FGF4 ameliorates the liver inflammation by reducing M1 macrophage polarization in experimental autoimmune hepatitis.

BACKGROUND: The global prevalence of autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is increasing due in part to the lack of effective pharmacotherapies. Growing evidence suggests that fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4) is crucial for diverse aspects of liver pathophysiology. However, its role in AIH remains unknown. Therefore, we investigated whether FGF4 can regulate M1 macrophage and thereby help treat liver inflammation in AIH. METHODS: We obtained transcriptome-sequencing and clinical data for patients with AIH. Mice were injected with concanavalin A to induce experimental autoimmune hepatitis (EAH). The mechanism of action of FGF4 was examined using macrophage cell lines and bone marrow-derived macrophages. RESULTS: We observed higher expression of markers associated with M1 and M2 macrophages in patients with AIH than that in individuals without AIH. EAH mice showed greater M1-macrophage polarization than control mice. The expression of M1-macrophage markers correlated positively with FGF4 expression. The loss of hepatic Fgf4 aggravated hepatic inflammation by increasing the abundance of M1 macrophages. In contrast, the pharmacological administration of FGF4 mitigated hepatic inflammation by reducing M1-macrophage levels. The efficacy of FGF4 treatment was compromised following the in vivo clearance of macrophage populations. Mechanistically, FGF4 treatment activated the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-protein kinase B (AKT)-signal pathway in macrophages, which led to reduced M1 macrophages and hepatic inflammation. CONCLUSION: We identified FGF4 as a novel M1/M2 macrophage-phenotype regulator that acts through the PI3K-AKT-signaling pathway, suggesting that FGF4 may represent a novel target for treating inflammation in patients with AIH.

Effectiveness of influenza vaccine among the population in Chongqing, China, 2018-2022: A test negative design-based evaluation.

Influenza vaccination is the most cost-effective strategy for influenza prevention. Influenza vaccines have been found to be effective against symptomatic and medically attended outpatient influenza illnesses. However, there is currently a lack of data regarding the effectiveness of inactivated influenza vaccines in Chongqing, China. We conducted a prospective observational test-negative design study. Outpatient and emergency cases presenting with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and available influenza reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were selected and classified as cases (positive influenza RT-PCR) or controls (negative influenza RT-PCR). A total of 7,307 cases of influenza and 7,905 control subjects were included in this study. The overall adjusted influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) was 44.4% (95% confidence interval (CI): 32.5-54.2%). In the age groups of less than 6 years old, 6-18 years old, and 19-59 years old, the adjusted IVE were 32.2% (95% CI: 10.0-48.9%), 48.2% (95% CI: 30.6-61.4%), and 72.0% (95% CI: 43.6-86.1%). The adjusted IVE for H1N1, H3N2 and B (Victoria) were 71.1% (95% CI: 55.4-81.3%), 36.1% (95% CI: 14.6-52.2%) and 33.7% (95% CI: 14.6-48.5%). Influenza vaccination was effective in Chongqing from 2018 to 2022. Evaluating IVE in this area is feasible and should be conducted annually in the future.

TaSPL6B, a member of the Squamosa promoter binding protein-like family, regulates shoot branching and florescence in Arabidopsis thaliana.

BACKGROUND: Squamosa promoter-binding protein-like (SPL) proteins are essential to plant growth and development as plant-specific transcription factors. However, the functions of SPL proteins in wheat need to be further explored. RESULTS: We cloned and characterized TaSPL6B of wheat in this study. Analysis of physicochemical properties revealed that it contained 961 amino acids and had a molecular weight of 105 kDa. Full-length TaSPL6B transcription activity was not validated in yeast and subcellular localization analysis revealed that TaSPL6B was distributed in the nucleus. Ectopic expression of TaSPL6B in Arabidopsis led to increasing number of branches and early flowering. TaSPL6B was highly transcribed in internodes of transgenic Arabidopsis. The expression of AtSMXL6/AtSMXL7/AtSMXL8 (homologous genes of TaD53) was markedly increased, whereas the expression of AtSPL2 (homologous genes of TaSPL3) and AtBRC1 (homologous genes of TaTB1) was markedly reduced in the internodes of transgenic Arabidopsis. Besides, TaSPL6B, TaSPL3 and TaD53 interacted with one another, as demonstrated by yeast two-hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays. Therefore, we speculated that TaSPL6B brought together TaD53 and TaSPL3 and enhanced the inhibition effect of TaD53 on TaSPL3 through integrating light and strigolactone signaling pathways, followed by suppression of TaTB1, a key repressor of tillering. CONCLUSIONS: As a whole, our findings contribute to a better understanding of how SPL genes work in wheat and will be useful for further research into how TaSPL6B affects yield-related traits in wheat.

