No abstract

The phytotoxicity and oxidative damage in response to different concentrations of Hg (0.0, 2.5, 5.0, 10 and 25 μM) were evaluated in wheat plants. The root and shoot growth, content of chlorophyll and total soluble protein declined at 10 and 25 μM Hg. Roots of the plant were more affected as compared to the shoot. The malondialdehyde (MDA) quantity enhanced in the roots of wheat plants treated with 10 and 25 μM Hg and in the leaves of plants treated with 25 μM Hg. The concentration of H 2 O 2 decreased at low concentration and increased at high concentration of Hg. The induction of enzymatic antioxidants (catalase, CAT; ascorbate peroxidase, APX; peroxidase, POX and superoxide dismutase, SOD) was found in the roots and leaves of plants with increased concentration of Hg up to 10 μM and low activities of these enzymes were observed at 25 μM Hg. Also, the level of K, Ca and Mg declined in leaf tissues of Hg treated plants. Thus wheat plants exposed to lower concentrations of Hg did not experience any oxidative stress. However, on treatment with 10 μM Hg, the roots and leaves responded differently. Both the leaves and roots of plants treated with higher concentration of Hg were subjected to comparatively greater oxidative damage and demonstrated that the antioxidative components were not able to remove the stress due to higher concentration of Hg and thus might affect the productivity in wheat plants.

Estimating Manning's roughness coefficient (n) is one of the essential factors in predicting the discharge in a stream. Present research work is focused on prediction of Manning's n in meandering compound channels by using the Group Method of Data Handling Neural Network (GMDH-NN) approach. The width ratio (α), relative depth (β), sinuosity (s), Channel bed slope (S o ), and meander belt width ratio (ω) are specified as input parameters for the development of the model. The performance of GMDH-NN is evaluated with two different machine learning techniques, namely the support vector regression (SVR) and multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) with various statistical measures. Results indicate that the proposed GMDH-NN model predicts the Manning's n satisfactorily as compared to the MARS and SVR model. This GMDH-NN approach can be useful for practical implementation as the prediction of Manning's coefficient and subsequently discharge through Manning's equation in the compound meandering channels are found to be quite adequate.Hydrology 2018, 5, 47 2 of 21 hydraulic parameters. Formulation for Manning's roughness showing the gradient effect in channels having longitudinal slopes greater than 0.002 was derived by Jarrett [7]. Due to variation in flow depth, geometry and slope, the distinction of roughness coefficient in a straight channel as compared to a meandering channel were discussed by Arcement and Schneider [8]. Yen [9] proposed Manning's n for simple uniform flows taking account for a geometric measure, such as unevenness of the edge. Further, SCS method was linearized by James [10] for a meandering channel, named the Linearized SCS (LSCS) and recommended the Manning's roughness value for the different sinuosity channels. Shiono et al. [11] developed a model to predict discharge considering the Manning's n in the case of longitudinal slope and the meander effect of the channel. Jena [12] proposed an equation to calculate the n by considering the effect of channel width, longitudinal channel slope, and the flow depth of the channel. The variations of wetted area, wetted perimeter, and the velocity data on Manning's roughness coefficient by considering the flow simulation and sediment transport in irrigated channels was investigated by Mailapalli et al. [13]. Khatua et al. [14-16] formulated a mathematical equation for roughness coefficients by varying the sinuosity and geometry of the meandering compound channel. Xia et al. [17] and Barati [18-20] carried out the experiments for predicting discharge by taking care of the effect of bed roughness. Dash et al. [21] modeled the Manning's roughness coefficient by considering the aspect ratio, viscosity, slope of the bed, and sinuosity. Pradhan et al. [22] proposed an empirical formulation of predicting Manning's n by dimensional analysis for the compound meandering channel, which affects relative depth, width ratio, longitudinal channel slope, and sinuosity.In the recent years, ML techniques have been successfully implemented for predicting complex phenom...

No abstract

No abstract