The rapid growth of e-commerce and the increasing demand for timely, cost-effective last-mile delivery have increased interest in collaborative logistics. This research introduces a novel collaborative synchronized multi-platform vehicle routing problem with drones and robots (VRP-DR), where a fleet of $\mathcal{M}$ trucks, $\mathcal{N}$ drones and $\mathcal{K}$ robots, cooperatively delivers parcels. Trucks serve as mobile platforms, enabling the launching, retrieving, and en-route charging of drones and robots, thereby addressing critical limitations such as restricted payload capacities, limited range, and battery constraints. The VRP-DR incorporates five realistic features: (1) multi-visit service per trip, (2) multi-trip operations, (3) flexible docking, allowing returns to the same or different trucks (4) cyclic and acyclic operations, enabling return to the same or different nodes; and (5) en-route charging, enabling drones and robots to recharge while being transported on the truck, maximizing operational efficiency by utilizing idle transit time. The VRP-DR is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) to minimize both operational costs and makespan. To overcome the computational challenges of solving large-scale instances, a scalable heuristic algorithm, FINDER (Flexible INtegrated Delivery with Energy Recharge), is developed, to provide efficient, near-optimal solutions. Numerical experiments across various instance sizes evaluate the performance of the MILP and heuristic approaches in terms of solution quality and computation time. The results demonstrate significant time savings of the combined delivery mode over the truck-only mode and substantial cost reductions from enabling multi-visits. The study also provides insights into the effects of en-route charging, docking flexibility, drone count, speed, and payload capacity on system performance.

Sam Berns was my friend. With the wisdom of a sage, he inspired me and many others about how to make the most of life. Afflicted with the rare disease called progeria, his body aged at a rapid rate, and he died of heart failure at just 17, a brave life cut much too short. My lab discovered the genetic cause of Sam's illness two decades ago: Just one DNA letter gone awry, a T that should have been a C in a critical gene called lamin A. The same misspelling is found in almost all of the 200 individuals around the world with progeria. This story is from the WIRED World in 2025, our annual trends briefing.

In the age of respiratory illnesses like COVID 19, we understand the necessity for a robot based delivery system to ensure safe and contact free courier delivery. A blockchain based Dynamic IDentifier gives people total power over their identities while preserving auditability and anonymity. A human mobile phone and a robot are machines created with a chip, making it simple to deploy a physical unclonable function based verification system between the robot and the customer. This article presents a novel framework and a first customer verification scheme for verified courier delivery utilizing the blockchain enabled DID and PUF enabled robots. We employ DID for customer authentication between a robot (a service provider) and a customer and PUF for robot verification by the customer. We ve also put the proposed work into practice and demonstrated its capabilities in terms of throughput, latency, computing cost, and communication cost. We also show formal security proof for the proposed user verification scheme based on the tamarin prover.

In health care, the days of business as usual are over. Around the world, every health care system is struggling with rising costs and uneven quality despite the hard work of well-intentioned, well-trained clinicians. Health care leaders and policy makers have tried countless incremental fixes--attacking fraud, reducing errors, enforcing practice guidelines, making patients better "consumers," implementing electronic medical records--but none have had much impact. At its core is maximizing value for patients: that is, achieving the best outcomes at the lowest cost. We must move away from a supply-driven health care system organized around what physicians do and toward a patient-centered system organized around what patients need. We must shift the focus from the volume and profitability of services provided--physician visits, hospitalizations, procedures, and tests--to the patient outcomes achieved. And we must replace today's fragmented system, in which every local provider offers a full range of services, with a system in which services for particular medical conditions are concentrated in health-delivery organizations and in the right locations to deliver high-value care. Making this transformation is not a single step but an overarching strategy. We call it the "value agenda." It will require restructuring how health care delivery is organized, measured, and reimbursed. In 2006, Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg introduced the value agenda in their book Redefining Health Care. Since then, through our research and the work of thousands of health care leaders and academic researchers around the world, the tools to implement the agenda have been developed, and their deployment by providers and other organizations is rapidly spreading. The transformation to value-based health care is well under way. Some organizations are still at the stage of pilots and initiatives in individual practice areas. Other organizations, such as the Cleveland Clinic and Germany's Schön Klinik, have undertaken large-scale changes involving multiple components of the value agenda. The result has been striking improvements in outcomes and efficiency, and growth in market share. There is no longer any doubt about how to increase the value of care. The question is, which organizations will lead the way and how quickly can others follow? The challenge of becoming a value-based organization should not be underestimated, given the entrenched interests and practices of many decades. This transformation must come from within.

