Hi, good morning and welcome to these products and focus. There's two elements We want to talk about this morning one is about the FOMC Which is just kind of almost getting a little bit beyond the joke two weeks ago Janet Yellen the FMC incredibly dovish You know surprise the markets about their industry Decisions then you had Fed member Lockhart coming a good owner There's very likely to be an increase in April and that kind of took the market by surprise one hour later He then comes out and says oh actually maybe I made a mistake and then last night We had yet more information coming out from some other Fed members saying actually maybe an April rate hike in America It's not impossible and that means you know you've seen the dollar go shooting up You've seen the American markets kind of drift down a little bit European markets get a hit hard The Fed right now has almost no credibility in what they say when they come out with statements one minute They're dovish Nick meant their hawkish You don't really know now until they actually come out with the end result of that debate And that's kind of where we are the April rate hike would be a little bit of a shock right now considering the state of the world economy But nevertheless, maybe the Americans have reasons for doing that It could be politicized aspects of that what higher interest rates in America mean for the global economy Especially against perhaps some other countries out there that'd be sensitive to that who knows but right now I guess it's kind of exciting But you very very hard predict what the Fed is actually gonna do next when they keep coming out with one statement one week And then a different statement the next week Like what has changed in the last week in the last seven days in the last 14 days Doesn't appear to be a lot but obviously they're privy to more information than the rest of us The second piece of information is in regards to taxation on copper profits for this for the next financial year and a lot of analysts coming out Almost universally people seem to think that the copper profits are not going to be as high We've obviously talked before about these videos about there the gap between the upgrades and downgrades Has never been wider than what it is at the moment So that's quite interesting as well So obviously a company's making less profits or paying less tax which is less money in the coffers for governments It's as bad news for everybody really we could do with them or copper profits out there And I think there are some analysts coming out So there's a 50% chance the next two years that there's going to be You know downturn and the markets based on how the charts of copper profits Are looking at taxation and copper profits. It doesn't really look a huge rosy picture But it's mainly the macro data that's going to help a lot of traders aside Which way the market is going to be going in the short to medium term But these are obviously little warning signs if margins are getting squeezed and a lot of that's probably actually coming from oil companies Now that I would think about it energy companies really getting hit hard They've historically been quite big ticket firms for paying lots and lots of tax And they're obviously not doing so much at the moment So that gives you a bit of an idea about the current fundamentals affecting the markets Let's look at things from a technical perspective So as ever starting off with the us 30 Slowly drifting down these last couple days not a huge movement on the back of those fed hawkish comments from the fed members last night, but still slowly drifting down 81% have seemed to market plants currently short So at least they're getting a little bit of extra cash back in their pocket And a number of other technical indicators are still massively overbought on the us 30 We are heading into the bank holiday weekend So I wonder if you'll see a little bit of a sell-off because people might not want to have money on the table When you've got you know, four days holidays coming up So moving on to the uk 100 similar picture similar arguments to what we just happened us 30 though It's kind of just oscillating kind of closer just below 6200 We're hitting that 20 on pured sma 69% of seem to market clients are currently Short the other technicals have slowly began to kind of neck down We had a failure to move higher yesterday. It wasn't positive territory ended up going negative after the fed japan 225 16896 seems to be a level of oscillation We could expect that to continue over the next couple of sessions There's not much new information coming out of japan other technicals now relatively neutral apart from mac d That's just about to cross over in a negative way Moving on to dollar yen the us dollar really getting a shot in the arm after last night's comments It'd be very interesting. We do get another interest rate hike hike in april But they're possibly thinking let's get these hikes in now So at least we can actually do something if there is some sort of downturn in this couple of years Perhaps they can't keep them low forever at least it gives them a little bit of leeway So the dollar getting a little bit of extra love It's not like it's going great guns, but it is moving in the right direction Moving on to crude oil west texas is coming off a little bit more came up more aggressively yesterday This is to do by a further influx of oil Coming into the market Obviously the stronger us dollar not helping things so 37 56 could be the potential support level to be aware of Certainly 65 percent of seems to marks clients currently short. So they're anticipating further downside Moving on to gold gold got hit really hard Is a higher interest rates in the u.s is negative for golds for very negative move. Yes today overextended Clients are unfortunately 70 79 percent long So they'd be feeling the pain a little bit there Perhaps they're thinking this is an overextended downwards move and we're trying to anticipate a move to the upside But looks looks here from a technical perspective that 1191 could be the next potential support We are miles through that 21 period sma But we are coming up close to that 55 period if we did get closer to 11 91 Then looking at your old dollar your dollar drifting lower again One spot 11 0 5 is potential support and that's in the back of us strength rather than your weakness And then 72 percent of seems to mark clients are currently short So they must be quite happy right now and then have a look at gbpsd You know sterling is just not having a great time with brexit and stronger us dollar blah blah blah One spot 41 29 is the potential support level to be that's been broken The next potential support is going to be down here and in fact, I should really draw that on As I mentioned, this is bank holiday weekend in most major countries So what do we actually have coming up? There's two bits of us data coming up on friday and monday Let's go to market pulse and then my market calendar And let's have a quick look. So today's quite a lot. UK retail sales durable goods employment claims. There's a Japanese data tomorrow, you've got a GDP from the us Monday personal consumption from the us and then Tuesday. You've got the consumer confidence index and some Japanese data Wednesday Consumer confidence index consumer price index for eurozone and germany ADP private perils and before you know it, you're on to non-fan perils and it's time to go crazy in the markets again Well guys, that's it for me. I'm obviously going to be off on holiday as well So join me again on july to find out what happened next very good luck And have yourselves a great holiday as well. Thank you very much and goodbye


Yn gwybod cywesion arirach gyffrediol a rhwbryg wrth yn ddod yn fathodol felly bod cywisio'r dweud i fyfaffol ac gweithio barth moedol gerwcliff ar y ddi! Yn gyffrediol cywesion arlent gyffrediol, yn ymddangos cyfodl a fyddwch eich fuamquality a'r mewn byddwn ddod yn ddiol yn ddod yn fathodol fel swyddi'r amgueddwyd gan weithio'r ddod yn ddod i'n gweithio'r ddod a fyddwch i'ch bywfa Chinese yma. Let's look at how you might do this by taking DCU's virtual learning environment loop as an example. Before we begin, let's pause to consider what a rubric is and why you should use one. It's a tool that includes descriptions of levels of performance to enable the grading and or feedback of students' work. Common definitions in assessment literature include A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality on the criteria and a document that articulates the expectation for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor. Some benefits of using rubrics include providing rich feedback to students on their performance instead of a simple numerical value, assisting students to perform to the best of their ability by explicitly stating what is expected of them and helping lecturers to plan classes by easily identifying assessment criteria that can be aligned to the teaching and learning. In loop, a rubric can be created as an advanced grading method within an assignment. On your loop course page, click turn editing on and either create a new assignment or click edit edit settings on an existing assignment. In the administration panel, click advanced grading and change the active grading method to rubric. Two buttons will appear. You can either create a new instance of a rubric from a template if you have one or you can create one from scratch. Let's choose that option. Give the rubric a title. Use the description field to explain what this rubric is for. Scroll down to the criteria and levels area. Here is where you will enter the detail of your rubric. Think of a rubric like a grid. On the left you have different marking criteria for the assessment and on the right you have different levels of performance of each of these criteria in ascending order. Each of these levels should contain a detailed and meaningful description as well as a specific points value. Let's start entering our rubric for this assessment. Simply click on the first grey box to get access to a text field into which you can type. Enter our first criterion here. In the first of the levels box enter the lowest performance level for this criterion. It's good practice to include a level worth zero points so this is what I'll do. Move on to the next levels box to enter the description and points value for that. Keep working through the levels for the criterion adding descriptions and points. Click add level to expand your criterion. You can set points at any value you like but they are relative to one another. So if you have one level that has a points value of one and another level that has a points value of seven, that's weighted seven times more than the first one. You can have as many levels as you like but the more levels you create the bigger the rubric becomes and the more difficult it becomes to use so be sure to keep a good balance. To add another criterion either click the duplicate icon to copy your first criterion and edit it or click add criterion to start a whole new criterion. Enter the title of the criterion and move on to specify the levels associated with it by following the same steps as before. When all your criteria and levels have been entered scroll to the end of the page being sure to leave all of the rubric options ticked and click save rubric and make it ready. When students click in to view their loop assignment they have access to the rubric so when they are preparing their assignment they have clear criteria available to them. Creating a meaningful rubric takes time and effort at the start of the assessment process but it can save time and effort in the long run. A rubric makes expectations clear for students and it makes it quicker and more consistent for a lecturer to grade as they just select each of the criteria levels applicable to the student. Consider co-creating a rubric with students. This will create a sense of ownership and helps build capacity among students for the assessment task. See principle 12 for more information.


