The Baylor Global Health Student Network plans to observe Global Health Day on April 7 to raise awareness about global health. Graphic courtesy of Global Health Student Network.
By Luke Araujo | Staff Writer
The Global Health Student Network (GHSN) is putting a focus on Global Health Day, a national holiday on April 7 spreading awareness about global health.
TheGHSNis a new initiative under the Baylor Global Health Academy in the Office of Engaged Learning. The GHSN helps studentsconnect with global service opportunities andsuppliesspeaker events, research, workshops and resources for Baylor students.
Dallas senior Esther Jeong and Canada senior CelineRukiidi,co-presidents of GHSN, said the mission of GHSN istocreate a multidisciplinary hub for Baylor students to actively seek and grow their passions for global health through the different avenues of discussion, research and projects
“Global health work is prolific across many departments and disciplines at Baylor,” Rukiidi said. “Therefore, the vision of this initiative is to be the connection point to all these ongoing activities.”
GHSN undergraduate student members are expected to attend biweekly journal clubs and general meetings where the network hosts a variety of faculty speakers to educate attendees on their research and life stories in the field of global health.
“For the next academic year, we will expect every average member of the student network to be part of a sphere led by one of our student leaders,” Jeong said. “During sphere meetings, students will be able to participate in network projects, global health discussions and be mentored by our graduate students and faculty mentors.”
San Antonio junior Gabriela Cruz-Mattos, annual events director of GHSN, said its Global Health Day event is a way for the initiative to spread its message on campus.
“It is about showing the importance of the environment on a person’s well-being,” Cruz-Mattos said. “The focus is on pollution and climate change, how those things affect someone’s health and why they need to be emphasized so that we pay attention to how our planet affects our health.”
While the event is expected to be small in scale, Cruz-Mattos said it is still significant in the context of the new organization.
“Along with Global Health Day, I am organizing Global Health Week in September,” Cruz-Mattos said. “There are going to be a lot of different things going on that week.”
Cruz-Mattos said the topic of global health is relevant to everyone, regardless of one’s major or career path.
“It is a great place to start learning and hearing from people,” Cruz-Mattos said. “Anyone who wants to come is welcome, and we ask them to come so they can see what global health is about at Baylor.”
Since it first released a little over a month ago, players have actively discovered a multitude of content within Elden Ring. From weapons and armor sets, to meticulously detailed locations, to optional boss fights, Elden Ring has a lot to offer its player base in terms of how the game can be individually approached. However, those looking to optimize armor based purely on stats might end up with a strange-looking player character.
One of the hallmark features of FromSoftware titles is the variance in armor sets. Each piece of armor possesses individual stats that vary depending on the equipment in question. While titles like Bloodborne tend to have much more aesthetically pleasing armor sets, Elden Ring features many armor sets that are reminiscent to sets featured in the Dark Souls series. As one player recently found out, mismatching armor sets can make the player character look absolutely bizarre.
Over on Reddit, a user named Craft_zeppelin posted a screenshot of their in-game character wearing a mismatched set of armor, complete with a pig mask and a gigantic piece of torso armor shaped like a pot. If not for certain aesthetic characteristics and set decorations in the background, this likely would have been mistaken for the Winged Night armor in Dark Souls 3.
For how ridiculous this character might look, this is honestly something that players should expect when trying to optimize armor, especially when it comes to different kinds of builds. Therefore, there will be innate sets of armor and weapons geared towards certain builds, whether that's magic builds, intelligent builds, or faith builds.
It's amazing to see just how much popularity Elden Ring has achieved in such a short timeframe. It could simply be due to how much hype Elden Ring received in the years leading up to its release or the involvement that George R.R. Martin has had with the story of Elden Ring. Either way, several players have certainly been enjoying their time with the game, as evidenced by all of these different stat builds.
In any case, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for Elden Ring going forward. While there have been rumors about potential DLC for Elden Ring, nothing has been confirmed yet. It's also important for fans to keep in mind that not every FromSoftware game has received paid DLC, such as games like Demon's Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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A network of West African Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covers key sites used by green turtles, new research shows.
The RAMPAO network runs along the coast of seven countries, from Cape Verde to Sierra Leone, protecting vital habitats for many species.
The new study tracked 45 female green turtles from Poilão Island, in Guinea-Bissau's Bijagós Archipelago, which hosts the largest population in the Eastern Atlantic.
The tracked turtles were found to spend most of their time during nesting and foraging periods inside the MPA network.
However, just 21% of key "migration corridors" are protected.
The study was carried out by a team including the University of Exeter (UK), MARE -- ISPA, Instituto Universitário (Portugal), the Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Areas (Guinea Bissau) and the Banc d'Arguin National Park (Mauritania). Additionally, youngsters of local Bijagós villages were engaged in fieldwork activities.
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"RAMPAO is a great example of an MPA network, with good connections between the MPAs and strong links between the organisations that oversee them," said Dr Rita Patrício, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, and MARE.
"West Africa has very rich marine ecosystems. Conservation efforts initially focussed on key habitats, such as seagrass, mangroves, estuaries and intertidal flats, which are used by populations of global importance of coastal and seabirds, and by charismatic species such as humpback dolphins, West African manatees and green turtles.
