Well, this all seems a little formal here this morning, standing at the podium above the riser. But I think we're doing this being webcast. So let me welcome you all. I am John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress. And I want to welcome and thank you for coming. We got a terrific bunch of people here today. We're glad to play host to today's law.gov conference. And many thanks to one of Capstar alumni, Carl Malamud, for his role in organizing not only this event, but the law.gov project, as well as for his dedication to the important issues we'll be discussing today. He's really spent an entire career doing it. We thank him for all the work that he's done. I also want to thank all of the participants and panelists for taking the time to come share their thoughts with us. Carl's going to introduce law.gov in more detail. But at heart, what it's about is making all primary legal materials in the United States more readily available from water districts, from counties, from cities, from states, all the way up to the three branches of the federal government. It isn't about building the ultimate website or putting Westlaw out of business. What law.gov aims to achieve is changing how governmental bodies that make the law present their work product, pushing government to meet the basic requirement that the public has right to know the law means that it has easy access to the work product of government officials making the law. Despite the first principle that there is no copyright on the law, today we'll talk about lots of examples of parts of government that store their materials behind substantial access charges or assert copyright or give an exclusive right to publish to one form or another. We'll also hear lots of examples of government bodies that do it right, states that publish their own final court opinions, moves by the federal government to release important primary legal materials such as the federal register and the amazing innovation that flows when that happens, when those materials are made publicly available. We have some of the countries leading experts on many of these subjects here in the room, but I want to take a step back to talk about one big reason why this is so important. One of Abraham Lincoln's first speeches in 1838 was an address to the young men's lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. And he was inspired by the lynching of a young black man in St. Louis that occurred a few weeks before. He recognized at that point in the late 1830s the growing divisions that were developing between the north, the south, the east, and the west over the issue of slavery and the role of the federal government. He feared, and quite presciently so, that mob rule and mass hatred would overwhelm the rule of law and engulf the country in chaos. Lincoln's remedy for such violence was respect for the rule of law. He spoke of an inherent contradiction he witnessed in the American psyche that Americans were strongly attached to their system of government and that they would suffer much to protect it, yet notwithstanding this allegiance, he saw the laws of the land continually despised and disregarded. Law, he said, should be our political religion. Let every man remember that to violate the laws to trample on the blood of his father and to tear the character of his own and his children's liberty. 100 years after Lincoln's death, the United States was again dangerously divided by deep splits, tremendous fear and anger, violence, gridlocking government and people who lost belief in their government's ability to do good. But the rule of law, again, prevailed in liberty, opportunity, and equality were expanded for all Americans. These impulses continue to reemerge with varying degrees of intensity and I think have done so again actually today, given that we are in a period of great change. And in some quarters, they're having, what I would describe as a toxic effect on the tenor of our national conversation, there are hard things that this country needs to accomplish, many of which President Obama has put on his agenda, reform of our financial system, how we deliver healthcare in this country, addressing energy policy and climate change. But there are some very obvious things that we can do that can help change the tone of the debate and involve citizens more broadly in a constructive dialogue and indeed in the workings of government. Our nation depends upon robust and free access to information, not simply so that we can cast our votes wisely, but also said that our leaders make wiser, more ethical decisions. So it is important that we ask whether our government is doing everything it can to foster open and transparent government. The president's open government directives are examples of a basic idea that can have genuine impact. We've been seeing some of the effects of government work already. We can see it in the agencies where computer people and new media staffers have become tremendously energized. We can see it in the nonprofits and new companies that have begun to exploit new government data. And we're seeing it in blockbuster conferences devoted to topics like government 2.0. We'll hear from a lot of those people today, including administration officials who were responsible for overseeing many of these open government initiatives. Law.gov, quite frankly, is even more ambitious. It goes beyond the federal government and in particular the executive branch in order to establish a national policy that says if it's the law, it needs to be accessible. The basic principle will need not only the support of the executive branch of the federal government, but also the support of Congress, the judicial conference, and ultimately the tens of thousands of governmental jurisdictions throughout our country. Law.gov started from the ground up with hundreds of participants in 15 workshops. It has been a totally non-partisan effort and has spanned left and right. In May, Eugene Meyer of the Federal Society spoke at a Law.gov event on the Hill. And today we're gonna hear later from Carolyn Fredrickson of the American Constitution Society speaking on the same topic. I suspect Carolyn and Eugene will be in violent agreement, which may be a rarity, and likewise the CEO of Lexis Nexus, who will be speaking this afternoon, will be in basic agreement with free law pioneers like our first speaker this morning, Professor Peter Martin of Cornell who created the first free law site in 1992. I'll close just by re-emphasizing that there's nothing more fundamental in our society and our system of government than the rules that protect it. Law.gov has shown us that there are many places we can do much better when it comes to how we tell citizens and lawyers what the rules of the road are. I'm glad that today we'll hear from so many phenomenal minds on just how we can do that. Thank you all again for coming and for taking part in this dialogue and the seminar. So Carl, now the podium is yours to get to it in depth. Thank you.


Welcome to All Hands Update. I'm pity officer Ashley Hedrick with your headlines from around the fleet. Former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel will be sworn into office February 27th as the new Secretary of Defense. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, will succeed Leon Panetta, who is retiring. Panetta said it has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead the men and women of the department and that he is grateful that President Obama selected such an outstanding leader to take his place. McPawn Mike Stevens stressed the importance of career development boards during a recent visit to Millington, Tennessee. He said that CDBs are a critical tool leaders can use to help sailors zero in on excellence. For official guidance on CDBs, see OPNAB Instruction 1040.11c. You can read more about these stories at navy.mil. From All Hands Update, thanks for watching.


Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is going to be our spring homeschool plans. I don't know about you, but I am done with winter. I'm ready to put it in my rear view mirror and move on to spring. So that's what I have done. I have spent the last week planning our spring homeschool and I have it all planned and I'm ready to start and I can't wait. So just so you know, when I refer to spring, I am referring to March, April and May because those are the three months that I planned for. And then I'm gonna share everything that we are hopefully gonna get done. That doesn't mean we'll get to all of it. It also doesn't mean that we won't do other things because we like to follow Emily's lead and we like to go down those rabbit trails and we like to do like the little mini units around the holidays. So I'm sure we will do more or other or different things than just this, but this is what I am planning for us to get done in the spring. Okay, first let's talk about morning basket. So I've had some of you message me and ask if we are still doing it. We are just not right now. So we did a fall morning basket, which was space and we loved it. We did a morning basket during the holidays, which we loved. We didn't do one for the past two months. After the holidays were over, we haven't done another morning basket. Mainly because February is hard y'all and we still haven't got back to our routine and we're just trying to survive this month. If we're being honest, we are just trying to survive. So we haven't done it in the past two months. However, we will start doing it again in the spring. March 1st, we're doing a morning basket, no matter what, because I said so. Because that's what helps give us structure to our day. Starting with morning basket helps give us that foundation to have a good day and it starts our day off on the right foot. So we will start back with it. Now we will continue to do morning basket the way we have been doing it, which is it lasting a little bit longer and the theme matching our unit study. Emily really, really liked that during the fall and the holiday season and she wants to keep doing it. So our morning basket will be the same for March, April and May unless she deems that it needs to be changed. And it will be themed human body because that's the unit say we're doing. Which I'll share more about that in just a minute. I will be sharing our morning basket with you guys next week. So if you wanna see everything that's in it, make sure that you are subscribed and that you hit that bell so you get notified. All right, for our unit study because I just told you guys about it, we are doing a human body unit study. Now this is a brand new unit study that I just finished writing and it will be in the shop soon. You guys like very soon. February 28th is its release date and that is also the day that our spring cell starts. So it will hit the shop at the same time the cell will happen, meaning that it will be 30% off from day one. And I have to be honest, I love everything that we've ever made. Like they all have a special place in my heart. But this one is like, it's pretty high up there you guys. Like I am so excited to do this. I'm not sure I've ever been this excited with the exception of maybe wizards and wands because we'll Terry Potter. Mainly because Kevin's illustrations in this make human body fun to me. Like it just, they make it fun. He did a phenomenal job and I can't wait to learn more alongside Emily. So super duper excited. We will spend March, April and May diving into the human body and I can't wait. You guys probably already knew that Emily was interested in it. She's kind of been dabbling in it lately. In fact, some of her Christmas presents were themed human body. So it was like hands down. We're like, what do you want to learn for spring human body? I'm like, okay, then that's what we'll do. So that's what we're doing. Now me and her sat down together and we researched people who made an impact in the medical field or in the advancements of medicine. And then we looked through all of our who was books that we have, which is pretty much all of them. And we tried to pick some people that we wanted to learn more about so we kind of tie in with human body. And so we picked three who was books that we will be reading and then we will be accompanying them with a who was unit study. So we have who was Leonardo da Vinci, which he is already in the shop if you're looking for a unit study on him, as well as who was Marie Curie, also already in the shop. Although you guys wait a week and you can get them for 30 person off. And then the last one who will be in the shop soon is who was Clara Barton. So that is our unit study, human body, along with those three who was, and then obviously a ton of extra fun stuff in our morning time and all of the things that's within it. But that is going to be the bulk of our spring. So excited. All right, let's talk math. So math is something that if you don't know or if you haven't been around long enough to know, Emily has always had a very strained relationship with. And so because of that, I try really hard not to push or force or do anything that will make the relationship any worse. So we play a lot of games. We read a lot of math books. We bake in the kitchen. We do a lot of real world math. And I make sure she has tons of math apps and we keep our subscription, even though it's not really subscription, but we pay for teaching textbooks every year because she enjoys that. It's one of the few math that she enjoys. And so that is actually what she's been probably doing the most of right now. And this season of life, she has been doing a ton of teaching textbooks. She loves it. She enjoys it.  She gets excited to do the bonus rounds now and she gets excited to check her score and her grade. And she's just really been enjoying it. So I mean, I'm not gonna argue with that. So she's probably gonna keep doing teaching textbooks in some form or some way. She may not do one every day. We may not even finish this grade by the end of this grade. That's not really my goal. My goal is that she has a good relationship with math, that she doesn't hate it, that she enjoys it, that she mostly understands it. And I want her to keep moving through the math goals that I had on our checklist for the year, which we are still doing with books and games and hands on things and just whatever. So teaching textbooks is just like extra supplemental fun. I mean, if it teaches great, but she's just enjoying it right now. The bulk of everything is just me reading and playing games and being kind of consistent with the fact that this is the skill I want to teach her. So that is the majority of it. Now I will say we've started doing extra math again too, because I've noticed that her multiplication and division just aren't quite there fact wise, not as quick as I know she could be. I guess probably the holidays didn't help. Maybe February is just February. Maybe she's struggling too. I'm not really sure, but she doesn't dislike extra math. She actually mostly enjoys it and she can do it in less than two minutes. So she's been doing that, I think, three days a week about, like two to three days a week, just as an extra kind of like, let's make sure my math facts are getting better or I'm not forgetting them. However, all of that to say that one of the things I'm most excited about for math for the spring is this super fun, real world, a math journey through the human body. I love that it will tie in with our unit study and I love that she's gonna see real world math and how it will tie in with that unit study. So she's gonna be able to see how doctors use math and how just all this stuff. I'm really, really excited about it. But I love the way that this book is written because she's also going to be getting some facts about human body as well while we're doing math. So it's like an all in one. So that's what I'm the most excited about. But I'm sure she's also going to be continuing doing extra math, continuing doing teaching textbooks. We will obviously still be reading books and playing games. So that is kind of a little bit of everything when it comes to math. For language arts, we are just about as eclectic as we are for math. She will be doing a book club with Mary Hanna Wilson on out school. She's been doing the book club with her. Wilson's Mary Hanna Wilson started the book club because Emily loves her and just loves being in them. But the spring, they are reading two books and one is Crenshaw. And the other is from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler. So I know for a fact that she will be reading those and doing those book clubs. I'm sure she'll be reading more too because she loves to read. But those two books in the book club are definitely happening. She is doing that as a keeper still. She is also currently in the process of writing a book. She's just for fun, wanted to write a story. And so I decided that we were going to use that this spring as a way to kind of take her writing through all of the different writing processes, which is one of the things that was on my checklist that I wanted to get done this year. And it's like the perfect opportunity. And she kind of just presented it to me. So she's going to be writing this story and we're going to take it through all of the writing processes from start to finish. And then when she's done, we'll print it and I'll bind it and put it on her bookshelf. So she has a book that she wrote. And she's very excited. Another thing that she is doing is handwriting without tears. She is doing the cursive kickoff. And there is nothing to me more ironic than the fact that she is doing this because these are the same books that quite literally caused tears for her in kindergarten. So the irony is never lost on me every time I share this. And I say that because I don't want you to see this and think, oh my gosh, my child needs to be doing handwriting. Y'all, we didn't do hand writing for a very long time, like very long. We literally threw the handwriting without tears books in the garbage because they stressed Emily out so much. And we did no kind of handwriting, none whatsoever until this past summer, so not even a year ago, when Emily came to me and said, mom, I really want to write prettier. I would like better handwriting. Is there a way for me to do that? And I said, well, the only way to do that is to practice. And she said, well, can you get me something to practice? And so I showed her all of the handwriting options like everything that was out there and apps and books and everything. And she made the handwriting without tears, which I'm telling y'all cracked me up because I was like, you realize these are the same things that you made me throw away three years ago. But she's sped through, and I say sped through, she wasn't like rushing, but she's wanted so badly to get a cursive that she was doing like six and eight pages a day. And so she's made it through whatever the first two books are. She just finished printing power. She finished printing power in January. And she is already halfway through a little less, but almost halfway through a cursive kickoff because the first like 30 pages reviews print. And she was like, I'm ready to start cursive mom. And so she was doing like 10 pages the first three or four days so that she could get to cursive.  