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Risk management, at its core, is a simple concept, but is often extremely difficult to implement and maintain. For information technology managers, it?s an increasingly important skill.

Its key precepts are to identify risks to your business, to assess those risks by determining their potential impact and their likelihood of occurrence, and then to take steps to mitigate the risks to an acceptable level.

Market, credit, and operational risks have traditionally been a part of the corporate decision-making process, as they are easily quantifiable and measurable items. IT risk, however, has often been excluded from the boardroom. That?s due in part to the difficulty of measuring direct financial impact to both IT infrastructure and the business itself.

However, we are now in an age where the processes of capturing, storing, and retrieving information is the foundation upon which most of the world currently operates. Since information is now the dominant force and the most valuable asset for many modern companies, managers can no longer afford to ignore or downplay IT and the risks associated with it.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology expounds on this newfound importance of IT risk management in a special publication: ?The principal goal of an organization?s risk management process should be to protect the organization and its ability to perform their mission, not just its IT assets.? Therefore, the risk management process should not be treated primarily as a technical function carried out by the IT experts who operate and manage the IT system, but as an essential management function of the organization.?

It?s not just preparing for disaster

IT managers jokingly complain that their departments often get blamed for everything that goes wrong. The stark, modern reality is, however, that infrastructure deployed and maintained by technical professionals is now actively responsible for supporting most business-critical services in just about every industry. This puts IT managers in the mostly unenviable and sometimes untenable position of having to understand nearly every aspect of the businesses they support.

Even the failure of seemingly simple services such as e-mail can have wide-ranging effects across multiple departments. Sales staff may not be able to process an urgent order from a customer. The purchasing department may not receive notification of a shipping delay. A production manager may be unable to request an emergency meeting.

The ability to predict wide-ranging effects of simple changes or failures becomes a necessary part of both an effective IT risk management program and the technology decision-making process as a whole.

Where to get risk management guidance

The good news for IT managers is that several organizations have already expended vast amounts of money and research to provide viable methods for qualitative IT risk management. The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University created one such program: the OCTAVE method.

Globally-recognized, non-profit IS/IT membership organization ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) also offers its COBIT program, which integrates numerous other frameworks and international standards into one comprehensive solution.

For IT managers, the effectiveness of how they identify and mitigate risk across the corporation now will make more of a difference than pure technical skills. As they learn which essential job functions rely on which infrastructure components and become better at predicting the potential wide-ranging impact of system failures, effective IT managers can often become the key players in the decision-making processes of the organizations they represent.

IT risk management then becomes the cornerstone of one of the most important day-to-day goals in any industry: Keeping the business running.

?Risk? keyboard: VentureBeat.

Filed under: VentureBeat

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Michael Becker / FOX

Will Phillip Phillips, Jessica Sanchez or Joshua Ledet get cut? It’s hard to tell this season who’ll make the final two.

In most years, the penultimate week of ?American Idol? serves to finally eliminate the interloper, the singer who?s clearly at a disadvantage compared to the top two. Last year it was Haley Reinhart, whose exit paved the way for the Scotty McCreery-Lauren Alaina finale that everyone expected, and Casey James ceded the floor to Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox in season nine. (Hey, it made sense at the time.) In most other ?Idol? seasons, by the time we got to the middle of May, everyone knew who the two favorites were.

That?s not true in season 11. And while a gambler would probably lay the odds on a Joshua Ledet-Phillip Phillips final with Jessica Sanchez going home Thursday, there?s a legitimate case to be made that any of the remaining contestants could be in danger this week.

Phillip got the most criticism of anyone on Wednesday, as nobody liked the song he chose for himself (Matchbox 20?s ?Disease?). But that was only one of his three performances, and when he closed the show strong with Jimmy Iovine?s pick, Bob Seger’s ?We?ve Got Tonight,??he came through with best individual effort of the evening. He?s the only one of the remaining finalists who has never been revealed as one of the lowest vote-getters, so he?s the best individual bet to keep going.

In sharp contrast to Phillip?s easy road to the final three, Joshua nearly didn?t even make it out of the first week. Imagine how different this season would have gone had he been eliminated back in March instead of Jeremy Rosado. Joshua was again in the bottom three when there were seven contestants remaining, but he?s been the strongest of anyone since that latter scare. He seemed to be the favorite of the judges (again) on Wednesday, even if his final song of the night –?Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama” — was a bit over-the-top in its frenzy.

