| 1. |
- Ramesh, Chithrupa, 1982-
(författare)
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State-based Channel Access for a Network of Control Systems
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Wireless networked control systems use shared wireless links to communicate between sensors and controllers, and require a channel access policy to arbitrate access to the links. Existing multiple access protocols perform this role in an agnostic manner, by remaining insular to the applications that run over the network. This approach does not give satisfactory control performance guarantees. To enable the use of wireless networks in emerging industrial applications, we must be able to systematically design wireless networked control systems that provide guaranteed performances in resource-constrained networks.In this thesis, we advocate the use of state-based channel access policies. A state-based policy uses the state of the controlled plant to influence access to the network. The state contains information about not only the plant, but also the network, due to the feedback in the system. Thus, by using the state to decide when and how frequently to transmit, a control system can adapt its contribution to the network traffic, and enable the network to adapt access to the plant state. We show that such an approach can provide better performance than existing methods. We examine two different state-based approaches that are distributed and easy to implement on wireless devices: event-based scheduling and adaptive prioritization.Our first approach uses events to reduce the traffic in the network. We use a state-based scheduler in every plant sensor to generate non-coordinated channel access requests by selecting a few critical data packets, or events, for transmission. The network uses a contention resolution mechanism to deal with simultaneous channel access requests. We present three main contributions for this formulation. The first contribution is a structural analysis of stochastic event-based systems, where we identify a dual predictor architecture that results in separation in design of the state-based scheduler, observer and controller. The second contribution is a Markov model that describes the interactions in a network of event-based systems. The third contribution is an analysis of the stability of event-based systems, leading to a stabilizing design of event-based policies.Our second approach uses state-based priorities to determine access to the network. We use a dominance protocol to evaluate priorities in a contention-based setting, and characterize the resulting control performance. An implementation and evaluation of this channel access mechanism on sensor nodes is also presented.The thesis finally examines the general networked control problem of jointly optimizing measurement and control policies, when a nonlinear measurement policy is used to perform quantization, event-triggering or companding. This contribution focuses on some of the fundamental aspects of analyzing and synthesizing control systems with state-based measurement policies in a more generalized setting. We comment on the dual effect, certainty equivalence and separation properties for this problem. In particular, we show that it is optimal to apply separation and certainty equivalence to a design problem that permits a dynamic choice of the measurement and control policies.
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| 2. |
- Alisic, Rijad
(författare)
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Defense of Cyber-Physical Systems Against Learning-based Attackers
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cyberattacks against critical infrastructures pose a serious threat to society, as they can have devastating consequences on the economy, security, or public health. These infrastructures rely on a large network of cyber components, such as sensors, controllers, computers, and communication devices, to monitor and control their physical processes. An adversary can exploit the vulnerabilities in these cyber components to gain access to the system and manipulate its behavior or functionality.This thesis proposes methods that can be employed as a first line of defense against such attacks for Cyber-Physical Systems. In the first part of the thesis, we consider how uninformed attackers can learn to attack a Cyber-Physical System by eavesdropping through the cyber component. By learning to manipulate the plant, the attacker could figure out how to destroy the physical system before it is too late or completely take it over without raising any alarms. Stopping the attacker at the learning stage would force the attacker to act obliviously, increasing the chances of detecting them.We analyze how homomorphic encryption, a technique that allows computation on encrypted data, hinders an attacker's learning process and reduces its capabilities to attack the system. Specifically, we show that an attacker must solve challenging lattice problems to find attacks that are difficult to detect. Additionally, we show how the detection probability is affected by the attacker's solution to the problems and what parameters of the encryption scheme can be tweaked to increase the detection probability. We also develop a novel method that enables anomaly detection over homomorphically encrypted data without revealing the actual signals to the detector, thereby discouraging attackers from launching attacks on the detector. The detection can be performed using a hypothesis test. However, special care must be taken to ensure that fresh samples are used to detect changes from nominal behavior. We also explore how the adversary can try to evade detection using the same test and how the system can be designed to make detection easier for the defender and more challenging for the attacker.In the second part of the thesis, we study how information leakage about changes in the system depends on the system's dynamics. We use a mathematical tool called the Hammersley-Chapman-Robbins lower bound to measure how much information is leaked and how to minimize it. Specifically, we study how structured input sequences, which we call events, can be obtained through the output of a dynamical system and how this information can be hidden by adding noise or changing the inputs. The system’s speed and sensor locations affect how much information is leaked. We also consider balancing the system’s performance and privacy when using optimal control. Finally, we show how to estimate when the adversary’s knowledge of the event becomes accurate enough to launch an attack and how to change the system before that happens. These results are then used to aid the operator in detecting privacy vulnerabilities when designing a Cyber-Physical System, which increases the overall security when removed.
