Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Selenik Neely, the Associate Director for New Mexico Upscore, and I'm pleased to welcome you to the final event of the New Mexico Research Symposium 2020. I'm so pleased to have you join us today to recognize excellence in science research, engineering research, science teaching, and our fantastic student poster winners. Let's take a quick look back at what we've done this week. November 9th on Monday, we had a fantastic keynote address by Dr. Betty Korber from Los Alamos National Laboratories about COVID-19 and the work that's happening at Lannell. That talk was recorded and we'll have it posted to our symposium website next week. Tuesday, the virtual poster session opened and everybody had the opportunity to see some amazing research going on around the state, not just at our research universities, but at our two and four year colleges as well. People had the opportunity to vote for their favorite and the posters were judged by professionals as well. Yesterday I welcomed four students from the New Mexico Smart Grid Center, the project that's managed by New Mexico Upscore, to present the Smart Grid seminar and we heard amazing research that's happening in their labs. And then here we are today with the award ceremony. We'll record this as well and make it available on our website next week. I'd like to especially thank all of the people that made this research symposium possible.  And I have to say turning this into an all virtual event was a much bigger lift than any of us could have imagined. I'd especially like to thank our Epscore team, Sarah Pichet, Brittany Vanderwerf, Isis Cerna, and Dustin Allen for their incredible work in pulling this all together. I'd also like to thank our New Mexico Academy of Science partners, who we've collaborated with over the past eight years to present this conference. The entire board contributed this to this effort, but I especially like to thank Jane Albel, Xi Minglu, Anton Somali, and Malvin Noel. And finally, thank you to our poster judges who took time out of their busy schedules to take a look at those posters and provide feedback to the students. Now, I'd like to welcome to the screen, Dr. Xi Minglu, who is the president of the New Mexico Academy of Science. He's also a professor of molecular biology at Eastern New Mexico University. And I'll invite Xi Minglu to turn on his camera to introduce our keynote speaker today. Thank you, Senina. Let me introduce today's winner, award winner. On behalf of New Mexico Academy of Science, the current president, I'm pleased to introduce all the standing contributions to science in New Mexico, award winner, the engineer, one intern nurse. One intern nurse received her PhD in biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. And completed postdoctoral training at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Harleburg, Germany. Her first faculty appointment was at the Northwestern University. Since 1998, she has been on faculty in the Department of Pathology. It's the University of New Mexico Health Science Center, and a member of the University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center. The one intern nurse is the vector Ruby Hansen Surface Endowed Professor in cancer cell biology in the clinical translation. She serves as associate director for education, training, and mentoring at the UNN Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is also the principal investigator of multiple training programs, an internationally recognized expert in race-related ETPs in cancer research. She has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles. The one intern nurse is an elected fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science. She is the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in research and education. Most recently, she was recognized as the 2019 Innovation Fellow at the University of New Mexico Rainforest Innovation. She is the 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science Lifetime Mentor. And the United States Presidential Awardee for excellence in science, mathematics, and engineering mentoring. She served as an active board member in the president of the New Mexico Academy of Science from 2004 to 2012. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Angela Montengernes. Hello everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with some familiar faces and many new faces. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for those kind comments, Dr. Liu. So I will share my screen and share with you a little bit more about my story. The title of my presentation today is GTPA's to Cures, My Path to Discovery and Innovation. This path to discovery and innovation has three legs. One is passion. The second is collaboration. And the third is diversity, diversity of thought and diversity of people were incredibly important on my path. My passion for science was first nurtured by my parents, Hella and Low Time Wanderer, who immigrated from Germany to the US. So I'm a first generation US born citizen. I had a number of important mentors along the way. Here I show Bruce Jacobson, who was who first allowed me to come into his laboratory and to take the inspiration I got from my science. From my parents into real world experiences in his laboratory studying dictastelium. And then when I came to New Mexico, the chair of pathology was Dr. Mary Lipscomb, who believed in me and was really the very first woman role model that I had as a senior faculty member that I could really follow in those footsteps. And so it is important to have passion and mentors along the way. The path that I took began in New Jersey, Long Branch, New Jersey on the Jersey shore. From there, I mentioned I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And after completing my bachelor's degree in biochemistry, I was not so sure I really wanted to do more classwork. And so I took a stop out as a research technician at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and here another mentor Donald Creighton, believed in me took me in his lab as a neophyte, and train me in rigorous scientific method. And there I was bound and determined to visit the other side of the country and applied to graduate schools in California was accepted at UCLA. And there I met a boy, Scott Ness my husband is my partner in science through the years. Together we went, we can, we continued our journey by traveling across the globe to Germany, where we completed our post doctoral fellowships at the European molecular biology lab, and then returned to Northwestern University in Illinois before coming to New Mexico, the land of enchantment and entrapment as many of you know, it's just a glorious place to be. And so, after coming to New Mexico in 1998, just about two years later, I heard these words that made my heart drop. Calangio, what? Calangio carcinoma. It's a deadly disease. It is a cancer of the bile duct. And sadly, it took my father from me. This led me to regroup about the science that I was doing, and I worked closely with my colleague Dr. Lori Hudson made new collaborations to study cancer in more depth. And I decided to focus on ovarian cancer because, like Calangio carcinoma, it had, it was a devastating diagnosis for women with very few treatment options at the time. And this is what led me to turn my program that was focused on GTP aces, which are enzymes that are crucially important in lots of cell functions. And look at them differently. Look at them as from the perspective of being targets, targets for drugs. And so I also teamed up with Dr. Larry Sklar, who is running the Center for molecular discovery in the field of identifying new drugs for disease and particularly for cancer. We used an instrument that Larry's group had developed and was patented that allowed you to rapidly analyze small volume samples and measure them highly quantitatively, which was crucial to our efforts. And these GTPs, enzymes, you can think of them as switches, they are either off or on, and when they are on, when they're off or on they have a slightly different folded state and you can see that perhaps best up here you see this is all kind of a loose molecule, whereas here you have a tightly wound helix that replaces it. And these changes are decoded by other proteins that recognize when the GTP aces on and respond by passing the signal on downstream and causing changes in things like cell growth and proliferation and sorry, and invasion. Go back to cell motility, the opportunity for cancer cells to invade other tissues to survive stem cells survival, or the ability for the cells tumor cells to hide to become quiescent and then reappear later, resulting in relapse. And so this is the reason we were interested in focusing on GTP aces because they act as the transducer of external stimuli and pass them down to very important cellular processes that when they go awry are allowing cancer to escape treatment. But what was the challenge? The challenge for us was that pharmaceutical companies had spent decades looking at the founder of this class of enzymes called the RAS GTP ace, and that RAS GTP ace was ultimately deemed by drug companies to be undruggable. And so our challenge was, is there really an untapped potential here to look for drugs that could inactivate GTP aces that were functioning out of turn. To do this with Larry Sklar we developed a method whereby we had beads, small little beads microscopic beads to which we could affix GTP aces. And once those GTP aces were fixed to those beads, we used a substrate that binds to those GTP ace and glows. So we can measure on the instrument that Dr. Sklar developed. And so for example here, we're showing the binding of the substrate in different concentrations and to saturation using this assay. Once you can measure the activity of the enzyme, then you can take this assay to the next level and ask, can I find something that interferes with that activity. And the way that looks is that you start at 100% when you do not have any inhibitor or something that interferes with the substrate binding. And if you increase the dose of the inhibitor, then the activity of the enzyme goes down, or that glowing green fluorescence disappears. And so what you have then is a quantitative measure of the potency of a compound or a drug. And so then we translated this into a high throughput assay in which we arrayed up to seven different GTP aces on beads with different intensities of red color. And what that allows us to do is to first find the GTP ace to an individual bead, and then to mix them all together. So they're all present in a single well, and we can measure the intensity of the fluorescence of the substrate based on the red color and assign it to a specific GTP ace almost like a zip code. The red color is the zip code and whatever signal as these beads are read one by one, you know that this is wrap seven, and this white one is rack. So you can quickly assay the activity over time. Instead of having only one line, you're getting eight or more lines all at the same time showing you the activity of individual GTP aces against a single compound. And by measuring this you immediately know whether you have a compound that reacts with all GTP aces, or it might be selective against a particular GTP ace. So we have compounds that increase the activity of the nucleotide or the substrate binding and compounds that decrease the activity of the DTP ace. So in addition to looking for novel compounds, we also looked at a library of molecules that were off patent drugs. And among this library we identified a compound called arnaproxen. Arnaproxen is well known now because it is separated from esnaproxen, which is a common pain reliever, a leaf. When this