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Mariam Aly

@mariamaly.bsky.social
7.9K followers 491 following 647 posts

I study brains and sometimes use one. www.alylab.org

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Reposted by Mariam Aly
Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Our reward function compression work is now out in Nature Communications! 🎉 In it, we present and empirically test a computational framework that formalizes the trade-offs between goal flexibility and learning efficiency. @annecollins.bsky.social @natureportfolio.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Conceptual model of goal-directed reinforcement learning with reward
function compression. In our proposed conceptual model, we break down goald-dependent learning into several parts. Combined with other learning components, an RL learning algorithm informs value estimates W on a given trial t, which are entered into a policy. The agent selects an action a through a joint policy, to which the environment responds by outputting outcome information o and a new state s. A working memory (WM) component organizes and maintains task-relevant information (here, broadly intended and dubbed the task information), used to support the reinforcement learning (RL) process. a Initially, value attribution to o is operated by WM,which maintains the current goal (g) and supports its matching to the experienced outcome to generate a reward r used by the RL agent. WM also holds a trace of recently experienced goals. b If goals share enough similar features,
a compressed reward function can be created, which replaces active goal maintenance and can, over time, be transferred to long-term memory storage. Eventually, the compressed reward function can be directly employed to assign value to experienced outcomes, sparing resources for other WM tasks.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
In response to our questions, an NSF spokesperson said that SBE has not been shut down. But with zero SBE-specific funding opportunities, no review panels, and dwindling numbers of staff, it's hard to see the directorate continuing for much longer.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:
science.org
‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research
Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
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Amitai Shenhav @ashenhav.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
2 yrs ago, I briefly laid out a new theory of how motivation works (AGH). Here, I expand on the problems AGH was trying to solve, why they are hard to solve, what my solution looks like, and how this should change our understanding of thoughts & actions. osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵A few highlights:
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 30/09/2026
GOAT OR BIRD????
This is even better than the
"what color is this dress" dress.
Goat?
or Bird?
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Yay, Felipe! I cannot think of anyone more deserving. It is so delightful to see this award going to such a wonderful person and fantastic scientist/philosopher. So proud of you! 🌟
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aaron bornstein @aaronbornstein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This work extends in exciting new directions findings reported by myself and @mariamaly.bsky.social, Sam Feng, Nick Turk-Browne, @kennethanorman.bsky.social, and Jonathan Cohen. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
link.springer.com
Associative memory retrieval modulates upcoming perceptual decisions - Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
Expectations can inform fast, accurate decisions. But what informs expectations? Here we test the hypothesis that expectations are set by dynamic inference from memory. Participants performed a cue-gu...
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aaron bornstein @aaronbornstein.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
New lab preprint! @khoudary.bsky.social presents a tour-de-force: a new model of how uncertain expectations should help resolve uncertain sensations, supported by re-analysis of four experiments in monkeys (behavior, ephys) and humans (behavior, fMRI, EEG, intracranial) @meganakpeters.bsky.social
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Jordan Deakin @jordantdeakin.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
📣 NEW PREPRINT ALERT! 📣 📝Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... When choosing between options with multiple attributes, what does the brain actually compare - individual attributes or integrated option values? We combined EEG + eye-tracking to find out... and found evidence for the latter 🧠
biorxiv.org
Fixation-evoked potentials reveal neural signatures of hierarchical value-integration during decision-making
Many decisions require maintaining beliefs across multiple levels of representation, from sampling and integrating information to forming action plans. To elucidate these processes and reveal the neur...
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Anna Corriveau @annacorriveau.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New preprint! Are attentional lapses the result of disengagement or simply response failure? Using EEG, we tested how attention fluctuations impact visual representations in the brain. (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Degraded neural representations foreshadow failures of sustained attention
Attention prioritizes relevant information from the environment, but does not do so consistently over time. Instead, we sometimes experience poor attentional states which are characterized by a higher...
