Showing papers in "Undergraduate Research Journal in 2019"

Before the Spectacle: Shaping Gender and Class in Beirut’s Beauty Salons

Abstract: “Beirut, in the words of one designer, is like a third world city that’s put on some makeup” writes Rima Suqi in the New York Times (2016). Indeed, scholars worldwide have coined Beirut the trendsetting beauty city and nightlife capital of the Middle East. My ethnographic fieldwork in Beirut in July and August 2016 examined the construction of women’s beauty work in salons and how it affected gender and class performances in nightlife venues. Contemporary discourses on the popularity of beauty work and nightlife consumption in Beirut are often explained by the reaction to the Lebanese Civil War, and by postmodern, individualistic attitudes celebrating life, glamour, and living in the moment. However, such assumptions overlook the extent to which social and familial networks constitute women’s bodies in Beirut’s small, interconnected and highly visual upper-middle and upper class society. In my research, I ask: Why are so many young Lebanese women willing to undergo extensive beauty work and engage in opulent nightlife agendas? How do social and familial pressures motivate women’s desire for beauty work? How do women envision and construct gender and class as an outcome of beauty work? How and why do women further class distinctions using beauty work? How do women foster solidarity in the salon space? How do men and women display and perform gender and class in nightlife venues? How do preparation rituals in beauty salons influence women’s performances in nightlife venues and vice versa?

When Worlds Collide: Manichaeism and Christianity in Late Antiquity

Abstract: Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: (2019). 24 p.

How Airport Construction will Evolve with the Increased Effects of Climate Change

Abstract: This report addressed the effects rising global temperatures resulting from climate change have had on flight operations in their entirety. The research objective was to discover what methods could enhance climate adaptation in airport construction, as higher mean-surface temperatures have an increasingly negative effect on aircraft performance. The findings would primarily be of interest to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Primary Office presiding over the planning and development of airports. Overall, the report provided a comprehensive analysis of global warming’s effects on aviation, including the implications of degraded aircraft performance and sea-level rise for coastal airports. Additionally, it examined comparative solutions relating to the improved development of aircraft engine efficiency and takeoff weight (TOW) restrictions, as well as explored established airport construction practices. The study revealed that the most effective way to acclimatize to rising global temperature is to develop innovative airport architecture, while also modernizing present structures. Furthermore, solutions worth considering include the construction of airports at locations with higher latitudes and medium-elevations, and equipping airport terminal areas with advanced heating/cooling systems.

Gender Portrayal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Abstract: This paper will explore the way gender is portrayed within the popular Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will explore literature and studies regarding gender roles as well as how they relate to the relatively few female characters within this universe as well as issues relating to gender within the Superhero genre as a whole. This paper will also look at how female characters are treated by other characters, their relative importance, the gendered stereotypes that they are bound to, and the relationship between the fans of Marvel and the Marvel company itself. This paper will make an argument that while the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made steps toward equal gender representation, many issues relating to this can still be found within it and must be addressed and solved.

Chemical Epitope Targeting: Review of a Novel Screening Technology

Abstract: Chemical Epitope Targeting is a novel technology developed for designing peptide ligands with high affinity and specificity against specific regions of a protein that may be inaccessible to small molecules or antibodies. In this review, we summarize the key steps and significant applications of this technology. Operating on the same principles as antibody-antigen interactions, this technique involves chemically synthesizing the region of interest on the protein, called the epitope, as a polypeptide with a biotin detection tag and a strategically placed alkyne or azide presenting amino acid. The constructed epitope is screened against a comprehensive linear or cyclic One Bead One Compound library of the corresponding azide or alkyne presenting peptides with approximately 2 million unique members. Binders in the correct orientation undergo proximity catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction and are detected using this copper free in situ click chemistry. Subsequent binding assays against the full protein identify high affinity peptide binders with dissociation constants in the nanomolar range. These monoligand peptides can be further developed into biligands and triligands, larger macromolecules with two or three peptide ligands connected by linkers, which have improved binding affinity for continuous or discontinuous epitopes. Application of this technology has yielded protease-resistant and cell-permeable compounds for potential therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. In this review, we highlight the different Chemical Epitope Targeted ligands developed for a range of applications, from differential detection of biomarkers and receptor isoforms to the inhibition of enzyme functions and stabilization of protein folding states.

