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12 GeV Updates

December 19, 2007

The main focus of attention for the 12 GeV Upgrade of Halls A, B, C and D is now the Project Engineering and Design for the various components in anticipation of the Critical Decision 3 reviews next summer followed by the start of construction. Associated with this, a series of design and safety reviews of various major experimental equipment subsystems is being planned for January through May, 2008. Two internal detector reviews, Hall C and Hall D, are scheduled for the second half of January.

December 12, 2007

The 100 percent design package for the 12 GeV North and South Access Building Additions was completed by the JLab Facilities Design Team. The package has been distributed for an internal design and safety review, and a meeting to discuss the review findings is scheduled for Dec. 17. Advance Procurement Plans for the 12 GeV Civil Construction FY09 Procurements related to the CHL Building Addition and the Hall D Complex have been developed. The initial procurement effort will be Sources Sought notices to identify interested vendors. The Sources Sought notice for the Hall D Complex is scheduled to be issued in Spring 2008.

December 5, 2007

The 12 GeV Accelerator Team is making good progress on its Project Engineering Design (PED), with the cryomodule PED somewhat ahead of schedule. The new digital board for the Low-Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) controls has been completed and is undergoing testing. The Beam Transport Team has completed the final design of the quadrupoles and three of the designs for the spread/recombiner dipoles. The Cryogenics Team is on cost and ahead of schedule on its design work. All the teams have started discussions with the JLab procurement staff regarding Advanced Procurement Plans for the planned major contracts to be awarded in FY09.

The DOE Office of Engineering Construction Management (OECM) is holding a review at JLab this week entitled "Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Validation Review." The goal of this review is to provide certification of the Jefferson Science Associates (JSA) EVMS system, and data from the 12 GeV Upgrade project will provide the principal material to demonstrate compliance with the ANSI/EIA-748 EVMS guidelines. Contractor EVMS certification is also a requirement for project baselining or start of construction. The 15-person review committee will hold sessions all week with a review close-out scheduled on Friday afternoon.

November 21, 2007

The 12 GeV Upgrade achieved a critical milestone on Nov. 9, when the Department of Energy approved the project's baseline scope, cost and schedule. The approval, known as Critical Decision 2 or CD-2, Approve Performance Baseline, caps years of planning and preparation by the Jefferson Lab User community and project team. According to DOE, CD-2 authorizes the final design phase to begin and is required prior to requesting a project's construction funding in a federal budget. The 12 GeV project will provide scientists worldwide with a tool to greatly expand our knowledge of the quark-gluon structure of nucleons, nuclei, and the forces that bind them, and further solidify the Lab's standing as a preeminent nuclear physics research facility. CD-2 is the third step in a five-step process. The final two steps are CD-3, Approve Start of Construction (scheduled for 2008), and CD-4, Approve Start of Operations (scheduled for 2015). This has been an outstanding year for the 12 GeV Upgrade project, with the highest recommendation in the NSAC Long-Range Planning process, the approval of CD-2, and overall excellent progress in ongoing R&D and design work.

November 7, 2007

The 100 percent design submittal for the Hall D conventional facilities was received from the architect-engineering (A-E) firm, HSMM on Oct. 8. The submittal has been distributed to more than 30 Jefferson Lab engineers, physicists and ES&H subject matter experts for review. In addition, the contracted construction management firm (Alpha Corp.) is performing a constructability review. A meeting to discuss review findings with the A-E's design team is scheduled at JLab for Nov. 14-15.

October 24, 2007

12 GeV detector R&D: Prototyping of the Hall B Region I drift chamber is proceeding well. A full-scale prototype of one sector is under construction in a collaboration between JLab and Old Dominion University. Mechanical parts have been purchased, assembled and surveyed, and mechanical assembly procedure testing has been finished. The completed detector frame has been transported to ODU, where a clean room will be used for the stringing process. Fabrication and testing of custom circuit boards by the JLab Fast Electronics Group is complete; these boards will allow full instrumentation of hundreds of channels of the prototype. Detailed tests with cosmic ray tracks will begin following the chamber stringing, gas system fabrication, and completion of the data acquisition system.

