• Title/Summary/Keyword: Major losses

Search Result 380, Processing Time 0.031 seconds

Effects of Artificial Acid Rain on Chemical Properties of Korean Forest Soils (인공산성우(人工酸性雨)가 삼림토양(森林土壤)의 화학적(化學的) 성질(性質)에 미치는 영향(影響))

  • Joo, Yeong Teuk;Kim, Young Chai
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
    • /
    • v.83 no.3
    • /
    • pp.280-285
    • /
    • 1994
  • This study was conducted to investigate the effects of acid deposition on forest soil, major five Korean forest soils(Brown, Dark red, Gray brown, Red and Yellow, and Volcanic ash forest soils) The samples were subjected to receive 1200mm($100mm{\times}12$ times) of artificial acid rain adjusted to pH5.6, 4.0, 3.0 and 2.0. The results obtained of major importance are summarized as follow ; 1. Ca appeared mostly affected at pH treatment of 2.0, while less affected by other pH treatments. Leaching of Ca rapidly increased with increasing of artificial acid rain acidity and application times in Dark red forest soil. 2. In the cases of Mg, K and Na, they showed gradual increase with the addition of artificial acid rain. Mg and Na losses showed similar leaching patterns, but they didn't show difference among the five forest soils. 3. Exchangeable canon concentrations in the soil leachates, which looked slightly different among the five forest soils, were the highest in pH2.0 treatment. Hydrogen ion comsumption capability by exchangeable canon was the highest in Dark red forest soil followed by Volcanic ash, Red and Yellow, Gray brown and Brown forest soils when artificial acid rain were treated.

  • PDF

Studies on Soil Conservation Effects of the Straw-mat Mulchings (I) - Vegetation Establishment and Erosion Control Effects - (볏짚거적덮기공의 사방효과(砂防効果)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究)(I) - 사면지피조성(斜面地被造成) 및 침식방지(浸蝕防止) 효과(効果) -)

  • Woo, Bo Myong
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
    • /
    • v.13 no.1
    • /
    • pp.67-78
    • /
    • 1971
  • The measures of contour-terracing with sod has been executed as a major measures for hillside erosion control works for a long time in Korea. It is, however, recognized that pair terracings make a new slope-face having the more steeper degree of slope between the upper and the lower terraces on hillsides and it also does not contribute for establishing the natural vegetation-cover by penetration of pioneer seeds on the slope faces or cut-faces of hillsides. The study was therefore conducted in connection with the above problems on the cut-face having slope of $40^{\circ}$ and 1.6 meter in slope length with clay soils. Plot allocation for the experiment consists of 3 kinds of 3 replica plots having each $1.6m^2$ of slope area, i. e., the control plot with direct seeding on slopes only ($T_1$), the covering plot with the straw-mats after seeding on slopes ($T_2$) and the seeding plot after covering with the straw-mats. ($T_3$). The main results obtained may be summarized as follows : 1. Effects of the straw-mat mulchings on surface soil loss control:-The total amount of soil losses from each treatments are measured as 4,651 gr from $T_1$, 163 gr. from $T_2$ and 2,891 gr. from $T_3$ treatment respectively. (Refer to table No. 2, 3 and 4). In short, it is recognized that effect of $T_2$ treatment is compared as 28.5 times than that of $T_1$ treatment and 17.7 times than that of $T_3$ treatment respectively. Effect of $T_3$ treatment compared with $T_1$ treatment is also such recognizable as 1.6 times in control of surface soil losses on a slope face. 2. Effect of the straw-mat mulchings on soil moisture content on slopes; -Average per cent of surface soil moisture content by treatments show as 21.60 at the $T_1$, 23.04 at the $T_2$ and 22.21 at the $T_3$ treatment respectively and that of subsurface soil moisture content by treatment show as 23.81 at the $T_1$, 26.16 at the $T_2$ and 24.81 at the $T_3$ treatment respectively. The variance of soil moisture content by treatments was highly significant (Refer table No. 7, 8 and 9). 3. Effect of the straw-mat mulchings on vegetation establishment;-Average numbers of germination by treatments are counted as 237 Nos. at the $T_1$, 246 Nos. at the $T_2$ and 262 Nos. at the $T_3$ treatment plots and the vegetation coverage on ground was almost same as about 90% of covers in all treatments. This effect is more or less lower than that of surface soil erosion control. 4. Regarding the effect on surface soil erosion control, the straw-mat mulchings would be effective as a new measures for control of soil erosion on erosion susceptible lands such slope-faced bare-lands as cut-fill faces, mass-movement faces and bare hillsides.

