After months of ease from COVID-19 cases are again beginning to trend upward in Pike County. Monday Mountain Top spoke with Health Director Tammy Riley about the new trend and how to protect yourself following the latest increase. Well we've seen in the last few weeks an uptick in numbers in new cases. Last week for example, Pike County went from green to yellow on the CDC's community level recommendations, so we've been watching that and this past Friday we moved from yellow to the orange or many are referring to the red zone or level of recommendations per the CDC. With 141 confirmed cases in Pike County, CDC guidelines recommend that individuals wear masks while indoors or in a compact space. Riley also mentions that even as COVID-19 cases are continuing to rise, hospitals aren't becoming overwhelmed. So while we do have 141 active cases, we saw 101 cases in the last seven days as they're just raw numbers that's not based on you know 100,000 population. So we are seeing this slide uptick but relatively speaking those we've had much higher numbers in the past and we're not seeing a heavy burden on our health care system. We did have an outbreak however in a medical skilled nursing facility and that likely pushed their numbers up just high enough that the CDC saw the levels at red or orange for the current recommendations which is to wear a mask indoors. We are Pikeville Medical Center and we are an amazing place to work. Healthcare heroes of all types work here, all who deserve great rewards. So while our heroes are working hard to take care of our patients and visitors, we are taking care of them with top-tier benefits, higher pay rates and great sign-on bonuses. So join our team today. So what are you waiting for? Apply today! Incredible opportunities await at PMCjobs.org. According to the Pike County Health Department, Pike County has just under 60% vaccination. Riley mentions the importance of getting vaccinated or getting a booster. So we've really tried to spread that message is get your booster and what we know is that those who have deceased in Kentucky from COVID-19 under the age of 60, 90% were unvaccinated and you know and the numbers just overwhelmingly shows us that the vaccines work, it decreases disease severity and it saves lives. For those ages 5 to 11 and have received the primary series, boosters are recommended after 5 months. Those 50 and older and those who are 12 and older and immunocompromised are advised to receive a second booster. Boosters are not recommended for 5 to 11 years or 12 to 49 years for non-immunocompromised individuals. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joel Hodgell.


Welcome once again to the breakfast here on Plus TV Africa. Our discussion this morning is about the local government and how important it is. The local government elections held in Ogum and Lagos states on Saturday and were marred by low voter turnout. While we're yet to get official figures, most places our correspondents went to had just a few voters. Voting was expected to begin at 8am and end at 3pm across Lagos state with a curfew already in place and thus was what Ajawe State polling unit was like at Isolo early in the morning. Voting was yet to start even with people already on the queue at polling unit 009. The presiding officer was on a phone call and we tried to find out what the challenge was. The card reader, the password is rejecting the card reader so which they are coming to rectify it right now but so far so good, election has been peaceful, people are really behaving. From Ajawe State we headed to First Tag which was just as peaceful. A dead guy who had just saw a PDP chairmanship candidate Amowo Odofin cast his vote. I'm impressed with this massive turnout. As you can see, people are all over ensuring that they come out to exercise their rights as citizens of Amowo. Let's all come out to exercise our rights. It is our right. One man, one vote. Our next spot of call was Ikeja. The polling unit here had few voters. One of them 001 on Adeni Ujone Strait was where the PDP State chairman cast his vote. He's displaced with the low turnout. This is very sad if you look at it, you can put to the camera right there. I'm the only one that has voted here today, you know, and that shows the level of trust, the level of anarchy that is going on inside the people in a democratic setting when the people don't believe in a process. There will be a day that they will show their anger somehow. He also had this to say to his political counterpart. Take this opportunity to just plead with we politicians, you know, on both sides of the divide, whether PDP, whether APC, that the people are the ones that matter, the youths are the ones that matter, it's not us anymore. There were diverse opinions here at the Laos Award F polling unit. People are not coming out to vote, I don't know the reason why. For this particular award, the turnout is quite impressive. I could see many people here in the morning before coming to cast my own votes. We next headed to Lagos Island for more observation. And here at Wahab Falawiyo Junior High School Osborne polling unit, the complaint was about a missing polling unit. We've gone there, sort of two units there, we met one here again, instead of two, we met one. And we are asking why, where is the other one? Because we know that's the way the re-election. Between it is supposed to be at 14 points, but we only saw one, the other side and this one, and we are wondering what is happening, who is in charge. And there's no senior officer from Lassé that we can aware from, and that's the problem behind this. So if this can happen here then what is granted that the re-election is free and fair? Fifteen political parties are registered for the election according to the Lagos State Independent Electro-Commission. Jacinta Obuco for PLOS TV Africa. Yes, this morning, his Executive Chairman, Committee for Protection of People's Mandates. Good morning, Mr Nelson and Kujumi. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning to our viewers. All right. Welcome. All right. The conversation from Saturday's local government polls, first of all, it was described as very almost abandoned, seeing the low turnout of voters. The governor of the state, of Lagos State, Babajidesong Wulu, made mention of the same thing, you know, and of course stated that it was peaceful, but the voter turnout was very low. Why do you think that this, you know, happened? Yes, thank you very much. The turnout of voters on Saturday, July 24th, 2021, Lagos State Local Government election that was mad by voters a party, can be attributed to so many factors. You look at it from the lack of democracy within the political parties, because you expect that these are political parties that have members, and even if any of that person is not coming out to vote, how about the members of this political party? Where are they? It tells you clearly that, you know, the lack of confidence in the candidates that they might as it is, well, as I said, you know, so they can use these parties in this state. Also, a lot of these parties, if you ask me, they are more of business parties only when election is knocking at the door, which shouldn't be so. These parties are supposed to be the opposition party. They are supposed to be showing out statements, programs, that we endear them to the people. The bride does not get to know the groom on the eve of the wedding. They must have cut her for quite a long time. A lot of these parties have not cut her, the Nigerian populist, and that is responsible for people who have seen this, I don't even know, I don't even know their candidates. So, to recognize that, and the voting populist is, you know, is non-existent, just parties. And also look at the issue of economy. The economic situation of the country, the political situation of the country has also contributed to the voter party.  How have the people felt, you know, the governance at that grassroots level? So if those are the aim of affairs, have not shown out policies, programs that will affect the lives of the people, then the people we expect might put in the last five years. They wrote my suite, nothing has happened there. The security of my locality is nothing to write to me about, I'm the one providing it. I don't feel any essence of the local government except to pay, except for the refuse that comes to the left-wing selectors. That's the essence of governance that I feel. Alright, Mr. Akujomi, we're going to get back to the relevance of the local government because it's one thing that I had spoken about before and I pointed out that, you know, it's one of the reasons a lot of people didn't show up because they haven't been able to feel the relevance of the local government level in any way. So before we get there, I want you to speak more about the relationship between the parties and the people, which you also just mentioned. From what you've described, there's no relationship, they only show up a few weeks to the elections and that's when you even hear that there are candidates coming up for elections.  