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A Reinforcement Learning Technique For Enhancing Human Behavior Models In A Context-Based Architecture, David Aihe Jan 2008

A Reinforcement Learning Technique For Enhancing Human Behavior Models In A Context-Based Architecture, David Aihe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A reinforcement-learning technique for enhancing human behavior models in a context-based learning architecture is presented. Prior to the introduction of this technique, human models built and developed in a Context-Based reasoning framework lacked learning capabilities. As such, their performance and quality of behavior was always limited by what the subject matter expert whose knowledge is modeled was able to articulate or demonstrate. Results from experiments performed show that subject matter experts are prone to making errors and at times they lack information on situations that are inherently necessary for the human models to behave appropriately and optimally in those situations. …

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Let Her Be Taken: Sexual Violence In Medieval England, Lindsey Mcnellis Jan 2008

Let Her Be Taken: Sexual Violence In Medieval England, Lindsey Mcnellis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rape and its impact on medieval women, as conceived by society and the law, have yet to receive extensive treatment. By analyzing not only rape cases, but evolving laws and the impact of the Church on views of sexuality and marriage and thus its influence on attitudes towards rape, this study shows that women were much more than victims and society, or the courts, reacted accordingly. Covering the years 1200 to 1250, this thesis examines secular court cases taken from the general eyre records of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Warwickshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire. Cases taken from the King's Bench …

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Misconceptions About Silence And Passivity: How American Students Perceive Asian International Students' Use Of Passivity Within The Classroom, Audra Nuru Jan 2008

Misconceptions About Silence And Passivity: How American Students Perceive Asian International Students' Use Of Passivity Within The Classroom, Audra Nuru

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Asian international students (AIS) are becoming increasingly more populous in American universities each year. While AIS are enrolled in the same required classes as American students, it has been observed that frequent interaction between AIS and American students is rather uncommon. Due to obvious social hesitation between the two groups of students during classroom discussion, the study presented was initiated in order to unveil possible reasons for this social integration dilemma. Social Attractiveness, Perceived Homophily and Attributional Confidence scales were selected in order to determine possible factors contributing to this dilemma. In order to pursue explanations for the dormant socialization …

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Creating Marginality And Reconstructing Narrative: Reconfiguring Karen Social And Geo-Political Alignment, Barbara Verchot Jan 2008

Creating Marginality And Reconstructing Narrative: Reconfiguring Karen Social And Geo-Political Alignment, Barbara Verchot

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pre-modern conceptualization of shifting borderlands and territories rather than fixed boundaries often allowed for the dynamic flow of peoples between polities. Until the late 1800s and the colonization of Burma in 1886 by the British Empire, this permeability of the borders of its territory was how Siam (currently Thailand) viewed its geo-political sphere (Thomson 1995:272). Britain extended the boundaries of its empire beyond India to guarantee the economic interests of the British Empire. With this push eastward, Siam abutted a polity that rejected the idea of shifting borderlands. The British ascribed to the modern concept of non-permeability of borders. This …

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A Historical Analysis Of Teacher Preparation Program Contentbeginning With Teacher Normal Colleges In 1839 Throughschool Distric, Julie Helton Jan 2008

A Historical Analysis Of Teacher Preparation Program Contentbeginning With Teacher Normal Colleges In 1839 Throughschool Distric, Julie Helton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore teacher preparation program content throughout American history in order to determine trends in programs of study, specifically including coursework in education foundations, teaching methods involving the behavioral sciences, and subject area content. These categories were selected because their content is responsible for teachers' working knowledge of their subject area, as well as student learning, behavior management and motivation. The study also examined documented teacher knowledge voids: student behavior management, time management, organization, dealing with parents, motivating students, and meeting individual students' needs to determine which aspects of teacher education could improve teachers' …

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Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser Jan 2008

Discerning Migration In The Archaeological Record: A Case Study At Chichã©N Itzã¡, Andrea Slusser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migration, as a theory to explain aspects in the archaeological record, has fallen out of favor in Mesoamerican archaeology, possibly due to a lack of a standard definition or description of migration. Migration as an explanation of change in Maya civilizations has been around since the 1950's and the culture-history era of American archaeology. Since the early 1990's, migration has been treated as a process, one that can be discerned in pre-literate cultures as well as historical ones. Models of the migration process are being developed and tested. One type of migration, elite dominance migration, is a particularly suitable process …

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The Preparedness Of Elementary Music Teachers To Include Students With Challenging Behavior In Their Classrooms, Christine Shirk Jan 2008

The Preparedness Of Elementary Music Teachers To Include Students With Challenging Behavior In Their Classrooms, Christine Shirk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with disabilities, some with emotional and behavior disorders, are included in almost all elementary music classes. Students with emotional behavior disorders are one of the greatest challenges for teachers. To be effective, teachers must develop strategies and inclusive practices specifically geared towards intervention. With the quantity of students served and only limited class time with students, the music teacher is often unaware of the unique needs of specific special learners. Music teacher preparation has been inadequate in training teachers for inclusion. Elementary music educators rarely have outside support to deal with classroom challenges as they serve students with disabilities …

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Case Studies Of Reading Performance Of Male Students And The Single-Sex Classroom, Eric Basilo Jan 2008

Case Studies Of Reading Performance Of Male Students And The Single-Sex Classroom, Eric Basilo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Data from standardized test scores shows boys are falling further behind in literacy each year. Thanks to countless hours of research, we can pinpoint some of the causes for this decline. The major challenge educators face is how to keep boys interested in reading while placed in classrooms not necessarily designed to meet their needs. One option being explored is the use of single-sex classrooms. For over 160 years in the United States, public school single-sex classrooms have existed. The thought is that by separating boys and girls for academic classes, certain distractions will be eliminated, the environment can be …

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Closing The Achievement Gap For English Language Learners:A Comparison Of Language Arts/Esol And One-Way Developmental Bilingual, Kimberly Marlow Jan 2008

Closing The Achievement Gap For English Language Learners:A Comparison Of Language Arts/Esol And One-Way Developmental Bilingual, Kimberly Marlow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study was conducted to investigate two English Language Learner programs in one Florida county and their implications for student achievement. The literature review showed that, as students progress through the educational system, the academic content becomes more and more abstract, forcing students to rely more heavily on their oral and written communication skills in English. Significant achievement gaps, sometimes extremely large, were also identified between English-only students and English Language Learner students. One study highlighted a 46% gap on the 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The present study was designed to investigate 23 middle schools in …

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Information Retrieval Performance Enhancement Using The Average Standard Estimator And The Multi-Criteria Decision Weighted Set, Tareq Ahram Jan 2008

Information Retrieval Performance Enhancement Using The Average Standard Estimator And The Multi-Criteria Decision Weighted Set, Tareq Ahram

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information retrieval is much more challenging than traditional small document collection retrieval. The main difference is the importance of correlations between related concepts in complex data structures. These structures have been studied by several information retrieval systems. This research began by performing a comprehensive review and comparison of several techniques of matrix dimensionality estimation and their respective effects on enhancing retrieval performance using singular value decomposition and latent semantic analysis. Two novel techniques have been introduced in this research to enhance intrinsic dimensionality estimation, the Multi-criteria Decision Weighted model to estimate matrix intrinsic dimensionality for large document collections and the …

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Evaluation Of The Antecedents Of Cultural Competence, Mary Harper Jan 2008

Evaluation Of The Antecedents Of Cultural Competence, Mary Harper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The threefold purpose of this research is to identify the essential antecedents of cultural competence as identified by international nurse researchers, to compare the content of the extant cultural competence instruments to these antecedents and to potentially identify gaps in their conceptualization. A secondary aim of this research is to initiate validation of Harper's model of ethical multiculturalism. Conceptual Basis: The model of ethical multiculturalism depicts the attributes of ethical multiculturalism as the fulcrum of a balance between two ethical philosophies of fundamentalism and relativism. The attributes of moral reasoning, beneficence/nonmaleficence, respect for persons and communities, and cultural competence …

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Determinants Of Turkish Police Officers' Perception Of Integrity: Impact Of Organizational Culture, Bahadir Kucukuysal Jan 2008

Determinants Of Turkish Police Officers' Perception Of Integrity: Impact Of Organizational Culture, Bahadir Kucukuysal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of police organizational culture on officers' perception of integrity in the Turkish National Police (TNP). Adopting an organizational rather than an individualistic perspective, this study focused on police organizational culture to investigate the causes of integrity problems in the TNP. While focusing on police organizational culture, this study also aimed to determine to what extent officers' perceptions of integrity are influenced by personal and occupational attributes such as age, gender, rank, income, educational level, years of employment, and assignment type. The research was conducted in Turkey's two largest cities, Istanbul …

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A Comprehensive Multi-Faceted Approach For Simultaneously Analyzing Organizational Performance Measures Essential For Company Su, Ana Ferreras Jan 2008

A Comprehensive Multi-Faceted Approach For Simultaneously Analyzing Organizational Performance Measures Essential For Company Su, Ana Ferreras

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Profit, ergonomics, safety, employee morale, quality, efficiency, and productivity are critical components that greatly impact company success within manufacturing organizations. Therefore, it is essential that a valid and reliable systematic approach that encompasses all of these factors be developed for use by top management in today's rapidly changing manufacturing environment. Organizational-level decisions made based upon a single goal or narrow perspective that only considers one of the aforementioned components, such as profit, while ignoring others, such as employee morale, have proven harmful to the long term viability and success of manufacturing companies. Often organizational leaders are not adequately equipped to …

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Memories And Milestones: The Brighton Seminole Tribe Of Florida And The Digitization Of Culture, April Van Camps Jan 2008

Memories And Milestones: The Brighton Seminole Tribe Of Florida And The Digitization Of Culture, April Van Camps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation project discusses individual photographs of the Brighton Seminole Tribe of Florida from the early 1900s to the current period, each organized by way of their institutional significance, not their place in chronological history. Following Jean Mohr and John Berger's model in Another Way of Telling, I create a narrative for the pictures with a discussion of historical information, current data from interviews, Tribal members' stories, and my own personal story as it is tethered to the tribe. The research addresses the following questions: Can photography offer a technological means to communicate culture in a vital, organic way? Can …

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A Study Of Digital Communication Tools Used In Online High School Courses, Nathan Putney Jan 2008

A Study Of Digital Communication Tools Used In Online High School Courses, Nathan Putney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which selected communication tools used by teachers who teach online are positively perceived by their students in improving feelings of self-efficacy and motivation, and which tools may be perceived to be significantly more effective than the others. Students from the Florida Virtual School, a leader in online course delivery for grades 6-12, were surveyed to find their perceptions about how their teachers' use of email, Instant Messaging, chat, the telephone, discussion area, whiteboard, and assignment feedback affected their motivation and success in an online high school course. Correlations were …

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The Problem Of Polysemy In The First Thousand Words Of The General Service List: A Corpus Study Of Secondary Chemistry Texts, Karina Clemmons Jan 2008

The Problem Of Polysemy In The First Thousand Words Of The General Service List: A Corpus Study Of Secondary Chemistry Texts, Karina Clemmons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary in a second language is an indispensable building block of all comprehension (Folse, 2006; Nation, 2006). Teachers in content area classes such as science, math, and social studies frequently teach content specific vocabulary, but are not aware of the obstacles that can occur when students do not know the basic words. Word lists such as the General Service List (GSL) were created to assist students and teachers (West, 1953). The GSL does not adequately take into account the high level of polysemy of many common English words, nor has it been updated by genre to reflect specific content domains …

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An Investigation Of The Efficacy Of The Text Talk Strategy On Pre-School Students' Vocabulary Acquisition, Heather Batchelder Jan 2008

An Investigation Of The Efficacy Of The Text Talk Strategy On Pre-School Students' Vocabulary Acquisition, Heather Batchelder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using a single subject Multiple Baseline design, this study examined the efficacy of the Text Talk vocabulary acquisition strategy with regard to the use of new vocabulary by pre-kindergarten students in an inclusive classroom within a public charter school. Five pre-school students participated in the study. Students with varying exceptionalities as well as students with typical development were included in the study. Three classroom teachers implemented the Text Talk strategy utilizing eight books and vocabulary scenario models during an interactive story time that included the direct instruction of vocabulary in the study. During the baseline and intervention phases data collection …

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Music Standards Implementation And The Relationship To Fourth Grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test Scores From 2004 To 20, Neal Phillips Jan 2008

