Hello and welcome to NewsClick on Monday, December 11, 2023, if five-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on what we now know as the Article 370 cases related to Jammu and Kashmir. One of these petitions filed by senior retired bureaucrats and military personnel had argued that the sentiments of the people of Kashmir were disregarded by the central government when it without consultation read down Article 370 in August 2019. The court has today ruled that Article 370 was a temporary provision and Jammu and Kashmir held known to quote internal sovereignty after accession to India. It has also said that the concurrence of the state government was not required to apply the Indian constitution to the now erstwhile state in its entirety. It has also said elections must be held in Jammu and Kashmir and it has spoken about statehood. We go over to one of the petitions in this crucial matter which will have ramifications no doubt of Indian politics, retired air-wise Marshal Kapil Kaak for his very first reactions. Thank you very much for joining us Mr. Kaak. Let's begin with the basic question first. Now given the record of the Supreme Court of not wanting to touch any legislative matter any law the government passes are you surprised by today's decision of the Supreme Court? I think it's not just me but I'd like to share with you and the viewers that I've passed hundreds of people in the state of JNK over the last few months and there and my conviction has been absolutely doubtless that this is the kind of judgment we would get in essence. We can leave the commas and the full stops and we were convinced that the abrogation would be upheld. There may be some kind of a relief in terms of statehood and as you rightly said not touching any legislative business and as we will discuss in the interview there are also some contradictions and I don't want to comment upon the judgment of the honorable Supreme Court the finest members of the judiciary at the apex level until I have seen the full judgment we haven't I haven't seen the full judgment but I heard the deliberation and that gives me an idea to accept your very thoughtful and kind invitation to your short interview. So no surprises there very much on expected lines the people and I think one of the Supreme Court judges honorable Sanjay Kall talked about people being at the heart of the debate I'm sorry with all the respect to the Supreme Court and the highest judiciary utmost respect that people are not under consideration here people of J&K for whom the article 370 was meant and repeatedly we had only integration we had a certain point set with what happened on what didn't happen and as I said I can with due respect to the Supreme Court honorable court also point out some contradictions. Please go ahead before I move to any further questions that I might have what are the contradictions that you seem to be referring to? You see the earlier Supreme Court judgments have said that the article 370 has acquired a permanent character this judgment is unanimous on the point that article 370 was temporary now and that there was no internal sovereignty article 370 was a form of internal sovereignty because sovereignty never absolute and I'm not a lawyer and it's not rocket science to figure out fine print of judgments and points paid therein. One palpable contradiction is that the Supreme Court in utter disregard of article 370 until its application article 1, 2 and 3 of 370 enumerates very precisely unambiguously how it can be abrogated and for that abrogations constituent assemblies prior concurrences required. Supreme Court has argued and in their judgment I respect the judgment that once the constituent assembly of JNK ceased to exist in 26th of January 1957 the president had all powers to do the abrogation of 370 that's point one. Point two is Supreme Court has itself declared ultra varies the employment of article 367 which deals with interpreting constitutional articles insertion of a clause there whereby for the constituent assembly the state assembly so the parliament then becomes the repository of whatever state assembly means to me and I'm not a lawyer but as a humanist as a security analyst as somebody who's worked on the ground in JNK for two decades 24 by 7, 24 by 7 I believe that the question of declaring 367 kind of ultra varies use of that and then saying president has full powers under article 370 so this is a very, very I mean we need to keep in mind that this judgment is being read all over the world it is not just in parts of India and certainly the state of Jammu and Kashmir so this is what I wanted to point out third is I do not know once again with utmost respect to the honorable court what was the point of one of the members of the highest court in the country talking about sentiment talking about an epilogue in which he says this is a sentiment we are dealing with a very, very critical issue of article 370 of a very sensitive state which has been under conflict for more than three decades where is the place for a sentiment expressed by a supreme court judge and then saying but I leave it to the state to decide whether the sentiment should be brought in or not to my mind that sentiment and its expression is irrelevant that is not the issue under discussion. But what do you make of the very noble sounding proposal that there be a truth and conciliation commission on the lines of South Africa do you think that is possible no matter how good it may sound? It is I as a principle we accept and that is what the honorable supreme court judges also said giving the example of South Africa but South Africa we need to understand that the truth and reconciliation commission was appointed after the issue had been resolved. Truth and reconciliation commission before the issue has been resolved and therefore finding resolution through truth and conciliation is a horrible proposition to suggest because this will open up the wounds and you will never come anywhere near a resolution of the issue. You mentioned the wounds now you know what does this decision mean to the Hindus and the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir? Now there is an element of what I would say disjunction why do I say this? As far as the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir are concerned I know not just Jammu and Kashmir I would also like to point out Ladakh particularly this district of Kargil. As far as the Hindus in the valley are concerned and roughly about 15,000 in number wholeheartedly supportive of the idea of continuance of article 370. As far as the Hindus or Kashmiri pundits as we are called incidentally I am a Kashmiri pundit too who live in Jammu they have gone along with the obligation from 5th and 6th of August 2019 and celebrated it but sadly the people within whom they live that is the dogras of Jammu they have expressed reservations about the way this article abrogation has panned out because demography if anything has demography if anything is effective Jammu region it's culturally geographically very close to Daudal and Punjab so by removing certain