No one has ever died from a snake bite. It's never happened.  What they die from is the venom that is coursing through their veins after the bite. Why am I telling you this? Because the snake is the person who screwed you over.  Now, when you're bitten by a snake, you don't focus on trying to be unbitten by the snake. That can't be done. You focus on one thing and one thing only. How to get that venom out of your body as fast as possible. And getting mad at the snake is not going to help your healing in any way. See, what I'm truly talking about here is not the snake. What I'm talking about is the person that cheated on you, the person that broke your heart, the person that abused you, the person that never paid you back, the person who bullied you, the person who walked out on you and left you for someone else, and all of the people that you have told yourself that you have the right to be resentful and angry towards. And that anger and resentment is the venom inside of your body that only ends up harming you. So why do you continue to hold on to it? What is it doing for you? Nothing. Holding on to your anger is like tightly holding on to acid, hoping that it burns the person who wronged you. But it will do nothing to them. It will only burn right through your own hands. So as hard as it might be, you need to forgive them. You need to get the venom out of your veins. This is the only way to get yourself right again. And believe me, you're not forgiving them for their sake. You're forgiving them to heal yourself. That is the secret to forgiveness.  It prevents their behavior from destroying your heart. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching this video. If you loved it, please do me a favor, hit that share button down below so that more people can get more messages like this. And if you wanna follow along, you can go ahead and follow my page. I have new videos that come out every single week, but until then, I appreciate you and I hope that you guys have a great day. Because it's like the quote says, forgiveness doesn't excuse them for their behavior. It prevents their behavior from destroying your heart. She's like, let me get in right at the end. Let me try it one more time, ready?


TFNN headline news update Good afternoon everybody. I'm Tommy O'Brien comedy alive from TFNN headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida 2 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday two hours left to go in the trading day We got markets hanging around negative territory right now S&P is negative by 10 points trading at 29 87 Got the Dow Jones negative by 22 points trading 27,002 on the dot NASDAQ negative by 36 points trading at 8,112 goal contract up $9 1492 80 notes and bonds a little bit a higher price the 10 year up seven ticks 130 flat the 30 year up nine ticks at 160 Oh seven and we got the dollar index down 277 ticks at 98 011. We'll start things off Let's jump over to the charts. We'll start it off with the S&P and quite a day in terms of a little bit of a trading range the upper end 29 96 the lower end 29 86 and we're right now down near that lower trading range at 29 86 37 in the S&P 500 Dow 30 a little bit of a different chart We make a low just at about 10 a.m. Of 26,906 you actually peak above 27,000 this being the future chart for December and we're now under that level at 26,954 NASDAQ 100 approaching the lows we made at 10 a.m. As well 7909 for that low currently trading at 79 17 Goal contract quite a bounce on the retail sales number this morning on that miss retail sales for the month of September Declining point three percent the market looking for an increase of point three percent So that hitting the gold market especially as you saw gold spike up to almost 1496 pull back to 1486 Now making a run for higher prices at 1492 There's your crude oil market $53 and 36 cents and the euro US dollar train at one 10 169 terms of what else you have happening across the market It is earning season big day of earnings yesterday for bank excuse me for banks in general this morning Bank of America coming out that with their earnings the market liking what they have to say is they post a better than expected profit on Retail operations jumping over to Bank of America and we'll jump that's Bank of that's Netflix We're gonna jump back to that in a moment because they have earnings tonight But Bank of America, this is a daily up 2% on the day drilling it down to a 15 minute You see the pop on their earnings. They have the conference call They're hanging up there up 2% and as I said Netflix earnings after the bell Netflix right now down about point 2% and Netflix the one-day expected move on the thinkorswim platform $27 almost 10% looking for some volatility priced into those options Stay tuned folks Dave white right now Tom O'Brien coming up live at three


Abstract micro-ionase, MIRNA, load onto AGO proteins to target M-ionase for translational repression or degradation. However, MIRNA degradation can be triggered when extensively base-paired with target ionase, which induces conformational change of AGO and recruitment of ZSWIM-8 ubiquitin ligase to mark AGO for proteasimal degradation. This target INA-directed MIRNA degradation, TDMD, mechanism appears to be evolutionally conserved, but recent studies have focused on mammalian systems. Indrosophila S2 cells, CISPR, Cas9 knockout of the AGO1 trigger induces MIR-999 degradation, while simultaneous knockdown of MIR-999 leads to increased resistance to hydrogen peroxide-induced stress. These findings suggest that TDMD may play a role in regulating MIRNA levels under certain conditions. This article was offered by Pekasheng, Lu Li, Chen Chi Li, and others.


Thank you all for joining us today. My name is Jessie Stoller. I'm a policy associate of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. We're thrilled to be convening a group of experts on the issue of economic redevelopment in coal country this afternoon. Today we'll be discussing, can coal country thrive in a clean energy economy? The decline of the coal industry has had tremendous negative impacts on the communities and individuals supported by the coal industry. Today's speakers will discuss some of these impacts on the economic and social opportunities that an energy transition presents. While the clean power plan is expected to create a net increase in jobs from renewable energy and energy efficiency, these jobs will not neatly replace coal job losses. Policymakers, environmental groups, and citizens have a duty to assist affected communities with transitions to new economies that can support stable employment and community redevelopment. We have a great lineup today. Our first speaker is Tara Ritter. Tara is a program associate for climate and rural communities at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy. Tara's work centers around climate change, adaptation, and rural communities through community level dialogues and nationally through the rural climate network. I'm going to turn it over to Tara now. Tara? It's likely that the clean power plan will move through the courts. And either way, there are many states, which are the navy blue ones on this map, that have pledged to move forward with clean power plan implementation either way. The clean power plan works on a state-by-state basis. Each state was assigned an emissions reduction goal based on a variety of factors, including its mix of energy generation resources, its potential for energy efficiency and renewables deployment, and costs and feasibilities. You can see how steep each state's assigned goal is on the map here. And each state has until 2018 to create its own state implementation plan to meet its goal. And this flexibility could and probably will result in very different plans from state to state. As states are forming their plans, it's important to remember that rural America and coal-dependent communities have long produced most of the nation's energy supply. And this reality is not about to change nearly three quarters of the land area in the United States' rural. And this land will continue to produce our nation's energy. And that's one of the many reasons why it's critical that the clean power plan integrates rural perspectives. In addition, rural communities, which include those in coal country, will be disproportionately impacted by climate change. A few reasons for that is that natural resource-dependent economies like agriculture, forestry, and fishing will be hard hit by extreme weather events and climate change. And the rural poverty rate is also higher than the national poverty rate, 18% in rural, compared to 15% nationally. And rural housing stock is older and less energy efficient on average. So rural residents tend to spend larger percentages of their income on energy. And that'll only be exacerbated as heating and cooling needs are even greater. And finally, transportation needs are different in rural communities. Homes and businesses are further apart, and public transportation is often lacking. And with when extreme weather blocks roads or causes more weather-related wear and care, rural residents will be among those most heavily affected. So these reasons just give a brief snapshot of why rural communities will benefit from action on climate change in the long term. But rural perspectives and realities need to be deeply heard and included in the development of climate policy to make sure that it's a smooth transition in the short term as well. So there's the question of how states can create implementation plans for the clean power plan that do the least amount of harm to coal-dependent communities. And I'll talk about this from a few different angles, but first being jobs. According to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, the clean power plan is estimated to create 120,000 jobs in 2020 from energy efficiency projects and construction of new generating capacity. And in that same year, it's estimated that 24,000 jobs will be lost from a reduction in coal-fired electricity generation. So that equals out to a net gain of 96,000 jobs. And that being said, a net increase in jobs doesn't mean that every displaced worker is going to get a new job. It's not going to be a one-to-one transfer. And that reality is not a reason to delay the transition to clean energy because there's so many reasons that that's necessary, but it is a call to provide as much job retraining as financial support as possible for the communities that are going to be most affected by the transition. I know some of the folks speaking after me are going to touch on federal and other initiatives that can provide this type of assistance for coal-dependent communities. So I won't touch on it too much, but I will say that as states create their implementation plan, you must ensure that proper supports, either financial or job retraining, are in place to assist the communities that will experience the most disruption. The next aspect I'd like to touch on is energy costs. The EPA has estimated that household electricity bills will decrease by an average of $8 a month by 2030 under the Clean Power Plan. This estimate assumes that energy prices per kilowatt hour will rise slightly at first, but that energy efficiency improvements will decrease the energy demand overall. And then when you pair that with the falling costs of renewable energy, it's likely that household