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Malassezia species are important fungal skin commensals and are part of the normal microbiota of humans and other animals. However, under certain circumstances these fungi can also display a pathogenic behavior. For example, Malassezia furfur is a common commensal of human skin and yet is often responsible for skin disorders but also systemic infections. Comparative genomics analysis of M. furfur revealed that some isolates have a hybrid origin, similar to several other recently described hybrid fungal pathogens. Because hybrid species exhibit genomic plasticity that can impact phenotypes, we sought to elucidate the genomic evolution and phenotypic characteristics of M. furfur hybrids in comparison to their parental lineages. To this end, we performed a comparative genomics analysis between hybrid strains and their presumptive parental lineages and assessed phenotypic characteristics. Our results provide evidence that at least two distinct hybridization events occurred between the same parental lineages and that the parental strains may have originally been hybrids themselves. Analysis of the mating-type locus reveals that M. furfur has a pseudobipolar mating system and provides evidence that after sexual liaisons of mating compatible cells, hybridization involved cell-cell fusion leading to a diploid/aneuploid state. This study provides new insights into the evolutionary trajectory of M. furfur and contributes with valuable genomic resources for future pathogenicity studies. IMPORTANCEMalassezia furfur is a common commensal member of human/animal microbiota that is also associated with several pathogenic states. Recent studies report involvement of Malassezia species in Crohn's disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatic cancer progression, and exacerbation of cystic fibrosis. A recent genomics analysis of M. furfur revealed the existence of hybrid isolates and identified their putative parental lineages. In this study, we explored the genomic and

Background Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) causes urogenital tract infections and is associated with reproductive morbidity. Although MG has been reported across many regions and population groups, it is not yet routinely tested for in China. Our study contributes to current research by reporting the prevalence and correlates of MG infection in patients attending a sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinic in Guangdong from Jan 2017-May 2018. Methods Urethral (from 489 men) and endo-cervical (from 189 women) samples, blood samples, and patient histories (via questionnaires) were collected. Doctors clinically diagnosed anogenital warts (GW) during the examination (n = 678). The presence of MG was evaluated using an in-house via polymerase chain reaction protocol. We also tested all participants for herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), syphilis and HIV. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to evaluate factors associated with MG. Results MG was detected in 7.2% (49/678) of the patients (men, 7.4%; women, 6.9%). The MG positivity rate was 14.2% among symptomatic patients, and 5.6% for asymptomatic patients, respectively. Only 36.7% (18/49) Mg positive patients were symptomatic. Among the MG-infected patients, 10.2% were co-infected with CT, 6.1% with NG, 8.2% with HSV-2, 4.1% with syphilis and 22.4% with GW. Presentation with clinical symptoms was significantly associated with MG infection [OR = 2.52 (2.03–3.13)]. In our analysis, MG was not associated with other STIs. Conclusions MG is a relatively common infection among individuals attending an STI clinic in Guangdong Province. Routine testing of symptomatic patients may be necessary, and more epidemiological studies are needed to provide evidence for future testing guidelines.

The marriage of dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) and coordination chemistry is a powerful tool for assembling complex architectures from simple building units. Recently, the synthesis of woven covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with topologically fascinating structures has been achieved using this approach. However, the scope is highly limited and there is a need to discover new pathways that can assemble covalently linked organic threads into crystalline frameworks. Herein, we have identified branching pathways leading to the assembly of three-dimensional (3D) woven COFs or one-dimensional (1D) metallo-COFs (mCOFs), where the mechanism is underpinned by the absence or presence of ligand exchange.

Although polymers have been studied for well over a century, there are few examples of covalently linked polymer crystals synthesised directly from solution. One-dimensional (1D) covalent polymers that are packed into a framework structure can be viewed as a 1D covalent organic framework (COF), but making a single crystal of this has been elusive. Herein, by combining labile metal coordination and dynamic covalent chemistry, we discover a strategy to synthesise single-crystal metallo-COFs under solvothermal conditions. The single-crystal structure is rigorously solved using single-crystal electron diffraction technique. The non-centrosymmetric metallo-COF allows second harmonic generation. Due to the presence of syntactic pendant amine groups along the polymer chains, the metallopolymer crystal can be further cross-linked into a crystalline woven network. Although polymers have been studied for well over a century, there are few examples of covalently linked polymer crystals synthesized directly from solution. Here, the authors demonstrate a strategy to synthesize single crystalline 1D metallo-covalent organic frameworks by combining dynamic covalent chemistry and metal-ligand coordination.

