Technical Writing

PENGUMUMAN

2006-12-15T14:42:00.000+07:00

BERHUBUNG SEMUA SUDAH PADA JALUR PENULISAN YANG BENAR, MAKA HARAP SEMUA MENYESAIKAN JURNALNYA DAN DIKUMPULKAN KE UPT PUSAT BAHASA SEBELUM TANGGAL 23/12/2006.

Information Technology Implementation in the Field of Hotel Services

2006-12-12T15:23:00.000+07:00

Information technology has developed its own momentum in recent centuries. It has been implemented in many aspects of our lives. Since IT mainly processes data into information, it is required in sectors which work with a large number of information exchanges, such as in hotel management. In order to increase hotel services standard and comfort to gain customer satisfaction, appropriate information technology is needed. Information technology disciplines which are commonly implemented in hotel management are information system and database processing system. Another usage of information technology in hotel management is web programming. Using the website, customer can easily make online reservation and do the payment by e-banking.

Methods

This review focuses on information technology implementation in the field of hotel services. Some methods will be implemented to get enough reliable sources about this topic. Search engine will be used to retrieve information and news about hotel services from the internet. Interview with some practitioners in hotel business will be used to draw representative samples of information technology implementation in hotels nowadays and to know how it is supposed to increase the value of hotel services, while surveying some hotel service customers will be used to collect data about the connection between information technology implementation in hotel management and customer satisfaction. To see thoroughly the implementation of information technology in hotels, open observation in some hotels and some schools of hotel management will be used. Each research method has strengths and weaknesses; thereby the combination of feasible methods listed above is expected to provide better insight into development.

Recent Advances

1. Information technology and industrial management are inseparable nowadays.
2. The increment of application software designed to ease the customer in accessing hotel service and to simplify the task of hotel service provider.
3. The increment of data base management and information retrieving software designed to make the management of daily, monthly, even yearly transaction and customer account data in a hotel better.
4. The usage of robotics and artificial intelligence where requirements of speed, precision, consistency, or cleanliness in hotel services exceed what human can accomplish and at the same time adaptability of humans is still considered.

Points that will be Elaborated in this Paper

1. Implementation of information technology in hotel management nowadays.
2. Implementation of information technology in hotel services for customer satisfaction.
3. The real connection between improvement in hotel services and the implementation of information technology in hotel management.
4. Advantages and disadvantages of information technology implementation in hotel management.

Implementation if Information Technology in hotel management nowadays

Implementation of information technology in hotel management includes web programming, information system, and database processing system. Website developed using the latest strategies for effective performance, ease of navigation, and traffic generation is a good tool for promotion and online booking engine. The booking engine includes full room descriptions, explanations of offerings, adjustable minimum and maximum night stays, alternate availability, and inventory management capabilities. It is easier for the customers to make an online reservation and do the payment by e-banking.

Information system is used to manage information interchange to and from hotel divisions. It passes information only the one needed by a certain division. Information system also works inside a division, such as inventory management system in food and beverage division, administration system in administration hotel division, and room arrangement system in room division. Information system includes developing software with proper information flow which influences the work of a system. A good software passes information efficiently and prevent error occurred in information processing.

Database management system is used to process and manage division data, food and beverage inventories data, transaction data, room arrangement data, employee data, bookkeeping and accounting data, etc. Database management system is very useful for making data management easier to do, especially in big hotels where large number of data is continuously updated to keep the database of high quality. Not all databases are accessible for every employee. Only hotel owner and high level employee such as general manager and division manager have the privilege to access certain database such as division data, bookkeeping and accounting data. Other employees can only access database which they needed, for example, hotel administration division employees can access and update transaction data and employee data but they cannot access nor update food and beverage inventories data, restaurant staffs can access and update food and beverage inventory data and employee data but they cannot access nor update transaction data and room arrangement data, room division employees can access and update room arrangement data and employee data but they cannot access nor update transaction data and food and beverage inventories data, etc.

Author

1. Shanny Avelina Halim (13504027)
2. Tania Krisanty (13504101)

GSM vs CDMA

2006-12-12T09:12:00.000+07:00

Global Competition between GSM and CDMA in Providing The Best Service to The Publics in Indonesia

It's probably the understatement of the decade to say that cell phones have become the single greatest tool in business. In today’s world the ability to communicate with business associates while on the go is not just an advantage, it’s a necessity. And because of that, the choices people make when choosing their handheld devices matter more than ever.

When it comes time to select a cell phone or smart phone, the major part of the evaluation people make focuses on the features and benefits of the handset. People may choose a device with the best features but in other way they spend money as few as possible. A device with features such as access to the Internet and email, an organizer that will sync with Outlook will be selected. This features can take the owner scheduler, contacts, and information on the road. And most importantly, the body and size of the phone cell, the slick one is better.

But if people conduct a lot of their business on the road or internationally, the most important decision they make regarding their service may not have anything at all to do with the features they usually consider important for handhelds. They choice of carrier and the technology it uses for its network might make the difference between being productive or ending up out of area.

By now, people have probably heard all of the acronyms in the alphabet soup of carrier technologies. The two major terms that pertain to cellular phone communication that people are likely to run into GSM and CDMA, the two major technologies service providers use to carry voice signals across the network. But what are they and why do they matter? There are our focuses now, so in this paper we will reveal some things in other to make clear the problem about this case, such as:

Here are two major methods for wireless communication. They are CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). Those two methods, which have different protocol and standards, have different process for providing wireless communication. How those two methods exactly work?
Those different processes explained above, will lead to the difference of their advantages. Futhermore, current-marketing-scope of those two methods will differ their advantages too. What are advantages and disadvantages of those two methods?
Those two methods have the same business action. Futhermore, those methods may exploit the same network coverage too. Hence, how far exactly those two methods interferes each other?

GSM Overview

GSM, The Global System for Mobile Communications, which is the original acronym Groupe Spécial Mobile. This service as standard for mobile phones has been used by over 12 million people across more than 212 countries and territories. GSM is a cellular network, which means that mobile phones connect to it by searching for cells in the immediate vicinity. GSM networks operate in four different frequency ranges. Most GSM networks operate in the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands. Some countries use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands because the 900 and 1800 MHz frequency bands were already allocated.

In the 900 MHz band the uplink frequency band is 890-915 MHz, and the downlink frequency band is 935-960 MHz. This 25 MHz bandwidth is subdivided into 124 carrier frequency channels, each spaced 200 kHz apart. Time division multiplexing is used to allow eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency channel. There are eight radio timeslots (giving eight burst periods) grouped into what is called a TDMA frame. Half rate channels use alternate frames in the same timeslot. The channel data rate is 270.833 kbit/s, and the frame duration is 4.615 ms. The transmission power in the handset is limited to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900.

GSM has used a variety of voice codecs to squeeze 3.1kHz audio into between 6 and 13kbps. Originally, two codecs, named after the types of data channel they were allocated, were used, called "Full Rate" (13kbps) and "Half Rate" (6kbps). These used a system based upon linear predictive coding (LPC). In addition to being efficient with bitrates, these codecs also made it easier to identify more important parts of the audio, allowing the air interface layer to prioritize and better protect these parts of the signal.

GSM Signal Transferring Process

The network behind the GSM system seen by the customer is large and complicated in order to provide all of the services which are required. But actually, it is divided into a number of sections such as.

The Base Station Subsystem (the base stations and their controllers).
The Network and Switching Subsystem (the part of the network most similar to a fixed network). This is sometimes also just called the core network.
The GPRS Core Network (the optional part which allows packet based Internet connections).
All of the elements in the system combine to produce many GSM services such as voice calls and SMS.

The process can be described that the phone signal from PSTN (Public Service Telecommunication Network) come into MSC (mobile services switching center) and VLR (visitor location register). The MSC performs the telephony switching functions of the system. It controls calls to and from other telephone and data systems. It also performs such functions as toll ticketing, network interfacing, common channel signaling, and others. The VLR is a database that contains temporary information about subscribers that is needed by the MSC in order to service visiting subscribers. The VLR is always integrated with the MSC. When a mobile station roams into a new MSC area, the VLR connected to that MSC will request data about the mobile station from the HLR. Later, if the mobile station makes a call, the VLR will have the information needed for call setup without having to interrogate the HLR each time.

After that there are HLR (home location register), AUC (authentication center) and EIR (equipment identity register) which give additional process to the signal. The HLR is a database used for storage and management of subscriptions. The HLR is considered the most important database, as it stores permanent data about subscribers, including a subscriber's service profile, location information, and activity status. When an individual buys a subscription from one of the PCS operators, he or she is registered in the HLR of that operator. A unit called the AUC provides authentication and encryption parameters that verify the user's identity and ensure the confidentiality of each call. The AUC protects network operators from different types of fraud found in today's cellular world. The EIR is a database that contains information about the identity of mobile equipment that prevents calls from stolen, unauthorized, or defective mobile stations. The AUC and EIR are implemented as stand-alone nodes or as a combined AUC/EIR node. The output is joined into SS7 Network (Switching System 7 Network), from here the signal will be sent to the SGSN receiver. All that part of process is done in the Switching System mode.

In other way different from PSTN group, the signal from mobile phone is received firstly by BTS (Base Transceiver Stations) which as function is to handles the radio interface to the mobile station. The BTS is the radio equipment (transceivers and antennas) needed to service each cell in the network. A group of BTSs are controlled by a BSC. And then the signal is continued into BSC (Base Station Controllers). The signal from here is sent to the MSC and VLR and then has the same treatment as the PSTN signal. But there are PCU that BSC is associated with to make signal can pass the switching system process, and the signal will directly come onto GPRS core Network and received by SGSN (System GPRS Service Node). After that, signal will be sent to the server in order to process client’s request. Knowing the clients needs, the server will connect it to phone number destination with reversed process, so the call will be made.

Reference:

http://www.gsmworld.com , accessed at December 4^th, 2006

http://www.protocols.com/pbook/, accessed at December 4^th, 2006

Authors :

Made Harta Dwijaksara (13504137)

Hadi Saloko (13504157)

Journal-3rd revision

2006-12-11T14:28:00.000+07:00

Interaction Design – a New Perspective in Making a System

There are many interactive products in everyday use. For example, cell phone , computer , personal organizer, remote control, soft drink machine, coffee machine, ATM , ticket machine, library information system, the web , photocopier, watch, printer, stereo , calculator, video game, etc and the list is endless. Viewing from the usability side, not all of them are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to use. These conditions happen because when making those things, the product-maker did not concern about the human factor and its interaction with the system. Therefore, interaction design developed. Furthermore, interaction design improves the usability and experience of the object or system, by first researching and understanding user's goals, expectations, behaviors, and needs and then deliberately design to meet and exceed these needs and desires for designated user groups.

There is a formal definition about interaction design. In essence, interaction design is a designing interactive product to support people in their everyday and working lives. Another reference says that Interaction Design means the branch of user experience design that illuminates the relationship between people and the interactive products they use. This entails creating user experiences that enhances and extend the way of people work, communicate, and interact. The practice of interaction design is grounded in an understanding of real users—their goals, tasks, experiences, needs, and wants. Now that it is widely accepted, that Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has moved beyond designing computer system for one user sitting in front of one machine to embrace new paradigms. Interaction design has covered a wider range of issues; include ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing that make use of wireless of collaborative technologies.

To know more about interaction design, there are several things that will be explained in this paper, which are:

Understanding and conceptualizing interaction
Understanding how interfaces affect user
User-centered approaches to interaction design
The process of interaction design

Understanding and Conceptualizing Interaction

When making a new system or product, it is important to realize that having a clear understanding of what kind of product that will be designed, why designing the product and how to design the product, before writing any code, can save much time and effort later on in design process.

In the process of creating an interactive product, it starts with working out how to design the physical interface and what interaction style to use. A problem with trying to solve a design problem beginning at this level is that critical usability goals and user needs can be easily overlooked. For example, consider the problem of making a system for better navigation and traffic information in a car. In the context of driving, it could be very helpful for the driver in displaying information about what to do at certain points during their journey and to find out where they are going. In fact, images of places and directions to follow could be projected inside the car, on the dashboard or rear-view mirror. However, it is unsafe. Because, it could easily distract drivers, luring them to switch their attention from the road to the images were being projected.

While it is certainly necessary at some point to decide on the design of physical aspects, it is better to make these kinds of decisions after understanding the nature of the problem space by conceptualizing what to create, why creating it and how the design will support people in their everyday and working lives. Clarifying the usability and user experience goals is a central part of working out the problem space. This process involves making explicit the implicit-assumptions and claims. Assumptions that are found to be vague can highlight design ideas that need to be better formulated. This process can also help to determine relevant user needs for given activity, which is involves identifying human activities and interactivities that are problematic and working out how they might be improves through being supported with a different from of interaction. These following questions provide a useful framework to thinking through the problem space:

Are there problems with an existing product?
Why do you think there are problems?
Why do you think your proposed ideas might be useful?
How would you see people using it with their current way of doing things?
How will it support people in their activities?
Will it really help them?

Having a good understanding of the problem space can help inform the design space just likes what kind of interface, behaviour, functionality to provide. But before deciding upon these, it is important to develop a conceptual model, since it is a fundamental aspect of interaction design. A conceptual model is a description of the proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave and look like, that will be understandable by the users in the manner intended. To develop a conceptual model involves imagining the proposed product, based on the user’s needs and other requirements identified. To ensure that it is designed to be understandable in the manner intended requires doing iterative testing of the product as it is developed. A key aspect of this design process is initially to answer these following questions:

What will the users are doing when carrying out their tasks?
How will the system support these?
What kind of interface metaphor, if any, will be appropriate?
What kinds of interaction modes and styles to use?

It is important to keep in mind when making design decisions, think how the user will understand the underlying conceptual model.

There are various kinds of conceptual models that are categorized according to the activity or object they based on. Conceptual models based on activities that user will do, which is consist of the following things:

Giving instructions means issuing commands using keyboard and function keys and selecting options via menus
Conversing means interacting with the system as if having a conversation
Manipulating and navigating means acting on objects and interacting with virtual objects
Exploring and browsing means finding out and learning things

Conceptual models based on objects usually based on an analogy with something in the physical world. An example of highly successful conceptual model based on an object is the spreadsheet, which is looked likes and based on the ledger sheet.

The next step is creating the prototypes of conceptual models. There are several issues will need to be addressed when developing and testing initial prototypes of conceptual models, which are:

How about the way information to be presented and interacted with at the interface?
What combinations of media to use?
What kind of feedback that will be provided?
What combinations of input and output devices to use?
What kinds of help to provide and in what format?

References

Preece,Jennifer. “Interaction Design – Beyond Human Computer Interaction”. 2002. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design
http://www.boxesandarrows.com
http://www.chesco.com/~cmarion/PCD/WhatIsInteractionDesign.html
http://www.ixda.org/en
http://www.i-d.co.uk

Authors
Dian Syahfitra 13504021
Gahayu Handari E 13504031

Journal - third revision

2006-12-09T17:10:00.000+07:00

Artificial Intelligence Robots:

Let you explores the impossible and investigates the unimagined

As seen, tough from time to time, the A.I. research community has achieved an incremental progress, these last few years they indeed has achieved a significant advances leading to robots with new abilities. So, this paper will focus on this astonishing progress in three emerging areas of artificial intelligence research, i.e. humanoid that interacts with people, interactive simulation robot, and shape-adaptive robot which suits to environment.

Humanoid that Interacts with People

As number of Hollywood fantasies have portrayed, the future of AI promises there will be lots of robots in our everyday lives. Some, perhaps many, of them could look like human and behave like people (humanoid). It also desirable for them to produce as little as possible cognitive load on humans, which means they must have an ability to understand human social conventions i.e. conversation, gesture, etc (interactive).

Those two key points, humanoid and interactive, have lead to the development of Kismet, robot with humanoid form, which intended to act humanly as people do in the world. Kismet built with social interactions ability, which themselves based on eye movements, facial expressions, and voice prosody detection.

The Kismet eye movements are the bases for their social interactions. Even an ordinary observer can understand what the robots are paying attention to by the direction of their gaze. Likewise, the robot can understand what a person is paying attention to by the direction of the person’s gaze. The visual attention system makes it completely intuitive for ordinary people to direct the robot’s eyes to some particular objects. If an object was brought into the field of view of the robot, and moved to the desired position, the robot will smoothly pursue it, paying attention to where the object goes. Of course the robots are not able to do visualization as good as human visual system, but estimation with 4 or 5 degree accuracy is enough for social interaction. Kismet is also able to detect human faces through a variety of methods and estimate the gaze direction of a person by determining the direction their eyes are pointing. By manipulating the weighting of the visual system, it will create different visual sign. As a result, Kismet has high-level human-like behaviors, such as dialogue turn-taking and making eye contact. Indirectly, these high-level behaviors regulate social interaction.

Moreover, Kismet expresses its internal emotional state through facial expressions and prosody in its voice. So, for instance, when someone comes very close to Kismet or waves something very quickly nears its face, Kismet becomes fear. That emotional state is reflected in its posture; it draws back. Thus, Kismet, indirectly through its emotional system and its expression, is able to manipulate people, just as humans unconsciously manipulate each other.

Kismet is also able to detect basic patterns and rhythms in the voices of people and classify them into praising, prohibiting, comforting, or interest, four basic prosodic signals used in almost all human cultures. Nevertheless, the robot could understand only the prosody not the actual words said.

Morenvino M (135 04 034)

Nicolas A (135 04 109)

Announcement

2006-12-08T11:06:00.001+07:00

Dear All,
There won't be any class on the 12/12/2006. Please post your work in this blog for inputs, I might have problem in opening my email since I will be in a remote part of Indonesia.
Regards
Jati

input for Made

2006-12-08T11:06:00.000+07:00

Global Competition between GSM and CDMA in Providing The Best Service to The Publics in Indonesia

When it comes time to select a cell phone or smart phone, the major part of the evaluation we make focuses on the features and benefits of the handset. Does it provide access to the Internet and email? Does it contain an organizer that will sync with Outlook, so you can take your scheduler, contacts, and information on the road? And most importantly, does it look slick? (better if you write the idea in sentences not in the form of questions)

But if our conduct a lot of ours business on the road or internationally, the most important decision we make regarding ours service may not have anything at all to do with the features we usually consider important for handhelds. We choice of carrier and the technology it uses for its network might make the difference between being productive or ending up out of area. (avoid using ‘we’, as we discussed in class)

By now, we’ve probably heard all of the acronyms in the alphabet soup of carrier technologies. The two major terms that pertain to cellular phone communication that we’re likely to run into are GSM and CDMA, the two major technologies service providers use to carry voice signals across the network. But what are they and why do they matter? There are our focuses now, so in this paper we will reveal some things in other to make clear the problem about this case, such as: (avoid using ‘we’, as we discussed in class)

Here are two major methods for wireless communication. They are CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). Those two methods, which have different protocol and standards, have different process for providing wireless communication. How those two methods exactly work?
Those different processes explained above, will lead to the difference of their advantages. Futhermore, current-marketing-scope of those two methods will differ their advantages too. What are advantages and disadvantages of those two methods?
Those two methods have the same business action. Futhermore, those methods may exploit the same network coverage too. Hence, how far exactly those two methods interfere each other?
Is there any method that can exploit the advantages from those two methods? If any, is the alternative method will increase the interferences (especially the negative ones) between those methods?
In Indonesia as a local scope, both of them have been implemented far enough. Which of them is dominantly used? At the future, which of them will be expanded further? If there is any alternative method, can it be implemented? How about the global scope?

Ajax: Solution for Developing More Responsive Web Application

2006-11-28T10:46:00.000+07:00

Note: Your writing is good in term of organization and grammar. The problems; who are your readers? I am afraid that this article will be boring and has no character. In other words, “why do you write this?”

Even when the web has evolved to as advanced as now, developers still have to face so many limitations when building web application. It seems impossible to build a web application without characteristics like having to reload web page after every change made, less interactivity, and that static feel of the page. To overcome the problem, new technology and techniques have been developed. One of the techniques that has become popular is Ajax.

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. What it mainly does is transferring data by making asynchronous calls to the server from which it was loaded. The data may then be used to update or modify the information on the HTML page presented to user. Each update is small and does not require the browser to reload the page, therefore making the page more interactive and responsive to user action.

Ajax has been used in many web applications that require high interactivity and fast response. One small example is Google Suggest. In Google suggest, when user type a few letters the program will list a number of matching or nearly matching phrases, as well as the number of results found. The suggestion comes in no time, there is almost no loading and there is no page-refreshing at all.

In this paper we will explain more about Ajax, like:

-What Ajax really is

-Implementations of Ajax

-The strength and weakness of using Ajax

-Ajax and new era of web-based application

--
Mohammad Satrio U 13504134
Tri Aji Nugroho 13504141

Mobile Banking : A Bank Witihin Your Fingertips

2006-11-27T10:31:00.000+07:00

Note from Jati

Mobile Banking : A Bank Witihin Your Fingertips

Over the past few years, mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest growing markets in the world, especially in Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, India, and Philippines where the mobile infrastructure is better than the fixed-line infrastructure. Therefore, the growth of Mobile technology is affected as well. Mobile technology offers many ease and effectiveness use of time, since people can fully utilize the data capabilities of their mobile phones. One of the most popular technologies available for mobile phones is Mobile Banking. [very good points]

Mobile banking (M-Banking) is one of the mobile financial services that are offered as a part of mobile commerce. Mobile Banking refers to provision and availment [ Do you mean the availability … ?]of banking and financial services with the help of mobile telecommunication devices. The scope of offered services may include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customized information. In other words, Mobile Banking is a service to access bank accounts or other financial services, built for mobile devices.

Mobile Banking allows people to access their bank accounts in seconds just by a few presses on your mobile phones, but you have to be registered to the appropriate website first in order to use the service. For instance, in order to use BCA M-banking on your mobile phone, you have to register for your account and mobile phone number on www.klikbca.com. Once you’re done with [note; avoid using pronouns “YOU”, please rewrite these sentences] the registration, the service will usually be activated within a day or so. Some of the services available are balance check, telegraphic transfer, electronic payment, and currency rate. It's simply a bank everywhere.

Several points that will be revealed later:
- Mobile banking as a mobile commerce breakthrough
- History of mobile banking
- How mobile banking works
- Opportunities in mobile banking
- Challenges in mobile banking

Good writing. Please continue

Over the past few years, mobile and wireless market has been one of the fastest growing markets in the world, especially in Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, India, and Philippines where the mobile infrastructure is better than the fixed-line infrastructure. Therefore, the growth of Mobile technology is affected as well. Mobile technology offers many ease and effectiveness use of time, since people can fully utilize the data capabilities of their mobile phones. One of the most popular technologies available for mobile phones is Mobile Banking.

Mobile banking (M-Banking) is one of the mobile financial services that are offered as a part of mobile commerce. Mobile Banking refers to provision and availment of banking and financial services with the help of mobile telecommunication devices. The scope of offered services may include facilities to conduct bank and stock market transactions, to administer accounts and to access customized information. In other words, Mobile Banking is a service to access bank accounts or other financial services, built for mobile devices.

Mobile Banking allows people to access their bank accounts in seconds just by a few presses on your mobile phones, but you have to be registered to the appropriate website first in order to use the service. For instance, in order to use BCA M-banking on your mobile phone, you have to register for your account and mobile phone number on www.klikbca.com. Once you’re done with the registration, the service will usually be activated within a day or so. Some of the services available are balance check, telegraphic transfer, electronic payment, and currency rate. It's simply a bank everywhere.

