Good morning students. Last lecture we had a look at the first reactor in the world, Chicago pile which is made by Fermi and his colleagues in Chicago. Then we had a look at the constituents of a nuclear reactor, it should have a core, whether it needs a moderator, then the control rods, then you had the reactor vessel and so on. We also had a look at the different types of reactors, the pressurized water reactor, the boiling water reactor, the fast reactor, sodium cooled fast reactors, the gas cooled reactors which are not now present in big numbers. But then just as we call different generations, even these reactors have now been tagged with generation numbers, luckily the generations are not very many. These generation 1 reactors were those reactors which are developed in the very initial days like maybe the Chicago pile, the shipping port reactor in the USA and some of the initial reactor test reactors in the different countries. Then came the generation 2 reactors, the PWR, the BWR which are mostly in operation. Then the generation 3 reactors with some advanced features over the generation 2 reactors have been built in France and Japan till many are going to be built in the next decade. But now all the countries have felt that there is a very imperative need to consolidate the efforts of the research towards particular designs instead of focusing on many many many designs which have been reported, why not to come to your particular designs and then do more research on them so that it economics also would be nice, you know people could contribute to the same. So that is called as the generation 4 reactor which also called the Gen 4 and is having different member countries in this Gen 4 reactor forum. Similarly I was showing you the different generations. Generation 1 as I mentioned include the gas cooled Magnox reactors or the advanced gas cooled reactors. Then the shipping port reactor which is was a pressurized water reactor. Then the Dresden reactor is a boiling water reactor. Then you see in the beyond the 60s you had the generation 2 most of them pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. These 2 are generally also called as light water reactors because they use light water ordinary water as the coolant and the moderator. Of course then comes the Kandu reactor or the heavy water reactors. As I mentioned in my last lecture, heavy water reactors are cooled by heavy water and moderated by heavy water. Main advantage of heavy water is you can use natural uranium with heavy water but if you want to use light water you have to go with enriched uranium. Then the advanced gas cooled reactors which are improvement over the Magnox reactors. Then there I mean some evolutionary designs which have called as the generation 3 which took place in the 1990s. The advanced water reactor then the AP600 and 1000 reactor designs and of course the European pressurized reactor which is again was an evolutionary design. It is supposed to be about 1600 megawatt electrical and one of them is under construction in Europe. Then of course here some more technology developments have taken place. So we have a sub-module generation 3 plus, they have got the pebble bed modular reactor development in Africa and then IRIS is another type of reactor design which has been developed. And what is the focus of these generation 4 reactors? Same thing is economics but enhance the safety of course to objectives, not that safety is not costly but safety need not be made excessively costly. Then what else?  Then this proliferation, you always hear about this word proliferation. We have talked about proliferation of nuclear weapons, proliferation, what is proliferation? The fear is that some of the radioactive material or plutonium could be taken out and people could make bombs with that. So proliferation of nuclear weapons is one which is not desired. So that is should be proliferation resistant. So how you design? Then the main thing is how do you go with the proliferation resistant is not that you do not build reactors, of course you build reactors, you will generate plutonium but you see that there is minimal transport, anything can happen when it is getting transported from one place to another. So this generation 4 reactors aim at a site in which you have the reactor, you have the reprocessing plant, you have the fuel fabrication plant, you have the waste treatment plant, the fabricated fuel again goes into the reactor. So it is in a single place. So that is one type of proliferation resistance. Now let us look at the generation 3 reactors which are mostly present today, the PWR, the BWR and the Kando PHWRs. What are the main features of this third generation? Main to reduce capital cost has been one approach and reduce construction time. This construction time has a very important economic aspect. You might be aware that when you build a plant you take money from the consortium or the government, in India the government makes the money and this money you have to pay interest. If suppose you build a reactor in about 10 or 15 years it have to pay the interest on that amount. So that will surely reflect on your cost of the electrical power that you are going to generate. So what? So it has an impact on the interest during construction normally called as IDC. So this IDC is a very important factor to be considered in the economics and that is the reason why we are looking for short construction times. Of course not losing the quality in the construction but still you take approaches such that the construction time is less. So this requires a very good planning. The procurement activity should be such so that the equipment arrive at the right time so that your construction time, erection time everything is well matched. Then more rugged design, rugged design means it should be able to withstand the effect of different events. Let us say we have a power failure or a loss of coal and or a leak in all such conditions it must be able first this should not happen, even should not happen and should an event happen they should be easily you know can be easily handled. So the main thing is minimize the number of incidents so that they are not the design should be such that they are not vulnerable to such things. And another thing is which we look forward is whether we can increase the life to a larger number of years. Now if you look at the present reactors we had operating history for about 30 to 40 years. Now during this period we do have come about the effect of irradiation on materials. So how it affects and the irradiation does produce voids in the material and that can create the material weak. So there is need to develop new materials all these things have taken place in the last 2-3 decades. So the idea is that if I can use materials which can have long life under irradiation atmosphere whether I can use fuel again which is a longer life like that all these aspects we should we are bringing in into the designs. So the present designs with these improved features is still going on. Then other things we have we talk about we talked about internal events like pump trip etc. There could be external events like a bomb or an aircraft crash. So all these things do have an impact on the safety. So basically the present directions in the generation 3 reactors has been to improve all these factors and they already have some sort of passive features or inherent or intrinsic safety features to minimize the accidents which can happen due to malfunction. Now what is this passive or inherent safety? This requires a bit of clarification. Now examples of the generation 3 the wasting house not generation 3 to generation 3 plus the wasting house AP600 600 megawatts then the advanced boiling water reactor by General Electric. General Electric and Wasting House are the big you know companies in USA. Then the EPR EPR is by the French areva so they are supplying and you might recall that the Jaithapur reactor is basically a European pressurized reactor and to be supplied by areva that was is proposed to be built in the in Maharashtra, Jaithapur is in Maharashtra. Now the Kandu group or the Canadian atomic energy of Canada limited they have developed another reactor design Kandu 6 this is also having a good number of features then but out of all this ABWR is in no operation today mostly in Japan there is a so that is what is the status of the generation 3 plus. As I mentioned the word passive safety inherent safety needs some clarification because unfortunately the they have been used too much without the correct meaning and to be frank with you when people are talking this is inherently safe nothing is inherently safe for everything it is not that suppose say inherently safe I will walk in the middle of the road and the car come no nothing can be made inherently safe. So this international atomic energy agency the main body which makes the rules for design and safety of nuclear reactors they had a meeting just to clarify what are all this. So I have just taken these from there inherent safety characteristic is the safety achieved by the elimination of a hazard by proper choice of material and design okay. Now your material is prone to corrosion you have an improved material so with reference to the corrosion that is inherently safe but suppose you do not provide sufficient thickness and the pressure is more and it fails you cannot say it is so the inherent safety is something like intrinsic safety for feature of a particular design for a particular event this is very again everything for a particular event. Then what is a passive component of course the name passive itself you can say inactive so passive component is a component that does not need an external input or external energy to operate a very simple example now you have pumps which are driven by motors when the power supply is lost the motor loses motor starts reducing speed the pump will reduce speed and the flow will come down. Now but suppose I want to prolong the flow that is I want to have more still more flow as much time as possible I can have flow then there is a method you put a flywheel with a good amount of mass on the same shaft as the motor and the pump now when the power supply goes you who still have the stored energy of the flywheel and this can supply the energy to the pump and keep it running for quite some time. This is a sort of a passive component and a passive way we can deal with it then what is a passive system surely is a system which compose entirely of passive components or it could also mean use of certain active components you can wonder why this bit of addition of a certain active components now finally you have about 10 or 15 components one of them may be required to start the action very little energy but start the