I'm Stuart here. I am with Matt Ricketts and my good friend Kevin Kunkle. This is smart business moves Wednesday August 18th. Wow. We're past the halfway mark in the month of August. How's everybody doing today? It's a good day. Good day Yeah, um, Liz wanted me to give everybody her Apologies for not being here today Apologies are necessary. Hey, Denit. How are you today? She was traveling and she was on her way to Dallas yesterday and they went into some weather wound up spending a night in Kansas City that she didn't plan to and eventually made her way to Dallas sometime this morning, but Too many moving parts. So we're gonna hold down the fort without Liz today But it's going to be good because Kevin Has some good information you guys are all going to benefit from I've worked with Kevin for a long period of time and He's going to be able to give us some information that's going to be useful regarding, you know, building your organization He does workforce development. He'll explain what that's about. He works with a lot of Department of Labor agencies. He knows where some money is out there that we might be able to get to assist ourselves with building our workforce and It's got a pretty interesting a career background and he'll have a story or two to share with us I'm sure that that that will be good Before we jump in all that though I just just want to take a minute and and you know say that we've been watching the COVID numbers kind of tick up and I Guess it's not really getting as better as thought as it's not getting better as quickly as we thought it would It's not getting better right now. Is it mad? No, I had a kind of anecdotally you know, there's a County that's adjacent to where I'm at Jefferson County. We do serve part of it and You know, definitely not a county that I would have thought would do this But they went to an all-mask mandate in the schools this week They they started off masks without masks the last two weeks There's just hundreds and hundreds of cases through KK through 12. It's a pretty big Pretty big pretty big district and they were they were mask-free all through COVID last year and kind of got through You know, maybe a case here a case there, but this seems to be a little different now You know no serious cases that I'm aware of as of yet but That's going on right now, but on the flip side my daughter's been in school for two weeks At a private girls high school and the vaccination rates about 95 9 to 95 percent of that school You know between the educators and the students and there is some mandatory testing, but they've had zero cases So there are some models of both things that are that are happening out there That I'm kind of aware of from my own experience and then from what's in the news here locally But the the red the county Jefferson County going to masks was surprising because we have a statewide No mask rule that's kind of coming down from the government Governor and so surprising from the go against that Yeah, same thing here in South Carolina the legislature passed a law prohibiting school districts to make masks mandatory Schools in my particular area though the school district said that we were going to mandate masks anyway So they did all these announcements went out yesterday today was the first day of school So supposedly they're Mandating mask wearing but I understand from talking to kids who went to school today that it really isn't being enforced so I don't know what that's about but This is an interesting data point. I'll share them We'll move on this is from a school district in the western part of the state of South Carolina And they're doing virtual learning and they started off This would have been their first week in school as well And the reason they're doing virtual learning is a year ago at this time They had three students under or quarantine. So this would have been August of 2020 COVID was still very much a thing And nobody was really testing positive at that time out of their student population This same time this year they get 634 students under quarantine and 142 of them tested positive so 100 the thing that there 163 positive 142 have been able to return. Oh Thank you so I Guess the thing that's different is the Delta variant is more contagious for kids than what it was a year ago So all these numbers we've been looking at about we think COVID is going to start burning through and getting better here in a while Well, the thing that some people are starting to speculate is maybe we did in fact or and Sending kids back to school when you know, that might be a complication that could drag this thing out Longer than what it would be otherwise not to say that sending kids back to school is not a good thing They need to go back to school. I just Don't know what that's going to mean to All the staffing challenges that we're having because I know I've been seeing it in my business I know other people have as well where they've had people out because they've really been exposed or sick themselves And even people have been vaccinated or testing positive if you layer over that if they wound up doing more of this In-home learning it's just going to be more people that aren't going to be available in the workforce and I Think that recruiting now is more difficult than it was a month ago It's what I'm seeing, you know You know, you can blame it on several factors including, you know additional stimulus funds that you know might make it easier for people to decide to go to a One-income family into the two-income family or or whatever the whatever the you know logic is but yeah I think that COVID still is playing a factor a factor in keeping people from coming back to work And and sounds like you know, it's free babysitting to a lot of employees during the school year, you know They're you know, they're relying on it to to be able to work from eight to four on a given day So yeah, that worries me if you know, we have any more virtual learning how that's going to play out Well I'd like to bring Kevin into the discussion Kevin has I've worked with Kevin G. We worked on projects over 20 years ago Started out actually working with Kevin's brother Cal back in the 90s mid 90s, maybe Um Castlekeepers is a contractor with the welfare to work program, which was like when Bill Clinton was president, right? and Kevin's brother was Working for I guess the local Department of Labor. I'm not sure what that formal was called But basically he was responsible for administering that grant program and we applied and we were selected and Actually, we were the largest contractor under welfare to work in the state of South Carolina and made some some pretty impressive accomplishments kind of stepped on some toes too because we were the only for-profit contractor and Our motives I guess were to actually get people to work and generate revenue and I guess we don't need to expand upon that too much but it was an education and I learned a lot and we made a little bit of money at it too and Kevin and I kind of worked on some projects together and you actually you guys Help me with some projects inside of Castlekeepers back in the 90s We did a ISO 9000 project that You guys helped with and helped us we had a temporary labor agency We still do actually called service staffing, but we were more serious about it in the 90s And you guys helped us on that side as well. So That's enough of me Kevin could you maybe just share a little bit about your history and you know what some of your some of your life experiences? And we'll go from there a bit about my history. So I'll try to Synapsize this the best I can so I guess if you back what brought me to Charleston The Navy brought me to Charleston way back in 1980 and I've been around these parts and wrote nuclear submarines for a number of years and Did that deal kind of got turned down to sales because I did a spin of Navy recruiting and I found that I like that interaction and Left the Navy and I answered a blind ad two of all things a garbage company And that garbage company happened to be a fortune 500 company known as BFI Browning Ferris Industries Some of you may recognize that the brand is still out there in certain markets So I had to work my way up. I became a sales rep a commission sales rep liked it did well became a sales supervisor sale manager Came a district manager pretty young in my early 30s and that's where the segue is to a Philosophy that I still carry with me and I share with others and I was introduced To a gentleman probably about a year and a half into my tenure as a DM In a boardroom in Atlanta, Georgia This guy walked in and he had a suit on and he had cowboy boots and cowboy hat about six foot two His name was Ralph Steyer He happened to be the CEO of Johnsonville food Well, if you know that name Johnsonville, that's sausage brought worse breakfast sausage all those things tailgating All games fun, right? So he introduced a philosophy that he had gone through in his business and That is called flight of the buffalo. There's a book out there And for those of you who are interested that book came out probably around 9091 and As I once told the president of the University of Georgia, I gave him a copy and I said this book's a bit dated He said that's what they thought the Bible. So I'll let you take that for whatever it's worth But flight of the buffalo so that analogy goes like this Ralph one day had an epiphany and he was struggling with his company and Didn't know where to go people would come to him with every problem. They expected solutions Expected him to do it. He felt people didn't have the right attitude. They were mediocre and He has the flight of geese. Well, if you pay any attention to a flight of geese, they fly in a v-formation and they do that so that they can take advantage of the aerodynamics and You know, they're getting all the the resistance coming on that lead goose and everyone else. It's going on top What these do is they share the lead So when that lead goose starts to get tired, he kind of falls back and the next goose takes takes the place And so it goes until they reach their destination when they land they all land together and You know, you can see that you ever see him go over or you're in a place when they they decide to come down You kind of witness that so in contrast unlike the buffalo Hey lead buffalo, right? Everybody's following that guy And you we all know what happened, right? They'd leave him in the buffalo hunters would slaughter him lead buffalo will get killed and all the other ones would stand around Waiting