Category: 2012

Conformation and Performance in Event Horses

Presenter: Brianna McHorse

Mentor: Samantha Hopkins

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M5 Messaging and Performance

Location: Rogue Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

For thousands of years, conformation-the external physical shape of the body’s parts-has been considered a reliable indicator of a horse’s athletic ability. Despite the influence of conformation assessments on equine breeding and trade, few studies have used analytical methods to establish quantitative relationships between conformation and performance. Existing work suggests a significant relationship between judgments of quality and several conformational variables, especially shoulder and pelvis angle, which influence the reach and timing of the horse’s stride. I investigate the conformation-performance correlation in eventing, an equestrian discipline that tests the horse’s ability to complete three phases: dressage, cross-country, and stadium-jumping. Using statistical comparisons of performance records with geometric relationships between skeletal landmarks on the horse’s body, this study ultimately aims to quantify “ideal” conformation for an eventer. Preliminary results based on photographs suggest a significant relationship between con- formational variables and competition scores, especially in the dressage phase. Traits that may drive performance include back length and shoulder, hip, and pelvis angle. Future work using physical location of the skeletal landmarks may provide clearer resolution of ideal traits at each level of competition. Ultimately, this line of research may lead to a set of quantitative guidelines to be used when selecting event horses to purchase or breed.

Brand and Team Sports Video Games: Is the FIFA Video Game an Antecedent to Soccer Team Loyalty

Presenter: Evan Baechler

Mentor: Whitney Wagoner

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M5 Messaging and Performance

Location: Rogue Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

Global, brand-growth strategies have been common among the world largest soccer teams for decades. However, recently, digital media have created opportunities for teams without lavish marketing budgets to foster brand experiences outside their immediate geographic vicinities. The challenges facing soccer marketers are prioritizing between thousands of digital spaces and creating content influential enough to build loyalty among out-of-market fans. In the fight for growth, soccer video games are largely underutilized. This study will investigate the potential for video games to drive brand growth for soccer teams. Using a combined qualitative and quantitative market research survey of 50 avid gamers, the study will determine whether playing the world’s most popular soccer video game, Electronic Art’s FIFA soccer, is an antecedent to developing loyalty toward a foreign soccer team’s brand. Loyalty is understood as a two-dimensional construct of an attitudinal bias toward a brand combine with consumption behavior involving that brand. In the realms of violence and distal relationship building, social scientists have already proven video games’ ability to influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. As a result, the author hypothesizes that the FIFA soccer video game is an antecedent to soccer team brand loyalty, meaning the game has powerful marketing implications in soccer team brand growth.

Online Supplemental Learning

Online Supplemental Learning

Presenter: Zachary Taylor

Mentor: Carolyn Knox

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M4 Transforming Education

Location: Metolius Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

In this age of information, students and virtually anyone with access to a computer and the Internet have terabytes of valuable educational material at their fingertips. Yet, the current literature and formal educational practice has focused only on authoritative academic sources to determine the benefits of online learning. This study examines the potential of several widely used but non-academic websites as educational tools to help prepare high school and college students for coursework in various subjects. Building on Rand J. Spiro’s Cognitive Flexibility Theory of teaching ill-structured concepts in a hypermedia environment, video and text-based resources from websites such as YouTube and Wikipedia will be used to establish knowledge schema necessary for learners to assimilate new knowledge. In cooperation with the Center for the Advanced Technology in Education at the University of Oregon, this study will describe and evaluate strategies for the use of these online resources as means to establish context and assist in students’ acquisition and comprehension of knowledge.

Real Math: Bringing Proof into the Classroom

Presenter: Zach Chalmers

Mentor: Chris Sinclair

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M4 Transforming Education

Location: Metolius Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

The study of mathematics is frequently an institutional requirement for all majors, which can drive pedagogy to focus on technical applications rather than the discipline itself. Mathematics is not exclusively the study of data manipulation; rather, it is a discipline that examines why we observe certain patterns and how to verify claims with certainty. It is this notion of mathematical rigor we suggest is currently lacking in lower-division undergraduate courses. This work intends to explore the possibility of improving proof-based mathematical learning within these undergraduate classes. We programmed interactive, web-based modules designed to introduce mathematic reasoning to first-year undergraduates. The plasticity of online media provided the ability to introduce a topic at the student’s own pace, providing exposure to proof-based mathematical ideas without requiring reorganization of curriculum. Initial testing consisted of optional participation in Calculus I modules, as well as extra-credit questions drawn from the modules on quizzes and exams. Participant and non-participant performance on exams and future courses will be recorded and used to further analyze the merit of this concept. While the small initial sample size limits broad conclusions from the existing data, results are promising, suggesting a positive correlation between participation in modules and overall scores. Future expansion to other lower-division courses and possible mandatory participation is planned.

Signaling for Attention: Mobility and Student Performance in United Way’s Promise Neighborhoods

Presenters: Neil Cronkrite and Ian O’Gorman

Mentor: Joe Stone

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M4 Transforming Education

Location: Metolius Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

A fixed effects linear leastsquares statistical regression model was used to explore the relationship between student academic performance and student mobility in the Bethel School District in Eugene, Oregon. Our United Way of Lane County, as struggled with student mobility as the organization refines its new Promise Neighborhoods project, aimed at distressed neighborhoods in Lane County. Student mobility may limit United Way’s ability to improve the educational and developmental outcomes of students. We use voter registration data to estimate total mobility in Lane County and in the Promise N4eighborhoods. We also use Bethel School District student transfer codes and statewide state test scores as data. Due to the structure of our data, we cannot draw a definitive conclusion regarding the direction of causality between mobility and learning. However, we can say with confidence that, at a minimum, there is a significant relationship between disruption to learning and high levels of mobility – a good starting point for United Way as they continue to explore mobility and refine its Promise Neighborhood project.

