Self-service reservation in the fieldforce

On-line service reservation is becoming increasingly popular in the service industry. As services become more complex, requiring co-ordination among individual actions, the planning for making service appointments is normally conducted manually by the operators, often resulting in slow responses to customers. To tackle this problem, we have developed a real-time service reservation portal that takes an order from a user and works out appointment options, based on the availability of enterprise resources, for the user to book on-line. The portal is capable of dealing with complex workflow appointing, supporting interactive fine-tuning in individual appointments, respecting customer preferences and work policies, monitoring progress of workflow, informing the customer of status changes in job scheduling, dispatching and execution, as well as handling exceptions automatically. We have integrated the portal, code-named FieldReserve, with other components in the BT fieldforce optimisation suite (FOS) that covers functions of resource planning, scheduling and execution for the fieldforce to demonstrate the feasibility and potential benefits of this technology. Benefits demonstrated are to provide customers with instant response of service reservation, to provide volume control on reservation, to break away from one-size-fits-all lead times for service fulfilment, to provide customers with equal access to service provision, and to bring transparency of service progress to customers. Currently, we are actively engaging with businesses and have obtained strong support to downstream the key values of this technology in commercial contexts.     

Simulating Future Groundwater Recharge in Coastal and Inland Catchments

Groundwater is a primary source of drinking water in the Mediterranean, however, climate variability in conjunction with mismanagement renders it vulnerable to depletion. Spatiotemporal studies of groundwater recharge are the basis to develop strategies against this phenomenon. In this study, groundwater recharge was spatiotemporally quantified using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in one coastal and one inland hydrological basin in Greece. A double calibration/validation (CV) procedure using streamflow data and MODIS ET was conducted for the inland basin of Mouriki, whereas only ET values were used in the coastal basin of Anthemountas. Calibration and simulation recharge were accurate in both sites according to statistical indicators and previous studies. In Mouriki basin, mean recharge and runoff were estimated as 16% and 9%, respectively. In Anthemountas basin recharge to the shallow aquifer and surface runoff were estimated as 12% and 16%, respectively. According to the predicted RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, significant variations in groundwater recharge are predicted in the coastal zone for the period 2020–2040 with average annual recharges decreasing by 30% (RCP 4.5) and 25% (RCP 8.5). Variations in groundwater recharge in the inland catchment of Mouriki were insignificant for the simulated period. Anthemountas basin was characterized by higher runoff rates. Groundwater management in coastal aquifers should include detailed monitoring of hydrological parameters, reinforced groundwater recharge during winter and reduced groundwater abstraction during summer depending on the spatiotemporal distribution of groundwater recharge.

     

Zur Best?ndigkeit des jodhaltigen Kochsalzes

Zusammenfassung Es wurde die Beständigkeit des Kaliumjodids im jodhaltigen Kochsalz bezogen auf die Reinheit des als Rohstoff verwendeten Kochsalzes, untersucht. Es wurde festgestellt, daß das anfangs zugesetzte Kaliumjodid im jodhaltigen Kochsalz, welches aus hochgereinigtem Kochsalz präpariert und unter befriedigenden Bedingungen aufbewahrt wurde (Schutz vor Licht, Feuchtigkeit und hohen Temperaturen), während mehrerer Monate zu einem großen Prozentteil unverändert bleibt, ohne einen gleichzeitigen Zusatz von Stabilisierungsmittel (außer einer minimalen Menge von Natriumhydrogencarbonat) zu bedürfen.

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Study on the stability of potassium iodide of the iodized salt

Summary The stability of potassium iodide in iodized salt has been studied with respect to the purity of the salt used as raw material. It has been found that the iodized salt prepared from high purity salt and preserved under proper conditions (protection from light, humidity and high temperatures) keeps, for several months, the most of the initially added potassium iodide, without any addition of stabilizers, except for a small amount of sodium bicarbonate.

     

Triglyceride composition of olive oil,cottonseed oil and their mixtures by low temperature crystallization and gas liquid chromatography

