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Abstract This study aimed to determine whether lobectomy is appropriate for the long-term prognosis of 1–4-cm-sized differential thyroid cancer (DTC). This retrospective study included 2,178 patients with 1–4-cm DTC treated via thyroid lobectomy (LT) or total or near-total thyroidectomy (TT) and who were followed up for at least 3 years. The primary endpoint was a structural incomplete response, which was confirmed via imaging with or without a positive histological or cytological examination. Subgroup analysis was performed according to tumor size. LT was performed in 1,535 patients (70.48%), and TT was conducted in the remaining 643 (29.55%) patients. During an average follow-up period of 48.08 months, the recurrence rate was 7.2% in the LT group and 5.3% in the TT group, which was not significantly different (p = 0.108). There were no significant differences in disease-free survival between both groups (hazard ratio, 1.394; 95% confidence interval, 0.9761–1.990; p = 0.089). In the subgroup analysis, the recurrence rates in the LT group were higher than those in the TT group for both the 2–3-cm (13.6% vs. 2.6%, p

IntroductionRadioactive iodine (RAI) is commonly used in the management of differentiated thyroid cancers (DTCs). However, the long-term efficacy and the risk of tumor recurrence associated with it remain unclear. In particular, the comparison between recombinant human thyrotropin (rhTSH) and thyroid hormone withdrawal (THW) in terms of medium- and long-term recurrence rate in DTC patients has not been fully elucidated.MethodsA systematic search was carried out to identify articles comparing medium- and long-term outcomes (> 2 years) based on treatment with either rhTSH or THW. Ten studies, consisting of six randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and four retrospective studies with a total of 2,833 patients, were included in the analysis.ResultsThere was no significant difference in the medium- and long-term recurrence rates between the rhTSH group and the THW group. This was also the case in subgroup analyses of only RCTs or only retrospective studies. The structural incomplete response (SIR) rate was slightly higher in the rhTSH group, but a subgroup analysis of RCTs alone showed no significant difference in SIR between the two groups.DiscussionrhTSH is comparable to THW in achieving successful ablation of residual disease and maintaining low recurrence rates. However, further RCTs are required to investigate whether rhTSH can increase the risk of SIR.

We discussed the relation among 'black swan', 'gray rhino' and 'dragon king', three important concepts in the study for the reduction of natural disaster risks, in which a 'black swan' refers to 'an event that, seems to us, on the basis of our limited experience, to be impossible' (Taleb, 2007), a 'gray rhino' refers to 'an event that is dangerous, obvious, and highly probable' (Wucker, 2016), and a 'dragon king' is defined as 'an event so extreme that it lies outside a power-law distribution' (Sornette and Ouillon, 2012), all of which have some misinterpretations. We investigated whether the January 1, 2024, Noto Peninsula, Japan, MW7.5 earthquake, which punctuated the intense and long-lasting swarm since recent years, can be regarded as a 'black swan' or a 'dragon king', which seems an interesting question in the study of earthquake forecast and prediction. The answer to the question whether or not this MW7.5 earthquake is a 'black swan' depends on the observer, by the definition of 'black swan': in the sense that this earthquake unexpectedly punctuated the intense and long-lasting swarm, it is; while in the sense that there have been historical earthquakes with comparable magnitudes in the same region, it is not. Whether or not this earthquake is a 'dragon king' event is the main topic of this paper, which depends on the analysis of earthquake data. We analyzed the seismic moment tensor catalogue of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) which has started since 2004. We inspected the rank-ordering plot or Zipf distribution to inspect whether the MW7.5 event behaves as an outlier which significantly deviates from the Gutenberg-Richter power law scaling. We obtained that for the period 2006 to 2024, the MW7.5 earthquake cannot be regarded as a significant 'dragon king' event, while for the period 2021 to 2024 the earthquake can be regarded as a 'dragon king' event significantly, which seems consistent with the report that complex precursory behavior has occurred since December 2020, implying the predictability of this 'dragon king' event. We suggest that detailed study of this earthquake as well as its aftershock sequence, based on the previous results of investigation which provided with good pictures of fluid migration, silent earthquakes, deformation, and earthquakes with different magnitudes, plus retrospective case study of the precursor-like anomalies in this relatively isolated system of seismicity, may contribute to the theory of the mechanism and prediction of a 'seismic dragon king'.

