The Engineering Projects

How To Stay Calm During A Complicated Project

Taking a break from work might seem like a burden, but no matter how much you love your job or believe that you are the only one who is capable of doing it, it’s important to give your body and your mind a break. Sometimes people get so caught up in their work that they forget to take a moment to recharge.

A break can be beneficial to those who work long hours or to those who work seven days a week. Some might see a break as a time to kick-back and watch work flow by, but relaxing can provide an uptick in motivation, creativity, and productivity. Everyone relaxes in their own way: some people exercise and some meditate. Regardless of your method, it’s important to have something that takes your mind off your job. There’s an assortment of ways to stay relaxed during stressful projects.

Stay Active

Work can be extremely stressful on the mind, but it can also take a toll on the body. Science has proven that one of the best ways to combat stress and the symptoms that go along with it is with exercise.

Exercising also changes the brain in ways that protect memory and improve critical thinking skills. Researchers have found that regular aerobic exercise appears to boost the size of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning. On top of improving the brain’s functionality, exercising also improves sleep and reduces stress and anxiety. All of these areas lead to positive work output. No matter what industry you work in, whether you specialize in contract management or industrial engineering, exercising improves all human bodies and therefore improves the work functionality of any employee.

Meditation

Another way to relax that has gained immense popularity over the past decade is meditation. To improve your ability to meditate try using Nag Champa incense, which has a great history of high-quality products. It seems like every week a new study emerges to illustrate a new benefit of meditation. Researchers all over the world, including some from prestigious institutions, are studying meditation’s benefits and the results are widespread. Similar to exercising, meditation reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves the brain’s functionality, and helps our overall psychological well-being. Another benefit of meditation is the improvements to concentration and attention. Since the strong focus of attention is one of the central aims of meditation, it shouldn’t be surprising that meditation helps people achieve better focus at their jobs. There are many types of meditation, so it’s important to hop on a search engine and figure out which meditation method is best for you.

Relaxing Is Important

Complicated projects can cause workers mental and physical pain. There are many ways to prevent this pain from happening in the first place. Methods like consistent exercise, meditation etc. usage all show promising benefits to the human body. It’s important to research them, read about their application, and figure out which, if any, fit best into your lifestyle. It’s also important to treat your body and mind with care, especially when work is coming down on you the hardest.

Market Your Business With Text To Speech Technology

Marketing is the cornerstone of any business. Yet, so many business owners struggle to find new and innovative ways to promote their business to potential consumers. In an ever-evolving economy, marketing your endeavor is going to involve plenty of thinking outside the box. We no longer live in a world were a simple ad-campaign or coupon promotion is enough to drive eyeballs to a site or feet through the door. If you’ve been looking for new ways to market your business without breaking the bank, there is one new method you should try: text to speech technology. Not only is it one of the freshest ways to market your business, but it is one of the most affordable. Let’s take a look at how text to speech technology can be used to market your business. There is much online text to speech converter to choose from, let’s examine how to put them to work.

Convert Text to an Mp3

While not available through all online text to speech platforms, many give you the option to convert any text to an Mp3. Why is this useful? Text to speech is useful to both website owners and those consuming the content you upload. With text to speech, you can convert text as often as you want with zero limitations. This is helpful because it maximizes the overall accessibility of your site. Suddenly, even those with learning disabilities or impairments can access your content. In addition to providing options for those with disabilities, text to speech also makes it easy for you to cater to potential customers who speak a different language. Many of these people understand spoken words, but they cannot read written content. With this tool in hand, any customer, regardless of native language, can understand what you’re selling or what your site is all about. The ability to convert the text to an Mp3 gives the user the option to read and examine content on the go. That’s a win-win!

Cater to All Age Groups

Make no mistake, the older generations love to shop just as much as millennials. Unfortunately, those above a certain age may have a hard time adjusting to the new fast-paced digital world. Some of them don’t know how to surf the web at all. Others have a very basic understanding. Text to speech is a tool that makes it easy for seniors to understand your content without having to do much leg work. It is basically a marketing campaign that works for itself. All you have to do is provide the text to speech capacity and your words or products will do the leg work for you.

Engage Users With Different Backgrounds

Believe it or not, many folks in more rural areas still suffer from illiteracy, at no fault of their own. Lack of educational opportunities or therapies can make it difficult for those who are illiterate to make strides toward literacy. With text to speech, those people no longer feel alienated. Despite their setbacks, many do have a basic knowledge of reading and writing. Unfortunately, they find it hard to browse websites due to all the text-based information. This leads to feelings of shame and may lead to them clicking off-page. When you include text to speech on your site, these folks can take in the content and browse the site as they deserve to. You can open up your doors to customers and let people know that you’re all about accessibility.

The Takeaway

Digital marketing firms and businesses need to realize that there is more than one way to present an idea. Some people can’t process huge amounts of text information. Others, simply don’t want to. With text to speech, you give users the opportunity to ingest your content on their own terms. With an added audio converter, any site user can get through large blocks of text-based information with total ease. Make your content more appealing and accessible, you’ll find an uptick in site visitors and those who simply like what you’re doing!

Introduction to Control Systems

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. Today, I am going to start this new tutorial series on Control Systems. I will start from the very basics and will slowly move towards complex concepts. I'll not only cover the theoretical control systems, but will also focus on their practical implementation. Throughout this tutorial series, I will use MATLAB software (where required) to solve & plot different features of control systems.

As it's our first tutorial, so today, we will have a look at a detailed Introduction to Control systems. Before starting with technical details, I would like to simplify things, by first providing the basic concept of a Control System. So, let's get started:

Introduction to Control Systems

• A system, whose output can be managed, controlled or regulated by varying its input is called Control System.
• If we look around, we will find many control systems in our surroundings i.e. Refrigerator, Air Conditions, Washing Machines etc.

• A control system can also be a combination of smaller control systems and is normally used to get desired/required output.
• Its block diagram is shown in the below figure:

• The above figure represents a simple control system and we can think of this control system as a mathematical equation i.e.

 X + 5 = Y

where, X is input, Y is output and Constant 5 is acting as a Control System.

• So, by changing the value of the input parameter ( X ), we can change our output value (Y).
• Similarly, if we want a particular output value, we can achieve it by fixing the input value.

Real Life Example of a Control System

As I have mentioned earlier, we are literally surrounded by control systems, these days. Keeping this simple, let's have a look at the example of a smart fan, which regulates its spinning speed with respect to atmospheric temperature.

• A pre-installed Temperature sensor reads the temperature, which is then fed into Comparator.
• The comparator compares current temperature with user-inputted temperature value and then regulates the Fan speed.

