Cam, how are you doing and how is the ankle? I'm good. I'm getting better every day. You got some chance to get some working on the court. You got chance to have a shoot around. Just, is there a conversation about your availability for tonight? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good to go. Yeah, yeah. With this trip and how it was kind of broken up, was it just kind of you staying back? How needed was that time just to stay back in Brooklyn with that facility in the facility? Yeah, just a lot of work, a lot of focus. Instead of having, you know, as back to back on that road trip and bouncing city to city, it was definitely best for me to stay back and just kind of focus on, you know, knocking some of this ankle issue out and getting ready for this trip. When you were not playing but watching, so you're on the kind of the outside looking end, what did you know about the team? Because, I mean, some of the performances were very up and down. I mean, really good performances and then some very not good performances. I mean, I thought Cleveland was just a response for us. Obviously, we have a stand that we wanted to play at and I think we got there against Cleveland. The other two, I mean, it's part of the life in the league. Everybody wants to win, even, you know, teams that are eliminated from playoff contention. Everybody's building something. So, for us, it's just on us to come out and play with that aggression that we did in Cleveland and bring that one tonight. For you, just kind of this season, just another minor setback. How, I don't know, frustrating the words, but how frustrating, I guess frustrating is that every time you have this good stretch, something happens or another injury comes up. Has it been just frustrating to deal with a lot? Yeah, but at the same time, as I've been dealing with these things for a long time, you know, been dealing with these things for a long time and everything happens for a reason and, you know, I can't dwell on those things and just continue to push forward.  Like, how exciting, I guess, exciting, but as this play in Chase heats up, like, how do you feel about just getting back in as this play starts to heat up a little bit more? We have an opportunity. We have an opportunity that's all we can ask for. And when you look at just the last time you guys played here in Orlando, just what do you remember about that game that's going to be important for tonight's matchup? They took it to us and they were aggressive. And that's how we beat them the first few times we played them at home. So it's just going to be whoever comes out with more of a punch today. Do you guys think about that? I mean, obviously it's in the past, but do you think about that game that's got like a moment where, okay, we have to wake up a little bit because that was a low moment for us as a team? Which one? This is where I ended the game two weeks ago. No, I wouldn't say it's any... I mean, we've had our fair share of tough games. And if a lot of them are not enough of a wake-up call then that one singular Orlando game won't be. So I think we understand that. We were talking to Lonnie just a couple of minutes ago.  From your point of view, how have you been able to do that and not kind of let that mess with your head because a lot of players, it does. Control what you can control. That's what I always try to do. That's what I pride myself on and, you know, just trying to contribute to the team in any way that I can. You know, it's not the first time it's happened to me in my career and it's not any stranger than any other of the circumstances. But my job is helping the team win games.  And that rhythm that you had gotten into before the injury, just what do you take from those games that you liked about how you were playing and how you were able to kind of like break through? Just have fun playing. Have fun playing. Obviously, this season has been challenging to a lot of us on different levels. You know, not accustomed to losing. So it's been challenging. So just finding ways to have fun playing the game.


And the motorcades of Ivory Coast and Ghana precedents Alice St. Quattara and the Nanaku for Adoso past dozens of pro-junta demonstrators, Branditian signs outside Conakry's airport on Friday. And they were making their way to a meeting with cool leaders and one Red Echoist does not decide for us. The West African leaders arrived in Guinea a day after the regional bloc sanctioned the new military leaders for Austin President Alpha Kande in a coup. Echoists demanded a return to constitutional rule since the special forces and units seized control of the presidential palace, detained Kande and declared itself in charge on September 6. The bloc agreed on Thursday to freeze the financial assets of junta and their relatives and bar them from traveling. It also demanded Kande's release. The junta has not responded.


From Soldiers Radio and Television, this is the Army Today, a daily feature from around the globe. Even on the more mild end of the traumatic brain injury spectrum, people can have long term consequences. The Department of Defense diagnosed over 30,000 service members with traumatic brain injury in 2011. The continuing challenge is being able to assess and treat brain injuries in a deployed environment. With the U.S. Army NADIC Soldier Systems Center, they are working with the Brain Trauma Foundation on a new piece of equipment that might be a window into the brain. We've developed a portable eye tracking device that's fully integrated and self-contained to be used in what we believe a soldier assessment paradigm to assess cognitive performance in soldiers. While not a diagnostic tool, researchers believe that the eye tracker could help make sure soldiers are ready to get back in the fight. We have found through pilot acute TBI studies that there is certainly an effect on eye movement control on those with TBI and other cognitive impairments. Cognitive performance, it covers a broad range of functions controlled by the brain memory, attention. There is excitement about the new portable system, but testing still has to be done. With the development of the goggle system, which will increase our ability to test in the field, what we need to do first is to validate it. You know, the fact of the matter is our most important weapon system happens to be the individual soldier, sailor, airman, and marine. And those people need to be taken care of and maintained just as well as we maintain our M1 tanks or our strikers or our jet aircraft. This is the Army Today from Soldiers Radio and Telegram.


