The purpose of this study is to investigate the state of living for over-indebted people and offer suggestions to solve their financial problems. A survey was made at three different periods, 1995, 1996 and 1997. The findings of the survey are as follows :
1) Sixty-five point three percent of bankrupts were either jobless, part-time workers or housewives, whose income was not large enough to support their living. Basically, their problems were linked with poverty in society and ineffective social security system.
2) Initially, their debts were not so large and they thought they would be able to pay back their debt easily. However, high interest rates increased their debt.
3) The way creditors collected their money was merciless as well as illegal; repeated phone calls to debtors' place of work (72.4%), early morning or midnight phone calls (44.8%), or visiting the relatives who were not sureties (37.9%).
4) To cope with the above-mentioned problems, it is suggested, first, that high interest rates and overloans must be strictly regulated, and second, public counseling centers should be established in every prefecture to help over-indebted people.

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The purpose of this study is to make a scale with which to measure the distress of the married couple and to analyze its causes. The sample consists of 836 middle aged women with husband and children. The children are either studying at or recently graduated from universities in Gunma. The survey was conducted from July to August 1997. The method of Multivariate Classification Analysis was used, and the main findings are as follows.
1) Fifty point five percent of wives answered in the negative to a questionnaire item of “feel happy when I pass the time together with husband, ” and 10 to 20% answered in the affirmative to the items related to negative feelings toward husband.
2) The causal factors on wife's distress are the companionship pattern between husband and wife, the balance of mutual services between husband and wife, the combination pattern of husband participating in child care and helping housework, the pattern of attitude to division of labor between husband, and wife, the wife's role identity, the dependence on wife in housework, the wife's working career, and the experience of menopausal disorders.

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We examined the preventive effects of sesame lignans on alcohol-induced fatty liver in rats by using sesaminol and sesamin. Five groups of rats were fed with four different diets for 8 weeks. Group 1 was given the control diet, group 2 was pair-fed on the control diet with an alcohol diet group (group 3), group 3 was fed on a 23% alcohol-containing diet, group 4 was fed on this alcohol diet with 0.2% sesaminol, and group 5 was fed the alcohol diet with 0.2% sesamin. The food intake and body weight gain were both suppressed in the alcohol diet-fed group (group 3). The addition of sesamin to the alcohol diet increased the food intake and body weight gain, but the addition of sesaminol did not. Furthermore the alcohol diet increased the weight, total lipids, cholesterol and lipid peroxides in the liver, as well as the GOT and GPT activities in the plasma. These effects were inhibited by sesamin, but not by sesaminol, except for its effect of lowering lipid peroxides. α-Tocopherol concentration in the liver was increased in the sesame lignan-fed groups, especially by sesaminol. These results suggest that sesamin acted against alcohol toxicity, and that the mechanism for detoxification may differ from that for the enhancing effect of α-tocopherol in sesaminol and sesamin.

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Two wheat starch samples differing in the degree of double-modification (hydroxypropylated (HP) and cross-linked) were used. Noodles each containing one of these starches were produced and the effects were examined. The kneading properties of the doughs were also examined by farinography. As physicochemical characteristics of the noodles, the degree of gelatinization, cooking loss, compression/tensile test data and freeze-thaw stability were each measured. The taste properties were also clarified by a sensory evaluation with the scoring method.
The doughs containing the hydroxypropylated and cross-linked wheat starches each showed a farinogram similar to that of the wheat flour dough, all of which thus gave viscoelastic dough. The addition of the modified wheat starches caused a decrease in the cooking loss, and a high degree of gelatinization was achieved within a short boiling time. The noodles containing the hydroxypropylated wheat starch were soft, highly cohesive and highly extensible. They also had good characteristics of tensile strength and elastic modulus for elongation, indicating that they were highly viscoelastic noodles. After repeatedly freezing and thawing, these noodles suffered little decrease in hardness and elongation, but some showed a small increase in the elongation elastic modulus. The noodles containing modified wheat starch showed a suppressed degree of retrogradation due to aging and high freeze-thaw stability. The sensory evaluation clarified that the noodles containing the starch with a low-degree of substitution were viscoelastic, less sticky and highly prefered.

