I'm Emily Roach and I'm a civil engineering student at UWM. I was looking for a school where I could swim and they also had a great engineering program. Coming from Fargo, North Dakota, I really wanted to stay in the Midwest but be in a big city. UW Milwaukee was exactly what I was looking for. At UWM you're part of a big school but also a small engineering community. You really get to know your professors and classmates. I love Milwaukee because there's always a new restaurant to try or a new neighborhood to explore. It's so easy to get around too because all students get a free up pass so you can ride the bus anywhere. I'd recommend getting to know your advisor. They genuinely care about you and they really want you to succeed. I know my mom's really happy because they're always here for me even when she can't be. I'm Emily Roach and I'm going to be a Milwaukee engineer.


We are constantly saying it all the time that there are things missing from the ancient past that have not survived the ages, and we are not considering a technological past. To lift enormous blocks, the Greeks used machinery and according to a paper published just recently on PHYS Online, temple ruins suggest lifting machines were in use earlier than previously believed. Researchers do agree that Greek contributions to culture and building technologies are myriad with the crane being the most significant and enduring, but when and how did these machines enter the picture? New research by Alessandro Petratini, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame adds nuance to the broadly accepted view that the crane was not in use until 515 BC by demonstrating how forerunners to the machine were experimented with as early as 700 to 650 BC. The professor states, the foremost discovery of the Greeks in building technology is the crane. No previous civilization are known to have used it, and it has remained central to building construction without remarkable changes for nearly 25 centuries because it was perfect. Petratini studies the architectural history of Greek temples with special focus on the ruins at Ithmiah and Corinth. In a new article published in the annul of the British school at Athens, he argues that in the first half of the 7th century BC, Greek builders were experimenting with a lifting framework. Petratini also suggests that winches were associated into frameworks from around 600 BC. Cranes including both winch and hoist appeared only later, as argued by the renowned scholar of Greek design and construction, J.J. Colton in 1974. The ashlar blocks from the early temple at Ithmiah and Corinth dating from 700 to 650 BC and weighing between 200 and 400 kg each have a peculiar feature, twin grooves running parallel along the bottom and turning up on one end, while scholars have debated whether these grooves served for lifting the blocks during construction or for moving them within and from quarries. Petratini argues they were intended for lifting and also for placing the temple blocks to form walls. The ancient Corinthian's mastered shipbuilding, which was the most advanced technology of the early archaic period, Pyrantini contends that the Corinthian temple builders adapted to construction the same concept of using a framework to redirect force that they commonly used in nautical applications and which they probably also used for lowering heavy sarcophagi into burial pits. While examining the blocks, I found evidence that after being lifted the blocks were maneuvered into place with a method anticipating the classical period's sophisticated lever technique, according to Pyrantini. The placement involved a combination of levers and ropes that allowed for lowering each block tight up against its neighbor already in place in the wall. This is the earliest documented use of the lever in Greek construction in historical times. He said, If we are getting the timeline so drastically wrong for even these typically well-established and accepted ideas, then what else are we missing? What are you guys thinking? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.


Start to feel good again took me a couple starts to get back into the the role of things, but I'm I'm happy with where I'm at and this late in the season. I feel good What tells you that you're you're kind of back to where you want to be? Just really never got fatigued the last game. I'm just struggling to catch a breath sometimes or just heart rate was going quick or I Don't know. It's just took me a little bit to get back into it With with just a month to go. It seems like it's been do or die for you guys almost all season long But with the month to go is that even amplified as as you see? October coming quickly Uh, not really. I think we're we've put ourselves in a good spot. Um, I mean, of course, we're gonna try and win every game Um But we're just gonna try and keep doing what we've been doing


You need a financial advisor with the freedom to focus on your specific needs. Whatever your goals, Reid Potter can create a game plan tailored to you. Call Reid at 432-0777 at Pikeville, Kentucky to learn more. Drivers throughout Pike County, Letcher County, Lawrence County and other surrounding areas may notice flower-rich areas along the road sides. These areas are designated as pollinator plots by Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 12 and they have many different benefits. Our plots here are in their first blooming season. So it takes plots about five years to really mature all the way. And once we get to the end of those five years, our plots really become pretty self-sufficient. So if you're driving along and you come across a plot that has some beautiful flowers in it, you'll probably notice our sign that says pollinator plot. And some of our signs will say in progress. And that's, again, just because our plots are fairly new and they're in their first growing seasons, but pretty soon they'll be self-sufficient and they'll have lots of flowers for you to see during this time of the year. In addition to helping and increasing habitats for native pollinators, the plots will also help to cut down on mowing costs and even increase driver safety. According to the KYTC District 12 Press Release, studies have shown that road sides with colorful flowers and vivid landscapes increase driver alertness leading to fewer vehicle-related collisions. We just asked that, don't pick the flowers, let them bloom. That's part of the thing with the plots. They bloom and then they shed their seeds and then they'll re-bloom each year. So be safe, look at them and enjoy them. And of course, don't pick them. The plots were created with local aesthetics, native plants and animals, and drivers in mind. There are currently five plots throughout the area with the hope of adding five more sites in 2023. For more information, you can visit the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 12 Facebook page. For Mountaintop News, I'm Kelsea Dean.


Increased fish consumption, mothers before and during pregnancy, leads to increased exposure to both mercury and the long chain omega-3 DHA. Mercury may negatively affect brain development in one's unborn baby, whereas DHA may stimulate brain development. As we saw, though, the results of this study showed that the negative effect of mercury outweighs the beneficial effect of DHA for most species of fish. Unfortunately, in the last two national surveys of women of child-bearing age, they were less aware and knowledgeable about this problem than other women, despite FDA and EPA campaigns to inform every OBGYN and pediatrician in the United States about the potential risks of mercury in fish. But I wanted to highlight the before, not just during pregnancy, but even before one gets pregnant. Since mercury sticks around, women may want to avoid polluted fish consumption for a year before they get pregnant, in addition to just during pregnancy. The reason they suggest a year before getting pregnant is because the half-life of mercury in the body is estimated to be about two months. They fed folks two servings a week of tuna, another high mercury fish, to push their mercury levels up, and then stop the fish at week 14 and slowly but surely their levels came back down. I know a lot of moms are concerned about exposing their children to mercury-containing vaccines, but if they just ate a single serving a week or less of fish during pregnancy, the latest data shows their infants end up with substantially more mercury in their bodies than getting injected with up to six mercury-containing vaccines. But with a two-month half-life, within a year of stopping fish consumption, your body can detox nearly 99% of the mercury. Unfortunately, the other industrial pollutants in fish can take longer for a body to get rid of, half-life as long as 10 years for certain dioxins and PCBs and DDT metabolites found in fish. So to get that same 99% drop could take 120 years. Which is a long time to delay one's first child. What do these other pollutants do? Well, high concentrations of industrial contaminants is associated with 38 times the odds of diabetes. That's as strong as the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Isn't diabetes mostly about obesity, though? Well, these are fat-soluble pollutants, and so as people get fatter, the retention and toxicity of persistent organic pollutants related to the risk of diabetes may increase, suggesting the shocking possibility that obesity may only be a vehicle for such chemicals. We may be storing pollutants in our spare tire like a hazardous waste dump. Now the pollutants could just be a marker of animal product consumption. Maybe that's why there's such higher diabetes risk, since more than 90% of persistent organic pollutants come from animal foods, unless you work in a chemical factory or stumble across some toxic waste. And indeed in the US, every serving of fish a week is associated with a 5% increase risk of diabetes, which makes fish consumption about 80% worse than red meat.