Because the political parties are not run as political parties. Political parties, you have a membership, a registered, a political parties, you have a program for members that when there are even people who are sitting on the fence, they are the same thing that is propagating. The parties should not just believe that they exist only to come and call your votes or at election time. I will be very, very scared. I will want a relationship to have existed between us so that at any point in time we can knock on each other's door. The parties themselves are, the people are not known to the parties, also the parties are not known to the people and this has affected the relationship between the parties and the voting populace and that is what we have seen at the local government, there is no relationship. Like I said, no marriage can be consummated, a marriage will be fought with danger. Even in those days, in the days of you all, when you used to tell us that our parents were giving out a marriage to, maybe my mother was giving out a marriage to my father, at least before the day it would be consummated, my parents must have got it to know the other parents. They have made a purpose to know themselves before them but this idea of political parties believing that they can only approach us for our votes, when election is knocking at the door, is very, very inimical to the people we must have on. Everything should not be about money, there are several mediums that you can use to reach the people that are out. Alright, you said good to me. You've made really important points here and I would always like to remind viewers that at every time, in four years and eight years, there is a local government chairman, there's a person who holds that seat that is responsible for certain details of the life of an electorate but it seems like these people don't exist and I'm sure that if you ask the next 50 people on the street who is the current local government chairman in Etiosa or any other local government, I'm sure a good 30 wouldn't know who he is. So this basically paints a picture of the lack of interest with many, many thousands actually of people who should have come out to vote on the day of the election. One of the persons that I had spoken to had said that it is because of a lack of trust in the electoral process and that's why people stayed away from voting. Do you agree that that's the challenge here, that the electorate and legosians and people in Nogustate also don't trust the process and so they didn't bother showing up to vote? Well, it is not impossible for people not to trust the process. Don't forget, even in the Bible. We had a doubting Thomas and there are so many Thomases in the world. A lot of persons tend to distrust even what they have not tested before and when you ask, they cannot give you a quotient or logical reason for not trusting. What you have not tried, I see no reason why you should distrust it. It's like they say, the taste of the pudding is in the eating, but most importantly, the political parties are the ones that are supposed to generate interest that will develop into trust. The political parties are not communicating enough with the people, but if they hope they can guarantee, even if we have doubting Thomases, they will be very, very negligible. But like we always say in the democracy, what majority we have there, majority we have there persons that they don't believe, it's their right, we cannot, there's nothing we can do to them. They have to engage them to make them see, to give them the benefit of doubt. Even relationships we go into, it is made of trust, I'm talking to you this morning because your reporter spoke to me yesterday night and had the trust that we don't have the trust. And I was like, I got up early to be on this program. If I didn't have the trust, I would have just said, when you really call me, would the program hold? But because I had that faith and it is because of the relationship that we have had over the years. So there's this thing for us to invest more in our political parties in that way. Alright. Okay, Mr. Ikujumi, now I want us to focus on the failure of the local government level of governance. Some of the responsibilities that I expected, I'll quickly share before we get to ask why the local government level seems to be failing. Control and provision of markets and motor parks, collection and disposition of refuse, making recommendations, provision and control of cemeteries and slaughterhouses, regulation and issuing of birth and death marriage certificates also. They also issue various type of licenses, naming of streets, collection of rates and taxes, building and maintaining of schools and colleges, awarding bursaries and scholarships also. Control of public housing, town and housing planning, provision of public libraries, provision of pipe on water and other public institutions, and numerous responsibilities that the local government should have. Mr. Ikujumi, does your local government do any of these things or more? Well, from my own of that mission of my local government, my local government has involved itself in the construction and reconstruction of roads. My local government has involved itself in the provision of markets. My local government only recesses when the rescue collector arbitrarily increase the monthly fee with pay. My local government's administration intervenes and reduced the price through its intervention. This is what, for example, in my local government, in some other local governments, the local governments are doing one thing or the other. But the problem we have is that people are not asking questions. We are, we must not also forget that a lot of local government functions and responsibilities have been subsumed by state interference. You know, in the past, local governments would collect regular free licenses fees. But now, all those have been subsumed under the amalgamated land use charge. A lot of the functions of local governments is not claim to people. And that is why I say the governments and the authorities need to have a robust engagement with the people so that if you make an alternate, you can accept them. You know, that's how we do it. All these engagements with people at the localities to carry them along. So these are many things are missing in the local government's administration. And that is why people must feed. We are the people with, you know, mobilized, that look, this is democracy. Democracy by the poor. And if people are the focus, you see, if they are any administrator at whatever level, be it at the local government, be it at the state, be it at the federal level, it can face a lot of sense. If you actually if you ask people, like I've already said, we don't know a person. Oh, they say in a local that, you know, that the official office is on the side. A lot of people don't know the, the, the police are trying to look at it. Well, in the election administration, and you tell them, somebody asked you, they said they are ready to vote for the administration. And I want to go to the local government office. So first of all, we are seeing the local government looking. And you'll be wondering, is this, even in this locality at all, that you don't know the local government. So the people themselves, in as much as government is in response to the energy incident, they themselves must be willing to go to the mountains. The mountains will not go to the mountains. The mountains will go to the mountains. So it is important for us to organize that governance begins at this level. And that is why the latest political, the latest political system, please, we are set to look at the issue of industrial autonomy for local governments. It's a big factor has prevented them from having their constitutionality. It's a fundamental challenge. And that is why the plumber of the industrial government are kidding in a public discourse that put these courts to give a ruling not too long ago, very recently, that no governor has the power to put the constitution to a protected government. And the, any but, collapse of the local government session, what has generated threats. So they'll pick up insecurity. You know that insecurity starts at the local level because there's no pattern free where equity is ravaging, that is the local government. So the lack of governance disconnects three, four, and four. It's what the local government, that is what you have seen in the voter party as the election should go. So if the press is there, people will come out to vote. People will come out to the side of their face. Some of the problems we have dealt with, two engagements, will be getting to the president. And the society will be the better for it. It is interesting that we must come up with an autonomy for local government that is going to have to have the running of government because it is affected just like the local government. Because the elected, all the people, the local government is one always to the governor. Because the people that elected him, and that is what the constituent budget says. Partition of the budget constitution by state governors or state governments interfering in the administration of the local government, should be, should be, should be eliminated if it's of law. It is condemnable. All right. Nersene Kujumi, thank you very much. We apologize for the network challenges that we had. But I thank you for adding your voice to this conversation. And of course, it's a conversation that must continue until we're able to revive the relevance of the local governments here in Nigeria. Good morning once again, and thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. All right. And that's where we wrap up the breakfast this morning. The conversation, I believe, will continue. And of course, we will continue to bring these types of issues up here on the breakfast to enable people learn a little bit more about the local government level of governance. And if you once again, you know, want to do a quick challenge, ask the next 20 random people you meet, who their local government chairman is, and see how many people actually know who that person is, or what his name is, or even where their local government office is. Thanks for staying with us. If you missed out on any of the conversations you remember to catch up on our social media platforms, it's at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook and Instagram. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel at PLOS TV Africa and PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle. I am Osao Gie, Ogboa. See you tomorrow.


