SUGRA interactions within flavor triplets
  A specific new quark permits that flavor generations constitute a representation of the 3-dimensional SU(3) symmetry that characterizes the Z(3) orbifold. In this context, color and supergravity bind triplets and 4-tuplets into composite fields of spin 3/2 and spin 2; and the symmetry E(8) that characterizes (the observable sector of) 10-spacetime is interpreted as having reduced to SU(5)XSU(3), where SU(3) refers to the 3-dimensional symmetry described above and SU(5) consists of colors and of isotopic spin classes that are devoid of color and hypercharge. In this context, supergravity interactions occur to color bound quarks that are experiencing asymptotic freedom within triplets. Quark-lepton transitions are produced, but quickly reverse, preserving the triplets. The symmetry consisting of six quark classes and six lepton classes is also maintained because the predicted quark is an anomalous, left-handed version of the strange quark. 
J. Towe