My name is Liza Mundy. I'm a program director here at New America, which as you know is a non-partisan, non-profit think tank and civic enterprise. I direct the Bread Winning and Caregiving Program, which is our sort of fancy word for work and family. And the purpose of my program is to help shape policy and help us move toward a world where both men and women can fulfill their Bread Winning and Caregiving responsibilities more easily than many people find it possible to do now. We have a very exciting, very distinguished panel here today to talk about social policy families, how better to help families, and to talk about the President's budget and some of the visions and markers laid down in that budget and moving forward. It's going to be a high-minded and distinguished event, but I thought if you don't mind, if it doesn't seem too facetious, that I would start with sort of a low culture reference and talk briefly about something that I like to think of as the Jetsons fallacy. I'm dating myself with this reference, but there was a popular cartoon in the 1960s that you may remember called The Jetsons, and I think I watched it fairly religiously because I remember it pretty vividly. And it was a cartoon that envisioned a family of the future, a family that was 100 years hence, so it was like 2062 or something like that. This family was of course living in space because we'll all be living in space in 2060-something. They of course had flying cars because we're going to have those any minute, and they were living in elevated buildings. They had robot housekeepers, you know, all the accoutrement that technology is going to give us any day now, so everything had changed. You may not remember this, there was a two-hour work week, so George Jetson did go to the office, but he only had to work an hour a day, two days a week. Technology was also going to set us free and give us a lot of free time, and I know that that is how you all experience technology in your lives. The one thing that was not going to change though was the family. You may remember that The Jetsons are a nuclear family. George Jetson is the family breadwinner. Jane Jetson, there was always a sequence in which he tried to give her some money in the morning to go shopping and she would take his entire wallet because that's what women do. And so even though everything had changed, the composition of the family had not changed and apparently would never change. We know now that that sort of nuclear family of the 1950s and 60s was in fact a historical blip. Historians like Stephanie Coons have shown effectively that in fact that was not the way that the human family was always made up. And we know now that it was sort of an artifact of that era just to sort of quote some statistics. According to pure research in 1960, 37% of households included a married couple raising their own kids like The Jetsons. Today only 16% of households fit that description. In 1980, 61% of kids younger than 18 were living with heterosexual parents in their first marriage now less than half are. So families are changing. Families will continue to change. In many cases that's a good and wonderful thing as people have found their way into relationships that meet their needs and desires. The Jetsons also I don't think any talk of same sex marriage would have really resonated in the 60s and we've had that very very positive development. So many of the changes I think have enabled people to have more choice and freedom in their lives. But I think some of the changes in the family, 40% now families are headed by a female breadwinner, which is also a great thing in many instances. But in other instances, it's an artifact of the fact that high high paying industrial jobs of the 1950s and 60s that were available to men are no longer so available. So many of the economic stresses that have materialized in the past couple of decades have shaped and affected the family. In some cases in ways that have been not so positive. But our social policies I think are still rooted in the ideas of the 1960s that that you're going to have a nuclear family with a male breadwinner and a stay at home or part time working wife. And I think one of the challenges today and it's a big challenge is to acknowledge the changes that have taken place in the family and to update and coordinate the social policies that serve families and affect families. And it's easy to identify social policies like welfare or you know the child care development block grant that directly and specifically are designed to affect families. But there are many other policies having to do with education or even small business that affect families and family formation as well. And one of the things that we've been endeavoring to do at New America is to bring together many of our programs to really talk about this. How do you think about a whole range of social policy with families in mind and family well being and family formation. We're fortunate to have funding from the Annie Casey Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation to engage in a really rigorous conversation about how we can update and coordinate our social policies to recognize changes in families to support families in all their diverse forms and to holistically address the family so that needs of parents and children are met simultaneously if possible or at least so that social families serving children think about the needs of other generations as well. There's a lot of talk these days about a two generation approach to families or in some cases a three generation approach at any rate a multi generational approach and we'd like to be part of that conversation as well.


So I'm going to get started here, I guess, so I'm going to call this meeting to order and yeah, there's no general business and appearances or anything at this meeting. So is there a... So the only item really is to review the C-Managers contract and anticipating that we're going to a consecutive session. Is there anything any folks would like to say or would you just go? Yeah, Jack, go ahead. We probably still should approve the agenda. Oh, that's probably fair. Is there any changes folks would like to make or would anticipate through the agenda? Uh-oh, uh-oh, well, man, it's getting unhappy here. Okay, so with that, we'll consider the agenda approved and any thoughts on going into executive session? Yes, Jack. We're soon to one BSA, section 313A3. I move that we go into executive session to discuss the employment or evaluation of a public official or employee. Oh, second. Okay, there's a second. Oh, and before you vote on it, you might want to also add the section on contracts. Oh, yeah. So I think that's one BSA 317C15 and you do need to have a finding. Oh, right. So we should find that we should go into executive session. Oh, so this is the two motion one where we first need to move. Right. So I move to find the premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body or a person involved at a substantial disadvantage relating to contracts. And that's, that's what you meant to say the first time, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's right. Okay. And Donna, you're okay with that? Yeah, I'm seconding it. Okay. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And opposed. All right. And further motion. Move. We go into executive session pursuant to one BSA 313A3. And is there a second? Okay. There is a motion and a second for the discussion. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And yes, Jack. And that motion includes having the city manager be in the executive session. And Donna, you agree? Yes. Let's just go, let's just vote on that one more time. Everybody okay with that? Or I'm sorry. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Great. All right. So all right. So we're going to go into executive session. One possibility is that we come out here and do have a motion to make, although we, we also might not.  Cameron's Cameron's Cameron is planning to, I don't about the work of a camera's planning to be here and stay on in case. Okay. This line will stay open as long as you'll need. If you need to come back and make a motion. Okay. Well, we'll at least come back and adjourn in public. So yes, may not all be awake by the end of that. We'll see. All right. So I'm just talking about this guy. We'll all be awake guys. All right. So okay. All right. So just to make sure we're clear about that. All right. Well, we will see you all, some of you on the other side and Cameron and Archimedia will see you. Thanks. Right. Jekyll figured out. Okay. Is there a motion to come out of executive session? So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. So we're back in regular session and we are not going to take any action tonight, but we did come to an agreement and we are going to have that written up for approval on the next week's agenda. So you all can expect to see that there. And yeah, otherwise that is the end of our business this evening. So without objection, I am going to adjourn this meeting. Sorry, Jack, that you missed the end. Thank you, everybody. Have an excellent night. Thanks. Good night. Good night.