Risk and related factors of elbow musculoskeletal diseases: a nationwide cross-sectional survey in China.

OBJECTIVES: Although studies have shown that work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are common and continue to be a major source of disability and work time loss, there are few reports about elbow WMSDs. The aim of this study was to explore the prevalence and associated factors of elbow WMSDs. METHODS: The valid questionnaires of 57501 workers from 15 different industries nationwide were collected and the c2 test and logistic regression analysis were applied to reveal the prevalence and risk factors of elbow WMSDs. RESULTS: The findings indicated that the overall prevalence of elbow WMSDs among workers was 7.3%. However, the prevalence of elbow WMSDs in toy manufacturing was 21.3%, which was significantly higher than that in other industries (P < .05). Logistic regression analysis showed that age 40 and above, married, very poor health, left-handedness, lifting weights (more than 20 kg each time), work requiring upper limb or hand force, work in an uncomfortable position, repetitive operations within 1 minute, using vibrating tools, work involving cold, cool draughts, or temperature changes, work being completed in the same workshop, work being done outdoors, frequent dealings with customers, 2 shifts, often working overtime, staff shortage, and often working for colleagues were risk factors for elbow WMSDs. A higer education level, monthly income, and enough rest time were protective factors for elbow WMSDs. CONCLUSIONS: Toy manufacturing is a high-risk industry for elbow WMSDs. Promotion of education about ergonomics should be strengthened, and workers' ergonomics awareness should be improved to reduce the impact of WMSDs.

Cross-sectional study on the health of workers exposed to occupational noise in China.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand the health of workers exposed to occupational noise and explore the influencing factors related to workers' health, especially the impact of noise on workers' hearing. This work can provide a basis for formulating relevant measures for occupational noise prevention and control in the future. METHODS: On the basis of the key occupational disease monitoring project in Chongqing, China, in 2021, the data of 1125 workers exposed to occupational noise were analyzed. Data included demographic information, occupational history, clinical physical examination information, and noise detection information of the working environment. Chi-square test and multifactorial logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The prevalence rates of abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure (BP), and pure tone audiometry (PTA) were 21.9% (246/1125), 27.8% (313/1125), and 18.0% (202/1125), respectively. Male workers accounted for 78.8%. Compared with male workers, female workers had a lower prevalence of abnormal PTA (OR = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.16-0.50). Workers working in medium enterprises had a lower prevalence of abnormal BP than workers in micro enterprises (OR = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.19-0.66). The prevalence of abnormal BP and PTA of workers increased with age. After adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index, the prevalence of abnormal ECG of mining workers was higher than that of manufacturing workers (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.07-2.24), and the prevalence of abnormal PTA had a rising trend with the increase in noise exposure value. CONCLUSION: Noise-exposed workers have a high prevalence of abnormal ECG, BP, and PTA, and factors such as age, enterprise size, and workplace noise exposure are correlated with the aberrant health of workers. Governments, enterprises, and individuals need to attach great importance to the possible adverse effects of noise. They must also actively adopt various effective measures to protect the occupational safety and health of workers.

For the occurrence of PPCPs from source to tap: A novel approach modified in terms of sample preservation and SPE cartridge to monitor PPCPs in our water supply.

