In this paper, we describe the system design and capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope at the conclusion of its construction project and commencement of science operations. ASKAP is one of the first radio telescopes to deploy phased array feed (PAF) technology on a large scale, giving it an instantaneous field of view that covers $31\,\textrm{deg}^{2}$ at $800\,\textrm{MHz}$. As a two-dimensional array of 36$\times$12 m antennas, with baselines ranging from 22 m to 6 km, ASKAP also has excellent snapshot imaging capability and 10 arcsec resolution. This, combined with 288 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a unique third axis of rotation on each antenna, gives ASKAP the capability to create high dynamic range images of large sky areas very quickly. It is an excellent telescope for surveys between 700 and $1800\,\textrm{MHz}$ and is expected to facilitate great advances in our understanding of galaxy formation, cosmology, and radio transients while opening new parameter space for discovery of the unknown.

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.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

There is general international acceptance of the need to demonstrate that the environment is protected from ionising radiation. In some countries requirements and guidelines for the protection of non-human biota are already in place. As a consequence a number of models and approaches have been proposed for the estimation of the exposure of non-human biota to ionising radiation. The IAEA EMRAS programme's Biota Working Group has conducted the most comprehensive intercomparison of the predictions of these approaches to date. In this paper, we present an overview of the activities of the Biota Working Group concentrating on its conclusions and recommendations.

In the UK, research funded by the Environment Agency/English Nature has provided a series of spreadsheet-based assessment tools for calculating doses received by biota in coastal, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The approach uses the reference organism concept where the organism of interest (feature species) is equated to a particular reference organism (based on its physical geometry and ecology). This paper describes the stages followed to collate additional species-, and site-, specific data and to undertake assessments to determine whether Natura 2000 sites are adequately protected from authorised releases of ionising radiation. The feature species used for the assessment were species listed under the EC Birds and Habitats Directives. The paper will describe the overall assessment process followed by the UK Environment Agency, demonstrating the staged assessment process adopted; how each feature species is mathematically aligned with the most appropriate reference organism geometry; and provide an example of the assessment conducted for the Natura 2000 sites located in the Humber Estuary, UK.

Our aim was to measure the effects of irradiation treatments on soil communities from three different soils. Undisturbed soil cores from three temperate sites (deciduous and coniferous woodland and grassland) were irradiated to give cumulative doses from 0-160 Gy. Cores were incubated at 15$^{\circ}$C and three cores from each treatment sampled after <1, 3 and 8 d. Soil fungi and heterotrophic bacteria were enumerated and the activity and functional diversity of soil microbial communities assessed in terms of their potential to utilise a range of C-sources. Although no significant treatment effects were observed in the numbers of cultivable fungi or fast growing heterotrophic bacteria, the numbers of cultivable Pseudomonas spp. declined in all three soils after irradiation at 80 and 160 Gy. Microbial communities from the coniferous forest soil also showed a dramatic decrease in the metabolic activity and number of substrates utilised by after irradiation at 160 Gy. Gamma irradiation had a greater affect on microbial communities in the two organic forest soils as compared to the mineral grassland soil, this could be related to variations in the physico-chemical shielding properties and in the indigenous communities in terms of radio-resistant species.

A number of frameworks have been proposed to assess the protection of wildlife from ionising radiations. In this paper we compare the predictions of transfer parameters recommended by one of these frameworks (FASSET) with observed whole-body 90Sr and 137Cs activity concentrations in a range of mammal and invertebrate species sampled within the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Predicted activity concentrations are generally within the observed ranges and mean predictions for reference organisms are similar to, or circa one order of magnitude higher than, the observed means. However, some predictions are more than one order of magnitude lower than observed values. No data were available for animals to test predictions for the other radionuclides released by the Chernobyl accident. In a separate paper the outputs of this assessment will be used to estimate doses to reference organisms and compare these to observed radiation induced effects reported within the Chernobyl zone.

By a variety of exposure routes it is possible that the toxic heavy metals cadmium, arsenic and mercury could enter the diet of farm animals and hence contaminate food products derived from those animals. Therefore, there is a need to be able to assess the likely levels of contamination in animal tissues if exposed to contaminated feed and also to estimate how rapidly an animal will decontaminate once the source of contamination is removed from the feed. The development of dynamic models to predict changes in the degree of heavy metal contamination in tissues of ruminants have been hindered by the lack of data on the transfer and excretion rates of these metals from tissues. A study is described during which dairy cows were given a single intraruminal administration of 109Cd, 73As and 203Hg and measurements made of the subsequent concentrations of the radioisotopes in body tissues and milk. The resultant data were used to adapt previously developed compartment models describing the behaviour of the metals in sheep for use with dairy cows. Two changes were made to the sheep models: (i) a new excretion route was included to describe transfer to milk; (ii) the rate coefficients (with the exception of those involving gut absorption and transfer) were adjusted according to the ratio of the metabolic live-weights (live-weight (kg)0·75) of the sheep to that of the cattle. The models predicted levels of the metals in the cattle tissues and milk reasonably well.

