Monitoring wildlife populations in vast, remote landscapes poses significant challenges for conservation and management, particularly when studying elusive species that range across inaccessible terrain. Traditional survey methods often prove impractical or insufficient in such environments, necessitating innovative technological solutions. This study evaluates the effectiveness of deep learning for automated Bactrian camel detection in drone imagery across the complex desert terrain of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Using YOLOv8 and a dataset of 1479 high-resolution drone-captured images of Bactrian camels, we developed and validated an automated detection system. Our model demonstrated strong detection performance with high precision and recall values across different environmental conditions. Scale-aware analysis revealed distinct performance patterns between medium- and small-scale detections, informing optimal drone flight parameters. The system maintained consistent processing efficiency across various batch sizes while preserving detection quality. These findings advance conservation monitoring capabilities for Bactrian camels and other wildlife in remote ecosystems, providing wildlife managers with an efficient tool to track population dynamics and inform conservation strategies in expansive, difficult-to-access habitats.

The First Large Absorption Survey in H i (FLASH) is a large-area radio survey for neutral hydrogen in and around galaxies in the intermediate redshift range $0.4\lt z\lt1.0$, using the 21-cm H i absorption line as a probe of cold neutral gas. The survey uses the ASKAP radio telescope and will cover 24,000 deg$^2$ of sky over the next five years. FLASH breaks new ground in two ways – it is the first large H i absorption survey to be carried out without any optical preselection of targets, and we use an automated Bayesian line-finding tool to search through large datasets and assign a statistical significance to potential line detections. Two Pilot Surveys, covering around 3000 deg$^2$ of sky, were carried out in 2019-22 to test and verify the strategy for the full FLASH survey. The processed data products from these Pilot Surveys (spectral-line cubes, continuum images, and catalogues) are public and available online. In this paper, we describe the FLASH spectral-line and continuum data products and discuss the quality of the H i spectra and the completeness of our automated line search. Finally, we present a set of 30 new H i absorption lines that were robustly detected in the Pilot Surveys, almost doubling the number of known H i absorption systems at $0.4\lt z\lt1$. The detected lines span a wide range in H i optical depth, including three lines with a peak optical depth $\tau\gt1$, and appear to be a mixture of intervening and associated systems. Interestingly, around two-thirds of the lines found in this untargeted sample are detected against sources with a peaked-spectrum radio continuum, which are only a minor (5–20%) fraction of the overall radio-source population. The detection rate for H i absorption lines in the Pilot Surveys (0.3 to 0.5 lines per 40 deg$^2$ ASKAP field) is a factor of two below the expected value. One possible reason for this is the presence of a range of spectral-line artefacts in the Pilot Survey data that have now been mitigated and are not expected to recur in the full FLASH survey. A future paper in this series will discuss the host galaxies of the H i absorption systems identified here.

We present results of frequency tripling experiments performed at the Hilase facility on a cryogenically gas cooled multi-slab ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser system, Bivoj/DiPOLE. The laser produces high-energy ns pulses at 10 Hz repetition rate, which are frequency doubled using a type-I phase-matched lithium triborate (LBO) crystal and consequently frequency summed using a type-II phase-matched LBO crystal. We demonstrated a stable frequency conversion to 343 nm at 50 J energy and 10 Hz repetition rate with conversion efficiency of 53%.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short-duration radio transients that occur at random times in host galaxies distributed all over the sky. Large field of view instruments can play a critical role in the blind search for rare FRBs. We present a concept for an all-sky FRB monitor using a compact all-sky phased array (CASPA), which can efficiently achieve an extremely large field of view of $\sim10^4$ square degrees. Such a system would allow us to conduct a continuous, blind FRB search covering the entire southern sky. Using the measured FRB luminosity function, we investigate the detection rate for this all-sky phased array and compare the result to a number of other proposed large field-of-view instruments. We predict a rate of a few FRB detections per week and determine the dispersion measure and redshift distributions of these detectable FRBs. This instrument is optimal for detecting FRBs in the nearby Universe and for extending the high-end of the FRB luminosity function through finding ultraluminous events. Additionally, this instrument can be used to shadow the new gravitational-wave observing runs, detect high-energy events triggered from Galactic magnetars and search for other bright, but currently unknown transient signals.

