Technical Perspective: Combining Logic and Probability
In "Probabilistic Theorem Proving," Gogate and Domingos suggest how PTP could be turned in a fast approximate algorithm by sampling from the set of children of a branch point.
Research and Advances
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Technical Perspective: Mesa Takes Data Warehousing to New Heights
Producing reports at the scale of Google Ads, where billions of clicks happen per day, is the challenge addressed by the Mesa system described in "Mesa: A Geo-Replicated Online Data Warehouse for Google's Advertising System."
Many representation schemes combining first-order logic and probability have been proposed in recent years. We propose the first method that has the full power of both graphical model inference and first-order theorem proving (in finite domains with Herbrand interpretations).
Today's social bots are sophisticated and sometimes menacing. Indeed, their presence can endanger online ecosystems as well as our society.
Formula-Based Software Debugging
Satisfiability modulo theory solvers can help automate the search for the root cause of observable software errors.
λ > 4: An Improved Lower Bound on the Growth Constant of Polyominoes
The universal constant λ, the growth constant of polyominoes (think Tetris pieces), is rigorously proved to be greater than 4.
Why Google Stores Billions of Lines of Code in a Single Repository
Google's monolithic repository provides a common source of truth for tens of thousands of developers around the world.
Mesa: A Geo-Replicated Online Data Warehouse For Google's Advertising System
Mesa is a highly scalable analytic data warehousing system that stores critical measurement data related to Google's Internet advertising business. This paper presents the Mesa system and reports the performance and scale that it achieves.
Human-centered design can make application programming interfaces easier for developers to use.
Physical Key Extraction Attacks on PCs
Computers broadcast their secrets via inadvertent physical emanations that are easily measured and exploited.
Randnla: Randomized Numerical Linear Algebra
Randomization offers new benefits for large-scale linear algebra computations.
Automan: A Platform For Integrating Human-Based and Digital Computation
We introduce AutoMan, the first fully automatic crowdprogramming system.
Enhancing Symbolic Execution with Veritesting
In this article, we present a new technique for generating formulas called veritesting that alternates between static symbolic execution (SSE) and dynamic symbolic execution (DSE).
Technical Perspective: Computing with the Crowd
What kinds of problems can be solved with combined human and machine computation? "AutoMan: A Platform for Integrating Human-Based and Digital Computation," by Barowy et al., provides the first steps toward answering this question.
Technical Perspective: Veritesting Tackles Path-Explosion Problem
"Enhancing Symbolic Execution with Veritesting" by Avgerinos et al. proposes an effective technique called veritesting that addresses the scalability limitations of path merging in symbolic execution.
Q&A: Finding New Directions in Cryptography
Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman on their meeting, their research, and the results that billions use every day.
Data-centric abstractions and execution strategies are needed to exploit parallelism in large-scale graph analytics.
The Challenges of Partially Automated Driving
Car automation promises to free our hands from the steering wheel but might demand more from our minds.
Static Presentation Consistency Issues in Smartphone Mapping Apps
Comparing smartphone mapping apps leads to unexpected surprises.
On the Naturalness of Software
We begin with the conjecture that most software is natural, with all the attendant constraints and limitations — and thus, like natural language, it is also likely to be repetitive and predictable.
Technical Perspective: Software Is Natural
"On the Naturalness of Software" by Hindle et al. takes an entirely new approach to providing tools to help build software.
Hiding Secrets in Software: A Cryptographic Approach to Program Obfuscation
Can we hide secrets in software? Can we make programs unintelligible while preserving their functionality? Why would we even want to do this? In this article, we describe some rigorous cryptographic answers to these quasi-philosophical questions.
Technical Perspective: A Breakthrough in Software Obfuscation
In "Hiding Secrets in Software," Garg et al. construct a "one-way compiler" of the type envisioned by Diffie and Hellman.
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