Hence the input parameter i.e. temperature helped us in changing the system's output i.e. Spinning Speed. Below is the block diagram for representing the control system of a smart fan:

Now I hope that you can quite easily find different control systems in your surroundings. Now let's have a look at Main two Types of Control Systems:

Types of Control Systems

Control Systems are classified into two main categories, which are:

• Open Loop.
• Closed Loop.

Let's discuss them one by one, in detail:

Open Loop Control System

• In Open Loop Control Systems, we have three main components i.e. Input, Controller & Output.
• Input signal is directly fed to the controller, which utilizes it and generates the required output.
• In Open Loop systems, generated output has no affect on the Input signal i.e. no feedback provided.

Example

Here we will be discussing two examples of open loop control systems, to get a better understanding of the process.

Clothes Dryer is a very simple example of an open loop system. When damp clothes are put in the dryer machine, the operator/user sets the time for drying the clothes. This time acts as the input signal for the dryer. Correspondingly at the end of that time, the machine stops and clothes can be taken out. Now the thing to be noted here is that no matter if the clothes are dry enough or not, the machine will stop because of the time (input signal) fed to it. So the output of the system does not affect the input in this case. For a better understanding the block diagram of a cloth dryer control system is shown below:

Traffic Light system is another easy-to-understand example of an open loop system. Certain input signals are fed to the controller, which then displays one of the three lights at the output turn by turn. The direct input signals can be altered to change the output light but the output has no affect on the input. As we are not passing any feedback i.e. which light turned ON or OFF.

Closed Loop Control System

• Closed Loop Control System (Feedback control system) is an advanced automated system, which generates the desired output by using inputs, Controllers and feedback elements.
• These systems use feedback elements to fed the Output back to the controller. By doing that, we can compare the current output with input to get errors.
• Here's the block diagram of a Closed Loop Control System:

The block diagram above is an excellent representation of a closed loop control system. As seen, the system output is being fed back to the controller through an error detector. The function of the error detector is to find the difference in the input and output signal, and feed this difference to the controller so that the output can be adjusted. In this way, the system output is being automatically adjusted all the time with the help of the feedback signal and the operator does not have to worry about it.

Example

The air conditioner is a very typical example of a closed loop control system. The input signal in the form of required room temperature is fed into the controller of the air conditioner. The compressor along with its various electrical and mechanical components helps in achieving the required temperature. Now, whenever the room temperature changes, the temperature sensor at the output senses the change in the room temperature and the signal from the sensor is calculated by the error detector and fed back to the controller through the feedback loop to maintain the required room temperature. In this way, the required output is always maintained automatically without any manual interference. The block diagram illustration of this process is shown below:

Pros and Cons of Open and Closed loop

• It must have been cleared by now that wherever an accurate and precise system is required, feedback closed-loop control system is the answer, as they provide the feedback and thus automatically reduces the error while open loop control systems are not reliable enough to provide an accurate output.
• However another thing to be kept in mind here is the cost of the system. More precision and complexity mean a greater cost. So closed-loop control systems are clearly more expensive than open loop control systems. Open loop control systems are cheaper and cost effective.
• Last but not the least, Open loop control systems are also simpler to design as compared to closed loop control systems.

So, fellows, this was all about Open and closed loop control systems. I hope things are much clearer now and we can move to another set of classification of the control systems.

SISO and MIMO Control Systems

Control systems are also classified into these two categories, named as:

• SIngle Input Single Output systems. (SISO)
• Multiple Input Multiple Output systems. (MISO)

SISO, as the name suggests, is a simple control system which has a single input signal and give out a single output signal. They are easy to design/implement and are used for most basic applications due to their Input/output simplicity. MIMO, as the name indicates, are complex types of control systems having multiple input signals triggering the system controller and in return generating multiple system outputs. These are larger and complex systems used in industrial applications mostly, which require a series of outputs.

Examples of SISO and MIMO Control Systems:

A fan speed control is a very common example of a Single Input Single Output system. A single input in terms of voltage is supplied to the system which in turn results in the fan working. On the other hand, a Radio system is a typical example of a Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs system. A combination of Input signals is applied and transmitted over multiple lines to produce the required communication signals at the output. So this was all about SISO and MIMO control systems. The concept is pretty much basic but the same statement cannot be true for their applications. They are very versatile and at the same time very much used around us in our daily lives. So being done with these for now, I think it's time to move on to another interesting classification of the control systems.

Continuous and Discrete Time Control System

Before discussing the continuous and discrete time control system, it is important to understand the concept of a continuous time signal and a discrete time signal:

• A continuous time signal refers to a signal, which is continuous in the time domain.
• On the other hand, when a signal is discrete in the time domain, i.e. it can be obtained at discrete time intervals, it is called a discrete time signal.

The figure below represents continuous and discrete-time signals and will help you understand the concept much better.

So now coming towards the continuous-time control system and a discrete-time control system:

• As we know the difference, the only thing needed to understand is that in a continuous time control system, all the signals (including the input & output signals) are continuous in time.
• Whereas in a discrete time control system, all the signals of the control system (including the input and output signals) are discrete time signals.

So guys, this was all about the basics of control systems today. This topic is very elaborate including the different types of controllers and their design and everything, but I have tried to keep it simple and introductory as per the topic's name. For an in depth study of control systems and their controller design, stay tuned with this control systems tutorial by email. In the next lecture, we will have a look at the detailed Introduction to Transfer Functions. For now, I'm hoping that this would prove helpful for your basic concept and understanding. Till next tutorial, take care & have fun !!! :)

Introduction to Quantum Cryptography

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. Today I am going to discuss and explain to you, Quantum Cryptography, in this article, you will learn what Quantum cryptography is and how the data was stored and transmitted by the first generation computers from one device to another. It's going to be a long series and today, I am posting its first lecture, so I'll only cover the basics. I will briefly give you an overview of its history & we will understand How it has evolved in the past and now became an important part of digital world. So, let's get started:

Quantum Cryptography

We know that digital data is always stored in bit format i.e. 0's and 1's but first generation computers stored the data using the method of Punch Tape (you can find the illustration below): As you can see in above image, we have a pattern of punch holes. Here, holes are representing 0s and the plain surfaces are representing 1s. This type of data was authentic & reliable and there was almost zero percent chance of the data to get destroyed. Then we entered the evolution of Hard Disk, which stores the data to bits in the electromagnetic form, which actually stores in the form of 1s and 0s. If you look at the picture carefully, you will see they have opposite polarity. In the hard disk, data is not as secured as in punch tape as you may get In this 21st century, we are using Quantum Computer which is known as Q-bit. It exists in the form of superposition with the algorithms. So the data will be stored and transmitted through supercomputers.

