So, this is the OPM selection committee, a subcommittee for the Amherst School Building Committee. And today we're going to review the interviews and the references and come to our decision. And I'm just going to do a little housekeeping while I, I want to be able to get the text on my own screen here for the, the Anthony that you and Kathy compiled for us on a screen I can read and look at folks in the face, so it might just take me a second. Okay. I think I'm all set. And Jonathan, just, I mentioned this before you got on, but I have a hard stop at 12 just in terms of time proportioning. I do as well. I guess I would, I would ask that maybe the first thing we should do is, is ask Kathy and and Anthony to kind of more formally report on the, the, the references or, or is it okay that we have them just as written. I'm just trying to think of what folks would see if they tune into this. I think a quick summary of our findings is probably in order. I contacted three references for each firm, I only got responses back from one of each. Foxboro is for Colliers is in a bit of a different situation they have a standing building committee for decades now apparently, which handled most of the community outreach and was kind of a leading force and didn't ask as much of Colliers as other communities probably do of their OPMs. They were noted as being timely. They liked their onsite OPM, but then they had kind of a weird thing when COVID hit and they had a disagreement about how much onsite presence was necessary town wanted more collars wanted less. They were able to come to terms on that. On the other hand, when COVID hit, they had new questions about HVAC and collars and the reference specifically noted because of their size and resources was able to do an excellent review of the HVAC systems and address that very well. For Doran Whittier, I only got to talk to Newton, who was a fusive. They were. They were great at managing the project, which was expensive and contentious. They were transparent ran groups well. This was an older project so web was not as much of a thing. But she did note that they did some experiments, well, not experiments, but like studies with science students on some of the building systems and how those things worked and the building is well currently well liked. And then collars was not collars. I did reach out to Sharon Sherry at the Johns Library about her their experience with collars, which was a fusive that they worked very hard have gone above and beyond and she loves them. So, that's it. I'll launch in. I'm reading what I wrote so I can summarize it quickly. The answer. I got one more reference just like 10 minutes before we spoke for North. For. Okay, yes, or it's he's in the he's in the Canton School, Norton High School. So he's the references now works for the Canton High Schools, which made it confusing but he would hire Margaret Wood in a heartbeat. And she was fabulous. The rest of the team that worked with them. This is a project that closed in 2014 and had pink on it first. The rest of the team is not the same team. But she said they were really important in the background on community outreach that most of the presentations were the architect, not the OPM, but they help with a tricky post building project where the top of the high school made a lot of noise. And then was rough and arms as we're students and they fixed it for them. They came back and came up with a solution. And so he also was he loved them. I called one charter school, which doesn't have to go through MSBA because it was a larger school. They loved the team and they're now using them for another project. And this was a double project where first they did 400 than another 300 and brought it in on time. And in this one they had to compensate for some mistakes the architect made on the architect one of them actually got in trouble for it and they had to resolve it. The OPM stepped in and really helped market team did Clark Avenue Chelsea was day to day originally was a different team. Again pink got absorbed by answer but they worked with Margaret on time on budget. It was really a challenge it was phase construction, and they managed it well with very few change orders. And Pine Grove and they they answer feature this one was a few said Margaret Wood was phenomenal. She, she is a simpler project than Amherst is what he pointed out, but they did had to do two districts in one year and sell it to the community where it was being built in one and not the other and they brought it home. It was a phase construction and East Long Meadow was just an accelerated repair so that's one of the things on the answer references some of them were smaller projects on CHA. As you see I just kept calling so they get very high, high ratings Tisbury which is, and a couple of these were net zero projects. This one, the rave review was Christmas for Christina opera. She was amazing throughout the project she had MSBI contacts on speed dial and was instrumental in the public projects and they also gave a rave review to the cost estimating team they had complicated costs and they came in right on target and they helped the whole team help in Tisbury community to focus on needs versus wants to bring people together with some key compromises to get support and Tisbury had originally failed on didn't override the boat they're coming back to a vote and they think they have it this time. And that will be in June. They love their design team. Lincoln was another all electric building. The design team did most of the focus on community outreach, not the OPM very strong cost estimators skills this is was unusual they can put all of them mentioned this they help figure out clever ways how to construct and renovating in two phases. It was a complicated building project. And the last ones Belmont High School, they worked with Tom, Getskin, because the particular leader. Yeah, the team, you know, these are teams where all the whole teams were originally deadless in the case of CHA. And they brought they've used them on other projects, and they were totally pleased with the team. It's Belmont is by far the biggest of the projects that of the ones that I was calling on it's $295 million. And in this one, the decision was to build the middle school, bring the middle school and high school together in one really big building for 2200 students, and they're building it in two phases. And it's, it was, has been crazy on a really tight schedule during COVID but that looks like they're on time, and the team members have always been there for them throughout COVID distance has not been a concern. So, very strong reviews for the HA. That's it. That makes it hard. Well, I had intended to say at the top of this that, you know, I think we have four strong candidates. I really do. And, you know, I found myself going back and forth as, as we're listening to the various interviews, you know, which, which one I thought was was going to be the best fit for the town and, and, and it's still a question mark in my head and that's why we're going to have a discussion today and, and try to get to that. Do you remind us the, the process that we said we were going to follow. I remember saying about 15 points and I know that that, you know, there's, there's the first set of reviews we did, and that this influences the overall ranking of folks, but I want to make sure that we, we, we follow the process that we laid out. The owner will establish its final ranking of the shortlisted respondents after conducting interviews interviews will be scored based on responsiveness to interview questions team availability and quality of presentation 15 points. The owner will conduct at least three reference checks for each shortlisted firm references will not be scored but will influence shortlist ranking. The owner reserves the right to consider any other relevant criteria that it may be appropriate within its sole discretion and other such relevant criteria as MSBA may request owner may or may not within its sole discretion seek additional information from respondents. And that is it. Okay. So what I would like to propose is that we take about 15 minutes or five minutes for each of us to kind of give our impression of the different candidates. And then have some discussion and then vote and hopefully getting that all done before enough before noon that we can we can kind of conclude this does that does that seem like a reasonable process to folks. It does. Okay. And I don't want to, to feel like I'm overly leading the conversation so I would love a volunteer that would like to go first. Anthony, I can go first. I am having a very hard time picking a top one and I think there's a very four very strong candidates and in trying to differentiate them sometime I feel like I feel like I'm nitpicking but they're close enough that I think it is going to come down to small things. I think, I think as far as grading the interviews. I think answer and door and wittier both had equally great interviews to me, I would give them probably full points. And since I scored door and wittier higher as a proposal I guess door and wittier comes out as my preferred candidate, but I'm still like answer a lot. I would probably give call yours. Yeah, maybe 10 of 15 interview points I like that they addressed my concerns about MBE WBE that I raised in their proposal review. They have a they have an excellent track record I'd probably put them third for me. They probably have to rank CHA fourth they had a real rough start to that presentation. And while it feels in some ways petty to hold PowerPoint issues against someone. Again they're all so close that I feel like a year into a pandemic I would like to see a little more fluency with with online meetings. So I would dock them a couple points for that and probably column eight out of 15. I guess I guess that's where I stand door answer call your CHA, but not really opposed to any of the four. I have another volunteer, Steve, I can go. So I completely agree with all the comments that we have for a very qualified. And so it does come down to picking this. I started off with the answer as my top rated one and just like what Anthony is describing. You know I thought, as the day went along. I went up and down. But I think just if we pick nits, I still remain with answer at the top which for reasons I'll explain in a second. My second is call yours for reasons I'll explain in a second, and then followed by CHA and and by Doren Whittier. So the reasons that I really like the answer is that I think I mentioned this at the last meeting is that I really like the fact that it's led by Margaret Wood and it's really great to hear, you know the fusing or whatever it is. But I think that sends a strong message to the community about diversity and about sort of mixing up the paradigm on on, you know, who's, who's doing what. But they're also really strong other people on that team like Mary Bolso apparently is an opium in her own right, so she can, she's been the lead on her own projects under her own name. I didn't realize this until the interview but Bob Stevens is a very known entity also. So he used to be the head of a firm in Springfield that did tools mainly. And I hadn't realized that that that that he had made this move from the, you know, it's a pretty common name, but he also has very high credibility. So Kelly also is a really known entity in terms of passive house and in terms of sort of energy efficiency. So, and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody there but that team all seem to be incredibly strong. And I like the fact that we're not, you know that there's diversity. You know, in terms of, you know, in that the Collier's team, I have maybe as even a close second because I do think they have really high credibility from the library project. So I only