impediments to that demographic change or economic breakthrough in regional terms they have been the sufferers it doesn't happen to Kashmir valley so that is as far as the Hindu and Muslim Muslims are the valley frankly I have been I have talked to hundreds of people over the last week or so completely and totally indifferent to this judgment because they knew what the judgment would be like each one of them was convinced it will be a judgment which will uphold article 370 abrogation and as to statehood and elections they are again disinterested in the sense that the sufferance is total because they have gone through denial of rights I mean we again come back to the point about people being at the heart which justice SK Kaul mentioned in his epilogue but if you're talking about people being at the heart of the issue of 370 in the state of Jammu and Kashmir particularly in the valley of Kashmir then I'm afraid neither the honorable Supreme Court nor the government of India have addressed this it is not a development yes maybe economic development is taking place maybe tourists are visiting utmost sense of normalcy traffic jams but there is a bigger jam inside the hearts and minds of the people and that goes back to not just 5th 6th August 2019 but even before that whether it is denial of rights it is criminalization of your profession of journalism complete clamp down on on whatever the journalist's right and hauling them in cyber police stations and elsewhere to see that whatever they post is is cleared by by the government that's not that's not democracy is journalism people not being allowed to express their views not being allowed to meet now this is part of what they see as oppression well it could be termed from the point of view of the center that this is a process of integration it demands hard muscular policies being adopted to ensure that this integration takes place but may I submit once again Pragya for your consideration integration is a mutual process between the state and the Indian Union it has to be under mutually acceptable accommodative principles which are negotiated through a dialogue through docs that's not happening there's no dialogue one has seen in decades I think the last kind of an informal dialogue between the center and and the political leadership was sometimes in 2006 or 2007 when Manon Singh's government had actually started the process of talking to the political leadership of the state including separatist leadership and we had come to as you know more than anyone else through what is called the four point formula or the peace process come to a situation that you don't only resolve the issue of Jamun Kashmir through non-territorial means and no exchange of territories but people to people contact across the line of control movement of relatives to each other's country because there are relatives at both sides of the line of control and the border and various other issues of common interest like climate change like water resources forestry resources all that was part of that hasn't happened we haven't moved forward and it's now nearly 16 years since we had a last dialogue so how do we therefore if people are the heart of an issue how can we move forward through constitutional fears which are which are inherently unilateral and without the consultation I mean I'm saying this with a very clear conscience that we needed to this is something perhaps the Supreme Court it was very much aware of of course they have not deemed it appropriate to include this aspect for in their judgment that when this was when the constitutional order 272 and 273 and the reorganization of JNK state when they were announced on the floor of parliament before that announcement 5500 political workers including pro-india mainstream leaders were imprisoned and how serious and clampdowns were put in chain so I think the judgment has to be linked with those processes as well you know one of the things the Supreme Court has how hinted at is the security concerns and you just mentioned that the Muslims in the valley are silent to what extent is that silence because of the exhaustion with militancy with the ebb and flow of you know violence of various kinds in the state and and will that will that mean that there is a sort of consensus on then on that you know ye toh hola hi tha is one way of looking at it but is there a hope a sliver of hope that maybe this will improve thing what the court has called full integration and the complete application of the constitution of India I'm sorry the supreme court's hope that you talked about is confronting with the utmost sets of hopelessness in the valley now if you're talking about hoping the rest of India including the union and the central government one thing but when you talk about the hopelessness of kashmir it's not going to this will in no way help integration if anything this will worsen the inside mind and heart of the people of the valley why do I say this because they're deeply alienated they're angry but they're not coming out earlier as they did with stones and with protests and but it is a as a student of history I know that when you keep issues suppressed and when you don't allow people their democratic aspirations after all why aren't any elections held for the last six years no not six years nine years the last election was in 2014 the last time when people had their elected representatives was in 2018 that's also a full term of an assembly why hasn't that happened and the holding of elections to my mind is once again a kind of a fixed match because the government says that it is up to the election commission you go to the chief election commissioner he says that well we have to consult the government and even the supreme court and its wisdom has decided the elections were will be done before the 30th September 2024 I have not read the judgment I do not know what's the reason for fixing 30th September and not 30th April you as a journalist can provide the answer well I was I was going to ask you will Ladakh actually now remain a union territory does Ladakh lose the chance of full statehood completely is that hope extinguished there no on that they have this honorable supreme court have not adjudicated on the lowering of state of Jammu and kishmi status to that of a union territory that is a bit of a surprise why haven't they adjudicated there because as far as I know and I'm not a lawyer article three doesn't allow you to downgrade a state to a union territory it allows you to take out some parts of a state to form a union territory which is what has been done in in the case of the dark but article three also says there have been consultations with that particular state of course you can argue with the lawyer that as a lawyer that since the state is not assembly doesn't exist who do we consult therefore we consult the parliament which is doing it on behalf of the state assembly and then the government of jammu and kishmi it doesn't exist so therefore we consult the governor who's a central appointee so you see that these are the huge contradiction that I was talking about neutral