We inventoried two 1-ha plots on opposing watersheds (WS2–WS-S, WS18–WS-N) three times (1983, 1989, 1998) over a 16-year period to contrast how differing precipitation (P) regimes affect tree mortality. From 1983 to 1989, annual precipitation averaged 16.5% less than the 64-year mean; from 1989 to 1998, it averaged 12.2% above the mean. In 1989 and 1998, standing crop biomass, aboveground net p...

The resurrection plant Reaumuria soongorica is widespread across Asia, southern Europe, and North Africa and is considered to be a constructive keystone species in desert ecosystems, but the impacts of climate change on this species in desert ecosystems are unclear. Here, the morphological responses of R. soongorica to changes in rainfall quantity (30% reduction and 30% increase in rainfall qua...

Because of its rapid onset of action, pulmonary administration of levodopa is an interesting alternative to oral administration for the rescue treatment of Parkinson's disease patients in an off period. We studied the ability of Parkinson's disease patients to operate a dry powder inhaler (DPI) correctly during an off period. We used an instrumented test inhaler with three different resistances...

Based on the water quality data from 2006 to 2008, grey relational analysis (GRA) is used to analyze factors that may have influence on the speciation of inorganic nitrogen in the Chengdu section of middle Min river. The results show that water temperature, changing from 20.2 +/- 2.7, 13.4 +/- 5.7 and 16.8 +/- 5.6 degrees C, is the first restrictive factor for the speciation of inorganic nitrog...

1 EPhysLab, Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidade de Vigo, Ourense, Spain, 2 Departamento de Geofísica y Meteorología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 3 Instituto de Geociencias, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 4 Department of Oceanography, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South...

Daytime xylem sap flow was measured by the compensation heat pulse velocity technique in dipterocarp forest trees growing on sandy loam (haplic acrisol) and in heath forest trees growing on bleached sand (albic arenosol) in Brunei during wet and dry periods. In dipterocarp forest trees, daily sap flow was stable during the dry period but declined on rainy days presumably as a result of reduced ...