Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Marc Shapiro

Caroline Elizabeth Matheson

Manuel Costa

Pablo Rodriguez

Youssef Hamadi

James William O'Brien

Yek Loong Chong

A method includes generating a cost associated with each of a plurality of tasks to be scheduled, and scheduling the minimum cost task if the minimum cost task successfully executes. Generating may include determining a pair-wise probability representing a probability that two tasks in the plurality of tasks conflict with each other. A system includes a cost generator generating costs associated with a plurality of tasks, the costs based on probabilities that each of the tasks influence the other tasks, and a scheduling engine operable to schedule the task with the least cost.

Probabilistic scheduling

A system-wide selective action management facility is provided. Such a facility can support selective action management for multiple applications executing on one or more computer systems (including the operating system and its components, such as a file system). A system-wide action management facility can log actions performed on the computer system(s) and record relationships between such actions (e.g., between actions of different sources, including different documents, different applications and even different computer systems). When a user discovers a mistake, the tool allows the user to select one or more past actions (i.e., the 'mistake') for removal or replacement with one or more correction actions. The tool can also re-execute dependent actions to restore the relevant state of the system at the time of the designation, absent the 'mistake'. As such, actions throughout the system can be selectively undone, fixed and/or redone in an exemplary system-wide selective action management tool.

System-wide selective action management

A system includes a weighted directional dependency graph defining one or more dependency links in a distributed system having a plurality of nodes. A weight is defined for each of the dependency links. A node ordering module generates a node order based on a cycle-cut set identifying at least one of the dependency links that is part of a cycle in the weighted directional dependency graph to create an output directional dependency graph. A method for ordering a plurality of decision nodes in a distributed system includes generating a weighted directional dependency graph, determining a cycle-cut set identifying one or more dependency links that are part of a cycle in the weighted directional dependency graph, and ordering the plurality of decision nodes based on the cycle-cut set.

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Cambridge, United Kingdom

Marc Shapiro