As science gains ground, fewer students opting for MBA, engineering

An engineering degree followed by an MBA is often been seen as the most successful career trajectory in India. This belief might be losing ground, shows an HT analysis of a National Statistical Office (NSO) report on education which was released in July. In fact, general courses such as humanities, sciences and commerce are now becoming more popular, a trend experts attribute to a growing gap between the skills professional degrees impart and what is needed in the job market.

The NSO released the findings of its difference between computer engineering and computer science survey on Social Consumption of Education in India last month. A comparison with a similar report from 2014 shows that management and engineering courses have seen the biggest proportionate fall in their share of students. For management, this has almost halved, while engineering has suffered a 22% decline. Science courses have registered the biggest increase during this period. Overall, general courses have seen a 6.3 percentage point increase between 2014 and 2017-18, while the share of students going to professional courses has declined by the same amount.

New rules of networking for start-ups in a post-pandemic world

According to a recent study, for 78 percent of all startups, networking is key. It’s been effectively proven to be a great way to form collaborations, access talent, break into new markets, enhance products and form life-long partnerships. In a pre-pandemic world, we saw thousands of events, collectives across ecosystems fostering just that, and it worked! But how do startups today continue to leverage the impact of networking? With the world still under lockdown in most parts and rapid adoption of going remote-first, the rules of traditional networking have been overhauled.  How entrepreneurs can navigate through these new rules and make the most of it:

Adapt to the new normal: Most networking entities have chosen to go online and have found a way to ensure that the value proposition gets translated. Moving online has actually helped people network more effectively as dedicated sessions, one-on-one coaching and organised time-slots make way. Find platforms that work for you and commit to engaging with them on a regular basis. What’s great is that since the overheads of offline networking have been taken away, you can be part of multiple such initiatives simultaneously.

Tap uncharted territory:  One of the biggest advantages of moving online for networking is access to global networks. Offline global networks/events often posted challenges such as finances, timing or logistics, all of this has been solved for largely with the advent of remote-led engagement. This is an ideal time to tap into how much do computer scientists make across global ecosystems that are available via virtual mediums.

3 Tips for Engineering Students to Find Success

No matter what career you pursue, earning an engineering degree is no small feat. Like all academic fields, engineering comes with its fair share of complications and struggles you’ll have to overcome. Fortunately, you’re not alone. Whether you’re a rising freshman picking your major or a seasoned student brushing up on your skills between semesters, there will always be classmates and colleagues who can understand and offer advice. As you prepare for the fall semester, keep your head up and remember these helpful tips for engineering students to find success.

Connections can get you far in any field. As soon as you start meeting other engineering students and professionals, start establishing lasting relationships. Your professors are a great place to start. Build a connection with them beyond the classroom. You might be surprised by how many amazing resources your professors can give you throughout your career. You can also build your network through online resources such as jobs with computer science degree. Be sure to seek out engineering clubs and other resources on campus as well. Building a strong network early on can make your entire career more rewarding—and more enjoyable.

Violet Defense Expands Its Engineering Team

 Violet Defense is proud to announce and welcome Michael Halter, Frank Manley, and Don Richards to its Engineering team. Halter will be joining as the Director of Engineering and Product Development, where he will oversee all aspects of product design, development, testing, and manufacturing. Manley will serve as the Senior Program Manager, supporting product development and quality assurance processes with the company's contract manufacturers. Richards will be serving as Mechanical Staff Engineer.

Halter brings with him 20+ years of technical leadership in Aerospace, Defense and Industrial markets, computer science vs software engineering, sustaining engineering, test engineering and operations. Prior to joining Violet Defense, Michael was Vice President Engineering and Operations with Duos Technologies, a global provider of advanced technologies, including integrated smart Command and Control centers. Halter spent over 15 years in the Aerospace industry, directing engineering for leading firms, such as Kaman Precision Products, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and C&D Aerospace. 

From the Desk: Engineering and Technology dean shares how COVID-19 challenges are being met

The engineering and technology profession has a distinguished and proud history of responding to crises through innovation and creativity under multiple constraints, including time.

A classic example is the challenges NASA faced to bring the crew of Apollo 13 home alive after an explosion that resulted in the loss of oxygen due to a major system failure, putting the astronauts' lives in jeopardy unless a solution was designed and deployed very quickly.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented analogous challenges for health care workers as they strive to treat patients. One critical area faced by Indiana University Health and other health care systems was contingency planning to provide enough ventilators to patients who might need them. Thanks to the outstanding relationship between the School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI and IU Health, our faculty were ready to respond when IU Health reached out for assistance with creative solutions.