Cryptography

As the means of communication are getting smarter, the security of sensitive or private data and information has become the highest risk. Therefore, the goal is to transmit the data and information safely from one server to another, this method is known as Cryptography. In this method, the data and information are hidden between two servers, in a way that any third party/hacker unables to access them in an unauthorized way. (As we can see nowadays in our Whatsapp, the chats are end-to-end encrypted). We click it to disable the access of any third party to our data and to ensure that our chats are safe. The cryptography can function through various methods to secure the data. The easiest philosophy is that both the sender and receiver have a codebook. So the sender, let's name it Bob and the receiver is Alice:

• Bob wants to send some information "A" to the receiver. ( Let's suppose, "A" is equal to 18) .
• We pick a code from our codebook which is 93, we will add this code in our data i.e. 18+93 = 111 and then we will subtract 100 from this product and we will get 11.
• We send this 11 to the receiver, so we have done the data encoding.
• The receiver should know the same pattern as he has the codebook and it must know that it should perform the reverse action.
• It has to subtract the code 93 from 11, i.e. 11-93= -82, then will need to add 100 to it i.e. -82+100=18 and 18 is our data "A".

Now suppose, if any third party, lets name it Eve, gets the information 11, it is unable to reproduce the data unless it has the codebook and the same number. Let me inform you if we start transmitting the data and information in mass quantity, it will become easy for Eve to start predicting the codebook and how the data is being ciphered and it will be able to collect the data and make its codebook. The same method is used by hackers who try to access the data. They have supercomputers to operate such tasks and they try to reproduce the codebook through reverse engineering.

History

We will learn the historical background that how in the early generation the cryptography was functioned and ciphered.

• It's about 400 BC when a human sent data from one point to another, using the method of scytale which was called Permutations.

      so if I have a message "ABC", I can write it in a few forms such as BAC, CAB, ACB, and our receiver must know the method of our permutation, so if you want to send a message " SEND HELP" (Illustration below), You can find how the message will appear after permutation and the receiver will know how to decipher it, this pattern was known as scytale.

Ceaser Cipher Substitution

Here I interpret about Greeks, Julius Ceaser produced a cipher called substitution method. In this method, we have A to Z characters and we will stimulate a circular cycle through it. As the AB and C will be shifted at the end. So we shifted the ABCD to three places. Now we get the new encryption scheme that A is represented by D, B by E, C by F and respectively (find the pattern in the illustration). Now the receiver must know how many places A, B, C, and D have to be shifted, then he will be able to retrieve the data. This code of data was easily deciphered by a Muslim scientist, AL Kindi, however, if you look at the data, it is almost impossible to break the code of this data, but Al Kindi deciphered it with a single trick. According to him, he described that if we have a book, see how many times the character E is placed. He finds that in every hundred alphabets E holds twelve places and the T keeps 9 places then A and O and so on. If you see any book of English, you will find the same probability distribution. Suppose you have replaced E from J and you have sent the data.so the C which has the data will determine which word has been included numerous times and the probability of the letter J will be defined. The probability of the letter J will be 0.12 which makes the fraction of 12/100 then it will be able to detect that the letter E has been replaced by letter J. The same pattern will be followed by the next letter i.e. T. the C can easily decipher all the letters replacements through reverse engineering method, so Al-Kindi was the code breaker he deciphered the codes of Julius Ceaser. To break any code you are required a massive amount of encrypted data, the more you have the encrypted data the easier it will be for you to reproduce the codebook. The Eve is capable of accessing the data based on encryption it contains.

Alberti encryption disc

Let us have a look at another cipher technique which is known as Alberti encryption disc. It was founded by Leon Battista Alberti. The alphabets were placed against another disc which has different characters as well. ( illustration below), but if we rotate the upper disc and shift the Letters, all the characters will be facing different letters, for example, A will be facing e, B will be facing g, C will face k and all the alphabets face their characters respectively. The receiver should know how many times it has been shifted, whether it is shifted to three points, four points or ten points. Therefore the receiver will use the reverse engineering method and will be able to decipher your code. Suppose, if I want to send “SELL” then I need to:

• rotated the disc seven times then S will be replaced by Z,
• same as for E, I will rotate it till fourteen points, then E will be replaced by S,
• the third rotation will occur nineteen in steps for the letter L and L will be replaced by the character E,
• then again I will have to rotate it in seven steps, but this time we will have the character S in replacement of L.

Now you can view, as L wasn't represented by code A, the first L is coded by E and the second L is coded by S, which is much difficult to decipher or to reproduce, on the other hand, I need to tell the decoder or the receiver, 7, 14, 19, that you have to decode it, with this pattern. This code was broken by Charles Babbage, he pioneered that we can decode an Enigma Rotary Machine.

Enigma Rotary

Enigma Rotary encryption machine is a generator that was used in World War II, the data was encrypted in a massive quantity. You can see in the image below that the disc is used multiple times. So we use this disc multiple times and change it with our texts. Hence one side is being coded and the other side is being informed about the steps. This was decoded by Marian Rejewski. The evolution of ciphering and deciphering has been taking place equally.

One-time pad

In this era, we need a cipher technique which is indecipherable. Let me show you a simple technique which is called a one-time pad. In this technique, I have a plain text, I will convert the text into numbers through Pulaski code then I will perform a linear operation and add a random/secret key with it, the encrypted message will become a random or secret one due to this operation, and this text will be transmitted then. When this transmitted message will be received by the decoder he will already know the key, and he will perform a reverse operation to decipher the text, but wait: How the key itself will be sent to the receiver? Because it may be possible that the sender is in the USA and Receiver is in Japan, therefore the security of the key itself becomes a matter of ultimate concern. Because if the third party gets access to the key it will be able to reach all the data we are transmitting.

 How do we secure the key?

An algorithm is designed to secure the key which is called RSA, we use two keys in this pattern one key is locked by us, which is called a public key and that locked data is sent to the receiver. So we lock and encrypt the data with the public key and sent it. You will find two keys in the figure below one key is public and the other one is private. The receiver already has the private key so it can decipher the data, for example, Bob has to send the data to Alice, therefore, Alice would have two keys, one is public which everyone knows and the other one will be the private one, which is only known by Alice. Bob will attain the public key from Alice and encrypt the data through it and that encrypted data will be sent to Alice. Alice will decrypt the data through its private key, Eve cannot decrypt this data from her public key now. That is only for encryption. So once you encrypt the data you will be unable to reverse the data into its original state. Here we have two keys first one is for encryption and the other one is for decryption. Quantum Computers can find the relation between both keys The great minds presumed that the relation between the public key and the private key shouldn't be detected by third parties. So that they cannot estimate or predict the keys by getting one of them because the public key is known to everyone. Therefore it designed an irrelevant and uncorrelated pattern so our system is more secured with it, but still, there is some relation exist among the keys because we cannot produce the pure random numbers using the computer algorithms. The hackers or third parties try to find the relation between the keys and once they can access that they will easily decipher our codes, for this purpose they are required fast computers. To sum up with the idea that in upcoming computer generations the supercomputers will be performing the task of trillion years within hours. It will be a matter of minutes to decode and encodings and for this purpose, numerous agencies are storing the data which they are unable to decipher today. so that after 20 or 30 years when the Quantum computers will functioning, they will easily decode the data and find out what conversation was taking place or what data were being transmitted.

