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Surfing The Internet May Help The Aging Brain

2009-10-23T10:13:00.001+07:00

Tuesday, 20 October 2009 | 8:11 PM

KOMPAS.com - Surfing the Internet just might be a way to preserve your mental skills as you age. Researchers found that older adults who started browsing the Web experienced improved brain function after only a few days.

"You can teach an old brain new technology tricks," said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatry professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of iBrain. With people who had little Internet experience, "we found that after just a week of practice, there was a much greater extent of activity particularly in the areas of the brain that make decisions, the thinking brain -- which makes sense because, when you're searching online, you're making a lot of decisions," he said. "It's interactive."

Small is co-author of the research, which was scheduled to be presented Monday in Chicago at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

"This makes intuitive sense, that getting on the Internet and exploring and getting new information and learning would help," said Paul Sanberg, director of the University of South Florida Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa. "It supports the value of exploring the Internet for the elderly." Most experts now advocate a "use-it-or-lose-it" approach to mental functioning.

"We found a number of years ago that people who engaged in cognitive activities had better functioning and perspective than those who did not," said Dr. Richard Lipton, a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and director of the Einstein Aging Study. "Our study is often referenced as the crossword-puzzle study -- that doing puzzles, writing for pleasure, playing chess and engaging in a broader array of cognitive activities seem to protect against age-related decline in cognitive function and also dementia."

The new study takes the use-it-or-lose-it concept into the 21st century. For the research, 24 neurologically normal adults, aged 55 to 78, were asked to surf the Internet while hooked up to an MRI machine. Before the study began, half the participants had used the Internet daily, and the other half had little experience with it.

After an initial MRI scan, the participants were instructed to do Internet searches for an hour on each of seven days in the next two weeks. They then returned to the clinic for more brain scans.

"At baseline, those with prior Internet experience showed a much greater extent of brain activation," Small said.

After at-home practice, however, those who had just been introduced to the Internet were catching up to those who were old hands, the study found.

"This is a demonstration that, over a relatively short period of time, patterns of brain activation while engaging in cognitive activities change," Lipton said. "That is at least a first step toward gaining insight into the mechanisms that might allow cognitive engagement to influence brain function."

But, Small said, beware how you use the Internet. "You can exercise your mind by using the Internet, but it depends on how it's used," he explained. "If you get hooked on gambling or eBay shopping, that may not be positive." (HealthDay News)

Holland Education Fair Held in Indonesia

2009-10-23T10:07:00.001+07:00

Thursday, 22 October 2009 | 6:16 AM

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - A Holland Education Fair 2009 will be held in four Indonesian cities, namely Yogyakarta, Bandung, Jakarta and Makassar, as part of a campaign of Dutch higher education institutions to "go international."

"According to Neso (Netherlands Education Support Office) Indonesia data, the number of foreigners studying in the Netehrlands increased by 7.5 percent to 76.000 in the 2008-2009 period," said Ariono Hadipuro of the Neso Indonesia Education Promotion in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The main characteristic of higher education in the Netherlands was the ethnic diversity of students, programs of study or research, and openness to foreign students and teachers who enter the Netherlands as well as knowledge of the international world, he said.

Most foreign students in the Netherlands still came from the European continent. However, the Asian continent provides a significant contribution in the number of foreign students in the Netherlands, accounting for up to 20 percent of the total.

Therefore, in following the previous years, Neso Indonesia will hold a Holland Education Fair 2009 in Yogyakarta on November 10, 2009, Bandung (November 12), Jakarta (November 14-15), and Makassar (November 17). The exhibition venues are the Hotel Novotel in Yogyakarta, the Hilton Hotel in Bandung, Hotel Mulia in Jakarta, and the Clarion Hotel in Makassar.

A total of 23 universities from the Netherlands will participate and send representative to the Holland Education Fair 2009. According to Director of Neso Indonesia Marrik Bellen, all universities participating in the event had signed a Dutch higher education code of ethics that allows to recruit international students and most of the courses offered by these various universities were in English.

Legal status

2009-10-22T11:34:00.002+07:00

UK

Literary works have been protected by copyright law from unauthorised reproduction since at least 1710.^[1] Literary works are defined by copyright law to mean any work, other than a dramatic or musical work, which is written, spoken or sung, and accordingly includes (a) a table or compilation (other than a database), (b) a computer program, (c) preparatory design material for a computer program, and (d) a database.

