Saturday, April 5, 2008

SIXTH POSTING

Assalamualaikum and good day everyone,


Well here come my sixth posting which is final posting that will be evaluated by my lecturer. As requested, I am going to answer the following questions pertaining to my experience using blog for about several months.


1-Do you think that blogging activity improves your writing skill?

Yes, exactly. Up to now, I have posted six blogs with different titles and issues. In order to complete even one whole posting, I have to do lots of researches in term of finding information as well as learn how to write good, coherent and no grammatical errors in the posting. The improvement of writing skill led to an improvement in my communicating skill as well.


2- Do you think that blog is a useful learning experience for you?

Yes, blogging is a useful learning experience for me. Honestly, this is my first ever experience of blogging. When the first lecture has given, which is about introduction to the course, and I have been informed that I have to post 6 postings in my own blog, I am a little bit worried as I do not have any experience of writing online or blogging. However as time goes on, with helps from my lecturers and friends, I found out that blogging is not as difficult as I’ve expected earlier, but it is not as simple as ABC too!

Many experiences I have obtained from this activity. First of all, I do think that I have improved my writing skill. Besides, blogging serves me the infrastructure and facility of Information and Communication Technology in depth. Not only that, it allows me to go forward with it existence. With this, I will not be left behind by any means, thus creating a sense of awareness in myself about technology.

Via blogging, too, I have experienced myself to learn language especially English language online. Before this, in order to gain knowledge about grammar, for example, I have to refer to many grammar books and that is not very effective and quite tiring too. However, when I have to post a posting which is about online learning and reading, I have found out that they are so many educational website especially about grammar and writing in English. For examples, in Dave’s ESL Café, students like me can access a lot of information. Just type the keywords of what you want to know, in a blink of eyes the requested information will appear on your monitor screen. Not just that, playing online games also will make students learn about language, writing, reading skill and so on.

Besides that, by blogging I am able to express my personality and opinions freely. What do I mean by expressing myself by blogging? It is simple. I love pink color so much, so that I have set up my layout with that color. My friends or anyone who view my blog will be able to know my favorite color indirectly, without I mentioned about that. This applied to other things as well. Amazingly, while presented my blog in front of class in the last two weeks, my lecturer did asked me whether pink is my favorite color, due to my blog’s layout color. She also jokes me that my wedding’s costume perhaps will be in pink too. This proves statement that I have stated above.

Apart from that, blogging can enhance my creativity skill too. This is because I have to think creatively how to decorate my blog so that my blog will be visually appealing and outstanding. As a result, I have inserted many elements in my blog such as pictures, audios, videos and so on.


3- What do you think that you need to know before you can complete the blogging activity successfully?

In my view, I need to have knowledge, faith friends, high spirit of inquiry, and high level of patient in order to complete the blogging activity successfully. This is because with knowledge, I am able to produce and publish good posting. With faith friends I am able to seek for help from them, anytime that I needed. Besides, high spirit of inquiry will provide me a positive behavior for example in searching for information about my blogs and with high patient, I will be able to face the problems and challenges occur along the blogging activities.


4- What are your problems that you face using blog?

As a normal person, I did face many problems along using, creating and publishing my blog. Firstly, in order to get connected to the internet. My college provides wireless connection only in the café area, not directly to my room. So when I want to log in to my blog, I have to bring my laptop to the café which is situated quite far from my room. This is quite challenging for me as I have to steal some time from my hectic daily timetable just to get online and edit my blog.

Besides that, other challenge occurs in order to insert audio and video elements in my blog. The steps are very complicated and it takes much time to do it.


5-Will you tell your friends, recommend to others about blogging?

Yes, insyaallah. I will announce about my blog to my friends (those who are not in the same course because my course mates already know about my blog), so that they can visit and comment my work. For those who have not have a blog yet, maybe they will be interested to create one too, after looking and viewing my blog.


6-Now that you are able to blog online will you continue using it even after the SKBP is over?

Insyaallah. I will try my best to maintain my blog and keep posting new materials. And yes, it is not to be evaluated anymore, but it is just for own satisfaction and usage. Recently, my cousin has advised me to keep or save files or my assignments in the blog to prevent it from lost. This is because it happened to my cousin where she has lost her data which has been saved in her laptop and before that; she forgot to make back-up files. This brings big disaster to her as she has to submit the assignments in the next two days. Her advice: posting assignments or any works in the blog can be a good way in playing safe. So I decided to follow her advice in future.

Besides that, i hope i can keep in touch with my beloved coursemates by using this blog especially after we have graduated from UKM. I can post about my latest stories and pictures as well, so that we are still engage and do not lost contact. insyaallah.




Last but not least, I want to convey my special and greatest thanks to my beloved lecturers, Prof. Madya Datin Dr. Norizan Bt. Abdul Razak and Pn. Zaini for the lectures, helps, kindness, information and knowledge about this course. Honestly, I cannot repay your kindness toward us, just ALLAH can repay it. Thank you again! =)

FIFTH POSTING

Assalamualaikum and very good day everyone,



Well, today in my tutorial session I have taken two tests which are Electronic Malaysian English Competency Test (EMECT) - Reading Test and UJI ICT test. For EMECT test, I have given an hour to finish reading four paragraphs of short articles and answer all the questions. In the second test which is UJI ICT test, I have to answer 3o questions which are all about ICT in about 30 minutes. So for this fifth posting, I am going to talk about my experiences and personal views about online test.


As for me, honestly, I found out that these tests are quite challenging. There are some reasons why I said so. First of all, it is challenging because I am not use to take an online test before. This is my first ever experience doing an online test. In the previous exams, I have to read and answer the questions on the paper. This is much easier and I am comfortable with it. However, in contrast, it is very distracting for me to read on a monitor screen as the lightning does disturb my focus on the test. In addition, reading on monitor screen for a long period of time can bring bad effects to our health as well, especially to our vision. In my previous posting about “effects of computer towards human health”, I did mention about this issue. So if you like to know more about it, you can read the posting.


Secondly, it is challenging in term of lack of time. I have to take some times to read, understand and answer the questions. An hour given is not enough for me to understand the passages well. In addition to the distraction mentioned earlier, reading process will take more times.


Besides that, another discomfort occurs during answering the second test which is UJI ICT test. The language that has been used in the test is Malay. I found difficulties in understanding some terminologies that are mentioned in Malay such as “cakera liut”, “alat peranti”, and so on. This is because I have learnt ICT subject in English language so that the terminologies are completely different with Malay’s one. However, Alhamdulillah, I got quite good marks in the test.


Though there are some contras in it, we cannot deny that it is much better taking an online test compared taking the test manually. In my view, an online test brings an advantage where we can get immediate feedback of our result. This is exciting; either the result is good or bad, as we do not have to wait for a long time to know our result. Besides, it also provides test results summary and details on the number of user attempts, total class attempts, quiz score and highest score ever. The results are kept in an online database, which is linked to the lecturers’ personal files. Easy and effective, isn’t it?


Besides that, an online test is very effective as we can do the test anywhere in the whole wide world, with less anxiety, as long as we are connected to the internet connection. This test is very effective especially for those who are part-time students and even lecturers, who are busy and scheduled exams, are not attractive and suitable for them anymore.


Apart from that, I would like to add more about the effectiveness of taking online test which is in term of timing. Time frame or precisely, the stopwatch, is provided on top of the screen where it can be a good “supervisor” for the test taker. It will shows the candidates how many time left to finish the test. It is very good and convenience as students (including myself) will not wasting their time by daydreaming or so on while doing the test, so that they are not running out of time to finish the test.


As a conclusion, doing an online test is a new and interesting experience for me. Even there are some difficulties occur while doing this test, however I still think that an online test is much better than offline test in term of effectiveness and the advantages they bring. Do free to drop your comments if there are any. Thank you.