Comparison of Terrain Effects in Divergent versus Non-Divergent Barotropic Models

Abstract: The effects of including terrain in divergent and non-divergent, single-level barotropic models are examined in detail using a global spectral model. The non-divergent model solves the barotropic vorticity equation, while the divergent model solves the shallow water equations. In both models, the impact of terrain is evaluated by examining the evolution of the predicted heights of a pressure surface. Four simulations with initially zonal flow were run for each model using a two-dimensional Gaussian mountain shape for terrain, with two different mean fluid depths of 5,000 m and 7,500 m, and two different peak mountain heights of 2,000 m and 4,000 m. One additional simulation was completed using real North American terrain, also with initially zonal flow. As the mean fluid depth was decreased, greater differences in the predicted height fields between the two models were observed, with the shallow water model producing a more amplified leeside trough. The differences are caused by increased convergence downstream of the terrain in the shallow water model compared to the barotropic vorticity equation model as the mean fluid depth is decreased. As the mean fluid depth is increased in the shallow water model, the two different models show little difference.

Yoga as an Adjunct Therapy Through the Lens of Positive Psychology Theory and Neuroscience

Abstract: Therapeutic interventions incorporatingmindfulness have proliferated as complementarytreatment. One adjunct mindfulness interventionthat warrants further study is Yoga; a physical andspiritual practice to facilitate a mind-body connection.Research has shown a consistent yoga practice can affectcognitive, behavioral, and emotional wellbeing andmay be effective for reducing symptoms of anxiety anddepression. Neuroimaging studies have begun to explorethe neurophysiological benefits to determine whetherthese are specific to yoga or present in metabolicallyequivalent forms of exercise. The objective of this paper isto review empirical literature on the benefits of yoga andexamine whether current positive psychology theory andneuroscience research offer support for yoga as an adjuncttherapy.

Effective Recruitment Strategies to Attract Orthopaedic Surgeons to Rural Nebraska

Abstract: Rural communities have difficulty establishing and maintaining a quality healthcare workforce. Twenty percent of Americans compose the rural populations in this country, but only nine percent of physicians practice in these rural areas. From 2000 to 2020, the demand for orthopaedic physicians is expected to increase by 23%, mainly due to the aging population of the United States. Although the demand for orthopaedic surgeons to these underserved, aging rural populations is increasing, there is a shortage which continues to grow in rural areas. One possible driving force of this shortage could be the recruitment strategies exercised by the healthcare managers in these rural communities. Orthopaedic surgeons may avoid work in a rural area due to its remoteness, lack of new technology, and few opportunities for family members. The objective of this study was to identify factors that could enhance recruitment of orthopaedic surgeons to health care facilities in rural Nebraska using Lexington Regional Health Center (LRHC), one of Nebraska’s critical access hospitals, as a case study. Strategies such as loan repayment plans, competitive pay, “humanizing” the work environment, and motivational analysis show promising solutions to recruitment strategies in rural healthcare.

Reconceptualizing Feminist Utopias: Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time and Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone

Abstract: Theories of feminist utopia tend to focus on its presence within science/speculative fiction, upholding works like Marge Piercy’s 1976 novel Woman on the Edge of Time as exemplars of the genre. Literary critics typically designate this novel’s vision of the future, the community of Mattapoisett, as a source of radical, mobilizing inspiration for feminists. I will argue against this reading by attesting that Mattapoisett presents a regressive model of feminism in its failure to permit women the choice of (traditional) maternity and, moreover, does not sufficiently distance itself from that which is condemned in the novel’s dystopian present – the stripping of women’s reproductive agency. Mattapoisett thus fails to fulfill half of Sally Miller Gearhart’s essential criteria for the identification of feminist utopia. By contrast, I argue that Margaret Drabble’s 1965 novel, The Millstone, presents a radical vision of maternity, as divorced from patriarchy, that aligns with threads of the feminist movement yet to come at the time of its publication, and that this, under Gearhart’s framework, strongly suggests the presence of a feminist utopia. This is striking in that the novel is categorized as a work of realism, rather than science fiction. By revealing the vision of feminism within a speculative fiction novel to be retrograde in comparison with that of a realistic novel, I argue that feminism unyokes realism from the present, thus collapsing boundaries between genres, and making a case for the study of the feminist utopia in realms beyond

