the relationship between female oviposition preference and offspring performance is a key area of study on the evolution of host specificity. this study investigates host prefer-ence of the polyphagous hover fly syrphus ribesii (diptera: syrphidae) and compares it with some components of its offspring`s performance. females and offspring were tested on six naturally used aphid hosts (blackberry...

The phenology and sex ratios of three hover fly species on Canterbury farmland, New Zealand were recorded weekly from five yellow watertraps from October 15, 1993 to January 31,1997. Gut fullness, egg number and pollen content were recorded weekly from September 8, 1994 to July 25, 1996. Catches of Melanostoma fasciatum (Macquart) and Melang\ma novaezelandiae (Macquart) were higher during the s...

Autonomous helicopter flight represents a challenging control problem, with complex, noisy, dynamics. In this paper, we describe a successful application of reinforcement learning to autonomous helicopter flight. We first fit a stochastic, nonlinear model of the helicopter dynamics. We then use the model to learn to hover in place, and to fly a number of maneuvers taken from an RC helicopter co...

TRANSITIONS BETWEEN HOVER AND LEVEL FLIGHT FOR A TAILSITTER UAV Stephen R. Osborne Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Master of Science Vertical Take-Off and Land (VTOL) Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) possess several desirable characteristics, such as being able to hover and take-off or land in confined areas. One type of VTOL airframe, the tailsitter, has all of these advantages, ...

The African endemic hover fly Meromacroides meromacriformis (Bezzi, 1915) (Syrphidae, Eristalinae) was described more than a century ago and its monotypic status established in 1927, but subsequent collections publications are rare. Only the male has been nothing is known about biology. We re-describe male, including geographic variation, describe female for first time provide DNA barcodes spec...