Clinical Efficacy of Electroacupuncture Dilatational Wave Treatment of Acute Stage Facial Paralysis

ObjectiveTo discuss and analyze the clinical efficacy and prognostic effect of an electroacupuncture dilatational wave in acute stage facial paralysis. <br>Method Sixty patients with acute facial paralysis who received treatment in the inpatient departmentof our hospital from April 2018 to January 2019 were randomly divided into two groups : a treatment group and a control group. Both groups were treated with the same procedures, such as antivirus, nerve nutrition, circulation improvement, anti-inflammatory, infrared radiation on the affected side, electroacupuncture in quiescent period and Chinese herbal decoction. Dilatational wave treatment was also performed in the treatment group in the acute stage, and the clinical efficacy and effect on prognosis were compared between the two groups. <br>Results The total effective rate of the treatment group was 96.7%, and the total effective rate of the control group was 70%. The difference in the level of efficacy between the two groups was statistically different (P < 0.05). <br>Conclusions For the acute stage of facial paralysis patients who underwent conventional treatment using an electroacupuncture dilatational wave showed a significantly improved efficacy rate , as well as other clear advantages . The treatment is , worthy of further investigation .

Efficacy and Safety of Acupuncture at Tianshu (ST25) for Functional Constipation: Evidence from 10 Randomized Controlled Trials

Objective. To evaluate the evidence for the efficacy and safety of acupuncture at Tianshu (ST25) for functional constipation (FC). Methods. We systematically searched seven databases to identify randomized controlled trials of acupuncture at ST25 alone or in combination with conventional therapy in the treatment of FC. Risk ratios (RRs) and mean differences (MDs) were calculated using RevMan 5.3 with 95% confidence interval (CI). Results. The study included ten trials with 1568 participants. Meta-analysis showed that the Cleveland Constipation Score (CCS) for deep needling was significantly lower than that for lactulose (deep needling with low-frequency dilatational wave: MD −0.58, 95% CI −0.94 to −0.22; deep needling with sparse wave: MD −3.67, 95% CI −6.40 to −0.94; deep needling with high-frequency dilatational wave: MD −3.42, 95% CI −5.03 to −1.81). Furthermore, CCS for shallow needling with high-frequency dilatational wave was lower than that for lactulose (MD −1.77, 95% CI −3.40 to −0.14). In addition, when deep needling was combined with high-frequency dilatational wave, the weekly frequency of spontaneous defecation (FSD) was significantly higher than that for lactulose (MD 1.57, 95% CI 0.93 to 2.21). Colonic Transit Time (CTT) scores were significantly higher when deep needling was combined with sparse wave (MD −14.36, 95% CI −18.31 to −10.41) or high-frequency dilatational wave (MD −11.53, 95% CI −19.25 to −3.81). The time of first defecation after treatment (TFD) of the shallow needling therapy was significantly longer than that of the lactulose (MD 13.67, 95% CI 5.66 to 21.67). The CCS 6 months after treatment (CCS6m) for deep needling was significantly lower than that for lactulose (MD −4.90, 95% CI −5.97 to −3.84). Moreover, the FSD 6 months after treatment (FSD6m) for shallow needling was significantly higher than that for lactulose (MD 0.49, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.97). The adverse event (AE) rate for lactulose was significantly higher than that achieved with the needling treatments, and this held true for both deep needling therapy (RR 0.41, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.72) and shallow needling therapy (RR 0.33, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.77). Conclusions. The meta-analysis demonstrates that acupuncture at ST25 appears to be more effective than lactulose in the treatment of functional constipation. This was found to be especially true for deep needling with high-frequency dilatational wave, which had a greater impact on improving CCS, FSD, CTT, and CCS6m. Additionally, acupuncture at ST25 was shown to be safer than conventional treatment, with the rate of AE being significantly lower for both deep needling and shallow needling. The trial is registered with https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/(CRD42019141017)).

Investigation of the Blast-Induced Crack Propagation Behavior in a Material Containing an Unfilled Joint

This study uses a dynamic caustic technique to study the crack propagation in a medium containing an unfilled joint under blasting. The results show that for the medium containing a vertical unfilled joint, the reflected dilatational wave from the joint tends to suppress both the K I d and the velocity of the opposite propagating crack. However, for the medium containing an oblique joint, the reflected wave from the joint increases K II d , and induces the opposite propagating crack deflect from its original path. Compared with the medium with a vertical joint, the wing cracks are more easy to initiate at the oblique joint where a significant stress concentration is formed under the diffraction of the blast wave. Combined with numerical results, it is found that the wing crack deflects in the clockwise direction when the shear stress was negative, and it turns to counterclockwise when the shear stress was positive.

Dynamics of Flexoelectric Materials: Subsonic, Intersonic, and Supersonic Ruptures and Mach Cone Formation

Motivated by recent, unexpected, experimental observations of “intersonic” rupture growth in which both shear and dilatational Mach fronts were observed at the tips of dynamic frictional ruptures propagating at rupture speeds below the dilatational wave speed of the surrounding solid, and we formulate the general dynamic flexoelectric problem and we investigate its plane strain/plane polarization specialization. The coupling of the mechanical problem is analogous to a problem of Toupin–Mindlin gradient elasticity, where two micromechanical characteristic lengths and two microinertial lengths emerge as a combination of the mechanical, dielectric, and flexoelectric constants. The solution of the rupture growth problem allows us to provide an explanation of the experimental results. This becomes possible since flexoelectricity predicts a new aspect that was not observed in the classical analysis: subsonic super shear and supersonic crack tip (or rupture) motions are not related exclusively with the problem being elliptic or hyperbolic, respectively. This is due to the influence of the microinertial lengths, which, in addition to the ratios of the rupture to the wave speeds, also affect the slopes of the Mach cones. Moreover, we are able to explain the experimental paradox of the observation of double Mach cone pairs at the tips of supershear, but subsonic, frictional, ruptures in poly-methyl-methacrtylate (PMMA) by demonstrating that both dilatational and shear Mach cones could appear in flexoelectric solids at rupture speeds below the material dilatation wave speed, something that is impossible from the classical elasticity analysis and is due to the dispersive nature of the present problem. Our analysis is of relevance to the dynamic deformation and fracture of both synthetic and naturally occurring flexoelectric materials and systems, with implications to both engineering and earthquake source mechanics.

Attenuation of dilatational wave in ferromagnetic shape memory alloy polyurethane polymer composites

The ferromagnetic shape memory alloy polyurethane, Ni-Mn-Ga-PU, polymer composites absorb more mechanical energy than the conventional materials used for vibration damping applications. The vibration damping has been investigated using the custom-made experimental setup. The computed resonance peak values are in agreement with the experimental data. The dilatational wave decreases at high frequencies which is consistent with the theory of resonance frequency. The previously free end of the system increases the amplitude stress for an appreciable static load but loss appears to be very small. The 20% ferromagnetic shape memory alloy in polyurethane absorbs much more energy than the pure polyurethane due to the movement of twin boundaries present in Ni-Mn-Ga. The Ni-Mn-Ga-PU polymer composites of this nature can be a suitable candidate for acoustic attenuation applications.

Plane Waves in Micropolar thermoelastic Materials with Voids

The problem of plane waves in micropolar thermoelastic materials with voids has been investigated. Using the linear theory of micropolar thermoelastic materials with voids developed by Passarella [27], we come to know that there exist six waves, which are three coupled dilatational waves, two coupled shear waves and micropolar dilatational wave, in the materials. The phase velocities and their attenuation coefficients of the three coupled and micropolar dilatational and two coupled shear waves are obtained numerically and analytically.