If only there was a good way to use genomics to find a good use for all these strawberries. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Luckily, you only need household items to do that. Otherwise, it would take us forever to set up. Let's get going. Okay, well it's super convenient you had a craving for strawberries because they're really easy to extract DNA from. We'll be experts in strawberry and DNA. Do you know how many copies of the genome that each strawberry cell has? I don't know how many. Eight. Eight. Eight. Four times more per cell than humans. So purifying DNA from a strawberry is really easy because it has so much DNA in it. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. Awesome. It's sure awesome. No time to waste. Let's do some science. So let's just make sure we have all the materials we need. Yeah, no it's always good to get organized. Agreed. So first, one resealable plastic bag. So I tend to use the small ones. You can use the big ones, but small ones work really well. You're the expert, so I would listen to that. Okay. Two strawberries. Two strawberries. Very important. And if I remember right, it's actually very good to take off the green stems and get rid of them. Correct. Okay. I think you can use fresh or frozen. Two teaspoons of dish detergent. So we have the dish detergent, put that aside. Okay. And we have a teaspoon for measuring it. Perfect. All right, one teaspoon of salt. So here's a teaspoon for measuring, and here is the salt. Great. Okay, a half cup of water. So here we have a measuring cup, very full, half a cup of water. I'll just set that here. Perfect. Okay, two plastic cups. Got those right here. Okay. One coffee filter. Coffee, we actually have an extra, but yes, I have a coffee filter. You never know. Yeah. Might need to. Half cup of rubbing alcohol. We've got that right here. Yep. Gotta be careful with that. One coffee stirrer. And I got two just in case we do an extra. Wonderful. There you go. And it's probably most importantly, one scientist or in our case, two scientists. We got two. Yes. Okay, so you take the strawberries and what you have to do is to basically break up the strawberries first because then in the next step, we're gonna break open the cells that are in the strawberry to release the DNA. But to sort of help that process along, you really gotta unfortunately be a little mean to your strawberries.  And as best you can. Now, there's lots of techniques that can be used for this.  But at the same time, you have to really work it good as much to get sort of a strawberry puree. We just keep getting this to the point that all the big pieces are broken up. And in doing so, you will then have it to the point where you could then go to the next step where you're gonna break open the individual cells in strawberries and let the DNA come floating into solution. Here's the thing.  And maybe one way to think about it is like a water balloon. And that's the cell. And what we need to do is to break open that water balloon so that the DNA will come floating out. Now, like a water balloon, like you might use a nail to pop it. But for this, what you do when you're dealing with a cell is you use a detergent, like detergent you use for cleaning your kitchen. So we're gonna make a solution that's gonna both have detergent in it, but it's also gonna have other things like salt and water that make the DNA happy and comfortable floating around inside of it. So that's why we're gonna take this, what we call an extraction liquid, okay? Little concoction, sounds great. So I think you start, you add two teaspoons of the detergent. Okay, sounds great. You want some? No, no, I already had breakfast. Okay, just wanted to check. Looks good though. Two of those. One teaspoon of salt. Yeah, maybe you can use a different piece then. Yeah, good thing I have two. All right, perfect. And then remember we have that half a cup of water. Yes. That was poured to the very top. I'm gonna need you halfway. All right, thank you very much. And then I'll just pour it in using my skills as a scientist. And there you go. And now just to shake it up a little. A little shake, okay. Yeah, yeah. And what all you're really wanting to make sure to do is to make sure the salt gets into solution and that detergent sort of gets evenly dispersed throughout. Okay. Okay, so that's our extraction liquid. Cool. So now we're basically gonna use that detergent like a little pin to pop the water balloons, use the detergent to break open those strawberry cells. I'll open this up. Let's do it. Okay. And there we have it. And so now you seal it. Now here you can't smash. You don't even wanna smash because of course if you really start smashing, you might then you really spew out the liquid and that would cause a lot. And actually the other thing is you don't wanna be too tough with this because otherwise you get a lot of bubbles. But you just wanna sort of work this around just like you're making a smoothie by hand. And so, but here's the thing is that while all the DNA is now collecting in the liquid, if you look in there, you have a lot of other stuff that's in the way. Now, scientifically we might refer to that as cellular debris, but it's just the strawberry schmutz. And you gotta get rid of that strawberry schmutz. And so that's why we use a coffee filter. It's now time to get rid of this schmutz and get the liquid that'll contain the strawberry DNA. So maybe you could fold that for me. We're gonna use this as a filter. Now you can use a coffee filter. Sometimes you could use gauze if you happen to have some gauze in your house.  So when most of the liquid has filtered through, what's good is to just remove that filter that contains all that strawberry schmutz and we can just put it on the side. We don't need that anymore. So this is basically the extraction liquid, which has the insides of all the cells of those strawberries and including the DNA. And in order to get the DNA to come out of solution, we do a scientific step, which is called precipitation, which is basically a way of getting a compound or molecule to sort of come out from being in a liquid state to being in a solid state. To do that, we use this rubbing alcohol, which you often wanna have it be a little bit cold and I know this was in the refrigerator and that's good. You just wanna add an equal amount.  And a little pour and then that's good, like that. And then what you wanna do is not be overly harsh with this, but you can sort of see there's almost like a layer, the alcohol's a bit on top, the extraction liquids on the bottom, when you just sort of roughly sort of gently swirl it around and then what you start to see forming sort of between those two layers is like a flocculent like material, sort of almost looks like cotton. And as you swirl more and more and it gets more and more mixed, you'll see more of it forming. And that flocculent material is the DNA. That's awesome. But you know, it's very whitish and it's sort of very viscous and what does it really look like in real life? It kind of looks like snot. It does look like snot. And so, and when you start to see big things as snot, then you know it's really working well. And you can even see here, as we've done this, you could really start to see some of this precipitated DNA forming. And we can get more in a bit, but what you can do is when you start to see it, that's where the coffee stir comes in. You can just sort of fish that out. Look at that, look at that. That's awesome.  But in fact, if we could look at a molecular level, it would just consist of that classical double helix, that sort of the iconic view of DNA. But this is purefied strawberry DNA. There's probably even more that you could get and you could if you wanted to keep swirling, but you can see you've gotten a tremendous amount there, which is great. And just imagine, you did all of this using materials that you have in your kitchen. So you can do science in your kitchen and do something as wonderful as isolate DNA from a strawberry. That is really cool. DNA extraction! Science is delicious. Especially the DNA.


Okay, so good afternoon. So this is actually the continuation of the previous talk about Maintaining accessibility on a long run through testing So just to make a quick poll, what do you think is the accessibility problem of this? What is the problem with GNU plots for? the colors red and green is the In the worst choice of colors to do because a lot of people actually can't distinguish and then Like 8% of the people of the male people cannot distinguish between the two Or at least have problems and then with group 5 they improved this so you see I mean just wondering How many people here please raise your hand if you are colorblind in the room. Is there somebody no? But that's 8% normally so statistically there should be 1% at least Anyway So what is accessibility? What to make it simple. It's making something usable by everybody. Whatever the specific needs situation, etc So of course, it's blind people deaf people, etc But also people with cognition issues I don't know all people have problems with Understanding your your software things like this on motor issues You cannot press a shortcut because you need your both and both your true hands and you don't you have only one and Quite often it can be you because you have a package and you cannot type with the true hands or a Lot of people here have low vision and you're lucky because you have glasses with which you can wear all the all the time, but Some people cannot have this There's a poll which says actually 10% of the people are really handicapped in their daily life and 20% would say that they are limited in their daily life due to Conditions, whatever the thing is it's it's really it really is a matter for everybody actually and For free software, this is really about freedom zero the freedom to run the program for any purpose Okay to run but More to that and to be able to use the program and then there's the second Freedom freedom number one. This is free software. You can modify it. That cannot happen. I will explain why It's question of priority as was mentioned previously. It should be prioritized It's actually just like security and internationalization In the rest of the talk really try at some points thinking. Yes, this is like security and Internationalization it's the same kind of we have to keep it in mind all the time and The question is who is doing this? the problem is it concerns just some fraction of the people they are they are already having a hard time using computers and Having the skills to actually program modify the program. It's even less people and Then