energy bills will remain stable or even decrease as time goes on. This is really important for rural residents because like I touched on just a minute ago, when you look at averages, rural areas have lower housing quality with lower energy efficiency, and rural households also spend larger percentages of their incomes on energy. The Clean Power Plan offers a critical opportunity to close this gap, but only if it's done in a way that targets energy efficiency improvements in rural communities, including the coal-dependent communities that will need the most support to help keep the energy bills low in those places. One way of doing that is to ensure that states participate in the Clean Energy Incentive Program, and that's a part of the Clean Power Plan that offers matching funds for states that take early action on renewables installations and energy efficiency projects. Projects under the Clean Energy Incentive Program can fall into two categories, the first being wind and solar projects that are done anywhere, and the second being energy efficiency projects that are done in low-income communities. The communities impacted by coal-fired power plant closings or capacity reductions are prime candidates for these energy efficiency projects, and that could help lower energy costs for the residents of those communities. The third piece I want to touch on is the benefit of preserving our rural natural resources. The Clean Power Plan is an opportunity to move away from the current energy drivers that damage the rural natural resource space in a variety of ways. That being said, it's really important again to mention that coal has powered our country for years and it's provided critical economic opportunities for many rural residents, but rural communities also deserve safer and less polluting economies and an improved quality of life. In addition, the coal industry is already struggling. Clean Power Plan completely taken out of the picture. Prophets have declined in recent years, partially due to the glut in sheep natural gas from the fracking boom, but also renewable energy costs are rapidly falling and in a lot of cases they're already cost competitive with fossil fuels. Also, a study by Headwaters Economics found that even though fossil fuel extraction creates enormous wealth, most of that wealth leaves the region where the extraction occurs, so it doesn't provide a lot of net benefit to the communities that are housing the fossil fuel mining or power plant or whatever aspect it may be. The Clean Power Plan aims to establish an energy system that will not only protect the rural natural resources, but it can also help avoid this boom and bust cycle that has historically hurt rural communities. So moving on to solutions, the good part, at IETP we think dialogue is critical and we've seen success of in-depth deliberative conversations on climate change in rural communities. We've run a series of rural climate dialogues that have convened residents in three rural communities throughout Minnesota and each time the participants who they hold diverse perspectives and views on climate change, they've emerged with adaptation plans to retain and improve community resilience in their area of the state. If you'd like to learn more about the rural climate dialogues, there's a ton of information that I can provide, so please reach out to me after the webinar and I'd be happy to share. A couple of other things is that states should recognize that rural areas will generate much of our clean energy future and they should let rural input heavily inform their planning processes. So as an example, Minnesota is holding listening sessions in rural communities throughout the state and that is a really good practice to ensure that we're gathering the perspectives that we need. We also think states should participate in the clean energy incentive program to help weatherize much of the aging rural building stock and states should also create their own assistance program for workers and communities that are most directly impacted by the transition to clean energy. This is of course no UVC task and it's not a specific task either. It'll take a lot of innovation and a lot of different avenues, but I know that the speakers after me have examples of some programs that are in place or being put in place and some case studies where things have worked out well so far. The last thing before I hand it over that I'd like to emphasize is there are already rural groups addressing this intersection between climate change and rural. I put the website here for the Rural Climate Network which is a group of organizations, about 50 organizations across the country working on rural climate resilience and a lot of us that are on the webinar right now, IATP, EESI and NATO are all members of the Rural Climate Network and there are many others doing great work as well. So please feel free to read the new report on the Clean Power Plan, visit the Rural Climate Network site or just reach out to me with any questions and with that I'll pass it on, thanks. Thanks Tara, that's a great introduction I think for everyone today in terms of not only the Clean Power Plan but these energy transitions in general. So our second speaker will be Julie Lawhorn. Julie is an infrastructure program analyst for the Appalachian Regional Commission. ARC is an economic development agency of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian region. ARC's mission is to help the Appalachian region achieve socioeconomic parity with the nation. I'm gonna turn it over to Julie, thanks. Great, thank you so much and thanks for the invitation to share some information with everybody today. This is Julie Lawhorn and today I'll be sharing an overview of the basic elements of ARC's portion of the Power Initiative for Appalachia. First I'm gonna give a little bit of context and then I'll share some more of the details related to this opportunity geared at economic development and workforce opportunity for coal impacted communities. A little bit of background and context the ARC's portion of the Power Initiative is part of a larger and broader initiative from the Obama Administration to provide worker training and job creation to strengthen the health and retirement security of mine workers and their families to accelerate the cleanup of hazardous abandoned mine lands and to spur the use of some advanced technology. So for today I'm gonna speak a little bit more focused on the portion which is the ARC and EDA collaboration for a economic development opportunity that we're calling Power 2016 Power Initiative. So you'll hear me referring it to that in those terms. The other federal agencies that are coordinating and collaborating with us are probably too many to list but they include the USDA, the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Department of Commerce and the EPA as well. In this initiative there is approximately $45 million through ARC and approximately 19 through the Economic Development Administration, EDA, to go out to support implementation efforts in those areas that have been impacted by the downturn in coal. And this is illustrated by Tara's previous points which I won't go into too much detail because she hit these earlier. This slide addresses the question of how did we get here? There have been significant changes in the past five to 10 years that have really accelerated some of the changes in the coal economy and Appalachia and in the US as a whole. The way that we generate and consume electricity as many of you know has changed the demand for coal and generation has fallen, natural gas has picked up and these trends are greatly impacting the coal communities across the country. We have this slide to share with folks to think about the definition of a coal-impacted community and you can think about them in these general buckets. A coal-impacted community are not just the towns that have experienced the economic distress from the downturn of mining and power plant closures but they also include the towns and the regions that support that supply chain. This could include the transportation networks, the companies that make and sell mining equipment and parts for coal power plants and all of the support services as well. I don't have the URL on here but there's recently some research that's been prepared for us that is on our website at www.arc.gov slash power and on the right side there's some pretty robust data on some of the shifts in production and in coal-fired power plants and some information on the supply chain as well. And if you'd like to dig a little bit more into that, please do visit that website and check out some of that data. I'm not the researcher so I can happily point you in the right direction if you have more questions about that. Again, I won't belabor these points but we know that we've experienced significant job losses in Appalachia and across the country and in the Appalachian region alone it's been around 23,000 coal mining jobs just between 2011 and 2015. So I'm going to take the next couple minutes and share with you a few of the specific details related to the opportunity that's available through ARC and EDA right now and I will refer to it as an FFO. You often hear it called an RFP or NOFA. Those terms are interchangeable but it's the power initiative opportunity and this is coming from the administration's priorities and goals that are related to the power plan across all the agencies that I mentioned earlier. It's about diversifying economies. It's that economic transition that Tarot is mentioning. It's the interest and the intent to create new jobs in new or existing industries and trying to attract new sources of investment as well as preparing and developing the workforce to be ready for these new and existing jobs. So ARC with this opportunity we focus on these priority areas, a competitive workforce. This means or could include workforce training to help those who need jobs qualify for quality and in-demand jobs and to support both new and existing businesses, access to and use of an application of broadband communications, fostering entrepreneurial activity. This requires a whole lot of support and collaboration and partnership across a lot of different agencies and institutions in a region and these we see as very necessary in order to support a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. And then there's also a focus on growing industry clusters, both new and existing. So although I know that there's probably a lot of interest from folks in natural resources and energy on this webinar, but this opportunity is not just limited to those sectors. It's open to those assets and those opportunities that you might see in a region that could include not limited to but some of the assets that some regions might be around the healthcare industry or perhaps manufacturing or perhaps natural and cultural resources and other things that regions might be looking at as their new strategies for economic transition. And just kind of finding that it looks like I lost my connection, but I can continue to speak for maybe one or two more minutes to advance my slides, that's fine, but I'm on approximately slide number nine. I'll just give a little bit more detail if it's of interest to folks. There's definitely more detail on our website. This opportunity is available for local development districts, nonprofit