In this wide-ranging conversation, six scholars of South Africa detail threads of continuity and change in the historiographies, popular memories, archives, research agendas, methodologies, and within the South African academy and historical professional since the end of formal apartheid in 1994.

In July 2021, Public Health Wales received two notifications of salmonella gastroenteritis. Both cases has attended the same barbecue to celebrate Eid al–Adha, two days earlier. Additional cases attending the same barbecue were found and an outbreak investigation was initiated. The barbecue was attended by a North African community’s social network. On same day, smaller lunches were held in three homes in the social network. Many people attended both a lunch and the barbecue. Cases were defined as someone with an epidemiological link to the barbecue and/or lunches with diarrhoea and/or vomiting with date of onset following these events. We undertook a cohort study of 36 people attending the barbecue and/or lunch, and a nested case-control study using Firth logistic regression. A communication campaign, sensitive towards different cultural practices, was developed in collaboration with the affected community. Consumption of a traditional raw liver dish, ‘marrara’, at the barbecue was the likely vehicle for infection (Firth logistic regression, aOR: 49.99, 95%CI 1.71–1461.54, p = 0.02). Meat and offal came from two local butchers (same supplier) and samples yielded identical whole genome sequences as cases. Future outbreak investigations should be relevant to the community affected by considering dishes beyond those found in routine questionnaires.

We report on frequency doubling of high-energy, high repetition rate ns pulses from a cryogenically gas cooled multi-slab ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser system, Bivoj/DiPOLE, using a type-I phase matched lithium triborate crystal. We achieved conversion to 515 nm with energy of 95 J at repetition rate of 10 Hz and conversion efficiency of 79%. High conversion efficiency was achieved due to successful depolarization compensation of the fundamental input beam.

The diatomic free radical methylidyne (CH) is an important tracer of the interstellar medium, and the study of it was critical to our earliest understanding of star formation. Although it is detectable across the electromagnetic spectrum, observations at radio frequencies allow for a study of the kinematics of the diffuse and dense gas in regions of new star formation. There is only two published (single-dish) detections of the low-frequency hyperfine transitions between 700 and 725 MHz, despite the precise frequencies being known. These low-frequency transitions are of particular interest as they are shown in laboratory experiments to be more sensitive to magnetic fields than their high-frequency counterparts (with more pronounced Zeeman splitting). In this work, we take advantage of the radio quiet environment and increased resolution of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) over previous searches to make a pilot interferometric search for CH at 724.7883 MHz (the strongest of the hyperfine transitions) in RCW 38. We found the band is clean of radio frequency interference, but we did not detect the signal from this transition to a five-sigma sensitivity limit of 0.09 Jy, which corresponds to a total column density upper limit of 1.9$\times 10^{18}$ cm–2 for emission and 1.3$\times 10^{14}$ cm–2 for absorption with an optical depth limit of 0.95. Achieved within 5 h of integration, this column density sensitivity should have been adequate to detect the emission or absorption in RCW 38, if it had similar properties to the only previous reported detections in W51.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large-area survey to be conducted with the full 36-antenna Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. RACS will provide a shallow model of the ASKAP sky that will aid the calibration of future deep ASKAP surveys. RACS will cover the whole sky visible from the ASKAP site in Western Australia and will cover the full ASKAP band of 700–1800 MHz. The RACS images are generally deeper than the existing NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey radio surveys and have better spatial resolution. All RACS survey products will be public, including radio images (with $\sim$ 15 arcsec resolution) and catalogues of about three million source components with spectral index and polarisation information. In this paper, we present a description of the RACS survey and the first data release of 903 images covering the sky south of declination $+41^\circ$ made over a 288-MHz band centred at 887.5 MHz.

We report on the successful demonstration of a 150 J nanosecond pulsed cryogenic gas cooled, diode-pumped multi-slab Yb:YAG laser operating at 1 Hz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest energy ever recorded for a diode-pumped laser system.