Introduction to Cyber Security

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to give you a detailed Introduction to Cyber Security. You must have noticed that whenever you are registering on any site or using any online service, you need to tap on "agree" and normally we do that without reading their privacy policy and security agreement. We have also synced our photos and contacts online and these websites keep the user data, they know about us more than we know ourselves. All our data, location, information & search history can be monitored. So in this technological era, we must be aware of our online security so that we don't get hacked. In order to do so, we need to learn Cyber Security. So, let's get started with it:

Introduction to Cyber Security

• Cyber security is the task of shielding networks and computer systems from cyber theft or attack, related to hardware, software or electronic data.

Recently, a gadget that seemed like a hand watch was introduced and it was used to notify the pulse rate, heartbeat and location to the user. That data is being synced to the websites, whether we book a hotel room, a cab or order a pizza through the apps we constantly and inherently generating the data, this data is being stored in the cloud which is a huge server that can be accessed online. Now for a hacker, it is a golden prospect to obtain the data, with the public IP addresses, access points, constant traffic of repeated data, they can produce malicious software to exploit vulnerabilities. Hackers are becoming smarter and more inventive with their malware. They can bypass a virus scan.

What is meant by Malware?

Malware stands for Malicious Software, It is a program devised to invade and attack the systems outwardly the owner's permission, It is the broad term for comprising of all distinct sorts of warnings to your systems such as spyware, Trojans horses, viruses, worms, rootkits, adware, scare ware. On the contrary, software which causes accidental damage is called a bug. 

Types of Cyber Attacks

• As you can see in the image below, some enlisted malware existed since the beginning of internet.
• Let's have a look at them one by one:

1. Phishing

They are the attack which is sent as a link to the user through the email posing a genuine party asking for the data. The users have to click on the link and enter the personal data. Over the years the phishing emails have become more sophisticated and often settle in the section of spam.

2. Password attack

A password attack can be defined as the attacker requests for the password from the user and try to crack it to gather the sensitive data and access the computer system.

3. DDoS

DDoS stands for Distributive Denial of Service, in this process, the attacker transmits a huge amount of data to the network that is making several connection requests unto the network gets trafficked and unable to function.

4. Man In the middle

There are possibilities of this type of attack when user exchanges the data online, your smartphone is connected to the website the MITM attack can obtain the data from the end-users and the entity you are communicating with. For example, a middle man can communicate with you portraying your bank and contact the bank impersonating you. Then would receive the data from both the sides and transfer it to the third parties, which can include sensitive information such as your account number, your credit or debit card number or your IBAN

5. Drive-by Downloads

A program is downloaded by the website by just visiting them through malware on that specific website. It doesn't ask for the permission of the user or to take any action.

6. Malware Advertising (Malvertising)

A malicious code threatens your computer system downloaded when you click on the bogus add.

7. Rogue software

Security software that keeps your system safe.

History of cyber attacks

Not only we as individuals are vulnerable to the attacks but the organizations or companies aren't safe either. For instance a well-known graphic software company, Adobe Photoshop was hacked despite the high-security systems and they had to go through major cyber breaches where all the sensitive data and confidentiality was compromised, eBay, AOL, Ever note were also affected by the cyber breaches. So not only individuals but the bigger organization are spontaneously being attacked by the hackers.

Protection from Cyber attacks

By reading about cyber breaches and threats to the security one must be questioning that is there any mechanisms or protocols that can provide full-proof security to the computer systems? And the answer is "Yes" and that is called cyber security. In the context of information technology, the physical and cyber security comprised of the security, the enterprises used them to protect them against the access of unauthorized companies or data centers. Information security is created to sustain the confidentiality and availability of data in a subset of cyber security. So cyber security can help counter the cyber breaches, identity theft, and aid and risk management. So when an organization has a strong function of network security and an efficient disturbance response plan then it is capable of defending and protecting the data against the attack.

What are we exactly trying to protect?

We protect ourselves against three activities and they are,

• Unauthorized Modification
• Unauthorized Access
• Unauthorized Deletion

These three terminologies are known to CIA TRAID, It is also known as the three main dependencies of security. CIA Triad is responsible for transferring confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The security policies of bigger organizations or smaller companies are based on these three sources. We will find them out respectively.

CONFIDENTIALITY

confidentiality is commensurate to privacy actions engaged to assure confidentiality are created to counter sensitive information from reaching the spies while making certain that the right people can access it. Access must be restricted to those allowed to view the data in question is as regular as well for data to be classified according to the volume and type of destruction that could be done shouldn't slip into the unintended hands. More or less stringed measures can then be implemented to those categories. Sometimes safeguarding data confidentiality may include special training for those privies to such documents, such training would typically include security jeopardies that could threaten this information, training can benefit familiarize authorized people with risk factors and how to shield against them. Further phases of training can include password and password related best practices and information above human communications methods to prevent them from twisting data handling rules with good intentions and potentially unfavorable outcomes.

INTEGRITY

Integrity includes sustaining consistency, efficiency, and trustworthiness over its intact lifecycle. Data must not be changed or altered by third parties and authorized individuals and the actions must be used to ensure this. For example in a data infringement of confidentiality, these measures include file permissions and user access controls accounts. Accounts may be used to prevent false changes and accidental deletion by authorized users becoming an obstacle. Furthermore, some means must be in place to detect any fluctuations in data that might transpire as a result of non-human generated issues, such as, electromagnetic vibrations or silver crash. Some data might involve checksums, even cryptographic checksum for verification of the integrity backup or redundancies must be prepared to reestablish affected data to its correct state.

AVAILABILITY

Availability is best guarded by austere maintaining of all hardware operating best instantly when required and maintaining an accurately functional operating system that is free of software frictions. It is also necessary to keep all the operating system upgrades producing enough transmission bandwidth and preventing the occurrence of bottlenecks are equally significant. Redundancy failover and even high availability clump can lessen severe consequences when hardware issues do occur fast. As an adaptive failure restoration is imperative for the worst-case scenario that the capacity is reliant on the existence of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan shields against data loss or interference in the connection must include. Unpredictable events such as natural disasters and files to prevent data loss from such incidents, a backup copy must be stored in a geographically secluded area, perhaps in a fire-resistant liquid safe place. Extra security equipment or software such as firewalls and proxy servers can secure us against downtimes and unreachable data due to malicious actions, such as a denial of service attacks and network intrusions. So now that we have seen what we are trying to protect, implement when trying to protect ourselves on the other hand, we should also know the ways that we protect ourselves when we are attacked by cyber systems. So the first action that we mitigate any type of intervention is to detect the malware or the cyber threat that is being currently going on in your organization. Next, we have to analyze and evaluate all the affected parties and the file systems that have been compromised and, in the end, we have to repair the whole procedure so that our organization can come back to its whole streaming state without any cyber breaches. So how it is exactly done? This can be done by considering three factors. Vulnerability, Threat and, Risk. So let me explain all of them precisely.

