A new opportunity has arrived at the University of Oregon for PhD candidates applying to the UO and those already accepted. An award provided by the Advancing Science in America Foundation (ARCS) will give recipients a $6,000 stipend each year for three years.

Three awards will be given to PhD candidates in the biology and chemistry department, said Darren Johnson, a UO chemistry professor. The goal is to recruit promising students to the university.

PhD students enrolled at the UO for less than a year will also be eligible for the award. The idea is to reward students who have made great strides and showed exceptional progress in their research.

The money is given in addition to any other scholarships PhD student receives from the university. The money can be used for anything the student wishes and doesn’t have to be strictly for academic use, explained Bruce Bowerman, the head of UO’s biology department.

The funds can be used to purchase food, go on business trips or anything else the student desires.

ARCS, according to its website, is a group of philanthropists who wish to promote science research by donating funds to academic scholars.

The group of over 100 donors has given more than 150 scholarship awards, amounting to a total of $2.5 million awarded. The Portland chapter of ARCS is one of 17 across the nation and was established in 2004. The Portland chapter, in addition to UO, has partnered with Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon State University.

The reasoning behind allowing the money to be used outside of educational purposes is that it will support the students and their academic pursuits, rather than just the school, Kara Sherman, a graduate student in chemistry, said.

While the money can be a great way for the university to attract exceptional PhD students, Sherman argues that it is the networking opportunity that ARCS provides which is far more valuable.

“Having the ability to connect with people like in ARCS is essential to building your career,” Sherman said.

ARCS holds an event once a year for each school it sponsors. Students who received the award are allowed to share their research, giving students who study vastly different subjects an opportunity to meet others with an interest in their research and the promotion of science. Johnson jokingly refers to them as “science spectators,” as they may not have a science background but are interested in the field.

While the program is currently only available in two departments at the UO, there is the potential to expand to other science-related departments, said Johnson.

The criteria for the reward is currently under work. The biology and chemistry department will begin to give out the awards starting fall term of 2015.

“This is a fantastic new partnership,” Johnson said.

Reading through a textbook is a chore for many students at the University of Oregon. Yet as time consuming as reading may be, it is an easy and simple task for most to complete.

But for students who have a disability such as ADHD, dyslexia or blindness, the task of reading a book can be challenging or nearly impossible. That’s where the Accessible Education Center (AEC) comes in.

The AEC’s Accessible Technology Program (ATP) is a resource at the UO that takes textbooks and translates them into a more accessible form for students to read, James Bailey, the Associate Director of the program, explained.

The program can help students in variety of ways, depending on their circumstances. Most students send in their books to be converted into PDFs. When this happens, the spines of the books are chopped off and the pages are sent through a scanner that uploads the pages to a computer, Tallen Lamoreaux, who works at the program, said. The pages are eventually rebound and returned to the students.

The PDFs can be highlighted or put through a program that reads the text out loud. This software can then be put onto a student’s  personal computer. There are some programs that can even read out loud whatever the cursors moves over or whenever a button is pressed, Bailey said.

ATP helps around 30 students a term, alternative tech specialist JT Archuleta said. The program is heavily used at the start of each term when students obtain new books. There are some instances though where a book has already been scanned through the program in the past and students are just given the files online.

“I believe in the work I do. I feel like I do something meaningful for students,” Archuleta said.

Before a student may utilize ATP, they first must get a referral from the AEC. A lot of times a student will hear of the program and go directly to ATP, Bailey said. They are turned away and asked to follow the proper protocols first before they can use the program.

A large number of students who use the program are in their junior or senior year, Archuleta said. Many of them didn’t know of the program until later in their college years or thought that their disability was minor enough that they didn’t need assistance.

“There’s a lot more resources that our school has for these students than we’d think,” Archuleta said.

Archuleta assists two blind students on campus, while Lamoreaux helps people with other, less severe disabilities. The program possesses a machine which can scan text and turn it into braille, Bailey said. While the over 20-year-old Embosser is not as heavily used as it once was, with text to audio devices becoming more prevalent, they are nonetheless still used.

Bailey hopes CD-ROM options for textbooks will become more common and advocates for websites to become more accessible to those with disabilities.

“The goal is the access of technology for people with disabilities is exactly the same as people without disabilities. And when that day comes, I will no longer be needed,” Bailey said.

