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Personal

Kenneth Hoste was born in Torhout (Belgium) on October 6th 1983. After graduating secondary school in Houtland Instituut in Torhout, he started Computer Science (licentiaat) studies at Ghent University. From August 2005 until September 2010 he was a PhD student at the Department of Electronics and Information Systems (ELIS) at Ghent University, Belgium. In September 2010, he obtained his PhD in Computer Science at Ghent University. His dissertation entitled "Analysis, Estimation and Optimization of Computer System Performance Using Machine Learning" is available here.

Research interests

• statistics in computer architecture
• estimating computer application performance (speed, power, ...) based on inherent program similarity
• workload characterization and microarchitecture-independent / ISA-independent program characteristics
• program phase behavior
• compiler optimizations

Publications

overview

• Performance Prediction based on Inherent Program Similarity
  [abstract; paper: PDF, PS; presentation]

  by Kenneth Hoste, Aashish Phansalkar, Lieven Eeckhout, Andy Georges, Lizy K. John and Koen De Bosschere

  PACT-2006, Sept. 2006; Seattle, WA (US)

• Comparing Benchmarks Using Key Microarchitecture-Independent Characteristics
  [abstract; paper: PDF; presentation ]

  by Kenneth Hoste and Lieven Eeckhout

  IISWC2006, Oct. 2006; San Jose, CA (US)

• Analyzing Commercial Processor Performance Numbers for Predicting Performance of Applications of Interest
  [abstract; paper: PDF; poster ]

  by Kenneth Hoste, Lieven Eeckhout and Hendrik Blockeel

  SIGMETRICS'07, June 2007; San Diego, CA (US)

• Microarchitecture-Independent Workload Characterization
  [abstract; paper: PDF]

  by Kenneth Hoste and Lieven Eeckhout

  IEEE Micro Hot Tutorials, May/June 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 3) pp. 63-72

• COLE: Compiler Optimization Level Exploration
  [PDF, presentation]

  by Kenneth Hoste and Lieven Eeckhout

  CGO-2008, April 2008; Boston, MA (US)

• Characterizing the Unique and Diverse Behaviors in Existing and Emerging General-Purpose and Domain-Specific Benchmark Suites
  [PDF, presentation]

  by Kenneth Hoste and Lieven Eeckhout

  ISPASS-2008, April. 2008; Austin, TX (US)

• A Methodology for Analyzing Commercial Processor Performance Numbers
  [PDF, PPV webpage]

  by Kenneth Hoste and Lieven Eeckhout

  IEEE Computer, October 2009, vol 42 (10), pp. 70-76

• Automated Just-In-Time Compiler Tuning
  [PDF, presentation]

  by Kenneth Hoste, Andy Georges and Lieven Eeckhout

  CGO-2010, April 2010, Toronto, Canada

• Analysis, Estimation and Optimization of Computer System Performance Using Machine Learning
  [PDF]

  Kenneth Hoste, PhD dissertation

  Ghent University (Belgium), September 2010

Attended conference meetings, symposia e.a.

for pictures, see here

• CGO 2010 (April 26-28 2010, Toronto, Canada) [website]: attending conference and presenting paper
• ACES 2009 (September 7-8 2009, Edegem, Belgium) [website]: attending symposium and presenting poster
• ACACES 2009 Summer School (July 12-17 2009, Terrassa, Spain) [website]: attending summer school and presenting poster
• ACES 2008 (September 17-18 2008, Edegem, Belgium) [website]: attending symposium and presenting poster
• ACACES 2008 Summer School (July 14-18 2008, L'Aquila, Italy) [website]: attending summer school and presenting poster
• ISPASS 2008 (April 20-22 2008, Austin, Texas, US) [website]: attending conference and presenting paper
• CGO 2008 (April 6-9 2008, Boston, Massachusetts, US) [website]: attending conference and presenting paper
• IISWC 2007 (September 26-29 2007, Boston, US) [website]: presenting part of PIN tutorial, visiting Intel
• ACES 2007 (September 17-18 2007, Edegem, Belgium) [website]: attending symposium and presenting poster
• FCRC 2007 (June 12-16 2007, San Diego, California, US) [website]: attending conferences and workshops (SIGMETRICS'07, Experimental Computer Science 2007, ...) and presenting poster at SIGMETRICS'07
• HiPEAC conference (January 29-30 2007, Ghent Belgium) [website]: attending conference
• SMART workshop (January 28 2007, Ghent Belgium) [website]: attending workshop
• 7th FirW PhD Symposium (November 29 2006, Ghent, Belgium) [website]: presenting poster
• IISWC-2006 (October 25-27 2006, San Jose, California, US) [website]: attending conference and presenting paper
• ACES 2006 (October 3-4 2006, Edegem, Belgium) [website]: attending symposium and presenting poster
• PACT-2006 (September 16-20 2006, Seattle, Washington, US) [website]: attending conference and presenting paper
• ACACES 2006 Summer School (July 23-29 2006, L'Aquila, Italy) [website]: attending summer school and presenting poster
• 6th FirW PhD Symposium November 30 2005, Ghent, Belgium [website]: attending poster sessions
• HiPeac Cluster Meeting (informal) October 10-11 2005, Ghent, Belgium [website]: attending (passively)
• ACES 2005 September 26-27 2005, Edegem, Belgium [website]: attending symposium

Tools

MICA: Microarchitecture-Independent Characterization of Applications

A Pin (binary instrumentation) tool to collect a set of microarchitecture-independent program characteristics for an application of interest.

Interesting links

• WWW Computer Architecture Page
• Department of Electronics and Information Systems (ELIS) @ Ghent University
• Parallel Information Systems (Paris) Group @ ELIS
• Benchmark suites (bold means used in my research)
• ALPBench: parallelized complex media applications
• BioBench/BioParallel: bioinformatics applications
• BioInfoMark: bioinformatics applications
• BioMetricsWorkload: biometric applications
• BioPerf: a very good bioinformatics applications suite (with scripts and binaries)
• CommBench: telecommunications and network processors (dated, see PacketBench)
• EEMBC: embedded workloads (used in Hennsey & Patterson book)
• MediaBench: multimedia workloads (dated, new version available)
• MediaBench II: updated multimedia workloads
• MiBench: embedded workloads (dated)
• MineBench: data mining
• MinneSPEC: reduced SPEC CPU2000 workloads
• PacketBench: network processors (follow-up of CommBench)
• PhysicsBench: game physics simulation
• PMaC HPC: HPC hardware
• SPEC CPU2000: most commonly known and used CPU intensive benchmark suite
• SPEC CPU2006: new industry/research standard to be (follow-up of SPEC CPU2000) [my SPEC CPU2006 info]
• TPC: transaction processing and databases

Any additions to this list are welcome (kenneth.hoste@ugent.be).

Other interests

• Computer animation: my figurines collection (Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, ...)
• Studio Brussel: Life is Music
• Haskell: a pure functional language
• FunMath: Functional Mathematics
• CGSociety: enhancing digital arts

Other links

• http://www.elis.ugent.be/~kehoste/Haskell: my work with Haskell, including a raytracer (HRay) and a small Lindenmayer System (L-System) program (HaskLS)
• The Monad.Reader: a Haskell e-zine (my articles on Gtk2Hs and HRay in it)

Fun links

• Phd comics: Really funny comics on the life of someone working towards a Phd.
• "Hi, I'm a Mac!"-style OS comparison
• The Official God FAQ: a must see...

Contact

[ personal ] :: [ research interests ] :: [ publications ] :: [ attended ] :: [ tools ] :: [ links ] :: [ other interests ] :: [ other/fun links ] :: [ contact ]