A Framework of DevSecOps for Software Development Teams

This master's thesis explores a broad evaluation of automated security testing in the context of DevOps practices. The primary objective of this study is to propose a framework that facilitates the seamless integration of security scanning tools within DevOps practices. The thesis will focus on examining the existing set of tools and their effective integration into fully automated DevOps CI/CD pipelines. The thesis starts by examining the theoretical concepts of DevOps and provides guidelines for integrating security within DevOps methodologies. Furthermore, it assesses the current state of security by analysing the OWASP Web API top 10 security vulnerability list and evaluating existing security automation tools. Additionally, the research investigates the performance and efficacy of these tools across various stages of the SDLC and investigates ongoing research and development activities. A fully automated DevOps CI/CD pipeline is implemented to integrate security scanning tools, enforcing complete security checks throughout the SDLC. Azure DevOps build and release pipelines, along with Snyk, were used to create a comprehensive automated security scanning framework. The study considerably investigates the integration of these security scanning tools and assesses their influence on the overall security posture of the developed applications. The finding of the study reveals that security scanning tools can be efficiently integrated into fully automated DevOps practices. Based on the results, recommendations are provided for the selection of suitable tools and techniques to achieve a DevSecOps practice. In conclusion, this thesis provides valuable insights into security integration in DevOps practices, highlighting the effectiveness of security automation tools. The research also recommends areas for further improvements to meet the industry's evolving requirements

Clinical Outcome of Infants Younger than Two Months in Children Ward of a Tertiary Care Hospital, Nepal

Introductions: Newborn and young infants are most vulnerable for preventable deaths, particularly in developing countries. This study was conducted to see the clinical profile and outcome of infants less than two months of age admitted in children ward of Patan Hospital.Methods: This descriptive retrospective study was conducted at Patan Hospital, over 12 months from April 2014 to March 2015. Hospital records of all admitted infant less than two were reviewed. The demographic characteristics, clinical profile and clinical outcome were descriptively analyzed.Results: Out of 2062 admissions in children ward, 614 (29.8%) were infants less than two months,out of which 482were neonate less than 28 days. Among these neonates. 114 were inborn. Out of 436 infection, blood culture was positive in 37 (8.9%). There were 4 (0.04%) deaths, 4 (0.04%) referral and 22 (0.25%) left against medical advice. Infection 436 (436) was the commonest cause of illness, of which neonatal sepsis 163 (37.4%), pneumonia 130 (30%) staphylococcal skin infection 39 (8.7%) and UTI 34 (7.8%). There were 71(11.6%) cases of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. Blood culture was positive in 55(9%) with CONS being the commonest organism isolated; 19  (51.3%).Conclusions: Children ward contributes significantly to the care of sick infants less than two months of age, especially out born ones, requiring neonatal care facility in tertiary level hospital of Nepal. As most admissions are for infection, followed by hyperbilirubinemia, pediatrics wards need to be equipped and staffed accordingly to meet the need of sick young infants.Keywords: children ward, clinical profile, neonatal sepsi

Acid Peptic Disease among Patients with Acute Abdomen Visiting the Department of Emergency Medicine in a Tertiary Care Centre

Introduction: Acid peptic disease is caused by excessive acid secretion or weakened mucosal defense. Symptoms include epigastric pain, bloating, and nausea. Factors like gastric acid, Helicobacter pylori infection, alcohol consumption, smoking, and stress contribute to peptic ulcers. Imbalances between offensive and defensive factors can lead to ulcers. Acid-related disorders impact the quality of life and mortality. Accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment are vital. This study aimed to find out the prevalence of acid peptic disease among patients with acute abdomen in the Department of Emergency Medicine in a tertiary care centre. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from 2 April 2022 and 2 April 2023 among the patients presented in the Department of Emergency Medicine in a tertiary care centre. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee. All patients presenting with acute abdominal pain in the Emergency Department were included in the study. Patients not giving consent were excluded from the study. Convenience sampling method was used. The point estimate was calculated at a 95% Confidence Interval. Results: Out of the 400 patients with acute abdomen, the prevalence of acid peptic disease was found to be 87 (21.75%) (17.71-25.79, 95% Confidence Interval). Conclusions: The prevalence of acid peptic disease among patients with acute abdomen was found to be lower than in other studies performed in similar settings

