Hey guys, it's Gabrielle over here at Oxmer Toyota. We just received the new 2021 Toyota Prius. Now this vehicle is gorgeous and it's in this beautiful sea glass pearl, right? Yeah, it's a it's a color that's kind of known to be with the Prius. We were talking about this earlier that we don't see it in any other Toyota vehicles And it's kind of iconic. It's just came out a few years ago and people really like this So it's rare to get one. We just got the 2021 and this is the 20th year of the Prius It is and Toyota is known for saying the standards with hybrid. So there's a lot of exciting things coming out with that So I did want to touch on this one just a little bit. This is the XLE So there are about three or four different levels in the Prius that that are out there and available We have these just coming in. I think we've had this one for four or five days. Maybe they're more in the pipeline I was just looking at that earlier. We have 1.9% for up to 60 months right now in a 2021 That's really really rare. It kind of shows you this Toyota statement of intent with the hybrid market We still still have some 2020s left. They have 0% for up to 60 months That's great, but they made some changes to this one. That's one of the things we want to show today both inside and out So let's let's get in there and see what what's new So one thing that is new with the 2021 Safety Sense 2.0 is standard on all trims So the Android Auto is standard on all trims except for the limited There is the 17 inch five spoke alloy wheels With the Toyota Safety Sense 2.0, you're getting the pre-collision system with the pedestrian detection. There is the lane departure alert lane tracing assist Automatic high beams also the full speed range radar cruise control The vehicle has a backup camera. There's the blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic alert There's the 60-40 split with the rear seats and the interior you are going to get the semi gloss black console There's the soft-tex trim heated front seats There's also the eight-way power adjustable driver seat Has the soft touch upper door trim with chrome accent There's the four point two inch color dual multi-information display For the audio you have a seven inch touchscreen in the vehicle. There are six speakers So there's Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The vehicle is Amazon Alexa compatible There's the Wii compatible wireless smartphone charger with the charge indicating light so you know when it's charging All right guys, so that was our walk around on the 2021 Toyota Prius If you have any questions, please feel free to let us know all of our contact information is listed right here. Thanks guys. Bye


In the past few days of the conference, we've heard a rich set of discussions on the effects of COVID, but also the implications of the pandemic for development moving forward. The panels and keynotes in the conference have covered a range of issues and themes from debt, gender inequality, extreme poverty, food insecurity, informality, domestic business mobilization, the environment, governance, and many other issues. We also learned about the effectiveness of policy responses that we've seen so far in the global south, and also the regional dimensions of the pandemic in East and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. In this closing panel, we've brought together a set of leading thinkers to discuss how COVID-19 is changing development. The panel will take stock on what has been learned about the effect of the pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of citizens in developing countries. The panel will also look to the future and assess how the pandemic may affect global development in the years to come and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Let me now introduce the panelists in the order that they will speak. Marty Chen is the first panelist, she is a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Carrier School and senior advisor of the global network, Women in Informal Employment, Globalizing and Organizing, WIGO, in short. An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her area of specialization is the working poor in the informal economy. Marty was awarded the Padma Shree by the Government of India. She's also chair of the wider board. Second panelist is Fatima Denton. Fatima is the director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, UNU Indra. She has depth of expertise in natural resource management as well as deep knowledge of research and policy development in the African region. Prior to joining UNU Indra, Fatima worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, in Ethiopia since 2012. Our third panelist is David Hsu. David is professor of development studies at the University of Manchester, but is executive director of the Global Development Institute and CEO of the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Center. He's worked on rural development, poverty and poverty reduction, microfinance, the role of NGOs in conflict and peace and development. Environmental management, social protection, and the political economy of global poverty for more than 30 years. Our fourth panelist is Rohiton Medhora. Rohiton is president of CIGI, a think tank based in Canada. Rohiton sits on the Lancet and Financial Trans Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030, as well as the Commission on Global Economic Transformation, Co-Chair by the Nobel Economics Laureates, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz. He serves in the Boards of the Institute for Neoeconomic Thinking and the McLean Foundation, and is on the advisory boards of the WTO chairs program, UNE Merit, and the Global Health Center.  I'm going to ask each of the panelists a question to motivate the discussion. Each panelist will speak for about five minutes. But you'll leave around 20, 25 minutes for Q&A, and we hope to get several questions in the Q&A session itself. So let me move on to the first question that's to Marty. Marty, my question to you is, we heard from the UN Secretary General many times that we need to build back better. So how can the developing world build back better? What can the community do in this regard? Marty, go to you. Thank you so much, Kunal, for this opportunity. As you mentioned, we are all painfully aware that the COVID pandemic recession has led to major reversals in poverty reduction, in reducing hunger and inequality. So the premise of my brief remarks is that supporting informal workers who represent the majority of workers to recover their livelihoods is a key path to, again, being on the path to reducing poverty, hunger and inequality, but also to economic recovery. And this is because we now know that 61% of all workers globally are informally employed, and it's 90% of workers in developing countries. A total of 2 billion workers. We also know that most informal workers are from poor households and disadvantaged communities. But we also know that their earnings contribute to keeping their households from extreme poverty and, in many cases, to helping their households move out of poverty. And we also know that informal workers contribute to the economy and to society. They produce goods and services at low costs for formal firms, for domestic and global supply chains, for the general public, and for low-income communities. But pre-COVID, they were widely stigmatized. They were stigmatized as being non-compliant or outside the reach of the state.  They were also stigmatized for having low productivity, for being a drag on the economy. But they were seldom given any support to increase their productivity and were excluded from economic plans and policies. And they were often even penalized or criminalized for trying to earn an honest living. The COVID pandemic recession has shifted our focus a bit or our thinking a bit because it's now widely recognized that the crisis disproportionately impacted the informal workers because they could not work remotely. And that they faced almost immediately with the lockdowns last year, a triple crisis of food, sorry, work, income, and then food insecurity. And in order to cope, they became deeper in debt, drew down savings, sold or mortgaged assets and became triply handicapped for recovery. Some received relief in the first wave, but it was inadequate. And few governments are continuing relief until now. So actually, for most informal workers, we have done a longitudinal study. The situation in 2021 is worse than in 2020. And making matters even worse, informal workers have not been targeted in economic recovery schemes. And they find it very difficult to access or afford any of the what's on offer. And so we really need, as a global community, the international policy community and national governments, we have an opportunity, we have a choice to build a better new deal for informal workers who constitute the majority of workers, the majority of the working poor, the broad base of the economy by rebuilding economies from below rather than from top down and thereby reducing poverty, hunger, and inequality. And this better new deal for informal workers does not require a lot of additional finance. What it requires is a change in mindset. The fundamentals, the three fundamentals of this new deal, a better new deal, are to recognize and value informal workers for their economic contributions, integrate their informal livelihoods into economic plans and policies, and address the structural constraints, the risks and biases faced by informal workers. And the two principles of a better new deal are first and foremost, do no harm, stop the harassment, bribes, confiscations, and evictions, and reverse the negative narrative, the stigmatization. And the second is nothing for us without us, the motto of the global movement of informal workers, which is that they would like a seat at the policymaking table when recovery and regulatory reforms are being planned. Thank you. Thank you, Marti. This is of course an important question here, that the slogan of the mantra, Build Back Better, how long will policymakers keep that in mind? So that's important, and we need to get back to that very important question in the Q&A. So let me move on to Fatima now. Fatima, from your vantage point, as the director of one of the leading institutes on natural resources in the global South, what are the lessons from the pandemic on how human beings should interact with the natural world? Thank you, Kunal. Can you hear me? Yes, very clearly. Thank you, Fatima. Go ahead. OK, and thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to be part of this conversation. Let me sort of start by saying that to a large extent, COVID has been some sort of a double-edged sword. In many ways, beyond the devastation that we have witnessed in terms of loss of human lives, there is a sense that it has been hugely disruptive to development processes. We're already experiencing problems related to an SDG implementation deficit. I think that deficit has been reinforced now with COVID. But let me say why I think it's a double-edged sword. It's a double-edged sword in a way because it has disrupted a lot of the development processes, the SDG being one of them. And it's a double-edged sword in the sense that beyond the disruption that we have seen, as I've mentioned, it is also a litmus test in many ways for us to see whether we're properly along with the development ambition that we have. And I have to say that on the latter, one observation