• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
• /
• v.29
• /
• pp.3.1-3.7
• /
• 2014

Objectives This study was conducted to determine the depositional characteristics of several tree barks, including Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), Pine (Pinus densiflora), Platanus (Platanus), and Metasequoia (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). These were used as passive air sampler (PAS) of atmospheric polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). Methods Tree barks were sampled from the same site. PBDEs were analyzed by high-resolution gas chromatography/high-resolution mass spectrometer, and the lipid content was measured using the gravimetric method by n-hexane extraction. Results Gingko contained the highest lipid content (7.82 mg/g dry), whereas pine (4.85 mg/g dry), Platanus (3.61 mg/g dry), and Metasequoia (0.97 mg/g dry) had relatively lower content. The highest total PBDEs concentration was observed in Metasequoia (83,159.0 pg/g dry), followed by Ginkgo (53,538.4 pg/g dry), Pine (20,266.4 pg/g dry), and Platanus (12,572.0 pg/g dry). There were poor correlations between lipid content and total PBDE concentrations in tree barks ($R^2$=0.1011, p =0.682). Among the PBDE congeners, BDE 206, 207 and 209 were highly brominated PBDEs that are sorbed to particulates in ambient air, which accounted for 90.5% (84.3-95.6%) of the concentration and were therefore identified as the main PBDE congener. The concentrations of particulate PBDEs deposited on tree barks were dependent on morphological characteristics such as surface area or roughness of barks. Conclusions Therefore, when using the tree barks as the PAS of the atmospheric PBDEs, samples belonging to same tree species should be collected to reduce errors and to obtain reliable data.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
• /
• v.11 no.5
• /
• pp.576-579
• /
• 1998

Water extract of mulberry tree barks(Morus alba Linne) was studied for its proteolytic activity. Protein content of the extract was 1.12mg/ml and its specific activity was 5.14U/ml. The enzyme was active on various proteins : the relative acitities were 100 for casein, 63 for albumin, 58 for collagen, 45 for hemoglobin and 36 gelatin, respectively. There suggested that the ability of the enzyme to hydrolyze meat was relatively high since those are major meat proteins. Optimum pH and temperature for proteolytic activity were : pH 6.0 and 6$0^{\circ}C$. And the enzyme was stable at the pH range of 6.0 to 7.0 and temperature between 50 and 8$0^{\circ}C$. Apparent proteolytic activities could support some scientific grounds of traditional application of mulberry tree barks to home cooking for meat tenderization.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.80-89
• /
• 2019

Pine barks are important biomass resources because they are utilised in the production of pine wood and rosins. However, no chemical study has been conducted on the hydrophilic status of pine barks in Indonesia. This aim of this study is to explore the hydrophilic extracts of the barks from six Pinus species (P. elliotii, P. caribeae, P. oocarpa, P. merkusii P. montezumae, and P. insularis). The hydrophilics of pine barks were analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The presence of polyphenol contents in the ethanol extracts obtained from the barks of six Pinus species was determined using the tannin-formaldehyde method, Folin-Cioucalteu assay, and vanillin-HCl assay. The ethanol and hot water soluble extractives derived from inner barks were higher in quantity when compared to those derived from the outer bark samples. The polyphenol measurement showed that the highest value of total phenol content was derived from the outer bark of P. montezumae whereas those of the total phenol and tannin- formaldehyde contents were derived from the inner and outer barks of P. oocarpa. GC-MS analysis revealed that nitrogenous compounds are dominant constituents in the inner and outer barks of the six species, followed by sugars and monophenolics, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 1996

Extracts from bark have been studied with a view to producing water-proof wood adhesives. Lately many softwoods, such as radiata pine from New Zealand and larch from Siberia, Russia, have been imported and utilized, and their residual barks would be expecting as potential raw materials for something useful chemicals. The great effort toward utilization of bark extractives as a chemical feedstock has been made on a worldwide level. However few report has been done for the utilization of tree bark extractives in Korea. Hot-water extracts were prepared from barks of Japanese larch(Larix leptolepis). Siberian larch(Larix gmelinii) and Radiata pine(Pinus radiata). The effect of various factors, such as particle size, liquor ratio, extraction temperature, and reaction time, on the extractive yields was discussed. Particle sizes affected the hot-water extractives: the finer the particle size, the higher extractives and extract efficiency. Higher temperature and higher liquor ratio were more effective. Extractives from Japanese larch were relatively less than those from Siberian larch and Radiata pine barks. Formaldehyde precipitates was the highest in extractives of Radiata pine barks. It could be concluded that Siberian larch bark was the best raw material for tannin adhesives, because its extractive yield was higher than those of the other barks.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.84-92
• /
• 2008