We describe an ultra-wide-bandwidth, low-frequency receiver recently installed on the Parkes radio telescope. The receiver system provides continuous frequency coverage from 704 to 4032 MHz. For much of the band (${\sim}60\%$), the system temperature is approximately 22 K and the receiver system remains in a linear regime even in the presence of strong mobile phone transmissions. We discuss the scientific and technical aspects of the new receiver, including its astronomical objectives, as well as the feed, receiver, digitiser, and signal processor design. We describe the pipeline routines that form the archive-ready data products and how those data files can be accessed from the archives. The system performance is quantified, including the system noise and linearity, beam shape, antenna efficiency, polarisation calibration, and timing stability.

In this paper we review the design and development of a 100 J, 10 Hz nanosecond pulsed laser, codenamed DiPOLE100X, being built at the Central Laser Facility (CLF). This 1 kW average power diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is based on a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) design, which includes two cryogenic gas cooled amplifier stages based on DiPOLE multi-slab ceramic Yb:YAG amplifier technology developed at the CLF. The laser will produce pulses between 2 and 15 ns in duration with precise, arbitrarily selectable shapes, at pulse repetition rates up to 10 Hz, allowing real-time shape optimization for compression experiments. Once completed, the laser will be delivered to the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility in Germany as a UK-funded contribution in kind, where it will be used to study extreme states of matter at the High Energy Density (HED) instrument.

Pangolins are increasingly threatened by demand for their scales, which are used in traditional medicines, and for their meat, which is consumed as a luxury. As populations of Asian pangolins decline, the demand is shifting to the four species in Africa, where local cultural use may already pose some level of threat. During 2010−2015 a total of 65 pangolin-related seizures (surrendered and confiscated) were reported in Zimbabwe, with the annual number of confiscations increasing significantly over this period. Zimbabwean authorities have toughened their stance against this trade, and during January−June 2015 three-quarters of confiscations of pangolins (n = 12) resulted in the maximum jail sentence for at least one of the offenders in each case. At present there is no evidence that pangolins are being traded from Zimbabwe to China, and the increased enforcement may be key to ensuring Zimbabwe's pangolins are not threatened by the large-scale illegal trade witnessed in Asia.

Laboratory experimental methods are used to investigate the impacts of supply and/or demand risks on prices, quantities traded, and earnings within forward and spot market institutions. Random demand and/or supply shifts can be as much as 25 percent of the expected equilibrium outcome. Nevertheless, results suggest that the spot or forward trading institution itself has a greater influence on market outcomes than the presence of risk within the trading institution. Sellers tend to have relatively higher earnings in a spot market than buyers, regardless of the risk. Total surplus, however, generally is greater in a forward market.

We describe observations with the Mopra radiotelescope designed to assess the feasibility of the H2O Maser Southern Galactic Plane Survey. We mapped two one-square-degree regions along the Galactic plane using the new 12-mm receiver and the UNSW Mopra spectrometer. We covered the entire spectrum between 19.5 and 27.5 GHz using this setup with the main aim of finding out which spectral lines can be detected with a quick mapping survey. We report on detected emission from H2O masers, NH3 inversion transitions (1,1), (2,2) and (3,3), HC3N (3–2), as well as several radio recombination lines.

We report the results of a successful 12-hour 22-GHz VLBI experiment using a heterogeneous network that includes radio telescopes of the Long Baseline Array (LBA) in Australia and several VLBI stations that regularly observe in geodetic VLBI campaigns. We have determined positions of three VLBI stations, atca-104, ceduna and mopra, with an accuracy of 4–30 mm using a novel technique of data analysis. These stations have never before participated in geodetic experiments. We observed 105 radio sources, and amongst them 5 objects which have not previously been observed with VLBI. We have determined positions of these new sources with the accuracy of 2–5 mas. We make the conclusion that the LBA network is capable of conducting absolute astrometry VLBI surveys with an accuracy better than 5 mas.