The palaeoecological context of the Oldowan–Acheulean in southern Africa

The influence of climatic and environmental change on human evolution in the Pleistocene is understood largely from extensive East African stable isotope records. These records show increasing proportions of C4 plants in the Early Pleistocene. We know far less about the expansion of C4 grasses in higher latitudes, which were also occupied by early Homo but are more marginal for C4 plants. Here we show that both C3 and C4 grasses, and prolonged wetlands remained major components of Early Pleistocene environments in the central interior of southern Africa based on enamel stable carbon and oxygen isotope data and associated faunal abundance and phytolith evidence, from the site of Wonderwerk Cave. Vegetation contexts associated with Oldowan and Early Acheulean lithic industries, in which climate is driven by an interplay of regional rainfall seasonality together with global CO2 levels, develop along a regional distinct trajectory compared to eastern South Africa and East Africa

Aerodynamic Shape Optimization in Aeronautics: A Fast and Effective Multi-Objective Approach

The present work aims at introducing a fast and effective CFD-based automatic loop for optimization of rotorcraft components. The automatic loop presented here was strictly designed around an innovative Multi Objective Evolutionary Algorithm, developed at University of Padua, namely the GeDEA-II. Recent papers showed its excellent performance when tested on state-of-the-art problems. In order to test the performance of this algorithm two test cases are presented, each having its peculiar characteristics. The first problem regards the single-objective, multi-constraints aerodynamic optimization of the ERICA tilt-rotor cockpit region. The second one is a multi-point multi-constraint optimization of the left intake of the AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of this automatic optimization loop in tackling real-word engineering problems