was first marketed, the two chemically similar identical molecules, but they're like your right and your left hand, they have, you can't fit your right hand in the left glove, and that's the same is true for proteins. So typically these proteins that are chemically identical but look different in space are not able to bind to the same enzymes. And so because a leaf is no longer marketed with this R version, we needed to find a drug that was maybe similar to a leaf to the R enantiomer, sorry the arnaproxen, which is no longer part of a leaf, something that is chemically similar, and that we might be able to use as an inhibitor of DTP aces. And so for that, we identified with Tudoropraeus chemia informatics team. This compound are an eschatorolec that is used for pain relief in a compound or medication called torodol under a physician's advisement. So from that kind of basic discovery, we went into animal models, and then into the clinic with Dr. Carolyn Muller at the Comprehensive Cancer Center, and this is Dr. Hudson whom I mentioned previously. We took our catorolac, a study into clinical trial with Dr. Muller and a graduate student in my laboratory. And the way this worked is that patients who were undergoing surgery to remove the bulk of their ovarian tumor would receive torodol after surgery for its normal indicated use in pain relief. They would get the IV torodol and the patients who consented to participate in this trial would have blood drawn and tumor cells drawn from the peritoneal fluids, through which they ultimately would get chemotherapy after recover from surgery. And what we measured is a decrease in GTPase activity in the tumor cells drawn from patient samples. As a follow-up, our colleague Dr. Linda Cook who is an epidemiologist did a retrospective study in which she looked backwards. Patients who had received torodol for ovarian cancer. What was their survival? Looking backwards. So this is a medical record review. You separate your patients into those who received other forms of pain relief versus those who received torodol. And what you can see is very striking. The patients who received torodol for pain relief after surgery had an improved survival over those who received other pain-relieving measures. And this is a small trial with only 139 patients, but it is now being expanded through a large cohort of patients that she has from Canada. So using novel GTPase targets, we are attempting to go from an on-state in cancer that promotes tumor growth and survival to an off-state. And by doing so, we have moved a first in-class drug, identified that, and moved others into human first and human trials. And we have identified compounds that are like your right and left hand that distinguish. They have different chemical properties and activities against enzymes in people. We have now partnered with Revere Pharmaceuticals with the goal of moving arcatorial lack into the clinic as a drug in its own right. And as I mentioned, this path to innovation discovery would not be possible without a diverse team. And here you see the faculties, the trainees, the staff who have made this possible. And I would like to also acknowledge, of course, it's not possible without money. I've had funding from the Comprehensive Cancer Center, DoD, Rainforest, the National Institutes of Health National Science Foundation. And of course, thank you to the New Mexico Academy of Science for this tremendous honor.  Thank you so much for sharing it. We can go ahead and open it up for questions. If anyone has me, please type them into the Q&A. I'm personally still processing everything you just said. Sorry, it's fast. But while we're waiting for a Q&A, do you have any, you also were recognized as a fantastic mentor. Do you have any insights that you could share with our next class of mentors that are attending this webinar? Certainly. So I mentioned how important mentors were to me. And so I have really throughout my career. Even as a graduate student and then continuing, you know, as I advanced in my career, mentored other students and others with an interest in science and motivated them. You know, when they had doubts, motivated them to persist or encouraging them to pursue science or to try it and say, oh, it's not for me, but yes, maybe it is. Stick your toe in the water and see if you like it. And so for me, mentoring is meeting the person where they are and taking them to where they want to be. Not where I want them to be, but where do they want to be? What is discovering? What it is that is their passion? Where do they want to go and helping them get there? Awesome. Thank you. We do have a question from an anonymous attendee said, can you discuss why repurposing known compounds is so beneficial? What sort of regulatory advantages are there? Certainly. That's a great question. I mean, there is this tension between finding a new drug, a new chemical entity versus repurposing something that is already a known compound. So the benefit would be for repurposing is it shortens the timeline for bringing a drug to clinic. Mainly because you have so many toxicity studies and animal studies that you usually need to do in order to bring something into a human clinical trial. And so for, as you saw, because we were able to use a drug that is already given for pain relief that contains what we think is the active compound, right, the active agent. In addition to its formulation for pain relief. So you have the S that is given for pain and R is thought to be the bystander but it's given as a mix. And so that allowed us to test the samples without any new indication for giving this drug, right? No new indication. It's being given for pain. We're only testing for its impact on the DTPase. Okay, so we can prove that it works in people quickly. Now, importantly, in order, you can't give Torah doll for more than five days and you must be given under a physician supervision. So in order to make this a attractable therapy we have to separate the R away from this very potent pain relieving activity. And that's why that requires us to go back to the food and drug administration, get the R approved on its own right. And so that does create more hurdles, more animal testing, etc. Safety, etc. And time. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful answer. I've got another one. And is either any human trials plan for ovarian cancer with this new job. Just as soon as we get it to FDA approval. So our partner, Brevia Pharmaceuticals has already done the toxicity studies required to bring it to the FDA in one species, and they're doing the second species now. So if we have the two species results, we can go back to the FDA and request the archatorial act be approved. We think that after that it will be a very quick process to manufacture under good manufacturing conditions, which is required for a new drug, because we can start with with a clinical drug formulation. We can start with that and just purify the R under good manufacturing process so we don't have to do a lot of chemical synthesis. So we think that will be faster. Once that happens, then we can go to trial and UNM comprehensive cancer center is on deck to be one of the first outstanding that is great news, especially for everybody in our state. I am not seeing any other questions. Thank you. We really wanted to thank you for giving your keynote address and talking with us today with that, I am going to hand it back over to Samina. Thank you so much, Dr. Wending Ernest. That was a fantastic talk. We actually are getting a couple of questions in so we have a little time, and I thought we could ask those questions. So, the first one is with COVID treatments we've seen it's possible to accelerate the discovery process. Do you foresee this will be expanded to other disease states. So, I am working with a colleague on using GDP aces for diagnostic purposes and infectious disease, bacterial infections, particularly, but we are, I have not done any work myself in COVID. The reason it couldn't be I mean the GDP aces are, they basically are sensing what's happening in the external environment so there's no reason. There's what did I say there's over 180 of these GDP aces you just need to know which target you're going to focus on for your disease so definitely possible. Do you anticipate that the regulatory environment will change as a result of these COVID processes. I think it is changing. I think it is yeah. I mean, classically things have been easier to get approved in cancer, because for cancers where you don't have many options is a quicker throw to the goal, but for people, you know, getting things approved and healthy patients or as a prophylactic, it's harder. And we do have one final question, which type of ovarian cancer does your treatment treat serious ovarian cancer the most common. But I, you know, we just haven't tested and all the others that are rare. I mean, we would have to look. Thank you so much. I'd like to invite Jimming Lou back to the screen and I will let him take over from me. Jimming, can you turn your camera on. Okay. Beginning in 1962, the Mexico Academy of Science has presented awards intermittently and the scientific education. This is the last presented in 2013. This year, the award will be presented to Dr. Angelina Vantigen-Nass from the University of New Mexico for her excellent research in cancer biology. And for exceptional contributions to mental and scientific research. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Vantigen-Nass. So we're going to mail this block to your home address. Thank you so much. I really am so deeply, I'm just humbled by this. Thank you so much. It's so kind. You're welcome. So let's go to the next step. I would like to introduce Dan Orbel. Okay. Dan Orbel is a geologist and educator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. He is a past president of the New Mexico Academy of Science and Chair of the Award Committee for the Outstanding New Mexico Science Teacher Awards. Please join me in welcoming Dan Orbel. Thank you, Jimming. The New Mexico Academy of Science Outstanding Science Teacher Awards honor New Mexico science and math educators. We particularly like to recognize educators who provide opportunities for their students to succeed in science classes. They are afraid of science and they become scientifically literate, even if they don't go on in science. The award has been given since 1968. And the criteria have changed through the years. Currently, nominations are open to all pre-K through 12th grade teachers. Last year we actually had a kindergarten teacher as one of our award winners. And she was doing some absolutely amazing things. The association is also open to all informal science educators throughout New Mexico. That is, educators who work for the zoo science centers, museums, park service. The American Chemical Society joins with us in this award and also presents a monetary award to the winning teachers. So as the chair of the Outstanding New Mexico Science Teacher Award Committee, it is my great privilege to introduce to you the 2020 New Mexico Outstanding Science Teachers. Next slide, please. Our amazing 2020 awardees are Eva Abeta and Lena Eddings. And I will start in alphabetical order. So next slide, please. Eva Abeta is, excuse me. She is in her 25th year of science teaching. And she currently teaches sixth, seventh, and eighth grade science at Los Alamos Online Learning Academy, totally online. Eva Abeta was nominated by two of her colleagues. And so I'm just going to review a few sentences from their amazing nominations. Eva Abeta is willing to try new curricula and adapt what she teaches to what her students need. She readily takes on a new challenge and has shown a great deal of ingenuity in teaching