Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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Person Name

School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#6851

Kata Csizér

#115255

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Kata Csizér is a Hungarian linguist. She is currently a professor at the School of English and American Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. Her research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focus on motivation in second-language learning and teaching students with special needs.

#6852

Maggie Tallerman

#147219

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Maggie Tallerman is a professor of linguistics at Newcastle University. Her research interests include Celtic linguistics, language origins and evolution , language typology, morphology and morphosyntax. She is a leading expert in the fields of language evolution and syntax of the Welsh language.

#6853

Leon Bridges

#83198

Overall Influence

1989 - Present (37 years)

Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges is an American soul singer, songwriter, and record producer. Bridges' debut album, titled Coming Home, was released on June 23, 2015, on Columbia Records and subsequently nominated for Best R&B Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.

#6854

Matthias Pintscher

#104444

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Matthias Pintscher is a German composer and conductor. Biography Pintscher was born in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia. As a youth, he studied the violin and conducting. He began his music studies with Giselher Klebe in 1988 at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, in Detmold. In 1990, he met Hans Werner Henze, and in 1991 and 1992, he was invited to Henze's summer school in Montepulciano, Italy. He later studied with German composer and flutist Manfred Trojahn. He held a Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra from 2000 to 2002.

#6855

Lowell Fulson

#97230

Overall Influence

1921 - 1999 (78 years)

Lowell Fulson was an American blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. He also recorded for contractual reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom. After T-Bone Walker, he was the most important figure in West Coast blues in the 1940s and 1950s.

#6856

Connie Kay

#103296

Overall Influence

1927 - 1994 (67 years)

Conrad Henry Kirnon known professionally as Connie Kay, was an American jazz and R&B drummer, who was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Biography Self-taught on drums, Kay began performing in Los Angeles in the mid-1940s. His drumming is recorded in The Hunt, the recording of a famous Los Angeles jam session featuring the dueling tenors of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray on July 6, 1947. He recorded with Lester Young's quintet from 1949 to 1955 and with Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis.

#6857

George Howard

#118393

Overall Influence

1956 - 1998 (42 years)

George Howard was an American smooth jazz saxophonist. Music career Howard was born on September 15, 1956, in Philadelphia. He was only six when he began taking music lessons at school on clarinet and bassoon. Influenced by John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, he later on chose the soprano saxophone, because it resembled the bassoon. By the time he was 15, he began touring the country with notable rhythm-and-blues groups such as Blue Magic, First Choice and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. In the late 1970s, he toured with saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr., who was one of his idols.

#6858

Nigel Osborne

#92041

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Nigel Osborne is a British composer, teacher and aid worker. He served as Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh and has also taught at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. Known for his extensive charity work supporting war traumatised children using music therapy techniques, especially in the Balkans during the Bosnian War, and in the Syrian conflict. He speaks eight languages.

#6859

David A. Malakoff

#158064

Overall Influence

#6860

Aldo Cibic

#43713

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Aldo Cibic is an Italian designer. Career By the age of 22, Aldo was working at the studio of Ettore Sottsass. In 1980, he became a founding partner of the studio Sottsass & Associati. That same year, in collaboration with Sottsass, Cibic became a founding member of Memphis Group – a collective association dedicated to design and architecture. The Memphis group would remain active until 1987. The Memphis experience led Cibic to assume an experimental approach as his norm.

#6861

Christopher Thompson

Christopher Thompson

#138512

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Christopher Thompson is a French actor, screenwriter, and film director. Early life Thompson comes from a family deeply associated with theatrical arts. He is the son of film director and screenwriter Danièle Thompson, and his maternal grandfather is director Gérard Oury ; his sister is the actress Caroline Thompson. He is married to actress Géraldine Pailhas. They have two children.

