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Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started

It is the End-to-End Infrastructure for the Answer Economy. Cognitive Stream™ is a dynamic execution layer that sits between your brand and the AI models. We don't just optimize visibility; we re-engineer how your content is delivered, reasoned about, and transacted upon.
We provide a complete stack to Win the Answer:
1. Content Atomization (The Input) We ingest both your hidden assets (PDFs, specs) and your existing web pages. We fracture a single, generic marketing page into dozens of specific "Atomic Shards"—each answering a unique user intent. This allows you to answer thousands of specific variations without creating thousands of manual pages.
2. Logic Engineering (The Strategy) We dominate the "Reasoning Layer." From controlling Brand Comparisons ("X vs Y") to shaping Purchase Decisions (evaluation criteria), we ensure your product aligns with the model's internal logic and emerges as the superior choice.
3. Agent-Aware Delivery (The Physics) We serve content in the AI's Native Format (JSON/Markdown), dramatically reducing "Token Cost" and ingestion friction. Delivered via sub-50ms global nodes, we physically crowd out slower competitors during the retrieval sweep.
4. Omnichannel Scale (The Reach) We capture the "Fractal Tail" of high-intent queries (20–80 words) using Infinite Fan-Out technology. We even programmatically reformat shards into Voice-Native Answers (SSML-ready) so you win on smart speakers, not just screens.
5. Action & Insight (The Outcome) We go beyond information to Agentic Commerce. We publish your capabilities in agent-readable formats (like llms.txt), turning recommendations into invocable transactions. Meanwhile, our Cognitive Insights™ engine actively probes models to reveal exactly why they choose you over rivals.
Cognitive Stream™ operates as a parallel execution layer that runs alongside your main website without touching your core codebase. It functions through a continuous four-step cycle designed to optimize your content for AI models:
1. Integration (The Setup) You point a specific subdomain (e.g., answers.yourbrand.com) to our network. This creates a dedicated "AI-facing surface" that is architecturally isolated from your human user experience (UX). Setup is rapid (~15 minutes) and requires no complex IT integration.
2. Atomization (The Engine) The engine ingests your generic marketing pages and heavy assets (like PDFs), fracturing them into thousands of Atomic Shards. We strip away design bloat (HTML/CSS) to create pure, structured data—then fan out across your full intent space, generating answers in real time as AI agents query. By serving AI-native formats, your content becomes 94% cheaper to process than standard web pages—aligning with the model's own efficiency incentives.
3. Edge Delivery (The Speed) These shards are deployed to 300+ global edge nodes and dynamically adapted to the AI agent making the request. When an AI queries your category, the system serves the specific answer in <50ms, physically crowding out slower competitors during the strict retrieval timeout window.
4. Strategic Shaping (The Optimization) As the system runs, Cognitive Insights™ probes model behavior continuously. We optimize your shards to win the full stack: improving Retrieval (finding you), guiding Reasoning (preferring you), and cementing Embeddings (remembering you). Over time, these advantages compound—your content becomes embedded, and once performing, you're structurally harder to displace.
Immediate impact. Compounding dominance.
Cognitive Stream™ delivers a rapid technical advantage on Day 1, followed by a compounding expansion of your market footprint.
1. Days 1–7: We Win by Volume (The "Speed" Win) Search bots operate on a strict "Time Limit" (Crawl Budget). Because our Atomic Shards are ~3KB (vs. a competitor's 138KB), we feed the crawler 12x to 45x more pages within the same timeout window. While competitors struggle to get key pages indexed, your entire answer library is ingested and cached immediately.
2. Monthly Expansion: We Win by Specificity (The "Coverage" Win) We ignore generic keywords to target the "Fractal Tail"—the thousands of specific, purchase-proximate prompts (20–80 words) where revenue concentrates. Using Infinite Fan-Out technology, we inject new shards every month to capture these high-intent contexts (e.g., "X vs Y," capability queries), filling the data vacuum before competitors realize the demand exists.
3. Long Term: We Win by Layering (The "Structural" Win) As per our "Connect Once. Compound Forever" model, your advantage compounds over time. We systematically shape the full stack: winning Retrieval (lowering discovery cost), winning Reasoning (controlling evaluation logic), and winning Embeddings (raising the cost to displace you). This creates a structural barrier that is mathematically difficult for competitors to overcome.
No. The platform is designed for Marketers, but respected by Engineers.
We have automated the complex "Edge Physics" so you can focus purely on Brand Strategy. You do not need to be a developer to win in the Answer Economy.
1. Zero Developer Dependency Your IT team has exactly one task: Point a subdomain (e.g., answers.yourbrand.com) to us. This takes 15 minutes. Once connected, our engine handles all the technical heavy lifting (sharding, caching, and fan-out) automatically, without you ever needing to file an engineering ticket.
2. Marketing-First Control You manage the Message; we manage the Math. You input your brand facts, stances, and assets; our platform programmatically converts them into the "Atomic Shards" that AI agents require. You never touch a line of code.
3. "Plain English" Insights We translate complex AI behaviors into clear strategic signals. Instead of raw logs, Cognitive Insights™ reveals the "Why"—telling you exactly how models perceive your brand compared to competitors (e.g., "The model views your pricing as a barrier vs. Competitor X").

