Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name is Adam Payne, County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Tom Wagner. Yes, Tom Wagner. We have a new face beside me though not new to County Government. Tom's been our Vice Chairman for a number of years now and just last night, although depending on when they see this, but at our last County Board meeting, Tom was unanimously selected our new County Board Chair. So welcome, Tom. Thank you, Adam. We will continue to co-host this program together. And as you know, every year we strive to, or every program rather, we strive to bring a different department head to our meetings and talk a little bit about their roles and responsibilities. And today, Aaron Brault, our Planning and Conservation Director is here. Welcome, Aaron. Thank you. It was just sharing off the air. It's been nine years that he's been with the County and five and a half as Director and has done just an excellent job. And I imagine you have about as many feathers in your cap as just about any Director in the state with the major programs that you've been involved in and we'll touch on that in a moment. But please start, share a little bit about your background, Aaron. Sure. Before coming to Sheboygan County, my wife and I both moved here about nine years ago. Been with the County now for nine years. I worked in the private urban planning sector for a number of years, got my feet wet there and then moved away from Wisconsin for a bit, owned my own business, had nothing to do with planning at that time. And then when we moved back here, there was an opportunity at the County and jumped at it and took it. Started nine years ago as the head of our non-motorized transportation program? I was an assistant at that time. Assistant at the time. And then the manager of that left and then I jumped at that opportunity and then soon after that, the planning director left and then went after that position. Yeah, yeah. Well, you've had a good run and how quickly time goes. Set the stage for us a little bit. What are the roles and responsibilities of the planning and conservation department? Sure, we have a variety of different roles that we play within the community. I like to think that no day is the same for me, which is one of the nice things about my position. I think we have 10 different ordinances in the County that we enforce and regulate. I think we have 16 or 17 different programs throughout the County that we are involved in. We take care of a lot of the County's recreational facilities. So like the old Plank Road Trail, the Interurban Trail, we have partial maintenance responsibilities on the Shoreland 400 Trail that runs through the city of Sheboygan, the Sheboygan Marsh, the new Amsterdam Dunes property. All falls under our jurisdiction. The ag community, our guys in the conservation division work with the ag community quite a bit, doing everything from designing manure pits to installing grass buffer waterways, primarily water quality driven types of activities on that side of the office. And then we get into zoning around our Shoreland districts and sanitary maintenance program, take care of all the County's mapping. So there's a lot going on. And with all that going on, what about your staff size and your annual budget? Annual budget's usually between two and two and a half million. The last couple of years I think it's been about 2.1, 2.2. I have 14 staff. Out of that 2.1, 2.2, it's about just shy of a million in tax levy. So the most of our, or I shouldn't say the most, but the majority of the dollars that fund our department are outside funds, not coming from the County's tax levy, so. And planning and conservation used to be just a planning department and a land and water conservation department. So we consolidated two departments into one, obviously saved some money, having one now department head. And then I also know you've done some analysis in the past comparing and contrasting our planning and conservation department to other counties. And we tend to be a little bit more on the lean side, is that right? I would agree with that, yeah. So yeah, a lot of other counties might have their own parks department or own land and water department or own real property department. And so our department's sort of a combination of all those. A lot of good people making good things happen. Yep, absolutely. I mean, you surround yourself with good people and good things happen, so. What's happened with your budget big picture over the years? Have you seen it go up? Have you seen it gone down? I know you've had good success personally in getting state and federal grants. Yep, so overall it's, I'd say stagnated. I mean, it's at least in my tenure, it's been around that two, two and a half. For I would say our normal operating duties. As you mentioned, there has been a couple of years where it's spiked up or down based on a different activity that may have been happening such as a few years ago we had the river dredging project. And I think that year it was a $7.8 million a year in our department, but a lot of that again was. Grand funds that came in. Grand funds that came in and we went back out. Right, so, right? Yeah, no, I think you've done a great job holding the line and it really, it's a reflection of all the departments in the county and the county board's fiscal responsibility to hold the line. Yet again, your department's been highly successful in acquiring some grants and doing some good work. So some of the primary programs that you focused on, some good things that have happened in Sheboygan County, touch on one or two. Well, as you mentioned, I started off in that non-motorized grant. We currently have a big project going on right now if you've driven down Taylor Drive, you've seen a lot of barrels. They're not all ours. So on the southern end, some of that that's a state project on the interchange at 28. But we have that project going on this summer, things got going about a couple, probably three or four weeks ago, they started moving dirt. And then a couple other things. Recently, we've been completing a watershed study out in the western part of the county. We had a test watershed and a control watershed, the test being the Otter Creek watershed of the Sheboygan River. And that was the test watershed and the control watershed was Fishers Creek up in Howard's Grove. And that was privately funded by the Kohler Trust for Preservation, along with some county dollars and nature conservancy dollars, but primarily a grant that we partnered on with the Nature Conservancy, USGS, and a couple of other partners, where we're looking at best management practices in the ag community and how that could reduce phosphorus loading to a stream or a water body. That's becoming more and more prevalent, both at the federal and state level, is trying to reduce the phosphorus that's entering our waterways to combat fish kills and algae blooms primarily, which then lead to more fish kills and things like that. Any early indications on what we're learning from that study? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of interesting things that I guess from my standpoint. One, we're getting a good idea of what it's gonna cost to treat a pound of phosphorus based on different best management practice. And there's a lot of variables in that, but we have sort of an average cost that we've been able to glean after the six years of study. Another interesting fact, at least from my standpoint, is that the water and the creeks don't react like this. You know, it takes time for them to heal and the quality to get better. And then two, or three, the biggest thing that I think I've gleaned out of it is that the highest loading comes in probably, we've seen between three and six events, rain events or big melts or something in the year. It's not, you know, it's very pronounced where we're getting some years, we have gauges in the river that record all this. So we know when it spikes or when it's down or dips. So it tends to be, you know, again, five events throughout the year. I think last year 70% of the loading going into that system was in four events. Because of a four main rainfalls or something like that. A big rainfall or a big melt in spring where everything's running off the field and there's no vegetation to capture. The importance of having buffers, strips, and people doing good management of manure spreading all of that has to be a huge factor. Yep, absolutely. Well, nice quick overview. I'm gonna turn it over to Chairman Wagner. Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks for coming. First time. Yeah. So, Schipoen County's been a leader in holding down our taxes in particular. And just wondering, as far as the playing department, how do you keep your costs in check? It's kind of, it's a challenging environment, I'm sure. Yep, absolutely. So as Adam mentioned, over the past few years, we've been successful in getting, whether it be private or public funding to help offset some of our costs. And then, you know, we've really taken it from the big scale to the small scale projects as well. When we merged, we had, I think, four printers and we were paying for four different printers. Now we have two. So that's, you know, that's a monthly cost, not a great cost, but it adds up just like everything else. At our trailheads and boat landings, whenever a light goes out or somebody shoots them out with a BB gun, rather than replacing them with the high pressure sodium or whatever, we're moving towards LED. The upfront cost is a lot higher, but we figured, you know, you probably, it probably pays back in electricity bills because those are on all the time, you know, probably within 14 to 15 months. So, and an LED is going to last for 20 years unless again, somebody shoots it out with a BB gun. So, you know, we've been making small improvements, you know, in addition to seeking out other outside types of funding to help us operate. So, I know the status of the recreation fee I think we had more people at the county board meeting than I remember ever remember seeing then or since when that was implemented. So there was some controversy surrounding it. Yeah, how has that worked out relative to our campgrounds, et cetera? Sure, and I guess that's, you know, another way we've been able to keep taxes in check is, you know, we haven't had to raise taxes to operate those facilities because we've been, we have the fee now and that helps offset our costs. So we pay, we've been able to upgrade some of the boat landings, the piers at Elkhart Lake.   