Several points that will be revealed later:
- Mobile banking as a mobile commerce breakthrough
- History of mobile banking
- How mobile banking works
- Opportunities in mobile banking
- Challenges in mobile banking

Interaction Design – a New Perspective in Making a System

2006-11-27T07:11:00.004+07:00

Interaction Design – a New Perspective in Making a System

How many interactive products are there in everyday use? Think for a minute about what you use in typical day : cell phone , computer , personal organizer, remote control, soft drink machine, coffee machine, ATM , ticket machine, library information system, the web , photocopier, watch, printer, stereo , calculator, video game … the list is endless [do not put dots]. Now think for a minute about how usable they are. How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to use? All of them, several, or just one or two? [these sentences are more spoken sentences] This list is probably considerably shorter. Why is this so? Because when making them, the maker didn’t concerned about the human factor and its interaction with the system. Therefore, interaction design developed. [these sentences are more spoken sentences]

What exactly the meaning of interaction design? [this sentence is more spoken sentences] In essence, interaction design is a designing interactive product to support people in their everyday and working lives. This entails creating user experiences that enhances and extend the way of people work, communicate, and interact. Now that it is widely accepted that Human Computer Interaction has moved beyond designing computer system for one user sitting in front of one machine to embrace new paradigms, likewise, covered a wider range of issues [this sentence is not complete]. These include ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing that make use of wireless of collaborative technologies.

Things will be explained in this paper is:

- Understanding and Conceptualizing interaction

- Understanding how interfaces affect users

- User-centered approaches to interaction design

- The process of interaction design

Please rewrite and continue.

How many interactive products are there in everyday use? Think for a minute about what you use in typical day : cell phone , computer , personal organizer, remote control, soft drink machine, coffee machine, ATM , ticket machine, library information system, the web , photocopier, watch, printer, stereo , calculator, video game … the list is endless. Now think for a minute about how usable they are. How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to use? All of them, several, or just one or two? This list is probably considerably shorter. Why is this so? Because when making them, the maker didn’t concerned about the human factor and its interaction with the system. Therefore, interaction design developed.

What exactly the meaning of interaction design? In essence, interaction design is a designing interactive product to support people in their everyday and working lives. This entails creating user experiences that enhances and extend the way of people work, communicate, and interact. Now that it is widely accepted that Human Computer Interaction has moved beyond designing computer system for one user sitting in front of one machine to embrace new paradigms, likewise, covered a wider range of issues. These include ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing that make use of wireless of collaborative technologies.

Things will be explained in this paper is:

- Understanding and Conceptualizing interaction

- Understanding how interfaces affect users

- User-centered approaches to interaction design

- The process of interaction design

13504021 Dian
13504031 Gahayu

Artificial Intelligence Robots: Let you explores the impossible and investigates the unimagined

2006-11-23T18:26:00.000+07:00

note from Jati

Artificial Intelligence Robots:

Let you explores the impossible and investigates the unimagined

As you can see, tough from time to time [avoid using ‘you’ and informal language ‘though’], the A.I. research community has achieved an incremental progress, these last few years they indeed has achieved a significant advances leading to robots with new abilities. So, our paper will focus on this astonishing progress in three emerging areas of artificial intelligence research, i.e. humanoid that interact with people, interactive simulation robot, and shape-adaptive robot which suit to environment.

Morenvino M (135 04 034)

Nicolas A (135 04 109)

Very well written and please continue.

Artificial Intelligence Robots:

Let you explores the impossible and investigates the unimagined

The recent state of intelligence robotic technology has surpassed science-fiction imagination in many respects, moving beyond mechanical machines to human-like agents. Today’s robots can operate not only in autonomous but intelligent ways. For instance, we find them collecting samples above the surface of Mars or the bottom of the deepest ocean. We find robots on the battlefields of war and tracking of terrorism. Artificial intelligence robotic devices are also among the first search equipment sent to catastrophe. A series of bots might search the field, while smaller one might crawl through the ruins looking for victims.

As you can see, tough from time to time, the A.I. research community has achieved an incremental progress, these last few years they indeed has achieved a significant advances leading to robots with new abilities. So, our paper will focus on this astonishing progress in three emerging areas of artificial intelligence research, i.e. humanoid that interact with people, interactive simulation robot, and shape-adaptive robot which suit to environment.

--
Morenvino M (135 04 034)
Nicolas Andres (135 04 109)

Introduction (revised)

2006-11-23T12:32:00.000+07:00

Note from Jati

Pseudo Random Number Generator

Chaos theory has been established since 1970s by many different research areas, such as physics, mathematics, biology and chemistry, etc. [ give an example here] The most well-known characteristics of chaos is pseudo-randomness generated by deterministic equations. Randomness is a very useful resource, and nowhere more than in cryptographic applications. Randomness is essential for secret keys, and inadequate source of randomness can compromise the strongest cryptographic protocol. [example of the application] However, the reality is that procedures for obtaining random bits (called pseudo-random generators) are often not designed as well as they could have been. This is unfortunate since a security flaw in this procedure translates into a security flaw in the whole system. Also, if this procedure does not have a rigorous security proof then there is no hope for such a proof for the whole system.

[A very good introduction; you have to give example of the use in real life]

Random numbers are heavily used in cryptography. Session keys, initialization vectors (IV), unique parameters in digital signature operations, are assumed to be random by cryptographer. What random means here is the numbers generated by system are hard to be predicted by an attacker. [example of the application] Unfortunately, in practice, it is very difficult to get pure random numbers. Many cryptographic applications don't have a reliable source of real random bits. So, a cryptographic mechanism called a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) is used to generate these numbers. The numbers are said to be Pseudo-Random because they are produced by some mathematical formulas and so periodically repeat themselves. A well-defined Pseudo-Random Number Generator - used for cryptography application - is called Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generator. It should statistically has good characteristic and endure all serious attacks. [example of the application]

Things that will be explained in this paper :

• Requirement for PRNG

• Implementation of Old PRNG Algorithm

• Implementation of Modern PRNG Algorithm

• Cryptanalytic Attacks on Real-World PRNG

Author:

13504060 dani

13504080 stevens jethefer

General note;

You need to give examples for the explanation so that the reader get clearer picture.

Chaos theory has been established since 1970s by many different research areas, such as physics, mathematics, biology and chemistry, etc. The most well-known characteristics of chaos is pseudo-randomness generated by deterministic equations. Randomness is a very useful resource, and nowhere more than in cryptographic applications. Randomness is essential for secret keys, and inadequate source of randomness can compromise the strongest cryptographic protocol. However, the reality is that procedures for obtaining random bits (called pseudo-random generators) are often not designed as well as they could have been. This is unfortunate since a security flaw in this procedure translates into a security flaw in the whole system. Also, if this procedure does not have a rigorous security proof then there is no hope for such a proof for the whole system.

Random numbers are heavily used in cryptography. Session keys, initialization vectors (IV), unique parameters in digital signature operations, are assumed to be random by cryptographer. What random means here is the numbers generated by system are hard to be predicted by an attacker. Unfortunately, in practice, it is very difficult to get pure random numbers. Many cryptographic applications don't have a reliable source of real random bits. So, a cryptographic mechanism called a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) is used to generate these numbers. The numbers are said to be Pseudo-Random because they are produced by some mathematical formulas and so periodically repeat themselves. A well-defined Pseudo-Random Number Generator - used for cryptography application - is called Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generator. It should statistically has good characteristic and endure all serious attacks.

Things that will be explained in this paper :

• Requirement for PRNG

• Implementation of Old PRNG Algorithm

• Implementation of Modern PRNG Algorithm

• Cryptanalytic Attacks on Real-World PRNG

Author:

13504060 dani

13504080 stevens jethefer

Better Information Retrieval System

2006-11-23T11:12:00.000+07:00

Note from Jati

Better Information Retrieval System

In this paper, we will describe the following points: describing these points are not enough, there will be no character in your essay. See our note when we discussed this in class.

EXPLORE the problem -- not the topic

1. Who is your reader?

2. What is your purpose?

3. Who are you, the writer? (What image or persona do you want to project?)

Reader

• Does the author provide necessary background knowledge as a basis for the article?

• Is the problem/ topic clearly defined?

• Did the writer bring a new perspective to the topic?

• Did the article sustain the reader’s interest?

• What additional suggestions would you purpose?

Defining the audience

• Who are my readers?

• What do they already know and what do I need to tell them about the topic?

• Why would the reader want to read this article?

• How would the reader be able to use the article?

• What possible objections might cause the reader to dismiss my ideas?

Defining the author

• Why do I want to write this article?

• What special knowledge, experience, and perspectives do I bring to the topic?

• How does my article relate to other publications on the topic?

Information Retrieval System implements string matching algorithm with term-document and query weighting concept
To build a better Information Retrieval System, we also need to consider the human factor in typing query
Natural Language Processing makes a better Information Retrieval System by detecting typos and remaking it to something meaningful

The growth of internet has led the researchers to build a system that can retrieve relevant information based on what user need. In this case, user gives query to the system. Then, the system uses it to retrieve the relevant documents and rank them based on a term-query weighting concept. This system is known as Information Retrieval System.

In the early days, the system just used string matching algorithms to retrieve documents from the given query. Lately, this concept is considered to be weak and unreliable. The documents retrieved were usually overloaded and most of them were not relevant. For example, if the user wanted to retrieve document related to George W. Bush with query “Bush”, the system would return all document that have string “Bush”, no matter whether the bush is George W. Bush or just bush in the garden.

Then, the researcher thought to insert a weighing concept to the system. After scanning every term in each candidate document, the system creates an inverted table of term and query. Each table contains the weight of every term. From these two tables, the system computes similarity of each document by multiplying the query weight and the document-term weight. The higher its similarity brings higher relevancy, or in this case, higher rank.

Generally, every information retrieval system implements two weighing concepts, term-document and query weighing concept. Both concepts use one of four term frequencies (tf) calculation: (raw, logarithmic, binary, and augmented), index document frequency (idf) and normalization. The result of this concept is an inverted index that is used in similarity calculation.

To build better information system, the system also needs to consider the case when user mistypes the query. In this case, Natural Language Processing is needed to remake the query to something meaningful. For example, when user types “a beter information retieval”, the system should recognize the typos and remake it to “a better information retrieval”. This concept has been implemented by the biggest search engine in the world nowadays, Google.

By :

Anton Rifco Susilo (13504046)

Chandra Gondowasito (13504100)

In this paper, we will describe the following points:

Information Retrieval System implements string matching algorithm with term-document and query weighting concept
To build a better Information Retrieval System, we also need to consider the human factor in typing query
Natural Language Processing makes a better Information Retrieval System by detecting typos and remaking it to something meaningful

by :
Anton Rifco Susilo - 13504046
Chandra Gondowasito - 13504100

Integrated Home Security System:Make Your Home As Secure As A Bank, Not A Jail

2006-11-21T15:26:00.000+07:00

Your title is good.

Nowadays, by the advancement of architectural study, houses can be built in various design. However, the basic purpose of a house remains the same, it is to provide some shelter for its occupant. Along the ages, that need of protection has evolved into a more complex requirement of security.
People no longer care for protection from natural evidences such as rains, stroms, and wild animals only, but also demand some measure of protection of theft and other human-related incidents. Some people cover this need by hiring some guards to watch for their house. Despite its effectiveness, this kind of solution is basically inefficient. [ these sentences are not necessary, ' I know you know so what?'. It is better for you to write the latest trend of housing security demands in the modern world, big cities, etc, so that you can link the idea of modern and sophisticated system smoothly. Even you can predict what will be needed in a modern life etc. You need to write down 'what is or are the need(s) for home security']. To answer this need of efficient solution, a techonogical-based integrated home security system is therefore proposed.
Integrated home security system is a complex system that able to manage entire electricity system (lamps, airconditioner, gateway, generator, etc), monitor entire house without pursued by time and distance, and control all parts of the system manually and remotely from a long distance. Of course to build this complex system needs newest technologies that make communication between owner and system come true.

Some points that will be discused:
General functions of a house [no need, just in one or two sentences]
How secure does your home? [no need, just in one or two sentences]
Introductory to integrated home security system
Required equipments
Technology used by the system
Implementation cost estimation

GENERAL NOTES AFTER THE 1st CLASS DISCUSSION

2006-11-17T13:15:00.000+07:00

This is a note after our class discussion, please rewrite your first draft, and send it to me via email and post it on this blog for comments.

° offering a provocative image

° picking up on words or examples offered in the body or conclusion of the paper

° asking a question

EXPLORE the problem -- not the topic

1. Who is your reader?

2. What is your purpose?

3. Who are you, the writer? (What image or persona do you want to project?)

Reader

• Does the author provide necessary background knowledge as a basis for the article?

• Is the problem/ topic clearly defined?

• Did the writer bring a new perspective to the topic?

• Did the article sustain the reader’s interest?

• What additional suggestions would you purpose?

Defining the audience

• Who are my readers?

• What do they already know and what do I need to tell them about the topic?

• Why would the reader want to read this article?

• How would the reader be able to use the article?

• What possible objections might cause the reader to dismiss my ideas?

Defining the author

• Why do I want to write this article?

• What special knowledge, experience, and perspectives do I bring to the topic?

• How does my article relate to other publications on the topic?

After you wrote your first draft

Evaluating the structure

• Does overall organization of the article reflect my goals?

• Have I stated the purpose clearly in the introduction?

• Does the body of the article fulfill the promises made in the introduction?

• Do important ideas receive more support than unimportant ones?

• How is the relationship between ideas signaled within paragraphs?

Process Paragraph

2006-11-15T14:03:00.000+07:00

Methane Extraction

It needs several stages of process to extract methane gas from household waste. First, waste is put into the warming bed. The liquid contained in the waste will gradually evaporate, leaving solid material that can be used as fertilizer. The vapor goes to the dirt trap and gets filtered, so it is separated from dirt. The dirt can be removed later by opening the release cap. Next, the vapor goes to the gas indicator. There, the vapor is turned back to liquid form for further process, which is to separate methane gas from other chemical by forming it into bubbles and then sending the bubbles to the pressure tank. The gas is distillated in the tank and become pure methane. Using pressure created by weighting a stack of inner tubes that connected to the system, the methane gas is sent to the gas holder. Now the methane inside of the holder is ready to use.

Sewage Disposal

How does sewage get processed by disposal unit? First, sewage from the main sewer flows to the settling tank and stays there for a period of time. As the time goes, the sewage is separated into solids and polluted water. The solids precipitate and form undecayed material, which has to be removed or burnt later. The water is pumped to the sprinkler beds using the power of a pump house. In the beds, the polluted water is jetted to the filter of stones and microorganisms using rotating arms, in order to clean it from corrupting chemicals. After the whole process, the water is finally purified, safe to enter river.

E-Books Usage in Today Knowledge and Industrial Expansion

2006-11-14T12:35:00.000+07:00

Points in this paper that will be explained are:
1.E-Book Definition
2.E-Book History
3.E-Book Formats
4.Comparison with Printed Book
5.E-Book Industry and today usage
6.Conclusion

Introduction

Electronic Book or known as E-Book has become very phenomenal. They spread like disease, through the whole world surface beyond space and time limitation. During the last six years, E-Book has made a great change from the concept debates to the implementation of a big knowledge industry. It changes the way of people to get the knowledge from the book. It eliminates book weight and volume. People don’t need to increase their back burden by bringing a heavy book in their bags. They don’t need to go the bookstore to read the latest book or magazine. In addition, they don’t need to prepare the cupboard or special space in their house or office for the bookcase. What they just need is to have a set of computer and a little space in their hard disk. People can have their own library without have to clean the book from the dust and read their thick and heavy reference book because there are E-Books which is “smaller”. This kind of knowledge storage was a phenomenal invention which is unimaginable in the past decade. We may have questions about what is E-Book actually or how the history of E-Book invention. Basically, the function isn’t very different from the real book (paper book). The most different thing is that E-Book save much energy to bring heavy book and save space to keep those conventional books. Another advantage we can earn is that we can search the topic in the book in no-time by using E-Book search feature. Almost every person who likes to read search for E-Book to satisfy their reading needs. Because of that, today needs of E-Books become very high and make the E-Book industry become very potential to be expanded.

--
Tri Aji Nugroho
13504143

CDMA vs GSM

2006-11-14T10:20:00.000+07:00

The competition between two major cellular technologies (CDMA and GSM) in providing service to the public

Today the existence of cell phone becomes most important to all people, because through this they can communicate with others just by pushing their cell phone button. The characteristic of cell phone−portable device−has made all of this. The simpleness of use makes people more confortable, and many services have been given helps it’s user in most of their job especially in communication problems. By thus, today cell phone becomes part that cannot be desparated from people (generally). Cell phone has made area in the world borderless anytime, anywhere and in any condition people can communicate with others whom they want to. So they don’t need to worry about where and when they stay on. CDMA and GSM are two major technologies that used in other to make cell phone work. Behind that, there are cellular operators that have this service and responsible to all of their service. In other they can compete with others they should gain the customers attention to use their products, so they could gain profit from the service that they provide to the public.

Methods

To gain information to support our paper, we use a referential technique to another paper or writing that discussed about related topic. Beside that we also take some forums contents that have same topic.

Some points that will be discussed

There are two methods for wireless communication. They are CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). What are the invention backgrounds of them?
Nowadays, those two methods have been used by everyone, everywhere. Precisely, where they were dominantly used? Give some prediction refer to the situation and condition of those places?
Those two methods, which have different protocol and standards, have different process for providing wireless communication. How those two methods exactly work?
Those different processes explained above, will lead to the difference of their advantages. What are advantages and disadvantages of those two methods?
Because those two methods have same business action, and they exploit same network coverage, how far exactly those two methods interfere each other?
In this country, Indonesia, both of them have been implemented far enough. Which of them is dominantly used? At the future, which of them will be expanded further both in global scope and local scope?

Made Harta Dwijaksara (13504137)
Hadi Saloko (13504157)

Mobile banking: A Bank within your fingertips

2006-11-13T23:16:00.000+07:00

Pseudo Random Number Generator

2006-11-13T19:28:00.000+07:00

Random numbers are heavily used in cryptography. Session keys, initialization vectors (IV), unique parameters in digital signature operations, are assumed to be random by cryptographer. What random means here is the numbers generated by system are hard to be predicted by an attacker. Unfortunately, in practice, it is very difficult to get pure random numbers. Many cryptographic application don't have a reliable source of real random bits. So, a cryptographic mechanism called a Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) is used to generate these numbers. The numbers are said to be Pseudo-Random because they are produced by some mathematical formulas and so periodically repeat themselves. A well-defined Pseudo-Random Number Generator - used for cryptography application - is called Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generator. It should statistically has good characteristic and endure all serious attacks.

Things that will be explained in this paper :
• Requirement for PRNG
• Implementation of Old PRNG Algorithm
• Implementation of Modern PRNG Algorithm
• Cryptanalytic Attacks on Real-World PRNG

Author :
13504060 dani
13504080 stevens jethefer

Information Technology Implementation in the Field of Hotel Services

2006-11-13T18:50:00.000+07:00

Tourism has become one of the greatest sources of international income. Many products and services related to tourism give huge contribution to the country’s revenue. As an important part of tourism business, hotel must raise its standard of service and comfort in order to attract many travelers. Many colleges and universities nowadays offer a degree in hotel administration, hotel and restaurant work to improve the quality of hotel services. Recently, information technology has also been implemented in hotel management. The most common information technology used is web programming. Website developed using the latest strategies for effective performance, ease of navigation, and traffic generation is a good tool for promotion and online booking engine. The booking engine includes full room descriptions, explanations of offerings, adjustable minimum and maximum night stays, alternate availability, and inventory management capabilities. Using the website, customer can easily make online reservation and do the payment by e-banking. Lately, other information technology disciplines are also implemented in hotel management, such as information system and database processing system. Information system is used to manage information interchange from and to hotel divisions. Database management system is used to process and manage food and beverage inventory data, transaction data, employee data, bookkeeping and accounting data, etc. Database management system is very useful for making data management easier to do, especially in big hotels where large number of data is continuously updated to keep the database of high quality.

Methods
This review focuses on information technology implementation in the field of hotel services. Some methods will be implemented to get enough reliable sources about this topic. Search engine will be used to retrieve information and news about hotel services from the internet. Interview with some practitioners in hotel business will be used to draw representative samples of information technology implementation in hotels nowadays and to know how it is supposed to increase the value of hotel services, while surveying some hotel service customers will be used to collect data about the connection between information technology implementation in hotel management and customer satisfaction. To see thoroughly the implementation of information technology in hotels, open observation in some hotels and some schools of hotel management will be used. Each research method has strengths and weaknesses; thereby the combination of feasible methods listed above is expected to provide better insight into development.

Recent Advances
1. Information technology and industrial management are inseparable nowadays.
2. The increment of application software designed to ease the customer in accessing hotel service and to simplify the task of hotel service provider.
3. The increment of data base management and information retrieving software designed to make the management of daily, monthly, even yearly transaction and customer account data in a hotel better.
4. The usage of robotics and artificial intelligence where requirements of speed, precision, consistency, or cleanliness in hotel services exceed what human can accomplish and at the same time adaptability of humans is still considered.

Points that will be Elaborated in this Paper
1. Implementation of information technology in hotel management nowadays.
2. Implementation of information technology in hotel services for customer satisfaction.
3. The real connection between improvement in hotel services and the implementation of information technology in hotel management.
4. Advantages and disadvantages of information technology implementation in hotel management.

Author
1. Shanny Avelina Halim (13504027)
2. Tania Krisanty (13504101)

Online Community

2006-11-13T12:11:00.000+07:00

Power of technology has changed the rule of the world. Everything is based on technology now. Human with his or her intelligence made something which aim for help to do something efficiently and effectively. We can see our environment where technology has participated in every sector in our lives, in sector of information and communication. The dawn of the information age found groups communicating electronically rather than face to face. Because of distance and time, many people choose this manner and it is facilitated by Internet Technology. With this facility they make online community.

A virtual community or online community is a group of people that primarily or initially communicates or interacts via the Internet. Today, virtual community or online community can be used loosely for a variety of social groups interacting via the Internet. It does not necessarily mean that there is a strong bond among the members. An email distribution list may have hundreds of members and the communication which takes place may be merely informational (questions and answers are posted), but members may remain relatively strangers and the membership turnover rate could be high. This is in line with the liberal use of the term community. It points out the potential benefits for personal psychological well-being, as well as for society at large, of belonging to such a group.

Different virtual communities have different levels of interaction and participation among their members. Not unlike traditional social groups or clubs, virtual communities often divide themselves into cliques or even separate to form new communities. The term "community", when used about virtual communities, is contentious among some circles. The traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity (neighborhoods, villages, etc). Virtual communities, of course, are inherently dispersed geographically, and therefore are not communities under the original definition. However, if one considers communities to simply possess boundaries of some sort between their members and non-members, then a virtual community is certainly a community. The idea of neatly bounded communities is also being critiqued, since communities are fluid just as much as they are static, with members joining and leaving and even being part of different communities simultaneously.

An example for online community is Friendster. Friendster is an internet social network service. The Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California by Jonathan Abrams in 2002 and is privately owned. Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon.

Recent Advances

Things to be explained in this paper :

Friendster is one of the most popular online communities in the world.
There are so many interesting and creative features provided by Friendster.
How Friendster has been so affective to people in the world, not only teenagers but also adults.