Electronic Malaysian English Competency Test - Reading Test (Set 1)
Score: 23 out of 35 - 66%
Time Taken: 49m 47s

Top of Form
Online Quiz Results :: Kemahiran Asas ICT
Your Score : 27/30

Online Quiz Results Summary

Your #Attempts
: 1
Total Class #Attempts
: 566
Your Quiz Score
: 27/30
Your Highest Score Ever
: 27

Note: This may not be your final marks. Due to some of the subjective and semi-objective questions (short essay and fill in the blank).
Bottom of Form

Sunday, March 30, 2008

FOURTH POSTING

Assalamualaikum and happy day everyone....


Have you ever wanted to sort out the terminology of content analysis? Did you ever think how wonderful it would be if you could see all occurrences of one term in its various contexts? If so, then you are no doubt familiar with the task of sitting down, reading through the source text, finding the "complicated" words and writing them down so you can look them up. In this week, we have to do pair works and together we completed this task based on OTL Book and other references.


According to paper work written by Arshad Abd. Samad, UPM (OTL, 70), concordance program such as Wordsmith, Monoconc Pro and Microconcord is used to analyze the language data as well as to show how words and grammatical constructions are used. According to Schmitt (2002:34), the benefit of using this program is to help students to look at the systematicity of language.


In Malaysian context, the use and analysis of language CORPORA has been limited because it is unavailable. Therefore, there is an effort compiled by researchers from University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in this matter. Two more efforts are collected by University Malaya (UM) and the English of Malaysian school students or EMAS corpus by researchers from University Putra Malaysia (UPM).


EMAS CORPORA was collected in 2002 and consists of close half a million words (Arshad et al., 2002). It contains written data that consists of three essays written by 800 students from year 5, form 1 and form 4 students. The first essay was based on picture series of a fishing trip event, and the second essay was entitled ‘The Happiest Day of My Life’ while the third essay was selected by teachers from the students as usual schoolwork.


Investigating Development

In this investigation, its start from three age groups based on their language activity and vocabulary works. Below are the gists of the result that we can see which is in term of:

1. Language productivity:

Productivity is indicated by the number of sentences per essay and the words per sentence.
Productivity = numbers of sentences and words per essay and words per sentence
Results = older student use more complex’s sentences.

2. Range of vocabulary


The diversity of the vocabulary used in corpus is often determined by calculating the type to token ratio (Schmitt, 2002). It should also be noted that the EMAS corpus is learner corpus that retained the students’ spelling and grammatical error.
Sophistication of Vocabulary


The sophistication of the vocabulary can be determined by using specialized software such as RANGE (Nation, 20002). It indicates of the kind of vocabulary used and compared to several base lists of frequently used words.



In brief, the researchers used many corpuses like The Emas Corpora included in this research. And based on comparison methodology where students from various ages starting from age 11, 13 and 16 were chosen to be part in this experiment and make this research greatly successful.

Reference;


Beyond Concordance Lines from OTL Book, page 70 Arshad Abd. Samad (UPM)



Concordance is literally agreement, harmony, hence derivatively a citation of parallel passages, and specifically an alphabetic arrangement of the words contained in a book with citations of the passages in which they occur. - Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 ed.


It is also a bulky, often eight, ten, or more times the size of the original text. It's easy to see why: if a line in the original text contains (say) eight words, that line will appear in the concordance once for each of those words: eight times in all. The Web Concordance System goes to considerable lengths to minimize delays when delivering concordances across the network.


In its simplest form, a Keyword-in-Context (KWIC) Concordance is a listing of some or all of the words in a text or set of texts, surrounded by the text that they are embedded in.
Typically, the concordance lines would show more of the surrounding text, so the user could more clearly understand how the words are used.


The purpose of a concordance is to study how words are used in a language, and to allow us to acquire a deeper understanding of meaning and usage than can be obtained from a dictionary. As an example, consider the words tan and auburn. Both can be used to mean a color; both indicate a brownish hue. This much you can find in a dictionary. But in a dictionary, you would not find that auburn is used frequently to describe hair color but never to describe skin color. Nor would you find that tan is not used to describe hair. But a concordance which uses a large amount of text from the target language could show you many occurrences of these two words at a glance (and other meanings as well, of course, such as the use of tan as an abbreviation of a trigonometric tangent). In this way you could infer how native speakers use the words, and how these usages may be limited to specific situations.


Its simplest use is as an index, to locate quickly any passage in a text. All you need to know is one word from the passage: look up that word in a concordance to the text and you will find the passage. But a concordance does much more than this. What you find when you look up any word is a gathering-together of all the usages of that word. Straight away you can compare all the contexts in which the word is used. This often enables special insights into the particular meanings of a text and into its characteristic language. For literary, legal, or philosophical texts, where language and meaning are primary concerns, the concordance is one of the most powerful investigative tools available.


Apart from that, a concordance will also show quickly how often any word is used. Just as significantly, it can show you what words are not used. Such features offer special insights into the issues or themes which are important or recurrent in a text - and they may not be quite what you expect.


However, concordances are not only for literary use. Computer programmers also know them as cross-reference systems, which enable a team of people working on the same project to keep track of all the references to a particular entity (say, a variable name) across many files which make up the project. Organizations of all kinds can use concordances to provide rapid reference to internal information in any set of documents on an intranet. Something as humble as a series of minutes of meetings, for example, becomes much more powerful if all references to any topic can be seen instantly side-by-side. For more interesting material such as a set of related research papers the possibilities are even greater.


All the words used in the original text appear arranged alphabetically in a concordance. However, all the occurrences of any particular word (the citations for each headword), once gathered together, can be arranged in various ways. A common way is to follow the order of appearance in the original text. More revealing arrangements are sometimes possible. In my Concordance to the Poetry of Philip Larkin (Olms-Weidmann, 1995), for example, every word is accompanied by a note of the year in which it was used, so letting the reader follow the evolution of the poet's vocabulary.


A concordance doesn't do your thinking or investigating for you, any more than a computer does. You have to ask the right questions, you have to follow up your own hunches and insights. A concordance is a matchless tool for investigating texts. Its power is limited only by its user's imagination.


A computer concordance can now be prepared relatively easily provided a suitable e-text is available. However, in practice a good deal of editorial work is required in the early stages if a reliable concordance is wanted, and to produce a concordance of a quality suitable for publication in book form is generally reckoned to take around 2000 hours.


In brief, with Concordance you can make indexes and word lists, count word frequencies, compare different usages of a word, analyze keywords, find phrases and idioms, publish to the web and much more besides. It is being used in language teaching and learning, data mining and data clean-up, Literary and linguistic scholarship, translation and language engineering, corpus linguistics, natural language software development, lexicography and content analysis in many disciplines including accountancy, history, marketing, musicology, politics, geography, and media studies as well.


My friend, Maisarah bt Mat Jusoh and I have chosen the applications of concordance in term of content analysis. Content analysis is a method for analyzing written and oral textual materials which is used sparingly by organizational researchers. Below is an example of content analysis which is in methodology toolbox and reviews in term of what content analysis is and how it has evolved, examples of its use in leadership research, the variety of analysis techniques for which the results are suitable, and the strengths and weaknesses associated with this method. In addition, a suggested procedure is presented to assist users in using content analysis. Finally, the role of content analysis in future leadership research is considered as well.


I. Methodological background
The following is an attempt briefly to sketch a methodology for elementary text-analysis, with particular emphasis on how to approach a text one does not know well. It is essentially an abstraction of the practice illustrated in the exercises of the following pages under this topic. Here no particular tool for the activity is presumed, nor are particularly sophisticated tools in view. All of what follows can be done with conceptually quite simple ones, such as Monoconc.

A. Kinds of text-analysis

Throughout “text-analysis” should be taken to mean “the analysis of text with the aid of algorithmic techniques”. An algorithm may be defined as a step-by-step procedure capable of being run on a computer—i.e., an unambiguous and completely stated description of what the computer is to do. It can be expressed by a computer program but need not be; often the specifics of how an algorithm is implemented in a particular programming language would obscure the essentials. Text-analytic methods cover a spectrum between the completely algorithmic and the exploratory: in exploratory work we do not have a specific goal or procedure to follow but instead we look for leads. Most work mixes approaches from various points in the spectrum: we may make a word frequency list by algorithmic methods, but the results always need to be interpreted and investigated further, usually by much less algorithmic means.


