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A new University of Georgia College of Engineering pilot study partnered with The Nature Conservancy to explore funding salt water preservation and recovery, according to a press release from the colleges website.

The study is funded by the Georgia Sea Grant and will delve into determining the socioeconomic value of salt marsh ecosystems in Georgia, the release said.

According to The Environmental Protection Agency, salt marshes are one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change. Warming water temperatures and rising sea levels will have the greatest impact on these coastal ecosystems.

These marshes are among the most well-preserved and extensive natural coastal networks in the nation, playing an indispensable role within human communities and for wildlife, said Matthew Bilskie, an assistant professor in the School of Environmental, Civil, Agricultural and Mechanical Engineering, in an excerpt from the release.

Bilskie will lead UGA Coastal Ocean Analysis and Simulation Team (COAST), a research group with expertise in computational modeling of coastal and estuarine systems, the release said.

The group will analyze how natural disasters such as hurricanes may affect salt marshes and the data will be passed along to Yukiko Hashida, an assistant professor of agriculture and applied economics in UGAs College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who will then determine if the projections can be monetized.

The partnership with The Nature Conservancy will allow community stakeholders into the study to find ways to finance the protection of the salt marshes, the release said. Ideally, this analysis of the marshes and their benefits will yield insurance as a viable option for protecting the marshes in the future.

If the pilot succeeds, this type of business and environmental collaboration could potentially be replicated across the South Atlantic, said Ashby Worley, TNCs coastal climate adaptation director in Georgia in the release.

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UGA Engineering study funds salt water preservation, recovery - Red and Black

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Yesterday, one of the largest hotel chains in the world, Marriott International, confirmed that it suffered its second data breach of 2022. Databreaches.net broke the news after receiving an anonymous tip.

During the breach, which took place in early June, a threat actor managed to gain access to an employees computer and obtained approximately 20 gigabytes of data including credit card details and confidential information about guests and workers, such as flight reservation logs.

The attackers, dubbed the Group with No Name (GNN), appear to have orchestrated a social engineering attack targeting employees working at the BWI Airport Marriott in Maryland (BWIA), and managed to trick one of them into granting access to their computer.

While the data breach has only affected 400 people, it highlights some valuable lessons for CISOs and security leaders, particularly regarding the threat posed by social engineering threats, and the havoc that poor security awareness can wreak on an organization.

The latest Marriott breach highlights that human error is one of the greatest risks to an organizations security. All it took to exfiltrate the organizations data, was for the threat actor to manipulate an employee into handing over access to their device.

In the realm of cybersecurity, manipulation is one of an attackers most effective weapons. Unlike exploits or brute force attacks that target endpoints or IT systems that can be patched or mitigated consistently, human beings arent perfect, and easily make the mistake of handing over login credentials or exploitable information.

A primary mechanism being used by adversaries is social engineering. Its simple and effective. And it means that initial compromise is dependent on human behaviors and is therefore impossible to prevent 100% of the time, said Sarya Nayyar, CEO and founder of security operation and analytics provider, Gurucul.All it takes is one successful compromise to circumvent most preventative controls.

Social engineering scams are a type of manipulation attempt where an attacker aims to trick an employee into sharing confidential information, infecting their device with malware, or handing over their login credentials.

An example of this is a phishing scam, where an attacker sends an email trying to trick a user into clicking on a malware attachment or visiting a phishing site.

The high effectiveness of these basic manipulation attempts is one of the main reasons why the number of social engineering attacks reached 25% of total breaches in 2022, and why the human element (social engineering, errors and misuse) accounts for 82% of breaches this year.

Even employees with high security awareness arent immune to being caught off guard, particularly when the average organization is targeted by over 700 social engineering attacks each year.

One of the simplest ways organizations can address social engineering threats is with security awareness training, which teaches employees security best practices, what phishing, social engineering and other manipulation attempts look like, so they can avoid sharing any valuable information with cyber criminals.

