Rising from the ruins of a post-1918 Austria shed of its monarchical leadership and much of its former territory, the Salzburg Festival acquired a symbolic authority during the First Austrian Republic that continues to ensure its privileged place in Austrian politics and culture to this day. At the core of this privileged place are two signature legacies that, while grounded in the festival's prewar history, fortified a particular agenda of the Second Austrian Republic in defining Austrian history and national identity in the decades following World War II. The first, as expressed in 1919 by the festival's most articulate cofounder, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is that with its Salzburg setting, the festival should be understood as situated in the “heart of the heart of Europe,” a place where the antitheses of Central European geography (German and Slavic, German and Italian), social class (commoner and elite), and aesthetic genre (dramatic theater and opera) encounter one another only to be dissolved through transcendence in an “organic unity.”

A new algorithm, called rapidly exploring random tree of trees (RRTOT) is proposed, that aims to address the challenge of planning for autonomous structural inspection. Given a representation of a structure, a visibility model of an onboard sensor, an initial robot configuration and constraints, RRTOT computes inspection paths that provide full coverage. Sampling based techniques and a meta-tree structure consisting of multiple RRT* trees are employed to find admissible paths with decreasing cost. Using this approach, RRTOT does not suffer from the limitations of strategies that separate the inspection path planning problem into that of finding the minimum set of observation points and only afterwards compute the best possible path among them. Analysis is provided on the capability of RRTOT to find admissible solutions that, in the limit case, approach the optimal one. The algorithm is evaluated in both simulation and experimental studies. An unmanned rotorcraft equipped with a vision sensor was utilized as the experimental platform and validation of the achieved inspection properties was performed using 3D reconstruction techniques.

There is a general lack of knowledge regarding the absorption and tissue storage of the provitamin A carotenoid β-cryptoxanthin. The present study investigated the whole-body tissue distribution of β-cryptoxanthin in an appropriate small animal model, the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), for human provitamin A carotenoid metabolism. After 5 d of carotenoid depletion, five gerbils were euthanised for baseline measurements. The remaining gerbils were placed in three weight-matched treatment groups (n 8). All the groups received 20 μg/d of β-cryptoxanthin from tangerine concentrate, while the second and third groups received an additional 20 and 40 μg/d of pure β-cryptoxanthin (CX40 and CX60), respectively, for 21 d. During the last 2 d of the study, urine and faecal samples of two gerbils from each treatment group were collected. β-Cryptoxanthin was detected in the whole blood, and in twelve of the fourteen tissues analysed. Most tissues resembled the liver, in which the concentrations of β-cryptoxanthin were significantly higher in the CX60 (17·8 (sem 0·7) μg/organ; P= 0·004) and CX40 (16·2 (sem 0·9) μg/organ; P= 0·006) groups than in the CX20 group (13·3 (sem 0·4) μg/organ). However, in intestinal tissues, the concentrations of β-cryptoxanthin increased only in the CX60 group. Despite elevated vitamin A concentrations in tissues at baseline due to pre-study diets containing high levels of vitamin A, β-cryptoxanthin maintained those vitamin A stores. These results indicate that β-cryptoxanthin is stored in many tissues, potentially suggesting that its functions are widespread.

Vitamin A (VA) deficiency causes disability and mortality. Cassava can be crossbred to improve its β-carotene (BC) content; typical white cassava contains negligible amounts of BC. However, cassava contains cyanide and its continued consumption may lead to chronic disability. Our objective was to estimate the risk–benefit of consuming BC-enhanced cassava to increase VA intake. A total of ten American women were fed white and BC-enhanced cassava. BC and cyanide data from the feeding study were combined with African cassava consumption data to model the potential daily BC, VA and cyanide intakes of African women. If BC-enhanced cassava replaced white cassava in the diets, it could theoretically meet recommended VA intakes for the following percentages of individuals from six African countries that consume cassava as a staple crop: Angola (95 %), Central African Republic (95 %), Congo (about 100 %), Ghana (99 %), Mozambique (99 %) and Nigeria (92 %). Cyanide intake after minimal preparation of cassava could be thirteen to thirty-two times the reference dose (RfD), a toxicological exposure reference, but could be completely removed by extensive soaking. This study demonstrates that consumption of BC-enhanced cassava, processed to maintain BC and remove cyanide, theoretically increases VA intakes for African populations and other areas of the world where cassava is a staple crop.

Biofortification of cassava with the provitamin A carotenoid β-carotene is a potential mechanism for alleviating vitamin A deficiency. Cassava is a staple food in the African diet, but data regarding the human bioavailability of β-carotene from this food are scarce. The objective of the present study was to evaluate provitamin A-enhanced cassava as a source of β-carotene and vitamin A for healthy adult women. The study was a randomised, cross-over trial of ten American women. The subjects consumed three different porridges separated by 2 week washout periods. Treatment meals (containing 100 g cassava) included: biofortified cassava (2 mg β-carotene) porridge with added oil (15 ml peanut or rapeseed oil, 20 g total fat); biofortified cassava porridge without added oil (6 g total fat); unfortified white cassava porridge with a 0·3 mg retinyl palmitate reference dose and added oil (20 g total fat). Blood was collected six times from − 0·5 to 9·5 h post-feeding. TAG-rich lipoprotein (TRL) plasma was separated by ultracentrifugation and analysed using HPLC with coulometric array electrochemical detection. The AUC for retinyl palmitate increased after the biofortified cassava meals were fed (P< 0·05). Vitamin A conversion was 4·2 (sd 3·1) and 4·5 (sd 3·1) μg β-carotene:1 μg retinol, with and without added oil, respectively. These results show that biofortified cassava increases β-carotene and retinyl palmitate TRL plasma concentrations in healthy well-nourished adult women, suggesting that it is a viable intervention food for preventing vitamin A deficiency.