Text-analysis may be divided into the following kinds, usually practiced at different places along the algorithmic–exploratory spectrum:

Concording and related transformations of the textual data. These constitute the primary focus of attention here.

1-Content analysis. This is a closely related if not overlapping kind, often included under the general rubric of “qualitative analysis”, and used primarily in the social sciences. It is “a systematic, replicable technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding” (
Stemler 2001
). It often involves building and applying a “concept dictionary” or fixed vocabulary of terms on the basis of which words are extracted from the textual data for concording or statistical computation.


2-Statistical analysis. This involves counting particular features of the textual data and then applying one or more mathematical transformations. The simplest type produces frequency lists of word-forms, usually arranged from the most to the least frequent. We will pay some attention to such lists here. More powerful and complex types of statistical analysis are used for example in stylometry and authorship studies; see
Burrows 1992, Holmes 1998.

B. Application to unseen or poorly known texts
There are two reasons why one might legitimately be using text-analytic techniques on a text one does not know well. First, corpora of use in the humanities are approaching and some are already past the point at which a human being could read through their contents in a lifetime—especially given when that person might begin his or her reading; furthermore, some of these are not intended for normal reading, such as the non-literary collections meant for historical or linguistic purposes. Second, and more importantly, text-analysis is fundamentally different from manual methods and so reveals aspects of even well-known texts that one is likely not to have considered before. To the degree to which these texts are made new by the change in perspective, understanding will be aided by text-analytic techniques.
The first reason, that corpora tend to be too large, can be put in more positive terms: a good command of these techniques will make it practical for the ignorant but intelligent person to profit from materials outside his or her own field. Thus interdisciplinary research tends to be fostered.

II. Prior knowledge

We assume, then, application of the first kind of analysis, concording, with some use of frequency lists, to unseen texts.
Nevertheless the place to begin is with whatever you know about the given body of text (known as the corpus). It is unlikely that you will know absolutely nothing at all about it, but in any case read around in it briefly, picking up what you can. Consider
Genre. What kind of a text do you have? Novelistic, poetic, bureaucratic, legal? Was it originally written, or was it delivered orally? What are the formal features you would expect such a text to have, which can you spot when you look at it? In the Stephen material, for example, we have the spontaneous secular sermons of a hippie “guru”, stream-of-consciousness, orally delivered. Stephen is talking to an audience in a highly personal style and mode.

Rhetoric and vocabulary. Genre will tend to define a particular way of speaking or writing and to shape the vocabulary, including how frequently particular words appear. In the case of Stephen, personal pronouns are quite frequent—he is talking directly to the people in his audience (hence “you”) and centrally about a way of life centered on awareness (hence “know”).

Social or psychological circumstances. Familiarity with the social circumstances surrounding the creation of the text may be relevant; so also the known or suspected psychology of the author or speaker. Note that Stephen's sermons, however nonsensical they may seem to subsequent generations, were hugely popular, uncomfortable to attend (people sat on the floor), raptly attended and meticulously transcribed. Evidently they had meaning to those who listened. Therefore our search for patterns of meaning in the Stephen corpus is not in the least mistaken.

Historical circumstances. The more you know about the historical circumstances under which the text was produced the better. In the Stephen corpus, for example, it is crucial to understand how widely the now rather odd sounding language of Stephen's hippie subculture was accepted and spoken. As just noted, his talks apparently communicated a great deal to his audience. Hence we may conclude that the usages are richly dialectical. Awareness of his historically (and to a certain extent, regionally) defined vocabulary will give you hints as to where you might begin in a search for interesting terms.

Nature of the artifact. The physical object from which the text has been taken, usually a printed book, may be relevant. Stephen's book, Monday Night Class, gives several indications of its time and subculture of origin; likewise, the photographs included in it and on the back cover reinforce the historical fact of the seriousness with which his words were taken. These, again, give reason to press forward with the analysis, and the clearly religious character of the assemblies to which he spoke direct you to the corresponding language.

In other words, the seemingly disembodied electronic text has several contexts essential to a full understanding of it. The more of that understanding you can have the better, though because the focus here is on technique, the point is not to dwell on acquiring knowledge of the contexts, only to get what you can quickly.

III. Steps in the analysis

The methodology outlined here is like a fishing expedition: you go at the text with a quiet, open mind, having little or no idea what you are going to catch. If you are after something in particular, then of course it is a different kind of activity. Even in a focused enquiry, however, software allows you to ask certain kinds of questions so easily and get answers back so quickly that curiosity is given a much freer reign; you can afford to play, ask even apparently improbable questions, and so raise the chances that you will be surprised by an important result you had little reason to expect. Thus a certain amount of fishing is recommended even for the focused questioner.
High-frequency words. A quite crude but useful technique is to look through a list of the most frequent word-forms for anything that is unusual or particularly characteristic of the text in question. Frequency of word-forms is only roughly related to what a text says, but it is related, and so is useful to work with.
Two examples spring to mind from both the Simpson and Stephen corpora: the verb “know” and the first-person singular pronoun “I”. (Note, in the comparison study outlined in
Corpus analysis of meaning
, how so little information says so much about both, how it draws a contrastive parallel between the two men.)

There are of course severe limitations on what you can do with a frequency list, especially if you are interested in words (dictionary headwords, such as “know” or “I”) rather than word-forms (such as “knows” or “knew”, or “me” or “we”), and much more if you are focused on ideas (such as cognition or the self) rather than words. If the former, then you need to find all the inflected forms of the word and combine their frequencies. If the latter, you need to find all the relevant synonyms and combine the frequencies of all the inflected forms; even then, since ideas are only tangentially related to words, the result would be incomplete. Very often, however, the raw frequency list will prove useful enough.
Collocations. A somewhat more sophisticated tool for relating word-forms to meaning generates information on what words tend to be found together, either contiguously, such as “I didn't know that”, or within a specified proximity or span, e.g. “black” within 5 words of “bag”. The idea here is that repeated collocations are more reliable indicators of meaning that repetitions of single word-forms. See Sinclair 1991 (chapter 8) for a full discussion.
The program Monoconc and others will generate lists of collocations ordered by frequency so that you can identify recurring phrases and associations of words quickly. Note that if you wish to study collocations over a wider span than the program permits, you can do this by following these steps:

Set the concordance “window” (the number of characters shown on either side of the target word) to a sufficiently large number;
Run a concordance of the word for which you wish to study the collocates;
Save the concordance as a text-file;
Use that file as input to the program, generate from it a frequency listing
This listing will thus give you the frequencies of the collocates of your target word.
A government document, for example, will tend to have quite high frequencies of standard phrases; for a literary work, even two occurrences of a phrase may be highly significant. The Monoconc-style listing, of collocations within a span, is of course less bound to literal repetition—it will include together, for example, instances of the collocation of “don't” and “know” in the phrases “I don't know” and “I don't even know”.
Classicists will be interested in the collocation tools implemented by the Perseus Project; see in particular the Greek and Latin context search tools.
Concording. The essential idea behind the concordance, especially the KWIC, is to direct your attention to the immediate linguistic environment of the specified word. Hence when you find a potentially interesting word, often the next step is to run a concordance on it, then look down the concordance listing to see what patterns you can spot. With Monoconc generating collocation statistics will often immediately follow.

A KWIC is made considerably more useful by the ability to sort an on-screen listing according to the words to the left and right of the target words; Monoconc offers such ability, and the same can be done with other concordance software. Such sorting tends to bring out the patterns, since repetitions are grouped together.

Since current KWIC software deals only with word-forms rather than words, you will often also need to concord the inflected forms. In English many of these can be caught by use of the appropriate wildcards, but not all. An example is go, went and gone; another is I, me, my, mine, we, us, our(s), all forms of the first-person personal pronoun.
Synonyms, of course, are entirely your task to identify, but doing so is made considerably easier than it might be by the tendency in many writers and speakers to emphasize an idea by using a number of synonyms together or nearby each other. Thus the text can itself help you to build a reasonable list for further concording. Compiling such a list is a recursive activity—in the beginning, a new synonym will tend to turn up others; when the law of diminishing returns asserts itself, it is time to stop. The result we may call a “fixed vocabulary”, to which can be added the contiguous collocations you have identified. All together these represent a translation of an idea, as it were, into data.