Organizations need to ensure that all employees are frequently educated about this type of social engineering, receiving training at least once a month followed by simulated phishing tests, to see how well employees understood and deployed the training, said defense evangelist at KnowBe4, Roger Grimes.Employees found to be susceptible to this particular type of phishing attack should be required to take more and longer training until they have developed a natural instinct to out these types of attacks.

For additional security, Nayyar recommends that organizations implement a detection program, to monitor and identify risky access controls and user behaviors to detect abnormal or deviant activity, to not only defend against external threats but also against internal threats.

Its important to note that detection and response is an area where many enterprises are lacking, with research showing that 36% of mid-size organizations dont have a formal incident response plan in place.

Finally, this latest data breach reveals that enterprises cant afford to gain a reputation as an easy target. If your company falls victim to a data breach, then theres a high likelihood that other attackers will attempt to target you again, making the assumption that your organization has weak security controls.

As this latest breach demonstrates, organizations that are victims of previous attacks are more likely to be targeted in the future. This attack does little to restore faith in Marriotts data security following the massive beach of the data of 5.2 million guests in 2020, said Jack Chapman, vice president of Threat Intelligence at Egress.

Given that this breach was the third of its kind that Marriott has experienced in the last four years, other organizations may now be looking at the hotel chain as a potential target.

The only way to avoid this predicament is to avoid being seen as an easy target implementing the latest detection and response solutions and consistently investing in security awareness training to help employees embrace security best practices and mitigate human risk.

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What the Marriott International breach teaches us about social engineering - VentureBeat

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This Engineering Topnotcher Failed Thermodynamics 1

Studying for the licensure exams is one task best done with your full attention.

After all, it can be challenging to focus on anything else while youre knee-deep in books and reviewers.

However, this isnt always the case for every taker, just like Engr. Karlo S. Ornieta.

In our interview with him, we found out how he managed to ranked 5th on the Mechanical Engineer licensure exam, all while working at a trucking company.

Growing up in a family of engineers, 24-year-old Karlo has always been into mathematics, especially Geometry.

He loved solving problems involving shapes, and he became especially passionate about it when he worked with a hydraulic turbine design for a science investigatory project in high school.

That was why in choosing a college course for college, he did not hesitate to pick Mechanical Engineering.

He enrolled in Ateneo de Davao University straight out of high school and faced college life with a brave heart.

For the first few semesters, things were going rather well with Karlos studies.

He was acing his math tests and doing great with his laboratory work.

But here comes Thermodynamics 1, the Devil within mechanical engineering, it went a bit downhill for him.

The topics in this subject got increasingly difficult throughout the entire semester and he got a failing mark in Thermodynamics 1.

He was incredibly disappointed in himself, but he didnt let that one failure stop him.

As a matter of fact, it only motivated him to put more effort in.

He buried himself in books, dedicated more time to practice problem-solving, and even took part in group studies to become more focused.

Karlo managed to pass Thermodynamics 1, but things didnt become easier as he progressed through college.

Fortunately, he was braver and better after that challenging subject, and when his final year in university rolled around.

It was no longer surprising that he managed to graduate with flying colors.

He was named a cum laude!

His parents couldnt be prouder of his achievement.

After getting his degree, Karlo went on to overcome another big hurdle in his dreams: the licensure examinations.

He decided it was best to enroll in a review center, so he did just that.

However, at that time, a series of cancellations of licensure exams took place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hence, there was no assurance of the mechanical exams taking place.

Karlo worried that he might end up wasting too much time only studying when he could start gaining work experience already.

Thats why he applied for a job and fortunately got hired as a Tire Monitoring Assistant in a logistics company.

But dividing his attention between two important things wasnt a walk in the park.

During the day, Karlo was exhausted from overseeing the tire maintenance activities of the companys fleet of trucks.

He typically spent most of his time under the scorching sun, inspecting the condition of all the tires. He did this for six days a week, only resting for one day.

