Complexity and Inapproximability Results for Parallel Task Scheduling and Strip Packing

Sören Henning; Klaus Jansen; Malin Rau; Lars Schmarje

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arXiv · 1705.04587

Complexity and Inapproximability Results for Parallel Task Scheduling and Strip Packing

Sören Henning·Klaus Jansen·Malin Rau·Lars Schmarje

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Abstract

We study the Parallel Task Scheduling problem $Pm|size_j|C_{\max}$ with a constant number of machines. This problem is known to be strongly NP-complete for each $m \geq 5$, while it is solvable in pseudo-polynomial time for each $m \leq 3$. We give a positive answer to the long-standing open question whether this problem is strongly $NP$-complete for $m=4$. As a second result, we improve the lower bound of $\frac{12}{11}$ for approximating pseudo-polynomial Strip Packing to $\frac{5}{4}$. Since the best known approximation algorithm for this problem has a ratio of $\frac{4}{3} + \varepsilon$, this result narrows the gap between approximation ratio and inapproximability result by a significant step. Both results are proven by a reduction from the strongly $NP$-complete problem 3-Partition.

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BibTeX RIS

Sören Henning, Klaus Jansen, Malin Rau, Lars Schmarje. 2017-05-12. Complexity and Inapproximability Results for Parallel Task Scheduling and Strip Packing. https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.04587

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