It's Sunday, May 16th, and this is For Good Reason. Welcome to For Good Reason, I'm DJ Grothe. For Good Reason is the radio show and the podcast produced in association with the James Randy Educational Foundation, an international non-profit whose mission is to advance critical thinking about the paranormal, pseudoscience, and the supernatural. This week we continue the broadcast of the interview I conducted with Ray Hyman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon, about as many decades as a widely respected expert critic of parapsychology. This interview was conducted last month for the occasion of Professor Hyman receiving the 2010 Philip J. Klass Award for Outstanding Contributions in Promoting Critical Thinking and Scientific Understanding, conferred to him by the National Capital Area Skeptics, a DC area local skeptics organization. And it was conducted at the National Science Foundation. So our interview picks up right where it left off last week. Maybe we'll finish up by exploring how we got to be skeptics, right? I find that an interesting question. But you mentioned Uri Geller, and you've spoken in the media about Uri Geller, and you've done research into dousing and other parapsychology claims, like individual statements, as opposed to being an expert critic of parapsychology research. Those are kind of two halves of your career. And I draw a distinction between those two kinds of efforts. Is one more compelling or interesting to you than the other? Is one kind of skepticism more important to you than the other? That's a leading question, but yes. Yeah, I've always found parapsychology dull. I find it very dull and not interested in it at all. And I find that the fun part of skepticism is dealing with Uri Geller and the mediums who talk to the dead, and the douses who find, not only find water, but they can find the gold and chendlies number nine, depending on what they put in their dousing rod or the pendulum. I find all that part fast. That to me is a fun part. The parapsychology part is not fun. I got stuck into it, unfortunately. They always come to me, the time I put into it, to me, it's just wasted for me. I prefer to do other things. Do you regret it?  Not really regret, but I regret it if I think about it in the sense that all the things I could have done professionally and otherwise, that just took up a lot of my time. It's boring, as you said, and I just don't find it fun. And it sounds like you're more interested in the psychology of belief questions than the parapsychology questions. So rather than the evidence of Psi, you're interested more in why people believe this stuff, despite the lack of evidence. That's right. Yeah. And so if you had it all to do over again, would that be more of a focus for you? You never know, but yes. You never know, but yes, I like that answer. I want to have some time for audience questions, but I want to ask you about the last 35 years of the movement. And from your vantage, you see that there's grown up around the world, not just the United States, but really around the world, a worldwide skeptics movement. When you and Martin Gardner and Randy and Paul Kurtz and others founded PsiCOP, you didn't sit in some back room with some plan to create a worldwide movement. You were just thinkers coming together, and you wanted to offer criticism of these prevailing beliefs, correct? Well, there are many creation stories about the founding of the movement. We're going to go into some of them at the X-Tam. That's amazing, yes. I'll just announce for our listeners that for the first time in the history of Tam, we're going to have a panel on the history, the origins of the skeptics movement featuring Ray and Paul Kurtz and Randy and Ken Fraser and hopefully Martin Gardner by video. Those are interesting questions, but I'm asking you about really the movement aspect of it. Was there a plan for there to be a movement around these ideas and ideals? What happened wasn't that well-organized, obviously, but what happened as far as I'm concerned was the key things that led to the current skeptics movement were Martin Gardner, his fads and fallacies in the name of science. That's the thing we all look towards. One of the sacred texts. Exactly. Good way of putting it. Then there was Alice Cooper and Ray Geller had a big hand in it. The reason with Alice Cooper, by the way, Geller has a hand in it because in 1972, I get a call from the criminal Austin Kibble, who was then head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the same group that brought you the internet. That's the group that was founded by President Kennedy to be the Buck Rogers Flash Gordon part of the Defense Department, to look in the futuristic things. I got a call from him and I was grading papers at the University of Oregon. I got a call from him in 1982, December, saying, Ray, could you drop whatever you're doing and go down to Stanford Research Institute where they have a psychic in captivity who they're studying. And that was Ray Geller. That happened to be Ray Geller. So I went down here, of course, and it was the most bizarre thing I've ever saw. And then as a result of my report, they knew they weren't going to get any money from the Defense Department. So they took Geller on the road and they went to New York and promulgated him in front of New York Time Magazine. And Time Magazine got Randy to pretend that he was a reporter and sit in when Geller did his demo for them. And that's when Randy saw... When Geller left the room, Randy apparently replicated a lot of what Geller did and showed it was a fraud. But anyways, as a result of that, in 1972, Time Magazine had an article called The Magician and the Think Tank. And they pointed out how Randy had... Here is this psychic. So the first written public... Geller Garden's Country was a expose by Time Magazine. And this was before Psycop. This is 72. Oh, yeah. This was before 72, yeah. But you were all connected even then. No, no, no, what happened... Geller was the one who should get the credit for connecting us. What happened was, as a result of this, I didn't know Randy that well at the time. He knew of him and he knew of me because we're both disciples of Martin Gardner. But I was out here in Oregon and so as a result of this article, I'm in it and Randy's in it. We are the two key people who were exposing Geller at that time. Randy then was traveling with Alice Cooper. I knew nothing, but I don't know... The rock star Alice Cooper, Randy, was part of his show. Yeah, I thought Alice Cooper was a she when he called me about it. Anyways, he was traveling with Alice Cooper and Alice Cooper, I don't know if you know about it. I didn't know much about it. I didn't know much about modern music. I stopped with Beethoven and anything after that is too much for me. But anyway, I get a call from Randy. He's part of the show.   And that's how they end the show. And Randy was a big feature of it, of course. So Randy was traveling with the show and they came to Portland and I get this call from Randy when he's in Portland. He says, Ray, you've got to come up here. Alice Cooper wants to see you. He wants you to look at the show and explain to him why he's got these problems with his fans. He's got very young teenagers like him and college students like him, but high school students have nothing to do with him. And so he figured if... So Randy told him about me as a psychologist and stuff like that and he thought that somehow I could come up and watch the show and explain to him and all that. And so this sound all already weird. I didn't know what Alice Cooper was even who or she or he was. And then he said, also... But he didn't mention that con. The other reason he wanted to talk to me. So I went up there, I met Alice Cooper and it turned out to be a he. At least I think it was a he. Yeah. Actually, he's a pretty nice guy. He's a very conservative guy, I was surprised, you know, politically and he had his nose bent and it turned out he had fallen and he used to run marathons and he'd fallen at the end of a marathon and so he knew...  But in all of this, you know, I went, I was on the stage, they put earphones in me, so unfortunately I was on the side and between every act Alice would come to me when they had a blackout, come over. He acted like he was drunk, he was falling down. He was about to fall over. He actually was addicted to beer and he was addicted to drugs. Everyone else in his crew went to bug, there was smoke, all kinds of stuff. But he only drank beer, a Coors beer. And he would come to me, he would straighten up between the acts when the lights went off. He'd run over to me and explain to me what's going on. He said, now, wait, we're at this next act, you're going to see the kids are going to throw things at me.  He didn't need my advice on that. But the other thing is, in between all this, Randy took me aside and said, you know, Ray, we got to do something about the Surrogala business and general the public's interest and all this crazy stuff. And so he said, let's form an organization called Surr. That was his name for it. You know, S-R-I, he took the initials, S-R-I-M-A-S-I-R, Surr, and he meant by that, sanity in research. That was the first suggestion or anything. So he, we called Martin Gardner, so he, Martin Gardner and I found our group that's called Surr, we called it and we changed it to some other names and we started that in 1972. We had a big meeting at Martin's house, big group, the three of us. That was it. Then, sometime later, I don't know how we heard about it, but Marcello Tritzi, who I knew nothing about, we didn't know anything about it, contacted us and said, look, we heard about our group and he liked to join if he could and he could help us out, you know, he's a good administrator, he's willing to do all the Scott work for us and the one thing that Martin, Randy and I did not have, we did have no administrative disabilities, we didn't have to run anything, we just had a good idea of people. We spent all the time just thinking of ideas, what to do, but we were able to... And Tritzi as an academic wanted to help provide some structure to the group. Exactly, and we said, that's what we need. So we said, okay, and so Tritzi became part of our group at Paul Kurtz in 1976, at some conference, I don't know what it was, and at that time Kurtz was running the Humanist magazine and he had also been running articles including by myself, on critical of paranormal stuff. So... So Psycop was originally kind of a subcommittee of the American Humanist Association or something? Well, no, we tried to make it clear that we weren't going to be connected and that's been the point of friction ever since. What happened was that he, without asking Martin, Randy or myself, Marcello volunteered to put us together with Kurtz and his group and we informed this big group called Psycop and so we had a big meeting in 1976 and that's how it all started. So the reason I asked the movement question is that in recent years you've been speaking out more suggesting to audiences that some of the approaches of the expert critics of parapsychology, some of your approaches may have been misguided. Again, don't want to put words in your mouth but you've suggested that, conversations we've had, maybe that some of the previous approaches to criticizing parapsychology there could be a better way to do it. So the reason I asked the movement question is that here's a young, we have so many new generations of people who hold you up and Randy and Gardner and others as skeptic heroes, as role models and they want to emulate your approach. They want to do what you've done and kind of continue to carry on the torch. If you're saying it might not have been the best way to go about it, well what do you have to say to them who say, I want to in a fair-minded way look at parapsychology research and see if it's up to scientific standards. Well in 1986 I wrote this article called Proper Criticism and it's been the most repeatedly published article I've ever written. Every skeptics group in the world has republished it, it's been republished again, it's now going to be republished in a commemorative issue of the skeptical movement by the British Journal of the Sceptic and Swabsman published in books and stuff like that. And all it is, my article on Proper Criticism is just a list of platitudes that you should know. Some don't attack the person, attack the problem and be reasonable and be fair, be sensible. That's about it.  