Hi everyone, I'm Akshay Ram. I'm going to talk about adapter Garbled RAM from Laconic Oblivious Transfer. This is based on joint work with Sanjam Gargan-Rafael Ostravasky. Let me start this talk by giving you a brief introduction to Garbled RAM, which was introduced by Lu and Ostravasky in 2013. In this setting, there is a user who has a large database D and he wishes to store this database on the Cloud. So first he encrypts the database and sends the encrypted database to the Cloud. Later, he wishes to run a RAM program, P, that has read-write access to the database, and he also chooses an input X on which the program has to be run. So he first garbles the program and the input to obtain p tilde and x tilde, and sends the garbled versions to the Cloud. The Cloud now evaluates the garbled program on the encrypted database to learn the output. Garbled RAM requires that the size of the garbled program p tilde to only grow with the running time of the original program times some polynomial factor in the security parameter and some polylogarithmic factor in the size of the database. Similarly, it also requires that the size of the garbled input to only grow with the size of the original input times some polynomial factor in the security parameter and some polylogarithmic factor in the size of the database. For security, we We require that the cloud provider, who gets the garbled program, p tilde, x tilde, and the encrypted database, to only learn the output of the program and everything else about the database, the program, and the input is hidden. We can also consider the persistent setting, wherein the user could choose multiple programs and input pairs, and we want the changes that are made to the database to be persistent across these executions. Long line of work, starting with the original work of Lou and Ostrowski, has now given us a very efficient construction of garbled RAM from the basic assumption that one-way functions exist. So the security notion that has been considered in all these works is called as selective security. And in this talk, we'll be interested in the stronger notion of adaptive security. So the adaptive security is modeled as a game between an adversary and a challenger. The adversary is provided with the encrypted database, and this database could itself be adversely chosen. And the adversary now gives a RAM program, p, that it wants to evaluate and gets the garbled program, p tilde. Later, depending on this garbled program, p tilde, it might adaptively choose an input text that it wants to evaluate on and gets the garbled input text tilde. So as far as efficiency is concerned, we need the same properties as in the previous setting. And for security, we require that the adversary cannot distinguish between the case where p tilde and x tilde is generated honestly and the case where p tilde and x tilde is generated by a simulator who just learns the output of the program. Unlike the selective setting, construction satisfying the stronger notion of adaptive security have been harder to obtain. And all the prior constructions are either in the random oracle model are based on extremely strong assumptions such as indistinguishability of fiscation. So the main question that we are interested in is, can we construct an adaptive garbled RAM from standard assumptions? A natural question that would arise is that why is adaptive security important? And why do we care about obtaining adaptive garbled RAM from standard assumptions? So the main motivation for studying adaptive garbled RAM comes from the sequence of works on studying adaptive garbled circuits. And adaptive garbled circuits has several interesting applications such as one-time programs, online offline two-party computation, verifiable computation, and even in constructing adaptive compact functional encryption. In addition to these applications, adaptive garbled RAM has several interesting consequences to MPC for RAM programs. In particular, combining an adaptive garbled RAM scheme with a constant-trone malicious MPC for circuits, one can obtain a constant-trone malicious MPC for RAM programs in the persistent setting. And prior constant-trone protocols based on standard assumptions could not support persistent in the malicious setting. And hence, constructing an adaptive garbled RAM from standard assumptions would readily give a solution to this problem. Thus, adaptive garbled RAM is a well-motivated question. So let me now say about the results that we have in the paper. The main result is that we have a construction of adaptive garbled RAM from laconic-oblivious transfer. So laconic-oblivious transfer was introduced by Cho et al. in the crypto last year. And it has already found several interesting applications. And a direct corollary, which we can obtain by plugging in the known constructions of laconic OT, is that we can obtain a construction of adaptive garbled RAM based on standard number theoretic assumptions, such as computational Diffie-Hellman factoring, or even lattice-based assumptions, such as LWE. As a consequence, we also obtain the first constant-trone MPC for RAM programs in the malicious setting that supports persistence. So in the rest of the talk, I will first give you a brief introduction to the construction of adaptive garbled circuits, which appeared in EuroCrip this year. And this would be the starting point of our work. I'll then tell you about the challenges in extending this work to the RAM setting. And finally, I will tell you how to overcome these challenges and the main tools and techniques that we use in overcoming them. So let me first start the brief overview of the construction of adaptive garbled circuits. So the starting point of this work is to view a Boolean circuit in an alternative form. So to give you an example, let me consider a very simple Boolean circuit that just has three gates, G1, G2, and G3, and takes in three inputs, which is X1, X2, and X3. So this Boolean circuit is viewed as a sequence of three step circuits, along with a database or a memory. So this database is initially loaded with the input X1, X2, and X3. The first step circuit reads X1 and X2 from the database, computes the output of the gate G1, and writes it back to the database. Similarly, the second circuit reads X2 and X3, computes the output of gate G2, and writes it back. And the final step circuit reads G1 and G2, computes G3, and writes it back. So one can easily see that any Boolean circuit can be viewed in this form. So to garble this Boolean circuit, it is sufficient to garble the database and garble the step circuits. So let me first explain how do the step circuits are garbled in the previous work. So these step circuits are garbled using a selectively secure garbling scheme, say Yau's garbling scheme. So now the main question is that, how do these garbled step circuits access the database? In other words, we need a mapping from the contents of the database to the labels of these garbled circuits. And the main tool that was used in the previous work was a laconic oblivious transfer. So let me first explain what is meant by a laconic oblivious transfer, and something which is stronger, which is called as updateable laconic oblivious transfer. And I'll tell you how this is useful in enabling the step circuits to access the database. So updateable laconic oblivious transfer as I mentioned before introduced by Joe et al in 2017, and it consists of three main algorithms. So the first algorithm is a hash algorithm which takes in a large database D and hashes into a small digest H. And one can think about this hash as some sort of a Merkel hash. So the second algorithm is called as the read algorithm that takes in this hash value H, an index I of the database, and two messages M0 and M1, and outputs a read ciphertext CR. And this read comes along with an evaluation read algorithm that has read write access to the database. It takes in the read ciphertext CR, and outputs the message corresponding to the bit in the location I of the database. So namely, if the bit in location I is zero, then one can obtain M0, otherwise one can obtain M1. So this is similar to OT, and that's why it's called as a laconic OT. So the laconic aspect is because of the efficiency considerations, namely the running time of the read algorithm and the evaluation read algorithm grows only poly logarithmically in the size of the database and it's otherwise independent of the size of the database. So the read ciphertext, the size of the read ciphertext is also poly logarithmic in the size of the database. So this is the second algorithm read and the final algorithm is a write algorithm which takes in a hash value H, an index I, and a bit B that has to be written to this index I and outputs an updated hash value. So this updated hash value is the hash of a new database D prime, which is same as that of D, except that the location I is overwritten with this bit B. So there is just one change when compared to D and D prime, just in the location I. So these are the three algorithms and a sequence of words, starting with the original work of Joe et al, gives us constructions of updatable laconic oblivious transfer from assumptions such as CDH factoring