Notes on using the PicoSearch Engine
Back to the CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE Search Engine
Back to the HOLISTIC MEDICINE Search Engine

The PicoSearch Engine on these Pages indexes every word in ALL files (and in selected linked files) on the Site.

The Engine is fast and powerful. It can search for ANY Term(s), ALL Term(s), one or more Phrases, EXACT Phrases and in Boolean Logic. Please read the examples below.

However, this Engine has a few oddities & "blind spots". Please read the rest of this Help File. Then, take a few minutes to "play" with the Engine.

HOW TO SEARCH: In the Search Box, type the Terms that you seek; then click [Search].

Select [ Search ANY Term] for pages containing ANY of the Search Terms:

Type one or more Terms and/or one or more PHRASES, in double quotes ("..."). Such phrases are treated as unique words. For example:
"traditional Chinese medicine" TCM ST36 "Channels & Collaterals" "Five Phases" locates all pages with ANY of those terms

Select [ Search ALL Terms] for pages containing ALL Search Terms:

Type more than one Term and/or one or more PHRASES, in double quotes ("..."). Such phrases are treated as unique words. For example:
"traditional Chinese medicine" ST36 "Channels & Collaterals" "Five Phases" locates all pages with ALL of those terms
Or you can use Booleans (see below).

 

Select [ Search EXACT (LONG) PHRASE] for pages containing that EXACT PHRASE:

You can search for the exact phrase with or without double quotes. For example:
use this Search Mode to find Pages with the exact phrase:
The Scientific Basis of Acupuncture

 

Select [ Search ANY Term] for Boolean Searches. Do NOT use [ Search ALL Terms]
or [ Search EXACT (LONG) PHRASE] for Boolean Searches.

 

BOOLEAN OPERATORS: + -

Use + in front of each word or a quoted phrase that you require.
Use - in front of each word that you want to exclude.

 

BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS: & OR NOT ( )

Use AND, OR, NOT, (, & ) to form a Boolean expression. AND requires, OR allows, NOT excludes.
Use double quotes to protect the words "and", "or", or "not" in a phrase.

EXAMPLES:

Capitalization doesn't matter. The ranked results will come from a total match on the words and phrases which you supply, so try to think of several specific terms for your topic & spell them correctly. It may help to include important plurals & derived words too, like [address addresses contact contacting information] .

Oddities of the PicoSearch Engine

1. It can NOT take wildcards (*).

2. It can NOT cope AUTOMATICALLY with spelling errors, abbreviations or synonyms. To cover most possibilities, enter many options in each search. Be careful to include many options (synonyms, abbreviations).

3. It can find only the EXACT word(s) or EXACT phrases presented to it.

4. In [ Search ANY Term], it CAN take a mixture of single words (separated by a space) AND phrases (in quotemarks) in one search.

5. Be careful to include many options for acupoint names & codes, sensitive points, or TCM-terms.

SPELLING ERRORS & Problems with spelling: The data (and linked data) in the pages are in a mixture of "British English" [anaemia, centre], "American English" [anemia, center], & some other languages [French, German, etc]. Some data (especially those from authors whose first language is not English) contain typing errors. The engine can not find a mistyped word, whether the typo is by the user, or in the documents.

A search for [ diarrhea ], or typos [uzsanli ] may return few (if any) hits, whereas a search for [diarrhoea ], or [ zusanli ] will return many hits.

ABBREVIATIONS: The IVAD files use many abbreviations [ acup ap aps eap tens tp tps gnrh hpoa fsh lh lu li st sp ht si bl ki pc th gb lv cv gv tcm jtcm ], etc. Use all forms of the keyword to get maximum hits.

SYNONYMS: When searching for data on specific acupoints or channels, use as many common synonyms as possible. For example to locate pages on the Triple Heater, in [ Search ANY Term] type:
[ th, sj, sanjiao, sanchiao, "san jiao", "san chiao", "triple heater", "three burning" ] etc.

USE MANY OPTIONS for keyword(s) plus synonyms: There is no overall convention on nomenclature. Therefore, searching for details on one specific term can be hit-and-miss, usless many forms (keyword(s) plus synonyms) are used.

For example, in [ Search ANY Term], gastroenteritis can also be found under
[ diarrhoea scour dysentery coli "food poisoning" ], etc.

EXACT WORDS (singular v plural words): To get maximum numbers of hits for a topic, in [ Search ANY Term] use all common forms of the keyword(s) of interest.

For example, for the maximum number of hits for equine acupuncture, in [ Search ANY Term] type:
[ equine horse horses mare mares foal foals stallion stallions ].

To get maximum hits for human acupuncture, in [ Search ANY Term] type:
[ human humans child children man men woman women boy boys girl girls ], etc.

POINT SPECIFICATIONS: Because there is no internationally used point nomenclature, searching for details on an acupoint can be hit-and-miss, usless many forms of the code & name are used. For example, the master emergency point (renzhong) can be found under many forms:

Oriental authors usually use the Chinese acupoint name, transliterated into Pinyin or Wade-Gilles forms:
[ renzhong "ren zhong" jenchung "jen chung" shuigou, shuikou "shui gou" "shui kou" ] etc, whereas western authors usually use the alphanumeric acupoint code:
[ GV26 "gv 26" VG26 "vg 26" du26 "du 26" ], etc.

SENSITIVE POINTS: These have many names - [ ashi ahshi "ah shi" "ah shih" "sensitive point" "sensitive points" "trigger point" "trigger points" tp tps "fibrositic nodule" "fibrositic nodules" ], etc

TCM TERMS: Use many options to cover the many variants of TCM Terms, for example, in
[ "de qi" "teh chi" "he gu" "ho ku" deqi hegu hoku etc ].

PHRASES: It can be hit-and-miss to search for phrases, because different authors use different phrases for the same concept. If one knows the correct phrase(s), enter it (or a number of phrases) in double quotes.

For example, in [Search ANY Term], enter:
[ "postherpetic neuralgia" "postoperative pain" "hip dysplasia" "vet med" "veterinary ap" "meniere's disease" ], etc
or
[ "sheng cycle" "six levels" "five phase" "five phases" "ki yin xu" "yin deficiency" "deficient yin" ] etc.

To locate the maximum number of pages on postherpetic neuralgia, in [ Search ANY Term ] type:
[ "postherpetic neuralgia" "herpetic neuralgia" "herpes infection" neuralgia herpes shingles pain ], etc.

MIXTURES OF WORDS & PHRASES: If one wants to find pages on acupuncture analgesia in horses, select [Search ANY Term], & type:
[ acupuncture AP anaesthesia analgesia APA hypoalgesia equine horse horses ], etc.

However, it is more efficient to make one or more key words or phrases MANDATORY, if you are SURE that they exist in the page(s) desired. For example:
[ +horses +APA "acupuncture analgesia" "acupuncture anaesthesia" ]

Alternatively, use [Search ALL Terms] for [ horses APA ]

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