Yet it's been the most published thing. Everyone reads it, everyone praises it and no one follows it including myself. But what I'm trying to zone in on is if the approaches that the skeptics movement or leading skeptics have taken in the past if it might not be the ideal way, what's the alternative? In other words, what's next for the skeptics movement? If you're suggesting the answer is not for expert critics to invest 50 years and whole academic careers in a fair-minded way looking at the parapsychological research, well, what's the alternative? Well, first of all, I don't know. But I do have ideas. One thing I'm going to correct now is the chance to do it. Curtis is introducing me. By the way, there's some wrong stuff also. People get information on me off the web when they wrote about me in this pamphlet that you have to program and so on. Some of it's true. Some of it is not quite true. He said I'm on the executive council. I was on, right from the beginning I was on the executive council, but I think for the last five years I've not been on the executive council and I've had nothing to do with psychop, not deliberately, I think it's because we have some... Some strategic differences, maybe. Well, now I'm sure it's that. They have differences with me. I don't have differences with them, but okay. But to me, the skeptics movement, one of the big things we had was allocation of resources. I've always been saying you got to live within your resources. Not because I'm a Republican, I'm not. I'm a Democrat. But I do think we ought to use our limited resources. At that time when we started psychop we did have limited resources. We ought to use them wisely and most effectively. I thought we got the most bang for the buck by focusing on not trying to get to everyone in the world but focusing on opinion makers, journalists and teachers, educators. If we could influence those people and help them, the biggest audience. The other thing I thought was we were doing the most was with the skeptical inquire. We were reaching the most. However, Kurtz and the other powers there somehow were more, and you used the term I thought it was great, edifice complex. Quoting me in front of an audience, great thing to say, but yes, I've cheekily introduced Paul Kurtz a number of times as our man with an edifice complex wants to build an organization. So they keep multiplying these centers all over the world. They're very expensive. They have to raise money and so on. So they're always raising fundraising and so on. That's become more with the skeptics. The skeptics movement since it's developed psychop has focused more on things like building centers spreading out and also fighting among themselves within skeptics. We've done nothing about trying to do the outreach which is where we can do the most. That's one thing I have disagreed with the people right from the beginning. One likes to build buildings and raise money and the other likes to do something as effective and so that's just a difference of opinion. I think your criticism about building buildings, that's well taken. People get that, but drawing another distinction, you're saying rather than skeptics being geared up to engage the parapsychologist and look at the research and really dig in. Rather than that, the agenda should be an outreach or public education mission. Opinion leaders, journalists, teachers that's what you've done surely, your public appearances, your appearances in the media, but you've also spent the last 50 years doing the hard research or at least looking at the research to see if it's up to snuff. I'm just trying to pin you down on this. Are you suggesting that that should be less of a priority for the skeptics movement than this public education, this public outreach? I don't know how to answer that because I would say my focus is not paranormal or anything like that. Ultimately, what I'm most concerned about is giving people the tools to think and to be good, better thinkers. So it's a further focus. The education system, we've not done a good job of that. I think we can do better. To me, skepticism and the skeptical movement dealing with the parapsychology is just a good forum to work on those kinds of problems. If we can do it there, then we can do it elsewhere as well. It's going to involve science. It's going to involve knowledge of thinking or critical thinking. It's going to involve the things we have in psychology of it all as well. We've got to realize that what human limitations are and what it is that is pushing people in this direction. So my feeling is that we've got to do more in that direction. Skepticism is just one tool for that. Please join me in thanking Ray Hyman for this fun conversation. Thank you. I'd like to spend a few minutes now on questions and since this is being recorded I may paraphrase your question. You'll have to tell me if I got it wrong so that it can be recorded. Question right back there. Professor Hyman, two questions. I wonder if you would comment or be willing to comment on the parents split between Marcello Truzzi and Psycop and the other subjective interest would be Dr. Sports after life experiments and his new project there in Arizona. That's a lot to comment on. Truzzi is a complicated fellow. He came from a circus background. His father was one of the top considered universally by those who know as probably the second greatest juggler, circus juggler in the world in history. And he was born actually in Russia because his father was with the European circus. Eventually his father ended up with the Ringland brothers Barnard and Bailey and that's why Truzzi grew up and went to school in Florida because where the Ringland brothers have their camp and their school. He got that interesting background and then he became a sociologist at Eastern Michigan University and he's a person of tremendous breadth knowledge and everything but also he was a person who was dedicated to being in the middle wherever he can and his idea was and we split on a lot of things his idea was to be fair you got to give all size equal time and I likened his approach to and he never liked this for some reason I likened his approach to saying look we have a plate of food here we know it's certified not having any bacteria or any dangerous organisms and stuff like that and here we have a plate of food here that we know is just leaking with all kinds of terrible dangerous substances in it his approach to the best thing to eat is to mix it to 50-50 and his approach also was you got to give equal time to all size and he's amazing the other side has an awful lot of scientific evidence everything behind it and so I never could understand that we always split on that kind of thing the guy had I shouldn't speak with him because he's dead he was an interesting guy he was a fascinating guy in many ways but he also reveled in being friends with everyone and he one time I remember an American AAA S meetings in San Francisco and while there he said Ray why don't you come with me I'm going to take you to dinner over to this guy's house who happened to be the fellow who ran the churches of the devil Satanist churches Temple Asset maybe or Anton LeVe Okay so we went to Anton LeVe's house for dinner and Anton LeVe unfortunately had a black panther roaming his house as well and I went to get the bathrooms I was really wondering where was his panther so what you're saying is what led to the split was just this disagreement let me give you an example Anton LeVe is typical Triton said to him a good friend because they both had loved circus music and had some sort of similar backgrounds but LeVe was very proud of the fact that he had all these people in the church of Satan he always suck as he called them in front of us among other things he sold sexual objects he sold these inflatable dolls to them and he made a big living he was bragging about all that I found it kind of off-putting and Triton was always presented himself and that's why he broke with Randy over moral issues and Randy did the project alpha Triton attacked him very viciously saying that this was unethical to do to go into a scientist laboratory and waste his money by pretending that you got psychic powers for our listeners project alpha is when Randy conspired to have two young magicians pose as psychic claimants at Washington University and then kind of expose the fraud in a real gotcha moment and the reason Randy did this was because Randy always had been told that when he said you ought to have a magician when you design your experiments you're going to test a regala or some other psychic the scientists always say of the parapsychologists who are scientists say we don't need a magician we're scientists we know how to control things they can't pull anything like that on us so in order to show that they can pull things like that Randy did that project alpha and it worked but Triton's total reaction was this was unethical unethical thing to do and unethical person so that's why I did big fight well Triton felt he was the only honest skeptic honest broker in his whole skeptical business I Randy and other people were biased skeptics and the other there was a belief was on the other side and the only person who was the fair person was my cell Triton he openly said these things and we were at a meeting once at the Naval research laboratory here Bethesda they held a meeting because Senator Claiborne Pell was very upset with the report I had made for the government on parapsychology he said it was unfair and they shouldn't have had Hyman do it they should have someone else do it because Hyman is a known disbeliever or something like that so Pell got the office of congressional research which I don't know still exists but he got them to carry on a special meeting and they had several parapsychologists Jim Alcock and myself there and Machella was there and at this meeting Machella stood up and said well look you have Hyman and Alcock over there but they're not the fair people I'm the only neutral guy here in this room here and he had its representatives obviously this was startled me because every parapsychologist always assumes and openly thinks that Machella was on your side all the skeptics thought Machella was an enemy so but Machella thought he was the only neutral person he thought he was the one person in the middle I want to try to get some other questions any right here I'm curious your thoughts on James Randy's approach with the million dollar challenge do you see that as a good way to investigate or what are your thoughts I have never been a fan of waving ten thousand dollar check and then I'll tell you a million dollar check I don't think that's a good approach to me but I understand the approach that Randy and the public probably to the public appeals more it's a put up a shut up type of thing but it makes no sense to me as a scientist it doesn't prove anything one way or the other but I just have to say it's not my approach but I can't mock it question right here I'm so fascinated by the fact that you've worked with federal entities on these issues could you give us some reflection about where the hopeful ways might be to help penetrate the pseudo scientific approaches of the federal government I give the example the fact that FDA still allows homeopathy we've got some strange new light device that's now been FDA approved we've got that agency I come from we're using the polygraph right and left and a lot of these other things is very dubious science how can we help the federal government to think more rationally about this I'm not sure how to do that because the government agencies is a big bureaucracy with all kinds of little pockets in it what I found was that there are pockets that do all kinds of weird stuff but the other pockets don't know about it and there are also real good skeptics in the area as well the military, the CIA I know and some of the other agencies that I've had some direct contact with and it's what you have is that one side doesn't know what the other side is doing one of the things I found was that if you had if I could get access and if they had a centralized database where I could check how many thing parapsychological things are going