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| 3. |
- Guo, Meng, 1988-
(författare)
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Hybrid Control of Multi-robot Systems under Complex Temporal Tasks
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Autonomous robots like household service robots, self-driving cars and dronesare emerging as important parts of our daily lives in the near future. They need tocomprehend and fulfill complex tasks specified by the users with minimal humanintervention. Also they should be able to handle un-modeled changes and contingentevents in the workspace. More importantly, they shall communicate and collaboratewith each other in an efficient and correct manner. In this thesis, we address theseissues by focusing on the distributed and hybrid control of multi-robot systemsunder complex individual tasks.We start from the nominal case where a single dynamical robot is deployed in astatic and fully-known workspace. Its local tasks are specified as Linear TemporalLogic (LTL) formulas containing the desired motion. We provide an automatedframework as the nominal solution to construct the hybrid controller that drives therobot such that its resulting trajectory satisfies the given task. Then we expand theproblem by considering a team of networked dynamical robots, where each robot hasa locally-specified individual task also as LTL formulas. In particular, we analyzefour different aspects as described below.When the workspace is only partially known to each robot, the nominal solutionmight be inadequate. Thus we first propose an algorithm for initial plan synthesis tohandle partially infeasible tasks that contain hard and soft constraints. We designan on-line scheme for each robot to verify and improve its local plan during runtime, utilizing its sensory measurements and communications with other robots. Itis ensured that the hard constraints for safety are always fulfilled while the softconstraints for performance are improved gradually.Secondly, we introduce a new approach to construct a full model of both robotmotion and actions. Based on this model, we can specify much broader robotic tasksand it is used to model inter-robot collaborative actions, which are essential for manymulti-robot applications to improve system capability, efficiency and robustness.Accordingly, we devise a distributed strategy where the robots coordinate theirmotion and action plans to fulfill the desired collaboration by their local tasks.Thirdly, continuous relative-motion constraints among the robots, such as collision avoidance and connectivity maintenance, are closely related to the stability,safety and integrity of multi-robot systems. We propose two different hybrid controlapproaches to guarantee the satisfaction of all local tasks and the relative-motionconstraints at all time: the first one is based on potential fields and nonlinear controltechnique; the second uses Embedded Graph Grammars (EGGs) as the main tool.At last, we take into account two common cooperative robotic tasks, namelyservice and formation tasks. These tasks are requested and exchanged among therobots during run time. The proposed hybrid control scheme ensures that the real-time plan execution incorporates not only local tasks of each robot but also thecontingent service and formation tasks it receives.Some of the theoretical results of the thesis have been implemented and demonstrated on various robotic platforms.
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| 4. |
- Henriksson, Erik, 1982-
(författare)
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Compensating for Unreliable Communication Links in Networked Control Systems
- 2009
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Control systems utilizing wireless sensor and actuator networks can be severely affectedby the properties of the communication links. Radio fading and interferencemay cause communication losses and outages in situations when the radio environmentis noisy and low transmission power is desirable. This thesis proposes amethod to compensate for such unpredictable losses of data in the feedback controlloop by introducing a predictive outage compensator (POC). The POC is a filter tobe implemented at the receiver sides of networked control systems where it generatesartificial samples when data are lost. If the receiver node does not receive thedata, the POC suggests a command based on the history of past data. It is shownhow to design, tune and implement a POC. Theoretical bounds and simulationresults show that a POC can improve the closed-loop control performance undercommunication losses considerably. We provide a deterministic and a stochasticmethod to synthesize POCs. Worst-case performance bounds are given that relatethe closed-loop performance with the complexity of the compensator. We also showthat it is possible to achieve good performance with a low-order implementationbased on Hankel norm approximation. Tradeoffs between achievable performance,communication loss length, and POC order are discussed. The results are illustratedon a simulated example of a multiple-tank process. The thesis is concludedby an experimental validation of wireless control of a physical lab process. Herethe controller and the physical system are separated geographically and interfacedthrough a wireless medium. For the remote control we use a hybrid model predictivecontroller. The results reflect the difficulties in wireless control as well as theyhighlight the flexibility and possibilities one obtains by using wireless instead of awired communication medium.