And in one year, less than a year could go from no handwriting to writing in cursive. I mean, it was gratifying, I guess. I mean, I hate to say that because it shouldn't really matter, but it was gratifying because as a homeschool mom, and I know I'm getting on a tangent, you worry about your child. Like, am I doing this wrong? Am I, she should be doing handwriting. She should be doing it. I should force her to do it. But I am so, so glad that I didn't force it. I'm so glad I trusted my instinct and that I trusted that I knew her best and that we would get there eventually. And then I didn't push it, but I just let it go all together because we are, I'm almost positive. This is, if you look at it by grade level, I think this is their third grade book. Maybe it's their fourth grade book. But I mean, she could essentially finish this one and the next one and still be on track if we cared, which we don't. But what I'm trying to say is, I'm glad I didn't push. I'm glad I waited till she was ready. It's been very, very worth it and it's been very rewarding to her and I both. Okay, I'm done with the tangent now. So that is kind of like the basic of our language arts with the exception of Mondays. We do what we now call mom day because we used to call it mail time Monday because that's all we did was mail time. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I will link our mail time Monday video up here. But since Christmas, we have added in journaling, which has become like my newest favorite thing in the whole wide world. So me and Emily journaled together. We write, we print pictures and stick pictures in there and we just read our thoughts down. And it has been so much fun. So we alternate between that and mail time every other week now, which is why we now just call it mom day in our house. And it just, seriously, you guys, it's amazing because kids find magic in the mundane. And I love seeing that through her eyes. Like when we sit down to journal, I'm always thinking big picture, like what big thing happened that I can journal about? And like the other day she journaled about a science experiment that she did with Kevin because that was magical to her. It just like she journaled about journaling because she's loves doing it so much with me. It's just been really, really fun. And I can't wait to look back on the memories in the journal years from now. So I'm so glad we started it. But those are things that we add to get some of that like practical real world writing. And then because one of the things I wanted to focus on this year was like letters and journaling, like more personal writing. It's giving us the ability to do that in a really fun way. The last thing I wanted to share with you guys are subscriptions. Now I have an entire subscription playlist which I will link for you. And there are a ton of subscriptions in there. And we've tried them all and we love them all but you could go broke on subscription boxes and letters you guys. Like I could easily go broke on them. So we either try to rotate through some of them, different seasons of life, different seasons of our homeschool depending on what we're studying, what Emily's interested in. And right now, this is what we are getting currently in our house. Like this is what's being delivered monthly. So I wanted to share that with you so that you know that this is what we get every month as of right now. For subscription letters, we are currently getting Writings from the Wild which Emily absolutely loves and the American Heritage Adventure as well as the Heritage Letter. So we get the one about the National Parks or the American location landmark and we get the famous American from history from them. So we get those letters and then for boxes, we get our favorite Universal Williams. This has been like the staple in our homeschool that's never gone anywhere. It's one of our favorites. We are still getting and loving Melchemistry. This is one that Emily and Kevin really, really enjoy doing. And then I had actually stopped it for a little bit because I thought since they were getting the Mel stuff that they wouldn't miss it, but they did. And so we are now getting the Tinker crates again because they started missing them and they just wanted them again. So those are the subscriptions that we are currently getting. Tinker, Mel, Science and Universal Gums and then the letters. And then Emily is still getting the My Zoo Box. I don't have anything to show you guys for that because it comes in a like plastic bag and she literally rips it open the minute it gets here. And she, the day after it arrives starts bugging me. When's my next Zoo Box gonna come? When's my next Zoo Box gonna come? She loves it. It comes with a book and a stuffed animal and she loves learning more about it and obviously loves collecting stuffed animals because she's addicted to stuffed animals. But it really is a fun way for her to learn more. And it's really a fun way for us to encourage reading because the rule in our house because she would gladly take the stuffy and run away is that she has to read the book to the stuffy when it comes in like so that her and the stuffy can learn together. And so that's been something that's made sure that she doesn't just take the stuffy and run away with it. But she's really, really enjoys it. And I have a feeling that's the one subscription that she probably wouldn't like go of. So that is what we are getting for spring currently. If anything changes, I'll let you guys know but I don't have any plans for anything to change. And so that's it. That's our plans. Now I would absolutely love it if you would tell me first how your homeschool year is going so far was February is hard for you as it was for us and what your homeschool plans are for this spring in the comments down below because I love reading them and I love getting to know you guys and more about your homeschool.


Yeah, the recording should start now Yeah, the recording has started good. So let's go back. We just saw such an amazing rescue of Peter while the people are praying then you know such a similar rescue There's an example That you know, I have read about and this is from the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh Who ministered in Tibet? That apparently once he was caught like this and then you know, he was he was also thrown Not in a prison, but in a well where Other Offenders had been thrown and the well was closed and it was a scary situation because in the well you had They would throw the people and close it So you had like, you know bones and corpses of people In the well and you just kind of had to wait for your death in it but the story goes something like he saw a rope being put through and with a Loop okay, where he could keep his foot because apparently he was not able to hold the rope in a strong way But somehow he had fallen and injured his hand So there was a loop where he could put his foot and he could hold on to the rope and somebody pulled the rope up and he came out of the well and you know, he was rescued from the well and then when he just got off and he turned around to say Thank you to whoever rescued him apparently there was nobody. Okay, and that's what the story says and He went back where they had caught him preaching, you know, same way how usually Peter We find that you know the angel first time it the once he was rescued He's commanded to go back to the same place and preach. So he goes back to the same place So Sadhu Sundar Singh went back to the same place to preach and the officials who had imprisoned him Or thrown him in the well They are surprised they bring him to The the the main person the main authority and that authority is furious and he was wondering who is who was so careless You know to to leave the keys Without In an unsafe way that people could open the well and get this man out of the well and the authority was furious But it seems, you know, there was there was the key which had access to the well It was actually on the belt of that same authority. So The key was with the person himself They understood that it was not a human being who rescued this man But it was a supernatural rescue because he was with the authorities and how did he come out? You know same day Peter where the chains broke and the iron gate opened, you know, it's amazing We don't even know how such a thing can happen No wonder the believers who were praying they were astonished because they knew that this was such a difficult task But God Supernaturally was able to rescue Peter and bring him out. So let us see, you know, what continues to happen Now so now Peter is rescued and the believers have received an answer to their prayer And we have understood That and Peter has escaped and he departed and went to another place so now you don't really read about him anymore actually because this scene is going to shift the focus is going to go more towards Paul and You know Paul's missionary journeys About Peter and his ministry. It's kind of, you know, this is as much as we read in the Bible So Peter has escaped. Okay. God caused Peter to escape from Herod Then what happens next? Okay, obviously, there is a lot of turmoil in the city How could you know the Soldiers explain themselves to Herod. So then you find that there was a Great confusion among the soldiers As to how this man Peter actually escaped Then Herod, okay, when he tried to search for Peter, he also could not find him So it says that he checked with the guards and he commanded that the guards be put to death. So that's how they would Treat the guards who let a prisoner escape. How unfortunate, isn't it? So no wonder the soldiers were so scared because they knew they are going to die The prisoner has escaped. Now the only thing that can take place is their Execution so the soldiers or the guards were put to death and Then you know, we find that Herod, okay, Herod becomes very very angry. He becomes very angry and he goes to Yeah, just a moment. I'll just read this for us. I think that'll be clear Okay. Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sedon But they came to him with one accord and having made blasters the Kings personal aid their friend They asked for peace Because their country was supplied with food by the Kings country. So we have Herod here who kind of deals with the situation and he goes okay to visit Another place and he stays there and at that time, you know, we have Herod He's going to make a speech and he comes to You know the people of Tyre and Sedon he's actually angry with them because of the way, you know, they they had Made blasters a person the Kings personal aid their friend and he was not happy with them at all Okay, so King Herod he set a day. He he kind of you know, prepared himself for a speech Okay, and he sat on the throne and he wanted to kind of address these people. So that is his agenda And now he dealt with Peter's death situation. He's gone to another place and over there To a People who made him angry. He just wants to kind of you know, address them So we'll see what exactly happens. So Obviously, you know looking at the way Herod is behaving throughout. He's trying to please the Jews He's trying to please the other officials. He's very like a political person And he seems to enjoy Fame and glory and appreciation of people. So He's getting ready to make a speech and we are told here that he is dressed very well, okay I read in royal apparel and you know people who Have kind of analyzed. You know, what kind of clothes had it would have worn Impressive clothes. They say it's something like, you know, with With precious precious metal Shiny clothes, you know that those kind of clothes he would have worn and he wanted to make a speech and you know how You also have crowds that that feed or enable this kind of a personality So the people, you know, when he's going to make a speech, they start shouting You know giving positive feedback to the to the orator to the speaker to the king and the people are shouting back and saying Oh, this is not a voice of a God and This this is a voice of a God and not a man You know how, you know, they kind of play together with with those who like fame, right? So they're also saying you're not a man. It's it's like you're like God.  He has come You know in shining clothes, the people are also praising him just like God. What happens at that time, you know something very Very scary takes place. We read that the angel of the Lord strikes Herod Okay, what is Herod trying to do? You know, it's like if you look back at the Old Testament a very proud ruler Nebuchadnezzar He's so proud that he's exalting himself To be equal with God or You know, even thinking of himself greater than God then God humbles him Okay, so he goes through that phase where God kind of brings him to his knees and then yes, you know, he comes back Being reverent to the God of Daniel and Here something very similar the heart of Herod is corrupted Okay, and we know from scripture that pride is something that God hates God hates it and Herod is in a position where just like his His Grandfather what did his grandfather do? No, his grandfather was ready to to kill Jesus and and we know that I think it was his uncle who For the sake, you know of For the sake of Herodias, okay, he was will he beheaded John the Baptist so he's coming from a family of Kings and rulers who walked in pride who wanted to do things for their own Convenience, okay, who wanted to do things which are pleasurable for themselves Okay, so an attitude of pride before God and this man He's standing up and you know, he is like oh the whole kingdom is for me. I have everybody's Okay, everybody is glorifying me. He's in that place of pride and he's standing To make a speech and look at this, you know, God sees that pride And scriptures tell us problems as pride goes before a fall and in the case of Herod Over here. It was the very end of his life. You know God God Obviously was so upset and angry with Herod that He sent an angel and it was judgment on Herod So while he's just kind of glory in himself. What happens an angel comes strikes him Why? because Herod did not give God the glory. So you see glory belongs to God glory does not belong to man When man tries to take God's glory. What happens?  What was the end of you know a glorious king?  It's such a sad end for a Glorious king, but what brought about this end, you know The Bible teaches us that God hates pride and pride is what brought such a great Destruction in the life of King Herod So that is something that we must be careful about now After the death of Herod, you know throughout what are we seeing? There are some positive events like the Church of Antioch is doing very well and we read More people were added to the church. We read also of challenging times where the The disciples were persecuted the Apostles were persecuted What do we read even after that the church was growing the church was continuing to be a blessed community So after Herod died What do we read in verse 24, but the word of God grew and multiplied so no matter what is happening around The the believers among the believers God's word is growing and multiplying remember we started studying about the book of Acts And we gave one description and said it's like the wildfire forest fire with spreads Okay, no matter what and similarly the word of God nothing is able to stop the word of God the council the king The authorities so many people are trying to stop the work of God But the way Gamaliel said he said if this is God we cannot stop okay, they are not able to stop the word from spreading and multiplied Now I told you there is going to be a change of people on the scene So Peter we have read about his ministry till now. We don't read about this ministry anymore Barnabas and Saul so these are the people whom we are going to read about in the next chapter So Barnabas and Saul they return from Jerusalem So what were they doing in Jerusalem everyone? Do you remember from Antioch? They went to do something. What did they go to do in Jerusalem? Yes, yes, exactly. So they went to provide relief based on what Agabas had prophesied, okay? So now they are returning. That's how we understand this. So they are coming back after giving the aid to the People in Jerusalem, they had fulfilled their ministry meaning they had fulfilled their service of providing relief and they also Remember in Jerusalem when Peter was in prison the prayer was going on in the house of Mary whose Whose son is John Mark, okay, so there is this young person. They have come back from Jerusalem with this person John Mark So obviously he he is a devoted person in his house prayer is going on So seems like a godly individual. So they come back with him and he becomes the assistant of Paul and Barnabas now, let us see after all this what is going to take place in in the Journey so Barnabas and Saul finally they are back in Antioch now we move on to Acts chapter 13 Now Acts chapter 13 is the place from where the missionary journeys of Paul are Starting out. So we will read about some places. Don't get confused or don't get hassled that own new names How are we going to remember the names? So don't worry about that. I will you know once we get into this I will show you some maps and that will kind of clarify, you know the journey that is being made by Paul But for now you kind of just make a note. Oh, okay They are going to this place and the next place and some other place and what is happening in those places, right? That is more important. So you make that we have an understanding of how God is working. So in Acts chapter 13, you know, they are in Antioch in the church and There are you know, there is a team. So this is also another specialty of the church of Antioch It was a well-equipped church. It was a church for one year. God's word was taught to them the prophetic Was released in their midst Okay, and then they also were a church that responded to the needs of the people now There is team ministry going on in the church of Antioch. There are a certain set of certain profits and teachers It says, okay, so how beautiful. So it's a church where you have Leaders you have people flowing in the teaching anointing you have people flowing in the Prophetic anointing there is a list of names that we see there is Barnabas There is Simeon who was called nigger. There is Lucius. Okay, there is many and And there is Saul. So there are five prominent names that we see Barnabas, we already know who that is Saul. We already know Simeon is called as nigger Okay, and in Their times when somebody was called nigger mostly they were they were of African origin also More specifically, maybe, you know darker skin tone. So they would use that term So, you know, we're able to understand that people of different ethnicities were part of the church of Antioch Okay, so it's like a multicultural church even in those times. So today When there are divisions in churches because oh, you're from this ethnic group. I am from the other ethnic group You're from this background. I'm from that background You know, it sounds so unlike the early church because in the church of Antioch you had people from different ethnic groups Also and Simeon was called nigger. So he must have been from Africa And also people speculate and say this Simeon was the one who carried the cross, right? At some point where Jesus was for some help a man called Simeon Had come to help Jesus. So it's probably that same Simeon who from that point onwards was a disciple of Jesus There is the name of a man called Lucius We know we don't know too much about Lucius But many in is said that you know, he grew up with Herod the tetrarch Herod the tetrarch was The one who beheaded John the Baptist.  