A systematic review of the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine retention enema in the treatment of ulcerative colitis

The objective of this study is to summarize the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)enema in the treatment of ulcerative colitis(UC).The randomized controlled trials on TCM enema intervention in the treatment of UC were searched in seven databases:PubMed,Embase,Web of Science,CBM,CNKI,Wanfang Database,and VIP Database from January 1,2013 to June 6,2022,and the data were analyzed using RevMan 5.3 software.A total of 18 studies involving 1514 UC patients were included.Meta analysis results showed that compared with conventional Western medicine,Chinese medicine enema had a significant effect on UC,and the clinical effective rate of the experimental group using Chinese medicine enema was 4.45 times that of the control group using conventional Western medicine(odds ratio=4.45,95%confidence interval[3.27,6.06]).Therefore,Chinese medicine enema is effective in the treatment of UC,and can significantly reduce related symptoms.

Technical operation specification for pricking-cupping therapy

Pricking-cupping therapy is a Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)nursing technology that can adjust the viscera of the human body,make the meridians smooth,and Yin and Yang balanced mainly by means of relieving heat and detoxification,harmonizing Qi and blood,promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis,dredging meridians and activating collaterals,reducing swelling and pain,purging heat and calming shock,clearing heat,and opening orifices.Pricking-cupping therapy has a long history and wide application.After thousands of years of development,it has made great progress.They are widely used to treat lumbar disc herniation,herpes zoster,acute arthritis,migraine,and other diseases in China.Through the clinical practice and theoretical exploration of physicians of past dynasties,the therapeutic mechanism and application scope of pricking-cupping therapy have been greatly enriched.Modern TCM practitioners have conducted in-depth researches on the operation norms of the therapy on the basis of the ancients,hoping to grasp the essence of the disease more accurately and make the rational use of the operation technology of the therapy.

Operating procedures of traditional Chinese medicine breast massage

Traditional Chinese medicine breast massage,also known as breast Tuina or manual expression of breast milk,is a technique of using certain manipulations to act on specific positions or acupoints of the breast to promote blood and lymphatic circulation of breast and facilitate the discharge of stagnant milk.This technique is widely used in China to treat breastfeeding problems such as breast engorgement,mastitis,and postpartum hypogalactia.In this article,we introduce the definition and standardization process of breast massage,elaborate the operating procedures of breast massage in detail,and summarize and discuss the current situation of its clinical application,so as to provide a reference for its wide application and in‑depth research.

Optical study on topological superconductor candidate Sr-doped Bi_(2)Se_(3)

Utilizing infrared spectroscopy,we study the charge dynamics of the topological superconductor candidate Sr_(x)Bi_(2)Se_(3).The frequency-dependent reflectivity R(ω)demonstrates metallic feature and the scattering rate of the free carriers decreases with temperature decreasing.The plasma edge shows a slight blue shift upon cooling,similar to the behavior of Cu_(x)Bi_(2)Se_(3).As the carrier concentration n obtained by Hall resistivity increases slightly with the decreasing temperature,the effective mass is proved to increase as well,which is in contrast with that of Cu_(x)Bi_(2)Se_(3).We also perform the ultrafast pump-probe study on the Sr_(0.2)Bi_(2)Se_(3)compounds.Resembling its parent compound Bi_(2)Se_(3),three distinct relaxation processes are found to contribute to the transient reflectivity.However,the deduced relaxation times are quite different.In addition,the electron-optical-phonon coupling constant is identified to beλ=0.88.

Transport of intensity diffraction tomography with non-interferometric synthetic aperture for three-dimensional label-free microscopy

We present a new label-free three-dimensional(3D)microscopy technique,termed transport of intensity diffraction tomography with non-interferometric synthetic aperture(TIDT-NSA).Without resorting to interferometric detection,TIDT-NSA retrieves the 3D refractive index(RI)distribution of biological specimens from 3D intensity-only measurements at various illumination angles,allowing incoherent-diffraction-limited quantitative 3D phase-contrast imaging.The unique combination of z-scanning the sample with illumination angle diversity in TIDT-NSA provides strong defocus phase contrast and better optical sectioning capabilities suitable for high-resolution tomography of thick biological samples.Based on an off-the-shelf bright-field microscope with a programmable light-emitting-diode(LED)illumination source,TIDT-NSA achieves an imaging resolution of 206 nm laterally and 520 nm axially with a high-NA oil immersion objective.We validate the 3D RI tomographic imaging performance on various unlabeled fixed and live samples,including human breast cancer cell lines MCF-7,human hepatocyte carcinoma cell lines HepG2,mouse macrophage cell lines RAW 264.7,Caenorhabditis elegans(C.elegans),and live Henrietta Lacks(HeLa)cells.These results establish TIDT-NSA as a new non-interferometric approach to optical diffraction tomography and 3D label-free microscopy,permitting quantitative characterization of cell morphology and time-dependent subcellular changes for widespread biological and medical applications.

