Gender-specific differences of interaction between obesity and air pollution on stroke and cardiovascular diseases in Chinese adults from a high pollution range area: A large population based cross sectional study

Background Little information exists regarding the interaction effects of obesity with long-term air pollution exposure on cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and stroke in areas of high pollution. The aim of the present study is to examine whether obesity modifies CVD-related associations among people living in an industrial province of northeast China. Methods We studied 24,845 Chinese adults, aged 18 to 74 years old, from three Northeastern Chinese cities in 2009 utilizing a cross-sectional study design. Body weight and height were measured by trained observers. Overweight and obesity were defined as a body mass index (BMI) between 25–29.9 and ≥ 30 kg/m2, respectively. Prevalence rate and related risk factors of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases were investigated by a questionnaire. Three-year (2006–2008) average concentrations of particulate matter (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxides (NO2), and ozone (O3) were measured by fixed monitoring stations. All the participants lived within 1 km of air monitoring sites. Two-level logistic regression (personal level and district-specific pollutant level) was used to examine these effects, controlling for covariates. Results We observed significant interactions between exposure and obesity on CVDs and stroke. The associations between annual pollutant concentrations and CVDs and stroke were strongest in obese subjects (OR 1.15–1.47 for stroke, 1.33–1.59 for CVDs), less strong in overweight subjects (OR 1.22–1.35 for stroke, 1.07–1.13 for CVDs), and weakest in normal weight subjects (OR ranged from 0.98–1.01 for stroke, 0.93–1.15 for CVDs). When stratified by gender, these interactions were significant only in women. Conclusions Study findings indicate that being overweight and obese may enhance the effects of air pollution on the prevalence of CVDs and stroke in Northeastern metropolitan China. Further studies will be needed to investigate the temporality of BMI relative to exposure and onset of disease.

Orthographic effects on picture naming in Chinese: A 4T erfMRI study

The presence of a phonological relationship between a context word (cap) and the name of a target picture (cat) facilitates picture naming in the picture–word interference task in alphabetic languages such as English and Dutch. Neuroimaging studies of picture naming in English suggest distinct regions of brain activity are involved in phonological priming relative to a baseline control.

Negotiating Chineseness through learning Chinese as a Heritage Language in Australia: The role of habitus

While education researchers have drawn on the work of a wide diversity of theorists over the years, much contemporary theory building in these areas has revolved around the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Theory as Method in Research develops the capacity of students, researchers and teachers to successfully put Bourdieu’s ideas to work in their own research and prepare them effectively for conducting Masters and Doctoral scholarships. Structured around four core themes, this book provides a range of research case studies exploring educational identities, educational inequalities, school leadership and management, and research in teacher education. Issues as diverse as Chinese language learning and identity, school leadership in Australia and the school experience of Afro-Trinidadian boys, are covered, intertwined with a set of innovative approaches to theory application in education research. This collection brings together, in one comprehensive volume, a set of education researchers who place Pierre Bourdieu’s key concepts such as habitus, capital and field at the centre of their research methodologies. Full of insight and innovation, the book is an essential read for practitioners, student teachers, researchers and academics who want to harness the potential of Bourdieu’s core concepts in their own work, thereby helping to bridge the gap between theory and method in education research.

