Application Research Of Complex Network For TCM Clinical Knowledge Discovery

"Structure determines function" is a basic viewpoint of system science. If we take the various elements in a complex system as nodes and take the relationship between the elements as edges, it constitutes a network of complex connections, called complex networks. Many systems in the nature and society can be described as a complex network. At present people pay more and more attention to the applications and research of complex networks. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) studies and grasps the human body from the whole and the function level. It is consistent with the theory of complex systems. From the perspective of complex systems or complex network, it's a very valuable try and exploration to study the rules and knowledge of TCM.The paper first discusses the complex network theory. It includes the definition and the expression of network, the classification, the statistical property, the basic models and the community structure of complex network and so on.Secondly, on the basic of large-scale TCM clinic data, the paper studies and analyzes the basic rules of TCM from the perspective of complex network and try to explain the complex network property of the basic TCM theory. Firstly the paper makes a network modeling and constructs the herbal networks. Then the paper analyzes the statistical property and studies the community structure of the herbal networks. Finally the paper analyzes a herbal network and gains some experience and herbal combination rules. The paper also analyzes and discusses the result of the community detection and makes some foundations for the work in future.Furthermore, the paper introduces a system of analyzing the TCM clinic complex networks.