Infrastructure Asset Management Modeling through an Analysis of the Air Force Strategic Vision and Goals

Effective asset management requires an overarching model that establishes a framework for decision-makers. This research project develops a strategic level asset management model for varying types of infrastructure that provides guidance for effective asset management. The strategic model also incorporates Next Generation Information Technology initiatives into a single coherent system to streamline the top-down, bottom-up flow of information. The strategic model is applicable to agencies with a large, varying infrastructure inventory and limited resources. This research also develops an improved performance modeling tool, a critical component of the strategic model. This tool objectively prioritizes maintenance and repair projects according to measurable metrics as well as the strategic vision, established goals, and policies. Asset management of Air Force infrastructure provides an example of applicability for this strategic model and improved tool; thus, an asset management example of Air Force infrastructure is utilized throughout the research project to demonstrate the utility of the model and the tool. The strategic level model and improved tool enable policy-makers to make decisions that tie goals, infrastructure inventory, condition state, importance and criticality, and budget constraints to system performance. As a result, insight is gained on ways to maximize efficiency and optimize the performance of infrastructure

Cloud Technology Selection: A structured framework for decision making

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThis study aims to get organizations to improve their decision making during the selection of cloud technology process. As the technology evolves alongside an ever-increasing abundance in market offer, it may be challenging to choose the desirable service that encompasses several business approaches. For the purpose of this study to be attained, the reader must first comprehend the definition of Cloud Technology: it is the delivery of IT resources over the Internet, being applications, software, storage, among other services. Furthermore, understanding the current main technologies/architectures and their capabilities/limitations will play an important role in designing and developing the prospected solution. A thoroughly research will be produced to better define the criteria used in the process. Despite the fact that technology is able to be tailored up to a certain level for the organization needs, a higher level of participation will encourage vendors and architecture designers to develop a better knowledge on the companies’ desires, thus delivering more appropriate features to their unique needs

CAESAR8: an agile enterprise architecture approach to managing information security risks in business change projects

Implementing an Enterprise Architecture (EA) should enable organizations to increase the accuracy of information security risk assessments. Studies show that EAs provide an holistic perspective that improves information security risk management (ISRM). However, many organizations have been unable or unwilling to fully implement EA frameworks. The requirements for implementation of an EA can be unclear, the full benefits of many commercial frameworks is uncertain and the overheads of creating and maintaining EA artifacts considered unacceptable, especially for organizations following agile business change programs or having limited resource. Following the Design Science Research methodology, this thesis describes a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to design a new model that can be used for the dynamic and holistic reviews of information security risks in business change projects. The model incorporates five novel design principles that are independent of any existing EA framework, security standard or maturity model. This new model is called CAESAR8 - Continuous Agile Enterprise Security Architecture Review in 8 domains. CAESAR8 incorporates key ISRM success factors that have been determined from root cause analysis of information security failures. Combining systems thinking with agile values and lean concepts into the design has ensured that the impact of a change is considered holistically and continuously, prioritizing the EA process over the creation of EA artifacts. Inclusion of human behavioral-science has allowed the capture of diverse and often tacit knowledge held by different stakeholders impacted by a business change, whilst avoiding the dangers of groupthink. CAESAR8’s presentation of the results provides an impactive and easy-to-interpret metric that is designed to be shared with senior business executives to improve intervention decisions. This thesis demonstrates how CAESAR8 has been developed into a working prototype and presents case studies that describe the model in operation. A diverse group of experts were given access to a working IT prototype for a hands-on evaluation of CAESAR8. An analysis of their findings confirms the model’s novel scientific contribution to ISRM

Current established risk assessment methodologies and tools

The technology behind information systems evolves at an exponential rate, while at the same time becoming more and more ubiquitous. This brings with it an implicit rise in the average complexity of systems as well as the number of external interactions. In order to allow a proper assessment of the security of such (sub)systems, a whole arsenal of methodologies, methods and tools have been developed in recent years. However, most security auditors commonly use a very small subset of this collection, that best suits their needs. This thesis aims at uncovering the differences and limitations of the most common Risk Assessment frameworks, the conceptual models that support them, as well as the tools that implement them. This is done in order to gain a better understanding of the applicability of each method and/or tool and suggest guidelines to picking the most suitable one

Energy Policy and International Competitiveness

This book is a collection of selected papers presented at the XVI Inforum World Conference organized by the European University of Lefke, North Cyprus, in September 2008. Inforum (Interindustry Forecasting Project at the University of Maryland) was founded in 1967 by Dr. Clopper Almon, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. At international level, partners build national econometric models for their own country sharing a common modelling approach based on a sectoral representation of the economy. The contributions presented here illustrate the wide variety of issues that can be explored using these models, with particular emphasis on energy policies and competitiveness analyses, which are very high on the agenda of policymakers worldwide

Automation of the tax practice of the \u2790s;

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1022/thumbnail.jp

COSPO/CENDI Industry Day Conference

The conference's objective was to provide a forum where government information managers and industry information technology experts could have an open exchange and discuss their respective needs and compare them to the available, or soon to be available, solutions. Technical summaries and points of contact are provided for the following sessions: secure products, protocols, and encryption; information providers; electronic document management and publishing; information indexing, discovery, and retrieval (IIDR); automated language translators; IIDR - natural language capabilities; IIDR - advanced technologies; IIDR - distributed heterogeneous and large database support; and communications - speed, bandwidth, and wireless

Towards interoperable e-Health system in Tanzania: analysis and evaluation of the current security trends and big data sharing dynamics

This research article published by the International Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Exploration (IJATEE), Volume-6 Issue-59 October-2019In this paper an insight on various e-health interoperable systems was reviewed to discover strengths and challenges faced during sustainable implementation. It covered local, national and regional coverage of integrated systems towards implementation of a single unified e-health system. Peer reviewed and grey literatures were consulted to discover global and local trend and efforts towards implementations of e-health interoperable systems. The available systems and frameworks from the European Union, Asia, America, Oceania and Africa were analyzed for their strengths and challenges. Various policies, guides as well as free and proprietary standards associated with e-health interoperability was reviewed to understand the common standards adopted by the majority of existing systems. The findings of the analysis are useful for policy makers on the best ways to implement interoperable systems in developing countries by focusing on the existing infrastructures and the environment. Similarly, the strengths and challenges encountered by interoperable systems were also examined to provide recommendations for future studies

Challenges in Blockchain as a Solution for IoT Ecosystem Threats and Access Control: A Survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly influencing and transforming various aspects of our daily lives. Contrary to popular belief, it raises security and privacy issues as it is used to collect data from consumers or automated systems. Numerous articles are published that discuss issues like centralised control systems and potential alternatives like integration with blockchain. Although a few recent surveys focused on the challenges and solutions facing the IoT ecosystem, most of them did not concentrate on the threats, difficulties, or blockchain-based solutions. Additionally, none of them focused on blockchain and IoT integration challenges and attacks. In the context of the IoT ecosystem, overall security measures are very important to understand the overall challenges. This article summarises difficulties that have been outlined in numerous recent articles and articulates various attacks and security challenges in a variety of approaches, including blockchain-based solutions and so on. More clearly, this contribution consolidates threats, access control issues, and remedies in brief. In addition, this research has listed some attacks on public blockchain protocols with some real-life examples that can guide researchers in taking preventive measures for IoT use cases. Finally, a future research direction concludes the research gaps by analysing contemporary research contributions