Jean-Claude, can I ask you a favor? Can you go outside the door? There is just outside the door on your left There is a button. You press it for the ring, please so that Okay, all right, so Welcome back and let's start a new lecture by Fatima Ben-Asaya for the University of Bejaya, Algeria Fatima has prepared very nice lecture with case study on plant biomonitoring to assess exposition to pollutants. The floor is yours, Fatima. Thank you Good morning everybody. Last time we saw Methods about biomonitoring using plants. Tomorrow we will see case study which is carried in Bejaya city Bejaya which is Algerian Mediterranean region There are many studies about air pollution in there Maybe there is no equipment, but there is some studies which are done there All of them Showed that the measures of pollution in there is automobile, this is one case study about estimating of Nitrogen oxides This is for three pollutants It Sorry, so it shows this figure show that the measures of pollution is automobile Others about particulate the same shows that the main source is automobile and the concentration raise over the World Health Organization limits Though the study is about Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon which are metagenetic and Which have metagenic and carcinogenic properties Many studies in Europe and Over the world are done in this subject, but in Bejaya which Show height level for other pollutants. There is no study Concerning this The concerning this pollutant in this context this study aimed at testing the use of petunia Ibrida and the Xontorga Periantina For detecting PAH pollutant concentration in this area So the effects of this pollutant in plants is mainly necrosis chlorosis chlorosis and for if you learn for example if there are 0.01 PPM it causes loss of Buds in tomatoes and the peepers Here are some species used in biomonitoring of this pollutant First petunia, which is a bio indicator of ethylene and formaldehyde Some mousses also are used to detect this pollutant and There are others for example Needles are also used to detect this organic pollutant and Leakens like Xontoria are used to bio accumulate the Polycyclic aromatic For the study area which is Bejaya so I tell that it's I thought that it's Origin of Mediterranean region which is situated in the east of Algeria for the sampling The collection of the samples for the petunia we have eight We have eight different Station in the urban area of Bejaya and we have a seat control in rural Station which is in Dan which is 35 kilometers from the urban area of Bejaya and for leakens we are taking Okay, and for leakens we taken a seat from Tahrash to which is an industrial seat the characteristic of meteorological parameters are In the time all So we have taken seven Seven measurements In average when one measurement at week for petunia And the procedure for petunia is that we taken seats We cultivated seats With the same condition for six weeks and then we We put them to the exposure in the seat of Monitoring so 60 plants are used in 10 stations in 10 seats for Seawicks and 10 morphological parameters are taken in consideration In each measurement we take the number of flowers We also take the diameter of flowers general growth leaf size number of necrosis leaves length of the Enter not number of a bordered button and In the final in the end of the experience we take the dry weights of plants for leakens samples are taken from one meter for from the ground and We take for each tree of oliva we take three samples Depending to the direction nor east west and south The exauntoria is so folio folios leakens which is Which has a yellow color We have to complete this data sheet For each tree and at the laboratory we Used a technique which is taken from Afnor the standard the norm of leakens Realized by Afnor for the leakens we taken the preparation technique used for Leakens we take 06 gram Of leakens we Put them in those socks lead to if for for two hours so to extract The hydrocarbons and then this is the procedure for the Preparation of symbols when we recuperate the The the the simple we pass it to the caramo chromatography Analytic technique to know the the category of hydrocarbon content in the leakens for the result concerning leakens we measured two parameters we measured the chlorophyll because it's a content which reflect the Chlorosis of the the plant so we find A different a significant difference between control seats which is taken in the Rural station and other seats which are urban or industrial So we have 568 microgram per gram dry matter for the control Where is it's a 1 point? 27 for the industry the the the seat industry The second parameter Taken is the content so the it's our objective the the content on hydrocarbons so we We find also a Significant difference between control and other seats For petunia Results shows Rise of About General growth. So when we take in a general growth of the plant in All of the stations we are market that there is an increase of Values but the diameter flowers we show we we we see there is Stability of increasing in Values number of necrosis lives it's Different between stations We we share we see here for example for the station of lagar The value are less than others stations results show the correlation between morphological parameters and the the measurement taken about Particle fine particle We had Air which is which is equal 0.8 and Daweji which is or urban station shows the biggest the biggest value of PM Particular to find particulate When we compare the results with the control we find we found that the the station Daweji Abaril and will have Significant different With the control because they are the are urban areas the same for the mean flower number Also Daweji Amarillo and will shows the difference different significant difference Significative also the mean flower diameter Will Daweji and Hedon Hedon you see is urban station number of necrosis lives Also shows difference between Amarillo poor lagar and the control We dry weights also shows the same results. It shows that Daweji Will are the most Polluted seeds Regarding the factorial correspondence analysis We have two groups of parameters parameters of Damage the group of parameters of damage which are the number of Necrosis lives and The second group which are the the general growth of plants which are the enter node and Flower diameter and others At the end we We we the number of plants is 30 in the In the beginning we have we had the 60 This is the vandalism that we that I mentioned the last time the Disadvantages of Active monitoring is that there is vandalism others they People take the 30 others plants so it It rest only 30 Plants at the at the end It shows so laggar station laggar Terga, you know, so you didn't are regrouped because they are Far from far from the the automobile source pollution but Amarillo Daweji, which are The urban Seeds are far from the others seats so this work Conduced in BJR showed that show that petunia is Montre the morphological characteristics and That shows that there is air pollution about Hydrocarbon the results shows also that there is a difference in chlorophyll content in Gisantoria, but it's a modest study. It's not It's not Not to reflect the real the real situation and that's for for that for it's the It must be completed by others method monitoring method Studies in bio monitoring continue in BJR, but not only for these two species And then we have recently provided the new Hydrocarbon aromatic polycyclic estimate in all the region of Cabela and Analyses are going for Vira and Tizio so So last night we saw an endis Endis atmospheric of purity I prepared for you in exercises how to calculate it You Dorothy so we'll send you an excel sheet I give you this formula and Then we try together to calculate this index So the index atmospheric purity equal the sum of Q Multiply in tip life per Frequency divided by 10 though where n is number of species Q is the factor of accompanying species the factor of accompanying species q So is calculated like this. We have only one station in the example so we have to to some to addition only the These samples we have eight samples Dividing I by M which is the number of station where the Species of interest is present and then the F is the cover Cover it is given in the exercise is given by frequency in percentage you have to translate it to Brom blanket level so when the frequency is They pass 75 it means that it's The F equal five Okay. Thank you very much We can start do you want any question now Fatima before what do we start the exercise like you want it, okay, so If you have question, of course, what this modest study Have you understand the the the case today? This is our last case study of the school. So You should have received it now Okay, so no no special question Okay, so do we make group Fatima do you want that people working group as they work alone they like Okay Okay, so everybody makes a so we will make they will be just a debriefing like that. Okay. Yeah The mail I've just sent it is as the address is Dorothy that Moison at gmail.com so may you should have received some of you have received it Yes, okay, so that the good news the other one should receive it You have 15 minutes you've got 15 minutes max I Still have five minutes counting time time is running out And now time is out It turns very fast Timma Fatima Let's go I guess now we have to to make the correction If you don't mind Fatima you want to I'll let you We correct Yeah Just The first column yes We correct so To calculate the the queue We have we have to calculate the number of accompanying species of For each species for example for the first one It's the first one it exists in the seat one seat two seat three Seat six and seat seven and the number of Accompanied species in the first seat is 12 right In the second in the second is eight The number of speed accompanying species for the first in the second seat is eight Is it and In the third the number of accompanying species is nine The total is then the number of accompanying is nine. So we have to Addition the Number of accompanying species here Where is it? Accompanied so here it's 39 for all of seats for the first For the first species there it's accompanied by 36 pieces we have to be did this number by the Number of seats which is five This species exists in five seats. So it is 7.8 You do the same for all other species you have So OQ which is between seven and the 11 and the 13 Yes Fatima, sorry. I hardly understand about the calculation Maybe you could help us by putting the the cursor on the on the number so we can know the formula How do you calculate that number? Thank you Just to click on the cell one that you mean on the cell, okay? L colon L colon Cell one L colon L L colon Yeah, and so what? I think the formulas are not in the sheet so is is the number is the number Q is the number of species a Companion the The the concerning species we for the first for example species. Yes, we will we want to Q is calculated for each species Okay Q1 which is the Q of the species one is equal the number of the total number of Accompanying this species in each seat with addition we addition the the the sum of species accompanying this Space species Okay for the first seat there are 13 there are 13 Species so how much species accompanying the first species and this in this seat in the seat in the seat one Species accompanying the first 12 12 you because perhaps Accompanying species is not the term in English Accompanying this is best accompany at risk 12 It's a yes itself Plus 12 species the total is 13 The the seat is for example a tree imagine the seat is the tree The station we have the station for example here in this in this area We taken eight