School of Engineering and Technology dean David RussomannoView print quality image
David Russomanno. Photo courtesy of the School of Engineering and Technology
IU Health requested an initial design and fabrication of components by the School of Engineering and Technology that would be able to serve 100 patients with 50 ventilators, along with the capability to provide more components proportional to demand as part of surge planning.

Paul Yearling, a clinical assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology, along with other faculty members from the Department of Engineering Technology, reverse-engineered, redesigned and fabricated ventilator parts and other critical electrical and mechanical components required to split a ventilator's function to serve two patients if necessary.

An engineering solution to achieve the same functionality with half of the originally designed capability, in this case ventilators, was reminiscent in many ways to the creativity required with Apollo 13 to provide oxygen for the astronauts after the major system failure.

In addition, given Yearling's well-established relationship with IU Health, he was also able to rapidly start up and lead the production to 3D-print much-needed personal protective equipment, or PPE, as a backup for IU Health.

And the School of Engineering and Technology's contributions do not end there.

Professor of electrical and computer engineering Stanley Chien, using facilities provided by the Transportation and Autonomous Systems Institute at IUPUI along with facilities provided by IUPUI's energy, mechanical and computer science vs software engineering engineering programs, fabricated intubation boxes to protect health care clinicians from virus-laden aerosols often resulting from intubation procedures. Such a just-in-time fabrication was particularly helpful for some rural and regional hospitals in the Midwest that did not have adequate personal protective equipment.

In addition, four teams led by faculty in mechanical and energy engineering worked diligently to complete innovative ventilator designs and created rapid prototypes ready for testing. An ambu-bag-style ventilator was created by Jaime Arcos, a former visiting scholar at IUPUI, in close collaboration with associate professor Andres Tovar.

Mechanical Engineering Supply Chains

The mechanical engineering industry is feeling the consequences of the corona pandemic with increasing force.  A very recent survey by VDMA, the German association for the mechanical engineering industry, was answered by 965 member companies and clearly shows this.  The share of companies whose operations are affected rose from 60 to 84 percent within two weeks.  Almost every second company affected (45 percent) suffers from “serious” or “noticeable” disruptions along the supply chain.  Only 5 percent have been spared so far.  For example, parts and components that were ordered in Asia a few weeks ago did not arrive at the local plants.  In addition, there are also problems with European and German suppliers.

According to the latest survey, supply chain disruptions are particularly prevalent in Italy (75 percent of those affected), Germany (55 percent), China (51 percent), France (36 percent) and the USA (25 percent). “However, the situation in China and South Korea seems to be easing slightly.  In addition, many mechanical engineering companies report a significant increase in orders from their Chinese customers”, explains how to become a computer engineer chief economist Dr. Ralph Wiechers.

Reduction of Investment Projects

In the meantime, machine builders have also become much more pessimistic about the expected loss in sales.  Almost 96 percent of companies expect decline in sales, which they will no longer be able to make up for in the remainder of the year.  A good 60 percent of these put these declines at 10 to 30 percent.  In order to compensate for these, three quarters of the machine builders surveyed have already made capacity adjustments, mainly via working time accounts, but also in the form of hiring freezes and short-time work.

Why behaviour-based IDS/IPS is more effective than traditional signature-based IDS/IPS

Imagine you could stop a person committing a heinous crime before they had even attempted to. Would you?

This may not be possible in the physical world, but using the LucidView approach, it most certainly is in the digital world.

Behaviour-based intrusion detection and prevention analyses traffic patterns and behaviour.  While this might sound like technical mumble-jumble, it’s not, and it's extremely effective at identifying behaviour that is anomalous or deviant and poses a security threat to your network and, more importantly, mitigating the intrusion prevention system vs.intrusion detection system.

Deviant is a psychological term. However, for the purposes of this article, its definition is spot on. Deviant behaviour refers to a behaviour that does not conform to social norms and values. Sociologists and psychologists will go on to list a number of signs that are used to determine deviant behaviour and categorise patients based on what is a socially accepted norm and what is not, and often, a diagnosis will be given and the patient treated. And while there are many debates as to the accuracy and methodology used here, the theory itself can be effectively applied when it comes to proactively protect your networks and devices from malware, ransomware, DDOS attacks and zero-day attacks.

Why is this definition important in terms of cybersecurity?  Well, imagine for a moment that we could watch a human being's behaviour in its very early stages, and conclude at that point this human has all the characteristics of a sociopath and will most likely turn to crime at a later stage, if not dealt with immediately.  We would be able to reduce crime proactively.