The dollars are in a non-lapsing segregated account that are specifically there for projects at the different boat landings and things like that. I haven't heard too much about, I mean, I would think once people start to see that there's improvements going into the boat landings or the campgrounds or whatever, that really helps with those fees. I think so too, and I think people have, I mean, it, well, leave it at that. That's fine. Speaking of the erect facilities, do you have some plans out at the marsh for this year? Yep, yep, two, I'll say fun projects. And this is where some of those dollars, we also, at that time, we're doing the rec fee at the campground, every rental that our vendor out there takes, the county gets $2.50 and that those dollars go into a non-lapsing account again, a segregated account that can only be used for campground activities. One of the big complaints we get out there all the time from campers, and when we've gone through planning exercises is that, you know, there's not a whole lot to do after you get bored fishing or climb the tower so many times. So we were looking at different kind of low-cost activities that would work at the marsh, and what we came up with is we're gonna be installing the county's first foot golf course and a disc golf course. Disc golfing is the fastest growing sport in the United States. So we're gonna, I guess, ride on those coattails and install a disc golf course and a foot golf course. And for those in the audience who don't know what foot golf is, I didn't either, but with all the kids playing soccer now, it's essentially kicking a soccer ball into a golf hole. Some golf courses, they've actually put it on some of their nine holes. Yeah, absolutely, I think down in Milwaukee at some of the city courses, they can get out of a nine hole regular golf course, they can get about 18 foot golf holes and I think they're diversifying their clientele and bottom line, so. Thank you. A few years ago, your department was awarded a Brownfield Assessment Grant. Yep. Could you tell us about the redevelopment projects? Yeah, it was a county-wide assessment grant so we've done what's called phase one and phase two environmental testing and research on different redevelopment opportunities throughout the county. We've had a couple in the city of Sheboygan, so the old Boston store site, we're actively working on that one. The other apartment complex across from the old Martin Pontiac, we did the environmental work on there. We just engaged with a developer or potential developer in the city of Sheboygan Falls at a site. And a Brownfield is an old industrial site or maybe an old filling station where there might be some residual pollution left in the ground or what have you that needs to get taken care of before that site can be redeveloped. So we've been able to, I like to think, at least act as the catalyst to get some of those projects moving by paying for those phase one and phase two environmental reports. Recently, your department sponsored a hazardous or household hazardous waste. In fact, I think last year, I was out of the one I cascade that you were putting on. So I had to drop something off. Please tell us how long this program has been in place and results of it. Yeah, I think since 2001, so as many predecessors ago for me that started it, but it's been a very popular program. We started to help offset some of our costs charge a few years ago in the year before we started to charge. We had a survey and we asked everybody that came through the line. So about 1100, we usually see 11 to 1300 people come through our events and 97% of them said absolutely yes, we'd be willing to pay a fee, 2% or maybe, and then one was absolutely not. So we saw that, it's the one program where we consistently get thank yous. And I guess in my line of work, you don't get a thank you very often. So I mean, people, there's nowhere else to go with this stuff and they really appreciate it. So I think since 01, we've just properly disposed of over 1.4 million tons of hazardous waste. That's a lot. What was the fee again? Did you have one fee for? 10 bucks, if it's hazardous waste, if you bring electronics, it's 25 or if you have both, it's 25. Cost of electronics is- Per vehicle or? Per vehicle, so yeah. The cost of electronics or recycling, those has gone up because it's a direct correlation with the cost of precious metals, gold, copper, things like that. So if they coordinate with their neighbor, they can fill that trunk or back of that vehicle with as many televisions as they want. Well, we like household quantity.  Okay. Okay. I brought two things. Yeah. Great, Aaron. Yep. Earlier you mentioned the Sheboygan River Harbor cleanup and I think most of our viewers are aware of that or are bright about it, but I just see it as one of those feathers in your cap that I mentioned earlier, a hundred million dollar cleanup and Aaron and his staff and certainly the county board, the city common console. There were so many people involved in helping make that happen, but we literally pulled down a hundred million dollars to clean up our Sheboygan River Harbor and now it's obviously a jewel rather than a superfund site or black guy in the community. And then more recently, another jewel opportunity presented itself and that was the Amsterdam Dunes Preservation Area and Wetland Mitigation Bank. And there's been a fair amount of press on that. Chairman Roger Distruty certainly takes a lot of pride in that accomplishment. The county board unanimously supported it, but Aaron set the stage a little bit. What is the Amsterdam Preservation Area and more importantly, what's this wetland mitigation component that's part of it? Sure. So the property's in the southeast part of the county so it's down near Cedar Grove. It's 328 acres of preservation area and mitigation bank. And what a mitigation bank is is that anytime there's a disturbance through development whether it be a road project that the county does or let's say an area employers looking to expand and they have wetlands on the property that they're looking at developing or expanding on, state and federal law says that you have to restore one and a half times your disturbance typically, general rule of thumb. And so the county had a couple of projects where we had to buy credits on the open market just like you'd go get a gallon of milk at the supermarket. There's credits available from people who have created a mitigation bank where they've gone and taken the tile out of the farmland or whatnot and restored it back to what it once was. And then so we had to buy these credits. Current rates are up to 70,000 an acre. At the time we bought them, they're about 50 to 60,000 an acre. And we were buying them in Douglas County which is where Superior is. So unfortunately our citizens were subsidizing something up in a different part of the state that they'll probably never get to see or use. So I think that was one of the key selling points to this is that we'll have our own bank in hand that we control that will be more efficiently distributed to our developers in our county and in our area. So we're in the process of getting the required approvals for both the mitigation portion of the property and the non-mitigation portion of the property. We're working through those processes right now to be able to establish that. I think when we did some expansion out at the airport that was one of the places where we had to buy some wetland mitigation. County Highway J, a couple other projects. So far our viewers are thinking about it. Anytime the county wants to expand a county road or the city or local units of government want to expand a road that may impact a wetland, they have a situation with the credits. Our airport runaway situation with wetland mitigation purchasing credits. And then if it's a Sargento, a Johnsonville, a Kohler company, whoever it may be, if they want to expand their headquarters, the DNR or federal government doesn't just let you plow under or develop a wetland, but if you're a headquarters of a company it's not prudent or practical to move it to another area. They're probably gonna let you. But in that situation, as you said, they have to mediate that use and purchase credits. And by having this here we are gonna save taxpayers money and we're gonna be protecting and preserving a beautiful area right here in Sheboygan County rather than Douglas County as you said. So it's a win-win. And we have, I mean at the property there's beach frontage that we've protected that's been undeveloped or is still undeveloped that there's not any more of that being put on the market. So. And the county board, as you know, took a bit of a leap of faith here when we presented this proposal. And I wanna thank Chairman Wagner and at the time Chairman Tostruti for supporting us and doing that. But they took a leap of faith because it was a $4.2 million purchase for the property. But Erin, we both shared with the board that we really think we can recoup this investment. Where are we at with that? Well, so far out of the 4.2 original outlay we've received I think around 2.44 in reimbursement on that. We have another 1.3 or so sitting on the table which leaves us about 460,000 short. We also have three lots that we can sell or up to three lots on the lakefront that are sort of an offshoot of the main part of the property. So, you know, with the prices on those we're working on another deal with a neighbor where we might do a little swap. And I feel, and that's not including any of the credits we sell down the road, you know, we'll be, I think, well taken care of. And the 2.4 was one of the largest state. Stewardship. Stewardship grants ever provided. And the 1.7 is through the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process. Yep, 1.3. 