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I t is proposed that cross-cultural studies of leadership style have failed to distinguish adequately between global characterizations of style and the specific behaviours which leaders need to use in a given culture if a particular style is to be attributed to them. A study is reported of perceptions of electronics plant supervisors in Britain, the USA, Japan and Hong Kong, derived from Misumi's PM leadership theory. The findings indicate that characterizations of P(Performance) and M(Maintenance) leader style have a similar factor structure in each culture. However, the specific behaviours associated with those styles differ markedly, in ways which are comprehensible within the cultural norms ofeach setting. The study illustrates how a series of emic correlations within each culture sample may be used to test the validity of etic models of leader style.

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The correlation between low serum PG level and H. pylori infection with the development of gastric cancer has caused considerable concerns all over the world. Some authors exclaimed that gastric cancer developed only in patients infected with H. pylori, whereas the other had different findings. In this study, 1,501 adult local residents with determined serum PG levels and anti H. pylori IgG status were followed for 14 years for the development of gastric cancer in a rural community with high risk of gastric cancer in Hebei Province, China. The results showed the accumulated gastric cancer incidence in the subjects with abnormal PG level and those with H. pylori infection were all significantly higher than that in the corresponding normal controls (53.9% vs. 12.7%, p < 0.05 and 23.1% vs. 5.93%, p < 0.05). The highest gastric cancer incidence was seen in the subjects with both abnormal serum PG and positive H. pylori (56.0%), and followed by the subjects with abnormal PG and negative H. pylori (47.6%) and those with normal serum PG and positive H. pylori (18.4%). The abnormal serum PG level (OR 3.029) and H. pylori infection (OR 4.345) were all risk factors for the development of gastric cancer. The results suggested that the subjects with abnormal serum PG level and/or positive H. pylori infection in the rural area of China were all high risk population for gastric carcinoma and the subjects with both abnormal serum PG and positive H. pylori infection were at especially high risk for the development of gastric carcinoma.Low level of serum pepsinogen I (PGI) and/or the ratio of PGI to PGII is an accurate indicator of chronic atrophic gastritis, which is a very important precursor of gastric cancer. 1,2 The test for serum PG has been incorporated into gastric cancer screening programs to identify people at high risk for gastric cancer in many countries since 1990s. [3][4][5][6][7] As the pepsinogen test method is virtually used as a prescreening test for high risk subjects rather than to find gastric cancer itself, 8,9 the correlation between serum PG abnormality and the development of gastric cancer has caused considerable concerns all over the world.Despite the obvious decline in gastric cancer incidence in Western countries in the past a few decades, gastric cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in China. 10 Gastric cancer screening program using serum PG test has not been widely used in China. Up to now, only a few such studies have been implemented in Chinese population. [11][12][13][14][15] In a previous study, we found the distribution of serum PGI and PGI/PGII ratio were skewed among adult Chinese population in a rural community with high incidence of gastric carcinoma, and as a screening marker, low serum PGI and/or a lower PGI/PGII ratio were closely related to the precancerous lesions in gastric mucosa. When used in screening for chronic atrophic gastritis, gastric cancer and intestinal metaplasia of gastric mucosa, the sensitivity of low serum PGI level and PGI/PGII ratio was not high enough ...

A concept called work centrality is developed to represent the generalized importance of working to individuals. Work centrality results for national samples of the labor force in Japan and in the United States are presented. A large difference is found between the measured work centrality levels in Japan and the United States. Several potential explanatory rationales are examined concerning this large work centrality difference.

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This study was carried out to determine the cutoff levels of serum pepsinogen (PG) I , II and their ratio of PG I /PG II for gastric cancer to establish a better screening system. Optimal cutoff levels for gastric cancer screening using serum pepsinogens were determined using Youden's index. The sensitivity, specificity and Youden's index for gastric cancer cases were calculated according to sex, age and the stage of gastric cancer, and the maximum Youden's index in each category was adopted as the cutoff level for gastric cancer screening using serum pepsinogens. The maximal Youden's index in all gastric cancer cases was 0.37, corresponding to a cutoff level of PG I < 40 (* g/I) and PG I /PG II < 3.5. The sensitivity and specificity for gastric cancer cases of these cutoff levels were 0.50 and 0.87, respectively. In future, better criteria for gastric cancer screening have to be examined with the estimation of Youden's index in addition to other epidemiological methods such as ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves and/or cost benefit analyses.J Epidemiol, 1997 ; 7 : 143-151.gastric cancer screening, serum pepsinogens, cutoff levelsThe mortality rate of gastric cancer is decreasing in Japan.However, cancer is the most common and second most common cause of death in Japanese men and women, respectively 1) . The risk factors for gastric cancer are considered to be high dietary salt intake, shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables in the diet, smoking and aging 4. Chronic atrophic gastritis has recently been shown to be a precancerous lesion 3.4.5). As serum pepsinogens (PG I PG II) and the ratio of PG I /PG II are correlated with atrophic gastric mucosa lesions, serum pepsinogena I and the ratio of PG I /PG II have been used to screen for gastric cancer instead of indirect or direct X-ray examination in some medical facilities in Japan6,7,8 9). The method using serum pepsinogens is very useful to detect well-differentiated adenocarcinomas in the stomach because low PG I and low PG I /PG II are highly correlated with such lesions10,11) However, the cutoff level of serum pepsinogen used for screening of gastric cancer varies among different medical facilities 6,7,8,9). It is thus necessary to determine the optimal cutoff levels for gastric cancer screening by this method.This study was carried out to determine the optimal cutoff level for gastric cancer screening. We examined 123 gastric cancer cases collected from cooperating hospitals in Oita prefecture, and 97 subjects from the same hospitals in whom no gastrointestinal lesions were detected by gastrointestinal fiberscopy at regular medical checkup examination. The parameters related to serum pepsinogens were examined according to sex, age, stage of gastric cancer, and then the distributions of these parameters were characterized. Further, the optimal cutoff level for gastric cancer screening using the serum pepsinogens was determined as the value that yielded the maximum Youden's index"). The cutoff level given by this method was compared with those deter...

Rated effectiveness of work teams in four closely similar electronics assembly plants is compared with which of five sources of guidance were used in managing both routine and non‐routine events. No support was found for uniform ‘culture‐free’ effects. However, eight significant interaction effects were detected, indicating that country or organization‐specific factors were more important than uniformities. In Japan, relatively frequent reference to supervisors was associated with work quality, while relatively frequent reliance on manuals predicted productiveness and group cooperation. Supervisors of teams in the UK and USA differentiated more between preferred ways of handling routine and non‐routine events. The results are discussed in terms of Western managers' greater propensity to differentiate situationally appropriate responses.