Transgender populations are heavily burdened by HIV and other sexually transmissible infections (STIs). However, data on co-infection with HIV and STIs among transgender people are limited. A systematic review was conducted of peer-reviewed articles and conference abstracts between January 2010 and November 2015 that focussed on HIV and STI infections among transgender populations globally. The literature was synthesised and opportunities for improving health research were commented on. Few studies reported HIV-STI co-infection (n=4), while the majority of studies reported HIV and STI infections separately (n=23). Most studies were conducted outside of the USA (n=19), and all but one of these studies reported data on transgender women only. Among USA-based studies (n=8), several reported data on both transgender men and transgender women (n=3), whereas other studies reported exclusively on transgender men (n=1) or transgender women (n=4). Understanding HIV and STIs among transgender people requires research that simultaneously considers multilevel drivers of vulnerabilities. More data are needed on how the interaction of individual determinants, including biological risks of transmission, programmatic determinants such as service-delivery models and policy-level determinants including institutionalised stigma in healthcare settings, influence the HIV- and STI-related outcomes of transgender populations. Leveraging the knowledge of transgender-specific determinants of HIV and STIs should guide the content and approaches to future HIV and STI prevention and treatment efforts.

Both GLQG and physical stretching are beneficial during recovery following breast cancer. GLQC was more effective in terms of Qol improvements than physical stretching. Both programs brought improvements in anxiety or depression but had were comparable. GLQC group had a greater effect on immunological function than physical exercise.

Reversible Boolean function is a one-to-one function which maps n-bit input to n-bit output. Reversible logic synthesis has been widely studied due to its relationship with low-energy computation as well as quantum computation. In this work, we give a structured decomposition for even reversible Boolean functions (RBF). Specifically, for n ≥ 6, any even n-bit RBF can be decomposed to 7 blocks of (n − 1)-bit RBF, where 7 is a constant independent of n; and the positions of those blocks have large degree of freedom. Moreover, if the (n − 1)-bit RBFs are required to be even as well, we show for n ≥ 10, n-bit RBF can be decomposed to 10 even (n − 1)-bit RBFs. For simplicity, we say our decomposition has block depth 7 and even block depth 10.Our result improves Selinger's work in block depth model, by reducing the constant from 9 to 7; and from 13 to 10 when the blocks are limited to be even. We emphasize that our setting is a bit different from Selinger's. In Selinger's constructive proof, each block is one of two specific positions and thus the decomposition has an alternating structure. We relax this restriction and allow each block to act on arbitrary (n − 1) bits. This relaxation keeps the block structure and provides more candidates when choosing positions of blocks.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The genetic markers on mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome can be applied as a powerful tool in population genetics. We present a study to reveal the genetic background of Kyrgyz group, a Chinese ethnic group living in northwest China, and genetic polymorphisms of 60 loci on maternal inherited mtDNA and 24 loci on paternal inherited Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) were investigated. The relationship between the two systems was tested, and the result indicated that they were statistically independent from each other. The genetic distances between Kyrgyz group and 11 reference populations for mtDNA, and 13 reference populations for Y-STRs were also calculated, respectively. The present results demonstrated that the Kyrgyz group was genetically closer to East Asian populations than European populations based on the mtDNA loci but the other way around for the Y-STRs. The genetic analyses could largely strengthen the understanding for the genetic background of the Kyrgyz group.

A small NGS-SNP panel of ancestry inference designed to distinguish African, European, East, and South Asian populationsIn this study, a small set of ancestry informative SNPs was selected to differentiate African, European, East and South Asian samples, which was detected by the next-generation sequencing technology. A total of 127 Chinese Shaanxi Han individuals were collected as test samples. No statistically significant linkage disequilibrium of any pair of loci or departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of each locus was observed in the test population. To evaluate the performance of ancestry assignment using this panel, admixture analysis, principal component analysis, and likelihood ratio calculations were conducted based on the 1000 genome data and test samples. All populations were clustered into four groups, African, European, South and East Asian populations, which were consistent with their geographical origins. The pairwise fixation index (F ST ) between populations from different continental groups ranged from 0.140 to 0.621 with average 0.415, and the pairwise F ST between populations from the same continent ranged from 0.000 to 0.056 with average 0.012. The likelihood ratio results of 125 test individuals indicated that their ancestry components were highly possible from East Asia. In conclusion, this small set of ancestry informative SNPs can be used as a reliable tool to identify and quantify ancestry components of unknown samples.

BackgroundThis retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the relationship between Chinese medicine (CM) dietary patterns (hot, neutral, and cold) and the incidence of breast cancer among Chinese women in Hong Kong.MethodsBreast cancer cases (n = 202) and healthy controls (n = 202) were matched according to demographics. Chinese women residing in Hong Kong for the past 7 years were recruited by media advertisements (e.g., via newspapers, radio, and posters). The control participants were recruited by convenience sampling from health workshops held in clinics and communities of 15 districts of Hong Kong. After completing test–retest reliability, all participants were asked to complete diet pattern questionnaires about their food preferences and dietary patterns. The Student’s unpaired t test, Chi square test, and logistic regression were conducted using SPSS software.ResultsThree major CM dietary patterns were identified: hot, neutral, and cold. The participants with breast cancer exhibited a stronger preference for hot food than the control group (Chi square test, P < 0.001). A higher frequency of breast cancer was associated with a higher frequency of dining out for breakfast (4–5 times per week, Chi square test, P = 0.015; 6–7 times per week, Chi square test, P < 0.001) and lunch (4–5 times per week, Chi square test, P < 0.001; 6–7 times per week, Chi square test, P = 0.006). The participants with no history of breast cancer consumed CM supplements and Guangdong soups (1–2 times per week, Chi square test, P = 0.05; >3 times per week, Chi square test, P < 0.001) more frequently than those with breast cancer.ConclusionsNon-breast cancer participants adopted a neutral (healthy and balanced) dietary pattern, and consumed CM supplements and Guangdong soups more frequently.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13020-017-0138-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No abstract