In the present paper we have investigated and examined children's concepts of cross-gender behaviors in play, and their concepts of moral, social-conventional, and personal transgressions. Moreover, we have investigated and examined whether the employment status and judgments of their mothers would affect their judgments.
The subjects were 306 children enrolled in day nursery, kindergarten, and elementary school, and their 306 mothers. Children were presented, as a stimulus, with the depictions of four types of transgressions and were asked to rank the transgressions according to their judgments of wrongness. Then they were asked to answer questions about sex-role flexibility, relativity, and individual commitment to others and themselves. The mothers were asked by questionnaire to rank the transgressions in question.
The main results are as follows :
1) As children grow older, they tend to accept cross-gender behaviors more positively and weaken sex-role stereotyping.
2) Girls tend to accept cross-gender behaviors more positively than boys, and their sex-role stereotyping is weaker. This tendency is more conspicuous in the girls of higher graders.
3) There is correlation between children and mothers concerning the concepts of cross-gender behaviors.
4) The employment status of mothers does not affect children's judgments directly as a single factor, but it seems to affect them when coupled with the factors of age and/or sex.

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To study the effects of the direct intake of marketed green tea on growing rats, rats were divided into three groups according to the percentage of green tea powder in the diet for 28 weeks : 0% (control) group, 1% group and 5% group.
No differences were found among the three groups in hematocrit, hemoglobin and serum iron. This result indicated that green tea powder did not adversely affect the utilization of iron. No adverse effects on serum enzymes or blood urea nitrogen were recognized. Except for the liver, the groups did not show any pathological or weight abnormalities in the organs.However, the control group had fatty liver and the 1% group mild fatty liver, whereas the 5% group was normal.
Storage fatty tissue weight in the abdominal cavity per 100 g of body weight was 5.5±0.4 g for the control group, 4.3±0.7 g for the 1% group and 3.8±0.4 g for the 5% group. Significant differences were seen between the control group and the 1% group (p<0.05) and the 5% group (p<0.01).
HDL-cholesterol as a percentage of serum total cholesterol was 39.6±5.3% for the control group, 57.6±6.9% for the 1% group and 67.0 ±6.6% for the 5% group. Significant differences were recognized between the control and the other two groups (p<0.01).
These results indicated that direct intake of green tea did not adversely affect rats and actually improved the conditions of the liver and serum lipid.

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Gelatinized starch is easily retrograded during storage at refrigeration temperature, and its retrogradation does not occure below -20°C.
Very limited studies on the retrogradation of starch in cooked rice between 0 and -20°C have been done. Consequently, it is not made clear whether the retrogradation of starch is promoted when cooked rice is preserved below 0°C in the unfrozen state, and whether it does not proceed so long as water in the rice is kept frozen.
We measured the rates of retrogradation of starch in frozen cooked rice and in unfrozen one at -5°C. The results show that the rate of retrogradation of the unfrozen rice is slower below 0°C and that retrogradation stops when water gets frozen.

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The effects of radiant characteristics of heaters on food processing were studied experimentally. Four heaters were employed : 1) a halogen heater, 2) a seathed heater, 3) a far-infrared rays heater, and 4) a broad-band rays heater. The radiative heat transfer rate in the oven was measured by an aluminum block, and then the heating and evaporation process of water was measured. The baking process of sponge cakes was also studied.
The experiments showed that an important parameter of the heaters is the wavelength at the emission peak. A decrease of this wavelength results in an increase of the radiative heat transfer rate in the oven. The rate of increase of temperature and the evaporation rate of water depend on the radiative heat transfer rate. For baking the sponge cake, a shorter baking time is attained by the heater which has the higher radiative heat transfer rate. The heater which radiates longer wave rays and has the higher radiative heat transfer rate results in a darker surface of the sponge cake.

