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This research examined whether the beta anomaly exists in the REIT market. By analysing a low-minus-high beta strategy and a betting-against-beta strategy in the REIT market, we find that high-beta REITs earn significantly lower risk-adjusted returns than low-beta REITs. This beta anomaly is only significant in the New REIT Era after 1993. The negative relationship between beta and REIT stock return does not disappear after taking into account some firm characteristics, suggesting that the beta anomaly in the REIT market is not driven by beta’s correlation with profitability, asset growth, lottery-like return or the skewness of stock returns. We find that institutional investors, whose portfolios increasingly contain a significant proportion of REITs, prefer the high-beta REITs. The exposure of institutional investors to high-beta REITs could explain the beta anomaly in the REIT market.

This research examines whether real estate professionals detected the property bubble and foresaw the consequent financial crisis of 2007-2008. By analysing the insider trading activities within REITs from 1996 to 2010, we find that REIT insiders reduced their holdings significantly during the real estate boom period as early as 2004, before the financial crisis. Difference-in-difference analysis reveals that REIT insiders cashed out their positions more aggressively than insiders in real estate and construction firms. The findings support the informed trader hypothesis that managers and employees in REITs anticipated the burst of the real estate bubble and the imminent financial crisis, and shifted their wealth away from the real estate market to avoid potential losses. We find no evidence to support the biased belief hypothesis (Cheng et al., 2014) that REIT insiders were over-optimistic during the real estate boom period or that their inside trading behaviour was affected by local market performance.

This paper explores the relationship between distress risk and stock return on equity REITs from 1982 to 2017. The distress risk measures such as expected default frequency and failure probability can effectively predict financial failures in the REITs. The distressed REITs earn lower returns than the safe REITs, and the underperformance becomes even worse after correcting the value and size risks. The findings indicate that the distress risk is not a systematic risk or rewarded with a risk premium in the REIT market. The distress anomaly from long the safest REITs and short the most distressed REITs can be explained by the institutional investments in the REITs and the investors’ risk aversion.

On June 6, 2018, China has adopted a new policy that allows overseas-listed Chinese companies to launch secondary listings (hereafter, returned-global Chinese IPOs) in the domestic market. This study examines how the returned-global Chinese IPOs affect financial reporting quality, information environments, and IPO pricing in the domestic market. We find that these newly public companies in China exhibit lower discretionary accruals (and their components), lower stock price synchronicity, and lower first-day underpricing upon IPOs. Our difference-in-differences tests reveal that IFRS convergence in China mitigates overseas listing advantage of the returned-global firms. Overall, this study highlights the economic benefits of overseas listing of the returned-global Chinese IPOs and the impact of the change in financial accounting standards on the IPO market. Our evidence highlights the bright side of the recent regulatory change in China.

This paper examines whether urban leverage, defined by the bank loan-to-deposit ratio in a city, affects housing prices in China. Using a panel dataset of 236 cities and hedonic models, we find a depressing effect of urban leverage on housing price in first- and second-tier cities while leaving third- and fourth-tier cities unaffected. Urban leverage negatively affects housing prices by influencing credit supply. Moreover, the difference-in-differences analysis indicates that purchase restriction policies amplify the depressing effect of urban leverage on housing prices. Overall, we show that urban leverage is an important determinant of housing prices in China.

Using a comprehensive U.S. rating sample from S&P between 1981 and 2015, we examine the information content, responsiveness to credit risk and recovery efforts associated with rating outlooks. We find that rating outlooks (and credit watches) have important information content and are significantly associated with creditworthiness, measured by expected default frequency. More importantly, we show that by assigning negative outlooks, credit rating agencies induce some issuers to exert recovery efforts to prevent subsequent downgrades. The findings support the theoretical prediction of Boot et al. (Rev Financ Stud 19(1):81–118, 2006) that credit rating actions serve as a coordination mechanism between rating agencies and issuers.

