Wednesday 30 August 2017

English Academic Writing I: Citing Other Authors (Literature Review)

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Literature Review based on Academic Phrasebank

The assignment in the 2nd day of our class, it was about how we could make a literature review from some journal papers. There are many ways to cite other authors and it is best to use a variety techniques such as:

  • The Zero Option
  • Technique 1: Give the name and year at the beginning of a sentence
    • Variation 1A: Vary the verbs that we use 
      • Remember that verbs don't have to be simple ones, and they can also be negative
    • Variation 1B: Add an adverbial phrase before the author's name
    • Variation 1C: Insert an adverbial phrase after the author's name
      • We can achieve a minor change in rhythm by inserting an adverbial phrase
    • Variation 1D: Precede the author's name with an expression like "Researchers such as..."
      • Where several researchers have similar claims, it is easy to change the rhythm of a paragraph by adding "Researchers such as...". This pattern is particularly useful when pointing to a general interest in a topic rather than specific claims. 
  • Technique 2: Move the researcher's name into an adverbial phrase
  • Technique 3: Use the passive voice to move the researcher out of subject position

Examples:
  • Cohen et al. (1997) state that Coastal areas concentrate most of the economic activities and urbanization around the world. 37% of the world population was living in a band of one hundred kilometer width along the coast in 1997.
  • United Nations (2010) mentioned that the rate of population growth in coastal areas is accelerating and increasing tourism adds pressure on the environment.
  • Duraiappah et al. (2005) noted although coastal ecosystems are among the most productive in the world, they are also highly threatened.
  • Nicholls et al. (2007) further explained coastal areas will be exposed to increasing natural hazards in the coming years, such as storms and sea level rise that will cause floods, erosion, ecosystem losses, human, social and economic issues.
  • Ablain, Cazenave, Valladeau, and Guinehut (2009) told that radar altimetry is a powerful technique used for the monitoring of the sea surface topography over the open ocean.
  • Bouffard et al. (2011) mentioned the study of the ocean circulation, its use is difficult close to the coasts as its spatial and temporal resolutions are inadequate to observe the complex and fast changing dynamics of the ocean close to the shore.
  • Lowe et al. (2002); Ruffini, Soulat, Caparrini, Germain, & Martin-Neira (2004); Löfgren, Haas, Scherneck, & Bos (2011); Semmling et al. (2011); Rius et al. (2012) stated that Spatio -and/or temporal- variations of sea levels were recorded with an accuracy of a few cm using such a technique from ground-based or air-borne acquisitions.


Referring to source:
Roussel, Nicolas, et al. "Sea level monitoring and sea state estimate using a single geodetic receiver." Remote sensing of Environment 171 (2015): 261-277.

English Academic Writing I: Dictation Test

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Title: Changing Attitude to the World Nuclear Power

Before March 11, 2011, many people in Japan consider nuclear power to be safe, clean, and cheap. Despite the accident of Chernobyl in 1996, government around the world continue the develop nuclear power generation since they believe the fault the solely with Soviet technology.
Compared to the damages caused by the burning of the fossil fuel, nuclear is more attractive. In addition, people were told that uranium cheaper than coal gas and oil used in traditional power generation. In Japan, nuclear power plant also brought many benefits to the local community that hosted them. Many of them getting rich.

Source text:
Then and Now: Changing Attitude towards Nuclear Power

Before March 11, 2011, many people in Japan considered nuclear power to be safe, clean, and cheap. Despite the accident in 1986 in Chernobyl, governments around the world continued to develop nuclear power generation because they believe the fault lay solely with Soviet technology. Compared to the damage caused to the environment by the burning of fossil fuels, the nuclear option was an attractive one. In addition, people were told that uranium was cheaper than coal, gas, and oil used in traditional power station. In Japan, nuclear power plants also brought many benefits to the local communities that hosted them, with many of them becoming rich.

English Academic Writing I: Academic Word List (AWL) Examples

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In the 2nd day of our class, we learn about the Academic Word List (AWL) Exercise from some journal that has already published. These are the examples of the journal that I have taken:

1. access
  • GPM gave us permits in accessing to the records from 28 April to 13 May 2013.
  • The authors have a direct access to the expertise behind its set-up. 

2. approximate
  • We can assume that SNR can thus be approximated by that overall magnitude of the SNR is large and mainly driven by the direct signal.
  • This formula was chosen approximately equal to 3 times the maximum variation of sea level observed during the lowest tide period (i.e. ~ 3 ∗ 4 m/6 h). 