At Ellis Brigham we take product testing really seriously, it forms a crucial part of our range selection and today we're out here at the ski industries of Great Britain ski test in Kutai, Austria. This is the last part of our range selecting, it's where we're going to decide exactly what skis and boots we stock in store. What I want to do now is pass you over to the brands so they can tell you about the key features of this ski, who it's designed for and what it's going to do. This is the head E Supershape Magnum, it is a piece performance all-mountain ski to tell you absolutely everywhere. It's 72mm underfoot, it's got a 13 meter radius and it's designed for anyone who wants to ski on-piste most of the time but it's still a great all-over-the-hill. The features of this ski are a full wood core and it has the EMC. This comes from our race department technologies, it uses PC electronics in the front to create a static charge which then runs an electronic dampener system, meaning that whenever you're on the mountain, no matter what you're skiing through, you feel absolutely nailed to the floor making the most of those big kind of cruisey turns and really stable in your short turns as well. So we're out in Tien in France, this is the Ellisbrigham ski test and this is the final part of our testing programme. This is when we invite colleagues from all the shops to come out and join us, try the skis that we've ranged for next year, validate in our choices but also make sure that they've skied them, they know exactly what those skis do and they can give you the right information when you come into the store. So here's what it's all about. I headed out on the Magnums this morning, first run, had a little bit of fresh on some icy firm, they're just awesome, the carving nature of these is super fun, really want to pick up speed, they still grip really nicely but actually when it got to those steeper sections and you wanted to back off, they do just allow you to back off, they're not too intimidating. As we got further down the mountain, finding that little bit of chop, they've still got some capability in that, you know, you're not going to be completely lost on them. A classic ski for somebody who is intermediate advanced, wanting to carve, maybe going to be doing some instructing, really fun, the whole way around the piece.


My name is Jimmy, his name is Jake, and this... Oh, you're so dumb. Dumb. Jake, how you doing? James, Zach's in the room, employee of the month. I'm doing well, man, I'm doing well. We had a pretty huge Friday. We were on WFAN, Adventures of Sports Radio. Listened to it all of our lives. Thanks for having us, Maggie Gray. The Goat. Yeah, it was pretty fun. Literally. It's not a goat. Human being hosts a radio show, had us as her guest host, was a lot of fun. Then we went to Yankee Stadium, and we saw a group full of guys, go get ice creams for themselves, forget to grab spoons.  We were laughing. There's a lot of midwives having a good time. Isn't a midwife someone who delivers a baby? I don't know. I saw a lot of midwives at the game. Speaking of games, tell me about the sports, Jake. James, baseball, so hot in the streets right now, talking baseball in their own pockets in the world. Showing the world, actually. And Yankees are doing good. Red Sox doing bad. Mets doing bad. A lot of action. Jim, we're going out to LA. You've always been a West Coast guy, and your Dodgers huge trade, but more importantly, Big Tackle. Big Tackle, this streaker. And I'm still searching for another term because he didn't get naked, but he ran on the field, and he makes a lot of the security guards miss, and why were all the security guards diving is my biggest question. Money. Jake thinks that the security guards got a bonus if they're the ones that tackle him. If you make a Tackle, you get 500 bucks. I think she gets credit because she established a lane for him to run in, which led him to the wall, and he could not jump over the wall.  I think it was more great defensive alignment by her. In arena football, use the walls, and that's what she did. She made contact, used the wall, guy went down. He did flip the one angle of the other side he goes. We should make referees do more. Like in football? Yeah. They do this for Tackle. Yeah, because I was just doing the international, that's a catch sign. That's a Tackle. What is their sign?  Come on, refs. Tackle. Good job Dodgers ball, girl. Jim, that brings us to... Boom, boom, boom, boom. Almost a break time. I love this video, I don't know what the event is, but people long distance running marathon. Is it a specific marathon? I don't know, this French marathon runner, his name is Moorhad Amdouni. So he's running, and the table with all the waters are there, and he, instead of just grabbing one, he knocks every single water down and grabs the last one. And you can see the guy right behind him hand out, just like, what's going on? You can see his hand in slow-mo and it's sad. He's like, there's nothing. There was a row on the inside, he could have pivoted, and just reached and grabbed one on the inside, but you're running, you didn't think of that? This is a all-time bad guy move that everyone kind of dreams of doing, but no one actually does. I am also impressed, Jake, I'm interested in your thoughts here, that he was able to grab the last one. I think a lot of runners would have messed that up and accidentally fumbled the last one. And I almost think, if it was me, I would grab the second to last one, and then, or grab the first one, then knock the rest off to guarantee you have one. Yeah, but then you're spilling along the way. No, I think this is extremely impressive. I would like to go full bad guy, just knock off all the water, clean slate, whoops. He knew he was running out of steam, so he knew his only play was knock all the waters over. You think he practiced? It was impressive, that's all I'm saying. Like, it was perfect execution. Pretty sure he did. It's funny, also, in the video, you can see the people that set up the water bottles, like, oh no, it starts scrambling. Come on, man. Come on, man. He had one job, now he look bad. This is perfect presentation, Aaron. So that's almost a breakdown. August, it's hot.  That's why, at the John Boy Media Store, you can get yourself a hoodie or a wig. Dude, I've been dying to wear hoodies again. We've got nice stuff, and we got a box of shirts and hoodies and stuff, but our office took everything, so here's what's left. But we've got some nice stuff, go buy yourself stuff. They tell me about more sports. James, the Olympics are over. USA, obviously the best. Most golds and most medals, whatever. Do you have a question? I have a comment about the best everything. Can we get a percentage of athletes to medal? Because if the US, we sent 2000 Olympians and they got 200 medals, whatever it is, and another country sent three Olympians and they got three medals, I'm more impressed with the other country. Sorry, America. Medal percentage, add it to the list. Yeah, we're stats podcast. Jim, we wanted to celebrate our guy from Karate. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Saudi Arabian competitor, Tariq Hamadi, got disqualified for a high kick, so my guy. I like him. Good news, bad news. He hits a job, Ganges a day. Uh-huh, yeah. Do you want to rank that name? It's a family name. Ready, rank that name. Three, two, one. Ganges a day. Four, who's the number? Wait a minute, rank the name, the game we... Oh, 11, electric. Wow. Pronunciation by me, a one. Jim, my dude gets knocked out, a legal high kick, gets the gold. But yeah, comes to consciousness and he's a gold medal winner. Reminds me of the touchdown from Varsity Blues when Billy Bob leads the way with the double block and then he's unconscious and then when he comes to, he says, did we score? And Moxham says, yeah, Billy Bob, we got the six. No, it's one of the most underrated highlights in sports when a quarterback throws a ball, gets rocked. Yes. And they score. Like those need to be celebrated more. I know they already are. But they stand up to see what happened. You have no idea. Any time someone does something but doesn't know they did it, it's cool cause you get to see them react to something they did. Oh, dog. They should have wrapped the medal around him if they had any like class or understanding of humor. And then they gave him the medal. Understanding of humor. But imagine if you, but imagine if he wakes up and he doesn't know what happened and then he just feels it on his body. And he's like, I got it. That's a cooler video. Weird mix of humor and class there. Cause yeah, I mean, if they like empty the arena really quickly, just put the medal on him. Ha ha ha, Truman showed it.  Am I dead? You would think it's a dream. You'd think you're dead. Or a dream, yeah. A dead dream. Let's move on to the not sports. NBC's new show, extreme slip and slide. Or no, it's the ultimate slip and slide has finally officially been canceled for good because the diarrhea outbreak. Yeah, it looks like 40 people became violently ill with awful explosive diarrhea. Yeah. And I think the water slides that they were doing were just filtering the water from, filtering it from the top bottom. Like when you go to like a wedding that thinks it's fancy but isn't fancy and has the chocolate waterfall tower and it's just like going chocolate from the bottom to the top, bottom to the top. That was the slip and slide. So I've got a question.  No, no, no. There was like a parasite I think in the water that gave them diarrhea. I don't think it was diarrhea water. Right. They like got dehydrated.   Just close your mouth. Just close your mouth. Just close, yeah. Just close. But I'm saying I don't think the water was filtered. And I also read that they only had like five days left of filming. So they have all this footage and all the contestants did it but they were worried about just being labeled the diarrhea show. Do you think this could be some reverse marketing? Like they're saying they bagged it but they actually have everything they need and they'll be like, all right, we're gonna release it. Yeah, they're gonna release it as Peacock only. You have to pay for it to see it. And you're right. That's just great advertising by them. We got that. Tony Reali. Rikasha Ferguson. It's the joy of the week. Burp. I can't burp on demand. I've cut down on my granola because of the... How gassy you are. Thanks, appreciate it. It wasn't smelly to be honest. It was just so loud. It just existed. Yeah, it was loud. It just existed. And speaking of, we all exist. But especially Steven Brault. Employee of the Week, Steven Brault came back from injury and pitched. He pitched. And now his episode on the Chris Resortation is out today talking about it. Happy. I like when people come back from injury. You were suffering from extreme gas, you're back. I think I'd wanna play with that.  Good job, Steven. That was a weekly dom! You look better than you normally. I was like Steve Jobs. Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs. This is an outfit I think they'd wear. You look like Steve Dogs. I take that back. I'm sorry. I didn't. It's early. I didn't. Thank you, oh my God.  What do you... I think that's X-rated what you're doing. I think if you were shirtless it would be PG-13 and I think the way that you have it presented is X-rated.


