This study attempts to clarify the state and problems of different levels of social network in terms of family and residence criteria.
The result shows :
1) The family is central, especially in times of crisis, although neighbor linkage becomes fairly active in emergencies.
2) Regarding individual network, the linkage with childhood friends and peers is generally active for those without spouse and children. From 30 to 40% in all criteria are active in a variety of hobby and social activities.
3) It is confirmed that the relation with their social partners show little change whether or not they live with spouse and/or children.
4) Single people whether or not they live with their family, and those whose residence is short show low evaluation of social network, and, therefore, little efforts are made to get involved with it.
5) In an aging society, networking is a task of urgent importance, especially for single people and those of short residence.

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What is considered important in the industrial countries is the environmentally responsible behavior as called for at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the environmentally responsible consumer behavior and the time use on an individual level. Different types of questionnaire on time use were answered by 136 Japanese couples in Setagaya, Tokyo, in 1995, and the data were analyzed from the perspectives of gender and employment type. The main questionnaire contained 28 items pertaining to the environmentally responsible consumer behavior.
The results were as follows :
1) Few people were involved in the social/consumer activities in the framework of social/cultural activities time.
2) The household and family-care time showed a correlation to the environmentally responsible consumer behavior.
3) Wives scored higher than husbands in the area of environmental responsibility.
4) The husbands with full-time employed wives were more environmentally conscious than those with part-time employed and unemployed wives.

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Results were obtained from a series of studies on the rheological properties of rice flour gels added with milk, in comparison with rice flour gels added with water.
The addition of milk to nonglutinous rice flour gels heated to 90°C t produced high values for hardness, adhesiveness, chewiness, apparent rupture stress, apparent modulus of rupture, and rupture energy, and the gels also became fragile and breakable. Such properties of nonglutinous rice flour gels added with milk resembled the properties of the Japanese confectionery “uirou.” Because casein, calcium and butter contained in milk affected the properties.
The presence of milk also caused a reduction in the amount of free water in the gels and the degree of hydrolysis by enzymes. However, the degree of hydrolysis by enzymes was increased by heating nonglutinous rice flour gel at 90°C for 30 min.

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Rice grains soaked in water at 60°C and then cooked in water of 1.6-times the grains' weight became sticky. A series of reaction is proposed to explain the phenomenon : The endosperm cell walls were partially hydrolyzed at 60°C by glucanases of rice origin to liberate starch granules, and, as a result, the liberated starch was sufficiently gelatinized during cooking. In the soaking process, the enzymes in the rice grain also hydrolyzed starch to produce mono-and oligosaccharides. The resulting saccharides added the preferred sweet taste to the cooked rice.

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An image processing system was used to evaluate the number and sizes of voids formed in woven, knitted and braided fabrics having different attributes, such as their geometrical constructions and yarn arrangements. The box-counting method by computer-aided image analysis was adapted to measure the fractal dimension of their void patterns. Gray scale image analysis was also applied for the characterization of their visual texture. The angular second moment, correlation, contrast and entropy extracted from the gray level co-occurrence matrix were measured as textural feature parameters. As a result of the image analysis, it was found that the lacunarity of the knitted fabric is the most irregular and complex, due to its looped construction, and that all three fabrics had visual anisotropy as texture features. From the viewpoint of fabric construction, visual features of the three fabrics were discussed in terms of uniformity, directionality, local variation and information quantity.

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The amounts of soluble alginate and their average molecular weights in model cooking solutions of konbu (Laminaria angustata) were determined by the GPC-HPLC method. Soy sauce (25 %) and/or acetic acid (1%) were used as model cooking solutions. After 3 h of heating at 95°C in acetic acid, the largest amount of soluble alginate (33.5 g/100 g konbu) was effused into the solution, and the average molecular weight was 20, 000. The percentage of depolymerized alginate with a molecular weight less than that reached 99 % of the soluble alginate. After 3 h of heating in a mixture of soy sauce and acetic acid, the amount of soluble alginate was 30.9 g/100 g konbu, and the molecular weight was higher than that of the alginate produced in acetic acid alone. The average molecular weight of the soluble alginate in these solutions was found to be negatively correlated with the amount of alginate effused into the solution.

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The effects of humidity during aging on autoxidation and detergency of sebum on clothes were studied. Refined lard was used as a test medel of sebum, and cotton and polyester fabrics were used as test fabrics. Test fabrics soiled with lard were hung for a fixed period in an incubator where temperature and relative humidity were controlled at 40 °C and 50 or 90%. Autoxidation of lard extracted from fabrics was estimated from the peroxide value (PV) and the carbonyl value (CV).
The results were as follows :
1) PV and CV of lard increased by aging. The rate of increase on polyester was higher than that on cotton.
2) The effect of humidity at 90% RH on autoxidation of lard on cotton was greater than that at 50 % RH, but there was no difference on polyester.
3) While about 30% of the lard adhered to cotton was removed by washing before aging, the removal rate of lard decreased to 0% after a 5-day aging period at 90% RH or a 20-day aging period at 50% RH. In the case of polyester, the removal rate was very low, irrespective of aging periods and humidity.

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Hiroshima Environment and Health Association, Hiroshima 730Faucet-connected water purifiers with a filter consisting of activated carbon and hollow filament membrane, have recently become widely used at home. To examine the usefulness of this type of water purifier in the kitchen, microbial contamination, trihalomethanes and residual chlorine were used as indexes of filterability. Neither bacteria nor mold was detected in filtrated water at any time of use. However, slight bacterial contamination in the stagnant water of the filter was observed after 1 month of use and as well as bacteria, mold possessed of weak toxicity was detected after 8 months of use. After the water purifier had been fitted with a new filter, the values of trihalomethanes (chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, bromoform and total trihalomethanes) were much lower than those in the unfiltered water, showing the effectiveness of filtration. This beneficial effect gradually decreased and had disappeared 2 months after the beginning of use. No residual chlorine could be detected in the filtrated water after 1 month of use. Although the residual chlorine was slightly higher in the filtrated water after 2 months of use, the level remaind lower than that in unfiltered water for to after 8 months of use (the end of the useful life of the filter). These findings indicate that this type of water purifier is effective in filtering faucet water, but an appropriate filter-change frequency should be observed according to the water conditions.

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