trees and we do the symbols from one meter from the ground Yeah, you take We take the degree of 50 centimeters and we quantify the frequency of each species for the first Tree we find five species or we find 13 species Okay, but the species which interest as is the first to calculate the queue the number of Accompanying species is 12 and then for the first The first the first time did you see did you see before a table of Ursul's more of flower flower Yes, did you yeah, okay, it's when we you see a frequency is the presence of the species, okay the frequency Species has a frequency it means that it exists in the seat one for example in the seat two seat three so in the for Q We just Look the existence of the species it exists. Okay, one two three So we have 13 species for the first seat we have eight for the second 10 for the third Etc. So 30 30 30 39 is the number of accompanying species of the first species For it so it's 12. Yes 12 plus 7 plus 9 plus Six plus plus one Yeah, yes Move to the second the second is more simple It exists only in the in two in two seats in the six and the in the in the seven and the eight Seat is it? The second yeah, it exists only in the seven yes the number of accompanying species in this case is Seven My mind's yes six. Yes Six divided by one because it exists only in one seat. We divided it with David did it by one Yes, even in the formula in Before you Q Q we have to calculate Q now We Q we calculate we calculate Q Q is the sensitivity and Sensitive sensitivity of the species Sensitivity for example for the the second Is is not sensible is not Sensitive species it exists Although Malgré other species don't exist really for the second for the second Species it exists. It exists Although other species don't exist. So it's tolerant to the stress in the in this environment Yeah, yeah Get How much 43 12 7 19 19 39 39, okay This is so for for for Q for Q is the principle is this to calculate for each species You calculate the for each species you calculate the number of Accompany species Geat Fatima, yes, I think that we are we are way off tough time. So I suggest that maybe make a correction something on Yeah Can you add the formulas in the excel sheet so that the people can follow the calculation and Then maybe we can send it over to everybody. Yes And they can interact with you on the internet on by me, but I'm sorry. We we need to move on. Thank you very much. Fatima So now it's Carla look lecture about the recommendation on the way you should communicate risk including some few slides on how to do a systematic review because Most of them asked for that lesson. So I will be quick Just an advice at 20 Reporting Okay, we The time is really short So you can read the Presentations after because everybody will be available for you to read and to use my messages Use these lights organize your own seminars in your place and Try to share the knowledge with the other colleagues that are not here. Okay So that's the second there the why We have talked all the all the week Say, okay, you can take that from the literature or you can use already published studies You can you can how? Okay? It we We know that there is a body or literature that can be used when we are in the phases of hypothesis Creating maybe you you don't even you don't even have a clear Hypothesis you want to you know consolidate and formulate a proper one So my suggestion is go to the literature to excel and have a look at what is already Published already available. So we want to we will have several published paper and we want to Conclude something. What what are they saying? So and the body of literature is extremely high. I mean as In the internet the Google time is really easy to to put also that there are a lot of online Journal open access so you don't have to pay to download the paper But there are a lot. I mean it's it's really most so what you can do You should be so good in select the best study They what the one that guarantee you a few bias bias is means mistakes error something inside the articles that can can have affected the results having a public Study published doesn't mean that the study is a very good one So you should be able to judge among what is available in the literature and also you want to conclude You want a relative risk you want one estimate of the effect So you have to move between the narrative reviews and the systematic reviews as you say here The it's quite simple because we have a lot of publications including Gray literature great literature are the reports. I mean The report that maybe you can write down for your own public health or ministry Or in great literature also go the abstracts Presented at the meeting for example the difference the difference is between gray literature and Published I mean a good the literature is the peer review systems when it when a paper is published Other colleagues before the publication have judged the results and ask it for Clarification do a get the analysis you can do like that Please say something else because the discussion are very poor. So that we we can have Good quality paper a less good quality paper and everything is narrative I mean, it's useful if you want to have an idea then you can a narrative review Simply is a kind of when you write down your thesis you read Roll the articles and then you try to you know to describe in order the first the second the third but in a systematic review The criteria are very straight. I mean you need experts to do that. There is statistical analysis a systematic review Include a search strategy that should that have to be defined in advance in a protocol So a science is something that can be we know because we are scientists and sometimes if the quality of the articles are Similar if there are few risk of Heterogeneity you can also provide an estimates a medium estimates of the results, which is the meta-analytic Estimates so the meta analysis is something inside the systematic reviews and the system I think the results are part of a narrative Reviews so it's on you. It depends of your skill or what you want to do and if you need it If the meta-analytic estimates is useful or not So we have a lot of problems negative reviews because you know, there is no peer review You can do whatever you want. You can include only positive results exclude just include maybe for us as we are not English speakers You know Getting published in in in Italian in an article in my own language can be possible in Italy But not outside Italy. So even if a very good study but published in in Italian in an Italian Journal cannot be accepted in a systematic reviews because usually they include the people Papers that they can read so in English that can be also a bias And on the opposite the systematic Review approach is very useful and you can read the slide Be careful in red that also a very well conducting a systematic review as problem because once a paper is published is old because maybe you are the How to say the the peer review process sometimes takes month Three four six months and maybe you write down your study a year after the experiment is finished so maybe you can take a couple of years getting published and then all the results are Related to something Described in the past so all by definition all the systematic review include Retrospective approach so they they develop validity of the of a systematic Review strongly depends on the papers that you as a researcher decided to include or not So there is a step steps a protocol that can be followed I think we are not time to read the in in details These steps, but they are available on the study all the steps are very important But as all the science all the research be brave in formulae, so you try to take a picture go but there will be the The on the website so formulated the question is really really very important There is this statement called Pico. We says he says it says that you have very well every man every mind Participants inclusion when we in this case we are not talking about people We are talking about studies was study. I have to include what I have to exclude so participants the exposure definition The comparison and the outcomes and you can find the approach in these published journalists You can download for free and the system is called navigation guide for systematic review in environmental epidemiology So the search strategy we we want to find the articles what we can do You need maybe for the very first time Someone that already have done it. We call it an information specialist. There are Scientists as well They come from different field of research even from, you know, PhD in journalism in scientific Year in ICTP. They have a program special program The suggestion is to search more than what one that database also for search for unpublished studies if possible if you see at the meeting a Colleagues talking about the research if you as as we did in the poster presentation If we look a very interesting results in a poster, but maybe no papers are coming So no published paper will be a pity So maybe if you are aware that some studies have be conducted my baby They ended not in a published Journal but in a poster presentation or in a congress ask the authors to send you all the materials and Don't put language restriction how we can do we need translators Because of course it's from Hungary or from Iran You you have a very well paper. It's for me as Italian is impossible to to understand so we need the translation and The databases come mad is most The majority you can find in a good library at your university center But mad is very good. It's free. You can download that I mean I just put Google permit and you can find that the all the abstract and If the paper is available for free, you can download the paper if it's not the the the journal will ask you a fee to have to have the paper sent but my suggestion is right to the author and Most of us are very happy to send the a PDF. It's illegal, but No, not illegal and from the web webinar Something that is possible to ask for if you don't have the money to do another way Okay, so sorry. There is this new research. I mean I'm old but it's a research gate Register and research gate and use it to share your your information is a net is a network I think you are already all in I'm not in but yes or also scopus. I'm a scopus actually and Let be good in selecting also gray literatures Report papers something not even if it's not peer reviewed the governmental act Can be included and Google so a search strategy. We don't don't have time to go in details It depends of the hypothesis that you have but you can Google how to do a search strategy and you find and you find some example But the main focus is in your protocol, please define very well the inclusion and Exclusion criteria of your study. For example, which type of studies look, we are talking about health Environmental epidemiology. We cannot perform a clinical trial Because in a trial the researcher assign the exposure. So for example for drug To test the efficacy of the effectiveness of a medicine of drugs You can divide the the the old sample in two one will take the pills The other one will take a placebo and you can wait for a while and compare the results if the drug is effective probably you have a less Disease or a better outcomes in people tracking the drugs, but what about environmental epidemiology? Can we exposure? People exposed people to benzene to dioxin to nickel to metals. It's impossible So in environmental exposure is the randomization of the exposure is something not ethical You cannot do even think of doing that. So in environmental exposure. We are not talking about experiment We are talking about Observational study because what the researchers can do