Browsing by Author "Carolyn R. Miller, Chair"

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An Electronic Journal for Undergraduate Research: A Case Study in Audience and Systems Analysis
(1999-10-03) Watson, Patricia Jane; Carolyn R. Miller, Chair; Edwin R. Gerler, Member; Brad S. Mehlenbacher, Member
Electronic publication brings a wide range of questions regarding how our lives will change. An area of great change has been electronic scholarly publication. One question this change has brought about is how we can prepare undergraduates as professionals prepared to meet this challenge. To this end, in 1996 I and the Center for Communication in Science, Technology, and Research began a two-year experimental online journal to publish 'excellent' undergraduate research: the NCSU Student Researcher. Our goals were to introduce undergraduates from across the NC State campus to the challenges of electronic publication, to reward and enhance their class research by publishing their class papers, to highlight excellent NC State student writing across campus and beyond, and to explore electronic participation and presentation. The 'peer' review procedure involved two faculty nominating the paper as 'excellent' undergraduate research. We received a great deal of enthusiastic interest and input from many students and faculty, yet ultimately the Researcher received only two submissions. This thesis, the final report for the project, explores factors affecting student and faculty participation. Three different approaches to audience analysis were practiced in designing the journal (Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design, 1997): intuition-driven, classification-driven, and feedback-driven. The design process provides excellent examples of strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, and the superior approach of feedback-driven audience analysis, which was applied via systems analysis (Senge, The Fifth Discipline, 1990). The use of Senge's systems analysis as a form of audience analysis was a crucial contribution to understanding the journal's outcome. This thesis also discusses the dynamic model of scholarly communication uncovered by systems analysis. Rather than a linear process beginning with author and ending with reader, as found in the scholarly literature on scholarly publication, journals and other document series exist within an 'interactive communication environment' not as single documents with a relatively distinct beginning and end, but a planned, dynamic series of documents that relies on its audience for input in order to survive. Feedback-driven audience analysis as practiced by systems analysis is particularly appropriate for analyzing audiences for such environments, which include periodicals, listservs, and chatrooms, as well as planned revisions based on audience feedback. Gathering feedback from the audience throughout the course of designing such an environment is critical if the environment depends on that audience for its survival. Systems analysis/feedback-driven audience analysis ultimately pinpointed the source of the Student Researcher's failure. The model of scholarly publication applied in the early design stages, derived by intuition- and classification-driven audience analysis, focused on authors (students) as the source of journal submissions. This conflicted with the mindset of faculty and students, because many conceived of no 'disciplinary space' in which undergraduate publication is appropriate ('undergraduates are not authors'). Also, Writing Across the Curriculum initiative at NC State had caused most faculty to rethink what they considered 'excellent' undergraduate writing, so publicly nominating a paper as 'excellent' at that time was problematic. Systems analysis identified faculty, rather than the students, as the motivators in the publication process and thus the appropriate target for marketing and audience feedback. Because I did not seek systematic faculty and student input throughout the journal design process, I was unaware of the effect of the WAC initiative, and unaware that most faculty did not believe undergraduate publication per se was worth their effort. Because I focused on the students and not the faculty in marketing the journal, I had not invited broad faculty input in the design of the journal, a design that may have departed from the standard scholarly model in order for them to perceive it as appropriate for their students.
Madness and Accountability in Public Discourse: A Dramatistic Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Wendell Williamson and the Henderson Street Shootings
(1999) Martin, Amy Suzanne; Carolyn R. Miller, Chair; Steven B. Katz, Member; Catherine A Warren, Member
Statistical Analysis and Numerical Simulations of the Intertropoical Convergence Zone during Normal and ENSO Years.
(1999-11-19) Roswintiarti, Orbita; Carolyn R. Miller, Chair; Edwin R. Gerler, Member; Brad S. Mehlenbacher, Member
The purpose of the research has been to provide a better understanding of the climatology, variability, mechanisms, physical processes, and predictability of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), one of the most prominent and important features of the tropical atmosphere. The effort is focused on six different tasks based on statistical and numerical methods. Analysis of the mean and meridional profile of the global ITCZ suggests that each tropical ocean domain has different structure and latitude preference of convection due to different interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere. Moreover, the power spectrum density analysis shows that regions of the dominant interannual variation of deep convection occur over Indonesia and the central Pacific. With respect to the annual cycle, large variations in convection are mainly over the monsoon and continental regions. At the semiannual time scale, convection is greatest over the Indian subcontinent and Australia. The relationships between sea surface temperature, large-scale atmospheric circulation, and convective activity in tropical oceans are examined in the second study by the regression analysis. The results show that the relationship between sea surface temperature and convection is strongly influenced by the large-scale circulation, particularly in the Indian and western Pacific oceans. However, the relationship between large-scale circulation and convection is less dependent on SST in all the ocean domains. In the third study, the relationship and long-term predictability between sea surface temperature anomalies over the Pacific Ocean during El Nino/La Nina events and convective anomalies over Indonesia are examined using the Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) techniques. The results show that the models are potentially useful in predicting convective anomalies over Indonesia during boreal fall and winter months up to six months ahead. On the other hand, the models have lower skills in spring and summer months caused by the reduction of the east-west pressure gradients of the Southern Oscillation and the so-called spring barrier. The numerical simulations presented in the last three studies are performed to study the dynamics and the physics of the ITCZ system. The behavior of the northeast monsoon over the Indian Ocean and Indonesia during a normal and during an El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) year is compared using the Naval Research Laboratory/North Carolina State University (NRL/NCSU) model and the Fifth Generation of the Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (PSU-NCAR MM5). During the active monsoon in 1997, both models generally simulate the mean circulations up to 24 hours, but show rapid decline in the forecasts beyond that when the winds become stronger. In contrast, when the synoptic-scale dynamic forcing was strong during the 1998 ENSO event, the simulated mean flows are in good agreement with the analyses up to 48 hours. It is also found that the rates and distributions of oceanic and land mass rainfall are more realistically simulated by the NRL/NCSU model than by the PSU-NCAR MM5 for these two cases. The model errors can be attributed among others to the inaccuracies in the PBL parameterization and uncertainties in the initial conditions. In the fifth study, the transport of air parcels during the 1997 forest fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia is investigated using simulated wind fields from the PSU-NCAR MM5. The interactions between the synoptic conditions and the regional winds are found to be very important on the long-range mean transport. Drought conditions and the persistence of strong easterly winds caused air masses from east and south Kalimantan to travel a distance of 1500 km in only four days. Finally, in the sixth study the PBL structure simulated from the PSU-NCAR MM5 and its role in the transport of air masses during the Indian Ocean Experiment 99 (INDOEX 99) are examined. Results indicate that during undisturbed conditions, the PBL over the Indian Ocean reaches its maximum height in the night hours and minimum height in the early morning hours. Near the coast, localized low-level circulations are simulated in which the air parcels are trapped. An elevated land plume is also simulated over the ocean.