October 3, 2007

As part of the Base Switchyard Service Building Addition (conventional facilities) to support the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade, two new penetrations into the accelerator tunnel will be constructed for additional cable runs. On Sept. 27, JLab Facilities Management and Alpha Corporation (construction management firm) conducted a constructability review of the proposed design for these new penetrations. The accelerator tunnel is below the water table and the purpose of this review was to minimize the water infiltration risks during construction and future operations. The construction methods and materials including alternatives were discussed in detail. The proposed design was determined to be optimal with minor modifications. The specifications for the grout material will be investigated further to minimize permeability.

September 19, 2007

An External Independent Review (EIR) of the 12 GeV Upgrade Project was held last week by the DOE Office of Engineering and Construction Management (OECM). This major review is the next step leading to Critical Decision 2 (Approve Performance Baseline). The 12 GeV Project team presented to the five-member review panel the documentation delineating the information and processes used to establish the project costs and schedule, as well as assessments of hazard and risk, and management processes and procedures. During the outbrief, the panel commended the "qualified and capable project team" who has "extensive experience with the technology," and concluded that "it is highly likely that the project can be successfully executed once the baseline is validated." Work has already begun on the three actions identified during the outbrief which must be addressed prior to baselining. A draft review report will be available in about 2 weeks. CD-2 Approval is anticipated before the end of the year.

September 5, 2007

The Architect-Engineering (A-E) firm, HSMM, continues with its design effort on the Hall D Complex (civil) and plans to submit the 100 percent design document to JLab in October. In conjunction with this design effort, the construction management firm, Alpha, is developing a detailed construction schedule for the Hall D Complex. This schedule will detail the scope and interfaces for three construction phases and establish a constructible logic for the civil construction contract. Upon completion of the schedule, HSMM will document these three phases on the design drawings to establish the schedule requirements for the construction contractor. On Aug. 30, the 12 GeV Civil project team met with Alpha for a preliminary review of the construction schedule and identified the funding and operational constraints that need to be included in the schedule.

Also in August, Jefferson Lab Facilities Management personnel started the 100 percent design effort on the 12 GeV Upgrade North and South (N&S) Access Building Addition and the Beam Switchyard (BSY) Addition.

August 29, 2007

Five of the seven new superconducting magnets for the 12 GeV Upgrade will be built for the Super-High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS) in Hall C. The most critical component of these magnets is the multi-strand superconducting wire, which is used to make the high magnetic fields of several Tesla in magnitude. For these magnets, Jefferson Lab will make use of wire originally fabricated for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). For optimal use in two of the magnets, some of the wire has been slightly re-shaped from a keystone to a rectangular cross-section. Samples of the wire have been tested at a highly specialized facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and all test results indicate that both the original and the re-shaped wire are more than adequate to handle the required current.

August 14, 2007

On Aug. 2, the CHL Addition 100% Design and Safety Review Meeting was held with Dills Ainscough Duff's (A-E) design team and JLab representatives from Cryogenics, Facilities Management and the ESH&Q Division.

On Aug. 7, the construction management firm, Alpha, met with the Hall D Complex designers (HSMM) and JLab Facilities maintenance personnel to collect data for development of the Commissioning Plan for the mechanical, electrical, fire protection and material handling systems. Alpha will develop the functional performance checklists based on the testing requirements. Then, HSMM will incorporate these checklists into the specifications to define the commissioning requirements for the construction contractor.

Also, Alpha completed the validation of the designers' estimated costs for the CHL addition and the accelerator projects, and determined them to be reasonable.

August 8, 2007

The 12 GeV Upgrade Accelerator R&D task known as the integrated "Vertical Slice Test" has been completed. The purpose of the test was to demonstrate successful field control of an SRF cavity operating at >17.5 MV/m using the JLab-developed digital low-level RF (LLRF) controls. Tests were run at 20 MV/m using one of the cavities in the Renascence cryomodule. The system met the 12 GeV Upgrade phase and amplitude specifications using the generatordriven-resonator algorithm. Additional tests of the self-excited-loop algorithm demonstrated its capability to ramp a cavity from 0 MV/m to 20 MV/m in ~7 milliseconds.

