research in TCM

[Guest guest]

These are some abstracts I ran across from some kind of physics conference in

Paris, I

think. I don't pretend to understand them but it always interesting to see how

non-

acupuncturists view our field.

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http://flux.aps.org/meetings/YR04/MAR04/baps/abs/S6010.html

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Search for function coefficient distribution in traditional Chinese medicine

network

 

Yue He, Peipei Zhang, Anzheng Sun, Beibei Su, Da-Ren He (College of Physics,

Yangzhou

University, China)

 

We suggest a model for a simulation on development of traditional Chinese

medicine

system. Suppose there are a certain number of Chinese medicines. Each of them is

given

randomly a " function coefficient " , which has a value between 0 and 1. The larger

it is the

stronger is its function for solving one healthy problem and serving as an

" emperor " in a

prescription formulation. The smaller it is the stronger is its function for

harmonizing

and/or accessorizing a prescription formulation. In every step of time a new

medicine is

discovered. With a probability, P(m), which is determined according to our

statistical

investigation results, it can produce a new prescription formulation with other

m-1

medicines. We assume that the probability for choosing the function coefficients

of these

m medicines follow a distribution function, which is everywhere smooth. A

program has

been set up to perform a search for this function form so that the simulation

results show

a best agreement to our statistical data. We believe the result function form

will be helpful

for an understanding on real development of traditional Chinese medicine system.

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A complex network description on traditional Chinese medicine system

 

Anzheng Sun, Peipei Zhang, Yue He, Beibei Su, Da-Ren He (College of Physics,

Yangzhou

University, China)

 

Chinese traditional philosophy believes that a healthy body can adjust itself to

reach a

dynamic equilibrium with the environment. At an ill state the equilibrium is

lost. Any

single medicine can only attack one problem and cannot recover the whole

equilibrium. A

prescription formulation (PF) usually contains an " emperor " or principal

medicine, several

" minister " or assistant medicines, some accessorial medicines, and one or two

inducting or

harmonizing edicines. Therefore different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

appears in

different number of PFs. The whole TCM system may be viewed as a network set

composed of many complete graphs (PFs). The TCMs, which have the highest node

degrees in the network, serve as the " bridges " between the complete graphs for

forming

the network. While the TCMs, which have lowest node degrees in the network,

serve as the

" emperors " in each complete graph. According to this idea we have performed a

manual

statistical investigation on approximately 1000 PFs and computed 8 different

tatistical

properties of the network. The results show that TCM system is a scale-free one

and has a

nice clustering structure. We are suggesting a dynamical model to describe the

development of TCM system.