on there's no way I could find out I don't think the president could find out because what I find was that many of the people doing weird stuff parapsychological work or something like that like in the Navy I found that you only find these by accident a lot of things that are called parapsychological that are parapsychological work go under different names, they use code names they put perception under unusual conditions well that fits a lot of things underwater and submarines up and out of space and stuff like that but a lot of the people doing oddball ESP experiments and other stuff will use that to cover up what they're doing so there, and this John Alexander at when I was on the committee on techniques for enhancing human performance which was basically the Army Research Institute put up this money to have the National Academy of Sciences look into borderline techniques such as neuro-linguistic programming meditation, sleep learning and parapsychology many vendors are selling techniques to various branches of the military based on these things, so we were asked to look at, see if there's any one of these things that have any possibility of being good, that the government was currently then using including using these recordings subliminal persuasion and so on and most of the people even in the agencies where this was going on didn't know what was going on, you know this John Alexander, Colonel Alexander was running a military ordinance research at Fort Mead I think it was and he was sponsoring the research of Cleve Baxter, Baxter was the guy in the 1960s was the first guy to attach electrodes to a phylo dendron plant and show that it responded psychically to people, to brine shrimp being burned in another room or something like that and that started talking to plants movements and stuff like that Baxter's still around, he's still doing research like that and John Alexander Colonel Alexander when he was running the ordinance laboratory was funding his work, how did he get away with that? This is guns he's supposed to be dealing with right? He got away with it because he said he told us ourselves, our committee, he said look, if I spend anything over $10,000 I've got to document everything but if I spend anything up to $10,000 I don't have to say anything about it so he was giving this guy $10,000 a day you know, each one is a separate contract so he didn't have to report it So no real clear road map on how to diminish the government's support itself for pseudoscience Well what it amounts to is the government is just a microcosm of the rest of society, it's the same thing some thoughts don't know what the other part's doing and people, their roads are all around and it may be good or bad because there are whole areas in the CIA and the defense department, people go off and do their own thing and the rest of the people don't know even the head of the CIA doesn't know about it it's just amazing it's just such a big bureaucracy but also all these little pockets of people doing some strange things and I'd like to believe that they still are a minority but I'm not so sure but when I was there our committee was formed in 1985 then retired head of INSCOM Army Intelligence Albert Stubblebein III who Tammy over here confirms me she knew Stubblebein, they were good friends obviously right? but she knew Stubblebein he's the brother of Lee Marvin he looks like him too so Lee Marvin's name must have been Stubblebein II before he changed to Marvin so I think we have time for one more question anyone? right over here you spend a lot of time in academia and I understand that getting grant money is very, very difficult how is it that even with really nothing to show for it over many, many years that there are still departments of parapsychology there's still money being awarded to research in parapsychology parapsychology gets practically no funding government funding by the way a big deal was made out of the fact that the 20 year research in Stargate on remote viewing got 7 million dollars that's a pittance of the military budget but actually the only reason that number of 7 million dollars comes around is because they got it from me I was trying to find out how much was being spent only in one laboratory in California on the research they were doing being supported by the first the CIA but then it was a national defense intelligence agency I'm sorry what happened was the CIA had for the first five years or so of the remote viewing they had been supporting it but then decided it was going nowhere so they dropped it but then the defense intelligence agency took it over and they were supporting it so for 20 years this program was going on and no one knew how much money was being spent on it but I just tried to find out on one laboratory how much they had gotten and he told me over five years they got 7 million dollars of funding that one lab so I haven't mentioned that and that became the word all over now because once you say something like that that becomes it and so unfortunately it was the inadvertent so when he had me on he said how can the government waste 7 million dollars of money you know 7 million dollars of pittance right in terms of the people who were incensed about this kept emphasizing that the 7 million dollars wasted and the people on the other side who didn't want to interview me they interviewed instead Jessica Utz she was the other part of the team and she's the parapsychologist part of the team if they wanted a program where they want to emphasize look the government is doing this wonderful stuff it's like remote viewing how open we got a great government they would interview her if they want to emphasize the negative they would interview me but during that interview they always brought up the 7 million dollars how government wasted 7 million dollars if you have precious tax dollars Ray last question and it's really kind of a follow-up on that and then we'll finish up after 50 years of looking into this stuff do you think the questions are still worth asking is the research still worth doing so even if it's not government funded is it still worth looking into all this stuff for my part I don't know but you know if people want to do it I say okay if they're going to do it I hope they do it in the best way possible thank you very much for the conversation Ray Haiman thank you for listening to this episode of for good reason for updates throughout the week find me on twitter and on facebook to get involved with an online conversation about this interview with forgoodreason.org Views expressed on for good reason aren't necessarily the views of the James Randy educational foundation questions and comments on today's show can be sent to info at forgoodreason.org for good reason is produced by Thomas Donnelly and recorded from St. Louis, Missouri for good reasons music is composed for us by MA award nominated Gary Stockdale Christina Stevens contributed to today's show I'm your host DJ Growthy


Hello everybody, my name is Iliad Jan, working at CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre in Lugano, Switzerland, and my talk today is about orchestrating Kubernetes clusters on HVC infrastructure. So first of all, some words about me, I'm 29 years old, I'm Swiss, and I'm assistant engineer about, since about 10 years, and working at CSCS since 2020. My hobbies are everything, what's motorcycle related and to travel, and if you want to contact me, here is my email. So just to introduce what we are doing at CSCS, we have this new HPC system, which is called Alps, and it's an HPE machine, Cray, EX, using Shasta architecture, and the LinkShot network to interconnect its nodes. It uses the infrastructure as code methodology to configure all the system, and it's running different workload types in what we call V clusters, so it's like having an abstraction of the cluster, including classic HPC jobs, so login nodes, submit jobs on the nodes, and also serving grid-like workloads for WCG, for example, or CTA, and so on. Regarding Kubernetes at CSCS, we are leveraging Rancher in order to provide the Kubernetes service at the centre, and we have three main scenarios, the bare metal one, the virtual one, and the Alps one. So the bare metal one is the scenario where we want to use commodity hardware, but running Kubernetes natively on it, so without an hypervisor or virtual machines, and we are using this, for example, for the storage element of the WCG, so it's running Kubernetes with the cache on it, or for our Elasticsearch cluster, for example, where we want to use local disk and have the maximum performance out of them. On the Alps side, we can deploy Kubernetes clusters on the HPC machine using Rancher as well, using K3S or RKE, and a benefit of the HPC infrastructure on that cluster. We are currently having some performance issues, for example, I will talk in the next slide. And the virtual scenario where we integrate Rancher with Harvester, also by SUSE, and VMware in order to spin up Kubernetes clusters on the fly. Everything, all the cluster is now moving to Selium. We started with Calico, but now we are moving to Selium CNI, and all the application and configuration is managed with Argo CD. So about the main challenges, we have diskless nodes, for example, on the HPC machine. So we had to use SAF as external storage to preserve the state of the clusters. This is something that we had to deal with. Regarding the performance and scaling, when we start having many nodes, we saw also a new G impact on the storage, and having SAF to cope with high load is not so easy. Regarding the management, Rancher really helped us, because having this overview and manage the deployments and the upgrades from a central point was very useful. All of this and bringing Kubernetes on top of an already pretty complex system like the HP EX machine using Shasta is pretty complex to manage. So these are the challenges. We are, as I said, using Argo CD with the app of apps to manage all the applications. And in fact, we have a single top level application called controller, which then configures Argo CD itself and then deploys the underlying application on the downstream clusters. And then forcing the state as well. In conclusion, we are building Alps going with the aim of using cloud-native technologies. And we are also waiting, and we just upgraded the LinkShot network to the version 2 in order to leverage the VLANs as well on the Alps machine. And Rancher, Argo CD, VMware, and Harvester are the tools that really helped us build this Kubernetes infrastructure in an easy and manageable way. And it's very fun to work with that. As you can see, it's a work in progress. Nothing is written in stone. We are still learning. We are still exploring. We are still finding new technologies, and we are continually evolving. So this was my presentation. I hope it was useful. And I'm around for any question. Thank you. Any question? I'll jump in and ask one. You mentioned this class nodes. Is that something that works out of the box for Kubernetes? Or did you have to do something special? Actually, we started mounting in-memory to store, for example, the HCD database or so on. But then at node reboots, you lose anything. So we wanted to have also the persistence of the cluster when we reboot the nodes. And so we had to mount, for example, self-RBD volumes coming from an external storage in order to have this persistence. The nodes themselves have no disk at all? Exactly. And the bootstrap of the nodes to run the kubelet and have some sort of configuration? This is done via Rancher using the custom cluster. So you actually get an URL that you can download the bootstrap script. And it's bootstrapping the Kubernetes cluster using Rancher with this script. Thank you. Could you give us some numbers about the scale you're running at? What challenges, if any, you're facing with scheduling or queuing? We are seeing this impact when running the WCG workloads, where actually we are also not really aware of what we are going to get as jobs. And the underlying storage is SF. We have around now 100 nodes of Alps dedicated to WCG. And when there is a high load on the storage backend, here is where we saw the problems. So we are actually exploring new storage backends for this. This is the real point. Any other question? We have time for one more, maybe? Thank you. Thank you.


