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How can we monitor the effects of global warming, optimize management of our freshwater resources, help traditional local fishermen exploit marine resources in a sustainable way, and ensure a safe route for skippers in solo round-the-world races?

The data from the European Sentinel-3 satellite, combined with the know-how of the scientific teams at CLS, a subsidiary of CNES, and of its customers or users, will address these issues from space.

Designed to monitor the Earth and oceans, Sentinel-3, part of the Copernicus program, was developed jointly by ESA and the European Commission. This program is the European response to ever-increasing needs for environmental stewardship. Sentinel-3 is one of a
family of several satellites, each using a different technique or having a different goal (Sentinel-1 is carrying a synthetic aperture radar; Sentinel-2 is dedicated to optical imaging and Sentinel-3 will focus on the oceans).

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The importance of measuring species diversity as an indicator of ecosystem health has been long recognized and it seems that satellite remote sensing (SRS) has proven to be one of the most cost-effective approaches to identify biodiversity hotspots and predict changes in species composition.

What is the real potential of SRS and what are the pitfalls that need to be avoided to achieve the full potential of this method is the topic of a new research, published in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.

The new study, supported by the FP7 funded EU project EU BON takes the assessment of diversity in plant communities as a case study. Showing the difficulties to achieve high results by relying only on field data, the paper discusses the advantages of SRS methods.

“In contrast to field-based methods, SRS allows for complete spatial coverages of the Earth’s surface under study over a short period of time. Furthermore, it provides repeated measures, thus making it possible to study temporal changes in biodiversity,” explains Dr. D. Rocchini from Fondazione Edmund Mach, lead author and WP deputy leader / task leader in EU BON. “In our research we provide a concise review of the potential of satellites to help track changes in plant species diversity, and provide, for the first time, an overview of the potential pitfalls associated with the misuse of satellite imagery to predict species diversity. ”

Traditionally, assessment of biodiversity at local and regional scales relies on the one hand on local diversity, or the so called alpha-diversity, and on the other, on species turnover, or beta-diversity. Only in combination of these two measures can lead to an estimate of the whole diversity of an area.

While the assessment of alpha-diversity is relatively straightforward, calculation of beta-diversity could prove to be quite challenging. This is where increased collaboration between the remote sensing and biodiversity communities is needed in order to properly address future challenges and developments.

The new research shown the high potential of remote sensing in biodiversity studies while also identifying the challenges underpinning the development of this interdisciplinary field of research.

“Further sensitivity studies on environmental parameters derived from remote sensing for biodiversity mapping need to be undertaken to understand the pitfalls and impacts of different data collection processes and models. Such information, however, is crucial for a continuous global biodiversity analysis and an improved understanding of our current global challenges.”concludes Dr. Rocchini.

Original Source:
Rocchini, D., Boyd, D. S., Féret, J.-B., Foody, G. M., He, K. S., Lausch, A., Nagendra, H., Wegmann, M., Pettorelli, N. (2016), Satellite remote sensing to monitor species diversity: potential and pitfalls. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2: 25-36. doi: 10.1002/rse2.9

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This month, I wish to focus on our communications and the tools which EARSC uses to inform and exchange with our members as well as other stakeholders.
But before launching into that subject I want to just draw your attention to our latest position paper referred to elsewhere in this magazine which considers the idea to establish a Marketplace Alliance for EO Services in Europe. We consider that the pace of development in the industry is leaving many small companies vulnerable to developments elsewhere and outside their control. The European Copernicus programme has the potential to help drive development and growth but much work needs to be done to open up the data and information coming from this programme in which €7b has already been invested. The EC has started to recognise industrial messages on this topic and hence we propose to establish a new form of Alliance to help companies individually and collectively to address new customers and markets which we see opening as a result of Copernicus and various technology changes. We refer to this as MAEOS – Marketplace Alliance for EO Services – which you should hear more about over the next few months.

