63,693 research outputs found
Precise Null Pointer Analysis Through Global Value Numbering
Precise analysis of pointer information plays an important role in many
static analysis techniques and tools today. The precision, however, must be
balanced against the scalability of the analysis. This paper focusses on
improving the precision of standard context and flow insensitive alias analysis
algorithms at a low scalability cost. In particular, we present a
semantics-preserving program transformation that drastically improves the
precision of existing analyses when deciding if a pointer can alias NULL. Our
program transformation is based on Global Value Numbering, a scheme inspired
from compiler optimizations literature. It allows even a flow-insensitive
analysis to make use of branch conditions such as checking if a pointer is NULL
and gain precision. We perform experiments on real-world code to measure the
overhead in performing the transformation and the improvement in the precision
of the analysis. We show that the precision improves from 86.56% to 98.05%,
while the overhead is insignificant.Comment: 17 pages, 1 section in Appendi
Lower Bounds for Structuring Unreliable Radio Networks
In this paper, we study lower bounds for randomized solutions to the maximal
independent set (MIS) and connected dominating set (CDS) problems in the dual
graph model of radio networks---a generalization of the standard graph-based
model that now includes unreliable links controlled by an adversary. We begin
by proving that a natural geographic constraint on the network topology is
required to solve these problems efficiently (i.e., in time polylogarthmic in
the network size). We then prove the importance of the assumption that nodes
are provided advance knowledge of their reliable neighbors (i.e, neighbors
connected by reliable links). Combined, these results answer an open question
by proving that the efficient MIS and CDS algorithms from [Censor-Hillel, PODC
2011] are optimal with respect to their dual graph model assumptions. They also
provide insight into what properties of an unreliable network enable efficient
local computation.Comment: An extended abstract of this work appears in the 2014 proceedings of
the International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC
Synthesis of application specific processor architectures for ultra-low energy consumption
In this paper we suggest that further energy savings can be achieved by a new approach to synthesis of embedded processor cores, where the architecture is tailored to the algorithms that the core executes. In the context of embedded processor synthesis, both single-core and many-core, the types of algorithms and demands on the execution efficiency are usually known at the chip design time. This knowledge can be utilised at the design stage to synthesise architectures optimised for energy consumption. Firstly, we present an overview of both traditional energy saving techniques and new developments in architectural approaches to energy-efficient processing. Secondly, we propose a picoMIPS architecture that serves as an architectural template for energy-efficient synthesis. As a case study, we show how the picoMIPS architecture can be tailored to an energy efficient execution of the DCT algorithm
- …