A polymer composition containing carboxyl group which is excellent in water solubility, thickening properties and flow characteristics. The optical apparatus advantageously has an outer dimension of less than about 2 mm. The appartus further has a stud assembly comprising a stud and an engagement pin extending orthogonally to the stud. Contaminates in the water attach themselves to the bubbles and rise to the surface of the water as foam. Such systems and methods may receive data comprising a root element and at least one leaf element, the root element having attributes and the attributes comprising characteristics, select a condition table based upon the characteristics, select a first ruleset based upon the selected condition table, and apply rules defined by the selected first ruleset to the data.