Distinguished Guest Lecturer

Profit Driven Optimizations

Mary Lou Soffa
Department of Computer Science
University of Pittsburgh

Weds., Feb. 4th
3:30; 480 Dreese Labs
All interested parties are invited.
Refreshments will be served immediately preceding the talk.

Although optimizations have been applied by compilers for over 40 years, much of the research has been devoted to the development of particular optimizations. Certain problems with code optimizations have yet to be adequately addressed, including applying only profitable optimizations, ordering optimizations, selecting optimization configurations and combining optimizations. With the rapidly growing use of cost-sensitive embedded systems and the interest in dynamic optimization, handling these problems is becoming all the more important. In this talk, I will discuss our current work in developing a framework for optimizations that can be used to determine important properties of optimizations, and in particular, the profitability of optimizations. Our unifying framework includes code, optimization and resource models for systematically exploring the application of optimizations. The framework will provide both analytical and experimental models for understanding, predicting and verifying the properties of optimizations (i.e., performance impact and interactions). Also, practical and automatic strategies to drive the application of optimizations based on the models are part of the framework. By applying these model-based optimization strategies, the goal is that optimizing compilers will be able to produce higher quality code and use different paradigms than what is possible with current approaches.

Mary Lou Soffa is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1977. Her research interests include optimizing and parallelizing compilers, program analysis, and software tools for debugging and testing programs. In 1999, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, given by the White House. She was elected an ACM Fellow in 1999. She serves on the Board of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and CRA-W, the committee on the status of women in computer science and engineering. She has served on the Executive Committees of both SIGSOFT and SIGPLAN as well as conference chair, program chair or program committee member for numerous conferences. More details can be found at http://www.cs.pitt.edu/soffa.

Host: P. Sadayappan