"Our study is part of wider efforts to discover where species are distributed in the region, to ultimately find the most effective ways of protecting them.
"Green turtles have complex life-cycles, involving large-scale migrations between breeding and feeding sites.
"It is essential to understand the connectivity between these areas, to estimate the level of protection, and to ensure that conservation efforts on breeding sites are not cancelled out by lack of protection at feeding sites, and vice-versa.
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"In the case of green turtles, our study shows the MPA network in the region covers almost all marine areas used during the nesting period and most feeding areas too. This is hugely encouraging.
"Our finding that most key corridors used by the turtles currently fall outside the MPA network suggests there is an opportunity to increase protection even further."
During the nesting period, turtles spent an average of 95% of their time within the limits of the MPA network, and among the 35 turtles successfully tracked into the foraging period, 28 of them used waters within MPAs.
Key migration corridors were mostly located close to the shore, where regionally important fisheries activities can make effective marine protection more challenging.
Dr Patrício said green turtle populations in this region "look stable" -- but this is "conservation-dependent."
"If you remove the conservation effort, the population could drop very quickly," she said.
The United Nations global target to protect 10% of the world's ocean by 2020 was not achieved, but the coverage of protected areas is increasing -- and there are now calls to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.
Balancing marine protection with the needs of human coastal communities is vital, and Dr Patricio said a key goal is to bring all parties together to improve conservation in a way that works for people and ecosystems.
Funders of the research included the MAVA Foundation, the Regional Partnership for Coastal and Marine Conservation (PRCM) and the La Caixa Foundation.
The paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, is entitled: "Green turtles highlight connectivity across a regional marine protected area network in West Africa."
Hackers made off with approximately $620 million worth of cryptocurrency from a network used to process in-game transactions for Axie Infinity, one of the world's most popular NFT video games. The company announced the hack in a blog post on Tuesday, and revealed on Wednesday that an ongoing investigation suggests the attack was "socially engineered" and not due to a technical glitch.
The Ronin network serves as a bridge between Axie Infinity and the Ethereum blockchain and is used to conduct transactions and transfer cryptocurrency in and out of the game. The size of the theft makes it the second largest crypto heist to date, according to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic.
The attackers made off with 173,600 ether and 25.5 million usd coin, according to Ronin's blog post. The attack was also confirmed on Axie Infinity's Twitter page. Ronin said in its blog post that it is working with Chainalysis, a blockchain tracing firm, to track the stolen funds.
Sky Mavis COO Aleksander Larsen told Bloomberg that the company will reimburse players who lost funds due to the hack. "We are fully committed to reimbursing our players as soon as possible," Larsen told Bloomberg. "We're still working on a solution, that is an ongoing discussion."
Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-like video game played on a computer where players breed and battle digital monsters called "axies" that are linked to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Players can earn cryptocurrency in the game, which can be traded on some cryptocurrency exchanges outside of the game.
In 2021, $3.5 billion in NFTs passed through Axie Infinity, according to Business Insider India. The stability of Axie Infinity has been called into question, as the game's economy may require new players to buy in to keep it afloat.
Sky Mavis didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Finnlines and Yara Marine Technologies have signed a contract to install Yara Marine’s shore power solution on board three vessels. The turnkey solution will allow these vessels to connect to the local power grid when in port, switching to electricity rather than using auxiliary engines running on fuel. The installations, which are scheduled for completion in 2022, will help Finnlines eliminate shipboard emissions in port and thus reduce its environmental footprint.
The use of shore power by ships is particularly beneficial to portside communities, whose quality of life is impacted by concentrated emissions by numerous vessels in port, as well as the associated noise and vibrations from ship engines. Ro-ro vessels and passenger ferries are very suitable candidates for this technology due to their operational profile. As an early adopter of shore power solutions, Finnlines is following through on its commitment to meeting customer demands for more environmentally conscious services.
Thomas Doepel, COO of Finnlines, says: “Finnlines is committed to providing sustainable and responsible transportation options in the Baltic and North Seas. Our investment in smart technologies showcases our drive to reduce carbon emissions from our fleet and share our environmental performance with customers and stakeholders.
By equipping these vessels with a shore-to-ship connection, we commit to our goal of reducing harmful emissions and noise while at port. This has a direct impact on quality of life for those present in areas close to our ports.”
Shore power is largely viewed as a means by which the shipping industry can reduce its fuel consumption, meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations, and transit to Net Zero emissions – particularly if the shoreside connection is able to supply renewable energy. The recent signing of a joint commitment for the electrification of ports by 2028 by a number of government ministers and port authorities at the One Ocean Summit (held in France in February) demonstrates a clear industry recognition of shore power as a potential route to enable decarbonization targets while allowing for cleaner, lower-impact energy solutions for stopovers.
However, setting up shore power solutions can be technically challenging, particularly in cases where operators are using two or three different systems on board that are not compatible with each other. Yara Marine’s turnkey shore power solution is designed to provide an answer to this issue, thereby reducing the complexity of installation, and mitigating project-related risks, such as fleet-wide installations. In addition, Yara Marines’s top of the line after-sales and service capabilities ensure that customers will see both cost and time benefits for the lifetimes of their installations.