is observe what is happen everybody are breathing So maybe one some few of us can be effective over pollution I don't know but we cannot assign the exposure is so the quality of the conclusion coming from Observational studies and in some sense lower that the one coming from the experiment because in the experiment the Researcher can take all the other aspect fixed and what is the only difference is the exposure and the level of the exposure Rats in the lab. You can exposure rats to dioxin and Observe what what it will happen. We cannot do it for humans. So humans you cannot just Observed but all other aspects can are going to influence the results the diet the gender The socio-economic status other concomitant environmental exposure. So in epidemiology the issue is Is keep this one. This is an example. I'm now conducting Systematic review about what is the epidemiological approach used in industrially contaminated sites worldwide I'm just collecting all the possible industrially contaminated sites Around the world because I want to know where is conducting which kind of epidemiological approach or Biomanic only supplies and we will end with a nice maps of this by by world And and you have to publish also the search strategy because people in are interested in the articles that you At the end include it, but also they want to do why you are excluding some Published Study in your review the bias is the systematic Review I told you this is the overall quality of the study the best one is the experiment Randomized control trial, but then we have the observational approach at the end We have the case series once you mentioned we are going to just to include the patients from an hospital We are here in a case that sorry serious panel study and as you can see the Level of the overall quality is less than and because a lot of other Factor are going to influence your study, but still valid is still in possibility in epidemiology Why the results can be not so precise for the sample sites when you said I'm looking by your monitoring 15 People and myself Carla 1100 the body the sample sites of mine human biomonitoring even if I'm doing the same the same study with the same Exposure assessment methods with the same methodology, but my sample results will be more precise Let the confidence the confidence interval will be narrow just because of the sample size of the study And so which means the real study will have an estimate But a very large Imprecious imprecision due to the small sample site mine may be the same estimate But we narrow confidence interval the publication bias. I don't know if you are aware of It was more in the past than now But I have to tell that positive studies have more chance to get Impublished I mean because you find a risk the null Hypothesis are not really interested in my opinion is not anymore like that But what about if you want to include studies coming from 20 years ago? they're still part of body of the literature and Finally the results the only results of meta-analytical of a systematic review is to publish the search strategy to publish to include in your article the in the follow the flowchart of the inclusion as closure criteria and then the results and the results are like that Probably we already have seen it. This is the example that Francesco for a stare presented two days ago How does it work for each line? We have a way we have an hypothesis the hypothesis is to test the Association between PMT for 2.5 and all cause mortality We are so good that we include the best paper available in the literature We didn't make any mistakes all the relevant are here. The bias are Are not included and the Interaginity is so small that we can also think about produce a meta-analytic Estimates so in each row there will be a paper and this is the results of all the papers see for example Okay, the if there is no effect All the study are all the point that have to stay in this in this line The one sorry this one the one line because one means no effect Exposed and unexposed share the same outcome as you can say the majority of the studies has on the other side, which means that we can Tell a relative risk starting from one and going up and and what we can see if this Sample size If this is important if the sample size is big the confidence interval are very Narrow and in the meta-analytic estimate, which is this one As we are including everything we don't have any problem at all. So I know that it's more than that We talk about I Finished with the systematic review, but what is important and what is my message for you? Is please when you now we are in the face of communicating the results having Taking care to include in your communication plants also the most fragile part but part of the populations including the susceptible because sometimes they ask you what I have to do From this is from my experience. I work on noise and aircraft noise So or in this in some disease should I move a house? It's not all it's not possible Sometimes to go for another else What I have to do with my children with the air pollution is so high that he cannot breath because he Suffering asthma should I consider a pollution levels when choosing a school the example of the school? Maybe you can choose a school which is good for the health of your children in a green area if possible instead of in another one there are different ways of Explained the risk we now already Everybody can tell as playing the dose response relationship. This is the spigal art Explanation more detailed about the person time and the risk but look at this. This is very clear to cigarettes It's equal to beers. It means five kilos more if you I'm keeping on Container so sometimes when especially if you talk not a Specialistic so specialized people if you it's good to use some example because the The to make it clear There is good communication include the several aspects and several strategies I'm not going to read all of it, but this is my advice. Please as a researcher. You are the responsible of everything Consistences in the message is sometimes a researcher says something the politician After Evan listened to your presentation starting say something else the journalism in the Journalist the day of the Congress of the Congress take notes and published other results you are in charge to follow all these aspects because what it can is is Is important is the consistency so we cannot you know as a well Responsible for the diffusion of the information that should be an internal consensus is very very high now Just quick, but it's nice in my opinion. How can I explain my results? You can choose graphic? maps Tables limits the tables use a proper font not so small even in the presentation Avoid the very small font because it's impossible to read sometimes. It's good to mix. Okay. I want to use a map What about the colors are important here is a mess. How can you judge what? Independently of this object and we are not talking on that but you can see it's very very Having chosen this pattern is very difficult for a reader to understand This one a bed for people having The blindness of collards. I don't even remember in Italian was the Dalton is mo Daltonic people they cannot tell the difference between green and red So if you choose green and red, no, no, it's important that they just say flat gray Everything is flat and gray. This is a bad use too dark this one even worst and this In my opinion, it's an effective map design because you don't you know, you are not even avoiding a red or black when they Because I'm a public health researcher. I should Reassure us people not to create a drama. So this gradation is can be read There is no red in so even people with blindness of color can can read it I think I'm finished just to say that when you create a map Please take care of the level of aggression that you use because the results can change And those are all the aspects that you should Taking into account when you write down a report for your authorities for your not a scientific paper The report of your own health impact assessment and these are the APA is communication Got the lies is my my finish and I like very much this one Speak clearly and I'm not good and that and with compassion Because it's important.  So please use the emphasis and Sleep, you know, wake up people if they are sleeping when you took. Thank you so much No, no question for this action. No, you have because we don't have time. No We do. Okay, so Okay, no, I mean just maybe for the first part and the second part there's nothing to comment No question of the communication Yeah, but now we are with is a general discussion is about so Free speech. So if you have any question, please address them to Carla. Where is François? Please raise your hand because Where is that last year I Took part in this systematic or literature review and thank you very much for the very well methodology you gave us Only maybe We could take something about the software. I used Mandalay to make the literature most structured and then From there, I think it was Ryan then you select which Papers you want to include So my delay tooks the abstracts and Titles and the authors and then from run you can see more in more detail And read Are you asking about the the very first touch or inclusion of the article because when the very first Selection that you can do is based only on the title of the abstract and You select and then you import in Mandalay and from there You know we are the end the note Excuse me We use I mean when you if you have to Judge ten papers you just download the articles and read it Yes, if it's not that much, it's not it's not that much Otherwise, there are software that can help you one is and note and like the end note Which is the the license is cheap. It would be around 80 euros per a year So ask you maybe your library to buy which is very good in managing the the articles But to obtain the articles you should have a librarian So well you maybe ask him or you can write yourself To the outwards and ask for the PDF of the of the journal. Yeah, thank you I have just comments first one is about How we how when we can download the papers It was about to pay for download it for students. It's not easy. So there are some other Opportunities that some sites which is Russia from Russia. We can download the papers easily Is maybe is not is for is not legally but we can download for students second for How we can communicate our results for example, Miriam said that they have some issue to the answers that you have received from the appears that the studies is was for local issue and limited and interest and only and Lebanon I have received some message, but I think that if we we can Extract our results from local to regional or international and then present our result Thiefly we can't publish it either without any problem. I think that you are right I mean there are two ways of communicate the not two ways to sides, I mean the first one is in among the international community of researchers Which means for you to go ask for You know apply submit abstract in an international Congress or you know Workshops even other courses like this one because it's a way to for you to let the others know What are you doing and what extent the other one is to get in published in order to be? To be read by the other colleagues All around the world the third aspect is when you have to communicate your results at your local level At your decision makers. So that's probably the worst the bad aspect because as a scientist You we can you know, we can write we can perform a research But then when you are going to communicate results to people affected or To decision-makers that have to take the decisions. There are different kind of communication