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| 5. |
- Liang, Kuo-Yun
(författare)
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Fuel-Efficient Heavy-Duty Vehicle Platoon Formation
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a need for intelligent freight transport solutions as the demand for road freight transport is continuously increasing while carbon footprint needs to be significantly reduced. Heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) platooning is one potential solution to partially mitigate the environmental impacts as well as to reduce fuel consumption, improve traffic safety, and increase traffic throughput on congested highways. However, as each goods transport has different origin, destination, and time restriction, it is not evident how the HDVs, carrying the goods, can fully utilize the platooning benefits during individual transport missions. Thus, there is a need to systematically coordinate scattered vehicles on the road to form platoons in order to maximize the benefits of platooning. This thesis addresses the problem of merging scattered HDVs to form platoons in traffic. The first contribution of the thesis is the investigation of how and when a pair of HDVs should form platoons given their positions, speeds, and destinations. We formulate the problem as an optimization problem and we derive a break-even ratio that describes how far a vehicle should check for possible vehicles to platoon with. The second contribution is to consider traffic during the merging maneuver when forming a platoon. Traffic may disturb and delay when the two HDVs will form a platoon and such delay leads to less fuel saved than initially planned. Based on shockwave and moving bottleneck theories, we derive a merge distance predictor that calculates where the HDVs will merge depending on the traffic condition. We first validate this in a microscopic traffic simulation tool. Then, we also conduct an experimental study during one month on a public highway between Stockholm and Södertälje to evaluate the merging maneuver with different traffic densities. Lastly, we use vehicle probe data obtained from a fleet management system to investigate the potential fuel savings from coordination in a larger road network. The number of vehicles platooning can be increased significantly through coordination compared to today. The main result of this thesis indicates that merging HDVs to form platoons leads to great fuel savings and that there are significant potentials to do so in reality. Traffic needs to be considered in order to guarantee that the HDVs save fuel and deliver the goods in time. Furthermore, the earlier the transport assignment is planned ahead of time, the more opportunities there are to collaborate with other fleet owners to reduce the fuel consumption.
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| 6. |
- Ramesh, Chithrupa, 1982-
(författare)
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Contention-based Multiple Access Architectures for Networked Control Systems
- 2011
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Networked Control Systems (NCSs) use a wireless network for communication between sensors and controllers, and require a Medium Access Controller (MAC) to arbitrate access to the shared medium. Traditionally, a MAC for control systems is chosen primarily based on the delay it introduces in the closed loop. This thesis focuses on the design of a contention-based MAC, in a time-varying, resource-constrained network for closed loop systems. In this thesis, we advocate the use of a state-aware MAC, as opposed to an agnostic MAC, for NCSs. A state-aware MAC uses the state of the plant to influence access to the network. The state-aware policy is realized using two different approaches in the MAC: a regulatory formulation and an adaptive prioritization. Our first approach is a regulatory MAC, which serves to reduce the traffic in the network. We use a local state-based scheduler to select a few critical data packets to send to the MAC. We analyze the impact of such a scheduler on the closed loop system, and show that there is a dual effect for the control signal, which makes determining the optimal controller difficult. We also identify restrictions on the scheduling criterion that result in a separation of the scheduler, observer and controller designs. Our second approach is a prioritized MAC that uses state-based priorities called Attentions, to determine access to the network. We use a dominance protocol called tournaments, to evaluate priorities in a contention-based setting, and analyze the resulting performance of the MAC. We also consider a NCS that uses a wireless multihop mesh network for communication between the controller and actuator. We design an optimal controller, which uses packet delivery predictions from a recursive Bayesian network estimator.