Gendered Pathways to Science: The Perceived Impact of Social Ties and Individual Preferences

Abstract: Despite the huge effort taken to promote gender parity in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics education, women remain overwhelmingly underrepresented in these fields. Current literature has demonstrated that there are significant processes that influence whether or not someone pursues STEM; yet, none of them specify the perceived individual and environmental factors that correlate with persistence in STEM education. Ergo, the focus of this paper is to try to account for the individual and social causes of persistence in pursuing STEM studies, as perceived by women and men who chose and continued to study STEM at college; more specifically, the nature, timing, and relative influence of these perceived determinants and how they vary according to gender. We have not followed a traditional quantitative research protocol that reaches causal claims. Instead, we have used self-reported retrospective data that offer subjective insight into the perceived determining factors to enter the pathway to STEM at college. To do so, we have conducted a survey, situating STEM undergraduate students at Columbia University in a sequence of events, influences, interactions, and institutions that are successively associated with their current orientation towards STEM disciplines. This research design has enabled us to look at the relative perceived influence of their social ties and individual preferences at three different stages of their life. While men and women who chose to major in STEM do not seem to have fundamentally different perceived individual preferences, they do seem to perceive the contribution of their social environment to their interest in science differently.

Survival, Struggle, and Statehood: The Fight for Life and Livelihood in the Warsaw Ghetto and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Abstract: In the Holocaust, before the Nazis sentenced Jews to death in the extermination camps, they were sent to ghettoes all across Europe. The largest Ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw Ghetto. In here, the Jews suffered from diseases, starvation, execution or other malicious forces as a result of the conditions created by the Germans. After numerous years of suffering, two major groups of Jews decided to rise up against the Germans, leading to the first Jewish revolt of the modern period that ended in the complete destruction of the Ghetto and its inhabitants. In this Uprising, the Jews fought for their lives, but also fought to live their lives the way they wanted, whether it be in Europe or in Israel, which would form a few years after World War II.

The Heroic Rapist in Context: Rape Culture Examined Through Western Classics

Abstract: Rape in contemporary western culture does not exist in a vacuum. In myth, many rapes that occur are presented heroically; that is, the rapist is empowered through Western societal mores to violate the victim. Using Susan Brownmiller’s theory of the heroic rapist, this paper will explore how the myth of the heroic rapist functions alongside other rape myths in the present-day climate of rape myth acceptance and the systematic silencing of victims. The purpose of this research is to study a narrow selection of historical origins of rape and break down resulting stereotypes – rape myths such as most women secretly want to be raped, men cannot be raped, and no woman can be raped against her will – that obfuscate the true patriarchal nature of rape.

The Impacts of Increased Heat and Precipitation on Plant Phenology and Demography in Pacific Northwest Prairies

Abstract: * Through the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) within the Environmental Studies rogram, eight undergraduate students prepared, performed, and completed a study over the course of two terms, with some work into the summer. In the first term, most of the background information necessary was learned, methods were developed, and a lengthy monitoring proposal was produced. In the second term, all the data was collected and analyzed and the results were discussed. Finally, all the work was compiled into a final report, ic as presented at the 2018 ELP symposium. Now it is being put forth for a broader audience. From hardly knowing each other in the beginning, the eight students grew into a tight-knit team, with many long nights of work and many long laughs. The Climate and Phenology eam hopes people find their project as interesting as they did, and if there any questions, emails are encouraged. They can be reached at huntecmackin@gmail.com, and their faculty sponsors, Laura McCullough and Peg Boulay, can be reached respectively at lmccull2@uoregon.edu and boulay@uoregon.edu. The Impacts of Increased Heat and Precipitation on Plant Phenology and Demography in Pacific Northwest Prairies

