Ear between the outer ear and the inner ear. It consists of an air-filled cavity called the tympanic cavity and includes the three ossicles and their attaching ligaments; the auditory tube; and the round and oval windows. The ossicles are three small bones that function together to receive, amplify, and transmit the sound from the eardrum to the inner ear. The ossicles are the malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and the stapes (stirrup). The stapes is the smallest named bone in the body. The middle ear also connects to the upper throat at the nasopharynx via the pharyngeal opening of the Eustachian
Ear decomposition ear. Additionally, in most cases the first ear in the sequence must be a cycle. An open ear decomposition or a proper ear decomposition is an ear decomposition in which the two endpoints of each ear after the first are distinct from each other. Ear decompositions may be used to characterize several important graph classes, and as part of efficient graph algorithms. They may also be generalized from graphs to matroids. Several important classes of graphs may be characterized as the graphs having certain types of ear decompositions. A graph is "k"-vertex-connected if the removal of any ("k" − 1)