Okay, well, we're not at the final session yet, but we're at the second to the last. We're running the race, right? You girls are so patient, patient. Good listeners. All right. So we're going to turn from some squabbling sisters to a more positive topic. The steadfast sister, the Shunamite woman. So if you would turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 4, 2 Kings chapter 4, we're going to look at some principles we can learn from this steadfast woman and they will be in the acrostic steadfast and again, not in order. Several years ago, my daughter, who is now 40 soon to be actually this Sunday, she'll be 41, she was on a trip when she was out at the master's college and she was on a mission trip in South Africa. And she had been keeping in touch with us and telling us about everything the Lord was doing in South Africa and it was really encouraging and just so exciting to be able to see her to go and to go on this mission trip. And then there was a period of time that we didn't hear from her for about 24 days and I thought, well, as a mother, I was a little bit concerned, but I tried to give it to the Lord and so I was waking up one morning, went to check my email and I saw that I had an email from her and the subject line was this, hi guys. I need your, sorry, I'm so emotional. I don't usually get it emotional, but she said, hi guys, I need your prayers and the following is what her email said, I have a few minutes to email you because God is gracious. God is doing amazing things, which I will tell you about when I have more time. I would like for you all to be praying for me, please, I'm very sick right now. The sickest I've ever been in a long time and I'm in a lot of pain and I'm shedding a lot of tears. I think that I might be going to the doctor tomorrow. Would you please pray the Lord would heal me? Thank you all so much. I look forward to seeing you all. I love you guys, Cindy. And that was it. And I was like, what? So you know as a mother, even of grown children, numerous things come into your mind, right? Like what kind of pain?  What kind of doctors are there in South Africa? We need to get her home right now. I knew we shouldn't have let her go on this mission trip, you know, and all those things went through my mind. And I started to, you know, begin to cry and then I stopped my crying and got myself under control, called out to God in prayer and then I called our prayer chain in our church and asked for prayer.  When God chooses to heal our child, what should our response be? If he chooses not to heal, what should our response be? As we consider the Shunamite woman who is a steadfast sister, we're going to endeavor to answer some of these questions. And I want to give you eight lessons we can learn from this woman. And since she is our steadfast sister, they're going to be then the acrostic steadfast. And we can certainly glean a lot from her story. This is definitely one of those things where through the comfort of the scriptures we might have hope. As we see this woman go through a tremendous trial and yet she remains steadfast. Now what I want to do, I want to read a little bit of the story, then I'm going to stop and then we're going to take it a verse at a time because there's so many great principles in this story. So let's look at 2nd Kings chapter four and begin in verse eight. We'll just read a little bit of it. Now it happened one day that Elisha went to Shuman where there was a notable woman and she persuaded him to eat some food. So it was as often as he passed by he would turn in there to eat some food.  So it will be whenever he comes to us he can turn in there. Then it happened one day that he came there and he turned into the upper room and he laid down there. Then he said to Gahaza, his servant, call this Shunamite woman. When he called her, she stood before him and he said to him, say now to her, look you've been concerned for us with all this care, what can I do for you? Do you want me to speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army? She answered, I dwell on my own people. So he said, what then is to be done for her?  So he said, we'll call her. So when he called her, she stood in the doorway and he said, about this time next year you're going to embrace a son. And she said, no my lord, man of God, do not lie to your maid servant. But the woman conceived and bore a son when the appointed time had come of which Elijah had told her. So Elijah meets this Shunamite woman and he would come through and she told her husband, let's make a room for him. And so you know the story, Elijah wanted to be a blessing to her. And so he prophesied that she would have a son even though her husband was very old. So she concedes and she gives birth to the son. So this brings us to the rest of the story, look at verse 18. And the child grew and it happened one day that he went out to his father, to the reapers. You know how old this boy was? Most people think he was probably between the ages of four and six. And so he goes out to the field like all little kids would if their dad was a farmer. He's going out to his dad to see him. But as he goes out to him in verse 19, he says to his father, my head, my head. And so the servant, he said to the servant, the father said to the servant, go carry him to his mother. And more than likely this boy was suffering from sunstroke. It was probably very hot. Often in the land of Palestine, it would get very hot and as they would go out to the fields and reap and he was out there with his dad, he could have had a sunstroke. Often sunstroke is shown by pain, stupor and fever. And often it is fatal as perhaps in this case. And so his dad did what all do dads do when the child comes and says, I don't feel good. What do they say?   And so he does. He goes to see his mother. Now, of course, I'm sure this father had no idea how sick the little boy was. He thought he just had a headache or you know how some kids do. I have a stomach ache and they're just pretending. So who knows? Oh, he had a headache. So it seems. So in verse 20, when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, the servant, he sat on her knees till noon and then he died. So he was well in the morning but dead at noon. Question number one, we can learn from this story of the Shunamite woman, a steadfast woman, is a D on your acrostic. Ladies don't take your children or anyone for granted. Don't take your children or anyone for granted.  We had a great time with one of my other sisters. I have three sisters and three of us were able to get together on Father's Day. It was my sister's birthday. Now she's fighting for her life in the hospital. I keep checking my phone to see if she's passed. We don't take our children or anybody for granted, right? Ladies, life is fragile. We do not know what a day will bring forth. Every one of us in this room could tell a story or we know of someone where they were here today and yet gone the next day. We do not know when our last day will be on this earth or those that we love. And so remember as a mother, you do not own your children. They are on loan for you for a short time. And so don't take them for granted. One man said, the greater the possessiveness, the greater the pain.  I had to learn that lesson when my grandkids came along because I kind of held them a little bit tighter, even in my children.  And I had to realize you need to stop that because they were becoming little idols. You know, I wanted to hold on to them very tightly. Ladies, we hold them loosely so there are no threats to God being number one on the throne. He will have no other idols before him, not even our children or our grandchildren. So a woman who's steadfast does not take people for granted. So verse 21, she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and she shut the door upon him and she went out. Now she laid him on the bed of Elijah. This was where Elijah's room was. And now why this woman laid her child on the bed of Elijah and not the child's own bed is probably because of what she knew. We don't have time to go back to 1st and 2nd Kings. But remember Elijah had raised the widow's son to Azarevive to life. And remember Elijah's spirit passed upon Elijah. And so she probably knew about all these stories about Elijah and about Elisha. And so she believed because Elijah had the power to raise people from the dead, that probably since his spirit was passed on to Elisha, that Elisha had the power also to raise her son from the dead. She's possibly one of the women mentioned in Hebrews 11, you know, the great faith chapter. It says women receive their their sons back to life again. And so she possibly could be one of those great women of faith in Hebrews 11. So the second lesson we can learn from this woman who is steadfast is the F on your acrostic. Faith is strong in those who are steadfast. Faith is strong in those who are steadfast. Ladies if your faith is weak, you will fail in the day of adversity. The Bible speaks to that. If you are weak in your faith, you will fail when bad tidings come. You will fail in the day of adversity. Your faith should be strong, strong in times of adversity. So in verse 22, she calls to her husband and said, please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys that I can run to the man of God and come back. So he said, why are you going to him? It's not the new moon and it's not the Sabbath day.  I have no idea. It's a mystery to me.  