Where Are All the Introverts Hiding? An Analysis of Introversion in Research

Abstract: Since their origin, extraversion andintroversion have become staples in both researchterminology and colloquial language. In 2012, Susan Cainreleased a New York Times Best-Seller, Quiet: The Powerof Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, whichdiscussed the role of introverts in a society that valuesextraversion. This paper analyzes the Five-Factor Modelas well as case studies of various articles displaying biasagainst introversion. These articles are used to discusshow the bias against introversion has become part ofpsychological research and the need to reverse trendsof stereotyping and misinformation. Other articles arealso discussed, which present a more well-roundedpresentation of introversion and extraversion.

Let’s Talk About Sex: A Three-Way Comparison of Government-Sanctioned Prostitution

Abstract: Sweden, Canada, and the State of Nevada (USA) have significantly different policies surrounding prostitution. Sweden’s attempt to criminalize prostitution influenced countries around the world, including Canada, while Nevada took the opposite approach by legalizing brothels. This paper explores and compares the policies of these three countries, with the hope of conceptualizing a more inclusive policy that incorporates the voices of those who work within the sex industry.

Burdens from Men and the Wisdom of Women: Marriage and Feminism in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Abstract: Janie Crawford, the strong and independent female heroine of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God , marries three different men. This essay focuses on Janie's marriages to Joe Starks and Tea Cake and the enduring question from feminists critics of whether or not Janie finds her voice. Through Janie’s story and her marriages, Hurston offers an essential insight into the experience and wisdom of African-American women and their relationships with their community, the world, and themselves.

Can I Kick It?: A Case Study of Representation in English Classes

Abstract: Representation can manifest itself in many ways in the classroom, but this conversation is becoming tougher at predominately white institutions. This study specifically looked at the curriculum taught in English departments and if that curriculum truly embodies representation for all. Through interviewing a professor with experience teaching African-American literature and hip hop aesthetics as well as surveying undergraduate students on their opinions of representation and hip hop, the results are clear: universities need to do a better job of promoting representation within English classes, and hip hop is one of many ways they can promote conversation around the social and political issues that students should walk away with knowledge of because of their higher education.

“Bannabees,” Bananas, and Sweet Potatoes: Claude McKay’s Songs of Jamaica and Traditional Jamaican Foodways as a Nationalist Expression