THE TIMELINE for Amazon's flying delivery service has been pushed back after one drone caused a brush fire. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, has long been vocal about his plan for creating a fleet of drones to deliver Prime packages in 30 minutes. However, despite spending more than $2 billion on the project, Amazon is still not in a place to launch the planned delivery system. In fact, a Bloomberg investigation found that the service is plagued by technical challenges and safety concerns. Furthermore, drones have crashed in test runs, and have even been the cause of a brush fire that spanned 25 acres. Reports found that last year, five delivery drones crashed at Amazon's test site in Oregon, with one causing the fire.

The need to increase our daily productivity has resulted in the creation and evolution of artificial intelligence. And like any major technology, there are misconceptions about it that need to be set right. Regardless of how you feel about AI, it's here to stay, and we'll likely rely on it more and more as time goes on. Let's take a look at some myths you should stop believing. Artificial intelligence (AI) is simply an imitation of human intelligence in machines.

At the start of 2020, Amazon Scout--our fully-electric delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers using autonomous delivery devices--was busy becoming fast friends with a variety of household objects. From surfboards, to luggage, to refrigerators, and even Christmas trees waiting to be picked up for recycling--our autonomous devices have navigated around all types of objects on the sidewalk. But a lot has changed these past few months. Amazon has been providing an essential service during the COVID-19 pandemic and working hard to get customers the products they need so they can continue to stay safe. Amazon Scout is quietly playing its part in this effort, too.

The age of artificial intelligence is allowing us to rethink the way that we treat diseases and disabilities. The combination of AI and Big Data, in addition to helping with medical diagnosis, coupled with biological delivery systems, such as gene therapy delivery system can significantly alter the way we treat a host of diseases that are, according to modern science, incurable: cancer, autism, some mental illnesses, and rare genetic illnesses. Specifically, combining AI, big data, robotics, gene therapy, and medical research has unleashed a host of possibilities to cure these types of diseases. At the same time, the combined innovation efforts are helping people with disabilities live their lives better. Here's an overview of some of these advances as we move into the new year.

Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, who will be succeeding Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has proposed the usage of high-end technology including Artificial Intelligence in courts. Justice Bobde who will be the 47th Chief Justice of India has asserted that there may be a need for some minor changes in the justice system of the country by the inclusion of the use of technology such as artificial intelligence. "Justice delivery system is good, it might require some minor changes, including the use of technology like artificial intelligence. It's a good system, you need to use some other things," Justice Bobde told ANI. He said the justice delivery system is good, but also pressed on the need to introduce some long term and short-term measures to make the justice delivery system better.

New Delhi [India], Oct 31 (ANI): Chief Justice of India (CJI) designate, Sharad Arvind Bobde, on Thursday advocated the usage of high-end technology including Artificial Intelligence (AI) in courts. Speaking to ANI here, Justice Bobde, who will become the 47th Chief Justice of India, stated that the justice delivery system is "good" in the country and may require the use of minor changes including the use of technology. "Justice delivery system is good, it might require some minor changes, including the use of technology like artificial intelligence. It's a good system, you need to use some other things," Justice Bobde told ANI. The CJI designate also said that some long and short term measures need to be introduced to make the justice delivery system better. "There are long term measures and short term measures.