knew that through hearsay it's good to hear Anthony's description after talking to library staff. They seem more firm like even though I know that there are a bunch of players that are in different locations but they seem like more corporate for whatever the something about the answer team also there's an kind of an informality, which to me seemed kind of Western Massey, you know it's really hard to explain what I'm talking about. And then the CHA team in particular came across as very. I hate to say this but very sort of Eastern Massachusetts you know in other words as I don't know how that will play. And then the Jordan witty or team I thought was, you know, really impressive. My concern about the lack of architects on that leadership team remain. So I ended up with the answer and colliers at the, at the time. Answer at the top colliers. Yep. Go ahead Kathy. So second. I also have answer as a top. And now that Steve has told me more about Mary balsa. I also have a question about Bob Stevens that I saw as he's an architect and he's, he's our day to day person and people. When I was doing the interviews it became clear that some of the community facing a lot of the community facing is at the point we're almost choosing where we're going to put the building and what the design of the build, you know that that's where you're going to put the building. So I had them highlighted and the other, the other thing I thought was notable about their presentation. They're the only ones I'd give a full 15 for on that is they paid attention to Amherst. They really looked at the things we were looking for. And when they talked about challenges, they said well I think also do you want to hear we think your challenges are going to be they started out. We've got two sites you're going to have to pick one of them, and you've got a regional school that you're going to have to work with. So they really. I take that as a listening skill is whether well as a reading skill. You know if you're listening to what the owner is looking for when you're reading what they wrote, then you're probably going to listen when you're in the room. So I was really pleased they got high ratings from the, from my, the interviews, and I had been a little bit worried that they're not a huge team, and that they're Boston based. But then we got that very quick answer. Oh no but I have a child who's going to school here and we have a house. So it seemed travel is not an issue with them and answer itself has deep. You can go beyond the team we've gotten so that's why I really like them. I liked CSA. I think I'm, I'm out of order here where I like CHA second. And it was particularly, it's, it's kind of unfair but the two women on the team. I thought we're really good. And then in the references. And I found that one of them, opera has been an OPM on projects so she's not being offered to us that way but that how well she worked with the community and the cost estimator came in so close. Then I'm maybe people can help me. But I think I ended up with during during Whittier. There's, are they the ones that answered all of our questions without allowing us to ask the questions is that. That was CHA.  And it was, I think I was just influenced also by the positive ratings. I, when people say what's a nitpicky style. I don't like people to tell me in writing or in a presentation or in words that they're perfect they're excellent and they're the best you could ever get because it's a salesmanship and and you really want again I'm, I get very worried that what does that feel like when you're in a group of parents or a group of teachers where they say you don't want to come across that way so the, the style throughout the presentation had me think less of them, even though they clearly can do the project. And then collars. So I, I ranked collars third in during Whittier fourth because of that collars I was surprised at I didn't think I would like the presentation as much. But first, you know, I thought it was odd they didn't talk enough about, they didn't talk enough about Amherst, which is why I wouldn't have ranked them higher. And I know for a fact that they have listened in on virtually every meeting we've had. You know, so, you know, so they didn't, unlike answer which really paid attention to two sites, sixth grade moving up consolidation potentially, they didn't do that. And so I'm worried. And then the one other thing on collars. Well, I've watched what they've done on Jones, and I think in the meetings they've been great, but there is no community facing. It's extremely difficult to find anything about that project. If we're talking about website and community that has not been a reach out to the community. But to the extent anyone thought that was important, maybe they were told we don't need to do that so I can't has it, but they have not done it at all with that project so they did spend a lot of time but I had. I shouldn't. I just have some issues as we get to the cost estimating, and I'm hoping I'm wrong on cost estimating like I don't want a team that over promises I want them to be really tough. And I'm not sure, because again this is selling a project so answer came out as my top. Yeah, so I agree with everything that was said for great candidates. So I'll just give my overall and then I can go into some of the specifics and in light of what I heard as well. So I had originally my top three, just in our review of the proposals was colier, CHA and answer, but after the interviews and hearing the feedback and just going over some of the notes that I took. I have to say that just from my perspective and thinking about some of the interface and that's going to have to happen and some of the real on the ground work that's going to have to, you know, be done by this company and, and in particular this community. I was really impressed with answers approach with their with their style as well as you mentioned the diversity led with my think her name is Margaret if I'm not mistaken. Very, very. Yeah, like I just, I enjoyed that presentation and it seemed that they had a handle on as well this community what we needed. I was so surprised with, with collars because, you know, I thought that, you know, with the previous work in town and some of their past experience that that would come through in the interview. But, you know, it wasn't, wasn't as impressive that as as I saw on paper, which actually, CHA, they, you know, really impressed me with their with their interview, I took you know I noted that as well that they answered the questions before we can even answer the questions and I don't know if I took that as maybe they were trying to be ahead of the curve and like trying to, you know, just go at it and give you everything that you needed so I took that as a, you know, as an asteroid like whom, you know, maybe that was a sign of them just trying to, you know, give it to us, but they really impressed me with their community, familiar with the community. And they have with their working through coven and remaining available. I thought that was very, very, very important for them. I'm doing wittier, I was impressed with them as well they had a lot of the, their work in the schools. And this is an overall presentation and I think, you know, just for my, my observation and what we need and I think, just in, you know, the, the, I think all of them will be able to do the job, you know, but I think that it's going to take a particular company to, you know, do it successfully and, you know, give this community what we need so, you know, just on on that. I would, my top pick, I think is going to, going to, I'm going to go with answer, and then come in after them. It was tough but I will have to say CHA collars and door in wittier. Well, I may sound like a little bit of a broken record answer was definitely my top they were the only ones that, that actually noted our project goals which I found really interesting you know between all the, the, the proposals we reviewed and the four reviews they were the only one who, who seem to have read them, at least in acknowledging, and then therefore, they're by acknowledging them to us, which I thought was impressive I was impressed with the folks on the team I don't want to be too repetitive. I don't think I've gone over it. But I was also impressed with the fact that they, they, they took on the challenge of figuring out our challenges. And all their answers seem to, they did their best to try to tie them back to us and our, and our project that our towns issues. And some of the others did some of them didn't. To be absolutely honest, I feel like there was enough things that were a little bit off and the other three that I have a hard time actually coming up with a second I have them all kind of ranked as third. I didn't appreciate. I think CHA is a very qualified firm but I didn't like being kind of talked at. I can't imagine that going well in certain environments and yes, there will come a point where the, you know, the design team will do a lot of the presentation of a design, but your opm needs to be there and needs to be kind of the extension of the owner. And so they, they, I'm a little nervous about that. And again, I'm picking knits here colliers. They did eventually address all four questions. But I found it a little bit of a haphazard response they they they kind of in their main presentation, hit the, I think, three or four out of the five. And the actual question and answer period had to circle back and kind of complete that I found that, you know, we got the answers but I felt that as a presentation style that was a little choppy. And while I thought, Doron Whittier did a did an excellent job. And in some ways I laid my concerns about not having an architect kind of right in the, in the mix. I was still just a little bit concerned about the, about the fit with Amherst. You know that the, the fellow who did most of the speaking seems to be the boss and he definitely has that entrepreneurial quality and started up that division. But I wasn't, I didn't get a sense, because he did most of the speaking about the depth of experience of the other people which is probably there. But I wasn't getting that. So those are my takeaways. Follow up comment from Anthony. Sorry. So, I'm curious how we want to do this where we did, where we said in the RFS that we were going to score them on the interview. I feel like we should at least get some point values on the record. I don't think we need to come to a consensus, although it kind of sounds like we're pretty near one already, but yeah, I was wondering if maybe we could get that so I scored answer 15 CHA eight call yours 10 D and W 15. And I would score. Anthony, do you mind keeping the score. Oh no, I will. Yeah, I'm putting in the spreadsheet now. I'm going to give answer 15, and I'm going to give the other three, all 10. Assuming that's okay for me to do that. And I gave answer 14 CHA 12 colliers 11 and door with 11. I have answer 15 colliers 10 CHA eight during with your eight. And Anthony is answer 15 colliers eight CHA eight and D and W five. And Anthony, while the, the, the ultimate answer is self-evident, maybe you could just read the, the totals for the record. Yeah, so let me. Let's see cleanest way to do this. So, yeah, it's fairly, fairly clear that answer is our, our top at least as far as the interviews. I think everyone said they were their number one rank except I said they were a close to so kind of feels like we have consensus. Do we need to rank them so that we have a second ready to go in the worst case scenario, or are we just picking a finalist. I think, well, I would kind of defer to your, your, we didn't actually say did we. Yeah, we didn't. I think we should probably do that. I don't anticipate that there would be a complication with the contracting.  