there friends thanks for checking in I have set on several occasions that sight mark makes some very nice optics and I've been happy with them I have several right here is a sight mark ultra shot M-spec it has the same look as an eotech has the aluminum shroud there has a similar reticle as an eotech at a fraction of the cost it has easy controls on off brightness settings and so forth and it has held zero and it has been great on this CMMG Banshee 5.7 by 28 millimeter and on my Ruger Max 9 I have a sight mark mini-shot this is a nice optic auto brightness and it's always on and it has held zero and it's been great with this Max 9 and it's priced right now what I have here is another sight mark I have it on my Ruger PC charger and it's called a Volta and this one is quite a bit different it's been around for a couple years but what makes it unique is that it has a solar panel on top that illuminates the dot it is a red dot that is auto dimming with the solar power what I mean by that is when you are outdoors and you're in a sunny environment the dot will increase the brightness will increase if you're in low light conditions it will decrease on its own you don't have to do a thing it is solar powered and I like that because I have gone to the range before and my dot was dead I didn't change out the battery I let it die out whatever the case this is solar powered and that is a nice feature and it's auto dimming and that's that's nice too now if the conditions aren't right or you want to go into battery mode or whatever the case it does have that compartment right there in which you could put two triple A batteries that are included in the case there are your adjustments all on the right side right easy adjusting there's a look at the window the glass is really nice I found that with all the sight mark optics the glass or night the glass is nice and it is scratch resistance shock proof all that stuff anti fog but with this you have the solar component that is always on for the most part depending on the conditions if it's not on you go into battery mode and that saves the battery life big time now they say the battery life here is 400 thousand hours I don't know if that's the case or not I don't think I'll ever have to use the battery so long as I am shooting outdoors we can take a look at the front here it's got a nice crisp dot easy controls went in battery mode let's say you're shooting indoors you go in battery mode there are 11 brightness settings you can set it however you want but went in solar mode primarily outdoors you are shooting with an auto dimming or auto bright brightness with your red dot the people at sight mark have taken notice they said hey you really like our optics we want to offer your followers a 10% discount and that code is TFG they'll get you 10% off on any of the sight mark optics or anything on their site and I said yeah I mean I'm not getting anything for it but you guys could if you go this route now if you go with the Volta which I like I just got it but I have a feeling I'm gonna like it as much as the others that I showed comes in this case right here the user manual and a lower mount and hardware for the lower mount including screws so you can I like this mount I think that's mostly preferred but you can go with a lower mount if you want and a rubber cover to protect it when not in use but the big advantage here I think is that solar component being able to use it outdoors and then if you're indoors no light you can always go into battery and you know adjust the settings as you see fit if you're outdoors it auto adjusts I think it's cool and I think it's priced right and then you use that discount code and you can get 10% off I have no argument there I'll do whatever I can to help out the viewers of this channel and I think that the the sight marks that I've shown and even some of the other ones that review very well that maybe I haven't experienced people tend to like them a lot and many people think that sight mark just makes those $30 optics no they make some higher-end optics that are pretty rugged they look as mentioned review well and I have had some great experiences with sight mark so this is called the Volta I think it's cool I like it I haven't had a long time but I do have plans to keep it on this Ruger PC charger use it enjoy it and then we'll see what happens I have a feeling it's gonna be fine for many years and I appreciate you checking it out and taking a look at sight mark optics if you like videos like this please subscribe and share I always appreciate thumbs up button thanks for watching and you guys be safe


This 2018 Chevy Silverado 3500 crew cab long box dual rear wheel work truck is stock number 12157Z. We're here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy duty truck headquarters this 2018 Chevy Silverado 3500 has the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel engine which has the L5P engine in it which is 445 horsepower. This truck has been fully safe deed and inspected by our service shop for the state of Wisconsin inspection process has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go. We're gonna go inside all the way around started up take a look under the hood. Summit white is the color and we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second so if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet smartphone or television I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality and condition of the truck before seeing it in person and if you like the video and how we do stuff here at Summit Automotive in the upper right hand part of screen is a subscribe button to subscribe to our YouTube channel click that and then click the bell notifications and you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Auto. This one comes with the steel rims and it has Firestone Trans Force HT tires these are LT 235 80R 17s and they have I'd say probably 70 to 80% of the tread left on them frame and under body is in very nice clean condition front bumpers and pretty nice shape or front fenders in pretty nice shape does have a couple little dings that I noticed but nothing too bad on the front fender there front bumper is in excellent shape I didn't see any major dents or dings on that you get the chrome trimmed grille on this truck projector lamp headlamps headlight lenses are nice and clear comes with the true cowl induction hood and I'll show you that in just a second when we started up but the hoods in really nice shape but you get the clearance lights up top passenger side front fender pretty nice shape maybe one little ding on there nothing too bad passenger side front rim no major scuffs or scrapes and as you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is how reflective and mirror like that paint is we take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle you can see the truck hear the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here so when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at and if this video helps you make that buying decision let your salesman know that you saw the video that it helped you out and that Brett sent you the back rim is nice shape back here back tires have just as much tread as the front tires and once again that frame and underbody is an exceptionally nice condition looks like it's been under coated box rails all look really good has all the remaining factory exhaust and the cab corners and lower rockers all look really good on this truck as well very little to no corrosion underneath the body there coming around to the back the rear bumpers in really nice shape no dense or dings and that it does have the rear bumper steps full towing package which includes a receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring and the tailgate is in really nice condition as well it does have a locking tailgate drop-in bed liner that's in really nice shape tailgate shuts nice and solidly and as you go down this side of the truck just as clean as that passenger side her full disclosure this back rim is in nice shape as well and the driver's side doors are in really nice shape too this one does have the telescopic tow mirrors they have built in directional signals in them a telescope out like so and they also fold in like that inside the work truck package gives you the gray cloth interior you have the 40 2040 split bench seating there are no rips or tears on the seats they are in really nice condition comes with the heavy-duty rubber floors for easy cleaning auto headlamps turned out four wheel drive factory brake controller and it does have tilt on the steering wheel power windows power locks and power mirrors will hop inside take a quick look at the ignition in the radio and everything that this truck has to offer on the interior can see that this one has 39,931 miles you do get a digital speedometer and compass display the steering wheel is in really nice condition and you do get cruise controls on there comes with the Allison heavy-duty six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift this one has the Chevy my link radio and FM radio capabilities and it does have serious XM radio capabilities as well you also have a projection manager where you can project your cell phone to the screen via Android auto or Apple CarPlay so if you've got a nav system on your phone projected to the screen and you can do your nav right on the screen it's pretty cool climate control stability control that's for your side for your cargo lamps and your side LED lights on the mirrors and your factory exhaust break it does come with a 12-volt PowerPoint flooring and passenger side seat are in excellent condition smells very clean inside this truck the headliner is in excellent shape and you do get map lights up here on-star capabilities in the review mirror we'll check out the back seats and then we'll start it up take a look under the hood we'll also check out that backup camera back seats are in excellent shape as well no rips or tears back here it does have the latch child safety system for any child car seats you may have fixed glass rear window and you get the heavy-duty rubber floors back here as well bottoms of the doors all look really good and it does come with LED side lights on those mirrors and they are super bright we'll start it up and then take a quick look under the hood starts right up no check engine lights or anything like that you can see the backup camera is working nicely I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you'll have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck all the way around inside and out and under the hood we have the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel L5P engine 445 horsepower engine base very clean runs very smooth once again this truck has been fully safety and inspected by all the service shop has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and chopped off and this truck is 100% ready to go there's your mission sticker and there is the true cowl induction hood air comes in from the hood goes right into the air cleaner and like I said this truck's 100% ready to go I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars trucks SUVs minivans wranglers half tons three-quarter tons one tons you name it we got to go to that website right there www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com summitauto number two like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there click the bell notifications you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Automotive in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel the upper left to link to more Chevy Silverado 3500 truck videos like this one the upper right link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left and only to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right click those checks out and we're super excited to help you with this super clean 2018 Chevy Silverado 2500 3500 Duramax diesel and Summit White thanks again for checking out the video remember to like subscribe and share


