Thank you all for joining us and I want to thank this great crowd for being prior of this important event and I particularly want to say thank you to David Mullen from the Habitat for Humanity chapter here in Burlington that is building this house and that has done so much for housing here in Burlington and Chittenden County and I think there are a number of people here who are associated with that Habitat chapter which is kind of exciting for me personally. My first thing I ever did in housing other than being the son of an architect who talked about housing all the time was a volunteer down in America at Georgia Habitat International and that you know really had an experience down there that changed the trajectory of my whole career and I'm grateful to Habitat for it and in many ways it has defined how I've tried to lead in this role as mayor and we have asked you all here because we are on the cusp of taking an action as a city that will change the trajectory of housing in this community so let me explain a little bit by what I mean by that so from my perspective kind of partial on this Burlington is one of America's great small cities and yet at the same time we face many challenges and you can they're very visible right now as we come out of the pandemic we have dozens of people who are sleeping outside on any given night even in the cold weather months like now we have renters in this community who pay some of the highest rents relative to their incomes of any renters in the country young couples struggle mightily to buy homes in this community older couples individuals who love this place who have invested their whole lives here and want to stay here in some kind of downsized situation struggle to find a way to do that the biggest challenge that our businesses face is that they can't find employees to hire because it's so hard to find something it's so hard to afford to live in this region and despite our deep community commitment to inclusion and to supporting immigrants our BIPOC home ownership rates remain shamefully low in short name a problem and housing is part of is probably the solution this reality has has peaked in the last few years as I said as a result of the pandemic and the new pressures that those years brought onto the housing market but in many ways this is a problem that has been building for decades and frustratingly both both I would say both frustratingly and hopefully and that I think it points to the solution our local land use decisions have contributed greatly to these challenges as zoning reforms in the 1970s and then again in the 1990s made it much harder to build anything but a single family home in about 70% of Burlington for the last two years since we launched what we call the housing action plan at the end of 2021 it was the I think was the third housing action plan of this this 12-year administration for the last two years my administration partners on the planning commission and the city council and in the community have been working on what we call the neighborhood code this is a new zoning ordinance that applies to that 70% of the city that is zoned for residential at outside of the downtown and what this new code would do is put us on that different trajectory by doing a couple things first of all it will make legal once again duplexes triplexes and fourplex structures that used to be commonplace in Burlington but it become rare in recent decades because they are not they're basically prohibited in the great majority of the city for the first time since zoning was started here in Burlington in the 1950s the neighborhood code will make it easier not harder to build in Burlington's neighborhoods the neighborhood code creates the possibility that all of Burlington's neighborhoods can be part of the housing solution and in short over time and we'll hear from Megan Tuttle my planning director in just a moment but you know in short what does the neighborhood code do it will make it possible for hundreds hopefully thousands of more people to call this special place home in the decades ahead despite the years of work literally years of work on this effort I know there are some right there right now we're calling for this neighborhood code to be sent back to committee for more work on Monday we called today's event in part because I want to urge my colleagues on the city council to act on Monday instead our housing challenges are serious and they demand action now not at some future date on Monday we have a rare opportunity to make a change that will create new homes throughout the city and I urge my colleagues not to miss this chance so with that I'm excited to be joined today by an incredible coalition of individuals and organizations that supports the neighborhood code and that supports more housing in this community we're going to hear from a number of them starting with a woman who has given in eight years an enormous gift to this community has been incredibly committed and hard working on housing issues and other planning issues in a range of ways and she has really poured herself into the neighborhood code this wouldn't be happening without her work our planning director Megan thank you mayor as we're here today talking about the neighborhood code I thought it might be helpful to just speak about the context in which the neighborhood code is coming forward as the mayor said this code builds on over a decade of work that has been done around reforming the city's zoning policies in support of housing and I just want to quickly name what some of those things are starting in the beginning of the 2010s we started taking action to make our downtown a place where more people could call home first by removing limits on the portion of buildings that could be used for homes and then by adopting an entirely new downtown form code that aim to make development more permissible faster cheaper and overall contribute to the vibrancy of this regional center which is Burlington's downtown we followed that with work to create new neighborhoods we created a new neighborhood activity center on North Ave which is where Cambrian rise has currently added hundreds of new homes and hundreds more in the pipeline just last summer the council adopted the south end innovation district zoning and work has been underway through a partnership of many public and private stakeholders to plan for the future of a new mixed-use neighborhood in the south end they could also be home to hundreds if not a thousand new homes we reformed our parking regulations not once but twice and now all uses city wide are able to choose how much and if they provide parking in a critical tool to help us address both the cost and availability of housing and contribute to our climate goals and and alternative transportation goals we also reformed our zoning rules twice making them progressively over the last decade much more easy to build and we have certainly seen a significant uptick in the number of permit applications for accessory dwelling units citywide as a result and finally we also took on the very tough task of balancing short-term rental use with the availability of our housing stock for long-term housing every time we adopted one of these zoning changes we said this situation or this zoning change alone is not the solution to our housing crisis all of these things together over the last decade have been working in tandem to help us address both the chronic and emerging challenges that we've had in in building more housing in Burlington and the neighborhood code is the most recent step in that trajectory this is really about ensuring that our neighborhoods are places where not only our current households but our future households also have housing choices and opportunity to live across the city we're a landlocked city unlike our neighbors in Chittenden County we can't grow out we have to grow in our dense urban centers and by creating more housing choice in our existing vibrant neighborhoods this gives us another tool to do that and also to help us make progress towards our equity and climate goals as well and I have been proud to work on this not only on the neighborhood code but all of these zoning reforms that I've mentioned with essentially everyone that's in this room and many more over the last decade thank you so next we're gonna hear from Andy Montrell who has had a long career public service in this community served on the City Council for many years I'm not gonna get it exactly right but then did something unusual when he left the City Council a lot of people never want to step into City Hall again after all those Monday nights Andy went the other direction and joined the Planning Commission and has now been the chair of the Planning Commission for I think the entire time that I've been in office maybe not the chair that whole time and before and has contributed enormously in that volunteer role and we're very grateful for it I'm grateful Andy that you've taken on the neighborhood code is something that the Planning Commission wanted to get done so before you're about to thank you mayor and thank you Megan for all your work as well you know this project and all the zoning projects really the Planning Commission does its role but it's the people behind it and really in front of it Megan and her staff who've just been amazing on this you know as the mayor said I've been involved in sit in the city for a number of years now and I think this is probably one of the most significant things that I've worked on since I've been part of all of this really I first got on the council it was in 1994 and one of the first things that we talked about that was 30 years ago was a housing shortage that we had and and rental rates were like 1% then or 2% if that and it's just been a problem that has persisted for all of these years and as Megan said you know over the years there have been a number of different projects zoning and other kinds of projects that have been done that have tried to help this and it isn't just one thing that will solve any problem but this one the neighborhood code really is a culmination and they'll be more after this but the neighborhood code is a culmination of a lot of these efforts they're really looking at our neighborhoods and saying what and our city and saying what kind of a city do we want to be who are we and what are we and in all the years that I've been working on these kinds of things we always have people coming out speaking to us sharing their views of it but the thing that struck me this time that was different from probably most of the other ones that I've worked on is a number of young voices that came out and shared with us what they were looking for what they needed I have two kids and both in their early 20s and both have graduated college and they've left Berlin and they said they just don't see you know hopefully they'll come back but they don't see their opportunities here right now and one big reason is for the housing and yet the people who did come and speak to us the young voices that we heard told us what they were looking for and while we may not have done everything that they were looking for on this I think we're really trying to accomplish a lot to help Burlington be the community of choice for the for our younger generation and for the current generations of and for all the people who are here and I think that's just really important if we want to stay a vibrant city that we are and that we have been and want to continue for the future so hopefully this will be adopted by the council on Monday and we'll move forward and even once adopted there's a lot