So you have people who may have been, you know, wealthy and Not so wealthy we see that Manian was a man who was probably from a very well-to-do background But he's part of the team. So the multicultural team, right the Like diverse abilities, which the leaders had it all makes for a beautiful Teamwork in the Church of Antioch. So you don't see only one pastor. It's not like, you know Hey, there is one pastor for the Church of Antioch and that pastor is doing everything But you see team ministry that is also a beautiful thing that we observe in the Church of Antioch Okay, so what are these people doing? It seems like they had a Way of seeking God and verse 2 they minister to the Lord and Fasted, okay. So see many times we think ministry is only Serving the people It's true. But in the Old Testament or under the Old Covenant, what was the responsibility of the priests the priests? Minister to God and the minister to the people, right? So the minister to God on behalf of the people and the minister to the people on behalf of God We find that one of the responsibilities of Every human being, okay, and in the New Covenant, we know we are all priests and to God. So Ministry to people is important, but we should not Replace ministry to God, right with only ministry to people It is important for us to minister to God or serve God. How do we serve God? You know, we can serve God through our devotion rare time in the word Doing, you know, our spiritual sacrifices Apostle Peter talks about it, you know, our giving to Because of the leading of God we give right so even that is an act of sacrifice that we do So all these spiritual acts to minister to the Lord our praises to the Lord Ministry to God is very important. You know why a lot of You trace back to the burnout of many Spiritual leaders you will go to a place where you know, you will understand that they were not spending time with God Recently recently I was listening to a minister of God, you know talking about such a successful ministry that he had No, he was traveling in a morning. He was preaching in one church by Afternoon he was preaching in another church that evening again He was taking a train and going to another church and preaching so like three four services every Sunday You can imagine what a busy life and that person would have had on Sundays And even midweek know people were calling for conference seminars so many things he was engaged in then One day as he was praying I mean, he was not having enough time of prayer But still you know one day when he was speaking to the Lord God told him, you know what I want you to stop everything because You're not spending any time with me.  So, you know, he shared his testimony how He was very upset and he had gotten so used to being busy in the ministry that he did not even know how to stop But he said, okay, Lord, if this is what you're asking me to do I'm going to stop doing this and I will take time. So he took a Few months time in his own house. He didn't go any anywhere. He just told everybody I can't come But he only prayed he fasted some days He read the Bible and he said, okay, God, you speak to me. I'm only going to minister to you Right. So you see the early church knew this this basic principle That ministry to God is also equally important if not more important So we have to spend time with God We have to first of all get our grip anchor in the Lord Okay, and then ministry to the people so we find here the leadership of the church of Antioch What were they doing? They were ministering to the Lord. So in the testimony that I was speaking about, you know, that person he's quite a young pastor and In India and now he runs a very like a good dynamic church God called him back right to ministering to the people But it was a season in his life where God taught him that He was doing ministry the wrong way. He had to make sure that every day he also Ministered to the Lord and then ministered to the people. So my point is we must not In fact, we must give the highest priority to ministering to the Lord. Otherwise, what will happen? No input only output burn out Okay, and God does not want us to be in that position. So here Leaders are ministering to the Lord then when we minister to the Lord what happens? They were praying obviously right and also it says they were fasting So that means they were seeking God. When do we fast generally, you know, when we when we are Kind of seeking the Lord about something we are dedicating ourselves to the Lord We want to hear from God. So they were sincerely seeking God So when you minister to God, what happens? God pours back into our lives and God speaks So Holy Spirit said So when you minister to God one of the things we can expect God speaks to us So when they were ministering to the Lord, Holy Spirit gave them direction and told them Separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them So God is telling them. Okay. Come on. Now another season of ministry is starting for the Kingdom of God and also for Your leadership and I am going to Pick out two individuals Barnabas and Saul and what I want you to do is till now They were serving in your church, but release them now. You must release them Barnabas and Saul because I have another assignment Okay, so, you know, our life is made up of assignments, right? God keeps leading us.  Come on. You strengthen the church Now time is up The Holy Spirit says, okay, let me direct you next stage Barnabas and Saul I have another responsibility for you. So God speaks to the leadership and tells them You please separate them or you get ready to release them Then after having fasted and prayed, what do they do? They lay hands on them laying hands In the early church, you know, it's a way of commissioning Okay, or blessing the people and kind of, you know Together letting them go releasing them. So they are commissioning the people and also commissioning involves, you know praying and releasing the empowering of God's spirit upon the lives of these individuals and they Commission them and they send them away. So this is where, you know, your commissioning is Noticed. We do this right even in Bible college when generally your course is over. We pray We impart from this work of the spirit over your lives and we say, okay, come on Okay, now your next season where God is calling you to other assignments God is calling you into the purposes which he has for you. We release or in this case Send them away. So Paul and Barnabas. Come on Now you go, you do the work which God has called you to do time up in the church of Antioch So they move on. Now the journey starts. Okay. And how do they know where to go? What to do? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit said to them, you do this I'm going to give you other tasks now. Now sent by the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is guiding them They go to the first place that place is called as Seleucia and from there they sail to Cyprus So they're moving on Right, they go to Seleucia. They go to Cyprus. So they are learning how to follow the spirit Okay, following the spirit is how ministry should be done. So they are listening.  We'll go next go to Cyprus. So they're traveling in this way Now they arrive at a place called Salamis Okay, there they preach God's word and notice that Now the ministry which they have started doing in their travel is mainly for the Jews Okay, because That's what God had called them to do and they did not receive any other instruction See Peter he got an instruction you go to the Gentiles So he went but otherwise you see these leaders mainly ministering to the Jews and those days You know in the synagogue in that synagogue Format of doing things They could just go to a city and go to a synagogue and in the synagogue they will allow any You know a Jewish person knowledgeable person to come and share a word So anybody could go and minister in the synagogue. So that's they took that opportunity So they would go to the synagogues that they'll get an opportunity and then they will preach. Okay Now there is a team that is Ministering we already have a Barnabas and Saul whom God had called and then they are doing the ministry But remember they had brought John with them. So we are being reminded in verse 5 that John Mark is their assistant. So he's helping them in the work which they are doing So three people are on the missionary journey. You have Barnabas Saul and Mark Now they come to a place called pathos. Okay over here Once again, they want to minister they want to preach about God They find a Saucer remember Philip also had met a sorcerer, right? Simeon we saw Simeon in Samaria and He gave his life to Christ. Now, let's see this sorcerer. What kind of a person is he? It's good. Just tell us that he was a false prophet Okay, and he was also a Jew and his name is Bar Jesus He was also known by another name called as Elimas and what was his responsibility? No, he was with a government official or a procuncel and This sorcerer was kind of we don't know, you know Maybe something like a like an advisor or something like a spiritual Overseer for this government official the procuncel His the name of that government official is Sergius Paulus. Okay, Sergius Paulus was an intelligent man and we understand that Sergius Paulus was interested in what Barnabas and Saul were preaching So he called for them. Okay.  So it seems like Sergius Paulus His heart was soft and it was kind of open to listening about Jesus But The sorcerer remember we said Bar Jesus or Elimas He has some kind of a spiritual authority on this government official and He's trying to stop the official from listening to the gospel and He's understanding. Oh if if You know Paul is here's this message He might turn to the faith. So Resistance spiritual resistance of Elimas can be noticed here Now for the first time, you know, Saul who also is called Paul, you know from verse 8 onwards And you read that it's a Saul who was also called Paul. So what is this difference? Why Saul Paul two names to Saul was the Jewish name of Paul and Paul is the Roman name from now We are going to see more of you know, his Roman name being used both names are applicable. Okay, but in the in the gospel, sorry in the Rest of the writings Paul is is the name that He himself uses even in his writings the epistles. He says Paul an apostle. So Paul is the Roman name So Paul understands. Okay that this sorcerer is trying to stop the official from Responding to the gospel Now if you recall Peter in the case of Ananias and Sapphira By the Holy Spirit Word of knowledge he understood.  