A web-based workforce management system for Sainsburys Supermarkets Ltd

Labour scheduling plays an important and critical role in Sainsburys day to day operations and profitability. The integrated workforce management solution for Sainsburys is an intelligent solution for the operational deployment of human resources, integrated business forecasting, generation and calculation of workload and staff scheduling. The workforce management technology has provided Sainsburys with a fully web-based and centralised system that produces optimised schedules for all employees satisfying the forecasted demand of work with granularity of fifteen minutes. The system is configured to respect all operational and business requirements as well as employee contractual constraints. This paper introduces the workforce management solution system designed, developed and implemented for Sainsburys. We concentrate on two modelling structures, namely the work pattern model and optimisation model, and briefly discuss the optimisation process.     

On the stability of reconstruction of distributions of multivariate random functions from the distributions of their projections

Multivariate random functions belonging to a certain class are considered. A method of reconstruction of distributions of such functions from the distributions of their projections is described and the stability of the method is discussed.     

Elastic instability of the nano-structured state as an intrinsic probe to study the early formation stages of sol–gel derived (Pb<Subscript>1-x</Subscript>Ca<Subscript>x</Subscript>)TiO<Subscript>3</Subscript> thin films

A novel method to investigate the early formation stages of polycrystalline (Pb_1-xCa_x)TiO₃ (PCT) perovskite films by means of traditional Brillouin and micro-Brillouin spectroscopy (BS, mBS) is described in the present work. The films were prepared by chemical solution deposition (CSD) onto oxidized (100)Si substrates and treated at temperatures between 350–650 °C by rapid thermal processing (RTP). The elastic instability observed by Brillouin spectroscopy at the nano-structured state of the PCT films was used here to determine their crystallization temperatures. Coexistence of different nanocrystalline phases (e.g., pyrochlore, perovskite) in the films could also be detected by this technique. The reliability of these results is demonstrated by complementary information obtained by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning force microscopy (SFM). The effects of the annealing temperature and of the Ca²⁺ content on the crystallization process of these films are also discussed. PACS 78.35.+c; 77.84.-s; 61.82.Rx     

Modeling of single- and multimode photonic-crystal planar waveguides with the plane-wave admittance method

One-foil targets emit most transition radiation (TR) power in storage ring synchrotrons. Such one-foil TR emitting targets (OFTRTs) are optimized, with respect to the foil material and the foil thickness, for use as X-ray lithography (XRL) sources. The best possible elemental material and the foil thickness of OFTRTs for XRL are determined for our storage ring synchrotrons MIRROIRCLE-20SX and MIRRORCLE-6X, which operate with electrons accelerated to 20 MeV and 6 MeV, respectively. It is shown that the XRL efficiency of a OFTRT, with an optimum thickness, increases when the elemental foil material has a lower atomic number Z. The best elemental OFTRT, for performing XRL by MIRRORCLE-20SX, should contain one Be foil with a thickness of d≅240 nm, while the second best OFTRT should be made of one C foil with d≅220 nm. The best elemental OFTRT, for performing XRL by MIRRORCLE-6X, should contain one C foil with d≅35 nm, while the second best OFTRT should be made of one Be foil with d≅100 nm, because there are no thinner Be foils. The XRL efficiency of a C-foil OFTRT increases when a higher-density foil is used. A OFTRT containing one foil of a given material with optimum thickness, in MIRRORCLE-20SX, has approximately 100 times larger XRL efficiency in comparison with such a target in MIRRORCLE-6X. PACS 41.50.+h; 29.25.-t; 81.16.Nd; 41.60.Ap; 29.20.Dh     

ZnSe/SiO2复合薄膜光学常数与荧光光谱的研究

采用溶胶-凝胶工艺与原位生长技术，制备了ZnSe/SiO₂复合薄膜.X射线衍射分 析表明薄膜中ZnSe晶体呈立方闪锌矿结构.X射线荧光分析结果显示薄膜中Zn与Se摩尔比为1 ∶1.01—1∶1.19.利用场发射扫描电子显微镜观察了复合薄膜的表面形貌，结果表明复合薄 膜表面既存在尺寸约为400nm的ZnSe晶粒，也存在尺寸小于100nm的ZnSe晶粒.利用椭偏仪测 量了薄膜椭偏角Ψ，Δ与波长λ的关系，采用Maxwell-Garnett有效介质理论对薄膜的光学 常数、厚度、气孔率、ZnS 关键词： 2复合薄膜')" href="#">ZnSe/SiO₂复合薄膜 光学性质 椭偏光度法 荧光光谱     

Electronically excited oxygen states in exoemission and heterogeneous catalytic oxidation reactions

The role played by electronically excited oxygen in exoemission and heterogeneous catalysis is considered. The results obtained in a study of thermally stimulated exoemission from the surface of Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ are compared with data of temperature-programmed desorption of singlet oxygen O₂(¹Δ_g) from the surface of Al₂O₃ and HZSM-5 zeolites with different SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratios. The role played by electronically excited oxygen states in heterogeneous catalysis is discussed on the basis of our own and literature data. Thermally stimulated exoemission after the action of an electron flow is considered taking into account electron-stimulated desorption and the available data on electron bombardment in catalysis.     

Quadratic differentials in problems of the product of inner radii of nonoverlapping domains

We study applications of the theory of quadratic differentials to the solution of new extremal problems of nonoverlapping domains with free poles on rays and generalize known results to a certain class of open sets. __________ Translated from Neliniini Kolyvannya, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 435–442, October–December, 2007.     

Relative versions of some star-selection principles

We introduce some relative versions of star selection principles first considered in [5], [11]. Some of the work extends results from [4], [5] and gives some examples.      

An Extension Landau-Lifshitz Model in Studying Soft Ferromagnetic Films

In this paper, we propose a model in studying soft ferromagnetic films, which is readily accessible experimentally. By using penalty approximation and compensated compactness, we prove that the dynamical equation in thin film has a local weak solution. Moreover, the corresponding linear equation is also dealt with in great detail.     

Linear least squares problems with data over incomplete grids

The paper addresses bivariate surface fitting problems, where data points lie on the vertices of a rectangular grid. Efficient and stable algorithms can be found in the literature to solve such problems. If data values are missing at some grid points, there exists a computational method for finding a least squares spline by fixing appropriate values for the missing data. We extended this technique to arbitrary least squares problems as well as to linear least squares problems with linear equality constraints. Numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the technique presented. AMS subject classification (2000)  65D05, 65D07, 65D10, 65F05, 65F20