more work that still needs to be done so thank you all right in a moment we're gonna gonna hear from some of those younger voices but we're gonna have one more really great hair folks up here first and that's I wanted to have our host David Mullen come come up here and say a few words we chose to have this event here in that I think this project is a great example of what we're trying to create more of these small scale structures that provide multiple housing opportunities so you know of course this is getting built now before the neighborhood code so it is not impossible to build duplexes under the current code in some places but what the neighborhood code will do is it will expand dramatically the number of locations in the city where this type of development and development slightly larger than this are are legal once again and and I think having here having habitat and host us here as well as we're gonna hear in a little bit from Michael Monty the CEO of Champlain Housing Trust shows how this is gonna create housing opportunities that are very varied in who is going to be able to live there including including pretty important new affordable housing opportunities so with that David thank you again for us thank you so much again what an appropriate place to talk about housing and more housing and I will tell you after 22 years of being with Green Mountain Habitat it is getting harder and harder and harder and more complicated so this neighborhood code is about saying yes to the potential solution it is much easier to say no or put it off it is harder to stand up and say yes when something makes sense because you don't want to be here 22 years from now saying we should have made a choice we should have had said yes at that time Green Mountain Habitat for humanity we always talk about building houses and 2x4 but it's about families it's about people single people young couples older couples looking to stay in a home this is what it's about and neighborhood code enables this community to do more of that because the opposite of that are significant problems for every town in Vermont and if we don't stand up for codes like this and changes like this it will not improve and so Green Mountain Habitat is in favor and hopes that the community will stand up and say yes to that it'll make a difference to families and so we're grateful for the opportunity to talk about that and welcome you to a Habitat home if you haven't gotten a donation envelope thank you so much okay next we we are gonna get an opportunity here from Tino Rutanhara Tino I've known you know I think the first time I met Tino it's when he was acting in one of the local stage productions and he was an incredible actor he's worn many hats in this community and one of the most important ones in recent years is he's been one of the leaders of something that we call that's called the Vermont professionals of color and I'm really grateful that Tino is here today and hoping he will be able to speak to why this should getting the neighborhood code done should be one of the most important things that we can do to make Burlington a more inclusive and diverse community so welcome to you thank you Mayor Rumber and Seem for Montes I'm here to speak on behalf of the community of color over the past several years no matter who you ask legislators of all parties businesses of all industries communities across the state the answer is to what is Vermont's most existential crisis is unanimously unaffordable inadequate housing yet by most measures we are moving backward rather than forward Vermont can boast of some of the fastest growing per capita non-white population rates in the country the Vermont black indigenous people of color population has surged by an astonishing 112 percent between 2010 and 2020 meaning that the BIPOC community holds the keys to the future of the state of Vermont yet this community is being hurt it's being hurt the most by racial and housing disparities for example a mere 20% of black vermonters own their homes compared to 72% of white vermonters despite all the new home construction that we've seen only a me go 1% of Vermont's total housing units are available for purchase in Burlington 62% of homes are rent are occupied the vast majority of these by people of color and with the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment being at $1,600 a month if an individual is earning less than $60,000 a year a full third of their gross income is devoted to housing alone the picture is even more incredibly bleak given the disparities and pay and generational wealth that exists between BIPOC and white vermonters municipalities driven by NIMBY sentiments often employ zoning laws that hinder affordable housing development exacerbating the challenges faced by the BIPOC community Vermont's Act 250 intended to preserve landscapes limits options and perpetuates segregation and racial disparities through exclusionary zoning we cannot have 85 municipalities signing and adopting a declaration of inclusion yet when it comes to building housing for Montes in these same cities and towns are discouraging development we find us find ourselves at a crossroads where bold creative and comprehensive action is imperative the housing crisis faced by people in Vermont is nothing short of an emergency demanding an all-hands-on-deck response we can no longer allow state and local regulatory processes to be weaponized and be derail and derail housing opportunities housing is a fundamental human right and not a privilege so if housing is a human right then it is undeniably right to build housing and to support the neighborhood code thank you thank you Tino I I think that is exactly what we were trying to do here we are serious about the promise that housing should be a human right in this community I think value that many people would raise their hands for then we need to build a lot more housing and that's what the neighborhood code will enable we have only we're only here at this point we're only gotten to this important day we only have the chance to make this really historic vote on Monday really there's many reasons that you've been hearing we've gotten here but one of the key reasons came from outside city government came from a voice that might surprise some folks it came from the AARP AARP I think a lot of people know as an organization that fights for social security and older Americans they here in Vermont and increasingly nationally have also been standing up for great infrastructure and and more housing the the elements that make a community a good place to grow old in and there's been a long partnership now between AARP and the city of Burlington and specifically AARP had put out put out this idea years ago of infill development in neighborhoods and we appreciate their partnership not only with that spark but then throughout the process and then being here today Kelly Stoddard for the director of outreach for AARP we're so grateful for the partnership thank you very much mayor and thank you for all of the work across city government to get us to where we are today on behalf of AARP Vermont we are very pleased that the city is moving forward with that neighborhood code the neighborhood code will open up opportunity for incremental change by allowing for more diverse housing in neighborhoods with existing infrastructure and amenities the city's current zoning limits the availability of housing types and overly restricts the ability to diversify our housing landscape to meet housing needs missing middle housing types which would be allowed under the proposed zoning changes in the neighborhood code will help meet the needs the needs of many types of households and provide age friendly housing for the growing population of older adults as our country and as our state ages it's critical to address the housing needs and opportunities among older adults age friendly housing allows older adults to choose how and where they want to live whether that's by downsizing or aging in place in their community smaller more moderately priced missing middle housing units provide the flexibility for older adults to live an affordable walkable neighborhoods that foster independence and community connections AARP Vermont strongly supports the neighborhood code and we encourage City Council to vote favorably on Monday March 25th thank you okay thank you all for hanging in there with us you know this is an issue as I to the top that touches so many communities that it's important I think that we hear from a broad cross section of this community and next up is going to be Bob Duncan who is long been an architect in this community at his business Duncan Wyshnefsky and who has over the course of the many many months of debate at the City Council really been quite eloquent about how this change fits into city actions that he's seen take place over a long period of time I'm really grateful you could be here today and share your perspective so I'm not the oldest person I know that one of the white hairs that's the speaking I I graduated from University in 1974 you know I put myself in that category names 12 years ago so I graduated from University in 1974 with a degree in architecture and moved to Burlington for what I thought was a summer job and so now I'm like looking at the Guinness Book of World Records is probably the longest summer job history so I've been working here for 50 years and I've been involved in the zoning updates ever since the beginning in the 1970s and I was amazed and didn't understand in 1975 why we couldn't have two buildings on a lot I didn't understand why we had such restrictive zoning and why people could only live in one place and they couldn't shop in the same place so I've been looking at this for 50 years and what I can say for right now is it's been a long time and it's about time so it really is important a couple things about this code that I think maybe people don't really realize one of them that I think is very important is that you can build more than one building on a lot and when you look back at the history of what happened in the 70s and 80s in particular in Burlington a lot of our historic buildings that had additions had to have additions added to them couldn't have a separate building on the lot some of those designs are unfortunate our community I think has suffered architecturally and visually because of that and I think this code will make a difference in that way so you can have a second building on a lot it's really important the other thing that's really important in this is the reduction in lot size there are a number of lots in the city they could accommodate another home another lot and actually subdivided lot that up until now can't be done so that's another important change and finally I'll just say that there's some people in the community that are concerned that there's going to be too much happening too fast I think I think Megan indicated that in her remarks that and several people have that this is incremental growth it's it is not the panacea to our housing crisis when I moved here in 1974 it was 1% vacancy rate I couldn't find an apartment for months it was really hard so that aspect hasn't changed but the incremental growth part is really important because there are so many other things that impact the development of housing when you have to get an erosion control permit from the Department of Public Works to prove that you're not putting too much stormwater into the city streets that's that is a check and balance on the system some can argue that it's too strict others will say it's not strict enough but the