for the lead but what's all what to do He's gone. They don't know so therein lies that analogy in the crux of flight of the buffalo in a line to that is learning to let employees lead so transferring ownership and how do we Go about that How does that occur? So, you know for many of us at that time and even now, you know, we've been accustomed to a paradigm That is we're the leader We have to do this stuff. We have the answers We have to have the answers and So what I suggest to people is that you know, you have to kind of pull back from that and You know, I want to kind of interject what I've heard throughout the month from You know the the different folks who've been on from from Joe from Alonzo from Sarah from Trisha from who else do we have Kim? You know, I gave you some various varying examples Kind of of how that ownership is taking place within their organizations and What I want to share with that really stuck out to me was Joe and He mentioned I probably have the terminology wrong but he mentioned this game of six or something like that a game of six or team of six people and he had some issues in an area and Instead of him running with what he thought the answer was he brought these folks together and they seemed to be kind of a trusted group that you know has wanted to engage and He gave them an assignment of let's find out how we can find Get to the crux of this and let's look at some solutions So they took that and then they came back with what they felt were the solutions so That does a number of things if you can if you can get to that point You know with folks and developing that trust and getting people to Have a willingness and it really does take trust and know that they're bought in because a lot of times people just think you know I come here. I work. I go home. I'll care anything else about it. So it's about trying to gain that buy in with people, okay Any comments or questions about that? Yeah, you know what I love this So one of my feelings is sometimes I rely on that too much I want to give them a vision and and get the buy-in and things like that And I rely on that a little too much to like try and get people to see a future and things like that Do you think you can kind of over leverage that as a as a kind of? As a skill or how do you leverage that and get and get buy-in from that because oftentimes people, you know They have their own pushback to this sort of thing. They don't they don't want to you know Shift who they are To be part of your organization. Is that does that mean they're just not a fit or does that mean you can move them along in some fashion? so in my experiences what I've found and and in using this and using it way back at BFI and Taking it to others is You almost have to sometimes use the life serial analogy if anybody remembers that You know, they've got little Mikey sitting there at the table and if you know, Mikey likes it. Hey, it must be good, right? Right. So, you know, usually you end up finding some champions What I call champions or maybe today the better term is influencers in your company people who They do buy and That sometimes is really the starting point because the other part You know of being that good leader is you have to be willing to develop your folks and So sometimes if you just go out like Matt is saying and I want to give them the vision and I want them to think Strategically and they're going whoa, that's foreign to me man. I did not know what he's talking about I don't see what he sees, you know, and I'm guilty of that because I can look at the white board and I'm like Man, do you see that picture? Like this is where we're going, you know, and the people are looking at me like what I don't know what he sees but So, yeah, you're right So you have to really have to work on developing some of the folks to get there to understand that and and I think one of the things is In that whole philosophy as you mentioned Matt is vision And I think what you have to do with with the whole organization is This is an old cliche from I think Tom reminded me the other day of Stephen Covey But we have to always be in with the end in mind and if we can see the end and take ourselves all the way back to the beginning and Now set the folks up to say hey, here's where we want to go and we want to do it And here's what I need from you and I really need your commitment because you're going to help be a part of this and make it success Yeah, and then we and then we set out with a weekly goal and we set out with a monthly goal and we set out with Quarterly goals and and we put up scorecards so people can see where we're going and You know, it's no different than a baseball game or a football game. Hey, here's where we're at We really got to pick up the pace. It's the eighth inning whatever the case might be And in doing that in my experiences now, let me say this This isn't Something you just throw out there one time and oh, hey, it's magic. It works, you know, you have to and I'm going to use the term nurture You have to nurture the people and you have to nurture the process Yeah, it sounds like you have to keep working to like You have to you have to keep practicing this yourself too because it's not doesn't sound like this comes natural This is something where you are You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, okay I'm going to set these expectations out for my organization But I also have these expectations for me and I have to have enough humility to step up and say You know, I didn't meet this Okay, this is this is my bad and the other part of it is You know instead of being that leader who jumps in to have all the answers Instead be a leader who people can trust to come to you to be a resource That's something Alonzo brought out he used his drive acronym and as he introduced that he said I really want to be a resource to my people, you know and You know that stuck with me because I thought you know That's that's something that holds true in this whole philosophy that you know that I'm imparting I Can give you I give you a specific example the first one that I ever did it with BFI and We had our accounts receivable was in the gutter. It was terrible and My accountant had been there she was with the company that was acquisitioned and She had two ladies are actually sisters who had who worked for her and in receivables and payables and and Mary's just didn't think that that was ever going to change. That's the way it was and we're not going to change that It's not worth while spending a lot of time Unfortunately We're going to take a stab at this. I said so let's let's get together and let's see if if these two ladies can Take a look they're talking to these folks every day What do they think? What would they change if we could let them do anything they could do to improve the process and Get this better You know, we're gonna we're gonna help not only that our cash flow our revenue everything So we gave them that and we came back in 30 days and they had started implementation I said, okay, I like what you're saying. I like what I see Let's prototype this and and that's another thing. I think it's important is You know, sometimes you can't be afraid to what I call prototype something to try it out See if that works if it doesn't tweak it about Yeah, we treat a little bit Tom you always talk about, you know, there's You know What do you always say? It's a it's a you can change direction quickly What do you how do you always say like reversible decisions?  That's not easily reversible But most decisions that we make in our business We can just try it if it doesn't work the risk is low and it doesn't cost as much and you can back up and do something different So I'll think about what he just said you're talking about talking about prototyping It's a small experiment and so that way you can unblock from these things that are like Oh, this does I hear people say this now that wouldn't work in my business or this doesn't work Let's look Kevin just said run a prototype run an experiment You know, I had a discussion earlier today where we were talking about a kind of a big bigger decision And he was saying, you know, I tend to to think a little, you know to make these decisions slower and I was like You know, I was thinking myself like that's not true. You're willing to make small experiments But with big decisions, you're very thoughtful and insightful and take your time And and make those decisions carefully So I think you you have to weigh that how how much cost or how much You know, how much could this cost me? Um, you know to do this thing, but if it's if it's small You know go big on the experiment if it's you know, if it's a if it's can be something very very expensive Try a smaller segment before you before you eat the whole elephant, right? Like so I like this kind of this is a This is powerful stuff Yeah, you know and in that example I gave that was you know, a small piece of the big picture It was our accounts receivable. Yeah, it was impacting our whole business and so We came out of that after 90 days You know before we looked like this After that at 120 days, we flipped that around, you know, we had now positive cash flow out of that Um, you know, no more our write-offs were way down So I rewarded them. I said, okay, I have these american express checks I'm gonna hand each of these ladies this for their efforts But we want to sustain this so what can we do to sustain this so and I can't remember the exact numbers, but We gave them a percentage Of whatever We no longer had a write-off Well, we were because it was a substantial You know that we were at so That kept that going but the more important thing is is going back to the life serial analogy You know the other department heads and and folks were going Wow, okay I see I kind of see what we're talking about here what we need to do So as I continue to put up More score cards for you know, we have, you know roll-off business like construction containers and front and load or commercial containers and residential Folks had never seen before kind of how they're doing on a weekly basis or daily basis. Who's doing good by driver?  