KINGSTON, R.I. March 24, 2023 When 10 whales washed up on the New Jersey shore earlier this year, people were understandably concerned. Some might have wondered if the problem was related to wind turbines.

James Miller, University of Rhode Island professor of ocean engineering and department chair, answered several questions recently about whether wind turbines have an effect on whale safety and health. He is available to the media for interviews.

Q. What are people saying when whale strandings are reported in the news?

A. Periodically we read in the news that a whale or some other large animal ends up on the shore, and a lot of times the blame immediately goes to wind turbines. People feel the problem must come from turbine construction noise. Yet when the whales drift ashore, no construction is taking place.

Q. Is there any evidence that wind farms cause these events?

A. No. Most of those whales are either struck by ships or are entangled in fishing nets. The great whales the fins, the blues, the humpbacks, the right whales these are very tough animals. Theyre built for the oceans rough environment. Except in rare cases, the sound created from man-made sources is not enough to bother them. The exception is a report on whales injured by explosive dredging in Canada many years ago.

Q. So are wind farms causing any other problems for whales?

A. I was out in the Atlantic Ocean south of New England last year for a research cruise, and I saw over a hundred large whales. There were great whales, and maybe a thousand dolphins. They are doing fine, as far as I can tell. The one exception is the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. But, those deaths are almost entirely caused by ship strikes and fishing equipment entanglements.

Q. What has been done to limit these threats?

A. There are recommended and mandatory closed zones, which are continually updated to alert ships when certain species like the North Atlantic right whales are in the area. In addition, theres a sound system around Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey that uses instruments that indicate where the whales are at any given time.

Q. Are there similar zones put in place when wind farms are under construction?

A. Yes, construction teams put in place 5-kilometer warning areas to let them know if whales and other marine animals are getting too close to the construction. There is definitely significant noise when pilings are driven into the ocean, but that lasts for only a few hours each day. It typically takes one day of pile driving per wind turbine foundation.

Q. Does the noise from wind turbines pose a long-term threat to whales and other marine life?

A. Long term, there are going to be hundreds of turbines offshore, and they emit a low level of noise. In fact, the noise is negligible. An animal would have to be right under one of these things to pick up any noise, and even then, its not just going to be much.

Q. Then why are so many people convinced that theres a connection between wind farm installations and operations and whale strandings?

A. I have been in this business for more than 30 years, and unfortunately, reporters sometimes get the acoustics all wrong. Its one of the reasons I got into this business. Ive seen a lot in the press about it, but I have not seen any scientific papers that have connected these (wind farm) surveys or construction with any whale impacts at all.

To reduce the amount of false information, Miller became involved with the Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS) program, which is supported by URI, its Graduate School of Oceanography and Inner Space Center. It also receives support from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, Science and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The site provides information about marine acoustics based on research and published scientific papers. Miller pointed out that the information is presented in a way that makes it accessible to the general public.

In fact, a section on myths and facts from the website provides a strong answer to this statement regarding wind turbines: Most marine mammal strandings are due to anthropogenic (human-caused) sound.

This is a myth. The fact is that observations as far back as Aristotle and illustrations from the Middle Ages show us that marine mammals have been stranding long before people created underwater sounds. Like Miller, that site goes on to say, There are many causes of strandings, such as diseases, ship-strikes, injuries, storms and entanglements.

Visit DOSITS for additional information about the science of sound in the sea.

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Offshore wind turbines not cause of whale strandings, deaths, says ... - University of Rhode Island

Kaylee Fuller and James Crummel

4 hours ago

(WHTM) When it comes to our finances and personal information, so much of it is done online.

Thieves know it and are constantly finding new ways to get to it. Thats why cybersecurity is so important.

The reality is where theres money and rewards to be had, theres always going to be crime, theres always going to be these bad actors.

Doria Ferrante is the Top Risk Expert and Senior Vice President for Visa. She says that cybercrimes continue to be a top risk for both businesses and individuals.

Many times, these crimes can be avoided. In fact, 95% of successful cyber-attacks are due to human error, things like clicking a bad link and downloading a bad attachment.

This just shows you that theres catastrophic damage that can happen if were not hyper-vigilant in paying attention to these threats and really educating all those people that we know, stated Ferrante.

One threat that we really need to pay attention to is social engineering attacks. These are phishing techniques which are emails, someone is going to trick you into thinking theyre a legitimate business or someone you knowtheres also vhishing which is voice mail phishingtheres also smishing which is text phishing. These are all ways that a cybercriminal is trying to infiltrate your life and get you to take an action on their behalf, explained Ferrante.

Criminals can use these schemes to steal your money, passwords, and personal information. We are relying on more and more digital technologies, which is a good thing in many ways. However, it does put us at a higher risk of being targeted by these crooks.

