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Obesity is a prevalent metabolic disease that increases the risk of other diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. A meta-analysis of 11 randomized sham-controlled trials indicates that acupuncture had adjuvant benefits in improving simple obesity, and previous studies have reported that acupoint combinations were more useful than single-acupoint therapy. The Apriori algorithm, a data mining-based analysis that finds potential correlations in datasets, is broadly applied in medicine and business. This study, based on the Apriori algorithm-based association rule analysis, found the association rules of acupoints among 11 randomized controlled trials (RCTs). There were 23 acupoints extracted from 11 RCTs. We used Python to calculate the association between acupoints and disease. We found the top 10 frequency acupoints were Extra12, TF4, LI4, LI11, ST25, ST36, ST44, CO4, CO18, and CO1. We investigated the 1118 association rule and found that {LI4, ST36} ≥ {ST44}, {LI4, ST44} ≥ {ST36}, and {ST36, ST44} ≥ {LI4} were the most associated rules in the data. Acupoints, including LI4, ST36, and ST44, are the core acupoint combinations in the treatment of simple obesity.

This Letter develops a spin-decoupled reconfigurable reflective orbital angular momentum (OAM) metasurface (MTS). The reconfigurability is realized by switching the feed among left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), right-hand circular polarization (RHCP), and linear polarization (LP) incidences, and the reconfigurable design principle is provided. This Letter also proposes a design method for the desired energy ratio between the co-polarized and cross-polarized beams. Compared with published multifunction MTSs, the designed MTSs have the following advantages: multi-polarizations, arbitrary beam numbers and modes, composite waveform (pencil and OAM beams), high aperture efficiency (21.1%, 14.6%, 6.63% for RHCP, LP, and LHCP incidences, respectively), high purity (above 92.41%), required energy distribution ratio, and reconfigurability. The MTSs have potential prospects in high-capacity wireless communications.

This letter proposes a unit integrating reflectarray and transmitarray functions together. The proposed units can form multifunctional metasurface (MS), which can realize both focusing (with required focus points and point numbers) and multiple pencil beams (with required direction, and beam numbers) based on x - and y -polarizations, respectively. The developed MS has the following advantages: low sidelobe, high focusing efficiency, high aperture efficiency, multibeam, dual-band and less layer number. The MSs formed by the units have multifunctional applications, such as multibeam communication splitter, and point to point or point to multipoint in near field communication and wireless and power transmission.

BackgroundStroke leads to tremendous impacts on patients and the healthcare system. It is crucial to explore the potential management of rehabilitation. Acupuncture and traditional Chinese herbal medicine (TCHM) integrated with conventional rehabilitation benefit post-stroke functional recovery.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all patients included in the Integrated Traditional Chinese-Western Medicine care program for stroke (ITCWM-stroke care program) in 2019 in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital to investigate the effects of acupuncture and TCHM integrated with conventional rehabilitation on National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and Barthel Index (BI) scores before and after the program.ResultsA total of 255 stroke inpatients were retrieved and divided into acupuncture and acupuncture + TCHM group by hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke types, respectively. All the patients were recruited in the program at the early subacute phase after stroke onset. Of the hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke subjects, the NIHSS and BI total scores were significantly improved in the acupuncture and acupuncture + TCHM groups. The subgroup analysis results showed that in subjects with a baseline BI score ≤ 40, the acupuncture + TCHM group significantly improved BI total score better than the acupuncture group in both hemorrhagic (p < 0.05) and ischemic (p < 0.05) stroke subjects.ConclusionAcupuncture and TCHM integrated with conventional rehabilitation significantly improve stroke patients’ functional recovery at the early subacute phase. Acupuncture + TCHM contributes to better activities of daily living (ADL) improvements in stroke patients with a baseline BI score ≤ 40. We suggest integrating acupuncture and TCHM into the post-stroke rehabilitation strategy, especially for stroke patients with poor ADL function.