BACKGROUND: The ongoing infusion of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) into ecosystems sustains a perpetual life cycle and leads to multi-generational exposures. Limited understanding of their environmental impact and their intrinsic ability to induce physiological effect in humans, even at low doses, pose great risks to human health. Few scholarly works have conducted systematic research into the occurrence of PPCPs within potable water systems. Concurrently, the associated monitoring techniques have not been comprehensively examined with regards to the specific nature of drinking water, namely whether the significant presence of disinfectants may influence the detection of PPCPs. RESULTS: A modified approach in terms of detailed investigation of sample preservation and optimization of an in-lab fabricated solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge filled with DVB-VP and PS-DVB sorbent was proposed. Favorable methodological parameters were achieved, with correlation coefficients spanning from 0.9866 to 0.9998. The LODs of the PPCPs fluctuated from 0.001 to 2 µg L-1, while the LOQs varied from 0.002 to 5 µg L-1. The analysis of spiked samples disclosed a methodological precision of 2.31-9.86 % and a recovery of 52.4-119 %. We utilized the established method for analyzing 14 water samples of three categories (source water, finished water and tap water) from five centralized water supply plants. A total of 24 categories encompassing 72 PPCPs were detected, with the concentrations of PPCPs manifested a marked decrease from source water to finished water and finally to tap water. SIGNIFICANCE: Our research meticulously examined the enhancement and purification effects of widely used commercial SPE cartridges and suggested the use of in-lab fabricated SPE cartridges packed with DVB-VP and PS-DVB adsorbents. We also conducted a systematic evaluation of the need to incorporate ascorbic acid and sodium thiosulfate as preservatives for PPCP measurement, in consideration of the unique characteristics of drinking water matrices, specifically, the significant concentration levels of disinfectants. Furthermore, the proposed method was effectively employed to study the presence of PPCPs in source water, finished water, and tap water collected from centralized water supply plants.

Self-supported Ru-Fe-Ox nanospheres as efficient electrocatalyst to boost overall water-splitting in acid and alkaline media.

Developing electrocatalysts with high activity and durability for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in both acidic and alkaline electrolytes remains challenging. In this study, we synthesize a self-supported ruthenium-iron oxide on carbon cloth (Ru-Fe-Ox/CC) using solvothermal methods followed by air calcination. The morphology of the nanoparticle exposes numerous active sites vital for electrocatalysis. Additionally, the strong electronic interaction between Ru and Fe enhances electrocatalytic kinetics optimization. The porous structure of the carbon cloth matrix facilitates mass transport, improving electrolyte penetration and bubble release. Consequently, Ru-Fe-Ox/CC demonstrates excellent catalytic performance, achieving low overpotentials of 32 mV and 28 mV for HER and 216 mV and 228 mV for OER in acidic and alkaline electrolytes, respectively. Notably, only 1.48 V and 1.46 V are required to reach 10 mA cm-2 for efficient water-splitting in both mediums, exhibiting remarkable stability. This research offers insights into designing versatile, highly efficient catalysts suitable for varied pH conditions.

Investigation of Imidazolinone Herbicide Resistance Gene with KASP Markers for Japonica/Geng Rice Varieties in the Huanghuaihai Region of China.

Rice is a staple food for more than half of the global population due to its food security and sustainable development. Weeds compete with crops for sunlight and indispensable nutrients, affecting the yield and quality of crops. Breeding herbicide-tolerant rice varieties paired with herbicide application is expected to help with weed control. In this study, 194 Japonica/Geng rice varieties or lines collected from the Huanghuaihai region of China were screened by Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASP) markers based on four mutation sites within OsALS1 (LOC_Os02g30630), which is the target of imidazolinone (IMI) herbicides. Only the OsALS1627N haplotype was identified in 18 varieties, including the previously reported Jingeng818 (JG818), and its herbicide resistance was validated by treatment with three IMIs. To investigate the origin of the OsALS1627N haplotype in the identified varieties, six codominant PCR-based markers tightly linked with OsALS1 were developed. PCR analysis revealed that the other 17 IMI-tolerant varieties were derived from JG818. We randomly selected three IMI-tolerant varieties for comparative whole-genome resequencing with known receptor parent varieties. Sequence alignment revealed that more loci from JG818 have been introduced into IMI-tolerant varieties. However, all three IMI-tolerant varieties carried clustered third type single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites from unknown parents, indicating that these varieties were not directly derived from JG818, whereas those from different intermediate improved lines were crossed with JG818. Overall, we found that only OsALS1627N from JG818 has been broadly introduced into the Huanghuaihai region of China. Additionally, the 17 identified IMI-tolerant varieties provide alternative opportunities for improving such varieties along with other good traits.

Regulating Mo-based alloy-oxide active interfaces for efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution assisted by hydrazine oxidation.