And I don't want to have to restart our process in any way. So we should probably see who comes out second here. So colliers and door are tied, but there is more consensus around colliers as a number two. Can we just take a quick poll with anyone would be uncomfortable with colliers. If, if for some reason, the answer did not work out. I'm a little uncomfortable just on the community outreach side. And I want to know more about cost estimating. So just those two, two pieces. You know the CHA team I definitely was influenced by the, the interviews and Jonathan I believe you'd already said you'd work with delwin. Yeah, just, it's, you know, so a couple of times I said, I want to take that person and put this team doesn't work that way. I know we can't recreate a team only, only baseball teams can do that. Yeah, I know. Can we try to do a quick trade. Yeah. Oh God.  Yeah, yeah. And my concerns aren't major because we will have an architect, but it just, it just seems. Yeah, no, I wouldn't put, you know, I could have downgraded door and Whittier or a little bit more on points than I did maybe I already gave them low points on the interview but no CH. I was comfortable with CHA for a couple reasons I agree on the presentation but just they've got this depth of engineers and architects and teams. If we. They were my, I think if they were my second, I'm just looking at, can I be internally consistent they were my second rated among the four teams going into this too. Yes. Yeah. If we, if we take their base score, their base average.  Well, no, no, it's very close, but door comes out as a by one point by one average point. Yeah. Well, I shouldn't be influenced like that but I did think the presentation style just so complete and lack of architect I would, I would have ranked them lower when I first did my first ranking. My boss is calling me hold on one second. You know Steve I didn't pay enough attention to that first time around door and Whittier who they don't have on their team. It's this committee has been great because we all have different lenses and we're all looking for slightly different things so I think it's a very strong team that way that we all have things we're looking for. Anthony was that I didn't have to pertain called in pertain to this. Nope Sean. Nope Sean just wanted to bug me. Anthony read us the language we do not have to be driven just by points we can be, we, you know the fact that, well we have three, three teams with the merits on didn't pay enough attention to Amherst. You know, style presentation style, where we weren't scoring it on points, but you know how well they would work with the community. So, you know, it's funny. I'm sure the any of the other threes could definitely do the job. Colliers kind of knows town. I don't know. That's of course why I had them all ranked the same, but right. And that's a strength and a weakness right knowing the town already because then you get the calluses and so sometimes it's better to not know the town but he has Tom Godzounis is a very highly credible guy he was the director of public safety. Which is the division in charge of the building code and he was the head of BBR asked for the building. So, that was one thing about that team that's really impressive. And then colliers they know the town I think can guy has a lot of credibility. Jordan would hear is nested in an architecture firm, which also gives it some credibility to me, not that they don't have credibility for other reasons. I think that any, I don't know, can we throw them down the stairs or, or I had, I just had just in my notes with CHA just really saying about the informant that the town is as soon as possible in that it's a community decision and you need town buying have that as, as highlights and that school is a town effort, and just looking at colliers with their feedback on the community support. So I noted for colliers they, in particular the Spanish speaking community outreach with, I have to get her name but that was very true for me as well. Yeah. That's an important potential attribute given that we have a, one of the schools involved has a dual language program. Yeah, yeah, so that was a very, very impressive point. That was CHA. That was colliers colliers. Okay. There were two firms that had Spanish speakers on staff right. Am I wrong on that. I think you're right. Was it, was it, was it CHA and colliers both? I think, I think both, I think in particular with colliers it was Elizabeth, if I'm not mistaken once now, and she was directly engaged with the community part. So I write. I would probably change my 10s to 11s for both of them. And really resolve our overall second place dilemma, I don't think. No, and on CHA, you know, I'm just a combination of the style of presentation after they got through their glitch did, but Christina opera on digital strategies and website was great, and she got great reviews for doing that and Brian Wilcox is a really day-to-day person that's their data. So I am probably, I would probably do my CHA more at a 10 on the interview on, on wherever the, I was on interview. I seem to have ranked them down. This is difficult. It is. It is. Now that we're speaking frankly here with on the recording. Yeah. I mean, you was talking about perfect or somebody was talking about perfect. We're the perfect team. And I don't know if that was CHA, but they said that was the end of the year. Yeah. But CHA did something similar, which really bugged me, which was when you hire CHA, you know, you're going to choose the best team and it's going to be CHA or something like that. And I thought, yeah, this is like right out of what's that TV show shark. Yes. Or Matt or Madman. We're the best and you're going to love us. Well, Anthony, you can change. For what it's worth my, my 10 for call yours to an 11. And that for that matter, CHA, because I do think that having the Spanish speaking staff is definitely a plus that sets them above Doran Whittier. Yeah, I would probably increase my own score for CHA given that. Did that do anything? Well, now we have a different. It now makes it more confusing actually more agreement on CHA. Yes, I think you're right. Yeah. So CHA too. Are we get is that what we're getting? I think so. All right. And then I don't think I don't think we need to contort ourselves to try to pick a third. No, it would be a yeah hopefully we don't get there. And I don't think we will. It's hard to measure. Yeah. Well, I think we have a really good first choice. I wrote down the, the Shelly from Vermont. I actually was thrilled to have someone be thrilled about a project. I talked about the opportunity for kids to learn the stewards for our future.  The one thing I wanted to make sure they can do for us. And is build a website for us. So just be asking that they gave, they gave some examples in their proposal but the websites that they, they were beautiful websites but they were for the final school. You know, you know, like, they would be doing the ARPS website for us and it would be a better website than what they were, they were beautiful websites, but just the project website because we need, we need them to be doing that for us. So just ask. I mean, I'm just assuming that one of those people will be doing that. Anthony, what other housekeeping items do we need to do for, for MSBA? I don't think this group needs to do anything at this point. When we close here, I will inform the first ranked finalist answer that they need to submit a fee schedule to the town manager. I will inform the other three that they are not the finalist. And I will talk to Dr. Morris to get the, we need to submit the packet to MSBA. So I'll tell him that we're getting close to that. And we'll have to submit that for next week. By rights, we're actually ahead of schedule because we said, we said negotiations would begin on Friday and here we are on Wednesday with our finalist. That's a good thing. So we've got, we've already got the meeting for the full committee scheduled. As long as nothing goes wrong, I don't think this group needs to plan to meet. I'm guessing when we put the packet together, I might need to tap people to maybe supplement what I've already written. And we'll, we'll run the, we should have what we're submitting ready for the meeting on meetings on Tuesday, right? But the full committee meeting is on Tuesday and we'd set up a subcommittee meeting for Monday morning, unless you don't think we need it. Oh, did we have one for Monday morning? I might have confused them. You might not have set it up yet. It's a subcommittee. I'm supposed to set it up, right? Yeah, you're supposed to. So I just had a question, Anthony, on the write up, you were going to give, if you need me to do anything, I just need to see what I, I assume I can go on MSBI site, but I'd need to know, like, what's the form that you're going to have to write to, and it was really helpful last time that you already had it and you'd filled in some of the stuff. So if you need, let's look at what that is. We got some, we got a couple minutes, we can look at what that is right now. Is it here, guidelines and forms? Well, that's what I went into there. And then I said, what am I looking for? Just Kathy needs, needs a guide to the MSB website. I said, so this is a submission for our choice of OPM and I couldn't find anything that had that title in it. Gosh, I, I was looking at the page just the other day because that's where I got this score sheet because I got it from there. And where is the full. Well, you don't have to do it in real time. I guess, I guess not. I thought I thought I was going to immediately find it. But yeah, so I will. And I'll be doing that with the superintendent. So anything that we, I need help filling out, I will contact. I'm on call all week. I thought that, you know, I announced already I would do whatever writing I need to do. You know, I've taken really good notes. So if you need something to summarize references, you just let me know. Do we should, but should I post a meeting for Monday or I think we're, I don't think we'll need it. I mean, the only, the only reason I can imagine we'd need it is if for some reason you can't come to a contract. Right. Okay. And so our group does not need to, you know, we had sort of thought of that there was a draft report where we had to do some of the writing we'd all review it but if we don't need to do that. I can just say, Anthony, if you need me at all, I can do just what I did last time which is, you know, I've, I seem to have a writing style that MSBA likes. And I call it the terse and succinct writing style. We're just coming away. We're just coming away. All right, I found it. So, I'm not going to be able to take a screen. No, you know, I wouldn't expect you to. But so a list of required information, the narrative includes following members issuing the RFS. Yeah. Okay, great. And then rubric score sheet, which we've already got. So, yeah, that shouldn't be too bad. Okay. All right. Sounds like we, we, we may be finished up. I guess before, before I formally close it. If, if any of the respondents are, you know, Viewing this after the fact through the whole thing, just to thank them all for their, for their efforts. I have no doubt there was a bit of weekend time involved with getting those interviews ready. For, for the other day. We do have a, we do have public comment on the agenda. If Ms. Cunningham feels the need to. Our only attendee right now. Well, let's do that. If she would like to comment. Doesn't appear. She does. Okay. So with that. We will conclude today's meeting. Thank you. Thank you so much, John. Actually, it's been a, I just want to say it's a pleasure working with all of you. Very good. And. Good job. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for leading Jonathan. Yep. Not at all. Bye. See you later.


