The Asian interior arid zone is the largest desert landform system in the Northern Hemisphere, and has high biodiversity. Little is currently known about the evolutionary history of its biota. In this study, we used Zygophyllum, an important and characteristic component of the Asian interior arid zone, to provide new insights into the evolution of this biota. By greatly enlarged taxon sampling,...

The ARID is an ancient DNA-binding domain that is conserved throughout the evolution of higher eukaryotes. The ARID consensus sequence spans about 100 amino acid residues, and structural studies identify the major groove contact site as a modified helix-turn-helix motif. ARID-containing proteins exhibit a range of cellular functions, including participation in chromatin remodeling, and regulati...

The human AT-rich interaction domain (ARID) family contains seven subfamilies and 15 members characterized by having an ARID. Members of the ARID family have the ability to regulate transcription and are involved in cell differentiation and proliferation. Accumulating evidence suggests that ARID family members are involved in cancer-related signaling pathways, highly mutated or differentially e...

Expansive soils can be found in many parts of the world particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. These soilspose a significant hazard to civil engineering structures due to its high swelling and shrinkage potential. This paperpresents the results of an experimental program developed to investigate the effect of cyclic drying and wetting on theswelling potential of expansive soils with variou...

A major problem of arid and semi-arid regions is environmental stresses like salinity and drought. To study the effect of Artichoke germination under different levels of salinity and drought, two separate experiments were performed. The experimental treatments included different salinity levels of NaCl (0, 50, 100, 150 mM) and five drought levels by PEG (0, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25%) with three rep...

ALOS PALSAR data is used to analyse the flood dynamics of two semi-arid river systems and to characterise and define wetland typologies that result from infrequent and highly variable river flood regimes. The two sites, the Gwydir and the Paroo rivers, are both located within the Murray Darling Basin of eastern Australia. The methods developed have the potential to provide cost effective monito...

Arid and semi-arid areas occupy one third of the total area of the world. This vast region is rich in natural resources. In recent times, desertification has become a world-wide phenomenon, due to human activities. China also suffers from this problem. Desertification is especially severe in the southeastern part of the arid and semi-arid region of the country. In this paper, the use of remote ...