Multiple Circular Colouring As a Model for Scheduling
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Open Journal of Discrete Mathematics, 2013, 3, 162-166 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojdm.2013.33029 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojdm) Multiple Circular Colouring as a Model for Scheduling Bing Zhou Department of Mathematics, Trent University, Peterborough, Canada Email: [email protected] Received April 30, 2013; revised May 31, 2013; accepted June 15, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Bing Zhou. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT In this article we propose a new model for scheduling periodic tasks. The model is based on a variation of the circular chromatic number, called the multiple circular colouring of the conflict graph. We show that for a large class of graphs, this new model will provide better solutions than the original circular chromatic number. At the same time, it allows us to avoid the difficulty of implementation when the fractional chromatic number is used. Keywords: Graph Coloring; Circular Chromatic Number; Fractional Chromatic Number; Multi-Circular Coloring; Scheduling Problem 1. Introduction edges between them and therefore can be assigned to one period. For this scheduling f, we have f 1 G . We consider the scheduling problems involving tasks Thus in general f 1 G . TT12,,, Tn . If two tasks both use a common resource, they cannot be scheduled at the same time. A valid When the tasks are periodic in nature, circular colour- ing of the conflict graph is a more appropriate method. scheduling is a mapping f from TT12,,, Tn to the subsets of a time period [0,T] such that Circular colouring and the circular chromatic number (also called the star chromatic number) were introduced fTij fT if Ti and Tj use a common re- source. Let the value of a scheduling f be by A. Vince in 1988 [5]. A (k,d)-circular-colouring of a graph G is a mapping cVG:0,1,, k1 such f minfT T :1 i n, which is the minimum i that for each edge xy in G, dcxcykd . length of time a task has been assigned normalized by the The circular chromatic number of G, G , is the in- length of the time period. The goal is to find a scheduling c fimum of the ratio k/d for which G has a (k,d)-circular- f that maximizes f . One example of this type of colouring. scheduling problem is the heavily loaded resource shar- Equivalently, we can consider a (k,d)-circular-colouring ing system in computer science [1-3]. The tasks are proc- of G as a mapping c from V(G) to the open arcs of length esses and some of them may share a common data file. d in a circle of length k such that if xy is an edge in G, Two processes that do share a common data file cannot operate at the same time. A scheduling of the processes cx cy . If we assign the tasks using a (k,d)- that has the maximum value would allow the processes to circular-colouring of the conflict graph G, we would operate most efficiently. have f dk1 c G . The constraints of the scheduling problem can be rep- A (k,d)-set-colouring of a graph G is a mapping c such resented by a graph, called the conflict graph. The con- that for every vertex v in G, c(v) is a d-subset of 0,1, ,k 1 and if xy is an edge in flict graph G has vertex set vv12,,, vn representing G, . The fractional chromatic number of the tasks where two vertices vi and vj are adjacent if and cx cy only if they use at least one common resource. Vertex a graph G, f G , is the infimum of the ratio (k/d) for colouring and chromatic numbers of the conflict graph which G has a (k,d)-set-colouring. If we can consider a have been used as models for scheduling problems (see (k,d)-set-colouring as a mapping c from V(G) to the sets for example [4]). If G can be coloured with kcolours such of arcs in the circle of length k such that the length of the that no two adjacent vertices have the same colour, we union of arcs in f(v) is at least d for every vertex v and if can then divide [0,T] into k equal length periods. All ver- xy is an edge inG, cx cy . An assignment using tices that are coloured with the same colour do not have a (k,d)-set-colouring of the conflict graph G would yield Copyright © 2013 SciRes. OJDM B. ZHOU 163 u1 f dk1 f G . Circular chromatic number and fractional chromatic number and their variations have been extensively stud- v1 ied in the last two decades [6-11]. More results on the u u 5 v v 2 circular chromatic number and fractional chromatic 5 2 number can be found in the book [12] and the survey w v v papers [13,14]. It is easy to see that by their definition, 4 3 we have the relations u u 4 3 fcGGG . Figure 1. Grotzsch graph. Vince proved in [5] that M t Ct52 2. GG1.c f 5 Therefore, we have In comparison, we have GG c . t M Ct5 3. While the difference between G and c G is always less than 1, it is known that the difference be- For this class of graphs, the difference between and f is unbounded. tween G and f G can be arbitrarily large for some graphs. An example is the family of graphs called For the circular chromatic number, we have Kneser graphs. A Kneser graph ([15,16]) K has all tt pq, c M CMC55 12t . q-subsets of 0,1,,p 1 (p > 2q) as its vertices and two vertices are adjacent if the two subsets are disjoint. It This shows that the difference between the circular is proved in [16] that chromatic number and the fractional chromatic number is also arbitrarily large for the Mycielskians. To achieve the p f Kpq,, optimal result for a scheduling problem in general, it q appears that the fractional chromatic number of the con- Kpq,2 p q 2. flict graph provides the best results. However, there are difficulties if we use (k,d)-set col- Another example of a family of graphs where the dif- ouring and the fractional chromatic number in the sched- ference between their chromatic number and fractional uling problem. To achieve f G the optimal (k,d)-set chromatic number is large is the graphs obtained by us- colouring may have a very large value of d. As pointed t ing Mycielski’s construction. out in [12], M C5 is an example of a graph G for For a graph G with vertex set VG uu1,,,2 un which f Gkd for no small d. In fact, if we let and edge set EG, the Mycielskian M G of G is G2 C5 and GMn Gn1 , then the graph with vertex set n1 VG n 32 1 uu12,,, unn vv12 ,,, v w and edge set EuvuuEij,:, ij vwii : 1,2,, n. M C5 in and fnG is a fraction whose denominator, when 2n2 Figure 1 is also called the Grotzsch graph. written in smallest terms, is greater than 2 . This ex- It is well known that ample shows that there is no bound on the denominator of f G that is a polynomial function of the number MG G 1. of vertices of G. If this optimal set colouring is to be used For the fractional chromatic number of Mycielskians, for scheduling, each task would be divided into too many the authors of [17] found the recurrence relation fragments making it impossible in practice. To combine optimality and practicality, in the next section we pro- ffM GG 1.fG pose a new colouring of the conflict graph that will pro- vide a better solution than the circular colouring and eas- For the Grotzsch graph, since C 52, we have f 5 ier to implement than the set colouring. f MC5 52 25 2910. 2. Multiple Circular Colouring of a Graph We use the notation M t G such that Definition 1 An m-(k,d)-circular colouring of a graph G t MG MM( ( MG ( ))). is a mapping c from V(G) to the sets of open arcs in the t times circle of length k such that c(v) is the union of m arcs We have with a total length at least d and if xy is an edge in G, Copyright © 2013 SciRes. OJDM 164 B. ZHOU cx cy . The m-circular chromatic number, m c G is the infimum of the ration kd for which Ghas a m-(k,d)-circular-colouring. w u It is easy to see that for every positive integer m, 3 u2 u 4 u GGGm . 1 fc c w To demonstrate this colouring indeed improves the solution of the scheduling problem in some cases, we 2 show that even for m 2 , c G can be strictly less than c G for large classes of graphs. Recall that for a graph G, M(G) is the Mycielskian of G. There are many graphs G such that c MG MG. Some sufficient conditions for this equality to hold are given in, for example, [18] u5 and [19].