This research has identified two distinct subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia, AML, one with a poor prognosis, and another with intermediate risk. The former is characterized by high levels of .1L phosphorylation, oxygen expression, and CDK1 activity, as well as increased phosphorylation of proteins involved in RNA metabolism, replication, and DNA damage. This subtype is also highly sensitive to several types of drugs, including genotoxic agents and inhibitors of mitotic kinases and inosine, 5-foot monophosphate dehydrogenase, IMPDH. The latter is characterized by lower levels of all of these factors, and is more likely to respond to treatment. The authors suggest that these findings could lead to the development of targeted therapies for AML patients with poor prognosis. This article was authored by Pedro Casado, Ana Rio Machin, Juho J. Mitenen, and others.


So today was our range day with the TNI in the morning our sniper section went over some of the fundamentals of sniping with the TNI and Then we qualified with their rifles then in the afternoon the TNI instructed us on how they Conduct some battle drills specifically react to contact and clear an objective, and then we have been conducting That battle drill while integrated into squads with the TNI Well, we were in the back side of the patrol and then we got a counter and then we were in the back side of the attack Using the TNI We've been working with experts. These guys know exactly what they're talking about. They are highly competent They're very skilled in their fields been going through a lot of training right here in the rain with us very good 10 amount professionals Even if you don't understand, we ask them Yeah, so we're trying to change the knowledge Learning from them, teaching them a few things Love it


Okay, move out. A half-century that has elapsed since World War I is little more than an instant when measured against the vast scale of recorded history. And yet warfare has changed so radically within those few decades that the tools of battle which were vital to the army of 1917 form incredibly crude images for contemporary eyes. Today's army bears little resemblance to these shadows of yesteryear. But there has been one exception to change. The courage, integrity and professionalism of our army's soldiers has remained constant. Their superior quality has been unchanging from the First World War through the Second and beyond to the complex challenges of the 50s and 60s. Today's army fights with materiel that was only dreamed of 50 years ago, but its basic element is still the soldier. He is still the major building block of which it is constructed, and he, more than any weapon or machine, makes our army great. No soldier deserves more credit for that greatness than does he who wears stripes on his sleeve, for he is one of those traditionally referred to as the backbone of the army. He is the senior soldier, the dedicated member of the non-commissioned officer corps, gives form to an army. What molds it into a smooth functioning team, men who can move and fight with unity and precision? The answer is leadership. The quality of an army is directly dependent upon the quality of the leadership it offers the men in its ranks. The commissioned officers who command the United States Army maintain the world's most powerful fighting machine. They provide leadership for millions of enlisted men who serve under them, but they cannot do the job alone. Supporting them are the non-commissioned officers, the senior soldiers who have risen to the upper echelons of the enlisted forces through experience and training, and by demonstrating intelligence and leadership capabilities. In today's modern army, the non-commissioned officer must be a man of many skills and many capabilities. Above all, he must be a leader, a man whose knowledge ability, self-confidence, and proud professionalism inspire emulation. He has responsibilities for the management and maintenance of the army's vast materiel needs. And in all areas where the army must depend upon the machine, he plays a vital technical role. Since operation, instruction, installation, and maintenance are sometimes all within his area of responsibility, he must meet the demands of many specialized jobs. He earns laurels, but does not rest on them. He stays in step with a constantly changing army through training programs that increase his capabilities, his value to the military, and his opportunities for advancement. Below is the seventh United States Army's non-commissioned officer academy in Germany. Here, as incomparable centers both within the United States and abroad, the army is maintaining one of its most critical supply lines, a supply line consisting not of materiel, but of manpower. In these centers, non-commissioned officers are given both initial instruction and refresher courses. The mission is training. The objective? A continuing replenishment and improvement of the army's supply of superior senior soldiers. For the officer, commissioned or non-commissioned, self-discipline is an important quality. The man who gives orders must first know how to take orders. Close order drill helps develop a sense of discipline, and the academy student is given such drill in large doses. In these sessions, the student plays a dual role, marching in response to orders and then, in turn, issuing them himself. At first, his commands may be awkward, but with continuing practice and constructive criticism from his instructors, there is steady improvement. Soon, he develops the ability to deliver clear, concise commands backed with vocal and psychological authority. These capabilities are also polished by classes in how to conduct physical training exercises. In the classrooms, a wide variety of subjects are taught. All such training centers do not offer identical programs, but there is a common stress on two skills considered essential to the well-qualified non-commissioned officer. First, he must know how to lead. Second, he must know how to instruct, for he may frequently be called upon not only to tell his men what to do, but also how to do it. If the classroom atmosphere, paperwork, and note-taking sometime give the trainee the feeling that he is back in high school, other subjects banish the illusion with realistic finality. The Army's business is a serious one. The knowledge he accumulates in subjects such as the safe way to handle enemy prisoners may well someday save his life, and the lives of the soldiers whose welfare will be part of his responsibilities. In addition to providing classroom instruction and practical training, the school also stimulates an awareness of the need for personal excellence, both of manner and uniform. Essential military skills such as compass and map reading are put to use under field conditions. The objective here is a skill learned and then perfected, and if repetitious practice is what it takes, then repetitious practice is what he gets. During the final stages of the course, students must demonstrate what they have learned. In a field training exercise conducted under simulated combat conditions, they serve in various capacities, designed to test not only the extent to which they have absorbed their training, but also their ability to utilize it. Does the student function as a leader? Does he effectively carry out the NCO duties to which he is assigned? Does he have the knowledge essential to his job, and does he apply this knowledge properly under conditions of stress? The standards are high, and rightly so, for the responsibilities of a non-commissioned officer are too great to be entrusted to any but the man who is completely qualified. The soldier who successfully completes an NCO training course can take pride in his accomplishment. He has proven that he has what it takes to handle one of the Army's most demanding jobs. The non-commissioned officer assigned to be an instructor, though possessing much practical experience in the subject matter he is to teach, faces still further training. Future drill sergeants, for example, must complete a drill sergeant training course, such as this one at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The classes are kept small to permit individual attention. Each student is observed and evaluated by a tactical non-commissioned officer, as well as his instructors and counselors. The seven-week course includes classes on Army drill, physical training, small arms operation, leadership, recruit handling, and other general military subjects. If he is to instruct, he must first become expert enough to stay ahead of his students. Students at all such schools are picked soldiers. The Army constantly scans its enlisted ranks, looking out the soldiers who show the intelligence and initiative, the aptitude and talent for leadership that will make them