In this dissertation, we discuss various aspects of scheduling and resource allocation in multi-user wireless systems. This work starts from how to utilize advanced physical-layer technology to improve the system performance in a multi-user environment. We show that by using superposition coding (SPC) and successive interference cancellation, the system performance can be greatly improved with utility-based scheduling. Several observations are made as the design guideline for such system. Scheduling algorithms are designed for a system with hierarchical modulation which is a practical implementation of SPC. However, when the utility-based scheduling is designed, it is based on the assumption that the system is saturated, {\em i.e.}, users in the system always have data to transmit. It is pointed out in the literature that in a system with stochastic traffic, even if the arrival rate lies inside the capacity region, the system in terms of queue might not be stable with the utility-based scheduling. Motivated by this, we have studied the stability region of a general utility-based scheduling in a multi-user system with stochastic traffic. We show that the stability region is generally less than the capacity region, depends on how to interpret an intermediate control variable, and the resultant stability region may be even non-convex and exhibits undesirable properties which should be avoided. As the utility-based scheduling cannot achieve throughput-optimal, we turn our attentions to the throughput-optimal scheduling algorithms, whose stability region is identical to the capacity region. The limiting properties of an overloaded wireless system with throughput-optimal scheduling algorithms are studied. The results show that the queue length is unstable however the scheduling function of the queue length is stable, and the average throughput of the system converges. Finally we study how to schedule users in a multi-user wireless system with information-theoretic security support, which is focused on the secrecy outage probability. The problem is essentially about how to schedule users, and allocate resources to stabilize the system and minimize the secrecy outage probability. We show that there is a tradeoff between the arrival rate of the traffic and the secrecy outage probability. The relative channel condition of the eavesdropper also plays an important role to the secrecy outage probability. In summary, we showed utility-based scheduling using SPC can improve the system performance greatly, but the utility-based scheduling has limitations: the stability region might not have desired properties. On the contrary throughput-optimal scheduling has its own drawbacks: the traffic cannot be handled properly if the system is overloaded. The further study on the secrecy outage probability gives guideline on how to design a scheduler in a system with information-theoretic security support. / Graduate

The American high school schedule of single-period classes has remained mostly unchanged for over one hundred years. In response to societal changes and reform movements, the secondary school schedule is receiving renewed attention. Block scheduling, the use of extended periods of time for learning, is one response to school restructuring in Virginia and throughout the nation. In Virginia, the 7A/B block schedule is used by 23.3% of the high schools. Although advocates have convinced school boards to adopt this schedule, there is little hard data available to assess its efficacy. In this study the relationship between two types of schedules(7A/B block and 7-period traditional) and student achievement at the eleventh grade was examined. No differences were found between the two schedules for achievement as measured by the subscales of the eleventh grade Tests of Achievement and Proficiency. / Ed. D.

This thesis presents a thorough introduction to flow shop problems with synchronous movement which are a variant of a non-preemptive permutation flow shop. Jobs have to be moved from one machine to the next by an unpaced synchronous transportation system, which implies that the processing is organized in synchronized cycles. This means that in each cycle the current jobs start at the same time on the corresponding machines and after processing have to wait until the last job is finished. Afterwards, all jobs are moved to the next machine simultaneously. In this thesis flow shops with synchronous movement are systematically embedded into the flow shop scheduling framework. The problem is defined for the most common objective functions as well as for many extensions and additional constraints that can be observed in real world applications. The thesis offers an extensive study of complexity of the discussed problems. Several exact and heuristic solution algorithms are proposed and evaluated. Further, a project in cooperation with a practitioner where flow shops with synchronous movement and resource constraints appear in a real world application is discussed. The results of the implemented heuristic approach are compared to the actual production of the industrial partner.

