites, indigenous multi-species traditions, and technological entities. The Healing Matrix performance attempts to capture complex relations within urban public spaces that are present at the cusp of awareness. In encountering these evasive conditions, and giving agency to them, the work suggests new ways in which urban public space might be understood. This paper positions feminist posthuman autoethnography as a way to understand such complex relations, emerging from creative performances, and shows how these might prompt a reimagining of urban public space
Ghosts of kinship and ghosts of foe: Māori doctoral student belonging in Aotearoa universities
No full textA conference presentation at the Sociology Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (SAANZ conference 2024) based on an aspect of the paper 'The Haunted Academy: A Whakapapa Approach to Understanding Māori Doctoral Student Belonging in Aotearoa Universities
Do children imitate even when it is costly? New insights from a novel task
No full textChildren have a proclivity to learn through faithful imitation, but the extent to which this applies under significant cost remains unclear. To address this, we investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) would stop imitating to forego a desirable food reward. We presented participants with a task involving arranging marshmallows and craft sticks, with the goal being either to collect marshmallows or build a tower. Children replicated the demonstrated actions with high fidelity regardless of the goal, but retrieved rewards differently. Children either copied the specific actions needed to build a tower, prioritizing tower completion over reward; or adopted a novel convention of stacking materials before collecting marshmallows, and developed their own method to achieve better outcomes. These results suggest children's social learning decisions are flexible and context-dependent, yet that when framed by an ostensive goal, children imitated in adherence to the goal despite incurring significant material costs
AI in Action: Exploring the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on New Zealand's Productivity
No full textNo description supplie
Phrasal Prosody of Heritage Speakers of Samoan in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textIn recent times, the study of heritage languages has rapidly grown as an area of enquiry. However, until now, less has been known about the sounds and sound systems of heritage languages. Bringing together researchers from around the globe, this volume is the first full, book-length treatment of the phonetics and phonology of heritage languages. Each chapter examines understudied bilingual dyads in a broad range of geographic and social contexts, and through a wide variety of methodological and theoretical orientations. A wide range of heritage language sound system issues are addressed: at the segmental level, production of vowels and various consonants, segmental perception, and the perception of written forms signalling phonological variation; and at the suprasegmental level, declarative and question intonation, stress, focus, and lexical tone. It is essential reading for academic researchers and students in heritage languages, bilingualism, phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics, and language variation and change
Construction industry well-being survey results.
No full textThe 2023 MATES Construction Industry Well-being Survey, supported by ASB, sheds light on the mental health and well-being of over 2,100 workers in New Zealand’s construction sector. The online and onsite multi-language survey revealed that while overall self-reported well-being has improved compared to previous years, certain groups – such as those with mental illness or disabilities, non-binary individuals, younger workers, those with low support or not in relationships, and workers living in the Te Manawa Taki region – continue to face higher levels of stress and psychological distress. Key psychosocial stressors of concern included high job demand, poor relationships, and exhaustion
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