Anthony H - 13504102

Ilham Fatoni - 13504121

Process Paragraph

2006-11-13T08:58:00.000+07:00

Extracting Methane
These last few years we have seen significant changes to the way in which our household waste is converted back into useful resources, for instance of these important changes is how methane gas can be extracted from household waste. By the current level of technology, we only need few simple steps to extract methane. Initially, we put the household waste into the warming bed which will heat up the waste. As the time passed, the heated-waste releases an unpurified gas that may contain methane. Then, the discharged-gas flows through dirt trap, while the rest of the waste material can be used as fertilizer. In dirt trap, dirt dissolves in the gas will be removed by filtration process, and the filtered-gas get to the gas indicator. Gas indicator operates based on catalytic oxidation method which measures the concentration of a combustible gas to make sure we do have a combustible gas i.e. methane. Afterwards, combustible gas will go to pressure tank which will distillates the gas, in order to purify it into pure methane. Finally, the methane will be passed to gas holder as a storage media and we have a pure ready-to-use methane gas.

Sewage Disposal
Today, technology has come to very advance that sewage disposal process has been reduce to 2 sub-process, that is precipitation and filtration. At the beginning of precipitation process, sewage from main sewer is carried into the settling tank which will precipitate the solid waste. This sediment material is undecayed one, thus we must burn or recycle it later. Meanwhile, the polluted water will be pumped through the sprinkler beds by a high pressure pump in pump house. Following that, in sprinkler beds we have filtration process that is polluted water gushed out of rotating arm will be purified by many kinds of filters. At last, this purified water already free from dangerous contaminants and may flow to river.

More Responsive Web Application with Ajax

2006-11-12T23:48:00.000+07:00

The hottest issue in computer technology concerns web-based application. Along with the rapid growth of the worldwide web, web-based applications have evolved drastically, from text-based static pages to interactive, dynamic applications. The trend now is to develop interactive and intelligent web applications to serve users' needs while giving them pleasurable experience.

Unfortunately, there is one weakness of the web that feels annoying: compared to the desktop ones, web-based applications lacked responsiveness and richness, as they need to reload the displayed page everytime new informations come from the server. The reloading process requires user to wait until the page is refreshed, wether they want to or not.

Introducing Ajax

Now users do not have to wait anymore, thanks to a new approach in building web application called Ajax. Ajax is new technique that uses already-known technology like JavaScript and XML to communicate asynchronously with server. With Ajax, web application can be built in a more responsive way, allowing users to get immediate result of their request, or do anything else while waiting response from the server.

In this essay, we will take a deeper look into Ajax and study the following:

What Ajax really is
Technology that Ajax is related to
The strength and weakness of Ajax technique
How the emergence of Ajax will trigger a new era of web-based application

---
Mohammad Satrio Utomo
13504134

Open Source Software and Important Today.

2006-11-12T11:26:00.000+07:00

The Internet in just a few years radically has changed the technical foundation of information supply chain. Within that, the movement of open source software was increased too. Open Source enable diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. It has become an accepted software development model that has proven that it can usually deliver code that is more reliable at lower cost than proprietary development methods. Software which delivered with open source methodology were more reliable because it revealed the source which many people can review it and update it as long as fulfill the agreement. By revealed the source code will grant us a high security trusted software, if we have enough skill we should see what the program do, if we can’t fix the problem or we see a suspicious code we can ask someone else that we trust. As the example, the problem of Linux operating system can be fixing in a few hours as the problem found. Using the open system software, it is just not like buying a cat in a sack.

Open Source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the product’s source materials (source codes). The open source model allows any user to view and modify a product's source code. The idea of open source is then to eliminate the access costs of the consumer and the creator by reducing the restrictions of copyright. This will lead to creation of additional works, which build upon previous work and add to greater social benefit. The open source model can allow for the concurrent use of different agendas and approaches in production, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial software companies "Open source" as applied to culture defines a culture in which fixations are made generally available. Participants in such a culture are able to modify those products and redistribute them back into the community. Organizations and individuals that adhere to this model believe that the benefit that they gain from improvements to their software provided by the community of software developers is more important then protecting their competitive advantage.

Why Making Open Sources?
Open Source was developed because of the needs, satisfy, popularity, and money. Open Source Software (OSS) comes up because there is no a suitable software for our needs. The needs of security and integrity make some programmers develop their software as open source. Sometimes programmers develop software because they love it and become the proof of their intellectuality. Good and interesting open source software will make many programmers interesting joining the project, which will make the creator more popular. Even open source usually doesn’t give the creator a direct benefit but by making a lot of open source software or joining the project will making someone improve their self value, which will help them joining a company. If the OSS we created were used by many companies that it will grant us a chance to build a software service company.

Recent Advances
Open Source Software are becoming not just an alternative software solutions but also
take a main part of global software development Open Source Software doesn’t provide the creator with direct profits Within the phenomenon’s, there should be regulation of standard and quality of service open source provided.

The competition open source and close source development. People who don’t have a great skill in computer will rather choose the close source than an open source.
Indonesia open source movement tried to handle the serious software piracy problems by using the open source software (OSS) as the exchange of limited software.

Open Source Today
Things that will be explained in this paper :
- What is the real phenomenon about Open Source that happen now?
- What is exactly the benefit of making Open Source for the developer?
- Is there any global regulation that controls the development of Open Source?
- How Open Source distribute its products all over the world?
- Is there any disadvantage from Open Source?
- How Open Source develop in Indonesia?

Author :
13504021 Dian Syahfitra
13504031 Gahayu Handari Ekaputri

Advance in Information Retrieval

2006-11-12T09:59:00.000+07:00

In this paper, we will describe the following points:

Development in Information Retrieval System has improved the value of internet
Information Retrieval System implements string matching algorithm with term weighting concept
Performance Measure in IR System is determined by its Recall and Precision value
Evaluation of a Information Retrieval System makes it possible to develop better system

Introduction

Internet has provided us greater opportunity to share information each other with the people around the world. This condition has changed people's paradigm in searching for information, from scanning books around the library to browsing web site in the internet. We just need to open the web browser and type the address of the website instead of turning the pages over and over at the corner of the library without guarantee of getting the information needed. This fact reduces time and effort used in classifying information available, thing that cannot happen before internet era.

In the present time, the internet has doubled in size every 9 to 14 months since it began in the late 1970s. In 1981 only 213 computers were connected to the Internet. By 2000 the number had grown to more than 100 million. The current number of people who use the Internet can only be estimated. One survey found that there were 61 million Internet users worldwide at the end of 1996, 148 million at the end of 1998, and 407 million by the end of 2000. Some analysts said that the number of users was expected to double again by the end of 2002.

This growth plus the fact that people can easily upload files to this network have flood the internet with information. That fact makes us exhausted in filtering for relevant information. We often get spam and factoid information instead of relevant one.

This has led researches in developing a system that returns the most relevant information based on what user need, Information Retrieval System. This system helps people to save time used in choosing the most suitable and relevant information from the set of information available. It ranks them according to their relevancy to the given query, the higher-ranked document leads to the higher relevancy.

Although the research in information retrieval has been started since the early days, the result is still far from perfect. The goal in information retrieval research is creating a system that can return only documents that are fully relevant with the query given. This gives a wide opportunity to other researchers in creating a better Information Retrieval System.

=====
Above Introduction is contributed by :

Anton Rifco Susilo - 13504046
Chandra Gondowasito - 13504100

The Dawn of the New Era of Mobile Learning

2006-11-12T08:27:00.000+07:00

Revolution in mobile devices has brought new concept of learning that is mobile learning, which is a type of e-learning. During five years, Mobile learning or m-learning has made a huge change from theory explored by scientist to a real contribution for human being in learning field. Mobile devices have been a closest part of human life and no other devices can do that, not even computers. Nobody in this world is immune from the mobile phone and it has slowly indicated one of human necessary. This kind of digital communication was a great invention which is unthinkable almost a decade back. M-learning has the potential of taking learning and knowledge across geographical boundaries and generations because in the fact it can be accessed easily. We may have the question what is m-learning and how it works. Basically, it means learning through the use of mobile devices and its target is people who are always on the move. This kind of learning can be given through mobile phones, smart phone, PDA’s and digital audio players and even digital cameras.

Points that will be explained:
- Mobile learning as one type of e-learning.
- History of mobile learning.
- How mobile learning works (method).
- Application of mobile learning in academic activities.
- Advantages of mobile learning.
- Conclusion.

By
Morenvino 13504034
Nicolas Andres 13504109

process paragrph

2006-11-11T13:51:00.000+07:00

Methane processing

There are five steps in extracting methane gas from waste. The fist step is in the warming bed where waste split into two parts, those which contain methane, and another one which can be made into fertilizer. The second step is in the dirt trap, where extracting the dirt waste. This dirt will be released to the release cap. Third step is the gas indicator where waste mix with water to produce methane bubbles. Methane bubbles will continue the processes. The fourth step is the pressure release where high pressure bubbles are changed into normal pressure bubbles. The last step is the gas holder where methane will keep in a inner tubes. The methane gas are ready to use, we can get the methane gas by turn the gas tap.

Sewage Disposal Unit

There are three part of sewage disposal unit. First the Settling tank which is filled with sewage from the main sewer. In here sewage are mixed with water, which will produce the polluted water and undecayed solid. Undecayed solid will be burned and removed. Second part is the pump house which is pumping the polluted water to the sprinkler beds. Sprinkler beds is the last part of SDU, in here water flow to rotating arm, filtered with stone and mirco-organism, that will become purified water. Purified water will ready to flow to the river.

Simulating Warfare in No Video Game

2006-11-07T16:31:00.000+07:00

WITH whirling helicopters, grinding tanks, and screaming soldiers, computer war games have become some of the most popular software programs for video arcades and personal computers in recent years. Long before computers became a household item, however, the nation's armed forces were taking advantage of computer-driven combat simulations to train officers, rehearse missions, and explore tactics.
Since the mid-1970s, Lawrence Livermore computer scientists, working at the Conflict Simulation Laboratory, have pioneered increasingly realistic software for the Department of Defense. The Laboratory's landmark Janus program, developed in the late 1970s, was the first conflict simulation to use a graphical user interface. Since then, Livermore experts have remained at the forefront of combat simulation development by taking advantage of steady advances in hardware and software and by working closely with military officers to understand their needs.
By all accounts, the Livermore simulations have proved highly valuable to the military. They have been employed in Operation Just Cause in Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Mideast, as well as for combat planning in Somalia, Bosnia, and other international trouble spots.
In 1997, a team of computer scientists from the Laboratory's Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and International Security (NAI) Directorate unveiled Livermore's most powerful combat program. JCATS (Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation) merged and upgraded the capabilities of two earlier programs, the Joint Conflict Model, an advanced version of Janus, and the Joint Tactical Simulation, an urban conflict model. (See S&TR, November 1996, pp. 4-11). Significantly, the program also incorporated important new features requested by its DoD sponsor, the Joint Warfighting Center in Fort Monroe, Virginia, that conferred greater fidelity to the simulations.
JCATS was used to rehearse possible combat options in support of the 1999 Kosovo conflict. It was also used by the Marine Corps and the Navy to plan for and participate in an exercise in the San Francisco Bay Area. During the exercise, JCATS tracked the live participants and tested in real time the effects of virtual air and artillery attacks on the participants.

Taking Physics into Account
Livermore computer scientist Faith Shimamoto, JCATS project leader, notes that every aspect of the program takes physics into account. Typical computer games may look impressive with flashy three-dimensional effects, she says, but they don't always observe the laws of physics.
A typical PC game soldier can jump off a 15-meter cliff without a scratch, but a soldier in JCATS doing the same thing will be badly injured. Neither do commercial games take into account such seemingly mundane but crucial factors as fatigue, inclement weather, low food supplies, or poor visibility. "JCATS realistically simulates the capabilities and limitations of armaments, people, and the environment," she says.
Tom McGrann, deputy leader of the tactical systems section in the Laboratory's Conflict Simulation Laboratory, notes that JCATS is a direct descendant of Janus, building on more than two decades of computer-driven mission analysis and rehearsal experience. "We want to help DoD with software that gives commanders a realistic, cost-effective, and operator-friendly training tool," he says. "Our programs give officers a detailed feel for how combat operations will go, from the deployment of an aircraft carrier to an individual soldier."
The program is currently used for training both individuals and command staffs in tactics and deployment of resources, analyzing the effectiveness of weapons and different force structures, and planning and rehearsing missions. Besides warfighting scenarios, JCATS can also simulate exercises for drug interdiction, disaster relief, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and site security. Current users include the Army, Air Force Security Forces, Special Operations Command, Marine Corps, Naval Post Graduate School, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Army Europe, Department of Energy, and Secret Service.

Program Controls 60,000 Elements
An enhanced version of JCATS released in October 1999 can simulate up to 60,000 individual elements, from soldiers to planes to mob participants. What's more, the new version can run on a workstation as well as on a laptop computer, making it feasible for use in the field.
The new program typically simulates a battle between two opposing sides (often called red and blue forces), but it can accommodate up to 10 sides with friendly, enemy, and neutral relationships. Depending on the rules of engagement established for the conflict, a soldier can be programmed to shoot at the first sign of an opposing force, hide, dig a foxhole, fire only upon positive identification, or take other action. The rules of engagement may change during the simulation as political alliances shift or when civilians become involved.
Players see only their respective forces and whatever intelligence they acquire about opposing forces by visual or auditory means, including forward scouts, spotter planes, radar, and sensors. A large hill, for example, can prevent a soldier from visually spotting enemy forces massing on the other side. Tanks generate noise that can be "heard" by nearby opposing forces.
Typically, a controller at a master workstation has a bird's-eye view and can observe the movement of forces on all sides. To test players' responses to the unexpected, the controller can resurrect fallen troops, change the weather, provide more fuel, speed up the clock, release a biological weapon, and the like.

Games Can Last Weeks
The duration of games varies from 20 minutes for a brief site security exercise involving a few people to two weeks for a complex drug interdiction rehearsal involving different agencies. Sometimes a short game is run dozens of times so that statistical sampling can be used to evaluate a particular tactic or weapon system.
Setting up a JCATS exercise takes one to two weeks depending on the number and kinds of combat forces and, especially, the kinds of topography to be modeled. Terrain is modeled with extraordinary fidelity. Rivers, for example, can be characterized by their current, depth, and underwater obstacles. Players can enter terrain data, including correct elevation and geographical features, from standard DoD maps of the world (such as the one below at the left) and from DoD digitized terrain data.

Players can also import blueprints of specific buildings (below) for urban warfare and site security exercises. Or users can create their own town or building, as is often done for drug interdiction training. In these cases, JCATS offers a palette of menus to create everything from windows and doors to streets and parks.
Shimamoto points out that terrain significantly affects movement of troops, aircraft, tanks, and maritime operations. A rescue helicopter cannot safely land in a forest, amphibious landing craft must negotiate rocky shores, vehicles move slowly through swamps, and soldiers slow considerably when marching uphill. Environmental factors such as adverse weather, nightfall, and smoke from combat also affect mobility.
JCATS is unusually flexible in the sheer scale of battle, from the defense of a nation involving thousands of soldiers, planes, ships, and vehicles, to the rescue of a hostage in an underground compound by a handful of special operations personnel. Typically, the maximum simulation area, or playbox, is 660 by 660 kilometers, but it can be expanded under special conditions. Even at this enormous scale, a player can zoom in on a city to view details such as roads, rivers, and buildings, and then select an individual building and examine its floor plans.
Depending on the exercise, players have at their disposal a vast range of weapons, including tracked and wheeled vehicles, aircraft and helicopters, ships and submarines, and even systems that are in the development or conceptual stage. Infantry soldiers may have machine guns, rifles, antitank weapons, mortars, and other munitions. Nonlethal weapons, increasingly important as the military assumes peacekeeping duties around the world, include rubber bullets, clubs, tear gas, pepper spray, stinger grenades, rocks, foam, and fists.

Simulations Strengthen Livermore Site Security

The realism of JCATS simulations in urban settings makes it extremely valuable for assessing and strengthening site security at a range of government facilities, including the very institution that created the program. For the past several months, security managers at Lawrence Livermore have been using JCATS to test established interdiction measures against a variety of adversary scenarios. The work has helped to sharpen security strategies, identify vulnerabilities, and train officers for different kinds of threats, even those deemed highly improbable.
Livermore security managers have conducted more than 200 exercises with JCATS, with each exercise repeated about 10 times. According to Stuart Jossey, security administrator with Livermore's Safeguards and Security Department, most of the scenarios involve attempts to gain entry to the Laboratory's heavily guarded Superblock area that houses special nuclear material. Jossey says that JCATS is invaluable for simulating the close-combat, interior fighting conditions a real incursion might involve.
Currently, a small corps of people including Special Response Team members, Protective Force supervisors, and security administrators participate in JCATS exercises at Livermore. The department's long-range goal is to integrate JCATS into the development of site security tactics and training. Operator proficiency requires between two and three weeks of training. "The scenarios involve a lot of mouse clicks under pressure," Jossey notes.
The exercises are performed at adjoining computer stations by operators controlling a designated number of virtual security personnel driving in patrol cars or patrolling on foot. The operators wear headphones to communicate with each other about what their forces see and hear. Their computer screens display buildings comprising the Superblock area and adjoining facilities as well as the location and health of people under their command.
In a nearby room, another operator controls a number of "bad guys" intent, for example, on breaking into a facility containing special nuclear material. This monitor shows only the intruders and any Lawrence Livermore security members they detect. Jossey, meanwhile, operates a station that depicts the locations of all the participants. He can change the makeup of each opposing force, as well as their weapons, on the fly.
Jossey says the simulations are a powerful supplement to real drills involving players with laser-tag-like weapons that are staged regularly in and around the Superblock area. "It's expensive doing actual exercises," he says. "We also run a safety risk because many of our exercises are done at night with people running on roofs, climbing fences, and responding tactically in patrol cars." JCATS allows the department to test security strategies to help decide what scenarios the actual exercises should focus on.
The completed simulations are saved on disk and then replayed for the participants on a large-screen monitor. Jossey invites comments from participants about the exercise, especially how things might have gone better. He also uses the program's Analyst Workstation feature to obtain statistical data such as casualties and ammunition used.
"We get a lot of good statistical information," he says. "The whole point is to make sure we have designed a strategy that denies unauthorized entry to our critical facilities."

Model's Power Is in the Details
Military operations include clearing barriers; aircraft takeoff and landing; bombing runs; naval gunfire; building foxholes, vehicle holes, and fortifications; sandbagging; looking around, standing, and crouching; recovering weapons and ammunitions; resupplying food, fuel, and ammunition; and mounting onto or dismounting from vehicles, ships, airplanes, and helicopters.
With a feature unique to JCATS, a player may aggregate entities (soldiers, tanks, or other individual units) into a group such as a formation, convoy, squad, or battalion that is then viewed and controlled as one icon. In this way, large formations are more easily viewed and controlled while the program tracks and records activity at the individual entity level. At any moment, a player can zoom in on a squad and examine events involving just a few soldiers, each uniquely outfitted and trained.

The effectiveness of every weapon, from a laser-guided missile to a single bullet, is determined by probability-of-hit and probability-of-kill statistics compiled by DoD. Using these data, JCATS calculates, for example, the blast area and resulting casualties from tripping a land mine. Just as easily, the program calculates if a launched antitank weapon misses the tank, destroys it, incapacitates the tank's movement but leaves its gun free to fire, or destroys the gun but leaves the tank's mobility intact.
Virtual soldiers face hazards from fatigue, enemy and friendly fire, poor health, and inadequate training. Every soldier begins with a certain amount of energy, which is expended more quickly during running or walking uphill. Players can bring in medical assets to attend to the sick or wounded.
In recognition of possible modern enemy capabilities, JCATS can simulate the release of chemical or biological warfare agents as well as other substances that might by employed as poisons during acts of terrorism or warfare. For example, the program can display how exposure to an atmospheric release of a nerve agent can affect personnel. Such capabilities make it useful for developing both military and civilian preparedness and responses.

Many Options to Review a Game
Players can choose from several options to review a completed game. The entire exercise can be replayed at different speeds. The Analyst Workstation, a feature that conducts rapid analyses of exercise data, can also be employed. This capability is especially useful, says Shimamoto, because in combat simulation, only a small fraction of the data is important to any specific factor under scrutiny.
One of JCATS's most significant enhancements is modeling the urban environment for such missions as hostage rescue, disaster relief, mob control, or protecting heads of state along a motor route. In urban settings, players can view groups of buildings as well as individual building floors and their features-including glass and solid walls, windows, doors, and stairwells-roofs, and underground features, such as tunnels, sewers, and garages. Virtual forces fighting inside buildings are hampered by limited lines of sight, poor lighting, and the risk of injury to civilians.
The program's superb urban simulation capabilities led the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to give JCATS an important role in exercises conducted last March in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Marine Corps exercise was dubbed Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment. Its objective was to develop and test new concepts, tactics, and technologies to prepare Marines for combat in the next century, especially activities in urban areas. The Navy's companion exercise, Fleet Battle Experiment-Echo, also took advantage of JCATS. (See S&TR, June 1999, pp. 4-11.)
The exercises were run from the Navy command ship USS Coronado, which was docked at a pier in San Francisco. A small building inside the pier housed Marines running JCATS terminals and other command and communications systems. All data were fed to the command ship. Livermore computer scientist Mike Uzelac, director of operations for JCATS, monitored the exercise from the building.
According to McGrann, the Marines focused on an urban exercise because its studies show that by 2020, about 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities and at least 80 percent of those cities will be located within 300 miles of the coastline. Fighting in urban areas, says McGrann, is particularly treacherous because of the danger to the civilian population and because of the numerous hiding places for opponents.

Enemies Eye Urban Warfare
A recent statement by Col. Mark Thiffault, Director, Joint Information Bureau, Urban Warrior, underscores the Marines' commitment to winning urban battles: "Our enemies, having watched Desert Storm on CNN, know they cannot engage the United States with conventional methods. These potential foes view cities as a way to limit the technological advantages of our military. They know that cities, with their narrow streets, confusing layout and large number of civilian noncombatants, place limits on our technological superiority and especially our use of firepower. We have to develop technologies that allow us to win while minimizing collateral damage."
McGrann says that the Marines are concerned about the performance degradation that occurs in standard command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence systems because of cities' concrete buildings, phone lines, and other electronic devices. As a result, Urban Warrior Marines experimented with wireless communications devices, satellite links, remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft, and global positioning system links.
The focus of the exercise was an intense battle between some 700 battle-dressed Marines, divided into red and blue forces, at the former Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in the Oakland Hills. Both sides wore Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System gear similar to that used in laser-tag games. Red forces, holed up in the hospital, barricaded stairwells with anything they could find as they tried to fight off blue forces intent on taking over the building.
The fierce battle was set against a backdrop of civil unrest taking place in more than 30 small, adjoining buildings. In this outlying area, additional blue forces kept order among noisy reporters, milling civilians, and rock-throwing agitators, all played by paid actors. (Actual video footage of the exercise can be viewed on the Marine Corps's Urban Warrior Web page at www.defenselink.mil/special/urbanwarrior/.)
Prior to the exercise, Marine Corps personnel, who had previously trained on JCATS, modeled the interiors of the buildings (including the hospital's 9 stories and 500 rooms) by digitizing construction blueprints and entering the data into the program's "terrain editor." The Marines' Integrated Global Positioning System Radio System provided updates every 30 seconds on the position of vehicles and soldiers outside buildings. Because the radio system is ineffective inside buildings, every hospital room was wired with the Inside Building Instrumentation System to keep track of each Marine's location and health status (healthy, wounded, or killed) when they were inside.
The ever-changing data on the Marines' locations were broadcast from the Oakland Hills on secure communication links and fed into JCATS for viewing on screen. In this way, command personnel on the pier and aboard the USS Coronado were provided unprecedented, real-time details about the location of their Oakland forces, including the whereabouts of combatants on every floor of the hospital.

