Complex Technical Information Research Articles

Implementation of Technical Communication Pedagogy in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Literature Review

One of the most significant needs in technical communication is to teach students how to communicate complex technical information. This paper systematically reviews the literature to map technical communication (TC) pedagogical strategies and theoretically underpinned approaches. The overall purpose is to illuminate patterns and trends in research that describe TC pedagogy, specifically learning objectives, method of delivery, content, assessment strategies, and theoretical frameworks. Following PRISMA guidelines, the study conducted detailed content analysis on 39 publications from 2017 to 2023 based on specific inclusion criteria.. Results show increasing trends in interdisciplinary, inclusive, and technology-driven approaches and recurrent themes of student-centered objectives, technology-based delivery, and diverse assessments, with Rhetorical Theory being the dominant theoretical framework in TC pedagogy research. Based on the findings, it is recommended that future research and practice in TC pedagogy prioritize the integration of comprehensive theoretical frameworks, such as social constructivism, genre theory, and rhetorical theory, to enhance the effectiveness of teaching strategies and better prepare students for the evolving demands of the modern workforce.

XGBoost with Q-learning for complex data processing in business logistics management

The modern business landscape is characterized by complex technical information, economic globalization, and high customer expectations. These factors have led to significant changes in various industries. To ensure customer satisfaction, companies rely on supply chain management (SCM) for the timely delivery of products and gathering feedback for analysis. The collected customer data is often complex and requires advanced methods for processing and management. To effectively manage demand and supply in real-time, businesses must have the ability to handle complex data. Due to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of traditional methods for the increased data volume and speed, much-emerging research is being conducted on how to harness complex data in SCM. This paper examines the limitations of conventional methods and introduces an Artificial Intelligence (AI) approach based on Q-Learning algorithm with Extreme Gradient Boosting (QL-XGB) model. The QL-XGB method is applied to select suppliers and predict their future demand for the production of products. It is built on the foundation of accurate data and analysis of supply chain characteristics using metrics such as MAE and RMSE. The results show that the QL-XGB model with an accuracy rate of 96.02% outperforms QL and XGB models with respective accuracy rates of 93.44% and 94.68%.

Evaluating the use of BECCS and afforestation under China’s carbon-neutral target for 2060

Almost all global scenarios under ambitious climate targets rely on the deployment of negative emission technologies (NETs). Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation are two promising NET options. However, their roles in most countries’ deep decarbonization pathways and the potential economic and environmental implications have not been fully investigated. Besides, broad economic interactions and complex technical information of NETs bring challenges for traditional top-down or bottom-up models. To address the methodological issues, we integrate energy technology details into a macroeconomic framework and develop a national hybrid computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for China. Based on this, insights are provided into the deployment scale of BECCS and afforestation in China’s mitigation pathways towards carbon neutrality by 2060, as well as the induced macroeconomic and land-use consequences. The results indicate that NETs are necessary for realizing carbon neutrality. BECCS would enter the market around 2030 and the share of negative emissions provided by it would reach about 79% in 2060. The carbon removals in 2060 would be 2,118 MtCO2yr−1, 170 MtCO2yr−1, and 617 MtCO2yr−1 from bioelectricity with CCS, biofuel with CCS, and afforestation, respectively. When only BECCS is deployed as NET, more fossil energy needs to be phased out and renewable energy would take larger market shares. In 2060, most biomass would consist of cellulosic crops (43–47%) and residues (49–52%). Cropland would decrease by 6.9–8.3% due to land competition caused by NET deployment. GDP loss would be 6.4% in 2060 to reach near-zero without NETs. If BECCS and afforestation are both adopted, GDP loss would be alleviated to 4.8%. This study supplements the existing global literature to identify the local feasibility and trade-offs of NET expansion.

FROM ‘LION FACE’ TO ‘BUTTERFLY ERUPTION’: ZOOMORPHIC METAPHORS AS MESSENGERS OF FACIAL ANOMALIES

Medicine contributes to every person’s health in terms of diagnosis, treatment or prevention of a disease. Hence, constructing the clinical picture and the diagnosis of a health condition and conveying complex technical information in a comprehensible language is of utmost importance. In this regard, medical professionals rely not only on Greco-Latin terms of Classical times, but also resort to metaphors to illuminate many facets of medical observations and clinical findings. These metaphors stem either from anthropomorphic or zoomorphic areas and act as primary interface between scientific thought and understanding. From this perspective, the present article examines the value of metaphor in medicine and through the employment of descriptive method, explores some of the most widespread zoomorphic metaphors, which denominate certain facial anomalies.