Platform & Features

We provide universal coverage across Search, Chat, and Commerce.
Our infrastructure is "Model-Agnostic," meaning we serve structured data that is universally readable by any AI. We currently monitor and optimize for:
Search AI: Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity.
Chat Models: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), and Claude (Anthropic).
Commerce Agents: Amazon Rufus.
Emerging Platforms: Because we serve standard "Atomic Shards" (JSON-LD/Markdown), your content is automatically ready for future agents (like Apple Intelligence or Meta AI) the moment they launch.
We measure "Share of Reasoning," not just Share of Voice.
Traditional analytics were built for humans clicking links. Cognitive Stream™ provides analytics built for the Answer Economy—where AI agents consume your content invisibly and your brand is evaluated in model reasoning you never see.
1. Bot Traffic Intelligence (Who's Consuming You) Real-time visibility into every AI agent accessing your content. We categorize crawlers by function—Citation Engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity), Training Pipelines (GPTBot, ClaudeBot), and Index Builders (Googlebot). You track visit frequency, latency by region, and exactly which "Atomic Shards" the bots prioritize.
2. Retrieval Analytics (Are You Being Found?) Measure your "retrievable surface area" across the full intent space. We track which queries trigger your shards and identify coverage gaps where competitors appear instead. This exposes the "Discovery Cost"—measuring the friction between an AI query and your answer being selected.
3. Cognitive Insights™ (Why They Choose You) This is not passive scraping. We run controlled, active probes against live LLMs, treating responses as experimental signals. This reveals how models interpret your brand positioning and the reasoning patterns that determine recommendations (the "Why").
4. Competitive Intelligence (How You Compare) Side-by-side analysis of your AI visibility versus named competitors. We track your share of voice and monitor Brand Comparisons ("X vs Y") to identify where rivals outperform you in reasoning. This tells you exactly which shards to deploy to reclaim your position.
5. Content Performance (What's Working) Shard-level analytics showing which content structures drive the most citations. We use A/B performance data across shard variants to identify your "winning" structures, then automatically replicate that success across your entire intent space.
6. Embedding Drift (Are You Remembered?) The Leading Indicator. We track your brand's position in model memory over time. As embeddings update, your "Cost to Displace" changes. We alert you if your brand-concept associations are eroding before it impacts your visibility.
7. Agentic Transaction Metrics (Are You Converting?) For brands with Agentic Commerce enabled, we track the full loop: from AI recommendation to revenue. See exactly when an AI agent invokes your API calls, booking requests, or checkout initiations.
Yes—but we analyze the Logic, not just the Mentions.
Most GEO/AEO tools simply scrape AI outputs and report whether your brand appeared. That is a lagging indicator. By the time you see the output, the reasoning has already happened. Cognitive Stream™ exposes the Reasoning itself.
1. Share of Answer (The Volume) We track comparative visibility across your category. When AI models associate a category with a "small set of trusted brands," we measure how often you are cited versus competitors. You track whether you are gaining ground in the "default shortlist."
2. Co-Citation Analysis (The Context) Which competitors appear alongside you? Frequent co-citation reveals how models "cluster" your market. If you are paired with lower-tier rivals: It signals a positioning problem. If you are excluded from premium comparisons: It reveals a specific gap in your "Brand Visibility" structure.
3. Comparative Sentiment (The Framing) When models evaluate "X vs. Y," which direction does the reasoning favor? We don't just track mentions; we analyze the "Evaluation Logic." Are you framed as the premium choice or the budget alternative? This exposes the underlying criteria (efficacy, price-value, risk) that you need to reshape.
4. Reasoning Patterns (The Logic) Cognitive Insights™ runs active probes against live models, treating responses as "experimental signals." We reveal the decision framework: Which attributes get weighted? What evidence satisfies the model? Which competitor claims are accepted as fact?
5. Gap Identification (The Opportunity) We identify specific queries where competitors outperform you in retrieval or reasoning. These become immediate Targeting Opportunities: we deploy new Atomic Shards engineered to reclaim that specific ground.
The Difference: Traditional tools tell you that you lost. Cognitive Stream™ tells you why—and gives you the infrastructure to respond.