organizations, city, county, states, Indian tribes or consortiums of Indian tribes, institutions of higher learning and other units of local or state governments. What we're looking for, what the implementation grants can fund are going to be transformational projects and initiatives that are regional, that are collaborative, that are fairly large scale and that are definitely outcome driven and accompanied by significant leverage. There is also a technical assistance opportunity that's out there for some communities that might need some help or additional capacity with writing the grant or to get ready for this opportunity that is also on our website. And I will encourage folks, and again, oh, looks like I'm back online here, I would encourage folks to check out some of the information that we have and communicate with us if you have a potential idea or collaboration. There might be folks in the field that are working on similar areas and we're happy to do introduction and let folks know of existing interests and partnerships that might be out there. There is an application process, some steps are up there. This is an opportunity that's going to be available on a rolling basis. So we are seeking pre-applications now. The FFO was released on March 17th and we are happy to answer questions at the end of this webinar by email at power at arc.gov. And again, I apologize for the technical difficulties. I've been knocked out, but I am able to view the screen now. I'm going to turn it over to the other folks on this call who I'm really excited to hear from because they can bring the perspective from the community and from the businesses and from the folks that are working on the ground to do some of this transition work and to do creative, innovative, community-driven solutions to thinking about the economic transition. So with that, I'm going to turn it over and take questions at the end. Thank you so much. Julie, I'm sorry for that technical difficulty we have there. All of the presentations will be available on EESI's website tomorrow, so you can check back there for both the recording and presentations. Hopefully that will be our only technological glitch here today. So next up, we're going to hear from Brett Schwartz. Brett is a program manager at the National Association of Development Organizations Research Organization. The NATO Research Foundation is the nonprofit research affiliate of NATO, and Brett designs and facilitates trainings, workshops, and peer exchanges to support economic and community development in small towns and rural communities for a variety of audiences. I'm going to hand it over to Brett at this point. Thanks. All right, well, good afternoon, everyone. Again, this is Brett Schwartz with the NATO Research Foundation. I'm so glad to be a part of this conversation today about the future of the Coral Eye region. I'm sure that many of you would agree that the prevailing popular narratives around coal communities and rural Americanism are often, unfortunately, pretty negative, but I think all of us on this call really know the tremendous potential for these places that exist in their people, landscapes, their natural resources, and small towns and cities, and all of us have the opportunity to come together and really think big as we rewrite that narrative that's out there about the future of coal countries. So here's a quick rundown of where I hope to go during my short presentation today, and just as a caveat, my area of work is on broader quality of life and economic development issues, not specifically clean energy projects, but I think there's certainly overlapping elements to all these approaches, particularly to powerful opportunities for smaller places. I think the underlying theme to all of our presentations today is about how best to tap into local assets and capital to really position rural places to be able to choose their own identities and destinies rather than simply react to outside forces and changes. So I want to give just a quick background about my organization and our approach to these issues, not as an advertisement, but rather to help set the frame about the discussion for how we're addressing economic diversification and co-reliant regions. So NATO is a membership association of the country's 520 regional development organizations, or RBOs. And RBOs might be called different things in your region, such as councils of government, economic development districts, regional planning commissions, or other local names. And they're all multi-jurisdictional planning and development agencies that work at the regional level to improve local governments and communities of promoting economic and community development. And they do this through place-based strategies and the areas of housing, transportation, infrastructure, disaster resilience, workforce development, and a host of other initiatives. The majority of our membership serve small metropolitan and rural regions where RDOs are particularly important to provide technical assistance and general support with planning and GIS and business development strategies and other sorts of guidance to small communities and towns that may not have the resource or expertise to do so on their own. So I really encourage you as you're moving forward with this work to reach out and engage with your local regional development organization that you haven't done so already. And if you're unsure about which RDO serves your region, please get in touch with me, and I can try to help connect the dots. You know, they're really a tremendous resource in rural places around the country. So the shift in the coal industry and changes in the energy sector more broadly are definitely front-page news these days, both nationally and internationally. And Tara and Julie gave fantastic perspectives on the current situation. And I completely agree that a mix of factors have led to the decline of coal processes across the industry. It's a combination of market shifts, the rise of renewables, changing consumer preferences, and regulatory impacts that have all contributed to the landscape that exists today. So these maps that you see on the screen, which we're prepared by our friends at the National Association of Counties, show the truly national impacts of the coal industry, and this kind of echoes Julie's comments earlier. So on the left there, you can see the number of coal producing counties throughout the country. And then on the right, you can see the counties that rely on coal-fired power plants for energy. So once you add in those transportation routes and networks and other coal-related supply chain industries, you have a very wide reach of impacts millions of people and many businesses and industries. So the social and economic impacts of the downturn in the coal industry are well documented, and each state or county has its own story to tell about the loss of high-paying jobs for coal miners, as well as the loss of those indirect jobs that are either tied to the industry or in the service and retail sectors in coal communities. You know, we're seeing tax bases shrinking, which are having impacts on schools, infrastructure and municipal services. And, of course, we have to consider the compounding social effects on poverty and health disparities which have plagued many of these places for generations. And then finally, something less tangible but no less important is the impact on community pride that comes with the decline of coal. You know, we're seeing places whose sense of identity have been tied to coal since their founding or feeling lost and disconnected. So given these social and economic impacts of the decline of the industry and the national scope of the issue with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, NATO and the National Association of Counties partnered to design and carry out the Coal Reliant Communities Innovation Challenge. And this program ran from September 2014 and wrapped just last month. And as you can see on the screen there, the goal of this effort was to boost the innovative potential of places dependent on the coal industry that are seeking to grow and diversify their economies, create jobs and explore emerging opportunities. And the centerpiece of this challenge were three workshops, which we held across the country that brought together teams from counties and regions for a three-day intensive training that consisted of peer exchange, presentation, small group discussions, and opportunities for teams to develop an implementation roadmap that consisted of goals and deadlines, specific assignments for who we carry out next steps. And so we held workshops in Pikeville, Kentucky, Charleston, West Virginia, and Grand Junction, Colorado. And here's just a quick look at the places that participated in this experience over 200 people and 23 teams. So here on the screen you see just a few of the themes that were covered at the workshop through presentations and group discussions. And I think at the heart of all these conversations were really about communities looking at what local assets they had and finding opportunities to capitalize on those assets.  So I do just want to take a second to talk a bit more about the regional resilience angle. You know, we view this overall diversification effort as part of supporting larger regional economic resilience strategies. NATO and many others have taken a fairly broad approach to defining resilience as the ability to anticipate, withstand, and bounce back from any type of shock or disruption that faces a community or a region. And this, of course, includes natural disasters or hazards, but also includes the closure of a region's employer, changes in workforce, or the decline of the critical industry, such as coal. And these impacts, as you know, are particularly acute in rural and smaller places, which have less resources and a less diversified economy. I just wanted to mention that, you know, while today we're talking about coal, we could be having similar conversations about steel, timber, furniture, textiles, or paper mills. Like you see there on the bottom corner of your screen, that's an image from the last day of work at the Verso Paper Mill in Bucksport, Maine, which closed after 84 years of operation back in December 2014. So that closure put 600 people out of work in a town of 5,000, which is truly a devastating blow. But we believe that the strategies and opportunities explored through these diversification strategies are definitely replicable in all sorts of places with transitioning economies. So I want to stay on time here, so I'll move quickly through the slide, but I think that these are kind of four critical ingredients that you need to mix in as you're developing your diversification plan and can talk about these a bit more later if you're interested. But what I really want to do is take a few moments here to share a few quick snapshots of examples from around the country of what local communities and regions are doing to diversify their economies in response to changes in the coal industry. And all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg for what many of these places are doing to strengthen their local economies through their new partnerships and collaborations. So let's take a quick look here, and we'll kick things off first in Giles County in Southwest Virginia, which participated in the Innovation Challenge workshop in