and LW. So let me now tell you on how this primitive is actually useful in enabling the garble step circuits to access the database. So initially the database is loaded with the input and the first step circuit takes in the hash of this initial database. It has to read X1 and X2, right? So it reads those two values using the read function of the laconic OT. It computes the output of the gate G1. It writes it back and as I had mentioned before the write function outputs an updated hash value of this new database which is H prime. And this H prime is passed on to the next step circuit. So this process continues. In the previous work which appeared in EuroCrip this year it was shown that this construction satisfies adaptive security but for the circuit setting. However, we are interested in the RAM setting and there are several challenges that arises in the RAM setting. So the first challenge is that how to protect the contents of the database. In the case of circuits, the locations that are accessed by the database are accessed by each step circuit are fixed a priori and this makes the task of protecting the contents of the database a straightforward task. In fact, a simple one time pad was used to protect the contents. Whereas in the RAM setting, the locations that are accessed by each step circuit are chosen dynamically and this makes the task of protecting the database a highly non-trivial task. So this is the first challenge and the second challenge is that how to protect the access pattern. So in the RAM setting, the access pattern reveals a lot of non-trivial information and we need to protect it. So in the parlance of garbled RAM, so whatever we can obtain from the adaptive garbled RAM circuit's paper is a construction of adaptive garbled RAM which satisfies a security notion called as unprotected memory access. Namely, the contents of the database and the access pattern is revealed in the clear and only thing that is not revealed is the internals of the step circuits and the input. And in the selective security setting, there are known transformations from the work of Gentry et al. That transforms a garbled RAM satisfying unprotected memory access to full security and this is done by our ORAM scheme and a symmetric encryption. Unfortunately, this transformation does not work in the adaptive setting and in the adaptive setting, we need more sophisticated tools to solve these two challenges. So in the rest of the talk, I'll focus on the first challenge on how to protect the contents of the database and the second challenge is solved using a specialized ORAM scheme. So we cannot use any ORAM scheme. We need to use a specialized ORAM scheme and I would encourage you to look into the paper for the details. So in the rest of the talk, let me focus only on protecting the contents of the database. So before I tell you our solution, let me explain why the prior approaches are not sufficient for our purpose. So the prior approaches use some sort of a location-based encryption scheme. So for example, the content of the database in location one is masked using a pseudo-random function evaluated at one and this PRF key is hardwired in each of the step circuits. So this PRF key is used for unmasking the red value as well as generating the mask for the value that is going to be written. However, this is not sufficient for our purposes and to see why it's not sufficient, we need to go a little bit into the details of how the adaptive security was proved in our previous work. So in the real world, we have all the step circuits which are being garbled as per the specification of the construction and in the ideal world, we have all the step circuits which are just dummy step circuits which write some junk value to the database. So we need to go from the real world to the ideal world and this is done via hybrid argument. So the sequence of hybrids which was used in the previous work was as follows. So in the first hybrid, we change the last step circuit to a dummy step circuit. Next, we change the second last to a dummy step circuit and so on until we get to the ideal world configuration. So this sequence of hybrids wherein we change the last step circuit to a dummy step circuit first is actually extremely crucial for obtaining adaptive security with the required efficiency parameters. However, this sequence of hybrids is in direct conflict with the location-based encryption scheme. So let's consider the first hybrid change. So we need to change the last step circuit to a dummy step circuit, meaning that we need to change the value that is being written by it to some junk value. So intuitively, we need to use the security of the location-based encryption scheme. However, in order to use the security, we need to get rid of this PRF key which is being hardwired in all the previous step circuits. And this does not seem possible unless we rely on some complex circularity assumptions. And even puncturing does not seem to help as the complex dependencies which arise by this chaining of these gavel circuits affects the efficiency. So there is a need to develop new tools in order to solve this problem. So the main tool that we develop in this work is that of a timed encryption scheme. So in particular, instead of considering a location-based encryption, we consider a time-based encryption scheme. So let me first explain what is meant by a timed encryption scheme. And let me then explain how is it useful in overcoming the challenge with a location-based encryption. So a timed encryption is just like any other symmetric encryption, except that the encryption algorithm takes an additional timestamp. So every ciphertext is generated with respect to a timestamp. There is an additional key constraint algorithm that takes in a timestamp and a key and outputs a time-constrained key. So the decryption algorithm takes in a time-constrained key and a ciphertext and outputs the message as long as the timestamp that is used for constraining the key is greater than or equal to the timestamp to which the ciphertext was generated. That is, you can use a time-constrained key to decrypt a ciphertext, which is generated with respect to some timestamp which is in the past. The security property states that given the time-constrained key, a ciphertext which is generated with respect to some future timestamp still has semantic security. So namely, you cannot distinguish between ciphertext of our original message with a ciphertext of some junk value. So in this work, we give a construction of timed encryption by a simple modification of the GGMPRF. So let me now say how is timed encryption used in the construction. So the initial contents of the database, namely, let's say the first location is generated with respect to the timestamp zero. So the ciphertext are generated with respect to timestamp zero. And whenever ith step-circuit has to write to some location, it generates a ciphertext with respect to the timestamp i. So ith step-circuit generates a ciphertext with respect to timestamp i. And furthermore, the ith step-circuit has the key that has been time-constrained with respect to i hardware. So to see how this is actually correct, let's consider the third step-circuit which has the constraint key k3 hardware. By correctness of this time-constrained encryption, a timed encryption scheme, we know that this constraint key can be used to decrypt all ciphertext that has been generated with respect to timestamp zero, one, or two. Namely, it can decrypt the ciphertext which are the initial contents of the database, as well as those which have been written by the step-circuits that have just before this one. So correctness is preserved, and let me explain how does this help us in proving the high, that is in enabling us to make the hybrid change. So let me consider the first hybrid as before. Namely, we want to change the last step-circuit to a dummy step-circuit. That is, we need to change the value that is being written by the step-circuit to some junk value. So for this purpose, we can directly use the security of a timed encryption because the security of timed encryption guarantees that even given the time-constrained keys K1 to K8, the encryption which is generated with respect to the timestamp nine has semantic security, and this is what is generated by the last step-circuit. So this is how we overcome the challenge with respect to the location-based encryption. So as I had mentioned before, to protect the access pattern, we need to use a specialized ORAM scheme, and I wouldn't have time to go into the details. So I would encourage you to look into our people. So to conclude, we gave a construction of adaptive garbled RAM from standard assumptions such as CDH, factoring, or learning with errors. And as a consequence, we also obtained the first constant-run malicious NPC for RAM programs in the persistent setting from standard assumptions. And the major open problem is that can we remove public key assumptions from the construction of adaptive garbled RAM? So in the selective setting, we know construction from one-way functions, but in the adaptive setting, we seem to be requiring public key assumptions. And that's it. Thank you for your attention.