And so what I'm getting at is we have built-in score cards today And I guess it really depends, you know, how effectively are you using that you can certainly use it if you're not And I don't know if there's anybody out there who's not using that but I'm going to tell you if you don't have that You're gonna need to get that that's a Yeah, objective objective data too Not just subjective because we go by our feelings a lot with our employees But how they make us feel and how we feel about them And we are often wrong like when we go by our feelings So you got to have like these objective score cards Because I ask people I ask people that are coming on to main central Tell me who your best employee is and after they've been on a couple weeks I'll go through the data and I'll be like that's not your best employee. She makes you the happiest. She makes you feel good She's not making you the most money. She's not getting the best score cards. Your best employee is so and so and they're like Whoa, I would have never known that And it's it's because yeah, you you got to use these objective measures. I love this. This is all good stuff And and you know when when matt says that That's also an opportunity to coach people up You know you see that And there's some you know We'll say a deficiency, but we're not going to look at it in the negative We're going to look at it and say hey look this person likes to be here. They have a great personality and a good attitude But they may not even be aware that they're falling short here So if we don't bring that to their attention We're not only failing ourselves. We're failing them And you know that goes back to the whole part of developing people with this I made a note here kevin and I have a class that we're going to build out of this Maybe a whole program because Having the numbers is part of the solution, but it's not sufficient The other part of it is how you use the numbers and how you can use that feedback to motivate and lead In your your your team and get the outcomes that you're looking for and that's a whole another skill side So you got to know what the numbers are and you got to be able to interpret and you got to know what they're telling you as the leader But you're not actually doing the work every day. You got a whole team that's executing the The playbook if you will so how do you use those numbers those kpis to lead your team to get better outcomes right And and I think believe it or not that, you know The folks really do want to see How they're doing And getting that out there to them, you know, you don't it doesn't have to be where you create, you know Fierce competition, but they like to know where they're at because I think at the end of the day, especially You know, and I know that has more and and people are striving to get to more of these solo teams Um, you know that people do want to be accountable And when I say that they do want to see hey, you know, how am I doing?  You need anything? um Hey boss, you know, am am I how am I performing? How am I doing? I used to get people to ask me that all the time because they wanted to know They they were hungry to get feedback And and again, I'm not going to say that 100% of the people are but there are people out there who who value that Yeah, I'll tell you just anecdotally what when we've switched to solos during kovat What I was doing about once a month, and I'm not doing it as much now But I've handed off to my managers, but um, I would pull up the scorecard results for the month And I would call every technician we have and just say hey Well, you know, you're doing awesome your scorecard this or even if they were a little bit below where I wanted I would say hey looks everything's looking great Um, just notice your scorecards are a little bit below where you normally are at Anything anything you need from us. So it's kind of like You know, hey, you're doing great. And then, you know, if they weren't doing great It was more like what can we do to help basically? um, but yeah, I think that reaching out in this environment Of a little bit of disconnect a little bit less daily connection than we had before And and giving them that feedback But it's built into the tools that we give our employees, but the human connection is still Incredibly valuable and that's that's tough for these days Yeah But in the absence of being able to have large group meetings you can Use technology. I know a lot of people are like using slack and some other tools like that to You know communicate, you know using No platforms that they can send text out, you know, there's a there's A lot of ways that you can create virtual Communities if you will without everybody being in the same room together Yeah, it's true. Yeah Yeah, and and you know, I think that all of this information You know that we're sharing today um You know We now have that we're in the 21st century Well into it and we have all of this technology And I think you know by leveraging the technology to get this information talking about You know into the hands of the folks Communicating with them even though maybe a virtual communication or a text or Or whatever it might be But we can you know get those calls to action if you will to them and in front of them Instantaneously anymore so You know, we shouldn't have We shouldn't use you know as an excuse that you know, we can't see them or something. I don't I don't think so But yeah, I think that You know back to building You know this this philosophy in The key to it is Establishing your your goal and as a leader make sure like Matt's talking about you know, I'll take that opportunity You know reviewing a scorecard with someone And in reviewing that scorecard Keeping in mind, you know, remember we talked about You know what our goals are as an organization So for you, you know, the great performance I need from you Is when when you bring us a good scorecard that means you know this customer You know, we have a better chance of retaining that customer When a price increase comes along we have a better chance of keeping that customer So that cleaning technician is doing their great performance just by turning in Just doing a good job for us And we need to let them know that Um, you know, I noticed too that that the common thread and while we're talking about this Through all of the other Presenters this month really did surround them on a common theme that I seen was people And while everyone talked a little bit about some numbers Got more to do with what they were doing um with their people And whether that or it was, you know, incrementally and sentifying some things to reach goals The lady sarah seemed to be, you know, more more active with that Patricia yesterday was talking about actually doing some therapy groups One had talked about How do you maintain balance, right? So I think too in your organization and as a leader And really to be an effective leader um You have to within your own integrity that you bring to the table You have to let people know that you understand Or I attempt to let them know you understand where they're at Maybe at any given point in time because things do change life Changes happen And you just never know where somebody may be at so I think it's it's a good idea too that you have to be keen You know, it's the same tuned in with that. I'm sure you all have your own ways of doing that But if you don't do it, it's a good idea to you know to really pick up on that um Because you know and today we're just talked about that before before we came on Hiring how where do we find people? Well, we want to grow our business. Yes But what's one way we can kind of slow that pace of recruiting them? If we have good retention, right if we have good employee retention You know, maybe we don't have to bring as many people in on that front end So, you know, that's a key. We already have a bird in the hand In our existing employees and our team members Let's do what we can and bring the calories we can to take care of that In today's labor market, if you're not putting a big focus on retention And everything that happens from the minute that you make a job offer up through, you know, the onboarding and the training And once they're even, you know out in the field as a professional cleaning technician We have to be we have to really pick our game up on the retention side because we can't afford turnover It's hard. It's just too hard to replace people See, it's never been harder and I think Yeah, I think the model of 200% turnover is going to be Going to be very expensive and maybe non-sustainable You know come Come this winter You just may not be may not be giving your kid christmas presents if you're relying on You know the way we've done business in the past You know, this is this is going to small force businesses You know how cleaning businesses other businesses, but you know in the context of our audience cleaning businesses to to create better jobs and to be better employers because You know, if you're on the lower end of that scale, there's too many other jobs out there and people are going to leave and they're going to go to the better jobs and I mean I know a lot of businesses are shutting their doors Maybe not permanently but for a period of time Some restaurants here in charleston have closed up for for the moment anyway Because they just don't have labor and if you don't have people to work you aren't able to to provide your service Yeah, yeah You know, this is unprecedented. This is unprecedented stuff. I mean, this is this has never happened before One of the things that uh, I like to share with people when when they're kind of, you know coming to me for advice or Or maybe they're a made central demo and they're just not maybe maybe they're not quite ready for the software Is I was given that bill rate calculator that you developed years ago, tom, you know And they're telling me I just can't hire and I'm you know First of all, I want to just go through that with them and see if their business is sustainable I had somebody the other day that was like, well, you know, we're paying $13 an hour and uh You know, that's the starting wage. I was like, okay. Is that competitive in your area? She's like, well Uh x y z company's paying 11. I'm like, all right.  