For more information on the program and how to utilize it, please visit the AEC’s website.

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Alex Akerberg places a specimen gently onto the operating table. The subject has been under for some time, and won’t feel anything as he begins his work. Akerberg grabs his instrument and carefully slices through skin and muscle.

The chest cavity is now open.  It’s time for the real experiment to begin. A simple cut is all it takes to remove precisely 20 percent of the subject’s heart. No more, no less.

The organism would have died almost immediately if it were human. But the Zebrafish has a special ability that allows it to regenerate almost any part of its body. Once the heart has been sliced, the blood clots instantly.  The Zebrafish spends the next few weeks loafing around. After a month, the heart is completely healed and the fish is back to full health.

From bones to fins, this organism is one of the few that can completely heal without leaving any scar tissue. A human heart could repair itself if damaged, but would leave behind scare tissue that would potentially cause health problems, Akerberg said.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could somehow transfer the zebrafish’s ability into humans? Heart diseases would be a thing of the past. But there’s only one problem, we have no idea how the regeneration works. The answer to this mystery is what this UO student has decided to uncover.

“If you want to cure heart disease, then what better mechanism to study than to find someone who can already do it,” Akerberg said.

As Ph.D student at the University of Oregon, Akerberg studies heart regeneration and its development at the Stankunas Lab. He is trying to figure out which genes control the heart developmental process and regulate the zebrafishes’ regeneration.

Unlike mammals, the zebrafish lays eggs where the embryos are seen through, explained Akerberg. This allows for researchers to observe how the heart develops. In addition, scientists are able to put a gene found in jellyfish into the zebrafish that makes it so that the heart glows.  This makes it even easier to observe.

“Who wouldn’t want to chop off a heart and watch it re-grow, especially if it’s florescent,” Akerberg said.

Akerberg has been looking into the gene KDM6BB. He theorizes that it could regulate other genes which instigate the regeneration process.

“I think it’s a master regulator of the regeneration process,” Akerberg said.

In order to understand what a gene does, scientists take it out and compare organisms that have the gene to organisms that do not.

Akerberg’s research has shown some indication that the KDM6BB plays a part in heart development in baby zebrafish. His next step is to see how it affects adult zebrafish.

The lab is within the Institute of Molecular Biology and focuses on the study on how cells develop and regenerate, Kryn Stankunas, an associate professor at the UO, said. While no one knows exactly why zebrafish can regenerate, the lab has a hypothesis.

“We think zebra fish are able to regenerate because they can reactivate developmental programs,” Stankunas said.

The lab’s hypothesis goes as so: zebrafish are able to use genes that encode multiple signals that communicate and direct regeneration. They begin to build new cells just like when they first formed, Stankunas explained. While it is unknown which genes play a part in this, Akerberg is attempting to discover the cause.

The majority of the lab focuses on experiments with mice, including Akerberg’s wife who also works at the lab. A few students are studying zebrafish fin regeneration with Akerberg being the only one to study the heart of the problem, literally, Stankunas explained.

The discovery that could end heart diseases may be days or decades away. Akerberg hopes that he gets to be the one who makes the discovery of a lifetime.

“Think what that would do for human heart attacks if we could learn how zebrafish do it and knew how to get humans to do the same,” said John Poslethwait, a UO Professor who received a $2.5 grant to conduct research with zebrafish.

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Lorena Cortes wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to study for her classes at the University of Oregon.

By 7 a.m., Cortes gets herself and her 3-year-old daughter ready for the day. She kisses her husband goodbye and heads to school.

Cortes is a non-traditional student finding it difficult to adjust to life at UO. After taking three years off from school, she returned to her education.

“It was a very hard decision — taking a break and then coming back,” said Cortes.

According to Brian McBeth, co-director of the Non-Traditional Student Union, a non-traditional student is defined as a college student who doesn’t fit in to the concept of a high school graduate immediately seeking higher education.

A non-traditional student can be someone who is a military veteran, is married, has children or has a full-time job.

McBeth said that 12 percent of students receive the UO’s Nontrad newsletter. Justine Carpenter, the director of non-traditional student engagement, explains that this number doesn’t accurately represent how many non-traditional students attend the UO because not all non-traditional students subscribe to the newsletter and several GTF’s also subscribe to it, so that number doesn’t accurately represent how many non-traditional students attend UO.

