Akira Ishida

This study investigated the effects of xanthan-gum-induced viscosity on sensory perception, expected fullness, and panelists’ acceptance of whey-based high-protein beverages under sequential blind and informed evaluation conditions. Four formulations containing 0%, 0.08%, 0.12%, and 0.16% xanthan gum were evaluated by 131 panelists using 30 mL tasting samples. Linear Mixed Models (LMMs) were applied to account for repeated measurements and inter-individual variability. Increasing viscosity systematically increased expected fullness while reducing overall liking and prospective hypothetical consumption volume. Panelists showed higher acceptance and greater prospective hypothetical consumption volume during the informed evaluation condition, although these differences were interpreted cautiously because the evaluation conditions were administered sequentially. Nevertheless, higher viscosity remained associated with lower hedonic ratings, indicating that oral texture continued to play a dominant role in product acceptance regardless of information disclosure. Taste liking was the strongest predictor of overall acceptance, whereas perceived viscosity was associated with lower prospective hypothetical consumption volume, particularly at higher xanthan gum concentrations. These findings highlight the importance of immediate sensory attributes, particularly taste and viscosity-related expected fullness, in shaping panelists’ acceptance and prospective hypothetical consumption volume. Differences between the sequential blind and informed evaluations, however, were interpreted cautiously because they may also reflect session-order and repeated-exposure effects.

Background: The pervasive child undernutrition in Southern Madagascar is exacerbated by inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure. Although public-works programs such as high-intensity manual labor (HIMO) have been implemented to develop infrastructure and sustain livelihoods, the multi-dimensional associations between these programs and household-level health and hygiene outcomes remain poorly quantified. This study examined the association of workfare participation with child nutritional status and the role of household WASH conditions as a mediating factor. Methods: Data were integrated from the 2018 Madagascar Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS6) and 2021 Demographic and Health Survey Spatial Covariates. To address the potential endogeneity in program participation and in the WASH mediators, we employed a potential-outcomes framework combined with instrumental variable (IV) regressions. This approach allowed for the estimation of both total and mediator-adjusted associations between HIMO participation, WASH practices, and child anthropometric outcomes ( Z -scores). Furthermore, a mediation analysis was used to quantify the proportion of this association that could be statistically explained by improvements in WASH infrastructure. Results: Participation in the HIMO program was significantly associated with higher household access to improved sanitation and with shorter water-collection travel time (under 30 min). These improvements were associated with significant increments in the height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for-age (WAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ) Z -scores. Mediation analysis indicated that 12%−14% of the program's total association with the HAZ and WAZ could be statistically explained by improved sanitation infrastructure. Shorter water-fetching time accounted for the largest mediated share of the association between HIMO participation and WHZ, representing approximately 36% of the total association. Conclusions: This study provides evidence that HIMO participation is associated with better child nutrition in Southern Madagascar, with improved access to water and sanitation as potential mediating pathways. If subsequent longitudinal or experimental evidence confirms these patterns, public works could be designed as nutrition-sensitive interventions that prioritize essential infrastructure. Expanding these projects also offers a sustainable pathway to closing basic-service gaps and reducing regional malnutrition rates.

Background/Objectives: In Japan, single mothers face a high risk of poverty and poorer dietary quality than partnered mothers; however, the pathways underlying these disparities remain unclear. This study examined whether economic status mediates the association between family structure and maternal dietary behaviors and whether intergenerational co-residence modifies these pathways. Methods: Using nationally representative repeated cross-sectional survey data from 2018 to 2022 (N = 1319 mothers), we conducted path analysis of dietary awareness and behaviors. Family structure was classified as partnered mothers (reference), single mothers not co-residing with grandparents, and single mothers co-residing with grandparents. Economic status and frequency of shared family dinners were modeled as mediators. Results: Compared with partnered mothers, both groups of single mothers showed poorer economic conditions, with greater disadvantage among those not co-residing with grandparents. Economic conditions accounted for substantial disparities in multiple dietary outcomes. Shared family dinners were positively associated with several dietary behaviors; however, dinner frequency did not differ significantly between partnered and single mothers or between single mothers with and without grandparental co-residence. Single mothers not co-residing with grandparents showed residual direct disadvantages in nutritionally balanced meals, breakfast frequency, and healthy dietary awareness, whereas those co-residing with grandparents showed weaker disadvantages. Conclusions: Dietary vulnerability among single mothers in Japan was strongly associated with economic disadvantage, but not poverty alone. Intergenerational co-residence was associated with weaker disadvantage rather than eliminating it. Policies should combine income support with childcare assistance and low-burden Shokuiku or community-based meal support to strengthen resource capacity and daily healthy eating routines.

