New literacy kit. Year 9.

Recurso para la enseñanza del inglés para niños entre once y catorce años. Cada unidad se basa en un modelo de texto, periódicos, información técnica, autobiográfico, consejos para la salud, lenguaje figurado, poesía, teatro, etc., para ayudar al estudiante a desarrollar sus conocimientos de comprensión, análisis, interpretación y estructura del lenguaje en los diferentes textos. Las actividades incluyen gramática; trabajos transversales; escritura y oportunidades para hablar y escuchar.

New literacy kit. Year 8.

Recurso para la enseñanza del inglés para niños entre once y catorce años. Cada unidad se basa en un modelo de texto, periódicos, información técnica, autobiográfico, consejos para la salud, lenguaje figurado, poesía, teatro, etc., para ayudar al estudiante a desarrollar sus conocimientos de comprensión, análisis, interpretación y estructura del lenguaje en los diferentes textos. Las actividades incluyen gramática; trabajos transversales; escritura y oportunidades para hablar y escuchar.

New literacy kit. Year 7.

Recurso para la enseñanza del inglés para niños entre once y catorce años. Cada unidad se basa en un modelo de texto, periódicos, información técnica, autobiográfico, consejos para la salud, lenguaje figurado, poesía, teatro, etc., para ayudar al estudiante a desarrollar sus conocimientos de comprensión, análisis, interpretación y estructura del lenguaje en los diferentes textos. Las actividades incluyen gramática; trabajos transversales; escritura y oportunidades para hablar y escuchar.

Education for all : the future of education and training for 14-19 year olds.

Aborda varias cuestiones a la luz de las pruebas recogidas durante cinco años por el Informe Nuffield sobre la educación y formación entre los 14 y los 19 años, al plantear dos preguntas clave que están en el centro del debate actual sobre educación y formación de los jóvenes, con independencia de su origen, capacidades u objetivos: ¿Qué se considera una persona educada de 19 años, hoy en día? ¿Son los modelos de educación que hemos heredado del pasado suficientes para satisfacer las necesidades de todos los jóvenes, así como las necesidades sociales y económicas de la comunidad en general? Escrito por los co-directores del Informe Nuffield, sus autores abogan por una radical remodelación y una visión más amplia de la educación con vistas al futuro.

Stalin: The Five-Year Plans&Collectivisation.

Este libro desarrolla conocimientos básicos de historia para aprobar los exámenes de AS/A de enseñanza secundaria. Los temas del libro son: ¿Cuáles son los puntos de vista sobre Stalin? ¿Porqué Stalin industrializó la Unión Soviética?, Stalin como líder, ¿Porqué la colectivización?, la domesticación de los campesinos, las granjas colectivas, ¿Cuáles fueron las consecuencias de la colectivización?¿Como de útil fue la colectivización?, ¿Cómo Stalin industrializó la Unión Soviética?, La Unión Soviética de Stalin: ¿una nación transformada? ¿Una nueva sociedad comunista o un experimento fallido?.

Conflict and coexistence : research with 15-16 year old secondary school pupils in a Seville suburb

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

What kind of competence teachers need in the year 2020?

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

Effects of manure and fertilizer on grain yield, soil carbon and phosphorus in a 13-year field trial in semi-arid Kenya

Long-term indicators of soil fertility were assessed by measuring grain yield, soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil Olsen phosphorous for a P-deficient soil. In one set of treatments, goat manure was applied annually for 13 years at 0, 5 and 10 t ha(-1), and intercrops of sorghum/cowpea, millet/green gram and maize/pigeonpea were grown. Yield depended on rainfall and trends with time were not identifiable. Manure caused an upward trend in SOC, but 10 t ha(-1) manure did not give significantly more SOC than 5 t ha(-1). Only 10 t ha(-1) manure increased Olsen P. Measurements of both SOC and Olsen P are recommended. In another set of treatments, manure was applied for four years; the residual effect lasted another seven to eight years when assessed by yield, SOC and Olsen P Treatment with mineral fertilizers provided the same rates of N and P as 5 t hat manure and yields from manure and fertilizer were similar. Fertilizer increased Olsen P but not SOC. Management systems with occasional manure application and intermediate fertilizer applications should be assessed. Inputs and offtakes of C, N and P were measured for three years. Approximately 16, 25 and 11% of C, N and P respectively were stabilized into soil organic matter from 5 t ha(-1) a(-1) manure. The majority of organic P was fixed as soil inorganic P.

