Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

Aeyon expands automation, analytics footprint through acquisitions – Washington Technology

Posted: February 15, 2022 at 5:54 am

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Pros And Cons Of Business Process Automation: Is It Worth It? – GISuser.com

Posted: at 5:54 am

Business process automation is a perfect way to increase any businesss profitability. In fact, tasks performed by humans are being replaced by those completed by special software.

Most modern companies are interested in business process automation (BPA) and everything connected with it. Any business is a collection of various processes that require effective management. Automation significantly speeds up the performance of the tasks and optimizes work.

BPA allows you to eliminate the human factor as much as possible and reduce the risk of errors. Numerous enterprises from various fields have already decided to automate business processes appreciated all the advantages of such a solution.

However, many people think that business automation is a long and complicated process with the necessity to have a large staff, expertise, and huge investments. In practice, everything is a little easier. If you turn to specialists like the Grid Dynamics company, you can do everything quickly and efficiently.

In this article, we will briefly talk about business process automation, as well as consider its advantages and disadvantages.

Who Does Need Automation and Why?

Today, all companies that want to develop and maintain their positions in the market need automation. Each company has its business processes and metrics, but you can solve several tasks and achieve goals that are universal for most companies by using automation.

The goals of business process automation:

Business process automation is used in any area at any stage of development, including sales and marketing, HR processes, or when two companies are merged into one. When business automation is complete, employees can visualize their role in creating the final product.

Pros and Cons of Business Process Automation

So, despite the written above, many still doubt the practicality and necessity of automating business processes.

Pros of Business Process Automation

Cons of Business Process Automation

Summing Up

BPA is a complex and lengthy process. But your business is definitely worth it. After all, you will protect yourself and your company from many problems by optimizing the work of the enterprise.

The company activity after the implementation of automated software solutions becomes more productive and successful. BPA provides numerous benefits that we have mentioned above.

Choosing the right tools is essential for automation to be as efficient as possible since untrained employees will work with the software, program, or platform. It should be simple, with a user-friendly and easy-to-use interface. Therefore, if you dont have experience in digital transformation, you should turn to professionals.

Good luck!

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Automation Notifications Are a Thing of the Past in iOS 15.4 – The Mac Observer

Posted: at 5:54 am

Its always annoying when one of my personal automations in Shortcuts bugs me with a notification. For that matter, the insistence of Shortcuts to notify me every time I run one of my shortcuts is no picnic, either. One very welcome change in iOS 15.4 beta is that automation notifications from Shortcuts can be a thing of the past.

Im talking here about the notifications you normally get from Personal Automations in the Shortcuts app. These are the shortcuts you set up to run all on their own under certain conditions. For example, when you turn off an alarm, at a certain time of the day, or when you leave a particular location.

Notifications from these can be particularly annoying, if only because you want your iPhone to just quietly do what you instructed it to do, without any interaction on your part. I get why some might want them turned on, though; if you want to be totally sure the automation ran, its good to get the notification.

As of iOS 15.4 Beta 2, you can now choose whether or not you receive automation notifications. Even better, you can make this choice for each of your automations. Maybe you want your iPhone to let you know its run the shortcut for your arrival at the gym. On the other hand, you dont want it giving you one more notification to clear in the morning after you turn off your alarm.

The way Apple seems to be designing this change, youll have that freedom. Each of your Personal Automations offers a toggle switch to enable or disable the notifications. To change it, go to Shortcuts > Automation and choose your personal automation. Near the bottom, where you only saw Ask Before Running, will be a new toggle: Notify When Run. If you flip that off, you wont get a notification when the automatic shortcut runs.

This only works for Personal Automations, as of now. Your normal shortcuts and Home Automations arent affected. There is a workaround to disable notifications for regular shortcuts, but it doesnt always work.

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ZF partners with Embotech to develop freight yard automation systems – Robotics and Automation News

Posted: at 5:54 am

ZF, one of the worlds largest automotive systems suppliers, has acquired a 25 per cent stake in Embotech, a developer of autonomous vehicle software.

The companies have agreed a strategic partnership agreement to jointly develop fully autonomous systems for commercial vehicle yard operations.

The partnership aims to enhance the operational safety and productivity of distribution hubs and yards.

ZF says the two companies aim to provide a scalable and reliable solution for transportation-as-a-service on restricted areas, the partnership will develop customer-tailored automated solutions to support multiple applications.

This includes logistics yards, ports, airports, mining, and agricultural operations as well as bus depots. Another project is the development of an intelligent predictive cruise control that takes traffic flow, traffic signals and topographical conditions into account.