skill required Sometimes we don't have as a researcher for example, maybe we are very good in providing Estimates a number Uncertainties but not good to say something to an audience full of mother with children having leukemia It's different that trust me Because of because of a plant or because of a waste disposal site. I mean so it was really very nice presentation for me and My my maybe my I'm looking for your suggestion I am trying to compare the literatures on indoor outdoor pollution and health effect and specially how land use land cover change changing air quality that is the objective through the literatures and I have searched almost 40,000 Still my supervisor is not happy with the numbers So what are the database you would suggest me to because I've done a pub made World of Sciences Scoopers and many others so around four database With 40,000 available literatures and PDFs still my supervisor says It is not enough. So what is what should be the enough according to your suggestion? I mean What else? Well, I know it's I Know that this difference it depends on where you live in the world Probably ask Colleagues, I mean create a net. I mean, that's the only way if you don't have Access to these resources is quite impossible because how can you know if a Paper is getting published or not? Maybe one idea is to focus your research on other Reviews instead of original paper case because if you start from a review, it's a very good one Inside the reviews you can already have a lot a lot of you know papers published there The limitation is that this is not ongoing research is finished research and you would like to move on So, but I don't understand why can't you cannot go on pub mad because you don't have internet facilities No, no, I have made another Let's start with Pamedi Pamedi the majority of the Of the article so we probably not in environmental only but if you look at environment and health Body of literature to present areas is sufficient. I I know that some technical journals maybe not Not including health are not in try Pamed and then Google it. I mean Google use Google Okay, thank you so much So any other issue so we're done with a question We're done Okay, so no no we have normally a general discussion session. We have 30 minutes for that so we are comfortable enough. We have discussed already many times but Maybe there are some additional things to share for instance The little game I asked you to play with us. So you were less in that game I see only one, two, three, four, five Five of you are committed to do something after that school Maybe you're keeping your secrets. Okay, you are the right Okay, so by the way, maybe we should we owe you a little Clarification about yesterday's around table because indeed we We had you in the room, of course But we also invited the scientist of ICTP to join in and exchange with us So we had a few of them We had of course the organizers the local organizer was Philip or Georgie. You met him at the beginning of the school He'll be back for the closure of the school and there were a couple of two other scientists I don't know exactly who they were and we had the Press officer or communication officer who was there and was trying to see what she could write From what we were saying. Actually, we've checked on the web It seems she didn't find much to say about what we're saying Of course, it was more about brainstorming about the issue we have with facing the business is not so Yeah Adding that we said it was anonymous and stuff on if they use it, they won't be your names or anything We're just about the conversation. So they were there But if they tweet or anything it won't say it's this name saying that or anything Talking about Egypt and politics or something. So it just it was a discussion with people present Maybe writing but without any name So no No issue on that. No problem. Don't worry Okay So maybe you want to say something kind of Francois you want to say something well before saying something I would like to have some feedback on what What you've learned what you feel what could be a follow-on Yeah, but what could be a follow-on of this school are you all tired and


ond yr ysgol ar y cwylu amnych, fel Alun yn ffaluio newid yn ysgol, ond y gallwn ei wneud y dypen ar y wath rai gael ei fod yn rhaeg, ac yn y cwyrdd o'r ysgol ar gyfer y dyma. Mae'r anhygoel oedd yr anhygoel nad ydych chi'n sung dorodol, anhygoel a'r llach gael ei wneud? Rydyn ni'n gwneud i'r anhygoel, yn ymddir hwn, oedd y meddwl i'r sesŵr ar yr anhygoel. Mae ffordd o'r ddiweddol. Maen nhw'n ddweud hynny. Mae'r gwyffredig. Ffyrdd yma. Mae'n ffwrdd yma? Ymhyfydig. Mae hynny, felly sy'n ddiddordeb. Mae'r gwrdd o Gymrae Hwn. Mae'r gwrdd o Gymrae Hwn. Mae'n enw i. Mae yna llawer o'r anodd yma. Mae'r anodd yma gyda'r yr argyfwyd i'i gael. Mae'n anodd yma. Mae'n anodd yma'r anodd yma. ..y'r cwestiwn yw'r cwestiynau. Yn ychydig, rydyn ni'n mynd i ddweud? Rydyn ni'n mynd i ddweud? Rydyn ni'n mynd i ddweud? Mae'r rhai o'r tyfu yn y ffordd i'r wyrdd. Allan Woods yn ymddi'r cyflawn i gydig o'r bobl... ..y ffordd o'r cyflawn i'r Rhôl Merthyr. Mae'r cwestiwn yw'r cwestiwn... I don't know what he or she might be, but a Marxist, they are most emphatically not. Now look, let's, you see this, we touched upon this question yesterday, didn't we, where I mentioned the nonsense of the postmodernist imbecils who argue that there is no lawfulness about history. You can't understand history because it is a string of accidents caused by the activities of individual men and women about whom you can't really say very much. Now, if we take all the pretentious academic verbiage surrounding this aren't nonsense, you come back to the famous phrase of Henry Ford who expresses himself, I think, much better than the postmodernist in very clear and concise English when he said, and I quote, history is bunk, in other words, history is nonsense. That's what Henry Ford said. And if you don't believe Henry Ford, I will quote another very famous bourgeois historian, Arnold Toinby. He used to be very famous anyway. In my young day he wrote very thick books about history. Arnold Toinby said the following. He said, history, he said, is just one damn thing after another, which I suppose in one sense is true. I suppose so. But you see, I'll quote an even somebody that was a serious historian, a very serious historian of the 18th century from this country, an Englishman, Edward Gibbon, who wrote a very deservedly celebrated, marvellous masterpiece, which I think has never been equaled even to this day, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes. I read that book when I was 14 years of age, believe it or not, during the school holidays. I devoured every page of six volumes. Fascinating, fascinating, really. I recommend it to you. But even Edward Gibbon, you see, he had to conclude. Let me see if I can find it. Yes, he made a famous quote. He said, his conclusion was, having studied the Roman Empire, you could excuse him for drawing this conclusion. He said, history said, is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. As I say, if you study the history of the terrible history of the crimes of the Roman Empire, you can understand this point of view. But nevertheless, of course, such a judgment of this cannot satisfy us as Marxists. We require a scientific explanation of history. Now, it is true. I will give you this. I will give you this. Comparing the history of the human race with, for example, natural selection or the galaxies or astronomy or anything like that, or physics, it does seem to be a bit more complicated. It's more complex interplay, if you like. For example, between objective factors, the material conditions in which history evolves, and the intervention of the conscious intervention of human beings. Now, that is not an important question. For us, that's a very important question. What we call the subjective factor, that's the conscious intervention of men and women in the historical process, is not a secondary question at all, and in fact, there are certain circumstances. You get a certain concatenation of circumstances, for example, as in Russia in 1917, where the subjective factor, the actual intervention of individuals plays an absolutely crucial, decisive role. The same way as the intervention of a good general in a battle can be decisive as against a bad general in a battle. You see, Trotsky made the point that he's quite right. It is astonishing, but I'll make the statement here and now. Without the presence of two individuals, two men, Lenin and Trotsky, the October Revolution in Russia, would never have happened. And if that would have been the case, those who were historians would now be writing that the whole idea of a Revolution in Russia was quite preposterous and most impossible, because it did not happen. No, no, no. The intervention of two men, I would say with Trotsky, he said, no, one man really, because he was the colossal, moral and personal and political authority of Lenin inside the Bolshevik party, which was a decisive factor. But this is a separate discussion that falls outside of the scope of the present talk. Yes, there is a multiplicity of factors, which seems very bewilding. Yes, it is a bit complex, but that's no excuse, is it? The fact that something is complex does not excuse a scientist for saying, well, we can't analyse it because it's complex. If that was the case, the growth of the development of science would have ceased a long time ago. That's not the case. The most complex processes can be understood and can be analysed into their constituent parts. And if you do this, you'll always find the intervention of individuals is important. Yes, but it's not absolute. It's always conditioned by a series of material circumstances which are beyond the control of individuals, completely and absolutely beyond the control of any individuals. And you'll see that in the course of the discussion which we're going to have this morning in relation to Rome. Now, if you take the whole of human history, it is possible to understand it. It is possible to draw conclusions from it. The American philosopher George Santana, not a Marxist, a bourgeois philosopher, but an intelligent man, who said, and I quote, he who does not learn from history will forever be doomed to repeat it. Commons, we don't want to repeat history, history of terrible defeats about which I'm going to delve somewhat in relation to the Roman Republic. No, no. And therefore, it's our duty to learn from history by those ignoramuses and pseudo-Marxists who say, oh no, you can't, I can't discuss ancient Romans and good heavens above. If you come to my house one day, perhaps you will, and look into my library, which is considerable, I've got all the works there of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky that are available currently. This is the 50-odd volumes of Marx and Engels. I have read them all. And what do you find? It's a gold mine.  