Improving the efficiency of overall water splitting (OWS) is crucial due to the slow four-electron transfer process in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The coupling of the thermodynamically favorable hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) significantly boosts hydrogen production. A Ru-decorated MoNi/MoO2 micropillar (Ru-MoNi/MoO2) has been synthesized using a hydrothermal followed by reduction annealing. Benefiting from Ru moderating the active interface of Mo-based alloys/oxides and the unique one-dimensional micropillar morphology. The synthesized Ru-MoNi/MoO2 exhibits outstanding bifunctional activity for HER and HzOR, achieving 10 mA cm-2 at merely -13 mV and -34 mV in 1 M KOH and 1 M KOH + 0.5 M N2H4, respectively. Notably, with Ru-MoNi/MoO2 in a dual-electrode setup, only 0.57 V is needed to achieve 50 mA cm-2, demonstrating good stability and facilitating hydrazine-assisted water splitting (OHzS). This work offers insights into the modulation of alloy/metal oxide active interfaces, contributing to the development of efficient bifunctional catalysts for HER and HzOR.

Zinc caproate: Ecofriendly synthesis, structural characterization, and antibacterial action.

Disease-causing microorganisms such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) are among the primary contributors to morbidity and mortality of diarrhea in humans. Considering the challenges associated with antibiotic use, including antimicrobial resistance, this study aimed to develop a novel zinc-based agent for bacterial inactivation. To this end, zinc caproate (ZnCA) was synthesized using caproic acid (CA) and zinc oxide (ZnO) in anhydrous ethanol via the solvothermal method. Structural characterization techniques, including Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, revealed the bidentate bridging coordination of zinc atoms with CA. The resulting two-dimensional ZnCA network was found to be composed of a distinct lamellar pattern, without any evident inter-layer interactions. Powder X-ray diffraction analysis, elemental analysis, and melting point analysis confirmed that ZnCA had an average particle size of 1.320 µm, a melting point of 147.2 °C, and a purity exceeding 98 %. Remarkably, ZnCA demonstrated potent antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus, which exceeded the antibacterial efficacy of ZnO. ZnCA exerted its antibacterial effects by inhibiting biofilm formation, disrupting cell membrane integrity, increasing cell membrane permeability, and altering intracellular Ca2+-Mg2+-ATPase activity. These findings highlight the potential of ZnCA as a promising antibiotic substitute for the treatment of diarrhea in humans.

How does the SARS-CoV-2 reinfection rate change over time? The global evidence from systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: There is a significant increase in the number of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection reports in various countries. However, the trend of reinfection rate over time is not clear. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang for cohort studies, case-control studies, and cross-sectional studies up to March 16, 2023, to conduct a meta-analysis of global SARS-CoV-2 reinfection rate. Subgroup analyses were performed for age, country, study type, and study population, and time-varying reinfection rates of SARS-CoV-2 were estimated using meta-regression. The risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool. RESULT: A total of 55 studies involving 111,846 cases of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection were included. The pooled SARS-CoV-2 reinfection rate was 0.94% (95% CI: 0.65 -1.35%). In the subgroup analyses, there were statistically significant differences in the pooled reinfection rates by reinfection variant, and study type (P < 0.05). Based on meta-regression, the reinfection rate fluctuated with time. CONCLUSION: Meta-regression analysis found that the overall reinfection rate increased and then decreased over time, followed by a period of plateauing and then a trend of increasing and then decreasing, but the peak of the second wave of reinfection rate was lower than the first wave. SARS-CoV-2 is at risk of reinfection and the Omicron variant has a higher reinfection rate than other currently known variants. The results of this study could help guide public health measures and vaccination strategies in response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

MMDB: Multimodal dual-branch model for multi-functional bioactive peptide prediction.

Bioactive peptides can hinder oxidative processes and microbial spoilage in foodstuffs and play important roles in treating diverse diseases and disorders. While most of the methods focus on single-functional bioactive peptides and have obtained promising prediction performance, it is still a significant challenge to accurately detect complex and diverse functions simultaneously with the quick increase of multi-functional bioactive peptides. In contrast to previous research on multi-functional bioactive peptide prediction based solely on sequence, we propose a novel multimodal dual-branch (MMDB) lightweight deep learning model that designs two different branches to effectively capture the complementary information of peptide sequence and structural properties. Specifically, a multi-scale dilated convolution with Bi-LSTM branch is presented to effectively model the different scales sequence properties of peptides while a multi-layer convolution branch is proposed to capture structural information. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first effective extraction of peptide sequence features using multi-scale dilated convolution without parameter increase. Multimodal features from both branches are integrated via a fully connected layer for multi-label classification. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, our MMDB model exhibits competitive results across metrics, with a 9.1% Coverage increase and 5.3% and 3.5% improvements in Precision and Accuracy, respectively.

