58 research outputs found
RHM Author Interview: Dr. Lisa Melonçon, RHM Editor, Interviews Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara Davis on Their Persuasion Brief, "Communicating Elective Sterilization: A Feminist Perspective"
No full textRHM Author Interview: Dr. Lisa Meloncon, RHM Editor, interviews Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara Davis on Their Persuasion Brief, “Communicating Elective Sterilization: A Feminist Perspective.
RHM Author Interview: Dr. Fernando Sánchez, RHM Assistant Editor, interviews Krista Kennedy, Noah Wilson, and Charlotte Tschider on their article, “Balancing the Halo: Data Surveillance Disclosure and Algorithmic Opacity in Smart Hearing Aids “
No full textDr. Fernando Sánchez, RHM Assistant Editor, interviews Krista Kennedy, Noah Wilson, and Charlotte Tschider on their article, “Balancing the Halo: Data Surveillance Disclosure and Algorithmic Opacity in Smart Hearing Aids,” published in RHM 4.1
RHM, Interdisciplinarity, and an International Public Health Conference: A Dialogue among Stakeholders
No full textBuilding connections with professionals in subject matter disciplines—practitioners and/or academics—is a growing area of interest for many scholars working in the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM). However, strategies for creating and building meaningful, productive interdisciplinary relationships has not been a central theme in RHM-focused scholarship. This entry endeavors to address this gap by using RHM’s emerging version of the “dialogue” genre to describe the author’s experience co-chairing the communications track for an international public health conference. The author weaves in commentary from contributors who participated in the conference and discusses and reflects upon two key challenges that emerged: 1) differences in language choice/terminology, and 2) epistemic conflict. Through this reflective discussion, this dialogue proposes several strategies that RHM scholars might draw from in building their own interdisciplinary relationships moving forward: 1) negotiate shared meanings and goals, 2) find commonalities, and 3) normalize rhetorical inquiry.
Featured Contributors: Nicholas Bustamante, MFA; Alina Deshpande, PhD; Amy Ising, MS; Jamie Newman, PhD; Kirk St.Amant, Ph
"The Alabama Project": Representing the Complexity of Cancer Survivorship in Words and Images
No full textPublic discourse about health and illness is often considered to lack the nuances and complexities offered in academic treatments of similar subjects. Drawing on the author’s collaborative work with fashion photographer/advocacy artist David Jay, the author calls on RHM scholars to consider the richness of this and similar projects for expanding notions of scholarship in the field. RHM scholars’ expertise in shaping messages about a continuum of health and medicine subjects can influence the perceptions of both academic and public stakeholders on these conversations
TEM-wave propagation in a coaxial waveguide with impedance-matched RHM to LHM transition
No full textIn this paper, we study TEM-wave propagation inside a hollow coaxial waveguide filled with an inhomogeneous metamaterial composite, with a graded transition between a right-handed material (RHM) and an impedance-matched left-handed material (LHM). The graded transition and the TEM-wave propagation occur in the direction perpendicular to the boundary between the two media, which has been chosen to be the z-direction. The relative permittivity epsilon(omega, z) and permeability mu(omega, z) of the RHM-LHM composite vary according to hyperbolic tangent functions along the z-direction. The exact analytical solutions to Maxwell's equations are derived, and the solutions for the field components and wave behavior confirm the expected properties of impedance-matched RHM-LHM structures. Furthermore, a numerical study of the wave propagation over an impedance-matched graded RHM-LHM interface, using the COMSOL Multiphysics software, is performed. An excellent agreement between the analytical results and numerical simulations is obtained, with a relative error of less than 0.1%. The present method has the ability to model smooth realistic material transitions, and includes the abrupt transition as a limiting case. Finally, the RHM-LHM interface width is included as a parameter in the analytical and numerical solutions, allowing for an additional degree of freedom in the design of practical devices using RHM-LHM composites. Published by Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.</p
Interviews: Dr. Lisa Meloncon, RHM Editor, interviews Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara Davis on their persuasion brief, “Communicating Elective Sterilization: A Feminist Perspective”
No full textDownload of the interview includes 1) transcript and 2) Appendices A, B, and C from Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara DavisThis interview is published as Meloncon, Lisa; Trauth, Erin; and Molloy, Cathryn (2019) "RHM Author Interview: Dr. Lisa Meloncon, RHM Editor, interviews Dr. Abby Dubisar and Sara Davis on their persuasion brief, “Communicating Elective Sterilization: A Feminist Perspective”, Rhetoric of Health & Medicine: 2019, 2(1). Posted with permission. </p
RHM Author Interview (Youtube video): Cassandra (Casi) Kearney, Ph.D., author of “Mass Shootings and Mental Health: A Historical Perspective on the ‘Mental Illness as Motive’ Narrative”