  • PDF

The Prediction of Export Credit Guarantee Accident using Machine Learning (기계학습을 이용한 수출신용보증 사고예측)

  • Cho, Jaeyoung;Joo, Jihwan;Han, Ingoo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.27 no.1
    • /
    • pp.83-102
    • /
    • 2021
  • The government recently announced various policies for developing big-data and artificial intelligence fields to provide a great opportunity to the public with respect to disclosure of high-quality data within public institutions. KSURE(Korea Trade Insurance Corporation) is a major public institution for financial policy in Korea, and thus the company is strongly committed to backing export companies with various systems. Nevertheless, there are still fewer cases of realized business model based on big-data analyses. In this situation, this paper aims to develop a new business model which can be applied to an ex-ante prediction for the likelihood of the insurance accident of credit guarantee. We utilize internal data from KSURE which supports export companies in Korea and apply machine learning models. Then, we conduct performance comparison among the predictive models including Logistic Regression, Random Forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, and DNN(Deep Neural Network). For decades, many researchers have tried to find better models which can help to predict bankruptcy since the ex-ante prediction is crucial for corporate managers, investors, creditors, and other stakeholders. The development of the prediction for financial distress or bankruptcy was originated from Smith(1930), Fitzpatrick(1932), or Merwin(1942). One of the most famous models is the Altman's Z-score model(Altman, 1968) which was based on the multiple discriminant analysis. This model is widely used in both research and practice by this time. The author suggests the score model that utilizes five key financial ratios to predict the probability of bankruptcy in the next two years. Ohlson(1980) introduces logit model to complement some limitations of previous models. Furthermore, Elmer and Borowski(1988) develop and examine a rule-based, automated system which conducts the financial analysis of savings and loans. Since the 1980s, researchers in Korea have started to examine analyses on the prediction of financial distress or bankruptcy. Kim(1987) analyzes financial ratios and develops the prediction model. Also, Han et al.(1995, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006) construct the prediction model using various techniques including artificial neural network. Yang(1996) introduces multiple discriminant analysis and logit model. Besides, Kim and Kim(2001) utilize artificial neural network techniques for ex-ante prediction of insolvent enterprises. After that, many scholars have been trying to predict financial distress or bankruptcy more precisely based on diverse models such as Random Forest or SVM. One major distinction of our research from the previous research is that we focus on examining the predicted probability of default for each sample case, not only on investigating the classification accuracy of each model for the entire sample. Most predictive models in this paper show that the level of the accuracy of classification is about 70% based on the entire sample. To be specific, LightGBM model shows the highest accuracy of 71.1% and Logit model indicates the lowest accuracy of 69%. However, we confirm that there are open to multiple interpretations. In the context of the business, we have to put more emphasis on efforts to minimize type 2 error which causes more harmful operating losses for the guaranty company. Thus, we also compare the classification accuracy by splitting predicted probability of the default into ten equal intervals. When we examine the classification accuracy for each interval, Logit model has the highest accuracy of 100% for 0~10% of the predicted probability of the default, however, Logit model has a relatively lower accuracy of 61.5% for 90~100% of the predicted probability of the default. On the other hand, Random Forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, and DNN indicate more desirable results since they indicate a higher level of accuracy for both 0~10% and 90~100% of the predicted probability of the default but have a lower level of accuracy around 50% of the predicted probability of the default. When it comes to the distribution of samples for each predicted probability of the default, both LightGBM and XGBoost models have a relatively large number of samples for both 0~10% and 90~100% of the predicted probability of the default. Although Random Forest model has an advantage with regard to the perspective of classification accuracy with small number of cases, LightGBM or XGBoost could become a more desirable model since they classify large number of cases into the two extreme intervals of the predicted probability of the default, even allowing for their relatively low classification accuracy. Considering the importance of type 2 error and total prediction accuracy, XGBoost and DNN show superior performance. Next, Random Forest and LightGBM show good results, but logistic regression shows the worst performance. However, each predictive model has a comparative advantage in terms of various evaluation standards. For instance, Random Forest model shows almost 100% accuracy for samples which are expected to have a high level of the probability of default. Collectively, we can construct more comprehensive ensemble models which contain multiple classification machine learning models and conduct majority voting for maximizing its overall performance.

Development of an Efficient Screening Method for Resistance of Chili Pepper Plants to Meloidogyne incognita (뿌리혹선충 Meloidogyne incognita에 대한 저항성 고추를 선발하기 위한 효율적인 검정법 확립)

  • Hwang, Sung Min;Jang, Kyoung Soo;Choi, Yong Ho;Choi, Gyung Ja
    • Horticultural Science & Technology
    • /
    • v.34 no.2
    • /
    • pp.282-293
    • /
    • 2016
  • Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) are major plant pathogens that cause reductions in yield and quality of several solanaceous crops, including pepper (Capsicum spp.). These losses can be averted through planting of resistant cultivars. Plants are defined as resistant when they suppress nematode reproduction. In this study, the resistance degrees of 102 commercial cultivars of chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) to a root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, were evaluated by comparing the number of egg masses on their roots to those of 'PR huimangchan', a highly susceptible cultivar that exhibited the most egg masses of the chili pepper cultivars evaluated. Among these cultivars, forty-four (43.1%) showed resistance to M. incognita and eighteen (17.6%) were moderately resistant. The other cultivars (39.3%) were determined to be susceptible. For further study, six chili pepper cultivars (i.e., Gangryeokjosenggeon, Shinsegae, Muhanjilju, PR Bulrocho, PR Huimangchan, and Jjang) with different levels of resistance to the nematode were selected. Changes in resistance of the six cultivars under several conditions, such as inoculum concentration, plant growth stage, and cultivation period after transplanting were investigated. We found that an efficient screening method for resistance of chili pepper to M. incognita is to transplant the chili pepper seedlings 7 days before inoculation, to inoculate 28-day-old plants with M. incognita by loading 5,000 eggs per plant into the pot of soil, to cultivate the plants in a greenhouse ($25{\pm}5^{\circ}C$) for 45-60 days, to measure the number of egg masses on roots of the seedlings, and then to determine the resistance response of the plants by comparing the number of egg masses on the roots with a reference-susceptible cultivar 'PR huimangchan'.

Effect of 1-methylcyclopropene Treatment on Extension of Freshness and Storage Potential of Fresh Ginseng (1-methylcyclopropene 처리의 수삼의 신선도 유지 및 저장성 연장 효과)

  • Park, Me-Hea;Shin, Yu-Su;Kim, Sun-Ju;Kim, Ji-Gang
    • Horticultural Science & Technology
    • /
    • v.31 no.3
    • /
    • pp.308-316
    • /
    • 2013
  • Fresh ginseng has a limited storage life due to the quality change caused by microbial spoilage as well as physiological deterioration. The present study investigated the effects of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) treatment, an inhibitor of ethylene action, on the microbial growth and quality maintenance of fresh ginseng during storage. Harvested fresh ginsengs were treated with $1{\mu}L{\cdot}L^{-1}$ 1-MCP for 20 hours at $4^{\circ}C$ and then stored at room temperature (RT) for 18 days or low temperature ($4^{\circ}C$) for 160 days. After 18 days of storage at RT, the percentage weight loss in 1-MCP treated fresh ginseng (8.3%) is lower than that of control (10.1%). During long-term storage at $4^{\circ}C$, weight losses were increased slightly until 120 days without difference between non-treated and 1-MCP ginsengs. In contrast, after 120 days of storage at $4^{\circ}C$, higher increase in weight loss was observed in non-treated ginsengs than in 1-MCP treated ginsengs. Respiration rate and ethylene production of fresh ginseng were reduced by 1-MCP treatments at RT. The 1-MCP treatment also resulted in lower microbial population compared to those of non-treated ginsengs at RT. However, in ginsengs stored at $4^{\circ}C$ for short-term (45 days), no differences were noted in weight loss and microbial population between 1-MCP treated and non-treated ginsengs. Major ginsenosides was not changed by 1-MCP treatment during the 7 days of storage at RT. Results suggest that 1-MCP treatment can be used to maintain the freshness of ginseng at room temperature for short term storage and at low temperature for long term storage. 1-MCP treatment could be applied on fresh ginseng to avoid deleterious effect of exogenous ethylene during storage and shipping.

