The purpose of this study is to examine the Chinese child-care workers' perceptions of early childhood education as compared with those held by their Japanese counterparts. The questionnaire survey involved 99 Chinese and 120 Japanese child-care workers. To supplement the survey, 56 workers were collectively interviewed in China and 10 Japanese workers were individually interviewed. The results of the survey may be summarized into the following three points: 1) As to the role of the kindergarten, the majority of Chinese child-care workers regarded it as a venue for young children to acquire the basics of the way of life while many Japanese counterparts considered it as a place where children would learn to live with others. 2) As for why the parents want to send their children to kindergarten, the Chinese workers supposed that the parents placed their hope on their children to acquire knowledge as well as way of life, while the Japanese workers answered that the parents wanted to offer their children to learn a variety of play as well as find a lot of friends. 3) As to the type of children the parents want their children to grow up to, there was no difference between the child-care workers in the two countries: A sound mind in a sound body as well as strong enough to support themselves. There is a necessity for the Chinese child-care workers to share their knowledge with the parents with respect to the usefulness of play at kindergarten through which children would learn to associate with other children as well as become independent.

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We examined the cooking properties and functionality of two types of dough and bagel bread made from spelt wheat flour and common wheat flour, and compared their mechanical properties, antioxidative activity and sensory evaluation. We also examined the two types of bagel bread with soft sugar and brown sugar added. The dough made from spelt wheat showed lower compressive stress than that made from common wheat, and the dough with brown sugar added showed lower adhesiveness. According to the dynamic viscoelasticity test, the spelt wheat dough showed greater viscosity and expandability than the common wheat dough. The spelt wheat bread swelled much more than the common wheat bread, but there was no difference between the rupture stress of each. The antioxidative activity of the spelt wheat bread was higher than that of the common wheat bread, and was much improved by adding brown sugar. There was no difference in sensory evaluation between the spelt wheat bread and common wheat bread, and the use of spelt wheat flour can be expected as a substitute for common wheat flour.

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This paper clarified the overall plan types of the folk dwellings in the early Meiji period located in Souraku-kita Village in Kyoto Prefecture. The clarification was made possible thanks to a document―chohatsu shirabetsuzuri which is also known as chohatsu bukken shiryo―which was compiled in 1883 on the basis of a land survey. The document describing the plan types in the village helped to establish a comprehensive overview of the folk dwelling plan types of the village during that period. The tworoom type accounted for about half of the houses in the village, and the four-room type homes accounted for about 20%. The latter were the dwellings for wealthy families. One-room type houses were about 20%. One limitation of the historical value of this document is that it is not possible to determine whether three-room type homes were originally three-room type or they had been remodeled into three-rooms from other plan types.

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This paper aims to clarify the obstacles and impediments for female graduates who majored in architecture and housing to achieve the work-life balance. Life style is strongly affected by the nature of their work. On the basis of the life history data obtained from 42 female graduates, the following points were clarified: 1) The factors which led individual graduate determine their lifestyle. 2) Although the long working hours, which had been taken as a matter of course in the field of architecture and housing business, hindered in their efforts to choose an ideal lifestyle, it is considered that some flexible modus operandi are attainable like running their own business, for example, as they would have accumulated skill and knowledge enabling them to choose their own lifestyle as well as achieving work-life balance.

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A questionnaire survey was conducted to examine the community consciousness in relation to the waste reduction behavior of the residents in Takahashi City, Okayama, Japan. The community consciousness was evaluated on the basis of the responses to the questions regarding the following four factors: "solidarity," "attachment," "respect for privacy," and "dependency on others." The waste reduction behavior was evaluated on the basis of the responses to ten questions regarding the following three categories: "reduction and reuse behavior," "recycling behavior," and "behavior related to the rules of the community." The main results were as follows. The reduction and reuse behavior―which is considered to be the most important among the three categories for a fundamental solution to waste problems―was found to be practiced the least. On the other hand, the recycling behavior was practiced by the majority of the residents. An analysis of the relationship between the community consciousness and the waste reduction behavior revealed that "solidarity" positively correlated with the waste reduction behavior. Moreover, "dependency on others" negatively correlated with the waste reduction behavior. These results suggested that enhancing "solidarity" and decreasing "dependency on others" could promote the waste reduction behavior.

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