The World Health Organization recently suggested that we should lose the term social distancing because they suggested that we need to be physically distant whilst actually building social closeness and emotional closeness and I just wanted to visit that as a really important point right now. So I'm doing a lot of work at the moment thinking about the wider reopening of schools and how do we create a nurturing environment during social distancing and that terms become a real sort of bugbear for me because we don't want social distance we want physical distance and physical safety whilst building emotional and social closeness and building emotional and social safety and actually that term social distancing I think is somewhat getting in the way because we think we need to be distant in every sense of the word and we hear that term again and again and again social distancing and I think it's reinforcing not quite the right message and yeah it's just words and maybe it doesn't really matter it's how we interpret it that counts but I do think that when you're hearing it all the time all the time all the time it's really reinforcing quite a negative thing. Many of us as this period has continued begin to feel a little bit more isolated a little bit more alone and actually finding ways to build those connections to build social closeness despite physical distance is a really important and crucial thing in my opinion so I guess I put it out there is a challenge and a question do you think that the term social distancing is okay and regardless of what you think of the words how do we go about building that social closeness that social connectedness whilst maintaining a safe physical distance what does that actually look like in practice I'd love to hear your ideas please leave a comment


وصلى الله على السيدنا وحبيب قلوبنا، وشفيع نفوسنا أب القاسم محمد، على آل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومين، لا سيما بقية الله روحي وأرواح العالمين لتراب مقدمه الفداء بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم رب شرح لي صدري ويسر لي أمري، أحل الأقدة من لساني يفقه قولي، ما بعد سلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته ورحمة الله وبركاته هؤلاء الآخرين لديهم و هذا ما يمكننا أن نرى not to justify this particular action but however trying to understand the justice of Allah سبحانه وتعالى means that we need to understand how Allah سبحانه وتعالى has the system in place the reward system how Allah gives punishment prosecute and how Allah has mercy on other things how your actions may elevate you how your action may degrade you how it all works and it all starts within ourselves how we install in the eyes of Allah سبحانه وتعالى as we know the better we are many people come and say you know what that and give me an example people come and they say well Allah has given me many calamities number one let's justify it if you've got a calamity people might find sickness a calamity but they don't look at the inner mercy of Allah سبحانه وتعالى chapter two of the quran verse 285 it says Allah will not burden a soul more than it can handle so number one we know that Allah will not give you a test unless you know that you will pass it unless you know that that burden will not be the end of you that you will contain this you are up for this particular burden and you will surpass it as in رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم once once a man came to him and says oh رسول الله and look at this and this is something we need to look at especially as the followers of أهل البيت comes towards the prophet of islam he says oh prophet of islam i dedicate myself to you and i in front of you bear witness that i have love towards you i love you oh رسول الله look at the response of رسول الله he says then prepare yourself for poverty استعدل الفقر he says prepare yourself for poverty he says what else do you believe in what else do you love oh man he says i also love علي ابناء بطالب he says look at what he says he says for me if you love me prepare for poverty prepare to give from your wealth prepare to give towards those that are less that are more needy prepare for poverty as we know the person that with her wealth islam grew as خديجة and she didn't have even have a shroud a kefan for her that's the amount or what came towards poverty in those lands so the prophet tells him he says if you love me prepare yourself he says i love علي ابناء بطالب what does he say he says استعدل البلاء prepare for calamities and as we know الله سبحانه وتعالى says what about calamities he says the more Allah loves a particular servant he gives them more and more calamities so the more you look at yourself and think to yourself well Allah has given me this particular if we want to call it calamity other people look at it as a sense of mercy people look at sickness saying this is a sickness and it's something that Allah has given me as a burden other people look at sickness saying what from our حديث he says they look at it as mercy why he says because every time i have a sickness or an illness the hadith say that Allah is removing slowly slowly from my sins cleansing me of my sins and if i don't have any sins people come and say well i don't have any sins i prayed i fasted our حديث say if you don't have any sins and that's very minimal unless you are if you don't have any sins Allah from the sickness and the illness elevates you elevates you so when we look at that in instance if we look at the justice and we think we can devour what Allah سبحانه وتعالى has instilled for us we'll always fail because we don't see the bigger picture when we read in ramadhan time and time again and telling Allah سبحانه وتعالى i complain to you whenever i make towards you دعاء and supplication and he says it's as if to say what that i complain towards you whenever i make dua and you do not give me that which i want however i have knowledge and i know for a fact that whatever you have refrained from me may be better from me for your knowledge of what comes from circumstances what comes in the end note where i will attain a position you have a knowledge over it now how can we bury it down inshaAllah it's taken much of the time and i have to complete this lecture for tonight and inshaAllah we can continue next week with the topic of inshaAllah the justice of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and gaining an understanding of however i want to end by mentioning something and inshaAllah we'll look at عليبنا بطالب in depth to look at the justice of Allah on earth to look at the representative to show us what knowledge of justice will instill into a person if you have knowledge of الله and have knowledge that Allah is watching عليبنا بطالب has a beautiful statement when they ask him how is it that you've attained this this greatness he says look he says two things justice in the words of عليبنا بطالب i want to mention two things that he says that's well if we apply only these two things to our lives look how much we will grow in the eyes of Allah two things of عليبنا بطالب he says number one i have an understanding that people are of two types and there is a third but mostly of these two either they worship الله in fear of his heaven or in in sorry in greed of his heaven or in fear of his health fire so for example i want the bounties of heaven i want for example come say i want well i want the rivers in paradise i want these houses that Allah promises i want the حور العين for example so he prays he fasts what wanting that particular position wanting that particular position other people say you know what i've read much in the Quran about the عذاب that the people go in health fire how their skins will burn and we replaced and burn and be replaced so i feel that therefore what i'm going to pray towards Allah so he may take me away from this particular punishment i leave the time says but i found that Allah is worthy to be worshiped therefore i have worshiped him a third level now let's look at the second thing if we put this into our lives that we know the rank of الله سبحانه وتعالى how to view الله سبحانه وتعالى how to know Allah's names and his bounties and his reflections through his reflections on earth which are the أهل البيت who begin to understand Allah in a greater light once we understand these people and the second thing i want to look at علي ابنة ابي طالب says a beautiful statement about how every single action he does he says whatever action i do i look at الله سبحانه وتعالى before during and after before i commit this action or before i go towards this action i look is Allah happy with this action that i'm about to do or go towards if i find yes that Allah is happy i go towards it during the action something might have changed knowledge might have changed perseverance might have changed direction might have changed i look at Allah during the action is Allah happy with what i'm doing and after after i've done what i've done is Allah happy with me then have i when i've done this particular act have i increased in Allah's point of view or have i increased in liya for example have i increased in pride in in showing off towards the people i look at Allah after as well people might look at no this is just an act that doesn't have a before or doesn't have an after however if you look at the depth of it that there's three different dimensions if not more that's just what علي ابنة ابي طالب mentions towards us he says i look at Allah before during and after and if he's happy throughout and i am let's try to apply that to our lives let's try to take that concept and apply it to our lives do we look at Allah سبحانه وتعالى before any actions because by god if we do we would not commit any atrocities we would not commit any sin we'd be infallible that's why Allah puts a significance on remembering Allah سبحانه وتعالى remembering death remembering the resurrection remembering the day of judgment mentioned many times in the القرآن رمائدهم of the days of Allah إمام مهدي حج الله تعالى فرجه شريف he watches us and he has to have every friday our actions are portrayed in front of him look at what we've done that's good portrayed what have we done that's bad portrayed he sees who we are and that's why he's waiting 313 people can't come and arise but they may be of the companions of our إمام that's been awaited the whole world awaits him we cocoon him just to the شعر school of thought the whole world is awaiting the return of the Imam people that are not from the faith of Ahl al-Bayt will come towards him christians will come towards this message will become shia on his hand knowing the position of him and his justice putting hand in hand with the Imam of our time that's why we have to better ourselves and إن شاء الله we can elaborate more so next week by looking at الله سبحانه وتعالى's messenger on earth the prophet of islam and how we can learn from his justice and how he had justice in his actions because it's one aspect knowing الله سبحانه وتعالى and his justice and it's another applying justice to our lives we can look at it theoretically but the importance is the practical application how إن شاء الله next week we can look at how we can take from the lives of the Imam's take from the life of the prophet of islam and learn step by step everything that they've applied to their life with the justice and the knowledge of الله سبحانه وتعالى we want to take exactly what they've done and we want to do it in our lives and we want to see how much our lives change from that aspect إن شاء الله and I end on that note إن شاء الله إن شاء الله I give way to our D.Shair to give us wise words إن شاء الله and enlighten us with his wisdom but I end tonight and pray to Allah on that note that he may increase us in knowledge and understanding of Allah's mercy and Allah's justice so that we can إن شاء الله live up to the expectation of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and be elevated in his eyes صورة المباركة الفاتحة before the three of your loudest صلوات على محمد


