Search results for: long term

Authors: Siti Noor Syahirah Mohd Sabri

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The oil and gas industry is committed to net zero carbon emissions because the consequences of climate change could be catastrophic unless responded to very soon. One way of reducing CO₂ emissions is to inject it into a depleted reservoir buried underground. This greenhouse gas reduction technique significantly reduces CO₂ released into the atmosphere. In general, depleted oil and gas reservoirs provide readily available sites for the storage of CO₂ in offshore areas. This is mainly due to the hydrocarbons have been optimally produced and the existence of voids for effective CO₂ storage. Hence, make it a good candidate for a CO₂ well injector location. Geological storage sites are often evaluated in terms of capacity, injectivity and containment. Leakage through the cap rock or existing well is the main concern in the depleted fields. In order to develop these fields as CO₂ storage sites, the long-term integrity of wells drilled in these oil & gas fields must be ascertained to ensure good CO₂ containment. Well, integrity is often defined as the ability to contain fluids without significant leakage through the project lifecycle. Most plugged and abandoned (P & A) wells in Peninsular Malaysia have drilled 20 – 30 years ago and were not designed to withstand downhole conditions having >50%vol CO₂ and CO₂/H₂O mixture. In addition, Corrosive-Resistant Alloy (CRA) tubular and CO₂-resistant cement was not used during good construction. The reservoir pressure and temperature conditions may have further degraded the material strength and elevated the corrosion rate. Understanding all the uncertainties that may have affected cement-casing bonds, such as the quality of cement behind the casing, subsidence effect, corrosion rate, etc., is the first step toward well integrity evaluation. Secondly, proper quantification of all the uncertainties involved needs to be done to ensure long-term underground storage objectives of CO₂ are achieved. This paper will discuss challenges associated with estimating the performance of well barrier elements in existing P&A wells. Risk ranking of the existing P&A wells is to be carried out in order to ensure the integrity of the storage site is maintained for long-term CO₂ storage. High-risk existing P&A wells are to be re-entered to restore good integrity and to reduce future leakage that may happen. In addition, the requirement to design a fit-for-purpose monitoring and mitigation technology package for potential CO₂ leakage/seepage in the marine environment will be discussed accordingly. The holistic approach will ensure that the integrity is maintained, and CO₂ is contained underground for years to come.

Keywords: CCUS, well integrity, co₂ storage, offshore

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Authors: Naylya Djumaeva

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Since the end of 2019, the world has been shaken by an infection that has claimed the lives of more than six and a half million patients. Currently, SARS-CoV-2 not only causes acute damage but has long-term consequences affecting every organ and has brought a wave of a new chronic disabling condition called Long-Covid..This preliminary study describes an application of un-explored properties of low-level laser radiation with laser- light emitter in the field of which is placed Copegus (Ribavirin) with the aim of treatment of patients with Long-Covid syndrome. The difference from the traditional use of the drug is that Copegus was not prescribed to the patient by the traditional method - orally or intravenously, and the medicinal properties of the drug were introduced into the patient’s body using the un-explored properties of low-power laser radiation. Ninety eight patients with Long- Covid syndrome were observed. The obtained findings suggest that under the influence of the field formed into the laser- light emitter with a Copegus placed inside the field, the remote transfer of pharmacological properties of Сopegus occurs. Conclusions about the produced effect of exposure were made based on improvement in the condition of patients, the disappearance of complaints, and positive changes in various diagnostic tests performed by the patients. Biography: Djumaeva N completed her PhD from the Institute of Epidemiology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in 2000. In her dissertation work devoted to the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection, she presented data on the possible influence of Complex Homeopathic Preparations on the organization of bound intracellular water in the cells of the body. She is the Consultant (Neurologist) at the Scientific-Research Institute for Virology, Uzbekistan, and an expert in “medicament testing” method (30 years). She has published 43 papers, including 2 patents.

Keywords: long covid, low level laser, copegus, laser- light emmiter

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Authors: Tomasz Komornicki

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The primary aim of the presentation is to try to model border traffic and, at the same time to explain on which economic variables the intensity of border traffic depended in the long term. For this purpose, long series of traffic data on the Polish borders were used. Models were estimated for three variants of explanatory variables: a) for total arrivals and departures (total movement of Poles and foreigners), b) for arrivals and departures of Poles, and c) for arrivals and departures of foreigners. Each of the defined explanatory variables in the models appeared as the logarithm of the natural number of persons. Data from 1994-2017 were used for modeling (for internal Schengen borders for the years 1994-2007). Information on the number of people arriving in and leaving Poland was collected for a total of 303 border crossings. On the basis of the analyses carried out, it was found that one of the main factors determining border traffic is generally differences in the level of economic development (GDP) and the condition of the economy (level of unemployment) and the degree of border permeability. Also statistically significant for border traffic are differences in the prices of goods (fuels, tobacco, and alcohol products) and services (mainly basic ones, e.g., hairdressing services). Such a relationship exists mainly on the eastern border (border traffic determined largely by differences in the prices of goods) and on the border with Germany (in the first analysed period, border traffic was determined mainly by the prices of goods, later - after Poland's accession to the EU and the Schengen area - also by the prices of services). The models also confirmed differences in the set of factors shaping the volume and structure of border traffic on the Polish borders resulting from general geopolitical conditions, with the year 2007 being an important caesura, after which the classical population mobility factors became visible. The results obtained were additionally related to changes in traffic that occurred as a result of the CPOVID-19 pandemic and as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Keywords: border, modal structure, transport, Ukraine