Hybrid brightfield and darkfield transport of intensity approach for high-throughput quantitative phase microscopy

Transport of intensity equation(TIE)is a well-established non-interferometric phase retrieval approach that enables quantitative phase imaging(QPI)by simply measuring intensity images at multiple axially displaced planes.The advantage of a TIE-based QPI system is its compatibility with partially coherent illumination,which provides speckle-free imaging with resolution beyond the coherent diffraction limit.However,TIE is generally implemented with a brightfield(BF)configuration,and the maximum achievable imaging resolution is still limited to the incoherent diffraction limit(twice the coherent diffraction limit).It is desirable that TIE-related approaches can surpass this limit and achieve high-throughput[high-resolution and wide field of view(FOV)]QPI.We propose a hybrid BF and darkfield transport of intensity(HBDTI)approach for highthroughput quantitative phase microscopy.Two through-focus intensity stacks corresponding to BF and darkfield illuminations are acquired through a low-numerical-aperture(NA)objective lens.The high-resolution and large-FOV complex amplitude(both quantitative absorption and phase distributions)can then be synthesized based on an iterative phase retrieval algorithm taking the coherence model decomposition into account.The effectiveness of the proposed method is experimentally verified by the retrieval of the USAF resolution target and different types of biological cells.The experimental results demonstrate that the half-width imaging resolution can be improved from 1230 nm to 488 nm with 2.5×expansion across a 4×FOV of 7.19 mm2,corresponding to a 6.25×increase in space-bandwidth product from∼5 to∼30.2 megapixels.In contrast to conventional TIE-based QPI methods where only BF illumination is used,the synthetic aperture process of HBDTI further incorporates darkfield illuminations to expand the accessible object frequency,thereby significantly extending the maximum available resolution from 2NA to∼5NA with a∼5×promotion of the coherent diffraction limit.Given its capability for high-throughput QPI,the proposed HBDTI approach is expected to be adopted in biomedical fields,such as personalized genomics and cancer diagnostics.

High-speed in vitro intensity diffraction tomography

We demonstrate a label-free,scan-free intensity diffraction tomography technique utilizing annular illumination(aIDT)to rapidly characterize large-volume three-dimensional(3-D)refractive index distributions in vitro.By optimally matching the illumination geometry to the microscope pupil,our technique reduces the data requirement by 60 times to achieve high-speed 10-Hz volume rates.Using eight intensity images,we recover volumes of∼350μm×100μm×20μm,with near diffraction-limited lateral resolution of∼487 nm and axial resolution of∼3.4μm.The attained large volume rate and high-resolution enable 3-D quantitative phase imaging of complex living biological samples across multiple length scales.We demonstrate aIDT’s capabilities on unicellular diatom microalgae,epithelial buccal cell clusters with native bacteria,and live Caenorhabditis elegans specimens.Within these samples,we recover macroscale cellular structures,subcellular organelles,and dynamic micro-organism tissues with minimal motion artifacts.Quantifying such features has significant utility in oncology,immunology,and cellular pathophysiology,where these morphological features are evaluated for changes in the presence of disease,parasites,and new drug treatments.Finally,we simulate the aIDT system to highlight the accuracy and sensitivity of the proposed technique.aIDT shows promise as a powerful high-speed,label-free computational microscopy approach for applications where natural imaging is required to evaluate environmental effects on a sample in real time.

Resolution-enhanced intensity diffraction tomography in high numerical aperture label-free microscopy

We propose label-free and motion-free resolution-enhanced intensity diffraction tomography(reIDT)recovering the 3D complex refractive index distribution of an object.By combining an annular illumination strategy with a high numerical aperture(NA)condenser,we achieve near-diffraction-limited lateral resolution of 346 nm and axial resolution of 1.2μm over 130μm×130μm×8μm volume.Our annular pattern matches the system’s maximum NA to reduce the data requirement to 48 intensity frames.The reIDT system is directly built on a standard commercial microscope with a simple LED array source and condenser lens adds-on,and promises broad applications for natural biological imaging with minimal hardware modifications.To test the capabilities of our technique,we present the 3D complex refractive index reconstructions on an absorptive USAF resolution target and Henrietta Lacks(HeLa)and HT29 human cancer cells.Our work provides an important step in intensity-based diffraction tomography toward high-resolution imaging applications.