In recent years, with continuous social and economic development, there has been an increase in the scale of reservoir impoundment and underground industrial development activities. Consequently, induced or triggered seismicity is increasing, resulting in escalating damage losses. Therefore, the impact of industrial production behaviors on regional seismicity and the safe implementation of industrial production without causing earthquakes are important topics being discussed and closely monitored by the public and scientific research community. In this paper, we provide an overview of induced or triggered earthquakes, both domestic and international, and explore their causative mechanisms. Additionally, we summarize the methods commonly used to study induced or triggered earthquakes in academia, beginning with the governing equations. With the ongoing development of science and technology, numerical simulation will present unique advantages and become an important scientific tool for studying induced or triggered earthquakes. To date, both domestic and foreign researchers have conducted meaningful studies on induced earthquakes using numerical simulation methods. The physical mechanisms that trigger earthquakes will gradually be revealed, and measures for prevention and control will be improved. This work will effectively reduce the hazards caused by industrial production and other activities, thereby reducing the risk of triggering major earthquakes. However, there are still many challenges in numerical earthquake prediction. It not only requires a flawless physical mechanism and advanced calculation methods but also necessitates comprehensive observation and the establishment of an industrial production system.

Whether the September 5, 2022, Luding MS6.8 earthquake is an ‘expected’ event in the context of earthquake forecast? This commentary discusses this issue mainly using the recently proposed ‘earthquake nowcasting’ approach.

Evaluation of numerical earthquake forecasting models needs to consider two issues of equal importance: the application scenario of the simulation, and the complexity of the model. Criterion of the evaluation-based model selection faces some interesting problems in need of discussion.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation for Earthquake Science（ACES）is one of the eight scientific and technological cooperation projects under the branch of Policy Partnership on Science，Technology and Innovation of APEC. The major participating economies are Australia，China，Japan，the United States，Canada，New Zealand，Chinese Taipei and Korea. Since the proposal was approved in 1997，the project has been running for more than 20 years，and has obtained a lot of scientific and technological achievements. This paper summarizes the origin，operation，cooperation form，cooperation fields，main cooperation achievements and future prospects of the ACES project.

Stomatal density is an important factor that determines the efficiency of plant gas exchange and water transpiration. Through forward genetics, we screened a mutant rice stomata developmental defect 1 (rsd1-1) with decreased stomatal density and clustered stomata in rice (Oryza sativa). After the first asymmetric division, some of the larger sister cells undergo an extra asymmetric division to produce a small cell neighboring guard mother cell. Some of these small cells develop into stomata, which leads to stomatal clustering, and the rest arrested or developed into pavement cell. After map-based cloning, we found the protein encoded by this gene containing DUF630 and DUF632 domains. Evolutionary analysis showed that the DUF630/632 gene family differentiated earlier in land plants. It was found that the deletion of RSD1 would lead to the disorder of gene expression regarding stomatal development, especially the expression of stomatal density and distribution 1 (OsSDD1). Through the construction of OsSDD1 deletion mutants by CRISPR-Cas9, we found that, similar to rsd1 mutants, the ossdd1 mutants have clustered stomata and extra small cells adjacent to the stomata. OsSDD1 and RSD1 are both required for inhibiting ectopic asymmetric cell divisions (ACDs) and clustered stomata. By dehydration stress assay, the decreased stomatal density of rsd1 mutants enhanced their dehydration avoidance. This study characterized the functions of RSD1 and OsSDD1 in rice stomatal development. Our findings will be helpful in developing drought-resistant crops through controlling the stomatal density.