The paper presents a new behavioural model that collectively focuses on how the smallholder farmers in the drought-prone Barind Tract of Bangladesh perceive, mitigate, and adapt with the effects of climate change. A survey of 385 farm households was examined with the help of linear and ordinal logistic regression models to point out socioeconomic institutional determinants of these behavioural reactions. Findings indicate that 46 per cent of farmers ( n = 177) had a moderate perception of climate change, which was related mostly to lowered soil fertility, water shortage and decreased crop production. Age, education, and income had a significant positive effect on climate awareness (R ² = 0.692, p < 0.001), whereas agricultural extension, livestock ownership, and peer-to-peer learning had a positive effect on adaptive and mitigative abilities. Conversely, the lack of financial capacity and lack of access to the markets hindered climate action. The main practices by farmers were crop diversification (79%), soil-water conservation (66%), use of organic fertilisers (78%), and management of residues (69%). The novelty of the study is that it summarises perception, adaptation and mitigation into one analytical model, which exposes the behavioural interrelationships that constitute resilience. The results also highlight the effectiveness of enhancing social learning in networks, financial, and mainstream climate-smart agriculture in supporting low-carbon adaptive food systems in semi-arid areas of South Asia.

Cereal production is a key component of food security and economic stability in Bangladesh; however, it is increasingly influenced by the interplay between climatic stress and non-climatic pressures, including land-use change and ecological degradation. Nevertheless, no study at the national level has jointly quantified the long-term effects of these drivers. Using a multidisciplinary systematic framework involving detrending of the time series through linear regression, followed by iterative refinement and diagnostic validation of model robustness, this study addresses that gap by evaluating annual data spanning 1961–2022. All 11 explanatory variables were subjected to model selection, which revealed that the final model retained four significant predictors: land under cereal production (LUCP), arable land, observed annual precipitation, and forest area. The results indicate that land-use structure and ecological trade-offs are stronger predictors of cereal yield than annual climatic variability alone. The strongest predictor was forest area (β = −0.607, p < 0.001), followed by LUCP (β = 0.300, p < 0.001) and arable land (β = −0.147, p = 0.012), whereas annual precipitation had an independent effect that remained statistically non-significant (β = 0.037, p = 0.303). These findings imply that climate is not the sole determinant of agricultural productivity; rather, the allocation, management, and transformation of land also play critical roles. This evidence underscores the need for policy priorities to focus on sustainable intensification of existing cereal land, restoration of degraded arable land, and integrated governance of land use. Such an approach will directly contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land).

This study aimed to examine the potential influence of backyard poultry farming, which can be readily established in urban and peri-urban environments, on the production capacity of backyard poultry and its potential contribution to food security among low-income households. Publicly accessible secondary microdata from the 2022 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey were used. To account for the non-random nature of backyard poultry-keeping decisions, the Heckman selection model was applied to estimate both the probability of engaging in poultry farming and the number of birds raised. The study revealed that over 20% of urban households and more than 30% of the poorest 11% households engaged in poultry farming. Although the number of birds raised is generally lower, the proportion of households raising poultry is higher among poorer households than among wealthier households. Among the poorest 11% households, the estimated per capita production of meat and eggs from backyard poultry farming was expected to be 5.4 g and 6.8 g per day, respectively. Due to data constraints, we compare production estimates with stratum-level consumption averages, providing an indication of potential contribution rather than household-level self-sufficiency. This comparison suggests that backyard poultry could serve as an important supplementary source, potentially contributing to approximately 15% of meat consumption and 47% of egg consumption for participating households from the lowest income strata.