Chronic inflammation-associated diseases include, but is not limited to cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, etc. Cell heterogeneity is a prerequisite for understanding the physiological and pathological development of cell metabolism, and its response to external stimuli. Recently, dietary habits based on phytochemicals became increasingly recognized to play a pivotal role in chronic inflammation. Phytochemicals can relieve chronic inflammation by regulating inflammatory cell differentiation and immune cell response, but the influence of phytochemicals on cell heterogeneity from in vitro and ex vivo studies cannot simulate the complexity of cell differentiation in vivo due to the differences in cell lines and extracellular environment. Therefore, there is no consensus on the regulation mechanism of phytochemicals on chronic diseases based on cell heterogeneity. The purpose of this review is to summarize cell heterogeneity in common chronic inflammation-associated diseases and trace the effects of phytochemicals on cell differentiation in chronic diseases development. More importantly, by discussing the problems and challenges which hinder the study of cell heterogeneity in recent nutritional assessment experiments, we propose new prospects based on the drawbacks of existing research to optimize the research on the regulation mechanism of phytochemicals on chronic diseases. The need to explore precise measurements of cell heterogeneity is a key pillar in understanding the influence of phytochemicals on certain diseases. In the future, deeper understanding of cell-to-cell variation and the impact of food components and their metabolites on cell function by single-cell genomics and epigenomics with the focus on individual differences will open new avenues for the next generation of health care.

As COVID-19 is pervasive across the globe, governments in different countries face the dilemma of restricting the transmission risk of the virus by social distancing while yet maintaining economic activity. Inadequate social distancing policies lead to more infection cases and deaths, while over stringent social distancing policies have significant economic cost implications. This study investigates the role of local government institutions in striking the balance between saving lives and economic recovery. We based our study on a sample of 28 provincial governments in China during the early outbreak of 2020 when the emergency responses of local governments were synchronous. The findings show that local governments in those provinces with lower degrees of marketization, which were accustomed to directly intervene in the social system, mandatorily quarantined many more close contacts for each confirmed case than those in the more market-oriented provinces whose social distancing policies took economic considerations into account. The 'overdone' (over stringent) social distancing policies in the more state-oriented provinces led to lower human mobility and economic growth. This study highlights the importance of taking economic considerations into account when adopting policies and strategies to combat the spread of COVID-19 and how different institution management cultures lead to different outcomes.

This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 and social distancing policies on regional income inequality. We base our study on a sample of 295 prefecture (and above) cities in 31 provinces in China. A distribution dynamics approach is employed to reveal the trend and movement of disposable income per capita in each city before the COVID-19 pandemic, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the period when the COVID-19 was under the control. The findings reveal significant negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2020 and show that most cities will converge to a level of disposable income which is much less than the Pre-COVID level if the COVID pandemic persists. Regional income inequality has intensified in the cities that have a longer duration of stringent social distancing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and disappeared in the cities with policies of short duration. Disposable income per capita for urban residents recovered quickly when the transmission of coronavirus was effectively contained; and yet the impact of the pandemic on rural residents remains unresolved, if not intensified. This study demonstrates a significant divergence of the trend of disposable income across cities with different durations of social distancing policies and between urban and rural residents. It also highlights the importance of stringent social distancing policies in containing the spread of virus in a short time and calls for special policy attention for rural regions in the recovery from the COVID-19.

We examine two quality investing strategies using gross profitability (GP) or FSCORE, respectively, over the period of 2000–2016 in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan stock markets. We find that the high‐quality stocks generally earn positive returns in these markets. Both FSCORE and GP are significantly positively associated with subsequent stock returns in the cross‐sectional regressions. We also find that financial institutions as sophisticated investor concern about stock quality. The actively managed institutions buy significantly more high‐quality stocks than low‐quality stocks in each of five Asian markets. The trading pattern is not significant in passively managed institutions.

This paper analyses firms’ bidding behavior in auctions for development land in Hong Kong. The real estate market in Hong Kong is considered to be oligopolistic as it is dominated by a few top real estate firms, which have strong financial strength/development capacity and large land banks. Joint bidding is used by other real estate firms (“large” firms) to pool resources/capital in order to compete with the top firms. We test whether joint bidding increases or decreases the level of competition in land auctions, using land auction data in Hong Kong from 1991 to 2011. We find that large real estate firms are more likely to be successful than top firms at auctions when bidding jointly. However, joint bidding/winning does not harm competition as reflected by the number of bids, bids per bidder and number of bidders. Land prices also increase significantly in auctions won by joint bidders or alliances of large developers. Our results suggest that joint bidding enhances competition by allowing large firms to act strategically by pooling their resources and act aggressively to compete with the top firms.

