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The Sparks of Life

Southeast Asia Music Assuredly, the presence of metal, which has been exploited since Early Antiquity, along with the production of bronze, has guided the inventions of these people and led them to define their musical evolution through the mastery of this material. Here many instruments were born: gongs, kinds of completely covered pots, bulb-shaped gongs, enormous tom-toms, various metal lamellophones, which form a group of instruments called gangsa in Bali and the saron in Java, metal xylophones played with hammers. The extreme sophistication of these sonorous objects allows them to reproduce various notes of a musical scale that divides an octave into five or seven equal parts. Elsewhere, as in Vietnam and the Philippines, exploiting bronze has produced a series of gongs that do not try to reproduce a musical scale, but remind us that the use and domestication of this material took place in precise and functional conditions, although in the Philippines a series of bulb-shaped gongs with the name kulingtang are again found. Again elsewhere, in areas that did not produce this material for lack of capacities to extract raw materials from the earth, a series of two-headed drums in increasing size was invented. They were created in the spirit of the gongs. They are found in Burma with the name of pat waing and in Sumatra with the name of gondang. Like the gongs, the drums are tuned and can easily go through a musical scale. The same is true for different lamellophones: some were made out of wood and are usually designated by the term xylophone, for example, in the music of Cambodia and Thailand. Sometimes instruments made from different materials have been discovered in the same culture, however some have different uses. This is the case, for example, in Bali, where wooden xylophones called gambang are used for funeral rites, and metal xylophones or metallophones have been created for reasons having to do with religious services or entertainment. Music Sites Various Music Southeast Asian Language Guide Berkley Conference Percussion Instruments


Sci Proj
What's in the Scotchgard??? Acetone: Physical Properties Molecular weight 58.08 Boiling point 56.29°C Vapor pressure 184.5 Torr at 20°C Freezing point -94.7°C Refractive index 1.3587 at 20°C Density 0.7900 g/mL (6.592 lb/gal) at 20°C 0.7844 g/mL (6.546 lb/gal) at 25°C Dielectric constant 20.7 at 25°C Dipole moment 2.69 D at 20°C Solvent group 6 Polarity index (P') 5.1 Surface tension 23.32 dyn/cm at 20°C Solubility in water Miscible in all proportions Regulatory and Safety Data DOT Hazard Class 3, Flammable Liquid Packing Group II UN Identification Number UN1090 Storage Store in an area designed for flammable storage, or in an approved metal cabinet, away from direct sunlight, heat and sources of ignition. EPA applicable waste code(s) U002, F003, D001 Flash point -4°F (-20°C) by closed cup Lower explosive limit 2.5% Upper explosive limit 12.8% Time Weighted Average 750 ppm ACGIH Acetone is a clear, colourless, volatile liquid with a mildly pungent, characteristic sweet, slight aromatic, fruity odour. It is an EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE LIQUID AND VAPOUR. The vapour is heavier than air and may spread long distances making distant ignition and flashback possible. Acetone is a mild central nervous system depressant. Very high concentrations may cause headache, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, incoordination and confusion. It also causes eye irritation. It is an aspiration hazard and swallowing or vomiting of the liquid may result in aspiration into the lungs. Formula: CH3COCH3 isopropyl alcohol, or 2-propanol (´´spr´pnl, ´´spr´pl) (KEY) , (CH3)2CHOH, a colorless liquid that is miscible with water. It melts at -89°C and boils at 82.3°C. It is poisonous if taken internally. It is a major component of rubbing alcohols. Isopropanol is a secondary alcohol. It is one of the cheapest alcohols and has replaced ethanol for many uses because of its similar solvent properties. Isopropanol is made commercially by dissolving propylene gas in sulfuric acid and then hydrolyzing the sulfate ester that is formed; the propylene is a byproduct of petroleum refining. Isopropanol was formerly obtained largely by catalytic reduction of acetone; oxidation of isopropanol is now the major source of acetone. What are we doing??? Combustion Combustion, a chemical process that liberates heat. The word carries the connotation of fire or flame. Combustion can be described as the combination of an oxidizer with a fuel, for example, oxygen with petroleum, to produce compounds such as carbon dioxide and water. Processes of this type are important in home and industrial furnaces, various engines, and also in harmful fires. Combustion processes involving different oxidizers or fuels, for example, rusting of metals, have long been recognized and are important in chemical industries. Some "fuels," such as nitrocellulose, are capable of experiencing combustion in the absence of an oxidizer because they contain atoms of fuel and atoms of oxidizer within the same molecule. These substances form common ingredients of explosives and of propellants for rocket motors. Thus, combustion encompasses a wide class of chemical phenomena in nature and has various uses. History of the Science of Combustion. The early history of the study of combustion is closely related to the history of chemistry and of the molecular theory of matter. Perhaps because fire is spectacular and superficially mysterious, studies of combustion enjoyed undeserved prominence in the development of the foundations of chemistry until the end of the 18th century. During the Middle Ages the idea persisted that fire was one of the four basic elements of matter. Discussions of combustion later played a prominent role in Georg Ernst Stahl's erroneous "phlogiston" theory of matter, which delayed the progress of chemistry during the first 75 years of the 18th century. On the other hand, mutual reinforcement of chemistry and combustion studies arose from the careful 17th century investigations of Jean Rey, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and John Mayow concerning changes in weight and volume produced by combustion. Combustion also entered the later studies of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (discovery of oxygen), Joseph Priestley, and Karl Wilhelm Scheele that began in the decade 17701780 and established the basis of modern chemistry. By 1800 the overall chemical changes associated with common processes of combustion were well understood. Later studies focused on mechanisms of combustion and led to the recent emergence of combustion as an identifiable scientific discipline. The present discipline of combustion draws on the fields of chemical kinetics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and transport processes. These four subjects, particularly the first and last, did not begin to flourish until the middle of the 19th century. Therefore, the seeds of the modern science of combustion were not sown until the last half of the 19th century, notably by the experiments of Robert Bunsen (1866), of Claude Louis Berthelot and Paul Marie Eugène Vieille (1881) and of Ernest Mallard and Henry Louis Le Chatelier (1881, 1883) on the propagation of combustion waves, and by theoretical explanations offered by Vladimir Aleksandrovic Mikhel'son (1890), David Leonhard Chapman (1899), and Émile Jouguet (1905, 1917). Combustion as a scientific discipline has grown steadily in the 20th century. Principles of Combustion Materials for Combustion. Most substances can participate in combustion, either as fuels or as oxidizers. Those that cannot are the noble gases (for example, helium), molecular nitrogen, and a large class of compoundsincluding many oxides, sulfides, fluorides, and chloridesthat exist in their most stable chemical configurations and that can be formed as products of combustion. The list of known oxidizers is much shorter than the list of known fuels. The most common oxidizer is oxygen. Others include sulfur, all of the halogens, compounds made solely from halogens (for example, chlorine trifluoride), ozone, nitrogen tetroxide and other oxides of nitrogen, hydrogen peroxide, nitric acid, and potassium nitrate. Oxidizers also include, among a number of oxygen-rich salts, ammonium perchlorate, which is the most common oxidizer in solid-propellant rocket motors. Fuels encompass hydrogen, boron, carbon, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, all metals, all hydrocarbons, and essentially all organic molecules. Among other fuel substances are ammonia, hydrazine, and metal hydrides. In the past, many of these materials have not been classified as fuels; for example, metallic aluminum is often used in construction and is commonly considered noncombustible, but it will burn with oxygen and release more heat than conventional fuels if it is brought to sufficiently high temperatures (approximately 2300° K). Degrees Kelvin (° K) are units of measurement on the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature. Temperature given on the Kelvin scale may be converted to centigrade by subtracting 273 or to Fahrenheit by multiplying by 1.8 and then subtracting 460. The impetus for lengthening the lists of fuels and oxidizers comes largely from the field of rocket propulsion; all of the fuels and oxidizers cited above have been investigated as potential rocket propellants, and the most powerful combination that has been discovered is a mixture of hydrogen and the metal beryllium as fuel with oxygen as the oxidizer. Most of the energy that man consumes today is produced by the combustion in air of organically derived fuels. The three primary types of natural fuels are coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Fuels manufactured from them include such gases as coal