ISACA Announces 2023-2024 Board Of Directors

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 (Bernama) -- Global digital trust association, ISACA has introduced its 2023-2024 Board of Directors, bringing deep tech, finance and business expertise and a strong global perspective

The board which includes three new directors and ISACA Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Erik Prusch, will be helmed by new board chair John De Santis, past ISACA vice chair and a technology executive with more than three decades of experience in software, networking and information security.

“It is an exciting time as we welcome ISACA’s new board of directors—talented leaders from across the world with unparalleled experience and dedication to advancing digital trust professions and serving our global community,” said Prusch in a statement.

Meanwhile, De Santis said: “My term as board chair comes at an especially promising time for the organisation with the recent announcement of ISACA’s new CEO, Erik Prusch. I look forward to supporting him and our dedicated staff team in advancing our professional community.”

De Santis is a technology executive, and past chairman and CEO of HyTrust, an information technology (IT) infrastructure security software company, and currently serves on the fiduciary boards of Cequence Security and ValiMail, leading innovators in the cybersecurity space.

A company-builder based in New Hampshire, United States (US), he has more than 30 years of international and US-based experience at venture-backed technology start-ups as well as at large global public companies in the telecom and IT fields.

Stepping into the vice chair role on ISACA’s board is Brennan P. Baybeck, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer for Customer Success Services at Oracle Corporation.

Baybeck has more than 30 years of experience in IT security, governance, risk, audit and consulting, and has worked in various industries designing, implementing and operating enterprise-wide programmes to address global security risks.

He is also a long-time ISACA volunteer, having served as a chapter board leader for over 13 years and as ISACA board chair from 2019-2020.

Three new directors joined the ISACA board for the 2023-24 term were Stephen Gilfus, Jason Lau and Massimo Migliuolo. In total, 13 leaders were installed on the Board of Directors during ISACA’s Annual General Meeting held in Prague and virtually.

-- BERNAMA

WISTAR-LED TEAM AWARDED MORE THAN $12 MILLION GRANT FROM THE NCI TO INVESTIGATE LINK BETWEEN EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS AND CARCINOMAS

PHILADELPHIA, PA, July 27 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- It’s been known since the 1960s that Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) causes a variety of cancers, but research has overwhelmingly focused on its connection to lymphomas. Now, a multidisciplinary team of scientists led by The Wistar Institute has been awarded a more than $12 million National Cancer Institute (NCI) Program Project Grant (P01), a highly competitive five-year grant that includes a crosssection of researchers from various disciplines and institutions throughout the country. The multidisciplinary team led by Wistar scientists is exploring the role of Epstein-Barr Virus in epithelial cancers. Epithethelial cells form functional structures in organ tissue throughout the human body; they are often the site for solid organ cancers, including the most common cancers, which are known as carcinomas.

The new research will focus on basic questions about how EBV infection of normal epithelial cells transforms them into cancer-cells. Scientists also intend to build on this research to identify better and more selective therapeutic targets.
 
“We are investigating unexplored aspects of EBV and malignancies, potentially uncovering unique characteristics or pathways that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention,” said Italo Tempera, Ph.D., associate professor of the Gene Expression & Regulation Program of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center at The Wistar Institute. “This fresh perspective could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and innovative treatment strategies for EBV and epithelial malignancies.”

The project brings together scientists from The Wistar Institute and Harvard University, including experts in epigenetics, metabolomics and drug discovery. It’s the first time researchers from this variety of disciplines have combined their efforts to focus entirely on the EBV-epithelial cancer link.

“We’ve put together a new strategy, a new way of attacking the problem,” said Paul Lieberman, Ph.D., Hilary Koprowski, M.D., Endowed Professor and director of the Center for Chemical Biology and Translational Medicine at Wistar. “By working together across different modalities, there’s an opportunity for each of us to learn from the synergy and expertise of the other investigators.”

EBV is one of the most common human viruses, infecting an estimated 95% of people by the time they reach adulthood. Symptoms are usually mild, and most people recover within a few weeks. However, the virus can remain latent in the human body for years or even decades, and it causes some people to develop cancer later in life. 