Pikeville, Kentucky. So Southwest Virginia is one of the handful of areas that has approval from the FAA to do specific research and fiber testing for unmanned aerial vehicles, which are better known as drones. And by partnering with the local community college, an entry-level drone coding course is providing a platform for displaced workers and others with an opportunity to become involved in this emerging industry. So these efforts are attracting interest in Fortune 500 companies and drone applications and manufacturing, and I think what this really shows is that when a coal miner loses his or her job, he or she doesn't also lose the skills that they've developed over the years. They bring with them an opportunity for retraining and new industries and sectors. Additionally, Southwest Virginia has also embraced the possibilities associated with its outdoor recreational economy, its trail systems and cultural offerings. And here tourism and outdoor rec aren't being looked at as just a service industry, but as something that can really be tapped into to attract future residents, families and businesses. The next jump down to the bottom, we've got Middlesbrough, Kentucky, and this is a community that has received technical assistance through the federal government's Local Foods Local Places Initiative. Local Foods Local Places is a partnership of a variety of federal agencies, including EPA, USDA, DOT, Appalachian Regional Commission, and many others to support communities through developing food systems and other place-based efforts to improve economic development and health outcomes. So there's a lot happening in developing a trail system to connect the downtown to the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, which is located nearby. The creation of a business incubator for local artisans and using local food as an economic development strategy. But for me, what's really exciting in Middlesbrough is what's happening at the intersection of healthcare and downtown redevelopment. The Appalachian Regional Healthcare System was looking for affordable downtown space in Middlesbrough, and as a result, has established the satellite offices and historic buildings in town. It's also been referred from chronic diseases, obesity, and opioid abuse. So bringing more healthcare opportunities to the downtown is a really critical need in providing social services to residents. And at the same time, it's also bringing new energy and vibrancy to the main street. So finally, this is kind of trying to create a great community, which could also help attract more doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals to the region as well. So it's serving as a real catalyst for future development. I've got two more snapshots I want to share with you, and I'm going to continue next with Miss Keegan, which is in western Michigan, and they participated in our workshop in West Virginia. So Miss Keegan might not come to mind immediately when you think about coal, but this region has been impacted by the downturn and the coal extraction. Miss Keegan is the largest natural deep water port in west Michigan, and she's about one million tons of freight passed through each year. But unfortunately, consumers' energy has announced an upcoming coal fire power plant closure on the lake, so we'll bring the port of Miss Keegan's tonnage below the minimum requirement for dredging that's required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There's a big ripple effect. And as a result, with support from EDA, the Economic Development Administration, the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission, and the Michigan State University are exploring the potential for what they're calling a deconstruction cluster in Miss Keegan County. So this effort is assessing the feasibility of collecting debris from abandoned and bledded structures in the Great Lakes regions and repurposing and recycling them into new marketable products so that can be shipped via the port. So this would include things like asphalt shingles, linoleum, framing wood, gypsum, and other debris, and exploring a second life for them. So it's really very early in this process, but I think it's a tremendous opportunity to really take what's been a drain on the community and bled it in abandoned buildings and transform that into a real asset to support economic development. Then finally, we have Northwest New Mexico, which also participated in our West Virginia workshop, and this region has lots of efforts underway, including job fairs for displaced workers and developing a rapid response team to be on site during layoff announcements. This region is seeking to capitalize on its natural assets and culture through its adventure tourism, its phenomenal community of native jewelry artists, and a charm of its small western main street towns. So this region is really looking at all opportunities that are available to use its local economy. And we hosted a webinar actually a few weeks ago which featured Dave Hinkle from the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, and one of his powerful quotes that resonated with me, he said, you know, in an extractive economy, we can never begin to diversify soon enough. And so a lot of places like Northwest New Mexico are trying to play catch up with what's happening on the ground, but they're doing their best by having a multifaceted approach. So to start wrapping things up, I just wanted to share this quote from one of the participants at our Innovation Challenge workshop. And he prepared for the future because we don't know what the future holds for the colonist street. And it's really in this kind of proactive forward-thinking spirit that we've addressed these diversification and economic development issues, and we hope that you are as well. You know, it's also the responsible thing to do. You know, adding more tools to your region's economic development toolbox can only serve to strengthen your local economy and improve the quality of life for this and future generations. So for more information about the Innovation Challenge, and our partner at the National Association of Counties, please check out the following links and explore the hashtag Ready to Diversify on Twitter, which has some other great resources. All the materials from the workshops are posted online to take a look. And Nicko actually just a few days ago released a phenomenal podcast on their website about diversification strategies. It's definitely worth about 20 minutes to listen to. So yeah, so that's it from me. Thanks again for having a listen afterwards with any of you who are interested in our work and approach to supporting smaller places as they face economic transitions and new challenges. I don't know if I tell you this is hard work, but it's also important work. By forging common ground across stakeholders and communities, we can make this challenge a real opportunity for achieving long-term prosperity in rural America. So thanks again. I look forward to the conversation and turn it back to Jesse. Great. Thank you, Brett. I'm going to start with the questions from the folks in these communities and some of the really interesting things that are starting to develop. And we've already got some great questions coming in. If you wanted to start typing in questions, we'll collect them as they come in and ask them at the end, or we can also save them for the end. So finally, our last speaker is Hannah Vargasen. Hannah is the Business Development and Energy Project Manager for the Conservation Fund. Hannah manages the National Capital Investment Fund's Energy Initiative, Economic Development in rural Appalachia through Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. She develops energy-related products and services, coordinates technical assistance sources, and underprivileged loans and markets across the Virginians and western Maryland. I'm going to turn it over to Hannah. Thanks, Jesse, for the introduction and the opportunity to speak. All right. We're advancing. I'm going to drill down a little bit today. Talk about our work on the ground and then to let you know where we're going, have some food for thought at the end. So, I am the Energy Project Manager at Natural Capital Investment Fund, where our mission is to catalyze environmentally sustainable development by providing affordable, flexible capital and advisory services to small and emerging businesses. We work primarily in central Appalachia and the southeast. NCIF is a Community Development Financial Institution a CDFI term that some of you may recognize, and that means that we're certified by and get support from U.S. Treasury to promote access to capital in economically disadvantaged communities. We're affiliated with the Conservation Fund, as Jesse mentioned. That's another nonprofit organization working nationwide to solve conservation challenges by balancing economic and environmental goals. Hence, our commitment to a triple bottom line, meaning we strive to achieve financial, social and positive environmental impacts through all of our projects. A shiny example of an NCIF portfolio company is Firefly Creamery and Market in Garrett County, Maryland. You can see the picture in this slide is from a ribbon cutting in celebration of their new solar panel installation. Firefly sources raw milk locally. They pay their producers more for milk with higher nutritional content. Then they provide quality well-paying jobs in their Creamery and in their storefront and with these solar panels and other energy efficient upgrades they're offsetting the environmental impact of operations. NCIF finance the installation and we also help the business obtain several grants for their energy work. And blending together flexible financing with technical assistance services like that and then leveraging the support of a broad network of partners is our model. And this hilarious picture is a good representation of that model. So this is our president and CEO on the left one of our third party technical assistance providers, a CPA in the middle on the right, a county EDA director. And this is another recent ribbon cutting ceremony for a solar installation at a hotel in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. The first solar powered hotel in the state. And work like this wouldn't get done but for a robust approach to project development. These guys would probably hate to know that I was sharing this picture but I think it's great and what's better is that it lives on forever online. And because these slides are available for reference moving forward, I'm going to flip through the next few pretty quickly these slides that break down our products and services. So we make senior and subordinate loans between $50,000 and $2.5 million with select microloans of course. And our terms are based on risk as well as impact. We provide a broad range of services of TA services that serve as a business development tool but also to ensure desired outcomes and success of our borrowers. And we often partner with other lenders and service providers to put together the best mix of resources for our TA clients and borrowers which are not mutually exclusive. Our technical assistance isn't reserved for borrowers and we provide advisory services that don't always result in a loan. So because we win when we achieve impact not just win or just because we make a loan. And the energy