Using an international dataset, we examine the role of issuers’ credit ratings in explaining corporate leverage and the speed with which firms adjust toward their optimal level of leverage. We find that, in countries with a more market-oriented financial system, the impact of credit ratings on firms’ capital structure is more significant and that firms with a poorer credit rating adjust more rapidly. Furthermore, our results show some striking differences in the speed of adjusting capital structure between firms rated as speculative and investment grade, with the former adjusting much more rapidly. As hypothesized, those differences are statistically significant only for firms based in a more market-oriented economy.

This paper tests for the effects of financial constraints on open-bid English land auction prices and bids. It is argued that bidders’ ability to pay, taken as capital resources and/or capital budget constraints, influence bids and final auction prices. While high capital resource developers may elect to bid more than optimal to win auctions, or bidders may elect to pool resources in joint bidding, budget constraints imposed by firm-specific financial variables on the other hand are expected to restrict bids. Land auction data in Hong Kong are used to test systematically these predictions. It is found that a firm’s age, the number of winners in a joint bid, and firm status in the market are positively related to prices, all factors which may be attributed to a firm’s ability to finance the auction price. Firm size, internal funds, financing cost, debt capacity and existing capital expenditure are also shown to affect bids submitted in land auctions: firm size and internal funds are positively related to bid prices; while constrained debt capacity, financing cost and existing capital expenditure lower bids. The results are consistent with predictions that a firm’s financial constraints, and thus its effect on capital budgets, are relevant factors in predicting land auction outcomes. More generally, these findings confirm that similar financial factors that constrain corporate capital investment also influence directly acquisition of assets at auctions.

The severity and complexity of the recent financial crisis has motivated the need for understanding the relationships between sovereign ratings and bank credit ratings. This is the first study to examine the impact of the “international” spillover of sovereign risk to bank credit risk through both a ratings channel and an asset holdings channel. In the first case, the downgrade of sovereign ratings in GIIPS (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) countries leads to rating downgrades of banks in the peripheral countries. The second channel indicates that larger asset holdings of GIIPS debt increases the credit risk of cross-border banks, and hence, the probabilities of downgrade.

This paper explores whether a simple fundamental analysis strategy, FSCORE by Piotroski (2000), can discriminate between firms with strong financial strength and those with weak financial strength over the period of 2000 to 2015 in seven Pacific-Basin markets: Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Similar to Piotroski and So (2012), FSCORE can screen winners from losers in all book-to-market portfolios in most of the markets; the returns of portfolios with high FSCORE are significantly more than the returns of portfolios in the same category with low FSCORE. The portfolios that long value stocks (high book-to-market) with high FSCORE yield significantly positive risk-adjusted return. We find that FSCORE can also be applied to size portfolios. The portfolios of small cap stocks with high FSCORE give monthly risk-adjusted returns of 2.5289%, 3.3552%, 1.1081%, 1.0744%, 0.5762%, 0.9263%, and 1.7802% in Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The predictive ability of FSCORE in screening winners from losers is stronger in small cap stocks than value stocks.

This paper examines the impacts of a recent credit expansion event on corporate policies in China. During the credit boom in 2009 and 2010, the large and state-owned firms increased leverage ratios by 2.89% and 1.68% (on a quarterly basis) more than their matched firms. State-owned firms had higher increases in loan financing and corporate investment than their matched firms due to government intervention and better access to the credit market. Small and non-state-owned firms had no significant change in loan financing but undertook less net equity issuance than did the matched firms during this stimulated boom. These findings shed significant light on the effects of bank lending segmentation on capital structure and corporate investment decisions in response to macroeconomic shocks in China.

This paper explores the Chinese outward real estate investment in Hong Kong's land market from 2011 to 2019. The property developers from Mainland China are attracted to Hong Kong market and win a significant portion of land parcels in government land auctions since 2011. The results reveal that these developers pay much higher land premium to acquire land than local developers. The expected gain from the land development, measured by the stock market reaction to land acquisition, is significantly positive for Chinese developers and much larger than the gain for local developers. Taken together, our findings indicate that outward real estate investment helps Chinese property developers seek new markets and improves the profitability and financial performance; meanwhile, the Chinese outward investment also pushes up the real estate price in the host market.

