The main purposes of this study were to explore the ways to empiricaly measure the product use efficiency and to examine the relationships between the use efficiency and other variables. Use efficiencies for clothes, electrical appliances and food were actually measured by employing a diary method. Twenty eight home makers in Korea, specifically those residing in Seoul and its vicinities, participated in recording their use of the products for 30 days. The results indicated that actual use efficiency was not related to perceived efficiency and attitudes toward conservation. Some indices within a product group showed positive correlations with each other, but overall the results strongly suggested that use efficiency is a multi-dimensional concept specific to respective products or product groups.

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The effectiveness of aquatic exercise was evaluated for preventing bone loss after menopause. Eight-month-old Wistar strain female rats were divided into a sham group and an ovariectomized (OVX) group. After 15 days, the OVX group was further divided into two groups : a non-exercise (control) group and an aquatic exercise (swimming) group. During this experiment (170 days), all the rats had ad libitum access to a solid diet (1.2% Ca, 0.96% P) and drinking water. The bone mineral density (BMD), intestinal Ca absorption, and weight of the skeletal muscles were all reduced by ovariectomy. The BMD value and muscle weight for the OVX swimmng group were, however, significantly higher than those of the OVX control group. Compared with the OVX control group, the decrease in intestinal Ca absorption of the OVX swimming group was significantly alleviated for 6 months, and the energy metabolism accelerated due to the aquatic exercise. These results suggest that aquatic exercise would be effective for preventing a disturbance to bone metabolism in estrogen deficiency.

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The changes to sardine lipids (Sardinops melanostictus) were examined after various processes and during subsequent cold storage at 5°C. Triacylglycerols and polyunsaturated fatty acids of the lipids contained in sardine tended to decrease during processing and storage, while free fatty acids, monoacylglycerols and diacylglycerols increased. The peroxide, carbonyl and thiobarbituric acid values all increased appreciably during sun-drying and storage (p< 0.01). These results indicate that the lipids deteriorated during processing and subsequent cold storage of sardine.

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A major trypsin inhibitor, BTI-I, which had been prepared from broccoli (Brassica oleracea L.), inhibited bovine and porcine trypsins. The inhibition constants (K_i) for the BTI-I complexes with bovine and porcine trypsins were 6.4 × 10^-11 and 6.7 ×10^-11 M, respectively. The inhibitory specificity of BTI-I was examined with mammalian trypsins from the cat, horse, rabbit, sheep, dog, cow, guinea pig, rat, and goat. BTI-I inhibited each of these trypsins, although there were species differences. BTI-I was stable in the pH range of 2 to 8 during 24 h of incubation at 37 °C, and in acidic and neutral pH solutions after 30 min incubation at 100°C, although it was rapidly inactivated in alkaline solutions. The inhibitor was resistant to proteolytic digestion by bovine α-chymotrypsin, while it was relatively susceptible to the action of porcine pepsin.

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The antioxidative activity and active compounds of fennel seeds were studied. The water extract of fennel seeds had a strong inhibition effect on the oxidation of linoleic acid in a water-ethanol solution. Its activity being comparable to that of BHT. The methanol-soluble part of the water extract was fractionated by chromatography on a Sephadex LH-20 column, the strongly antioxidative fractions being purified by repeated chromatography to afford compounds. These compounds were identified as 4-O-β-D-glucosyl sinapyl alcohol, 4, 9-di-O-β-glucosyl alcohol and 4-β-glucosyloxy benzoic acid on the basis of their spectral data. The isolated compounds exhibited the antioxidative effect in comparison with the control.

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The cooking effects of an advanced ceramic plate radiating far-infrared ray were evaluated with sweet potato samples. Three plates, each with defferent emissivity, were prepard, and sweet potato samples were baked on these plates under the same radiation illuminance (6, 500 kcal/ (m² · h)). It was found that the different degrees of emissivity affected the cooked quality. The black-coated plate with high emissivity and the advanced ceramic plate radiating far-infrared rays were superior to the plain aluminum plate with low emissivity. In particular, the advanced ceramic plate emitting far-infrared radiation showed the following cooking effects :
1) After heating for 40 min, the sweet potato sample from the advanced ceramic plate showed significantly higher color difference values in the upper, middle and lower parts.
2) Optical microscopic observation indicated that the starch grains in cells had been completely broken down in the sample from the advanced ceramic plate, the content being substantially homogeneous and the cells enlarged due to swelling.
3) After heating for 30 ruin or longer, the texture of the sample from the advanced ceramic plate showed signifcantly lower hardness, which suggests that it had been better softened due to baking.
These results indicate that radiant heating by an advanced ceramic plate emitting far-infrared radiation can provide better cooking effects for sweet potatoes than the other two plates with different emitted tadiation.

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Deficient calcium intake, which is a factor in osteoporosis, has become a recent problem in Japan. Japanese people have traditionally consumed fish in large amounts, and small fish, which can be eaten with the bones included, are considered to be an important source of dietary calcium. In this study, changes in the physical properties and composition of fish bone by boiling were studied to obtain basic information for the more effective nutritional utilization of fish bone. Bones from horse mackerel were boiled in water for several hours, and their breaking strength was measured with a rheometer. The inorganic components of the horse mackerel bones were measured by ICP-AES. When the bones were cooked in water, the maximum force needed to compress them to 80 % of their original thickness decreased rapidly after 30 min and continued to decrease thereafter with the cooking time. The protein content of the bones also decreased, and that in the cooking water increased with increasing cooking time. Horse mackerel bones cooked in water were progressively softened with the cooking time, but most of their calcium content was retained. This softening of horse mackerel bones cooked in water can probably be explained by the elution of a small quantity of the bone proteins into the water and a consequent change in the bone texture.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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