Virtual Strikes Complete Exercise
JCATS also simulated the effects of artillery and tactical air strikes that obviously could not be used in the Oakland area. Computer-generated weapons even included systems that currently exist only in concept. The virtual strikes were executed by a Marine JCATS operator in San Francisco, acting on request by an officer at the battle and approved by an operation commander.
The program calculated the time of flight and the effects based on the impact of the virtual strike and the reported location of the live participants. In this way, commanders learned within seconds the effects of using these weapons. Back in Oakland, both red and blue participants were quickly informed through their laser tag and radio gear if they had been wounded or killed by the virtual strikes.
While the battle for control of the hospital raged, JCATS simulated combat on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay and on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Red forces driving toward Oakland were attacked by blue virtual aircraft. Simulated Navy ships just off the coast were also included in the overall conflict.
Following the exercise, the program provided a thorough review for the command officers. The review showed who was killed and how and when they became casualties, thereby removing much of the uncertainty that often surrounds the lessons-learned process following an exercise.

Uzelac says that the Marines were pleased with the usefulness of JCATS. In particular, "They recognize that combining simulated firepower with live participants allows the Marines to significantly broaden their training missions," especially when environmental or safety restrictions prevent the actual use of weapons. Uzelac adds that the Marines plan to use the program in their next urban exercise, which will incorporate more buildings than were used in Oakland.
The Livermore team is already working on enhancements to JCATS that have been requested by the Joint Warfighting Center. These enhancements will include an information warfare capability, a terrain-generation capability using computer-aided design building files and satellite imagery, and better integration with military communication systems.
Shimamoto notes that one of JCATS's most important advantages is its applicability to all the military services. Although each military service has its own weapons, its own methods of combat operations, and even its own specialized simulation programs, JCATS is a powerful resource for all of them. Because it models all of the services' forces, as well as those of other security organizations, it also encourages better coordination among agencies, both in planning missions and in training officers. "We've made JCATS as powerful and flexible as we know how to help the nation prepare for conflicts in the new century," she says.
-Arnie Heller

Key Words: combat simulation, Conflict Simulation Laboratory, Fleet Battle Experiment-Echo, Janus, JCATS (Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation), Joint Conflict Model, Joint Tactical Simulation, Joint Warfighting Center, U.S. Marine Corps, Special Response Team, U.S. Navy, Urban Warrior Advanced Warfighting Experiment.

For further information contact Faith Shimamoto (925) 422-8083 (shimamoto1@llnl.gov).

ABOUT THE SCIENTIST

FAITH SHIMAMOTO joined Lawrence Livermore in 1975 while working on her master's thesis in electronics engineering at the University of California at Davis, where she also earned a B.S. in electronics engineering. She has provided computational capabilities development and management support to numerous departments in the Engineering and Computation directorates, recently managing teams in the development of miniature sensor technology for low-Earth and suborbital satellite experiments.
Currently, she is the project leader of the Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation (JCATS) Conflict Simulation Laboratory in the Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and International Security Directorate. She is responsible for leading the development of JCATS, a real-time simulation program used by the departments of Energy, Defense, and Transportation for training, analysis, and mission planning, particularly in an urban environment. Her responsibilities have included software development and testing and coordination of deliverables with JCATS's primary proponent, the Joint Warfighting Center. She has also developed JCATS for and demonstrated it to other potential users and sponsors.

Cutting-Edge environmental Modeling

2006-11-07T16:20:00.000+07:00

THERE is only one way to "watch" groundwater move. Likewise, the only way to "see" our changing climate, the shaking of an earthquake, or the dispersion of a toxic cloud-other than by living through the event-is by simulating it on powerful computers. By simulating these dynamic events with their many chemical constituents and physical changes, scientists can begin to understand why our environment operates as it does.
Livermore researchers have been modeling the environment for years, often in one and two dimensions. Researchers began modeling the flow of groundwater to solve problems caused by contaminants in the ground. They modeled the atmosphere to learn where a radiation cloud from a nuclear accident would move. With increasing computer power came better codes and more realistic models. Three-dimensional models were an improvement because our world is, after all, three dimensional. But the complex chemical and physical processes were computationally overwhelming. A simulation might take hours or even days to run.

Then came high-performance supercomputing with the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), the Department of Energy's program to increase computational power to 100 teraops (trillion floating-point operations per second) by 2005. ASCI computers are developed and acquired to simulate the aging of nuclear weapons and predict their performance. But the arrival of the first ASCI computers in 1996 and the accompanying computing know-how has influenced all Livermore programs, spreading massively parallel computing throughout the Laboratory. Livermore's Multiprogrammatic and Institutional Computing Facility have enabled much of this activity.

The changes wrought by terascale computing are significant. Until recently, it took as long as 18 hours to run a global climate model. With the newest computers, that time is reduced to seconds. Not only are the computers fast, but their many processors, working in parallel, can also handle more variables and solve extremely complex problems. (See S&TR, June 2000, New Day Dawns in Supercomputing.)

Today's simulations are far more realistic. At the Livermore site, groundwater contamination was discovered in 1983, and Livermore was declared a Superfund site in 1987. The contamination consists of widely distributed plumes of several volatile organic compounds, tritium, fuel hydrocarbons, and some dissolved heavy metals. The first simple model, in 1990, showed that to meet current regulatory standards, cleanup would take 80 years. By the mid-1990s, when some of the first three-dimensional models were being developed, we better understood the state of the contamination and were better able to clean it up. Estimated cleanup time was reduced to about 30 years, or to just 10 to 15 years if risk-based remediation was used. Today, with even better models and several innovative remediation technologies at work, the estimated time to complete regulatory cleanup is even less. Researchers now have models of the subsurface whose level of complexity-and hence realism-were unthinkable just a few years ago.

Atmospheric scientist Bill Dannevik of Livermore's Energy and Environment Directorate notes that all environmental simulations have many features in common. "For one thing, they are all 'data-starved,'" he says. "We have only so much information about our atmosphere, our oceans, and especially the ground beneath us. We can't possibly drill enough boreholes to detail every square inch of the geology of our planet. So our models have to be stochastic, which means that they involve a certain amount of probability."
He goes on to say, "To be meaningful, environmental models must incorporate chemistry, physics, and all three dimensions plus time, which makes them very demanding computationally. Incorporating full dimensionality has been perhaps the biggest challenge. Until large, terascale computers came along, we simply could not include everything."

Throughout science, simulation models have been used largely as a diagnostic tool, as an adjunct to theory and experiment. Supercomputers are now the springboard to a new level of simulation that can provide a multidimensional, evolving model of natural events. As the speed of computation continues to increase even faster than predicted by Moore's law, Livermore scientists will be able to perform truly predictive, three-dimensional simulations. Then simulation will emerge as a peer to theory and experiment, revolutionizing the way science and engineering are done.

In the past, observations of natural events have been used to validate environmental simulation models. According to Dannevik, "Today's mostly one-way relationship between observation and model will, in the not too distant future, be transformed into a interactive relationship through which models and sophisticated, mobile sensors are constantly being mutually updated and made 'smarter.'"

Making the Subsurface Visible
Knowing the sources of groundwater contamination might be simple, but knowing where and how quickly the contaminants are traveling in subsurface soil and rock is another matter. Simulation models provide a window into this otherwise unseen, underground world.

Livermore codes are among the first to realistically account for variations in groundwater flow caused by complex geologic differences. Although the mix of varying types of rock and soil has long been known to influence the flow of water and the spreading of contaminants, such natural complexity has typically not been well represented in computer models. A Livermore team led by hydrologist Andy Tompson is using a geostatistical method to handle complex geology in groundwater models.

The Orange County Water District in southern California plans to artificially recharge its aquifer with reclaimed water from a treatment plant. Because this water must be underground for at least a year before being used, the district wants to know how long the water is staying underground and where it travels in the subsurface before being withdrawn through a production well (See also S&TR, November 1997,, Isotope Tracers Help Manage Water Resources.)

One three-dimensional image of the area's geology from a highly resolved model is shown in the figure above. The figure on p. 6 shows one simulation of water flowing to a production well. The paths taken by the water from three recharge basins to the well indicate that no water less than a year old comes from the basins. A recent experiment using xenon gas as a tracer was consistent with modeling results. These and other data indicate that small-scale variability in the geologic structure can produce major differences in where water flows. Geologic heterogeneity must be considered in groundwater models.

Work at the Nevada Test Site is another example of the importance of high-resolution computer models. The Underground Test Area (UGTA) project is evaluating the extent of contamination that resulted from 828 underground tests, some of which released radionuclides to the groundwater.

A Livermore team has produced a model that, for the first time, accounts for heat produced by a nuclear test in studies of groundwater flow. An underground nuclear test generates huge amounts of energy, vaporizing everything around it. Rock and soil above the resulting cavity eventually collapse, forming a "chimney" of rubble. Data obtained after the Cheshire test in 1976 showed that significant heat continued to exist in the underground cavity and chimney for as long as 6.5 years after the test. The team used these temperature data to calibrate a nonisothermal model of fluid flow, which suggested that more than 50 years would be needed for conditions to return to normal.
Modeling results indicate that the high temperatures associated with a test persist for several decades and may push water from the cavity area to the upper chimney in 10 to 20 years. This movement contrasts with movement under normal conditions, which takes 100 years or more. The quick upward flow means that the contaminated water has reached a highly permeable geologic zone surrounding the upper reaches of Cheshire's chimney and has a pathway from the test location to a broader area of the test site.

And the Heat Goes on

Another scientific team at Livermore also has concerns about heat underground. It is studying the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that is the nation's candidate for an underground repository for high-level nuclear waste. According to geochemist Bill Glassley, "One of the biggest challenges of the Yucca Mountain project is determining how the mountain will respond to the tremendous amount of heat generated by the buried waste and if any of those geologic responses will result in the waste packages getting wet." (See S&TR, March 2000, Building a Virtual Time Machine.)

Livermore's supercomputers and newly developed software have allowed a team of Livermore scientists to construct a code to simulate the geologic evolution of the repository for an anticipated lifetime of 100,000 years or more. The code is being used to predict the temperature evolution surrounding buried waste and the possible means by which water will enter the repository's tunnels over the eons.

Most of the preliminary simulations have focused on a hypothetical waste emplacement tunnel more than 300 meters below the surface. Different types of waste are separately packaged and generate temperatures ranging from 60 degrees Celsius to as much as 200 degrees Celsius. After about 500 years, significant and irreversible changes to the rock near the waste are apparent. Water that has condensed above the tunnel causes a dome of dissolved minerals to form and partially seal the rock fractures. The hotter waste packages cause more extensive sealing than the cooler packages. Moreover, the partially sealed domes occur farther away from the hot waste than from the cooler waste.

More recent simulations are depicting multiple tunnels, with each tunnel containing waste packages generating different amounts of heat. These simulations are examining how arrays of waste packages will interact over time.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll
A powerful seismic code developed by Livermore geophysicist Shawn Larsen is helping to tell us what the San Francisco Bay Area's next big earthquake might look like. His E3D code incorporates three-dimensional information about the propagation of seismic waves-how they are radiated from the earthquake's source to the surface and how they interact with the geology and topography in their path.

The next big one may well occur on the Hayward Fault, which runs through the densely populated cities of Oakland and Berkeley, among others. Scientists give this fault a 50 percent probability of producing a magnitude 7 to 7.5 quake in the next 30 years. Seismologists believe that it could cause destruction comparable to that of the 1995 quake in Kobe, Japan, which resulted in 6,000 fatalities and over $100 billion in damage. The figure below shows how E3D and high-performance computing are being used to determine seismic hazards on the Hayward Fault.

E3D is a considerably more powerful seismic code now that it can run on massively parallel computers. For some time, E3D has modeled the effects of compressional (sound) waves as well as shear waves, which move sideways. Shear waves are particularly important for effectively modeling earthquakes. But they are complex and, says Larsen, "computationally overwhelming. We could do three-dimensional models before but only for much smaller problems."

The code is also being used for oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, and structural response studies. For treaty verification, it is being used inversely. Livermore experts are using E3D to determine whether explosions measured elsewhere in the world are the result of seismic activity, a weapon test, or some other cause.

The Virtual Valley

Cutting-edge computers, communication systems, and sensors will combine forces in the Virtual Valley that Lawrence Livermore and the University of California at Davis and Merced plan to create as part of their California Institute for Environmental Informatics and Technologies. A variety of sensors and simulation models will monitor the land, air, and structures of California's Central Valley and Sierra Nevada mountain range to supply information on everything from soil and subsurface properties to atmospheric conditions, land use, hazardous materials distribution and emission inventories, wildfire fuel conditions, ecosystem stresses, power and transportation grid loading, population distribution, seismic activity, and engineered structure inventory.
In the Virtual Valley, historical data, current conditions, and model-generated forecasts will be in a common format. At the same time, a common set of analysis, visualization, and geographic information system tools will be available to explore the myriad interrelationships among the many datasets. The data system will be accessible from multiple viewpoints with various layers designed to suit the needs of everyone from urban planners, to environmental research scientists, to the public at large.

Atmospheric Emergencies

Livermore's Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) was founded in the late 1970s to predict the dispersion of radioactivity into the atmosphere from nuclear accidents or attacks and terrorist incidents. Today, ARAC is one of many emergency response organizations sponsored by the U.S. government to counter dangers and threats to the nation. Over the years, its charter has expanded to include working with all manner of toxic and hazardous atmospheric releases. ARAC scientists can predict the transport and fate of material released during disasters, whether natural or caused by human activity. It makes predictions not only during actual atmospheric releases but also for contingency planning purposes.

ARAC scientists use several codes to handle the many variables involved in an atmospheric dispersion-for example, wind speed and direction, turbulence, local wind systems such as sea breezes, terrain, and precipitation that might wash toxic material out of the atmosphere. With this knowledge, they have accurately modeled the radiation cloud resulting from the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, a release of cesium in southern Spain, and many other toxic and hazardous releases in this country and around the world.

ARAC's response time to these accidents is continually being shortened thanks to better model resolution, with faster computer speed. In addition, ARAC has been able to increase the breadth of its capabilities and the accuracy of its predictions. These improved capabilities are enabling ARAC to meet emerging risks that are not yet formally required in the emergency readiness role defined by sponsors. (See S&TR, June 1999, Forewarnings of Coming Hazards.)

A Global Look at Climate

An offshoot of Livermore's early research and modeling of our atmosphere was an interest in global climate. Thirty years later, Livermore is one the world's premier institutions for the study and simulation of global climate change. Of particular interest are the changes in Earth's climate that may be caused by human activities. The principal source of potential climate change may be the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from burning fossil fuels. Humans are introducing 6 billion tons of fossil-fuel-derived CO2 into the atmosphere every year. This and previous emissions have resulted in an increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 from about 280 parts per million during the mid 19th century to about 370 parts per million today.
However, not all CO2 generated by human activity stays in the atmosphere. Only about half of the emissions accumulate there, while the rest is taken up by the oceans or vegetation and soils as part of the carbon cycle. The capacity of these "sinks" is expected to change as climate changes. Scientists are estimating the amount of CO2 that will accumulate in the atmosphere by modeling the carbon cycle with its many sources and sinks.

As part of this process, separate models of the various strata of the atmosphere and the oceans have been developed over the years. Now, for the first time, Livermore has the computational strength to bring these models together interactively to answer these questions about CO2 and global climate.

One such first was a coupling of tropospheric (up to 12 kilometers) and stratospheric (12 to 60 kilometers) models to examine the greenhouse gas ozone. Atmospheric chemistry models analyze how natural and human-made emissions of chemical species (for example, via energy production) may alter the distribution of ozone in the stratosphere and troposphere, and more importantly, how these two regions of the atmosphere interact. The figure below shows a 100-parts-per-billion concentration of ozone, which is typical at lower stratospheric levels. As the figure shows, at various geographic locations, stratospheric ozone is being transported to altitudes near Earth's surface. In this example, it is occurring in the northeastern United States and eastern China. These results indicate that global ozone chemistry must be considered in any quantification of surface ozone distributions.

To study the effects of CO2, researchers have combined a detailed atmospheric model with a simplified ocean model. They predicted that the surface temperature would change should the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere double in the future. They found that because of feedback in the climate system, more warming occurs at high latitudes. The most important contributor to this feedback is the sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, which reflects radiation back to the atmosphere. The CO2 captures more outgoing radiation at low latitudes, so there is less warming.
Livermore's atmospheric models are just now beginning to include aerosols, such as sulfur emissions, and sooty particulate matter, which are also produced when fossil fuels are burned. Scientists now think that aerosols are producing some significant cooling, which may be largely canceling the expected global warming from increased CO2 during the 20th century.

Into the Future
Besides the ever-increasing capability of supercomputers, two other technology trends will make environmental simulations more realistic. These are in the areas of wireless communication systems and sensing devices, both of which are becoming smaller and cheaper. Wireless communication is being seamlessly connected into the Internet and other communication channels. At the same time, environmental sensors are becoming smarter, less invasive, and more mobile so that the information they transmit is more readily usable.

The confluence of these trends will result in an unprecedented ability to measure the environment and to link these measurements instantaneously to advanced simulation models. Together these systems will monitor, characterize, and predict complex environmental processes. Timely collection and insertion of sensor data into live simulations will enable models to "learn" about the details of environmental media and to adapt to and reconfigure themselves for changing conditions. With sensors tied into a global positioning system, the models will also "train" smart, mobile sensors to collect information where and when it is needed, thereby maximizing the quality of incoming information and of the resulting model.

By analyzing real-time environmental data from fixed and mobile sensors, researchers can quickly detect a hazardous material spill or other event, characterize it, supply a quick-response team with needed information, and assess consequences. The Virtual Valley (see the box above), planned for California's Central Valley and Sierra Nevada mountain range, is just one example of the way that networked sensors located in the land, air, water, structures, and transportation systems will be able to work together to feed data to a supercomputing center, where models can be built for a range of users.

The Virtual Valley is one of several endeavors that are part of a great leap forward at Livermore in environmental computing. An Environmental Simulation Center to bring all environmental modeling work under a single organizational umbrella is in the planning stages. Computational experts continue to devise new ways of representing the environment in models. Geostatistical methods and new ways of evaluating risk are just two such examples.

Bill Glassley notes, "There are so many factors to consider when we study fluid moving in Earth's crust. But with the powerful computers we have now, we can incorporate virtually everything and actually watch water move. Then if we change one thing, we can see the results. If we run many simulations adjusting lots of variables, we can begin to learn what really matters, what the important issues are." The same can be said of all modeling-that the purpose is to learn what really matters.
—Katie Walter

Key Words: atmospheric modeling, Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC), global climate modeling, groundwater modeling, hydrology, Nevada Test Site, seismic modeling, Underground Test Area, Virtual Valley, Yucca Mountain.

For more information contact Bill Dannevik (925) 422-3132 (dannevik1@llnl.gov).

ABOUT THE SCIENTIST

WILLIAM P. DANNEVIK leads the Laboratory's Atmospheric Sciences Division and is the acting Deputy Associate Director for Energy and Environment. He came to Livermore in 1988 as a member of a weapons code group in the Defense and Nuclear Technologies Directorate. He received his B.S. in engineering science from the University of Texas in 1969 and his Ph.D. from St. Louis University in atmospheric science in 1984. In previous positions, he led an engineering consulting firm from 1974 to 1980 and was on the research staff of the Princeton University program in applied and computational mathematics from 1984 to 1988. He has published numerous articles on computational fluid dynamics, boundary-layer meteorology, high-performance climate simulation, and turbulence theory and modeling.

Process Paragraph

2006-11-07T14:41:00.000+07:00

Methane Gas
Methane gas can be extracted from household waste in several steps. First, the waste is put into the warming bed where the waste will be decomposed into dirt methane gas and fertilizer through the process of heating. The fertilizer will be pumped out of the bed, while the dirt methane will flow through the pipe into the dirt trap. Here, the dirt will be concealed through the extraction process. This dirt then can be thrown away via the release cap at the bottom of the trap. Next, the methane is flowed into the gas indicator that contains water.This apparatus has sealed top so that the gas which pops up out of the water won't flow out to the air outside the system and can only flow out of the indicator through the other pipe it has. The gas will pass the pressure releasing tub which contains water to adjust the gas' pressure with the air outside the system. Finally, this pure methane gas is kept in the inner tubes that keep the gas' pressure high so that when the tap is opened, powerful gas will flow out.

Sewage Disposal Unit
In a sewage disposal unit, the sewage is processed in three stages. First, the sewage is put into the Settling Tank through the main sewer. After days in the tank, the undecayed solids which then will be removed and burned will settle. Next, the unsettle sewage is drained to the Pump House for preparation of the next process. The Pump House pumps the polluted water up to the brick work called Sprinkler Beds which consist of rotating arms, jets, and filters for purifying process. The water is dispersed down by the jets under the rotating arms to filter the small solids contained.The filters of stones and micro-organisms then purify the water flowing down through them. This purified water is now clean enough to enter the river.

Good

Process Paragraph

2006-11-07T11:39:00.000+07:00

Extracting Methane Gas from Household Waste

There are several process to extract methane gas from household waste. First, household waste patched into warming bed. In warming bed, part of household waste which can be used as fertilizer move to the fertilizer pipe, and in the other side, gas which still contain methane and dirt move to the next process, to the dirt trap. Dirt trap is a place to divide methane gas from unused dirt. The dirt thrown out through release cap and the methane gas go to the next step, Gas Indicator. In the Gas Indicator, methane gas passed through the water to purify the methane gas from the water vapor. Then the methane gas go to the last phase, to be kept in the Gas Holder. The normal pressure methane gas will keep in a big storage called Inner Tubes that have weight on top of it while the high pressure methane gas will move into the Pressure Release. We can use the methane gas in the storage any time by turn the gas tap.

Three Stages of Sewage Disposal Unit

There are three stages in the Sewage Disposal Unit. First, in the Settling Tank, sewage water which come from main sewer divided into polluted water and undecayed solids. The undecayed solids is removed and burned. The polluted water go to the second stage, the Pump House. In this stage, the polluted water just flows to the third stage through the pipe. The last stage is Sprinkler Beds. Here, jets of polluted water pass to the rotating arms. Then the water is filtered through stones and microorganism to produce the purified water. At the end, after pass three stages, the purified water flows to the river.

Look at the red words (grammatically wrong).

Virtual Organization

2006-11-07T11:13:00.000+07:00

When we talked about virtual organization we had had to talk about technology behind, because this kind of organizational structure appears as an impact of technology development. Therefore if we want to know what the advantages and disadvantage of this model, firstly we should examine what the technology have been brought into human daily activity, so by the time goes on the human cannot live without it.