Mae'r cwmaint yn y cwmaint yn Swil, dwi'n rhoi Fawr Fawr, i'w mwynau ein fi'r cymaint. Diolch yn fawr, sgwrtwch i'w ysgrifenniw, sy'n ddigwydd yr hyn o bobl arall, sy'n eu dyfodd 150 miliw ymrhyw o ranol Lwngh Alys i'rettleis cyd lugeniwol. Rwy'n ddigwydd ddigwydd ei wyddwyr, cysylltu gyda'r cyfrannu o fwynydd ar y cyfrannu cydweithiwol o'r cyfrannu cyfrannu cydweithiwol popiddeg ysgwrtwch. website on the 27th of April 2017 contains a full explanation. Further detail is also contained in the main content of this document at chapters 2, 5 and 9 on technical and XB. I forgot to say the usual mantra, short questions and short answers, so I accept that that was required. Ross Thomson. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. I note that the cabinet secretary for finance at committee conceded that the cost of delivery of the 11 devolved benefits will be greater than the present cost. When quizzed by my colleague Adam Tomkins on this, Mr Mackay was unable to elaborate on the increased cost. Can the cabinet secretary explain whether the Scottish Government has quantified this increased cost and exactly what it will be? The cabinet secretary for finance conceded no such thing but, of course, it is on the official record what he did and did not say at finance committee. Can I point out to the member that the agency running costs will be around 5 per cent of what we spend on the benefits and the comparable figure for DWP is actually 6.3 per cent. The running costs are estimates from a cost model using activity-based information from the Department of Work and Pensions. The minister, Jeane Freeman, in her statement not that long ago said that those figures would, of course, be further refined in terms of the more nuanced, detailed design of the system, any policy choices that we choose to make and, of course, the location of the agency. Given that our running costs are estimated at around 5 per cent, that shows that our figures are credible, that they are comparable with the UK Government and that they are valuable for money. To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the guidance on what constitutes a dangerous building. The Scottish Government does not provide guidance on what constitutes a dangerous building. Local authorities are responsible under the Building Scotland Act 2003 to deal with buildings that they consider to be dangerous. Local authorities also have powers to deal with buildings that they consider to be defective. Alison Harris. Has the Scottish Government made any consideration for buildings that, although they are not deemed dangerous, are derelict and in a state of major repair and that need security monitoring to perhaps keep children out who are putting themselves at risk? I do not feel that it is that, although I appreciate that. That is fine. Thank you. What is your question, minister? As I said in my initial answer, it is up to local authorities themselves to decide whether a building is dangerous or defective and to take the necessary actions that they feel that they need to take with the legislation that is in place to do so. Question 3. Alison Johnstone. Thank you to ask the Scottish Government how it will encourage the uptake of all the devolved benefits to which people might be entitled. Social security is a human right and we are determined to support everyone to claim all the benefits to which they are entitled to. There are a range of reasons why people do not claim such support and it is disappointing, if not surprising, that the UK Government has taken no recent action to improve take-up, making sure that everyone receives the financial support that they are entitled to is one of the first steps towards putting dignity and respect at the very heart of social security in Scotland. We have made a clear commitment to do all that we can to maximise family income, a key method of tackling poverty. As part of this commitment and over the course of this parliamentary term, we will deliver a programme of activity to increase uptake of social security by encouraging people to exercise their rights and claim the benefits that they are due. Adam Topkin. The Government made of the effectiveness of the— Thank you, pardon. I am whizzing on quite right. You look frowning at me. Alison Johnson. You see him out of practice at this one. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Today, the Scottish Parliament becomes responsible for a range of benefits, including DLA and carers allowance. Many of those benefits have complicated interactions with one another and making it even more difficult for people to understand their entitlement. When someone does not— No, no, let's have a question. What I would like to understand is what work is under way to review how the benefits being devolved interact with one another and what steps are being taken to make this complicated system easier to navigate. Yes, indeed, Presiding Officer. We know that the current system is currently complex and therefore a very important point for the Scottish Government to help people to navigate their way through that complexity is indeed to ensure that our new social security agency has that duty to maximise incomes. Also, the role of the Scottish Government experience panels is very important here. That will help us to know and evaluate what works in terms of encouraging people to take up the benefits that they are entitled to, whether those are reserved benefits or devolved benefits. As I said in my closing remarks in yesterday's debate, we will indeed have a round table with our partners in the local government, ensuring that the work that we do over the peace of this parliamentary term is consistent and that it is both broad brush and targeted to people who need advice. Adam Tomkins, now please. Thank you. Yesterday I was confused with Jeremy Balfour now with Alison Johnstone. I think that that is probably progress. My question is what assessment has the Government made of the effect and of the campaign that ran in March of a week-long series of radio and press adverts to highlight the range of support available to claimants? It is a fair point, Presiding Officer. As the member will know, the campaign in March was just phase 1. It was a broad brush campaign to support the general take-up of benefits. The press activity had the potential to reach over a million people. The radio activity had the potential to reach 1.3 million people. We know from the Citizens Advice Bureau that it has had an increase in case work inquiries and website activity. In terms of that more detailed nuance analysis of impact, that work is still going on. Can the cabinet secretary tell us what the value of the unclaimed devolved benefits is that the UK Government has failed to encourage the take-up of? It is quite difficult to get accurate information in relation to benefits that will be devolved. What we know over the peace in terms of income replacement benefits and child tax benefits in particular is that there are more than half a million individuals and families who are not claiming what they are entitled to. That gives anonies in the Scottish Government to do more, but it begs big questions about what the UK Government is doing to increase uptake of benefits that it oversees but also the tax system as well. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment has been made of the impact that an increased carers allowance would have on disability poverty? The aim of the increased carers allowance, as the member knows, is to recognise the vital contributions that carers make to society. We are currently assessing the impact of that policy on other groups, along with other policies, including disabled people, through our equality impact assessments. Claudia Beamish, I thank the minister for that answer. Now that both the powers of top-up and powers to make changes to disability benefits have been devolved and commenced in the chamber, we have the powers to legislate and improve the lives of carers across Scotland. I take a keen interest in that as a co-convenier of the cross-party group for carers.  Right. Before we get to carers week 2— No, I want a question. Can the minister give carers in Scotland greater clarity on the payment of the increased carers allowance as to when and how that will be paid and whether she has considered the possibility of backdating to September to reflect when the powers of top-up were devolved? Minister. I thank the member for that additional question. As she rightly says, we now have to bring the legislation to this Parliament in order to give us that legal framework on which to make those additional payments in this area and in others. We will do so before the summer recess. We are considering how we will make those additional top-up payments in a way that we can do that if possible sooner than we might take full responsibility for the whole carers allowance. In that, we will use the views and experience panels and our expert group. Of course, if the cross-party group has additional comments that it wants to draw to my attention, I would be very happy to receive those. Question 5, Anas Sarwar. To the Scottish Government, by what date the next phase of its benefit update campaign will begin, how long the phase will run and who the target audience will be. We will have a rolling programme of activity over the course of the parliamentary term. The next phase will be focused on young carers. During carers week, which runs from 12 to 18 of June, we will be taking action to ensure that young carers are aware of the benefits available to them and to encourage take-up. We are also working in partnership with Young Scott, Carers Trust Scotland and a wide range of stakeholders who will support the activity. We all know that carers and young people play a crucial role in our society, and it is vitally important that we support them in looking after the people they care for, which can often be in very challenging circumstances. Anas Sarwar. I thank the minister for that answer and welcome the comment that she has made about young carers. Indeed, she will be aware of my disappointment at the level of investment of the last campaign that I raised with the Minister for Social Security