Learning Chinese as a Heritage Language: An Australian Perspective

Summary: This book explores the fascinating topic of heritage language learning, looking in particular at Chinese Australians' learning of Chinese. The author studies the investment, challenges and benefits of heritage language learning across varied contexts including school, work, home and in the community. The book investigates how Chinese Australians navigate and negotiate their Chineseness and how resources are used to support their learning. The book is based on a mixed methods study which uses Bourdieu's sociological theory, and offers implications for sociologists of language and education, Chinese heritage language learners and teachers, as well as language and cultural policy makers. Review: This book is a compelling account of the habitus of Chineseness in a world of mobility. It offers up a plethora of insights into the implication of heritage language learning in the constitution of Chinese identity; it makes available a sophisticated mixed methods approach for using the thinking tools of Pierre Bourdieu; it adds to these tools a nuanced cultural dimension. Karen Dooley, Queensland University of Technology, Australia In our increasingly trans-migratory world, language can be central to cultural identity. Dr Mu’s research breaks new ground by adapting Bourdieu’s insights to examine how cultural identity (‘Chinese-ness’) is linguistically learned and practiced in Australia. His remarkable book will interest educators and researchers grappling with how language pertains to identity. Tom Strong, University of Calgary, Canada A thought-provoking, highly engaging work that has deftly shown how Bourdieusian framework can be applied in the research field of literacy education and Heritage Language learning. A must-read for those interested in overseas Chinese communities and Heritage Language learning across various immigrant communities in general! Liang Du, Beijing Normal University, China

Replication of association of IL1 gene complex members with ankylosing spondylitis in Taiwanese Chinese

Objective: To test the association of interleukin 1 (IL1) gene family members with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), previously reported in Europid subjects, in an ethnically remote population. Methods: 200 Taiwanese Chinese AS patients and 200 ethnically matched healthy controls were genotyped for five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the IL1RN.VNTR, markers previously associated with AS. Allele, genotype, and haplotype frequencies were compared between cases and controls. Results: Association of alleles and genotypes of the markers IL1F10.3, IL1RN.4, and IL1RN.VNTR was observed with AS (p<0.05). Haplotypes of pairs of these markers and of the markers IL1RN.6/1 and IL1RN.6/2 were also significantly associated with AS. The strongest associations observed were with the marker IL1RN.4, and with the two-marker haplotype IL1RN.4-IL1RN.VNTR (both p = 0.004). Strong linkage disequilibrium was observed between all marker pairs except those involving IL1B-511 (D′ 0.4 to 0.9, p<0.01). Conclusions: The IL1 gene cluster is associated with AS in Taiwanese Chinese. This finding provides strong statistical support that the previously observed association of this gene cluster with AS is a true positive finding.

Association of variants in MMEL1 and CTLA4 with rheumatoid arthritis in the Han Chinese population

Background: The genome-wide association study era has made great progress in identifying susceptibility genes and genetic loci for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in populations of White European ancestry. However, few studies have tried to dissect disease aetiopathogenesis in other ethnic populations. Objective: To investigate these associations in the Han Chinese population. Methods: Haplotypes from the HapMap database Chinese population were used to select tag-single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (r2 =0.8) across 19 distinct RA genomic regions. A two phase case-control association study was performed, with 169 SNPs genotyped in phase I (n=571 cases, n=880 controls), and 64 SNPs achieving p<0.2 in the first phase being genotyped in phase II (n=464 cases, n=822 controls). Association statistics were calculated using permutation tests both unadjusted and adjusted for the number of markers studied. Results: Robust association was detected for MMEL1 and CTLA4 , and modest association was identified for another six loci: PADI4 , STAT4 , PRDM1 , CDK6 , TRAF1-C5 and KIF5A-PIP4K2C. All three markers genotyped in MMEL1 demonstrated association, with peak signal for rs3890745 (p=2.6×10 -5unadjusted, p=0.003 adjusted, OR=0.79). For CTLA4 , significance was detected for three of five variants showing association, with peak association for marker rs12992492 (p=4.3×10-5 unadjusted, p=0.0021 adjusted, OR=0.77). Lack of association of common variants in PTPN22 with RA in Han Chinese was confirmed. Conclusion: This study identifies MMEL1 and CTLA4 as RA susceptibility genes, provides suggestive evidence of association for a further six loci in the Han Chinese population and confirms lack of PTPN22 association in Asian populations. It also confirms the value of multiethnic population studies to help dissect disease aetiopathogenesis.