August 1, 2007

A critical requirement for operating large acceptance detectors with fixed-target electron beam experiments is to shield the detector from the low-energy electrons elastically scattered from the target. The technical solution to this problem depends uniquely on the characteristics of the detector being shielded, and it requires extensive and detailed simulations. This issue is being studied for CLAS12 as part of an ongoing 12 GeV R&D program in a collaboration between JLab and the Russian institute ITEP.

The studies to date indicate that a combination of a high-field solenoid magnet, as planned for CLAS12, and a precisely shaped dense metal absorber will adequately shield the critical first layer of drift chambers from this background. In addition, the studies have determined the optimal location and geometry for the central tracking detector, which is very close to the beamline. Studies are ongoing for several other beamline elements.

July 18, 2007

Daniel Lehman, Director of the Office of Project Assessment in the DOE Office of Science, led a team of 27 experts in the DOE Office of Science Independent Project Review of the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade at JLab on June 26-28. This was the first of two reviews necessary to determine project readiness for Critical Decision 2, Approve Performance Baseline. Generally, the project received high marks for the technical plan, the cost and schedule estimates, and for meeting all 16 CD-2 requirements. Concern was raised about an inadequate level of cost contingency. An updated project plan addressing this concern has been developed and accepted by DOE-NP. The second CD-2 review is planned for mid-September.

July 11, 2007

With the DOE Office of Science Office of Project Assessment Independent Project Review completed, the team is focused on the engineering and design effort. A note of good news is that the first cavity in the Renascence cryomodule operated at 21 MV/m. This cavity will be used later this month for the 12 GeV Accelerator R&D effort known as the "Vertical Slice Test," which includes a high-gradient cavity, klystron and new digital rf controls.

June 20, 2007

On June 26-28, the DOE Office of Science Office of Project Assessment Independent Project Review (IPR) of the 12 GeV Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility Upgrade Project will take place at Jefferson Lab. The purpose of this review is to assess all aspects of the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade Project technical, costs, schedule, management, and environment, safety, health and quality in support of attaining Critical Decision-2 (CD-2) approval.

June 13, 2007

Hall C 12 GeV R&D: The Horizontal Bend magnet for the Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS) in Hall C will be a small superconducting dipole magnet located close to the target that will allow measurements at the smallest scattering angles. Its proximity to the target causes radiation-induced heating of the magnet that must be accommodated in the design of the magnet's cooling system.

Following simulations of this effect, a copper test device has been fabricated by collaborators from Yerevan Physics Institute to directly measure this radiation-induced heat load. Parasitic measurements using this device with electron beam in Hall C are currently underway.

May 30, 2007

Project engineering and design efforts continue on all subsystems of the 12 GeV Upgrade. Internal reviews of preliminary designs for individual systems, involving experts from outside the design effort, continue in preparation for the upcoming Critical Decision-2 reviews. For example, eleven reviews of 12 GeV Accelerator systems have been held in the last three months with three more planned.

12 GeV Accelerator R&D activities continue with the recent demonstration by the low-level radiofrequency (RF) team of successful performance of a digital self-excited loop field control system on a superconducting RF (SRF) cavity in JLab's Free-Electron Laser. This control algorithm provides greatly increased flexibility for the RF system when powering up a cavity, which will be of particular value for the high-gradient cavities planned for the 12 GeV accelerator. This is a "world's first" development in RF control technology.

The largest detector planned for Hall D is the barrel calorimeter, a cylindrical detector 13 feet long, 6 feet in outer diameter, weighing more than 30 tons, and containing more than 2000 miles of scintillating plastic fiber. The primary design and R&D effort for this critical detector is the responsibility of collaborators at the University of Regina. A prototype of this detector, fabricated at the University of Regina and the University of Alberta, was tested last summer using Hall B's tagged photon beam. The first analysis of the test run data indicates that the precision of both the timing (~150 picoseconds for 600 MeV photons) and the energy measurement (~6% for 1 GeV photons) is very good. This successful result is a significant step in validating the design and production techniques for the GlueX barrel calorimeter

May 23, 2007

The largest detector planned for Hall D is the barrel calorimeter, a cylindrical detector 13 feet long, six feet in outer diameter, weighing more than 30 tons, and containing more than 2000 miles of scintillating plastic fiber. A prototype of this detector, fabricated at the University of Alberta, was tested last summer using Hall B's tagged photon beam. The first analysis of the test run data indicates that the precision of both the timing (~150 picoseconds for 600 MeV photons) and the energy measurement (equivalent to ~6% for 1 GeV photons) is very good. This successful result is a significant step in validating the design and production techniques for the GlueX barrel calorimeter.

