Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 22 No. 1 (2024)
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Item Open Access Exploring the Role of Microbiota in the Development of Insulin-producing Cells in Drosophila melanogaster(University of Oregon, 2024) Mullen, NicoleResident microbiota can influence many aspects of host health and disease. Research by the Guillemin lab demonstrates that gut microbiota induce the expansion of insulin-producing beta cells in zebrafish and mice via a bacterial protein, beta-cell expansion factor A (BefA). This study investigates microbiota, bacteria, and BefA protein roles in promoting insulin-producing cell (IPC) development in Drosophila melanogaster, where each brain lobe contains seven IPCs. The study evaluates the effect of germ-free (GF) rearing on IPC numbers in Drosophila and explores whether feeding flies BefA, utilizing transgenic BefA expression, or employing transgenic tsl, a known pore-forming protein, can restore IPC numbers in GF flies. The groups compared were GF, conventionally reared (CV), GF flies fed BefA, and GF flies with transgenic BefA or tsl expression. Tissue-specific Dilp3:GAL4/UAS:GFP and immunohistochemistry treatment enables IPC visualization post-dissection. Findings show fewer IPCs per brain lobe in GF flies compared to conventional, highlighting microbiota's role in IPC development. GF larvae fed BefA exhibit a slight but significant IPC increase per lobe versus conventional, suggesting BefA's potential to mitigate GF effects. Transgenic expression of BefA, using the GAL4/UAS system, demonstrates a trending IPC increase in GF flies, while transgenic tsl expression significantly increases IPCs. These results indicate microbiota's impact on Drosophila metabolic pathways and fundamental cell development, including cells in the gut-brain axis. These insights can be used to direct research and treatment for diseases like diabetes and have implications for microbiota's effect on the brain. Future experiments will explore BefA's properties, including its potential to induce insulin-producing cell expansion through membrane permeabilization.Item Open Access Art Feature: "Autonomy in the Anthropocene"(University of Oregon, 2024) Bisheimer, ElleThis drawing explores several of the complex relationships between human innovation, morality, and how progress is defined through time. Who defines progress, and who is truly capable of harnessing its successes? In our modern era of incessant technological advancement towards an algorithmic perfection, this rather timeless struggle for moral truth inescapably seeps into our interactions with Artificial Intelligence. Most programs seek to minimize capacity for human error in each new advancement, successfully reducing our own ability to hinder progress—and our ability to work within it as well. One could argue this is not far off from efforts towards minimizing human error throughout ancient history. Developments of secular sciences, philosophy, and social reform often incorporated similar goals to progress, yet they were all driven by humans attempting to improve their own kind. What happens if reach a point where we no longer hold agency in our own societal progression? Does erasing our potential for error diminish the value of the art we create? Can we discount the value that AI may provide to humans that were never truly given a stake in the playing field towards progress? It may be impossible to predict, yet it remains a necessity to be considered as lines between virtual worlds and reality blur.Item Open Access Cover Art: “aλλος”(University of Oregon, 2024) Black, Oliviaaλλος is a part of the Greek root word for "allergy." aλλος, meaning "other," has held significant meaning for me growing up with a severe allergy to milk. This illustration depicts me as a child during allergy testing. I feel this drawing is representative of the spirit of undergraduate academic endeavors because it represents overcoming the challenges of our past and working them into our identities of the future.Item Open Access Childcare in the Free Market Society of F. A. Hayek(University of Oregon, 2024) Bernard, MyraAs free market structures increasingly dominate contemporary life, it is important to examine their influence on social structures as well as economic ones. Seeking to answer questions such as How do market forces interact with social functions like caretaking and interpersonal connection? and Are the values defining social and economic life compatible, or rather, at odds? this paper discusses the limitations of the prolific economic and political theorist F.A. Hayek's argument for a free market economy as the most effective tool in organizing and maintaining a functional society. In a case study of the act of childcare, I argue that a market framework fails to support key elements of social life necessary to a flourishing society, such as relationality and caretaking roles. In demonstrating the market's fundamental incompatibility with the role of childcare through (1) the market’s inability to appropriately evaluate the worth of childcare and (2) care labor's incongruity with market incentives, I argue that Hayek’s epistemological argument defending the free market as the most effective means of social and economic coordination is erred. Instead, a recognition of and deference towards the influence of social values within economic life is necessary in advancing an equitable society that recognizes and adequately supports the endeavor of childcare.Item Open Access Journal Editorial: "On Libraries Supporting Undergraduate Research"(University of Oregon, 2024) Vieger, RayneIn an unexpected way, the challenge of learning how to do undergraduate research is what led me to