So welcome. My name is André, I'm the new assistant professor in vegetable cropping system in the department of heart culture here at Auburn University. And my talk today will be a little bit of how to use soil moisture sensors to improve vegetable production. I put this chart as to show you that most of our growers, we know the benefits of irrigation. However, we have new tools that are available for us to use it, like soil moisture sensors. And that's the case I would like to make that we might be using old tools that will not be as beneficial as the new available to see so I want to show you. I want to show you guys how to properly use that and what are the benefits that those tools are bringing. But before we start talking about the soil moisture sensors, first I will need you guys to understand what are the irrigation scheduling that we have available.  I would like to talk about the irrigation schedule because this is how you're going to properly apply water for your crop and regardless of crop vegetable nursery, or even a real crop. So currently we have six ranks of irrigation schedule. Those those ranks, they are according to the how water is applied. So the first rank is apply water whenever, which means you're going to apply water whenever you feel that it's necessary.  Oh, I need to apply water. That's not recommended at all. The second rank is the rank, which is ranked as rank and one is the few and appearance method. This is a USTA method offering. So this is a method that developed back in the 80s, where you're going to compare the color of your soil with a USTA chart. And by seeing the color of the soil, your soil type and the color you're going to compare with the photos you're going to determine how much water you have in your soil and then you can apply water to replace whatever was lost whatever water was lost. So that's also by your feeling. So it's not recommended. The third method which is ranked at two is the systematic irrigation method. This is the most common one used by most of the growers where you're going to apply water using irrigation panel. So you have that irrigation panel where you're going to program your water to apply your irrigation system to apply water every day for the same time or every day for the same volume. That is very common. Most of the growers who irrigate have this system and it's very common for irrigate in houses where you need to irrigate your grass, but also in your vegetable fields where you have a drip tape, you just program to irrigate everything. This is okay. However, most of the times does not account for rainfall events, they're not account for weather conditions, and that's when it comes to a problem. Finally, rank three, four and five are the one that we usually recommend because you are applying water based on the crop water demand, which is our rank three, or based on the soil water status method, which is ranking four, or a water budget method where you account the crop water demand and the soil water status method, which is ranked five. And today we're going to be talking about rank three, four and five. So let's start about the crop water demanded method, what it is also called crop evapotranspiration, the crop water demanded method, it's a simply calculation of multiplying a reference evapotranspiration and a crop coefficients, but I don't want to come to a calculation, I want you guys to see what I'm talking about. So imagine you have a field, a field, a corn field, where you have your plants there, and then suddenly you apply water, this water can be applied as rain, or as irrigation, as water applied, it permeate down in the soil profile, it's uptake your plant. But water is also lost by evaporation from the soil. So that is evaporation. When you have water loss by the plant, it's transpiration. When you combine evaporation and transpiration, you have your crop evapotranspiration or your crop water demands. So basically that is one method. You need to account how much water is lost by the environment, which is your soil, or how much water is lost by your plant. How are you going to determine those values? Luckily in Alabama, we have the albany, like we have the mesonet. The mesonet will provide you the reference evapotranspiration or your ETO. So based on your location on the stage, you just select your weather station, and you're going to have that information for you. Once you selected your reference evapotranspiration, which is a daily information in each inches of water, or which means inches of water per day, you just need to multiply by crop coefficient. The crop coefficient is already calculated by our crop, and it's according to the stage of the crop development. Here I put the crop coefficients for most of the common vegetable crops, from bell pepper to yellow squash going through watermelon, carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, most of our vegetable crop. And how are you going to determine which crop coefficient to use? It's according to crop coefficient in the initial stage of crop development, in the mid stage of crop development, and in the end of your crop development. So basically in this chart here we have the growth. So crop coefficients, based on when you transplant your plants in the field, or you have seed transplant when you have germination, it's initial. So in the case of bell pepper, 0.6, so you're just going to multiply your reference evapotranspiration from the mesonet by 0.6.  Or in the end of the season when you have done your peak, but you still have more harvesting, plants are just up taking water for maintenance, so you're going to multiply it by 0.9. It's easy like that. You just need to check online, and then you're going to multiply it by a crop coefficient based on the growth of your crop. But how are you going to use that? So you can use the crop water demand method to calculate water daily. It's more demanding because you need to check your daily water coefficients, your reference evapotranspiration, sorry. You can do that weekly where you're going to have a sum of your entire week, and you're going to spread it over that week, or you can do historically if you get an historical weather data from last year, and you can apply this year. So let's see what's happening if we are growing watermelon in the spring season in South Alabama. If you plant March 1, March 15, April 1 and April 15, those are the curves you're going to have off water demand in inches of water per week. So let's just give another example, because here we have four planting dates, but if you have an average of those four planting dates, you're going to have exactly the amount of water that it's required as an average. So let's say in the first week, we just transplant our plant. We need about only 0.3 inches of water in that week because plants are still small, we don't have much water requirement, so we're just going to have like low water demand. Next week, plants grow a little bit more, so we need 0.36 inches of water. That's just basically on whatever is the plant is losing and how much water your environment is losing as well. But then you have a peak of your growth because our temperatures start to raise, you have more water demand by the plants, they start to grow their vines, they start to flowering, so that's when you have a peak of water. And from the week three to week 10 is when it's more critical for you to apply water. So you're going to apply from 0.9 inches of water up to 0.34 inches of water. So that's what you're going to consider. That volume of water from 1.02 or 1.14, you're going to be applying during the entire week. If you have a drip irrigation system, then you can apply it daily so you are spoon feeding your plants. But if you have an overhead and center pivot or even stationary gas, you don't need to apply water every day. That's going to increase your cost for electricity. So you can do, you can spread it in two or three applications. The only thing you need to do is divide this number by two or three, which are the number of applications. And you just apply that amount for that week. You can do that every Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, or you can do that Monday, Thursday and Sundays, whatever it's easier on feet on your scheduling during the growth of your crop. But then we are growing now cabbage in the fall season in North Alabama. So you have a decrease of water consumption. Usually I would ask you guys, why do we have that reduction in water demand? But just going straight to the point, water demand is reduced in the fall season. And it doesn't mean that water is for cabbage. It doesn't mean that it's only for cabbage. It's going to be for all the crops. The reason why is because when you enter in the fall season, you are coming from warmer conditions of the end of the summer to the winter to the cold conditions of the fall, which means that you don't have much water being lost by the environment. You don't have evaporation. Remember in the first slide where we have this the sweet corn losing water by evaporation. So here in the fall, you don't have that much water being lost. So your water is not, the water is not much required. It doesn't mean your crop doesn't need water. It's mean you don't have water being lost by the environment. On the other hand, in the spring, you come from the cold conditions to warmer conditions. And that's when you have more water. So just keep in mind, you probably will be irrigating more in the spring and the summer during the fall, but it doesn't mean your crop require less water. It means you are losing less water to the environment by evaporation. So, if you guys understood what is the crop water demanded method. That's how you can do that. If you have any question you can just contact me we can come through that or you can easily go to the mesonet and calculate how much water your crop required, based on the crop that I presented here. So moving gears to the soil water status method, which is the focus of our talk today, I'm going to be talking about how to properly use soil moisture sensors. But before we start doing that, I need you guys to understand a little bit of soil physics, but I don't take it wrong. It's very simple. So what I need you guys to understand are three main characteristics of your soil. Fertilization, field capacity and permanent to wilting point.  Field capacity is when your soil is full of water and is the maximum water your soil can hold, while permanent to wilting point is when your soil is dry enough that your plants cannot update your water.  