At night, Karlo pored over his review materials.

He followed his study plan diligently and spent his night taking notes of unique problems and making mnemonics.

Despite his busy schedule, he made sure that he still got enough sleep to prevent burning himself out.

During his spare time, he would hang out with his family and friends to destress.

A month before the Mechanical Engineering Licensure Examination (MELE), his line manager was kind and considerate enough to reduce his workdays, so he can focus better on reviewing.

He only came to work three times a week, and the rest of the time was spent preparing for the upcoming exam.

On the day of the MELE, Karlo was confident enough in his preparation.

And sure enough, he found two of the subjects, Mathematics, Engineering Economics, and Basic Engineering Sciences (MESL) and Power and Industrial Plant Engineering (PIPE), quite average.

However, Machine Design, Material, and Shop Practice (MDSP) was a bit difficult for him.

Still, by the end of the two-day exam, he believed that he would end up on the topnotchers list, as a form of the law of attraction.

He and his family waited patiently for the results to come out and after eight days, the Philippine Regulatory Commission (PRC) finally posted the results on its website.

Karlos girlfriend, who used to be his study partner in college, was the first person to inform him of the good news.

While he was confident of himself, he was still in disbelief and couldnt really fathom that his name was actually on the topnotcher list with a rating of 89.05%.

Karlo immediately informed his family, and they gushed over his success while also thanking God for such a blessing.

He was also flooded with numerous public congratulatory messages from his university, review center, and friends.

Right now, Karl is already working for San Miguel Brewery Inc., Davao Plant as a Process Engineer in the Packaging Department and hopes to stay in the company for the years to come.

Heres the full transcript of GineersNows interview with Engr. Karlo.

I decided to take Mechanical Engineering because of my interest in Mathematics, and Geometry.

My younger self thought that this was the course that would have the most application to the said subjects.

I was also urged by my older sister to take this line of career expecting that it would be in demand in the near future, which it certainly did after hearing from my acquaintances.

Moreover, my Science Investigatory Project back in high school inspired me in choosing this course.

It was about the design of a hydraulic turbine.

This topic is inclined to mechanical engineering matters which I believed was a key factor that piqued my interest more.

My favorite subjects in my engineering study are the following:

On the contrary, my least liked subjects are

Yes, it was Thermodynamics 1 when I got a failure mark for one term.

It was heartbreaking and alarming especially since Thermodynamics 1 was known to be one which many fail.

This did not discourage me, however, to put in more effort.

I pushed myself to read more references, solve more Thermodynamics 1 problems, practice a lot, and join class group studies.

My most difficult experience occurred during Thermodynamics 1.

It was a near-miss event where I almost failed the subject.

The Thermodynamics 1 topics got much harder and harder throughout the entire semester.

Study smart.

Master the basics but also anticipate unique and alien problems.

Moreover, I continued spending quality time with my family and friends despite the busy schedule.

Most importantly, I never forget to rest and pray.

Develop and practice an effective, efficient, and healthy study habit early on.

Also, seeking help from others will do more good than bad.

I was working, at the same time, preparing for the licensure exams in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adding to my mental stress from studying, I was also most of the time physically stressed from work.

All these with no assurance whether the exams would take place or be postponed.

I combated these by taking enough rest.

I worked as if the exams would 100% continue on the scheduled date to avoid myself from doubting and overthinking.

It is better to be safe than sorry.

Yes, I enrolled with PRIME Review Center. I recommend doing so.

This review center is proven and tested; without of course taking the credit away from the exam taker himself.

We have three subjects in the MELE: MESL, PIPE. and MDSP.

In my opinion, MESL and PIPE were average and MDSP was difficult.

Yes. I strongly believed that all five of us, Ateneo de Davao University Mechanical Engineering takers, will respectively occupy a place in the top 10.

My now-girlfriend informed me of the results.

I was in disbelief.

I immediately informed my family, and we talked on the phone.

