Health and Medical News and Resources

General interest items edited by Janice Flahiff

[Reblog] My Health Data Is Killing Me | The Health Care Blog

My Health Data Is Killing Me | The Health Care Blog.

Excerpt from the 20 January post

AppleHealth

We are still in the dark ages when it comes to health and fitness data. It reminds me of the early 1990s when I had a paper day planner for a calendar, a business card holder for contacts, and a map.

Then along came the Microsoft Outlook and LotusNotes platform. These two platforms slugged it out like Uber verses Lyft. Then Microsoft integrated MS Office with MS Outlook and it was “game over.” I finally had one place to find everything I needed to do 90% of my job.

I’m waiting for that moment to come to the realm of my fitness data. It’s extremely difficult for me to access my medical and fitness data as it is, and yet the recent CES conference presented hundreds of new ways to collect more of my data. There will be wearables, scales, patches, contact lenses, smartphones, watches, etc. Maybe even a drone to fly overhead and watch what I eat for lunch. It is overwhelming. How overwhelming, you ask?

Read the rest of the article here

January 21, 2015 Posted by | Consumer Health | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Free ebook] Pain: Considering Complementary Approaches

PainBookCover

 

From the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Pain is the most common reason for seeking medical care. It is also a common reason why people turn to complementary health approaches.

We have collected our information on pain into an eBook you can download to your computer or mobile device.

If you have a Web-enabled device:

 

October 17, 2014 Posted by | Consumer Health, Health Education (General Public) | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Repost] IPhone App Wipes Out Population to Show Contagion Risks

From the 11 November 2013 Bloomberg article

The plague started in Indonesia. A viral infection, it spread quietly at first, making its way from person to person with coughing and sneezing its only symptoms. Then someone infected with the virus got on a plane.

As the disease spread around the globe, fever gave way to sweating, nausea, vomiting. Hundreds infected turned to thousands. The virus developed drug resistance. Thousands became millions.

It was all part of Ian Lipkin’s plan.

The Columbia University virus hunter wasn’t using his decades of experience researching infectious disease for evil. He was playing Plague Inc., a game for iPhone, iPad and Android. With more than 15 million downloads since its release last year, Plague Inc. has captured the attention of gamers and public health officials alike. The latter see it as a tool for raising awareness of the real-world risk of pandemics at a time when public funding for medical research is under pressure.

 

Read entire article here

 

November 16, 2013 Posted by | Public Health | , , , | Leave a comment

[Reblog] Cancer Tracking Goes Mobile – Free UMSkinCheck Mobile App

[Reblog from Taubman Health Science Center Newsblog]

Cancer Tracking Goes Mobile

July 12, 2012 by irinazey

The sun is definitely shining brightly outside – do you know how your skin is affected?

University of Michigan Medical School and University of Michigan Health System have developed a free app to photograph your skin and monitor any suspicious moles or lesions in an effort to make skin cancer screening cheaper, faster, and more convenient for the average person.

Screenshots from UMSkinCheck

Under the supervision of lead developer Dr.  Michael Sabel, UMSkinCheck walks you through a full-body skin self-exam, lets you track moles/lesions for change over time, and set up notification reminders for recurring self-exams. It also comes loaded with information on sun safety and a risk calculator to help determine individual risk based on personalized data.

Read the full story from UMHS here or download the app free from the iTunes storehere.

On a related note, from A blog I follow ,As Our Parent Age- Timely Topics for Adult Children

“Yet another friend has skin cancer. She always used sun blocking lotions, but also enjoyed staying out in the sun for long periods. (I have her permission to write this much.)
My friend tells me that she now understands that sun blocks, no matter how effective or powerful, are only one piece of a skin protection puzzle. Staying out of direct sunlight during the the most intense times of the day is another large puzzle piece.”

This is a good blog to follow, I can’t express it any better than what the author states on the about page

 “As Our Parents Age is my effort to record the experiences of loving and living with aging parents, but it is also a vehicle to help my husband and me understand and learn more about aging parent caregiving. I am highlighting interesting issues, identifying high quality web resources, and sharing memories. Other posts are on topics that my husband and I would have liked to know more about at the beginning of our foray into the aging child – aging parent phase of life.”

