IOT Devices in Healthcare: Vulnerabilities, Threats and Mitigations

Internet of things has been a dream for many people in the beginning of the internet, today IOT devices are in every sector, healthcare being a major player because of the benefits as quality care for patients and easing the work for providers but on the other hand, it poses security threats to the patients and organizations, it is imperative to point out the best way to balance between the risks and opportunities that IOT creates for the sector; in this research, vulnerabilities and prior studies as well as ways to fix these weaknesses will be presented, it is also worth noting that due to the length of IOT vulnerabilities, the common ones will be discussed

Pelko pois! : Kokemuksia yksin maahan tulleiden afganistanilaispoikien kotouttavasta kulttuuri-toiminnasta

Opinnäytetyön tilaajana toimi A-Klinikkasäätiö ja kohderyhmänä tilaajan ylläpitämän pääkaupunkiseudun tukiasumisyksikön asukkaat. Tukiasumisyksikössä asuvat alaikäiset, ilman vanhempia maahan tulleet afganistanilaiset pojat.Yksin maahan tulleilla pojat elävät kahden kulttuurin välissä, jatkuvassa huolessa, toisaalta omasta perheestään kotimaassaan, toisaalta omasta tulevaisuudestaan Suomessa. Poikien arki on pysähtynyttä ja jatkuvaa viranomaisten kanssa asioimista. Poliisin kanssa asioiminen on pojista arveluttavaa, sillä kotimaassaan ja paperittomana pakolaisena heillä on vain huonoja kokemuksia virkavallasta. Ystäviä ei välttämättä juuri ole. Näimme tarpeen poikien arjessa kotouttavalle kulttuuritoiminnalle. Järjestimme Kulttuurikeskus Caisassa afganistanilaisen ruoan ja musiikin illan, johon kutsuttiin afganistanilaisia alaikäisiä turvapaikanhakijoita yhteensä kymmenestä eri vastaanottokeskuksesta. Ohjaajien lisäksi tapahtuma tavoitti lähemmäs 200 henkilöä. Lisäksi järjestimme tilaajamme nuorille luontoretken Vallisaareen ja Suomenlinnaan, jossa he pääsivät tutustumaan Suomen luontoon ja vanhoihin elämäntapoihin kuvakorttibingon avulla. Retkelle osallistui 15 nuorta. Menetelmänä tässä opinnäytetyössä on käytetty kokeilevaa toimintaa ja osallistuvaa havainnointia. Toiminnan onnistumista on analysoitu havainnoinnin lisäksi haastattelemalla. Tapahtumista on tuotettu video ja kuvamateriaalia tilaajan käytettäväksi. Toimintakokeilumme osoittivat, että pojat nauttivat hauskan pidosta yhdessä muiden samaa tilanteessa elävien nuorten kanssa. He saivat uutta tietoa niin afganistanilaisista Suomessa, kuin poliisin toiminnastakin. Lisäksi ohjaajat kokivat nuorten kanssa tekemisen virkistävänä vaihteluna arkeen tukiasumisyksikössä. Luontoretkellä havainnoimme poikia ja heidän suhtautumistaan luontoon ja erityisesti mereen. Pojat oppivat lyhyiden lauttamatkojenkin aikana saamaan lisää luottamusta merimatkailua kohtaan. Vallisaaressa ja Suomenlinnassa pojat tekivät havaintoja Suomen ja Afganistanin luonnon välillä sekä opettelivat suomenkielistä sanastoa. Työn on ajankohtainen sekä kulttuurituotannolle että kansalais- ja järjestötyölle, sillä Suomeen on vuosien 2015-16 aikana tullut aiempaa enemmän alaikäisiä turvapaikanhakijoita. On tärkeää tiedostaa tämän kasvavan vähemmistön olemassa olo Suomessa niin nuorisotyöntekijänä kuin kulttuurituotta-janakin. Erityisesti alaikäisille turvapaikanhakijoille järjestettävää kulttuuritoimintaa tulisi lisätä. Opinnäytetyöstä on hyötyä vastaanottokeskusten ja tukiasumisyksiköiden uusille työntekijöille ja asukkaille. Työ kannustaa tapahtumakokeiluihin monikulttuurisessa ympäristössä.The subscriber of this thesis was A-Klinikkasäätiö. A-Klinikkasäätiö arranges living quarters for a group of unaccompanied refugee minors in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. These boys live between two cultures. On one hand they worry about their families back in Afganistan, on the other hand they have already stated planning their stay in Finland. These boys live a slow phased life filled with official meetings with the immigration office officials. The boys are especially afraid of the police due to their history of being abused by the local police in their home country and by being undocumented after leaving Afganistan. They don’t necessarily have a lot of friends either. Here we saw a need for intergrating cultural activities. We organized an event for Afgan food and music in the cultural center Caisa. Approximately 200 underage refugee Afgans and their instructors were invited. We also organized an event for our subrscibers group of boys an opportunity to experience Finnish nature and sea side of Vallisaari and Suomenlinna. During this event the boys were able to learn about the Finnish nature and some vocabulary with a wildlife bingo. This event had 15 participants. The method of this thesis was experimental activities. We collected our data by observing and participating in the events. We have also interviewed the underage refugee boys about their experience. A video has been produced for the use of our subriber to enjoy and observe. We discovered that indeed the boys enjoy having fun together with other people in the same situation as them. They got information about their opportunities in Finland and had the chance to meet with police officers who weren’t aggressive or scary to them. The intructors of A-Klinikkasäätiö felt that the events were a nice change to their daily life and enjoyed spending time with the boys in a different environment all together. In Vallisaari and Suomenlinna we observed that the boys got a more relaxed idea of the sea and travelling by boat and learned new vocabulary of the nature. They also made observations by themselves about the differences of the Afgan and Finnish wildlife. This thesis is relevant to today’s youth workers and cultural producers because more unaccompanied refugee minors have arrived in Finland between the years 2015 and 2016 than ever before. It is important that this minority group gets recognized. Cultural activitied targeted especially for refugee minors should be endorsed and produced. This thesis will benefit those working with refugee minors, especially the new employees as well as producers and youth workers entering the field