point is there's another way to measure what happens in the city so I think I think we just need to be mindful that this has opportunity it will create opportunity for lots of people but it will also not be something that's going to change the city dramatically overnight and I think that's an important thing for councillors to remember thank you next up we're here from Michael Mati the CEO for Champlain Housing Trust everybody knows Champlain Housing Trust as a housing provider and manager that helps this community deal with this housing challenges in so many ways I was very excited a few weeks ago to hear this Champlain Housing Trust is already looking at that what the what the neighborhood code will allow and has some possible plans in the books I don't know if you're planning on speaking to them Michael I hope you are I think it is exciting to hear that this trusted and critical affordable housing provider sees opportunity in the neighborhood code and happy to give you the chance to speak to that Michael thank you first Dave mentioned 22 years ago we actually mentioned 22 years that's not 22 years go by interestingly enough I had been thinking about former mayor Clevelle sustainability plan that he had introduced right about that time in that plan he talked about three ease economic development social equity and environmental justice that is what the neighborhood code addresses and it really addresses all three and at the time the mayor actually got Clevelle got a hard time for suggesting that the city can grow substantially to like 65,000 a very high number nevertheless he was challenging the city at the time city wasn't ready we should have done it back then we should be doing it right now there's always room to tinker there's always room to make better what we have now doesn't work let's make something that work and we could take her later now as I was planning with a group of parents who are parents of disabled we call them a disabled adult children about a new community we want to build at 322 st paul street it's an older building used to be four units recently a group home we began to look and see what we could do with the existing building and it really wasn't enough and then we took a look at the neighborhood code and frankly from because of the neighborhood code we're going to be able to build 13 small apartments some congregate living a whole bunch of social space some common kitchen some common areas plenty of green space patio space room for parking it's going to be a great project if we don't have the neighborhood code we can't do that project and those adult children won't be able to essentially establish an urban community in berlington so it's really critical for us to do that thank you mayor two more speakers another key partner in so much that i've had the privilege to work on the last 12 years and always a voice for more housing is the bronyton business association and their director kelly divine kelly thank you for for being here doing yet another event together and uh and and coming and coming out for housing I will say I'm also grateful we have the lake champlain chamber of commerce represented here as well by austin davies and I'm grateful to you both for being here thank you uh you know we have two priorities at the berlington business association one of which is housing we've had that on the top of our priority list for several years and we've made some really amazing progress I want to thank the mayor director tuttle the members of the joint planning commission and city council as well as all the partners here it really does show that you need a bunch of people working together to make change I want to especially also thank ARP they really have been amazing leaders on this particular piece and we're all trying to together figure out a way to get more housing in this community so more people can live there we represent over 200 businesses and nonprofits in the berlington area and virtually all of them will tell you that staffing is a challenge we need more housing and more importantly affordable housing across the spectrum it's critical to moving people forward from the most high paying jobs in our community down to everyday staffing jobs people cannot hire or they have people pass jobs over because they can't find a place to call home here uh berlington needs some solutions we're in in the housing affordability crisis we need solutions for Montpelier as well as Tito said Tino said excuse me and we need them now the neighborhood code is a key step forward um also it's going to help expand our tax base it's critical to berlington's vitality in the years to come as everything gets more expensive we need a lot of people working together and we need a lot of uh you know we need a lot of people contributing to the pot so we can take care of what we need to do in the city uh Megan's department recently had a study performed from a consultant company called urban three and they take a look at neighborhood performance throughout the city based on uh performance per acre and the amount that different types of neighborhoods contribute to the tax code they found among other things that neighborhoods with existing middle missing middle housing stock that were in this community typically built well before our modern zoning changes have two to three times higher appraised value per acre than single family home neighborhoods that means they're really working for the city and working for the people that can live there these proposed changes aren't a scary thing we have worked on a bunch of different zoning changes over the course of the year that Megan mentioned we are in a crisis we need to take this thing and move forward we built missing middle housing in this community hundreds of years ago you drive around downtown you look to the back of lots you'll see it some of it in burlington's most desirable neighborhoods it's time to re legalize these housing types so that more burlingtonians can have a home in our walkable vibrant neighborhoods throughout the city thanks finally um we are going to get to hear from jack tiano who is a member of an organization called v-pop for monitors for people oriented places and he's also lives in this community and i just want to say thank you to jack and his colleagues at v-pop who have completely changed over the last couple years the discussion about housing in this community the big reason that for so long it was almost impossible to make pro housing reforms is that the people who had concerns about what might get built next to them they were engaged in these issues and they would show up and there was no voice on the other side saying we need more housing that is hopefully now forever changed by v-pop and younger people who understand what's at stake with these housing decisions and are coming out again and again and again to call for change and i appreciate jack being here today to do that one more time good afternoon um so before i get started i just want to thank the mayor for inviting me to speak today and for taking this off two years ago but i especially want to give thanks to the phenomenal work of our city's planning department which i'll touch on in a moment so my name is jack tiano and i'm a member of vermont is for people oriented places v-pop is a grassroots advocacy group that works towards building stronger cities and towns in vermont through the lenses of housing and transportation with the goal of affordability sustainability and vibrancy i may be the one person up here speaking today but v-pop is a large group project and every one of the dozens of people who've contributed to our advocacy work are essential i threw out some names but we don't have the time for how many names there are to say we're a non-partisan group that is really united in a politics that is not determined by party affiliation but by wanting to truly understand what drives something like our housing crisis so that we can make the changes needed to put us behind us as quickly and as fairly as possible and as it turns out zoning is a big deal and so needless to say we've been very involved throughout the neighborhood code process there's a lot that i could say about the neighborhood code uh believe me but today i just want to highlight what i think has been the primary motivating factor for us as advocates and what has given us the energy to stay so engaged on the neighborhood code for so long and that's equity you might hear some redundancies i'm the last speaker so there's not a lot of new ground to cover but so burlington like many places across the country has made housing policy mistakes in its past that have been hugely detrimental to the city and its residents in both the 70s and the 90s burlington enacted significant downzoning on its residential neighborhoods that effectively froze those places in time and locked the door for home ownership and housing stability for generations of future burlingtonians i don't think it's necessary to assume the motives behind why those changes were made but i think it because i think it's enough to just look at the consequences nearly a half a century of stagnant population in burlington while people were pushed out rapidly into rapidly expanding sprawl and every increasing percentage of renters in the city who are as a result unable to achieve housing stability and thus financial stability the neighborhood code directly acknowledges and dismantles this history of exclusionary zoning and walks the talk in its proclamation that burlington is for everybody i want to close out with what this means to me personally i moved here in 2011 to go to champlain college started renting in 2014 and have been renting ever since my partner and i have been living near marble avenue for the past couple years in a tiny one bedroom apartment it was supposed to be temporary but there's not a lot of options so temporary has become four years and counting with every year that goes by our lives become more deeply enmeshed with this pocket of the city and it became more painful to know that eventually we would probably have to leave this neighborhood or even the city against our will in order to find stable housing especially if we ever wanted to start a family i've been primarily engaged on maybe i've been primarily engaged on neighborhood code from a big picture and long-term perspective but yesterday on a walk looking in backyards and visualizing secondary structures i realized that there could be more opportunities for housing and even ownership on my street and soon for the first time in years i felt the spark of tangible hope that i personally might actually be able to choose to stay here there in what has become my neighborhood which is something that i have not let myself believe would be practical for a long time and so in summary i think the neighborhood code is one of those rare spreadsheets that manages to both right historical wrongs and inspire hope in the future and it is honestly something that everyone in burlington should be immensely proud of thanks okay thank you for your attention through through all that and we'd be happy to answer some questions if there aren't using the word secondary structures do you explain to the viewers this is an apartment building popping up three eight stories these are smaller structures on top of that can you explain that yeah i think uh i can but i think i'll let megan tuttle our planning director speak to see that thank you um yeah one of the elements of the neighborhood code is that it allows for flexibility for how new homes could be created on lots over time you've heard speakers talk about