An estimate of potential evapotranspiration is acquired to implement an irrigation scheduling program. Four equations, which estimate potential evapotranspiration (evaporation) were evaluated for prediction of Class "A" Pan evaporation. The equations used were Penman's combination equation, the Jensen-Haise temperature and radiation equation, and two of the Christiansen-Hargreaves polynomial regression type equations. Measured and calculated radiation was used together with two values of albedo. Four years of daily climate data from Rhodesia was evaluated by general linear regression methods. Despite the significant variations between the four annual regression lines of each equation, the use of confidence intervals indicate that the Penman and Christiansen-Hargreaves equation adequately predict Class "A" pan evaporation for irrigation control purposes. Using class "A" pan evaporation as the measure of potential evapotranspiration for sugarcane, a computerized irrigation scheduling model was developed. Controlled plant moisture stress was incorporated in the program with an irrigation coefficient related to the limiting effects of low soil moisture on plant transpiration. Five soil moisture regimes and two levels of irrigation were studied. Within the limits of the defined soil moisture assumptions, the program exhibited considerable flexibility in computation and the control of desired plant moisture stress.

No description available.

Chip Multi-Processor (CMP) platforms, well-established in the server, desktop and embedded domain, succeeded in overcoming the power consumption and heat dissipation bottlenecks by integrating multiple cores, less complex and powerful than their single-core ancestors, in a single die. A major issue induced by the design of the CMPs is contention for the shared resources of the platform, Last Level Cache (LLC) and main memory bandwidth. Applications, running concurrently on the cores, compete with each other for the shared resources, and are subject to performance degradation. The way applications are assigned to the CMP, is crucial for the overall performance of the system. A scheduling policy that accounts for contention will bring high performance speed-ups, whereas an agnostic one will generate unpredictable contention conditions. For this reason the significance of the scheduler has been elevated, as it is the component that determines which applications utilize the resources each time period.In this thesis, we address cross-core interference on CMP platforms, by designing scheduling policies that improve performance and fairness. We deal with contention in three ways. In our first approach, we incorporate the notion of progress in order to balance unfairness among the applications of the workload. Performance degradation is not evenly distributed and progress greatly varies among them. In order to provide a fair execution environment, we monitor, at run-time, applications assigned to the CPU and prioritize them based on the extent at which they are affected by contention.In our second approach, we target performance by mitigating contention on shared resources. It is necessary to decide, out of all the possible application schedules, the one that generates the least amount of resource interference. To achieve that, the first indispensable step is to extract an interference profile for the applications executed on the CMP. We accomplish that by applying pressure to all levels of memory hierarchy and identifying the point at which performance is compromised. From our analysis, we understand that shared resources can tolerate pressure of certain amount; applications can be grouped together if the overall generated pressure does not reach the saturation point of the shared resources. Having extracted this information, we proceed to the placement of the application in such a way that overall resource requirements are as balanced as possible across the execution.Finally, we design a policy in order to improve performance and fairness at the same time. Applications that heavily rely on the LLC are separated from those with high main memory bandwidth, in order to avoid the destructive effects caused by the LLC thrashing behavior of the latter. The group executed on the CPU is determined based on the key observation that the overall requirements of the group should not exceed the saturation limits of the CMP. Additionally, during execution, the progress for each application is estimated and those with the least accumulated progress are prioritized.Our proposed policies are evaluated in an Intel Xeon E5-2620 v3 processor. A variety of benchmark suites were utilized to generate mixes of diverse characteristics. Our methodologies are implemented in user-space and can be deployed on Linux-based systems. Experimental results show the benefits of tackling contention in shared resources. We achieve throughput gains of up to 16% and unfairness is reduced by 2.37x on average compared to Linux scheduler.

