“Warming treatment” is known as a meat processing technology. In this treatment, the meat is warmed to a medium temperature after curing, then dried and smoked. Through this process, color, flavor and rheological properties of meat products are known to improve. Erythorbate appears to produce nitric oxide from nitrite more efficiently, and also the color formation is accelerated. Research was carried out on the effect of warming treatment of color formation of meat products and the combination effect of erythorbate addition. The porcine meat (24hr postmortem) was minced and NaCl (2%) plus NaNO₂ (100ppm) were added, and vacuum packed to be cured. Sodium erythorbate (NaEry) was added to a level of 0.055%. The sample including 0.05% of sodium ascorbate (NaAsc) was prepared for comparison. After several days, each sample was stuffed into vacuum packs, plastic casings (Krehalon film) and/or hog casings. The samples were then warmed in a water bath or in a smoke house at 50°C. In the smoke house, the relative humidity (RH) was controlled at 80%. After reaching 40°C in the center of the meat samples, they were then cooked at 75°C for 1 hour. The color forming ratio, discoloration extent against light exposure and residual nitrite were determined. The effect of warming treatment was not observed in the sample without addition of NaEry or NaAsc. By warming with the addition of NaEry or NaAsc, the color formation tended to increase in both cases. When the warming time increased, the color showed no difference compared with the control sample. In the experiment with natural hog casings, the sausage sample with 80% RH reached more quickly the intended temperature compared with the case of 70% RH, and showed a relatively higher color formation. Under the light exposure with 2, 500 Lux, discoloration was found also in the warming treated and NaEry-or NaAsc-added samples. However, the initial difference of the color formation compared with the control sample was kept during 90min of exposure. In this experiment, the difference of the residual nitrite level with and without warming treatment could not be detected. Both the NaEry and NaAsc decreased the nitrite level, and the significant difference among these agents could not be observed.

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Using the cylinder shape ultrasonic wave probe which is used to examine the prostate in the field of medicine, ultrasonography of the ovary at the estrous cycle was executed on two miniature pigs (CSK × Crown and Gottingen). Moreover, early pregnancy diagnosis and observation of fetus were attempted by ultrasonography from the body surface on one Gottingen miniature pig.
At the onset of the estrus, ultrasonogram of the ovary was shown by many echo-free areas of 5-8mm in diameter, which represented the many follicles (Fig. 1, Photo. 1). However, parts of echo-free areas decreased at 2 days after the onset of estrus, so ovulation was confirmed. In the luteal phase, layers of low echo level existed around echo-free areas of about 5mm in diameter, and there were recognized to be the corpus luteums (Fig, 1, Photo. 4).
In early pregnancy diagnosis, the saccus foetalis of 20mm in diameter was confirmed at 20 days after mating and the fetus's existence was admitted at 26 days afterwards. The frame and the heart beat were seen at 47 days after mating and the length exceeded 50mm at 53 days and 100mm at 100 days respectively.
I thought that it was possible to observe both the ovary and fetus by executing ultrasonic diagnostic in the miniature pig.

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