I was putting my makeup on in the bathroom and I had him in his infant seat. He fell off and hit his head on the bathtub and I was 19 and freaked out. I didn't know what to do. So I took the baby and took him to where my husband was working so he could check him out. I was too hysterical. And so I mean, I would immediately tell my husband if one of our children died, but she didn't do that. Maybe she knew her husband wouldn't let her go see Elijah. Maybe his faith was not as strong as hers. Maybe he wasn't a Christian. Maybe he thought she was, you know, I don't know why she didn't tell him. But she says, I must see him today. And it's interesting the husband objects. He says, it's not the new moon or the Sabbath. So why are you wanting to go? But he does let her go. And notice the last four words of verse 23. She says, it will be well. It will be well. Ladies, this woman continues to manifest great faith with these words. And so in verse 24, she says, it'll be well. And she saddled the donkey and her servant and said, drive and go forward. Do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you. Now, ladies, the love of this woman for her son is evidenced by this right here, because in order for her to travel by donkey to the top of Mount Carmel, it was 16 to 17 miles on a donkey, which would take six or seven hours. Now, that's, you know, that's love, right? So a third lesson we can learn from this steadfast woman is this. And it's the A on your acrostic. Agape love goes the extra mile. Agape love goes the extra mile. You know, women are commanded and tied us to, to love their children, to love their children. That word is phileo. It's a tender affection. And we not only see this mother's tender affection for her son who's just died, but also Agape love that will give and give and go the extra mile. In fact, my daughter is coming in Monday. Lord willing to visit for a couple of weeks from Houston with her family. And she called me the other day and she said, mom, I can't find anyone. Take care of the dog.  Now, ladies, I'm sorry if any of your cat lovers, dog lovers, but I don't have animals in the home. We used to when the kids were growing up. And I said, Cindy, only because I love you. Can you bring that dog? And so Agape love does that, right? We love, we give for what the person needs and she needs some because she can't find anybody to take care of the dog. And so we do that without thought of anything in return. That's a mother's love for a child. That's a steadfast woman, Agape love. And so in verse 2526, she departs and goes to the man of God at Mount Carmel. So it was when the man of God saw her far off, he said to his servant, Gehazah, look, it's the Shunamite woman. It's well with me, with my husband, with the child. All is well, she says, and yet the child is dead in the house. Did you hear that? All is well, and yet the child is dead in the house. Someone says, when God calls away our dearest relations by death, it becomes us quietly to say, it is well with us and them. It is well for all that God does is well. Reminds me of a song we know, right? It is well with our soul. You all know the history of that. The man had already lost everything in the Chicago fire. Then after that, he lost his son. Then he sends his wife and four daughters ahead on a ship and all four of his daughters drown.  And so the Shunamite woman could say, even though her son is dead, she says, it is well. She had perfect peace. This is the fourth principle and lesson that we can carry with us when considering this steadfast sister is the A on your acrostic. She is always at peace. Ladies, a steadfast woman will be always at peace. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We're always at peace. We believe in the sovereign will of God. So in verse 27, she came to the man of God at the hill and she caught him by the feet. But Gahaza came near and pushed her away. But the man of God said, let her alone. Her soul is in deep distress. And the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me. So she catches him by the feet and this was a gesture that would indicate humility, it's desperation. The servant obviously thought this behavior was wrong and so he tries to push her away. But Elijah recognizes something's wrong. She's in deep distress. Ladies, another principle, number five in the T on your acrostic of a steadfast woman is she thinks correctly about herself. She's humble. She thinks correctly about herself. She is humble. She falls at his feet. She knows, I can't do anything about this situation. I can't do anything about it. I'm humble. And she had something in her head probably knowing that Elijah could probably raise her son from the dead. And indeed, Elisha was right. There is a problem. Verse 28, she says, did I ask a son of you, my Lord? Did I not say, don't deceive me? Don't deceive me about this. I didn't desire a son of the Lord. I expressed no such wish to you. I was content. I was happy. And you promised me a son. And didn't I say, don't deceive me. Don't mock me with a child that will be only deprived by death. I wasn't like Hannah or Rachel who said, give me children or I'll die. So Elijah says to his servant in verse 29, he says to Gehazah, get yourself ready.  Be on your way. If you meet someone, don't greet him. And if anyone greets you, don't answer him. Lay my staff on the face of the child. So there's an urgency there. He says, go quickly. Often in the biblical world, people, they traveled by foot, not by car or train or bus. And so you can imagine you're walking along the road and you meet other people walking on the road and you stop and talk. And he says, don't do that. Don't stop. If anyone talks to you, don't talk back. Don't even initiate any conversation. Just get going. Now you might be saying, well, why didn't Elijah go? Why did he send Gehazah? Well, several reasons. First of all, maybe he didn't want the woman to be dependent on him. He wanted her to realize that he wasn't the end to all means. Also, some people think that Gehazah, his servant, was a lot younger. And so maybe he could run faster and get there quicker than Elijah could have. And also, maybe he wanted to realize that he thought that God would honor the method, which was the staff. And so it didn't really matter who took it. And so he sent Gehazah with his staff. We're not for sure, as the Bible doesn't tell us why he sent Gehazah instead of himself. But the woman wouldn't settle for this. Notice of verse 30.  I will not leave you. So he arose and followed her. She wasn't going anywhere without Elijah. So while she's objecting about this, the servant Gehazah hurries on, starts running ahead to perform the task the master gave him. But it didn't work. Look at verse 31. Gehazah went on ahead of them and he laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was neither voice or hearing. Therefore, he went back to meet him, Elijah, and he told him saying the child has not wakened up. Now you might say, why didn't it work? Well, I believe Gehazah had a different spirit. If we had time, we'd move on to the next chapter, which we don't, but you probably know the story in 2 Kings chapter five. Remember when Naaman was cured of his leprosy? Remember, Elisha told him to go dip in the Jordan River seven times, and he did. He dipped himself. He protested first, but he did eventually dip seven times and he was healed of his leprosy, a guy named Naaman. And so he wanted to give Elisha some money for what he had done, and Elisha didn't know. I don't want your money. And so Gehazah, the servant, is still with him at this time in chapter five and he's listening to all this. And so Naaman heads off, but guess what?  And so Naaman says, sure, your master's just healed me. So he gives him money and Gehazah comes back to where Elisha is and Elisha says, where have you been, Gehazah? Where have you been? What have you been up to? So he lies to him, of course. So there's line going on and greed. And he says, the leprosy of Naaman is gonna cling to you. And from that day, Gehazah became a leper. So the guy's heart was already corrupt, obviously. And so that is very possibly why the staff, late on the dead boy, did not work. Ladies, the love of money is the root of all evil. And some, by loving it, have what, abandoned the faith. We need to be very careful. We read in 2 Peter about those that are false teachers, they make merchandise of people. They're in it for the money. And so Gehazah had a very different spirit than Elisha. And so it didn't work. He laid the staff on the dead child and it did not work. Ladies, this reminds me of God, excuse me, Gehazah was not able to raise the boy. Also to perhaps show the woman in Elisha that it wouldn't be a rod or a magical formula to raise the child, but only earnest prayer and faith. And God, it reminds me of Matthew 17, when the disciples tried to cast demon out of a child and Jesus said, these things do not come out but by prayer and fasting. Ladies, there's not magical formulas but only sincere earnest prayer in some cases. You know, we're always looking for the easy solution, aren't we? But God is calling for us to earnestly seek him, seek his face. So Gehazah is ineffective, but Elisha arrives on the scene in verse 32. So Elisha comes to the house.  And he went in there for and he shut the door behind the two of them and he prayed to the Lord. Elisha prayed. Prayer was the only remedy in this case. He had no power at all to raise this child to life. In fact, the Hebrew word for prayer here means to entreat or to make supplication like Jesus in the garden before he went to the cross. Oh my father, if it's possible, let this cup back pass for me. So it was earnest prayer. He's entreating the Lord.  Probably what Elisha was doing was trying to transfer a portion of his body, his natural warmth of his body to the child and of course blowing into the child's mouth. He inflated the lungs and restored respiration similar to what we call today CPR. Ladies, Elisha uses every natural means and his power to restore life while praying to God to perform a miracle. And this is a good lesson for all of us when we go through things like this, things that are very difficult trials, even health issues. Use the means that God's provided, whether it's natural means, medication or whatever, but trust God for the supernatural, right? And I've seen that through the years. I mean, we've had people in our church and doctors have given them no hope and you've got this kind of cancer. I remember one guy, you've got this kind of cancer, you'll never be able to have children. They've got three children.  