Vulnerability

It can be defined as a known weakness of an asset that can be misused by one or more attackers, in other words, a hidden issue that enables an intervention to be successful. For example, when an employee or a member of an organization is fired and you forget to disable the access of external accounts, change logins and remove their names from the company credit cards, this will jeopardies your business willingly or unwillingly. However, most of the vulnerabilities are exploited by the authorized attackers on a human typing on the other side of the system. Next testing for vulnerabilities is critical to assuring the flow of your systems by knowing exposed points and developing strategies to counter immediately. Here you may have some questions regarding your security vulnerabilities, for instance, Is your data backed-up and stored in a secure off-site location? Is your data is stored in the cloud? How the cloud is shielding my data from its vulnerabilities? What kind of security do you have to determine? Who can access, modify or delete information from within your organization? And the next question can pop up like what kind of antivirus protection is in use? What are the licenses current and are they running as often as needed? Also, do you have a data recovery plan in the event of vulnerability, being exploited? So these are the normal questions one asks when checking their vulnerability.

THREAT

A threat can be described as a newly created disturbance with the potential to harm a system or your whole company. There are three types of threats.

• National Threats like Earthquakes tornados, hurricanes, tsunami and floods.
• Unintentional Threat i.e. an employee mistakenly obtaining the sensitive data.
• Intentional Threats, there are many examples of intentional threats such as Malware, adware, spyware companies are the actions of disgruntled employees. To add up, worm and viruses are characterized as threats because they could potentially cause harm to your organization through exposure to a programmed intervention as opposed to executed by human beings. Although these threats are commonly outside of one's control and difficult to predict before it happens. It is requisite to take legit measures to assess intimidations systematically.

Here are some ways, make sure that your team members are informed with current drifts in cyber security so they can immediately identify new threats. They should attend IT courses and join professional associations so they can benefit from the breaking news feed, conferences, and webinars. You should also conduct a general threat estimation to determine the best approaches and protecting the systems against specific threats along with assessing different types of tech besides, forcing testing includes illustrating real-world threats to discover bollen abilities.

RISK

Risk refers to the potential to the loss and damage when a threat exploits a vulnerability. Examples including financial damage as a result of business agitation, loss of privacy, damage to reputation, legal associations and even the destruction of career or life. Risk can also be defined as the product of threat and vulnerability. You can reduce the potential for risk by engineering and executing a risk management plan, the following are the key aspects for developing your risk management strategy. First, we are required to evaluate risk and circumscribe needs, when engineering and implementing a risk assessment framework, it is crucial to prioritize the most related breaches that need to be discussed. All the frequency may differ in each organization. This level of assessment must be done regularly. Next, we also have to include a stakeholder perspective that includes the business owners as well as employees, consumers, and even merchants. All of these professionals have the potential to negatively impact the organization but they can be an asset in helping to mitigate risks at the same time. Since risk management is the key to cyber security.

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to give you a detailed Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Today I am talking about the origin of Artificial Intelligence, you will learn how it was invented and how it is getting emerged gradually in the field of science and technology. We will also discuss few AI tests and will understand its relation with neural networks. As it's my first post on AI, so I will only cover it's basics in today's lecture but in coming lectures, we will not only discuss its complex concepts but will also design different algorithms to understand its practical approach. So, let's get started with Introduction to Artificial Intelligence:

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

• John McCarthy is known as the father of Artificial Intelligence. According to him:

"Artificial Intelligence is the science and engineering of designing intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs."

I have been teaching Artificial Intelligence to engineering students for five years and I normally assign them projects at the end of their course and the one, I really enjoyed was "virtual psychiatrist", designed by a group of 5 students. You can tell that robot your symptoms/condition and it will tell you the cure and measures. During it's evaluation, the virtual Psychiatrist asked "What's your problem?" I replied, "I am fine" but still it suggested numerous cures and several therapies. I laughed and told the students that this software will not qualify for the Turing test. Now, you must be thinking, what's a Turing Test, so let's have a look at it:

What is the Turing Test?

In 1950, a great computer scientist, Alan Turning, wrote a research paper and provide a mechanism to determine, whether machines actually think or not. To examine it, he gave an experiment, which is called the Turing Test. Below is the illustration of this experiment followed by the details:

• As you can see in above figure, we have:
  • A as an artificially intelligent software/hardware,
  • C as an invigilator,
  •  and B as a human.
• C is supposed to ask different questions from both the agents i.e. A & B, and determine which one is AI software and which one is human.
• A is supposed to deceive the Human Questioner i.e. C and make it believe that it's a human.
• If C is failed to detect that which one is an AI software among A & B, then this software will be called as an "intelligent software" because it answered those questions, to which only a human is supposed to answer.
• This test is called the Turing test.

The 90's kids are very well aware of the software known as ELIZA, which was created by Joseph Weizenbaum (from 1964 to 1966) at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. This was a psychological software and could give us the therapy, when we would ask for it (I remember being in grade eighth and asking her how to propose a boy, who was my crush back then, poor me) because it was fed by MIT, but if I would ask her the recipe of cookies, she definitely wouldn't tell me.

• SHAKEY was the first artificial intelligent robot, whose job was to pick the product and then drop it on a specific spot, but again if I ask the recipe of the cookies, it won't tell me. :D

Coming to the era of 1980s, when Garry Kasparov was the world champion in chess and was defeated by a software called DEEP BLUE, this software is designed by IBM and you will be amazed by knowing that it was the first time that a human was defeated in chess by a software. But again if you ask Deep Blue how to make cookies, you know what the answer would be! The reason is that those robots which were created in the past centuries were Rule-based bots or Software, they were given rules, statements and logic but if we ask questions from other domains, they won't be able to answer them, hence although those software were highly intellectual but they don't belong to AI category.

How Human Brain works ?