It brought us to their worldto the cybercriminals world where they thrive in a world of complexity, theyre very sophisticated and technologically savvy. So, we just need to be mindful that theyre there, and what are the ways that theyre trying to reach us. We need to be diligent, explained Ferrante.

These attacks can also be easy to fall for because a lot of our personal information isnt quite so personal. Ferrante explained that posting about things, like a trip, can provide information to scammers. If you announce to the world on social media youre going on the trip of a lifetime, and someone reaches out to you and says that you cant go unless you send us $2000 today, as an example, some people fall for that.

To protect yourself from these scams, use strong passwords and look carefully at web addresses. Be sure to make sure Os arent replaced with zeros.

You can also hover over a link to make sure its actually taking you to the site you think it is.

Ferrante reminds Internet users to be aware, pause, and think before clicking. Because at the end of the day, its speed which usually gets people caught by some of these scams.

The S in HTTPS stands for secure. So, look for that on websites where you need to enter credit card or other personal information. The bottom line is to do your research on a brand-new website to make sure its legitimate and not a scam.

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Show Me the Money: Social engineering attacks on the rise - ABC27

Anna Bernstein is a prompt engineer at Copy.ai. Courtesy of Anna Bernstein

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Anna Bernstein, a 29-year-old prompt engineer at the generative-AI firm Copy.ai based in New York. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was a freelance writer and historical research assistant, I spent a lot of my time scrolling through microfiche in libraries. Now, I'm a prompt engineer helping to optimize the most cutting-edge technology in the world.

My journey into prompt engineering began in the summer of 2021 when I met a guy at a jazz bar who, at the time, worked for Copy.ai, which makes an AI tool that can generate copy for blogs, sales emails, and social media posts.

He mentioned that Copy.ai run on OpenAI's GPT-3 language model was having some trouble with the quality of its outputs and asked if I wanted to take a stab at being a prompt person. Even though I was an English major and had no background in tech, I said yes; I didn't like the stress of freelancing and this seemed fascinating to me.

Soon after, I got offered a one-month contract to work on executing different types of tones. At first, I barely knew what I was doing. But then the founder explained that prompting is kind of like writing a spell: If you say the spell slightly wrong, something slightly wrong can happen and vice versa. Taking his advice, I managed to come up with a solution for better tone adherence, which led to a full-time job offer at the company.

Since then, the scope of my job has grown; I now help improve existing tools and create new ones with the goal of getting the AI to spit out the best responses for users.

In practice, I spend my days writing text-based prompts which I can't reveal due to my NDA that I feed into the back end of the AI tools so they can do things such as generate a blog post that is high-quality, grammatically correct, and factually accurate.

I do this by designing the text around a user's request. In simple terms, a user types something like, "write a product description about a pair of sneakers," which I receive on the back end. It's my job, then, to write prompts that can get that query to generate the best output through:

In addition to the pure prompt-engineering part of my job, I also advise on how the models behave, why they might behave the way they do, which model to use, whether we can make a specific tool, and what approach we should take to do that.

I love the "mad scientist" part of the job where I'm able to come up with a dumb idea for a prompt and see it actually work. As a poet, the role also feeds into my obsessive nature with approaching language. It's a really strange intersection of my literary background and analytical thinking.

The job, however, is unpredictable. New language models come out all the time, which means I'm always having to readjust my prompts. The work itself can be tedious. There are days when I'm obsessively changing and testing a single prompt for hours sometimes even weeks on end just so I can get them to work.

At the same time, it's exciting to not know what's coming next.

Aside from people at parties not understanding my job, one of the big misconceptions I've noticed about AI is the idea that it is sentient when it's not. When it tries to talk about being an AI, we freak out because we see so many of our fears reflected in what it's saying. But that's because it's trained on our fears informed by scary, sci-fi depictions of AI.

Writing good prompts is easy to pick up, but it's difficult to master. Getting the AI to do what you want it to do takes trial and error, and with time, I've picked up weird strategies along the way; some of my prompts are really wild in structure.

Here are some tips that can help you develop better prompts:

Don't give up on a concept just because your first prompt didn't get the result you wanted. Often, finding the right word or phrasing can unlock what you're doing.

If you want the AI to fully understand your request, make sure your prompt includes a verb that clearly expresses your intent. For instance, "condense this," is more powerful than, "rewrite this to be shorter."

Introduce what you're trying to do clearly from the beginning, and play around with wording, tense, and approach. You can try, "today, we're going to write an XYZ," or, "we're trying to write an XYZ and we'd like your input." Putting an umbrella of intent over what you're doing is always useful, and playing around with different ways to do that can make a big difference.

