Today I spent a few hours with Mr. Ed Timberlake, a trademark and copyright consultant for Sotomayor Inc. Mr. Timberlake and I talked about what a Trademark and Copyright attorney does and what their impacts are. We met in RTP at “The Frontier” where Mr. Timberlake works. We started talking about the differences between a patent lawyer and a trademark lawyer, and why they are both important, but do different things. He told me there is a common misconception when referring to the USPTO; those who work in patents are different than those who work in trademarks. They fall under the association of “USPTO”, but function as two separate entities. He previously worked in D.C., much like Mr. Sotomayor, and he worked as an examiner for the USPTO. We discussed what a trademark actually is, and what it functions as. I learned so much more about IP law from Mr. Timberlake and I am excited to learn even more tomorrow!
Tag: Day 2
Day 2
Today, we attended the daily development team stand-up meeting again, as we did yesterday and will each day of the coming weeks. After the stand-up, which is used to check in on progress and set-backs, a more long-form sit-down development meeting took place that Milen and I also attended in order to get a better feel for how the development team works through creating new features and fixing existing bugs in a timely manner. Rachel then showed us the various websites and programs that the development team use to track their progress through the current “sprint” (a two-week period of planned development), through individual issues and features called “stories” which make up groups called “epics.” Another website Rachel showed us was used for tracking customer reports of bugs as well as suggestions for potential new features. All this planning is necessary to keep the team on task and on schedule with their fixes and new content in order to keep customer’s forms all working correctly and keep customers interested in staying in business with Field2Base. Milen and I then learned how to use Field2Base’s DIM (Data Integration Module) software, which is used for companies to import their form data into the various departments that would use that data, such as sending financial information to an accounting department or names into a database. After lunch, we talked to the product manager Brendan about the suite of products offered and how customers use them to optimize their systems. Brendan also talked to us about he company’s website and all its offerings.
Day Two
Surprisingly, I was more tired than I thought trying to wake up for my second day at FHI 360. I thought that getting up at 8am every day would be a lot better than getting up at 6:30am to go to school, but boy I was mistaken. It’s still just as difficult, let me tell you.
Day two at FHI 360 was beginning to feel a lot more like a real job and a lot less of the stupor of being the “new kids on the block”. We had received a few projects to work on for the duration of our time here, and today we received an introduction to a more long term project we’d be working on. Celia told us about a conference that they had led in which they encouraged teams to utilize social media or other forms of technology in order to assist women in choosing methods of contraception that work best for them. We were to do the same thing. After some time brainstorming, we developed a Tinder-esque idea that would allow the user to swipe up, down, or remain the same in order to express their opinion on a bevy of side effects that contraceptive methods may have. The idea is that after a few rounds of this, an algorithm would be able to provide the user their “match”. It’s still in development though, but I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it goes. I’m excited to be working and helping out over here!
See you tomorrow,
Caroline
Day 2- Probation, DWI, & “The Quick Dip”
My second day at the courthouse, Judge Davidian told me to meet him on the 10th floor. Judges offices are located on the 10th floor, along with their secretaries. I was introduced to Robin, and I was told to contact her if I ever needed anything. Shortly thereafter, a girl around my age walked in. I thought she was another intern, but she ended up being the daughter of a judge who worked in the justice center. After that, I was directed to courtroom 304 with Judge Meyer to observe Probation Violations. Because most of the probation violation hearings revolve around monies owed, the courtroom moves incredibly fast. So, instead of attempting to call 50 different public defenders in to court on a certain day, they assign an Attorney of the Day from the Public Defender’s Office. Though this title seems meritorious, it is quite deceiving. Attorney of the Day involves reading all of the cases of violation and negotiating with the District Attorney, which is often challenging and tiring. Through this process, many people get their fees waived. In the rare case where the violation involved prohibited substances, the defendant may be arrested in the courtroom and taken to the jail to serve their sentence. In some cases, long term confinement would be illegal. Pursuant to G.S. 15A-1343(a1)(3), the probation officer can mandate a “quick dip” in jail for a few days a month, just to remind the criminal of what they could have experianced.
Most people admitted to a willful violation of their probation, so there were not many trials with testimony and the traditional proceedings. From there, most of the work was on the back end, and the clerks were swamped with paperwork. One of the clerks told me that the legislature had recently mandated additional forms to be filled out for PV’s, which bogged down the process. The paperwork mostly involved confirming the validity of the negotiations between the defense, the state, and the probation officer.
About halfway through the morning session, Judge Meyer introduced me to his daughter, the girl I had seen earlier. “This is my daughter,” he said. “Talk to her about Law School and what it’s like; she’s a rising freshman.” After informing Judge Meyer that I was, indeed, in High School, we both sat back and watched the trials.
I noticed almost immediately that there were way more teenagers in this courtroom than there were in First Appearances yesterday. That actually made me happy because it showed that the District Attorney had used his prosecutorial discretion and tried to get teenagers on probation instead of having them serve out their sentence. On top of that, most of the people in the room seemed like good people. Judge Meyer motivated people to continue their treatment and to get help. It seemed like he genuinely cared about them, and wanted them to stay out of trouble.
