MATERIALS AND METHODS: Relevant, peer-reviewed, Englishlanguage articles on healthcare service quality in Malaysia were independently searched by the authors using the SCOPUS and EMERALD databases. Articles that do not directly address healthcare service quality within the Malaysian setting were excluded. Additional articles were identified from the reference lists of the selected articles and from Google search engine. A total of 43 out of 2,749 articles were selected.
RESULTS: Most of these studies (28 out of the 43 articles, 65.1%) in this scoping review used either the original or a modified version of SERVQUAL instrument to measure healthcare service quality. Significant positive relationships between tangibles, assurance and empathy with patient satisfaction were identified. As SERVQUAL primarily measures the functional dimension of service quality, this suggests that past studies on Malaysian healthcare services emphasised heavily on the functional dimension of healthcare service quality. Functional dimension refers to the expressive performance on how the healthcare service is rendered whereas technical dimension refers to the types of services rendered as well as its safety and efficacy.
CONCLUSION: A pertinent research gap identified in this review is the lack of studies that measure both technical and functional dimensions comprehensively. Future research should adopt a more holistic (incorporating both technical dimension and functional dimension) measurement of healthcare service quality.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study, involving a total of 100 cases that comprised of acute subchorionitis (stage I, n=20), acute chorioamnionitis (stage II, n=20), acute necrotising chorioamnionitis (stage III, n=20) and non-chorioamnionitis placenta as control (n=40). All tissue blocks were retrieved from the archived pathology record over a period of 4 years. CD36 and CD47 immunohistochemistry were performed on all cases and their expression in various cell types on the placenta were analysed.
RESULTS: CD36 was expressed only on the foetal vascular endothelial cells. Interestingly, CD47 showed positive staining on the neutrophils and its expression was significantly different between maternal inflammatory response stage II chorioamnionitis (n=13/20, p<0.001) with stage I and stage III chorioamnionitis.
DISCUSSION: Our study showed CD47 was expressed in the neutrophils and it was associated with poorer perinatal outcomes and it may have a role in the pathogenesis of chorioamnionitis.
RESULTS: The constructed integration system comprises of a lactococcal promoter (PnisA or P170), phage attachment site (attP) from bacteriophage TP901-1, a signal peptide (USP45 or SPK1) for translocation of the target protein, and a PrtP344 anchor domain in the case of the integrative vectors for surface display. There were eight successfully constructed integrative vectors with each having a different combination of promoter and signal peptide; pS1, pS2, pS3 and pS4 for secretion, and pSD1, pSD2, pSD3 and pSD4 for surface display of desired protein. The integration of the vectors into the host genome was assisted by a helper vector harbouring the integrase gene. A nuclease gene was used as a reporter and was successfully integrated into the L. lactis genome and Nuc was secreted or displayed as expected. The signal peptide SPK1 was observed to be superior to USP45-LEISSTCDA fusion in the secretion of Nuc. As for the surface display integrative vector, all systems developed were comparable with the exception of the combination of P170 promoter with USP45 signal peptide which gave very low signals in whole cell ELISA.
CONCLUSION: The engineered synthetic integrative vectors have the potential to be used for secretion or surface display of heterologous protein production in lactococcal expression system for research or industrial purposes, especially in live vaccine delivery.