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Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Low paid staff to get 80% of wage when unwell

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Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Charlotte EdwardsTrade reporterGetty PhotographsA couple of million low-paid...

Most cancers circle of relatives ‘financially damaged’ through look forward to advantages

Kerry BoltonDanielle Roberts, from North Wales, advised the...

Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Low paid staff to get 80% of wage when unwell

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Most cancers circle of relatives ‘financially damaged’ through look forward to advantages

Kerry BoltonDanielle Roberts, from North Wales, advised the...

Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Low paid staff to get 80% of wage when unwell

Charlotte EdwardsTrade reporterGetty PhotographsA couple of million low-paid...

Most cancers circle of relatives ‘financially damaged’ through look forward to advantages

Kerry BoltonDanielle Roberts, from North Wales, advised the...

Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Low paid staff to get 80% of wage when unwell

Charlotte EdwardsTrade reporterGetty PhotographsA couple of million low-paid...

Most cancers circle of relatives ‘financially damaged’ through look forward to advantages

Kerry BoltonDanielle Roberts, from North Wales, advised the...

Kano’s Islamic police arrest Nigerian Muslims for consuming in public right through Ramadan

The Islamic police within the northern Nigerian state...

Prolonged interview: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos on moviegoing lately

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Recent volcanic ‘fires’ in Iceland began with vast magma pooling just beneath the surface, scientists report

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Recent volcanic ‘fires’ in Iceland began with vast magma pooling just beneath the surface, scientists report


Recent volcanic 'fires' in Iceland triggered by storage and melting in crust
Visitors witness 2022 Meradalir eruption. Credit: Savannah Kelly/Scripps Oceanography

Scientists from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have detected geochemical signatures of magma pooling and melting beneath the subsurface during the “Fagradalsfjall Fires,” that began on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula in 2021.

Continuous sampling of the erupted lavas from the Fagradalsfjall volcano enabled a detailed time-series analysis of geochemical signals. These show that the start of the eruption began with massive pooling of magma, contrasting the initial hypothesis for magma ascent straight from the mantle.

Scripps Oceanography geologist James Day and his colleagues report on the analyses July 31 in the journal Nature.

“By collecting lavas at regular intervals, and then measuring their compositions in the laboratory, we can tell what’s feeding the volcano at depth,” said study lead Day. “It’s a bit like taking regular measurements of someone’s blood. In this case, the volcano’s ‘blood’ is the molten lavas that emanate so spectacularly from it.”

Day, students at Scripps Oceanography, and international colleagues have been studying basaltic lavas from other recent volcanic eruptions in addition to Iceland. These include the 2021 eruption of the Tajogaite volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands and the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawai’i. They have found evidence for similar magma pooling beneath La Palma.

“What makes the Iceland eruption so remarkable is the huge signal of crust within the earliest lavas,” said Day. “Along with our studies from La Palma, it suggests crustal magma storage may be a common process involved in the run up to larger basaltic eruptions like those in Iceland or the Canary Islands. This information will be important for understanding volcanic hazard in the future,” he added, “as it may help to forecast volcanic activity.”

Previous studies had suggested that the Fagradalsfjall Fires erupted from the surface without interaction with the crust. Day’s team, including UC San Diego undergraduate student Savannah Kelly, used the isotopic composition of the element osmium to understand what was happening beneath the volcano.

“What’s useful about using osmium,” said Day, “is that one of its isotopes is produced by the radiogenic decay of another metal, rhenium. Because the elements behave differently during melting, one of the elements, rhenium, is enriched in Earth’s crust.” Day and colleagues took advantage of the distinct behaviors of rhenium and osmium to show that the early lavas from the Fagradalsfjall Fires were contaminated by crust.

Earth can be broken up into a series of layers. The deepest portion is the metallic core. The shallowest layers are the atmosphere, ocean, and the rocky crust. All human beings live on the crust, which is dominated by rock types such as granite or basalt like that found in Iceland’s lavas. In between the core and crust is the vast mantle of the Earth. This mantle layer is where melting occurs to produce the magmas feeding volcanoes like those in Iceland.