Are you is your competition to hire another cleaning company? um, or is it You know, is it anyone that's hiring? Opportunity that they're not taking um And you know, I've run the numbers for myself and to be competitive You know, I'm I'm I'm kind of getting to the point where I might raise my base wage to 17 or 18 by the end of this year I'm not I'm not there yet mentally But I'm getting pretty close to to pulling the trigger on that that number I've run the analysis. I I've basically reverse engineered what our what our What our break even point is on that for what I want to make for a personal salary and It's all doable. It's just scary even for me like because my average employee makes over $20 and 53 cents and I know it's the penny, you know We average out at $20 and 53 cents per hour But then you kind of create some wage compression when you like lower the bottom updates everybody Everybody has to go up accordingly. If not, you really aren't getting the benefit from it, right? We we set the minimum wage at 15 an hour in our business back in the middle of may And we did rate increases across the board and we made it very clear that we're not sure This is the last one of these you're going to see this year to to our, you know clients and Um, we're having the same discussions now that you know starting wage of 15 might not be good enough We're competing too much stuff. We're just You know, I'm not I was on the car, you know, uh driving today I don't leave my household a lot So I was listening PR today for the first time in a while and they were having a discussion on home health care On that field and the average wage in that is $14 an hour There are wait lists of like two years to get a home health care aid So if you have an elderly parent that are like, you know that you might be worried about in a year You might want to put them on a list now to get them to get them some care It is that's how bad labor is at the moment now it could shift There may be some changes, but it's not going to be That was like a wake up call to me where I was like because we compete for home health care aids is kind of like That's kind of like one of the kind of people I try and poach for uh Yeah, so so yeah, just that was that was like kind of eye opening to hear like two year wait lists you know Yeah, that's crazy.   So it's just check it off So maybe elaborate a little bit more on what you're doing for tom's business We talked about your philosophy a lot, but let's talk about the present day what you're kind of doing now for castle keepers and for You know for them now Well, I hope I don't share anything proprietary There's nothing proprietary here. It's just us having a discussion and So, you know, I think you know one of the things we've done with tom and and You know as to kind of come in and in some ways I I validate for tom.  Here's my thought, you know something I brought to the table. I said, well, we can think of these things But do we know what do you mean? Do we know? I said, well, have we ever assessed them? So I've spent a lot of time Engaged in very assessments over the years And so I said, let's take a look at something that perhaps can get us closer to understanding Where these folks really are and I think matt you may have actually seen it with with one of your one of your Yeah, you put one of mine put one of mine through and it was it was great. It it kind of showed You know that she had some personality traits not just her skills But her personality traits really fit the job that she was in a lot of loyalty a lot of A lot of things that were like, okay, cool. Like these are things that I want to see When I'm hiring other people. So she she's now the model for like if I'm evaluating people in the future And putting them through that test. I want to see very similar. Well Maybe not all as good as that but I want to see similar traits Yeah And yeah, I think as I recall with that that she was like, you know, right on the line and in many of those from being like very strong Yeah And and so, you know and and she's had some experience and so forth But yeah, I think that that's what you you want to use and you don't you know You don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water using assessments either You don't want to overuse them, but I think it gives you a little bit better guide When you're trying to make those decisions on okay, I've been developing You know for me I'll see somebody and I'll see traits and people and I'll say, you know what I think this person could do good in this But then I have to pull myself back and say, okay, I need to kind of figure out and ask this person some questions About what's their background? What's their education? What's their experience? Um, what have they shown me in what I've given them so far? So, you know using an assessment can help guide you that's what I brought to tom And so we've asked those people we've come to some conclusions because we want to establish that support center model and We needed to determine whether we had someone in house That was able to really fit that role or not and we made the decision that we did not so we are now in the process of we've Put an ad out. We put a posting out. We have a support center coordinator um I'm in the process of interviewing those people. I've got three more interviewed one yesterday Got the assessments to them um interviewing three more tomorrow one more friday um Fairly decent response to the posting And so we'll see where that goes. Uh, but we're you know, we're we're putting the the we wrote a new job description for it Um, we you're doing better than I was because I did a couple of those interviews with tom, so I'm better you than me Well, so far so far I've I've done the the initial, you know, 15 20 minute Let's get to know one another and and I administer the assessment and get the results and then We'll round back to you know, who we want to bring back for for another review We'll see how that we'll see how that shakes out. Um, you know, because we'll have to uh, we'll have to reach some consensus at that point But um, I think that's going in the Sorry, go ahead So I I think that that's moving in the right direction. Um It's it's taken off a little more slowly. I think than what maybe tom wanted to see it go, but it's going now and um You know in terms of the in terms of his day to day, we've looked at some different things Um, I think, you know modifying a few, um You know, just the way we're we're we're going to interact with the team and you know how we're going to set some goals and how we're going to uh You know get get the scheduling game really up to par where it needs to be which we're hoping that the support center coordinator can play a big role in that because I'm partial to sales And you know, I look at I'm looking in his dashboard all that And I'm going man, there's gotta be there's room. We should be getting people. We need to do one You know, I look back to my similarities in the waste business and we we had what we called temp business temporal business One I'm fine with that to a certain degree. I correlate that to y'alls one-time cleans You know And I'm like I see all these one-time cleans and I'm like, why are we doing these one-time cleans? Why aren't we selling recurring business recurring business is where it's at? And you know, I don't know if we're not taking the opportunity to get there So that's something we're looking at as well and hopefully the support center person will be able to come in And you know kind of take you know take control of that So top down what about what about addressing some of the other labor shortages? So you're using some of the you know the the government relationships you have through the labor borders and things like that We are doing that. We have Changed up. We've taken down all of the old ads that were out there seem to be a number of old ads that have accumulated So Troy's taken all of those old ads down I've helped them craft a new ad and we've really surrounded that new ad with more of a employee value proposition surrounded by our core values and Michonne has crafted a video You know, it's got some nice music. It's got the A mom with her child getting off the bus flexible schedule Takes you and shows you some of our cleaning technicians out in action It's about a 20 second deal boom Because we want to get out too and use the instagram instagram and twitter platforms also I've looked there seems to be you can get a little traction with it I don't know how much but we're not on it. So we want to get on that as well Other than just indeed So we're using those avenues The other thing, you know, you can all look at within the workforce development when you get into those folks Is they've been do they'll do job fairs and they'll do virtual job fairs And you know, they'll attract a good amount of folks coming into that There's a good amount of traffic depending on the market you're in There's no cost for that. They'll set everything up So that's another avenue, you know, to look to look for labor So just forever just so everyone's 100% on the same page with what Kevin's talking about is Every state through a federal program has a workforce development agency It has maybe a different name than that locally or something like that But with that program they're gonna they're they're helping companies match up to employees and Oftentimes there may be even Where where Kevin mentioned the phc program if you can give these people some skills and some You know lifetime skills that they can apply to other jobs in the future not just shirts They may pay a portion of their wage for some period of time up to 60% for what do you say 90 days? Kevin is that right? Yeah, it just depends on the area, but most of them are 60 to 90 days. Yeah 60 to 90 days So so when you break it down and you look at the current labor situation And I don't know a company out there that's not Looking for help that they aren't supply constrained You know, it behooves all of us to reach out to you know, the local, uh, you know agency that represents Um, you know the employment, you know division within your state They've got people on the payroll that will talk to you oftentimes come out and meet with you They've got grant programs and it's their job to spend that money So if you've got jobs that qualify for that, they'll they'll help you with like ojt and some of the other programs to offset some of the The onboarding and training, you know costs. Um OJC on the job training guys on the job training. It's a free resource. It's a free resource You know, we we make jokes about you know, I'm from the government I'm here to help and you know a lot of times that's not true But this is an example. This is an example where it is true Yeah, mostly right That's that's that I'll just throw out there that if anybody runs into any snags wherever you're at um You can reach out to me because most of the time I can get in touch with somebody in the know It's a help pave that road for you Okay, so don't be afraid to reach out and if you meet resistance You know, let me know we'll we'll see if we can help you out I am dropping kevin's email in uh chat and kevin gave me permission to drop his personal mobile phone