gas, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, acetylene, and propane; the liquids benzene, kerosine, gasoline, and alcohol; and the solid coke. Other natural fuels are wood, peat, and lignite, a solid whose properties are intermediate between those of peat and coal. Heat of Combustion and Flame Temperature. A basic thermodynamic property of a fuel, relevant to its usefulness in combustion, is its heat of combustion, which is the energy released when a given amount of fuel reacts with an oxidizer to form specified combustion products at constant pressure and temperature. The heat of combustion with oxygen ranges from very low values for poor fuels to 34,000 calories per gram of fuel for hydrogen. For natural fuels, the values are 4,000 to 4,500 cal/gm for wood, 6,500 to 8,500 cal/gm for coal, 10,000 to 11,000 cal/gm for petroleum, and 11,000 to 14,000 cal/gm for natural gas. An important thermodynamic property of a combustible system is its adiabatic flame temperature, the maximum temperature achieved if all of the heat of combustion is used to increase the temperature of the combustion products. Adiabatic flame temperatures range up to about 2100° K for natural fuels burning in air and to 3000° K for natural fuels burning in pure oxygen. Ignition. The ignition temperature is the temperature to which a fuel must be raised before it begins to burn. Ignition temperatures depend on rates at which chemical reactions take place, on the rate at which the system can lose heat and materials to its surroundings, on the shape of the fuel and its container, and on the method of ignition that is employed. Approximate values of ignition temperatures for common fuels in air are 650°750° K for coal, 500°650° K for newspaper, dry wood, and gasoline, and 850° K for hydrogen. Ignition criteria have been expressed in terms of many quantities besides ignition temperature. Examples include the minimum rate of addition of energy and the minimum amount of energy needed for ignition. After the energy or temperature necessary for combustion to occur is imparted to a combustible system, a certain amount of time elapses before observable combustion begins; this is the ignition delay time, ranging from small fractions of a second to many days. Spontaneous Combustion. In this process, piles of certain materials, such as oily rags, react slowly with trapped oxygen. The heat produced by the reaction is lost slowly enough for the temperature of the materials to increase to a point at which flaming combustion begins. Flammability. Some fuel-oxidizer mixtures cannot be made to burn, either because the pressure is too low or because too little fuel or oxidizer is present; these mixtures lie outside the limits of flammability of the system. At atmospheric pressure, the upper and lower values of the percentage (by volume) of fuel in air between which the concentration must lie for combustion to be possible are 6 and 1 for gasoline vapor, and about 75 and 4 for hydrogen. Arrangements of Fuel and Oxidizer. Central to the science of combustion is the fact that there are two basic arrangements of fuel and oxidizer. They are premixed systems, wherein the fuel and oxidizer are intimately mixed before combustion begins, and nonpremixed systems, wherein fuel and oxidizer are separated initially and mix as they burn. An example of premixed combustion is the inner flame cone of a Bunsen burner, in which gaseous fuel is thoroughly mixed with air at the base of a tube that holds a flame at its upper exit. An example of nonpremixed burning is a wood fire. Fuels such as explosives that burn "without" an oxidizer are intrinsically premixed. Liquid and solid fuels that require an oxidizer are usually nonpremixed, although fine spray or dust (for example, pulverized coal) suspensions in air sometimes burn as premixed systems. In such cases, the premixed flame may have a nonpremixed substructure. Combustion in Nonpremixed Systems. In nonpremixed systems combustion is nonexplosive, and chemical heat release occurs in a flame into which fuel and oxidizer are transported from opposite sides. Such flames are called diffusion flames, because fuel and oxidizer diffuse into the flame zone while combustion products and heat diffuse out. Pertinent measures of combustion quality in diffusion flames include the flame height or flame length (the linear extent of the flame in the direction in which fuel is fed into the system) and the rate of heat release per unit area of a fuel bed. Combustion in Premixed Systems. In premixed systems, combustion reactions can proceed in a transient process nearly homogeneously throughout the entire system, or thin combustion waves can develop that consume fuel by propagating into unburned combustibles. The homogeneous mechanism tends to occur in small systems and the wave mechanism in large one. Explosions. Premixed systems experiencing homogeneous combustion are often observed to react slowly under certain conditions of pressure, temperature, composition, and