It is certainly different in that way, but it's always hard to say if things are actually getting worse or not in the short term Okay, I have now I think I've developed a very strong opinion on this And I think this is a bad thing and I think it's because Again while there is I think a consequence of having sort of true ideological believers when they believe the wrong ideology in these positions You know a true believer is harder to manipulate Than an empty vessel and and you did very much You know you often look like the last name of the Senate, but you some you matter a lot more, right? You have families of statewide politics and since these were far harder elections to run on a statewide basis, right? You still you see sort of the family names and and so these are people that that tended to to come up within You know back when universities were actually, you know institutions of a higher learning, right? You know you kind of get that natural elite aspect a little bit again not perfect, but you know more average than than other political positions in that just because of the high barriers of entry But I think it's precisely the fact that you have senators that are increasingly like representatives with with your election cycles that these are the people the most manipulated by the bureaucracy, right? These are the people most manipulated by Congressional staffers and these are the ones that are not that are isolated from the democratic mechanism And while I understand as we have discussed in a podcast in the past that there there are downfalls to that democratic mechanism I think as long as they exist symbolically there is very much a You know that that that that non-elected political class Is is detrimental and the less intellect we have in the Senate the harder It is for the people that are actually in those chairs making that final decision into vote You know, you know having a lower quality leads to a lot more of the monopolization within kind of the non-elected sphere It increases their power at the expense of the rest and so I I've now become you know, I'd much rather have You know people with bad ideas that they firmly believe in then this given the quality of the swamp You know have have them kind of going along with the games Whereas, you know, there are situations, you know, just as the counter example to that though There are examples where the swamp might be better than your average intellect and so that there are certain situations where if you've got like a You know all the rights of Interest groups and kind of alignment there where the swamp is actually trying to push like good policy. I think there's some State-level kind of swampy actor echo systems where like you have a very strong good think tank that actually can kind of You know in that case having them blindly listen to them that'd be a good Senate, right? Like that'd be a senator better than better than average But given just how awful DC is I think we're we're there's a negative Consequence to an increasingly shallow intellectual group. Yeah, I think at the state local level It's more of a crapshoot as to whether you're dealing with a good mixture of people who maybe have an ideological viewpoint That isn't totally horrible, but in Washington it tends to be Generally reliably bad


And so it is, with a great degree of pleasure, that I present to each and every one of us for the first time in her role as the Port Laureate of San Francisco, D'Vorah Major, the new Port Laureate. Well, you've got a tough act to follow. I think I'm up to it. Oh, thank you. Before I begin my formal remarks, I just wanted to say some thank yous. First of all, thank you to everybody for coming. And I know I've heard it told that there are many people who accomplish things and do wonderful things out of adversity on their own with no help or hardly any help. I'm not one of those people. I am here and I have done what I have done because of the love and the support and the encouragement of my family, of my extended family, of my friends, of my community in no small part. I'm here because of a wonderful artist community. Yes, writers, but musicians, visual artists, a wonderful, wonderful community. And so I really must thank them because that's part of whom I am. I have to say that I know Glide is really important and I know Janice's work with Glide is really important and I know Janice's role as Cecil's husband is really important. But I've known Janice as a poet for a lot of, a lot of years and I really, really love her work and I've been bringing it to students for as long as I've been in the school. So I am very, very honored to be following her because I am so, just so enamored of her work. So thanks to her too. And of course, thank you to Mayor Willie Brown and to the city of San Francisco, not just for recognizing me, but also for acknowledging the fact that poetry should be valued and not marginalized and that the diverse voices of poetry need to be heard. You see, I love poetry. Poetry makes me smile. Even when it makes me cry, even when it's bite sense chills up my spine, even when it howls its ice fury. If it speaks truth, it warms me up inside and it makes me smile. I love poetry. Poetry with its infinite rhythms and shadings wears robes in so many colors and fabrics. You can travel the world in its grasp, ride through its bazaars of taste and tongues as it speaks its languages of love, of struggle, of determination, of faith, of humanity and our universes. I love poetry because it's a warrior for truth and passion, which takes no prisoners, only converts. For me, the best of poetry is like jazz in its ability to have people who don't always speak the same language swinging to the same beat. And if you want to swing to the world in poetry, San Francisco is probably one of the better places to be. In San Francisco, you can be at home and traverse the planet at the same time. I want you to bear with me for a minute because I started thinking about poetry in San Francisco and I realized that San Francisco has held poets in poetry from its very beginning. First were the Olone, who traded on its beaches with the nearby me walks, not only baskets and fish and deer skin, but also song, verse and stories all fed by the drum. Much of that voice was silenced as first conquistadors and then years later pioneers began to create settlements that became cities. Then the earth that held the healing bushes, the Yerba Buena, that grew wild on this land was turned into San Francisco. But now the city is once again home to many representatives of Indian nations and their poets' voice grows strong again, like San Francisco-based Tasalagi, Salk and Fox poet Kim Shucks Creek in a storm. She writes, I forgot to ask for the name of the creek that used to run through what is now my backyard. They piped it under, but with enough rain it remembers where to go. San Francisco has always been a fertile ground for poets. 49ers brought poetry with their pickaxes and saddlebags. African Americans in the 1850s were writing poems and creating hymns, publishing them in their newspapers, performing them in their cultural club and in their churches. The Chinese carved their poems in graceful calligraphy on Angel Island jail walls and those who finally found a home in our chopstick alleys continued to write first in their native tongues and later in English. This area, this city, has always been a place where cultures crossed paths. Some neighborhoods have, of course, stood out as areas where poets congregated and sharpened their craft. North Beach, for example, resonates poems, not just as historical monuments to the beats, but as a life force. If you happen there, you will find vital poetry, of course in Furlinguetti's Venerable City Lights bookstore, but also in the cafes, in the clubs, sometimes on street corners. If you're particularly lucky, you might happen on Jack Hirschman sharing poems, perhaps his own or maybe one of his translations from French or Albanian or Haitian Creole or Italian or one of the other polyglot of tongues in which he writes and lives. Perhaps it will be a poem he wrote that morning or the night before, but whenever its creation it will be of the now and however international its tongue. It will come close to home crying for justice for, as he writes, our home, our land, homeland, once and for all, for one and all, not just this one-legged cry on a crutch on a rainy sidewalk. I grew up in the shadow of North Beach's Bob Kaufman, devoured golden sardines and solitudes crowded with loneliness as if I had never heard a poem before. The first man was an idealist, but he died, Kaufman wrote. He couldn't survive the first truth, discovering that the whole world, all of it, was all his.  You see the poetry of San Francisco that I'm talking about is not a poetry that is simply folded between the covers of a book. Page is still crisp after years on a shelf. The poetry that I speak of is a poetics that comes through and is for the people. A street corner poetry, a cafe poetry and on the bus poetry and in our parks poetry and in your face poetry. A poetry for the many, asking hard questions, posing alternate visions, showing us not only the city or the nation or even the planet, but the layers of the universe where we live, a multitude of the shades of humanity that we defile or embrace, scorn or love. I was about 19 years old when I first heard a poem by a Vietnamese poet. It happened that it was a translation of poetry by Ho Chi Minh, which incidentally he was a poet first. Several of us were crammed inside a car, riding through Fillmore, all of us proudly black, as one of the sisters turned to the back of the car and read from the slim volume she had just discovered. Sometimes someone commented on a particular verse, sometimes we all just nodded and affirmed as she went on to find another one and read that too. After winter comes spring, what could be more natural? She read, repeating the poem's last lines a few times. After winter comes spring, what could be more natural? And then we all repeated the lines a few times. Until moments later we reached our destination, changed in barely perceptible but persistent ways by the poems. I like the way poetry shows up like that, represents in unlikely places, is at home anywhere, if its rhythm is true and its heart open. Tonight some Vietnamese poets are gathering with their community and reading their poems because April 30th is the 27th anniversary of the end of the Vietnamese War, or as they call it, the American War in Vietnam. They are celebrating and mourning and remembering and they're being a part of the San Francisco poetry world. Perhaps Saigon-born Mung Lan is reading of the world seen now from San Francisco where as she writes, the Golden Gate Bridge from my window is a red of smothered crabs cooked in dream fog. Tonight in the mission two poets are holding force. There the poetry is like the anise Juan Pereira speaks of as it roams emitting its vapor, writing its vengeance on walls, tossing its idea into the random alleys. You see San Francisco as a local poetry organization, a certain is name, is a city of poets. Just the hill up from my western edition home, Jenny Lim lives and sculpts her poems, mixing her words with poetry and jazz, caring as much, if not more, for poetry as performance on air than embedded on pages, bringing China and Chinatown to her universal view. Got the transcontinental railroad tattooed on my back, 20,000 pounds of bones bound for China. Home is here where the heart beats, where the ghost of Anna Mae Wong and Jimmy Wong Howe sleeps. Every community and every age makes poetry in San Francisco. So many people, so many corners that the more I name, the more I quote, the more I'm forced to leave out. There's so many good poets that speak from their cultures in their language with the music that is unique to their clan, yet is also verse that is star and cosmos in the sensibilities of us all. Indeed, I haven't