The medical field doesn't know about our God, right? Most of them. And so we have a God that can do the unbelievable. So another lesson we can learn from this story is the sixth one. This is the E on your encrostic. Endeavor to do your work, but beg God to do his. Endeavor to do your work, but beg God to do his. Do what you can do in the midst of your trial. Pray, use medicine if you need to. Use natural means if you're into more of the natural medicine. Do what you can do, but trust God. Don't just sit there and do nothing, but trust God for the supernatural. So after Elijah does this, verse 35, he returns and he walks back and forth in the house and he goes up and stretches himself on him again and the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes. This going back and forth was probably a time when Elijah was pacing back and forth and praying to the Lord.  And it actually helps disorders of your head. And so if you're having a head problem, maybe start sneezing somehow. When I was a little girl, this is really weird, I used to put matches up my nose not lit and it makes you sneeze. You ever done that?  So maybe if you have a head, okay, it works. But anyway, sneezing does relieve disorders of your head. So Debbie, the other day I told you to use something else on your head, peppermint oil, but maybe I should give you a match. Always have them in my purse and it'll help you start sneezing. So that's not my nose either. So God answers the prayer of this prophet and the boy is raised to life. So he calls his mother. He calls Gahaz and he said, call the Shunamite woman.  Perhaps the Shunamite woman was off praying somewhere. I don't know where she was. And so she comes to get her only son but before she does, she does something much more important. She worships, like verse 37. She goes in, she falls at his feet, she bows to the ground and she picks up her son and she goes out. She worships the one who raised her son from the dead and I all know ultimately she was thanking the Lord. She wasn't worshiping Elijah, but thankful. Ladies, another lesson, number seven, we can learn from this woman is that steadfast women, S, submissively worship. We submissively worship. You might be saying, well, Susan, of course she worshiped. Her son was raised to life.  Could I say reverently, even if her son was not given life, I think she would have worshiped. I think she would have.  And I don't know what he did when he was laying on the floor for seven days. It may have been when he wrote Psalm 51, I don't know, but he was prostrate for seven days on the ground, fasting, and then they came and they told him, your son is dead, your son's dead. You know what he did? He got up and he went to the house of God and he worshiped. He worshiped before he went to his own home. Even Job, after he lost 10 children, not just one, like the Shunamite woman, he lost 10 children. And you know what it says? He says he fell down on the ground and he said the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And he worshiped. Ladies, all three of these parents worshiped but neither death nor life should separate us from the love and worship of our Lord. Even if he takes someone that we dearly love. God did raise this woman's son but what if he had not is in the case of Job and David? Is God still loving and kind? Yes, he is. And the two things we need to remember when dealing with the death of a child or anyone that we love, two things I would encourage you to remember, trust in God's sovereignty. Trust in his sovereignty.   Shouldn't we receive evil from the Lord as well as good? Trust in the Lord. Number two, trust in the resurrection. Trust in the resurrection. Job did. He said, I know that my redeemer lives and though worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh will I see God. He believed in the resurrection. David did too. You know what he said after his son died? He won't be able to come to me, but I will go to him. I'm gonna go to him. I'm gonna see him in the resurrection. Ladies and eternity, God's gonna remove all crying and all tears. Lifestrials are gonna seem very small. They're gonna be a hiccup when we get to glory. In fact, my husband says, when we get to have any things, our first response is gonna be laughter. But why did we hold on to this when we could have that? We'll forget all the pain here, right? The present trials of this time are what? Just a little bit of a trial. They're insignificant. Another lesson number eight that we can learn is a person who is steadfast is the tea on your acrostic tenacious. This woman was tenacious. She never gave up. She believed all things. She hoped. She endured. You can see her faith. It was very evident. It is well. She was tenacious in all she did. She certainly described Hebrews 11-6. Now faith is a substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. She believed that. She exhibited great faith. And then one last lesson that is evident throughout this whole story is that the steadfast sister was strong. This is the other less. And strong in three ways, if you think about it. This woman was strong. She was strong physically in the sense she carried the child to his bed. She rode 16 to 17 miles, about five hours on a donkey. It says in Proverbs 31, about the Proverbs 31 woman, she strengthens her arms, you know? She's strong. It doesn't mean you need to go work out with weights, but she's strong. We're not lazy, strong. The Shunamite woman is also strong emotionally. Think about it, ladies. She didn't have the help of her husband. He just sent her on. She was able to go through this trial even without the emotional support of her husband. And so she was strong emotionally. I've talked to many of you know James Coates, the pastor in Canada that's been arrested so many times and I've had several conversations with his wife and even when James was in prison and it's just been really encouraging to see her strength. Even when she was without her husband for a while, strong emotionally. That's what a steadfast woman is. They're strong. They're strong. She was also strong spiritually. She was strong spiritually. She fell to the ground. Ladies, a spiritual woman, a steadfast woman is a humble woman. The way up is the way down, right? The way up is the way down. So what lessons can we learn from this steadfast sister? First of all, she S, submissively worshiped. Are you able to worship the Lord when things look bleak? Would you be in the category of Job who fell on the ground and worshiped when all was dark or like Jonah who ran away and pouted when things didn't go his way? Next we learn about a woman who is steadfast. She had the T on your cross check. She thinks correctly about herself. She's humble. She realizes she has no power within herself to do anything apart from God. Are you humble or haughty?  Thirdly, a steadfast woman E endeavors to do her work and begs God to do his. When going through hardships, do you do what you can do in the physical realm and let God do his work in the spiritual realm? Next, a steadfast woman has agape love, the love that goes the extra mile. Is your love stretched to the max even when things are difficult? Or do you endeavor to just get by? Another lesson to learn is this, the D on your cross stick. Don't take children for granted. Don't take anyone for granted. Life is a vapor. We're here today and gone tomorrow. Remember, this could be your last day. Make it count and love to the max. All those that are around you. F, faith is strong in those who are steadfast. Is your faith strong or weak? Do you believe God will do what he says even in life and death? A, always be at peace is another sign of a steadfast woman. All is well, even when things to the natural person don't appear well. Can you honestly echo with the hymn writer it is well with your soul? A steadfast woman is also strong. Now granted, physical strength is a bonus. Not always present. Not all of us are strong. My husband used to say when I was present, strong is an ox, you know, I was strong. But we should all have spiritual strength, right? An emotional strength, even if we don't have physical strength. Are you self-controlled when things look bleak, when life seems overwhelming? Or do you let your temper get the best of you? Is your spiritual strength at its peak when you're weak? Because yes, you're weak, but he's strong. He is your strength. And last but not least, a steadfast woman is tenacious. She never gives up, she always hopes, she always believes, she always endures. Have you given up in any area of your spiritual life? Have you lost all hope? Are you remaining steadfast? And will you remain steadfast to the end? I remember when we got that letter, that email that our daughter was so ill.  My daughter returned home. The girl across the street died. Why did God take one and not the other? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. But I know that I can trust in God's sovereignty, whatever the problem, whether it's in sickness, health, and yes, even in death. But whatever our lot, may he cause us to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. This is the heart of a steadfast woman. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, you are so great and you are so kind. Even in death, whether in life or in death, we will cling to you. You are only hope. You are our shield in the day of trouble. You are strong deliverer. You are our God. And so Father, as we go through these days, which are troublesome, concerning, many of us have personal issues, many of us have loved ones that are dying. Many of us have friends and family that are sick.  And we don't know where this world's going.  You know that. But I pray, Father, no matter what happens, whether it's within our homes, our families, or even our nation, our world, that we would be steadfast, that we would remember these principles from this Shunamite woman. Lord, that we would be like her. What a great woman. Looking forward to meeting her in glory. But Father, help us to remember these principles so that we too can say, it is well with our soul. Whatever you bring into our life, it is well. We ask these things for your sake and your glory. We wanna put you on display. In Christ's name, amen.