chamber dimensions, and to explode under other conditions. Two qualitatively different mechanisms can produce explosions in homogeneous combustion systems. One mechanism is that of a thermal explosion, in which heat released by the reactions raises the temperature, which in turn accelerates the rate of heat release. The other mechanism is that of a branched-chain explosion, in which large numbers of highly reactive intermediate chemical species (free radicals) are produced in the combustion reactions and further accelerate the rates of these reactions. The destructive phenomenon of "knock" in internal combustion engines is believed by many experts to be caused by high pressures resulting from a branched-chain explosion. Combustion Waves. For any temperature, pressure, and composition (within the limits of flammability), two distinct types of combustion waves occur in premixed systems: deflagrations and detonations. Deflagrations. Deflagration waves propagate slowly, typically at flame speeds of 50 cm per second. At atmospheric pressure their thicknesses are of the order of a millimeter. Combustion is completed within the wave, causing the temperature behind the wave to be much greater than the temperature ahead of it. The wave propagates by conducting enough heat to the combustible gases ahead of it to raise their temperature to a point at which they begin to burn rapidly. Deflagrations provide a useful means for achieving hot flames and high rates of heat release per unit volume without producing damaging pressure waves. Bunsen burner flames and oxyacetylene torches are deflagrations, as are the combustion processes in jet engines and in solid propellant rockets. Detonations. Detonation waves propagate rapidly, at velocities of approximately 5,000 meters per second. They consist of a very thin shock wave, across which the pressure and temperature both increase by a factor of ten or more, followed by a combustion zone, in which chemical reactions proceed rapidly to completion. The strong shock wave serves to ignite the combustible gases in a detonation. The pressure pulses associated with detonations are highly destructive, and therefore detonations usually must be avoided in engines and furnaces. High explosives are purposely constructed to support detonations. Concepts of detonative combustion form the basis of some novel theoretical designs for jet and rocket engines. Forman A. Williams University of California at San Diego On a molecular basis, combustion originates by the formation of Free radicals and spreads by a chain reaction that increases the supply of radicals. Fire-retardant chemicals function by their ability to "soak up" radicals, thus terminating the chain reaction. Extremely rapid combustion is called an explosion. This can occur if the production of radicals greatly exceeds the rate of chain termination, or if heat buildup is great enough to accelerate the reactions of very rapid rates. (See also flame and spontaneous combustion.) "combustion." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004 (November 21, 2003). Cellulose Acetate Cellulose Acetate, a thermoplastic resin of cellulose. Fibers made of cellulose acetate are widely used in the production of a strong, silklike material that is easily dyed and wears well. The resin is also used in lacquers, protective coatings, artificial leather, transparent sheeting, and cigarette filters and in the production of plastics and acetate film. Cellulose acetate occurs as odorless white flakes or as a powder; it softens at temperatures of from 60° to 97° C (140° to 207° F) and melts at about 260° C (500° F). It is soluble in acetone, ethylene dichloride, ethyl acetate, cyclohexanol, and nitropropane. Cellulose acetate is produced by treating cellulose from wood pulp or cotton with acetic acid and acetic anhydride in the presence of sulfuric acid. The product of this reaction, which is acetylated cellulose, is then partially hydrolyzed. In the final product, each of the glucose subunits of the cellulose contains an average of 2 to 2.5 acetate groups. Fibers of cellulose acetate are made by forcing an acetone solution of the compound through small openings in a spinneret into a warm-air stream, which causes the solvent to evaporate from the filaments. In the production of cellulose acetate films, the solution is coated on a drum, and when the solvent evaporates, the remaining film is removed. The films are used as a support for photographic film, for magnetic tape for sound recording, for packaging, and for laminating. For use as a plastic, cellulose acetate is usually combined with plasticizers and dyes or pigments. The plastics are tough and have a high mechanical strength and relatively low flammability. They are widely used in handles for tools and cutlery, in toys, and in containers for radios and other appliances. http://go.grolier.com/gol Cotton is the most important vegetable fiber used for producing textiles. Its history as a cultivated plant