Good times in Hill

Only a few days until Thanksgiving break and and it couldn't come fast enough. The last three weeks have been filled with midterms, problem sets, and late nights studying and doing work. It will be a nice change of pace to have a few days off to enjoy being home and spending time with family. I'm also very excited for Thanksgiving itself. I love watching football and the Macy's Day Parade as well as enjoying the great food. My friend from Trinidad will also be coming home with me and celebrating his first American Thanksgiving.

On another note, today in the dining hall I saw who other than Dr. Bogen. There was a bit of a situation at my table, and I am a bit embarrassed that Dr. Bogen (sorry about this, by the way) witnessed the event. We were all ragging on my friend for turning in his bioengineering paper over 12 hours late and still receiving a higher grade than all of us on it. I was under the impression that in college, late work was not accepted and instead given a zero. I was very surprised to learn that I was wrong and in fact, only 5 percent was deducted from my classmate's paper despite the fact that he was took 12 additional hours to complete the same task. This came as a huge shock and frankly I was pissed. In high school, we lost at least a letter grade for each day the paper was late, and in college, none of my professors accept late work. However, in this particular situation, my classmate only received five percent off of his total grade. This also shocked me because he did not even start his project, neither the paper nor the machine diagram, until just that morning. So I ask myself, how is it that someone who chose to not follow the grading deadlineS (yes, I purposely capitalized the s, given that there was a deadline for citations, a machine diagram, and a paper) received a higher grade starting the morning it was due AND turning it in 12 hours late? But, going back to the original story, we were all a little angry at this particular individual who, as he put it, was able to "manipulate the system" to his advantage to get a good grade. In any event, we pulled a little prank on him, which may or may not have involved projectile pepperoni pizza in his vicinity. When he discovered we had taken a video of it with my friend's camera, he pinned me against the wall, yelled at me, and slapped me two times across the face. I was extremely surprised, so surprised in fact that I had no response. Needless to say, there was a bit of a scene in the dinning hall, and I apologize, Dr. Bogen, that you had to be of witness to that.

TOPIC CHANGE

After trying my best to find some articles and other various sources on delayed activation drugs, I decided to change my topic. I couldn't really find anything online at my level of understanding, and I also remembered something that was said about bacteriophages in class during the first couple weeks of BE recitation. I remember the topic piqued my interest, and after getting a few articles online, I am confident that bacteriophage, more specifically the replication process of phages and applications to medicine via phage therapy, will be a great topic for my BE research paper. Phage replication is fairly complex and involves many components within an organism, and because of this, it will be helpful to utilize a machine diagram to explain and map out the process.

Research paper?

I'm not going to lie... I had no idea what I want to write my research paper on. There are so many possible topics, and I feel like everyone in my recitation has such a clear idea. Everyone had some sort of disease, device, etc., most of which I had never heard of before. I showed up without much of a clue. I wanted to see what would be a good idea, and my TA Vineet suggested maybe delayed activation drugs. This seems like a great idea, and I am excited to do some research and see what I can find.

The quad can also be considered on smaller scales. If you look at the quad from the inner grassy area, it looks more like a dorm and less like an enormous structure. Looking at any of the inner walls, it is obvious that the quad has many floors with rooms, hallways, bathrooms, stairwells, etc. The signs above each door indicate that the quad is split into smaller college houses (Ware, Riepe, and Fisher) and each of these smaller college houses is further divided into small subsections, each roughly a hallway long and about four or five stories tall. Looking at the quad with a smaller scale makes it seem less massive and more welcoming, more like home. Finally, you can observe the quad through its smallest scale, the fundamental building block of the "38 interlocking buildings surrounding [the] five interior courtyards"that is the freshman quad: each individual room. (http://www.upenn.edu/admissions/tour/tourstop.php?stop=20) Each room is anywhere from about 80 to 200 square feet, depending on the room type (single, double, triple). While viewing the quad from this particular scale, freshman think not of a colossal structure but instead think of their home, or their first home away from home.

The Scales

The freshman Quad, probably one of the largest structures on the UPenn campus, can be viewed on many different scales. If looking at an overhead map, the quad is certainly a dominant entity of the campus. If considering Penn in its entirety, the Quad is fairly central and very close to the hub of campus.

The search for the perfect "thing"

When the project was first assigned to analyze a structure, I was a bit overwhelmed. The Penn campus is huge and filled with many distinct edifices and other objects to choose from. In the lecture, Dr. Bogen talked a lot about some of the important biological systems that compose our bodies and compared some everyday structures and objects to the intricate networks that apply to bioengineering as well. As I thought more about the project, I realized that the freshman Quad was a perfect choice. Not only can it be viewed from many different scales, whether it be the entirety of the quad, which is very large, or something as basic as a single room, which is very small, but also carries out a vital function. This reminded me of an organ that is extremely vital to human life and existence: the brain. The brain is the control center of the body. It sends out signals to the rest of the body, stores information, and while relatively small in comparison to the rest of the body, it is arguably the most necessary organ for successful human life. Likewise, the quad stores immense quantities of information. With all the combined knowledge of the freshman class, (as well as the wisdom of the RAs and GAs) the quad has great potential to carry out many functions, whether they be intellectual, social, athletic, or artistic. The primary concern of the brain is to allow an organism to live productively and survive so that it may pass its genes on to the next generation. The quad carries such functions as well in that it allows students to rest, store food and belongings, and practice methods that may very well pass their genes on to the next generation. The brain contains billions of neurons that allow it to carry out many functions and send messages to the rest of the body. The quad houses over a thousand freshman, each with a common goal of doing their best and being successful to gain acclaim and achievement for themselves and for the freshman class as a whole. Similar to neurons, the students of the quad send messages to the rest of campus, conveying that freshman are not as naive and useless as many upperclassmen believe. While the brain is the control center for the body, the quad is the control center for the freshman class, allowing the youngest members of the Penn community to learn, grow, and survive succesfully.

A few more...

4. Design of medications:

By designing medication that works more effectively, whether it rids the patient of sickness at a faster rate or prevents future cases of illness, engineers can help reduce the cost of medication or of future prescriptions for patients.

5. Design of medical devices:

By designing effective medical devices, engineers can help assist patients and even let them help themselves. In our design project, we had to design a patient controlled oral analgesia device so that patients could be able to self-administer pain medication at home without having to visit the hospital or the doctor. Such devices could greatly reduce costs associated with hospital and/or doctor visits, and as a result, healthcare costs would be greatly reduced .

6. Cure of diseases:

Engineers are well known for their ability to solve difficult problems that face our society. Some presently "incurable" diseases plague our population, and the fact that many of these illnesses are lethal increases risk factors for insurance companies. As a result, they must charge greater prices for insurance and healthcare coverage. If engineers could help to cure some diseases that "jack up" healthcare costs, they could make healthcare and insurance coverage less expensive for everyone.