Carpenter said that the UO does not have an accurate number to represent non-traditional students attending the UO because it doesn’t track this data.

The number of students attending college is on the rise, especially those above 25 years old, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

From 2000 to 2011, students who enrolled in higher educational programs increased by 35 percent for those under the age of 25, and 41 percent for those above the age of 25.

In fact, the number of students above the age of 25 attending college is increasing at a faster rate than those below the age bracket. By 2021, the NCES expects enrollment of students under 25 to rise 13 percent, and increase to 14 percent for those over 25.

The average age of college students is on the rise all across the country said Carpenter.

McBeth explained that the reason for the increase is due to individuals having a hard time finding a permanent position without a college degree.

“We’re moving away from the blue-collar industry to white-collar work,” said McBeth.

The UO offers resources specific to non-traditional students, such as three childcare centers on campus and various scholarships.

According to Cortes, the UO isn’t doing enough to promote these outlets. For Cortes personally, it took seven months to get access to the resources she needed.

After connecting with the woman’s center, Cortes explained that it opened doors for her, such as child care subsidiary.

“As a parent,” Cortes explained, “it’s hard to get access to them, even if you know where they are.”

While she has been able to manage her academic life proficiently, Cortes finds it hard to study and socialize with traditional students who have different schedules.

“One of the things that’s challenging for non-traditional students is to socialize and find each other,” Carpenter said.

When having class with a non-traditional student, it is important to reach out to them and make sure they feel included. They are dedicated and here to work hard to get a good education, McBeth said.

“Non-traditional students should never be dismissed as uninterested, or not wanting to be involved or not wanting to participate,” said McBeth. “It’s just we have so many things to take care of.”

Non-traditional students seeking more information on resources available to them are encouraged to visit either the Men’s Center, Woman’s Center or Non-Traditional Student Union located at MacArthur Court.

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One of  the University of Oregon’s most secretive clubs is attempting to become an official ASUO student organization. The UO Security Club (UOSec) is a computer based group that focuses on cyber security.

Unofficially founded by UO student Joe Pletcher, in its early days the group was what you’d call an “elitist” club, explained Adam Pond, the club’s leader. Because the group wasn’t registered in the University’s club list, news of the group was only spread by word of mouth.

Anders “Ders” Stadum, a co-leader in the group, jokes how the cyber security club was so difficult to find that it was also a physical security club.

UOSec focuses on teaching its members how to protect their computers against hackers and virus attacks. Instead of using tactics that one would learn in a class at the university, the group utilizes “offensive security,” Pond said.

Meetings involve instructing students on how to personally set up computer systems and then figure out how to break it, Pond stated.

“The best way to learn to prevent these types of offensive security vulnerabilities (in computers) is to figure out how to break them,” Pond said.

Along with their weekly meetings, UOSec also competes in security tournaments, Stadum explained. Known as CTF (Capture the Flag) tournaments, these events involve teams attempting to hack into their opponent’s computer, along with many other programing and puzzle solving trials.

The team has competed in CTFs such as Ghost in the Shellcode in the past and more recently participated in HackIM on January 11. The team placed 100^th out of 378 teams. A bus ride to the event for the group was funded by the Computer and Information department, according to Frank “The Tank” Arana, another co-leader in the club.

The majority of the group’s members come from a class titled CIS 433: Computer & Network Security, said Stadum. Professor Jun Li requires his students attend the groups meetings for class credit.

In order to become officially recognized, the group needs to meet at least twice a month for six months and have a minimum of five people present. Documentation of these events must be created and sent to ASUO in order to prove that the group has a consistent membership base. This is to show that the student group won’t simply fall apart shortly after its creation, according to a past article from The Emerald.

As of 2014, the article says that there are 183 student organizations on campus with 120 receiving funding from ASUO. Approximately 15-20 applications for new groups are received each year with only 5-10 are accepted and made an official club by ASUO.

UOSec in the past has struggled to maintain its membership, Pond said. When a former club leader graduated and the teacher adviser for the club at the time transferred schools, the group membership took a hit.

Pond helped rebuild the club and made it what it was today. Pond explained it as the club “rising like the phoenix.” With the help of Pond and his associates, the club became more user-friendly and easier to find. The new leadership is now more open to helping people who are new and wish to build them to an elite level.

Pond wishes for the club to “be a tool who can help people get into the security industry.”

