try to be accurate about the extent to which the vast majority do take up viable employment and have a very successful career upon leaving the forces, and that is very important to realise. Neither should we underestimate it, because if we do that, then we run the danger of not providing the services that are required. Just on that, Alex Ferguson raised a figure of 40 per cent increase in number of veterans in prisons. That comes from an FOI release to the Daily Record, which has done a tremendous job in highlighting some of the issues that face our veterans. That gave a monthly self-reported figure in the Scottish Prison Service, the statistical bulletin, up from around 150 in 2011-12 to 220-12-13. It advised that it is too early to say if there is any trend that is underpinned by that data, as data has only been collected since 2011. It is also self-reported, so it cannot yet say whether that reflects a real increase. It is an important issue, and we have to continue to monitor that. The work that I mentioned in relation to that will add to our understanding of that. As I said, the Scottish Government will continue to work with the military, the ex-service charities and the service providers. That work is easier to undertake when you have the level of consensus and unanimity that we have in the chamber. I look forward to the ideas and the new thinking of the veterans commissioner. I believe that that appointment will be very well received when it is announced. We are all working in partnership and pulling in the same direction. As we have all said, we owe our armed forces community our best efforts, our best endeavours and our best wishes. If we continue to work together, then we cannot work together to the point where Scotland becomes the best country in the world to be a veteran. If we can aim for that very high standard, then we will do well by our veterans. Many thanks minister. That concludes the debate on support for armed forces and veteran communities in Scotland, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion number 10430, in the name of John Swinney, on appointments to the Scottish Fiscal Commission. Can I invite members who wish to contribute to this debate to press the request to speak buttons now please? I call on John Swinney to speak to and move the motion. Cabinet secretary, you have eight minutes in which to do so. I am pleased to seek Parliament's endorsement today of the Scottish Government's plans to establish an independent Scottish Fiscal Commission as well as Parliament's approval of my nominations for appointment to the commission. In doing so, I thank the finance committee for the very thorough inquiry that it held into proposals for the creation of a Scottish Fiscal Commission after I announced my intention to establish such a body in evidence to the finance committee in May 2013. The finance committee's report has informed the Scottish Government's thinking on the issue, and I record my thanks to the finance committee for the role that it has played in scrutinising my nominations for appointment to the commission. The creation of the Scottish Fiscal Commission is another important milestone in the journey to enhance Scotland's fiscal powers. There is widespread international recognition that independent fiscal commissions play a vital role in ensuring the robustness and credibility of a country's fiscal framework. I believe that there is similarly wide consensus across the Parliament that the Scottish Fiscal Commission will be a significant and welcome addition to Scotland's fiscal framework. The commission will play the key role in providing independent scrutiny of Scottish Government forecasts of receipts from land and buildings transaction tax and Scottish landfill tax, and in further assessing the economic determinants underpinning forecasts of non-domestic rates income in Scotland. That will provide Parliament and the public with assurance over the reasonableness and the integrity of the Scottish Government's tax forecasts, which will underpin a proportion of the expenditure to be set out in our draft budget for the first time this autumn. I believe that the remit provides a proportionate response to the relatively modest devolution of fiscal powers under the Scotland Act 2012. We will, of course, keep the commission's remit under review, and I intend to review the role of the commission in relation to the Scottish rate of income tax prior to its planned introduction in April 2016. It is my intention that the scope of the commission will expand in line with the Parliament's tax-raising and borrowing powers. I intend to bring forward legislation within the present parliamentary term to give the commission a basis in statute, but it will initially operate on a non-statutory basis. I am strongly of the view that it is critical to the effectiveness of the commission that it is independent of the Scottish Government and that it is seen and understood to be so. I have taken actions to secure the independence of individual members and the structural and operational independence of the commission while it operates on a non-statutory basis. Turning first to the independence of individual members, I willingly accepted the recommendation made by the French Committee that Parliament should have a role in scrutinising my nominations for appointment to the commission. I will also make appointments for single fixed terms. The purpose of that is to ensure that at no stage will the chair or members of the commission feel, in any way, restricted in the commentary that they can apply to the issues in connection with the forecasts that are put forward from the Government for, in any way, considering whether they would be eligible for reappointment for the further term in office. The fact that individuals would serve only single fixed terms is a significant foundation of the independence of the fiscal commission. As I explained to the French Committee last week, the chair and members of the Scottish Fiscal Commission will be subject to a code of conduct based on the model code of conduct for members of devolved public bodies, which was approved by Parliament in December 2013. That will ensure that commission members are subject to the highest standards of conduct expected by Parliament, including procedures for registering and declaring any potential conflicts of interest. The commission will also be structurally and operationally independent of the Scottish Government. The commission will provide reports to Parliament and to the public on the reasonableness of tax revenue forecasts prepared by the Scottish Government. The commission will decide what analytical and secretariat support it requires and where it will obtain that support. Crucially, Scottish Government analysts will not be seconded to work for the commission. The University of Glasgow will provide an independent base for the commission, and I am grateful to the principle of the university for his support in that regard. I will ensure that the commission is an appropriate resource to fulfil its functions, providing a modest budget that the commission can deploy to support its work. As I indicated to the French Committee last week, if the commission comes to me to indicate that it believes that it requires resources beyond the initial estimation that I have made of an annual budget of £20,000, I will of course consider that sympathetically to ensure that the commission has the resources at its disposal to properly exercise the functions that it will have been allocated. The commission will have three part-time members, one of whom will serve as chair. I have nominated three highly respected, skilled and authoritative individuals to serve on the commission, and I invite Parliament to approve those appointments on the recommendation of the finance committee. I have nominated Susan Rice to serve as chair of the commission. Susan Rice is a distinguished member of Scotland's business community and will bring a wealth of commercial experience to the commission. She is a charter banker, managing director of Lloyd's Banking Group Scotland, and, crucially, she has been a member of the court of the Bank of England, chairing the bank's Audit and Risk Committee, demonstrating her ability to operate at a very senior level within the private sector and to ensure that, through her wide interests, she is able to draw to the work of the commission and accomplish record of private, public and third sector service into the bargain. I have also nominated two renowned academic economists, Professor Andrew Hughes-Hallert and Professor Campbell Leith, to serve as members of the commission, both of whom have been instrumental in much of the thinking across the world on the establishment of fiscal commissions that have been of relevance in supporting the work of individual Governments as they have established bodies of this nature. Professor Hughes-Hallert is jointly Professor of Economics and Public Policy at George Mason University and Professor of Economics at St Andrew's University. Professor Campbell Leith is Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Glasgow and along with Professor Hughes-Hallert is an academic authority on fiscal commissions and fiscal rules. In considering my nominations for appointment to the commission, I gave full consideration to the potential for conflicts of interest to arise or be reasonably perceived to arise between membership of the commission and other offices or roles held by nominees. Particular attention has been drawn to the membership of the Council of Economic Advisers that is held by Susan Rice and Professor Hughes-Hallert. It is important to recall, Presiding Officer, that the individuals that I have nominated to serve on the Fiscal Commission are individuals with formidable and broad expertise who have been involved in a multiplicity of different functions in a number of different respects. They have built up those reputations and records of service based on the integrity of their actions at all times. I have been at pains to demonstrate to the Finance and Constitution Committee the very clear separation of role and function that would exist between the Council of Economic Advisers who would have no role and no locus in scrutinising at any stage the fiscal forecast that would be made by the Scottish Government in relation to the responsibilities of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. There can be no doubt that those three individuals will together form a strong and independent Scottish Fiscal Commission that can be relied upon to hold the Scottish Government to account for the tax forecast that we publish in our budget documents. I move that Parliament endorses the Government's plans to establish a Fiscal Commission and to support the recommendation of the French Committee that the Scottish Government nominations to the commission be approved. I now call on Gavin Brown to speak to and move amendment 10430.26. Please, Mr Brown. On those benches, we welcome the setting up of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. An expert body that scrutinises and challenges Government forecasts can only be a good thing. Sometimes there is a natural optimism bias of government of any stripe and having scrutiny of that, I think, is helpful and it allows that optimism to be challenged carefully. All three of the nominees put forward by the Scottish Government in my view are more than qualified for the roles that they have been put forward for. They have the knowledge, the relevant experience and the skillset that are required to do the job. That is not in doubt, that was never in doubt, and the cabinet secretary is right to put the comments about them that he has done in his opening remarks. The issue, though, from this side of the chamber is this. This independent Scottish Fiscal Commission will only have three part-time commissioners, yet two out of the three nominations also currently serve on the First Minister's Council of Economic Advisers. In our view, there is a potential conflict and certainly a perception of a conflict between an advisory role on the one hand and a scrutiny role on the other. Two of the three nominations would be simultaneously, and that word is important, they will be doing this simultaneously, advising the Scottish Government on economic levers via the council and then challenging and scrutinising the Scottish Government on the application of at least some of those economic levers on the other hand. It is worth looking at the work of the existing council of economic visors, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a fairly small body with only nine members, and it is a tender, I think, in every case by the First Minister and in almost every case by the Cabinet Secretary for Sustainable Growth. From looking at the minutes, it is also clear that there are regular engagements outside of the formal meetings between members of the council of economic advisers and the Scottish Government, and in particular the Scottish Government's chief economist's office. How regular we don't know, we just know from the minutes that it is regular. Some of the items, though, I think, come extremely close to some of the work that might be done by Fiscal Commission. For example, in the September meeting of 2012, the cabinet secretary outlined a progress report on that year's draft budget, the budget for 2013-14. That budget approach was discussed, and this was two weeks before the draft budget was presented to Parliament. I think that it is highly likely, Deputy Presiding Officer, that if the draft