Algorithms for semi on-line multiprocessor scheduling problems

In the classical multiprocessor scheduling problems, it is assumed that the problems are considered in off-line or on-line environment. But in practice, problems are often not really off-line or on-line but somehow in between. This means that, with respect to the on-line problem, some further information about the tasks is available, which allows the improvement of the performance of the best possible algorithms. Problems of this class are called semi on-line ones. The authors studied two semi on-line multiprocessor scheduling problems, in which, the total processing time of all tasks is known in advance, or all processing times lie in a given interval. They proposed approximation algorithms for minimizing the makespan and analyzed their performance guarantee. The algorithms improve the known results for 3 or more processor cases in the literature. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 19701028 and 19971078) and National 973 Research Project of China.