began in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, India, and China. In the New World cotton was known in Mexico as early as 5000 and in Peru by about 2500 . Today it is grown in more than 70 countries throughout the world, and in the mid-1990s total annual production averaged about 18 million metric tons (19.8 million U.S. tons). China is the world's largest producer, growing well over one-quarter of the total. The United States produces about one-fifth of the total. Pakistan, India, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, and Egypt are also major producers, as are the Central Asian countries Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and, to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan. The Cotton Plant The cotton plant, Gossypium, belongs to the mallow family, some of whose other members are hibiscus, hollyhock, and okra. Although more than 30 species of cotton are in this genus, only three have commercial significance: G. barbadense, G. herbaceum, and G. hirsutum. The last of these is the most prominent and is known as upland cotton. About 99% of all U.S. cotton and 88% of all varieties grown worldwide are of this species. Its staple length (the average length of fiber) is between that of the other two species. G. barbadense includes all long staple cottons such as Sea Island, Egyptian, Peruvian, and the pimas. Their long, fine fibers can be woven into sheer, strong, lighter weight fabrics. G. herbaceum has the shortest staple length and is a rather coarse fiber. It is grown primarily in Asian countries. In its wild state cotton is a perennial, but in cultivation it must be planted annually. The cotton plant grows upright to a height of 1 to 2 m (3 to 6 ft). Because the flowers have both pollen-bearing stamens and an ovary with several ovules, the probability for self-pollination is high and usually takes place the morning the flower opens. Immediately after fertilization the boll, which contains seeds and fibers, begins to form. Individual fibers grow from cells on the surface of the seed. About three weeks after fertilization, fibers reach their full length, and they become thin-walled hollow tubes filled with plant juices. Now the plant begins to deposit layers of cellulose (a complex carbohydrate constituting 95% of the weight of the mature fiber), at the rate of a layer a day for three more weeks, until maturity. When the boll finally bursts open, it contains up to 50 seeds with the fibers, called lint, attached. Short fuzz fibers, linters, are also attached to the seed. Linters have thicker walls and a larger diameter. If a lint fiber is of average length, 25.4 mm (1 in), the linters will be 2.5 to 5 mm (0.1 to 0.2 in) long. Mazzeno, Laurence W., "cotton." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004 (November 21, 2003). Synthetic fibers are fibers made from chemicals rather than from such natural sources as animal hair or plant filaments (see fiber, natural). Fiber producers can control the size, shape, surface, and other physical aspects of their synthetics. Fibers used primarily for textiles are usually heat-, moisture-, and mildew-resistant, stretchable, and easy to dye. Synthetic fibers made for other purposes are often superior in strength and durability to the metals and other materials they can replace. Nearly all synthetics are made from petrochemicals; many resemble plastics in their chemical structures. History. In 1884 the Frenchman Hilaire de Chardonnet invented a process for treating natural cellulose such as wood pulp with solvents and spinning the resultant liquid into fiber (see rayon). nylon, made (1938) by the DuPont Company, was the first commercially successful fiber wholly synthesized from chemicals. Wallace H. Carothers formulated the theory of long-chain polymerization, providing the scientific foundation for synthetic fiber production. The process for making all oil-based synthetic fibers is basically the same. Certain organic chemicals, products of oil refining, are combined into a syrupy substance and forced through the tiny holes of a spinneret. Cooled and solidified, the resultant filaments are stretched to produce the degree of strength and elasticity desired, then crimped, coiled, or otherwise textured before being woven or knitted into fabric. The fibers can be blended with others, orin the case of high-performance fibersmelted down with metals or ceramics to produce composite materials. Textile Fibers. Synthetic textile fibers can be designed to meet specific performance or appearance requirements. Nylon, for instance, is strong, durable, and lightweight; it can be produced as an extremely fine thread, for women's hosiery; as a thicker, glossy thread, for lingerie; and as a thick fiber for reinforcing vehicle tires. Woolly acrylic fibers are used for sweaters and furlike fabrics. Elastomeric synthetics have largely replaced rubber in stretchable textiles. Hollow polyester fibers make lightweight clothing insulation. Polyester "microfibers" produce water-and wind-resistant fabrics that are also vapor permeablethat is, they allow perspiration vapors to pass through. (Permeable Gore-Tex, used for sports clothing, is a fabric to which a thin, porous film has been applied.) High-Performance Fibers. High-performance fibers are distinguished by their extremely high temperature resistance and extraordinary strength. Aramid fibers, for example, are similar to nylon, but their slightly different chemical structure makes them stronger than steel. Kevlar, a fiber made from Aramid, is used to make bulletproof fabrics and clothing that is resistant both to heat and to chemicals. Aramid fibers, along with many other high-performance syntheticscarbon, boron, silicon, and aluminum-oxide fibersare used to produce lightweight, superstrong composite structural materials. Composites are widely used in manufacturing lightweight airplanes. (The Voyager, for instance, could not have achieved its nonstop, round-the-world flight in 1986 without its hollow, carbon-fiber composite wings, which were filled with fuel for the trip.) Other synthetics are used to make extratough rope, heat-and chemical-resistant filters and membranes, and nonbreakable sports equipment. Alumina-boria-silica fiber is replacing asbestos for high-temperature and insulating uses. Fibers made from glass are used as insulation, to form composite structural materials when mixed with certain plastics (see fiberglass), and as the light-carrying structures in fiber optics. Adshead, James, "synthetic fibers." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004 (November 21, 2003). Fibers obtained from a plant or an animal are classed as natural fibers (for other types, see synthetic fibers). The majority of these fibers are used in weaving textiles, although the coarser plant fibers are also used for rope and twine. Plant fibers come from the seed hairs, leaves, stems (bast fibers), or husks of the plant. Animal fibers are provided, generally, by animal hair and, in the case of silk, by the secretion of the silkworm. Plant Fibers The most abundant and commonly used plant fiber is cotton, gathered from the cotton boll, or seed pod, when it is mature. The short, fluffy fibers must be "ginned" to separate fiber from seed. After the fibers are combed to align them all in one direction, they can be spun into yarn. Spinning, an operation most natural fibers undergo, is accomplished by twisting the short fibers into strong, continuous strands of yarn or thread. Other seed-hair fibers include kapok, used for pillow stuffing. Fibers taken from the plant leaf are called "hard," or cordage, fibers because they are used principally to make rope. The most important leaf fibers are those from the sisal, or agave, plant grown in Brazil and Africa, and a Mexican agave that produces a fiber called henequen. Both sisal and henequen fibers are stiff, strong, and rough textured. Abaca, or manila hemp, is a fiber from the leafstalk of a banana plant, Musa textilis, which grows in the Philippines. Abaca is the strongest of the leaf fibers and is used primarily for cordage. Most leaf fibers come from tropical areas. The palmetto, the only native U.S. leaf fiber plant, grows in the southeast; its fibers are used in brushes. Stem, or bast, fibers include the important flax, hemp, and jute plants. Softer and more flexible than the leaf fibers, they are stripped from the plant stems after the stems have been softened in water. Hemp comes from the stems of the Cannabis sativa plantthe same plant that produces marijuana. Until it was replaced by abaca and sisal, hemp was the principal cordage fiber. It is used today for twine and for rough fabrics, such as burlap. Flax stems produce the fiber that is woven into linen. Jute, a plant growing primarily in India and Bangladesh, provides fiber for twine, burlap, and sacking. Ramie, a relatively new textile fiber, is taken from the plant Bohmeria nivea, grown principally in the People's Republic of China. Kenaf, from a hibiscus grown mainly in India, is used for canvas and cordage. Coir is the rough-textured fiber that comes from the husk of coconuts. It is used as a brush bristle or is spun into a thick twine for weaving into doormats and other floor coverings. Animal Fibers Wool, the long fine hair of sheep, is the most important animal fiber. The fine underhair of the angora and cashmere goats, the angora rabbit, the camel, the alpaca, and the vicuña have a special softness and, often, high bulk (as in mohair, from the angora goat). Silk is a protein extruded in long, continuous strands by the silkworm as it weaves its cocoon. The fine strands of several cocoons are unwound and twisted together to make silk thread, which produces fabrics of a unique softness and luster. "fiber, natural." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Scholastic Library Publishing, 2004 (November 21, 2003).

Things To Live For

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