named any poets of the sunset, the Richmond, Bernal Heights, Excelsior, but they're there holding forth with strength and eloquence. And I've omitted so many poetry communities with skilled dynamic voices, Filipinos, Irish Indians, Palestinians, and I've not even made mention of the poetry skills, schools, some of whom have barricades and weapons poised, the new formalist, the spoken word MCs, the traditionalist, or the youth or the elders or the disabled. You see, it's all in San Francisco. I had to tell you while I was writing it, I found it really strange to be a poet making, preparing to present a speech. You see, the work that brought me here is inside the poems. It lives as breath and rain, not as narrative exclaiming or proclaiming, and it is as poet, not speech maker, that I intend to fill the post of poet laureate. I will continue to write poems of and for the city, a city that has schooled me, embraced me, fed me, a city that now honors me, but it's not always easy to write about San Francisco. It's easy to praise its beauty, even on a dank slate gray day, when the fog washes everything with sharp nails that cut through any space in your garb, even as it presses ice needles into your bones, even then San Francisco Hills still roll, Golden Gate Park is still blossoming in rainbows of greens, the bay still beckons in a group of swimmers who seem to trace their symbolic genealogies back to Icelandic sagas, are paddling near Aquatic Park Beach. It's easy to praise the poets of San Francisco. Any day, any night, there is an opportunity to hear poetry, to live poetry. No, not every poet is worth hearing and no, not every poem has magic. But at each of the cafes or clubs, libraries or schools or community organizations around the city, one or more poets is moving forward, perhaps with paper trembling in hand, perhaps unsure how to approach the mic, perhaps commandingly raising their voices over the cash registers and customers order some kind of espresso drink, perhaps with rhymes undulating off their tongues, perhaps shooting fire or spilling sweat, but surely breaking open the moment with the madness and majesty of spirit in word. But San Francisco is not only a city to be glorified and praised, a tourist gemstone at the center of strings of memorable odes and romantic ballads, perhaps the hardest part of being a poet, not just here but anywhere, and perhaps one of the more important parts of being a poet is to look at the corners that are not so wonderful, to find poetry in the blemishes and stains. For example, when I'm downtown, I always hear the voices, see the faces, feel the mantra that sweeps this wealthy nation's streets. Spare change, spare a quarter hungry, got a quarter spare any change, hungry, need a quarter, need a quarter hungry, spare change hungry dear, have a quarter, need a quarter across one block, hands, empty cups, hats, stretch in front of our spiked heels, scuffed brogams, high-tech rubber soles, dyed hair into pay, leather bags, see-through plastic bags, neon orange bags, monogram paper bags, hurrying to the corner to wait, talking loudly sometimes to ourselves, stepping past the curbs and doorways where they stoop and stand. One does not have calves or feet. Can you spare any? Another has on an army jacket, hungry, a third shivers under a woollen overcoat in the heat of August.  Spare change, young enough to have friends, family, babies. Do you have any? Old enough to have known another way to live. Spare change, hungry, spare a quarter, need, do you? I came to adulthood in the western edition, honed my own poetry at many's can do on Fillmore Street, beer, wine, pool table, regular people. So you had to like do something to get them to stop hitting the pool balls.  She's a dark woman, treading water in a life of hard choices, wrong decisions, limited alternatives.  Once she knew she was beautiful.  She wore her nails sculpted in red in those days when that street, when this street was ours. She sat on a bar school, staffed her fingers and hunched her shoulders as the smoke rose between the bandstand and the counter, and the scene got hot and sultry, and the music pressed out the doors and down the street, maybe. Maybe further down she, slinging it jacks, had another cigarette lit, flashed her teeth and laughed as the club spun tight, shoulder to shoulder, thick smoke and blare in saxophone. Maybe she checked in with many, bought a pitcher of beer and halfway listened to some crazy poet's chanta, Continental Promises, or with cungo drum and chakeray punctuating the rhythms, and a flute solo burstin' out over the tastiest of love poems, maybe. Maybe she slipped into Connie's for some curried goat and coconut bread, or sweated spices next door as Leonard pulled another sweet potato pie out the oven and poured his red-brown biting sauce over smoking tender ribs telling stories as she savored another mouthful then when the streets were ours. She can see those days. She knows them. She remembers before imported cheeses, before brandy-filled truffles, before double lattes, handmade paper cards. She sits on the iron-rimmed privately-owned bench to rest her feet and take the pinch out of her back. She holds the bitter in her mouth, sometimes spits it out at passersby with steel in her stare, there on that bench, on that corner, on that block, on that street, that was ours, that was hers, that was taken, that we let go, that is lost, that was Fillmore when the musicians had names and the rhythm was blues and the downbeat was jazz and the color was black and fierce like her. Thank you. At night, a time I often find myself in front of my glowing computer screen typing away or watching solid tear card bite shuffle and reshuffle themselves when the words won't wake up. Too often at those times, the stillness of the moment is broken by the sounds of gunfire outside of my window. Listen. Listen to the buzz humming around the words. Place your ear against the ground, next to the ringing water pipes, steal your sighs, breathe in silence, stand in waiting around the syllables. Zap! Pow! Pink! Pow! Zip! As you listen, an earthquake tremor becomes a 400-year fall off the Richter scale into a cascade of automatic rifles, recycled Saturday night specials, 2-bit-22s playing to a dying house. Kapow! Zap! Ratatatatatatat! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! And then the gasp, wine, shudder, thud. Last night, bullets rang again, Wild West live on TV, news at 11, poppin' hollow and thin. Gunfire explodes against the night.  They pop against night. Beirut some say it's become a metaphor, so much easier to deal with than reality. The down under right over there need not look at inner city outer limits. Not simply a burst, a New Year's debacle, a Fourth of July surrender, but a rhythm, a nightly beat of armaments pointed at self. Hip-hop ranting rhythms with the bass oozy coming in and shaking windows on the downbeat swing. Beirut some call it as a metaphor, only it's home.  They play wild, Wild West at night. When dawn should be caressed and assuaged. When lovers should turn and stroke each other's back. Enjoy the crevices between thigh, groin, tongue, cheek. When babies should suckle their mother's breast greedy with its butter fat. When old people need only listen to their knees and elbows creak while considering if getting up is worth all the inevitable angle sharp pains of aging. But instead the night begins its symphony. Ping, pop, zip, clip, pop, pop, double pop, zap, tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch. Bullets burst as bubblegum balloons around our houses and our dreams again tonight and again and again and the news calls it somewhere across the planet.  Close to each day's dawning, bullets converse against a soon-to-be-gray sky. They chatter amidst the plasterboard walls, and every dawn, every dawn, no matter what battles have been fought and lost, every dawn birds come and sing perched in the wounded trees. Kapow! Pop, pop, double, pop! In silent surrender they roost, as the children play wild, wild, west for real. Pop, pop, double, pop! Sing! Kapow! Because there is this other San Francisco, this difficult San Francisco, this San Francisco that nurtures but also sometimes swallows its young whole, I will be using part of my tenure as poet laureate to create bridges that will provide public poetry dialogues between the generations and neighborhoods about what is happening on their streets to their age mates, to them. I'm hoping to work with Youth Speaks, the San Francisco Public Libraries and City of Poets to have people write and in a living memorial present poems that examine the sadness and miracles, the love and destruction that are a part of this city, and that reach out to, echo, support and reflect other cities, other nations, and other peoples' struggles and triumphs. San Francisco Peninsula, though it is, is linked by more than bridges to the east and north. It is attached by more than land to the south. It is bound by more than history to the rest of the nation. It is a microcosm in more than metaphor of the wars and truces, the terrors and struggles, the yearnings for peace and love that are a part of people all over this planet. Poetry you see can be a force that helps us to see and if we see clearly, we can move in the right direction. Poetry can be a force that makes us feel, can help us to know one another and in that knowing to move righteously through our love. These times are more than dangerous. What is there but blood, blood and death, hunger, hunger and fear, starvation of body and spirit, a cruelty cut deep into the maelstrom of our lives. The hour is late and we must raise up, resist, build barricades and armories and yet all I can add to the stockpile is a homemade pocket size acorn tool of a solution, a portion of my love. Not enough I know, I wish I could offer you more, more than a steamy caress. I want to give something that will ease the chaos, reduce the misery, foment a cure and all I have is love, an open-ended love, a never empty rice pot of love, a love garden that even in winter bears fruit and flower. In this place of humanity cordoned off, stripped, caged, forgotten in rich men's dreams of Star Wars and capitalistic metaphysical pornographic fantasies where all is owned and everyone and everything has its price, even God. I have nothing to offer but love, love and outrage.  One cannot fight a revolution with such a paltry weapon. Even a wordsmith must have more. I would become the red of the lava spewed from the volcano's stomach, spurt and flow and in my wake coax a few flowers to grow. Here I stand with nothing but my hands and my eyes and my heart, tendering not the honey that runs from between my legs at a moment's calling but my love. And if that's not small feathers under your wings to help you fly, forgive me. I am missing the last of my speech. However, I love my children. I knew there was a reason I brought to. Obviously the one I checked to make sure it was complete was the one in her hand. Here I stand with nothing but my hands and my eyes and my heart, tendering not the honey that runs from between my legs at a moment's calling but my love. And if it's not the rope you need to climb that mountain, not small feathers under your wings that lift you up, not the bulletproof vest toward office assassination attempts, forgive me. Forgive me my inadequacy. I have nothing to offer but a love that lasts forever. Take some, please. Perhaps it will moisten your tongue, coat your throat, feel a corner of a not yet full belly soothe your heart. Forgive me my paucity. I have nothing to offer but my love. During my tenure as poet laureate, I will make every effort to give voice to more poets and poetry, to let the poets and the poems demonstrate poetry's capacity to heal, to give vision, to provide clarity and to offer love. It is indeed a privilege and an honor to have this opportunity to serve as poet laureate of San Francisco. Once again, I thank you.


