Category: Poster Presentation

Analyzing the Deployment of Secure Routing Protocols at Internet Scale

Presenter: Braden Hollembaek

Mentor: Kevin Butler

Poster: 18

Major: Computer Science 

With large-scale attacks occurring at alarming frequency, the current state of Internet routing security has proven to be inadequate. Various security modifications to the current protocols have been proposed to help mitigate this problem, but none have seen widespread support or adoption due, in part, to the lack of investigative research on the high demands of bandwidth and cryptographic processing power required by these protocols. The purpose of this study is to provide the critical and independent analysis necessary to determine the feasibility and effect of deploying secure routing protocols across the highest levels of the Internet. By creating software capable of simulating all of the world’s routing traffic, we are able to analyze the additional bandwidth consumed by multiple secure protocols as well as increased load placed on the CPUs. As the research progresses, we will be comparing various secure protocol specifications to determine which security features are the best candidates for adoption and which are not well-suited for use at Internet scale. Based on their efficiency for real-world deployment while not compromising their security, we will be able to make strong recommendations on which protocol suite will be the most practical for implementation going forward.

Re-evaluating Recasts as Negative Evidence

Presenter: Amanda Hammons

Mentor: Rose Maier, Dare Baldwin

Poster: 17

Major: Psychology & German 

Marcus (1993) argues that recasts (feedback on children’s speech errors provided via a corrected version of the utterance) are of little value for language acquisition: although parents recast children’s errors, they also recast well- formed utterances. Perhaps, however, parents provide pedagogical cues that distinguish recasts with corrective versus non-corrective intent. If so, children might be especially receptive to recasts accompanied by corrective intent, and update their linguistic constructions accordingly. To test this, 5- and 6-year-old children are introduced to two novel verbs in present tense forms. Both verbs take irregular past tense forms, modeled after real irregular verbs in English (e.g. ling/lang modeled after ring/rang), so children’s initial attempts to use the past tense are typically overgeneralizations (e.g. linged). The experimenter recasts these errors in two conditions: In the informative condition, pedagogical cues signaling corrective intent accompany recasts. In the uninformative condition, recasts are linguistically identical but lack pedagogical cues to corrective intent. If these cues help children disambiguate corrective versus non-corrective recasts, children in the informative condition should show greater preference for the correct (irregular) past tense form over the incorrect (overgeneralized) form. This work contributes to the growing body of research on children’s use of social cues to disambiguate linguistic input in the service of language acquisition.

Examination of Foot Strike Patterns and Ankle Muscle Strength

Presenter: Chris Gronseth

Mentor: Li-Shan Chou

Poster: 38

Major: Human Physiology 

Recent research on foot and ankle injuries has initiated debates about the ideal foot strike position in running. This study chose to investigate whether ankle plantarflexion strength (PFS) or dorsiflexion strength (DFS) was related to a runner’s foot strike position at initial contact. Twenty-five subjects, who ran at least 20 miles per week, participated in the study and ran continuous laps of ~40 meters in the UO Motion Analysis Laboratory. Foot strike indices (FSI) were calculated for each limb (n=50) using center of pressure data obtained from three force plates located in series. Isometric PFS and DFS were collected using a Biodex System 3 dynamometer. A one-way ANOVA was used to test for differences between strength among forefoot, rearfoot, and midfoot strikers while a Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the strength of the relationship between FSI and both PFS and DFS. No differences in PFS (p = .44) or DFS (p = .64), were seen among groups. No significant correlations were found between FSI and PFS or between FSI and DFS, which indicates that there was no relationship between ankle muscle strength and foot strike indices. This study was limited by a relatively small sample size and subject self-selection of shoe type. To better understand the relationship between FSI and muscle strength, future studies should consider more subjects and the influence of knee and hip strength on foot strike patterns.

“You Have Witchcraft on Your Lips”: Witches, Witchcraft, and Female Power in Modern Culture”

Presenter: Meaghan Forbis

Mentor: Julie Voelker-Morris

Poster: 16

Major: Political Science 

Ray Bradbury said that “a witch is born out of the true hungers of her time.” Witches and witchcraft have occupied a dynamic place within our culture for centuries, representing all facets of the feminine identity. Mother, warrior,
virgin, crone; witches can be all of these things. Female power as interpreted through witchcraft takes on an alien nature, removing it further from pressures of patriarchy. Starting from two points, Lilith, the Judeo-Christian Mother of Demons, and the Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of war, this multimedia collage experience explores the different ways in which witchcraft is represented in art and modern culture. The collage will include music, couture photography, reproductions of various traditional art works, excerpts from novels and poetry, and an interactive “altar.” The “altar,” presented on a small table, will include elements of pop culture witchcraft along side a variety of other objects, as a mean to convey the interconnectedness of modern womanhood and the traditional witch archetype. As female power has been demystified and trivialized through such things as modernity’s war on women and the “Grrl power” movement, monster girl culture has redeveloped. Witchcraft represents a place in which women can exist without needing to bow down to outside pressure, in which we can stride out into the night knowing that we are the most fearful thing in it, in which, as Joseph Campbell says, “all the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”