When you get that sponge there and you put a sponge under the water, and you remove it, it's leaking. When that sponge is leaking, that is saturation. However, when you squeeze it, and there is no water more coming out of that sponge that your field capacity. Finally, when that sponge is dry enough that is hard and you can break it in half. That is your permanent to wilting point. So now that you know that basically by field capacity, the water available for your plant means you have field capacity is between field capacity and permanent to wilting point. And in this chart here, we have the soil moisture content for each type of soil, where you're going to have your field capacity, the top line here. That is your permanent to wilting point, the dot line in the bottom. So everything below field capacity is an available water. Everything above field capacity is saturation and everything between field capacity and permanent to wilting point is your available water. And that's what I need you guys to know what is field capacity and permanent to wilting point. Now that you know those characteristics of soil, and you can identify what is your field capacity and your permanent to wilting point. So in this chart, we can start talk about soil moisture sensors. So much your sensors, there are a ray of availability for you guys, you have as cheap as 1050 as $50 with tensiometers, or $2,000 as the ones that you can control your irrigation by your phone, and they are very accurate. And some examples that I put here were to install and how to install that those are TDRs, and those are more they can go on store are very good and reliable soil moisture sensors. So they are available for you to use. I don't want to promote any company and not talking about some water sensors, but teach you guys how to interpret the data. And that's why I put that graphic here, although a little bit busy. It's easy to understand what is going on in this graph. So here we have volumetric water content in the y axis in days after planting. Here is our rainfall event. And I'm going to explain what are those lines and bars in your graph in this graph. So the bars are our rainfall events. Our blue line here represent our field capacity. Our red line here represent our permanent wilting point and everything between our field capacity and permanent wilting point is the available water for the plant. The orange line here represent a threshold that we must to determine in order to tweak our irrigation event. So usually for vegetables, it's 70 to 80% of our available water. For row crops, you can be more flexible because they have a deeper root system. So you can go for 60 to 50% of your available water. But for vegetables, we need to be precise. So that's why we have 80%. So this is 80% of our available water, which is the difference between field capacity and permanent wilting point. So the black line represent our soil moisture. So we start our season, we have two rainfall events, we have a boom of our soil moisture content above our field capacity, no need to irrigate. Water is start to being uptick by the plants or percolation, and then we have an irrigation event. Finally, we have a 0.4 inch of water applied a little increase of water we are good and then water moving down again by upticking off plants, then we irrigate 0.4, 0.8 inches of water we pick at our moisture up to our field capacity. We are keeping our moisture, which is the black line between our threshold and our field capacity, make sure that water is plenty for plants to uptake. Rainfall events are common in our mainly not right now during the summer you see how much water we have so we're going to have peaks of water content. This means we're going to need to terminate our irrigation for some time until we have the water, the soil moisture coming back for our ideal condition. And here, when we don't have rainfall events, or only one rainfall event, it was perfectly for us to manage our moisture in ideal conditions. So that's when we have an ideal condition of soil moisture in the field for a vegetable crop or for any crop where we can control our moisture between field capacity and our threshold, which I also call readily available water for the plants. So how should it be? So that period of days here is demonstrated in our field bed here. So imagine we have a vegetable bed here, six foot center to center with a drip line in the middle so this black dot represents our drip tape and what's going to happen during the day and during the night. So during the night, we don't have much water going on, but we have irrigate at 8am. So every day we irrigate at 8am, water is being applied and uptake by the plants. So look this case right now, 3am, 4am, we don't have much 8am, water being applied, distributed in the bed, being uptake during the day by the plants, during the night a little bit of recharge, and then it's not much activity. But again, during the day at 8am, we have water being applied, water moves in the bed and then it's being uptake by the plant. So basically that's how water distributed in the soil and how should be a proper irrigation management using soil moisture sensors. But what are the benefits of it? So I put a study of case here that we have conducted some years ago in a sandy soil and where we have a fixed irrigation. And remember I mentioned in my first slide there where we have the systematic irrigation where you control water with irrigation panels. So that's a fixed irrigation where water was applied two hours continuously to every day to supply 0.2 inches of water, versus a controlled irrigation using soil moisture sensors where water was applied based the field capacity when it reached 80% of our available water, which is our threshold. So just for you to understand, every day from 12 to 2, we applied water with fixed irrigation, or five times in the day we applied water when necessary using soil moisture sensors. What are the benefits? Just saving in water. With the controlled irrigation, we spend about 175 gallons of water per acre, while we spend almost 450 gallons of water per acre. So we reduce it 60% of water using soil moisture sensors. Plus, you imagine the same with power that it was reduced. So this is the first benefit of using soil moisture sensors. Second, we start to see different in colors of the plant where we have squash, zucchini as our crop of study. Controlled irrigation showed a greener, a darker green plants when compared to fixed irrigation, which was more yellowish. And as you know, this yellowish means nitrogen, lack of nitrogen, so you have problems with fertility. And in this case, we saw we sample plants over the day daily to show how much water was being uptake in the plant tissue. And as you can see in this graph, we have a higher uptake of nitrogen by the controlled irrigation, which is the blue dots here compared to the fixed irrigation, which is the orange bud. So here is the second importance of using soil moisture center or the second advantage of that, which is a better nutrient uptake efficiency. Finally, you're going to see increasing of yields because you have a better increase of nutrients where we have an increasing of 26% of yield for controlled irrigation. So savings in water with savings in pumping, savings in nutrients with a better nutrient uptake and increasing in yields that's very important for a grower. So these are the main benefits of a water using soil water status method. But just to illustrate what's happening the soil, you can painting you can use a blue dye to inject in your drip line, and that's what we did here. So we injected a blue dye in the first irrigation in the soil moisture and in the fixed time treatment as you can see here 24 hours, compared to 24 hours. So later we were still in the root zone with the blue dye on the soil moisture sensor, but it was deeper in the fixed time you can even see the difference in the soil layer here. Finally, seven days later, we found blue dye at 60 inch of that in the soil moisture basis, but they 38 inch in the fixed time irrigation. So you can save imagine that this dye is your nutrient. That's how you explain the better nutrient uptake. With that, I would like to end and show you a take home manage of the importance of irrigation strategies, you can reduce of irrigation water applying, you can maintain or increase vegetable yields by doing a better uptake nitrogen uptake or nutrient uptake efficiency. So I would like to say as well that tools for water scheduling or irrigation scheduling are available. You just have to use it. And if you have any questions and you would like any any guidance I can come and I can help you guys just let me know. Thank you.


Frankincense and myrrh date back to thousands of years before the three wise men, the burning of which is incense may have actually had a hygienic function, like maybe repelling mosquitoes, and when put to the test incense fumes were able to kill off some bacteria and mold in the air, but may also carry health risks. Although the adverse health effects of second-hand tobacco smoke are well-recognized, the impact of burning incense in the home has received less attention, but burning incense has been found to generate like four times the particulate matter as cigarette, so incense maybe even works. No wonder home incense used may have significant adverse health effects, particularly in the heart and lungs, including childhood asthma. No wonder since the incense smoke particle size peeks down in the danger range, so ultrafine they can float down to the deepest parts of the lungs. It's not just the little ash particles in the smoke, though. There's carbon monoxide, nitric oxides, sulfur dioxide, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and volatile organic compounds like benzene and formaldehyde. The World Health Organization suggests limiting indoor formaldehyde to about 80 parts per billion, but even when the window opened during the hour or so incense is burning, formaldehyde levels exceed the safety limit. What does this all mean in terms of disease outcomes? Studies on rats show incense can do all sorts of terrible things, but what about people? A study of thousands of children followed over time, found that exposure to household incense burning was associated with impaired lung function, reduced lung function growth, and increased risks of respiratory diseases and symptoms. Daily exposures associated with impaired lung function in adolescents, too, though interestingly those who had pets at home appeared to have better lung function, something I noted previously, how having a dog or cat in the house during early life may protect against childhood asthma analogy. What about the heart? Long-term exposure to incense burning in the home environment was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Approximately 8% of heart disease deaths and 12% of stroke deaths could potentially be attributed to incense use, though they were looking at long-term exposure, so like incense burning at home on a daily basis for more than 20 years. What about cancer? Temple workers exposed to incense day in and day out were found to have evidence of significantly more DNA damage, including DNA strand breaks. Does this translate into greater cancer risk? One unsolved mystery has been why non-smoking Asian women have such high lung cancer rates. Might it be incense? Probably not, since the association between incense use and lung cancer remains inconclusive. Though incense use does appear to be linked to cancers of the upper respiratory tract, as well as brain tumors among children whose mothers were exposed to incense. Three times the odds even more than that of secondhand smoke. In fact, even more than the consumption of baloney sandwiches. Process meat consumption only appears to at most double brain tumor risk among children. Even without tumors, a study of 15,000 infants found that household incense burning was associated with a delay in brain development milestones, such as when they start to walk. And then on the other side of the life cycle, incense exposure among older adults was associated with reduced cognitive performance and adverse structural changes in the brain. The researchers conclude that this calls for safer practices, such as avoiding burning incense indoors or using safer incense alternatives. So-called environmentally friendly types of incense have been put to the test, and they were found to contain even higher concentrations of several potentially carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Despite being a recognized health hazard, burning incense remains in widespread use. And at the very least, we may want to avoid burning incense in the home when susceptible individuals are present, such as the very young, the very old, or people with a family history of allergies or pre-existing cardiovascular or respiratory disease. One innovative suggestion is electronic incense, like the e-cigarette of the incense world, so you get the fragrance without the combustion byproducts of smoke. Most of the concern about e-cigarette-related adverse events traditionally have evolved around the nicotine, which wouldn't be a problem with e-incense, the concern that e-cigarette use would lead to real cigarette use. But now that there have been thousands of cases of lung injury associated with vaping, and we're still actually not sure what's causing the issue, it seems to me we should figure that out before we push for the electronic incense equivalent. One option in the meantime is scented candles, which, under normal conditions of use, do not appear to pose known health risks to the consumer.