We moved through the docket quickly today, and so the bailiffs in the room let me go into the lockup area. The Justice Center has three sets of elevators: one for the public, one for staff, and one for prisoners. The one for prisoners comes up between the courtrooms, and opens to a sort of mini-jail that can hold up to 5 people at once. It looked like what I had expected it to look like – concrete slabs and metal – but it was cool nevertheless.
In the afternoon, I was assigned to DWI Trials in room 204. Most of the people convicted enacted plea deals, where they could plead guilty to the crime and possibly receive a lighter sentence. After people were found guilty, the Judge would ask each party for aggravating and mitigating factors. Aggravating factors are anything that would prompt a longer sentence, such as a BAC above .15. Mitigating factors are anything that would prompt a shorter sentence, like turning one’s self in or being cooperative with the police. 
Day 2
At the beginning of the day I was curious as to what the HR department does. I knew it had something to do with firing and hiring but I didn’t really know the specifics. George and I started off the day meeting with Bethany LeClair, who is the head of University Recruitment at SAS. She basically explained what HR is, what her role is, why she enjoys it, and how she incorporates younger people into the SAS community. After our meeting with her we were introduced to Laura Allen who would be hosting us for the day. We also met her close colleague and friend Kristin Strickland. Both of these young ladies just recently graduated from NC State and Kristin is on her way to becoming a full time employee after interning for a year. George and I stuck with Laura and Kristen throughout most of the day so I would say they co-hosted us. Having both recently graduated, they had lots of advice and information for us not only regarding SAS, but also college in general. Next we met Christie Doughtery, the Pro Recruiter who told us about her job and what she does. One of the most interesting parts of the day for me was meeting Leanne Logue who is an HR partner who deals with elevated situations. She had many interesting stories and had work experience at many places including Amazon. She talked about how she keeps like at work separate from life at home and why she enjoys resolving issues among others. Next was lunch time! We all had lunch with Juli Cox and Anne Mazza who are both close colleagues of Laura. After lunch we met Laura’s boss who introduced some programs to us and showed us around the SAS website. She talked about how analytics are beginning to be incorporated into the HR department. The last stop of the day was at the café downstairs with a male employee who gave us detailed insight into his career path and how he ended up at SAS. He also gave us tips about college and wanted to hear from us as much as we wanted to hear from him. I can’t wait for corporate creative tomorrow!
DAY 2
I began the day to day by learning that I would be going to a meeting with some of the physicians this afternoon. Though I was a bit apprehensive, I was also excited to see what goes on in true, professional meetings. I moved on to the next step of the Basic Revenue Cycle and started learning about payments and the way that medical bills are sent back from insurance companies. These payments, along with the procedures and patients, come back in a bundle of sorts called an EOB, which stands for Explanation of Benefits. I learned all about what an EOB is and the ways in which insurance companies return them for their patients. Though it was a little bit daunting to see all the names of patients and all the procedures they’d had done, I found this process to be one of the most fascinating so far, as entering the payments and checking the EOB’s is such an in-depth process.
Suddenly, it was 2pm, and I was told it was time to head to the hospital for the meeting. My stomach clenched, as I knew I would be in a room with some very important people making some very important decisions, but I was also incredibly excited. Though I can’t really talk about what was discussed in the meeting, it was intriguing to see the way that meetings at this level are run. Everyone seemed to do a great job handling crises and crunching numbers in rapid-fire fashion. There was a lot going on at once, so it was a bit difficult for me to keep up. However, I still was able to pick up on some things and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Two hours later, it was finally over.
I’m feeling pretty tired as I write this, but I’m excited for tomorrow!
Day 2
Today the plans for Nashville were discussed. I am going to go to Nashville to talk to an alumni from Cary Academy who is a producer and went to Belmont. Jake Mansfield has agreed to be a mentor for me while I am there. He has lots of connection in Nashville so I am excited to work with him. I cannot work with him during the dates of DT so I will be traveling to Nashville with my mom after school is over for a couple days. I should be going to Nashville on the 19th of June and staying for a couple day. The reason he cannot work with me during the dates of DT is because he is busy touring. We haven’t discussed what he will be teaching my while I am there but those discussions should be held in the future. I am excited to have to opportunity to go to Nashville and I am lucky to have the opportunity altogether. I am looking forward to the rest of the week as well as next week and traveling to Nashville.
Day 2-RTI
My second day at RTI gave me more of a taste of what a real world job in chemistry is like, rather than just the introduction from the first day. In the morning, I sat in on a conference call with Dr. Rothrock. Some of her team was in Washington DC, and experts and leaders in HIV prevention from NIH, USAID, the Gates Foundation and more participated in the conference call. After some initial struggles with technology, we listened to Dr. Rothrock’s core team that is working on HiP, the HIV prevention implant for women in Africa describe their progress in the last year. There were several tasks, with a different team working on each. The first task was finding an effective drug to put inside the delivery device. There have been many HIV prevention medications already developed that are incredibly effective, but some have properties that make them difficult to use in an implant, such as their solubility in water. The second task was to perform animal studies using the implant, which is an ongoing process. We learned that although the studies started in rats, they have moved to using large rabbits, as they can test their blood more often for concentrations of the drugs. The final task that we learned about was the clinical studies. As there is a lot of stigma around taking pills or any HIV prevention medication in many villages in Africa, it is important for researchers to figure out what women will actually use, as the efficacy of the medication and device are irrelevant if they are not being used. One concern expressed by women in villages that surprised everyone on the team was the fear about “thugs” taking the devices from their arm, or wherever they are implanted. Many women shared stories they had heard about devices being ripped from women’s arms, and the thugs would try to smoke them, as they thought it contained traditional “drugs”. There were surveys conducted to the women about the length of time the device would last, biodegradable vs. removable, and flexibility to determine what would be the most popular in villages.