You see, Marxism isn't a narrow thing. The sectarian imbecils who think you're going to do Marxism do a couple of cheap slogans and they strut around like peacocks pretending that they've understood that they've understood nothing. Marxism is a very rich thing, which encompasses a vast area of human knowledge and experience and culture. It's vast. And that includes history, and art, and culture, and science, everything. Everything is included, and philosophy, anything you care to mention. But you see, as far as history is concerned, Engels wrote a brilliant book about the history of Germany in the 15th century. It's called The Peasant War in Germany. What was he doing wasting his time? I don't think so. It's an important book which you should read. Marx and Engels actually wrote on all kinds of things. You wouldn't believe it. Did you know that they wrote a history of early Christianity and of Islam? It's all there. Amazing, amazing. Not to be published generally. You find it in the collected works. They took the time to study history. The postmodernist, if you follow them, the only purpose of studying history is an amusement. That's what it boils down to. They read history as an amusement. To pass the time, say, if you read a detective novel, we don't do that. We have a serious attitude towards history. And Marx and Engels explained, even in the Communist Manifesto, one of the most fundamental laws of history is what they say in the manifesto, that all of human history is the history of class struggle. By the way, you must qualify that statement. They're referring to written history. They're referring to the history of what we call civilization, which goes back no more than about 10 or 11,000 years. The first civilization in the Middle East. The beginning is your class society. Prior to that, by the way, the human race was around for quite a long time. How long? Well, who knows? Different ways of calculating it, depending on how you define what it is to be human. But a million years perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable. Call it 100,000 years then. And throughout that period there were no classes and therefore there could be no class struggle. Also there was no state. There was no police force. There were no prisons. There was no money. There was no bankers. And yet people somehow managed reasonably well under those conditions for a long time.  The thing which is against human nature, against the whole of our history and prehistory, is precisely class society and particularly capitalism. That's against human nature. Against some of the most fundamental aspects of human nature. That's another discussion anyway. To come back to the point. All of history is the history of class struggle. You know, we sometimes, I think we'll be there in January for an international executive committee meeting in Turin, in Italy, where there's a marvellous Egyptian museum. I think it must be outside of Egypt, it must be the finest, most complete Egyptian museum in the Middle East. In the world. It's a marvellous place. If you can go to Turin, sometime I'd recommend that you visit this place. And in this place you find something very interesting. This is a papyrus, you know. That's an old word for paper, the old paper and manuscript. It's called the strike papyrus. Oh, yes. It's a detailed account of a strike in ancient Egypt. You know the strike of whom? Of the pyramid builders. Now, I bet you all thought that the pyramid builders were slaves, didn't you? I wouldn't ask you to put your hands up, you know. If you've seen the film, it was on TV the other day. The Ten Commandments by Dimil, isn't it? It shows the conditions of the Israelites enslaved by the wicked Egyptians toiling as slaves, building the pyramids. Well, no, no, nonsense. The men that built the pyramids were not slaves. They were free labourers that worked for the state for a wage and for a stipulated time. Okay? And very often they were paid to things like beer and so on. It's not a bad idea, I think, you know.  But they were paid in kind, in wheat, in corn, in some meat, I suppose, in fish and beer. Anyway, they weren't satisfied with the way they were, so they went on strike. And this is quite an interesting. If you look at the readings, you could learn a lot about how a strike is won and how a strike is lost. That's a separate matter. If you take the history of ancient Greece, Athens in particular, was a history of fferocious class struggle, fferocious. And revolutions. Oh yes, they were. Revolutions. Wonderful. That's a wonderful theme in itself. Perhaps I'll get down to writing about that one of these days. But the most, by the way, is a marvellous expression by Solon the Great of Athens who was involved in one of these revolutions. You know what he said about the law? Wonderful definition. He said the law. The law is like a spider's web, he said. The small are caught and the great tear it up. Now that sums up the essence of law in a few words. You see how clever the Greeks were. Anyway, let's leave the Greeks to one side. Because undoubtedly the clearest picture, the most complete picture we have of the class struggle in antiquity, is the history of Rome, which is illustrated by a large body of literature, of writing, people like Plutarch, Livy, Seatonius, Tacitus and other writers. Wonderful stuff, which gives us a very detailed picture which you don't get for any other civilization. Well worth reading, by the way. If you have the time, if not you can read my book. There we are. Please buy it, we need the money. Anyway. Anyway. That's to delve a little bit closer into this question. Now, you see, when you look at the development of Rome from the earliest period, it's quite astonishing. It's amazing. How what was originally a tiny insignificant little village more or less on the banks of the Tiber became the ruling power in the whole of the known world of the Mediterranean. You know, and they did so in quite a short space of time furthermore. This is an interesting subject in and of itself. Now, how do you explain this? Well, it's a number of explanations are possible. One is that this was an important strategic point on the banks of the Tiber, commanding a whole area of Italy. There was also the fact they had access to a precious commodity that is not generally realized. They had access to a very important commodity, which was salt. Now, to you, perhaps, salt is nothing very important. You take it for granted, didn't you? You always got it present on the table. You can leave it or not leave it as the case might be. But in the ancient world, salt, and even places like Africa, down to the recent period, salt was an extremely valuable and rare commodity. Fundamental, not just for cooking, but also for preserving food and didn't have refrigerators in those days. So, yes, it was very important. And therefore the salt deposits which they had access to, that was a very important profitable basis for trade and so on. They came under the attention of other powers. There was no such thing at that time as Italy. There was no such thing as Italy, really, until the 19th century, the late 19th century. But it was divided into different tribes. Most of them spoke similar languages. They were known as the Latins. That's where the word Latin comes from. Did you study Latin at school? Hands up all those who studied at Latin at school. Oh, quite a... Not that many, you know.  Five years of Latin. Quite a difficult language, Latin. You know what we have to say about Latin? I'll tell you. Latin is an ancient language. As old as old could be. It killed the ancient Britons and now it's killing me. There you are. But anyway, the Latins all spoke similar languages. They weren't the same. And the Romans also spoke one of the Latin languages. There were others. Mysterious people like the Etruscans. That's where you get the word Tuscany from. The Etruscans were much more advanced than the surrounding nations anyway. Not more advanced than the Greeks that were in the south of Italy. The Etruscans are a mystery. Not much is known about the Etruscans actually. But at one stage it seems that they actually conquered Rome. Probably they were after the salt or something. Who knows? But the early kings of Rome, according to Livy, were the Etruscan kings. And according to Livy, they were eventually driven out by the Roman people who eventually established their independence. But this early Rome was, if you like, it's class spaces. It was an agricultural nation of course. Agricultural tribes really. They were tribes. The English used it in the origins of the family which is very interesting. But they had a necessity of defending themselves against other peoples surrounding tribes. And they evolved a very special thing. Something which other tribes didn't possess. They had in effect a citizens militia. These were free peasants. The majority were free peasants. The democratic society which England describes. And the citizens were armed. They had an assembly. They took decisions democratically and so on. And this force eventually evolved a special military formation and a tactic which is far superior to the neighbouring tribes. It's known as the legion. You've heard of the Roman legion. This is the origin. The Roman legion. Powerful instrument. And the destiny of Rome was decided by one thing and one thing alone. And that's war. Rome is the product of war. Only war. Who is it? I think it was Heraclitus that said war is the father of all things and have made some men great and other slaves some in free and some in slaves and so on. Very true in the case of Rome. It was formed by war. And this ferocious instrument that they had, this legion, they were disciplined. More disciplined than the neighbouring tribes. And the legions could function in a very disciplined manner. Also in a very flexible manner. OK. They would advance it with a wall of shields. OK. They'd have a very heavy spear. I think it was called a pilum. Very heavy spear. Which they would get within striking distance of the enemy. They would throw this spear.  Cutting you in half. Shattering the first line. The first line was shattered. They'd then rush in. The shields served like a tank. They were protected by a wall of shields. Then they had a nicer thing called the gladius, which is a sword. So the word gladiator comes from. Sword. A short stabbing sword. A very wicked implement. Once they clashed, they had the wall of shields and then out of this wall would proceed. These stabbing instruments. Cutting down the enemy left, right and centre. This mechanism was quite...wasn't really improved upon until the 18th century. When you had another revolution where they invented the bayonet. The musket and bayonet. Same thing. A volume of musket fire followed by a bayonet charge. The Romans pursued a similar tactic. Anybody cut a long story short. Over a long period they waved wars. They started off as defensive wars. Then they became offensive wars against other tribes. Some of these wars lasted quite a long time. The wars were the Sam Knights. They proved particularly troublesome. But eventually the Romans defeated all of them. And when they defeated the Terrarium, they were quite merciless. They'd take it over, they'd plunder it, and they would take slaves. Although slavery in the early days didn't play a key role. Rome was still a society. Economic formation based on free peasants. Small holders and so on. Now all of that changed when they went further south. You imagine the map of Italy. This long leg with the boot on it. As they proceeded south, for the first time they came across more advanced peoples. Far more advanced than themselves. They were Greeks actually. They spoke Greek. People in Sicily and the southern part of Italy were Greeks, Greek colonists. They spoke Greek to this day by the way. There's a particular culture in the south of Italy. Fred will bear me out here. He's from that part. The test of the blood indicates that there's a very close affinity to this day between the southern Italians and the Greeks. Anyway, they were quite powerful, quite wealthy neighbours. They in turn were being attacked and conquered by the Carthaginians. You heard of the Carthaginians. They were based in Carthage, which is modern Libya, I believe, just across the Mediterranean. They were a powerful mercantile trading people who'd also expanded. They had the beginnings of an empire. In Sicily they had outposts. In Spain also they had outposts. They controlled gold mines and so on. The Romans of course looked upon this with some degree of