number in chat as well and I just did I'll caution you caution just text him though. He never answers this phone, but you can send him a text We were standing out earlier that you only you only do text I was laughing because I I actually love it when I get a random number on and I pick it up I'm just hoping for something exciting to happen when that call happens Like if it's some scammer if I can like, you know waste their time for a minute or two But uh, yeah, it's probably not the most productive thing that I do Well We've uh, we've got a couple minutes left. Um I'll share again the link to Flight of the Buffalo Which is the uh Johnsonville So that's your story. I love their bratwurst Yeah, yeah and I do want to I do want to leave you with uh With something I heard a couple weeks ago and This isn't this isn't mine, but I think it's a it's pretty powerful Um, and it goes along the lines of what we've talked about today with what everyone's talked about so far this month and all of your leadership presentations And it's pretty simple And and it goes like this it says It goes stay ready So you don't have to get ready Okay, so You know, let's not let's not be reacting Let's be thinking ahead. Let's be anticipated thinkers and let's transfer that information and knowledge down to our team So I appreciate you all having me on uh, I enjoyed it and if uh, I can do anything for all of you I'm happy to do that Kevin, thank you, ma'am. This is good good information. Um Especially appreciate having somebody to join us from, you know, outside of the industry. This is uh, some some unique information we've talked about some things here today that We really haven't touched upon in smart business moves in the last year and a half or so and this is my, um My if you really want to know So dove chop Inside so never know how someone's feeling or doing on a given day. So drop a little dove candy in their hand and Make a better day for I've seen Kevin do that when he comes by the office and he sees people he'll give them a piece of candy and I think there's I mean, I know there's a psychological benefit to that. You're building trust. You're building some loyalty and um, and all of those are You know characteristics. You're showing you care We didn't get into all of that but all of that ties into empowerment and getting people to uh engage and and be uh self-directed leaders in the organization Matt any uh, any last thoughts here? This is one of my favorite shows I've done in a long time and Kevin this was I mean, we have a lot of great guests But this was I I learned a lot today. I appreciate it And Kevin let's uh, let's make a promise to ourselves. This won't be the last time you'll Be hoping us out with smart business moves Sure. I'd be happy to absolutely Absolutely. Well, awesome. So it is top of the hour. It is wednesday We are done for the week We'll be back monday five o'clock eastern another smart business moves. You guys take care. Have a good weekend We'll see you monday. Bye. Bye


Hi everyone, I'm Reuben and I am one of the librarians here at the San Francisco Public Library. For today's STEM challenge, we are making paper airplanes. Now before we get started, do we all know what STEM means? STEM is an acronym which means science, technology, engineering, and math. So what makes paper airplanes a STEM project? Well, it has to do with the principles of flight. So when an airplane is flying a paper airplane, you are observing the interplay of competing forces that keep your airplane in the air and ultimately bring it to the ground. One force is lift. Lift pushes air down so that the airplane rises up. Then there's thrust. So thrust is the force that propels the airplane forward. Then there's drag. So drag is a force that works opposite of thrust and it slows your airplane down. And finally, there's gravity, which is the force that will ultimately bring your paper airplane to the ground. Okay, so now we are going to make an airplane design. Now before you get started, you could, if you wanted to, decorate your paper airplane with some colored pencils. Well, I'm going to clear some space. What we need to make a paper airplane is just one simple blank eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper just like this. Okay, so we're going to start by taking our paper and we are going to fold it right down the middle the long way just like this. Okay, there we go. So now you have a long rectangle and we will open it up. And when you open it up, you will see there's a nice crease right down the center. So from there, you are going to take one corner of your sheet and fold it right to the middle seam. And what that's going to do is it's going to create kind of a triangle as you'll see here. And then you will do the same thing on the other side. So take that corner, bring it to the center, flatten it out so that there's a nice crease. There we go. So now we have what kind of looks like a little house with a point. Let's see. Okay, next you're going to take your next corner just like that and bring it in to the center to your seam again and flatten that out. All right. So now you'll see your triangle looks a little bit longer with a different point. And then do the same thing on the other side. Pull your corner in just like that, the center and flatten it out. Sometimes when you do this, it doesn't come out exactly symmetrically and that's okay. All right. Now you've got this really pointy shape and you're going to take it, you're going to take that pointy shape and you were going to open it just like this against the crease. So you're not folding it in where you creased it but against the crease and fold it flat like that. Okay. So the next thing you are going to take this long side and you were going to line it up against this long side of the paper so that they're lined up increased against each other just like that. And then we're going to flip our paper over and then do the exact same thing. Take that long side, match it up with the long side at the bottom. Now at this point you have another thing you could do if you wanted to. It's not necessary but you could take some tape and tape along the crease to make sure your paper airplane doesn't fall apart. You see how it kind of opens but it's not necessary. You could if you wanted to. I'll put one on just so you can kind of see how that looks. See and now the paper airplane is not opening. And there we go. We've got an airplane that is ready to fly and now that you've built your paper airplane you can take another sheet of paper and you can build another design just like I did here already and you can take your different designs and fly them. And here's part of the challenge is as you fly them compare how they fly differently from each other. Using what you learned about lift and thrust and drag and gravity, which one do you think is going to fly further? You can test that out. Throw them both. See which one goes further. Also knowing what you know about those forces, which one do you think is going to stay in the air the longest? Fly them both and time them. So why does for example this one stay in the air longer than that one? You'll be able to figure that out just by trying different designs. So thanks for joining me today and have some fun flying your airplanes.


I am going to get started so that we have more time for the other layer here's talks. I'm Shindong from Apple. I'm from the FoundationDB there. Neelam and I are going to talk about this awesome collaborated project between Apple and Stokely on the topic of native consistent catching layer in FoundationDB. Let's get started with some motivation behind it. So just like other systems, FoundationDB can suffer from the read hot traffic. To understand that problem, let's imagine that we have this simple cluster.  And let's imagine that there comes a bunch of clients who all are trying to access the same small key range that is hosted by this star server team. And at the first, when the traffic is still moderate, the load request can be load balanced between all the servers in that team quite nicely. But as we increase the traffic, that set of servers will be eventually overloaded and finally saturated because of the read hot chart. And a read hot chart can be particularly problematic in FoundationDB because a read hot star server not only slows down the read, it also slows down the writes. And eventually, it will affect the overall performance of the whole cluster. And also due to the fact that the read hot traffic tend to be temporary. And at the point of the saturation, there is virtually no possible way to keep up with the traffic without somehow we increase the replication number for that piece of the data. Then that's when the end because of the nature that the read traffic tend to temporary, we do not necessarily need a durable replica for that piece of data. An in-memory temporary replicated data can help. And that's when the cache comes into play. Now let me hand over to Neelam to talk more about that. Thank you, Shen. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Neelam from Snowflake. And we're excited to talk about the caching here today. So now that Shen has convinced you that we do need a caching solution for FoundationDB, I'm here to walk you through some of the solutions. So before we actually talk about the native consistent caching within FoundationDB, you might ask, why not use an application-managed cache like Memcache.t or Redis Labs between application and the FoundationDB? Why not just use that instead of implementing caching within FoundationDB? So while that is a possible solution, it's not really a good one because the entire burden of managing that cache is actually on the application. And that's actually a very complex problem because the application needs to worry about the consistency and the coherency of that cache and availability. And complexity in general becomes really questionable. So even though it's a viable solution, it's not really a good one. With that, we will move on to what we are proposing. And that's a much better solution than just adding a side cache, which is to actually implement the caching functionality within FoundationDB. So as we know that the reads are served from storage servers, so this cache will actually sit in front of those storage servers. And consistent caching actually attacks a problem from really two angles. One, it allows certain hot key ranges to be held in memory like she pointed out. And it also allows us to increase our application factor for those read-hot ranges. So one, allowing it to be held in memory, it basically takes a load off of disks. I mean, it also reduces the read latency. And second, the increasing replication factor basically allows us to throw more CPUs at the problem. So the load can be basically managed by more CPUs. So both of these factors combined together also leads to low latency, which is also a good thing. So now since this cache is completely implemented within FoundationDB, it has the same consistency guarantees as the rest of the FoundationDB. So now let's look at how all this might look within FoundationDB, you know, via blog diagrams. So we have a FoundationDB client and the t-logs. So the FoundationDB client will continue writing into the t-logs. So even though there is like caching layer somewhere within FoundationDB, the writes continue to go to the t-logs. Like today, we have the storage servers. But now, in addition to the storage servers, we will also have storage cache servers, which basically implement the caching functionality. And they both will now start pulling mutations from the t-logs. So along with the storage servers, we have the storage cache servers pulling mutations from the t-logs. And the FDB client can issue reads from both the storage cache servers or the storage servers, depending on whether a key range is being cached or not. So just reminding you that, making it clear, that it's all happening within FoundationDB with basically nothing visible to the outside application other than the benefits that it's going to see. So now, like from this, I would like to zoom in a little bit on two of the main components in the next couple of slides, which is the storage cache servers, which are new and the changes that we need to make in the FoundationDB client. So first, the storage cache role. So we are bringing up a new storage cache role, which is going to be stateless and ephemeral. So what it really means is that it's not going to remember any state persistently, and it's not going to durableize any data. So if your storage cache server dies, it's going to come back as a brand new process. And in that process, it might even be responsible for a completely different key range. So it's completely ephemeral and stateless. So at a very high level, what is the storage server going to roll due? So it basically will establish a key range that it is responsible for. It will pull mutations from the T logs. It will filter out the irrelevant mutations, apply those mutations, and serve the ket request. So you might ask, but isn't it very similar to a storage server role? Actually, it is. That's exactly the case. But it is far simpler, because we are not durableizing any data. And that basically makes life a whole lot simpler. So now, without delving into too much detail, I would like to zoom in into the second piece, which is the FoundationDB client side changes. So we'll have the client API to configure the storage cache, which is basically you can add or remove a certain key ranges to the cache. And we'll have the ability to specify the application factor. And in addition, there is, so the client basically caches certain metadata about storage servers today, so that he knows which storage server to go to whenever a read query comes in. So now, with addition of storage cache servers, it also is going to maintain metadata information about those cache servers, similar to the storage servers, so that based on that metadata information, it can direct queries either to the storage servers or the cache servers. And now, as you can imagine, this metadata cache could be stale. So for instance, let's just assume that a new cache has come up. And the proxy or the client doesn't even know about it. So it might just continue sending its cache request to the storage servers. But in this case, with addition of cache, the storage server is going to recognize that this key range is being cached. So it's going to serve the query, but let the client know that there is a cache for this particular key range. So the client will then update this metadata cache, and then it will start sending queries for those key ranges to the cache server instead of the storage server. So this is at a very, very high level. The changes that are being made to the client side. So what are the implications of all this for the applications? Basically, none. And that is the whole point of this project, that we do not want to burden the application. They should just be able to benefit from this without any serious consequences. The cache is being completely managed within Foundation DB, and it's going to be completely transparent, except that it's going to have a mode to configure the cache, and it's going to see the added benefit for the reads. Now moving on to the last piece, for my part, which is the cache configuration modes. So first, we'll have the manual mode, where the application will have the option to define the key ranges that must be cached and a corresponding replication factor. And also, in addition to the manual mode, we'll have an automatic mode, where Foundation DB will detect the hot key ranges automatically, and then it will start to cache them as well. So you might ask, if we have the automatic detection and caching, why do we even care about the manual mode? So the manual mode actually gives us a lot of flexibility. For instance, there might be some key ranges that you just want low latency for. So they might not be hot key ranges to begin with. So if they are not hot, automatic detection is not going to detect those key ranges as being hot, and they are not going to be cached automatically. So we want to give applications an option to be able to cache any key range they want manually as well. So that is what the manual mode gives us. So from this, I would like to hand over to Shane to talk about the automatic detection and cache management and conclude our talk. Thank you. Thanks, Nino. So now that we've learned how the cache works and how we can manually spin them up, let's talk about automatic detection and cache management. For this part, we're going to reuse some of the existing metric reporting framework in the cluster. And the ultimate goal of that is to find an efficient way to marry the candidate key range and available cache together. We can further divide that into two parts. The first part is the automatic detection. The second part is the cache management. For the first part, right now, as I said, like each star server already keeps some simple statistics about all of the requests it serves during that period of time. And whenever a star server finds a shark becomes red hot, it'll notify a singleton process in the cluster about this. And that cluster, I mean, a singleton process in the cluster, and that process will then contact the star server to figure out in that red hot shark which key range has the highest rate density. So it will try to do the catch in the final granularity then catching the whole shark. And then for the cache management, this same process will not only track all the star servers. It also tracks all the catch rows in the cluster for the resource consumption. And that's, it all has the knowledge to know when and where to put the key range into catch and also manage the lifetime of the data in the catch. Now with all that, we really believe that this feature will be one of the most exciting features in the upcoming releases of FoundationDB because it adds a whole new dimension to the product and thus will allow for new use cases. And thank you. That's it.


That's what the EEG sounds like originally the idea was to have like a play button, but then again, it's just so anyway When you have auto volume and auto duration the duration is pretty simple. It's just they will Adjust it based on what say currently the window size. So if you have a longer window size And the sounds will be longer as well the whole file is actually There's a bit of a buggy laggy It's when I when you actually scroll through the file it becomes a bit less responsive when you load the page it defaults to chance seven you know One of those last channels was a bit more. Yeah, more annoying Or more festive depends how you look at it The auto volume. Yeah, let's go back to seven So if you select auto volume It will be quieter when there is no seizure and Start being louder when the seizure comes through So this is the middle of the seizure and this is the end of the seizure so it becomes I don't know if you can still hear anything but The auto volume will adjust itself to amplitude. It's actually meant to be grayed out So it's all a prototype you like that when you turn it off it Just maintains The volume to be roughly the same throughout the recording So that's my life. It's seizure. Oh after seizure So it's the auto volume is kind of better And again as I said auto duration adjusts to the current window size So we have a window set of 10 seconds This sound is shorter If you make the window size 50 something the notes will be longer, but then it becomes a bit laggy because There's actually like too much data is being loaded here. And this is all It's mostly happening in javascript. There is a Back end to it as well. And next time we actually modify this tool We will push things as much as possible to the front and


