Kitakyushu city in Japan has about 1,580 ha of mousou bamboo forests, providing the opportunity for an effective new method for utilizing bamboo. We focused our attention on the chemical abundance of mousou bamboo and found that dry bamboo culms contained 94.2 g per 100 g of dietary fiber. This prompted us to propose bamboo powder bread made by adding finely-milled mousou bamboo (bamboo powder) to bread dough as an effective new utilization method. We consider in this study the properties of bamboo powder bread.
  Bamboo powder samples were prepared in three different particle sizes of 153.8 μm, 53.6 μm and 28.4 μm. The expansion ability and expansion volume resulting from the bamboo powder were not significantly different according to sample up to an addition of 10％, but decreased markedly with an addition of more than 20％. A sensory evaluation showed no significant preference for the powder samples with 153.8 μm and 53.6 μm particle size.
  The results indicate that bamboo powder with a particle size of about 28.4 μm was suitable for application to fiber bread.

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  The purpose of this study was to clarify how the term kimono became popular as a way of referring to Japanese traditional clothing.
  We collected articles from the Yomiuri and Asahi newspapers in which the term kimono in kanji, katakana, and hiragana were used by searching those words on their online databases, and analyzed them in order to find out the meaning of the word, as well as the sex and the nationality of the people who wore or possessed kimono in the articles.
  We found the following: Firstly, kimono once referred to clothing in general or nagagi (long garment), regardless of which sex it was meant for. Secondly, kimono came to mean Japanese traditional clothing in the 1900s after the word “kimono” was established in Western languages. Thirdly, the word “kimono” tended to be used for women while wafuku and nihonfuku were gender-neutral words. In addition, it became increasingly common to write kimono in hiragana in the 1960s, during which time the main consumers of kimono were women, who preferred that it be written that way.

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  Chicken myofibrillar proteins (Mfs) glycated with maltose formed a rigid gel when heated for up to 240 min at 90°C. This gel was more rigid than that produced from natural or unmodified chicken Mfs that were prepared without maltose, under the same heating conditions. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis revealed that disulfide bonding occurred during the first half of the heating period and subsequent polymer formation with cross-linking occurred in the second half. Moreover, glycation of chicken Mfs with maltose was more rapid during the gelation process. Observation of the microstructures under a cryo-scanning electron microscope revealed that the fibers in the gel structure prepared from chicken Mfs glycated with maltose were thicker than those in the gel structure prepared from natural or unmodified chicken Mfs and that a network structure was developed that led to the formation of a more rigid gel.

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  This study examined the self-affirmation of university students, and identified the factors which have a significant and influential connection on their self-affirmation. For the purpose of this research, we employed the following terminology: “school life,” “the paternal relationship,” “the maternal relationship,” “the parents marital relationship,” and “gender distinction.” The sample consisted of 539 students, 285 males and 254 females in a teacher-training university.
  From exploratory factor analysis of the university students' self-affirmation, the results indicated seven factors which were named “nuisance,” “other people's evaluation,” “self-fulfillment,” “insistence,” “eagerness,” “personality,” and “anxiety.” “School life” had a significant influence on factors described as “nuisance,” “other people's evaluation,” “insistence,” “eagerness,” and “personality.” Furthermore, “the paternal relationship” had a significant influence on their self-affirmation. With regard to gender distinct results, in male students, “the parents' marital relationship” had a significant and positive influence on their self-affirmation. On the other hand, in female students, the negativity toward their parents had a significant and negative influence on their self-affirmation.

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