IntroductionDiabetes mellitus (DM) is a pathological hyperglycemic state related to the dysregulation of insulin. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a common chronic complication in diabetic patients. A vegetarian diet could be one of the preventive strategies for the occurrence of CKD in patients with diabetes mellitus. However, it is still unknown whether a vegetarian diet lowers the occurrence of CKD in DM patients.Research Design and MethodsThis retrospective study was conducted at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital from 5 September 2005 to 31 December 2016. Subjects with an HbA1c level > 6.5% or previous history of diabetes mellitus elder than 40 years were grouped based on self-reported dietary habits (vegetarians, lacto-ovo vegetarians and omnivores) in the structured questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to estimate the direct and indirect effects of variables on the occurrence of chronic kidney disease.ResultsAmong these 2,797 subjects, the participants were grouped into dietary habits as vegans (n = 207), lacto-ovo vegetarians (n = 941) and omnivores (n = 1,649). The incidence of overall CKD was higher in the omnivore group [36.6% vs 30.4% (vegans) and 28.5% (lacto-ovo vegetarian), p < 0.001]. In the SEM model, after adjusting for age and sex, the lacto-ovo vegetarian [OR: 0.68, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.57–0.82] and vegan groups (OR 0.68, 95% CI: 0.49–0.94) were both associated with a lower risk of CKD occurrence than the omnivore group. The vegan diet and lacto-ovo diet lowered the risk related to a high BMI (OR: 0.45, p < 0.001, OR: 0.58, p < 0.001) and hyperuricemia (OR: 0.53, p < 0.001; OR: 0.55, p < 0.001) for the occurrence of CKD.ConclusionVegetarian dietary habits were associated with a lower occurrence of CKD in DM patients.

In this letter, a high-efficiency planar reflectarray with a small size of 3.87λ0 × 3.87λ0 is designed, which can effectively convert arbitrary polarized waves to orbital angular momentum (OAM) waves with a desired mode number and a beam direction. The two concentric rings with a small size of 0.38 λ 0 × 0.38 λ 0 compose the unit, which can cover the phase-shifting range 360° by adjusting the ring radius. Though the developed reflectarray is much smaller than that of published ones, it can produce beams with the similar performance as large antennas. The advantages are as follows: high efficiency 22.6%, which is superior to published OAM reflectarrays, high gain 15.4 dBi, narrow divergence angle 9°, high purity, good stability, polarization insensitivity, planar structure, and easy fabrication. Using this reflective metasurface, we designed the following OAM beams: first, OAM mode l = 1, 2, 3, 4 at ( θ = 0°, ϕ = 0°); second, l = 1 at ( θ = 45°, ϕ = 180°); and third, l = 1 at ( θ = 45°, ϕ = 270°). The above advantages are proved by the following analysis: the magnitude and phase distributions in the near field, the purity analysis, and the radiation pattern in the far field.

We present a new wideband single-layer reflectarray based on polarization rotating (PR) unit cells. These PR unit cells convert a linearly polarized incident electromagnetic wave to an orthogonal polarization upon reflection wave. Each unit cell consists of a pair of L-shaped patches and a metallic strip tilted at 45° from the x-axis in the xy plane. By adjusting the dimension of this unit cell, a pair of 90° phase difference unit cells were achieved. And we used these two unit cells and their mirror images to achieve a 2 bit phase shifter, which provides a phase shift of 0°/90°/180°/270° from 11 GHz to 17 GHz. Based on the proposed element, a wideband reflectarray is designed, fabricated and measured. The measured results show that the reflectarray's maximum gain is 25.6 dBi, with a 1 dB gain bandwidth of 30.4 % and an aperture efficiency of 35%, which agree well with the simulated results.

A single-layer, ultra-low-profile, electrically small, pattern-reconfigurable antenna is presented. The antenna consists of electric and magnetic dipole elements and a reconfigurable driven element. Six p-i-n diodes are integrated into the driven element to obtain three switchable endfire radiation states, each state covers more than 120°, which covers the entire 360° azimuth plane. For verification, a pattern reconfigurable antenna was fabricated and tested. The antenna exhibits the following measured results: $k_{a}= 0.75$ electrical size, 2.9% fractional impedance bandwidth, 4.17dBi peak gain, front-to-back ratios (FTRB) ~21.2dB, and radiation efficiencies (RE) ~82.6% for three switchable endfire radiation states.

