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Reminder: RoboCup SPL Call for Applications for Participation 2023
by Stefan Seering 01 Feb '23

01 Feb '23

Call for Applications for Participation 2023 - RoboCup Standard Platform League Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2023 Standard Platform League spl.robocup.org <https://spl.robocup.org/> Tuesday 4th July through Monday 10th July 2023 Bordeaux, France Further details can be found in the full CfP <https://spl.robocup.org/call-for-applications-for-participation-2023/>. All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by 15th of February 2023. /RoboCup 2023 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees/

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Newsletter RoboCup SPL 2023/1
by Patrick Göttsch 23 Jan '23

23 Jan '23

# RoboCup SPL - Newsletter 2023/1 Dear Teams, 2023 has started and we are already in the third week. Less than six months until we meet again. This time in Bordeaux. During the next months you will receive further newsletters updating you with recent information and reminding you about important tasks. We wish you and your team all the best and hope to see your application for RoboCup 2023 soon in <a href="mailto:rc-spl-tc@lists.robocup.org">our mailbox</a>. Best regards, Your OC & TC ## Reminder Call for Participation The deadline for submitting your application for RoboCup 2023 is approaching (2023-02-15). We encourage every team which is interested in participating in SPL at RoboCup 2023 to submit their application. Even if you are unsure about your funding situation or facing other issues, please submit your application with a note about your issues. We will try our best to support you. **Important**: The <a href="https://spl.robocup.org/call-for-applications-for-participation-2023/">application process</a> has been slightly changed. Please review your submissions. ## Timeline towards RoboCup 2023 Here are some important dates listed: - 2023-01-20: Rule Book - 2023-02-15: Application deadline - 2023-02-28: Announcement of (preliminary, i.e. including "on probation") qualification decisions - 2023-03-15: Additional qualification material deadline for "on probation" teams - 2023-03-31: Final qualification decisions - 2023-05-01: Jersey submission by teams - 2023-05-14: DBHC defender image deadline - 2023-05-31: Release of the official DBHC defender images - 2023-06-01: Announcement of major color by teams - 2023-06-15: Announcement of the competition mode at RoboCup 2023 - 2023-06-XX: Referee Workshop - 2023-07-04: RoboCup 2023 starts ## Discord We ask all teams of the RoboCup SPL to register for the <a href="https://discord.gg/SfQ5AzD4jj">SPL Discord Server</a>. Before and during RoboCup it will be an important communication channel to stay in contact with you and your team members and to connect all teams with each other. It will also be used for announcements and challenge execution coordination. ## Rules Drafts of the 2023 rule book and technical challenges are published <a href="https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/#2023" >on the SPL website</a>. If you have questions, have found an issue, or have a proposal, please submit an issue to <a href="https://github.com/RoboCup-SPL/Rules">the Rules repository</a>. ## Jerseys As you might have seen, the rules for the jerseys have been changed. The Champions Cup will play 7 vs. 7 by default and the goalkeeper has to wear a jersey of different colour. A jersey of a third colour is needed for this purpose. If you can't manufacture a third colour until RoboCup: the TC/OC can provide you with standard red or blue jerseys with number one. ## Community Defender Images This year we are going to have a revised version of last year's Dynamic Ball Handling Challenge. Similar to last year, we ask teams to prepare Defender images for this challenge. If you want to start preparations for this challenge already: you can use the defender images from last year until the new images are available and the GameController version is updated. You can download them from the following links: https://b-human.informatik.uni-bremen.de/public/DynamicBallHandlingDefender/ https://openlarry.de/-C3j8NDz2jdjCfjd ## Code Releases from Open Research Challenge 2022 The code releases of the three highest ranked teams in the Open Research Challenge 2022 are available at https://spl.robocup.org/rc2022/#open-research-challenge.

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[meetings][CFP] First call for papers at the 26th RoboCup International Symposium
by Alessandra Rossi 04 Jan '23

