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The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy

The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy

The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy

Part of the International Electronic Conference on Agronomy series
26–28 Oct 2022
Food quality and safety, postharvest technology, Biofortification, Biostimulants, vegetable grafting, Plant Stress, circular economy, environmental impact of agriculture, utilisation of renewable resources in agriculture
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Due to some unforeseen reasons related to the organization of the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy, the event is being cancelled, but we're hoping to hold it next year.

The conference organization wanted to thank all the interest and participations received so far.
For any question regarding the cancellation process please contact iecag2022@mdpi.com.

Welcome from the Chair

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy, which will take place from 26 to 28 October 2022. The e-conference format is designed to facilitate the dissemination and discussion of advances in agronomy research and innovation in a post-pandemic environment, where travelling is likely to remain a challenge for many of us.

The overarching aim is to contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and developing game-changing solutions that can transform the global food system, as demanded by the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021.

In the context of (1) global population growth and climate change; (2) rapidly rising costs and/or the scarcity of inputs such as water, seed, fertilisers, crop protection products; and (3) stagnating or decreasing crop yields in many world regions, the main challenges for the world’s agricultural systems remain the same as those outlined in the Welcome from the Chairs of the 1st International Electronic Conference on Agronomy in 2021. Specifically, agricultural production systems need to simultaneously (i) increase their resource use efficiency to reduce their reliance on limited, non-renewable, and strategic resources (soil, water, nutrients, and energy); (ii) maintain or increase crop yields, quality, and safety; (iii) reduce agriculture’s impact on the environment and biodiversity; and (iv) maintain or improve economic returns for farming communities.

The programme of the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy will include eight special sessions, which focus on important area of agronomy where research and innovation is essential to address the challenges described above (see list of sessions below). In addition to lectures/presentations, we will organize a moderated panel discussions in each session to allow results to be presented and future challenges and research needs to be discussed:
    1. Breeding/Selection Technologies and Strategies (including participatory breeding). Focused on yield, yield stability, resource use efficiency, weed competitiveness, and disease and pest resistance.

    2. Sustainable Soil Management (including recycling organic animal and human waste as fertiliser/soil improvers).
    1. Sustainable Resilient Horticultural Production Systems.
    1. Sustainable and Resilient Arable Farming Systems.
    1. Sustainable Management of Permanent and Rotational Grassland (including semi-natural and natural environments used for grazing).
      1. Sustainable Weed Management.
      1. Precision and Digital Agriculture.
      1. Organic and Regenerative Farming Systems.
      While our virtual conference will be a different experience from traditional in-person meetings, it will ensure that we (1) can meet irrespective of the COVID situation, (2) allow access for those who for other reasons are unable to travel, and (3) enable us to have a carbon-neutral event. Your presentation will be accessible to researchers around the world and will be a more inclusive because of the absence of registration fees and travel costs.

      We warmly invite our colleagues from across the world to be part of this exciting event.

      Carlo Leifert
      Chair of the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy

      Conference Secretariat

      Event Chairs

      Prof. Dr. Carlo Leifert

      Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, East Lismore, Australia

      Introduction
      Bio
      Professor Carlo Leifert currently works for Southern Cross University and manages a small farm producing olives, citrus, vegetables and herbs in Crete, Greece. He is also a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science and the Oslo University Medical School, a director of the Stocksbridge Technology Centre (STC), and a member of the academic advisory board of the Thünen Institute (the German Federal Research Institute for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). Professor Leifert has a great international network and an extensive scientific background - he has published 2 textbooks and more than 150 peer reviewed papers.

      Event Committee

      Dr. Mirko Cucina

      Gruppo Ricicla Lab., Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, Italy

      Introduction

      Dr. Asher Bar-Tal

      Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), The Volcani Institute, Israel

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Anatoly Gitelson

      Emeritus Professor at School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, USA

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Ana Ribeiro-Barros

      University of Lisbon, Tropical College, School of Agriculture, Portugal

      Introduction
      Bio
      www.ctrop.ulisboa.pt and https://www.cienciavitae.pt//en/081F-E3CE-9D52

      Prof. Dr. Magdalena Sobocińska

      Faculty of Management, Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland

      Prof. Dr. Daniela Romano

      University of Catania, Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (Di3A), Italy

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Gniewko Niedbała

      Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Carlos Cantero-Martínez

      Universitat de Lleida, Agrotecnio Center, Spain

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Katarzyna Turnau

      Plant-Microbial Interaction Group, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland

      Introduction

      Dr. Dagmar Janovska

      Head of Gene bank, Crop Research Institute, Czech Republic

      Introduction

      Dr. Anabela Afonso Fernandes Silva

      Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB); Department of Agronomy, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal

      Introduction

      Prof. Dr. Andrea Peruzzi

      Professor of Agricultural Machinery and Farm Mechanization; Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (DAFE), Italy

      Introduction

      Dr. Michel Pirchio

      Junior Researcher of Agricultural Machinery and Farm Mechanization, Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (DAFE), Italy

      Introduction

      Dr. Alessandra Durazzo

      CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Italy

      Introduction

      Dr. Massimo Lucarini

      CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Italy

      Introduction

      Session Chairs

      Dr. Gianni Bellocchi

      Grassland Ecosystem Research, French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, France

      Dr. Asher Bar-Tal

      Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), The Volcani Institute, Israel

      Prof. Dr. Ana Ribeiro-Barros

      University of Lisbon, Tropical College, School of Agriculture, Portugal

      Dr. Emilia Markellou

      Head of Plant Pathologists Group of Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Greece

      Dr. Flavio Lupia

      CREA-Council for agricultural research and economics, Italy

      Keynote Speakers

      Prof. Dr. Ana Ribeiro-Barros

      University of Lisbon, Tropical College, School of Agriculture, Portugal

      Introduction
      Bio
      Ana Isabel Faria Ribeiro-Barros (ARB) PhD Plant Molecular Biology, MSc Biotechnology - Plant and Microbial Production Current Positions and Appointments: (i) University of Lisbon, Director of the Tropical College, Senior Researcher with Habilitation/Head of Plant Stress and Biodiversity Lab, Professor of Cell Biology and Plant Biotechnology, (ii) High Level Policy Dialogue EU/Africa - Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture, National Expert; (iii) Member of the Miombo Network of Southern Africa.

      Dr. Istvan Rajcan

      University of Guelph, ON, Canada

      Introduction
      Talk
      Differences and similarities between strategies of breeding soybean for organic vs. conventional production system
      Bio
      Dr. Istvan Rajcan is a Professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Canada. Dr. Rajcan has been leading a dynamic soybean breeding and genetics program at the University of Guelph since 1998, where he focuses on seed compositional traits for food, nutraceutical and industrial uses. His research involves exploration of genetic variation for yield and disease resistance traits using exotic germplasm and organic soybean breeding using classical genetic and genomic tools.

      Dr. Flavio Lupia

      CREA-Council for agricultural research and economics, Italy

      Introduction
      Talk
      Monitoring dry matter and yield on crops in view of precision Agriculture application, state of the art, perspectives and constraints.
      Bio
      Dr. Lupia is a Senior Researcher at CREA- Council for agricultural research and economics (Italy). He has more than 15 years of experience in the development of GIS and Remote Sensing applications to agri-environmental issues and in the production and reuse of statistical data. He has been principal investigator for several projects funded both by European Commission and Italian public organizations. He has been project evaluator for Italian and European funded research projects. His research interests include geospatial information; precision agriculture; remote sensing; administrative and statistical data for agriculture; open data. Dr. Lupia earned a M.S. in Geology (2000) with honors, a B.A. in Computer Engineering (2004) and a Specializing Master in Environmental Monitoring (2004). He is the author of over 100 publications.

      Dr. Abid Ali

      Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences-DISTAL, DISTAL, University of Bologna, Italy

      Introduction
      Talk
      Monitoring dry matter and yield on crops in view of precision Agriculture application, state of the art, perspectives and constraints.
      Bio
      Dr. Ali is a PhD in agronomy with focused on “remote sensing and site specific crop management in precision agriculture”. He has more than 5 years of research experience in conducting agronomic field trials, crop fertilizations, spatial data science/analytics, precision field cropping, remote imagery acquisition and processing, application of remote sensing in precision agriculture, digital soil mapping, geostatistics, apparent soil electrical conductivity directed to soil sampling, delineating field spatiotemporal heterogeneity, yield mapping, working on GIS computer-based software’s (mainly ArcGIS, QGIS, MZA and ESAP) and technical skills on machine learning software (MATLAB)-especially artificial neural network modelling for the estimation of crop yields. Dr. Ali is the author of 10 Scopus indexed research articles; topic editor and reviewer board member of Remote Sensing and Land, MDPI; and contributing as a potential reviewer for ISI and Scopus indexed journals.