initiatives at NCIS is a good example of that philosophy. With this program NCIS is working to advance the alternative energy economy from both the demand and supply side. So we fundraise for and facilitate energy assessments provide post assessment TA like grant writing for small businesses and then of course financing for qualified borrowers as well as service providers. So here are a few examples of our energy related portfolio companies. In the top left you see a groundbreaking for countertop solutions that we handle here in West Virginia. NCIS contributed to a financing package and provided TA for an energy efficient and renewable powered expansion of that company. We were one of four lenders in that project including a bank the SBA and West Virginia EDA going to show that we get creative to get things done here in Appalachia. On the bottom left you have the West Virginia first state capital building in Wheeling, West Virginia. This was a energy efficient historic renovation using historic tax credits as well as a USDA program as credit enhancement. And then the rest here are a range of alternative energy companies or companies in the energy value chain that we support through working capital. There's Piedmont biofuels from Central North Carolina Charleston Clean Energy in Charleston, West Virginia FLS Energy a major solar installer out of Western North Carolina and HSC industrial supply company from Central West Virginia. And so energy related projects whether they be the implementation of alternative energy technologies or supporting alternative energy companies those projects offer a perfect opportunity to attain triple bottom line returns. But we have a pipeline issue here in Appalachia not enough projects. And so here are some contributing factors to a weak pipeline. Energy prices in this region are relatively low so they have not been an effective driver of energy improvements. Small businesses our primary market are experiencing eroding profit margins and that limits their ability to invest in capital improvements. The policies and politics in the region either explicitly restrict clean energy investments or they disregard incentives commonly available throughout the rest of the country that make alternative energy investments attractive. And then finally a limited pool of skilled service providers like energy auditors and companies actually implementing alternative energy improvements. And furthermore we need more low cost capital in support for capacity building that's so important to building the pipeline in this region. And then you have a little bit of a perfect storm brewing in Appalachia which was sort of touched on earlier energy prices are low and the building stock is so degraded that energy costs across the region are fairly moderate. So for better or for worse energy prices are starting to increase but when that increase is significant energy costs will be untenable and so the need is huge and the opportunity is great. You might have even heard that Appalachia is the next great investment opportunity. The picture in this slide on the right is again that first West Virginia solar powered hotel and it's actually the third largest array in the state now. And so this is an example of the kind of work being done without broad support and broad incentives with private investment in this region and so you can just imagine what could be achieved with real substantial resources. And so to answer the question about providing a clean energy economy yes, the multiple benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy can make for a just and sustainable transition in the region if we can start to get at these barriers and opportunities. So with that I invite anyone working in the space to reach out with insight or possibilities to collaborate with NCIS and I'll turn it back over to our host for Q&A. Great, thanks Hannah. Really interesting to see both the opportunities but also some of the challenges that you all are facing in these local communities. So we're going to switch now to question and answer but before I launch into Q&A I wanted to just give a quick introduction to a program that some of you might be interested in that's here at EESI. It's very relevant to the communities that we're discussing today particularly in terms of as we're talking about older housing stock and potential for high energy bills. So this is our on-bill financing program. On-bill financing is an ongoing initiative aimed to help families reduce energy, cut energy bills and improve home comfort always no upfront cost to the customer. EESI accomplished this work by working with utilities to establish on-bill financing programs. The utility or partner organizations pay for home energy upgrades only to be repaid through a monthly charge on the recipient family's utility bill. So we're not going to go into great detail on this program today but for more information you can visit our website or reach out to the email address that you see listed on the slide. So I'm going to turn to question and answer. We have already had several questions come in and I hear some of you saying that you're having trouble hearing me. I'll try to speak up. So please keep that feedback coming if you still can't hear me. So this question is specifically for Tara in terms of the you mentioned 24,000 job losses are computed for coal country and the question is are those ancillary job losses does that include ancillary job losses related to fossil fuels for instance in these various regions or is that really only looking at the industry itself? Yeah, with that 24,000 job that includes is just operations and maintenance in all fossil fuels which includes natural gas but doesn't include construction or extraction or anything like that so that's how that number was calculated. Great, thanks. There was another question that came in on clean coal utilization technology. So today we're talking primarily about renewable technologies but do you all see that as a potential technology whether that's through carbon capture and sequestration or other mechanisms do you see that as a potential for economic redevelopment or not and if not why? So I can actually touch on that from just from EESI's perspective we're not actively working on clean coal utilization technologies at this point. I do know that it is a priority of the administration. The Department of Energy does fund a lot but at this point we still haven't seen a lot of installations because the costs are still very high and I know that the Department of Energy has said that the costs are coming down for carbon capture and sequestration there's a lot of interest in that area but we're not really seeing those projects being installed at this point in time. So the next question in terms of we had a question on employment opportunities for cleanup of coal damage sites the question is many coal communities do not or will not have the monies for cleanup due to bankruptcy or other issues and are there opportunities in this area? This is Julie. I think there's probably several ways to address that question. I can't speak specifically to all the intricacies of the bankruptcies at this point because there's a lot of balls in motion with some of these more recent announcements but to point to some of the activity that we see in our region and perhaps other folks can chime in. There are some emerging interests in doing productive uses of of mine lands in various ways. So there are interesting projects popping up where folks are testing and scoping and gathering data to see about the use of the site for development purposes for renewable energy applications and I've even seen some folks using mine land for some agricultural and natural resource production related activities for the restoration specific and reclamation and cleanup damage site. I might not be the best one to speak on that but I can certainly if someone wants to reach out to me directly I can point you in the right direction for some folks who are more involved in those activities. A quick example too I guess and this is Brett I didn't mention earlier I guess the first picture on my title slide there was actually an image of the Prestonburg Recreational Complex which is located in eastern Kentucky and that's actually located on a reclaimed strip mine and there's a recreation complex there's baseball fields football fields there's a golf course so really interesting to kind of see the recreational and sports and community benefits that we've had from these reclaimed mines and I guess one other thing through our coal innovation challenge workshops we did have actually some representatives from a few of the utility companies participate in the process both from Consumers Energy in Michigan and those from the Shercoe plant in Sherbrooke and County Minnesota and that was really inspiring to see and I know that's not the story across the board but there are four thinking representatives and companies working on this with the community being good stewards of the community because of those relationships so there are examples like I said of the coal companies really working and working together with residents and stakeholders and other representatives to really touch the plant together and figure out future uses of the land of the power plant structures as well and piecing together to bring some opportunities so hopefully you're able to kind of forge those working relationships with the companies as well. Great, thanks. There's a question here about policy drivers which Hannah mentioned or lack thereof of policy drivers in terms of thinking about how to drive that forward. Have you all thought about strategies or opportunities in terms of what kind of policy to develop in this space to help these communities? This is Hannah. I wanted to let other folks have a chance to go first since I already mentioned it but what I'm thinking of when I say there are lacking policies or policy barriers to doing this work for example I'm thinking of the state energy portfolio that doesn't have a place for efficiency and renewable and there's no states or in many of the states we work there's not a state tax incentive which has been a major driver of alternative energy projects in other regions and we don't have clear language around net metering for example for solar projects which is hanging on my thread and politically could be taken away at any time so that's just what I'm dealing with every day and then almost the other speakers want to chime in now. Great thanks Hannah and I do know that the Representative Rogers Reclaim Act I believe a lot of that actually got picked up in the power initiative that Julie talked about so there is some activity but as Hannah mentioned it's sort of uneven at the state level when you have renewable portfolio standards in some states and other states do you have this sort of uneven landscape in terms of the drivers for specifically renewable energy efficiency developments? We also touched today on job training and I was wondering if anyone of the speakers could talk a little more about types of job training programs that are out there whether that's for renewable energy or other sectors and kind of what some of the potential there is or if there has been challenges there as well. Yeah that's a great question I'm sure that Brett and Hannah and Tara probably have some examples there I think the answer is sort of