A fixed vocabulary can then be used to turn up passages in the text for study—as is commonly done in “content analysis”. If you know the text well, then a very interesting further question to ask is, when does this vocabulary not identify passages in which the targeted idea clearly or arguably occurs? Why does it not? Some very interesting findings can result from pursuit of this question.

II. Text and meta-text

In a sense markup is not new. From very early on in the development of written language graphical devices and words have been used to tell us about the text we are reading. Word-separators are an example. In classical Roman inscriptions, marks were sometimes used for the purpose when confusion might otherwise result, but spaces between letters did not become conventional until later, in the Middle Ages, when they were introduced in manuscripts, perhaps to assist the then new practice of silent reading. Paragraphing, which began with interlinear or marginal graphics in manuscripts, indicates that a block of text is to be considered a significant unit. Punctuation marks sometimes indicate only a pause, sometimes confer a particular status or meaning on the punctuated words. Chapter titles may be indicated as such in many ways, e.g. by blank space, the word "chapter", graphics of various kinds.

All such devices are instances of metatext, i.e. text, textual symbols or other graphical devices used to say something about the text we read. Furthermore metatext is just one kind of "paratext", as Gérard Genette has called those devices and conventions which form part of the complex mediation between the text, the author, the publisher and reader. Before we even begin reading a book, its paratext tells us many things about it and so shapes our subsequent reading—if, partly on the basis of that paratext, we decide to read it.
Although the basic notion of metatext is not new, its implementation in markup creates new conditions for work by imposing those two computational constraints: total explicitness and absolute consistency. If the paratext is to be computationally tractable, if we want it to figure into our analysis, it must be rendered as markup, explicitly and consistently. As in all other cases of markup, this necessarily means some degree of interpretation—from almost none (e.g. that a block of text preceded and followed by blank lines is a paragraph) to a significant amount (e.g. that the design on the cover of a poetry magazine figures into how we read the poetry inside). In other words, again, encoding provides a means for the scholar to express his or her interpretation of the text.

III. Text-analytic markup

In text-analysis one is for example often concerned not just with the immediate linguistic environment of the target word, but also with the structure of the text in which that word occurs, especially if the analysis is literary or historical. If the corpus you are analyzing is a novel, for example, you will likely want to know the chapter number of each occurrence; if it is a play, the act, scene and line numbers, perhaps also the speaker of the lines. Furthermore, you may want to specify in your query which part of the text to search, e.g. the word "blood" only when spoken by Macbeth, or the word "exit" only when it is not part of a stage direction. Since in general it is impossible automatically to extract such information from an unprepared text, text-analysis will often require that the text be prepared by manual insertion of metalinguistic tags that unambiguously denote this structural information.
Textual structure, as suggested by these examples, may involve simply a translation of the conventions of a printed original, but it may also be significantly interpretative. There may be several competing structures one wishes to take account of. The boundary between one part of a text and another may be ambiguous.

V. Summary of essential points

When texts are marked up for the purposes of literary study (or any other kind that focuses on how the text says what it says), the metatext tends to be highly interpretative. Two imperatives follow.
Consistency. Although nothing prevents a person from simply tagging something as an instance of something else (e.g. "Joseph is a fruitful bough" as a metaphor) and doing so without further thought, the results will not be very useful unless the tagging is done with as close to absolute consistency as possible. Thus if I tag location X as an instance of phenomenon Y because criteria A, B and C are present there, then wherever A, B and C occur, I must tag those locations as instances of Y also. If my reading of the text in those other locations will not allow me to do that, then I must revise my criteria accordingly.

Explicitness. Such rigorous, well-defined consistency implies a set of rules or guidelines that the tagger has followed. In many academic instances these rules will need to be invented by the tagging scholar to describe what he or she has figured out to do, but in any case they are available to the reader, who is therefore able to use the marked-up text with appropriate confidence and direction. He or she will know the criteria by which e.g. all metaphors were tagged and so can either agree with or differ from what has been done. A better understanding of the phenomenon should result.

There are two consequences follow from such work, providing of course that it has been well done:

A useful means for studying the text on the basis of the interpretation expressed in markup.
Increased understanding of the text through the failure of markup to capture its features completely.

Besides that, we also want to show a good example of analyzing text using concordance which is as below example;

CONCORDANCE


1. to guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal
2. who told me all this about my poor mother, long after her
3. did not often think about him, she had fallen so
4. get from the people about the farm, who hardly waited
5. of work, may be, about the farm. And he would take
6. and kept he with him about the farm. Gregory was made
7. when I was about sixteen, and Gregory nineteen
8. an errand to a place about seven miles distant by the road
9. by the road, but only about four by the Fells. He bade me
10. I tried to move about, but I dared not go far, for fear
11. spirits of the Fells, about whom I had heard so many
12. feared that, in moving about just now, I have lost the right
13. has gotten ought about thee they’ll know at borne?’ I
14. still, and again about our mother, when I fell asleep
15. were many voices about me—many faces hovering
16. when all were running about in wild alarm, not knowing
17. … I – stocked house, not above half an hour’s walk from
18. that might not be above his comprehension. I think he

Analyzing the words

According to above example, we can see a repeated use preposition in the sentences. So we can start analyzing the text in term of the occurrences of preposition and how the preposition functions in the sentence itself.
In short, a preposition is a word which is used before a noun or pronoun to show its relation to some other word in the sentence. There are common of preposition which is preposition of time, place, direction/movement, manner and purpose.

1. herself (pronoun) about (preposition) the house(noun)= Preposition of place
2. this(determiner) about (preposition) my (pronoun) = Preposition of manner
3. think(verb) about (preposition) him(pronoun) = Preposition of manner
4. the people(noun) about (preposition) the farm(noun) = Preposition of place
5. may be(verb) about (preposition) the farm(noun) = Preposition of place
6. him(pronoun)about (preposition) the farm(noun) = Preposition of place
7. was(verb) about (preposition) sixteen(number)= Preposition of time
8. a place(noun)about (preposition)seven miles(number) = Preposition of direction
9. only(adverb) about (preposition) four (number) = Preposition of direction
10. move(verb) about (preposition) but (conjunction) = Preposition of direction
11. Fells(noun) about (preposition) whom(wh-question) = Preposition of place
12. moving(verb) about (preposition) just now(adverb) = Preposition of manner
13. Ought(verb) about (preposition) thee(noun) = Preposition of manner
14. again(adverb) about (preposition) our(pronoun) = Preposition of manner
15. voices(noun) about (preposition) me(pronoun) = Preposition of manner
16. running(verb) about (preposition) in(preposition) = Preposition of manner
17. not(verb) about (preposition) half an hour’s walk(time) = Preposition of time
18. be(verb) about (preposition) his(pronoun) = Preposition of manner

Before we end this writing which is about concordance, we would like to show readers what are the comments from users around the world to the author of the website
http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/userviews.htm since 1999 up to 2004 about concordance. And this proves the greatness and successfulness of concordance program itself.


‘I recently downloaded Concordance. Brilliant idea. It's like magic happening right before your eyes when I do content analysis. Really facilitates getting to the heart of meaning.'

'I did a Web search for concordance tools, found several, evaluated all of them, and yours was head and shoulders above the rest. '

'Your program is amazingly documented. There is so much there it is easy to overlook its features.'

'The ability to save the results as HTML pages is certainly a very useful function.'

'I tried the demo. The following is my impression after using it -
i. The user interface is good and easily accessible.
ii. The text processing speed is awesome.
iii. The capability to get any size of data is also admirable.
iv. The ability to publish the result to web makes me excited.'

'Your Concordance is very well designed. As I have to run a number of tests on language data, I was thrilled to find the download site. Also, because I am presently so busy, I don't have a great deal of time to waste on the "learning curve factor." Concordance is going to save me a lot of time and headaches. Well done!'