Kasper Novist calls off a boxing match against Prince KB. Kasper Novist calls off a boxing match against Prince KB, and he's in need of a new opponent. The two musicians battled on Twitter over the boxing match issue on Wednesday, as KB was accused of chasing Cloud, while the DJ said the money Kas offered him for the match is too small. The shot pan you offered a 350k contract, I make that anyway in a dry month.  Seeing that the boxing match might become a dead thing, Kasper decides to move on and he needs someone else to fight with, as he's always campaigned about a celebrity boxing match. Taking to Twitter, he said, the KB thing is dead. I have realized that niggas wanna get Cloud from tweeting or they try nuffin's money to fall on in case they lose. I was looking forward to getting in the ring with the dude but he is delusional with his demands. Who else y'all think would make a good fight?


So what we're doing today is twofold. One our patient has been wearing heavy earring so you could see her earlobe earring hole has elongated and it's become long over time. The other thing is her earlobe due to aging has become a little bit hanging so we're gonna rejuvenate her earlobe at the same time. So what we're going to do is take out a little wedge resection and bring this to here which will make the earlobe smaller and at the same time she's we're gonna repair this long hole we're gonna close it off and later she could just get another piercing. So first thing is we're gonna give her some numbing so you can see her earlobe looks fuller rejuvenated and smaller it's not as it doesn't have excess skin like it did before and it looks fuller just like when people these days they put filler or other stuff in their ear we just feel it just looks more filled in because there's more tissue in there.


There's always been great multicultural here in history and knowledge of it, but I think in the last few years we've taken a lot more refugees and I think that's built up through the churches and other groups that have really got into actually helping people. And we have the lifestyle, the places they can live, we've got the outdoors. It's probably a natural progression for people to come to and not be in a huge great city where frankly they're lost. I'm not saying we don't have issues underneath that where sometimes it's hard, but we have advocates here that really, really are interested in people and I think that's what makes a difference. One of the greatest things I've been able to do as mayor is actually make people Australian citizens and it's great when the refugees have been here and then you can actually make them citizens of the country. I started as a volunteer for six months. After six months I got culture work. I thought I had enough with English classes because I think everything we are learning, I knew it. I decided to think of finding somewhere to keep me busy and to learn about other culture and where I can even show my knowledge because I was a teacher. Then I was thinking, how can I live like this without exchanging views, giving other my knowledge. So I decided to tell my counsellor and she said we can go down to library to find out if you can get volunteer work. I think learning to do everything in the library. I can share books without a problem. I can do other things, but I need to know the IT thing libero. I'm not sure as a leader because I'm not sure what other counsellors do. All I know is that as a counsellor we've got to be responsive to people and in that I'd say I don't do it as a mayor but the staff do it and they give more than they have to. So I think that builds on everything else. I think our challenge is to make sure the wider community knows about that. So it's not just us doing it, it's not just the staff doing it, but everyone in the community is willing to do it.


Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now and all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome. Folks, welcome to the podcast and so it's video and audio and it's been recorded over the internet. So apologies if there's any delays or anything like that. Looking forward to getting back to real life podcasts very soon. So through lockdown and Covid there's been an awful lot of discussion around prevention. So the masks, social distancing and rightly so. But I'm really interested in our immune system and the very thing that will help us fight these things. So I've been looking for someone to come and speak to me and I'm really pleased to say that Professor Adrian Martino from Queen Mary University has kindly agreed to come in there and speak with us. So he's a clinical professor of respiratory infection and immunity and one of his primary areas of interest is the effects of vitamin D on human health. So absolutely perfect and let me patch Adrian in. Adrian, thanks for joining me. It's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me, Lewis. Pleasure. How has lockdown been for you? How's it all been going? Not too bad. I think harder for the kids than for me as I've been able to get into the hospital and get away from, I think, get a bit of fresh air. That's true.  I guess I am. And whereabouts are you? Well, I'm at the Marlend hospital today. My primary interest is actually in tuberculosis, so I've been keeping the TB service running while my colleagues are firefighting at the Royal London. Okay, brilliant. So you're doing a mix of research and hospital-based? That's right. Yeah, primarily research but keeping my hand in the clinic. Nice. So what's your background? Do you mind giving us a little overview? Sure, yeah. So I'm a respiratory doctor. I've been interested in respiratory infections really since I graduated and went to work in South Africa for a couple of years, where I got interested in TB. And my interest in TB sparked an interest in Vitamin D because Vitamin D was historically used to treat tuberculosis before antibiotics were discovered. So I did my PhD on the effects of Vitamin D on the immune system. And then I discovered that Vitamin D can also boost immunity to other respiratory pathogens than TB. So I got interested in viruses. And here we are, COVID came along. So we're working now on Vitamin D and COVID. Wow, it's crazy. How was your experience in South Africa? Well, it's fantastic. I love to work there. And in fact, we've got a big clinical trial going on in Cape Town at the moment. And 1600 kids in the Cape Flats who randomized to Vitamin D or placebo, that's for TB prevention. But we're going to look at COVID outcomes as well. Amazing. Okay, well, I know you're doing a lot of studies and you're doing one currently as well, which we need to promote and make sure people sign up for. So we'll speak about all of the studies. Maybe let's start with why is a strong immune system important? Maybe let's start with that. Well, that's probably best illustrated by looking at people who don't have a strong immune system. So there are people who are born with genetic defects in particular branches of the immune system. And they tend to succumb very early in life to infections, which most of us will just rush off. And in fact, it's observations from these people who have so-called Mendelian knockouts or mutations in genes that are of key importance to our immune system that have been really important in telling us about which immune responses are protective against which pathogens. Another key area of immunosuppression is what happens when we give patients medicines which suppress the immune system. We've learned an awful lot from giving people who have autoimmune disease medicines to suppress the immune system that then succumb to particular infections. And we can then work out, oh, well, that cytokine is obviously important for protecting against this infection. So it's a common story that we can learn about what's important for our immune system by studying people who've got defects in particular pathways. Okay. And so having good or strong immune system, is it partly genetic, partly good dire, exercise, sleep? But what can we actually do? One of the most things, Lewis, it is, as you summarize, a heavy combination of nature and nurture. I mean, these sort of genetic defects are quite extreme. They're extremely rare as well. So when you have one, then you're rendered extremely susceptible to particular infections. But they're very, very rare. And for most of us, there are genetic influences on our immune function that they tend to be pretty subtle. And there's a lot that we can do in terms of our lifestyle and diet, which really will overshadow any subtle effects of genetics on our immune response. Okay, right. So we can actually improve it? Absolutely. I mean, to take a look at COVID, there are very clear and simple things that we can do to reduce our susceptibility. If you're smoking, you must stop smoking. If you're overweight, then it's good to shed a few pounds because we know that if you put on a few pounds over lockdown, as most of us have, that's associated with worse outcomes of COVID. So these are simple things that we can do just by tweaking our lifestyles to reduce our risk from COVID and indeed, other infections as well. Yeah. So we have seen, I think, in intensive care and stuff, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not going to get these stats right at all, but most of the people that have found themselves in intensive care have had underlying health conditions, right, obesity, diabetes, and so forth. I would say, yeah, probably a majority, but there are people who don't have obvious risk factors who've also had severe disease. It may be that in these cases there are genetic factors or there may be other environmental factors which we don't fully understand yet. A bit of indeed efficiency could be one of them that could explain the susceptibility. So I think it would be a mistake for people to go around thinking, well, I don't have one of these big ticket conditions like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, so I'm going to be okay. I think that would be a bit of a whole hardy approach. We need to be super careful because this bug is not one you want to play around with. Yeah. So really the things that you can control, I mean, because you can do what you can with the masks and social distancing, you still might catch the COVID. You might catch other stuff too, obviously. So the things that we can do that we can control, good diet, regular exercise, and good sleep, and I think they're the three cornerstones, right, of a good immune system that we can control. What you're getting at really lies at the heart of this research project we're doing that you alluded to at the beginning of the show, Louis. So this COVID-19 UK study is a national questionnaire-based study. We're trying to recruit people age 16 plus from all over the UK to answer questions about their lifestyle and so we can work out which of these factors really are protective.  