that we can for the pandemic is the fact that when I look at the area where I'm most active in terms of natural resource management and climate change, I have to say that the level of our ambition for a carbon neutral is not very well aligned with our business model. And in many ways, COVID has made that very clear that we're way behind in terms of where we want to get to. We're way behind because, like I said, the business model is not well attuned to where we're headed. Our supply chains have shown that they are rather vulnerable and rather weak. We don't have sufficient buffers. And we are not sourcing our goods close to home. And we've seen how many of these supply chains have been broken. I think Marty has said a lot about the informal sector, who are off the sidelines. They're often peripheralized. They are often under margins of development, even though they have a huge role to play in the development process. The tools that we need to get us to a safer growth, the tools that we need to get us to a carbon neutral future, the transitional drivers that we need are not in place. These are all part of why COVID has been such a disruptive element. And has held that both for the developed world and the developing world, we are woefully on the prepared or ill-prepared, I would say. If this is an induction course, if it's a rehearsal, we failed because we were so not prepared for it. Let me make two points in terms of that lack of preparation and where it's most visible. The first thing I would say, especially when we look at the state of affairs where climate change is concerned, is that we saw a massive, I would say, decline in terms of energy investments, a massive drop in terms of the demand for energy. But we are also now seeing a rebound, a rebound, I'd say, in terms of that very energy, especially in terms of fossil fuels. So on the one hand, I was almost tempted to say that it has changed the landscape, the energy landscape as it is. But on the other hand, I think it's fair to say that we are seeing some sense of rebound. And I think what is a bit worrying is the fact that the energy, which I would say, to a large extent, is the culprit of heavy emissions. In other words, the current state of climate crisis is as a result of that energy system in itself. That's the very energy system that is a barrier to how it gets to a safer growth, how we could build back better. Because as I said, fossil fuel is still the dominant fuel. We are using fossil fuel in the petrochemical industry, in the transportation industry, in the energy sector in itself. So fossil fuel hasn't actually become the subordinate fuel in spite of the crisis and in spite of those initial observations that we saw. So this is a problem. And it's a problem precisely because the countries that are facing dire energy poverty that desperately need this energy for their development processes, for industrialization, those countries themselves are very much inclined to move towards fossil fuel energy sources, even though we know that the cost of renewable energies are coming down. But there are issues around the upfront capital cost of renewable energies in terms of the massive penetration of these energies. We're not seeing enough of that. So the scalar effect that we need to see is not quite there yet. So that's one example. The other example I would say is that countries in Africa especially are now hugely indebted. They are already carrying this death burden, which means that the very technologies that they would need to be able to get to that transition process is already in itself constrained because they have to go back into further debt. And very often, they have to go to the same lenders. So that's a problem in itself in terms of the justice aspect of climate change, in terms of the equity aspect of climate change, and in terms of the transitional processes. We're not all at the same starting point. We're not all at the same level. Our transitional tools are not the same. We do not all have the capacity, the infrastructure, the resources, the knowledge to be able to get to a faster transition pathway. So I would say that this is a problem. It's a problem also because many of the countries in Africa are very tempted to use cheap coal. And there are examples. Zambia is in bad way. To use cheap coal, then to go towards renewable energy sources. They have a constrained space with regard to fiscal loss because many of them would have gotten quite a lot of funding coming or resources coming from the exploitation of their energy resources. And that in itself was helping with some of the strategic investment. In Ghana, the oil revenue was supporting free education, high school education. In Angola and Mozambique, some of the oil revenue was also supporting health infrastructure. So we're not going to see that to the extent that it was made possible. But this, I think, is a huge problem. Let me say this last point and stop there. If we don't take equity seriously in the transition process, we'll have to get back to status block because equity is a very divisive point, but it's also a make or break issue. And if we can say from a developing country perspective, if we are asking Africa, the first continent, to go away without its coal, and its gas, and its oil, there are very good reasons why Africa should do this because there are benefits to going the green pathway and project. But if we're asking Africa, as the first continent to develop, to be some element of solitude, so ensure that we need to get to that trap that should be made available. And right now, the Bilbaq mantra is very strict. Much of the risk should really help in terms of getting there and not in place. So we are way beyond of a level of ambition we actually want to do without ambition. So these are some of the difficulties that we're having currently, where I would say that it's going to set us behind. And those countries that are already constrained are going to find themselves even more constrained. And they would have to draw on the constrained resources that they have to be able to get further, further along in terms of the carbon neutral pathway. Fatima, thank you so much. I mean, you raise a very important point about equity. And Coffin is coming up very soon. The question really is, how will the International Committee exactly help, as you said, especially African countries in this transition towards carbon, towards more renewable energy, for example. So that's something we need to get back to again in the Q&A. I'm going to move on now to David Hume. David, the pandemic has been a global phenomenon. Practically no country, rich or poor, have been spared. So to what extent has Coffin 19 accentuated the case for a global rather than international development paradigm? What would be a response to this question? Should we think about a global development international development paradigm? Thank you, David. Go ahead. OK, yeah, and I'll make the case for certainly a global development paradigm. But I mean, just I think what we've heard from Fatima and Marty is great in that. But we must be reminded about the micro, too, and the fact that there are millions of deaths in individuals of families and 150 million people who are now in deep poverty and suffering and that. And we have to, I think, keep on going back to that and we need to use the statistics, but just realize the volume of human suffering that has been generated and has not been managed effectively and how we need to stop that suffering. But I'd make the case that actually, and I was looking at when I was looking at some of the conference documents, which we're talking quite a lot about global north and global south. But when we look at the outcomes of the pandemic and when we look at the processes underpinning it and the processes that are evolving, then the patterns are really complicated. There's been quite a complicated geography in a way of outcomes on lives and livelihoods and that there have been these two, three, four waves, which have meant that countries that appear to be successful suddenly are no longer successful. The processes that seem to be helping or hindering are swept away. And so I think we do need to focus much more on the messy nature of global development, these complex webs of relationships, flows of finance, flows of people, flows of goods and services, data, technology, and ideas. And some of these ideas are about pandemics, but many of the ideas are about things like neopopulist and right-wing politics that have spread around the world and have really shaped very greatly how the pandemic has been responded to. And I think that, in a way, the convenient binary framework that we still tend to use in development of looking at the global north and the global south, but not being able to quite define those, we really need to move away from that and recognize that there are great differences that putting these into a binary can be very dangerous. And I was looking at some of the recent writing on the pandemic and there's a lot of well-intentioned analysis of vaccine apartheid, and it is horrendous how little vaccine is getting through to Africa. But apartheid, in a way, suggests black-white, suggests Europe-African relationships. But to understand what's happening, you've got to look at China, you've got to look at India, you've got to look at Russia and the Sputnik vaccine, and you need to look at this much more complicated set of patterns that we've got. I think if one looks at those, then one can see the way in which certainly the COVID-19, the pandemic, is sort of deepening and accelerating quite a few of the development processes. Innovation and research and development of the vaccines is no longer based in North America and Europe, as it usually would have been. It's also occurring in China extensively. India is incredibly important in the manufacturing and the production and its global value chains of the vaccines, and we have the Russian Sputnik vaccine there. So we need to recognize that the old North and South is certainly not the convenient way that it used to work. If we look on influence on these processes, then really the US has tended to opt for the sidelines in terms of global leadership over the pandemic. China has had the chance to take on more of a leadership role, but hasn't aggressively pursued that at the present time. But in a way, the old patterns, the hegemony that used to be talked about by many writers of the US and of Western European and North American companies is no longer the case. These global value chains are much more complicated. So I really do think that we need to think in terms of global development to understand what's been happening and what could happen in the future. When we look at these and certainly what's been happening in terms of outcomes and contributions to the Bates, then governance comes out incredibly importantly, and we can see the way that if one looks at the outcomes, then it's not there's been a set of outcomes in the global North and in the global South, but we've had the pandemic badly managed in the North as in the USA, as in the UK, badly managed in the South, certainly in Brazil and Peru, and many of the Latin American economies are coming out very bad if you look at mortality or if you look at the impact on GDP. But we've also had effective management in countries that are emerging in Singapore, in China, and in countries which are lower middle income. Vietnam and Senegal have had pretty effective responses. And