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| 7. |
- Stefansson, Elis
(författare)
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Complexity-aware Decision-making with Applications to Large-scale and Human-in-the-loop Systems
- 2023
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis considers control systems governed by autonomous decision-makers and humans. We formalise and compute low-complex control policies with applications to large-scale systems, and propose human interaction models for controllers to compute interaction-aware decisions.In the first part of the thesis, we consider complexity-aware decision-making, formalising the complexity of control policies and constructing algorithms that compute low-complexity control policies. More precisely, first, we consider large-scale control systems given by hierarchical finite state machines (HFSMs) and present a planning algorithm for such systems that exploits the hierarchy to compute optimal policies efficiently. The algorithm can also handle changes in the system with ease. We prove these properties and conduct simulations on HFSMs with up to 2 million states, including a robot application, where our algorithm outperforms both Dijkstra's algorithm and Contraction Hierarchies. Second, we present a planning objective for control systems modelled as finite state machines yielding an explicit trade-off between a policy's performance and complexity. We consider Kolmogorov complexity since it captures the ultimate compression of an object on a universal Turing machine. We prove that this trade-off is hard to optimise in the sense that dynamic programming is infeasible. Nonetheless, we present two heuristic algorithms obtaining low-complexity policies and evaluate the algorithms on a simple navigation task for a mobile robot, where we obtain low-complexity policies that concur with intuition. In the second part of the thesis, we consider human-in-the-loop systems and predict human decision-making in such systems. First, we look at how the interaction between a robot and a human in a control system can be predicted using game theory, focusing on an autonomous truck platoon interacting with a human-driven car. The interaction is modelled as a hierarchical dynamic game, where the hierarchical decomposition is temporal with a high-fidelity tactical horizon predicting immediate interactions and a low-fidelity strategic horizon estimating long-term behaviour. The game enables feasible computations validated through simulations yielding situation-aware behaviour with natural and safe interactions. Second, we seek models to explain human decision-making, focusing on driver overtaking scenarios. The overtaking problem is formalised as a decision problem with perceptual uncertainty. We propose and numerically analyse risk-agnostic and risk-aware decision models, judging if an overtaking is desirable. We show how a driver's decision time and confidence level can be characterised through two model parameters, which collectively represent human risk-taking behaviour. We detail an experimental testbed for evaluating the decision-making process in the overtaking scenario and present some preliminary experimental results from two human drivers.
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| 8. |
- Teixeira, André
(författare)
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Toward Cyber-Secure and Resilient Networked Control Systems
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Resilience is the ability to maintain acceptable levels of operation in the presence of abnormal conditions. It is an essential property in industrial control systems, which are the backbone of several critical infrastructures. The trend towards using pervasive information technology systems, such as the Internet, results in control systems becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats. Traditional cyber security does not consider the interdependencies between the physical components and the cyber systems. On the other hand, control-theoretic approaches typically deal with independent disturbances and faults, thus they are not tailored to handle cyber threats. Theory and tools to analyze and build control system resilience are, therefore, lacking and in need to be developed. This thesis contributes towards a framework for analyzing and building resilient control systems.First, a conceptual model for networked control systems with malicious adversaries is introduced. In this model, the adversary aims at disrupting the system behavior while remaining undetected by an anomaly detector The adversary is constrained in terms of the available model knowledge, disclosure resources, and disruption capabilities. These resources may correspond to the anomaly detector’s algorithm, sniffers of private data, and spoofers of control commands, respectively.Second, we address security and resilience under the perspective of risk management, where the notion of risk is defined in terms of a threat’s scenario, impact, and likelihood. Quantitative tools to analyze risk are proposed. They take into account both the likelihood and impact of threats. Attack scenarios with high impact are identified using the proposed tools, e.g., zero-dynamics attacks are analyzed in detail. The problem of revealing attacks is also addressed. Their stealthiness is characterized, and how to detect them by modifying the system’s structure is also described.As our third contribution, we propose distributed fault detection and isolation schemes to detect physical and cyber threats on interconnected second-order linear systems. A distributed scheme based on unknown input observers is designed to jointly detect and isolate threats that may occur on the network edges or nodes. Additionally, we propose a distributed scheme based on local models and measurements that is resilient to changes outside the local subsystem. The complexity of the proposed methods is decreased by reducing the number of monitoring nodes and by characterizing the minimum amount of model information and measurements needed to achieve fault detection and isolation.Finally, we tackle the problem of distributed reconfiguration under sensor and actuator faults. In particular, we consider a control system with redundant sensors and actuators cooperating to recover from the removal of individual nodes. The proposed scheme minimizes a quadratic cost while satisfying a model-matching condition, which maintains the nominal closed-loop behavior after faults. Stability of the closed-loop system under the proposed scheme is analyzed.