Deconstructing Government Budgets through Visual Representation Software

ABSTRACT Budget visualization tools facilitate the communication of complex technical information. In this paper, the main technical, individual and organizational factors that affect its implementation and use is analysed. Through a questionnaire survey data have been collected from those responsible for the adoption and maintenance of the two principal web applications in 34 Spanish regional and local governments. Findings show that these tools have some users but that their main target are not citizens but specific groups, mainly media and political groups. Its adoption is neither a budgetary nor technological problem. The impulse for adoption is mainly political, with the focus on financial and budgetary transparency but sometimes also on participatory transparency or micro-transparency. Finally, a serious risk of governance generated by the lack of clear transparency and accountability strategies in the administrations is detected, as well as an absence of operational procedures to adapt to the changing budgetary structure.

Comunicación de datos presupuestarios de administraciones públicas mediante visualización: uso de la aplicación “Dónde van mis impuestos”

Budget visualization tools facilitate the communication of complex technical information. In this paper, we analyse the main technical, individual and organizational factors that affect its implementation and use. Through a questionnaire survey we have collected data from those responsible for the web application “Dónde van mis impuestos” (“Where do my taxes go?”) in 23 Spanish regional and local governments. Our findings show that these tools have a small number of users but that their main target are not citizens but specific groups, mainly media and political groups. Its adoption is neither a budgetary nor technological problem, although the free software license gives clear advantages. The impulse for adoption is mainly political with the main focus on financial and budgetary transparency but sometimes also on participatory transparency or microtransparency. Finally, we detect a serious risk of governance generated by the lack of clear transparency and accountability strategies in the administrations, as well as an absence of operational procedures to adapt to the changing budgetary structure.

Communicating Meaning in the Intelligence Enterprise

Intelligence community experts face challenges communicating the results of analysis products to policy makers. Given the high-stakes nature of intelligence analyses, the consequences of misinformation may be dire, potentially leading to costly, ill-informed policies or lasting damage to national security. Much is known regarding how to effectively communicate complex analysis products to policy makers possessing different sources of expertise. Fuzzy-Trace Theory, an empirically-validated psychological account of how decision makers derive meaning from complex stimuli, emphasizes the importance of communicating the essential bottom-line of an analysis (“gist”), in parallel with precise details (“verbatim”). Verbatim details can be prone to misinterpretation when presented out of context. Several examples from intelligence analyses and laboratory studies are discussed, with implications for integrating knowledge from multiple sources of expertise, communicating complex technical information to nontechnical recipients, and identifying and training effective communicators. Collaboration between the academic and intelligence communities would facilitate new insights and scientifically grounded implementation of findings.

INFORMATION LITERACY AND THE ART OF DOING RESEARCH WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF AN ENGINEERING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION CLASS

In this paper, we present some of the pedagogical outcomes of a study we undertook to determine whether research skills are valuable “soft skills” to have within an Engineering context, or whether they are merely “short-term competencies” as some would contend. We argue that engineering students (as future professionals) must develop two important – and confluent – skills: finding valid, complex technical information and translating it into a useful communication. As professionals, engineers must be able to find the information they need, assess it and apply it to their designs and to their communications. As students, they need to become acquainted with their professional discourse community, so we suggest that assigning a research paper in a field where applications and design exigencies are important is a worthwhile thing to do since this kind of research activity underpins students’ future roles as professional engineers and promotes their lifelong learning. In the technical communication class offered in our school of Engineering, students learn how to engage in the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information, a process that enhances their comprehension of the subject, develops their critical thinking and introduces them to their discourse community.

The Problem of Nuclear Waste: Ethos and Scientific Evidence in a High-Stakes Public Controversy

This article uses Aristotle's concept of ethos, the audience's perception of a speaker's character, to analyze a set of documents relating to a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This analysis shows how the features of a successful persuasive ethos remain consistent through several genres, including scientific articles, reports, and press releases. Three major elements of a persuasive ethos include discussions of the practical implications of technical information, consistent efforts to make information accessible to the public, and a forthright representation of scientific uncertainties associated with complex technical information. By incorporating these elements into their texts, technical communicators can craft more persuasive documents dealing with controversial, high-stakes issues

Public participation in environmental decisions: stakeholders, authorities and procedural justice

We analysed a stakeholder participation process undertaken by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality to see if the process satisfied elements of procedural justice: representation of relevant parties, voice, sound technical basis, fair treatment by authorities and absence of bias. The rushed timeframe for the process compromised several elements of procedural justice. Representation suffered from the absence of pre-process contact with potential participants. Too frequent meetings prevented stakeholders from digesting complex technical information on water quality impacts of excess nutrients. The Division of Water Quality dominated the function of the stakeholder groups by playing multiple roles, including convening meetings, providing technical information, drafting documents, and serving as liaison to the state legislature. Stakeholders acknowledged that the division's strong role was probably essential to making progress in such a short timeframe but worried that the result was biased in favour of division views.

