All right everybody, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Beautiful day here at GMS Field in Tampa. I'd like to welcome a ton of people who are plugged in on various channels, YesNetwork, yankees.com, YesNetwork Facebook, Yankees Instagram. We've got it pretty much covered today. As we begin, I'd like to introduce the Sabathia family seated next to CeCe. Of course, Amber, who's done so much for so many for so long in the Yankees family. It's great to have you here, along with children Carter, Jaden, and Sia. We're a man down today.  He's, I think, tip-off CeCe said was one o'clock up north. He's in a basketball game, so we're thinking of him. Also, at this point, I know there's a lot of people who aren't here, and we don't have the use of a pan, so the people who are tuning in on other outlets, it's important to note that I'm not counting by hand, but obviously we've got basically everybody here, pitchers and catchers who reported several days ago, a bunch of position players who've been across the street working out in advance of their report date, baseball operations, clubhouse staff, support staff, a number of people. Obviously, it's a testament to CeCe and the relationships he and Amber have built over the years in the front row. From ownership, we have Hal and Jenny Steinbrenner. We also have Kyle Thousand, who's CeCe's representative. Appreciate, Kyle, for being here. Before we go any further, I'd just like to turn it over to CeCe for opening remarks. Yeah, just got nervous. Yeah, so I just wanted to make this announcement that 2019 will be my final season. I want to obviously thank a lot of people. I wouldn't be here today, 18 years in the big leagues without so many different people, but I want to start with my mom. She couldn't be here today, but her sacrifice and so much for me as a kid to be able to get to this point, to live out my dream, all over the world. So I just want to say thank you to her, my wife, my family. My wife is able to do for us as a family and me as a player, as a husband, as a person. I can honestly say I wouldn't be sitting here without you, so definitely thank you. The Yankees, the Steinbrenner family, thank you guys for believing in me in 2008 enough to bring me here and cash, convince me this is the perfect place for me to play and it's been nothing but great for me and the community on the field and the Bronx just all around. It's been great for everybody that's sitting here at this table, so thank you guys so much. My teammates, past and present, you guys mean so much to me. All I ever wanted for people to remember me as a good teammate. It means a lot to me for you guys to be sitting here today. I know you guys are tired, have a bunch of stuff to do today, but thank you guys for being here and thank you to all my teammates and guys that helped me throughout the years to be able to get to this point. So that being said, I look forward to 2019 being the championship season for us, me going out and giving everything I have and leaving it all out on the field. So thank you guys. Before we take questions, I want to note that we passed out or are passing out and disseminating via email a couple of important things. One, obviously being a very long list of CC's career accomplishments, probably even more important than that. The press release that CC's foundation put out in which CC is going to, in I think almost every city, if not every city that you go to this year, will recognize 42 members of the Boys and Girls Club and make a very special day in all those different venues and then finally there's a quote sheet that again we're passing out and disseminating and it's really a who's who testament to who CC is. Obviously not just as a player but as a person. The mayor of Vallejo, LeBron James, Steve Kerr, a whole host of former teammates including Jim Tomey talking glowingly obviously about CC's accomplishments, obviously on the field but also as a person. So with that we have two wireless mics. We have a bunch of media here. If you'd kindly raise your hand, we could start the Q&A. Who has the first question for CC? Sweeney in the middle. CC, when you first signed here and you imagined what it would be like to finish your career as a Yankee, how did the last 10 years play out compared to what you thought it might be like when you first got here? I had no idea what it would be like. I was coming here in 08, I was nervous and didn't really know what to expect but it's been incredible. From day one getting a chance to meet Andy Pettit, him having to be like a big brother to me and just really embracing being here and being a Yankee. It's been a great ride. Being able to win the World Series, open up a new stadium, just so many countless different memories that I'll have and could take back with me throughout the years of being a Yankee. It's price has been great. Who else? Buster in the middle again. CC, this year, your last year, why now? Why now? It's time. My knee, just the shape that it's in. My family's getting older. Obviously you can see my kids getting older. It's time for me to be with them and be around them. My oldest son now couldn't be here because he's playing high school sports. This is a lot of stuff that I'm missing that I would like to be around and hang out with them and start traveling, do some different things and just really taking interest in my family though. Chris, the back left. CC, you signed the deal to come back here and finish out your career with the Yankees. How much does it mean for you to wrap it up with this ball club? That was something that was really important to me. The last two years really. Going in the last year, I didn't really know if I would play this year. That was important for me to be able to sign back. Kyle, 1000, did a great job getting me back here. He only had one team to deal with. No other place that I wanted to play. Him and Cash getting the deals done. The last two years have been great. I'm thanking them tremendously for being able to finish my career here. Cole, do you have a question to the right? Okay, so we understand the why of this being happening now, but how long did this decision take?  How long do you think? I don't think it took that long. I think it was just when you know you know. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, I guess. I wanted to be effective and be able to go out and feel like I have a chance to help the team win. I feel like I'm still able to do that. I don't know anything past this year and didn't really want to put that pressure on myself. Being able to go out and know this is my last year and just give everything, I think hopefully that will turn out good for me and not try to save something for 2020 or years after that. This is it. This is the final year. Just go and see what happens. Brian and Brendan on the right. CC, in making the decision, was it mostly the knee or did your recent health care also have something to do with it? Oh no, the health care. My mind was already made up before I had the heart thing, but that just added to it. That health care and just kind of seeing what was important to me and how much my family is important to me and wanting to be around for them and just trying to take care of myself the best way possible. But yeah, my mind was already made up before December that this was going to be my last year, but all those factors played in. Brendan, what do you think you'll miss most? What do I think I miss most? My teammates, for sure. I mean, it's not even, not the competition, not being out there, just being with the guys, the plane rides, spring training, hanging out, going to games, different things. I feel like these guys keep me young. I'm 38 years old now. I'm the only guy in the clubhouse, but just being able to be around these guys just keeps you young and keeps you in it, but I know I'll miss those guys the most, for sure. Randy and Andy, to the right. CC, people talk about your leadership and how good you are with younger players. At some point, later on, would you like to be a pitching coach, a manager, maybe go to the minors and work with young kids? Uh, no. I would definitely love to be around the organization and come in here to spring training and help these guys out and different things, but as far as the travel and with these guys, the coaches, what they go through and the demand that they have helping us out, I just see the hours that they put in and it's a lot of work and I want to relax. Andy. CC, you mentioned Andy Pettit before. You were here with that core four group and now you're here all these years later with a new group of young Yankees.  