Competitive on-line scheduling of imprecise computations

The on-line scheduling of systems of imprecise computation tasks is investigated. The system objective is to maximise the value obtained. A formal model is defined. Under certain reasonable assumptions formalized here as the weak feasible mandatory constraint a 2-competitive on-line scheduling algorithm is presented for the commonly studied uniform-density task systems. It is proven, however, that an on-line algorithm may in general perform arbitrarily poorly as compared to a clairvoyant scheduler. A case study is included illustrating how competitive on-line schedulers may be constructed for individual applications, based on their own unique characteristics