Philipp Helmich, vice president of vehicle dynamics and controls and autonomous driving with ZFs commercial vehicle control systems division, says: Our collaboration with Embotech is a continuation of ZFs Next Generation Mobility strategy.

The partnership agreement with Embotech is built on a shared vision to develop complementary products and technologies to build a reliable and global Transportation-as-a-Service solution for commercial vehicles operating on restricted areas.

The new partnership will accelerate the development of automated yard solutions initially across Europe and, ultimately, world-wide.

Providing a complete eco-system software platform, it will improve customer operations using autonomous, connected, and electrified vehicles, smart infrastructure features and intelligent software solutions.

A critical step in the commercial automation supply chain, yard automation is aimed at solving key challenges and issues impacting the sector, aimed to reduce the total cost of ownership as well as enhancing operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability.

Andreas Kyrtatos, CEO of Embotech, says: We are delighted to further build on our collaboration with ZF through this important strategic partnership to develop advanced solutions for automated yard logistics world-wide.

Applications on restricted areas can already offer value to end customers, be it a vehicle manufacturer, a logistics company transferring containers from a factory to an inland port, or a mining company covering large distances with autonomous hauling trucks.

Providing ZF with a market-proven solution, the partnership will support autonomous driving using Embotechs decision-making software.

This will be combined with ZFs systems expertise in sensor, electronic control and actuation for Level 4 self-driving commercial vehicles, including its ADOPT Autonomous Driving Open Platform Technology.

Another project from the new cooperation is the development of an intelligent predictive cruise control. This takes traffic flow, traffic signals and topographical conditions into account.

As part of the collaboration, global automotive technology company ZF has invested in Embotech and will take a seat on the companys board of management.

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BHP reveals $1bn win from data automation – iTnews

Posted: at 5:54 am

Mining giant BHP has unlocked around $1 billion in "value" in the first year of a major data automation initiative.

The data automation project was established in early 2021 and is being delivered through five digital centresthat focus on advanced analytics, machine learning and operational decision automation.

BHP said in a slide deck that the program so far is a billion-dollar victory for the company, though it did not share details of where it had unlocked the most value by using analytics.

It did say that ithas applied machine learning to re-assessing 100 years of legacy exploration data, pointing to the assembly of a substantial training dataset.

The exploration data re-assessment let BHP locate new exploration targets with a higher degree of accuracy.

BHP has teamed up with artificial intelligence company KoBold Metals to apply machine learning to revolutionise the way we discovered new deposits,"BHP chief executive Mike Henry said.

In its half year 2022 results, BHP stated broadly that "technology is a key lever" in improving safety, growing production and easing costs.

Henry told investors technology and innovation are areas of particular focus for the company alongside working internally.

We're collaborating externally to solve big challenges, Henry said.

We're also investing in emerging technologies to give us more competitive edge and to drive sustainable growth across our current operations, our resource base and our value chain.

We've cast the net wide. For example, working with startups and academia to investigate a number of innovative iron ore beneficiation concepts."

Beneficiation is the process of separating worthless materials from the ore.

Henry said BHP is well positioned to create and grow value

We've demonstrated our ability to execute well through all of the challenges the world and industry have faced over the past six months and continue to face.

The company also reported around 200 autonomous trucks are now operation globally across six mining sites.

BHP reported a profit from operations of US$14.8 billion (A$20.78 billion) and attributable profit of US$9.4 billion, plus underlying attributable profit of US$10.7 billion.

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The Oil and Gas Automation Market is expected to grow by $ 179.76 mn during 2022-2026, progressing at a CAGR of 3.66% during the forecast period -…

Posted: at 5:54 am

New York, Feb. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Oil and Gas Automation Market in Latin America 2022-2026" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06229660/?utm_source=GNW 66% during the forecast period. Our report on the oil and gas automation market in Latin America provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by growth in shale oil production and growing regulatory compliance. In addition, growth in shale oil production is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well.The oil and gas automation market in Latin America analysis includes the product segment and geographic landscape.

The oil and gas automation market in Latin America is segmented as below:By Product SCADA DCS PLC MES

By Geographical Landscape Brazil Mexico Argentina Rest of Latin America

This study identifies the gradual recovery in upstream activitiesas one of the prime reasons driving the oil and gas automation market growth in Latin America during the next few years.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Our report on oil and gas automation market in Latin America covers the following areas: Oil and gas automation market sizing Oil and gas automation market forecast Oil and gas automation market industry analysis

This robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading oil and gas automation market vendors in Latin America that include ABB Ltd., Andritz AG, Emerson Electric Co., FURUKAWA Co. Ltd., General Electric Co., Honeywell International Inc., Rockwell Automation Inc., Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, and Wipro Ltd. Also, the oil and gas automation market in Latin America analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to an analysis of the key vendors.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. Technavios market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast the accurate market growth.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06229660/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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The Oil and Gas Automation Market is expected to grow by $ 179.76 mn during 2022-2026, progressing at a CAGR of 3.66% during the forecast period -...