Aleksander Askeland, CSO of Yara Marine Technologies, says: “Yara Marine Technologies is keen to support cleaner and sustainable operations throughout the maritime industry. We look forward to working with Finnlines to provide solutions that will maximize benefits across the board. We bring our extensive experience in planning and executing multiple vessel installations to this collaboration, and will be managing their needs for the lifetimes of the shore power solutions through our global after-sales service organization.”
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Yara Marine to Equip Three Finnlines Vessels with Shore Power Solutions - HS Today - HSToday
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Leonardo’s OTO 127/64 (LW) Vulcano defence systems will be equipped on the German Navy’s F126 frigates. Credit: Leonardo.
Damen Naval has chosen Leonardo’s OTO 127/64 lightweight (LW) Vulcano defence systems for the German Navy’s F126 frigate programme.
The contract requires Leonardo to equip its OTO 127/64 LW Vulcano systems onto four F126 frigates. It also includes an option to provide the naval gun for two more vessels.
Under this deal, Leonardo will provide simulators for training the crew, as well as support for the maintenance activities.
The company will also provide related onboard activities to incorporate and commission the Vulcano defence systems.
The contract follows a strategic partnership between the German Navy and Leonardo’s subsidiary in Germany.
The longstanding partnership has provided Vulcano systems for the German Navy’s other vessels, including Baden-Württemberg class frigates.
Damen Naval managing director Hein van Ameijden said: “The F126 project is going forward with full speed and in trustworthy cooperation with the German authorities.
“Leonardo is the perfect partner for our mission to deliver at least four state-of-the-art frigates for the German Navy.
“F126 will set new standards regarding modularity and capabilities and Leonardo’s naval defence system is an important contribution.”
A complete digitised system, the OTO 127/64 LW Vulcano naval gun provides constant support to the combat management system for calculating shooting solutions during missions.
The 127/64 LW Vulcano gun is expected to enhance German Navy’s defensive capabilities by maintaining precision accuracy.
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Leonardo to equip Germany's F126 frigates with OTO 127/64 Vulcano gun - Naval Technology
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Here in Columbus, we know we have a robust food scene. But it still feels good to get some external validation from time to time.
And recently, one Columbus eatery got some love from a major name in the food world.
Alton Brown, the host of Food Network shows like “Good Eats”, “Iron Chef America”, “Cutthroat Kitchen” and many more recently visited Columbus, and he had good things to say about it.
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Last week, Brown made a stop at Ringside Cafe, a popular downtown tavern and restaurant, to grab a burger. And he was a fan, apparently.
“Best burger in a long time,” Brown said in an Instagram post at the eatery that displayed a photo of his food.
Ringside Cafe is located at 19 N. Pearl St., just north of the Ohio Statehouse.
It’s unclear which burger Brown went for, but Ringside offers a variety of options, including Cajun and BBQ, each one named after a famous boxer.
Want to read more? Check out our print publication, (614) Magazine. Learn where you can find a free copy of our new March issue here!
Eugene (L) and Ginger Arboleda giving a demonstration on how to play Axie Infinity, an NFT game where players earn tokens that can be exchanged for cryptocurrency or cash, Manilla, December 10, 2021.
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The popular blockchain game Axie Infinity, which lets users earn money as they play, is connected to what could be the largest decentralized finance, or DeFi, hack in history.
Axie Infinity's Ronin Network said in a blog post on Tuesday that it lost around $615 million in USDC (a U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin) and ethereum, surpassing the $611 million hack of the DeFi protocol Poly Network in August 2021.
The security breach was confirmed by Axie Infinity's official Discord and Twitter accounts, and by Ronin Network, which underpins the game. DeFi networks aim to recreate traditional financial systems like banks, but with cryptocurrency. They mostly run on the ethereum blockchain.
The incident was discovered Tuesday after a user was unable to withdraw 5,000 ether. But the attack took place on Mar. 23, when exploiters used hacked private keys to forge fake withdrawals, the blog post said, adding that other key validator nodes were compromised.
Ronin said the breach resulted in 173,600 ethereum and 25.5 million USDC being drained from the Ronin bridge in two transactions, which can be viewed on Etherscan. The project lost around $615 million at current prices.
Crypto holders often do not operate exclusively within one blockchain ecosystem, so developers have built cross-chain bridges to let users send cryptocurrency from one chain to another. In this case, the Ronin bridge connects Axie Infinity to other blockchains such as ethereum.
Using the bridge, players could deposit ethereum or USDC to Ronin and use that to purchase non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or in-game currency. They could then sell their in-game assets and withdraw the money.
Analysts at Blockchain Intelligence Group said the stolen money is on the move. Thus far, close to $17 million in ethereum has already been transferred to exchanges, including FTX and Huobi, the firm said.
"Bridges are very hard to get right and the attack surface is significantly greater than in normal DeFi projects," said Adrian Hetman of Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform for the web3 industry, in an email.
Hetman said bridges are "still an area of development" and the industry hasn't yet established best practices for their use.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of ethereum, previously made the case that bridges won't be around much longer in crypto, in part because there are "fundamental limits to the security of bridges that hop across multiple 'zones of sovereignty.'"
Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game that lets users collect and breed digital creatures called "Axies." In contrast to traditional pay-to-play games, Axie Infinity also allows players to earn money by selling their Axie NFTs to other users.
Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis said it's committed to ensuring that all of the drained funds are recovered or reimbursed. For now, users are unable to withdraw or deposit funds.
Ronin said it's "working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure there is no loss of user funds."
STONINGTON — The Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (MCCF) was recently awarded funding to support river herring/alewife initiatives locally, in the state of Maine and beyond. This work includes restoration efforts on the Blue Hill Peninsula and the recently developed River Herring Network. This New England-wide network, which includes local, state, federal and tribal managers, researchers and harvesters, is working collaboratively to better understand, monitor, restore and manage river herring populations.
MCCF recently received a two-year grant from Sarah K. de Coizart Article TENTH Perpetual Charitable Trust. These efforts are also supported by the Alewife Harvesters of Maine, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, the Maine Community Foundation and Maine Sea Grant. There was a total of $89,000 in awards.
The funds from these grants will support efforts in communications and collaboration within the network, building a web portal to provide educational content among the network and public, providing seed funding to support stakeholder participation and developing an evaluation tool to monitor, improve and sustain the network.
Collaborative partners include Manomet, who uses science and collaboration to strengthen coastal ecosystems and working lands and seas across the Western Hemisphere.
“We are thrilled to see the broad support for this network, including from several of the organizations who are active network participants. I think it really points to the enthusiasm of the group toward building greater collaboration, and I am excited to be partnering with MCCF to facilitate that important work,” said Emily Farr, senior fisheries program manager at Manomet.
The recovery of these river systems and fish species like river herring (alewives) is important because it results in the reconnection of the fresh water and marine ecosystems, which is good for fisheries and communities. Long term monitoring of river herring migration runs and successful restoration projects are only possible through collaboration and at the scale at which river herring runs exist; stream to stream, pond-to-pond, and community to community.
MCCF, located on Stonington’s working waterfront, works to connect fishermen, scientists, regulators, and others through collaborative research, education, and management. Learn more at www.coastalfisheries.org.
Greenpeace and other environmental groups launched a new campaign today to push the Bitcoin network to slash its growing greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of the campaign, dubbed “Change the code, not the climate,” is to switch up the energy-hungry process of verifying transactions and mining new Bitcoins.
The cryptocurrency uses more electricity annually than global gold mining operations or the entire country of Norway, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. Burning through so much energy generates some serious greenhouse gas emissions, but campaign organizers argue that it doesn’t have to be that way. Other cryptocurrencies use just a fraction of the energy Bitcoin requires because they use a different system to verify transactions.
In order to validate transactions, Bitcoin miners rely on specialized hardware to solve complex puzzles. Their computers gobble up a lot of energy in the process, and the miners get new tokens in return. It’s a process called “proof of work,” in which the energy used is sort of the price paid to verify transactions. The process is deliberately energy-intensive as a safety measure. The baked-in inefficiency is meant to discourage bad actors from manipulating the data because it would cost a lot of energy to do so.
The new campaign aims to move Bitcoin away from that energy-hungry proof of work process. The most popular alternative is called proof of stake. Cryptocurrencies that use proof of stake use vastly less energy because there are no puzzles to solve. Instead of essentially paying with electricity to participate in the process, you have to offer up some of your own tokens. This is supposed to prove that you have a “stake” in keeping the ledger accurate. If you mess anything up, you lose tokens as a penalty.
While proof of stake might make solve a lot of Bitcoin’s pollution problems, experts have been skeptical that miners would be willing to make the change. Miners invest a lot in their hardware and would be hard-pressed to abandon it. And some fans of proof of work maintain that it’s the most secure way to maintain the ledger.
“We know Bitcoin stakeholders are incentivized not to change,” the campaign acknowledges on its website. “Changing Bitcoin would render a whole lot of expensive infrastructure worthless, meaning Bitcoin stakeholders will need to walk away from sunk costs — or find other creative solutions.”
Regardless, the campaign’s organizers are trying to enlist some big names in tech to help turn up the heat on Bitcoin miners to make the change. “Leaders like Elon Musk of Tesla, Jack Dorsey of Block, and Abby Johnson of Fidelity have vested interests in Bitcoin — and the power to affect change,” the campaign website says.
The website implores visitors to tweet at the Musk, Dorsey, and Johnson to support the campaign. The campaign also includes new ads in TheWall Street Journal, The New York Times, MarketWatch, Politico, and on Facebook.
“No matter how you feel about Bitcoin, pushing those with the power to ensure a code change will make our planet and communities safer from the destructive impacts of climate change,” Greenpeace USA chief program officer Tefere Gebre said in a press release.
Bitcoin has gotten even dirtier since China banned it in 2021. The biggest mining hub in the world is now the US, where miners have breathed new life into retired and aging coal and gas power plants.
Exploiters used hacked private keys to forge fake withdrawals on March 23
“We are working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure that all funds are recovered or reimbursed,” Ronin Network said in a statement
Ronin Network, an Ethereum-linked sidechain used for blockchain game Axie Infinity, was breached. Hackers exploited the network for roughly $625 million, or 173,600 ether and 25.5 million USDC, according to a Tuesday statement.
Exploiters, per the network’s post, used hacked private keys to forge withdrawals on March 23. The breach, however, wasn’t discovered until Tuesday, when a user was unable to withdraw 5,000 ETH.
