More Like this

1. Security Risks and Challenges of Remote Working and Learning

   Gyles, Sheyla; Boonthum-Denecke, Chutima (January 2023, The 2023 ADMI Symposium)

   This report will discuss and analyze the risks and different challenges which are accompanied when completing remote work and learning. Specifically, this paper will focus on this trends’ effect, during the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The different applications that will be included in this research are Slack, Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Meets, Trello, Webex, and Troop Messenger. In recent months, there has been a complete increase in the amount of people worldwide that use these platforms. However, the majority of users do not fully understand security and privacy when using these different platforms. Due to this lack of knowledge, this comes with an increase in attacks. This study will further discuss the different pros and cons of each of the different platforms (mentioned above); the applications that have been breached, how often they were breached, different flaws, vulnerabilities of each system and more. This study coherently uses and assesses its credibility with the assistance of research, a user survey, and past research studies on this topic. 

   more » « less
2. Reflexive Control Theory in Cyber Operations

   Gyles, Sheyla; Muhammad, Jean (April 2024, The 2024 ADMI Symposium.)

   This report will discuss and explore the concept of reflexive control theory (RCT) in the context of day-to-day cybersecurity operations. Specifically, this study aims to investigate and emphasize the influential role of this trend in cyberspace while simultaneously examining the manipulative tactics employed by adversaries and RCT’s effect on the public. This report will further explain the concept of RCT and aims to promote awareness to educate the public about this topic. In the realm of cybersecurity, reflexive control serves as a potent weapon, used to allow adversaries to be able to exploit vulnerabilities, influence decision-making and essentially predict their target’s actions. This research will focus on three key concepts within reflexive control theory: Behavioral Analysis, Threat Detection and Perception Management. Furthermore, this report examines the ethical dimensions and potential risks associated with the reflexive control theory technique. These findings are intended to raise awareness and propose strategies to enhance resilience against these manipulative tactics. By meticulously synthesizing existing literature, research studies, and user surveys, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the reflexive control theory in cyber operations. 

   more » « less
3. Conflict Avoidance in Social Navigation—a Survey

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3647983  

   Mirsky, Reuth; Xiao, Xuesu; Hart, Justin; Stone, Peter (March 2024, ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction)

   A major goal in robotics is to enable intelligent mobile robots to operate smoothly in shared human-robot environments. One of the most fundamental capabilities in service of this goal is competent navigation in this “social” context. As a result, there has been a recent surge of research on social navigation; and especially as it relates to the handling of conflicts between agents during social navigation. These developments introduce a variety of models and algorithms, however as this research area is inherently interdisciplinary, many of the relevant papers are not comparable and there is no shared standard vocabulary. This survey aims at bridging this gap by introducing such a common language, using it to survey existing work, and highlighting open problems. It starts by defining the boundaries of this survey to a limited, yet highly common type of social navigation—conflict avoidance. Within this proposed scope, this survey introduces a detailed taxonomy of the conflict avoidance components. This survey then maps existing work into this taxonomy, while discussing papers using its framing. Finally, this article proposes some future research directions and open problems that are currently on the frontier of social navigation to aid ongoing and future research. 

   more » « less
4. Implementing design thinking into summer camp experience for high school women in materials science and engineering.

   Tyler, K.; Johnson, N.; Krogstad, J.A. (June 2017, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Although women make up a significant portion of the college educated population, there remains a sizable gap between the number of men and women pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. This gender gap begins at middle school and widens considerably in the later high school years. One major factor for this gap is the lack of belonging women can feel towards engineering. As one approach to developing and improving this sense of belonging, we focused on improving students’ comprehension of engineering topics during a weeklong materials science and engineering summer camp for high school girls. We took a two-prong approach: a unifying paradigm and a design project. The purpose of this was to allow for transfer of learning throughout the week, allowing the students to build and showcase their own comprehension. The paradigm, the materials science tetrahedron, provided cohesion throughout an otherwise broad and seemingly disconnected field, while the design project allowed for the students to implement what they learned during the week in a group setting. This approach concomitantly enhances confidence and their sense of belonging within engineering. In this paper we highlight lessons learned from incorporating this approach into our program, including our perception of its effectiveness and feedback from the girls. The preliminary results from this work show that this summer camp is a unique and well-suited opportunity to study how comprehension can engender a sense of belonging amongst female students with the ultimate goal of closing the gender gap in engineering fields. 

   more » « less
5. Reconnaissance of 2020 M 7.0 Samos Island (Aegean Sea) earthquake

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-021-01212-y  

   Cetin, Kemil Onder; Mylonakis, George; Sextos, A; Stewart, Jonathan P (August 2021, Bulletin of earthquake engineering)

   The Samos Island (Aegean Sea) Earthquake occurred on 30 October 2020. It produced a tsunami that impacted coastal communities, ground shaking that was locally amplified in some areas and that led to collapse of structures with 118 fatalities in both Greece and Turkey, and wide-ranging geotechnical effects including rockfalls, landsliding, and liquefaction. As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the reconnaissance of this event did not involve the deployment of international teams, as would be typical for an event of this size. Instead, following initial deployments of separate Greek and Turkish teams, the reconnaissance and documentation efforts were managed in a coordinated manner with the assistance of international partners. This coordination ultimately produced a multi-agency joint report published on the 2-month anniversary of the earthquake, and this special issue. This paper provides an overview of the reconnaissance activities undertaken to document the effects of this important event and summarizes key lessons spanning topic areas from seismology to emergency response. 

   more » « less