1.3, thank you. Natural Resource Damage Assessment. So when it's all said and done, we're gonna not only recoup our 4.2 but as we sell the credits, garner enough revenue to be able to continue to maintain and enhance the property. Yep, maintain and help restore the property. And on that note, Chairman Distrudi at the time appointed an advisory committee made up some folks from the community. I know you're on it. They're providing advice to now Chairman Wagner and the county board on how to enhance this property. What are the some of the things they're considering? Sure, well Chairman Wagner's on that committee as well. Well that's right, that's right. I'm on that committee as well. Yeah, so we're looking at, you know, from a restoration aspect, what do we want the property to look like from a restoration aspect? As well as also, you know, it's a new public facility. So how do we engage people and let them see it? So really it's always been about low impact, maybe a low impact trail development around certain portions of the property. An interpretive type of trail system where, you know, there's some great ravines and bluff overlooks there where we might put a little platform or something like that. But for the most part, it's low impact. Let's leave it alone and preserve the area. And cross country ski trails. No, we won't be developing that. We, per some of the requirements of the stewardship grant, we can't not allow that. But I don't think we'll actively be developing cross country ski trails. Just more low sort of, this wide of hiking trail. Kind of like the Sheboygan County Marsh. Yep, yep, very good essentially. Only a few minutes left. You fit on two big areas, the river harbor cleanup. Obviously the Amsterdam Dam Doon Preservation Area, wetland mitigation bank. But I know another issue you're working on or an opportunity is with the friends of the Sheboygan County Marsh and an environmental center. Just give us a little snapshot of what's in mind there to further improve our Sheboygan County Marsh. Sure, the friends of the Marsh obviously, they helped build the tower. That was their first feather in their cap. And now they're engaging on a new multi-purpose building. Camp Waikota's been in a donated trailer that's served its purpose early on, but they're programming out at the Marsh. Environmental programming pretty much every school district in the area sends kids out there for some hands-on learning experience out in the Marsh, getting their feet wet and getting to see critters in real life and under microscopes. And they've essentially outgrown their donated trailer. And then I guess from an aesthetic standpoint, does, you know, could we do something a little bit better out at our county park? So they're setting off to build a new multi-purpose building. We got the plans in place. We got estimates. We got one large, very large donation, sort of set the stage, and we'll be starting sort of a silent campaign, going to other foundations in the area and things like that soon. And then we'll be going out and actively seeking the remainder of the dollars. So we're well on our way. And I would hope that looking at 2017, we can start putting a shovel in the ground and making that a reality. So we're looking at it being a lead platinum building, the first in the area, from an environmental standpoint. The net zero building is the goal. It's going to be awesome. If you haven't gotten out to the Sheboygan County March for a while, drive on out there. We've got the, still the March Lodge, where you can get a beer or a refreshment with your family. It's a nice family environment. And if you're looking to go camping, because you haven't done that in a while, you don't have to drive far. So I encourage you to check it out. There are so many beautiful areas in Sheboygan County. And sometimes I think we need, we feel like we have to drive up north to enjoy the outdoors. And we've got the kettles and just like Michigan, there's just so many beautiful areas here. Aaron Brault, thank you so much for your leadership as our planning and conservation director. Thank you to your staff who don't hear thank you enough, but do a tremendous job for this community. I hope you learned a little bit about our Sheboygan County Planning and Conservation Department today. If not, or you want to learn more, or if you have suggestions for improvement, don't hesitate to contact Aaron directly. In fact, we'd like all phone calls to go to Aaron for every issue, no, no, contact Aaron Brault because he does nice work and there's a lot going on, particularly this non-motorized transportation program that's starting to wrap up and all the good work that's been done there. So again, thank you, Aaron. Thank you. Next month, rather than the department head sitting across from me, you're gonna see newly elected County Board Chairman Tom Wagner. And I'm gonna be pleased to ask a few questions of him, put him on the hot seat so you can all learn more about the chief elected official of Sheboygan County. Tom now oversees an organization with a $128 million budget, 19 departments, 827 staff operating over 207 programs and services. So he has a lot of responsibility as County Board Chairman. He is my direct supervisor and I am looking forward to working with him as I did with Chairman Distruty. So until then, thank you for joining us and we'll see you next month.


Artifacts recovered from the Rosenstock village near Maryland have thrown up somewhat of a conundrum for baffled archaeologists who recovered a bone fragment there in 1991 which appears to show an ancient deity. On further research of what the apparent squatting humanoid may be representing, the archaeologists actually noticed that the fragment was not a local pattern but a worldwide motif found all over the planet from the earliest petroglyph patterns to the first deities worship by people. A squatting humanoid figure that is actually a representation of the immense aurorae event of prehistory as replicated in laboratory conditions. A solar system wide cataclysm instigated by the planet Saturn in all her might and glory as worship from the earth during the golden epic of prosperity. Known in the Americas as the hawker and misunderstood as the process of childbirth, the zenith pinch squatter man with spheroids at either side as the plasma goes through the phases that are commonly replicated in controlled conditions in the lab, this misunderstanding of this process is now being realized. Our ancestors were not drawing abstract figures. They were recreating in art the events they saw in the sky going through phases over a very long period of time and all over the planet is this replicated but also misunderstood. Samples from the Rosenstock village site near Maryland returned a carbon-14 dating of 1125 and this signifies a meaning that was understood even in these most recent times that was then lost to history. An understanding from a past event that became embroiled in mythological understandings that were not considered actual events. That is until you realize that they did happen and the ancients would name their gods after the great sky happenings where deities such as Vishnu and Zeus could emerge seemingly with the same origin story. It's not that these gods visited each other's culture but rather each culture could see the gods radiating in the sky dominating the golden time before they apparently began to war. To earth observers the gods warred as the aurora went through discrete phases. This was the human perception of these events. Robert Funk and George Hamill of the New York State Museum say that the squatting figure is termed a hawker and is found throughout the world including China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Mexico and Peru but to name a few other locations. Hawkers are apparently rare east of the Mississippi River although they are common in its Seneca Iroquois art especially on bone combs. The found fragment close to Maryland would represent one of the earliest hawkers ever found in the United States. Hawkers are part of a worldwide phenomena of the repeated design as an element apparently depicting genealogy. Each hawker represents an ancestor and the headless nature of some hawkers is seen as deliberate and symbolic however other interpretations are offered as well. It is possible that the raised rim of the Rosenstock carving represents a metaphorical door of a house and that the hawker serves as a doorkeeper again in Iroquois notion. Edmund Carpenter notes that it is possible that the holes surrounding the figure represent joint marks used in divination by cultures in both Americas. While the possible social symbolism of the Rosenstock hawker is purely speculative it does provide some context for considering its possible function and meaning. In truth however the meaning of this carving comes down to an event in prehistory that was so decisive in the minds of the observers that they would go to great links to recreate these sky events so that the event would not be forgotten. Instead it was forgotten anyway and the attempted translations of the mythological past in a way that is force fitted confounds our understanding and simply must now be brought back to the light from the darkest of minds that are mistaken in their assumptions. But what do you guys think about this anyway? Comments below and as always thank you for watching.