action you require. So that is why this active component is there but once that active component has triggered that is all then afterwards everything is passive things go on smoothly by itself that is called as a passive system. Then the other term which we call is a grace period now what is this grace period grace means you understand very well that okay gives you some time but what is that time you give this is the time in which your safety function is assured without necessity of the operating personnel in the case of an event in other words the operator is not acted but so it gives some time for the operator to act this grace period is a very very important thing which we keep in mind in the nuclear reactor designs. Now let us say some event is happening the operator gets lot of alarms in the control room so many signals and he has to operate he has to do the next step but as a human being he requires certain time to grasp the situation and take surely there are rules available but it does take some time suppose you are able to design a reactor which gives sufficient grace time that means the operator need not be in a hurried manner hurry sometimes makes can make a wrong decision. So how much grace time it gives is a very important factor as I talked to you about the flywheel the flywheel is able to give him some time because the coolant flow is reducing slowly so the temperatures won't rise fast. So this is called as a grace period. Now just to give some examples of passive heat removal systems which are there in the reactors here this is a loss of power has happened and the core decay heat needs to be removed so here you can see the steam generators and the heat going on to a exchanger above which atmospheric air is flowing this is in a passive manner and that heat is going. You see the pump has stopped but the flow is occurring because here natural air flow over these exchanger removes the heat once that heat is removed the cooler sodium comes gets back into the core again gets heated and then so this is one natural circulation path created by the another natural circulation here. So this is a passive system in the absence of power supply then passive hydrogen recombiner you might have heard that in the Fukushima accident there are some explosions it was not a nuclear explosion it was a hydrogen explosion. You know that hydrogen concentration in a particular area if it becomes more than 4% it catches fire so normally hydrogen should not be allowed to get stagnated and how this hydrogen is produced in the case of Fukushima what happened that the coolant flow was lost when the coolant flow was lost whatever coolant was remaining it started boiling and zirconium clad which was around the fuel element has a reaction with the clad at higher temperatures and the temperature went up the cooling was not there this whatever was the pool water that started reacting and that started producing hydrogen zirconium hydroxide and hydrogen this hydrogen came out because the primary containment itself was breached and they got into the containment building and the concentration was such that it became caught fire and it exploded and that is the reason why the roof came off. In all our reactors we have what is called it is we designed such that hydrogen in any compartment should not become and should it become also we do not allow it to become we have hydrogen recombiner by which hydrogen is mixed with oxygen and then it will become water. Now this should happen in a passive manner and we do have such hydrogen recombiners in the reactors we have two boiling water reactors similar to Fukushima design in Tarapur we need one and two or that boiling water reactors but we have these hydrogen recombiners there unfortunately in the Fukushima reactor these recombiners were not in operation. Then another passive feature which can be very easily used for decay heat removal or even shutting down the reactor you have control rods you want to shut down the reactor you drop the control rods inside the core it absorbs the neutrons and doesn't allow the a self-sustaining chain reaction fission reaction so the reaction stops but of course still the decay heat is there. Now you have as a diverse method you have a tank of water containing boric acid boron you know is an absorber and if I can flood the core with this flow from a tank maybe through a check valve or a non-return valve which can open on a very small pressure difference I am assured of a shutdown this is you can say a passive shutout. Now this figure shows you how a passive shutdown is getting achieved from the boric acid tank a quick acting valve injects high concentration of borated water into the primary coolant and here you remember this pump is driving is getting driven because of the inertia of the flywheel in a similar way this tank gravity tank can be used for dowsing the system with water and seeing to it or compensating for the loss of coolant so that your temperatures don't go high and decay heat gets removed to certain extent. Now let us come to the generation 4 this initiative as I mentioned was by a group of countries they got together and in the year 2000 they set up the generation 4 international forum. So which would comprise not only the reactor designers the fuel all the fuel cycle facilities as I mentioned all fuel cycle facilities in a single location is one of the objectives of the generation 4 and the idea was to deliver react or design reactors which will be safer which will be economical which will produce less waste not you know what you call able to proliferate the proliferation resistant so as compared to the present reactors now these reactors are still in the evolutionary stage so you can say that till about 2030 or 40 still we have the generation 3 and generation 3 plus reactors filling this gap. So in this in the interim period our current 3 3 plus reactors will continue. Now let us look at the concepts which have got evolved one is the gas cooled reactor the gas cooled reactors earlier have had a reasonably good experience but they had some problems with material technology basically the Magnot's reactor and the advanced gas cooled reactors built both in UK and France and subsequently some high temperature gas cooled reactors have also been built one or two and then some experience has been gained and with all around research and developments in the material technology it is felt that gas cooled reactors could be a very good approach for nuclear power generation in the gen 4. Now all this time we were telling that we could think of a steam production to run a turbine but you also could have a gas turbine the gas cooled reactor could be used to run a turbine directly and that way you can produce power or you could exchange it heat to water in a steam generator and then produce steam so there are different ways of doing it. Then what are the other concepts the let cool reactor. Now the using of this let cool reactor again the gas cooled reactor which I mentioned is a fast reactor and not a thermal reactor why that point of a gas was felt needed because the sodium cooled fast reactors which are present they have a problem of in case of a sodium leak or a sodium water reaction they can produce damage in the steam generator and in case if they leak out sodium leaks out it can catch fire. So people said why not we change so one was gas other was lead because lead is not having that much of a reaction with water or air so it is one of their preferred but mind you lead itself has got a high boiling point high melting point and or something like about 250 to 300 degree centigrade and then but a large boiling point you can go to very high temperatures. But then these two were also as a in the fast reactor spectrum these two were the concepts which are arrived at but the sodium was not left off because sodium per se the operation of the reactors has been reasonably good and it does not cost you know cost us very bad problems because of sodium cooled fast reactors these are surmountable. So you see there are three fast reactors spectrum reactors the gas cooled reactor the lead cooled reactor and the sodium cooled reactor. One more reason why the lead cooled fast reactor found its place lead cooled reactors have been used by the Russians in their submarines and lot of knowledge base from the Russians is available today and that also would come into the generation for forum because of which this lead got a place. Now if you look up the gas cooled reactors the temperatures as much as about 850 degree centigrade we are able to reach with about lead and lead bismuth we are able to go to about 550 to 800 then the with sodium cooled fast reactors of course we are able to go to about 550 degree centigrade the other one is the molten salt reactor. This molten salt reactor to be frank with you lot of work was done in ORNL in USA on molten salt reactors. At the same time in the 60s when the sodium cooled fast reactor development was taking place the molten salt reactors in the molten salt reactor the fuel is itself is a salt in a molten state the coolant the fuel everything is mixed together and then getting pumped. So this concept was there and there is a molten salt reactor experimental reactor was built in the ORNL it was functioning but it so happened that when they had to take a decision whether to go for a sodium cooled reactor or a molten salt reactor the sodium lobby had gained enough experience and was able to put up an economic case and then the sodium cooled fast reactors took the plunge. But it has been felt now that that from a breeding point of view as a breeder molten salt reactors are very good. So there is an interest events in having molten salt reactors as I mentioned uranium fluoride in salt and then you have the super critical water cooled reactor. The super cooled water critical reactor interest comes basically after you have got super critical boilers which are used in the fossil fuel plants what do you mean by the super critical. Now as you boil water at a particular pressure you have to give latent heat to convert it into steam as you go up in pressure the latent heat comes down and at a point which is called as a critical point there is the phase changes there is no phase change there is no two phase just changes to water to steam and you are able to go to high temperatures with high temperatures you are able to produce steam at high temperatures and you are able to have a better efficiency of the cycle that is the recent result and very high temperature reactors again based on the gas cooled reactor concepts it has been there we can go to high temperatures and this gives you and remember four of them are using closed fuel cycle or you can say five of them and the last one is an open fuel cycle. So