budget is being presented to the council of economic advisers, they will naturally want to look at items of expenditure and, going forward, they will naturally want to look at the revenue. They want to look at non-domestic rates, the landfill tax and, no doubt, the land and buildings transactions act 2. Economic leavers is a standing item on the agenda of the council of economic advisers, and indeed it is one of only three core areas of work that they do. So this is a powerful body. This is a body that clearly has influence, and again within the minutes, the chair noted the welcome progress by the Government in responding to its input. One of those areas, of course, was the potential setting up of the Scottish Fiscal Commission itself. Deputy Presiding Officer, this new body with a challenge function needs to be and needs to be seen to be completely independent of Government. The cabinet secretary said that himself in his opening remarks, where he says that it needs to be seen and understood to be independent. In our view, that is a difficult thing to do when two of the three members at the same time hold advisory roles with the same Government. The equivalent body in London, the OBR, has faced criticism about its independence and, specifically, from the Scottish Government and even more specifically, from the very same cabinet secretary, who said on the record to the finance committee that, given that the arrangement operates on the basis of succumbent from the Treasury to the OBR, there is a justifiable degree of skepticism about how far from Government the office is. This is the case put forward by the cabinet secretary when a back office function was shared between the Treasury and the OBR. What we are talking about today are the decision makers of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the heads of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, at the same time holding advisory roles with the Scottish Government. In concluding, the Scottish Government can use its majority to force this through Parliament, but I believe that it has made an error in suggesting that there is no perception of a conflict. We think that there is a perception of a conflict if you are advising on Monday and then scrutinising on Tuesday. It is more difficult still when that applies to two out of the three members who would find themselves in that dual role. Deputy Presiding Officer, I invite the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government to reflect carefully upon the amendment, to reflect carefully upon the arguments that we have made, and I close simply by moving the amendment in my name. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Finance Committee in this debate on the establishment of a Scottish Fiscal Commission and appointment of Lady Susan Rice, Professor Andrew Hughes Halliton, Professor Campbell Leith, to serve on that body. The establishment of a Scottish Fiscal Commission was put to the committee by the cabinet secretary in May last year. In order to consider the options for establishing such a body, the committee undertook an inquiry in November and December 2013. As part of that, we heard evidence from a range of economists and individuals with experience of fiscal bodies. The committee's considerations benefited greatly from the experience and expertise of those witnesses, and I like to place on record our appreciation of their contribution. One of the issues that we addressed was the requirement that formal safeguards be put in place to protect the independence of the commission. Among those safeguards is the way in which appointments to the commission are made. As members know, we have an established process for public appointments in Scotland, regulated under legislation and overseen by the commissioner for ethical standards in public life. Indeed, the cabinet secretary agreed with the committee's recommendation that appointments will be regulated in this way once a commission is established as a statutory body. In addition, given the nature of the body, the view of both the committee and the Government is that the Parliament's consent to those appointments is required. In giving this consent, the Parliament should have regard to finance committee recommendations. The committee's report takes account of both oral and written evidence provided by the nominees and the cabinet secretary. The purpose of this evidence-taking was to provide Parliament with an opportunity to consider the professional experience and competence of individuals nominated for appointment. As those are the first appointments to the commission, the evidence also assisted the committee to understand more about the issues that will need to be considered by commission members before they can commence their work. Those include the specific remit of the commission and the staffing analytical resources that they will require to be able to fulfil that remit. The committee's report also highlights the importance of transparency in the commission's commentary on the Scottish Government forecast. The committee's effort of the view that any provisional forecasting in which the commission comments should be provided alongside the final forecast with an explanation provided for any differences between the two. This will be important in ensuring that both the members of Parliament and interested observers are able to understand the interaction between the commission and the Government. Crucially, this will show how the Government's forecasting may be revised in light of or informed by the commission's commentary. It will be helpful if the cabinet secretary responds to that recommendation and is summing up. Turning to the evidence committee took from one of the nominees, the range of issues that we explored included the individual's previous experience, what they view as the immediate priorities for the commission and how the commission should operate, particularly the view to demonstrating its independence. The nominees each brought individual perspective to those questions. That is, of course, expected, as a collective view cannot be reached until a commission is established. Development of the commission's remit and agreement of a memorandum of understanding are still to take place. The committee looks forward to continuing its scrutiny and contribution to the issues that have been recognised by the Government. The nominees were asked about any other roles or connections that they have that may give rise to, or be perceived as giving rise to, potential conflicts of interest. None of the nominees identified any such conflicts. However, some members of the committee expressed concern about members of the commission being members of the council of economic advisers. Gavin Brown has raised his matters through his amendment in his speech today, and other members may also explain any concerns that they have to the chamber. However, I would like to emphasise the view that was shared by the committee that all three nominees have the relevant professional expertise and competence to enable the commission to fulfil its role. A recommendation that is set out in the report that we published last week is that the nominees should be appointed. With regard to Professor Leith, all members of the committee supported his appointment. The appointment of Lady Rice and Professor Hughes Hallott was supported by a majority of members on the committee. In closing, members will have picked up from my remarks that there is still work to be done in establishing the Scottish Fiscal Commission, including important issues that will help to build the credibility of the commission's role. The committee looks forward to engaging with the commission and the Government as this process continues. Many thanks. I now call on Malcolm Chisholm for minutes, please. I also welcome the creation of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and I'm very pleased that the Finance Committee and Parliament have a role in deciding who should sit on it, which, of course, is different from the council of economic advisers where the First Minister appoints. That emphasises the degree of hard and formal independence that is required of the Fiscal Commission. The Finance Committee emphasises the importance of the OECD principles of independence, non-partisanship and transparency, and emphasises that those principles must be seen to be being observed in relation to the Fiscal Commission. Without that, the public can have no confidence in the research or the findings of the commission. In view of that, I think that the Government should surely be alarmed at the number of people, including distinguished economists, who are unhappy about people sitting on both the Fiscal Commission and the Council of Economic Advisers. That is irrespective of the merits of the individuals involved. For example, Bill Jameson, in an article that has been widely read, said, does it not smack a little of running with the hair and hunting with the hounds? Many people, including members on this side of the House, have come to the conclusion that the Fiscal Commission should not just be independent of government, but independent of both government and council of economic advisers. For me, the central mystery of this whole debate and this situation is why the cabinet secretary thought that it was necessary to appoint two people from the council of economic advisers, and thus mired the Fiscal Commission in controversy from the very start. He himself has admitted that there are dozens of eligible and distinguished people who could have served, and Professor Bell springs to mind, Professor Ashgroff springs to mind and Jeremy Pete springs to mind. There is a suspicion—I will not put it strong—that the Government is more comfortable with economists who perhaps have a closer relationship with their own position. The Fiscal Commission will provide independent scrutiny of revenue projections and assess the economic forces underlying receipts, as the cabinet secretary reminded us, and that initial role will expand. I believe that, now and certainly in the near future, it will be impossible to have the hard separation that the cabinet secretary suggests between his work and the work of the council of economic advisers. The cabinet secretary said in committee that there was no occasions when advice had been offered in relation to taxes by the commission of economic advisers. I do not know whether that is true or not, but in a way it is quite a surprising statement, because you would think that advice on fiscal levers and policies is bound to come up in the council of economic advisers and also the consequences of certain taxation decisions. If they have not come up yet, they will come up soon. In committee, the cabinet secretary offered to exclude certain areas from the remit of the council, which is a task-admission that those overlaps could certainly emerge. Today, the cabinet secretary said that the individuals have a multiplicity of different functions, but only two that relate directly to Scottish economic and financial policy. There, we have the conflict that Gavin Brown emphasised between the advisory and the scrutiny roles. Although the cabinet secretary seems oblivious of this potential conflict, Susan Rice, to her credit in committee, was not oblivious but said that she was aware of the possibility, she would deal with it and that her role on the fiscal commission would take primacy. She has made clear that she is willing to choose and that she would choose the fiscal commission role. I think that Andrew Hughes Hallock should also be asked to make a choice between that and the council and economic advisers. If the amendment is rejected today, the fiscal commission will get off to the worst possible start, mired in controversy and, without the standing and credibility with the public that are central to the very concept of an independent fiscal commission. Many thanks. We now turn to short open debate. Speeches of four minutes, please. Tavish Scott, to be followed by Jamie Hepburn. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Many SNP members care about the perception of conflict of interest in politics and government. Certainly in the 1999 to 2007 Parliament, the SNP rightly held government to account on exactly that issue. Indeed, Mr Sweeney often led that charge. I might even say that he often had a point. Gavin Brown's sensible amendment identified the core problem in this government's approach to these appointments. I admire Susan Rice. I would certainly appoint her too, where I am in the cabinet secretary's position. In passing, such appointments are entirely devolved, so this government could have appointed two women and a man or even three eminent financial experts who are female. Had they done so, then the balance of women versus men appointed to public positions would have improved. Sadly, that won't be the case this afternoon. I don't know the other nominees, but from what I read, I would share the assessment made by Gavin Brown and Malcolm Chisholm that they are eminently qualified, but that surely, Presiding Officer, is not the point. Members of the commission should not be advising the government on economic policy on one hand and scrutinising government forecasts on the other. That, by any realistic interpretation, creates a perception of a conflict of interest. I am disappointed not just by that, but also by the commission's remit and resources. Scotland has a highly centralised financial state, and that is one reason why I certainly argued for a tartan office of budget responsibility. The UK government got this right. They divorced economic and financial forecasting, which can be manipulated by politicians from central government. They established an OBR. That is not a friend of any UK chancellor. It's not meant to be. The OBR provides an independent assessment of the nation's books for the government, but also for all representatives, for policy makers, for you and I, no such emphatic independent assessment is made of the Scottish Government's financial performance. Scotland needs that approach. We need to judge how best to spend taxpayers' money. Consider free personal care for the elderly. It is not affordable in its current form to say some who have studied the finances. That is not the case. The Scottish Government, instead of that kind of rhetoric, should not decision making by ministers and parliament be based on fact. A tartan OBR would provide that fact unadorned by political spin and manipulation. When Scotland gets past the referendum in the autumn, I would rather Parliament again look not just at the appointments, but at the limited, narrow and restrictive remit of the commission. I welcome Mr Sweeney's earlier remarks that he will review the remit in future. Robert Chote, the boss of the OBR, is by any stand as an informative commentator. We should want the same or indeed better for Scotland. The finance secretary says that he does not want the commission to step on anyone's tools, but many outside suspect he is thinking only about his own feet. I struggle too with the Government's argument that the commission has such a limited role and therefore can be likely staffed through a university with a negligible budget. Yet Revenue Scotland is being set up with all the panellope of law, with resources, with civil servants, and it is there to administer just a number of taxes. The contrast does appear striking. This Parliament has not got financial scrutiny of any Government right, not just in the past seven years, but since 1999. It is an area right for reform. This was a real opportunity to create a body to deliver scrutiny and accountability across the nation's finances. A future Scottish Government can do so much better and can believe in healthy, robust independent checks and balances. That is an approach that I would be pleased to support. I too would urge the finance secretary to reconsider to beef up his proposals and to make his appointments ones that we could all support on a cross-party basis, where no potential conflict of interest would occur. Last week, we debated the changes to the written agreement between the Finance Committee and the Scottish Government to the budget process, which is necessary due to the two devolved taxes, which will be an important part of budget setting and budget scrutiny. The Scottish Government will, of course, be publishing its forecast for the revenue raised by the newly devolved taxers. It is vital that we have a body providing scrutiny of those forecasts. That is the role of the fiscal commission that we debate today. That role will only be fulfilled as well as its personnel allows for. In that regard, I want to endorse the cabinet secretary's three nominees. Susan Rice, as a prospective chair, has worked in a range of senior roles in the banking sector since 1986. Before that, in academic management in America, she is currently a non-executive director of the Bank of England Court and a range of other work as well. In the evidence session at the Finance Committee, I was very struck by the depth of her commitment to the concept of public service. Too many overlooks are quick to dismiss, all too often, in a seemingly cynical age. I believe that she is committed to the commission for the best of reasons, and I believe that she will be an effective and engaging chairperson. Andrew Hughes, Hallot and Campbell Leith have two eminent economists with different complementary backgrounds. Both will have excellent appointments to work with Susan Rice on the fiscal commission. I consider it unfortunate that some believe that there is a conflict of interest for two nominees by virtue of their role in the Council of Economic Advisers. I do not consider that to be the case. First, I would observe that the Finance Committee took considerable time to prepare a report on the establishment of the Scottish Fiscal Commission. Nowhere did we make a recommendation about restrictions on who could be appointed by virtue of their membership of another entity. Secondly, I believe that, in evidence that they gave to the committee, all three nominees not only gave an undertaking that they actually demanded that their independence be respected. I believe that we should take that on good faith. Thirdly, I would recognise it by virtue of their expertise. All three nominees are bound to be in demand to sit on other bodies. The perception for a conflict of interest might always be there, but that does not mean in actuality that there is one. I also recognise the very different roles of the Fiscal Commission and the Council of Economic Advisers. I thought Malcolm Chisholm slightly misinterpreted what the Cabinet Secretary and I am sure that he will speak for himself at the end when he suggested that the Cabinet Secretary had offered to restrict the role of the Fiscal Commission. I think that the point that he was making is that he has already done that by virtue of the recommendations made by the Finance Committee and its report on the commission. Again, I do not believe that there is a conflict between those two bodies. I would also further recognise that all the nominees will serve for a single term. They will not be beholden on the decision of the Cabinet Secretary to be reappointed thereafter. I think that that further emphasises and reinforces their independence of operation. I also think that we should recognise that the Cabinet Secretary has taken on board some of the concerns expressed by some of the members on the committee about the issue of a perceived conflict of interest, where he is now saying that the Fiscal Commission members are going to be subject to a code of conduct that deals with registering interests and conflicts of interest as they arise. For those reasons, I do not believe that there is a conflict of interest in those circumstances. I also believe that the excellent nature of the nominees before us is that we should back the creation of the commission and the nominees before us. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am now called on to the cabinet secretary to Fiverr Cognid be obliged. Presiding Officer, I am delighted to conclude the debate, which I think has been a helpful debate. The first thing that I want to say is that I think that Mr Brown has done us a service today by producing an amendment that addresses and communicates the nub of the issue that he has here. Often, we have amendments here that are used as cover for other comments, but Mr Brown has put forward an amendment today that fairly sums up the issues that he has marshaled. He has fairly set out the credibility of the candidates that I have suggested for nomination. He has remarked on the strength of those candidates and has focused the issue on his concerns about the perception of a conflict of interest with membership of the Council of Economic Advisers. I think that that is helpful because it does crystallise the debate so that there can be no doubt about any other issues. There are four points that I would like to make to Parliament, which I think capture why Parliament should be assured that the correct thing to do is to support the motion in my name at decision time. The first is that the Government has put forward, and I have nominated, three candidates of eminent capability with a breadth of experience and a demonstrable reputation of integrity and challenge in all of the work that they have undertaken. I do not think that any of that is disputed by anybody in Parliament today. Indeed, Mr Brown has made that point very clear in his comments today. Mr McMahon made it very clear in the comments that he made to the French Committee last week. We have candidates of undisputed capability and strength of reputation to be candidates for this office. Mark-um Tysum I certainly do not disagree with what he said, but I am still genuinely puzzled with all due respect to those individuals and their great abilities. I think that you have admitted that there are dozens, certainly a large number of equally eminent economists, so I am genuinely puzzled why they were overlooked in order to create this controversy. Without going through all sorts of names of individuals involved, what I can say to Mr Tysum is that I do not think that anybody comes along to be potential candidates for such a role without uncomplicated connections to other areas of work that they may be involved in, but all of them protect their integrity and reputation for independence by the way in which they conduct themselves in exercising their responsibilities, and that is the strength of the three candidates that I have put forward today. The second point is about a point of disagreement that I have with Tavish Scott. I decided that the Scottish Fiscal Commission should have a very focused remit looking only to challenge the fiscal forecast that we made in relation to those taxes. I accept that there is a different view that could be taken. I am much broader role. I was very clear with the French Committee and I think that if I read the French Committee's report correctly, I am in tune with the French Committee on this point that it wanted the body that I was suggesting and not the one with respect that Mr Scott was suggesting, however valuable that might be, so the focused remit is absolutely crucial. The Fiscal Commission will have the exclusive responsibility to challenge the fiscal forecast of the Government and there will be no opportunity for the council of economic advisers at any other stage to intervene in that process. The third point is the location of the Fiscal Commission in the University of Glasgow with independent support away from the Government. I have been quite clear and again that this addresses Mr Scott's point. If there are resourcing issues, I will address those issues to the satisfaction of the commission. Fourthly, the individuals are being appointed for one single term only. They will be free to say what they like about my fiscal forecast. They will be able to challenge them in any way that they would like to do so without fear of reappointment. I will give way to Mr Harvie. I am grateful. The existence of the council of economic advisers implies that the Government will, from time to time, accept their economic advice. Can the cabinet secretary tell us how he would bring real objectivity to the task of scrutinising the impact and the potential future consequences of economic policies that were in part, at least partly, the result of his own advice? How can that be done objectively? That is what Parliament is here to do, to challenge the view and the decisions that I take on issues in relation with the economy. In relation to the fiscal forecast that I make in relation to the budget, I am absolutely crystal clear that the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Scottish Fiscal Commission alone have the power and the opportunity and the resources to challenge the fiscal forecast that I make and to make it in the interests of good public scrutiny in Scotland. The Government has put forward three candidates of eminent capability. Their appointment has been endorsed by the French Committee. I invite Parliament to support those nominations today and to ensure that we have a fiscal commission that can properly, fully and effectively hold the Government's forecast to account and ensure that the public debate in Scotland on this aspect of our budget process is enhanced as a consequence. Thank you. That concludes the debate on requirements to the Scottish Fiscal Commission. The next item of business is consideration of motion number 10356, in the name of Jovix Patrick, on the membership of the regional council of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe. I call on Jovix Patrick to move the motion. In this motion, we have put decision time to which we now come. There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion 1047, in the name of Keith Brown, on support for armed forces and veteran communities in Scotland, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is that amendment number 10430.2, in the name of Gavin Brown, which seeks to amend motion number 10430, in the name of John Swinney, on appointments to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed to. We moved a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the voter amendment number 10430.2, in the name of Gavin Brown, is as follows. Yes, 52. No, 65. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that motion number 10430, in the name of John Swinney, on appointments to the Scottish Fiscal Commission, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed to. We moved a vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 10430, in the name of John Swinney, is as follows. Yes, 65. No, 50. There were two abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is that motion number 10356, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on membership of the regional chamber of the Congress of local and regional authorities of the Council of Europe, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. Will you now move to members' business? Members should leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.