What's up guys and welcome to yet another episode of Buzzard Stars right here on Nespian Buzz. My name is Ms. Kithingi and today I'm pleased to talk to the UNDP that is the United Nations Development Programs, sorry, the resident representative, Madame Mandisa. Oh my God, the other name is quite hard. Maybe you can tell us your name. Good afternoon Betty. My name is Mandisa Mashalogo. I'm the resident representative acting of UNDP Kenya. All right, perfect. Now she was the guest speaker for today's launch of Let Peace Win campaign and I would like to know on an individual level, why is this campaign very important to you? As a development practitioner and an international civil servant of the United Nations Development Program, that works towards the SDGs of a country. Ensuring that a country is peaceful and can focus on the sustainable development agenda is paramount. So for me as an individual, the fact that we can contribute to this wonderful campaign that is targeting 75% of the population of this country to make sure we let peace win and can make sure that all parts of society have the SDGs as our compass so that we can have this country for future generations. That's why I'm so passionate about it. Wow, now let's talk about what you're representing UNDP. Where is it important for the organization to be part of this campaign? Well, as I said, we are the development wing of the United Nations system as a whole and part of our mandate is really to ensure that we promote inclusion, ensure that the inequalities are reduced and people are not susceptible to the various shocks and vulnerabilities that we have within the development agenda. So that's our overall mandate as an organization. So governance, such critical issues is an area in which we have supported programmatically ever since we were part of the Kenya's working system. Okay, now let's talk about the youths because I mean 75% of youths in this country is quite a big number. What is the role of youths especially during now this election period? What is their role? Well, I think the fact that as you say 75% of the population being voters themselves but also being champions and ambassadors for peace and making sure that we really focus on the development agendas and safeguarding the development gains of this country. So we are really trying to make sure that they are working for peaceful messaging and making sure that we always reflect on the positive and also mitigate any sort of hate speech or any insightful kind of communication. And just say that, you know, elections bilanoma. Yeah, oh, okay, elections bilanoma for sure. Now, creatives, you know, I'm part of a creative industry and when you mentioned that creatives during your speech today, you know, I was touched because you seem to be very passionate about them. And I'd like to know, do you feel actually creatives are well appreciated in this country as they should? Well, you know what? We hosted the All Africa Resident Representatives cluster in February. And so that's 45 resident representatives of UNDP in this country and we had 10 amazing youth that just poetry and in the section it was like talking about peace, talking about development and it was so moving, you know, the way you can use words and the passion of the youth. So honestly, I have to say that we in UNDP Kenya decided that we're going to focus on using this very influential group. It's not something that we traditionally did here but you can see in the launch of this campaign we're saying, you know, what poems do you have for us? What songs do you have for us? What can we do to influence the positive and peaceful messaging? So yes, and I think I really loved what Rhyme TK9 said and really, you know, living without peace is like having your favorite song without the beat. So I just took that to heart and I'm like, well, I still have the beat in me. So let's just make sure we continue to promote peace for Kenya. Yeah, yeah. Okay, for sure. Now, your last words to the youths because they need to know something. What are your words to them? I think there's only one thing I can say to all of the youth out there, let peace win. Oh, okay, okay. All right, all right. Thank you so much for talking to us and indeed, let peace win. Thank you very much. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.


My name is Jack Wood. I am the co-founder of Growing Together. This will be our 16th year and also the Tomato Seed Saving Club and this will be our third year on that. So today we're going to talk about staking. We're going to talk about pruning and then we're also going to be talking about tying tomatoes. This is very fundamental in raising your tomatoes. A lot of people don't know the art of pruning but they should. So first we'll talk about staking. So at our gardens we use like a solid wood steak and you definitely want to have like 48 inches at the minimum and up to up to 60 inches and we we pound this in as far as we can go and like today like after we've had like these nice little rains we basically pound them down a little bit further because the tomato can actually pull the steak out of the ground. A lot of people use like what they call the wire basket. What happens with the wire basket is the tomatoes grow up. They grow over and pretty soon you have like 15 pounds of tomatoes pulling on the steak. The wind comes from the northwest, pushes it over and you have a mess. A lot of people use rebar and rebar is definitely more sturdy but what happens inside that rebar the plants get very dense and with the dense plants you're going to run into your disease problems. The other thing is you have a lot of stuff going on with side shoots. The plant becoming very dense. What you're going to have is a lot of tomatoes but not very many very many big tomatoes. So pruning is very important especially with the heirloom tomato. The tomato will basically continue to grow vertically up and it basically is like jack-in-the-bean stock. So the first the first pruning that we do is basically removing any leaves that touch the ground and you can see like these leaves are are touching the ground and they're starting to die off so we will we will prune them off and what will happen as the rains come the the rain washes up on the leaves and can cause a lot of your your different diseases on the plant.  There's a couple different things we could have done with this one instead of just cutting it off. We could have cut off the growing tip and this is what is actually called Missouri pruning and this will allow you can see like like on this actually has a tomato and if we did the Missouri pruning it would allow this tomato to produce. Also all of these leaves are providing photosynthesis for the plant which is helping to develop the fruit. One of the things you want to watch when you're pruning is like this is actually a blossom set and you don't want to prune that off because that's developed and that also develops along this stem but it does not occur between the the leaf branch and the in the leaf stem. Like here's another here's another side shoot that we will take off. The other thing that you want to do is between going from plant to plant as you go through each plant you want to have like some alcohol to dip your shears in so you're not transmitting a disease from one plant to the next plant. So basically the the reason for pruning is number one is to do so you have airflow through your plant and the other one is that you'll have fewer tomatoes on but there will be much better qualities larger and then also easier to pick so the tomato is a vine and if allowed to grow it will basically crawl along the ground. You can see basically this tomato here is basically sitting at a horizontal spot and is going to stay on the ground and that you do not want to leave your tomatoes like this because what will happen is number one they're intact with your tomato will be intact with the earth which could cause some problems also your your little rabbits and slugs will also will also eat them. So one of the things is the string is very important and what we use is um we use like Cisotwine so it's biodegradable and we use this twine to to mark our rows but then after we let it sit like on the row for like three weeks we take it off and it has become nice and soft. You can use nylon or you can go to your garden stores then they have these your fancy ties that they sell like 12 for three dollars um we prefer these at the end of the season you can take them off and reuse them and if you do compost them they'll basically they're biodegradable. So when when tying your tomato um you you never want to slam it up against the state you always want to to gently tie it and normally we wait we wait until like the the tomato has its first blossom because it's okay for that that tomato to be out in the wind getting stronger and stronger each day. So this is a a good example of a tomato that that needs to be pruned you can see it's laying on the ground it's also sending up side shoots because it definitely wants to grow operate so we will take that and and gently wrap it and normally like in a season your tomatoes will have like three to four ties um I will walk through like our we'll walk through this patch every