While research has historically focused on lymphomas, EBV-linked epithelial cancers are both more common and more deadly. Epithelial cancers represent 75% of the 200,000 EBV-related cancer cases diagnosed each year, and these cancers also have higher mortality rates and treatment failures. 

“This grant put together a team that is now focused on this type of cancer that has been neglected, even though it’s the most common form of EBV cancers,” Lieberman said. The grant will fund three main research projects. The first will look at how EBV establishes a long-term infection within epithelial cells. The second will study how it causes genetic and metabolic changes to trigger cancer growth. Finally, researchers will use these findings to investigate new therapeutic strategies. 

The research builds on past work by Lieberman’s lab, which has focused on developing small molecule inhibitors targeting EBV. He said the new project would focus on studying drugs that are already in development, and looking for ways to make them more targeted or use them in combination with other therapies. 

Tempera said the group’s integrated approach sets it apart.“Our project will study both metabolic and epigenetic vulnerabilities simultaneously,” he said. “Combining these two aspects can provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of EBV infection in cancer and its underlying mechanisms, leading to unique insights and therapeutic opportunities.” 

Co-authors: Ben Gewurz of Harvard; Joseph Salvino, Samantha Soldan, Andrew Kossenkov, Louise Showe, and Qin Liu of Wistar.

Darien Sutton
The Wistar Institute
215-870-2048
dsutton@wistar.org

SOURCE : The Wistar Institute

PUBMATIC UNVEILS HOLISTIC COMMERCE MEDIA OFFERING WITH THE LAUNCH OF CONVERT

IPG Mediabrands, Coles 360, dentsu, Lyft Media, MiQ, and Wallapop Leverage PubMatic Technology to Drive Onsite and Offsite Performance

NO-HEADQUARTERS/REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 26 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PubMatic (Nasdaq: PUBM), an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, today announced Convert, a unified self-service advertising platform for commerce media. Built on PubMatic's global cloud infrastructure, Convert is tailored for commerce media networks and their advertisers, enabling both onsite and offsite monetization, including sponsored listing ads and CTV. Convert helps commerce media networks leverage their valuable first-party data for audience extension at scale across the open internet. 

Leading industry brands, retailers, and advertisers such as IPG Mediabrands, Coles 360, dentsu, Lyft Media, MiQ, and Wallapop have joined PubMatic as partners in the development and announcement of its commerce media platform.

The new offering is built for both traditional retailers as well as a wide variety of transaction-based businesses such as transportation or food delivery providers, travel companies, or any scaled Internet company that processes transactions.

According to GroupM, the global commerce media market is projected to surpass $140 billion by 2025. The emerging commerce media digital supply chain is rife with fragmentation, causing commerce media networks and their advertisers to rely on multiple technology layers that drive inefficiencies.

Convert empowers commerce media networks with a single, self-service platform that streamlines the complex and fragmented commerce media marketplace. It brings together essential monetization and optimization capabilities across sponsored listings, CTV, video, and display ad formats. An unbiased, privacy-centric full-stack solution, Convert ensures transparency in fee and pricing structures along with automation and scalability for commerce media networks and advertisers.

The new platform complements PubMatic’s existing commerce media capabilities offered via Connect, the omnichannel addressability solution launched in 2022 that enables data access and control on the sell-side, closer to the consumer. The number of commerce companies leveraging Connect for audience extension continues to increase as they seek new, high-margin revenue streams to supplement their traditional business lines. In Q2 2023, PubMatic saw a 50% increase in the number of commerce customers year-over-year.

“We are looking forward to working with PubMatic on solutions that align with our goal of unifying retail media,” said Glen Conybeare, Executive Lead, Retail Media, IPG Mediabrands. “There is a great opportunity for us to help our brands navigate this space and retail partners are a key part of our platform ecosystem, especially those that can work on a global scale.”

“The rise of retail media is well-documented and the potential for it to create impactful experiences for consumers and deliver business growth is immense,” said Paul Brooks, General Manager, Coles 360, part of Coles Group, one of Australia’s largest retailers. “We are seeing a lot of companies evolving their capability to move into the retail media sector, PubMatic is moving quickly and their product development and investments in retail and commerce media are testament to this fact.”