you see that closed fuel cycle has been a preferred one in the generation four. Now let us get a brief idea about okay what are all this. This is the reference gas cooled fast reactor system wherein you have the core here and the controlled rods are from down operated from down in the bottom of the vessel the gas picks up the heat gas is helium goes to a turbine rotates it and this is a gas turbine and it generates power here you can see it is something like a boiling water reactor directly the gas goes cools and comes back. So this gas cooled fast reactor concept is one of the concepts and this Brayton cycle theoretically Brayton cycle can go to as much as 65% efficiency but concerning losses it is felt that we could come to about 48% and as I mentioned in my last lecture the actinides get very well burnt in these fast reactors. So waste is getting limited then the lead cooled fast reactor surely being a fast reactor this also gas got a very good actinide management so that actinides produced use produced in the light water reactors are utilized and broken into short lived and so you are able to have lesser waste lesser activity. Now here you have the reactor core lead is the coolant these are the controlled rods and here you have an heat exchanger wherein there is a gas flow and this gas again goes through a Brayton cycle and produces electricity. So basically it is a lead cooled reactor but heat is taken by the gas and then runs the turbine. So this idea of this sort of a reactor is that we are not using sodium but mind you lead itself per se has some issues to resolve basically corrosion. Many of the corrosion you know in nature happens because of oxygen you put a any iron or thing on the outside it reacts iron reacts with oxygen and form rest so iron oxide. Similarly you have sodium with higher oxygen content will cause corrosion. Oxygen is one of the important things for corrosion. So we must minimize the amount of oxygen in a coolant but now in the case of lead it has got a funny thing above a certain level it has more corrosion similarly below a certain level of hydrogen also it has got more corrosion. So very narrow band of oxygen control is necessary unlike sodium. So here lot of research is getting on into how to do that and how to see materials which will be able to. So lead cooled fast reactor does have some issues. One thing Gen 4 does not mean that all issues are resolved. Gen 4 has got but which areas we must probe and concentrate our efforts then you have the molten salt reactor that molten salt flows through here this is the core these are the control rods and you have the graphite channels. So the molten salt goes through that and then there is a intermediate heat exchanger and here you may have again like another fluid like lead which can exchange heat with a gas which can run a gas turbine and produce electricity okay or you could have replace it by a steam generator it could have a lead secondary coolant giving heat to water producing steam and running a steam turbine. And here the main advantage of these molten salt is you do not need to fabricate the fuel again you are just pushing fuel into the chamber and then that is all it continues it is not a any special fabrication plant to be made and then put. So it just allow us a bit of flexibility in the fuel loading that is fuel fabrication aspect is not required. The sodium cooled fast reactor it is just a replica of the pool type fast bidder reactors which I have shown you. So here you have the primary sodium system which this is the primary sodium which picks up the heat from the core and gives it to IHX this is a pump which pumps from the cold pool to the core it goes to IHX comes out to the pool cold pool again and this is the control rod this heat exchanger contains again sodium fluid it picks up the heat called as a secondary sodium gives heat to water in a steam generator then afterwards again pumped back to the IHX and here you have the steam production and turbine running a conventional steam cycle. So remember the old sodium cooled fast reactor is still not left out it is a important candidate for the generation 4. So now this actinate management I mentioned but let us just elaborate it a little bit actinates are elements with atomic numbers between 89 and 103 89 is actinium and 103 is Laurentian uranium you know has an atomic number of 92 it is also an actinite and normally beyond 92 there is another name we give transuranics beyond uranium transuranics. Now these actinates have a very long half life that means they will decay very slowly have you saw plutonium having uranium plutonium having long half lives potassium also having a long half life so it is very uranium also has so these are all very important that they have long half lives and when they have long half lives if they are in the waste they also have to be handled with care for a longer time and in these light water reactors basically the pressurized water reactor and the boiling water reactor the actinates are produced but not consumed and here the way the in the fast reactors because of the fact that these actinates can be broken up some of them can be fissioned and they break up into smaller or lesser half life elements they can really be a very good impetus for the fuel handling because they are going to produce less waste now this conversion of these high or longer half life elements into lower thing is actually called as transmutation and this transmutation occurs surely after it absorbs a neutron or then there is a fission this is to give you an example plutonium 242 when it absorbs a neutron becomes 243 then it produce americium then americium absorbs a neutron then gives 244 and then curium then like that samarium curium this thing and then go on finally it gives two fission products and releases energy so release of energy is there similarly for americium how the breakup is happening these are just to give you an idea that they can be used for fission and also the fission products which have lower half life so this is to tell you about the waste minimization as I mentioned suppose you do not use fast reactors you have just an open fuel cycle see how the actinides will decay to natural uranium over level it will take many years about 100,000 years but the same thing if you had used it in a fast reactor and close you reprocess it and use it in a fast reactor it comes down below within about 100 to 200 years so there is a very great incentive to go for this sort of an approach and basically fast reactors are better because it has got a higher fission to absorbs on cross section so more chance of fission in the material compared to absorption and the final waste is reduced and the radioactivity the activity which is related to that waste is also reduced and that waste is reduced the space is reduced finally when you are going to put the waste in dispose it in some place that is also requires less space this is a super critical water reactor as I mentioned it generates steam at very high pressures and high temperatures and this technology is a combination of the light water technology with supercritical fossil fuel boilers and efforts are still of course in India still we have to build a supercritical boiler this is just to give you a quick idea about how the cycles are this is a Rankine cycle which is normally used in power plants the water is pumped sent to the boiler picks up the heat becomes superheated becomes steam works in the turbine high pressure turbine then comes out again reheated in the steam boiler and then comes out and then goes this is if this shows you a Mollier's chart which is the shows the properties here this is the water going up becoming saturation taking the latent heat and becoming superheated now you see at this point which corresponds to about 221 bars and 373 degree centigrade there is no latent heat it is 0 just water it just becomes into steam so this is what we are talking about this is the supercritical below this is the subcritical so these are the basic differences between a normal subcritical boiler or a subcritical operation and the supercritical operation this technology we are going to use for the supercritical water reactor and now this is the cycle how the supercritical cycle water entry pumped in that is all becomes it becomes steam then expansion in the high pressure turbine coming out expansion then again heated up to the higher temperature again coming back and do this reheating of course is there in fossil fuel boilers reheating in nuclear reactors is not done because the liquid has to go back into the reactor so we may have only this portion this is again another figure now since supercritical is there that means there is no distinction between water and steam it is just a same then last is a very high temperature reactor this temperature is aimed at producing this reactor is aimed at producing both electricity and also hydrogen as I mentioned hydrogen economy is one of the most important hydrogen generation if I can store I can use it for transportation and many other things so this is a helium cooled graphite moderator thermal reactor and the process heat also could be used for other applications like coal gasification desalination and cogeneration also this again is in the stage and here you see the gas cooled helium cooled reactor it is exchanging heat with water producing steam at high pressures and this is a schematic of a hydrogen plant fuel cells as the name mentioned basically it uses specialized hydrogen gas where the hydrogen enters on the anode side gas is forced through the catalyst by the pressure and the hydrogen molecule comes in contact with the platinum catalyst it splits up into hydrogen and two electrons and the electrons are conducted to the anode and they go to the complete the circuit and that way the fuel cells work and here this hydrogen generation is where our gen 4 reactors would play a very important role and as I mentioned in the transportation sector hydrogen has got a very very important role in summary this lecture we have briefly brought out you know in the last lecture we brought out the different components in the reactors and the major types of reactors and now we have also seen how the different generations of the reactors have got evolved and what is our final focus now on the generation 4 reactors to make them more safe more economical but these reactors will really take shape after about 2 decades and all our present idea is to use as many passive safety features for shutdown and decay heat removal in these new generation reactors this is to give you a bibliography of the papers which you can see and as my usual practice I would like to give you an assignment which you can go through and maybe submit it in the next time thank you.