Previous work published on the recent volcanic eruptions on the Reykjanes Ridge had used other geochemical fingerprints to study the lavas. These fingerprints suggested only mantle contributions to the lavas. Osmium isotopes are highly sensitive to the crust and enabled the unambiguous identification of its addition into the early lavas.

“The work began as undergraduate research experience for Savannah (Kelly) and we fully expected to see mantle signatures in the lavas throughout the eruption,” said Day. “You can imagine our astonishment when we were sitting in front of the mass spectrometer measuring the early samples and saw obvious signals of crust within them.”

The team analyzed lavas erupting from the Fagradalsfjall volcano in 2021 and in 2022. The 2021 lavas were contaminated by crust, the 2022 lavas were not. They conclude that the earliest lavas pooled in the crust and interaction with the crust may have helped trigger the eruption.

“After that, it appears that the magma of later eruptions used pre-existing pathways to get to the surface,” Day said.

Day and colleagues plan to continue their work on Iceland and other basaltic eruptions into the future. Previous eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula have lasted for centuries.

“It seems that the volcanic ‘fires’ in Iceland will outlast me,” Day said. “The eruptions that are likely to continue there will provide a treasure trove of important scientific information on how volcanoes work and their associated hazards. Our study shows that the beginning of the eruption was not just visually spectacular, but was also geochemically so.”

Besides Day and Kelly, Geoffrey Cook of Scripps Oceanography, William Moreland and Thor Thordarsson from the University of Iceland, and Valentin Troll from Uppsala University in Sweden were involved in the research.

More information:
James Day, Deep crustal assimilation during the 2021 Fagradalsfjall Fires, Iceland, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07750-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07750-0

Citation:
Recent volcanic ‘fires’ in Iceland began with vast magma pooling just beneath the surface, scientists report (2024, July 31)
retrieved 31 July 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-volcanic-iceland-began-vast-magma.html

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Researchers explore the potential of clean energy markets as a hedging tool

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Researchers explore the potential of clean energy markets as a hedging tool


Pusan National University researchers explore the potential of clean energy markets as a hedging tool
Researchers demonstrate that investing in clean energy assets, such as renewable energy stocks, green bonds, and clean technology indices, can help mitigate risks associated with stock market volatility. These investments are influenced by different factors than traditional assets, providing diversification and reducing overall portfolio risk. Credit: Professor Sang Hoon Kang from Pusan National University, Korea

Climate change has significantly impacted lives worldwide and prompted governments to adopt policies promoting sustainability and use of clean energy sources. This shift to clean energy has triggered increased investments in renewable energy and technologies.

Clean energy assets possess a unique advantage—they are not affected by parameters influencing their traditional stock market counterparts. However, the interactions between the clean energy and traditional stock markets are not well understood.

To fill this gap, a group of researchers led by Professor Sang Hoon Kang from Pusan National University explored the relationship between clean energy indices and major international stock markets. The researchers investigated if clean energy investments could provide stability when traditional stock markets experience turbulence. Their findings were published online on 10 July 2024 in the journal of Energy Economics.

The researchers used a method called tail quantile connectedness regression to study how different financial assets interacted, especially during extreme market conditions. This method let them examine how shocks from major stock indices like the SP500 and the FTSE100, as well as the Renewable Energy and Clean Technology Index (RECTI), affect other indices such as Japan’s Nikkei225 and the Global Clean Energy Index (GCEI).

Prof. Kang explains, “Investors seek to protect their portfolios from volatility by diversifying with assets that don’t follow the same trends as traditional stocks. Clean energy assets are promising for this purpose because they are influenced by different factors, such as government policies and technological advancements in renewable energy.”

The study found that financial shocks often start in major markets like the US, the EU, and the UK, and from indices such as the RECTI, then flow to markets in Japan and the GCEI.

During normal and bull market (when stock prices are increasing) phases short-term effects dominated, whereas during declining or busting market states, the impacts ranged from intermediate to long-term ones. This shows that different clean energy indices play unique roles in the global financial system, affecting how information and risks are spread across markets, and highlights their resilience and lasting influence, even in challenging economic climates.

Furthermore, the study identified specific roles played by different clean energy indices in information transmission. For instance, the RECTI tends to act actively, while the Green Bond Index remains relatively isolated. The GCEI, on the other hand, tends to receive information passively.