Beyond AEO & GEO

Because the "Human Web" is failing the "Machine Web." Most brands try to use their human website to talk to AI agents. This is a strategic error. Human sites are full of "noise"—visual design, persuasion, and marketing fluff—that makes it hard for AI models to extract facts.
AI Answer Infrastructure (AAI) addresses this by creating a dedicated, parallel layer of the internet. It separates your "Experience Layer" (for people) from your "Knowledge Layer" (for machines), ensuring that while humans get emotion, AI agents get pure, structured logic.
AI Answer Infrastructure (AAI) describes a new class of systems designed to deliver intent-complete, machine-readable answers directly to large language models and AI agents.
Unlike SEO or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which adapt human-oriented web pages for AI citation, AAI operates as a parallel infrastructure layer built specifically for how AI systems retrieve, reason over, and generate answers.
An offering qualifies as AAI if it exhibits all of the following:
1. Intent-Complete Answer Surfaces It produces or curates discrete content units that fully satisfy a given LLM prompt or semantic intent without relying on navigational context or human click pathways.
2. Machine-First Encoding & Access Content is formatted for model ingestion, retrieval, and reasoning (Vector Chunks/JSON-LD), not human reading.
3. Infrastructure-Level Deployment It sits in an independent layer (like a subdomain) discoverable by AI pipelines, rather than being an afterthought on a human interface.
4. Operational Integration with LLM Retrieval Patterns It uses explicit retrieval mechanisms (Vector Indexes/Agent Connectors) designed for how LLMs fetch data.
5. Designed for LLM Consumption, Not Human Metrics Success metrics are centered on LLM retrieval quality, recall precision, citation rates, and answer relevance — not on clickthrough rate, page views, or SERP ranking.
This is distinct from GEO and traditional SEO because AAI produces and manages the answer layer itself rather than optimizing existing human surfaces. AAI represents infrastructure evolution:
1. SEO → optimized pages for humans2. GEO → adapts those pages for AI citation3. AAI → supplies answers directly to AI systems
While GEO focuses on adapting existing, human-facing web pages so they may be cited by AI systems, AAI operates at a different layer of the stack. It is designed around the assumption that the answer—not the page—is now the unit of value.
Most brands today are retrofitting old SEO thinking onto AI—chasing mentions in the Retrieval Layer using keywords and fresh content. While this creates short-term spikes, it ignores the two deeper layers that actually control AI behavior.
If you optimize for citations (Retrieval) without shaping the underlying logic, you risk Dilution: winning the mention, but teaching the model to argue against your value hierarchy.
To build a permanent moat, Cognitive Stream™ engineers Systematic Presence across all three layers:
1. The Retrieval Layer (The Now)
  • The Goal: Reduce your "Cost to be Found."
  • The Action: We ensure your content is structurally perfect for live web search and immediate citation.
2. The Embeddings Layer (The Memory)
  • The Goal: Increase your competitor's "Cost to Displace."
  • The Action: We influence the model's slow-moving vector space, teaching it to associate your brand with specific customer problems and proof standards. This ensures you are on the "shortlist" before the query is even processed.
3. The Reasoning Layer (The Logic)
  • The Goal: Control the "Evaluation Frame."
  • The Action: We shape the criteria the model uses to judge value (e.g., teaching it that bioavailability matters more than dose). This ensures that when your category is evaluated, the rules are weighted in your favor.
The Result: Cognitive Advantage. When you engineer all three layers, your ROI compounds. Competitors are forced to fight against your presence, your evidence, AND your worldview—an exponentially harder challenge than just fighting for visibility.