I think, uh, I don't think anything changed about being a Yankee. I think, um, you know, you come in here every day wanting to be professional and wanting to put your best foot forward and, uh, you know, try to win a championship. And I think, uh, you know, those core four group, that core four group, um, instilled that in me and Guardi and the guys that are still here for this group now.  And, um, that message is always clear when you got these guys around. Other questions back to Buster in the middle. CeCe, you mentioned your teammates. I'm assuming you've let them know as time has gone along that this is, this is going to be it for you. Can you relate some of those conversations, some of the funny responses that you got from them?  So, you know, it'll be hard, you know, to leave those guys, but, um, you know, a lot of my teammates that I played with before, like Chris Young was like, it's about time, you know. So a lot of the older guys, uh, understand where I'm coming from and, um, you know, get, get this decision. Before we take a few more action, I want to give CeCe and Amber a chance, excuse me, to talk about, uh, the boys and girls club initiative. And I think I misspoke. I said 42 kids. It's obviously 52. So, Amber, would you like to speak to it? It would have been a good number. But if we can impact 10 more, we will. So, uh, 52 kids. So we're calling it CeCe, uh, CeCe's legacy, legacy tour spelled with two C's, um, hashtag legacy. So that will be the hashtag of this tour and every city that CeCe goes in for the last time, we will bring 52 kids from the boys and girls club. Um, Pitchin has partnered with the boys and girls club many of times, but they're really our heart, um, from kids in the Bronx to all over, we do a lot of work with the boys and girls club and, uh, CeCe believes that if it wasn't for the club, he wouldn't be here today. So in any way we can be impactful and give back. Um, but this last year we really want to be impactful and give back and, um, be more of a role model and be hands on and to be able to do that in every city we feel like is just a way, a great way for CeCe to leave his legacy. Thanks, Amber. Uh, Jack, did you have a question in the middle? That's actually a good segue because I was going to say, what would you describe as your legacy? What have you left out there on the field that you want people to be able to say about your career? Just somebody that, that, you know, played hard every time out, um, that you could visibly see.  And just like I said, just, just a good teammate, you know, if, uh, if I can get that from, you know, a lot of the guys that I play with, I feel like I've accomplished my goal. Chris, in the back left, this is for everybody, actually.  Uh, for me, I think it's going, I think it's going to be fun. Um, you know, I love the off season when I'm just being able to, to, you know, hop into minivan and drive these kids around everywhere, basketball, practice, dance, different things. So, um, you know, hopefully, um, I could be a help. You know, she's a single mother pretty much for six months out of the year, um, while I'm gone. So, you know, hopefully I can be that helping hand for her. What would it be like when you're having me home? It would sometimes be embarrassing, um, because, because, um, I don't know. And you're going to be excited at me? Yeah. And I know there'll be two times funnier in the house because you're funny and mom's funny. So, during the season, so when he's home, it feels like we have a whole family together. Yep. Yep. I think I feel the same way because you usually never see him a lot. And, um, so it'll be better like for him to come to my dance recitals and like show all of his love and support that he's brought without the years. That's, I had made the comment one time that CC, we will, I have been cheering for him for like 22 years. I even Kinston and Akron and all that stuff. But, uh, uh, we've been cheering for so many years. So I'm excited for him to cheer for us. I run. So he can come and he can be at the finish line for me and he can go to Carter's basketball games all the time and not miss any the girls dance recitals and he could just cheer us on for a little bit. So that's what I'm excited about. Nicely said. Do we have one or two more buster in the middle again?  Can you relate the conversation you had with her when you told her that this was going to be it? I don't really remember like a, um, you know, one conversation. We talk so much, um, throughout throughout the day and different things. I, um, you know, I kind of felt like she, she knew that this was going to be my last year.  What, you know, the kids taking them around. She's just such a big help, um, to our family and, you know, the kids love having her around. And, um, but, but, uh, just one conversation.   Um, you know, he always told me that I'll play for the Yankees. And when I was in Cleveland, I'll be like, no, no chance. Like I'm gonna stay in the end of my whole career.  You're going to win the World Series with the Yankees. So for me to be able to live out that dream for him, uh, it's great. But I just wish he was here to see it. Uh, James in the, uh, on the left in the back. Just to see how to curiosity sake, did you see this like list of, uh, quotes that they had gotten from these figures from? I haven't seen it yet. Zillow told me about it. From like Steve Kerr to, um, LeBron James and stuff. Did you hear about that kind of coming together? And what do you think of everyone from Fat Joe is on there too? That's my guy. No, it's just, uh, it's awesome to, to see that.  And, um, I'm looking forward to seeing it and reading and then hopefully not crying. Any last one, Jack in the middle. CC, as long as this year plays out the way, I'm sure you envision you're going to end your career with more than 250 wins, more than 3000 career strikeouts. How much thought have you given to whether or not that's a Hall of Fame career for you? I haven't put, you know, that much thought into it just because I don't have a vote and I can't do anything about it. But, um, you know, you know, being able to have those numbers and attach your name just, just means a lot for me.  But to have those numbers come out, um, just means that I was on good teams around good players and, you know, was lucky enough to, to have some good catchers calling some good games for me. So, um, yeah, I mean, it'll be fun to look back on all that stuff once I'm done playing. But right now I'm just focused on trying to win the championship and have a parade at the end of the year. That would be the great way to top this thing off. Right, Carter? Yep. And I've never even been to one. Nope. Watch me partying. I think that's a good way to end it. Yep. Thanks everybody for joining us. Uh, see Amber, kids, if you could stay there, we're gonna take a photo up there with you guys. Thank you, everyone.