04 Jan '23

Dear colleagues, *Apologies for any cross-posting* We are very pleased to invite you to the *26th RoboCup International * *Symposium* will be held on 10 July 2023, in conjunction with RoboCup 2023 (July 4 to 10, 2023) in Bordeaux, France. *Conference website* https://2023.robocup.org/en/symposium/ *Submission link* https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rcsymposium2023 *Submission deadline* April 16, 2023 Please find attached the full call for proposals and papers for *the International **Symposium 2023*. Kindest regards, Alessandra Rossi, Cédric Buche, Marco Simões, Ubbo Visser [image: image.png] The 26th RoboCup International Symposium will be held on *10 July 2023*, in conjunction with RoboCup 2023 (July 4 to 10, 2023) in Bordeaux, France. We are looking for submissions of papers reporting innovative and original research with relevance to areas of robotics and artificial intelligence. A full list of topics welcomed to this year's symposium can be found below. Within the described scope of topics, we also encourage submissions of high-quality overview articles, papers describing real-world research, and papers reporting theoretical results. Researchers are invited to submit their work independently of whether they participate in the RoboCup competitions or have a RoboCup team. The symposium is planned to be held in person in Bordeaux, France. However, a hybrid version will be evaluated in case circumstances should require it. In addition to the *regular track* with regular research papers, the *development track* encourages reports on innovative hardware developments, software frameworks, and open-source releases of software components. A review of papers describing these contributions will be based on technical aspects and benefits to the practice of communities specifically working in RoboCup. *Submission deadline:* April 16, 2023 List of Topics - Robot Hardware and Software - mobile robotics - humanoid robotics - sensors and actuators - embedded and mobile devices - robot construction and new materials - robot system integration - robot software architectures - robot programming environments and languages - real-time and concurrent programming - robot simulators - sim2real learning - Perception and Action - 3D perception - distributed sensor integration - sensor noise filtering - real-time image processing and pattern recognition - motion and sensor models - sensory-motor control - robot kinematics and dynamics - high-dimensional motion control - Robot Cognition and Learning - world modelling and knowledge representation - learning from demonstration and imitation - localisation, navigation, and mapping - planning and reasoning - decision making under uncertainty - neural systems and deep learning - complex motor skill acquisition - reinforcement learning and optimisation - motion and sensor model learning - Human-Robot Interaction - robot social intelligence - fluency of interaction - speech synthesis and natural language generation - natural language recognition - explainable robot behaviours - emotion recognition and reaction - understanding human intent and behaviour - safety, security and dependability - enabling humans to predict robot behaviour - Multi-Robot Systems - team coordination methods - communication protocols - learning and adaptive systems - teamwork and heterogeneous agents - dynamic resource allocation - adjustable autonomy - Education and Edutainment - robotics and artificial intelligence education - educational robotics - robot kits and programming tools - robotic entertainment - Applications and Benchmarking - search and rescue robots - robot surveillance service and social robots - robots at home, at work and in public spaces - robots in the real world - performance metrics - human-robot interaction Submission Guidelines All papers will be peer-reviewed and evaluated by members of the senior program committee. The proceedings of the RoboCup International Symposium will be published and archived within the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI) series by Springer-Verlag after the conference. Papers should be formatted following the LNAI author guidelines ( *https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines* <https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…>) and must be electronically submitted through the EasyChair electronic submission system ( *https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=rcsymposium2023* <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rcsymposium2023>). Submissions are limited to 12 pages including references. Springer’s proceedings LaTeX templates are also available in Overleaf: *https://de.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer-science/kzwwpvhwnvfj* <https://de.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer-…> Invited Speakers - Laurence Devillers, Sorbonne University, France *(confirmed)* - Cynthia Breazeal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA *(confirmed)* Committees Organizing committee - Cédric Buche, CNRS/ENIB, France - cedric.buche(a)enib.fr - Alessandra Rossi, University of Naples Federico II, Italy - a.rossi(a)herts.ac.uk - Marco Simões, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brazil - msimoes(a)uneb.br - Ubbo Visser, University of Miami, USA - visser(a)cs.miami.edu Venue The conference will be held in the Bordeaux Exhibition Center (Parc des Expositions de Bordeaux), Bordeaux, France. Contact Please feel free to ask for further information by emailing Alessandra Rossi - a.rossi(a)herts.ac.uk

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RoboCup SPL Call for Applications for Participation 2023
by Stefan Seering 17 Dec '22

