Investigation of the Lower Resistance Meridian: Speculation on the Pathophysiological Functions of Acupuncture Meridians

It was pointed out in the two earlier papers of the present author that the meridians are in fact zones in the loose connective tissue containing richer interstitial fluid and thus are lower-resistance passages for diffusion of meridian-signal carriers or mediators. Moreover, a hypothesis, which incorporates the wide variety of functions of the loose connective tissue, the circulatory system, and the nervous system into the meridian function, has been proposed and in the hypothesis the mast cell plays some key roles. In the present paper, considering also the latest knowledge on cell migration along with some existing experimental results, it is further pointed out that meridians ought to be lower-resistance passages for chemotactic migration of cells and mast cells can indeed migrate longitudinally along meridians. Finally, the present paper points out that if we add the last two points to the hypothesis and keep in mind that mast cells have been known very recently to be versatile regulators of inflammation, tissue remodeling, host defense, and homeostasis, the rich pathophysiological functions of the meridian pointed out by the traditional Chinese medicine can be understood quite naturally.Integrative & Complementary MedicineSCI(E)[email protected]

Physical-Layer Encryption Using Digital Chaos for Secure OFDM Transmission

Due to the broadcasting nature of passive optical network (PON), data security is challenging. For the transmission of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is considered as one of the major drawbacks. This chapter reviews the digital chaos-based secure OFDM data encryption schemes, where the transmission performance is improved via PAPR reduction. The digital chaos is incorporated into the signal scrambling approaches: selective mapping (SLM), partial transmit sequence (PTS); and precoding approaches: discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT) for PAPR reduction. Multi-fold data encryption is achieved with a huge key space provided by digital chaos, to enhance the physical-layer security for OFDM-PON, while the pseudo-random properties of digital chaos are applied for PAPR reduction, which consequently improves the transmission performance. The evidences of these encryption approaches are presented in terms of theories, simulations, as well as experimental demonstrations. The chaotic data encryption schemes could be promising candidates for next-generation OFDM-PON