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Authors: Pia Berner Hansson, Robert Murison Anders Lund, Hammar Åsa

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Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is often associated with high levels of stress and disturbances in the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) system, yielding high levels of cortisol, in addition to cognitive dysfunction. Previous studies in this patient group have shown a relationship between cortisol profile and cognitive functioning in the acute phase of MDD and that the patients had significantly less suppression after dexamethasone administration. However, few studies have investigated this relationship over time and in phases of symptom reduction. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationships between cortisol levels after the Dexamethasone Suppression Test (DST) and cognitive function in a long term perspective in MDD patients. Patients meeting the DSM-IV criteria for a MDD were included in the study and tested in symptom reduction. A control group was included. Cortisol was measured in saliva collected with Salivette sampling devices. Saliva samples were collected 4 times during a 24 hours period over two consecutive days: at awakening, after 45 minutes, after 7 hours and at 11 pm. Dexamethasone (1.0 mg) was given on Day 1 at 11 pm. The neuropsychological test battery consisted of standardized tests measuring memory and Executive Functioning (EF). Cortisol levels did not differ significantly between patients and controls on Day 1 or Day 2. Both groups showed significant suppression after Dexamethasone. There were no correlations between cortisol levels or suppression after Dexamethasone and cognitive measures. The results indicate that the HPA-axis functioning normalizes in phases of symptom reduction in MDD patients and that there no relation between cortisol profile and cognitive functioning in memory or EF.

Keywords: depression, MDD, cortisol, suppression, cognitive functioning

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Authors: John E Coumbe-Lilley

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This IRB-approved study explored athletes' emotional recovery experiences following a severe sports injury keeping them out of their sport for six months or longer. A realistic thematic analytical approach was used to interpret the findings of 44 semi-structured interviews of athletes who competed at high school, college, and professional levels of competition. Thematic analysis validated by a self-rating scale demonstrated athletes cross a series of emotional thresholds during their injury rehabilitation process. Results showed athletes crossed two to six emotional thresholds before positive emotion and coping were consistently experienced following their injury. Athletes reported being unequipped to cope with negative emotional intensity, the longevity of recovery, and enduring depression during long-term rehabilitation. Positive emotional recovery was expected no sooner than nine months and up to 2.5 years following a sports injury. In addition, 100% of athletes received no psychological skills training (PST) for coping and recovery, and 93% of athletes indicated passive psychological coping strategies in the first month following injury, which extended their time to recover. Athletes recommended immediate, realistic, and evidence-based strategies benefitting the emotional recovery of severely injured athletes emotional recovery to improve athletes' emotional well-being during long-term rehabilitation and enhance their return to sport. Future experimental research might compare the post-PST program that emerged from this study to determine its efficacy in improving the recovery of severely injured athletes.

Keywords: sports, injury, rehabilitation, psychological skills training, coping

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Authors: Marcio Freire Cruz, Naoaki Ono, Shigehiko Kanaya, Carlos Arthur Mattos Teixeira Cavalcante

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The systems that record patient care information, known as Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and those that monitor vital signs of patients, such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure have been extremely valuable for the effectiveness of the patient’s treatment. Several kinds of research have been using data from EMRs and vital signs of patients to predict illnesses. Among them, we highlight those that intend to predict, classify, or, at least identify patterns, of sepsis illness in patients under vital signs monitoring. Sepsis is an organic dysfunction caused by a dysregulated patient's response to an infection that affects millions of people worldwide. Early detection of sepsis is expected to provide a significant improvement in its treatment. Preceding works usually combined medical, statistical, mathematical and computational models to develop detection methods for early prediction, getting higher accuracies, and using the smallest number of variables. Among other techniques, we could find researches using survival analysis, specialist systems, machine learning and deep learning that reached great results. In our research, patients are modeled as points moving each hour in an n-dimensional space where n is the number of vital signs (variables). These points can reach a sepsis target point after some time. For now, the sepsis target point was calculated using the median of all patients’ variables on the sepsis onset. From these points, we calculate for each hour the position vector, the first derivative (velocity vector) and the second derivative (acceleration vector) of the variables to evaluate their behavior. And we construct a prediction model based on a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Network, including these derivatives as explanatory variables. The accuracy of the prediction 6 hours before the time of sepsis, considering only the vital signs reached 83.24% and by including the vectors position, speed, and acceleration, we obtained 94.96%. The data are being collected from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) Database, a public database that contains vital signs, laboratory test results, observations, notes, and so on, from more than 60.000 patients.

Keywords: dynamic analysis, long short-term memory, prediction, sepsis

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Authors: Ying Ying Liu, Austin Cooke, Parimala Thulasiraman

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Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted a recent spark in research on Internet of Vehicles (IoV). In this paper, we focus on one research area in IoV: preserving location privacy of vehicle data. We discuss existing location privacy preserving techniques and provide a scheme for evaluating these techniques under IoV traffic condition. We propose a different strategy in applying Differential Privacy using k-d tree data structure to preserve location privacy and experiment on real world Gowalla data set. We show that our strategy produces differentially private data, good preservation of utility by achieving similar regression accuracy to the original dataset on an LSTM (Long Term Short Term Memory) neural network traffic predictor.