Hi, my name is Rupa, I'm from previously Kimmelist Networks and now NVIDIA and I'll be talking about the DENT project, the Distributed Enterprise Linux Foundation project that started earlier this year. My co-speaker Aviath from Mellanox, who's also part of NVIDIA right now, will not be able to join us today, but yeah, let's get started. So again, a little bit about me, I was an early employee at Kimmelist, which means I was at the very beginning of the open networking revolution. So I've been at the center of all the news about all network operating systems that came along since the last 10 years. A few goals and an outline of the talk. Sorry, I have a bit of an echo. I'll be talking about introduction to the open networking, DENT architecture, Linux native software architecture for Switch A6, Linux switch dev drivers, DENT project itself, and where can you find the DENT project details. So this screen is familiar to most of us who have been in the center of open networking revolution. It's been close to a decade now, but legacy systems are still around, but then the whole open networking revolution with OCP, with Linux Foundation, it's become very prominent in the data center and cloud and so on. So, if you see the, in this slide, if you see the evolution of open network operating systems, there are different tailored to different markets. For example, for the cloud, there is Sonic and F Boss from, Sonic is from Microsoft and F Boss is from Facebook. And for telecom, you have Danos, which I think was a contribution from AT&T. And for the data center, there have been operating systems, commercially open operating systems, not in a community sense, but the disaggregated open networking operating systems like humans, which I was part of for a really long time, or am still am. PKI8 and so on, I'm missing some names, of course, but now the recent one is distributed enterprise and that targets for the edge market, open networking, network operating system for the distributed enterprise and edge. And it's a Linux Foundation project. There is a reference to this at the end of, in the references section in the Linux Foundation announcement. So what is dent? So dent is a new operating system for the networking at the edge, and for example, campus, edge retail, remote office, branch office and so on. What, how is it different from the other network operating systems out there is basically it uses the Linux networking API and switch dev for offload to switch ASIC. I'll talk a little more about switch ASIC, switch dev, the switch dev project, the Linux kernel switch dev project. But Cumulus Linux is also a Linux networking API based network operating system. So it's very familiar to me, especially, and I was also part of when the switch dev movement started, or the project started in the next kernel. So what, sorry, the founding members of dent, the premier members are these Amazon, Cumulus, Delta, Marvel, Melanox, Winston, Edgecore, and Amazon was the leader in starting the project and it brought along the community and Linux Foundation together. So edge deployments, what are the requirements of an edge NAS, right? So a network operating system, open desegregator is all clear. For a cloud, basically you need a routing stack and the usual protocols and the switch data plane forwarding and the CPU forwarding plane and so on. So for the edge, there are a few things different. Of course, the modern open desegregator is common to all of them, build for automation and scale. And you are trying to, in this model for open networking, you are trying to uniform the operational model, leverage some of the data center automation tools or networking tools and best practices or whatever we have learned with open networking to campus and edge. What this also gives you is a simplified architecture, operations and cost efficiency. This again comes due to the nature of the open networking, flexibility and control. So what is the dent NAS critical or the central point of how it's different from the other network operating systems? So we've seen Linux kernel offloading to hardware, right? It's also called network acceleration or network hardware acceleration. Basically, the architecture or the Linux system, you submit drivers, you have those drivers in the kernel, it recognizes your device and it can accelerate your networking or any function that your device provides. So if your device is not there, that function gets executed in software and when the device is present or the driver is present or the hardware is present, it gets offloaded to the hardware. So this mix and NPUs have followed this model in the Linux world for a really long time, right? You know when your Nick driver is there and when you know you can simulate a Nick driver on in KBM or so on, but you know, when you have the hardware, it just offloads to hardware. So the model is the model of SwitchDev or the model of dent NAS is based on that. Basically your Switch ports, they appear as Nick ports. Your kernel, Linux kernel, layer 2 forwarding, layer 3 forwarding and multicast VXLAN and so on that you're very familiar with on the host OS or VM on Linux. You will see that you can do that on a dent system. So that's the whole idea of the architecture. And in the right, there's a pictures which ports as Nick ports, then you have the Linux networking API and the hardware offload API. So the software architecture guiding principles again is basically it needs to be an open source Linux based, so it's a Debian based. So for all practical purposes, it's a Debian system, right? It's Debian systems with some add ons for things. A massive, this provides you a massive Linux ecosystem to or Debian ecosystem to choose from packages from. And you have a Linux native accelerated stack that is accelerated by switching hardware open protocol implementations with FRR being the control claim. Then you have Worf and VXLAN, VRRP, all these implementations already exist on Linux. And they have been, they've gone through another big boost in open source development in these areas or in these protocol implementations with FRR and so on in the past few years. And of course, simplified modern architecture is just as plain your switch or your Edge switch is basically a plain Linux box. You do everything that you could on a Linux box on your server, for example. A little bit about the Switch Dev project. Again, like I mentioned, it's Switch Dev is a name given to the Linux kernel support for Switch ASX. And what that means is you have switch ASIC drivers in the upstream kernel. The kernel has hardware offload extensions for these Switch ASX and basically hooks in the routing code, neighbor, bridging and so on. Initial APIs were prefixed with Switch Dev and the name stuck, but the name you won't find the name in APIs and so on. But quickly evolved to using existing kernel infrastructure like notifiers and so on. There's a new Netlink API. Netlink is a protocol for kernel, Linux kernel, user space communication. It's an IPC mechanism in Linux. And a new API called Devlink was born to actually tailor to this particular Switch ASX hardware configuration and viewing resources, debugability and so on. And like any other technology in the Linux kernel, Devlink API is actually proliferated to other areas. Like, example, the NIC teams or the server teams are also, server drivers are also using them, which is a great thing. Again, this is another path to uniformity between a switch ASIC driver and, you know, a server. And that was the whole intention of the Switch Dev project. And the Linux API based open networking, an end-of-corporation system. So this is an overall picture of the dent architecture. Like I mentioned, this will be familiar to people who have looked at a network operating systems based on the Linux kernel API or Linux native networking API like Cumulus Linux. So what we're talking about here is your applications that are here are Linux applications. Some of this, for example, LLDPD comes from the Debian ecosystem. DHCP comes from the Debian ecosystem. FRR is, as you guys know, is a routing stack, an open implementation routing stack. It has BGP, OSPF and many others. And it was previously Quagga. And now it's become one of the massive protocols suite. Actually, VRRPD, it also has a VRRPD implementation. So FRR has various backends and one of his backends is Linux, and it can work on any Linux system. And it works on a Linux system as it is a Linux system. For example, you can run it on a red hat. It'll use a kernel for its data plane. But what the Switch Dev driver here, what it's going to do is it's going to... The control plane is going to interact with the Linux kernel. And the hooks in all of these subsystems will eventually lead to the driver and then to the ASIC. Okay, that's the whole idea of the architecture. So the applications don't know that there is a Switch driver on ASIC. But what this also enables you to do is you can run DentNAS as a virtual machine that comes for free. As long as if you're not running a hardware and a Switch ASIC, this top stack of Linux will continue to function like any other software Linux system. So that's the power of the architecture. The Dent ecosystem, it's a lot of... Like any other project actually, any other open source, something like a network operating system, which is huge enough to have many players. Dent has many communities coming together. ONI, which is part of the open networking revolution and OCP. Then of course, Linux, Debian, SwitchDoc project, Ansible and Puppet Chef, the other automation tools that you're very familiar with on the server. Power routing stack, OCP again with ONL. I'll talk a little bit about ONL's presence in Dent. And of course, the Linux Foundation that started this project or is hosting the project. So Dent hardware and software, a little bit of details. The three ODMs, Acton, Delta Networks and Wishtron. Two ASIC vendors, Marvel and Melanox. And of course, I am part of Melanox and NVIDIA cumulus. So the examples that I use later on in the slides are all about taken on a Melanox platform. So you have three different switches, switch configurations as seen here. And PoE, if I've not mentioned earlier, PoE is one of the different features that you will see requirement in an edge NAS or an edge detail NAS. Power over Ethernet. So what are Dent NAS components? Open Networking Linux. ONL, this is an OCP project. It provides you with a Debian based image build system and platform drivers or a platform abstraction. And it was easier for the Dent project to actually start with ONL as a base because it's an already available open project out there. So beyond that, it has the latest kernel, 5.6, and it may go to a newer kernel. And the kernel is because the kernel, being on the latest kernel is because of switch dev drivers coming from Marvel. And Melanox has had their switch dev drivers for a few years now. They are in the upstream kernel. Any Linux kernel has them. It's called as MLX SW. Marvel's drivers are in progress. They are working progress right now. It's close to be getting into the kernel. And Linux platform drivers. Again, Linux has supported platform drivers using SysFS and tools that use SysFS. So the Dent project is going to support both because of its ONL roots. It's going to support ONL P drivers. And because it's Linux, it'll also support Linux platform drivers. And the reference that I put there for the Linux platform drivers is actually from a Melanox documentation, which is public. Software and control plane. Of course, it's a Debian ecosystem. Lots of protocol implementations like LLDPD, FRR. I have done two for network interface configuration. And additional capabilities is something like Power over Ethernet. So Dent V1 features. This is, I think it goes to the next slide as well. But this is the base features that Dent V1 release will come out with. Basic LLDP SSH and so on. And in terms of networking functionality for Edge retail, it is L2 bridging, VLAN aware, routing, ECMP. Then in terms of protocols, again, there is STP, BGP. BGP is the only routing protocol. VRRP with FRR as well. Going further, again, LAG. LAG is very base feature for any NAS right now. Debug tooling, Ansible playbooks, DHCP relay, DHCP server, ETH tool, and so on. So V2 features. V2 features are still being discussed. I'm just going to have this here for just for records because the Dent technical steering committee is actually trying to come up with a list for V2. And the release, V1 is supposed to come out before the end of this year. It's almost ready. And out anytime soon once the marvels which have drivers accepted. Thanks to Steve Noble from the Dent project actually to give me some of these details, slides and features that are being worked on. So the next few slides, actually three slides, I have screenshots about how different is Linux native networking. What does that mean? So this is the first one actually just shows you that this is a Debian system. V2 are basically showing you how do you see your ports. It's the simple IP link show from the IP route to command suite to look at your switchboard details.  