Recently, there has been a massive innovation of online loans and good purchases using pay later with installment schemes. The phenomenon inevitably brings into controversies among the public recalling old discussion about bank interest. Although Islamic scholars have formulated religious edict (fatwa) interest, some look unfirm, such as that NU (Nahdlatul Ulama’). This writing aims to portray ...

The Langlands classification theorem describes all admissible representations of a reductive group G in terms of the tempered representations of Levi subgroups of G. I will describe work with Susana Salamanca-Riba that provides (conjecturally) a similar description of the unitary representations of G in terms of certain very special unitary representations of Levi subgroups.

BACKGROUND Tests for hepatitis C antibodies (anti-HCV enzyme immunoassays) are usually described as positive or negative. Several studies, mainly in blood donors, have found that specimens with low signal/cutoff (S/C) ratios are commonly negative when tested with a recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) or for HCV RNA. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 17 418 consecutive anti-HCV results from ...

BACKGROUND A total of 738 volunteer blood donors who were positive for anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) were assessed for risk factors and outcomes for up to 15 years within the study and up to 54 years from the estimated onset of infection. METHODS A third-generation recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) was performed to distinguish true from false anti-HCV reactivity. Findings of HCV polymerase c...

BACKGROUND Anti-hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV) assays are recommended for screening HCV-infected persons. The VIDAS Anti-HCV Assay (bioMérieux, France), based on the enzyme-linked fluorescence test principle, was recently introduced in Korea. We evaluated the clinical performance of the VIDAS assay. METHODS One hundred HCV-positive and 1,002 HCV-negative blood samples confirmed by Arch...

The banking industry in Oman is of major importance to Oman’s economy, yet Omani banks continue to conduct most of their transactions using traditional methods. A strong banking industry significantly supports economic development through efficient financial services, and their role in trying to achieve the objectives outlined by the Sultan of Oman will depend heavily on the industry’s capabili...