Ethereum and USDC deposits on Ronin have been drained from its bridge contract. Users, as of now, are unable to withdraw or deposit funds. The Ronin Bridge and Katana DEX, as a result, have been halted.
“Sky Mavis’ Ronin chain currently consists of 9 validator nodes. In order to recognize a Deposit event or a Withdrawal event, five out of the nine validator signatures are needed,” the blogpost said. “The attacker managed to get control over Sky Mavis’s four Ronin Validators and a third-party validator run by Axie DAO.”
Sky Mavis, the creator of Axie Infinity, said it is “committed to ensuring that all of the drained funds are recovered or reimbursed.”
“We are working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure that all funds are recovered or reimbursed,” the network said in a tweet.
Most of the stolen ETH remains in the attacker’s wallet, but 6,250 ETH (about $21 million) has been transferred out, including hundreds of ETH sent to the FTX Exchange.
All $25.5 million in USDC has been transferred out to various wallets and DeFi protocols, according to Etherscan.
RON, the native token of the Ronin Network, is down 23% on the news, according to CoinMarketCap.
This is a developing story and may be updated as new information becomes available.
Morgan Chittum is a New York-based reporter covering NFTs, the metaverse, play-to-earn gaming and other emerging Web3 tech for Blockworks. Previously she was a street reporter, covering crime at New York Daily News, and a media and journalism fellow at the Poynter Institute. Contact Morgan via email at [email protected]
Kerning Cultures Network, a leading podcast company based in the Middle East, has signed with CAA.
The company, which is VC funded, was co-founded in 2015 by Hebah Fisher and Razan Al-Zayani and produces shows in both Arabic and English. Kerning Cultures has since expanded its team into the U.S. and the U.K., as well as the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi, Morocco and Palestine.
Shows have explored topics like the growing interest in K-pop in the region in Arabic countries, an exploration of Ramadan traditions and interviews with notable figures. The network’s B’Hob (With Love) series also received Apple Podcasts’ 2020 show of the year recognition in its Arab World category.
CAA will work with the podcast company to expand its projects into TV, film and publishing, in addition to growing its podcast presence. The signing comes shortly after the agency also brought on Dustlight Productions, the podcast company behind The Michelle Obama Podcast and Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen’s Renegades: Born in the USA, and Podimo, a podcast subscription service based in Copenhagen and available in Denmark, Germany, Spain, Norway and in 20 Latin American countries.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have caused supply chain disruptions across industries, but demand for e-commerce increased. Retailers and logistics services rushed to handle the shift in consumer expectations and position themselves for growth.
One supply chain leader, Wiptec, based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, addressed its need to scale with the creation of a third distribution center. The result was a new $150 million, 1.7 million-square-foot, state-of-the-art distribution center in Longueuil, Quebec; however, the process of reaching their goal required the right team and technology.
Wiptec needed a strong network foundation to support its applications, such as robotics and HD video. The company opted for an Aruba Edge Service Platform network and hired CPU, a channel partner, to design, deploy and maintain the new infrastructure. Wiptec had to find the right vendor and service provider, but the change was so successful that the logistics specialist said it might eventually upgrade its two other facilities.
A growing logistics business
Founded in 2002 and with 1,000 associates, Wiptec likes to stay busy. The logistics supplier manages 85 million parcels annually at two facilities. The company provides pick, pack and ship services. Every day, personnel prepare and ship hundreds of thousands of products from an inventory with more than 250,000 different SKUs in warehouses that span more than 2,300,000 square feet. The company provides fulfillment services for suppliers ranging from small boutiques to big-box retailers in both the B2B and B2C markets.
With its software technology, LEAD warehouse management system, Wiptec takes on logistical features for many customers. It offers comprehensive, integrated and strategic capabilities including assembling activities, kitting, inventory management, process engineering, shipping and support.
Business had been booming, so the company needed a third facility. By deploying advanced equipment, it expected to automate much of its operations, move product more efficiently and create frictionless experiences for its customers. The COVID-19 pandemic hit and accelerated e-commerce demand, increasing the need for technology solutions to reliably automate processes while minimizing downtime, optimizing labor utilization and increasing order fulfillment accuracy.
Looking for a network provider
Wiptec desired a network solution that simplified deployment of access points, offered proactive network management and scaled to meet its future needs. In the spring of 2021, Wiptec issued a formal request for proposal to a handful of leading network equipment suppliers, including Aruba.
Aruba called in CPU, which has been in business for more than 40 years. The partner, which has about 300 employees, focuses on large-scale deployments and delivers turnkey solutions, handling all phases of a project including design, deployment and ongoing maintenance.
Stéphan Wener
The twosome's bid won for several reasons.
"We invested a lot in training our technicians, so we have a very experienced team, one capable of handling large complex deployments," explained Stéphan Wener, executive vice president at IT service provider CPU. Customer service is another differentiator. CPU provides Level 1 and Level 2 IT support in French for all of its Quebec customers. They also have a dedicated support representative for each account.
After evaluating the bids, Wiptec selected Aruba Edge Service Platform network, with Wi-Fi 6 indoor access points, outdoor access points, access switches and Aruba Central for network management. The simplicity of deploying the access points and switches, the management capabilities and the price were all factors in the decision.