The volunteer-based student group has had several members in the past be recruited to work for security companies. Stadum explained that UOSec is currently on the list of many recruiters for the tech industry and that it isn’t too uncommon to see one of their members be hired straight out of school.

UOSec hopes to become an official club by the end of the 2015 winter term. With all of the club leaders being seniors and graduating soon, the group may face a similar situation of mass membership loss that occurred in the past. But as the group has had to rebuild in the past, the club is determined to grow and become a legitimate ASUO student originization in the future.

Those wishing to learn more about the group can attend one of its meetings held every Thursday at six p.m. in the Colloquium room in Deschutes Hall. In addition, the club’s contact information can be found on its website.

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Interim President Scott Coltrane and Adriene Lim, the dean of libraries, spoke about the release of 22,000 leaked documents to University of Oregon professor Bill Harbaugh.

Coltrane said that the documents released did not go through the UO’s usual procedures and that the matter is still under investigation.

The documents spanned four years, Coltrane said, and include various items such as thank you notes and hand written documents.

The president said that the documents have been returned but refused to name the recipient. That’s when Bill Harbaugh, an economics professor and author of the UO Matters blog, piped up and claimed that he was the person in question.

Harbaugh did not say why he returned the documents.

He also said that the issue wasn’t how the documents were released, but that they were missing some key components. Emails were included in the files, but attachments were missing.

The Q&A portion of the meeting ended with Harbaugh stating that communication between university administrators and the school’s legal counsel should be public records.

“Will you wave your attorney document privileges so this one professor can sleep at night?” Harbaugh said to Coltrane during the meeting.

The UO president answered with a “yes” to light applause.

While one of the documents Harbaugh wished to see will be made public, the fate of other legal memos is unknown.

Weight loss can be difficult for some, but a team of researchers at the University of Oregon are working on a way to make it easier. Project SMASH (Semantic Mining of Activity, Social, and Health data) was initiated to look into how social networking plays a role with exercise.

The study involved 254 overweight individuals, according to Dejing Dou, an associate professor for the computer sciences dept. and principal investigator for SMASH. The test subjects were divided into three groups:  influencers, influenced users, and non-influenced users.

The influencers were tasked with messaging and socializing online with the influenced users. The last group was left as a control, according to NhatHai Phan, a research associate who worked on the project.

All participants, Dou explained, were given a sensor that tracked their physical activity for 10 months by a team from PeaceHealth Laboratories and SKTA, SK Telecom Americans, in 2010-2011.

“[The] whole project was designed to help overweight people exercise more,” said Dou.

The study showed a difference between those who were being constantly engaged on social networks and those who were not, Dou described. The  average BMI and cholesterol dropped the most for those who were being messaged and contacted in the influenced user group by those involved with the influencer group.

“Social networks have great potential to propagate physical activities,” said Phan.

A SMASH presentation led by Phan on the recent results of the study was held in a colloquium talking Deschutes hall at 3:30 p.m. on January 22, where the speaker addressed a crowd of around 20 people.

“What we try to show is that our work is valuable,” stated Dou.

The presentation discussed how obesity is a major problem in the United States, saying in 20 states, 30% or more of the population is overweight. Phan also said medical treatment for obesity cost the U.S $147 billion in 2008.

The project was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), as stated on SMASH’s website. The NIGMS awarded the research team with $1.54 million over a three year period.

SMASH’s three year study will be wrapping up in 2016, where their results will be published in journals and conference proceedings. SMASH plans on conducting further studies into social networks on weight loss in the future, Dou said.

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Class120 is a new app that monitors if a college student is in class. When a student misses a class, a message will be sent to their parents’ phones notifying them of the absence.

The service launched on Jan. 20 and works by having students upload their class schedule onto the program’s site. An app on the student’s phone tracks if you are in the proper location for your class, according to Class120’s website.

For the basic package, students can pay either $17.99 a month or $199 a year for the product. While notifications are sent to the parent, there is an option to message the student only.

“Class attendance, more than how much you study or how well you study, determines how well a student will do,” said Jeff Whorley, the Founder and CEO of Core Principle, who created Class120.

Whorley came up with the concept for Class120 after speaking to a college professor four years ago about how to improve graduation rates. The professor explained that the students with the highest graduation rates were those who were student athletes.

