A medical robotics company has licensed University of Central Florida expertise to develop software for a new surgical-robotic platform.
AVRA Medical Robotics Inc., which has an office in the UCF Business Incubator, has partnered with Professor Zhihua Qu and research Professor Eytan Pollak of the College of Engineering & Computer Science to develop algorithms and sensors to navigate and control a robot capable of assisting physicians with performing minimally invasive surgical procedures in an ambulatory setting or operating room.
Barry F. Cohen, AVRA founder and chairman, said he was drawn to UCF because of its engineering strength for the development of a modular, robotic-assistive system that will be portable, precise and affordable.
“UCF research is providing the precision and guidance necessary for a computer-driven robotic system that will facilitate superior outcomes,” Cohen said.
AVRA partnered with a new industry-sponsored innovation program at UCF by providing $200,000 initially with planned follow-up funding for the research and the rights to any intellectual property developed during the project. In addition, Avra will pay UCF 1 percent in royalty fees for annual sales exceeding $20 million resulting from the intellectual property.
“At UCF we encourage the collaboration between our research and industry. Initiatives such as this innovation program help streamline the process and move pioneering research into the market,” said Elizabeth Klonoff, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies.
Qu and Pollak have extensive backgrounds in the development of computer-operated systems that encompass the integration of tools and sensors, real-time image/data processing, navigation, control and human-machine interface. Qu’s research has included robotic platforms and autonomous vehicles for the Department of Defense, applications and intelligent robotic systems for life support on Mars among others, autonomous coordination of robotic devices, and human-robot teaming.
Pollak has 30 years’ experience in managing complex research and development programs, holds several patents and has published papers in control systems and robotics. He is also the director of strategic technologies at L-3 Communications Link Simulation & Training.
Based on an original concept proposed by Qu, his graduate students Niladri Basu Bal and Deepalakshmi Babu Venkateswaran have implemented navigation/control algorithms and completed a 3-D computer visualization of how such a robotic device would work. Computer-aided design and development of a graphic user interface for surgeons are now under way.
AVRA has recently added some industry partners to its team. Anthony Nicholson, a longtime benefactor of UCF, serves as a senior advisor of the company, and Peter Carnegie, CEO of Minimally Invasive Solutions in Ocoee, and Dr. Nikhil Shah of Atlanta, are new directors.
For more information go to [email protected].
university of central florida
U.S. Forecast: How Will Economy Fare on Mr. Trump’s Wild Ride?
Forecasters’ Fear of Recession Continues to Decline
Just a few turbulent weeks into President Donald Trump’s administration, forecasters’ fears of a recession continue to decrease, according to the latest U.S. forecast from the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at UCF College of Business.
In the first Survey of Professional Forecasters by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia since Trump took office, the forecasters indicated an 11.21 percent chance that a decline in real Gross Domestic Product will occur in the second quarter of 2017.
“That anxious index, which is a term coined by The New York Times reporter David Leonhardt, indicates the probability of a decline in real GDP in the quarter after a survey is taken,” said Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness, in his first quarterly national economic forecast of 2017. “In the most recent survey, the forecasters’ assignment of probability for a near term contraction in real GDP is the lowest since 2015.”
Snaith said he anticipates faster economic growth and higher inflation—both of which have eluded the Federal Reserve for years—based on Trump’s proposed economic policy path, which emphasizes tax reform, regulatory rollbacks and infrastructure spending.
“As details of the economic policies pursued by the Trump administration become available and the wild ride of the initial weeks of the administration concludes, the possibility that economic growth could accelerate at an even faster pace, which seemed unlikely prior to the presidential election, could very well come to pass,” said Snaith, likening Trump’s first few weeks in office to Disney’s topsy-turvy Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. “But if the wild ride lasts longer than expected, economic motion sickness could change this positive outlook to a negative one.”
The Institute for Economic Competitiveness report forecasts average real GDP growth from 2017 to 2020 of 3.1 percent. The projected growth rate for 2019 would be the first time the U.S. economy experienced annual growth at 3.4 percent or higher since 2004, according to the forecast.
Average monthly payroll job growth has been decelerating since 2014, but the forecast projects the new administration will provide a bump to job growth in 2018-19. Snaith said uncertainty and regulatory burdens have been hindering payroll job growth, which will slow to a growth rate of 1.5 percent in 2017 before increasing to 1.6 percent in 2018 and 1.7 percent in 2019.
