Browsing by Subject "apps"
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Item From Painting to Pixels: Expansionist Topoi in American Visual Culture(2014-05-23) Elston, Mary MelissaDigital representations of the mythic West abound, from Rockstar Games? popular open-world Western, Red Dead Redemption, to free iPad and iPhone apps (Oregon Settler, Trade Nations Frontier). These virtual re-enactments use twenty-first century technologies to reinforce broader dominant-cultural narratives celebrating the twinned colonization of indigenous land and bodies, yet their roots lie in far older aesthetic and discursive conventions: those found within nineteenth-century landscape and frontier paintings. This project traces the evolution of frontier imagery from the nineteenth century to the digital age and uses Aristotelian topics theory to evaluate recurring images? discursive impact over time in a Western context. Nineteenth-century landscape artists generated a number of recurring visual topo which persist to this day. Among the most prominent are the ?empty? prairie or rugged Western landscape, waiting to be filled with white settlements, and the vanishing or dying "Indian," whose demise paves the way for the land?s new inhabitants. My project articulates the rhetorical dimensions of these images and demonstrates the ongoing role of both visual and digital culture in shaping U.S. public opinion concerning Western land use and Native American tribal sovereignty. It also analyzes the additional rhetorical power and complexity such images hold when they make the leap from static media (paintings, illustrations, sculptures) to more interactive formats. Because participatory media such as video games allow for multisensory engagement ? tapping users? aural and kinesthetic faculties alongside visual faculties ? their multiple sensory appeals enhance rhetoricity at the same time they blur the lines dividing rhetor and audience in traditional Western understandings of rhetoric.Item I'm Too Young for This: Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship(2014-07-25) Vollmer Dahlke, DeborahAs of January 1, 2012, an estimated 13.7 million cancer survivors were alive in the United States. The number of cancer survivors is expected to reach 18 million by the year 2022. Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) cancer survivors, ages 15-39, are a population that experiences disparities in care, including a lack of evidence for increased survival. This thesis presents three papers, each using different methods. The first, an analysis of AYA breast cancer survivors? risk factors including access to clinical trials, uses geographic information systems to map patients? distance to trials and logistic regression to analyze demographic and clinical risk factors. The second paper applies quantitative and qualitative analyses in an evaluation of a public and professional education project on AYA survivorship. The third paper uses qualitative methods and a theory-based taxonomy to assess the use of behavior change theories in mobile health (mHealth) applications for cancer survivorship. The results demonstrate the multifactorial elements that impact AYA cancer survivorship, and suggest the need for interventions and expanded research. Additional research is needed to understand the unique physical and biological characteristics of AYAs, in particular those of AYA breast cancer survivors. The thesis illuminates the challenges AYA survivors experience with late effects?physical, psychosocial and financial?and the need for ongoing education for healthcare professionals. In considering the potential of mHealth applications for health behaviors change among AYAs and other cancer survivors, the study articulates concerns about the limited use of theory in the majority of mHealth apps, and suggests the need for intervention designers to reflect more deeply on theoretical models. This thesis contributes to the field of AYA survivorship research in its evidence assessing risk factors including distance to cancer trials for AYA breast cancer patients, by identifying ongoing educational needs for both survivors and providers and by assessing lack of theory and potential for improvement among mHealth interventions. It offers suggestions for future research, policies, and program changes, including the use of emerging mobile technology and sensors to engage AYA survivors both as participants and designers of research that could improve their quality of life and wellbeing.