      Dr. Leonidas Rempelos

      Newcastle University, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, UK

      Introduction
      Talk
      Effect of climatic conditions and agronomic practices used in organic and conventional crop production on yield and nutritional composition parameters in potato, cabbage, lettuce and onion; results from the long-term NFSC-trials
      Bio
      Dr Leonidas Rempelos is a Research Scientist on Sustainable Agri-food production Systems, with 10+ years of experience while he has contributed to the successful delivery of various large multidisciplinary EU, industry and charity-funded research and innovation projects. Most of his research is focusing on strategies to reduce the environmental impact of food production while maintaining and improving productivity and nutritional quality. Working on achieving that aim Leos research activities are focusing on investigating and exploiting complex interactions between (i) crop genetics (including neglected and underutilised species and traditional genotypes), (ii) agronomic practices (e.g. crop rotation, tillage, crop protection, fertilisation, irrigation) and (iii) the environment (pedoclimatic conditions) (biotic & abiotic environment) on crop health, yield and yield stability, resource use efficiency, and food quality and safety parameters

      Dr. Fabio Tittarelli

      Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Italy

      Introduction
      Talk
      Organic greenhouse production in Europe: are organic intensive systems still sustainable?
      Bio
      Fabio Tittarelli is a Senior Scientist at CREA – Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment. During the last fifteen years, he has been carrying out research activities in organic farming. In the period 2018-2021, he was the scientific coordinator of a CORE Organic Cofund project titled “Organic and bio-dynamic vegetable production in low-energy GREENhouses – sustainable, RESILIENT and innovative food production systems” – GREENRESILIENT). He was a Permanent member of the Expert Group of the European Commission for Technical advice on Organic Production (EGTOP) (category Soil Science) for n. 2 mandates (2010- 2016). He is the author of more than one hundred scientific and informative articles (54 articles published on ISI scientific journals, h-index 17)

      Dr. Martin Entz

      Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Canada

      Introduction
      Talk
      Potential solutions in water and phosphorous limited organic arable production
      Bio
      Martin Entz is professor in the University of Manitoba’s Plant Science department. He received his PhD from the University of Saskatchewan in 1988 and worked as a farm manager and research agronomist before embarking on his academic career. “The goal of my program is to discover new ways of farming ecologically; to empower farmers with knowledge to design organic farming systems adapted to where they live; and to engage students in this exciting process”. He leads the Glenlea study – Canada’s oldest organic-conventional farming systems comparison study, which is entering its 31th season. In 2011, Martin started Canada’s first farmer participatory wheat and oat breeding program focused on organic production. Martin teaches courses in crop production and often hosts a “Summer Institute” at the U of M Carman campus. Martin has led agricultural projects in Central America, Zimbabwe, East Africa and North Korea. Martin is a member of the “Prairie Food Vision Network”, winners of the 2020 Rockefeller Foundation Food Systems Vision Prize.

      Ms. Lorraine Gordon

      Director Strategic Projects, Program Director, Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, Farming Together, Southern Cross University, Australia

      Introduction
      Talk
      Time-controlled grazing systems in Northern NSW, Australia
      Bio
      Lorraine is the Founder and Director of the National Regenerative Agriculture Alliance. As Director of Strategic Projects at Southern Cross University, Lorraine acts as a conduit between industry and research, delivering regenerative agriculture solutions nationally with a focus on mitigating the effects of climate change. She was the instigator and co-designer of the Bachelor of Science in Regenerative Agriculture – the only degree of its kind in the world and now the largest agricultural degree in the country. A Graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program and previous NSW ABC Rural Woman of the Year Lorraine is currently completing her PhD in Ecological Economics through UNE, looking at a triple bottom line comparisons and resilience between regenerative and conventional grazing systems. She has assisted over 28,500 farmers, fishers and foresters around the country to progress collaborative projects including establishing Cooperatives which will benefit their various industries as Director of the Commonwealth Government’s Farming Together Program. Lorraine was awarded the 2018 Rural Community Leader of the Year for Australia for her work with farmers, the 2019 Australian Financial Review Award and the 2019 BHERT Higher Education Engagement Award. She was also a finalist in the 2020 Australian of the Year Award. Lorraine is also a carbon farmer and beef cattle trader at Ebor in the New England Tablelands of NSW (having left the city at the age of 21 to run a remote cattle property at Ebor her story is one of resilience and determination). She is also Director of Moffat Falls Pty Ltd which operates a number of successful tourism businesses in the New England Tablelands and Mid North Coast regions of Northern NSW.

