It was the goal of the authors to create a set of reference cottons for maturity measurements. To achieve this they selected 104 cotton bales representing the two principal cultivated species. The vast majority of the bales originated in the USA, but some foreign-grown cotton bales were also selected (Egypt, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Cameroon, Syria, Benin, and Australia). A representative sample of approximately 30 kg (70 pounds) was taken from each bale. Each sample was homogenized according to the protocol used by the International Cotton Calibration Standard Committee (ICCSC) to produce reference cottons. Eight sub-samples per bale were taken and a minimum of 500 cross-sections per sub-sample were analyzed. A broad range of average values of fiber perimeter and fiber maturity for the 104 bales were obtained. Evaluation of the mathematical and statistical relationships pertinent to maturity and fineness revealed that four critical criteria for adequate calibration standards were met. Therefore, this population of bales constitutes a good base for the calibration of the indirect measurement instruments for maturity and fineness.

Samples of experimental rice breads baked in a home bread machine were evaluated by physicochemical methods and compared with a local commercial whole-wheat bread. The results showed that rice breads had less specific volume, harder texture, and were more prone to retrogradation during storage than whole wheat bread. All stored breads showed a peak at about 52 Њ Њ Њ Њ ЊC by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, which is characteristic of retrograded starch. However, the ⌬ ⌬ ⌬ ⌬ ⌬H for rice bread was about 3 times the value of whole-wheat bread, suggesting its strong tendency to retrograde. X-ray diffraction (XRD) evaluation also indicated the appearance of a strong 2 peak between 16.7 Њ Њ Њ Њ ЊC to 17.0 Њ Њ Њ Њ ЊC in rice bread than in whole-wheat bread, which is consistent with starch retrogradation.

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Despite considerable efforts in developing curve-fitting protocols to evaluate the crystallinity index (CI) from X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, in its present state XRD can only provide a qualitative or semi-quantitative assessment of the amounts of crystalline or amorphous fraction in a sample. The greatest barrier to establishing quantitative XRD is the lack of appropriate cellulose standards, which are needed to calibrate the XRD measurements. In practice, samples with known CI are very difficult to prepare or determine. In a previous study, we reported the development of a simple algorithm for determining fiber crystallinity information from Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Hence, in this study we not only compared the fiber crystallinity information between FT-IR and XRD measurements, by developing a simple XRD algorithm in place of a time-consuming and subjective curve-fitting process, but we also suggested a direct way of determining cotton cellulose CI by calibrating XRD with the use of CI(IR) as references.