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How to write better ChatGPT prompts, according to AI engineer - Business Insider

From left, Yuan Li, an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Eren Ozguven, associate professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Simon Foo, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The trio have been working on the project of studying modular photovoltaic energy systems to help restore power quickly after natural disasters. (Mark Wallheiser/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering)

A team of researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is developing a modular solar electricity system that can help communities keep electricity flowing during natural disasters.

The work is part of a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiative known as the Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resilience (RACER) program, which aims to increase resilience to disasters by using renewable energy. DOE dedicated $33 million to funding 20 research projects across the country for research to help communities plan their transition to a clean energy future and improve grid reliability and security. This project will receive $3 million in funding.

Extreme weather can knock power out for a few days, especially if it damages crucial parts of electricity infrastructure, said Yuan Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the project. Our solution is to develop a system that duplicates that crucial infrastructure as many submodules, so an electric system can keep working even if part of it is compromised.

Li and her team are developing lightweight, compact inverters for solar power plants. The inverters, which convert direct current to alternating current, help regulate the flow of electricity from power plants to the electric grid. They are small enough that a team of two people can set them up without heavy equipment, allowing solar power plants to quickly restore electricity in the wake of disruptions, such as the hurricanes that batter Florida during the summer.

This inverter will have identical modules that handle different sections of a solar power plant. If severe weather damages part of the inverter, the remaining modules will continue functioning. The technology also allows workers to replace the failed part while the rest of the inverter system is generating power.

Along with fellow faculty members from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the team includes researchers from the colleges Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response Center and Florida State Universitys Center for Advanced Power Systems. They also will work with the City of Tallahassee, Northeastern University and the National Renewable Energy Lab on the project.

Building community resilience to handle natural disasters is an interdisciplinary problem, said project member Simon Foo, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Disaster affects so many aspects of a community, so our response to it needs to take that into account.

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FAMU-FSU College of Engineering researchers will develop solar ... - Florida State News

NANO Nuclear Energy Inc.

Figure 1

NANO Nuclear Energys Bolsters its Nuclear Technical and Engineering Team with Three New World Class Specialists in their field: (from left to right) Dr. Nathaniel Read, Dr. Paul Cosgrove and Valeria Raffuzzi, MSc.

NEW YORK, NY, March 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. (NANO Nuclear), a vertically integrated DeepTech company emerging from the shared micro-Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and Advanced Nuclear Reactor (ANR) ambitions of a world class nuclear engineering team working alongside business and industry professionals, possessing strong relationships with both government, and the private and public nuclear industries is pleased to announce that it has bolstered its nuclear technical and engineering team with the addition of three leading specialists in their field: Dr. Nathaniel Read, Dr. Paul Cosgrove and Valeria Raffuzzi, MSc.

Figure 1 NANO Nuclear Energys Bolsters its Nuclear Technical and Engineering Team with Three New World Class Specialists in their field: (from left to right) Dr. Nathaniel Read, Dr. Paul Cosgrove and Valeria Raffuzzi, MSc.

Dr. Nathaniel Read, Chief Safety Case Engineer, and Dr. Paul Cosgrove, Head of Computational Methods, alongside Valeria Raffuzzi MSc, Head of Criticality and Shielding, will supplement Professor Ian Farnan and Professor Eugene Shwageraus in the development of the second proprietary NANO Nuclear Portable Advanced Micro Nuclear Reactor design,ODIN, a low-pressure coolant reactor.

It is a pleasure to welcome Dr. Read, Dr. Cosgrove and Ms. Raffuzzi to the NANO Nuclear team, said Jay Jiang Yu, NANO Nuclear Energys Founder, Chairman and President. Their combined experience will play a crucial role in the next steps of developing ODIN and advancing low-pressure coolant reactors to the next level. Professor Farnan and Professor Shwageraus have spoken of our newest additions in glowing terms and firmly believe that they will play a crucial role in realizing the Companys ambitions.

The secondAdvanced Nuclear Reactor (ANR)design in development at NANO Nuclear, ODINaims to diversify its technology portfolio, as the design requirements can be met through different technological solutions. The ODIN design will utilize conventional sintered pellet UO2fuel with up to 20% enrichment, helping to minimize the required development and testing program schedule and costs. The proprietary reactor designODINwill utilize low pressure coolant to minimize the stress on structural components, improve their reliability and service life. It will also use a unique reactivity control system design, aiming to have high reliability and robustness through minimizing the number of moving parts.

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The reactor will operate at higher than conventional water-cooled reactor temperatures, which will allow resilient operation and high-power conversion efficiency in generating electricity. The ODIN design will aim to take maximum advantage of the natural convection of coolant for heat transfer to the power conversion cycle at full power and for decay heat removal during reactor shutdown, operational transients, and off-normal conditions.