So let's start with, what does a community development worker do for someone who doesn't know? Okay, a community development worker tries to stand in the gap or tries to bridge the gap between the local community members and the local authorities. You stand in the gap to air out the community issues, like give our holistic approach to the solutions that the community members are facing. So that's the main thing. You just stand in a gap between the local community members and the local authorities. So when you stand in the gap, do you go and air out the issues that the community are facing to the authorities? And do you make sure that something is done about them or what exactly happens when you stand in the gap? Okay, when you stand in the gap, that means that first you have to work with the community stakeholders that are there, and they are either the leaders, and then we have the church members, and then we have also the women leaders who are in the community, and then we have the main subjects who are the community members. And in every community there is always various challenges that they're always facing. So you have to go and sit with the community members, and you try to identify the various problems that they are facing together, and then you create a platform as a community development, you try to create the best platform in which the various problems that people are facing in the communities will reach the ideal stakeholders, like maybe the government officials, the women's reps and all that, depending on the main problem that the community is facing. Okay, so what are some of the things that you have done as a community development worker standing in the gap for communities? What problems have you aired out to the stakeholders and what would you say has been done as a result? Okay, basically as Bilha, I am a community development worker. I'm also a menstrual health and hygiene champion within the rural parts of Kenya. Let me say Kenya because it's not only in Narok, because currently we are based in Narok, but it's not only like in Narok. We are always flexible to move within the entire county. So, majorly what I've done with my initiative as a community development worker, I've tried to stand in the gap in addressing the menstrual health and hygiene management challenges that are being faced in the rural parts of Narok or in the rural parts of Kenya. This means this is the lack of sanitary towers within those places and even the lack of information like the knowledge about how they can maintain their hygiene when they are on their periods. So, I've tried to work with the various local authorities like the local organizations and even the local teachers. We've worked with teachers, we've worked with different caregivers within the orphanages. So, those are the main people that at least have had out those problems and together we've tried to work towards at least achieving that safe space where they can at least come to us. We can conduct the trainings, we can get to hear their problems, not only the menstrual problems but general problems. So, you've said that some of the problems that are faced in rural Kenya especially in Narok where you've worked is that the lack sanitary towers and the lack of information on how to handle themselves. So, you have done trainings in this regard to the ladies and the women. Is this just the teenagers, is there a specific age group of girls that are going through this or is it the whole community? Okay, at first we mostly measure with a certain age group because as much as we want to help the entire community you also have to have a specific audience or a specific target. So, for me and my initiative we deal with adolescent girls and youth in general. Youth meaning even the women like the young teenage mothers are also included in that program. Okay, and what change has been registered so far? What improvement has been registered since you started the initiative? Okay, the first improvement that I can say is that at least the group that I'm working with now can have frequent access to sanitary towers and they also have enough information at least for now. They have enough information regarding their menstrual hygiene management practices that they need to include. So, at least we've been able to take that information to those extremely rural areas. They had to reach communities in specific. So, at least there is that adoption. It's hard because they are still resilient. They didn't imagine that such information was even existing in the first place. They were still deeply rooted into their cultures. So, there were certain things that they knew were the best things to use during that moment. So, maybe things like the Masaishuka but with the time when we started the training, as we started the training, at least they now tried to adapt the various information. Now they tried to shift their mindset towards at least using the disposable sanitary towers because within the areas that we work with there is no water. There is no water. Water is hardly accessible. So, it was kind of hard in the beginning to try to bring them on board in terms of that try to make them shift their mindset towards what they've been used to. But at least for now I can say the one because the places that work with there are no shops and there are no good roads. It's still extremely interior. So, these guys, especially the women and the girls, they didn't have that access, full access to sanitary towers. But I'm good, we've been able to stand in the gap and we've been supplying them with those sanitary towers and we've also been giving that information and gradually they are checking it. So, now what would you say was the hindrance to the culture, to the lack of information on how to use the sanitary towers. You said that one of it was using the Maasai Shuka during their periods. So, what would happen during this time, take us through that Jenny, what would happen to them during this time and why is this now better for their lives? Okay, before, I think with the rate also of illiteracy in that place because majority of the women and girls didn't get the opportunity to go to school. So, they don't have that knowledge. They don't have that know-how of how to even, they don't even have that know-how of things like sanitary, possible sanitary towers, those are things that are new to them. And I think also the main thing that made them to be deeply rooted into their culture is because of maybe the stigma, they still don't openly talk about menstruation. Menstruation is just like sex topics. It's something that is still laid under the carpet for them. So, certain things needed someone who maybe will boldly tell them about those things. So, for them they were still using the Maasai, maybe Shuka or other things, maybe just taking the Shuka and trying around their ways to prevent menstruation because that one was the main thing that they could afford at that moment. Yeah, because they have markets which are very far, very many kilometers from where they live, but they only get the chance to go to this market once a week, which is always on when it is days. And as we know, every family always have a certain budget within a certain time frame. So, you get that, and it's also that majority of these women or girls are not given the opportunity to go to the market even during those market days because they are meant to stay at home, look after the cattle and take care of the homestead in general. So, you find that majority of the men what the people were going to the market and it's also shameful to tell your husband to go Go and buy me a tiny towel. It's something even he himself doesn't know about. So, you find that there is certain homesteads that have even like seven girls and plus the mam so they are eight and they are all maybe menstruating because menstruation is not something that is unavoidable. Once you reach a certain age, you reach adolescent, you have to go through it. So, you find that these ones are the things that not getting that space, that space to at least air out the grievances to the husband or to the people who are in charge even the local authorities who are there. So, those ones are the main challenges. And so, does it prevent the young girls from going to school when they are going through the menstruation? Yeah, it does Stephanie because once we find that girls are on their periods and you find that even the school setup itself is not that safe. It's not a safe space where they can trust like there is that stigma within the schools. You find that they are even hard, it is even hard for them not only to go to school but also to participate in school activities because one you are using now maybe that cloth and as we know that menstruation there are those people who experience it differently there are those who have it heavy and then there are those who have it lightly but in any way the bottom line remains that you have to use healthy materials like the disposable sanitary towels. So, when you are using something like a cloth even within the 30 minutes frame you have to experience leakages. So, those things are the things that were making them not to attend school and the percentage of girls or women were not attending school within those such setups is very high. Yeah, it's very high. So now with the training and the mentorship that you are undertaking or you have undertaken in those areas has it helped? Do you even speak to the men in the community because now you've said they're the ones who go to the market on Wednesdays and their family, the women and children