This study is to examine the realities of how people cope with an emergency (sudden illness, accidents, for example) of the aged in a household where only an aged person lives alone or he/she has only a spouse and no one else, and what they think about this situation. This study is based on the research in which the aged in the aged-only households and their children living away from them were surveyed. The conclusion of the study is as follows : 1) Those who contact the aged in an emergency or regularly check his/her safety are his/her children or spouse and not their neighbors. 2) The children are much more concerned of an emergency, feeling the necessity of preparing for it much more strongly than their parents. 3) With regard to the contact in case of an emergency, the children want their parents to use “emergency call system” while the parents take the idea rather negatively. With regard to regular safety check, both the children and the parents are not familiar with what kind of service is available. Even where they know of some services, they seem not so keen to depend on them. The main reason for unpopularity seems to be the cost involved. Besides, the operational difficulties and concerns about privacy make the parents reluctant to use those services. Furthermore, the children are more likely to accept an idea to sharing the cost with their parents while the parents mostly think that they themselves should bear the expenses themselves.

View full abstract

Since 1992, the authors have been comprehensively researching the life of local people in an unelectrified village of northern Thailand. A research on structure and function of the family was conducted by a questionnaire survey in August 2002 with a hearing survey that followed up one year later in August 2003 as well as the demographic surveys conducted in January 1993 and June 2002. The data were mainly analyzed by cross analysis method using SPSS software. With the electrification of the village at the end of 1996, the villagers exposed to a large quantities of external information through TV have been trying to increase their earnings in various ways on the basis of the information obtained. Consequently, those who work or study away from homes are increasing. Although the family structure has not remarkably been changing, the outsourcing of the family function has been recognized. Furthermore, internationalization has been slowly progressing there. Such being the case, the structure and function of the family of this village are expected to change at an accelerated rate.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify how mothers with small children enjoy and evaluate 'eating together' with their friends at home. For this study, a questionnaire was used to survey 738 mothers in their thirties having children less than 12 years old. The major findings of the survey are as follows : 1) Eighty percent of the respondents sat together with their friends for tea or meal because they wanted to talk with their contemporaries, 2) 'Eating together' is understood to have contributed to furthering ties with friends, developing good human relations, facilitating communication among children, and relieving stress, 3) Cooking for 'eating together' is more enjoyable than daily cooking for the family, and 4) They felt less burden in washing dishes and doing other chores after 'eating together.' Two different types of 'eating together' were found, i.e., one for the working mothers and the other for the mothers who are not employed. Two major effects of 'eating together' are : 1) Good relations built with friends and 2) Increased interest in cooking.

View full abstract

The stability of the antioxidative activity of feijoa polyphenol extracts were compared with Trolox against the effects of heat and pH on linoleic acid. The antioxidative activity was also investigated on cookies containing the polyphenols as an application to food processing. An antioxdative activity of Trolox 1, 250 μg equivalent to suppress the peroxidation of linoleic acid by 50% required 162 μg of peel polyphenols or 197 μg of pulp polyphenols. The antioxidative effect of the polyphenols was stable at pH 4 and 7, and at least 90% remained after heating for 3 h at 100°C. The antioxdative effect was unstable at pH 10. Increased heating temperature and prolonged heating time decreased_ the antioxdative effect. Crude feijoa polyphenols were used in cookies to investigate their applicability to food processing. The cookies were left for 4 weeks at 50°C for a peroxide value (POV) determination. The oxidation of the cookies containing the peel or pulp polyphenols was significantly suppressed to a respective level of 68% or 60% relative to the control cookies without polyphenols.

View full abstract

The effects of food restriction during pregnancy and lactation on the rat maternal body and growth of progeny were studied. We prepared four groups of pregnant rats : two groups fed ad libitum (20% casein diet [C] and 20% soy protein isolate (SPI) diet [S]) and two feed-restricted groups (casein diet [CR] and SPI diet [SR] at 30% less than the quantity fed to the ad libitum groups during pregnancy and lactation). The feed-restricted and ad libitum-fed animals were pair-fed. Food restriction during pregnancy resulted in the maternal body weight gain being significantly smaller in the CR and SR groups than in the C and S groups, respectively. The body weight and organ weight of newborn pups in the SR group were also significantly lower than those of the S group. Food restriction during pregnancy and lactation also significantly reduced the maternal body weight and organ weight of the CR and SR groups when compared with the C and S groups, respectively. At 3 weeks after birth, retarded growth was observed in the weaning progeny of the CR and SR groups in comparison with the C and S groups, and in the progeny of the S and SR groups in comparison with the C and CR groups, respectively. We conclude that the food restriction through pregnancy and lactation markedly affected the maternal body and growth of the progeny. Retarded growth was also apparent in the weaning progeny of the SPI diet groups when compared with the casein diet groups, whether food-restricted or not.

View full abstract

For the purpose of contributing to the progress of environmental education programs, a scale for the attitude measurement toward environmental education was constructed by Thurstone's method of equal appearing intervals. Twenty representative opinions arranged on a straight line (psychological continuum) at almost equal-intervals were selected. It enabled us to measure general attitude toward environmental education both in quantity and in quality.

View full abstract