Right, that's what he told them he rebuked them and judgment came upon those believers now again By the Holy Spirit Paul is able to understand this sorcerer is Stopping surges Paul is from receiving God's word now, you know, we when we have talked about prayer and intercession But we've talked about believers authority. We said that sometimes, you know, that can be spiritual hindrances Due to which people are not able to understand the gospel or receive the gospel, okay But when we go against those spiritual Barriers, okay, maybe some demonic Interference, you know, we we must engage in spiritual warfare. We pray against those things We bind those things we break those things then the veil on the eyes of the people Comes off and they are able to see and understand and receive the gospel So again in this case, there is a spiritual battle. The official wants to receive the gospel, but the sorcerer elements Who has created some kind of a deceptive barrier spiritual barrier and The official is not able to receive it and Paul sees this in the Through the Holy Spirit Paul understands this.  So Paul rebukes and pronounces judgment on the sorcerer And immediately, you know, we need that he became blind Okay, and he was so blind that he needed somebody's help to walk around Same thing happened to similar or let's say similar incident happened in the life of Uh, saw earlier on the road to Damascus. He saw a bright light and he went blind for some time But you know, that was not God's judgment. Okay, but here Sorcerer was judged by God and as judgment he became blind Okay, uh, and when the government official surges Paul is these this he believed it says Okay, because The official sees the power of God. Wow God's power is greater than the dark power The sorcerer must have been Still now Okay to to provide some kind of a spiritual support to the uh to surges Paul is but today Surges Paul has seen a greater power Which is the power of God that the sorcerer was judged and he went blind before Uh, uh, you know In the very presence of surges Paul is so the we are told that the procuncel believed and when he saw What he had been what had been done being astonished at the teaching of the lord. So one more thing we notice that uh The procuncel saw what happened to the sorcerer, but at the same time, you know one more thing that astonished uh, the The uh procuncel was the teaching of the lord. Okay So you see the work of the spirit as well as the word of God both are being ministered the Team here Barnabas Paul and mark john mark. How are they ministering? Just like jesus, you know jesus also He taught he preached, but he also healed he delivered. He demonstrated the work of the spirit So in the same manner we find that this ministry team this missionary team is Going all out Teaching the word as well as demonstrating the power of the spirit So this is what is taking place, you know in the first missionary journey of uh, Paul and Barnabas Now they continue from this place called pathas because you know, they had seen Uh, some fruit in the place called pathas and they move on to berga in pamphilia and at that point Okay, now they have made a kind of a some four places. They have gone Visiting and ministered in those places But when they are just moving forward, you know, we read that this assistant of theirs John mark He goes back to jerusalem. Remember his house is in jerusalem. That's why he's going back to jerusalem. Okay But you know, we do understand that john mark Going back to jerusalem was something that paul was not happy about now. Why did john mark go back to jerusalem? There could have been so many reasons. Maybe there was something urgent Right that uh, he needed to attend to at home or uh, you know, there could have been Some kind of a fatigue Right, he developed from ministry for a long time. He had gone He had stayed in anti-org and now he's making a missionary journey with paul and barnabas as a young Young missionary Maybe he got exhausted. He thought oh, what is this? It's so tiring going with these people and serving god You know 24 bar seven. I need a break If we don't know whether that was his attitude, uh, but whatever the reason, you know, john mark goes back to jerusalem And that is something, you know, we will see later that paul is not at all happy about that Okay, or maybe maybe john mark got scared They'll take me into dangerous places in the future. Uh, how am I going to handle this? I better escape Right now what was going on in john mark's heart? That we don't know but he went back to jerusalem But only later we will see that he was definitely a man who was interested in ministry No, he was not a lazy person or he was not a uh, you know person lacking passion because much later in the writings of paul You know paul says okay bring to me John mark. He's useful for me in the ministry Okay, so he was definitely a good uh missionary But at this point john's going back to jerusalem was an upsetting matter for paul Okay, but still you notice that The journey is continuing. So, uh, I think I have shared quite a lot of things with the class today You know, we have touched on various events. So let me just take a breather. I'll give a pause and How about you know from whatever you have heard so far you share with me? What is it that impacted you or what are you thinking about? So let's just take some time to kind of discuss a little bit and then we will pray and close for today Yeah, quite a lot Okay, we we saw about the church of antioch how it was doing so well and then we uh, talked about how The leaders went to jerusalem to give aid Then from there we observed how hered tried to persecute the church Peter was imprisoned set free by the angel hered died Okay, and later Paul Barnabas coming back to antioch ministering to god god speaking to them Them going out on a missionary journey with john mark You know going to different places led by the holy spirit and in pathos they minister to a government official also notice How god is touching the lives of people from all sections of society Right jew gentile rich poor everybody in the government not in the government And we also see the judgment of a negative spiritual influence over the life of serges paulis Okay, and then we finally saw how In the middle of the journey john mark. He's taking a break. He's going back to jerusalem So now you tell me anything that uh, you know, you have learned or anything that you are wondering about Let's touch on those points in the next few minutes Is it like a Is it like a story? To us Yeah, great. So one who shares when we pray supernatural Things are taking place How true? Yes true manu. Yeah The early judge saw that Thank you for sharing any any any other insights A prince Help one another physically and spiritually pray for Okay, how they prayed for peter. Yeah Very true. Correct. Yes prince. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that aran says That she really wants to have confidence. Okay Yeah, like these people had for god Yeah, amazing. No witnesses How boldly they they traveled they preached Yes, correct aran. That's true Please go on. Yes. Kiran shares God can do miracles miracle Miracle work today life of believers Then they were saying god knows our every situation And he works In much needed times. Yeah true true. They yeah Correct and this is a set of people. They knew how to journey with god And we are learning from their lives. So yes, may the lord continue to strengthen us In our walk with him and maybe also walk, you know in the power of the holy spirit So, uh, let's take this time to close Today, we're just like to request somebody to lead us in a word of prayer And uh, you know, we will Stop for today and then continue in the next class. So anyone please could you lead us in prayer? I'll pray about that Yes. Yes, aran. Let me yeah, let me pray Well, thank you for giving us this so wonderful privilege to study the book of eggs and lord, thank you for Using profanity to be your channel of placing to us and to many lord But whatever we have learned so far lord change us with your word and help us to increase our personal intimacy with you As we represent you lord So lord if any one of us is struggling from um spirit of pride I bind and appeal in your name because nobody to you who increase and it's us who decrease Also So lord as we run this race, let us preach you in glory for you alone So lord, please everyone and I said big grace of the session into your loving him. Amen Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you aran Thank you everybody for joining god bless you I mean Yeah, take care. Take care. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. God bless


Okay, we have a couple of working group reports to present to the council. There are four working groups of the council, and one of the requirements of them is to give a report to the full council at least once a year. And two, you're going to hear from two of them today. The first will be the data science working group. And Trey Eidecker is member of that working group and council member, and he's going to give the report. Trey? Great. Thanks, Rudy. So it's my pleasure as a member of that working group to represent that working group and its activities for the past year and a half since it was formed. So first of all, I don't think it'll become or act as a surprise to anyone in this room or in the audience here that data sciences are integral to genomics. And I think what's maybe more surprising to me at least as you think about this is exactly how many points of intersection there are. So I think what helps this argument is, of course, that the human genome itself is perhaps the most fundamental form of biological information slash data. And we, of course, have a constellation of databases hosted by an HGRI to host that reference, as well as, of course, all the common and rare variants that have been found there as we look at populations of genomes. And then insofar as we're interested in linking those to disease, of course that invokes a constellation of clinical databases. And I'd also point out that when you talk about, you know, G as the genotype and P as the phenotype, we also consider that we have these exquisitely complex arrays of databases to hold molecular phenotypes. And so that's all of the other oves in my mind, of course, more than that, but certainly when you're talking about epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, and so on, you're talking about those molecular phenotypes and all of their data repositories. But to me perhaps the most remarkable point to make about data sciences as being interrelative genomics is if you think about this classical, quintessential