Abstract:The technique of rotating acupuncture needles has long been used to enhance the effects of acupuncture in Oriental medicine. However, it is difficult to standardize and quantify this stimulation condition. Thus we developed an automatically controlled rotating acupuncture (ACRA) system. The present study was conducted to evaluate the analgesic effects of ACRA using 4 different stimulation conditions (i.e., angle and frequency of rotation: 90° + 1 Hz, 90° + 1/4 Hz, 360° + 1 Hz, and 360° + 1/4 Hz) in Sprague-Dawley rats. Tail-flick latency to a noxious radiant heat stimulus in lightly anesthetized rats was measured before and after 15 min of ACRA stimulation at the Zusanli (ST36) acupoint. ACRA stimulations under all of the conditions above produced more potent analgesic effects than plain acupuncture (PA, acupuncture needle insertion only), but only the 90° + 1/4 Hz ACRA condition showed a statistically significant effect versus PA (P < 0.01). Further, the analgesic effect of 90° + 1/4 Hz ACRA was reversed by pretreatment with naloxone (2 mg/kg, i.p.). These results indicate that the 90° + 1/4 Hz ACRA stimulation has the most potent analgesic effect in rats and that this is mediated by the endogenous opioid system.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

An automatic pipe cutting/welding robot with a magnetic binder, which is named APCROM, is developed and its tracking control is studied in this paper. Using magnetic force the four-wheeled mobile robot binds itself to the pipe and executes automatic pipe cutting/welding process. As APCROM rotates around the cylindrical pipe laid in the gravitational field, the gravity effect on the movement of the robot varies. The varying gravitational effect deteriorates the tracking performance of the robot and degrades the quality of the pipe cutting/welding process. To maintain a constant velocity and consistent cutting/welding performance, the authors adopt a repetitive learning controller, which learns through practice the required effort to cancel the tracking errors. Analysis results and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.