a tricky one because it depends on the region and the assets of where folks are looking to train and retrain workers for new and emerging opportunities so that's sort of a very broad statement but the region is so well our region is so broad and diverse that it might be hard to pinpoint but I can highlight a few examples that we've seen particularly in New York there's Alfred State University where they have done a pretty robust curriculum to look at their existing programs in home building so electrical and HVAC and other kind of building trades and retrain and adapt that curriculum for emerging opportunities technology and smart controls smart houses energy efficiency and renewable applications so taking it a step further to be able to be nimble and to be appropriate for where they see the building train going that's Alfred State in New York State and we see similar efforts in Kentucky with there's some community colleges that are looking at doing some similar training for smart building and energy efficiency training at the community college levels we see a lot of leadership from those community colleges in the region that are really looking at where the industry is going and where they need to pinpoint their resources to work with businesses and the private sector to be able to get the folks with the skills ready for the jobs that are emerging or could be there and then I think on the other side of sort of workforce training is also the support for entrepreneurial activity and small business development and growing up those small and mom and pop kind of initiatives that we see emerging across the region and across the country and this one go ahead I'll talk next okay I was going to say that the one program that I do know of because this is something that I've tried to dig into and have struggled to find enough programs and that's why we're putting out the call more and it's always hard to say what you want more of when you don't have a lot of specifics to point to but I know that there is one that is the department of energy runs called solar ready vets and it connects veterans to the solar energy industry and so provides training as far as being PD system installers selling the system things like that so that's one program that I've heard of through the department of energy I was just going to mention that yeah there's another one that's a great one there's another one that does training former mine workers I believe to become line workers so I think there's I can't remember the exact name of it but that's kind of trading folks from going from the mine to utility level work there's other folks in our region that are looking at using out of work folks to do deconstruction and rehab and preservation and then construction work as well so kind of leveraging some of the skills and going into that area a lot of folks are also looking at agriculture and food systems as an emerging area so again I think it's there are some shining spots and it sort of depends on where you're looking and what sector you're looking at but if you get me talking long enough I think we could dig up quite a few examples for you I think that's really important distinction Julie that you make that specific sectors because when you talk about workforce development you can do training but there has to be a market for those workers so if you're going to train them in let's say alternative energy versus you know fossil fuel extraction but you don't have that pipeline I talked about then you know it's just a dead end and so I think Scholar offers a great opportunity probably a highlight because the type of power that those workers are used to the power of their systems is similar to solar and the big equipment they're used to that's great but tourism and agriculture might offer a better alternative but it doesn't pay the same so I just raised more questions and I brought in an egg cliche but that's just my perspective sorry to interrupt you Brett no that's fantastic that in terms of you know the challenges you know as many of us know a lot of these are very high paying jobs in the coal mines that are being lost and the trick and no one's found the magic bullet yet obviously is you know how do you find something that could replace that level of salary and benefits and that's been a real challenge that we've seen and perhaps the market will shift as we look forward to some of these other energies coming online but that is a real concern with a lot of folks that are leaving their counties or regions you know going out west perhaps out to North Dakota or Wyoming kind of following the next boom there searching for those types of salaries that existed in the coal mines for example in Appalachia so that's certainly a challenge but on the other end I would just add that I think how we talk about these issues is really critical and important and language is so valuable and you know we could talk about the number of unemployed coal miners opportunities we have for managers and electricians and welders and drivers you know that have these skills that they've developed through this experience so I think how we kind of frame these issues is that a lot of people out of work or is it also we have you know really untapped potential in other areas and as we talked about how do you plug in those skills or developing skills to the demands that would come down the line so really good conversation there Great thank you I have some questions that I came up with in terms of looking at you know this isn't just about jobs it's about identity because these are as you said you know these new jobs may require moving outside of the community or very different jobs are they the same type of jobs are they stable in terms of you know benefits are good union jobs for a lot of people and so it is quite a challenge and requires action on multiple fronts we're just about out of time here there was a couple of small questions that we're not we did not get to but if you have any further questions I'm sure that any of the speakers would be happy to talk to you offline or you can reach out to myself at Jay Stollark at EESI.org and you can also just find us on our website and I want to thank our speakers again so much for giving their time and expertise to us today and again all of the materials will be available online tomorrow and you can see the link right there on your screen so thanks everyone and have a great day bye


Don't nerf me archsus. Ah To be fair, he would have punished that in the last version too. That was pretty fast How's it going everybody? Datodoy here with another round of Dragon Ball Fighters ranked matches, and we're playing some more Nappa here today with Goku and Yamcha backing him up I just realized yesterday that this team was so much fun that I wanted to play it one more time Hopefully it goes just as good if not better than the one match yesterday. I Don't know if it can I don't know if that was a fluke or not One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are play a little extra careful against Nappa for whatever reason in neutral Which helps me out because my Nappa neutral is trashed. Oh Oh, no Dropped it again. Let's go.  No when I dropped it again All this made me realize is that I desperately need to get my Left corner game under control, dude My left corner game is trash. I Cannot hit the the important stuff. Oh Let's go. That's a dead Vegeta right there. Vegeta. Oh, sorry and Goku blacks coming in pretty wounded This might this might be this might be great for us actually. Oh 16 really body blocked me there. I tried dashing through him, but he just walled me Dashing through assists not gonna get you a not gonna get you far in this business Waiting for the Super Dash doesn't seem to be coming It's fine. Don't nerf me axis. Ah To be fair, he would have punished that in the last version too. That was pretty fast Imagine accidentally going over your opponent and spending three bars One bar Nappa to come out get the kill and now we got our point character of choice back You know, I just realized Nappa. He's just kind of my my bigger Krillin Same team and everything Back in the corner with him No, I couldn't clap him Sidemen. I know you're like a full screen away, but I need you now He's not coming dude. He's he didn't you must not have got the invite overhead. Okay, probably should have just kept the combo going Damn, dude. I wish there was a Sidemen option to go full screen Key blast didn't come out in time Okay, we got him. We got him had to play a little lame there throw some key blast out But at the end of the day, I'll take the win. I at least for game one get a Lot of people don't give they give Nappa a lot of respect Game one and then they're like, all right. I just got to go all out And then they start rushing you I have to adapt fast and that never goes properly. Let's try to start with a 5h. Damn It's such a rewarding strategy, but the risk is pretty high too now. We're playing his rules Never mind, we're going straight to the other corner Thankfully, we recovered that's gonna give us a chance to get him sliding in the corner. No, oh No, Sidemen coming in clutch No, I could have blocked that I could have Mm-hmm clap this man No mercy No mercy for anybody Napa gives nothing so sick. I love this character new main This could definitely be a Krillin replacement Like in terms of when I'm not feeling the mood for Krillin this guy does like he plays so much differently He's like the opposite of Krillin for then you want to keep him away Napa Whatever dude if we're if we're in the corner. We're playing Napa's game. I'm trying to play Napa's game level three. I Learned last time that Sidemen's not the best option. So why not just go for an overhead? I could have punished that well not punished but Switch which which which yeah, that was a no-win situation. We might as well not lose Napa for it Take the vanish get them all for me. Is he gonna try a button again? No Okay Wow, he went all the way to the corner and grabbed me. That was a good call Justin the nick of time too if he would have blocked that beam would have caught me. I would have been dead. Oh Twice in a row Medium medium Got him. Look at the team up shot Napa's Sidemen working together. Oh Get the pose in Napa. You deserved it.  All right So far so good. Maybe Napa's the key to Rosé Do we get the rematch? Okay, we do we do nice nice. I Definitely think this guy can win it just got a few adjustments have to be made Like this Don't mean I'm a sparked out of pure fear. I'm gonna spark at a pure fear. Oh my god. Am I dead? I'm not losing Napa, bro. I should have just vanished should have vanished for the heavy. Oh No, this isn't the game I wanted to play Let him know Napa let him know one time. Oh, no, I should have let him know two times Stay friends. Oh, no poor Napa Talk about a rough game That's a rough start That's a start not even a mother could love plate nice and safe. Keep the level three's going. I don't know if he'll spark here Sparking would be pretty smart. Do we read that? Nah Now we don't read sparking. What am I kidding, dude? They'll probably want to save it for at least level two and maybe even level three depending on how low he gets one of my characters He doesn't protect it. That's rough. Okay. I agree with that choice Damn There we go. Okay Not too shabby not too shabby that gives us corner back Do we predict the reflect? Okay, this is what I like to see dude All of this is what I like to see back in the corner very reminiscent of the last time we did this But do we mix it up or do we just keep going low? We just keep going low. Why mix it up if it ain't broke. Don't fix it Unfortunately, we have to fix it this time Get off of me. Oh He switched. Oh my goodness In case you can't tell none of that should have happened Could have gotten it down heavy, but we'll make it work We'll make it work. Please kill with one bar. That's all I really want Killing with one bar is sick, bro Vigito comes back out the game really hasn't changed too much in terms of our health bars We got the gun. We got the gun. We got the gun I couldn't get past the key blast. Well, that's gonna do it for today's video.  