Liquids are complex consonants that employ multiple gestures of the tongue in order to achieve specific tongue shapes. In the case of the lateral liquid /l/, that specific shape involves lowering and curling of the tongue along the blade. Many models of speech treat /l/ simply as a combination of tongue tip closure and tongue body retraction gestures, with tongue shaping receiving little attent...

Guard cell swelling controls the aperture of stomata, pores that facilitate gas exchange and water loss from leaves. The hormone abscisic acid (ABA) has a central role in regulation of stomatal closure through synthesis of second messengers, which include reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS accumulation must be minimized by antioxidants to keep concentrations from reaching damaging levels within...

Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) elicits stomatal closing similar to abscisic acid (ABA), but whether the two compounds use similar or different signaling mechanisms in guard cells remains to be clarified. We investigated the effects of MeJA and ABA on second messenger production and ion channel activation in guard cells of wild-type Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and MeJA-insensitive coronatine-ins...

During breeding, seabirds are central place foragers and are sensitive to changes in local prey availability. As the breeding season progresses, foraging behavior and distribution is expected to change in response to possible changes in local prey availability. In addition, adult gender, and the increasing nutritional demands of a growing chick may also influence the foraging behavior of indivi...

From the Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology (Hasosah), and Department of Pediatrics (Al-Johani), King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, National Guard Health Affairs, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Address correspondence to: Dr. Mohammed Y. Hasosah, Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology, National Guard Hospital, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences,...

We prove that the three art gallery problems Vertex Guard, Edge Guard and Point Guard for simple polygons with holes cannot be approximated by any polynomial time algorithm with a ratio of 1? 28 ln n, for any > 0, unless N P T IM E(n O(log log n)). We obtain our results by extending and modifying the concepts of a construction introduced in Eide98].

My primary research interest is social behavior of software agents acting in general-sum normal form games. In an environment with another agent, an agent needs to be able to identify if the opponent is hostile or cooperative by looking at the opponent’s actions, and respond appropriately. If the opponent is hostile, the agent should guard against it. Even for a self-interested agent, cooperati...

We present a tool, simplify-defun, that transforms the definition of a given function into a simplified definition of a new function, providing a proof checked by ACL2 that the old and new functions are equivalent. When appropriate it also generates termination and guard proofs for the new function. We explain how the tool is engineered so that these proofs will succeed. Examples illustrate its...

Tongue inspection is a unique and important method of diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It is a diagnostic approach which involves observing the changes in the tongue proper and tongue coating in order to understand the physiological functions and pathological changes of the body. However, the biological basis of TCM tongue diagnosis remains to be poorly understood and lacks syst...

a 40-day-old male holstein breed calf with a complaint of inability of moving the tongue in and out aswell as difficulties with breastfeeding was referred to the veterinary clinic. a notch in the middle of thetongue tip was evident during oral examination. in addition, a thin tissue band between the ventral surface of the tongue and floor of the oral cavity was seen in the calf. a diagnosis of ...