The next and last part of the session is the iterated random function problem and the authors are Ritan Baumig, Niranjan Dutta, Avijit Dutta, Niki Mouha, and Mojiro Dandi. We noticed that the authors of the previous paper are also here, but this time they were so clever to get more of us. And Niki went with the talk. Yeah, yeah, thank you. So I'm the only person standing between you and the coffee break. So I'm asking you to just hold on for a little bit and maybe not use the espresso machine during my presentation, unless of course it's absolutely necessary. So what's this presentation about? Let's say, just to start introduction, we have a random function. So a function shows uniformly a random from a particular domain and range. And we also would like to consider an iterated random function. So here we have a random function that we've iterated our times. Now, the question I want to ask ourselves is, so in a black box way, so you cannot look inside, these are just objects where you can give inputs and look at the output. How are these two constructions different? Just to give a simple argument of how they are definitely not the same. If you look at the random function, then here you can see with a certain number of distinct inputs, what approximately the collision probability will be, so the chance of having two different inputs that lead to the same output. For this iterated random function, the collision probability will be approximately r times higher. So if you want to see this intuitively, you could say, I have some inputs, I apply the random function once. If I don't have a collision, I can still try again in the next iteration and see if maybe then I am colliding. So clearly we have a different collision probability for these two constructions, so they are not the same. I mean some people say, hey, a random function just applying it a few times is still random, but here's clearly an example that it is not. Now, in the previous slide what I showed is non-adaptive collision-finding attack. So we have a certain number of inputs, in this case, Q inputs. We apply the function, we get the outputs, and then of the outputs we check if there are two that are identical, so that would indicate a collision. Now, why do we restrict ourselves to this? What about adaptive collision-finding attacks? So it could be that there is one output, like in this case Y2, that is somehow being used to compute the next input. And then we may also look at the output and see if there is a collision somewhere. Also, why would we restrict ourselves to adaptive collision-finding attacks? We could look at any type of attack that you could do. So maybe there is, instead of a collision, some type of multi-collision or short cycle, or some other type of property that we may find. So then, in this setting, the best-known attack, so looking at random function or random function has been iterated, the best-known attack is this non-adaptive collision-finding attack that comes from the first slide. Just choose a set of distinct inputs, apply the function, and see if there is a collision in the output. But the best-known bound, which is a simple application of CBCMAC, so it takes any distinguishing attack of the bound, gives results where, as you can see, there is still a gap. So you have a factor R for the best-known attack, and the factor R squares for the best-known bound. So that would indicate that maybe we can find a better attack, or maybe we can prove a better bound to close this gap. So that's something we will look into in this paper, and it's something that we can do, or it probably wouldn't be accepted. So what we're going to do is look at the best-known, I stole Gregor's joke from yesterday, it's still working. So this is something we will do, we will look at improving the bound. It's too bad for people who actually like attacks and would like to find a better attack, because that's not something that will be possible. So let's give a bit more about the model that will be used. This is very basic, but it's really important to understand what exactly we're doing here, because when the model is different, of course the results are different as well. So we're looking at an adversary that will typically tie to these twingers between two worlds. One is usually called the real world, and the other the ideal world. So for any adversary that makes at most Q queries, so you'll be limited in how much of a function you can see, you can only evaluate it on a certain number of inputs. We want to bounce the advantage. So the last line of formula is given for the advantage to distinguish between these two worlds. Now, important to notice that the framework that we're looking at is an information theoretic framework. So these objects that you have, these random functions, they're not deterministic algorithms, but they are statistical objects. So this will mean that the output of this object is not known until you've queried it. So in the same sense that you don't know what the result is going to be at the dice roll until you actually throw it. This allows us to look at computationally unbounded adversaries, because there's no limit in the amount of computation you can do. The statistical randomness is what allows you to get a security result. So then the technique that we will use is, again as a last presentation, the H-coefficient technique by Padaian. So in this technique, you look at transcripts. What a transcript is, is a queue tuple of input and output pairs to the oracle. And important if you want this technique to actually work is that you partition your transcripts into two different sets, which are then typically called, I mean, this real world, ideal world, you get goods transcripts and bad transcripts. It's a bit of an arbitrary definition. Somehow you have to define how you're going to separate your transcripts. And that allows you to apply the technique. Now, the real application of the technique comes at the end of the presentation, but I think it can help to get some understanding of what the technique actually does with a much simpler example. So perhaps the simplest example where you could apply this H-coefficient technique to is the random function, random permutation, switching level, PRP direct switching level. So then what you have is a random function and a random permutation. And you want to see what is your advantage with a certain number of queries to distinguish between these two. Now, interestingly, this problem is not so trivial because, for example, the first proofs that were given of this switching level, the standards prove basically, did contain an error as Kono pointed out. So this is not to say, because I've heard that some people misunderstand this comment, that some types of techniques to prove security results are better than other techniques. That's not the point here. But it's just to show that it's not trivial to completely trivial to look into this result. It may be useful to reevaluate this type of result with much more powerful thinking, just to have an understanding of how it works. So, for PRP-PRF, we could say the random function is the real world and then the random permutation is the ideal world. A natural way to define what good transcripts are is that you could say that a good transcript means that all of the outputs are distinct. So that would mean that you don't see any collisions in there. Then here you see the lemma of the H-coefficient technique. It's important to see that we have this epsilon-1 and epsilon-2 that we would like to compute. When we have these, the advantages bounded by the sum of both of them, I see we've already lost one person. For the PRP-PRF switching lemma, for those interested, when the full slides are online, you'll see the derivation in the backup slides. You have a term epsilon-1 that is non-zero, a term epsilon-2 that is zero because in the ideal world there are no bad transcripts. Also interestingly, we're not actually calculating a collision probability here. We're looking at the probability of having a certain transcript in the real world and a certain transcript in the ideal world and because the fraction of those is smaller than one, we have this term epsilon-1 that appears. But it's actually quite arbitrary that we choose the ideal world to be random function and real-world random function and ideal-world random permutation because if you would do it the other way around, then you get an alternative way of proving the same result using the H-coefficient technique. But now what happens is that the values of epsilon-2 and epsilon-1 get swapped. So now epsilon-1 is the zero one and epsilon-2 is the non-zero one. And now it can happen that in the ideal world, which is now the random function, we have some bad transcripts, namely transcripts where the outputs are colliding. Okay, so let's get back again to the iterated random function problem, but forget for the slides that follow iterations. What we're going to do now does not involve any iteration. We're just going to look at random functions. What we're interested in is what are all the successful collision attacks that you can do on a random function with one or two trails? So we can clear where the trail is. What do they look like? So what can we do? We could look at a single trail attack, so at one starting point. And from this starting point, we can continue applying the random function. And then at some moment it may happen that we enter into a cycle. Okay, at this moment, that's the moment when we have found a collision because there are two distinct inputs that give the same output. Now what we can do is fix the length of the tail and fix the length of the cycle. So that's not something you would usually do, but that's what helps in the later derivation of the proof. In that case, you can bounce the probability of having a collision with these specific parameters. So if your number of queries is smaller than t plus c, then you will have a probability of zero because you haven't made enough queries for this fixed value, this fixed pair of t and c to actually find the collision. But as soon as q is larger than or equal to t plus c, then you will have this term that can be used to bounce. It'll actually use a second bound as well, which has some parameter alpha in there that is some real number. There's also a bound related to t and c involving this alpha. So basically later at some step in the proof, we will fix this alpha with a specific value that is convenient to derive the result. This is one example. Another thing that can happen is that you have an attack starting with two trails. And in that case, you can see here, oh, at this moment we found a collision. So this is what we call a lambda collision. The t1 and t2 are the foot lengths of the lambda. Again, they are fixed. And this allows us in a similar way to also bound collision probability with these two fixed values of t1 and t2. But we could actually continue because it's going to be interesting as soon as, not now but later, we will look at iterated random functions that we might not see this collision, but we might see a later one. Then here we