A disturbance rejection framework for the study of traditional Chinese medicine

The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is explained in the language of engineering cybernetics (EC), an engineering science with the tradition of rigor and long history of practice. The inherent connection is articulated between EC, as a science of interrelations, and the Chinese conception of Wuxing. The combined cybernetic model of Wuxing seems to have significant explaining power for the TCM and could potentially facilitate better communications of the insights of the TCM to the West. In disturbance rejection, an engineering concept, a great metaphor, is found to show how the TCM is practiced, using the liver cancer pathogenesis and treatment as a case study. The results from a series of experimental studies seem to lend support to the cybernetic model of Wuxing and the principles of disturbance rejection. © 2014 Han Zhang et al.