[Establishment of data warehouse of needling and moxibustion literature based on data mining].

In order to explore the efficacy specificity and valuable rules of clinical application of needling and moxibustion methods in a large quantity of information from literature, a data warehouse needs being established. On the basis of the original databases of red-hot needle therapy and hydro-acupuncture therapy, and the newly-established databases of acupoint catgut embedding therapy, acupoint application therapy, etc., and in accordance with the characteristics of different types of needling-moxibustion literature information, databases on different subjects were established first. These subject databases constitute a general "literature data warehouse on needling moxibustion methods" composing of multi-subjects and multiple dimensions so as to discover useful regularities about clinical treatment and trials collected in the literature by using data mining techniques. In the present paper, the authors introduce the design of the data warehouse, determination of subjects, establishment of subject relations, application of the administration platform, and application of data. This data warehouse will provide a standard data representation mode, enlarge data attributes and create extensive data links among literature information in the network, and may bring us with considerable convenience and profits in clinical application decision making and scientific research about needling-moxibustion techniques.