Abstract: Jamaican poet Claude McKay is largely anthologized for a handful of poems he contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, but his early work authored in Jamaica has long been dismissed for a variety of racist and xenophobic reasons.This overlooked material includes his first two poetry collections, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, both authored in Jamaica before he moved to New York. His friend, benefactor, and mentor Walter Jekyll even characterized these early collections as “naive.” However, these two collections, which mix traditional English forms with Jamaican peasant dialect, constitute vital parts of McKay’s oeuvre. Songs of Jamaica in particular exhibits a mastery of Jamaican peasant dialect in combination with extensive allusions to traditional folkways in order to make an anti-colonialist, nationalist assertion about Jamaica, the country McKay so loved. I will analyze the role of Jamaican peasant dialect and foodways in making this nationalist assertion in order to advance my claim that McKay’s early poetry is at least as sophisticated and versatile as his subsequent collections authored in the States. By turns, McKay praises native Jamaican crops such as the banana, sweet potato, and Bonavist bean for their gustatory, nutritional, and economic superiority to crops imported by colonialism. Jamaican poet Claude McKay is most commonly known as a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance, with the rather unfortunate effect that his diverse oeuvre has been reduced to his 1919 sonnet “If We Must Die,” which protests the social inequality of black people in America. He penned this poem after he moved from Jamaica to New York. In light of this poem and his collection Harlem Shadows, critics often consider his poetry produced in America as the beginning of his serious writing career. They tend to dismiss his two previous poetry collections, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, both authored in Jamaica, as immature works. Even his friend, benefactor, and mentor Walter Jekyll characterized Songs of Jamaica as stylistically “naive” in his introduction to the volume (McKay 284). However, these two collections, which mix * Sarah Hovet is a senior pursuing English and journalism majors and a creative writing minor in t e Robert D. Clark Honors College. She is currently applying to master s degree programs in English literature and working on her honors thesis. Her research interests include feminism and gender in modern Welsh and Irish literature and syntax in contemporary American poetry, among other diverse topics. Please direct correspondence to shovet@uoregon.edu. Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Hovet Volume 14 Issue 1 Winter 2019 10 traditional English forms with Jamaican peasant dialect, constitute vital parts of McKay’s oeuvre. Songs of Jamaica exhibits a mastery of Jamaican peasant dialect in combination with extensive allusions to Jamaican folk culture in order to make an anti-colonialist, nationalist assertion about Jamaica, the country McKay so loved. In particular, the role of Jamaican peasant foodways in Songs of Jamaica makes a nationalist assertion that advances the claim that McKay’s early poetry is at least as sophisticated as and more versatile than his subsequent collections authored in the States. Foodways serve as a subtle, credible way for McKay to center indigenous ways of knowing and non-colonial crops as superior. In comparison to “If We Must Die,” which is widely anthologized, McKay’s Jamaican poetry remains overlooked. Decades later, McKay scholars continue to mischaracterize the Jamaican poems as “sentimental,” even as “genre studies” of peasant life (Hansell 123). In fact, William Hansell divides the Jamaican poetry into three categories: slice-of-life commonplace, love poems, and poems that “portray the peasant mind,” in his words (124-125). Such categorizations come across as reductive and condescending, collapsing the political dimensions of the early poetry. After all, McKay’s Jamaican years remain understudied and poorly understood, obscuring their significance to his artistic oeuvre (James, “Becoming the People’s Poet” 19). Due to both these misperceptions represented by Hansell and the lack of sustained academic inquiry described by James, the subtle, sophisticated poetic style and the emphatically nationalist content of Songs of Jamaica have been downplayed in most existing scholarship. But McKay’s support of the black oppressed and his trenchant critique of racist social structures emerges in Songs of Jamaica through various expressions of anti-colonialist nationalism, such as his focus on native crops. Due to a variety of social constraints, McKay’s anti-colonial nationalism in his early poetry often proves measured and subtle. For instance, McKay’s 1912 poem “De Gubnor’s Salary” critiques Sir Sydney Olivier for taxing the Jamaican people in order to pay his salary, despite the fact that the English rule Olivier represented had accomplished nothing but the oppression of the Jamaican people (Rosenberg 94). McKay agreed to leave the poem out of Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, as Olivier demanded. He even dedicated the former volume to the governor, who was also his benefactor. His poetry often constituted “acts of dexterity” within a system in which “oppositional views could be expressed primarily from within colonial institutions” (Rosenberg 93-94). However, his selection of the Jamaican crops that represent traditional foodways in Songs of Jamaica, such as the Bonavist bean, the sweet potato, or the banana, bespeak an anti-colonialist nationalism he could not explicitly include in his poems at the time while living in Jamaica. The most prominent example of McKay’s nationalism in his early poetry manifests in his constant use of Jamaican peasant dialect. This tactic negotiates thickets of politics around the use of dialect in writing, with various critics decrying McKay as racist for the thick Jamaican peasant dialect in which he wrote his first two collections. As Jamaican magazines and newspapers opened the subject for discussion, the controversy heightened given the cultural moment, one which “presented Jamaica as progressing toward enlightenment and morality” (Rosenberg 40). The Jamaican Local Literary Association published an anonymous 1913 essay “On Dialect” that championed the use of Jamaican dialect in literature, arguing, “Dialect tells the story of Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Hovet Volume 14 Issue 1 Winter 2019 11 colonisation, of slavery and its villainies, of the Emancipation won for the downtrodden negro” (Rosenberg 40). The article even goes so far as to suggest, “Had we a Claude McKay, one genius at least, for every decade since 1800 ... the pride of Jamaica in things Jamaican would today be a fixed quantity” (Rosenberg 40). An inquiry into the possibility of McKay himself penning this eloquent missive, given his penchant for reputation-burnishing, might prove interesting. Regardless, the nationalist potential of McKay’s use of dialect serves as a way of proposing a linguistic distinctiveness and unity, rich with a history of struggle and perseverance under colonization. Conversely, other critics, such as the lawyer and writer James Weldon Johnson, argued that “acting modern meant not writing or speaking ‘too black’ because African-American dialect had been so tarred and tarnished by its historical associations with minstrelsy and racism” (Peppis 38). And thus McKay found himself navigating cultural and literary critics in addition to the colonial institutions in which he lived, complicating yet another intended anti-colonialist nationalist assertion. Given the complexities surrounding these expressions of McKay’s nationalism, his use of traditional Jamaican foodways in Songs of Jamaica emerges as a means of making an anticolonialist, pro-Jamaican claim that centers his authority. Thomas Francis and Ann Elizabeth McKay brought up McKay, the former being a farmer who “coaxed” cacao, coffee, bananas, sugar cane, and tropical fruits from the “difficult soil” of the country; thus, McKay grew up acquainted with farming and Jamaican foodways (Tillery 4). Upon arriving in the United States, he even intended to study agronomy at the Tuskegee Institute in South Carolina (21). McKay’s love for the island originated in part from his image of its soil as containing plentitude for all of its black inhabitants (James, “Jamaican Nationalism and Its Limits” 91). As McKay stipulates in “My Native Land, My Home” from Songs of Jamaica, “De time when I’ll tu’n ‘gains’ you is/When you can’t give me grub” (Complete Poems, 58). Therefore, McKay possesses an intimate knowledge of Jamaican agriculture, its hardships and its rewards, and links the bounty of the land to a conditional nationalism, making peasant foodways inextricable to any nationalist assertion he would level in his collections of Jamaican dialect poetry. For example, in the poem “Me Bannabees” from Songs of Jamaica, McKay elevates traditional folk foodways through the speaker’s celebration of bannabees, or the Bonavist bean. He clearly demonstrates this celebration when he concludes the poem with the preferential declaration “Caan’ talk about gungu,/Fe me it is no peas;/Cockstone might do fe you,/Me want me bannabees,” which carries additional weight as the final stanza in the poem (20). The stanza juxtaposes “gungu” and “cockstone,” or Congo peas and red kidney beans, with the bannabees -the other legumes might do for others, but not for the speaker, who wants his bannabees. Likewise, in the opening stanza, the bannabees “Run ober mango trees,” suggesting that the bannabees are more desirable than lush mangos, with the bannabees hierarchically positioned over them. Tellingly, “bannabees” is assonant with “want” and “wanna,” underscoring the speaker’s desire for the bannabees, the traditional Jamaican crop. Thus, the bannabees represent the superiority of Jamaican folk culture and foodways, which