In the afternoon, Kiera and I observed some lab work that was directly related to the HiP project. It was really cool to see the intersection between the business side of science that we had seen in the morning, and the bench science that made the business possible. We watched a biochemist, Dr. Natalie Giourard, measure the concentrations of the drug in viles, which was done to mimic the simultaneous animal study, so that the scientists could predict what they would see in the blood tests of the rabbits. While it sounded simple to record concentrations of just 22 test tube samples, it was quite a tedious process. The devices, which are made out of either polymer film or an extruded polymer tube and filled with either sesame or canola oil, have a semi-permeable membrane that is supposed to release controlled, linear amounts of the drug over time and must be kept sterile. Working under a sterile hood and with disinfected gloves, Dr. Giourard pipetted a fresh salt solution made to mimic the body into 22 new test tubes, and transferred the device from their current test tubes to the fresh ones. She then used a spectrometer to measure the concentrations in each previous vile. Overall, the second day was less interesting than the first, but it was really neat to experience what an actual chemistry job is like on a daily basis.
Wednesday (Day 2)
Last night, NCFC of the NASL (North American Soccer League) played the Charlotte Independence of the USL (United Soccer League) in The US Open Cup. The NASL is the established second division in the US, and though the USL is not technically recognized as lower than the NASL, it is generally understood that the USL is the third division of US Soccer, The US Open Cup is a tournament that includes all 3 major professional soccer leagues in the US; The MLS, The NASL, and the USL. After NCFC thoroughly their local rivals 4-1, I interviewed 2 NCFC fans about NCFC’s bid to become an MLS expansion team (aka moving up into the first division). Both fans asked that only their first names be used. I asked David, in the NCFC Supporters Section, if he was pleased with the direction of the club under its new owner, Steve Malik.
“Yes, I would say so. I’ve actually met the bloke, and he’s a really nice guy. He also really understands the scope of football in this area, and understands how to properly market a club. The new name is a bit boring, but its a lot better than ‘The Carolina Railhawks’. First of all, what in the hell a Railhawk? Who came up with that? Second, its sensible, considering South Carolina’s bid, that he specified that we are a North Carolina club, not just Carolina, like all the sports teams in NC. I’ve lived here for almost 20 years, and I still don’t understand why the Panthers and that red hockey team are just ‘Carolina’ teams. They are both based here in North Carolina, which is a totally different state from South Carolina. Its stupid. And now that he’s specified North Carolina, the MLS can’t [mess] us around and put the expansion club in South Carolina because of that ridiculous bathroom bill, or whatever reason.” said David.
I asked Jaeda (not sure if I’ve spelled that correctly, I lost the sticky note she wrote it on) in the North Stand if she thought NCFC would become an MLS team in the next 5 years, or ever.
“Oh yeah! Hell yeah! We are build this place[Wake Med Soccer Park] into a Sounders’ [Seattle Sounders of the MLS] type Stadium! And we are gonna tear it up, just like Atlanta are! Raleigh is blue and gold, baby!” said Jaeda, before begginning to heckle some Charlotte fans. 
Day 2 – Every Day, the Mystery Continues
On my second day at the Museum, I ran into some difficulties. My Arduino project that I had been working on required an LCD screen; a part that the museum did not have. I decided to put that task on hold, in favor of a project that would be able to be completed even if I didn’t have all the parts. The lab I’m working in has a 3D printer, and I was offered the usage of it, provided that I could create my own original designs, formatted and properly uploaded to the printer. I took the challenge, and spent the majority of the day using a program called Sculptris to mold, shape, and paint a ball of digital clay, that then I could export and upload to the 3D printing and modeling software, where it could be sent to the printer. One specific great story from my second day cam in my interactions with some of the kids that visit the lab. One young boy, maybe around 3rd or 4th grade, looked over my shoulder on my computor as I was designing one particularly hideous alien head. He watched silently, so I decided to engage him, as I was at an artistic crossroads. “You like aliens?” I asked. “Yea” he replied. “What do you think of this one” I asked with baited breath. “Cool. Needs more eyes” he responded. I made the edits right then and there, and showed it to him again. “Good enough?” I eagerly questioned. “Ehh. Sure” He finally responded.
After many hours, and many failed designs, I finally created something worth printing; a replica of the head of Zoidberg, a character from the popular show “Futurama.” I painted the head digitally, and all that’s left to do is upload it to the rendering software. I learned a lot about digital creation today, and I think that the skills that I got will be applicable to the future.