Tongue color clustering and visual application based on 2D information.

PURPOSE: Studies have shown the association between tongue color and diseases. To help clinicians make more objective and accurate decisions quickly, we take unsupervised learning to deal with the basic clustering of tongue color in a 2D way. METHODS: A total of 595 typical tongue images were analyzed. The 3D information extracted from the image was transformed into 2D information by principal component analysis (PCA). K-Means was applied for clustering into four diagnostic groups. The results were evaluated by clustering accuracy (CA), Jaccard similarity coefficient (JSC), and adjusted rand index (ARI). RESULTS: The new 2D information totally retained 89.63% original information in the L*a*b* color space. And our methods successfully classified tongue images into four clusters and the CA, ARI, and JSC were 89.04%, 0.721, and 0.890, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The 2D information of tongue color can be used for clustering and to improve the visualization. K-Means combined with PCA could be used for tongue color classification and diagnosis. Methods in the paper might provide reference for the other research based on image diagnosis technology.

Exploring spatial-frequency-sequential relationships for motor imagery classification with recurrent neural network.

BACKGROUND: Conventional methods of motor imagery brain computer interfaces (MI-BCIs) suffer from the limited number of samples and simplified features, so as to produce poor performances with spatial-frequency features and shallow classifiers. METHODS: Alternatively, this paper applies a deep recurrent neural network (RNN) with a sliding window cropping strategy (SWCS) to signal classification of MI-BCIs. The spatial-frequency features are first extracted by the filter bank common spatial pattern (FB-CSP) algorithm, and such features are cropped by the SWCS into time slices. By extracting spatial-frequency-sequential relationships, the cropped time slices are then fed into RNN for classification. In order to overcome the memory distractions, the commonly used gated recurrent unit (GRU) and long-short term memory (LSTM) unit are applied to the RNN architecture, and experimental results are used to determine which unit is more suitable for processing EEG signals. RESULTS: Experimental results on common BCI benchmark datasets show that the spatial-frequency-sequential relationships outperform all other competing spatial-frequency methods. In particular, the proposed GRU-RNN architecture achieves the lowest misclassification rates on all BCI benchmark datasets. CONCLUSION: By introducing spatial-frequency-sequential relationships with cropping time slice samples, the proposed method gives a novel way to construct and model high accuracy and robustness MI-BCIs based on limited trials of EEG signals.

[Ashi points, Ashi method and pressing reaction].

The nomination of Ashi points was reviewed, and the meaning of Ashi method was discussed in this article. On the base of further study on Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine), the general meaning of palpation at acupoints, meridians and collaterals to the process of acupoint locating were expounded. The concept of pressing reaction was proposed as well. It is held that Ashi points are a category of acupoints without specific names and definite locations. They are a kind of manifestation of reactions of acupoints, meridians and collaterals, which embody their dynamic features. Pressing reaction mainly manifested by sensations of comfort, pain, and moreover, relieving of the primary symptoms. It is the most basic evidence for us to estimate Ashi points.

Differential cognitive responses to guqin music and piano music in Chinese subjects: an event-related potential study.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the cognitive effects of guqin (the oldest Chinese instrument) music and piano music. METHODS: Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data in a standard two-stimulus auditory oddball task were recorded and analyzed. RESULTS: This study replicated the previous results of culture-familiar music effect on Chinese subjects: the greater P300 amplitude in frontal areas in a culture-familiar music environment. At the same time, the difference between guqin music and piano music was observed in N1 and later positive complex (LPC: including P300 and P500): a relatively higher participation of right anterior-temporal areas in Chinese subjects. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the special features of ERP responses to guqin music are the outcome of Chinese tonal language environments given the similarity between Guqinos tones and Mandarin lexical tones.

[Research on calibration transfer of NIR filter spectrophotometer].

Calibration transfer is an important issue to building up universal and comparable performance of spectrometer data in near infrared spectral analysis technology. Methods of slope/bias correction, direct standardization (DS), and target factor analysis (TFA) were used for the calibration transfer among five NIR filter spectrophotometers using maize as the samples. The effects of three calibration transfer methods were compared. The DS method has the best performance. The average calibration transfer difference of DS is 7.01%. This study also relates to the dependence of calibration transfer on the number of standardization samples. It was proven by experiment that the results of calibration transfer will be better as the number of samples is increased and will be generally stable when there are twenty standardization samples. However, the effect of calibration transfer attained by DS is degraded sharply when the number of standardization samples decreases to be below twenty. Moreover, slope/bias and TFA are not sensitive to the number of standardization samples.

[Correlation analysis of infrared radiant intensity between hyperplastic breast tissue and tongue surface in patients with hyperplasia of mammary glands].

OBJECTIVE: To establish a supplementary diagnostic indicator (infrared radiant intensity) in tongue diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in patients with hyperplasia of mammary glands through correlation analysis of infrared radiant intensity between hyperplastic breast tissue and tongue surface. METHODS: Infrared radiant intensity of the hyperplastic breast tissue and different points on tongue surface in 20 cases of hyperplasia of mammary glands with liver-energy stagnation and phlegm retention syndrome and 16 cases of hyperplasia of mammary glands with irregular thoroughfare and conception vessels syndrome were measured with external infrared spectrometer PHE-201 made by Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics. Correlation of infrared radiant intensity between the hyperplastic breast tissue and the different points on tongue surface was assessed by using bivariate correlation analysis. RESULTS: The results showed that the numbers of positive correlated wave bands of infrared radiant intensity between the hyperplastic breast tissue and different detected points on tongue surface in the patients with liver-energy stagnation and phlegm retention syndrome and irregular thoroughfare and conception vessels syndrome were 127 (83.55%) and 71 (46.71%), respectively. Infrared radiant intensity between the hyperplastic breast tissue and the tongue surface had a positive correlation. CONCLUSION: Infrared radiant intensity can be used as one of supplementary diagnostic indicators in TCM tongue diagnosis of hyperplasia of mammary glands.

[Progress and prospects of research on information processing techniques for intelligent diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine].

Information processing for intelligent diagnosis of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), an important part of the modernization of Chinese medicine, attracts world wide attention from the science circle. This article presents a systematic introduction to the development of information technology, especially the processing of pulse and tongue images and systems of computer-aided Chinese medical diagnosis. Furthermore, it points out four essential areas of future research, including epistemic logic system of syndrome differentiation, system construction technology, data miming technology and information acquisition and analysis in TCM diagnosis.

[Evaluation of therapeutic effects of Chinese materia medica by tongue image analysis software 1.0 based on tongue colors].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the therapeutic effects of Chinese materia medica in treating patients with different syndromes by tongue image analysis software 1.0 based on tongue colors, and to discuss the feasibility of applying this computer science-based techniques into drug evaluation. METHODS: The tongue colors and the areas of tongue fur were examined and analyzed by the tongue image analysis software 1.0 in healthy persons and the patients with different syndromes before and after treatment. The parameters of tongue colors consisted of the followings: the hue (H), the lightness (L), the saturation (S), and the values of red (R), green (G) and blue (B). RESULTS: Obvious differences could be revealed in tongue color index between the healthy persons and the patients in five groups of different syndromes. There also existed some significant differences in those index between patients before and after treatment. CONCLUSION: The tongue image analysis software 1.0 based on tongue colors is helpful to evaluate the therapeutic effects of Chinese materia medica.