A grain of boiled rice was covered with oneba (soluble solids of cooked rice) after cooking. We prepared soluble solids of cooked rice and reached conclusion for new eating quality evaluation of cooked rice by using its physicochemical data. The better tasty cooked rice had much soluble solids at 70°C and 100°C. The soluble solids of better tasty cooked rice had little protein and little ash and the cooked rice was soft and sticky. These measurement parameters were calculated with multiple regression analysis. As a result, we obtained two regressions on overall acceptability of cooked rice: (1) breaking stress, breaking strain, soluble solids at 70°C were expressed, with a multiple correlation coefficients of 0.78. (2) Ash contents in soluble solids, brittle strain, and soluble solids at 100°C were expressed with a multiple correlation coefficients of 0.82.

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Glutamate decarboxylase (GAD: EC 4.1.1.15) exists widely in animals and plants, and it is contained much specially in animal's brain and in higher plants such as squash, carrot, and tomato. We found that the activity of squash GAD was the strongest in these plants. So we investigated about various nature of squash GAD in order to transform L-glutamic acid into γ-aminobutyric acid by using squash. In this study, it was found that reaction conditions of GAD and coenzyme, pyridoxal 5'-phosphate influenced on progress of L-glutamic acid transformation in squash. We examined the reaction conditions to make the transformation enough. Consequently, we found the best range of pH value, temperature, and the amount of L-glutamic acid for entire transformation using the activity of squash GAD fully. And we established the techniques of manufacturing squash products containing much γ-aminobutyric acid from squash with L-glutamic acid, or squash with casein hydrolysate containing L-glutamic acid. Furthermore, we confirmed an effect on the blood pressure of spontaneously hypertensive rats of the products manufactured with these techniques.

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We have introduced the Agitated Disk Membrane Module (AD module) to an actual soy sauce production line for over five years. The following results were obtained by after analyzing recovery operations of soy sauce from soy sauce sediment. 1) The scale-up operation with additional disk membranes in AD module keeps the permeation flux and the concentration ratio in a pilot scale. Its power consumption is proportional to the 0.09th power of the apparent viscosity of feed suspension, which is similar to the theory in turbulence region of rotating disk in a cylindrical vessel. The AD module is more suitable for clarification of high-density suspensions than conventional tubular membrane modules. 2) The permeate from soy sauce sediment through AD module have retained satisfactory quality as soy sauce for over five years. The continuous lower turbidity proved the stability of rejection of ceramic membrane. The yield of soy sauce from raw soy sauce after AD module introduction have improved to over 99.7% from 80-95% of the traditional process. 3) The permeate flux and the concentration ratio as well as the power consumption of AD module are superior to those of other membrane modules in previous reports of soy sauce sediment filtration. Therefore, it was concluded that the AD module was effective to soy sauce sediment filtration process.

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Mutagenicity and anti-mutagenicity of 16 flavonoids were examined by forward mutation assay using Salmonella typhimurium TM677. The changes of these activities of 11 flavonoids, which were active in the above mentioned test, was also studied after heat treatment with and without seasoning mixture. As the result, 1) both mutagenic and anti-mutagenic activities were detected from morin, fisetin, quercetin, rutin, naringenin and hesperetin. 2) Direct mutagenicity of 3 flavonoids and the anti-mutagenicity against BaP showed no apparent change, but indirect mutagenicity and the anti-mutagenicity against 4NQO were suppressed by heat treatment. 3) Direct mutagenicity and the anti-mutagenicity against BaP increased after heat treatment under the presence of seasoning mixture, but indirect mutagenicity and the anti-mutagenicity against 4NQO reduced fairly or even disappeared in some cases. 4) Presence of the seasoning mixture was thought to be more responsible than heat treatment to the declining of indirect mutagenicity of flavonoids and the increase of inhibition ratio against BaP.

