Talk @ INESC-ID with Martín Farach-Colton “How Big is a Pointer?”

Talk @ INESC-ID with Martín Farach-Colton “How Big is a Pointer?”

On 20 February, Martin Farach-Colton, from the New York City University, will be visiting INESC-ID and participate in a talk hosted by INESC-ID researcher Rodrigo Rodrigues. The session titled “How Big is a Pointer?” will explore the theory of compressed pointers, in which situations they may be compressed and the consequences in the design of hardware and operating systems.

Date & Time: 20 February, 14h00

Location: Room 9 (ground floor), INESC-ID

Abstract: The question seems to have a trivial answer: there are at least $\log n$ bits in a pointer to a memory of size $n$.  In this talk, I’ll show that this is not always true.  There are many situations where pointers can be compressed.  After exploring the theory of compressed pointers, I’ll show that they can have consequences in the design of hardware and operating systems.

Bio: Martin Farach-Colton is the Leonard J. Shustek Professor of Computer Science and Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at NYU, where he works on pure and applied algorithms in I/O-efficient storage systems, streaming algorithms and string matching. He was Founder and CTO at Tokutek, Inc, an enterprise database company, which was acquired by Percona in 2015.  He has been a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs (1997-98) and was an early employee of Google, Inc. (2000-2002).  Farach-Colton received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Farach-Colton is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and SIAM, and a Fellow of the Argentine National Academy of Sciences.

About INESC-ID

INESC-ID, “Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa” is a Research and Development and Innovation Organization (R&D+i) in the fields of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. INESC-ID mission is to produce added value to people and society, supporting the response of public policies to scientific, health, environmental, cultural, social, economic and political challenges. INESC-ID promotes cooperation between academia and industry by addressing research on daily life issues, such as healthcare, space, mobility, agri-food, industry 4.0, and smart grids. This high level of knowledge transfer is achieved through both competitive research projects and direct contracted research. Public and private entities have therefore access to a pool of knowledge, resources and services provided through the unique competencies available at the institution.

 

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