TECHNICIAN
wednesday november
6
2013
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
N.C. State placed a new design on the field for the Homecoming football game against UNC-Chapel Hill, sparking a debate among ACC football fans from across the state.
JOHN JOYNER/TECHNICIAN
Fans react to ‘stolen’ Homecoming design Jake Moser News Editor
A composite image showing the resemblance between N.C. State and East Carolina University’s midfield football designs started an online de-
bate during the weekend and re-sparked the “this is our state” dispute. After Saturday’s Homecoming game, UNC-Chapel Hill football players made headlines when they stomped on N.C. State’s new
midfield design, which consisted of the strutting wolf ’s head within an outline of North Carolina. However, the move also mocked the University’s “this is our state” slogan and drew attention to what some people
said amounts to plagiarism. “I found it hilarious that N.C. State stole our midfield logo, and I guess they just want to be like us and actually have some form of success,” said Jeremy Lauffer, a freshman at ECU. “We have
the outline of North Carolina as our logo because it’s our state. Are they teaching any sort of creativity at State or do they steal everything else at that school too?” According to Chris Boyer, senior associate athletics di-
rector at N.C. State, the midfield design was based on an existing merchandise design used for bumper stickers and other items. The athletic department was also aware of
DESIGN continued page 3
Universities violate Researchers use crowd-funding for projects Supreme Court ruling Estefania Castro-Vazques by claiming patents Correspondent
Mona Bazzaz Correspondent
Universities across the country are increasingly trying to claim credit for its researchers’ work. N.C. State officials said this isn’t the case at the University, but there are still exceptions to the rule. In 2011, the Supreme Court case Stanford vs. Roche made it unconstitutional for universities to take credit for patented inventions received by researchers working for that school. However, certain institutions, most notably the University of California System, are rewriting their faculty patent rights agreements and claiming that the institutions themselves should own the patents, according to Inside Higher Ed. According to the American Association of University Professors, the reason for universities taking credit for inventions is because the faculty members of an institution are not seen as independent but instead as members of the University which they are working for. Therefore, they should accredit their work to the institution, not themselves. PATENTS continued page 3
As federal grants become scarcer, researchers across the country are turning to a new source for funding. Crowd-funding is a technique used to gather funds by asking for small amounts of money from several sources rather than gathering a large sum from one source alone, and for some researchers, it is the answer to the funding problems caused by the sequester. Crowd-funding at Georgia Tech has become such a major tool to generate funds for research that one of its university employees, Allison Mercer, created a website for it, according to the Georgia Tech news center. The website is peer-re-
viewed, so donors know the money will be used “exactly as described,” Mercer said. Terri Lomax, vice chancellor for the office of research at N.C. State, said crowd-funding could help struggling researchers because government entities are reluctant to fund numerous projects. “The recent sequestration in Congress has restricted the budget of the federal agencies, so they are much more cautious of [giving out funding] right now,” Lomax said. Because of the limited monetary resources available to researchers, crowd-fundARCHIVE/TECHNICIAN ing has grown in popularity Open Hardware Makerspace set up a 3D printer in the at other universities, as well. Emerging Issues Commons at Hunt Library Monday. Though Lomax said that crowd-funding isn’t a major source of generating funds of such funding methods. istry, used crowd-funding in at N.C. State, she said people In fact, Walter Weare, an can certainly take advantage assistant professor of chemCROWD continued page 3
Researchers develop crop-monitoring drones Sasha Afanasieva Staff Writer
MCAT to change length, scope Dan Martin
drones to improve agriculture in North Carolina. The drones will be used to monitor the he alth of crops from the day crop s are planted to the day they are harvested. Unmann ed aerial vehicles are use d for a wide variety of app lications from surveillance to mapping archaeological sites. “You monitor the issues related to water, issues related to nutrients and issues related to pesticides to h elp determine where you need to crop-dust or irrigate,” Silverberg said. Afte r the drones find an area th at requires attention, such as a section that is low on water, o nly that area will be irriga-
Correspondent
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAN EDWARDS
Matthew Hazard, Adam Propst, Dan Edwards and Chris Bovais stand with a UAV in southern California. Drones such as these will soon be used agriculturally, according to researchers.
ted, rather than irrigating an entire f ield and wasting resources. “You are getting a bird’s eye view and that is extrem ely valuable in targeted irrig
ation, targeted pesticides a nd targeted nutrients,” Silverberg said. “ Targeted means you don’t need to put pesticides everywh ere, and that saves a lot of m
oney.” Silverberg is not alone in the project. Gary Roberson from the biological and agricultural departme
DRONES continued page 2
insidetechnician
Students who plan to take the Medical College Admission Test in 2015 or later will be facing a longer and possibly more difficult test. The MCAT will see major changes starting in 2015, and the test will now include sections in biochemistry and behavioral and social sciences. This will be the first time in 25 years that the Association of American Medical Colleges, will make revisions to the exam. The MCAT will last a total 7 hours and 10 minutes, an increase from the currently allotted 5 hours and 10 minutes.
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According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the test will add a critical analysis and reasoning section in order to reflect medical schools’ desire to accept students from a variety of backgrounds. The new sections are also constructed to gauge test takers understanding of the social and cultural impacts on health. “An article in a philosophy journal will necessarily be dealing with more abstract topics and will not typically contain such clearly delineated sections,” said Sara Nicholson, Raleigh-area manager for the Princeton Review. “Students in the humanities there-
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MCAT continued page 3