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We investigated primary biodegradability of Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) using PLA hydrolysis tests under various composting temperatures and pHs.
Under the pH range used in this study, higher test temperatures accelerated primary biodegradation by hydrolysis, and there was a marked reduction in molecular weight. However, in the range of pH 6.0-8.0 there was little effect of pH on both molecular weight reduction and weight reduction. Under more alkaline conditions, i.e., at pH 9.0, a marked reduction in molecular weight and weight loss were observed. Examination of test sample cross sections showed that PLA hydrolysis started from their outer surface.
From these findings, we conclude that dynamic temperatures and pH changes in the composting process promote primary biodegradation of PLA, enabling complete biodegradation. This demonstrates the concept that composting is a useful method for degradation.

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Effect of Dissolved Gas Concentration of Deaerated Water on Water Absorption and Removal of Astringency during Soaking of Adzuki Beans Atsuhiko Takehara and Satoshi Fukuzaki Industrial Technology Center of Okayama Prefecture, 5301 Haga, Okayama 701-1296 Effect of deaerated water on the water absorption and removal of astringency during soaking of adzuki beans was studied. Dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration was monitored as an index of the degree of deaeration. The amounts of absorbed water and solubilized organic components increased exponentially with increasing soaking time, and also increased with decreasing DO concentration, showing maxima below DO of 1.0ppm. The effect of deaerated water at DO of 0.01ppm disappeared by dissolving nitrogen gas at the saturated level. A significant difference in the extraction of astringency of adzuki beans was also confirmed by a sensory test for cooked granular bean jam. It was suggested that the oxidation rate constant of L-ascorbic acid decreased markedly by lowering DO less than 1.0ppm.

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We examined the usability of the Agitated Disk Membrane Module (AD module) in an actual soy sauce production line based on several separating features different from soy sauce sediment filtration reported previously. The applied processes were as follows; 1) microorganism removal from raw soy sauce, 2) clarification of pasteurized soy sauce, 3) clarification of re-fermented soy sauce, 4) microorganism removal from light color soy sauce, 5) amino acid sauce recovery from the UF concentrate of soy sauce, and 6) clarification of amino acid sauce. We evaluated the effects of AD module applied to each process by characteristics of permeate, power consumption for filtration, and process improvement.
AD module improved all of the examined processes except the clarification of pasteurized soy sauce and the amino acid sauce recovery from the UF concentrate of soy sauce. It was shown that AD module could produce effectively microorganism free products from raw soy sauce and light color soy sauce as well as clear re-fermented soy sauce and amino acid sauce in terms of economy and labor-saving. Those advantages could be attributed to the lower pressure loss of the module, higher concentration ratio, and larger permeate flux than those of conventional membrane modules.
AD module couldn't, however, clarify the pasteurized soy sauce with lower cost than the traditional process owing to the higher power consumption of AD module. Also, the module couldn't recover amino sauce from the UF concentrate with enough quality to blend soy sauce because of worse flavor.
There was a close correlation between the permeation flux and the total nitrogen (TN) concentration of the feed liquids for AD module, so it was possible to predict the permeate flux from the TN concentration.

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Whole-grain milled barley (n=56) was scanned using a near-infrared transmittance spectroscopy (NIT) (850-1048nm) and total dietary fiber (TDF) was determined for each cultivar by AOAC enzymatic-gravimetric method (Method 991. 43). The validation statistics of PLS models using calibration (n=28) and validation (n=28) sets were the standard error of performance (SEP) of O.89-1.03, the coefficient of determination (R²) of O.83-0.88, Bias of-0.25-0.17 and the ratio of the SEP to the standard deviation of the original data (RPD) of 2.5-2.9. This method could be applied to rough screening in barley breeding Programs.

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We examined ACE inhibitory activity and the antihypertensive effect of M. citrifolia juice. The juice strongly inhibited ACE activity. The inhibitory effect of juice from ripe fruit is stronger than that of green fruit. Furthermore single oral administration of the juice reduced systolic blood pressure of male spontaneously hypertensive rats. These results indicate that the juice contains ACE inhibitory compounds, and daily intake of the juice is effective for prevention and improvement against hypertension.

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