you have people who have programming skills and could do something on this But then being aware and understanding what needs to be done. It's even less people So there's really extremely small fraction of the people who can actually work on this So the sentence this is free software. You can modify it that cannot work actually You could say okay, let's pay some people to do this Okay, so we have some people which monitor all the software in the free software world So we would need a lot of people keeping getting updated with all the evolutions We have here and there and so we have for instance John Marie at Igalia who does this on everyday life, but he cannot do everything It's not possible and spending your whole day. It's just debugging things. It's really more than painful So no, it's it's not feelable as a solution. So the support has to be spread among Every developers Integrating into their development process just like security just like internationalization Nobody develops a software without taking a security issues into account nowadays. At least they shouldn't really Accessibility is the same kind of priority Just to give the low things so the You know rights of persons with disabilities So I put everything so you can read it offline, but basically discrimination is Exclusion on the basis of disability including denial of reasonable accommodation So even if you don't do this on purpose, it's considered exclusion and reasonable What does it mean not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden? Okay? It's not much more clear, but at least it has a legal meaning and disproportionate The question is how to make it proportionate So we will propose a regression testing So there are two things For start we want to avoid introducing new issues. So everything that is Developed nowadays should not have accessibility issues by pointing them out as soon as the development While the programmer is programming the tools tells it. Oh, this is bad. This is bad. This is bad Here is how you should fix it and then the programmer learns and then he will not do the Mistakes again. So that's an extremely important thing to not go back Make sure that we don't have new issues While we still have the old issues That we have to work on so we have a list and then okay We have to work but it's a second priority after making sure new things don't get regression So what are we talking about technically? Just extremely briefly the idea is we want to make the same software accessible For a lot of reasons I don't detail but basically we can't re-implement LibreOffice for instance So we have to make it accessible The idea is you have your application and then the screen reader uses an accessibility bus to access the abstract representation of the application and This is basically a tree of widget and then okay, you have all the information cool a lot of toolkits Provide this information that's fine But the problem is it doesn't mean that it's necessarily usable because maybe you have this dialog box and Maybe you implemented it that way so you have labels and then you have text and there's nothing that relates one with the other So ideally you would say there is a label for some text But maybe you have just written your code that way or maybe it's the XML file you use which imposes that way of doing it Okay, we could say oh, sorry about this You could say that the screen reader should have a script to fix and to know that it should relate one with the other But it's not viable on the long term because the screen reader then gets a lot of ugly hacks And it's not maintainable on the long term with each new release you have to fix to update the hacks It's not really something we want Instead you should just declare properly the relationships between the widgets. Sorry To declare them properly means you say that this text is labeled by this label. So that's what we will focus on Just some takeaway slides. I don't detail them because I don't have the time But basically design logically without taking into account graphic things use standard widgets use labeled widgets make sure you have logical rejections seeps and keep it simple and Making it simple will help everybody actually to use your software You can try accessibility tools You can enable enable the screen reader and see what happens and try to use just a keyboard Don't cheat and see what shows up on the braille device If you want there is a debugger to check exactly what is there, okay, but Maybe it's not something that we should promote because it shows that it's quite a lot of work to work on accessibility Well, maybe we can do a lot of things without going that far So trying to use automatic tests in continuous integration And that's what we propose as a first step now and to try to avoid some classes of new issues And still have a fix me list to fix the previous one The idea is that that way we can make people aware of the question with is it enough to fix issues And then okay, they take that into account and then maybe later on we can expand the kind of things We want people to keep in mind all the time when they are developing So about regressions, you know about what regression So you move one step forward that actually you go two steps forward and two steps backward Because a new feature breaks an old feature a bug fix breaks a feature you have Regressions here and there so you need regression testing and user testing Concerning accessibility it's way worse Usually when you make one step forward you actually have ten steps backwards and new features are just not usable at all quite often and Bug fixes break usability completely quite often and User testing doesn't work because there's there aren't so many Concerned users and it's difficult to for them to test the development versions of your software and The developers themselves don't have any idea on how to actually fix it because they are not accessibility experts So how to test this what what should be done? So regression testing could be an idea to make them learn progressively So new features, they should be hopefully usable. That is there are shortcuts There are logic relationships. Is that convenient? Maybe not but at least the new feature with some effort should be accessible I mean the person who actually needs accessibility Maybe it's not convenient, but at least it can achieve the task with more time that should be ideal Ideally be needed, but at least it does work and and for the old features We should make sure that they remain usable So there are three things we are thinking about right now which are relatively simple So labels with widgets all widgets should have some label which says what it is about Except maybe some special cases labels conversely if they are there For the visual rendering that's probably for a reason and so if there's a label without a widget attached to it probably there's something problem like somewhere and Also shortcuts all the widgets should be reachable through shortcuts So maybe pressing tab or maybe it's in the toolbar and so you have an F something shortcut to be able to access it quickly so maybe these are the Really simple rules that could be tested automatically that we can enforce and make sure that they will always work And that's already a huge progress compared to what we have nowadays So how to test this? We could try to test online so run the application and check that we have labeling But it's quite expensive. It's low and okay, but which source line Corresponds to that we'd get it's difficult. Maybe we can do that inside the toolkit, but It's also the same problem. How do you get back to the source code? Okay, maybe there's research to be done here Static analysis Passing the source code. I don't really see how to do this at the moment I mean looks not so easy But a lot of applications use glade so XML files basically and so what we've been working on and will work This month is a tool which shows the warning. So saying that this widget doesn't have a label for This label doesn't have a widget attached and this widget doesn't have a label and there are actually like 16 lines apart. So probably actually these two needs to be related and that's all So it's really simple to fix those and hopefully this tool will allow to make that easy So of course, we have other issues like there are multiple named mognic for one For one widget or The link is actually broken. Okay, these kind of things we can debug automatically And we can include that in the build process So we've been running this on LibreOffice and we got like 8,000 runnings That's a lot We can start with compilation 8,000 warnings. So we want to implement a notion of suppression which says okay these 8,000 warnings we have to fix them at some point, but Day zero we have zero warning and we remain at that and if there are new warnings Okay, we fix them and then when we have time when we take the time to do we fix those all right warnings We have suppressed and then we should be able to make progress actually There are false positives Sometimes you say no no this actually is not interesting to label or some things Probably we can automate some of these and mark those which we cannot automate because it's really on the semantic We will be working on that this month So to have a look at all of these try to sort them out see with the people what they prefer the way they prefer etc So that's the HIPRA company and Martin Peuchot who wrote the initial tool and which we will use and Extend and that's funded by TDF. So it's on some JIT from now Probably we will try to move it to some place like maybe at GNOME or JITLAB. I don't know we can discuss Our idea is that it should be As globally used as possible. It doesn't have to be only for LibreOffice Maybe there are LibreOffice specific things From what I've seen in the 8,000 warnings. I Probably not so many LibreOffice specific things I guess So to conclude it's really a problem for a lot of people And actually as said before it actually helps everybody when you have shortcuts to do your daily work You actually get save a lot of time so and making the software simple etc It really helps for a lot of things But we need to raise awareness of on this and regression testing maybe is a nice tool Starting with just a few warnings and see how well it is accepted, etc And then get to integrate accessibility in the development process itself to enforce the things that okay We have agreed on enforcing making sure that it's always like this just like security and internationalization I Haven't talked about keyboard shortcuts, but yeah, we would also work on this just not not now. Thanks So we stay here for the weekend Maybe just one question Into so can the script be? Integrated in inside glade So I asked on the glade mailing list. They didn't answer I'm not sure glade doesn't seem to develop so much, but yeah, that was our idea They're saying that okay, there's that glade tool and okay integrate the thing is a lot of people use UE file UI files, but without actually using the glade library so I Prefer that it's just one script that people use just like lint like valcrin valcrin is not inside the compiler. I Don't know, but I mean we are open to whatever Yeah, a thousand. Yeah, usually yes So for instance, I didn't show it, but the sort dialogue box there are eight warnings and yes There are eight issues quite often. It's a small issue That is you have the word ascending and descending and you have to know that it's the sort things And it's just leaving ascending and descending with the sort word It's small, but it helps a lot actually And it's really easy to fix Okay