potential material for NCOs. Practical experience in actual teaching situations is a highlight of the drill sergeant training course. In these sessions, there can be no bluffing. Each student must clearly demonstrate instructional ability. His job will be to teach, and he must prove that he can do it. On the drill field, this same philosophy holds true, with emphasis on the proven techniques of teaching Army drill to recruits. Here, the student must demonstrate that he can achieve results not only on paper, but also with men. When he becomes an instructor, his subjects will cover a wide range, both mental and physical. He will teach his men the importance of standing fully erect, and then show them how to place an enemy flat on his back. The formal course in effective military instruction is considered to be the most important in the drill sergeant's program. For many men, it is the most difficult. Totalling 30 hours, the course is devoted to basic instruction techniques and lesson preparation. Each trainee is required to prepare the lesson plans and training aids for two class presentations. Then, he must satisfactorily deliver them and be graded on how well he does. If a student passes this subject, he will usually complete the remainder of the drill sergeant's course without difficulty. On graduation day, each man receives his campaign hat and graduation certificate. A feeling of pride and a sense of accomplishment are more than justified. He has been through a tough course of instruction and proven himself capable. And now at last, he is entitled to wear the distinctive hat of the drill sergeant. The job of the drill sergeant is a difficult one, of vital importance to the Army. His is the responsibility for turning raw recruits fresh from the undemanding ways of civilian life into soldiers. And in some cases, he accomplishes an even more significant transformation, converting boy into man. In the recruits' first weeks in the Army, the drill sergeant is his boss, teacher, critic, father and mother. He guides, instructs, counsels, cajoles, encourages and assists his men, helping them to adjust to the military way of life. He demands the best they have to give, and in so doing, equates them with their own capabilities. The drill sergeant teaches his men how to accept and obey orders, accurately and without hesitation, and how to work together as members of a well-trained team. He teaches them how to fire a rifle, how to perform guard duty, how to do a soldier's job in a soldier's way. This is the drill sergeant's task, making soldiers of civilians, and providing the Army with its most essential ingredient, trained men. He does his job well, and he stands as a fine example of the important role the non-commissioned officer fills in today's Army training program. The NCO also instructs in other subject areas on almost anything of use to the Army, from the operation of computers to the complexities of supply and logistical problems. He provides inexperienced trainees with a solid groundwork of knowledge about the working principles and inner construction of Army mechanical and electronic equipment. Then he follows up with practical experience under actual working conditions. Thus it is largely through his efforts that the Army has guaranteed a continuing supply of qualified technicians. He performs these same duties on occasion with the armed forces of our allies, training their personnel to operate and maintain equipment furnished them under our military assistance commitments. The sergeant major in Army units of all sizes is the commander's right-hand man on matters pertaining to enlisted personnel. It is his duty to advise his CO of developments within the enlisted ranks. He is concerned with promotions, reductions, assignments, performance, with the soldier's morale and all matters which might affect it. To look into any area which involves the enlisted man to either report problems to his commanding officer or correct them in his name, these steps are not only the right but also the obligation of the sergeant major. In the field, a sergeant major must keep his paperwork to a minimum and spend as much time as possible among his men, serving as the eyes and ears of his commander and, when necessary, acting on his behalf. Frequently, he will assist in coordinating the work of the staff sections, conferring with their officers or NCOs to help work out solutions to their problems. It is his job to see that the administrative procedures of the command operate smoothly, quickly and efficiently that peak performance is reached and maintained. The training of enlisted personnel is also within his domain. He must see that adequate preparation is made and correct training procedures observed. When necessary, he will recommend appropriate changes. His primary concern is always with the enlisted man. How is his morale? Is he being properly cared for? How is his food? Does he have ideas to offer? Does he have problems that need solving? Enlisted men will talk more readily and freely with him than they will with an officer, and therein lies much of his value. Security precautions are another matter for the sergeant major's attention. In the field, many sergeants major will personally visit their guard posts day and night to be certain that the commander's orders and desires regarding security measures are being properly observed. In brief, everything in which his commanding officer is interested, everything that happens or fails to happen within his command, is part of the interest and concern of his sergeant major. As do all non-commissioned officers at all levels of assignment, he meets a basic need in today's complex army. Without him, this mighty military machine could not function effectively. This is William O. Woolridge. The first sergeant major appointed by the highest non-commissioned officer position, Sergeant Major of the Army. His job is to act as advisor and consultant to the chief of staff on matters pertaining to the morale, training, pay, and promotion of the enlisted man. Although he has an office in the Pentagon, Woolridge spends much of his time in the field observing training, inspecting facilities, talking with enlisted personnel and seeking out their problems. Sergeant Major of the Army, Woolridge, is the enlisted soldier's man in the Pentagon. So successful has the newly created office been that our other armed services have set up comparable positions with an eye to facilitating their personnel management. A platoon sergeant is second in command to the platoon leader who is a commissioned officer. Within the platoon are squads, each led by a squad leader, like this sergeant. The non-commissioned officers of the platoon share responsibility for the discipline, training, morale, conduct, and well-being of their men. Their work is sometimes tedious and mundane, concerned with routine problems. But the paperwork can change suddenly from the form that must be filled, folded, and filed to the map, one of the essential tools of the combat soldier. This is a briefing for tomorrow's mission. The job they will do is a tough one, and they will move through hostile territory. But the squad leader is confident. He knows his men. He knows he can count on them. The briefing is thorough, professional. The plan of action viewed, and then reviewed. It is the next day. The mission is in progress. For each man, it is the ultimate test. For the squad leader, there is the additional weight of responsibility for himself in combat. The sergeants, seeing their platoon leaders fall in action, have taken command and distinguished themselves against the enemy. Many NCOs have been given battlefield commissions and become officers as a result of their conduct in action. But the future is given little thought at times like this. Only the present is pertinent, staying alert, and staying alive. Being ready for the ambush that may be waiting, that as a team. They have shown that they are polished professional soldiers, disciplined, well trained, and well motivated. With all these things, they have reflected credit on the leadership they have received, and they have paid particular tribute to their squad leader. Later, a distance from the battlefield further tribute is paid. Tribute acknowledging courage and integrity, and blood that has been shed in the service of the nation. This is a proud moment. He is a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army. And like all senior soldiers, he takes pride in the tradition of service and performance, which is his heritage. No matter where he may be assigned, the non-commissioned officer knows that he has been given an important job to do. And backed by training, understanding, and experience, he does his job for the very best of his ability. That is why our non-commissioned officers are called the backbone of the Army.