17 Dec '22

Call for Applications for Participation 2023 - RoboCup Standard Platform League Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2023 Standard Platform League spl.robocup.org <https://spl.robocup.org/> Tuesday 4th July through Monday 10th July 2023 Bordeaux, France 2023.robocup.org <https://2023.robocup.org> RoboCup <https://www.robocup.org/> is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. *The Standard Platform League (SPL)* is characterized by all the teams using an identical robot platform. Participating researchers focus on algorithmic development for fully autonomous robots, i.e., robots that operate with no external control. The SPL robot soccer team competition games at RoboCup 2023 will be played between teams of fully autonomous NAO robots. Participating teams may use V6, V5 or older versions of the NAO humanoid robot manufactured by Aldebaran <https://www.aldebaran.com/en/nao>. Teams should be able to play on a randomly assigned field within one hour. The RoboCup 2023 SPL will host: * A soccer team competition as the main competition of the event. * A visual referee technical challenge. * A dynamic ball handling technical challenge. * The introduction of at least one in-game challenge: network data minimization. The soccer team competition will consist of a similar number of games for most teams compared to recent years. A rule book will be released by 15th of January 2023 on the downloads page <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. The league operates two divisions: Champions Cup (CC) and Challenge Shield (CS). Teams in the champions cup division will compete in 7 vs. 7 matches. Teams in the challenge shield division will compete in 5 vs. 5 matches. Teams will be assigned to CC and CS based on previous results during the application phase. New teams will be assigned to the CS. The teams participating in the team competition should also compete in some of the additional technical challenges. Technical challenges offered at the competition are the visual referee challenge and the dynamic ball handling challenge. Both challenges are continuations of previous challenges with modified rules. Teams are encouraged to improve their skills in these challenges so aspects of these challenges can be included in the main competition in future years. More details regarding technical challenges will be given in the rule book <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. This competition introduces one in-game challenge: network data minimization. In-game challenges are scored during regular matches of the main soccer team competition. The amount of network data sent of participating teams during matches will be scored. Teams will be ranked according to their score, the goal being to use as little data as possible. More details regarding in-game challenges will be given in the rule book <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. Joining the League The league is always ready to welcome new teams. If you consider joining: the league has prepared information for you <https://spl.robocup.org/joining-robocup-spl/> to support you in your first steps. We encourage you to contact the organizing committees and other teams if you have questions. To assist in adoption of NAO V6 robots, source code examples and documentation regarding V6 robots were published on the SPL website <https://spl.robocup.org/v6-support/>. One can also find example code working with V6 robots in the code released by participating teams. If you need access to the RoboCup NAOqi Image and the specific documentation, please write an email (mentioning your team affiliation) to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org. Qualification All interested teams must apply by sending an email to the Technical Committee (see below). A valid application must contain: 1. *Team Description Paper:* See below. The TDP must be *attached as PDF file* to the email. 2. *Preference to compete in the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield:* State whether you prefer to compete in CC or CS. If you prefer to compete in CS, please state if you would accept an assignment to CC to balance the competition. 3. *Video presentation:* Include a link to a video (maximum 5 minutes long, uploaded on the team’s web site or on some video server) that demonstrates the status of the team. The organizing committees use the video to determine the readiness of the team to compete effectively, and hence should focus on the team’s ability to play soccer. Teams who did not participate in the team competition at RoboCup 2022 *must* include footage of at least one robot attempting to kick off and score (this footage must be captured as a single wide shot with no cuts). If robots from multiple teams are active in the footage (e.g., game footage), please include a textual overlay or additional document denoting which robots belong to the applying team for every scene. Videos of simulation contributions will also be accepted, but only when a real robot is unavailable. Preference will be given to teams that use real robots to show soccer skills in their video. Pre-Qualification Teams that reached the quarter-finals or finished in the top 5 of the technical challenges at RoboCup 2022 will be pre-qualified for RoboCup 2023, if they submit a valid application as detailed below. The following teams can make use of pre-qualification: * Bembelbots * B-Human * HTWK Robots * HULKs * Nao Devils * NomadZ * rUNSWift * SPQR Team * UT Austin Villa A valid application for pre-qualified teams must contain: 1. *Team Description Paper:* See below. The TDP must be *attached as PDF file* to the email. 2. *Preference to compete in the Champions Cup or Challenge Shield:* State whether you prefer to compete in CC or CS. If you prefer to compete in CS, please state if you would accept an assignment to CC to balance the competition. 3. *Code Release:* a link to a public code release as detailed in the 2022 SPL rulebook <https://spl.