There was a code on Julia and we even had a talk on how to connect Julia, how to connect with Julia, hook up with your database and even our optimization we had a talk on optimization too. So now we will focus on testing. So now we will focus on how to make your code available. So Julia gives you a lot of packages for testing. We will discuss these packages today. First one is code coverage. Julia has built-in support for code coverage. So in order to use the code coverage all, let me tell you what the code coverage actually is. So let's say you have a test file and you don't know how much of your code is actually being covered by your test code. How much of code is actually being covered by your test code? So this is where the code coverage can actually come from. So in order to use the code coverage, all you have to do is start Julia in the code coverage mode and this is how this is the command to start Julia in the code coverage mode. And once you start it, once you're inside the Julia app, you just run your test on your project. And that's it. And now exit on Julia. Now log into Julia with the regular mode. Now that you're in Julia with the regular mode, you can use a package called coverage. So the first thing is you have to actually change your directory to the directory where your project is located. Once you're in the directory, you can call in the function called process folder. What this function does is once you run your test program in the coverage mode, Julia actually creates .cov files for every .jl file that actually ran in your test file. So this process folder will access these .cov files and it will actually store the entire summary inside the variable. So we have just named the variable as coverage in this case. So we are actually extracting just two variables for the summary. We are extracting the number of lines covered and the total number of lines. So now we have the number of lines covered by the test space and the number of lines in your program. So it's just a matter of you just need to take a percentage of it to check the coverage of your project. So next, they may have a situation where you want to check the memory allocation of your program. So this is how we do it. I mean once again Julia gives you a very good support for this. You should start Julia in the memory allocation mode. This is how we do it. Julia, the top line. So that's how we start it off. And the next step for what you should do is you should run your program twice. I mean not just once, you should run your test scripts or run your program twice. Once you're done with it, you have to exit the memory allocation mode and you have to enter back into Julia in the regular mode. So in both of your proposals, you just have to enter your project folder and call either one of these functions depending on your Julia version. If it's point three, you have to call the clear middle. And if it's point four, you have to do profile. So what this does is, I mean once you run your program in the memory allocation mode, Julia will do a similar process. It will do a similar process. It creates .men files for every program, every .gen file that you have in your project. And this function actually analyzes the .men file and it gives you the output of where exactly the memory has been allocated. And if there are any generic views, you can actually optimize your code using this. So these are the next steps. So apart from these, Julia even provides you with a lot of examples of which you can actually measure the performance. The first is from Nishant discussed at time. So I did not really confirm that once again. There's one more function called at time. So there's a difference between time and at time. Time actually returns more, I mean it returns a different set of parameters. It returns the value of the expression, the value of the function that you have actually called again. And that's the time. I mean whatever the time it does.  So after allocated, it does the same. I mean after allocated, it gives you the memory allocation that your program is actually taking. So you can use after allocated to check whether how much memory has been allocated for your program. So next is Vint. My friend particularly covered Vint. So I will not go through it once again. That should be over. Oh sorry. It was based on Vint. Yeah. How about Vint? Okay. This is the Vint. I mean this is the Vint. I think that is for based off test. Based off test actually, what it does, it makes your test cases readable. So this is a simple thing. At test one is good one. I mean let's just say you have prepared your test cases for your test to your project. And you want these test cases to be displayed in a very real format. This is where based off test comes in. You can just compare your test cases against the predicted values. And you can even throw in the custom error messages in these test cases. I mean if the predicted output is not equal to whatever you expect. So based off test gives a very nice approximation. I mean there are two functions related to this. And both are related to 14 point numbers. So what this does is, this just approximated, I mean this just approximated compares the number with the... One answer. One answer. Just approximated compares the value, compares the integer value with the 14 point number. So fact check. Fact check is actually recommended over based off test. This gives a lot more flexibility for you over based off test. It's even much simpler to use. What improvements it gives over based off test is, you actually have a lot of functions in here. Like you can compare the exact value of it. And you can compare the rough, I mean roughly whatever possible you saw over there. It's even present in here. And apart from this there are many other functions there. These kind of functions are not present in based off test. That's right. Okay, that should go. We will see a lot more of the test frameworks and stuff tomorrow in the workshop. But we will now switch over here.


If I was up here today and threw a ball out into the audience and it came to your direction and it was aiming for you, you would instinctively catch it. That's what we do with emotions. You don't need to catch it. Even if people say, even if people say, this is for you, says who?