To establish the method of determination of 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol( 3-MCPD) in grease food by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry( GC-MS).3-MCPD in grease food represented by bean paste was extracted by ultrasound,purified by alkaline earth solid phase extraction column,derivatived using phenylboronic acid( PBA) and detected by GC-MS.The linearity of 3-MCPD ranged from 1-100 ng/mL,with correlation coefficient at 0. 9993.The limits of quantitation( LOQ) in soy sauce,bean paste,pepper oil were 0. 6,0. 5 and7. 0 μg/kg and limits of detection( LOD) were 1. 9,1. 6 and 18. 8 μg/kg,respectively.Average recovery rate and relative standard deviation was 78. 3%-106. 7% and 1. 9%-11. 6%( n = 6), when 3-MCPD was added in grease food at 2. 5-1000 μg/kg.The method has good purification effect and the detection sensitivity and accuracy,and can be used for the determination of 3-MCPD in grease food.

Using a proprietary data set on the undisclosed voting records of analysts and professional investors on listed firms for Investor Relation (IR) Awards in Hong Kong, we show that the valuation effect of IR award announcements is positively significant. More importantly, awardees receiving stronger voting from international analysts experience higher valuation effect upon announcements. In addition, more opaque firms demonstrate a larger announcement effect than that of more transparent firms from international analyst voting. Since the voting data are not observable by the public, we conjecture that these voters/analysts disseminate positive information within their social network. This finding is consistent with the social connection effect argument, and international analysts achieve higher positive return through the support of their own social network. Furthermore, we find a stronger market valuation effect among opaque firms supported by international analysts voting. Finally, additional analysis on firm level transparency using R-square shows that the nominated but not awarded firms experience significant improvement in transparency during the event and post-event periods.

The potential of extracts from Oiltea camellia (OCE) to prevent obesity was investigated using a high-fat diet (HFD) obesity model. Male ICR mice were fed a HFD and treated with OCE or vehicle for 30 days. Oral administration of OCE suppressed increases in body weight and fat storage. Serum levels of total cholesterol and triacylglycerols decreased in OCE treatment groups compared with the HFD group, but high-density lipoprotein cholesterol increased. In addition, the activity of fatty acid synthase (FAS) in animal liver was significantly lower in the OCE treatment group. Administration of OCE also inhibited adipogenesis in a dose-dependent manner in 3T3-L1 cells, as seen by Oil Red O staining. Our results suggest that OCE may be useful in the treatment of obesity and related disorders in high-fat diet induced obese mice. The metabolic effects of OCE appear to partly be mediated by inhibiting FAS activity and suppressing adipogenesis in adipocytes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to construct option pricing models for real estate development by considering and incorporating institutional arrangements, direct interactions and financial constraints in the model. It extends the application of real option theory from the framework borrowed from financial option pricing, and considers the case where a development company has restrictions from outside environment and financial constraint. It explores the effects of these additional practical factors on real asset project value and development timing. This paper makes contributions to bridge the theoretical models and practical applications.Design/methodology/approachReal estate development is modelled in the binomial option pricing framework with the considerations of time‐to‐build, foregone rent if delaying, institutional environment and capital budgeting. The investment timings are derived from the models and sensitivity analysis is conducted to explore the effects of these factors.FindingsApart from the factors in traditional option pricing theory, this paper confirms that the contractual covenants, positive synergies between properties and financial status of the firm, which enhance or restrict real flexibility embedded in the development land, influence project value and investment timing. Numerical examples illustrate the effects of these factors. It is argued that the valuation of real options should place emphasis on industry‐specific characteristics and start from the perspective of the firm rather than individual options.Practical implicationsThe models constructed in this paper and the results can be directly used in the practical real estate development.Originality/valueThis paper incorporates many practical factors in real estate development which are not investigated in previous studies. It values the option project from the firm perspective rather than project perspective as previous studies. It also shows the effects of institutional arrangement and firm factors on project value and development timing.