But there isn't actually a strong evidence base for that yet. And there might be some surprises as well. So what we're doing with this study is trying to work out which of these lifestyle factors can affect risk so that we can actually modify those in time for the winter that's coming. Eventually, of course, a vaccine is going to be the way out of this, but a vaccine is not around the corner and when it does come, it's unlikely to be absolutely perfect. If flu vaccines, anything to go by, you know, people who are older or people who've got underlying conditions like diabetes may not be able to mount protective responses as well as others. So in those people, those lifestyle factors still going to be really important. Yeah, yeah. So this study, how can we get people involved and where do they need to go in? Yeah, well, the way to sign up is to go to our website, which is QMUL, that's Queen Mary University London, where I'm based, dot ac.uk forward slash covidance. The study is called Covidance UK. You can just type that into your search engine and it'll come up as well if you look on the QMUL link. And when you go onto the website, there's a button that says more information and sign up and that'll take you to an information sheet that spells out in detail the nuts and bolts of what's involved. But to summarize, it's an online questionnaire. It takes about 20 minutes to complete. It's pretty detailed and it needs to be in order to have value. So we ask in detail about people's diet, exercise habits, sleep habits, medications, underlying conditions, age, sex, gender, and ethnic origin as well. And then we take that information and we put in our database, we've got 10,500 people signed up already. And we also ask about any symptoms people might have had of Covid since the first of February, which is essentially when transmission started in the UK. What we can do from those symptoms is we can run an algorithm or essentially a computer program that calculates a probability whether or not somebody's had Covid. And then we take the people who have had probable Covid. We look at their risk factors, compare them to people who probably haven't had it. And then just on the basis of that questionnaire, we can start to get clues. There's a second phase of the project just getting underway called Covenants UK Biobank. We're starting to roll out a collection of samples of small blood samples, which we can get DNA and serum from. And this will tell us whether people got antibody responses or self-mediated immune responses. So then we'll be able to get a more objective and precise handle on who's had it and who hasn't. How accurate are these though? I mean, I hear people, I spoke to someone the other day, her antibody test came back positive last month. It came back negative a few days ago. We hear stories of maybe the antibodies not lasting so long in the blood. I mean, how accurate would this actually be? So it's hard to say for Covid-19 at the moment because we just don't have the longitudinal data. We don't have the follow-up data yet because that's a new pathogen. We can get a hint, perhaps, from looking at other coronaviruses, things like Versailles virus or MERS-CoV, which is a Middle Eastern coronavirus, much more virulent than this one. And also, from coronaviruses that have been circulating in the community that might cause common cold symptoms. In general, the emerging picture is that immunity can be robust, but it's not necessarily that long-lived. Antibody responses maybe six to 12 months long. We know that people who have more severe disease develop more robust antibody responses that last for longer, but there's an emerging picture that perhaps antibodies aren't the best thing to measure and that looking at what's so called cell-mediated immunity or T-cell responses might give us a better clue to future protection. But what we're hoping to do with this biobank study is collect these samples. Some will analyze straight away. Some will put in the freezer when people are working full-time on immunology as opposed to doing public health studies, come up with a good biomarker. We can then take the samples out of the freezer, run the biomarker, and then look at our own database, see did the presence of this biomarker confer or associate with resistance over the long term. So this is like a bank of samples that we can use not just to evaluate the tests that are around at the moment, we'll be able to evaluate the better tests that are going to come out in the future to look at what really are the best correlates of protection. Great. And just for those of us that don't know, what's the difference between T-cells and antibodies? Okay, so your white blood cells are divided into several groups, but one particularly important group are called lymphocytes. And these lymphocytes are important for the branch of the immune system which called the adaptive immune system, and that's the sophisticated part of the immune system that learns from experience and that has memory. In other words, it's the part of the immune system that is affected by vaccines and that vaccines can stimulate. Now these lymphocytes very broadly come in two main flavors. You've got B-cells and you've got T-cells. The B-cells are the cells which pump out antibodies. The antibodies are like these Y-shaped protein molecules which can bind onto a virus and neutralize it. They're like the effector molecules if you like. The T-cells are a different kettle of fish and they can help the B-cells to make antibody. So they basically secrete chemicals which encourage the B-cells to pump out the antibodies. So what you need for an ideal protective immune response against COVID or indeed any other respiratory virus is a family of T-cells that can recognize the virus and that will multiply in response to the virus. That will help them to pump out chemicals which then affect the B-cells. The B-cells in turn pump out the antibody which then neutralizes the virus. Awesome and then depending on your diet, maybe your genetics will be dependent on how effective your immune system is at fighting these diseases. That's it. We think that there are a whole range of environmental factors that can interplay with the basic sequence of events I just described to affect how efficient they are. Great. Moving on to Vitamin D, why is it important for a good immune system? Well we know that in the lab Vitamin D has two really key actions which help immune responses to respiratory viruses. The first is that they can boost what we call innate immune responses. So this is the other branch of immunity, the branch of immunity that doesn't learn from experience but which you're born with. Right. And this is an important branch and often a neglected branch of the immune system and we know that what Vitamin D can do is it can boost that part of the immune system quite effectively. One of the key mechanisms by which it does that is by supporting production of these substances called antimicrobial peptides which are essentially like natural, antiviral, antibacterial substances that come in white blood cells and lining of the lung that can have damaging effects on a whole range of respiratory pathogens. Right. So we know that the Vitamin D boosts those. So that's part one of the Vitamin D immunity story. The second part which is particularly interesting in the context of COVID is that Vitamin D is also anti-inflammatory. Now we know that the drug that's really shown the most benefit in people with COVID is a very potent the anti-inflammatory steroid drug called dextamethasone. And the success of that drug in treating patients with COVID basically illustrates the importance of the immune system and particularly overactivity of the immune system in causing adverse effects of COVID. Early COVID is characterized by having virus around but actually the people who are doing worst with COVID are not those who've got virus in the bloodstream, it's those who's immune system is overactive and it's the overactivity of the immune system that's causing the problems. So the second key activity of Vitamin D is to dampen down these harmful overactive immune responses. So one could think of it in theory is almost like a designer drug that's on one hand with a left fist is hitting the virus with innate immunity and then with the right fist it's coming in and it's dampening down harmful excess inflammation. Interesting. So Vitamin D sounds like it's acting in a few different ways for your immune system? Well that's in the test tube. What we won't want to find out is what happens when you give it to people. Right. And so that's another goal of the COVID study is to form a platform to do clinical trials where you can randomize people to get different amounts of Vitamin D and see whether or not that might confer a benefit. And so we've put in grant applications to try and get funding for these trials and we're waiting for the answers to those grant applications to see if we can get some cash to get these studies off the ground. I heard that there's some studies already being done on Vitamin D. Has there been any interesting findings? Yes, so there's a number of studies that have been done. Primarily what we call observational studies. So they're not clinical trials. This is what sort of study that I was talking about. Right. There's studies where Vitamin D levels have been measured and then they've been correlated with people's response to the virus. So at a basic level some studies have measured Vitamin D in people who do and don't have antibody responses. And they've found that Vitamin D levels tend to be lower in those who have antibodies, suggesting perhaps they were more susceptible to infection. A second family of studies have measured Vitamin D levels in patients coming into hospital. And those studies have tended to show that the people who've got lower Vitamin D levels when they come into hospital tend to do worse. They tend to need intensive care. They tend to be at a higher risk of dying of COVID. And their Vitamin D is really low? Yes. Now that doesn't necessarily prove a causal relationship. It's an association but there are reasons, there are non-causal potential reasons why the association might be there. So for example we know that some infections can actually reduce your Vitamin D level as a way of subverting your immune system. It could be that COVID is one of those. Right. We also know that for example being overweight is associated with having a low Vitamin D level. So it might be that the Vitamin D levels are bystander and it's actually the overweightness that's causing the problem rather than the low Vitamin D level. Now there are statistical ways to kind of tease this out. But ultimately it's always hard to prove cause and effect with this observational study design. I think those studies are important to do because if they didn't show signal then you know we'd be pretty sure we were barking up the wrong tree. Yeah. When they do show signal it's basically a pointer to encourage funders to support clinical trials to see whether it really is reasonable there or whether it's just association. So what's a good number of participants in a solid clinical research study that can be relied upon? So that depends on the question that you're asking. So very broadly the types of trial that people are thinking about with Vitamin D are treatment trials and prevention trials. So treatment trials are when you're giving Vitamin D to people as they come in through the front door of the hospital to stop them ending up in ICU. And those trials can be smaller and that's because the event rate of interest, so the outcome of interest which is primarily ICU admission or the need for ventilation is more common. So around perhaps a third quarter to a third of people coming through the door might end up needing more intense care. If you want to demonstrate an impact on an outcome that is that common statistically you actually need fewer people to show that effect. By contrast if you're trying to do a prevention study the risk of somebody getting ill with COVID in the population is a lot lower than the risk of somebody who's at the hospital front door of needing ICU. And the statistical consequence of that is that for a prevention trial it's got to be a lot bigger. So we're talking between five and 10,000 needed to detect about 20% protective effect with 80% power and alpha 5%. So we're looking at maybe a few hundreds for a treatment trial but several thousand for a prevention trial and that's what Credence is trying to do. So you've already got 10,000 people signed up. We're aiming for 20 and in particular one groups of people that are underrepresented are people of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Black, British, African, Caribbean, African, ethnic origin. We know those groups are underrepresented in the study and between them they make up around 6% of our participants, around 14% of the population nationally. It's particularly important that people from these ethnic backgrounds take part because one of our key reasons