can still find the collision, a second one which we call lambda rho double collision. Here's some imagination series picture here, where t1 and t2 are the foot lengths. Delta t is the intervening length. Again, c is the cycle length. Again, all these parameters are ones that we will fix to bound probability of a successful collision attack. And actually, again, we will derive two bounds, one with and one without the value of alpha that will fix the convenient value. Actually, there's a variety of this as well because if you look at this construction, when you continue on for your next collision, now it's getting back into the joint part of the two trails, but it could also go back to one of the two feet of your lambda. So in a different way of writing this would be this picture. This is another way in which you could find two collisions if you're starting with two starting points, two trails. So this would be then what we call rho prime double collision that we need to consider. There's actually another degenerate case as well where you have a three-fold collision going here back into the main meeting point. So then you have three different inputs with the same output, but that's also something we consider as a degenerate case of one of the previous ones. So having explained a bit what the type of things are that you can find as a collision attack with one or two trails, now we are looking at iterated random functions. And we're going to look at what successful collision attacks are with n trails. So now you won't actually see all of the output because some of them will be in turn. So what happens is I'm jumping, let's say r is equal to 2 and iterating twice. I'm jumping by two calls. So this dot that is not black is the one that you don't see going around. At this moment what will happen is I'm now going to do another call of 2 times f and I'm only going to see the output. There has been a collision on the underlying function, but you cannot see it in the output because that's not a value that you've output. However, if you do continue around the cycle, then after going around once, you will find the collision on the iterated function. Similarly, if you look at a two-trail attack, then let's say now we start from x2, we applied a function twice, again choosing r equal to 2. Now starting the trail from x1, here again x2, now from x1 I'm continuing. There has been a collision on the underlying function, but you don't see it yet. However, if we continue now, so I'm now only going to look at the one that started from x2. If I'm going around the cycle, then at this moment I will find a collision with the other trail starting from the other point. So these are the types of attacks that we need to calculate bounds on to be used in the final proof. So here you see bounds that we obtained for the single-trail attack, then again for the two-trail attack, and also generalized, we can see that because when you have a collision, that will mean that the two inputs that lead to the same output must be either coming from the same trail or must be coming from different trails. So there is a way of also taking an m-trail attack into account. So what would happen if an attacker would take m different starting points and bounds what collision probability would be of this? Now having done all these calculations of attacks, because as I said this presentation is not about attacks, it's about proving a better security bound. Those are, however, the attacks that we can use inside the proof that will get us the better security bound. So now for the first time we will look at the advantage of an adversary to distinguish a random function from an iterated random function, so at bounds not at attacks. We're going to look at how to construct this bound. So again, what we're going to do is apply the H coefficient technique. Here we choose the real oracle to be the iterated random function and the ideal oracle will be a random function to distinguish in a black box way between these two. And we define our good transcripts as transcripts that must satisfy two properties. One property is that all outputs are distinct. Now this will mean intuitively, I mean we worked on some more detail in the paper, that there would not have been some successful m-trail attack present somewhere, because clearly if that's the case then you don't have all outputs distinct. You've somehow found a collision. And also that there are no permutation cycles. So permutation cycle means that when you are going to start from a certain trail that you end up to the starting point again, that you have a cycle going back to the initial point. So these two things must be satisfied to have a good transcript. So let's see what it means in practice. Here we have some transcript that we found with m-starting points and we start, okay, at this moment we see that we have collisions so this is not a good transcript. Let's look at another one. So at this moment this is a permutation cycle so that's again something we consider to be a bad transcript. So we'll get another transcript. In this case this is this lambda situation that we have two trails merging. So again a collision so a bad transcript. What a good transcript will look like is for example this one. So basically a set of lines with a certain number of starting points. Interestingly this is something that will define an isomorphism of transcripts when you have these lines that don't have any cycle or any collision between the transcripts in the ideal world and the real world. And that's the crucial thing to actually get proven to see the generality of the result. So then let's apply the h-coefficient technique. So again here I give the lemma of the h-coefficient technique that we applied to PRP pairs and we're now going to apply to iterated random function. In this the bounds of epsilon 1 and epsilon 2 that we derived we have this m-trail attack term that we derived earlier but also as I said a good transcript this one that doesn't have permutation cycle. So this is something that we also need to take into account. You see another term appearing. For epsilon 2 as you can see in the term there's no r present for the number of iterations which makes sense because in the ideal world we have a random function and an iterated random function. So then this allows us to bound the aversary as follows. So to conclude the talk what we do is we look at the iterated random function problem which means that let's say that f is a random function where to distinguish between f and f iterated are times. And the best known attack is an attack that is at the bound that has the best known attack is linear in r if we want to look at the success probability but for the advantage of the best known bounds there is a quadratic term. So what we do is we improve this to an almost linear term so we still have this logarithmic factor that's of course an interesting thing but it grows slower than any polynomial function thereby showing that we have an almost tight result between the best known attack and the best known bound. So this concludes my talk. I'd like to thank you for your attention. I have a small puzzle because the attack is for an adaptive and your bound is for adaptive adversary. So I'm not sure if I understood your question. So the best known attack is for a non-adaptive attack but bound to be improved takes adaptive adversaries into account. So I think it is a little complicated because your bound is the non-adaptive attack may be equal to the adaptive attack. So what I should make clear is that we are not saying that non-adaptive attack is always going to be as good as an adaptive attack. It really depends on the way you choose the values of r and q and I'd invite everybody to look at the paper to see the exact bounds to know what exactly the advantages that we are looking at. However, to give them basic motivation like these are in the beginning of the paper for what we want to do, if we are going to look at a small number of queries and we're going to look at what the success probability is of the attack, then what we see is that there are non-adaptive attacks. So just taking a set of inputs and looking at a collision at the output is the best attack with a certain logarithmic factor still in there because if we would be able to improve the attack, we would violate the best known bound. The best known bound is adaptive so of course it takes non-adaptive adversaries into account as well. I'm not really sure if I'm answering that. I'm just a small part of it because I believe your proof is right. My question is whether a non-adaptive attack may be equivalent to an adaptive attack because your prong is the upper bound for an advantage. I think he's just saying that the adaptive doesn't help. Yes, the adaptive doesn't help. And I'm saying that the adaptive can help but it really depends on how you choose the values of r and q. So the result is actually much more than what I'm showing in this presentation. You will see the full formula in the paper where you can see that in specific cases it does help to be adaptive but this is for example large values of q and r. If you look at a very small number of queries like what I showed in the beginning of the presentation then an activity does not help. It's more subtle than this. Any other questions? But do you think adaptive could help to get the log3 and q there which improves the attack to get the log3 and q there? That's a really good question. So the factor log r that comes in there comes from a specific siren that we need that is related to the distribution of prime numbers because that's somehow important. It's something that we may be able to get rid of but it's not clear. So we want to make sure like if you make small steps in the wrong direction in this security proof that we're really careful then you end up with the trivial cbc background and you end up with anything that is improved over what is known already. So we were really careful to avoid this but did still end up with this log r factor and that's something that is not really clear if it is a necessary factor or not. But it comes from this privacy? Yeah. So how do crimes come into the picture? Yeah well yeah so there is a certain small lemma that we needed for which course we found the result that is conditional based on the Riemann's Zeta Hypothesis but that I thought oh no that's never going to fly because the reviewers will say and I would say myself what is this Riemann's Zeta Hypothesis I don't understand it should I assume that it is true so we found another type of result that was proven that we need somewhere in the computation that is unconditional but it does have this log r factor in there it's related to when you see yourself going around the cycle you need to go around a certain number of times the greatest common divisor is important I don't know how many times so the greatest common divisor between r and the cycle length is important and that's where these prime numbers and eventually the log factor comes in. Okay let's first take further discussions of life into the coffee break and let's thank the speaker again.