Keywords: differential privacy, internet of things, internet of vehicles, location privacy, privacy preservation scheme

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Authors: Asim Cengiz, Dede Basturk, Hakan Ozalp

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Practicing recurring resistance workout such as may cause changes in human muscle. These changes may be because combination if several factors determining physical fitness. Thus, it is important to identify these changes. Several studies were reviewed to investigate these changes. As a result, the changes included positive modifications in amplified citrate synthase (CS) maximal activity, increased capacity for pyruvate oxidation, improvement on molecular signaling on human performance, amplified resting muscle glycogen and whole GLUT4 protein content, better health outcomes such as enhancement in cardiorespiratory fitness. Sprint training also have numerous long long-term changes inhuman body such as better enzyme action, changes in muscle fiber and oxidative ability. This is important because SV is the critical factor influencing maximal cardiac output and therefore oxygen delivery and maximal aerobic power.

Keywords: sprint, training, performance, exercise

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Authors: Mohammad Abu-Shaira, Weishi Shi

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Adaptive learning, a commonly employed solution to drift, involves updating predictive models online during their operation to react to concept drifts, thereby serving as a critical component and natural extension for online learning systems that learn incrementally from each example. This paper introduces LSTM-SCCM “Long Short-Term Memory Stream Cruise Control Method”, a drift adaptation-as-a-service framework for online learning. LSTM-SCCM automates drift adaptation through prompt detection, drift magnitude quantification, dynamic hyperparameter tuning, performing shortterm optimization and model recalibration for immediate adjustments, and, when necessary, conducting long-term model recalibration to ensure deeper enhancements in model performance. LSTM-SCCM is incorporated into a suite of cutting-edge online regression models, assessing their performance across various types of concept drift using diverse datasets with varying characteristics. The findings demonstrate that LSTM-SCCM represents a notable advancement in both model performance and efficacy in handling concept drift occurrences. LSTM-SCCM stands out as the sole framework adept at effectively tackling concept drifts within regression scenarios. Its proactive approach to drift adaptation distinguishes it from conventional reactive methods, which typically rely on retraining after significant degradation to model performance caused by drifts. Additionally, LSTM-SCCM employs an in-memory approach combined with the Self-Adjusting Memory (SAM) architecture to enhance real-time processing and adaptability. The framework incorporates variable thresholding techniques and does not assume any particular data distribution, making it an ideal choice for managing high-dimensional datasets and efficiently handling large-scale data. Our experiments, which include abrupt, incremental, and gradual drifts across both low- and high-dimensional datasets with varying noise levels, and applied to four state-of-the-art online regression models, demonstrate that LSTM-SCCM is versatile and effective, rendering it a valuable solution for online regression models to address concept drift.

Keywords: automated drift detection and adaptation, concept drift, hyperparameters optimization, online and adaptive learning, regression

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Authors: Yasmine Essafi Zouari, Aya Nasreddine

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Following a long inflationary period from the post-war era to the mid-1980s (+10.1% annually), France went through a moderate inflation period between 1986 and 2001 (+2.1% annually) and even lower inflation between 2002 and 2016 (+1.4% annually). In 2022, inflation in France increased rapidly and reached 4.5% over one year in March, according to INSEE estimates. Over a long period, even low inflation has an impact on portfolio value and households’ purchasing power. In such a context, inflation hedging should remain an important issue for investors. In particular, long-term investors, who are concerned with the protection of their wealth, seek to hold effective hedging assets. Considering a mixed-asset portfolio composed of housing assets (residential real estate in 150 Grand Paris communes) as well as financial assets, and using both correlation and regression analysis, results confirm the attribute of the direct housing investment as an inflation hedge especially particularly against its unexpected component. Further, cash and bonds were found to provide respectively a partial and an over hedge against unexpected inflation. Stocks act as a perverse hedge against unexpected inflation and provide no significant positive hedge against expected inflation.

Keywords: direct housing, inflation, hedging ability, optimal portfolio, Grand Paris metropolis

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Authors: Fatima Homor

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The new era in business has started, according to my research paper findings, corporate social responsibility leads organizations to an incomparable advantage phase, where competition is secondary and financial growth is a result. Those who join later, lose their active advantage and cause passive disadvantage for their organizations. The main purpose of this presentation is to state the obvious and shed the light of the advantages of doing good, while doing well for multinational enterprises, extremely low fluctuation (preventing one of the highest costs), significantly lower marketing budget, enhanced reputation causing customer and supplier loyalty, employee commitment results in higher motivation level leading to better quality at each stages, Corporate Social Responsibility brings Unique Selling Proposition incomparable to others. The paper is based on a large research work conducted for the University of Liverpool Masters in Business Administration program, with the title of Corporate Social Responsibility for Multinational Enterprises to gain incomparable advantage. The research is based on both recent secondary data, but most importantly on 25 interviews with Chief Executive Officers at Multinational Enterprises and / or the Human Resources / corporate communications directors. The direct gains on Corporate Social Responsibility are analyzed when it is embedded into the core of the business. It is evident that project based Corporate Social Responsibility is not effective neither from the supported topic, Non-governmental Organizations point of view nor from the organization’s long-term sustainability point of view. Surveys have been conducted, data compared and consequences drawn. Corporate Social Responsibility must be started inside of the business to strengthen it. First, commit employees. It must come from the Chief Executive Officer. It must be related to the business profile. It has to be long term. They will commit customers. B-corps are coming (e.g. Unilever); the phenomenon of social enterprises has become a leading one.