A stronger dollar in a world of weak growth and rising interest rates in the U.S. are expected to boost imports and depress exports. As a result, Snaith said he expects net exports to weigh on the economy through 2020, although he notes Trump’s trade policies could alter this outlook significantly.
The forecast shows the housing market slowly improving through 2020, despite rising interest rates, with housing starts rising from 1.28 million in 2017 to 1.67 million in 2020. Unemployment rates are expected to decline to 3.8 percent in mid-2020, and job growth will be enough to keep up with labor-force growth until 2019 when unemployment stabilizes.
Inflation is expected to accelerate in 2017, which Snaith says will push the Fed to move more quickly to raise interest rates. Core Consumer Price Index inflation is expected to average 2.5 percent during 2017-20.
For the full forecast, visit: https://issuu.com/ucfbusiness/docs/ucf-us-forecast-feb_2017
Snaith is a national expert in economics, forecasting, market sizing and economic analysis who authors quarterly reports about the state of the economy. Bloomberg News has named Snaith as one of the country’s most accurate forecasters for his predictions about the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate, the Federal Funds rate.
The Institute for Economic Competitiveness strives to provide complete, accurate and timely national, state and regional forecasts and economic analyses. Through these analyses, the institute provides valuable resources to the public and private sectors for informed decision-making.
About UCF College of Business Administration
Established in 1968, the UCF College of Business Administration offers degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and executive levels. All programs, as well as the Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting are accredited by AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The college provides high-quality academic programs designed to give students a competitive advantage in the world of business now and in the future. Learn more at business.ucf.edu.
UCF, Siemens Unveil State-of-the-Art Lab to Turn Students into Digital-Grid Experts
Homes and businesses can often be left without power for days or weeks after a severe hurricane or blizzard. And with the growth of renewables, many utilities and power operators are faced with bringing these intermittent resources onto the energy grid while still providing their customers with reliable power.
A new lab unveiled Thursday at the University of Central Florida holds the promise of making these challenges a thing of the past. The new Siemens Digital Grid Lab features cutting-edge technology used by many private and public utilities to manage the nation’s power systems.
Longtime partners UCF and Siemens said the lab will help produce the next generation of engineers to modernize America’s energy grid. Students will now have hands-on training with real-world software and hardware to design and manage self-healing power-distribution grids to quickly recover from natural disasters, cyberattacks and other outages. They’ll also train on the industry’s latest microgrid software to manage and operate dynamic generation assets such as solar, wind power, storage and electric vehicles.
The 660-square-foot lab will equip students with the latest skills needed to land jobs in the evolving energy field, an industry currently facing a skills gap. A recent Department of Energy jobs report found that the nation does not have enough workers to fill 1.5 million new energy jobs by 2030, and 75 percent of companies have challenges in hiring qualified candidates.
“The power grid is getting smarter, yet it will never be smart enough to run without workers who can manage it. The industry, even as it builds out a smarter – and yes, more automated – grid, needs more people like engineers who can work in control centers or design electrical systems,” said Mike Carlson, president of Siemens Digital Grid in North America. “The energy jobs of today and tomorrow require the skills to match the new technologies that are moving our grid into the 21st century. We’re thrilled that this partnership with UCF will help further close the energy-skills gap and give these students the experience that will strongly position them and our country for success.”
The lab is one of only a handful across the nation that gives students hands-on experience in electrical-grid technology and incorporates traditional and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
“The energy industry is rapidly evolving and demands highly skilled workers who can innovate and reimagine solutions,” UCF President John C. Hitt said. “This new lab bolsters UCF’s leading role in providing the top-notch talent that employers require and the problem solvers that society needs. And this elite facility will help expand a Siemens internship program at UCF that is one of the premier opportunities in our country for emerging engineers and computer science professionals.”
The lab will also feature software platforms that map out grid-transmission needs and simulated models of the UCF campus power system where students will learn how to design and test a self-healing distribution grid. The lab can also be used to conduct simulations for profit for commercial customers, helping energy users better analyze distributed-generation assets. It is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It also offers rich data for research to look at challenges in the future. Engineering Professor Wei Sun will lead the lab, which expects to accommodate about 120 students a year.
The lab adds to the growing hub of expertise at UCF, which includes programs aimed at modernizing and sustaining the nation’s power grid. Through collaborations such as FEEDER , programs such as ENERGISE, multiple facilities on campus and research projects, students benefit from learning everything from theory and critical thinking, to experimentation and practical applications.