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Adrian Duszkiewicz @adrian-du.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Interesting new study from the Frank lab: Hippocampal representations of alternative possibilities are flexibly generated to meet cognitive demands
cell.com
Hippocampal representations of alternative possibilities are flexibly generated to meet cognitive demands
Comrie et al. show that the hippocampus flexibly represents different alternative possibilities—including paths ahead, behind, and far away—to meet distinct cognitive demands related to decision-makin...
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Adam Steel @neurosteel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Out today with @pangeli95.bsky.social (co-lead) & @carolinerobertson.bsky.social ! The brain integrates internal thoughts with sensory information. Yet the networks serving functions are viewed as independent. How does the brain integrate across these systems? elifesciences.org/articles/110...
elifesciences.org
Retinotopic coding organizes the interaction between internally and externally oriented brain networks
Internally and externally oriented brain networks are functionally coupled at a voxel scale through a common visuospatial code.
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Masa's paper is out in Hippocampus. The left-right alternation of hippocampal theta sequences at T-maze choice points, much loved as a 'planning' signal, falls straight out of MEC dynamics. Well done @masahironakano.bsky.social, fun project with @clopathlab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/hipo.70131
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A decade ago, a “weird” kitten was found on a road near a Bolivian forest. Too small to be a housecat, he had a scrunched-up face, short round ears, long whiskers, & a coat of leopard-like spots. DNA analysis now reveals him as the very first of a newly discovered species & I think I'm in love. 😻🧬🧪👇
nationalgeographic.com
Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 Years
A small, spotted tiger cat from Bolivia may just be the beginning of a wave of new small cat species.
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Dani Gresch @danielagresch.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
📣 Check out our latest preprint with @kianobre.bsky.social, spearheaded by the incredible @dxywei.bsky.social! Across four experiments, we compare the behavioural and neural signatures of selecting real-world objects in perception and working memory. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Searching across working memory and perception
Searching for objects of interest is an essential and pervasive activity in adaptive cognition. In everyday situations, we often search for relevant content in our surroundings and in mind at the same...
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Jody Culham's Lab @culhamari-lab.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Our Annual Review of Vision Science paper on "Bringing Vision Science Closer to the Real World" with @evadeligiannis.bsky.social is officially out and available through open access. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
annualreviews.org
Bringing Vision Science Closer to the Real World
Vision science has demonstrated considerable success in characterizing early- and mid-level visual processes through reductionism and tightly controlled experiments. However, an understanding of high-...
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Christopher Honey @chrishoney.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
1/ How do we sustain mental continuity in the face of interruption? @xianl-explorer.bsky.social found that, while people listen to a story, posterior medial cortex expresses a slowly evolving "background" representation of the story's context, which survived through silence and interfering tasks.
A schematic figure showing an evolving timeline of mental context during an interrupted narrative.
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steven t. piantadosi @spiantado.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
dailycal.org
UC Berkeley research suggesting upper-class individuals are more likely to snatch children’s candy wins Ig Nobel Prize
UC Berkeley researchers were awarded the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize — a parody Nobel Prize — for research showing that “upper-class” individuals practice more unethical behaviors than “lower-class” individua...
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Lovely work by @xianl-explorer.bsky.social, Hongmi Lee, & @chrishoney.bsky.social!
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
How do keep a narrative active in our mind despite interruptions? The default mode network can maintain a representation of an interrupted story over a delay, even when the delay is filled with a demanding task. This representation is strikingly transformed from the initial experience!
biorxiv.org
Cortical and Hippocampal Pathways to Mental Continuity
How do people preserve mental continuity when tasks are interrupted? One established pathway runs through the hippocampus, which stores snapshots of our mental context for later reinstatement. We prop...
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tor @torwager.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
neuromarkers.io : Browse, view, and download fMRI neuromarkers, population-level predictive brain models that can be applied to new studies and populations
canlab.github.io
Neuromarkers · CANlab
Population-level brain patterns for new studies. Browse, explore, and download published neuromarkers.
