Cherry Blossom Research Articles

Limited phenological and dietary overlap between bee communities in spring flowering crops and herbaceous enhancements.

Wild bee populations have undergone declines in recent years across much of the Western world, and these declines have the potential to limit yield in pollination-dependent crops. Highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, and tart cherry, Prunus cerasus, are spring-blooming crops that rely on the movement of pollen by bees and other insects for pollination. Wild bee populations can be increased on farmland by providing floral resources, but whether the addition of these plants translates into increased pollinator density on crop flowers has not been documented in most cropping systems. To determine the importance of providing additional floral resources for wild bee pollinator communities, we selected blueberry fields and tart cherry orchards with and without herbaceous floral enhancements in western Michigan, USA. The bee communities visiting crop flowers, enhancements and control grassy field margins were sampled over a 5-yr period. In addition, the pollen diets of the most abundant wild bee crop pollinators were quantified across Michigan to better understand their foraging niches and to identify potentially important alternative host plants. The presence of floral enhancements did not increase the abundance of wild bees on either blueberry or cherry flowers during bloom. The bee community visiting blueberry was evenly composed of short-season bees that fly only during the spring and long-season bees that fly in both spring and summer. In contrast, the bee community visiting cherry was dominated by short-season spring bees. The majority of pollen collected by the wild bee communities visiting blueberry and cherry was from spring-flowering woody plants, with limited use of the herbaceous enhancements. Enhancements attracted greater abundance and species richness of bees compared to control areas, including twice as many floral specialists. Conserving summer-flying, grassland-associated bees is an appropriate goal for pollinator conservation programs. However, herbaceous enhancements may not provide adequate resources for the wild bees that pollinate spring-flowering crops. This study demonstrates that an examination of the pollen collected by wild bees across their flight periods can identify plant species to help them persist in intensively managed landscapes.

Pengolahan Motif Batik Perpaduan Unsur Tradisi Jawa dan Jepang


 
 
 PPI Ishikawa as one of the Indonesian student community in Japan invited Batik practitioners to design Batik motif, that not only has elements of traditional culture but also represents the character of that community. The purposes were to rise a pride of that community and to introduce Batik as Indonesian culture to local residents as well. Therefore, to fulfill those purposes, it is needed a research in designing Batik motifs that combine traditional Javanese ornaments as the original character of Batik and Japanese elements as a culture that developed around the community. The purpose of this research was to create ornaments pattern composition applied to Batik technique.
 The research method used was by conducting qualitative methods, including a literature study for data collection, an exploratory study of the elements of Javanese and Japanese culture, and an experiment on Batik Tulis technique. The result of this research was Batik cloth sheet with ‘Truntum’ motif as a character of Javanese Batik, combined with the statute of cherry blossom, pagoda, and heron motifs as a character of Japan.
 
 

PAST EXPERIENCES OR NEW CREATIVE IDEAS? EXPLORING THE CONNOTATIONS OF PRODUCT AESTHETICS TO GAIN NEW MARKET SHARE

PAST EXPERIENCES OR NEW CREATIVE IDEAS? EXPLORING THE CONNOTATIONS OF PRODUCT AESTHETICS TO GAIN NEW MARKET SHARE

Overview of the 82nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Circulation Society - Futurability: Pioneering the Future of Circulatory Medicine.

The 82nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Circulation Society was held in Osaka, Japan, on March 23-25, 2018, when the cherry blossoms were just opening everywhere around the venue. This was the 5th Annual Scientific Meeting of JCS in which a cardiovascular surgeon served as Congress Chairperson. The main theme of this meeting was "Futurability: Pioneering the Future of Circulatory Medicine". The word, futurability, is a neologism of future ability, because we now have to contemplate what constitutes the essence of cardiovascular medicine, how it should develop as medicine for future generations, and how its ability should be displayed. The meeting was favored by splendid weather and the number of participants was recorded as being higher than 18,700. There were heated and profound discussions about the "futurability" of cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, and heart team medical care as well, in every session. The meeting was successfully completed and we sincerely appreciate the great cooperation and support from all affiliates.