“People talk about making the grid efficient, incorporating different types of energy from traditional to renewable, but that’s not the only challenge,” said Zhihua Qu, chair of UCF’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We need to look at making the system smart, so it knows what customers want and how to efficiently deliver it. And we must also make the entire system resilient.”
That means that if a storm or a man-made attack takes out part of the grid, it doesn’t result in entire communities being left without power for days or weeks.
“Making the power grid smart is a fantastic thing because it will improve lives and the economy,” Qu said. “The lab and the collaborative efforts of several professors and students here are leading us to that trigger point and we fully expect that the experience students get here will not only make them marketable, but it will make them leaders in the industry. They will innovate probably in ways we haven’t even envisioned yet.”
Students who have had early access to the lab are already raving about it.
“Some [other] curricula in general lacks what the industry is actually using – it can be more of a research tool for academia,” said Matt Aberman, an electrical engineering graduate student. “The technology in this lab is the same technology used by industry. It ignites a spark in students for them to be passionate about the energy industry because while they’re in school they can actually work on something that’s real, that’s right in front of them. It can change how students are learning.”
This comprehensive program builds upon a decades-long strategic partnership between Siemens and UCF, focused on fostering innovation, advancing technology and developing the next-generation workforce.
“For decades, Siemens has grown to be one of Orlando’s largest employers with a strong commitment to our community and a long history of collaborating with our hometown university, UCF,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “Like the many other successful partnerships forged between Siemens and UCF, the new Digital Smart Grid Lab supports the city’s continued efforts to make Orlando a national leader in sustainability, in training the next generation of high-tech workers and helping create high-wage jobs in emerging career fields.”
This past fall, Siemens provided UCF with an in-kind grant of product lifecycle management software with a commercial value of $68 million – marking the largest grant in university history. Siemens has been in Orlando more than three decades, with a nearly 5,000-employee footprint spanning power generation, transmission and distribution, energy-efficient buildings and infrastructure, medical imaging and health care diagnostics.
About Siemens , UCF Partnership and Orlando Footprint
Siemens and UCF share a long history in the Central Florida community, and both are committed to fostering innovation, advancing technology and developing the next generation workforce. For more than three decades, Siemens has called the Orlando area home, including the company’s Energy Hub, adjacent to UCF’s main campus.
About UCF
The University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the nation with more than 64,000 students, uses the power of scale and the pursuit of excellence to make a better future for our students and society. Described by The Washington Post as demolishing “the popular belief that exclusivity is a virtue in higher education” and credited by Politico with creating a “seamless pipeline of social mobility,” UCF is recognized as one of the best values in higher education. UCF aligns its teaching, research and service with the needs of the community and beyond, offering more than 200 degree programs at more than a dozen locations, including its main campus in Orlando. Faculty and students are creating innovations in areas as diverse as simulation and training, optics and lasers, hospitality management, video game design, business, education and health care to solve local and global problems. For more information, visit www.ucf.edu.
About Siemens
Siemens Corporation is a U.S. subsidiary of Siemens AG, a global powerhouse focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the world’s largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of systems for power generation and transmission as well as medical diagnosis. With approximately 348,000 employees in more than 190 countries, Siemens reported worldwide revenue of $86.2 billion in fiscal 2015. Siemens in the USA reported revenue of $22.4 billion, including $5.5 billion in exports, and employs approximately 50,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit www.usa.siemens.com.
Central Florida Honors President Hitt on 25 Years of Service to UCF, Community
The UCF family and Central Florida community celebrated John C. Hitt’s 25th anniversary as the university’s president Wednesday with many presentations and a special award for the president and his wife, Martha.
During a packed celebration at the Student Union, speakers such as Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and longtime UCF staff member Maggie LeClair lauded the Hitts for their impact on UCF and the entire Central Florida region.
The celebration concluded with the Hitts receiving UCF’s Honorary Alumni awards. Honorary Alumni status recognizes outstanding service and philanthropy to UCF; lifelong devotion and loyalty to the university; and upholding the UCF creed of integrity, scholarship, community, creativity and excellence.
During the afternoon celebration and in a special message sent out on Wednesday morning, President Hitt thanked UCF’s faculty and staff members. He credited them for working “tirelessly to ensure our students realize their dreams.”