Technology has brought big change into human life. It has made most the jobs easier to do, it has made most the jobs faster to finish, and it also has made most the jobs give happiness result. In other word, technology has made many job been done efficiently and effectively. Meanwhile the technology not only gives benefit to human but also it has given disadvantage, i.e. because of technology that always help people in doing their job, people have been made lazier and lazier. People don’t want to use their strength anymore. People also have been made isolated from others because through telecommunication network they can connect to others that they want to. This is very unwillingness thing due to human as a social creature that has to be contact directly to other people in other to increase social peevish.

So now what is actually relation between technology and virtual organization? As what has been told before, technology gives many advantages to human, so human will hardly use technology in their life to help themselves solving their problems, such as organization problems. The use of technology, knowledge and modern infrastructure has changed the way human work. They use telecommunication network to interact with their client, they use web technology to promote themselves, they use bank’s service to accompany their money, they use advance transportation system to deliver the products into customers and so on. This kind of human activities lead into something that we call virtual organization. By this kind of organizational structure people don’t need to go to a specific physical place to work, because all this could be done electronically and they would do their work from any location. In that case that people can have taken the first few steps to a virtual organization. What above explanation means? It means by virtual organization we could have high flexibility, it removes many barriers - especially that of time and location. It emphasizes concentrating on new services and products, especially those with intensive information and knowledge characteristics, rather than concentrating on cost savings made possible by removing the barriers. It goes beyond outsourcing and strategic alliances and is more flexible in:

that it has continuously changing partners,
the arrangements are loose and goal oriented,
emphasizes the use of knowledge to create new products and services,
its processes can change quickly by agreement of the partners.

Beside that advantage, there are many reasons why virtual organization is delighted by many people today, as their organizational structure. Because through they could:

Reach globalization, with growing trends to include global customers,
Get ability to quickly pool expert resources,
Have creation of communities of excellence,
Rapidly change needs,
Increasingly specialized products and services,
Increasing required to use specialized knowledge

All above express that virtual organization could give anything that cannot be given by other organizational structure so today, it is mostly used everywhere.

There is nothing perfect in this world, from the advantages that was offered by virtual organization it also has disadvantages, like what was explained before. This kind of organizational structure could make people are isolated with the others so it will interrupt social intercourse. In other hand as a social creature, human should take care the social intercourse with others, by direct interact periodically. Although in the core with absolutely can interact through electronic communication device, but this has different meaning due to human’s consideration and awareness.

References

Hughes, John, O’Brien, Jon, Randall, Dave, Rouncefield, Mark and Tolmie, Peter (2000) “Vitual Organizations, Organizational Knowledge and the Customer”
Burn, Janice, Marshall, Peter and Wild, Martyn. “Managing Knowledge for Strategic Advantage in Virtual Organization”
Preston, Scott M. “Virtual Organization as Process”
Anonym, “Virtual Organization”

Anggota Kelompok :

Wijoyo Batara F. Simanjuntak (13504035)
Chandra Gondowasito (13504100)
Made Harta Dwijaksara (13504137)
Hadi Saloko (13504157)

Clinical review Recent advances Consumer health informatics

2006-11-07T08:27:00.000+07:00

Gunther Eysenbach, researcher.

Unit for Cybermedicine, Department of Clinical Social Medicine, University of Heidelberg, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany

Medical informatics has expanded rapidly over the past couple of years. After decades of development of information systems designed primarily for physicians and other healthcare managers and professionals, there is an increasing interest in reaching consumers and patients directly through computers and telecommunications systems. Consumer health informatics is the branch of medical informatics that analyses consumers' needs for information; studies and implements methods of making information accessible to consumers; and models and integrates consumers' preferences into medical information systems. Consumer informatics stands at the crossroads of other disciplines, such as nursing informatics, public health, health promotion, health education, library science, and communication science, and is perhaps the most challenging and rapidly expanding field in medical informatics; it is paving the way for health care in the information age.

Methods
This non-exhaustive review focuses on topics from the field of consumer health informatics because there has been a markedly increased interest in this field (additional information is available on the BMJ's website). Medline was searched using the terms "consumer" and "informatics." The proceedings of the American Medical Informatics Association's symposiums (1998 and 1999) and the proceedings of the ninth World Congress on Medical Informatics (Medinfo 1998) were hand searched. The AltaVista search engine was used to retrieve information from the internet, using the search string "+definition + consumer health informatics" to find unpublished reports.

Health care in the information age
Medical informatics is "the field that concerns itself with the cognitive, information processing, and communication tasks of medical practice, education, and research." Until recently medical informatics focused on developing applications for health professionals: medical informaticians looked at medical practice mainly through the eyes of health professionals rather than through the eyes of patients. Ten years ago Greenes and Shortliffe wrote: "After many years of development of information systems to support the infrastructure of medicine, greater focus on the needs of physicians and other health care managers and professionals is occurringto support education, decision making, communication, and many other aspects of professional activity." This earlier orientation towards providers can also be found in classic medical informatics textbooks, which rarely contain chapters on the information needs of consumers.

Recent advances

 Information technology and consumer health informatics are becoming integral parts of the modern concept of public health and national healthcare policies
 Existing systems aimed at professionals are being adapted to be used at home by patients
 Electronic health records that are accessible to patients empower consumers and can be used to tailor health information to individuals
 Software designed to help users clarify their values and computer based decision aids can help patients to make informed choices and help professionals tailor interventions appropriately
 Several initiatives addressing the quality of health information on the internet are being developed, including programmes to educate consumers, encourage self labelling and self regulation of providers, and to evaluate and rate information or enforce compliance with criteria

This focus is changing. Driving factors in this change are the emergence of evidence based medicine and the growing awareness of the need to equalise relationships between health professionals and lay people. These trends can be seen in all developed countries and are partly the result of an effort to cut healthcare costs by improving patients' abilities to help themselves and make informed choices. The increasing availability of interactive information that is accessible to consumers, most notably through the internet and related technologies such as digital television and web television, coincides with the desire of most consumers to assume more responsibility for their health and the pressures of costs on health systems, the emphasis on the health of populations and on prevention, and the growing desire of health professionals to realise the potential of patients and their families. Information technology and consumerism are synergistic forces that promote an "information age healthcare system" in which consumers can, ideally, use information technology to gain access to information and control their own health care, thereby utilising healthcare resources more efficiently. Today's "cyberdocs" on the internet may tomorrow turn into more trustworthy "cyberlicensed" professionals (who are specially trained and whose practice is monitored for quality) counselling patients online; this development is under way in the United Kingdom with the introduction of services such as NHS Direct, which provides advice to patients both on the web and over the phone. Additionally, intelligent informatics applications can channel the floods of health information reaching consumers, can help patients attain a healthy balance between self reliance and seeking professional help, and can also help balance responsiveness to consumers and the management of demand, and virtual and face to face interaction. Information technology and consumer health informatics are becoming an integral part of modern concepts of public health and national healthcare policies in many developed countries.

Bringing medical knowledge to consumers

One challenge is to develop or adapt existing computer based decision support systems (expert systems) for use by consumers. Most of these systems were originally developed to provide advice to clinicians about diagnoses or disease management. A recent multisite, randomised controlled trial studied the effect of two decision support systemsIliad (Applied Medical Informatics, Salt Lake City, UT) and Quick Medical Reference (University of Pittsburgh and Camdat, San Bruno, CA)on the decision making process of medical students, medical residents, and faculty. The study showed that the magnitude of effects was related to clinical experience: inexperienced users (students) benefited more from the advice than users who had more medical experience.18 These results could be extrapolated to lay people (patients) by hypothesising that such systems would provide the greatest benefit to those with the least previous knowledge (provided that the system could be adapted to their specific needs). This is a strong argument for adapting these systems for consumers.

One decision support system that is being adapted and tested for consumers is HouseCall (Applied Medical Informatics), an informatics system derived from the existing physician knowledge base Iliad. HouseCall generates a diagnosis based on the user's symptoms and medical history, allows a personal medical history to be noted, and offers easy to read information on a variety of medical topics. Focus group evaluations of HouseCall have shown that the program is easy to use and that consumers like using technology at home to investigate health issues and like participating in solving their medical problems.

Obviously, such systems "do not and cannot replace visits with physicians; they can, however, make such encounters more productive, for both doctor and patient." They may also help to triage patients. For consumers, the aim of such support systems would not be to make definitive diagnoses or to propose treatment but to answer simple questions such as "do I need to see a doctor?" or to alert patients to potential drug interactions or other health risks.

The main challenge in developing comprehensive systems for consumers is that little is known about how patients interact with computer based informatics tools and how they digest and act on information.

Electronics health records accessible to patients

Consumer health informatics is designed to empower consumers by putting health information into their hands, including information on their own health, such as diagnoses, lab results, personal risk factors, and prescribed drugs. The European Union's data protection directive (in effect since October 1998) requires all member countries to enact legislation enabling patients to have access to their medical records.

Putting records into patients' hands is not a new idea. Baldry et al conducted an early experiment in giving patients in the waiting room their medical records to read, and patient held records seem to have ethical and practical benefits.

One way of facilitating patients' access to their medical records may be through the internet or the adoption of smart cards, or both. The adoption of smart cards was recently announced by the European Union in an initiative which aims to ensure that "all European citizens should have the possibility to have a health smart card to enable secure and confidential access to networked patient information" by 2003. Smart cards can be used as places to store health information directly, or the electronic medical record can be put onto the internet and smart cards can serve as keys by providing access. Just as consumers bank online today, they may in future be able to browse and annotate their health records online.

Tailoring health information to patients
Because an electronic record provides a natural base for individually tailored health messages, online records also open new avenues for health education. On the internet it is possible to link personal information to external resources such as glossaries, websites, and databases such as Medline. For example, if the doctor's list of diagnoses or suggested changes to the patient's lifestyle contains the word "smoking," links can automatically refer the patient to health promotion sites that advise people on how to quit. Future technological advances may bring this kind of information to mobile phones, hand held computers, personal digital assistants, and wearable computers.

In a randomised controlled trial, Jones and colleagues compared the effect of tailored information for cancer patients that was based on the contents of their medical records with general information provided electronically or in leaflets; the patients preferred the tailored information. Tailored information has also been effective in a number of other areas, including instigating changes in health behaviour or in increasing knowledge. In the United States, several projects are under way to evaluate the use of internet based health records that are accessible to patients. For example, a system called SeniorMed gives elderly patients access to their medication lists through the internet. Another company, MedicaLogic (www.medicalogic.com/), is also testing internet based health records (www.98point6.com and www.aboutmyhealth.net). These records are embedded in an information system that lets users search for information on health conditions, order refills for prescriptions, and communicate with their physician's office.

Decision aids to support consumer’s choices

Computer based applications are being developed to help clinicians integrate a patient's preferences (values) with scientific evidence, the patient's history, and local constraints. These systems also help patients make choices for treatment or screening on the basis of their preferences for different outcomes. Such decision aids, which can be used by patients with or without healthcare professionals, are especially desirable when the optimal management strategy depends on the strength of the patient's preferences for the different health outcomes that may result from the decision. For example, a decision system for contraceptives choice would not only take into account personal risk factors (such as smoking) to determine the best choice but also determine the values the patient places on different outcomes, such as unwanted pregnancy or venous thrombosis.

Consumer health informatics

Consumer health informatics applications are designed to interact directly with the consumer, with or without the presence of healthcare professionals, and can broadly be divided into community informatics resources such as health kiosks, community online networks and "cyber-medicine" applications that anyone with a home computer can access8and clinical informatics resources, which are provided to select groups or patients.

Consumer health informatics is not restricted to the use of computers and telecommunications but also includes the delivery of information to patients through other media: the theoretical framework of consumer informatics, for example the analysis of their information needs, is independent of the media through which the information is presented. The computer is not always the most effective medium for delivering information.

It is the field in medical informatics that is concerned with

• Analysing and modelling consumer preferences, information needs, and information use;
• Developing and evaluating methods and applications to support consumers in obtaining and using health information;
• Developing and evaluating methods and applications to integrate consumer needs and preferences into information management systems in clinical practice, education, and research;
• Investigating determinants, conditions, elements, models, and processes to design, implement, and maximise the effectiveness of computerised information and telecommunication and network systems for consumers; and
• Studying the effects of these systems on public health, the patient-professional relationship, and society.

Decision aids differ from information aids mainly in that they contain explicit components to help users clarify their values: the patient's personal values and the utility or importance of the risks and benefits of each alternative are elicited. Because of their interactive nature, computer based solutions have clear advantages over traditional media, and a number of applications already exist. The medical informatics community is increasingly working towards integrating patients' preferences with electronic health records.

Quality control of health information on the internet.

The internet is a vast resource, but to realise its full potential it is necessary to direct consumers to high quality information and to teach them how to assess the quality of information.

The quality control of health information on the internet rests on four pillars: educating the consumer, encouraging the self regulation of providers of health information, having third parties evaluate the information, and enforcing sanctions in cases of dissemination of fraudulent or harmful information.

Considerable progress has been made in all four fields. An ongoing European Union project, the MedPICS Certification and Rating of Trustworthy Health Information on the Net (medCERTAIN; www.medpics.org/medcertain/), is based on the idea that the quality of health information and interactive applications on the internet should not be controlled by a central body or authority but instead must be evaluated and labelled (associated with meta-information) by medical societies, professionals, or consumer organisations. The project is developing a technical infrastructure to allow individuals, organisations, associations, societies, and other entities to rate the published health information found online by using a standardised vocabulary. The medCERTAIN consortium will also create different levels of certification for those who publish health information on the internet; these will range from a simple rating of "good standing" to "gold seals" indicating that the site has been externally peer reviewed.

Several groups have developed interactive internet tools to educate consumers; these tools help users to manually filter information and to assess the quality themselves (www.quick.org.uk, www.discern.org.uk, http://hitiweb.mitretek.org/). However, none of these tools has been validated. Discern, a tool for assessing the quality of written patient information, is being adapted for use on the internet.

A professional code of ethics for stakeholders who have an interest in providing health resources online (such as health portals, academics, and public health experts) has been drafted. In January 2000, about 50 experts in providing health information online attended the "e-health" summit on the ethics of providing information on the internet in Washington, DC; they drew up a code of ethics that addresses issues of quality; commercial behaviour; privacy, security, and confidentiality; and the use of the internet in practising health care.

Conclusion
Although the information society offers tremendous potential for reducing the knowledge gap between professionals and patients, it also brings a risk of a widening of the gap between those who have access to new technology and those who have been excluded. Bridging this digital divide and bringing consumer health informatics to groups that have the greatest need will be particularly challenging. In the industrial age, the inverse care law described the idea that the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for medical care in the population served. In the information age, we face an analogous "inverse information law"that is, access to appropriate information is particularly difficult for those who need it most. The vicious circle of low education and low health literacy and low income, poor health, and the inaccessibility of information technology, can only be broken if the field is not left to market forces alone but if public health policy actively brings information technology to those who are underserved.

In 1990, Shortliffe and Perrault wrote that for health professionals "it is increasingly difficult to practice modern medicine without information technologies"a statement that is more true than ever today. However, these days there is an additional trend: it is also increasingly unlikely that health professionals will encounter patients who have not used information technology to influence their health knowledge, health behaviour, perception of symptoms, and illness behaviour. Health professionals should, therefore, not only understand consumer health applications but also ensure that these applications are developed, applied, and evaluated properly.

The greatest contribution of consumer health informatics research to the healthcare sector may eventually be found in its attempts to systematise and codify consumers' needs, values, and preferences; in its research into how information is digested and is best presented to consumers; and in its research into how these variables influence outcome measures. Thus, current health informatics research may have greater implications for the practice of medicine than medical informatics ever did before.

References

1. Hersey JC, Matheson J, Lohr KN. Consumer health informatics and patient decision-making. Rockville, MD: Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, 1997.

2. Patrick K, Koss S. Consumer health information: white paper. http://nii.nist.gov/pubs/chi.html (accessed 12 June 2000).

3. United States General Accounting Office. Consumer health informatics: emerging issues. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996.

4. Greenes RA, Shortliffe EH. Medical informatics. An emerging academic discipline and institutional priority. JAMA 1990; 263: 1114-1120

5. Shortliffe EH, Perrault L. Medical informatics: computer applications in health care. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990.

6. Van Bemmel JH, Musen MA. Handbook of medical informatics. Heidelberg: Springer, 1997.

7. Coulter A. Paternalism or partnership? Patients have grown upand there's no going back. BMJ 1999; 319: 719-720

8. Eysenbach G, Sa ER, Diepgen TL. Shopping around the internet today and tomorrow: towards the millennium of cybermedicine. BMJ 1999;319 (13 Nov

9. Jadad AR. Promoting partnerships: challenges for the internet age. BMJ 1999; 319: 761-764

10. Smith R. The future of healthcare systems. BMJ 1997; 314: 1495-1496

11. Eysenbach G, Diepgen TL. Evaluation of cyberdocs. Lancet 1998; 352: 1526
12. Pies R. Cybermedicine [letter]. N Engl J Med 1998; 339: 638-639

13. Pencheon D. NHS direct: evaluate, integrate, or bust. BMJ 1998; 317: 1026-1027

14. Pencheon D. Matching demand and supply fairly and efficiently. BMJ 1998; 316: 1665-1667

15. Jadad AR, Gagliardi A. Rating health information on the Internet: navigating to knowledge or to Babel? JAMA 1998; 279: 611-614

16. Wyatt J, Keen J. The NHS's new information strategy. BMJ 1998; 317: 900

17. Ferguson T. Health online and the empowered medical consumer. Jt Comm J Qual Improv 1997; 23: 251-257

18. Friedman CP, Elstein AS, Wolf FM, Murphy GC, Franz TM, Heckerling PS, et al. Enhancement of clinicians' diagnostic reasoning by computer-based consultation: a multisite study of 2 systems. JAMA 1999; 282: 1851-1856

19. Bouhaddou O, Lambert JG, Miller S. Consumer health informatics: knowledge engineering and evaluation studies of medical HouseCall. Proc AMIA Symp 1998:612-6.

Cutting-Edge environmental Modeling

2006-11-07T08:20:00.001+07:00

Virtual Organization

2006-11-07T08:20:00.000+07:00

Over the past decade, global competition, changing customer demands, environmental uncertainty, and rapidly evolving technologies have forced organizations to reassess their basic function and structure. The state of technology development has increased exponentially as computers and robots have entered the workplace. One of the effects of these is managers should manage effectively in changing and ill-defined organization structures. The structure of an organization consists of relatively fixed and stable relationships among jobs. The main purpose of organization structure is to influence the behavior of individuals and groups to achieve effective performance.

There are two theories that study management and organization design depending upon the degree of environmental uncertainty. The idea of these designs is an organization structure that enables customers to access its services can be applied at the subunit level as well as the overall organizational level. First is mechanistic design. In this theory, the characteristics of organization structure are highly specialized jobs, homogeneous departments, narrow spans of control, and relatively centralized authority. These characteristic assumptions are found in the historical circumstances within which this theory developed. Examples for such organization are banks, insurance firms, and airlines. Mechanistic designs provide appropriate mechanisms for integrating activities of relatively undifferentiated functions. Another alternative theory is organic design. This theory proposes that a more effective organization has relatively despecialized jobs, heterogeneous departments, wide spans of control, and decentralized authority. These organization structures achieve not only high levels of production and efficiency but also satisfaction, adaptiveness, and development. Examples for such organization are medical care, legal advice, and higher education. These organizations are better to integrate the activities of highly differentiated activities because organic structures provide the flexibility required to deal with the highly uncertain environment that is characteristic of customer demanding quite different services and desiring to play an active part in their delivery. We cannot choose one of these theories as a “best-way” theory. Rather, the manager must adopt the point of view that either the mechanistic or the organic design is more effective for total organization or for subunits within its organization.

One of the fastest developing practices in business throughout involves firms in cooperative relationships with their supplies, distributors, and even competitors. This kind of relationship is called “virtual organization”. Virtual organizations achieve both efficiency and flexibility by establishing networks of relationships with a variety of groups including suppliers, distributors, customers, strategic alliance partners, and even competitors. This relationship enables organization to rely upon smaller, closer to the market partner to sense impending changes in the environment and to respond at the local level.

There are three generic types of accounts available on virtual organizations in the literature. The first one is on organizations that out-source some of their business activities, forming virtual alliances to achieve organizational objectives. Such virtual organizations may be formed by integrating several companies’ core competencies and resources. A virtual company, then, is a collection of several companies organized to behave as if it were a larger, multifaceted organization. Chesbrough and Teece analyzed the practice of businesses in the market place and discussed the problems and concerns with firms going virtual. According to Harrington’s book entitled ‘Organizational Structure and Information Technology’, the second description of virtual organization is related to perceptual organization that is “abstract, unseeing, and existing within the minds of those who form a particular organization”. The third type description is organizations that are built up by virtual links with information technology.

The uncertainty situation nowadays, due to changes in business environment, forces the organization to be more flexible and adaptable. Currently, independent organization are often no longer in a state of being able to provide the desired products or qualities. This need for flexibility can only be guaranteed by several interdependent organizations which react promptly to the customer’s demands. Cooperation between those independent organizations shall be maintained in the form of a network type of virtual organization. This collaboration can be held through the collaboration of core competencies and working methods that the participating parties have. In another word, the participants in a virtual organization complement each others’ competencies and resources in order to complete the customer’s demand. An example of a successful virtual organization is the famous internet store known as “Earth Biggest Bookstore”, Amazon (www.amazon.com). This book firm offers an enormous selection of books that can be searched through several kinds of queries: title, author, description, and ordered via internet with supports from many credit card vendors such as VISA, MasterCard, etc. Actually, this firm is virtual and owns no single book itself. It manages a direct connection with several large publishers to supply customer’s order on desired book. This means that the firm manages no stock, no store, minimal personnel, and minimized logistics.

There are several advantages that virtual organization can offer. The greatest one lies in the fact that it eliminates the physical boundaries of organizations, and that cross-functional teams and organizations are able to operate and collaborate across space and time by communicating with each other via electronic channels. The Internet becomes the most important interface between participating organizations, teams and individuals. Virtual organization also allows businesses to sell and deliver products and services across the world in the most efficient way. For example, www.gramedia.com, an online bookstore from Indonesia, helps people from different city in Indonesia to buy a book from them without going to the store directly and they will send the books directly to the customer’s house. Virtual organization may perceive greater business opportunities since it has an expanded geographical coverage that enables them to get a broader market. This phenomenon lies in the fact that customers of Gramedia bookstore don’t only come from big cities anymore but also from small cities, since www.gramedia.com provides services for customers from small cities. Better market understanding is another benefit of virtual organization, since the customer will get the product exactly as he wants it and almost immediately. Customer will have the joy to acquire almost perfect quality and good service. This will give a virtual organization the edge over its competitors. In virtual organizations, team members do not necessarily need to be in the same location and might not meet physically. A good example is engineering companies who have different sites around the world to do work 24 hours a day. They are taking advantage of the time zones. For example, when the shift in Europe finishes, the work is passed to the team members in the United States. It will reduce cost and time. Another advantage of virtual organization is better management information and better integration of suppliers and vendors. When the virtual organization can reduce its product cost, it will have more chances on the market thus the supplier will be able to sell more products to his client. Therefore, the supplier will be happy to continue working with the company. Vendors are something valuable. They promote and explain the products. This helps to grow with the customer and fulfilling his demands even better. Feedback is a very important thing to increase quality and customer satisfaction. With virtual organization, the vendor and the supplier are integrated together. The information transformation and flow between them are collected and arranged well in virtual organization. Therefore, the company will work more efficiently.

