Effect of herbal formula Xiao Pi-II on functional dyspepsia

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the therapeutic effect of the herbal medication Xiao Pi-II on the symptoms and gastric motility of patients with functional dysepsia (FD). METHODS: A total of 180 FD patients were divided randomly and equally into Xiao Pi-II and mosapride groups. The two groups were treated with Xiao Pi-II (100 mL, t.d.s., ante cibum) and mosapride (5 mg, t. d.s., ante cibum) for 2 weeks. Before treatment and 3 days after all medication was stopped, patients responded to a questionnaire evaluating gastrointestinal symptoms and were assessed with abdominal three dimensional ultrasonography (3D-US) for gastric motility. RESULTS: Gastrointestinal symptoms (especially bloating, post-prandial fullness and eructation) were improved significantly in FD patients treated with Xiao Pi-II (P<0.05, P<0.05, and P<0.05), but no significant difference was found in the mosapride group (P>0.05). The effective rates in the Xiao Pi-II and mosapride group were 86.7% and 60.0%, respectively (P<0.05). The gastric liquid emptyingrate (GLER) in the Xiao Pi-II group showed a significant increase (P<0.01) after 2 weeks of treatment but there was no significant change (P>0.05) of GLER in the mosapride group. CONCLUSION: Compared with mosapride, Xiao Pi-II improved symptoms and GLER significantly in FD patients with delayed gastric emptying.

Using a Hidden Markov Model to Analyze the Flood-Season Rainfall Pattern and Its Temporal Variation over East China

The homogeneous hidden Markov model(HMM), a statistical pattern recognition method, is introduced in this paper. Based on the HMM, a 53-yr record of daily precipitation during the flood season(April-September) at 389 stations in East China during 1961-2013 is classified into six patterns: the South China(SC) pattern, the southern Yangtze River(SY) pattern, the Yangtze-Huai River(YH) pattern, the North China(NC) pattern, the overall wetter(OW) pattern, and the overall drier(OD) pattern. Features of the transition probability matrix of the first four patterns reveal that 1) the NC pattern is the most persistent, followed by the YH, and the SY is the least one; and 2) there exists a SY-SC-SY-YH-NC propagation process for the rain belt over East China during the flood season. The intraseasonal variability in the occurrence frequency of each pattern determines its start and end time. Furthermore,analysis of interdecadal variability in the occurrence frequency of each pattern in recent six decades has identified three obvious interdecadal variations for the SC, YH, and NC patterns in the mid-late 1970 s, the early 1990 s, and the late 1990 s. After 2000, the patterns concentrated in the southern region play a dominant role, and thus there maintains a "flooding in the south and drought in the north" rainfall distribution in eastern China. In summary, the HMM provides a unique approach for us to obtain both spatial distribution and temporal variation features of flood-season rainfall.