July 14, 2012 Posted by | Consumer Health | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Best Time For A Coffee Break? There’s An App For That

From the 16 February 2012 Medical News Today article

Caffeinated drinks such as coffee and soda are the pick-me-ups of choice for many people, but too much caffeine can cause nervousness and sleep problems.

Caffeine Zone software app developed by Penn State researchers, can help people determine when caffeine may give them a mental boost and when it could hurt their sleep patterns. The software takes information on caffeine use and integrates it with information on the effects of caffeine to produce a graph of how the caffeine will affect the users over time. …

The app is available on iTunes for free with advertisements and for purchase without ads. It only works on Apple devices – the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Penn State

 

For information on how to select health apps (with links to select health apps), please visit my Health Apps Web page

February 18, 2012 Posted by | Consumer Health, Finding Aids/Directories | , , , , , | Leave a comment

[Report] Mobile Social and Fun Games for Health – Summary with Links to Examples of Games

Illustration of the Amazing Food Detective

From the Web site The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective  – a free online health game about how to eat right and exercise sponsored by Kaiser Permamente thrive

The report Mobile Social and Fun Games for Health, free through registration, is sponsored by  mobi health news research.

While it focuses on industry trends, it does give some good overviews of how the public views and uses social media and health gaming.

Some insights from the report

  • “Game designer Jane McGonigal argues in her recent book, Reality is Broken, that “games are already improving the quality of our daily lives, fighting social problems such as depression and obesity, and addressing vital twenty-first-century challenges.” McGonigal believes that gamers “will be able to leverage the collaborative and motivational power of games in their own lives, communities, and businesses” to change the world. “
  • There is a growing clinical trial evidence base that shows that games can improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes in areas such as addiction control, healthy eating, physical activity, physical therapy, cognitive therapy, smoking cessation, cancer treatment adherence, asthma self-management and diabetes self- management.
  • “Kaiser Innovation Center’s Dr. Yan Chow  [states] “game thinking gives people permission to fail, and that is new and important in healthcare.” “
  • “The provider community is in need of better educational tools to improve efficiency and lower costs. Care providers of all stripes are interested in employing new ways to help patients understand their diseases and regimens to help them better take care of themselves. to new technology, they see a pressing need to identify and market a new suite of offerings that will function together to improve health outcomes. “
  • The report gives examples of two companies which use multidisciplinary teams to develop and market games.
  •  Tw0 of some examples of games for health in development

“Beating Heart,” which “introduces heart health to young adults by letting them get their heart rate when they touch their iPhone and also allowing them to share this information with friends.” scientists, exercise scientists and physicians working together,” Patrick said. “No one discipline owns more than a minority share.”

“The Magic Carpet” game where the harder the user blows into their phone, the more an interactive magic carpet pictured on the user’s phone moves.

  • Some examples of health games now availableMindbloom – Grow the Health You Want  [uses]a tree metaphor to represent the different branches of a person’s life — health, relationships, lifestyle, leisure, finances, spirituality, creativity and career. Users focus on making small meaningful changes to improve the quality of their lives. There are five elements that drive consumer engagement within this game

    MeYou Health—everyday wellbeing with small actions using community support

    “MeYou Health promotes everyday wellbeing by  encouraging small actions and fostering social ties that drive meaningful behavior change. Daily Challenge is the application that encourages users to take small, achievable steps toward healthy living every day. Getting started only takes a few minutes. Once you sign up, you get an email at 7 am to do one small task, across a wide range of wellbeing domains, from physical activity to eating well to emotional health and more. Feedback includes social proof of action from your personal connections.

    OneRecovery is an online support network for individuals in recovery from alcoholism, drug abuse and eating disorders.  It is a place for members to share stories, work on their recovery and mutually support one another in real time.  The web and mobile program combines social networking technology, game mechanics and evidence-based clinical principals to support sustained engagement and behavior change.