recently. Across Scotland, up to £2 billion in benefits are going unclaimed, and that includes half a billion of tax credits to over 100,000 Scots. Has she considered the options available around co-location of benefit services? For example, for every pound spent advising, it is estimated that £39 is delivered in additional benefits. Can she look to use the GP contract process to look at general practice as being a possible location for co-location of benefit advice services? I thank Mr Sarwar for his question. He is aware that, in terms of the phase 1 of the campaign, we have made a modest value for money investment. Our investment in benefit take-up campaigns will increase over the lifetime of this Parliament and will indeed amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think that the issue about co-location is very important. That could be something that we could pick up in terms of our round table discussions with our partners, local government and elsewhere, in terms of how we work together to increase take-up. He raises some issues that we could indeed ask health ministers to discuss with those who engage with GPs, but certainly that issue of co-location of people being able to get advice where they currently access public services—I think that it is a point that is well made—features in the work that we are doing in and around social security, but also in our advice services review. Can the cabinet secretary confirm how much benefit uptake campaigns have cost thus far and what the Scottish Government has done to ensure value for money in their delivery? We are working very hard to ensure delivery and value for money. The broad brush phase 1 of the campaign was a modest investment of £6,000. As I said in my answer to Mr Sarwar, that investment will increase to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Of course, it begs the question that, while we in the Scottish Government are prepared to invest in benefit take-ups campaigns, given that we have half a million households and half a million families who are not getting what they are entitled to, it begs the question why we have no activity from the UK Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Further to the previous questions and answers, can the cabinet secretary tell the chamber of what work it is aware of the UK Government actually carrying out to increase uptake of benefits that people are entitled to and are not currently claiming? Presiding Officer, I am not aware of any recent work undertaken by the UK Government to increase benefit uptake, which is both disappointing but perhaps not unsurprising. To ask the Scottish Government how many planning appeals determined under ministerial direction in the last year have been contrary to local development plans. Nine planning appeals were determined under ministerial direction in the last year. Seven of the appeals determined were for development contrary to the relevant development plan, and of those two were approved. I hope that the minister acknowledges that public confidence in the planning system will be low, where communities have spent years working on local development plans only to have decisions that were in line with those local development plans overturned. Can I ask the minister why it has taken so long to determine the controversial appeal on the park of care development, given that it has been nine months since a public inquiry concluded and nearly five months since a report landed on his desk? Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This is a complex planning application, and ministers are currently giving full and proper consideration to it. Every effort is being made to issue the decision as soon as possible. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Church census 2016, which estimates that the number of churchgoes will have more than halved between 2000 and 2025. Freedom of religion and of the choice to worship is an important right in our society, and the Scottish Church census paints a useful picture of how that right is being exercised. Although it is not for the Scottish Government to express a view on how individuals choose to exercise their faith, we will continue to engage with Scotland's different faith communities to understand their issues and listen to their concerns. In relation to that, we would be very happy to meet with the Church and Society Council and others to discuss the particular issues raised by the Scottish Church census. She will be aware that the report suggests that Christian denominations are seeing falling church attendances. Given the importance of all faiths to the wellbeing of people and society, what support can the Scottish Government offer to all faith groups at this time? Scotland is indeed a country with a strong sense of social justice, and faith communities, including Christian communities, but all faith communities in Scotland, are a key part to that. In terms of the support that we give to faith communities, we support interfaith work. Actually, Scotland is a world leader in interfaith work, and that interfaith dialogue and relations are crucially important to community cohesion and ensuring that we continue to have good community cohesion. It is imperative that, given the challenges that we face collectively in our society, there is that mutual understanding and respect, and that, as we know, has become more important in recent times. Our promoting equalities and community cohesion fund supports interfaith work, but our broader third sector work also supports some of the issues that our faith communities are very active in terms of social justice, whether that is around food justice would be a very good example in terms of the work that all faiths have been doing in that area. I remind everyone that I quite like shorter answers and shorter questions. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding the impact of its welfare reforms on communities in North Ayrshire. The Scottish Government has repeatedly called on the UK Government to halt its welfare reform programme. Specifically, we have called for an immediate stop to the roll-out of both personal independence payments and universal credit, as well as an end to the sanctions regime until the issues of hardship and stress caused by those policies are dealt with. Kenneth Gibson Thank you. It would have been good to have more specifics on North Ayrshire, but does the minister agree with evidence given to this Parliament by Professor Steve Fothergill of Sheffield-Hallam University that Tory social security cuts had, and I quote, no relationship with employment growth, and that the evidence provides little support for the view that welfare reform is having important and positive impacts on the labour market in Scotland? Does she acknowledge that, in fact, £540 per working age adult is being taken strong in the North Ayrshire economy as a result of those reforms? The figures that I have seen range from between £380 to £540 per person in North Ayrshire, removed as a result of the welfare reforms, all of which are part of the £1 billion removed by the UK Government from people in Scotland in the welfare reforms that were introduced between 2015 and 2020, on top of the £1.4 billion that had already been taken up until that point. I absolutely agree with the member that there is no sustainable evidence that any of those welfare reforms are either reducing the national debt, which is itself increasing, or assisting more people into employment. I draw members' attention to my register of interests as a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a former South Lanarkshire councillor. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will withdraw the planning consent that it issued in August 2015 for an incinerator facility at Whitehill in Hamilton. Scottish ministers do not propose to use their revocation powers in this case. Monica Lennon. I thank the minister for his short answer. It will be no surprise to him that I am disappointed, and my constituents will also be disappointed and very angry. The Deputy Presiding Officer wants short questions, so I simply ask why. I met Ms Lennon last year, and at that meeting I pointed out to her that any revocation of planning permission would be for South Lanarkshire Council in the first instance. Ms Lennon has already pointed out that she was a member of South Lanarkshire council at that point. I wonder if, during her tenure there, she actually moved for revocation of this planning application. Maurice Golden. Incinerator capacity is projected to increase 12 times in the next five years, so that will mean that councils might be contracted to both burn and recycle the same waste, which clearly cannot happen. Will the Scottish Government consider a moratorium on new incinerator construction? As the member is well aware, it would be ill-considered of me, as planning minister, to talk about any applications that might be forthcoming. In terms of the general policy regarding energy from waste, his question would be best directed to the cabinet secretary for the environment and rural environment. Question 11, Colin Beattie. To ask the Scottish Government whether there are plans for the access to elected office funds Scotland to be open to disabled people wishing to be nominated for the 2017 general election. Thank you. Because all aspects of election to the House of Commons are reserved, the 2016 Scotland Act prohibits us from using our fund to provide assistance to disabled candidates in the general election. The UK equivalent of the fund ended in 2015, when the Conservative party came to power and repeated calls to reopen it have gone unheeded. Colin Beattie. Given the success of the fund at the most recent local elections, helping 39 disabled candidates to take part and for 12 to ultimately be elected, does the minister not agree that this type of funding levels the playing field between a disabled and non-disabled candidate and which he joined me in calling on the UK Government to reopen the UK equivalent fund? I thank the member for that follow-up. More importantly than either Mr Beattie or myself, the candidates, those individuals who used our fund to stand in the most recent local council