Patterns of mean temperature in response to rainfall pulses.

<p>Patterns of mean temperature in response to rainfall pulses.</p

Intra-seasonal precipitation patterns in the threshold-delay data for NDVI in response to rainfall pulses.

<p>Error bars represent standard error for all the pixels in the study area. (A) The mean NDVI of the desert study area response to rainfall pulses for Terra and Aqua satellites. (B) The mean NDVI of the dune study area response to rainfall pulses for Terra and Aqua satellites. (C) The Maximum NDVI of this two-habitat study area's response to rainfall pulses for Terra and Aqua satellites.</p

Frequency distributions of rainfall and rainfall events.

<p>(A) From April to October in 2007; (B) From April to October in 2011; (C) From April to October between 2004 and 2012.</p

Characteristics of vegetation and soil.

<p>Characteristics of vegetation and soil.</p

A Conceptual diagram of the threshold-delay model based on Eqs. 1, 2, and 3 [11].

<p>(A) is the relationship between δt (the magnitude of the increase in the response) and yt–1 (the previous state of the response variable), where ymax is the maximum potential value of the response variable and δ* is the maximum potential response increase; (B) is the relationship between δ* and rainfall size at lag τ (days). RL is the lower threshold below which rain events do not stimulate a response. RU is the upper threshold above which rain events than do not yield additional benefits; and (C) provides a hypothetical response curve.</p

Map of the study area and location in China.

<p>Map of the study area and location in China.</p

Percentage increase in NDVI, from the day before rain to the day of peak NDVI, in response to different rainfall size classes.

<p>Letters above columns represent significantly different treatments (Tukey's HSD test, P<0.05). 5–10 mm: n = 20; others: n = 12. The observations used for these analyses come from both the Terra and Aqua satellites.</p

Enhanced Protein Adsorption and Facilitated Refolding of Like-Charged Protein with Highly Charged Silica Nanoparticles Fabricated by Sequential Double Modifications

Silica nanoparticles (SNPs) were sequentially modified with poly­(ethylenimine) (PEI) and 2-diethylaminoethyl chloride (DEAE) to prepare a series of positively charged SNPs-PEI and SNPs-PEI-DEAE. The sequential double-modification strategy produced a charge density as high as 1740 μmol/g (4524 μmol/mL), which offered a very high adsorption capacity for bovine serum albumin (314 mg/g). Most importantly, the highly charged SNPs-PEI and SNPs-PEI-DEAE could efficiently facilitate the refolding of like-charged protein at extremely low utilization. For instance, in the refolding of 1 mg/mL lysozyme, the refolding yield reached 75% with only 3.3 μL/mL SNPs-PEI-DEAE. The bead consumption was reduced by nearly 96% as compared to that of the charged microspheres used previously to reach a similar yield. The results proved that the polyelectrolyte-modified SNPs were promising for applications in facilitating like-charged protein refolding, and the research opened up a new way for biotechnology applications of highly charged nanoparticles

The parameters of the threshold-delay model for changes in NDVI in response to rainfall pulses.

<p><i>R^L</i> is the lower threshold of rainfall, <i>k</i> is the reduction rate. <i>y_t−1</i> is the antecedent value of the NDVI, <i>δ_t</i> is the response increase, <i>τ</i> is the time lag, <i>y_max</i> is the maximum response variable value, and <i>δ_t*</i> is the potential response increase.</p

Choice of precipitation events.

<p>NRDBRE: No-rain days before rainfall events; NRDARE: No-rain days after rainfall events. Like “20.8 (11; 9; 2; 0.6)” in the rainfall event size column means the continuous four rainy days' data observed and we treated as independent rainfall size.</p