Association of STAT3 and TNFRSF1A with ankylosing spondylitis in Han Chinese

Objectives: Recent association studies by the Australo-Anglo-American Spondyloarthritis Consortium (TASC) in Caucasian European populations from Australia, North America and the UK have identified a number of genes as being associated with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). A candidate gene study in a Han Chinese population was performed based on these findings to identify associated genes in this population. Methods: A case-control study was performed in a Han Chinese population of patients with AS (n=775) and controls (n=1587) from Shanghai and Nanjing. All patients met the modified New York criteria for AS. The cases and controls were genotyped for 115 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) tagging IL23R, ERAP1, STAT3, JAK2, TNFRSF1A and TRADD, as well as other confirmation SNPs from the TASC study, using the Sequenom iPlex and the ABI OpenArray platforms. Statistical analysis of genotyped SNPs was performed using the Cochran - Armitage test for trend and meta-analysis was performed using METAL. SNPs in AS-associated genes in this study were then imputed using MaCH, and association with AS tested by logistic regression. Results: SNPs in TNFRSF1A (rs4149577, p=8.2×10-4), STAT3 (rs2293152, p=0.0015; rs1053005, p=0.017) and ERAP1 (rs27038, p=0.0091; rs27037, p=0.0092) were significantly associated with AS in Han Chinese. Association was also observed between AS and the intergenic region 2p15 (rs10865331, p=0.023). The lack of association between AS and IL23R in Han Chinese was confirmed (all SNPs p>0.1). Conclusions: The study results demonstrate for the first time that genetic polymorphisms in STAT3, TNFRSF1A and 2p15 are associated with AS in Han Chinese, suggesting common pathogenic mechanisms for the disease in Chinese and Caucasian European populations. Furthermore, previous findings demonstrating that ERAP1, but not IL23R, is associated with AS in Chinese patients were confirmed.

High-throughput sequencing of IL23R reveals a low-frequency, nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphism that is associated with ankylosing spondylitis in a Han Chinese population

Objective Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a highly heritable common inflammatory arthritis that targets the spine and sacroiliac joints of the pelvis, causing pain and stiffness and leading eventually to joint fusion. Although previous studies have shown a strong association of IL23R with AS in white Europeans, similar studies in East Asian populations have shown no association with common variants of IL23R, suggesting either that IL23R variants have no role or that rare genetic variants contribute. The present study was undertaken to screen IL23R to identify rare variants associated with AS in Han Chinese. Methods A 170-kb region containing IL23R and its flanking regions was sequenced in 50 patients with AS and 50 ethnically matched healthy control subjects from a Han Chinese population. In addition, the 30-kb region of peak association in white Europeans was sequenced in 650 patients with AS and 1,300 healthy controls. Validation genotyping was undertaken in 846 patients with AS and 1,308 healthy controls. Results We identified 1,047 variants, of which 729 were not found in the dbSNP genomic build 130. Several potentially functional rare variants in IL23R were identified, including one nonsynonomous single-nucleotide polymorphism (nsSNP), Gly149Arg (position 67421184 GA on chromosome 1). Validation genotyping showed that the Gly149Arg variant was associated with AS (odds ratio 0.61, P = 0.0054). Conclusion This is the first study to implicate rare IL23R variants in the pathogenesis of AS. The results identified a low-frequency nsSNP with predicted loss-of-function effects that was protectively associated with AS in Han Chinese, suggesting that decreased function of the interleukin-23 (IL-23) receptor protects against AS. These findings further support the notion that IL-23 signaling has an important role in the pathogenesis of AS.