“While I have learned many things during my tenure as president, one stands above all others: No one succeeds on their own,” Hitt said. “You – UCF’s talented and dedicated faculty and staff members – are the reason our university has become a destination of choice for the best and brightest students, colleagues and partners. Together, we have created a culture in which we do more than wish for success. We plan for it, then make it happen.”
Hitt, who was the first in his family to attend college, has greatly increased students’ access to a high-quality, affordable education. UCF’s enrollment has tripled during his tenure. He has conferred nearly 250,000 degrees, accounting for more than 80 percent of all degrees awarded since UCF began classes in 1968.
“It is my distinct privilege to honor an extraordinary president of this great institution, and one of the most important leaders in my opinion in all of Central Florida in the past 25 years,” said Marcos Marchena, chairman of the UCF Board of Trustees.
“Some would say we have been lucky. I choose to believe we have been blessed to have Dr. Hitt and his not-so-secret weapon, Martha, leading our university for the past 25 years. John’s vision, integrity and willingness to work with other institutions, both public and private, have made UCF a key participant in our community’s development.”
Through the years, Hitt has been recognized as the Orlando Sentinel’s Central Floridian of the Year, among America’s 10 Most Innovative College Presidents (2015), and is consistently listed among the Orlando Sentinel’s 25 Most Powerful People in Central Florida.
Nationally, Hitt is one of the all-time leaders among public university presidents who has conferred degrees at a single school. In addition, he is currently the longest-serving president in the Florida State University System. He ranks third among the longest-serving presidents in Florida SUS history.
Jacobs, Dyer, the Faculty Senate and the Student Government Association all issued proclamations honoring the Hitts.
Dan Ward, chair elect of the UCF Alumni board and a member of Hitt’s first class of graduates in 1992, commended the couple before presenting them with the Honorary Alumni award. Ward also said in the future the award will be given in the Hitts’ honor.
“Today, on the 25th anniversary of the black and gold’s most dynamic duo, a grateful community knows we are better because of you,” Ward said. “We also know that you are better because of each other. And, because you have made us part of your family, it is with great joy and pride that we take the step today of officially making you part of ours.”
President Hitt expressed his gratitude and quickly urged the audience to look toward the future.
“Martha and I are humbled by the kindness you have shown us regarding this anniversary,” he said. “I’m standing here marveling at how these past 25 years have passed so quickly…and joyfully. Thank you to all of the colleagues, partners, and — most importantly — students who have made the past 25 years so special. Like with all anniversaries, today’s is infused with nostalgia. It’s a potent and powerful feeling. But more powerful is the belief I have in the future. Our future. And my belief is that for our beloved UCF, the best is yet to come.”
For more information visit: https://today.ucf.edu/central-florida-honors-president-hitt-25-years-service-ucf-community/ and http://www.ucf.edu/president/hitt25/ .
Peer Milk-Sharing Participants Generally Keep It Clean
Mothers who want the benefits of breast milk for their babies but can’t produce the substance often turn to milk-sharing networks.
A new study from the University of Central Florida found that although not a recommended practice, those who participate in milk-sharing networks generally follow good hygiene, which is critical for keeping milk free from bacterial contamination.
“Peer milk sharing is a growing practice despite warnings from the FDA and the American Academy of Pediatrics,” said Beatriz Reyes-Foster, lead author and an anthropology assistant professor. “Our findings suggest that parents who engage in these networks are taking precautions to make sure their children don’t get sick and that’s not something we knew before this study. But there is room for improvement.”
Reyes-Foster, sociology associate professor Shannon K. Carter and assistant professor Melanie Sberna Hinojosa, published their findings in this month’s edition of the Journal of Human Lactation.
The team of researchers surveyed 321 Central Florida peer milk-sharing parents who did not exchange money for milk. They asked:
- Do you freeze milk for more than six months?
- Do you leave the milk at room temperature for more than 8 hours?
- Do you use ice to transport?
- Do you sanitize pump equipment?
- Do you wash your hands before handling the milk?
The team found that 35.4 percent of recipients reported using all five safe practices and another 40.6 percent reported using at least four of the five. No recipient reported using only one or none of the safe practices. Results for donors were similar with nearly 80 percent confirming they sanitize pumps use to extract the milk.
The team also found that the behavior didn’t change even when sociodemographic characteristics did.
