Translating the Medieval Icelandic Romance-Sagas

This short note surveys recent work done on translating romances composed in medieval Iceland into English, focusing on translations produced at the University of Leeds. It describes the ongoing project of the author and his collaborators to produce further translations for free-access publication

How did the world come into being?

A fleeting and light-hearted Festschrift contribution on Leeds students' work collecting oral accounts of how the world came into being

Elleborus in Anglo-Saxon England, 900–1100: Tunsingwyrt and Wodewistle

This article examines the meanings of the Latin word elleborus in later Anglo-Saxon England. They prove to have varied, from Ælfric’s implicit assertion around 1000 that elleborus had no vernacular Old English counterpart, to the association by the translator of the Old English Herbarium, perhaps around 900, of elleborus albus with tunsingwyrt, which seems to have denoted an allium such as wild garlic, to the use of the gloss wodewistle, denoting hemlock or some similar plant, by the Antwerp-London glossator in the earlier eleventh century. The study offers minor insights on a range of subjects: Ælfric’s use of Latin words in his Old English texts; the prospect that the Old English Herbarium marks an influential watershed in Anglo-Saxon scholarship on Latin plant-names; that with careful use of glossaries derived from the Herbarium we can discern a lost early version of this text which is subtly different from our surviving manuscripts, and closer to its Latin original. However, the main focus of this article has been the problematic word tunsingwyrt. The most likely interpretation suggested by the evidence is that tunsingwyrt denoted an allium — and if so, probably wild garlic

Jón the Fleming: Low German in Thirteenth-Century Norway and Fourteenth-Century Iceland

Low German influence is one of the most prominent characteristics of Old Norse in the later medieval period, but the processes whereby this took place are little evidenced. However, Laurentius saga, Einarr Hafliðason’s fourteenth-century Icelandic biography of Bishop Laurentius Kálfsson, provides anecdotal evidence for this that has been overlooked by researchers. The anecdotes concern the linguistic (mis)adventures of a Low German-speaker in thirteenth-century Norway—the otherwise unknown Jón flæmingi (Johannes the Fleming)—and, perhaps uniquely in medieval Scandinavian texts, they also provide a representation of L2 Norse. Problematic and brief though this source is, it affords us valuable perspectives both on fourteenth-century Icelandic metalinguistic discourses and on the processes whereby Low German influence took place in thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Norse. Contrary to some recent assumptions, Laurentius saga suggests that Low German and Old Norse were not seen as mutually intelligible; it provides some support for the idea that Low German influence was responsible not only for loan words into Old Norse, but also for morphological levelling; and emphasises that in seeking vectors of Low German influence on Old Norse we should look not only to Hanseatic traders, but also to the Church

Madness, Medication--and Self-Induced Hallucination? Elleborus (and Woody Nightshade) in Anglo-Saxon England, 700-900

This article studies what Anglo-Saxons in around 700--900 understood by the Latin plant-name elleborus, looking particularly at Aldhelm's Latin riddle Elleborus, which suggests that the word was understood to denote woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara). It examines the semantics of Old English words that gloss elleborus in earlier Anglo-Saxon sources: wedeberge, ceasteræsc, ceasterwyrte, and ælfþone. The article finds evidence for the presence of a copy of Dioscorides’ De materia medica in seventh-century Canterbury. It also argues for a culturally significant connection between ingesting woody nightshade, the production of an altered state of mind attested in Latin as dementia cordis and in Old English as wedenheortnes, and elves. Ælfþone might originally have meant something along the lines of ‘vine which causes the symptoms which elves cause’. It seems likely that there was a custom of ingesting it deliberately to achieve mind-altering effects

SMS for Part 135 Commuter and On-Demand Operations - The Practitioner’s Perspective

On May 15th, 2017, N452DA, a Learjet 35A operated by Trans-Pacific Air Charter, LLC, departed from Philadelphia to Teterboro, New Jersey (TEB) on a positioning flight under 14 Code of Federal Regulations § 91 (Part 91) in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC). While circling to land Runway 01 at TEB after executing the Instrument Landing System (ILS) Runway 06 approach, N452DA stalled and crashed one-half mile south of the approach end of runway 01. The flight records indicated that the crew committed numerous errors before the accident, including deviations from air traffic control (ATC) clearances, company standard operating procedures (SOP), and stabilized approach criteria without initiating a go-around, all of which contributed directly to the fatal outcome. While the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation issued several recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and one recommendation for a change to the company’s SOP, this study used a group of practitioners’ perspectives, a Fishbone Ishikawa Analysis, and Fault Tree Analysis to reveal upstream contributing factors and made SMS implementation recommendations for an improved safety culture, which would likely have prevented the accident

The OT\u27s Role in an Interprofessional Research Team

Why Interprofessional Research? The research field receives contributions from multiple disciplines and is inclusive by nature. •Feels natural in our day to day work practices to collaborate with other professions. •A plan to build research capacity includes establishing a research culture, environment, and infrastructure as well as partnership with other disciplines (Frontera et al., 2006)

History’s Slowest Digital Transformation: The Long Road to Flight Data Monitoring

Flight data monitoring (FDM) began in the flight test community in 1939 and entered the airline industry in 1974. In the 48 years since, however, very few operators have chosen to adopt this practice, which has shown clear safety benefits where it has found acceptance. While technical issues have created some obstacles, cultural issues have proven the greatest hindrance to wider FDM adoption. These cultural issues originated in the traits associated with pilots’ personalities, especially distrust of the regulators and operators who would administer flight data analysis programs (FDAP) that used FDM information. U.S. regulators have relied on voluntary adoption, rather than regulatory mandates, to increase FDM participation, emphasizing the collective benefits of FDAP outputs in increasing the safety of flight for operators using that information. Leadership by both experienced and new employees, as well as regulators and other industry stakeholders, will best serve to increase FDM participation until it becomes ubiquitous

\u27I’m a Pilot First, Female Second\u27: Why Flight Deck Gender Imbalance Persists and the Case for Allyship

Why is there greater gender parity for long-haul truck drivers, astronauts, and paleontologists than for women airline captains? This study uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the underlying causes of the gender imbalance in the United States aviation industry, in which only 3.6% of airline captains are women. Two polls and one survey gather data from professional pilots (N=1093) on their experience with stereotyping, gender bias, and allyship. Direct comments were analyzed to shed light on the results of the survey. Results suggest that, contrary to prevailing perceptions, the persistent gender imbalance in the flight deck can largely be attributed to an ingrained and self-perpetuating negative culture cycle unique to the flight deck and a lack of allyship which affects the recruitment and retention of women pilots. Findings from self-identified male pilots (N=575) revealed that the majority of potential allies are not participating in resolving the gender imbalance because they do not see it as their responsibility. The authors develop a model depicting this cycle and propose a novel system-level (s-frame) solution to fundamentally change the culture