Now, to our communication tools where we should start with this e-magazine. EOmag, was first published in April 2005 and we are now at our 45th edition. Each quarter, it is sent to over 2,500 people and opened and read by over 1500 of them. It provides a digest of all the important news of the EO sector and particularly that coming from our members, an interview with a key stakeholder and a feature of one of our members. We are considering to extend it and this month you will find for the first time a second interview featuring an important European project; GEO-CRADLE – which is just starting. In future editions we shall consider promoting other projects but it is always a delicate balance to keep a magazine like EOmag, focused and short enough for people to open it each time whilst including all the relevant news and information.

We are considering further changes including the possibility to go to 6 issues a year from the current 4. Your opinion and feedback would be welcome and I’ll return to this later on. But, whilst “EOmag:“http://www.eomag.eu may be an important communication tool, it is not the only one; so let me introduce you to a few of our others.

First and foremost is our web-site. This provides a calendar of EO events as well as news on what is happening in the world of Earth Observation. We are not a news publisher so we try to keep quite focused in order to not overwhelm our readers. Of most importance is news coming from our members. The web-site is also seen as an entry point to our other 2 main tools and to provide links to some of the services which we provide to both members and non-members. When you get a moment, take 2 minutes just to take a quick look around and again any feedback you can give us will be great.

Complementing our web-site is the EO Portal which offers both members and non-members access to different types of information. As mentioned, from our web-site you can link directly to some of the areas in the Portal dedicated to specific topics; research activities, bid opportunities, events coming up. Members naturally are able to access more services than non-members 😉

A key part of the Portal is dedicated to the EO Wiki which is an open resource providing information on EO products and applications. It is open but a log-in is required if you wish to contribute. We should like to encourage you to add information to the EO Wiki which has so far been developed by a few contributors. Take a look and have a go!

We also publish a dedicated e-magazine for our contacts in the oil and gas industry. Like eomag, the OGEOzine is published quarterly with news on what is new and relevant for the O&G sector. Started at the request of the EO sub-committee of the IOGP (International Oil & Gas Producers Association), the 13th edition of the e-magazine has just been published. It has a much more limited but quite motivated readership primarily by key people in the O&G industry.

The oil and gas sector also gets a dedicated area of our EO Portal. Known as EO4OG, it features a comprehensive analysis of the information needs of the sector for which EO data can provide a solution. This really is a quality resource; built on the back of an ESA project to provide a complete catalogue of products for the O&G sector, it contains 224 challenges, 94 products sheets and 19 case studies. A team is now going one step further to build a data broker which focuses on these challenges. We see the approach taken here as being a model for engagement with other sectors.

EO4OG receives over 2500 page views each month and this seems to be growing. This is also driving visits to the EO Wiki which is now getting nearly 8000 page views per month. We shall be trying to add content and variety and to keep these numbers growing. It should provide an excellent platform for delivering industry messages.

EARSC is also present on social media. LinkedIn and Twitter being the two main channels which we use.

Feedback? We should love to hear more from you. Please follow us and comment on Twitter. There is also a dedicated EO Forum in the “EO Portal:“http://earsc-portal.eu/ but we have not yet found the trick to making this dynamic. We recognise that there are many tools out there but for topics of dedicated interest we would love to see some exchange taking place. So maybe you could comment there? Maybe you can tell us what would help you address some concerns? We shall respond to any comments and actively promote messages where it can be important for the industry. In the end, we are only successful if you are successful!

Finally a quick word about EOpages. This is a key tool which enables potential clients to find providers of EO products. It will be a key part of the marketplace in the future where it is dedicated to consultancy and bespoke EO products which form over 90% of the VA market today. It will strongly complement the on-line services platform which we wish to encourage and enable and which we shall be studying over the next few months. It promises to be an exciting year!

Geoff Sawyer
EARSC Secretary General

(Tuesday, 12 April 2016) Mr Luigi Pasquali (CEO of Telespazio) will partecipate at “Fighting climate change: Sharing Italy’s innovative Technologies”

Pasquali will present Finmeccanica and e-GEOS satellite capabilties and practical examples of how Italian technologies seek to address and prevent the effects of climate change.

The goal of these technologies is to:

  • Protect islands and coastlines from the rising levels of the seas and oceans;
  • Use satellite imagery to track and monitor the impact of climate change (desertification, floods, pollution, rising sea levels, natural catastrophes, melting of glaciers);
  • Protect and monitor marine areas through the use of robotic fish schools;
  • Produce energy from clean and renewable sources (solar and marine), so as to no longer depend on polluting energy sources;
  • Monitor sea levels to prevent flooding and inundations.