There is the potential for arsenic to enter the human food chain via ingestion by grazing animals. Data on the transfer of arsenic to ruminants have been too sparse to allow the development of dynamic models to predict changes in the arsenic contents of different tissues following ingestion. A study is described during which a group of 6-month-old lambs were given a single oral administration of 73AsCl3. Subsequently, concentrations of 73As in the tissues of groups of lambs slaughtered at intervals over a period of 181 days were determined. A true absorption coefficient of 0·46±0·055 (mean±S.E.) was determined which is considerably lower than expected from previous studies of non-ruminant animals which demonstrate complete absorption for inorganic arsenic. The resultant data were used to develop a compartment model to describe arsenic behaviour in sheep tissues. The derived model accounted for 80 % (n = 100) of the observed variation in the data. The model predicts that arsenic concentrations in tissues rapidly (< 40 days) reach equilibrium with the dietary intake level. Equilibrium transfer coefficient values (the ratio of the arsenic concentration in a tissue to the daily dietary intake of arsenic) for the important food-chain tissues were calculated as: (2·5±0·67)×10−3 days/kg for muscle, (9·1±1·96)×10−3 days/kg for liver and (1·1±0·14)×10−2 days/kg for kidney.

We present real-time measurements of stress relaxation kinetics during epitaxial growth obtained using a wafer-curvature-based technique optimized for in situ studies. Depending on the temperature and misfit strain, different mechanisms of stress relaxation are observed. In heterolayers of InGaAs grown on GaAs (001) substrates, relaxation occurs by a dislocationmediated mechanism. In SiGe layers grown on Si (001) substrates at elevated temperature, relaxation occurs by the formation of islands on the surface. These islands elastically relax misfit stress without the introduction of dislocations at the island-substrate interface.

A new rf plasma nitrogen source has been characterized for growth of GaN on basal-plane sapphire by molecular beam epitaxy. For rf power of 500 W and N2 flow rate of 2 sccm, a maximum GaN growth rate of 0.80 μm/hr is obtained, implying a source efficiency greater than 5%. It is found that the GaN surface roughness is extremely sensitive to V:Il ratio near unity and independent of growth rate in the range 0.3-0.8 μm/hr. Roughness as small as 1.0 nm (rms) is measured by atomic-force microscopy. Microstructure of the high-growth-rate films is similar to other GaN films, as observed in cross-section transmission electron microscope images. The electroluminescence spectra from homojunction light-emitting diodes exhibit a band of nearultraviolet emissions corresponding to the energy separation of the intentional donor and acceptor levels on the two sides of the junction. The intensity of these emissions relative to the visible spectrum increases with drive current density, implying saturation of deep trap levels responsible for the visible light output.

A method of producing epitaxial GaN on single-crystal Hf has been developed. The metal substrate is formed by a strain-anneal process yielding macroscopic (5-mm) grain sizes, followed by polishing, chemical etching, and Ar ion sputtering at elevated temperature in ultrahigh vacuum. The growth is conducted by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy using an initial passivation layer deposited at low temperature and subsequent growth at 700 °C. The resulting films are in registry with the hep substrate lattice as observed by reflection high-energy electron diffraction during growth and verified by plan-view transmission electron microscopy. High-resolution x-ray rocking curve linewidths of the GaN and Hf [1012] peaks are as narrow as 900 and 180 arc seconds, respectively. The [0002] peak separation confirms the approximately 2.7% mismatch in the c axis spacing. Initial photo]uminescence observations at 20 K of a (donor-bound exciton) peak at 3.467 eV are consistent with the assumption of a nearly strain-free film resulting from the exact basal-plane lattice match and close thermal coefficient match between GaN and Hf.

Wurtzite GaN films on AlN buffer layers were grown on Si (111) by electron cyclotron resonance microwave plasma assisted MBE (ECR-MBE). High resolution x-ray diffraction studies indicate that the mosaic disorder decreases with increasing growth temperature. The grain size is related to the growth temperature. The best (0002) diffraction peak full width at half maximum was 22 min. for a film 1.7 μm thick. Prominent exciton luminescence is observed at 3.46 eV at 10 K.

The plasma I-V characteristics were measured with a Langmuir probe near the growth position. The nitrogen ion density has been extracted from the data, and is a strong function of the N2 flow rate, the microwave power and the aperture size of the ECR source. The crystal quality of AlN is strongly affected by the plasma conditions.