science effectively online. She ably heads up the district science fair. And in her previous school as department chair, she helped other teachers make the transition to the next gen science standards. In short, although she is an extremely experienced science teacher, she has never stopped learning herself and is not afraid of using new techniques to address new challenges. So please join me in congratulating Eva Abeta, one of our 2020 outstanding science teachers. And I don't know if you can see the plaque here, but it is in the shape of the state of New Mexico. And this plaque and a check from the Academy will be sent to Eva Abeta's home. Now our partner in the Science Teacher Awards, the American Chemical Society, also has a presentation. So I would like to introduce at this point, Dr. Patrick Burton, who is ACS Central New Mexico local section chair, and ask him to please turn his camera and microphone on to make the ACS presentation to Ms. Abeta. Thank you for the introduction. The Central New Mexico section of the American Chemical Society covers the area in New Mexico from Las Vegas down to Socorro, and we're very pleased to recognize contributions of teachers throughout the area and the state. We also work with universities and outreach programs from various universities in that region. We're very happy to honor Ms. Abeta's accomplishments with a $250 check, which we will also be sending via mail. Great. Thank you. Next slide, please. Our second 2020 awardee for outstanding with science teacher is Lena Eddings. She's currently a physics instructor at La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Also, Science Department chair and serves on instructional council and next-gen standards team. The goal as a teacher is to promote a challenging and thought-provoking learning environment, giving students problem-solving skills that they can use to further their knowledge and life experiences. As of her nominator, Ms. Eddings has a unique teaching style, making her class not only informative but also providing humor and one-on-one support. She treats students with a high level of respect, and she is genuinely interested in their opinions. Ms. Eddings is open to allowing students to discuss topics beyond the planned lesson, especially real-world applications. Her engineering background provides an invaluable perspective into how to teach the students to be problem-solvers well beyond physics. This year's pandemic restriction from in-person teaching has created challenges for teachers, especially science teachers who cannot have students in laboratories. Ms. Eddings has made tremendous extra efforts to ensure an optimal learning experience for her students. So please join me in congratulating Lena Eddings, 2020 science, outstanding science teacher. And again, we have a plaque for Lena. And we will be sending the plaque and a check from NMAS to Ms. Eddings at her home. So again, Patrick, take it away from the ACS. We're also very excited to have teachers who in their normal routine are outstanding instructors in the classroom. And unfortunately, during this rather difficult time have been forced to make rather unexpected transition outside of laboratories, which is very difficult. And the fact that you're able to continue and excel in this condition is certainly very well appreciated. So we will also be sending a $250 check to Ms. Eddings in addition to the plaque and check from the Academy of Science. Great. And final slide, please. Next slide, please. So, great congratulations from all of us in the New Mexico Academy of Science to Eva Beta and Lena Eddings, New Mexico Academy of Science, 2020 outstanding science teachers. And with that, I am going to pass this on to Sarah. Jane, I think we're going to let the teachers say a few remarks. Yes, thank you. I totally forgot about that. Yes. Can you please turn your cameras and microphones on? And I would like to ask Ms. a beta first, if she has any words for us. Yes, I do. I am sincerely thankful and honored for having been nominated and awarded this 2020 Outstanding New Mexico Science Teacher Award by the New Mexico Academy of Science. I am pleased to receive this engraved plaque and who would not appreciate the Monetary Award provided by the American Chemical Society and the New Mexico Academy of Science. Thank you. My passion for science was inspired by my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Harold Sanchez. Upon his retirement approximately 16 years later, I assumed his role as chemistry teacher at my alma mater high school. How is that for fate? My science teaching career began over 25 years ago and I have been fortunate to experience teaching the various levels of education elementary, middle school, high school and college levels. I genuinely enjoyed this career path and have never regretted it. I love teaching science because I get to witness those aha moments when my students grasp the scientific understanding of natural phenomena. I believe that by instructing students through hands-on learning, they will also be able to utilize the life skills learned in the real world. Encouraging students to participate in science for over 25 years has been my passion. Participation in the science fair has opened my doors for many students. I'm proud to have the opportunity of instructing and encouraging several of my students and witnessing them advance all the way to the International Science and Engineering Fair. STEM has been fundamental in my students' future to being successful in their adult roles in whatever career they choose. There are but a few examples of why I love to teach. Lastly, I want to thank my family and various administrators, faculty and staff who have supported me along my career. Once again, I want to thank the New Mexico Academy of Science and the American Chemical Society for the recognition and award. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for your dedication for teaching science. It's very important. Ms. Eddings, please. Thank you. This is an incredible honor. And I have to say I never set out to be a teacher. It's funny where life leads you. As an engineer, I thought I would enter the education world and be this rock star. And what I found instead was that I think I have learned more in the setting of being a teacher than I learned in any other setting. I work with the greatest group of human beings in the world, and even though they're high schoolers, I still call them my kids.  The kid that made a statement that has resonated with me and I have to make full disclosure, I think actually the statement maybe is even more important today in this strange virtual setting we find ourselves in. The full disclosure is that the statement is from my son when he was 20 years old a couple years ago. And I will tell you that he abruptly decided to switch classes when he heard I was going to be teaching his physics class. But his statement just has stayed with me. And I actually have it written right here above my computer and the statement is having a mentor that constructively moves forward with you instead of against you is brilliant. I strive every day in the hopes that students feel that way about me when they work with me. And so I do like to provide those opportunities for them to feel success, even when they're struggling and they think they can't do it. I very openly share that in my own high school physics class I was a C student, because I was just too intimidated by it and they are shocked when I share that. So, I love working with these kids. It's not pretty these days it's not perfect, but we are doing it we're working, we're laughing, we're crying, not because it's COVID but because it's physics. But we're getting it done. And so I hope I'm living up to the expectation of moving forward with those kids in a positive manner, every day constructively working with them and not against them. And I'm humbled to receive this award and be recognized by the New Mexico Academy of Science. Thank you to the American Chemical Society. It is a complete honor and of course I wish to thank Dr Somali for his recognition and work to get this to have me nominated. It is a pleasure. It will certainly be a highlight of my career. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you again for being a teacher of science. So congratulations to both of you. We're so pleased that you were both able to be here with us to to receive your awards. And I'm just sorry that we can't hand you the award in person and applied as we all should be doing right now. And now, thank you Selena for rescuing me. And I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Peche from EPSCORE, who will make the announcement about those all important symposium poster award. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. It's great to hear all these inspiring stories, especially in the time of COVID. So I can't imagine personally doing physics online, but you are killing it over there. So congratulations to both winners. I have the great pleasure of announcing the 2020 NMRS symposium posters winners. This year we had nearly 30 posters from all corners of the state, including representation from Central New Mexico Community College, Eastern New Mexico University, University of New Mexico, Navajo Technical University, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Tech, and the University of the Southwest. Needless to say, the competition was extremely stiff. First, I will announce the undergraduate poster winners. After I announce your name, if you could turn on your mic and camera to say a few words to accept your award. That would be great. Starting with undergraduate poster category. Our third place goes to Jacobo Heron from NMSU with his poster titled I'm a sharing learning model to predict groundwater levels in the messiah transbound, transboundary aquifer. Congratulations. Thank you. I guess I would just like to start by saying thank you to Dr. Nagarkar. I had never done anything like this in the past and this is my first time doing research as an undergrad. So it was a really good experience. And I would love to continue to do this. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much. And the great thing is it's an annual event. So we look forward to looking at your research next year and thank you so much for participating and stretching your research wings, especially in this unprecedented time. We really appreciate it. All right, thank you guys for letting me participate. Absolutely, absolutely. And as a third place winner, you win a $50 gift card and I will be mailing that out shortly to you. So congratulations. Thank you. Absolutely. Our second place undergraduate poster category winner goes to claim Williams from Eastern New Mexico University with a poster titled the trouble with traffic. Oh, clean your muted. We can hear you now yes. I'd like to thank my mentor, Dr. Brian Pascoe, for supporting me through my research all these years and a half I've been working on it and also, I think, an MF score for the opportunity to share my research with everyone. Well, thank you so much clean. Your research is very pertinent and applicable to many situations so we look forward to your continued research. Wonderful. All right. There we go. Our first place undergraduate poster category winner goes to Joshua May from Central New Mexico Community College with a poster titled Hierarchical structures of microgrid control systems. I think Josh is here. Hi, Josh. It's a little craze that I won this. This is a, I'm honored for this honestly I'm still like my like celebratory boots, you know, I'd like to thank Dr. Biederm because mainly without him I probably wouldn't have gotten this far for sure, because this is totally out of my like the zone of expertise. Yeah, for sure and thanks to EPSCORE staff and the same map. Absolutely. Josh, we really appreciate you spreading your wings and trying something new and I forgot to mention second place is going to receive $100 and then first place will receive $150 so congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. All right, next up are our graduate poster winners. Our third place goes to Awana Marzia Moshi from New Mexico Tech with her poster titled optimal power flow for a power system with grid scale energy storage systems varying wind generation and a fluctuating load. Congratulations. Hi. I'm really grateful that I received this award. So I want to thank to all of the guys that you have looked at over our posters and also judges that it's going to take the place. So I'm really thankful to all of you guys. So thank you. Congratulations. We're really proud of your work and I'm really excited to see where it goes. Absolutely. All right. Next up is our second place graduate poster award winner that goes to Sundar Sapkota from Eastern New Mexico University with the poster titled prospects of GGB as a future crop in New Mexico. Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to thank you. My major supervisor, Dr. Jimming Lou for his health support and outstanding mentorship during my graduate research period. And I am pleased to receive this award. And finally, I want to thank New Mexico Academy of Science for organizing such an informative and wonderful events. Thank you. Well, thank you and congratulations. And you all have a lot of fans in the chat comments. It's delightful to see all the encouragement and support from your friends and family members. All right. Our first place graduate poster award winner goes to Laramima Han from Eastern New Mexico University with the poster titled assessment of freshwater turtle populations on the Picos River in New Mexico and Texas. Hi. I just want to say thank you to you guys for putting on such a great event. This is my second year presenting my research. So it's nice. I also want to thank my lab, my advisor, Dr. Yvonne Amali and everyone who helps me with all the turtle work. I just thank you for the opportunity to show the importance of wildlife biology and how my work. And also I would like to shout out to Sundar and Klein representing Eastern New Mexico University. Good job, guys. Well, congratulations, Team Turtle. We're very proud of you. And yes, Eastern had an extremely strong sewing. So congratulations and all the hard work over there. All right. Our next poster winner was voted on by... Oh, pardon me. Let me... I have my nose out of it. Our next poster winner is the Best Better Poster Award, which is a movement which was created by Mike Morrison who hosted a webinar earlier this month. His entire ethos is to make better posters using kind of intelligent design to make science communication much more acceptable or accessible, I should say. This year's winner is Herbod Norsadayapur, a UNF graduate student with a poster titled How the Built Environment Can Help Employees to Experience Lower Occupational Stress. Congratulations, Herbod. Hey, thank you so much for... This is a great honor. And also I should thank you so much for putting together that webinar with Mike Morrison on how to do the virtual poster. That was a totally new concept for me and I had no idea that such a thing exists. And also the Twitter poster is going to be really helpful in my future research. And thank you for all of your hard work. And this is a great honor. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Congratulations. And I hope you saw the shout out on Twitter from Mike Morrison about your work. He was very, very proud of you presented. So I hope you screen shot of that tweet and put it kind of next to your workstation because he was extremely proud. She did. You did. He was extremely proud. So. All right. Our last and certainly not least poster award winner was voted on by the public and it is our People's Choice Awards. Congratulations to Ali Garasi, a UNM graduate student with a poster titled, cooperative dynamic power balancing and a soothing and a photovoltaic hybrid energy storage system using multiple reactive agents. I don't see Ali here. So I, there he is. Wonderful. I thank you very much for your disavowed. I have a special thanks to my friends and my family and everyone who select my poster as a best poster award. I have a special thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Ali Bedram, who supported me for my PhD thesis. You know, this presentation was a part of my PhD thesis and I am on the first steps of my research. I'm in the second year of my PhD. I have a special thanks to him because he really helped me and give me lots of idea about my thesis. Thank you very much for this event. And I think it is really helpful for me. And it was a great experience for me. Thank you very much. Well, thank you all to all of our poster winners and congratulations. We all presented outstanding work in such dynamic and diverse fields. It was really a pleasure to see all of the work presented at this year's symposium. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sarah, for managing the poster competition in these extraordinary times. We really appreciate your enthusiasm and the incredible amount of work it took to actually make this happen in the online environment. Congratulations to all the poster winners and we will be in contact with you to make sure we're at your address so we can send out your gift cards. And we look forward to seeing you at future research symposiums. I have the pleasure today of closing the research symposium, and I just want to do a quick shout out to people who have helped to support this conference over the years, and particularly the New Mexico Academy of Science our collaborator in this work. I want to invite you to continue to take a look at our website because we'll be posting all the recordings from this past week. I'd also like to ask you to please fill out the evaluation form that was sent out by our evaluation partner called the mark Leanne Cortez would have sent you an email this morning so we really appreciate your efforts there. And I think that's all there is. So I'd like to echo what we heard from our keynote speaker on Monday. Please everybody be safe, wear a mask, and we'll see you all next year.


A speaker has not been elected. Pursuant to Clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House and resets subject to the call of the chair. That was the result of a floor vote for House Speaker, and as you saw, Jim Jordan did not get the 217 votes he needed to win, with 20 Republicans voting against him. Now, at the beginning of the vote, when it first started, things were already not going in a positive direction for Jim Jordan, and Fox News' Brian Kilmeade was caught on the hot mic reacting to that, reacting specifically to one Republican who voted against Jordan. That was incredible. You know, to me, it's really surprising that there were so many GOP holdouts because after this rousing speech given by Elise Stefanik, I was sure that they would all be sold. Jim is the voice of the American people who have felt voiceless for far too long. Whether as judiciary chair, conservative leader, or representative for his constituents in West Central Ohio, whether on the wrestling mat or in the committee room, Jim Jordan is strategic, scrappy, tough, and principled.  So it is extremely odd that she would reference his time as a coach as one of the selling points when he himself is currently trying to avoid that story like the plague. Now at the time that I record this video, a second vote has not yet taken place. But by Republican Ken Buck's estimation, Jordan's likely not going to fare any better. In fact, he might do worse in the second round, and he expects a lot of yelling over this result. What happens now? Yeah, well, right now, folks are going to go into conference. There are going to be a lot of yelling and screaming. I will go into conference after they settle down a little bit. And I think we come up with either the 30-day plan or Jim wants to go back to the floor for a second vote. If we get a second vote, Jim is going to lose some votes that he got on the first vote and he's going to gain some votes. But I anticipate that the vote will still be in that 15 to 25 range. Was the 20 votes effectively against Jim Jordan a surprise to you? No, it wasn't a surprise to me. I was surprised that some of the whip counts that were floating around on social media had it down to six or seven. I think that was just wishful thinking on some of the staffer's parts. This is a, there is a group of people in really widespread across the conference that do not want to see Jim Jordan as speaker. Now, we're going to come back to that interview in a moment, but he's predicting that Jim Jordan still won't have enough support after a second round, which means that they're back to the drawing board, back to square one again, which is going to make them even more frustrated, more desperate. Now Ken Buck is one of the eight Republicans who voted in support of the motion to vacate McCarthy from the speakership. Yet he's not supporting Jim Jordan either, and he has no intention of supporting McCarthy again. So this is kind of part of the problem. Even somebody who you would assume would support Jim Jordan since they were against McCarthy isn't supporting Jim Jordan, isn't necessarily aligned with someone like Matt Gaetz on the next speaker. Now he also referenced a 30 day plan, which is a compromise concocted by a handful of dumbass Democrats to temporarily enhance the powers of McHenry. As Politico explains, centrist Republicans and Democrats are once again back-channeling about a possible vote to strengthen McHenry's abilities to bring legislation to the floor, particularly spending bills given a November 17th funding deadline, amid the week's long impasse in selecting a speaker. They're pushing a short-term measure that would grant McHenry added powers and could pass the House by majority vote, though they have not coalesced around specific language. The push by centrist Democrats to work with Republicans to elevate McHenry at a certain price was first reported by Politico. Those Democrats are all leaders of the Problem Solvers Caucus, i.e. moderate Republicans. That's what the Problem Solvers Caucus is. Now, this idea in particular has gained a tiny bit of traction and it might look a little bit more appetizing after this vote, but it still seems like a long shot, because most Democrats don't support throwing Republicans a life vest, even if it's temporarily, and furthermore Republicans don't support this, because even if they support McCarthy or did support McCarthy, they have no interest in empowering McHenry. But the Problem Solvers are pushing this idea because they are effectively Republicans themselves who have a lot of common ground with the GOP. But unfortunately for them, the deeds in front of their names make this a political liability for any Republican who supports it, regardless of the Problem Solvers Caucus' politics. So I just can't see this happening unless Republicans agree to this on their own volition without Democratic support.  So on that note, let's hear from Brad Sherman, who came up with possibly the worst person ever when it comes to who he would possibly support as Speaker. I could see President George W. Bush serving as Speaker of the House. He could come back and obviously, I'm not a real fan of how the Iraq War went, but I would think that any reasonable Republican would be somebody that Democrats could work with. Unbelievable. So he's not a fan of how the Iraq War went, but he could see unrepentant war criminal George W. Bush serving as Speaker.  