Tuesday and Thursday and we will tie any tomato that needs to be tied and also looking for pruning that that needs to be done and just remember that you want it like any of the the leaves that are touching the ground should be removed. So last night we we got a pretty vicious rain and it did knock a few of our tomatoes down so one thing you notice like all of our stakes are upright because what we have done is after each rain we we push them down just a little bit further with the hammer and even if your tomato is looking like it's growing sideways a little bit once it gets the stake it'll it'll grow in an upright pattern. So now this is a good example of something that needs the Missouri pruning so what we will do is we will we will pinch that top part off so this vine will stop right there so the other thing that we're going to talk about today is the end of the season so what happens at the end of the season normally you have tons of green tomatoes and to prevent this from happening what you want to do it's called topping your plant so what you will do is like usually I do this like 30 days before the end of the season so like probably like on August 25th I will top all my plants and then I will remove all of the blossoms and basically then what will happen is all of your energy will be concentrated on the the tomatoes that are still on the vine so at the end of the season maybe on each tomato you'll have one or two green tomatoes which definitely are good for making salsa and and green apple pie but you don't want like a five gallon bucket full of green tomatoes. So the other thing we're going to talk a little bit about is now our tomato is fully developed and we have like 10 tomatoes they weigh a pound so we have 10 pounds that are pulling this tomato down so then what we're going to do it's called the hammock tie and so normally what we do there is we wrap wrap around the stake and then we'll tie under the arms or under like your leaf branches and what what that will do is we'll keep keep the tomato from sliding down the down the stake and so they'd all be crumpled up in a pile underneath so that will that will keep as it as the tomatoes grow it's going to keep it you know upright and not on the ground so we have another tie that called the figure eight tie and so you can see this tomato has two stands going up and what we normally what we do is we take the the string wrap it around in a in a figure eight pattern and then tie that up and what this allows is for like when the wind comes it's got some flexibility and then plus you're instead of using two pieces of twine you're only using one show you this is sort of a unusual tomato this is actually what they call a potato leaf and like a lot of the tomatoes like this is a this is a regular leaf and this is a potato leaf so basically the tomato originated in the Andes mountains and there's there's over 10 000 varieties of tomatoes and one of the things we do here so this is the tomato seed saving club and we we meet regularly twice twice a week we do Tuesdays two to four and then we do Thursdays from nine to eleven and we have like in this plot we have over a we have a hundred varieties that are that we plant four of each tomatoes and then we have 10 rows of of other varieties that probably like 45 more and we collect seeds like three times from each of the varieties and then once we've collected then they're shared with our members so it's sort of a good perk the other thing that you'll be able to do is you'll be able to get seeds from our seed collection right now we have 150 varieties at the end of this year we'll have 250


Let's thank you for thank you for coming. Good morning. So I'm not supposed to say so, but I am. This is a fun talk. Okay, and I can adjust it to whatever is appropriate for what you would like. So I have a number of slides and as I as I go through them, we may skip around to part of the talk for me is encouraging all of physicians to be clinician scientists because I think that we owe that to our patients. And I also think that science and medicine lend themselves very much. But anyway, how many here have do science? Yeah. Pardon? Yeah. Right. But are you currently? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Are you working with? Are you? Have you? Okay. And Reese, I know that you've done clinical. Have you also done? That's right. That's right. I do know that. And so now that all of you have either done or are involved in science, does anyone feel like they never want to do science again? Has anyone had an experience like that? Good. That's great. So science as a clinician, I think it's important. Medicine naturally lends itself to scientific inquiry, right? When our patients are doing well, science provides a method to test ideas without experimenting on patients but can provide the best management. And there's a lot to do in science. It doesn't mean you have to be at the bench. It doesn't even mean you have to be in a clinical trial. I mean, there's scientific inquiry that can be done regarding qualitative type of assessment, how patients, how to best help a patient to have a better management strategy or finding out what the barriers and incentives are for patients who, you know, for example, where you know that something is valuable. An example would be diabetic retinopathy. We know that diabetes causes blindness and that if patients have yearly eye exams, and we detect diabetes diabetic retinopathy early, then we can prevent blindness in over 90% of patients, right? But the compliance with yearly eye exams is like 50% nationwide. So we, you know, what can we do? Why is that? That's an area of science. That's a way of doing scientific inquiry, too. So many people have reasons to go to science to make a difference, to provide better treatment or care, to be involved in the cutting edge. You know, what's the newest type of technology for patients or to evaluate disease. You can also be involved by being able to evaluate manuscripts critically. So I'm thinking in your careers as you get out, there may be periods of time where you really focus on clinical work. And that's fine. You can still be involved in science because you use, you bring to a manuscript that you're reviewing, that critical scientific technique, and then a need that is unmet. And it can be, you know, anywhere, including health literacy, for example. And those are sort of the altruistic reasons that we think about doing science as a clinician. But there's other, there are other reasons, collegiality. You know, one of my, you know, some of my favorite people, the people that I identify with are those on study sections when I go to review grants for NIH. I feel like I connect with other scientists and clinician scientists there. And we get together and we talk about science, but we also talk as friends. Increase knowledge in our discipline. We can also be involved in other non-medical disciplines through collaboration, biomedical engineering, for example. Curiosity to know more and understand more than what is known. And then travel.  You get to see how another department runs. You get to see how their research laboratories are run. And that can be very rewarding as well. And so I think of those as the fun things being as scientists. I also think it's healthy because when you're, you know, think about it. You finish college.  You graduated. All your friends who didn't go into medicine are having a great time, right? They've got lots of energy. They're going out. They're traveling. And you're in medical school, right? And a lot of, I don't know, I lost a lot of colleagues because I just was on call. I couldn't do the keep up with social schedule. But that's kind of healthy, maybe. Maybe you don't get involved in some of the activities that may not be as healthy for us in our 20s. And then when you keep yourself going and active intellectually as well as physically, I think it's also healthy in your 90s. And it leads to fulfillment. You know, if you're involved in something that you're really passionate about, that's a key thing, right? I think that's a key thing in wellness. You know, finding what you're passionate about and go for it, right? Have a purpose. Have a passion. And then work toward that. And I think that that leads to greater fulfillment than some of the, you know, maybe money or other things that are less so. So those are healthy reasons. How to start, you know, I don't know the, I change this all the time because I used to say just, you know, get involved in research, get involved with somebody that you want to, you think you might want to be like or at least learn about how their life is. It helps to have an area of interest, but you may not have that path, you may not know what you want to look at. You might know that you want to do science, but you're not really sure what the question is that really drives you. You all, we all have an advantage because we're MDs. And our patients give us a lot of good questions that we understand we need to address. You know, important ones. When they're, we might have a scientific interest that would be a basic interest. We can do that, but when a patient is actually has a disease where they're going blind and we don't have a good management for