伊藤株式会社可持续发展的思想理念

伊藤株式会社是日本最大的10家零售集团之一,整个集团共有近15000名雇员,180多家商店.到2002年2月底的财政年度,它的营业额达到150亿日元.伊藤株式会社主要的经营范围有超市、便利店和餐馆.它的零售商场包括约克·马特超市、罗宾逊日本百货店、纺织品店、以及7-11便利店(大部分是特许经营的).另外伊藤株式会社还在中国开设了3家超市(华堂商场).     

Identification Model of Pollutant Sources and Total Emission Control

提出了建立污染物来源的识别模式的初步设想。论述了如何应用该模式进行污染物排放总量控制的监督管理和检验总量控制中负荷分配的合理性。为加强环境管理工作提供了一条新的思路。      

贵州省务川地区土法炼汞工人汞蒸汽暴露调查及健康影响评价

为探讨土法炼汞过程中汞蒸汽暴露对炼汞工人健康的影响,测定了贵州省务川土法炼汞区和对照区(贵州省长顺县)人群的尿汞、尿常规参数(pH、葡萄糖、尿胆红素原、潜血、尿蛋白)、尿肌酐和尿β2微球蛋白含量,并对两地区人群进行了详细的健康检查．测定结果显示,土法炼汞区人群尿汞和尿β2微球蛋白的平均含量分别高达779μg·g-1 Cr 和208．5μg·g-1 Cr,远远高于对照区人群的尿汞1．24μg·g-1 Cr和尿β2微球蛋白75．4μg·g-1 Cr．分析表明,务川地区土法炼汞人群遭受了较严重的汞蒸汽暴露,部分暴露人群已经表现出轻度慢性汞中毒的症状,其肾脏已经遭受到一定程度的损伤．     

Dioxin concentration in human milk in Hebei province in China and Tokyo, Japan: potential dietary risk factors and determination of possible sources

Very limited information is available on body burdens and environmental levels of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs (dl-PCBs) in mainland China. In the current studies, human milk samples were collected from 30 breastfeeding mothers in Shijiazhuang city (industrialized) and 11 in the Tanshan countryside (agricultural) of Hebei Province in northern China. An additional 20 samples were obtained from mothers in Tokyo, Japan. PCDDs, PCDFs, and dl-PCBs in human milk were analyzed by high-resolution gas chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometry. Our results show that arithmetic means for body burdens of PCDDs/Fs and dl-PCBs in Hebei were 3.6 and 1.9 pg TEQ g⁻¹ fat, respectively, which were only about one fourth of the levels in Japan. In addition, no difference was found in the chemical levels except dl-PCBs between the urban and rural areas. Based on the results of an in-person interview of the Chinese mothers using a 59-item questionnaire, freshwater fish consumption was found to correlate with the body burden of dioxins. Principal component analysis of dioxin congeners revealed that the patterns of dioxins in the Hebei urban and rural areas are quite similar; however, they are clearly different from those in Japan. Collectively, our results suggest that the lower body burdens of dioxin in Hebei may be due in part to the relatively slow industrialization and a lower consumption of marine foods. Finally, the results indicate that comprehensive monitoring of dioxins and dl-PCBs in humans as well as in the environment and foods is necessary in China.     

Investigating potential for effects of environmental endocrine disrupters on wild populations of amphibians in UK and Japan: status of historical databases and review of methods.

Concern over global declines among amphibians has resulted in increased interest in the effects of environmental contaminants on amphibian populations, and more recently, this has stimulated research on the potential adverse effects of environmental endocrine disrupters in amphibians. Laboratory studies of the effects of single chemicals on endocrine-relevant endpoints in amphibian, mainly anuran, models are valuable in characterizing sensitivity at the individual level and may yield useful bioassays for screening chemicals for endocrine toxicity (for example, thyroid disrupting activity). Nevertheless, in the UK and Japan as in many other countries, it has yet to be demonstrated unequivocally that the exposure of native amphibians to endocrine disrupting environmental contaminants results in adverse effects at the population level. Assessing the potential of such effects is likely to require an ecoepidemiological approach to investigate associations between predicted or actual exposure of amphibians to (endocrine disrupting) environmental contaminants and biologically meaningful responses at the population level. In turn, this demands recent but relatively long-term population trend data. We review two potential sources of such data for widespread UK anurans that could be used in such investigations: records for common frogs and common toads in several databases maintained by the Biological Records Centre (UK Government Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), and adult toad count data from 'Toads on Roads' schemes registered with the UK wildlife charity 'Froglife'. There were little abundance data in the BRC databases that could be used for this purpose, while count data from the Toads on Roads schemes is potentially confounded by the effects of local topology on the detection probabilities and operation of nonchemical anthropogenic stressors. For Japan, local and regional surveys of amphibians and national ecological censuses gathering amphibian data were reviewed to compile survey methodologies and these were compared with methods used in the UK and other countries. Substantial consensus exists in amphibian survey methodologies and this should be exploited in the initiation of coordinated monitoring programs for widespread and common anuran amphibians in Japan and the UK to generate long-term robust and standardized population trend data. Such data would support comparative ecoepidemiological assessments of the impact of environmental endocrine disrupters in these two cooperating countries.     

