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State management in the search for missing persons: a regional perspective
ByPaula Silva 04/03/202608/09/2026

Wednesday, March 4 | 9:00 AM The Seminar, organized by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Unit for the Search of Disappeared Persons, will feature a presentation by Hugo Rojas, academic at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, IMFD and Viodemos researcher, on the panel of researchers studying forced disappearance in Chile. 9:00 AM – RECEPTION –…

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Agenda

# What is New in Hash Tables? Hash tables have been a cornerstone of computer science for decades, but they continue to evolve with interesting theoretical and practical developments. Here is an overview of recent advances: ## 1. **Better Worst-Case Guarantees** Traditional hash tables suffer from potential worst-case linear-time operations due to collisions. Recent work has focused on: – **Cuckoo hashing variants**: Improved schemes offering better load factors while maintaining O(1) worst-case lookup time – **Tabulation hashing**: Provides strong theoretical guarantees while being fast in practice, especially useful when you need provable randomness properties without full universal hashing overhead – **Robin Hood hashing**: Refinements that minimize variance in probe sequences, improving worst-case behavior in open addressing schemes ## 2. **Learned Hash Tables** One of the more exciting developments is the integration of **machine learning into data structure design**: – **Learned indexes** (following Kraska et al.’s influential work) use models to predict key positions, potentially reducing memory footprint and improving cache efficiency – Hybrid approaches combine learned models with traditional hashing to handle distribution shifts and edge cases gracefully ## 3. **Concurrent and Lock-Free Hash Tables** With multi-core systems being standard, there is ongoing work on: – **Lock-free hash tables** that allow high-throughput concurrent access without traditional locking overhead – **Resizable concurrent hash tables**: Solving the challenge of resizing without stopping the world, using techniques like incremental rehashing – Hardware transactional memory (HTM) integration for better concurrency control ## 4. **Cache-Efficient Designs** Modern hash table research pays close attention to hardware realities: – **SIMD-friendly hash tables** that exploit vectorized instructions for faster probing – **Memory-efficient variants** like Swiss tables (used in Abseil/Google’s codebase) that pack metadata efficiently for better cache utilization – Techniques to minimize cache misses through better memory layout (e.g., open addressing with SIMD-based group probing) ## 5. **Perfect Hashing Advances** – **Minimal perfect hash functions (MPHFs)** continue to improve, offering near-optimal space usage (close to the information-theoretic lower bound) while maintaining fast construction and query times – Practical implementations like **PTHash** and **RecSplit** have made minimal perfect hashing more accessible for large-scale applications ## 6. **Hashing for Streaming and Sketching** – Integration with **streaming algorithms** for approximate membership queries (Bloom filter alternatives like **Cuckoo filters**, **Quotient filters**, and **Ribbon filters**) – These provide better space-time tradeoffs than classic Bloom filters in many scenarios ## 7. **Hashing in Distributed Systems** – **Consistent hashing** improvements for better load balancing in distributed caches and databases – **Rendezvous hashing (HRW)** gaining renewed attention as an alternative with different tradeoffs — Is there a particular direction you are most interested in—theoretical guarantees, practical implementations, specific applications (e.g., databases, distributed systems), or the ML-hashing intersection? I am happy to go deeper into any of these!
ByPaula Silva 19/11/202515/09/2026

📅 Tuesday, December 2 | 3:00 PM Abstract: The hash table was the very first (and second) data structure invented. So you would think we’d know pretty much all there is to know about them. Yet the last few years have seen the resolution of some surprisingly basic questions. In this talk, I will survey…