Sorry, Dr Mario World, your time is up. Last week Nintendo announced that the online mobile puzzle game, Dr Mario World, will cease functioning on the 1st of November, just a little over two years after its debut. This has left many players surprised, and many other Nintendo fans concerned about what it might mean for the future of the company's mobile games. Will Animal Crossing Pocket Camp or Fire Emblem Heroes be turned off in the near future as well? The good news is that you probably don't need to worry about Nintendo giving up on the mobile sphere altogether. In fact, in investor meetings, the higher-ups within the company have been very clear that they're incredibly eager to keep making these games as they have fantastic potential. That said, they've discovered that mobile games may not serve the initial purpose that they'd intended, and they are reworking their strategy a bit. This is likely why Dr Mario World has been given the axe. When Shintaro Furukawa first took over as president of Nintendo, he insisted that mobile games would be a huge part of the company's business going forward. Nakaiaja reported that Furukawa expected mobile gaming would soon be a billion-dollar pillar of the Nintendo empire. Furukawa said, From what I can see, smartphone games are the ones I want to expand the most. Things did not pan out that way. While Pokémon Go certainly has gone from strength to strength, Nintendo has found that many of its other mobile games have underperformed. By 2020, Furukawa stated, We are not necessarily looking to continue releasing many new applications for the mobile market. The reason for this was simple. Nintendo's mobile efforts were a hit-and-miss, while the Nintendo Switch was quickly becoming a powerful competitor to mobile platforms in general. We're reminded of the words of Minecraft producer Roger Carpenter, who said, About a half a year ago, you'd see children in restaurants around the UK playing Minecraft on their tablets.  So it would make sense for Nintendo to wind down their mobile efforts and focus solely on the Switch, except that's not what the company claims to be doing. According to Nintendo, there are fantastic benefits to mobile gaming that go beyond simple revenue. Speaking about mobile gaming in an investor Q&A meeting, Shigeru Miyamoto said, Working on mobile content reminded us again that while the Nintendo games systems may have reached some parts of the world, there are many places where they are not widespread. We started the mobile business because we felt it very important to conduct activities that encourage people to understand the Nintendo brand and come to like Nintendo. While Nintendo's mobile games might not be a necessary moneymaker when compared to the Switch, they are fantastic advertising. In another investor meeting, Shuntaro Furukawa stated, Sales from the mobile business do not account for a very large percentage of Nintendo's overall business. But the mobile business itself is significant in that it provides a wide range of consumers away other than Nintendo Switch to continue to enjoy playing games using Nintendo IP over a long period. When global distribution of the Animal Crossing pocket camp app began in the fall of 2017, for example, it introduced many female consumers and US consumers to the Animal Crossing series and those same consumers later went on to purchase Animal Crossing New Horizons and a Nintendo Switch console. So moving forward, it seems that Nintendo's strategy will be to use mobile games as a way of introducing Nintendo brands to a wider audience in the hopes that this will lead to more sales. At least, that's what Nintendo says. We're well aware that what is said in investor meetings doesn't always tell the full story. That said, it's worth noting that Bloomberg has reported that, according to an anonymous source, fearing that it would harm the brand equity of its franchises, Nintendo asked its mobile development partners not to force players to spend a lot in games. This is good news then for fans of Nintendo mobile games who are worried that their favourite titles might disappear in the near future. If a game serves a solid advertising purpose, Nintendo is likely to keep it around for a bit longer. If there are more Nintendo mobile games in future, we can expect that these will have less of a focus on microtransactions as their purpose will be to serve as advertising rather than to earn money. So where does this leave poor Dr. Mario World? On paper, the game seemed like a logical smartphone game, cut from the same cloth as Bejeweled and Candy Crush. Alas, though, there's a lot of stiff competition in this particular genre on mobile, and Dr. Mario failed to make an impact. It could also be argued that Dr. Mario World doesn't work quite as well as an advert for Nintendo games as, say, Mario Kart Tour. There's no modern Dr. Mario game on the Switch, and it doesn't do much to communicate the essence of other Mario games to a player who may be unfamiliar with the character. All of this should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt, but it seems that Dr. Mario, with its reliance on microtransactions and its lack of relevant brand appeal, doesn't fit with Nintendo's plans for the future of mobile gaming. The moral of the story? Sometimes there's more to life than money. Also, the contributions of medical workers are sorely undervalued by society. The next time you see a medical professional, thank them for their hard work.


And while with the recent fresh blanket of snow we got, many people have the itch to hit the slopes. And this week's Northwood's adventure at Josh Peterson visited a ski resort that has been making traditions for more than half a century. North of Bemidji on Urban Avenue lies a winter wonderland of snow. What looks like a scene from a Christmas card is actually a gem that has made Bemidji its home for almost seven decades. The Buna Vista ski area has been family owned and operated for 67 years. Well, my grandfather Leonard R. Dickinson, he had the first run cleared in 1936 and we started selling lift tickets, tow tickets in 1949, so officially opened in 1949. One of the things that sets the Buna Vista ski area apart from all the others is the rich history and family tradition.  We feel that we add to that. During the winter months, Buna Vista has put Bemidji on the map for years, making it a winter destination. They probably come from at least 100 mile radius, yeah, lots of Grand Forks, Deer River. If you've got a couple groups coming from Fargo, we do have lodging so they'll be sleeping right with us here in the chalet. Even for some of its employees, Buna Vista has become a second home. For one particular employee, the ski area was one of the reasons to retire to Bemidji. I always wanted to work at a ski resort. I grew up skiing in the east. I was an instructor and, you know, and just skied as a kid a lot. Nancy is not only the bookkeeper, she is also one of Buna Vista's ski instructors. She says that the main fear of skiing is falling, so it's always best to start with the basics. So teaching them how to stand on the skis and slide on the skis and get their balance and confidence is number one. From instruction to family fun, the importance of family rings true in everything the Buna Vista ski area offers. With this week's Northwood's Adventure in Bemidji, I'm Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Welcome to this course on nano structured materials synthesis properties self assembly and applications. Today we are going through lecture number 12 of module 3 and this is the third lecture of the series of core shell nano structures. And today we will do some applications of core shell nano structures. So, there are many types of applications of core shell nano structures depending on what is the core and what is the shell. For example, you can have a magnetic core and a non magnetic shell or a ferromagnetic core or an anti ferromagnetic shell or a diamagnetic core and a magnetic shell. This is with magnetism, similarly you can have a optical materials as core covered with a shell with a different optical property like a different band gap. And you can have core shell materials which can carry drugs to be used for drug delivery. So, core shell nano structures have applications in a wide variety of technologies which are going to be useful in coming years to a large extent. So, the first example that we can discuss is a zinc sulphide core on with a shell of silica and the core shell structure is not spherical, but it is in the form of a thick wire or we can call them nano cables. So, inside this dark part is the core material we are calling which is zinc sulphide and on top of that you have silica and this combination of zinc sulphide and silica core shell nano structures can be used as sensors for finding out a particular biological molecule. And so, these nano cables can be used as biological sensors. So, here a kind of a device is shown where you have the core shell nano structure on top like this and there are two electrodes and you can measure the voltage across this. Now, when there is a molecule like the protein molecule here it is a molecule BSA. Now, this BSA molecule if it is on top of this nano cable where the surface is of silica. So, if this is having a some charge then the nano cable with silica on the shell normally has a negative charge. So, a protein which has a positive charge will sit on it easily because this shell has got a negative charge that is the property of a silica surfaces. And since the protein has a positive charge this protein here is bovine serum albumin that is from the blood of is a protein from the blood of the a bovine like