Reading Guide to Explore Gastronomic Arts and Sciences Research and Education : Reviews of Food Studies and Japanese Food Textbooks and Essays

Food studies is an interdisciplinary research that addresses phenomena related to food. It is necessary to give an overview of this new research area and develop teaching programs to learn food studies. This article introduces textbooks and anthologies on food studies and Japanese food. This paper takes four food studies textbooks Food: The Key Concepts, Food Studies: An Introduction to Research Methods, Food: A Very Short Introduction, Food Studies: A Hands-On Guide, three food studies anthologies (Food and Culture: A Reader, Routledge Handbook of Food Studies, The Handbook of Food Research), and three academic books on Japanese food culture and history (Devouring Japan: Global Perspectives on Japanese Culinary Identity, Japan's Cuisines: Food, place and identity, Branding Japanese Food: from Meitbutsu to Washoku), which are used in higher education in Europe and the United States. This paper reviews the outline, the authors and editors, and how to utilize each books and essays.Non peer reviewe

Daily intake of Lactobacillus gasseri CP2305 ameliorates psychological premenstrual symptoms in young women : A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study

Lactobacillus gasseri CP2305 (CP2305) ameliorates stress-induced symptoms in young adults. In this study, we evaluated the effects of CP2305 on the premenstrual symptoms of healthy young women. Fifty-six women ingested CP2305 or placebo tablets over the course of six menstrual cycles. The CP2305 group reported fewer premenstrual symptoms than the placebo group, particularly psychological symptoms, such as depressed mood and anxiety. Whereas water retention-related physical symptom scores, such as those for breast tenderness and swelling, were reduced in the placebo group, they remained unchanged in the CP2305 group. In addition, significant differences were observed in the changes from baseline levels of salivary estradiol and progesterone in the luteal phase between the two groups, resulting in sustained elevated levels of reproductive hormones in the CP2305 group. Therefore, daily intake of CP2305 tablets might improve the premenstrual psychological symptoms of healthy young women in association with changes in reproductive hormone levels

Evaluation of the histological and mechanical features of tendon healing in a rabbit model

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the histological and mechanical features of tendon healing in a rabbit model with second-harmonic-generation (SHG) imaging and tensile testing. Materials and Methods A total of eight male Japanese white rabbits were used for this study. The flexor digitorum tendons in their right leg were sharply transected, and then were repaired by intratendinous stitching. At four weeks post-operatively, the rabbits were killed and the flexor digitorum tendons in both right and left legs were excised and used as specimens for tendon healing (n = 8) and control (n = 8), respectively. Each specimen was examined by SHG imaging, followed by tensile testing, and the results of the two testing modalities were assessed for correlation. Results While the SHG light intensity of the healing tendon samples was significantly lower than that of the uninjured tendon samples, 2D Fourier transform SHG images showed a clear difference in collagen fibre structure between the uninjured and the healing samples, and among the healing samples. The mean intensity of the SHG image showed a moderate correlation (R2 = 0.37) with Young’s modulus obtained from the tensile testing. Conclusion Our results indicate that SHG microscopy may be a potential indicator of tendon healing

Multi-quark hadrons from Heavy Ion Collisions

Identifying hadronic molecular states and/or hadrons with multi-quark components either with or without exotic quantum numbers is a long standing challenge in hadronic physics. We suggest that studying the production of these hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions offer a promising resolution to this problem as yields of exotic hadrons are expected to be strongly affected by their structures. Using the coalescence model for hadron production, we find that compared to the case of a non-exotic hadron with normal quark numbers, the yield of an exotic hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multi-quark state and a factor of two or more larger when it is a loosely bound hadronic molecule. We further find that due to the appreciable numbers of charm and bottom quarks produced in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and even larger numbers expected at LHC, some of the newly proposed heavy exotic states could be produced and realistically measured in these experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, revised version to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Exotics from Heavy Ion Collisions

Discriminating hadronic molecular and multi-quark states is a long standing problem in hadronic physics. We propose here to utilize relativistic heavy ion collisions to resolve this problem, as exotic hadron yields are expected to be strongly affected by their structures. Using the coalescence model, we find that the exotic hadron yield relative to the statistical model result is typically an order of magnitude smaller for a compact multi-quark state, and larger by a factor of two or more for a loosely bound hadronic molecule. We further find that some of the newly proposed heavy exotic states could be produced and realistically measured at RHIC and LHC.Comment: Presented at International Conference on the Structure of Baryons (Baryons '10), Osaka, Japan, Dec.7-11, 201