Three bacterial species isolated from whole body extracts of the greater wax moth larvae, Galleria mellonella, were evaluated for their ability to utilize low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as a sole carbon source in vitro. These bacteria were identified as Lysinibacillusfusiformis, Bacillus aryabhattai, and Microbacterium oxydans. Their ability to biodegrade LDPE was assessed by growth curves, cell biomass production, polyethylene (PE) weight loss, and the presence of LDPE hydrolysis products in the growth media. Consortia of these bacteria with three other bacteria previously shown to degrade LDPE (Cupriavidus necator H16, Pseudomonas putida LS46, and Pseudomonas putida IRN22) were also tested. Growth curves of the bacteria utilizing LDPE as a sole carbon source revealed a peak in cell density after 24 h. Cell densities declined by 48 h but slowly increased again to different extents, depending on the bacteria. Incubation of LDPE with bacteria isolated from greater wax moth larvae had significant effects on bacterial cell mass production and weight loss of LDPE in PE-containing media. The bacterial consortia were better able to degrade LDPE than were the individual species alone. Gas chromatographic analyses revealed the presence of linear alkanes and other unknown putative LDPE hydrolysis products in some of bacterial culture media.Interaction-Transformation (IT) is a new representation for Symbolic Regression that reduces the space of solutions to a set of expressions that follow a specific structure. The potential of this representation was illustrated in prior work with the algorithm called SymTree. This algorithm starts with a simple linear model and incrementally introduces new transformed features until a stop criterion is met. While the results obtained by this algorithm were competitive with the literature, it had the drawback of not scaling well with the problem dimension. This paper introduces a mutation only Evolutionary Algorithm, called ITEA, capable of evolving a population of IT expressions. One advantage of this algorithm is that it enables the user to specify the maximum number of terms in an expression. In order to verify the competitiveness of this approach, ITEA is compared to linear, nonlinear and Symbolic Regression models from the literature. The results indicate that ITEA is capable of finding equal or better approximations than other Symbolic Regression models while being competitive to state-of-the-art non-linear models. Additionally, since this representation follows a specific structure, it is possible to extract the importance of each original feature of a data set as an analytical function, enabling us to automate the explanation of any prediction. In conclusion, ITEA is competitive when comparing to regression models with the additional benefit of automating the extraction of additional information of the generated models.Sexual prejudice toward men who have sex with men (MSM) is a pressing concern in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Given the high HIV infection risk among this population, sexual prejudice perpetuated by healthcare providers, affects access to and willingness of MSM to seek HIV care services. However, data on healthcare providers' attitudes towards MSM in SSA are limited, and there are no locally-adapted measures of sexual prejudice. We adapted a scale to measure sexual prejudice with a sample of 147 healthcare providers in western Kenya. Results from exploratory factor analysis revealed a single-factor structure. The scale demonstrated high internal consistency with Cronbach's α = 0.91. Healthcare providers who had prior interpersonal contact with MSM, had ever been trained on counselling MSM, and had higher knowledge about MSM health needs reported lower sexual prejudice scores, compared with peers who lacked these experiences (p  less then  0.001). In contrast, healthcare providers who had experienced secondary stigma (negative judgments from peers and community) for providing care to MSM reported higher scores of sexual prejudice scale (p  less then  0.001) compared with providers who had not experienced secondary stigma. The scale provides a contextualised tool to assess healthcare providers' attitudes toward MSM in Kenya and countries in SSA with similar cultural norms.In recent years, our perception of chromatin structure and organization in the cell nucleus has changed in fundamental ways. The 30 nm chromatin fiber has lost its status as an essential in vivo structure. Hi-C and related biochemical methods, advanced electron and super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, together with concepts from soft matter physics, have revolutionized the field. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/nedometinib.html A comprehensive understanding of the structural and functional interactions that regulate cell cycle and cell type specific nuclear functions appears within reach, but it requires the integration of top-down and bottom-up approachs. In this review, I present an update on nuclear architecture studies with an emphasis on organization and the controversy regarding the physical state of chromatin in cells.We used a distributed-language model to examine the moral language employed by U.S. political elites. In Study 1, we analyzed 687,360 Twitter messages (tweets) posted by accounts belonging to Democratic and Republican members of Congress from 2016 to 2018. In Study 2, we analyzed 2,630,688 speeches given on the floor of the House and Senate from 1981 to 2017. We found that partisan differences in moral-language use shifted over time as the parties gained or lost political power. Overall, lower political power was associated with greater use of moral language for both Democrats and Republicans. On Twitter, Democrats used more moral language in the period after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. In Congressional transcripts, both Democrats and Republicans used more of most kinds of moral language when they were in the minority.Manglietia decidua, named 'Hua manglietia', belonging to the Magnoliaceae family, is one of the most important ornamental plant in China. In 2019 and 2020, an unknown disease caused 3- to 12-month plants of M. decidua to wither and die in the field in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province（N21°9'3";E110°17'47"）. Initially, the infected plants showed leaves dehydration, chlorosis and wilting with water-soaked lesions on stems at ground level. About 7 days later, the plants completely wilted, collapsed and died. Delayed and stunted growth with wilting of foliage continued through the whole year. Dense white mycelial mat and small white-to-brown spherical sclerotia were observed on the surface of the stalk lesion when weather conditions were warm and humid. Approximately 10% of plants were infected. Especially from July to October 2020, up to 30% of about 500 plants were infected and died. To identify the causal agents of the disease, infected tissue and sclerotia were collected, surface disinfected in 75% alcohol for 30s and 30% hydrogen peroxide solution for 5 min, and washed with sterile water for 1 min.