Okay. So, like it was already said, we made a similar analyst, as Peter and Seydid, for the Baltic States. We did it for Weissgrat for countries and integrated it into presentation where we compare the Baltic States with V4 countries, if you can just change the slide. So, a little bit about Viseuropa. So, we are in the group regarding the climate and energy policy, but actually Viseuropa, and of course it's a big part of our work because this is such an issue right now, but we are also focusing on socio-economic impacts on foreign policy, on labor market, and we operate nationally and on the European level. So, going to the analysis, we wanted to, we ask ourselves if we and Baltic States face similar challenges because obviously we have differences as well. So, like the main difference is that, especially Polish economy is, in terms of the size, it's way bigger than all of the other countries, but also other V4 countries are also a little bit bigger in these terms than Baltic States and, in general, the share of energy and supply and particularly industry is higher in V4 countries than in Baltic States. In me, it means that we are more industrialized countries that probably than Baltic States, and we are also more dependent on solid fossil fuels. Obviously the entire region is dependent on fossil fuels, but the solid fossil fuels, especially in Poland, are the big part of the energy mix. But we have also some similarities. First one is that our GDP per capita is more or less similar, and it's under EU average, so obviously in terms of energy transition and decarbonization we have problems and issues to cover in terms of the high risk of energy poverty. And we also have a dependency on energy imports. It's the case for the EB3 and V4 countries, and we have also had very big dependence on the Russian fossil fuels. But, yeah, when we compare our countries we can share good practices, how to reduce not only this dependency, but how to transform our economies. Yeah, these areas are for sure the good starters for inter-regional cooperation, not only within V4 and Baltic States, but also in the bigger region. The second part of the presentation will take over. Yeah, okay. Hello again. Thank you, Krzysztof, for this introductory part and the senior high level initial comments. And now to the details of our comparison between the long-term strategies of Baltic States and V4 countries. Yeah, they're quite similar in terms of complying with framework outlined in the governance regulation when it comes to the structure of this document. And all the documents across both regions are quite up to date. Of course, they do not include latest developments in the energy policy, which resulted from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But, and except for the Lithuanian long-term strategy, the documents do not reflect even the Pfit 455 EU package. But in general, they are quite actual in terms of climate policy. But the thing which struck us the most when comparing these two sets of documents was different level of ambitions. Because Baltic States are in general collectively much more ambitious in setting climate targets. And by climate targets I mean in particular greenhouse gas emission reduction and the share of renewable energy sources in the energy system as a whole. Because energy efficiency improvement was in general neglected by all the countries, even in the Baltic States, even by the Baltic States and by the Vistograd group. And this high level of ambition which is characteristic to Baltic States is because of different starting point. As for now Baltic States, the penetration of their energy systems by renewable energy is much more higher than in the case of our region, Vistograd group. And this is an obstacle we must overcome by maybe leapfrogging, reprogging this gap in developing the strategies within our region. But another deficiency which is common both for Baltic States and Vistograd group is that we lack in interim targets for the period between 2030 and 2050. Yes, so the general overarching target for 2050 is set, but we do not develop a pathway how we are going to achieve this target through these 20 years. And this is something that must be amended urgently. Christof, could you? Yeah, thank you. So when it comes to sectoral pathways and measures, in general Vistograd group performed better in addressing this issue as we provided historical data on greenhouse gas emission in all sectors. We have made projections of future emissions. We have outlined policies and measures in contrast to Baltic States where this historical background is often not provided and where this sector-tiler strategy is not even made at all. And this is definitely an example which can be somehow followed by Baltic States when they will be updating their strategies. They can take examples from our region in this area. But a common challenge we have to somehow address both by Baltic States and Vistograd group countries is that we do not develop a strategic roadmap-like approach with policies which are to be implemented consecutively one after another and which would show how exactly we are going to achieve targets in particular sectors. And another general remark is that equally Baltic States and V4 countries did not address to a sufficient extent the land use, land use change and forestry sector and agriculture. And this final stage of our comparison, the last three areas, financing, economic assessment and preparation and implementation. Firstly, financing, this is the area where V4 countries performed much better than Baltic States. As a region, as a whole, we provided an exact assessment of investment needs in order to move our economy towards carbon neutrality. But of course, it's only the first step. It's a half way to achieving this target because, well, we estimated these investments but actually we did not found, we did not identified sufficient finance sources for fulfilling this investment gap which emerged from the assessment of the investment needs. Of course, in the case of Baltic States, even the assessment of investment needs is missing. So even though they can somehow follow the example of V4 countries in developing, in assessing the investment needs, we can jointly, we can jointly develop from scratch a methodology, a strategy to fundraise, fundraise the transition to carbon neutrality to find finance sources. The area in which Baltic States performed better in, when compared to V4 group countries, is definitely research and research and development, as there is a common objective of spending 2% of national GDP on research and development. Whereas in Poland, Czech Hungary, Slovakia, there is no such a target. And as a result, this field is poorly addressed in our long-term strategies. But the most important part of this comparison is socioeconomic impacts and distributive impacts. We highlighted these conclusions because as we remarked at the beginning, as Christoph remarked at the beginning of this presentation, these are the fields where given our common economic problems, the cooperation would be the most prospective. And unfortunately, in these two fields, we cannot learn from each other because both Baltic States and V4 countries did not refer to a sufficient degree to this issue. Socioeconomic impacts are in general poorly addressed with maybe some exception of Poland or Hungary. But distributive impacts are in general the worst, worst-scored category across all the long-term strategies in Baltic States, equally in this group for countries. So this is definitely much room for improvement in this area. Another striking conclusion from the comparison is what Peter already said about analytical tools, because all V4 group countries applied some analytical advanced tools to somehow protect, to plan how the transition to carbon neutrality can be managed until 2050, whereas Baltic States, Baltic States LTSs are missing this element. A very good example is the example of Poland which used a popular and extensive price model. There is also an example of Slovakia and Hungary which could be followed because both Slovakia and Hungary not only applied a mathematical