The only serving that Bush should be doing right now is time in prison for the rest of his life, because he lied us into a war that led to the slaughter of a million Iraqis. So saying that you're not a fan of the way that Iraq went is a bit of an understatement, don't you think?    Just sit down, shut up, don't float any dumbass ideas that is going to make your entire party look bad at this moment when you can capitalize on the disarray that we're seeing with the GOP. But moving on, I do want to get back to that interview with Ken Buck who is going to explain why he voted for the person that he voted for in the most hilarious way imaginable. He did not vote for Congressman Jim Jordan instead voting for Tom Emmer. Well, I guess my first question is, do you really want Tom Emmer to be speaker? No, I don't. I don't like Tom Emmer. I figured this would be the worst job in America. Mike Rowe would not want to do this for his TV show. This is a terrible job. Okay. So just to underscore that, you voted for somebody because you don't like them. I voted for somebody because I wasn't going to vote for Jim. Yeah, but you don't. It's not because you want him to be speaker. Okay. Well, that says a lot about where we are right now. It sure does, Dana. Listen, Republicans are demons, perhaps literally, but their infighting is genuinely hilarious. And watching all of this has been the most entertained I've been in a very long time when it comes to American politics.  Well played. Now going back to the overall state of the speakership race, the question is how did we get to this point? And the answer is very simple. There was a massive push to get Republicans to settle for Jim Jordan, and it backfired spectacularly. In fact, Byron Donald said this explicitly. Real quick question before you go. As Axios heading into all this was talking about the pressure campaign that had building to vote for Jim Jordan. Some were anonymously telling sources that they were getting bullied into vote. Was any of that a turnoff for some of these members? I believe it was. I've talked to a couple of members where they felt that that's just not what they needed. I don't think that's what we should be doing right now. And listen, for all of the voters in our country, I think it's important for members to hear your voice and I totally respect that. But I think that there are members up here who they want to be able to make this decision on leadership and then move forward. I think some of the pressure campaigns have backfired. They have not worked. And so I think that right now, under the leadership of Jim Jordan, I would request that people just take a break, take a pause, let the members work and figure this out amongst ourselves so we can elect Jim Jordan as speaker, and then we can get back to the work that we have to do. Yeah. And I understand why there was this pressure campaign in the first place. They're desperate. They just want Republicans to pick someone, anyone to be speaker. But even if you agree with Jim Jordan's insurrectionist and fascistic politics, there's another reason why you might not want him in particular to be speaker. As one Democrat put it, if for the 16 years, 16 years that Jim Jordan has been in Congress, okay, I would like to go over right now all of his legislative accomplishments. I want to list them one by one. I'm going to start right now. I'm finished. And that right there is a really good reason to vote against him, even if you agree with him politically. None of his bills have become law. He has accomplished nothing. So if you're a Republican, that lack of experience is going to be a huge sticking point. But despite that, again, there was a campaign to get GOP holdouts to acquiesce, and the tactics that Jordan and his allies were using rubbed a lot of Republicans the wrong way. As Julie Grace Broughkay writes, moderates are growing increasingly irritated with the tactics Jordan and allies are using to pressure them into voting for him, with one member noting that the hand of the show has gotten involved in the effort sending potential defectors the email below. One lawmaker said the push is counterproductive to swaying Jordan's skeptics. And the email template reads, Hello, Stephanie from The Hannity Show with Fox News. Oh, really? It's not the MSNBC Hannity Show? Anyways, sources tell Hannity that Rep. Blank is not supporting Rep. Jim Jordan for Speaker. Can you please let me know if this is accurate? And if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders so comical, with a budget that's unfinished, why would Rep. Blank be against Jim Jordan for Speaker? Please let us know when Rep. Blank plans on opening the people's house so work can be done. And it goes on, you can pause the screen if you want to read the rest of it. Now I can understand why the Republicans who received that email were rubbed the wrong way. Not only is it irritating and insufferable, but it also comes off as an implicit threat. Either fall in line or potentially be attacked by Sean Hannity. He will use his platform to draw criticism towards you. And that could affect your chances in the upcoming election. So this is going to piss people off, but they didn't see how this would rub people the wrong way. Now when news of Hannity's involvement broke, Hannity had this to say the night before the vote and spoiler alert, he was a little bit butthurt. And why is it a shock to certain lawmakers and members of the media mob all of you out there that yours truly a member of the press is daring to ask elected representatives the so-called public servants in this country if and when they plan to wrap up the speaker battle and reopen the people's house amid growing chaos both at home and abroad. I have a lot more to say on this later, but I do have to chuckle that a few of my questions, simple questions that I asked to some Republicans over the weekend about the importance of getting a speaker as soon as possible showed we have a few sensitive little snowflakes in Congress. Here's the truth. They are the majority. They need to act like it. No deals with the Democrats and that would mean, yeah, no temporary solutions either. Elect a speaker, get the house open and start doing your job. The good news is the anonymous votes end tomorrow and we will know and we will see which Republicans understand what is the importance of this moment in history not only for the Republican Party for them to unite, them to lead by reopening the people's house while we have war in the Middle East and war in Europe and open borders and serious budget deadlines. Oh, I offer no apologies for doing my job and seeking answers from those elected public servants. Again, keyword, servants of we the people will have more on this coming up. It is incredibly ironic to me that he of all people is referring to other members of the media as the mob when he is quite literally using his influence to pressure them into supporting someone that they don't support. That's not journalism, Sean. That's activism and he knows this and getting exposed as an entire hack and operative for the GOP is not a good look from the member of the media mob. But this pressure campaign looked even more feudal to anyone who saw how vociferous Republican opposition to Jim Jordan was and they just didn't take that into account. For example, raw story explains Republican strategist and former A to two House Republican speakers, Brendan Buck, warned that there are members of the House who are willing to do whatever it takes to stop Representative Jim Jordan from becoming the next speaker. Quote, I think there are people fed up with a small number taking the party hostage so the next vote is interesting. You have a vote that was a protest and they want to get it off their chest or they're in for a fight. If you still have upper teens voting against Jordan on the second ballot, this could go on for a long time. They weren't just willing to go for the record for someone else, they're willing to take him down. Former GOP strategist Tim Miller agreed but explained that it isn't merely the anti-Jordan wing. He said there are members who simply don't want a speaker to be elected because they want to burn the House down. Some have loyalties to McCarthy and Scalise, but he doesn't think that those members are up for a fight the way Maga Republicans are. Now, one of the people vehemently opposed to Jordan is Mike Rogers and he is also very clear in his refusal to support Jim Jordan. Alabama.com reports US Representative Mike Rogers said there was nothing that Jordan could do to get his support as Speaker of the House as reported in the Aniston Star and he's saying this on the record. So, yeah, things are very tense right now and I think it's safe to say that the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy are getting a taste of their own medicine because after being accused of holding their entire party hostage, which is an accurate criticism, well now people who are opposed to Jim Jordan are doing the same thing. They're holding the entire party hostage because I mean if you give in and you allow the speaker who a lot of them like Matt Gaetz supports to go through, then you're effectively rewarding bad behavior and I don't think that Mike Rogers wants to do that. Now, if you're wondering why the guy in the toupee, Mike Rogers and the B-roll that you saw looks familiar, well the reason why that's the case is because at the beginning of the year he was the guy who actually went viral for being restrained when it looked like he was going to get into a physical altercation with Matt Gaetz. So needless to say, there's probably a lot of bad blood still there between them and he just doesn't want to support Gaetz's first pick for Speaker because then you are rewarding his bad behavior. You're saying that you can get what you want if you hold the entire party hostage and he also called the people who voted to oust McCarthy traders so he doesn't want to reward traitorous behavior as he called it. So I mean the saga continues and the self-imposed crisis within the GOP is continuing and it's getting even worse and they're not any closer to finding a speaker. So I will continue to follow this story closely and assuming that there's no updates between now and the time that I upload this video just expect chaos because that's what we've seen now for like two weeks straight.