envy. Of course they clashed with the Carthaginians in every. In what's known as the Punic Wars. Punic Wars is a word for Carthage actually. They were several Punic Wars. Initially the Romans came off very badly in these wars. Many because they didn't yet have a fleet. They weren't sailors the Romans. They were landlubbers. They didn't know anything about ships. They knew about land war but not naval warfare. Whereas the Carthaginians were very skilled sailors and they had a very good war fleet, which systematically initially defeated the Romans until the Romans developed a tactic where they could grapple with these Carthaginian vessels, put a plank down, whereby they'd gain entry into the Carthaginian ships and then they'd wage war the same as on land and then the scales begin to tip in their favour. Incidentally one little amusing incident. The early Romans were on quite a low primitive culture and level actually. Peasants. That was reflected even in their religion which is similar to the Greek religion with the gods of different names. Zeus becomes Jupiter and Athenae becomes Minerva and so on. Yes, but you're struck by the crudeness but the primitiveness of the early Roman culture. Even at a later stage actually Roman culture really was mainly copied from the Greeks. There's a wonderful statue in the British Museum just down the road. You should visit the, don't miss the British Museum, those of you that haven't been to London before, please go. And if you go there, I'm sure Anna will forgive me if I tell you, you'll meet my girlfriend there. I'm in love with this woman. I've been for many years. Not as nice as my wife, not as beautiful as my wife but nevertheless I've got a special affection. It's the most fantastic statue of Venus, Aphrodite, having a bath. It's the most wonderful. It never ceases to astonish me. How can anyone create a statue like that? It fears if you could touch it and it would still be warm. And it's a stone for God's sake. It's stone. How could they do this? It's really, I don't think any subsequent art has ever improved upon these sculptures. That's a separate matter. But anyway, if you go back, they had a very crude culture and quite a practical attitude. They were practical. Practical was the Romans. No time for philosophy or any of this Greek Mamby Pamby stuff. There's nonsense straight to the point. There's a naval battle took place and of course they were quite superstitious. So they had to have the priest on board and the priest was like a soothsayer. You predict the result of the battle and you would tell him the omens are good or the omens are bad. They had all kinds of different ways, studying in animals, entrails and so on. But one of the tests was they had chickens. Not any chickens, sacred chickens you must understand. Holy chickens. They put grain on the floor and if the chickens would eat the corn, it was a good sign. If they wouldn't eat it, it was a very, very bad sign indeed. Anyway, so before the battle, the commander of the ship called the priest, he had the chickens, he put the grain down. He said, no, no, he said, what's the score? He said, no, no, he can't do it. Look, they're not eating, they're not eating. Bad sign, bad sign. Don't join the battle, he said. Oh, he said, the captain was a practical Roman. He said, well, if the chickens won't eat, let them drink and he threw them into the sea. And he joined the battle. Unfortunately sad to say he lost. Of course, pay attention to what the priests say. Anyway, this is all by the by. The fact of the matter is they succeeded in defeating the Carthaginians and they did so in a very brutal way. There were several wars. At one stage, the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy and nearly got the Romans to their knees, but he was defeated in the end by the power of Rome. They invaded Carthage and they wrecked the joint, basically. The Romans were like that. They killed most of the people, enslaved the rest, and then they destroyed, the city of Carthage was destroyed completely, and they even went to the lengths. By the way, I should say there was one particularly horrible individual in the Roman senate called Cato who would make a speech on anything on public toilets or anything dogs found in the streets or anything. You'd always finish with the same phrase. De lenda est catargo, Carthage must be destroyed. I think we could take a relief out of Cato's book. We should finish every speech we give with the phrase, capitalism must be destroyed. That wouldn't be a bad thing. Anyway, Cato insisted on this. Eventually he got his way. They smashed the Carthaginian, they destroyed the army, they wrecked the city, they dismantled the city. They even went to the lengths of sowing the land with salt, so nothing would grow on it. Romans were like that. Now, let's leave the moral questions to one side. You can't have a moral attitude towards this. I'm stating facts. These things actually took place, but one of the things you must understand is the consequences of these wars and the main consequence you have to bear in mind is that they all resulted in a vast army of slaves, which was not the case before. A huge army of slaves was introduced into Rome, into Roman agriculture. Think of the lot of the poor Roman soldier, the poor foot slugger, he's away for years fighting the wars and so on. In the meantime, his land is being taken over, his house, his family, his land is taken over by wealthy slave owners. Who then put slaves to work on the land. And Rome becomes a slave economy, completely, completely depended upon the labour of the slaves. Now, what happens to the Roman soldiers when they come home and they find they're dispossessed? They go to the legal records, they can't do anything about it. Power's not in their hands. Well, the only thing left to them is that they're Roman citizens. Keywis Romano sum, I am a Roman citizen, that gave you rights, all kinds of rights. And among the rights were that you could go to Rome and find accommodation somewhere and get fed by the state with so much bread, so much bread and other things, just enough to keep him alive, but it was enough. And therefore, this was the basis of the Roman proletariat. Now here an explanation is absolutely necessary. You see, the Roman proletariat had nothing whatsoever to do with the modern proletariat, nothing. The modern proletariat is the only class which produces the wealth of society. The Roman proletariat feeds everybody, clothes everybody, builds houses for everybody. The modern proletariat, the Roman proletariat produced nothing. There was a small number involved in small scale productions, mainly artisans producing luxury goods for the rich. But the big majority lived a kind of parasitic existence in which the state had to maintain them. They didn't maintain anybody. And the really productive class of society was not the so-called proletarians, it was the slaves. Now that's an important thing to bear in mind. I don't think there's any necessity to explain to you the terrible conditions in which the slaves lived and worked. It doesn't bear thinking about. They were literally worked and starved to death. That's what made them profitable. You see, now here's another point, here's a contradiction of slave labour. All forms of production always got some kind of a contradiction. Here's a fundamental contradiction. You see, slave labour is not very productive. It isn't. For the obvious reason that slaves must be forced to work on pain of being whipped or killed. They're forced to work under dreadful conditions. Therefore, they're not interested in productivity, producing anything. They're forced to work. So the labour of an individual slave of that sort is very low. And slavery can only be productive or profitable if it's on a vast scale. A huge number of slaves whereby you just simply work them to death. They die, the corpses thrown to one side, they replace it with other slaves. The Romans enslaved whole cities. Not just Carthage, a classical case of point is the city of Corinth. The Greek city, by the way, which was a rising commercial power, which they saw as a threat, they saw as a rival. They simply smashed the city of Corinth and enslaved the entire population. Now, just imagine, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. By the way, it wasn't a racial question. None of them were black.  They were enslaved and then put to work under these terrible conditions.  If a slave was whipped and tortured and so on, he could be crucified. That was quite normal or killed in some way. Or maybe the slave owner would beat him to death. Nothing would happen to the slave owner. The same is true by the way of women. Women were also regarded as second class citizens as the property of the males. A property of the father would do a delight with his daughters and his wives. This is also the case. Anyway, these are some of the contradictions that existed. Now, you see, there were contradictions also, it has to be said, between the plebians, the proletarians in the towns and the slave owners. The Roman capitalists, if you want to use that. Even that phrase is often used, Roman capitalists. They weren't really capitalists in the modern sense. For one good reason, the modern capitalist is an exploiter, is an oppressor. You can say what you like. But the modern capitalist does play to some extent a role in production. In the sense that he invests a large part of the surplus value in creating new production, machinery, factories, in order to increase the productivity of labour and production. That was the case. But in the ancient world, that was unknown. And if you think about it, what's the point? What is the point of investing a single denari? That was the pennies, if you like, in machinery or labour-saving devices when you had an automatic vast supply of dirt-sheep human labour to be disposed of as you wish. There's no point in it. Furthermore, slavery is incompatible with machinery. Anything delicate, you put some delicate machinery in the hands of a slave, he will wreck it in five minutes. That was the case in, I'll draw a parallel in a moment with the southern states of America where slavery existed up to the Civil War. And you know what a mule is?  The mule was invented in the southern states of America for a purpose. See, a horse is a relatively delicate animal. And a horse in the hands of a slave, he wouldn't last five minutes, he'd be crippled, quite destroyed. A donkey on the other hand, he's got many disadvantages, but he's a tough beast, far tougher than a horse. And therefore, by fusing the two in a mule, you've got some of the advantages of a horse and you've got something as resilient as a donkey. This is a product of slavery, as Marx explains in Capital. You couldn't give anything delicate. And therefore, slavery itself was an impediment to the advance of science. Let me give you another example. Did you know who invented this steam engine? The British Commons would say, oh, it's some Englishman, new combing. Who was it? I can't remember. Some Englishman in the 19th or 18th century. That's not correct. Did you know that the ancient Greeks invented a steam engine in Alexandria? And it worked perfectly. They knew how to produce a working steam engine, but it was just a toy of no interest. This is a toy, that's all. No productivity. You couldn't because of slavery. You understand what I'm driving at. So what did the slave owners do? Well, they spent their surplus in ostentatious luxury of the most obscene sort, you know. Hughes Banquets in which they consumed such luxuries as stuffed larks, tongues, or pearls dissolved in wine, all kinds of things, you know.  