It should be noted that literary works are not limited to works of literature, but include all works expressed in print or writing (other than dramatic or musical works).^[2]

Literary criticism

2009-10-22T11:34:00.001+07:00

Also see: Literary criticism, Literary history, Literary theory

Literary criticism implies a critique and evaluation of a piece of literature and in some cases is used to improve a work in progress or classical piece. There are many types of literary criticism and each can be used to critique a piece in a different way or critique a different aspect of a piece.

Literary techniques

2009-10-22T11:33:00.000+07:00

Main article: Literary technique

A literary technique or literary device can be used by works of literature in order to produce a specific effect on the reader. Literary technique is distinguished from literary genre as military tactics are from military strategy. Thus, though David Copperfield employs satire at certain moments, it belongs to the genre of comic novel, not that of satire. By contrast, Bleak House employs satire so consistently as to belong to the genre of satirical novel. In this way, use of a technique can lead to the development of a new genre, as was the case with one of the first modern novels, Pamela by Samuel Richardson, which by using the epistolary technique strengthened the tradition of the epistolary novel, a genre which had been practiced for some time already but without the same acclaim.

Genres of literature

2009-10-22T11:32:00.000+07:00

A literary genre refers to the traditional divisions of literature of various kinds according to a particular criterion of writing. See the list of literary genres.

List of literary genres

Autobiography, Memoir, Spiritual autobiography
Biography
Diaries and Journals
Electronic literature
Erotic literature
Slave narrative
Thoughts, Proverbs
Fiction
- Adventure novel
- Children's literature
- Comic novel
- Crime fiction
  - Detective fiction
- Fable, Fairy tale, Folklore
- Fantasy (for more details see Fantasy subgenres; fantasy literature)
- Gothic fiction (initially synonymous with horror)
- Historical fiction
- Horror
- Medical novel
- Mystery fiction
- Philosophical novel
- Political fiction
- Romance novel
  - Historical romance
- Saga, Family Saga
- Satire
- Science fiction (for more details see Science fiction genre)
- Thriller
  - Conspiracy fiction
  - Legal thriller
  - Psychological thriller
  - Spy fiction/Political thriller
- Tragedy

Other narrative forms

2009-10-22T11:31:00.001+07:00

Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works which originate in digital environments.
Films, videos and broadcast soap operas have carved out a niche which often parallels the functionality of prose fiction.
Graphic novels and comic books present stories told in a combination of sequential artwork, dialogue and text.

Oral literature

2009-10-22T11:30:00.002+07:00

The term oral literature refers not to written, but to oral traditions, which includes different types of epic, poetry and drama, folktales, ballads, legends, jokes, and other genres of folklore. It exists in every society, whether literate or not. It is generally studied by folklorists, or by scholars committed to cultural studies and ethnopoetics, including linguists, anthropologists, and even sociologists.

Drama

2009-10-22T11:30:00.001+07:00

A play or drama offers another classical literary form that has continued to evolve over the years. It generally comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and usually aims at dramatic / theatrical performance (see theatre) rather than at reading. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, opera developed as a combination of poetry, drama, and music. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently. Shakespeare could be considered drama. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is a classic romantic drama generally accepted as literature.

Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of which we have substantial knowledge. Tragedy, as a dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical or mythological themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious themes. With the advent of newer technologies, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written for radio broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or television. Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been adapted to printed or electronic media.

Other prose literature

2009-10-22T11:29:00.002+07:00

Philosophy, history, journalism, and legal and scientific writings traditionally ranked as literature. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in existence; novels and prose stories earned the names "fiction" to distinguish them from factual writing or nonfiction, which writers historically have crafted in prose.

The "literary" nature of science writing has become less pronounced over the last two centuries, as advances and specialization have made new scientific research inaccessible to most audiences; science now appears mostly in journals. Scientific works of Euclid, Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton still possess great value; but since the science in them has largely become outdated, they no longer serve for scientific instruction, yet they remain too technical to sit well in most programmes of literary study. Outside of "history of science" programmes students rarely read such works. Many books "popularizing" science might still deserve the title "literature"; history will tell.

Philosophy, too, has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless most new philosophical work appears in academic journals. Major philosophers through history—Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Nietzsche—have become as canonical as any writers. Some recent philosophy works are argued to merit the title "literature", such as some of the works by Simon Blackburn; but much of it does not, and some areas, such as logic, have become extremely technical to a degree similar to that of mathematics.