so these patterns suggest that we simply cannot put things into global North and global South boxes. We need to be looking at these much more varied patterns and the way in which one can get effective governance, one can get governments that can hear what science says and respond to it as in the case of Senegal, as in the case of Vietnam, which have relatively limited resources and one can get governments in the USA in particular with enormous wealth, enormous resources, but not able to hear what the science is saying, partly the problem of the government, partly a problem of the public understanding of science and the way in which the public's are behaving. I think a really important question probably for the evolution of global development in the future is the degree to which in democracies that have had poor performance in terms of managing the pandemic is whether the populists who have led those countries managed to get away with it, whether democracy has the power to hold them to account or whether they can blame it on the China virus, whether they can blame it on the scientists, whether they can blame it on variants coming from other countries. And I think we'll have to see how well democracy can perform with that. With the final point I'd make, I've gone for my three Gs. Let's think global development, make sure we think about governance and the way that leads to these very different processes apart from wealth in these patterns. And it's about the gaps and particularly about the multilateral gap. And the key thing in a way that comes out is that even though we've moved from the international development, the global north dominating the development agenda, saying what the millennium development goals would be, aid financing shaping development with the SDGs, we've moved forward to the whole UN membership saying what development is, we've moved forward to development finance being important, not just foreign aid from richer countries, but we still have a multilateral gap. We still can't mobilize the multilateral action that is needed. And the sheer lunacy of this at the moment, many high income countries are looking at the boost of vaccination, the third injection, but we know that that means that the opportunity for mutation and new varieties in countries that haven't got high access to vaccines puts our own populations to threat in the future as well as leading to greater suffering in countries that haven't got higher access to the vaccines. So I really think we need to look at this multilateral gap particularly in terms of public health and we need to certainly make sure that the emphasis on private health and individual health which has tended to evolve over the years that we realize now that public health is good for individuals as well as for populations. And we also need to think about social protection, get the ideas out like universal basic income because we found that you can't switch suddenly into social protection when the pandemic happens in the same way as we found out back in the finance crisis of 2007-08, you can't suddenly switch to it. And we need to think about how we can get systems of social protection working around the world that will give us the tools to deal with the next crisis that comes along. Thanks. Thanks, David. Let me move on to Rohit in a straighter way. Rohit would be already had heard already the discussion about inequality, equities in the global economy and the global infrastructure itself. And I think that's a really important question that I would like you to address. So how can international architecture be improved to address the glaring inequalities that we've seen around vaccine distribution, around macrochromic imbalances? What would can we do better on this record? Thanks, Rohit. Great. Well, Kunal, first, thank you for having me at your conference even if it's virtually, it's always good to be with you and colleagues at wider. You know, a few days ago, we, the global community, delivered its five billionth dose of the vaccine. And so there was some cause for celebration but also analysis and alarm. And that goes to the heart of your question about vaccine inequalities and macroeconomic imbalances. Because the way those five billion doses have been administered is interesting. If you look at the number of doses for 100 eligible population, for high income countries, it is 108. In other words, many people have been double vaccinated. For upper middle income countries, it's about 102 per 100 population. Again, healthy levels of vaccination. Lower middle income countries, 32 per 100. And low income countries, two per 100. So that is the stark reality that we face when it comes to imbalances. This is both a medical and public health imbalance but it is also a macroeconomic imbalance. So let me sort of treat each of those in turn. I should say that in the first, you mentioned the architecture that we have and David talked about it too. Others have as well. In the first three and especially three to six months of the crisis last year, basically the international cooperation system went missing exactly when we needed it the most. In those early days, when we knew that this was a global crisis, the G20 was absent. Most solutions that were thoughtful ones went absent. And in fact, it was the case that countries were actually reneging on their international commitments by imposing ad hoc restrictions to trade on important portions of trade. And we saw the advent of what was then, even though we didn't have a vaccine, vaccine nationalism. Many countries, 76 out of 91 in the IMF pantheon, had strictures on spending and in fact were under compressive regimes because of the conditions on their loans. And so you found that at a time when rich countries could spend their way out of the problem, poor countries once again could not because they were restricted from doing so. Now, no one's suggesting that poor countries could go the route of rich countries because there would be a currency crisis. But again, the imbalances are indicative. Rich countries spent about 22% of their GDP in post-COVID emergency funding, emerging market 6%, low-income countries 2%. So you find a sort of expansion of inequalities created by the lack of economic ability to deal with the crisis. And of course, and this is the one that worries me much more, imbalances in the global innovation system, which lead to number one, a concentration of where R&D and innovation happens, where production happens, and ultimately through the global IP regime, how vaccines are distributed and how they're made available. And is it vaccines that are made available or is it the IP? And so we've gone from short-term palliative such as the $650 billion increase in SDR allocations, which I think is a good step, to asking ourselves what might be the long-term solutions here. And so let me stop on this point since you mentioned architecture that I'd say moving from a regime in which SDR allocations are ad hoc, which is what the current system is, to one where you actually make SDR allocations systematized and ideally counter cyclical, would be entirely in keeping with the intent of global cooperation, enlightened self-interest for the West, as well as sensible economic theory that we've come to accept domestically at the national level. Second, I think we need much more management of the way IP is created. And since IP is created mostly as a public-private partnership, Operation Warp Speed in the US is a very good example of that, it stands to reason that the IP, the resulting IP then cannot be distributed along purely private sector lines. And so we have to think about IP as a global public good, as a colleague of mine has said, American good. And if it indeed is American good with public-private characteristics in its funding, then we have to think more carefully in terms of how the vaccines are distributed, how innovation happens globally, and it is ultimately those kinds of long-term structural changes that we need if we need to see ourselves through to the next crisis. And so let me end on the point that Marty made, that this isn't all about money, a lot of it is, but it's actually about rethinking the way we treat global public goods. It's about rethinking large swaths of humanity and our empathy for them and dealing them into decision-making, which, as she correctly pointed out, is not just about money, but it is actually about changing the way we think about the collective good. Thank you, Rohanjit. Of course, the question one can ask here is that we've had crisis of this kind before, not as of this nature perhaps, but we had one in 2008. But nothing really was done in many ways to reform the international financial architecture. So the question is, will that be happening now? And that we can return to that later on. I would like to see the question of the audience, we haven't got as much as yet. What I was wondering is that whether maybe somebody needs some new team perhaps, because I can hear an echo, but I was wondering whether any of the panelists would respond to others around what you've heard so far from each other. It would be good to get a conversation going first among five or four of you, and while you're making some more questions on the audience. Anyone to respond to what you've heard from other panelists? Marti, I think you wanted to say something. I wasn't actually raising my hand, but I was struck by the complementarity of the remarks, and I was struck by the different ways of thinking about inequality and inequity at the country level between countries and within countries at the micro level. And I was intrigued by Ro Hinton's closing on those figures on how much vaccine per hundred persons, and also how much spending on relief and recovering by the country income groups. I think those figures are very sobering, and we really do have to deal with the inequalities in today's world at the macro and the micro level. Thank you, Marti. I see a question here from the audience, and again to the audience, please keep on sending your questions in the Q&A feature, and we're collating the questions here. And the question here actually, I think it's perhaps for David to answer. The question is as follows. Do COVID-based development patterns really look so global? I mean, look at how economic innovation processes are reshaping global accumulation, send them back to the government, processes are reshaping global accumulation, send it on US and European based big pharma and big tech. So at one level, one might say there is a global development paradigm, another level one sees increasing concentration, especially in fact, as Ro Hinton mentioned, there are innovation and accumulation. So David, would you like to respond to this question? Please, thanks. I was listening as Ro Hinton was speaking, and certainly when one looks at where one can look to apply the old fashioned global north and global south, then when one looks at those figures on access to vaccinations and the number of vaccinations for the population, then we certainly do appear to be going back to this binary being able to explain what's happening. And in terms of innovation and the processes of research and development that are occurring, I'd see things certainly as having changed from the old idea of domination by North America and Western Europe because of the role of China in these processes and the role of innovation and in production and the role of India actually in the manufacture of vaccines and Indian air being so important