La recogida de romances tradicionales por los alumnos : metodología y cuestionario.

Se pretende orientar y estimular a los profesores a llevar a cabo una actividad de recogida de romances tradicionales con los alumnos de lengua y literatura española de Bachillerato. Se expone la metodología seguida y las herramientas utilizadas durante esta actividad de recogida.

Contar, pintar y cantar en torno a los romances.

Se presenta la experiencia de un profesor de lengua y literatura en un instituto de bachillerato que pretende enseñar a sus alumnos qué son los romanes, a través de la puesta en marcha de actividades lúdicas que acerquen a los chicos a la poesía. En concreto, se pretende demostrar que los romances son un modo de comunicación popular, utilizado a lo largo de la historia y, para ello, se plantea realizar la clase fuera de toda rutina llevando a cabo un sistema innovador.

Romances y canciones populares cordobesas y jienenses.

Se ofrecen un conjunto de canciones, villancicos y romances procedentes de La Rambla (Córdoba) y Porcuna (Jaén), que han sido transmitidos a través de una tradición local y familiar. La muestra la constituyen once composiciones: ocho pertenecen al ciclo festivo de la Navidad, dos se cantaban el jueves lardero en Porcuna y, por último, una versión del más célebre romance de la cristiana cautiva. Los comentarios que se ofrecen se completan con notas al pie de los poemas.

La colección madrileña de romances de ciego que perteneció a Don Luis Usoz y Río.

Se recoge en este trabajo la colección madrileña de romances de ciego, que perteneció a Don Luis Usoz y Río y que en 1837 donó su viuda a la Biblioteca Nacional. La colección está formada por cuatro tomos que agrupan unos 600 pliegos. Aquí se presenta el primer volumen que permite tener una idea de la afición que hubo en España durante más de cinco siglos del XV al XX por los pliegos de cordel, sencillas canciones narrativas. La serie más extensa que incluye es la impresa en el taller madrileño de José María Marés entre 1845 y 1850 aunque el tramo más completo es el comprendido entre 1846 y 1848. En una primera parte se incluyen preliminares sobre el papel de los pliegos, en el contexto literario donde aparecen, y después se recogen las láminas con la colección. Por último, se incluyen un apéndice de documentación, uno musical y otro sobre libros e impresos de romances que poseyó Don Luis Usoz y Río..

Hacia una nueva flor de romances nuevos : experiencia didáctica con el Romancero tradicional.

Se presenta una experiencia didáctica que tiene como objetivos conocer qué es el Romancero tradicional: cuál es su métrica, su origen, su historia, clasificación, etc.; la pervivencia de los romances entre las familias de los alumnos y fomentar la creatividad de los alumnos. La experiencia consistía en la creación de romances basados en noticias de actualidad aparecidas en la prensa local y nacional.

Targeted observations of a polar low in the Norwegian sea

A developing polar low is targeted with dropsonde observations to improve the forecast of its landfall. Accurately forecasting a polar low's strength and location remains a challenge; polar lows form over the ocean in poorly observed regions, therefore initial condition errors may contribute significantly to forecast error. The targeted polar low formed in the Norwegian Sea on 3 March 2008, during the Norwegian IPY-THORPEX field campaign. Two flights, six hours apart, released dense networks of dropsondes into a sensitive region covering the polar low and Arctic front to its west. The impact of the targeted observations is assessed using the limited-area Met Office Unified Model and three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) data assimilation scheme. Forecasts were verified using ECMWF analysis data, which show good agreement with both dropsonde data from a flight through the mature polar low, and 10 m QuikSCAT winds. The impact of the targeted data moved southwards with the polar low as it developed and then hit the Norwegian coast after 24 hours. The results show that the forecast of the polar low is sensitive to the initial conditions; targeted observations from the first flight did not improve the forecast, but those from the second flight clearly improved the forecast polar low position and intensity. However, caution should be applied to attributing the forecast improvement to the assimilation of the targeted observations from a single case-study, especially in this case as the forecast improvement is moderate relative to the spread from an operational ensemble forecast

The 'child of Babylon' and the problem of paternity in Medieval French Alexander romances

A study of the use of hybrid physical appearance both to signal and to explore the disputed paternity of Alexander the Great throughout its vernacular French tradition. The article compares the 'child of Babylon' portent and Alexander's son Alior in the twelfth-century French "Roman d'Alexandre" poem cycle, and a fifteenth-century prose adaptation of it.

