Hyun-Chul Jang

TM-MC: a database of medicinal materials and chemical compounds in Northeast Asian traditional medicine

BackgroundIn traditional medicine, there has been a great deal of research on the effects exhibited by medicinal materials. To study the effects, resources that can systematically describe the chemical compounds in medicinal materials are necessary. In recent years, numerous databases on medicinal materials and constituent compounds have been constructed. However, because these databases provide differing information and the sources of such information are unclear or difficult to verify, it is difficult to decide which database to use. Moreover, there is much overlapping information. The aim of this study was to construct a database of medicinal materials and chemical compounds in Northeast Asian traditional medicine (TM-MC), for which medicinal materials are listed in the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese pharmacopoeias and information on the compound names of medicinal materials can easily be confirmed online.DescriptionTo provide information on the chemical compounds of medicinal materials, chromatography articles from MEDLINE and PubMed Central were searched. After chemical compounds of medicinal materials were extracted by manually investigating the full-text of articles, a database of information on about 14,000 compounds from 536 medicinal materials was built. The database also provides links to the articles from which each medicinal material and chemical compound were extracted.ConclusionTM-MC database provides information on medicinal materials and their chemical compounds from chromatography articles in MEDLINE and PubMed Central. Researchers can easily check relevant information through the links to articles.

The dynamic relationship between emotional and physical states: an observational study of personal health records

Objectives Recently, there has been increasing interest in preventing and managing diseases both inside and outside medical institutions, and these concerns have supported the development of the individual Personal Health Record (PHR). Thus, the current study created a mobile platform called “Mind Mirror” to evaluate psychological and physical conditions and investigated whether PHRs would be a useful tool for assessment of the dynamic relationship between the emotional and physical conditions of an individual. Methods Mind Mirror was used to collect 30 days of observational data about emotional valence and the physical states of pain and fatigue from 20 healthy participants, and these data were used to analyze the dynamic relationship between emotional and physical conditions. Additionally, based on the cross-correlations between these three parameters, a multilevel multivariate regression model (mixed linear model [MLM]) was implemented. Results The strongest cross-correlation between emotional and physical conditions was at lag 0, which implies that emotion and body condition changed concurrently. In the MLM, emotional valence was negatively associated with fatigue (β =−0.233, P<0.001), fatigue was positively associated with pain (β =0.250, P<0.001), and pain was positively associated with fatigue (β =0.398, P<0.001). Conclusion Our study showed that emotional valence and one’s physical condition negatively influenced one another, while fatigue and pain positively affected each other. These findings suggest that the mind and body interact instantaneously, in addition to providing a possible solution for the recording and management of health using a PHR on a daily basis.

Design and Implementation of Statistics System for Traditional Korean Medicine

The statistics of traditional korean medicine is essential aspects for the information based policy establishment and the evidence based traditional korean medicine research. But because the integrated statistics service of traditional korean medicine is not provided, people are hard to find out suitable statistics. Thus we analyzed the produced statistics from many ministries, classified it into 7 categories and extracted common fields from it. We designed the database schema by summary table dynamic production method from the analysis of statistics and designed the system composed of excel import, statistics analysis, chart creation and search engine. Finally we implemented the statistics system of traditional korean medicine which users are capable of modifying the statistics data freely. We hope that the implemented system will provide pliability in searching and finding statistical information.

Mash-up System for Searching Herb using Herb Ontology

We propose a mash-up system for searching herb, which can search the herbal information in oriental medicine fields using the various Open APIs. We in particular developed and opened two Open APIs which enable to search papers and projects in oriental medicine fields with the general Open APIs. These Open APIs can share and provide the expert knowledge in oriental medicine fields. The information for a herb in oriental medicine fields has various names and descriptions according to their sources unlike other fields. Thus, it is hard to get the results using one or two keywords such as the general search engines. To solve this problem, we in this paper propose a way to provide the more exact and extensive search results using the herb ontology with one hundred herbal information in oriental medicine fields.

A mathematical model for the deficiency-excess mechanism of yin-yang in five viscera.

