This paper presents an off-road omni-directional mobile robot (OOMR) which can run on an uneven road and obstacles. The robot is constructed with four crawler-roller-motor units and can also be called a "roller-crawler type of omni-directional mobile robot." Each crawler-roller-motor unit can be driven independently and the motion of the robot can be controlled by the speed of each motor. We also designed a position and velocity control system for the robot. The robot can be automatically controlled to run in an optional direction and to track an orbit. We also show the adaptive control method for the OOMR. The efficiency of the mechanism and the control method has been verified by many practical running tests and computer simulations.Index Terms-Adaptive control, crawler-roller running mechanism, offroad, omni-directional mobile robot.

We examined the stomach contents of 26 Baird's beaked whales caught off the coast of Japan by small‐type coastal whalers. The main prey for these whales was rat‐tails and hakes in the western North Pacific. Pollock and squids were also important food in the whales collected from the southern Sea of Okhotsk. The prey species found in the stomachs of the whales were almost identical to those caught in bottom‐trawl nets at depths greater than about 1000 m in the western North Pacific, which suggests that the Baird's beaked whale forages for prey at depths of about 1000 m or more. Baird's beaked whales in the western North Pacific migrate to waters of 1000–3000 m in depth, where demersal fish are abundant. This implies that Baird's beaked whales migrate to waters where demersal fish, especially rat‐tails and hakes, are abundant. Although there is limited information on the feeding habits of ziphiid whales, they are generally thought to prefer squid. The present data suggest that demersal fish are also important prey for ziphiid whales.

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An in-depth assessment of an eastern Indian stock (I-stock) and a western South Pacific stock (P-stock) of Antarctic minke whales distributed between 35°E and 145°W was carried out by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC/SC) from 2001 to 2014 using data mainly collected from 1985 to 2004. This paper is a synthesis and summary of the outcomes of that assessment, although research on this species has been ongoing since 2014. The assessment integrates information from a wide range of topics including systematics, survey methods, direct catches, population structure, abundance, spatial distribution, biological information, population dynamics, species interactions, pollutants and interactions with marine debris. At least two stocks (I-stock and P-stock) are found between 35°E–145°W, with a soft boundary between 100°E and 165°E. Two sets of agreed circumpolar estimates of abundance from IWC assessment cruises (termed ‘CPII’ – 1985/86–1990/91, and ‘CPIII’ – 1991/92–2003/04) were obtained; a null hypothesis of no change in overall abundance between CPII and CPIII was not rejected. The results of a Statistical Catch-at-Age Analysis (SCAA) applied to the two stocks revealed that (1) abundance increased from 1930 until the mid-1970s, anddeclined over the period from the mid-1970s until the late-1980s and (2) trends in abundance over the most recent 20 years were relatively flat for the I-stock but decreasing for the P-stock. Although the primary focus at the start of this assessment was to try to understand abundance trends during the 1985–2004 period, it expanded to increasing knowledge on the life history of this species. The assessment also advanced many aspects of analytical methods.