A great deal of historical writing can still rank as literature, particularly the genre known as creative nonfiction. So can a great deal of journalism, such as literary journalism. However these areas have become extremely large, and often have a primarily utilitarian purpose: to record data or convey immediate information. As a result the writing in these fields often lacks a literary quality, although it often and in its better moments has that quality. Major "literary" historians include Herodotus, Thucydides and Procopius, all of whom count as canonical literary figures.

Law offers a less clear case. Some writings of Plato and Aristotle, or even the early parts of the Bible, might count as legal literature. The law tables of Hammurabi of Babylon might count. Roman civil law as codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis during the reign of Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire has a reputation as significant literature. The founding documents of many countries, including the United States Constitution, can count as literature; however legal writing now rarely exhibits literary merit.

Game design scripts are never seen by the player of a game and only by the developers and/or publishers to help them understand, visualize and maintain consistency while collaborating in creating a game, the audience for these pieces is usually very small. Still, many game scripts contain immersive stories and detailed worlds making them a hidden literary genre.

Most of these fields, then, through specialization or proliferation, no longer generally constitute "literature" in the sense under discussion. They may sometimes count as "literary literature"; more often they produce what one might call "technical literature" or "professional literature".

Fiction

2009-10-22T11:29:00.001+07:00

Narrative fiction (narrative prose) generally favours prose for the writing of novels, short stories, graphic novels, and the like. Singular examples of these exist throughout history, but they did not develop into systematic and discrete literary forms until relatively recent centuries. Length often serves to categorize works of prose fiction. Although limits remain somewhat arbitrary, modern publishing conventions dictate the following:

A mini saga is a short story of about 50 words or less.
Flash fiction is generally defined as a piece of prose under a thousand words.
A short story is prose of between 1000 and 20,000 words (but typically more than 5000 words), which may or may not have a narrative arc.
A story containing between 20,000 and 50,000 words falls into the novella category.
A work of fiction containing more than 50,000 words falls squarely into the realm of the novel.

A novel consists simply of a long story written in prose, yet the form developed comparatively recently. Icelandic prose sagas dating from about the 11th century bridge the gap between traditional national verse epics and the modern psychological novel. In mainland Europe, the Spaniard Cervantes wrote perhaps the first influential novel: Don Quixote, the first part of which was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. Earlier collections of tales, such as the One Thousand and One Nights, Giovanni Bocaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, have comparable forms and would classify as novels if written today. Other works written in classical Asian and Arabic literature resemble even more strongly the novel as we now think of it—for example, works such as the Japanese Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki, the Arabic Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, the Arabic Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn al-Nafis, and the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.

Early novels in Europe did not, at the time, count as significant literature, perhaps because "mere" prose writing seemed easy and unimportant. It has become clear, however, that prose writing can provide aesthetic pleasure without adhering to poetic forms. Additionally, the freedom authors gain in not having to concern themselves with verse structure translates often into a more complex plot or into one richer in precise detail than one typically finds even in narrative poetry. This freedom also allows an author to experiment with many different literary and presentation styles—including poetry—in the scope of a single novel.

Essay

2009-10-22T11:28:00.003+07:00

An essay consists of a discussion of a topic from an author's personal point of view, exemplified by works by Michel de Montaigne or by Charles Lamb.

'Essay' in English derives from the French 'essai', meaning 'attempt'. Thus one can find open-ended, provocative and/or inconclusive essays. The term "essays" first applied to the self-reflective musings of Michel de Montaigne, and even today he has a reputation as the father of this literary form.

Genres related to the essay may include:

the memoir, telling the story of an author's life from the author's personal point of view
the epistle: usually a formal, didactic, or elegant letter.

Prose

2009-10-22T11:28:00.001+07:00

Prose consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other than simple grammar); "non-poetic" writing, perhaps. The term sometimes appears pejoratively, but prosaic writing simply says something without necessarily trying to say it in a beautiful way, or using beautiful words. Prose writing can of course take beautiful form; but less by virtue of the formal features of words (rhymes, alliteration, metre) but rather by style, placement, or inclusion of graphics. But one need not mark the distinction precisely, and perhaps cannot do so. One area of overlap is "prose poetry", which attempts to convey using only prose, the aesthetic richness typical of poetry.

