44,644 research outputs found
A PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF FIVE SWEETPOTATO SHIPPING CONTAINERS
Using a six x six latin square experimental design, five box types in two different markets were evaluated over a six-week period in 1986 to determine if sweetpotato arrival damage could be reduced through use of alternative shipping containers. Findings indicated that skinning, cut and break damage, and bruising could be reduced through use of either a 40-pound container or the 45-pound MUM box rather than using the current 50-pound box. Economic considerations, receiver preferences, and the actions of shippers resulted in the selection of a 40-pound shipping carton as the new standard for the North Carolina sweetpotato industry.Agribusiness,
Scheduling Storms and Streams in the Cloud
Motivated by emerging big streaming data processing paradigms (e.g., Twitter
Storm, Streaming MapReduce), we investigate the problem of scheduling graphs
over a large cluster of servers. Each graph is a job, where nodes represent
compute tasks and edges indicate data-flows between these compute tasks. Jobs
(graphs) arrive randomly over time, and upon completion, leave the system. When
a job arrives, the scheduler needs to partition the graph and distribute it
over the servers to satisfy load balancing and cost considerations.
Specifically, neighboring compute tasks in the graph that are mapped to
different servers incur load on the network; thus a mapping of the jobs among
the servers incurs a cost that is proportional to the number of "broken edges".
We propose a low complexity randomized scheduling algorithm that, without
service preemptions, stabilizes the system with graph arrivals/departures; more
importantly, it allows a smooth trade-off between minimizing average
partitioning cost and average queue lengths. Interestingly, to avoid service
preemptions, our approach does not rely on a Gibbs sampler; instead, we show
that the corresponding limiting invariant measure has an interpretation
stemming from a loss system.Comment: 14 page
Approximation Algorithms for Correlated Knapsacks and Non-Martingale Bandits
In the stochastic knapsack problem, we are given a knapsack of size B, and a
set of jobs whose sizes and rewards are drawn from a known probability
distribution. However, we know the actual size and reward only when the job
completes. How should we schedule jobs to maximize the expected total reward?
We know O(1)-approximations when we assume that (i) rewards and sizes are
independent random variables, and (ii) we cannot prematurely cancel jobs. What
can we say when either or both of these assumptions are changed?
The stochastic knapsack problem is of interest in its own right, but
techniques developed for it are applicable to other stochastic packing
problems. Indeed, ideas for this problem have been useful for budgeted learning
problems, where one is given several arms which evolve in a specified
stochastic fashion with each pull, and the goal is to pull the arms a total of
B times to maximize the reward obtained. Much recent work on this problem focus
on the case when the evolution of the arms follows a martingale, i.e., when the
expected reward from the future is the same as the reward at the current state.
What can we say when the rewards do not form a martingale?
In this paper, we give constant-factor approximation algorithms for the
stochastic knapsack problem with correlations and/or cancellations, and also
for budgeted learning problems where the martingale condition is not satisfied.
Indeed, we can show that previously proposed LP relaxations have large
integrality gaps. We propose new time-indexed LP relaxations, and convert the
fractional solutions into distributions over strategies, and then use the LP
values and the time ordering information from these strategies to devise a
randomized adaptive scheduling algorithm. We hope our LP formulation and
decomposition methods may provide a new way to address other correlated bandit
problems with more general contexts
Approximation Algorithms for Polynomial-Expansion and Low-Density Graphs
We study the family of intersection graphs of low density objects in low
dimensional Euclidean space. This family is quite general, and includes planar
graphs. We prove that such graphs have small separators. Next, we present
efficient -approximation algorithms for these graphs, for
Independent Set, Set Cover, and Dominating Set problems, among others. We also
prove corresponding hardness of approximation for some of these optimization
problems, providing a characterization of their intractability in terms of
density
The Official Student Newspaper of UAS
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Spartan Daily May 2, 2012
Volume 138, Issue 48https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1047/thumbnail.jp
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