Karakteristik Produk Bordir Berdasarkan Kepuasan Konsumen Segala Rintisan Pemberdayaan Sentra Industri Kecil di Jawa Timur (Studi Kasus di Sentra Industri Kecil Bordir Tanggulangin Sidoarjo)

Sidoarjo has been known as the center of SMEs. As for embroidery product, price variable is the most dominant variable. The research that will be conducted is based on the previous research that has been conducted by the researchers regarding the customer perception of the characteristics of embroidery product. This research is an exploratory research. The research method that will be used is qualitative descriptive which will be quantified by Quality Function Deployment method. The Subject of this research is the customers, embroidery experts, and TTG experts. The results of the survey consists of data regarding the customer expectation on embroidery products in 4 (four) embroidery outlets in Sidoarjo. The data collected is arranged into the customer quality demand which subsequently comprised into the construct of quality performance. Afterward, the data is processed using WELCOME program and applied into an electric embroidery machinem which could produce formatted embroidery pattern. Embroidery patterns that are desired by customers are flowery type such as jasmine, rose, cherry blossom, and KAMBOJA with size in a range of 1-3 cm, which is located in a variety of places, using KESET technique, and modified into 2 dimension with beads, and the color that is preferred is secondary color such as orange, violet, and green, and the type of fabrics that is favored is cotton. In term of the technological capability that is possessed by the crafter, all demand for the customer quality construct can be satisfied. This is possible because a meeting regarding the capability and competence of the crafter has been arranged before the survey was conducted. All crafter that is surveyed in embroidery pattern and process is still manual without the use of computerized machine with embroidery pattern software.

Exploration on image classifications abilities in identification of flowering trees in urban park

Monitoring flowering cherry blossoms is crucial in Japan as the flowering dates have been slowly advancing due to climate change. However, monitoring cherry blossoms during flowering time quite challenging especially in urban area which is high diversity ecosystems. We hypothesize that fuzzy classification has an ability to identify pixels of flowering Somei Yoshino (SY) (or known as Prunus × yedoensis) which is better compared to traditional method of classification. Maximum likelihood (ML) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifications as traditional image classification were employed on IKONOS image in identification of flowering cherry trees in an urban park. Meanwhile, Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF) and Linear Spectral Unmixing (LSU) were employed as fuzzy classifications. Fuzzy classification of MTMF with overall accuracy (58.33%) and kappa value (0.45) shows promising result in identifying flowering SY tree compared to ML, SVM, and LSU classifications suggested that MTMF is a good technique to be used to map flowering SY tree in heterogeneous urban area. However, the accuracy of fuzzy classification could decrease due to limited number of available bands. Thus, the use of hyperspectral data can be used to stimulate new research idea, and drive to the future research to improve the classification results.

The Hunt for Phosphate Shipments from the Western Sahara and the Curious Case of the NM Cherry Blossom – Whither State Immunity and Act of State?

Early 2018, the Polisario Front and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) obtained a favourable ruling from the South African Courts, granting the SADR it ownership over a cargo of phosphate aboard the NM Cherry Blossom originating from a mine in the Moroccan-controlled part of the Western Sahara. Although largely unnoticed in legal doctrine, the Cherry Blossom case raises important questions concerning the outer bounds of State immunity and the scope of the act of State doctrine. In addition, the case holds potentially far-reaching ramifications for the international legal order if other domestic courts were to follow suit.

Antiphotoaging Effect of Prunus yeonesis Blossom Extract via Inhibition of MAPK/AP-1 and Regulation of the TGF-βI/Smad and Nrf2/ARE Signaling Pathways.

Cherry blossoms have attracted attention as an ingredient with potential for use in skincare products. However, no skin photoaging-related research has been performed with this plant. In this study, cherry blossom extract (CBE) at 1, 10 and 100 μg mL-1 was investigated for its skin antiphotoaging effects in UVB-irradiated normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) cells in vitro. Our results showed that CBE markedly increased type-I procollagen during UVB exposure via two pathways. Firstly, transcription activator protein-1 expression and MAP kinases were downregulated, consequently reducing the production of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1 and MMP-3. Secondly, transforming growth factor TGF-βI secretion was upregulated by Smads. Application of CBE facilitated the nuclear translocation of Nrf2 against reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced damage, which is essential for the coordinated induction of cytoprotective enzymes. Together, our findings suggest that CBE may be a promising ingredient for skin aging therapy and provide a novel approach for alleviating cutaneous aging.