The student athletes at this particular school had their absences reported to the athletics department.

Graduation rates for Division I scholarship athletes for a four year college degree is 84%-88% while being around 50% for everyone else, according to Whorley.

“About 50% of all freshmen that begin do not have a degree in four years. That’s a real problem,” Whorley said.

While some university athletic departments track athletes’ attendance, the UO’s athletics department does not, according to Steve Stolp, the executive director of the services for student athletes department at the UO.

Stolp said the father in him would like such a service to track his kids. But in reality, he believes that advances in social media could allow him to track down whoever he wanted without paying for Class120.

“So, maybe an attendance app as a goal setting tool would be useful,” said Stolp. “But I’m not terribly interested (in) prison ankle bracelets for college students, if you know what I mean.”

College students who are being supported by their families “feel like it’s a fair agreement with their parents,” said Whorley, and the service is “not intended to disrupt a fun college life.”

Some students at the UO think that the service is unnecessary, such as freshman Jesse Blakely.

“I think it would be kind of redundant to send (notifications) to yourself,” Blakely said, “and to send it to your parent is ridiculous.”

Core Principle plans on creating new products and wishes to have universities adopt Class120 as they expand their business. The company is currently working with an unnamed school to fully adopt the program, which will be announced in the fall, according to Rick Lewis, a marketing specialist working for the firm that promotes the product.

“For parents who are paying thousands of dollars a year, we think they have the right to know if a student is in class,” said Lewis.

Those wishing to learn more about the service or how to purchase it can go online to www.class120.com.

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An article published by National Geographic highlights research conducted at the University of Oregon. The article titled Baby Brains focuses on child brain development and goes in depth about a program created by UO’s Brain Development Lab.

According to National Geographic’s website the article was published in January and has since gained over 57,000 likes on Facebook and has been shared 1,000 times on Twitter.

The Lab’s program obtains family volunteers who are enrolled in the U.S government program, Head Start, which provides low-income families with assistance in preschool education.

Children are taught methods on how to deal with positive and negative emotions. The participants practice attention and emotional self-regulation skills which improve their overall learning capabilities, an article on the UO’s website stated.

The lab is led by Helen Neville, a psychology professor at UO. Neville was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007 and currently serves on the board of governors of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, according to the UO’s website.

Neville said that being published in National Geographic was “a dream come true,” but goes on to describe how the magazine didn’t mention her studies on brain functions and says, “Parenthetically, I was disappointed.”

“I don’t think the National Geographic article even outlined much about the process,” said Scott Klein, research assistant at the Brain Development Lab.

“The Brain Development Lab has conducted research on the neuroplasticity of the brain and examines how environmental factors can affect its development,” Neville said. “The researchers at the lab are very enthusiastic about their work, as it has direct applications towards people and is more tangible than other kinds of studies,” said Eric Pakulak, a research associate with the Brain Development Lab.

“It’s kind of what we all live and breathe, so you kind of have to be passionate about it or you’re in the wrong place,” stated Pakulak.

The lab recently obtained a machine that measures quantified stress. Neville hopes that she will one day be able to combine it with other data collecting methods, such as DNA testing and MRI scans, to get a better understanding of neuroplasticity in the brain.

A DVD  titled, Changing Brains: Effects of Experience on Human Brain Development, was made by the lab to outline its program. The lab decided to produce a video rather than a book about the program to make it more practical for people to use, Neville described.

In the future Neville plans to expand the program to other countries, such as Cuba, Colombia, Sadia Arabia and Argentina with funding from a grant her lab is currently working on obtaining.

“It’s gonna go viral, it is going viral,” Neville said.

Those looking to get involved in the program can visit the website changingbrains.org for more information.

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A woman was drugged and sexually assaulted on UO’s campus on the night of Jan. 17. She is not affiliated with the university.

Campus was notified of this incident Wednesday evening in a campus crime alert e-mail.

According to the email, the crime took place at a private social gathering in Watson Hall, a section of Hamilton Complex. A person attempted to drug the woman by injesting a substance. Attempting to make a person consume any substance without their consent is considered aggravated assault, which is a felony crime, according to the e-mail.

Kelly McIver, communications director for the UOPD, said that there is no further information for this case and an investigation is currently underway. Anyone with information relating to the crime should call UOPD Detective Sergeant Kathy Flynn at 541-346-9694.