The call center managers at Hydro-Québec (HQ) need to deliver both low operating costs and high service quality. Their task is especially difficult because they need to handle a large workforce (more than 500 employees) while satisfying an incoming demand that is typically both time-varying and uncertain. The current techniques for determining the schedule of each employee according to the fore...

Systems Security Assessment Using Dual Hesitant Fuzzy Set Dejian Yu,1,∗ José M. Merigó,2,3 Yejun Xu4 1School of Information, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310018, People’s Republic of China 2Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, M15 6PB Manchester, UK 3Department of Management Control and Information Systems, School of Economics and Business, U...

Henry Hill Hickman (1800-1830), "the Rupert Brooke of anaesthesia",1 has a wellestablished place in medical history. A Shropshire general practitioner, who died young, he successfully carried out minor surgical procedures on animals rendered insensible by carbon dioxide and published his results in 1824 in a locally-printed pamphlet, which was reviewed unfavourably in the Lancet and Gentleman's...

Barry Stroud begins his investigation into the metaphysics of colour with a discussion of the elusiveness of the genuinely philosophical quest for reality. He insists upon a distinction between two ways in which the idea of a correspondence between perceptions or beliefs and the facts may be understood: first, as equivalent to the plain truth of the perceptions/beliefs in question; second, as c...

Resource-based planning systems have recently begun to mushroom | an indication that AI planning systems have nally started to tackle real-world problems. However, resources tend to be neglected. Conventional plan length is still the primary optimization goal, resources being of only secondary importance. This paper illustrates the problem and gives an overview of the Excalibur agent's planning...

Die Genauigkeit, Kraft und Sicherheit dieses mathematischen] Denkens, die nir-gends im Leben ihresgleichen hat, erf ullte ihm fast mit Schwermut. 1 R. Musil 1952]: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Abstract Modern society has a strong need for reliable Information Technology. To warrant correct designs for hardware and software systems, there is a thorough methodology (speciication, design based on ...

This article gives a brief history of the analysis and computation of the mathematical constant π = 3.14159 . . ., including a number of the formulas that have been used to compute π through the ages. Recent developments in this area are then discussed in some detail, including the recent computation of π to over six billion decimal digits using high-order convergent algorithms, and a newly dis...

The Standard Model partially unifies the strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions, suggesting a common origin for them. A more fundamental theory, a Grand Unified theory or a string theory, can complete this unification and explain many of the features which in the Standard Model are put in by hand. However many possible implementations of such a theory have been suggested. We emphasize th...

As part of the national quality improvement campaign, industry and government have joined together to establish the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Created by public law in 1987, the Award promotes an understanding of quality excellence, greater awareness of quality as a crucial competitive element, and sharing of information and strategies. There are three categories in which companie...