On the two-phase method for preemptive scheduling

Preemptive scheduling problems on parallel processors may in some cases be solved by a two-phase method: forst solve a LP problem which will give the minimum total completion time T and the processing times of the jobs on the various processors; second construct a feasible schedule using T time units. Some extensions of this procedure are discussed. A general model for preemptive scheduling is described with a two-phase method for solving problems of this type.     

可抢占条件下的项目调度研究综述

可抢占条件下的项目调度通过暂时中断某些活动的执行,释放资源给更重要的活动,从而优化项目的工期、成本等绩效指标。可抢占项目调度问题以其重要的理论价值和应用背景,受到了学界和业界的广泛关注。对国内外可抢占项目调度的研究成果进行了系统性总结与梳理,综述了可抢占项目调度问题的数学模型及其求解算法,总结了可抢占项目调度问题的一些扩展问题和应用情况,最后指出了未来进一步的研究方向。     

Almost nonpreemptive schedules

Graph-theoretical models are described for solving preemptive and nonpreemptive scheduling problems with renewable resources. Conditions are obtained for nonpreemptive schedules to exist. These results may be applied for reducing the preemptions in the schedules obtained by the two-phase method developed for preemptive scheduling on unrelated processors.     

An improved max-flow-based lower bound for minimizing maximum lateness on identical parallel machines

In this paper, we introduce a new concept of semi-preemptive scheduling and we show how it can be used to derive a maximum-flow-based lower bound for the P|r_j|L_max which dominates the well-known preemptive lower bound. We show that, in some cases, the proposed bound strictly dominates the preemptive one while having the same complexity.     

Polynomial time approximation schemes for general multiprocessor job shop scheduling

We study preemptive and non-preemptive versions of the general multiprocessor job shop scheduling problem: Given a set of n tasks each consisting of at most μ ordered operations that can be processed on different (possibly all) subsets of m machines with different processing times, compute a schedule (preemptive or non-preemptive, depending on the model) with minimum makespan where operations belonging to the same task have to be scheduled according to the specified order. We propose algorithms for both preemptive and non-preemptive variants of this problem that compute approximate solutions of any positive ε accuracy and run in O(n) time for any fixed values of m, μ, and ε. These results include (as special cases) many recent developments on polynomial time approximation schemes for scheduling jobs on unrelated machines, multiprocessor tasks, and classical open, flow and job shops.     

Heuristic Control of a Constraint-Based Algorithm for the Preemptive Job-Shop Scheduling Problem

In the recent years, constraint programming has been applied to a wide variety of academic and industrial non-preemptive scheduling problems, i.e., problems in which activities cannot be interrupted. In comparison, preemptive scheduling problems have received almost no attention from both the Operations Research and the Artificial Intelligence community. Motivated by the needs of a specific application, we engaged in a study of the applicability of constraint programming techniques to preemptive scheduling problems. This paper presents the algorithms we developed and the results we obtained on the preemptive variant of the famous job-shop scheduling problem. Ten heuristic search strategies, combined with two different constraint propagation techniques, are presented, and compared using two well-known series of job-shop scheduling instances from the literature. The best combination, which relies on limited discrepancy search and on edge-finding techniques, is shown to provide excellent solutions to the preemptive job-shop scheduling problem. A mean relative distance to the optimal solution of 0.32% is achieved in five minutes, on instances with 10 jobs and 10 machines (100 activities).     

Parallel machine scheduling with a convex resource consumption function

We consider some problems of scheduling jobs on identical parallel machines where job-processing times are controllable through the allocation of a nonrenewable common limited resource. The objective is to assign the jobs to the machines, to sequence the jobs on each machine and to allocate the resource so that the makespan or the sum of completion times is minimized. The optimization is done for both preemptive and nonpreemptive jobs. For the makespan problem with nonpreemptive jobs we apply the equivalent load method in order to allocate the resources, and thereby reduce the problem to a combinatorial one. The reduced problem is shown to be NP-hard. If preemptive jobs are allowed, the makespan problem is shown to be solvable in O(n²) time. Some special cases of this problem with precedence constraints are presented and the problem of minimizing the sum of completion times is shown to be solvable in O(n log n) time.     