Background: Picky eating often persists from childhood into adolescence, yet its temporal relation to solitary dinners is unknown. We examined the bidirectional links between eating dinner alone and picky eating across three developmental stages in a nationwide Japanese cohort. Methods: A total of 1389 two-parent families from the Japanese Longitudinal Study of Children and Parents participated in the study (grades 4–6 in 2015; grades 7–9 in 2018; grades 10–12 in 2021). Eating dinner alone (four-point scale) was analyzed as a two-part variable (binary ever/never + continuous frequency); picky eating was ordinal (four categories). A Bayesian Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) with a two-part specification for eating alone was used to assess cross-lagged, autoregressive, and covariate paths; covariates were gender, grade sequence, parental education, and household income. Results: A single cross-lagged path proved significant: adolescents who ate dinner alone at least once per week in junior high school showed higher-than-their-own-average picky eating in high school, and the reverse paths were non-significant. Picky eating and the binary indicator of eating alone exhibited moderate positive autoregression, whereas the continuous frequency of solitary dinners showed a negative carry-over from Wave 1 to Wave 4, consistent with regression-to-the-mean. Boys, students in higher grades, and adolescents from higher-income households were more prone to solitary dinners, whereas girls exhibited higher trait-like levels of picky eating; parental education showed no significant associations. Conclusions: Frequent solitary dinners in junior high school may set the stage for later elevations in picky eating, underscoring the preventive value of shared family meals before early adolescence.

Internal rural-urban migration is becoming a priority in social research. However, no one has systematically studied the intentions of farmers to migrate internally to Bangladesh to seek permanent urban residence via paid employment yet. This paper develops a TPB (theory of planned behaviour) model to explain farmers’ intentions to migrate or not migrate to cities for paid employment; then, this paper tests the model against the data collected. A total 372 individuals (migrated farmers) were randomly chosen from 11,200 families who had left a rural area in Bangladesh to collect quantitative data about the issues raised in the model; the data were collected by a telephone interview. The socioeconomic profile of the respondents fits that of internal migrants identified in the literature, and the Cronbach’s alpha as well as composite reliability statistics suggest that the data are representative of the population. According to the structural equation modelling (SEM) data, attitudes towards migration (ATTs) and subjective norms (SNs) have an impact on migration intention (MI), while perceived behavioural control (PBC) show no significant effect. This study used a primary dataset from interviews with rural migrants working in different sectors in different cities in Bangladesh. This suggests that the planned behaviour model may help explain farmers’ decisions to migrate internally in Bangladesh and that policies based on the model may successfully reduce such migration.

Male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) is a severe human rights violation that negatively affects women’s well-being worldwide. Although many studies have examined the factors influencing IPV, few have investigated the changes in attitudes toward IPV during rapid economic growth. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify changes in attitudes toward husband-on-wife violence by gender, from 2007 to 2017, using individual data from the Indonesia Demographic and Health Surveys. The estimation results revealed that, despite being more accepting of IPV, young women, women living in rural areas other than Java and Bali, and women belonging to lower social classes have significantly increased their negative attitudes toward IPV over the past decade. Although negative attitudes toward IPV have increased significantly among men living in eastern Indonesia, men in their teens, 20s, and 30s and those living in Sumatra have become more accepting of IPV. This suggests that the overall awareness of IPV resistance among men has not increased. The acceptance of IPV is more prevalent among employed women in the middle and lower socioeconomic strata than among their unemployed counterparts. However, the reverse trend has become clearer among women in the upper strata over the past decade.