Health System Capacity and Access Barriers to Diagnosis and Treatment of CVD and Diabetes in Nepal

Background: Universal access to essential medicines and routine diagnostics is required to combat the growing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. Evaluating health systems and various access dimensions – availability, affordability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality – is crucial yet rarely performed, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Objective: To evaluate health system capacity and barriers in accessing diagnostics and essential medicines for CVD and diabetes in Nepal. Methods: We conducted a WHO/HAI nationally-representative survey in 45 health-facilities (public sector: 11; private sector: 34) in Nepal to collect availability and price data for 21 essential medicines for treating CVD and diabetes, during May–July 2017. Data for 13 routine diagnostics were obtained in 12 health facilities. Medicines were considered unaffordable if the lowest paid worker spends >1 day’s wage to purchase a monthly supply. To evaluate accessibility, we conducted facility exit interviews among 636 CVD patients. Accessibility (e.g., private-public health facility mix, travel to hospital/pharmacy) and acceptability (i.e. Nepal’s adoption of WHO Essential Medicine List, and patient medication adherence) were summarized using descriptive statistics, and we conducted a systematic review of relevant literature. We did not evaluate medicine quality. Results: We found that mean availability of generic medicines is low (<50%) in both public and private sectors, and less than one-third medicines met WHO’s availability target (80%). Mean (SD) availability of diagnostics was 73.1% (26.8%). Essential medicines appear locally unaffordable. On average, the lowest-paid worker would spend 1.03 (public sector) and 1.26 (private sector) days’ wages to purchase a monthly medicine supply. For a person undergoing CVD secondary-prevention interventions in the private sector, the associated expenditure would be 7.5–11.2% of monthly household income. Exit interviews suggest that a long/expensive commute to health facilities and poor medicine affordability constrain access. Conclusions: This study highlights critical gaps in Nepal’s health system capacity to offer basic health services to CVD and diabetes patients, owing to low availability and poor affordability and accessibility. Research and policy initiatives are needed to ensure uninterrupted supply of affordable essential medicines and diagnostics

The COVID‐19 Pandemic Not Only Poses Challenges, but Also Opens Opportunities for Sustainable Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted social, economic, and environmental systems worldwide, slowing down and reversing the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs belong to the 2030 Agenda to transform our world by tackling humankind's challenges to ensure well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection. We explore the potential impacts of the pandemic on SDGs for Nepal. We followed a knowledge co-creation process with experts from various professional backgrounds, involving five steps: online survey, online workshop, assessment of expert's opinions, review and validation, and revision and synthesis. The pandemic has negatively impacted most SDGs in the short term. Particularly, the targets of SDG 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13 have and will continue to have weakly to moderately restricting impacts. However, a few targets of SDG 2, 3, 6, and 11 could also have weakly promoting impacts. The negative impacts have resulted from impeding factors linked to the pandemic. Many of the negative impacts may subside in the medium and long terms. The key five impeding factors are lockdowns, underemployment and unemployment, closure of institutions and facilities, diluted focus and funds for non-COVID-19-related issues, and anticipated reduction in support from development partners. The pandemic has also opened a window of opportunity for sustainable transformation, which is short-lived and narrow. These opportunities are lessons learned for planning and action, socio-economic recovery plan, use of information and communication technologies and the digital economy, reverse migration and “brain gain,” and local governments' exercising authorities

Back End Programming in .NET Framework

The main goal of the project was to develop a web application which provides the services for both web and mobile client. The complete application development process was carried out by the team of four members and a supervisor. According to the interest of group members the whole project was divided into four parts; that is user interface design, mobile application development, back end development for mobile services and server side back end development of application. I got the task of server side back end development. To accomplish this task I have used SQL Server 2012, ASP.NET Framework and Entity Framework. This project was started with designing the database structure of the application according to the project requirement. Then that structure was implemented using SQL Server Management Studio 2012. EDMX model file was generated from the existing database using ADO.NET Entity Framework to use that model as the data source for the application. Layered Software Architecture was used to develop application by dividing the whole application into Presentation Layer, Data Access Layer, Business Logic Layer and Service Layer. C# was used as a programming language in Visual Studio 2012 to implement layered software architecture. Generic Repository Class was used to develop data access layer which reduced the use of large number of repository classes. ASP.NET controls, ASP.NET State Management and ADO.NET LINQ were quite easy to use and helpful in the process of the application development