At an early age or the very beginning, shape of the human brain was different, but as this specie started evolving, it developed the learning capacity, got smarter and intelligent. We have a very complicated connection network (bellow is the image) in our brain which is built by trillions of cells, the smallest cell of the brain is called "Neuron" and it also contains trillions of connections, so if we would able to utilize the processing of brain in software, the would become intelligent too, Artificially Intelligent. For example, if you look closely at the figure above, this is the basic unit of cell where dendrites, which provide connections, then a cell in the center (nucleus) where decisions are being made and then there is an axon cell, which is responsible to give the decision as an output. Same as we make a flowchart where we have inputs, decision-making centers, and we have an output based on that decision. So, if we connect those intelligent unit cells many times, we can design a Neural Network, which is also the hot topic of the research, nowadays. The Neural Network

• Now, you must have the basic idea of what neurons are, so now, let's have a look at a simple neural network, as shown in below figure:

• The first layer of the neural network is the input layer.
• The second layer is the hidden layer.
• And finally, we have the third layer, the output layer.

Single input of a neural network can be connected to multiple stages.

Examples of AI software

Let's understand neural network with the help of a simple project.

• Once I have designed a project in MATLAB, where I need to detect Horse in different images.
• So, I have added a lot of horse pictures in different postures & angles in database.
• Then using those images, I have trained my software to differentiate between horse and other animals.
• Finally, once I have completed my horse recognition algorithm, then I tested it with around 100 new images of animals.
• It has recognized horse in 80 images but was unable to detect in remaining 20 images.

So my point here is, efficiency of an AI software depends on its algorithm. You can achieve 100% results as well as we human get from our brain, we can quite easily recognize the horse in any image. But again, let's say if the image is taken from a distance, then may be you can also get confused. Nowadays, we have so much data, also known as big data, so if we provide such data to our software, then it will be able to learn and hence its intelligence will be increased, so there's a 99 percent chance that it will tell us how to make a COOKIE! :D So, when we reached to neural network or deep learning, our software will behave smartly.

• I will take you to the software IBM WATSON, which is designed by IBM and this software stood first in America's largest quiz show, Jeopardy, which was being played with the top two champions. A software won $100000mn, whoa!
• Let’s talk about Alpha Go, this software beaten the champion of that time.
• It will be an injustice, if we don't talk about Eugene Goostman, he has designed the first-ever software, which depicts a 13-year-old boy and it has qualified the Turing test. Though there are controversies about it, this is the only software that managed to convince 33 invigilators out of hundred that IT’S A HUMAN.

Author's Remarks

IQ Level of a human lies between 70 to 130, but imagine a software having the IQ level of 100,000, then will human intelligence be able to counter it?. In an Interview, the well renowned AI robot Sophia tells the host while countering a question about a bad future with robots that you have been reading too much Elon Musk and watching so many Hollywood movies about the robots but if you are nice to me I am nice to you, treat me as a smart input-output system. But let me tell you, many scientists (especially Elon musk and Stephen hawking) in the world have predicted that AI will take over the human race and that will be catastrophic. The question is how we are preparing ourselves to counter it. Are we writing the death of our generations with our own hands? Or we think that they will live peacefully with us like our friends, neighbors or relatives? Are there any chances that they won't dominate us & will only obey us? Or we need to find a way that technological advancement keeps on progressing but stays under control. So, that was all for today. I hope you have enjoyed today's tutorial. We have discussed the basics of Artificial Intelligence today. In coming lecture, we will cover more complex topics on AI. Till then take care & have fun !!! :)

Majority Cloud Users Have Suffered a Data Breach

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. Organizations are increasingly adopting cloud computing. It provides a number of benefits, including decreased cost and overhead and increased scalability and flexibility. However, the cloud is not an ideal solution for every organization and use case. As companies continue to store sensitive data in the cloud, data security is becoming a significant concern. For many organizations who have moved to the cloud without implementing proper security controls, sensitive data is being leaked or stolen from their cloud environments.

Challenges of Cloud Security

While many organizations are moving to cloud deployments, they often struggle with securing their new investment. Each cloud represents a new environment to operate and secure, and the organization’s security responsibilities are determined by the cloud shared responsibility model. Since many organizations operate multiple clouds, securing an entire cloud deployment becomes an even more complex challenge.

A New Operating Environment

Many organizations, when they move to a cloud environment, treat it as similar to their existing on-premises deployment. Applications “lifted” to the cloud are often identical to the versions running on-premises, which can create inefficiencies when optimizations and workflows that worked on-premises do not translate well to the cloud. Moving to the cloud without adapting to the cloud can also create security issues for an organization. In most on-premises environments, internal applications are not accessible from the public Internet except through the organization’s firewall and other cybersecurity defenses. In the cloud, which is not located behind these same defenses, a vulnerability in an application could be potentially exploited by an external attacker when it may not have been accessible before.

The Cloud Shared Responsibility Model

A common challenge among security teams is a lack of understanding of the cloud shared responsibility model. In an on-premises deployment, an organization owns their entire infrastructure stack, giving them full visibility into it and control over its configuration. In cloud environments, an organization is leasing infrastructure from their cloud service provider (CSP), meaning that they share security responsibility with their provider. For the 73% of security professionals who struggle to understand the cloud shared responsibility model, securing data in their organizations’ cloud deployments can be a challenge. This model defines which security responsibilities belong to the CSP, customer, or are shared between them. A lack of understanding of these responsibilities and the tools that a CSP provides to secure a cloud deployment can leave an organization open to attack.

A Multitude of Cloud Services

For security professionals struggling to secure a single cloud deployment, the fact that most organizations have a multi-cloud deployment only complicates the issue. For each cloud environment, the security team needs to learn how to properly configure the security controls provided by the CSP. Since these security controls vary from CSP to CSP, the learning curve for securing an organization’s entire range of cloud resources can be extremely steep. And this only covers the cloud-based resources that the organization’s security team has authorized and has visibility and control over. In many organizations, employees trying to more efficiently perform their job responsibilities may move sensitive data to the cloud without authorization. These cloud resources make it easy to share data with other authorized parties through sharing links, but these same links (which make the data accessible to anyone with the URL) also make the data much more vulnerable to being breached.

The Cloud and Data Protection

One of the clearest indicators of the challenges of securing the cloud is the number of cloud users who have been the victim of a data breach. Over half of companies with a cloud deployment have breached sensitive data through their cloud services. However, this high rate of data breaches is not surprising considering how organizations use their cloud deployments:

• 26% of companies store sensitive data in the cloud.
• 49% of data in the cloud is eventually shared.
• 10% of data shared in the cloud uses a public link.
• 91% of cloud users do not encrypt data in the cloud.

The cloud provides a great deal of valuable functionality to its users. However, it also represents a significant threat to an organization’s data security. A platform located outside of the organization’s network that is accessible via the public Internet and has built-in collaboration capabilities that easily enable insecure data sharing make it extremely easy for sensitive data stored there to be breached.