it, that sometimes is what spurs our passion. Be aware and observant, follow your gut. And passion would be what drives you. And as I said, it may not develop initially, you know, right away. So figure out your goals. And sometimes these evolve over time. You can have a lab. You have to get funding. But the good thing about getting your independent funding is you can ask the questions you want to ask. Once you have funding like that, you can do that. If you're involved in industry, that's fine. But usually you're answering questions that industry wants to answer. And it's a different, it's really a different, it's a different way. The questions are often business model, whereas in science, you're going to talk about hypothesis, which we'll talk about a little later. You can be involved in clinical research. You can simply be contributing patient samples. That's another way that you can be involved. You can develop a new technology. So a lot of ways that you can do this. Clinical research, there are masters of public health degrees, K23s are through NIH that can provide funding. Technology, SBIR, STTR through NIH, industry related. And basic or translational labs, there are independent funding sources through KOA. There are a number of different awards through NIH. And if anyone is interested or would like to talk, I'm happy to talk to individually as well. And the key is you want to develop, your passion allows you to continually learn. So what I like about science in my career is we all have patients where we start a management and we're worried about that patient. We have to give it time to see whether or not whatever management strategy we're doing is helping the problem. During that time, you have to be patient about it, but you're still thinking about that patient. If you're then have to be pulled away, bless you, to the lab, you're all of a sudden focused in the lab. That gives you time. You can let your patient. So in a way, even though you're really pulled in both directions, it allows you to, I think, be able to have a help. It's a better situation. You can actually give time for your patient to get better. It's the same when the lab doesn't work out, you've got your patients that or if you have an experiment running, you've got your patients that can keep you going and interested. So this is a guide to management that can be useful if you're interested in labs. I think this is probably, so for me, one of the most important things is it's important. If you find your passion, it's important to be impatient in that you're always trying to work toward that. For me, it was a laboratory. So I always was working on it. But you also have to be patient because you can't do everything at all at once. So you may be in your residency and you're struggling with how can I learn ophthalmology, which is so new, so different than medical school, right? It's like going to medical school again. How can I do this, learn all my skills, be responsible to my patients? How can I do science? Maybe you can't. Maybe the way you do science then is critically review papers, reading the literature. You're still keeping scientifically active. You're looking at things, maybe developing that passion you have that what you want to do. But you're focused on what you're doing right now, which is residency. You're learning to be a good doctor, and that's really important. So I don't think you have to feel like you're all over the place. I think it's fine to, if the opportunities are there and you need to spend more time doing clinical stuff, you can do that in it and pick up science at a later time. But it also helps it to have kind of like a five-year plan or independent development plan so that you, because time flies, you know, all of a sudden you wake up and you say, gosh, I never got to do that. And if it's something you really want to do, if you put that in your long-term plans and then look at what you've accomplished each year toward that goal, that can be very useful in seeing if you're keeping on the same track. You may change, but it also allows you to see what you have been accomplishing.  It's, I found that it's rare that you have one mentor. It's usually that people have multiple mentors depending on what those mentors provide. And they can come and go and you may call on them again later on. I think trust is essential, confidentiality. You want those kinds of things when you're choosing a mentor. And I believe that if you are an MD, I think it's really helpful to have an MD. At least, you know, you may have PhDs as a mentor, but you should, I think, also have a mentor who practices medicine because there are some stresses that come, that you have as a physician that people who aren't in medicine don't quite understand, you know. And it's helpful to have somebody that can give you some tips on how you got, how to move through that. And then this concept of a board of trustees, these are, mentor itself has certain obligations with it. You have a contract.  You meet with a mentor or you come up with an arrangement to periodically meet, how you're going to meet and communicate and that. That may be more than what you want, but the board of trustees, these are people that you trust and that you may periodically just get together with to, like, you know, run something across, you know, with them and see how they would maybe problem-solve with you about an issue. Various types of research. It can be exploratory, which is hypothesis-generating. This can be clinical, basic science, population studies or mechanistic, which is hypothesis testing. Again, same areas. There is, I think, an important point that I want to bring up and I think it's important in ethics. So in medicine, we're trained to observe outcomes based on intervention, right?  I'm talking about treating patients, right? Not research. And we follow that patient over time. In science, we really have a responsibility, not in clinical science, but in basic science. Not only to find out whether or not something is sufficient for an outcome, but whether or not it causes it. So we actually take it away and see whether or not we get back to the original baseline that we had. And that rigor is important and is evaluated in funding. But we wouldn't do that in patients, right? And then another thing about medicine, too, is we can't experiment on our patients, right? And the purpose of an IRB, we might think that this is the best thing for the patient. And part of the purpose of the IRB is that you get a non-biased, you get an objective group of people looking at what you're suggesting and actually giving advice and saying, whoa, this isn't safe or whatever. So remember that. Sometimes you'll see behaviors that suggest that it's okay that people make huge discoveries by experimenting on patients. But we always have to remember to be very ethical with our patients. And all science exploration is part of it. So even though we're going to talk about hypothesis, we always are exploring. We're always learning from science as well. So if I get, I want to make sure that we understand the difference between clinical care and science. And I know I'm going to be going back and forth with that a couple times. So if anything isn't clear, let me know. Clinical care, we don't experiment on patients. If we are doing clinical research, we have an IRB, we follow certain protocols. If we're doing science, that's different. And we have a certain rigor in the science and responsibility to actually test hypotheses as well as explore. So these are examples of exploratory research, qualitative study, assessing barriers. I just mentioned that. Adherence, compliance. Like, for example, we did a study to understand what some of the barriers were for patients with glaucoma in taking their eye drops. And one of the biggest barriers we found, or one of the biggest incentives, I should say, when patients were more compliant, was actually showing individual patients how to use eye drops. So that was more important than all the education that we did explaining the importance of glaucoma and, you know, the eye drops reduce the pressure and you can save visual field and some other examples. So mechanistic studies, clinical mechanistic studies are usually not really possible.  