Adaptive server staffing in the presence of time-varying arrivals: a feed-forward control approach

We study the short-term staffing problem of systems that experience random, non-stationary demand. The typical method to accommodate changes in arrival rate is to use historical data to identify peak periods and associated forecasting for upcoming time windows. In this paper, we develop a method that instead detects change as it happens. Motivated by an automatic call distributor system in a call centre with time-varying arrivals, we propose a change detection algorithm based upon non-homogeneous Poisson processes. The proposed method is general and may be thought of as a feed-forward strategy, in which we detect a change in the arrival process, estimate the new magnitude of the arrival rate, and assign an appropriate number of servers to the tasks. The generalized likelihood ratio statistic is used and a recommendation for its decision limit is developed. Simulation results are used to evaluate the performance of the detector in the context of a telephone call centre.     

Receiver set partitioning and sequencing for multicasting traffic in a WDM lightwave single-hop network

This paper considers a receiver set partitioning and sequencing problem in a wavelength division multiplexing single-hop lightwave network for multicasting traffic. The problem is analysed in the approach of uncapacitated single batch-processing machine scheduling. In the analysis, several solution properties are characterized with respect to a mean flow time measure, based upon which two heuristic algorithms are developed, along with a dynamic programming algorithm. Several numerical experiments show that the heuristic algorithms generate good schedules. The problem is extended to consider two measures simultaneously including the mean flow time and the number of transmissions, for which the proposed algorithms also perform well.     

Combined supercritical-fluid chromatography/mass spectrometry in the analysis of diuron in plasma using on-line phase-system switching

On-line sample pretreatment by means of the phase-system switching approach is an interesting technique for the analysis of aqueous samples, e.g., plasma, by means of supercritical-fluid chromatography. In order to analyse plasma samples the following analytical procedure is used. The plasma sample is injected on to a short precolumn, which is washed with water and subsequently dried with nitrogen. Next, the solutes are desorbed with the supercritical mobile phase, analysed with packed-column supercritical-fluid chromatography and detected with either a UV detector or a mass spectrometer, equipped with a moving-belt interface. The herbicide diuron is selected as a test compound to study the feasibility of this approach. Using a selective detector the procedure is sufficiently sensitive to detect diuron in plasma, but not appropriate to detect the diuron metabolites in a post-mortem plasma sample. These have been identified with liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The detection limit of diuron in plasma using the procedure described is about 30 ng/mL.     

Loading aircraft for military operations

In this paper, we describe an aircraft loading problem submitted by the French military agency (DGA) as part of a more general military airlift planning problem. It can be viewed as a kind of bi-dimensional bin-packing problem, with heterogeneous bins and several additional constraints. We introduce two-phase methods for solving this NP-hard problem. The first phase consists in building good initial solutions, thanks to two fast algorithms: a list-based heuristic and a loading pattern generation method. Both algorithms call a constraint-based subroutine, able to determine quickly if the items already loaded can be reshuffled to accommodate a new object. The second phase improves these preliminary solutions using local search techniques. Results obtained on real data sets are presented.     

ON THE RATE OF WEIGHTED Lp CONVERGENCE BY THE GRUENWALD INTERPOLATORY OPERATORS

This paper gives the weighted Lp convergence rate estimations of the Gruenwald interpolatory polynomials based on the zeros of Chebyshev polymomials of the first kind,and proves that the order of the estimations is optimal for p≥1.     

Reply to Nathan: How to reconstruct the causal argument

Nicholas Nathan tries to resist the current version of the causal argument for sense-data in two ways. First he suggests that, on what he considers to be the correct re-construction of the argument, it equivocates on the sense of proximate cause. Second he defends a form of disjunctivism, by claiming that there might be an extra mechanism involved in producing veridical hallucination, that is not present in perception. I argue that Nathan’s reconstruction of the argument is not the appropriate one, and that, properly interpreted, the argument does not equivocate on proximate cause. Furthermore, I claim that his postulation of a modified mechanism for hallucinations is implausibly ad hoc.     

On a compromise social choice correspondence

This paper analyzes the compromise social choice correspondence derived from the τ-value of digraph games. Monotonicity of this correspondence is shown. A connection between several properties of social choice correspondences based on game theoretical solutions and game theoretical properties of the underlying solutions is given. Applications to several game theoretic solutions are provided.     

Effect of superfluidity on the structure of the inner crust of neutron stars

A self-consistent, completely quantum calculation of the structure of the inner crust of neutron stars is carried out in the Wigner-Seitz approximation with a realistic phenomenological nuclear energy functional, where pair correlations of neutrons and protons are included in the explicit form. It has been shown that the superfluidity of neutrons and protons affects the structure of the ground state of the crust.