the ability to have smaller lots that to subdivide to create new lots for new homes but another option for that could be by adding new buildings in the backyards of the uniquely deep lots that we see across neighborhoods in the city these would be house scale buildings we do have rules in the new neighborhood code that would limit the size and mass of those buildings would limit the number of units that would be within them but would create an opportunity for new ways that new homes could be added do you think building that will that eventually or how will this lower that sixteen hundred one bedroom number we keep on hearing is this going to be low income or is that we're going to get through this first to first great yeah i think that's a great question you've certainly heard from partners here today who have talked about the opportunities that the neighborhood code could open for them to come to the table to bring new affordable housing that's really truly protected in some way to the city we also know from the experience of other communities that have pursued a similar slate of zoning reform over a long period of time that together these changes start to make a difference we've seen in communities like minneapolis that has really you know consistently pursued changes that rents have slowed austin other cities that have had housing at the top of the list through zoning changes like the neighborhood code but also through changes like densifying downtowns and other growth areas like we've done as well these things start to make a difference in terms of helping not only to alleviate vacancy rates but help relieve the pressure on rent growth and to be clear this is already existing lots this doesn't infringe on act 250 at all uh is for most of the projects that we're talking about i think act 250 will have a limited impact but you know i think one of the things that we're looking to is the potential that you know new small developers could help create homes in our communities and so we think that there are some additional changes that act 250 could make to make sure that that's not a barrier to implementation in the future mayor you mentioned that uh at the beginning that you want the city council to pass the neighborhood code and not send it back to committee if it goes to committee you know there's no guarantee it won't come up again and they'll pass it in the future what's the concern about the potential of it going back to committee on monday so pat it um it has been my experience over the last 12 years that when you have an opportunity to take an action to address our biggest challenges uh you should take it and you should that that is the way we get big things done i have you know i remember very early on um in the time that i was mayor there was a chance to make one of the parking reforms that megan referenced um and we chose instead to send it back for to committee for a little study you know it was i think seven years before it got back to the city council so i i don't want to see that happen again with something this important uh every these as you heard from bob dunkin and others this is writing historical wrongs that go back to the 90s and the 70s these are changes that are long overdue we shouldn't wait any longer than money monday to put them in practice i do want to go back just to i explain about you know act 250 absolutely matters for burlington and every community in in the state that wants to to build more housing there's a lot that is solely within the the city's discretion but ultimately the uh even in burlington right now the largest city by far in the the state um most projects uh that go forward not every single one but most projects including neighborhood code projects will be subject in one way or another to to act 250 if changes aren't made and uh it appears we are at risk of going through you know talk about changes that are long overdue that it has been 50 more than 50 years now since there have been any material changes to act 250 we were promised that this was going to be the year that the state finally took action you know all they did last year was put more was to kind of beat up on municipalities further and you know i agree i supported that bill and i agree with most of it but the biggest thing the state can do to encourage more housing is to fix the state regulations they get to fix act 250 and they're at risk of failing to do that again for another legislative session and that too would be a missed opportunity so could you run into a wall so this could pass on monday but then if someone wants to build could they run into issues uh you know these issues are complicated like in their hearts it's completely boiled down but the the um the biggest intersection as i see it i hope i don't get this wrong i'll let some of the experts in the room correct me if i am not quite right is there are there are limited there there's one of the many perverse and frustrating elements of act 250 is that it it um it regulates buildings differently depending on who's building it you know it's almost un-american like it like we don't generally have laws that say it's one thing if one person is doing it but if someone else is doing it it's something different with act 250 we draw the line uh we say that if if if a if a quad-poreplex or was being um built by a builder that had already built other projects in the community that might trigger act 250 in certain situations where and and by doing that sugar you add a whole level of costs and review and delay that probably makes makes it uh impossible for that that project to get built so i think we'll happen less in Vermont it's our less in brolington than in uh other areas for a variety of reasons but um absolutely the full potential of the neighborhood code will only be unlocked if the state takes further action to reform act 250 as well


Module 213, Bulimana Vosa, Bulimana Vosa is another type of eating disorder in which the person is eat a lot and after that purge it out.  So if we look at it, Bulimana Vosa that is like anorexia navosa but that is not completely in line with that. How we are saying that it is not completely in line with that and sheared some of its symptom is in the way that the anorexia navosa has fear of gaining weight, Bulimana Vosa also has fear of gaining weight, but the difference is that the Bulimana Vosa is eating a lot of the individual. After eating a lot, after bench eating it is purging, that is, it is vomiting out. And the weight in it will be in the normal range, that is, the BMI that is in between 18-30. But the anorexia navosa in it, the weight of the client is less than 2 that can also be purging and bench eating can be developed. So if you explicitly define Bulimana Vosa, then what will happen is that it will be bench eating, that is, it will eat more and after that it will immediately try not to gain weight. And when it tries not to gain weight, then it will use different strategies for that, in which it can be purging, now what will it do in that, that it will vomit, except to vomit, it will do excessive exercises, it will take lexatives, so in this way it tries to overcome that. If we look at its symptoms of Bulimana Vosa, then you can understand this thing that most of the time it eats a lot at a time, and eats so much that they feel themselves uncontrollable. Basically, the client eats food in a significant amount, for example, if there are 4-5 things on its table, then it will eat all of it, and that uncontrollable impulse will be for taking that food. So when it eats that food, then what will happen is that it will have a lot of guilt feeling, shame and the feeling of anxiety will start to induce it. Along with this, the feeling of havingness can also be developed in it. Secondly, in these people, that perception is in the reference of their body weight and shape. Basically, when they take a lot of food, the guilt, shame or the feeling of anxiety will develop. To encounter these feelings, what do they do, they purge the food, what will they do, they will vomit, they will take lexatives, and at a certain time they try to take gag reflexes also. So with the help of that, when they vomit, they feel themselves, their calories that have gone into the body, they have vomited out, and after that, at some time, their excessive taking of food, to neutralize it, they do excessive exercises. When we say word of excessive exercise, it means that for example, in one day, they will start doing 500 set ups. Okay, or when they start running, they will start running for 2 to 3 hours. So this sort of behavior is observed by them. Along with that, the pre-occupation of their body, with weight and shape, is very high. Okay, when they are self-image, they are very distorted, they don't like them. They always said that, I am fat, I am ugly, so these kinds of statements are in their mind. Okay, so when there is a client of Bulima Narvosa in front of you, then you have to differentiate them from Anorexia Narvosa, number one, that their weight is in the normal limit. Okay. And along with that, you have to see that their body is not very thin. At a certain time, the people who are obese, Bulima Narvosa is also found out, okay. But the Anorexia Narvosa, the thinness of the body will be there, and along with that, their body weight will be below BMI. So you have to keep this in mind, but we also know that the Anorexia Narvosa can develop a binge type with it. That is, the client is not taking food intake, but if he is taking food intake, then he is purging, but along with that, his weight is reducing. If the weight is reducing, then Anorexia Narvosa is there, if the weight is not reducing, and the normal weight criteria is coming, then that is Bulima Narvosa. After that, we see that Bulima Narvosa, what will be its physical effect on the body? Okay. So due to eating disorder, the brain will definitely have a lot of effects on it, which can be depression, fear of gaining weight, anxiety, dizziness, shame, anxiety, shame and low self-esteem. Then it has been observed that their cheeks are either sore or swollen, because they are like some time they are trying to do the vomit out. So when they put their fingers in the mouth to do the vomiting, then due to that, their cheeks start having problems. Similarly, we have seen in the mouth that cavities can be a certain time gum disease, so such sensitivity develops in the mouth.  After that, because for example, if they insert their fingers, then it may be possible that the throat gets injured. Similarly, the muscles are fatigued. Then the stomach can be ulcerated, or it can be ruptured, or it can have pain. Why? Because they are taking so many lexatives, so due to that, the problem of the stomach can start. The skin becomes very dry, why can it be dry? Because the water intake is not that much, the skin starts having problems. The blood has been observed that anemia happens to these children. The heart also has irregular heartbeat. It has come to see the weakness, that is, the muscles start fluctuating. The body fluids are reduced. Magnesium, potassium, sodium have problems in them. They have a low level. The functions of the intestine are also disturbed. Constipation can be done, irregular bowel movements can be done. Diarrhea can be done. Such complaints are present in their history. Similarly, the hormones are disturbed, and in the case of females, periods can be irregular or absent. So basically, if we talk about bulimia nervosa in the eating disorder, then that is not only limited to the psychological effect on the body, rather it also affects the body physically too. Thank you.


