Comparative Study of Environmental Management System Standards : Promotion of Environmental Management at Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

近年の経営おいては、環境に関わる諸課題を事業計画の中に継続的に取り込んで行くような、環境に関する経営システムの構築が求められている。そのツールとして環境マネジメントシステムがある。筆者は、環境マネジメントシステムの国際規格であるISO14001、日本において中小事業者向け制定された地域的規格であるエコアクション21 及びKES、英国のAcorn Method 等について比較研究を行い、中小事業者にとっては、「コストの軽さ」及び「手法の容易さ」で表される人的及び財務的資源の制約に関わる問題が課題であることを明らかにした。 なお、中小事業者向け環境マネジメントシステムを考える上でのアプローチ方法は、次の2通りに分類できると考えている。(1) 国際規格であるISO14001の要求事項を簡易化した地域的な規格を制定し、その規格に準拠した環境マネジメントシステムを一括的に実施する。(2) 国際規格であるISO14001の要求事項はそのままにして、環境マネジメントシステムを段階的に実施する。 筆者は、国際規格ISO14001 に準拠した第三者認証取得による企業の信用力の補強という視点も重要であると考えており、「ISO14001」、「段階的実施」、「環境パフォーマンス指標」、「実施レポート」、「段階監査」を構成要素とする中小事業者が取り組みやすく実効性がある新たな環境マネジメントシステム及びその運用体制を提案している。As for the management in recent years, the establishment of management system related to environment has been requested in order to continuously take various environmental subjects into the business plan. The environmental management system can be the tool to realize the aforementioned system. This paper has made a comparative study among ISO14001 which is the international standard for environmental management system, Ecoaction21 and KES which are developed especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan, Acorn Method which is developed in the U.K. and so on, and has revealed that the problems related to restriction on personnel and financial resources, which can be expressed as cost issue and methodology issue , are the subjects for small and medium-sized enterprises. The approach methods in developing the environmental management system for the small and medium-sized enterprises can be classified in the following two ways. 1. Development of simplified local standard from ISO14001 international standard, and implementation of its environmental management system at once. 2. Implementation of ISO14001 environmental management system in separate stages leaving the requirements as they are. The author regards the reinforcement of credibility of enterprises by third party certification based on ISO14001 international standard as an important viewpoint, and proposes a new environmental management system consisting of ISO14001 , phased implementation , environmental performance indicator , implementation report and phased audit , which is easy to be tackled and effective for the small and medium-sized enterprises, together with its operational scheme.研究ノート(Note

Synergistic Water-Treatment Reactors Using a TiO2-Modified Ti-Mesh Filter

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Upregulated expression of FGF13/FHF2 mediates resistance to platinum drugs in cervical cancer cells

Cancer cells often develop drug resistance. In cisplatin-resistant HeLa cisRcells, fibroblast growth factor 13 (FGF13/FHF2) gene and protein expression was strongly upregulated, and intracellular platinum concentrations were kept low. When the FGF13 expression was suppressed, both the cells\u27 resistance to platinum drugs and their ability to keep intracellular platinum low were abolished. Overexpression of FGF13 in parent cells led to greater resistance to cisplatin and reductions in the intracellular platinum concentration. These cisplatin-resistant cells also showed increased resistance to copper. In preoperative cervical cancer biopsy samples from poor prognoses patients after cisplatin chemoradiotherapy, FGF13-positive cells were detected more abundantly than in the biopsy samples from patients with good prognoses. These results suggest that FGF13 plays a pivotal role in mediating resistance to platinum drugs, possibly via a mechanism shared by platinum and copper. Our results point to FGF13 as a novel target and useful prognostic guide for cancer therapy

Evaluation of Zinc (II) chelators for inhibiting p53-mediated apoptosis.

In a previous study, we reported that sodium orthovanadate (vanadate) is the first known inhibitor that is capable of protecting mice from death from the radiation- induced gastrointestinal syndrome via its ability to block both transcription-dependent and transcription-independent p53 apoptotic pathways. In this paper, we report that vanadate has a unique activity for inducing the denaturation of p53 relative to other known radioprotective p53 inhibitors, pifithrin-α (PFTα) and pifithrin-μ (PFTμ). This potent radioprotective effect of vanadate prompted us to undertake a more extensive search for p53 inhibitors that can induce p53 denaturation. Based on the fact that p53 denaturation can be induced by the dissociation of a zinc ion, which is used as a structural factor of p53, we screened some zinc (II) chelators for the suppression of the DNA binding activity of p53 in vitro and the inhibition of radiation- induced p53-dependent apoptosis in MOLT-4 cells. The findings indicate that two of five zinc (II) chelators also suppressed apoptosis. Among the inhibitors tested, Bispicen (N,N’-Bis(2-pyridylmethyl)-1,2-ethanediamine) had the highest inhibition activity. A mechanistic study using cells bearing different p53 status or functions (i.e., p53-knockdown MOLT-4 transformant and its revertants, p53 mutant cells, p53-null cells), and p53-independent apoptotic stimuli revealed that the suppressive effect of Bispicen on apoptosis is specifically mediated through p53. Moreover, Bispicen, similar to vanadate, induces the denaturation of p53 as well as the blocking of both transcription-dependent and -independent apoptotic pathways. Our findings indicate that the use of zinc (II) chelators represent a new approach for protecting against radiation-induced p53-dependent apoptosis through the inhibition of p53-dependent apoptotic pathways