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Testing Similitude Laws of Multistory Masonry Buildings
Earthquakes and other stressors on buildings pose a threat to their structural integrity that endangers human life. It helps to be able to calculate the behavior of buildings and test with small-scale models.
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Cyber and Physical Security Should Collaborate: What Does It Take to Achieve This
To understand and mitigate threats that cross the boundary between what is cyber and what is physical, some organizations have integrated their security resources to encourage them to work more closely together.
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Giving New Life to Old Concrete Structures Through “Vascularization”
Concrete is a ubiquitous building material, and it is often cited as the most consumed commodity on Earth, second only to potable water. As this inherited concrete infrastructure continues to age, maintaining and repairing concrete is of increasing strategic importance to both defense and civilian infrastructure. DARPA’s BRACE program aims to revitalize legacy DoD infrastructure to extend its serviceability.
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The Ukrainian Economy: Where Now for the Future?
An expert has warned that the impact of the war will be disastrous for the Ukrainian economy, regardless of the outcome. “War will always have a catastrophic impact. As you’d expect, production is collapsing, and the economy has given up percentages of GDP growth,” says a Cambridge University professor who is an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Zelensky.
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Pivotal Battery Discovery Could Benefit Transportation, the Grid
Researchers uncover new avenue for overcoming the performance decline that occurs with repeated charge-discharge cycling in the cathodes of next generation batteries.
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Coastal Home Buyers Are Ignoring Rising Flood Risks, Despite Clear Warnings and Rising Insurance Premiums
Homebuyers along the U.S. coasts can check each property’s flood risk as easily as they check the size of the bedrooms – most coastal real estate listings now include future flood risk details that take climate change into account. In Apollo Beach, for example, many of the properties are at least 9 out of 10 on the flood risk scale. That knowledge isn’t stopping homebuyers, though.
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Ultrafast Devices to Protecting the Grid from EMPs
Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories have announced a tiny, electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts — a significant step towards protecting the nation’s electric grid from an electromagnetic pulse.
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As Sea Levels Rise, Coastal Megacities Will Need More Than Flood Barriers
Sea level rise is expected to worsen in the next few decades, especially for many of the world’s largest cities in lower and middle income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. These cities are already improving their infrastructure. But most of the focus remains on big engineering solutions (like flood walls and embankments) rather than a more holistic plans.
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Armored Transformer Barrier Protects Electric Power Grid
A 2013 sniper attack on an electric power substation in Northern California, which caused more than $15 million in damages and destroyed 17 transformers, led researchers to develop a novel protective solution: the Armored Transformer Barrier system.
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Climate Change Contributor to 2017 Oroville Dam Spillway Incident
A one-two punch of precipitation resulted in damage to Oroville Dam’s main and emergency spillways pushing the second largest dam in California into a crisis in February 2017. Researchers say that they have identified the fingerprint of climate change in the events that triggered the incident. Issues with the dam’s spillways led to the evacuation of 188,000 people.
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How Much Damage Could a Russian Cyberattack Do in the U.S.?
U.S. intelligence analysts have determined that Moscow would consider a cyberattack against the U.S. as the Ukraine crisis grows. As a scholar of Russian cyber operations, I know the Kremlin has the capacity to damage critical U.S. infrastructure systems.
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Wide Range of Possible Targets for Russian Cyberstrikes, from Infrastructure to Smartphones
For years prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s government waged cyberwar aimed at destabilizing the country’s infrastructure, government, and financial systems, including several distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the run-up to this week’s assault. What are Russia’s cyberwarfare capabilities, and what would a cyberattack against the U.S. look like?
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The U.S. Digital Security Challenges: Q&A with Frederic Lemieux
The U.S. is facing many digital challenges: Ransomware attacks; critical infrastructure vulnerability; exploitation of flaws in widely used software packages such as SolarWinds; potential Russian cyberattacks resulting from the Ukraine crisis; shortage of cybersecurity talent which leaves many government and private sector positions vacant; and many more. HSNW talked with Georgetown’s Professor Frederic Lemieux, a recognized expert in the fields of global threats and homeland security.
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Lake Evaporation Patterns Will Shift with Climate Change
Lakes serve as a major global source of freshwater. As temperatures continue to get warmer, so will lakes. As global average temperatures rise, lake evaporation is projected to increase at double the rate of ocean evaporation. However, future increases in lake evaporation vary substantially across regions.
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What Drives Sea Level Rise? U.S. Report Warns of 1-Foot Rise within Three Decades and More Frequent Flooding
Sea levels are rising, and that will bring profound flood risks to large parts of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts over the next three decades. A new report led by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the U.S. should prepare for 10-12 inches of relative sea level rise on average in the next 30 years. That much sea level rise means cities like Miami that see nuisance flooding during high tides today will experience more damaging floods by midcentury.
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More headlines
The long view
Helping Strengthen America’s Critical Infrastructure
Everyday life depends on a robust infrastructure network that provides access to running water, communications technology and electricity, among other basic necessities. The experts who keep our national infrastructure secure and resilient also need a strong network to share their knowledge and train the next generation of professionals capable of solving complex infrastructure challenges.
AI and the Future of the U.S. Electric Grid
Despite its age, the U.S. electric grid remains one of the great workhorses of modern life. Whether it can maintain that performance over the next few years may determine how well the U.S. competes in an AI-driven world.