Polymeric materials and films in dentistry: An overview

The use of polymeric materials (PMs) and polymeric films (PMFs) has increased in medicine and dentistry. This increasing interest is attributed to not only the excellent surfaces of PMs and PMFs but also their desired mechanical and biological properties, low production cost, and ease in processing, allowing them to be tailored for a wide range of applications. Specifically, PMs and PMFs are used in dentistry for their antimicrobial, drug delivery properties; in preventive, restorative and regenerative therapies; and for corrosion and friction reduction. PMFs such as acrylic acid copolymers are used as a dental adhesive; polylactic acids are used for dental pulp and dentin regeneration, and bioactive polymers are used as advanced drug delivery systems. The objective of this article was to review the literatures on the latest advancements in the use of PMs and PMFs in medicine and dentistry. Published literature (1990–2017) on PMs and PMFs for use in medicine and dentistry was reviewed using MEDLINE/PubMed and ScienceDirect resources. Furthermore, this review also explores the diversity of latest PMs and PMFs that have been utilized in dental applications, and analyzes the benefits and limitations of PMs and PMFs. Most of the PMs and PMFs have shown to improve the biomechanical properties of dental materials, but in future, more clinical studies are needed to create better treatment guidelines for patients. Keywords: Dental materials, Polymers, Corrosion resistance, Antimicrobial, Coating

Electrochemical Biosensors for Pathogen Detection: An Updated Review

Electrochemical biosensors are a family of biosensors that use an electrochemical transducer to perform their functions. In recent decades, many electrochemical biosensors have been created for pathogen detection. These biosensors for detecting infections have been comprehensively studied in terms of transduction elements, biorecognition components, and electrochemical methods. This review discusses the biorecognition components that may be used to identify pathogens. These include antibodies and aptamers. The integration of transducers and electrode changes in biosensor design is a major discussion topic. Pathogen detection methods can be categorized by sample preparation and secondary binding processes. Diagnostics in medicine, environmental monitoring, and biothreat detection can benefit from electrochemical biosensors to ensure food and water safety. Disposable and reusable biosensors for process monitoring, as well as multiplexed and conformal pathogen detection, are all included in this review. It is now possible to identify a wide range of diseases using biosensors that may be applied to food, bodily fluids, and even objects&rsquo; surfaces. The sensitivity of optical techniques may be superior to electrochemical approaches, but optical methods are prohibitively expensive and challenging for most end users to utilize. On the other hand, electrochemical approaches are simpler to use, but their efficacy in identifying infections is still far from satisfactory

Revisiting the clinical trial history and regulatory mechanisms in Nepal in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

Presence of Nepal in global clinical trials has been visibly negligible despite the history of conducting large scaled randomized controlled trial on Hepatitis E vaccine decades ago. Majority of the problem is attributed to the lack of collaborative work, financial and human resource constrains. COVID-19 pandemics seems to have triggered urgency among the authorities of Nepal leading to a substantial increase in the number of clinical trials in collaboration with national and international organizations/institutions. Immediately after detection of the first COVID-19 case on 13 January 2020, the Ethical Review Board (ERB) of NHRC received several research proposals, subsequently leading to the approval of the first clinical trial for COVID-19 on 01 July 2020 to investigate potential of traditional Ayurveda based medicine for COVID treatment. Soon, number of other clinical trial proposals received approval and implemented in the country, however budgetary allocation from the Government of Nepal (GON) was prioritized for COVID-19 outrage management and vaccination coverage only. Collaborations with various international institutions played a significant role in the successful implementation of large-scale clinical trials in the country and further laid the path for future. In this review paper we present the recent developments in clinical trials in Nepal, budgetary allocation from the government and the mechanisms in place for regulation of clinical research in the country along with challenges and way forward