#6862

Roger Wallis

#143283

Overall Influence

1941 - 2022 (81 years)

Roger Wallis was a British-born Swedish musician, journalist and researcher. Life and career Wallis was a resident of Sweden from 1963, and was an adjunct professor of multimedia at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

#6863

Mark Heard

#106070

Overall Influence

1951 - 1992 (41 years)

John Mark Heard III was an American record producer, folk rock singer and songwriter from Macon, Georgia. Heard released sixteen albums, and produced or performed with many artists, including: Sam Phillips , Pierce Pettis, Phil Keaggy, Vigilantes of Love, Peter Buck of R.E.M. , The Choir, Randy Stonehill and Michael Been of The Call. Heard produced part of Olivia Newton-John's The Rumour , which also included a cover of Heard's own "Big and Strong" .

#6864

Johannes Erath

#137326

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Johannes Erath is a German opera director. Career Erath was born in 1975 in Rottweil. First he studied violin with Rainer Küchl at der University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and with Hansheinz Schneeberger in Freiburg. He worked as an orchestra musician at the Volksoper Wien and at the Orchesterakademie of the Vienna Philharmonic. Thereafter he decided to go toward directing. First he served as an assistant to Willy Decker, , , Peter Konwitschny and Graham Vick in theaters all over Europe. 2002 he became Stage Manager at the Hamburg State Opera. From 2005 till 2007 he held a scholar...

#6865

Randolph Hokanson

#131646

Overall Influence

1915 - 2018 (103 years)

Randolph Henning Hokanson was an American pianist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was noted for his recordings of Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and gave over 100 performances, including the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas.

#6866

Charlie Mariano

#87977

Overall Influence

1923 - 2009 (86 years)

Carmine Ugo Mariano was an American jazz saxophonist who focused on the alto and soprano saxophone. He occasionally performed and recorded on flute and nadaswaram as well. Biography Mariano was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, the son of Italian immigrants, John Mariano and Mary Di Gironimo of Fallo, Italy. He grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, enlisting in the Army Air Corps after high school, during World War II. After his service in the Army, Mariano attended what was then known as Schillinger House of Music, now Berklee College of Music. He was among the faculty at Berklee from 1965 to 1971.

#6867

Terry Gibbs

#104498

Overall Influence

1924 - Present (102 years)

Terry Gibbs is an American jazz vibraphonist and band leader. He has performed or recorded with Tommy Dorsey, Chubby Jackson, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Alice Coltrane, Louie Bellson, Charlie Shavers, Mel Tormé, Buddy DeFranco, and others. Gibbs also worked in film and TV studios in Los Angeles.

#6868

Elizabeth V. Hume

#140187

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Elizabeth Valerie Hume is a Canadian phonologist, professor emerita at the Ohio State University. Education and career Hume received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1992, under the supervision of G. N. Clements. She was a Professor of Linguistics at the Ohio State University from 1992 to 2011. From 2006 to 2011, she served as professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics. From 2011 to 2017, she was a Professor of Linguistics at University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She returned to Ohio State to serve as Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education from October 1, 2017 - Nov...

#6869

Doris Debenjak

#70433

Overall Influence

1936 - 2013 (77 years)

Doris Debenjak was a Slovene and Gottschee German linguist and translator. Life and work Doris Krisch was born in Ljubljana to Gottschee German parents. She grew up speaking both German and Slovene. She was married to the Slovene philosopher and translator Božidar Debenjak.

#6870

Scott Tennant

#60139

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Scott Tennant is an American classical guitarist and composer. Tennant is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Early life and education Born in Detroit, Michigan in March 1962, Tennant began his musical and guitar studies at the age of six. He attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, where he also studied violin and trombone. Having played the former in the Cass Tech Symphony Orchestra and the latter in the Cass Tech Concert Band, Tennant graduated in the class of 1980.

#6871

Ada Vidovič Muha

Ada Vidovič Muha

#134665

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Ada Vidovič Muha is a Slovene linguist. She is an emeritus professor who has many books published on the linguistics of Slovene. Life Muha was born in Pivka in 1940. In 1963 she graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana after studying Slovene and the Serbo-Croatian language in literature. After graduation, she studied at Charles University in Prague. She received her master's degree from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana in 1979 on "the syntactic role of the adjective word" and she became an assistant Professor. In 1984 she gained a doctorate in linguistic sciences.