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance.

Investment in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing in Africa over the past year has led to a major increase in the number of sequences that have been generated and used to track the pandemic on the continent, a number that now exceeds 100,000 genomes. Our results show an increase in the number of African countries that are able to sequence domestically and highlight that local sequencing enables faster turnaround times and more-regular routine surveillance. Despite limitations of low testing proportions, findings from this genomic surveillance study underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic and illuminate the distinct dispersal dynamics of variants of concern-particularly Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron-on the continent. Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve while the continent faces many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

A privacy policy for myline

MyLinE is a self-access online resource for learning in English that is used by public university students in the country. The English resource is used by students to improve their English language communication skills and to compete National Online Quizzes and competitions held every semester. Such a system collects 0students? personally identified information to provide students a username and password to access the English resources. There should be a privacy policy which is posted on the system that clearly states students about how the personal data is collected, used and protected. This project focuses on developing a suitable privacy policy for MyLinE. An effective privacy policy consists of seven basic features and based on these seven, a requirement form is made to collect all the related information from the organization to develop a privacy statement. Based on the data collected, the researcher proposes a privacy policy for MyLinE. This privacy policy helps users to understand how MyLinE handles the personal information stored in the system databas

Kartläggning av Patientsäkerheten och Vårdmiljön i Puntland, Somalia

Independent on where in the world one is, patient safety is regarded as one of the most important aspects in the healthcare industry. On the contrary, depending on where you are, the patient safety will differ and is therefore location dependent. The patient safety in a developing country will therefore be evaluated in a different way compared to a developed country. This study, therefore aimed to identify the patient safety in Puntland, Somalia and with it, its healthcare environment in the hospitals. The goal was to identify the main factors that affected the patient safety. To investigate this, a field study to the region of interest was made and subsequently interviews with staff at the site were conducted as well as observations in the concerned hospitals. The obtained results were analysed using the method of Qualitative Content Analysis. At a later stage, the results could be thematized into four categories; “​Need​”, “​Device​”, “​Training​” and “​Knowledge​”, which pinpointed the main issues. The study show that there was a common transversal issue of a inherent lack of devices, training and knowledge which in turn could severely affect the patients and their safety in ways such as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and in worst cases death. Furthermore, it was evident that rather than the lack of actual devices, the absence of knowledge was more prevalent. Oberoende på var än i världen man befinner sig, anses patientsäkerhet vara en av de viktigaste aspekterna i sjukvården. Å andra sidan, helt beroende på var man befinner sig kommer patientsäkerheten skilja sig och är därför lägesberoende. Patientsäkerheten i ett utvecklingsland kommer därför uppfattas på ett annat sätt i jämförelse med ett I-land. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera patientsäkerheten i Puntland, Somalia och med det dess vårdmiljö i sjukhusen. Målet var att identifiera huvudfaktorerna som påverkar patientsäkerheten. För att undersöka detta utfördes en fältstudie i den valda regionen Puntland, därefter gjordes intervjuer med personal på plats i sjukhusen och dessutom utfördes observationer. De erhållna resultaten analyserades med hjälp av metoden “Qualitative Content Analysis”. Vid ett senare skede tematiseras resultaten till fyra kategorier; “​Behov​”, “​Apparat​”, “​Utbildning​” och “​Kunskap​”, vilka visade på de huvudsakliga problemen. Studien visade slutligen på att det fanns ett gemensamt genomgående problem av brist på apparater, utbildning och kunskap, vilket i sin tur skulle kunna påverka patienter och deras säkerhet på sätt såsom feldiagnoser, försenad behandling och i värsta fall döden. Vidare fastställdes att snarare än bristen på apparater, var avsaknaden av kunskap mer påtaglig.

