BackgroundKorean mistletoe (Viscum album coloratum) is a semi-parasitic plant that grows on various trees and has a diverse range of effects on biological functions, being implicated in having anti-tumor, immunostimulatory, anti-diabetic, and anti-obesity properties. Recently, we also reported that Korean mistletoe extract (KME) improves endurance exercise in mice, suggesting its beneficial roles in enhancing the capacity of skeletal muscle.MethodsWe examined the expression pattern of several genes concerned with muscle physiology in C2C12 myotubes cells to identify whether KME inhibits muscle atrophy or promotes muscle hypertrophy. We also investigated these effects of KME in denervated mice model.ResultsInterestingly, KME induced the mRNA expression of SREBP-1c, PGC-1α, and GLUT4, known positive regulators of muscle hypertrophy, in C2C12 cells. On the contrary, KME reduced the expression of Atrogin-1, which is directly involved in the induction of muscle atrophy. In animal models, KME mitigated the decrease of muscle weight in denervated mice. The expression of Atrogin-1 was also diminished in those mice. Moreover, KME enhanced the grip strength and muscle weight in long-term feeding mice.ConclusionsOur results suggest that KME has beneficial effects on muscle atrophy and muscle hypertrophy.

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We propose a novel teleoperation framework for multiple distributed non-holonomic mobile robots (WMR), each equipped with onboard sensing and computing using peer-to-peer communication. One of the WMRs is designated as the leader with the first-person view camera and SLAM, while the other WMRs maintain a certain desired formation relative to their respective fore-running WMR in a distributed manner. For this, we first utilize nonholonomic passive decomposition to split the platoon kinematics into that of the formation-keeping aspect and the collective tele-driving aspect. We then design the controls for these two aspects individually and distribute them into each WMR while incorporating their nonholonomic constraint and distribution requirement. We also propose a novel predictive display, which, by providing the user with the estimated current and predicted future pose of the platoon and future possibility of collision while incorporating the uncertainty inherent to the distribution, can significantly enhance the tele-driving performance. Experiments and user study are also performed.

Simulation with a reasonable physical model is important to develop control algorithms for robots quickly, accurately, and safely without damaging the associated physical systems in various environments. However, it is difficult to choose the suitable tool for simulating a specific project. To help users in selecting the best tool when simulating a given project, we compare the performance of the four widely used physics engines, namely, ODE, Bullet, Vortex, and MoJoco, for various simple and complex industrial scenarios. We first summarize the technical algorithms implemented in each physics engine. We also designed four simulation scenarios ranging from simple scenarios for which analytic solution exists to complex industrial scenarios to compare the performance of each physics engine. We then present the simulation results in the default settings of all the physics engines, and analyze the behavior and contact force of the simulated objects.

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