Welcome to the 2015 NCHO World Finals we've just had the open world final completed and it's no surprise that Matt Gaines has won on Special New Baby. Congratulations Matt. Oh thank you. Now it's obviously been a very emotional win. You've got a host of major titles that you've won. What makes this one so special? I think there's a lot of things you know I think you know number you know that matter for one I mean she's she's just a phenomenal individual and you know there's a there's a special bond between me and her that you just you know you don't you don't have with every horse and you know and just you know being able to do that with her and and and the phenomenal individual she is and and you know and and having Tara there with me every day and and you know it's just been it's just been an awesome experience. It seems to be a project that you've really done together. Oh yeah for sure I mean there's you know I mean without her there's no way I'd have got it done you know I mean just the the care she takes takes of that mare I mean is she just does a great job and you know I don't know how many thousands miles she's driven this year so that you know I could fly in and show and get back home and train my three-year-olds and that kind of stuff so I mean yeah it wouldn't have been possible without what she's done.  Well I think that it's kind of something I've always wanted to do it's really hard when you you know when you do the aged events to be able to break free it and go do this and and I kind of took a little shot at it last year and and got to kind of hauled and and and tried it till about June and it just wouldn't work and it wasn't fitting and I said you know I'm not gonna try to force this let's just you know keep him in the top 15 and and go back home and concentrate on my three-year-olds and and this year it just all fell into place you know I mean it wasn't we didn't set out at the beginning when the world it all started we wanted to win 60,000 to get her in the Hall of Fame and and we went to San Antonio and won the McCurry there and and then you know made the finals at Houston and and we got to Superstakes and I think at that time I was 12 15,000 ahead and and us and the Barkers we had a meeting and you know so what do you want to do you know do you want to try to you know try to go win the world a lot and and they you know they said well if I was willing to do it they were you know willing to do whatever they had to to try to make it happen and you know we just decided that that we'd give it a shot and as long as she was feeling good and we felt like she was enjoying it and and was healthy that you know we'd go and see what happens and it just you know when everything just it really just all kind of fell together I just I just think it was meant to be it was what I was meant to do this year well I mean it was a spectacular year you really knocked it out of the park in so many respects you won three mercuries in a row you got the highest ever score of 234 what does that all mean to you well I you know I I really don't know because I you know it's been I don't really know that it's all really set in to me what all we really accomplished this year and it's and it's funny I mean I just I really feel like she did it I've just kind of been along for the ride because you know I mean I think we're I think we're a really good team but I think she's the strongest member of the team you know I've been you know there's so many times this year even tonight I mean I cut cows that you really don't want to go cut and she just you know she guts up and she bells me out and you know and I mean that's what she's done all year so I don't really know that it's really anything I've done that's that special but it's everything she's done that's that's made it happen and and which is cool man that's what it's supposed to be about supposed to be about her but there must be a lot of trust on her part with you well yeah I think there is like I said I think there's a there's a very special and unique man between the two of us that you know I've had you know some other great horses that you know that I was close to and were special to me but there's just there's something different about this one in there you know and there has been all along and I don't even really know how to explain it I just you know there's just it's it's almost like she knows what I'm thinking and I know what she's thinking and you know like we had one run in the go-round at Vegas this year and one of them curious I get paired up on my third cut and the other cow won't get out of the way and and I'm like well if I don't get my hand down there not I'm not gonna make the finals and I just throw my hand down and we work with two cows out there for three or four turns and the other one goes one way and the one I'm trying to work goes the other way and you know and we just right there I mean we're just on the same page and you know and it's just there they're just something there I don't I don't really know how to explain it but but third you know I think she we just know each other that well and and like you said trust each other that much that I think that makes a lot of difference and tonight when you when you came out and I mean you obviously had already won but you gave it your all the horse gave it her all the crowd loved it they got behind you you could feel the support and the love it was palpable there tonight describe what that feeling was like why was it important to you know you got a 231 why was it important to keep performing right to the end well you know it the for the whole last part of this year for the last couple of Macarius and and here you know I felt like I've pretty much had it wrapped up for a couple months and you know but it's been important to me to just I know I've seen through the year how much you know the following that marriage created and how many people love her and you know and I just I wanted this last run I wanted to try to make it something that everybody would remember and you know and let her go out like she deserves to go out and you got a standing ovation how did that feel that's it was awesome that's you know we got one at Paso too and we marked the 234 and you know and it's just it's an awesome feeling to you know when when everybody else appreciates that marriage much as I do I guess you know I mean just the and that's what's been phenomenal about this year is the you know just the the following through Facebook and and all different things and you know I mean I think that there's a lot of people that have fallen in love with her you know just you know just like we do and and that's awesome and it's and it's also been awesome for our sport I think that you know what she's done this year it's it's been it's been good for our sport and it you know it's just been a lot of fun I just feel blessed that that I've got to be along for the ride. So what's on the cards for next year? Probably just go back to doing the aged event stuff and I think I've got a really good three-year old smooth as cat gilding out of that mare that I showed here made semi-finals and you know so far through two runs he looks like he's gonna be a really good horse so hopefully you know concentrate on campaigning him and my other aged event horses this next year and you know go back to trying to train train some more good ones. Well congratulations you really did give the crowd something to remember you know long into the the future great job thanks Matt. Thank


Today's video today. I've got something really fun for you guys. We're gonna do a men's hair cut now This is a longer style definitely super trendy, so I know you guys are gonna like it. Let's get started here We go hope you guys like the video if you did please hit the like button subscribe to the channel and Make sure you check out our online store shop fse.com You can buy all the tools combs clips scissors tri-raiser everything is available on our online store Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you on the next video You


Oops, I ended that last video too quickly. We are going through the VidCon video comments made by you, and let's continue. So, Taser said, George, you forgot to send me my VidCon tickets. And Draxo said, same, and then followed by Agent Gamer147, who also said, yeah, same. Sorry guys, we didn't send you your VidCon tickets maybe next year. AyaChalengLotching asks, hey, what's VidCon? Can someone explain to me please? Well, VidCon is a video convention. It's basically a YouTube convention where we celebrate everything we do, and we meet with YouTube staff, and we see some big YouTube partners, and it's just a lot of fun. LXZYLayoutslazy said, randomly yell out freedom and record it. Well guys, I can't really yell out freedom and record it, because I will draw a crowd and maybe security will take me out of VidCon. So, the best I can do is freedom. Hope that helps. UltimateLanquilla said, also say UltimateLanquilla is amazing in your next video, please. So, UltimateLanquilla, you are amazing. Rice Togamato 4-acre said, I'm going to be honest, you forgot to shave as you look scary to me. Do I look scary guys? Isn't this a little ruggedly handsome? Or do I need to be clean shaven? Tell me in the comments below. And actually, Reese followed that by, it's a joke. Fiske said, stop by Chicago and do a meet up. Well, I don't plan to stop by Chicago, but I do plan to stop by Alabama. Who's in Alabama? Let me know. Kilo Sierra said, I'm at VidCon. Well Kilo, have we met? I'm also at VidCon and where? Well, I'm walking around everywhere. Hope to see you. Gameoholic said, you read all the comments and you delete what you don't like. Well Gameoholic, that's actually not true. Rote4R said, he looks like a serial killer. Did we delete that comment? No! Everyone is entitled to their opinion. And the few comments we do delete are just hateful and completely unhelpful. But even comments like, George is a serial killer is okay if you really believe that. Because hey, it's your opinion. Austin Plays had a dashboard question. He said, why are the last two months' payments unverified? That's because we don't have the finalized earnings yet from YouTube. Those are estimated earnings that we get. When YouTube finalizes everything, then the payments become finalized, no longer unverified. But in honesty, the estimated earnings are quite accurate. So even though it says unverified, it's pretty close on average to what you're actually going to get. But this helps. Ryo Capuccino said, tell Mickey Mouse he is not subscribed to my channel. Well Ryo, if I see Mickey Mouse, I'll be sure to let him know. Nova Gaming Entertainment said, R-I-P, rest in peace, hair. Is it really that bad? Am I really losing all my hair? I don't think it's that bad, do you? Alright, thanks guys for all the great comments in the last two videos. Please keep leaving your comments and thoughts beneath this video and the one before. And I'll do my best to feature the interesting ones in a future video. And I don't have a selfie stick. Sorry for the shaky camera. I'm actually holding it with one hand while I record. Talk to you later guys. I am George, CEO and founder of Freedom. And you've been watching The George Show at VidCon. Take care. See you.