elections, themselves say, and the organisations, including Inclusion Scotland, who monitor and deliver that fund on our behalf, all say that the fund acts significantly to level the playing field. I think that it is proving itself to be successful. We will continue it for the Holyrood elections. As we said yesterday, we are now looking at how we might use that fund and that approach in terms of other areas of public life. I am very happy to continue our calls to the UK Government to follow our example. To ask the Scottish Government what safeguards are in place to protect communities that are in close proximity to extensive building works. A range of safeguards are in place to protect communities from the impact of extensive building works in their vicinity, including planning, environmental health, building standards and environmental protection regulations. I thank the minister for that answer. I have been contacted by a constituent living in close proximity to Donaldson School in Edinburgh, which is currently undergoing extensive building works. There are concerns about levels of dust pollution, adverse effects on people's health in the surrounding area. Will the minister commit to looking into that issue alongside the cabinet secretary for health and other government departments in order to find a solution to that problem? I would suggest that Mr Lindhurst contacts Edinburgh City Council to get them to check what is going on at that site. I would imagine that that would be helpful to his constituent. The council itself has the ability to take action if there is anything improper going on at that site. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to increase the availability of affordable housing in the north-east of Scotland. Minister, you continue to make significant increases to our investment in building more affordable housing in the north-east. Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils were allocated £12 million and £19 million respectively for their affordable housing programmes in 2017-18, which in itself equates to approximately double the resources allocated in 2015-16. The Aberdeen City deal also includes £20 million of infrastructure funding commitment from the Scottish Government to unlock housing sites and a five-year certainty on £130 million of affordable housing grant. As the minister knows, high house prices in the north-east have an impact on filling vacant posts in the public sector. Can the minister advise me of any schemes that are on-going to prioritise availability of affordable homes for those working in the public sector? The Scottish Government has provided an additional £8 million to support a 124-unit key worker housing project on surplus public sector land at the former Craig Inches prison in Aberdeen, which is due for completion in March 2018. Public sector workers who provide an essential service, including NHS staff and teachers in particular, will benefit from that offer. Also on the pipeline is the Scottish Government-funded 100-unit housing project at Burnside in Aberdeen, where NHS staff will also be prioritised. I am sure that Miss Martin will be heartened, as I was, to go to Inverurie last week and to see some of the new housing, social housing development there by the Grampian Housing Association, which I think was welcomed by all of the new tenants. To ask the Scottish Government what response it has received from the third sector to the comment by the Minister for Social Security that the private sector should not be involved in assessment for Scotland's benefits. We have received a very positive response from across the third sector, including poverty aligns, child poverty action group Inclusion Scotland and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. We have also received a number of positive responses directly from individuals with disabilities, and our statement was additionally welcomed by the Public Service Union. I thank the minister for that answer. Does the minister believe that the model of assessment that the Scottish Government will set up will be better able to deal with mental health conditions and fluctuating conditions of claimants than is currently the case under the reserved UK system? It is certainly our intention that that will be the case. We are working with the disability and carers benefits expert advisory group, and in particular with the assistance of Dr Alan McDivitt, who chairs the BMA's GP group, to work with other health professionals and those in the social care sector to devise for us a much quicker and fairer assessment process that will allow better decisions to be made first time and will allow us to use those with the relevant clinical, medical or social care experience to conduct any assessments that might be required, relevant to the condition of the individual concerned. That should, and it is our intention that it will, address the particular deficiencies in the current system, particularly around mental health, fluctuating conditions and other matters, where people from the expert panels, from the experienced panels and from our consultation made very clear to us that they wanted to see improvements. Question 15, Linda Fabiani. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to recent figures that suggest that the Scottish welfare fund has supported more than 241,000 households with awards totalling £124 million. It is correct to say that since 2013-14, we have invested £190 million in the Scottish welfare fund, helping over 241,000 individual households, a third of which include children. Providing that vital lifeline for people of Scotland is, of course, the right thing to do for any caring and compassionate Government, but it is wrong that Scottish people in Scotland and this Government have to continue to use our resources to paper over the increasing levels of hardship and crisis faced by people in Scotland as a result of the UK Government's ideologically driven welfare agenda. Can I thank the minister for that answer and ask if the minister does share my concern that this number and money will in fact rise due to the six-week minimum built-in delay in first payment under the UK Government's universal credit system? There is indeed growing evidence that the six-week delay, the built-in six-week delay of a minimum in terms of universal credit's first payment, is producing additional hardship. I know that my colleague Mary Todd from the Highlands has raised this matter on a number of occasions and indeed on Monday I myself will be talking to folks in Inverness about precisely that problem. That then does produce additional pressures on our welfare fund and we have made specific additional resource allocations there to try and assist that, but the bottom line always remains that the problem lies at the source, which is the UK Government's welfare agenda, their cuts, which they tell us are there to help to manage the sound management of public finances in a situation where the public debt continues to rise and is now, I believe, somewhere around £1.8 trillion. To ask the Scottish Government how many households in Scotland will be affected by the changes to child tax credits that were introduced on 6 April. The Scottish Government remains deeply opposed to the UK Government's two child tax credits cap by 2020-21. Around 50,000 Scottish households will be negatively affected, impacting on those who can least afford it and pushing more and more families into poverty. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Can I ask what response, if any, they have had from the UK Government in relation to the Scottish Parliament's decisive vote opposing the two child cap and the rape clause? Well, Presiding Officer, I have to advise the chamber that we have had no response from the UK Government at all.  It is disgraceful that, despite serious concerns raised in this chamber and a wide range of organisations including Rape Crisis Scotland and Scottish Women's Aid, as well as the Royal College of Nursing, the UK Government refuses to reverse the shameful policy. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has received a response from the UK Government to its late request to halt the roll-out of universal credit in Scotland, following reports that the new system is pushing more people into hardship and debt. Regrettably, the Secretary of State did not respond directly to the cabinet secretary's request to halt the roll-out of universal credit. He has sent a five-page report selling extolling the virtues of universal credit, which itself confirmed that the UK Government has no intention of halting the roll-out. The minister is aware that universal credit is causing real hardship to individuals in the Highlands. In addition, areas are causing real hardship to the local council and the housing associations find themselves in the unenviable position of pursuing tenants through the courts for debt that is not of their own making. Does the minister agree with me that the situation is completely unacceptable and must be halted? Minister? Yes, I do. I think that the evidence is stacking up by the day that the roll-out of universal credit, in particular the built-in six-week delay, for which I can not yet find any reasonable or credible explanation, is in particular causing additional hardship for individuals. We will, ourselves, aim with the support of the DWP to apply our particular flexibilities, which will allow direct payment of rent to landlords and the choice of twice-weekly payments, but even that does not get us over the six-week delay. Again, we would ask the UK Government to seriously consider halting the roll-out of universal credit until the serious issues of hardship that it is imposing and bringing on families in Scotland are considered properly. To ask the Scottish Government when its officials last met with ATOS healthcare. Minister? Scottish Government social security officials met with ATOS healthcare on 5 April this year to obtain an understanding of how their ATOS views the PIP assessment process currently operating in Scotland. There are no plans to meet again. Richard Leonard. Thank the minister for that answer. Will the Scottish Government at this stage rule out any involvement with ATOS in the design and delivery of the new Scottish social security system? I believe that I have already done so in the statement that I gave to Parliament on the new social security agency. We made very clear there that we see no place in the assessment of benefits for private sector companies. I come to question 19. The member is not here, but no doubt there will be a hope, a good reason to be given to the Presiding Officers for her not being present. Question 20, John Mason. I congratulate you on getting to question 20, which I was not particularly anticipating. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the outcome of the local government elections. Scottish ministers congratulate all councillors elected and welcome the role that they fulfil for their communities. We are delighted that the local government elections were conducted successfully and that the election turnout at 46.9 per cent was higher than the 39.6 per cent in 2012. We look forward to working with Scotland's democratically elected councils to take forward our priorities for the people of Scotland. John Mason. I thank the minister for that answer. There was considerable effort put into encouraging people to mark their ballot papers 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. However, on looking at a number of the papers that were apparently spoiled, it appeared that a lot of them had either two or three Xs on them for the parties that had put up multiple candidates, thus those were spoiled. Has the minister any suggestions how we can tackle this problem either by way of education or some other way? The Electoral Commission already runs information campaigns to inform voters about how to cast their vote. In particular, a leaflet is delivered to every household before any election, which gives detailed guidance on how to cast your vote at that particular poll. In addition, an explanation on how to vote is sent out with every postal ballot pack and large print explanatory notices are exhibited in every polling station. Information on how to vote is available wherever a ballot paper is being completed, whether it is in the home or at the polling station. Anyone who is unsure about how to vote can contact the returning officer's office to ask for advice, and polling station staff are also available to help if necessary. Graham Simpson The SNP got 32 per cent of the vote, the same as in 2012. It has flatlined. Labour was down in vote share and numbers of seats. I would like a question rather than a party political broadcast. With an extra 161 seats up 12 per cent, would the minister agree with me that the real winners were the Scottish Conservatives? The First Minister I think that I can guess his answer, but go ahead. No, I would not agree. There was only one winner in last week's Scottish elections, Scottish Council elections, and that was the SNP. We had the largest amount of votes cast, the largest amount of councillors and, of course, the largest party on 16 councils and the joint largest in three others. We won in the four main cities. Let's be honest with you. There can only be one winner in elections. It was not the Scottish Conservative Party. It certainly was not the Scottish Labour Party. Those that polled the most were the SNP. That concludes portfolio questions. I am moving on to the next item of business, and I will let the front benches get themselves organised.


What about the quintessential health food, alfalfa sprouts? According to the American Dietetics Association, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control, no sprouts. There have been a number of serious outbreaks of food poisoning tied to sprouts. Take Salmonella, for example. Last year, linked to sprouts— there were not one, not two, but about 100 cases of Salmonella food poisoning, which is a gift that can keep on giving. You get Salmonella once, and you may suffer from chronic arthritis for the rest of your life, and so the CDC has decreed no sprouts. We should put this in context, though. Last year, sprout consumption led to 100 cases of Salmonella poisoning. Remember that to eggs, though, which caused 118,000, 118,000 cases of Salmonella poisoning last year. Do we hear the CDC saying, don't eat eggs? No, but they do say not to eat raw or runny eggs. Even sunny side up or scrambled does not eliminate the Salmonella threat.  Similarly, if we boiled our sprouts, they'd be safe, too, but I don't know how appetizing that would be. Disturbing data keeps coming in. How much of the potentially deadly jack-in-the-boxy-coli-0157 is found in retail beef, sprouts, and mushrooms? Well, none were found in any mushrooms, but one out of every 91 burgers is contaminated, and one out of just 67 alfalfa sprout containers. So no burgers, no alfalfa sprouts, even homegrown. The bacteria can get into the nooks and crannies of the alfalfa seed itself that you may buy at the store.


Timmy Tim asks, what is the best way to manage lightning channels? I understand that to be an effective lightning node, one must curate the channels that the node has in place. What is the best way to select nodes to open channels to? I heard about balanced channels, so that one channel is not unidirectional. But I have been unable to find good instructions on how to do that. What techniques are available to balance lightning channels? This is a really good question. Rebalancing channels, what channels to open, how to connect your nodes? These are challenges. If you are a node operator, I am a node operator, so I run a lightning node. It has been running continuously for just over ten months on the production network. Before that, I was running a lightning node on a testnet for a year. I have had quite a bit of experience of maintaining and managing that node, and trying to find ways to make its connectivity work. At the moment, my lightning node is routing approximately 100 payments per day. There is forwarding activity, which means the channels are getting utilized. You can see incoming and outgoing channels being utilized in both directions. You can't easily see this, but if you use, for example, the list channel's commands on LND, or equivalent commands on other lightning node software, you can see that every channel has two balances, not one. It has a local balance and a remote balance. It is important to realize that in lightning channels, you are moving chunks of money or balances back and forth within a channel, and you have a balance that accumulates on either side. One of the best ways I have been able to describe this in a bar is by setting up two dishes full of peanuts, convenient, because in a bar they provide these props for free when you buy a drink. Wait, it is not for free, I bought a drink. I need to reconsider my bar example. You get these little dishes full of peanuts, so think of one dish of peanuts being your local balance, the other dish of peanuts being the remote balance, and between them is the channel. When you open a channel with another node, usually you fund it. If you start the channel, you fund it, so your side is full of peanuts and the other side is empty, which means you have a local balance of 500,000 satochis and a remote balance of zero. To send the payment, you take peanuts from this side of the channel and move it to that side of the channel.  If someone wants to send a payment to you over that channel, they can now move these back to your side of the channel. The moment you make a payment, you create balance on the other side. That is the hard way of creating balance on the other side, which allows your node to receive payments or to do forwarding. A better way would be if people on the outside opened a channel to your node and funded their end, which is basically expecting people to lock up some of their money in a channel towards your node. Why would they do that? They would do that if they consider your node to be well-connected, well-funded, well-managed, and have high availability. When I decide which node to connect to, what I am looking for is nodes that are well-connected to the outside world. I am looking for nodes that have been up for months without interruption, so they are well-managed. I am looking for nodes that have high balances and capacities, so they can route out from themselves. I will be able to use them as hops to reach other nodes. I am looking for nodes that are well-connected. They have enough channels to other well-connected nodes. There are websites you can find where you can type in the public key of your node, and it will tell you which other nodes you can connect to to maximize your connectivity in the network. For example, it will give you a list and say, here is the public key of a node that will give you two hops access to 880 other nodes. The second best option is this public key, which will give you two hops access to 600 nodes, the third best, etc. It will give you a long list of nodes. Theoretically, you can just go through that and connect outgoing channels to them. There are also a number of nodes that, if you connect to them, they will connect back to you. Again, there are various websites where you can find information about that. There are also nodes where you can buy incoming channel capacity, you connect to them, send them a small payment, a few satoshis, and they will open a channel back to you. That way, you have balance on both sides. Rebalancing is the process of making sure that the balance on the other side and this side of the various channels you have open allows your node to be useful to other nodes for forwarding, which can earn new fees, but also gives your node the ability to both make payments to the outside world and receive payments from the outside world. In order to maintain that balance, there are a number of different techniques that you can use, and there is ongoing research on that. I will just give you a few quick examples. One technique, for example, is to open and close channels, so you can open new channels to balance out things. You can close channels that are not being effective or utilized sufficiently, or that are being connected to nodes that are not very useful. In that case, you will pay on-chain fees in order to do that. You have to decide if it is worth doing that, opening and closing channels in order to rebalance things. One very interesting technique that exists in Lightning Network is splicing, where you can use a single transaction to both close an existing channel and open a new one. This is a new technique that has not been implemented fully yet. The same transaction that closes a channel by spending the two-of-two multi-sig of the channel funding can be used to move that balance from the channel you just closed to a two-of-two multi-sig that is the funding transaction for a new channel. Rather than having one transaction to close, moving the balance into your wallet and then using that balance to open another channel, use a single transaction where the inputs of the transaction close one channel and the outputs open another. There are other things you can do with splice-to-splice-outs, which we will talk about in a second. Rebalancing is something that we are still developing techniques for. It is something that, as a node manager, you have to think carefully about how you are going to manage your nodes. Making sure your node is up, it has good capacity, and it is connected to well-connected other nodes. It will make it more likely that other people will open channels to you. They do, I know that from experience. Even before my node had Antanop in its name, which obviously makes a difference in how many people are going to open channels to you, although now that I have said it, a lot of people are going to put Antanop in their node name.  