'I like your product. I helped to develop a concordance product in the 1970s in PL/1 when I was a programmer at Cornell U, and was surprised by the significant help it provided to researchers. Your product has great features and works quickly. Congratulations. '

'I want to congratulate you for the user-friendly functionality of Concordance. It is really a pleasure to work with. I bought your program out of frustration with using another concordance program... which was difficult to use. I especially appreciate your program's Lemmatiser, which permits me to group thematically related words in order to query their appearance in a text.'

'I've been having fun with Concordance. It's a very useful tool, and I can use it for text analyses in an industrial environment.' - language engineer

'I have been trying out your concordance package and have been very impressed with its flexibility, especially in handling very large numbers of words and occurrences.' - drama researcher

'My background is in the marketing of industrial equipment. I have started to use your program to analyze various sources of information about my industry and monitor the occurrences of particular words and phrases... I thoroughly enjoy working with Concordance and have become confident that is a very useful marketing tool... it also amazed me to see how the concordances can stimulate ideas.' - marketing director

'I have been testing your programme Concordance for two weeks now and am considering buying it because it can be useful in my job as a translator.'

'I am trying out your Concordance application (...I love it, so far) -... I am a PDF help author...I am going to purchase your application on-line as soon as I finish writing this e-mail.'

'I recently purchased Concordance and am delighted with it. I use it for a somewhat odd purpose: computer forensics. Essentially I examine hard drives seeking evidence of certain specified activities.'

'Your response motivated me to download your "Concordance" and after an hour I had my first concordance of John's Gospel.' - biblical scholar

'Your concordance software, which I have just ordered, is very fine. I will use it to help me edit parts of the Canterbury Tales in such a way that stressed vowels are spelled consistently (distinguishing long vs. short and high vs. low mid) and vowel letters having no equivalent in the pronunciation of a regularly alternating weak/strong meter are omitted.'

'Concordance is still a great joy to work with.' - language teacher

'I've been working with a couple of groups of students on Concordance for 6 or 7 weeks now, and it is going well.' - teacher of humanities computing course.

'I like your Concordance quite a bit. It definitely does what I asked for.' - computer magazine editor

"It really has saved us days of work - possibly weeks". - A professor of psychology

'I just wanted to applaud you and your concordance software. After a few hours of learning its functioning capabilities I'm simply amazed. One incredible piece of work! Highly recommended!'

'Bravo! Extremely useful.'

'This is a nice piece of work - I have registered.'

'Thanks for the marvelous program!'

References:

http://www.concordancesoftware.co.uk/userviews.htm
http://www.translate.com/technology/tools/olifant/ReadMe.htm.
http://www.translatum.gr/forum/index.php?topic=344.0
http://www.lingo24.com/articles/CAT_tools_A_brief_overview_about_concordance%20software--2.htm
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x
Arshad Abd.Samad. P.70. Online Teaching Learning in ELT
Nandy. 2005. Mastering English the Easy Way. 2nd printing. Selangor: Pelanduk Publications (M) Sdn. Bhd.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

THIRD POSTING.

The impacts of using ICT towards health.



Assalamualaikum and good day,


Did you know that the famous firm Microsoft director’s multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, seriously damaged his eyesight and taken difficult blood disease? As we all know he is used to deal with computers everyday for many years in his life. This interesting fact shows that computer or any ICT devices bring harmful effects to man’s health. Many researches showed that computers do not make us healthier but with the wrong use it can give an irreparable harm to us.


The computerization in a country is impossible to prevent. Nowadays computers are used in offices, schools, colleges and even in houses. Children, whom cannot read and write yet, already use this machine strongly, playing on it for hours. So do the teenagers and adults population. However, have we ever thought about the effects of using computers or any technological devices to our health?


According to some researches, people especially who earn with the work on a computer, have the greatest part of health complaints on muscles and joints diseases. Mostly this is simply neck torpor, shoulders and joins pain or legs pricking. But there can be more serious disease which is a Tunnel Syndrome. In this case, arm nerves are damage with the frequent and long work with the computer. The hardest form of this syndrome is pains that deprive human efficiency.


Furthermore, researchers added, when working at the PC barbate muscle feels load over 8.5%, and trapeziform muscle – 13.5% of maximum voluntary force of this muscles, what answering considerable load on neuromuscular system. Coupled with big arm moves quantity (they can amount to 40 thousand) with working at the keyboard, it can lead to over fatigue and occupational disease evolution. It is not worth to do more than 10-20 thousand key presses per hour (nearly 1700 words) or 30 thousand for 4 work hours. According to Donetsk Medical University scientists’ information, PC operators have early reduced efficiency and tiredness on the few hours before the work time ending. 48% inspected workers of computer centers have neurotic disorders: memory worsening, weakness, tachycardia, negative dysfunctions, inattention, and neurasthenia.


Foreign experts also assert that women whom work at the monitor for 2-6 hours a day, have functional violations of central nervous system on average on 4.6 times more often, than other professions women, cardiovascular system diseases – on 2, respiratory tract – on 1.9, motor system – on 3.1 times. On 2-3 times more often they have pathology of pregnancy. Many specialists strongly recommend women who want to become pregnant, have to say good-bye to a computer at least for 3 month before a conception, and after that they should not approach to it at all.


More recently in August, 1998, a group at NIEH (National Institute of Environmental Health) in the USA studied the effects on health of very low frequency electromagnetic fields (PEMR ELF/VLF 50/60 Hz) at the request of the American Congress. They concluded that there were possible carcinogenic effects for human beings. Principle of precaution that they use is “Faced with the risk of serious and irreversible damages, we cannot wait until we have all the scientific evidence before taking measures. This is why the principle of precaution states that the absence of certainty must not delay action.” (CNRS Journal, France, [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, i.e. National Center for Scientific Research], February 1998.)


Even if the public does not yet realize the extent of the problem, the insurance industry understands the urgency of the situation with regard to electro-magnetic fields and has already taken steps to protect itself against future claims. In 1997, the Swiss Reinsurance Company, a top reinsurer worldwide (i.e. an insurer for insurers), published a forty-page report entitled “Electro-magnetic Fields, a Phantom Risk”. Extracts from this publication give an idea of the position of insurance companies and their clients as far as the third-party liability of employers are concerned:


“Electronic fog (sometimes called electro smog) is suspected of provoking or promoting cancer or other illnesses. But most people consider that the producers of electricity or electrical equipment cannot be held responsible as long as a direct link of causality has not been scientifically established, namely evidence that low frequency electro-magnetic fields have a harmful impact on the human organism. This publication reaches the opposite conclusion. It shows that we must, from now on, base on current knowledge, expect that judges find in favor of the claimants.” [p. 4]


“If these interests triumph, the third-party liability complaints - present or future - concerning electro-magnetic fields could terminate in favor of the claimants and have fatal consequences for insurance companies. We can already expect phenomenal expense costs.” [p. 5]


“Concretely, insurance companies must endeavor to control the risks resulting from the past and conceive a creative and united method of controlling future third-party risks. The first and most urgent measure to be taken is to limit its own damages. For the insurance companies, that means re-examining existing contracts.” [p. 36]


“It would be desirable if, for their part, industry were to understand that the insurance companies cannot assume any risk whatever.” [p. 37] For at least a decade, concerns have been raised about possible effects of radiation from video display terminals, including cancer and miscarriages. Earlier fears about ionizing radiation, such as X-rays, have been laid to rest, since these rays are blocked by modern glass screens. Also well below exposure standards are ultraviolet, infrared, and ultrasound radiation. More recent controversy surrounds very low frequency (VLF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic radiation produced by video displays' horizontal and vertical deflection circuits, respectively. Researchers have reported a number of ways that electromagnetic fields can affect biological functions, including changes in hormone levels, alterations in binding of ions to cell membranes, and modification of biochemical processes inside the cell. It is not clear, however, whether these biological effects translate into health effects.