I owe this success to myself, my family, and our Almighty Father.

None. I received, however, public congratulatory messages from them which flattered me after I was given recognition.

I am really grateful as they were key factors that helped me with this achievement.

I enjoy taking down notes. I dedicatedly invest enough time into it.

My notes contain not only the lesson itself but also my insights with respect to the topic at hand.

Additionally, I put much effort into note-taking to the point that I would use colored ball pens for writing.

I felt that I had to write them creatively or else I would have difficulty retaining details of what I studied.

Moreover, I regularly answer problem-solving types of questions.

I find joy and satisfaction whenever I come across challenging problems, more especially when I get the correct answer.

This is a way of evaluating myself.

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This Engineering Topnotcher Failed in Thermodynamics 1 - GineersNow

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When it comes to battery developments, there's no shortage of news. From a battery design that could last up to 100 years to a water-based batterythat's produced at half the cost of lithium-ion ones, it seems there is always something new and exciting happening in the field.

Now, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have engineered novel energy-packed lithium-ion batteries that perform optimally at freezing cold and scorching hot temperatures, according to a statement by the institution released on Monday.

You need high-temperature operation in areas where the ambient temperature can reach the triple digits and the roads get even hotter. In electric vehicles, the battery packs are typically under the floor, close to these hot roads, explained Zheng Chen, a professor of nanoengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and senior author of the study.

Also, batteries warm up just from having a current run through during operation. If the batteries cannot tolerate this warmup at high temperature, their performance will quickly degrade.

Chen's team ran tests with the prototype batteries and found that they retained 87.5% and 115.9% of their energy capacity at-40 and 122 F (-40 and 50 C ), respectively. Better yet, the researchers reported that the prototypes had high Coulombic efficiencies of 98.2% and 98.7% at these temperatures, which means the batteries can undergo more charge and discharge cycles before they cease to function.

However, developing the new batteries was no easy task.

If you want a battery with high energy density, you typically need to use very harsh, complicated chemistry, said Chen. High energy means more reactions are happening, which means less stability, more degradation. Making a high-energy battery that is stable is a difficult task itselftrying to do this through a wide temperature range is even more challenging.

In order to bypass these hurdles, the team invented a dibutyl ether electrolyte and engineered the sulfur cathode to be more stable by grafting it to a polymer preventing more sulfur from dissolving into the electrolyte.

The end result was batteries with much longer cycling lives than a typical lithium-sulfur battery. Our electrolyte helps improve both the cathode side and anode side while providing high conductivity and interfacial stability, said Chen.

The new batteries could nowenable electric vehicles to travel further on a single charge in cold climates while also alleviating the need for cooling systems to keep the vehicles battery packs from overheating in hot climates. But first, the team needs toscale up the battery chemistry, optimize it to work at even higher temperatures, and further extend its cycle life.

The study is published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Abstract:

All-climate temperature operation capability and increased energy density have been recognized as two crucial targets, but they are rarely achieved together in rechargeable lithium (Li) batteries. Herein, we demonstrate an electrolyte system by using monodentate dibutyl ether with both low melting and high boiling points as the sole solvent. Its weak solvation endows an aggregate solvation structure and low solubility toward polysulfide species in a relatively low electrolyte concentration (2 mol L1). These features were found to be vital in avoiding dendrite growth and enabling Li metal Coulombic efficiencies of 99.0%, 98.2%, and 98.7% at 23C, 40C, and 50C, respectively. Pouch cells employing thin Li metal (50 m) and high-loading sulfurized polyacrylonitrile (3.3 mAh cm2) cathodes (negative-to-positive capacity ratio = 2) output 87.5% and 115.9% of their room temperature capacity at 40C and 50C, respectively. This work provides solvent-based design criteria for a wide temperature range Li-sulfur pouch cells.

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Engineers develop lithium-ion batteries that work well in extreme cold and heat - Interesting Engineering

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