Dear students, in this topic we shall take an overview of the endocrine glands of vertebrates. The vertebrates have a large number of endocrine glands and tissues that produce hormones. Most of the hormones are produced by only one endocrine gland, which is located at a specific site. However, some hormone-like substances, for example, prostaglandins and leukotrienes, are produced by most or all tissues of the body. And some hormones are produced by more than one specific tissues of the body. We shall take an overview of the vertebrate endocrine glands and the hormones which they produce. First, most important neuroendocrine gland is the hypothalamus. Hypothalamus produces seven hormones which affect the anterior pituitary gland. These hormones are the tropic hormones and have two types of effects. Four hormones have stimulatory effects and three hormones have inhibitory effects on rays of hormones from the pituitary gland. These stimulatory hypothalamic hormones include the carticotropin-releasing hormone, CRH, growth hormone-releasing hormone, gonadotropin-releasing hormone, GNRH, and thyrotropin-releasing hormone, TRH. These hormones affect the anterior pituitary gland to produce the respective hormones. The hypothalamic inhibitory hormones include three hormones, MSH-inhibiting hormone, which is called MIH, prolectin-inhibiting hormone, and somatostatin. These hormones inhibit the secretion of hormones from anterior pituitary. These hormones which are inhibited include the melanocyte-stimulating hormone, prolectin, and growth hormone. Dear students, the anterior pituitary gland produces four types of tropic hormones and three other hormones which are non-tropic in action. Tropic hormones are those hormones which act on other endocrine glands and cause them to produce their own hormones, while non-tropic hormones are those which act directly on the tissues and produce their effects. The pituitary gland has two lobes. The anterior lobe produces four tropic hormones. These hormones include the luteinizing hormone, which acts on the gonads, especially the ovaries, follicle-stimulating hormone that also acts on the gonads and causes them to produce the male and female sex hormones. The third hormone is the thyroid-stimulating hormone, TSH, also called thyrotropin. It stimulates the thyroid gland to produce its hormone. The fourth hormone is the adenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH, that stimulates the release of cortico-steroids from the adenocortex. The anterior pituitary gland also produces three non-tropic hormones. These include the growth hormone, prolactin, and melanocyte-stimulating hormones. They promote growth, promote production of milk, and stimulate melanin pigment, respectively. Dear students, the posterior lobe of pituitary gland also produces two hormones. These hormones are anti-diuretic hormone and oxytocin. Dear students, next endocrine gland is the thyroid gland. Thyroid gland has two types of glandular cells. The follicular cells, which produce two hormones, thyroxine, and triiodothyronin, while the para-follicular cells of thyroid produce one hormone that is called calcitonin. The next endocrine gland of vertebrates is the para-thyroid gland. This produces one hormone which is called para-thermon. Dear students, the next endocrine gland we will discuss is the adenal gland. There are two types of adenal gland. This is a dual gland. This has adenal cortex and adenal medulla. Adenal cortex produces two types of hormones which are mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids. Apart from this, we produce more hormones. Most of the glands we are talking about produce more hormones than these. But we are discussing the major hormones. The major hormones of adenal cortex include aldosterone, which is mineralocorticoid, and glucocorticoids, which have three types of hormones, cortisol, cartisone, and carticosterone. They are produced from adenal cortex. Adenal medulla produces two very important hormones, which are epinephrine and nor-epinephrine. They are called catecholamines in a combined form. Dear students, pancreas is a dual gland. It has an exocrine part that produces the digestive pancreatic juice. But it also has islets of Langerhans, which are endocrine in their function. They produce two hormones, insulin and glucagon. The next gland is the pineal gland. Penial gland produces a hormone which is called melatonin and this melatonin is very important in circadian rhythms. Dear students, gonads, in addition to producing gametes, also act as endocrine tissues. The testes produce two types of hormones, testosterone and inhibin, from two types of glandular cells, latic cells and certuli cells. The ovaries produce two major hormones in females. These are estrogen. The major estrogen is the estradiol and the progesterone. Dear students, the placenta which develops during the fetal development also produces many hormones. The two major hormones produced by placenta are corionic gonadotropin and placental lactogen. Dear students, heart is a pumping organ. But its atrium also produces an important hormone which is called atrial natriuretic factor that controls blood volume and pressure. Dear students, the gastrointestinal tract also produces many hormones. These hormones include cholecystokinin, chymodinin, gastrin, secretin, substance P and motilin. Many of these regulate the secretions of digestive juices and enzymes. Dear students, some hormones and hormone-like substances are produced by most or all tissues of the body. These hormones include leukotrienes, prostacycline, prostaglandins and thrombocenes. These control various nucleotide formations and cyclic AMP and cyclic GMPs. The hormones which are produced by more than one selected type of tissues include endorphins, epidermal growth factors, fibroblast growth factor, nerve growth factor and somatomadones. Dear students, from all this list we can conclude that some glands are distinct and are easily identifiable. However, a large number of endocrine tissues are not distinct and are found embedded in the organs which have quite different functions than the endocrine functions. That is why the identification and discovery of endocrine glands has been a challenging task.


Hello and welcome to this session on placing gender parity at the heart of the recovery from this virus that has devastated so many parts of our economies, our lives and also sadly taken away too many lives. I'm Meenal Rabi. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of the National here in Abulabi and I'm delighted to be moderating this discussion today. It is an important discussion on many levels. Firstly, women have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. Statistics show that while women make up 39% of the global workforce, they've accounted for 54% of total job losses according to McKinsey. Informal workers have experienced a 60% full of income in the first month of the pandemic and according to the ILO, 740 million women are in informal employment and most likely are the most vulnerable. The numbers and the figures are staggering and we're here today to discuss what can be done to mitigate against all of these developments. Everything from the fear of more women and girls getting pushed into extreme poverty to how workplace practices can be improved, but also what are some of the learnings we've taken during COVID-19? There are some silver linings. What have we learned from that? What policy measures have happened that we can actually take up on? We are delighted that there is a global audience watching us through the World Economic Forum and also on the nationals platforms. This conversation will be on the record and recorded for the next 30 minutes and after that we will go into a private discussion with the forum participants and partners. So while we discuss these issues, I would like to make reference to the World Economic Forum's multitude of programs that are targeted the issue of gender parity, including closing the gender gap accelerators. There are 10 countries that have signed up including Egypt and we are delighted that we have a representative from Egypt to discuss closing the gender gap accelerators, but also hardwiring gender parity in the future of work, a key component of the work of the World Economic Forum. So that further ado, I'd like to welcome the speakers on this panel. We have with us her Excellency Rani Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation of Egypt, Kevin Sneider, a global managing partner from McKinsey and Company, from Zili Malambo in Luka, Under Secretary General and Executive Director of United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, which of course all of us know UN Women, and Michael Nadorf, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Centine in the USA. Kevin, I'd like to start with you please because I know McKinsey has been tracking the issue of gender parity for years, but of course it's also monitoring the impact of COVID-19 across societies and workforces. So I want to ask you, how much of a setback are we actually facing for women in the workforce and their participation in the labor force, and how do we tackle it? It's a very serious setback, dramatic setback, because we're really now at a crossroads. After decades of progress, and let's be clear, the progress has been slow, but nevertheless it has been any generally positive direction. We now see very significant impact on multiple dimensions, and let me just bring that to life, and you've already done that with some of the statistics, but there are a couple that I think really dramatized just how significant this moment is. 80% of the 1.1 million who dropped into, out of the US workforce in September were women. 