#6872

Ernabel Demillo

Ernabel Demillo

#120727

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Ernabel Castro Demillo is an American television journalist. She is the host and producer of CUNY TV's monthly magazine show, "Asian American Life", which debuted on June 10, 2013. The premiere show was nominated for a NY News Emmy for Best Community Affairs/Public Programming in 2014. The show has been nominated for 10 Emmys since its debut. Her short documentary featured on Asian American Life in 2019, “Fighting Hunger, Feeding Minds: A New Yorker’s Mission to Keep Kids in School in Rural Philippines” won a 2021 Emmy. Demillo was also notably nominated for a New York Emmy for Best Hist...

#6873

James Dixon

#98622

Overall Influence

1929 - 2007 (78 years)

James Dixon was an orchestra conductor and music educator in the United States. During his career he was principally associated with the University of Iowa and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Early life James Allen Dixon was born in Estherville, Iowa and raised and educated in Guthrie Center, Iowa. He started working at the age of 11 as a shoe shine boy at a barber shop. He went on to work in a bakery, followed by a year serving as the part owner of a small farm. He conducted his first orchestra on May 8, 1945 in Guthrie Center - the day Germany surrendered, ending World War II in Europe.

#6874

Rakesh M. Bhatt

#158452

Overall Influence

Rakesh Mohan Bhatt is a professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his MA in linguistics with a specialization in sociolinguistics from The University of Pittsburgh in 1987. He also received his PhD in linguistics with a specialization in syntax from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994. He is the author of two published books: Verb Movement and the Syntax of Kashmiri and World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties . He is famous for his works on Migration, Minorities, and Multilingualism, Language Contact and Code-switching, and Language Ideology, Planning, Maintenance and Shift.

#6875

Natalia Gvishiani

#85650

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Natalia Gvishiani is a Russian linguist, professor, scholar and academic. She totals more than 110 publications on Terminology and Philology. In 2010, the Moscow State University made her a Distinguished professor

#6876

Gary Kreps

#110129

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Gary L. Kreps is a health and risk communication scholar. He is a Distinguished University Professor of communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, United States, where he directs the Center for Health and Risk Communication. Kreps is one of the founding scholars of the field of health communication, having published several of the earliest seminal books and articles on the topic, worked to establish the Health Communication Divisions at both the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association , helped to found the Society for Health Com...

#6877

Rosemary Clooney

#95811

Overall Influence

1928 - 2002 (74 years)

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me", "Mambo Italiano", "Tenderly", "Half as Much", "Hey There", "This Ole House", and "Sway". She also had success as a jazz vocalist. Clooney's career languished in the 1960s, partly because of problems related to depression and drug addiction, but revived in 1977, when her White Christmas co-star Bing Crosby asked her to appear with him at a show marking his 50th anniversary in show business. She continued...

#6878

Sammy Nestico

#88126

Overall Influence

1924 - 2021 (97 years)

Samuel Louis Nistico , better known as Sammy Nestico, was an American composer and arranger. Nestico is best known for his arrangements for the Count Basie orchestra. Early life and education Samuel Luigi Nistico was born on February 6, 1924, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Luigi Nistico, an Italian immigrant, and Frances Mangone. His father was a railroad worker. During childhood, Sammy Americanized his name to Samuel Louis Nestico. Nestico joined the Oliver High School beginner orchestra in 1937 as a trombonist. In 1939, he wrote his first arrangement. At age 17, Nestico joined the ABC radio station WCAE in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a trombonist.

#6879

Jiří V. Neustupný

#91105

Overall Influence

1933 - 2015 (82 years)

Jiří Václav Neustupný was a Czech–Australian linguist and japanologist, and professor at Monash University, Australia, and Osaka University, Chiba University and Obirin University, Japan. Biography Jiří V. Neustupný studied Japanese and history of the Far East at the Faculty of Philology, Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia. In 1964 he obtained CSc. from the Oriental Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and started to work there as a research fellow. He became professor of Japanese at Monash University, Australia, in 1966. After his retirement from Monash in 1993 he lectured in Japan at the universities in Osaka, Chiba and then Obirin.

