"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.

Tuberculosis in a Swiss army training camp: contact investigation using an Interferon gamma release assay

BACKGROUND: In tuberculosis (TB), the risk of exposure is determined mainly by the proximity to and the hours of direct contact with an infectious patient. We describe the contact investigation after detection of an infectious form of TB in a military camp using an Interferon-g-Release-Assay (IGRA, QuantiFERON-TB Gold In Tube [QTF-GIT]) eight weeks after detection of the index case. INDEX PATIENT: The index patient presented with fever, cough and weight loss in the military hospital six weeks after entering the camp. TB was suspected and anti-tuberculous therapy given immediately. Subsequently, TB was microbiologically confirmed. METHODS: Four exposure groups were formed a priori based on the proximity and the hours of direct contact to the index case. 168 (95.5%) agreed to be investigated: - Group A: sharing the same dormitory (15 persons) - Group B: same platoon, but not sharing the dormitory (20 persons) - Group C: staff and patients of the military hospital (22 persons) - Group D: other three platoons and senior military staff (111 persons). RESULTS: 34 (20.2%) out of 168 contacts tested positive in the QFT-GIT assay. For the exposure groups, the respective QFT-GIT testing results were: group A, 14/15 (93%); group B, 4/20 (20%); group C, 5/22 (22.7%); and group D, 11/111 (9.9%). No secondary TB cases were identified. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, test results show a correlation with the risk of exposure, suggesting that IGRA may be useful for the assessment of TB infection in TB contacts. The high mobility of recruits reduced traceability of contacts. In this context, QFT-GIT allowed for an efficient screening of contacts at a single time point.

Unprotected left main stenting in the real world: two-year outcomes of the French left main taxus registry

BACKGROUND: Cardiac surgery is the reference treatment for patients with left main (LM) disease, although percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents is emerging as a possible alternative. The objective of this registry was to evaluate the 2-year outcome of elective percutaneous coronary intervention for unprotected LM disease with paclitaxel-eluting stents. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 291 patients were prospectively included from 4 centers. Acute myocardial infarction and cardiogenic shock were the only exclusion criteria. Patients were 69+/-11 years old, 29% were diabetic, and 25% had 3-vessel disease. For distal LM lesions (78%), the provisional side-branch T-stenting approach was used in 92% of cases and final kissing balloon inflation in 97%. Angiographic success was obtained in 99.7% of cases. At 2-year follow-up, the total cardiac death rate was 5.4% (1 EuroSCORE point was associated with a 15% [95% confidence interval 2.9% to 28.2%, P=0.013] higher risk of cardiac death), target-lesion revascularization was 8.7%, and incidence of Q-wave or non-Q-wave myocardial infarction was 0.9% and 3.1%, respectively. The combined end point occurred in 15.8% of cases and stroke in 0.7%. The incidence of definite and probable LM stent thrombosis was 0.7%, whereas the incidence of any stent thrombosis was 3.8%, with a higher risk in patients with side-branch stenting in the presence of LM bifurcation lesions (hazard ratio 9.6, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 77.7, P=0.035). CONCLUSIONS: Unprotected LM stenting with paclitaxel-eluting stents, with a strategy of provisional side-branch T-stenting for distal lesions, provides excellent acute angiographic results and good mid-term clinical outcomes, with a 15.8% rate of major adverse cardiac events at 2-year follow-up.

Prevalence of halitosis in young male adults: a study in swiss army recruits comparing self-reported and clinical data

BACKGROUND: Sound epidemiologic data on halitosis are rare. We evaluated the prevalence of halitosis in a young male adult population in Switzerland using a standardized questionnaire and clinical examination. METHODS: Six hundred twenty-six Swiss Army recruits aged 18 to 25 years (mean: 20.3 years) were selected as study subjects. First, a standardized questionnaire focusing on dental hygiene, self-reported halitosis, smoking, and alcohol consumption was filled out by all participants. In the clinical examination, objective values for the presence of halitosis were gathered through an organoleptic assessment of the breath odor and the measurement of volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs). Additionally, tongue coating, plaque index, and probing depths were evaluated for each recruit. RESULTS: The questionnaire revealed that only 17% of all included recruits had never experienced halitosis. The organoleptic evaluation (grades 0 to 3) identified eight persons with grade 3, 148 persons with grade 2, and 424 persons with grade 1 or 0. The calculation of the Pearson correlation coefficient to evaluate the relationship among the three methods of assessing halitosis revealed little to no correlation. The organoleptic score showed high reproducibility (kappa = 0.79). Tongue coating was the only influencing factor found to contribute to higher organoleptic scores and higher VSC values. CONCLUSIONS: Oral malodor seemed to pose an oral health problem for about one-fifth of 20-year-old Swiss males questioned. No correlation between self-reported halitosis and organoleptic or VSC measurements could be detected. Although the organoleptic method described here offers a high reproducibility, the lack of correlation between VSC values and organoleptic scores has to be critically addressed. For further studies assessing new organoleptic scores, a validated index should always be included as a direct control.