Good afternoon. My name is Brenda and I'm going to be the interviewer. So first I want to know from you, what was you? Who was your best speaker during the White Cup? What did you like most? And who was that speaker who spoke really into you? That there are certain things that you have seen that you want after what you say? Thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Paul De Bruyne, and I run SEOC with Southern Surveillance. I also design lipsticks. Today's White Cup has been one of the greatest of hearts, so far I think this is the last. I attended the first one in one decade, so this one is showing that I'm not alone because sometimes we think we are alone in the field, but then when I see so many people here, I feel fine. And my greatest kind of the best speaker, I may not remember the name, but it was more about affiliate marketing because to me it means a lot to be able to make someone from using White Press. Wow, that's amazing. So there's something else I want to ask. What did you love most? What did you like most? That there is something you want, you're going to share with another person out there. What I learned most from today's session, the three-day session we have in here, I think the best thing was about a community coming up together. And Uganda is one of those places where you always struggle to get some information. There are certain topics, but when I see this community coming together, it shows that it's fast and people wanting to publish our information and to me that's already satisfied. Wow, I like the background you talk about community. So I would want to know that you have a plan to make for this White Cup. What I'd want to do out there for the other community because there are people out there who need the information that you have. How are you going to be able to share it with them so that it can benefit them? Thank you very much. I think the major ingredient in the white community here is sharing because I think there is a lot of information that has been shared today which could be so much expensive for us to get it. But I'm seeing a community whereby everyone is sharing irrespective of where they come from. So I really think coming up together is one of the things that I really like and I've always been here as long as it will be here. And I also will carry the spirit of sharing so that that has benefited from the same. What you meant is how are you going to do that with them? How are you going to share it with them? Because people need to know. How I'm going to share this information is I have sessions actually where I take through a few youth from Kawa Laguna where I can transform some information that I've learned from here so I continually would want to share this information by teaching them to do the same like publishing their information. I hope I've answered you. Thank you so much. I think I'll get the next one. Well, I'm Hannah Speich and I'm a developer. I have my own digital agency. It's called People Technology. I'm living in Kigali, Rwanda and when I saw this conference in the WordPress Dashboard I decided to come out to Kampala for the weekend. Wow, that's really amazing. So I would want to find out what you love most about WordPress. Yeah, about everything that you learned here. What was your best thing? Well, it was really interesting to see the strength of the WordPress community in Kampala so I was not expecting there to be this many people. It's a very large meetup and so that was exciting to see and then I just love WordPress because I think it's very empowering.  So I love being part of it and seeing how people in Kampala are coming together to empower other people with WordPress. Okay, that's interesting. Now I have something personal to ask you. Did you like the food? Did I like the food? Yeah. So I really like Ugandan food. I know it's kind of simple but it's salt of the earth and it's very hearty and it's very satisfying. That's brilliant. Who was your best speaker? Just for the short time you've seen all of these. Who was your best and what did you say that you loved most? Let's see. So I was really impressed with the collaboration session that we had for the advanced users this afternoon because I studied computer science in university and when you would go over how to use GitHub it was so inscrutable. You could not figure out how it was supposed to work. And so I was really impressed by that. Instructors, his ability to break down the subject and make it accessible and teach you how to use it. So it wasn't just a theory, but it was something you felt that you could go out and do. And then also from what you learned and from what you saw when you were able to come, what was your best session during what you want to come? It was just as we started to talk. The instructor, he walked us through his GitHub and so we got to see the basics of building the theme from the back end and how to get started with plugins. And again, just going through how the arrays worked and what different types of variables were in them. It was really accessible and it made it seem like it was something that it could go do. That's great. Now, I believe you have really enjoyed this. But then I would want to know, will you be able to come back next year? Or would you really want to? Because if you say this is amazing, you want to be a better boss of the next event. So I'm only in Kigali until February and after that I have no idea where I'm going to spend it. I will be. But I really like Kampala. This is my second time here. I was here two years ago. So absolutely if I get a chance to be here, I'll be. This is really good. Hi, my name is Charlotte Beauboisin and I'm a blogger. My blog is called Diary of Muzulu and it's all about travel in Uganda, particularly but also in East Africa. And of course, it's a WordPress blog. Oh, that's great. Are you part of the WordPress community? Yes. I'm part of the community. I like to say yes because this is the second event and I was here for the whole of the last one as well. And I was on the panel and I'm not very good with the technology side of it but WordPress has really made a huge difference to my work life. I've been using it for eight years now and I also recommend it to other people a lot. So it's really nice to be accepted amongst this group of people who are much more technical than me generally but they just tell me a little bit about the capabilities of WordPress even if I don't understand them. I know all that functionality is there. So yeah, I feel like I'm part of the WordPress community. In so many contributions to community, I would love to know what was that and how are you going to use this information that you have picked from here to help them more because I'm familiar with Diary of Muzulu. So I believe there is more that you have been sharing out there. Would you just share just a glimpse of just one thing that you can't share even what you have learned from here if there is to the community? The focus of my talk was about social media, email marketing all the different tools that you can have to promote a blog or a WordPress website and I had a very short period of time but I do actually do that training for companies and particularly for the tourism industry in Uganda so I'm always available to do that and to do one-to-one marketing as well and if anybody wants to contact me on Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook I'm always available if anybody has questions. I would also want to know the story about how you started with WordPress what is that thing that impacted that you kept going higher just as a short story. Well, I wrote my blog. My first blog article was 10 years ago in December December 2008 and it was on blogger and it was only on blogger because I didn't know anything about blogging so I just had to start somewhere and I had a Google account already and then after two years a friend of mine who was more advanced than me said what are you doing you've got to use WordPress it's like the number one recommendation he had and I'd already found that blogging was really restricting I couldn't really do very much with it and then as soon as he introduced me to WordPress I'm like this is whole world out there it's so accessible, it's so easy, it's free and so that really just gave me ambition I think by motivation because I realised I could become a professional blogger without investing a lot of money in the technology without needing the spoke development and so on so it was a real entry point into professional blogging so it's been a huge advantage for me I have a last question for you you seem to know a lot about this and I believe there's a speaker as well a trainer and a chair right here what was your best... why did you love most and who was your best speaker that truly impacted something I think there have been a lot of really great speakers and some of them I've seen for last year I think the one that, the person that really stood out to me was Arthur Casirier, I've seen him speak before but SEO is what I'm doing at the moment I've got an SEO expert looking at every aspect of my site and so everything that Arthur said I'm thinking I'm doing that or no, oh gosh I'm not doing that I've got to make sure I do that as well next so for me it was really timey to have this presentation today and I'm going to really try and implement everything he suggested