The insights into the phage communities of fermented foods in the age of viral metagenomics.

Phages play a critical role in the assembly and regulation of fermented food microbiome through lysis and lysogenic lifestyle, which in turn affects the yield and quality of fermented foods. Therefore, it is important to investigate and characterize the diversity and function of phages under complex microbial communities and nutrient substrate conditions to provide novel insights into the regulation of traditional spontaneous fermentation. Viral metagenomics has gradually garnered increasing attention in fermented food research to elucidate phage functions and characterize the interactions between phages and the microbial community. Advances in this technology have uncovered a wide range of phages associated with the production of traditional fermented foods and beverages. This paper reviews the common methods of viral metagenomics applied in fermented food research, and summarizes the ecological functions of phages in traditional fermented foods. In the future, combining viral metagenomics with culturable methods and metagenomics will broaden the scope of research on fermented food systems, revealing the complex role of phages and intricate phage-bacterium interactions.

Epidemiological study of multi-site WMSDs in the footwear industry in China.

Objectives. This study aimed to identify the prevalence of multi-site work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) in Chinese footwear industry workers from 2018 to 2020 and explore the possible influencing factors of WMSDs. Methods. 7106 subjects from 26 large shoe factories in China were investigated using the epidemiological cross-sectional survey method by using the Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire (NMQ). Results. The total prevalence of WMSDs in the study subjects was 36.8% (2616/7106). Among them, the prevalence of multi-site WMSDs was 26.1% (1858/7106). The proportion of multi-site WMSDs involving two sites was the largest (31.38%). In addition, the results showed that the risk factors of multi-site WMSDs were gender, marital status, long current job experience, poor health, poor working posture, etc. Conclusions. The prevalence of WMSDs was high in the Chinese footwear industry. Based on the results, therefore, it seems necessary to improve work posture, work organization and workenvironment to prevent WMSDs.

Synergistic Effects of Pyrrolic N/Pyridinic N on Ultrafast Microwave Synthesized Porous CoP/Ni2P to Boost Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Generation.

Transition metal phosphides are ideal inexpensive electrocatalysts for water-splitting, but the catalytic activity still falls behind that of noble metal catalysts. Therefore, developing valid strategies to boost the electrocatalytic activity is urgent to promote large-scale applications. Herein, a microwave combustion strategy (20 s) is applied to synthesize N-doped CoP/Ni2P heterojunctions (N-CoP/Ni2P) with porous structure. The porous structure expands the specific surface area and accelerates the mass transport efficiency. Importantly, the pyrrolic N/pyridinic N content is adjusted by changing the amount of urea during the synthesis process and then optimizing the adsorption/desorption capacity for H*/OH* to enhance the catalyst activity. Then, the synthesized N-CoP/Ni2P exhibits small overpotentials of 111 and 133 mV for HER in acidic and alkaline electrolytes and 290 mV for OER in alkaline electrolytes. This work provides an original and efficient approach to the synthesis of porous metal phosphides.

BBLN: A bilateral-branch learning network for unknown protein-protein interaction prediction.

Unknown Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs) prediction has a huge demand in the biological analysis field. Since the effect of the limited availability of protein data is severe, transferable representations are highly demanded to be learned from various data. The latest works enhance the model performance on unknown PPIs prediction and have achieved certain improvements by combining protein information and relation information on PPI graph. However, such methods inevitably suffer from a so-called information monotonicity problem that limits the improvements when encountering large amounts of unknown PPIs. The prediction performance cannot be actually increased without considering the complementary information and relationship information among various modalities of protein data. To this end, we propose a bilateral-branch learning network to deeply enhance the both complementary and relationship information based on the amino acid sequence and gene ontology from multi- and cross-modal views. Experimental results on massive real-world datasets show that our method significantly outperforms the previous state-of-the-art on both traditional and novel unknown PPIs prediction.

A foodborne outbreak linked to Bacillus cereus at two middle schools in a rural area of Chongqing, China, 2021.