for existing is that we want to try and understand why they're at higher risk. So we can get more people from those backgrounds to take part. We're going to be underpowered to answer that question. Yeah, so there's been conversations that they are at higher risk. Is that linked to Vitamin D? So that's a working hypothesis. It's one of many hypotheses. Just to wind back just before, so are they actually at higher risk? Have their studies done and the statistics over the last four months indicate that they are definitely higher risk? Yes, that's uncontroversial. So studies across numerous different international settings have come up with this similar finding. So in the United States, people of African American origin at higher risk in the US, in the UK were seeing it among South Asian communities, Black communities in the UK. So that's a replicated association. Most of the data relates to severity, but we're actually seeing it in confidence UK as well. We're able to take a slightly, we're taking a different perspective. We're looking at the population levels. We're looking at susceptibility to infection as opposed to severity and risk of death, but we're seeing increased susceptibility to infection as well. Now the reasons for it, I like to be a single factor that explains it. There are a lot of environmental factors that I like to contribute. In the UK, we know, for example, frontline workers, NHS staff, people of Black and Asian ethnic origin are overrepresented in that group. We know that other occupations that are at higher risk, so public transport, working in catering, shops, people of Black and Asian ethnic origin are overrepresented there. That explains part of it. Some of our early data suggests that housing may be a factor, so overcrowding. But indeed, maybe part of the mix. So it's going to be a multi-factorial affair. And who knows whether visibility will turn out to be one part of it. It's certainly a possibility. Interesting. That'd be really interesting to delve into. Do typically ethnic minorities have lower vitamin D? Yes. There's good evidence to suggest that from national surveys of vitamin D status, people of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Black, Afro-Caribbean backgrounds do have higher rates of deficiency. Right. Interesting. Well, I'm really looking forward to the results of the study. So if anyone is listening or watching, please sign up. We'll stick the link to sign up for the study in the show notes and also on the communications we do to publicise the podcast. So it's really cool. And once the study's done, we'd love to have you back in and you can go through the findings, which should be really interesting. Yeah, thanks. So we're hoping to, if we can get a real boost in numbers in the next couple of weeks, we're hoping to get some preliminary results out by the end of August from the data that's accumulated so far. So end of August, beginning of September, hopefully I can come back and share our findings. That'd be awesome. What's at the moment then, obviously without the results of your study and stuff, what's the link between the vitamin D and fighting COVID, if we cover that? So the link primarily comes from the laboratory story. So the data suggesting that on paper, vitamin D is doing the right things to the immune system that will help us against COVID. The clinical story comes from these observations linking lower levels to poor outcomes. And then there's a third piece of the puzzle, which relates to clinical trials of vitamin D that my group and others have been doing, looking to prevent other respiratory infections. So a couple of years back, we pulled together data from 25 different clinical trials done all around the world of vitamin D to reduce risk of other respiratory infections. Obviously, they weren't due to COVID. That wasn't around then. They were due to pneumococcus, rhinovirus, influenza, a whole host of other respiratory pathogens. We did show overall a protective effect. And interestingly, that protective effect was stronger when people had lower levels of vitamin D to start with. So maybe the source for the goose is source for the gander. It might work. But it's a case unproven until we can actually get the clinical trial working. Fine. And so how do you actually get vitamin D? Like what are the sources? Yeah, so vitamin D, as you probably know, is called the sunshine vitamin. And what sets it apart from other micronutrients is that we're really designed to get it from the effect of sunshine on the skin rather than from the diet. And you can get it from eating oily fish. And indeed, oily fish get it from eating plankton. And the plankton make it from UV themselves. So the original source of vitamin D either be it from the diet or from our own skin is always going to be the action of ultraviolet B on molecules called 7D hydrocholesterol. So that's where it comes from. In the UK, because of our relatively northern latitude, the intensity of ultraviolet B in sunshine is insufficient to stimulate synthesis of vitamin D in the skin for about six months of the year. All right. And the half-life of vitamin D, that's the amount of time it takes for us, the level in our circulation to drop by 50%, is around about a month. So vitamin D status in the UK peaks around early September at the end of the summer. And for every month thereafter, it halves. So you could have a really good level of, say, 18 animals per each in September. And you're down to 40 in October, down to 20 in November. And you've got vitamin D levels in your boots right through December, January, February. And that's a good sign with when we're at highest risk of respiratory infections. I mean, there are other factors. But no, no, no, no proven link yet. Well, there is proven link from these clinical trials of other respiratory pathogens, because we know that when we supplement, we are seeing lower risks of these other respiratory infections. But you're right to say no proven link with COVID yet. No. Okay. Okay. So, okay. So sunlight, oily fish. What other sources can we, can we supplement with? And I guess the follow up push is would you recommend supplementing? Sure. So other sources start to get a bit esoteric. If you enter your shiitake mushrooms, that's quite a good source. There are certain foods that are fortified with vitamin D. People might have seen slightly sinister sounding irradiated mushrooms in supermarkets. These actually aren't irradiated with X-rays. They're irradiated with ultraviolet, which interestingly can make vitamin D in a mushroom just as effectively as it makes vitamin D in a human. Amazing. Some other foods are fortified, some flowers, some breads, some juices. But really, if you want a barn door way of making sure you're getting enough, taking a supplement is a pretty effective way to do it. The Department of Health recommends that we all take 400 units or 10 micrograms of vitamin D per day over winter and spring. What does that mean in terms of how many cans of sardines should I be eating to get that amount per day? Or should I go down to the local health food shop and get my little tablet I can dissolve in my water? Well, if you want to get all your vitamin D from oily fish, you need to do what the Scandinavians do. And you need to really eat oily fish most days of the week. Every day. I was in a hotel in Norway recently and I saw the breakfast buffet, people taking shots of cod liver oil. That's how they're doing it. You can get the cod liver oil tablets. You can get the little tablets. You can get the tablets. That's an effective way.  So there's other goodies in cod liver oil. Obviously, it's no good if you're vegetarian or vegan. You want to avoid that. And in fact, deficiency is a lot common in people who are vegetarian or vegan because meat and fish do provide a bit of a bit of the vitamin. So in general, taking a daily supplement of 400 units as a pill is an effective way of getting it. And the vitamin D in those pills actually comes from sheep's wool. So it is suitable for vegetarians, if not vegans. If you're a vegan and you want to get your vitamin D, then you need to get it get a form of the vitamin D called vitamin D2 or ergo-calciferol. That is available in some supplements. It's a bit less effective at boosting levels, so you have to take a bit more of it. That's the one that's available in mushrooms or yeasts. But the vitamin D3 comes from sheep's wool. So it's okay for vegetarians because the sheep lives to fight another day. And that's vitamin D3. That's really the best form because it's most effective in boosting levels of vitamin D in your circulation when you take a pill. Okay.  I think it's Holland and Barrett and they do, they brand it an immunity tablet, which is interesting. And you can get it's a vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin C in a tablet and you can just dissolve it in water, which is quite effective. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've got a tonal vision when it comes to micronutrients. Vitamin D is my favorite, but there's some good evidence that other ones are important, particularly zinc might be important for antiviral immunity. There's a story around vitamin C. It's quite controversial. There's a story around selenium. There are other shows in town and if you're taking something that's got a bit of some of the others, then that's good. I think the one thing that sets vitamin D apart is that it's not, even if you eat a balanced diet, you're not going to get enough of it. Things like vitamin C, et cetera, you should be able to get if you're eating enough fruit and veg. But the vitamin D is one that is quite hard to get in diet. So that's why you might want to consider taking a supplement off the shelf. Well, unless you like sardines, I love my sardines, but my wife doesn't like, doesn't love me having them every day. But the tablet's great. Can you can you overdose on vitamin D? Is there any studies done that, you know, the effects start to weigh in after a certain number? Yeah, so you can overdose. Vitamin D is what we call a fat-soluble vitamin. And the consequence of that is that it can build up in muscle and fat if you take too much of it. So you certainly shouldn't take more than 4,000 units or 100 micrograms per day. That's a maximum safe dose. That's 10 times what the government's recommending, which is 400 units or 10 micrograms. In terms of whether the effects weigh in off the more you take, I guess in the vitamin D enthusiasts world, a lot of people think that more is better. But we just did a big meta-analysis of another 30,000 people in clinical trials. It's just on the internet a couple of days ago. That showed actually that the most effective dose for reducing respiratory infections was somewhere between 400 and 1,000 units. So I don't think it's necessarily the case that more is better. I think a modest dose and what's really important is a daily dose. So taking it every day, not taking these weekly or monthly mega doses and then forgetting it the rest of the time. Little and often is the way forward. So during that night now, the summer months, would you get enough from a daily walk, I don't know, an hour of sunshine? Or do you still need to supplement right now? So it's hard to be dogmatic about how much sunshine is enough because there's so many effect modifiers in place. So many variables in the mix. It depends on the time of day, which affects the angle of the sun and the intensity of the ultraviolet. Cloud cover, how much clothes you're wearing, whether you've got a sunroof or not. All of these things can affect how much sun you need to get in our vitamin D you need. In general, during the summer, most of the UK population get enough from the sun. That's not true of everyone. It's not going to hurt if you take 400 units a day through the summer as well. But certainly taking it through the winter from between October and April makes sense because you're certainly not going to make any significant amount from the rather watery sunshine that we are blessed with during that period. Yeah, definitely. So to be safe supplement, I'm really looking forward to the results from your study as well. It sounds like you've got a lot of people. You'll end up with your 20,000 and there should be some really interesting results from that. So looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been really interesting. I've wanted to speak to someone about this for a long time. I wanted you to say, you know, exercise, be healthy, and you'll be fine for fight disease. Obviously it's not so simple. But for me anyway, I've been really focusing on really good quality diet during lockdown, good exercise and good sleep. And I feel, I feel pretty, that's all I can do to make sure that I am able to fight off these things effectively. Yeah, absolutely. I hope I didn't get the impression that exercise isn't important. No, no, no. There's early signal from our study indeed that exercise is indeed protective. I hope to be able to confirm that if I come back next month when we've got the final data in. So 100% agree with you, Lewis. Lifestyle can be so important. Stopping smoking, losing a few pounds if you can, if you need to, good exercise, sleep if you can. I've got Colin Somney and myself. It's hard, you know, a lot of people are anxious and worried about what's going on and stuff. So yeah, a lot of people aren't. But I think it's just, you know, those three things, certainly cornerstone of a good, healthy life. And it's what you can control, right? And I think it's important. So thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to getting you back on to hear the results. Yeah, thank you very much. Great stuff. Thanks for having me.