Stomata, the small pores on the epidermis of plant shoot, control gas exchange between the plant and environment and play key roles in plant physiology, evolution, and global ecology. Stomatal development is initiated by the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor SPEECHLESS (SPCH), whose central importance in stomatal development has recently come to light. SPCH integrates intralineage signals and serves as an acceptor of hormonal and environmental signals to regulate stomatal density and patterning during the development. SPCH also plays a direct role in regulating asymmetric cell division in the stomatal lineage. Owing to its importance in stomatal development, SPCH expression is tightly and spatiotemporally regulated. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the SPCH-mediated regulation of stomatal development, reinforcing the idea that SPCH is the central molecular hub for stomatal development.

In this paper, we discuss a possible combination of Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) and Neo-deterministic Seismic Hazard Assessment (NDSHA), and propose a new warning model, EEW2.0. The aim is to provide a differentiated warning alert to various end-users based on the results of seismic hazard assessment evaluation. The implementation of such a system contains three basic steps: (a) classification of “potential to cause hazard” in terms of magnitude; (b) determination of the source areas and building a hazard database in terms of Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) maps, considering all possible earthquake scenarios in the source area, for the whole protected area; (3) equipping unique decision framework for specific end-users. When a damaging earthquake (M ≥ 5.0) is detected, EEW2.0 quickly matches the prepared MMI map by estimated magnitude and epicenter, then directly extracts the MMI value and issues an early warning to the public. With the great attention and resources put into the reduction in seismic and its secondary risk in the 21st century, the proposed EEW2.0 will likely play an active role in protecting lives and reducing economic losses.

The lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) belongs to the most important leguminous plants in Asia. It is a very popular and highly nutritious food. However, small pod size and low yield limit its agricultural use. Through irradiation mutagenesis of dry lentil seeds by 12C6+ ion beam, we found some lines with excellent agricultural traits in M2 progeny at doses of 90 Gy (grey), such as height increase and improvement of the number of branches and three-seed pods as well as seeds with increased grain yield. Six generations of irradiated lentils were screened for these traits. In the M8 generation, the grain yield of three high-yielding lentil lines (lines hyl-1, hyl-2, and hyl-3) reached 212.4%, 195.3% and 190.8%, respectively, of the non-irradiated controls. The results indicated that crop improvement was stable inherited across the generations. Statistical analysis revealed that the increase in grain yield was due to increased total pod number and seeds per pod. Fortunately, adverse effects of irradiation (e.g. reduced germination rates and poor pollen vitality) disappeared over the eight generations. In conclusion, we present a practical method for the improvement of lentils through radiation breeding, leading to high yielding cultivars, which could support the use of this crop in agriculture.

Neurofibrillary tangles are aggregates of hyperphosphorylated tau that are one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Tau phosphorylation is regulated by a balance of kinase and phosphatase activities. Our previous study has demonstrated that ginsenoside Rd, one of the principal active ingredients of Pana notoginseng, inhibits okadaic acid-induced tau phosphorylation in vivo and in vitro, but the underlying mechanism(s) is unknown. In this study, we showed that ginsenoside Rd pretreatment inhibited tau phosphorylation at multiple sites in beta-amyloid (Aβ)-treated cultured cortical neurons, and in vivo in both a rat and transgenic mouse model. Ginsenoside Rd not only reduced Aβ-induced increased expression of glycogen synthase kinase 3beta (GSK-3β), the most important kinase involved in tau phosphorylation, but also inhibited its activity by enhancing and attenuating its phosphorylation at Ser9 and Tyr216, respectively. Moreover, ginsenoside Rd enhanced the activity of protein phosphatase 2A (PP-2A), a key phosphatase involved in tau dephosphorylation. Finally, an in vitro biochemical assay revealed that ginsenoside Rd directly affected GSK-3β and PP-2A activities. Thus, our findings provide the first evidence that ginsenoside Rd attenuates Aβ-induced pathological tau phosphorylation by altering the functional balance of GSK-3β and PP-2A.

