Measures for environmental conservation in enclosed coastal seas.

With putting a focus on the balance among the nutrient salts such as nitrogen and phosphorus, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) developed the Action Plan for Healthy Material Circulation in Ocean (just called the Healthy Plan). The plan aims to facilitate the healthy and smooth circulation of the nutrients with an integrated management over land and sea as a package in respective sea areas. The Healthy Plan is now in a pilot phase and is to be implemented for some selected model regions. Meanwhile, devastating tsunamis caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11th, 2011 severely damaged the natural environments in the affected regions. In the affected bays, seaweed beds and spawning grounds disappeared in a blink. MOE has launched on the recovery activities of Zostera (eelgrass) beds, using the concepts and the methods used in the "Sato-umi Creation" activity which is a purposeful environmental recovery project.

New direction for environmental water management.

Japan experienced severe environmental problems including water pollution and damages to aquatic organisms and fishery industry through and after the high economic growth period in the 1960s. One of the countermeasures to address these problems was the Total Pollutant Load Control System (TPLCS), which has been implemented with the aim of reducing the total amount of pollutant loads, specifically targeting Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total nitrogen and total phosphorus. The TPLCS has significantly improved the quality of the coastal sea water. However, while the accumulated pollutant loads from the past industrialization have still remained, new environmental concerns have arisen. Our new environmental policies are thus to deal with conservation of biological diversity and other related marine environmental issues. Japan has entered a new phase of environmental management, setting the new direction and framework toward a beautiful, bio-diverse, bustling-with-people and bountiful sea.

[Studies on preanalytical phase errors in clinical chemistry in the Japanese clinical laboratory--now and the future].

The Sampling Conference for the prevention of preanalytical phase errors was first held at Fukushima in 1987. Since then, The Sampling Conference has been held in several areas in Japan. For the same purpose, we started the Tokai Sampling Conference in the Tokai area including Aichi, Shizuoka, Gifu and Mie prefectures in 1990, and discussed clinical errors in laboratory measurements caused by physiological variations in age, sex and the season, influence of food, exercise, posture and medication, effects of anticoagulants, sample storage conditions and so on. We have studied many preanalytical errors at these conferences. Moreover, additional problems have been revealed at the conferences. Safety and risk management to avoid needle sticks and Vacutainer-induced infections have been discussed, and this information is thought to be important not only for laboratory workers but also for patients.

A pharmacologic study on the mechanism of action of Kakkon-to: body temperature elevation and phagocytic activation of macrophages in dogs.

OBJECTIVE: The phagocytic activity of macrophages as a novel approach to scientific elucidation of the effects of Chinese medicines was studied through administration of a kampo preparation, by measuring the rise in body temperature, which is thought to stimulate innate defensive functions of organisms and enhance the immune systems. DESIGN: Using dogs as experimental models, a rise in body temperature following administration of Kakkon-to was observed, and the average number and average rate of phagocytosis of macrophages in blood using latex micro-particles was investigated. RESULTS: The body temperature of the treated animals significantly increased 30 minutes after administration (p<0.01), and remained elevated for more than 5 hours. A comparison of body temperatures before and after administration showed significant increases over controls from 1 to 11 hours, p<0.01; and at 12 hours, p<0.05 after administration. The average number and the average rate of phagocytosis were significantly increased 1 (p<0.05) and 2 (p<0.01) hours after administration. The mean number of phagocytized cells significantly increased (p<0.05) at 1 hour after administration compared with that before administration, and the mean phagocytic rate also increased significantly (p<0.01) 2 hours after administration. Increases (p<0.01) in both the rate of phagocytosis and the number of cells phagocytized were found at every measurement point from 2 to 24 hours after administration. Significant increases (p<0.01) were also observed in both the rate of phagocytosis and the number of cells phagocytized 3 hours after administration, when compared with the control group. CONCLUSION: This paper demonstrates that ingestion of Kakkon-to not only increases the body temperature but also enhances the phagocytic activity of macrophages, an in vivo defense mechanism, suggesting that Kakkon-to contributes to the suppression of multiplication of common cold viruses and influenza viruses, which consequently results in improvement of various symptoms during infection with common cold viruses.