Again, ETH tool is everybody's if you're familiar with debugging networking problems on servers. ETH tool is the interface to the kernel for L1 config and show and so on. So this is an example how you can see your link states. And this is all these slides were taken on an examples were taken on a Dent spectrum melanox box. So you can see the driver melanox is MLX SW spectrum. So DevLink, I mentioned DevLink earlier. DevLink is another net link API, which is getting popular on the servers too, or is getting getting used into or adapted into different configurations on the servers. For example, SRIOV or Nix and so on. This is a simple example how DevLink is an API to look at the switch hardware on its own. It's kind of like an ETH tool if you're very familiar with ETH tool on Linux. But it will, it can work on your network interface like ETH0, ETH1 and so on. Your switchboards are here SWP1, SWP2, but it can also work on directly PCI. If you switch A6 CPUs, PCI endpoint, it can directly work on that. And port splitting, port splitting is also a function of DevLink. You can do port breakouts with DevLink. So what else does the edge deployment or what are the possibilities of having an open networking NOS at the edge, Linux-based open networking NOS? So basically the slide is just telling you what, you know, we have experiments where we run, for example, the switch dev driver or we have experimented or have deployments with, you know, a Kubernetes master running on the switch, which can manage your edge rack, right, all the other applications on the edge rack. So things like that. Container runtime comes for free because Debian actually has a container runtime docker. You can install docker and so on. So there are many possibilities. You can treat your dense switch as one of your systems in your edge rack. And what this means is you have that power of uniformity and automation, provisioning and operations across your edge cluster. Ability to extend, you know, native continuous applications to your switch to, you know, move the applications, continuous applications from a data center to your edge rack to your edge switch from the cloud and so on. And of course, you're limited by the CPU that is present on the dense or present any of these switches, but, you know, people run, do run apps on, on your, on switch, especially again, monitoring apps. You don't need another server for your monitoring app, you know, monitoring application. You can possibly run it on your switch. So though dent is edge first, the architecture doesn't stop it from being edge first. For example, the features that we're talking about in the next v2 is sometimes in some cases it's beyond, beyond edge. Where to find dent? There is an open mailing list. There is a weekly call. In fact, the call is actually sorry, and I forget that this is a recording. So it's in a few minutes from now. But the dent project, the code is there. The seat code from Amazon and the other vendors. And it is going to be public once, when vVendors released, which should be in, in about time actually in a few weeks or months. Yeah, this is what that talks about. And some references of all the projects are the projects that dent is using the switch of drivers and so on. That's that concludes my talk. Hey, hey, sorry. Hello, sorry about that feedback. So I do see a few questions. I tried to respond to a few, respond to a few, so I'm just going to read them here. Is NAT also hardware-activated at the ASIC? Yes, it's not in the dent project, but many implementations today do have NAT offloaded through Linux. Basically, Linux NAT offloaded to switch ASIC. Actually, some QMLS Linux references come up there. QMLS Linux does offload kernel NAT to ASIC. And dent, of course, if dent had to support NAT to switch ASIC, it needs the switched-dev drivers to support NAT. And as far as I know, there is no switch-dev driver supporting NAT today. The other question is, does dent implement open flow? It does not implement open flow today for the deep end release or it's not in the pipeline, but there is no reason for it to not implement or architecturally there is no limitation. As long as one of the ways open flow can be implemented is an open flow app having to translate into the kernel and kernel to switch-dev driver. Or most of the open flow implementations like open vSwitch could also run on the switch. And as long as the open switch, as you guys know, most of it on the servers today uses the TCE offloads, rule offloads. So it can and the switch-dev drivers do support some sort of TCE offload and they can be extended to support open flow, but not currently planned. What monitoring features are supported in dent, like Prometheus endpoint? There is no, I mean, the dent project is not putting out any monitoring agent right now, but there is no reason Prometheus endpoint cannot run. It's just an open Linux box. And similar example on QMLS, there are many people who do that already. It's possible. I think that's all the questions. So on the kernel version again, I did respond on chat. It's 5.6 right now. There is a plan to move to 5.8, but it could move to a long-term stable kernel once that is announced. And any other questions? And of course, I did respond to the question on how is dent and QMLS Linux different? QMLS Linux is again based on the same principles. Your apps just talk to the Linux API and QMLS does the magic. And the magic that QMLS does is it also supports user space SDKs. Translates from the kernel to the SDK. And dent is based on an open source driver for the switch ASIC. Yeah, because it's an open source project and it does not have the people closed SDKs. But in that context, you have to know, realize that QMLS started way long ago, where only SDKs are closed-source institutes. And even today, I think SDKs for any switch ASIC are critical and all vendors support them and they are usually more feature-rich. We've all the questions for now. I can wait and see if there are any questions to come. There is a weekly call for dent. It's Wednesday, 7 a.m. BST. I think the information is on the dent project. We can even join in listening. Thanks, everybody.


The Central Statistical Office of St. Lucia is gearing up for its squatterly labour force survey. The Ministry of Health and Wellness is working with the statistical office, establishing protocols for enumerators who will be returning to the field to ensure not only their safety but that of the public as well. More in this report. The Central Statistical Office of St. Lucia is gearing up to commence its squatterly labour force survey. The statistical office, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, had to resort to conducting its squatterly labour force surveys via telephone. However, now with the reopening of the country, it is looking to recommence its face-to-face interviews. Deputy Director of the Statistical Office of St. Lucia, Richard Harris, indicated that the office is working with the Ministry of Health and Wellness in determining protocols for enumerators who are returning to the field that will ensure their safety as well as that of the interviewees. We are here to engage the Ministry of Health with regards to our enumerators returning to the field in a manner that would ensure their safety and would ensure that we can effectively perform our face-to-face interviews as we visit the different communities throughout the island. Our surveys, our labour force survey, especially this particular engagement is directly related to the labour force survey, which entails visiting communities, visiting households and conducting face-to-face interviews. So given the prevailing conditions concerning the pandemic and the prevailing protocols that are in place, we want to ensure the safety of not only our enumerators, but the persons that we interview at the households. The survey is targeted at a randomly selected group of 800 households from all districts and across all demographic groups. It seeks to measure the levels and rates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity in St. Lucia. Department of Environmental Health's Senior Environmental Health Officer with responsibility for COVID-19, Emerson Vitalis, explained that the protocols are based on health standards, the best practices in terms of operating in a COVID-19 environment. These protocols which were rolled out last Thursday will aid the enumerators in conducting their tasks in the safest possible way. The enumerators Vitalis indicated were also trained accordingly. There are three critical areas which we speak about and they come under infection prevention control and we promote hand hygiene, we promote social distancing and we promote the wearing of masks and also hand sanitization or hand hygiene, sorry. So these are what we're going to be, you know, key components of the presentation. How do you go into the field out there? How do you interact, the safest way to interact? And I think, you know, the key one is the physical distance in between the respondent and the interviewer, how you manage the situation and you get there. And it's not only about just asking the questions, but the enumerators also has to be vigilant in terms of the approach and to be even noticing any symptoms or, you know, someone may be exhibiting. They are not clinical people, but again, if you recognize someone is coughing excessively or sneezing, I mean, it sends a sign to you. And again, we will train them today in terms of how to identify some of those key components. The engagement training workshop was held on Thursday 17th June 2021. The Central Statistical Office of St. Gluxia is tentatively looking to recommend its face-to-face interviews in the next quarter. From the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norvel. The Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program, which is implemented by UNDP, is supporting St. Gluxia's efforts to integrate research and innovation into the apiculture industry. Jesse Leos reports. Since 2012, Jeff, SGP, UNDP, St. Gluxia has funded 13 apiculture projects totaling EC $1.6 million. Already successes have been achieved in producing by-products such as soap, shampoo, lotions, candles, muscle pain relief creams, granola