In February of 1987, astronomers looking at the nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud witnessed a rare event. A supernova explosion, the spectacular death of the star. Astronomers around the world have eagerly studied supernova 1987A with sensitive telescopes hoping to learn what will happen to the expanding debris and the fiery core of the star. Has the inner core collapsed as scientists expect into a tiny dense pulsing neutron star at the center? In the exploding gas in giant supernovas, in hundreds of millions of stars, in huge spiraling galaxies, in distant quasars, whose light has been traveling to us since the beginning of the universe. In these fantastic objects, astronomers have learned that great forces heat gases to extreme temperatures above tens of millions of degrees, causing them to emit massive amounts of x-rays. The space shuttle will carry sensitive new telescopes into orbit to study the cosmos. One telescope measures x-rays emitted from supernovas, quasars and other high-energy targets in space. Priceless new information from this broadband x-ray telescope will help scientists uncover more pieces in the puzzle of knowledge about the universe. Go for main engine start. Four, three, two, one. And lift off, lift off on Columbia and it's return to flight. In the spring of 1990, the space shuttle Columbia will lift off on a special mission called Astro-1, dedicated to scientific observations of our universe. Once in orbit, four new telescopes will be operated from the shuttle's payload bay. BBXRT, the broadband x-ray telescope, analyzes x-rays emitted by extremely hot and energetic stars and galaxies in distant space. Three other telescopes mounted together on a pointing platform examine ultraviolet light emitted from nearby objects in our solar system and from stars and distant galaxies. These telescopes must be operated in space because the Earth's atmosphere prevents most radiation, including x-rays and ultraviolet light, from reaching the ground. The visible light that we can see is a surprisingly small portion of the radiation that is emitted in space. We know that massive amounts of radiation are emitted in the invisible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, including ultraviolet light and x-rays. Each type of radiation provides different clues about the nature of the object. The broadband x-ray telescope studies radiation emitted in a large portion of the x-ray spectrum, which has never been studied before in great detail. For example, BBXRT can detect which chemical elements are present in an x-ray source, such as oxygen, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and calcium, elements that are abundant in space and essential to life on Earth. BBXRT is the first x-ray telescope used in space that can detect the presence of iron in a broad variety of targets. Because iron is one of the most abundant elements in the universe, its presence in an x-ray source provides tell-tale evidence about that object, for example its size, temperature, how old it is, whether it rotates and at what speed, and other physical conditions. The dream of building and launching a broadband x-ray telescope into space began more than 12 years ago here at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Over 40 satellites have been built and tested at Goddard. Countless others have been managed by NASA's Greenbelt facility. In the late 1970s, Dr. Peter Serlamitzos, working in Goddard's High Energy Astrophysics Laboratory, developed a light and inexpensive mirror sufficiently smooth to reflect x-rays. It was made from shiny aluminum foil coated with acrylic and gold. The mirrors were nested together in a housing to provide the large surface area needed to gather x-rays. These foil mirrors made the telescope light enough to be carried into space on the shuttle. Once the telescope was approved for flight, teams of up to 100 Goddard scientists, engineers and technicians worked for five years to build the instrument and a unique reusable pointing system for the telescope. Payload Manager Frank Volpe describes the challenges of building the telescope. When you fly in the orbiter, the key most criteria is to make sure it's safe. So we have gone through extensive testing and design to ensure that in a no way jeopardize the health and safety of the crew and the orbiter. To that extent, you also must make sure that it is its limits of weight and power and thermal requirements all within the constraints of the orbiter itself. We had to take some exceptional steps to ensure that the thermal systems remained within its limits. At one end of the telescope, we have elements operating at a very, very cold temperature around 40 degrees Kelvin at other places on the telescope and the payload. We have a box that likes to operate near room temperature. Once the telescope was built, it was lowered into the two-axis pointing system structure. During the integration and testing phase, the complex electronic systems controlling the telescope and the support structure were wired together and repeatedly checked. The blankets were attached to achieve the required thermal insulation in space. Vibration, acoustics and thermal vacuum tests were conducted on the telescope to simulate conditions encountered during the mission. Some of the shuttle astronauts shown here in their anti-contamination suits came to Goddard to get a first-hand look at the new telescope that they will carry into orbit. Goddard scientists have carefully chosen the X-ray sources that the BB-XRT will observe. These unusually hot and energetic targets vary from tiny neutron stars drawing gas from a larger companion star to giant clusters of galaxies. A prime BB-XRT target is a supernova remnant. They exploded outer shell of a star which occupies vast areas in space. The outer edges, heated to extreme temperatures by shock waves, emit millions of X-rays. In these regions, BB-XRT can detect the presence of heavy elements such as iron and many other elements that make up our own bodies. By studying the supernova, the X-ray telescope will contribute new information about how these important elements are manufactured inside stars. The BB-XRT principal investigator, Dr. Peter Sirle-Mitzos. Everything we learn from it is tell-tale evidence of what was inside the star. You know, how we're going to study what the star is forming inside. We're waiting for it to spew this matter out into the stellar space and therefore, from the pieces out there, we see the X-ray emission. That tells us what was forming the star, how much iron, how much silicon, and so forth. As the exploded outer shell of supernova 1987A dissipates into space, it may be possible for BB-XRT to observe the existence of a neutron star at the center. Neutron stars are formed during a supernova explosion when the inner region of a star collapses into a tiny core. Pulsars are neutron stars that rotate extremely quickly, some as fast as 1,000 times a second. They emit light and X-rays in searchlight beams, making them appear to blink on and off. Scientists believe that neutron stars are unimaginably dense. One teaspoon full of matter from a neutron star would weigh over a billion tons. Many neutron stars are often paired with a much larger companion star.  The gas flows into an accretion disk around the neutron star. As it approaches the star, the gas is heated to millions of degrees and emits large amounts of X-rays. In some systems, the gas flows onto the pole of the neutron star along its magnetic field. Scientists believe that some binary systems may contain a mysterious black hole instead of a neutron star. X-rays are emitted as the swirling hot gas is drawn into the black hole. The gravitational force exerted by the black hole is so strong that neither light nor matter can escape once they are drawn in. The physical conditions found inside the black hole are totally unknown.  Scientists hope BB-XRT will confirm the theory that material is actually spiraling around the black hole as it is drawn into it. Perhaps none of BB-XRT's targets are as mysterious as the quasars.  Yet a single quasar radiates more energy than 100 normal galaxies combined. It is believed that quasars may be powered by a massive black hole. Quasars are the furthest objects from Earth ever observed, so the light emitted from them dates back to a time much closer to the Big Bang, the indescribably huge explosion that scientists believe was the beginning of the universe. BB-XRT co-investigator Frank Marshall. Quasars have been known for, I guess, more than 20 years now, but it's still not known what the real energy generation mechanism in quasars is. But X-rays allow you to look very close into the central engine of quasars, which is where most of the action is going on. So we'll look very close to what we think is the black hole at the center of the quasar and get a measurement of perhaps how the material is falling into the quasar. And how large the object at the center of the quasar is. The largest areas BB-XRT will study are clusters of galaxies, where hundreds of galaxies move around each other in their own gravitational system. Previous X-ray instruments have discovered an extremely hot gas that covers an enormous region within the cluster. BB-XRT will analyze the chemical makeup of the gas. Clusters of galaxies, what is the gas that is in them? How hot it is and what it is? Is it just hydrogen from the Big Bang or is it something that the galaxies that are going in this cluster that has been spewing out and now is heated up in the middle of the cluster? In astrophysics, this is important information and instruments like BB-XRT give you that information. It's just that a lot of this information simply does not exist right now and BB-XRT will be producing this information. The weeks prior to the launch are a time of great anticipation for the men and women who work to build a telescope. Together with the ultraviolet telescopes, BB-XRT is positioned into the shuttle's payload bay at the Kennedy Space Center. During the mission, the X-ray telescope will be controlled from the Goddard Space Flight Center. Several flight simulations are held prior to launch. Many of the scientists and engineers who built and tested the telescope practice the commands and procedures to be used during the mission. Astro will be around the clock mission. Nearly every orbit, the astronauts will adjust the orientation of the shuttle. Then the telescopes will make fine adjustments toward new targets. For part of the mission, all the telescopes will point at the same target such as supernova 1987A. By comparing simultaneous information taken in two different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, scientists will gain a more complete understanding of these targets. At other times, the X-ray and ultraviolet telescopes will be pointed at different targets. All data from the telescopes will be analyzed over the coming years. What's been exciting about this project is that the science was conceived here. The instrument was developed here. The rest of the payload was developed and integrated and tested here. And the whole payload will be controlled from the Goddard Space Flight Center Control Center. Largely, we don't know exactly what we're going to see, which is part of the excitement that the 10 days will produce for us and discover exactly what we do find. In the past, X-ray astronomy, new X-ray astronomy missions have always produced something we didn't anticipate. In many circumstances, those have been the most exciting results. And I'm very hopeful that the same will be true for BBXRT. The broadband X-ray telescope, along with the astro-ultraviolet telescopes, stands ready to deliver brand new information to scientists all over the world about the greatest mysteries in the universe, its origin, its evolution, and its future.


