An Evolutionary Approach for Scheduling in 
			Parallel Computing Systems

		
			   Albert Y. Zomaya

		Parallel Computing Research Laboratory
	 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
		The University of Western Australia
	       Nedlands, Perth, Western Australia 6907
			zomaya@ee.uwa.edu.au



			     Abstract
			     ________



	Task Scheduling is essential for the proper functioning of 
	parallel processor systems. Scheduling of tasks onto networks 
	of parallel processors is an interesting problem that is well-defined 
	and documented in the literature. However, most of the available 
	techniques are based on heuristics that solve certain instances of 
	the scheduling problem very efficiently and in reasonable amounts of 
	time. This talk will address an alternative paradigm, based on genetic 
	algorithms, that can be used to efficiently solve the scheduling 
	problem without the need to apply any restricted assumptions that are 
	problem-specific, like it is the case when using heuristics. The 
	conditions under which a genetic algorithm performs best will also be 
	highlighted. This will be accompanied by a number of examples and case 
	studies.


	About the Speaker
	_________________

	Albert Y. Zomaya is a professor in the Electrical & Electronic
	Engineering Department, at the University of Western Australia, where
	he also leads the Parallel Computing Research Lab. He is the author/
	coauthor of more than 100 technical papers and five books and the 
        editor of two volumes. He is the editor of the 
        Parallel & Distributed Computing Handbook (McGraw-Hill, 1996), 
        and serves on the editorial boards of the 
        IEEE Trans. Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE Trans. Systems, 
        Man, and Cybernetics, and others. 
        He is the editor-in-chief of the Wiley Book Series 
        on Parallel & Distributed Computing. He is a senior member of 
        the IEEE, member of the ACM, IEE, and Sigma Xi.