and mead, which is a delicious wine. This investment has already contributed to a 15% increase in honey production, trained over 200 beekeepers, and increased their income by 40 to 60%. Recent testing of St. Gluxia's honey by a laboratory in France has confirmed its suitability for exporting to the European Union. Driven by a vision which focuses on research and innovation, Jeff, SGP, UNDP, the Government of St. Gluxia, the IANOLA Apiculture Collective and other NGOs will establish the Apiculture Research and Learning Institute, as a centre of excellence for research, innovation and learning in St. Gluxia and the Eastern Caribbean. What is the mission of ALI? To contribute to a sustainable climate-smart environment for pollinators. So we are going beyond bees to look at all the pollinators in the environment in St. Gluxia through a program that is science-driven, important to us, develops and nurtures strategic partnerships, mutually beneficial partnerships, builds capacity, and generates benefits for communities. We believe Apiculture has those attributes to uplift our rural societies and to contribute significantly to our economy. According to the Law of Diffusion of Innovation, approximately 2.5% of any population are the real innovators. These, when behind with the early adopters representing 13.5% of any population, will provide the impetus for sustainable development. JeffSGP-UNDP has targeted such pioneers to begin to push us beyond the frontier of science, agro-processing, agriculture and biodiversity in St. Gluxia and the Eastern Caribbean. The IONOLA Apiculture Collective fits within this pioneering category and has been breaking new ground in this area and will lead us with local and international partners to where we have not been before. We are a collection of young and old beekeepers together. I'm working to try to elevate the industry and embrace not just the craft of beekeeping but also embrace the science of beekeeping. The science is the most critical important thing that we have left behind. And what we've focused on in our organisation is to focus on the science to try to understand what's happening with our bees, where they are failing and where they are not failing and how we can improve the ecosystem around and the analysis of the diseases possibly that bees are carrying. During a recent site visit to the IAC Apiculture Training Centre in Castries, a delegation from the Embassy of Taiwan, led by Ambassador His Excellency Peter Chen, was introduced to the vision and mission of the Apiculture Research and Learning Institute toward the Apiary at VG and participated in an interactive session of candle making using beeswax. Taiwan provides a broad spectrum of assistance to Senutia including agriculture, education, technology, business, health, etc. and we committed to work with Senutia Government to achieve UN sustainable development goals and also enhance resilience to climate change and we look forward to working with all stakeholders and partners to benefit all Senutians in the region. So, I truly believe when we work together we will share a better future. In the long run, the Apiculture Research and Learning Institute is expected to serve as a multi-purpose field research centre that will focus on growth and optimisation of the apiculture industry mangrove, avifana and coral species restoration and the establishment of a vibrant, diverse and authentic apitarism experience in St. Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean. To achieve these objectives, Arlie will create strong, mutually beneficial and enduring partnerships with Sanket Senevis, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Samoa as well as with local, regional and international universities and research centres. For the Government Information Service, I am Jesse Leons reporting. The District of Choiselle will soon solidify its place as the craft mecca of St. Lucia. Export St. Lucia announced that it has been receiving increased interest in Choiselle's craft products such as coal pots and with baskets from foreign markets. As interest from the UK and US markets continues to increase, Export St. Lucia's Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Sunita Danielle, said that Export St. Lucia is collaborating with the Choiselle Craft Association to aid it in accessing foreign markets. One step towards making this a reality is the cataloging of craft products. So what we're trying to do is to get the craft items online and for sale by the outside customers and so they'll be able to access coal pots with the baskets, anything that the crafters have and they'll be able to access those online. Export St. Lucia is currently working with a buyer in the US market and is in the process of shipping craft items to the United States. Anticipating the growth of St. Lucia's craft industry, the CEO explained that there are plans to expand to other communities. One of the things that Export St. Lucia does is because we are a development agency, is that we fill in any gaps that the producers themselves are experiencing. So for example, if we see that there is additional need to beef up their own expertise, we do that for them. And so we do a lot of hand holding of our clients. We don't believe anybody should be doing it alone. There's a lot of that until we can say, okay, we'll let you go and do what you have to do. So we will be starting with Choiselle, but we do expect to really develop a comprehensive program for craft throughout the item. Export St. Lucia assured its commitment to the growth and development of St. Lucia's craft industry, finding new ways of supporting the industry and meeting the demands of foreign markets. The Effective Learning Institute continues to play a significant role in St. Lucia's education sector, providing aid to underprivileged students. Harmony Mark tells us more. The Effective Learning Institute, a regional organization committed to improving learning conditions for the underprivileged, has donated to families in need. The Institute, headed in St. Lucia by former educator Peter Anous, provides scholarships to students of underprivileged families. Their scholarships cover the cost of uniforms, textbooks, school supplies, tuition fees, transportation and nail hampers. The provision of these essentials is intended to better equip and encourage students to stay in school. Peter Anous, island coordinator of the Effective Learning Institute, says the organization hopes to reduce the rate of school dropouts and, by extension, reduce unwanted social ills. Too often we have children going to school, they do not have what is required, and hence we have problems. So our organization, what we do is to help these parents, provide the children with what they need. What do we provide? I will remind everyone of our main objectives. And as I read from our document, which stipulates that the ultimate aim of our project of funding is to empower all the less fortunate and underprivileged children. Those of low socioeconomic status, children whose parents just cannot make ends meet. The scholarships provided by the Institute are funded via crowdsourcing. Filista Flabi uses the grandmother of three students who continue to benefit from the Effective Learning Institute. She made a plea to the public to contribute generously to the work of Mr. Anous and his team. Mr. Anous have been providing things for these children for many years. And I am asking the people out there, one day Mr. Peter Anous out there, and he said he is asking for donation, please try and help because the donation is going a long way and with groceries and school supplies and I am thankful for that because he helps the grandchildren over the years. The Effective Learning Institute has on several occasions worked collaboratively with A.S. Mirage for the provision of school uniforms to the underprivileged. From the Government Information Service, the former owner of the St. Lucia Stiles 320 team donates promotional paraphernalia to schools and youth cricket programs in St. Lucia. One such presentation was made to the Northern Cluster Grassroots Cricket Program. Good afternoon. I am here at the Direns Army Cricket Ground handing over some cricket paraphernalia like cups, bats, cell phones, casing, cups, cones, and other items which is actually from behalf of Mr. Pandir, former owner of St. Lucia Stiles. True Mr. Singh is handing over to the Northern Grassroots Cricket Club to use for your enhancement in training. Whatever part of training you are doing for the youth level or at the higher level, make full use of it, either in communication wise, training wise and maybe those bugs can be used to carry your little gear. I hope you enjoyed the little talk. And I must thank you for being here and making that special effort to be here this afternoon to have this little ceremony, this hand in over. So thank you once again. Let me just thank you Mr. Singh and Mr. Pandir for such a nice gesture. Obviously we are going to use it to the best of ability. I mean there's bugs there, there's bottles which can surely be used by the students. So thank you very much. And we hope that in the future maybe we can get bigger and better things from you. Yeah, definitely. I believe it was a very good gesture. I know it will mean a lot to the guys. Every time we're always looking for ways to enhance our game, I mean there's water bottles, phone cases and bugs that the guys can use to better their training and their transport and communication to training. So I believe that is a very good gesture. As was mentioned, I believe that this gesture would allow more of the players to be aware of the Senucia team. The Senucia team, I believe that it will just broaden their base amongst the young individuals to get to know more of the Senucia team. Majority of them, maybe the Asian, are not aware of the CPL but now they are fully aware of the Senucia team at this point. Good run, good run. The public is her buying formed of the temporary closure of the Falkoja Road from the main road by Mr. Pap Forestia Castries from Tuesday 22nd June 2021 to Tuesday the 29th of June 2021. This is to facilitate road works in that area. The Department of Economic Development apologizes for any inconvenience caused. This is Ntm Nightly. Up next, Primers-Huttonson with the Ntm News app. It's a great place where people can live.  This is to contribute a small amount of gas. In Spain, as a country, we can try to do everything we can to ensure that we lower the amount of gas we use to prevent the earth from getting hotter. It's important to lower the amount of gas we use to mitigate the change. This is because of the fact that all the oil and gas in the earth is getting hotter and hotter. This is what we can do with our own hands. We can do everything we can to prepare and rebuild for these negative consequences because of climate change. We can do everything we can. For example, we can ensure that everyone is protected from the climate crisis. We can do anything we can to reduce the damage of the oil and gas. We can build a canal to do what we can and we can do everything we can to provide for climate change. We can find information about our national government and take measures to protect the body and all our citizens. Welcome back. We join Primas Hutchingson for the Ntm News app. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You can go on. It's a balance. Thank you, Madam. This is the end of our talk. I thank you very much for your time. I have a lot of other things to say. If you like this video, please like and subscribe. And please watch the channel. If you like this video, please like and subscribe. And please watch the channel.


