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In this study, we developed an intuitive remote-controlled manipulator system that was operated using a touch panel display and a mouse. We examined its application possibility to pick out the shoot apical meristem from sprouting potatoes. The shoot apical meristem is not easily affected by plant viruses. Therefore, we can obtain a virus-free seedling that has a high production efficiency by culturing this part. This technique is called “mericlone” and is known widely in agriculture; however, it is tedious because of the precision work involved with a microscope. Thus, our system not only reduces the burden on the technician but also has high precision control and saves space. In this study, using the loop-mediated isothermal amplification method, we confirmed that we could get the potato meristems that do not contain Potato Virus X. The newly designed primer set can achieve results more rapidly, more easily, and with higher sensitivity than other virus detection methods, thus indicating the possibility of industrial implementation.

Independence support robots using multi joint manipulators are thriving in the field of welfare. Keyboards or joysticks are generally used in the remote operation of the multi joint manipulators. The posture of the multi joint manipulators can be ordered by the angle of the joystick or preconfigured key assignment. These control systems have a problem, however, that the number of operable joints is limited to the number of joystick axes or keyboard buttons. In this study, we propose a remote control system for the multi joint manipulator using touch panel and gyroscope sensor. We call the system TGC (Touch Gyro Control). Miniaturization and performance increase are in progress to various sensors such as gyroscope and touch panel with the development of MEMS technology in recent years. In addition, these sensors have spread rapidly in our living environment. In this study, we use touch panel and gyroscope sensor mounted on a smartphone. The TGC system can control rotational movement of the manipulator using the orientation of the smartphone, translational movement in the horizontal plane using the drag operation of the touch panel display and translational movement in the vertical plane using up and down motion of the arm which is gripping the smartphone. For the quantitative evaluation, we experimented with 3D pointing tasks using the TGC and compared to the conventional method of button-type control. The result of the experiment indicated that the TGC could point faster than conventional button-type method. In addition, we also experimented with the task that grip and transfer screws into a box using 6-DOF manipulator which is controlled by above two methods. The result of this experiment also showed the advantage of the TGC. The usefulness of the TGC for the operation of the multi joint manipulator is verified in this research.

The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task is a widely used measure for the development of executive function during early childhood. In this task, children are asked to sort cards according to one rule (e.g., color) during preswitch phases, after which they are asked to sort cards according to another rule (e.g., shape) during the postswitch phases. A computer version of the DCCS was needed to standardize the test material, but a previous study showed that children showed more difficulty in a computer version with a mouse device than the standard card version. In this study, we assessed the effectiveness of a computer version with a touch panel and compared performance with the standard card version. Three- and 4-year-old children were given the card version and computer version of the DCCS tasks. The results revealed that children showed similar performance during the preswitch and postswitch phases both in the computer version and in the card version. The results suggest that both versions of the task assessed the same underlying cognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]