12,178 research outputs found
Online Primal-Dual For Non-linear Optimization with Applications to Speed Scaling
We reinterpret some online greedy algorithms for a class of nonlinear
"load-balancing" problems as solving a mathematical program online. For
example, we consider the problem of assigning jobs to (unrelated) machines to
minimize the sum of the alpha^{th}-powers of the loads plus assignment costs
(the online Generalized Assignment Problem); or choosing paths to connect
terminal pairs to minimize the alpha^{th}-powers of the edge loads (online
routing with speed-scalable routers). We give analyses of these online
algorithms using the dual of the primal program as a lower bound for the
optimal algorithm, much in the spirit of online primal-dual results for linear
problems.
We then observe that a wide class of uni-processor speed scaling problems
(with essentially arbitrary scheduling objectives) can be viewed as such load
balancing problems with linear assignment costs. This connection gives new
algorithms for problems that had resisted solutions using the dominant
potential function approaches used in the speed scaling literature, as well as
alternate, cleaner proofs for other known results
Truthful Assignment without Money
We study the design of truthful mechanisms that do not use payments for the
generalized assignment problem (GAP) and its variants. An instance of the GAP
consists of a bipartite graph with jobs on one side and machines on the other.
Machines have capacities and edges have values and sizes; the goal is to
construct a welfare maximizing feasible assignment. In our model of private
valuations, motivated by impossibility results, the value and sizes on all
job-machine pairs are public information; however, whether an edge exists or
not in the bipartite graph is a job's private information.
We study several variants of the GAP starting with matching. For the
unweighted version, we give an optimal strategyproof mechanism; for maximum
weight bipartite matching, however, we show give a 2-approximate strategyproof
mechanism and show by a matching lowerbound that this is optimal. Next we study
knapsack-like problems, which are APX-hard. For these problems, we develop a
general LP-based technique that extends the ideas of Lavi and Swamy to reduce
designing a truthful mechanism without money to designing such a mechanism for
the fractional version of the problem, at a loss of a factor equal to the
integrality gap in the approximation ratio. We use this technique to obtain
strategyproof mechanisms with constant approximation ratios for these problems.
We then design an O(log n)-approximate strategyproof mechanism for the GAP by
reducing, with logarithmic loss in the approximation, to our solution for the
value-invariant GAP. Our technique may be of independent interest for designing
truthful mechanisms without money for other LP-based problems.Comment: Extended abstract appears in the 11th ACM Conference on Electronic
Commerce (EC), 201
Energy Efficient Scheduling via Partial Shutdown
Motivated by issues of saving energy in data centers we define a collection
of new problems referred to as "machine activation" problems. The central
framework we introduce considers a collection of machines (unrelated or
related) with each machine having an {\em activation cost} of . There
is also a collection of jobs that need to be performed, and is
the processing time of job on machine . We assume that there is an
activation cost budget of -- we would like to {\em select} a subset of
the machines to activate with total cost and {\em find} a schedule
for the jobs on the machines in minimizing the makespan (or any other
metric).
For the general unrelated machine activation problem, our main results are
that if there is a schedule with makespan and activation cost then we
can obtain a schedule with makespan \makespanconstant T and activation cost
\costconstant A, for any . We also consider assignment costs for
jobs as in the generalized assignment problem, and using our framework, provide
algorithms that minimize the machine activation and the assignment cost
simultaneously. In addition, we present a greedy algorithm which only works for
the basic version and yields a makespan of and an activation cost .
For the uniformly related parallel machine scheduling problem, we develop a
polynomial time approximation scheme that outputs a schedule with the property
that the activation cost of the subset of machines is at most and the
makespan is at most for any
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