The Competing Values Framework (CVF) is one of the most influential and extensively used models in the area of organizational culture research. Compared with other models and scales, the CVF and its matched scale OCAI have better validity and reliability in the context of China, and are very convenient for practical operations. This article firstly introduces the development of the CVF, and discusses the meanings and prerequisites of different culture types in the CVF. Then the article briefly reviews some empirical studies using the CVF and OCAI, compares the CVF and OCAI with other major organizational culture models and scales, and finally points out future research areas for CVF’s application in China
We aim to learn deep person re-identification (ReID) models that are robust against noisy training data. Two types of noise are prevalent in practice: (1) label noise caused by human annotator errors and (2) data outliers caused by person detector errors or occlusion. Both types of noise pose serious problems for training ReID models, yet have been largely ignored so far. In this paper, we propose a novel deep network termed DistributionNet for robust ReID. Instead of representing each person image as a feature vector, DistributionNet models it as a Gaussian distribution with its variance representing the uncertainty of the extracted features. A carefully designed loss is formulated in DistributionNet to unevenly allocate uncertainty across training samples. Consequently, noisy samples are assigned large variance/uncertainty, which effectively alleviates their negative impacts on model fitting. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our model is more effective than alternative noise-robust deep models.
Background: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic recurrent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The conventional drugs for UC may induce severe side effects. Herbal medicine is considered as a complementary and alternative choice for UC.Purpose: This study aims to estimate the effect of natural polyphenol gallic acid (GA) on the NLRP3 inflammasome with dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis in mice.Study design: The body weights and symptoms of BALB/c mice were recorded. Histological evaluation, ELISA, q-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and western blotting were carried out to observe the morphology, cytokine contents, mRNA expressions, and protein expressions, respectively. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW264.7 macrophage was used to probe GA’s effect on relative protein expression.Results: GA attenuated weight loss (p < 0.05), relieved symptoms, and ameliorated colonic morphological injury (p < 0.05) in mice with colitis induced by DSS. GA also lowered the contents of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-18, IL-33, and IFN-γ in the serum and colon of mice, which were elevated by DSS, downregulated protein, and mRNA expressions of the NLRP3 pathway in the colon tissue. Furthermore, GA downregulated the expressions of NLRP3 (p < 0.05), iNOS (p < 0.01), COX2 (p < 0.01), and P-p65 (p < 0.05), and suppressed NO release (p < 0.001) in LPS-induced RAW264.7 cells.Conclusion: GA ameliorated DSS-induced UC in mice via inhibiting the NLRP3 inflammasome. These findings furnish evidence for the anti-inflammatory effect of herbal medicines containing GA on UC.
Objective Tiaokou (ST38) is used as a crucial distal acupoint for treating shoulder adhesive capsulitis (SAC) in traditional Chinese medicine. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture at Tiaokou for treating SAC. Methods We searched eight electronic databases without language restrictions. All the literature was processed to identify RCTs comparing acupuncture at Tiaokou with other therapies (e.g., acupuncture at local shoulder acupoints and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). Two reviewers extracted trials and collected outcome data independently. A meta-analysis was performed following a strict methodology. Results 19 RCTs involving 1944 participants met our inclusion criteria. The majority of the trials were determined to be of low quality. Positive results were found for acupuncture treatment at Tiaokou (as sole treatment or in combination with shoulder acupoints), which resulted in an improved percentage of clinical effectiveness and Constant-Murley Score values, as well as a reduction in Visual Analogue Scale values of SAC patients. Conclusion Our review found encouraging evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture at Tiaokou for SAC. Nonetheless, despite stringent methodological analyses, these results need to be strengthened by additional RCTs of higher quality.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.