USING A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE ENGLISH WRITING COMPETENCE OF VIIIA STUDENTS OF SMPN 3 METRO LAMPUNG IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2011/2012

This research is a collaborative classroom action research, and the subject is VIIIA students of SMPN 3 Metro–Lampung in the academic year 2011/2012 and English teacher who teaches the eight grade of SMPN 3 Metro Lampung. The method of Kemmis & McTaggart was used in this research, consisting four steps: (1) planning, which prepared components of the cycle in genre-based approach including building knowledge of the field, modeling of text, joint construction of text, and independent construction of text; (2) action, which was the implementation of each cycle in the genre-based approach; (3) observation, observing which implemented the genre-based approach; and (4) reflection, which was a discussion between the researcher and collaborator about the findings in the observation and action phases. The research instruments were students observation guide, field note guide, and writing assessment guide. The data were qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were obtained from the results of classroom observation and field notes, and the quantitative data were the students’ pretest scores, scores in the independent construction of text in each cycle, and posttest scores. The reliability of the data was obtained by using the triangulation technique which combined the result of the observation, field note, and the result of the students’ writing. The result of the research shows that the improvement was achieved in every cycle. At the building knowledge of the field phase, the students competence in expressing vocabulary improved, at modeling of text phase, the students were able to understand the teachers’ explanation about genre, at the joint construction of text phase, the students were able to interact with their peers, and at the independent construction of text phase, the students were able to compose a text without the teacher’s guide and friends’ help. The result of the improvement can be seen from the comparation of the pretest result, each cycle result, and posttest result. The mean score of the students pretest result is 55.05, the result of the first cycle is 70.08, and the second cycle is 74.63, while the posttest result is 76.1. From those results, it can be concluded that the genre-based approach can improve the students’ writing competence. Keywords: genre-based approach, writing, cycl

A grammar for a text based music scoring program

The grammar for a text-based music scoring software package and a short example is presented. The computer program developed using this language (available from the author's website) will form the basis for future research into a variety of different input methods for creating music scores

Cognitive support for older people from multimedia options

If older users of multimedia displays could select among presentation options, would they choose display combinations that supported their performance? After three short touch-screen tasks which measured the perceptual and cognitive abilities of 50 older adults, they answered questions about a route on an online map that could be accompanied by written and/or spoken text. Half the participants saw animated routes; and they were less accurate answering questions than those who saw static routes but this did not affect people’s multimedia choices which, although diverse, were systematic. Spoken text was more often selected by people who had lower scores on the spatial working memory task, than by the older adults with higher scores. This suggests that older people with cognitive limitations recognise ways in which multimedia information can be supportive

Comparing the use of edited and unedited text in parser self-training

We compare the use of edited text in the form of newswire and unedited text in the form of discussion forum posts as sources for training material in a self-training experiment involving the Brown reranking parser and a test set of sentences from an online sports discussion forum. We find that grammars induced from the two automatically parsed corpora achieve similar Parseval f-scores, with the grammars induced from the discussion forum material being slightly superior. An error analysis reveals that the two types of grammars do behave differently

The SLS-Berlin: Validation of a German Computer-Based Screening Test to Measure Reading Proficiency in Early and Late Adulthood

Reading proficiency, i.e., successfully integrating early word-based information and utilizing this information in later processes of sentence and text comprehension, and its assessment is subject to extensive research. However, screening tests for German adults across the life span are basically non-existent. Therefore, the present article introduces a standardized computerized sentence-based screening measure for German adult readers to assess reading proficiency including norm data from 2,148 participants covering an age range from 16 to 88 years. The test was developed in accordance with the children’s version of the Salzburger LeseScreening (SLS, Wimmer and Mayringer, 2014). The SLS-Berlin has a high reliability and can easily be implemented in any research setting using German language. We present a detailed description of the test and report the distribution of SLS-Berlin scores for the norm sample as well as for two subsamples of younger (below 60 years) and older adults (60 and older). For all three samples, we conducted regression analyses to investigate the relationship between sentence characteristics and SLS-Berlin scores. In a second validation study, SLS-Berlin scores were compared with two (pseudo)word reading tests, a test measuring attention and processing speed and eye-movements recorded during expository text reading. Our results confirm the SLS-Berlin’s sensitivity to capture early word decoding and later text related comprehension processes. The test distinguished very well between skilled and less skilled readers and also within less skilled readers and is therefore a powerful and efficient screening test for German adults to assess interindividual levels of reading proficiency

Comparing computer-generated and pathologist-generated tumour segmentations for immunohistochemical scoring of breast tissue microarrays

BACKGROUND: Tissue microarrays (TMAs) have become a valuable resource for biomarker expression in translational research. Immunohistochemical (IHC) assessment of TMAs is the principal method for analysing large numbers of patient samples, but manual IHC assessment of TMAs remains a challenging and laborious task. With advances in image analysis, computer-generated analyses of TMAs have the potential to lessen the burden of expert pathologist review. METHODS: In current commercial software computerised oestrogen receptor (ER) scoring relies on tumour localisation in the form of hand-drawn annotations. In this study, tumour localisation for ER scoring was evaluated comparing computer-generated segmentation masks with those of two specialist breast pathologists. Automatically and manually obtained segmentation masks were used to obtain IHC scores for thirty-two ER-stained invasive breast cancer TMA samples using FDA-approved IHC scoring software. RESULTS: Although pixel-level comparisons showed lower agreement between automated and manual segmentation masks (κ=0.81) than between pathologists' masks (κ=0.91), this had little impact on computed IHC scores (Allred; [Image: see text]=0.91, Quickscore; [Image: see text]=0.92). CONCLUSIONS: The proposed automated system provides consistent measurements thus ensuring standardisation, and shows promise for increasing IHC analysis of nuclear staining in TMAs from large clinical trials