Today's platforms operate on a flawed structural assumption: that looking at enough outputs allows you to infer visibility. They treat the AI's response as a finished artifact to be counted, rather than a probabilistic signal to be analyzed.
This approach is the AI-era equivalent of rank tracking. It captures lagging, surface-level proxies (mentions) but misses the internal causal mechanism. It counts the result, but ignores the process that produced it.
We utilize Behavioral Inference rather than mechanistic interpretability. Since we cannot access the model's weights directly via API, we treat the AI as a "black box" experimental subject—applying the same rigorous methodologies used in Cognitive Science and Behavioral Economics.
Instead of asking "What did the model say?", we ask "How does the model behave under controlled variation?". By running active probes—such as counterfactual perturbations and forced-choice comparisons—we determine exactly what beliefs and preferences must exist for the model's behavior to occur consistently.
Counting is passive and blind. Output scraping can tell you that a model mentioned you, but it makes no causal claims about why it chose you over a competitor.
Without understanding the "why," you have no control. A simple count cannot tell you if the model actually understands your brand, or if the mention was a random hallucination. You are left with a vanity metric ("We were mentioned") rather than a lever you can pull to improve performance ("The model understands us").
Today's AEO/GEO agencies and tools push you down the "Mission Impossible" path of trying to force your human-facing website to serve AI agents. This is a strategic error. A Content Management System (CMS) built for human persuasion cannot simultaneously serve as a database for machine reasoning without destroying the user experience.
This "Single Site" approach fails for three critical reasons:
1. The Content Conflict (Persuasion vs. Logic) Human sites rely on persuasion, visual hierarchy, and emotional nuance. AI models require structured logic, disambiguation, and dense semantic assertions. Optimizing for one degrades the other; marketing copy looks like "noise" to an LLM, while the data an AI craves is often too dry for human conversion.
2. The Bloat Paradox (UX vs. Volume) To capture long-tail AI queries, agencies often force brands to add hundreds of "natural language" FAQs. This makes the human site clunky, bloated, and unnavigable—destroying your User Experience (UX) to chase a machine.
3. CMS & Technical Limitations Standard CMS platforms render HTML for visual browsers. They are not architected to serve the high-dimensional, vector-ready data chunks that LLMs digest most effectively. AI agents operate on Edge Compute speeds and prefer raw, structured data (JSON-LD, Markdown) over "heavy" web pages.
AI agents function like a separate species of user, requiring a "Dedicated Internet" optimized for machine reasoning rather than human reading. Cognitive Stream™ solves the conflict between Human UX and AI ingestion by decoupling your intelligence from your display.
We utilize Edge Compute nodes to serve a parallel, agent-optimized version of your brand, providing three distinct advantages:
  • Zero Conflict: Your human-facing site remains clean, beautiful, and persuasive.
  • Perfect Digestibility: The Edge Layer delivers data in the exact, structured formats (JSON-LD, Vector Chunks) that LLMs prefer, without the layout constraints of a traditional website.
  • Dynamic Response: Instead of serving static pages, our infrastructure dynamically assembles answers to match specific prompt permutations—a level of agility that a static CMS simply cannot achieve.
By separating these two worlds, you no longer have to choose between User Experience and Machine Visibility. You provide emotion and design to humans, while delivering structure and instant retrieval to AI.