Stratospheric temperature and radiative forcing response to 11-year solar cycle changes in irradiance and ozone

The 11-yr solar cycle temperature response to spectrally resolved solar irradiance changes and associated ozone changes is calculated using a fixed dynamical heating (FDH) model. Imposed ozone changes are from satellite observations, in contrast to some earlier studies. A maximum of 1.6 K is found in the equatorial upper stratosphere and a secondary maximum of 0.4 K in the equatorial lower stratosphere, forming a double peak in the vertical. The upper maximum is primarily due to the irradiance changes while the lower maximum is due to the imposed ozone changes. The results compare well with analyses using the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) and NCEP/NCAR datasets. The equatorial lower stratospheric structure is reproduced even though, by definition, the FDH calculations exclude dynamically driven temperature changes, suggesting an important role for an indirect dynamical effect through ozone redistribution. The results also suggest that differences between the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU)/Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and ERA-40 estimates of the solar cycle signal can be explained by the poor vertical resolution of the SSU/MSU measurements. The adjusted radiative forcing of climate change is also investigated. The forcing due to irradiance changes was 0.14 W m−2, which is only 78% of the value obtained by employing the standard method of simple scaling of the total solar irradiance (TSI) change. The difference arises because much of the change in TSI is at wavelengths where ozone absorbs strongly. The forcing due to the ozone change was only 0.004 W m−2 owing to strong compensation between negative shortwave and positive longwave forcings.

Unusually high differential attenuation at C band: Results from a two-year analysis of the French Trappes polarimetric radar data

The differential phase (ΦDP) measured by polarimetric radars is recognized to be a very good indicator of the path integrated by rain. Moreover, if a linear relationship is assumed between the specific differential phase (KDP) and the specific attenuation (AH) and specific differential attenuation (ADP), then attenuation can easily be corrected. The coefficients of proportionality, γH and γDP, are, however, known to be dependent in rain upon drop temperature, drop shapes, drop size distribution, and the presence of large drops causing Mie scattering. In this paper, the authors extensively apply a physically based method, often referred to as the “Smyth and Illingworth constraint,” which uses the constraint that the value of the differential reflectivity ZDR on the far side of the storm should be low to retrieve the γDP coefficient. More than 30 convective episodes observed by the French operational C-band polarimetric Trappes radar during two summers (2005 and 2006) are used to document the variability of γDP with respect to the intrinsic three-dimensional characteristics of the attenuating cells. The Smyth and Illingworth constraint could be applied to only 20% of all attenuated rays of the 2-yr dataset so it cannot be considered the unique solution for attenuation correction in an operational setting but is useful for characterizing the properties of the strongly attenuating cells. The range of variation of γDP is shown to be extremely large, with minimal, maximal, and mean values being, respectively, equal to 0.01, 0.11, and 0.025 dB °−1. Coefficient γDP appears to be almost linearly correlated with the horizontal reflectivity (ZH), differential reflectivity (ZDR), and specific differential phase (KDP) and correlation coefficient (ρHV) of the attenuating cells. The temperature effect is negligible with respect to that of the microphysical properties of the attenuating cells. Unusually large values of γDP, above 0.06 dB °−1, often referred to as “hot spots,” are reported for 15%—a nonnegligible figure—of the rays presenting a significant total differential phase shift (ΔϕDP > 30°). The corresponding strongly attenuating cells are shown to have extremely high ZDR (above 4 dB) and ZH (above 55 dBZ), very low ρHV (below 0.94), and high KDP (above 4° km−1). Analysis of 4 yr of observed raindrop spectra does not reproduce such low values of ρHV, suggesting that (wet) ice is likely to be present in the precipitation medium and responsible for the attenuation and high phase shifts. Furthermore, if melting ice is responsible for the high phase shifts, this suggests that KDP may not be uniquely related to rainfall rate but can result from the presence of wet ice. This hypothesis is supported by the analysis of the vertical profiles of horizontal reflectivity and the values of conventional probability of hail indexes.

European plant phenology and climate as seen in a 20-year AVHRR land-surface parameter dataset

Vegetation distribution and state have been measured since 1981 by the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) instrument through satellite remote sensing. In this study a correction method is applied to the Pathfinder NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) data to create a continuous European vegetation phenology dataset of a 10-day temporal and 0.1° spatial resolution; additionally, land surface parameters for use in biosphere–atmosphere modelling are derived. The analysis of time-series from this dataset reveals, for the years 1982–2001, strong seasonal and interannual variability in European land surface vegetation state. Phenological metrics indicate a late and short growing season for the years 1985–1987, in addition to early and prolonged activity in the years 1989, 1990, 1994 and 1995. These variations are in close agreement with findings from phenological measurements at the surface; spring phenology is also shown to correlate particularly well with anomalies in winter temperature and winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. Nevertheless, phenological metrics, which display considerable regional differences, could only be determined for vegetation with a seasonal behaviour. Trends in the phenological phases reveal a general shift to earlier (−0.54 days year−1) and prolonged (0.96 days year−1) growing periods which are statistically significant, especially for central Europe.