May 16, 2007

The 12 GeV Upgrade Peer Review of the Hall D Complex (Conventional Facilities) was held at JLab on May 7. The review panel consisted of one expert from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Argonne National Lab, and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University, respectively. The reviewers critiqued the requirements of the Hall D experimental program, the design process for the conventional facilities, and whether the current Hall D civil design supports the experimental requirements. Formal talks were presented by members of the 12 GeV Project Team, ESH&Q Division and Facilities Management. The committee was impressed with the overall design development and the identified requirements for space, utilities and safety in support of the approved experimental program. During the close-out, the Review Panel complimented JLab on the open communication between the physicists, facility owners, and the design team, and made a few suggestions for possible improvement prior to construction. No formal recommendations were made, and a final report is expected within a few weeks.

May 2, 2007

The 12 GeV Upgrade Project Design and Safety Review of the Hall B CLAS12 Calorimeter and Cerenkov Counter was held at JLab April 23-24. The review panel consisted of one expert from JLab, FNAL and BNL, respectively. The reviewers critiqued all project design and safety aspects of the CLAS12 Preshower Calorimeter (PCAL) and High Threshold Cerenkov Counter (HTCC) detectors. Formal talks were presented by members of the 12 GeV Project Team and Physics Division. The committee was impressed with the design of both detectors and the particular attention given to safety at this stage of the project. Reviewer comments and recommendations for possible improvement prior to construction were discussed during the close-out. A final report is expected mid-May.

Alpha Corporation, located in Norfolk, was selected to independently validate the designers' cost estimates of the conventional facilities for the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade. Alpha Corporation is a U.S. Top 100 Construction Management (CM) firm, has been in business since 1979, and provides the full range of construction services to a variety of clients, including government agencies, private enterprises and contractors. Its primary areas of expertise include building, transportation, underground and civil projects, including Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Washington Dulles Airport Expansion. The selection process evaluated vendors' technical capabilities and their price offers to establish the best value.

April 18, 2007

A formal 12 GeV Upgrade Project Review of the drift chamber systems in Halls B and D was held on March 6-8. The drift chambers are major detector systems in both of these Halls; in total, five different geometries are required, and three different gas-based technologies will be used. The reviewers consisted of four experts on drift chambers and their use in large spectrometers (one each from MIT, Fermilab, SLAC, and JLab). The committee concluded that both Hall's designs use "well established technologies with low associated risks and predictable costs." Two recommendations were made for further enhancing the Hall D design in the time period between CD-2 and CD-3.

April 11, 2007

Dennis Kovar, Associate Director for the Office of Science (SC) Nuclear Physics Division, has requested that Daniel Lehman, Director of the Office of Project Assessment, organize and conduct an Independent Project Review (IPR) of the 12 GeV Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) Upgrade Project at Jefferson Lab on June 26-28. The purpose of this review is to assess all aspects of the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade Project - technical, costs, schedule, management, and environment, safety & health (ES&H), in support of attaining Critical Decision-2 (CD-2) approval. The 12 GeV Upgrade project was awarded Critical Decision-1 (CD-1) approval in February 2006. The June IPR will be followed by a DOE Office of Engineering and Construction Management External Independent Review (OECM EIR) the week of August 6-10 (tentative) in support of CD-2 approval anticipated in September 2007.