Read More # What is New in Hash Tables? Hash tables have been a cornerstone of computer science for decades, but they continue to evolve with interesting theoretical and practical developments. Here is an overview of recent advances: ## 1. **Better Worst-Case Guarantees** Traditional hash tables suffer from potential worst-case linear-time operations due to collisions. Recent work has focused on: – **Cuckoo hashing variants**: Improved schemes offering better load factors while maintaining O(1) worst-case lookup time – **Tabulation hashing**: Provides strong theoretical guarantees while being fast in practice, especially useful when you need provable randomness properties without full universal hashing overhead – **Robin Hood hashing**: Refinements that minimize variance in probe sequences, improving worst-case behavior in open addressing schemes ## 2. **Learned Hash Tables** One of the more exciting developments is the integration of **machine learning into data structure design**: – **Learned indexes** (following Kraska et al.’s influential work) use models to predict key positions, potentially reducing memory footprint and improving cache efficiency – Hybrid approaches combine learned models with traditional hashing to handle distribution shifts and edge cases gracefully ## 3. **Concurrent and Lock-Free Hash Tables** With multi-core systems being standard, there is ongoing work on: – **Lock-free hash tables** that allow high-throughput concurrent access without traditional locking overhead – **Resizable concurrent hash tables**: Solving the challenge of resizing without stopping the world, using techniques like incremental rehashing – Hardware transactional memory (HTM) integration for better concurrency control ## 4. **Cache-Efficient Designs** Modern hash table research pays close attention to hardware realities: – **SIMD-friendly hash tables** that exploit vectorized instructions for faster probing – **Memory-efficient variants** like Swiss tables (used in Abseil/Google’s codebase) that pack metadata efficiently for better cache utilization – Techniques to minimize cache misses through better memory layout (e.g., open addressing with SIMD-based group probing) ## 5. **Perfect Hashing Advances** – **Minimal perfect hash functions (MPHFs)** continue to improve, offering near-optimal space usage (close to the information-theoretic lower bound) while maintaining fast construction and query times – Practical implementations like **PTHash** and **RecSplit** have made minimal perfect hashing more accessible for large-scale applications ## 6. **Hashing for Streaming and Sketching** – Integration with **streaming algorithms** for approximate membership queries (Bloom filter alternatives like **Cuckoo filters**, **Quotient filters**, and **Ribbon filters**) – These provide better space-time tradeoffs than classic Bloom filters in many scenarios ## 7. **Hashing in Distributed Systems** – **Consistent hashing** improvements for better load balancing in distributed caches and databases – **Rendezvous hashing (HRW)** gaining renewed attention as an alternative with different tradeoffs — Is there a particular direction you are most interested in—theoretical guarantees, practical implementations, specific applications (e.g., databases, distributed systems), or the ML-hashing intersection? I am happy to go deeper into any of these!
Introduction to DNA Sequencing Technology and Genomics Data Analysis Workshop
ByPaula Silva 20/10/202515/09/2026

📅 Friday, November 14 | 09:00 SCL | 13:00 Belgium Genomics Core Leuven and Millenium Institute Chile iHEALTH invite you to a half-day introductory workshop on the fundamental concepts for understanding and analyzing genomics data. This workshop is designed for students, researchers, and anyone curious who wants to gain the foundational knowledge needed to embark…

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Trust Under Threat: Findings from the 2025 Expert Survey
ByPamela Bacho 14/10/202508/09/2026

📅 Wednesday, October 22 | 16:00 BST | 17:00 CEST The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) invites you to a timely discussion of its third annual Expert Survey, which captures the views of 438 researchers from 76 countries on the health of the global information environment This year’s findings paint a stark picture:…

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Artificial Intelligence and Mental Health
ByPamela Bacho 06/10/202515/09/2026

📅 Friday, October 10 | 1:30 PM. In recent months, Artificial Intelligence has gone from being a professional tool to becoming a personal resource as well. Today, millions of people around the world converse daily with chatbots as if they were therapists or emotional counselors, even developing meaningful bonds with them. For some, this opens…

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Our MemorIA at Open Doors to Knowledge of the Biblioteca de Santiago
ByPaula Silva 01/10/202515/09/2026

📅 Wednesday, October 8 | 5:30 PM. As part of the project “Open Doors to Knowledge: Open Science in the Community,” organized by the Biblioteca de Santiago in collaboration with Wikimedia Chile, a series of talks will be held throughout October aiming to spread the philosophy of open knowledge and open science, promoting citizen participation…

