A machine learning model was created to predict the electron spectrum generated by a GeV-class laser wakefield accelerator. The model was constructed from variational convolutional neural networks, which mapped the results of secondary laser and plasma diagnostics to the generated electron spectrum. An ensemble of trained networks was used to predict the electron spectrum and to provide an estimation of the uncertainty of that prediction. It is anticipated that this approach will be useful for inferring the electron spectrum prior to undergoing any process that can alter or destroy the beam. In addition, the model provides insight into the scaling of electron beam properties due to stochastic fluctuations in the laser energy and plasma electron density.

The African American population of Buffalo, New York experiences striking race-based health disparities due to adverse social determinants of health. A team of community leaders and university faculty determined that a community dialogue was needed to focus research and advocacy on the root causes of these disparities. In response, we organized the annual Igniting Hope conference series that has become the premier conference on health disparities in the region. The series, now supported by an R13 conference grant from NCATS, has been held four times (2018–2021) and has attracted community members, community leaders, university faculty, and trainees. The agenda includes talks by national leaders and breakout/working groups that led to a new state law that has reduced disproportionate traffic-ticketing and drivers' license suspensions in Black neighborhoods; mitigation of the disproportionate COVID-19 fatalities in Black communities; and the launching of a university-supported institute. We describe the key elements of success for a conference series designed by a community–university partnership to catalyze initiatives that are having an impact on social determinants of health in Buffalo.

Many short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from binary neutron star mergers, and there are several theories that predict the production of coherent, prompt radio signals either prior, during, or shortly following the merger, as well as persistent pulsar-like emission from the spin-down of a magnetar remnant. Here we present a low frequency (170–200 MHz) search for coherent radio emission associated with nine short GRBs detected by the Swift and/or Fermi satellites using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) rapid-response observing mode. The MWA began observing these events within 30–60 s of their high-energy detection, enabling us to capture any dispersion delayed signals emitted by short GRBs for a typical range of redshifts. We conducted transient searches at the GRB positions on timescales of 5 s, 30 s, and 2 min, resulting in the most constraining flux density limits on any associated transient of 0.42, 0.29, and 0.084 Jy, respectively. We also searched for dispersed signals at a temporal and spectral resolution of 0.5 s and 1.28 MHz, but none were detected. However, the fluence limit of 80–100 Jy ms derived for GRB 190627A is the most stringent to date for a short GRB. Assuming the formation of a stable magnetar for this GRB, we compared the fluence and persistent emission limits to short GRB coherent emission models, placing constraints on key parameters including the radio emission efficiency of the nearly merged neutron stars ( $\epsilon_r\lesssim10^{-4}$ ), the fraction of magnetic energy in the GRB jet ( $\epsilon_B\lesssim2\times10^{-4}$ ), and the radio emission efficiency of the magnetar remnant ( $\epsilon_r\lesssim10^{-3}$ ). Comparing the limits derived for our full GRB sample (along with those in the literature) to the same emission models, we demonstrate that our fluence limits only place weak constraints on the prompt emission predicted from the interaction between the relativistic GRB jet and the interstellar medium for a subset of magnetar parameters. However, the 30-min flux density limits were sensitive enough to theoretically detect the persistent radio emission from magnetar remnants up to a redshift of $z\sim0.6$ . Our non-detection of this emission could imply that some GRBs in the sample were not genuinely short or did not result from a binary neutron star merger, the GRBs were at high redshifts, these mergers formed atypical magnetars, the radiation beams of the magnetar remnants were pointing away from Earth, or the majority did not form magnetars but rather collapse directly into black holes.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large sky survey using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), covering the sky south of $+41^\circ$ declination. With ASKAP’s large, instantaneous field of view, ${\sim}31\,\mathrm{deg}^2$ , RACS observed the entire sky at a central frequency of 887.5 MHz using 903 individual pointings with 15 minute observations. This has resulted in the deepest radio survey of the full Southern sky to date at these frequencies. In this paper, we present the first Stokes I catalogue derived from the RACS survey. This catalogue was assembled from 799 tiles that could be convolved to a common resolution of $25^{\prime\prime}$ , covering a large contiguous region in the declination range $\delta=-80^{\circ}$ to $+30^\circ$ . The catalogue provides an important tool for both the preparation of future ASKAP surveys and for scientific research. It consists of $\sim$ 2.1 million sources and excludes the $|b|<5^{\circ}$ region around the Galactic plane. This provides a first extragalactic catalogue with ASKAP covering the majority of the sky ( $\delta<+30^{\circ}$ ). We describe the methods to obtain this catalogue from the initial RACS observations and discuss the verification of the data, to highlight its quality. Using simulations, we find this catalogue detects 95% of point sources at an integrated flux density of $\sim$ 5 mJy. Assuming a typical sky source distribution model, this suggests an overall 95% point source completeness at an integrated flux density $\sim$ 3 mJy. The catalogue will be available through the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA).