So, expert elicitation is a pretty powerful process. It's a rigorous approach to be able to systematically describe relationships, whether those are probability distributions or connections between various variables that we expect, and really make our scientific knowledge transparent. It's been used in a number of cases where there simply is not data and information to be able to make assessments, but experts have knowledge that needs to be included in decisions. So, for example, some pretty famous examples of very rigorous expert elicitations being employed related to choosing between different locations for where you could store nuclear waste in the United States. And it requires thinking about tens of thousands of years from now and implications for failure of the storage containers. And when you would expect those to degrade, it involves calculating or quantifying probabilities related to how much you would expect if you were to have seepage when you would expect it to potentially hit groundwater sources or other things that would impact humans and human health. And so these are really useful techniques to employ within forecasting because in some cases we have a lot of data to be able to describe things that we care about. Sometimes we don't have as much data we can use as we would like and we can use clever statistical approaches or other mathematical approaches to fill in the gaps. And in other cases, we really need to use experts. The paper that I put in the reading list was done by Granger Morgan who has done a number of expert elicitation exercises within the U.S. primarily focused on public sector decision making. So a lot of things relevant to environmental management. And he says in his paper, done well, expert elicitation can make a valuable contribution to informed decision making done poorly. It can lead to useless or even misleading results that can lead decision makers astray alienate experts and wrongly discredit the entire approach. And so, I mean, similar to anything we do, there's probably a way of doing it right and many ways of doing it wrong. And so if you think that an approach like this is useful and that it's probably worthwhile to make sure it's designed right and potentially involve experts in helping to navigate some of those processes. Just to give you a sense of the things that need to be considered when designing this and this is not to discourage you from using this, it's more to say we use it a lot within, you know, individually within modeling processes because we are experts ourselves. But when we are going out and seeking outside expert opinion, there's just a different level of rigor that has to be applied. So you want to make sure that if you're asking a question, it's relevant to someone's expertise and that they will be able to make some kind of, in this case, probabilistic or predictive judgment. You don't want to use qualitative uncertainty language. There's a number of studies that have shown if you use words like likely or with high certainty or some of the language that's used like in the IPCC, they define the probabilities that are associated with it. But if you don't define those, what you find are terms like likely have ranges between like 30 and 70 percent. So what do you do with that when you've structured something qualitatively? There's a lot of mental shortcuts. This word called heuristics that we use a lot, that's basically, you know, these mental shortcuts that we use a lot in decision making, they can rear their heads in really unpleasant ways if you've structured your elicitation to more or less play to some of those heuristics. So you want to be aware of the ones that typically arise when working with people and keep those in mind so that you're designed to minimize or potentially mathematically correct for biases like overconfidence. I can give you a paper of ours that we did that after collecting the elicitations. Experts, you want to choose them carefully. You want to think about the protocols of how you're setting this up and how you're intuitively refining this so similar to your data, you want to have calibration checks and ways of validating it. You want to think carefully about the uncertainty, a functional form, the diversity of experts, similar to giving them what you want to say so that you're not creating a representation that's too narrow based off of the entire expert field. And you want to think carefully about combining expert judgments because a lot of times we might want to collapse probability distributions across multiple experts and there's cases where that works perfectly well. I've done it reasonable a number of times and there's cases where it doesn't make sense similar to ecosystems. Some you can aggregate and think about them in terms of more general characteristics. Some are so distinct you really need to treat them independently. So I want to give you an example because we keep talking about weather forecasting as a correlation. Decision analysts have been in the mix from the very beginning of weather forecasting. So we went from this situation where we weren't very good about it. We now have models that are able to predict the thunderstorms that are going to occur in the hail that rains down at a pretty reasonable prediction level. However, there was a natural experiment that we had with weather forecasters that we don't necessarily have with ecological forecasting. But it gives us insight into how we might be able to think about experts with ecological forecasting. So with weather forecasts from the very beginning days, even before we had models, we had local weather forecasters who were the local experts who would predict weather conditions. Now you couldn't do that very well like without some of the more sophisticated technology.  So starting back in 1965 when a lot of this started, you could look at an expert, a weather forecaster versus a weather model and see which performed better using squaring rules. It worked pretty well for a while. And that's because a lot of the models weren't able to predict as much as what the experts knew and we're not necessarily able to do that at the local level. You had a lot of local knowledge that was being incorporated into those probabilistic assessments that couldn't be captured by the model. Over time, over two decades or so, the model's caught up. And actually I think about in the mid-80s is when the model started outperforming regularly most weather forecasters. And so I think this gives some insights into how we think about it in terms of forecasting because we're still using expert knowledge. So this is one that pulls from multiple different data sources but how they think about aggregating is not necessarily using models even though you have individual sources based off of models and data sources. They actually have an expert process that develops these qualitative scales related to whether or not drought is persistent or drought improvements are likely and things in between. Now I would argue that there could be a greater transparency with the process that they used to make those judgments but it is an example of how we have experts operationalize into forecasts that are used for a lot of decision making processes. Which means I would argue especially at this stage where ecological forecasts are really nascent that if we think about how we combine ecological forecasts with formalized expert judgment really understanding the experts assessment of a particular problem that we're trying to understand and solve that we can actually get better ecological forecast and that that might be something that is useful to operationalize as we work to improve the skill of the models over time. So we don't have to wait for models that perform slightly better than 50, 50, 50. We can get predictions and forecasts on time scales that are decision relevant by thinking about how we combine these more effectively. So the three major ways that I see expert elicitation being particularly useful within forecasting is one is we don't need to use uninformative priors. There's a lot of cases where we have existing knowledge and we can construct an informative prior and expert judgment even your own expert judgment going into those kind of modeling context in a formalized way can be a really powerful way of including it within these kind of Bayesian forecasting approaches. Likelihoods. So this is not dissimilar from the weather forecasting situation where they use the model as a prior and they had local information you got a posterior distribution that was combining those. In other cases a lot of times in the models that I've constructed we have questions whether there simply exists no data or no data on the phenomenon that we care about. And that means that expert elicitation can be a really useful way of sort of bridging the gap in constructing the likelihood when you have an uninformative prior and you really need data. The other is so these are constructing probability distributions and we're going to do that in a second. The other thing is is we've talked about you know these relationships between various variables in the causal structure that we're thinking about and there are approaches a conceptual model influence diagrams mental modeling where what you're doing is you're capturing your expert knowledge structural equation modeling you're capturing your expert knowledge and formally representing it in a causal structure of that that model and formalizing it and formalizing the choices that you're making because there's trade-offs with any of these modeling choices we're not able to represent absolutely everything and there's a reason why models penalize complexity. Those are those are some entry points but what we wanted to do was actually construct a probability distribution. So I'm going to invite Mike up here to talk about constructing a prior related to the travel time from Boston University to Logan Airport. Yeah I've done this example in both my graduate classes with the forecasting class and my Bayesian class and I've run into students years later they remember nothing about Bayes Theorem but never miss flights anymore and I know not all of you are most of you have not lived in Boston so I'm going to rely on some of those folks in the back who do. I'm also feeling a little nervous doing this in front of Melissa who is a bona fide decision scientist because she started she started with the quote about how done poorly. I was like I've never gotten formal training in this I've just been reading up on it I'm like she's going to just tell me I've been doing it wrong for years. My understanding which is all started you know as book knowledge really reiterates the point Melissa made about some of the cognitive biases and the importance of doing elicitation in a way that tries to avoid those cognitive biases and we the place that I have used elicitation most often has been in the construction of priors I feel like if you read the literature when you're trying to learn Bayes there are an abundance of uninformed priors used all over the place and if you think about that well statisticians don't actually know how anything works in the world they don't know how your system works they don't have any expert judgment so of course they're going to use in for uninformed priors but you do you know a lot about how your systems work and I've but I've seen so met so much of the ecological Bayes literature is just ripe with misapplication of very very broad priors on things that we do know a lot more about on the flip side I've seen particularly in the process based modeling literature a lot of examples of one of the most important cognitive biases with elicitation which is anchoring so if you have a process based model that