View the program and concept note of the conference.

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e-GEOS S.p.A. announces to have granted Beijing Vastitude Technology Co. Ltd., from January 1 2016 to December 31 2017, the exclusive right to sell and distribute COSMO-SkyMed Products within the national borders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Hong Kong and Macao regions included.

When wildfires start blazing across remote parts of South Africa, electricity providers, whose transmission lines can burn up, take a hit. Monitoring every inch of these lines by CCTV or by human eye would be costly, but commercial satellite technology, in combination with data-crunching software and internet connectivity, is equipped to solve this. All the problem needed was someone to connect the dots.

Those dots were connected in 2013 by Afis – Advanced Fire Information System – the app made by a team from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Meraka Institute in Pretoria. The free Afis phone app enables location tracking, and you can instantly see the fires raging, how likely they are to occur in the next few days and when the last ones happened.

This type of service, which uses space hardware to solve terrestrial business problems, can be used to streamline almost every major industry and service imaginable, from health care to oil to education to water management. It is an area where the Mena region has plenty of room to grow.

But many companies and potential investors in this type of innovation do not yet understand these implications, so they are not yet taking full advantage of all the possibilities opened up by the convergence of satellites that are cheap to launch and software that can process torrents of data in real time.

That’s the view of Lee Annamalai, a member of the team that launched Afis. He heads space applications R&D, innovation and commercialisation at the Meraka Institute and has served as a board member of the South African Space Agency. “Uptake [of space-tech applications] by industries is still slow,” he says. “There is still some scepticism that these futuristic solutions can actually yield benefits. Some attention to decision-maker education and marketing would make a big difference.” Where innovations are happening in this realm, he says, are mostly in the US, India, Brazil, Canada, China and Japan.

However, that could be changing. With its new space agency, startup-friendly infrastructure and planned 2021 Mission to Mars, the UAE is well positioned to capitalise on the commercial potential of Earth-observation satellites and their manifold applications. And in November, a new venture capital fund was launched by the Jordanian start-up incubator Oasis 500 (in partnership with the European Space Agency and the European Investment Bank) to encourage entrepreneurs in the Mena region to develop new terrestrial applications of space-based technologies.

These “will be in high demand in the Mena region”, says Suleiman Arabiat, the fund’s project manager, “especially as the communications infrastructure is not highly developed and as there’s a vast need to monitor and communicate assets across the region’s less-populated areas”.

Entrepreneurs who successfully pitch for funding to apply “enhanced connectivity” and “advanced space system applications” to areas such as logistics, water management, agriculture, emergency relief, energy, health and education will receive seed investment of €50,000 (Dh209,239) to €250,000, as well as training and mentorship.

When asked what areas he considers to be ripe for innovation, Mr Annamalai mentions that water quality, energy security and border surveillance are three big fields that can be monitored remotely. He also says that companies are working on remote sensors for increasingly specific phenomena, such as ship transponder signals, atmospheric physics and lightning. Another significant field of research is “precision agriculture”: connecting on-the-ground sensors to GPS-generated maps to create a nuanced system for a maximum yield at minimum cost.

Although there are barriers to entry for start-ups wanting to get into this field, says Mr Annamalai – such as access to the necessary satellite data and to the bandwidth and processing power needed to crunch those numbers – there are some advantages to innovating in “resource-constrained countries”. Developers there, he says, “are producing interesting applications that are highly competitive, due to the fact that they are designed to work more efficiently”.