Rwy'n golyb o bwysigol mae i gael nifer mwy, nid o'r amgylchedd ddaf, ac yn hyw i gadael bod yn unig o bwysigol. Rwy'n golyb o bwysigol y nifer 2, Clare Baker. Rwy'n gweithio i'w clygu sportaidd i'r gyffredinidau Gyntafolol, oherwydd mae'n the university and college union, and which issues were discussed. I last met a representative of the university and college union as part of a wider meeting to discuss the higher education governance bill on 20 May this year. I am pleased that the cabinet secretary has been meeting the UCU over the higher education bill. The cabinet secretary will be aware of press reports raising concerns over the threat to the future of the well-respected religious studies department at Stirling University. My understanding is that those changes have been raised without recourse to the court or the academic council. Is the cabinet secretary confident that the higher education bill recommendations will go far enough in improving university governance and accountability in cases such as this? I thank the member for her question. I certainly have been aware of the press coverage over the potential closure of the department of religious studies at the University of Stirling. I am also aware that there is the only place to study religion without being at a Christian faculty of theology. Obviously, universities are autonomous and they are responsible for managing their own course provisions. I expect them to manage their fears in the spirit of consulting with staff, trade unions and always to minimise any impact on students. In keeping with the higher education governance bill, the whole resendet of that bill is to ensure that every voice on campus is heard and that all interests—whether staff, students or academics—are heard within the governing body. To ask the Scottish Government how the higher education governance Scotland bill will maintain democracy in universities. Ministers see this bill as creating a framework that strengthens our higher education sector, its institutions and traditions. To achieve that, it needs to be meaningful legislation that opens up the architecture of our institutions to be more diverse, inclusive and representative. At its heart, the bill seeks to enable every voice on campus to be heard. I thank the minister for her response. Despite the assurances that she has given the sector, we heard evidence this week at the Parliament's education committee from key leaders within the university sector who are concerned about the unintended consequences of the bill. Why does she disagree with David Ross, who is the chair of the committee of Scottish chairs, who yesterday reiterated his belief that the bill in its current form could damage accountability and diminish democracy within Scottish universities? Mr Fraser fails to recognise that there were a range of views and opinions expressed yesterday at the education committee. There is a wide spectrum of views. It is important to recognise that, although some senior voices in the world of higher education have concerns in relation to the bill, there are other voices that are of equal importance, whether that is staff, whether that is in the student bodies or indeed in the trade union movement. It is important to consider all the views of all the stakeholders in the round. At its heart, the bill is about ensuring that our world-class higher education system continues to evolve and remains fit for 21st century Scotland. I do not think that asking for the highest standards of governance is unreasonable to expect that, given that it is the taxpayer that invests £1 billion every year in higher education. In considering the views of all the stakeholders, can the cabinet secretary confirm that the highly valued role of Rector will continue and will she give an assurance that the Rector will still be able to chair the university court as part of Scotland's proud academic and democratic traditions? The Scottish Government appreciates the very valuable role that Rectors play in the ancient universities. They have raised the profile of the sector and have also been crucial in representing students. We have absolutely no intention at all of abolishing the position of Rector. We are listening to the views of all stakeholders on how elected chairs were work in all of our institutions. We will consider all constructive suggestions raised in evidence as we debate the detail of the bill in Parliament. It is important to stress that Rectors have kept the spirit of democracy alive within higher education, and it is that spirit of democracy, transparency and accountability that we would like to extend to every higher education institution in Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government when it will next meet the head of Scotland's rural college. I have no current plans to meet the head of Scotland's rural college, however, if there are issues that the SRUC would like to discuss, I would of course be more than happy to do so. Joan McAlpine I thank the minister for that answer. SRUC recently failed to agree a merger with Edinburgh University, and I am concerned about the impact of that development on my region, most notably at Barony College in Dumfries. There is concern locally that SRUC senior management do not value the FE provision at Barony and are selling off assets to pay for management failures, yet the SRUC accounts show that the principal salary was £280,000 last year. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that the absolute priority of SRUC should not be inflated senior salaries but providing a wide range of training and education to all levels, including FE, to boost employment in rural Scotland and meet the needs of land-based industries, including farming? Of course, the priority should always be to provide educational opportunities, that boost employment. I am acutely aware of the importance of agricultural skills to the economy in Dumfries and Galloway, and I understand why the member and the community are keen to ensure a continued presence for the SRUC at the Barony campus. I understand that the SRUC remains committed to delivering land-based education and training in Dumfries, but I would be happy to discuss that with Ms McAlpine and a representative from SRUC further. To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that the recent reforms to protecting vulnerable groups scheme are sufficient. Yes, we believe that the reforms of the disclosure and rehabilitation regimes in Scotland that took place on 10 September strike the right balance between public protection and the right of an individual who has spent convictions for less serious offences and who has put their past offending behaviour behind them to move on with their life. The reforms will continue to ensure that vulnerable groups are protected and that the background of an individual seeking to work with children and protected adults is assessed for relevant convictions. To that end, convictions for serious offences will continue to be disclosed even if spent. I fully accept the need for additional scrutiny of a person's background if that individual wants to work with vulnerable groups or on other sensitive roles. However, I am aware of a case where my constituent has had other relevant information placed on his protection of vulnerable groups scheme record at the request of the then chief constable of Drachly Police. Despite my constituent approaching disclosure Scotland, Police Scotland and the information commissioner's office, he has been unable to obtain details of the other relevant information held on his file, which has now had a detrimental effect on his coach and taxi business. What recourse, if any, does my constituent have in this situation? In addition, can the minister advise me whether there will be any plans when Parliament has a further opportunity to scrutinise the use of forms to change that, particularly anomaly? I thank the member for raising the issue. It is important to realise that that is about making sure that it is a proportionate regime that is in place to make sure that people can move on with their lives. However, that has to be balanced up with making sure that the right information is there to the people to make good decisions about who is going to be working with people, for instance, with vulnerable vulnerabilities. We are in a busy period of consultation over a since the cabinet secretary made the statement to Parliament, and I am happy to meet with the member to hear from her the specifics of the case that she is involved with to see if that can help to move that issue forward, but also to make any other representations that she wants to make with the justice minister to make that available to her as well. Many thanks. Question 6, Stuart McMillan. I ask the Scottish Government when, at last, met the Inverclyde Council to discuss education matters. We are in frequent contact with the Inverclyde Council about a wide range of education matters. In particular, Dr Allan performed the sword cutting ceremony for the new St Patrick's primary school in Greenock on 23 September, and I attended the launch of the Inverclyde Council's attainment challenge on 14 August as one of its keynote speakers. I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply, and as a result of the Tory cuts to working tax credits, 22,000 children between three and 15 years old in Scotland will lose their entitlement to free school meals. Can the cabinet secretary tell me how Inverclyde Council will be expected to deal with those Tory cuts and whether there is anything that can be done to mitigate the effects of the attack on the least well-off in Inverclyde and Scotland, who stand to lose their entitlement to free school meals and childcare? The Scottish Government will always act to protect the rights of disadvantaged children and the entitlement to free school meals and early learning and childcare, whether that is in Inverclyde or across Scotland. Mr McMillan highlights the impact of changes to working tax credits and child tax credits made in the UK summer budget and the potential impact of those nationally 22,000 pupils losing their entitlement to free school meals and 2,000 two-year-olds losing their entitlement to early learning and childcare. Consecretly, Presiding Officer, two weeks ago I pledged to safeguard the entitlements of thousands of children from lower-income households by changing the regulations in Scotland to ensure that they remain eligible for free school meals and early learning and childcare, and as a Government, we remain committed to tackling child poverty head on despite the challenges from the UK Government. Question 7, Graeme Dey. To ask the Scottish Government what evidence it is aware of that energy drink consumption by pupils during the school day may impact on classroom behaviour. The nutritional requirements for food and drink in school Scotland regulations 2008 contain standards that all drinks provided in schools must meet. Those regulations do not allow any energy drinks to be made available at any time of the school day. We will continue to monitor all evidence on energy drinks and carefully consider recommendations made in relation to their sale to children and young people. I hear from secondary school teachers that the classroom environment that they encounter post-launch time across S2 to S4 can be a disrupted one with pupils easily distracted. They believe that, due to the purchase and consumption of these products from off-the-school campus and down south to teaching union, NASU, WT and drug and alcohol charity Swanswell, they have teamed up to look into the situation regarding energy drink consumption by pupils. Can I ask the minister what steps might be taken to determine the scale of the problem here in Scotland? The member raises a very serious point, but the exemption that I mentioned applies to food and drink, including energy drinks, to be brought onto the school by a pupil, for example, as part of a pat lunch or purchased at a shop outside the school gates. However, the school health promotion and nutritional Scotland act requires education authorities to make health promotion a central purpose of schooling and allowing children to consume unhealthy products, such as energy drinks, on school premises that would run contrary to that message. For that reason, schools are encouraged to consider this when setting their own policies about what products they allow their pupils to bring into the school. I am however willing to meet with Mr Day and to discuss some of the issues that he has raised if he wishes. North Lancer Council has banned fast food vans from within 250 metres of schools in an effort to improve the health and wellbeing of their pupils, which has already been taken by Glasgow and East Ayrshire Council. Can I ask the minister if the Scottish Government supports the council's efforts to improve the health of pupils through bands and snack bands? What assistance can the Government give the council on fighting the legal challenge to the ban? Does the minister feel that the education bill would be an appropriate place to table an amendment to give local authorities the additional powers in this area that may be needed as a result of the legal challenge? Notwithstanding the legal issues that the member raises, I would not want to wish to comment on some of those if they are on-going. However, we would expect and hope that local authorities make best use of the current rules and regulations that are available to them through some of the provisions that he mentioned, but also through some of the legislative requirements that I mentioned in response to Graeme Dey to make best use to ensure that they are creating healthy environments around their schools and, of course, decisions around the environment that is surrounding schools rests solely with local authorities. However, I hope that that gives them some comfort that we want to help to promote healthy activities within schools and that the rules and regulations are there to support local authorities. 