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Jonathan Tsay @tsay.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
New preprint! 🥳 How do we discover what to do when a movement goes wrong? Answer: hypothesis testing (HT) - testing and evaluating candidate motor solutions based on sensory evidence. HT explains how we explore, and when exploration gives way to an “aha!” moment.
biorxiv.org
Understanding Strategic Motor Learning as a Process of Hypothesis Testing
Multiple learning processes contribute to successful goal-directed actions under changing physiological states, biomechanical constraints, and environmental contexts. Among these, explicit strategies ...
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Sam McDougle @actlab.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
New preprint! In this study, the fantastic Apoorva Sharma demonstrates that the amount of time that passes during motor preparation can "tag" for retrieval otherwise competing motor memories. Modeling work links these fx to putative temporal basis sets in the cerebellar cortex. Feedback welcome!
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Ultimately, this letter from NSF is an announcement that universities will be funded a lot less and politically-connected industry will be funded a lot more. Fancy words around old-fashioned corruption.
nsf.gov
NSF leadership in a new golden age of science
The U.S. National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to keep American discovery at the frontier. That mission has not changed. The science and technology ecosystem around it has...
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I've been confused about this too. The GRFP is managed by the Directorate for STEM Education – so is that where the money comes from?
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Ben Hayden @benhayden.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
New paper from the Neurosurgery Research Team at BCM! “Neural geometry in the human hippocampus enables generalization across spatial position and gaze” led by @assiachericoni.bsky.social! 🧵 www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
cell.com
Neural geometry in the human hippocampus enables generalization across spatial position and gaze
Chericoni et al. show that neurons in the human hippocampus track the positions of multiple agents in a simple pursuit-based video game. They identified place codes for each agent and for gaze. The co...
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Heidrun Schultz @heidrunschultz.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Happy to see our study "It's about time: Specific and unspecific effects of episodic future thinking on farsighted decisions" out in Cognition: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... (Open access). With @rolandbenoit.bsky.social at @mpicbs.bsky.social. Original thread here: bsky.app/profile/heid...
sciencedirect.com
It's about time: Specific and unspecific effects of episodic future thinking on farsighted decisions
Humans tend to discount the value of delayed rewards. As a consequence, they forego larger long-term benefits (e.g., €29 in 91 days) in favor of small…
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Daniel Reznik 🎶 @reznikdaniel.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Now out in Hippocampus!! 📣💥 We examined anatomical inputs to the hippocampal region in six species - the tenrec, rat, marmoset, cat, macaque, and human - and found that hippocampal processing operates on fundamentally different types of information across species! (1/3) dx.doi.org/10.1002/hipo...
dx.doi.org
Phylogeny of Cortical‐Hippocampal Projections Reveals Selective Elimination of Input From Sensory Regions
The study of cross-species differences in the organization of the cerebral cortex received significant attention during the past century. However, the evolutionary principles governing changes in bra...
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Thank you for sharing our work! 😊
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Thanks, Hugo!
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Thanks, Aidan!
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Thank you for engaging with the work!!
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
In other words, when memories get confused with each other, the hippocampus may work to push their representations apart. The more it does that, the more visual cortex is helped and the more accurate your attention.
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Great question! With fMRI, we can't directly tell which region is helping the other. But based on other findings, we suspect that when the hippocampus represents competing memories (scene images) more distinctly, it helps visual cortex to prepare for where to pay attention.
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Thanks, Peter! I'm just trying to find ~25% as many interesting hippocampal/visual cortex interaction results as you do 😉
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
How do we prevent memories from competing to guide attention? More distinct hippocampal representations for competing memories are linked to precise preparatory coding in visual cortex & more accurate eye movements to target locations. Thrilled to share this work by the incomparable Serra Favila!