Changes in significant and maximum wave heights in the Norwegian Sea

This paper analyses 10 years of in-situ measurements of significant wave height (Hs) and maximum wave height (Hmax) from the ocean weather ship Polarfront in the Norwegian Sea. The 30-minute Ship-Borne Wave Recorder measurements of Hmax and Hs are shown to be consistent with theoretical wave distributions. The linear regression between Hmax and Hs has a slope of 1.53. Neither Hs nor Hmax show a significant trend in the period 2000–2009. These data are combined with earlier observations. The long-term trend over the period 1980–2009 in annual Hs is 2.72 ± 0.88 cm/year. Mean Hs and Hmax are both correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index during winter. The correlation with the NAO index is highest for the more frequently encountered (75th percentile) wave heights. The wave field variability associated with the NAO index is reconstructed using a 500-year NAO index record. Hs and Hmax are found to vary by up to 1.42 m and 3.10 m respectively over the 500-year period. Trends in all 30-year segments of the reconstructed wave field are lower than the trend in the observations during 1980–2009. The NAO index does not change significantly in 21st century projections from CMIP5 climate models under scenario RCP85, and thus no NAO-related changes are expected in the mean and extreme wave fields of the Norwegian Sea.

Wave height analysis from 10 years of observations in the Norwegian Sea

Large waves pose risks to ships, offshore structures, coastal infrastructure and ecosystems. This paper analyses 10 years of in-situ measurements of significant wave height (Hs) and maximum wave height (Hmax) from the ocean weather ship Polarfront in the Norwegian Sea. During the period 2000 to 2009, surface elevation was recorded every 0.59 s during sampling periods of 30 min. The Hmax observations scale linearly with Hs on average. A widely-used empirical Weibull distribution is found to estimate average values of Hmax/Hs and Hmax better than a Rayleigh distribution, but tends to underestimate both for all but the smallest waves. In this paper we propose a modified Rayleigh distribution which compensates for the heterogeneity of the observed dataset: the distribution is fitted to the whole dataset and improves the estimate of the largest waves. Over the 10-year period, the Weibull distribution approximates the observed Hs and Hmax well, and an exponential function can be used to predict the probability distribution function of the ratio Hmax/Hs. However, the Weibull distribution tends to underestimate the occurrence of extremely large values of Hs and Hmax. The persistence of Hs and Hmax in winter is also examined. Wave fields with Hs>12 m and Hmax>16 m do not last longer than 3 h. Low-to-moderate wave heights that persist for more than 12 h dominate the relationship of the wave field with the winter NAO index over 2000–2009. In contrast, the inter-annual variability of wave fields with Hs>5.5 m or Hmax>8.5 m and wave fields persisting over ~2.5 days is not associated with the winter NAO index.

LOFZY 2005 - Field experiment on Cyclones over the Norwegian Sea: meteorological measurements of the research aircraft Falcon, 23 autonomous water buoys and radiosoundings at the research vessel Celtic Explorer