      Dr. Yael Laor

      Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, The Volcani Institute, Agriculture Research Organization, Newe Ya'ar Research Center, ARO, Israel

      Introduction
      Talk
      A Model Farm in Newe Ya’ar for Developing, Demonstrating and Implementing Sustainable Agricultural Practices

      Dr. Emilia Markellou

      Head of Plant Pathologists Group of Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Greece

      Introduction
      Talk
      Progress on development of integrated disease management in horticultural crop production in semi-arid areas
      Bio
      Dr Emilia Markellou, is the Head of Plant Pathologists Group of Benaki Phytopathological Institute (GR). She holds a BSc and MSc in Agronomy-Crop Protection and a PhD in Phytopathology (on biocontrol of grey mould in tomatoes). She is experienced in developing plant diseases management strategies, integrating resistant cultivars with bio-pesticides, plant extracts and chemical agents. She has particular interest in developing low input crop protection systems and impact assessment procedures applicable in agriculture. She has coordinated FP7 & and LIFE Projects (BPI PlantHeal, SAGE10, LIFE PureAgroH2O), and was Partner/WP Leader in several national or EU Projects (CO-FREE, EcoPest, BalkanRoad, Plant-B, NanoShield, PlantUp). She has participated in EFSA expert panels on microbials, and National Working Groups (on plant protection products) and she is involved in actions of the National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (sector IPM implementation). She is member of EPPO expert panels on plant health and plant defense inducers and she has more than 60 publications in peer reviewed journals, proceedings, congresses special issues. She has experience in R&D of plant protection products and in planta experimentation. She is invited speaker in EU Stakeholder meetings/workshops and ERA Projects implemented in EU candidate countries and trainer in BTSF courses. She is also coordinating the actions of the National Reference Laboratory of Mycology on fungi and oomycetes (plant health).

      Dr. Demosthenis Chachalis

      Head of Weed Science Laboratory, Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Greece

      Introduction
      Talk
      Non-chemical weeding: New challenges and novel solutions
      Bio
      Demosthenis Chachalis (M), MSc, PhD. an agronomist and the Head of Weed Science Laboratory. He is the head of the national Efficacy Evaluation group (for herbicides). He worked as a researcher at the USDA-ARS, at Stoneville MS, USA (1998-2000). He has got a long research experience (>20 years) on weed biology, herbicide resistance, development, and implementation of integrated weed management systems. He has been a member of Organizing/Scientific committees of International Symposia/conferences and invited speaker. Dr D. Chachalis has published more than 50 papers in international peer-review journals; he has been editor or main author in books/chapters in English weed science textbooks, with more than 1.600 citations and Citation index, h-index=16, “i10” index=28. He has been the co-ordinator/partner on several major national and EU project (PRIMA, LIFE+, national, etc). Currently he is the chair of the Organizing Committee of the 19th EWRS Symposium in Athens, June 2022 and chairman for the EWRS workshop on “Sustainable use of Herbicides”.

      Registration

      The registration fee includes attendance to all conference sessions.

      When registering as an "Academic", please register with your academic email address, as this will accelerate the registration process. If you are registering several people under the same registration, please do not use the same email address for each person, but their individual university email addresses.

      If you are registering several people under the same registration order, please do not use the same email address for each person, but their individual institutional email addresses. Thank you for your understanding.

      Participation to the conference is considered final only once the registration fees have been paid. The number of participants is limited: once the number of paid registrations reaches the maximum number of participants, unpaid registrations will be cancelled.

      Please note that, in order to finalize the scientific program in due time, at least one registration by any of the authors, denoted as Covering Author, is required to cover the presentation and publication of any accepted abstract. Covering Author registration deadline is 23 September 2022. Your abstract will be withdrawn if your registration is not complete by this date.

      Early Bird
      Until 2nd September 2022       		Regular
      Until 17th October 2022       		Supported documents
      Academic 100.00 CHF 150.00 CHF
      Student 50.00 CHF 80.00 CHF Scanned copy or photograph of your current student ID is required
      Authors/Reviewers of the journal 80.00 CHF 120.00 CHF
      Editorial Board Members of Agronomy 65.00 CHF 95.00 CHF
      Member of Partnering Societies 65.00 CHF 95.00 CHF
      Non-Academic 150.00 CHF 200.00 CHF
      Keynote Speakers and MDPI Guests Free Free
      Cancellation policy

      Cancellation of paid registration is possible under the terms listed below:

      > 2 weeks before the conference Full refund
      < 2 weeks before the conference No refund

      Disclaimer

      We will endeavour to present the program advertised. However, MDPI and its partners reserve the right to alter or cancel, without prior notice, arrangements, timetables, plans, or other items relating directly or indirectly to 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy. MDPI and its partners are not liable for any loss or inconvenience caused as a result of such cancellation.