constitution which which which will pain and cause a great deal of grief to the people of the valley as far as Ladakh is concerned you're already aware Ladakh is up in arms people of Kargil have recently met the home minister seeking redressal by way of some kind of return to the old time before 156th august that's right issues I don't want to go into detail likewise the buddhist majority lay region is also feeling suffocated because of lack of democracy because there is a bureaucrats who are running the show in Ladakh earlier they at least had a jnk assembly where their representatives were elected and they put forward their issues in that assembly now there is no forum for them to accept their any of their grievances other than the bureaucracy which is once again appointed by the central government you seem to be saying that the wishes of the people of jammu and kishmi including ladakh appear to be completely sidelined and do you also feel along with that that the politics of the rest of india especially in the north vis-a-vis kishmir has taken precedence somewhere or the other and that continues I think it would not be fair because as I said I do not want to comment on what drives the hearts and minds of honorable supreme court judges who pronounce this verdict what are the political factors their minds are beyond my remit and I would like to comment I have that most respect for the supreme court which is the apex judiciary in India so I would not comment on the politics of the north having an effect but I can only comment on what they have what have they have read out that I heard every word and that doesn't explain as to how 30th September as the last date for the elections is valid because I know what the kishmiris will say to that and I can say I can share that with you what the 30th September is because then the elections to the national level would have been completed by mejoom and then you can hold elections in kishmir but if you hold elections in kishmir today the ruling dispensation will be wiped out through a democratic process that is the assessment of the people in kishmir so they don't want to so supreme court in that sense as the kishmiris say not that I say what my friends tell me from the valley that this could be the reason why it has been kept 30 years ago one more point very very important I'd like to conclude this because I have some people waiting in the line for an interview that elections should be done by 30th September fine statehood as soon as possible the supreme court is exactly what amit Shah said on the floor of the parliament as soon as normalcy returns kishmir hasn't seen normalcy for 30 years or to go to the home minister and the central dispensation they have said everything is normal in kishmir if it is normal then why don't you have elections in two months so everything is not normal so what is said is not the fact on the ground and what is fact on the ground is not said by the ruling dispensation to conclude sir last thing what are your feelings are you extremely disappointed do you feel perhaps a tinge angry or is there some hope of something changing you know I have you're doing not be aware since you asked a personal question that we share my personal view on the issue I have been in the flying branch of the Indian air force I wore an air force uniform took part in two india pakistan wars I do have an idea of issues of politics and security sometimes if you do overdo security then you tend to create a politics which creates insecurity so one has to be very very cautious in managing the circularity of politics and security the honorable supreme court you would have observed has also talked about integration integration repeatedly this expression was and even the abrogation was described as the final final step in the integration but integration from whose perspective maybe the as article 370 itself says otherwise it wouldn't have existed because that sort of established a bridge between the jamun kishmid sovereign when it was incorporated after maharaja exceeded to another sovereign country maharaja was a sovereign king of an independent state on 26th of october 1947 when he when he signed the instrument of accession so was so was india sovereign india post independence now between two sovereigns then the question arises how much do you respect the wishes of the people I have to say without hesitation that maharaja of kishmi went by the constitution of 1939 article 35a was nothing but his constitutional order of 1927 and then 1928 or 29 by which he gave the residence of his state citizens of his state certain spiritual privileges in terms of land in terms of job in terms of identity and what was subsequently formulated as article 370 because he the maharaja had powers over every issue other than defense foreign relations and communication right so so when you say you know the people and how they view this situation I seem to think that firstly I expected secondly I'm also a petitioner as you know I have been one of the 23 petitioners and by would a former armed forces officer was the resident of the state feed strongly enough to petition the highest court in india that what the central government has done is wrong so that way I'm disappointed as a 90% of the kishmiris in the valley and also very significant percentage of people in the jammu region and also people of ladakh so there's it's a it's a disappointment in that regional demographic job right so thank you very much for joining us and we hope to have another conversation a few days down the line when you've seen the judgment and when the picture gets a little more clear thank you


ce. I mean, I think this came as a recommendation from Sonoma County who had seen similar experiences and unfortunately continues to see the impacts of climate change in fires and floods and beyond. I think it's going to be a required office for most counties and communities going forward as we all see these impacts of climate change. And I'm glad that Santa Cruz County is out on the front lines and that we have a talented staff who's been incredibly responsive and not only good with sort of the policy work but also good with the people work. I've over the last two weeks as Supervisor McPherson has also done, been involved in community gatherings of fire victims and to see our staff and team out there working really effectively and compassionately with people as they work through the rebuilding process has made me proud to be a member part of Santa Cruz County and proud to be a part of OR3 creation. So I just want to thank you all. It's incredibly important work. And I think we knew the response and the recovery is important moving towards more resilient infrastructure, systems and sort of social capital frankly will be key going forward. So thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisor Caput, you have any comments? You bet. Thank you Chairman. Hi Dave, hi Mark, good to see you. Been a while. Anyway, yeah, I think with climate change, one of the biggest protections against drastic changes all the redwood trees that we have in Santa Cruz County like the