The field campaign LOFZY 2005 (LOFoten ZYklonen, engl.: Cyclones) was carried out in the frame of Collaborative Research Centre 512, which deals with low-pressure systems (cyclones) and the climate system of the North Atlantic. Cyclones are of special interest due to their influence on the interaction between atmosphere and ocean. Cyclone activity in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean is notably high and is of particular importance for the entire Atlantic Ocean. An area of maximum precipitation exists in front of the Norwegian Lofoten islands. One aim of the LOFZY field campaign was to clarify the role cyclones play in the interaction of ocean and atmosphere. In order to obtain a comprehensive dataset of cyclone activity and ocean-atmosphere interaction a field experiment was carried out in the Lofoten region during March and April 2005. Employed platforms were the Irish research vessel RV Celtic Explorer which conducted a meteorological (radiosondes, standard parameters, observations) and an oceanographic (CTD) program. The German research aircraft Falcon accomplished eight flight missions (between 4-21 March) to observe synoptic conditions with high spatial and temporal resolution. In addition 23 autonomous marine buoys were deployed in advance of the campaign in the observed area to measure drift, air-temperature and -pressure and water-temperature. In addition to the published datasets several other measurements were performed during the experiment. Corresonding datasets will be published in the near future and are available on request. Details about all used platforms and sensors and all performed measurements are listed in the fieldreport. The following datasets are available on request: ground data at RV Celtic Explorer

The circulation of romances from England in late-medieval Ireland

The fifteenth century saw a striking upturn in the number of texts from foreign vernaculars that were translated into Irish. Indeed, one might go so far as to speak in terms of a ‘translation trend’ in Ireland during the mid to late fifteenth century. A notable feature of this trend is that a particularly high number of these Irish translations are of romances; contextual and textual evidence suggests that the original exemplars for many of these translated texts appear to have come from England, though not all of them were necessarily in English. Irish translations of eight romances have survived to the present day: Guy of Warwick; Bevis of Hampton; La Queste de Saint Graal; Fierabras; Caxton’s Recuyell of the Histories of Troie; William of Palerne; the Seven Sages of Rome; and Octavian. This paper addresses two aspects of these texts of particular relevance to romance scholars who do not work within the sphere of Celtic studies. Firstly, it argues that certain aspects of the dissemination and reception of romance in Ireland are quite distinctive. Manuscript and textual evidence suggests that the religious orders, particularly the Franciscans, seem to have played a role in the importation and translation of these narratives. Secondly, examination of the Irish versions of romance tends to bear out an observation made by Flower many years ago, but not pursued by subsequent scholars: ‘texts of an unusual kind were current in Ireland, and it may be that interesting discoveries are to be made here’. Certain narrative features of several of these Irish translations diverge from all the surviving versions of the relevant romance in other languages and may witness to a variant exemplar that has since been lost from its own linguistic corpus.

Differences in doing business in Brazil and norway: evidence from norwegian expatriates

With more and more business being done between Brazil and Norway we are seeing an increasing number of expatriates from Norway moving to Brazil!to work. Most!are!related!to!the!oil!and!gas!industries.!With!the!two!cultures,! countries!and!backgrounds!being!so!different!what!are!some!of!the!issues!and! challenges!that!arise? Using!existing!literature!as!well!as!faceRtoRface!interviews!of!Norwegian! expatriates!working!in!Rio!de!Janeiro!this!thesis!tries!to!compare!the!two! countries!and!at!the!same!time!explore!some!of!these!potential!issues.!The! research!focuses!on!differences!in!trust,!negotiation!style,!planning,!organization,! conflict!as!well!as!general!cultural!challenges. Analysis!of!the!responses!shows!that!for!some!issues!there!are!no!clear!problems! or!challenges!but!for!others!there!are.!Specifically!the!treatment!of!time!and!the! general!timeliness!in!Brazilian!society!seems!to!be!a!challenge!for!Norwegian! expatriates.!Secondly!and!equally!as!challenging!is!the!hierarchical!way!of! organizing!businesses!in!Brazil!compared!to!the!flatter!structure!found!in! Norwegian!businesses.!With!the!hierarchy!comes!also!bureaucracy,!another! factor!that!the!subjects!in!this!thesis!found!to!be!difficult!to!deal!with. The!thesis!is!divided!into!6!chapters!starting!with!“introduction”,!followed!by! chapter!2!“Literature!review”.!Chapter!3!is!“Research!Methodology”!followed!by! chapter!4!“Data!presentation”.!Finally!the!results!are!discussed!in!chapter!5! “Analysis!and!discussion” and!concluded!in!chapter!6.