      Beware of Unauthorized Registration

      Note that Sciforum is the only official registration platform to register to IECAG2022. Beware that entering into financial agreements with non-endorsed companies can have costly consequences.

      Insurance

      The organizers do not accept liability for personal accident, loss, or damage to private property incurred as a result of participation in 2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy.

      Photographs and/or video will be taken during the conference

      By taking part in this event you grant the event organisers full rights to use the images resulting from the photography/video filming, and any reproductions or adaptations of the images for fundraising, publicity or other purposes to help achieve the conference’s aims. This might include (but is not limited to), the right to use them in their printed and online publicity, social media, press releases and funding applications.

      Payment methods

      Wire transfer, Credit card

      Currencies accepted by this event

      Swiss francs (CHF) ,  Euros (EUR) and US dollars (USD)

      Instructions for Authors

      Instructions for authors

      The conference “2nd International Electronic Conference on Agronomy" will accept abstracts only. The accepted abstracts will be available online on Sciforum.net during and after the conference.

      Please note that abstract submission and conference registration are two separate processes. To register for the conference, please follow this link: https://sciforum.net/event/IECAG2022#registration


      Submission

      To present your research at the IECAG2022:

      1. Create an account on Sciforum if you do not have one, then click on ‘New Submission’ on the upper-right corner of the window or on ‘Submit Abstract’ at the top of this webpage.
      2. Indicate which session is best suited for your research.
      3. Submit a short abstract in English (150–300 words) until 01 July 2022.
      4. The Conference Committee will evaluate all the submitted abstracts, and authors will be notified by 29 July 2022 about acceptance. During the 3-days event, a program for oral presentations will be organized, from selected abstracts. Those authors not selected for an oral presentation will be able to upload a poster until the 16 September 2022 to complement the abstract shown in Sciforum.
      5. The best posters will be selected as flash presentations (3-min) and they will be included on the oral program of the conference.
      6. All accepted abstracts will be available online for discussion during the time of the conference (26-28 October 2022).
      7. Please note that, in order to finalize the scientific program in due time, at least one registration by any of the authors, denoted as Covering Author, is required to cover the presentation and publication of any accepted abstract. Covering Author registration deadline is 23 September 2022. Your abstract will be withdrawn if your registration is not complete by this date.

      Publication Opportunities

      • All accepted abstracts will be available online in Open Access form on Sciforum.net. After the conference, abstracts will remain available online for viewing on Sciforum.net and will be published in Proceedings in the form of a Book of abstracts.
      • After the conference, participants of IECAG2022 are encouraged to contribute with a full manuscript to our one Special Issue related to the conference in the journal Agronomy. Full manuscript submissions will undergo the usual process of each journal, including peer-review. The conference participants will be granted a 20% discount on the publishing fees.
      • Agronomy is an international, scientific, peer-reviewed, open access journal published monthly online by MDPI, and has an Impact Factor of 3.417 (2020).


      Potential Conflicts of Interest

      It is the authors' responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state here "The authors declare no conflict of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Financial support for the study must be fully disclosed under the "Acknowledgments" section.

      Copyright

      MDPI, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe that authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting an abstract to this conference, you retain the copyright of your paper, but you grant MDPI the non-exclusive right to publish this abstract online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your paper to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher (if required by that publisher).

      Event Awards

      To acknowledge the support of the conference’s esteemed authors and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishments, we are pleased to launch the possibility to win one of our two Best Contributions Award.

      The Awards
      Best Contribution Award - 500 CHF

      Number of Awards Available: 2

      The Best Contribution Award will be presented to honor the abstract and/or oral presentation that is judged to make the most significant contribution to the conference.
      Terms and Conditions:
      Best Contribution Awards

      As a sponsor, Agronomy would like to present two award for the best contributions, as determined by the conference committee. The award will consist of 500 Swiss Francs each. We look forward to reviewing your contributions.

      Best Contributions Award Criteria

      Only abstracts accepted and/or selected for oral presentations submitted to IECAG 2022 will be considered. Contributions will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

      • Originality/novelty of the contribution.
      • Significance of content.
      • Scientific soundness.
      • Interest to the readers.
      • English language and style.

      Evaluation

      • The Chair and members of the Evaluation Committee will assess each entry in terms of the criteria outlined above.
      • Total scores for each contribution will be ranked, from highest to lowest.
      • All decisions made by the Evaluation Committee are final.

      Sponsors and Partners

      If you are interested in knowing the sponsorship options for IECAG2022 please look at our Sponsorship form.

      Organizers


      Media Partners

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