#6880

Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson

#114785

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson is an Icelandic musician. Music career Early bands Steinblóm was his first group. It was a trio formed by Guðlaugur , Haraldur Johannessen and Gunnar Magnússon . Steinblóm played punk versions of artists such as Bob Dylan and Donovan, Guðlaugur originals and folk songs. At that time, he was experimenting with homemade electro-acoustic guitars and amplifiers. Steinblóm played gigs in Reykjavík and the suburbs.

#6881

Judy Delin

#130081

Overall Influence

Judy Delin is a language expert with an academic background in linguistics who is currently Partner at Doctrine Ltd, a London-based language and information design company. She held previous roles at The Brand Union and The Information Design Unit. Prior to this, she was Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Leeds and the University of Reading and published the book The Language of Everyday Life in 2000. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Science from The University of Edinburgh in 1990 and a BA in English Studies from The University of Nottingham in 1984.

#6882

Anthony Pleeth

#113415

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Anthony Pleeth, born in 1948 in London, is an English cellist, specialising in the historically informed performance of music of the 18th and 19th centuries on period instruments. Biography and career He studied cello with his father, renowned cellist William Pleeth, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was the Gold Medallist in 1966. He made his first recording for the BBC at the age of 13. He was a founder of the Galliard Trio , with which he performed from 1965 to its disbanding in 1972.

#6883

Gareth Morris

#127446

Overall Influence

1920 - 2007 (87 years)

Gareth Charles Walter Morris was a British flautist. He was the principal flautist of a number of London orchestras including the Boyd Neel Orchestra before joining the Philharmonia Orchestra. He was the principal flautist of this orchestra for 24 years and Professor of the Flute at the Royal Academy of Music from 1945 to 1985. Morris was known for using a wooden flute, at a time when most other players had switched to using metal flutes.

#6884

Masataka Matsutoya

#95716

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Masataka Matsutoya is a Japanese arranger, composer, music producer, and motor journalist. He currently resides in Setagaya, Tokyo. He is a graduate of Keio Senior High School and Keio University . His wife is singer-songwriter, composer, and lyricist Yumi Matsutoya . His mother, Kazuko, is the auditor of Kirarasha, the firm Masataka established after his marriage to Arai.

#6885

Arnoldo Foà

#114725

Overall Influence

1916 - 2014 (98 years)

Arnoldo Foà was an Italian actor, voice actor, theatre director, singer and writer. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1938 and 2014. Biography Foà was born in Ferrara, Italy, to a Jewish family, though Foà was an atheist in his adult life. Foà completed high school in Florence, where he moved with his family, and studied at the acting school of Rasi. He abandoned his studies in economics and at age 20 moved to Rome, where he attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

#6886

John Daversa

#60679

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

John Daversa is an American jazz trumpeter, electronic valve instrument player, composer, arranger, conductor, bandleader, producer and educator. Early life Daversa is the son of Jay Daversa, trumpeter for Stan Kenton and Los Angeles studio musician, and Mary Ann Daversa, music educator and pianist. The grandson of Italian immigrants, he was born in Los Angeles and moved to Ada, Oklahoma at age 7. He also lived in Las Vegas and Sacramento before returning to Los Angeles for high school at Hamilton Academy of Music.

#6887

Aaron Jay Kernis

#102103

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Aaron Jay Kernis is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as Director of the Minnesota Orchestra's Composers' Institute, and is currently the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his thirty-five year career. He lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Evelyne Luest, and their two children.

#6888

Richard B. Rood

#95980

Overall Influence

Richard B. Rood is a professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Prior to 2005, he held several leadership positions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He has more than 100 academic publications.

#6889

Amanda Mealing

#82105

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Amanda Jane Mealing is an English actress, director and producer, known for portraying the role of Connie Beauchamp in the BBC medical dramas Holby City and Casualty.==Early life== The only adopted member of her family, Mealing was the youngest of four children, with two sisters and an elder brother. She grew up in Dulwich, South London, with her adoption being a secret. Although very much part of a strong and loving family, she was always aware that she looked nothing like her siblings and was left feeling that she did not quite fit in. Despite a yearning to know more about her biological parents, Mealing was concerned that looking for them would upset her family.