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How ManageCore is automating SAP operations with Avantra – Diginomica

Posted: at 5:54 am

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay )

Managecore sells itself as a different kind of company' in the SAP managed services market. Key to how it sets itself apart from other MSPs is its operational transparency, enabling customers to see exactly what Managecore sees, and automating SAP environments so that customers can focus on investing in innovation, rather than maintenance.

Both of these differentiators are underpinned by Managecore's use of Avantra, a platform that specializes in automating SAP operations. diginomica has previouslyspoken with Avantra CEO John Appleby about how the companyaims to help its customers shift the cost balance of their SAP environments from maintenance to investment.

Nick Miletich, Chief Technology Officer at Managecore, explains that the company's symbiotic relationship with Avantra is helping to deliver value to customers that are grappling with complex SAP landscapes. Miletich says:

We always want to be not only as efficient as possible, but to give our clients the best type of service we can. Over the years we've used many, many toolsets to monitor different aspects of SAP, the servers and the infrastructure that they run on.

And there was never a solution that was really great at SAP. They often try to be everything to everyone and Avantra is different. They focused on SAP, they started there, and then expanded the other way. They expanded outward, but they started with SAP as their core.

We want our consultants to really be consultants with these accounts, with these clients. Our clients expect a high level of service and they expect us to be providing value to them at every step of the way. And the value that we provide doesn't come in checking for really mundane trivial issues with the system. The value is: how do you use SAP to your best ability? How is your company or organization using SAP now and where should it go tomorrow?

Managecore says that it is using Avantra to take care of the trivial checks that customers would normally have to undertake manually, using the vendor's automation engine to carry out tedious work that operations managers would normally have to endure. Miletich says:

We use its core capacity, but then we've really built upon it, to allow us to automate certain aspects of what we do.

It allows us to be more responsive to issues and really prevent them. The way Avantra works, it allows us to really be preventative and really have that proactive support that everyone's looking for, versus being reactive.

Miletich does say that any monitoring or automation solution is only as good as you set it up to be, so Managecore has spent a lot of time on configuring the platform for its clients' needs. Some examples of how its works for customers include:

For example, if an alert says X, spin up another server. Or if a security issue comes up for SAP, we're able to quickly, across our whole organization, create a check to look for that. We can see, are these clients impacted by it?

You don't have to spend hours and hours and hours trying to look through that and figure it out. We can actually check within five minutes. And then Avantra has automation tools to do the fix for that, which happens to be a kernel patch. We have automation tools to do that, so Avantra can patch kernels automatically, instead of having to do every single system manually.

But as noted above, transparency is also key to Managecore's success, and it is also making use of Avantra's dashboards to give clients customized insight into their SAP environments. Miletich explains:

Each client is different - some may have multiple areas within their business function units - they may have an analytics practice, then they have the core ECC practice and then they may have finance.

All those entities use SAP differently. So what we tend to do is create dashboards that are relevant to them. So you may see just ECC on a dashboard, you may see just production. The IT staff at that organization may see it all - but on a dashboard showing red, green, yellow - versus parsing through every single system trying to figure out what's going on. So we use dashboards heavily to really customize the experience that each individual client gets with us.

Managecore utilizes the public cloud for its clients, particularly Google Cloud, and its use of Avantra is helping it bring public cloud capabilities to SAP. Miletich says that SAP hasn't traditionally lended itself to some of the benefits of this technology, which Managecore sees as an opportunity for its business. Miletich explains:

It's the limitation of the SAP software itself. SAP doesn't run in Kubernetes. It's not an environment that, from an IT administration standpoint, is as nimble as an environment you could put in Kubernetes, where one server goes down and everything still continues to operate.

So what we've done for some of the automation is what you'd almost call pre-planning. We're big in the public cloud space, so we use a lot of automation connectivity between the environments to make that magic happen. As an example, you can correlate a CPU utilization metric, and if it's 90% utilized for over 30 minutes, we can spin up another application server for SAP. Those are the types of automation that we tend to gravitate towards.

