The advent of next-generation telescope facilities brings with it an unprecedented amount of data, and the demand for effective tools to process and classify this information has become increasingly important. This work proposes a novel approach to quantify the radio galaxy morphology, through the development of a series of algorithmic metrics that can quantitatively describe the structure of radio source, and can be applied to radio images in an automatic way. These metrics are intuitive in nature and are inspired by the intrinsic structural differences observed between the existing Fanaroff-Riley (FR) morphology types. The metrics are defined in categories of asymmetry, blurriness, concentration, disorder, and elongation (ABCDE/single-lobe metrics), as well as the asymmetry and angle between lobes (source metrics). We apply these metrics to a sample of 480 sources from the Evolutionary Map of the Universe Pilot Survey (EMU-PS) and 72 well resolved extensively studied sources from An Atlas of DRAGNs, a subset of the revised Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources (3CRR). We find that these metrics are relatively robust to resolution changes, independent of each other, and measure fundamentally different structural components of radio galaxy lobes. These metrics work particularly well for sources with reasonable signal-to-noise and well separated lobes. We also find that we can recover the original FR classification using probabilistic combinations of our metrics, highlighting the usefulness of our approach for future large data sets from radio sky surveys.

The 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath provided fertile soil for criticism of and alternatives to the international liberal order, including the rise of financial nationalism. Contemporary financial nationalism is a view of the world that is nationalist in its motivation for political action, financial in its policy focus, and illiberal in its conception of political economy. At the same time, it is fundamentally shaped by its emergence from within the international liberal order, which both constrains the policy options of financial nationalists and provides opportunities for them to draw on transnational financial resources and institutions to advance nationalist causes. This article offers a conceptual analysis of contemporary financial nationalism that explores its fundamental characteristics, explains what is distinctive about it, delineates its four major policy subtypes, identifies the resources and capabilities required to successfully engage in it, and discusses the implications of doing so. It aids researchers in thinking about financial nationalism’s internal workings across different contexts, in understanding why it has lasted as long and spread as far as it has, in considering how it may evolve, and in contemplating how it can affect domestic and international political economies.

Land-use change for crop production is one of the key drivers of habitat loss and fragmentation and consequently biodiversity loss and change in tropical regions. This may impact biodiversity-regulated ecosystem services; birds are important to crop health regulating services (e.g. seed dispersal, pest control) and disservices (e.g. seed predation, grain herbivory). However, knowledge is limited on how birds use heterogeneous agricultural landscapes and the consequences for spatial distribution and flow of services and disservices. We studied crop and non-crop–habitat associations of birds in forest–agricultural landscapes of the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. We focused on dietary preference as a key trait impacting bird responses to land-use change, services, and disservices to crops. We surveyed birds across four main habitat types using repeated point counts, recording a total of 148 species. We found that crop habitats supported higher species richness and larger communities of potentially beneficial species to crop health, whereby 34.5% of invertebrate-feeding species were recorded in cropland. We found that habitat heterogeneity within the landscape supports bird functional diversity and that each habitat type supported unique communities of species. Furthermore, the number of species unique to forest habitats increased with increasing forest canopy closure. Our findings suggest that management strategies for maintaining trees and shrubs, and enhancing tree cover within the crop production landscape, can be effective approaches for maintaining bird diversity and services. However, in-depth studies on trade-offs with disservices need further exploration to mitigate negative impacts of birds on crop yields.

