Sung won Kim

Income, Work Preferences and Gender Roles among Parents of Infants in Urban China: A Mixed Method Study from Nanjing

This article explores the relationship between gender and income inequality within and across households in an urban Chinese sample by looking at survey data from 381 married couples with infants born in a Nanjing hospital between 2006 and 2007 and in-depth interviews with a subsample of 80 of these couples. We explore the relationship between family income and differences between husbands’ and wives’ work preferences. A couple-level quantitative analysis shows that in lower-income families, husbands were more likely than their wives to prefer career advancement and low stress at work, and wives were more likely than their husbands to prefer state jobs. Our analyses of the qualitative subsample show that, even though high-income husbands and wives are more likely to share similar work preferences, the household division of roles within their marriages is still gendered along traditional lines, as it is in the marriages of low-income couples.

Diagnostic accuracy of prospective application of the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) in gadoxetate-enhanced MRI

ObjectivesTo evaluate the diagnostic performance of the LI-RADS (v2014) on gadoxetate-enhanced MRI prospectively applied in actual practice.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the prospectively written radiology reports of 143 treatment-naïve at-risk patients who underwent gadoxetate-enhanced liver MRI from January to December 2014, and identified 202 hepatic observations categorized using the LI-RADS. The diagnostic performances of LI-RADS categories for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and hepatic malignancy were calculated.ResultsTwenty (69.0 %) of 29 LR-4, 73 (97.3 %) of 75 LR-5, and all of five (100 %) LR-5V observations were HCCs. The remaining two (2.7 %) LR-5 observations were combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinomas, while 10 (76.9 %) of 13 LR-M observations were HCCs. The sensitivity and specificity of LR-5/5V for HCC were 60.5 % and 97.3 %, respectively. Including LR-M in the diagnostic criteria for HCC increased sensitivity (68.2 %, p = 0.002) but decreased specificity without statistical significance (93.2 %, p = 0.154). LR-5/5V/M yielded sensitivity of 68.9 % and specificity of 100.0 % for hepatic malignancy.ConclusionsLI-RADS v2014 was successfully applied on gadoxetate-enhanced MRI in clinical practice. LR-5/5V was the most specific diagnostic measure for HCC, but most LR-M observations were HCCs and a considerable portion of non-HCC malignancies were categorized as LR-4 or LR-5.Key Points• LR-5/5V provided a highly specific diagnosis for HCC.• Half of non-HCC malignancies were categorized as LR-4 or LR-5.• The majority of LR-M observations were finally diagnosed as HCCs.• More sensitive diagnosis of HCC was feasible with LR-5/5V/M on gadoxetate-enhanced MRI.• Observations in either LR-5/5V or LR-M categories were definitely malignant.

Credentialism and Career Aspirations: How Urban Chinese Youth Chose High School and College Majors

This article explores how graduates of a junior high school in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China, chose their high school and college major subject of study and the extent to which their majors fit with their work trajectories. We found that most interviewees considered the likelihood of a major and degree leading to better job opportunities more important than how the major fit with their personal interests. However, the unpredictability of the market economy in China made it difficult to anticipate which majors would lead to more lucrative jobs, and many eventually found work that did not match their majors.

A Longitudinal Study of Son and Daughter Preference among Chinese Only-Children from Adolescence to Adulthood

In this mixed-method longitudinal study, we examined the continuity of son preference and daughter preference from adolescence to adulthood, and investigated how perceptions of gender equity shape these preferences among 2,273 youth born in Dalian between 1979 and 1986 under the one-child policy. The majority expressed no preference in adolescence or adulthood. Results from multivariate analysis and the narratives of 23 participants revealed that child gender preferences in adolescence were predictive of later preferences in adulthood. Furthermore, in adolescence, child gender preferences were associated with individuals’ beliefs about gender as manifested in their attitudes towards women and employment, as well as their perceptions of parental and social gender biases against women. Our findings suggest that increasingly gender-egalitarian attitudes in urban China shape the child gender preferences of singleton youth in adolescence, and are likely to contribute to their later childbearing decisions, with important social and demographic implications.

Case Study of a Survivor of Suicide Who Lost All Family Members Through Parent–Child Collective Suicide

BACKGROUND South Korea is characterized by a high percentage of parent-child collective suicide. AIMS This case study explores one individuals personal experience as an adult survivor of suicide who lost his wife and his only son through parent-child collective suicide in South Korea. METHOD The study reports data from a semistructured interview, which were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). RESULTS Two themes were identified through the analysis of the narratives of the survivor. The first theme provides a detailed picture of the survivors explanation of why the parent-child collective suicide occurred. The second theme examines how the participant experienced complicated bereavement after his heart-breaking loss of both wife and son. CONCLUSION We discuss the importance of support from other people or grief experts for the survivors of suicide who lose family to collective suicide.

Poorer Children Study Better: How Urban Chinese Young Adults Perceive Relationships between Wealth and Academic Achievement.