The research was conducted in 2014, before a Human Milk Banking Association of North America bank was established in Florida. This organization provides donors with milk-handling guidelines. The researchers suggest that the numbers may change now that the organization is in the state.
The researchers also warn that more study is needed and that the findings don’t extend to online classifieds where milk is exchanged for money. The prevalence of safety practices in those kinds of exchanges is unknown and deserves study, Reyes-Foster said.
UCF Engineers Secure $2 Million Federal Grant to Advance Energy Grid
A team of UCF engineers and their private partners have been awarded $2 million by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative to develop the next generation of grid planning and operational tools to integrate solar power into the power grid.
The team, five faculty members in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering led by Professor Zhihua Qu, will work on algorithms that improve the digital distribution of energy from the source, such as solar, to the end users.
This can be thorny problem on an energy grid, with multiple energy sources – electricity, solar, and wind, for example – feeding in. The grid then has to distribute the power across a wide area while managing consistent coverage during peak usage times and power surges.
SunShot Initiative’s Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) program granted $30 million to 13 teams to explore several facets of the grid expansion. Several of the projects will demonstrate commercially ready solutions that will be available by 2020 while others are developing long-term technologies that can be easily scaled to reach across the grid and offer real-time control, meaning the customer can have constant control of power despite intermittent renewable-power integration.
UCF’s “Scalable/secure cooperative algorithms and framework for Extremely-high penetration solar integration (SolarExpert),” is one of the long-term research and development projects, and it focuses upon designing the scalable architecture and algorithms for optimizing distributed control systems. Those systems utilize autonomous controllers throughout an area, such as the power boxes located on individual homes, as opposed to completely centralized systems.
ENERGISE is one of four ongoing projects funded for $1 million or more and undertaken by the faculty members at UCF’s Resilient Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) cluster. The group is committed to transformative and collaborative research to enable deployment and integration of renewable energy resources.
The UCF team includes the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Duke Energy, General Electric, Siemens, OPAL-RT Technologies and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. Most of these partners also belong to the FEEDER (Foundations for Engineering Education for Distributed Energy Resources) consortium, one of the three national centers on distributed technologies.
The FEEDER center, also led by UCF’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is funded by the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative under the GEARED (Grid Engineering for Accelerated Renewable Energy Deployment) program. More than 50 partners including two national labs, 22 utilities and co-ops, 12 universities and 15 industry partners are participating in the program.
More details about the ENERGISE program and its awardees can be found at
https://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/enabling-extreme-real-time-grid-integration-solar-energy-energise
About the SunShot Initiative
The U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative is a national effort to drive down the cost of solar electricity and support solar adoption. SunShot aims to make solar energy a low-cost electricity source for all Americans through research and development efforts in collaboration with public and private partners. Learn more at energy.gov/sunshot.
Endangered tiny bird has big ally in UCF biologist
The future of the tiny Florida Grasshopper Sparrow may rest on a hot-water blaster that safely fends off fire ants, which threaten the remaining 100 or so wild sparrows in Central Florida.
Joshua King, a self-described ant nerd, ecologist and entomologist at the University of Central Florida, received $15,500 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Federation to use his diesel-powered, hot-water apparatus to blast ant nests that encroach on the endangered sparrows. The federation calls him when they find mounds near sparrow nests. He has published extensively on the life and impacts of fire ants throughout his career.
The endangered sparrow, named after one of their buzz-like calls that is reminiscent of a grasshopper, faces a perfect storm of threats including a lack of habitat thanks to human encroachment, weather extremes like flooding and a decrease in wildfires needed to keep the natural conditions the sparrow needs, King said. If that isn’t bad enough, Grasshopper Sparrow eggs and fledglings are natural prey for fire ants, one of the state’s most unpopular inhabitants.
The ants are omnivores, meaning they eat both plants and animals, and predators, using their strong jaws and venom-filled stingers to kill their victims before carrying them back to the colony to be devoured.
“Fire ants are a unique and challenging threat to the sparrows,” King said. “Once they detect a hatched, vulnerable sparrow chick they will attack incessantly until the parent birds are overwhelmed and give up trying to pick ants off their chicks. It is a heart-wrenchingly slow form of predation against which the parent birds have little chance to defend their young.”
King and his research team developed a trailer-based system with a tank holding up to 450 gallons of hot water that they take to locations threatened by fire ant infestation.
The apparatus includes the hot-water tank, a pumping system, a diesel motor, and a hose reel and wand. Using the wand to douse an individual ant mound with tens of gallons of near-boiling water is usually enough to put it out of business, King said.