The field of small satellite formations and constellations attracted growing attention, based on recent advances in small satellite engineering. The utilization of distributed space systems allows the realization of innovative applications and will enable improved temporal and spatial resolution in observation scenarios. On the other side, this new paradigm imposes a variety of research challenges. In this monograph new networking concepts for space missions are presented, using networks of ground stations. The developed approaches combine ground station resources in a coordinated way to achieve more robust and efficient communication links. Within this thesis, the following topics were elaborated to improve the performance in distributed space missions: Appropriate scheduling of contact windows in a distributed ground system is a necessary process to avoid low utilization of ground stations. The theoretical basis for the novel concept of redundant scheduling was elaborated in detail. Additionally to the presented algorithm was a scheduling system implemented, its performance was tested extensively with real world scheduling problems. In the scope of data management, a system was developed which autonomously synchronizes data frames in ground station networks and uses this information to detect and correct transmission errors. The system was validated with hardware in the loop experiments, demonstrating the benefits of the developed approach. / Satellitenformationen und Konstellationen rücken immer mehr in den Fokus aktueller Forschung, ausgelöst durch die jüngsten Fortschritte in der Kleinsatelliten-Entwicklung. Der Einsatz von verteilten Weltraumsystemen ermöglicht die Realisierung von innovativen Anwendungen auf Basis von hoher zeitlicher und räumlicher Auflösung in Observationsszenarien. Allerdings bringt dieses neue Paradigma der Raumfahrttechnik auch Herausforderungen in verschiedenen Forschungsfeldern mit sich. In dieser Dissertation werden neue Netzwerk-Konzepte für Raumfahrtmissionen unter Einsatz von Bodenstationnetzwerken vorgestellt. Die präsentierten Verfahren koordinieren verfügbare Bodenstationsressourcen um einen robusten und effizienten Kommunikationslink zu ermöglichen. In dieser Arbeit werden dabei folgende Themenfelder behandelt um die Performance in verteilten Raumfahrtmissionen zu steigern: Das Verteilen von Kontaktfenster (sogenanntes Scheduling) in verteilten Bodenstationssystem ist ein notwendiger Prozess um eine niedrige Auslastung der Stationen zu vermeiden. Die theoretische Grundlage für das Konzept des redundanten Scheduling wurde erarbeitet. Zusätztlich wurde das Verfahren in Form eines Scheduling Systems implementiert und dessen Performance ausführlich an real-world Szenarien getestet. Im Rahmen des Themenfeldes Data Management wurde ein System entwickelt, welches autonom Datenframes in Bodenstationsnetzwerken synchronisieren kann. Die in den Datenframes enthaltene Information wird genutzt um Übertragungsfehler zu erkennen und zu korrigieren. Das System wurde mit Hardware-in-the-loop Experimenten validiert und die Vorteile des entwickelten Verfahrens wurden gezeigt.

This paper presents an implementation of a lottery scheduler, presented from design through debugging to performance testing. Desirable characteristics of a general purpose scheduler include low overhead, good overall system performance for a variety of process types, and fair scheduling behavior. Testing is performed, along with an analysis of the results measuring the lottery scheduler against these characteristics. Lottery scheduling is found to provide better than average control over the relative execution rates of processes. The results show that lottery scheduling functions as a good mechanism for sharing the CPU fairly between users that are competing for the resource. While the lottery scheduler proves to have several interesting properties, overall system performance suffers and does not compare favorably with the balanced performance afforded by the standard Linux kernel’s scheduler.