Moreover, computer radiation spectrum consists of X-rays, ultra-violet and infra-red fields of spectrum and also wide range of electromagnetic waves frequencies. Specialists consider that X-rays danger now is quite small. This kind of rays is consumed with the screen glass. But we have to remember that even very small intensity of X-rays promotes air ionization. In the presence of several computers in the room, ion quantity may increase. Superfluity of positive ions is considered to be unhealthy for human being. Conducted experiments by physicians prove that radiation of video display terminals may have influence on evolution of breast new growth. In medical literature there is information about heightened ontological disease level of professional PC users. But until now nobody hasn’t studied electromagnetic fields influence on cancerous growth formation. Truth, EU has published ISO 9241 instruction that calls to maximum electromagnetic radiation level lowering and instruction, which tells that working with monitor, has to be done with strict precautionary measures. In a number of investigations was found that electromagnetic fields with frequency of 50 Hz may initialize biological shifts (even the DNA synthesis violation) in animal cell.


Furthermore, radiation exposure over time also can cause skin burn, dry wrinkled skin and photo aging. This skin damage is identical to sun damage and causes the same health problems. Computer radiation is most harmful to skin health because we sit directly in front of the computer for long periods of time with our face absorbing the radiation. Lessening this type of harmful radiation is important. Most people are not aware of this, and continue to suffer with ill health they have no explanation for. They do not realize sometimes ill health is related to computer use. Using a laptop or LCD does not exclude you from the negative health affects of computer radiation. All computer monitors emit low levels of radiation. Laptops and LCD monitors emit less radiation than the old-fashioned CRT monitors. However, all monitors emit enough radiation to affect your health and appearance as well.
Dr. David Carpenter, Dean at the School of Public Health, State University of New York believes it is likely that up to 30% of all childhood cancers come from exposure to EMFs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warns "There is reason for concern" and advises prudent avoidance". Martin Halper, the EPA's Director of Analysis and Support say, "I have never seen a set of epidemiological studies that remotely approached the weight of evidence that we're seeing with EMFs. Clearly there is something here." Concern over EMFs exploded after Paul Brodeur wrote a series of articles in the New Yorker Magazine in June 1989. Due to Paul Brodeur's reputation, his articles had a catalytic effect on scientists, reporters and concerned people throughout the world. In November 1989, the Department of Energy reported that "It has now become generally accepted that there are, indeed, biological effects due to field exposure."


Apart from that, a key component of a utility's electrical distribution network depends upon numerous, small transformers mounted on power poles. A transformer looks like a small metal trash can, usually cylindrical. Even when the electrical service is underground, you will often see a metal box (usually square} located on the ground near the street. Many people don't realize that when they see a transformer, the power line feeding the transformer is 4000 to 13,800 volts. The transformer then reduces the voltage to the 120/240 volts needed by nearby homes. Since these transformers can be seen in almost every neighborhood, they are a source of concern. EMFs near a transformer can be quite high, but due to its small structure, the field strength diminishes rapidly with distance, as it does from any point source. For this reason, having a transformer located near your home is usually not a major source of concern, although just to make sure, everyone should measure the field strength around it. Therefore, users have to be situated farther than 1.2 meter's from the back or side surfaces of neighbor terminals. In many cases in rooms, where computer techniques are situated, work employees, which have no relation to it. However radiation negative influence spreads on them to, if their work places are wrong chosen. Operators, which rest near the working computers, are behaving unwise at all. Electrostatic fields are not human recommended either. Under the influence of electrostatic field charged particles (according to their sign) are gravitated or push away with the screen surface. Air deionization happens then. Under the electrostatic field influence dust and charged particles accumulate on a face, hands, provoking to an allergy, skin dryness and withering, and several of eczema as well.


The increased use of computers also has brought about the development of the complex eye and vision problems. This is also has been termed as "computer vision syndrome". The last investigations conducted under the aegis of American optometric association (which consists of 32 thousand ophthalmologists and opticians) pay attention to the obvious fact again that working at the computer is not natural for human eyesight. 70-75% of all users which routinely work at the monitor screen have problems with the eyesight. A lot of complaints come from the computer operators about sharp pain in the eyes, blearing, and the common eyesight worsening. Commonly, when reading a text from the paper the human eye takes the reflected image with the falling light. Looking through the text on the screen requires man looks at the same source of light. We have to read, type, and compare something more than once, while we are working at the monitor. And as a result, our eyes have to re-form the words appear on the monitor thousand times a day. This, of course, has negative influence on the eyesight.


Besides that, man gets used to deal with the horizontally lied leaf of the paper, while the monitor screen is vertically placed. Permanent imitation of the “look into the distance” occurs so it will relax muscle eye device. But if the image on a screen is illegible and has distortion, then lens constantly searches for an optimum perception, which, as a rule, leads to over fatigue of muscle eye device. One of the most important monitor parameters is a picture frequency. Formed on a cathode-ray tube image flickers. The more picture frequency, the larger time can be spent at the computer without the grave consequences for the health. International standards on picture frequency, for example, VESA standard, often change. Minimum recommended frequency for today is 80 Hz. Unfortunately there is a very big monitor park in Ukraine, worked with the frequencies of 60-65 Hz, that is harmful for the eyesight. Conducted in Massachusetts medical checkups found that employees, which is working at the PC over 7 hours a day, have greater for 72% case rate asthenopia (eyes get tired easily) and inflammation than employees, which spend a less time at the computer. 2/3 patients have troubles with the eyesight focus in for years.


Many individuals who work with computer regularly experience eye-related discomfort or visual problems. However, based on current evidence it is unlikely that the use of computers causes permanent changes or damage to the eyes or visual system. Studies have found that the majority of computer workers experience some eye or vision symptoms. However, it is unclear whether these problems occur to a greater extent in computer workers than in workers in other highly visually demanding occupations. A national survey of doctors of optometry found that more than 14% of their patients present with eye or vision-related symptoms resulting from computer work. The most common symptoms are eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision and neck or shoulder pain. The extent to which an individual may experience symptoms is largely dependent upon his/her visual abilities in relation to the visual demands of the task being performed. These vision problems are not new or unique to computer use. Many individuals in other highly visually demanding occupations will experience similar vision related problems. However, the unique characteristics and high visual demands of computer work make many individuals susceptible to the development of eye and vision-related symptoms. Uncorrected vision conditions, poor computer design and workplace ergonomics and a highly demanding visual task can all contribute to the development of visual symptoms and complaints.


Vision problems experienced by computer operators are generally only temporary and will decline after stopping computer work at the end of the day. However, some workers may experience continued impaired or reduced visual abilities, such as blurred distance vision, even after work. If nothing is done to address the cause of the problems, they will continue to recur and perhaps worsen with future computer use. Work that is visually and physically fatiguing may result in lowered productivity, increased error rate and reduced job satisfaction. Therefore, steps should be taken to reduce the potential for development of stress and related ocular and physical discomfort in the workplace. Viewing a computer screen is different than viewing a typewritten or printed page. Often the letters on a computer screen are not as precise or sharply defined, the level of contrast of the letters to the background is reduced and the presence of glare and reflections on the screen may make viewing more difficult.


Viewing distances and angles used for computer work are also often different from those commonly used for other reading or writing tasks. As a result, the eye focusing and eye movement requirements for computer work can place additional demands on the visual system. Older workers particularly may find adjusting to these working requirements difficult. Eyeglasses or contact lenses prescribed for general use may not be adequate for computer work. Specific occupational lenses prescribed to meet the unique demands of computer work may be needed. Special lens designs, lens powers or lens tints or coatings may help to maximize visual abilities and comfort. Computer workers who receive eye examinations and occupational eyewear have reported improved comfort and resolution of their symptoms. The quality and efficiency of their work have also been improved. Some computer workers may experience problems with eye focusing or eye coordination that cannot be adequately corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses. A program of optometric vision therapy designed to treat specific binocular vision dysfunctions may be needed. A preventive approach to reducing visual stress from computer work incorporates the use of rest or alternate task breaks throughout the workday. Many computer tasks are repetitive and can become stressful both mentally and physically after an extended period of continuous work. Occasional rest or alternate task breaks are helpful to combat fatigue and stress. They provide an opportunity to incorporate different and less visually demanding tasks into the work regimen. Specific rest or task breaks should be based on the individual visual needs of the operator. The presence of even minor vision problems can often significantly affect worker comfort and performance at a computer. Uncorrected or under corrected farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia and binocular vision (eye coordination and eye focusing) problems can be major contributing factors to computer related eye stress. A high percentage of computer operators has been found to have uncorrected or under corrected vision problems that may affect their visual performance and comfort. Although some of these problems may not result in symptoms under less visually demanding conditions, the high demands of computer work cause them to become manifest. All computer workers should have a comprehensive eye examination prior to or soon after beginning computer work and periodically thereafter. The examination should include careful analysis of the functioning of the eyes at intermediate and near working distances.