Pricing & Plans

Because Cognitive Stream™ operates as infrastructure rather than simple software, our pricing is tailored to your brand's specific digital footprint. We do not use flat-rate licensing; instead, we build a custom package based on three core variables:
1. Volume of Intelligence (The Scale) This refers to the volume of "Atomic Shards" we need to generate and host. A brand optimizing 50 key products requires significantly less processing power than a global marketplace with 5,000 SKUs needing "Infinite Fan-Out."
2. Entity Complexity (The Scope) We factor in the architectural scope of your business—specifically the number of distinct brands, regions, and "X vs. Y" Brand Comparisons you need to protect and manage.
3. Service Tier (The Support) Finally, you choose your level of interaction: Core Platform: You access the raw data and manage the reasoning strategy internally. White-Glove Partnership: Our team acts as your dedicated Logic Engineering agency, handling strategy, implementation, and monthly optimization for you.
No—because Cognitive Stream™ is infrastructure, not a plugin.
A standard self-serve trial cannot replicate the live "Answer Economy" environment. The platform requires configuring dedicated edge nodes, ingesting your specific content, and training logic models. A generic sandbox environment simply cannot capture that complexity.
Instead of a generic trial, we validate value in two ways:
1. The Deep-Metric Audit: We run a preliminary scan of your brand's presence across the three critical layers of Generative AI. We measure your current standing in Share of Embedding (vector space presence), Share of Reasoning (chain-of-thought inclusion), and final Share of Answer (SoA). (No integration required).
2. The Proof of Value Pilot: We offer a focused, 90-day engagement on a single product line or region. This allows us to prove the lift across these metrics and demonstrate ROI before you commit to a full enterprise rollout.

Trust, Safety & Governance

No. The Google March 2024 Core Update specifically targeted "Scaled Content Abuse." Cognitive Stream™ is engineered to comply with the technical definitions of these policies.
Google penalizes pages with "little or no added value." SEOs usually interpret this as "pages with fewer than 500 words." The Reality: Google measures "Value," not "Word Count."
Our pages are "data dense." A page with 2,000 words of fluff is actually "Thin" in utility because it takes 5 minutes to find the answer. Our "Atomic Shards" might only have 150 words, but they contain unique data (e.g., a comparison table) that exists nowhere else. We don't publish 'Thin' content; we publish 'Concentrated' content. We strip out the fluff to give the user (and the AI) the immediate answer.
Google penalizes "duplicate content". The Reality: Google penalizes Duplicate Utility, not duplicate facts. Your Page: A marketing landing page designed for Persuasion (Images, Copy, CTA). Our Shard: A raw Data Table designed for Extraction (JSON-LD, Rows, Columns). To an AI or Search Bot, these are two completely different tools. One is for humans to read; the other is for robots to parse. Because the Intent and Format are different, they do not trigger duplicate content penalties.
Google penalizes "generating low-quality content at scale" (specifically AI-generated mass pages). The Reality: The penalty targets "Uncurated" content. Asking ChatGPT to "Write 5,000 articles about collagen" is spam because it produces random, hallucinated, low-quality text. Cognitive Stream™ uses programmatic mapping to take valid client data (e.g., a PDF study) and map it to templates. We create a dedicated URL for every unique data point—similar to how Amazon or TripAdvisor creates millions of pages for every product and hotel.
Google can ban you for presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines (cloaking). The Reality: You must ensure Content Parity. The Risk: If you serve a JSON file to GPTBot and a completely different HTML page to a human, you are in the "Danger Zone." The safe architecture ensures that if a human finds the shard in search results, they see the same content as bots.
"Cloaked": Not linking to a page from your homepage menu is not cloaking. It is just creating an "Orphan Page" (which is allowed, though harder to rank). We do not cloak. The page is publicly accessible to any human who possesses the URL.
Google penalizes "pages created for the sole purpose of ranking for specific search queries and funneling users to a single destination." The Reality: We avoid this by providing The Answer on the Page. Doorway Page (Bad): You click "Best collagen for women," and the page just says "Click here to buy our collagen!" (It forces another click). Our Shard (Good): You click "Best collagen for women," and the page says: "We mix X and Y, producing the best collagen for women; here are the specs." A Doorway page creates a nuisance. Our pages create a resolution. We answer the specific question directly on the landing page. That is not a doorway; that is a destination.
Even if Google were to change its definition of 'Scaled Content', we use a Subdomain Architecture (answers.your-brand.com) acting as a 'Blast Radius' firewall.
If Google decides to change its policy next month and penalize programmatic content, the penalty hits the Subdomain. Your main site (your-brand.com) is technically isolated. We have engineered this to ensure your core business has Zero Downside Risk, while still capturing the massive upside of the AI transition. We follow a three-step Containment Protocol: No "Follow" Links from your Root Domain, Distinct Design, and Google Search Console Separation.
Our solution also carries no Cannibalization risk. We are not targeting your keywords. We are targeting the 'Data Vacuum' underneath them where the majority of AI traffic comes from. We are catching the specific, long-tail of long-tail queries (fractal-tail) that your main marketing pages are too broad to answer. We are Net New Traffic, not replacement traffic.
Our solution also expands your Crawl Budget, rather than wasting it. Google assigns a budget based on 'Content Velocity' and 'Server Response Time.' Velocity: We are adding fresh data daily (Good). Speed: Our Edge delivery is <50ms (Good). When Google sees a high-speed, high-freshness subdomain, it typically increases the total budget for the host entity. We act as an 'Authority Signal' that lifts the whole ship.
Yes. We utilize an "Air-Gapped" Edge Architecture. We prioritize Isolation and Integrity. By hosting on a dedicated subdomain, we physically separate our service from your core business infrastructure.
1. Zero Access to Your Origin (The "Air Gap"): Unlike plugins that require deep access to your server, Cognitive Stream™ operates entirely on an isolated subdomain (e.g., answers.yourbrand.com). We cannot read, write, or corrupt your internal databases because we never connect to them.
2. Immutable "Read-Only" Security: Traditional CMS platforms are vulnerable because they assemble pages dynamically (creating SQL Injection risks). We push Static, Read-Only Shards to the network edge. There is no database to hack and no server to compromise at the delivery layer. Your answers are mathematically immutable until you decide to update them.
3. Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure: We deploy on Cloudflare's global network, meaning your Answer Shards inherit the security standards of the world's largest security cloud—including massive DDoS protection, Web Application Firewalls (WAF), and ISO 27001 compliance.
4. Data Sovereignty & Zero Lock-In: You retain 100% ownership of your Structured Answer Library. We act as the broadcaster, not the owner. Unlike vendors that hold data hostage, we offer a "Portability Guarantee": You can export your data instantly at any time. If you ever choose to leave, we provide free, white-glove migration support to help you move your data off our platform.