Securing Your Cloud Deployment

When securing a cloud deployment, especially one spanning multiple different CSPs’ platforms, it is important to design and deploy a cloud-focused security strategy. While CSPs commonly offer configuration settings to secure data and applications stored on their infrastructure, the available settings vary from provider to provider, making it difficult to enforce consistent security policies and controls across an organization’s entire network environment. Securing the cloud requires cloud-focused and cloud-native solutions. As many organizations use the cloud to host web applications, a cloud-native web application firewall (WAF) is essential for protecting these cloud-based resources. Organizations also require data security solutions to ensure that data is properly encrypted in the cloud and monitored to ensure that it is not being inappropriately uploaded to the cloud or shared using cloud collaboration tools. With over half of cloud users experiencing a data breach, protecting data in the cloud is a serious problem. Any organization using cloud computing must evaluate how they are currently securing their cloud resources and deploy defenses to close any gaps endangering their sensitive and valuable data.

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to share a new IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus. Proximity Sensors are not available in Proteus and we are sharing its Proteus library for the first time. So far, I have only shared Proteus Libraries of digital sensors but today I am sharing an analog sensor, so too excited about it. In the next few days, I will keep on sharing Proteus Libraries of different analog sensors, so if you want any sensor in Proteus, then let me know in the comments. IR Proximity Sensors are used to detect hurdles/obstacles placed in their path. They are normally used on robots for path navigation and obstacle avoidance. So, let's have a look at How to download and simulate IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus: Note:

• You should also have a look at:
  • Infrared Sensor Library for Proteus.
  • Infrared Tracker Sensor Library for Proteus.

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

• First of all, download this IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus, by clicking the below button:

IR Proximity Sensor Library for Proteus

• It's a .zip file, which will have two folders in it i.e. Proteus Library & Proteus Simulation.
• Open Proteus Library Folder, it will have 3 files, named as:
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.IDX
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.LIB
  • IRProximitySensorTEP.HEX
• Place these three files in the Library folder of your Proteus software.

Note:

• If you are unable to add a Library in Proteus 7 or 8 Professional, then you should have a look at How to add a new Library in Proteus 8.

• After adding these library files, open your Proteus ISIS software, or restart it if it's already open.
• In the component's search box, make a search for IR Proximity.
• If you have installed the Library successfully, then you will get similar results, as shown in the below figure:

• As you can see in the above figure that we have two IR Proximity sensors.
• When it comes to functionality, both sensors are exactly the same, they just have different colors.
• Now simply place these IR Proximity Sensors in your Proteus workspace, as shown in the below figure:

• As you can see in the above figure, I have placed both of these IR Proximity sensors in my Proteus workspace.
• This sensor has 4 pins in total, which are:
  • V ( Vcc ): We need to provide +5V here.
  • G ( Gnd ): We need to provide Ground here.
  • O ( Out ): It's an analog output signal from the sensor.
  • TestPin: It's solely for simulation purposes, we don't have this pin in a real IR sensor.
• As we can't actually place an obstacle in front of this sensor in Proteus simulation, that's why I have used this TestPin.
• If we change the value of TestPin from 0V to 5V then that means the obstacle is coming close.

Adding Sensor's Hex File

• Lastly, we need to add the Sensor's Hex File, which we have downloaded and placed in the Library folder.
• So, in order to do that, right-click on your IR sensor and then click on Edit Properties.
• You can also open the Properties Panel by double-clicking on the sensor.
• Here, in the Properties Panel, you will find Sensor's Hex File Section.
• Click on the Browse button and add IRProximitySensorTEP.HEX file here, as shown in the below figure:

• After adding the Sensor's Hex File, click on the OK button to close the Properties Panel.
• Our IR Proximity Sensor is now ready to simulate in Proteus ISIS.
• Let's design a small circuit, in order to understand the working of this IR Proximity Sensor.

Proteus Simulation of IR Proximity Sensor

• First of all, let's design a simple circuit, where I am attaching a variable resistor with the Test Pin & I am adding a Voltmeter at the Output pin, as shown in the below figure:

• Using this variable resistance, we can change the voltage on Test Pin.
  • If TestPin has 0V, means we don't have any obstacle in front of the sensor.
  • If TestPin has 5V, implies that something's placed right in front of the sensor.
• So, let's have a look at How the output value will change when we change the voltage on TestPin.
• At the Output Pin, I have placed an LC filter, which is also not required in real hardware implementation.
• But I have to use this filter in Proteus Simulation, as Proteus provides the Peak to Peak value and we need to convert that value into Vrms.
• So, if you are working on a real sensor then you don't need to add this inductor or capacitor.
• Now, let's run this Proteus Simulation and if you have done everything correctly, then you will get similar results:

• I have shown three different scenarios in the above figure:
  • In the first image, the variable resistor is at 100%, thus providing 0V at TestPin. That's why we got 0V at Output and hence no obstacle detected.
  • In the second image, the variable resistor is around 50%, thus providing around 2.5V at TestPin. So, we are getting around 2.5V at Output and hence obstacle detected in close range.
  • In the third image, the variable resistor is around 0%, thus providing around 5V at TestPin. So, we are getting around 5V at Output and hence obstacle's just in front of the sensor.
• I have placed this simulation in the above zip file, so play with it and don't forget to add the Sensor's Hex File.

So, that was all for today. I hope this IR Proximity Sensor Library will help engineering students in simulating their course projects. I will interface this IR sensor with Arduino and other Microcontrollers and will share their simulations. If you have any issues, then ask in the comments and I will help you out.

How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance?

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance? Today we're going to discuss something that everyday users and new website owners sometimes find confusing i.e. bandwidth. How much bandwidth is enough, and what happens when you have too little. Is it possible to squeeze data through if it's insufficient? Can you get more? Before we get into those questions, it helps to explain what bandwidth is and how it works.

What is Bandwidth?

Simply put, bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can travel through your internet connection at any given time. For example, a standard gigabit Ethernet connection has a bandwidth of 1000 Mpbs (megabits per second), which means that about 125 megabytes of data can travel through your connection per second. You should note that a megabit and a megabyte are not the same thing. Megabits are the speed data travels within your connection, where magabytes refers to the size of a file. However, having high bandwidth doesn't necessarily equal speed, just capacity. The type and size of files is what determines how fast and efficient your pages load and how well the site functions overall.

How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Performance?

Inadequate bandwidth affects website performance in several ways, including:

• Download speed, which is the amount of time it takes to download a page or file
• Latency, which is the amount of time it rakes a query to travel from the browser to the server
• Bounce rates, which is the rate at which people visit your site and leave immediately
• User experience (UX), or the amount of enjoyment or usefulness guests experience when visiting your website

All of these things tie together to determine your position in the search engine results (SERPs) and inline reputation. Google and your potential customers take these metrics very seriously, and so should you.

How Much Bandwidth Do You Need?

When determining your internet requirements, you want to have enough space to create new projects without affecting core function or draining resources. Text-only websites require very little bandwidth. You can usually get away with about 25 Mbps. The more bells and whistles you add, the more you’re going to need to depend upon the allotted resources of your hosting service and ISP. However, content on your website isn't the only thing that affects site speed. Ads and other external content play their part in slowing you down. In order to calculate the amount of bandwidth to keep your traffic happy and pages fast and efficient, measure the average size of your web pages in kilobytes, multiply that figure by the average number of visitors per month, and multiply the result by the average number of page views per visitor. That equation should give you a pretty good estimate, but bandwidth can be eaten up by other factors that you will need to control in order to get the level of data transfer you're paying for.

How to Optimize Your Bandwidth

Changes in layout, such as adding a new theme or features, content type, traffic flow, and scalability also affect bandwidth, speed, and latency. Even bad neighbors can affect your website performance if you're on a shared hosting plan. When you're building a website, it's essential to test it to determine what components, if any, are affecting speed and latency. A decent hosting service should include speed tests as a feature in your plan, If not, there are various plugins for web builders like WordPress as well as some standalone testing tools. One of the best is Pingdom, and it's free. Outside of buying enough bandwidth to cover your requirements, there are several ways that you can tweak your website and improve performance.

• Enable caching: When you enable caching, the user-side browser won't have to keep loading your page every time someone visits your page.
• Optimize images: Bigger images eat up bandwidth. Reduce file sizes, convert files to Jpeg, or consider using only one featured image rather than a gallery.
• Move some media offsite: Consider linking video thumbnails to Your YouTube channel and create a gallery that's accessible from your Instagram. Get rid of any gifs or other cute but unnecessary animations, and don't use flash.
• Optimize HTML and other coding: Minify JS and CSS code, get rid of HTML that isn't needed, remove comments, and eliminate any unnecessary tags or white space.

With the above tips and information, you should be able to create a website that's functional, fast, and aesthetically pleasing.

Final Thoughts

The bandwidth requirements for website hosting are not the same as what you would need from an internet service provider for routine browsing or even gaming and steaming at home. While it's inconvenient to have your browser freeze or system crash at the critical part of a movie, having this happen while customers are trying to place an order will adversely affect your whole business. In addition to speed and reliability, your website should be secure. Using plugins and antivirus/anti-malware apps is a start, but you can further harden your website by installing a VPN on your router and any device you use to access your website. This is an especially good practice for developers, who often require stricter privacy during app production and may have multiple clients or team members accessing works in progress. Just remember to use security best practices like setting permissions according to role, use two factor authentication to limit access, remove the default login, and set parameters to lock the login after a small number of failed attempts and you should be fine. Bandwidth determines how fast your website performs and can affect reliability. In order to make the best hosting and design decisions, you need to know how much bandwidth is adequate for optimal performance with room to scale or handle unexpected traffic spikes without crashing or freezing.

Engineering Risk Management: How Professionals Approach Potential Pitfalls

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, we will have a look at Engineering Risk Management in detail. Risk management is a process used by companies to identify and avoid potential costs, schedule as well as technical/performance risks to a system. Once that is done, a proactive and structured approach is taken to be able to manage the number of negative impacts it may have to a company, respond immediately upon their occurrence and identify potential causes as to why such a thing happened. In other words, risk management involves minimizing potential risks before they occur throughout the life of a project or a product. And it’s not a one-time process, it involves a continuous approach to anticipating and averting an engineering risk so that a project isn’t adversely affected. The definitions, goals, and methods of risk management vary in the context of security, engineering, project management, Financial portfolios, public health, and safety, or industrial processes. To make things less complicated, let’s go over exactly how a risk management process works:

Risk? ?Management? ?Process?

The process of risk management involves the following steps:

• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk mitigation
• Making a plan
• Risk monitoring

Risk Identification

The first step in the engineering risk management process is risk identification. The aim of this process is to obviously identify potential and or possible risks to a product or project. This is done by examining the projects, processes as well as requirements to identify and document those risks. Some Industries end companies established risk checklists based on experience from previous projects. These checklists are very useful to the project team and project manager in determining the risks on the checklist and expanding the team’s thinking. Past experiences can be very valuable resources and identifying possible risks on projects. Another method in identifying potential risks involves identifying the sources of the risks by category. Some potential risk categories include:

• Cost
• Technical
• Client
• Schedule
• Weather
• Contractual
• Political
• Financial
• People
• Environmental

Risk Analysis

Once the risks have been identified, the next step in the process is engineering risk analysis. This involves systematically evaluating each of the risks that have been identified and approved in order to estimate the chances of occurrence and consequences of the occurrence. Measuring the risks can either be simple like when it concerns the value of a lost building, or even difficult or impossible like when it comes to the probability of an unlikely event that would occur in the future. There is no best approach for a certain risk category. Risk analysis approaches are sometimes lumped into quantitative and qualitative methods. There are some risk events that are more likely to occur than others, and the cost of each risk varies greatly. That’s why it’s important to make the best-educated guess as possible so that proper implementation of the risk management plan can be prioritized. To learn more about how you can make a proper plan to avoid injuries and other adverse impacts, click here.

Risk Mitigation

Now that the risk has been identified and analyzed, the company constructs a risk mitigation strategy, which falls into four of the following main categories:

Risk Avoidance

This means making another type of strategy with a high chance of success but I don’t much deeper cost. This process usually involves using existing technologies other than new ones, even if the new methods may prove to have better results and lower costs. Avoiding might also me preventing risks, but it also means missing out on possible gains as well, such as more profits and low cost.

Risk-Sharing

This is when organizations partner with others to share the responsibility of any risk that may occur. Most companies that work on International projects, reduce legal, labor, political, and other types of risks by making a joint venture with a company within that nation.

Risk Reduction

This is when a company invests funds to reduce a project’s risks. A project manager could hire an expert to review a project’s technical plans or cost estimate to boost confidence in the plan as well as reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring.

Risk Transfer

This means that the risks involved with a project are shifted to another party. One example of a risk-transferring method is by purchasing insurance on particular items.

Making? ?A? ?Plan?

Now comes the part where you make a plan and choose the most suitable countermeasures or controls to reduce the severity of each risk. This includes having plans developed for high, medium, and low-level risks. In other words, you and your team need to develop a contingency plan when a potential risk is likely to occur and could very well impede the chances of success for that particular project or goal. For example, the risk of being struck by truck drivers can be averted by taking the train to transport essential equipment for the project.

Risk Monitoring?

Lastly, there is risk monitoring which can also be known as engineering risk assessment. This helps us evaluate a risk handling activity’s effectiveness against established metrics and provide us with feedback on other risk management process steps. Monitoring may also provide us with the means to update our risk-mitigating plans, where we can develop additional mitigating strategies and preventive measures.