So, you want to boost your dopamine levels with the most effective nitropics, but don't know where to start. While in this video, we'll talk about the most effective dopamine boosting nitropics you can currently find on the market. At the end of the video, I'll share with you my favorite dopamine boosting nitropics tech, so stay with me till the end. Hi friends and welcome to your Inception's YouTube channel. My name is Greg Gostingar and I am the creator of this channel, where we cover everything from brain supplements to psychedelics. If that interests you then, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications.   Now those effects or side effects should help you navigate whether your dopamine levels are currently too high or too low. Now since there are no accurate tests for dopamine levels, what you can do is to observe yourself before supplementing with dopamine boosting nitropics during the test period and then again after it. And so you will see whether a specific nitropic has a positive effect on you or not. So which nitropics can you supplement with to boost your dopamine levels? Let's first check the individual options and then I'll share on the tropics tech with you. So here are my top 7 choices. First, l-tyrosine. L-tyrosine is a naturally occurring amino acid and a precursor to dopamine. It is a crucial building block in the synthesis of neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine. And these neurotransmitters play key roles in mood, focus and stress response. The recombined dosage of l-tyrosine varies but typically ranges from 500 mg to 2000 mg per day. It is advisable to start with a lower dose and gradually increase as individual responses can vary. Now l-tyrosine is available in various forms including capsules and powder. Some people prefer the convenience of capsules obviously while others may choose the powder form for flexibility in adjusting the dosage. Then we have phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid and another precursor to dopamine. It serves as a building block for l-tyrosine contributing to the production of dopamine in the brain. Now phenylalanine is also involved in the synthesis of other important neurotransmitters. Most experts recommend to start with a conservative dose of around 500 mg and gradually increase the dosage to 1000 mg per day and as with any supplement individual responses may vary. Phenylalanine is commonly available in capsules or powder form. It can be taken with or without food but combining it with vitamin B6 may enhance its conversion to dopamine. By the way, are you on the lookout for the best on tropics to boost your brain performance but don't know where to start? Take a look at our free in tropics quiz linked below to get personalized recommendations that would be the perfect choice for you. Now let's talk about vitamin B6 next. B vitamins, particularly vitamin B6, are essential cofactors in the synthesis of neurotransmitters including dopamine.  Now the optimal levels of B6 for adults are somewhere between 1.3 to 2 mg per day. Another in tropics I want to talk about is mucuna prurians. Mucuna prurians, also known as valid bean, is a tropical legume rich in aldopa, which is a direct precursor to dopamine. Aldopa crosses the blood-brain barrier and is converted into dopamine, contributing to improved mood and cognitive function. Now dosages can vary but starting with 100 to 500 mg of a standardized extract with aldopa content is common. Now it is crucial to begin with lower doses and adjust based on individual response. Now bucuna prurians supplements are available in various forms including extracts and polymers. Now standardized extracts ensure a consistent concentrations of aldopa and that's what I usually recommend. Then there is curcumin. Curcumin is the active compound in turmeric known for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Some research suggests that curcumin may influence dopamine levels and provide neuro-protective benefits. The recommended dosage of curcumin varies but typically doses range from 500 to 2000 mg per day. It is often taken with black pepper or piperine to enhance absorption. By the way guys, if you like this video please press the like button below and subscribe to this channel. The next tropic is rhodiola rosé. Now rhodiola rosé is an adepthogenic herb with a long history of use in traditional medicine. It is known for its stress-reducing properties and potential to enhance cognitive function. Now rhodiola may influence dopamine sensitivity contributing to a more balanced neurotransmitter system. The recombined dosage typically ranges from 50 to 600 mg per day and it is often suggested to take it in the morning to avoid potential sleep disturbances. Then there is TMG or Trimetal Glycine. TMG is often added to dopamine boosting tropics. While it is not a direct dopamine precursor it plays a role in the methylation process and may as such indirectly support dopamine production. Now the typical daily dosage varies from 500 to 3000 mg. Now if you want to increase your dopamine levels quickly you can obviously combine different tropics together. You can buy them separately or go for a premaintant tropic stack. Now there are many options available on the market right now but I can only think of one product that was specifically designed for boosting dopamine levels and that's dopamine brain food made by natural stacks. Now I've been taking their supplements for many years and I can tell you that their products are really high quality. Now dopamine brain food contains vitamin B6, L-tyrosine, TMG and L-phenylalanine. So amazing dopamine precursors and that's why it is my go-to choice for boosting dopamine. Now here's what you can expect from this supplement. At first not much is going to happen but after a while for example after 30 to 60 minutes after you take the capsules you're going to start feeling more motivated and probably more energized as well. Your focus will increase and your mood will improve and these are the typical positive effects I experience when I take about two to three capsules of dopamine brain boost. Now if you don't get those benefits right away that's totally normal. Keep on taking the capsules for a few more days and if nothing happens after a few weeks then your dopamine levels are probably high enough or there's something else that's causing your poor mood or lack of motivation. It could be a poor diet, lack of sleep, stress, etc. Now obviously in tropics like this cannot help you with that but they can be very very beneficial if you are otherwise a healthy individual. Now the recommended daily intake of dopamine brain food is three capsules and I suggest taking them in the morning with food. Now one package like this costs about 39 dollars but if you buy a bigger package if you subscribe or use my special discount code yourinception15 you can also find it below you will get an additional 15% discount. So if you want to boost your dopamine levels try one of the tropics mentioned before or go with such an amazing stack and if you're searching for my top rated and tropic stack of this year watch my video up here. Thank you guys for watching and I hope to see you soon again. Stay well.


So, YouthSave is a five-year project to design and test the impact social and commercial of savings accounts designed around the preferences of low-income teenagers in four countries. We're working in Columbia, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal. We had a meeting in Washington, D.C. here recently where we brought all of our global project stakeholders together, including our bank partners, and we're able to show them a successful example of a bank bringing its services into a school through Capital One's program here in Prince George's County outside Washington. And I think it really provided a ton of inspiration and ideas and really demonstrated the impact that bringing banking to school can have on students. I've been learning a lot about financial literacy, so all of the things that I learned, I made sure that I passed the message on, so that I'm not the only one benefiting from that knowledge that I learned. Well, I remember one time when my mom was trying to purchase a car, she wanted to get some auto loans. She needed advice on auto loans, and I let her know that she can go to the bank and then they can help her out with the auto loan stuff, and they actually had good interest rates, and then everything worked out, so me knowing that stuff, it just basically enlightened her and helped her out. I immigrated here when I was four years old, almost about to be five, from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in East Africa, and coming from there, feeling the struggles of coming to a new country and not being able to express myself and telling people how I feel to now being in a position where I'm talking to new people every single day and educating folks and telling people about all of these great things that I've learned about financial literacy, I'd never imagined myself in the position I am today. I had a chance to speak to the non-grade class, tell them about being responsible, you're starting a high school year, it's important for you to start off strong, and I never thought I would be able to do that, speaking in front of crowds, being interviewed, never thought I'd be able to have the opportunity to do that. One thing that one of the student bankers said was this job that she has, Capital One Teller, they make $11 an hour, and she actually stood up in front of all of us and said, I now have a better job than both of my parents, and I think that that kind of puts into perspective the vulnerability of the communities that we're talking about that are being invested in, and this is the same sort of situation that we see oftentimes in developing countries as well, that it's the parents that didn't have the same access to education, don't that are now still excluded economically and financially, and they're putting a lot of their investment, a lot of their eggs proverbially into the basket of their children and the futures that they have, and I thought that it was really fascinating that we're seeing the same sorts of dynamics at play here.


Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Colonel Ray Gerber, commanding officer, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, Cam Hanson, Okinawa, Japan, welcome to the Relief and Appointment Ceremony. Today's ceremony is being executed by the Marines and Sailors of 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group. Since 1875, noncommissioned and staffed noncommissioned officers have cared the noncommissioned officer's sword as a symbol of their ability and prestige as enlisted leaders of the Marine Corps. The Sergeant Major, as a senior enlisted leader and advisor, is the keeper of traditions of his units. Today's emblematic passing of the sword about this signifies the transfer of this sacred trust from one Sergeant Major to another. From the command of the Marine Corps to Sergeant Major Adon F. Rhino, effective 1022 June 2021, you will stand relieved of your duties and responsibilities as Sergeant Major 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, and you are directed to report to the commanding general, Marine Corps recruiting command for duty, signed David H. Berger, general, United States Marine Corps, command of the Marine Corps. Morning Sergeant, Sergeant Major Rhino, reporting to the old Sergeant Major. From command of the Marine Corps to Sergeant Major Aaron C. Collin, effective 1022 June 2021, you are directed to assume the duties and responsibilities as the Sergeant Major 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, signed David H. Berger, general, United States Marine Corps, command of the Marine Corps. Morning Sergeant, Sergeant Major Collin, reporting to the new Sergeant Major. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate everybody taking their time out of their busy schedules to be here today. Let me say, my time with 3rd MEV, 3MIG, in the service of Camp Hanson Sergeant Major has probably been the highlight of my career thus far. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I've had to come out here to lead these Marines to work with some outstanding group commander and outstanding commanding general, you know, with 3rd MEV, and to work alongside some of the finest sergeants major, I believe, in the United States Marine Corps. It has been my privilege and honor and humble to have had the opportunity to serve with 3MV, with 3MIG, and as a Camp Hanson Sergeant Major. So thank you. Thank you for everything that you've done for the Marines of the MEV, the MEV, and Camp Hanson. As we did the sword exchange, very ceremonial nature, but I gotta tell you, I've got it from here, brother. Farewins to follow and seize to you and Tammy at Marine Corps Recruiting Command. I know you're just gonna knock it out of the park, as you always have. Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the retirement of the colors and remain standing for the playing of Anchorage and Marines. Retirement colors.


All right, good morning to everyone and we're going to go ahead and get started. Thank you all so much for being present with us today. My name is Henry Simons, I'm the Assistant City Manager over operations, of course, for the City of Columbia. And again, we would like to welcome you and thank you for your presence. As we gather to celebrate the ribbon cutting and opening of our very own community resource center here at the Catherine Bellfield Book of Washington Heights Cultural Arts Center. Thank you to our Mayor, Daniel Rickerman, our Mayor Pro Tem, Councilman named McDowell, who represents District 2. Also want to acknowledge our City Manager in her absence. Thank her for her continued guidance on all of our initiatives around parks and recreation. Also want to acknowledge Ms. Regina Williams who's here with us, President of the Book of Washington Heights Neighborhood Association, along with her board who is also some of our board members. See Kevin speaks here, some of our other board members are here with us on today. Today is a great day. Today is a monumental day that we're going to celebrate together. The Community Resource Center will be available for local small businesses and nonprofits that have an LLC or a 501C3 status. Through an application process, they will be able to secure free space to conduct business and to grow their organizations. City of Columbia's goal is to ensure that those who have dreams have a safe and secure space to make those dreams become a reality. City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Team will supervise and support the operations of the center and they will facilitate the actual application process with team members who will be on site. This will also be a space for training of potential business owners where we will provide classes and seminars to our community. We strongly believe that this will be an asset to the citizens of our community. So what will you see today as you enter the Community Resource Center? We have 10 workstations, community meeting space, a larger small conference room, a fully furnished office for staff, a fully renovated kitchen, break area, fully renovated restrooms. Our business leaders will have access to free Wi-Fi, copier, printer, auto-visual equipment for presentations, which includes a webcam for their use as well. We know business owners will bring their own computers but they'll have access to of course Wi-Fi. The Community Resource Center will be open from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 to begin. Times may flex but to begin will be open from Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We're grateful that we now have a Community Resource Center and the Book of Washington Heights community. It is something special. I'm excited about you walking through to see the space and we're just grateful for this opportunity. So now as we begin with remarks, we're going to have Ms. Regina Williams, the president of the Book of Washington Heights community association to speak, followed by Mayor Daniel Rickerman, and then our Mayor Pro Tem, councilman named McDowell. Following those remarks, I will come back up with some brief acknowledgments and we'll take a photo as we do the ribbon cutting and then we'll enter the Community Resource Center for a tour. All right, help me welcome Ms. Regina Williams. Good morning. Assistant City Manager Henry Simons, Mayor Daniel Rickerman, and Mayor Pro Tem. I get confused when I'm getting ready to say Reverend, a doctor, or... Ms. Holiness. Just call me. ...Hand Spanker, councilman Ed McDowell. Y'all, this day is a dream come true for us. I want to welcome you this morning to the Book of Washington Heights neighborhood. I'm Regina Williams and I follow in the footsteps of Catherine Margie Bellefield. But like Ms. Bellefield, I do not do it alone. Ms. Bellefield had Wanda and I have our organization, if you would please stand or wave your hand. We are a hard-working group of folk. We want you to know that this annex will serve as an example for the city of Columbia. We will show the city of Columbia how you take a community center and make it the center of the community. We will show you that this annex will continue to nurture minds from all across the city to become artisans and entrepreneurs. We will show the city of Columbia that this community and this resource center will continue to partner with schools and tutor and give extra love to the youth across the city of Columbia. We will partner with churches and provide computer skills free of charge and help willing adults to achieve their diploma or GED, free of charge. In other words, we want you to come and check us out over here. We want you to come and consider becoming a neighbor of ours here in Booker Washington Heights where we believe in revitalization and not gentrification. Thereby always showing that we in Booker Washington Heights will always stand on the positive side of change. And thus, we will move forward so that we can show you how much we love and appreciate the change that is coming and the change that we respect and love for our beautiful community. Thank you all. Thank you for coming and we look to be knocking on your doors one day. Thank you. Good morning everyone. Very exciting day here. In 2004, I ran for office and was elected the first time at large and I spent a great deal of time about two blocks from here in Miss Bellfield's living room. I didn't do a whole lot of talking, I did a whole lot of listening. Miss Bellfield was the anchor to this community. And her long-term vision was that this school would turn into a community center that was the emphasis of this community, that it was the basis for people to be able to have ideas, have resources and really be the center to build up this neighborhood one block at a time. I continued to ride around, we got new streets, we're waiting on new houses. We're going to continue to invest in here, but for me, this center, when we had an opportunity to take a library that had been flooded out and turn it into something that really could be an asset to this community, it was a no-brainer. Let's figure out how do we do it? How do we leverage those resources? Because the best ideas, the best businesses, the best community movements are born in a place like this. These ideas are behind every one of these doors in these neighborhoods and now we want to give them the resources so they can take those dreams and chase them. If that dream is to start a business, if that dream is to improve their community, if that dream is just to make somebody's life better, we want to be part of it and this is the way that we can be part of it. I'm so excited about this step. Now, this is just one phase. We're going to continue to invest in the community, continue to invest in this center to build it to what it was dreamed of, which one day we started off with a small commercial kitchen, but really to have a true commercial kitchen and teaching center here as we tear down this old building on the back, what's the next phase there? What do we want to do there for our community? What can we use that resource for that really enhances and adds to our neighborhood and not subtract it? Thank you, Regina, for being here. I want to thank all our staff, our small business director over there, Ayesha Driggers, who does wonderful. If you don't know Ayesha, you better get to know her. She's the key to a lot of things and she's a lot of reason why we do a lot. Thank you staff for all that y'all do and for always being here for this community. It's very important that we continue to work together. Our new community development director is here. Thank you, ma'am, for being here. So excited that you're here. Ms. Wanda, always a pleasure to see you, but we're so excited about the opportunities and let's continue to work together to improve our community. Thank you. Good morning. What else can we say that brings and brings to each one of us that level of excitement for this resource center? One or two things that has taken place in this area called Book of Washington. A Rillizzant has taken place. New streets, proposed a new housing. The building on the other side of this building is being abated for asbestos. We've done a lot, but the work is not over yet. I wanted to thank our ACM, Henry Simon, our president, and I'll talk about her in just a few moments. And of course our mayor, who continues to be at the spears edge with developing communities that need development. This community represents a holistic approach to what's taking place in the city of Columbia. This resource center provides entrepreneurial endeavors to come into this place and to be filled with an entrepreneurial spirit that will sort of metastasize from this place to the other. Some have already said we need to name our resource center. Some has said, well, Ms. Belfill is there. What about the Sarah Nance Resource Center? And of course that has trickled down, but as you know. Thank you. Let the ushers come forward and take up the offer. There has been conversation about that possibility and renaming this building, the Sarah Nance Resource Center. But as you know, there is a process. There is a process that has to take place through our administrative policy committee as it relates to renaming buildings. We want to really make sure that that takes place. A new ball field, new streets, proposed new housing. My goodness, I think you ought to give yourselves a big hand. Give yourselves a big hand, Ms. President. We aren't through yet. And because we aren't through yet, greater possibilities stand the forefront of this renaissance area. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for being who you are. And guess what? The work is not over yet. Thank you all.


