Current switch has built-in time delay: A concept

Switch concept provides simple means of achieving electromechanical time delay function. Unit consists of reed-type circuit breaker enclosed by copper tubing with electromagnetic coil wound around tubing and entire assembly mounted on insulating platform. Characteristics are affected only by geometry of system so device is expected to be very stable

Jómsvíkinga Sǫgur and Jómsvíkinga Drápur: texts, contexts and intertexts

Using theories of intertextuality the paper explores the implications of the complex transmission of Jómsvíkinga saga, with its multiple manuscripts, versions and cross-references in other texts. It then concentrates on the story-complex about the Jómsvíkings and the battle of Hjǫrungavágr, rather than the first part of the saga with its focus on Danish kings. The paper explores how this story-complex was realized in skaldic poetry, ostensibly a major source for the prose accounts. Following a survey of all the relevant poetry, the four drápur which treat the Jómsvíkings are analysed in detail. Two of these are roughly contemporary with the events, while two are retrospective, narrative accounts, and there is some evidence of influence from the earlier poems to the later ones. Overall, the analysis shows how the story of the battle of Hjǫrungavágr was narrated in both verse and prose, and reveals the complex intertextual relationships between these narratives

Scaling Relationships Between Cranial Morphological Features and Cranial Capacity in Modern Humans

Certain cranial morphologies referred to here as “cranial predictor features” are known to allometrically scale with body mass at statistically significant levels. Brain size likewise is known to scale with body mass, with brain-to-body-mass ratio being expressed numerically via the encephalization quotient. The study at hand aims to demonstrate whether brain size via its skeletal proxy of cranial capacity also scales with cranial predictor features. Correlation analysis was employed on two samples of contemporary male and female modern humans, respectively, in order to determine the statistical significance and degree of association between cranial predictor features and cranial capacity, as well between cranial predictor features and those cranial vault dimensions used to biometrically estimate cranial capacity. Supplementary statistical testing with respect to the significances of sexually dimorphic differences between cranial predictor features was also conducted. The results indicate a general lack of significant scaling relationships with respect to estimated cranial capacity as well as cranial vault dimensions for the majority of cranial predictor features. Those cranial predictor features that exhibited a significant scaling relationship with cranial capacity did so at weak to moderate levels only. The association between cranial capacity and the cranial vault dimensions from which it is estimated is inferred to have contributed to the nature of scaling relationships between cranial predictor features and cranial capacity, with additional non-allometric evolutionary selective pressures also having played a role. The suitability of certain cranial predictor features to accurately estimate brain size – and by inference, intelligence – therefore cannot be established with strong confidence

Earl Rögnvaldr of Orkney, a poet of the Viking diaspora

Kali Kolsson, later Rögnvaldr, Earl of Orkney, is a truly international figure who was born in Norway, travelled to England, came to power in Northern Scotland, and then made a memorable journey through Europe and the Mediterranean to the Holy Land. His poetry, composed in all of these places, survives only in Icelandic tradition and Icelandic manuscripts. This paper argues that the career and poetry of Rögnvaldr exemplifies the variation typical within a dispersed but interconnected culture, which might be termed the “Viking diaspora”. Rögnvaldr was by training a Norwegian poet, but by practice and influence an Icelandic and Orcadian—indeed a European—poet. Each of these places had its own version of the culture, some of which shared a common derivation from the Scandinavian homeland, but much of which was rather the product of the dispersion from that homeland. By examining his poetry, and his interest in runic writing, it is possible to exemplify the diasporic process in which inherited cultural traditions from the homeland are reinvigorated and even reinvented in the context of multilateral cultural encounters

Runes and words: runic lexicography in context

The paper begins by noting the lack of a comprehensive dictionary of Scandi­navian runic inscriptions, as well as the absence of the runic evidence from most dictionaries of the early Scandinavian languages, and considers possible reasons for this. Runic inscriptions may need a different kind of dictionary, because they require a different kind of reading that takes extra-linguistic as well as linguistic contexts into account (a process that has been called “inter­disciplinary semantics”). Using the examples of the words bóndi and þegn in Viking Age inscriptions, the paper shows how the variety of available contexts enables a richer definition of these and other words, which might facilitate a different type of dictionary, based on discursive definitions

Runes and words: runic lexicography in context

The paper begins by noting the lack of a comprehensive dictionary of Scandi­navian runic inscriptions, as well as the absence of the runic evidence from most dictionaries of the early Scandinavian languages, and considers possible reasons for this. Runic inscriptions may need a different kind of dictionary, because they require a different kind of reading that takes extra-linguistic as well as linguistic contexts into account (a process that has been called “inter­disciplinary semantics”). Using the examples of the words bóndi and þegn in Viking Age inscriptions, the paper shows how the variety of available contexts enables a richer definition of these and other words, which might facilitate a different type of dictionary, based on discursive definitions

The threatening wave: Norse poetry and the Scottish Isles

The poetry discussed in this paper presents a range of responses to sailing around the northern parts of the British Isles, by poets more or less familiar with these routes but also with Norway, Iceland and sea-ways much further afield. These poets use traditional forms and imagery to express the pan-Norse identity of North Britain. At the same time they also give voice to what is distinctive about this region – its communities, its rulers, its language, its landscapes and seascapes, and, most particularly, the special challenges of sailing in these waters. The Norse poetry considered here expresses the specific maritime identities of Scandinavian Scotland, using the cultural frameworks of the broader Viking diaspora

Jómsvíkinga Sǫgur and Jómsvíkinga Drápur: texts, contexts and intertexts

Using theories of intertextuality the paper explores the implications of the complex transmission of Jómsvíkinga saga, with its multiple manuscripts, versions and cross-references in other texts. It then concentrates on the story-complex about the Jómsvíkings and the battle of Hjǫrungavágr, rather than the first part of the saga with its focus on Danish kings. The paper explores how this story-complex was realized in skaldic poetry, ostensibly a major source for the prose accounts. Following a survey of all the relevant poetry, the four drápur which treat the Jómsvíkings are analysed in detail. Two of these are roughly contemporary with the events, while two are retrospective, narrative accounts, and there is some evidence of influence from the earlier poems to the later ones. Overall, the analysis shows how the story of the battle of Hjǫrungavágr was narrated in both verse and prose, and reveals the complex intertextual relationships between these narratives

Earl Rögnvaldr of Orkney, a poet of the Viking diaspora

Kali Kolsson, later Rögnvaldr, Earl of Orkney, is a truly international figure who was born in Norway, travelled to England, came to power in Northern Scotland, and then made a memorable journey through Europe and the Mediterranean to the Holy Land. His poetry, composed in all of these places, survives only in Icelandic tradition and Icelandic manuscripts. This paper argues that the career and poetry of Rögnvaldr exemplifies the variation typical within a dispersed but interconnected culture, which might be termed the “Viking diaspora”. Rögnvaldr was by training a Norwegian poet, but by practice and influence an Icelandic and Orcadian—indeed a European—poet. Each of these places had its own version of the culture, some of which shared a common derivation from the Scandinavian homeland, but much of which was rather the product of the dispersion from that homeland. By examining his poetry, and his interest in runic writing, it is possible to exemplify the diasporic process in which inherited cultural traditions from the homeland are reinvigorated and even reinvented in the context of multilateral cultural encounters