Hey, welcome to my talk on deterministic Prover Zero Knowledge. This is joint work with Neal Vitansky. So let's jump right in with zero knowledge. So this is a wonderful notion introduced in the work of Goldwater-McCulley and Rakov back in 85. The Prover and the Verifier have some common statement x, and the Prover is trying to prove that the statement belongs to some language n. So there's some interaction between the Prover and the Verifier at the end of which the Verifier either chooses to accept or reject. So this protocol has three properties. The first is completeness, which says for every statement that's in the language, the Verifier actually accepts. The second is computational soundness, which says for every statement that's not in the language, no computationally bounded Prover can make the Verifier accept. The third, which is the most important property for this talk is zero knowledge, which says for every Verifier that exists a simulator, which can simulate the view of the Verifier. What do I mean? So the view of the Verifier in an actual protocol with the honest Prover is the messages that the Prover sends and its own random coins, and the zero knowledge property says that the simulator on input x can actually sample a distribution that's approximately close to the actual view of the Verifier, thereby hiding any additional information that the Prover might have. So across time, there have been many flavors of zero knowledge. The one that we've just seen is on the left, and we call this the GMR zero knowledge definition. The next is that of oxymere input zero knowledge. So it turns out when zero knowledge protocols are used within other protocols as a sub protocol, or when you want to compose zero knowledge protocols, the Verifier might actually use information that it's learned from other parts of the protocol or from previous iterations of the protocol. To come to this, we give the Verifier some oxymere input denoted here by Z, and we say that the same holds that the view of the Verifier can be simulated by a simulator. As long as the simulator gets both the input x, and the oxymere input z. And the third notion is that of black box zero knowledge, it's asked for a universal simulator, which can simulate the view of the Verifier. And additionally, the simulator uses the Verifier only in a black box manner with Oracle access to the Verifier. So these are like the three flavors of zero knowledge that are important for this talk. So when zero knowledge was brought up, it was on two foundational aspects, which is interaction and randomness. And in this talk, we ask if we have a prover that's completely deterministic, can we have some meaningful notion of zero knowledge? So the first answer to this with respect to deterministic provers was provided in the seminal work by Goldrack and Oren that showed that deterministic provers satisfying oxymere input zero knowledge or black box zero knowledge was impossible for non-trivial languages. So in the positive direction, there has been some work. This work recently by Farnio Nielsen and Venturi showed that if you have a language that has a witness encryption, you can get a slightly weakened notion of DPZK, which is honest verify DPZK for the same language, which is to say that the zero knowledge is only required to hold for honest verifiers and not necessary for malicious one. If you have slightly stronger properties for the language L, which is a hash proof system, then you get stronger properties in the corresponding DPZK. For instance, here you get soundness against computationally unbounded cheating provers. And very recently, Dahadi and Lindu improved the assumptions from witness encryption to doubly injective one-way functions, but at the cost of having the honest provers be inefficient. And for malicious verifiers, they actually construct DPZK for languages that have some certain entropic guarantees from their witnesses. So given this understanding, there are lots of gaps in characterizing when deterministic provers zero knowledge is possible. So our result aims to fill in this gap. We actually split auxiliary input ZK into two parts. The one on the left, which is the new one, is the B-bounded auxiliary input ZK, which says that there is some polynomial bound B on the amount of auxiliary input that's fed to the verifier. And we actually show that you can have zero knowledge satisfying either the GMR ZK or the B-bounded auxiliary input ZK with a deterministic program. So specifically, our result in terms of assumption, we require slightly strong assumptions. We show that assuming non-interactive witness indistinguishable proofs, sub-exponentially secure indistinguishability obfuscation and one-way functions, there are two message DPZK for NP intersect co-NP.  So given these strong assumptions, we actually show that some of this seems to be inherent in the sense that if you have a DPZK for any language L, it actually implies a witness encryption for the same language. And witness encryption, as we know of today, is only implied by strong assumptions. So actually, let's go to our construction for the two message DPZK. The starting point of our construction is the honest verified DPZK by Farn, Neal, Sin, and Maturi. And since they constructed from witness encryption and witness encryption is very central to our work, let's actually see what witness encryption is. So witness encryption for a language L comes with an encryption algorithm and a decryption algorithm. The encryption algorithm takes in the statement X, the message M that someone wants to encrypt and outputs the ciphertext. And the decryption algorithm, which importantly is going to be deterministic and we see momentarily Y, takes in the ciphertext, string W, and outputs either the message or some board. So the correctness requirement says that if W actually is the witness for the statement in this given language, then the decryption algorithm returns the message M that was encrypted. And security says that if the statement's not in the language, then the ciphertext hides the underlying message. So given this definition of witness encryption, how do we actually use this to construct honest verified DPZK? So the verified here is quite simple. It samples a random string of say length N, uses the witness encryption scheme with the statement X to encrypt this string U. And then it sends across the ciphertext to the deterministic prover who simply decrypts the ciphertext.  And the verifier just checks if U is equal to U tilde. So complete as follows is from the correctness of the witness encryption schemes as long as the deterministic prover has the witness, it can decrypt and get back this value U. Some as follows from the fact that when the statement is not in the language, the ciphertext completely hides the message. So we can just switch it to an encryption of zero and the cheating prover wouldn't be able to tell even if the cheating prover was randomized. And lastly for honest verified zero knowledge because the verifier behaves honestly when the simulator initializes the verifier with random commands, it essentially knows what U the verifier is going to pick. So simulation is actually quite simple for honest verified DPCK. So how do we get from here to malicious verified DPCK? And we take an intermediate step of explainable verified DPCK. So what are explainable verifiers? So these are verifiers that can behave maliciously, but all of the messages that the verifier sent can be explained using honest verified coins. So unlike some related notions of some malicious adversary, these coins might actually be hard to find. So one important consequence of this definition is that the simulator no longer knows the message that is an explainable verifier encrypts as in the case of the honest verified DPCK. So our previous simulation strategy won't work. And actually if you look at the proof of impossibility in the Bore-Wacken oven, it actually already implies that Oxford input DPCK for explainable verifiers is impossible. So making progress with explainable verifiers is an important step in getting DPCK against malicious verifiers as well. So as with most ideas going from honest verified DPCK, honest verified ZK for that matter to malicious verified ZK, we use some additional trapdoor statement that only the simulator can use, but cheating proof work cannot. So what is this in our setting? So as we already said, explainable verified DPCK is ruled out for auxiliary input zero knowledge. So we have to bound the amount of auxiliary input. So it's actually simpler to think of the verifier plus the auxiliary input being bounded by some B, value B. So we can say that the verifier, the size of the verifier plus auxiliary input is bounded by some amount of B. And so what the verifier does now, in addition to this honest verified protocol that we've already seen, it samples a really large string R of some length N, where N is much larger than B. And it uses this R as a statement for a separate witness encryption scheme and we'll see momentarily what that is. It encrypts the same message U that it sampled before and generates a ciphertext. So essentially now there are two ciphertexts that encrypt to U, one using the statement X and one using this new statement R. So what is the language that this witness encryption is used for, this new witness encryption? So the language is here given at the bottom which is that for any string R, we say R and some machine M belongs to the relation. If M is a Turing machine that outputs R and more importantly the size of the Turing machine is small. So here specifically we're going to say the size of the Turing machine is some B plus lambda. So the prover itself actually doesn't do anything else. It behaves exactly as in the honest verify protocol and the verification also remains identical. So the verify in addition to whatever it send also sends across the ciphertext and obviously because the deterministic prover doesn't know the language or the statement for the second ciphertext, the verify has to send across R. So completeness follows the same as the honest verifier setting because the deterministic prover doesn't do anything else and the verifier's check is actually identical. So now for some reason we need to argue that given this new ciphertext, the cheating prover isn't able to suddenly come up with decrypt U so that it's able to cheat and this actually follows from the relation, description of the relation, which says that R is a really large string and we want a really short machine to output R and with high probability no such machine exists. So a cheating prover is unlikely to succeed here. And what about zero knowledge? For zero knowledge, we require a machine that outputs R. Do we have such a machine? Of course, the verifier itself, as you can see in the first message that it sends across the verifier also includes a string R. So the simulator can therefore just use the verifier's code to as the witness for the second ciphertext and get back U-tilde and then sends across U-tilde thus completing the simulation. The point of note is that the verifier's randomness is simulated by PRG so therefore the overall description of the verifier can still be small. I sort of brushed this under the rug but if you look at the relation carefully, it's actually not an NP relation because we do not a priori bound the running time of the Turing machine. We said, okay, the bound of the size of the Turing machine is some B plus lambda but it can run in any arbitrary polynomial time. So to actually have an efficient witness encryption scheme for this relation, we require this strong assumption of indistinguishability obfuscation for Turing machines. So given we have explainable verifier DPCK, how do we get to the malicious set? And this is the idea here is quite simple. The verifier just simply proves honest behavior and as long as the verifier is able to prove that it generated both the ciphertext correctly then you can essentially have the same simulator that you had for the explainable verifier DPCK. So how does the verifier construct such a proof? So for the case of languages that belong in the intersection of NP and co-NP, the verifier proves using a non-interactive but indistinguishable proof that either it behaved honestly or the statement X is not in the language. Clearly because L is also in co-NP, X not in the language actually has a witness. And for zero knowledge, the second statement is going to be false because we only consider zero knowledge for X in L and therefore an accepting proof must indicate that the verifier behaved honestly. So that's