Keywords: B-corps, embedded into core business, first inside, unique advantage

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Authors: Hao-Yuan Tseng, Chuan-Yang Chang, Ying-Hui Chen, Sheng-Che Chen, Chih-Han Chang

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Orthodontic tooth treatment has demonstrated a high success rate in clinical studies. It has been agreed upon that orthodontic tooth movement is based on the ability of surrounding bone and periodontal ligament (PDL) to react to a mechanical stimulus with remodeling processes. However, the mechanism of the tooth movement is still unclear. Recent studies focus on the simple principle compression-tension theory while rare studies directly measure tooth movement. Therefore, tracking tooth movement information during orthodontic treatment is very important in clinical practice. The aim of this study is to investigate the mechanism responses of the tooth movement during the orthodontic treatments. A stereovision system applied to track the tooth movement of the patient with the stamp brackets. The system was established by two cameras with their relative position calibrate. And the orthodontic force measured by 3D printing model with the six-axis load cell to determine the initial force application. The result shows that the stereovision system accuracy revealed the measurement presents a maximum error less than 2%. For the study on patient tracking, the incisor moved about 0.9 mm during 60 days tracking, and half of movement occurred in the first few hours. After removing the orthodontic force in 100 hours, the distance between before and after position incisor tooth decrease 0.5 mm consisted with the release of the phenomenon. Using the stereovision system can accurately locate the three-dimensional position of the teeth and superposition of 3D coordinate system for all the data to integrate the complex tooth movement.

Keywords: orthodontic treatment, tooth movement, stereovision system, long-term tracking

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Authors: Edina Koch, Péter Hudacsek

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In railways transition zone is present at the boundaries of zones with different stiffness. When a train rides from an embankment onto a stiff structure, such as a bridge, tunnel or culvert, an abrupt change in the support stiffness occurs possibly inducing differential settlements. This in long term can yield to the degradation of the tracks and foundations in the transition zones. A number of techniques have been proposed or implemented to provide gradual stiffness transition at the problem zones, such as methods to ensure gradually changing pad stiffness, application of long sleepers or installation of auxiliary rails in the transition zone. Aim of the research presented in this paper is to analyze the 3D and the dynamic effects induced by the passing train over an area where significant difference in the support stiffness exists. The effects were analyzed for different arrangements associated with certain differential settlement mitigation strategies of the transition zones.

Keywords: culvert, dynamic load, HS small model, railway transition zone

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Authors: Bentayeb-Ait Lounis Saïda, Cheref Zahia, Cherifi Thizi, Ri Kahina Bahmed, Kahina Hallali Yasmine Abdellaoui, Kenza Adli

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Algeria is the leading consumer of dairy products in North Africa. This is a fact. However, the nutritional quality of the latter remains unknown. The aim of this study is to characterise the dairy products available on the Algerian market in order to assess whether they constitute a healthy and safe choice. To do this, it collected data on the labelling of 390 dairy products, including cheese, yoghurt, UHT milk and milk drinks, infant formula and dairy creams. We assessed their degree of processing according to the NOVA classification, as well as the proportion of imitation products. The study was carried out between March 2020 and August 2023. The results show that 88% are ultra-processed; 84% for 'cheese', 92% for dairy creams, 92% for 'yoghurt', 100% for infant formula, 92% for margarines and 36% for UHT milk/dairy drinks. As for imitation/analogue dairy products, the study revealed the following proportions: 100% for infant formula, 78% for butter/margarine, 18% for UHT milk/milk-based drinks, 54% for cheese, 2% for camembert and 75% for dairy cream. The harmful effects of consuming ultra-processed products on long-term health are increasingly documented in dozens of publications. The findings of this study sound the alarm about the health risks to which Algerian consumers are exposed. Various scientific, economic and industrial bodies need to be involved in order to safeguard consumer health in both the short and long term. Food awareness and education campaigns should be organised.

Keywords: dairy, UPF, NOVA, yoghurt, cheese

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Authors: MIkheil Pipia, Nazibrola Beglarashvili

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Modern anthropogenic changes in climate can affect the microphysical and electrical properties of clouds, such as the conditions that cause intense hail and lightning. At the same time, the effect of the impact largely depends on the physical-geographical conditions and the ecological situation. It should be noted that the growth of anthropogenic pollution in the atmosphere has a significant impact on the dynamics of hail processes. For the statistical analysis of the number of hail days against the background of modern climate change, the average number of hail days at the stations according to decades was used, which allows to weaken short-term fluctuations and reveal long-term changes. In order to determine the dynamics of hail days in Eastern Georgia, the observation data of some meteorological stations from 1951-2000 were analyzed. In total, the data of 41 meteorological stations of Eastern Georgia about hail for the period of 1961-2018 have been processed.

Keywords: climate, meteorology phenomena, anthropocenic influence, hail

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Authors: Akingeneye Liliane

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The value chain concept in recent times is being used by businesses and organizations to develop and implement their businesses. Chili farming has been identified as a significant contributor to the economic growth of Bugesera district. However, numerous challenges have led to a decrease in production. The primary objective of this research was to assess the current Bugesera chili value chain, identify the bottlenecks in the value chain, and come up with interventions that can help increase the output of the Bugesera chili value chain, in a climate-smart way and enhance Long-term sustainability of the value chain. The research used a case study approach to fulfill its objectives, utilizing primary and secondary data sources. Data, both qualitative and quantitative, were gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted with 22 individual farmers, five exporters, and five supporters within the Bugesera district. A focus group discussion (FGD) with seven stakeholders was also conducted to validate the research findings. The study's results underscore the challenges faced by chili farmers and other actors in the chain, the perceptions of different stakeholders to contribute to chili production, and the importance of promoting strong collaboration among stakeholders in the chili value chain to establish a sustainable framework. Based on these findings, the study puts forward recommendations that aim to address the identified challenges and improve the chili farming sector in Bugesera. The business canvas model, as a proposed recommendation, once implemented, is believed to represent the most effective approach to enhancing chili productivity in Bugesera and securing the long-term sustainability of an export-oriented chili value chain in the district.

Keywords: building, sustainable, chili, value chain

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Authors: Kwei Huan Liw, Sashi B. Darshan

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Background: Double eyelid surgery has become one of the most sought-after aesthetic procedures among Asians. Many surgeons perform surgical blepharoplasty and various other methods of non-incisional blepharoplasty. Face-Q is a validated method of measuring patient satisfaction for facial aesthetic procedures. Here we have analyzed the overall eye satisfaction score, the upper eyelid appraisal score and the adverse effect on eyes score Methods: 274 patients (548 eyes), aged between 18 to 40 years old, were recruited from 2015-2018. Each patient underwent a non-incisional double-eyelid blepharoplasty using a single-knotted continuous buried suture. 3 – 5 stab incisions were made depending on the upper eyelid size. A needle loaded with 7-0 nylon is passed from the lateral most wound through the dermis and the conjunctiva in an alternate fashion into the remaining stab wounds. The suture is then tunneled back laterally in the deeper dermis and knotted securely with the suture end. The knot is then buried within the orbicularis oculi muscle. Each patient was required to fill the Face-Q questionnaire before the procedure and 2 weeks post procedure. The results are described based on the percentage of the maximum achievable score. Patients were reviewed after 12 to 18 months to assess the long-term outcome. Results: The overall eye satisfaction score demonstrated a high level of post-operative satisfaction (97.85%), compared to 27.32% pre-operatively. The appraisal of upper eyelid scores showed drastic improvement in perception post-operatively (95.31%) compared to 21.44% pre-operatively. Adverse effect on eyes score showed a very low post-operative complication rate (0.4%) The long-term follow-up showed 6 cases that had developed asymmetrical folds. Only 1 patient agreed for revision surgery. The other 5 patients were still satisfied with the outcome and were not keen for revision surgery. None of the cases had loosening of knots. Conclusion: Modified single-knot continuous buried suture technique is a simple and non-invasive method to create aesthetically pleasing non-surgical double-eyelids, which has long-term effects. Proper patient selection is crucial and good surgical technique is required to achieve a desirable outcome.

Keywords: blepharoplasty, double-eyelid, face-Q, non-incisional

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Authors: Akingeneye Liliane

Abstract:

The value chain concept in recent times is being used by businesses and organizations to develop and implement their businesses. Chili farming has been identified as a significant contributor to the economic growth of Bugesera district. However, numerous challenges have led to a decrease in production. The primary objective of this research was to assess the current Bugesera chili value chain, identify the bottlenecks in the value chain, and come up with interventions that can help increase the output of the Bugesera chili value chain, in a climate-smart way and enhance Long-term sustainability of the value chain. The research used a case study approach to fulfill its objectives, utilizing primary and secondary data sources. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 22 individual farmers, five exporters, and five supporters within the Bugesera district. A focus group discussion (FGD) with seven stakeholders was also conducted to validate the research findings. The study's results underscore the challenges faced by chili farmers and other actors in the chain, the perceptions of different stakeholders to contribute to chili production, and the importance of promoting strong collaboration among stakeholders in the chili value chain to establish a sustainable framework. Based on these findings, the study puts forward recommendations to address the identified challenges and improve the chili farming sector in Bugesera. The business canvas model, as a proposed recommendation, once implemented, is believed to represent the most effective approach to enhancing chili productivity in Bugesera and securing the long-term sustainability of an export-oriented chili value chain in the district.

Keywords: build, sustainability, chili value chain, export-oriented

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Authors: Ola Abdel-Tawab Hussein

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Background: Boron is a naturally occurring agent and an essential trace element of human, animals and higher plants. It is released in the form of boric acid (BA) that is water soluble and biolologically available. Its largest uses are in glass, detergents, agriculture, leather tanning industries, cosmetics, photographic materials, soaps and cleaners. Human consume daily few milligrams in the water, fruits and vegetables. High doses of boron had been recorded to be developmental and reproductive toxin in animals(Only few studies on human had investigated the health effects associated with exposure to boron. Vitamin C is a major water soluble non-enzymatic antioxidant, acts to overcome the oxidative stress. Aim of the work: However , the liver is exposed to toxic substances that are absorbed, degraded or conjugated there were little information exists about the effects of boron that it would specifically have in the liver tissue of experimental rats. So the present work aimed to study the effects of long-term boron ingestion on histological structural of the liver of adult male albino rats and to evaluate the protective role of vitamin C against induced changes. Material and Methods: 30 adult male albino rats were divided into 3 equal groups; Group I: control, Group II: recieved drinking water containing 55x10-6 gm boron/liter for 90 days and Group III: recieved vitamin C (200mg/Kg.B.W) orally concomitant with boron for the same period. liver specimens were processed for light and electron microscopic(TEM) study. Results: Examination of the liver sections of group II revealed foci of severe dilatation and congestion of central and portal veins with mononuclear cellular infiltration and hepatocellular vacuolation. Increased collagen deposition specially around the portal areas. Marked electrolucent areas in the cytoplasm, heterochromatic nuclei and destroyed organelles of the hepatocytes. Apoptotic cells were observed and decreased lipid content of ito cells. In Group III the co administration of vitamin C improved most of the structural changes of the hepatocytes, Ito cells, increased binucleated cells and decreased collagen fibers deposition. Conclusion: Thus, the long term exposure to boron, induced histological changes on the structure of liver. The co administration of vitamin C improved most of these structural changes.