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/SPL-Rules-2022.pdf>. If a joint 2022 team splits, only one team can be pre-qualified for 2023 (please indicate which one). Team Description Paper Both regular and pre-qualified teams must submit a team description paper (TDP) attached as PDF file to their application email. For the TDP to be considered, it must: * be formatted according to the *Springer LNCS author guidelines <https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…>*. * be no longer than *8 pages* (including references). * be structured in the following *sections with the specified headings*: 1. *Team Information:* o team name (the one true spelling, considering capitalization, spaces, hyphens, etc.) o team leader(s) o team contact email address o team website URL (if available) o country of origin o university/company affiliation(s) of the team 2. *Code Usage:* Acknowledge the team’s use of any other team’s code (1) previously from 2018 to present and (2) anticipated at RoboCup 2023. If code is used from other teams, is this code integrated into a code base that is mainly designed by the applying team? If the applying team does not use any other team’s code, state so. For further details, please have a look into the rule book, section A.1 <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. 3. *Own Contribution:* Describe in detail the ‘research publishable’ significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2023, in accordance with the rule book, section A.1 <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. 4. *Past History:* provide game results in RoboCup Open competitions as well as main RoboCup competitions from 2019 onward. Include opponents and game scores from each competition in a table. State if the team plans to participate in any RoboCup Open competitions or friendlies prior to RoboCup 2023. 5. *Impact:* What is the impact of the team’s participation and research in RoboCup on (1) the SPL, (2) the team’s university/community? 6. *Other:* Present any other information that you believe supports your application. Please note that the TDP is not a reviewed publication and will not appear in any collection apart from the RoboCup TDP archive <https://tdp.robocup.org>. Qualification for Regional Opens Only Teams may also submit a short intent to participate in a regional open if they do not wish to participate in the 2023 RoboCup competition. Although teams may participate in regional opens without submitting this intent to participate, teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified may be eligible for future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for teams competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced as soon as offers and conditions are finalized. Teams must submit the following information by 15th of February 2023: (1) The team name, leader(s), and the university/company affiliation(s) of the team and (2) a short statement describing the status/progress of the team. A link to a short video showing robot soccer behaviours and/or game play (using robots or in simulation) may be included if available. Submission and Evaluation All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by *15th of February 2023*, by email to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org. Please use a subject matching the pattern *RoboCup 2023 Application <team name>*. Applications must not be sent to personal SPL TC/OC email addresses and must not contain video attachments. By submitting your application, you grant the SPL committees the rights to publish the TDP and application video / code release link. Note that applying serves as a statement of commitment to participate in the RoboCup 2023 SPL. The organizing committees are aware of the ongoing COVID situation and assume that all applications are subject to withdrawal due to COVID. Applications are not required to mention uncertainties related to COVID to avoid negative effects on future applications. We would rather encourage teams to plan optimistically and sign up with the possibility of withdrawing if situation requires it. For situations other than COVID: If you have doubts regarding the ability of your team to participate (due to funding, visas, etc.), please apply by the deadline but note this in your application email. Declining to participate in any competition after the official early registration period has opened may negatively affect future applications (the later you decline, the worse it will affect future applications). Teams are encouraged to consider joint participation. Joint proposals will be judged on combined merit. Applications will be evaluated to consider a variety of components including: 1. Potential to play competitive games at RoboCup 2023 (demonstrated ability to play soccer, previous results, etc.) 2. Contributions (and potential contributions) to league (code releases/papers, active in organization, developing own code, etc.) 3. Diversity (region, team make-up, unique characteristics, etc.) Starting with 2023 the competition rules will be changed to require all teams to release novel contributions in form of source code. More details regarding code releases will be given in the rule book <https://spl.robocup.org/downloads/>. All teams can expect to be required to publish a contribution. The form will be similar to the releases required of pre-qualified teams as stated in the 2022 rulebook. As part of the application phase teams will be assigned into the CC and CS divisions. Assignments will be judged based on previous performance and application material. The organizing committees will do their best to honor teams' preferences. However, the necessity might arise to assign teams into divisions against their preference. All teams applying for CC are expected to be able to compete in CS. Teams will be notified during the application phase if they are assigned into a division against their preference Qualification decisions, including alternate lists, will be announced by 28th of February 2023. Robot Acquisition Teams who submit an intent to participate and become qualified will be eligible for potential future special robot pricing. Special robot pricing for team competing in RoboCup Events are still being discussed. Updates about special prices will be announced if offers and conditions are finalized. /RoboCup 2023 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees/