inexpensive food-friendly red Italian wines. We're gonna talk about it in this video. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horky. We're here in Istria, Croatia, our last few days at the beautiful Villa Familia in Salina. We've been spending a month of our lockdown here in Croatia, here at the Villa cooking, tasting through samples, producing content. We're about to leave. I'm gonna cry because I absolutely love this place. It's beautiful. That's why you saw the beginning clip in the video. But that's not what this video is about. This video is about inexpensive food-friendly red Italian wines, a category I love. You know why? Not all of us are ballers. Can throw out 30, 40, 50, 100, even $1,000 a bottle. Not everybody can do that. In fact, a small portion of the population can. But the cool thing about wine is wine is not just for snobs. Wine is for everybody, and there's wines at every price point to accommodate that. So we're gonna talk about three here today. I know that this one's widely available in the U.S. These ones might be what I do know. I know this one is for sure. What I do know for sure is all these wines come in at below $20, actually below $17 U.S. with one coming in at under $10, which I'm excited to taste. So let's get started. I just love Italy. I'm there about eight to 10 times per year. I had a couple scheduled trips already this year. Then all of a sudden the whole coronavirus thing came and knocked off some of my plans. I can't wait to get back there as soon as possible because I love it. Italy is a fabulous country for food and wine. Maybe the most exciting country overall if I put together scenery, landscape, nature, food, wine. I think Italy takes the cake for me, and that's why I like the wine so much. It's so cool because when producers make the wine, I feel like they think about what dish they want to pair it with. So that's really cool. Well, further ado, we got a fairly young wine all the way down to an older red. Let's get started, shall we? First of all, we're going to Tuscany. This wine is a fairly new wine. This is the prettiest Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 from Morema in Tuscany. The deep south of Tuscany, the southwest corner, actually used to be an ancient lake, then a marsh. Now there's actually a lot of vineyards growing there. This estate is owned by the famous Volpaya in Chianti Classico. So this wine is widely distributed. I think you can find it in the U.S. for under 17 bucks. Yeah, Cabernet Sauvignon 2018. Let's give this a go here. Let's see how it smells. For some reason, if you watch the show, you know that myself and Cherine, we gravitate towards Tuscan Reds. I always think that Tuscany offers tremendous value for money. Of course, you have your bombs. You can be balling, spend a lot of money on mesetto, soleia, ornelia, sasakaya. But there's also a lot of wines that deliver a lot of value. This estate focuses on value, although we tasted a brilliant super Tuscan from that last night called the Prilet. That's a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend, but that was about 38 bucks. This is less than half the price. Let's give this a go. It's a warmer part of Tuscany, so let's see if it reflects and makes an easy drinking Cabernet Sauvignon. You don't give them any quality cabs for under 17 bucks.  It is not. It's leafy actually. Has some greens in a good way. I thought it would be more Tuscan. I was thinking more red cherry, red berry fruits. This actually has some dark berry, some casus notes. A lot of earth, kind of like a mud note. Fairly complex for a wine. This is inexpensive. Let's see if the palette delivers. Wow. Very good Tuscan Red at this price point for a Cabernet Sauvignon. It's so young, but it's so drinkable. You have just a slight grip of tan. It's not overly stringent, not drying. You can take this to a number of wine drinkers. What's awesome in this wine is the acidity, which Italians love in their wines. I'm actually very surprised by this wine. Very surprised. I don't expect any of these to be rich, deep, profound, complex wines, but I would highly recommend this, especially for somebody that likes Cabernet Sauvignon. This is inexpensive. You can get around the world. I think for value for money play, I will go somewhere in the 89-point range off to retaste it for my final score. Just know that it really impressed me. Let's move on. This is the Famiglia Berta Barbera d'Asti. This is the Belmont. The winery is Berta Paolo, or the brand is Famiglia Berta. This is Barbera d'Asti. Besides San Giovesi, Barbera actually might be the most food-friendly wine grape in Tuscany. In Italy, this is from Piemonte, from the village of Nizza Manferrato. For those of you who don't know, in this area, you have the Nizza crew, which is a fantastic crew for Barbera. It just rinds that really outperform their price point and the age. This wine from the winery rolls in eight euros. So, let's see. I love Barbera. Barbera can be inexpensive. You know, this part of Piemonte looks exactly like Barolo. We were just there last summer in the region. It looks exactly like Barolo. Rolling hills, vineyards covering, except they focus more on Barbera versus Nebbiolo. Nice, really nice light red color. Let's give this a sniff. A little bit darker, denser Barbera. What is this? 14% alcohol. So you're going to get, for Barbera, a typical note. You're going to think dried cranberry. I used to eat a lot of dried cranberry when I was a kid. Dried cranberry, strawberry, hazelnut. Actually, it has a little bit of saltiness going on, which is kind of weird. I don't usually see that in Barberas. Pretty complex and nice nose. Let's give this a go. Once again, you get the tingly, juicy acidity in this wine. Really nice. Not overly huge, complex, but you know what? Just really nice, nice drinking wine. I love to drink Barbera. I love it, actually. In the past, you know, I was thinking of, it's kind of a crappy grape because it can be pretty rustic and have high acidity. I just want a little more length in this, but overall, for under 10 bucks, this is a wine I also recommend. When you're in Pima, you're going to have some tagliano, you're going to have some braised meats. I think this wine hits it on the head. I'm around the 88, 88 point range on this. I still think it's very good to end their 10 bucks. Really can't go wrong. These two wines so far are crowd pleasers. There's no mistakes in them whatsoever. They're just going to be really enjoyable wines to drink. Let's move on. A wine that you might be able to find around the world, Montemagil. This is the Chianti Classico 2014. This is the current release. I just had the 2013 Chianti Classico Reserva just a few days ago from them, which is great. It just took some time to open up. This is mostly San Giovesi, just to touch them or low. You know, Chianti kind of gets a bad rep, a bad name. I personally love Chianti Classico. I love the sour cherry notes you get in San Giovesi. This is from the village of Radda. It's actually quite high. I've been to Radda before. We're talking about 400 to 600 meters above sea level. If we're trying to let me convert that into feet like 1200 to 1600 feet, it's high. It's not typical Tuscan terroir. It's almost like mini alpine terroir. 2014 actually was not a good vintage in this part of the world, especially in Italy. Why? Because it rained before the harvest for a long time. Grape swelled up. There was mildew. I'm sorry, there was rot. Producers really struggled. But that doesn't mean you can't find great wines in poor vintages. Just so you know, a lot of times in poor vintages, producers, they have to make wine. They have to make money, right? So some of the top wines, the fruit that they use for the top wines, it gets declassified and into the standard bottling. So maybe this is pretty good. Let's give this a go. Got some nice browning on the edge. Let's give this a smell here. Classic sour cherry cedar kind of notes that you get in San Giovesi. A little bit of pine, which is interesting. It smells pretty darn good. Let's give this a go here. Considering the vintage, this is very good. This is like classic chianti classical. It's very good. Don't expect big plush, fruity, oaky chianti classical. Expect a leaner chianti classical with a little bit more linear on the palate, a little more austere. But I like this type of chianti classical a lot. I am not even thinking about it. I'm a hardcore. I'm going, I think, straight to 90 points on this bad boy. I think it's really good, especially for this price. And on the websites, should get around Italy for 16 euros. It's about 17 bucks. All three wines. Actually, I didn't know. I know that these two wines would be clean.  But all three wines showed really, really well. San Giovesi, Barbera, Cabernet, Sauvignon, all from Italy, all under about 17 bucks. Worth going out, especially during these odd times, so you can drink them every single day. These are the types of wines that I enjoy drinking on a daily basis. I don't always need big, profound, complex wines. These are simple, food-friendly and delicious. So let me know, guys, are you drinking any Italian wines? Are you having any favorite varieties? Let me know. Guys, if you like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. I will see you at the next episode.


by Lamarcus Aldridge Lamarcus this is a feisty Indiana Pacers team what did it take to close them out trying to be disciplined man you know trying to get back a transition boxing them out you know they crash the boards really well you know just trying to be solid on the stretch you know Indiana's physical you guys out rebound them tonight you also attempted over 40 free throws how important will physicality and stand aggressive be the team's success it's important man you know trying to get to the basket you know trying to put pressure on the paint and you know just finding these guys you know like Joe and Patty wide open you score over 20 points tonight that's nothing new you've done that quite a bit over your career but you reached the 20,000 point milestone what does that mean to you it's a blessing man you know last year was you know a crazy year for me you know it was a long road coming back and you know I'm just blessed to be here enjoy it enjoy congratulations