Comparison of Climate Change Effects on Pome And Stone Fruit Phenology Between Balkan Countries and Bonn/Germany

The objective of the joint project between the two universities of Bonn and Sarajevo was to study the effects of climate change associated with warmer winter and spring temperatures on fruit tree phenology. Changes in flowering date of apple and cherry were correlated with local weather data obtained concomitantly on-site at four locations in the Balkan countries Slovenia, Serbia, B & H and at Bonn, Germany. Phenological data of flower opening (F1; BBCH 61) of apple cv. ‘Golden Delicious’ originated from 55 years at Cacak (44 °N, Serbia) and at Klein-Altendorf, University of Bonn (50 °N), cv. ‘Bobovec’ from the University of Ljubljana (46 °N, Slovenia) and cherry cv. ‘Burlat’ (35 years at Klein-Altendorf, 50 °N) and 20–30 years at Tuzla (44 °N, B & H) and Mostar (43 °N, Bosnia & Herzegovina; B & H). The annual precipitation showed a negligible change in the last 55 years of ±5% in the Balkan countries (e. g. Cacak, 699 mm), but only ±1.8% at Klein-Altendorf (605 mm) with a slight shift to more winter rainfall. Regression analysis showed an increase in mean temperature of 1.7 °C (annual) and 1.45 °C for the vegetation period at Klein-Altendorf (last 55 years), Germany. In the evaluated Balkan stations, the greatest increase in annual air temperature between two climate phases (until 1987 versus from 1988 until now) was at Ljubljana (1.4 °C) and Cacak (1.2 °C) in contrast to the least increase (0.3 °C) at Tuzla (annual average 10 °C) and an intermediate value (0.9 °C) in the warmer Mostar (annual average 14.5 °C). This recent temperature increase advanced flower opening by 10–14 days for apple such as cv. ‘Golden Delicious’ at Cacak and 7–10 days (last 55 years) at Bonn and 4–5 days (last 35 years) for the early cherry cv. ‘Burlat’ at Klein-Altendorf/Bonn; at Mostar and Tuzla, the effect of climate change was greater with the early cherry cv. ‘Burlat’ (26 days) compared with the difference of the late cherry cultivar (16 days). Before recent climate change (1973–1987), cherry flower was advanced by 10 days in the warmer med climate at Mostar but delayed by 16 days in the cooler Tuzla. The results, i. e. the flower advancement in the Continental climate but flower delay in the med climate, are discussed with respect to the risk of late frost and countermeasures to combat climate change effects.

Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms by R. Weston

Weston, Robert Paul. Illus. Misa Saburi. Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms. Tundra Books, 2018.Sakura, a little girl whose name means “cherry blossom”, shares picnics and stories with her grandmother under the cherry blossom tree near their home in Japan. When Sakura and her mother and father immigrate to North America while her grandmother remains in Japan, the little girl deals with the challenges of adjusting to life in a new country and grieving when her grandmother dies. As the seasons change and spring returns, Sakura comes to understand her grandmother’s wisdom about the importance of friendship. Themes of intergenerational relationships, mourning the loss of a family member, cross-cultural friendships, and the healing power of time all are represented in this book.Author Robert Paul Weston uses a poetry approach to storytelling, a call-back one of his earlier books, Zorgamazoo. This time, the author presents Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms as a series of Tanka, a traditional Japanese non-rhyming form of poetry whose spare and brief structure is well-suited to depicting each event in the story. Weston includes an explanation of Tanka at the end of the book and encourages young readers to create their own poems following this format.The text and illustrations introduce readers to linguistic and cultural aspects of Japan, including traditional foods, clothing, games, and names. It captures the sense of loneliness, disconnection and culture shock people can experience in a new environment, and gently depicts the gradual healing process, culminating in Sakura blossoming with renewed energy, wisdom, and happiness.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Maria TanMaria is a health sciences librarian at the University of Alberta and a former editorial team member of the Deakin Review. She is the co-author, with Sandy Campbell, of A Selective Collection of Children’s Health Fiction 2014 – 2016, described in the Volume 6 (3) issue of the Deakin Review.

