Scheduling with outliers

Anupam Gupta*, Ravishankar Krishnaswamy, Amit Kumar, Danny Segev

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

In classical scheduling problems, we are given jobs and machines, and have to schedule all the jobs to minimize some objective function. What if each job has a specified profit, and we are no longer required to process all jobs? Instead, we can schedule any subset of jobs whose total profit is at least a (hard) target profit requirement, while still trying to approximately minimize the objective function. We refer to this class of problems as scheduling with outliers. This model was initiated by Charikar and Khuller (SODA '06) for minimum max-response time in broadcast scheduling. In this paper, we consider three other well-studied scheduling objectives: the generalized assignment problem, average weighted completion time, and average flow time, for which LP-based approximation algorithms are provided. Our main results are: For the minimum average flow time problem on identical machines, we give an LP-based logarithmic approximation algorithm for the unit profits case, and complement this result by presenting a matching integrality gap. For the average weighted completion time problem on unrelated machines, we give a constant-factor approximation. The algorithm is based on randomized rounding of the time-indexed LP relaxation strengthened by knapsack-cover inequalities. For the generalized assignment problem with outliers, we outline a simple reduction to GAP without outliers to obtain an algorithm whose makespan is within 3 times the optimum makespan, and whose cost is at most (1 + ∈) times the optimal cost.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationApproximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization
Subtitle of host publicationAlgorithms and Techniques - 12th International Workshop, APPROX 2009 and 13th International Workshop, RANDOM 2009, Proceedings
Pages149-162
Number of pages14
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes
Event12th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2009 and 13th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2009 - Berkeley, CA, United States
Duration: 21 Aug 200923 Aug 2009

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume5687 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference12th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2009 and 13th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2009
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBerkeley, CA
Period21/08/0923/08/09

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering0729022, 0448095

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Scheduling with outliers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this