A delightful anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings celebrating country living—ranging from a philosophy of compost to hymns to the gods of agriculture Whether you farm or garden, live in ...the country or long to move there, or simply enjoy an occasional rural retreat, you will be delighted by this cornucopia of writings about living and working on the land, harvested from the fertile fields of ancient Greek and Roman literature. An inspiring antidote to the digital age, How to Be a Farmer evokes the beauty and bounty of nature with a rich mixture of philosophy, practical advice, history, and humor. Together, these timeless reflections on what the Greeks called boukolika and the Romans res rusticae provide an entertaining and enlightening guide to a more meaningful and sustainable way of life.In fresh translations by classicist and farmer M. D. Usher, with the original texts on facing pages, Hesiod praises the dignity of labor; Plato describes the rustic simplicity of his ideal republic; Varro dedicates a farming manual to his wife, Fundania ("Mrs. Farmer"); and Vergil idealizes farmers as residents of the Golden Age. In other selections, Horace extols the joys of simple living at his cherished country farm; Pliny the Elder explains why all culture stems from agriculture; Columella praises donkeys and tells how to choose a ram or a dog; Musonius Rufus argues that farming is the best livelihood for a philosopher; and there is much more.Proof that farming is ultimately a state of mind we should all cultivate, How to Be a Farmer will charm anyone who loves nature or its fruits.
Aims To develop a system to detect automatically features of diabetic retinopathy in colour digital retinal images and to evaluate its potential in diabetic retinopathy screening.
Methods Macular ...centred 45° colour retinal images from 1273 patients in an inner city diabetic retinopathy screening programme. A system was used involving pre‐processing to standardize colour and enhance contrast, segmentation to reveal possible lesions and classification of lesions using an artificial neural network. The system was trained using a subset of images from 500 patients and evaluated by comparing its performance with a human grader on a test set of images from 773 patients.
Results Maximum sensitivity for detection of any retinopathy on a per patient basis was 95.1%, accompanied by specificity of 46.3%. Specificity could be increased as far as 78.9% but was accompanied by a fall in sensitivity to 70.8%. At a setting with 94.8% sensitivity and 52.8% specificity, no cases of sight‐threatening retinopathy were missed (retinopathy warranting immediate ophthalmology referral or re‐examination sooner than 1 year by National Institute for Clinical Excellence criteria). If the system was implemented at 94.8% sensitivity setting over half the images with no retinopathy would be correctly identified, reducing the need for a human grader to examine images in 1/3 of patients.
Conclusion This system could be used when screening for diabetic retinopathy. At 94.8% sensitivity setting the number of normal images requiring examination by a human grader could be halved.
Aims The aim was to develop an automated screening system to analyse digital colour retinal images for important features of non‐proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR).
Methods High performance ...pre‐processing of the colour images was performed. Previously described automated image analysis systems were used to detect major landmarks of the retinal image (optic disc, blood vessels and fovea). Recursive region growing segmentation algorithms combined with the use of a new technique, termed a ‘Moat Operator’, were used to automatically detect features of NPDR. These features included haemorrhages and microaneurysms (HMA), which were treated as one group, and hard exudates as another group. Sensitivity and specificity data were calculated by comparison with an experienced fundoscopist.
Results The algorithm for exudate recognition was applied to 30 retinal images of which 21 contained exudates and nine were without pathology. The sensitivity and specificity for exudate detection were 88.5% and 99.7%, respectively, when compared with the ophthalmologist. HMA were present in 14 retinal images. The algorithm achieved a sensitivity of 77.5% and specificity of 88.7% for detection of HMA.
Conclusions Fully automated computer algorithms were able to detect hard exudates and HMA. This paper presents encouraging results in automatic identification of important features of NPDR.
Diabet. Med. 19, 105–112 (2002)
contains a puzzling passage by Lancelot Gobbo that refers to Ash Wednesday and Easter Monday, two dates in the Christian religious calendar. The passage is nonsensical, yet it is a commonplace that ...the utterances of Shakespeare’s clowns are often noteworthy. This paper notes that Lancelot refers to an unusual four-fold coincidence of Passover with Easter Monday, the former on the correct Gregorian calendar, the latter on the outdated Julian calendar. The interpretation is tested and leads to the determination of the dramatic time of the play which with other evidence from the script suggests that the paschal moon of 14 Nisan 5357 (April 2, 1597) is a crux of the play. The resulting timeline is consistent with events in the script and leads to a new interpretation for Old Gobbo’s dish of doves. The timeline leads also to a solution for a question on equity and the law.
In Shakespeare’s comedy
, Tubal’s chief function seems to be to furnish cash for Shylock’s loan to Antonio. However, I argue that when Shylock approaches Tubal for money, Tubal does not confront ...Shylock but vows instead to establish conditions by which to convict the moneylender of intent to harm Antonio. For this to work, Tubal needs the connivance of the Duke, which gainsays one component of the myth of Venice that holds that the city-state’s legal system is above reproach.
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