It's tying Avantra to SAP and it's tying the public cloud all together to make simple troubleshooting a non-issue.

Avantrarecently announced its latest Enterprise Edition, where it has rebuilt its automation engine for more sophisticated and complex use cases. Managecore is particularly interested in Avantra's autonomous patching capabilities and some of the AI/ML opportunities it has identified with SAP Graph.

But underpinning all of Managecore's use of Avantra is focusing on how it can ultimately shift its customers' time balance away from maintenance, towards new opportunities with SAP. Miletich says:

I would say at its foundation, Avantra allows you to be more flexible and nimble, but also allows you to be in that innovative type of role and environment, rather than a day to day troubleshooting role.

I'll give you an example from one of our clients. We moved them to Google Cloud and migrated them from one MSP to us. They've been with us since then, for four years. And this client, one of their key quotes was: "By moving to ManageCore as our managed services provider, using this product, it allows us to focus on innovation".

They're not on calls asking why their system is down, or asking for more memory, all the things that go into managing an environment. They now can do additional net new innovative deployments that are correlated to SAP to better their business. And I think that's the key takeaway from a product like that.

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Sign & Digital UK: Increase Productivity with Automation Software From OneVision – WhatTheyThink

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As middleware, OneVision's software solutions automate the whole file preparation workflow, from file input to the handover of print-ready files to the press and finishing devices.

Visual communication is quite varied: From signage to wall graphics, giant posters, vehicle wrapping, to POS material and much more. A project can often comprise of a wide variety of large format print products produced on a range of machines, a combination of materials and finished in a number of differnet ways. OneVision Software (at booth K12) provides reliable, powerful and flexible software which can automate these processes, cutting production time and increasing profitability.

Regensburg/Birmingham. Now more than ever, with the challenges posed since March 2020, print businesses need to seek ways on improving automation, turnaround times and margins to ensure they have a sustainable business. One prepared for growth as things begin to return to a new normal. With more than 25 years of experience, software manufacturer OneVision and its automation software supports print service providers successfully in this transformation.

Workflow automation from prepress to press onto embellishment and finishing

As a so-called middleware, OneVision's automation software allows print service providers to implement a holistic end-to-end workflow starting from the file input to the production stage. The basis of the software is an extremely flexible, easy-to-use workflow management system that can be connected easily to other parts of the system landscape (e.g. MIS, web-storefront and DFE). Through the seamless integration, print files pass through classic file preparation steps (e.g. preflighting, color management, flattening of transparencies, etc.) via defined workflows. In addition, tools specially tailored to the needs of wide format, commercial or screen printers such as nesting, tiling and paneling, creating cut lines, generating bleed etc. automatically prepare files for the printing and finishing process. The software then transfers the required production files to printing machines and post press systems.

High performance printing for more throughput and reduced substrate costs

As a result, printing businesses benefit from shorter make-ready and production times, a more efficient use of substrate and an overall increased profitability. Customer-focused cooperation with renowned press and finishing system manufacturers (e.g. Canon, EFI, Znd, ) allow an optimal interplay of software and hardware.

Meet the OneVision Software Team at Sign & Digital in Birmingham at booth K12.

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Tricentis acquires Testim to extend software test automation in the enterprise – VentureBeat

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Join today's leading executives online at the Data Summit on March 9th. Register here.

Tricentis, a software test automation company used by companies such as Merck, ANZ, and Dell, has acquired AI-enabled rival Testim. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition comes as the global test automation market hit an estimated $20.7 billion in 2021, a figure thats predicted to more than double within five years. This growth is being driven by the simple fact that just about every company today is a software company, while at the same time pressure to ship new features and products more quickly increases the likelihood of bugs entering the production codebase.

One of Tricentiss flagship products isTosca, which brings autonomous continuous testing to developer teams, saving valuable manual resources in the process. Tosca helps DevOps teams design end-to-end software tests across the entire enterprise architecture, including GUIs, APIs, and even ensuring data integrity.

Testim, for its part, is a similar proposition, though it lays claims to being the first test automation solution to use AI, a foundation that was seemingly instrumental in Tricentiss decision to go all in and buy Testim outright. And although Tricentis offers some services under a SaaS model, Testim was created as a SaaS from the get-go, making it easier for companies to adopt cloud-based testing capabilities with flexible consumption models, according to a statement.

Elsewhere, Testim also recently launched a test automation product specifically for the Salesforce ecosystem, opening the doors to the some 150,000 companies that use the CRM.

Testim boasts an impressive array of customers which will no doubt appeal to Tricentis too after launching its Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) enterprise security service back in 2016, Microsoft sought ways to deploy functional, end-to-end test automation on the software to conserve resources across their engineering, QA, and product management teams. They opted for Testim.

