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Objective To analyze the relevance between lymph node status and pathological response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and survival in breast cancer patients. Methods The clinicopathological data of 653 needle biopsy proved breast cancer patients, who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery in our hospital from July 1998 to April 2012, were retrospective analyzed. Results The median follow up lime was 59.3 months. The 653 eases were classified into ypN0 (242 cases) , ypN1 ( 182 cases) , ypN2 ( 135 cases) , and ypN3 (94 cases) stages, and the 5-year overall survival rates in the lour groups were 93. 4%, 93. 4%, 87. 4%, and 83. 0% , respectively. The Log rank lest showed a significant difference in the overall survival rales between the ypN0, ypN1, ypN2 stages and ypN3 stage (P =0.046). No significant differences were observed between the disease free survival (DFS) rates in the four groups ( P > 0. 05 ). Multivariate analysis indicated that the postoperative pathological response of metastatic lymph nodes was a major prognostic factor affecting the overall survival and disease-free survival (RR = 1. 051, P = 0. 007 ; RR = 1. 028 , P = 0. 028 ). Conclusion The stage and pathological response of axillary lymph nodes after neoadjuvant chemotherapy are effective indicators for predicting the OS and DFS in breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land consolidation is of significance in the construction of ecological civilization put forward by Chinese Government and to be carried out in the future development. So studying spatial-temporal change and future development of land consolidation's newly increased cultivated land is important to investigate the role of land consolidation in ecological construction of China. This paper analyzed spatial-temporal changes of newly increased cultivated land from land arrangement, land exploitation, and land reclamation from 2001 to 2011, using the method of weighted gravity center model, which displayed moved direction and moved distance of land consolidation's newly increased cultivated land. The results showed that the newly increased cultivated land of land consolidation was 3.2×106 hm2 from 2001 to 2011. The majority of newly increased cultivated land, accounting for 63.2% was derived from land exploitation. The newly increased cultivated land area from land arrangement and land reclamation accounted for 21.8% and 15.0% of the total newly increased cultivated land, respectively. The zone analysis of newly increased cultivated land of land consolidation was conducted based on the classification of China into 4 regions of East zone, West zone, Middle zone and North-east zone. The newly increased cultivated land from land arrangement was mainly distributed in East zone with 53.8% of the total from 2001 to 2008. East zone and west zone were the main distribution zones of newly increased cultivated land from land exploitation. They were 37.9% and 33.0% of the total from 2001 to 2008. Land discarded by factories and damaged mines, which was the object of land reclamation, had uncertainty in distribution and happening, so the proportion of newly increased cultivated land from land reclamation changed significantly among inter-zones and inter-annuals. The weighted gravity center of newly increased cultivated land area from land arrangement moved to west from 2001 to 2011. Comparing with 2001-2006 and 2007-2009, the moved average distance of 2010-2011 to the west were 769.59 and 603.44 km, respectively. The weighted gravity centers of newly increased cultivated land area from land exploitation during 2001 to 2006 were located in north and west of our country's geographic gravity center, with the tendency of moving to north from west, and it showed a trend of moving to west from east from 2007 to 2011. There were uncertainties in the moved direction of weighted gravity center of newly increased cultivated land area from land reclamation from 2001 to 2011. Based on the analysis above, we reckon that, at the background of ecological construction and relatively stable cultivated land quantity in China, the proportion of newly increased cultivated land from land exploitation should be decreased by the means of reducing land exploitation projects in land consolidation plan, and the related actions, for example, the reasonable layouts of land exploitation projects should be considered to prevent that weighted gravity center of newly increased cultivated land from land exploitation moves to west of China; the improvement of land quality and construction of fertilized farmland should be strengthened through land arrangement, which will be the main direction of land consolidation; and, land reclamation should play a more important role in repairing the damaged ecological environment with increasing cultivated land area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity and differentiation have become the hallmarks of contemporary Chinese rural settlements. Spatial differentiation of rural settlements' multi-function is important to fully understand characteristics of rural society under rapid social and economic changes in China. Few studies have systematically evaluated the impact of such change on the rural settlements' functions. Based on the "Distance attenuation" principle, and using the county as the regional center, we classified 112 rural settlements of Changzhi city, Shanxi province into four types: urban villages, suburban villages, outer suburban villages and remote villages. Then we recognized multifunctional of the rural settlements as daily life function, agricultural production function, and non-agricultural production function based on different social-economic factors that were carried by corresponding land use types. Finally, we chose indicators from the attributes of the rural settlements to study regional differentiation of rural settlements' functions. Methods of participatory rural appraisal, combined with GIS technology and remote sensing image were used. The results showed that attributes of rural settlements' multi-function changed regularly. With approaching to the county, rural houses and households were improved more frequently along with the improvement of service facilities of the rural settlements. As approaching to the county, the household income from agricultural production decreased, and the households tended to gradually give up agricultural production function. Also when approaching to the county, areas for non-agricultural production were expanded and the contributions of income from non-agricultural production for rural households increased. Finally, we constructed a multi-functional quantitative mathematical equation of rural settlements to measure multi-function dominance of rural settlements based on the index of rural settlements' functions. Comparative advantage function of different types of the rural settlements was remarkable difference. The comparative advantage functions of the urban villages were daily life function and agricultural production function, and these two functions had the location quotient of 1.09 and 1.92, respectively. Similar results were found with the suburban villages (1.04 and 1.11). The comparative advantage function of the outer suburban villages and the remote villages was agricultural production function. Their location quotient reached 1.47 and 1.72, respectively. We suggested that based on this research it was necessary to implement rural residential consolidation considering the multifunctions and their attributes of rural settlements. The proportion of land use within the rural settlements bearing economic activities, especially non-agricultural activities increased in urban villages and suburban villages. The household income was dependent on economic activities of the residences. While in the outer suburban villages and the remote villages, many residences moved out to work in non-agricultural sectors. However, there were still many people engaged in farming in those areas. Based on this study, we suggested that on the one hand, governments at all levels should strengthen the non-agricultural production function of urban villages and suburban villages in order to attract more elements gathering, such as more labor force who came from other areas. On the other hand, governments should strengthen agricultural production of outer suburban villages and remote villages. For the outer suburban and remote villages, daily life function was relatively weak and had no comparative advantage for improvement. Governments should help to repair houses and improve service facilities of these two types of rural settlements so that an evenly developed and harmonious rural society can be built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To analyze the relevance between lymph node status and pathological response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and survival in breast cancer patients., Methods: The clinicopathological data of 653 needle biopsy proved breast cancer patients, who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery in our hospital from July 1998 to April 2012, were retrospective analyzed., Results: The median follow up time was 59.3 months. The 653 cases were classified into ypN0 (242 cases), ypN1 (182 cases), ypN2 (135 cases), and ypN3 (94 cases) stages, and the 5-year overall survival rates in the four groups were 93.4%, 93.4%, 87.4%, and 83.0%, respectively. The Log rank test showed a significant difference in the overall survival rates between the ypN0, ypN1, ypN2 stages and ypN3 stage (P=0.046). No significant differences were observed between the disease free survival (DFS) rates in the four groups (P>0.05). Multivariate analysis indicated that the postoperative pathological response of metastatic lymph nodes was a major prognostic factor affecting the overall survival and disease-free survival (RR=1.051, P=0.007; RR=1.028, P=0.028)., Conclusion: The stage and pathological response of axillary lymph nodes after neoadjuvant chemotherapy are effective indicators for predicting the OS and DFS in breast cancer patients.