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The article offers information on the 13th Biennial International Conference on EcoBalance, organized by the the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment held from October 9 to 12, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. MTopics discussed include discussions on sustainability and life cycle thinking among professionals; highlights the range of sustainability-related oral sessions; and the keynote speech by the Yuji Ueda and the Ester van der Voet on the sustainability.

Information on the 10th International Conference on EcoBalance (EcoBalance 2012) which was held at the Hiyoshi Campus of Keio University in Yokohama, Japan from November 20-23 is presented. Topics include renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and input-output analysis. The conference featured several speakers including Toshiharu Ikaga of Keio University, professor Matthias Finkbeiner, and doctor Hiroto Izumi.

Information about several research papers discussed at a conference held November 9-12, 2010 sponsored by the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment and Ecomaterials Forum and Life Cycle Assessment Society of Japan on the current problems and solutions in various fields such as food and water is presented. Topics include urban mining, biomass resources, and eco-friendly products. The conference featured business specialists, policy leaders, and researchers from various colleges and universities.

Satellite cells, resident myogenic stem cells found in postnatal skeletal muscle, are most abundant during early postnatal development and sharply decline in frequency thereafter to adult levels in mice and rats. Therefore, postnatal changes in satellite cell mitotic activities are important aspects for further understanding a muscle growth strategy. In large meat-production animals, however, the traditional in vivo proliferation assay may be less realistic because it requires intra-peritoneal (ip) injection of huge dosage of mutagenic nucleosides, 3H-labeled thymidine or bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU), at each age-time of sacrifice. We report in the present pilot study using rats that in vivo proliferation activity of satellite cells can be evaluated by an in vitro BrdU-incorporation assay in early cultures. Briefly, satellite cells were prepared from upper hind-limb and back muscles and maintained for 24 h with imposing by BrdU addition for the last 2 h, followed by the regular immunocytochemistry for determining BrdU-incorporated cell percentage. This in vitro assay demonstrated a rapid decrease in proliferating satellite cell frequency to the adult level during about 3-month period after birth, and yielded a high correlation to the measurements by the in vivo BrdU ip-injection method during the postnatal period examined from day-2 to month-11. The in vitro proliferation assay may be further adaptable for large domestic animals by the combination with a muscle biopsy technique that enables age-interval sampling from the same growing animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]