A \u2018NanoSuit\u2019 successfully protects petals of cherry blossoms in high vacuum: examination of living plants in an FE-SEM

Land plants have evolved on dry land and developed surface barriers to protect themselves from environmental stresses. We have previously reported that polymerization of a natural extracellular substance (ECS) on the outer surface of animals by electron beam or plasma irradiation, can give rise to a nano-scale layer, termed the “NanoSuit”, which can keep small animals alive under the high vacuum of a scanning electron microscope (SEM). In the present research, we have focused on plants, using petals of cherry blossoms, as experimental specimens and examined their behavior under high vacuum conditions. Experiments on healthy living petals have demonstrated that without any pre-treatment, the overall morphology of specimens is well preserved and intact after imaging in an SEM, suggesting that natural substances on the petal surface behave like animal ECS and form a NanoSuit following irradiation with an electron beam. Furthermore, we have shown that the surface material can be extracted with chloroform and polymerized into a free-standing membrane by plasma irradiation. From our results, we conclude that surface materials, which have the ability to prevent water loss under natural conditions, increase the barrier ability and can protect plants under high vacuum conditions.

Questionnaire Investigation on Tourists’ Behavior and its Sensibility Analysis Utilizing Bayesian Network

Tourists from abroad are increasing rapidly in Japan. Kawazu town in Izu Peninsula is famous for its cherry trees. In the cherry blossom season, many tourists visit this town. In order to get much more visitors, tourists’ behavior should be investigated much further. The Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival was carried out in February 2015. Our research investigation was performed during that period. In this paper, a questionnaire investigation is executed in order to clarify tourists’ behavior, and to seek the possibility of developing regional collaboration among local government, tourism related industry and visitors. In this research, we construct the model utilizing Bayesian Network and causal relationship is sequentially chained by the characteristics of travelers, an objective to visit Izu Peninsula in Japan and the main occasion to visit them. We analyzed them by sensitivity analysis and some useful results were obtained. Sensitivity analysis is performed by back propagation method. We have presented the paper concerning this. But the volume becomes too large, therefore we have split them and this paper shows the latter half of the investigation result by setting evidence to Bayesian Network items. These are utilized for constructing a much more effective and useful tourism service. We have obtained fruitful results. To confirm the findings by utilizing the new consecutive visiting records would be the future works to be investigated.

Effects of Hydrogen Cyanamide Spraying on Blooming, Leafing, and Characteristic Blossom Form in ‘Izutoi’ and Line “Toizakura Shirobana” Cherry Blossom (<i>Prunus</i> spp.) Trees

Effects of Hydrogen Cyanamide Spraying on Blooming, Leafing, and Characteristic Blossom Form in ‘Izutoi’ and Line “Toizakura Shirobana” Cherry Blossom (<i>Prunus</i> spp.) Trees

Stoichiometric Characteristics of Soil in Several Different Communities

The content of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and organic matter in soil is an important index to determine soil nutrient status. In this paper, the contents of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, organic matter and soil salt in the soil of several different plant communities in the campus were measured by the chemical measurement characteristics of several different communities in University of Jinan. The differences in the measurement characteristics of soil chemical measurement in different plant communities were analyzed. The results showed that the highest organic matter content in several communities was Cherry Blossom community, 76.33mg/kg, and the highest ammonium nitrogen content was 196.08mg/kg; the highest content of available phosphorus was the community of Begonia, 168.14mg/kg, and the highest content of available potassium was the community of Robinia pseudoacacia, which was the highest salt content in 64.99mg/kg soil. The community of cherry blossoms is 569 μs. There was little difference in soil organic matter, available phosphorus and available potassium in different plant communities..

Эстетический феномен японской татуировки ирэдзуми и ее связь с искусством гравюры укиё-э (на примере графики Утагава Куниёси)

Traditional Japanese tattooing widely known as 入れ墨 irezumi is one of the brightest arts with strong roots dating back to the Edo period (XVII-XIX centuries). As it developed in open cultural spaces of the Edo period, irezumi adopted many graphic features of 浮世絵 ukiyo-e - Japanese woodblock prints, and quickly became a special body decoration. Despite being linked to yakuza culture, irezumi still contain numerous elements which correspond to the visual code of Asian culture represented in most pieces of eastern art. Unfortunately however, this aesthetic phenomenon remains poorly studied by scholars. The most significant example of connection between the Japanese traditional tattoo and the art of Japanese woodblock printing is the frequent adoption of subjects and composition of Kuniyoshi’s woodblock series “108 heroes of Water Margin”. Comparative analysis of “Zhang Shun. White Stripe in the Waves” and irezumi based on this woodblock print confirmed that traditional Japanese tattoos imitate a composition of the particular ukiyo-e from the aforementioned series but the main distinguishing features of irezumi are the presence of additional elements such as cherry blossoms, peony, and a storm cloud-like background. Moreover, these additional elements which obviously represent a visual code of Asian culture, along with the bends of the human body, play a significant role in creating a special rhythm of the picture. Comparing principles of Japanese tattoo aesthetic with statements given in “Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden” proved that irezumi can be considered a specific kind of art.