one would say effort of genetics over the years to link G to P, everything in that box to our first order is data sciences. Whether you're talking about the statistical models of gene association, whether you're talking about calculation of genetic risk scores, whether you're talking about the functional knowledge bases for annotating the gene functions you find in the genome as a way to translating those to phenotypes, much if not all of that is really a core data sciences activity. And then undergirding all of this is of course issues of fair and equitable data access while maintaining patient privacy, orthogonal or complementary issues of data visualization and so on. So data sciences are important and acknowledging that importance, the NHGRI about a year and a half, almost two years ago now, instantiated what is I guess the newest of these council subcommittees called the data sciences working group or the genomic data science working group. We meet just about every two months by WebEx since spring of 2017 and generally, let me first just talk about the general functions of that working group as we've seen it. So generally we meet on the sort of off cycle of council and so certainly when council is not in session issues related to data sciences arise and it's our purview to provide advice on those issues on that ad hoc basis. But I think far beyond filling holes in time is the second bullet point that we're really facilitating a deeper engagement beyond the day and a half of these council meetings of NHGRI with outside expertise on data sciences and in that respect we interface nicely to an internal NHGRI staff set of folks led by Valentina Francesco, which is called the data sciences focus group. So that's the internal body and we're the external advisory committee is one way to think about it. Now of course data sciences are critical to NHGRI but of course they're also critical to many if not all of the other NIH institutes and so we try to provide advice when necessary on how particular issues of NHGRI are complementary or synergistic with issues of other institutes. And in thinking about all of this of course our mandate is pretty broad and we sort of have to find three different broad areas where we can provide advice. One is data management and storage. Two is data usage analysis visualization and so on. And then three is data policy. And these issues of data management usage and policy have different considerations whether you're talking about basic science or clinical practice, aka genomic medicine. Who are we? Who is the working group at present? So we are currently nine members of outside experts. Some of us, Trey and Mark, are current members of council currently seated around the table. There are also former members of council, some previous ad hoc and ad hoc members. It's been a particular pleasure to work with Nancy Cox over the past few meetings worth of the working group. And also on those Webex calls are NHGRI representatives and I already mentioned Valentina and of course Eric, Carolyn and Allison. So all of us are convening every two months on those Webex calls. Okay, so what are some specific topics that we covered over the past just about two years, year and a half? So the first issue we tackled was to deal with recommendations and maybe hone down some recommendations from the last NHGRI Informatics Workshop. So that last Informatics Workshop was now two years ago in September 2016, although we started discussing it just a few months after that. And one of the sort of pervasive suggestions we got from a number of outside opinions at that workshop was that with relation to algorithm and methods development we needed to support more of it here and it should be investigated or initiated because you wanted to let many flowers bloom as opposed to being more prescriptive about things. And so what, after some discussion, what that led NHGRI to do is as you heard from Eric's talk this morning, release three different program announcements, which were investigator initiated announcements, if you understand the PAR designation. And those are the R21 mechanism, there's the R01 mechanism and the SBIR mechanism, all PARs that really started with that Informatics Workshop filtered through our work group and then were announced by Eric this morning. The second point that we dealt with was the formation and eventual award, a creation of NHGRI's Genomic Cloud Platform, they call ANVL, which stands for Analysis, Visualization and Informatics Lab Space. There's been a lot of discussion about the cloud and the reasons for putting genomes and other data in the cloud. One point that is often made, things always boil down to just the number of bits, so if you think about the number of bits you need to represent the genomic data, that's largely far in excess of the number of bits you need to represent tools. And so the idea, or at least one of the main reasons to have a cloud is that you ship the bits representing your tools to the much larger buckets of bits representing your data as opposed to what most people do nowadays, which is you download massive data to your laptop and run your bespoke tools on those data. And so that's just gotten started, and we'll see how that develops over the next year. Moving right along, we also had a lot of discussion about the importance of model organism databases in human genome interpretation, owing primarily to the huge benefit of evolution in sort of separating and distinguishing gene function, NHGRI has long supported the mods, so-called mods, the model organism databases. And one challenge that we helped an NHGRI deal with was this challenge that as the mods had evolved, there's of course a lot of commonality between these various databases, but they were independent awards. And so there was a desire to sort of seek more synergy as those different databases developed in the future, and that led to creation of this additional mechanism or award, I should say, called the Alliance of Genome Resources, or the AGR. And this takes the specific activities that have been identified as most common to the mods, to mouse genome database, saccharomyces genome database, so on and so forth, and puts them under one roof, so to speak. You heard from Eric already this morning about some activities related to the genomic data sharing policy implementation, and we certainly advised on that. We also provided advice in this third bullet here on the Trends NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science, led by John Lorsch from NIGMS. So one of the interesting tenets of this NIH, or Trends NIH Strategic Plan, is it sort of bends data sciences into three categories, speaking broadly. They define databases, they define knowledge bases, and they define analysis tools. And when you think about how those three categories intersect NHGRI's programs, in many cases it's very clear what's a knowledge base, and what's the database, and what's the tool, and in some cases it's gray. And so we've, I think, been of some utility to NHGRI in advising in specific cases how to bend these things and how to think about them. Vs IV, this Trends NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science. Okay, so that's a report on what we largely did for the past year, year and a half. Let me now turn to sort of the next year to 18 months of activities as we see them. Now, of course, we'd love to hear feedback on what you think we should be thinking about. The first cluster of topics that we've planned to discuss on our calls coming to a WebEx near you soon are all related to helping NHGRI plan in this strategic planning process called Vision 2020, you've heard a lot about already. The first issue really relates to what is data sciences mean to NHGRI? Can we help them better define that, especially Vs IV, these different interests running across NIH institutes? What is data science in our space here and what is it not? And what are the areas of overlap where this institute can partner with other institutes in supporting data science? Those would be the three large categories to place data sciences aspects in. And the hope here is by the end of this year, if not sooner, our committee would have had some recommendations emerge for what is the kernel of data sciences mean to NHGRI, what is the part that we here own the most exclusively and then what parts are certainly core interests but can be done in partnership with other institutes. That would be very useful. The other two cross-cutting issues on the slide, bullet points two and three, are actually not within or are not between NIH institutes there within NHGRI itself. And so the first of those, this second bullet point here relates to a fact that may or may not be known to some of you, which is that if you look at the way in NHGRI supports informatics in the institute currently, there are different programs, different streams, they're called. And there is a standalone informatics program, funding stream that does support a lot of informatics like the mods like Anvil, I believe. But there's also a lot of informatics support and support for data sciences coming out of other funding streams and programs, certainly ENCODE, Centers for Common Disease Genomics, many other centers and programs have their own columns of data sciences, data tools they're developing in some cases, databases they're developing, and those are currently separate. Now there's lots of reasons to think or to argue that might be the best, the most optimal solution for supporting informatics. You can also think that that might not be the most optimal solution for supporting data sciences, and that's what we might discuss in the coming 12 months. And the final point here about the cross-cutting nature of data sciences is between the council working groups themselves, so where the data sciences working group, they're going to hear from a few other, at least one other working group just after me, I believe. And there is also, of course, the genomic medicine working group, so if you think about what typically would you assign in your mind to data sciences, well, that would be things like data storage and analysis, which, you know, the usual serial train of events follows things like data generation. But I think many of us have long appreciated the dangers of thinking about things, you know, sequentially like that, from generation of data to its storage and analysis, and the best point, of course, is this famous quote, I think that's not