Although virtual organization has many advantages such as reducing the cost, being able not to pay the infrastructure, or becoming an umbrella organization, the virtual organization has some weaknesses, not from the concepts but they come from the theories itself. Virtual organization is lack of appropriate theories. It usually runs itself without the needs of formal theories. Another weakness is inconsistent paradigm, and lack of formal modeling tools [L. M. Camarinha-Matos, 2004]. Other considered disadvantage is hard to determine how the relationships between components in virtual organization should be organized. Organizing the customers, suppliers, employers, etc need great efforts and a lot of evaluations. This process can consume more time. Virtual organization itself should be aware of dynamic changes of global economy, this also need proper system to design.

Those disadvantages above can be reduced within time and experiences. The theories of virtual organization develop within time. P. Sieber and J. Griese mention in their paper abstract2 that virtual organization is a goal-oriented enterprise (i.e. unit or function within a company) operating under metamanagement. Metamanagement characterizes the management of a virtually organized task. A virtually organized task is a goal oriented activity that is implemented by an appropriate assignment or reassignment of concrete satisfiers to the abstract requirements of a task. (switching is the process of assignment and reassignment.). That statement supports that virtual organization focus on the goal not the process. The other theories we should start a virtual community than build the virtual organization to reach the virtual enterprise. In order to understand a virtual organization some expert use the theories in other discipline such as multi agent system, complexity theories, self-organizing systems, graph theory, network analysis, game theory, formal engineering methods, etc.

In order to create a well-organized and well-managed virtual organization we need to model it first. Creating a realistic model of virtual organization is a very hard work. Modeling is a very suitable means to aid designing, communicating, and implementing virtual organizations3. There are some model approaches such as management model (framework model, concepts model), management oriented process model, system requirement model, and enacted model. Management models depict the core concepts and elements of the (virtual) organization. They usually set the frame of reference or high-level architecture of the VO, and thus support understanding and discussing the main principles. Nowadays, some tools are supporting the modeling process in virtual organization although they cannot always satisfy the developers. Those are the VSD (Value System Designer), CIMOSA (CIM Open System Architecture), GERAM, etc. Creating model in virtual organization need some steps, that are: developing business architecture for VO or adopting it from reference models, detailing processes and roles to a level sufficient for employees or researchers to understand (and operate in) new organization, and detailing processes, data requirements and views for system development or system enactment2. By creating a good model we can create a well organized virtual organization. This model will also help us on following the world changes well.

To sum up, virtual organization as one of the fastest developing practices in business offers us flexibility and adaptability. This virtual organization, which isn’t able to be seen, forms virtual alliances to achieve organizational objectives, exists within the minds of those who form the organization, and it is built up by virtual links with information technology. Virtual organization offers us a lot of benefits such as eliminating physical boundaries of organizations through electronic channels, efficient in delivering products and services, expanding business coverage, better market understanding, 24-hour business a day, and reducing products cost. It has also some disadvantages, such as lack of appropriate theories and formal modeling tools, inconsistent paradigm, and hard to organize the components’ relationships in a virtual organization. Despite of its disadvantages, virtual organization is still considered a great prospect in business, especially in the future. By creating a good realistic model of virtual organization, a well organized virtual organization can be developed and the disadvantages can be reduced within time and experiences.

References

(1) Harrington, J. (1991) Organizational Structure and Information Technology, New York : Prentice Hall.
(2) Sieber, P. and Griese, J.. 1999. Organizational Virtualness and Electronic Commerce Proceedings of the 2nd International VoNet – Workshop Zurich, September 23-24, 1999 Simowa Verlag Bern.http;//virtual-organization.net
(3) Loeh, Hermann, Chunyan Zhang, and Bernhard Katzy. Modeling for Virtual Organizations http://www.cetim.org/wps

Anggota Kelompok:
1. Dian Syahfitra (13504021)
2. Gahayu Handari E. (13504031)
3. Morenvino (13504034)
4. Ray Aditya Iswara (13504045)
5. Anton Rifco Susilo (13504046)
6. Dani (13504060)
7. Stevens Jethefer (13504080)
8. Anthony Hertanto (13504102)
9. Nicolas Andres (13504109)
10. Christopher Kurniawan (13504117)

Task 2 - Beauty Ciganjur

2006-10-25T20:34:00.000+07:00

Ciganjur is such a beautiful small town for me. Located in the South Jakarta near Pasar Minggu, ciganjur still have cool and clean environment rather than other place in Jakarta. The culture shows that people in ciganjur are very friendly and religious. [give examples] And [it is not good to be used at the beginning of a sentence] the most important thing is that ciganjur save many unforgetable memory within me. [ what are the memories]

The environment here still cool and natural. There are still many wild plants and animals. Banana tree, Durian tree, and Guava tree dominants in ciganjur plantation. They sprouts annually, and used for people economic rather than for eating. Beside plants, sometimes we can found wild animals around ciganjur. Civet or known in Indonesia as musang is a popular wild animal that can be often seen in ciganjur. People sometimes hunt them down because they eat people's hen.

There are few lakes in Ciganjur, but only one big lake i remember, Situ lake. Situ lake have very interesting view and very suit for a place for tour. There are fish breeding in situ lake, duck boat, many food seller, and a few of public facilities. Because of that, Situ lake often crowded with visitor, especially in holidays. I often visit this lake with my family to use my vacation time and i save many unforgettable memory in this lake [what do you really mean?].

However, ciganjur beauty always take me to nostalgia about my past times. That's why i always feel that the best place to visit is my hometown. Do you?

Where is your credibility as a writer? You made so many mistakes.

Process Paragraph

2006-10-18T21:38:00.000+07:00

Methane Gas

There are several steps to produce purified methane gas from household waste. The initial step is warming bed, which separates household waste into methane gas and fertilizer. After being separated, the methane gas, which is still not purified, goes to the second step, which is performed in the dirt trap. The dirt precipitates to the bottom of the dirt trap, separated from methane gas, and will be removed by releasing the cap at the bottom of the trap. The separated methane gas then goes to a sealed gas indicator, which contains water, through a pipe. The methane gas comes out from the end of the pipe which is located in the water. Thus, methane bubbles are produced and other components beside methane gas are dissolved in water. Next, the pressure of the methane gas is controlled in the pressure release mechanism. It uses an open top container of water with a pipe dipped 8 cm below water surface. Then, pressure controlled methane gas moves to stacked up inner tubes. There are some weights which are put on top of the tubes to increase methane gas pressure. Methane gas is purified after this pressure increase. To get it, simply open the tap at the end of the pipe.

Sewage Disposal Process

The sewage disposal process has three main stages. The first stage is the settling tank. In this tank, polluted water and sewage which come from the main sewer are separated into polluted water and undecayed solids. These undecayed solids precipitate at the bottom of the tank and will be removed and burned. Then, the polluted water goes through a pipe to a pump house. This is the second stage of disposal. The pump house pumps polluted water to the third stage, the sprinkler beds. When polluted water comes out from the rotating arms, it produces jets of polluted water. The water will go down through filters of stones and micro-organisms inside the brick work. After being filtered, the water is purified and can be safely channeled to the river.

Good.

Task III

2006-10-18T15:50:00.000+07:00

The process of producing methane gas can be described as below:
The process is started by warming the house hold waste that has been mixed with water in the warming bed, the steam from boiling water is passed through a pipe to a dirt trap in other to clean it and separate the methane from other unexpected molecules. Here, the molecules are thrown out side through a release cap. This part guarantee the gases passed don’t contain a dirty materials such as dust. This part of process may be called as cleaning process through physically treatment. The pure gases from cleaning process above are brought to the gas indicator tube which has been filled by water and the top of the tube is sealed in other to avoid gases go out / disappear. The function of this tube is to select the gases which are the methane and which aren’t. When the gases come inside to the water the methane in the gas will change into methane bubbles, this bubbles can be seen by our eyes without a telescope. After sure that the gases contain methane, the gases are passed through other pipe to the pressure release tube and gas holder tube. The pressure release will suck the unexpected gas when the pressure high and throw it out. Then the methane gases are passed to the gas holder. Here the gas pressure is increased in other to get pure methane gases by using weight. The last, methane gases are passed through a tap into container and ready to be used.

Good

Jakarta, My Lovely City

2006-10-18T09:55:00.000+07:00

Jakarta is a really fantastic place for numerous reasons. It has plenty of great tourism, shopping, and food destination.

There are so many great tourism spots in Jakarta. Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, located southeast of the city, is a large cultural theme park depicting the arts, customs, and lifestyle of each of Indonesia's provinces. [give examples]Taman Impian Jaya Ancol on Jakarta Bay features an oceanarium where you can feed some marine animals and watch them swim all over you. Pantai Marina in Ancol is also a well known resort destination. Next to Ancol is Dufan or Dunia Fantasi, Southeast Asia's largest amusement park. In Dufan you can experience kinds of games from carousel to rafting. If you want to see Jakarta from 460 ft above the ground, you can go to Monas or Monumen Nasional, the pinnacle landmark of Jakarta.

Jakarta is also well known as shopping paradise. Taman Anggrek, Cilandak Town Square, Plaza Senayan, and Pondok Indah Mal are places where you can buy numerous branded fashion items. If you are low budgeted, you can go to Passer Baroe, Melawai, Mangga Dua International Trade Center, or Fatmawati Trade Center. You may find up to date clothes at bargain able price there.

Jakarta also provides places that serve great food. For those who love seafood, Muara Karang in North Jakarta may be a great place to visit. If you want to try traditional cuisine from Jakarta like soto betawi or kerak telor, just visit nearest food stalls.

Overall, each district of Jakarta has its own uniqueness. No wonder many people come and go everyday to visit and experience the uniqueness of Jakarta themselves.

Good

Process Paragraph

2006-10-18T09:54:00.000+07:00

The processes involved in sewage disposal are usually classified into three stages.
First, sewage is carried from its source to settling tank through main sewer. In the settling tank, solid wastes settle at the bottom while wastewater passes through. Solid wastes which are unable to decay will be removed and burned later.
Next, wastewater from the settling tank is transferred to the pump house for preparation of the next process.
Finally, wastewater from the pump house is pumped to brickwork called sprinkler beds which consist of rotating arms, jets, and filters. Wastewater is forcefully flowed by jets on the rotating arms to get rid of smaller solids that disperse throughout it. To intensify the purity of the water, out of the rotating arms wastewater stream is distributed intermittently over filters. This way, stones and microorganism will not be able to pass; therefore, water that passes the filtration process is free from contaminations and ready to enter the river.

The process of extracting methane gas from household waste requires five steps.
The first step is warming bed, in which household waste is put and warmed to stimulate the decomposition process. Decomposition of waste produces component that contains nutrient necessary for plants, known as fertilizer, and marsh gas composed of hydrogen and carbon, known as methane.
After methane gas is acquired, it is carried to dirt trap. In dirt trap, dirt that dissolves in methane is removed through release cap.
Next, methane is flowed to gas indicator which contains water. The gas indicator has sealed top, hence methane gas will pop up as bubbles in the water. This step is useful for indicating whether there really is methane gas or not.
If previous step shows that methane gas truly exists, then the methane gas is transferred through pipe to a pressure releasing apparatus. The apparatus is a tube shaped object that has no cap and contains water. Mouth of the pipe is put 8 cm below the water surface, thus releasing the pressure from methane.
Finally, methane is passed to the gas holder where inner tubes and weight is used to increase gas pressure. After passing the inner tubes, the whole steps of extracting methane gas from household waste is completed, and methane is ready to be used as fuel and substance for producing other valuable chemicals.

Very good.

Methane - Sewage

2006-10-16T22:13:00.000+07:00

Methane

From figure 1.1 we can see that waste can be processed to produce fertilizer and methane, and we will discuss the latter. First, waste is put into the box called Warming Bed to get the gas called methane. Then the methane from the Warming Bed is flown into a place called Dirt Trap to separate the dirt to get a clean methane. At the bottom of the Dirt Trap there is a Release Cap to take away the dirt that have been separated from the methane. After that, the clean methane from the Dirt Trap is flown into water in a special glass-like container named Gas Indicator which is sealed on its top and has two pipes attached. One pipe is for the methane to get in from the Dirt Trap and another is for the output. The input pipe is longer than the output one because it needs to flow the methane into the water. Next, the water containing methane will release gas which will be flown through the output pipe to either another different glass-like container,which also contains water, or directly into the tubes. The container has only one pipe which has to be under-water at least 8 cm deep. The gas will be flown into the container when pressure is high and otherwise directly be stored in tubes or flown to the tap so methane can be acquired instantly by just opening the tap.

Sewage

Sewage needs to be taken care of very well to avoid pollution. First,put sewage into the Settling tank to separate the undecayed solid substances from the liquid ones. After they got separated, the liquid substances is drained to the Pump House and the solid ones are removed and burned. Then the Pump House pumps up the liquid substances to a place called Sprinkle Beds to filter the stones and micro-organism. The Pump House pumps the polluted water to the upper of the Sprinkle Beds,which is walled with brick, and let it will flow down through the filter and by the time the water reaches the bottom, it is clean enough to enter the river.

Good.

[Task 3] Process Paragraph

2006-10-16T14:41:00.000+07:00

Methane Gas
Methane, as known as marsh gas, is a gas composes of Carbon and Hydrogen with formula CH4. It is lightier than Oxygen, colorless, and inflammable. Along with Carbon Dioxide, it is believed to be the main caused of GreenHouse Effect. In industrial area, it can be used as a fuel to operate machines. Also, by several chemical processes, it can be altered into more useful chemical components, like Hydrogen, Hydrogen Cyanide, Ammonia, Acetylene, and Formaldehide.

We can extract Methane gas from household waste by several physical steps. First of all, put those waste into a Warming Bed. After several time of heating, the waste separates into two parts, dirt Methane and fertilizer. The dirt Methane will go to the Dirt Trap, while the fertilizer will be pumped out. In the Dirt Trap, the dirt will be separated from Methane through process of extraction. The separated dirt will be thrown away via Release Cap. In the next step, Methane enters huge tank to be intermingled with water to produce Methane bubble, which will be used for the next step. In order to gain pure Methane, this Methane bubble will be distillated in a Pressure Tank. This pure Methane, then will be kept in a big storage called Inner Tube that have weight on top to maintain the pressure of the gas. From now on, Methane gas is ready to consume.

---
Sewage Disposal System
In modern Sewage Disposal System, polluted water can be purified through several main stages. At the onset, sewage enters Settling Tank via main sewer. After being settled for several times, the sewage separates into two parts, undecayed solids, which then will be removed and burned, and polluted water. The polluted water, then, pumps up to the Sprinkler Bed via Pump House. Here, the jet of polluted water enters the rotating arms and then flows to the brick work. In the brick work, the water will be filtered by stone and micro-organism to produce the pure water. Eventually, the purified water flows to the river.

Very good.

Process

2006-10-14T12:28:00.000+07:00

Sewage Process
Sewage process is a processing of sewage from household before enter river so it does not pollute river’s environment. It consists of three steps. First, sewage that comes form household is placed in settling tank. It has a role as place that receives sewage that is called polluted water temporary. Next step is a process of pumping polluted water from the first step into sprinkler beds using pump house that located between settling tank and sprinkler beds. There is not special process in this step. The last step is purifying polluted water using sprinkler beds. It has two parts which is rotating arms and filter. The rotating arm which is located in the top of sprinkler beds sprinkle polluted water so it falls and go into the filter. Inside the filter, polluted water was filtered with stones and micro-organisms and the result of filtering gets out from the bottom of sprinkler beds. From that point, the purified water moves into pipe and enters river.

Production of methane gas
Methane gas can be produced from waste through five processes. Initially process is collecting waste in a place that is called warming bed. In this place, waste is warmed so it produces methane and other gas. After that, methane gas moves into the next process and the other gas moves into fertilizer. Next, second process, methane gas is separated from dirt in the dirt trap. Then, the third process is indicating that methane gas exists. The existence was shown with methane bubbles when methane gas goes into gas indicator which contains water. Furthermore, methane goes to the next process which is pressure release. It releases pressure that methane gas might have. Then the last process is gas holder which store methane temporary before it gets out from the whole process of methane gas production. Gas holder has some inner tubes as storage and something which weights to increase gas pressure and locates in the top of inner tubes. Each inner tube is connected with the main pipe. If the tap that was located in the end of main pipe of methane producer was opened methane gas comes out and was ready to be used.

O.K.

Methane - Sewage

2006-10-14T10:15:00.000+07:00

Methane gas is a kind of gas that can be used as fuel gas. Methane can be produced from disposal waste. There are several steps to produce methane gas from waste. First we put the waste into warming bed. In warming bed, waste is processed into fertilizer and methane. But methane gas that is produced by warming bed can not be used yet. It must through other processes. So methane gas flows into dirt trap. In dirt trap, methane gas was separated from the dirt. After that, methane gas flows again into water in gas indicator. We can see some methane bubbles like boiled water in gas indicator. Then the gas flows into pressure release. In this step, when the pressure is high, there is excess gas. Last step is methane gas flows into gas holder. In gas holder, methane gas is kept in inner tubes. There is a weight on the top of inner tubes to increase gas pressure. If we want to take methane gas, we just turn the tap and the methane gas will flow out.

Water is the most important thing in human’s life. Because if there is no water in the world, all live creatures will be extinct. So we must keep the water from the pollution. In order to keep the water, we can purify sewage from household into clean water in three steps. First is sewage puts into settling tank. In this tank, undecayed solids from poluted water are removed and burned. After that, water flows into pump house. In this step, poluted water is pumped and flows into third step. Then jet of poluted water in sprinkler beds is flowed through rotating arms, filter of stones and micro-organisms, and brick. After these steps, the poluted water has been purified. So it is safe now to flow the purified water entering river.

O.K.

Process

2006-10-11T21:14:00.000+07:00

1. Methane gas can be produced by extracting household waste through several steps. The first step is warming bed, where methane and dirt are separated from fertilizer. Next is dirt trap, a part of the system where dirt is removed from methane and thus produce clean gas. Dirt which is sink at the bottom of the trap can be removed using release cap. After a clean gas is retrieved, the gas goes to a sealed gas indicator and mix with water – this is the reason why this process creates bubbles - to eliminate gases other than methane. Pure methane then goes into a pressure release mechanism. It controls methane pressure using an 8 cm branch of gas pipe which is dipped into the water. Pressure-controlled methane gas is held in an inner tube, where on top of it, weight is put to increase gas pressure. Releasing the gas is as simple as turning the tap.

2. In sewage disposal unit, polluted water and sewage are streamed from main sewer to settling tank. Here in the tank undecayed solids are burned and removed, and the liquid goes to the pump house. The last place is sprinkler bad, where lots of processes are performed. Rotating arms produce jets of polluted water which is then filtered by stones and microorganism as well as brick work to produce purified water before it flows to the river.

Good.

Producing Methane Gas and Sewage Disposal

2006-10-11T12:03:00.000+07:00

According to Figure 1.1, there are five steps in extracting gas from household waste. The first step is adding waste into the Warming Bed. The Warming Bed will separate waste which contains methane and dirt from other waste produced in the process that can be fertilize. Other waste will go to the fertilizer. Waste which contains methane and dirt will go to the next step, the Dirt Trap. In this step, dirt will extracted from the waste and it will be released. Methane will go to Gas Indicator step. In this step, methane is put into water in a container which top is sealed. This process will create methane bubbles. In the next step, methane is still put into water in different container. This container has a top which is open to air. In this step, methane bubbles in high pressure will released to open air. The normal pressure methane gas will go to the last step. in this step, methane gas will keep in a container which has a weight in the top to increase gas pressure called Inner Tube. From this step, methane gas is ready to used by turn the tap.

According to the sewage disposal picture, there are three steps in sewage disposal. The first step is Settling Tank. In this step, polluted water is poured from main sewer into the Settling Tank. In this tank, undecayed solids are separated. It is removed and burned. The water left go to the next step, the Pump House step. In this step water is pumped and go to the last step, the Sprinkler Beds. In this step, pumped water, which still contains pollution is poured from the top. Then the polluted water is filtered from stones and micro-organisms. Then the purified water can be released to the river.

Good.

Process

2006-10-10T14:53:00.000+07:00

1.House hold waste can be processed to produce methane gas by several steps. First of all, waste is warmed in a warming bed to produce gas, and the rest can be used as fertilizer. That gas still contains solid particles which have to be removed in the dirt trap. In this trap, the settled solid particles can be removed by opening the release cap. Unfortunately, the free-from-solid-particles gas still contains gases other than methane. The unwanted gases are removed by blowing all the gases into water. Most of unwanted gases will be diluted, thus increasing methane concentration. This step also produces bubbles and it means the system is running. The next steps will note change gas composition any more.

The pressure of the gas is controlled by dipping a branch of the pipe into 8 cm of water. When the gas pressure rises above 8 cm of water, it will be released to open air. After released from excess pressure, the gas is contained in a set of inner tubes, which is laid under a weight to increase pressure. The pressure-controlled methane can be accessed through a tap.

2.Sewage water must be processed before entering a river. First, polluted is put into setting tank to separate it from solids. Undecayed solids, which have settled, are removed and burned, while the liquid is pumped by pump house.

Next, the liquid is forced into rotating arms to form jets of polluted water, which increases diluted oxygen. With this rotating arm, the polluted water will distribute more evenly to the filter’s surface. The water is then filtered by stones and microorganisms. This process needs more diluted oxygen from the step before. Purified water that is safe to enter a river.

Good.

Bandung

2006-10-10T14:52:00.000+07:00

Bandung, capital city of West Java, is still a beautiful city even with its state as a metropolitan city. One of the things that differs Bandung from other metropolis cities is its climate. Bandung's climate is cooler than any other capital cities, because Bandung attitude is about 680 meters above sea level. The other reason is that trees are still plenty even there are many new buildings. The air quality is good too, because air pollution is relatively low.

One of the visitors' reasons to come to Bandung is because of its scenery. Many scenic place suround Bandung, for example THR Juanda, Maribaya, Lembang, and many others place at Northern Bandung. THR Juanda is a good place for take a relax form daily activities. From there you can take a walk to Maribaya, a scenic place which is famous of its waterfall. Lembang is known as agricultural tourism place, where we can find fresh organic vegetables. Bosscha observatory is also a good place to visit near Lembang. These all things make Bandung, as metropolitan city, still beautiful.

O.K.

Process paragraph

2006-10-09T09:29:00.000+07:00

Producing Gas from Household Waste

There are several steps in extracting gas from household waste. First, household waste goes into warming bed. In here, the waste that still can be made as fertilizer then go to the fertilizer pipe, and the other, which is consist of methane and dirt, then go to the next step, dirt trap. Dirt trap is a place where the dirt can be extracted from the waste. Then the dirt moves to the release cap. On the other side, the extracted methane enters the next phase, Gas Indicator. In here, methane mingles with water in a big container. This process will create the methane bubble, which will continue the following step. If methane bubble’s pressure is too high, it will go to the step for releasing the pressure. The methane bubble comes to top-open-container that already filled with water. If the pressure is normal, the methane bubble will continue its journey to the last step, Gas holder. In here, the methane will keep in a big storage, called Inner tubes that have weight on top to increase the gas’ pressure. You can get the gas by simply turn the gas tap. From now on, the gas is ready to be used.