And you can get at a hypothesis, but you can't, like, if we give patients ARIDs formulation for macular degeneration and have outcomes, we can't really test what effect it has on the RPE. We can look at things and see associations, but we're not really testing the mechanism of what's going on. Whereas in basic research, we can. And I'm going to give you some examples here. So qualitative, quantitative, these in clinical research can be like focus groups or interviews, assessing patient adherence, interventional research, like in clinical trials. But in science, basic science, we're going to talk about hypothesis, generation and hypothesis testing. So first of all, what is a hypothesis? I have it up here, but does, I mean, since you've been in your PhD, how do you define a hypothesis? A lot of people have different definitions. That's right. Right, exactly. It can be very broad and it tends to be in biology, right? It tends to be in humans. So a hypothesis is not, we want, you know, we think mice exposed to oxygen will get retinopathy. It's something, for example, in a human being, in ROP and retinopathy. So a hypothesis, it's framed based on our observations or it can be past data, as you said, or past information. So poor post-natal growth causes aberrant developmental angiogenesis in ROP. That could be, you know, that could be a hypothesis. And angiogenic inhibition will change the natural course of diabetic eye disease. That could be a hypothesis. But it can be stated, I mean, it can be framed as a question to, does do angiogenic inhibitors change the natural course of diabetic eye disease? And that's in contrast to an aim. So an aim, this is more if you're thinking about or if you're writing grants. You have a hypothesis which is based in nature. And then your aim is really based on experimental design, right? So how you plan to test the hypothesis. And you might use an animal model, for example, in the first one with oxygen-induced retinopathy. And the animal model you already know reduces the weight in newborn animals. And you might test the effect of some agent or genetic manipulation to see whether or not you can increase the weight of the animal with that. That could be, and whether or not that affects aberrant angiogenesis. That could be an aim to test that hypothesis, the first one about aberrant angiogenesis. Or you find a protein involved in the body weight gain and you compare different groups using knockout or protein acts. That could be another, you know, more of a rigorous genetic approach to test the same hypothesis. Does that make sense? So a clinical aim might be looking at same things. Among premature infants assess the incidence of severe ROP in those born between 1,000 and 1,500 grams birth weight compared to 599 grams birth weight. So that would be, and what you're doing there is you're observing and you're comparing two different groups, right? So it doesn't test causality. So let's talk about that. I mean, what is, what's the difference between causality and association rates? Like, how would you? The fact that your low birth weight doesn't necessarily actually associate with low birth weight. So if there's low birth weight, you know, their gut isn't producing a certain protein. Right. And they may, they may also just have this association. Like I think of the eye disease case control study was a study done pre-arids. And it was, it was a cohort design where they did nutritional surveys on patients who had macular degeneration or not. And that was really sort of a landmark study that found that patients who had carotenoids or greens in their diets were less often to have severe AMD compared to those who didn't. And they, by, by this nutritional survey, they were actually able to get down what, what vegetables like collard greens and spinach and those were good things, right? But one of the vegetables that kind of fell out and was surprising to people was tomatoes. And, but, but tomatoes are also in pizza. So, you know, so it's an association study. It did not prove that taking that eating spinach reduces macular degeneration. It just said that people who had this kind of diet were less likely. And then the clinical trial, the age-related eye disease study, was a clinical trial to really test whether vitamins, supplementing many of the things that were in the vegetables, shown to be associated with less AMD, that, that they were effective in reducing the incidence. Okay, good. Experimental designs. These are just, these are some examples of what to do early on, address the hypothesis and aims. You know, what study do you want to do? It's really helpful to meet with a biostatistician early because they can actually help refine your hypothesis based on how many, you know, if you, if you go up to a biostatistician, you want to test a hypothesis and you find out you need like 10,000 patients to be able to get an outcome. Well, maybe you need to refine that, especially if you only have a year to enroll them. It's not, it's not feasible. But there may be other ways that you can still get at your question. So your question may be too broad. You know, you may need to focus in a little bit. And as you get more information, that helps your overall sort of hypothesis. Develop a collaborative team that is really, really important to, because more than ever, we are, if you take time to get a PhD and you're doing an MD as well, by the time you're done with your PhD and finish your MD, the science that you did as a PhD has evolved, right? And, but that's not, that's not a bad thing because you have in your pocket how to do science. So you just have to research, figure out where you are and, but some things you will not have enough time to become expert in. And so you have to build collaborators in there. You have to find other people that can help you out. If it's clinical, go for an IRB before you do anything. If you ever hear someone say, well, you know, we're just going to do a few patients. You know, it's a red flag. It's no judgment on anyone. But even if you're only going to do a few patients, you need to get IRB. If it involves animals, I mean, even if it's just, well, we're just going to inject a few animals with this new drug. It's very similar. You still need IACUC, an amendment. So always think about the regulatory because you want to be above board. You know, a lot of times it's, it's very quick. It's not that, that bigger thing, but that we just want to make sure that, that, you know, we're always doing things that are appropriate. And I find it helpful to write out my design. Sometimes I think, oh, this would be great. We can do this thing. And you know, we go here and we're going to test this question and we have this result. And until I write it out and realize that there's a, you know, that have you seen that T-shirt where it has all the mathematical writing? And then it has, then there was a miracle and it has outcome. I am one of those aha moments like, oh, I need to work on this miracle part. We need to be a little bit clearer on that. So here are some examples of some basic research type of hypothesis. So increase VEGF causes intravitrial neovascularization in ROP. So an aim might be to use an in vitro model to assess if VEGF triggers signaling through its receptor to cause proliferation. So you get, so you, to see if it's sufficient, you give VEGF to endothelial cells. You measure activation of the receptor and then proliferation of endothelial cells. So you find out that VEGF is associated with VEGF receptor 2 phosphorylation and endothelial cell proliferation. But then you would also see if it's necessary. And so one way you can inhibit either the receptor, you could use an SIRNA to VEGF receptor 2 or the ligand. And just see whether or not it takes away that effect on phosphorylation and also endothelial proliferation. Anyway, is this, there are only four of you. I can change and do whatever if this is not kind of going, do you have any specific questions that I can answer? And then in an animal model you could, you could test if VEGF is increased, for example, during oxygen induced retinopathy. And then you could inhibit VEGF and see whether or not you reduce angiogenesis. So those are some, some examples. Clinical, so clinical designs, you always want to, besides R or B, you also want to consider the ethics of the question. You need to get certified with certain, my screen changed. But you need to certify like with Citi and, I don't know if you've heard that. Sorry. I didn't, I touched it. Okay. Or a various ethics review. And it depends on what institution you're in or if you're in private practice there are, there can be information that you, you can find out about that. One is go on the ARBA website. There is a whole module on clinical, clinical studies and clinical management that has retrospective studies, case control studies, meaning with bio statistician, statistical questions, as well as clinical trials, FDA information. So you can, you can go on the website and, and it's under the educational, one of the educational panels. Are you guys ARBA members? Is anyone, you're an ARBA member? Sometimes that come, come and go depending on, you know, whether or not you're planning to go to the union. I think you can still access it even if you're not a member. But if you can't let me know and I'll send you a link. So we worked on that. That was one of the things I did for ARBA when I was working on the, I forgot what it was. It's some committee that I was working on. So I took care of the clinical studies part of it. So these are sort of very specific kind of information, randomized control, work with a bio statistician up front. Randomization in a clinical study is the, the attempt to equalize the different groups.  