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This study intends to assess the analgesic effects, physical facilitation, and safety of willow bark use in patients with arthritis. Our study was conducted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for relative randomized controlled trials (RCTs) describing the efficacy or adverse events of willow bark in patients with arthritis until 12 April 2023. We used Cochrane ROB 2.0 and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations system to evaluate the quality of studies and evidence. The meta-analysis was carried out by the fix-effects model. This study included five studies with six RCTs consisting of 329 patients with arthritis. The results showed significant differences in pain relief and improvement in physical status for patients with arthritis between willow bark treatment and placebo groups, and no significant differences in the risk of all adverse events in patients with arthritis between willow bark treatment and placebo. Owing to the potential bias, the certainty and evidence of our findings are still inadequate. Therefore, further RCTs are needed to confirm our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract An image database of printed fabrics with repeating dot patterns was created to alleviate issues associated with management of and searches for numerous dot printed fabrics in the printing industry. The function of the database is to archive and allow retrieval of images. First, we discuss image archiving of repeating pattern-based dot printed fabrics. The color image was scanned by resolution of 200 dpi. The wavelet transformation was used to preprocess the image to obtain a scanned image 1/16 of the size of the original to be the stored image. To acquire images with repeating pattern color and repeating pattern template, the binary image of each pattern was obtained using the Sobel edge detection method and a morphological operation. Then pattern elements identical to the target pattern element were screened out. Afterwards, the centroid positions of these identical pattern elements were used to subdivide the repeating pattern color image and repeating pattern template image using a vertical vector method. Finally, the RGB 512-color histogram was used as the color feature of the dot printed fabrics, and the geometric and moment invariant feature values of the repeating pattern template image were used as the pattern feature of the dot printed fabrics. Our experimental results show that images can be acquired that are suitable for use in a dot printed fabric image database. The color and template images of the repeating patterns, which represent the image content of the printed fabrics, were obtained to create an image database of repeating pattern-based dot printed fabrics. This image database contains data on 300 printed fabrics which can be used for subsequent research on database image retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a real case with 466 employees, we investigated the relationships among knowledge sharing (KS), service innovation, leader-member exchange (LMX) quality, team-member exchange (TMX) quality, and trust in Taiwan's international tourist hotels. The empirical results demonstrated that LMX quality and TMX quality mediated the relationship between KS and service innovation, and that trust moderated the relationship between KS and both LMX quality and TMX quality. These findings can be applied to improve communication among employees, enhance knowledge sharing, and promote service innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioassay-guided fractionation of the EtOAc extract of Casearia membranacea leaves and twigs afforded three new clerodane diterpenes, caseamembrins M-O (1-3), and the known rel-(2S,5R,6R,8S,9S,10R,18S,19R)-2-(2-methylbutyryloxy)-6-hydroxy-18,19-di-O-acetyl-18,19-epoxycleroda-3,13(16),14-triene (4) and caseamembrin D (5). The structures of 1-3, including the relative configurations, were established by extensive NMR spectroscopic analyses. The cytotoxic activities of the isolated diterpenoids against human oral epidermoid (KB), medulla (Med), and colon (DLD-1) cancer cell lines were evaluated.