Disclosed is a study related to the thermal characteristics of Pinus densiflora and Quercus dentate identifying the presence of any significant difference in the above trees, which are native to Young Dong Province of Korea, according to different regions of the trees such as branches, barks, living leaves and dead leaves. For this purpose, we have carried out a cone calorimeter test focusing on the variables such as mass loss, heat release, ignition time, flame holding time and concentrations of CO and $CO_2$. The results showed that the total mass loss was greatest in tree branches, whereas the ignition time of dead leaves was fastest both in Pinus densiflora and Quercus dantata. The flame holding times of dead leaves and barks were about $640{\sim}1,016s$ and the total heat release of dead leaves was around 60.1 $MJ/m^2$, twice the total heat release of living leaves. In addition, the maximum exhaust concentrations of CO and $CO_2$ in tree branches of Quercus dentata was 2.82 times higher than those of Pinus densiflora, respectively. From the foregoing, it was confirmed that there exist region-specific differential thermal characteristics in Pinus densiflora and Quercus dentata.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2005.05a
• /
• pp.202.4-202
• /
• 2005

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.110 no.2
• /
• pp.155-164
• /
• 2021

Many studies have been conducted on developing automatic plant identification algorithms using machine learning to various plant features, such as leaves and flowers. Unlike other plant characteristics, barks show only little change regardless of the season and are maintained for a long period. Nevertheless, barks show a complex shape with a large variation depending on the environment, and there are insufficient materials that can be utilized to train algorithms. Here, in addition to the previously published bark image dataset, BarkNet v.1.0, images of barks were collected, and a dataset consisting of 53 tree species that can be easily observed in Korea was presented. A convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained and tested on the dataset, and the factors that interfere with the model's performance were identified. For CNN architecture, VGG-16 and 19 were utilized. As a result, VGG-16 achieved 90.41% and VGG-19 achieved 92.62% accuracy. When tested on new tree images that do not exist in the original dataset but belong to the same genus or family, it was confirmed that more than 80% of cases were successfully identified as the same genus or family. Meanwhile, it was found that the model tended to misclassify when there were distracting features in the image, including leaves, mosses, and knots. In these cases, we propose that random cropping and classification by majority votes are valid for improving possible errors in training and inferences.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.403-415
• /
• 2023

This study aimed to isolate and identify L-(+)-lactic acid-producing bacteria from tree barks collected in Thailand and evaluate the potential strain as probiotics. Twelve strains were isolated and characterized phenotypically and genotypically. The strains exhibited a rod-shaped morphology, high-temperature tolerance, and the ability to ferment different sugars into lactic acid. Based on 16S rRNA gene analysis, all strains were identified as belonging to Weizmannia coagulans. Among the isolated strains, BKMTCR2-2 demonstrated exceptional lactic acid production, with 96.41% optical purity, 2.33 g/l of lactic acid production, 1.44 g/g of lactic acid yield (per gram of glucose consumption), and 0.0049 g/l/h of lactic acid productivity. This strain also displayed a wide range of pH tolerance, suggesting suitability for the human gastrointestinal tract and potential probiotic applications. The whole-genome sequence of BKMTCR2-2 was assembled using a hybridization approach that combined long and short reads. The genomic analysis confirmed its identification as W. coagulans and safety assessments revealed its non-pathogenic attribute compared to type strains and commercial probiotic strains. Furthermore, this strain exhibited resilience to acidic and bile conditions, along with the presence of potential probiotic-related genes and metabolic capabilities. These findings suggest that BKMTCR2-2 holds promise as a safe and effective probiotic strain with significant lactic acid production capabilities.

• Research in Plant Disease
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.237-241
• /
• 2018

A circular bark with a 30 cm width was artificially removed from the trunk of a 250-year-old zelkova tree (Zelkova serrata) heavily damaged by artificial girdling in Sunchang, Jeonbuk Province in March of 2005. The debarked area was cleaned approximately 10 days after artificial girdling and bark margins with 2 cm width above and below the girdled portion were cut off to promote wound callus formation. Nine pieces of fresh bark (width 8 cm, length 35 cm, thickness 0.5 cm) were then prepared from branches of neighbor zelkova trees broken by heavy snowfalls and pasted onto the girdled portion of the tree, after which a Vaseline dressing was applied to water-proof the area and rubber bars were used to hold the implants to the trunk. Two pieces of the implanted fresh barks were successfully grafted onto the girdled area and the damaged tree has been vigorously growing over 13 years. To our knowledge, this is the first case of successful bark implantation to cure a 250-year-old zelkova tree heavily damaged by artificial girdling. This bark implantation technique will be utilized for the conversation and management of heavily damaged big and old trees in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Fire Science and Engineering Conference
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.468-473
• /
• 2007