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Wheat flour was added to a non-glutinous rice flour gel in order to maintain softness for a longer time, and the rheological properties of the modified gel were measured.
The non-glutinous rice flour gel with nothing added soon hardened, and the reducing sugar formed hardly changed. On the other hand, the non-glutinous rice flour gel with wheat flour added remained soft, and the reducing sugar formed increased. The increasing addition of wheat flour to the non-glutinous rice flour gel reduced the hardness and cohesiveness, and increased the reducing sugar formed.
Consequently, adding wheat flour is effective to maintain the softness of a non-glutinous rice flour gel for a longer time.

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The walking frequency in daily life was evaluated as an index of the level of daily physical activity in three living areas : outdoor, indoor with shoes, and indoor without shoes.
Actocoda YH-I was used for pedometric measurements and was fitted during a time-based study on eighteen subjects comprising three male students, three male indoor workers, five female students, and seven female indoor workers. The step ratio for each areas (%) and the walking frequency (steps/min) were calculated. The correlation between the walking frequency and the heart rate during daily activity was then analyzed for another five female subjects, Vantage XLnew equipment being used to monitor the heart rate.
The walking frequency in each of the three living areas indoor without shoes, indoor with shoes, and outdoor was about 14.8, 33.9, and 69.7 steps/min, respectively, the frequency ratio among the three living areas was 2 : 5 : 10. The walking frequency and the heart rate standardized by the mean value during sleeping showed good correlation.
It is suggested that the walking frequency in these three living areas will be useful as an index to represent daily physical activity.

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The characteristics and types of food served at wedding ceremonies of the Shimazu household in Kyushu are described.
Shimazu wedding ceremonies were different from those of other major households. Food was served after exchanging sake cups. Zoni (a kind of mochi soup) and five kinds of kezurimono were included on the wedding menu. Jinchu (five-color rice), and tegake (a kind of kezurimono) and tokokazari (an alcove ornament) cannot be found at the wedding ceremonies of other important feudal lords. Thus, the Shimazu ceremonies were clearly different, although they were simplified over the years.

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A dietary survey on the nutritional intake of the Mongolian Gel tribe was conducted while living with the tribe from June to July in 1997. The traditional Mongolian diet consists mainly of dairy products in the summer and meat in the winter, supplemented by flour. The meals are of a very simple style, with five of the nine main dishes being dairy products which are consumed almost daily. The average energy intake for a householdhead is around 2, 200 kcal, which is just sufficient for health maintenance. Dairy products account for 48% of the total energy intake and 40% of the total protein intake. Although the use of flour in the summer diet is thought to ensure an adequate dairy energy intake, flour is also thought to lead to an increase in salt intake. Lactose in dairy products, and collagen in meat both help to make up for the lack of vegetables in the Mongolian diet, while vitamin C is provided by the consumption of internal organs and blood, as well as by-kumiss. The Gel tribe are therefore able to effectively obtain sufficient by utilizing all of the available foodstuffs.

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In the 16th and 19th centuries, corsets were in vogue in European costume.
We searched the literature by female writers of the 19th century for a description of the corset. As a result, the following six books were found which contain descriptions of the physical and/or psychological conditions caused by wearing a corset.
“La Petite Fadette, ” “Little House in the Woods, ” “Gone with the Wind, ” “Seven Little Australians, ” “Little Women, ” and “Flambars.”
A description of psychological conditions caused by wearing a corset and a description of the feel of wearing it (not found in the literature by male writers);
A description of women's found attachmant to a slender waists;
A description of possible disorders caused by wearing a corset (e.g., headaches, rib-aches, dizziness, palpitatios, fainting);
A description of the satisfaction and sense of superiority in achieving a slim figure by wearing a corset;
A slim figure; an outlook on a “perfect” culture's value of beauty;
and
A psychologically pleasant feeling by clothing pressure.

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