cow. And this protein has a positive charge and hence will be stabilized on the surface of the nano cable. Now, when that happens then the conductance changes. So, here you see before the protein was attached to the nano cable the conductance is somewhere here and it remains more or less constant with time. However, when the protein is on top of the silica surface of this nano cable then the conductance falls. So, this signal of the drop in conductance will give you a sense of the biological molecule. So, such nano cables can be used to sense biological molecules here a particular case where the charge of the biomolecule is of importance because that is bringing about a change in the conductance. So, what one is measuring is the conductance and this fall in conductance can be quantified and accordingly you can tell how much of the protein is sitting on the surface. So, this is an example of a core shell structure as a biological sensor. Now, this is another example of zinc sulfide silica nano cable as a chemical sensor. So, you have this zinc sulfide core on top you have this silica surface is silica and oxygen bonds. And on top of this you have a functionalized molecule with an ammonium ion. So, here it is protonated amine and at a different pH when you raise the pH this proton will be lost and it will become simple NH 2 group and there are got you have got these kind of OH groups at some of the silanol groups which are in the OH form in the hydroxylated form. Now, if you increase further pH. So, you increase the pH and you have this amine group instead of the protonated group at further high pH even these protons from the OH groups will be lost. So, in the first step these protons will be lost in the second step at higher pH the OH protons will be lost and that you can see in the conductance. So, when you are having this configuration the conductance is somewhere somewhere here some 0.13 micro siemens at around pH 4 and it is more or less constant. And when you increase to pH 7 then this proton has been lost and the conductance falls and then it continues like that till again you change the pH to higher pH. Now, you are at pH 10 the conductance falls further because even the OH groups have been the protons have gone away. So, you can plot as a function of pH a variation in the conductance depending on these studies. So, functionalize nano cables. So, you have functionalize this core shell structure of zinc sulfide and silica and you have these kind of S I O minus groups at higher pH and NH 2 groups are having NH 3 plus. So, this kind of variation in pH is controlling the conductance and it is behaving like a gate. So, this is well known in devices semiconducting devices where one controls the current flow through a particular voltage which is called the gate voltage.  That means when you increase pH the conductance is decreasing that means charge carriers are less and when you decrease pH there are more charge carriers and so the conductance goes up. So, this is another example of a nano cable a core shell nano cable which is acting as a sensor and here it is a chemical sensor because it is identifying the variation in the concentration of protons. So, it is a chemical object and in the previous example there was a biological molecule which was being sensed by the core shell nano cable and then it was a biological sensor here it is acting as a chemical sensor. Now, this is another example of core shell structure where now it is an alloy particle forms the core. So, this is a transmission electron micrograph of a core shell structure and these are like spheres and the dark sphere small sphere at the center is basically the iron platinum alloy and the lighter coating or the shell is made up of cobalt disulfide. And these are spherical core shell nano structures and if you take the edacs from the center of the sphere that is point one you will get an edacs which will show you iron platinum and cobalt all three and the copper comes from the grid whereas, if you take the edacs analysis from the shell then the point two if your electron beam is going through point two then you will only see those metals or those elements which are present in the shell. And here you see you can find sulphur which because it is there sulphur is there and you will see cobalt because cobalt sulphide is there, but you will not see any iron or platinum because they are in the core. So, iron and platinum is missing here whereas, all the elements you can see here because when you pass the beam through one it goes through the shell into the core and you will see all the elements which are present in the core as well as the shell. So, these are edacs analysis normally done in a transmission electron micrograph transmission electron microscope by choosing the electron beam to fall on specific positions in the core shell structures and that is how you identify that your core is made of iron platinum and your shell has got cobalt disulfide. Now, why do you make such a material for some application and what is the application here in mind that the cobalt sulphide which is on the outside the shell it has got a polar surface and is also porous because the way you make the shell using Kirchendahl effect you generate porous structure for the cobalt disulfide shell. So, there are pores in this shell and from this pores when this core shell is in a solution it can interact with biological molecules in the solution and then what happens oxidation of the core material because whatever is there in the outside if you oxidize the iron platinum then the platinum is released and then so when the platinum is released it can go out of the shell and interact with the biological specimens and typically attacks the DNA and will damage the HeLa cells which is particular cell line and that can be seen in this plot that the cell viability percentage it goes down with time and this can be seen using different concentrations. So, basically you are making platinum ions interact with the DNA by controlling the shell structure such that the platinum is released only when it comes when it gets oxidized and then it will be released and then it can act with the DNA and destroy the DNA of the HeLa cell. So, this is a kind of a targeted drug delivery because the oxidation of the core nanoparticles at the targeted site occurs and then only the platinum is released and the platinum then destroys the cancerous cells which are present and that is kind of an example of using a core shell structure at a specific site. So, you are having a targeted drug delivery you are targeting a particular type of cell and you are delivering the drug in this case platinum ions at the site where you want it to be. Now, this is another example of core shell nanostructures where the core is made of cadmium selenide zinc sulfide quantum dots. So, this mixture of cadmium selenide zinc sulfide quantum dots very small nanoparticles act as the core and you have on top silica nanoparticles. Now, what happens when you put them in a solution along with green fluorescent protein. Now, the red marks of the red point are places where the quantum dot silica core shell nanostructures are there. So, here also you can see red spots in a particular solution these are pictures taken in a confocal fluorescence imaging microscope where you are having this core shell particles of quantum dots and silica. And you can see along with green fluorescent protein and the cells are basically neural cell these are some cortical neural cells. And you can see that the red particles which are the quantum dots with the shell they are the red ones and the green ones are the GFP or the green fluorescent protein. And the property of the green fluorescent protein is it will be seen only where there are life cells. So, these are all life cells and these are the core shell particles and this is from another part of the cell of the solution where a cell is present. And you can see that the quantum dot with the shell is internalized that means it goes inside the cell and the cell is alive because you can still see the green fluorescent protein on the edge. And that shows that without inducing cell death the quantum dot silica core shell structure can be internalized. So, this is an example of using a core shell structure to image and later on after imaging you can try to deliver the drug and see whether it goes into the cell. Now, this is another example of another type of cells these are called NIH 3 T 3 cells. And here also you can see that the GFP protein are showing up that means the cells are still alive. So, these are typical regions from these places this is an zoomed image of these parts. So, this belongs to this part and this belongs to this part. And so, these quantum dots with silica are mediated they mediate transfection of this cell line. And the cells are alive because the green fluorescent protein can be seen they are expressing it. And so, this is enough evidence that you can use these particles for imaging and also for drug delivery if required. So, the two examples the last two examples that we showed shows the ability to bind transport and release DNA into the cell. And which allows the GFP the green fluorescent protein plasmid to be transfected. And human neuroblastoma cell lines so, NIH 3 T 3 and human neuroblastoma cell lines were used. And the thus the quantum dot silica core shell structure allows them to be of value for nano medicine applications. That means we can use these core shell structures and take drugs and visualize where the drug is going without killing the cells. So, these two examples show the viability of these core shell structures to be used up in drug delivery and in nano medicine in general. Now, this is another example of a core shell structure where we have used a alkane thiolate functionalized core shell structure where the core is made of iron oxide Fe 3 O 4 and it is coated with gold. So, you have this iron oxide inside and outside you have a gold coating the purple ring that you see is the gold coating. And on top it is functionalized this red color is functionalization by this alkane thiolate. Now, the thiol part it will be towards the gold surface. So, this can be seen better in this diagram. So, how do you make this first is that you first make iron oxide nanoparticles with standard procedures. Once you get this spherical iron oxide nanoparticles then you use auric chloride that is the starting material for making gold particles or gold surfaces. So, on iron oxide nanoparticles you put this auric chloride and you get this iron oxide core shell structure with the shell of gold. And then on top of that here you use mercapto