Figure 2 - NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Second Proprietary Portable Advanced Micro Nuclear Reactor Design, ODIN, a Low-Pressure Coolant Reactor

I am delighted to welcome this trio of experts in their field to our Nuclear Technical and Engineering Team, said James Walker, NANO Nuclear Energys CEO and Head of Nuclear Reactor Development. Ms. Raffuzzi, Dr. Read and Dr. Cosgrove will play a vital role for the Company, with their varied expertise and know-how to be key in the development of our second proprietary advanced nuclear reactor design. The relationship and understanding they have already developed with Professor Farnan and Professor Shwageraus will allow them to seamlessly integrate their capabilities into the ongoing design phase of ODIN.

Dr. Nathaniel Reads primary research interests are in safety assessment methods for nuclear systems and nuclear space power applications. His current postdoctoral work seeks to apply modern machine learning techniques to datasets created by the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) to attempt to detect early signs of station decline that could lead to an accident.

Figure 3 - Dr. Nathaniel Read, NANO Nuclear Energys Chief Safety Case Engineer

Focusing on numerical methods in nuclear reactor physics, Dr. Paul Cosgrove now teaches computational methods in nuclear engineering and supervises research projects on the topic. His research interests include stochastic and deterministic methods in radiation transport, multi-physics simulation, numerical analysis, and advanced reactor design.

Figure 4 - Dr. Paul Cosgrove, NANO Nuclear Energys Head of Computational Methods

The ODIN reactor design has the potential to decarbonise future energy production, but there is a lot of work to be done to realize it, said Prof. Ian Farnan, NANO Nuclear Energys Lead of Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Radiation and Materials. I have the utmost confidence that the addition of Dr. Read, Dr. Cosgrove and Ms. Raffuzzi will play a crucial role in the next steps of this design. I have worked extensively with each of them, and I am certain that their addition to the nuclear technical team is a vital step in attaining in ensuring that the ODIN design reaches its potential.

Valeria Raffuzzi, MSc. obtained her Bachelor degree in Energy Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, her Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering at EPFL/ETH, and is currently concluding her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on developing novel methods to improve Monte Carlo neutron transport simulations. Valeria is experienced in computational methods for fission and fusion nuclear reactors, criticality and shielding calculations.

Figure 5 - Valeria Raffuzzi, MSc., NANO Nuclear Energys Head of Criticality and Shielding

It is a source of great pride to welcome this trio to the NANO Nuclear journey, said Prof. Eugene Shwageraus, NANO Nuclear Energys Lead of Nuclear Reactor Engineering. The addition of these talented experts to the Nuclear Technical and Engineering Team is a step in the right direction and will help ensure that the future of energy production includes NANO Nuclear reactors, with ODIN a particularly promising endeavor. Its a prodigious pleasure to continue this path together.

About NANO Nuclear Energy Inc.

NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. is a vertically integrated DeepTech company emerging from the shared micro-Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and Advanced Nuclear Reactor (ANR) ambitions of a world class nuclear engineering team working alongside business and industry professionals, possessing strong relationships with both government, and the private and public nuclear industries. The Company is committed to providing Smaller, Cheaper, and Safer nuclear energy solutions for the future by incorporating the latest technology into its own proprietary novel reactor designs, intellectual properties, research methods and through its subsidiary, HALEU Energy Fuel Inc. The subsidiary will focus on the future development of a domestic source for a High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel fabrication pipeline for the broader advanced nuclear reactor industry and providing fuel to power NANO Nuclear reactors. Currently in technical development are ZEUS, a Solid Core Battery Reactor and ODIN, a Low-Pressure Coolant Reactor, NANO Nuclear Energys first generation of portable, on-demand capable, advanced nuclear micro reactors.

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Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In this context, forward-looking statements mean statements related to future events, which may impact our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "will", "should", "could", "would" or "may" and other words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements are based on information available to us as of the date of this news release and represent management's current views and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, events or results and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control.For NANO Nuclear Energy Inc., particular risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the following which are, and will be, exacerbated by any worsening of global business and economic environment: (i) risks related to the development of new or advanced technology, including difficulties with design and testing, cost overruns, development of competitive technology, loss of key individuals and uncertainty of success of patent filing, (ii) our ability to obtain contracts and funding to be able to continue operations and (iii) risks related to uncertainty regarding our ability to commercially deploy a competitive advanced nuclear reactor technology, (iv) risks related to the impact of government regulation and policies including by the DOE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in this and our other filings with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this news release. These factors may not constitute all factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in any forward-looking statement. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as a predictor of actual results. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this news release, except as required by law.

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NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Bolsters its Nuclear Technical and ... - Yahoo Finance