a career in libraries. As a freshman and first-generation college student, the imposter syndrome was strong; I lacked confidence in my writing and my voice. I was unsure if my ideas had value, and even if I finally talked myself into thinking I had something to say, I didn’t know how to go about finding the “right” sources or evaluating their veracity. Luckily, I had friends who worked in the library, and early on, it became part of my life on campus.Item Open Access Predicting Explore-Exploit Behavior from Personality Traits(University of Oregon, 2024) Nashawi, LynnThe explore/exploit trade-off theorizes that individuals learn and make decisions in two different ways. Exploration entails trying new approaches that one is unsure about in order to gain new information. Exploration can be further divided into two subsections: random and directed exploration—choosing randomly when the total uncertainty is high, and choosing the most uncertain option, respectively. Exploitation involves utilizing what one already knows in order to achieve an expected result. Recent research (i.e., Gershman 2018) has demonstrated that different individuals might employ either exploration or exploitation in novel environments, but whether different personality traits influence the strategy that is used is a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In the present study, we asked 67 participants to complete a choice-based, point-scoring computer task. We instructed participants to collect as many points (in the form of numerical value feedback) as they could by selecting among four options, some of which offered a steady stream of points, and others which were more randomized. Participants also completed an abridged form of the Big Five personality questionnaire. We hypothesized that negative emotionality would correlate negatively with directed exploration, that open-mindedness would correlate positively with both measures of exploration, and that impulsivity would correlate positively with random exploration. We did not find support for any of the three hypotheses; rather, the opposite occurred in negative emotionality and directed exploration (p = 0.018, r = 0.29). These findings can be applied in various fields of research, as they demonstrate variation in types of learning and decision-making styles across different settings.Item Open Access Meet the Editorial Board(University of Oregon, 2024)Item Open Access Being Bosnian: The Means and Ends of Territoriality and the Genocide of Bosniaks in the Fromer Yugoslavia(University of Oregon, 2024) Petrik, CharlesThe “Bosnian Civil War” (1992–1996) was a conflict that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks. In the vacuum left by the fall of Communism, religious identification across space opened doors for various populist leaders to campaign for a newly defined Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the 1990 election results, which left a majority Bosniak coalition in power, led to the swift aggression of Orthodox Serbian and Croatian nationalists from the east and west, respectively. This research employs a spatial lens to deeply examine what fueled the genocidal campaigns that ensued, identifying how culture, religion, and history were symbolically challenged through the systematic redefinition of territory. Ultimately, nationalist influences from Croatian and Serbian political spheres played off fears of rising challenges to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s nationhood in the political vacuum post-Communism, resulting in violence and the systematic destruction of spatial identity. Though eventually thwarted by NATO intervention, the mark of this genocide scars the former Yugoslavia’s geopolitical landscape today, providing a brutal example of how redefinitions of space and place can begin and sustain a conflict—and how historical grievances, differences in religious and national identity, and a lack of individualism across territory can be exploited for personal geopolitical ambitions. There exists much scholarship on the Bosnian War, especially in the realm of international intervention; however, this article seeks to provide a novel historical analysis of the conflict by examining how conceptions of territory and those making place within it were reframed for geopolitical purposes before and during the genocide.Item Open Access Art Feature: "Portals for Everyday People"(University of Oregon, 2024) Bisheimer, ElleThis photo series illustrates the power of captivating, freeform imagery that can spawn organically in our surroundings. The unique movement of black lines in the images result from the natural composition of the environment as it was; the branches hang above the water, the petals glide upon the pond's surface, the light reflects these forms as the water swirls. The images serve as a glimpse at mystical beauty of ordinary environmental conditions and cycles. Such otherworldly scenes will continue to create themselves without any spectators or interference. However, these portals remain unhidden, and their presence is abundant - we only need make a choice to search earnestly to experience the magic in full.Item Open Access Letter from the Editors(University of Oregon, 2024) Taylor, Jay; Schmitt, KylaIt is our pleasure to present Volume 22, Issue 1 of the Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal (OURJ) this spring of 2024. This issue showcases the best undergraduate scholarship we have encountered during the 2023–2024 academic year. Strikingly, these articles share a common theme: a focus on the future. Fittingly, we OURJ staffers are now also looking towards the future—the future of our publications, involvement with scholars, and research at the University of Oregon.