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VRoHOW 2022
by Patrick Göttsch 23 Nov '22

23 Nov '22

Dear fellow Robocuppers, Only two weeks left until this year's vRoHOW! As last year we will use Discord as our virtual venue. If you haven't already, you can join the event server here: https://discord.gg/XrSbTzsYEP The content, i.e. talks, presentations and workshops, will be scheduled after 22:00 UTC+1 on Friday (2022-12-02). Please inform us about your interests and talks via the MOPAD (https://mopad.rohow.de/). You should be able to create an account for yourself by selecting your respective team name. Note that you have to create new accounts for this year. All additional information and schedule is available at rohow.de We are looking forward to see you on Friday (2022-12-02) at 19:00 UTC+1 for the opening ceremony in the Discord TownHall voice channel. Gretings from Hamburg, Team HULKs

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VRoHOW 2022
by Patrick Göttsch 22 Nov '22

22 Nov '22

Dear fellow Robocuppers, Only two weeks left until this year's vRoHOW! As last year we will use Discord as our virtual venue. If you haven't already, you can join the event server here: https://discord.gg/XrSbTzsYEP The content, i.e. talks, presentations and workshops, will be scheduled after 22:00 UTC+1 on Friday (2022-12-02). Please inform us about your interests and talks via the MOPAD (https://mopad.rohow.de/). You should be able to create an account for yourself by selecting your respective team name. Note that you have to create new accounts for this year. All additional information and schedule is available at rohow.de We are looking forward to see you on Friday (2022-12-02) at 19:00 UTC+1 for the opening ceremony in the Discord TownHall voice channel. Gretings from Hamburg, Team HULKs

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B-Human Code Release 2021
by Tim Laue 28 Oct '22

28 Oct '22

Hi RoboCuppers! The team B-Human announces the availability of our 2021 code release at https://github.com/bhuman/BHumanCodeRelease It is the most advanced B-Human code ever! Many thousands of lines of open source code together with a detailed documentation. The software released is a cleaned-up version of the system we used in the 2021 competitions. In contrast to previous years, the documentation is from now on split into two parts: A PDF that briefly describes the approaches that have been implemented since 2019 is located in the GitHub repository. All technical details, such as the installation guide and descriptions of our software architecture and tools, are now in a separate wiki that you can find at https://wiki.b-human.de/coderelease2021/. The improvements that have been made in the previous two years include (but are not limited to): - A fully lighting independent vision system, including - a CNN-based field border detection - A procedure for autonomous camera calibration - A new motion infrastructure - Higher walking stability, based on - improved support foot switching, - in-walk kicks that are capable to adjust to the ball position, and - the detection of walking on another robot’s foot and acting accordingly. Our software is released with its own 3-D simulator. Microsoft Windows 64 bit, Linux 64 bit, and macOS (on Apple Silicon as well as on Intel processors) are fully supported. Please note that the new code is released within the same repository that we used for our previous releases. The old releases are marked with tags in that repository. Furthermore, please also note that our license has changed for the first time in a long while. We strongly believe in sharing our developments and look forward to the code releases of others. Have fun :-) Team B-Human -- _______________________________________________________________ Dr. Tim Laue Multi-Sensor Interactive Systems Group Faculty 3 - Mathematics and Computer Science University of Bremen Cartesium 0.53 Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 5 28359 Bremen www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~timlaue Telephone: +49 (421) 218-64209

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VRoHOW 2022
by Patrick Göttsch 05 Sep '22

05 Sep '22

Dear fellow SPL and Humanoid RoboCup teams, This is the call for participation of the virtual Robotic Hamburg Open Workshop (vRoHOW) 2022. The event will take place virtually over the weekend from 2nd to 4th of December. As usual, the event will be driven by your contributions in the form of talks, presentations and workshops. Once again, Discord will be our venue with multiple rooms and areas prepared. For participation do the following: Send a message to hulks(a)tuhh.de until the 15th of November 2022 expressing your interest in participation. This message should include your team name and a contact person. There will be no participation fee. We are excited to see you at the event! Best regards, Team HULKs

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RoboCup GermanOpen 2023
by Patrick Göttsch 02 Sep '22

02 Sep '22

Dear Teams, currently we start planning the RoboCup GermanOpen 2023 (27.04. - 30.04.2023) this time in Kassel. It is a new place. But to get an estimate of the needed space for tables, chairs and fields, we would like to know, * if you would like to travel to Kassel to participate in RoboCup German Open 2023 and with how many members, * if you would like to participate in RoboCup German Open 2023 remotely (there has no decision made if this will be offered in the end) and you would just send robots. * if you currently do not know. It would be really nice, if you could send me an email by the 11th of September. Kind regards and have a nice weekend, Patrick Göttsch

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B-Human's Video Analysis App
by Thomas Röfer 13 Aug '22

13 Aug '22

Hi, B-Human's contribution to the Video Analysis Challenge is now available at: https://github.com/bhuman/VideoAnalysis <https://github.com/bhuman/VideoAnalysis> We also prepared a simple list that provides links to videos, TCM logs (both hosted on Berlin United’s server), and GameController logs (hosted on our server). It currently only lists games from RoboCup 2018 and 2019, but we plan to add the 2022 games as well as soon as their directory structure on Berlin United’s server is finalized. The list can be found at: https://github.com/bhuman/SPLGames <https://github.com/bhuman/SPLGames> Many thanks to the team Berlin United for recording and hosting the videos and for providing the code for camera calibration that we built on. Also many thanks to Arne Moos for organizing the challenge and all the teams who labeled the images! Have fun! Thomas Röfer (B-Human)

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