These findings suggest that clean energy investments can act as hedges or buffers during fluctuating market conditions, promoting financial stability and resilience against economic turbulence.

Prof. Kang elaborates, “Our findings suggest that clean energy assets paired with other financial assets such as WTI and CSI300, should form a significant portion of a diversified investment portfolio to mitigate risks during different market conditions.”

He concludes with the long-term impact of their study, “Heightened awareness and better understanding of the spillover effects between these markets can drive policy decisions that support sustainable economic growth and environmental protection, ultimately fostering a more resilient global financial system.”

In summary, the expanding clean energy sector holds great potential to promote financial stability amidst fluctuating markets.

More information:
Salem Adel Ziadat et al, Are clean energy markets hedges for stock markets? A tail quantile connectedness regression, Energy Economics (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107757

Citation:
Researchers explore the potential of clean energy markets as a hedging tool (2024, July 31)
retrieved 31 July 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-explore-potential-energy-hedging-tool.html

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Microsoft cloud unit miss dulls bright earnings

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Microsoft cloud unit miss dulls bright earnings


Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company is focused on leading the way into the 'AI era'
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the company is focused on leading the way into the ‘AI era’

Microsoft on Tuesday reported strong quarterly earnings but saw its shares slip on figures showing its crucial cloud computing unit did not grow as strongly as expected.

Microsoft said it made a profit of $22 billion on $64.7 billion in revenue in the recently ended quarter, up from the same period a year earlier.

Cloud unit revenue of $36.8 billion, however, disappointed investors and shares slid nearly three percent to $411.40 in after-market trades.

Money brought in from cloud computing has driven blockbuster earnings quarter after quarter, and a hint that stellar growth may be slowing was enough to give investors pause.

“While there will be some knee-jerk reaction in Microsoft stock after hours, we believe the takeaways for the broader tech sector is this AI monetization story is real,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

Microsoft is among the major contenders in the race to build out artificial intelligence systems, pouring billions of dollars into the technology in the hope it will pay off.

Microsoft is keen to monetize generative AI, having moved the fastest to implement it across all its products, and pouring $13 billion into OpenAI, the start-up stalwart behind ChatGPT.

CFRA Research viewed the earnings results as “largely in line” across Microsoft’s core businesses and believes that Microsoft is “incrementally improving” the money it makes from AI, according to senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.

“Still, we acknowledge that the better-than-expected cloud results from Alphabet last week had investors looking for more,” Zino said.

Google cloud shines

Google-parent Alphabet reported profit and revenue that beat expectations as its AI-amped cloud and search ads businesses thrived.

Winning the big bet on AI is “crucial” for the group, said Jeremy Goldman of Emarketer, “but the market is willing to give them a level of patience.”

The AI frenzy has helped Microsoft’s cloud computing business grow in the double digits, which analysts said could be hard to sustain.

Microsoft’s big stake in OpenAI along with its own Copilot AI help it maintain a leadership position in AI, according to Emarketer senior analyst Gadjo Sevilla.

Revenue from Microsoft’s AI-infused “Intelligent Cloud” unit was $28.5 billion, a 19-percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, according to the earnings figures.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on an earnings call that use of its AI offerings is ramping up, from workplace software to Bing search and Copilot AI relied on by developers.

“I’m energized about the opportunities ahead,” Nadella said. “We are investing for the long term in our fundamentals, in our innovation and in our people.”

Microsoft’s Azure platform drove a strong increase in revenue from server products and cloud services, according to the company.

Nadella said the company is “focused on meeting the mission-critical needs of our customers across our at-scale platforms today, while also ensuring we lead the AI era.”

Microsoft reported a net income of $88.1 billion for its fiscal year on revenue of $245.1 billion, up 22 percent and 16 percent respectively.

Money taken in by Microsoft’s Xbox video game unit leaped 61 percent, boosted by the acquisition of Activision, according to earnings figures.

Microsoft said costs to attract visitors to its search and news services rose 19 percent, as it pressed to compete with Google.