樱花始花期预报方法

樱花始花期预报方法

GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ON CHERRY BLOSSOM FLOWERING AND ITS PHENOLOGY

気象条件と生物季節には密接なつながりがあり，特に気温と大きく関係していることについては，これまで多数の論文に示されている．近年，地球温暖化が進むなか，気温の上昇による影響が様々な生物季節の変化として発現していることも報告されている．サクラの開花も同様で，気温の上昇と共に開花時期は年々早くなっている．サクラの開花時期については特に春先の平均気温に大きく影響することが分かっており，青野らによって1960年代から1990年代に観測されたデータを用いた経験式が提案された．

Abscisic Acid Related Metabolites in Sweet Cherry Buds (Prunus avium L.)

As our climate changes, plant mechanisms involved for dormancy release become increasingly important for commercial orchards. It is generally believed that abscisic acid (ABA) is a key hormone that responds to various environmental stresses which affects bud dormancy. For this reason, a multi-year study was initiated to obtain data on plant metabolites during winter rest and ontogenetic development in sweet cherry buds (Prunus avium L.). In this paper, we report on metabolites involved in ABA synthesis and catabolism and its effect on bud dormancy in the years 2014/15-2016/17. In previous work, the timings of the different phases of para-, endo-, ecodormancy and ontogenetic development for cherry flower buds of the cultivar ‘Summit’ were determined, based on classical climate chamber experiments and changes in the bud’s water content. Based on these time phases, we focused now on the different aspects of the ABA-metabolism. The results show that there is a continual synthesis of ABA about 5 weeks before leaf fall, and a degradation of ABA during ecodormancy and bud development until the phenological stage ‘open cluster’. This is confirmed by relating the ABA content to that of the total precursor carotenoids, neoxanthin and violaxanthin. The tentative monitoring of individual intermediate metabolites revealed that dihydroxyphaseic acid is the most abundant catabolite of ABA and ABA glucosyl ester is in terms of mass intensity, the most abundant ABA metabolite observed in this study. The results suggest that the direct route for ABA biosynthesis from farnesyl pyrophosphate may also be relevant in cherry flower buds.

Zenrin-ji Yamagoshi Amidazu: The Effect of Shōkū and Tendai Hongaku Philosophy

This paper researches the reason why the Zenrin-ji Yamagoshi Amidazu was painted. Shōkū and his pupils influenced Zenrin-ji. Although he is one of the most important persons in the Pure Land sect, he was also influenced by Tendai Hongaku philosophy. The painting shows that Amitābha is waiting for people in a mountain. It indicates that the Pure Land is in the mountain (this impure land). In addition, the scene includes both cherry blossoms and autumn leaves, which lead to timelessness and the Pure Land. These expressions might be affected by Tendai Hongaku philosophy, which claims that this impure land is the Pure Land. Moreover, two young boys (dōji) who hold flags in the painting might be influenced by the Mukaekō in Taima temple, a ritual enacting the raigō or visitation by Amida, which Shōkū supported. This temple was related to mountain worship which believes that the next world is located in the mountains. Considering these situations, this painting was influenced by Shōkū and Tendai Hongaku philosophy.

Hypothesis Testing for the Questionnaire Investigation on Tourists’ Behavior

Tourists from abroad are increasing rapidly in Japan. Kawazu town in Izu Peninsula is famous for its cherry trees. In the cherry blossom season, many tourists visit this town. The Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival was carried out in February 2015. Our research investigation was performed during that period. In this paper, a questionnaire investigation is executed in order to clarify tourists’ behavior, and to seek the possibility of developing regional collaboration among local government, tourism related industry and visitors. Hypothesis testing was executed based on that. We have set 10 Null hypotheses. In the hypothesis testing, 6 cases out of 10 null hypotheses were rejected and the majority of hypotheses were insisted clearly. We have obtained fruitful results.