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In order to investigate the causes of differences in softening of burdock root and Japanese radish root by cooking, slices 1 cm thick were cooked in deionized water and 2% NaCl solution. Changes in firmness during cooking and the contents of pectic substances-water soluble pectin (WP), 0.4 % sodium hexametaphosphate soluble pectin (PP) and 0.05 N hydrochloric acid soluble pectin. (HP) -were measured. Morphological changes in the tissue structure, respectively, after cooking, EGTA-treatment, and polygalacturonase-treatment, were observed by means of light and electrons microscopes. The localization of Ca²⁺ in the cell wall of parenchyma was also observed.
1) The slices of burdock root cooked in NaCl solutions were softened remarkably faster than those cooked in deionized water, though all slices of burdock root were firmer than those of Japanese radish root at all stages. The firmness of xylem of burdock measured in longitudinal direction after cooking was lower than that of cortex horizontally measured. This phenomenon is probably due to the differences between the size and array of each cell.
2) The amounts of alcohol insoluble solids (AIS) and pectic substances in burdock were larger than those in Japanese radish. In both vegetables, WP showed a tendency to increase and PP and HP decreased when cooked in 2% NaCl solution, though PP did not decrease by cooking in deionized water. Larger quantities of pectic substances remained after cooking in burdock than in Japanese radish.
3) When observed by means of light and electron microscopes, it was recognized that the cell wall of burdock parenchyma is richer in fibrous components than that of Japanese radish, and the morphological changes in the tissue of cooked burdock were smaller than those in Japanese radish. The cell size of burdock parenchyma was smaller than that of the xylem parenchyma of Japanese radish, so that the surface density of the cell wall of burdock parenchyma was higher than that of Japanese radish. Moreover, the cell wall of burdock parenchyma contains a larger amount of pectic substances and AIS than Japanese radish in the same square. This might be one of the causes of the differences between burdock and Japanese radish in softening by cooking.

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In order to clarify the effects of cooking on morphological features of vascular bundles scattered in parenchyma of vegetables, slices 1 cm thick of bamboo shoot and Japanese radish root were cooked in deionized water and 2% NaCl solution for 2.5-75 min. Morphological changes of vascular bundles in cooked samples were observed by means of light and electron microscopes. Firmness of cooked samples were also measured by rheometer.
The results obtained were as follows :
1) Bamboo shoot slices were more difficult to be softed by cooking than Japanese radish root slices. The bamboo shoot slices cooked in 2% NaCl solution did not show such clear enhancement of softening as was observed in cooking of Japanese radish slices.
2) Morphological changes were rarely observed in the cell wall of parenchyma, bundle seath and xylem element in bamboo shoot, whereas in the primary cell wall of sieve elements the loosened array of fibrilar components was clearly observed and among fibrilar components and intercellular space coagulated substance was also observed in high electron density. The wall of sieve element even in bamboo shoot seems to be degraded in firmness.
3) In the vascular bundles scattering in the xylem parenchyma of Japanese radish root, both the primary cell walls of sieve element and vessel element strongly swoll up and lost their tensions. So it is to be assumed that the vascular bundle in the xylem parenchyma of Japanese radish root is softened by cooking.

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A new textural parameter, “toughness” was introduced to express the activity of masticatory muscles at chewing. The parameter was based on the values measured by texturometer and was defined as log (firmness × cohesiveness × strain × 10).
It had good correlation with muscular activity measured by electromyography; the correlation coefficient was 0.929 for 11 kinds of foods which have diverse physical properties.
The firmness measured by V-plunger reflected the activities of masticatory muscles better than that measured by cylindrical plunger.

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The improvement of water resistance of natural leather is a worldwide subject of investigation in leather industries.
The present study was carried out to examine the effects of tanning and retanning agents on the water vapour and liquid water absorbability of collagen fibers as a fundamental study. By a recovery process with a less degree of alkali treatment, collagen fibers were obtained from the shoulder part of salted steer hide (58 lbs.). When the collagen fibers were treated with vegetable tannin or basic chromium sulfate, their absorbability of collagen fibers for the vapour and liquid water decreased as the degree of tanning increased. Such decreases were greater in case of chrome tanning at high pH values. Retanning with syntans and vegetable tannin showed a tendency to increase the vapour and liquid water absorbability of chrome collagen fibers. On the other hand, retanning of chrome collagen fibers with resin type syntans, acrylic resin (emulsion type) and inorganic tanning agent was recognized to cause a reverse effect.

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[in Japanese]

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