Thomas Margody. He is a senior researcher at the University of Amsterdam at the Institute for Informational He is an expert in copyright law and the internet, particularly with an international point of view. So he is going to talk about the licenses that apply in the study. I would also like to see him have a summary of the study. Rwy'n rwy'n gweld bod yn gweld yn ystod yng ngynyddol yn 150 pethau yng ngynyddol yn ysgrifennol yn ystod ar y llef. Mae hynny'n ddiddordeb o'r ddweud. Rwy'n ddiddordeb o gymryd hynny. ydych chi'n gweithio ar y dyfodol, y 10-page is paper is something that I really warmly recommend you to pick up and to read. We tried to make it to make it as clear and understandable to known lawyers as we could. That's of course a hard task since we are lawyers so you know to us it's clear and understandable. Nils that just left has put a lot of work in that and also in the analysis as well in the one page two pages that is basically a summary of the recommendation this is also available at the desk outside and is also something that you should take a look at if you're interested in this field as you know sitting here at 9am you might suggest that you are. If you have specific question on that so the second part of this legal session we have two panels where they hold ideas to have an interactive debate so that would be the perfect time for you to ask questions if there is any part that is not clear. But yes let's move to licences. So as Professor Wiebe has said in a very effective way we are in a field where the legal dimension can be extremely complex. We have a bunch of laws at different levels that sometimes unfortunately are contradictory. It's not always clear what we can do and what we cannot do. Reasons are you know of course there are different interests behind the legislative process so every result is to some extent a compromise. The one that we are facing in these days today in particular the sui gener is database right is a rather bad compromise everybody agrees. But still that's the law that is enforced and so we have to cope with it. As Andreas pointed out there are exceptions that can prove extremely effective to to to protect a specific interest in a given case. So for example the proud cop exception or the scientific exception. But unfortunately these exceptions have been drafted in a way that it's very hard to rely on them on a general basis especially for a study for a project as open air plus that seems at representing the European open access infrastructure. Reasons are many because they are very narrowly drafted. The wording is not clear. The concepts are not are not by themselves clear and in their application international law they they are not clear and especially because exceptions both for copyright and for the sui gener database right are not mandatory. It means that each member state can decide which one to implement international law and the end of the day that's what really matters what has been implemented international law. So in theory we are in a in a European copyright system where 28 different countries can implement on the basis of copyright and and sui gener is 15 different exceptions and limitation or combination thereof. So that gives you like a matrix that is quite complex and you you should not forget about it but use it as an extreme ratio. If you don't have anything else look at that but that's not enough for for a study as open air plus. So we look at a different tool that in our opinion and not only in our opinion it's it's the standard tool to to face this type of problems. It's at our disposal nowadays which is contracts the construction is very clever on the one side you have legislation that grants to authors and to right holders of the database right a lot of rights great then we use this power to license those rights in a way that we find this should be the standard approach especially in the field of scientific knowledge a field where the knowledge in many instances is produced thanks to public funding this knowledge should be freely available since the legislation does not offer by itself this feature we can combine the power that the legislation directive laws etc gives to authors or better to right holders suggest or recommend them to apply to these you know big power that they have specific contracts these corporate licenses that we are about to look and in this way we are able to create this system of of shared knowledge where people can legally have access and reuse this knowledge which is basically what we want to do and contracts are the tool that we have identified for this purpose but you know the entire open access movement has is based on this the entire free open source software movement is based on on the use of this type of contracts to achieve something that currently the legislation wouldn't wouldn't allow so our i don't enter any recommendations that will be outlined by lucigibo at at the end but what we conclude is that everybody should use one specific license and we found that the creative commons public license version four it's the license that open air plus should use both inbound and outbound and lucig probably talks more about the importance of this aspect um the creative commons is a suit of licenses because we are talking about one specific license the creative commons public license but even that one is a suit because it comes in let's say different flavors or better in different license elements we have attribution share or life non-commercial non-derivatives we conclude that non-commercial and non-derivatives should not be used this creates unnecessary burdens for the circulation of data attribution is the one that we recommend share alike that is the possibility to create derivative words only under the obligation that the derivative work is licensed under the same license or an equivalent one it's something that can be used or not so we believe that in the case of data it's not really necessary so in our opinion attribution should be the best option but also the share alike option is is is acceptable and it's fit for the purpose i would enter a little bit into the into well why we chose this specific license as the one that we think it's it's the the model that everybody should use we will see that in the study especially not maybe now in this presentation but in the study we have analyzed other licenses that are available and here i briefly explain you why we think that creative commons public license version four is what you should choose well as almost any like any open license that is any license that aims to achieve a open access or pre opens or software model if you apply the same rationale to another field grants the the right to reproduce and redistribute that are the two main rights within which you can include the right to make available to communicate to the public to make available to the public online etc etc etc so everything that copyright scope includes in verbatim or modi so in the original form or in modified versions so you can also modify the the the work that you obtain and and and redistribute it however creative commons version four the cpl version four includes this strange european invention the sweet generous database right it's a uh professor vibe gave a short description in before into the scope of the license this is very important there are a lot of licenses that do not do that that do not explicitly include the sweet generous database right into the scope of the license um this means that this right is not licensed this means that if you have uh uh let's say a repository and this repository is uh that there has been a substantial investment so it's protected by the sweet generous right and this repository is licensed under the same a creative commons 3.0 ported you cannot datamine it that would be a violation of the right holder sweet generous right because as we see later version three important imported does not include the sweet generous right in the scope of the license uh other licenses that we have identified although would qualify as open access in the field of copyright like as understood before the sweet generous database right after the enactment of this right in europe uh they cannot uh truly be considered open access because they do not include in the scope explicitly the sweet generous database right if this is not included in the license this remains into the dominion of the right holder is not licensed you don't have the permission to use it if you do you're infringing his uh not copyright but sweet generous database right you don't want to do that version four of creative commons includes explicitly this is a very important point uh the sweet generous database right in the scope um since it is included in the scope of the license it follows the license elements the license elements are basically the attribution and share a like obligations they're also named commercially known derivatives but we already said that we don't really think these are elements that we should uh uh consider it means that if a database is only protected by the sweet generous database right you can extract substantial amounts of this data and you are under the obligation to attribute the paternity of this database in the forms indicated by the attribution clause uh if there is a share a like uh um a license element clause on that database then you can of course redistribute that product under your obligation to use the same license is something that is quite common in many other fields like pre-software so we have this double uh possibility um it does not export the sweet generous database right in countries where it doesn't exist is another very important aspect the sweet generous database right is a european invention it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world so i think we made a survey south korea it could be recognized by bilateral agreements with the european commission and we think that only south korea so far has done that and probably nobody else is gonna do that so if you are dealing for example with a us database or you know with any database located outside the the european union which is not covered by the sweet generous database right you want to make sure that you're not for you know a bad drafting of the