*Title from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Perchlorate, Oxidative Stress and Thyroid Proliferation in Threespine Stickleback

Presenter: Connor Fitch

Mentor: William Cresko

Poster: 15

Major: Biology 

Perchlorate is a water contaminant that has been detected in drinking water across the U.S. Severe health effects result from exposure to high levels of perchlorate. Our lab has shown that perchlorate causes several abnormalities
in fish, including increased thyroid proliferation in stickleback and zebrafish. We aim to determine the molecular basis of perchlorate’s effects on thyroid development and cell proliferation. Two hypotheses for increased cell proliferation include activation of Wnt signaling pathways, and perchlorate reduced expression of miR-16, miR-24, and miR-195, a group of microRNAs that suppress cell proliferation. We hypothesize that perchlorate causes direct damage by increasing oxidative stress in threespine stickleback, subsequently activating Wnt pathways and leading to cell proliferation. In order to test for the presence of oxidative stress, we performed an assay to calorimetrically quantify the presence of malondialdehyde (MDA)—a known oxidative stress biomarker. Forty stickleback embryos (20 control, 20 chronically exposed to 100ppm perchlorate) between 100-150 days post fertilization were analyzed for MDA. Perchlorate significantly increased the presence of MDA by 0.34μM in the treated group, correlating to a 13% increase of MDA over the control group. This supports our hypothesis that perchlorate causes oxidative stress in fish. Perchlorate causes a multitude of abnormalities during development and our data demonstrate that oxidative stress may be one contributing factor. Currently we are performing qPCR analysis to determine the involvement of SOD, tp53, and axin2a/b in oxidative stress from perchlorate. In addition, we are using qPCR to examine if perchlorate decreases expression of miR-16, miR-24, and miR-195. These data will help us to determine a molecular connection between perchlorate and oxygen radicals on interruption of normal thyroid function.

Verifying the Implementation of Secure Multi-Party Computation Systems

Presenter: Jonathan Eskeldson

Mentor: Kevin Butler

Poster: 14

Major: Computer Science/Mathematics 

As technology has advanced, applications have arisen which rely on sensitive data. In the past, users had to trust these application’s creators with private data. However, breaches of private data and abuses of power, such as
the Snowden NSA revelations, have eroded users’ trust. A recent development in cryptography, called multi-party computation (MPC), allows multiple parties to compute a function over sensitive inputs, in such a way that the
inputs themselves are not revealed, bypassing the issue of trust. This is usually done by performing Yao’s Garbled Circuit protocol. This was mostly theoretical work until a few years ago, when systems capable of performing these operations were created. While there is confidence in the theory driving such systems, little attention has been paid to their implementations, which are prone to error due to their large size and complexity. These errors could create discrepancies between what a system claims to do and what that system actually does, which could weaken its security. The purpose of this study is to rigorously evaluate the security of leading MPC implementations, and expose bugs that weaken the system’s security. This research will help inspire confidence in the implementation of these systems, making them suitable for use in areas where security is a high priority, including electronic elections and private auctions.

Air paths in Lewis

Presenter: Petro El Hage

Co-Presenters: Lenore Wan, Caitlin Vanhauer

Mentor: Alison Kwok

Poster: 13

Major: Architecture 

We studied how the air handling system functions in Lewis Integrative Science Building (LISB) atrium and whether or not the relief air vents are utilised effectively. The complex, which opened in October of 2012, is located between 13th avenue and Franklin Boulevard on the University of Oregon campus, and consists of offices and science laboratories that are joined by an unconditioned atrium. After a visit to the building, we were curious about the vents we saw on the wall and how they were utilised to heat the atrium. We wondered if the existing relief air vents are effective. We hypothesised that the air handling system in the LISB atrium releases air that travels upward toward the skylight rather than being distributed throughout the overall space. If our hypothesis were proven correct, this would prove that the relief air vents are not utilised effectively. In order to decipher if the exhaust heat is dispersing the air throughout the atrium, we decided to study where the air is moving through the space and what the difference in air temperature is throughout the atrium. This study was intended to determine where the heat from the air vents is flowing and whether or not they are the main heat source. Our methodology consisted of visually testing the air path and quantifying temperature differences in the atrium. Overall, we determined that the relief vents in the Lewis atrium were not utilised effectively because the general air flow in the atrium, detected by the bubbles, is pushing the air toward the eastern end of the atrium. We have concluded that the relief air vents are not the main heat source for the atrium. Since the atrium is surrounded by labs on the north and south side and borders Streisinger on the west end—the atrium is well “sandwiched” between insulating layers—the building’s heat loss is significantly low. Also, an efficient thermal envelope is achieved by having triple pane LEED certified windows on the ceiling and the glass curtain walls. Overall, our analysis shows that the main heat source of the atrium is the solar heat gained from the skylight and the south-facing window.