Two introduced carnivores, the European red fox Vulpes vulpes and domestic cat Felis catus, have had extensive impacts on Australian biodiversity. In this study, we collate information on consumption of Australian birds by the fox, paralleling a recent study reporting on birds consumed by cats. We found records of consumption by foxes on 128 native bird species (18% of the non-vagrant bird fauna and 25% of those species within the fox’s range), a smaller tally than for cats (343 species, including 297 within the fox’s Australian range, a subset of that of the cat). Most (81%) bird species eaten by foxes are also eaten by cats, suggesting that predation impacts are compounded. As with consumption by cats, birds that nest or forage on the ground are most likely to be consumed by foxes. However, there is also some partitioning, with records of consumption by foxes but not cats for 25 bird species, indicating that impacts of the two predators may also be complementary. Bird species ≥3.4 kg were more likely to be eaten by foxes, and those <3.4 kg by cats. Our compilation provides an inventory and describes characteristics of Australian bird species known to be consumed by foxes, but we acknowledge that records of predation do not imply population-level impacts. Nonetheless, there is sufficient information from other studies to demonstrate that fox predation has significant impacts on the population viability of some Australian birds, especially larger birds, and those that nest or forage on the ground.

The Variables and Slow Transients Survey (VAST) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is designed to detect highly variable and transient radio sources on timescales from 5 s to $\sim\!5$ yr. In this paper, we present the survey description, observation strategy and initial results from the VAST Phase I Pilot Survey. This pilot survey consists of $\sim\!162$ h of observations conducted at a central frequency of 888 MHz between 2019 August and 2020 August, with a typical rms sensitivity of $0.24\ \mathrm{mJy\ beam}^{-1}$ and angular resolution of $12-20$ arcseconds. There are 113 fields, each of which was observed for 12 min integration time, with between 5 and 13 repeats, with cadences between 1 day and 8 months. The total area of the pilot survey footprint is 5 131 square degrees, covering six distinct regions of the sky. An initial search of two of these regions, totalling 1 646 square degrees, revealed 28 highly variable and/or transient sources. Seven of these are known pulsars, including the millisecond pulsar J2039–5617. Another seven are stars, four of which have no previously reported radio detection (SCR J0533–4257, LEHPM 2-783, UCAC3 89–412162 and 2MASS J22414436–6119311). Of the remaining 14 sources, two are active galactic nuclei, six are associated with galaxies and the other six have no multi-wavelength counterparts and are yet to be identified.

Here we present stringent low-frequency (185 MHz) limits on coherent radio emission associated with a short-duration gamma-ray burst (SGRB). Our observations of the short gamma-ray burst (GRB) 180805A were taken with the upgraded Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) rapid-response system, which triggered within 20s of receiving the transient alert from the Swift Burst Alert Telescope, corresponding to 83.7 s post-burst. The SGRB was observed for a total of 30 min, resulting in a $3\sigma$ persistent flux density upper limit of 40.2 mJy beam–1. Transient searches were conducted at the Swift position of this GRB on 0.5 s, 5 s, 30 s and 2 min timescales, resulting in $3\sigma$ limits of 570–1 830, 270–630, 200–420, and 100–200 mJy beam–1, respectively. We also performed a dedispersion search for prompt signals at the position of the SGRB with a temporal and spectral resolution of 0.5 s and 1.28 MHz, respectively, resulting in a $6\sigma$ fluence upper-limit range from 570 Jy ms at DM $=3\,000$ pc cm–3 ( $z\sim 2.5$ ) to 1 750 Jy ms at DM $=200$ pc cm–3 ( $z\sim 0.1)$ , corresponding to the known redshift range of SGRBs. We compare the fluence prompt emission limit and the persistent upper limit to SGRB coherent emission models assuming the merger resulted in a stable magnetar remnant. Our observations were not sensitive enough to detect prompt emission associated with the alignment of magnetic fields of a binary neutron star just prior to the merger, from the interaction between the relativistic jet and the interstellar medium (ISM) or persistent pulsar-like emission from the spin-down of the magnetar. However, in the case of a more powerful SGRB (a gamma-ray fluence an order of magnitude higher than GRB 180805A and/or a brighter X-ray counterpart), our MWA observations may be sensitive enough to detect coherent radio emission from the jet-ISM interaction and/or the magnetar remnant. Finally, we demonstrate that of all current low- frequency radio telescopes, only the MWA has the sensitivity and response times capable of probing prompt emission models associated with the initial SGRB merger event.

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.

Although several initiatives have produced core competency domains for training the translational science workforce, training resources to help clinical research professionals advance these skills reside primarily within local departments or institutions. The Development, Implementation, and AssessMent of Novel Training in Domain (DIAMOND) project was designed to make this training more readily and publicly available. DIAMOND includes a digital portal to catalog publicly available educational resources and an ePortfolio to document professional development. DIAMOND is a nationally crowdsourced, federated, online catalog providing a platform for practitioners to find and share training and assessment materials. Contributors can share their own educational materials using a simple intake form that creates an electronic record; the portal enables users to browse or search this catalog of digital records and access the resources. Since September 2018, the portal has been visited more than 5,700 times and received over 280 contributions from professionals. The portal facilitates opportunities to connect and collaborate regarding future applications of these resources. Consequently, growing the collection and increasing numbers of both contributors and users remains a priority. Results from a small subset of users indicated over half accomplished their purpose for visiting the site, while qualitative results showed that users identified several benefits and helpful features of the ePortfolio.