Impact of corporate governance on information security practices in (UK) financial industry

The empirical study of this paper focuses particularly on the UK financial industry for trends in the framework of policies in order to manage information security as operational risk and how corporate governance plays a vital role in framing policies within the company (Poole and CISM, 2006). The increasing dependency of UK financial industries on IT solutions and services to manage their business processes has indirectly coupled the financial IT systems to the economic well being of a country. This means that risks associated with such financial IT systems would have an impact on the economic elements of a nation. As more and more UK financial industries relies on IT solutions to manage their businesses, Information security (IS) trails are increasingly becoming a part of general audit practices within these UK financial industries. IS and IT audit trails for risk assessment includes a number of risk elements like data security, firewall, server, network, application, etc. Corporate governance policies are mostly excluded from IS audits as there is no regulated roadmap for assessment. However some companies adopted industry wide standards like COBIT and ISO but still unregulated by government authorities. Hence this research investigates the significance of corporate governance policies towards the development of a robust IS framework in the financial industry. It also looks at the government authority‘s role as a watchdog

SUSTAINABILITY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS AUDITING

Auditing is a systematic process of obtaining and evaluating evidence of activities, events or transactions. Currently, audit practices have been revolutionized by the development of information technology and basically information systems auditing focuses on assessing proper implementation, operation and control of information systems resources within organisation. Several frameworks have been formulated for information systems auditing implementation to achieve improvement in auditing performance related to compliance requirements, internal controls evaluation and information systems success. However, sustainability dimensions in the information systems auditing practices and the development of appropriate framework are not enough discussed in the literature although sustainability is becoming significant in achieving certain organisation‘s objective. Therefore, this study intends to analyse the relevant requirements by auditors and sustainability factors and use them to formulate IS audit by integrating sustainability in the auditing process. Thus, improve audit performance and enhanced accountability and integrity of auditors

Specific Heat of Liquid Helium in Zero Gravity very near the Lambda Point

We report the details and revised analysis of an experiment to measure the specific heat of helium with subnanokelvin temperature resolution near the lambda point. The measurements were made at the vapor pressure spanning the region from 22 mK below the superfluid transition to 4 uK above. The experiment was performed in earth orbit to reduce the rounding of the transition caused by gravitationally induced pressure gradients on earth. Specific heat measurements were made deep in the asymptotic region to within 2 nK of the transition. No evidence of rounding was found to this resolution. The optimum value of the critical exponent describing the specific heat singularity was found to be a = -0.0127+ - 0.0003. This is bracketed by two recent estimates based on renormalization group techniques, but is slightly outside the range of the error of the most recent result. The ratio of the coefficients of the leading order singularity on the two sides of the transition is A+/A- =1.053+ - 0.002, which agrees well with a recent estimate. By combining the specific heat and superfluid density exponents a test of the Josephson scaling relation can be made. Excellent agreement is found based on high precision measurements of the superfluid density made elsewhere. These results represent the most precise tests of theoretical predictions for critical phenomena to date.Comment: 27 Pages, 20 Figure

Population, Land Use and Deforestation in the Pan Amazon Basin: a Comparison of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela

This paper discusses the linkages between population change, land use, and deforestation in the Amazon regions of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, and Venezuela. We begin with a brief discussion of theories of population–environment linkages, and then focus on the case of deforestation in the PanAmazon. The core of the paper reviews available data on deforestation, population growth, migration and land use in order to see how well land cover change reflects demographic and agricultural change. The data indicate that population dynamics and net migration exhibit to deforestation in some states of the basin but not others. We then discuss other explanatory factors for deforestation, and find a close correspondence between land use and deforestation, which suggests that land use is loosely tied to demographic dynamics and mediates the influence of population on deforestation. We also consider national political economic contexts of Amazon change in the six countries, and find contrasting contexts, which also helps to explain the limited demographic-deforestation correspondence. The paper closes by noting general conclusions based on the data, topics in need of further research and recent policy proposals.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42720/1/10668_2003_Article_6977.pd