Nematomorph parasites drive energy flow through a riparian ecosystem

Parasites are ubiquitous in natural systems and ecosystem-level effects should be proportional to the amount of biomass or energy flow altered by the parasites. Here we quantified the extent to which a manipulative parasite altered the flow of energy through a forest-stream ecosystem. In a Japanese headwater stream, camel crickets and grasshoppers (Orthoptera) were 20 times more likely to enter a stream if infected by a nematomorph parasite (Gordionus spp.), corroborating evidence that nematomorphs manipulate their hosts to seek water where the parasites emerge as free-living adults. Endangered Japanese trout (Salvelinus leucomaenis japonicus) readily ate these infected orthopterans, which due to their abundance, accounted for 60% of the annual energy intake of the trout population. Trout grew fastest in the fall, when nematomorphs were driving energy-rich orthopterans into the stream. When infected orthopterans were available, trout did not eat benthic invertebrates in proportion to their abundance, leading to the potential for cascading, indirect effects through the forest-stream ecosystem. These results provide the first quantitative evidence that a manipulative parasite can dramatically alter the flow of energy through and across ecosystems.     

The assessment of female reproductive state during courtship and scramble competition in the fiddler crab, Uca paradussumieri

Male fiddler crabs, Uca paradussumieri, mate underground during a 4- to 7-day period each full and new moon. As soon as the tide recedes, males enter the burrows of females that will ovulate the following day ('pre-ovigerous' females). Males copulate with and guard these females until they ovulate. When interrupted by an intruding male, the first male to reach the female is usually able to defend her and successfully mate with her. In fiddler crabs, females mate multiply and there is last male sperm precedence. Before each semi-lunar mating period, male U. paradussumieri were more likely to court females with whom they would later mate than other nearby females with whom they did not mate. This suggests that males collect information on female reproductive state prior to the females becoming ovigerous. In this species, aggression was common between males that courted the same female. When previously courted females were approached by other males, the initial courter attempted to forcefully disrupt the courtship. This behavior may allow males the exclusive use of information on female reproductive condition. It also suggests a type of scramble competition between males over females. Furthermore, it indicates that males are able to locate receptive females prior to their becoming ovigerous. The shorter guarding period observed in this species, as compared with other fiddler crabs, is caused by females rejecting longer guarding periods. Male ability to assess female reproductive status may therefore be advantageous because it increases male mating success within a scramble type of competitive polygyny.     

Nervous system disruption and concomitant behavioral abnormality in early hatched pufferfish larvae exposed to heavy oil

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Spills of heavy oil (HO) over the oceans have been proven to have an adverse effect on marine life. It has been hypothesized that exposure of early larvae of sinking eggs to HO leads largely to normal morphology, whereas abnormal organization of the developing neural scaffold is likely to be found. HO-induced disruption of the nervous system, which controls animal behavior, may in turn cause abnormalities in the swimming behavior of hatched larvae. To clarify the toxicological effects of HO, we performed exposure experiments and morphological and behavioral analyses in pufferfish (Takifugu rubripes) larvae. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE: Fertilized eggs of pufferfish were exposed to 50?mg/L of HO for 8?days and transferred to fresh seawater before hatching. The hatched larvae were observed for their swimming behavior, morphological appearance, and construction of muscles and nervous system. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: In HO-exposed larvae, we did not detect any anomaly of body morphology. However, they showed an abnormal swimming pattern and disorganized midbrain, a higher center controlling movement. Our results suggest that HO-exposed fishes suffer developmental disorder of the brain that triggers an abnormal swimming behavior and that HO may be selectively toxic to the brain and cause physical disability throughout the life span of these fishes.     

Production of well-matured compost from night-soil sludge by an extremely short period of thermophilic composting

The effect of various operational conditions on the decomposition of organic material during the composting of night-soil treatment sludge was quantitatively examined. The optimum composting conditions were found to be a temperature of ca. 60 °C and an initial pH value of 8. Rapid decomposition of organic matter ceased by the sixth day of composting under these optimum conditions, and the final value of the cumulative emission of carbon (E_C), which represents the degree of organic matter decomposition, was less than 40%, indicating that the sludge contained only a small amount of easily degradable organic material. A plant growth assay using Komatsuna (Brassica campestris L. var. rapiferafroug) in a 1/5000a standard cultivation pot was then conducted for the compost at various degrees of organic matter decomposition: the raw composting material, the final compost obtained on day 6, and the 2 intermediate compost products (i.e., E_C = 10% and 20%). It was found that the larger the E_C, the greater the yield of Komatsuna growth. It was also found that 6 days of composting is sufficient to promote Komatsuna growth at the standard loading level, which is equivalent to a 1.5 g N/pot, since the promotion effect was as high as that obtained using chemical fertilizer. It can therefore be concluded that well-matured compost could be obtained in a short period of time (i.e., as early as 6 days), when night-soil sludge is composted under optimum conditions.