80% of the 1.1 million who dropped out of US workforce in that month alone. In India, women are two and a half times more likely than men to be negatively impacted in terms of their economic well-being. Women's jobs are 20% more at risk simply because of the sectors that have been hardest hit in this moment, think accommodation, hospitality, and so on, retail. Female poverty rates are up 9%. That's versus decades of progress. That's a huge setback. Up to a quarter of women are thinking of stepping out of the roles in which they are in today in the developed economies. So there are multiple measures in which you look at this and you think, this is dramatic. And it's why, as we talk about what's needing to be done, we really need to pull all levers. Starting with the recognition that the number one thing we often have heard and we found in our most recent analysis of what is it people are looking for in order to make progress in gender parity, the number one thing we often hear is flexibility. Well, in this moment, there is that opportunity, but it hinges on, for example, digital inclusion, making sure women have access to digital tools and they are disproportionately negatively impacted there. It means social means. For example, unpaid work. Women take on by far the greatest burden of unpaid work. Think childcare. What are we going to do to make that addressed and possible to be redressed as a source of obstacle? I could keep going. This is a dramatic moment. We are undoubtedly at a crossroads. When you speak about flexibility, that's a very important point because some of that is depending on particular companies or particular sectors. But how can we actually get that flexibility to be part of policy measures? And here I want to bring you, Rania, into the conversation because can you give us examples of success where policy measures have allowed women to have better circumstances in the workforce, and particularly when it comes to the issues of flexibility? Thank you, Mina. And very happy to be joining Davos colleagues virtually this year. Gender issues are extremely important. And for countries which have endorsed SDGs, SDG number five, which is gender equality, is a key one. And in the past before COVID, there has been so much statistics put out that shows that women's participation in the economy is macro critical. So it's no longer just a number, but it's actually an increase in GDP and an increase in productivity. COVID, of course, came all of a sudden. Many countries and policymakers had to think how not just to protect citizens per se, but also not reneg on many of the very important, I would say, one issues related to different topics, including gender.  Suddenly, the government had to work remotely and a decree was issued where women could actually take leave with the children who are below 12 years old. So this was done in legislation. So policymaking was quite important in formulating that. Second, trying to provide training for digital skills for women to be able to equip to the changing circumstances. In our case, we were one of the very first countries to have gender sensitive policies post COVID. And by the UNDP in doing assessment for countries, Egypt was singled out as the number one in West Asia and the Middle East with 21 gender sensitive policies. These policies are related to women's security, violence, childcare, etc. And of course, everyone realized in that, you know, the unpaid work became even more obvious and more visible with COVID, particularly with education being from home and so forth and everything being digital. So I think that in our case, we have not given a blind eye to the gender issues. We've tried to internalize and endogenize the new realities into what the government is formulating to basically tackle and mitigate impact of COVID. And as you mentioned in your introductory remarks, Mina, Egypt joined the World Economic Forum to launch the gender gap, closing the gender gap accelerator. We are the first country in Africa and the Middle East. And this is a public private platform. And so in the spirit of stakeholder capitalism and having all parties engaged in trying to push forward the agenda on sustainable development goals, including SDG number five, we're very happy and proud that we initiated this. And the idea is that policy making do its role, private sector be part of creating these policies so that they are basically creating more impact across the society with women participation being quite prominent in this. Thank you so much, Rania. Equally, it's going to take the public sector and the private sector, of course, to tackle this issue. Fonsili, if I can please move to you and ask you about examples of public policy or incentives that you've seen as successful, but also how to address the concern about more women sliding into extreme poverty. Again, that number of 47 million more women and girls possibly sliding into poverty due to COVID-19. Fonsili, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Well, I have to say it's not easy at this point to say successful because, you know, we haven't been experiencing the initiatives that the governments have taken for a time that is long enough for us to know that it is successful. But let me say it is alleviating the extreme pressures that the women were feeling. One good example is Senegal. Women who grow rice and would otherwise sell into the market as the results of lockdown and all of the routes that they were using for supplying were disrupted. Government was buying all of the rice that the women were producing and using it to support feeding schemes. They have now gone into a formal relationship with government where women will, which is ideal for us, women will be supplying governments, which is also trying to reduce the import of rice into Senegal because they can grow more rice within the country. But also, you know, we have been talking about women who are informal jobs, you know, starting with the health workers, ensuring that as a result of what we have experienced in the pandemic, we have advised governments about the importance of making the conditions of service for women are much better that in situations where many women were saying that they are doing casual jobs, their contracts are not secured, and we know that health workers are so important. There is no denying we all have seen that. We have been advising that governments formalize, use this time to formalize the types of contractual arrangements that they have with women beyond the health sector. In tourism also, where women tend to be casuals, waitresses, et cetera, when they have to claim, it's much more difficult because of their precarious contracts. So we are urging governments as they give stimulus, we are urging development banks as they give support to us to make sure that they ask that women are also supported and they are put into formal contracts. Thank you. Thank you so much. The issue of casual workers from the economy is quite important. As you said, health workers, and with that, Michael, I'd like to turn you on the role of businesses in improving the situation for women, particularly those working in the health care sector, but also the importance of equitable access to health care benefits. What are your learnings and what would be your advice? I may be a little atypical in this regard. We start at the top. I have two members of the board of directors that are very senior experience women. One was a vice chairman of Deloitte and one was the first four star general in the Air Force.  We've also said we don't have programs to hire women specifically because we want everybody in this company to know that somebody's in the job because they're the best person for the job. And we support gender parity and we moved 66,000 people home in three days when COVID hit and ensure they had the support in the systems and things necessary. We still have three, four thousand doing essential. We've also hired about 7000 people virtually since COVID hit a year ago. And that's kind of atypical of where things are at. But I think one of the things I'd like to point out is that we're very proud of that 75% of our workforce are women, that 64% are supervisors and above and 55% are director level and above. We also have 54% of our interns, 52% of our people of color. And in the UK, for example, even internationally, the heads of our UK and Spanish operations, the presidents are women. So I always tell people kind of tongue-in-cheek that as a Caucasian male, I'm the minority in this company. And I think that's, but everybody's there because they've been the right person. I think that's kind of important. But you want to be intentional in helping people understand that that could happen. And as we work through COVID, we're also recognizing that if children at home, and they're not going to be able to come back to work as fast as they might otherwise, some of them. So we take that in consideration as we start to bring the workforce back. And we're planning that those individuals will come back probably in September, because that's when their children hopefully will be back in school. And there are good indications that that could happen. So it's a, we have a robust leadership development. We have inclusion programs for women. And I think what's important is have these programs in place and maintain them. And I think if anything, we'd like to be an example that it can be done, is being done. And in general, in healthcare, I think particularly it is, if you, when you watch the news, you watch everything, there is a lot more gender parity probably than we're seeing elsewhere. And we're proud of that kind of track record. And we insist on it. And so I mean, it's one on one tutoring, it's free counseling and mental health services, behavioral health services for people when they do have issues, it's enhanced caregiving, paid time off, when they have to, we understand those kinds of things.  