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| 9. |
- Terelius, Håkan, 1987-
(författare)
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Optimization and Control in Dynamical Network Systems
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Dynamical network systems are complex interconnected systems useful to describe many real world problems. The advances in information technology has led the current trend towards connecting more and more systems, creating "intelligent" systems, where the intelligence originates in the scale and complexity of the network. With the growing scale of networked systems comes also higher demands on performance and continuous availability and this creates the need for optimization and control of network systems. This thesis makes four important contributions in this area.In the first contribution, we consider a collaborative road freight transportation system. An efficiency measure for the road utilization in collaborative transportation scenarios is introduced, which evaluates the performance of collaboration strategies in comparison to an optimal central planner. The efficiency measure is used to study a freight transport simulation in Germany and taxi trips using real data from New York City. This is followed by a study of the optimal idling locations for trucks, and the optimal locations for distribution centers. These locations are then exploited in a simulation of a realistic collaborative freight transport system.The second contribution studies the important problem of gathering data that are distributed among the nodes in an anonymous network, i.e., a network where the nodes are not endowed with unique identifies. Two specific tasks are considered: to estimate the size of the network, and to aggregate the distribution of local measurements generated by the nodes. We consider a framework where the nodes require anonymity and have restricted computational resources. We propose probabilistic algorithms with low resource requirements, that quickly generate arbitrarily accurate estimates. For dynamical networks, we improve the accuracy through a regularization term which captures the trade-off between the reliability of the gathered data and a-priori assumptions for the dynamics.In the third contribution, a peer-to-peer network is utilized to improve a live-streaming media application. In particular, we study how an overlay network, constructed from simple preference functions, can be used to build efficient topologies that reduce both network latency and interruptions. We present necessary and sufficient convergence conditions, as well as convergence rate estimates, and demonstrate the improvements for a real peer-to-peer video streaming application.The final contribution is a distributed optimization algorithm. We consider a distributed multi-agent optimization problem of minimizing the sum of convex objective functions. A decentralized optimization algorithm is introduced, based on dual decomposition, together with the subgradient method for finding the optimal solution. The convergence rate is analyzed for different step size rules, constant and time-varying communication delays, and noisy communication channels.
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| 10. |
- Alisic, Rijad, 1994-
(författare)
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Privacy of Sudden Events in Cyber-Physical Systems
- 2021
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cyberattacks against critical infrastructures has been a growing problem for the past couple of years. These infrastructures are a particularly desirable target for adversaries, due to their vital importance in society. For instance, a stop in the operation of a critical infrastructure could result in a crippling effect on a nation's economy, security or public health. The reason behind this increase is that critical infrastructures have become more complex, often being integrated with a large network of various cyber components. It is through these cyber components that an adversary is able to access the system and conduct their attacks.In this thesis, we consider methods which can be used as a first line of defence against such attacks for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Specifically, we start by studying how information leaks about a system's dynamics helps an adversary to generate attacks that are difficult to detect. In many cases, such attacks can be detrimental to a CPS since they can drive the system to a breaking point without being detected by the operator that is tasked to secure the system. We show that an adversary can use small amounts of data procured from information leaks to generate these undetectable attacks. In particular, we provide the minimal amount of information that is needed in order to keep the attack hidden even if the operator tries to probe the system for attacks. We design defence mechanisms against such information leaks using the Hammersley-Chapman-Robbins lower bound. With it, we study how information leakage could be mitigated through corruption of the data by injection of measurement noise. Specifically, we investigate how information about structured input sequences, which we call events, can be obtained through the output of a dynamical system and how this leakage depends on the system dynamics. For example, it is shown that a system with fast dynamical modes tends to disclose more information about an event compared to a system with slower modes. However, a slower system leaks information over a longer time horizon, which means that an adversary who starts to collect information long after the event has occured might still be able to estimate it. Additionally, we show how sensor placements can affect the information leak. These results are then used to aid the operator to detect privacy vulnerabilities in the design of a CPS.Based on the Hammersley-Chapman-Robbins lower bound, we provide additional defensive mechanisms that can be deployed by an operator online to minimize information leakage. For instance, we propose a method to modify the structured inputs in order to maximize the usage of the existing noise in the system. This mechanism allows us to explicitly deal with the privacy-utility trade-off, which is of interest when optimal control problems are considered. Finally, we show how the adversary's certainty of the event increases as a function of the number of samples they collect. For instance, we provide sufficient conditions for when their estimation variance starts to converge to its final value. This information can be used by an operator to estimate when possible attacks from an adversary could occur, and change the CPS before that, rendering the adversary's collected information useless.
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