© 2024 AFP

Citation:
Microsoft cloud unit miss dulls bright earnings (2024, July 31)
retrieved 31 July 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-microsoft-cloud-dulls-bright.html

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Robots, like animals, can adapt after injuries

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Robots, like animals, can adapt after injuries


Robots, like animals, can adapt after injuries
Views of the experimental set-up and parameters. Credit: Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2024.0141

Fish fins and insect wings are amazing pieces of natural engineering capable of efficiently moving their owners through water or air. People creating machines to swim or fly have long looked to animals as their models, designing airplanes with wings and boats with fin-shaped rudders. Over the past decades, researchers at Caltech and elsewhere have been exploring bioinspired engineering to see if other natural forms of motion might inform mechanical engineering.

Bio-inspired compensatory strategies for damage to flapping robotic propulsors” was published in the July 3 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Many animals use flapping as a means of propulsion, and robots equipped with flappers can also propel themselves efficiently. But the flappers of the animal kingdom—in this case fish and insects—have another trick up their sleeve. Even with damaged wings or fins, these animals can adapt the mechanics of their motions to compensate. Some species of fish can survive with as much as 76 percent of their fins damaged and still be able to swim.

Could a robotic flapper achieve the same feat? This is the question that inspired a study in the lab of Mory Gharib (Ph.D. ’83), the Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Medical Engineering, the director and Booth-Kresa Leadership Chair of the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST), and director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at Caltech.

Gharib, together with Meredith Hooper, an aerospace graduate student, and Isabel Scherl, a postdoctoral scholar research associate in mechanical and civil engineering, analyzed a flapping robot’s motions in a tank of oil, which allows for more accurate measurements than water due to its signal-to-noise ratio. They then amputated a portion of the robot’s flapper.






Machine learning for propulsion adaptation

Without intervention, the robot would still be flapping futilely in the tank, having lost its ability to swim. But in addition to bioinspired propulsion, the researchers also gave the robot bioinspired adaptation. Following an injury, fish and insects attempt to propel themselves in new ways, experimenting until they find the stroke mechanics that can return them to full activity.

Mimicking this, the robot was programmed to run repeated trials of various stroke mechanics, which were then evaluated through machine learning. Eventually, the robot, like an injured fish or insect, achieved a successful alternative form of propulsion with its damaged flapper even when 50 percent of it was removed.

“The robot tries swimming in 10 different ways,” Hooper explains. “The forces while it is swimming in the oil tank are measured so that we can compare both the force production and its efficiency. The machine learning algorithm selects the top candidate trajectories based on how well they produced our desired force. The algorithm then comes up with another set of 10 trajectories inspired by the previous set.

“This learning process repeats—evaluation, modification, and creation—until the top candidates are all more or less the same, having learned the most efficient swimming motion for a given force production.”

Robots, like animals, can adapt after injuries
PIV plane and sample image. Credit: Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2024.0141

Propulsion adaptation in practice

An autonomous robot is only autonomous until it is not, owing to some type of damage or malfunction. By endowing robotic mechanisms with the ability to adapt to changed capabilities through machine learning, the scope of their autonomy is increased.

As Hooper says, “Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that provide crucial information about how our oceans work—what exists in the deep sea, how human activities are disrupting ocean dynamics—are very expensive to build and deploy. If an AUV’s propulsion system fails in an inaccessible area without this means of adaptation, it essentially becomes ocean trash. Our finding should increase the probability that an AUV could successfully complete its mission and be recovered.”

“Adaptability through machine learning may also improve the function of micro air vehicles (MAVs) which can navigate small gaps in complex terrain during emergency-response scenarios such as searching for trapped individuals in the aftermath of an earthquake. This type of terrain makes it more likely that the MAV will be damaged during its search. Our finding could make MAVs more robust for deployment in challenging environments where damage could be common,” Hooper says.

Although both the experimental robot and living animals can modify their stroke mechanics to adapt to damage, they do not make the same modifications. Theoretically, in all cases, the flappers (or fins or wings) should change both amplitude and frequency to achieve optimal propulsion after damage. But most studies of fish with fin damage show that the fish increase the amplitude but not necessarily the frequency of their strokes to compensate, while the robot modified both.

“This is most likely due to the effect of evolutionary pressures on fish and insects that aren’t relevant to a robotic use case,” Hooper explains. “How flapping robots best adjust to damage does not necessarily mimic nature.”