license exporting contractually this right this might be a bit technical so i don't want to enter into the detail of that if you are interested we can you know you can ask it but you know rest assured that it has been drafted in a way that also this potential uh um uh danger has been avoided with this well-known and interoperable uh it's not the only license out there but the fact that creative commons licenses are known and widely used increases interoperability which is another very important aspect and they're also almost ready uh creative commons version four right now is not a public available uh the current version is version three uh version four should be ready should have been ready almost a year ago there has been a lot of drafting and redrafting to to make them uh look very nice we'll see briefly what this all this drafting has brought to uh and but they should be ready really literally weeks in right to not November it's a bit we had we have had a lot of of dates so it's but really they're almost ready they're we're rereading the final drafts so they should be almost there um so what should you do until if you cannot really wait you cannot use the cc 4.0 but you need to apply now you know right now you're you're not listening to me and you are deciding the license to apply to your database uh there is a creative commons version three so the current version this is an option but you have to consider two main things this version is still uh um uh it comes still in an unported version so let's say a general version if you go on the online chooser you say no jurisdiction or or or unported or you can choose the version ported to uh Lithuania, Belgium, Netherlands, US, you pick the country this is very important because in the unported version the sui gener's database right is not mentioned it means that if you apply a creative commons version three to your database and this version three is the unported one you're not licensing the database right so you're not allowing the permission to datamin your database if you're dataminning a database under this version three you're infringing the database right if you choose a version three ported to a european union country so for example the dutch version the german version uh the spanish version there is a mention of the sui gener's database right but it's a waiver it's not included in the scope of the license but the sui gener's is waived it means that the right holder uh relinquishes that right and says i will never enforce it this is an option but it means that um like the clause is like attribution or share or like do not apply to the sui gener's you're not licensing it you're saying you're not going to enforce it so if you're interested in receiving attribution for the use of your database uh creative commons version three ported to a european jurisdiction will not grant you this possibility a licensee so somebody who uses your database is not bound to recognize you attribution for the database part we're not talking about copyright right now um so you can use them yes but it needs to be the version three ported to a european union country and you have to keep in mind that the sui gener is right it's not licensed it's waived is another major uh difference uh well briefly what are the other major differences between three and four well the three is ready the four as we have seen is going to be ready in weeks uh the three uh ported to a european jurisdiction uh waives the sui gener is database right this acronym means that the license for licenses it so in in the hypothetic in the hypothesis where there is a repository and this is only protected by um uh a sui gener is database right if these repositories under a creative commons version three ported to european union you can use it but you're not obliged to recognize attribution if you are the who makes it available keep in mind that that's fine but nobody that uses this database will will be obliged to give you any attribution so if for you attribution is a very important aspect version three is not able to to offer this possibility to you um well there are another few differences that maybe a more technical i mentioned them but you know again if you're interested we can discuss them further if not so i just mentioned them three is a general close of reservation for dozens so the you know possible scope of protection is bigger another aspect that might it's cross border between purely technical and and general interest is the fact that as we have seen this tree version there is the unported version and then the version ported to every single country and it may make this can create important consequences as the fact that's what we just saw about the sui gener is database right uh for many different reasons including the possible confusion that this can can can cause uh version four will not be uh imported imported uh dutch lituanian finished version it will come in uh let's say only one flavored international one so it has been rewritten in a way that is a jurisdiction agnostic that it's based as much as possible on common international principles of copyright law to the extent that this is possible so there will be only one version the international one however there will be translations which is a completely different thing than creating adapted adapted versions or ported versions um so you will still find the version in your own language but this will be a translation of this international version what does this mean it means that it will still have the the regular commons deed representation so this is of the current version three and this is basically what you obtain when you choose the creative commons license uh online you get what you obtain it's first of all a common deed that is a summary uh humanly understandable um like we lawyers we're not human i don't never really agree with this vision um that basically very directly tells you what you can do and under which conditions version four will look look and feel my change colors my change but we'll still look in terms of your free under the following condition categories to do almost it's going to look almost the same so from a user perspective they're not going to be big changes from how you know you relate to the license how you choose it how you apply it etc um what will change is the legal code so if uh here you go on the first line uh legal code you go to the to the actual contract to the document that has a legal value the one that you have to read if you want to make sure uh what are your your obligations and this will change this current one is a tribute is version three and this one is version four it's just you know um well first of all to show you that they exist and almost ready and but also to tell you that the structure if you're interested in more the detail and the legal part the structure of the license has changed there is a preamble consideration for the licencer definitions have changed so there are a lot of technical changes that under a legal point of view are interesting but as users not technical users uh you shouldn't be uh too much concerned the main difference that you have to keep in mind is the three generous thing uh what you won't see is the ported version this is the the Dutch ported version this one won't exist anymore there will be a translation but not a ported version um and that's basically it uh a first mention to the fact that yes there are other licenses but for the standardisation and interoperability issues that we we just briefly detail we we think that uh pretty common version four is the one license that you should go for there is also the cc zero that many times is is mentioned and especially in the psi sector public sector information this is an option but the cc zero again is a waiver you're relinquishing every right on that database or or or you know material it means that for example if you're interested in attribution recognition cc zero won't allow this um the reason why cc zero might be more suitable for the psi is that your psi normally then you know again it's a very great categorisation but they are not scientific data or there is not a scientific department behind it that is interested in getting some sort of scientific recognition many times psi are i don't know the the municipality that based on the basis of its institutional activity collects the the the boundaries of the rights into the town but there is not many times there is no need for a recognition of of of paternity in that so cc zero might be an option for scientific databases however we think that usually what we saw attribution especially it's it's very it's considered a very important aspect so with cc zero you won't you won't get it and yeah basically these are our conclusions use cc 4.0 as soon as it is ready well thank you for the attention if there are questions now or the session later we have two big fans thank you very much


Personally, I'm a great believer in the fact that if content is the king, then conversation is the queen, you know, so to say. And you know, creativity is what really brings you out, which helps you really stand out. So the kind of things also that we do with the different brands that we have is having conversation beyond the product, which is where you are connecting with the audiences at a much deeper level. The brands have to stand for more than products, you know. And it's, I think, a duty of an established brand, all the more to do it. Because when you're a startup, you're new, you're building, your thing is just to get a lot more attention of people because you want to have a bigger pie of the sales. But when you're an established brand, you're not only running for that, but you're reinstating yourself in a certain manner, which is where reputation comes in very, very handy, I would say.


I love St. Cloud State. I think we offer some of the best programs and we really try to support students holistically. My global studies students, I really encourage them to study abroad and we have a great Center for International Studies. I'm Dr. Kelly Branham McCauley. My students call me Dr. Kelly and I'm a professor of anthropology and the director of global studies. I'm a cultural anthropologist which means I study people all the time. I'm a contemporary societies and my focus for throughout my career has been really trying to bring indigenous peoples together with archaeologists as the cultural anthropologists so that we can better preserve and protect cultural heritage sites and sacred sites. I teach cultural anthropology classes. I sometimes teach classes on citizenship especially in global studies, class on anthropology homelessness, classes on Native American anthropology of Native North America. I also teach our ethnographic field school and methods courses. So this is a valuable that I got from one of my first faculty appreciation nights. A student, one of my first advisees in anthropology invited me to come to their volleyball game. It just kind of reminds me of just the relationships that I'm able to develop with students and how cool it is when they keep in touch with me. As a cultural anthropologist I don't often go into the labs but we have an archaeological lab down here in Stewart Hall in the basement of Stewart Hall. We also have a biological lab that contains casts of our earliest human ancestors. Can I be a book instead? I'd really rather be a book. I know it's an inanimate object but I've been thinking about this question a lot and I just want to be a well-read book. Being an anthropology major is really exciting because you are asked to take one of our two field schools so you will either take the cultural anthropology field school or the archaeology field school. We really do prepare our students for life in the real world with cultural understanding, with understanding of globalization, with how to work with people. Our students because of those field schools work on teams. They also get a lot of training in oral and written communication.


