ISFAM: THE INFORMATION SECURITY FOCUS AREA MATURITY MODEL

Information security is mainly a topic that is considered to be information technology related. However, to successfully implement information security, an organization´s information security program should reflect the business strategy. Nowadays information security is in many companies enforced by the information technology department, based on what they think should be in place to protect their business from inside and outside threats and risks. Additionally, information security covers many different subjects. This makes it especially hard for small and medium sized organizations to determine how they should design their information security program. \ \ Therefore, we present the Information Security Focus Area Maturity Model (ISFAM). By identifying dependencies between various aspects of information security and representing them coherently in the ISFAM, the model is capable of determining the current information security maturity level. Involving the ISFAM model in the design process of an organization´s information security program enables organizations to set up high level guidelines based on their current status. These guidelines can be used to incrementally and structurally improve information security maturity within the organization. We have successfully evaluated the ISFAM assessment model through a single case study at a medium sized telecommunications organization

Chromatin organization in relation to the nuclear periphery

AbstractIn the limited space of the nucleus, chromatin is organized in a dynamic and non-random manner. Three ways of chromatin organization are compaction, formation of loops and localization within the nucleus. To study chromatin localization it is most convenient to use the nuclear envelope as a fixed viewpoint. Peripheral chromatin has both been described as silent chromatin, interacting with the nuclear lamina, and active chromatin, interacting with nuclear pore proteins. Current data indicate that the nuclear envelope is a reader as well as a writer of chromatin state, and that its influence is not limited to the nuclear periphery

Molecular Mechanisms Controlling HIV Transcription and Latency – Implications for Therapeutic Viral Reactivation

Persistence of transcriptionally silent replication competent HIV-1 is a major barrier to clearance of the virus from patients; current combinatorial antiretroviral therapies are successful in abrogating active viral replication, but are unable to eradicate latent HIV-1. A “shock and kill” strategy has been proposed as a curative approach in which latent virus is activated and infected cells are removed by immune clearance, while new rounds of infection are prevented by antiretroviral therapy. Much effort has been put toward understanding the molecular mechanisms maintaining HIV latency and the nature of reservoirs, to provide novel therapeutic targets. This has led to the development of latency reversal agents (LRAs), some of which are undergoing clinical trials. Targeting multiple mechanisms underlying HIV latency via a combination of LRAs is likely to result in more potent activation of the latent reservoir. Therefore, novel as well as synergistic combinations of therapeutic molecules are required to accomplish more potent latency reversal

Electrodynamic coupling of electric dipole emitters to a fluctuating mode density within a nano-cavity

We investigate the impact of rotational diffusion on the electrodynamic coupling of fluorescent dye molecules (oscillating electric dipoles) to a tunable planar metallic nanocavity. Fast rotational diffusion of the molecules leads to a rapidly fluctuating mode density of the electromagnetic field along the molecules' dipole axis, which significantly changes their coupling to the field as compared to the opposite limit of fixed dipole orientation. We derive a theoretical treatment of the problem and present experimental results for rhodamine 6G molecules in cavities filled with low and high viscosity liquids. The derived theory and presented experimental method is a powerful tool for determining absolute quantum yield values of fluorescence.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Physical Review Letter

Challenges to science and society in the sustainable management and use of water: investigating the role of social learning

Water catchments are characterised by connectedness, complexity, uncertainty, conflict, multiple stakeholders and thus, multiple perspectives. Catchments are thus unknowable in objective terms although this understanding does not currently form the dominant paradigm for environmental management and policy development. In situations of this type it is no longer possible to rely only on scientific knowledge for management and policy prescriptions. 'Social learning', which is built on different paradigmatic and epistemological assumptions, offers managers and policy makers alternative and complementary possibilities. Social learning is central to non-coercion. It is gaining recognition as a potential governance or coordination mechanism in complex natural resource situations such as the fulfilment of the European Water Framework Directive, but its underlying assumptions and successful conduct need to be much better understood. SLIM (social learning for the integrated management and sustainable use of water at catchment scale), a European Union, Fifth Framework project assembled a multidisciplinary group of researchers to research social learning in catchments of different type, scale, and socio-economic situation. Social tools and methods were developed from this research which also employed a novel approach to project management. In this introductory paper the rationale for the project, the project design intentions and realisations, and the case for researching social learning in contexts such as water catchments are described. Some challenges presented by a social learning approach for science (as a form of practice) and society in the sustainable management and use of water are raised

Innovation systems, Douglas, Douglass and beyond : using cultural theory to understand approaches to smallholder development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Innovation systems (IS) are taken to be coherent and consistent narratives or discourses. This chapter uses the Group/Grid or Cultural Theory (CT) to distinguish four competing IS narratives, each with their own theory of change, criterion variables, strategies, pathways of innovation and designs for innovation platforms (IP):1. The business model of agronomy (BMA), based on the methodological individualism of the diffusion of innovations and ‘agricultural treadmill’ paradigms and focusing on technology development to raise yields.2. Package and value chain approaches that seek to enable individual entrepreneurship through access to services, inputs, credit and markets and other institutions that reduce transaction costs.3. Promotion of rules and regulations (hierarchical institutions) to constrain the pursuit of individual interests for some public goods (governance, control of corruption, sustainable use of natural resources).4. Egalitarian approaches that seek to empower, emancipate, strengthen civil society and enhance social capital.This framework proves useful for analysing the history of agricultural development in Industrial countries and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to point to ways forward for inclusive approaches to mobilize the vast productive resources under smallholder management in Africa

Voorlichtingskundig in Anatolia : openbare les, waarin, aan de hand van reiservaringen, getracht wordt plezier in voorlichtingskunde over te dragen

Inaugurele rede Wageningen, 27 september 198