More information:
M. L. Hooper et al, Bio-inspired compensatory strategies for damage to flapping robotic propulsors, Journal of The Royal Society Interface (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2024.0141

Citation:
Robots, like animals, can adapt after injuries (2024, July 31)
retrieved 31 July 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-07-robots-animals-injuries.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





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Autonomy boosts college student attendance and performance

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Autonomy boosts college student attendance and performance


college
Credit: Helena Lopes from Pexels

A new paper from Carnegie Mellon University indicates that giving students more autonomy leads to better attendance and improved performance. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

In one experiment, students were given the choice to make their own attendance mandatory. Contradicting common faculty beliefs, 90% of students in the initial study chose to do so, committing themselves to attending class reliably or to having their final grades docked. Under this “optional-mandatory attendance” policy, students came to class more reliably than students whose attendance had been mandated.

Student choice in learning

The pattern has held true. In additional studies across five classes that included 60–200 students, 73%–95% opted for mandatory attendance, and at most 10% regretted their decision by the semester’s end.

“Like Ulysses, students know they will face significant temptations. By making their attendance mandatory, they exercise self-control over their future behavior,” said first author Simon Cullen, assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Dietrich College AI and Education Fellow.

“We are born curious, and we naturally enjoy mastering many challenging learning tasks, but controlling course policies like mandatory attendance can undermine that motivation.”

The role of autonomy in academic success

According to Cullen, the findings challenge widely held beliefs about student behavior. He continues that many educators worry that given the choice, students would opt for the easiest path possible. However, this study paints a starkly different picture.

“Anytime in a class that you give freedom to choose, you give students the feeling of control over their education,” said Danny Oppenheimer, professor in the Social and Decision Sciences and Psychology departments at CMU and co-author of the article. “It puts the learning in the students’ hands and increases their motivation.”

Preparing students for real-world challenges

A second experiment indicated that when given the option to switch to an easier homework stream at any time before midterms, 85%–90% of students chose to tackle the more challenging work. The “optional-mandatory homework” policy led students to spend more time on their assignments and to learn more over the semester compared to students who were compelled to complete the same work. Cullen gauged the improved understanding of the material by examining how well students did on the problem sets throughout the semester.

These findings suggest that the common practice of imposing strict rules on college students may be counterproductive. Cullen and Oppenheimer found that allowing students more autonomy could lead to better academic outcomes and prepare them more effectively for the real world.

“The thought was that giving them greater control over their own learning would prepare them for the real world,” Cullen said. “Students can be driven to excel in our classes by the same sources of motivation that drive them to pursue countless projects and passions that require no external incentives. But only if we let them choose to learn.”

Enhancing Engagement and Retention in Higher Education

The researchers note their findings also highlight a significant gap in current educational practices. Despite decades of research demonstrating the importance of autonomy to motivation, autonomy-promoting policies remain rare in higher education.

“It’s as if we’ve been ignoring one of the most powerful tools in our educational toolkit,” said Oppenheimer. “By harnessing students’ intrinsic motivation to learn through increased autonomy, we achieve better results than through external pressure.”

The researchers caution that their findings, while promising, have limitations. The study was conducted at a single university with a limited number of students, and more research is needed to determine if the results will replicate across different types of institutions and student populations. The authors are collaborating with a diverse set of institutions to test its broader applicability.

“We’re super excited about these results, but we’re also eager to see how our interventions work across a range of settings,” Cullen said. “We’re particularly interested in exploring how autonomy might benefit students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with disabilities.”

The study opens up new avenues for research and practical applications in higher education. The authors suggest that similar choice architectures could be applied to other aspects of college courses, such as deadlines, course materials and even exam formats.

“As colleges and universities grapple with issues of student engagement, retention and academic success, this research offers a fresh perspective,” said Cullen. “By trusting students with more control over their education, institutions might not only improve academic outcomes but also foster a more positive and empowering learning environment.”

More information:
Simon Cullen et al, Choosing to learn: The importance of student autonomy in higher education, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado6759

Citation:
Autonomy boosts college student attendance and performance (2024, July 31)
retrieved 31 July 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-autonomy-boosts-college-student.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





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