are afraid to send them sanitary towels so have you talked to them as you also just creating the awareness around menstrual hygiene? Yeah, actually it's an inclusive thing because in order to achieve safe community menstruation or good quality of awareness you have to incorporate even the men and the men's role in community menstruation is very vital. So, the main thing that we've been doing and we've seen actually the results at the beginning it was hard especially for the men to actually come to those trainings because they wanted to see the main reason why they need to attend it. They have various things to do they can give you a list of things. So you need to give them a good reason? Yeah, you had to give them a good reason but I'm glad that at least there are women who always attend those trainings gradually talked to them and they also started seeing the change at least they could take the sanitary towels home they could tell them about the things that they've at least gotten during the training so gradually they at least started to accept coming to the trainings but that one is different in various communities because there are communities that we go especially in churches where men take the forefront in even calling their girls come and let's go they actually encourage them to come because you have someone who is almost your age so you will be able to open up the person will be able to talk to you in depth about various things that themselves they can't talk with their girls or their women so they always tell them just go even if they don't come to the trainings but the people are always encouraging them ensure you go to those trainings and for those who are always coming to the trainings after we've done the trainings and we are distributing the sanitary towels they are always telling them don't actually shy away we give them the sanitary towels and they are the first people to hide them or they hide them in their bags the men always tell them no just stand there take a good pic take your time hold that thing with courage be bold be bold about it it's not something to be shameful about nowadays would you say this is key to actually the education being embraced in the communities men taking up the lead to empower their women it gives the women the confidence they deserve in maybe seeing that in normalizing this menstruation thing because once they get they go ahead they get the support they always know that at least the men have their back so they get even the courage to ask even more questions on how they can better themselves in terms of what else can they do how can they work within the community to at least do something that will help the girls so you find that they sit down and they discuss and they are like we need you more regularly to come and speak to our girls because the main thing is that they lack information they lack a role model within these setups and that's why maybe they they even get to mess maybe they get pregnant and get out of school because the parent they are not they have not reached that level of openly discussing such issues with their teenage okay and now the issue of supply because this is in the rural setup and I believe not everyone can afford the sanitary towels I speak of a family that has seven girls and they have to buy it and I know that you also do the supplying so do you do it regularly or how are they able to keep up with sanitary towels every month for the whole family for the seven ladies in the home okay that's a good question first I'm not only dealing with the rural they had to reach communities because Narok is big and we can't only put our perception that it's only the rural people who cannot afford the sanitary products even that within the town setup we have people who maybe live in slums or nowadays because of the hard economic times Stefan we find that even people were in town even the middle age people can't even afford the sanitary towel it's not a priority to them because now someone will tell you that okay I have to buy Unga in me panda and that one is what my priority is it's not in such such products but so to them that this is not priority it's not a necessity yeah it's not a priority but to answer your question the most interior places that I'm always going I've told you that the roads they are not even like they are not developed those people are still in a state where you wonder are they still in Kenya are they still part of us they are in their own world and surprisingly they have their leaders not even like they have their leaders but I don't know actually what their leaders are doing in terms of their situation so one it's always hard I don't like give them regularly that often but I always ensure that once I visit the communities because we use motorbikes affording a taxi to that place you will have to it is costly so we always use motorbike because in such areas the only things that can be easily accessed is motorbikes they'll take you up to where you have you want to go so the main thing that we always do is that once we plan our visit we always ensure that we give them maybe the sanitary towels for like 3 months that will at least push them sustain them for that 3 months before at least we can embark on our journey to go and see them but we always ensure that we are in continuous communication with the women leaders who are always in charge of those groups but we can't say at this moment we are not in a position to regularly visit them because we also have different other places that we always work with within the town setup we have other orphanages we have other schools that we always visit and even outside Narok we have other schools that look up to us so in this other areas you also do the supplying once the training is done we do the training and then after the training we engage maybe in different talks whereby the men go with the people, the volunteer men that we always have the girls and the women remain with the girls so that we can have at least a girl talk then they can also have their own boy talk so where do you get the funding the funding for now it's based on in kind donations from friends, from family members that's how at least we get to sustain it that's why I told you previously that for now I'm not in a position to regularly visit these communities regularly promise them that every month you will always see sanitary towels coming to your place but I always prioritize certain areas like they had to reach places so I always try my best once we get the donations from friends, from family members and from the well wishers we organize for the training and then we go with the sanitary it's not only the sanitary towels because menstrual health, hygiene, management requires other compliments not just sanitary towels so we have the soaps and then you have also to get something for the men because you want put them in a room to do the training and then after that you just let them go and then they see the girls being given the sanitary towels they are always like what about us so what are the men given what about us, you have to at least get something for them even if it's just the inawares or maybe something like a vest or even books or even pens something that will also motivate them something that will make them to at least continue with this journey together with you guys so that it's teamwork now being a community development worker you said you are the bridge you stand in the gap the rights stakeholders with the community now because you can't do it on your own have you tried to engage the authority or the government that the leaders that are there to do something about the situation especially for those that are in the outskirts of Narok Town okay accessing the main challenge is accessing the national maybe we can say national government leaders or officials but you always have to start somewhere you don't like if they are not accessible at this point you have to work with those ones who are available at the the local places so the ones that we always work with personally is one the volunteers from the university the university students because they are also part of they also facilitate this goal they will also help you in terms of activities and all that and even besides them as being the volunteers we always work with the local organizations and those ones are the directors and the community education leaders who are also there and then even the government officials those that you can easily access like maybe the ministry of education you go and get like one woman one man working there so we've always worked with the people who we can reach at our as per now like the church leaders the pastor we also include them so what would you say needs to be done for maybe someone who's watching and would want to assist maybe a government official that is in Narok Town or any other town that is there or rural area that should help so what needs to be done to bring the change to these communities okay for now with the just ended elections we've seen women getting so like many seats both as governors and both as MPs and we have the women reps so my outcry is just for these leaders especially the government the national government leaders they need to know actually what is happening on the ground and because they can't like oftenly be physically present in those places to know what is going on we are the people who are standing in that gap to air out these issues to them so my outcry to the officials is that they need to incorporate us in these policies that they are doing they need to work hand in hand with us so that at least we can be their eye on the ground at the grassroots level they need to have more youth engaged in various fields not only in community development because there are so many issues there are so many contemporary issues that need to be addressed within the community level so they need to incorporate us so they need to incorporate you so how did you now back to you how did you get into community development and this initiative for mental health hygiene management okay that's interesting okay first I've told you Stephanie I did community development I'm a community development graduate from Masaimara University and then it's something that I'm trying to put in practice what I learned at the university level but it's also something that I grew up seeing I'm just extending I'm just an extension of what my mother has been doing I grew up in a family where I saw my mother helping literally like not only the orphans but literally anyone who needed her help at that moment so I think it's also just an extension of what I grew up seeing and then it's also something that I'm always passionate about because of not only the space that I've found myself in but my life has been full of grace if I can say and I'm always willing to extend that grace to any lady especially the youths who are out there because you find that majority of us we always want to start but due to various vulnerabilities we are not always able to even take a step because we always think maybe we are not able to do it or we always just think that let just the idea stay in our mind we don't have to actually go out there and implement it we've always have this mentality of shortage mentality in our head so that's what personally I started from scratch and I started with barely nothing so I'm always willing to at least use myself, use my experience for as a learning platform to any youth who is out there who is like I want to start this I want to start this but I don't know how to do it, I don't know which step to take I don't know which criteria to use so I'm always there to at least mentor them, to always listen to them because a lot of youth also we find that we don't have people who are listening to us whether they are our parents, whether they are people like we look up to and getting a mentor during the time that you need them is also a problem especially for us youth and that's why for me I've used my platform to bring them in bring them on board let them ask me anything and I'll be willing to answer in a way that will benefit them and also will benefit both of us we have a passion for the youth exactly and what about the women why did you choose to help the women to support the women to start the initiative that you are going for on menstrual hygiene okay one thing it's one thing to be okay it's one thing to be a woman but it's one thing it's another thing to also be a black lady trying to get into the corporate space or just trying to be something find your purpose within that time so what made me to start actually look at women as my first priority is because one I've had first hand challenges so during okay I grew up in Kisumu but I've always been in Narok after even in graduation I found myself just remaining in Narok as work and all that you find that majority of the time you go through certain things that you need someone maybe to open up to but you don't get that person at that particular time that you are experiencing that challenge so it's been hard you find that you try to solve things personally you try to solve things individually you try to make certain decisions as an individual but when you could get that opportunity to at least air them out with your parents or with anyone at least your guardian it will be you could make a better decision that will help you so that's why amole is using myself to help these ladies because ladies go through so much vulnerabilities so it's when someone like me stand in the gap they'll be able to at least open up through what they are facing and we work towards getting the solution together as we come to a close on this particular conversation what gives you the satisfaction at the end of the day when you go to sleep what gives me the satisfaction is the impact that am using my platform to to achieve because am always more tied on or more attached to service my main theme is always service service to my fellow service to my family service to even the larger community so what gives me satisfaction is that at least at the beginning I was afraid but I did it anyway I took that step you started traveling but you started anyway yes I started anyway so that is always what gives me even the motivation to move on once you find yourself trying to reaching in a point where you want to give up you look at the why you are why why did you start at the end of the day and then you just find yourself going on you are why we will stay ahead you towards the end goal your why will stay ahead you towards the end goal amazing and finally what change do you want to see in our communities as a community development worker and maybe just your last piece of advice or your something that you want to close with that will be your camera okay thank you so much what I want to see more youths being engaged I want to see more youths coming out boldly use their voice in various in different perceptions whether you are in community development whether you are in business whether you are in any field that you are in just use your voice to get to where you want to go and to all youths also out there just know that what you are seeking is already seeking you so it will just be a matter of what are you willing to do in order to get to that place so that's my main advice to them just start just take that one step of faith and everything will be everything will be okay what can people find you on your social media handles in case someone wants to reach it am on Facebook am on Instagram am on linking am on not to it but am on Facebook and am on Instagram am also on WhatsApp and my name I think what's your handle what's the name they can get you all at Bilha Joy Bilha Joy okay alright thank you very much Bilha for coming on board and sharing your story and inspiring someone out there who's just you know was wondering who has an idea rather and has had doubts maybe on how to start and just for being a woman out there doing great things with what you have we celebrated today thank you so much and am really glad to be on this platform the number one youth station so thank you so much Stephanie for having me so that has been Bilha Joy a world who is a community development worker and also a champion for menstrual hygiene management and as she has been taking us through her journey what I have taken from this is start even if you are trembling if you are shaking just start anyway and if your youth use your voice to bring a change to the world just a little impact will go along with this has been strength of a woman we now take a short break and then Kalami Val will be back with WCW


First of all, I will take one small minute from my presentation to deeply thank to the organizers of this conference. So Katrin, Christof and Matthew and all the team that is here. So I'd like to tell you that the local organization is just perfect. It's like for a real conference. So we have, I don't know if you see my real badges. We have signs all over the campus. So a real registration, not a virtual registration. So just perfect. And it is not finished. So as you may see the hybrid version of the conference is going very well. I'd like also to thank Emmanuel and Kanta for the selection of the, for running the committee for the computer science part. And again, again, Katrin, Matthew and Christof for running the local organization and the selection of papers for the economical part and to all the team that is here in the room. You don't see them. So I will not touch the camera, but at some point we'll turn the camera to them and ask them to, to come here and to have your, your, your, your clip. And I also would like to thank all the people that join us. So as far as I understood we are 143. And this morning we are more than 70 people registered to, to zoom. I will, I will start my talk now so, so please count the minutes that I speak on the on my talk. So my talk is on fairness in committee based the blockchain and actually all the credit goes to Yacoli and this is the, the big part of his, his thesis. And this is a joint work with the panel at El Pozzo from CIA and Sarah to see Pierre Giovanni from CIA list as well. So, I will start my talk, telling you what the users imagine about the blockchain. So they imagine that I have distributed ledger. There is no central authority. The distributed ledger is secure. This means that actually the written information is not erased. The information is available and the most important thing that the privacy is preserved. So what clients imagine about the blockchain is that I have a unique chain of blocks. What happens in the, in the reality is that you may not have a unique chain like in the Bitcoin or Ethereum, or even worse, in IOTA, there is no chain at all. There is a tag of transactions and transactions are added to, to, to this tag and at the, let's say at the end of the day so it's evolving, evolving, direct, directed a cyclic graph. Let's take a close look to Bitcoin. So I will follow the, the line of talks that presented before. So in Bitcoin you have clients that send transaction to some bakers. Bakers will solve some proof of work and the one that solved the proof of work will, will generate a new block and the new block is propagating in the network and all the bakers that are connected to the network will add this, this new red block to the longest chain. So they view of the, of the, of the blockchain. So what are the guarantees that Bitcoin offers in terms of consistency is the fact that we'll have an agreement on the common prefix, not the whole blockchain. And actually what we have proof, proved in a previous work published last year with Emmanuel Romaric, Antonella and Sarah is the fact that the consensus abstraction is necessary in order to ensure a strong consistent blockchain, meaning to have a new unique chain. That is a unique view on a unique chain that is viewed by all the, all the participants in the network. And here comes again the presentation of this consensus abstraction that is a very, very, it's a fundamental abstraction in distributed systems. So consensus is defined by four properties agreement. So, meaning that if, if, if a correct baker or, or minor decides a block B, then eventually all correct miners will decide the same block validity a decided block satisfies some validity predicate so it is well chained with the previous block integrity that means that no correct baker decides twice and termination means that every correct baker eventually decides so will not have papers that forget to decide. So only if all these four condition are satisfied. By an abstraction that implement this, this consensus we can say that we are sure that each produce block will be correctly added to the existing blockchain. Okay. So, there is a problem so the problems come from some impossibility results that have been. So there are common knowledge in distributed systems, meaning that it is impossible to solve consensus in asynchronous environments, even if there is only one faulty process process that crushes. Here I cited Fisher Lynch and Patterson result. The journal version that has been published in 85. So, very well known result. So this brings us into almost that lock because that point meaning, okay, consensus is impossible. But what is important to notice here is that there are some conditions in this result the first the first condition is the fact that the system is asynchronous so you cannot put bounds in the communication delays. So the second point that that comes into the mind to the people that construct the blockchain based on this consensus obstruction is the fact that the participant to the consensus. They have to be known, which is not the case for all the block chains but the ones that are based on the on the committees use this, this, this assumption so the participants to the to the committee, the committee that will generate a block are known, and do not change with the time do not change during the, the consensus run the consensus process. Okay, which is a small problem in the blockchain as we'll see a little bit later. Okay, so in order to fix the, the impossibility result that we so previously, there were some. Some people invented consensus protocols under the under the restriction on the execution environment so instead of considering asynchronous environments. We consider slightly weaker environment like synchronous or pseudo synchronous, or people went to probabilistic guarantees. Okay. So in order to fix the, the, the second problem that that I walked previously. People considered fixed committees for each block. The fixed committee will introduce some problems. And actually, the problems come from another obstruction that is implemented. So this is an underlying obstruction on the off the block committee based blockchain, which is called repeated consensus. So in repeated consensus what we try to do is to characterize, characterize actually the properties that we want from, from the whole chain of blocks. What what the repeated consensus. Save that. First of all, we have to guarantee that every obedient participant at the ukulele already defined the notion of obedient participant has an infinite output, so does not stop in the middle of the competition. So this is the agreement, meaning that if I take, if I analyze the the blockchain of each, the output of each participant, and if I take the output is output of one obedient participant. So this output should be equal to the output of another obedient participant. And finally the validity is the same as the in the consensus abstraction, meaning that each block that is in the blockchain of any obedient participant has to satisfy satisfy validity predicate. Okay, so Well, there are some problems with the committee based blockchain that have to be solved. So committee based blockchain are so the fact that we use consensus or repeated consensus that were problems that have been already covered by 20 years of research in the in distributed system does not solve the technical problems in in blockchain. So one of the problems that comes with the blockchain area is is the fact that we have to be very careful in the way we select committees in order to avoid the oligarchy problems. So, the idea is that I select the committee, the way I select this committee if the committee that introduced blocks in the blockchain will be the same. The same people will be rewarded the same people will will influence the way the blockchain is constructed. So it's a hard problem to solve. Another point is is the rewarding the committee rewarding how to reward the committee and when to to reward the committee. And again, this is a hard problem to to solve in blockchain and most of the committee based block chains. Evoke to these problems, but do not propose. How to say standalone solution for none of these these problems so so But we wanted to study is the fact that. Okay. We have these two mechanisms so we identified these two mechanisms selection and and and rewarding. And now in order to avoid the problems that that arrays from selection and rewarding we, we think that actually these problems can be solved by studying the fairness in the committee based block chains. And intuitively the fairness in blockchain can be so the common, let's say the common knowledge, the common. Yeah, the, the, the, the, the, I would say a definition from the, from the literature, or fairness with with with a doctor to the blockchain will will state that any obedient participant, having a fraction alpha of the total merit in the system gets at least a fraction alpha of the total reward so this would be a very common sense definition. Well, if I if I look now to the way that the furnace have has been considered in blockchain so the, the, the, the work that was closest to to analyzing the the furnace in the way we we felt that it should be summarized is the work of Gary in his Bitcoin backbone protocol and he introduced the notion of of chain quality. But this notion of chain quality was very, very proper to the way Bitcoin is is functioning. And because it considers the number of block a participant will add to the blockchain. This comes with with two problems in in the, if we want to apply exactly the same analysis to the committee based blockchain. So, first of all, the idea of characterizing the blockchain does not does not cover the way the committees are selected in the committee based blockchain, and the second problem is the fact that producing a block in the committee based is a cooperative work while in Bitcoin is a more standalone process so I solve my proof of work, and then I introduced my block in the blockchain while in the committee based blockchain. We agree, we are a committee we agree on the way that the block will be added to the to the blockchain. So, now because we are told, all of us convinced that we have to to to to to deal with two different mechanism in the committee based blockchain the selection mechanism and the rewarding mechanism. So what we wanted to do is to have an analysis to propose actually definition for the fairness in the way that the committee selection is done, and the fairness in the way the, the, the participants are rewarded. So, intuitively, a committee selection mechanism is said to be fair, if each participant becomes member proportional to its merit so I will not formalize the merit and right now, so assume that there is some indicator that gives for each participant, but in the system, a numerical value that corresponds to corresponds to the merit. And in terms of fairness of the rewarding mechanism what intuitively what we would like to have is that, if I, if I analyze my blockchain for each level for each height in the in the blockchain. The obedient committee members will be rewarded, meaning only those that actively participated to the, to the, to the generation of a block for a particular height will be rewarded. So, please make a sign. Okay, if, if. So if I have one minute left. Yes, you can. Yes, you have five, five minutes more. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. So, for the fairness of the committee selection, actually, we came out with two properties. Well, the first property says that each participant with a positive merit should become a committee member infinitely often so the keyword here is the infinitely often. The second common sense properties the fact that the participant that has no merit should not be selected, more often than a participant with a higher merit. Okay, and if we analyze three different types of selection mechanism. So that we can find. We can think of. If I take, if I select participants in the system that have a higher stake, then we can prove that this mechanism is not fair and actually this brings me to the oligarchy problems that I have previously. If I select people that have lower stake in the system that and I reward them. This mechanism will be will verify the fairness definition that I give previously, and again another simple mechanism that is used generally in the distributed system in general the round robin mechanism is again fair so meaning that I will select each people in the system in a round robin way. Okay, so in terms of rewarding. We came out with with inspired by previous work in in failure detectors. We came out with with the characterization of rewarding parameter for process for a participant for a specific level in the in the blockchain and we say that this rewarding parameter has to have three properties. So it's a precision age being the height that I am focused on. Yeah, so it says that if a process is not a committee member for this height. This is the word has to be zero. This is a completeness, meaning that if I is a committee member for a for the height age and I is obedient then it's rewarding has to be one and the third property that is accuracy says that if a process is a committee member for high and it's not does not follow his protocol that the agreement protocol, then his word has to be zero. Okay. And now the fairness of rewarding mechanism. So we we came out with two definition of the fairness. And the definition that said that we say that rewarding mechanism is fair if for all levels, age levels. Yeah, so the mechanism satisfies for each, each participant age precision completeness and accuracy the three properties that I announced earlier. So what we saw is that if we apply this definition. Actually, we came quickly with with impossibility results. So we weaker the definition. So we came out with eventually fairness that says that there exists a level high. Age zero such that for all the levels that are greater than ages the zero. If the mechanism is if the mechanism satisfies the three condition precision completeness and accuracy then the mechanism is is fair. Now, some results. So I mark as theorem the formalization is in the paper and the accolades here to give you the proof on the blackboard. So we have a whiteboard here. So the term says that there is a fair reward mechanism in committee based blockchain if and only if the system is synchronous. So meaning that I have a non bounded delay on the message propagation. Another results that says that there exists an eventually fair reward mechanism in the committee based blockchain if and only if the system is synchronous or eventually synchronous and the Byzantine participants so those that are allowed to not follow the protocol to send messages, different messages to different participants. So if this Byzantine nodes are detectable, which is a very hard problem in distributed system. And a quick case study tendermint. So for the rewarding in in in tendermint. So why tendermint because it's the only one that evoked in the white papers. The fact that we can think to a way of selecting committees in order to construct the blockchain. So in tendermint. What happens is that once a new block is decided for a specific height of the of the blockchain. So the participant will the participants will collect the decision of the other participants of the committee members. For that particular height and will construct a set that is called the set to to be rewarded. During the consensus process for a specific height. So processes will also the committee members will also propose to to reward the members of the committee that constructed the block for the height age minus one. Okay, so what we prove is that in an eventual synchronous system, the reward mechanism of tendermint as it was proposed by tendermint is is not even eventually fair, which is weaker than than fair. And actually by modifying slightly the tendermint mechanism. Introducing module level time out and time out and the detection of Byzantine participants, then we come with an eventual fair rewarding mechanism. So this work opens a lot a lot of research directions more than we could have solved. And as you could see for the selection mechanism practically we don't have any specific result. So we focused only on the rewarding so this has to has to be done. And another important research direction would be the analysis of fairness of different other blockchains like Algorand Uroboros, which are not committee based or Iota which is not committee based so our analysis does not fit with this kind of blockchains. And maybe for people that are in distributed system so one big problem that is still has still to be solved here is how to detect Byzantine behavior in in blockchain so we don't know how to do it, but by using the past of the past exchange in between notes to the the history of messages exchange. So maybe we'll be able to come out with with nice Byzantine behavior detectors. So this closes my talk. So I will be happy to answer to your questions.


Hello, this is in the studio. I'm the conservation enthusiast that's going to be telling you about reduce and reuse, which is very important to maintaining our planet in the coming years. And most of the information that I will be talking about can be found on the davisrecycling.org website set up by the conservation czar, Jennifer Gilbert. And you can use that as reference. Follow along a reduce button and a reuse button. So in terms of reduce first, one really important way to reduce is to share or to borrow. Say there's a tool that you need. It's a specialized tool, and your neighbor has one. Ask if you can borrow that. And you can also get rent a piece of equipment that's a specialized piece of equipment. You don't have to buy it. So that's the first thing in reducing is just share, be in a sharing economy. The second idea is to buy things that are durable and good enough so that they can be mended, furniture, clothes, shoes. So as an example, I bought or I got this. Actually, most of the stuff I have is secondhand in terms of clothes. But I got this in 1995 in Germany when I was there on sabbatical at a sale they called or redistribution called which means sharing of things that have usable life. And this lovely velour, which I always get a lot of compliments on, occasionally gets a little problem. And so I just set it aside for my mending. So that's one example of something you could mend, something that's of good quality. Next, buy in bulk.  So this is a way you can buy in bulk. Reduce the packaging that you used. And that's a lot. The name of the game is to reduce the packaging. Next, get a bag for your vegetables. And don't forget to bring your bag to the store. So this is a bag of bags that I kind of invented. Basically, it's a newspaper bag that when they put, when the newspaper gets, would get wet in the rain. And in it, I have these little containers of plastic bags and recycling bags. So this is what I do every time I have a bag like this. I take it to the store, take the rubber band off. I put the rubber band inside. And then I put the groceries in it. Then I get back home. I take out the rubber band.  So that's my way. And this is something that is always easy to pull out of my bag, but it doesn't take up much space. It's very small. So I also take containers that were takeout containers like this for my spices. Now that's very useful. There's another kind of a vegetable bag. And finally, I take a bag of little plastic bags that in case I want the vegetables and something like this, I can use that. So these are a number of things I take.  So you can also take your own box. So buying in bulk, you can do it at the farmer's market. You can do it at grocery stores around Davis. So the other thing you can do is buy in larger amounts. So a larger amount of applesauce rather than a single-use container of applesauce. And if you want a single-use container, use a little Tupperware container and then put that in the lunch rather than these single-use items. So that's another idea. And this applies to many different things to minimize packaging. If you happen to get a packaging, a box, or something, you can reuse the peanuts, take them to the UPS store, and reuse the box to mail your own things out. Another idea is to instead of going to the coffee shop and getting a cup, bring your own cup. Bring an insulated cup and take your coffee back in that or a mug that you can wash. Another idea is to instead of reaching for a paper towel, reach for a cloth towel, which can be rewashed. Or if there's a spill, wipe it up with a sponge. I keep a special sponge for the floor right by my sink in case I have that kind of issue coming up. Also, you can instead of using a tissue, carry a handkerchief. Men are better at this than women, but women could do it too. So that's a way you can eliminate the use of these single-use items, which is very important. Now, one of my favorites is the lunchbox. So this is a lunchbox. You can take it to work or you can take it to travel. In the top of the lunchbox is a water bottle. And here's my water bottle. There's my cloth napkin instead of a paper napkin. And then I have these little storage containers that can contain leftovers or whatever you want to take for lunch.  And in the front of this, I have my utensils, which are just silverware. I just reuse silverware, take my knife and fork with me. So this I take on travel trips. I'll take this empty through security. If I have cold items here, I'll freeze a container of something like alternate milk since I don't do dairy milk and put that in that. So that's your lunchbox idea. And you can also use this kind of a reusable water bottle as well. For a party, if you've got plates and things like that, use the kind of plates you can rewash rather than a paper plate. If you must use paper plates, put them in your food scrap bin. That's where a good place is for those.  And you'll have everything washable and reusable. I keep this nice bag with those things in it and bring it to my picnic. So in terms of another consumable that you can lessen for your party, make a little water bag and freeze that to keep your cooler cool. And that way you can reuse it again. And finally, eat at home more. So you can stop jump mail. There's wonderful sites on the website to tell you about how to do that. And start a garden. You can get your groceries right in your backyard. You can start small with a tomato plant, a pot, and a tomato plant. So I want to switch now to water energy and how you can conserve energy and go through this a little bit more quickly. So in terms of energy, a good rule of thumb is turn out the lights when you leave a room. I want to make a little addition to that in that if you have any of these multi-plug strips, they have a little switch on the side.  And if you have an electrical device, you can unplug it from the wall.  Second, use recyclable batteries. Here I have a little battery charger and batteries that go in it rather than throw away batteries. Some other ideas for heating and cooling. Use a fan, a whole house fan. Open your windows at night to cool off the house in summer. And I'm lucky to have a greenhouse so I can do the opposite. In winter and the night, I open it up to let the heat in. So a few ideas about water. Oh, yeah, one more thing about LED lights. Use LED switch from whatever you have now to LED lights. These use much less energy. They have dimmable and also regular LED lights. Let me get these right side up here. So it's easy to do, and it makes a big difference in energy. Then in terms of water, this is your best friend. This container, put it in the shower, put it next to the bath. Take a pitcher, get the water out of it. Put it on your plants. It's great for watering. And in terms of other things for water, you can buy flow restrictors. As I said before, you can reuse water to make your ice. If it's yellow, let it smell. That's an old adage, but it definitely helps with reducing water consumption. And now, finally, I want to talk about reuse. So in terms of reuse, think about more than one time around. Donating things is very helpful and also buy things that have been used more than once. So all of the clothes I'm wearing, my shirt, my pants, all of those came from a gently used recycling store. So I really believe in this, down to my toes. And you can find a lot of local stores as PCA. There's a furniture store. You can get used furniture. There are many sites on the internet. There are Facebook lists. There are some wonderful names of those on the web. Check on the reuse site that I mentioned before, Craigslist. Freecycle. Freecycle is an incredibly valuable thing where you say you want something. You offer something, or something is taken. You can go to freecycle.org, look for your zip code, sign up for Davis. And the other site I really like is Nextdoor, which is something the city of Davis has been encouraging people to use. They use it for city announcements, but neighborhoods share things that are classifieds or that are free items that they want to give away. Now, finally, Davis Enterprise will put free items in for free. Repurpose things, upcycling them. That's a hot new name. This is one of my favorites. Take the containers that you buy sheets in and use it for another purpose. When I go to college reunion, I need all whites. And so I keep my whites all safe that I'm going to wear in this little container. I also could, you could use it for office supplies or anything you want to keep contained in the night's neat way. So finally, just to mention the landfill reuse center. And then a second area of reuse is gifting things now. There's a song that goes about, don't give me flowers when I'm dead or when I'm in the grave. Give them to me while I'm alive. It's the same kind of purpose, heirlooms. Give them to your children. Don't just put them in your well. And think more of more than one use. Many of the things I've already talked about are more than one use. There's a great song that I know called, I Had an Old Coat. I'm just going to sing a little bit of it for you and tell you about what they do. I had an old coat, but the court was torn. What'll I do? I had an old coat, but the coat was torn. What'll I do? I had an old coat, but the coat was torn. So I cut it down and a jacket was born. And I sing every day of my life. So this jacket became first. So this jacket then became a vest, then became a tie, then became a button. So many different incarnations. So you can take things and use them again if you really love them. So in that spirit, I want to just summarize for you the ways.  So the first one is bring your own bag. The second one is use a bag for your produce. Take along containers. Use your cup. Use your water bottle. Then second part, pack your lunch. Use a thermos. Bring your own utensils or dine in. As they say, slow down. Don't use straws. Don't use much packaging. And as we come back to the studio, you can see all of these laid out before you. The packaging, the bags. Bring your own container, water bottle, lunchbox, insulated container, and dishes. And you can see more about conservation in a number of other shows, most of which I've done with Jennifer Gilbert, the conservation coordinator. All of these are available in the studio and also on YouTube. If you look by the title. And I am available for any questions that you have about anything that I've presented. You can email me at martha.teeter at gmail.com. And I encourage all of you to reduce and reuse. And thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye.


Aromatherapy is the use of concentrated essential oils extracted from plants to treat disease, and is commonly used to treat anxiety symptoms. Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent class of psychiatric disorders in the general population. However, their treatment is still challenging, as the drugs used for the relief of anxiety symptoms can have important side effects. Thankfully, double-blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials performed to evaluate the effects of essential oils on anxiety symptoms are gradually starting to appear in the medical literature. However, in most of these studies, exposure to the essential oil odor was accompanied by massage. This makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the effect of the aroma itself. Here's a typical example. Patients in the intensive care unit the day after open heart surgery getting foot massages with orange-scented oil. Why not back massages? Because they just had their chests cracked open, so of this huge sternotomy wound. Maybe a preventive plant-based diet, rather than a post-op plant-based massage, might have been the better choice. But the massages felt great, restful, peaceful, calming. You know, it's a British study, because one described the effect as smashing. But how do we know the essential oil had anything to do with it?  In which case, great! Let's give people massages. I'm all for more ICU foot routes. There's considerable evidence from randomized trials that massage alone reduces anxiety. So if massage is effective, then aromatherapy plus massage is also effective. So, you know, aromatherapy may work even if it doesn't. We have one study where cancer patients got massaged during chemo and radiation, even found that the massage, without the fragrance, may be better. They thought it might be like a negative Pavlovian response.  More recently, the ambient odor of orange was tested in a dentist's office to see if it reduces anxiety and improves mood. Ambient odor of orange was diffused into the waiting room. It appeared to have a relaxing effect, less anxiety, better mood, and calmness compared to the control group where there was no odor in the air. No odor, that is, except the nasty dentist office smell. Maybe the orange scent was just masking the unpleasant odors. Maybe it had nothing to do with any kind of orange-specific molecules. More research was necessary. The effect of sweet orange aroma on experimental anxiety in humans. They exposed some grad students to an anxiety-producing situation and tested the scent of orange versus a non-orange aroma versus no scent at all. And the orange did appear to have an anxiety-reducing effect. Interestingly, the observed anxiety-reducing effects was not followed by physical or mental sedation. On the contrary, at the highest dose the orange oil made the volunteers feel more energetic, so potentially less anxiety without the downer effect of valium-type drugs. Which does that mean we can get the benefits without the side effects? Well, I've talked about the concerns about using scented consumer products, even ones based on natural fragrances. And there have been reports of adverse effects of aromatherapy, in fact some pretty serious reactions. Alternative medicine isn't necessarily risk-free. Like there's dozens of reported cases of people having their hearts ruptured by acupuncture. Ouch! But the adverse effects of aromatherapy were mostly from skin irritation, from essential oils being applied topically to the skin, or even worse, swallowed. Certain citrus oils can make our skin sensitive to sunlight, though less of a problem in France, evidently, where they're known to stick them where the sun doesn't shine.