2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 37-46
We examined the effects of the bromide dioxin BDE209, a toxic bromide flame retardant, and toxic cadmium and mercury, which interact with BDE209 in soil, on four different varieties of water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica). The experiment was based on an L27(313) orthogonal array, which examined three concentrations each of BDE209, cadmium, and mercury, and four varieties of water spinach. The 33 X 4 = 108 treatment combinations generated were divided into three blocks in a greenhouse of the Jinan University campus. Within each block, each treatment combination was executed in a random pot in which one of four water spinach varieties was planted. To detect interactions among several toxic materials, multifactor experiments, in which each factor has a few levels, are important. In this paper, we outlined the complex design of the experiment and how to analyze the resulting data. Experiments examining organisms exposed to hazardous materials often result in missing data, since the organisms often do not grow normally. In our experiment, we determined a multiple regression equation using non-missing data, and the missing values were filled in based on the equation.