Two weeks ago, right and I had my children with me and When I built the aesthetic, right? I've got a fire set them down. I'm drinking wine They send back they own a phone. I took the phones. Yeah, you know because at the end of the day You're gonna have what you pay for did you pay for that phone? No, you didn't so I hand it over Yeah, let me get that you see I'm saying so I want your undivided attention So I gave them the scenario. I say listen if I were to pass away right now How much money should I should I leave you? Oh None I said you're right. I don't have to leave you nothing


Hello, this is Nick from LaptopMedia and today we will show you how to open the HP ZBook Power G10. If you want to see the internals of this machine, you have to undo 5 Phillips head screws. Then you can pop up the bottom panel with a plastic pry tool. The best starting point is the zone on the back between the two hinges. Please remember, it would be of great help to us if you just hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. That would motivate us to make even more and better videos for you. There are thermal pads on the inside of the bottom plate for cooling the memory and the SSDs. The battery is an 83 watt hour model. If you want to take it out, you have to unplug the battery connector. Then the next job is to unscrew the 6 Phillips head screws that are keeping the unit in place. The battery life is great. The unit has enough juice for 20 hours of web browsing or 12 hours and 30 minutes of video playback. For storage, there are two Gen 4, M.2 slots. As you can see, there is a dedicated thick thermal pad that is placed beneath the SSD. For memory upgrades, there are two Sodium slots for up to 64GB of DDR5, 5200MHz RAM. There is a thin thermal pad beneath the memory for additional cooling, which is a nice touch. The cooling system comprises two fans, three heat pipes, two heat sinks, and a bunch of heat spreaders.


Abstract zinc, ZN, holds great promise as a desirable anode material for next-generation rechargeable batteries. However, the uncontrollable dendrite growth and low columbic efficiency of the ZN plating slash stripping process severely impede further practical applications of ZN-based batteries. Here, we use in-situ grown zeolitic imidazolate framework 8, ZIF-8, as the ion modulation layer to tune the diffusion behavior on ZN anodes. The well-ordered nano-channels and N species of ZIF-8 can effectively homogenize ZN-2 plus flux distribution. This article was authored by Xiaoqing Liu, Fan Yang, Wei Su, and others.


Guys, welcome back to another one. If you're new to the channel, I am Goldpony. I do car reviews on YouTube, and I am super excited to be in this brand new 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack, courtesy of Stettler Dodge Jeep Ram in York P.A. And so, I always like to jump in this one. I always have to jump in this one every single year. This is one of my favorites. I'm a huge fan of the Camaro Challenger and Mustang actually, only 2019 for Mustang GT. You could probably expect a couple comparisons between the Mustang and the Challenger in this video. But when you jump in this one, of course this is classic American muscle. And to go along with it, there are plenty of changes for the 2020 model year. So of course, I will be going over all of those for you guys in this video. So what do you say? Let's go ahead and jump right into it. And as always, let's start with pricing. And so MSRP for the 2020 Challenger Scat Pack will start at $39,995. There is a wide body variant. That is going to start at $45,995. But regardless of what setup you go with, power plant will be the same. Powering this beast is a 6.4 liter naturally aspirated V8, putting out 485 horsepower at 6,100 RPM. 475 pound-feet of torque available at 4,100 RPM. Power, of course, sends to the rear wheels through your choice of either a Tremac six-speed manual or a torque flight eight-speed automatic with paddle shifters, which of course, we will be testing out today. And by the way, that means we do have the eight-speed torque flight automatic. Although we have driven both in the Challenger, both are just fine six-speed manual is just as fun. But all in all, zero to 60 time comes in in approximately 4.3 seconds. For the wide body, that reduces that to 4.2 seconds. 3.8 seconds if you go with the 1320 package. And I'll give a little bit more into that as we go in the video, but that actually adds $3995, but a zero to 60 in 3.8. That is definitely pretty sweet. By the way, for comparison's sake, my Mustang GT with the Performance Pack level one does it in 3.9, so that's pretty cool. Quarter mile comes in at approximately 12.7 seconds, 12.5 seconds for the wide body, 11.7 seconds for the 1320 package. And by the way, for comparison's sake, Mustang GT with Performance Pack will do that in 11.9. Top speed, 182 miles per hour. That is very impressive, actually. With MPG numbers coming at 15 in the city, 24 in the highway for the automatic, 14 city, 23 highway for the manual. And in case you were curious, premium allotted fuel is recommended, of course. But so then before we do any kind of accelerations in the Challenger, I did want to mention there are some drive modes, and those drive modes, by the way, can be accessed through the infotainment screen front and center there, but it's essentially going to give you modes like automatic, custom, sport, and track. And what those driving modes are actually going to do is adjust things like the throttle response, shift points, steering sensitivity, and traction control. For instance, if you put it in that sport mode, traction control comes off. So you can do maybe some drifting or some burnouts or whatever. But now that I've gotten all of that out of the way, what do you say? Let's go ahead and test out the paddle shifters. And by the way, to put it in full manual shift mode with the automatic, at least, of course, is what you want to do is slide the shifter all the way to the back and to the left, and that does give me full control. And by the way, these paddle shifters, they're very high quality. They feel magnesium, and I could be wrong there, but I've tested plenty of paddle shifters. I knew the Mustangs are plastic, of course, but these feel a lot more high quality than when I got my Mustang. I will say that, so that's definitely nice. But nonetheless, let's go ahead and find a straightaway here and let's test out the paddle shifters of this 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack. All right, here we go, you guys. Bad, actually pretty quick reacting paddle shifters. Not the quickest I've ever tested, but I've tested a lot of sports cars, but they're not bad. They're certainly not, I definitely would say they are comparable to the Mustangs paddle shifters, so they're right around the same reaction times there. I did take it a little bit easy on that acceleration with the paddle shifters there because the roads are still wet. It is 9 a.m. this morning, so I didn't want to slide into a ditch or anything. But having said that, let's now do a quick little acceleration, give it a little more gas than the paddle shifter test there, and let's go ahead and see how quickly we can get this new 2020 Challenger Scat Pack here. Up to speed. All right, you guys, and here we go. Oh boy, spinning. Let's go. Dang, this car is fun. I love American muscle.  Even though I slipped in first gear, pretty much as expected, I literally just drove through a puddle before he did that, but dang, this is a very enjoyable car.  But as always, to go along with that acceleration, braking is equally important.  That goes for $2,200, by the way. But we actually do have that package today, and as far as the braking feel goes, let's go ahead and hit the brakes here. It's brilliant. There's certainly no issues with bringing the Challenger to a stop, so very, very nice bite on the brakes, so love that. What's it, anyways? Then touching on suspension and handling a little bit, up front you're gonna get a McPherson strut front suspension in the back, an independent multi-link rear suspension, and I did want to mention there is an adaptive damping system, and so that is gonna be standard with the wide-body scat pack, but it's actually optional with the standard scat pack that we have here today, and by the way, that's a $995 option if you wanted to put it on the standard scat pack, at least, and really, that is something that I would definitely recommend. It's also an option for the Mustang. It's one that I did not go with, but it is probably the one thing that I wish I would have gotten because that is essentially gonna give you the best of both worlds. It is gonna soak up the road in perfections, giving you a smoother ride, but at the same time, it's also gonna tighten up the suspension during heavy cornering, giving you better handling, of course, as well, so again, best of both worlds for $995. I would definitely recommend that. But speaking of ride quality, the ride quality's been great so far today. Certainly less punishing than my Mustang, but then again, I've lowered my Mustang with 20-inch wheels, so I kind of was asking for it there, I guess you could say, but yeah, nonetheless, ride quality is absolutely brilliant, at least for a sports car, so no issues there. Steering feel has been actually great so far as well, and we'll say the steering feel does get adjusted, as I mentioned earlier, dependent upon the drive mood that you put it in, so in that sport mode that I literally just put it in, the steering feel is great. It's absolutely no issues there, definitely a fan. Touching on cabin noise a little bit, perhaps the only cabin noise I'm really getting is some of these tiny little gravel things going up in the wheel well, but other than that, the exhaust note is very nice actually. For a stock exhaust system, it definitely has a nice exhaust note coming into the cabin, and