To raise traditional medicine to a higher level of scientific research, a mathematical model has been proposed using symbolic notations and operators to describe several disease symptoms generally recognized in traditional medicine. Even though this model to a certain degree offers a mathematical approach to identify the relationships between yin-yang and the five viscera, it is not an efficient means of explaining the pathology in traditional medicine due to its use of superfluous notations and definitions. In this paper, we introduce two concise operators, a self-development operator and an action operator: the former describes the effect of a viscus in the unbalanced state on other viscera: the latter explains the engendering and restraining relationships between the two viscera. These tools are useful to elucidate the interactions among the states of the five viscera based on yin-yang and the five elements theory. Our mathematical model with these two operators facilitates description for the scheme of deficiency-excess of yin-yang in the five viscera. Accordingly, we have mathematically refined the existing results and shown clinical applications as well.

A Study of Disassembling Major Indication Terms into Minimum Meaning Units and Linking to Diseases

ABSTRACT Objectives : Ontology is a good tool to represent the knowledge and has developed for Traditional Korean Medicine(TKM) in Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine. There are a lot of TKM terms, which have a complex meaning, especially major indication terms of medicinal treatment and terms of symptom and disease. These complex meaning terms result in the low linkage between major indication terms of medicinal treatment and terms of symptom and disease in TKM ontology. We studied to enhance the percentage of the linkage among those data in TKM ontology. Methods : We disassembled major indication terms of medicinal treatment into minimum meaning units and then linked them to enhance the percentage of the linkage among medicinal material, formula and disease ontology based on Traditional Korean Medicine. To retain objectivity, several experts of Korean Medicine used a web- based tool that supports users in refining terms and disassembling them into the minimum meaning efficiently. Results : The outcome shows that the percentage of the linkage among medicinal material, formula and disease ontology increased. By linking disassembled major indication terms to symptoms and diseases, the amount of

Construction of Social Network Ontology in Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine

We in this paper propose a social network based on ontology in Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine (KIOM). By using the social network, researchers can find collaborators and share research results with others. For this purpose, first, personal profiles, scholarships, careers, licenses, academic activities, research results, and personal connections for all of researchers in KIOM are collected. After relationship and hierarchy among ontology classes and attributes of classes are defined through analyzing the collected information, a social network ontology are constructed using FOAF and OWL. This ontology can be easily interconnected with other social network by FOAF and provide the reasoning based on OWL ontology.

Credibility of Korea Oriental Medicine Web Sites

We analyzed 53 representative Korea oriental medicine web sites to measure the credibility and satisfaction using objective valuation basis. First we analyzed qualitatively the general sites` characteristics composed of operational status, kernel service, organization and payment. Secondly we calculated the sites` credibility categorized as expertise factors, trustworthiness factors, sponsorship factors and other factors to deduce the key factor. we expect the result can be used as the indicator for developer to improve the Korea oriental medicine web sites. And we expect the result can be used as the objective credibility for the web user to confirm the contents of Korea oriental medicine web sites.

Design of Models for the Korean Traditional Medicine Research Trend Analysis System

The researchers and planners are using patent/paper map system to analyze the research trend, but we can`t use the existing analysis system because of the specialty of korean traditional medicine. Thus we deduced the analysis models from preceding research and system and designed 14 analysis models which are composed of basic, detail and complex models. We verified the analysis models using papers which has `meridian` keyword among 16,000 papers stored in OASIS. From the analysis result, we know that the meridian study has just entered in the maturity and is closely related with other parts of korean traditional medicine as physiology etc. And we verified the proposed analysis model from the comparison with the analysis models of preceding systems. The analysis model will be used for the development of Korean traditional medicine paper map analysis service scenario and system.

ACTION OF SOSIHO-TANG ON SYSTEMIC AND LOCAL ANAPHYLAXIS BY ANAL ADMINISTRATION

The herbal formulation Soshiho-Tang (SS-Tang) has been used against allergic disease for generations, and still occupies an important place in traditional medicine in Korea. Previously, we reported that SS-Tang potently inhibited mast cell- mediated anaphylaxis when orally administered. In this study, we investigated the effect of SS-Tang by anal administration in anaphylaxis responses. SS-Tang dose-dependently inhibited compound 48/80-induced systemic anaphylaxis with doses of 10(-4) to 1 g/kg 1 h before anally administered. Of special note, SS-Tang inhibited systemic anaphylaxis completely with a dose of 1 g/kg. SS-Tang reduced plasma histamine levels induced by compound 48/80 significantly. However, the mortality was 100% when SS-Tang was administered after compound 48/80 treatment. SS-Tang (10(-1) g/kg) also inhibited passive cutaneous anaphylaxis activated by anti-dinitrophenyl IgE antibody by 30.9%. These results provide evidence that anal therapy of SS-Tang may be beneficial in the treatment of systemic and local anaphylaxis.