The crude methanol extract (ME) from camellia oil was fractionated by serial benzene, ether, EtOAc and n-BuOH, divided into five subfractions designated as SF1–5. The obtained fractions as well as ME were evaluated for their antioxidant activities using DPPH assay, and their phenolic constituents were isolated using silica gel column chromatography and analysed by TLC, RP-HPLC–PDA, UPLC-ESI–MS and GC–MS. Results showed that the content of total phenolics (TPs) of ME, determined by the Folin–Ciocalteu method, was estimated to be 79.5 ± 10.2 mg of p-hydroxybenzoic acid equivalent/kg oil, while that of the total flavonoids was 8.98 ± 0.54 mg of rutin equivalent/kg oil. ME exhibited pronounced radical-scavenging activity against the stable DPPH radical (with an antioxidant capacity IC50 value of 52.37 μg/mL), and three subfractions (SF1–3) separated from ME contributed the most significant activity with IC50 of 28.41, 17.42 and 43.17 μg/mL, respectively. Consistent with the different capacity of scavenging DPPH radicals, the subfractions from ME showed different composition and contents of phenolic compounds as detected by TLC, RP-HPLC–PDA, UPLC-ESI–MS and GC–MS. Kaempferol, as well as a number of volatile phenolic compounds, was first identified from camellia oil. Results showed that the presence of phenolic compounds and flavonoids in each extracts may be responsible for its individual antioxidant activity, and the lipophilic phenolic fractions would likely account for a great part of the antioxidant properties of the oil.

The inhibitory effects of oiltea camellia extracts (OCEs) and its active components on fatty acid synthase (FAS) were investigated. OCE potently inhibited the activity of FAS with an half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of 2.30 μg/mL. The inhibition kinetic results showed that OCE and acetyl-CoA competitively inhibited FAS but these compounds exhibited mixed inhibition against malonyl-CoA and NADPH. Further study uncovered that the active components of OCE, ellagic acid (EA) and 3-O-methylellagic acid 4′-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (MEAG), which were isolated and purified by high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) using a 2-phase solvent system of chloroform-ethanol-water-acetic acid (4:3:2:0.01, v/v/v/v), inhibited FAS with IC50 of 2.50 and 37.73 μg/mL, respectively. Their inhibition kinetics were different from that of OCE. Both of them exhibited uncompetitive inhibition for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) and decreased the FAS activity through inactivation of acetyl/malonyl transferase on FAS. These results suggest that OCE could be a valuable resource for bioactive substances. Practical Application: With the gradual increase in tea oil production, it was in urgent need of dealing with Camellia fruit hull, which was always discarded because of low economic benefits. Camellia fruit hull has been shown to have significant antioxidant effects including 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging ability and ferric-reducing antioxidant power. This study found that the ethanolic extract of Camellia fruit hull at low concentration efficiently inhibited FAS activity, which is a potential therapy target of both obesity and cancer. These results suggest that OCE could be a valuable resource for bioactive substances.

UNLABELLED The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mutagenicity and safety of water extract of the fruit hull of Camellia oleifera Abel (WECO), which was prepared using hot-reflux method. The oral maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of WECO was above 20 g/kg body weight both in rats and in mice, which can be regarded as virtually nontoxic. No mutagenicity was found in Ames test, mouse bone marrow cell micronucleus test and mouse sperm abnormality test. In the subacute study, the SD rats were administered orally at 0.5, 1, or 2 g/kg/BW for 30 d. There were no treatment-related toxic effects from WECO. No significant differences were found in parameters of body weight, hematology value, clinical chemistry value, and organ/body weight ratio. The level of no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for WECO was 2 g/kg/BW for subacute toxicity study. PRACTICAL APPLICATION With the gradual increase in tea oil production, it was in urgent need of dealing with Camellia fruit hull, which was always discarded because of low economic benefits. Camellia fruit hull has been shown to have significant antioxidant effects including DPPH radical-scavenging ability and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (Zhang and others 2010). Toxicological evaluation of WECO provided a safety assurance of WECO for developing dietary supplements and functional foods.

SummaryHarvested mei (Prunus mume) fruit were stored at 20°C after exposure to 500 nl l–1 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) for 8 h. Firmness, peel colour, chlorophyll content, chlorophyllase activity, soluble solids content (SSC), titratable acidity (TA), respiration and ethylene production, and cell wall hydrolysis enzyme activities were monitored to determine the efficacy of 1-MCP treatment in delaying mei fruit ripening compared to untreated control fruit. Results showed that control ‘daqinghe’ mei fruit displayed typical climacteric patterns of respiration and ethylene production. Peak CO2 production and ethylene production were observed after 6 d. Fruit softening was accompanied by a progressive decrease in colour parameters expressed as hue angle (h°), chlorophyll content, SSC, TA and increases in chlorophyllase, pectin methylesterase (PME) and polygalacturonase (PG) activities. 1-MCP treatment prior to the climacteric increase significantly delayed the onset of the climacteric peaks of CO2 and ethylene...

