A correlation between pulse diagnosis of human body and health monitoring of structures

The concept of health monitoring is a key aspect of the field of medicine that has been practiced for a long time. A commonly used diagnostic and health monitoring practice is pulse diagnosis, which can be traced back approximately five thousand years in the recorded history of China. With advances in the development of modern technology, the concept of health monitoring of a variety of engineering structures in several applications has begun to attract widespread attention. Of particular interest in this study is the health monitoring of civil structures. It seem natural, and even beneficial, that these two health-monitoring methods, one as applies to the human body and the other to civil structures, should be analyzed and compared. In this paper, the basic concepts and theories of the two monitoring methods are first discussed. Similarities are then summarized and commented upon. It is hoped that this correlation analysis may help provide structural engineers with some insights into the intrinsic concept of using pulse diagnosis in human health monitoring, which may of be some benefit in the development of modern structural health monitoring methods.

A Protocol for Digitalized Collection of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)Pulse Information Using Bionic Pulse Diagnosis Equipment

Pulse diagnosis equipment used in Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)has long been developed for collecting pulse information and in TCM research.However,it is still difficult to implement pulse taking automatically or efficiently in clinical practice.Here,we present a digital protocol for TCM pulse information collection based on bionic pulse diagnosis equipment,which ensures high efficiency,reliability and data integrity of pulse diagnosis information.A four-degree-of-freedom pulse taking platform together with a wrist bracket can satisfy the spatial positioning and angle requirements for individually adaptive pulse acquisition.Three-dimensional reconstruction of a wrist surface and an image localization model are combined to provide coordinates of the acquisition position and detection direction automatically.Three series elastic joints can not only simulate the TCM pulse taking method that“Three fingers in a straight line,the middle finger determining the‘Guan’location and finger pulp pressing on the radial artery,”but also simultaneously carry out the force-controlled multi-gradient pressing process.In terms of pulse information integrity,this proposed protocol can generate rich pulse information,including basic individual information,pulse localization distribution,multi-gradient dynamic pulse force time series,and objective pulse parameters,which can help establish the fundamental data sets that are required as the pulse phenotype for subsequent comprehensive analysis of pulse diagnosis.The implementation of this scheme is beneficial to promote the standardization of the digitalized collection of pulse information,the effectiveness of detecting abnormal health status,and the promotion of the fundamental and clinical research of TCM,such as TCM pulse phenomics.

Pulse rate estimation based on facial videos:an evaluation and optimization of the classical methods using both self-constructed and public datasets

Pulse rate is one of the important characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine pulse diagnosis,and it is of great significance for determining the nature of cold and heat in diseases.The prediction of pulse rate based on facial video is an exciting research field for getting palpation information by observation diagnosis.However,most studies focus on optimizing the algorithm based on a small sample of participants without systematically investigating multiple influencing factors.A total of 209 participants and 2,435 facial videos,based on our self-constructed Multi-Scene Sign Dataset and the public datasets,were used to perform a multi-level and multi-factor comprehensive comparison.The effects of different datasets,blood volume pulse signal extraction algorithms,region of interests,time windows,color spaces,pulse rate calculation methods,and video recording scenes were analyzed.Furthermore,we proposed a blood volume pulse signal quality optimization strategy based on the inverse Fourier transform and an improvement strategy for pulse rate estimation based on signal-to-noise ratio threshold sliding.We found that the effects of video estimation of pulse rate in the Multi-Scene Sign Dataset and Pulse Rate Detection Dataset were better than in other datasets.Compared with Fast independent component analysis and Single Channel algorithms,chrominance-based method and plane-orthogonal-to-skin algorithms have a more vital anti-interference ability and higher robustness.The performances of the five-organs fusion area and the full-face area were better than that of single sub-regions,and the fewer motion artifacts and better lighting can improve the precision of pulse rate estimation.

Constitutional/Conditional Acupuncture

A new style of acupuncture,named constitutional/conditional acupuncture(CCA),based on traditional Asian medical practices,was revealed in Kunming in 2017.This method is primarily based on pulse diagnosis,as developed in China,Korea,and India.The basic methods of CCA are briefly described,and a few case results from the 3‑day Kunming workshop are presented to reveal the efficacy of CCA.

Investigation of the Test–Retest Reliability and Inter-Rater Agreement of Traditional Chinese Medicine-Based Pulse Practitioners

Objective:The objective of this study was to assess the test–retest reliability and inter-rater agreement between the traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)pulse diagnosis between two Indian TCM practitioners.Methods:A total of 300 participants were evaluated for their bilateral pulse based on TCM independently by two investigators with similar years of experience but who graduated from different medical schools.The investigators who were blinded diagnosed the participants as per TCM based on the depth,rate,and strength of their pulse.Cronbachαand weighted kappa were used for assessing the reliability and repeatability.Results:The data of all the 300 participants were included in the analysis.The test–retest reliability computed using Cronbach's alpha indicated high reliability between the investigators(α=0.963).There were a total of 37 different types of diagnoses identified by both investigators.The investigators diagnoses matched for 116 participants out of 300 participants;whereas 184 cases were not matched between the investigators.The inter-rater agreement for the TCM diagnosis tested by weighted Kappa did not returned any significant agreement(Kappa=0.370).Discussion:The present study shows higher reliability between the pulse diagnoses between the investigators.However,the inter-rater agreement for TCM diagnosis based on pulse diagnosis was not significant probably due to the variation in subjective assessments.This calls for the standardization of training in TCM diagnostic methods among practitioners.Future studies should include the differences in training,medical education,and experience among the practitioners while determining the reliability of pulse diagnosis.