No abstract

Based on the prefecture-level data of the 2000 and 2010 national censuses, the spatial evolution of China's semi-urbanization is analyzed in this study. The stages of urbanization are re-examined by considering semi-urbanization. Nine types of urban development are presented according to the relations between semi-urbanization and urbanization, and China's urbanization is divided into five stages, namely, high incoordination, incoordination, low coordination, coordination, and high coordination. Results show that China's semi-urbanization rate varies significantly from one area to another; its order in 2010 from the highest to the lowest value was as follows: east, middle, west, and northeast. Urbanization and semi-urbanization rates in inland cities increase much faster than those in coastal cities. In addition, semi-urbanization displays a spatial pattern similar to that of urbanization across China, with the sole exception of the northeastern region. Through a spatial autocorrelation analysis, the spatial concentration of semi-urbanization is determined to be increasing. High-value concentration areas are expanding in the coastal east, whereas low-value concentration areas are growing in the northeast. Lastly, the evolution of China's urbanization model suggests a weakening trend of coordination between urbanization and semi-urbanization over the studied decade. Semi-urbanization can be viewed as a special production of China's hukou system, which restricts the permanent settlement of migrants in cities. As such, China's semi-urbanization trend is expected to exhibit a reversed U-shaped pattern as urbanization and citizenization develop.

Geriatric medicine in China started to develop as a medical specialty in the 1950s and has now become an extensive national healthcare network for the elderly. As population aging accelerates and the number of senior citizens keeps rising, major issues of healthcare delivery for this segment need to be addressed. Inequality in access to quality health care continues to exist between the public and private sectors and between urban centers and rural areas. The education and practice of geriatric medicine also face a range of problems, such as inadequate teaching of geriatrics-related subjects in the medical education curriculum, the design of residency and fellowship programs, and the integration of geriatric principles into clinical practice. Government commitment, investment from the private sector, and improvement in geriatric medicine professionals' knowledge and skills are required to bring geriatric care to a higher level. kinds of tasks we need to accomplish to elevate the country's geriatric medicine to a new height. ----------------------This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

The present study aimed to investigate the diagnostic value of automatic DNA image cytometry (DNA-ICM) for diagnosing lung cancer. A total of three different types of samples from 465 cases were included: Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), 386 samples; pleural effusion cases, 70 samples; and fine-needle aspiration procedures, 9 samples. Two methods, liquid-based cytology (LBC) and automatic DNA-ICM, were used to assess the samples, and the pathological results of 120/465 cases were reviewed. The results of DNA-ICM were compared with those of LBC and pathology. There were 57 cases of lung cancer without aneuploidy and 49 cases without evidence of malignant tumor, but with the presence of heteroploid cells. The positive diagnostic rate for BALF samples using LBC was significantly higher compared with that for DNA-ICM (P<0.05). No statistically significant difference was observed in the positive diagnostic rate between DNA-ICM and LBC in pleural effusion samples. For DNA-ICM in BALF, pleural effusion and all samples, no statistically significant differences were identified between the positive diagnostic rates of lung squamous carcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma. The positive diagnostic rate of LBC combined with DNA-ICM was not significantly improved. In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cases, the difference in the maximum value of DNA (DNAmax) was positively correlated with tumor stage (P<0.05), but no significant correlations were observed among DNA max, tumor type and tumor location. In small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) cases, no significant correlations were observed among DNAmax, tumor staging or tumor location. The differences in the DNAmax values of squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, SCLC and NSCLC were not statistically significant. In the present study, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for LBC (0.936) was significantly greater compared with that for DNA-ICM (0.766) (P<0.05). DNA-ICM has medium diagnostic value in lung cancer, and the DNAmax was positively correlated with tumor stage in NSCLC. DNA-ICM may serve as a supplement to LBC, but it is not recommended as a sole procedure for lung cancer screening.