white economy model, but also referred to some external experts who provided an expert inside in some sectors in order to provide some qualitative analysis. As it was also stressed, I think more during the discussion following Peter's presentation, more strict governance for framework is needed both in V4 countries and V3 states. And here there is a good policy to follow, I mean the Estonian example, this policy of truth. This is definitely a good tracking tool which can be, which could be extrapolated across both regions. And together with this, when updating long-term strategies, more public consultation could be involved within the process and civil society could have more influence on the final shape of the document, because as for now, even if this public consultation took place, we are not sure to what extent exactly this public opinions were included in the final draft. Okay, so to the conclusions, Bruce Summary, yeah, as I already said, as I already said, there are deficiencies if in these key areas we identified as key areas for regional, inter-regional cooperation, yeah, I mean social economic impacts, distributed impacts, but also sexual pathways, sector-tiled strategy, which could be especially needed in terms of transport, because both V4 countries and V3 states are highly reliant on oil in this sector, and we could learn from each other how to reduce this dependency on oil and petroleum in transport, and how to develop electromobility. As for now, it is quite difficult to share these experiences. Of course, no one could foresee the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but especially given this latest developments, long-term strategies should be urgently updated. This is probably, unfortunately, a good occasion which can force our countries to update these documents, not only in view of Russian invasion, but this occasion can be grasped in order to, in general, improve long-term strategies. Of course, these latest, these recent events in the energy market, EU energy market, EU energy policy could be included, especially in terms of the burning issue of energy security, as it is common challenge for our regions. Yeah, and these updates could be developed in collaboration between Baltic states and Vistagrad group countries. We will probably discuss it later, how this collaboration cooperation could be conducted. At the end, we provided a brief summary of good practice which could be shared between our states, because as we are close to each other, we share a common challenge we can also learn from each other, and from the side of Baltic states, definitely a strategy for the robust rollout of renewables in something which can be shared with V4 region. As for now, renewables, the penetration of our energy systems with renewables is at a very, very low level compared to the western countries and even to the Baltic states, so definitely this is something we can learn from you as a region, how to develop renewables and how to set ambitious targets in terms of the share of renewables in the energy system as a whole. And another good practice to be followed is this Estonian Tree of Truth as a good tracking tool. Of course, as it might be obviously concluded from what I have already said, a much more good practice can be shared by Visegrat. First of all, yes, this model-based approach, sector-tiler strategies which of course are not at their best in strategies submitted by V4 countries, but there was some effort put in order to design separate strategies for particular sector which was not done at all. I have such an impression in the strategies provided by Baltic states. Of course, assessment of investment needs and available finance is a practice that can be built on in the updates of the long-term strategies. Hungary delivered cost-benefit analysis when assessing the socio-economic impacts in the long-term strategy. It was a very extensive tool which included issues that are sometimes ignored when we think about climate policy. And I mean, for example, car accidents, impact of air pollution on health, etc. These elements could be included in such an analysis of avoided costs and additional benefits from the transition to carbon neutrality. I already said about providing historical data on greenhouse gas emissions. And definitely the documents submitted by Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary had a very good visual side. Data has been presented in a very comprehensive way with many charts, drawings, etc. This was an element which was definitely missing in the strategies of the Baltic states. So this is what we can do together. Thank you very much. In the name of Viseuropa, thank you, Krzysztof. And we are waiting your questions.


The schools that have improved student achievement are very focused on the instructional core. They stay focused on the instructional core, and they figure out a zillion ways to work on the instructional core. They are not distracted by a hundred initiatives. They stay focused on what matters, the instruction and evidence of learning. The coaching is changing to not be about fidelity to curriculum materials or a new program, but fidelity to student understanding, fidelity to teaching something well. And that's a big shift, and it's still like a very in and out kind of shift. People fall back into the mechanical parts of things, which implies that you're moving from a coach kind of helping you get better at this thing and them get better at that thing to a much broader view of what coaching can accomplish, because coaching, when we're engaged in the right kinds of dialogue and we keep our eye on the right thing, which is this improvement of the essence of great instruction, we're going to transform schools.  Coaches evolve a lot in their role over the course of several years when they're committed to this work. Initially, coaches often start by observing and trying to figure out what teaching practice looks like in classrooms. And one of the big ahas that coaches have when they leave the classroom is not everyone teaches the same way they teach, and that there's differences in people's practice. And often we start in this tentative sort of, I mean observe and watch, but really what I want coaches to do early on in their work is say, what do I have to offer students in classrooms and teachers? What am I good at that I can share? What do I still need to learn? So that stance of saying this is an inquiry base, this is a learning process, right? So coaches often go from tentative observation to saying, I have a strategy that we can use. Let's try this part together. They may start leading study groups or grade level teams where you're doing inquiry work together, and then volunteering and saying, I'll be the person to try on that new practice we just read about. They also then need to start honing their eyes to who are the lead teachers in our school that can start to make a difference? Who can I buddy up with each other? So one of the roles of a coach is a matchmaker. How do I work with someone and then pair the right people up so that other people are observing so that this work takes hold? One of the goals of coaching and coaches is that we learn that by spreading our work across all classrooms over time, we start to close the achievement gap rather than perpetuate it by just working in pockets of classrooms. We know if our coaching model is working if we have a clear goal. So one of the things that schools and systems need to do is get very specific about what they envision teaching and learning to look like as a result of any kind of professional learning. So for example, a goal of improving literacy is far too big. Saying, what about literacy? Reading. What about reading? Reading informational text and being able to determine main ideas. All right. So what does classroom and practice need to look like in order to achieve that? The way that we know it's working is when we start to gather evidence of success. So is it increased amount of charting? Increased student talk? Students being able to read complex text? We have to look for those markers of success based on what our overall goal is.