I will do an exhaust clip later in the video to stick around, but still, definitely actually enjoying the cabin noise if there is such a thing, but anyway, it's then touching on visibility, I could see perfectly fine out the back, really the only muscle car that you're gonna have any kind of issues with when it comes to visibility is the Camaro, and that's kind of like a, I guess a pony car anyways, but nonetheless, visibility is great in the Challenger, so no issues there for me. And I did want to mention there is a technology package I guess for around $1300. That is gonna also add rain sensing windshield wipers, meaning whenever the Challenger detects even a slight drizzle, it's gonna automatically put on those windshield wipers, and that's always nice, it's kind of like automatic headlights. One less thing you have to worry about so you get better focus on actually enjoying the drive in the Challenger, so that's kind of a cool thing too, but anyways, that about rounds out the performance segment of this review. Let's now go ahead and take a look at the exterior because there are plenty of changes there, and I will be going over them. So let's go ahead and take a look at the exterior of this new 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack. All right, you guys, and here she is, the 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack finished in octane red, in case you were curious. And by the way, why don't we go ahead and start with the colors? There are no new colors for the 2020 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack, however, some colors have been deleted, including sublime exterior, plum crazy B5 blue, destroyer gray and maximum steel. So previous colors that were available in 2019, those are no longer available for 2020, but do want to first touch on, let's touch on the shaker package because we do have that as an option here today. By the way, that goes for $2,595 that includes the shaker hood that of course you were looking at right now, and that comes with a shaker intake by Mopar of course as well. And of course you have some shaker badging throughout this one. There is also a shaker under hood decal as well and a white face instrument cluster, which I thought was so retro and so freaking cool looking on the inside. And that of course is what you're looking at right now. And I'll get more into the gauges later, but nonetheless, let's go ahead and start up front on this one. Challenger and RT badging found within that front grill. Projector headlights will come standard with daytime running lights of course, and the automatic feature for those headlights, meaning when it starts to get dark out, it will turn on automatically for you there. HID headlights are available with the driver confidence group that goes for $1,295. And that is actually what you were looking at right now. And that actually includes blind spot monitor with rear cross traffic alert as well. And just below it, all you will find fog lights for any setup that you go with as well. They do come standard. But now let's go ahead and make our way to the side on this one. Of course, first thing I'll always have to mention is that B logo, that Scat Pack B logo found on the front fender there. Also black windows surrounds will come standard. Wide fender arches if you go with the wide body, of course. That is definitely not what you're looking at right now. When it comes to their side mirrors, they are body colored power adjustable side mirrors and they will actually come heated as well. And take a look down at the wheel setup. 20 by nine inch double five spoke alloys will come standard with high performance all season tires. So yes, you can even drive it in cold weather here in Pennsylvania. It's definitely a plus. 20 by nine point five inch double five spoke alloys will come with the dynamics package that of course is what you're looking at right now. And again, they come with high performance all season tires. And if you were to go with a wide body setup that bumps the width up to 20 by 11 inch double five spoke alloys. So definitely good to fill in those wheel arches, of course, but let's go ahead and make our way to the back. Shark fin antenna finished in a matte black up top there. When it comes to this rear spoiler, the standard setup is gonna be different, of course, than what you were currently looking at right now. There is a satin black rear spoiler with the B logo on the spoiler that by the way is new for 2021 of the changes for this year. However, you are looking at the SRT performance spoiler right now that goes for $695. I love the look of it. Honestly, it looks very similar to the one I have on my Mustang right now actually. So it looks good. LED tail lights will come standard of course and just below it all, perhaps what everybody has been waiting for. Dual exhaust outlets with chrome tips. So I do believe you guys know what is coming next. As always, here is that exhaust clip. And so now since we are around back, when it comes to opening that rear trunk there, there is actually a button on the key fob. Simply press that twice. That is one way you're gonna go ahead and open that rear trunk. It's also a button by the driver's side left knee. That is the second way. And lastly, there is a button just above the license plate back there, rubberized button. That is the third way you can go about opening that rear trunk. But once opened up, there is some cargo lighting back there. I did want to mention that, but cargo capacity is gonna come in at 16.2 cubic feet. If that was not enough space, there is a 60-40 split, meaning the rear seats do fold down for quite a bit of extra space there if you needed it. Make your way up to the legroom. This is definitely one of the things the Challenger has over the Camaro and Mustang. Rear legroom comes in at 33.1 inches. Mustang comes in at 29 inches. Flat Camaro, 29.1 inches. So quite a difference here with the Challenger. For reference, I'm in even six feet tall. Still a bit cramped, I gotta be honest, but this is a two door, but you probably could find a way to make it work within adult net rear seat to be quite honest. Reference again, I'm in even six feet tall. This is how much space I had back there. Did what I also mentioned though, it gets even better. There's a rear center armrest with cup holders for those rear passengers. That is brilliant. You don't get that with the Mustang. I can't tell you that. And in addition to that, rear ventilation is well. Another thing that you don't get with the Mustang, but you do with the Challenger. I love that. Well done Dodge for all of that, but making your way up to the front seats, power adjustable cloth seating with the B logo will come standard. However, with the Plus package, I guess for $1,895, you actually do get a leather Alcantara seating setup. And that of course is actually what you're looking at right now, but either way, front seats will be heated and that does come standard. So that's definitely a plus as well. Now let's go ahead and take a look at the steering wheel. It is tilt and telescoping. It is leather wrapped coming standard. And if you go with the Dynamics package, it does come with a flat bottom as well. And this particular steering wheel today actually is power adjustable. It's something that surprised me when I first got in here. It is not manually adjustable. It is power adjustable like the Lexuses or Audis that I review. So I thought that was a kind of cool little luxury feature there, but nonetheless, it will come heated actually as well. But now let's go ahead and make our way to the startup. Let me first start by showing you guys the key here. You do have your Dodge logo on the one side. And when you flip it over, lock, unlock, the button to pop the rear hatch and that circular button with the times two. That is actually your remote start. So that is freaking sweet too. Warming up the Challenger on two days in PA. Not so much like today. It's kind of nice out today actually, but that's always a plus. But to start this one, all I'm going to do actually is just simply put my foot on the brake and press that engine start button coming standard by the way, located just by the driver's right knee there. It's super that once started up as I had previously mentioned because of the shaker package that we have today, the gauges are finished with a white face, tachometers on your left speedometers on your right. There is a pretty large digital display as well, front and center. To control what is on that digital display, simply use the steering wheel mounted controls on the left side there. It's going to give you a ton of different things like a digital speedometer. You could check out your tire pressure information engine temp, oil temp, all that fun stuff. But perhaps my favorite part about the gauge display on the Challenger is the performance pages. So you're going to have things like a zero to 60 timer, a zero to 100 timer, quarter mile timer, braking distance, G4 statistics, also a lap timer, but perhaps the best part that the Mustang does not come with with its performance pages is your top speed history. So it will show the very fastest that this car has ever been. And I absolutely love that. Ford, if you're watching this video somehow, put it in the Mustang because that is awesome. I absolutely love that. But of course you got a ton of other things that you can check out, fuel economy, trip information, as expected, radio information. When you need your next oil change and the list goes on. So I'll probably just leave it on the digital speedometer, I like that. But when it comes to overall interior quality, power sunroof, we do have that today. That is an option for $1,295, yet another feature you can't get on the Mustang. If you wanted ambient lighting, you can actually get that with the plus package again that goes for $1,895. But since I keep mentioning it, that plus