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Both Top Runner in Japan and Ecodesign in the European Union are schemes to set requirements on the energy efficiency (minimum efficiency performance standards, MEPS) of a variety of products. This article provides an overview of the main characteristics and results of both schemes and gives recommendations for improving them. Both schemes contribute significantly to the energy efficiency targets set by the European Commission and the Japanese government. Although it is difficult to compare the absolute levels of the requirements, comparison of the relative improvements and of the savings on household electricity consumption (11 % in Japan, 16 % in the EU) suggest they are in the same range. Furthermore, the time needed to set or review requirements is in both schemes considerable (between 5 and 6 years on average) and the manageability increasingly will become a challenge. The appeal of the Top Runner approach is that the most efficient product (Top Runner) sets the standard for all products at the next target year. Although the Ecodesign scheme includes the elements for a Top Runner approach, it could exploit this principle more explicitly. On the other hand, the Top Runner scheme could benefit by using a real minimum efficiency performance standard instead of a fleet average. This would make the monitoring and enforcement more simple and transparent, and would open the scheme for products where the market situation is less clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Presenteeism is the impaired work performance due to health problems. We aimed to develop a Presenteeism Scale for Students (PSS), and to reveal the existence of presenteeism among students. Methods: Students ( n = 5,701) in 4 national universities in Japan were recruited via the school-based health examination. Moreover, 122 students participated in a 2-week interval test-retest to examine the reliability and criterion-related validity of the PSS. Results: Of the students, 59.2% indicated some health problems. Allergy was most prevalent health problems, affecting 35.7% of the whole students. Students with emotional problems had higher degree of presenteeism than those with the other problems. The Cronbach's α of the work impairment score of the PSS was 0.90. The Spearman's coefficient for the test-retest score was 0.80 ( P < 0.001). Regarding criterion-related validity, Spearman's coefficient between the work impairment score of the PSS and summary score of the SF-36 was −0.60 ( P < 0.001). Conclusions: These findings suggest that the PSS can be expected to be useful for assessment of students with presenteeism. Furthermore, we found that the majority of students have some health problems, and proposed that the issue of presenteeism on campus should be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]