Personal Finance PowerPoint Presentation. Private health insurance, part number two. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Remember that insurance is part of our longer term risk of mitigation strategy where we follow the adage of measure twice, cut once, putting a more formal plan in place, which might look something like this. We're gonna set the goals. We're gonna develop the plan to reach the goals, putting the plan in action, then review the results. We'll continue that process periodically. We're gonna continue talking about the private health insurance here. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia Buying Private Health Insurance, which you can find online. Take a look at the references, resources. Continue your research from there by Amy Fontenier, updated May 18th, 2021. In prior presentations, we started talking about buying private health insurance and now we will be continuing taking a look at this short-term insurance policy. A short-term insurance policy covers any gap that you might experience in coverage. If, for example, you change jobs and your new company plan doesn't kick in immediately. So if you got that short-term gap, then that's gonna cause a problem. We wanna make sure that we have the continuing coverage in the event that a medical problem happens during that timeframe. So it typically lasts for three months. The term links vary by state. And in some U.S. states, you may be eligible for a short-term plan for up to 12 months. Short-term health insurance is also called temporary health insurance or term health insurance. It can be useful if you're changing jobs, waiting to become eligible for Medicare coverage or waiting out the designated open enrollment period for a plan. Those are typical times when you might have that gap that you would need to be covering with the short-term insurance policy. Under a short-term insurance plan, your spouse and other eligible dependents may also be covered. However, one important caveat of a short-term insurance plan is that in some cases, pre-existing conditions can disqualify you from the coverage. So we have the different kind of questions, of course, short-term plan. Can other people be covered if I'm looking for that short-term coverage policy and then also that pre-existing conditions can be more of an issue possibly with the short-term plans, pre-existing conditions, typically being bad from the insurer's perspective and therefore could have an impact, of course, on the ability to qualify. For the definition of a pre-existing condition varies depending on the state where you live, but it is usually defined as something you have been diagnosed with or received treatment for within the last two to five years. Catastrophic coverage. Catastrophic coverage health insurance is a type of insurance plan that is typically only available to adults ages 30 or younger. To qualify, you must receive a hardship exemption from the government. Catastrophic health insurance typically has lower premiums than other health insurance plans. These types of plans are intended for people who cannot afford to spend much money every month on insurance premiums but don't want to be without insurance in the event of a serious accident or illness. So once again, we're kind of looking at the traditional kind of insurance in this case where we're trying to be covered in the event that a big financial impacting event happens such as similar to when you're looking at property insurance on a home or something like that, a fire happening on the home. We were looking here at a big medical kind of condition that could happen that could have financial consequences that we would want to be covered for. So while catastrophic health insurance plans may have low monthly premiums, they typically have the highest possible deductibles. So clearly what we're seeing then is if some event then happens, then you're gonna have to pay the deductible and you're covered over and above the deductible amount. So choosing a deductible, once you've decided on the type of plan that is best for you, you'll need to determine how much you can afford to pay as a deductible. So when you're choosing the plans, there's typically gonna be the interplay between the deductible, meaning how much you might have to pay for certain conditions that could happen before the insurance kicks in and the cost of the plan, which would be the premium for the plan. This is the predetermined amount that you pay for coverage healthcare services before your insurance plan starts to pay. What you can afford to pay in out-of-pocket medical expenses each year. So the other cost that we need to consider is what am I, because the other component is gonna be the preventative care typical kind of things, the out-of-pocket costs that happen. If we don't have a lot of out-of-pocket costs, then we might come to different conclusions with the type of coverage we need. Then if we do have a lot of out-of-pocket costs that we have on a year-to-year kind of basis on the preventative stuff. So from my perspective, we would clearly want to be covered for the big catastrophe that happened, and then it would be dependent upon, how much of the out-of-pocket costs we have to see how much we would want to be covered for the preventative stuff. That's one way that you might kind of go about looking at it. So with both health insurance plans, the higher your deductible is, the lower your monthly premium will be. That's clear relationship that you would expect. So if your monthly cash flow is low, you might have to opt for the higher deductible. Another key consideration when selecting an insurance plan is the plan's out-of-pocket maximum, the maximum that you'd have to pay basically out-of-pocket. After you've spent this amount on deductibles and medical services through copayments and coinsurance, your health plan will pay the entire cost of coverage benefits. So in a catastrophe type of situation, it would be nice if you could say, I have an emergency fund that I'm self-insuring, at least possibly to the component, if possible, to the maximum out-of-pocket expenditures so that if that happens, then I can pay for that amount and hopefully the insurance would do like normal insurance would have you would normally think of insurance possibly kicking in over that amount. So how much does private health insurance cost? While many people are scared by the prospect of purchasing their own insurance versus enrolling in an employer-sponsored plan, some studies have shown that it can end up being more affordable than employer-sponsored plans. A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average monthly premium for an employer-sponsored insurance plan for individual coverage in 2019 was $603. It was $1,725 for family coverage. So conversely, also according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, if you were to purchase your own insurance outside of an employer-sponsored plan, the average cost of individual health insurance was $440 for families, the average monthly premium was $1,168.10. So there's kind of interesting impacts that are happening because remember traditionally it was that the health insurance was often a benefit from the employer and you've got the two components that you would think would be lowering the cost to the employers and that would be the fact that you got the group coverage and possibly tax incentives for the employers. But now on the individual side, you've got these other kind of laws that are coming into play like the Affordable Care Act and stuff that are kind of distorting the calculus on these things for, so I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying that that's how the field is changing, right? The field is changing, there's got a dancing landscape here, so you've got to follow it along. So in addition, if you end up purchasing coverage through the health insurance marketplace, you may qualify for a cost sharing reduction subsidy and advanced premium tax credits. So now you've got these tax kind of components which are typically applicable more to the low income individuals, that's what the health insurance marketplace kind of ties into the Affordable Care Act, which we dived into in more detail in prior presentations. So these can lower your premium payments amounts, your deductible and any co-payments and coinsurance for which you are responsible. We've got the Medicare.gov, you can check that out online. So if you are or are soon to be retired, you can begin on the Medicare website. So you're gonna wanna go to