Endangered Latin American languages and their place in the cyber space

Research shows that half of the languages spoken today are likely to be extinct by the end of this century. The loss of language is not merely a loss of the language itself but also a loss of entire culture of the community of the speakers. The authors focus on Latin American endangered languages, and review the efforts done both in education, printed documents and in cyber space. Free software available for native speakers will give opportunities to preserve and revive the threatened languages. The paper introduces several regional efforts in this line, such as “Enlance Quinche”, INALI and others

Knowledge details in web forums: how high or low above the ground?

While entertainment web forums provide a dynamic medium for interaction, not many researchers feel the need to go deeply into the contents. One of the reasons behind this attitude lies on a widely perceived assumption that web forums do not deal with knowledge matter and have the inclination to take place only as small talk. In this paper, we will mainly inspect the components of knowledge as are being handled by the six service-men of Kipling’s 5W1H framework. Based on our observation on a learning zone that contains 35 forum topics and 789 messages in a web forum (http://asamboi.org), we found that at least several topics were dealing with deep knowledge contents. From our analysis, we have found that the depth of knowledge details is reasonably significant particularly when responding to specific question demand. On average the depth of details obtained were ranked as ‘Who’ Siapa, ‘What’ Apa, ‘How’ Bagaimana, ‘Why’ Kenapa, ‘Where’ Mana and ‘When’ Bila once sorted descendingly. We conclude that web forums are a good web-resource for digital age learning styles as it provides detailed knowledge for networked learning.Education for the 21 st century - impact of ICT and Digital Resources ConferenceRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Revolutionary development of computer education : A success story

The University of Colombo, Sri Lanka has been in the forefront of the “Computer Revolution” in Sri Lanka. It has introduced the teaching of computer programming and applications as early as in 1967, more than a decade before other educational institutions, thereby producing, over the years, a large number of pioneer computer scientists and IT graduates out of students entering the university from a variety of disciplines. They are presently employed as researchers, educators, data processing managers, analyst programmers, software engineers and in many others in the professional field of information technology, not only in Sri Lanka but also in other countries. Established in 1870 as the Ceylon Medical College by the government of that day under the leadership of Governor Sir Hercules Robinson, the University of Colombo could claim to have been associated with higher education for over 130 years. The University has become a center of excellence of international repute that contributes significantly towards national development and human resource development in the field on computer science and information communication technology, particularly in the South and South East Asian Region. This paper presents the milestones of the success story, which did not occur without a policy, plan, leadership, group work, collaboration, and donor support.2nd IFIP Conference on the History of Computing and EducationRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Olfactory Ensheathing Cell Tumor Arising from the Olfactory Mucosa

We report a rare case of olfactory ensheathing cell tumor. A female presented a large soft mass extending medially to the olfactory cleft and laterally to the middle meatus in the left nasal cavity. Imaging studies confirmed a cystic mass extending superiorly into the frontal lobe, indicating that the tumor arouse from the olfactory mucosa. A subtotal resection was achieved through an endoscopic endonasal approach without operative complications. Immunohistochemically constituent cells were diffusely positive for S-100 protein, but olfactory ensheathing cell tumor was diagnosed by negative staining for Leu7 (CD57). This case indicates that olfactory ensheathing cell tumor should be included in differential diagnoses for the olfactory cleft tumors

The Use of XML to Express a Historical Knowledge Base

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Languages of Myanmar in Cyberspace

There are a total of 111 languages spoken by the people living in Myanmar. Among them, the top language groups are Myanmar (Burmese), Shan, Kayin (Karen), Rakhine, Mon, Chin and Kachin. The earliest stone inscription of Myanmar and Mon languages can be found on MyaZeDi Stone inscription (AD 1113). There are long history of printing and publishing in Myanmar languages. Computerization also has been started long ago. It is still not sufficient enough to localize basic software into Myanmar languages and present in cyberspace. Myanmar Character Code (with Extension for ethnic languages) has been allocated in UCS/Unicode (U+1000-U+109F). Many people have put effort since long time ago to develop Myanmar Character Codes and Fonts but the limited cooperation between international organizations, experts, venders and local end users slowed implementation of Myanmar languages (Burmese language and the Ethnic languages). This paper mainly emphasizes on the necessary cooperation among the developers, venders and local end users

Intra-cerebellar schwannoma with various degenerative changes: a case report and a systematic review

[Background] Intra-cranial schwannomas account for less than 8% of brain tumors, among which more than 80% arise from the vestibular nerve. Intra-cerebellar schwannomas are extremely rare. Several cases have been previously reported but without remarkable degenerative changes on histology. [Case presentation] A 61-year-old man presented with worsening disorientation, and an imaging study revealed a cystic lesion (6.5 cm in the largest diameter) in the left hemisphere of the cerebellum accompanied by a mural nodule (2.5 cm) located just inside the skull with enhancement and focal calcification, in addition to hydrocephalus. The lesion was more than 5 mm from the left acoustic nerve. The patient underwent gross total resection. Pathological examination revealed remarkable degenerative changes with various morphological features. Tumor cells were pleomorphic with rich cytoplasm containing numerous eosinophilic granules. Blood vessels and extracellular matrix showed remarkable hyalinization. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that the tumor cells were positive for S-100 protein and negative for Olig2. The tumor was diagnosed as a schwannoma with marked degenerative changes. [Conclusions] The present case is discussed with reference to a systematic review of previous reports of intra-cerebellar schwannoma. Intra-cerebellar schwannoma should be included in the differential diagnosis of cystic lesions with heterogeneous histopathological morphology in the cerebellum