ond wrth cael fash идrach o beanb Expectyl gyfaith sonol anghyddolaeth a'i gwleidio'r cymhu'r cyff再見ol i gyd, fhotri'n gwirio angen iawn i siarad gyda chi ddweud y flysea hwn.  Mae'r ddweud i'r ddweud i chi gwybodaeth o'r llwp yma eich dweud, Rwyf i gyd, yn ymgynghwylwch yn cyfnodig iawn a dyn nhw, felly sefydliadau y mynd gennymau uchydig i chi'w gweld ar y cwmentech. Felly mae'r deuno yn ddych ochr i fynd i'r cymysgol o'r cyfu iawn i gyd, mwy o'r ffordd. Dylunio cael eu swadfaeth bryd i gyd, yn cael ei gweld iddi, amser i'w bwyl wrth agurau â gyrthir â'i cymysgol sydd wedi amddangosu athoedd yng nghymru, annual implementation report concerning the financial provisions in the Scotland Act 2012. Since then, work has continued with Her Majesty's Treasury to consider this issue and to work to make progress towards being able to reach an agreement. I have emphasised that this needs to be made in time to inform the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2015-16. In my written submission to the committee, I set out an update as to how the issue has progressed since April and I would take this opportunity to quickly summarise that note. The position on the intended block grant adjustment for the devolved taxes is clearly set out in the command paper as a one-off cash adjustment. However, because of the need to move this issue forward, I offered a proposal that the initial adjustment could be indexed to the GDP deflator, as I indicated to the committee in April. This approach is simple, easily understood and would maintain the value of the initial one-off block grant adjustment over time. As the committee is aware, the UK Government has proposed an approach that applies an additional deduction to the block grant, coupled to a reduction in all future Barnett consequentials. We do not believe that this methodology has any basis in the command paper, as is demonstrated by the Treasury's need to refer to the Wales command paper published in March of this year to explain this approach. In our view, the proposed Barnett abatement mechanism also fails on the principle of increasing the accountability of the Scottish Parliament, which the Scotland Act 2012 is supposed to improve. Under the proposed approach, a substantial factor affecting the Scottish Government's spending power in relation to the devolved taxes will be the policy choices of the United Kingdom Government on growth in public spending over which the Scottish Parliament has no influence. For example, in order for the Scottish budget to benefit from the tax choices that the Scottish Parliament makes, revenue growth would need to exceed growth in public spending, which would be determined by the United Kingdom Government. Since I last met with the committee, officials in the Scottish Government and HMT have analysed how each mechanism might perform under a range of scenarios and have set out the implications for the Scottish budget. This work has proved useful in understanding how the different mechanisms may perform. The analyses have also highlighted further areas of concern. I see a fundamental flaw in a central assumption in the Treasury's analysis. It has suggested that, on a set of assumptions produced by the Treasury on future tax revenue growth and on growth in UK public spending, there should be no cumulative gain or loss to the Scottish budget over a long period extending to 2030. If devolved tax receipts outperform those assumptions, the Scottish budget could be better off. However, I have strong doubts about the validity of the assumptions used, especially around the future-likely path of taxes as HMT has used the OBR's forecast. A further concern is the negative path that the HMT assumptions set the Scottish budget on following the end of the observed time period. That trend means that, the longer the time period is considered, the increasingly worse off the Scottish budget would be. We also do not accept that there is a basis for implementing such a constrained approach. The command paper made no mention of such an approach. Despite the disagreement over the analysis that I have conducted, I am very aware that my draft budget for 2015-16 requires certainty over the block grant adjustment for the devolved taxes to ensure a complete budget. To this end, I had a constructive discussion with the chief secretary to the Treasury last week with positive engagement around the key issues in being able to agree a mechanism. There was an equally good understanding of the pressing need for an agreement. To that end, the chief secretary and I agreed a number of issues that my and Treasury officials will follow up on. Following the conclusion of the additional work, the chief secretary and I will have a further meeting to seek an agreement. I previously made the commitment to seek the approval of this committee for the final choice of the block grant adjustment mechanism. I remain committed to doing this, and in the meantime, I look forward to discussing those issues with the committee this morning. I am sure that we have all got a number of questions that we want to ask on some of the details. I noticed that, in the paper from the secretary to the Treasury, David Gawke, day-to-day of August, he said that, as I quote, the UK Government has no plans to impose an adjustment. Both sides remain committed to agreeing a timely and equitable solution, which is obviously very positive. However, at the same time, a solution has to be arrived at, and it looks as if there is still quite a considerable distance between both sides. What he has suggested is, for example, that there could be an interim adjustment in such an interim solution. He could use OBR's forecast for 2015-16, for example, but revisited once a permanent arrangement has been agreed. Is that something that you would be willing to consider, or are you concerned that what might happen is that we end up having an interim adjustment year in, year out, if no permanent solution is found? The first thing to say, convener, is that I am very happy to engage in these discussions to try to get to a reasonable solution. I think that the committee will understand that my position is anchored in what was in the command paper, because the command paper was what informed Parliaments deliberations about the issue and the passage of the legislative consent motion on the Scotland Act 2012. I am very happy to engage in discussions around those points. It would be more desirable to have an agreement that was sorted out and addressed, and we would proceed with it rather than having an interim arrangement, which, as I think we know from other examples and other walks of life, keeps on recurring. It would be better to address the issue based on the detail of the command paper. In terms of David Gock's letter, he has said, and unfortunately he is not able to be here with us, although we did ask him. He has said, and I quote, that it is also worth noting that officials have considered the impact of using a baseline deduction based on the unactuals. He has said that this approach, according to Scottish Government officials, could gain the Scottish Government some £1.8 billion over the period to 2029-2032 with expected gains thereafter. He is basically saying that that goes against the agreement that both sides would not gain from this arrangement. What is your view of that? I think that the core of this goes back to the contents of the command paper. The command paper published in November 2012 stated that, when the smaller taxes are devolved, currently planned to be April 2015, there will be a one-off reduction that will then be deducted from the block grant for all future years. On the face of that comment, I would read that to say that there should be one cash sum removed from the block grant and that cash sum should be removed every year thereafter. I do not think that I am misreading that paragraph. The command paper, to be fair, then goes on to say that the process should be transparent, equitable to both the UK and Scottish Governments and parliaments and based on the best data available, which will include out-turn data on Scottish income tax receipts accrued during the transition period and independent forecasts of Scottish tax receipts published by the OBR. There are other considerations to be viewed in all of this, but, fundamentally, we come back to that one-off adjustment. When I look at the minutes of the joint-exchequer committee on 27 September 2011, the paper that we discussed referred to the devolution of the small taxes. There will be a one-off reduction to reflect the devolution of stamp duty land tax and landfill tax, which will be then deducted from the block grant for all future years. Fundamentally, we go back to that point. That was what was in the proposition from the UK Government. In order to try to address the issue of equity, I have accepted that the block grant adjustment, the one-off adjustment to begin with, should then be the subject of an indexation measure by the GDP deflater, which I think is a pretty simple, transparent way of saying that there is an additional adjustment. We apply a factor of inflation, and we get on with operating, collecting, determining the taxes that have been devolved to us. I think that what the Treasury is thinking is just now is that we are looking to go into ever more constrained elements of how that adjustment is operated by the point that there can be essentially no gain, no loss over an extended period of 29, 20, 30. I just don't think that that's anchored in the material that's come from the command paper. You're concerned, obviously, that the Treasury's proposals are becoming increasingly Byzantine in terms of how they're actually arrived at, but how are we going to resolve that situation? I mean, we've been here three or four times already, and despite all the talk of everyone wanting to get a solution quickly, which we've heard from the Secretary of the Treasury last September, we don't seem to have moved that fella forward. Both sides seem to be not budging for one of a better phrase. How do we actually resolve that matter? We simply have to continue those discussions to get to the point where we can get to an agreement, convener. I'm signed up to that. I was anxious to have a discussion with the chief secretary about those issues, which I was able to have last week, and I will continue to press to resolve those issues. I hope that the committee will understand that I feel a very strong obligation to the basis on which Parliament gave its support to the Scotland Act, and I think that we're shifting more and more away from that basis. I've already moved with the indexation proposal, which, on the basis of the command paper, I could