The Safe and Effective Use of Low-Assurance Predictions in Safety-Critical Systems

The algorithm-design paradigm of algorithms using predictions is explored as a means of incorporating the computations of lower-assurance components (such as machine-learning based ones) into safety-critical systems that must have their correctness validated to very high levels of assurance. The paradigm is applied to two simple example applications that are relevant to the real-time systems community: energy-aware scheduling, and classification using ML-based classifiers in conjunction with more reliable but slower deterministic classifiers. It is shown how algorithms using predictions achieve much-improved performance when the low-assurance computations are correct, at a cost of no more than a slight performance degradation even when they turn out to be completely wrong

Minimizing Flow Time in the Wireless Gathering Problem

We address the problem of efficient data gathering in a wireless network through multi-hop communication. We focus on the objective of minimizing the maximum flow time of a data packet. We prove that no polynomial time algorithm for this problem can have approximation ratio less than \Omega(m^{1/3) when $m$ packets have to be transmitted, unless $P = NP$. We then use resource augmentation to assess the performance of a FIFO-like strategy. We prove that this strategy is 5-speed optimal, i.e., its cost remains within the optimal cost if we allow the algorithm to transmit data at a speed 5 times higher than that of the optimal solution we compare to

A generalized parallel task model for recurrent real-time processes

A model is considered for representing recurrent precedence-constrained tasks that are to execute on multiprocessor platforms. A recurrent task is specified as a directed acyclic graph (DAG), a period, and a relative deadline. Each vertex of the DAG represents a sequential job, while the edges of the DAG represent precedence constraints between these jobs. All the jobs of the DAG are released simultaneously and need to complete execution within the specified relative deadline of their release. Each task may release j

Approximation algorithms for replenishment problems with fixed turnover times

We introduce and study a class of optimization problems we coin replenishment problems with fixed turnover times: a very natural model that has received little attention in the literature. Nodes with

On the Complexity of Conditional DAG Scheduling in Multiprocessor Systems

As parallel processing became ubiquitous in modern computing systems, parallel task models have been proposed to describe the structure of parallel applications. The workflow scheduling problem has been studied extensively over past years, focusing on multiprocessor systems and distributed environments (e.g. grids, clusters). In workflow scheduling, applications are modeled as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). DAGs have also been introduced in the real-time scheduling community to model the execution of multi-threaded programs on a multi-core architecture. The DAG model assumes, in most cases, a fixed DAG structure capturing only straight-line code. Only recently, more general models have been proposed. In particular, the conditional DAG model allows the presence of control structures such as conditional (if-then-else) constructs. While first algorithmic results have been presented for the conditional DAG model, the complexity of schedulability analysis remains wide open. We perform a thorough analysis on the worst-case makespan (latest completion time) of a conditional DAG task under list scheduling (a.k.a. fixed-priority scheduling). We show several hardness results concerning the complexity of the optimization problem on multiple processors, even if the conditional DAG has a well-nested structure. For general conditional DAG tasks, the problem is intractable even on a single processor. Complementing these negative results, we show that certain practice-relevant DAG structures are very well tractable

Constructing strings avoiding forbidden substrings

We consider the problem of constructing strings over an alphabet Σ that start with a given prefix u, end with a given suffix v, and avoid occurrences of a given set of forbidden substrings. In the decision version of the problem, given a set Sk of forbidden substrings, each of length k, over Σ, we are asked to decide whether there exists a string x over Σ such that u is a prefix of x, v is a suffix of x, and no s ϵ Sk occurs in x. Our first result is an O(|u| + |v| + k|Sk|)-time algorithm to decide this problem. In the more general optimization version of the problem, given a set S of forbidden arbitrary-length substrings over Σ, we are asked to construct a shortest string x over S such that u is a prefix of x, v is a suffix of x, and no s ϵ S occurs in x. Our second result is an O(|u| + |v| + ||S|| · |Σ|)-time algorithm to solve this problem, where ||S|| denotes the total length of the elements of S. Interestingly, our results can be directly applied to solve the reachability and shortest path problems in complete de Bruijn graphs in the presence of forbidden edges or of forbidden paths. Our algorithms are motivated by data privacy, and in particular, by the data sanitization process. In the context of strings, sanitization consists in hiding forbidden substrings from a given string by introducing the least amount of spurious information. We consider the following problem. Given a string w of length n over Σ, an integer k, and a set Sk of forbidden substrings, each of length k, over Σ, construct a shortest string y over Σ such that no s ϵ Sk occurs in y and the sequence of all other length-k fragments occurring in w is a subsequence of the sequence of the length-k fragments occurring in y. Our third result is an O(nk|Sk| · |Σ|)-time algorithm to solve this problem

A universal error measure for input predictions applied to online graph problems

We introduce a novel measure for quantifying the error in input predictions. The error is based on a minimum-cost hyperedge cover in a suitably defined hypergraph and provides a general template which we apply to online graph problems. The measure captures errors due to absent predicted requests as well as unpredicted actual requests; hence, predicted and actual inputs can be of arbitrary size. We achieve refined performance guarantees for previously studied network design problems in the online-list model, such as Steiner tree and facility location. Further, we initiate the study of learning-augmented algorithms for online routing problems, such as the online traveling salesperson problem and the online dial-a-ride problem, where (transportation) requests arrive over time (online-time model). We provide a general algorithmic framework and we give error-dependent performance bounds that improve upon known worst-case barriers, when given accurate predictions, at the cost of slightly increased worst-case bounds when given predictions of arbitrary quality