8. Colin Beattie To ask the Scottish Government how it will work with further and higher education institutions to ensure that students in receipt of employment and support allowance will not find their education disrupted when universal credit is rolled out. Cabinet Secretary Angela Constance The Scottish Government has long made clear that we have great concerns about the implementation of universal credit. We welcome the limited powers over universal credit proposed in the Scotland Bill and are working to implement those as soon as possible, but that will not be enough to protect students from all aspects of universal credit or indeed the UK Government's welfare reforms. However, we are working closely with the Scottish Funding Council, Colleges Scotland and Child Poverty Action Group to monitor and assess the impact for students. 8. Colin Beattie I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Many of the students from deprived areas in my constituency of Midlothian North and Musselborough benefit greatly from this allowance. Can the cabinet secretary outline how the allowance has contributed to the reduction of the attainment gap across Scotland? I am aware that a part-time student can claim contributory ESA if they have contributions or income-related ESA or if they are on a low income without having to also be receiving DLA or PIP. Therefore, the allowance has supported disadvantaged students to access educational opportunities and has helped to address inequalities in educational outcomes. As I have made clear, the Scottish Government continues to have concerns about the implementation of universal credit. If the member wishes to write to me to outline those matters in greater detail, I would be more than happy to ensure that those are fed into any discussions that the Government is having with the UK Government on employment and support allowance. To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is putting in place to improve early years education. We have invested £329 million over two years to increase entitlement to 600 hours of early learning and childcare for all three and four-year-olds and to 27 per cent of two-year-olds who will benefit the most. Around 20,000 two-year-olds from the poorest families will be eligible over the course of the year. We also intend to almost double-funded provision to 1,140 hours per year by the end of the next Parliament. The minister will be aware that the welfare changes by the UK Government means that almost two thousand two-year-olds would lose their entitlement to early years education. Can I ask the minister what precautions and protections the Government is putting in place to protect children and do they have the additional resources to do so? The member makes a good point. I think that she shows 2,000 reasons why that change was wrong. As the cabinet secretary said in her answer to Stuart McMillan, she changed the regulations in Scotland to ensure that those two-year-olds remain eligible for free school meals and early learning in childcare. We will always put our children and young people first in our efforts to create the fairer country that we seek. That underpins our commitment to getting it right for every child and the legislative changes that we made through the Children and Young People Act. We will always want to ensure that all children get the best start in life and the start and the chance to flourish. We will continue to do that despite what seems to be the efforts and the challenges that the UK Government seems to present to us in our efforts to pursue that. Many thanks. I supplementary from Cara Hilton. Given that children living in poverty are twice as likely to experience early learning difficulties between the ages of three and five, what specific measures will the minister be taking to address the attainment gap that develops before children start school? Will the minister consider making early literacy a focus of inspections? We have got a huge commitment to ensuring that the attainment gap is narrowed, and that has been evidenced through the recent Read, Write, Count campaign, which builds on the great success that our play-talk read campaign promotes efforts and messages that children parents should play-talk read with their little ones from day one because we know that that benefits those literacy challenges. I would point the member to the recently published GUS information, which shows that we are making some good progress in terms of literacy, and also will ensure that she can contribute to our thinking around how we make sure that we can continue to close that gap and focus on early years as the best place to start that. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address the reported teacher shortage in the north-east. Cabinet Secretary, Angela Constance. We have increased student teacher intake targets in each of the last four years, committed £51 million to Safeguard teaching posts and launched a teacher recruitment campaign. I welcomed the invitation to attend the teacher recruitment summit in Aberdeen last week. We discussed the positive work that the Scottish Government and local authorities are doing and explored the scope to build on that work. I have written to the seven local authorities concerned, setting out proposals for further action, including extending the provision of part-time distance learning, initial teacher education and incorporating regional workforce intelligence into the national workforce planning process on a more structured basis. Does the minister agree that it is important to local communities that young people in particular who may have had to leave the area to study elsewhere can find employment in their own local area? In this context, what is the Scottish Government doing to encourage routes into teaching for people, especially the young and newly trained who live in or are attached to the north-east? I agree entirely with that sentiment. The Government is committed to working with local authorities and universities to develop routes into teaching that enable people to remain in their local area. That is why we have brought the University of Highlands and Islands on stream as an initial teacher education provider. That is why we have increased the number of student places for initial teacher education across Scotland, but especially at the universities of Aberdeen, Dundee and the west of Scotland. Aberdeenshire is one of the local authorities to have benefited from the funding that the Government provided to the University of Aberdeen to enable it to develop the part-time distance learning PGE courses to enable partner local authorities to develop existing staff as primary teachers on a part-time basis while continuing in their employment. It was clear from the teacher summit last week that the innovation has been widely welcomed by the local authorities. I have asked my officials to speak to partners to explore how the delight programme could be extended to the secondary sector. Many qualified and experienced primary and secondary school teachers are available and ready to work, particularly in Murray next door to the northeast, but due to having an English qualification they are not recognised by the GTC. Can a solution be found to this as soon as possible so that children in Murray are not sent home again this winter due to teacher shortages? It is important to recognise that it is crucial that teachers in Scottish schools have qualifications to teach, and I am sure that Mrs Scanlon would agree with that very important point. However, it is also worth recognising that the GTCs, who are at the summit in Aberdeen, already register teachers from south of the border and do so in large numbers. Mrs Scanlon might also be interested to note that the GTCs have recently just finished a consultation on what I believe would be two very important proposals that would introduce more flexibility into the system that would be helpful across Scotland, particularly to Murray and the northeast. One proposal is about equivalency testing and the other proposal is about registration. That is provisional, provisional registration on certain conditions being met within a timescale. I hope that she will agree with me that that shows a great willing on the part of the GTCs to maintain standards always but where possible to show flexibility. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities regarding the impact of the agreement to maintain teacher numbers. The Scottish Government has committed £51 million to safeguard teaching posts, and we have been in regular discussions with local authorities to support them to meet their commitment to maintain teacher numbers and pupil teacher ratios at 2014 levels. The Education and Skills Committee recently heard concerns from representatives of local authorities across Scotland that the Scottish Government's decision to set strict teacher limits for each individual council has removed the flexibility that they need to match demand for teachers with supply. It was also suggested that in order to meet the Government's demands, imposed via the threat of a £50 million cut to their budgets, councils are having to lay off support staff. Can the cabinet secretary therefore confirm how many janitors, cleaners, kitchen and other administrators from support staff have lost their jobs since the deal was put in place? What estimates have been made about the further job losses over coming years? Does she believe that the loss of those posts is in keeping with the Government's stated commitment to meeting the needs of the lower paid? I would have hoped that Mr MacArthur would have agreed with me that going the extra mile to maintain teacher numbers at the 2014 level was a very important and crucial step to take, particularly as we embark on our journey where we are all across the chamber and across every local authority in Scotland increasing our resolve to close the attainment gap. We know that good quality professional graduate teacher workforce is crucial to that. It is important to stress to Mr MacArthur that every local authority entered into this agreement with the Government, but it is no secret that the Government would indeed have preferred a national agreement, as opposed to having 32 separate agreements. In the weeks and months ahead, we will certainly continue to have a dialogue with local authorities and partners and COSLA to see whether we can make progress on that area. The cabinet secretary will be aware of the particular challenges of recruiting and maintaining teachers in rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway. What is the Scottish Government doing to help the council to maintain its teacher numbers? Yes, Ms McAlpine raises a point in the same way that there have been recruitment and retention issues in the north-east of Scotland. Similarly, there have been challenges in Dumfries and Galloway. The Government is committed to working in partnership with local authorities, the university and, as it indicated in an earlier answer, with the GTCS, as well as other professional associations, to explore how we develop innovative solutions to the challenges in and around the recruitment of teachers in particular parts of the country. As a Government, we have supported a partnership between Dumfries and Galloway Council and the University of West of Scotland to offer a route into teaching for existing local authority employees. Ten students started on that programme and pleased to say last month that we will be discussing the potential to build on this model with both the local authority and the university. On the subject of century mandated targets, can I ask what plans the Scottish Government has to increase the extent to which local authorities are held to account on the outcomes that are opposed to the inputs for the public? If I caught Mr Buchanan's question right, I think that he is touching on an important relationship of how we need balance in our education system and the debates around how much resources and teacher numbers go into the system are very important. The Government's position on teacher numbers has been well rehearsed here this afternoon. The point that he is making is that, at the end of the day, it is about outcomes for our children. As a Government, we are determined to be led and informed by the evidence about what works to improve educational outcomes for all our children. