To achieve sustainability, resource consumption and waste generation must be drastically decreased. For societal acceptance, preservation of both quality of life and corporate profits are essential. One promising approach is to shift the source of value from the amount of product sold to the quality of services the product provides. This paper describes the need for redesigning recycling systems from a manufacturing perspective and then discusses the possibility of this "servicification" of products, describing our experience with prototype development. We discuss development of product prototypes and their business, using consumer facsimile machines as an example of "service-oriented products". Traditional thought presumes that only products comprising new materials and components are valuable. Consideration of a service-oriented product can serve as a stimulus to revise this mode of thought and to control delivery and quality of disposed products. This paper also provides a life cycle simulation of the developed service-oriented business. Simulation results indicate that service-oriented business can potentially reduce environmental impact while extending business opportunities from the viewpoint of whole product life cycles.

The author herein reports on a glomus tumor of the palm. A 71-year-old man consulted our hospital because of a tumor on the left palm. The tumor was deeply seated, and MRI and CT showed a deep cystic tumor adjacent to the bone. An excision of the tumor was therefore performed. Grossly, the tumor was red and partly cystic. The tumor was well defined from the surrounding tissues, and measured 25 × 24 × 22 mm. Microscopically, the tumor consisted of epithelioid perivascular cells (glomus cells) located around the blood vessels. Cystic changes and hyalinization areas were scattered. The tumor cells had moderately hyperchromatic nuclei. Nuclear pleomorphism was noticed, nucleoli were absent and apparent mitotic figures were not recognized. There were no areas of necrosis. Immunohistochemically, the glomus cells were positive for vimentin and α-smooth muscle actin. They were negative for cytokeratins, epithelial membrane antigen, CD34, CD31, factor VIII-related antigen, S100 protein, p53 protein, desmin and melanosome. The Ki-67 labeling was 5%. The tumor was diagnosed as a malignant glomus tumor because of its deep location and size > 2 cm , according to the criteria of one group. The tumor recurred 12 months later, and a further excision was performed. No metastases were found. Now, the patient is being strictly followed up.

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New materials that possess high damping capabilities and have high strength properties have been studied in carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). These materials are referred to in this article as CFRP/damping-matenal laminates The CFRP/damping-material laminates investigated here are composed of a unidirectional car bon/epoxy prepreg sheet and a polyethylene-based damping material sheet used as an in terleaf. Cantilever beam tests revealed the high damping properties of these laminates. Loss factor values for these composites are 5 to 50 times as large as that for conventional CFRP. These values could be predicted by using the analysis constrained layer damping treatment, except for two specimens. Also, the interleaving effect on tensile and compres sion strength are discussed here. Tensile test results for quasi-isotropic laminate based composites indicated that the damping material interleaf is effective for suppressing delamination and multiple splitting in the 0° angle layer. The ultimate load increase of 3 to 15 % was caused by this suppression effect. Compression test results suggest that the in terleaf is not very effective for the compression strength increment.