How Inpatriates Internalize Corporate Values at Headquarters: The Role of Developmental Job Assignments and Psychosocial Mentoring

Multinational companies (MNCs) often invite foreign subsidiary employees or inpatriates to their headquarters (HQ) to internalize the MNCs’ corporate values and transfer those values to their subsidiaries after repatriation. However, there is a lack of understanding about how and why inpatriates internalize these corporate values during their HQ experiences. By integrating the perspectives of international adjustment and organizational socialization with that of on-the-job learning, we develop a model wherein the job-related and psychosocial factors that inpatriates encounter at HQ promote their internalization of corporate values. Using a sample of 110 foreign subsidiary employee–supervisor dyads from the HQ of a Japanese MNC to which the employees were assigned as inpatriates, we found that developmental job assignments and psychosocial mentoring during inpatriation influenced the internalization of corporate values, which was partially and sequentially mediated by proactive socialization behavior and organizational identification. This study’s findings have significant implications for the theory and practice of inpatriation management, particularly with regard to how MNCs promote the internalization of corporate values among inpatriates

Implementation and Evaluation of an Automated Question Generation Module for Question and Answer about the Content of an English Story

英語学習において，長文を読み，その内容に関する質問に解答する学習方法は一般的であり，実際の教育現場や学習支援システムで採用されている．しかし，これまでの学習支援システムではあらかじめ用意された質問を用いるため，学習者の理解状態に合致した質問を出題することは非常に困難である．本論文では，英語長文読解学習の際に学習者の理解状態に適した質問を行うために必要な質問文自動生成について述べる．質問の生成は，１文についての質問生成，同義語・反義語を用いた質問生成，修飾語句を用いた質問生成，文の合成を用いた質問生成，時空関係を用いた質問生成という５種類のモジュールを利用して行われる．評価として中学生レベルの問題集を人手で調査したところ，本論文で提案した質問文の生成法で約80％の質問が生成可能であることがわかった．また，実際に中学校２年生と３年生の英語の教科書の物語の英文301文について質問文自動生成を行った結果，生成した質問文1977文中1848文（約93%）が意味的に適格な文であった．本研究の一部は，文部省科学研究費補助金奨励研究(A) (No．10780113)の援助による

Diagnostic accuracy of frozen section biopsy for early gastric cancer extent during endoscopic submucosal dissection: a prospective study

Background Accurate diagnosis of the lateral extent of early gastric cancer during endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is crucial to achieve negative resection margins. Similar to intraoperative consultation with a frozen section in surgery, rapid frozen section diagnosis with endoscopic forceps biopsy may be useful in assessing tumor margins during ESD. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of frozen section biopsy. Methods We prospectively enrolled 32 patients undergoing ESD for early gastric cancer. Biopsy samples for the frozen sections were randomly collected from fresh resected ESD specimens before formalin fixation. Two different pathologists independently diagnosed 130 frozen sections as “neoplasia,” “negative for neoplasia,” or “indefinite for neoplasia,” and the frozen section diagnosis was compared with the final pathological results of the ESD specimens. Results Among the 130 frozen sections, 35 were from cancerous areas, and 95 were from non-cancerous areas. The diagnostic accuracies of the frozen section biopsies by the two pathologists were 98.5 and 94.6%, respectively. Cohen’s kappa coefficient of diagnoses by the two pathologists was 0.851 (95% confidence interval: 0.837–0.864). Incorrect diagnoses resulted from freezing artifacts, a small volume of tissue, inflammation, the presence of well-differentiated adenocarcinoma with mild nuclear atypia, and/or tissue damage during ESD. Conclusions Pathological diagnosis of frozen section biopsy is reliable and can be applied as a rapid frozen section diagnosis for evaluating the lateral margins of early gastric cancer during ESD

Ubiquitin‐specific protease 8 is a novel prognostic marker in early‐stage lung adenocarcinoma

Alterations of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression frequently occur in early‐stage lung adenocarcinoma. Ubiquitin‐specific protease 8 (USP8) has been reported to stabilize EGFR protein at the plasma membrane through the recycling pathway. Here, we examined the correlation between USP8 expression and the expression or mutation status of EGFR, as well as the clinicopathological features of lung adenocarcinoma and patient outcome. Expression of EGFR and USP8 in surgically resected specimens of lung adenocarcinoma (82 cases) was examined by immunohistochemistry. Overexpression of EGFR was mutually correlated with that of USP8, and was also associated with clinicopathological features including pathological subtype, lymphatic permeation, and vascular invasion. Moreover, patients who had USP8‐positive tumors had a significantly poorer outcome than those who were USP8‐negative, not only overall but also patients who were EGFR‐negative. Although EGFR was expressed in invasive adenocarcinoma but not in adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS), USP8 was overexpressed in not only invasive adenocarcinoma but also 38.1% of AIS cases. In vitro, USP8 regulated the expression and half‐life of EGFR in immortalized AIS cells, and also cell proliferation. Our findings indicate that overexpression of USP8 in lung adenocarcinoma is an early event during the course of tumor progression, and is related to EGFR expression

Functional 1,3a,6a-triazapentalene scaffold : Design of fluorescent probes for kinesin spindle protein (KSP)

1,3a,6a-Triazapentalene is a compact fluorescent chromophore. In this study, triazapentalene was used to modify a series of biphenyl-type inhibitors of kinesin spindle protein (KSP) to develop fluorescent probes for the intracellular visualization of this protein. Microscopic studies demonstrated that these novel triazapentalene-labeled compounds exhibited inhibitory activity towards KSP in cultured cells and provided important information concerning the intracellular distribution