one in the background of Chairman McPherson's screen. They have more carbon banking in their trees than any other trees in the world. And any of them that are over a hundred years old are really fire resistant. The other trees, if they start burning or the brush gets too hot, the younger redwood trees will burn out. But the older ones are very resistant. Are you working at all with the Save the Redwoods League or the Sempervirons Foundation? I know with the Save the Redwoods League, they have, they do scientific studies and they do a lot to preserve especially old growth redwoods. And even though they might appear some of the older growth ones might appear to be burned out and I noticed that you're watching that very close. We don't wanna cut down a tree that's actually gonna come back in a year or two and be all right. Do you have any comment on that? I could go ahead, Mark, if you like. Go ahead. We did, Greg, we did work with Cal OES closely for a property owner that has a property with over 300 trees in conservation easement with Save the Redwoods League. And that property owner was able to retain those trees rather than have them cut down by Cal OES. So certainly giving these resilient trees an opportunity to re-sprout and regrow after the fire has been something we've tried to work with Cal OES and individual property owners on. Are you talking at all with the Save the Redwoods League or the Sempervirons Foundation? Because they have a lot of resources. Maybe make a note of that. Okay, yeah, because they are fire resistant. If you had just redwood trees in a certain area, they would not burn very well. Let's see, is the other trees and the brush that cause the hot heat and everything. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Coney. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director Bisbee and Senior Analyst Reed. Great presentation. The Redwoods do indeed give us hope. I had a chance to tour Last Chance Road and really the heart of the burn area just about a month ago. And seeing all the epic formic sprouting up the side of the Redwood trees is really inspiring. And they all just sort of look like green chia pets and it's good to see them coming back. I just wanna emphasize what an investment your office represents for our County, not only the increased spending and your talents and focus on this problem but also our commitment to leverage those resources to get more resources. I mean, I think you mentioned you're applying for over 2.5 million in hazard mitigation grants. I either received or I think already the 138,000 from the Community Foundation to study debris flows. So, we're leveraging this investment of general fund monies to ultimately access a lot more resources out there, which is great. And thank you Director Bisbee also for mentioning the 500,000 or sorry, 50,000 proposed to fund the FireSafe Council and the Firewise Community Risk Assessments. We've seen a huge amount of demand from that from constituents. Again, I think this is also a way to leverage limited resources because to your point about creating communities, these risk assessments help neighbors talk to neighbors and develop really a community that understands its risk is mitigating those risks and is prepared if disaster strikes. So, ultimately it's a way to help communities help themselves. And I think a small investment in this is gonna go a long way. So thank you for all your work. Thank you, Supervisor Friend. I thank you, Mr. Chair. Chief Bisbee, good to see you. And well, although my internet connection isn't stable enough for you to see me, I apologize about that. I'm good to see you, Mr. Reed as well and Ms. Benson for your work on this. I agree with Supervisor Coonerty's point that really the creation of such an office is gonna be kind of where it already is and necessity across our state. CSAC is making additional investments in exactly this. And I think that if nothing else, I would expect to see other resources provided to your office continue to grow over time. There was a point that was raised earlier, Supervisor Koenig had briefly mentioned it, but I would like to see greater investments, not just the PG&E grant, but greater investments in AI-based technology for fire-based prevention, camera-based prevention. It's a very inexpensive, in my opinion, way to really maximize the number of people on the ground in essence by having some of these new technological advancements out there help us with early detection-based situations. I know there's gonna be a lot of landowners that would be willing to even offer up their location for some of these to go. Additionally to that, while we are definitely rebuilding from the most devastating fire in our county's history, I've had excellent conversations with Mr. Reed about ensuring that all the districts are able to participate in the process. And so I would like to work with you to set up some community meetings for both me and Supervisor Koenig as well, just to ensure that all the districts can get to know the purpose of what the organization is, that it's much broader than just a CZU rebuild. I mean, I really view this as a consolidation of all climate resilience adaptation, hazard mitigation work that this county does. It's currently housed in a lot of different worlds and it should be touched by all the different departments, but having a centralized place and having you be the face of that centralized place is very important so that I can ensure that my constituents understand how progressive this county is in doing this resilience work, but if we could work together to make sure that we get that information in your face out there more than our other districts, that would be much appreciated. I appreciate what you're doing. Thank you. Very good, thank you, Supervisor. Are there any comments from the public? There are no members of the public wishing to speak to this item. Okay, we will return it to the board for recommended action or motion on recommended actions. I'll move the recommended action. Second. Please call the roll. Supervisor Koenig. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Thank you, motion passes unanimously. Okay, I think that unless we... Mr. Plosios, is there any other issues before I recess this to next Tuesday? No, that concludes staff presentations for today's budget hearings. Okay, all right. We've completed the initial go round of our budget hearings. We will recess this for our budget hearings at Tuesday, presumably at 1.30. And we will have a regular board meeting that will come to, will open on June 29th, Tuesday, June 29th at nine o'clock. And then presumably we will get to the final approval of the budget at 1.30 on June 29th. There any other... No, that's nine o'clock, right? Nine o'clock. Regular meeting starts at nine, and then we will go into the budget session. Presumably we can get there at the afternoon at 1.30. That's the schedule. Is there any other comments from the board? Okay, then we will recess this budget hearing to June 29th, Tuesday, June 29th at 1.30. We will see you then, and everyone have a nice day and a good weekend.


