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                              ***  STATIC METHODS SHOULD BE AVOIDED   ***
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Utility classes for this project should be written such that they are stateless beans that are instantiated for use. 

Actual usage should ensure that they are not created in tight loops or where they will frequently be garbage 
collected. Since they are stateless they are thread safe and may safely be attached as fields or constants as needed. 
Supplying standard getters that are package private will improve testability, allowing replacement with mock objects.