Okay. Let's go on to abstract. And I'm going to ask you to work together in groups to write an abstract also. So an abstract, the important thing whenever you're writing a paper in abstract is to read the journal or what the guidelines are for that abstract or journal up front. So you know what, what it is that they're, they want. Some will ask for structured abstracts where they have a purpose, methods, results, conclusions. Others ask for not having that. And then you just write, but you still want to put all that information in it. But it still comes out a little different based, the, the writing is different. So it's important, you know, have an idea is that 300 words is a 500 words. Is it 150 words? Like when you're writing an abstract for the academy, you have to keep within what is it 90 words, I think. So you have to be really, really concise and focus on what your message is and what's important in those situations. But it's an opportunity to highlight your work. And, and sometimes in an article, it's the only thing that somebody will read. So spending time on the abstract is really, really important. You want to be accurate. You don't want to overstate your conclusions. When you're, when you're submitting something to our vote, that's one of the, like red flags. If you say, say you do a study in cells and you're testing the effect of certain angiogenic substances on endothelial cells. And you find out that substance X causes angiogenesis and your inhibitor inhibits it. You don't want to say we're ready for clinical trial conclusion. We're going to do this in clinical trial. And sometimes you can say things like, you know, this may be important, you know, just being a little bit careful about that. Or this provides insight, you know, whatever the conclusion can be. So your, your purpose, this is how I like abstracts to be. Your purpose is not to write the background and introduction. You need, purpose should be no more in my estimation than three, three senses. And, and that's the way Arvo guidelines are. And they're like that because I helped write the abstract guidelines for Arvo too. So you provide just a brief background of the area and the gap in knowledge. ROP is a leading cause of childhood blindness, but little is known about the characteristics of the microbiome of babies who get severe ROP. That might be, you know, this has a purpose. A concise goal of the study and maybe the hypothesis and then type of research study to clarify. We, so to address, so our hypothesis was that, that bacteria of a certain strain was more associated with severe ROP. And to test this, we reviewed microbiome data. We did an observational study of microbiome data in premature babies, you know. So you know it's clinical, you know, that it's observational study. You gave a little information about why you're doing this study. The method should be clear and succinct descriptions of what you actually did. The experiments performed and should include any controls or comparisons, right, of the experiment group.  What was the study design? You know, you had babies that were under maybe 1,000 grams or under between 500 and 1,000 grams. You had babies over 1,000 grams or you had, maybe you started out by the microbiome. Babies that had this type of bacterial strain versus this, this type of bacterial strain and looked at the severity of ROP. Your results should have quantitative data with statistical information, standard deviation error, p-values if appropriate. This is where your biostatistician helps you. And then the conclusion should address the question of hypothesis.  Then you, you would say how your conclusions reflected that. If, if they did, and if, if you didn't find something, you can conclude something else.  Okay, so we're going to go through all this. So, independent development plans, there are a lot of different kinds. Here's an example of one, you know, and again, you can also just do five-year plans. But I think it's very important to have an idea of what your goals are. You can include on this personal, this is yours to keep, but it can be personal goals. It can be career goals. It can be, you know, social goals. I don't know, you know, a number of different things. And, and you can share them with your mentors or not. I mean, this is just for you to be able to develop that.


Hello everyone, myself R.C. B. Radar working as an assistant professor in Walsh Indian Staff Technology, Sallapur. In this session, we will discuss about strain energy due to impact load. At the end of this session, students will be able to determine the strain energy stored in an object under impact load. Now, we can derive the formula for stress, so that can be used in a strain energy formula that is already known to us. So if you derive the formula for sigma, so we can find the energy equation. Now we can consider, let us consider a rod. So at the end of the rod, a collar is attached. If a load P acting in downward direction, it falls through a distance of H onto a collar. And due to the load impact on a collar, it is assumed that the rod will extend with a deformation called delta L. This is a deformation of a rod under the impact load and this is the length of a rod that we have. Now let us consider, so this rod, so it is acting at a load P and through height of H. So as already we know that the strain energy u equal to sigma square by 2e into volume and also we know that the strain energy is equal to the work done on a rod and the work done on a rod can be calculated, so if you know the area under the P delta diagram. That is if you plot a diagram for load versus deformation, so this I can get, so delta L on x axis and P on y axis. So this sudden load is applied on an impact rod with a distance H, so it impacts on a collar, so it increases the strain energy in a rod. So with this, so this area under this is called as a work done on a rod. So now I can equate strain energy is nothing but the work done and work done can be formulated as area under the P delta diagram. So now I can write that, so this can be equal to work done and this can be equal to area under the area under P delta diagram. Now already we know that strain energy sigma square by 2e into volume and this can be equal to area under this one and area for this is H plus delta L.  Now in order to find the sigma value I need to replace this delta L. So now I can write this as pin bracket of H plus sigma L divided by E because E equal to sigma by epsilon and that implies delta L equal to sigma L divided by E. So if I replace this, so this I can write it as sigma square by 2e into area into volume that is area into length. So just rearrange the equation to get P sigma L divided by E equal to sigma square by 2e into AL. So take this term here, I will bring this RHS term to LHS side. This becomes AL by 2e minus sigma in bracket of PL by E minus pH equal to 0. So from this above equation I can say that this is a quadratic equation form. So here to make this term A equal to 1, so multiply both side by 2e by AL times. And I get that implies sigma square into 1 minus sigma in bracket of PL by E into 2e by PL minus pH 2e by AL equal to 0. So if I simplify this again, so I get sigma square minus of, so this will get cancelled 2p by AL will be remaining here minus 2p he by AL will be remaining, this will be equal to 0. This I will term it as equation 1. Now so if I see here, so solving the above equation, solving the above quadratic equation, to get the roots, so now roots, so that is in the form of, so in that above equation 1, so A equal to 1, B equal to minus 2p by A and C equal to what, minus 2p he by AL, these are the terms. Now if I have, so if I to get the roots, roots that is sigma equal to minus B, so as if I have 2p by A plus or minus square root of 2p by A bracket square minus 4 into A into C that is minus 2p he by AL because roots equal to minus B plus or minus square root of B square minus 4A C divided by 2A. So on simplification, 2p by A will be remaining here plus, so I can take 4 out sides, so the root is nothing but 2, I can take outside, so the remaining is p by a bracket square, so minus minus becomes plus 2p he divided by AL will be remaining here inside that and here divided by, here I need to have 2 into A, that is 2 will be remaining. So I can cancel 2, 2, so the remaining term is p by A plus or minus p by A bracket square plus 2p he by AL will be remaining. So again I can bring p by A term outside the square root, so if I multiplied by p by A and A by p, this becomes p by a bracket square, then I can take p by A outside the bracket and it becomes 1 plus under square root 1 plus 2 into hAe divided by p into AL will be remaining inside the bracket and now this is nothing but the sigma, so now this is a value we should use for to find the value of sigma in order to find the strain energy and already we know that strain energy is, strain energy is sigma square by 2e into Array into length, so this term sigma, so we should use from this formula. So when h is 0, so sigma is p by A 1 plus square root of 1, it becomes 2 times p by A and this is clearly the case of sudden type of load and when delta L is very small, is very small in comparison with, in comparison with h, so I can put that that, so I can use sigma square by 2e into Array into length equal to p into h plus 0, so it is equal to p h, so I can get sigma equal to 2 p h e divided by A into L under square root, so this is a value of sigma, so when delta L is small, this is a value of sigma when h is 0 and if we use this value of sigma in this equation 2, we can get the strain energy for impact load, so now you can think that, so what is the strain energy equation for sudden and gradual load case, thank you, thank you.