For over 50 years, researchers have focused on the mechanisms underlying the important roles of the cytoskeleton in controlling the cell growth direction and cell expansion. In our study, we performed ethyl methane sulfonate mutagenesis on Col-0 background and identified two new CONSTITUTIVE EXPRESSER OF PATHOGENESIS RELATED GENES 1 (CPR1) alleles with pavement cell (PC) morphogenetic defects. Morphological characterizations showed that polar growth initiation and expansion of PCs are seriously suppressed in cpr1. Closer cytoskeleton investigation showed that the directional arrangement of microtubules (MTs) during PC development is defective and the cortical fine actin filaments cannot be aggregated effectively to form actin cable networks in cpr1 mutants. These results suggest that the abnormal PC morphogenesis in cpr1 is accompanying with the aberrant arrangement of cytoskeleton. Site-directed mutagenesis and knockout within the F-box-associated (FBA) domain, which is reported to be a motif for recognizing particular substrates of CPR1, proved that the FBA domain is indispensable for normal CPR1 regulation of the PC morphogenesis. Further genetic analysis indicated that the defects on PC morphogenesis of cpr1 depend on two lipase-like proteins, ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY 1 and PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT 4. Our results provide further insights into the relationship between the cytoskeleton and PC morphogenesis, and suggest that the cytoskeleton-mediated PC morphogenesis control might be tightly linked to plant defense responses.

Results published since the last three years on the observations of the precursor-like anomalies before the May 12, 2008, Wenchuan, Ms8.0 earthquake are collected and analyzed. These retrospective case studies would have provided heuristic clues about the preparation process of this inland great earthquake and the predictability of this destructive event if the standards for the rigorous test of earthquake forecast schemes were strictly observed. At least in some of these studies, however, several issues still need to be further examined to confirm or falsify the connection of the reported observations with the Wenchuan earthquake. Some of the problems are due to the inevitable limitation of observational infrastructure at the recent time, but some of the problems are due to the lack of communication about the test of earthquake forecast schemes. For the interdisciplinary studies on earthquake forecast, reminding of the latter issue seems of special importance for promoting the works and cooperation in this field.

A retrospective case study was conducted for the March 11, 2011, earthquake that occurred off the east Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, with reference to the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004. The regularities of the temporal variations of the number of deaths reported through the Internet is used to make an early stage quick-and-rough estimate to assist in the emergency decision making, and to continue the revision of the estimate as new data comes in. The quick-and-rough estimate of the final fatalities that was obtained on the second day after the earthquake is shown to agree with the final reported fatalities to within an order of magnitude. This also has an added advantage over other estimation models, in that the estimates can be updated with new data as they become available.

This article explores the concept of a "seismic dragon king," which refers to an exceptional earthquake event that deviates from the usual pattern of earthquakes. It focuses on a MW 7.5 earthquake that occurred in 2024 on the Noto Peninsula in Japan, interrupting a previous earthquake swarm in the area. The researchers analyze seismic activity patterns to identify any precursor anomalies and use the Load-Unload Response Ratio (LURR) to assess the likelihood of future large earthquakes. The study suggests that the MW 7.5 earthquake can be considered a significant "dragon king" event. The article also discusses the role of fluids in seismic events, particularly in the formation of the "seismic dragon king" phenomenon. The authors propose that studying the Noto Peninsula earthquake and its aftershocks could enhance our understanding of earthquake precursors and prediction. The article acknowledges the contributions of various scientists and organizations in providing data and opinions related to the earthquake, with support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. [Extracted from the article]

The central-southern part of the eastern border of the Sichuan-Yunnan rhombic block provides the research strategy of 'trade space for time' with an interesting fault system, where the segments have similar focal mechanisms and cover almost continuous spectra of elapse rates. We experiment to study the seismological characteristics of different segments with different elapse rates. We employed the de-clustered earthquake catalog for the calculation of b values for each segment. The analysis revealed that different segments have similar b values, which implies that, although different segments have different periods of earthquake recurrence, the 'natural time' for the whole fault system elapses with a homogeneous pace. We extended the earthquake potential score (EPS) for nowcasting earthquakes to a quasi-EPS (qEPS). It is found that qEPS increases with the increase of elapse rates, albeit for those fault segments whose elapse rates have exceeded 1, qEPS may better reflect the seismic hazard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]