Day 5

Laber Labs: Day 5

Today’s workday was also over a Zoom meeting. We learned how to make a regression model using R, a programming language that specializes in statistical computing! We brainstormed ideas for making a model of data, using patients as an example. One way would be to plot the x and y points and find the line of best fit and create a mathematical formula/function y = f(x), and another way would be to find similar patients and utilize their already-existing data and formulas.

In the afternoon, we listened to Jesse Clifton, a Ph.D. statistics student at NC State University, talk about the morals and ethics of using artificial intelligence. First we were introduced to recent significant breakthroughs in AI, such as AlphaZero (an AI that plays chess, shogi, and go) and GPT3 (an AI that translates a text input into code). We learned about the risks of using artificial intelligence, such as fairness and reducing bias, catastrophic outcomes due to caring/prioritizing about the wrong thing, disempowering humans, and getting into conflicts.

Back again today with even smaller group as there is some sickness going around among the kids. Nonetheless, we had a fun filled day where my group merged with the big kids all on the Kindergarten playground for the entire morning. Today, I will comment on the consumption of Mineral water. I have not had a simple bottled water since I arrived. My organs screech in pain. Every time I ask for water, I’m handed a fizzy, bubbling beverage. Or worse, tap water. Even the children are better accustomed than myself. I don’t understand how one could make water complicated yet here we are. They buy it by the cases. I’ve done the math each person in my homestay averages a couple liters of this stuff per day. The cases stack up in a corner in the kitchen. Full cases are soon filled with the empty bottles ready to be returned for the buyback. I don’t know what to think. It’s pretty good though, once I get used to it. I even put a splash in my apple juice. I wish a Dasani 12 pack would’ve made it through security though.

Day 5

Day 5 started with another Teams meeting. In the meeting, I shared with Dr. Summerville the information I found on raw data and for-profit milk banks. For the milk banks, I found two banks under the company Prolacta Bioscience. These banks sell human milk to hospitals and also pay mothers who donate. The company researches and develops human milk-based nutritional products that would not be possible with a non-profit business model. In terms of raw data, I could not find any of the CSV files as all the papers only had tables and graphs which are considered summaries and are too simplified to actually do any data analysis on them. My assignment was to find raw data on the differences of the nutritional value of formula versus human milk. I also needed to find how much the for-profit milk banks make.

Day 5 Game day

Today we did the same stuff we did on opening night except it was less crowded because of the rain

Lenovo, Kaeshev and Leo, Day 5

We finally overcame our problem! With patience, creativity, and perseverance, we got our code to work, which helped us massively simplify our task of going through 20000 reviews. Using this, we were able to categorize them, and filter meaningful comments out, and a report was generated.

Here is our report so far

Department of Health and Human Services- Day 5

Today, I was traveling to DC for a Speech and Debate tournament so I did my work Experience from the car. I was part of a meeting discussing how refugees are factored into North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services’ activities. The guest speaker addressed the mismatch of current resources to current needs, highlighting how the system currently assumes most people who require translators and other resources to overcome a language barrier speak Spanish, simply because there is a large Spanish-speaking population in North Carolina. However, the guest speaker showed us numerous statistics about the disparity between the number of primary Spanish-speakers and the amount of people assigned to them. This overallocation of resources has left other minority populations, specifically refugees from Asian and European countries, lacking the necessary funds to access health resources. The recent influx of these refugees has been on the forefront of the guest speaker’s work and it was very interesting to see her present her research!

Synthesis 2: Enzyme Boogaloo

This morning, Emily and I worked together in a call to combine aspects from both of our models into a single new, seizure-inducing model.

Compared to the original base model we were given, Emily’s model had large pieces of new code that could be easily copied, as opposed to mine which had smaller bits scattered throughout, so we decided to copy her new work into mine. She did have an issue in which the O2 levels would go negative for no apparent reason, but working together, we identified and fixed the issue, which was a small piece of code that had been inserted in the wrong place.

As Emily is now working on separating the lignin from the fungus and putting it in the patches instead, I am now currently working on making the model simulate the flow of water through a filter, and I look forward to Emily completing her work so I may incorporate it as well.

Combining Our Work

Today, Ethan and I merged the code we had been working on for the past four days. It was so cool seeing our work finally come together into one model.

Check out our combined model in the works!

I spent the remainder of the day working on the lignin aspect of the model to make it more closely resemble reality. Right now, the code is set so that fungi consume lignin, even though it’s actually enzymes that the fungi produce (LiP) that break the lignin down to glucose.

-Emily

Day 5 Lenovo: Team Building!

We did team building today! By playing Valorant. We were all kind of terrible at it, since no one had really played before (which brought up the question of why we chose it in the first place) but it was still a blast. I think I averaged around 1 kill per death?

Day 5: Special Settings Bench Trial

Today I witnessed a bench trial (a trial with no jury where the judge is the ultimate decision maker). In this trial, the defendant was accused of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a hospital, and the District Attorney brought three police officers from said hospital along with surveillance footage to support their case. The defense, on the other hand, had the testimony of the defendant and the cross-examination of the prosecution’s witnesses to back up their side of the case.

Ultimately, after a ten minute decision making process, Judge Davidian found the suspect not guilty of disorderly conduct but guilty of resisting arrest. If the suspect was not happy with the outcome of the trial, however, she could appeal to the superior court for a jury trial. Watching this trial taught me that even the most minor details on the video evidence including which way the defendant was looking could influence the outcome of a trial.