Medicare at that point in time and take a look at your options at that point, it would be clearly advisable to do. It is recommended that you see what the standard Medicare plan covers and then look at options for ways to supplement Medicare through Medigap and Medicare Advantage policies. So you're gonna say, if I qualify for Medicare, then what do they cover and do I need anything over and beyond or supplemental to the Medicare, which could include things like the Medigap and the Medicare Advantage policies. So when considering Medigap or Medicare Advantage coverage, it's important to understand how both work, how both work, types of coverage work in conjunction with standard Medicare coverage. So we got the healthcare.gov, another place you can go to continue your research. As a result of the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, the Health Insurance Marketplace was created in 2014. You can visit the Health Insurance Marketplace website to find out more about the options for health insurance coverage that are available where you live. So that's gonna be the marketplace that was kind of set up during this process of the Affordable Care Act. It might, you could check it out from state to state. You could have the state areas for it and typically it would kick in more, possibly have more advantages if you're on the lower income side of things possibly. So it's another option to look into to start your research. So you can also determine if you qualify for any subsidy and apply for it. So subsidies through the program for lower income individuals which could take into consideration the tax component possibly giving an advanced tax credit as part of the process. This could be great, it could lower the costs but it's also kind of complex because it's a free payment and it lowers the premiums and then you gotta deal with it on your tax return. So you wanna do some research to see if you can wrap your head around what is actually happening with it. So the marketplace has a specific open enrollment period. Typically it is from November 1st to December 15th every year although various events may lead to the open enrollment period being extended or reopened. The website includes information about private plans that are available for purchase outside of the marketplace. However, if you purchase a plan outside of the marketplace whether during open enrollment or not, then you will not be eligible for any subsidies available under the ACA Affordable Care Act because those are kind of tied to that marketplace. So when you're here in the marketplace then you're thinking kind of affordable care act and those kind of other components that might be applicable most likely if your income is below a certain threshold. So under certain circumstances an individual may be eligible to purchase a healthcare plan through the exchange even if it is outside the specified open enrollment period. This is called a special enrollment period. You may be eligible for a special enrollment period if you experience a household change including getting married or divorced, having and adopting a child, a death in your family, moving, losing your health insurance, being in a national catastrophe or experiencing a disability. Private health insurance companies. You can visit the website of major health insurance companies in your geographic region and browse available options based on the type of coverage that you pervert and the deductible that you can afford to pay. So the good thing about the internet these days is you can kind of compare different insurance companies as well and you can look at the reviews and so on. You can do side by side reviews with some of the tools that are available online which is clearly worth doing. The types of plans available and the premiums will vary based on the region where you live and your age. So obviously those are important components when you're thinking about health insurance because from the health insurance side of things they're gonna try to decide how much it's gonna cost them and that's how they're gonna try to set your prices. So the more risk factors there are involved which would include age and kind of where you live and stuff then you would think that would impact the cost that they're predicting and therefore the premiums. So it's important to note that the plan price quoted on the website is the lowest available price for that plan and assumes that you are in excellent health. So when they're advertising these are companies they're gonna advertise the lowest price. So if you're not in perfect condition if you have any other factors involved that's gonna increase the price. So they're gonna be advertising they're gonna put their best foot forward as they say looking as good as they can and then they're gonna kick you with that foot if you have any other factors that are there. So you won't know what you'll really pay for a month until you apply and provide the insurance company with your medical history. So pricing and the type of coverage can vary significantly based on the health insurance company. Because of this it can be difficult to truly compare the plans to determine which company has the best combination of rates and coverage. So in other words because there's so many varying factors it's kind of hard to just do a side by side from one company to the other. So the online tools and stuff it can be helpful to try to do those kind of comparisons. It can be a good idea to identify which plans offer the most of the features that you require and within your price range then to re-consumer reviews. So you want it you're gonna have to narrow it down to some degree and get a general idea of the general plans that you're looking at and then you might be able to go from company to company and compare those general things that you're looking for from company to company. So if you don't do that and you just kind of dive into it you're just gonna be overwhelmed with a lot of different options. So if you are choosing a family plan or are an employer who is choosing a plan that you'll provide to your employees then you'll also want to consider the needs of others who will be covered under the plan. So key factors for choosing plan, health insurance plans offer a variety of different features. Well it may be hard to find a plan that offers everything you desire consider which of the following features are the most medically and financially necessary. So here are some questions to consider when you are researching plan. So we got, does the plan offer prescription drug coverage? Cause I like the drugs I want my drugs. Does it only cover a generic versions of the prescription drugs? So sometimes you might be saying I don't think those generic versions are as good as the other versions, but oftentimes they're only gonna offer those because they're cheaper. So what is the copayment also referred as the copay on generics and name brand drugs? So check the medications you're already taking if any. So if you're taking the medications at this point, see if they're covered, see if they're brand name, see if there's a generic component and so on. So what is the office visit copayment and does the plan have instituted a maximum number of office visits that it will cover per year? So that will kind of depend on how important that is to you as to whether or how often you're using the doctor visits and how healthy you are and so on. And clearly the more doctor visits that you're doing per year, the more important it's going to be that you buy a plan which would probably be more expensive that's gonna pay for more of those doctor visits and they might put a cap on how many visits you can have a year. So you wanna take that into consideration. So what is the copayment for specialized services such as x-rays, lab tests and surgery? How about an emergency room visit? Do you want a plan that allows you to add vision and dental coverage? Do you need pregnancy benefits? Do you already have a doctor you would like? If so, you might want to find a plan that includes your doctor in its insurance company provider network. So in other words, when we talked about the different types of plans we said that they have these networks and if you already have a doctor, then it could be a little bit difficult to put that doctor into your network. And so you might wanna tailor your plan to take that into consideration. Do lifetime and annual maximum benefits apply? The ACA Affordable Care Act effectively eliminated lifetime and annual maximums for essential medical services, but