Estimation of bioaccessibility and potential human health risk of mercury in Chinese patent medicines

Mercury（Hg）, mainly in cinnabar species, has been used in medicine for thousands of years in China, and worldwide concern has been raised on its toxicity. In this work, the amount of bioaccessible mercury in 16 Chinese patent medicines（CPMs） was measured by using an in vitro simulated digestion system, consisting of simulated gastric and intestinal fluid, to investigate the bioavailability of mercury in CPMs and evaluate its potential risk to human health. Total mercury and mercury in the gastrointestinal extracts were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry（ICP-MS）. The levels of total Hg in 16 CPMs ranged from not detected to 11.89 mg/g, with a mean value of 1.13 mg/g, while the extractable Hg ranged from not detected to 4.37 μg/g, with a mean value of 0.42 μg/g.Mercury bioaccessibility varied significantly in the investigated CPMs, depending on the ingredient. Compared to the CPMs without cinnabar（2.5%–30.9%）, the percentage of mercury in the gastrointestinal supernatants for CPMs with cinnabar was quite a bit lower（0.037%）. By comparing with the Food and Agricultural Organization/World Health Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives（FAO/WHO） safety guideline, the average daily intake dose（ADD） of Hg in the medicines was then calculated to access the risk of mercury to human health from taking CPMs.

A numerical simulation of photothermal response in laser medicine

In this paper, we reported a numerical solution of laser induced thermal effect in the bio-tissue. The model of photothermal effect and classical Pennes bio-heat transfer equation were introduced. Finite element method (FEM), which was realized by Matlab software, was used to calculate the temperature distribution. He-Ne laser (633 nm) was used to simulate the physical therapy in in vivo skin tissue. Under the cylinder coordinates, the three-dimension(3-D) geometry of tissue was reduced to two-dimension(2-D) computation. The results contained the radial, axial and temperature 3-D color plot. Combining the time animation display was possible. By changing the laser and tissue parameters we can get different results. This will be the initial and indispensable work of the non-destructive evaluation of the laser induced injury.

A Clustering Method of Chinese Medicine Prescriptions Based on Modified Firefly Algorithm

This paper is aimed to study the clustering method for Chinese medicine（CM） medical cases. The traditional K-means clustering algorithm had shortcomings such as dependence of results on the selection of initial value, trapping in local optimum when processing prescriptions form CM medical cases. Therefore, a new clustering method based on the collaboration of firefly algorithm and simulated annealing algorithm was proposed. This algorithm dynamically determined the iteration of firefly algorithm and simulates sampling of annealing algorithm by fitness changes, and increased the diversity of swarm through expansion of the scope of the sudden jump, thereby effectively avoiding premature problem. The results from confirmatory experiments for CM medical cases suggested that, comparing with traditional K-means clustering algorithms, this method was greatly improved in the individual diversity and the obtained clustering results, the computing results from this method had a certain reference value for cluster analysis on CM prescriptions.