Afis demonstrates that the number of applications from satellite data can be limitless, with commercial appeal around the world. When you add smart-city infrastructure into the mix, it is really possible to transform services and industries such as agriculture, logistics and transport, and to monitor and mitigate the environmental impact of businesses.

business@thenational.ae
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In 2015 ACRI-ST joined EARSC membership

Status

ACRI-ST is a member of a SME group made of companies that provide services whose scope spans from satellite remote sensing, ocean & land surveys to
civil engineering in hydraulics through environmental research, Computational Fluid Dynamics and dynamic similitude.
In the group, ACRI-ST specializes in:

  • Earth Observation (EO) missions’ specifications & End-to-End simulations; numerical analysis, algorithms’ and data processors development; operation of components of the EO missions’ Ground Segments
  • Environmental monitoring -the so-called EO Missions’ user segments
  • ITC research and data services for EO missions’ ground segments and environmental engineering

Key Elements
Since 1999 | Incorporated in France | capital: 2 000 000€| Integrated turnover: 8M€| CEO: Odile Hembise|

The company is organized in 3 establishments (France -Sophia-Antipolis, Toulouse & Paris) and 4 subsidiaries, i.e. ACRI-HE (France) and its own Moroccan subsidiary, ARGANS (UK), ARCTUS (Can) and AdwäisEO (Lux) in order to span the value chain.|

Born from a research company, ACRI-ST sustains a strong R&D in satellite remote sensing of the ocean, coastal waters & shoreline, of continental waters, of land cover & land use, as well as features’ & dynamics’ modelling and data assimilation in models. Innovation feeds the services in data collection, processing, archiving and distribution, in information design incl. environmental risks’ assessment, health’s changes and ecological mitigations (e.g. air quality, water quality, storm water collection – drainage – sewage, rivers’ restauration), as well as support to economic activities (e.g. aquaculture & shellfish farming, shipping & off-shore activities, insurance).

satellite EO EO missions´specifications ACRI-ST
satellite EO EO missions´s Ground segments ACRI-ST, ARGANS, ARCTUS
in-situ & other surveys ACRI-HE
data services adwäisEO
information services ACRI-HE, ACRI-EC

ACRI-ST’s strength is the thorough command of the EO data chain, with outstanding efforts to be at the cutting edge of

  • sensors’ calibration, data QC and information validation, thus allowing to simultaneously deliver data-information and statements of their reliability & accuracy;
  • big data volume processing (reprocessings, archiving, data fusion, analytics).

from market analysis to data services, the original career path of ACRI-ST in EO

The company likes to consider its social goal as:
(i) advocating EO as the core tool for perennial environmental monitoring, i.e. bridging the gap between surveys and delivery of information of relevance to policy-makers, economic stakeholders and courts:
- by properly handling the passage from S&T research to (a) operations of data centres and (b) environmental consulting, through (c ) engineering processes standardization;
- by helping build environmental monitoring’s capacity in ESA member states with “economies of scale” and “economies of scope” in mind;
- by bringing together research & public agencies, government’s’ technical offices (local, regional, national and European) and companies to make the best of existing knowledge and know-how; and
(ii) facilitating transfer of knowledge between labs and industry.

Business Objectives
ACRI-ST’s goal is to build-up a reliable services supply chain, established on sound ground segments components of EO missions and geo-data user segments to be set in partnership with Space Agencies, Environment Research and IT Research agencies, to capture/attract solvent commercial markets in environmental data/information services.

Background and references

Expertise and production capacity is based on a the knowledge and knowhow of a group of high-level scientist with combined PhDs and Engineers‘ certification which were successful with:
i) ENVISAT & SMOS commissioning + their Cal/Val operations + the design & updating of the MERIS, GOMOS and SMOS data processors;
ii) the development and industrialization of the Sentinel-3 data processors (e.g. OLCI , SLSTR, MWR, SRAL) ;
iii) the set up of EO Mission Performance Centres (e.g. S2 & S3), Processing and Archiving Centres (e.g. S3/ SLSTR+SYN…);
iv) S&T research in Earth Observations and geophysical fluid dynamics and downstream services’ demonstration on EC FP7’s & H2020’s, ESA EOP’s, CNES programmes’ and ANR’s funding
(e.g. MARCOAST, AQUAMAR, GlobColour, MyOcean, SENSYF, Co-Resyf, OSS2015, SAFI, E-AIMS, SeaExplorer…)
v) The preparation of an ESA collaborative Ground Segment in public-private partnership (MCGS)
vi) Services to local communities (air quality, submersion…) and industrial & farmland facilities (salmon farms, heat pumps, water discharge, waste disposal…)

