Imagining the Gifford Lectures: 134 not out

This new regular feature in the journal explores the legacy of the Gifford Lectures in natural theology, which have been delivered at the ancient Scottish universities since 1888. Not only do the lectures present a fascinating picture of various issues and subjects which have shaped and highlighted the intellectual landscape in Scotland and beyond for the past 134 years, but they also offer an opportunity for a renewed engagement with their topics and presenters. Dr Jonathan Birch introduces the lectures, their founder, and one of the contributors, Baroness Mary Warnock, whose 1992 lectures on imagination and understanding speak directly to the theme of this issue

The theological house that Jack (un)built: Halberstam on an aesthetics of collapse and mushrooms among the ruin

This paper discusses Jack Halberstam’s September 2022 Gifford Lecture, “Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse”, given at the University of Glasgow on 15 September 2022

Review essay: When the dancing turned to mourning: Theological responses to the pandemic

This review essay considers four books published within the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It guides us through how each of these texts offers a timely Christian response to, and not explanation for, the challenges that we face: innumerable deaths, the inability to worship together, deserted streets and shut-up businesses, the place of viruses in the Earth’s ecology, and the apparent absence of God as the innovations of modern science seem to be our only salvation. Reviewed works:John C. Lennox, Where is God in a Coronavirus World? (Epsom, Surrey: The Good Book Company, 2020)Tom Wright, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath (London: SPCK: 2020)Walter Brueggemann, Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2020)Robert Keay, Reframing Pandemic (The Window of Christianity series; New York: Basiliad Publishing, 2020

Review essay: To Hell and back with David Bentley Hart

Extended review of David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), pp. 222, ISBN 978-0300246223. £20.0

Three Lions, divine comedy and making Jews count: Baddiel and Skinner, then and now

To coincide with the 2022 FIFA World Cup, our review essay discusses new books by Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, two British comedians, writers and broadcasters well-known for their association with football tournaments (in song). Here we find them offering personal reflections on matters of faith and identity.Reviewed works:Frank Skinner, A Comedian’s Prayer Book (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2021), pp. 112, ISBN 978-1529368956.David Baddiel, Jews Don’t Count: How Identity Politics Failed One Particular Identity (London: TLS Books, 2021), pp. 144, ISBN 978-0008399474

Comparison of spatial domain optimal trade-off maximum average correlation height (OT-MACH) filter with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) using images with poor contrast and large illumination gradient

A spatial domain optimal trade-off Maximum Average Correlation Height (OT-MACH) filter has been previously developed and shown to have advantages over frequency domain implementations in that it can be made locally adaptive to spatial variations in the input image background clutter and normalised for local intensity changes. In this paper we compare the performance of the spatial domain (SPOT-MACH) filter to the widely applied data driven technique known as the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). The SPOT-MACH filter is shown to provide more robust recognition performance than the SIFT technique for demanding images such as scenes in which there are large illumination gradients. The SIFT method depends on reliable local edge-based feature detection over large regions of the image plane which is compromised in some of the demanding images we examined for this work. The disadvantage of the SPOTMACH filter is its numerically intensive nature since it is template based and is implemented in the spatial domain. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only

Mammographic image restoration using maximum entropy deconvolution

An image restoration approach based on a Bayesian maximum entropy method (MEM) has been applied to a radiological image deconvolution problem, that of reduction of geometric blurring in magnification mammography. The aim of the work is to demonstrate an improvement in image spatial resolution in realistic noisy radiological images with no associated penalty in terms of reduction in the signal-to-noise ratio perceived by the observer. Images of the TORMAM mammographic image quality phantom were recorded using the standard magnification settings of 1.8 magnification/fine focus and also at 1.8 magnification/broad focus and 3.0 magnification/fine focus; the latter two arrangements would normally give rise to unacceptable geometric blurring. Measured point-spread functions were used in conjunction with the MEM image processing to de-blur these images. The results are presented as comparative images of phantom test features and as observer scores for the raw and processed images. Visualization of high resolution features and the total image scores for the test phantom were improved by the application of the MEM processing. It is argued that this successful demonstration of image de-blurring in noisy radiological images offers the possibility of weakening the link between focal spot size and geometric blurring in radiology, thus opening up new approaches to system optimization.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Natural control of the mosquito population via Odonata and Toxorhynchites

The main impact of mosquito pests is the transmission of many dangerous diseases and death. Hence, the reduction of their population by the use of a natural control method is a primary objective of this research. This mosquito reduction method utilises different species of predators (Odonata) and (Toxorhynchites) to substantially improve the environment. The frequency of capturing the pest mosquitoes by the predators is determined using a Pascal distribution, whilst insect mortality is modelled using a Weibull distribution. The results from the model show that by using insect predators, a significant reduction of the mosquito population is possible in less than eighty days

Solar meridional circulation from twenty-one years of SOHO/MDI and SDO/HMI observations: Helioseismic travel times and forward modeling in the ray approximation

The south-north travel-time differences are measured by applying time-distance helioseismology to the MDI and HMI medium-degree Dopplergrams covering May 1996-April 2017. Our data analysis corrects for several sources of systematic effects: P-angle error, surface magnetic field effects, and center-to-limb variations. An interpretation of the travel-time measurements is obtained using a forward-modeling approach in the ray approximation. The travel-time differences are similar in the southern hemisphere for cycles 23 and 24. However, they differ in the northern hemisphere between cycles 23 and 24. Except for cycle 24's northern hemisphere, the measurements favor a single-cell meridional circulation model where the poleward flows persist down to $\sim$0.8 $R_\odot$, accompanied by local inflows toward the activity belts in the near-surface layers. Cycle 24's northern hemisphere is anomalous: travel-time differences are significantly smaller when travel distances are greater than 20$^\circ$. This asymmetry between northern and southern hemispheres during cycle 24 was not present in previous measurements (e.g., Rajaguru & Antia 2015), which assumed a different P-angle error correction where south-north travel-time differences are shifted to zero at the equator for all travel distances. In our measurements, the travel-time differences at the equator are zero for travel distances less than $\sim$30$^\circ$, but they do not vanish for larger travel distances. This equatorial offset for large travel distances need not be interpreted as a deep cross-equator flow; it could be due to the presence of asymmetrical local flows at the surface near the end points of the acoustic ray paths.Comment: accepted for publication in A&

Environmental Hazard of Excess Dunder on Agricultural Land

The use of high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) organic waste on farming land offers two resource recovery opportunities, first nutrient for plant production and secondly organic matter for soil health. One such waste, dunder from yeast production was tested for its impact on irrigated lucerne hay production. A randomised complete block trial with five treatments (0, 8, 24, 48, 96 L dunder m-2)and three replications was used to test the impact of dunder on total dry matter production. The trial showed that the lower rates of 8 and 24 L m-2 of dunder was not significantly different to the control (0) while the high rates of 48 and 96 L m-2 significantly reduced total dry matter. This was significant as it identified limits to dunder application rate. However, more importantly, the trial showed that site characteristics and agronomic management had greater impact than the dunder alone on the plant production. In this trial a sodium hazard not related to the dunder significantly added to the reduction of dry matter. The results show that the assessment of dunder and other similar wastes for land application must include both the direct and indirect site related consequences of application to agricultural land