Kartläggning av Patientsäkerheten och Vårdmiljön i Puntland, Somalia

Independent on where in the world one is, patient safety is regarded as one of the most important aspects in the healthcare industry. On the contrary, depending on where you are, the patient safety will differ and is therefore location dependent. The patient safety in a developing country will therefore be evaluated in a different way compared to a developed country. This study, therefore aimed to identify the patient safety in Puntland, Somalia and with it, its healthcare environment in the hospitals. The goal was to identify the main factors that affected the patient safety. To investigate this, a field study to the region of interest was made and subsequently interviews with staff at the site were conducted as well as observations in the concerned hospitals. The obtained results were analysed using the method of Qualitative Content Analysis. At a later stage, the results could be thematized into four categories; “​Need​”, “​Device​”, “​Training​” and “​Knowledge​”, which pinpointed the main issues. The study show that there was a common transversal issue of a inherent lack of devices, training and knowledge which in turn could severely affect the patients and their safety in ways such as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and in worst cases death. Furthermore, it was evident that rather than the lack of actual devices, the absence of knowledge was more prevalent. Oberoende på var än i världen man befinner sig, anses patientsäkerhet vara en av de viktigaste aspekterna i sjukvården. Å andra sidan, helt beroende på var man befinner sig kommer patientsäkerheten skilja sig och är därför lägesberoende. Patientsäkerheten i ett utvecklingsland kommer därför uppfattas på ett annat sätt i jämförelse med ett I-land. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera patientsäkerheten i Puntland, Somalia och med det dess vårdmiljö i sjukhusen. Målet var att identifiera huvudfaktorerna som påverkar patientsäkerheten. För att undersöka detta utfördes en fältstudie i den valda regionen Puntland, därefter gjordes intervjuer med personal på plats i sjukhusen och dessutom utfördes observationer. De erhållna resultaten analyserades med hjälp av metoden “Qualitative Content Analysis”. Vid ett senare skede tematiseras resultaten till fyra kategorier; “​Behov​”, “​Apparat​”, “​Utbildning​” och “​Kunskap​”, vilka visade på de huvudsakliga problemen. Studien visade slutligen på att det fanns ett gemensamt genomgående problem av brist på apparater, utbildning och kunskap, vilket i sin tur skulle kunna påverka patienter och deras säkerhet på sätt såsom feldiagnoser, försenad behandling och i värsta fall döden. Vidare fastställdes att snarare än bristen på apparater, var avsaknaden av kunskap mer påtaglig.

Kartläggning av Patientsäkerheten och Vårdmiljön i Puntland, Somalia

Independent on where in the world one is, patient safety is regarded as one of the most important aspects in the healthcare industry. On the contrary, depending on where you are, the patient safety will differ and is therefore location dependent. The patient safety in a developing country will therefore be evaluated in a different way compared to a developed country. This study, therefore aimed to identify the patient safety in Puntland, Somalia and with it, its healthcare environment in the hospitals. The goal was to identify the main factors that affected the patient safety. To investigate this, a field study to the region of interest was made and subsequently interviews with staff at the site were conducted as well as observations in the concerned hospitals. The obtained results were analysed using the method of Qualitative Content Analysis. At a later stage, the results could be thematized into four categories; “​Need​”, “​Device​”, “​Training​” and “​Knowledge​”, which pinpointed the main issues. The study show that there was a common transversal issue of a inherent lack of devices, training and knowledge which in turn could severely affect the patients and their safety in ways such as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and in worst cases death. Furthermore, it was evident that rather than the lack of actual devices, the absence of knowledge was more prevalent. Oberoende på var än i världen man befinner sig, anses patientsäkerhet vara en av de viktigaste aspekterna i sjukvården. Å andra sidan, helt beroende på var man befinner sig kommer patientsäkerheten skilja sig och är därför lägesberoende. Patientsäkerheten i ett utvecklingsland kommer därför uppfattas på ett annat sätt i jämförelse med ett I-land. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera patientsäkerheten i Puntland, Somalia och med det dess vårdmiljö i sjukhusen. Målet var att identifiera huvudfaktorerna som påverkar patientsäkerheten. För att undersöka detta utfördes en fältstudie i den valda regionen Puntland, därefter gjordes intervjuer med personal på plats i sjukhusen och dessutom utfördes observationer. De erhållna resultaten analyserades med hjälp av metoden “Qualitative Content Analysis”. Vid ett senare skede tematiseras resultaten till fyra kategorier; “​Behov​”, “​Apparat​”, “​Utbildning​” och “​Kunskap​”, vilka visade på de huvudsakliga problemen. Studien visade slutligen på att det fanns ett gemensamt genomgående problem av brist på apparater, utbildning och kunskap, vilket i sin tur skulle kunna påverka patienter och deras säkerhet på sätt såsom feldiagnoser, försenad behandling och i värsta fall döden. Vidare fastställdes att snarare än bristen på apparater, var avsaknaden av kunskap mer påtaglig.