package does also add a premium stitched dash and door panels and some alcantara seating of course as well. And as I was mentioning earlier, the shaker accents, you can find some shaker lettering found around the passenger side air vent to the right there, just above the glove box. So that's pretty cool that they put it on the inside and not only just on the outside, but universal garage door openers will actually come standard on the Challenger Scat Pack, love that too. And that could be found kind of on the ceiling of the Scat Pack here for up to three different garage doors. Dual zoom climate control does also come standard. One of the cool things I like about the Challenger Scat Pack too, since I'm going super in depth with this one as I always do, when you open up the glove box, you do have your normal glove box area, but you also do have a tray area just on top. It looks like honestly, they set it up in two compartments. The right side you can put maybe your Glock and the left side you can put the bullets. So when you go to the shooting range, that is where you're gonna be able to store that. So that's pretty cool. Also, another thing I found interesting is the lever to open the doors. Usually they're found a little higher up in other manufacturers. They're pretty darn low here in the Challenger. It's not a bad thing. It's a different thing. I kind of like different, but it's just something to get used to, I guess. Demona also mentioned it's a little storage area just to the right of the shifter. You got dual cup holders just behind that. And when you open up the center armrest, you have a 12 volt power outlet, two USB charging ports and an auxiliary port as well. So overall, interior quality is not that bad. I wouldn't mind some contrast colors in here, maybe instead of just the all black setup. It's still a very nice interior quality, especially for a muscle car. But now let's go ahead and take a look at the tech display on this one. 8.4 inch color touchscreen display will come standard. That will, of course, come with Bluetooth and audio streaming, Android, auto and Apple CarPlay also coming standard. That's always a big selling point for me because that means you can hook up your smartphone to the Challenger and therefore, you have free navigation display as well as the ability to like and dislike your Pandora songs. There's a couple other compatible apps as well. If you did want a factory navigation system, although you don't need it these days, you can get it for an additional $795 there. Climate control information can be displayed up there as well. And of course, all your performance settings. So if you wanted to change the drive modes, as I was saying previously, you can do that through that infotainment screen as well as activating line lock. You can warm up the tires before you actually get to the line. And of course, you got launch control and you can adjust that as well for any drag racing that you plan on doing. So that's pretty cool too. But of course, you can check out your radio settings as pretty much as expected. But by the way, when it comes to this sound system, you will get six speakers and 276 watts. That is the standard setup. However, there is a nine speaker, 506 watt Alpine sound system that is optional for $995. That is the one we have today and you guys know what we have to do next then. Let's go ahead and turn on the radio so we got playing this morning and let's test out the clarity of this one.  I've never heard that before. That was awesome. And of course, the classic is good too, but that was pretty cool. I actually didn't mind that. But nonetheless, bass is really, really nice. Clarity is just fine. Really no issues whatsoever with that Alpine sound system. But last thing on that tech display that I wanted to mention to you guys is when you do put the Challenger Scat Pack in reverse, of course, you will find a rear view camera letting you know who or what is behind you, which is always is going to lead us into safety. And so to start, you do have front side and side curtain airbags. In the back, you're going to have latch, AKA lower anchors and tethers for children if you wanted to put a rear car seat back there. Tire pressure monitoring system will also come standard. Hill start assist also standard. That's probably a big one if you go with the six-speed manual. Driver confidence group, I wanted to mention that. That goes for $1,295. That's going to give you a blind spot monitoring system with rear cross traffic alert and those HID headlights I mentioned earlier. Then there's the technology group, same price, $1,295. That gives you automatic high beams, rain-sensing windshield wipers, adaptive cruise control, and forward collision warning. And so that is about it for this one, you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Feel free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen there if you like. Be sure to hit the subscribe and the bell notification button if you're into new car reviews. That is what we do here on this channel. After all, do appreciate you guys watching more than you know and I will see you guys all in the next video. Stay gold. I just realized I am in kilometers per hour. Why? What am I doing?


2014 through 2018, Northern California was under siege. I had no cell, no internet, no TV. I didn't know what was going on. Unusually aggressive wildfires. Among them, 2017's Wall Fire and 2019's Sweetie's Fire. State of emergency in Butte County where a fast fire... Entire towns burned and trapped residents. Some died, but none was as deadly as the campfire. She called me up to say goodbye on her cell phone. But then the cell lost its signal. Too often was the terrifying inability to communicate with loved ones, with anyone. It was gut wrenching. It was like having a knife inserted into your stomach and then twisted because I was under the impression for about five hours that my wife had died a fiery and horrific death. Oh, thank God I got out of there. Okay. Fires burned through phone, cable and power lines as well as cell towers. I have no cell signal. I can't do anything. There was no information on what to do, where to go, or just how dangerous the situations were. When I didn't have communication with the outside world, I'm vulnerable. I don't like this. This isn't going to work for me. So, Lois Miller connected with fellow Butte County neighbor Marissa Broward Gifford to figure out some kind of solution to the communication breakdown. A fire in these east foothills. Is a fire for all of us. Is a fire for the South County. Is a fire for South County.  People like Marissa and Lois, who live in rural areas, have to rely more on themselves and each other during emergencies. It could take too much time for help to arrive, if at all. Lois and Marissa held a community meeting in July of 2019. A hundred people showed up and they all felt the same. Helpless. It was time for that to change. By the end of that meeting, a solution was proposed. Expert recommendations from two men who happened to be at that meeting. Kevin Fullerton and Theodore Cochran. How are we going to communicate? Radios, batteries, a network, come on. We can do this. There's a way. General Mobile Radio Service or GMRS. It's a two-way radio system similar to those family walkie-talkies with much more power and transmission distance. This is WREA 9-1-1. John, are you available? Over. This is Whiskey Romeo Echo Alpha 864. Hi, Lois. In two months, Lois bought her first radio. Soon after, about 75 of her neighbors bought them too. They put units in their homes, in their cars, and installed antennas on their roofs to get the most distance, some 50 miles or more. But there was still one problem. That ridge separating the east zone of Butte County from the west. Right out here is the dam. So from that point there, going all the way down this ridge line to Bangor is the affected area. No worries. Theodore had the expertise and a plan. Okay, well over my shoulder is the repeater antenna. An antenna that will capture all those GMRS signals, send them to this repeater, and then back out the antenna to radios miles away. It gave us the ability to tie the two zones together, which gave us the full coverage area that we were looking for. And that includes a direct two-way signal to the Butte County Sheriff's Office. Kevin Fullerton is a Butte County Sheriff's Reserve Communications Officer. When a wildfire strikes, he and his team of 15 volunteers will be able to talk directly to everyone using the GMRS radios in the Mount Ida community and will for the first 12 hours of any critical emergency. And we're going to be sharing evacuation routes, the knowledge that we know about the situation, how it's playing out, and what we're doing to get people out of the area. Power outages and downed cell towers and phone lines are no longer an obstacle to communications. These radios are backed up with batteries. Linda Oslin's neighbors have gathered at her Mount Ida home. They all spent the $250 to $600 for the radios and have nothing but praise for their new lifelines. I can get on that radio if I need to contact somebody very fast without having to remember a phone number or where my cell phone is or something like that. For me, it's very comforting and just to hear voices too. John F. for a radio check. You can always find somebody on the radio and word of mouth is invaluable in an emergency situation. It took just a little time to learn how to use it. Every Tuesday night, the Mount Ida community conducts their net control. A roll call of sorts giving everyone a chance to say hello and practice. Yeah, you're not alone. It's a party line. It's a party line. You get to know your neighbors. There's always somebody on the party line. This old school technology has given them peace of mind, something today's technology couldn't. Got the radio. First time we did our roll call, I slept like a log.