Association of ERAP1, but not IL23R, with ankylosing spondylitis in a Han Chinese population

Objective The results of a recent genome-wide association study have shown that ERAP1 and IL23R are associated with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in Caucasian populations from North America and the UK. Based on these findings, we undertook the current study to investigate whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covering the genes ERAP1 and IL23R are associated with AS in a Han Chinese population. Methods A case-control study was performed in Han Chinese patients with AS (n = 527) and controls (n = 945) from Shanghai and Nanjing. All patients met the modified New York criteria for AS. The Sequenom iPlex platform was used to genotype cases and controls for 21 tag SNPs covering IL23R and 38 tag SNPs covering ERAP1. Statistical analysis was performed using the Cochran-Armitage test for trend. Results Multiple SNPs in ERAP1 were significantly associated with AS (for rs27980, P = 0.0048; for rs7711564, P = 0.0081). However, no association was observed between IL23R and AS (for all SNPs, P > 0.1). The nonsynonymous SNP in IL23R, rs11209026, widely thought to be the primary AS-associated SNP in IL23R in Europeans, was found not to be polymorphic in Chinese. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that genetic polymorphisms in ERAP1 are associated with AS in Han Chinese, suggesting a common pathogenic mechanism for the disease in Chinese and Caucasian populations, and that IL23R is not associated with AS in Chinese, indicating a difference in the mechanism of disease pathogenesis between Chinese and Caucasian populations. This may result from the fact that rs11209026, the nonsynonymous SNP in IL23R, is not polymorphic in Chinese patients, providing further evidence that rs11209026 is the key polymorphism associated with AS (and likely inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis) in this gene.

Novel risk loci for rheumatoid arthritis in Han Chinese and congruence with risk variants in Europeans

Objective To investigate differences in genetic risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Han Chinese as compared with Europeans. Methods A genome-wide association study was conducted in China with 952 patients and 943 controls, and 32 variants were followed up in 2,132 patients and 2,553 controls. A transpopulation meta-analysis with results from a large European RA study was also performed to compare the genetic architecture across the 2 ethnic remote populations. Results Three non-major histocompatibility complex (non-MHC) loci were identified at the genome-wide significance level, the effect sizes of which were larger in anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA)-positive patients than in ACPA-negative patients. These included 2 novel variants, rs12617656, located in an intron of DPP4 (odds ratio [OR] 1.56, P = 1.6 × 10 -21), and rs12379034, located in the coding region of CDK5RAP2 (OR 1.49, P = 1.1 × 10-16), as well as a variant at the known CCR6 locus, rs1854853 (OR 0.71, P = 6.5 × 10-15). The analysis of ACPA-positive patients versus ACPA-negative patients revealed that rs12617656 at the DPP4 locus showed a strong interaction effect with ACPAs (P = 5.3 × 10-18), and such an interaction was also observed for rs7748270 at the MHC locus (P = 5.9 × 10-8). The transpopulation meta-analysis showed genome-wide overlap and enrichment in association signals across the 2 populations, as confirmed by prediction analysis. Conclusion This study has expanded the list of alleles that confer risk of RA, provided new insight into the pathogenesis of RA, and added empirical evidence to the emerging polygenic nature of complex trait variation driven by common genetic variants. Copyright © 2014 by the American College of Rheumatology.

Pedagogical practices and support systems of inclusion: Empirical evidence from Chinese societies

China has a massive population of children with disabilities. To address the special needs of these children, special/inclusive education in China has developed dramatically since the early 1980s onwards. This Special Issue puts together seven empirical studies emerging from the Chinese societies. These studies analyse inclusive discourses embedded in the education policy documents; scrutinise professional competence of inclusive education teachers; evaluate inclusive education practices in physical education, mathematics education, and job-related social skills education provided to students with disabilities; debate the required in-class support for inclusive education teachers; and discuss the social attitudes towards people with disabilities. The foci, methods and theories vary across the seven studies, while their aims converge. These studies are seeking best possible approaches and best available resources that facilitate inclusion. Knowledge built and lessons learned from these studies will provide implications for future inclusive education practices in China and beyond.

