This paper presents an observation on adaptation of Hopfield neural network dynamics configured as a relaxation-based search algorithm for static optimization. More specifically, two adaptation rules, one heuristically formulated and the second being gradient descent based, for updating constraint weighting coefficients of Hopfield neural network dynamics are discussed. Application of two adaptation rules for constraint weighting coefficients is shown to lead to an identical form for update equations. This finding suggests that the heuristically-formulated rule and the gradient descent based rule are analogues of each other. Accordingly, in the current context, common sense reasoning by a domain expert appears to possess a corresponding mathematical framework.
In this paper we present the design and implementation of an hyper-heuristic for efficiently scheduling independent jobs in Computational Grids. An efficient scheduling of jobs to Grid resources depends on many parameters, among others, the characteristics of the resources and jobs (such as computing capacity, consistency of computing, workload, etc.). Moreover, these characteristics change over time due to the dynamic nature of Grid environment, therefore the planning of jobs to resources should be adaptively done. Existing ad hoc scheduling methods (batch and immediate mode) have shown their efficacy for certain types of resource and job characteristics. However, as stand alone methods, they are not able to produce the best planning of jobs to resources for different types of Grid resources and job characteristics.
In this work we have designed and implemented a hyper-heuristic that uses a set of ad hoc (immediate and batch mode) scheduling methods to provide the scheduling of jobs to Grid resources according to the Grid and job characteristics. The hyper-heuristic is a high level algorithm, which examines the state and characteristics of the Grid system (jobs and resources), and selects and applies the ad hoc method that yields the best planning of jobs. The resulting hyper-heuristic based scheduler can be thus used to develop network-aware applications that need efficient planning of jobs to resources.
The hyper-heuristic has been tested and evaluated in a dynamic setting through a prototype of a Grid simulator. The experimental evaluation showed the usefulness of the hyper-heuristic for planning of jobs to resources as compared to planning without knowledge of the resource and job characteristics.