A Study on Development of Prototype Test Train Design in G7 Project for High Speed Railway Technology (G7 고속전철기술개발사업에서의 시제차량 통합 디자인 개발)

  • 정경렬;이병종;윤세균
    • Archives of design research
    • /
    • v.16 no.4
    • /
    • pp.185-196
    • /
    • 2003
  • The demand for an environment-friendly transportation system, equipped with low energy consumption, and low-or zero-pollution has been on the increase since the beginning of the World Trade Organization era. Simultaneously, the consistent growth of high-speed tram technology, combined with market share, has sparked a fierce competition among technologically-advanced countries like France, Germany, and Japan in an effort to keep the lead in high-speed train technology via extensive Research and development(R&D) expenses. These countries are leaders in the race to implement the next-generation transportation system, build intercontinental rail way networks and export the high-speed train as a major industry commodity. The need to develop our own(Korean) 'high-speed train' technology and its core system technology layouts including original technology serves a few objectives: They boost the national competitive edge; they develop an environmental friendly rail road system that can cope with globalization and minimize the social and economic losses created by the growing traffic-congested delivery costs, environment pollution, and public discomforts. In turn, the 'G7 Project-Development of High Speed Railway Technology' held between 1996 and 2002 for a six-year period was focused on designing a domestic train capable of traveling at a speed of 350km/h combined and led to the actual implementation of engineering and producing the '2000 high-speed train:' This paper summarizes and introduces one of the G7 Projects-specifically, the design segment achievement within the development of train system engineering technology. It is true that the design aspect of the Korean domestic railway system program as a whole was lacking when compared with the advanced railroad countries whose early phase of train design emphasized the design aspect. However, having allowed the active participation of expert designers in the early phase of train design in the current project has led to a new era of domestic train development and the implementation of a way to meet demand flexibly with newly designed trains. The idea of a high-speed train in Korea and its design concept is well-conceived: a faster, more pleasant, and silent based Korean high-speed train that facilitates a new travel culture. A Korean-type of high-speed train is acknowledged by passengers who travel in such trains. The Korean high-speed prototype train has been born, combining aerodynamic air-cushioned design, which is the embodiment of Korean original design of forehead of power car minimized aerodynamic resistance using a curved car body profile, and the improvement of the interior design with ergonomics and the accommodation of the vestibule area through the study of passenger behavior and social culture that is based on the general passenger car.

  • PDF

A Real-Time Stock Market Prediction Using Knowledge Accumulation (지식 누적을 이용한 실시간 주식시장 예측)

  • Kim, Jin-Hwa;Hong, Kwang-Hun;Min, Jin-Young
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.17 no.4
    • /
    • pp.109-130
    • /
    • 2011
  • One of the major problems in the area of data mining is the size of the data, as most data set has huge volume these days. Streams of data are normally accumulated into data storages or databases. Transactions in internet, mobile devices and ubiquitous environment produce streams of data continuously. Some data set are just buried un-used inside huge data storage due to its huge size. Some data set is quickly lost as soon as it is created as it is not saved due to many reasons. How to use this large size data and to use data on stream efficiently are challenging questions in the study of data mining. Stream data is a data set that is accumulated to the data storage from a data source continuously. The size of this data set, in many cases, becomes increasingly large over time. To mine information from this massive data, it takes too many resources such as storage, money and time. These unique characteristics of the stream data make it difficult and expensive to store all the stream data sets accumulated over time. Otherwise, if one uses only recent or partial of data to mine information or pattern, there can be losses of valuable information, which can be useful. To avoid these problems, this study suggests a method efficiently accumulates information or patterns in the form of rule set over time. A rule set is mined from a data set in stream and this rule set is accumulated into a master rule set storage, which is also a model for real-time decision making. One of the main advantages of this method is that it takes much smaller storage space compared to the traditional method, which saves the whole data set. Another advantage of using this method is that the accumulated rule set is used as a prediction model. Prompt response to the request from users is possible anytime as the rule set is ready anytime to be used to make decisions. This makes real-time decision making possible, which is the greatest advantage of this method. Based on theories of ensemble approaches, combination of many different models can produce better prediction model in performance. The consolidated rule set actually covers all the data set while the traditional sampling approach only covers part of the whole data set. This study uses a stock market data that has a heterogeneous data set as the characteristic of data varies over time. The indexes in stock market data can fluctuate in different situations whenever there is an event influencing the stock market index. Therefore the variance of the values in each variable is large compared to that of the homogeneous data set. Prediction with heterogeneous data set is naturally much more difficult, compared to that of homogeneous data set as it is more difficult to predict in unpredictable situation. This study tests two general mining approaches and compare prediction performances of these two suggested methods with the method we suggest in this study. The first approach is inducing a rule set from the recent data set to predict new data set. The seocnd one is inducing a rule set from all the data which have been accumulated from the beginning every time one has to predict new data set. We found neither of these two is as good as the method of accumulated rule set in its performance. Furthermore, the study shows experiments with different prediction models. The first approach is building a prediction model only with more important rule sets and the second approach is the method using all the rule sets by assigning weights on the rules based on their performance. The second approach shows better performance compared to the first one. The experiments also show that the suggested method in this study can be an efficient approach for mining information and pattern with stream data. This method has a limitation of bounding its application to stock market data. More dynamic real-time steam data set is desirable for the application of this method. There is also another problem in this study. When the number of rules is increasing over time, it has to manage special rules such as redundant rules or conflicting rules efficiently.