Properties of optimal schedules in preemptive shop scheduling

In this work we show that certain classical preemptive shop scheduling problems with integral data satisfy the following integer preemption property: there exists an optimal preemptive schedule where all interruptions and all starting and completion times occur at integral dates. We also give new upper bounds on the minimal number of interruptions for various shop scheduling problems.     

A Relation between Multiprocessor Scheduling and Linear Programming

The general non preemptive multiprocessor scheduling problem (NPMS) is NP-Complete, while in many specific cases, the same problem is Time-polynomial. A first connection between PMS and linear programming was established by Yannanakis, Sauer and Stone, who associated to any PMS instance some specific linear program. The main result inside this paper consists in a characterization of the partially ordered structures which allow the optimal values of any associated PMS instance to be equal to the optimal values of the corresponding linear programs.     

Uniform parallel machine scheduling problems with fixed machine cost

This paper considers two uniform parallel machine scheduling problems with fixed machine cost under the background of cloud manufacturing. The goal is to minimize the makespan with a given budget of total cost, \(\hat{U}\). All the jobs are homogeneous, i.e., the processing times of the jobs are identical. Non-preemptive and preemptive problems are studied. For the non-preemptive problem, we give a \(2[1+1{/}(h-1)]\)-approximation algorithm, where h is the number of the machine which can not be selected the first time. For the preemptive problem, we give an algorithm whose worst-case bound equals to \(1+1{/}(h-1)\). Preliminary experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithms are reasonably accurate compared with the lower bounds.     

How useful are preemptive schedules?

Machine scheduling admits two options to process jobs. In a preemptive mode processing may be interrupted and resumed later even on a different machine. In a nonpreemptive mode interruptions are not allowed. Usually, the possibility to preempt jobs leads to better performance values. However, also examples exist where preemptions do not improve the performance. This paper gives an overview of existing and new results on this topic for single and parallel machine scheduling problems.     

An algorithm to generate the ideals of a partial order

Generating the ideals of a partially ordered set is an important, frequently occurring problem in scheduling, reliability, sensitivity analysis for network flows and other combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper we present an algorithm which generates all the ideals of a partial order on n elements in O(n) time per ideal.     

Optimal Preemptive Online Algorithms for Scheduling with Known Largest Size on Two Uniform Machines

In this paper, we consider the seml-online preemptive scheduling problem with known largest job sizes on two uniform machines. Our goal is to maximize the continuous period of time （starting from time zero） when both machines are busy, which is equivalent to maximizing the minimum machine completion time if idle time is not introduced. We design optimal deterministic semi-online algorithms for every machine speed ratio s ∈ [1, ∞）, and show that idle time is required to achieve the optimality during the assignment procedure of the algorithm for any s 〉 （s^2 ＋ 3s ＋ 1）/（s^2 ＋ 2s ＋ 1）. The competitive ratio of the algorithms is （s^2 ＋ 3s ＋ 1）/（s^2 ＋ 2s ＋ 1）, which matches the randomized lower bound for every s ≥ 1. Hence randomization does not help for the discussed preemptive scheduling problem.     

Solution of preemptive multi-objective network design problems applying Benders decomposition method

This paper deals with preemptive priority based multi-objective network design problems in which construction times together with travel costs are taken into account. These cost and time objective functions are ordered lexicographically with respect to manager’s strategies in order to decrease total cost and total construction time of the network. To solve this preemptive problem, instead of the standard sequential approach, a modified Benders decomposition algorithm is developed. It is proved that this algorithm decreases the (expected) number of computations and so this algorithm is efficient for large-scale network design problems.     

Heuristic constructive algorithms for open shop scheduling to minimize mean flow time

In this paper, we consider the problem of scheduling n jobs on m machines in an open shop environment so that the sum of completion times or mean flow time becomes minimal. For this strongly NP-hard problem, we develop and discuss different constructive heuristic algorithms. Extensive computational results are presented for problems with up to 50 jobs and 50 machines, respectively. The quality of the solutions is evaluated by a lower bound for the corresponding preemptive open shop problem and by an alternative estimate of mean flow time. We observe that the recommendation of an appropriate constructive algorithm strongly depends on the ratio n/m.     