undecanoic acid which we call 11 mu a to form the functionalization on top of the gold. And so the thiol part will be of this or the mercapto part which is the thiol part will link to the gold surface this purple surface and the red part is the long chain. So, it can be shown this part if you see the 1 2 3 layers are basically the iron oxide and the gold on top the purple and on top is this chain of the mercapto undecanoic acid this is the 11 carbon chain at the end you will have the carboxylate group and so this negative ions will be on the surface. And this is the T m image of this iron oxide you can see at the center the dark spot is iron oxide and this is covered with the gold particles. So, on top of that then you add this 11 mercapto undecanoic acid to get this core shell structure which is functionalized with this long chain acid. Now, what is the use of this kind of a core shell structure? So, you have modified a core shell structure with a particular functionalization and what is the application? The application is this that at certain pH which is suppose less than p k a you will have all the protons they are not hydrolyzed. So, you have all the protons they are not protonated it is an acid with the OH group and at a pH which is larger than the p k a value you will get these anions because the protons have been lost. And so this will be able to pick up certain molecules which this will not be able to pick up because this is negatively charged it will not be stable with negative or anionic species. So, if you choose four type of these species say non ionic molecules anion surfactants and some acidic compounds whose pH is greater than p k a and finally, some acidic compounds where the pH is less than p k a. If you have these four type of molecules then this form of the functionalized molecule where the pH is less than p k a will bind to all the four different types of species. However, when at higher pH when these will be having negative charges then they will not like to bind negative or anionic species. And hence you see these are anionic surfactants these green ones they will not be adhering to this surface. Similarly, these acidic compounds whose pH is greater than p k a will be having O minus charges and hence they will also not be amenable to be adsorbed or bound to the surface because the surface itself has negative charges. So, this is like a filter where out of these molecules four of them only two will be bound to the surface whereas the other two will be released. So, this is a good application of these core shell molecules which have been functionalized by mercaptone decanoic acid. And it is pH sensitive with respect to certain molecules and hence it only binds to certain molecules at low pH and certain molecules at high pH. So, that we can see here at pH low pH it is binding to almost all the systems of choice here at high pH when it is greater than p k a then it is only binding to those systems which are neutral or positive. And this can be plotted in a curve that at low pH you see the amount adsorbed is high for certain molecules like S D S at high pH because S D S is negatively charged at high pH when it is greater than p k a then you will have carboxylate groups on the surface. And once you have carboxylate groups on the surface it will no more adsorbed the S D S because S D S itself has a negative charge. And so there will be a drastic drop in the amount of material which is getting adsorbed on the surface. So, similar things have been done with other molecules where there is a drop at different pH for S D S the pH at which it drops is around 6 for for a nitro phenol the drop is around pH 10. So, the drop can vary, but in all these cases it drops after a certain pH. And this is because of the surface charge of the functionalized group which is generated when you change the pH to a value which is greater than the p k a of the acid group. This is another example towards medicine where vancomycin an antibiotic is functionalized on a core shell structure. So, you have a core shell structure basically the core the inner core is silver and outside you have titanium dioxide. And this antibiotic vancomycin is attached. So, we say functionalized to this core shell particle. And then we use two properties why this is important is two properties will act vancomycin is an antibiotic and silver titanium is a very good photo catalyst. So, the synergistic effect of the photo catalytic activity of the silver T I O 2 core shell structure and the antibiotic activity of vancomycin. So, it will be a dual approach and you will see the effect it is called the synergistic effect because two properties are acting in synergistically. So, how you make them is you first take silver nanoparticles you make silver nanoparticles then you make a silica layer on top of the silver nanoparticles using tetraethoxy silane. And on top of that you make a T I O 2 shell using titanium isopropoxide. So, actually the silver is inside in between there is a silica shell S I O 2 shell and on top of that there is a T I O 2 shell. But together we are currently referring to this system as silver T I O 2 core shell structure and we are not referring to the silica which is in between. Now, to this silver T I O 2 core shell structures to attach vancomycin it is first necessary to add dopamine and another molecule DSS which is suberic acid bisn hydroxy succinamide ester. So, this molecule DSS and dopamine help vancomycin which is an antibiotic to bind on the T I O 2 shell. So, this black fork like things are basically showing you where vancomycin the antibiotic is bound on the surface of the core shell nanostructure. So, once you get this vancomycin core shell nanostructure then it can be used to act against some bacteria etcetera and study the bactericidal activity for gram positive bacteria. So, one of these is SRB and we will study under UV light because we want we know that silver T I O 2 core shell structure is a UV photo catalyst. So, what happens when you react this silver T I O 2 core shell structure conjugated to vancomycin the antibiotic with a sulfate reducing bacteria. So, these molecules attach to the bacteria and then presence of UV light it degrades this bacteria. So, the rate of degradation is much faster if you use a combination of silver T I O 2 and vancomycin instead of just silver T I O 2 or just vancomycin. So, because two properties are acting simultaneously one is the UV photo catalysis of silver T I O 2 and the antibiotic property of vancomycin. Now, we can also make hollow shells we were discussing core shells that means there is a particle core material on top of which there is a shell and that is the core shell structure. Now, we can also make use of hollow shells that means there is a shell with nothing inside. So, how do you make such hollow shells for example, you take this core shell structure of cobalt oxide and silica on the outside you put it in sulfuric acid and then the core is eaten away and what is remaining is the hollow silica shell. And how do you know that the hollow silica shell is formed is basically you will have from infrared spectroscopy you will see the vibrational frequencies corresponding to OH groups then S I OH group and O S I O stretching frequencies. And you will not see any frequency due to cobalt oxide which you can see in the original core shell nanostructure. From electron microscopy also you can characterize such core shell structure. So, you can see this thick or dark particles of cobalt oxide surrounded by a thin shell and you can do a edacs that is energy dispersive X ray analysis. And you can see cobalt silicon oxygen from here copper from of course, the TEM grid and in the hollow shells you can see that only the shell is present this internal part which was dark in here is no more there and these are the hollow shells you got after you treated the core shell with sulfuric acid. And then this if you look under the TEM the you get this image and if you do energy dispersive X ray analysis you will see only silicon oxygen and of course, copper from the grid and carbon due to impurities you do not see any cobalt peak which you can see here which shows these are hollow shells. Now, how you can use these hollow shells is for example, you can trap some organic molecules which act as pollutants. And here you show that this is the shell and these are like your organic molecules which cause pollution in the water. And if you put the shells in water after sometime the shells get trapped inside and how do you know that the shells are trapped what you can do is you can measure the UV visible spectroscopy corresponding to the organic compound. And the intensity suppose the absorption of that organic compound is a peak around 500 nanometers. Then if you monitor the peak as the organic compound is getting trapped the intensity will become lower and lower. So, here you can see that the control experiment is here which has the and after 1 hour, 2 hour etcetera the intensity is decreasing. So, for 2 hours you see the green one and then after say 48 hours you can see this black one for 48 and 72 hours. Now, so the intensity of the organic compound which was methyl orange in this case decreases to some extent and then tries to become constant. And the decrease is around 20 percent here, but you can get much higher decrease if you can design for other types of larger hollow shells, but what this shows is hollow shells can trap the organic pollutants. Now, this is a example of measuring or knowing that it is a hollow shell again by TEM you can see that, but you can also use gas adsorption which you can easily do in a surface area type of measurement the BET method and you can show that nitrogen adsorption increases. So, initially the particle surface area that you obtain from nitrogen adsorption experiments is around 103.1 meter square per gram. Here sometime it shows the surface of 191.8 meter square per gram and this increase in surface area is basically because of increase of nitrogen gas inside and that shows that it is a hollow shell to start with and hence can take up nitrogen gas. And so the finally the surface area that you calculate will be much larger in the case when the nitrogen is adsorbed by this hollow shell and that is exactly what happens from 103 the surface area goes to 191.8 and this is another proof that you are dealing with hollow shells. Now, this is an example of making movable silver cores inside hollow spheres or hollow shells. So, you have to start with a polymeric hollow nanosphere and you want to make silver particle inside, but not the entire region should be covered, but only a small region should be covered