A few examples in aquaculture as an illustration of end use application

In this case, end-use of EO is of two kinds, policy-making & enforcement, and support to farmers to help them select the best sites, optimize feeding, and plan sales. Here are some outputs available to professionals

a) Monitoring of fish-cages deployment

maps of fish cages in the Western Med (April 2016: 4478 at more than 200 m from the coast) detection with SAR data and classification on optical EO data (prototyping funded by the ESA DEU-Innovator project SMART)

b) Growth of fishes and shellfishes -surveys and modelling


Left: growth rate of salmon juveniles ,South of Ireland, a model. Right:concentration of pico & nano plankton along the coast of Morocco-from EO data analysis.
(the FP7 SAFI consortium)


Mussels growth at various locations ,Northern Adriatic, surveys and modelling based on EO

Contact
260, route du pin Montard, BP234, F06904 SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS cedex, France
information@acri-st.fr

MicroCarb will map global carbon dioxide levels and monitor global warming

CNES, the French Space Agency, has awarded Airbus Defence and Space, the world’s second largest space company, a contract to design and build the optical instrument for MicroCarb, a microsatellite to map global carbon dioxide levels. After launch in 2020, the satellite will study carbon dioxide sources (which produce CO2) and sinks (which absorb it) to understand how this greenhouse gas is affecting climate change.

“When it comes to understanding what is happening to our climate here on Earth, we need the latest technology to give us reliable and accurate data,” said François Auque, Head of Space Systems. “This is where MicroCarb comes in, a next-generation instrument which will help us to finally understand what CO2 is doing to our environment and our climate.”

MicroCarb will be the first European mission dedicated solely to measuring CO2 levels using a spectrometer scanning at visible and near infra-red wavelengths. The instrument is so accurate it can measure CO2 levels accurately to within one part in a million. This mission complements Merlin, which measures methane levels by LIDAR, an instrument that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser light, which Airbus Defence and Space is also designing and building for CNES and the German Aerospace Centre DLR.

MicroCarb is a priority to understand and monitor climate change. The programme launch was announced at COP21 in Paris in December 2015. Airbus Defence and Space will lead the manufacture of the optical instrument at its Toulouse site, with a large contribution from French SMEs.

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(12 April 2016) e-GEOS has been awarded, with the Brazilian company Geoambiente, a contract from CENSIPAM (Centro Gestor e Operacional do Sistema de Proteçao da Amazonia) to monitor deforestation in the Amazon.

The contract, valid for 2016 and renewable for a second year, provides for the monthly acquisition of satellite data from the Italian COSMO-SkyMed constellation, relating to an area of one million square kilometres of the Amazon territory.

Radar sensors on the satellites will enable constant monitoring, day and night and in all weather conditions, making it the ideal solution for the Amazon territory, characterized most of the year by frequent rains and constant cloud cover. The data from COSMO-SkyMed have already been used successfully in Brazil – where Telespazio has been operating since 1997 through the subsidiary Telespazio Brasil – for environmental monitoring and safety (oil spills from platforms at sea, landslide control), in support to agriculture and for defence applications.

The president of e-GEOS, Roberto Ibba, expressed the Italian Space Agency’s satisfaction with the selection of the COSMO-SkyMed system by CENSIPAM for this important radar satellite project monitoring the Amazon. Finmeccanica also expressed satisfaction, since the new contract is further confirmation of the value of its technology in the space sector.

Finmeccanica plays a leading role in COSMO-SkyMed: a lot of equipment comes from the company’s laboratories – from the solar panels to the star sensors, from the unit controlling and distributing power to the unit for amplification, conversion, and modulation of the RF signal – integrated on board the four satellites, manufactured by the subsidiary Thales Alenia Space (Finmeccanica 33%, Thales 67%), while Telespazio (Finmeccanica 67%, Thales 33%) developed the entire ground segment and is responsible for the acquisition, processing, and distribution of the satellite data – marketed worldwide by e-GEOS – for civil applications.