April 5, 2007

Analysis of the accelerator "quarter cryomodule" R&D results continued. As mentioned in the last weekly report on this topic, the cavities appeared to perform better when they were re-tested in the Vertical Cryogenic Test Area (VTA) than they had in the Horizontal Test Bed (HTB). Analysis of all the data and of model predictions of signal strengths showed that there was a flaw in the analysis of the HTB data. Specifically, one of the terms used to convert measured radiofrequency (RF) signals into cavity gradients was incorrect. After correction, the resulting HTB performance was significantly better than had been previously thought, with both cavities actually exceeding the stretch goal of the test (19.25 Megavolts per meter [MV/m] with the intrinsic Q exceeding the 12 GeV specification). This corresponds to ~10% operating headroom. Both cavities had quench-limited maximum gradients of 24 MV/m in the HTB as they did in the re-testing in the VTA.

March 28, 2007

Optimization studies of the calorimeter for the Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS) in Hall C were completed last month. These studies, carried out by visiting researchers from the Yerevan Physics Institute, validated that the performance of an alternative calorimeter geometry maintained the good energy resolution and pion rejection capabilities of the original design. The alternative geometry is under consideration because it permits use of lead glass blocks that currently exist at other laboratories and have been contributed to the 12 GeV Project by foreign collaborators.

A full-sized prototype of the Region 1 drift chambers for CLAS12 has significantly progressed at JLab over the last few months. Major components have been ordered, such as the end plates that precisely position the field wires, the ultra-thin sense wires, and the support frame. Assembly and testing of the prototype will be performed at Old Dominion University, where a clean room is in preparation for this work.

March 21, 2007

The design effort on the conventional facilities to support the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade continues to progress. The accelerator during 12 GeV operations requires upgraded power and increased capacity for low conductivity water (LCW) distribution. Four new electrical unit substations will be installed . one each at the North and South (N&S) Linac service buildings and the N&S Access service buildings. The LCW systems at the N&S Access service buildings will be upgraded to provide cooling for the new RF zones in the Linacs and the ARC 10 magnets. Facilities & Logistics personnel are developing the design documents for these utility upgrades.

March 14, 2007

The accelerator quarter-cryomodule R&D continues. The setup in the Horizontal Test Bed (HTB) has been disassembled, and the two cavities have been re-tested in the Vertical Cryogenic Test Area (VTA). Both cavities reached ~24 MV/m (Megavolts per meter), thus exceeding their performance in the HTB, with one repeating its previous VTA performance and the other exceeding its previous performance of 19 MV/m. Additional testing in the HTB is planned; the details will be finalized after all data from the HTB and VTA are thoroughly analyzed.

March 7, 2007

Hall D R&D: The Hall D trigger system will require an extremely rapid online computation of the energy deposited by particles in detectors. This will be accomplished by a high-speed data transfer from Flash Analog-to-Digital Converter (FADC) channels to a custom-designed electronic module called the 'energy sum module' in the same VXS crate which subsequently sends the accumulated information to the Level 1 Trigger system. The first prototype of the energy sum module has recently been fabricated and assembled, and code development has worked well in initial tests with the new Xilinx FX20 FPGA. Four high-speed serial transceivers have been successfully tested at 2.5 Gbps (Gigabits per second) for an aggregate module transmission rate of 10 Gbps, achieving the design goal for the module.

February 28, 2007

Design effort on the conventional facilities to support the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade continues to progress. On Feb. 20, Jefferson Lab Facilities Management & Logistics personnel initiated the in-house design of the Beam Switchyard Service Room expansion in Building 98. Prior to initiating the preliminary design effort, Facilities personnel worked with Accelerator personnel to re-validate the design requirements for space, power and cooling.

February 21, 2007

Initial testing and analysis of the "1/4 Cryomodule" R&D effort has been completed. Both cavities operated in continuous wave (cw) mode above 17.5 MV/m (Megavolts per meter), which is the gradient required to reach 12 GeV. This demonstrated that the thermal management problems seen in the previous endgroup design had been resolved and that the primary goal of the testing had been achieved. The additional goal of demonstrating acceptable performance of the full complement of cryomodule components was met with the exception of one cold-to-warm waveguide, which is suspected to have a manufacturing problem. The 1/4 cryomodule is being disassembled for further diagnostic testing and possible rework. Another round of full testing is planned to meet the stretch goal of cw operation above 19.25 MV/m.

