Question: A hospital must determine a schedule for nurses to make sure that there are enough of them on duty throughout the day. The day is broken into 12 2-hour periods. The nurses needed for each period are specified below:

00:00 02:00 30
02:00 04:00 20
04:00 06:00 40
06:00 08:00 50
08:00 10:00 60
10:00 12:00 80
12:00 14:00 80
14:00 16:00 70
16:00 18:00 70
18:00 20:00 60
20:00 22:00 50
22:00 24:00 50

A nurse reports for duty at the beginning of one of these periods and then works for 8 consecutive hours Determine the number of nurses and their starting times to minimize the total number of nurses employed. (14pts)