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Abraham Lempel

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Abraham Lempel
Lempel in 2007
Born(1936-02-10)10 February 1936
Died4 February 2023(2023-02-04) (aged 86)
Known forLZ77 and LZ78 compression algorithms
AwardsParis Kanellakis Award (1997)
IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2007)
Scientific career
FieldsInformation theory
InstitutionsTechnion - Israel Institute of Technology

Abraham Lempel (Hebrew: אברהם למפל; 10 February 1936 – 4 February 2023)[1] was an Israeli computer scientist and one of the fathers of the LZ family of lossless data compression algorithms.

Biography

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Lempel was born on 10 February 1936 in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine).[2] He studied at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and received a B.Sc. in 1963, an M.Sc. in 1965, and a D.Sc. in 1967. Since 1977 he held the title of full professor, and was a professor emeritus at Technion.

His historically-important works start with the presentation of the LZ77 algorithm in a paper entitled "A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression" in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (May 1977), co-authored by Jacob Ziv.

Lempel was the recipient of the 1998 Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the IEEE Information Theory Society;[3] and the 2007 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for "pioneering work in data compression, especially the Lempel-Ziv algorithm".[4]

Lempel founded HP Labs—Israel in 1994, and served as its director until October 2007.

Lempel died on 4 February 2023, at age 86.

Works

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The LZ77 and LZ78 algorithms authored by Lempel and Jacob Ziv have led to a number of derivative works, including the Lempel–Ziv–Welch algorithm, used in the GIF image format, and the Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm, used in the 7-Zip and xz compressors. The algorithms have also been used as originally published in formats such as DEFLATE, used in the PNG image format.

Bibliography

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  • Jacob Ziv, Abraham Lempel (May 1977). "A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression". IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. 23 (3): 337–343. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.118.8921. doi:10.1109/TIT.1977.1055714. S2CID 9267632.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ מת פרופ' אברהם למפל – האיש ששינה את מדעי המחשב (in Hebrew)
  2. ^ "IEEE Transactions On Computers: Contributors". Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. December 1970. doi:10.1109/T-C.1970.222867. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ "Golden Jubilee Awards for Technological Innovation". IEEE Information Theory Society. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  4. ^ "IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal Recipients" (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
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