This thesis presents a review of optimal production scheduling in the steel industry. Steel production encompasses various processes, such as the ‘’Blast Furnace’’ and ‘’Hot-Rolled Steel Sheets Mill’’. However, this thesis specifically focuses on the steel making process due to its intermediate nature and substantial influence on profits and costs. \\\\This paper presents a MILP scheduling method to tackle practical steel scheduling problems. The scheduling of steel process poses a significant challenge due to complicated constraints and machine rules, making it a time-consuming task to obtain an optimal solution. To address this problem, a strategy has been proposed to break down the huge and complex problem into smaller sub-problems. The foundational concept behind this approach was initially introduced by Harjunkoski and Grossmann (2001). However, further improvements are proposed in this thesis by introducing a more flexible model for process and grading selections, tailored to practical steel scheduling problems. The thesis presents a strategy to obtain optimal steel making process scheduling by using a MILP approach. In addition, this thesis shows an optimal steel making process scheduling under processing time uncertainty. Uncertain processing time can have great impact the schedule accuracy. To tackle with this problem, a stochastic scheduling model is represented. Moreover, this thesis illustrates an improvement to generate a practical scheduling of steel making process by making use of real processing time data. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed methods, we provide a small example for each step of the scheduling process. The results demonstrate that our approach yields reasonable scheduling solutions. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / In this work, we propose a decomposition strategy for solving practical complex scheduling problems in the steel-making process within a sufficiently short computation time. While there are various processes involved, such as the Cold-Rolled Steel Sheets mill and Steel Pipe mill, we focus on the steel-making process. The optimal scheduling of this process is crucial for increasing profits, reducing waste, and minimizing costs. However, scheduling optimization for the steel-making part presents significant challenges due to complex constraints and specific process rules. To address these challenges, we suggest a decomposition strategy in Chapter 3 of this thesis. This strategy primarily involves breaking down the large and complex scheduling problems into smaller subproblems. While a basic solution strategy is provided in the work of Harjunkoski and Grossmann (2001), our research introduces several improvements tailored to practical scheduling problems. For example, the original paper suggests grouping products together only if they have the same grade. In practical scheduling, however, it is often necessary to mix products of different grades within the same group to maximize productivity and operate efficiently. Additionally, the original paper considers only a single machine for each downstream process. In reality, there are often multiple machines involved in each downstream process. Therefore, our research addresses this challenge by incorporating two refining machines and two continuous casting processes into the scheduling formulations for the downstream process. As a result, the suggestions presented in this paper contribute to handling more flexible patterns of scheduling problems. In Chapter 3, the formulation is based on the aforementioned idea, and its validation is confirmed through a case study. While the obtained scheduling results may not be optimal, they are reasonable for each step when compared to the perspective of an experienced person. Furthermore, the computational time required for each step is less than 1 minute. As a result, the proposed scheduling strategy can effectively solve practical scheduling problems within a limited time frame. The strategy is specifically designed to incorporate mixed grade grouping, as well as multiple and flexible structures for downstream processes. In addition, in the steel industry, fluctuation in process time is inevitable because of the high temperature and high-speed conditions to produce products. To address these problems, in Chapter 4, we propose a strategy to incorporate processing time uncertainty into a decomposition strategy. The strategy is based on the two-stage stochastic scheduling formulation. In practical steel industries, there are many preparations before producing the products such as setting a specific condition and maintaining the facilities, and the preparations are based on the scheduling product's order. Therefore, in this formulation, the variables defining the product's order are regarded as the first decision variables to reflect a practical scheduling problem. The formulation is based on this concept, and its validation is confirmed through application to a practical case study. The results are reasonable by comparing to the knowledge of an experienced person. Furthermore, the computational time required for this strategy is also less than 1 minute. Therefore, the strategies presented in this thesis offer an efficient approach for addressing practical steel-making scheduling problems.

Monitoring waterbirds have several benefits, including analyzing the number of endangered species, giving a reliable indication of public health, etc. Monitoring waterbirds in their habitat is a challenging task since the location is distant, and the collection of monitoring data requires large bandwidth. A promising technology to tackle these challenges is thought to be Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSN). These networks are composed of small energy-constrained IoT devices that communicate together to collect data or monitor a given location. Performances in such networks are impacted by not only upper-layer protocols (transmission, routing, application layer) but also Medium Access Control (MAC) Layer. Therefore, improvement in this layer can increase the performance considerably. Traditional contention-based MAC modes like CSMA have large energy expenditure even though they have a good network performance profile. Energy-constrained devices cannot have a long lifespan with this type of MAC layer technology. Therefore, the IEEE 802.15.4e amendment proposed TSCH MAC mode which takes advantage of time-slotted access and channel hopping techniques. IETF integrated TSCH protocol into IPv6-based wireless sensor networks and standardized it as 6TiSCH which is a unique protocol stack for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLN). WMSN applications (e.g. Waterbirds Monitoring Application) generates heterogeneous traffic. Heterogeneous traffic can be defined as a mixture of different traffic types (light: temperature, humidity, etc. and heavy: audio, picture, video, etc.). TSCH-based WMSNs are considered a fit for this kind of traffic since they provide better performance and low power usage.  Yet, the 6TiSCH Working Group left open the scheduling of TSCH communication for industries to make TSCH more easily adaptable to any kind of application. Until now, there have been a huge number of scheduling algorithms from industries and academia. Each scheduling algorithm has a different objective that maximizes the network performance of a specific application. This thesis work studies the most recent state-of-the-art scheduling algorithms (protocols) and compares them in a unique simulation environment with heterogeneous traffic to find out which protocol performs well while maintaining low energy consumption. Particularly, this work studies a new approach in TSCH scheduling which is Reinforcement Learning based scheduling. We implemented one of the state-of-the-art RL-based schedulers in Contiki-NG and included it in our comparison of TSCH schedulers. The experiment results showed that the RL-based scheduler implemented in this work demonstrated better performance in PDR and latency compared to other scheduling protocols. However, it presented high energy usage. On the other hand, Orchestra performed well while keeping the energy expenditure of nodes at a low level.