legitimately say, look, there's no basis for indexation under any circumstances, but I have moved to try to get some form of agreement. I think that that's an indication of goodwill to try to get to some point of agreement, so I can certainly assure the committee that I will give it my best efforts to resolve that. Of course, there is a point at which the discussion has to stop, and that is that I have to set a budget, and I have to inform Parliament what I expect to be the tax take from the devolved taxes, which is obviously the subject of the remit of the responsibility of myself as the finance minister. Obviously, there is a verification process required on that by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and that work is now under way, but it also needs to have the blocked-and-adjustment number to make the budget complete. As the committee well knows, that process has to be concluded by 9 October. That was the next question that I was going to ask, because we are putting out a call for evidence today. I was going to ask you what impact that is going to have on those preparations, and what really is the kind of deadline, so to speak, for having this resolved before you were in real difficulties in terms of your budget? Well, in terms of the Fiscal Commission's work, there really is no impediment to the Fiscal Commission, because I will make a tax forecast based on the decisions that I make about the tax rates and tax bans on the two taxes. We will do the workings on that, pass that to the Fiscal Commission, and the Fiscal Commission will make a judgment about that, and that is all in one compartment, essentially. The issue comes into then what do I, assuming I get agreement from the Fiscal Commission that that is a reasonable estimate, I then have to consider what is being deducted from the budget. I have to have knowledge of that as I am finalising the budget, which will be in a couple of weeks running up to 9 October. I am going to open out the session now to colleagues around the table, and first two folk to ask questions will be John, before I, Jamie. Thanks, convener. Yes, reading the two letters. First of all, on timescales, Mr Swinney, in your letter you quote the state, there should be no cumulative gain or loss to the Scottish budget over a long period extending to 2030, which is kind of what I thought we were looking at. In Mr Gox's letter it says, so while a fixed real adjustment could be equitable from 1516 to 2930, beyond this point the Scottish Government would be expected to make substantial gains, et cetera. That suggests to me that there is room for compromise up to 2030, if that was all we were looking at, but his main concerns appear to be what might happen after 2030, which just seems incredibly far ahead. Am I understanding that correctly? That is a fair understanding. I think that we are essentially, in my view, getting to a level of artificiality about this whole process, when we start talking about having absolute no gain or no loss until 2029, 2030. We start getting into predictions of what stamp duty land tax would have generated 14 to 15 years after it has been abolished in Scotland. We can all do projections of all sorts of things, but I do think that we are getting into an element of real speculation when we have abolished these taxes and we have got to be in a constrained environment of no gain or loss. That is why I thought that the indexation, my proposal of linking it to the GDP deflator, was a reasonable way of saying, look, there is a one-off adjustment that you put on the GDP deflator, and then everything else is up to you to get on with it on these taxes. I am not saying that we must absolutely have the command paper position. The committee could quite rightly say to me, look, you should be saying that, or that is what the command paper said. In trying to get a balanced position between what the command paper said and the need for there to be equity in both the UK and Scotland to be treated fairly, I thought that the GDP deflator approach gave a measure of change which related to economic performance and the general management of economic issues, which I thought was a reasonable test to be applied to. When we start getting into living within constraints over a period of 29, 20, 30, I think that we are becoming just too contrived. It seems to me that there are so many other factors that could come in before we got to 20, 30 that could have an impact. Anything could almost happen in the next 15 years. For example, I would love to see a flatter system in Scotland that incomes were less diverse and, presumably, house prices were less diverse, but, if something like that happened, that would have an impact on either stamp duty land tax or land and building transaction tax, so it just seems to me that there are too many factors to bring in. We would also be making what I would consider to be a contrived comparison, which is to stamp duty land tax in 2026, for example, which was abolished in 2015. I think that we are getting into too contrived an exercise when we look at all of that. When he said, I mean, I quoted earlier on this whole bit about the Scottish Government would be expected to make substantial gains, have you calculated or have they calculated at all what any of these figures would be? I mean, are we talking, what kind of amounts are we talking about, but this is not a major tax anyway? I'm guessing it's not major amounts. It's not major, but they're not major taxes of themselves. They represent about 1.6, 1.7 per cent of our block grant, so we're not in a vast part of the block grant that's affected by this. The further out we go, the more assumptions we have to make about performance and what tax take might be likely to be. We would have to be making assumptions about the growth of stamp duty land tax, which is predicting the housing market in many years hence, which I think is subject to a whole host of variables, none of which that we will know at this stage. I mean, can you give any idea of what kind of actual figures they are talking about or what you're talking about? I don't think that I've got any detail beyond that period in front of me, but if there's any further analysis we can help the committee with, we certainly will. Okay, that's great. Thanks so much. Jamie. Thank you, convener. I can't say to Mr Gox's letter to the convener he says in relation to the block grant adjustment that the UK Government has been consistently clear, which was a bit of a surprise to me because I don't know what would necessarily be here if that was the case. Was your view on the UK Government's consistency of clarity on the block grant adjustment? I think that we've essentially gone through three phases in this. One was the command paper, which taught, as I've said to the committee already, about a one-off reduction that we have applied in all future years, although I do accept that there was the caveat that it had to be equitable, which is just for completeness. We then moved on to having the Barnett abatement proposition added in, which has been part of the development of the position. Thirdly, we've now got the constraint analysis being applied, which essentially says, over a defined period of time, we are to be no better or no worse off as a consequence. I think that there's been a developing position emerging from the UK Government. In relation to the Barnett abatement mechanism that the UK Government proposes, I put it to Mr Glock when he was here that this was an alteration to the Barnett formula, which of course the UK Government said that it wouldn't do. He said in his words that it wasn't an alteration. It was just tweaking it. Do you think that that's semantics from Mr Glock? I think that it is an alteration to the Barnett formula because one of the issues that the committee discussed with me before was about the comparison that the UK Government makes where they say that this is very similar to when business rates were devolved. Essentially, the only thing that was changed was that a 100 per cent comparability factor in the Barnett formula went to zero because of the devolution of the entirety of business rates. I don't accept that analysis because when business rates were devolved, there was a budget line on which there was comparability. You could see how, and I accept within the Barnett formula, there will be when there are relevant powers, when, for example, transport functions were devolved to the Scottish Parliament, there's a change to comparability factors within the Barnett formula. I don't think that that's a change to the Barnett formula. I think that that's a change to the distribution of responsibilities and the Barnett formula is essentially—the internal workings of the Barnett formula are simply catching up with that devolution of responsibilities. In some areas of the Barnett formula, we have 100 per cent comparability on functions. On others, we will have 10, 20, 30 per cent comparability, and those factors can change given the way in which responsibilities are set out. The difference with stamp duty land tax and landfill tax is that there is no relationship to the Barnett formula, none whatsoever. The Barnett baitment mechanism has been created to amend the Barnett formula to accommodate this, where there has previously been no relationship. I'm going back to Mr Gox's letter. He says that the Scottish Government's position, which you've articulated, wouldn't be consistent with the UK Government's aim of increasing the Scottish Government's accountability. Equally, your proposed Barnett baitment mechanism also fails in the principle of increasing accountability of the Scottish Parliament. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about your perspective on that. The point that I made a moment ago in response to Mr Mason's question was that I thought that the GDP deflator example was a helpful one because it is acknowledging a relationship to a point of performance over which I would accept that the Scottish Government has some degree of influence, and that is about the performance of the Scottish economy. I think that there are things that we do that influence the performance of the Scottish economy, so therefore the GDP deflator would be a reasonable factor to be influencing. The decisions about UK public spending are taken by UK ministers. They are not taken by me, they are not taken by this Parliament. Therefore, I think that there is a fundamental disconnect between the objective of the Scotland Act, which is to increase the accountability of the Scottish Parliament and the operation of the block grant adjustment mechanism. Final question. From what you have said, the Scottish Government has been reasonable and has tried to move towards accommodating some of the perspective of the UK Government in these matters. In what way is the UK Government moving towards accommodating the Scottish Government's perspective? I think that we are obviously not in agreement, so I have tried to acknowledge that I could have held out for a position that said, look, the command paper says one of reductions, which will be deducted from the block grant for all future years, and I could have just held to that and said, look, that is it. One sum, one number does not change forever, done. I think that I could have sustained that position. I do not think that we would have got us to agreement, but I could have legitimately sustained that position. However, I have accepted, in the interests of transparency and equity, to apply an indexation factor to try to reach agreement. What I am concerned about now is that we having gone on to that indexation territory, we are now going on to this constrained analysis territory, and I just see absolutely no basis for that whatsoever, because we will be going back to trying to work out what stamp duty land tax would have been in 2030 if we hadn't abolished it, and I just forgive me, but I think that that is just an inappropriate basis for the judgment to be made. I apologise, convener, and cabinet secretary for missing the opening part of this meeting. If my questions have been answered already, please say so, so we don't duplicate. I suppose that the key thing, I guess, from looking at it from my point of view, is what is the schedule now as we see it? When are the next officials, when is the next time, when are the officials going to meet and discuss the issue, when is the next planned ministerial meeting? Obviously, you had one fairly recently. What is the schedule like at the moment for trying to move matters forward? The Intergovernmental Assurance Board met on 31 July, and there was discussion around that. The chief secretary and I had a follow-up after that between officials. The chief secretary and I had a conversation last week. The officials are back in touch as a consequence of the discussion that the chief secretary and I had last week, and those discussions are on-going. As we see the work emerging from the officials' discussions, the chief secretary and I will speak again, but we do not have a date for that at this stage. We will be a product of the discussions that are taken forward by officials, which have been taken forward as a matter of priority. In the eventuality, the agreement cannot be reached for a permanent arrangement in advance of the draft budget being released. There is a mention that there could be some kind of interim solution, presumably for year 1. At what point does the UK Government and the Scottish Government say, Luke, that we cannot reach agreement at the moment? Let us decide that we are going to just have an interim agreement. Is there a kind of backstop date at which point, in terms of producing your own draft budget, you need to have some kind of finality at it? At what point is that reached? I covered something that is going to be convenient on, but I would require to know what is the size of the block grant adjustment. I think no later than last week in September is the absolute backstop that I could finalise a budget with an agreed block grant adjustment number in it. I tend to agree with your approach around the GP deflator, but I am a bit constrained because I do not totally understand the constrained analysis approach. If you could help me to understand that, do you think that there are any circumstances in which the UK Government's approach would result in a financial benefit to the Scottish budget in certain years or do you think that it would always be negative? If our performance on generating stamp duty land tax and landfill tax receipts exceeded the growth in public spending and exceeded the constrained factor analysis set by the UK Government, then yes, there is the possibility that we could gain against the block grant adjustment, but we would have to gain against those two tests. My point is that I can live with one factor of indexation, although if I go back to the original interpretation of the command paper, I do not really think that I should have to, but I am prepared to live with one. To live with two I think is not acceptable. Also, there is an artificiality about the constrained factor analysis and the burn abatement mechanism that the UK Government is talking about essentially is a mechanism over which I have no control and the Scottish Parliament has no control and no influence because it is related to the growth of UK public spending. In both of those respects, I am trying to find a mechanism in which, in the interests of accountability and transparency, we settle on a factor like the GDP deflator, in which I think that we would accept that we have some influence in that performance, which gives us an ability to answer some of the issues that have been raised by the Treasury in this process. I suppose that another way of asking is what would be your explanation of the motivation of the UK Government? Why do you think that they are going down that route rather than accepting your proposal? In a sense, I do not quite understand what the rationale of it is. If the rationale is to increase the accountability and responsibility of the Scottish Parliament for the decisions that it takes, which was a purpose of the Scotland Act 2012, I see that as being undermined by both the Barnett abatement mechanism and the constrained factor, because it is essentially constraining what we can actually do. It is not actually saying to the Scottish Parliament that here are a couple of tax responsibilities.  It is all getting put into this very contrived analysis, and I do not think that that to me contradicts the purpose of the Scotland Act 2012. Do you accept that that is the reason that they are doing it, or do you think that there is some other reason that is not being stated? I think that that is probably the reason why they are doing it. I think that there is a sense that the UK Government, having given out those responsibilities, wants to hem them in at the same time. In terms of the initial grant itself, is it going to be the block grant adjustment itself? Is it going to be the calculation that is going to be based on 2013-14 actual figures? Again, that is a point that I think that I saw last time in answer to Mr Brown by saying that we cannot agree the basis of the one-off sum of money and the block grant adjustment without the wider debate on other factors that have been taken into account. There are different ways of calculating the block grant adjustment. I think that there is an analysis that we have data, obviously, up to the end of 2013-14 actual data. There will be estimated data for 14-15, which will be confirmed shortly after the close of the financial year. We have set out arguments—it has been discussed already—about the time frame in terms of a historic analysis of looking back maybe over five years or even over 15 years to give a much greater breadth of performance over a number of years. We are open to that discussion as to what it could look like. The other factor in the one-off adjustment is the extent to which we project forward what tax receipts might have been in 2015-16. That is obviously another factor that could be part of the analysis, but, as I said, those points have not yet been agreed. You were looking at averaging over five years, and I was just wondering if at least progress had been made on that particular issue. I think that the answer that I gave to Mr Brown last time is the one that stands. You knew that this gets agreed as a one-off package. That particular aspect remains in the mix. We appear to have no further questions from members of the committee, so I thank the cabinet secretary. The committee will not be meeting over the next few weeks. The next meeting should take place on Wednesday 1 October, so we have no further business today. I now close the meeting.


Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances. Natural science can be divided into two main branches, life science or biological science and physical science. Physical science is subdivided into branches, including physics, chemistry, astronomy and earth science. These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches also known as fields. In Western society's analytic tradition, the empirical sciences and especially natural sciences use tools from formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about nature into measurements which can be explained as clear statements of the laws of nature. The social sciences also use such methods, but rely more on qualitative research, so that they are sometimes called soft science whereas natural sciences, insofar as they emphasize quantifiable data produced, tested and confirmed through the scientific method, are sometimes called hard science. Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy, usually traced to ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes, Bacon and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures and presuppositions, often overlooked, remained necessary in natural science. Scientific data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. Today, natural history suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences.