Linking Knowledge with Action for Sustainable Development The Role of Program Management: Summary of a Workshop (2006) / Chapter Skim
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APPENDIX A: Participant Case Summaries
APPENDIX A: Participant Case Summaries
Pages 24-107
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1. Problem definition Tentative finding: Successful programs linking knowledge with action require dialogue and cooperation between the scientists who produce knowledge and the decision makers who use it.
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3. Program organization Tentative finding: Successful programs linking knowledge with action include boundary organizations committed to building bridges between the research community on the one hand, and the user community on the other.
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6. Continuity and flexibility Tentative finding: Successful programs linking knowledge with action must develop strategies to maintain program continuity and flexibility in the face of budgetary and human resource challenges, such as the dual public-private character of knowledge-action systems; budgetary pressure to highlight short-term, measurable results; uncertainty regarding future budgetary priorities in a dynamic political environment; and shortages of people who can work effectively across disciplines, issue areas, and the knowledge-action interface.
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3. Program organization Whereas a great deal of the resources have been dedicated to improvement of the climate models, and development of more "user-friendly" climate information products, a significant "boundary spanning" function is central to the IRI's mission.
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Learning orientation The IRI was expressly experimental from the outset, as evidenced by the inclusion of the word "Research" in the title. This allowed the IRI to produce "experimental forecasts", and hence, a chance to co-exist with the National Meteorological Services who claimed the "climate forecasting" domain as their turf.
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Director, Climate and Societal Interactions Division NOAA Office of Global Programs 1100 Wayne Avenue Rm 1225 Silver Spring, MD 20877 Publications Cash, D.W.
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NOAA's Research Applications Program focuses on the applications component of this end-to-end system by fostering the understanding and the technical, scientific and institutional capacity necessary to forecast and adapt to climate variability. The effort takes a place-based approach to resolving interrelated problems associated with research, institutional development and capacity building with support provided through a variety of funding mechanisms and partnerships with international, regional, national and local organizations.
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2. Program management The NOAA Research Applications Program was initially developed as a pilot effort, with objectives related to: raising awareness of climate impacts and research applications; increasing capacity related to the successful use of climate information; and identifying research needs, including process studies, modeling and observations networks.
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4. The decision-support system NOAA's Research Applications Program seeks to catalyze and support end-to-end decision support systems.
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The research applications program serves as a source of real time experiments in decision support for rigorous study by the KSSD group (which is also looking at other sectors and topics) , and will also be a beneficiary of the findings of the KSSD project.
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EPA Global Change Research Program's Great Lakes Regional Assessment (GLRA) Activity Joel Scheraga EPA
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This case study is a "snapshot" of two specific and related assessment products that were produced as part of our ongoing GLRA process, specifically: Collaborative effort with the US/Canada International Joint Commission: An assessment of adaptation strategies to increase the resilience of water resources in the Great Lakes Region to climate change and to protect their "beneficial uses" as required under the 1978 US-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. (Client: The Water Quality Board [WQB]
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More specifically, it is an example of how researchers inform a particular group of users about the best available science on a particular topic, the users then identify the specific issues and questions of concern to them, and an assessment plan is formulated. In 2002, the IJC Board of Commissioners charged the WQB with developing adaptation strategies to increase the resilience of water resources in the Great Lakes Region to climate change and to protect their "beneficial uses" as required under the 1978 US-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
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EPA's Region 5 Office (Great Lakes Region) , requested that EPA's GLRA Program complete a preliminary assessment of the potential effects of climate change on CSO events in the Great Lakes Region.
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3. Program organization Our GLRA program views the process of linking knowledge to users as consisting of four principal elements: problem formulation, analysis, characterization of consequences, and communication of results.
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Key insights for the NAS Task Force derived from EPA's GLRA program. Key insight #1: If the ultimate goal of decision support is to provide timely and useful information to decision makers, then the analytic approach that is taken should be driven by the users' issues and questions of concern.
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Key insight #3: Our GLRA approach to decision support can be simply put as: "Right model/approach for the right question!
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The Great Lakes Regional Assessment activity is one component of the larger EPA Global Change Research Program, and the strategic vision for the GLRA efforts are explicitly described in the Research Strategy. The Research Strategy describes the direction of the Program, not its implementation.
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Key insight #4: It is essential to conduct regular external peer reviews of all components of a program like the GLRA that has as its goal to provide timely and useful decision support.
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, 33-39. Sample key products International Joint Commission Water Quality Board, Climate Change and Water Quality in the Great Lakes Basin, Report of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board to the International Joint Commission, August 2003.
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. The Program was launched in order to define problems or challenges for which climate information and data might be useful.
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And to some extent, the Climate and Societal Interactions group has characteristics of a boundary organization. An interagency decision support capacity that had characteristics of a boundary organization would be useful to building an integrated earth science research program able to better connect knowledge and practice.
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Only the teams themselves could really explain which were the hardest elements to put in place, but from the program management perspective, the elements involving institutional decision making, barriers to the use of information, and capturing the multiple stress nature of the problems as they exist in practice, seemed to present the greatest challenges. While there is lots of evidence that decision makers within the RISA regions are responding to having been brought in as participants in this process, and RISA has produced a number of decision support tools at various stages of development and testing, we are lighter than we should be on effective evaluation methods for the program overall and its lasting impact on adaptive capacity.
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There still exists a mismatch, in part, between what is success or failure in linking knowledge to action and what is success or failure in managing federal research programs. In part, the problem is historic and cultural.
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Problem definition EPA, NOAA, and other Federal organizations have significant operational responsibilities relative to delivering air quality information to the public. The NASA Earth Science Applications program extends NASA's Earth science research results to national-regional organizations that have air quality management responsibilities and mandates to support air
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NASA & EPA researchers verified and validated NASA Earth observation satellite measurements (including MODIS aerosol optical depth-AOD and MODIS cloud optical thickness-COT) , with EPA ground measurements (AirNOW)
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First, the NASA Earth Science Applications Program is designed to support the transition of research to federal/national organizations and the user communities. Thus, the activities the program funds are directly focused on activities that will support the "bridges." Second, the program benefited extensively from the presence of an EPA liaison who was permanently assigned to NASA and located at Langley Research Center.
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5. Learning orientation The initial milestone of the project was to assess if there was value in pursuing the MODIS data relative to EPA's PM activities.
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Partnerships between NASA and these agencies require flexibility in projects and in accountability. There is value in NASA coordinating with partner agencies on solicitations for Earth Science Applications in order to optimize the value in meeting national priorities.
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Problem definition The problem to be solved by the Earth Science Applications program is to systematically extend the results of research and development of aerospace science and technology to benefit society. The program uses a systems approach to address specific applications of national priority and partners with federal agencies and national organizations to collaborate on integrating observations and predictions into decision support tools.
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establishes the importance of Earth observations and predictions for addressing societal impacts of climate change. TABLE A-1 Domestic and international committees as related to the NASA Earth Science Enterprise.
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The approach is to enable the assimilation of Earth science model and remote sensing mission outputs to serve as inputs to decision support tools in integrated system solutions. FIGURE A-1 NASA's applications program approach to integrated systems solutions architecture
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3. Program organization The Earth Science Applications program provides a boundary spanning function.
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CMAQ - Community Multi-scale Air Quality Air Quality EPA, NOAA, USDA Modeling System AQI - Air Quality Index Aviation DOT/FAA, NOAA NAS_AWRP - National Air Space - Aviation Weather Research Program Carbon CQUEST-EA92-1605b - Energy Act of 1992, Management USDA, DOE, NOAA Section 1605b Coastal HAB - Harmful Algal Bloom Bulletin / Mapping Management NOAA, EPA, NRL System CREWS - Coral Reef Early Warning System Disaster DHS/FEMA, NOAA, Management USGS, USFS HAZUS-MH - Hazards US - Multi Hazards Ecological USAID, NOAA, SERVIR - Regional Visualization & Monitoring Forecasting NPS, CCAD, USGS System Energy DOE, UNEP, NOAA, RETScreen - Energy Diversification Research Management NRC Laboratory (CEDRL) Homeland DHS, USGS, NOAA, Security NIMA, DoD IOF - Integrated Operations Facility Invasive Species USGS, USDA, NOAA ISFS - Invasive Species Forecasting System PSS - Plague Surveillance System EPHTN - Environmental Public Health Tracking Public Health NIH, CDC, DoD, EPA Network Program Research MMS - Malaria Monitoring & Surveillance RSVP Rapid Syndrome Validation Project RiverWARE - Bureau of Reclamation Decision Support Tool Water EPA, USDA, USGS, AWARDS - Agricultural Water Resources & Management BoR Decision Support Tool BASINS - Better Assessment Science Integrating Point & Non-point Source
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for conducting systems engineering functions of evaluation, verification and validation, and benchmarking of the integrated system solutions Current risks include: 1. Partner requirements for Earth observations and predictions as inputs to their decision support systems 2.
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The NASA Earth Science Applications program is designed to enable the assimilation of products resulting from the NASA Earth System Science theme (approximately $1.5B per year) into decision support tools funded by partnering agencies and organizations.
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Research management functions were delegated to a non-profit research management organization, the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) , and thus kept separate from policy decision making.
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Many now appreciate the need for more information about air quality than only that which is required to meet near term air quality standards. In the matter of defining research priorities, To what extent and in what ways were program leaders held accountable for achieving those goals and targets?
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3. Program organization Did your program involve a boundary spanning function or organization?
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The decision support system is almost, but not quite, end to end. The design of the process allows for delivery of research results to a variety of stakeholders on the TERC board (business, health, environment, and local government)
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5. Learning orientation Did your program have an expressly experimental orientation?
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They separated TERC, the policy organization, from HARC, the research management organization, allowing the research manager to focus on the science process without getting consumed by the political and economic tug-of-war; and (b) they "agreed to disagree" at the policy level so that all parties are provided scientific information but are not required to come to consensus within the room, allowing the various factions to be united in seeking data and analysis while using the analysis to support their causes outside the room.
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Additionally, HARC manages research teams from across the nation in large, intersecting studies. An example is the upcoming summer study of Houston and Dallas which requires communication and joint planning among several research teams.
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Research Management Organization: (Houston Advanced Research Center) [www.harc.edu]
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68 LINKING KNOWLEDGE WITH ACTION FIGURE A-2 The positioning of HARC as a boundary organization. Engineers Without Borders-USA: building capacity in underdeveloped communities while developing internationally-responsible engineering students and professionals Bill Wallace Engineers Without Borders 1.
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5. Learning orientation Although the EWB-USA program is not expressly experimental, it is a program that, to our knowledge, has not been done before: students, academics and professional engineermentors working with people in host communities planning, designing, and implementing facilities and infrastructure projects in underdeveloped nations.
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To remedy this situation, we are now working with professional societies, engineering trade organizations, companies, foundations, and public sector agencies to improve our sources of funding. We are more successful in securing project funding, since the donors can see direct benefit to a underdeveloped community, and the amount of monies needed to design and implement an EWB-USA project are very low, averaging $15,000.
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3. Program organization The knowledge producers were a partnership among African and US universities, as well as among African and US regulatory practitioners.
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5. Learning orientation NetTel@Africa itself is experimental.
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While the institute was formally incorporated in 1997 and now is in a formal alliance with the American Chemical Society, it maintained the same emphasis on partnership types of programs and activities. By working with all interested parties, the Green Chemistry Institute has been able work both in the U.S.
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3. Strategic relevance: Green chemistry presents a research strategy that seeks to introduce a unique aspect of environmental protection, avoiding the use of hazardous materials at the design stage of an R&D effort.
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Projects that show the potential to change research infrastructure by developing teams, using systems approaches, and introducing new ways of conducting research will also be considered.
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3. Program organization The TSE program is bounded to only include the highest quality scientific and engineering research that advances the discovery, development, and use of innovative technologies and approaches to avoid or minimize the generation of pollutants at the source.
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5. Learning orientation The implementation of this program provided significant opportunity for feedback, learning and mid-course correction.
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My on-the-ground experience as a research scientist and project chief over the years has led me to conclude that in many cases it is necessary for producers and users to co-produce knowledge in order to enable its effective use in management decisions and policy making. Decision-making is often driven by a variety of nonscientific, adversarial, and stakeholder dynamics.
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These studies are ongoing. Measurable goals were determined with the representatives from the community and coordinated with committees of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority and the San Francisquito Watershed Council.
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In USGS we intend to explore the use of predictive models in collaborative processes. The "decision support system," in my view, is the conversation that occurs among the parties in the case.
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An outcome of broadening the scope of the originally proposed research is that findings of the Venture Capital project team may significantly influence the decision-making process used by the Department of the Interior for setting environmental policy and making ecosystems and natural resources management decisions. For example, the USGS Director, Charles Groat, convened a workshop on joint fact finding for the USGS Executive Leadership Team.
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For insights on linking knowledge to action, I'll let someone with practical experience, Michael Mery, chair of the Tomales Bay Watershed Council (California) speak: "Sharing a sense of place is the first step.
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Geological Survey Currently Visiting Lecturer Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 9-330 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 617-324-0262 hkarl@mit.edu (hkarl@usgs.gov) SERVIR -- A Regional Environmental Monitoring and Visualization System for Central America (in collaboration with NASA's Earth Science Applications Program)
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The observations and predictions, in turn, enable the decision support tools that comprise SERVIR. The outputs of the decision support tools produce value and benefits for society.
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5. Learning orientation SERVIR is very much a work in progress.
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b. NASA's Earth Science Applications website: [http://earth.nasa.gov/eseapps/]
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A team of more than 15 ARS scientists from across the country was formed to develop the Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) , a decision support tool that is intended to help in the management of soils for both production and environmental quality endpoints.
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. The Soil Quality Institute is involved in getting SMAF technology transferred to the users as part of its technology transfer activities.
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Doug Karlen Dr. Susan Andrews National Soil Tilth Lab NRCS Soil Quality Institute Ames, Iowa Ames, Iowa Phone: 515-294-3336 dkarlen@nstl.gov sandrews@nstl.gov Representative publications/products There is both a stand alone (i.e., CD)
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Based on these recommendations, the agency entered into an agreement with Michigan State University, in September 1991, for the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP) -- a consortium of public sector institutions and private companies in the United States and developing countries.
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In addition to partnering with public sector institutions in the U.S. and developing countries, ABSP was active in promoting private sector involvement.
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2. Priority setting and choice of technologies not based on adequate economic and market analysis: Technology development, at public sector institutions, was often directed by host of factors not always anchored in a rigorous analysis of impact.
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These include not only a lack of availability of a range of technologies to address local agricultural constraints, but also considerations of limited capacity of public sector institutions to develop and promote development of biotechnology products. In addition, policy issues, especially in consideration of
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USAID's CABIO attempts to address a number of these issues under its programs. Decision Support Tools for Forecasts of Global Agricultural Productivity and Yield in Collaboration with NASA's Earth Science Applications Program Ed Sheffner NASA 1.
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The overall program goal, i.e., the impact on decision support tools, is a programmatic objective of NASA's Earth Science Applications Division. The program managers within the Division are accountable to achieve the program goals.
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5. Learning orientation This program is focused on achieving practical, operational goals based on peer reviewed science.
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g. Decision Support Tools Evaluation Report for FAS/PECAD, Version 2.0, NASA/ Stennis Space Center, January 2004.
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and click on "Science for Society brochure" The State of the Nation's Ecosystems: periodic, high quality, non-partisan reporting on key aspects of the condition of the nation's ecosystems Robin O'Malley The H John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment 1.
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3. Program organization The project did involve a boundary-spanning function.
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5. Learning orientation The State of the Nation's Ecosystems project is designed as an iterative, adaptive effort.
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S and short-term in-country training opportunities for developing country scientists.
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Contact Information Kenneth Bridbord, M.D., MPH Director, Division of International Training and Research Fogarty International Center National Institutes of Health 31 Center Drive Room B2C39, Building 31 Bethesda, MD 20892-2220 Phone: (301)
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3. Program organization In this case, the users are long time collaborators with and fund recipients of the CDC's Division of Tuberculosis Elimination (DTBE)
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State funds were also applied to this project in the form of human resources as these were people responsible for TB control in the participating states. In phase 2, new methodologies allow high throughput at just two laboratories covering the whole country and ultimately responsible for genotyping about 10,000 isolates a year.
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9. Contact information CDC TB Genotyping Network Dr.
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2. Program management The program sought existing decision support systems or those under construction by the public health practice community.
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NASA's Earth Science Applications website: [http://earth.nasa.gov/eseapps/]
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