Network community detection is a hot research topic in network analysis. Although many methods have been proposed for community detection, most of them only take into consideration the lower-order structure of the network at the level of individual nodes and edges. Thus, they fail to capture the higher-order characteristics at the level of small dense subgraph patterns, e.g., motifs. Recently, some higher-order methods have been developed but they typically focus on the motif-based hypergraph which is assumed to be a connected graph. However, such assumption cannot be ensured in some real-world networks. In particular, the hypergraph may become fragmented. That is, it may consist of a large number of connected components and isolated nodes, despite the fact that the original network is a connected graph. Therefore, the existing higher-order methods would suffer seriously from the above fragmentation issue, since in these approaches, nodes without connection in hypergraph can't be grouped together even if they belong to the same community. To address the above fragmentation issue, we propose an Edge enhancement approach for Motif-aware community detection (EdMot). The main idea is as follows. Firstly, a motif-based hypergraph is constructed and the top K largest connected components in the hypergraph are partitioned into modules. Afterwards, the connectivity structure within each module is strengthened by constructing an edge set to derive a clique from each module. Based on the new edge set, the original connectivity structure of the input network is enhanced to generate a rewired network, whereby the motif-based higher-order structure is leveraged and the hypergraph fragmentation issue is well addressed. Finally, the rewired network is partitioned to obtain the higher-order community structure., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Accepted by KDD 19

Rising trend of foodborne illness and emergence of antimicrobial resistance in Malaysia pose serious threat to the public and thus a new and effective antibacterial agent is required to address the situation. The non-pathogenic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with high antibacterial potential can be isolated from rotten vegetables and showed inhibitory activity toward foodborne pathogens. The objective of this study was to isolate and identify LAB, also to determine the inhibitory activity from rotten vegetables against foodborne pathogens. A total of eight LAB isolates were isolated from seven types of rotten vegetables. The antibacterial activities of isolates against Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538, Listeria monocytogenes L10 were determined using the agar-well diffusion method. E. coli ATCC 8739 appeared to be the most susceptible test organisms to LAB isolates as the inhibition zone of all LAB isolates against E. coli ATCC 8739 were obviously larger than the other test organisms. The antibacterial agents were stable within limit range of pH values from pH 2.0 to 5.0. Antibacterial activity was not observed when the pH of the supernatant was adjusted to above pH 6.0. Inhibitory activity of isolates can be observed even at high temperature from 50oC to 100oC, yet the zone of inhibition showed a decrease trend in all isolates as the temperature goes up.

Rising trend of foodborne illness and emergence of antimicrobial resistance in Malaysia pose serious threat to the public and thus a new and effective antibacterial agent is required to address the situation. The non-pathogenic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with high antibacterial potential can be isolated from rotten vegetables and showed inhibitory activity toward foodborne pathogens. The objective of this study was to isolate and identify LAB, also to determine the inhibitory activity from rotten vegetables against foodborne pathogens. A total of eight LAB isolates were isolated from seven types of rotten vegetables. The antibacterial activities of isolates against Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538, Listeria monocytogenes L10 were determined using the agar-well diffusion method. E. coli ATCC 8739 appeared to be the most susceptible test organisms to LAB isolates as the inhibition zone of all LAB isolates against E. coli ATCC 8739 were obviously larger than the other test organisms. The antibacterial agents were stable within limit range of pH values from pH 2.0 to 5.0. Antibacterial activity was not observed when the pH of the supernatant was adjusted to above pH 6.0. Inhibitory activity of isolates can be observed even at high temperature from 50oC to 100oC, yet the zone of inhibition showed a decrease trend in all isolates as the temperature goes up.

This paper will examine the feasibility of restaurants integrating or providing nutritional information labels on food menus to increase business sales and gain customer satisfaction. It weighs the pros and cons of the usage of nutritional information labeling that has changed over time due to government policies, and clearly explains how restaurants can make use of nutrition labeling to increase and sustain the business. It will then further analyze both general advantages and disadvantages, consisting of economic, social, health and environmental impacts with an unbiased perspective. With a different set of clientele for the varying types of restaurants, nutritional information labeling would inevitably be deemed as more favorable for certain restaurants. Recommendations have been made with regards to what the restaurant operators can implement to jump on the bandwagon of the health trend, increase their market share, and sustain in the long run.

This paper will examine the feasibility of restaurants integrating or providing nutritional information labels on food menus to increase business sales and gain customer satisfaction. It weighs the pros and cons of the usage of nutritional information labeling that has changed over time due to government policies, and clearly explains how restaurants can make use of nutrition labeling to increase and sustain the business. It will then further analyze both general advantages and disadvantages, consisting of economic, social, health and environmental impacts with an unbiased perspective. With a different set of clientele for the varying types of restaurants, nutritional information labeling would inevitably be deemed as more favorable for certain restaurants. Recommendations have been made with regards to what the restaurant operators can implement to jump on the bandwagon of the health trend, increase their market share, and sustain in the long run.