These are the kinds of things I think we have to do. And we're continuing off of childcare. We have a child development center. So it's more than just childcare. So I think those things have helped us attract the women we want, retain them. And I think if anything, I'd like to say, we'd like to say it can be done. That's an important message, actually, but it can be done. But there are very specific measures that allow it to happen. Thank you, Michael, for giving us those examples. Kevin, I want to turn back to you because we're talking about gender parity as we come into hopefully a recovery soon once we see some traction emerging from this pandemic. But there's a lot of demand on companies, on governments, of what to focus on with the reset, with the recovery, be it the climate change, be it economic growth, et cetera. So how do you ensure gender parity doesn't get lost amongst all of these demands? Well, I think you listened to what Michael said. And you remind yourself that there is plenty of evidence and we've helped contribute to that that shows that companies that actually are more diverse in general, but let's take gender as a flagship part of that diversity, tend to outperform those that are not. And we've got statistics that show that they're 25% more likely to outperform. So it's worth reminding ourselves that, in general, diversity does connect with performance. And when you remind yourself of that, plus the reality that if we look across the labor force and think about what's needed to respond to the challenges that we've got now, it's good business to make the investment in parity and not to somehow or other think it's optional. It's not optional. I think going beyond that, it is also, of course, the case that a lot of companies, as Michael has illustrated, have been investing over time in this topic because they know it makes sense to do so. The notion that now is the right moment to pull back and prioritize other things, I think it's just plain wrong. And so there is just this necessity that it ties to performance. Remember that. And then look at what we're actually talking about. What we're talking about is how do you retain people you've had because the retention is going to be the big issue. I mentioned that we had surveys showing that about a quarter of senior American women in the labor force were considering downshifting or stepping out. That is an enormous cost to a business. Think about the investment that's been made in training and developing people. To lose that talent is almost unthinkable from an economic point of view, let alone, as I've said, I think just the common sense view of what it takes to perform. And you add to that that some of the things that need to be done in general will help all employees gender regardless. So for example, greater forms of social levers, funding and provision of health of childcare, as Michael talks about, family friendly policies, rethinking how performance reviews are done. That's just good business too. So I utterly reject the notion that somehow or other there's a trade off here. This is inherent to how this recovery is going to be successful. It's good business and it makes sense. And we should not take this moment with some other thing that we're trading off a green recovery for a gender parity recovery or for just a plain economic recovery. This is all connected. We need to move forward in all fronts and put all levers accordingly. Thank you, Kevin. I mean, it's your point about we shouldn't step back is also what Rania, you were referencing in your initial remarks that there has been some movement forward that we have to make sure we don't regress. But I want to come to you, Rania, to build up on the points that you made earlier about measures and legislation that was actually taken to allow mothers of those who are under 12. Do you think that there are further steps in terms of actually legislating that can be seen in the immediate future? Of course, on the long term, we know what's needed been in the immediate future as as the world tackles the pandemic. Well, you know, Kevin mentioned something very important, and that's evidence based policies. And when countries have the political commitment and the political will, investing time and, you know, collecting that data so that your policies are well targeted, whether they are related to health issues, whether they're related to making sure that daycare centers are available where needed, making sure that you are providing a dialogue with the private sector because you want them to be also the employer of choice, because everyone wants to move forward with their GDP. And I think McKinsey had a very important statistic that if we move towards parity, GDP globally goes up by $13 trillion, and that is a big number. And given where we are today globally, you know, that extra addition to GDP and to productivity is quite important. A few policies which are, you know, in the forefront, financial inclusion for women is very, very important, making sure that digital skills are available for women is quite important. Also, when we take a look at some of the loans, entrepreneurship, you know, pushing entrepreneurships that are led and startups led by women, the small and medium enterprises led by women, providing technical assistance capacity building. So all of these are policies that the government pushes. And as I mentioned, having the private sector with us, the civil society with us, because given the widespread networks of civil society to reach to the different governors, it's also quite important. So as I mentioned, it's not government only, government always provides the infrastructure required to have collective action from all stakeholders. But the most important thing is the political commitment and the understanding that in the different projects that we do, the gender component is important. Thank you very much, Rania. Consili, I want to come to you to discuss the societal impact. You know, we're talking about the government measures, what can the public sector and private sector do. But also there's been a huge societal impact. There have been numerous courts coming out where women, as they're having to stay at home more, but also concerns about the rise of domestic violence during lockdowns and so forth. So I'd like to ask you your thoughts on that and also the societal impact of what's happened and how can we mitigate against some of the adverse effects. In the time of crisis, you are able to push forward on issues that you have been trying to push forward over a very long time. During the crisis, we were able to reach out, of course, with the help also of the Secretary General, to about 444 countries and heads of states on the issue of investing and providing more resources to address the issue of violence against women. Ensuring that services that women need when they experience violence are designated as essential services. Because as you know, violence against women is a shadow pandemic. It was there before the health pandemic. It will be there beyond the health pandemic, not unless we make decisive changes as we deal with the pandemic. So what we have requested from governments, not only should they be regarded as essential services, but we are asking governments and will be announcing that as part of our generation equality campaign that the police forces, the legislature, I mean, sorry, the judiciary, all of those officers that dispense justice be regarded as the frontline workers for ending gender-based violence. Because the level of intensity that is required in order for violence against women to be addressed effectively, that intensity has not been reached yet. So we are able to have that conversation right now with different governments about really upping their game. In fact, in two days' time, we are going to be having a conversation with the police forces of countries around the world just on this issue of how they can repurpose their interventions, their action in order for them to be responding much better in the issues of violence against women. If there's time, I would also like to come back on the issue of childcare and unpaid care work. But on violence against women, we certainly are pushing for the policies to be intensified as much as possible, not just to be left to civil society. It's too difficult and too dangerous to be left to the people who don't have the means, the authority and resources. And please go ahead with elaborating on the issues of childcare. It's hugely important, so we'd love to hear your views. Please do go ahead. Well, just a point that I wanted to make, agreeing with what Egypt was saying is the importance of providing the infrastructure that would enable women to stay and to enter the labor force without the burden of having to be the caregivers for children and old people at home. In a study that we did with IFC, we looked at South Africa and Turkey by just providing compulsory childcare that is accessible and affordable. You increase jobs. You enable women to enter the labor force. You enable children to get better engagement for them to prepare because you send them to a facility that is proposed for that matter. So there is a lot of benefit if government invests in this infrastructure that takes away the burden of care from women and makes it something that is provided as a public good. Thank you very much. Yes, this idea of that provision being a public good being for the benefit of all society. Michael, I want to come to you for the final comments before we close this part of our discussion. You spoke about the measures that your company has taken and ensuring that women are fully participating. We have a question from one of the people in the audience who are watching asking, how do we go beyond a checklist of these are gender equality measures and move towards a culture where diversity is the norm? If I may, I just want to make one quick comment on the education side. Just follow up on what was just said. I cannot emphasize enough how important it's been. And it's a child development center, not just a daycare center. I mean, it has a STEM classroom for the children. And the parents love it because they see the child's development. And when they go into the public school section, they're already ahead of the game. So I think doing that and following up was just said that there's nothing more important. Now, looking back at the criteria in the checklist, I think what we think about is, do we have the organizational structure to support it? Now, whether it be people with disabilities, women, male, no, we have committees that work on that. And their focus is to ensure that we're maintaining an environment that understands it. And we have what we call courageous conversations where employees are encouraged to come in and talk to us. And we put board members on it. So they're free to talk and express what their concerns are if they have any. Because we tell people, if we don't know about it, we can't do anything about it. And so we try to maintain on that checklist a very open environment. And then if it sounds like a commercial, it's not. But one Kevin and I, we work with David Nott and his New York team. And even when we do acquisitions, we do a lot of them, they help to ensure that when we're blending the organizations that those principles and that culture is in the new structure. So it's that kind of checklist, I think, that makes a difference to me. Thank you so much, Michael. And that's a great point to make, because on some levels, it is the culture and it is the wider approach. But it's also then the very tangible measure is everything from having the Child Development Center to ensuring legislation is there in particular countries to working with the police forces or the Senegal example is brilliant about women who couldn't go out and sell the rice. Well, actually, the rice was bought from them and gave a general good to the public and those who were consuming that rice. Thank you for your very candid remarks and very tangible pointers and advice for us. Thank you very much.