Okay, so now we would have 10 minutes of like broad discussions on which can be on any of the two talk questions or comments of observations, whatever is on your mind. So feel free to ask anything or even just give some views that you might have. I actually have a question, which is related to both the talks and perhaps even probably also next one, but I'll ask it right now. So one one central and sort of Changi already discussed this so one central central input of these of these experiment is the species pool. And my question is, for instance also in the first talk by Martina, which part of the results do you think is independent of the species pool so let's say that you repeat the same experiment with a sample taken from a different environment or you repeat the same experiment with combining multiple sample from multiple environments so creating a much more diverse species pool. So, how much do you think the species pool is important in limiting the diversity you see versus. No, it's basically you are, you're ready have enough diversity and what you see is independent. Yes, that's a good question. I will expect that the effect of species pool is rather minor in this case, because what we look the community that we sort of consider is, is those that assemble in a simple environment, which is Google's environment. So those community that the committee members that pass the first filtered of being able to grow and coexist on Google's then they're ready, we're ready select for some subset of the, of the species from the global species pool. I don't, I think, I think those environments will play more important role in determining the not the richness but also like the structures of the network. It seems that the, the, the coexistence in the pairs could be different if we change the environment. For instance, if you have a very rich environment which allows diverse species to coexist, then I will expect that the environment would also, that's the species to coexist in pairs more often than the species pairs in a simple environment. So I think species pool relative to to the environment is a minor sort of factor in determining the network structure and, and those richness. Maybe I can add something from my side. For example, well, the species pool maybe. Yeah, I kind of agree with Changyu, in the sense that the species pool probably is as a minor factor compared to the environment, although, let's say in the, in the case of having, like, as Leonardo was saying before, big molecules that need to be digested you need microbes for example that digest these, these molecules for example to generate to sustain a community. But the other thing that, for example, if we think about for repeating the experiment with other pools of species. I think that the structure for example with generalist and specialist is something that is quite common across environments. So there are lots of studies that highlight that across communities you can find generalist and specialist, and usually generalists are very few compared to a lot of specialists. So for example this aspect of at least my experiment I think it would be concerned if I change, if I maybe change the pool of species. If he wants to add anything on this, maybe I will have a question for Martina or for whoever wants to say something about it. So in your experiment Martina, like your results to just suggest that cross feeding is the mechanism that supports high diversity. Also, like in another experiment, the one of the group of Alvaro Sanchez from 2018, the same suggests that it's cross feeding that that maintains a high diversity. So can we somehow conclude that cross feeding is the main or however, most common mechanism that supports high diversity, or is it also because the typical laboratory setting excludes other possible mechanisms like special heterogeneity or predation that in other settings could be instead common reasons. Well, I think that it depends so obviously in nature you have all these things playing together special heterogeneity predation warfare. So microbes fight against each other they produce antibiotics so then there are phases that are so to contribute to diversity. So I would say that they, when you think about the natural settings all these, well, and this is the ecologist that speaks so I think that all these, all these processes are can be equally important. Because in the lab you tend to try to isolate, let's say the effect of, let's say you try to quantify the effect of one process so that you can, and you keep constant on the other so that you can try to understand more what's going on with respect to the specific mechanism. And I believe that cross feeding plays an important part and there's still a lot to understand about it for sure. And yeah, so at least in our experiments, it is probably what's going on, although, for example, I'm not filtering for phages so to be fully honest I don't know if there are phages that can do that can change the dynamics. And then maybe I can add the last thing that is about for example environmental parameter variables like pH. So our people, other people in our group are studying variations in pH. And let's say the complex dynamics that can arise from variations in pH and also. And so I think that this is another possible process that could contribute to, for example, change temporal changes in diversity and interesting dynamics. There's a question on the top also from Marco that says, what is the typical variability of taxa found across biological replicates of these experiments using the same resources. Again, for me. So, yeah, there is variability. For sure. So, if so too, so the experiment, I had three replicates for each resource and richness varies the composition that is a bit but more in the species level compared to the family level. And as a result that has been already shown, as you were mentioning in the paper, another paper by the Sanchez lab in 2018, where usually what you see is that family diversity, so there is convergence at the family less at the species level. So quantifying variation. I can tell you that variability among communities supported by different resources is larger than the variability between the replicates of the same resource with other people doing experiments, maybe can add something about the other questions. Is there, kind of, is there a little bit of time I like to follow up to understand Jacob was questioned a little bit more because I think it's an important question and maybe it will reappear later and, and it has a relation to this question of the bias also in the pool, because we generally take the pool as, as given but I think it, it, of course in the experiments it is but I think maybe we can keep that question in the back of our minds and Jacopo, are you asking basically if we increase the pool. Would we just see a proportional increase in the local diversity or is there this continuous sort of an effect that is not, that is not linear and that therefore as we were to increase the pool we will assemble a much richer diversity than expecting. So, yes, so my question was related to how much the size of the pool, this sort of size of diversity of the pool which is a concept which is hard to quantify this is not the first number of taxa, but sort of decide if we could measure ever measure of the diversity of the pool how that would affect the diversity and the composition of the local community. It's not even obvious that the relation should be positive right so let's say that you have like one super strong generalist does, which is the super but does everything perfectly, right, but it's very, very rare. So, for some reason, I have no idea. So, of course, if that is in the pool, then you see like very low diversity while, if that is not in the pool you have some sort of perfect assembly and you see higher diversity. Right. So, I guess, yes, I just gave the example of proportional or something, you know, faster as a more nonlinear as an example, but, but yeah, and I think as we move forward, perhaps I'm thinking about variation of trades. So this is the question of how the forces that structure the local communities, if you were in a meta community context which is where the pool comes from, how does it assemble the size of the pool so I think it's, it's a question to keep in the back of our minds because, because we will see a lot of malls where there is this given pool of variation, but I think it's a very interesting question. But it seems to me that, in some sense, the hope is that there is not a depend, I mean that what, let's say, the, of course, the taxonomic composition depends on the pool but that other properties, let's say the structure of the competitive motifs or the linear structure of these with a number of resources is somehow robust so we, I guess this is the right that is not contingent of what we have in the pool. But I thought the second the second talk was arguing that a lot of what we see in the local experimental results is determined already by the biases in the pool right so. That was a conclusion. Yeah. I think perhaps. Yes, sorry. No, no, I was not saying anything. Yeah, no, I didn't have any other comment. Okay, sorry, is there a time to make a little another little comment here. So, so going back to the first comment that Mercedes made regarding or things that appeared in this discussion regarding the appearance of motifs, due to the assembly. The fact that a motif appears does not necessarily mean that it plays an important role in the coexistence. Namely that it is important in any sense. So, for example, you could have, I can imagine doing this in a simulation I mean an experiment of course it's, it's, it would be harder but you can imagine in a simulation you see in your assembly process, something correlations forming which would be translate into certain motifs being selected for for example, you could take your simulation then and only put that correlation in your community and like, well, does that mean that I see more species that does that affect diversity does that affect a bunch of things.  So, the fact that something is there and selected for does not mean that it has a functional importance in maintaining coexistence and so on. Okay, these are two different things. Yes, I fully agree that so I, why I think like the advantage of looking at the competitive network because it's, it's measuring the outcome of, of competition right because the links of these networks are outcome of competition. It is not dependent on the what kind of ecological interactions, or what's mechanisms are in play, we were just measuring the result so it's basically it's a model free sort of network could be generated from any kind of mechanisms. I think what I would kind of emphasize of the work is that we, we were lacking like, first, because in other kinds of ecological networks of full webs or materialistic network we were known that there's some multispring like occurring like all the time across different communities. And we've known that some of them have important functions but some of them don't. And I think for this particular type of competitive network, we are, we were having just the first step of trying to know, is there any common community assembly in some way that shows similar motive distribution, then we can now I'm trying to work on is that what kind of meaning of like enrichment or under enrichment of motifs mean in these communities. I think that's, I think it's exciting to, to try to figure out what happens because what I don't have a clear explanation is like why we see transitive motifs. I could it could be in the end that there's no functional meaning for these enrichments, because you could just be a artifact of network sampling. Oh, sorry, the community assembly, or you could have a player rule I don't know. And, and I think one way we can, we can test that is because it's by from the more mechanistic model that we know how micros behave and we can from the we can try to build up how, how the networks could be could be affected, depending on how we, we, we, we model the microbes. I think it's, we were just having the first step of trying to understand what happened for this type of network. Yeah, but these great comments for like trying to do this is entangled the effect of enrichment in the motifs. Thanks. Okay, I think now it's a good moment for our 10 minutes break. So you will be split in breakout rooms where you can continue chatting if you want, and you should also be able to more from one breakout rooms to the other. Find some people you would like to chat with and see you back here in 10 minutes for the next session.