They squandered their money in idle luxury. That was how the Roman Republic was beginning to degenerate. And therefore there was also a conflict between the poor people in Rome, the proletarians, and the rich gangsters, you know. The conditions in Rome, you see, when you think of Rome, ancient Rome, you've probably been to Rome on holiday, if you haven't, you should, it's a remarkable place. You see all these marvellous remains of temples and marble columns and so on. You think that Rome was like that, Rome was not like that at all. Most of the Roman people lived in miserable existence in very squalid circumstances, in slums, which were built high in order to extract more rent out of people, you know. And of course these places were death traps, they frequently caught fire, they were stinking, there was no hygiene, there were no toilets, the streets was like an open laboratory, you know. Disease was life, and life for most people was a pretty miserable affair. Next to that was this extreme luxury, which obviously produced precisely class conflict and discontent, which manifested itself in repeated uprisings and riots of the city poor. Now, here we come to an interesting episode, which is not generally remembered, unfortunately, and I'll name two names, which you may never heard of them. The Gracchi, or the Gracchi to give its correct pronunciation, the Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracus, okay. These men were aristocrats, they were from the top layer of society, the patricians, the senators and so on. They could have had an easy life. You see, now Marx explains, and this is an interesting point which people don't generally remember, that there comes a point in the revolution where the more intelligent layers of the ruling class, the intellectuals, the higher ups and so on, break from their class and go over to the side of the revolution. Now, that was the case in Rome. Tiberius Gracus could have been a senator, he could have had a nice life, but he was appalled particularly by the condition of these poor peasants driven off the land, and he determined to put a stop to it. His programme was a programme actually, if you like, of an agrarian revolution, agrarian reform anyway. What he wanted to do basically was to put the clock back to restore, to break up the big slave estates and hand the land back to the peasants, and he developed quite a big following among the city poor. Of course, this programme, which was revolutionary in its implications, alarmed the senators, alarmed the ruling class, which were the slave owners, and they decided to put a stop to it to cut the long story short. They smashed the movement, and they brutally murdered Tiberius Gracus and threw his body into the Tiber. Similar fate awaited his brother who tried to carry on the same programme, Gaius Gracus, and the agrarian movement to cut a long story short was aborted.  The question must be asked, how do you explain the defeat? Why were they defeated? The reason for that goes back to this division between the free Roman citizens, the poor Roman proletarians, and the slaves, because in the last analysis, you see, the poor Roman proletarians had to understand they also were deriving benefits from the labour of the slaves. They partook of the exploitation, if you like. If you went to parallel, you'd have to go back again to the American Civil War. In the southern states of America, they were slavery. The slaves were black, that was not the same in Rome, but the slaves were black slaves from Africa. And then, of course, you also had another layer of poor whites, very poor whites. The conditions of their lives actually was not that much different to the condition of slaves in many ways. And yet, you see, there's always this mentality. There's always somebody lower than yourself.  They were superior to the slaves. Although they were regarded by the wealthy land-owning families with contempt, they were referred to by the slave owners in the south as white trash. White trash, that was their attitude. Nevertheless, when the chips were down and things were serious, the white trash supported the slave owners and joined the Confederate army fighting in the Civil War on the side of slavery. That was approximately somewhat similar to what happened in Rome. That's the reason why the Roman Revolution was defeated in the last instance. So what happened after that? Well, there was a period after that of change. And the changes, you see, the changes in the economic basis, that's always the decisive factor. The changes towards a slave-owning society led to a fundamental change in the army. I said earlier on that the original Roman army was an army of free citizens, a citizen's militia, if you like. But that finished. That finished because of slavery you had the development of a professional army. Which gradually separated itself from society. The soldiers were no longer loyal to the Republic as they had been in the past. They were loyal to their general. Because the general was the man that assured them victory and therefore a share in the plunder. Particularly important for them was the fact that when they ceased their military service they would have a pension, they would have a plot of land stolen from somebody else, of course, stolen many from the Italians, conquered people of Italy or in Spain and a certain amount of money. This was important at a time when there was no social security and so on. And therefore the soldier, you must get this into your mind, the soldier now becomes loyal to the generals. And the generals were, not to put to fine appointed, a bunch of gangsters. Absolutely gangsters. Military adventurers out for themselves. Out to grab whatever they could grab. Out if possible grab the power of the state. There was a series of these gangsters. Crassus, Pompey, you might have heard Pompey, Marius and ultimately Julius Caesar. You've heard of Julius Caesar, of course. And this is important. This from a Marxist point of view is important because we're here dealing with the theory of the state. What is the state? What is the state? Well Lenin defined it, following angles. He said, the state in the last analysis, sown of all its niceties and embellishments, the state is ultimately only armed bodies of men in defence of property. That's all it is. Armed bodies of men. The army. The army now becomes, if you like, a semi-independent power, increasingly independent of society, standing for its own interests, not even the interests of the ruling class, not even the interests of the slave owners, nor their own interests. The interests of these gangsters and of course the soldiers that followed the gangsters. There was a series of civil wars, brutal civil wars, brutal civil wars, in which one gangster would win and another gangster would lose, followed by terrible slaughter, massacres, prescriptions. You can't imagine the brutality of that period of the republic. And eventually this leads to what we call caesarism. But before we come to that point, I must now refer you to one of the greatest revolutionary episodes in the whole of history. And that's the slave revolt led by Spartacus. Now, you might not know this, but there were not one slave revolt. There were many slave revolts, actually. Particularly in Sicily, the slaves actually took control of Sicily and had to be ejected by terrible force. But the most wonderful event was this revolt of the slaves. It was a film. Let's try a bit of popular consultation again. How many of you have seen the film Spartacus? Not many. You must all see that film. And it's astonishing. It never ceases to amaze me how the producers of a film in Hollywood could produce a film of that. Well, I know why. And I know who's responsible. Who's responsible is Kirk Douglas, the actor. He was quite a left-wing individual. He was a very wealthy man because he was a successful actor. He put the money up for this film out of his own pocket. He said, we must have a film about this man, Spartacus. He plays Spartacus in the film, and it's a wonderful film. Some people can sneer it and say, well, this is not accurate. That is not accurate. Of course, we're dealing here with the work of fiction. It's not an historical work in that sense. I'll tell you one thing. That film is more accurate, more truthful, in its depiction of the essence of a revolution and the essence of the Spartacus uprising than anything else you can read or study. I'll stake my reputation on it. It's a marvellous recreation of what that was like. Just imagine a tiny group of gladiators. That's what they were, because these slaves, some of them were forced to fight and kill each other in the arena for the entertainment of the public. The ruling class had to keep the public entertained. Nowadays, there are good other methods, television, and dare I mention the word football? I don't know my opinion of that particular counter-revolutionary activity, about which I better not say any more for fear of causing another Spartacus uprising in the hall. There's some football fanatics in our ranks, I fear. Anyway, there we are. Yes, it plays the same role. Keep the masses happy with something.   It really has some unpleasant consequences, actually, seriously. It takes your mind off the class struggle. That's the intention of it. We leave that to one side. That was the case in Rome. Gladiate is slaughtering each other in the most horrible way, being promoted as a sport, you know, to keep people... These were gladiators in a gladiatorial school in the south of Italy, who suddenly rose up. I don't know exactly how it happened. There are records of this. The unfortunate thing, you see, comrades, is this. History is written by the victors always. And the voice of the vanquist is never heard. Or it's only heard in a very distorted way. It's only heard through the mouths of the oppressors. You only know about Spartacus on this uprising because of the people who murdered Spartacus and put that down, wrote the books. Yes, but even they, in spite of themselves, you can see reading this material were impressed. No doubt about it. Like the final battle where the slaves were finally confronted with the vast Roman force, which they could not defeat. At the end of the battle, they could have surrendered. They never surrendered. They never surrendered. And there was a mountain of corpses afterwards. When the Romans examined the course, the Roman historian says the following. What struck us that there were no wounds on the backs of any of them. All the wounds were on the front. In other words, they died fighting to the last man and to the last minute. And to the last woman also. The women also were active in this movement. But these guys, they turned against the trainers in this gladiator school. They seized the weapons. The weapons of a gladiator are primitive weapons. They're not really suitable for combating the might of a Roman army. An army which has conquered the world. Which at that time conquered the whole of the Mediterranean which is a huge empire. A powerful machine that defeated Carthage. Carthage, okay. Here's a gang of gladiators. Slaves, for goodness sake. Challenging us. Slaves. This is nothing. We'll soon deal with them. Yes, they thought they would. They were mistaken. They sent a force to put down this revolt. In the meantime, the gladiators appealed to the slaves to join them. The army was joined by quite a few people. They seized whatever weapons they could find to hand. Not very good weapons. And here's a Roman legion led by aristocratic young kids, you know, youth, to put them down. And they defeated their army. Not only defeated, they slaughtered them. Even though they were surrounded by a campant on Mount Vesuvius, actually. In the middle of the night, what's the word they used? When they come down on the mountains, Emma will have to help me here. What do they call it? When you up-sailing, is it? When you up-sail down the mountain using vines and so on and so forth. They turned up in the Roman camp. The Romans were all drunk celebrating their victory which they were sure they were. Bad mistake. They were slaughtered in their beds. Every single one, or one they allowed to go back and tell the Senate what had happened. They sent other armies. But each time the slaves won, you see they disarmed the Roman soldiers, they took their weapons. So now they were armed with serious weapons. And this man, Spartacus, he must have been some, very little is known about him. All kinds of nonsense the Romans wrote about him that he was supposed to be some kind of a king. That's because they could not accept that they were defeated by a slave. But an ordinary working man, they couldn't accept it. No, no, he must be a king of some sort.  