All of this shows the necessity of your own health care, of keeping the sanitary regulations. Computer work is very interesting, perspective and necessary for all civilized countries, but we need healthy and efficient people. Harmful of computer influence on a man health can be greatly reduced or avoided with following the simple rules of their using. It is very important to make a right choose of a computer and auxiliary protection remedies. In some cases it is expediency to buy more expensive thing, but be calm for your health. We have to take note that EMFs radiate from all sides of the computer. Thus, you must not only be concerned with sitting in front of the monitor but also if you are sitting near a computer or if a computer is operating in a nearby room. The Swedish safety standard, effective 711/90, specifies a maximum of 0.25 mG at 50 cm from the display. Many US manufactured computers have EMFs of 5 - 100 mG at this distance. And know this too: the screens placed over monitors do NOT block EMFs. Not even a lead screen will block ELF and VLF magnetic fields. Space does not permit a more thorough discussion of computers. If you use a computer, it is important that you measure your EMF exposure with a Gauss meter and review the literature concerning the health impacts of computer use.


Basically there is not radiation in the whole computer itself. The radiation area is basically monitor of the computer due to the electronic rays it produces. So you can easily avoid it by taking some good steps. First of all, nowadays many computer filter screens are available to avoid the computer radiations. Moreover you should follow some rules of ergonomics and do some exercise if you’re continuously using computer. You will also keep giving comfort to your eyes and body. And now low radiations of monitors are also available, and LCD monitors are also available.


UKCRC, stands for United Kingdom Computing Research Committee, has response to request for evidence from the Royal Society on the developments in information and communication technology relating to health and healthcare in the next ten to fifteen years. In framing the response, they have recognized the potentially enormous scope of the study. It is difficult to identify an area of health and healthcare that will not be profoundly affected by developments in computing, and it is difficult therefore to stop short of providing a comprehensive tour of health informatics.


The continuing development of mobile and portable consumer information technology suggests that people may be able to take more responsibility for and control of their own health. Health monitoring and diagnosis through the use of personal information systems, implanted sensors and home monitoring systems may permit care to be increasing community-based rather than delivered through hospitals, surgeries and health centers. Access to medical and healthcare information and expertise, tailored to the needs of the individual, will become increasingly ubiquitous. These technology developments can be used to monitor and improve the life-style for the elderly as well as patients with chronic illness.

Experiments have shown that information processing based on multi-cellular neural recordings can be used to correctly interpret and control bodily movement. This research, which integrates sophisticated computing with the physiology of motor cortex, may have significant impact on the design of prosthetic devices. From the growing area of computational science we can expect significant developments in computer modeling of human biology, accelerating drug discovery and making possible a more 'personalized' medicine. For example, computational models of the heart can be used for drug testing without the need for animal experiments.


Foundational computer science has an important role to play in this respect, delivering novel modeling schemes and analytical tools. The fusing of information resources from genes through to clinical trials, including complex imaging information will accelerate the pace of medical science and the expectations that people will have about the ability of medical science to maintain their health and well-being. Fundamental advances in the life sciences will be accessible to practitioners enabling increasingly scientific, evidence-based healthcare. These trends are interlocking. Take for example the care of diabetes: implanted diagnostic sensors and actuators might incorporate new models of glucose homeostasis that depend on advances in molecular biology; these same devices might also be seamlessly integrated into the healthcare management infrastructure and with the electronic healthcare record. In taking a positive view they are conscious also of the risks that are entailed in realizing the potential of information and communication technology. These risks include the 'system risk' associated with the dependability of complex software systems and the 'project risk' associated with the difficulty of managing large-scale software engineering projects in cost-constrained settings. In both these areas they would expect research to deliver new techniques that can alleviate some of the risks. They are however conscious that changing organizational practices and adopting these techniques can itself be a difficult and risk prone process. Improvements in engineering disciplines that underpin the successful delivery of new computing systems can make a significant contribution to surmounting the resourcing challenges referred to in the call. We note the concern of the study with issues related to data confidentiality and availability. These are profoundly difficult issues in which the needs of the individual and those of society can sometimes be opposed. There are obviously important technological issues that need to be tackled in this area. It must be stressed that advances in information and communication technologies do not necessarily lead to a reduction in privacy.


On the contrary, advances in computer security technologies and in the mathematics on which they are based can do much to empower the individual to make informed decisions and control access to their personal information. If, as they believe, information and communication technologies are to have a major impact on health and healthcare then they must be concerned with access to the benefits that these technologies will yield. Many of the most profound health challenges lie in the less developed countries. HIV/AIDS, Malaria and the effects of malnourishment are global health challenges that we must collectively face. The widespread reach into Africa and Asia of devices such as mobile phones shows that advanced technologies need not necessarily be a barrier to access but at the same time they need to be conscious that poverty and a poor technological infrastructure are serious roadblocks to improvements in health and healthcare. They believe that it will be important for engineers, life scientists, healthcare professionals and computer scientists to develop new partnerships to realize the benefits discussed above. These partnerships will need to be fostered by scientific societies and professional institutions. Education has an important role to play in ensuring that there are qualified professionals and researchers to engage in such multidisciplinary work.



REFERENCES


http://www.scopus.com/scopus/record/display.url?view=basic&eid=2-s2.0-0029907022&origin=reflist&sort=plf-f&src=s&st1=computer+radiation&st2=&sid=6VW1q5Fg9sca557F3toZ98c%3a40&sot=b&sdt=b&sl=33&s=TITLE-ABS-KEY%28computer+radiation%29

http://www.scopus.com/scopus/record/display.url?view=basic&eid=2-s2.0-0026778773&origin=reflist&sort=plf-f&src=s&st1=computer+radiation&st2=&sid=6VW1q5Fg9sca557F3toZ98c%3a40&sot=b&sdt=b&sl=33&s=TITLE-ABS-KEY%28computer+radiation%29


http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=739085941&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1205294362&clientId=39290
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0123325/comput.htm

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art49755.asp

http://www.mercola.com/article/emf/emf_dangers.htm

http://www.blurtit.com/q358941.html

http://www.computer-clear.com/

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/72/LineLength.htm

Sunday, March 9, 2008

SECOND POSTING.

COMPUTERIZED WRITING



In my personal view, computerized writing is a tool exists to help students work on their writing collaboratively on computers linked in a local area network.



In the computer program itself, there are some tools for users to deal with and make full use of it, the most common use, and probably the most common use overall of the computer for language learning and computerized writing, is word processing. High quality programs like Microsoft Word can be useful for certain academic or business settings (Healey & Johnson, 1995a). Programs such as ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works are cheaper and simpler to learn and still have useful features. SimpleText and TeachText are simpler yet and may be sufficient for many learners.



A major advantage of using word processing software is that it includes a spelling checker, which reviews the spelling of individual words, sections of writing, or the entire writing itself. This, by the way, can helps users, especially student like me, enhance my spelling skill, and to be aware about it. Besides that, another useful feature of this software is it contains grammar checker. The grammar checker proofreads writing for grammar, writing style, sentence structure errors and so on. This feature shows that students can study how to write a correct sentence, without grammatical error, just by the computer’s helps. Besides word processing software, presentation software also provides these kinds of useful features, such as spelling and grammar checker.