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Ciclo de Charlas IDIA 2025: LLM-based AI Agents and the New MCP
ByPamela Bacho 24/09/202508/09/2026

📅 Thursday, October 9 | 1:00 PM. We invite you to a new session of the IDIA 2025 Talk Series: 🔹Topic: Agents based on Large Language Models (LLM) and the new Model Context Protocol (MCP). 🔹Speaker: Fabián Villena. Assistant Professor-Researcher at the Faculty of Dentistry of Universidad San Sebastián, PhD Candidate in Computer Science at…

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Seminario CambIA
ByPamela Bacho 24/09/202508/09/2026

📅 Tuesday, September 30 | 11:30 am. How are AI and new technologies being integrated into journalism today? Join us to reflect on the present and future of the media in Chile in a new edition of the CAMBIA Seminar: Chilean Media and Artificial Intelligence 📍 TV Studio – School of Communication and Literature, UDP🎙️…

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Data for AI (and AI for data)
ByPaula Silva 22/09/202508/09/2026

📌Free talk | The artificial intelligence we use today would not be possible without data. And, at the same time, AI is changing the way we work with it. In this talk we will discuss: 🔹How data drives the development of AI. 🔹How AI is transforming the analysis and use of data. 🔹The difference between…

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K-CAP 2025: Thirteenth International Conference on Knowledge Capture
ByPaula Silva 16/09/202508/09/2026

📅 Wednesday, December 10 | 9:00 AM Knowledge has played a foundational role in Artificial Intelligence since its inception. As AI systems become increasingly sophisticated, the demands on how knowledge is captured, represented, and operationalized have become more complex. Today’s breakthroughs—particularly in large language models and neuro-symbolic architectures—highlight the importance of moving beyond data volume…

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ChileWiC 2025
ByPaula Silva 16/09/202508/09/2026

📅 Friday, December 28 | 9:00 AM Save the date! On Friday, November 28, starting at 9:00 AM in the Salón D’Etigny at the Department of Computer Science of the Universidad de Chile (Beauchef 851, Santiago), we will hold a new edition of Chile Women in Computing.

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Webinar: The Double-Edged Sword of AI in Peacebuilding, Monday 22 September
ByPaula Silva 16/09/202508/09/2026

📅 Monday, September 22 | 1:00 PM On 22 September, the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) invites you to the launch of its landmark report, Artificial Intelligence and Peacebuilding: Opportunities and Challenges. AI is increasingly shaping peacebuilding efforts – helping monitor conflict risks, support humanitarian coordination, and foster dialogue. Yet, the same technologies…

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Agenda

Summit AcademIA 2025
ByPamela Bacho 20/08/202508/09/2026

📅 Tuesday, August 26 | 2:30 PM We invite you to take part in the AcademIA Summit 2025, a day dedicated to exploring how Artificial Intelligence is transforming higher education, research, and university entrepreneurship. Summit Speakers: Roberto Musso – President of Digevo Ventures – “Accelerating Strategic AI in LATAM”.Osvaldo Viscondi & Fabio Alves – NVIDIA…

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Agenda

Launch of “Let us Talk About Data, the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence”
ByPamela Bacho 18/08/202515/09/2026

📅 Tuesday, August 26 | 4:00 PM We invite you to the launch of the new podcast/radio program of the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD): Hablemos de Datos, los fundamentos de la inteligencia artificial, a project funded by the Ciencia Pública program of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation. During…

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Agenda

Radio forum Hablemos TodUs: Disinformation as an Electoral Tool
ByPamela Bacho 05/08/202515/09/2026

📅 Tuesday, August 12 | 11:00 am On July 28, Chile Vamos presidential candidate Evelyn Matthei announced her decision to file a lawsuit against the Partido Republicano, denouncing a disinformation campaign against her. At the time, the former mayor said: “These are basically immoral campaigns that seek to spread lies through a very intense and…

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