Music Standards Implementation And The Relationship To Fourth Grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test Scores From 2004 To 20, Neal Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the possible relationships among the perceived implementation levels of elementary music standards and Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores for fourth graders in reading, mathematics, and writing for the years 2004, 2005, and 2006. Survey data for the study were obtained from 32 school district music supervisors from large, medium, and small districts who returned fully or partially completed questionnaires. The study was focused on the relationships, if any, between a school district's mean scale scores in reading, mathematics, and writing from 2004 to 2006 in grade 4 and (a) elementary music standards implementation, (b) the average …

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Helping At-Risk Students Solve Mathematical Word Problems Through The Use Of Direct Instruction And Problem Solving Strategies, Lurdes Lopez Jan 2008

Helping At-Risk Students Solve Mathematical Word Problems Through The Use Of Direct Instruction And Problem Solving Strategies, Lurdes Lopez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This action research study examined the influence mathematical strategies had on middle school students' mathematical ability. The purpose of this action research study was to observe students mathematical abilities and to investigate whether teaching students problem-solving strategies in mathematics will enhance student's mathematical thinking and their ability to comprehend and solve word problems. The study took place in an urban school in Orlando, Florida in the fall of 2004. The subjects will be 12 eighth grade students assigned to my intensive math class. Quantitative data was collected. Students' took a pre and post test designed to measure and give students …

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Health-Care Seeking Behaviors Of Puerto Ricans With Diabetes Mellitus Who Live In South Florida: An Exploratory Study, Laura Gonzalez Jan 2008

Health-Care Seeking Behaviors Of Puerto Ricans With Diabetes Mellitus Who Live In South Florida: An Exploratory Study, Laura Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Latinos are the fastest growing minority population in the United States (U.S.) and have the worst access to health care of any ethnic group. The chronic disease of diabetes is twice as common in adult Latinos as in non-Latino whites, and the risk of death related to diabetes is twofold. Reasons for this disparity have yet to be clearly identified. This study had two purposes: 1) to explore cultural beliefs regarding health-care seeking behaviors in Puerto Ricans with diabetes who live in South Florida; and 2) to examine Puerto Ricans' perceptions about their health-care providers. The cultural phenomena of interest …

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Turkey In The Caspian Sea Region, Seyma Akkoyunlu Jan 2008

Turkey In The Caspian Sea Region, Seyma Akkoyunlu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will determine the influence of Turkey's domestic resources on Turkey's foreign relations with the five Turkic states in the Caspian Sea Region. The spheres analyzed in this study are the common ties, which are history, culture, religion and language, with the regional countries, pan-Turkism, Turkey's initial interactions as well as ongoing constructive policies in the region. Findings showed that both Turkey and the five Turkic republics were enthusiastic to carry their relations in every field to future cooperation following the break up of the Soviet Union. However the Turkic Republics' interest in Turkish development model gradually declined starting …

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The Effects Of Foreign Aid On Perceptions Of Corruption In Sub-Saharan Africa, Margaret Wilkie Jan 2008

The Effects Of Foreign Aid On Perceptions Of Corruption In Sub-Saharan Africa, Margaret Wilkie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper is a study of the effects of foreign aid on perceptions of political corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa. In keeping with the consensus on foreign aid effectiveness, this study proposed that Sub-Saharan African countries receiving more foreign aid would be more likely to maintain high levels of perceived corruption. Hypotheses were tested using multivariate regression, controlling for a number of factors which have shown to be influential on perceptions of political corruption. Two models were tested, one to show the regression over a period of nine years, and the other to show the relationship between the foreign aid and …

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Green Chairs, Fictional Phalluses, Infiltration, And Love On The Rocks: Medical Imaging Artifacts Blown Up, Lynn Koller Jan 2008

Green Chairs, Fictional Phalluses, Infiltration, And Love On The Rocks: Medical Imaging Artifacts Blown Up, Lynn Koller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This text outlines and applies a methodology for deciphering problems and producing new information by analyzing the artifacts produced by medical imaging technologies - text and images - using practices gleaned from Surrealists, semiologists, and visual artists, emphasizing its own form as being the product of the apparatuses that produce it and therefore untrustworthy. Its basic assumption is that every text contains the information necessary to solve problems of all sorts, though because of the limitations of this text in both form and authorial intellect, we may only reach a starting point for a solution herein. In this regard, we …

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Initial Validation Of Novel Performance-Based Measures: Mental Rotation And Psychomotor Ability, Philip Fatolitis Jan 2008

Initial Validation Of Novel Performance-Based Measures: Mental Rotation And Psychomotor Ability, Philip Fatolitis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the high-risk nature of military flight operations and the significant resources required to train U.S. Naval Aviation personnel, continual improvement is required in the selection process. In addition to general commissioning requirements and aeromedical standards, the U.S. Navy utilizes the Aviation Selection Test Battery (ASTB) to select commissioned aviation students. Although the ASTB has been a good predictor of aviation student performance in training, it was proposed that incremental improvement could be gained with the introduction of novel, computer administered performancebased measures: Block Rotation (BRT) and a Navy-developed Compensatory Tracking task. This work constituted an initial validation of the …

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The Dark Side Of The Tune: A Study Of Villains, Michael Biggs Jan 2008

The Dark Side Of The Tune: A Study Of Villains, Michael Biggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On championing the villain, there is a naive quality that must be maintained even though the actor has rehearsed his tragic ending several times. There is a subtle difference between to charm and to seduce. The need for fame, glory, power, money, or other objects of affection drives antagonists so blindly that they ve no hope of regaining a consciousness about their actions. If and when they do become aware, they infrequently feel remorse. I captured the essence of the villain by exposing these lightless characters to the sun. On Monday, April 9th and Tuesday, April 17th, 2007, on the …

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What Makes Them Click? Applying The Rational Choice Perspective To The Hacking Underground, Michael Bachmann Jan 2008

What Makes Them Click? Applying The Rational Choice Perspective To The Hacking Underground, Michael Bachmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing dependence of modern societies, industries, and individuals on information technology and computer networks renders them ever more vulnerable to attacks on critical IT infrastructures. While the societal threat posed by hackers and other types of cyber-criminals has been growing significantly in the last decade, main-stream criminology has only recently begun to realize the significance of this threat. Cyber-criminology is slowly emerging as a subfield of criminological study and has yet to overcome many of the problems other areas of criminological research have already mastered. Aside from substantial methodological and theoretical problems, cyber-criminology currently also suffers from the scarcity …

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Sandspur, Vol 114, No 10, December 03, 2007, Rollins College Dec 2007

Sandspur, Vol 114, No 10, December 03, 2007, Rollins College

The Rollins Sandspur

Rollins College student newspaper, written by the students and published at Rollins College. The Sandspur started as a literary journal.

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Sandspur, Vol 114, No 04, October 08, 2007, Rollins College Oct 2007

Sandspur, Vol 114, No 04, October 08, 2007, Rollins College

The Rollins Sandspur

Rollins College student newspaper, written by the students and published at Rollins College. The Sandspur started as a literary journal.

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Two Blades Come Together: Stories, Mark Edward Pursell Jan 2007

Two Blades Come Together: Stories, Mark Edward Pursell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This collection of seven short stories details the emotional triumphs and complications of characters whose lives are altered by issues of sexuality and disconnection. An adolescent girl feels her father slipping away from her and, in turn, willfully destroys the imaginary world of the boy she babysits; a speech therapist struggles to make headway with a young patient while finding himself unable to communicate with his ex-lover; a gay poet cheats on his boyfriend in a desperate attempt to fuel his failing art. The dramatis personae of Two Blades Come Together is comprised of individuals who struggle towards grace and …

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Alternative Epigraphic Interpretations Of The Maya Snake Emblem Glyph, Christopher Tyra Savage Jan 2007

Alternative Epigraphic Interpretations Of The Maya Snake Emblem Glyph, Christopher Tyra Savage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the Maya snake emblem glyph is associated with religious specialists, instead of geographic locations, as emblem glyphs are typically understood to be. The inscriptions and the media on which the snake emblem glyph occurs will be analyzed to determine the role or function of the "Lord of the Snake." Temporal and spatial data has also been collected to aid in understanding the enigmatic glyph. The snake emblem glyph has recently been identified as originating from a broad area containing the sites of El Peru and La Corona in Guatemala, and Dzibanche, Mexico, a departure …

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