The project had a tight turnaround: The infrastructure had to be installed in less than a few months. "We wanted to be sure that we had the warehouse up and running before Black Friday," explained Martin Ball, president and CEO at Wiptec.
Given the variety of activities occurring in the warehouse, we wanted to minimize the time that we spent on site.Stéphan WenerExecutive vice president at CPU
Getting the warehouse built created logistics problems.
"Given the variety of activities occurring in the warehouse, we wanted to minimize the time that we spent on site," explained CPU's Wener. "So, we did a lot of staging of the equipment at our offices. When we came to the site, the systems were ready for deployment."
Product availability was another issue. Supply chain confusion and microprocessor shortages made it difficult to ensure that equipment would be available when needed.
"We ran into some problems with our robotic equipment, but the network and our servers, which came from Dell, were delivered on time," Ball said.
Improving the business
The company started to bring its applications online in the summer and had it ready before Black Friday. The network connects more than 10,000 networked devices that support inventory tracking, security and lighting, such as barcode and RFID scanners, mobile computers, wearables, video displays, surveillance cameras, robots and automated guided vehicles.
The network rollout went smoothly, and the system provides important new functions.
Martin Ball
"We wanted to move to a paperless operation to improve efficiency," Ball said. "The level of automation available enables us to do more with less."
Video displays throughout the facility show employees the status of each item in real time, as well as the number of orders in the system. Employees can then take steps if a problem arises.
In this logistics environment, resiliency is important. Thousands of employees constantly make requests to the corporate database and require a fast, available network. The Aruba network promises to deliver unprecedented uptime and flexibility.
"An e-commerce customer may ship 10,000 items one day and 50,000 the next day, and our network accommodates such changes," Ball said.
Based on the new system's success, Ball said the company may eventually upgrade its two warehouse locations to similar configurations.
Wiptec relies on technology to provide its customers with turnkey logistics services. Aruba and CPU deployed a strong wireless network foundation and the change helped Wiptec weather business fluctuations and position it for future growth.
Zero trust (ZT) is a mindset and a method, not a technology. The current push to adopt ZT is driven by an urgent and growing need to make a major leap forward in risk management and attack containment in enterprise networks, a need driven home by every successive wave of ransomware. IT can use the urgency of moving to ZT to root out some of the technical debt in the environment. Specifically, it can be a catalyst to find areas exempted from network and network security standards and bring them up to date under the new paradigm of zero trust.
No more exempting network components from access-control roles
In a ZT environment, the network not only doesn’t trust a node new to it, but it also doesn’t trust nodes that are already communicating across it. When a node is first seen by a ZT network, the network will require that the node go through some form of authentication and authorization check. Does it have a valid certificate to prove its identity? Is it allowed to be connected where it is based on that identity? Is it running valid software versions, defensive tools, etc.? It must clear that hurdle before being allowed to communicate across the network.
In addition, the ZT network does not assume that a trust relationship is permanent or context free: Once it is on the network, a node must be authenticated and authorized for every network operation it attempts. After all, it may have been compromised between one operation and the next, or it may have begun acting aberrantly and had its authorizations stripped in the preceding moments, or the user on that machine may have been fired.
This is a radical change to how network professionals have to think about network services. Indeed, many network teams have only recently gotten really comfortable with even basic admission control based on 802.1x, and networks are rife with ports, switches, segments, and subnets that don’t even enforce that basic level of admission control. In many cases, the port/segment/subnet/whatever has been exempted because systems connecting through it—or even the underlying hardware itself—cannot handle the security protocols, or because the folks running that part of the network don’t see a need for that level of security or want to adopt it, or the administrative overhead of implementing and running the system is considered too high.
Because it forces so complete a shift in perspective, and comes with board-level-down support, ZT will be a powerful aid to exposing technical debt and finding the motivation to finally address it.
Shift to zero trust forces network teams to find technical debt
Implementing a ZT infrastructure requires digging into every level of the infrastructure and either using it to enforce security policies or making sure it is configured to prevent end-runs around policy enforcement points (PEP).
Focusing in on switches, for example, if a switch is to be a PEP, it must require that a node be permitted to send packets through it before allowing it do so. It must continually reconfirm that permission by checking for changes in pushed policy updates.
If the switch is not the PEP, and some separate gateway node is, the switch needs to make sure all traffic goes through that gateway. For example, if the gateway is upstream of the switch, all traffic from edge ports must be directed through an uplink, even if that traffic is ultimately destined for another of its own edge ports.
If an organization truly is committed to implementing ZT from top leadership down, network teams and business owners will no longer be able to kick the modernization can down the road. With a goal of implementing zero trust, they will be less able than usual to excuse chunks of non-compliant infrastructure because it’s costly to update them.
That’s not to say there won’t be bubbles of “old network” enclosed behind gateways of “new network.” Rather, that the drive to ZT will exert continual pressure on those bubbles to shrink, and not just on the configuration of the networking components – the application owners will be under pressure to modernize an application that is decades behind the security curve, at the very least enough so to accommodate an agent to act as a host-level ZT gateway for components that cannot be updated.
To be sure, owners will answer, as they so often do, that there is no money to cover the costs of those modifications. The only sure counterweight to that is solid commitment from the CEO down that the risk associated with failing to embrace ZT is more expensive in the long run. Networking teams should be joining together with cybersecurity and risk management to advocate for and advance ZT throughout the network.