In this paper, an electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT) metamaterial is proposed. The EIT structure are developed with low frequency metamaterial, which has high Q value and can lead to small Joule heat loss. Bright-bright mode is used to produce EIT. Both structures can be excited by X-polarized electromagnetic waves, and then transparent windows are generated by weak hybridization. Current distribution and electric field distribution are simulated to demonstrate the intrinsic mechanism. The EIT metamaterial works near 14.38 MHz with two transmission valleys at 14.32 MHz and 14.50 MHz respectively.

Asatone is an active component extracted from the Chinese herb Radix et Rhizoma Asari. Our preliminary studies have indicated that asatone has an anti-inflammatory effect on RAW 264.7 culture cells challenged with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Acute lung injury (ALI) has high morbidity and mortality rates due to the onset of serious lung inflammation and edema. Whether asatone prevents ALI LPS-induced requires further investigation. In vitro studies revealed that asatone at concentrations of 2.5–20[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g/mL drastically prevented cytotoxicity and concentration-dependently reduced NO production in the LPS-challenged macrophages. In an in vivo study, the intratracheal administration of LPS increased the lung wet/dry ratio, myeloperoxidase activity, total cell counts, white blood cell counts, NO, iNOS, COX, TNF-[Formula: see text], IL-1[Formula: see text], and IL-6 in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid as well as mitogen-activated protein kinases in the lung tissues. Pretreatment with asatone could reverse all of these effects. Asatone markedly reduced the levels of TNF-[Formula: see text] and IL-6 in the lung and liver, but not in the kidney of mice. By contrast, LPS reduced anti-oxidative enzymes and inhibited NF-[Formula: see text]B activations, whereas asatone increased anti-oxidative enzymes in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and NF-[Formula: see text]B activations in the lung tissues. Conclusively, asatone can prevent ALI through various anti-inflammatory modalities, including the major anti-inflammatory pathways of NF-[Formula: see text]B and mitogen-activated protein kinases. These findings suggest that asatone can be applied in the treatment of ALI.

A single-layer planar reflectarray with compact size 3.87λ 0 × 3.87λ 0 is proposed to produce vortex beam with high efficiency and good quality in 5.8GHz. The required phase shift in the reflected metasurface is realized by simply adjusting the radius of dual-ring elements. Thanks to the symmetric structure of the proposed unit-cell, the vortex waves operation can be obtained with arbitrary polarization. A set of reflectarrays producing OAM beams with mode l=1, 2, 3, 4 respectively, are designed and verified using full-wave simulations. Furthermore, the reflectarray with mode l=1 is fabricated and measured for experimental verification. The aperture efficiency of the reflectarray reaches to 22.6%, which is superior to homogeneous antennas. Both the simulated and measured results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed reflectarray.

A wideband circular polarization (CP) near-field focused (NFF) antenna array operating at 2.45 GHz is reported. The antenna array consists of 16 patches placed on two concentric circles. The proposed antenna array can use fewer elements to achieve smaller size of focal point and a controllable focal distance can be realized by adjusting the phase excitation distribution.

In this paper, a single-layer wideband dual-linearly polarized reflective element is developed operating from 13GHz to 15.5GHz. The developed reflective metasurface can produce orbital angular momentum (OAM) vortex waves with required modes, beam numbers, direction, x-, y- or both x- and -y polarizations. To demonstrate this versatility, three reflectarrays with multiple modes, multiple beams, and both x- and -y polarizations are designed, and one is fabricated and measured to validate the design. The measured peak gain, aperture efficiency, divergence angle is 19dBi, 11.54%, 6°, respectively. The designed reflectarray has potential applications for high communication rate.