Keywords: boron, liver, vitamin C, rats

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Authors: Walid Abouzeid, Mohamed Shadad, Mostafa Farid, Magdy El Hawary

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The most frequent treatable vascular abnormality of the spinal canal is spinal dural arteriovenous fistulae (SDAVFs), which cause progressive para- or quadriplegia mostly affecting elderly males. SDAVFs are present in the thoracolumbar region. The main goal of treatment must be to obliterate the shunting zone via superselective embolization with the usage of a liquid embolic agent. This study aims to evaluate endovascular technique as a safe and efficient approach for the treatment SDAVFs, especially with long-term follow-up clinical outcomes. Study Design: A retrospective clinical case study. From May 2010 to May 2017, 15 patients who had symptoms attributed to SDAVFs underwent the operation in the Departments of Neurosurgery in Suhag, Tanta, and Al-Azhar Universities and Interventional Radiology, Ain Shams University. All the patients had varying degrees of progressive spastic paraparesis with and without sphincteric disturbances. Endovascular embolization was used in all cases. Fourteen were males, with ages ranging from 45 to 74 years old. After the treatment, good outcome was found in five patients (33.3%), a moderate outcome was delineated in six patients (40 %), and four patients revealed a poor outcome (26.7%). Spinal AVF could be treated safely and effectively by the endovascular approach. Generally, there is no correlation between the disappearance of MRI abnormalities and significant clinical improvement. The preclinical state of the patient is directly proportional to the clinical outcome. Due to unexpected responses, embolization should be attempted even the patient is in a bad clinical condition.

Keywords: spine, arteriovenous, fistula, endovascular, embolization

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Authors: Priscila Vitorino, Jeeziane Rezende, Edison Pereira, Adrielly Silva, Weimar Barroso

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Body composition insight during physical activity is relevant to follow up sports income since it can be important and actuate in velocity, resistance, potency, and has an effect on force and agility. The purpose of this study was to identify anthropometric profile, evaluate and correlate body mass index and bioimpedance behavior during the days of Caminhada Ecológica de Goiás - Brasil. A longitudinal study was performed with 25 male participants, with an average age of 45.6±9.1 years. All patients were actives. Body composition was evaluated by body mass index (BMI) measurement and bioimpedance procedures. Both were collected 20 days before walking beginning (A0) and in the four days along the same (A1, A2, A3 e A4). Data were collected in the end of each walking day at athletes accommodations. Final distance during walking route was 308 km in five days, with an average of 62km/day and 7,6 km/hour, and an average temperature of 30°C. Data are represented with mean and standard deviation. ANOVA (Bonferroni pos test) was used to compare frequent measurements between the days. Pearson's correlation test was used to correlate BMI with lean mass, fat mass, and water. BMI decreased from A0 to A1, A2 and A3 (p < 0,01) and increased on A4 (p < 0,01). No changes were observed concerning fat percentage (p=0,60), lean mass (p=0,10) and body water composition (p=0,09). A positive and moderate correlation between BMI and fat percentage was observed; an inverse and moderate correlation between BMI, lean mass and body water composition occurred. Total body mass increased during high intensity and long term walking distance. However, the values of body fat, lean mass and water were maintained.

Keywords: aerobic exercise, body composition, metabolism, sports

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Authors: Lee Boudreau, Ash Kumar Khaitu, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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In April 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing, injuring, and displacing thousands of people. The earthquake also damaged water and sanitation service networks, leading to a high risk of diarrheal disease and the associated negative health impacts. In response to the disaster, the Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO), a Kathmandu-based non-governmental organization, worked with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST), a Canadian education, training and consulting organization, to develop two training programs to educate volunteers on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs. The first training program was intended for acute response, with the second focusing on longer term recovery. A key focus was to equip the volunteers with the knowledge and skills to formulate useful WASH advice in the unanticipated circumstances they would encounter when working in affected areas. Within the first two weeks of the disaster, a two-day acute response training was developed, which focused on enabling volunteers to educate those affected by the disaster about local WASH issues, their link to health, and their increased importance immediately following emergency situations. Between March and October 2015, a total of 19 training events took place, with over 470 volunteers trained. The trained volunteers distributed hygiene kits and liquid chlorine for household water treatment. They also facilitated health messaging and WASH awareness activities in affected communities. A three-day recovery phase training was also developed and has been delivered to volunteers in Nepal since October 2015. This training focused on WASH issues during the recovery and reconstruction phases. The interventions and recommendations in the recovery phase training focus on long-term WASH solutions, and so form a link between emergency relief strategies and long-term development goals. ENPHO has trained 226 volunteers during the recovery phase, with training ongoing as of April 2016. In the aftermath of the earthquake, ENPHO found that its existing pool of volunteers were more than willing to help those in their communities who were more in need. By training these and new volunteers, ENPHO was able to reach many more communities in the immediate aftermath of the disaster; together they reached 11 of the 14 earthquake-affected districts. The collaboration between ENPHO and CAWST in developing the training materials was a highly collaborative and iterative process, which enabled the training materials to be developed within a short response time. By training volunteers on basic WASH topics during both the immediate response and the recovery phase, ENPHO and CAWST have been able to link immediate emergency relief to long-term developmental goals. While the recovery phase training continues in Nepal, CAWST is planning to decontextualize the training used in both phases so that it can be applied to other emergency situations in the future. The training materials will become part of the open content materials available on CAWST’s WASH Resources website.

