In the current series of research papers, we study the global dynamics of a two-species model that combines mixed-type chemotaxis sensitivities together with Lotka-Volterra competitive kinetics, { u(t) = Delta u - chi(1)del & sdot; ( u/w del w) + u(a(1) - b(1)u - c,v), x is an element of Omega, v(t) = Delta v - chi(2)del & sdot; (v del z) + v(a(2) - b(2)v - c(2 )u), x is an element of Omega, 0 = Delta w - lambda(1)w + mu(1)v, x is an element of Omega, 0 = Delta z - lambda(2)z + mu(2)u, x is an element of Omega, (0.1) under no-flux boundary conditions in a smoothly bounded domain Omega subset of & Ropf;(n) with n >= 2, where the parameters chi(i) , lambda(i) , mu(i) , a(i) , b(i) , c(i) > 0 for i = 1, 2 are positive constants. We first wanted to emphasize that the system described by Eq. (0.1) marks the first comprehensive analysis of a mixed-type chemotaxis competition framework. This model involves two species and two stimuli, integrating both regular and singular sensitivities along with the competitive dynamics characterized by the Lotka-Volterra equations. The key novelty of this work lies in its incorporation of both sensitivity types within a single framework, allowing for a direct comparison and discussion of these two distinct mechanisms within a unified setting. This first installment of the series investigates the L-p -boundedness and global existence of classical solutions to system (0.1). Under suitable parameter conditions, it is shown that any globally defined positive solution is L-p -bounded for some p > 1. Moreover, for all sufficiently smooth and positive initial data, system (0.1) admits a unique global classical solution in the two-dimensional case, without imposing any additional assumptions on the model parameters. For dimensions n >= 3, the existence of global classical solutions to system (0.1) is established under appropriate parameter restrictions. In addition, we present several numerical simulations in one, two, and three spatial dimensions to explore the dynamics of classical solutions. The computational simulations are fully consistent with the analytical results on global existence and further provide insight into the global dynamics of classical solutions such as boundedness (global and uniform sense), persistence (mass and pointwise sense), and stability (coexistence and extinction sense), which will be discussed in the second and third installment of the series
Ethanol emitters often consisting of a petroleum-based sachet filled with silica dioxide have been used as packaging inserts to prevent postharvest disease growth, thereby extending produce shelf life. Due to concerns about the environmental and health impacts of plastics, bio-based, biodegradable, and non-toxic materials are desired in packaging. This study aimed to develop an environmentally friendly ethanol emitter consisting of ethanol-releasing shellac-coated bagasse paperboard and validate its effectiveness against fungal growth in packaged strawberries. Bagasse paperboard (BP) coated with single to multiple layers of shellac with trapped ethanol were developed using the bar coating technique and assessed for ethanol release using gas chromatography as affected by layering, temperature, time, and water-rich products. The in-vitro effectiveness assessment of the new ethanol emitter was performed using Botrytis cinerea and Penicillium spp., grown on Petri dishes within bioassay systems with and without the emitter for 7 days at 23 ºC. The best performing emitter released up to 14,179 μL L−1 of ethanol vapor in a Pseudo-Fickian diffusion release pattern, reducing the growth of Botrytis by > 98% for 7 days and Penicillium by 50% for 4 days inside the bioassay systems. A 5-day shelf-life study of strawberries, infected with Botrytis cinerea and stored in sealed plastic packages on BP, showed that surface decay was reduced by 30% and internal decay was even more impacted in the presence of ethanol-releasing shellac-coated BP. The emitter also delayed strawberry darkening and had no effect on respiration, transpiration, and firmness. This study demonstrates the potential of a bio-based/biodegradable and non-toxic ethanol emitter on extending strawberry shelf life.
Hospital service robots must coordinate time-sensitive and heterogeneous tasks while maintaining reliable awareness of nearby robots in structured, human-populated clinical spaces where GPS, wireless communication, and global localization can be degraded. Existing studies typically address perception, task allocation, or path optimization as separate components, which limits their ability to support closed-loop multi-robot coordination under communication-constrained hospital conditions. This paper presents a graph-driven multi-robot coordination framework with situational awareness for hospital service robotics. The framework couples three coordination modules on a shared MAKLINK Graph Theory (MGT) representation of the hospital layout. First, a lightweight CNN-LiDAR module performs point-wise binary segmentation of 2D LiDAR scans to detect peer robots and maintain local fleet awareness during GPS or network outages. Second, the detected peer positions and confidence scores are passed to a priority-weighted Self-Organizing Map (SOM), which allocates asynchronous service tasks according to task urgency, deadline, risk, proximity, and workload balance, with Lazy Theta* generating feasible any-angle initial routes on the MGT graph inside the allocation loop to link assignment decisions to executable navigation. Finally, an improved Moss Growth Optimization (iMGO) module refines the initial routes by optimizing waypoint locations on a compact line-of-sight-preserving MAKLINK domain. Simulation and comparison studies validate the perception, allocation, path-refinement, and integrated pipeline components. The CNN-LiDAR subsystem sustains reliable peer-robot detection during GPS and communication outages, with near-perfect accuracy at the close range most critical for collision avoidance. The priority-weighted SOM improves task-completion behavior and workload balance compared with clustering and non-clustering genetic algorithm baselines. The iMGO module produces shorter and smoother collision-free paths with faster convergence than competing optimizers. The integrated multi-robot simulations further show reduced mission time and travel distance relative to random allocation, supporting the proposed framework as a scalable and safety-aware coordination architecture for hospital service robotics.
Agent Skills are structured packages of procedural knowledge that augment large language model (LLM) agents at inference time. Despite rapid adoption, there is no standard way to measure whether they actually help. We present SkillsBench, a benchmark whose current inventory contains 87 tasks across 8 domains paired with curated Skills and deterministic verifiers. Our latest aggregate evaluation runs the 87-task benchmark under matched no-Skills and curated-Skills conditions for 18 model-harness configurations. Curated Skills raise the average pass rate from 33.9
Livestock systems represent a considerable environmental challenge. In response, various scientists, non-governmental organisations, and policy makers claim that Western populations in particular need to sharply reduce meat consumption. Given people’s attachment to meat, many of these actors favour hard policy interventions based on a range of systemic financial and legal reforms that would go beyond mere nudging and the formulation of recommendations, including the top-down imposition of meat taxes and bans, as well as herd size reductions, which would lead to sharply higher prices. However, arguments in support of such policies tend to oversimplify the issue, ignoring regional variations, mitigation potential, and broader ecological and nutritional contexts. The focus of this article is on dietary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a main target for environmental policymaking, with all livestock production in the West contributing 2.6