nature.com
Hippocampal mechanisms underlying the resolution of competition in memory and perception - Nature Communications
Memory and perception both require selecting behaviorally relevant information. Here, the authors show that more distinct hippocampal memories are linked to precise anticipatory signals in visual cort...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Neural signatures of spontaneous transitions between internal and external thought www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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annecollins.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Check out our new Trends In Cognitive Science paper on mechanisms of cognitive flexibility - a broad collaborative piece with Florian Bähner, Ali Hummos, Sarah Oh, Kai Sandbrink, and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility: a translational perspective
Cognitive flexibility allows us to adjust behavior when environmental rules change and to recombine prior knowledge in novel situations. However, the …
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simine vazire @simine.com · 02/09/2026
Psych Science has retracted Ariely & Wertenbroch (2002). The second author requested the retraction. Both authors agreed to it. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... So grateful to @datacolada.bsky.social for these blog posts and the work behind them: datacolada.org/138 and datacolada.org/139 1/2
journals.sagepub.com
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
This is pretty fucking wild. I had assumed in a worst case scenario he would target blue zip codes and toss ballots based on technicalities but this is even worse than I imagined.
Not only is this system astonishingly untested, USPS has simultaneously implemented an
impracticable zero percent failure rate.
13 When ballots are submitted to USPS in large-volume
batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the Portal, all ballots in that
batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to
USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal – because, for
example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved – then
USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well. As the whistleblower notes,
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Neurosynth @neurosynth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Exciting update! You can run Image Based Meta-Analyses (IBMA) on our platform 🚀 We've known for ~TWO decades that images are better than coordinates, but data has never been shared/organized properly to make that an accessible reality. We did it, enjoy: compose.neurosynth.org
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Ah my phone is like Canada but my computer says G of A.
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Strange, I'm in the US and for me it's the same as Canada: Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)
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Manoj Doss not exist @manojdoss.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Finally out in @JOCN_Journal. We had hoped to inhibit the amygdala using transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) as a proof-of-concept that the amygdala is causally involved in emotional episodic memory encoding, but this backfired…1/10 direct.mit.edu/jocn/article...
direct.mit.edu
Enhanced Episodic Memory Encoding Following Modulation of the Amygdala via Transcranial Low-intensity Focused Ultrasound
Abstract. The amygdala is considered crucial to the formation of emotional episodic memories, yet causal evidence in humans is limited due to challenges in noninvasive neuromodulation of deep brain st...
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Another idea: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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Yasmine El-Shamayleh @elshamayleh.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Excited to share the lab’s first publication, co-led by talented postdoc Chuyi Su @chuyisu.bsky.social We leveraged cell type-specific optogenetics in the macaque cerebral cortex to elucidate the role of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in visual form processing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Optotagging in primate cortex uncovers excitatory and inhibitory neuron specializations in form vision - Nature Communications
This study leverages cell type-specific optogenetics in the monkey cerebral cortex to elucidate the unique functional contributions of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in visual form processing. The ...
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Nicole Long @dorsolateralpfc.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
New paper from my lab! We show that the retrieval state is recruited during both episodic and semantic retrieval, but not for perceptual judgments, suggesting that the retrieval state tracks domain-general internal attention. www.jneurosci.org/content/46/3...
jneurosci.org
A Shared Brain State for Episodic and Semantic Retrieval
It is critical to identify which factors induce specific brain states as these large-scale patterns of coordinated neural activity drive downstream processing and behavior. The retrieval state, a brai...
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Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Data augmentation as a framework for modeling hippocampal contributions to generalization
The hippocampus plays a critical role in generalization, enabling us to flexibly repurpose prior experiences to perform novel tasks. Here, we suggest …
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Andrew MacAskill @macaskillaf.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Congrats @jespass.bsky.social on her new paper! PFC is widely thought to talk to HPC via nucleus reuniens - but no one has tested if this actual connectivity exists. Turns out it's wired to block it: PFC inputs to reuniens contact only neurons projecting back to PFC, not ones projecting to HPC. 🧪🧠📈
biorxiv.org
Nucleus reuniens is organised as parallel circuits rather than a prefrontal-hippocampal relay
Interactions between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HPC) are crucial for flexible and memory guided behaviour. Because there are no direct projections from PFC to HPC, it is widely presu...
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