model has default parameters if you ask someone who's been using that model for a few years or developed it for decades to construct a prior they will center their prior on the default parameters they will then set fairly narrow bounds around that and often they do it uncritically I've seen tons of papers where people's priors were the default parameters plus or minus 20% which is yeah you're you're way overcome for some of those parameters if you actually sit back and say what's the biological range of variability that this process is it's not 20% you don't actually knew that but I've been through this exercise with with you know folks that you know build these global system models and saying okay let's step back and think about what what values parameters can take on and one of the the ways that I've done this has always focused on building a probability distribution but building a probability distribution in terms of the CDF the cumulative distribution function for example if we have a normal distribution you know centered on zero standard normal variance one that's our you know PDF but the corresponding CDF for that kind of looks like a logit and it's centered on zero you know minus one to one you know it's the integral of our PDF and for various reasons it's often easier to work through the logic of how the CDF might be structured and then having constructed that CDF to essentially take the derivative of it to get back to the PDF so if anchoring is one of the key cognitive biases anchoring starts by thinking about the middle I think what we often want to do when thinking about constructing priors is to instead think about the extremes so we're going to do in constructing a CDF is going to work from the outside in so in a few days a lot of you will be leaving Boston and need to get to the airport you're starting here on campus or fairly close to campus what's the minimum time that it can physically take to get from here to Logan under the absolutely positively best possible case disregarding all state and federal law and no traffic and any form of transportation yeah no limitations yeah well we know for one thing it's positive we're not assuming that we can have a time portal and go back and we can get to the airport before we left though there's many days where I wish I did but yeah it's you know okay so for reference if you don't drive on the roads it's a little under five miles to campus from campus to the airport so maybe you you know you hop on you know your private helicopter it's a you know Apache Tech it's going cruising it's going to take yeah a minute or two so let's say the lower bound might be around one minute is there an upper bound on how long it takes to get to the airport given that the Boston traffic can sometimes suck and there is a background mortality rate you might argue there is not there is that you might not ever make it to Logan the maximum amount of time like yeah you know walking there like how long would it if you're walking five miles is that you know out half but it could be raining you could be snowing I've I've tried to walk down the street out there when there was literally 10 feet of snow so assuming that you did not die on route you know it still could take say tens of hours at an extreme you know that's is your worst worst day nightmare but we say that worst nightmare doesn't actually happen very often it's it's the asymptote of a probability distribution it is out in the tails and it's really hard to get out of that like this is a really scary situation how to get to like a realistic model or understanding of what the system is that bias has a name availability bias yeah availability bias so it also depends on your framing because you know if what you're trying to do is like what I'd say blue skies planning so you're trying to preemptively think like we are trying to manage for various species and we're thinking about introducing feral pigs with this idea and you talk with different experts I would approach it two ways and this is usually how I construct my elicitations the first thing I do when I meet with an expert is actually I sit down and talk with them about that system and I get them to just literally explain it to me I construct a conceptual model how many of you think in box and arrow diagrams okay yeah so there's a couple of you and if you think in box and arrow diagrams like you have a really powerful skill set because when people are talking you're literally like and drawing these that's that's what you're doing during that kind of phase is that you're literally having someone explain to me you know the relationships for a phenomenon that we care about and you're sketching it out and then you're stopping and just checking this is what I'm hearing is this the way that you conceptualize it you know which of these are some of the dominant drivers which are the minor are there other factors that you would expect that would influence it the whole idea behind that is to do exactly what you were talking about Jen let's get people like sort of outside thinking thinking both about the dominant things that are likely to affect that system what they would typically model but also about these other factors that would influence it you know both environmentally but also the the human social factors that may not be included like in an ecological forecast but absolutely you know in some cases affected when we're doing projections and we need said you know boundary conditions then after we've done that and I've constructed a conceptual model they've had a time to reflect on it I've maybe even sent them a summary so if they have other ideas they've been able to do it usually in a separate session that's when I do a probabilistic assessment because you know when when you do that and ideally with the conceptual modeling and with other things what you want them to do is also connect the dots so we're thinking about you know the effect of the brown snake on the crow on everything but the crow in particular and I was I was trying to think of the Marianna Crow you know what are some of the other invasive species examples you know what do we think might have similarities or differences what are the invasive species introductions that have worked out well which ones have which ones have worked really poorly what have been some of the unanticipated effects so that then if you're constructing you know some type of probability elicitation over something you care about you're getting them to think about it you know both in terms of those those extremes and what what is most likely to happen that is easier to do and blue skies planning when something hasn't happened once something happens you know something oftentimes it's bad that constraints things a bit they're no longer trying to forecast if the event is going to happen well they're not trying to forecast if it's going to happen they're trying to forecast the effect the effect of what will happen and that's that's a slightly different situation and if you're doing these intertip forecast in some cases it can be there are not many examples of long-term systematic expert focus forecasting the drought monitor outlooks are one example where that uses experts regularly like on a weekly basis to think about that it's really expensive and time-consuming and large federal agencies maybe fish and wildlife service are the ones that really have the capacity to like operationalize those kinds of approaches interest of time I'm gonna have to nip that in a bud because I thought we were gonna spend half an hour on this we spent closer to an hour on this but I'm gonna get you guys started on might instead say well realistically let's think about say 99% of the time so we'll get rid of that last 1% of truly abysmal cases and think about well 99% of the time what are the odds well 90% of the time 99% of time your car is not going to break down you're gonna get stuck walking but there's gonna be some pretty bad weather days and pretty awful rush hour traffic that you could be stuck in where you're crawling along so let's say 60 minutes and so we would say at this 99% for a 99 percentile I mean I would I would think maybe more like two hour and a half two hours if you ran into say you had an accident that shut down all lanes of traffic on and driving towards Logan two hours it was slow yeah it was an hour and a half for me yeah I guess yeah like getting on hopping on the tee and then it like breaks down I've I've tried to get across Boston where you walk out here in a socks game just let out or you know you're trying to get out and yeah yeah it could be bad so so one of the things you might do during elicitation is say what's this what are these extremes but then you might then ask yourself okay what could cause something to be worse than that extreme so it's useful to have checks to say okay that thing that we wrote down what could cause us to be worse that you know to be to be skeptical of where you start to kind of revisit the point you've put down and think what you know what am I missing you know I'm not just talking about a bad day I'm talking about a really bad day so the process that we would go through would be to march inward so we might go from 99 to say 95 percent and say you know one in 20 that's a pretty everyday bad day that happens what's well so one of the things that I found useful in doing these kinds of things is when you work with experts especially with like these this kind of example of the airport is you saw me go like straight to an hour and a half because that's the worst experience I personally have had and usually a lot of times experts think of their I mean they're experts so they're thinking of like what they're familiar with and so you might have something like you know an hour and a half and Mike's absolutely right you basically then push them to talk about the extremes tens of hours probably like your your your true extreme bound if you if you were creating creating bracket so maybe not like a realistic bound but it but a true true extreme extreme bound because I think most people would switch modes of transportation before it got to that but when when I do this usually what you do is you might start here but instead of stepping them through this I actually do this yeah I was going to switch to the other extreme after that yeah switch to the the other one and the reason is is that then you force like them to think about it in in a different way so you're flipping flipping it so that then they don't end up focusing too much on one part of the distribution without thinking about you know what's the best case scenario and that then when you ideally get to the middle it really does match what their like expectation would be so 95 I mean I can easily see that being somewhere in that hour and a half to hour and 15 minute range so maybe that maybe we'll say that's you know maybe 80 minutes and then like Melissa said we might now switch here because here this one's sitting at 0% and we might say you know choose say 5% fastest time we don't actually have our Apache attack helicopter anymore we're on the road we're driving but it's it's two in the morning there's no traffic and you are not regarding laws particularly well you know 15 minutes yeah even you can you could make it in 15 minutes easy you could probably make it in a little bit faster yeah so maybe that takes me let's say maybe 12 minutes and I start connecting the dots so might do there I might jump up you know in the interest of doing this getting this done I might jump up to say 25% that's a pretty that's my you know now thinking about intercourtile range that's that's a pretty typical day I'm gonna hit some traffic so I might then say well along the road if I'm driving it's more