Objective: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a relatively common immunological mucocutaneous disease that causes pain and poor quality of life. Curcumin has been reported to be a safe and effective treatment for OLP. The objective of this review is to evaluate the existing evidence for the safety of curcumin in treating OLP as well as its efficacy compared with that of corticosteroids. Methods: We reviewed the published literature by searching PubMed, EMBASE, EBSCO and Cochrane Library and then retrieved and analyzed several variables from patient records. Results: Nine studies met the inclusion criteria, including six randomized, double-blind clinical trials; two pilot clinical trials; and one case report. A total of 259 OLP patients were included in the systematic review. Seven studies showed statistically significant differences in pain severity and clinical appearance of oral lesions after treatment with curcumin for a period of time, compared to baseline (P<0.05). Three controlled clinical trials compared the efficacy of curcumin to that of corticosteroids; all of these trials showed no statistically significant differences in pain severity and clinical appearance of oral lesions. Conclusions: Curcumin is a safe treatment and can be used as an adjunct in combination with corticosteroids to reduce pain, burning sensations, and the clinical appearance of oral lesions in OLP patients.

In order to exert the advantages of simplified control and integral rigidity, a novel 16-legged walking vehicle is proposed as a carrying platform based on closed-chain mechanisms. Considering the demand for mobility of one degree-of-freedom leg mechanism, we adopt the reconfigurable approach for trajectory flexibility. Serving as a walking module, the whole close-chain leg mechanism is designed to construct the walking vehicle. On the basis of kinematic analysis and sensitivity analysis, the reconfigurable leg with “gluteus maximus” is presented for increasing the obstacle-surmounting ability. In terms of the whole vehicle, the reconfiguration assignments and strategies are analyzed to satisfy the different climbing requirements. The obstacle-climbing capabilities of the legged units are evaluated through the probability analysis. In slope-climbing process, the supporting and the propelling regions for reconfiguration are discussed and obtained with two decision conditions. A series of dynamic simulations and experiments are performed to testify the walking stability, the walking speed, the steering performance, the terrain adaptability, and the obstacle-surmounting capability.

A novel 8U (universal joint) parallel mechanism, being able to do omnidirectional rolling motion is proposed in this paper. This mobile mechanism owns the priority of simple structure and rolling easily on terrains with loose soil, dirt or sand with only a few actuations. Its spatial closed compact structure is described firstly. In addition, the omnidirectional locomotion accompanied with DOF (degree of freedom) alternation between one and two is revealed by mobility analysis. After that, the feasibility of rolling motion is verified theoretically by stability analysis. Finally, the omnidirectinoal rolling motion is testified both by virtual and prototype experiments.

The paper proposes a novel multi-legged robot with pitch adjustive units aiming at obstacle surmounting. With only 6 degrees of freedom, the robot with 16 mechanical legs walks steadily and surmounts the obstacles on the complex terrain. The leg unit with adjustive pitch provides a large workspace and empowers the legs to climb up obstacles in large sizes, which enhances the obstacle surmounting capability. The pitch adjustment in leg unit requires as few independent adjusting actuators as possible. Based on the kinematic analysis of the mechanical leg, the biped and quadruped leg units with adjustive pitch are analyzed and compared. The configuration of the robot is designed to obtain a compact structure and pragmatic performance. The uncertainty of the obstacle size and position in the surmounting process is taken into consideration and the parameters of the adjustments and the feasible strategies for obstacle surmounting are presented. Then the 3D virtual model and the robot prototype are built and the multi-body dynamic simulations and prototype experiments are carried out. The results from the simulations and the experiments show that the robot possesses good obstacle surmounting capabilities.

SUMMARY: A novel reconfigurable tri-prism mobile robot with eight modes is proposed. The robot is composed of two feet connected by three U-R-U (universal-revolute-universal) limbs. The robot incorporates the kinematic properties of sphere robots, squirming robots, tracked robots, wheeled robots and biped robots. In addition, the somersaulting and turning modes are also explored. After the description of the robot, the DOF (degree-of-freedom) is calculated based on screw theory. The 3D model and simulations indicate that the robot can cross several typical obstacles and can also be folded via two approaches. Finally, the prototype experiments are presented to verify the feasibility of the proposed mobile robot in different motion mode.