United States Food System: Energy, Waste and Manipulation

Presenter: Tristan Pettigrew

Mentor: Gyoung-Ah Lee

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M3 The Grip of Money and Food

Location: Maple Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

What does a future of food security and seed sovereignty look like? Or, more importantly, how is it represented today within the borders of the United States? Since its inception, methods of agriculture have under gone many changes; however, two events in our recent history, the Industrial Revolution and the Green Revolution, have changed both the scale and effect of agriculture in unprecedented ways. Both have increased our dependence upon fossil energy as a driver for the production, transportation, and storage of our caloric necessity. Throughout this project I hope to highlight areas within the U.S. food system of unsustainable practices. More- over, I hope to offer possible solutions to our current situation.

Occupy Wall Street and the Transformation of the Public Sphere

Presenters: Madeleine Dunkelberg, Aaron Honn and Hailey Chamberlain

Mentor: Vera Keller

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M3 The Grip of Money and Food

Location: Maple Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

We examined the formation and manipulation of the public sphere and that concept’s relation to the current Occupy Wall Street movement. Theories of the development of the modern public sphere, particularly the work of German sociologist Jürgen Habermas, informed our work. We focused on his theory that representative publicity facilitated the creation of the public sphere and formed our own concept of inverse representative publicity, applying that to Occupy Wall Street. We compared the roles of representative publicity and the public sphere in the Occupy movement and the French Revolution. To illustrate how Occupy leaders formed an inverse representative publicity, we analyzed Occupy’s use of new, virtual media such as Twitter, as well as the symbolism incorporated in their propaganda posters. Viewing Occupy Wall Street through the lens of the history of the public sphere, we found a correlation between Occupy Wall Street’s goals: all could be construed as part of a movement to transform the public sphere.

Is it Viable to Group Countries with Differing Cultural Values into the Same Monetary Union?

Presenter: Nicholas Drushella

Mentor: Barbara West

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M3 The Grip of Money and Food

Location: Maple Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

Since the crash of the euro in 2008 and the ensuing global economic meltdown, Europe has entered into a phase of fierce political and economic debate surrounding the common currency. In their haste to restore consumer confidence and stabilize the euro-zone, policy makers have neglected to address several critical questions. Specifically, what were the underlying causes of the euro’s troubles? More importantly, why has the road to recovery been exceedingly strenuous? I argue it is due to a massive cultural rift that exists be- tween the northern and southern regions. Through a cross-cultural comparative case-study of two major regional players, Germany and Spain, we will examine how national culture is gauged and to what effect cultural differences have on the long-term viability of the monetary union. In working towards a solution it is important to recognize the immense challenge of incorporating culture into economic policy due to culture’s seemingly unquantifiable nature. Despite the difficulties that arise from such a complex problem, the European Monetary Union can no longer afford to make decisions based solely on the recommendations of economists but must include information from other fields of study if the euro is to have a future. The adoption of this new approach to fiscal policy would not only affect the euro-zone countries, but also has the potential to fundamentally alter how all industrialized nations view the rela- tionship between economics and culture.

Commandeering the Public Voice: Government and Media

Presenters: Sheetal Krishnakumar, Grace-Ellen Mahoney and Keaton Kell

Mentor: Vera Keller

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M2 Chaos in the Clouds

Location: Alsea Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

The role of the state in supporting avenues of public expression during the emergence of the public sphere in the 17th century has remained relatively unexplored. A historical analysis of this role will allow us to better examine current interactions between the state and the public sphere. By examining primary documents from 17th century France in the original language, and television and newspapers during the Arab Spring in both Morocco and Egypt, we explored how government can maintain control of the public as long as its image remains that of a benevolent and protective body. However, when the government loses the trust of the people, by too obviously fabricating the news or acting too slowly, no amount of media intervention can protect it from revolution. We pay particular attention to the point where the public becomes aware of this fabrication. The importance of this connection between early modern history and history that is still unfolding as this research is being done is clear. Understanding how media can affect countries, revolutions, and individuals sheds light on the politics that exist around us.

Seeding the Cloud: Detecting Co-Residency with Network Flow Watermarking

Presenter: Hannah Pruse

Mentor: Kevin Butler

AM Session Oral Presentation

Panel Name: M2 Chaos in the Clouds

Location: Alsea Room

Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm

Cloud computing has become vital in the realm of information technology by providing computing as a service. Cloud provider customers do not need to purchase and maintain their own machines to deploy web applications, but can instead run virtual machines (VMs) from the provider’s datacenter. The key to supporting this model is virtualization, which allows physical resources to be shared across multiple users, allowing several VMs to run on a single computer. However, customers share resources with unknown and un- trusted parties, leaving sensitive data vulnerable to unauthorized access through the exploitation of side channels. Prior co-residency detection methods relied on specific vulnerabilities of hypervisors, the underlying software facilitating virtualization, which can be easily fixed. We demonstrate that co-residency exploitation is not simply a flaw in a particular hypervisor, but is a real threat in the cloud computing model. We have developed a hypervisor-independent attack that compromises isolation of VMs, allowing for exfiltration of co-residency information by injecting a watermark, or specific patterns of delays, into the target VM’s network flow. Through experiments in a local testbed and real-world deployments on a commercial cloud, we observed accurate detection of co-residency in less than 60 seconds. We demonstrate that our watermark itself can be a covert channel for malicious access of data, thus highlighting the significance of this vulnerability and the threat posed to current cloud computing platforms.