“denstu is committed to driving innovation and integration for commerce media advertisers across the open internet,” said Bruce Williams, EVP, Head of Performance Marketing at dentsu Media US. “By partnering with PubMatic, dentsu can leverage valuable commerce and retail data to enable advanced targeting and reporting and drive performance across the entire media supply chain. With the help of PubMatic, we’re advancing our end-to-end outcome-centered approach for media activation and delivering more holistic strategies across brand and commerce media for our clients.”

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=46659

NIPPON EXPRESS (VIETNAM) OPENS NX VSIP II LOGISTICS CENTER IN BINH DUONG PROVINCE

TOKYO, July 26, 2023 /Kyodo JBN-AsiaNet/ -- 

Nippon Express (Vietnam) Co., Ltd. (hereafter "NX Vietnam"), a group company of NIPPON EXPRESS HOLDINGS, INC., has opened the NX VSIP II Logistics Center in the country's southern province of Binh Duong and will begin its operations on August 1.
 
Logo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/202307187198-O1-zlY15dd1
 
Photo: Warehouse exterior
https://cdn.kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/
M103866/202307187198/_prw_PI2fl_35ZJT3GX.jpg
 
 
As Vietnam's economy has grown, consumer spending has increased and new retailers have continued to expand into the country. In addition, a steady stream of manufacturing and other companies has poured into Vietnam, drawn by its abundant labor resources.
 
NX Vietnam's newly established NX VSIP II Logistics Center is located in an area with easy access to Ho Chi Minh City and its thriving manufacturing sector. The warehouse will provide product storage, sorting, and distribution processing services for retailers and serve as a distribution hub for Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas, as well as providing bonded inventory management services for export processing enterprises (EPEs).
 
NX Vietnam will utilize the NX VSIP II Logistics Center as a major logistics base for the northern Ho Chi Minh City area, and will support customers considering launching new businesses in Vietnam or expanding existing ones by offering packaged services.
 
Profile of new warehouse
- Name: NX VSIP II Logistics Center
- Address: 18 L2-4 Tao Luc Road No.5, Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park II, Binh Duong Industrial - Service - Urban Complex, Hoa Phu Ward, Thu Dau Mot City, Binh Duong, Vietnam
- Total floor area: 14,511 m2
- Key facilities: Raised-floor truck berths (20 in total), rack system, CCTV, access control system, private power generation equipment
- Start of operations: August 1, 2023
 
Nippon Express website: https://www.nipponexpress.com/
 
Nippon Express Group's official LinkedIn account:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/nippon-express-group/
 
 
Source: NIPPON EXPRESS HOLDINGS, INC.  

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=46662

​OPEN HEALTH ANNOUNCES A NEW TEAM OF EXPERTS WILL LEAD ITS HEOR & MARKET ACCESS SCIENTIFIC OFFICE

London, UK, July 24 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OPEN Health, a global provider of consultancy, HEOR and market access, and scientific communications services, today announced a new team of experts will lead its HEOR & Market Access Scientific Office. This expert team will be led by Dr. Elisabeth Fenwick as Chief Scientific Officer with support from Professor Ben van Hout as Scientific Founder. 

Both Elisabeth and Ben joined OPEN Health through its acquisition of Pharmerit International. Elisabeth Fenwick is most widely known for working on the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve (CEAC), creating the cost-effectiveness acceptability frontier, and for her work in value of information analyses for research decisions. She has over 20 years of experience in the industry and has published more than 50 publications globally. Ben van Hout is most commonly known for being one of the co-founders of the EQ-5D (a standardized measure of health-related quality of life) and as the developer of the CEAC. He was also one of the first researchers to perform a discrete event simulation and is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He has over 35 years of experience in the industry and was honored with the ISPOR Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. 

“The purpose of the Scientific Office is to ensure that science is at the center of everything we do. Our scientific experts are here to support the HEOR and market access team with their amazing research developing innovative solutions.” Elisabeth commented.

