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The purpose of this study is to confirm that the body weight load reduction system which is developed by us is effective to reduce the knee joint force of the walking user. This system is driven by pneumatic artificial muscle, functions as a mobile walking assist system.

The developed body weight load reduction system driven by rubber-less artificial muscle (RLAM) was tested experimentally. Simple force feedback control is applied to the RLAM. The system moves as synchronized with vertical movement of the walking user. The knee joint force during walking experiments conducted using this system is estimated by measurement of floor reaction force and position data of lower limb joints.

The knee joint force during walking is reduced when using this system. This system contributes to smooth change of knee joint force when the lower limb contacts the floor.

This lightweight body weight load reduction system is particularly effective for realizing easy-to-use mobile walking assist system.

A lightweight body weight load reduction system using pneumatic artificial muscle is a novel proposal. Additionally, these new evaluation results demonstrate its effectiveness for reducing knee joint force during walking.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a mechanical equilibrium model of a one‐end‐fixed type rubberless artificial muscle and the feasibility of this model for control of the rubberless artificial muscle. This mechanical equilibrium model expresses the relation between inner pressure, contraction force, and contraction displacement. The model validity and usability were confirmed experimentally.

Position control of a one‐end‐fixed type rubberless artificial muscle antagonistic drive system was conducted using this mechanical equilibrium model. This model contributes to adjustment of the antagonistic force.

The derived mechanical equilibrium model shows static characteristics of the rubberless artificial muscle well. Furthermore, it experimentally confirmed the possibility of realizing position control with force adjustment of the rubberless artificial muscle antagonistic derive system. The mechanical equilibrium model is useful to control the rubberless artificial muscle.

This paper reports the realization of advanced control of the rubberless artificial muscle using the derived mechanical equilibrium model.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a device to support rehabilitation of a patient's upper limb motion.

The device has five degrees of freedom by virtue of its link mechanism. It consists of Joints 1‐5. Apparatus for use in so‐called welfare applications, such as this device, must be safe, flexible, and lightweight. A pneumatic cylinder, arranged and integrated with the device, was used to operate it. The device has two rehabilitation modes corresponding to different rehabilitation contents. The first mode is the muscular recovery and movable region expansion mode (Mode A). The second mode is a practical function recovery mode (Mode B). A compliance control and a position control system are applied for those modes.

By arranging the pneumatic cylinder optimally, results show that the device has compact and wide operating range and compliance‐control performance for Mode A. Position‐control performance for Mode B was verified experimentally. Moreover, the paper evaluates the effectiveness of the device and its control system through electromyography, which confirms that the developed device can support a patient's rehabilitation training.

The device has a simple link mechanism and an attached pneumatic cylinder, thereby constituting a lightweight and compact mechanism. The device has two rehabilitation modes corresponding to different rehabilitation contents. Using the device, a patient can conduct muscular power recovery training, movable region expansion training, and upper limb practical function recovery training.

Functional foods have been marketed as promoting health and reducing the risk of disease. While the market of functional foods is increasing across the globe, little is known about how actual and subjective health status are related to functional food choices and existing research evidence is inconsistent. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to systematically explore the relationship between functional food choices and perception related dimensions vs medical dimensions.

The study used data collected from a large-scale mail survey in Japan (N = 8,368) and a representative Internet survey in Lithuania (N = 900). It used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed conceptual model.

The general results indicated that functional foods could be used to maintain one’s subjective health status – the frequency of using functional food products was positively related to consumers’ subjective health status (p = 0.04). However, if consumers were experiencing health-related issues (self-reported disease symptoms or current medical treatment), there was no systematic relationship between such experience and the usage of functional food products.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to systematically analyze the relationship between subjective health status, self-reported disease symptoms, current medical treatment and the frequency of using different functional food product groups. The findings indicated that it is important to simultaneously consider different underlying factors, such as specific to functional food targeted disease symptoms and specific food product groups, which contributed to a more thorough understanding of functional food consumption.

When designing a performance involving people and mobile robots, the required functions and shape of the robot must be considered. However, it can be difficult to account for all of the requirements. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a mobile robot in the shape of a ball that is used in theatrical performances.

The paper proposes a mobile robot that can give the audience the optical illusion of the unique movements of a sphere by mounting a spherical light-emitting diode (LED) display on a high-agility wheeled robot.

It was found that movements that are difficult to implement with existing mechanisms can nonetheless be visualized through the use of light.

The paper proposes the concept of using pseudo-physical movements in performances with robots. The authors built a robot that visually reproduces the movements of a rolling sphere and is capable of faster movements and easier position estimations in comparison with previous spherical robots.