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There’s some amazing new technology on the wishlist for the Humboldt and District Hospital Foundation’s 10 annual Equip to Care Radiothon, launching today on 107.5 Bolt FM. Over the past 10 years, the event has raised over $67 million dollars in funding to equip the Humboldt District Hospital. This year, the needs are great, but area residents are always up to the challenge when it comes to supporting their own health care facility.
One of the key pieces of technology is cellavision, which is designed to reduce turnaround times for blood analysis.
“Cellavision is a $33,000 piece of equipment for our lab,” says Executive Director of the Humboldt and District Hospital Foundation, Lorrie Bunko. “It is new technology and something that’s being introduced in the province. Turnaround time for certain tests is currently two to four days; with cellavision, we’ll have test results back within hours.”
The Equip to Care Radiothon is a critical part of the Foundation’s strategy in raising funds and relaying information about new technologies and services and the hospital’s needs, says Bunko.
“It’s a very important fundraiser and event for us. It generates a lot of dollars. This year we have $370,000 in priority equipment needs. That’s huge. We’re pretty excited; we know we can do it, and we just have to keep putting the information out there.”
Throughout the week, there will be more information about those specific needs and equipment purchases, along with a variety of guests armed with information. You’ll also find out about the remarkable birdhouses that are up for grabs with donations. Stay tuned to 107.5 Bolt FM for the excitement and continue to check in with DiscoverHumboldt.com for updates on the fundraising front.
The roller-coaster season of the 2021 Indianapolis Colts ended in the pitfalls of a Week 18 upset. The team reacted this offseason by tradingCarson Wentz and acquiringMatt Ryan, who is set to become the Colts' fifth starting quarterback in as many seasons.
Colts head coach Frank Reich isn't laying blame on Wentz despite the quick QB change.
"Carson played a lot of good football," Reich told NFL Network's Tom Pelissero during an interview at the Annual League Meeting on Sunday. "We did a lot of good things as a team, he did a lot of good things as a quarterback. Three quarters of the year we were one of the teams to beat, one of the teams everybody was talking about. And then we had a pretty big time collapse in the last two weeks of the season and we all take responsibility for that, starting with me as a head coach. What would be unfair is to make Carson the scapegoat."
Wentz started every game for the Colts in 2021, leading them to a 9-8 record after overcoming an 0-3 start. Wentz was never asked to do too much as the Colts heavily relied on the breakout season of Jonathan Taylor, who became the NFL's 2021 rushing champion. The six-year veteran QB ended his first campaign in Indy with 3,563 passing yards (62.4% completion rate), 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
The Reich-Wentz companionship was focalized in 2021 because of their past success in Philadelphia. Wentz was a bona fide MVP candidate in 2017 with Reich as his offensive coordinator with the Eagles, but a season-ending knee injury halted Wentz's best season after 14 Weeks. The Eagles went on to win Super Bowl LII with backup Nick Foles maintaining Reich's offense, which directly led to the Colts hiring him as their new head coach for the following season. Reich saw an opportunity to bring Wentz into the fold with a loaded roster waiting for its QB savior. It was going well enough for the 9-6 Colts through 16 weeks, before a two-game skid to close out the season was punctuated with a loss to the three-win Jaguars.
The Colts proceeded to trade Wentz to the Commanders even before landing Ryan, but Reich is confident his old QB will find success in Washington.
"I love Carson. He's a brother to me. I'll always love him, always pull for him," Reich said. "I know he's going to succeed. I believe a lot in him. It was just one of those things. You thought it was going to be a storybook finish where we kind of get reunited and he can kind of relaunch his career in a new place and that didn't work out. That's life sometimes. It's hard. It's hard, personally. As a coach, you get close to all the players and obviously at the quarterback position and because of my history with him. There's nobody who will support him more and believes he's going to succeed. I think Washington is a great fit for him and I wish him all the best."
When looking for a new QB of their own, Commanders coach Ron Rivera also pointed out Wentz's MVP-type season, but also considered the good things he heard from former teammates.
"You know, we had an opportunity to take a look at several of the quarterbacks that were available. And doing a lot of homework, doing a lot of research, one of the names that just kept being around the top was his," Rivera told NFL Network's Judy Battista. "I don't think people quite understand what his value is as a player. He's got quality numbers, he's done some good things. The year they went to the Super Bowl and won it, Nick Foles was the quarterback, but their was a stretch where he was 11-2 as their starter and very, very productive. He was having an NFL MVP-type year. That just stuck in my mind. And after we made the move and we acquired him, to hear what three of his teammates came out and said in a positive fashion about who he is, it just reconfirmed to us. So we really do believe we have the right kind of guy."
Having to part ways with any star player is difficult. When that player is one of the best all-around wide receivers in today's pass-happy NFL, the adverse situation is typically unparalleled.
Speaking with NFL Network's Tom Pelissero at the Annual League Meeting on Sunday, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur opened up about the team trading star wideout Davante Adams to the Raiders.
"Sometimes you got to make some tough decisions," LaFleur said. "Certainly appreciate everything Davante brought to our team. I mean, he is the best receiver in the National Football League, so that was a tough one for me personally and for our organization."