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with the Scottish Funding Council and what issues were discussed. I met with the chair and chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council on 24 September. We discussed matters of importance to further and higher education. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. The cabinet secretary will be aware that recently the Scottish Funding Council rejected a bid from the University of West of Scotland to have financial assistance to rebuild its Lanarkshire campus in Hamilton. She may not be aware, though, if she is aware that the local chamber of commerce recently estimated that the existence of that campus in Hamilton contributes an estimated £70 million to the local economy. Given that UWS now is considering options that may involve relocating away from the current Hamilton base, will she argue with the cabinet secretary for finance to find some money from the underspend that has recently been exposed to invest in that much-needed campus on the current site in Hamilton to ensure that the adverse economic impact of the decision by the Scottish Funding Council can be reversed and that the UWS can start to go ahead with its very exciting and competitive project on the Hamilton campus site? I understand the value of having a university campus in a town. I understand why any community would want to retain a university campus in a town. I know that Mr McLean, such as other constituency members such as Christina McKelvey, has taken a close interest in the redevelopment of the University of West of Scotland Hamilton campus. I apologise that my geography of Lanarkshire is not quite as smart as it should be, Mr McMahon, but it is clear that there is a cross-party interest in the chamber with regard to the University of West of Scotland and proposals in and around where the campus should be located. UWS is looking at options at appraisal. I know that, at a local level, councillors across the political divide appear to be united on that matter as well. What I would say is that the Scottish Funding Council, although it was unable to deploy £25 million to match fund proposals at this point in time, has indicated that it is supportive of the project and that the redevelopment of the UWS Hamilton campus will feature as one of the highest priorities when it publishes and develops its infrastructure investment plan. To ask the Scottish Government how it encourages the role that families can play in their children's learning and what it is doing to increase the quality of early learning and childcare services. We know that parents are the biggest influence on the future outcomes of our children, and that supporting them is essential. That is why we are investing £2.7 million in bookbug and play-talk redactivities this year for preschool children and why we launched Read-Write Count in August. That programme aims to improve literacy and numeracy skills for children in primaries 1 to 3. Save the Children recently submitted the evidence to the education committee on the delivery of the families and schools together. The fast programme focusing on parents disadvantaged by poverty to positively engage in their children's learning. What can the Scottish Government do to ensure that the fast programme continues to prosper? Would it consider producing national standards on parental engagement support? I thank the member for raising this. I have seen first-hand the fast programme in action in Western Bartonshire and was impressed by what I saw because it built on parents' assets and provided a really positive experience for both children and their families. I understand that that has helped to improve outcomes for children. We will consider the evidence from the fast evaluation. We will continue to work with Save the Children to consider the role that fast and other similar parental engagement methods can play in our attainment programme. With respect to the proposal for national standards, the Government works with the national parent involvement stakeholder group in order to monitor and develop national policy on parent engagement. The group is currently developing its work plan for 2016 onwards. We will invite Save the Children to a future meeting of the group in order to consider their full range of ways to increase the quality, breadth and depth of parent engagement and family learning. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is in the closure of rural schools and nurseries. Rural schools and nurseries are often highly valued by their community. It is important that any proposal to close one is given full consideration and complies with the requirements of the Schools Consultations Scotland Act 2010, which was strengthened in 2014. The Cubs will know that Tylan Council has mothballed edinbein and strewn nurseries and is appealing in favour of closure of knock-break edinbein and strewn primaries on the Isle of Skye. They are doing that to try to block reopening of the nurseries or using that as an excuse. Does the cabinet secretary agree that this arrogant behaviour by Tylan Council all becomes a supposed democratic organisation that should deal with the case of the nurseries on their own merits? Of course, I agree that nurseries are essential to communities and indeed to our children in terms of their well-being and education. I am aware of this case and the sensitivities associated with it. However, as it is currently before the courts, you will appreciate it. I am limited in what I can say. Myself or Dr Allan would be more than happy to meet with Mr Thompson to discuss the issue further once the legal process has concluded. However, until the matter is resolved, the council may not implement its proposals either wholly or partly. In the meantime, we would expect the council to meet its statutory obligations relating to the provision of early learning and childcare. Briefly, please, John Scott. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The cabinet secretary will be aware of the proposed closure of the nurseries at the Ayrshire College. My constituents and I are particularly concerned about the proposed closure at Ayrshire College. Does the cabinet secretary share my concerns about that and does she agree with me that further effort should be made to make this nursery viable, keep it available to student staff and members of the public if need be? Is there anything that she can do to help and also protect the jobs of the nine members of staff? Mr Scott, I appreciate that this very topic came up yesterday at Topical Questions. Along with other local members, I share the disappointment in that decision. Ayrshire College advises that the nursery is currently economically unriable and is costing £400,000 to maintain, and that, nonetheless, there are 37 children that currently use that. It also advises that the nine members of staff from the covenant campus will be offered redeployment. I am more than happy to meet with the member and, indeed, any other local member to discuss their concerns on this matter. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Unison Scotland Survey, claiming that staff morale at colleges is at rock bottom with 79 per cent of respondents saying that staff felt negative or extremely negative. Cabinet secretary, much of the progress that has been made in recent years in Scotland's colleges has only been possible because of the commitment and professionalism of staff, and I want to make sure that we build upon that while making sure that staff are well-wed and supported. As the First Minister made clear last week, it is important to fully understand why some staff say that they are dissatisfied, and I intend to discuss those findings with Unison Scotland at our next meeting. Thank you very much. It is interesting that the cabinet secretary calls it progress, because we know that 65 per cent of staff feel that services have got worse. In the last two years, part-time colleges and places have been slashed. There are 80,000 fewer female students compared with a few years ago. Will the minister now finally concede that, one, this is not progress, two, the Government has got it badly wrong and the agenda of college mergers and funding cuts. This is bad for staff and it is extremely bad for access to flexible further education, particularly for female students. Will the cabinet secretary concede that it is now time to restore the college support and funding? Although I am conscious that there were 266 members of support staff across the sector that responded to the survey, although that is a low proportion of staff, I am keen to discuss the findings of the survey when I next meet with Unison Scotland. It is nonetheless important to recognise that the college reform programme is a good example of public sector reform, because we are doing more for learners in the context of a very challenging financial times. We now have more learners studying full-time recognised courses that lead to employment and the focus on skills for work and the local economy are absolutely the right priorities. With regard to the point that he raises with respect to women learners, women form the majority of college students. Over 52 per cent in 2013-12 women are not underrepresented in the college sector. In terms of the numbers of under 25 studying full-time recognised courses and in terms of over 25 studying full-time recognised courses, the trajectory is upward, but we still continue to provide a range of provision, including part-time provision, as we recognise that some people continue to need that more flexible approach to learning. Given that pay scales are of concern to staff, could the cabinet secretary outline what progress the college sector has made on paying the living wage? I understand from Colleges Scotland that all colleges have made a commitment to pay the living wage. I warmly welcome that undertaking and look forward to further colleges becoming living wage accredited employers in the future. We now turn to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion number 14432 in the name of Kenneth Gibson on Scotland's fiscal framework. Could I invite members who would like to be considered to