While Tricentis and Testim do overlap somewhat, by coming together they are essentially looking to pool their respective strengths.

We plan to leverage the best technology across our portfolios and integrate our offerings to build world-class solutions for software quality assurance, Testim founder and CEO Oren Rubin wrote in a blog post.

VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More

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Focus on Automation: An Interview with Paul Farrell – Software Testing News

Posted: at 5:54 am

As part of our focus on Automation, we have talked with Paul Farrell, Quality Automation Lead at Gear4music.

Could you introduce yourself and your current role?

My names Paul Farrell and Im the Quality Automation Engineering Lead at Gear4music.

Can you tell me about your journey and how you got where you are now?

I started my testing journey in the games industry. I had a short work placement at THQ UK, formally known as Juice Games in Warrington, during my University studies. Once I graduated, I worked at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe as a Functionality Tester in the First Party Quality Assurance department (FPQA).

My first Web Application testing role was for a company called Inventive IT where I was introduced to cross-browser testing, APIs, and Agile processes. After that, I became Test Lead at an eCommerce business called Beauty Bay where I was responsible for building their QA processes and automation frameworks from scratch. After 2 years I was approached by Gear4music for what seemed to be my dream job at my dream company.

What inspired you to get involved in the IT industry?

It was inevitable that I would end up working in IT as it was my strongest subject at school. I still remember the first IT lesson we had in Secondary School/High School and everyone was amazed that I could type so fast. I strayed away from tech for a number of years to focus on playing music around the country but I came back to IT in the end.

Why did you decide to specialize in Automation and Testing?

Marek, one of the developers at Inventive IT demonstrated how to automate actions in the browser using Ruby. It instantly sparked my curiosity and I was happy to use it to aid with regression testing.

Also, the CTO at Inventive IT, Nik, showed this cool and upcoming tool at the time called Postman which could use JavaScript to assert values in the API response.Id happily spend hours working on scripts to help out with manual tasks, I find it so interesting and addictive.

Do you have a favorite part of your job?

In the past, Id point to something too cool that I wouldve built. But the best part of my job is to see the other Quality Engineers utilising automation themselves to help with their own tasks.

What makes a good team leader?

In my opinion, a good leader inspires those around them and knows who to use and who to talk to to get the job done. A lead doesnt need to know everything or be a technical wizard, but theyre aware of each team members strengths and weaknesses.

What are some of the challenges you faced during your career?

When I encounter something technical I dont know yet, I really beat myself up about it. I have the usual imposter syndrome thoughts: Youre a leader! You should know how to do this! and doubting why I have the current position I have. But I actually look forward to those moments now as when you power through them and something finally clicks, its such a huge reward and its a humble reminder that you should never stop learning.

What are you the proudest of in your career so far?

Easily one of my proudest moments was to just say Yes to everything and deal with the consequences later. To cut a long story short, this led me to be asked by Postman to speak at Post/Con in 2019. I was flown to San Francisco, which was my first time flying on my own, and I spoke to hundreds of people on their main stage about API testing. At the time, that was completely out of character for me. I still look back at that moment and feel that it was a defining moment in my career and personal life.

What have you learned from your experience so far?

Take risks. Failures are only bad if you dont learn from them. Own your self-development! Do not wait for someone else to train or teach you something. There are so many free resources online to learn things.

What are you aiming for in the future?

To continue to love my job. I genuinely havent had a single morning where Ive dreaded coming to work at Gear4music. I also plan on continuing to mentor the other testers so they can become self-sufficient with all things test automation.

Do you have any advice for aspiring testers?

I mentioned this before, but own your self-development! My career would not have progressed at the rate it did had I not adopted that so early on in my career. The second I was introduced to using JavaScript in Postman, my career completely changed. I was hungry to learn and use these new skills.

Automation is not the only tool in your tester toolbox that you should aspire to have. There are so many different testing avenues such as Security, Performance, Accessibility, etc.

Finally, do you have a memorable story or anecdote from your experience you would like to share with us?

I remember whilst I was working at Sony, I found a game-breaking bug that none of the other testers or developers could replicate. This resulted in Sony sending me on the first train from Liverpool to Brighton the next morning to replicate the bug in front of the developers. I managed to replicate the bug within 15 minutes of me arriving at the studio. It turns out I was pressing the buttons quicker than 0.1 seconds which the developers didnt consider being a possibility. Paul Farrell, the fastest thumbs in the gaming industry!

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