The Aloha State: Saying Hello & Goodbye to the Hawaiian Islands

In Hawaiian, aloha means both hello and goodbye. So, if someone says aloha to you, how do you know what he/she is saying? Join Dr. Melody Miyamoto Walters and Dr. Lisa Kirby for Passport to the World to find out. Hear a local Hawaiian introduce visitors to Hawaii, and then listento the experiences of a Texan who recently visited several of the islands

A Cognitive Model of the Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

We describe a workload model of a single pilot unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control, which can provide the basis for extension to multiple UAV control and supervision. The model predicts multi-task capabilities based upon the multiple-resource model of human time sharing. Elements of the model are described related to task demand, resource conflict, and resource allocation (task priority). We then demonstrate its applicability to predicting pilot performance in the MQ-1 Predator, describing the “workload spikes” during a typical mission, and demonstrating ways in which high workload can be mitigated

Addressing inequities in access to fortified sunflower oil - Costs of small, medium large-scale fortification in Tanzania

Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) is attributed with 157,000 child deaths (6-59 months) globally each year (1). In Tanzania, VAD is considered a severe public health problem responsible for a high burden of the child mortality and morbidity. The MASAVA project, in the Manyara and Shinyanga regions of Tanzania, works with small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sunflower oil processors and retailers to fortify and distribute sunflower oil with Vitamin-A to households vulnerable to VAD – particularly households with lactating women and young children. The goal of the project is to reduce the prevalence of VAD in these regions, 48% and 42% in 2010 respectively (2) by implementing a sustainable business model for vitamin A fortification in these regions between 2014 and 2017

GUT theories from Calabi-Yau 4-folds with SO(10) Singularities

We consider an SO(10) GUT model from F-theory compactified on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau with a D5 singularity. To obtain the matter curves and the Yukawa couplings, we use a global description to resolve the singularity. We identify the vector and spinor matter representations and their Yukawa couplings and we explicitly build the G-fluxes in the global model and check the agreement with the semi-local results. As our bundle is of type SU(2k), some extra conditions need to be applied to match the fluxes.Comment: 27 page

Energy cost and return for hunting in African wild dogs and Cheetahs

African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are reported to hunt with energetically costly long chase distances. We used high-resolution GPS and inertial technology to record 1,119 high-speed chases of all members of a pack of six adult African wild dogs in northern Botswana. Dogs performed multiple short, high-speed, mostly unsuccessful chases to capture prey, while cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) undertook even shorter, higher-speed hunts. We used an energy balance model to show that the energy return from group hunting and feeding substantially outweighs the cost of multiple short chases, which indicates that African wild dogs are more energetically robust than previously believed. Comparison with cheetah illustrates the trade-off between sheer athleticism and high individual kill rate characteristic of cheetahs, and the energetic robustness of frequent opportunistic group hunting and feeding by African wild dogs

Evolutionary relationships between Rhynchosporium lolii sp. nov. and other Rhynchosporium species on grass.

Copyright: 2013 King et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThe fungal genus Rhynchosporium (causative agent of leaf blotch) contains several host-specialised species, including R. commune (colonising barley and brome-grass), R. agropyri (couch-grass), R. secalis (rye and triticale) and the more distantly related R. orthosporum (cocksfoot). This study used molecular fingerprinting, multilocus DNA sequence data, conidial morphology, host range tests and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the relationship between Rhynchosporium species on ryegrasses, both economically important forage grasses and common wild grasses in many cereal growing areas, and other plant species. Two different types of Rhynchosporium were found on ryegrasses in the UK. Firstly, there were isolates of R. commune that were pathogenic to both barley and Italian ryegrass. Secondly, there were isolates of a new species, here named R. lolii, that were pathogenic only to ryegrass species. R. lolii was most closely related to R. orthosporum, but exhibited clear molecular, morphological and host range differences. The species was estimated to have diverged from R. orthosporum ca. 5735 years before the present. The colonisation strategy of all of the different Rhynchosporium species involved extensive hyphal growth in the sub-cuticular regions of the leaves. Finally, new species-specific PCR diagnostic tests were developed that could distinguish between these five closely related Rhynchosporium species.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio