The next item of business is a statement by Keith Brown on justice system approach to risk assessment. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Keith Brown. I'd like to update Parliament on an issue affecting the level of service and case management system, also known as the LSCMI system. lSCMI has been used since 2006 six in Scotland as a paper-based system and the LSCMI system has been used as an IT system in Scotland since 2010. It supports risk assessment and case management for individuals with a history of offending. The LSCMI system is used as one part of a wider set of processes by social work and prison staff to inform a number of decision points within the criminal justice system, including sentencing decisions, programmes, access and prison release decisions. In 2019, the system was centralised, and as of 22 November 2021, all 32 local authorities and the Scottish Prison Service, who previously each hosted the system locally, were migrated on to a centralised IT system. The LSCMI risk assessment tool is not the only risk assessment that is used within the justice system. There are a number of different tools used for a variety of different types of offenders, and this issue relates only to the LSCMI risk assessment tool. There are a number of validated risk assessment tools to support and inform professionals in their decision making. That includes risk assessment tools specifically related to violent offending, sexual offending and to intimate partner violence and stalking. In the prison environment, for example, the LSCMI is used as one of a suite of risk assessment tools. The choice of risk assessment tool in this context is partly influenced by the nature of the index offence. The management of the assessed risk is governed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals referred to as the risk management team, which is chaired by a prison senior manager supported by a range of professionals, including but not limited to criminal justice, social work, psychologists, health professionals, Police Scotland, local authorities, chaplaincy and third sector agencies. The challenge of assessing and managing risks draws together this diverse range of professions in the shared objective of protecting the public by preventing or minimising harm. A recurring theme in risk management practice is the need to balance the safety of potential victims with the human rights of the offender, and this multidisciplinary approach involving a range of professionals is also often used for managing individuals within the community setting. Risk assessment is dynamic and, as you can see, it is holistic in its nature. It is never based on one assessment within the system. I will explain in detail the circumstances relating to two issues that have been identified and outline the precautionary measures that have been taken at every step to ensure confidence in Scotland's public protection arrangements are maintained. I apologise in advance for the somewhat technical explanation around some of the factors at play. Given the importance of the issues, it is right that we take this precautionary approach. Following a call that was raised by a user at the help desk for the system in January of this year about a single case, the system issue was explored by the IT managed service provider for LSEMI and by the risk management authority who both provide a help desk service for the system. That works out to understand if this was an issue affecting just a particular user or if it was more widespread. Following those detailed investigations that became apparent last week that this was an issue affecting other users of the system, test scripts were immediately developed to identify affected cases. At the particular systems issue affects the display of information in the risk assessment part of the system. The numerical risk score value in some particular instances does not match the risk score level displayed by the system. A systems issue appears to be preventing any subsequent changes made to that risk level when new information has been entered. As of this week there were 103,394 assessments in total on the live system. Of course individuals can have more than one assessment. There are approximately 24,000 open cases on the live system and open cases is one where there is some on-going management of the individual on the justice system that requires use of LSEMI. I have advised that from the work carried out over the weekend there are 1,317 assessments where the calculated score did not match the final risk need level. Of those assessments affected, 1,032 relate to closed cases and 285 relate to open cases. The system has an ability for social work to override the risk level shown on the system. Of the 1,032 closed cases there are 537 cases where an override has been applied by social work. That is the professional judgment that has been applied to a risk assessment. That means that there will be 495 of those closed cases, which appear to contain a risk level that is affected by the system error. The remaining 537 with an override applied will of course need a case-by-case review to determine if the override superseded any error. Officials have taken immediate action to review open cases that the justice system is still managing and I will say more about that review process shortly. On Friday of last week my officials issued an immediate update to users of the system, justice social work principally but also to SPF staff, making them aware of the issue and providing a temporary solution so that cases could be identified on the system and a form of override applied. Work is on going to identify the specific cases affected and on Tuesday my officials issued details of the open cases and locations of those cases to users of the system, asking them to specifically review risk levels and scores and take any necessary actions. The action in those cases will have been for users of the system to determine if the risk level shown for the cases that they manage was correct and to apply an override if not. Users of the system were also asked to involve partners if there was any impact on the ongoing management of that individual within the justice system. My officials are assembling returns from users of the system as they do so and to date 150 returns have been received. No users of the system, social worker or SPF, have advised the Scottish Government of any public protection risk as a result of the system's issue. That is worth repeating. No users of the system, social worker or Scottish Prison Service have advised the Scottish Government of any public protection risk as a result of the system's issue. Justice social workers, whether community or prison-based, are trained professionals and will always apply professional judgment to every individual that they manage. The nature of risk assessment is holistic, as I have said, and it is wide-ranging. It is not making the stick, it is not ever solely based on the LSCMI risk assessment tool. Further to the initial error that has been investigated, as described above, as part of that investigation, previous change laws and help desk calls have been reviewed in parallel to explore any issues that interact with the system's issue. It seems only sensible to do that. It does appear from those investigations that there may be another area of risk scoring relating to alcohol drug use that creates an error. Whilst the extent of this is not known, it is clear that it may affect the risk score. The initial evidence on the system as presently reported indicates that the score is likely to be higher rather than lower, i.e. to overstate risk rather than understate it. Given the second issue that has now been identified as potentially affecting cases, I have again, as a precautionary measure, to ensure that we take no risks with public protection issues, agreed the following actions. All social workers have been asked to review all open cases on the following priority basis by first looking at cases due for imminent consideration of release from prison or for entry into MAPA or onto licence. Just as social workers have been asked to move with immediate effect the paper-based system, which is the agreed contingency plan around any system failure. The extensive support that has been put in place from Community Justice Scotland around any immediate training implications, although other risk assessment tools in the system are paper-based, so that system will be familiar to many professionals in the system. We are also working with the IT company that manages the system, and if necessary, additional expert IT capacity will also be deployed to assist with what we now need to do, which is a rigorous assurance process of every element of the system. I have convened a risk review group, which we led by the risk management authority to work through as a matter of priority the opening and close cases to make an assessment of whether those errors will have made an impact on how that case was managed in the system. I should reiterate from this work, it is to provide further reassurance, not because we are aware of any issues around management of offenders due to this issue. I am keen that this work includes swiftly, for obvious reasons, and of course willing and eager to report back to Parliament on the outcome of that, as soon as that group has concluded its work or has initial findings that it is appropriate to share. In terms of further actions, officials have written out to other justice partners with their interests in these matters, including Police Scotland, the Parole Board of Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Children's Reporters' Administration. Officials have also written to victims organisations to ensure that they are cited on this issue and that they can offer necessary reassurance around the work that is currently in hand. If any of the victims' organisations would find it reassuring to meet with me, so I am able to reassure them around the actions taken then, of course, I am more than happy to make that offer and to involve them in those processes. I have also written to the Justice Committee today to make them aware of this issue and will continue to update them as more information is known. It is important to reiterate that, as a result of this issue, no concerns have been expressed by social workers, both in the community and in prison, around any offenders within the justice system. Our approach will always be precautionary and evidence-based. I am updating Parliament about this issue to ensure openness and transparency, but I hope that the steps that have already been taken and the openness with which we are dealing with the matter provide members with some reassurance. I have confidence in the professionalism of our justice and health professionals who everyday manage changing and involving risk across a range of offenders. As has been explained, LSEMI will never be the sole determinant of how the justice system deals with the risk of an individual. There is much more by way of judgment and process involved and will often involve a range of multidisciplinary professionals who are never just following what is displayed on the system. I am very grateful to them for all their continued support in ensuring that we retain confidence around how we protect the public from offending behaviour as we move forward from this. I will, as I have said, continue to update Parliament on this matter as is appropriate and happy to take any questions. Thank you. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next item of business. I will be grateful if members who wish to ask the question please press your request to speak buttons now or please put an R in the chat stream of all blue jeans. I call Jamie Greene. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We know why this mysterious last-minute statement on justice was kept quiet until it was released to us. Wow, cabinet secretary, clouded in jargon. It all sounds like a simple technical error off the back of another bungled IT centralisation project, but the reality could not be more stark or actually shocking, Presiding Officer, because these are vital systems that are used to score criminals and the risk to the public before they are released early. So the admission today that there are potentially hundreds of cases where the risk for assessing that danger was wrong will and should be a source of grave concern to us all. 495 of them are shocking. The justice secretary will reassure us, of course, that officials have checked 150 of them so far and tells us that no users of the system have advised the Government of any public protection risk whatsoever as a result of this so-called systems issue. The key word he missed out here is yet. They haven't found any public protection risk yet because they don't know the full picture yet. Trying to disguise this in technical jargon is one thing, but let me try and get some immediate clarity for the public out there. Cabinet Secretary, one, how many prisoners were released early or wrongly that shouldn't have? Two, when are the public going to find out if they've been put at risk in any way whatsoever by any of this gross incompetence? And three, will the justice secretary categorically rule out right now the early release of any prisoner whose risk assessment to the public is wrong or even might be wrong? Can I say first of all that the member makes reference to, if I forget how he described it, a centralisation process in a derogatory way? It may well be the case and we don't know this as yet. The centralisation part of this, which happened in 2019, is a mean by which it was a technical glitch where however you'd like to try and describe it, there's a technical problem with the programme. That may well be how it was discovered by the centralisation so that all the councils and the prison service are on the same system. So it may well be that that's what's helped us to find us out in the first place. And I've also mentioned the fact that the work is on-going. We were advised of this last Friday, the work that's been going on both over the weekend and right up to this point has led us to the statement that I've made and some of the facts which have given you, but there's more to be done. I've been very clear about that. There is no way around the technical information. I would have been slated had I not given the technical information behind this. And also, it's true to say as well, I would like to have come to this chamber and I'm perfectly willing to admit with all the facts in front of me, but there's also the pressure to try and tell Parliament as soon as possible. And I've conceded the fact that there'll be more information to come out and that's why I'm happy to report to Parliament in future. They asked the question about whether anybody's been released and I've given them the facts as I know them, which is that all the returns that have come back so far indicate no risk of somebody having been released early. On the second point, which is to do with the alcohol factors, it may well be the case that the risk was overstated in that case. But again, we have to wait till more facts come forward. So there is no evidence, as yet, to you've rightly said, of any risk to the public, of anybody being released when they shouldn't be. As I've said, there will be more to emerge. It's not the 495 cases that you've talked about, it's the 200 plus that I mentioned, 150 of which have come back so far. Although it's also true to say there's a much bigger piece of work to go back through the history of this right back to 2012 and make sure that even the closed cases that we've got it right and released into those as well. I'm trying to be as open as possible as I can be when I'm happy to come back to Parliament and answer more questions on this in future when we have more information. I thank the cabinet secretary for bringing this urgent matter to the attention of Parliament. I would also say that it would have been helpful if I had a pre-brief to get some explanation of the system and the terminology within the statement, but I also want to recognise that the equity of social workers and health professionals and their risk management teams will be working very hard to resolve this issue. It's not at all clear to me in the statement as to the real risk to communities from what seems to be quite a significant error, and that's only my sense having had first sight of the statement only an hour ago. I realise that social workers and multi-agency partners will be taking a holistic approach to all cases. Given that, can the cabinet secretary give an example of how it may be detrimental to offenders given that the statement in the statement says that the risk might be overstated, but more importantly, where it might put communities at risk, what is the cabinet secretary potentially concerned about here? The cabinet secretary said that there are 1,032 cases in total to be reviewed. I want that to be confirmed if I've understood that correctly. What type of resource will be needed to review what seems to be quite a high number of cases in a system that is so heavily relied on an IT model? I'll try to answer as many of the questions that I was able to take in there. On the first point that Pauline McNeill made, you're right that it's technical information and the statement does have lots of that information in there, including the figures that I mentioned. I think that she almost asked for a glossary of some of the terms and explanation of some of the terms. I should say that there is more information. It's easier to put more information into the letter that I've sent to the committee, but I'm more than happy—I'm sure that the committee will want to discuss this in future— more than happy to provide further explanation and further briefing on that if the member wishes us to do that. There is a great deal of work being done by the social workers. There is work being done by the review panel that I've set up, and that will involve a substantial amount of work for the people involved, and it will be work that's done as a priority. On the issue of the risk that she mentioned, I mentioned that the fact that it's in relation to the alcohol aggravator. Bear in mind, of course, the final judgment on that is a professional judgment of those involved in the system, but the risk scoring, which seems to be the issue in relation to that, was giving that too high a bearing. Sometimes, when alcohol was no longer deemed to be a risk factor, it may have been the case that it wasn't showing that reduction in risk there. That's one of the things that's currently being investigated. I would say that I'm happy to provide more information to the member either if he wants to write to me or, of course, both she and Mr Greene are on the committee, and the convener is here as well. I'm happy to provide information from that route and also to come back to Parliament with more information when we have it. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The cabinet secretary mentioned in a statement that, in the prison environment, the LSCMI is used as just one of a range of risk assessment tools. Can the cabinet secretary expand further on what other risk assessment processes are working alongside this system? The member is right to say that, as I mentioned, it's never just the LSCMI risk assessment that determines prison release, for example. The management of assessed risk in prison is governed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals referred to as the risk management team, the RMT, as I mentioned. That's chaired by a prison senior manager. It's supported by a range of professionals, including but not limited to criminal justice social work, psychologists, health professionals, Police Scotland, local authorities and third sector agencies. There are a range of other specialist risk assessment tools for sexual and violent offending that are also used often alongside LSCMI, so it is not, in the old phrase, the only tool of the box, and probably not even the most important one when you consider the professional judgment of the categories of professionals that you have just read out. Yet again, the SNP justice system fails law-abiding Scots. On the same day that this Parliament debates International Women's Day, we don't know how many women have been put at risk by this incompetence. Cabinet secretary, you have to approve first grant temporary release applications for murderers and rapists serving life sentences. I have a very specific question. Were any of your approvals among those botched cases, and if so, how many? I'm very confident that the answer, of course not to stand further what we have to do, will be one that would reassure the member, but perhaps rather than do that if I write to the member with the exact details of that, perhaps he'd be reassured. And honestly, to be honest, on something that's quite serious in relation to this, on which it is possible, of course, to raise public concerns to the outright political attack, we're just getting sick of the script. The SNP Government is the SNP Government that. Perhaps we should treat this issue as serious as it should be taken. This is a serious issue which can cause people concern. It deserves a serious discussion rather than the political rhetoric that we just had for Mr Finlay once again. Ronan Kaye, to be followed by Katie Clark. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the cabinet secretary outline what lessons have already been learned and reiterate further detail about the next steps that the Scottish Government is taking to resolve this issue? Well, we have, I think, throughout all of this, sought to take a precautionary approach to ensure that all potential effective cases are reviewed and to revert temporarily to the LSEMI's paper-based system while we assess the impact and make any required changes to its IT function. Within that, the member will have picked up that, of course, we want to do that, first of all, with the open cases first, and then move on to previously closed cases. We're also asking the risk management authority to urgently convene the review group that you mentioned. That will draw in other justice partners as needed. The work of constituting that group began today. Once the immediate and on-going review of live cases is concluded, the review group will examine the overall impact of those two errors in the IT system and I will report back to Parliament at that stage, Parliament permitting, of course. I call Katie Clark, who is joining us remotely to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Has the cabinet secretary been provided with a breakdown of the kind of offenses that those involved have been convicted of?  Has he been advised of what the potential implications could be in those cases? It sounds as if this is going to be resource intensive at a time when the legal system is already under massive pressure. What information has he been provided about the lightly work involved by the various agencies? On the first point, it would not be possible to break it down as far as I am aware into those cases because, as I mentioned during the statement, there are a number of different tools used for different offenses and used often in conjunction with other tools, all of which are used in conjunction with professional judgment. However, I will look into that and see if there is more information that I can provide to the member in relation to that. And also to say that I think that the second part to the question was about the resources required and that are necessary to carry the set. That is the nature of the job that it will have to do. It is very important so that will begin right away. And it is in the nature of the work that is done, as the member knows very well, of just the social workers and those in the prison service. I should say that the paper system that is now going to be used versus the reviews undertaken is one that the members professionals will be familiar with, not least because some of the other systems they cannot use are still paper systems. And some of them, of course, will have had the paper system continuing previously to the system, the IT system being adopted. So it won't be something that's new to those members but I do recognise that it's going to take time for that to happen. And once again, it's another issue which in relation to the on-going, if you like, resource-intensive nature of it, I'm happy to report back to both the committee and Parliament. I call Wilson McGregor to be followed by Lee McArthur. Thank you, Presiding Officer. And can I refer members to my register of interests? I was working in the sector when the LSCMI was introduced and recalled the fairly robust training programme that we had to undertake. The override option, as it's been in what's called, although with robust protocols, including several levels of management approval, and I hope that's reassuring to my Conservative colleagues, was nonetheless, always by far, the most contentious part of the LSCMI. And therefore, perhaps not surprising that this aspect is coming under more government scrutiny, though we surely should say that this is a good thing because it can help us to make it more effective and consistent. So, on behalf of my previous colleagues and those working across Scotland, can the cabinet secretary provide more detail about the support that is being provided to justice social workers as they move with immediate effect to working within a totally paper-based system? They will be helped I think by the review process itself. I think that in any event it's a good idea to have this review and also not to have accepted that the first instance which was picked up by somebody in the prison service perceived to be a glitch, wasn't written off in that way, it was then thoroughly checked to see if it was a wider issue, it was a wider issue, that was checked and then they looked for further issues and they found a second issue in relation to the system. As a member says, it is true, the system itself I think came in 2006 but it has moved to the IT-based side of things since 2012 and is now being centralised. I'm not aware yet, just to go back to the very first point that was made by Jamie Greene that is anything in the process to centralising that's caused any of these issues. In fact we know and listen to the two glitches or two technical problems which have emerged that that's not the case and it may be that the centralisation which is supported by all the different agencies is the means by which this has been found out but we will continue to provide as the member asks support to all the professionals involved and this will recognise both his point and the point of Katie Clark this has provided additional work to obviously a pressured area of work within government it will make sure that the resources are made available to ensure that they can get through this without affecting the other work they are currently having to face. I call Liam McArthur to be followed by Collette Stevenson. Thank you. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement but echo the concerns of Pauli McNeill in terms of some of the technical language that was used but it's clear that a key component for assessing the risk of convicted people which feeds into how the justice system deals with them has been displaying information wrongly potentially for years and potentially impacting decisions around release around sentencing and who should be subject to a map of monitoring of sexual offenders. So can the cabinet secretary confirm whether not just in case of alcohol and drugs cases whether generally the IT system has been overstating or understating the risk and when does he expect the urgent review now on their way of the remaining cases will be complete? On the first point made by them but no I can't say that because the information we've put back of the 150 and 150 was first in this morning it will be a higher number now that's the pace at which this has been worked through has not yet thrown up any public protection issues which at least in relation to the idea of overstating or wrongly stating does not yet concern the professionals involved in this so I can't say it maybe that I can say more on that as we get more information coming back I mean go through the rest of the functions and I apologize I forget the second part of the question that the member asked but I think we should be looking to I've mentioned the means by which we would try to push through this review I think we'll have more information certainly so significantly more information in the next fortnight I wouldn't want to commit to when the whole review should finish because we really have to know that we have a complete check as well as finding out these issues these concerns we want to make sure the entire system's working so I couldn't give them that assurance just now but I think on the the major issues many of which we've raised by members today I think we should have much more clarity within a fortnight thank you I have three more questioners seeking to ask questions so could I ask please for succinct questions and succinct answers collect Stevenson to be followed by Maggie Chapman thank you Presiding Officer Will the cabinet secretary provide a commitment that the Scottish Government will continue to keep both Parliament and the criminal justice committee updated as this situation develops and outline how he will do so thank you cabinet secretary yes as I said I'm happy to do that I should say I think I'm due to appear before the committee for about two and a half hours next week on different issues so but it's up to the committee what question I apologize I didn't hear that but I'm happy to answer any questions which are asked and also if the committee because of this wants to change the nature of the questions and of course I'll be responsive and the government will be responsive to that and I've already committed to coming back to Parliament it is a judgment to be made and it's one which obviously you cannot win on as to when to come back at the appropriate time I want to make sure Parliament is informed as soon as possible that's been the injunction we've had from the Presiding Officer which I've sought to do this is six days since we were made aware of this issue and much work has been done to make sure we can get as much information as possible to members but as we have more information to provide to members of course I'll come back to both the committee and the Parliament and in relation to Parliament Neil's questions I'm happy to correspond obviously with individual members during that time as well I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement and for his stated intentions to keep Parliament informed and be as transparent as possible which I take in good faith while there is clearly a place for risk assessment systems such as the LSEMI and others does this issue underline the case that both victim survivors and people convicted of crime are first and foremost people with individual needs and therefore it highlights the importance of having sufficient capacity and resources to treat individuals with respect and care can you outline what additional support he's putting in to ensure that is the case cabinet secretary Well I've mentioned in relation to the specific issues which you face the additional resources in terms of the review group and a willingness in the part of government to make sure that we put in additional resources to help the professionals involved in this exercise I think the members questions a wider one though about resources more generally and I think she will get a clue from the justice vision which we recently produced as to how we intend to use best the resources that we have I should say those she mentions victims and I should say that I've mentioned in the statement I will contact and have contacted I think by now victims organisations and we will also involve them in this process through the risk review group membership of that should they wish to take up that issue we'll do that through the victims organisations rather than the victims directly for reasons which I'm sure the members very well aware of and Stephen Kerr Thank you I was a little surprised with the response that the cabinet secretary gave to my colleague Russell Finlay because this cabinet secretary is a very experienced minister and he knows coming to this place means he will be scrutinised by members on all sides so can I ask him in respect to this catastrophic failure can he be very clear as of the moment he entered the chamber how many offenders that have been released possibly wrongly have been are still out on the streets as it were unchecked now the cabinet secretary says the problem was first identified by a user in january but it took until last week for the government to realise it it affected hundreds of cases so can I ask him when did he first become aware when was he first made aware of the scale of the problem and then if I might also ask him why did it take from some time last week until today to come to parliament I welcome that by the way and it makes a change Mr Kerr he came to parliament and to Mr Kerr could we please finish the question because we're running out of time as I've already indicated you've had quite a long run in could you please conclude your question Mr Kerr I'm trying to finish my question but it doesn't help when the depth please just conclude your question my question well I've asked my question great cabinet secretary when was he first made aware and why did it take him from last week until today to come to parliament if I can pick out the questions and you know the member makes a fair point about my response to a previous member if it comes with all sorts of political rhetoric behind it I'm going to respond to that I'm happy to respond to the factual points it's a serious issue and that's what I'm trying to do just to say the first to go directly to the member's question on 24th of January a member of the Scottish Prison Service using the system found an issue with that what they did they had this contact the help desk for those that are there to support it and they wondered at the start of course there was there to make certain it wasn't an individual user issue and that took time to do that they had they ran tests in parallel with the system that took them till the 23rd of February we the government were advised there is a wider issue with the system on Friday Friday afternoon last week that's when we were told and during the course of the weekend work has been going on non-stop to try and get both resolved to the system the worker in the paper based system and also to get more information so that I could make that statement to Parliament as full as possible on the other question that the member asked and I think that is pretty quick and I think it's the right way to have done things of course it's not going to criticism but I think that was the right way to do it on the issue about how many people are released that shouldn't be released I've tried to answer that already by saying to the members that have asked that question there are over 150 different cases at the 265 that have to be looked at in relation to the open cases which have come back with no public protection issues whatsoever that number may be higher because it was from this morning and of course I will update on that number if there's any change to that to members through the processes which I've already mentioned thank you cabinet secretary and that concludes the ministerial statement it is now time to move on to the next item of business and before doing so I remind members of the Covid related measures that are in place and that face covering should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus


a very good evening aspirants welcome to hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by shankar ias academy for the day 25th of may 2023 see aspirants we have only two days for ups e problems 2023 some might be revising now some might not be see if you are someone who likes to revise in the last minute then take your notes and give it a glance but if you are someone who doesn't like to revise in the last minute then keep your books and notes and all aside just remind calm don't be anxious okay ultimately what we need is to remind calm in the examination hall read the questions carefully do not make any careless mistakes be confident you will definitely ace the examination my very best wishes for you aspirants now with that note let's take a look at the articles that we are going to discuss today without any delay let's straight away get into the article discussion today we are going to start our discussion with this news article here it says that India plans to enhance its supercomputing capabilities by installing an 18 petaflop system this year currently India's most powerful supercomputers have a combined capacity of 6.8 petaflops know that petaflop is a unit of measurement for computing speed or processing power the new supercomputers are imported from France and these systems will enable more accurate weather forecasting and climate modeling as they can function with high speed and this is the crux of the news article given here now we'll learn about the supercomputers from exam perspective in this discussion see imagine you have a regular computer at home it has a single brain called central processing unit that is CPU see this CPU only helps the computer to perform tasks however when it comes to solving complex problems or handling massive amounts of data regular computers might not be enough that's where supercomputers come into play see supercomputers have multiple CPUs which are like having several brains working together this allows them to process information and perform calculations at very high speeds so it's like having a team of experts working on a problem simultaneously so why supercomputers need multiple CPUs this is because of the physical limitations of circuit technology see electrical signals which carry information in computer cannot travel faster than light this sets a limit on how quickly a regular computer can process data so by having multiple CPUs supercomputers can overcome this limit and achieve higher computational rates see another important feature of supercomputers is that their storage capacity and input output capability see to support the high computational speed of the CPUs supercomputers need to quickly retrieve data and instructions this means they have large storage systems that can hold massive amounts of information so these are some of the features of supercomputers now we'll see about supercomputers in India see supercomputing in India started in the year 1980 this is because prior to that we were procuring supercomputers from abroad so the national aerospace laboratories initiated the project flow solver mk1 in 1986 following this multiple projects were commissioned from different organizations including cdac, cdot, bark and anurag see they developed supercomputers such as chips, anuppam, pays and the param series so among this the param series released by cdac that is the center for development of advanced computing played a significant role the param 8000 was introduced in 1991 and it had multiple nodes and used in most transputers and then the param 8600 which is an improved version had integrated the intel i80 processors after that param 9000 was demonstrated in 1994 it combined cluster and parallel processing and then in 1998 param 10000 was unveiled it had independent nodes based on sun enterprise servers and then in the subsequent years India made remarkable progress with supercomputers for instance param padma introduced in 2002 entered the top 500 list of most powerful supercomputer systems in the world and then param uva was launched in 2008 and it had impressive performance and storage capacity following that param uva 2 was unveiled in 2013 and it offered significant speed improvement and energy efficiency param ishan was introduced in 2016 it was a hybrid high performance computing system and then param brahma which was built under national supercomputing mission had advanced cooling technology this cooling system maintains the system's temperature by effectively using the thermal conductivity of liquids so as of now the fastest indian supercomputer param siddhi ai developed in 2020 has the high performance computing and artificial intelligence capabilities it has achieved global ranking of 62 in top 500 most powerful supercomputer systems in the world also know that there are other systems under national supercomputing mission we have param shivai param sanghanak param pravega and shahash dati note that param shivai was the first supercomputer assembled indigenously at iit bubaneshwar now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion in this discussion we saw what is supercomputer and after that we saw important features of supercomputers and finally we ended our discussion by seeing supercomputers in india now with these points let us move on to the next article discussion now we are going to take this news article for our next discussion see if you can recall last year us-based hindenburg research raised several governance concerns in regard to adhani group following this supreme court of india asked sebi to probe some of the allegations made summit its findings while investigating sebi found that several offshore funds made investments in the adhani group of companies when sebi tried to trace the ownership of these funds it met with roadblocks due to the opaque nature of these offshore funds to avoid future events like this sebi has asked all foreign funds investing in india to identify their parent financial institution to make it more transparent this is about the news article given here so in this context we are going to learn about the offshore funds see an offshore fund is a collective investment scheme it is like a mutual fund that is domiciled in an offshore jurisdiction this means that the fund is regulated by the laws of offshore jurisdiction that is the foreign country rather than the laws of the investors home country offshore funds are typically used by investors who want to access the international markets offshore funds can invest in variety of assets including stocks bonds and real estate so basically offshore funds are mutual funds that invest across the overseas markets to convey the point more clearly let me explain with an example mr jack who is an american citizen has won a lottery and he has a large sum of money at his disposal he invests half of his money in the us share market now he wants to diversify his investment portfolio he looks at the booming economy of india and he wants to invest in india to earn higher return so he is contacting rose investment firm rose investment firm is an offshore fund registered in india this is an assumption okay this firm collect money from the american investors and invest them in the indian share market they collect the money in dollars and they invest in the indian share market in the form of rupees okay see although rose investment firm receives money from the us investors it has to adhere to the rules and regulations of rbi and sebi this is because rose investment firm is domiciled and registered in india only now i hope you got clear about the term offshore funds see offshore funds offer a number of advantages to the investors the first advantage is access to the international markets offshore funds allow investors like mr jack to access the international market the second advantage diversification offshore funds can help investors diversify their portfolio by investing in variety of assets and markets the third advantage is tax benefits in some cases offshore funds can offer tax benefits to investors for example take maritius maritius is a small island country with no resources since the country has no resources no one will invest in the country right so to attract the investors maritius will offer very low rates to the investors this will attract the investors on one hand maritius will get fresh investments and on the other hand the investors have a place to invest so these are some of the advantages associated with the offshore funds however there are also some risks associated with investing in offshore funds the first major risk is currency risk here let us take again mr jack's example let us say that our awesome mr jack invested rupees 50 million dollars in india through the rose investment firm the rupee dollar exchange rate is one dollar is equal to 85 rupees so mr jack has invested rupees 425 crore rupees in india now due to financial mismanagement in india the rupee starts depreciating now the rupee dollar exchange rate reaches one dollar is equal to 100 rupees due to this instability in the indian market now mr jack tries to pull back his funds see due to depreciation mr jack will get 42.5 million dollars only back this is the currency risk that i said before this currency risk happens due to the exchange rate fluctuations and it is one of the major issue associated with the offshore investments and the second risk is political risk see the value of an offshore fund can also be affected by political instability in the funds domicile right so that's also one another risk and the last one is regulatory risk the regulatory environment for offshore funds can change which can affect the investment process right so this will have an impact in the level of investor protection these are some of the risks associated with the offshore funds overall offshore funds can be a good option for investors who want to access the international markets diversify their portfolios or reduce their tax liability however it has also some risks associated with it so we have to keep in mind the risks while opting for the option of offshore funds this is all regarding this discussion in this discussion we saw about offshore funds we understood it with an example and after that we saw the advantages of offshore funds and finally we ended our discussion by seeing the risks associated with the offshore funds now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion now look at this editorial article here the overall essence is about the emergence of saudi arabia as a significant regional player in the arab world see the editorial starts by talking about the recently held arab league summit and its significance it goes on to talk about the shift in the saudi arabia's foreign policy under the new crown prince muhammad bin salman then it mentions about the advantages that saudi arabia possess and finally how india should chart its course to deal with the new saudi arabia under muhammad bin salman and this is about the editorial given here so in this discussion let us see the points mentioned in the article in a simplified and detailed manner but before that the syllabus relevant to the article is highlighted here please go through it now let us start with the basics firstly what are the countries that fall under the classification of arab world if you're thinking arab must include all the countries in the middle east then you're wrong actually arab world does not include iran which is located in the middle east but it includes countries like mauritania and moraco which is located in the western part of africa and it also includes koma rose which is an island in the indian ocean see this map here highlights the countries that fall under the category of arab world there are 22 countries that are considered to be a part of the arab world now what do you think is the commonality among the countries in the arab world see actually there is only one unifying factor among the countries of arab world if you're thinking language religion or ethnicity then you're wrong i'll explain why now take language for example see arabic is used as a lingua franca throughout the arab world only 19 out of the 22 countries have native arabic speakers so language is ruled out next take religion see majority of arab countries are to sunni islam and others they belong to shia majority so here religion is also ruled out thirdly take ethnicity see majority of people in the arab world are ethnically arab but there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as berbers curts somalis nubians other groups so ethnicity is also ruled out if it is not language religion or ethnicity then what is the unifying factor among the arab countries it is the arab league globally it is widely accepted that the countries that are a part of the arab league are generally considered as a part of the arab world now what is this arab league arab league is formerly known as league of arab states it was established in k ro on 22 march 1945 following the adoption of the alexandria protocol in 1944 the objective of the arab league is to strengthen and coordinate the political cultural economic and social programs of its members and to mediate disputes among them or between them and the third parties so this is the objective of the arab league see arab league has 22 members that is all the countries in the arab world the league has five observer countries namely armenia brazil erritria india and venezuela recently 32nd arab league summit was held in jeda south arabia this summit is prominent for various reasons the first reason is the re-admission of siriya into arab league see siriya was expelled from arab league in 2011 because of the syrian president bashar al asad's brutal suppression of pro democracy protests now in 2023 siriya is admitted back into the league this is a significant event because after 12 long years the arab league is in full strength and this is the first reason why the summit is prominent secondly the ukrainian president mr zelensky attended the summit as a special invite see this is significant as it highlights the allegiance of the arab league in the ongoing russia ukraine crisis and the third reason is the jeda declaration the jeda declaration was presented after the summit from a geopolitical standpoint the declaration was realistic and moderate in nature for example although the declaration has pro-palestinian stand israel was mentioned nowhere in the declaration in addition to this iran was also not mentioned in the declaration this shows that the league is trying to moderate its shaky relationship with other regional players like israel and iran these are some of the significance of the 32nd summit of arab league now you may wonder what is the reason for the sudden shift in the league's agenda the main reason is saudi arabia taking over as the de facto leader of the arab league and mohammed ben salman rising to power in saudi arabia see earlier egypt was considered to be the de facto leader of arab league but right now egypt's economy is in shambles and it cannot lead the league but saudi arabia on the other hand is an economic powerhouse in 2022 its gdp grew by 8.7 percentage to reach 1008 billion dollars saudi arabia is the largest oil exporter in the world in 2022 oil exports from saudi grew by 55 percentage and it reached a value of 228 billion dollars and in addition to being an economic powerhouse saudi arabia is also politically stable all these factors make saudi arabia the natural successor to egypt and the de facto leader of the arab league see saudi arabia is using this opportunity to make course corrections to the league and make league stick to the middle path that is it is trying to balance between us and israel on one side and iran and china on the other side see saudi arabia is also trying to project itself as a singular voice of the arab world and know that the man behind all this is mohammed ben salman before the summit mohammed ben salman took various measures to first make saudi arabia stick to the middle path and deescalate various regional tensions firstly to normalize relations with iran through chinese medicine this is an astounding move by mohammed ben salman by choosing china over the usa for mediation process he pulled saudi arabia out of the clutches of the usa and asserted diplomatic autonomy now that the relation between iran and saudi arabia has slightly normalized both the countries can have direct diplomatic relationship with each other so this will reduce the importance of countries like qatar, iraq, oman and pakistan which acted as intermediaries between saudi arabia and iran in addition to this due to normalizing relations between iran and saudi arabia the proxy wars that iran and saudi arabia are fighting in yemen, lebanon, syria and iraq will slowly come to an end so basically mohammed ben salman killed three birds with one stone secondly mohammed ben salman has taken steps to balance between israel and palestine also by not mentioning israel in the recent jeda declaration saudi arabia avoided demonizing israel and took an ambiguous position at the same time by engaging directly with hamas the ruling faction in the gaza strip saudi arabia is trying to de-radicalize the palestinians and this proves that in essence mohammed ben salman has taken the middle path and lastly mohammed ben salman organized peace talks among warring factions in sudan in jeda by this mohammed ben salman is projecting jeda as a venue for peace see these are some of the steps taken by mohammed ben salman to make saudi arabia stick to the middle path with saudi arabia becoming the de facto leader of the arab league mohammed ben salman is pushing for the league also to take the middle path this is all about the recent realignment that is happening in saudi arabia and in the arab world see with these changing dynamics how should india continue its engagement with the arab world india has high stakes in the arab world india is aware of the geopolitical significance of the region that is why india has observer status in the arab league according to the editorial india must always put its national interest first while engaging with the region i think it was william clay who said that this is quite a game politics there are no permanent enemies and there are no permanent friends only permanent interests india should stick to these words and focus on its national interest and then india must increase its bilateral engagement with saudi arabia see economic engagement between both the countries should be increased also steps must be taken to build socio-economic infrastructure in both the countries and also in other countries in the region through india-saudi partnership by taking these steps india can have meaningful engagement with saudi arabia now this is all regarding this discussion in this discussion we saw about the arab world and after that we understood what is arab league we saw the significance of 32nd arab league summit after that we moved on to see about the realignment of saudi arabia and arab league under mohammed bin salman and finally how india should engage with the region now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion now let us take this article for our next discussion this article is from the science page this article gives us some insights about the challenges prevailing in ensuring the sustainability of agricultural commodity value chains see india has a long history of producing agricultural commodities we all know that india has been a hub for the global trade of spices tea and coffee for several centuries if we look at the data over the last three decades the share of agricultural commodities in the total GDP has significantly expanded in india see this growth is a positive one but this type of rapid growth has also raised concerns about ensuring the sustainability in the agri commodity value chains see we know that agricultural sector also contributes to environmental degradation see it causes carbon emissions soil erosion etc apart from the environmental degradation the overuse of water and chemicals in the fields also threaten the long-term viability of agricultural production so these concerns advocate for the sustainable method of agri production and consumption see this is the background of the article given here so in this context we'll learn about the commodity crops and then we'll understand what are all the challenges prevailing in ensuring sustainability of agricultural commodity value chains first of all let us start with the commodity crops see commodity crops are the crops that are usually grown in large volume and at high intensity commodity crops are specifically grown for the purpose of sale at the international markets some of the examples of commodity crops include soybean, cocoa, coffee, tea, rubber, palm oil and cotton now what are all the problems associated with cultivation of these commodity crops see growing commodity crops are critically related to global sustainability challenges this is because they drive significant environmental and climate risks including deforestation, biodiversity laws, fresh water depletion, soil degradation as we saw earlier India is one of the global hubs for agricultural commodity trade so the protection trade and consumption of these commodities in India is likely to drive the impacts on environmental sustainability so keeping this in mind we should think what do we need at this point of time the need is nothing but an environmentally sustainable method of agri production and consumption now comes the golden question can sustainability be achieved easily actually no see ensuring sustainability in agricultural commodity value chain is a multi-dimensional challenge there are some four main challenges given in the article now let us understand them one by one the first challenge is regarding the characteristics of the market and the producer as we all know the market and the producer play a significant role in the agricultural commodity value chain the character of various producers and market intermediaries differs from each other this is where the problem arises see some producers may engage in sustainable production methods by using organic manure and energy from renewable resources but some producers may use chemical fertilizers and energy derived from the fossil fuel sources to do agri production so it differs from one another and there lacks coordination therefore the characteristics of the market and producer is one of the main challenges in ensuring sustainability and then the second challenge is regarding the nature of production see agri commodity production may be in intensive or extensive form here intensive production means there is high level use of labour and capital in comparison to land area whereas in the case of extensive production large forms will be cultivated with low level use of capital and labour see in both these intensive and extensive production methods the better land use strategies are determined by the nature of production process here the nature of production process includes the type of field preparation quality of seeds and number of inputs for example if the quality of seeds is very low then we have to add more fertilizers and this affects the soil right but if the quality of seed is high a viable quantity of fertilizer is enough for a great yield so again here also there is no uniformity so this is also one of the challenges in ensuring sustainability which is the nature of production now moving on to the third challenge the third challenge is regarding governance mechanisms and policy support see the government is providing more subsidies market access and infrastructural support to processing and storage facilities but the government is not providing viable support to improve the production and consumption by giving healthy and natural solutions this is one of the challenges and the final challenges regarding the initiatives to mitigate the environmental effects see there is no proper initiative in India to mitigate the environmental effects of agricultural value chains even when it comes to policies and regulations the burden of responsibility to change the agricultural practices typically falls on the most marginalized section so lack of proper initiative to mitigate the environmental effect is also a challenge and these are the four challenges mentioned in the article see these four challenges only make us difficult in mitigating environmental impacts in agricultural commodity value chains so to conclude there are many ways to achieve sustainability in agricultural commodity value chain one such way is collective and coordinated action by different stakeholders like governments markets and producers this can have a positive impact on commodity value chains if such actions are combined with the right kind of support systems the agricultural commodity value chains can deliver its fruit for India's people and its environment for a longer time now that's all for this article discussion in this discussion we saw about the agricultural commodity value chains the need for sustainability in agricultural commodity value chains and after that we saw what is commodity crops and finally we ended our discussion by seeing the challenges in achieving sustainability in agricultural commodity value chain now with these points let us move on to the next article discussion now look at this news article here the national commission for protection of child rights conducted an investigation at the nadarajur temple in chidambaram tamil nadu the investigation was prompted because of the allegations made by tamil nadu governor rn ravi the allegation was regarding the forced virginity tests conducted on minor girls at the temple in this context we'll learn about ncpcr in this discussion see national commission for protection of child rights was established under the commission for protection of child rights act 2005 so it is a statutory body under this act a child is defined as a person in the age group of 0 to 18 years the commission was formed to carry out the important duties and responsibilities under this act so basically ncpcr is responsible for making sure that all laws policies programs and administrative systems protect and support the rights of children it means that the commission makes sure that all mechanisms are in harmony with the child rights as enshrined in the constitution of india and also the un convention on rights of the child know that ncpcr falls under the administrative control of ministry of women and child development now these are all the basic details of ncpcr now talking about the composition the commission has a chairman who is a person of great distinction and has made remarkable contributions to promoting the well-being of children additionally there are six members out of which at least two are women these members are appointed by the central government and they come from various fields with expertise and experience in different areas related to children see the fields from which the members are chosen include education child health child care welfare and child development moreover members are selected from those who have knowledge and experience in juvenile justice caring for neglected or marginalized children supporting children with disabilities combating child labour assisting children in distress understanding child psychology or sociology and expertise in laws concerning children see one more condition is that the chairperson must be below 65 years of age and the members must be below 60 years this is about the composition of ncpcr now finally before concluding our discussion let us see some of the main functions of ncpcr see i've given here the entire functions of ncpcr the main ones include to review and examine the existing measures in place for safeguarding child rights and they also suggest ways to make them more effective secondly to investigate cases of child rights violations and to recommend legal action when necessary to look into various issues that affect children such as terrorism violence natural disasters and so on the commission recommends appropriate measures to address these problems and then to focus on children who need special care and protection including those in distress marginalized or disadvantaged children children without families and children of prisoners the commission suggests ways to protect and support these children and then the commission also studies international treaties and agreements related to child rights see the commission then makes recommendations to ensure the best interest of children and then to promote research on child rights and rise awareness about them among different sections of society this is done through publications media seminars and other means available besides this they also inspect or arrange inspections of facilities like juvenile custodial homes where children live or receive care and then to address compliance and take action on issues related to child rights violations non-implementation of child protection laws also know that the commission is not allowed to investigate matters already being looked into by other commissions or authorities and then the commission presents an annual report to the central government and provides updates as needed finally the commission also collects and analyzes data on children to understand their situation better now these are some of the functions and powers of NCPCR that's all for this discussion in this discussion we saw about some basic details about NCPCR its establishment composition and main functions now with these points let us move on to the next article discussion now look at this final article here it says that the greater Chennai corporation has successfully generated 665 tannas of biocompressed natural gas shortly known as biocng at the chet pit plant in this context now we are going to learn about biocng in exam perspective see biocng is a naturally produced gas that is formed through the anaerobic decomposition of biomass like agricultural waste, animal droppings etc basically biocng is an advanced version of biogas know that it contains methane and carbon dioxide and it also has other trace gases like water vapor oxygen hydrocarbons and ammonia know that biocng has a methane content of over 90 percentage and it is a clean and renewable fuel it also has similar properties to cng that is compressed natural gas now how is this biocng produced we know that normally biogas is produced when organic matter such as food or animal waste is broken down by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen see this biogas is purified by removing hydrogen sulfide carbon dioxide and water vapor and then it is compressed into compressed biogas and this only we call it as biocng so we can say that production of biocng involves decomposing biogenic waste in the absence of oxygen note that biocng has a higher calorific value compared to biogas also biocng has a calorific value equal to compressed natural gas so this makes it more energy rich fuel besides this it has low moisture low hydrogen sulfide content and low impurities see it can be used as a replacement for cng in industries automobiles and for domestic and commercial purposes in order to accelerate the biocng plant installation various initiatives and policies have been announced in the last five years once such initiative is the waste to energy program implemented by ministry of new and renewable energy see this program provides central financial assistance to support the setting up of biocng generation plants from urban industrial and agricultural waste see this is the first step taken by the government to accelerate the biocng plant installation secondly under satat initiative the government envisions setting up of 5000 biocng plants here satat is nothing but sustainable alternative towards affordable transportation initiative as per the initiative the production target is 15 million metric tons of biocng by 2023 to 24 the initiative encourages entrepreneurs to establish biocng plants and supply biocng to oil marketing companies for uses automotive fuel and then the department of drinking water and sanitation launched the go bar dance scheme that is galvanizing organic bio agro resources dance scheme this scheme provides financial assistance for setting up cluster or community level biogas plants and it is focused primarily on solid waste management and then to support research and development eight biogas development and training centers have been established at premier institutions in India these centers provide technical assistance research testing and validation of new biogas models as well as training and skill development additionally the ministry of road transport and highways has amended the central motor vehicle rules this amendment allows the usage of biocng in the motor vehicles see these are some of these steps taken to accelerate the usage of biocng now with this we have come to the end of this article discussion in this discussion we saw about biocng how it is produced its constituents its characteristics and finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the initiatives taken by the government to accelerate the usage of biocng now with these points let us move on to the next part of the discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion see today we have four prelims questions i will solve three of them and one of the music was question for you now let us take this first question Aira with Pratyush Mihir recently seen in news are related to which of the following option a super computers option b Indian naval ships option c anti-tank missiles and option d drone technologies see Pratyush and Mihir are two high performance computing units unveiled in 2018 see Pratyush is a 4.0 petaflop unit at IITM Pune and Mihir is a 2.8 petaflop unit at national center for medium range weather forecasting noida so together they provide a combined output of 6.8 metaflops and very recently the AI supercomputer Aira with installed at the center for development of advanced computing has been ranked the 75th in the world so the correct answer to this question is option a now moving on to the next question see this question is a previous question which was asked in the year 2017 the question says which of the following are envisaged by the right against exploitation in the constitution of India statement one prohibition of traffic and human beings and forced labor statement two abolition of untouchability statement three protection of the interests of minorities statement four prohibition of employment of children and factories and mines see right against exploitation includes article 23 and article 24 article 23 prohibits traffic in human beings and forced labor and article 24 prohibits employment of children in factories and mines so the correct answer is option C know that abolition of untouchability comes under right to equality and the article number is article 17 and this protection of the interest of minorities it comes under cultural and educational rights now moving on to the third question SATAT scheme was launched by which of the following ministries ministry of rural development new and renewable energy petroleum and natural gas and agriculture see now a discussion itself we saw about the SATAT scheme right what is it it is the sustainable alternative towards affordable transportation know that it was launched by ministry of petroleum and natural gas now let's move on to the last questions aspirants this is only the quiz question for you read the question carefully think about it and post your answer in the comment section aspirants I have given here the main questions for your practice if you are interested write it and post your answer in the comment section if you have any queries or doubts related to the articles that we discussed today post that also in the comment section with us we have come to the end if you find the video useful like share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar IA's Academy's YouTube channel for further updates thank you


Εντάξει, ας δεν πέρασε να σημήτες, πράγμαστε, Michael. Σας ευχαριστούμε. Τιούς αφαιώς. Ο δημόνας είναι η δημόνωσης εργασίας ή η δημόνωση για τη δημόνωση των αγγέντες, το συστήρατο ή η εξαιρετική δημόνωση. Ο Άντες Βάζας είναι κάθε ότι η λυμή μπορεί να γράφει σε συνεργή γιατί η δημόνωση είναι πρόσπροτεχή. Ο Άντες Βάζας είναι η δημόνωση που η δημόνωση είναι πρόσπροτεχή. Ήνθε Εύσο, είμαι ο Μυκλείς Μετρεω. Είμαι σχέδρος σε οι δυνατότητες και δυνατατικά εκκλησ ug home, τώρα, και εμπλήθει ότι αντιμετωπίτες δυνατότητες επίσης χλείφεταιεεται canvas για να προοδεσάξει το εξέξυν μας που δυνατότητες προζάτει. Η δυνατότητα και δυνατότητες χρειάζει να μην προοδελταίστε τη δυνατότητα. Βυσacja και δυνατότητα μη είναι δυνατότητα γιατί να μην στηλεύει τους. το name of ease of use, security, or good looks. But the user, that uses something most easily, the most secure user, the happiest user, is the one that knows how anything works. So making something automagically work will cause a few moments of initial delight, but the effects in the long term are exactly the opposite. I realized this by showing the incredible advances in deep learning and neural image manipulation to friends and coworkers during the past few years. People that don't understand the complexity of the system involved are the least impressed. Technology is magic for them and can do anything. There's a story I read when I was little which described a family dinner during which one of the adults starts floating over the table. Despite what one would think, the children are the ones that are the least amazed. They are used to seeing amazing new things all the time. Adults, on the other hand, know that floating over the table is impossible and are genuinely surprised. Trying to make technology look like magic helps keep our users' childlike, which as good as that sound, it's not. You might wonder why I mentioned clickbait and fake news during the notes of the presentation. It's because I believe that fake news calls for universal backdoors and conspiracy theories all have one thing in common. They stem from the inability of the crowd to distinguish between what is impossible and what's possible or improbable. The ability to do that improves with a firmer understanding of how things work. Unless everything is reduced to a black box, only the elusive expert understands how things work. In fact, nobody does. All the things are just some of black boxes and any given expert can only know what one of those parts does. So nobody understands how the whole works. But let's go back a little bit to the design movements of yesterday's year. Let's go back to other flaws in modernism and his declaration on ornamental crime or to the Russian constructivists that thought all art was political and that building a USSR was a great art project. To the both of modernists that thought that art should adapt to the new era of the machine, but that there is an emotionally durable design that aims to save the environment by designing things that we will love more as time passes. All those guys and many, many more in the history of the art and design thought that they could change the world with their creations. They thought they could make their lives of people better, some by promoting social status, other by diminishing it, some by promoting technology and others by promoting mass consumption. But today's design trends try to promote an easier life but fail, actually promoting blissful ignorance.  Facebook. Why? Because people can't distinguish a search term from URL. And number three is Google. I think this is our fault and we have to fix it. It has huge security implications and it's clearly a failure of our design. We are trapped in our bubble and we've lost track of the real results of our work. We think that anyone knows basic things about technology because we do, but the reality is that many don't. And since we managed to get rid of manuals through intuitive design, now it's our job to teach them. There are many more examples of how current design fails, but I think the most spectacular manifestation is Facebook's fake news problem. They try to reduce the unlimited complexity of a thing called news to the presence or not of this. A small red flag. Of course they managed to do the opposite of what they intended. It's deeply inclined in Silicon Valley mentality. Simplify anything down to a single click. And that brings me to why it fails. It fails because our world is complex. Complexity is there and it is inevitable. The universe is complex. Our solutions to the problems caused by complexity usually involve even more complexity. In our effort to simplify things as designers, we end up just hiding complexity behind user interfaces that make assumptions. By driving over the complexity with a road paving roller machine of a UI, we destroy all kinds of nuances people love to love. Just visit any kind of community that loves a certain something. Audio equipment, cars, whiskey, gaming keyboards, jeans, desktop environments, whatever. And you will find that the discussion always gets down to the slight nuances that make each one's favorite thing unique to the point sometimes of absurdity. So let's go to typesetting. It's an example of the results of UI over simplification. LATECH might be intimidating, but it requires you to invest the time to learn everything about typesetting before you produce a very nice document. Word processors promise to make this easy, but in reality they never allow the masses to produce work comparable to that of professional typesetters. Why is that? Because typesetting is hard work. You have to know all about kerning and hinting and widows and orphans in positive and negative space and no amount of buttons and nice interface elements is going to make that easier. It just provides the false sense of competence. All the CVs I receive say excellent use of Microsoft Word in the same paragraph in which they use spaces to write a line of sentence. We make the effort to build a million different options in our software and then we go and hide them behind this.  This doesn't mean that your app should have a 500 top settings dialog, but why hiding about config or Android developer settings so hard? And then there are the options that aren't even there. On one hand we try to promote open source software as something that provides freedoms and then we turn around and take those freedoms away by hiding them behind compiler flags as we know that our users don't know how to recompile our software. If this isn't too fast, I don't know what is. So I think it's our duty as open source design to have a political agenda, to actually do try and change the world, to be something more than automated operators of A.B. studies and usability testing, to care not only whether our user will do the task quickly and effortlessly, not only if she's going to engage more with our item, but also if she will leave the interaction happier, wiser and why not, a better person. It's not a coincidence that Deep and Upton found that the computer skills of undergraduates were between 1996 and 2006. It's the period of Steve Jobs' return to Apple and the dominance of just works. The same period saw an almost religious purge of anything that resembled the command line or programming for consumer computers. They come without any hint of programmability. They are from their primary purpose. To be fair, this gives birth to excellent visual computer interactions and help computers reach millions of people. I have nothing against that, but we took it too far. So what do I propose? To force everybody to code in assembler like real men? No, of course not. Technology must be accessible to everyone. It must have an easy on-ramp and not be intimidating. Is this possible? You talked about type setting a few minutes ago. On one end, on one hand you have a latex, which is steep and intimidating. On the other hand, you have Microsoft Word, which just promotes ignorance. I'm sorry, I have to take a sip. Is there a middle ground? I think stuck at it, the markdown is a very good example of a middle ground. It doesn't look a hieroglyphics to an untrained eye. It is easy to learn and a single row of buttons allows you to do most of the things you'd want to do in a document, while at the same time you see exactly what the computer sees. There are a few presses of the B button on a markdown editor. If you're slightly interested, you'll understand that it all does is around the word you are typing with double asterisks. And you'll be able to do it saving yourself a trip to the toolbar. AutoCAD is another nice example, though close source. It says point this click as MS Paint, but there's a nice little command line on the bottom that repeats every command you do even if you click on it with a mouse. You start learning what their commands are and you can time them yourself. There's also a nice predictable shortcut scheme that helps you work with shortcuts without having to go to the manual. So, let's break it down to some simple rules. One, teach. You know those troubleshooters that never work? Why not instead of trying to fix the problem you present your user with the steps he would take in order to understand why his printer or his internet access doesn't work. Teach them the process of the elimination and why you are doing this. Explain to them what DNS is and why this is probably the problem when you can reach the IP address and not to google.com. Two, ask politely to show more information. I'm pretty sure that there are millions of people that are curious of what happens between pressing their keyboard in the URL bar and seeing the web page they intend to see. So ask them politely. Did you ever wonder what happens behind the scenes when you type here? Not only you get to show all the fancy things you do on every keystroke, but also explains why you ask if you want to enable certain suggestions and why the answer shouldn't be. Of course, why do you even ask? By the way, I've seen people pasting passwords on the URL bar to see if they are correct. Three, use the jargon. Stop replacing intimidating jargon with softer words. It's confusing to those who know. It's different in every brand and makes for an awful, awkward situation when you are trying to give or get help. These are the words that Samsung and LG use instead of color subsampling. Don't be patronizing. This is not a good 404 page.  There are no paloompas in the computer searching for your mistype web page. Check the spelling or go to the WaveWag machine. And because design isn't all the way software, five, make repairs easy. Include a repair manual linked to disassembly videos. Don't use glue. Embrace wear and tear, stop cherishing smoothness and newness. Scratches and marks show use and utility. Use that in your design. Six, make it replaceable, interchangeable, so it's in the reworking. Reprap 3D printers are a very good example of what I'm talking about. You can see and learn exactly how they work. You can infinitely repair them and you can upgrade them with parts you can buy off the shelf. And then you can go and build your own. Contrast that to regular printers, which are almost always cheaper to replace than to repair. Sometimes it's cheaper to replace than buy new inks. And because we know nothing about them, they seem to never work. We have a certain focus on the tools nowadays and not the crafts. We have fixed it on the digital tools that allow us to do crafts and now people say that they know AutoCAD instead of architectural drafting. They say that they know Photoshop instead of graphic design or digital photo development. And this here is both the craft and the equivalent open source software, making them look inferior. If you know how to dig, the brand of the shovel shouldn't matter. So I think that what I described is what open source design should mean. But design is always controversial as it should be. And so in order to avoid hijacking the term, I would like to call this approach transparency. I invite you all to join me into creating examples of transparent design and put these ideas into even more concrete rules and approaches and influence the future of design. I have created a GitHub organization which is still empty, but I'd like to fill it with examples, rules and other things that would help future designers follow this approach. Thank you very much. And if you have any questions, why we should...  I'm okay to learn but sometimes it's just too difficult because there's a large diversity of users, young, old people not computer engineers. So where do you place the level? I don't think it's about the level. That's why I said we don't need to make everybody code in assembler. Assembly is hard. We don't have to make things hard. We have to make them easy but in the process show the people what's happening behind the scenes. So when something goes wrong which it will go and we all know it, instead of just believing that we understand that it's the roller thing in the printer that it's fault and that we can go to the store and buy another and put it in there. To be able to do that it first means that the whole community requires the manufacturer to be like that. So there was a 3D printer manufacturer who started putting filament cartridges like the regular printer guys do and they didn't manage to keep that approach not even a year because everybody else uses interoperable filament and you can buy filament from everywhere and put it in your printer. So nobody could accept buying the proprietary thing. That's what I'd like to see. There's a line that makes users understand what's behind and then they want to learn and because they learn they are empowered to do things and not be controlled by whatever scheme is devised so that manufacturers for example can sell more printers. I don't know if I answered the question. There's a lot of preference in there if they are done wrong if the user changes them in the wrong way that they could change security or if users start relying on these preferences and somebody wants to remove them it's a lot of effort to kind of make that transition. So for users that just kind of see some guide and say oh I'm going to change the preference I can do this specific thing they don't want to kind of be whole why is this happening how would you manage that So the question in a few words was why I was against about config warning and what about the users that don't want to learn Actually that page was put there because I anticipated this kind of question and I wanted to talk a little bit about that I think that instead of having that page and then a bunch of options that are in JavaScript notation with dots there should be no warning and then every option should have two lines of text I'm sure that this is very short time needed compared to the time needed to implement an option in the code that explains what is it and why it should or it should not be clicked but it may be for some especially dangerous options there should be a warning near the specific option because in about config until recently it was the control tab switch between the latest tabs option and other options that were very dangerous and allow disabling encryption and everything else so bundling them all in the same basket and then telling the user ok go learn and then come back is much worse than describing what everything does and why he should or he should not click on it but if you go into describing every line you basically have to support every option and I guess the point behind this ok that's a valid point that is a valid use case and I understand that there might be a backlash if you go and remove something that people use and yeah that's something that maybe should be discussed more or maybe you're just right anything else or do I have more time I don't know ok I will do that yeah sorry it's a lot but it's just the credits for the except the all the others they're just the credits for the videos and the artwork I used but I will put them into petable


The Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, SLIP, and the America's Health Foundation, AHF, have developed a position paper on varicella prevention in Latin America and Caribbean countries, LAC, emphasizing the need to include the varicella vaccine in national immunization programs and evaluate its impact on disease burden. A systematic review was conducted of medical evidence, advances made by prevention programs, available vaccines, their immunogenicity, efficacy, effectiveness, safety, and national varicella prevention vaccination programs impact on epidemiology. Expert commentary suggests that varicella is a vaccine-preventable infectious disease with lower complication rates compared to measles and pertusses, and the incorporation of a two-dose varicella vaccine in national immunization schedules would greatly benefit children's health in LAC. This article was authored by Maria L. Avila-Guero, Sandra Beltran, Jose Brea del Castillo, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Welcome to the Daily Decrypt. Wow, what a great day to talk about currency competition. I'm your host Amanda and today's episode is brought to you by BitShares. The world of cryptocurrencies is diverse and growing more diverse all the time. One such creature is Monero, a currency not based on Bitcoin like many other cryptos, but rather based on an entirely different protocol, one called Crypto Note. And it's this protocol which has given Monero some unique properties which are geared specifically toward those who value privacy. To find out more, I've reached out to Monero core developer Fluffy Pony who also goes by Rick. First I wanted to know who's behind the currency. Monero has a core team that consists of seven people. Individually as members of the core team, we can and most of us do also contribute to the actual code development. But our role as a core team is stewardship of the project. How did the currency get its start? Rick told me that in May of 2014, a user in the Bitcoin Talk forums with the name of Thankful For Today released the code base of Monero and started to gain a following. Within just a month however, this Satoshi of Monero and his followers began developing different visions of where the currency should go. He ended up taking a decision or putting a decision to vote for the community and the community voted for a particular path. He disagreed with the community's votes and decided to go with his way instead. Suddenly we were seven people that were shoved into a chat room and got involved in a chat room in IRC and went like, hey, this is not cool, let's fork the project. And so we did. And everyone kind of gathered together behind us and said, you go guys. So what is Monero good for? Why does it attract those interested in privacy? Monero does a couple of things in terms of offering and improving financial privacy. The first is that transactions are unlinkable and the second is that transactions are untraceable. So that means all your outgoing transactions are safe in terms of anyone being able to look at the blockchain and figure out where they went. The other aspect to it, of course, is that your incoming transactions have many possible senders and each of those possible senders have the same chance of being the true sender. It's one thing for Rick to tell you, but it's another thing for me to show you. Let's examine what is and isn't publicly visible about any Monero transaction on one of its block explorers. Here's a Monero web wallet which I owned. From another account, I'm tipping myself half a Monero, which is worth about 25 US cents today. I want to see what other people could determine about my transaction using a block explorer. So I copy and paste my Monero address into one such explorer. I then receive an error message in return. The Monero blockchain, it does not even allow the looking up of balances or histories based on people's addresses. At most, I can use the transaction ID of the payment to see a sort of proof that a payment did take place. But even then, the blockchain won't tell me which address was the sender or which address was the recipient. Certainly this level of payment obfuscation is sufficient for Fluffy Pony and his band of night riders. Apparently not. And what we're doing now is we're adding two things to further Monero's privacy. We have a scheme called Ring Confidential Transactions. It's based on Greg Maxwell's Confidential Transactions work in Bitcoin. And what we did is we took that and we built on top of it. And we'll be adding that to Monero so that at some point in the future, transaction amounts won't even be visible. And there's more. And then the last thing we're doing is disconnecting the IP address that first broadcast a transaction on that actual transaction. Instead of going through normal TCP IP, normal internet traffic, we'll go via IP instead. And then no one will tell where the transaction came from. Rick then said that despite these layers of payment obfuscation, if users want to reveal their full transaction histories of any given Monero account, they still can if they choose to. So Monero has something called the view key.  So how are Fluffy Pony and his team of six paid? So we're not paid. Monero is an open source project, which I mean, obviously it has its own challenges.  But the reality is open source projects that have any sort of commercial backing like that, especially when it comes to something that, you know, like Monero or like Bitcoin, that can be viewed as a little bit subversive. The minute there's commercial backing, it also means there's leverage that an attacker can use. But certainly the labors of Monero developers don't come free. What we've done is we've created a little funding system on the Monero forum where people can pitch ideas. They can somebody can come along and say, I'm going to do this. They can set milestones. They can set amounts against those milestones and then the community funds it. Monero's most recent intra community fundraiser garnered about 18,000 Monero, the equivalent of about $9,000 to complete its first graphical user interface wallet or GUI. Until that software is released, however, those interested in trying Monero can do so from its command line wallet or a much easier option from the web wallet at mymonero.com. Today's episode is brought to you by BitShares, a delegated proof-of-state currency which offers a fiat on-ramp to its ecosystem through the exchange CCEDK. BitShares also seeks to attract developers by offering dividends on features created for the currency via its feature backed asset tokens. You can learn more about the currency's governance features and incentives by visiting bithares.org. I hope you had a great old time today and I'd like to use a metric to try to measure that. YouTube has just released a new feature allowing me to conduct a poll with you, the audience. So click wherever you see the pop-up appearing now to give your answer to the Daily Decrypt's very first poll question. Thank you.