Sewage Disposal Unit

There are three stages in sewage disposal unit. First, the sewage comes from main sewer to the Settling Tank. In here, the sewage is mixed with the water, produce polluted water and undecayed solids. Then the undecayed solids is removed and burned. The polluted water then comes to the next step, which is Pump House. On this step, the polluted water flows to the next place through the pipes. The last place is Sprinkler Beds. Then jet of polluted water stream to the rotating arms. After that, the water is filtered of stones and microorganism to produce the purified water. Finally, the purified water flows to the river.

Very good.

Lasem, A Special Place to Visit

2006-10-03T21:19:00.000+07:00

If you are looking for somewhat special places to visit, Lasem should be in your list. The town located in the north coast of Central Java has the most delicious lontong opor on earth, Lontong Tuyuhan. Lasem has also the special handmade batik, Batik Lasem. This 45.04 km² town with population of 44,879 (2003) is a place where bus and angkot are not the commonly used public means of transportation.

Due to Lasem's small size, traditional dokar becomes the commonly used public mean of transportation. Dokars are the 2-wheel carts that ply the streets around Lasem. The cart is pulled by a horse with some leather harnesses and jingling bells and one coach man. Beyond that, the dokar can carry up to twelve passengers. This dokar is different from the other horse-powered cart such as andong and delman not only for dokar’s size which is bigger, but also for its wheels' size. Dokar's wheel is twice bigger than andong’s or delman’s.

Just as dokar becomes Lasem’s special horse-powered cart, Lontong Tuyuhan becomes Lasem's special lontong opor. The soup is tastier and the chicken is softer than the ordinary lontong opor. What makes it so soft is the young village-chicken. The lontong(food consisting of rice steamed in a banana leaf) and the opor(chicken cooked with coconut cream and various spices) have their own Lontong Tuyuhan's secret recipe which makes Lontong Tuyuhan the most delicious lontong opor on earth. I have heard someone paid five hundred rupiahs for the recipe. The extraordinary recipe makes the lontong itself already delicious that it is not uncommon seeing someone eats Lontong Tuyuhan without the chicken. What makes the lontong more special is its triangular shape. The "real" Lontong Tuyuhan can only be found at one spot in Tuyuhan village. It is believed that the spot has magical effect on the Lontong Tuyuhan's delicious taste. If you buy it somewhere else, you will find that it is somewhat not as delicious as the one you buy from Tuyuhan although the seller is the same.

While Lontong Tuyuhan has its own magical side, Lasem’s handmade batik, Batik Lasem, has its own cultural side. It is said that only Lasem's batik painter can make this batik's special stripe, especially the red color which is like chicken blood color. The motif of Batik Lasem is combination of Tionghoa's culture, north coastal society's local culture, and royal palace's culture. The design of the batik is affected by the anchestor's belief and legend. The motif of Hong bird, kilin, etc. can be seen on Batik Lasem. Even, the classic love story Sam Pek Eng Tay has ever become the motif. The influence of the royal palace's culture of Surakarta and Yogyakarta can be observed on the motif of omamen kawung, parang, etc. Likewise, the coastal culture influence is on the bright color like red, blue, yellow, and green.

Very good and organized.

Solo

2006-10-03T14:12:00.000+07:00

Solo is a beautiful warm little city where the existence of the Java tradition is still very affective. The people speak with a lovely thick accent of Javanese language. We can also find many ethnically-Javanese stuffs at every corner in the city. One of the most famous traditional spot in Solo is Pasar Klewer. It is a traditional market where plenty of clothes with a traditional pattern named Batik are sold. Not so far away from the market we can find a public hall called Alun- alun where the Sekaten , a traditional ceremony where we can find a lot of people selling traditional stuffs, food , is held every year to commemorate the glory of the Javanese Kingdom called Keraton.

Not only a traditional beautiful city, but Solo has always been admitted the cleanest city for years as well. It has won the Adipura Kencana, an award given to the cleanest city in Indonesia, for many times. The air, even it is quite hot, is still free from being polluted. At night we can find so many people selling food at the side of the street without being worried about hygiene. That is why Solo is sloganized Solo Berseri, which stands for Bersih Sehat Rapi Indah (Clean Healthy Neat and Beautiful).

You can improve this by reading more about Solo.

Jakarta, My Lovely Hometown

2006-10-03T13:34:00.000+07:00

Jakarta, my hometown, is the capital city of Indonesia. It is located on the northwest coast of Java. Jakarta has been developed for more than 490 years and has become the ninth most dense city in the world as it reached a population of 8,8 millions people in 2004. Many people from all over Indonesia come to Jakarta, hoping that they will get a better life. Thus, Jakarta becomes unique as many different cultures are mixed in it.

Although many cultures in Jakarta come from outside, Jakarta itself has unique cultures. People that lived in Jakarta since the 18^th century are usually called the Betawi people (orang Betawi). They have many unique cultures that represent Jakarta’s cultures. For example, wayang and gamelan performances. Wayang is a word for traditional puppet theatre in Indonesia. The word “wayang” comes from “bayang”, which means “shadow” in English. It also connotes as “spirit”. Wayang performances are usually accompanied by gamelan, a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings, and vocalists may also be included.

Nowadays, Jakarta has become the center of concentration of wealth and political influences. Despite that, Jakarta is still a great place to visit. It has many historical places, great places for hanging out, and great restaurants to dine in. For instance, Museum Fatahillah which is located in Kota, North Jakarta. We can learn a lot of Jakarta’s history there. In Central Jakarta, we may find Monas (Monumen Nasional), which symbolizes the fight for Indonesia's Independence. Other interesting places in Jakarta are Ragunan Zoo, Taman Impian Jaya Ancol (Ancol Dreamland), Taman Ismail Marzuki (Indonesian Arts Center), Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Thousand Islands, Taman Ria Senayan, and Sea World. Jakarta has a lot of shopping malls, some of them are Pondok Indah Mall, Mall Taman Anggrek, Plaza Indonesia, Mal Kelapa Gading, and Plaza Senayan. For its nice, beautiful restaurants and cafes, Kemang is a great place to dine in. It has more than 50 restaurants, bars, and cafes. Some of them are De La Rosa Café, Café De Paris, Café Taman Palem, Godeliva’s Restaurant.

Jakarta has now become hotter and hotter. It is caused by high dense of population and vehicles. Despite all that, Jakarta is still a great and nice hometown for me.

I think you need to be focus. Good writing.

Proud to be Betawi

2006-10-03T12:53:00.000+07:00

Jakarta has developed since 1527 and currently is the ninth densest city in the world with 44,283 people per square mile. Formerly known as Sunda Kelapa, Jayakarta and Batavia is the capital and the largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of Java Island, it has an area of 661.52 km2 and a population of 8,792,000 (2004). Some ethnics that lives in Jakarta are Javanese (35%), Betawi(28%), Sundanese(15%) and Chinese(6%). The languages which use in Jakarta are Indonesian, Betawi, Javanese, and Sundanese. There are several religions which the Jakarta's people beliefs, that is Islam (86%), Protestant(6%), Catholic(4%), Buddhism(4%), and Hindu.
Jakarta is a big, hot city with lots of polluting traffic. As a visitor you can forget to see everything in one day. There are some good museums here for those interested in

Indonesia

's history and culture. You should visit Kota, the old city, where you will see the oldest and finest reminders of the colonial days. Some of the old buildings are still in active use, while others has been restored and become museums.
Jakarta's most prominent landmark is the 132m high National Monument on Merdeka square, Monas. The construction was started by president Soekarno in 1961, but not completed before 1975 when it was opened by Soeharto. It is often characterized as a phallic symbol with a flame covered with gold leaf at the top to symbolize national independence and strength. The base consist of the National History Museum which tells the history of the independence struggle against the Dutch. A lift will take you to the top where, on a clear day, you can see the whole of Jakarta. Sundays and holidays can be very busy here.
In the southeast part of Jakarta there is another recreational park, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, called

Indonesia

in miniature. Here are buildings, art and crafts from all the regions in the country. Another attraction is Ragunan Zoo about 10 km south of the city center, the zoo has a number of local species and is of better quality than most other zoo's in Indonesia.
Beside that, like many big cities in developing countries, Jakarta suffers from major urbanization problems. The population has risen sharply from 1.2 million in 1960 to 5.8 million in 2000, counting only its legal residents The difference between rich and poor is huge and can be seen everywhere. This got even worse during the Asia crisis at the end of the 1990's when

Indonesia

was the hardest hit country and Jakarta the center of unrest and riots. More than 6.000 buildings were damaged or burnt down. Because of government's inability to provide adequate transportation for its large population, Jakarta also suffers from severe traffic jams that occur almost every day. And also during the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding. But, whatever Jakarta likes, it was my hometown, the place where my family and I lives until now and absolutely I proud to be Betawi.

Your language is more spoken rather than written.

Jakarta, the unique city

2006-10-03T12:04:00.000+07:00

Used to be a small harbor in the edge of Ciliwung River, Jakarta now becomes one of metropolitan city with high density of people. In 1964, Jakarta got a privilege to be the capital city of

Indones

. Hence, many people from different place in Indonesia come to Jakarta for seeking a better life. Jakarta rapidly becomes a crowded city with many interesting phenomenon inside, such as its social life and its traditional culture. Those phenomenons make Jakarta as a unique city.

We can see many skyscraper buildings like apartment and mall in Jakarta. Living in apartment becomes a new lifestyle that grows in Jakarta. Practicality, its facilities, and less of living place in Jakarta makes people choose to live in an apartment. In contrast, there are many dirty-and-vile-apartments in Ciliwung River side. It is just so ironic. This is a view of Jakarta where we can find different kind of people, from millionaire to destitute. We can find lot of malls in Jakarta. Yet, those malls are the right place to spend your money. To those who have not much money, they still can spend their money for shopping in Pasar Tanah Abang, great and big place to buy necessities in Central-Jakarta or in Mangga Dua, place that sell many kind of clothing. “City with A hundred malls” will be a great title for Jakarta. Moreover, night lifestyle in Jakarta just like in abroad. We can find many nightclub, bar or pub in Jakarta. For teenager, you need a big self-control to avoid fall on bad social habits, like free sex and drugs.

Jakarta also has unique culture, like its dancing, music, traditional food, and history, which can be found only in Jakarta. Topeng Blantek dancing is one example of Jakarta’s traditional dancing. It performs in special occasion like mariage and Jakarta’s birthday celebrating. Topeng Blantek is danced by some women that wearing colorfull dress and using a hat with the same colour with the dress. This dancing has a background music, we call it Gambang Kromong. Gambang Kromong, is a set of brass-made-hitted-mussical-instruments that produce a harmonize music. It is like Gamelan in Java. Another traditional music from Jakarta is Tanjidor, that consists of many kind of blown-musical-instruments. It’s ussually perform in marriage occassion.

Kerak Telor, Soto Betawi, and Roti Buaya are the example of traditional food that come from Jakarta. Kerak telor is a crust rice that cooked with an egg and served with serundeng, coconut shavings that fried without oil until become crunchy. Its taste is so delicious. We can find Kerak Telor seller when Jakarta celebrating its birthday, in Pekan Raya Jakarta, Kemayoran, Central Jakarta. We can also find Kerak Telor inside the malls, but its tase is different with the traditional one. Soto Betawi is a kind of soup with coconut milk that contains many kind of cow’s innards, tomatoes, potatoes, onion leaf and served with emping, melinjo chip. Soto Betawi can be found in many place in Jakarta, one example is in Blora, Central Jakarta. On there all the seller’s name is ”Pak Kumis”. Roti Buaya is a gigantic cake which is formed like an alligator. It is served in a marriage occassion as a gift from the groom to the bride.

Si Pitung is a heroic figure from Jakarta. He was so brave to beat the colonize, Netherlands. Pitung’s house is stangding still in Marunda, North Jakarta. That is makes his legend never died. If you want to know more about Jakarta’s history, you can go to Fatahillah Museum, in Kota, North Jakarta. You also can go to Situ Babakan in South Jakarta. It is a place for conservating Jakarta’s traditional culture. You can seee the miniatur of oldies Jakarta on there.

Eventhough Jakarta has became a metropolist city with a strong foreign culture involved in, Jakarta should hold on to its traditional culture. Jakarta’s traditional culture must be preserve from extinction. Since, this traditional culture is not only as the tied of history but also can attract foreign tourist to come to Jakarta. It is the reason why Jakarta always be an interesting destination place for traveling, and it makes Jakarta as a unique city. Moreover, I will always miss and love my Jakarta.

Good writing.

Bali is a great place

2006-10-03T11:50:00.000+07:00

Bali is one of the famous tourism place in

Indonesia

, may be in the world too. As a great place to visit Bali has many attractive things that can entertain visitors whom come to Bali. There are beautiful place with nice scenery, unique culture and building, entertained dance and many more. Because of that Bali is called a Paradise Island, an Island that full filled with beautiful things. Now let’s talk one by one that amazing things.

As what I was mentioned before, beautiful place is one of the attractive things. The tourists like to spend their time viewing the panorama of the nature that might be they haven’t been seen before. For example “Tanah Lot” (one of the most popular places of interest in Bali) every year there are thousands visitor come to there, so why this place is so interesting to be visited? The answer is because Tanah Lot has fantastic geographical structure that is a land in the middle of the sea with a temple on the top. Tanah Lot is located on the coast of West Bali, at the village of Beraban in the Tabanan Regency. It is also called Tanah Let which means ancient land and also Tanah Lod, which means the land to the south. The temple Pura Tanah Lot, simple in its construction, is dramatic in its ocean-front location and is one of the main temples in the worship of Balinese gods. Tanah Lot has a long history in the world of tourism. The temple itself is built on a small promontory which is only accessible at low tide. During high water the rock takes on the appearance of a large boat at sea, such is its shape. Poisonous snakes live in the nearby caves to 'guard' the temple and contribute to the temple's dangerous reputation. Sunset is the best time to visit Tanah lot, when the golden red skies frame the temple and waves crash into the rocks.

Beside beautiful place Bali also has unique cultural and buildings that can attract visitors to see them. One of the example is Pengelipuran Village (Balinese traditional village). This village is built base on the society’s habit of the Penglipuran village, the architecture of the building is very unique, the Gate of each house is same, the building inside was design for any purpose that base on Asta Kosala Kosali (a script about rules to build). Inhabitant believes that if they were obey this rules they would get a prosperity and safety in their life. The house consist of five main buildings that are: Fammily’s Temple is positioned on the North East as a place to pray to the God. Bale Daja is positioned on the north usually used for sleeping room, Bale Dangin is positioned on the east usually used as a guest room, Bale Dauh is positioned on the West also usually used as sleeping room and Bale Kelod is positioned on the South usually used as a kitchen and dinning room.

As a representation of Balinese Dance I’ll tell about Barong Dance because Barong is probably the most well known dance. It is also another story telling dance, narrating the fight between good and evil. This dance is the classic example of Balinese way of acting out mythology, resulting in myth and history being blended into one reality. The story goes that Rangda, the mother of Erlangga, the King of Bali in the tenth century, was condemned by Erlangga's father because she practiced black magic. After she became a widow, she summoned all the evil spirits in the jungle, the leaks and the demons, to come after Erlangga. A fight occurred, but she and her black magic troops were too strong that Erlangga had to ask for the help of Barong. Barong came with Erlangga's soldiers, and fight ensued. Rangda casted a spell that made Erlangga soldiers all wanted to kill themselves, pointing their poisoned keris into their own stomachs and chests. Barong casted a spell that turned their body resistant to the sharp keris. At the end, Barong won, and Rangda ran away. Somebody can die or get
seriously injured in a Barong dance. It is said that if Rangda's spell is too strong, a weak soldier may not be able to resist it, even with the help of Barong. He may end up hurting himself with his own keris. The masks of Barong and Rangda are considered sacred items, and before they are brought out, a priest must be present to offer blessings by sprinkling them with holy water taken from Mount Agung, and offerrings must be presented.

Ithink is enough for this time I tell about my hometown because if it was continued it would be never end, because there are a lot of amazing things in Bali. So if you intend to know more just take your bag, buy a ticket and then flight to Bali. It will become unforgettable moment for you when staying in Bali to spend your time.

Your writing is more spoken language rather than written language.

Medan, A Marvellous City

2006-10-03T11:16:00.000+07:00

Medan, a warm city nearby the sea, is the capital of north sumatera province. Medan is the third biggest metropolitan city in Indonesia behind Jakarta and Surabaya. This city is very large and dwelt by multiple society that has been predominated by 3 ethnic groups, Bataknese, Javanese and Chinese, whereas the real ethnic group dwelt Medan, Malay, have been moved
to uptown of Medan. That's a flash about Medan.

As a city which was built by Guru Patimpus since 17th centuries, Medan has various interesting and historical sites. Two of the most famous sites are Maimoon palace and Medan Great mosque. Maimoon palace used to be home for Malay's king also as the center of Malay empire governance. Maimoon palace has a huge yard and hundreds rooms indeed filled with the goods ommitted by Malay's king. While Medan Great Mosque used to be the only one mosque in Malay empire. It's placed nearby from Maimoon palace, it's only about 200 metres. In this mosque, all of empire's activities had been hold.

Medan not only has historical buildings that beautifying Medan, but also gardens. Since led Abdillah, Medan has been decorated with various gardens. For me, two of the most beautiful gardens are Mandiri garden, which is located at Jl. Sudirman and Golden garden, which is located at Jl. Gatot Subroto. Both of them has their own wonderful fountain that almost alike with fountain that located in Bunderan HI Jakarta. They are so beautiful, especially they are ornamented with colourful lamps and a great tower.

Really, Medan is a marvellous city.

Good.

Bandung - Place to call home

2006-10-03T10:44:00.001+07:00

Bandung is a beautiful city. It’s called flower city for a reason. There are trees and other plants throughout the town. Small gardens can be easily found especially in the northern part of Bandung. Stunning view and soft soothing breeze results in tranquility and somewhat peace-feeling. If you’re looking for a place to relax and enjoy fresh scenery, Bandung seems to be my best bet.

Bandung also offers you many places to shop. There are many outlets selling garments, bags, and other fancy things which are mostly located in Dago and Riau streets. They are famous for being cheap yet branded. It is highly recommended that you go there. If you prefer shopping in malls and plazas, Bandung has Istana Plaza, Bandung Supermall, and Cihampelas walk.

If you’re looking for places to eat, Bandung will surely satisfy you. There are so many places to eat with different atmosphere you can choose. If you’re looking for stunning view and romantic atmosphere, you have to try The Valley, The View, and Sierra. You can have candle light dinner while enjoying sparkling lights of Bandung. If you’re looking for elite atmosphere and excellent taste, you can try Tomodachi and Vienna.

I’m sure Bandung will give you a perfect grasp for your vacation needs.

Will be really good with some pictures. Good writing.

Medan , a fascinating metropolitan city

2006-10-03T08:47:00.000+07:00

Medan is a capital city of North Sumatera province. Medan was established in 1860s and it was still a village in 1612. Now Medan is the third biggest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta and Surabaya.Medan is a gate-city of west Indonesia region. Medan is a fascinating city. Why it is a? Medan has a many interesting historical places, such as Medan Grand Mosque, Maimon palace, and many historical Dutch buildings (post office, major office, hotels).Medan is also famous for its foods, such as bika ambon, mie tiaw, mie aceh, mie keling, etc. Medan is a metropolitan city so it is common that it has many shopping centers. Moreover Medan is better at the night, the food selling place, the lights, fountains, and the garden. Those are some reasons why that I mention Medan is a fascinating city.

Medan is lived by various ethnics. Medan citizen is over 2 millions. They are Javanese , Minangnese, Bataknese, Karonese, Melayunese , Tionghoanese , and Tamilnese. Even Medan citizen is very different each others but Medan is almost always in peace condition. Those various ethnics bring many kind of culture, including the foods. Medan people are famous for their emotions. Many people in other city believe that Medan people are easily to get angry, and it is true. This character brings Medan city more interesting.

As mention above that Medan has many interesting historical place such as Medan Grand Mosque, Maimon palace, and many historical Dutch buildings. Medan Grand Mosque was built in 1906 by Sultan Makmun al Rasyid. Some of the building materials was imported from Italy. The mosque special architecture was inspired by the Moorish Style. This mosque decoration has many deep meanings.This mosque is visited by foreign tourists from various countries all over the World. About 200 meters from this mosque there is Maimon palace. It is palace for Deli Sultanate. The Malay style was very felt when you enter this palace. There are many legends in this palace. Near the main palace there was a graveyard for Sultan families. Besides those two, there are many other historical places which were built by Dutch government such as the grand post office (still used), major house, hotels. This buildings are like the Dutch building in other city.

If you are planning to visit Medan , make sure you taste the foods. Medan is also famous for the foods. Bika Ambon is very famous one. It is from Ambon, I don’t know how it came to Medan. Bika Ambon taste are sweet and crispy, the expired date is long too. Tourist usually makes Bika Ambon as a handy craft. Another food is Mie tiaw, Mie Aceh , Mie Keling. These food tastes are different each other. The various ethnics in Medan makes Medan a city that is rich of food kinds.

Medan is a metropolitan city, which has many shopping centers or malls. Now it is about 20 malls or shopping centers ware placed in Medan. They are Sun Plaza, Medan Mall, Deli Plaza, Grand Palladium, etc. Sometimes the building of mall can cause social problems. Malls in Medan usually sell cloths, house holds, electronics, etc. Medan people doesn’t know factory outlet. Those malls provide citizen needs and can absorb workforces.

Medan is better at night than at noon. The city major programs make Medan more beautiful at nights. They add many lights on the side of city roads. City government also builds many fountains in the crossroads. The fountain usually functions only at night. Not only fountains and lights, at night we will see a food courts that don’t exist in the noon. The Kesawan Square is a road blocked area that sells many Chinese foods.The Merdeka walk, a place that offers a many kinds of foods, funs, and a night situation. If you interest in Tamil or India foods like martabak, mie keling, keling fried rice, you can go to Kampung Keling area (Pagaruyung streets). Sometimes there is a fireworks party in Kampung Keling.

Although Medan a fascinating city, it still has many problems. Medan air is very hot almost everyday. The air pollution is still high. Medan city traffic is well, but the traffic users are worst. They don’t wear a helmet. They usually don’t care about the traffic light. They drive without SIM or STNK. Moreover, Medan is full of lights at the night, this condition usually makes blackout for some citizen houses. The electricity energy isn’t strong enough to support Medan.

Medan is an interesting metropolitan city. Although it still has many problems, Medan is well tourism city. It has many historical places, great foods, shopping centers, and great night. I have been stayed in Medan for 17 years. I can’t wait to go back to may hometown.

Bandung - My Hometown

2006-10-02T22:56:00.000+07:00

Bandung is a perfect place for numerous reasons. Geographically, it is surrounded by mountains, and lies 750m above the sea level. Therefore, the climate is good with average temperature around 22.6^oC.

The northern part of the city, with its mountainous topology, becomes the centre of tourism-activities, with Dago as the most famous area. We can find many fantastic restaurants there, located on the peak and providing beautiful scenery of Bandung’s city lights. The atmosphere is very romantic and the food is good, although the price is quite expensive. Lots of couples spend their time there every Saturday night. Some of these restaurants are The Valleys, Sierra, and The View. During summer time, you can go to a traditional cafe called Moko, about 20 minutes drives from The View. The cafe is quite difficult to reach, but it is a beautiful place where we can see millions stars in Bandung’s sky.