Crossing international boundaries through doctoral partnerships: Learnings from a Chinese-Australian forum

International forums for doctoral students offer a fertile context for developing strategic partner-ships between higher education institutions, as well as for building the intercultural capacity of early career academics. However, there is limited research investigating the benefits of international doctoral forum partnerships. This paper presents learnings from a recent international doctoral forum held in Beijing, China and attended by doctoral students and academics from Beijing Normal University (China) and Queensland University of Technology (Australia). Drawing on qualitative case study method and a model of boundary crossing mechanisms, we identify the beneficial outcomes of the forum. We describe how the forum arose from a strong ongoing partnership between the Education Faculties of Beijing Normal University and Queensland University of Technology. We then identify how, at the institutional and individual level, international doctoral forum participants can be challenged and benefit in four areas: collaboration, intercultural capacity, academic enhancement and program development. Implications for engaging successfully in international doctoral forum partnerships are also discussed.

Theorising the impacts of digitally mediated social interaction on diasporic identity formation: A case of Chinese diaspora in Australia

With the scope of Chinese diaspora in Australia, this paper theorises the impacts of digitally mediated social interaction on diasporic identity formation in the new media landscape. People’s identity is the outcome of their social interactions with other individuals. In the new media landscape, digital media technologies are changing the way in which people communicate with others. On one hand, space and time are unprecedentedly compressed by media technologies so people can maintain more frequent and instant connections with others than before. On the other hand, the digital media technologies have constructed a virtual social space that might withdraw people from their physical social interactions. As we witness today, our social interactions are increasing digitally mediated, in the forms of posts and comments in social network sites, as well as the messages in social apps. As to the diasporic groups, this new media landscape is presenting a challenge to their identity formation. They physically live in the host countries but still keep close social and cultural connections with their homelands. Facilitated by digital media technologies, they are facing two platforms in which they can practice different identity performances: one is the digitally mediated social network; the other is the physical social network. In the case of Chinese diaspora, the situation is more complex due to the language factor and media censorship in Mainland China, which will be articulated in the main text. This paper aims to fill a gap between media studies and diaspora research. Most of existing research on the relationship between diasporic identity and media primarily focuses on the development of ethnic media institutions, and the production and consumption of ethnic media in the pre-digital media context. However, the process of globalisation and digital media technologies are increasing the homogeneity and hybridity of media content worldwide. In this new context, attributing the formation of different identities to the consumption of media content is arguable to some extent. Therefore, the overlapped area of new media studies and diaspora research still has space deserves further investigation.

Comparison of the performance of two commercial genome-wide association study genotyping platforms in Han Chinese samples

Most genome-wide association studies to date have been performed in populations of European descent, but there is increasing interest in expanding these studies to other populations. The performance of genotyping chips in Asian populations is not well established. Therefore, we sought to test the performance of widely used fixed-marker, genome-wide association studies chips in the Han Chinese population. Non-HapMap Chinese samples (n = 396) were genotyped using the Illumina OmniExpress and Affymetrix 6.0 platforms, whereas a subset also were genotyped using the Immunochip. Genotyped markers from the Affymetrix 6.0 and Illumina OmniExpress were used for full genome imputation based on the HapMap 2 JPT+CHB (Japanese from Tokyo, Japan and Chinese from Beijing, China) reference panel. The concordance between markers genotypes for the three platforms was very high whether directly genotyped or genotyped and imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; .99.8% for directly genotyped and .99.5% for genotyped and imputed SNPs, respectively) were compared. The OmniExpress chip data enabled more SNPs to be imputed, particularly SNPs with minor allele frequency .5%. The OmniExpress chip achieved better coverage of HapMap SNPs than the Affymetrix 6.0 chip (73.6% vs. 65.9%, respectively, for minor allele frequency .5%). The Affymetrix 6.0 and Illumina OmniExpress chip have similar genotyping accuracy and provide similar accuracy of imputed SNPs. The OmniExpress chip however provides better coverage of Asian HapMap SNPs, although its coverage of HapMap SNPs is moderate. © 2013 Jiang et al.