T F N N headline news update Welcome folks to your 2 p.m. Update. I'm Steve Rhodes right now. We've got the Dow up 75 points She's trading out at twenty five thousand nine ninety S&P's up twelve NASDAQ 142 Russell is up a nine if we just focus in on the well in the New York Stock Exchange of 26 points So if we take a look at the Dow just to get a feel for what it's doing out here from the standpoint of topping signals We know that the Dow formed wave number seven is part of the Chapman wave. It did this out here on the 25th of February price has rejected what's called steve's green line. That's the oscillator and change line 26 050 if price closes underneath 26 050 out there We've got another failure or signal of at least a short term top inside of the Dow If we take a look at the S&P 500 the cash in to see it to form wave number seven letter number g The nine count for the Tom DeMark set up nine count and price right now at 27 96 is basically Right on steve's green line. So a close below we'll call 27 96 this is called 96 would suggest a failure and that a short term top would be in play What happens if price closes over that? Well, let's not talk about that. I just posed a question No, we'll talk about it if I've got a second here if we look at the NDX 100 The NDX 100 has got that Tom DeMark set up nine count out here It's trading above steve's green line. The ideal setup in the NDX 100 is that it closes above its open therefore, we have a green bodied candle And then you get the reversal signal on Monday The NDX 100 is even though it has a topping signal, there's been no failure of support inside of the NDX 100 If we take a look at the new york stock exchange the same kind of setup out here It's got wave number seven. It's got number nine that Tommy DeMark set up nine count price below steve's green line Green red line 12,007 05 and price is moving higher with less relative energy out there Each of these are signals that the market is trying to top But what if it closes above all of those levels? Look, these are just signals that it's trying to form a top There have been no levels of support other than steve's green and red line That may be broken. We won't know till the end of the day. Hey, be safe out there for a great weekend I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Take care


Welcome to dealing with materials data, we are looking at the collection analysis and interpretation of data from material science and engineering. And we are in the module on data processing and in this session we are going to learn about estimating the mean and the mean squared deviation of data. So these are the properties of data, the mean of the data basically tells where the, if you assume that the data is normally distributed for example, it tells you actually what is the value about which you see a spread. But if you do not assume anything about the distribution of the data, the mean also tells you the likelihood estimate or maximum likelihood estimate for the given parameter. Mean squared deviation basically tells you the spread of the data and root mean squared deviation is just root of this quantity, so it is also a measure of the spread of the data. So mean is very simple, so you add all values and divide by the total number of data points. So if you have data with unequal statistical weights, then you have to make sure that you weigh by the weight and then take the average. In fact, for data with unequal statistical weights, any average calculation is to be weighed by the weighting function W i and normalized by summation W i and if you take the this W i is themselves normalized in such a way that summation W i is 1, it is just summation W i X i. We will see an example, we will look at the cluster size frequency data that we have digitized and used to look at taking means of this type.  So X i minus mean whole squared is the squared deviation from the mean from the average and you are taking a mean of that by just dividing by the total number of data points. And root mean squared deviation from the average is just the square root of this value, this is msd and so rmsd is just square root of this. So let us do this for the data that we have, let us start R and let us start with this exercise. So I am going to do the DP conductivity data and mean is of course 101.32, that is straightforward. You can calculate the, so what did we do? We took the conductivity and subtracted the mean from every value, we squared it and we took the sum of all those squares and divided by the total number of points. So that was the mean squared deviation and of course you can also print the root mean squared deviation. So you can see that 0.0096 is the mean squared deviation and 0.09979959 is the root mean squared deviation and how do we do this for data, let us do that exercise also with different statistical weights. So that is what we want to do, first let us calculate the mean, the average. So we need to read the data and we need to decide how many data points are there and then we need to give the weight, the frequency and then we have to divide by the sum of the frequency because this is WI, the frequency is the statistical weight and we are going to add them all up so that we will normalize it. So this is the way to calculate the average. So this is 239 and because the data as you have seen, so if you plot, so you will see that the peak is somewhere around 240, so the average turns out to be 240. So that is expected. Now let us calculate the mean squared deviation and root mean squared deviation. So this is another way you can get the weights themselves normalized first so that they add up to 1 and of course you will get the same number because it is just the algebra, nothing else is different. So now let us calculate the mean squared deviation. So how do we calculate the mean squared deviation? You can see that it is the same way so we take each x value and subtract the average and square the value but now this has to be weighed by the weighting function and weighting function is something that we just now calculated. So we are and remember it is the other type of weighting function so I took all the frequencies first I summed all the frequencies so divided by it so I have the weighing factor. This weighting factor is what I am going to use so this is the statistical weight for me to do the calculations. So mean squared deviation is nothing but mean squared deviation and this sum W is going to give 1 so that is the mean squared deviation. So I see mean squared deviation is 1020 and root mean squared deviation of course is nothing but square root of mst. So you get about 32 as the spread of this data which is what is given here also. So to summarize in this session we have seen that you can take data it could be raw data or it could be data with unequal statistical weights that you got from some analyzed data. In both cases you can calculate the average and you can calculate the spread of the data by looking at how far away from the average the data points lie and so we use mean squared deviation and root mean squared deviation to get this spread of the data. So we have shown that for two cases one is copper conductivity the other one is the particle size of titanium aggregates that we have taken from the literature. So we will have more such exercises during this week sessions for you to become familiar with this kind of analysis. Thank you.


good morning everyone morning thank you for attending our talk this research is about replay attacks SRM smart contracts now let me give a brief self introduction I must emphasize here that deng shen bai is a primary researcher he didn't mark he did more than a half over the work but for some issues of research he can't attend this talk today so the job is all to introduce the research to you my name is Yiwei Zhang I am a security researcher of Yun Kong team and this is my colleague Kun Zhe Cai Yun Kong team is a research group within 360 technology the team was formed in 2014 we fixed on the security issues in numerous types of wireless systems but we also encourage members to do other research that they are interested in this this is why we also have this topic today's talk can present four parts at the beginning we will introduce the background of blockchain smart contract and SRM then we will discuss security issues about potential risks in smart contracts suddenly we will talk about the key point replay attack and we are going to show why it exists and how it works and the last one is the demonstration of replay attacks and the statistical analysis of similar vulnerabilities now let Kun Zhe Cai show you the first part hello hello everyone as you know my name is Kun Zhe Cai I come from China so the first topic is in background and mainly about the instruction of related files of replay attacks like blockchain smart contacts or SRM so we've heard some news about blockchain but what is blockchain yeah blockchain so to speak is a large-stake globally directly computer network and the users can interact with it by sending transitions each processing is messaged with cryptographic central and the order of presentation enforced is a demand by mechanism called the global call global conditions the advantage of blockchain are listed here it has unified the test best ways to repair the concerns which allows a statement to be completed with three within three to sixty a sixty second rather than three days or and more it offers a way with a large-scale fault tolerance in which system can withstand 33 to 40% not a feature or still operate normally under the control of hackers blockchain does not really trust and not controlled by any single administrator or organization except for prevailed chain and extra team chain so it is able to be audited external observer can verify the history of transitions it can operate auto auto moments without any human involvement so next then what to actually can blockchain achieve first it can actual actual cryptical claims which is digital asset on the blockchain right right now sorry sorry public chains offer their own tokens to remind the rate of updating transitions and the insertives the limitations of blockchain next it has some non-monetary feature in include the reclaw the rate reclaw the as a DNS based on blockchain and time-stamp makings out of to crack high value data then blockchain systems for some other other functionality including including concepts that can actual custom custom the Dignos and the Dictos and assets exchange Dicto assets are all for option and face call deal with this and generally computer I'm sorry my poor English so I tried to relax sorry for now we have no made we have no many application of blockchain in the field of management how about those things no no fancy field about twenty-thirty the public release that the blockchain can be used in hundreds of application besides the com besides the com beside that and such as and such as asset domain name recognition and ownership recognition market for market for setting and internet of things working and so on and how to realize those applications we need the smart contact what is smart contact it is a computer program running in a secure environment that actually that automatically transfers the Dicto assets are according to previous previous rules for example I will give you a tips support your bed with your girlfriend that she will give you give you 100 bucks if you can figure out what's what's inside her shopping bag maybe that is the dress or t-shirt and you made it but your girlfriend will not pay you anything you haven't you have to accept it because that you have no other way to get your reward however if there is a smart contact once you made your guess current and the cooler will automatically be enforced and there's a risk and there's a reward in real solution it it might be a Dicto token will come into your pocket your pocket so smart contacts are a piece of coder living in the blockchain and and enforcing certain fun certain personalities how do you construct the secure environment for smart contact certainly there are many public chains for smart contacts and let's see the most popular one as some what is that some it's a blockchain with a built-in programming language and it offers maximum app server and and worst that Lee so it is very ideal to process smart contracts as some has a secure update operation system called as some called as some very virtual machine also as also known as the EVM this is not encapsulate by a sandbox but in fact but in fact it is complete isolated well that is a coder that run inside the EVM does not have access to the network or five system or another proxies even some other contracts have limited contact with with another or other smart contracts with EVM so our smart contacts can be used in many things one of them is one of them is the financial since a fantasy including hedging contracts saving wallet and the other now ventures in include includes online