BACKGROUND A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) on patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) treated with peginterferon and ribavirin (pegIFN-α/RBV) identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on chromosome 19 (rs12979860) which was strongly associated with a sustained virological response (SVR). The aim of this study was twofold: to study the relationship between IL28B rs12979860 ...

R esearchers have argued that human resources may be seen as a source of sustained competitive advantage for organizations (Barney, 1991, 1995; Becker & Gerhart, 1996). The underlying assumption is that human resources are unique to the extent that competitors cannot imitate them. This research has led to the identification of a number of human resource management practices that contribute to c...

Quantitative polymerase chain reaction-high-resolution melting (qPCR-HRM) analysis was used to screen for mutations related to drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We detected the C526T and C531T mutations in the rifampicin resistance-determining region (RRDR) of the rpoB gene with qPCR-HRM using plasmid-based controls. A segment of the RRDR region from M. tuberculosis H37Rv and from ...

 The use of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices in the form of ‘bundles’ and in integration with the business strategy of the organisation have been emphasised throughout the HRM literature. These are called the horizontal integration and vertical integration respectively. This article aim at examining the use of these practices in liner shipping industry in which human element plays a vi...

BACKGROUND Data on acid and non-acid reflux patterns and esophageal function in Japanese patients with non-erosive reflux disease (NERD) are limited. The aim of this study was to use combined multichannel intraluminal impedance pH monitoring (MII-pH) and high-resolution manometry (HRM) to investigate the characteristics of Japanese patients who were treated with a "double-dose" (20 mg) of rabep...

The development of targeted therapies for KRAS, EGFR and HER2 may increase the range of response in patients with colorectal cancer. Mutation at codons 12 and 13 of the KRAS gene has been shown to be predictive of cetuximab response in colorectal cancer. However, due to the combined effects of multiple oncogenes involved in disease progression of patients with colorectal cancer, it seems to be ...

Background/Aims Although high-resolution manometry (HRM) has the advantage of visual intuitiveness, its diagnostic validity remains under debate. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of HRM for esophageal motility disorders. Methods Six staff members and 8 trainees were recruited for the study. In total, 40 patients enrolled in manometry studies at 3 institutes were s...

A square-law harmonic-rejection mixer (SL-HRM) driven by a sine local oscillator (LO) is proposed for wideband and tunable rejection of all LO harmonics. The key performances including the gain, noise figure (NF), input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3), and harmonic rejection ratio (HRR) with respect to the amplitude and purity of the sine-LO are analyzed. In the circuit level, the S...

Background/Aims The study aimed to determine pre- and post-fundoplication esophagogastric junction (EGJ) pressure and esophageal peristalsis by high-resolution manometry (HRM) in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Methods Pre-operative and post-operative HRM data from 25 patients with GERD were analyzed using ManoView version 2.0.1. with updated software for Chicago classif...

Our aim was to employ experimental design to formulate and optimize cetirizine hydrochloride oral disintegrating tablets (ODTs) by direct compression technique, using the mutual effect of synthetic croscarmellose sodium (CCS) and natural Hibiscus rosa-sinensis mucilage (HRM) as disintegrants in the formulation. Central composite design (CCD) was applied to optimize the influence of three levels...