King initially used the system at Fort De Soto Park on the west coast of Florida where his team eliminated nearly all the ant colonies that were a threat to sea turtle nests, also an endangered, protected species. The system could be used to protect other endangered species vulnerable to fire ants.
King said hot water is an ideal deterrent in environmentally sensitive areas. Chemical baits not only pose a health risk for additional wildlife and people, the intended fire ant targets can develop “bait-shyness” over time and stop consuming the insecticides. This reduces the effectiveness of chemical baits over time.
King and his team, including graduate students Leo Ohyama and Phil Shadegg, currently have one complete eradication system that they haul to Osceola County whenever wildlife managers receive reports of new mounds in a sparrow habitat.
Going forward, King and his team hope that the hot-water method will provide a low cost, non-toxic remedy to the fire ant problem for wildlife and land managers throughout the southeastern U.S. and Florida.
Reed Noss, UCF Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor of Biology, estimates the total population of sparrows remaining in the wild as no more than 100 and nearly all of them are in Central Florida. Noss is a former chair of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow Working Group, which advises state and federal agencies, and has conducted several years of research on the species at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
“The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is one of the most endangered birds in the U.S. and it is in our own backyard,” Noss said. “We can and should be making efforts such as Dr. King’s to preserve them.”
Romeo and Juliet gets a Jazz Age treatment
Theatre UCF’s production of Romeo and Juliet will open on Thursday, Feb. 16 and run through Sunday, Feb. 26. The Shakespeare classic will be set in the 1930’s, and tell the tale of star-crossed lovers whose families clash in their fight to achieve the American Dream.
The prohibition-era setting depicts racial tension in the shady business of speakeasies where people of all races sought to turn a profit and better their lives.
Director Belinda Boyd says of the setting, “I love the decades that introduced jazz into our culture – Jazz gave us a new perspective on life. Jazz clubs gave us place where for the first time different cultures and races mixed socially. Jazz created a new rhythm for our writers and produced prolific literature that changed how we saw ourselves. Jazz gave us permission to be casual and opened the door for conversation in our country.”
Boyd believes the play will speak to all audiences because “The hope that we find undying love is relevant to all of us, [as is] the clash between parental hopes and childhood dreams, the fact that love is stronger than hate, breaking away from tradition or what others deem is right, and following your heart in spite of the consequences.”
Isabella DeChard, a sophomore in the Theatre BFA Acting track, plays the title role of Juliet. She says, “I definitely hope the audience will take something from the show because what really got me into theatre in the first place was seeing shows and taking something from them or seeing a piece that inspired me or taught me a lesson.”
DeChard believes the topics of alcohol in the Prohibition era, women’s roles in the 1930s, and racial tensions will allow the audience to better relate to the classic story of star-crossed lovers.
The show will be performed on Theatre UCF’s Main Stage. On opening night, audience members are invited to join the cast and creative team for a post-show reception.
Tickets are available for $20 for the general public, and $10 for those with a valid UCF ID. They can be purchased online at http://theatre.cah.ucf.edu/tickets.php or at the box office.
Production-at-a-Glance:
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Be Boyd
February 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25 at 7:30 pm
February 19, 26 at 2:00 pm
A post-show reception will immediately follow the February 16 performance.
In the 1930s, speakeasies were the place where races could mingle but they also sparked clashes as each culture struggled to maintain their share of profits and their piece of the American pie from the underground sale of alcohol. Young lovers Romeo and Juliet are caught in these turf wars and hatred as the Montague and Capulet families vie for control of the clubs, the distribution of alcohol and ownership of the American Dream.
$20 standard, $10 UCF ID
Main Stage, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando
407-823-1500
http://www.theatre.ucf.edu
[email protected]
NASA mission is one step closer to launching into space
A NASA instrument that will study the upper atmosphere and the impact of space weather on Earth is a step closer on its journey into space.
The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, led by University of Central Florida (UCF) scientist Richard Eastes, is scheduled to launch in late 2017 from Florida. Earlier this month the instrument, built by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo., was shipped to Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France, for integration on the SES-14 communications satellite, on which it will be launched into space.
“I am excited to see GOLD take the next critical step in its journey toward providing scientists around the world with an unprecedented view of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, which will advance research for understanding space weather,” said Eastes, who is based at the Florida Space Institute at UCF.