And speaking of struggling, the same week in April that Joshua was in the bottom three, Jessica would have been eliminated had the judges not used their save on her. She?s sailed through the past month since then, but this wasn?t her best week. None of her solos?stood out, and she was the lone finalist to not get a standing ovation from the judges.

If Phillip and Joshua do make it to the finale, they will both owe an assist to Jimmy. The mentor is the one who picked ?We?ve Got Tonight? for Phillip, as well as prodding Joshua to go with Blige?s tune ? the only one of Joshua?s three songs that wasn?t at least 35 years old.

For Jessica? He picked ?I?ll Be There? by the Jackson 5, an attempt to make her sound younger. It didn?t work because she literally can?t make herself sound her age. She?s an old singing soul in a young body, like it or not.

Also noteworthy was that Phillip got credit for a ?moment? with his final number, though that might have been for the distracting way he was petting his leg with his left hand as much as it was for his vocals. He also earned an ?in it to win it? from Randy Jackson for the last effort.

Meanwhile, Jessica had to content herself with an endorsement from the last-place San Diego Padres. The last ?Idol? finalist to be touted by a sports team having a mediocre year was Hollie Cavanagh, who got support from Liverpool’s English Premier League (that?s soccer, for the non-sports fans). That didn?t seem to help her much.

Then again, Steven Tyler did insinuate early in the show that he expected Jessica to win. So who knows? Unlike most years, it?s truly anybody?s competition with just one week remaining.

Who do you think will get cut Thursday? Share your prediction on our Facebook page!

{“contentId”:”11738089″,”totalVotes”:”13354″}

Which was the best performance of the night?

Want more “Idol” during “Idol”? Follow @CraigBerman as he live tweets each show.

Related content:

Phillip: “We’ve Got Tonight”	? 45.9% (6,133 votes)
Phillip: “Beggin’ “	? 11.8% (1,580 votes)
Joshua: “No More Drama”	? 8% (1,073 votes)
Joshua: “Imagine”	? 7.8% (1,046 votes)
Jessica: “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”	? 7.1% (946 votes)
Joshua: “I’d Rather Go Blind”	? 6.1% (809 votes)
Jessica: “My All”	? 5.9% (783 votes)
Jessica: “I’ll Be There”	? 4.8% (640 votes)
Phillip: “Disease”	? 2.6% (344 votes)

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Request for your FREE Better Homes and Gardens magazine subscription. To get your one-year subscription to Better Homes and Gardens, plus find out what FREE business publications you could receive, simply complete the following information.

This home and family service magazine is designed for husbands and wives who have a focal interest in the home and family. It services its readers in the form of ideas, help, information and inspiration to achieve a better home and family.

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Tomorrow night David North, of the Center for Immigration Studies, will deliver the last in a series of lectures sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies and hosted by the Penn Club. With any luck I?ll be able to cover his talk, whose subject is the extremely important-and all but ignored-subject of legal immigration. You can view my thoughts-or react with your own-by following my Twitter account and replying @OddLane.

I look forward to the conversation.

?

Tags: Center for Immigration Studies, CIS, David North, immigration, legal immigration, News and Analysis, Penn Club, Twitter

This entry was posted on May 15, 2012 at 12:12 AM and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Hamilton already has 30,000 followers in about 24 hours, even though his account has yet to be verified. He did?confirm?that it was his, though. He said it would be managed by his representatives, but that he would tweet himself on occasion.

Regardless of the content of his tweets, Hamilton seems assured of quickly becoming one of the most followed baseball players on twitter. Frankly, though, we doubt he?ll be half as interesting as Brandon McCarthy.

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Cate Edwards, the oldest child of former presidential candidate John Edwards, will testify at her father’s corruption trial. NBC’s Lisa Myers reports.

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The eldest daughter of John Edwards is set to take the stand in her father’s defense.

Cate Edwards is a 30-year-old lawyer who has sat behind the former presidential contender nearly every day of his corruption trial, now in its fourth week. She’s expected to testify Tuesday.

Edwards has pleaded not guilty to six counts related to campaign finance violations over?nearly $1 million from two wealthy donors used to help hide the Democrat’s pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008.