Anyhow, just kidding. Even though it is a well-known node now, in the past, it was just under an alias. Nobody knew who was running it. People were connecting to it just because it was well-connected and well-managed. That is how you maintain balance. Finally, keep in mind that there are some automatic tools. LND has a tool called Autopilot, which will automatically open channels to various nodes, in order to maintain a minimum number of open channels with a minimum percentage of your wallet balance. You can set minimum and maximum channel balances for when it is opening channels. Yes, as a quick follow-up, you do need to do some kind of port forwarding or UPNP incoming NAT on your router, in order to allow incoming connections to your node, in order to get incoming channels, and to be better connected to the network. I want to suggest you your views and thoughts about the Lightning Network. I recently mounted a full node on Lightning Node myself and found it technically difficult. And the user interface is not there yet. And they are the same solution by our custodial solutions, which are not ideal in crypto, of course. I just wanted to know your views and how it is going to contribute to the adoption of Bitcoin. And for instant payment, and how it is going to impact the other... I'm really excited about the Lightning Network. I've talked about it a lot. I think it's a very interesting approach. And I think this idea of second-layer networks, where you take advantage of the underlying security with a smart contract, and then you build something that can be a lot more fast and a lot more scalable on top, great. The interface is not there yet. How many people here have set up their own crypto node of any kind? This is a very tech-heavy room. Okay. How many people don't know what LS is? And they are your friends you need to teach, right? So, LS is the first command you learn to install Linux. That was just a silly joke. Don't worry. You don't need to know this stuff. It's the techies' job to make this easier. So, I'll tell you a better story, which is sending my first email. Sending my first email. So, sending my first email took approximately a week. So, first I had to read about email, right? At the time, there were no email servers supported in the environment where I had first gained access to the internet. The email was very, very basic. And I was trying to build a new type of email, which is called SMTP email, which is the protocol we use today. So, first I had to download some software called Sendmail, then I had to compile it from the source code. That took two days of full-on geek work in order to figure out all of the library dependencies, and some of the weird errors the C compiler was giving me. So, this was the whole part of sending the email, by the way. At that point, this is what you need to do. So, eventually, I managed to get it, and then I constructed my email, and on the command line, I hit Send, and I'm like, I sent my first email. And it was like, great. Did they respond? No, it hasn't gotten there yet. It's going to take three days to traverse the internet. It was almost like Pony Express. We're getting our email to the other side. Ha, ha, the pastor. And it took, in total, six days for me to actually get the email to the other side. Now, the point is, that's how technology starts. The fact that today, to install a lightning node is an enormous amount of work. It's part of the reason why it's exciting and interesting to techies, but it's not going to work like that. Already, I have three wallets on my phone that have lightning capability, and they make it a lot easier, at the expense of some centralization. We're paying a bit of a price right now, but that's okay for now. And so, gradually, it's going to become easier and easier and easier, until eventually, everyone can do it. That's when we have the opportunity to make some new applications. But we have to be patient. These things take time. By the way, that first email was in 1989, which was the first time I got on the internet, and sent my first email. My mother sent her first email in 2009, and she used the new iPad I had given her, and she went like that, and swiped. Email, email about Tinder. Come on. I wouldn't have stolen that from my mom's iPad. Robbie asks, on what scenarios do we have to use payment channels? Can you please explain in detail how payment channels help the virtuous? Robbie, payment channels are one component of the lightning network. So, the lightning network is not payment channels. The lightning network is a network of routable payment channels, where payment channels can be connected together in order to form a route that allows you to pay someone you do not have a payment channel to. This is an important thing to understand. So, if I want to pay someone on the lightning network, I don't have to have a payment channel to them. I have to have a payment channel to someone who has a payment channel to someone, who has a payment channel to someone, etc., etc., who has a payment channel to the merchant. So, as long as your node is connected to five or six other nodes, each one of those is connected to five or six other nodes, we take advantage of the network effect to create this ability to pay anyone on the network pretty much, very much reachable over a variety of routes, without having to have direct payment channels to each other. That's the point of the lightning network. What is the advantage of using that? The advantage is that you can have instantaneous settlements, so unlike the base blockchain where it takes ten minutes to settle, because the lightning network funds are in a multi-sig that has already confirmed, the settlement of lightning funds is instantaneous. It is confirmed instantly. And you can send very, very small payments from very, very small or no fee. So, you can send satoshis, not hundreds of thousands of satoshis, but single satoshis if you want. Now, there are certain scenarios where some companies may set up or individuals may set up payment channels directly to each other in order to manage situations where they have a lot of flows between themselves. So, for example, exchanges could set up a network of payment channels between them, a mesh network of payment channels between them, in order to ensure that they can easily do transfers from exchange to exchange, without incurring fees on the network and instead be able to do it off-chain, as they say. So, that is one other use of payment channels. And they can either do that in the context of the lightning network, or they could just set up direct payment channels without making them part of the lightning network. And so, payment channels can also be used for this direct, think of it a bit as a VPN, like a VPN as an overlay network over two CPIP, a payment channel is an overlay network over a blockchain. Sifis asks, is there some form of information on a transaction that would show us which address initiated the promise of ownership, or how would we identify a payment channel? A payment channel itself is funded from an on-chain transaction that stores money in a two-of-two multi-save, which will appear on the blockchain explorer, as a pay-to-script hash address that belongs with a three. You can't identify these as specifically being payment channels until they are closed. When they are closed, the script used to close them, is easily identifiable as a payment channel or lightning channel transaction, because the script is rather unique. But until it's spent, you can't see the script, as with any Bitcoin transaction. You only see the script in the public when it is spent. What you see is a three-address, which is a paid-to-script hash, and you don't know what that is. It could be multi-sig, it could be a segwit, it could be a lightning channel, you don't know. You do know where the money came from, which addresses it came from, but that doesn't tell you that it's a channel. In fact, we don't want people to be able to identify what type of script, and easily be able to distinguish between segwit, lightning channels, payment channels, or multi-sig scripts, because that breaks privacy. If you can identify what kind of payment it is, you can start finger-printing and doing statistical analysis on what kind of wallet it is, which allows you to cluster addresses together and identify common elements of ownership, which violates privacy. So the end goal for privacy in Bitcoin is, in fact, to make every transaction look like a simple payment to a public deed. This is a technology called path-root and graph-root, which will hide it even more. But even now, until the channel was closed, you can't identify it as being a channel.