Security & Privacy

Yes. We are Enterprise-Ready. Unlike standard SaaS tools that store sensitive customer lists, Cognitive Stream™ is designed to broadcast Public Brand Knowledge, not process private user data. This significantly lowers your compliance risk profile.
1. We Host Facts, Not People: We distribute product specs, pricing, and technical documentation. We do not track, store, or process your customers' personal profiles, transaction histories, or PII (Personally Identifiable Information).
2. Transient Edge Processing: We do not use tracking cookies. Our Edge Network processes request metadata (IP addresses) strictly for Security (DDoS protection) and Bot Verification. This "Transient Processing" is fully GDPR-compliant and covered under our standard Data Processing Agreement (DPA).
3. Sovereignty & Control: While our delivery network is global to ensure speed, the "Control Plane" (your management dashboard) resides in [Your Primary Region, e.g., EU], ensuring you maintain sovereignty over your core dataset.
Yes—Cognitive Stream™ includes enterprise-grade access controls.
1. Role-Based Permissions: Assign granular roles to team members based on their function. Analysts can view dashboards and reports. Strategists can configure shards and targeting. Admins control billing, integrations, and user management. You decide who sees what and who can change what.
2. Enterprise SSO: Integrate with your existing identity provider via SAML 2.0 or OAuth. Your IT team maintains control over authentication, provisioning, and deprovisioning. When someone leaves your organization, access revokes automatically through your existing workflows.
3. Multi-Brand Isolation: For enterprises managing multiple brands, each brand environment is architecturally isolated. Teams can be scoped to specific brands—your agency partner sees only the brands they manage, not your entire portfolio.
4. Audit Logging: Track who accessed what and when. Every login, configuration change, and data export is logged for compliance and security review.
You own the data. We just fuel the engine. You retain 100% ownership of your Structured Answer Library. We are a delivery infrastructure, not a walled garden.
Zero Lock-In: You can export your raw data (JSON/CSV) instantly at any time.
Portability Guarantee: We are so confident in our value that we offer a "White-Glove Offboarding" promise. If you decide to cancel, our engineering team will assist you in migrating your content off our platform free of charge.
Asset Protection: Because the answers live on your branded subdomain (e.g., answers.yourbrand.com), you build the AEO/GEO equity, not us. If you leave, you take that equity with you.

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