to the pharmaceutical industry. And that's not the sort of pharmaceutical industry that one certainly used to think about where the innovation and the production occurred in Europe and in North America in a way the rise of China has dispersed that, the capacity of India to engage with the pharmaceutical industry has challenged that. Whether this is scratching the surface, I don't know, one would need to certainly look at the recent data because certainly it does look as though innovation in vaccines is going to produce more profits for many of the big pharma companies. But it's interesting to note on the big pharma the different behavior of AstraZeneca which opted for having the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine as a nonprofit product. Now, in the sort of North-South imaginings and the role of corporations that I had from international development, one could not imagine big pharma sacrificing its profits in a market in which you can clearly make a lot of money very short-term on the products that have been developed. So I can see that the evidence is still that those in a way who are wealthy, those countries, those corporations are continuing to amass the world. But I think with the rise of China with AstraZeneca opting to go for a non-profit approach to it and we are beginning to see changes that one didn't really imagine 25, 30 years ago. Let me comment on that in a couple of ways. One, by the way, I think it's a very good question because it could be asked even if COVID hadn't happened. And that's because the questioner has astutely caught on to what is the big trend in wealth creation which is increasingly wealth creation is driven by innovation and proprietary knowledge, IEIP. And even before COVID came along, the trend was clear that the wealth embodied in intangibles and IEIP today around the world is multiples of what it was. And so rates of return to capital and especially soft capital have gone through the roof. And what COVID has done with the stark example of pharma has simply highlighted that, but we're seeing that in almost every endeavor. We're even seeing it and especially seeing it in the climate change field. Imagine if there's a breakthrough technology in some aspect of addressing climate change. We're going to replay the COVID-19 vaccine story all over again. Second, much as I'd like to celebrate some of the things David said, let's be clear that the Oxford AstraZeneca case is not quite that straightforward. Initially Oxford University or the center there did want to make the vaccine absolutely freely available in the spirit that this was a public-private partnership and indeed was about creating a public good. And one of the major funders, the Gates Foundation, stepped in for reasons that it believed were valid to prevent that. And then there was a self-large public debate and in some senses, the groups were forced into creating a more equitable pricing structure, but they're not giving them away when you look at the reports on how opaque the negotiations with Big Pharma, including AZR, the large price differentials inherit in them, we do not at all have a system in which we could claim that there's a model out there. And I'd include China in it. I think vaccine diplomacy, it's not a new phrase, but it took on meaning because China and India were practicing it and they were not practicing it for altruistic reasons. They were practicing it for geopolitical reasons. So there really isn't a shining example of good behavior out there. We should be thinking about creating and the past I've often said the example I use is the CGIR, International Agricultural Research System, where we create knowledge in the public good and patents are held in the public interest. I think thinking about the CGIR for aspects of global health research makes sense, but we're far from it. So actually, I wanted to come back to this particular question on patents because very quickly the discussion on vaccine distribution in the global South just entered the patents. And I think too quickly because those who work on foreign investment would argue that it's also obvious that just by simply lifting patents on vaccines is going to lead to this big production of increased production in vaccines in the global South. Those who work with foreign investment will argue that actually a sort of tacit knowledge that is passed through, which multinational may not really willing to pass through just be only by lifting patents. And I'm actually a lot of sympathy for that argument. And I wondered, sometimes I felt that this particular debate got too polarized and perhaps at times naive. And I just want you to respond to this because I know you've also worked with foreign investment previously. How would you respond to those who are skeptical of the argument that lifting patents is neither a sufficient condition nor a sufficient necessary condition nor a sufficient condition for getting vaccines produced in the global South? Totally, I think you've put it well, Kunal. It is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. I'd look at it this way. So vaccine distribution in the absence of addressing technology transfer is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to make progress of any kind. It is simply old fashioned charity or it's a jungle out there. So we have to think in terms of technology which is increasingly created not by the private sector taking all the risk. In fact, it's the public sector that de-risked private sector investments in this and asking ourselves, how much of this technology therefore belongs in the public realm, number one, or number two, if it doesn't, can we create a system in which innovation happens everywhere and we create science notes as we've done, as I said, in agriculture so that we tap the scientific potential everywhere. Early on, there were people saying but the manufacturing capacity doesn't exist and you don't understand these are highly complex processes to create vaccines. Turns out more and more countries are turning up South Africa, Senegal, others where the vaccine production capacity and the hygiene and the other standards do exist. And so some of these arguments I think are being made to preserve rents. And so I end up the point if this is a game of global rents, which it is then either you have a sound technology transfer system or you have a sound system to tax rents. We have neither at present. I'm completely okay with saying innovation is driven by monopoly profit. That's the incentive you need for it to happen. Well, in that case, let's not be in this world in which taxes are always ratcheted down and you have tax savings and so on. Then let's tax monopoly rents sensibly and give the public authorities the resources to provide public goods. Thank you, Rohan. I'm going to now move to a question from the audience and it's a very interesting question which I've asked Fatima to respond to. Fatima, the question is, and I think it goes by the debate of the origins of COVID-19. Can biological weapons be developed by using COVID-19 in future wars or conflicts? What are preventive policies, especially perhaps the UN level to prevent such possibilities? What are your thoughts on this? We can't hear you Fatima. Go to unmute yourself, please. Thanks. Yes. Thanks, Kunal. As I was saying, I was looking at the question and was hoping Kunal asked me that particular question because I don't know much about biological weapons and that intersection with COVID-19 especially in terms of future wars or conflicts. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you now. Just drop the phone for a few seconds. Thanks. Yeah, let me maybe say this. There was a great deal of skepticism in this part of the world. I was in the crowd when COVID struck and the weight of, I would say, religious beliefs, spiritual belief systems, communal solidarity. There was this sense that this was not a pandemic that had anything to do with Africa. And I think we saw just how, to a large extent, at least at the very initial stages of the pandemic, it seemed like much of Africa was spared. So there was a general sense that it was for the first time, this was happening to another part of the world and that Africa that is usually at the sort of front line of all the wars and conflict was this time not affected. So I think we are seeing a kind of shift. I think Matthew was talking about the importance of behavioral change. I think we are seeing that people are dying, the numbers are on a hike, they're going up. And there's definitely a sense that, yes, those countries that are good progress, and I think Senegal's been mentioned as one of those countries that are making progress in terms of innovation need to be encouraged. We don't necessarily have to find solutions in the West. These are not goods and services that have to be exported down to the rest of the world. And I think that I recall when the news brought that Madagascar had found some cure that was indigenous based. It wasn't taking very seriously, but from a Madagascar perspective, this was a cure that they believe was working for them. So I think there's still that kind of a sense of superiority when it comes to science and where scientific goods are sourced. And I think that that's in itself is a problem because there are parts of the world in the global south that could also be encouraged to use native skills and be able to put some solutions on the table. And more of this has to be done, especially since in this part of the world, we can see that we're not investing enough in R&D. If you take Africa for instance, the whole of Africa is producing or contributing to less than 1% of the global scientific goods. And combating this disease will definitely need innovation, will definitely need science, as with many of the other development problems as well. But we do need to kind of shed some of that kind of superiority ways of looking at where solutions can be sourced. We need to find a way of ensuring that the science that we are talking about should actually work, would actually work better from a level playing field, a science that is not indicative or not displaying rather a sense of superiority. Absolutely, and I think the point really is that this problem of not taking science seriously, it cuts across both the global north and global south. We saw that in the case of the US of course, but there are other examples there. And we of course saw that there are also examples that we have from Brazil and many other emerging economies. So this problem of not taking science seriously enough and then often sort of advocating indigenous solutions, so on is not a specific problem in Africa or in the global south, it's a problem we've seen across the board. In fact, David, you've often, you have been reflecting a little bit on these sorts of issues. Maybe if you could just respond to this particular question of the role of science in the discussion on the pandemic and the solutions to it. Yeah, no, I mean, fortunately I haven't been researching on it, but I think it is something that really needs researching as a priority. I will certainly for 2020 and 2021, the way in which science was used and not used and the geography and the way that these different waves have impacted upon whether science has been applied or not. But I think, partly because I was locked down in New Zealand, I started off seeing the pandemic from a very rational perspective where science was used and where policy came in because science could