Restoration margins in young adolescents: a clinical and radiographic study of Swiss Army recruits

PURPOSE: The aim of the present study was to report the radiographical prevalence of overhanging fillings in a group of Swiss Army recruits in 2006 and to relate the dimensions of the overhangs to clinical parameters. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 626 Swiss Army recruits were examined for their periodontal conditions, prevalence of caries, and stomatological and functional aspects of the masticatory system and halitosis. In particular, the present report deals with the presence or the absence of fillings, the presence or the absence of overhangs and their relation to clinical and radiographic parameters. RESULTS: A total of 16,198 interdental sites were evaluated on bitewing radiographs. Of these sites, 15,516 (95.8%) were sound and 682 (4.2%) were filled. Amalgam restorations were found in 94.1% and resin composite fillings in 5.9% of the sites. Of these 682 sites, 96 (14.1%) yielded overhanging margins of various sizes. This low prevalence of fillings represents not only a substantial reduction when compared with a similar Swiss Army study (Lang et al, 1988), but also an improvement in the quality of dental care delivery to young Swiss males. Plaque Index and Gingival Index increased statistically significantly with the presence of fillings, when compared with healthy non-filled sites. Clinical parameters that were significantly associated with the presence of overhangs included clinical attachment loss. Moreover, between 1985 and 2006 the prevalence of fillings was significantly reduced from 20.0% to 4.2% of all surfaces. Furthermore, the marginal fit of the fillings improved from 33.0% with overhangs to 14.1%. CONCLUSIONS: A significant improvement was observed in the periodontal and dental conditions of young Swiss males that was shown to have taken place within the previous two decades. From 1985 to 2006, the prevalence of fillings was reduced fourfold and that of overhanging margins twofold, documenting an improvement in the quality of restorative dentistry.

Transformations in French Anti-Semitism?

The increase in the number of anti-Semitic acts since the start of the Second Intifada has sparked off a broad debate on the return of anti-Semitism in France. This article focuses on the question whether this anti-Semitism is still based on the alleged superiority of the Aryan race as in the time of Nazism, or if it represents the birth of a “new Judeophobia” that is more based on anti-Zionism and the polemical mixing of “Jews,” “Israelis,” and “Zionists.” One supposed effect of this transformation is that anti-Semitism is in the process of changing camps and migrating from the extreme right to the extreme left of the political arena, to the “altermondialistes,” the communists, and the “neo-Trotskyists.” The article provides answers to the following questions: Are anti-Jewish views on the increase in France today? Do these opinions correlate with negative opinions of other minorities, notably Maghrebians and Muslims? Do they tend to develop among voters and sympathizers with the extreme right or on the extreme left of the political spectrum? And how are they related to opinions concerning Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? My evaluation of the transformations in French anti-Semitism relies on two types of data. The first is police and gendarmerie statistics published by the National Consultative Committee on Human Rights (CNCDH), which is charged with presenting the prime minister with an annual report on the struggle against racism and xenophobia in France. The other is data from surveys, notably surveys commissioned by CNCDH for its annual report and surveys conducted at the Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF) at Sciences Po (Paris Institute for Political Research). The data show that anti-Semitic opinions follow a different logic from acts, that the social, cultural, and political profile of anti-Semites remains very close to that of other types of racists, and that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism do not overlap exactly.

Swiss Army Survey in Switzerland to determine the prevalence of Francisella tularensis, members of the Ehrlichia phagocytophila genogroup, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, and tick-borne encephalitis virus in ticks

A total of 6071 Ixodes ricinus ticks were collected on Swiss Army training grounds in five regions of Switzerland. The aim of the survey was to assess the prevalence of ticks infected with the human pathogens Francisella tularensis, members of the Ehrlichia phagocytophila genogroup, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, and the European tick-borne encephalitis virus. TaqMan PCR (PE Biosystems, USA) and TaqMan RT-PCR (PE Biosystems) analyses were performed on DNA and RNA extracted from pools of ten ticks grouped by gender. Here, for the first time, it is shown that ticks may harbor Francisella tularensis in Switzerland, at a rate of 0.12%. Furthermore, 26.54% of the ticks investigated harbored Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, 1.18% harbored members of the Ehrlichia phagocytophila genogroup, and 0.32% harbored the European tick-borne encephalitis virus. A new instrumentation was applied in this study to carry out and analyze more than 2300 PCR reactions in only 5 days. Furthermore, the results reveal that people working in outdoor areas, including army personnel on certain training grounds contaminated with ticks containing tick-borne pathogens, are at risk for different tick-borne diseases.

Self-Reported Capabilities Among Young Male Adults in Switzerland: Translation and Psychometric Evaluation of a German, French and Italian Version of a Closed Survey Instrument

There is a shortage of empirical applications of the capability approach that employ closed survey instruments to assess self-reported capabilities. However, for those few instruments that have been designed and administered through surveys until now, no psychometric properties (reliability, validity, and factor structure) were reported. The purpose of this study is the assessment of the psychometric properties of three new language versions (German, French, and Italian) of an established (English) set of eight self-reported capability items. The set of items is taken from a previously published British study by Anand and van Hees (J Soc Econ 35(2):268–284, 2006). Our sample consists of 17,152 young male adults aged 18–25 years from the three major language regions in Switzerland. The results indicate good reliability of the three language versions. The results from the exploratory factor analyses suggest a one-dimensional factor structure for seven domain specific items. Furthermore, the results from multiple regression analyses suggest that a global summary item on overall capabilities represents a measurement alternative to the set of seven domain specific capability items. Finally, the results confirm the applicability of the closed capability instrument in a large scale survey questionnaire and represent the first attempt to measure self-reported capabilities in Switzerland.