No full textRHM Author Interview (Youtube video): Cassandra (Casi) Kearney, Ph.D., author of “Mass Shootings and Mental Health: A Historical Perspective on the ‘Mental Illness as Motive’ Narrative”
In an effort to better understand the historical significance of the mental illness as motive narrative, this essay investigates what has been recognized as the first mass shooting in the modern United States--Howard Unruh\u27s 1949 mass shooting in Camden, New Jersey. Given that mass shootings were an unprecedented phenomenon, the news media played an important role in explaining the event. As will be shown, many Americans felt uncertain about how mental illness manifested and who was vulnerable. Given the often undisclosed, albeit perceived threat of schizophrenia, the public needed reassurance that there would be some indicator of insanity. Accordingly, the media used evidence of religious fanaticism and unfavorable physical descriptions of Unruh to cast him as separate, outside, or an other. Ultimately, the media\u27s rhetorical choices differentiated Unruh and attempted to make mental illness easier to identify for an audience afraid of its influence
Exercising Uncertainty: Identifying and Addressing “Gray Areas” in a Case Study Involving Corporate-Funded Research on the Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
No full textRHM research brings attention to a lack of nuance in much discourse about the corporeal body,a reflection of positivist values that too often bleed into the classroom. These values can be tiedto dominant ideological frameworks for comprehending the world, including consumeristperspectives and biomedical explanations for illness and prescribed interventions. Todiscourage the tendency to gravitate towards polarized thinking, the author suggestsimmersing students in “wicked problems” that defy simplistic understandings and clearsolutions. Through a case study assignment drawing on a continuum of problems associatedwith corporate-funded research on the effects of sugar-sweetened beverages, students grapplewith a host of stakeholders and issues in the process of articulating a negotiated position that,while productive, acknowledges uncertainty
Nitric oxide-releasing poly(vinyl alcohol) film for increasing dermal vasodilation
No full textConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Pathological conditions associated with the impairment of nitric oxide (NO) production in the vasculature, such as Raynaud's syndrome and diabetic angiopathy, have stimulated the development of new biomaterials capable of delivering NO topically. With this purpose, we modified poly(vinyl-alcohol) (PVA) by chemically crosslinking it via esterification with mercaptosuccinic acid. This reaction allowed the casting of sulfhydrylated PVA (PVA-SH) films. Differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffractometry showed that the crosslinking reaction completely suppressed the crystallization of PVA, leading to a non-porous film with a homogeneous distribution of -SH groups. The remaining free hydroxyl groups in the PVA-SH network conferred partial hydrophylicity to the material, which was responsible for a swelling degree of ca. 110%. The PVA-SH films were subjected to an S-nitrosation reaction of the -SH groups, yielding a PVA containing S-nitrosothiol groups (PVA-SNO). Amperometric and chemiluminescence measurements showed that the PVA-SNO films were capable of releasing NO spontaneously after immersion in physiological medium. Laser Doppler-flowmetry, used to assess the blood flow in the dermal microcirculation, showed that the topical application of hydrated PVA-SNO films on the health skin led to a dose- and time-dependent increase of more than 5-fold in the dermal baseline blood flow in less than 10 min, with a prolonged action of more than 4 h during continuous application. These results show that PVA-SNO films might emerge as a new material with potential for the topical treatment of microvascular skin disorders. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.116643651Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)CNPq [309390/2011-7]FAPESP [2008/57560-0
RHM Author Interview: Liz Angeli, Ph.D. and Christina Norwood, M.S., authors of Persuasion Brief: The Internal Rhetorical Work of a Public Health Crisis Response
No full textRHM Author Interview (Youtube video): Liz Angeli, Ph.D. and Christina Norwood, M.S., authors of Persuasion Brief: The Internal Rhetorical Work of a Public Health Crisis Response
This persuasion brief suggests that the rhetorical concepts of techne and rhetorical work facilitate the creation of public health crisis communication. To illustrate this claim, we present findings from a case study with the Johns Hopkins Medicine Ebola Crisis Communications Team, a transdisciplinary group that collaborated with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the 2014 Ebola crisis. The team created multimodal documentation to support healthcare providers as they prepared to treat patients and crafted communication to alleviate the fear among health workers and the public caused by the threat of Ebola. Ultimately, we frame public health crisis communication as a rhetorical endeavor guided by a focus on failure, situated expertise, and techne. This focus pushes specialists to tend to the processes involved in creating a response, and it highlights how gut feelings factor into the process of designing and implementing a public health crisis intervention.
Angeli, E., Norwood, C. (2019) The Internal Rhetorical Work of a Public Health Crisis Response. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine 2(2): 208-231
- …
