Information
Theory
Dr. Cong Ling
Spring Term
Syllabus
This course will set out the fundamental concepts of information
theory. Expressions for the
information generated by discrete memoryless
sources and sources with memory will be established and the loseless source coding theorem will be proved and the
asymptotic equipartition theorem will be
presented. The practical
significance of the source coding theorem will be examined and examples of
source coding will be given. The
concept of channel capacity will be introduced and the calculation of the
capacity of important communication channels and systems will be dealt
with. The capacity theorem will be
proved for various cases and its practical significance will be examined,
and simple examples of coding aimed at achieving the results promised by
the capacity theorem will be outlined.
The concept of source coding, subject to fidelity criteria, (rate
distortion theory) will be introduced.
Finally, the basics of network information theory will be given,
which is presently the most dynamic research area in information theory.
Textbooks
Course textbook: Elements of Information Theory,
T. M. Cover and J. A. Thomas, Wiley.
Reference: Information Theory and Network
Coding, Raymond W. Yeung, Springer, 2008. Free
at http://iest2.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/~whyeung/book2/
Reference: Lecture Notes on Network Information
Theory, A. E. Gamal and Y.-H. Kim. http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.3404
Reference: Information
Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, D MacKay, CUP, or free at http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/
Shannon’s original paper: “A mathematical
theory of communication,” Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 27, pp.
379–423, 623–656, July, October, 1948.
Lecture Slides
Slides
Problem Sheets
Problems
Past Exam
Papers
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
Frequently
Asked Questions
Is topic "xyz" examinable? All topics included in the above lectures are
examinable with the exception of the Kuhn Tucker conditions for constrained
optimization.
Do I need to remember long complicated proofs? You will not be asked to reproduce long proofs
from the notes. However you will be expected to understand the proofs and
to justify the steps they take.
Do I need to remember long formulas? In general you are not expected to memorize long
complicated formulas. However you will be expected to remember some basic
and important formulas.