voting the center disorganized the managing and managing managing and the DS3 connotations hmm however with increasing speed of application of SM and a smart contact many security issues come along hmm according to an ally and an elite and the league a call according to analytics 100 and the southern the news users joins as some ecosystem daily on the average they are they are called they are quite active and in for delay transit and transit stations over one million times on the SM this is this is increasing make this tactic attack many eyes from hackers and security as security issues come up for more frequently in many parts of our ecosystem such as such as exchange wallet wallet and the smart con atc there are there are several security security issues come up including change attack and the wallet hygiene or the hijacking and the overflow attack in a smart contact as to smart contact which is most one binti one binti ball in the as them there are also many security issues and just for 20 and 18 in April contact such as BS will detect with detect with one binti in my security attacks to several contact like edu or other in June there are another security issue there are other another security issues reported to smart contact like SNS or this open air loopholes made a huge impact on the module module exchange affecting several functions including talking as nature talking deep talking deposit and a token deposit and the talking with draw according to the most recent research papers from a share guy and university college London after organizing be close to one million smart contact and 34,000 of them are one binti ball to hacking and they also same they also they also assemble another 3,759 so in the case of this smart contact and found that 18 at eight and nine percent of them currently loopholes so so how to lower the probability of loss first we require a complete and objective doubt for our contact and second and second we and second when any loopholes is found we need to make we need to make any abundance respond to a response so that we could now at first at first time well at first time of these contact is beginning attack and the third they are there need to be some it may relate a reverse for those who detect and report any bugs to to positive to positive instant as a whole system is operate and so next part is my college my is a has some guidance you and by the way I'm very sorry my English so so give you next good one I am back now next we are going to fix on the issue of replay attacks in smart contract now let me explain the concepts of replay attack as a distinguished from replay attack in traditional network world it's not to capture and the recent package that is if a transaction is legitimate on one blockchain it's also legitimate another blockchain so when you transfer BTC one your BTC two or BTC three may be transferred at the same time that is the replay attack in blockchain to replay attack we found that that many smart contracts adopted the same way to verify the validity of the signature and it's possible for replay attack our motivation is that we propose replay attacks all smart contracts and we should to attract the user's attention we try to detect the vulnerability in smart contracts and make them more secure finally we want to enhance the risk awareness for contract a creator and then you hear it interests of investors to achieve our goal we have done several things that we found that the replay attack a problem exists in 52 smart contracts and we analyzed the smart contract example to verify the replay attack we analyzed the source and the process of replay attack to expand the feasibility of replay attack in principle we also verify the replay attack based on the signature vulnerability and finally we proposed defense strategy to prevent this problem then I'm going to show you something the first item is water ability scanning our aim is to get the name and the number of water ability or replay attack in smart contracts and then we set the three scanning stands to discover the smart contracts which have the water ability first judging whether the contract is accorded with the RC20 standard this requires the total supply to be greater than zero second get the name of the contract to determine whether the name is valid certainly failed the smart contract so vulnerable to replay attack the SRM provide if they they if they recover function to verify signature if I contract to use that is a recover function it was marketed as suspicious this scanning program can be found at the following site it's a in our good hub storage after we audited and the Wi-Fi to the scan output we found the 52 risk targets and this is the code to scan the RC20 token contract you can get it from the GitHub from our GitHub storage why does the replay attack occur the signature of a user were utilized in smart contracts if the contents of the signature were not correctly limited by the smart contract there is possibility of replay attack such as the interface transfer proxy her is an example the contents of the MTC contract signature and the contents of the UGT contract signature are exactly the same this is an example in the contract the issue lens like this line the KECA K256 function calculated the hash and the hash is the input of the signature so we can see in the parameter of this function it's just a form to value fee and announce there is nothing related to the contract itself exactly now let me explain the attack process was that part of the transaction in a contract one you the a wanted to transfer 100 tokens to you the B through proxy C and the access address three tokens should be paid for proxy C as a service fee in this process they input all the signature of user A should be a B 103 and the latest month one then the transfer were carried by proxy C after this transaction being completed you the B can get 100 tokens from you the a was suppose you the a doesn't carry out the transfer are a contract to through proxy so the latest announce is also one we're suppose you the now the replay attack starts after we see 100 tokens from you the a you the B replay the signature of you the a in from I I counter one in I counter two now he can get another 100 tokens in I counter two without the permission of you the a that is to see this smart contract I counter two were attacked by you the B and the 100 tokens of you they were stolen next to verify the existence of this vulnerability we conducted an experiment the experiment condition at least as as follow we choose two ERC 20 smart contracts the UGT contracts and the MTC contract then we create two accounts Alice and Bob next we deposit some tokens in the two accounts in corresponding contracts and the procedure of this verification is that in step one the normal transaction records on the SRM or a scan to find out accounts which is both high with which has both UGT tokens and MTC tokens but here we use two accounts Alice and Bob in step two Bob we induce the anything to send him to UGT tokens and the transaction input data is shown below the lens 0 to 6 corresponds to the augmentation of the function transfer transfer proxies in step 3 Bob take out the input data of this transaction on the blockchain the parameter from to value fee are way and as well it's the credit from from this method the following is the implementation of the transfer function in step 4 Bob will use the input data in step 2 to execute another transfer in the smart contract of MTC the result of this transaction is shown as below step 5 Bob got only not only two UGT tokens but also two MTC tokens from Alice in this procedure the transfer of two MTC tokens was not authorized by Alice now we come into the final part demonstration and the analytics and to begin with the demonstration we select two contracts the UGT contracts and the MTC contracts then we send to our own accounts Alice and Bob Alice is the sender and Bob is the receiver both the two accounts own some tokens for transferring next this is the port code in the code of the parameter from to value fee we are as are all acquired from UGT this is the call as the parameter read from the chain the parameter are as and away a signature in another token replay from to fee are exactly the same as the last call and the simple proxy transfer scenario is that first they use a dedicated startup party UGT to help him transfer tokens UGT gets the address of the contract and creates the instance of the tokens to be transferred after that they will get the signature from UGA and they invoke the transfer function provided by the contract to send the tokens to the token receiver UB then the proxy see we are wait for the information that the minor hide down the package process and the finally transaction process of finishing now let me show you the demo for comparison I curious the balance of Bob on both UGT contract and the MTC contract he has six tokens on both the two contracts now I transfer three tokens from Alice to Bob on UGT contracts through a pro theory with a few seconds for the minor to pack okay it's finished now I curious the signature and I curious the balance of Bob on both UGT contracts and MTC contract again the balance on UGT is 9 but on the MTC it's still 6 I copy the parameters from UGT to MTC and the start the replay attack you can see I just needed to input the the password all proxies I don't need it to input the password of Alice it means that we don't need the permission of Alice it's finished now I curious the balance of Bob on MTC we can see the balance is 9 is 9 now so Bob stole three tokens of Alice on MTC contract to show you the impact of this vulnerability we also made some related statistics and analysis by April 27th the vulnerability of this replay attack risk exists in 52 a theorem smart contracts finally according to the vulnerability of the replay attack we divided these contracts into three group the group one the R10 contracts there no specific information is contained in the signature of smart contract so the signature can be fully reused and in the group two there are 37 contracts in these contracts the specific string is added into the input of the signature but the signature is still can be reused in the group 3 the address of the contract or the address of the sender is contained in the signature of smart contract but there are strong restrictions but then you still have the possibility of replay attack secondly we classified these contracts by feasible replay attack approach five contracts can be replayed in the specific contract itself and another 45 contracts can be replayed between different contracts besides we divided these 45 contracts into three groups for the specific perfect data used in the signature cause the contract replays may happen among any contracts as long as they are in the same group the group one and the group two both eight specific identical data to the input of signature we mark the specific perfect data used in group one as data one and we mark the specific perfect data used in group two as data two so for example you can see the data two in these contracts is the same string as a random sender messaging in group two in group three they don't add any prefix data to the input of signature just from to value free and the last and then there are two chains can be replayed between testing and the main chain certainly according to the trading frequency or above mentioned the contracts by April 13th 24 contracts were found which had the transaction records within one week and the night contracts were found which have the transaction records from one week to one month the proportion of nearly 20% of the total number of the contract is active 16 contracts were found which have the transaction records beyond one month and three contracts only have the records for deployment so according to the comprehensive analysis 16 percent of the contract transactions are still active the reason for replay attacking smart contract is that they misuse the signature when constructing the contract the contractor so our contract manuals are listed here first the designers of smart contract should always conform the suitable range of digital signature when designing smart contracts second the smart contracts deployed on public chain should aid in the specific information of the public chain such as the charity and the name of the public chain and other identity card information finally the user of smart contracts need to pay attention to news and report and reports concerning the vulnerability disclosure and the conclusion is that the security problems of smart contracts have been widely concerned as long as the signature was misused in smart contracts there is possibility of replay attack we believe that the water abilities on the Ethereum of smart contracts have not totally come to light thank you for listening our topic if some guys have some question of this attack and you can send mail to you can send the mail to us thank you