    Vive Coach – A  corporate wellness application.Vivecoach team wellness challenges combine the convenience of mobility, the power of community and the appeal of gaming to get employees excited about doing something good about their health.  Vivecoach challenges include step count competitions, weight loss challenges, and exercise challenges that may appeal to large groups. They also include smaller group or niche challenges called “Cold Turkey” challenges focused on giving up things like soda, sweets, junk- food, or cigarettes. Challenges for flossing and sleeping have also been used. Vivecoach encourages the company administrators or any employee to create new challenges.

    The Amazing Food Detective: Based on a skit developed internally at Kaiser and then produced by an outside game designer, the game utilizes eight short mysteries and 24 fun arcade mind-games. Kids play the role of detectives fighting childhood obesity.Escape from Diab is a sci-fi adventure and video game developed to prevent kids from becoming obese and developing related illnesses as diabetes.”Medical device developers are looking at gaming elements to bring deeper customer engagement with their products to increase sales.”

January 7, 2012 Posted by | Consumer Health, Health Education (General Public), Nutrition | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Consumer and Lifestyle App Reviews (Diabetes, Gluten-Free, and Weight Loss Management)

From the Web page of the American Dietetic Association

Thousands of diet and nutrition apps are available for phones and tablets… so many, in fact, that there are apps to find apps. So when searching for the right apps to help you safely manage your health, don’t make your selection based on the same criteria used to rate Angry Birds. Understand which apps are helpful and based on fact, not fad. Turn to the food and nutrition experts—registered dietitians—for science-based reviews of the most popular apps on the market.

Three Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics spokespeople have reviewed top-rated, free iPhone apps for those looking to lose weight, manage their diabetes or eat gluten-free:

  • Marisa Moore, MBA, RD, LD, reviews the 10 top-rated free iPhone apps for managing diabetes.
  • Jessica Crandall, RD, CDE, reviews the 10 top-rated free iPhone apps for gluten-free eating.
  • Sarah Krieger, MPH, RD, LDN, reviews the 10 top-rated free iPhone apps for weight management.

Ratings are on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.

Diabetes Bread Caution Weight Loss Apple
Diabetes App Reviews » Gluten-Free App Reviews » Weight Loss App Reviews »

Related resources and articles

Health and Wellness Information and Tracking Apps(jflahiff.wordpress.com)

Health Apps (Health and Medical News and Resources selected by Janice Flahiff)

December 21, 2011 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , | Leave a comment

Pocket Body iPhone app

From the 12 December 2011 Science Roll blog item by Dr. Bertalan Meskó

 remember when I had to study all the details of human anatomy from textbooks and some old books with many pictures, but I didn’t have a chance to see things in 3D (which would have made it much easier to understand, learn and memorize). After medical school, I started to discover new apps and solutions for this problem.

I’ve been using the Biodigital app on Google Chrome, it’s free but a bit hard to use.

And recently, I’ve received a letter from the makers of the Pocket Body iPhone app which is just great, although fairly expensive.

Award winning Pocket Body features a fully anatomically accurate human character with nine layers of musculoskeletal, neurovascular, and internal organ visual content…plus over 30,000 words of learning material.

I hope you check it out and let me know what you think!

December 13, 2011 Posted by | Educational Resources (High School/Early College( | , , , | Leave a comment

How do you make an informed choice when downloading/selecting health apps?

 

 

 

Related Resources

Related articles

November 17, 2011 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , | Leave a comment

Health and Wellness Information and Tracking Apps

Last month I completed an online medical library class on mobile resources and apps.
The class, Get Mobilized – MLA,  is over. However the content is still online and  free to all.

One week was centered on Mobile Applications and included examples of and links to personal health/wellness apps.

These examples included calorie counters, symptom checkers, and record keepers.

I included these and others in the course at my Web site Health and Medical Resources and News Selected by Janice Flahiff.
Look for them in the Health Apps section.

Related Resources

November 10, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Finding Aids/Directories, Librarian Resources | , , , , | 1 Comment

“Show Off Your Apps” Winners of the NLM software development challenge

From the NLM (National Library of Medicine) Web page

Show Off Your Apps Winners And Honorable Mentions

 

175th Anniversary Video ContestThe National Library of Medicine (NLM), wishes to congratulate the five winning entries in the Library’s software development challenge, “Show off Your Apps: Innovative Uses of NLM Information.” In addition, we thank all Entrants for participating in the Library’s first software development challenge!