Asked if there were any discussions of trying to talk Adams out of leaving, LaFleur replied: "Well, there really wasn't anything to talk about. I mean, you're going through a contract negotiation and certainly it was just one of those deals where, like I said, a lot of tough decisions had to be made."
The trade to Las Vegas came after Adams informed Green Bay he would not play under the franchise tag, which the Packers placed on the All-Pro wideout at the 11th hour of the March 8 deadline. Adams went on to sign a a five-year, $141.25 million contract with the Raiders upon his arrival.
Adams, a second-round draft pick by Green Bay in 2014, is in hallowed ground after eight seasons with the franchise, placing second all time in catches (669) and touchdown receptions (73) and fourth in receiving yards (8,121).
"To the Packers organization, I can't thank you enough for seeing in me what no one else did," Adams wrote in his farewell. "That phone call back in 2014 was one of my most memorable moments and I promised myself then that I would do everything in my power to repay you for taking a chance on me. We accomplished a lot together and even through the tough times, you always had my back and your trust in me has never wavered. For that I'm forever grateful."
LaFleur, who was "hopeful" to retain the Adams ahead of free agency, echoed that sentiment on Sunday.
"Well, I think Tae and I have a great relationship," he said. "I think there's a great mutual respect. Certainly he's a guy that's going to be tough to replace and so you never want to let great players like that walk away from your team. But, like I said, it's just one of those deals where some tough decisions have to be made. Unfortunately, in the National Football League, there's a thing called the salary cap and you gotta get below that as well. So everything factored into those decisions."
Replacing Adams won't be easy, if even truly possible. A first-team All-Pro the past two seasons, Adams comes off a year in which he posted career-high marks of 123 receptions for 1,553 yards (11 TDs). Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who won his second consecutive MVP award in 2021, heavily relied on Adams running precise routes, anticipating the back-shoulder throws, creating space on broken plays, and being sure-handed, especially in the most high-pressure situations.
"I think just like every great quarterback or quarterback in general, you want as many pieces as you can around you," LaFleur said when asked about how Rodgers handled the trade. "Certainly there's going to be opportunity, we're still in free agency and then we've got the Draft. In my experience, there's a lot of movement that can take place between now and the start of the season."
Added LaFleur: "We're going to absolutely have to add some pieces to that room and, you know, we got to construct our offense around what we have. You can't look back and you gotta move forward."
The 2022 offseason has been another whirlwind for LaFleur and the Packers organization. Last year's escapade didn't keep the Packers from winning their third consecutive NFC North title and third-straight 13-win season in 2021, but as the business realities of the NFL assist in moderating league parity, offseason drama persists.
When asked if he often dreams about having a normal, quiet offseason, the Packers coach seemed to be taking it all in stride.
"Every night," LaFleur replied with a smile. "But I know that's not the reality of our league."
With the 22nd pick that was acquired from the Raiders in the Davante Adams trade, USC’s Drake London, Ohio State’s Chris Olave, North Dakota State’s Christian Watson, Arkansas’ Treylon Burks, South Alabama’s Jalen Tolbert and Penn State’s Jahan Dotson were available. All six are potential first-round choices.
PFN’s Cam Mellor took one of those players to start a major run on receivers, then grabbed Florida State edge defender Jermaine Johnson for Green Bay’s choice at No. 28. Johnson transferred from Georgia to Florida State and piled up 12 sacks, two forced fumbles and 70 tackles, the latter ranking No. 1 in the nation among defensive linemen.
“I think I’m the best edge rusher in this draft because I do everything exceptionally well,” Johnson said at the Scouting Combine. “I play the run as well as I play the pass. Nobody in this class does that like I do. …
“Head coaches would come up to me after a game and tell me how much they game planned against me, things like that, and how they tried to take me out of the game. I take that as a compliment. I try to leave no excuses and try to affect the game any way I can.”
He backed up his talk at the Combine, where ran his 40 in an excellent 4.58 seconds.
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“Johnson won ACC Defensive Player of the Year in his lone season in Tallahassee, and he dominated the Senior Bowl,” Mellor wrote. “He’s got an array of moves to bank on when rushing the passer, but he also comes up and down the line of scrimmage with ease in the run game.”
With the first of the team’s second-round picks – also acquired in the Adams trade – the Packers wound up with Tulsa offensive tackle Tyler Smith. According to PFF, Smith allowed two sacks in 2021. He is a dominant run blocker who would fit with the Packers’ trend toward more physical blockers.
Mellor gave the Packers two more receivers: UCLA’s Kyle Philips in the fourth round and SMU’s Reggie Roberson in the seventh round.
Phillips (5-11 1/4) is more quick (4.09 in the shuttle) than fast (4.56 in the 40). He caught 59 passes for 739 yards and a Pac-12-leading 10 touchdowns. He finished his career with five consecutive games of six-plus receptions and an 82-yard touchdown on a punt return.
Roberson (5-11) caught 51 passes for 625 yards and six scores as a senior. He suffered season-ending injuries in 2019 (foot) and 2020 (ACL). Before the knee injury in 2020, he had 22 catches for 474 yards and five touchdowns in just four games. He didn’t run at the Combine but allegedly delivered a 4.42 40 at his pro day on March 24.
Stéphan Wener
Martin Ball
