Rafflesia is a biologically enigmatic species that is very rare in occurrence and possesses an extraordinary morphology. This parasitic plant produces a gigantic flower up to one metre in diameter with no leaves, stem or roots. However, little is known about the floral biology of this species especially at the molecular level. In an effort to address this issue, we have generated and characteri...

Observations of hummingbirds feeding at flowers longer or shorter than their bills seem to contradict the view that bill lengths of hummingbirds evolved in concert with the lengths of their flowers. Recent experiments, however, indicate that a hummingbird’s ability to feed at artificial flowers of different lengths depends on the widths of the flowers. We examined if the broad range of flower l...

We present the first study in vivo of meniscal movement in normal knees under load. Using an open MR scanner, allowing imaging in physiological positions in near to real-time, 16 young footballers were scanned moving from full extension to 90 degrees flexion in the sagittal and coronal planes. Excursion of the meniscal horns, radial displacement and meniscal height were measured. On weight-bear...

The low-temperature flowering-response pathway, used as an inductive stimulus to induce flowering in plant species from temperate regions in response to cold temperature, has been extensively studied. However, limited information is available on the flower transition of several bulbous species, which require high temperature for flower differentiation. Narcissus tazetta var. chinensis (Chinese ...

This paper studies functional dependencies in Horn theories, both when the theory is represented by its clausal form and when it is de ned as the Horn envelope of a set of models. We provide polynomial algorithms for the recognition of whether a given functional dependency holds in a given Horn theory, as well as polynomial algorithms for the generation of some representative sets of functional...

A new horn for high displacement amplification is developed. The profile of the horn is a cubic Bézier curve. The ultrasonic actuation of the horn exploits the first longitudinal displacement mode of the horn. A design method of the horn using an optimization scheme and finite element analyses is developed. Prototypes of the horns are manufactured by a numerical control machining process. Perfo...

Endogenous indoleacetic acid (IAA) levels of Euphorbia esula L. primary root and root buds were examined at three phenologic stages. High performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, using (13)C(6)[benzene ring]-indole-3-acetic acid as internal standard, were used to measure root bud free and bound IAA levels in vegetative, full...

Flower constellations are a particular set of satellite constellations where every satellite covers the same repeating space track. When the flower constellations are visualized on an Earth centred earth fixed reference frame, the relative orbits shows flower-shaped figures centered on the Earth. In this paper the shape and the position of a particular flower constellations has been designed fo...

Several species of flower thrips, including the Florida flower thrips {Frankliniella bispinosa (Morgan)}, Western flower thrips {F. occidentalis (Pergande)}, Eastern flower thrips {F. tritici (Fitch)}, and Scritothrips ruthveni Shull, have recently become known as pests of cultivated blueberries (Spiers et al. 2004). The three Franklinella species are pests of both rabbiteye and southern highbu...