Regulatory Reform Proposals for the Korean Deep Sea Fishing Industry (원양어업(遠洋漁業)에 대한 정부규제(政府規制)의 개선방안(改善方案))

  • Kim, Jong-seok
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
    • /
    • v.12 no.1
    • /
    • pp.93-110
    • /
    • 1990
  • The basic purpose behind the Korean government's policy toward the Korean deep sea fishing industry is to limit growth of the industry. Therefore, the regulations on the industry are generally restrictive and interventionist. The policy is intended to maintain high domestic fish prices in order to protect the domestic coastal fishing industry. Some regulations have also been introduced to maintain "industrial order." Each fishing vessel must obtain a government permit for operation. The permit specifies the kind of fish it can catch, the area of sea in which it can operate, and the port at which it can unload its catches. The number of permits government issues each year is based on the estimates of the demand increase calculated by government officials, and the government traditionally has been fairly conservative in its estimation, reflecting its concern for fish price stabilization, which actually implies a gradual increase of the prices. There is also a restriction on importing vessels from abroad. This regulation is intended to protect the domestic shipbuilding industry. However, this regulation has resulted in an unusually high average age of Korean fishing vessels, causing fishing costs to rise. These regulations and the inflexible response of the regulators to changing circumstances have resulted in many problems: i) high domestic fish prices, which are, to some extent deliberately, inflated to three or four times the level of international prices, resulting in huge consumer welfare losses; ii) over-exploitation of coastal fish resources; iii) provision of a hospitable environment for inefficient firms to survive, which is especially evident from the fact that, despite the high fish prices in Korea, most of the firms in the industry do not enjoy high profitability. It also must be pointed out that the actual beneficiaries of the high fish prices are the large operators, who are protected from competition and provide most of the fish for domestic consumption, rather than the low-income fishing households and small coastal operators whom the policy was originally designed to help. This study proposes a set of regulatory reforms and policy changes which could Promote competition and equity within the industry and allow firms to reduce costs and increase productivity. Such changes can make the industry more efficient and internationally competitive. Major proposals are, among others: minimization of bureaucratic discretion in issuing fishing permits and maintaining transparency in the governments' decision-making processes; reduction of the government permit specifications and simplification of the operational categories within the industry; and removal of the restrictions on importing foreign fishing vessels.

  • PDF

Stellite bearings for liquid Zn-/Al-Systems with advanced chemical and physical properties by Mechanical Alloying and Standard-PM-Route