So first of all, thank you Hyperledger for giving us this opportunity to present the demo, this concept of ledger archiving. And hope everybody is doing good with their near and dear ones in this pandemic era. And with me, I am Shantanu and with me, my colleague Teja is here who will be showing the demo for us of this ledger archiving. So let's see what exactly this ledger archiving is. We have created, to showcase this one, we have created a fabric network of four organization and in this each and every organization is having one peerage. And as a part of the peer, we know that the ledger is also be a part of that peer. So in the ledger, we have two different type of storage. One is the tension and then the wall state, we all we know. So in the transition to what we did is we, I mean, we kept the storage space of only of six blocks. And as you can see in the figure in the, where it is starting with the Genesis, which is a B zero, and it is ending with B five. So the sequences already the six blocks are there. And the seventh block, which is this is going to as a transaction is going to get entered. So right now what to do right there are two options as a ledger archiving approaches. We have found one is using the channel another one using the external file. So here as a part of the demo will be demoing the external file. How I mean using the external file, we can go ahead for the ledger archiving. So as a part of this particular demo, we have considered the IPFS tool to, you know, for the storage. Any tool can be used instead of the IPFS. So first, we have set up that particular, you have seen, we have set up the organizations. And after that, the chain code installation will invoke the transaction to increase the block height. And at a certain point of the block height, the peer will be filled and the script will be taking that backup once it is getting filled. So first, we need to call a chain code method to update the archival level from the current state to the next step, which will also update all the composite keys of wall state and delete the previous composite keys without changing any values of assets in the wall state. After updating the archival value will take up the backup of the ledger data folders, block file and store it in the IPFS and IPFS will be giving us the corresponding hash values. So taking the snapshot at the current block height and we are storing in the local folder and whatever we have stored in the IPFS, we need to return, we need to run a script which will create a new peer in the same organization of which we have taken the backup. And while the transactions will start occurring for creating that new peer which will be in the channel getting onboarded. So after this new peer has been created, the snapshot folder will copy it to the current running container of the new peer and join the channel with that particular snapshot. So what we can fetch is the old transaction from the archive data and whatever the data it is there in the new peer, we I mean our query can find out. So while we have created this particular ecosystem, we were able to find some of the cross and the cons which we are wanting to share here. So having said this, this particular configuration is very much easier to integrate or easy to access the archive data and securely those data. But only the challenge here is whenever you are trying to create the focused ecosystem architecture, we need to optimize I mean we need to create the ecosystem in such a way that we optimize the cost. So there are some FAQs as well, which we have created for you people like what is the archival value or does the ledger archiving impact any wall state data or what is the IPFS. So all this are covering whatever the general concept we have thought about. So thank you from my end and having said that I am handing it over to my colleague Teja who will be showing you the demo. What do you say? I'll take it from here. Hello, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all the attendees from the world. Once again, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present our ideas. Now, before starting the video, we will be showing you a demo that we have created for two organizations with one peer each with a single channel and a checkout respectively. Globex and Infitech are the needs of the organizations. Then in the later part of the video, we will show the archival mechanism with IPFS as a storage element and how we can easily retrieve the archive data. So let's get started with the video. As you can see, we will be working through the initial steps of creating the network with two organizations as I said before. Before initializing the network, all the existing networks will be deleted. In the interest of time, we have automated the process. So as you can see, it is creating all the required terminals for the peers with two different organizations and making the peers up and running. A channel will also be created named MyChannel and these two peers will be added to the channel respectively. Now the chain code is being installed onto the peers respectively. The chain code is added with extra variables to enable the use of archival features. A special variable called archival value lets you know the status of the asset if the asset is backed up or not. So as you can see, take some time for the chain code lifecycle to get completed. I will forward it a little bit in the interest of time. So once we have the basic network in place, the current block height will be at 6. Now for the demonstration purpose, we will invoke some transactions with the existing peers to increase the block height. As you can see, the chain code invoke is in progress. Right now, the block height is being increased. As the height is getting increased, in the later part, we will be initializing our private IPFS network for storing the archived data, which can be done by using the IPFS demon command. So now the IPFS network is initialized. Since we have got our block height to 19, as you can see through this API, let's assume for the demo purpose, the ledger has been filled up. So let's go ahead and initialize the archival mechanism using the API from Postman. This process includes a couple of steps. As first step, we'll be sending the peer details and the archival values to the API, which will invoke the respective chain code method. Then the assets archival value will update the old one to the new one as shared by Shantanu by provided us in the request. Also to change the composite keys. The next step will be taking a ledger snapshot from the current peers block level and store it in the respective storage. Then the ledger data with the block file is sent to the IPFS network and stored as a response will be getting a hash as well as the asset information. You can see the hash here as well as the new archival value. So right now from here, whatever new transactions come in, the archival value for those transactions will be level one. Now going on a new peer will be added to the network using the snapshot method and the old peer will be stored. Now, as you can see, the old peer is already in the exact state. Let's go ahead and quickly do some invoking again to create some transactions with the new peer. Now again, the block height will get increased. Now we'll use a new peer identity, which is the global peer one to fetch the data. As you can see, we have only one transaction for the asset file, which means that it is not able to fetch the old data. Now, if I change it to the other organization and fetch the data, I was able to see the data because it is also present in the channel. I'll change it to the level one to see the new transactions and I'll be able to see the new transaction history for the asset file. So there are two transactions for the new asset. So now we'll quickly go ahead and fetch the hash value using the organization's identity and then we send this hash to another API, which will initiate the process of getting the archival back. And the archival data will be then put back into the old peer and then the peer will be started again for the query purpose. Now we'll be able to query the history with the old organization's identity. As a result, we will be able to query the archived data using the old peer identity, which is GlobalX, running at port 7051 and the peer 0. At level 0, which is the old archived data, we'll be able to see the archived data. As you can see, we're able to see the assets, the transactions data for the assets. Now here you can see earlier the peer 0 was in stop state or exited. Now it has been started again for the query. Once we have completed our query operation, we can again stop it and we don't have to make it further. This is the demo. I'll quickly go ahead to my postman to show you the exact information. So as you can see, I am using a API to fetch the block height. So I'm using the GlobalX identity. I'm sending it. I've got the current block height as 28 because we have done two types of transactions and every time we have been based on block height, so right now the current block height is 28. So if I change the GlobalX peer to the peer 1, there is the new peer, you'll be able to see that it has got information from the 19th block to 28 because it was added using the snapshot method. Now I'll try to get the history using the new peer and let's see if I'm able to get the new transactions history. So you can see that we have got the asset information, asset 5. We have only one transaction there because after archiving we have only done one transaction. If I quickly change it to level 0, which is the archived data, I should not be able to fetch any data because I don't have the information. Now I'll change the identity to the older identity and I'll use the same level 0 and P of 0, which is the old identity. And if I send a request, I should be able to get the old data. So for the asset 5, we have four transactions here. Now if I change this archival level to 1, which is the new data, I should get nothing. It's just as expected. Thank you guys. If you have any questions, we can take it from here. Sure. Teja, I'll be requesting you to pull up the thank you slide so that if there are any questions or any offline, any contacts are required, contact with this email ID, we can share the details whenever and whatever it is required. So any questions, please let us know. We have shared the presentation in the event. You can take it out if you want to have a look at the presentation. Thank you. Anyone any questions over the chat also? Please feel free to ask. We can take it offline. So Teja, one question has been asked that how is it different from ledger staff feature in the latest version of fabric apart from using IPFS? Difference between ledger snapshot. Yeah. Okay. Ledger snapshot only allows us to onboard a new peer to the organization from a specific block, which was not there earlier. If you compare it to the older versions of hyper ledger fabric, you will be able to onboard an organization from the Genesis block. So the disadvantage of that is that the new peer will be having information from the very starting point of the network. Let's assume you have a network which has already so many number of blocks, like thousands of blocks. And then if you onboard the new peer, it will take a lot of time for the peer to get onboarded and then outdated with the latest block information. So ledger snapshot will help you with reducing the time and effort. Sure. So Teja, I think we are done with the time. So thank you again Hyperledger for giving us this opportunity to share this idea. Thank you all of you. Thank you. Have a good day.