The aim of this study was to investigate if there were any effects on the electroencephalogram (EEG) of human brain by the manual stimulation of Neiguan (PC 6) acupuncture site. In this paper, two groups of six healthy male volunteers of ages 27.6 ± 14.2 (mean ± SD) and 28.5 ± 13.0 (mean ± SD) and no neurological disease participated in this study. A digital storage of 12-channel EEG recorder was used and spectral analyses of the data set of 18 trials were obtained before, during, and after sham/ manual acupuncture. To minimize artefacts, all data were collected with the subjects alert but eyes closed. No significant changes (P > 0.05) were obtained for the sham acupuncture group. As for the manual acupuncture group, the needle was inserted perpendicularly into the PC 6 acupuncture site and manually stimulated about 15 to 30 seconds to achieve De Qi sensation. Needles were left in place for 30 min and then removed. Analysis of the EEG data due to acupuncture was compared to the baseline data and changes were obtained. First, all trials had an increase in the amplitude and power of the alpha band during manual acupuncture (P < 0.05) when compared with the baseline data. Secondly, in the mean time, the frequency peaks in alpha band of 12-channels were all synchronized with much smaller standard deviation (P < 0.01). Thirdly, the manual acupuncture effects of higher power and synchronized frequencies persisted for at least 10 minutes after the experiment (P < 0.05) and did not disappear immediately for all 18 experiments. Finally, we hypothesized that the higher power and synchronized rhythms in brain oscillations may have to do with autonomic nervous system.
Rhythmic signals from physiological systems usually have memory and long-term correlation. They can be modeled as fractional Brownian motion or fractional Gaussian noise depending on if the signals are derived from cumulative effects of nerves and muscles. That is, they can be treated as signals with fractional dimension, and the value of its fractal dimension can be used to characterize the intensity of physiological signals. In this communication, a novel method of dimension estimation based on the calculation of spectral distribution function of discrete-time fractional Gaussian noise using Legendre polynomials as basis set is proposed. The effectiveness of this proposed method is demonstrated in the dynamic behavior of detrusor of the bladder and external urethral sphincter during micturition.
The effect of anisotropic shrinkage in a tape-cast low-temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC) on the camber development of bilayer laminate is investigated. The bilayer laminate cambers toward the direction with low-powder-packing density, which also exhibits a larger shrinkage rate. This result is in agreement with that predicted by using the viscous analogy for the constitutive relationships of a porous sintering compact. To produce thin, camber-free substrates, laminates stacked by more than three-layer tapes with alternating 901 rotation are needed.
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