Poetry

2009-10-22T11:27:00.001+07:00

A poem is a composition written in verse (although verse has been equally used for epic and dramatic fiction). Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of patterns of stresses (metric feet) or of patterns of different-length syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or may not utilize rhyme. One cannot readily characterize poetry precisely. Typically though, poetry as a form of literature makes some significant use of the formal properties of the words it uses – the properties of the written or spoken form of the words, independent of their meaning. Meter depends on syllables and on rhythms of speech; rhyme and alliteration depend on the sounds of words.

Poetry perhaps pre-dates other forms of literature: early known examples include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (dated from around 2700 B.C.), parts of the Bible, the surviving works of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), and the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. In cultures based primarily on oral traditions the formal characteristics of poetry often have a mnemonic function, and important texts: legal, genealogical or moral, for example, may appear first in verse form.

Some poetry uses specific forms: the haiku, the limerick, or the sonnet, for example. A traditional haiku written in Japanese must have something to do with nature, contain seventeen onji (syllables), distributed over three lines in groups of five, seven, and five, and should also have a kigo, a specific word indicating a season. A limerick has five lines, with a rhyme scheme of AABBA, and line lengths of 3,3,2,2,3 stressed syllables. It traditionally has a less reverent attitude towards nature. Poetry not adhering to a formal poetic structure is called "free verse"

Language and tradition dictate some poetic norms: Persian poetry always rhymes, Greek poetry rarely rhymes, Italian or French poetry often does, English and German poetry can go either way. Perhaps the most paradigmatic style of English poetry, blank verse, as exemplified in works by Shakespeare and Milton, consists of unrhymed iambic pentameters. Some languages prefer longer lines; some shorter ones. Some of these conventions result from the ease of fitting a specific language's vocabulary and grammar into certain structures, rather than into others; for example, some languages contain more rhyming words than others, or typically have longer words. Other structural conventions come about as the result of historical accidents, where many speakers of a language associate good poetry with a verse form preferred by a particular skilled or popular poet.

Works for theatre (see below) traditionally took verse form. This has now become rare outside opera and musicals, although many would argue that the language of drama remains intrinsically poetic.

In recent years, digital poetry has arisen that takes advantage of the artistic, publishing, and synthetic qualities of digital media.

History of Literature

2009-10-22T11:26:00.001+07:00

One of the earliest known literary works is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem dated around 2100 B.C., which deals with themes of heroism, friendship, loss, and the quest for eternal life. Different historical periods have emphasized various characteristics of literature. Early works often had an overt or covert religious or didactic purpose. Moralizing or prescriptive literature stems from such sources. The exotic nature of romance flourished from the Middle Ages onwards, whereas the Age of Reason manufactured nationalistic epics and philosophical tracts. Romanticism emphasized the popular folk literature and emotive involvement, but gave way in the 19th-century West to a phase of realism and naturalism, investigations into what is real. The 20th century brought demands for symbolism or psychological insight in the delineation and development of character.

Definitions of literature

2009-10-22T11:25:00.001+07:00

People may perceive a difference between "literature" and some popular forms of written work. The terms "literary fiction" and "literary merit" often serve to distinguish between individual works. Critics may exclude works from the classification "literature," for example, on the grounds of a poor standard of grammar and syntax, of an unbelievable or disjointed story-line, or of inconsistent or unconvincing characters. Genre fiction (for example: romance, crime, or science fiction) may also become excluded from consideration as "literature."

Literature

2009-10-22T11:24:00.001+07:00

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter), and therefore the academic study of literature is known as Letters (as in the phrase "Arts and Letters"). In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and nonfiction.

student housing

2009-10-21T14:07:00.000+07:00

Student Housing merupakan fasilitas pelayanan penunjang akademik yang akan dikembangkan di bawah pengelolaan UI bekerjasama dengan para partisipan baik individu maupun institusi-institusi. Prioritas penghuninya adalah mahasiswa pascasarjana, mahasiswa asing/kelas internasional, para staf pengajar, dan para karyawan UI.

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Surfing The Internet May Help The Aging Brain

Holland Education Fair Held in Indonesia

See also

[edit] Notes

Legal status

UK

Literary criticism

Literary techniques

Genres of literature

Other narrative forms

Oral literature

Drama

Other prose literature

Fiction

Essay

Prose

Poetry

History of Literature

Definitions of literature

Literature

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