3. acquire
  • We applied the method presented above to the SNR data acquired with a geodetic antenna set up at ~ 60 meters above the surface of the Atlantic ocean, at Cordouan lighthouse.
  • Our method is validated with SNR data for acquiring on an offshore site of 60-meter height.

4. adapt
  • As in recent studies (Larson et al., 2013), this dominant frequency is estimated using the LSP which seems to be a well-adapted solution.
  • That system adapts for coastal areas and estuaries.

5. affect
  • The reflected signal will affect the SNR by producing a high frequency associated with small amplitude perturbation w.r.t the direct signal.
  • The larger the size of the smoving window, the more numerous the estimations of h affected by this offset.

Source of text:
Roussel, Nicolas, et al. "Sea level monitoring and sea state estimate using a single geodetic receiver." Remote sensing of Environment 171 (2015): 261-277.

Tuesday 29 August 2017

English Academic Writing I: Reviewing Some Books

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Book Review: Journey to Mars
This book tell us the story about a journey to the planet Mars.

We are traveling through space as an astronaut. For the first time, we have to think about some questions such as: what we know about Mars, space travel, and whether there is life on the other planets. And in the beginning, we have to learn about some important keywords regarding the space things that would help us understanding easily the whole stories..

In this book, there are 8 stories have provided. We have to choose one of path story after reading the book started from the beginning. As for the introduction, we are become an astronaut, specifically as a navigator. We have to train every day for several months in keeping the space ship going to the right way. It needs our science and navigation skills and the important thing also our healthy on facing the 200-day journey to Mars.

With 2 other people in a team, as the pilot and the science officer, the journey of the Mars Adventure began. It takes several times reaching the space from the earth starting from the blast off. The first challenge of this path story is, we are seeing the wormhole that connects two far away places. We have to choose, stay on the right path to Mars or entering the wormhole curiously. Choosing the first option means we continue the journey to Mars.

After 23 days, the Mars Adventure is heading toward an asteroid field. The next options are we have to choose between blasting the asteroids or trusting the pilot's skill in maneuvering the space ship. Choosing to blast the asteroids, we continue the path story of Mars Adventure. After 6 months, finally we arrived and landed on the Mars planet. Standing on the red sand of Mars, suddenly we found a strange metal ball in the sand. As usual, we have two options which are touching the metal ball or calling the space command. As the right path story, we better call the space command. However, in the next day, the metal ball is gone.

As the closing story, we are all busy with other things, such as using machines to make air and fresh water from the Martian ice, and building a greenhouse to grow food. Two years later, more astronauts are joining, living and working on Mars.

This book telling us about choosing the way of life and its consequences. We have stay on the thing that we have agreed before, in the other meaning, we must not tempted with the other things on the way of our life journey.

Raine, P. (2104). Journey to Mars. Tokyo, Japan: Atama-ii Books.

What About Me?

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Hajimemashite,
Hello everyone, nice to meet you all..

My name is Andan Sigit Purwoko.
Most all of my friends called me as "Andan", but some people also called me "Sigit", and a few called me with "Purwoko".

I came from Indonesia, more precisely from the special province of Yogyakarta. Known as the 2nd famous destination city for tourism after Bali island, even sometimes Bali is more famous rather than Indonesia itself. Yogyakarta offers many sightseeing such as temple, palace, culture, beach, mountain, and kinds of traditional food that we could not forget.

Now, I am here in Japan. I am a student of Master Course in the Graduate School of Science and Technology, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and I belong to the Environmental Electronics Laboratory with Prof. Ikegami and his kind students.

Previously, in Indonesia I have been working as a civil servant government in the Agency of the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) for more than 8 years. My background education is Electrical Engineering, majoring in Electronics and Instrumentation. I am doing research about the system of Sea Level Monitoring using RTKLIB Technology.

During my free time, I like to go to traveling, including riding bicycle. As we know in here, bicycle is the important vehicle for our daily activities. Doing some sports are my favorite activity in spending my spare time especially in the weekend. I used to play Futsal, Basketball, Volleyball, Badminton, Swimming, etc. Practically, almost every morning of Saturday and Sunday I and some friends play Badminton in the Gym of Kumamoto University.

Douzo, yoroshiku onegaishimasu..