An Opportunity for Comfort: Temperature and Humidity Control in Portable, Low-Income Housing

Presenter: Charles Ekblad

Co-Presenters: Clare Stockwell, Andrew Ashby

Mentor: Alison Kwok

Poster: 9

Major: Architecture

This project called for an investigation of a testable thermal condition, and our group decided to take the project one step further. We seized the opportunity, and attempted to use the experiment to benefit someone else’s life. This philanthropic ideal ultimately directed our team to the Conestoga huts at Opportunity Village Eugene to conduct our research and gain enough insight to develop a method to passively heat the huts. Opportunity Village’s use of a consistent module, the Conestoga hut, was an optimal condition with regards to the testing process. Through interactions and interviews with residents, we found that Conestoga Huts are a fleeting mode of housing. Therefore, a temporary solution, as opposed to a retrofit solution, seemed to be the most efficient and beneficial method of increasing thermal comfort for the occupants. By manipulating temperate and humidity, we will develop two different ways (the Terracotta heating system and the Salt Rock dehumidifier) to create a more comfortable living environment. We will test three different huts, all under different thermal conditions, and collect quantitative data for one week. At the end of the week, we will interview the occupants for qualitative data and compare the results between the two types of data. Due to the assumption that a heating source will both increase temperature and decrease humidity, addressing two issues simultaneously, we hypothesize that introducing a heating solution into the Conestoga hut will create an environment that is closer to the comfort zone, as defined by ASHRAE (an association that defines quantitative standards regarding thermal comfort), than a dehumidifying solution. We arrived at this hypothesis because as the temperature of the interior of the hut increases, humidity levels will fall bringing the interior condition closer to the thermal comfort zone.

Exposure to perchlorate affects differentiating germ cells in teleost fish

Presenter: Nathaniel Earp

Mentor: William Cresko

Poster: 37

Major: Human Physiology 

Perchlorate is a widespread contaminant in the environment. We have found that perchlorate has masculinizing effects on threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. The mechanism of this masculinization is unknown. Our previous studies found that during development female stickleback show increased proliferation of undifferentiated primordial germ cells (PGC) followed by a larger wave of apoptosis compared to male stickleback. We hypothesize that perchlorate treated stickleback will show a decrease in total number of PGCs compared to control fish. To test our hypothesis, stickleback of 15 and 20 days post fertilization (dpf) – a critical time for primary sexual differentiation– were grown from fertilization to the end of the experiment in 10 or 100 ppm perchlorate treated medium or control medium with no perchlorate. Stickleback were sectioned and stained with hematoxylin and eosin, and visualized by light microscope. Total number of PGCs were counted and characterized as either pre-meiotic or meiotic based on morphology of the PGC and nucleus. Perchlorate treated fish show a significant decrease (27.6%) in total number of PGCs compared to controls. Furthermore, control stickleback showed a decrease in total number of PGCs from 15 dpf to 20 dpf, presumably due to female germ cell apoptosis, while perchlorate treated stickleback did not show this decrease. These findings are consistent with perchlorate’s masculinizing effect. We are further investigating the effects of perchlorate on total PGC count in zebrafish, Danio rerio, as perchlorate has been shown to have a feminizing effect on zebrafish, giving us an opportunity to explore the basic mechanisms underlying the reproductive abnormalities caused by perchlorate. Our findings contribute to understanding mechanisms of perchlorate induced reproductive abnormalities in vertebrates, and to better understand the underlying process of sex determination in two divergent teleosts.

Gender, Power and Depo-Provera: Constraints on Reproductive Choice in Rural Nicaragua

Presenter: Nicolette Dent

Mentor: Kristin Yarris

Poster: 8

Major: Anthropology

Using interviews conducted with 87 women in 2003 in Nicaragua, my research explores how gender ideologies reinforce men’s non-involvement with family planning and limit women’s reproductive choices. The popularity of the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera among this sample reflects these patterns of gender inequality and social constraints on women’s health and power in Latin America. I used Pearson chi-square statistics and t-tests of means to analyze the relationships between women’s marital and socioeconomic statuses and their contraceptive use. I found that rates of Depo-Provera use are higher among women who are married or in union, reflecting how the presence of a male partner influences women to choose “invisible” contraceptive methods. I also found that women who do not have access to electricity, as a measure of lower socioeconomic status, use Depo-Provera at higher rates than women who have electricity. I situate these findings within the historical and cultural context of Nicaragua, and within the contested social history of Depo-Provera. While the current administration in Nicaragua acknowledges the need to involve men in reproductive health issues, men’s lack of participation in family planning remains a global concern. I suggest that women will not be able to employ reproductive choice until governments address issues of gender equality and encourage male participation in reproductive health and responsibility.