MAD ALGO morning

I am at MADALGO inauguration. Jeff Vitter gave a nice overview of external memory algorithms, using a card trick to illustrate the Gilbreath principle. Charles Leiserson spoke about Cache-Oblivious algorithms, somewhat obliquely, by running a Jeopardy style quiz show on facts and factoids of CO algorithms. I am glad to report that the US team of Jeff Vitter and Mike Goodrich won over Danish and German teams. The clincher question was, how many hits are shown in Google for CO algorithms? Hint: order related to Pi. The answer they gave was like 227k, but I get a different answer now.

I spoke about streaming algorithms, but dispensed with standard stuff in the first half, and mainly focused on distributed streaming and its relationship to MapReduce, continuous communication complexity problems in sensor streams and analyzing blog streams. I hope the audience discover(ed) new research problems. Peter Sanders spoke about challenges in algorithm engineering, an independently funded effort in Germany, with significant goals; among other things, he did a terrific job of emphasizing the need to implement competitors' algorithms with at least as much zeal (if not more) as one implements their own algorithms.

It is great that EU is willing to invest in foundational algorithms through MADALGO. Lars Arge who heads the center appeared on local newspaper. Apparently an earlier version of the article mentioned that he was an expert on logarithms. (al- dropped).