The Error of Judgment: Struggling for Neutrality in Science and Journalism

The Error of Judgment: Struggling for Neutrality in Science and Journalism

Pandora's Box or panacea? Using metaphors to create the public representations of biotechnology.

This paper addresses the use of metaphors in creating public representations of biotechnology in the United Kingdom's leading quality press. Metaphors referring to biotechnology and its applications have been analyzed in press articles covering the period 1973-1996. The paper describes how metaphors can be used to popularize complex technical information while at the same time providing a highly charged message about the technology itself. The analysis draws conclusions about the content and general direction of the debate on biotechnology during the past three decades.

Scientific expertise in law

A new project developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Bar Associations Science and Technology Law Section will help US federal judges find impartial scientists and engineers to explain complex technical information in trials. In spite of the right of federal judges to appoint experts and a 1993 US Supreme Court ruling requiring them to exclude unreliable testimonies, AAAS studies found that testimonies usually come from experts chosen and paid by parties involved in the litigation. In order to facilitate the selection of less-biased experts, the AAAS will take suggestions by professional associations and will have a panel of advisors to make selections based on both scientific credentials and the ability to communicate to a lay audience. The expert, who will be paid by the court, will be revealed only when the appointment becomes part of the public record. The project, called CASE for Court-Appointed Scientific Experts, was launched in February.

Cinegrams for self-directed learning

A cinegram is a new type of interactive computer-based document that makes explicit use of time-based media such as animation in presenting complex technical information. A cinegram prototype, showing the oil system of one of the latest Rolls Royce turbine engines, is under development. Cinegrams are based on a network of composite nodes which can be customized in order to reflect varying requirements. Also, cinegrams provide different ways of accessing technical information: they can be browsed or searched: nodes can be linked together to presentation sequences; and finally, direct interaction with valves, gauges, etc. will trigger simulations of state changes within the system. We expect that cinegrams will be useful as flexible reference tools, pointing to system-related documents and data. Another potential application is the use of cinegrams for self-directed learning. Contrary to more restricted training environments, self-directed learning emphasizes the users' particular interests. An investigation of the mapping relations between cinegram and physical engine and a description of the basic three dimensions of cinegram structure (system, component and state) lead to the suggestion of a simple browsing mechanism based on proximity. Furthermore, we discuss the possibility of encoding node adjacency constraints which would define a dynamic browsing space for state transition networks, and the role of temporal granularity in the definition of cinegram sequences. Currently, the cinegram prototype is evaluated both with “novice” users (students of Technical Communication at Coventry University) and experienced users of the Customer Services department at Rolls Royce.

Your Hearing Loss: How to Break the Sound Barrier

This book is written for persons with a hearing loss and their families and seeks to provide information related to the hearing impairment. Since the general public has a great deal of misinformation regarding this impairment, a book written for a popular audience is certainly needed. The author, in translating complex technical information into lay terms, should be commended for giving factual data regarding what we know of hearing loss today. Using a question and answer format, the author attempts to write a heart-level book. Unfortunately, in doing so, she uses a folksy style that may not appeal to the more sophisticated hearing-impaired person. Many of the photographs are out of date and the sketches are so poor as to add very little information to the text. The references are marginal in terms of including the most productive researchers and in terms of being up to date, eg, some references

Data display techniques for transportation analysis and planning: an investigation of three computer‐produced graphics

Graphics are a powerful but often costly means of communication. Computer-drawn graphics offer a new and relatively inexpensive way to assist the communication of complex technical information to both planners and non-technical people whose full potential is now beginning to be realized. This paper discusses the utility of graphics and introduces three computer-drawn graphic techniques which may be useful, both for analysis and presentation of results, in the transportation planning process. Cenvue(s) produces a three-dimensional, perspective-view map, on which virtually any type of transportation data or performance indicator can be displayed. Vap is designed to display origin-destination travel patterns in any region. Tdn transforms a physical-distance network into a time-distance network so that effects of different speeds in the transportation network can be readily seen. The cost-effectiveness of each technique is briefly discussed and some recommendations for evaluating computer graphics techniques are provided to aid the user in further assessing their utility in the transportation planning process. /Author/TRRL/