Lula transposition events from plasmids to other replicons. Also, no, yes, no, the title is to be announced. So he will announce himself the title. Sorry about this. No problem. Let me share. So I will present very briefly a model on the evolution of plasmids size. I'd like to thank the organizers for the wonderful place where the conference should have been too bad that it didn't work out, but still, this is a wonderful place. So the model I will briefly present is about the evolution of plasmid content and especially plasmid length in terms of number of genes, or if you want, or total length of the genome. Of course, plasmids have very dynamic gene content, and it's quite natural to expect that there will be many different phenomena acting depending on the type of plasmid and so on. So here, I will oversimplify things a lot. And most of my reasoning won't apply to most of the plasmids, most likely, but I think it's fair to say that there are too many forces that will dominate, in any case, the dynamic of the plasmid. So one is the mutation, gene loss and acquisition, and one is the selective forces acting on the specific gene content and how it determines fitness. Now, if we look at the mutational pressure, there are several cases that we can consider. The symmetric case where gain and loss or insertion deletion pressures are the same is probably unlikely. The case of a deletion bias or a loss bias is possible. So a situation where plasmids tend to lose genes over time and tend to shrink. However, it's unlikely to imply that in the long term, plasmid would be stable. It's not impossible. You can have selective forces that are strong enough, but it's some way a real scenario. The other scenario is to have insertion bias or gain bias in the sense that plasmids tend to grow with time, at least mutationally, in terms of acquiring more and more genes. This is a case where we can have, for example, a mutation selection bias in this context, and we can have a stable plasmid population. Then there could be more complicated size-dependent biases. So for example, having a constant insertion pressure, so a constant rate of acquisition of genes independently the size of the plasmid, but increasing the pressure for deletion. This may be an interesting scenario. It's quite complicated to assess really what's the trends towards acquisition of lots of genes at different lengths. I will focus to get some understanding on how plasmids may evolve on the case of insertion bias. And I will focus on another simplification of that case, just to get a more of the glimpse of the fundamental phenomena here. So the case where there is a very strong bias towards gene gain, so a very strong insertion pressure, essentially neglecting gene loss. Of course, gene losses will be there. We simply assume that it's essentially not comparable to the rate of gene acquisition. And of course, there will be selection of gene content, both in terms of fitness gains by acquiring more genes and in terms of fitness costs. This is a situation where we have essentially mutation and selection acting in different directions. And this is a classic of evolutionary biology. In most of evolutionary biology, what we see in terms of diversity is determined by a balance between the entropic pressure, the mutation pressure that generates entropy and selective pressures that keep it at bay. And this is another of these kind of models where we can assess in a very simple way what may be the fitness of these plasmids. So we assume simplifying a lot that essentially we have a fixed fitness advantage for a gene. Of course, we will have fluctuating selection. We will have environmental dependence on these advantages. But we assume that overall across all different environments that a plasmid could define itself, they will have a fitness advantage S per gene. We also assume that there will be redundancy in gene content. So that acquiring new genes doesn't necessarily means acquiring new actual functions. Genes could be simply copied or copies of each other or genes could anyway cover more or less the same function such a way that they are redundant. And therefore there's a diminishing return in the acquisition of more and more genes. And we moderate with the classical coupon where to approach sort of exponential situation in fitness. We assume a constant fitness cost per gene and we can add some more complication for the advantage in terms of conjugation rate and the cost of the conjugation machine or mobility-related genes and so on. So the fitness has the shape that you can see here in terms of the length or the size of the plasmid. The case that is the most interesting is the first one where essentially there is some gain for the plasmid to grow a little bit at least when it's small. But then you see that the cost of additional genes and the diminishing return brings the fitness down. Now, this simple model, one could write the equation solving them with the method of characteristics and so on. But I go towards the main intuitions from the model because they are actually the thing that is really important. So the first thing is that if we compare what is the most likely plasmid size in this model versus what is the size that will maximize the fitness of the plasmid, we find them as match. The fitness of the, the size that maximize the fitness of the plasmid with increasing selection, of course, both of them increase but the peak is always quite far. So the most likely plasmid length is quite, quite longer than the fitness peak. So we have a sort of insertion burden of insertion load in the sense that this mutational pressure to acquire genes is essentially causing the plasmid to contain more genes that would be needed. And selection is trying, actively trying to get rid essentially of these plasmids that have excessive insertion load. And curiously enough, this insertion load in this model implies that plasmids are marginally persistent. So the fitness peak as you see is here but the most likely length is precisely when the fitness of the plasmid is around zero because essentially under stronger insertion pressure under strong pressure for acquisition new genes, the point at which it's quite likely to find a plasmid is at the end of its acquisition process when the sector pressure is really strong against it and the fitness is precisely zero. So in this model, a bit paradoxically, plasmids find themselves on the border of evolution and stability. Of course, one can include the machinery in the communication machinery in this model. And the idea is that the more effective is the communication machinery in terms of the effectiveness of conjugation versus the cost of the machinery, the more the plasmid can carry more no-mobility-related genes. So we expect the genes that plasmid that have a more effective machinery will also carry more genes on average, more accessory genes on the... And therefore, they will be longer. Now, one can ask in this model what happens when we increase environmental stress. So for example, antimicrobial concentration. If this increases gradual, what happens is simply the size of the plasmids increases gradually because essentially these plasmids tend to acquire gradually genes that antimicrobial resistance or resistance or stress resistance genes. However, if these increases is very rapid, what happens that there is a mismatch between what will be the evolution equilibrium and the state where the plasmids finds itself. So the exertion load is lower than what one would expect for that plasmid. And essentially, the plasmid has a transient stress-induced fitness boost. So that if I suddenly increase the environmental stress, paradoxically, I find that plasmids tend to be at a higher fitness, at a relative fitness in the environment and therefore tend to spread more widely. Now, this model is oversimplified. There are several more realistic extensions. One of the obvious ones is include the gene loss, at least some components of gene loss and different constituents of the genome. So different parts with different functions and so on. We have done some of that. For example, here there's a two component model with two different sets of genes that can have different fitness and fitness cost. More in general, these models are of course oversimplified, but they offer some glimpse about some interesting phenomena that may happen in actual plasmids and may help explaining them. And with that, I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you, Luca. Maybe we have one question from Simone Pompeii. Ciao, Luca. I have a question here. So which units are you using in your definition of the fitness? It's like per generation because this S is the selection coefficient. It looked quite big. It was about one or two. So I was using an arbitrary unit. So I was not specifying the time scale over which that happens.  Okay, so it's not a generation in general. No, no, no. I mean, you can play a lot with the model. What is general are the consequences that I listed that don't depend on the parameters. So the most likely length is always the length at which you get your fitness no matter what is your absolute scale and so on. Thank you. Nothing else? Okay, so thank you, Luca. We have now the talk by Adam Roberts. He couldn't be here today because of important personal reasons. And he will try to have him somewhere in the next days. So now we have a short time for a break, Alice. Or you want a general discussion.


Let's learn about cell division. The cell cycle is divided into three major phases. Interphase, mitosis, and cytokinesis. Cells come only from pre-existing cells through the process of cell division. Through mitosis, eukaryotic cells distribute genetic material to daughter nuclei. Cytokinesis divides the cytoplasm and distributes organelles to the two newly formed daughter cells. Each DNA strand was replicated earlier during the S phase of the interphase to form two identical strands called sister chromatids. These chromatids are held together by centromere. The M phase of the cell cycle stands for mitosis or nuclear division. The stages of mitosis are continuous, but for learning purposes, we can divide them into four main phases, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. Prophase. During this first phase, the sister chromatids shorten and supercoil, and become visible for the first time during the cell cycle. It is easier to eventually separate sister chromatids in the coiled shortened state than to try and separate long, tangled threads. The nuclear membrane begins to disintegrate. The centrioles replicate and move away from each other due to microtubular action. Metaphase. In this phase, the nuclear membrane has completely disintegrated. Small pieces of membrane stay just under the cell membrane for later use. The spindle fibers reach the centromeres and align the sister chromatids along the center of the cell getting ready for the equal distribution of chromatids to the new cells. Anaphase. The centromeres move apart during this phase and the sister chromatids so that they can be pulled apart by the microtubules. Some spindle fibers shorten and some lengthen, stretching the dividing cell. Telophase. In this last phase, the nuclear membrane reforms around the genetic material. The material then relaxes and stretches out and again becomes visible under the microscope. Mitosis is complete. Animal cells that divide into two actually begin the process of cytoplasmic division during anaphase or telophase by the formation of the contractal ring that eventually separates the daughter cells. If cytokinesis does not follow mitosis, the result is multi-nucleate cells. Plant cells form a cell plate between the two daughter cells and constructing the cellulose-based cell wall. The daughter cells receive molecules and organelles within their cytoplasm. Many tissues contain these cells, called stem cells, which after cytokinesis provide one daughter cell to perform special functions of the tissue while the other daughter cell re-enters the cell cycle to provide new cells as specialized cells die. Both mitosis and apoptosis are genetically programmed to maintain order and balance. You have completed this learning activity on cell division.