like six six and a half miles on a typical day I might be doing on typical but better than average day I might be averaging about 40 miles an hour and what does that work out to 20 minutes 20 something like that so maybe that's a maybe that's a 20 minute day and then I might come back to the other stream and say well what's the other side of that intercourtile range it's worse than average it's it's you know it's a typical Boston rush hour you know I'm going 20 miles an hour so four minutes per mile five miles uh six miles seven miles whatever uh not doing good math on top of my head it's late in the day yeah maybe 40 minutes and then I guess the one of the really important things here is we're we're estimating that central tendency last we're not estimating it first so so if anchoring is a problem that idea of starting with the what you think is the most normal thing and then moving away from that works we've done the opposite we've come from the extremes back in so the last thing we estimate is a mean you know so maybe uh maybe that's 30 minutes and so now we've got a set of data points that describe a cumulative distribution function that now corresponds to our eight you know before collecting data just using our personal experience what we think the probability distribution describing getting to the airport would look like like I said we convert this convert this to a pdf and if I'm doing this if I'm using this for some sort of formal Bayesian inference one of the things I will then realize is that all of our Bayesian tools like name distributions so what I might then do is is take the start thinking about well what's the candidate set of probability distributions that conform to being capable of capturing these shapes well I would then say I definitely want to deal with zero bound distributions I'm not going to fit a Gaussian to this I'm going to want to deal with something like a gamma or a log normal or y-ball something that's a zero bound distribution I might have a set of four or five six probability distributions that have this nature of being zero bound you know even if I haven't done this formally but I can tell you if I sketch this out you're going to end up with a skewed distribution that's zero bound you can just see it because this tail was much longer than that tail and so I have data I have points here and I might fit all five or six possible distributions to those points and and see which does best and I might then end up you know translating this into something like you know a a gamma with specific parameters that then I can use as a prior when I'm constructing my model and you know just to just sort of think about this so this is sort of basically Mike's expert PDF for the amount of time he thinks it would take to get to to Logan if I were looking at my central tendency given the embarrassing amount of times that I've traveled to Boston University and not see Mike you know my average travel time is about 15 minutes because I usually take the tea in because I'm coming during rush hour and so part of this you know is expert dependent what you will likely get is for a question like this the distributional form is likely to be the same but you might have slightly different central tendencies or how that distributional form is constructed but if you're having similarity that's where to potentially a good case of doing an expert aggregation so if we ask you know five different people to and constructed their PDFs for this and then aggregated or more likely to get a distribution that is the true broader range and something that is probably more likely to sort of the central tendency of that that average condition come back to a couple of my experiences and working with modelers is I found that things like this are remarkably common when I go through the process of talking to them about their parameters you know there's lots of ecological models where the parameters we deal with and the processes we deal with are zero bound and skewed and you know when you then look and say well why is the whole literature we're using using symmetric Gaussian priors uh and then also that the variances are are wide like if you went to the literature right now and said you know what was the statistician have done you know the statistician would have done like normal mean zero variance of ten to the sixth you're like really there's a 50 probability that it's negative one million minutes to get to the airport like this is the absurdity of some of the default priors we use when when you actually start thinking about a problem you know you realize that you really do have a lot more constraint on problems than the default priors that you slap on if you're not stopping to think that said you know data will always given enough data you will always overwhelm your priors but it can be really handy to spend just a even if it's just five minutes kind of internally eliciting what you think about a problem can often give you much more reasonable constraints on what you're what you would what parameter values you would you believe if you got back so that if you run a statistical model and then it comes back you get an estimate of a slope or an intercept and you go that's impossible and the question would be then why did you assign it probably prior probability if you a priori didn't believe that result was possible why did you give it non-zero probability and that can help constrain models and and if we come back to thinking about forecasting and the types of forecasting problems we're going to face you know I one of the things I said yesterday is that I do expect there are going to be certain types of forecasting problems that will be chronically data limited things like emerging infectious disease invasive species problems where there's no way we could have enough information yet and those are ones where elicitation is going to be really essential to producing that first-order initial forecast that we can then update as data does become available yeah so when you think about this there's sort of the two things that we we've talked about so one is how can I as an expert in my own right or with my my team of modlers really think about this you know in a rigorous way both to add information a priori that helps us to build better models but also so that when you get output you understand when it might be too narrowly constrained because the way that the model is constructed is only looking at a piece of the larger system that you care about so that then as you think about it and you think about that output you can contextualize what those results mean because if you guys aren't doing it there's people that are going to be using those and potentially using them incorrectly because even if you're doing like a full uncertainty characterization it's looking at a very narrow piece of the larger system that you know that's being informed for a decision you have to contextualize those model results and this kind of process can help you to have some of the language to to put that into into context and in some cases and I you know when when you are in data limited situations bringing in someone who has rigorously done expert elicitation so you can have some of the data to rigorously parameterize your model and and predict some of those phenomenon has been proven time and time again as an effective way of being able to sort of fill in the gaps until we can collect the data and in some cases we will never be able to collect the data because it's unethical so in some cases there there's literally no way we will be able to do some of the things that we want to be able to predict unless we use elicitation and to pick up my last thoughts on this idea of contextualization having pushed process modelers through elicitation on their own models I found on more than one occasion the discovery of bugs in the model I've had seen them have to go look up the units on the parameters I've seen them have to dive into the code and make sure they understood how the parameter was used and then come to the realization that there's not the way they wrote down things didn't actually make sense to them once they stopped to try to put constraints on the problem and they have also seen that that process of going through an eliciting eliciting what they believe to be plausible parameters a prairie really made them stop and think about the process so you know even if the prior gets overwhelmed you've stopped and understood the process better you understand your model better this isn't always terribly critical with a simple linear model but anytime you're dealing with a nonlinear model a process based model mechanistic model stopping to do that elicitation actually will give you will make you stop and really understand the model you're working with which is is actually been a really valuable exercise


I just... it's not my cup of tea. Period sex is the best. I love period sex. That's like the best time to have sex in my opinion. Honestly, I'm not a fan of my period because I have really irregular periods and very painful cramping. The first time I had period sex, I cared more than my boyfriend did, but it was a really great time and I'm actually very for it now. I don't really feel that confident doing having period sex because I just feel like I would rather wait. With women now, period sex literally like throws a wrench in our plan because we're way more oral focused there and now no one wants to be all up in your Gucci when you're on your period.   Hey there, lovers and friends. Today I want to talk about running a red light, riding the Crimson River, going with the flow, making a crime scene. Period sex has a lot of different nicknames and even more misconceptions surrounding it. So in this video, I want to break it all down by discussing what exactly is period sex. How do you do it? Is it safe? Are women actually hornier on their period?  But first I want to talk about things who happens to be the sponsor for this video. Things wants to help women who have periods feel differently, more revitalized and better about life on their periods. They provide a number of different products, most notably their underwear, which I'm actually wearing right now because it's a million degrees in LA and it's just really comfortable. So I like it. If y'all think those are cute, well wait until you hear this. Things on these come in a variety of different styles with different absorbencies. Some of the other ones that I got are the hip hugger, which holds up to two tampons worth. This is the sport, which can hold 1.5 tampons worth. And I got me the thumb, which holds up to half a tampon worth. Head to the info box below to go to the Thinx website and use my promo code, Shan5.  