They put this in their books as an excuse to cover their ass, to cover their shame that one by one of the armies of Rome were defeated by the ordinary slaves. And this Spartacus, he must have been some leader. He must have been some leader. I mean, these slaves, it couldn't be an easy thing to fuse all these people together into an organized discipline fighting force. But he damn well did it, he did it, and he led them. He must have had some knowledge, I think, of the Roman methods of fighting. Probably at one stage he'd been a mercenary and auxiliary in the Roman army. There were many of those on the frontier. I guess that must be the explanation. Either way he was an extraordinary man. Now I can't deal with, I have no intention of dealing with who, which is an inspiring thing. And to this very day it's an inspiration. It's not an accident, by the way, that in 1919 Rosalachsburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany, they described themselves as the Spartacus. The Spartacus League and so on. This is an inspiring story which I won't expand upon just to say somewhere I've got your Marxist comments if you just allow me to find them. Can I find them? That's the point. I blame the chairman entirely, by the way, messing my notes around. Aren't you? You haven't been looking at them, what do you mean? No, I haven't been looking, no. That's true. Now come to realise, have me look at my notes. They've got notes too. What am I doing here? Can't find it. Oh no, that's the communist manifesto. I've done that. Gallic wars. Caesar nuts. Anyway, where the hell is this quote? Marvelous quote from Marx. You must have this quote from Marx. Interesting. Yes, wait a minute, I'm coming to it. Bear with me. Bear with me. It's coming, it's coming. Aha! Marx, he read the Roman writer Appian who wrote an extensive history of this. He wrote to Engels saying, I've been reading Appian's book and so on. He says the following. I'm quoting it from Marx. Spartacus is revealed as the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history. Now that's some assertion, isn't it? The most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history. Great general, noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat. In that sense of the oppressed classes. So there we have it. But of course the defeat of Spartacus, eventually they were defeated. I suppose that was the defeat inevitable? Well, probably, probably for that same reason. The weakness of the slavery vote is always the question. The failure to unite with the proletariat with the people in the towns. Although it must be said there were instances, quite a few instances, where the urban poor did go over to the slaves. But it wasn't sufficient. Also there were some divisions among the slaves. They didn't know what to do with their victories. I won't go into the details. It's a matter of speculation. The thing is they were defeated.   You know what they've really got against Trotsky in particular and Lenin? You know what they... You know why? I'll tell you why. Look, in the hood of history, there have been many cases, many slave uprisings, countless slave uprisings throughout history. They've all been put down and defeated with the utmost violence and viciousness and cruelty by the ruling class. All of them were drowned in an ocean of blood. And here for once, in the Russian Civil War, here for once, slaves armed themselves and they defeated and they won. That is why they can't forgive Trotsky and Lenin. That's why they say that they're bloodthirsty, which is complete nonsense. But the revolution knew how to defend itself with arms. And yes, they took violent measures. You know to the best of my knowledge, you will correct me of course, as far as I know, wars. Did you know wars are about killing people? I think so. You know.  No, they can't forgive Lenin and Trotsky because they succeeded in the struggle against the rule class. And what happened to Spartacus? You know what happened. Well, you don't know what happened. According to the film, he was crucified along with the other slaves. I think it was said 12,000 or 20,000 slaves were crucified all along the Appian way. The corpses were left rotting for a long time as a warning to the slaves. Don't even think about rising up against us again. That's the real face of the ruling class. In the film, Spartacus also was crucified. Not so. According to Appian, which I believe, he was cut down in the middle of the... very courageously. Apparently he tried to cut his way right through to the Roman generals and of course he was overcome and was killed in the battle, fighting heroically. Like all the slaves, nobody had any wounds in the back. All received wounds in the front. Fighting to the last man for the victory of the poor people of the slaves. So only that should be our motto today. Anyway, I must finish because now I will run out of time. The defeat of the slaves was the end of the Republic, actually. All the rottenness, all the conflicts were exacerbated, the struggle between different adventurers and so on and so forth. Ending up of course with the victory of Julius Caesar. By the way, he was a very able man, an able general, very brutal general by the way. He wrote a book which we had to read in the school in Latin. The Gallic Wars, about his wars in France, in Gaul. Where he himself boasts, see in those days, the generals didn't try to hide behind, like now, humanitarian pauses and humanitarian wars and nonsense of that character. No, they were honest about it. Julius Caesar boasted that in France he mostly said, yeah, I probably killed about a million people. He said. He's proud of the fact. And nobody thought anything. On the contrary people thought that was quite a quite a nice thing to do. So, he was a very ruthless individual. But he was a very capable general. He was also a very capable propagandist. That's why he wrote a book about his own exploits. Written in the third person singular. He's probably also the inventor, the man who invented what do they call it? The spin doctors, the phrase. Sound bites, that's right. Sound bites. He invented it, like if an example. How's your Latin? Winnie, Weedy, Wiggy. I came, I saw, I conquered. Isn't that brilliant? He said that about his war against the the Parthians. Anyway, the Caesarist party, they were like, they were parties in the fact, he leaned upon the city poor. He did, he leaned, he was a rich, well, a ruined rich man, an venturer. He leaned upon the city mob, if you like. In order to strike blows against the ruling Senate. And there was a civil war. You know, he crossed the Rubicon, this river in the north of Italy which was the boundary beyond which no army was supposed to pass. He passed it. He was bold. Yes, you've got to give the man his due. He defeated the armies of his rivals. Defeated Pompey and so on. To power. He entered Rome. You know the first thing he did when he entered Rome? What's the first thing you would do? What's the first building you'd head for? The treasury, of course, where all the money was. Of course, the treasurer came out and said, I'm sorry I've lost the keys. Well upon Caesar, he used a very powerful argument. He pulled out a dagger and he said, find them. And he did. And of course then he had money to pay his troops which was the purpose of the exercise. Caesar came to power. Balance in between the classes, if you like. He had no intention of allowing the poor people to take power. He wanted power for himself. And here you have the origin of a phenomenon which was called Caesarism which in modern parlance we would call Bonapartism. What is Bonapartism? It's the same as Napoleon Bonapart. It's only the same as Napoleon Bonapart. It's where a strong man with an army at his disposal seizes power. Balance in between the classes but he constitutes power into his own hands. And the real power was in the hands of the army and of Caesar. Formerly it was in the hands of the Senate. And Caesar allowed them to believe that. He paid tribute to them as well. Of course the aristocratic party of the Senators didn't like this. They organized a conspiracy against Caesar as you know and he ended up rather badly stabbed to death in the Senate. It said that he collapsed before the statue of Pompey who he had defeated. Okay. But you see the Senators thought that they were smart. Thought that they were actually counter-revolutionaries. They wanted to restore the not democracy, that's nonsense. They wanted to restore the power of the Senate. The aristocracy, the slave owners. But of course the Caesarist party revived under Mark Anthony. There was a brief amount of fighting. These people were defeated and eventually power came into the hands of another crook. They were all crooks by the way. Not much difference between them. A man by the name of Octavian. Have you heard of Octavian? Yeah. No. Put your hand up to the shores of Octavian. Ah, quite a few. He's known by history by the name of Augustus. The first Emperor. This is the death of the Republic. You know. The people who assassinated Caesar thought that they were going to restore the Republic. They didn't. They finished it off completely. Power was now completely in the hands of Octavian. Power was now completely in the hands of Octavian. I think his only claim to fame is that Caesar, I think, was his great uncle. I think his only claim to fame is that Caesar, I think, was his great uncle. So therefore, he seized power. But here again, Augustus was like Caesar. He was smart. He pretended that the Senate still represented something. He turned up to the meetings. Modestly saluted them. Good day, good morning. Went away and decided everything on his own. Went away and decided everything on his own. Real power was in the hands of Augustus. It was in the hands of the army. Even the name Emperor. Okay? In Latin it's Imperator. That's a military term. It means a military commander. That tells you everything you need to know. If I'm to proceed any further down this road because the Republic is finished I'd have to begin with the Empire which is a different subject. Perhaps we can do this on another occasion. But for the time being I think we better let the corpse of the Republic rest in peace. And here you have the whole story as best as I could express it anyway. Of how the class struggle dominated the whole history of the Roman Republic and eventually brought about its end. Not only that. You must also understand that it was powerful economic factors that was determining everything actually. At every stage it determined exactly what was occurring. And that the individual actors whether it's the Gracchi or the or Crassus or Caesar or Pompey or any of these people were actors who were limited in what they could do by the objective material conditions as Marx explained. I think that's about perhaps it up for the time being. We will perhaps return to the Empire if permitted on some future occasion.