The task for this morning is Mattia Bertu Bertini, who presented us this work on omelsovering polymers with unconstrained topology. So, Mattia, go ahead. As for you, 25 minutes, things like that. Hello, everybody. Today, I will talk about the work that I've been doing during this year. It's part of my PhD program in biophysics here in CISA, under the supervision of Angelo. The title of my presentation is a computational model for melds of polymerings with unconstrained topology. So as the title suggests, I will deal with melds of polymerings. That means solution of identity of polymerings. And with unconstrained topology, I mean that I will deal with polymers that can be knotted or unknotted and is there topology can change over time. And regarding a couple of rings, they can be either a link or a link with different kinds of complexity. So the field of study of rings with non-trivial topology, let's say, can be traced back to 40 years ago. It started from Pierre-Gilles Dejeun when he envisioned the possibility to synthesizing polymer materials from topological interlinked rings. From that, he coined the name of Olympic gels because such structure would resemble the Olympic symbol. And from that moment on, a lot of people, both from experimentalists, and they started to characterize and synthesize these kind of materials. And also, simulation and models have been started to be studied and developed. What is interesting is that such structure exists in nature and they can be found, for example, in the mitochondrial DNA of a tripanosomal parasite. This structure is called the kinetoplasm DNA and is made up by thousands of mini-circular DNA maintained through the action of a family of enzyme called topoisomerase. These enzymes act as sketch in the right picture, so the enzyme cuts a DNA strand, make pass another strand of the DNA, and then it moves back the cut strand. In this way, they can cutenate the DNAs. And if the DNA strands belong to the same, for example, to the same DNA, they can also form knots. And inspired by these kind of systems, an experiment has been done three years ago in Stemford in a laboratory led by Spakowitz. And in which they were able, they showed that they were able to synthesize the Olympic hydrogels starting from a dense solution of uncatenated DNA rings through the action of topoisomerase. They showed that the topological state of this Olympic hydrogel was dynamical in the sense that decatenation or decatenation were happening over time through the action of topotoo. And so the network was not quenched, let's say, with quenched topology, but also what they showed that by inactivating the topoisomerase, what they got was a proper network frozen and with interesting features. They performed the logical measurements. And what they saw was that the system with active topoisomerase resulted to be codified by the action of this enzyme respect to the uncatenated case in the sense that the relaxation of this system was happening at a time scale that was faster respect to the case of uncatenated rings. This is because the topological constraints due to the chain uncrossability were resolved through the action of topotoo and the relaxation happened faster. So the system was more fluid, let's say, respect to the system without topotoo. And inactivating topotoo instead, what they got was a network that was behaving like a solid. So this kind of system are interesting because their properties, let's say, can be tuned by tuning the action of an enzyme. So for this reason, we got interested in this kind of systems. And we wanted to build a model, a computational model, that is able to characterize better this kind of systems. So we started looking at a really simple computational model that is based on Monte Carlo Dynamics or Lattice. The Lattice site can be either empty in this model occupied by one monomer so that they implement excluded volume interaction or maximum to occupied by two consecutive monomers. In this way, like in this Lattice site, for example, there are two monomers belonging to the site. On the same Lattice site, there is this store length. And this store length implements a kind of elasticity of the polymer. But it's important to stress that excluded volume interaction are implemented in this kind of system. And the dynamics is really simple. It's local so that you can rely on the dynamical properties. You can study the dynamical properties of the system. And it is based just on randomly picking a monomer from a random polymer, attempt a move towards a nearest neighbor site. And these moves are accepted if the chain connectivity is preserved so that polymer has to be still connected all the monomers of the polymer. And the site is either empty because of the excluded volume interaction or occupied by one of its nearest neighbor on the polymer backbone. So in this way, the store length can diffuse along the backbone of the polymer, for example. The problem, let's say, the problem of this computational model is that it preserves the topology of the system. And so we had to add a new Monte Carlo move. We had to come up with a new scheme that was taking into account the change in the topology due to the action, for example, of the topoisomerase. We wanted to find a still a local move because we wanted to study the dynamical properties of the systems. And what we thought about was that maybe swapping two monomers, two non-consecutive monomers, which are nearest neighbor on the lattice, could do this job. Like this is just a sketch picture. So you have two nearest neighbor monomer, let's say on the lattice, on this lattice, strange lattice. You swap the monomers. And then from a catenated structure, you would get an uncatenated one. So we looked at all possible, at all possible conformation on the lattice that we were studying that was, by the way, FCC lattice, such that we looked at all possible conformation, such that the swap of the monomers preserved the chain connectivity on the lattice. And what we found was that there were 24 conformation whose monomers center can be swapped and do not cause a change in the topology. And I mean this kind of conformation. I refer to conformation because we looked at three plates of monomers. And we were swapping the central monomers. And we looked if the chain connectivity was preserved and what happened to the topology. In this case, this is one of the 24. You start from this. You swap the central monomers, so the green and the yellow. You get this. And if they are within two polymers, you start from this, and you get this. And of course, the topology, the two rings were uncatenated and they remain uncatenated. No change in the topology can happen within this swapping move. Instead, we found 12 conformation whose monomers centers can be swapped and do cause a change in the topology. And