only partly explain what was happening or likely to happen. When I returned to the UK, I was somewhat horrified to find it was chaotic and sometimes the science was being listened to at other times than political advisors were saying, oh no, that would be bad for the economy. And then watching in the USA, the way that a populist president was actually challenging and actually saying that the science was wrong without any scientific basis for that. And we could see that reflected, I mean, the US experience reflected in Brazil, UK maybe in India and then the good performer in New Zealand and Vietnam or Senegal. So these patterns have been pretty complicated. I mean, the one thing that certainly hits me at the moment, I'm trying to understand why West Africa has managed to keep reasonably world clear and we definitely need to look at whether pandemic preparedness because of the 2015 Ebola right had actually prepared West Africa in ways so that although the countries are low income and lower middle income, they actually were ready and there was some state capacity, relatively limited state capacity, but some state capacity so that testing and tracing and thinking about quarantine and some public understanding. But I think that's really important from policy perspective because the sort of science of the pandemic has been tremendous how it's accelerated and at times how public it's been but its application has been so verry around the world and certainly wealthy countries haven't got it right despite their enormous human capital bases, their capacity to innovate and poorer countries haven't got it wrong. Despite the fact they have populations that are much less educated, populations that are much less likely to be able to believe in Western types of science and the scientific systems that dominate. So I think this is really important because if we're trying to improve policy, then it's partly through getting the science listened to much more effectively. And Marty, there's a question I wanted to ask you for the question is- Can I just respond? I wanted to say, I wanted to bring it, the discussion back into the economy and employment and to make a distinction if we can between science and technology, right? Because the poor, the working poor see all the technological systems that have been introduced, right? You know, let's say at the city level, the bus rapid transport or any of the systems for energy, you privatize it, all of these technological systems that come in and now you've got the digital platforms, all of those work for the most part against them, right? So I think we have to remember that the experience of science, so to speak, that the poor face is often the experience of technologies that in the short term, at least for them, are not working particularly well. And from the vantage point of the working poor and the informal economy, you think of how well the digital platforms and the Amazons of the world have done in the pandemic and how we're going to be able to do that. So I think some of the, some of the sort of reaction to science is filtered through the reaction of how technology has left them behind. I agree Martin, but there's a question again with the audience that at the end of the day, when you talk about a better deal for informal workers who as you've absolutely rightly noted that have benefited the most by the pandemic, how can we think about doing that without addressing the vaccine inequality? Now there was still as long as we cannot make sure that we was fully vaccinated in the global south, including informal workers, how can we talk about a better deal? How can we talk about building back better? I think that's a very important question. And the first thing to realize in allocating vaccinations like different countries have done, you have a first group that gets them and often the frontline workers are included in that, right? But informal workers may not be seen as the frontline workers that they actually are. So the street food vendors, the waste pickers who contribute to sanitizing and have to deal with all the COVID waste at great detriment to their health, we do have to prioritize them in the allocation of the vaccinations as frontline workers who cannot work remotely from their home. Now that doesn't address the larger issue of the vaccination apartheid and are we gonna get enough vaccinations out? But I think in the thinking through who should be in that first cohort to get the vaccinations? I think the people who do all the essential, produce all the essential goods and services for us because if nothing else, the COVID crisis has reminded us of the essentials of life, right? I mean, it's food and transport and sanitation. And if we can prioritize these workers in the rollout, I think that is the way to help with recovery because they have to be out and about to work and they are providing essential goods and services. Thank you, Marti. I'm gonna call this panel to a close now. I think it's been a really interesting discussion but I think it's quite clear from all that you've said on the question of inequity and that's stood out so clearly in the discussion here. And the point really is that the pandemic may well go might run its course in the next few years but the inequities if we don't do something about it now, when we have learned so much or how we have had this situation of inequality across country and within countries. Within countries, informal workers, across countries, vaccine distribution, macro imbalances, supporting countries to make the transitional pathway to renewable energy and so on. If you don't do something about that in the next couple of years, unfortunately, we might again be in the situation that we are in the last year or so. And I think that's really important for the international community to think about especially as we come towards copranistics in a couple of months time that we gotta do something about it now. We can't simply think about a situation where this problem that we faced in this last two years comes back again to haunt us. That's a really important message that we should take to the doer especially to the international policy community. So I'm gonna call this panel to close but I want to end by thanking some of my colleagues. Two people in particular. And in fact, I'm gonna call them on the main stage so that everybody can see them. The two individuals that I want to thank especially are Ruby Richardson and Utah Stanholm. They've played an amazing job role in the whole, the way they have this confidence as an organized backstage. And many of you have been dealing with Ruby and Utah all the way through the last three days. It's not easy to run a big conference like this. We had about 200 speakers, so many panels, so many fireside chats, so many coffee rooms and so on. Not easy at all. But the way Utah and Ruby manage everything, making sure with all the usual technology that we had once in a while that things ran so smoothly, which was pretty amazing. Thank you so much, Utah and Ruby. But of course also behind this whole conference is a whole set of people from wider who acted as chairs, moderators, looking after the technology and many other roles backstage. It was a tremendous collective effort, exactly as we try and do in our conference in even wider. And so well done job, wonderful job. And I want to finally thank a super finished company that helped us run this conference platform. I would, I hope that all of you agree it was one of the more interactive conferences you might have been to. And we could do that because you had this fantastic conference platform. And the company's name is virtual data part to mat.fi. I'm sure I got the transition wrong on apologies for that. I don't know whether Yarno can come on stage now. Yarno Warisalo is the CEO of the company. He's been so important for us in this conference and he's been supported by his colleague, Susan Salo, the project manager, Amanda Toukanen, project manager and Rika Heiskanen, account manager. Yarno, I don't know if you can come on stage now because I can see you and your colleagues. If not, we can just thank you and thanks so much for again, the support that you've given us. I have to say that when we thought about this conference we want to do something different. We don't want to have the same kind of conference that we have been having for the last two years on the conference where most even academics presenting papers. We wanted to have interactive sessions. We wanted to make it as much as a typical wider conference and we have it in person. And I would hope that you felt that we, I did our best in trying to create this interactive kind of conference where you got to know new people. You got to listen to some very interesting fireside chats. You got to speak to somebody virtually and so on. So I hope you got that sense what a wider conference is about and hopefully next time, next time we could do it in person. And as you also know, when the wider finishers one conference, the only wider thing's about the next conference. The next conference is going to be taking place hopefully in a hybrid format in Helsinki in May. It'll be on conflict and development and we'll announce of course, again I call papers and everything else in the conference quite reasonably soon. And so we already thinking about the next conference but thanks so much to the audience because it was really so nice to see so much involvement from you through the different sessions that we had the last three days. Sometimes the sessions ran quite late from your point of timing, your time zone perhaps. That's the way we had to do this online conferences. But your participation in the last three days was amazing and thank you so much for that. And hope to see you all in the next wide even wider conference that'll happen in May of next year. Thank you. And thanks so much, sorry. I should also thank Roenton, Mati, Fatima and David for and I know that for some of you it's also quite late or pretty early in the morning. Thank you so much. We'll see you soon. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


Ukrainian forces reach Russia's first defence line in Ukraine south. Ukrainian troops continued offensive operations on the Militopol and Burdiansk fronts, reaching the first line of defence of the Russian forces. Serhii Kuzmin, deputy commander for strategic communications of the Tavria operational and strategic group of forces, said this. Ukrainian troops continue offensive operations near the village of Robotyn. On this front, there is an advance of hundreds of metres. Offensive operations continue on the Burdiansk front. We have already entered the first line of occupiers and the first line is very difficult. But our military is pushing through. We are moving forward and this movement is slowed down by minefields and lack of aviation. Kuzmin stressed. Kuzmin adds, there is a high density of mines and engineering barriers of Russians on this front. The deputy commander said that there are more and more trained Russians. Russian troops pull up reserves from the second line of defence, including marines, paratroopers and special forces. Ukraine is prioritising its counter-offensive operations in the country south, while for Russia the main direction for assaults is the east. The majority of Russian resources are currently concentrated near Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast. As Moscow seeks to retake, the territory is liberated by Ukrainian forces last fall.


Hi everyone, Joe for JaspysCaseBreaks.com here coming at you with 2021 Panini Flawless Collegiate Football. One brief case break, pick your team at number 14. Thanks everybody who bought their spots straight up.  On Thursday the 2nd, appreciate that. And you can see that we did pull some teams out for random number blocks. We'll show you that in a second. Scott ended up with last spot in Mojo, New England Patriots. Good luck, Scott. This way is that star next to his name. Here's one of the number blocks. It's the four team random number block. Randomizer results. Video is in a separate video if you're looking for that. For the actual randomizing part. Same with this right here for a bigger group of teams. Thank you. Let's see what we got. Crack open another top loader box here. And remember we marked that pick your team 14 until we know it's from the same case. And good luck everybody. Don't sleep on the flawless collegiate. I did load up another briefcase. I wouldn't sleep on it. Get your teams. Because I feel like there's a lot of good stuff in here. Use these blank cards here to hide the encased cards. That's an auto right there. Alright, so we got two gems. Two gems and an autograph right here. We're going to do this first. Alright. And we're going strictly by that group break checklist checklist. The only time we're not going strictly by the checklist is when there's a... There are a few players on the... That's in the none section. What we're going to do is we're going to... We're going to assign those to the teams they most recently played for. Like Save Charot, Rikim Boyd, Zach Smith and Jamie Neumann. Not a lot. Not a lot of players. So we usually don't run into that situation. Let's take another blank card and hide some of the hits. I'm going to mark down the pro team so the shipping team can sort it out a little bit more quickly. We're going to start off with Clyde Edwards-E-Lair. Two color patch. Legacy patches. And that's going to be for KC. That is Josh Smith with Kansas City. And then we've got Javante Williams. Eight out of fifteen. That's a cool patch right there. Nice. And Javante Williams I believe is a Denver Bronco. He is. And that will be for Brandon who picked up the Broncos straight up. That's cool right there. That's a nice design in that patch. Next is Ben Snorri. Snorronic. Snorronic. Team logo signature. That tripped me up there. Fourteen out of twenty-five. Where does Sko go? Snorronic is a Ram. And the Rams are a number block team. That's part of that big Chicago, Indiana group. So it's Rams four. Rams four Chad Coleman with Last Spot Modra. Next is Drew Lock. Eight out of fifteen. Tyler, Duel Relic, and Autograph. And once again that is Brandon with the Broncos. Nice bowl patch here. Brandon Iac. Two out of ten for the Niners. What bowl is that there? Anyone identify that? Who has the Niners? Niners are a number block team. So that will go to San Francisco two. That's part of the other group. San Francisco two Gale. There you go Gale. Start off the season slow. Maybe not on the same page with his coaching staff. But now seems to be back on track. We're getting back on track. Star Swatch signatures twenty-two out of twenty-five. That's Micah Parsons. Pennsylvania State going with the Pennsylvania State University. This goes to the Cowboys who are down thirteen, or who are up thirteen ten on the Saints. Middle of the third quarter. Dallas that goes to Joe Christian. There you go Joe. Nice Micah Parsons Autograph. And the last one here is Roll Tide. Roll Tide Relic and Autograph. Devonta Smith twenty-two out of twenty-five. He's pretty good.  Fly Eagles Fly. We'll go left, right, and center. On the left side, remember these are all naturally mine, not lab grown. That's what that text essentially tells you. Who do we have here? Nineteen out of twenty-five. Quarterback. Tom Brady. Nineteen out of twenty-five. Tom Brady Diamond. Nice. That goes to the Buccaneers. Oh yeah. Brady Diamond. Brady Diamond baby. That goes to Sean Maddock who picked up the Buccaneers straight up. Nice. Alright, the other gem. On this side, it's like a sapphire. Five out of fifteen. Justin Jefferson. Nice, Justin Jefferson sapphire. Kind of hard to see the sapphire on the camera, but when you see it in person, it's nice, trust me. I thought they all used to be diamonds. I thought they did used to be mostly diamonds. I like the sapphire though, it looks good. No, sapphire looks cool. That goes to the Vikings. That'll be for Dan who picked up the Vikings straight up. Alright, let's see that RPI though. The auto. The auto is... Oh, campus legends? What campus? Nine out of twenty-five. Looks like a quarterback the way that ball's angled. Oh, I know who this is. A Mississippi State Bulldog. He's playing right now. He's playing right now. Dak Prescott. That's sick. Campus Legends on-card autographed Dak Prescott nine out of twenty-five. The fact you knew that without even seeing anything else is funny. I think we've seen this card before. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys Joe Christian. There you go. Dak and Dallas are up thirteen to ten right now. Trying to get the dub. In Nolans. There you go everybody. I'm Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com and Mike Tower did some research. He thinks the Brian... Brian, Brian. He thinks the Brandon Eyke patch is from the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Twenty-nineteen, twenty-twenty around there? Cool, there you go. There you go everybody. Another nice break in the books and I did see another case. Another sealed case in the shop so we loaded up another one briefcase break. Twenty percent off. So get into it. This is some really nice stuff. The case is closed. Boys and girls on Pick Your Team 14. We'll see you next time for Pick Your Team 15. jaspyscasebreaks.com. Bye-bye.


Good morning everyone. My name is Bhuvan Mulpada and I'm from Indian Institute of Technology. I'm from Indian Institute of Technology. It's in Delhi. My course there is Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology. Right here I'm working in the Mitchell Lab and they work mostly in bioinformatics here. So the topic of my presentation today is the effect of RMSD values of structural relatives of on-protein flexibility protection. So I'll go through everything one by one. So first of all, I'd like to talk about the picture as in where flexibility is involved and where does it come in and why do we need it. So most of us know about molecular developing experiments.  And this is very important in the areas of medicine as well as architecture where we can look at drug protein interactions and individual studies. So the very first step of any molecular development experiment would be to classify the protein as in would be to analyze the protein and what behavior it has. So the first thing that we need to analyze is the protein flexibility and it's a different confirmation analysis. So protein flexibility here, as we know initially a ligand and a protein interaction was modeled as a lock-in key model where a solid ligand would go and interact with a solid protein. But then it was changed to an induced fit where a particular ligand interacts with a particular protein. There is some time for confirmation change such that the protein best fits the drug. So induced fit is already there so protein flexibility was required to bring in the induced fit. Now the problem with including protein flexibility is that any protein is a very large compound and it has many degrees of freedom. So allowing it to move freely in space requires a lot of combination power. So I go on to the different protein flexibility methods that have been developed till now. So initially this started off with soft talking which this method is very easy and efficient way of including flexibility where it allows a certain overlap between the ligand and protein. After that people started to include side-chain flexibility where the side-chains were allowed to move somewhat. Now both of these methods are easy and the computations are efficient and implementation is easy. But the disadvantage both of them, the main disadvantage is that they can account only for small conformational changes and backbone flexibility isn't there. So people came up with another method called molecular relaxation where a ligand and a protein both are considered rigid first and they are allowed to dog. And after that the binding pocket it is allowed to move a bit so that there is some kind of relaxation. So it has backbone flexibility included in it and the problem here is that again this demands a lot of computation power. After this people started using a lot of multiple protein structures. Here what they do is they use a bunch of protein structures so that they can include somehow many different conformations of the protein. So definitely backbone flexibility is included in this and calculations are easier and faster. So my work here what I had to do was we have a script that predicts protein flexibility. So that requires different models of a particular protein. So those models are created using structural relatives. I had to see what RMSD range of those structural relatives would best predict flexibility. So RMSD is root mean squared ligation and it tells us how much one structure would deviate from another one. So I was given a list of 28 proteins per which I had to see which range of RMSD would best predict flexibility. So these are 21 rigid and 8 remote flexible. So the method that I use is first I search for proteins having similar structure then I select proteins in a particular RMSD range. Then I use a program called Modeler to make around 20 models. After that these models are used to find out the flexible regions and then this is compared against observed flexibility and then scored. So searching for some of the proteins this is a snapshot of an online available software called Dali. What Dali does is it has a multiple structural alignment of a particular protein whichever one you want you can input that. You can input the PDD ID and it gives out the list of many different proteins with different information