this does not include dental and vision coverage for example, does the plan offer free or discounted services for preventative care such as an annual checkup? Most plans under the ACA Affordable Care Act provide free coverage for most preventative care services, short-term insurance plans and catastrophic coverage may not. Does the plan cover specialty services such as physical therapy, chiropractic and acupuncture visits? What hospitals are included in the network? For PPO's, what is the cost for out-of-network services? So if you get the PPO, it might be a more flexible thing but you might have to pay for those out-of-networks. What's the cost there? Should you want or need them? Can you afford this? So when can I buy private health insurance? Most types of health insurance have an open enrollment period during which you can sign up for private health insurance. This is true whether you buy insurance via the Affordable Care Act, the ACA Health Insurance Exchange in your state sign up directly through the insurer and roll in the plan that your employer offers or sign up for Medicare. So there's gonna be certain kind of windows that you gotta make sure that you're gonna be putting in place to be signing up. So certain life events can trigger a special enrollment period. So you might say, well, what if I don't line up to that enrollment period? I don't wanna be in a situation with where I'm outside or don't have coverage for a certain timeframe. So you could have situations where you have life events that can trigger a special enrollment period which will allow you to change your health insurance coverage outside of the normal enrollment period. These events include getting married or divorced, having a baby, losing your job based on health insurance or moving out of your health plans, service area. What does private health insurance cost? In 2020, the average national cost for health insurance was 456. This, of course, are averages. So there could be outliers. So take that into consideration for an individual in 1,152 for a family per month. However, this cost can vary considerably depending on your healthcare needs. So remember, those are just averages and they could be influenced anytime you have an average if there's these outliers that could be involved that could kind of skew the averages. So take it with a grain of salt. So the state, so however, these costs can vary considerably depending on your healthcare needs, the state where you live and what level of coverage you require. Where can I buy private health insurance? A good place to start looking for coverage is the health insurance marketplace created in 2014 by the ACA Affordable Care Act. So that's a good place to start kind of comparing things out. Remember, that might be more applicable if your healthcare is below a certain threshold. You might be able to get benefits through the health insurance marketplace, but just be aware of how those kind of benefits work. And again, there's kind of tax consequences that are involved with it as well that you wanna have an idea about.  So on the marketplace for your state, you can look through the details of private health insurance plans and compare the cost and benefits of each. So that might be a place that they can kind of centralize or house certain things. You wanna do it in your state because you might have different kind of options from a state to state, a level with regards to the Affordable Care Act. So if your state does not have its own marketplace, so some states are gonna have its own marketplace, that's why you first kind of wanna go to the state to see if that would be the case. Then if not, then the next point you would think would be to go to healthcare.gov. So when you're thinking about the health insurance marketplace, if you're starting your research there, then you're thinking, can I go to the state which might have its own marketplace and start my research there, do some comparisons. In that sense, if they do not, then possibly the healthcare.gov. So the bottom line, getting your own health insurance policy is not as easy as signing up for an employer's plan, but at least you have control over the plan that you get. Once you figure out what you need and become familiar with the terminology used to describe health insurance plans, your research will become easier. With the number of options available, you can probably find a plan that meets both your needs and your budget.


Hello everybody, Andrea Majeski here with dental L. So I was talking to somebody today and she had mentioned that she had graduated from dental hygiene school. So if you're watching this video, you'll know who you are. She had graduated from dental hygiene school basically during COVID, not during COVID, but when she graduated she was looking forward to getting a job and then COVID happened and we couldn't work. So, you know, not able to work in a dental office. So what I've done and I've had this course for a while, I have a course for newly graduated dental hygienists that basically help get you started because I remember being a dental hygienist to newly graduated, not knowing what to expect from a dental office, not knowing what they expected from me, not knowing how to write up charts for the real world. It's one thing to learn how to do it in school, but in the real world is very, very different, not knowing how to kind of plan my appointment out, how to get organized, what should I set up on my tray. I didn't feel like I knew any of that. So I have a course for you guys that walks you through the basics, the basics of what to expect, what they expect from you. Basically your first day on the job, your first week, your first month, how to be familiar with all aspects of the dental office.   It's kind of like on the job training, but online and in the comfort of your own home. So I highly recommend it. Even if you've been a dental hygienist, but maybe you took five years off to have children. Maybe you took time off. Maybe you just feel like you need a good refresher. The course is for you. So it's great for newly graduated dental hygienists and or dental hygienists who need a refresher. So I'm going to give you guys a sneak peek inside the course. Let me just pause this for one moment, and I'll be right back. Okay, guys, sorry for pausing. I'm going to share my screen right now. So this is a sneak peek inside the course right here. So when you log in, so when you register, it might look like this. You might have to click on the three lines at the top, but then check this out. Look on the left hand side. All of these are videos. So I tell you guys what to expect. I talk about interviews. I talk about staying on time at a dental office. Let me zoom in so you guys know what I'm talking about here. Okay, here we go. So zooming in. So again, I talk about interviews. I talk about getting paid. I talk about asking for raises. I talk about the real stuff, dentist, dental hygienists, calling in sick. What if there's no shows? Are you going to get paid? Male dental hygienists, which people still ask me about that. I talk about everything a day in the life. Nervous patients, children. What if you see a child who doesn't brush and the parents don't care. I talk about cavatron, piezos. I talk about just basically a little bit of everything, you guys. I give you guys real life examples of when I worked in a dental office. So I'm a mobile dental hygienist now with my own business, but I have been in the dental profession for about 16 years and I've always loved mentoring. I'm really passionate about helping newly graduated dental hygienists, dental assistants get a great start and really, you know, this is an amazing profession, but it depends on who you talk to. If you talk to a dental hygienist who has been working for 30 years and hates her job, she's not going to give you the time of day and newly graduated dental hygienist. She's not going to give you the time of day. I hate to say it, but it's true. So let me give you guys the time of day. So you don't have to worry. You don't have to be stressed. But look, you guys, there's more videos. I talk about intraoral cameras.  So this course is definitely updated often. There are typically new videos several times a month. There will be some older videos in there too, but they're still relevant. And the best part is if you guys have questions, you can email me. You have full access to me anytime. I am here to help you. Okay, so please let me know if you guys have any questions. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.