 

Winners

 

GLAD4U

GLAD4U (Gene List Automatically Derived For You) is a new, free web-based gene retrieval and prioritization tool, which takes advantage of the NCBI’s Entrez Programming Utilities (E-utilities). Upon the submission of a query, GLAD4U retrieves the corresponding publications with eSearch before using Pubmed ID-Entrez Gene ID mapping tables provided by the NCBI to create a list of genes. A statistics-based prioritization algorithm ranks those genes into a list that is output to the user, usually within less than a minute. The GLAD4U user interface accepts any valid queries for PubMed, and its output page displays the ranked gene list and information associated with each gene, chronologically-ordered supporting publications, along with a summary of the run and links for file exports and for further functional enrichment analyses.

 

iAnatomy

Learning anatomy interactively with a touchscreen device is  dynamic and engaging. Having it as an app, makes the information available anywhere, anytime. iAnatomy is an exciting electronic anatomy atlas for iPhone/iPod touch. The images are interactive and zoomable. If a label is touched, the name of the structure is shown.  Images span from the face to the pelvis. The face and neck images and the female pelvis images are reconstructed from data from the National Library of Medicine’s Visible Human Project. iAnatomy is designed to stand on its own and does not require an ongoing internet connection. Learning is reinforced with multiple quiz modes. Latin medical terminology is also included as an option for international use.

 

KNALIJ

The KNALIJ web application addresses the challenges and opportunities posed by ‘big data’ with a new generation of information visualization tools. It offers researchers, students and health consumers alike a technology platform with capabilities to rapidly discover and gain insights from the copious amounts of information being made available from the National Libraries of Medicine (NLM), through its data repositories such as PubMed. KNALIJ recognizes the ‘connections’ linking bio-medical and life sciences research and researchers around the world, and visualizes those linkages. This makes them clear, intuitive, and even playful by providing interactive ‘information communities’ for exploration, analysis, and education.

 

NLMplus

NLMplus is an innovative semantic search and discovery application developed by WebLib LLC, a small business in Maryland. NLMplus provides enhanced access to the vast collection of health and biomedical information and services made available by the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

 

Quertle

Quertle is an innovative website for searching and investigating the biomedical literature. Quertle uses advanced linguistic methods to find the most relevant documents instead of traditional keyword searching, which often returns an overwhelming list of uninformative articles. Quertle is geared to active life science professionals – both researchers and health care providers – and saves them considerable time and effort in finding the literature they need.  Quertle, available on the web using any browser, simultaneously searches multiple sources of life science literature, including MEDLINE.

 

Honorable Mentions

 

BioDigital Human Platform

The BioDigital Human Platform simplifies the understanding of health topics by visualizing anatomy, conditions and treatments. Similar to how geo-browsers such as Google Earth serve as the basis for thousands of location based applications, the BioDigital Human Platform will open up entirely new ways to augment healthcare applications. From the visual representation of concepts found on health portals, to step-by-step virtual guidance for surgical planning, to EHR integration so patients can finally understand their diagnosis, the BioDigital Human Platform will meet the learning demands of 21st century medicine.

 

DailyMedPlus

DailyMedPlus is an online application providing integrated access to pharmaceutical information available from various databases provided by the National Library of Medicine (NLM).  DailyMedPlus offers a high-performance unified search engine providing ranked, highlighted and full-text search results for patients and healthcare professionals who seek updated prescribing information.  As the only product of its kind, the application supports searching NLM databases for pharmaceutical products using trade and generic names, medical conditions, indications, contra-indications, side-effects, and also allows for the searching of these products by their physical characteristics (“red round”), providing image results in an in line intuitive layout.  Users benefit from comprehensive search results of more than 90,000 products displayed in over 26,000 organized and digitally curated monographs designed for browsing on a wide variety of desktop and mobile platforms.