The Scientific Office is made up of experts who bring unique skillsets from across OPEN Health’s HEOR & market access service areas. The appointed team consists of Maarten Treur, MSc, Vice President and Global Head of Modeling & Meta-Analysis; Dr. Viktor Chirikov, Director of Real‑World Evidence & Data Analytics; Dr. Marco Boeri, Director of Preference Research in Patient-Centered Outcomes; and Emanuele Arcà, MSc, Senior Research Consultant in Strategic Market Access. Craig Bennison, MSc, Executive Director and Global Innovation Lead for OPEN Health HEOR & Market Access, will also join the team and will focus specifically on innovation. 

“Over the last few years, the scientific contributions and leadership of these experts have played instrumental roles in shaping our reputation and research efforts, working in partnership with our clients to improve health outcomes and patient wellbeing,” said Richard Jones, President of OPEN Health Evidence & Access. “This team will ensure our scientific expertise, thought leadership, and innovation stay front and center of our HEOR and market access offering.”

To learn more about the team of experts in the Scientific Office, please explore this interactive publication.

About OPEN Health

OPEN Health unites deep scientific knowledge with wide-ranging specialist expertise to unlock possibilities that improve health outcomes and patient wellbeing. Working in partnership with our clients, we embrace our different perspectives and strengths to deliver fresh thinking and solutions that make a difference. OPEN Health is a flexible global organization that solves complex healthcare challenges across HEOR and market access, medical communications and creative omnichannel campaigns. For more information on OPEN Health, visit www.openhealthgroup.com.
 

http://mrem.bernama.com/viewsm.php?idm=46641

Shanghai is Asia’s Leading Smart City in 2023 - Juniper Research

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (Bernama) -- Shanghai is Asia's leading smart city in 2023 due to its comprehensive data systems, according to a new study from Juniper Research, the foremost experts in the sustainability & Internet of Things (IoT) market.

The research analysed Shanghai as leading due to its strong data platform, comprehensive deployment of 5G, and use of innovative technologies, including digital twins, reflecting a well-considered and progressive smart city design, which can be seen as an example for other cities to emulate.

According to a statement, other smart cities ranked by Juniper Research are Seoul, Shenzhen, Sydney and Beijing.

Asian smart city spend is growing by 120 per cent with hardware and software spend on smart city deployments is forecast to reach US$42 billion by 2028, from US$19 billion in 2023. (US$1=RM4.55)

Spend is growing much faster in the rest of Asia Pacific, at 303 per cent over the next five years, compared to the Indian Subcontinent at 231 per cent and Far East & China at 76 per cent, over the same period.

Meanwhile, growth in Far East & China is slowing, with smart city projects being more mature in countries like China, Japan and South Korea.

However, emerging markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam will boast much stronger growth, as smart city initiatives get underway, and cities build the comprehensive data systems needed for success.

Juniper Research’s ranking of 50 world cities is based on an evaluation of many different smart city aspects, covering transportation and infrastructure, energy and lighting, city management and technology, and urban connectivity.

-- BERNAMA

NICOLE ZIMMERMANN JOINS FINANCIAL HOUSE AS NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (Bernama) -- Financial House, an e-money services and payment solutions company, has appointed Nicole Zimmermann as the new non-executive Director and member of the Board.

In a statement, the company said this appointment highlighted its continued plans to grow its business operations globally; as well as extend strong cross-border and payments infrastructure with industry leaders and start-ups alike.

“It is an absolute honour to welcome Nicole Zimmermann to the board of Financial House to help grow our organisation and build our brand across Europe and into global markets.

“She is a tremendous asset to our organisation having worked for some of the best companies in the market to expand business, develop strong customer experiences, and build brands that compete successfully on a global stage,” said its Chief Executive Officer, Alisher Abdukadyrov.

Meanwhile, Zimmermann said: “Joining the Financial House board during this immense time of growth and innovation is incredibly exciting as we take a giant step forward together to build a strong, competitive brand.

“Working with the Financial House is a perfect match as we share a commitment for excellence in payments and customer experience, and a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion.”

A respected marketing and business executive with deep expertise in global branding, change management and business transformation, Zimmermann has more than 25 years of experience in large, global organisations from telecommunications to remittance and global payments.

-- BERNAMA