Factory Outlets and Distribution Stores (Distro) also play an important role in Bandung’s tourism. Factory Outlets are fashion stores which get their products directly from the factory, so they are cheaper than products in ordinary shops. Meanwhile, Distribution Stores sell non-trademarked products made by local designer. Factory outlet products come from a garment factory, but Distribution Stores come from individual designers. These FO and Distro are concentrated on Dago Street and Riau Street.

Bandung has many old buildings in Dutch architecture, such as Gedung Sate, Savoy Homann Hotel, Gedung Merdeka, Gedung Pakuan, and many more. Gedung Sate is the West Java governor office, while Gedung Pakuan is the officicial residence. Gedung Merdeka is a historic building where Asian-African Conference was held. These buildings combine European architecture with tropical ornaments, and have become the landmarks of Bandung since the colonial time.

There is no other hometown as beautiful as Bandung. The Dutch must have been agreed so they called it “Parijs van Java”.

Process Pargraph

2006-10-02T15:59:00.000+07:00

Thanks so much for posting about your home town. I found some grammatical problems in your writing and I had put highlight in your writing. Please have a look at them.

Please write one or two paragraphs based on figure 1 and one or two paragraphs based on figure 2.

Figure 1 shows a system for extracting methane gas from house hold waste. Using the information in the figure, describe the process by which methane gas is produced.

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Figure 2 is a diagram of a sewage disposal unit. Write an account of what happens to the sewage in each of the three stages.

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The Bien-Hua of Medan City

2006-10-02T14:48:00.000+07:00

The Bien-Hua of Medan City

There are no better words in the world that can fully describing my hometown, in one phrase than the phrase bien-hua. Bien-hua is a chinese phrase, literally means as “changing”, but not just an ordinary one—it is a vibrant, lively, positive, and exciting changing. The Medan City, for the whole of its history, has experienced this bien hua. Today it is still changing and I believe it will remain to be so in the future. This so lively changing has made Medan becoming an unique city that probably the one and only in the world. Below, I will show you the bien-hua of the Medan City and its implication to the life of its people.

The history of Medan itself is fully resemble the bien hua progress. Medan appeared from the mist of myth around 16th to 17th centuries, when two powers in northern Sumatra—Aceh and Aru—went to war ("Medan" is a Malay word for "battle field", the place where the fight between two contesting powers took place). The battle was finally won by the famous Sultan Iskandar Muda of Aceh in a decisive showdown at Tanah Deli in 1612. To celebrate this victory, the Sultan established the Deli Sultanate Kingdom and appointed his warlord of the battle, Gocah Pahlawan, as the first king. This Deli Sultanate is the seed of the present Medan. As you can see, Medan has entered the civilization by evolving from a deserted area into a kingdom. From the 1632 up to 1888, along with the growth of international trading, the Deli Kingdom had experienced magnificent growth in both population and culture of Medan. In the 1861, while the Labuhan Deli, the port town of the Deli Sultanate, had become the biggest and the busiest port on the Malacca strait, many Fujianese, Hokkianese, Tamils, Arabic, British, Dutch, and Karo Bataknese of the outland areas began to settle in Medan and mixed with the Malayan native inhabitants. For the first time ever, Medan enjoyed the multiethnic and multicultural environment. At this era, the Medan City is associated with "Medina", the Islamic city in Arabia where a peaceful and prosperous civil-society once was achieved under the reign of Prophet Muhammad. In 1865, when the Dutch colonialists began clearing the land for tobacco plantations, Medan quickly became a center of colonialist government and commercial activity, dominating development of Indonesia's western region.

Today, Medan is a 500-years-old city that marked by rapid growth and development over the last 50 years; however, unlike any other cities, its old style architecture is not dying (because it is bien hua—the positive changing). From the perspective of architecture, the City reflects the combination of, traditional and modern, cultural and cosmopolitan architecture. While the upper-part of town has rapidly transformed into the modern sky crappers and modern metropolis; some parts of the city still retain their Dutch classic architecture—these include the old City Hall, the central Post Office, the Water Tower (which is Medan City's icon), and Titi Gantung (a bridge over the railway). The other parts which preserving the old historical Malayan architecture are like the Sultan Mai’mun Palace and the Great Mosque of Medan; the exotic Hindustan Tamil architecture in Kampung Keling; the oriental Chinese architecture in the Chinatown. The modernity in one hand, and the past on the other, combined with more and more parks and green open spaces that are recently built in Medan, making the city become the most beautiful Twinn Stadd (Garden City) with unique mixed architectural style in Indonesia.

However, the most wonderful changing process that becoming the charm of the Medan City is not on the architectural but on its people. As stated before, the city is a multiethnic and multicultural one. Since Bataknese (Mandailing, Toba, and Karo) make up the majority, Medan become famous throughout Indonesia as the home of the Batak people. Other large ethnic groups are the Malayan (traditionally inhabiting the Eastern coast of Sumatra), the Minang (from central Western Sumatra), and Javanese transmigrants, largely made of the descendants of people shipped from Java as part of the government's transmigration policy. A highly visible component of Medan's population is the large number of Chinese, who control much of the business sector. Finally, the city has a sizeable community of Tamil descent, the people known as keling. A well-known Tamil market, is the Kampung Keling. While Medan transmigrants usually do identify their ethnic background, I have always found that their identity is much more Medanese than their real ethnic. The people of Medan are more outgoing and less self-restricted than those in other parts of Indonesia. For example, Medanese expresses theirself in all aspects of public daily life, but is most evident in communication, which trully expresses outgoing character of the Medanese. In short, Medanese has their own character. This makes a particular brand of freedom, as well as of chaos, which you must live here for a while to capture this atmosphere.

Good.

My Hometown

2006-10-02T12:52:00.001+07:00

Bandung is an interesting place for a lot of reason. The environment of Bandung that surrounded by mountain has made its air is fresh and temperature is cold. It is a good place for spending your weekend after you have work along week.

Many interesting place are opened especially on the weekend. All About Strawberry which is located in Cihanjuang, included to Bandung regency, is one of them. It just opens on Friday until Sunday and can be reached by vehicle about half hour from Bandung. It has a vast strawberry farm and you can harvest strawberry fruit directly from its farm but you must pay if you want to bring it to your home. Not only fruit, strawberry juice is provided with paying six thousand rupiahs. This place also offers some accessories that related with strawberry, such as clock which shape strawberry.

Beside that, there are many restaurants which offer new concept. The famous one is The Valley which is placed at Dago Pakar Street. We can see city view of Bandung while have our dish form this place. It serves western, Japanese, and Indonesian food. If you come at night, you will feel the different atmosphere because the scenery and its cold temperature which is about twenty degrees Celsius. This will be a great moment if you come with your family or beloved person. The other one is Sapu Lidi which can be found in Sersan Bajuri Street. In this place, we were brought to village situation totally and accompanied with rice field. You will feel as a farmer. In a shelter which is located in rice field, you sit on its floor and have your Sundanese food. With this environment, you can rest your body and mind.

For all reason that I have mentioned above, I am proud to be a citizen of Bandung. I can find many interesting place and a good environment. Its fresh air has hypnotized me to live in this city and may be the other people.

Paris van Java

2006-10-02T12:52:00.000+07:00

My hometown is Bandung because I was borned in Bandung and I live in Bandung. I think Bandung is a beautiful city. Because there are a lot of interesting place, friendly people, and delicious food. So people usually called Bandung Paris van Java or flower city. There are several place that I think very interesting. For example satay building in Diponegoro Road. This building was used by Netherlands’ government when Indonesia was occupied by Netherlands. Today this building is used by West Java governor. Another place that I think very interesting is braga road. In this road, there are many historical building that are built by Dutch architect. So people can see many buildings with old European style in this road. Bandung is also famous with factory outlet. In factory outlet people can buy branded cloth in low price. Therefore, there are many people from Jakarta or other cities that come to Bandung in weekend to go to factory outlet.

I have mentioned in first pharagraph that Bandung has a lot of delicious food. So people usually buy some to give their friends or relatives when they go back home from Bandung. For example Bandung’s traditional food such as peuyeum. Peuyeum is made from fermented cassava. It taste sweet and little bitter because it contains alcohol. Bandung also have traditional drink which called cendol. It made from rice powder and has green color. Cendol usually served with red sugar and santan which made from coconut. It is very delicious and I think you should try it. Cafés in Bandung is very famous too because their place in high land such as in Dago or Lembang that provide beautiful scenery and its food very delicious. So people can have dinner with beautiful Bandung’s city light. That’s all little thing about my hometown. I think you should visit Bandung at some time.

Cirebon is a great city to stay in

2006-10-02T09:45:00.000+07:00

Located in the north coast of Java Island, Cirebon is such a great city to stay in. It has a warmth climate and good condition over the year. Its citizen is very kind and polite. There are two major cultural influences in Cirebon, that are Javanese and Sundanese. Although, Cirebon also has its own culture and language, that is bahasa Cirebon. Cirebon is known as Grage in Cirebon language.

Like other cities in the Java Island, Cirebon has its own motto. That’s Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi. It means a prosperous city that inhabited by many people. This motto is not just nonsense. Cirebon is surely a prosperous city. It has a great natural resource. From the sea, Cirebon yields shrimp and various kinds of fish. They become the main export commodity of this city. This fact also influenced the naming of this city. Cirebon is derived from the old-Sundanese language, Cai, means “water” or “stream”, and Rebon, means “shrimp”. Corn, sugar cane, rattan, rice, and various kinds of spices are the main crops yielded in this city’s field. Many home industries in this city process rattan into something beneficial, like furniture and decoration, and then export them abroad. Also, this city is famous for its handmade batik.This batik is known as batik Trusmi. Its name is derived from a region in Cirebon whose, almost all of the residents dedicate their life in making batik

Cirebon is also well-known for its foods. They are nasi lengko, white rice mixed with bean sprouts, fried tofu, and fermented soybean cake, nasi jamlang, kind of fastfood which its rice’s wrapped by jati’s leaf, empal gentong, a kind of curry, tahu gejrot, fried tofu with red sugar topping, and tahu tek-tek, fried tofu topped with peanut sauce and mixed with vegetables. We can find them in almost every corner of public place in Cirebon. They are well-known for its cheap and achieved price.

There are many historical building in this city. Most of them are built before the 19th century. They are Kasepuhan palace, Kanoman palace, Kacirebonan palace, Central mosque of Cirebon, and Sunyaragi cave. Those three palaces are the residences of the Sultan of Cirebon. Their areas are very big. Formerly, they were restricted for visitors. But, after the government had expropriated the control of this city, the palaces are open to visitors. Central mosque of Cirebon is located within the Kasepuhan palace. It was built by Sunan Gunung Jati, one of the famous Wali Songo, as a central Islamic culture development. Sunyaragi cave were built in order for meditation. Previously, meditation was a popular activity to manage spirit among Javanese people. They frequently visited a silent place like this cave to comfort their souls and emotions. Nowadays, this place becomes an alternative place for recreation.

History of this city is closely related to Wali Songo and the three biggest sultanates that used to rule the city, that are Kasepuhan, Kanoman, and Kacirebonan. In the eightieth century, Walisongo claimed this area from Padjadjaran Kingdom and developed this city under Islamic culture. After several years, they built a sultanate in order to rule the city. During the colonial of Dutch, this sultanate was divided into three as the Dutch applied the divide et impera politic to break-apart the interest.

My Hometown

2006-09-30T12:32:00.000+07:00

My name is Shanny. I have been living in Bandung since I was born. As a provincial capital of West Java province, Indonesia, Bandung located in the middle of West Java province, Indonesia. It lies 768 m above the sea level. The topology of Bandung is the largest river basin in the Java Island, in the middle of the rings of mountains. To the north is Lembang with Mount Tangkuban Perahu, which is still active volcano. Other high peaks include the Burangrang mountain, Tunggul Hill.

Bandung has a large number of old building in Dutch architecture, especially Art Deco architectural style such as Gedung Sate , Savoy Homann Hotel, Concordia Society, etc. The Biggest mosque in Bandung is Mesjid Agung Bandung, built in 1812. It was renovated with two 81 m high minarets. The oldest technical university in Indonesia is Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) where I study Information Technology. It has two prominence halls (west and east halls) which have the shape of Minangkabau House. Bandung also has a trademark during the colonial time, it is the Braga street. Braga Street has become one of attractive recreation area in Bandung, especially the Braga City Mall.

Good.

My Makassar

2006-09-29T09:08:00.000+07:00

Formerly Makassar known as UjungPandang, but since 2000 UjungPandang chenged become Makassar, where this name known and added in negarakertagama poems, prapanca's arrangement. Beside that formerly Makassar as a big trader centre and a big anchorage in east Indonesia, so is that why Makassar become the south celebes capitol that located front of makassar straits.

Makassar city is a cosmopolis city, because there are so many kinds of ethnic, bugis, button, batak, jawa, and almost tionghoa and etc. However the day life go on with peace and undrestanding to another, because they are become makassar peoples.

As a city that contiguous with makassar straits, Makassar have a lot of tourism place, like losari beach that located in west Makassar side, this beach is most beautiful place to enjoy the sunset in the evening, formerly losari beach added in record book or guinnes book's as longest seafood centre or longest dinning table in the world. Beside losari beach Fort Rotterdam is also the most tourism place where we can find so many foreign tourist and local tourist, on this place there are a museum where we can find very much relic from the ancient time, and then on the top this fortres we can enjoy the beautiful view of losari beach.

Good.

destruction of world’s forests amounts to death of the world

2006-09-26T15:20:00.000+07:00

Forest is home for thousands of species. It provides habitat, protection, and food for many plants and animals. It gives water and minerals for plants and animals’ daily needs. In extreme climates, trees in forest serve as windbreaks or as shade against the sun, thus, protecting small plants and animals. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees and green plants in forest release life-giving oxygen as a byproduct and consume huge amounts of carbon dioxide. This makes forests play an important role in the world’s air regulation.

Destruction of forests rises dramatically every year as the human population increases and standards of living rise. People cleared many areas of world forests for lumber, minerals, and agriculture. Millions of trees are cut down every year, while oxygen in this world is mainly produced by trees in forests. Air pollution increases greatly as the usage of pollutant chemicals increases.
Deforestation makes forests no longer provide enough fresh air for world population. Therefore, I strongly agree that destruction of world’s forests amounts to death of the world.

Dear Tania,
You need to do some reading before writing so that you can have supports for your writing.
Click here to get some more ideas. (Jati)

[task I by Anthony] How important forests are to the earth.

2006-09-26T14:20:00.000+07:00

Forests are lungs to the earth. They use carbon dioxide produced by all living creatures on the earth to produce oxygen, which will be used again by us human and other living things to continue our lives. We can not live without oxygen which means that we can not live without the existence of green forests either. There has been so many natural disasters caused by some irresponsible human cutting the woods wildly. They do not care about other people’s lives they might ruin when they cut off the woods to build something for their own good only. They also disturb the ecosystem of the forest because there will be so many animals living in the forest have no where else to go to stay alive. There are so many victims falling when we destroy a forest without thinking about the consequences deeply.

Unfortunately, they all above are just some of the risks that we can see directly when a forest is cut off irresponsibly. There are still so many bad things coming through our lives caused by bald forests such as flood and land slide. When rain comes, trees absorb the water for their metabolism so the water does not keep flowing down to the lower area. If it is raining heavily and a forest has no enough trees to absorb, the water will flow down, be able to erode the soil and caused land slide. Furthermore, the flowing water will accumulate on its way down to the lower area and cause flood there. The ecosystem will be unbalanced because there will be so much destruction and various diseases will come up too.

Forests are so important to the earth, not only as lungs but also to keep the ecosystem balanced. Destruction of the world’s forests amounts to death of the world we currently know.

Dear Anthony, you need to write better introduction and thesis statement, please read unit 12 in your book. If you need my power point about essay (argument) please send me an email.
Click here to read more about forest destruction.

Task 1

2006-09-26T14:18:00.000+07:00

The growth of the human population has expanded rapidly over the past few decades. This implies that the space needed to accommodate the expanding growth is also growing, even more rapid than the population growth as people need space not only for housing but also for other needs. Apartments is one of technology’s answer to the population growth, however that particular answer is not available to all nations due to the high cost to build them. Therefore, at places where it is too costly to build infrastructures using minimum space, one of the more feasible answers is to clear space by deforestation.

Deforestation cases happen all around the world. Locally in Indonesia, many cases of deforestation to supply the need for wood and space can be seen easily, probably the easiest place to see is the island of Java and Kalimantan. In Java, forests are cleared to create space for the population as the island is the center of Indonesia’s government and economy. In Kalimantan, forests are cleared to fulfill the need for wood and industrial space. At places where trees used to grow undisturbed now becomes barren and the result is disturbing. Many negative effects caused by deforestation, some of them are global warming, flooding, and disturbance in the season cycle.

The connection between deforestation and the negative effects mentioned above can be traced from the function of forests in nature’s cycle of water and oxygen. Forests have such an important role in cycle of water. They act as a water reservoir. If there isn’t any water kept in the ground, it will be hard to seek water. This phenomenon also causes barren lands and flooding, because of less water absorption. In cycle of oxygen, forests produce oxygen from carbon dioxide for the world. This is why forests are called “lungs of the world”. When less oxygen produced by them, the world may undergo global warming.

Since forests have such important roles for the world, especially in water and oxygen cycle, it is essential to save forests from destruction. We have to find alternatives to the expanding human population. Apartment is one of the answers, but it is still not enough, law is required to keep forests from destruction.

Ray, you made good points but you need to organize those points in a better way and stay focus.

Click here to get more ideas about Indonesia and the destructions. This is not an official site but at least give you more information. Better if you focus on Indonesia instead of too general issues.

task 1- Forest, lungs of the earth

2006-09-26T14:17:00.000+07:00

I agree with about this topic about how important the forest is?,i think forest is very important to human being ,there are many advantages of forest to our life,for example,the forest provides shelter for wildlife, recreation and aesthetic renewal for people, and irreplaceable supplies of oxygen and soil nutrients.Slowly but sure,deforestation will causes some disaster for human itself such as destabilization of earth's climate and temperature,flood at rainy season,dryness,animal which it lives in forest will lost they habitat,loose soil and many more.

As far as i know,we are human being as the most perfect creatures of God,we should be think of benefit of forest and we should to start to save our forest for the next generation,we have to stop any form of forest destruction and illegal logging which it still happen in our country.Save the forest means we save ourself,I think it will not too hard to do if we are do it together.

Dear Andika, your writing is not bad. Please read about "how to write an argumentative essay", if you need my power point please let me know. Click here to get more ideas.

Task 1 - Lungs of The Earth

2006-09-26T13:34:00.000+07:00

There are many advantages of forest, such as providing oxygen and preventing flood. Forest turns a large amount of carbon dioxide to oxygen by photosynthesis reaction. That is why forest
is called lungs of the earth. People in the world depending their needs of oxygen from the forest.
Large amount of plants can absorb water from ground so forest can prevent flood at rainy season.

People suffer a great loss from forest destruction. Forest burnts in Riau cause many damage for people in Indonesia and other country. They suffer from flood in rainy season. The smoke blown to Malaysia create a pollution and respiration disease so that Indonesian Government being complained at. People can prevent forest destruction by felling tree with selection. They can replace the felling tree with the new one. We must take care of the forest for the sake of human being.

Dear Shanyy, your writing is not bad. Please read about "how to write an argumentative essay", if you need my power point please let me know. Click here to get more ideas.

task 1

2006-09-26T13:14:00.001+07:00

I agree with statement “Forest is the world’s lungs”. Forest said to be the word’s lungs because it acts as an atmosphere conditioner. Particularly at keeping the supply of oxygen that is needed by all life forms. This is getting more critical, since human population as oxygen consumer increase more rapidly than the increase of forest area as oxygen supplier.

As world’s lungs, forest needs much care, because it has a mutual relationship with the atmosphere. Forest destruction will lead to atmosphere degradation, and vice versa. Forest destruction will automatically increase and finally lead to atmosphere destruction that means the extinction of all life form.

There are many cases that support the statement above. With forest destruction, the composition of atmosphere’s elements will be uncontrolled. High CO2 concentration brings Green House effect and polar cap meltdown. Excessive airborne particles and smog block sunlight that makes global cooling. High oxides of Nitrogen bring acid rain. Those will lead to forest destruction, which will degrade atmosphere more severely, and soon.

Dear Hadi, You need to read about the topic before you write. You need to give real examples or explanation in each argued points. Click here to get some ideas.

Forest are the lung of the earth

2006-09-26T13:14:00.000+07:00

Forest are the lungs of the earth. I will agree with this statement. Forest are the keeper of earth stability too. The forest function is vital to earth and the life. Destroying the forest is same like stab a knife to our lungs. We may die slowly, because we can’t breath and can’t produce energy form the food that we eat.

Forest has several functions which are vital for human life. First, forest are the lungs of the world. We call it a lung of the world because it likes our lungs, but in larger space, the earth. Our lungs provide us energy by absorb the oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. Forest process the air contradicts with our lungs. Forest that contains a lot of trees will absorb the carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, this process called photosynthesis. Oxygen is the chemical gas that very important to human and animal life. Not only for the life being, oxygen is the main part of ozone creation that will protect earth from sunlight radiation and meteors fall. Forest are also a critical part of water cycle which is main source of life. Forest are also a habitat from many plants and animal species, that are should be protected because they are our future assets .Those are the some functions of forest.

The destruction of forest will bring us to doom. Destroying the forest will destroy the earth stability. What if the forest function is disturbed ? Natural disasters will attack us frequently. We will run of water, get the cancer because of radiation, animal will be attack human because human attack their home, we can suffer flood, etc. We may lose some plant species that can cure diseases. And the more important that human will run out of oxygen, we can’t breath than we can’t produce energy. This problem is not just an imagination but it may become reality if we continue destroying the forest.

Nowadays, the forest condition is getting worse. Indonesia and Amazon rain tropic forest suffer a great damage because of human activity. Until 1997 Indonesia has lost 72 percent of it real forest. This is happened because human cut the trees as their wish. In 2000 there are 59.2 millions hectares the destroyed forest in Indonesia. This is a very large amount that can produce oxygen. This condition is getting worse now.

Form the description above, we may conclude that forest are vital for earth and the life. Forest is the lungs of the earth, provides many things for supporting human life. Nowadays the earth forest condition is getting worse. We can help keep the forest well, by planting the trees, keep tell the government to serious keeping the forest well, and don’t cut the trees.

Dear Dian,
Very good writng. I would be better if you focus on a certain place or issue instead of general issues. Click here to get more ideas.

Forests are the lungs of the earth

2006-09-26T12:57:00.000+07:00

Forests are the lungs of the earth. We can see how forests provide most of human needs.For instance, the forest keeps the air clean and balance, since most of living thing produces Carbon Dioxide, tree produces Oxygen.

In my opinion, the world we currently know is already at the risk of destruction. The main reason may be caused by deforestation. We can see that nowadays, disaster is everywhere, starting from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, to typhoons. If we keep the balance of nature which is mainly forest in the land, and clean water in the sea, the world will surely be healthy.

But aside from that, there is certainly a possibility of the world being healthy while there are not so many forests. People from all over the world are anticipating this and are trying to use technology to find perfect solution.
Destruction of the world’s forests may amounts to death of the world we currently know, if we don’t find a solution right away.

Dear Christ, you need to explain or give more examples in your essay. Click here for more information.