Bacillus cereus (B. cereus) is a common cause of foodborne illness. An outbreak of acute gastrointestinal illness occurred at two middle schools in a rural region of Chongqing, China, in 2021. This study aimed to elucidate the outbreak's characteristics, identify risk factors, and determine the source of contamination. A retrospective cohort study and an environmental investigation were conducted. Vomit samples, anal swabs, and food samples were collected and tested by RT-PCR for 18 species of bacteria and viruses, including B. cereus. Positive samples of B. cereus underwent biochemical experiments and bacterial quantification. A total of 198 cases were reported in this outbreak, with an attack rate of 24.63%. The main symptoms were vomiting (100%), bellyache (83.33%), and dizziness (62.63%). The retrospective cohort study showed a significant association between the outbreak and rice noodles provided by a nearby food manufacturer (RR = 39.63, p < 0.001). B. cereus was detected in 20 vomit samples, three anal swabs, and seven rice noodles samples, with a count exceeding 103 CFU/g. These findings strongly suggested that the outbreak was linked to B. cereus-contaminated rice noodles. Enhancing food safety surveillance and promoting health measures among schools and food manufacturers in rural areas is crucial to prevent similar incidents in the future in Chongqing, China.

Evaluation of models for multi-step forecasting of hand, foot and mouth disease using multi-input multi-output: A case study of Chengdu, China.

BACKGROUND: Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a public health concern that threatens the health of children. Accurately forecasting of HFMD cases multiple days ahead and early detection of peaks in the number of cases followed by timely response are essential for HFMD prevention and control. However, many studies mainly predict future one-day incidence, which reduces the flexibility of prevention and control. METHODS: We collected the daily number of HFMD cases among children aged 0-14 years in Chengdu from 2011 to 2017, as well as meteorological and air pollutant data for the same period. The LSTM, Seq2Seq, Seq2Seq-Luong and Seq2Seq-Shih models were used to perform multi-step prediction of HFMD through multi-input multi-output. We evaluated the models in terms of overall prediction performance, the time delay and intensity of detection peaks. RESULTS: From 2011 to 2017, HFMD in Chengdu showed seasonal trends that were consistent with temperature, air pressure, rainfall, relative humidity, and PM10. The Seq2Seq-Shih model achieved the best performance, with RMSE, sMAPE and PCC values of 13.943~22.192, 17.880~27.937, and 0.887~0.705 for the 2-day to 15-day predictions, respectively. Meanwhile, the Seq2Seq-Shih model is able to detect peaks in the next 15 days with a smaller time delay. CONCLUSIONS: The deep learning Seq2Seq-Shih model achieves the best performance in overall and peak prediction, and is applicable to HFMD multi-step prediction based on environmental factors.

[Probabilistic risk assessment of dietary exposure to lead among Chongqing residents].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate lead contamination in commercial foods in Chongqing City, and to assess the health risk of dietary lead exposure of residents in Chongqing City. METHODS: Lead concentration data was obtained from the food safety risk monitoring system, which included a total of 2347 lead-containing food samples in 11 categories in Chongqing from 2016 to 2020. Consumption data was derived from the China Health and Nutrition Survey Project in Chongqing in 2018(3 day, 24 h dietary recall survey). The dietary exposure to lead of residents in Chongqing was calculated by the Monte Carlo simulation method and the margin of exposure(MOE) method was used to evaluate the health risk of the population. RESULTS: The average content of lead in 2347 food samples from 11 categories ranged from 0.0328 to 0.0363 mg/kg, with an overall detection rate of 58.5%. For people aged between 3-6, 7-17, 18-59, and ≥ 60 years, the mean dietary lead intakes in Chongqing were 0.935-1.070, 0.600-0.684, 0.367-0.416, 0.369-0.419 µg/(kg·BW·d), respectively; and the high levels of dietary lead exposure(P95) were 1.642-1.852, 1.147-1.299, 0.651-0.729, 0.659-0.740 µg/(kg·BW·d), respectively. MOE values for lead were less than 1 for age groups 3-6 and 7-17 years. Mean MOE values for lead were greater than 1 for ages 18 to 59 and ≥ 60. Cereals and their products, vegetables and their products, and meat and meat products were the main sources of dietary lead exposure, accounting for more than 85% of the total dietary lead exposure. CONCLUSION: There are potential health risks of lead for residents in Chongqing.