A twenty-year independent record of sea surface temperature for climate from Along-track Scanning Radiometers

A new record of sea surface temperature (SST) for climate applications is described. This record provides independent corroboration of global variations estimated from SST measurements made in situ. Infrared imagery from Along-Track Scanning Radiometers (ATSRs) is used to create a 20 year time series of SST at 0.1° latitude-longitude resolution, in the ATSR Reprocessing for Climate (ARC) project. A very high degree of independence of in situ measurements is achieved via physics-based techniques. Skin SST and SST estimated for 20 cm depth are provided, with grid cell uncertainty estimates. Comparison with in situ data sets establishes that ARC SSTs generally have bias of order 0.1 K or smaller. The precision of the ARC SSTs is 0.14 K during 2003 to 2009, from three-way error analysis. Over the period 1994 to 2010, ARC SSTs are stable, with better than 95% confidence, to within 0.005 K yr−1(demonstrated for tropical regions). The data set appears useful for cleanly quantifying interannual variability in SST and major SST anomalies. The ARC SST global anomaly time series is compared to the in situ-based Hadley Centre SST data set version 3 (HadSST3). Within known uncertainties in bias adjustments applied to in situ measurements, the independent ARC record and HadSST3 present the same variations in global marine temperature since 1996. Since the in situ observing system evolved significantly in its mix of measurement platforms and techniques over this period, ARC SSTs provide an important corroboration that HadSST3 accurately represents recent variability and change in this essential climate variable.

The 22-Year Hale Cycle in cosmic ray flux: evidence for direct heliospheric modulation

The ability to predict times of greater galactic cosmic ray (GCR) fluxes is important for reducing the hazards caused by these particles to satellite communications, aviation, or astronauts. The 11-year solar-cycle variation in cosmic rays is highly correlated with the strength of the heliospheric magnetic field. Differences in GCR flux during alternate solar cycles yield a 22-year cycle, known as the Hale Cycle, which is thought to be due to different particle drift patterns when the northern solar pole has predominantly positive (denoted as qA>0 cycle) or negative (qA<0) polarities. This results in the onset of the peak cosmic-ray flux at Earth occurring earlier during qA>0 cycles than for qA<0 cycles, which in turn causes the peak to be more dome-shaped for qA>0 and more sharply peaked for qA<0. In this study, we demonstrate that properties of the large-scale heliospheric magnetic field are different during the declining phase of the qA<0 and qA>0 solar cycles, when the difference in GCR flux is most apparent. This suggests that particle drifts may not be the sole mechanism responsible for the Hale Cycle in GCR flux at Earth. However, we also demonstrate that these polarity-dependent heliospheric differences are evident during the space-age but are much less clear in earlier data: using geomagnetic reconstructions, we show that for the period of 1905 - 1965, alternate polarities do not give as significant a difference during the declining phase of the solar cycle. Thus we suggest that the 22-year cycle in cosmic-ray flux is at least partly the result of direct modulation by the heliospheric magnetic field and that this effect may be primarily limited to the grand solar maximum of the space-age.

Pollen-based reconstructions of Japanese biomes at 0, 6000 and 18,000 14C yr bp

A biomization method, which objectively assigns individual pollen assemblages to biomes ( Prentice et al., 1996 ), was tested using modern pollen data from Japan and applied to fossil pollen data to reconstruct palaeovegetation patterns 6000 and 18,000 14C yr bp Biomization started with the assignment of 135 pollen taxa to plant functional types (PFTs), and nine possible biomes were defined by specific combinations of PFTs. Biomes were correctly assigned to 54% of the 94 modern sites. Incorrect assignments occur near the altitudinal limits of individual biomes, where pollen transport from lower altitudes blurs the local pollen signals or continuous changes in species composition characterizes the range limits of biomes. As a result, the reconstructed changes in the altitudinal limits of biomes at 6000 and 18,000 14C yr bp are likely to be conservative estimates of the actual changes. The biome distribution at 6000 14C yr bp was rather similar to today, suggesting that changes in the bioclimate of Japan have been small since the mid-Holocene. At 18,000 14C yr bp the Japanese lowlands were covered by taiga and cool mixed forests. The southward expansion of these forests and the absence of broadleaved evergreen/warm mixed forests reflect a pronounced year-round cooling.

The 30-year TAMSAT African rainfall climatology and time-series (TARCAT) dataset

African societies are dependent on rainfall for agricultural and other water-dependent activities, yet rainfall is extremely variable in both space and time and reoccurring water shocks, such as drought, can have considerable social and economic impacts. To help improve our knowledge of the rainfall climate, we have constructed a 30-year (1983–2012), temporally consistent rainfall dataset for Africa known as TARCAT (TAMSAT African Rainfall Climatology And Time-series) using archived Meteosat thermal infra-red (TIR) imagery, calibrated against rain gauge records collated from numerous African agencies. TARCAT has been produced at 10-day (dekad) scale at a spatial resolution of 0.0375°. An intercomparison of TARCAT from 1983 to 2010 with six long-term precipitation datasets indicates that TARCAT replicates the spatial and seasonal rainfall patterns and interannual variability well, with correlation coefficients of 0.85 and 0.70 with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) and Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) gridded-gauge analyses respectively in the interannual variability of the Africa-wide mean monthly rainfall. The design of the algorithm for drought monitoring leads to TARCAT underestimating the Africa-wide mean annual rainfall on average by −0.37 mm day−1 (21%) compared to other datasets. As the TARCAT rainfall estimates are historically calibrated across large climatically homogeneous regions, the data can provide users with robust estimates of climate related risk, even in regions where gauge records are inconsistent in time.