69,319 research outputs found
Warehouse manpower planning strategies in times of financial crisis: evidence from logistics service providers and retailers in the Netherlands
The economic crisis that is experienced in Europe has a large influence on transport and logistics companies. Since turnover typically drops strongly during a crisis, companies try to reduce costs in order to survive. The study reported in this paper has investigated how manpower planning in warehouses has been used to counter effects of the crisis and what the results are of the measures taken. A survey was carried out among warehouses run by retailers and logistics service providers. The results of the survey show that there is a significant relation between a decrease in turnover and the four investigated manpower planning strategies. Furthermore, the study shows that the most effective manpower planning strategies are flexible planning of employees and balancing the workload. Hence, the study concludes that in particular better operational planning is a key strategy to counter the effects of the financial crisis, which is an important insight for the management of warehouses
A Spinning Mirror for Fast Angular Scans of EBW Emission for Magnetic Pitch Profile Measurement
A tilted spinning mirror rapidly steers the line of sight of the electron
Bernstein wave (EBW) emission radiometer at the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak
(MAST). In order to resist high mechanical stresses at rotation speeds of up to
12,000 rpm and to avoid eddy current induced magnetic braking, the mirror
consists of a glass-reinforced nylon substrate of a special self-balanced
design, coated with a reflecting layer. By completing an angular scan every
2.5-10ms, it allows one to characterize with good time resolution the
Bernstein-extraordinary-ordinary mode-conversion efficiency as a function of
the view angles. Angular maps of conversion efficiency are directly related to
the magnetic pitch angle at the cutoff layer for the ordinary mode. Hence,
measurements at various frequencies provide the safety factor profile at the
plasma edge. Initial measurements and indications of the feasibility of the
diagnostic are presented. Moreover, angular scans indicate the best launch
conditions for EBW heating.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures. Presented at High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics
(HTPD) Conference. Accepted on June 15, 2010 for publication on
Rev.Sci.Instru
Masticatory biomechanics in the rabbit : a multi-body dynamics analysis
Acknowledgement We thank Sue Taft (University of Hull) for the ”CT-scanning of the rabbit specimen used in this study. We also thank Raphaël Cornette, Jacques Bonnin, Laurent Dufresne, and l'Amicale des Chasseurs Trappistes (ACT) for providing permission and helping us capture the rabbits used for the in vivo bite force measurements at la Réserve Naturelle Nationale de St Quentin en Yvelines, France.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
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