A few good genes

Good Predictions Are Worth a Few Comparisons

Most modern processors are heavily parallelized and use predictors to guess the outcome of conditional branches, in order to avoid costly stalls in their pipelines. We propose predictorfriendly versions of two classical algorithms: exponentiation by squaring and binary search in a sorted array. These variants result in less mispredictions on average, at the cost of an increased number of operat...

A Few Tips for Good XML Design

Exploring a Few Good Tuples From a Text Database

Information extraction from text databases is a useful paradigm to populate relational tables and unlock the considerable value hidden in plain-text documents. However, information extraction can be expensive, due to various complex text processing steps necessary in uncovering the hidden data. There are a large number of text databases available, and not every text database is necessarily rele...

A Few Good Lines: Suggestive Drawing of 3D Models

We present a method for rendering 3D models in the traditional line-drawing style used in artistic and scientific illustrations. The goal is to suggest the 3D shape of the objects using a small number of lines drawn with carefully chosen line qualities. The system combines several known techniques into a simple yet effective non-photorealistic line renderer. Feature edges related to the outline...

Motor Control: Winging It with a Few Good Muscles

A recent study reveals how flies achieve their remarkable aerodynamic agility with only a small number of wing muscles.