Space weather can adversely affect technology and human activity in space, from disrupting communications systems to exposing astronauts to serious health risks.
“Space weather affects the satellites that we depend on for things like GPS and satellite TV; it affects the satellites themselves, as well as the signals they transmit,” Eastes said. “What we learn from GOLD’s images will help us understand how space weather changes during geomagnetic storms and how to avoid the problems that they cause.”
Joyce King is the mission manager for GOLD at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
“GOLD is one of several missions that is managed by the Explorers Program for NASA’s Heliophysics Division,” King said. “As NASA explores farther and farther from home, sending astronauts and spacecraft to distant places, we need better situational awareness about the space we’re traveling through. NASA studies the space environment around the sun, around planets, far into the solar system — and around Earth. GOLD focuses on the part near Earth.”
LASP, which has a seventy-year long history of providing instruments for NASA missions, built the GOLD instrument in collaboration with UCF. While weather satellites view clouds from geostationary orbit (an altitude of approximately 22,370 miles), GOLD will view a higher region of Earth’s upper atmosphere known as the thermosphere. This is a region (extending from approximately 55 to 500 miles altitude) where most satellites fly and through which the signals from all satellites pass.
Bill McClintock is a planetary scientist at LASP and GOLD deputy principal investigator.
“Today, NASA studies the thermosphere using spacecraft that give scientists intermittent views of the thermosphere. From those spacecraft it takes a day or more to build a global-scale image,” said McClintock. “The communication satellite carrying GOLD will be in geostationary orbit, meaning it will be fixed at one location above the Earth’s surface. This orbit enables GOLD to view nearly an entire hemisphere all the time. If a geomagnetic storm dumps energy into the thermosphere, we can watch the global-scale response on timescales of hours, rather than days. It’s a whole new way of looking at the dynamic behavior of the thermosphere.”
GOLD is a pathfinder for NASA’s use of commercial spacecraft for science missions. UCF and LASP partnered with SES Government Solutions (SES GS), based in Reston, Va., to provide GOLD with its ride into geostationary orbit on the SES-14 satellite that is owned and operated by SES, the parent company of SES GS.
Todd Gossett is the SES GS project manager for hosting GOLD on the SES-14 satellite.
“SES is honored to be a contributing member of the GOLD team. NASA’s concept to have missions such as GOLD hosted on commercially owned and operated satellites is a definite win, for not only the American taxpayer, but also for the science community,” Gossett said.
Rory Barrett is an engineer at LASP and the project manager for GOLD.
“We have assembled a world-class team to execute the GOLD mission. LASP has built and delivered one of its best performing science instruments, ever,” said Barrett. “Our strong partnership with SES GS and Airbus will enable a low-cost GOLD mission.”
Other members of the GOLD team include scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of California at Berkeley, Computational Physics Inc., and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
UCF Professor’s Research Part of First Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids
University of Central Florida Physics Professor Dan Britt will help explore some of the oldest asteroids in the solar system thanks to a new NASA mission.
NASA, this month selected the Lucy mission, which will explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids for the first-time. The robotic spacecraft will also explore a larger asteroid within the asteroid belt. Scientists said they believe the Trojan belt is home to some of the oldest remnants of the solar system.
Information gleaned from this mission is expected to help mankind understand the formation of planets and the solar system. That’s why the team named its project Lucy – after the female skeleton fossil discovered in 1974, which changed the understanding of human origins on Earth.
The Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., will lead the mission, and Britt is serving on its science team and leading one of its Science Working Groups. Britt, director of the Center for Lunar & Asteroid Surface Science at UCF (https://sciences.ucf.edu/class/), will provide his expertise in physical properties of asteroids and their geology.
“It should be a lot of fun,” Britt said. “This mission has six flybys of the asteroids because of its trajectory and it has relatively low risks. Given the information we will be able to collect, it is quite an attractive mission.”
Several of the Lucy members are veterans from the New Horizons mission that helped shed new light on Pluto. Lucy is expected to launch from Kennedy Space Center in 2021.
“Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system,” said principal investigator Harold Levison. “Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins.”
Lucy is part of NASA’s Discovery Program. The Discovery Program was created in 1992 to sponsor frequent, cost-capped solar system exploration missions ($450 million) with highly focused scientific goals. Past missions include MESSENGER, Dawn, Stardust, Deep Impact, Genesis and GRAIL.