this is one of the 12. So you start from this. You get this. And within two polymers, let's say. So you start from this configuration. For example, the red polymer is on top of the blue one. They are uncatenated. But by swapping the green with the yellow, as you see, the red passed through the blue one. And so they are uncatenated. So the system has changed the topology. From two unlinked rings, we got one catenated structure made up by two rings. These examples are referring to two rings. But also this can happen within the same polymer. So if you swap two monomers belonging to the same polymer, what you cause is not a catenation, but you form knots as the ones that I was showing at the beginning. And so once we got these 12 conformation, we got our swapping move that is basically we run over all the couples on our system. And when we find two monomers, two conformation, that are within the 12 that we found, we swap the central model. So once we establish this scheme, the only parameter, let's say, of this model is the rate of action of this move. So how many times or how far in time we chose to use this Monte Carlo move, the fact that happens at a finite rate, we wanted to do that because topoisomeries, for example, work at a finite rate. So it is important, at least for us, that this move had a finite rate of action. For the simulation that we, for the results that I will show you in a moment, we chose the inverse rate, so the timescale of action of this move to be 10 to the 4 Monte Carlo step, to be in the same regime that was seen in the experiment of Spakowitz. And once we established this model, what we, okay, before the results, just the last simulation details, we have studied the three systems that they were the one in play in the experiment of Spakowitz. So we studied a system of a tight density of untangled rings or uncatenated rings that they were the starting point of the experiment of Spakowitz. Then we switched on the Monte Carlo, the new Monte Carlo move, the swapping move that was mimicking the action of topo two. And we studied the system of rings with strength crossing. Then we also studied the system where the topo two was inactive, let's say, basically we took some conformation of equilibrium from the system with the strength crossing. And then we run the standard Monte Carlo dynamics without the swapping move so that the topology was quenched over the entire simulation. We studied bulk solution at tight density 1.23 because this density was already simulated for the untangled case for uncatenated rings. So to have a benchmark at least for that system, we studied a system made up by M polymarines, each of them formed by N-pids and monomers. And we simulated system such that the product of the two. So basically we kept fixed every time the number of monomers in total that we simulated that was around 100,000. And we arranged between polymers made up by 40 beads to up to 640 beads. So now I will show you the results of these simulations for the pre-different systems. So we start with the static properties. We looked at the new exponent that is the universal exponent that relates the degree of polymerization of the polymer. So the number of beads that build the polymer to the M squared ratio radius. So to the sides of the polymer, this exponent for the untangled case or so for the system of uncatenated rings is known to have a crossover from the, this value 0.588 that is the self-avoidable result to new equal one-third passing through this regime of 0.4. As you can see, that is the orange system, the orange core being on the left. As you see, we recovered the new equal 0.4. So we are in this regime for our simulation. We didn't get the one-third because to get that exponent, you have to simulate really, really long polymers. What is interesting is that instead for the system with the dynamical topology, so the system with strength crossing and the system with quench topology, what, as you see, the sides of these polymers are basically are bigger compared to the untangled case because the topo two makes well the rings. So these mechanisms of strength crossing make the rings to become bigger, establishing the discatenated structure. And also the exponent changes, so not just the value of the mean squared ratio radius, but also the exponent change. And we found that it follows the new equal one-thirds that is the exponent for ideal rings. But what we wanted to see and to check if these rings actually belong to the same universality class of the ideal rings, because ideal rings have the exponent of new equal one-thirds. And as you see on the right picture, we looked at the statistics of the mean squared ratio radius plotted in a kind of universality distribution. And as you see, for large x, that is the square root of the mean squared ratio radius divided by its average value. So for, let's say, large scale, the system with strength crossing overlap to the system of ideal rings. So for large scale, we don't see differences between ideal rings and the rings with strength crossing. Instead for small scale, so for small x, we see that there is a deviation between the rings with strength crossing and the ideal ones. And especially the probability for this rings with strength crossing is lower respect to the ideal case, because of course the rings with strength crossing as they have still the excluded volume interaction. And so they cannot be so compressed as the ideal case. So the system are different and they do not belong to the same classes, universality class, let's see. Then we looked at other static properties to properties that basically characterize the topology of the system. We looked at the statistics of the knots. Knots can be detected by topological invariance. And in this case, we used the Alexander polynomials that we computed through the unopened package called the kymonot that was developed in ERN-C signed the group of Mikaeletti. And we computed the spectrum of the knots and its probability distribution as a function of the sites of the polymer rings. This KT is the degree of complexity of the knot, the simplest knot has complexity equal to three, that is the triple knot and as it goes higher, the knot become more and more complex. What we also studied was that is in the inset of the plot is the probability of knotting. So to find in the solution ring that is knotted as a function of the sites of the rings, we fitted these points, let's say, with a power law and we found that the exponent was really near to two that for us made sense because the mechanism that creates knots is a kind of two-body mechanism because it takes two monomers that have to be swapped to create a knot. And so for this reason, it makes sense that the probability goes to the N square that is the density square of the monomers inside the polymer, let's