Keywords: water and sanitation, emergency response, education and training, building resilience

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Authors: Stacie Nelson Colling, Adele Cummings

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The United States Supreme Court recently announced that it is unconstitutional to sentence a child to life without parole for non-homicide offenses, and that each child so situated must be afforded a meaningful opportunity for release from prison in his lifetime. The Court also declared that it is unconstitutional to impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole on a child for homicide offenses. Across the United States, attorneys and advocates continue to litigate issues surrounding the implementation of these legal principles. Some states have held that any sentence to a finite term of years, no matter how long, is not the same as ‘life’ and therefore does not violate the constitution. Other states have held that a sentence to a term of years that is less than the expected life of that particular child is not unconstitutional. In Colorado, the courts have routinely looked to life expectancy estimates from governmental organizations to determine how long a particular child is expected to live. They then compare that the date that the child is expected to be eligible for parole, and if the child is expected to still be living when he is eligible for parole, the sentence is deemed constitutional. This paper argues that it is inappropriate, reckless, unconstitutional and not scientifically sound to use such estimates in determining whether a child will have a meaningful opportunity for release from prison and life outside of prison before he dies. This paper argues that the opportunity for release must mean more than a probability that a child will be released before his death, and that it must include an opportunity for a meaningful life outside of prison (not just the opportunity to be released and then die on the outside). The paper further argues that life expectancy estimates cannot guide a court or a legislature in determining whether a sentence is or is not constitutional.

Keywords: life without parole, life expectancy, juvenile sentencing, meaningful opportunity for release from prison

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Authors: Srinivas Peri, Siva Abhishek Sirivella, Tejaswini Kallakuri, Uzair Ahmad

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Smart cities and intelligent transportation systems rely heavily on effective traffic management and infrastructure planning. This research tackles the data scarcity challenge by generating realistically synthetic traffic data from the PeMS-Bay dataset, enhancing predictive modeling accuracy and reliability. Advanced techniques like TimeGAN and GaussianCopula are utilized to create synthetic data that mimics the statistical and structural characteristics of real-world traffic. The future integration of Spatial-Temporal Generative Adversarial Networks (ST-GAN) is anticipated to capture both spatial and temporal correlations, further improving data quality and realism. Each synthetic data generation model's performance is evaluated against real-world data to identify the most effective models for accurately replicating traffic patterns. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks are employed to model and predict complex temporal dependencies within traffic patterns. This holistic approach aims to identify areas with low vehicle counts, reveal underlying traffic issues, and guide targeted infrastructure interventions. By combining GAN-based synthetic data generation with LSTM-based traffic modeling, this study facilitates data-driven decision-making that improves urban mobility, safety, and the overall efficiency of city planning initiatives.

Keywords: GAN, long short-term memory (LSTM), synthetic data generation, traffic management

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Authors: Peter Boyes, Sarah Sharples, Paul Tennent, Gary Priestnall, Jeremy Morley

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Significant long-term investment projects can involve complex decisions. These are often described as capital projects, and the factors that contribute to their complexity include budgets, motivating reasons for investment, stakeholder involvement, interdependent projects, and the delivery phases required. The complexity of these projects often requires management groups to be established involving stakeholder representatives; these teams are inherently multidisciplinary. This study uses two university campus capital projects as case studies for this type of management group. Due to the interaction of projects with wider campus infrastructure and users, decisions are made at varying spatial granularity throughout the project lifespan. This spatial-related context brings complexity to the group decisions. Sensemaking is the process used to achieve group situational awareness of a complex situation, enabling the team to arrive at a consensus and make a decision. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of people and data in the complex spatial related long-term decision and sensemaking processes. The paper aims to identify and present issues experienced in practical settings of these types of decision. A series of exploratory semi-structured interviews with members of the two projects elicit an understanding of their operation. From two stages of thematic analysis, inductive and deductive, emergent themes are identified around the group structure, the data usage, and the decision making within these groups. When data were made available to the group, there were commonly issues with the perception of veracity and validity of the data presented; this impacted the ability of group to reach consensus and, therefore, for decisions to be made. Similarly, there were different responses to forecasted or modelled data, shaped by the experience and occupation of the individuals within the multidisciplinary management group. This paper provides an understanding of further support required for team sensemaking and decision making in complex capital projects. The paper also discusses the barriers found to effective decision making in this setting and suggests opportunities to develop decision support systems in this team strategic decision-making process. Recommendations are made for further research into the sensemaking and decision-making process of this complex spatial-related setting.

Keywords: decision making, decisions under uncertainty, real decisions, sensemaking, spatial, team decision making

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Authors: R. Mahmoodi, A. R. Zolfaghari

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In nuclear power plants, loss of coolant from the primary system is the type of reduced removed capacity that is given most attention; such an accident is referred as Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). In the current study, investigation of shell and tube THTL heat exchanger behavior during LOCA is implemented by ANSYS CFX simulation software in both steady state and transient mode of turbulent fluid flow according to experimental conditions. Numerical results obtained from ANSYS CFX simulation show good agreement with experimental data of THTL heat exchanger. The results illustrate that in large break LOCA as short term accident, heat exchanger could not fast response to temperature variables but in the long term, the temperature of shell side of heat exchanger will be increase.

Keywords: shell-and-tube heat exchanger, shell-side, CFD, flow and heat transfer, LOCA

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Authors: Akram Alfantazi, Tirdad Nickchi

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Magnesium galvanic corrosion plays an important role in the commercialization of Mg alloys in the automobile industry. This study aims at visualizing the electrochemical activity of the magnesium surface being coupled with pure iron in sulfate-chloride solutions. Scanning electrochemical microscopy was used to monitor the chemical activity of the surface and the data was compared with the conventional corrosion results such as potentiodynamic polarization, linear polarization, and immersion tests. The SECM results showed that the chemical reactivity of Mg is higher than phosphate-permanganate-coated Mg. Regions in the vicinity of the galvanic couple boundary are very active in the magnesium phase and fully protected in the iron phase. Scanning electrochemical microscopy results showed that the conversion coating provided good corrosion resistance for magnesium in the short-term but fails at long-term testing.