This paper provides new evidence on the supply side effects on corporate capital structure in China. We find that bank-dependent firms, which are mainly large and state-owned companies in China, increase (decrease) their leverage ratios if loan supplies increase (decrease) relative to the case for small and private firms due to the inability of small and private firms to access bank loans. With their ability to substitute between different forms of capital, large and state-owned firms are relatively less (more) likely to use internal funds and equity financing when bank loans are (not) available than are small and private firms. During the credit boom in 2009 and 2010, the large and state-owned firms increase leverage ratios by 2.26% and 2.76% more than matched firms; and small and private firms are shown to decrease leverage in this period. These findings lend support to the importance of supply side effects and bank loan segmentation on capital structure decisions.

Aims To determine if diabetic lipaemia is caused by loss of function mutations in the lipoprotein lipase gene, LPL. Methods We conducted a case–control study over 2 years in two tertiary care hospitals in South Australia. Six patients with a history of diabetic lipaemia and 12 control subjects, with previous diabetic ketoacidosis and peak triglyceride concentrations < 2.4 mmol/l were included. Participants were well at the time of study investigations. Results Only one patient with lipaemia had a loss of function mutation in LPL and no functional mutations in APOC2 or GPIHBP1 were identified. The mean lipoprotein lipase concentration was lower in patients with diabetic lipaemia than in control subjects (306 vs 484 μg/l, P = 0.04). The mean fasting C-peptide concentration was higher in patients with diabetic lipaemia than in control subjects (771 vs 50 pmol/l; P = 0.001). Conclusions Lipoprotein lipase deficiency in patients with a history of diabetic lipaemia was predominantly quantitative, rather than secondary to mutations in LPL, APOC2 or GPIHBP1. The majority of patients with severe hypertriglyceridaemia in diabetic ketoacidosis may have ketosis-prone Type 2, rather than Type 1, diabetes.

This paper uses project level data of land auction prices in Hong Kong. It tests the hypotheses that the land auction price (real option premium) contains three sources of flexibility value: waiting to invest, the effect of direct interactions and the effect of financial structure. The OLS regression results show that the option premium embedded in the land price is not only related to real flexibility choices such as delaying investment as identified in traditional real option theory, but it also increases or decreases with the direct interaction of properties, their competition for firm resources and the firmís financial status. Firms with more investment properties located close to the auctioned land and with more internal funds would place a higher value on the land at auction; while more profitable firms and firms with less debt capacity would lower its estimate of option value embedded in the auctioned land prices as reflected in bidding. The interaction effect and financial structure in the firm have been confirmed in the empirical studies to influence the option premium in the land price. These results confirm the link between the project level predictions of real option theory and firm fundamentals.

The objectives of this study were to characterize starches isolated from potato, canna, fern, and kudzu, grown in Hangzhou, China, for potential food and nonfood applications and to gain understandings of the structures and properties of tuber and root starches. Potato and canna starches with B-type X-ray patterns had larger proportions of amylopectin (AP) long branch chains (DPor=37) than did fern (C-type) and kudzu (C(A)-type) starches. The analysis of Naegeli dextrins suggested that fern and kudzu starches had more branch points, alpha-(1,6)-D-glycosidic linkages, located within the double-helical crystalline lamella than did the B-type starches. Dispersed molecular densities of the C- and C(A)-type APs (11.6-13.5 g/mol/nm(3)) were significantly larger than those of the B-type APs (1.4-6.1 g/mol/nm(3)) in dilute solutions. The larger proportion of the long AP branch chains in the B-type starch granules resulted in greater gelatinization enthalpy changes (Delta H). Retrograded kudzu starch, which had the shortest average chain length (DP 25.1), melted at a lower temperature (37.9 degrees C) than the others. Higher peak viscosities (550-749 RVU at 8%, dsb) of potato starches were attributed to the greater concentrations of phosphate monoesters, longer branch chains, and larger granule sizes compared with other tuber and root starches.