February 15, 2007

The Hall D Forward Drift Chamber (FDC) is one of eight detector systems being prototyped for 12 GeV Physics this year. Following a smaller scale prototype that was built and tested over the last two years, the new prototype is a full-scale design which addresses fabrication questions as well as detector performance. Two full-sized support rings have been fabricated from the materials planned for the final module, and thin foils have been stretched over these to form flat planes that define the electric fields needed for charge collection. Precision opto-mechanical measurements at over 100 points on the large, 3-foot diameter surface indicate a typical flatness of 100 microns, a very good result for the initial effort. Next steps include stretching similar foils with conductive traces and developing detailed designs for interfacing the traces to on-board electronics.

February 7, 2007

Vendors are being sought to provide pre-construction services to independently validate the designers' cost estimates of the conventional facilities for the 12 GeV CEBAF Upgrade. This action is in response to a DOE SC Office of Project Assessment review recommendation. The advertisement was posted Dec. 7, and qualification proposals were received Jan. 19. Proposals are being reviewed based on established criterion documented in the solicitation. Criteria include past experience, qualifications of key personnel, and approach to provide services. Selection is scheduled to be complete in March 2007.

January 31, 2007

As part of the 12 GeV R&D plan, testing has been underway for the "1/4 Cryomodule"; this is the unit that was cooled to 2 Kelvin (K) just prior to the long holiday shutdown and incorporates all the design features intended for the 12 GeV Upgrade cryomodules. One of the cavities has operated at 17.7 Megavolts per meter (MV/m) with an intrinsic Q of ~1x1010, thereby exceeding the minimum specification for the cavities and, more importantly, demonstrating successful correction of the thermal management problems identified in Renascence cryomodule testing in 2005. The warm-to-cold transition in the second cavity is limiting continuous wave (CW) operation. Pulsed testing is ongoing.

On Friday and Saturday (Feb 2-3), Hall B is sponsoring a 12 GeV workshop at JLab that will draw attendance from countries all over the world. Topics will include both the physics opportunities of CLAS12, a proposed upgrade of the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B, and the work required to design and build the upgraded spectrometer. The nine instrumentation working groups will meet in four sessions to coordinate work, report on progress, and provide opportunities for new contributors to get involved.

January 24, 2007

The 12 GeV Upgrade of Jefferson Lab was once again affirmed as the top priority of scientists active in hadronic physics by representatives of the community gathered at Rutgers University earlier this month for a "Town Meeting." This meeting, which focused on QCD and Hadron Physics, was one of four that have been organized by the APS Division of Nuclear Physics to gather community input for the Long Range Plan for Nuclear Science that the DOE and NSF have charged the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) to develop. The outcome of the Town Meeting placed the 12 GeV Upgrade as the top priority of the community's five major recommendations for the future of the field. This strong support by a diverse community of scientists is an important affirmation of the world-class 12 GeV science program planned.

January 17, 2007

The onsite portion of the DOE 12 GeV Upgrade Project Status Review was held at Jefferson Lab Jan. 9-10, led by Joe May, the 12 GeV Upgrade Federal Project Director. A summary of this review will be formally presented to the DOE Office of Nuclear Physics and the DOE Office of Project Assessment on Jan. 30. More information on the review can be found in the next JLab e-OnTarget Newsletter.

The 60% design submittal for the Hall D Complex (conventional facilities) was received from the architect-engineering (A-E) firm on Dec 15. Copies of the submittal have been distributed to Facilities & Logistics, Hall D, Accelerator Division, ESH&Q Division and IT Division for internal design and safety review. A meeting to discuss the review comments with the A-E's design team is scheduled for Jan. 24-25.

January 11, 2007

The onsite portion of the DOE 12 GeV Upgrade Project Status Review will take place at Jefferson Lab Jan. 9-10, led by J. May, the DOE Federal Project Director. The purpose of this review is to assess progress and plans for achieving CD-2 approval for the 12 GeV Upgrade in September 2007. As part of the 12 GeV accelerator R&D plan, the assembly and cool-down of the quarter cryomodule, which incorporates all the design features of the 12 GeV cryomodules, was completed prior to the holiday break. Meeting this aggressive schedule took much dedicated work from many individuals over many weekends and evenings. Testing of the quarter cryomodule is underway.

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