Sa’di and the Safavid: The Material Culture of a Treasured Persian Manuscript Now at UO

Abstract: Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: (2019). 9 p.

Let Me Tell You a Story: Exploring Vignettes to Study Bullying

Abstract: Bullying is defined as actions and behaviorsthat threaten interpersonal connections (McNamara,2012). Examples of bullying include verbal abuse, sexualharassment, and physical altercations (McNamara, 2012).As a result of bullying, a nurse may have gastrointestinalcomplications, cardiovascular irregularities, and evensuicidal ideations (McNamara, 2012; Thompson, 2013).As a result, nurses are not able to deliver optimal nursingcare (Christie & Jones, 2014). Nurses who are unable toperform their job due to bullying place patients at risk fornegative outcomes.

First, Do No Harm: An Analysis of Prescribing Behavior

Abstract: Econometric analysis is used to explore contributing factors to widespread opioid abuse in the United States. Using county-level data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), multiple linear regressions are performed to estimate the correlation of opioid prescribing rates on accidental drug poisoning mortality. Based on the model presented in this paper, statistical significance is shown correlating drug overdose deaths and opioid prescribing rates. Given low importation of illegal prescription opioids and the high likelihood of transitioning to heroin from prescription opioids, it suggests physicians play a key role in the supply of prescription opioids used by individuals with opioid use disorder.