  • Zoz, H.;Benz, H.U.;Huettebraeucker, K.;Furken, L.;Ren, H.;Reichardt, R.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
    • /
    • 2000.04a
    • /
    • pp.9-10
    • /
    • 2000
  • An important business-field of world-wide steel-industry is the coating of thin metal-sheets with zinc, zinc-aluminum and aluminum based materials. These products mostly go into automotive industry. in particular for the car-body. into building and construction industry as well as household appliances. Due to mass-production, the processing is done in large continuously operating plants where the mostly cold-rolled metal-strip as the substrate is handled in coils up to 40 tons unwind before and rolled up again after passing the processing plant which includes cleaning, annealing, hot-dip galvanizing / aluminizing and chemical treatment. In the liquid Zn, Zn-AI, AI-Zn and AI-Si bathes a combined action of corrosion and wear under high temperature and high stress onto the transfer components (rolls) accounts for major economic losses. Most critical here are the bearing systems of these rolls operating in the liquid system. Rolls in liquid system can not be avoided as they are needed to transfer the steel-strip into and out of the crucible. Since several years, ceramic roller bearings are tested here [1.2], however, in particular due to uncontrollable Slag-impurities within the hot bath [3], slide bearings are still expected to be of a higher potential [4]. The today's state of the art is the application of slide bearings based on Stellite\ulcorneragainst Stellite which is in general a 50-60 wt% Co-matrix with incorporated Cr- and W-carbides and other composites. Indeed Stellite is used as the bearing-material as of it's chemical properties (does not go into solution), the physical properties in particular with poor lubricating properties are not satisfying at all. To increase the Sliding behavior in the bearing system, about 0.15-0.2 wt% of lead has been added into the hot-bath in the past. Due to environmental regulations. this had to be reduced dramatically_ This together with the heavily increasing production rates expressed by increased velocity of the substrate-steel-band up to 200 m/min and increased tractate power up to 10 tons in modern plants. leads to life times of the bearings of a few up to several days only. To improve this situation. the Mechanical Alloying (MA) TeChnique [5.6.7.8] is used to prOduce advanced Stellite-based bearing materials. A lubricating phase is introduced into Stellite-powder-material by MA, the composite-powder-particles are coated by High Energy Milling (HEM) in order to produce bearing-bushes of approximately 12 kg by Sintering, Liquid Phase Sintering (LPS) and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP). The chemical and physical behavior of samples as well as the bearing systems in the hot galvanizing / aluminizing plant are discussed. DependenCies like lubricant material and composite, LPS-binder and composite, particle shape and PM-route with respect to achievable density. (temperature--) shock-reSistibility and corrosive-wear behavior will be described. The materials are characterized by particle size analysis (laser diffraction), scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. corrosive-wear behavior is determined using a special cylinder-in-bush apparatus (CIBA) as well as field-test in real production condition. Part I of this work describes the initial testing phase where different sample materials are produced, characterized, consolidated and tested in the CIBA under a common AI-Zn-system. The results are discussed and the material-system for the large components to be produced for the field test in real production condition is decided. Outlook: Part II of this work will describe the field test in a hot-dip-galvanizing/aluminizing plant of the mechanically alloyed bearing bushes under aluminum-rich liquid metal. Alter testing, the bushes will be characterized and obtained results with respect to wear. expected lifetime, surface roughness and infiltration will be discussed. Part III of this project will describe a second initial testing phase where the won results of part 1+11 will be transferred to the AI-Si system. Part IV of this project will describe the field test in a hot-dip-aluminizing plant of the mechanically alloyed bearing bushes under aluminum liquid metal. After testing. the bushes will be characterized and obtained results with respect to wear. expected lifetime, surface roughness and infiltration will be discussed.

  • PDF

Effects of Various Environmental Stresses on the Peroxidase Activities from Rice Seedlings (여러 가지 환경스트레스가 벼 유묘 퍼옥시다제 활성에 미치는 영향)

  • 이정애;신현웅;이미영
    • Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
    • /
    • v.18 no.3
    • /
    • pp.331-336
    • /
    • 2000
  • In order to examine the effect of SO$_2$, which is the major component of acid rain, on the peroxidase activity, rice (Oryza sativa) seedlings were grown on the media containing various concentrations of Na$_2$SO$_3$. Na$_2$SO$_3$ concentrations needed for the 50% inhibition of rice seed germination were determined to be 300$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml at pH 7, 8$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml at pH 5 and 2$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml at pH 3. Notably, about 8 fold and 4 fold increase of the specific activity of the enzyme were observed with the seedlings treated with 8$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml Na$_2$SO$_3$ at pH 5 and 2$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml Na$_2$SO$_3$ at pH 3, respectively. The effects of Cd and Pb on the peroxidase activities and chlorophyll contents were also examined. About 3.9 fold higher peroxidase activities were found at 0.03mM Cd, and the chlorophyll contents were reduced to 63% of the control seedlings. At 0.04mM Pb, 2.5 fold higher enzyme activities were found and the chlorophyll contents were reduced to 72%. Therefore, the increases of rice peroxidase activities might be involved in the defense mechanism of the cell against various environmental stresses such as Na$_2$SO$_3$, Cd and Pb. The effects of Cu and Fe, which are the inducers of oxidative stresses by the generations of reactive oxygen species, on the peroxidase activities were also investigated. About 57% and 65% activity losses were found at 0.5mM CuSO$_4$ and 0.5mM FeSO$_4$, respectively, and radical scavenger ethanol almost completely protected both inactivations. However, dimethyl sulfoxide, mannitol, thiourea and histidine showed different radical scavenging effects one another against Cu and Fe inactivation.

  • PDF