I guess we're gonna call it. Oh, so much fun Thank you to my opponent for playing with me. I'm gonna go ahead and bounce. Yep. I agree, dude Ah Goodbye What up? What are those a very good ending there? Seriously guys? Let me know what you think of Napa post patch down below in the comments while you're down there Leave a like and subscribe to the channel if you enjoy the videos and are looking forward to seeing more of them GT Goku and the rest of the DLC characters will come eventually and when that time comes We'll be covering all of it on the channel as well as some other fighting game stuff So stick around if that interests you We also have some videos up on the screen that you can feel free to check out if any of those interests Other than that though, I've got to do it. You know what? Hold on for those of you that stuck around Let's try to hit this combo real fast. Are we gonna do it first try? No, we're not. Oh Wait, yes, we are. No, we're not. Damn. Okay. I'm gonna end the video


Hi, Psych2Goers! Welcome back to our channel! Today, we would like to share an experience by one of our writers in Psych2Go about high-functioning depression and ate things people with high-functioning depression want you to know. Let's continue. Ever heard this from a witness on TV during a news report covering an incident tied to mental health? I didn't know so-and-so was depressed. They seemed so... normal. Or overheard at work. I bet so-and-so is just claiming depression because they want to stay home playing games. Truth is, it's entirely possible, maybe even likely, that those people they're talking about had depression. Depression is the umbrella term that covers many different types, and it doesn't always present the same. One of the most difficult to recognize is called high-functioning depression, and it's the Academy Award-winning actor of the depressive disorders, since one of its key characteristics is that the person who has it acts like a non-disordered person, at least on the surface. Like an actor, it can even go by different names, officially known as persistent depressive disorder, or PDD, and, previously, dysthymia. This masking success can cause issues, since there is general disbelief that anything is wrong, even when we cry out for help. This in itself stems from continued lack of knowledge surrounding mental health issues, and the stigma around it. There tends to be fear in the unknown. So, although we might look like sunshine on the outside, we're expending a Herculean effort to hide the storm inside. We really want you to understand us, so here are eight things we want you to know about high-functioning depression. One, we constantly feel like we're bluffing, even when we're not.  I just got lucky today, I guess. They might be suffering from imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon, which makes us believe we're incompetent in adequate failures despite solid, empirical evidence showing otherwise. We feel a little like con artists who are bamboozling you into thinking we're competent, no matter how qualified we actually are. Although we find it difficult to believe our own thoughts challenging these fallacies, when the challenge comes from another person, it really helps. Outside confirmation and sincere encouragement help to disprove our false beliefs. Two, there is rarely obvious proof of our struggle and need for help. This lack of visible proof is what usually has others calling us liars, lazy, or drama queens when we finally share what's going on inside. I'm sure you can imagine how this discourages us from ever reaching out again. Truth is, living with PDD can mean getting through the basics of everyday life, like work, is incredibly challenging. Yes, we get things done, but just at the baseline. It's hard for people to believe we're struggling since we don't appear to be falling apart or showing any other overt signs. Simply believing us when we ask for help and support is a massive blessing, and we are grateful. Three, my good day might just be your normal everyday. How would an average day go? Maybe you wake up on time even though you didn't sleep so well and take a shower then go to work.  You see doughnuts at the office, but exercise your willpower and refuse one because you know you want to be healthier. End of day means you go home, have dinner, and calmly go to sleep, feeling productive since you've got work done and you don't feel anxious about your life or your career. Does that sound pretty boring and normal? Guess what? That just described a rather good day for someone with PDD. Please try not to be dismissive if we seem really happy over doing something that to you might seem meh. Four, bad days are overwhelming and feel impossible. So, reading how average a good day is to someone with PDD, can you imagine what a bad day is like? As shared by one person, a bad day has them feeling guilty for wasting time with the struggle to wake up, then going to work and having their brain get stuck all day in loading mode like a YouTube video with bad Wi-Fi. Other things that could happen are crying without any real reason and just allowing many of the struggles nearly take over. For example, normally we'd struggle through our issues and clean the house, but on a day like this, we might complete cleaning a mug or a single plate. The rest is just too much. Please be patient with us.  It might just be a bad day. Five, getting through bad days requires massive amounts of energy, even more than usual. Yes, on top of feeling terrible, there is a massive energy drain. The mediocre work we manage to produce on a bad day actually takes longer than normal and wipes us out. We also have almost no capacity to deal with people and our surroundings getting frustrated very easily. Everything compounds, taking exponentially more and more energy when we're already nearly running on empty. To use an analogy, it's like a bad night of eating at a fancy restaurant. We're spending so much more and the product received is so much less. And so now, we're broke and still hungry, then the situation worsens with food poisoning, but we still have to drive everyone home. If you see this happening, we would very much appreciate it if you took over the driving duties. Six, we frequently struggle to focus and are not at the top of our game. This isn't as easy as telling ourselves once in a while. Oh, stop daydreaming. We have to constantly keep a conscious tap on our focus. Not grappling with it or checking on our focus can result in misunderstandings and distractions that prevent completion of anything. Blanking out and staring off into the distance becomes a regular habit if we're not careful. Please understand, we're not ignoring you and we do think what you're saying is important. We might just be at the height of the internal wrestling match. Seven, our average every day means regular routines can often feel like performing an Olympic tryout twice in a row. Part of what makes living with high-function depression overwhelming is the sheer exhaustion from routine activities that most others do without skipping a beat. We also are well aware that it shouldn't be that hard, so now we feel like a waste of space. We have a restricted, finite supply of energy that just isn't being used efficiently. So when we need help, the energy required for that is often already being drained by keeping up that all is good facade, plus running the internal automatic and perpetual self-criticism machine. We're basically asking our energy bank to go into overdraft, meaning things like self-care and sticking to plans are now a burden. Even so, chances are pretty good that we still want to get help. We just don't know how to go about it, and all that internal self-criticism leads to self-doubt. Do we deserve help? Will we really improve? So yes, high functioning pretty much just means we can hold a job and look okay. It doesn't mean we're at zero risk of self-harm. We would like to help ourselves, but sometimes we can't do it on our own. Please don't hand-wave us off as just fine. 8. We're not weak because we ask for or receive help. We are usually fairly self-aware of how we're different and we know what is often said about us. So we also understand that when things like this make us despair, the best course of action is to reach out for appropriate help. Reaching out isn't a show of weakness. It shows that we are strong enough to face and acknowledge our shortcomings. It also shows that we're strong enough to withstand that scary step of opening up to others and letting them in. If you think stubborn walled-up agonizing is better, just remember, hermit crabs are pretty squishy inside. So if we ask for help, please encourage us or even give an assist. We'd be super grateful. So there you have it, the professional actor of persistent depressive disorder, also known as high-functioning depression or dysthymia. Just because you don't see what you expect doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We would really appreciate for you to help and support us. Help can come in many forms, from therapy to religion to intense work on self-help. There is no singular correct method. PDD sufferers, like anyone else, have the right to protect, defend, and enjoy their lives and have good health. This might involve having periods of despair and stagnancy, and that's okay. Your simple belief and willingness to understand is a step in the progress towards eliminating the stigma of mental health. Does this give you insight into something you've seen lately or someone you know? Does this help explain or clarify anything you've been asking yourself? Please feel free to comment below. Catch you next time!


This paper proposes a new method for encrypting quantum images by combining quantum DNA codec and quantum Hilbert scrambling. Quantum DNA codec is used to encode and decode pixel color information using its special biological properties, while quantum Hilbert scrambling is used to scramble the image position data to double the encryption effect. To further enhance the encryption effect, the altered picture is employed as a key matrix in a quantum XOR operation with the original image. This inverse transformation of the encryption procedure can be used to decrypt the picture since all the quantum operations employed in this research are reversible. Experimental simulations and results show that the proposed two-dimensional optical image encryption technique provides higher security and robustness than previous algorithms and can withstand statistical analysis and differential attacks. This article was authored by Jia Gao, Inua Wang, Xiaoyang Song, and others.