Article ID: | iaor20071760 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 12 |
Issue: | 4 |
Start Page Number: | 362 |
End Page Number: | 385 |
Publication Date: | Dec 2006 |
Journal: | Journal of Combinatorial Optimization |
Authors: | Epstein Leah, Favrholdt Lene M., Kohrt Jens S. |
The relative worst order ratio is a measure for the quality of online algorithms. Unlike the competitive ratio, it compares algorithms directly without involving an optimal offline algorithm. The measure has been successfully applied to problems like paging and bin packing. In this paper, we apply it to machine scheduling. We show that for preemptive scheduling, the measure separates multiple pairs of algorithms which have the same competitive ratios; with the relative worst order ratio, the algorithm which is ‘intuitively better’ is also provably better. Moreover, we show one such example for non-preemptive scheduling.