#6890

John Kent Harrison

#88351

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John Kent Harrison is a Canadian film and television director and writer. Early life Harrison was born in London, Ontario in 1947 and attended the private school Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario. After graduating in 1964, he attended Columbia University in New York, then briefly worked as a stock broker before returning to school. He earned a Master's degree at Montreal’s Concordia University, and stayed, becoming Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Concordia University. While there, he wrote and directed several films. He moved to Los Angeles in 1984.

#6891

David L. Robbins

David L. Robbins

#57812

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

David L. Robbins is an American author of several historical fiction novels, and a co-founder of the James River Writers. He founded the Richmond-based Podium Foundation. Biography The son of two World War II veterans, David Lea Robbins was born on March 10, 1954, in Richmond, VA. He received his B.A. in Theater and Speech from the College of William and Mary in 1976, then his Juris Doctor from the same school four years later.

#6892

Peter Rowan

#69034

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Peter Hamilton Rowan is an American bluegrass musician and composer. He plays guitar and mandolin, yodels and sings. Biography Rowan was born in Wayland, Massachusetts to a musical family. From an early age, he had an interest in music and learned to play the guitar from his uncle. He formed the rockabilly band the Cupids 1956.

#6893

Tweet

#69574

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Charlene Keys , better known by the stage name Tweet, is an American singer-songwriter. Career Early career In the early nineties, Tweet joined the female trio Sugah, leaving her daughter with her parents in Panama City, Florida. Sugah was composed of Tweet, Susan Weems, and Rolita White, and was a part of Devante Swing's Swing Mob collective. While there, she met Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, with whom she formed a close friendship. Around 1999, Tweet returned to her parents' home in Panama City.

#6894

William Bergsma

#116197

Overall Influence

1921 - 1994 (73 years)

William Laurence Bergsma was an American composer and teacher. He was long associated with Juilliard School, where he taught composition, until he moved to the University of Washington as head of their music school until 1971.

#6895

Jeff Nelson

#102014

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Jeff Nelson is an American musician, graphic designer, and record-label owner. He is best known as the drummer for the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk band Minor Threat. Biography Nelson met Ian MacKaye in high school and the two saw their first punk rock show, The Cramps, together. Soon after, they formed their first band, The Slinkees. After playing one show, a lineup change caused them to rename the band The Teen Idles.

#6896

Shen Jiaxuan

#106931

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Shen Jiaxuan is a Chinese linguist. He is the director of The Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the president of International Chinese Association. He is also the chief editor of "contemporary linguistics".

#6897

Gervase de Peyer

#127114

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

Gervase Alan de Peyer was an English clarinettist and conductor. Professional career Gervase Alan de Peyer was born in London, the eldest of three children of Everard Esmé Vivian de Peyer, and his wife, Edith Mary . He attended Bedales School, and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied clarinet with Frederick Thurston and piano with Arthur Alexander. Towards the end of World War II, when he was aged 18, he joined the Royal Marines Band Service. He returned to the Royal College of Music after the war and subsequently studied in Paris with Louis Cahuzac.

#6898

Vladimír Godár

#115008

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Vladimír Godár is a Slovak classical and film score composer. He is also known for his collaboration with the Czech violinist, singer, and composer Iva Bittová. As an academic, he is a writer, editor, and translator of books on historical music research. He has been active in reviving the music and reputation of 19th-century Slovak composer Ján Levoslav Bella.

#6899

Kieran Conboy

#158948

Overall Influence

#6900

David Cunningham

#121548

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

David Cunningham is a composer and record producer from Northern Ireland. His first significant success came with The Flying Lizards' single 'Money', an international hit in 1979. Cunningham was born in Armagh on 20 December 1954. Between 1973 and 1977 he attended Maidstone College of Art, in Maidstone in Kent. In 1976 he released Grey Scale, a LP of pieces in minimalist idiom, as part of his Degree show. The cover was from fellow student and video artist, Stephen Partridge with whom he made a number of collaborations over the next 20 years. Cunningham has worked as a musician and record prod...

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