Funded by ASI, the Italian Ministry of Defence and the MIUR (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research), COSMO-SkyMed is able to operate in any visibility with a high refresh frequency. It also meets military and civilian needs, with services and applications for environmental monitoring, control of land and sea, agriculture, border protection, and safety.

e-GEOS, an Italian Space Agency (20%) and Telespazio (80%) company, is a leading international player in the geo-spatial business. e-GEOS offers a whole range of products and services in the Earth Observation and in the geo-spatial application domains, based on both optical and radar satellites as well as on aerial surveys. e-GEOS operates its Earth Observation centres in Matera and Neustrelitz, where data from multiple satellites are received and processed, also for near-real-time monitoring. As the European hub for very high resolution data, e-GEOS grants a unique access to COSMO-SkyMed, GeoEye-1, IKONOS, QuickBird, WorlView-1&2 and Radarsat-1&2 satellites.

(source: e-GEOS)

WELLESLEY, MA—(Marketwired – April 12, 2016) – The remote sensing community has expanded beyond national space agencies and handful of private companies to include scores of small businesses that specialize in creating customized imagery from free and low-cost government-acquired data. BCC Research reveals in its new report that the while the cost of creating remote sensing products will fall from tens of dollars to as little as pennies, expanded global demand will increase the value of the global business at a double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

In the remote sensing industry, a global network of instruments capture infinitesimally small amounts of energy reflected from targets at distances from feet to miles away, and transform it into products and services that provide information for applications from predicting harvests to protecting wildlife and preventing pandemics.

The global market for remote sensing products should reach nearly $8.9 billion and $13.8 billion in 2016 and 2021, respectively, reflecting a five-year CAGR of 9.3%. Space-based-conventional platforms as a segment should reach $3.3 billion in 2016 and $4.3 billion in 2021, demonstrating a five-year CAGR of 5.3%. Airborne-unmanned platforms as a segment should reach $503 million in 2016 and $2.3 billion in 2021, a CAGR of 36.1%.

Since BCC Research last analyzed the remote sensing industry in 2013, the global enterprise has experienced a series of profound changes. The changes, which have been primarily technology driven, are in the process of converting the business of providing earth observation imagery and data into a free public utility, akin to weather forecasts and GPS signals. This shift has occurred at the same time as the release of powerful new free data analysis tools permitting sophisticated processing software to run on low-cost computer systems.

The industry has experienced an increase of free software programs for integrating data across different types of platforms and merging it with archival records from multiple private and government sources. This change is shifting the economic center of gravity of the remote sensing industry away from its pioneers rooted in the defense and intelligence segments of the aerospace industry and toward small entrepreneurially driven enterprises. At the same time, the traditional lines separating data suppliers have vanished. Space imaging companies now sell aerial photos, aerial photo companies now sell satellite images, and both draw heavily on government archives for customized projects.

“In 2015, a handful of government space, maritime and weather forecasting agencies, along with several private companies with roots in the national defense and intelligence communities, dominated the remote sensing industry,” says BCC Research analyst James Wilson. “By 2021 the commercial portion of the enterprise is anticipated to have broken into hundreds of small, entrepreneurially driven enterprises. A growing free data and free software movement is strongly supported by space agencies in the United States and Europe.”

Remote Sensing Technologies and Global Markets (IAS022E) examines remote sensing technologies, including major remote sensing platforms, key remote sensing instruments, and applications accounting for the bulk of the industry. Analyses of global market drivers and trends, with data from 2015, estimates for 2016, and projections of CAGRs through 2021 also are provided.

About BCC Research
BCC Research publishes market research reports that make organizations worldwide more profitable with intelligence that drives smart business decisions. These reports cover today’s major industrial and technology sectors, including emerging markets. For more than 40 years we’ve helped customers identify new market opportunities with accurate and reliable data and insight, including market sizing, forecasting, industry overviews, and identification of significant trends and key market participants. We partner with analysts who are experts in specific areas of industry and technology, providing unbiased measurements and assessments of global markets. Recently selected as the world’s greatest market research company, BCC Research is a unit of Eli Global, LLC. Visit our website at www.bccresearch.com. Contact us: (+1) 781-489-7301 (U.S. Eastern Time), or email information@bccresearch.com.

Editors and reporters who wish to speak with the analyst should contact:
Steven Cumming
steven.cumming@bccresearch.com.
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