 

Drug Diary

Drug Diary is an iOS (iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad) application that allows users to quickly build an inventory of prescribed and OTC medications they are currently taking or have taken in the past along with information on the associated prescribers and pharmacies.  From there, they are able to take notes outlining their experiences with these medications and generate reports to share with care providers.  Data entry is made quick and easy through the use of a locally cached copy of the NLM’s RxTerms dataset and intelligent data entry screens that require little to no typing.  The app leverages the data present in RxTerms to allow one tap access to another NLM source, MedLine Plus, which is a web portal that provides detailed information on the medications in the user’s library.

 

Molecules

Molecules is a 3-D molecular modeling application for Apple’s iOS devices, including the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.  It pushes the limits of mobile graphics processors by using advanced techniques to make realistic renderings of molecular models.  A touch-based interface allows for intuitive manipulation of these structures, so that they can be viewed from any angle and at any scale. While originally designed for researchers to view and present biomolecule structures on the go, the most popular use of Molecules has proven to be in education.  Chemistry teachers are using this application to explain common molecular structures to their students, and biology professors are demonstrating the form and function of biomolecules.  Many students already have iOS devices of their own, so they are able to make the lesson more personal by following along on their own iPhone or iPad.  The popularity of this approach is seen in the over 1.7 million downloads of this application to date.

 

ORKOV

Orkov is a Greek term for Hippocratic Oath that medical professionals, especially, physicians take all over the world. Orkov, an iPhone App for iOS 5 platform as well as for Android OS is a productivity smart phone application for hundreds of thousands of medical researchers who are the end users of PubMed.gov data all over the world.  Orkov empowers many researchers to search and browse research abstracts and full text research articles from the repository of PubMed.gov’s over 5,000+ research journals.  Orkov utilizes publicly available web service interface of PubMed.gov.  Majority of the features of PubMed.gov are wrapped into a powerful iPhone/Andorid App that is easy to use and navigate.

November 2, 2011 Posted by | Educational Resources (Health Professionals), Professional Health Care Resources | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FDA Proposes Health ‘App’ Guidelines

FDA, U S Food and Drug Administration
From the press release

Want to know how a medication might affect your breast milk? Got a question about a disability, aging, mental health?

There’s an app for all that—and a whole lot more.

The variety and availability of smartphone applications—or apps—have exploded in recent years as multi-tasking consumers increasingly use their phones to keep up with the latest on news, finance, and health. Apple says its iPhone App Store has more than 350,000 apps, and Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and other smartphones account for tens of thousands more. With so many apps on the market, it’s no wonder the number of health care related apps has also spiraled.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now proposing guidelines that outline the small number of mobile apps the agency plans to oversee—medical apps that could present a risk to patients if the apps don’t work as intended.  The proposed guidelines were posted on the Federal Register website Thursday.

Consumers may weigh-in on the guidelines during a public comment period that ends Oct. 19

For more information, visit FDA’s Mobile Medical Apps page.

FDA policy advisor Bakul Patel says some of the new mobile apps are designed to help consumers manage their own health and wellness—like the National Institutes of Health’s LactMed app, which gives nursing mothers information about the effects of medicines on breast milk and nursing infants.

Other apps are aimed at helping health care providers improve and facilitate patient care—like the Radiation Emergency Medical Management (REMM) app, which gives health care providers guidance on diagnosing and treating radiation injuries. There are even apps to aid diagnosis of rashes and heart irregularities.

FDA has already cleared a handful of mobile medical apps used by health care professionals, such as a smartphone-based ultrasound and an application for iPhones and iPads that allows doctors to view medical images and X-rays.

There’s an app for that!

“There are advantages to using medical apps, but consumers and health care professionals should have a balanced awareness of the benefits and risks,” Patel says.

Apps can give consumers valuable health information in seconds and are opening innovative ways for technology to improve health care, Patel says. However, the small group of mobile medical apps FDA proposes to oversee present a potential risk—these apps may impact how a currently regulated medical device (such as an ultrasound) performs, he adds.