I'm Sravya Guinta, as Adam mentioned. I'm representing on intense pulse light therapy, which is being used as a novel treatment for refractory dry disease around the country. I became involved in this research while working with Dr. Joanne Shen, who's a clinical specialist at the Mayo Clinic Arizona. So I'm going to go over what intense pulse light therapy is, the possible mechanisms of action and retrospective clinic. Here's the topic. There's a need for better dry eye disease therapies, as we know. The may-go-may-glan dysfunction is the primary cause of evaporative dry eye disease and contributes to acute patient dry eye disease. It's also a major contributor to poor quality of life in these patients. The goal of may-go-may-glan therapy is to provide long-term improvements of symptoms for patients and to improve objective factors like may them quality, improve tear film stability, and decrease inflammation. While there's a variety of treatment options available for these patients, like topical cyclosporin, systemic doxycycline, and thermal pulsation, patients often don't experience complete or long-term resolution of their symptoms. So what is intense pulse light therapy, also known as IPL? It's adapted from the field of dermatology, where it's FDA approved for the use of to treat of chelanctatias, acne rosacea, acne vulgaris, unwanted hair, and even photo damaged skin. So this is a picture of the xenon flash lamb right here. And this is the device that's actually using high-intensity light source that's polychromatic and incoherent, with wavelengths in the range of the 500s to the 1200 nanometers. And with the intensity or energy level of eight to 20 joules per centimeter squared. It's an expensive treatment. It costs about $500 for treatment of both eyes. So the story of how IPL came to ophthalmology is interesting. Dr. Melinda Toyos is a comprehensive ophthalmologist in private practice in Memphis, Tennessee. And he was treating as a side business, some acne rosacea patients with IPL. The patients came back to him and said, well, my dry eye disease is actually improving. So he received a grant to test this further. He didn't find any significant results, but he did come up with the Toyos technique, which is described here in these pictures. So first, eye shield are applied to the patient's eyelids to protect the irises from the xenon flash lamb. Then ultrasound gel is applied to these areas, the upper cheeks and the temporal areas. And 30 flashes of light are applied in those areas where you see the red dots. Then the IPL eye shields are removed and the patient undergoes forceful maybel bean gland expression of the upper and lower eyelids to help secrete those toothpaste-like thick secretions that are clogging up those maybel bean glands. It's pretty painful at this point. The IPL itself only feels like a mild pinch every time the pulse is applied. Patients usually receive one to four treatments that are about one month apart. And then afterwards they can receive maintenance treatments about every month or so. Dr. Toyos has trained several ophthalmologists around the country. Now there's over 40 centers that perform IPL nationally, but there aren't any in Utah last time I checked earlier this week. So the mechanism of action of IPL is not completely understood yet, but we have some ideas based on in vitro chromophore research and in vivo dermatology and ENT research. So we know that the skin has two primary chromophores, melanin and hemoglobin. The energy absorbed by melanin decreases at the wavelength of light increases, whereas oxyhemoglobin absorbs light at a peak wavelength of 578 nanometers, which is the wavelength of yellow light. So when yellow light is applied to the skin, it's able to pass through the upper layers of the skin without being significantly absorbed by the melanin. It reaches the oxyhemoglobin in the blood vessels. The oxyhemoglobin converts that light energy into heat energy, which then coagulates the vessels. In a situation like acne rosacea, the more leaky blood vessels would be coagulated and this would lead to less inflammation and inflammatory markers reaching the eyelids in dry places. They'll work best with patients who have telangiectasis. There's also been some research in dermatology in in vivo acne vulgaris, showing that there is some upregulation of these inflammatory mediators. So TGF beta specifically is upregulated after IPL treatments. TNF alpha is downregulated, but this isn't necessarily applied to acne rosacea. Of note, application of heat as like thermal pulsation is not a mechanism of action of IPL. This is because research has shown that IPL, post-IPL, the skin temperature only increases about one degree Celsius. So next I'd like to talk about the retrospective study that was done at Mayo Clinic, in which we performed the toryos technique and we found that it does improve dry symptoms and mycobing gland function in refractory dry eye patients. This is an analysis of our preliminary data. So in this study, we found 36 patients who had complete data pre and post IPL to be involved, to be included in the study. Patient selection was left rather broad. Patients did not necessarily have to have ocular rosacea. We figured if patients have had refractory dry eye disease for a while, then they most likely have some mycobing gland dysfunction anyway. So this treatment may help them. So patient selection included increasing speed two scores and they would have had to fail all other therapies subjectively. So speed two is a symptom survey of dry eye disease severity that patients can fill out. It's a validated survey, just like an ocular surface disease index. And as that number increases, so from zero to 28, as higher numbers of speed two indicate more severe dry eye disease. Patients also had to have Fitzpatrick skin types one through four. Fitzpatrick skin type ranges from one to six and five and six were excluded because they have higher melanin levels. They would have been at risk for higher photo damage. Patients were treated with the Toyos technique of IPL and mycobing gland expression. And then before each treatment with IPL, patients underwent speed two score symptom survey and then they had a foot length exam and mycobing gland evaluation. So mycobing gland evaluation is counting the number of lower eyelid mycobing glands that yield liquid secretions. Those are the normal healthy secretions when gentle force, gentle continuous pressure is applied. And then our primary measures were to look at how many of those glands were expressing. So mycobing gland evaluation and speed two score. There's a minimum of six months of follow up after the first IPL, mycobing gland expression therapy. Our results showed that there was a significant decrease in speed two scores with this therapy and speed two scores improved in eight, nine percent of patients. However, a small portion did have no change or an increase in speed two. So worsening symptoms. MGE or the number of glands that yielding those liquid secretions in at least one eye was improved in 78% of patients. 42% of patients had improvement in both eyes. So in summary, a motor road of patients had an improvement in mycobing gland expression and speed two. However, there are many limitations to the study as you can probably notice. The major confounding factor is that there was mycobing gland expression also combined with IPL therapy. So we didn't test IPL on its own. We tested the Toyos technique which is used around the country. Patients may have continued the use of drops. We didn't ask them to discontinue those at home. So preservative free drops. We also didn't select for a specific etiology or dry disease among patients. So there may have been some patients with sugar and disease or graft versus host disease and we plan to go back and exclude those patients from our study. Patients may also have had other causes of aqueous division dry eye like lack of thalmos. So those patients wouldn't have improved if we did IPL on them. The minority of patients who didn't improve may have also been part of the older population. We did have an older population in our study. Median age was 65 years. They may have had end stage gland atrophy. This would have been helpful to evaluate this with maybography to see if that was actually the case. So you may have missed the therapeutic window of these patients. So while I'm talking about the limitations of our study, I also wanted to mention the controversy surrounding IPL. There are believers and there are non-believers and the mechanism action IPL is not proven. So we're still in the process of figuring that out. Often IPL therapy is confounded with adjunctive therapies like the lid massages and expression and also sometimes drops as well in some places. There's no treatment of the lid margin directly so people wonder well how are we actually affecting the maybobing glands. Also another point of contention is that it's not a cure. If you take acne rosacea as an example, treating the telangiectasis themselves is not treating the cause of the disease or treating an outcome of the disease. The cause of acne rosacea is not necessarily known but it's a dysfunction in the innate immune system. It's also an expensive therapy that's not FDA approved. But in support of the efficacy of IPL alone, Jennifer Craig who's an opometrist in New Zealand published a prospective double mast, placebo controlled paired eye study and she found that in her 28 patients there was an improvement in lipid layer grade and tear breakup time and also an improvement in speed score post IPL. She tested IPL on its own without the maybobing gland expression. So this is published this year and two other studies that are retrospective also published this year using the Toyos technique are by Dr. Toyos and Dr. Gupta at the Duke Eye Center and they also found that there was an improvement in made in quality and tear breakup time and the symptoms scoring the majority of patients. So with that, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be at the Moran to present to you all today, thank you. The problem is when you get a therapy like this that's touted with retrospective studies without perspective studies, with training sessions where you have to go out and get approved by the person who invents this therapy, it just screams for prospective mastism. I'm glad you did show one. Yeah. Showed that it had something because when you're not sure what the mechanism is to say, well, the lower the treatment of the study, the reason why you don't see it shows that when you're not doing, pushing on the secretions themselves just doing the therapy, which you want to do it possible. So we desperately need no good treatments for my bulging gland. The other thing that has always come up. It is. The reason why we don't treat the upper lids directly is that there has been a case report published that the iris was zapped during one of these treatments. Yeah. That's why you keep those eye shields on. You're like crazy, taking the spurs to everywhere. Yeah. That's good. Thank you. I agree that sometimes when patients do invest that much money, their perception of their improvement also changes sometimes. They invest in that much time and money. Yeah, they don't really feel the pressure. And there is proof that my bulging gland expression in previous studies does alone improve. Thank you. Thank you.