with silver. So, that the silver particle can move around this internal surface like a ball. So, what you do you first make this hollow sphere of a polymer with chitosan C S S chitosan and this is polyp roll. To get this hollow sphere you start from chitosan which is shown here and you use silver nitrate and pyrol and iron chloride and you get silver chloride particles. And then you polymerize and you get the polymer with the chitosan which is there are forming a shell around silver chloride. So, first silver chloride forms and then this silver chloride is inside and this polyp roll chitosan core shell structure is formed. Then you add ammonia and ammonia hydroxide solution that eats away the silver chloride. So, it dissolves the silver chloride which is inside we call it etching etching means removal of something. So, you are removing silver chloride by using ammonium hydroxide and you are left with only the shell. So, you get this hollow shells or hollow nanospheres of polyp roll and chitosan. Now, you take this hollow spheres. So, the P P Y C S hollow sphere you take add silver nitrate at a certain pH and you have got silver ions inside and outside. You remove the silver ions outside by dialysis at a low pH and you are left with a shell of this polyp roll chitosan with silver ions inside. And if you now bring a UV lamp near this particle the silver ions will get reduced under UV radiation and they will become silver particles. And so you will get this silver particle inside the shell and so this is a small particle. So, it can move around inside the shell and this is the T M picture to show exactly how this looks. So, you can see that dark spot here that is the silver particle inside the polyp roll chitosan shell and this has interesting applications of when the silver particle can change positions within the hollow shell. This is another example of how a hollow shell can be used to make a core shell structure. So, this is an application of making a core shell structure starting from a hollow shell. So, you start with a hollow shell of silica there is nothing inside here this is silica shell add auric chloride that is the source of gold ions. And then once you add auric chloride then you add sodium borohydride. Sodium borohydride is a reducing agent and it will reduce the gold ions which are here inside to form gold particle. So, you will get gold which is encapsulated in silica. So, this is the picture you can see the hollow silica and this is gold inside silica. So, this dark spots here is gold silica made from hollow silica by reduction with sodium borohydride. So, this is an example a good example of a gold silica core shell structure being synthesized from hollow shells of silica. Now, you can also make oil filled silica nanocapsules for taking drugs or medicine which are lipophilic which means they like oil phase. Lipophilic means philic means something which likes lipo means oil. So, something which likes oil which is soluble in oil. So, that kind of drug if you want then the oil phase should be inside. So, oil filled silica nanocapsule you have to make. Now, how do you make this oil filled silica nanocapsule is you start with the this is a micro emulsion process. So, in a micro emulsion you need a surfactant and oil phase and an aqueous medium. So, the surfactant here is a neutral or non ionic surfactant whose common name is bridge 97 and this is the structure of the surfactant. So, there are lot of ether linkages as you see in this bridge 97 surfactant and typically most of the non ionic surfactants have this kind of a poly ether linkages. So, if you take one which is this surfactant plus you have this molecule which is which is the non aqueous medium or the oil which will be inside that non aqueous hexadecane you add along with this oil phase is the hexadecane phase and this number 2 is actually octadexyl methoxy silane. So, this octadexyl methoxy silane with the hexadecane oil that you will mix along with the surfactant and water and when you mix all these 4 the surfactant the oil and this octadexyl trimethoxy silane molecule and heat it then you get this kind of a oil in water micro emulsion. So, here the oil which is hexadecane oil which is will be inside and these long chains these long chains are the hydrophobic part of this surfactant molecule which is bridge 97 and you have this on in this inside you will have the hexadecane oil incorporated. Now, then you add your this TOS material this silane and then you get this core shell material with silica on the surface. So, silica will bond like this and you will have a shell of a poly saloxane or poly silicate if you want and this is filled with oil and the hydrophobic chains are all pointing inside towards the oil and the hydrophilic part these circles show the hydrophilic part that is the hydrophilic part of the polar part of the surfactant which are the ether parts the oxygen parts they are on the surface of this micelle as also you will have the octadexyl trimethoxy silane will be there and tetramethoxy silane you add at step three to form the shell. So, the shell is actually formed when you add this tetramethoxy silane and this has formed you can know by doing a transmission electron microscopy where again you see the oil phase which is here shown in dark can be seen only when you use a stain a stain is added to enhance the contrast in the electron microscope. So, that stain is basically an osmium complex is a molecule of containing osmium which is doped along with the oil. So, wherever that oil goes this osmium molecule will go and since osmium is a heavy metal it has many electrons. So, it diffracts or scatters the incoming electrons much more efficiently and so you will see that portion to be very dark because the contrast will be high whenever you have more scattering from that region. So, this portion as you see is darker because of the osmium stain that you have used and doped in this oil. So, this is an example of an oil filled silica nano capsule which you have made. Now, you can use this for uptake of a drug which is soluble in oil medium because you have an oil medium inside. If you take a drug which is soluble in oil and you are able to solubilize in this micro emulsion then the drug will be stable only in the inner part because that is the hydrophobic or the lipophilic part and the drug will not go to the shell because the shell is hydrophilic and this can be studied by looking at say a drug like quinoline. So, you add quinoline is organic in nature. So, it is kind of a non aqueous. So, it is more like an oil and this drug will like to go in a place where it is more lipophilic or more hydrophobic and if you look at the change in quinoline in the solution outside the micro emulsion. So, when you add quinoline some quinoline will be outside and some quinoline will go inside which will go into the lipophilic region and with time there will be more quinoline inside than outside because the drug is being taken inside that portion which is of similar type as the drug and since the drug likes an oil type of environment a hydrophobic type of environment hence the oil will go the drug will go and sit where the oil is present and the oil is present in this dark part. So, if you give sufficient time then the oil will slowly move into the darker region which is the core of this core shell structure and so with time if you calculate the quinoline which is outside. So, the drug which is outside can be easily found out by doing an experiment and that experiment is basically looking at the invisible spectroscopy of quinoline. So, quinoline has a particular absorption and if you do the u v absorption of quinoline at 299.5 nanometers if you look at that then with time as you see it will drop. So, the that says that the quinoline is less outside after sometime and more inside. So, uptake studies of quinoline basically shows that initially there was lot of quinoline in the solution because it was not inside the core, but after sometime that concentration of quinoline decreased with time because the quinoline was going inside and it cannot be found in the solution outside. So, in the measurement you only measure when the quinoline is outside the core when it is inside the core then you do not get this absorption peak and hence with time you can study the fall of the quinoline absorption and with nano this now we can call it as a nano capsule because all of you know what is a capsule there is a medicine inside and there is a cover and inside the body the cover will dissolve and the medicine will come out. Similarly, this is a nano capsule because you have a cover and the drug is inside, but this is not a capsule which we can hold with our hand because this is very small and this is called a nano capsule because now you have very very tiny capsules of the diameter of 100 nanometers where the core is probably only 15 to 20 nanometers. So, the drug gets encapsulated within that 50 to 20 nanometers you can study as a function of time this uptake of quinoline which is given by the decrease in the intensity of the UV absorption at 299.5 nanometers for quinoline. You can also vary the concentration of the nano capsule solution and free quinoline if you plot that you see the free quinoline is decreasing as the you are increasing the nano capsule solution oil content that means if you this oil content is very large then you can take more drug inside. So, that is what you are doing if you increase the amount of the oil which is in the core of this core shell structure then the free quinoline is much less in a capsule which has got more oil because obviously more the oil more quinoline can be trapped inside the core shell structure. So, this is what you can do with the study of core shell structures of molecules which are lipophilic in oil field nano capsule and is a very important application of drug carrying capsules two targeted sites within the body and if you can target such capsules you will need less quantity of drug to attack the same amount of bacteria or other diseased cells. So, with that we come to the end of this three lecture part of core shell structures and this was the lecture 12 of module three and we have two more lectures in this module to complete 14 lectures of module three and those two lectures will be given in the next two lecture classes which will be on nano composites and basically we finish our study on core shell nano structures which has tremendous applications especially in drug delivery in nano medicine in protection of particles with mechanically stable shells and now we will move on to the subject of nano composites in our next two lectures. Thank you very much.