Hey everyone, welcome back to figure fantasy. So we're going to be taking a look at the new update new skins new events for The update tomorrow more events for Valentine's without further ado. Let's check it out Okay guys, so we are here with The figure fantasy official page in Facebook. So update Notes just dropped so patch notes Valentine's Day limited special edition lucky draw event Romantic dates on lock condition. You have to clear story 2 Dash 24 so event duration would be on February 11 to 25th Okay, under this a sweet party events event details during the event you can use Froggy lucky draw tokens to participate in the limited special lucky draw and use foggy Buttons to exchange great rewards such as Mako serenade of starry dreams. So it's a skin Another one, which I haven't seen yet Also is rinse white night messenger version and Megan's floating idol life version as you can see in The previous, you know the introduction that I had I think that is Megan's skin floating idol life Version the limited special editions for this Valentine's Day will not be available through any means after this event So masters if you are interested do not miss out on them So again, this is the only chance that you're going to get the skin So please be sure to participate in them So additional notes after the event ends your foggy lucky draw tokens and foggy buttons will be recycled and can be Used again in the next special edition lucky draw event So take note of that if you have excess of these please Keep them. Okay. Next is romantic date gift event details complete special achievements during the event to earn Froggy chocolates, which can be used to claim froggy lucky draw tokens again to participate in Valentine's Day's Valentine's Day special edition lucky draw. Okay. Number three is event store foggy thought shop Event info during the event you can exchange more foggy Lucky draw tokens to participate in the in the Valentine's Day special edition Lucky draw. Okay. Number four is event pack him to pure love available soon So contains also froggy lucky draw tokens and other gorgeous items So under Valentine's Day special event mix in co co Unlock condition would be story 2-24 event duration is February 11 to 25th It will have hand-made Chocolate so event details during the event you can grow cocoa beans as raw materials and make chocolates to give them to Irresist for great rewards special chocolates may be made by adding toppings and special proportions So be brave enough to try different Recipes additional notes the idle drop cocoa beans will end on 23 59 on February 24, but can you can still collect the reward until? 2359 on February 25th. There's no need for you to fix your eyes on your phone. Okay number two is errands Valentine's Day So event details giving chocolates to rinse will improve your relationship with her Which will unlock story dialogues in your conversation Choosing default responses may lead to different endings. What kind of Valentine's Day will you be spending with her? So this is a date with her hands on Valentine's Day So with her event mix in cocoa. She meant event details complete assigned tasks to earn diamonds So this event will also earn us additional diamonds for us to some so just a reminder guys The update drops again depending on your time zone Please take note of the time differences in your area and that is it guys So happy Valentine's Day or advanced Valentine's Day for this event So hope to see you guys in this event and hope we could have more summons probably next week Now is the right time to save up your diamond. So thank you guys. Stay safe. Take care It is the warden and I'm out of here


Trout to 199 Angels. Josh Young Super, Ractor, Rookie, Autograph.  Boom! Oh wow. One of one. Oh my god. That's fire, man. This is for Kyle K. Let's go. Kyle K. Jesus. Well of it. That is why you get into the randomness guys. Yeah, man. Dude, congrats Kyle. Let's go. Hello. That was just their second order with us too. Bro.


other countersight videos so today we're going to be breaking down Sarah Pell and her build before that if you want an updated countersight videos please hit the subscribe button down below okay so here we are at Sarah Pell so this girl actually creeps me out with the way she's been designed and she's been um uh chained up and a straight jacket to boot so again cool design a little bit creepy but we're going straight to the issue at hand so she is actually a counter front and worth puppet shrew so she's a member of the group so she costs four as a defender she is ground type but she does all around attack okay guys when we take a look at her stats so her strengths are her hp and her defense both are high stats hp is at 65 318 and her defense it is at 1087 against superb stats but for her weakness uh is going to be attacked she is only at 2618 it's actually a low stat for attack then you have crit is also at her crit is actually low her hit rate is below average and her evasion is actually low so evasion is actually zero hit is 923 which can actually be bumped up easily because it's only below average so it's you can actually raise her hit as you equip her gear let's take a look at her skills guys so for her skills so basic attack it's going to have two valid hits just charges enemy energy inflicting aoe damage on and around a target sorry for that guys levels two three four and five total basic attack um addition is going to be 20 percent next is going to be her passive skill so masochistic creator as i told you guys she's on the masochistic side valid hits is two permanently increases her attack by 1 percent in response to incoming damage up to 99 percent okay in gauntlet increases incoming damage decreases all enemies hp so she has also a passive that decreases enemy hp by 45 over three seconds this includes ships okay level two three four it's going to give her a bump on her hp at it's going to be 25 but at level five after every fourth basic attack she delivers an enhanced aoe attack to the front area so much powerful attack that can supplement damage for herself special skill hits done immunity and damage reduction plus 50 for five turns as well okay so the passive can be is actually good she can you can actually gear her to enhance her passive we'll talk about that later so special skill it's going to be painful monopoly 24 seconds valid hits is two alicia's power inflicting aoe damage on surrounding enemies and forcing them to attack her for eight seconds so this is actually very good this is a taunt for eight seconds which is a very long time okay guys it takes 50 percent of damage for surrounding and allies and achieves 100 percent higher defense for eight seconds as well so again i'm this is what makes her very very good especially in pvp the taunt then in then the increased defense okay so level two three and four is going to be a cooldown reduction of four seconds so that total lowers her cooldown to 20 seconds which is pretty much fantastic as well level five is recovers 30 percent of max hp after the skill which again enhances her survivability so alone guys her her special her special skill alone is actually very good in itself it gives her taunt it gives her um higher defense and there is hp recovery after you um play this play this special skill okay moving on to her ultimate skill it's lacrimosa it's a 48 second scale valid hits is four which is nice partly reveals her true form inflicting aoe damage on surrounding enemies this skill immediately cancels all debuffs cast on her and makes her invisible for the duration again um in terms of gearing you could also you could also actually um in um let this skill shine i'll discuss that later as well so level two three and four damage addition is going to be 25 percent and on level five stuns all enemies four two seconds after the skill hits okay again overall kit for her is tremendous um at this point she is going to replace um heal there probably when she gets bad next week so again guys it's now time to build your cerebell by this time okay so here i have with my gear for my cerebell so at this point i chose to gear her with all hp the other choices that you can actually you know this is just a choice the first option would be hp which i highly recommend the second would be either they're going to be split so attack speed so that you can trigger more of her passive skill and also you can you can put her on her cooldown because of her two skills as well so again it's a choice so but i will recommend hp for her because this will improve more on her survivability and as well as her health recovery okay so those are the gear set so again so i have here one i have a tier six already one but for this one you can you should change evasion because again evasion is not part of what she is built for so she's a defender and more or less for her gear stats i would advise highly cooldown hp or hit so those are the things that you should put here or change hp cooldown and hit so for me um i still have to change some of these these i just equip them because of hp so this one is okay this one is okay as well hit in hp but these two are i have to change whether i'm going to go i think i'm going to go with um um skill cooldown or skill haste for these two for the first two so that i could you know have her you know um skill special skill and ultimate skill cycle cycle fast or kind of improve than than it is now okay so in terms of her deployment so there's no brainer in deploying her if she is actually a a defender but usually the most you know the value that you get out of her is pairing her with squishy units because she has taunt so she she what you call this she redirects all the damage to her and if you kind of have small or or glass cannon units at her back that would be the best combo for her so she can actually tank as long as she's alive you can actually supplement her with a healer so that she can tank more and again a glass cannon or several glass cannons at the back would actually be highly advisable for her let's take a look at her um special skill at first so there is her special skill um simple animation so again she just she she does a lot of damage even though she is actually blindfolded and chained and put in a straight jacket so this is actually amazing let's try to use her her ultimate skill so again she reveals her true form which is a lot of energy damage and stun as well so again let's try to use her ultimate i like her ultimate because i think this is very key as well in her survivability and also for the survivability of the units at her back actually my final thoughts is up now if you guys are planning to build her build her now because i'm foreseeing awakened heal day being banned next week so going to be a monday um try to build her up to 100 that's that i think would be good she would be a good pairing with awakened yuna at this early stage of their you know their release in terms of the game they would complement each other i'm sure um she is going to be supreme in both pvp and pve okay i would rate her a 10 for both as you can see if you can remember um pvp load her up with glass cannons for a for a quick attack i think she would do good with soldier comps um fast what do you call this fast and squishy soldier comps she could tank in the front and the rest will have to do the damage to the back and also for any content for pve she is going to be amazing if you put her at 110 i'm sure she's going to be a monster she's actually a monster right now but she's going to be more of a monster i'm saying monster in a nice way because she's going to be very tanky for the cost of four she will definitely outshine reginald king um you can only use reginald king once she's going to be banned so more or less she's going to be your top none awakened ssr defender so again guys she's a monster build for all your content and try to summon for her if you still haven't her banner is still up and you still have time to build her okay anyway guys if you stuck this long this video thank you very much please do consider subscribing and also click the bell icon and like this video guys take care stay safe this is the warden and i'm out of here