When we talk about writing using computers, we can divide it into several aspects. There are writing an e-mail, blogging, bulletin board system, online diary, chatting, instant messages and many more. First of all, blogging, the frequent and chronological publication on the Web of personal thoughts and opinions for other internet users to read and share. The name, coined in the late 1990s, derives from “Web logging.” The product of blogging is known as a “blog.” There are millions of blogs on the Internet. In addition to thoughts and opinions, many bloggers also use their blogs to recommend books, music, and links to other sites on the World Wide Web. As for me, blogging will help people in their writing skill a lot. The writing processes involved, which is planning, drafting, re-drafting, and editing before the final work is produced, demand the author to be in a much broader in writing skill , that is to apply more than what the lectures have dictated. As a result, not only does critical thinking of the written work improves, but having the written work published in the weblog develops the proceeding motivation to issue them extensively, thus making the motivation intrinsic by itself. As for me, when I have to post my first blog, as requested by my lecturer, I have done a lot of research in order to gain the skill of blogging. Besides, I have to refer to my grammar book in order to create and produce correct sentence and good writing as well. This is not an easy as ABC task, however I found it very useful and worth it when looking at the result.



Apart from blogging, e-mail is another way people can enhance their writing skill, via computer. E-Mail, in computer science, abbreviation of the term electronic mail, method of transmitting data, text files, digital photos, or audio and video files from one computer to another over an intranet or the internet. E-mail enables computer users to send messages and data quickly through a local area network or beyond through the Internet. It came into widespread use in the 1990s and has become a major development in business and personal communications. E-mail has had a great impact on the amount of information sent worldwide. It has become an important method of transmitting information previously relayed via regular mail, telephone, courier, fax, television, or radio. As blogging, writing an e-mail require writing skill. When we are writing formal e-mail, especially, we have to use the correct sentence, and of course good writing skill too.



Besides that, bulletin board system also can assists in computerized writing. Bulletin Board System, or BBS, in computer communications, an online service that enables users to post and read messages, converse by typing messages (“chat”), play games with one another, and copy, or download, programs to their personal computers. There are thousands of BBSs, most organized around a particular topic. Most BBSs are open to the public and free of cost but some can be accessed only by authorized callers. In bulletin board, you can practice writing a good sentence as well.



In addition, chat (online) is a simultaneous text communication between two or more people via computer. Chat is synchronous where one person types a message on their keyboard, and the people with whom they are chatting see the message appear on their monitors and can respond almost immediately. Other kinds of computer communication are asynchronous. E-mail, for example, may not be delivered or read until minutes or hours after it is sent, and any response need not be immediate. Chat requires each user to have a computer connected to an electronic network. The network might be a local area network within a business, or it might be the Internet. Users also need a chat system, software that controls the connection between the computers of the people who are chatting. Chat is most commonly used for social interaction. For example, people might use chat to discuss topics of shared interest or to meet other people with similar interests. As to assist in computerized learning and writing in education, teachers or lecturers use chat to help students practice language skills and to provide mentoring to students. History students may chat with elders who lived through the period of history the students are studying. Science students may chat with professional scientists as well.



Furthermore, online diary is another tool or medium for students to use in order to improve their writing skill. Users need to register to the certain website that provides the service of online diary. They will practice writing a diary and convey her or his thoughts, feelings, tells others about their life and share experiences. When they are get use to write in their online diary, this indirectly will influence their writing skill and not impossible, they will be a great writer by just using online diary service.



As a conclusion, the history of online writing suggests that the computer can serve a variety of uses for language learners as it can be a tool for writing. With the advent of the Internet, it can also be a medium of global communication and a source of limitless authentic materials for being a good writer. But as pointed out by Garrett (1991), "the use of the computer does not constitute a method". Rather, it is a "medium in which a variety of methods, approaches, and pedagogical philosophies may be implemented" (p. 75). The effectiveness of writing online cannot reside in the medium itself but only in how it is put to use. Those who put computer technology to use in the service of good pedagogy will undoubtedly find ways to enrich their educational program and the learning opportunities of their studies.




Here are some examples of URL that host computerized writing activities.


URL s of online diary:

http://www.124diary.com/

http://www.edailydiary.com/tour/write.htm


URLs of blogging:
https://www.blogger.com/start

http://wordpress.org/


URL for finding info (online library)

http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp


Online journal diary:

http://www.smarter.com/---se--qq-online+journals+diaries--pt-0--tt-.html


Bulletin board system:

http://www.friendster.com/ (If you have a “Friendster” account, you can use the opportunity of bulletin board provided)

ONLINE ADVERTISEMENT (the miracle of Adobe Photoshop!)


PROPERTIES OF ELECTRONIC TEXTS.

PROPERTIES OF ELECTRONIC TEXTS


Electronic material is a multi-user, high resolution, demand-paged, hardware-software, read mostly memory, retrieval and display system with real-time interaction, tactile interface, audio and video feedback. There are seven properties of electronic material which is plasticity, links, searches, templates, footprints, virtuality and impact.


First of all, plasticity is where the previous written record is fixed. Word processing generates screen text which can be altered, remodeled, combined and in simple word cut, paste and modify.


Secondly, link is where texts can be copied and combined with other type of compatible ICT text and image. It also will create large linked systems of information. Besides that, it is also have multi-modal criteria which texts accompanied by animation combinations of visual, audio, graphic, and video-multimedia. It also allows users to obtain information in a non linear way.


Next, a search is a place where you can search for information in a set of database prepared locally or abroad. Even complex searches can be done very quickly as a blink of an eye. The users can search for words-dictionary, online encyclopedia, online journal-language and technology, IJELLT, online database and so on.


Besides that, templates are medium for users to work on. Examples of templates are power point presentation software, word processing software, spreadsheet software and so on. Footprints are records of various types which can be traced later and used later which can be saved and copied. For example fax machine records when the text was sent and from where. Besides that, Internet browser also keeps record of sites that you visited which is located in history. Word processor keeps records when the document was created by whom as well.


Virtuality is a real time links with geographically remote audiences, information and media. Information can be updated automatically from a remote source without human agency and interaction can be done without disclosing cues about one’s identity.


Lastly, impact is one of the criteria of electronic material. Impacts are information texts encourage new styles of reading where the reader will make their own journey across the text and its related links. It is very different then just reading on paper.


To understand more about the properties of electronic texts, I have selected a specific website to analyze. Here is the URL that you can follow to link to the website;
http://www.eslcafe.com.


As an overview, this website is maintained by Dave Sperling, hence the name Dave’s ESL website is of great use to an ELS student like me. In this website, student can join the student forums, learn new vocabulary, slang, idioms, and phrasal verbs or answer the various selections of quizzes, ranging from grammar, reading comprehension, writing, and so on. On the other hand, teachers also have their own forum where they can discuss or exchange ideas with other teachers around the world.


In this website, some electronic texts properties can be applied. Firstly, this website consists of plasticity properties. We can easily copy or cut the words, and paste it into Words Document. After save it, we can make the documents as additional reading and reference as well in order to improve our language skill.


Besides that, this website also contains links. A links, short for hyperlink, is a built-in connection to another related Web page or part of this page itself. This website also contains hypertext. Hypertexts refer to links in text-based documents. The functions are quite similar to the hyperlinks.


Another property of electronic texts in this website is it contains search tool. To use this, just type the keywords that you are going to search for, and click the button “go!” beside it. The search engine in this website will give you the answers or the needed information. This can make our life much easier and we can search for anything in just a second. You also can search for information in a set of database prepared locally or abroad.


Apart from that, this website also has virtuality properties. This means that information can be updated automatically from a remote source without human agency. Mr. Dave can upload information and update his website whenever and wherever he is, as long as his computer is connected to the Internet. Not only him, but we also can do the same. We can surfing this website anytime and everywhere, with internet connection, to do the activities. In addition, interaction can be done without disclosing cues about one’s identity thus can prevent privacy violence.


In addition, this website also has its own impact. This websites is very colorful and interactive. It makes learning more meaningful as well. According to Wetzel and Chisholm (1998), “computer technology increases self-expression, provide opportunities for the application of English language skills, and stimulates active learning.”