Keywords: corrosion, galvanic corrosion, magnesium, scanning electrochemical microscopy

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Authors: Muhammad Zubair Khan, Yugyung Lee

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Deep learning has recently achieved enormous response in semantic image segmentation. The previously developed U-Net inspired architectures operate with continuous stride and pooling operations, leading to spatial data loss. Also, the methods lack establishing long-term pixels connection to preserve context knowledge and reduce spatial loss in prediction. This article developed encoder-decoder architecture with bi-directional LSTM embedded in long skip-connections and densely connected convolution blocks. The network non-linearly combines the feature maps across encoder-decoder paths for finding dependency and correlation between image pixels. Additionally, the densely connected convolutional blocks are kept in the final encoding layer to reuse features and prevent redundant data sharing. The method applied batch-normalization for reducing internal covariate shift in data distributions. The empirical evidence shows a promising response to our method compared with other semantic segmentation techniques.

Keywords: deep learning, semantic segmentation, image analysis, pixels connection, convolution neural network

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Authors: Gloria Chen

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When offering conventional level-appropriate ESL classes for adults is not feasible, a multilevel adult ESL class can be formed to benefit those who need to learn English for daily function. This paper examines the rationale, the process, the contents, and the outcomes of a multilevel ESL class for adults. The action research discusses a variety of assessments, lesson plans, teaching strategies that facilitate lifelong language learning. In small towns where adult ESL learners are only a handful, often advanced students and inexperienced students have to be placed in one class. Such class might not be viewed as desirable, but with on-going assessments, careful lesson plans, and purposeful strategies, a multilevel ESL class for adults can overcome the obstacles and help learners to reach a higher level of English proficiency. This research explores some hand-on strategies, such as group rotating, cooperative learning, and modifying textbook contents for practical purpose, and evaluate their effectiveness. The data collected in this research include Needs Assessment (beginning of class term), Mid-term Self-Assessment (5 months into class term), End-of-term Student Reflection (10 months into class), and End-of-term Assessment from the Instructor (10 months into class). A descriptive analysis of the data explains the practice of this particular learning community, and reveal the areas for improvement and enrichment. This research answers the following questions: (1) How do the assessments positively help both learners and instructors? (2) How do the learning strategies prepare students to become independent, life-long English learners? (3) How do materials, grouping, and class schedule enhance the learning? The result of the research contributes to the field of teaching and learning in language, not limited in English, by (a) examining strategies of conducting a multilevel adult class, (b) involving adult language learners with various backgrounds and learning styles for reflection and feedback, and (c) improving teaching and learning strategies upon research methods and results. One unique feature of this research is how students can work together with the instructor to form a learning community, seeking and exploring resources available to them, to become lifelong language learners.

Keywords: adult language learning, assessment, multilevel, teaching strategies

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Authors: Soyon Kim, Edward Kim

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In order to retrieve information from the massive stream of songs in the music industry, music search by title, lyrics, artist, mood, and genre has become more important. Despite the subjectivity and controversy over the definition of music genres across different nations and cultures, automatic genre classification systems that facilitate the process of music categorization have been developed. Manual genre selection by music producers is being provided as statistical data for designing automatic genre classification systems. In this paper, an automatic music genre classification system utilizing non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is proposed. Short-term characteristics of the music signal can be captured based on the timbre features such as mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), decorrelated filter bank (DFB), octave-based spectral contrast (OSC), and octave band sum (OBS). Long-term time-varying characteristics of the music signal can be summarized with (1) the statistical features such as mean, variance, minimum, and maximum of the timbre features and (2) the modulation spectrum features such as spectral flatness measure, spectral crest measure, spectral peak, spectral valley, and spectral contrast of the timbre features. Not only these conventional basic long-term feature vectors, but also NMF based feature vectors are proposed to be used together for genre classification. In the training stage, NMF basis vectors were extracted for each genre class. The NMF features were calculated in the log spectral magnitude domain (NMF-LSM) as well as in the basic feature vector domain (NMF-BFV). For NMF-LSM, an entire full band spectrum was used. However, for NMF-BFV, only low band spectrum was used since high frequency modulation spectrum of the basic feature vectors did not contain important information for genre classification. In the test stage, using the set of pre-trained NMF basis vectors, the genre classification system extracted the NMF weighting values of each genre as the NMF feature vectors. A support vector machine (SVM) was used as a classifier. The GTZAN multi-genre music database was used for training and testing. It is composed of 10 genres and 100 songs for each genre. To increase the reliability of the experiments, 10-fold cross validation was used. For a given input song, an extracted NMF-LSM feature vector was composed of 10 weighting values that corresponded to the classification probabilities for 10 genres. An NMF-BFV feature vector also had a dimensionality of 10. Combined with the basic long-term features such as statistical features and modulation spectrum features, the NMF features provided the increased accuracy with a slight increase in feature dimensionality. The conventional basic features by themselves yielded 84.0% accuracy, but the basic features with NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV provided 85.1% and 84.2% accuracy, respectively. The basic features required dimensionality of 460, but NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV required dimensionalities of 10 and 10, respectively. Combining the basic features, NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV together with the SVM with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel produced the significantly higher classification accuracy of 88.3% with a feature dimensionality of 480.

Keywords: mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), music genre classification, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), support vector machine (SVM)

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