Crystallization and gas liquid chromatography (GLC) have been used to characterize the triglyceride composition of olive and cottonseed oil and their precipitates from acetone or methanol/acetone (10:90, v/v) at −2 C. The precipitate obtained after a 24 hr crystallization of a 5% (w/v) solution of the sample in acetone or methanol/acetone (10:90, v/v) at −2 C was named Precipitate I (P-I); that isolated after 2 successive crystallizations under identical conditions was named Precipitate II (P-II). In each case, the ratio of oleic to linoleic acid (O/L) was calculated and proved to be a useful index for detecting adulteration of olive oil with cottonseed oil. In olive oil, the ratio O/L increased from the original sample to its precipitates, whereas in cottonseed oil and the adulterated samples the ratio O/L was lower in the precipitates than in the original sample. For olive oil P-II, the lowest value of the ratio O/L was 8.4; for the adulterated samples it was 7.6. On the basis of this index, adulteration of olive with cottonseed oil as low as 10% can be detected. Hydrolysis of P-1 by porcine pancreatic lipase and analysis of the fatty acids of the sn-2 position showed that the enrichment factor of linoleic acid varied between 1.11–1.30 for olive oil and between 1.55–1.90 for the adulterated samples. Even for adulteration with 5% cottonseed oil, the enrichment factor appears to increase (1.55–1.57) and can be used as a criterion for adulteration.     

Advanced Call Scheduling for Testing a Telecommunications Network

This paper describes an advanced scheduling system and method for generating large volumes of calls to be used for testing a telecommunications network. The system is capable of preparing large-scale and complex network tests by viewing the task as a scheduling problem. The various requirements of the scheduling problem are analysed and represented as constraints or optimisation criteria. A fast heuristic method is proposed for solving the problem. The approach is based on a greedy algorithm for constructing solutions and it incorporates limited backtracking and dynamic value-ordering heuristics. The algorithm and system are currently being used for call charge verification in BT's PSTN and CSP networks.     

Detection of adulteration of olive oil by argentation thin layer chromatography

Minute amounts of adulterant seed oils in olive oil can be detected by GLC analysis of fatty acids of the polyunsaturated triglyceride fraction, obtained by TLC on silver nitrate impregnated silica gel. Every possible effort was made to avoid any critical or time consuming manipulation in this method in order to develop it as a routine testing procedure. A complete analysis is possible in less than 2 hr and the detection of as low as 2% adulteration by other seed oils is accurate and reliable.     

Intelligent Multi-modal Systems

Research in human/computer interaction has mainly focused on natural language, text, speech and vision primarily in isolation. Recently there have been a number of research projects that have concentrated on the integration of such modalities using intelligent reasoners. The rationale is that many inherent ambiguities in single modes of communication can be resolved if extra information is available.This paper describes an intelligent multi-modal system called the Smart Work Manager. The main characteristics of the Smart Work Manager are that it can process speech, text, face images, gaze information and simulated gestures using the mouse as input modalities, and its output is in the form of speech, text or graphics. The main components of the system are the reasoner, a speech system, a vision system, an integration platform and the application interface. The overall architecture of the system will be described together with the integration platform and the components of the system which include a non-intrusive neural network based gaze-tracking system. The paper concludes with a discussion on the applicability of such systems to intelligent human/computer interaction and lessons learnt in terms of reliability and efficiency.     

On the partitioning of dynamic workforce scheduling problems

This problem is based on the British Telecom workforce scheduling problem, in which technicians (with different skills) are assigned to tasks (which require different skills) which arrive (partially) dynamically during the day. In order to manage their workforce, British Telecom divides the different regions into several areas. At the beginning of each day all the technicians in a region are assigned to one of these areas. During the day, each technician is limited to tasks within the assigned area.     

Field workforce scheduling

BT employs thousands of field engineers across the UK to maintain networks, repair faults and provide service to customers. To allocate work more efficiently, BT launched Work Manager in the early 1990s — an information system automating work management and field communications, and now marketed as a.p.solve's TASKFORCE. In 1996, BT Exact's Intelligent Systems Lab enhanced Work Manager with a Dynamic Scheduler (DS) combining heuristic search and constraint-based reasoning. Since its national roll-out in 1997, DS has consistently reduced operational costs while preserving high quality of service. This paper gives an overview of BT's workforce scheduling problem, the DS system, and its operational and commercial impact. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

ARMS — application of AI and OR methods to resource management

This paper documents work on automating resource management in BT Retail. BT Retail manages BT’s access network and provides telecommunications services to its customers. BT Retail’s field engineers are allocated jobs via an information system known as Work Manager. In order to proactively position the engineers (i.e. resources) so as to service jobs in an optimal manner, resource managers are involved in analysing the profiles of engineers in the light of incoming jobs and ’selecting’ those profiles that will yield best quality of service and reduce operational costs. A profile is a set of attributes that define a resource’s capabilities (i.e. skills), capacity (i.e. availability), and location (i.e. area). Resource planning involves identifying an ‘optimal’ set of resource profiles. Accurate workload forecasting is sine qua non for optimal resource planning. To this end we have developed ARMS, Automated Resource Management System, a suite of components for workload forecasting and resource planning.