such as the RMSD range right there. Then the alignment length then the number of residues and the percentage identity. Now this list is not complete there may be around 800-2000 proteins in the list. So once I select certain proteins in a particular RMSD range Dali allows for multiple structural alignment. So I can align all those structures together and get this kind of an alignment. Now once I have this alignment in my hand I download all the PDD structures of all those proteins which I have chosen and I feed the alignment as well as the PDD structures in the program called Modeler. Now what Modeler does is it does knowledge modeling that is it would take a chain it would use it as a template and it would kind of thread the protein that we want to model over that chain and predict a structure. So this modeling is done by satisfaction of different spatial restraints such as bond lengths, bond angles, diagonal angles and non-bond length at a modern time. So I get around many models. So at first these look almost the same but if you see closely there are certain changes in the loops right here. So these can be viewed as flexibility in this particular protein. So this would be more clear if I play all of these frame by frame. So on the left on the protein that's playing on the left you can clearly see that on the left it's less flexible and on the right it's more flexible. So we get this by using different RMSD ranges. So it's clear if we use a smaller RMSD range we get less flexibility but if we use a larger RMSD range we get more flexibility in the same protein. So after that we take out the flexible regions. So this is and once we have the flexible regions from the models we compare it with regions found by using unbound and bound proteins. So every protein that we have in our list has a bound structure as well as an unbound structure. So this can be the bound structure and this bound is a ligand and this is the unbound structure. So you can see the green part would be considered as flexibility. So on the basis and then this is say our structure and the green parts are the flexible. So we compare these green parts with the green parts in the bound and unbound. And on the basis of how good the predictions are we would set the RMSD range for selecting the protein. So the comparisons are done somewhat like this where say this is the observed flexibility and this is the predicted one. So any overlap between the flexible areas would be awarded and any missing residues is this part. This part is missed right here and any extra residues that have been predicted would get a negative score. And the penalty curves are somewhat like this. The penalty increases as the number of residues which are predicted extra or are missed in these. And there is a higher penalty for predicting an area with no flexible region. This is because if a particular area is missed this is because we want to predict almost all of it and we would like to rather predict more than lose out all the flexible parts. So once all of this is done this is a normal plot where I plug in the RMSD range right here and this is just a number and first, second, third here is the first best prediction, the second best prediction and the third best prediction. So at first sight we can see for rigid proteins 0 to 1 range is kind of the best and 0 to 2 is the second best where these have predicted the best structures, best flexibility. For flexible proteins it's a bit more loose because the RMSD range can go up to 0 to 4 and that is kind of intuitive. If we increase the RMSD range the protein would be more flexible. So what we did was we normalize the scores and I profit all of the average score a particular RMSD value would give against the RMSD range. So the scores here are relative to each other so the absolute values make a little sense. So we can see that a very high RMSD range such as 5 to 6 would predict that the whole protein is flexible and very loose. So if we take all the proteins in total we see a lower RMSD range may say 0 to 1 to 0 to 3 would be the best way to go about in predicted flexibility. And if we segregate rigid and flexible out again we have a similar kind of result where 0 to 1 and 0 to 2 is best for rigid and till about 0 to 3 or 2, 0 to 4 flexible proteins can be predicted. So first of all I'd like to tell you a point that when we are predicting flexibility we do not know beforehand whether particular protein is flexible or is rigid. So we wanted some kind of a range which can work for both. So ultimately as we can see a lower RMSD range kind of predicts better for both of them. So I would say that a lower RMSD range would be the best to predict flexibility. Apart from that observed flexibility is dependent on the bound and unbound structures. So the observed flexibility that we use to compare results with directly depends on the structures, the experimental structures that we had. So if there is a transitionary flexibility in the protein which has not been captured in the structures we would miss out on that. That's why again we would like to predict extra flexibility rather than miss out on something. And while doing these experiments there are a number of variable factors that are involved such as the number of PVVs used as an input to model up, the sequence alignment and the sequence identity. So it would be interesting to see how the results would change if probably smaller ranges are used the next time and if other factors are kept constant on a particular range and then change the RMSD value. So finally I would like to acknowledge Professor Julie Mitchell who thank you for ghosting me in her lab. Dr. Gary Rosenberg who actually helped me out with all of my script and everything. Amanda Boyard who's my guide and all my fellow lab mates who are just bringing me out. The Korana program and the funding department of biology India University of Wisconsin and IUUS this year. Do you have any questions? I hate to be the one asking questions. Sorry, it's really exciting these days to use unstructured regions and start predicting function for that. Some people have an un-appreciative one where they argue of unstructured best. Now it's very apparent that this is the sort of thing that people are trying to try with drugs and things like that. For example, they buy partners, choose between partners, etc. Can you begin to predict something like that? This is a region that is flexible. Not only does it allow for students but might also be scaffold for these types of attractions or these types of key regions of metals perhaps something like that. Definitely. This can be used in that area as well. Because when we talk about chelation and any other interaction, ultimately we are talking about two things interacting with each other. And this flexibility that I am working on, this would ultimately be used on molecular docking experiments where we have two molecules which are interacting with each other. Do you need prior knowledge or could you now go back and use things like folded, folded and sort of people have been using quite effectively to predict certain destruction parts that they can't quite predict and go in and... Yeah, that's the whole point. That's why we predict things because if we do not have prior knowledge, this would be the best way to go about it. If we know something has a particular probability of predicting, say it has a probability of 0.8 of predicting a good structure, then why not use it?


Next on my endless list of action platformers for the NES is Journey to Silius. My childhood friend and I actually rented this game a couple times back in the day, and I remember it being okay then, and it's pretty much okay now.  My thoughts on this game have not changed in the 20 plus years since I've played, and that is why would I want to play this when Mega Man is right there. I'm not calling this game a Mega Man rip-off because it's not. I'm just saying, why would I want to play this instead of any of the 6 Mega Man games for NES? Those games have the exact same game mechanics in addition to a lot of other stuff, as well as a lot more levels and a hell of a lot more personality.  It should be said though that Journey to Silius was originally developed to be based on the original Terminator movie, but apparently the movie license expired during development, so they scrapped the idea and just made a new game entirely. See, I could dig this game being a Terminator-styled game. I would have liked it a lot more as a kid for sure, imagining that you're in that world fighting the machines, but as it is, it's just blah. The story that came up with this standard fare for the time, Earth is getting too crowded so humanity is trying to develop colonies on other worlds to accommodate everyone, and you play as Jay McCrae, whose dad was blown up by terrorists, who are eventually against the humans for colonizing everything. And hey, wait a minute, wasn't this the story of the game I just reviewed? Logeman? Come on, man. I don't want to hate on this game too much though, it does have its strong points. I do enjoy the boss fights quite a bit. The presentation here is great. You enter a room with ominous music, there's a dramatic pause, and finally here's the boss, some machine-like monstrosity of some kind. I just really enjoyed the timing here and how the boss was built up as this big deal. And I really enjoyed the music. The entire game has an absolutely badass soundtrack from start to finish. Sunsoft developed this game, and they tend to have memorable and catchy tunes for all their NES games. Journey to Silius might be the best of them all.  Anyway, is Journey to Silius worth playing today? Kinda sorta, not really, but maybe? I guess if you really like side-scrolling action platformers, but you're burnt out on games like Mega Man and Contra, then give it a shot, or maybe you just really like 8-bit-styled music, because that's my favorite part of this game by far. It's too bad there's only five stages, because I wanted to hear more. But yeah, Journey to Silius is okay, if not kinda generic. It's good enough, but it's not worth going out of your way to find.