great. So what about the case for L belongs to all of NP? This is a little more complex. So the verifier still proves that it behaves honestly but the odd statement, it proves that it is committed to a collision of a key less hash function. That is collision resistant. So essentially the second statement says that, it's something that's hard for an auxiliary, de-bounded auxiliary input verifier to compute. So as long as in the zero knowledge setting, as long as the second statement is unlikely to hold true, it must be the case that the first statement is true and therefore we have a verifier that behaves honestly. So given now this we now have gone from honest verifier DPCK all the way to malicious verifier DPCK. Admittedly under strong assumptions and then now let's, that gives us a perfect jumping point to the next part where we talk about the necessity of these strong assumptions. Specifically, we show that if a language has a DPCK, it also has a witness encryption. So to do so, we actually talk about this notion of a predictable argument that was introduced also in this work by Farnio Nielsen and Maturi. And here again, the prover and the verifier interact in a protocol with some common input of the statement X and the prover is trying to prove that the statement X belongs to some language. With predictable arguments additionally imposed as a structure on this protocol, which is that the verifier actually knows or expects the prover messages to be of a certain. So what the verifier does is runs this algorithm V gets as input V1 and P1 sends across V1 gets in response P1 tilde and it only proceeds if P1 is equal to P tilde. So this is the predictable part of it is that the verifier actually knows the prover message. And it does this for the next round, generates V2 P2 and does the same thing and so on and so on until the end of the protocol. And clearly since the prover is not providing any new information that the verifier doesn't already know, the verifier can actually run this entire algorithm V at the start and just send it one after the other. So there are lots of common and natural examples for this kind of a predictable argument. For instance, the most common example is that of graph non-isomorphism where prover and verifier are given a pair of graphs and the prover wants to prove to the verifier that these graphs are actually non-isomorphism. So in this protocol, the verifier picks a random bit B, permutes randomly, permutes the graph GB and sends it across the prover and the prover is supposed to figure out what the bit B was that the verifier picked. So essentially since the verifier is doing the picking it knows what the expected response from the prover should be for it to accept. So this is a predictable argument for graph non-isomorphism. So what does predictable arguments have to do with the on your DPZK or bitness encryption for that matter? So for Arnie and Nelson, I'm sure you actually show that predictable arguments for any language actually implies bitness encryption. So all that we have to show is that DPZK for language actually implies a predictable argument. So let's look at that transformation then and the idea is quite simple. So what does the verifier do? The verifier runs the simulator on the statement X, gets a simulated transcript and also the random coins of the verifier. And as a first step, the verifier simply rejects if the simulated transcript is not accepted and this can be done efficiently given all the information that the simulator outputs. And now it sends across this message V1 and the prover in this predictable arguments behaves identically to the DPZK prover. So the prover doesn't change at all. It's just that the verifier has simulated this transcript and uses the simulated messages as its own verifier messages. Okay, so the idea seems simple enough. Now we need to argue that it's actually a complete and sound protocol. So for completeness, it just simply follows from the zero knowledge property that the simulated prover messages and the DPZK messages have to be the same. Otherwise we can just have it extinguisher that looks at the simulated messages and the prover messages and can tell them apart. So when we actually run the protocol with an honest prover and also a verifier, the verifier actually accepts. And what about the next case, which is soundness. So here, the first thing to note is that the verifier only starts interacting with the prover if the simulated output accepting transcript for a statement that's not in the language. So when simulator was on some X, which is not in L, the simulator still produced an accepting transcript. And given that the cheating prover is able to make the verifier accepted, means that it sent these P1 tilde, P2 tilde that matched the simulated transfer. Therefore, the cheating prover is actually able to come up with a transcript that made a verifier accept. So as long as the underlying protocol is sound, a cheating prover shouldn't really be able to do this. So for this argument, we actually made this simplifying assumption that the simulated transcript produces pseudo random verifier coins. While this is not exactly true, in the paper we use a more subtle argument to argue that soundness still holds even if the simulator doesn't produce the pseudo random coins for the verifier. So when we talked about our positive construction, we showed that there exists two message DPZK and then this somehow seems to be inherent because we show also in our paper that any DPZK argument can be collapsed into two messages. So even if you have like an arbitrary message DPZK protocol, it can be collapsed into two messages and also can be made extremely electronic in the prover message size. So for soundness, roughly one half, it suffices for the prover to send a single bit. And these actually follow from transformation and predictable arguments in this work of finding your names in inventory. Since they don't really care about zero knowledge, what we show is that their transformations also preserve zero knowledge as long as you start with a zero knowledge protocol. So yeah, that essentially brings us to the end of the talk to sum up. First, assuming like strong primitives, we actually construct two message DPZK for all of NP against bounded oxygen input verifiers. And we show that some of these strong assumptions are inherent by showing that DPZK for any language actually implies a witness encryption for the same language. So thanks a lot. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out by email. The paper's also on ePrint. So here's the link for the paper. And you can also obviously ask me questions during the live talk.


Hi, it's Steve Uppam, general manager and EVP for Crossman Corporation in Benjamin Airguns. We're currently here set up at the Pyramid Air Cup in central, Ohio and we're over here in the vendor area where we're able to display some of our new products and the 200-plus shooters are over there fighting the wind today as they're trying to Pull off their their score. So it's been exciting so far. The venue's been terrific Even though we had some rain overnight. It's just been it's been a great situation right now the food trucks are busy and It's having a great time today. I'd like to whoa We also have some demolition targets next door to us that keeps scaring us I'm gonna demo some of the new items that were were shown here at the Pyramid Cup and Try to get the world excited about what's going on in the world of Crossman and Benjamin All right, first I want to talk about what we're doing with the Bulldog series We've had the Bulldog 357 for a number of years now and it's terrific shooting gun But we decided to step up our game. We released a 457 gun About six months ago and it's been a big hit so far it throws out a huge slug and it's it's under the same Set up as the current Bulldog, but we did upgrade the Bulldog 357 so everyone knows this gun's been out on the market But we want to increase the power So we increased the the length of the tube in order to get a little more air in there We did some tweaks to the inside and we just rolled out the M 357 which is going to be able to achieve Wapping 300 plus foot-pounds of energy for at least for at least three shots. It does come with a mag In the same configuration that the old 357 does but this one only holds Three slugs and it's more of a gravity-fed clip system rather than rotating but all built on the same guts from the Bulldog that's been around forever and Still the ambidextrous and super excited about that one a couple of the things under the crossman banner This is the new Challenger rifle. It first came out in 2000 and then was upgraded in 2009 We just introduced the 2022 Version this last year and we're super excited about the the sport or class Gun that goes out to a lot of the kids coming up through the different programs a Few upgrades on this still has a low-through-all through barrel, but there were some upgrades with adjustability As well as the stock design which we think is a very nice modern look almost a European style high-end rich look For a gun that still falls in that sport or class This is the standard stock comes in black, but we are doing some limited-edition stuff right now with a dip This is a very cool old glory flag Edition and we will be selling these with limited quantities on the website in the in the upcoming months more of a promotional piece Trying to get trying to get some spice back in there for the for the kids out there shooting So excited about the Challenger So I'm not sure if the world is aware, but we reached our hundredth anniversary this year There are not many companies in any industry that can be proud to say they've reached a hundred years And this is our hundredth year anniversary to commemorate that we're coming out with a limited-edition Crosman gun to to celebrate and this is basically a box unveiling comes in a very classy box with a nice sleeve and the gun itself is built on the 362 that some of you may realize we came out with them in the last couple years I Wrestle with this one to get it out of the box, but you can see what we did is we took a very Traditional pump version of a gun to celebrate our hundredth anniversary It's the guts of the 362, but a ton of upgrades as you can see it's got a gorgeous Turkish walnut stock That is a two-piece stock a very nice hundredth anniversary Medallion inside of it. We did some upgrade, you know nice things with some some gold accenting The bigger upgrades though on the gun are a steel breech kit a very nice Williams peep site in the back front end front-end site was an upgrade as well and Just kept that classic look that most people know of Crosman over the years. There are a limited edition It's we're gonna make 223 of these this is number 117 it looks like they will be they will be numbered and sterilized and They're currently on sale on some of the websites And they're a 399 so very nice piece I don't know if I'm gonna shoot mine or if it's gonna go in the basement in the box But a terrific looking gun with great specs as well Lots of exciting things going on at Benjamin But probably the thing that we're most excited about right now is the release that's actually happening today At this event of our new Benjamin single-die match pellets You know Crosman Benjamin have been known for some terrific pellets over the years and when the premiers came out in the mid 90s They were a home run that Shooters want specific weights specific tolerances that are so tight and over the years We really hadn't released anything since the premiere that was in that high-end class and it was a real concentrated effort It took us over a year to get this pellet Perfected to where we wanted to there have been some terrific reviews if you check out hard air magazine.com Steven does a great job explaining why this pellet is gonna do exceptionally well. There are single die This is dye tea and they're coming out right now We released the one seven seven caliber only in ten point five grain and they're gonna come in a very classy tin inside of a box The one seven sevens 500 count and they're gonna retail for about 20 bucks, which is an unbelievable value for this quality of pellet The 22 will follow and then in a couple months and then the 25 will follow behind that in a few more months So I would expect in the next four to six months. We'll have all calibers released really excited about this Terrific results. We're handing out some samples to shooters getting their feedback here at the event And I think you're gonna see Benjamin in this high-end class of pellets for years to come