title: Spatial Patterns of the Indications of Acupoints Using Data Mining in Classic Medical Text: A Possible Visualization of the Meridian System.
abstract: The indications of acupoints are thought to be highly associated with the lines of the meridian systems. The present study used data mining methods to analyze the characteristics of the indications of each acupoint and to visualize the relationships between the acupoints and disease sites in the classic Korean medical text Chimgoogyeongheombang. Using a term frequency-inverse document frequency (tf-idf) scheme, the present study extracted valuable data regarding the indications of each acupoint according to the frequency of the cooccurrences of eight Source points and eighteen disease sites. Furthermore, the spatial patterns of the indications of each acupoint on a body map were visualized according to the tf-idf values. Each acupoint along the different meridians exhibited different constellation patterns at various disease sites. Additionally, the spatial patterns of the indications of each acupoint were highly associated with the route of the corresponding meridian. The present findings demonstrate that the indications of each acupoint were primarily associated with the corresponding meridian system. Furthermore, these findings suggest that the routes of the meridians may have clinical implications in terms of identifying the constellations of the indications of acupoints.
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Won-Mo
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea ; Department of Medical History, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Taehyung
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: In-Seon
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Mibyeong Research Center, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 34054, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sanghyun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Mibyeong Research Center, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 34054, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hyunchul
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Song-Yi
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hi-Joon
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Acupuncture and Meridian Science Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Younbyoung
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chae