For Team Roth entry, secured victory in Saturday's second staging of the Moutier-Miles, the English-speaking Caribbean's richest horse race contested at Kimana Spark in Jamaica. Breaking from the 15-box French rider, Julien Leperou, guided the six-year-old bay to a win for Florida-based Jamaican trainer, Rohan Crichton. Here's eight commentators, Brian Rickmon with the call. Racing out wide of horses, Mojito the gray races up next, Ability on the outside, I am Fred as they leave the five. In behind those, that's American tap, Atomica has a lot of work to do, along with Is that a fact? They are joined at the hip. Monimizer races up next as they go charging now inside the last half of a mile. Perfect rule left toward the back of the field and the gray Duke will be running late as usual as they charge toward the final three in the Moutier-Miles. It's the Philly Mamma Mia. She's brave on that lead. Rough entry now sent in chase by Leperou as they're about to arrive at the 516th. Watch Ability closing in on the green silks. Mahogany is also budding to the boil, but they're into the lane and still they have not been able to head Mamma Mia here now. It's Rough entry and Rough entry grabs the lead. Mamma Mia fought us down against Surreal Ability. It's wound up for run, but it is Rough entry and Julien Leperou. This is the Moutier-Miles and Rough entry and Julien Leperou begin to streak away from them. Inside the final 16th, it seems to be all over Rough entry, the foreign invader. And Julien Leperou take the second running of the Moutier-Miles. Ability is second. Mamma Mia, Is that a fact? His fourth and perfect brew is fifth. All right. Well, the man at the helm, the analysis. Who does the analysis, of course? And he's been there at Kimana Spark. Michael Cain, he joins us on set. Well, we had you in studio on Friday. We had a good chat. Lancelot's here. Ricardo was not. Talk to me about what we saw from the Moutier-Miles this Saturday. Rough entry came up trumps and he proved a lot of us wrong. Yes, definitely Rough entry. First, let me say, kudos to the connections of Rough entry, particularly Trina Rowan Crichton, who is Jamaican, born overseas based. And this is his first horse ever at Kimana Spark, Saturday's first horse in the richest race ever at Kimana Spark. And he won. So kudos to Rowan Crichton and Julien Leperou, riding for the first time in Jamaica as well, winning his second race. You want to race earlier with Captain Calico. So it's the first time for the horse running at Kimana Spark. And it's a win in the richest race ever. So kudos to the connections there of Rough entry. The race in and of itself, when I had a look at the replay, the review side of it, the word anti-climatic seems to have come to mind over and over. Because we didn't see the big run expected from Atomica. She actually lost the rider three foot arms out. The big run from Maharini wasn't forthcoming either. And the three old finish let her race, Mamma Mia. She showed good pace and speed. She won the 1,000, she won the oak. So we know that she has talent. But to tear off in 23 flat, 45 flat, 110 flat, leading the likes of Atomica, right away Algo.  That easily, that wasn't expected. So the big performance is from Maharini. I am afraid she's my destiny, even right away Algo, in addition to Atomica, wasn't forthcoming. But as I said, kudos to Rough entry. They did it first time ever racing. And it was exuberant confidence by the connections of Rough entry to never race him prior to the Muute mile. So he was in Ireland for a couple of months, well. And he decided not to race. So that was a very high level of confidence in his ability to win the race straight out of the bat. So kudos, one by seven lengths or seven and a half lengths, 138 flat, a new stakes record. And we're told that he's going to stay in the island. So we could be in treat of seeing him next season in the third running of the Muute mile. What I found is leading up to this race, everybody who felt as if Rough entry would not win was just speaking about the fact that, new to the country, never raced there before. And then I even heard from some of the trainers because I chatted with them when I go to the track, saying that the trainer was not doing the best during exercise because he didn't want to wise enough people as to what was expected from this horse.  Okay, well, it could have been onto something there for real. Michael, he didn't want you to know, so you can do the odds. Well, I gave him 10 to one, and I must say that some patriotism was involved there because I never saw him run before locally and there are all the big horses, Atomica, my favorite horse to tip all the time. She always wins when I tip her, except for these instances where some things go wrong. So she won five consecutive races coming to this and really always take pride in tipping Atomica. So I couldn't have gone against her to tip a foreign horse that I've never seen performed before. She really disappointed you. Yes, I was really disappointed, but that's a breaks of racing, can't win every time. 20 seconds, what went wrong with Atomica? Well, let me say, let me first say as well, the front wraps are on. I've never seen front wraps on Atomica ever since she has raced. Explain what that means for those of us who never go at a K-minus five. Vet wraps on the four legs. So our four legs had on vet wraps. And all of the other races that she won this year, and as far as I can remember, last year she didn't have on any vet wraps. So that could have been a sign of maybe there's some concern there. At the same time, she didn't come out of the starting gate in good order. So from the get go, it wasn't her game at all. All right, well, Michael Kain, I want to thank you so much. You visited us twice within a couple of days. I hope you're not a stranger and you join us when there are other events at K-minus five. Pleasure is all mine and I look forward to it as well. Thank you so much. Well, viewers, let's take a quick break. And with the time that we have left, we're going to bring you the best of interactive.


Leonardo da Vinci, the true renaissance man. No doubt you'd recognize the Mona Lisa, and you've probably seen a model of one of his countless inventions. These are all the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The celebrated painter and inventor was born in 1452 in Vinci, Italy, and those were only two of his many talents. He was also a sculptor, architect, philosopher, engineer, and scientist. His portrait, the Mona Lisa, is the best known painting in the world. He painted it between 1503 and 1506, and the identity of the woman behind that mysterious smile is still disputed today. Almost as famous is his mural, The Last Supper, which portrays Jesus with his disciples. Leonardo experimented with a new type of paint for the mural, which is why it's unfortunately very faded. Typical for the renaissance, his subjects were mostly religious. Yet his work demonstrates that his true fascination was with nature, why clouds form, how plants grow, or how the human body is put together. Anatomy is also the focus of the Vitruvian man, a human being standing in the center of a circle and a square. Leonardo's groundbreaking drawing depicts the ideal human body measurements and proportions. Today, the drawing is featured on Italy's one euro coin. One of Leonardo's greatest dreams was to fly. By observing the movements of birds, he invented the very first flying machines. A parachute was later assembled by scientists in the year 2000 using his original design, and it worked. The sky wasn't the limit for Leonardo, who was fascinated with water, too. He studied the flowing motions of the waves and applied his discoveries to technological innovations, including diving gear, irrigation systems, and the very first water meter. As an engineer, Leonardo was centuries ahead of his time. As early as 500 years ago, he designed the first precursors of the tank and the automobile, and even a solar reflector. He spent his final years in France. By his death in 1519, he had developed a legendary reputation as a Uomo Universale, or Jack of all trades. To this very day, Leonardo da Vinci is widely considered to be one of the most extraordinary people of all time.


For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On December 20th, the Ethiopian rebel group, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or the TPLF, announced that it would withdraw its troops back into the Tigray province. This is a key turning point in the war which began in November 2020, when the TPLF attacked a federation military base in Tigray. Over the course of the year, the conflict has caused a massive humanitarian disaster which was compounded by allegations of the TPLF seizing aid trucks. There have also been a lot of allegations of human rights violations. The TPLF now claims that its bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace. What have been the trajectory of events that have led to this development? How has the fighting developed in recent times? Ilya Samare, editor of Horn of Africa TV, answers these questions. Let's begin with events at the end of June, June 29, to be precise when the Government of Ethiopia declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire and withdrew from Tigray for several purposes, primarily to give the peasants during the rainy season a chance to plow their farmland and secondly, to give peace a chance, basically a moment of reflection on all sides, especially the people of Tigray to reflect. But what happened was that immediately upon the withdrawal, the TPLF, disemboldened by this, decided to launch massive offensive in all directions, west, south, east, towards the Amhara, the Afar region, and then westward towards the Sunni border. So that's what's been happening during the past, say, from beginning of July up to recent times, five months or five months. And the TPLF initially made advances in some fronts, particularly the Amhara from to the south and the Afar area. But it made fierce resistance, of course, during this time. There was no considerations of peace at all. It was all belligerent talk on the part of the TPLF. And of course, the international community, so-called the Western countries, the US and the European countries, didn't say anything during this time about negotiations. So it kept advancing. And as it advanced, massive atrocities, human rights abuses, massacres, to which the international community again gave deaf ear. During this time also, they were bragging that within two, three weeks they would reach to Addis Ababa. And they were saying, their top leaders were saying on record, that there is no nobody to negotiate with. Essentially, the central government is crumbling, that's what they were claiming. So Bellicose belligerent tone of voice was the only thing that we heard. But beginning of early November, the government forces regrouped massive mobilization, total mobilization. The prime minister himself decided to go to the warfront as commander-in-chief, prime minister Abiyah Ahmed Ali, that is. And so the fortunes were reversed quickly. And you saw within weeks that the TPLF forces way overstretched beyond their home base of Tigray. I mean, hundreds of kilometers far away, their logistics lines were overextended. Their troops were also decimated, overstretched on all fronts. And within a few weeks, they were routed and fleeing helters towards their home base. But in this period of time, the past couple of weeks especially, the Ethiopian national defense forces in alliance with the regional militias of the Afar and Amhara regions encircled these forces of aggression from Tigray, invasionary forces. And I must say it was a total decimation. So for the TPLF now to declare that they were withdrawing to give peace a chance, it's laughable and hypocritical indeed. It is not that they are giving peace a chance by withdrawing, they were forced, they were routed to flee. And thus this time the tone has changed and they are appealing to the United Nations, to the Western patrots to save them, to declare no flies on and that's the situation we are in right now. In light of this offer, what is the position the Ethiopian government is likely to take? What are the ways ahead for peace and what might be the requirements? Well, the Ethiopian government is saying that they have been for peace all along, that this war was not of their doing, it was imposed on them, it was a treasonous insurrection act of the TPLF that ignited the war. TPLF mind you that at times was openly declaring forced secession. And so under these circumstances having given chance, peace, all the chance, having tried all avenues, the central government has no option but to see to it that this subversive force be completely disarmed and is no longer poses a threat to national sovereignty and stability and that all the actors that were responsible for the massive atrocities, violations of human rights and war destructions have to be brought to justice. This is the position of the government of Ethiopia. At the same time they have initiated a national dialogue. A commission has been appointed by the parliament, commission for national dialogue. So all issues pertaining to the political situation in the country, all controversial or contentious issues will be discussed, all actors will be invited to the table. And through this national dialogue, national reconciliation and a path forward will be charted. So this is the only option that the government sees as a way out, as a peaceful way out, but the TPLF war mongers that have been responsible for this massive destruction have to be brought to justice is what the government is saying. And I think within the next few weeks, this adventurous war mongering of the TPLF will be brought to an end and the culprits, the criminals, war criminals brought to face justice.