I actually have it right here, but I've talked about this before on my Instagram. It is a four layer blanket that essentially promises that your sheets are not going to get messy as you get your freak on. But now let's get back to the main topic at hand, which is period sex. Period sex is a range of sexual behaviors from penetration to oral to petting that occurs while one or more of the participants are menstruating. And while we're on the topic, what exactly is menstruation blood? Well, it's a mix of, of course, one blood, two, normal vaginal discharge, and three, endometrial tissue, which is the lining of the uterus that sheds during this very special and magical time of month. So how does one do period sex? Well, just like any version of sex, there isn't one linear answer to this question. The rule of thumb is as long as whatever you're doing doesn't impinge on your health or happiness or the health or happiness of your partners, then it's totally fine for you to fill in the blanks with whatever feels good in the moment. But if you want some specific tips, I got you. Number one, you guys saw this one coming. You have to talk about it. It's so much easier to dive into new territory with excitement and with pleasure at the forefront when all of the participants know exactly what it is that they're comfortable doing and everyone knows what they are not comfortable doing. Number two, create a red zone. You know, when you go to theme parks and they have a splash zone at certain rides, it's kind of like that. A designated area where you don't have to feel self-conscious about stains or the blood getting somewhere, because let's be honest, depending on your day or usual flow, there may end up being a lot of blood. So having a space where you don't have to think about the consequences allows you to surrender yourself to the good experience. This is why I am obsessed with this blanket right here. It is stress-free. You throw it down. You never think about it again. You don't find yourself being wet during the experience. It's beautiful and black. So even if there are stains happening during, you're not going to be any the wiser. So create something for yourself. This could be the shower. This could be laying a towel down on a surface. The goal is that you get to focus on what you're doing and not the mess that you're making. Number three, decide how wet you want to get. There's a lot of different sexual activities you can participate in that actually don't have to include blood. You can keep your tampon or your menstrual cup in and play with the vulva as per usual. But if you do want to include the vaginal canal and have some penetration, you can actually use a female condom. And again, there's going to be no blood in the interaction. Or if you want to use your cup again, as long as it has a soft stem, that can be safe as well.  Now the only way to answer this question is to ask the person on the period. It definitely ranges from individual to individual.  On the flip side, premenstrual syndrome, aka PMS, can also take the sexy wind right out of a lot of people's sales. And we can understand why. Sore backs, sore breasts, cramping, moodiness, bloating and fatigue are natural adversaries to a lot of people's freak juices flowing. But here's a little tidbit for you. Having sex, especially sex that includes orgasm, can be a natural way to alleviate cramps. Is period sex actually safe? In short, yes. Yes, it is safe. And there are no additional risks associated with sex on your period. However, there are two important things to keep in mind. One, there's a theory that because a woman's cervix is more open during menstruation, that she is in essence more open and prone to infection. In addition to that, blood is a target rich environment. It's warm, it's wet, it's dense. So now is the time to be super sure that you are using protection, especially with new partners. Numero dos, blood also provides a lot of, a lot of lubrication. So things can tend to be a bit messier down there, which can heighten the play and make things a bit more fun, but also allows bacteria to travel easier from the vagina to the anus and of course vice versa. This means that when you're cleaning up, you have to use an extra white, put in some extra care and make sure that you really removed all bacteria that was introduced to the area. If you happen to see a difference in smell, texture or color that makes you feel really alarmed, go see a doctor.  Forgive me, but I'm going to have to bounce this question back to you like an uptight geography teacher. I don't know. Is it better? The truth is you have to ask the people involved if they like it or don't. Some people love it for all the reasons I just mentioned, plus it has a taboo factor which can increase the excitement and naughtiness level of it. While other people hate it for all the reasons I just mentioned and they simply can't get over the gross out factor of it. In short, I'm going to summarize this entire video with this one sentence, period sex. If you know how to handle the extra mess, there should be no additional stress.  Incredible underwear that I can wear all month long, but especially on the days that I just really need the extra sureness. If you guys want to learn more about things and the incredible work they do and how you can get your hands on these panties, not like these specific ones, I'm not selling my panties, but on some fresh ones for yourself. You can go in the info box there. You can also find information about their period sex blanket and other cool initiatives that they're into. And I'll answer some Q and A's about period sex down there too that I may have missed in the video. Bye. Period sex.  And it helps with cramps. It's helped me. I mean, I can't speak for everyone else, but it's helped me with cramps and it's helped me with headaches, and I have a really, really good night's sleep afterwards. I am definitely pro period sex, whether it's by myself or with my partner. It's a natural lubricant. It helps with cramps and I get to orgasm, which releases the happy endorphins from my brain to the rest of my body. I don't know about you, but I like being happy on my period. I really just could not fathom that somebody would want that would want to interact with my body fluids with blood specifically in that way. It just did not seem like a great idea. My thoughts now are that it really just does not matter. I'm sitting with my girlfriend right now, and for me personally, I don't see any problem with period sex. Period sex is just fine. We've done it. It's just blood. We all have blood and as two women in a relationship, we both bleed from down there. So no me importa. I was midway through my period, so I was a little bit more sensitive down there, and it was sensitive in a way where things were a little bit more painful. So like during penetration, instead of me being like optimal arousal, it was more discomfort. Word of advice, if you're going to have period sex, don't stop and look at it, because it's just, you're not going to like what you see. The emotions around it are a little rough sometimes where I just am crying and I don't know why, but that's all, that's all fast. And also drink just put on an album.


Well, you could say it's been an historic night of cutting with some legendary horses vying for a cash prize of $75,000 at the 2015 NCHA Ferturity. It was for the open final of the slot cutting put on by Weston Bloodstock and the NCHA and I'm with the man of the moment, Dustin Gonnett, all the way from Alberta, Canada. And he wrote, this cat's got style and marked at $229, congratulations Dustin. Thank you. How does that feel? Oh, it's pretty awesome. Yeah, especially being this pen, you know, and went in here on that mirror. I haven't been able to bring her down here before. And so this first time I got to bring her to Fort Worth and it darn sure worked out good today. So she certainly lived up to her name. This cat's got style because man, did she have some style today? Yeah, no, she felt good. You know, I had good work on her today. I've had good works the whole time I've been here on her. And and I knew on that second cow when she kind of crawled around. I thought, OK, we got this. If I can just keep, keep calm and don't do something I shouldn't do. So she's a highbrow cat? Yeah, yeah, she's a highbrow cat out of mom's style as Pepto. And what do you like about her besides being an awesome cat? Oh, just about everything.  I mean, everybody makes fun of me. But I mean, heck, I've Dr. Jirlen's honor and open.   But I mean, it's it's what makes her a good horse.  So OK, so take us through your run. What was your game plan and how it panned out as you were going through it? Well, when we were watching cows, I mean, Eric Weishard, he knows that Mexican cattle better than anybody. And and Greg had been showing on him in the World Final.  But I have to be honest, it's hard for me sometimes not to get zoned in on a cow that we'd been talking about. And and honestly, we did. We went down there and we cut all three cows that we talked about. And and I just knew I just knew if they would go forward, I was coming with them and see what happened. So and it worked out. So you were up against some pretty legendary horses, as we mentioned, Juni Wood. There was third cutting. Was it daunting to be competing in the Will Rogers Colosseum against horses like that? Not so much in the finals. The go round was probably a lot worse, you know, because there was tons of good horses in there. I mean, I forget what it was, 74 or 75 of the best horses. So, yeah, the go round was a little more intimidating walking in there from, you know, not being down here that much and and being up against them horses.  Yeah, you know, it was awesome to be with them horses, but I just focused on what what I wanted to go do. So did you have a feeling while you were doing it that this was a winning run? No, to tell you the honest truth, when I was done, I knew I knew she was good. I knew, you know, I knew I'd cut my cows clean and didn't have any big mistakes or anything. So I have to be honest until they put the score up. I was just kind of like, OK, we did our job. Well, just let the things lay where they should be. And luckily they, you know, luckily we mark good. So now this win takes you over the million dollar mark. How does that feel? Oh, it feels pretty awesome. It was a goal.  And then as this year started, I had a good spring on that mare and a couple of my other horses. I had some wins on them. And I thought, man, you know, it in our country, we maybe don't have as much money to win as down here. But I thought, man, that'd be pretty cool if I could hit it this year. And and I'll admit, I was pretty close when I got down here. And I thought, oh, man, if I could just just do things right and hit it this year, it'd be just make my year awesome. And you know, we're fortunate enough to be able to do it. So yeah, it's it's just awesome. You've been having a great show overall, haven't you really? Yeah, I know what I was really happy with my three year old. And and I cut one kind of bad cow to not make the semis. But my owners made the semis and the non pro and the and the limited non pro.  And then obviously this mare's been great. So yeah, I'm I'm thrilled. And what did you think of the cattle tonight? Those stairs, you know, generally, there are always heifers that you cut in here. What did you make of them? Well, I mean, they were dang sure tougher than what we'd had because they were kind of numb and lop around. Didn't want to take a whole year real good. But I guess that's one benefit with with us is we get to cut. We cut all over the Northwest. So I've cut steers like this before. And and we will cut worst cattle on that at home sometimes. So I mean, it's hard. It's hard to sometimes go put a rundown. But when you can, you just you just go for it, you know. Well, thank you and congratulations. Oh, thank you very much.


The Middle East has seen a rise in antimicrobial resistance due to overuse of antibiotics. To combat this problem, many countries have implemented national action plans, NAPS, which include surveying antibiotic use and implementing antimicrobial stewardship programs, ASPs. This study assessed antibiotic use in hospitals in the Middle East and compared it to published data from other regions. It found that antibiotic use was high, with Jordan having the highest rate at 98.1%. Additionally, postoperative antibiotic prescriptions were often used for extended periods of time to prevent surgical site infections. Based on these findings, the authors suggest a number of measures to reduce antibiotic use and combat AMR in the Middle East. This article was authored by Abdul Haseeb, Zikria Salim, Azil Fakmaqadmi, and others.