Interactive Keys. Systematists, multimedia designers
and programmers at the University of Queensland and the Cooperative
Research Centre for Tropical Pest Management in Brisbane have
developed the LUCID system--a computer program designed for the
interactive identification of organisms in a multimedia environment.
The system comprises the key shell itself, termed LUCID, and the
LUCID builder, a program that allows systematists to quickly write
their own interactive keys for use in LUCID. The program allows
the user to begin the identification of an organism with any character
and continue in any desired character order. Still images, video,
and sound may be accessed at any stage to increase the speed and
accuracy of identification. A galaxy of information, images and
other resources may be retreived using the organism's name as
an index or "hook" once the identification is complete.
Communications. A top priority is to have a home
page for the family Therevidae on World Wide Web (WWW). Pages
are being developed and a version of our first home page will
be available by April 1996. It will present the family Therevidae
and detail the objectives of our PEET research. We are making
progress on developing linkages of this home page to the Tree
of Life and other appropriate home pages. We hope to have
available an interactive search capability of selected portions
of the databases on the WWW by the end of 1996. The Therevidae
home page can be previewed at the following site: http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cee/therevid/index.html
(Updated 2003).
An overview of the PEET grant and of the databases being
constructed was presented at the Diptera Informal Conference at
the national meeting of the Entomological Society of America held
in Las Vegas, NV, December 19, 1995.
University of Illinois. The University of
Illinois is to train three graduate students. Two are to be supported
through the NSF-PEET grant and one is being supported through
matching contributions from the Illinois Natural History Survey
(INHS). The INHS research assistantship was awarded to Mr. Stephen
Gaimari in September 1995. The two NSF research assistantships
were advertised through the Entomological Society of America
Newsletter, The Fly Times, and the entomo-L,
taxcom, and ent-list electronic mail listservers
in September 1995, shortly after being informed that the grant
had been awarded. Credentials of five applicants were received
and reviewed. Three candidates were interviewed, and two were
selected: Mr. Mark Metz and Mr. Kevin Holston. Both are to begin
their assistantships in April or May 1996.
Mr. Stephen Gaimari is the first student associated
with this grant. His funding is from the Illinois Natural History
Survey as partial matching funds for the project. He holds an
M.S. degree from Washington State University and has finished
all formal requirements for a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois,
except the writing and defense of his dissertation. He has been
actively involved in research on flies during his six semesters
at the University of Illinois. Gaimari recently returned from
a one-month Diptera collecting expedition in Australia, where
he gained valuable field experience with PI Irwin and Co-PI
Yeates.
Mr. Mark Metz will begin his research assistantship
on April 1, 1996. He has an M.S. degree in biology from California
State University at Northridge. His M.S. thesis focused on the
biology and behavior of syrphid flies. He spent several months
as an intern at the Smithsonian Institution working on a syrphid
project under the direction of Wayne Mathis and consultant,
F. Christian Thompson. Mr. Metz will have to take a number of
core courses in the Department of Entomology at the University
of Illinois, but, by beginning his assistantship before the
commencement of summer, he will have time to begin gathering
specimens for a monographic treatment of the genus Brachylinga.
Mr. Kevin Holston will begin his research assistantship
on May 4, 1996. He has a B.S. degree from the University of
Texas, Austin. As a special biology project, Mr. Holston became
interested in robberflies (Diptera: Asilidae) of the genus Efferia.
He spent several months as an intern at the Smithsonian Institution
working on developing a morphologically based classification
of Efferia under the direction of Wayne Mathis and consultant,
F. Christian Thompson. He comes to us with a strong background
in Diptera taxonomy and a real eagerness to become a monographer.
Mr. Holston is a minority student.
North Carolina State University. A Ph.D. graduate
assistantship, funded by the NCSU College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, offered as matching support to this proposal, was advertised
in the Entomological Society of America Newsletter, and
on the entomo-L and bug-net electronic mail listservers.
This student will investigate the higher level phylogenetic relationships
of the Therevidae using nucleotide sequence data in the Wiegmann
lab (NCSU). A student was selected to fill this position--Mr.
Longlong Yang of the Institute of Zoology, Academia Sinica, P.R.
China.
Mr. Longlong Yang has extensive experience with
morphology, behavior, and systematics of Diptera; he has had
training in molecular and quantitative aspects of modern systematics.
Mr. Yang has been admitted to the entomology program at NCSU
and will begin his graduate training in July 1996.
University of Queensland. An additional graduate
student is to be trained at UQ through Schlinger Foundation funds.
He/she is to monograph a large and complex genus of Australian
therevids. Schlinger Foundation funds in the amount of US$17,000
were transferred from the University of Illinois to the University
of Queensland in October 1995 to support this graduate research
assistantship. The assistantship was advertised widely in Australia.
A notice of the Ph.D. scholarship was mailed to Australian university
departments with systematic entomology labs in November 1995.
An advertisement for the position was also placed in the November
1995 issue of Myrmecia (the News Bulletin of the Entomological
Society of Australia, Vol. 34: p. 43).
Mr. Shaun Winterton has been selected and will
begin his research assistantship on July 1, 1996. He has a Bachelor
of Applied Science and an Associate Diploma in Aquatic Resource
Management. For the past three years Shaun has been employed
as a senior research assistant in the CSIRO division of Entomology
studying the biological control of water hyacinth. Shaun has
published four papers and a book chapter on the taxonomy of
chrysopid (Neuroptera) taxonomy. Mr. Winterton comes to the
program with a strong interest in insect taxonomy and well developed
skills in taxonomic illustration and field survey.
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