say. And okay, here it's a conformation in which I highlighted the knotted part within the ring. This is a knot with complexity three, so the simplest one, the triple knot as I've said before. And but we found, as you see, for the biggest rings that we simulated also, knots with degree equal to 11. So really, really complex knots can be formed within this framework. Then we looked at the statistics of linking numbers, so another topological invariance that this time measure how many times to close the cork, so the rings that I was simulating were, if they were catenated and if yes, how many times they were going one for each other. This is computed by this Gauss linking number that makes, that gives us integer numbers, zero if they are uncatenated, one if there is just a simple catenation, and so on as the complexity of the linking becomes more goes higher, let's say. We computed again the probability distribution of this Gauss linking number. We found that the probability distribution of G was decaying exponentially from G greater than one, let's say, and the decay length of the Gauss linking number, also in this case, of course, depends on N, the size of the rings. Since we were also interested, as I showed at the beginning, in the system of the experiment, a network was formed, we looked also at the properties of the network that was arising from the catenation of the different rings. So we mapped the system of rings onto a network in which the nodes of the network represents the rings, and the two nodes were connected if the two rings were interlinked one with each other. Then we looked at which scale if there was and if there is, let's say, transition to a fully connected network. And as you can see, there is a transition, a sharp transition towards a fully connected network. So what I'm plotting is that on the left is the mean ring fraction, the mean ring fraction belonging to the largest connected component of the network divided by the number of chains. So if this number is close to one, means that all the rings belongs to the same network structure. This transition happens for the rings with length equal to 160 with a linking degree that is the vertex degree of the network, the average vertex degree of the network that is between two and three. So it means that when the rings are connected on average to other free rings, then there is this transition towards a fully connected network. And as you see in a moment, this transition to a fully connected network will influence also the dynamics of the system with quench topology. So the system in which the rings are connected and the action of strength crossing is no more present as you will see just in the next slide. So with this, I conclude the static properties. So we studied the new exponent and the topological properties of these structures. Then we looked at the dynamical properties. Okay, here there are just an example of the conformation, couple of rings. And in this case on the left, there is two rings that are linked with Gaussian number equal to one. As you can see here, there is the linkage part. Instead for G equal to two already, it's quite complex and you cannot detect at least I didn't detect really where they were passing to each other. So it's really mandatory let's say to compute this integral because you cannot do by eye the computation of the linking number. And okay, then we switch to dynamical properties. We looked mainly at the square displacement of the center of masses, this G free. And in these plots, I'm plotting N. So the number of monomers belonging to the ring times the G free for the three different system that I was simulating. And for the system with untangled rings, we found the properties that were already found in the paper that I was referring at the beginning. So there is a universal, let's say, universal time in which the G free N times G free do not depend on N because let's say the topological interaction are not important instead of large times N times G free depends on N because the diffusion coefficients for system for concentrated solution of rings, the diffusion coefficient depends as one over N to some power that is greater than one. And so as you see, there is the N times G free goes down as N goes higher because of these dependence on the diffusion coefficient. That is not seen in the case of rings with strength crossing as you see at large times, all the curves collapse onto each other basically. There is a really slightly variation between N because the acts of strength crossing make screen basically the topological constraint due to the chain uncrossability. And so the diffusion coefficient takes again the dependence as one over N. Instead, what is interesting is that for the permanently catenated rings, as you see for the biggest sizes that we simulated at large times N times G free saturates. That means that these rings are not diffusing over space anymore. These belong to this giant network structure. This giant network structure is stacked and these rings are stacked as well. And they just diffuse over a tiny space surrounded by all the other catenated rings. And so they are basically frozen also over space. And here I made just a comparison between the three curves for the three different systems. Just to highlight the differences between the untangled rings and the rings with strength crossing. As you see, the N squared displacement takes, there is a deviation between the untangled and the ones with strength crossing at a time scale that is the one of the rate of action of strength crossing. So just to highlight the fact that the system of rings with strength crossing goes faster because of the strength crossings. Then, okay, just to finish, we also did another experiment, computational experiment. We wanted to see what happens to the dynamics by varying the rate of action of the strength crossing move. And we varied it. And what I'm plotting here in this plot is the ratio between the diffusion coefficients of the system with strength crossings divided by the diffusion coefficient of the uncatenated rings, the untangled rings, as a function of the ratio of the time scale of action of strength crossing divided by the diffusion time. So the relaxation time of the untangled system. And as you see, there is a crossover from a region for when the, this value of the rate of the time scales is smaller than one. So when the time scale of action of the strength crossing are faster respect to the relaxation of times of the untangled system, the strength crossing indeed accelerate the dynamics of the system as I showed you in the last picture. But if we take, let's say, two slow mechanism of strength crossing, it can happen that actually the system is slowed down by the action of strength crossing. This is due to the fact that long-lived the