surprising to many of you. Made 80 years ago, now, by Ronald Fisher, to consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post-mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of. So we need to make sure that our working group moving forward is not simply downstream of the recommendations of other working groups in terms of what data are being recommended, but that there's some interaction. And so that will probably result in a joint WebEx or some interaction between working groups, at least that is our proposal. Final points and particular areas of focus where we think we can make an impact in the next year, and again, we'd love to hear your thoughts. So I think it's not lost upon any of us that outside of genomics, but in data sciences at large, at large, there has been a tremendous impact of artificial intelligence and deep learning in particular in many, many, many different domains, not least of which are things like game playing, the Go Champion has been beat, vanquished, the self-driving cars are on the horizon. If you type cat into Google Images, you get 1,000 cats. And that's impressive, it turns out. So to what degree can we leverage these really huge strides in machine learning for the G2P problem and actually many aspects of genome sciences? That's happening, I don't want to suggest it's not, but we think there are and maybe lots of opportunities from a programmatic point of view for encouraging developments at that intersection. There's been a lot of interest in discussing ways we can further foster education and training opportunities. Again, speaking of machine learning, many of our best data scientists in the US are currently not going to academic labs working on genome research. They're going to, yes, you guessed it, Google, IBM, Amazon, so on and so forth. Is that the way it should be or is there a better way and is there something we can do to really harness that power and those particular sets of expertise in our discipline here? And then finally, a last point that we've seen on the horizon here is we probably would like to recommend another data science workshop since that one in fall of 2016. But given we just had that one in 2016, we thought that there might be more specific focus areas related to data sciences that one might invest effort in. And here are just a couple of suggestions, but these really are very ideas to kind of just state the intention. One might contemplate a workshop in visualization methods. It could be even a focused number of individuals brought together for that purpose. Community engagement in terms of data sharing and privacy, enabling specific groups with data and tools would be another interesting workshop. But we're open to questions and suggestions. So with that, I will stop and turn the floor back over. Thank you. OK, thank you, Trey. Questions? I'll start off. I just want to make a couple of comments. First of all, go back a couple of slides to the quote by Fisher.  I am so honored, Eric. I just wanted to let you know. I can't possibly live that up or down, but thank you. Thank you. That's circular glasses. That's all you would need. I just said Eric's glasses. Oh, yeah, that's right. I agree. So you can take this off now, and I'll not embarrass you. But I want to make two comments. One clarification, I just wanted to point out, you referred to this internal group, this focus group. I just wanted to emphasize that that's affiliated with the strategic planning process. It's not a long-term internal group, but it's important because it ties into what you were talking about. In the last few bullet points. Exactly, is that there is this apparatus that we have of an internal group that's part of the strategic planning process to carry along the data science programmatic discussions and would be the one to help organize that workshop and so forth. But the other point I wanted to make, and it was one of your bolts, you don't have to find the slide. But I really want to emphasize, as you pointed out, how this working group is helping me and helping the Institute sort of find our place within the NIH community. And I really want to emphasize that the entire, and Council's heard me talk about this multiple times, so I just want to emphasize the point here, that the entire NIH data science ecosystem is in a state of flux. I don't mean that to sound negative. It's because it's for all these reasons that there's a lot of catch up, but it's just there's so much bubbling action going on around data science across the NIH. And so lots of things are happening, including at the leadership level in terms and also in terms of initiatives and Common Fund and all sorts of things, even in artificial intelligence, where in Director's Report I talked about this major workshop that the NIH director just hosted and how he's setting up a new working group of his advisory group on artificial intelligence. So there's a lot going on. And of course, our institute is relevant, is not more relevant. I mean, we're right on the crosshairs of this because of genomic data. And many of us, myself, multiple people at the institute get called into trans-NIH committees to help move this along. And so it's been a very helpful working group for me to just get input to help us, just because a lot of times we're being asked to give input so as to have this group go to every couple of months and tell them the latest developments and get their input is extremely valuable. And part of it is we are gonna have to define, I actually think NIH is gonna get much more situated in data science and in all the different areas we're talking about. And then I think it will be important for NHGRI to define what we need to do because we can't do everything and much more is needed than what we could provide. But I think this is gonna be a very rapidly evolving area as NIH gets situated and then helping us define what we should be doing across that landscape. So I just wanted to really emphasize that point. I think, I don't know if it's for your committee or for the workshop, but I think it would be beneficial to have a glossary of data science terms from informatics, bioinformatics, computational biology, AI, machine learning. Because I think there's a lot of confusion or they're used sometimes as synonyms meaning different things. Well, and I've tried very hard not to define data science as part of my talk. That's the goal for the next 12 months. But great idea. Jeff. Yeah, thanks, Triatt. I think there's a lot of excitement about the AI concepts and I know a lot of activities across the NIH. I don't know whether folks are tuning in yet to the workforce issues there. I think across society, a lot of discussion about who's gonna be losing jobs or what's gonna be happening with self-driving cars and such. But I think there's probably ought to be on somebody's plate at the NIH to really be thinking about how it's gonna impact how science is conducted in terms of the workforce issues. Triatt, there's one quick question. In your last, I think it was your last slide or close to the last slide, you talked about your concept of, there it is, visualization, you sort of brushed that and it wasn't clear what you had in mind relative to the exploration that area. Yeah, and maybe Valentina can comment here as well, but this came out of, among other places, the workshop that just recently happened in January, which was, I'm gonna butcher the name of that workshop, the variant interpretation workshop, am I getting that wrong? Sorry? Genome to phenotype. So some of us just attended a January workshop here where surprisingly, there was a huge discussion that happened organically around data visualization as a very separate, but almost equally important issue to data analysis. And so I think we'll try to debrief from that set of recommendations and that's gonna get written up as well. Yeah, anything else to add? It really, the idea came from this workshop that we had like three weeks ago. So we are, we're going to explore what, if anything, we need to do to focus discussions on this particular topic. So happy to update you when we're ready. Aviv. On kind of the two bullet points, both leveraging advances and education and training, I want to put in a pitch for jamborees for events that are relatively low cost but where you bring people together, you give them a data set and a set of challenge problems and you ask them to start solving them together over a period of two to three days and then they can go home and continue and so on. We've seen that both in institutional settings and in the HCA being a huge energizing force and it draws people into these problems and it lets them then sustain their relationships and it also helps you understand what the good problems are to really work on as a community right now. And the generation of the data sets is something that NGRI can really energize its base of grantees who usually would be quite interested in engaging with all these AI slash machine learning folks because sometimes they have a hard time getting kind of to the next level in the analytics. So you're suggesting that some of the data already being generated under some program could be nominated for such a jamboree basically? Yeah, and the program might not be generating precisely those, but it would be quite willing to do that. I'm thinking, you know, ENCODE and SEXSES and so on where you have some room for maneuver, not necessarily humongous room for maneuver, but some where you have a big engine for data production. So it's a relatively small investment is one way in which this can be done. Yeah, these are really low-cost investments and they give very big benefits. We've had discussions about that with other aspects of an age. So I think that's a worthwhile thing to do. And I have zero vested interest in it. It's not something to get a grant from or something like that, it's just an observation. Okay, thank you very much, Trey. Let's do one more. There's still like we have a couple of hours to go.


And moving on to entertainment, the grand finale of the 14th edition of Beauty of Africa International pageant held at Dr. Gabriel Okara Cultural Center Yanigwa Biosha State. The pageant, which held the theme value all women, received over 150 entries screened down to 12 contestants who made it to the camp where Mbani and English and Literary Studies graduates of Niger Delta University eventually emerged to winner the crowned queen. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.