Tools for Multicoloring with Applications to Planar Graphs and Partial k-Trees

We study graph multicoloring problems, motivated by the scheduling of dependent jobs on multiple machines. In multicoloring problems, vertices have lengths which determine the number of colors they must receive, and the desired coloring can be either contiguous (nonpreemptive schedule) or arbitrary (preemptive schedule). We consider both the sum-of-completion times measure, or the sum of the last color assigned to each vertex, as well as the more common makespan measure, or the number of colors used. In this paper, we study two fundamental classes of graphs: planar graphs and partial k-trees. For both classes, we give a polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) for the multicoloring sum, for both the preemptive and nonpreemptive cases. On the other hand, we show the problem to be strongly NP-hard on planar graphs, even in the unweighted case, known as the sum coloring problem. For a nonpreemptive multicoloring sum of partial k-trees, we obtain a fully polynomial time approximation scheme. This is based on a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm that holds for a general class of cost functions. Finally, we give a PTAS for the makespan of a preemptive multicoloring of partial k-trees that uses only O(log n) preemptions. These results are based on several properties of multicolorings and tools for manipulating them, which may be of more general applicability.     

The single-server scheduling problem with convex costs

Being probably one of the oldest decision problems in queuing theory, the single-server scheduling problem continues to be a challenging one. The original formulations considered linear costs, and the resulting policy is puzzling in many ways. The main one is that, either for preemptive or nonpreemptive problems, it results in a priority ordering of the different classes of customers being served that is insensitive to the individual load each class imposes on the server and insensitive to the overall load the server experiences. This policy is known as the cμ-rule. We claim and show that for convex costs, the optimal policy depends on the individual loads. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative generalization of the cμ-rule. The main feature of our generalization consists on first-order differences of the single stage cost function, rather than on its derivatives. The resulting policy is able to reach near optimal performances and is a function of the individual loads.     

Approximability results for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with a single type of resources

In this paper, we consider the well-known resource-constrained project scheduling problem. We give some arguments that already a special case of this problem with a single type of resources is not approximable in polynomial time with an approximation ratio bounded by a constant. We prove that there exist instances for which the optimal makespan values for the non-preemptive and the preemptive problems have a ratio of O(logn), where n is the number of jobs. This means that there exist instances for which the lower bound of Mingozzi et al. has a bad relative error of O(logn), and the calculation of this bound is an NP-hard problem. In addition, we give a proof that there exists a type of instances for which known approximation algorithms with polynomial time complexity have an approximation ratio of at least equal to $O(\sqrt{n})$ , and known lower bounds have a relative error of at least equal to O(logn). This type of instances corresponds to the single machine parallel-batch scheduling problem 1|p?batch,b=∞|C _max.     

Preemptive scheduling with rejection

 We consider the problem of preemptively scheduling a set of n jobs on m (identical, uniformly related, or unrelated) parallel machines. The scheduler may reject a subset of the jobs and thereby incur job-dependent penalties for each rejected job, and he must construct a schedule for the remaining jobs so as to optimize the preemptive makespan on the m machines plus the sum of the penalties of the jobs rejected. We provide a complete classification of these scheduling problems with respect to complexity and approximability. Our main results are on the variant with an arbitrary number of unrelated machines. This variant is APX-hard, and we design a 1.58-approximation algorithm for it. All other considered variants are weakly -hard, and we provide fully polynomial time approximation schemes for them. Finally, we argue that our results for unrelated machines can be carried over to the corresponding preemptive open shop scheduling problem with rejection. Received: October 30, 2000 / Accepted: September 26, 2001 Published online: September 5, 2002 Key words. scheduling – preemption – approximation algorithm – worst case ratio – computational complexity – in-approximability Supported in part by the EU Thematic Network APPOL, Approximation and Online Algorithms, IST-1999-14084 Supported by the START program Y43-MAT of the Austrian Ministry of Science.     

处理机具有不同开始加工时间的可中断排序问题

本文对处理机具有的不同开始加工时间的可中断排序问题进行讨论，得到下面结论：若处理机具有相同开始加工时间的可中断排序问题存在最优排序算法，则相应的处理机具有不同开始加工时间的可中断排序问题也存在最优排序算法。