"Army of One" to "Army Strong" : visual media and U.S. Army recruitment during Bush"s "War on Terror"

From Bush’s September 20, 2001 “War on Terror” speech to Congress to President-Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on November 4, 2008, the U.S. Army produced visual recruitment material that addressed the concerns of falling enlistment numbers—due to the prolonged and difficult war in Iraq—with quickly-evolving and compelling rhetorical appeals: from the introduction of an “Army of One” (2001) to “Army Strong” (2006); from messages focused on education and individual identity to high-energy adventure and simulated combat scenarios, distributed through everything from printed posters and music videos to first-person tactical-shooter video games. These highly polished, professional visual appeals introduced to the American public during a time of an unpopular war fought by volunteers provide rich subject matter for research and analysis. This dissertation takes a multidisciplinary approach to the visual media utilized as part of the Army’s recruitment efforts during the War on Terror, focusing on American myths—as defined by Barthes—and how these myths are both revealed and reinforced through design across media platforms. Placing each selection in its historical context, this dissertation analyzes how printed materials changed as the War on Terror continued. It examines the television ad that introduced “Army Strong” to the American public, considering how the combination of moving image, text, and music structure the message and the way we receive it. This dissertation also analyzes the video game America’s Army, focusing on how the interaction of the human player and the computer-generated player combine to enhance the persuasive qualities of the recruitment message. Each chapter discusses how the design of the particular medium facilitates engagement/interactivity of the viewer. The conclusion considers what recruitment material produced during this time period suggests about the persuasive strategies of different media and how they create distinct relationships with their spectators. It also addresses how theoretical frameworks and critical concepts used by a variety of disciplines can be combined to analyze recruitment media utilizing a Selber inspired three literacy framework (functional, critical, rhetorical) and how this framework can contribute to the multimodal classroom by allowing instructors and students to do a comparative analysis of multiple forms of visual media with similar content.

Assessing visual disturbance conditions on the Custer National Forest

Assessment of soil disturbance on the Custer National Forest was conducted during two summers to determine if the U.S. Forest Service Forest Soil Disturbance Monitoring Protocol (FSDMP) was able to distinguish post-harvest soil conditions in a chronological sequence of sites harvested using different ground-based logging systems. Results from the first year of sampling suggested that the FSDMP point sampling method may not be sensitive enough to measure post-harvest disturbance in stands with low levels of disturbance. Therefore, a revised random transect method was used during the second sampling season to determine the actual extent of soil disturbance in these cutting units. Using combined data collected from both summers I detected statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in fine fraction bulk density measurements between FSDMP disturbance classes across all sites. Disturbance class 3 (most severe) had the highest reported bulk density, which suggest that the FSDMP visual class estimates are defined adequately allowing for correlations to be made between visual disturbance and actual soil physical characteristics. Forest site productivity can be defined by its ability to retain carbon and convert it to above- and belowground biomass. However, forest management activities that alter basic site characteristics have the potential to alter productivity. Soil compaction is one critical management impact that is important to understand; compaction has been shown to impede the root growth potential of plants, reduce water infiltration rates increasing erosion potential, and alter plant available water and nutrients, depending on soil texture. A new method to assess ground cover, erosion, and other soil disturbances was recently published by the U.S. Forest Service, as the Forest Soil Disturbance Protocol (FSDMP). The FSDMP allows soil scientists to visually assign a disturbance class estimate (0 – none, 1, 2, 3 – severe) from field measures of consistently defined soil disturbance indicators (erosion, fire, rutting, compaction, and platy/massive/puddled structure) in small circular (15 cm) plots to compare soil quality properties pre- and post- harvest condition. Using this protocol we were able to determine that ground-based timber harvesting activities occurring on the Custer National Forest are not reaching the 15% maximum threshold for detrimental soil disturbance outlined by the Region 1 Soil Quality Standards.

Composing in words and images : a proposal for a tandem approach to written and visual composition pedagogy

This project proposes a module for teaching visual composition within the context of a written composition course. Drawing from process writing theory, critical pedagogy, and photo-elicitation, “Composing In Words And Images” gives composition teachers a module and direct instruction for the incorporation of critical visual composition studies in their writing classes.

VISUAL-INERTIAL INTEGRATION FOR HUMAN MOTION TRACKING AND NAVIGATION IN FREE-LIVING ENVIRONMENTS

The aging population has become a burning issue for all modern societies around the world recently. There are two important issues existing now to be solved. One is how to continuously monitor the movements of those people having suffered a stroke in natural living environment for providing more valuable feedback to guide clinical interventions. The other one is how to guide those old people effectively when they are at home or inside other buildings and to make their life easier and convenient. Therefore, human motion tracking and navigation have been active research fields with the increasing number of elderly people. However, motion capture has been extremely challenging to go beyond laboratory environments and obtain accurate measurements of human physical activity especially in free-living environments, and navigation in free-living environments also poses some problems such as the denied GPS signal and the moving objects commonly presented in free-living environments. This thesis seeks to develop new technologies to enable accurate motion tracking and positioning in free-living environments. This thesis comprises three specific goals using our developed IMU board and the camera from the imaging source company: (1) to develop a robust and real-time orientation algorithm using only the measurements from IMU; (2) to develop a robust distance estimation in static free-living environments to estimate people’s position and navigate people in static free-living environments and simultaneously the scale ambiguity problem, usually appearing in the monocular camera tracking, is solved by integrating the data from the visual and inertial sensors; (3) in case of moving objects viewed by the camera existing in free-living environments, to firstly design a robust scene segmentation algorithm and then respectively estimate the motion of the vIMU system and moving objects. To achieve real-time orientation tracking, an Adaptive-Gain Orientation Filter (AGOF) is proposed in this thesis based on the basic theory of deterministic approach and frequency-based approach using only measurements from the newly developed MARG (Magnet, Angular Rate, and Gravity) sensors. To further obtain robust positioning, an adaptive frame-rate vision-aided IMU system is proposed to develop and implement fast vIMU ego-motion estimation algorithms, where the orientation is estimated in real time from MARG sensors in the first step and then used to estimate the position based on the data from visual and inertial sensors. In case of the moving objects viewed by the camera existing in free-living environments, a robust scene segmentation algorithm is firstly proposed to obtain position estimation and simultaneously the 3D motion of moving objects. Finally, corresponding simulations and experiments have been carried out.