catenated structure are formed by this mechanism. These rings become to refuse at this time scale at tau D, but then they find the presence of other rings that are catenated and so they have to diffuse over space with other rings, with other linked rings. And of course in this case, they go slower respect if they were alone. So for this reason, what we find is that not always this mechanism can accelerate the dynamics and can make the system relax faster respect to the untangled case as it was seen in the case of the experimental Spakowitz that was working up in the regime for which this ratio is smaller than one. And with this I conclude. So I presented the Monte Carlo scheme that is able to change the topology dynamically over time and to study the dynamics of the system. We characterize the properties of the different system that we simulated both the statics, the topological properties, the dynamical properties as a function of the size of the rings. And finally what we tried to see and we saw is that the strength crossing mechanism may or may not accelerate the dynamics. In some case, depending on the time scale of relaxation of the untangled system, it may slow down the system. And in the near future, what we would like to do is to perform a systematic study of this system barring the density to look if there are scaling properties that characterize the topological properties of the system also to come up with some scaling laws for the network structure that would be interesting. We would like to implement and to see what happens if we add banding rigidity to the rings because as you may know, the DNA as a polymer is a stiff polymer as a finite banding rigidity. And so we would like to take into account also this feature in our simulation. And it would be interesting also to simulate explicitly the diffusion of top isomerase because in this case, basically we model the system as if the top of two was always present everywhere in the system. So for a regime in which the top of two is really rich within the simulation but it may be that there is a low concentration of this enzyme and then diffusion is important. And so it could be interesting to study this mechanism. And if you want to know more, there is a preprint of this work with Angelo. And if you want, you can ask of course question now or at the other town and thanks for your attention. Thank you very much, Mattia. Maybe we have time for one quick question. Otherwise, Mattia said also for the other speakers for today there is the session on Gator dot town. Okay, so there are no questions. So I remind you that the session on Gator dot town starts at 2 p.m.


Combat Arms Training and Maintenance plays a vital role in supporting the mission. Technical Sergeant Tyler Brown, the NCOIC of Cadham, explains more about how they ensure Airmen are volunteer ready. Combat Arms, we provide the minimum amount, well the basic fundamentals of how to use firearms, whether that's rifles, pistols, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers. We teach Airmen how to use those in case that they ever have to employ those weapons out in the field or deployed, stateside, wherever. Along with that, we also inspect and maintain all the weapons on the 134th Air Refilling Wing. So my favorite part about the job would be having a student that comes in, they've never handled a gun before or they haven't handled one since basic training. So they're not comfortable, they're not familiar. By the end of the day, once we've taught them everything they need to know, they've shot, they start to get more confident, they start to understand how they're going to operate and to see that that confidence building in them is probably my favorite part of the job. COPS qualify on an annual basis along with quarterly sustainment training, they're doing some kind of firearms manipulation or training. Mostly other career fields, it's typically right before they deploy so anybody that leaves for deployment will come to us for firearms training. Technical Sergeant Brown explains the average length of a Cadham course. Typically four to seven hours, just depends on class size, students. So cop class is probably going to be a little bit quicker because they handle guns more often, about four to seven hours roughly. Magee Tyson is one of the few Air National Guard bases with a range physically located on base. The upgrades of the range have provided airmen with a convenient and safe learning environment. Cadham also teaches the use of a wide variety of weapons. So we have the M9 pistol or the handgun, the M4 carbines which are the rifles. M240 Bravo which is our heavy machine gun or our cruiser machine gun which fires a 7-6-2 fully automatic. We've got M249 AR which is automatic rifle which is basically an M4 on steroids fully automatic belt fed machine gun as well as our M203 grenade launchers and the new actually just got the new M320 grenade launchers which are our standalone system. Reporting from the 134th Air Refueling Wing, I'm Staff Sergeant Melissa Deerstone.


In this section I will be explaining the very interesting concept of behavioral finance. Behavioral finance is a subfield of behavioral economics and the entire concept of behavioral economics or behavioral finance depends upon this principle that the human beings when they take any decisions they get influenced by different types of psychological factors and biases. So if we are specifically talking about financial decision making by the investors or financial practitioners then we narrow down the scope of behavioral economics to behavioral finance. So if we just explain the procedure of financial decision making that how it influences psychological effects or biases then it means that we are talking about behavioral finance. In behavioral finance we take different types of influences that are caused by biases. There are a number of different types of market abnormalities or anomalies that happen because the entire traditional model of financial economics that we have discussed or the theories that we have discussed, we put a basic assumption in them that the investors who are the participants of the financial market, who are experts, consultants and advisors or people sitting in any capacity that make all rational decision making but in reality when you see it in the real world then there are a lot of biases that a person is influenced by different things, psychological factors are influenced by their decisions where they are making decisions about investment. So behavioral finance helps us in understanding what are the various types of psychological factors that can influence the financial decision making process and what are the different types of biases that can result in different types of anomalies or abnormalities which we see happening in the financial sector.