Cate Edwards fled the courtroom in tears earlier this month during testimony about her mother’s reaction to her father’s affair with Rielle Hunter. It is not clear what she knows about the cover-up that may help his defense.

Cate, a graduate of Harvard Law, has stood by her father unwaveringly, NBC’s Lisa Myers reported on TODAY on Tuesday. In a eulogy to her mother, Elizabeth, in December 2010, Cate said, “One thing remains true and will never change, which is that?we’re still a family.”

John Edwards faces up to 30 years in prison.

Slideshow: John Edwards? public life

Previous report: Judge rejects testimony on FEC audit in Edwards’ trial

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Western Digital has completed its FTC-ordered handover of assets to Toshiba in order to buy Hitachi’s HDD business Viviti. The wedding of the year was halted when regulators, citing monopoly concerns, demanded WD hand over a bundle of IP, R&D materials and production line gear to Tosh. In exchange, Western Digital will take over Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand), the arm of the company that was devastated in the recent flooding. It’s WD’s aim to integrate the remaining assets into its own local operations — you can read the official line in the land of pure imagination below.

Continue reading WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists’ delight

WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists’ delight originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The paper will be published May 15 in Cancer Research.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC, is the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related death. Newly diagnosed patients have a median survival of less than one year, and a 5-year survival rate of only 3 to 5 percent. Therefore, biomarkers that can identify early onset of PDAC and which could be viable drug targets are desperately needed.

‘”We found that a kinase called PEAK1 is turned on very early in pancreatic cancer,” said first author Jonathan Kelber, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the UCSD Department of Pathology and Moores Cancer Center. “This protein was clearly detected in biopsies of malignant tumors from human patients — at the gene and the protein levels — as well as in mouse models.”

PEAK1 is a type of tyrosine kinase — an enzyme, or type of protein, that speeds up chemical reactions and acts as an “on” or “off” switch in many cellular functions. The fact that PEAK1 expression is increased in human PDAC and that its catalytic activity is important for PDAC cell proliferation makes it an important candidate as a biomarker and therapeutic target for small molecule drug discovery.

In addition to showing that levels of PEAK1 are increased during PDAC progression, the scientists found that PEAK1 is necessary for the cancer to grow and metastasize.

“PEAK1 is a critical signaling hub, regulating cell migration and proliferation,” said Kelber. “We found that if you knock it out in PDAC cells, they form significantly smaller tumors in preclinical mouse models and fail to metastasize efficiently.”

The research team, led by principal investigator Richard Klemke, PhD, UCSD professor of pathology, studied a large, on-line data base of gene expression profiles to uncover the presence of PEAK1 in PDAC. These findings were corroborated at the protein level in patient biopsy samples from co-investigator Michael Bouvet, MD, and in mouse models developed by Andrew M. Lowy, MD, both of the UCSD Department of Surgery at Moores Cancer Center.

While many proteins are upregulated in cancers of the pancreas, there has been limited success in identifying candidates that, when inhibited, have potential as clinically approved therapeutics. However, the researchers found that inhibition of PEAK1-dependent signaling sensitized PDAC cells to existing chemotherapies such as Gemitabine, and immunotherapies such as Trastuzumab.

“Survival rates for patients with pancreatic cancer remain low,” said Bouvet. “Therefore, earlier detection and novel treatment strategies are very important if we are going to make any progress against pancreatic cancer. Since current therapies are often ineffective, our hope is that the findings from this research will open up a new line of investigation to bring a PEAK1 inhibitor to the clinic.”

Additional contributors to the study include Theresa Reno, Sharmeela Kaushal, Cristina Metildi,Tracy Wright, Konstantin Stoletov, Jessica M. Weems, Frederick D. Park, Evangeline Mose, UC San Diego; Yingchun Wang, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing; and Robert M. Hoffman, UC San Diego and AntiCancer, Inc., San Diego.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Diego Health Sciences, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

1. J. A. Kelber, T. Reno, S. Kaushal, C. Metildi, T. Wright, K. Stoletov, J. M. Weems, F. D. Park, E. Mose, Y. Wang, R. M. Hoffman, A. M. Lowy, M. Bouvet, R. L. Klemke. KRas Induces a Src/PEAK1/ErbB2 Kinase Amplification Loop That Drives Metastatic Growth and Therapy Resistance in Pancreatic Cancer. Cancer Research, 2012; 72 (10): 2554 DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-3552

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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