We report the discovery of a bow-shock pulsar wind nebula (PWN), named Potoroo, and the detection of a young pulsar J1638$-$4713 that powers the nebula. We present a radio continuum study of the PWN based on 20-cm observations obtained from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT. PSR J1638$-$4713 was identified using Parkes radio telescope observations at frequencies above 3 GHz. The pulsar has the second-highest dispersion measure of all known radio pulsars (1 553 pc cm$^{-3}$), a spin period of 65.74 ms and a spin-down luminosity of $\dot{E}=6.1\times10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The PWN has a cometary morphology and one of the greatest projected lengths among all the observed pulsar radio tails, measuring over 21 pc for an assumed distance of 10 kpc. The remarkably long tail and atypically steep radio spectral index are attributed to the interplay of a supernova reverse shock and the PWN. The originating supernova remnant is not known so far. We estimated the pulsar kick velocity to be in the range of 1 000–2 000 km s$^{-1}$ for ages between 23 and 10 kyr. The X-ray counterpart found in Chandra data, CXOU J163802.6$-$471358, shows the same tail morphology as the radio source but is shorter by a factor of 10. The peak of the X-ray emission is offset from the peak of the radio total intensity (Stokes $\rm I$) emission by approximately 4.7$^{\prime\prime}$, but coincides well with circularly polarised (Stokes $\rm V$) emission. No infrared counterpart was found.

Exercise is associated with higher cognitive function and is a promising intervention to reduce the risk of dementia. With advancing age, there are changes in the vasculature that have important clinical implications for brain health and cognition. Primary aging and vascular risk factors are associated with increases in arterial stiffness and pulse pressure, and reductions in peripheral vascular function.

On low-input smallholder farms of Kenyan upland landscapes, erosion of nutrient-rich topsoil strongly affects crop yields. Where maize (Zea mays) is intercropped on erosion-prone slopes, intercropping can potentially reduce soil erosion. The objective of this research was to quantify the contribution of crops and crop mixtures of different growth habits to erosion control and their influence on above-ground biomass and earthworm abundance as indicators of soil function in smallholder farming systems under a bimodal rainfall pattern in Western Kenya. The experiment involved five treatments, namely maize (Z. mays)/common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) intercrop (maize intercrop), maize/common bean intercrop plus Calliandra (Calliandra calothyrsus) hedgerows and Calliandra mulch (Calliandra), sole Lablab (Lablab purpureus), sole Mucuna (Mucuna pruriens) and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) intercropped with maize (during the short rains). The experiment was conducted over three consecutive cropping seasons and the cropping system had significant effects on soil loss, runoff, water infiltration, earthworm abundance and above-ground biomass and crop grain yield. The Calliandra treatment had the lowest runoff (11.6–17.2 mm ha−1) and soil erosion (31–446 kg ha−1 per season) in all the seasons, followed by the Mucuna treatment. Lablab was affected by disease and showed the highest soil erosion in the last two seasons. Infiltration was highest in Calliandra treatment, and earthworm abundance was higher under Mucuna and Calliandra treatments (229 and 165 earthworms per square metre, respectively) than under other crops. Our results suggest that including sole crops of herbaceous species such as Mucuna, or tree hedgerows with mixtures of maize and grain legumes has the potential to reduce runoff and soil erosion in smallholder farming. Additionally, these species provide a suitable habitat for earthworms which stabilise soil structure and macropores and thus potentially increase infiltration, further reducing soil erosion.

Field and laboratory studies were conducted in 1987 and 1988 on several Arkansas soils to determine the effects of residual levels of imazaquin on cotton. Imazaquin concentrations ranging from 0.007 to 0.024 μg/g and 0.00 to 0.015 μg/g were found in soil samples taken 12 and 24 months, respectively, following preplant-incorporated applications at rates of 140 g/ha. Cotton yields were reduced from 7 to 42% in 1987 as the soil concentration of imazaquin increased from 0.007 to 0.024 μg/g. Imazaquin persistence was greater in clay soils than loams or sandy loams. Imazaquin was weakly adsorbed to a clay, loam, and sandy loam soil in laboratory studies; the adsorption isotherms did not differ significantly by soil texture. A bioassay utilizing cotton as the indicator species was developed to determine imazaquin concentrations in soils ranging from 0 to 0.06 μg/g. Imazaquin concentrations determined by the bioassay method were found to be 75, 77, and 80% of those determined by chemical extractions for a clay, loam, and sandy loam soil, respectively.