This article examines how Chinese citizens perceived the relationship between wealth and achievement among their former middle school classmates. It draws on a survey of 503 respondents in their late twenties and early thirties (who have been followed since 1999, when they were eighth or ninth graders in Dalian City, China) and on interviews with 60 of them. Most believed their former classmates from “poorer” families “studied better” than those from “wealthier” families. Interviewees elaborated that wealthier classmates were more likely than poorer classmates to lack motivation, have poor study habits, and be distracted by material pursuits. Interviewees also suggested that parental involvement was a key factor in shaping achievement, with more involved and educated “poorer” parents’ children doing better than children of “wealthier” business-owner parents who were too busy to get involved in their children’s education. Among these young adults, associations between wealth and achievement differ from those documented in Western societies.

Biocompatible astaxanthin as a novel marine-oriented agent for dual chemo-photothermal therapy

The photothermal effect of a marine-oriented xanthophyll carotenoid, astaxanthin (AXT), was characterized based on its potential absorption of visible laser light and conversion of optical light energy into heat for thermal treatment. As an antioxidant and anticancer agent, AXT extracted from marine material can be utilized for photothermal therapy due to its strong light absorption. The current study investigated the feasibility of the marine-based material AXT to increase the therapeutic efficacy of chemo-photothermal therapy (PTT) by assessing photothermal sessions in both cells and tumor tissues. A quasi-cw Q-switched 80 W 532 nm laser system was utilized to induce thermal necrosis in in vitro and in vivo models. An in vitro cytotoxicity study of AXT was implemented using squamous cell carcinoma (VX2) and macrophage (246.7) cell lines. In vivo PTT experiments were performed on 17 rabbits bearing VX2 tumors on their eyes that were treated with or without intratumoral injection of AXT at a dose of 100 μl (300 μg/ml) followed by laser irradiation at a low irradiance of 0.11 W/cm2. Fluorescence microscopy images revealed cellular death via apoptosis and necrosis owing to the dual chemo-photothermal effects induced by AXT. In vivo experimental results demonstrated that the AXT-assisted irradiation entailed a temperature increase by 30.4°C after tumor treatment for 4 min. The relative variations in tumor volume confirmed that the tumors treated with both AXT and laser irradiation completely disappeared 14 days after treatment, but the tumors treated under other conditions gradually grew. Due to selective light absorption, AXT-assisted laser treatment could be an effective thermal therapy for various drug-resistant cancers.

Beyond Grief and Survival: Posttraumatic Growth Through Immediate Family Suicide Loss in South Korea

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the characteristics of posttraumatic growth arising from losing an immediate family member to suicide in Korea. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis for data collection and analysis and conducted in-depth interviews with 11 participants in Korea to evaluate the positive changes subsequent to the suicide. Participants revealed positive outcomes in response to losing an immediate family member to suicide after suffering the “most unimaginable pain” including (a) “Now I know what the most important thing in life is,” (b) “Warm and intimate relationships matter,” and (c) “Survivors of suicide’s search for meaning.” The implications of these findings and avenues for future research are discussed.

How flexible gender identities give young women advantages in China’s new economy

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine how a cohort of urban youth born under China’s one-child policy have developed flexible gender identities through their childrearing aspirations and educational and occupational narratives, choices, and trajectories between 1999 and 2014. Drawing on surveys of 406 respondents conducted in 1999, 2012–2013, and 2013–2014, and interviews of 48 of those respondents in 2011–2014, we argue that our female research participants were more able to produce flexible gender identities than their male counterparts, and that China’s new market economy increasingly rewards youth who are flexible enough to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances, an approach more compatible with the flexible gender identities produced by young women than the more rigid gender identities produced by young men.

Performance of the deep convolutional neural network based magnetic resonance image scoring algorithm for differentiating between tuberculous and pyogenic spondylitis

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of the deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) in differentiating between tuberculous and pyogenic spondylitis on magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, compared to the performance of three skilled radiologists. This clinical retrospective study used spine MR images of 80 patients with tuberculous spondylitis and 81 patients with pyogenic spondylitis that was bacteriologically and/or histologically confirmed from January 2007 to December 2016. Supervised training and validation of the DCNN classifier was performed with four-fold cross validation on a patient-level independent split. The object detection and classification model was implemented as a DCNN and was designed to calculate the deep-learning scores of individual patients to reach a conclusion. Three musculoskeletal radiologists blindly interpreted the images. The diagnostic performances of the DCNN classifier and of the three radiologists were expressed as receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and the areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) were compared using a bootstrap resampling procedure. When comparing the AUC value of the DCNN classifier (0.802) with the pooled AUC value of the three readers (0.729), there was no significant difference (P = 0.079). In differentiating between tuberculous and pyogenic spondylitis using MR images, the performance of the DCNN classifier was comparable to that of three skilled radiologists.