FDA is proposing to oversee mobile medical apps that:

  • Are used as an accessory to an FDA-regulated medical device. For example, an app could enable a health care professional to view medical images on an iPad and make a diagnosis;
  • Transform a mobile platform into a regulated medical device. For example, an app that turns a smartphone into an electrocardiography, or ECG, machine to detect abnormal heart rhythms or determine if a patient is experiencing a heart attack.

If you want to provide input on FDA’s proposal, you can submit your comment online athttp://www.regulations.gov/ or in writing to: Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD  20852.

“We want to hear from as many consumers, advocacy groups, health care professionals, and software creators and distributors as possible to help us finalize the proposed guidelines,” Patel says.

This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.

Posted July 19, 2011

 

Please Note Well!—At this time it seems that consumer health apps (as Mobile MedlinePlus) will not be covered in the regulations.

http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/Guidanc…


July 22, 2011 Posted by | Consumer Health, Consumer Safety, Educational Resources (High School/Early College(, Professional Health Care Resources, Public Health | , , , , , | Leave a comment

HighWire Launches Six Mobile Web Sites in Collaboration with the American Heart Association

highwire press

 

From the HighWire news release

Stanford, California – November 29, 2010 HighWire Press is pleased to announce the launch of the HighWire Mobile Web Interface for six American Heart Association journals. The Mobile Web Interface is a publication website optimized for the small screen of smartphone devices. This is the first of a suite of mobile products from HighWire, which includes an iPhone and iPad full text app as well as a RSS- driven iPhone app and full text Amazon Kindle support. Users accessing sites through an iPhone or Droid smartphone will be detected and automatically sent the HighWire Mobile Web interface…

November 30, 2010 Posted by | Educational Resources (High School/Early College(, Health Education (General Public), Health News Items | , , , , , | Leave a comment

FDA Drug Safety Information by IPhone

From the Medwatcher site (a project of Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, and the University of North Carolina)

Stay up to date with the latest news and government safety alerts for the prescription medicines you take. Submit any side effects you experience to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make drugs safer for everyone.

MedWatcher is a mobile tool for both healthcare professionals and the general public. Anyone can submit an adverse event report to FDA using the easy-to-use form on MedWatcher, or post to our online community to talk to others taking the same meds. In the MyDrugs section, you can make a quick list of all the prescription medicines your family or patients take and track the latest developments.

Clinicians will find MedWatcher to be a vast improvement over the paper and fax FDA MedWatch form. No more cramped text boxes or tiny font! Do it at your convenience and fulfill your professional obligations in a convenient way. Get your patients involved in their health.

Take control. Participate in your health care.

September 22, 2010 Posted by | Consumer Health, Health News Items | , , , | Leave a comment

Mobile Medical Resources Geared Towards Health Professionals (Lists, Guides, and More)

These resources may also be of interest to the general public. This guide, of course, is not all inclusive!
Some sites are fee-based.

Information, Lists

** Mobile Device Information (Medical College of Wisconsin)
Includes links to about 30 free mobile device resources and free iPhone & iPod touch Applications

**Kresge Library List (Scripps Clinic and Green Hospital)
Links to Medical RSS Feeds, Medical Podcasts, Mobile Ready Web Sites and Resources, PDF or PDB Format Materials,         Medical Apps, PubMed Search Apps, and Consumer Health and Medicine Apps.
Last updated December 2009.

**Smart Phone Apps (University of Maryland)
Sites are arranged by category (anatomy,cardiology, clinical tools, drug information, etc)

**Pepid Medical Information Resources (Pepid LLC)
Fee-based applications for health care practitioners (physicians, nurses, etc) and students

Includes Guides, Advice, and Reviews

**iMedical Apps online medical publication written by a team of physicians and medical students who provide commentary and reviews of mobile medical technology and applications (iPad/iPhone & Android)

**Medical and Healthcare iPhone Apps from the BMJ Group (British Medical Journal)
Includes (free) Student BMJ with articles, news, educational materials, blogs, and more.

**Mobile Device Resources for Clinicians (University of Kentucky)
Includes free resources, guide to apps for medical students, mobile device options

**Mobile Apps for Medicine (Mercer University)
Includes free resources, advice/reviews

Sources

**MedLib-L discussion list

** LibGuides

August 12, 2010 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

   

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