Search

We consider a cooperative two-user multiaccess channel in which the transmission is controlled by a random state. Both encoders transmit a common message and, one of the encoders also transmits an individual message. We study the capacity region of this communication model for different degrees of availability of the states at the encoders, causally or strictly causally. In the case in which the states are revealed causally to both encoders but not to the decoder we find an explicit characterization of the capacity region in the discrete memoryless case. In the case in which the states are revealed only strictly causally to both encoders, we establish inner and outer bounds on the capacity region. The outer bound is nontrivial, and has a relatively simple form. It has the advantage of incorporating only one auxiliary random variable. In particular, it suggests that there is none, or at best only little, to gain from having the encoder that transmits both messages also sending an individual description of the state to the receiver, in addition to the compressed version that is sent cooperatively with the other encoder. We then introduce a class of cooperative multiaccess channels with states known strictly causally at both encoders for which the inner and outer bounds agree, and so we characterize the capacity region for this class. In this class of channels, the state can be obtained as a deterministic function of the channel inputs and output. We also study the model in which the states are revealed, strictly causally, in an asymmetric manner, to only one encoder. Throughout this paper, we discuss a number of examples, and compute the capacity region of some of these examples. The results shed more light on the utility of delayed channel state information for increasing the capacity region of state-dependent cooperative multiaccess channels, and tie with recent progress in this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the finite-state multiple access channel (MAC) with partially cooperative encoders and delayed channel state information (CSI). Here, partial cooperation refers to the communication between the encoders via finite-capacity links. The channel states are assumed to be governed by a Markov process. Full CSI is assumed at the receiver, while at the transmitters, only delayed CSI is available. The capacity region of this channel model is derived by first solving the case of the finite-state MAC with a common message. Achievability for the latter case is established using the notion of strategies, however, we show that optimal codes can be constructed directly over the input alphabet. This results in a single codebook construction that is then leveraged to apply simultaneous joint decoding. Simultaneous decoding is crucial here because it circumvents the need to rely on the capacity region’s corner points, a task that becomes increasingly cumbersome with the growth in the number of messages to be sent. The common message result is then used to derive the capacity region for the case with partially cooperating encoders. Next, we apply this general result to the special case of the Gaussian vector MAC with diagonal channel transfer matrices, which is suitable for modeling, e.g., orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based communication systems. The capacity region of the Gaussian channel is presented in terms of a convex optimization problem that can be solved efficiently using numerical tools. The region is derived by first presenting an outer bound on the general capacity region and then suggesting a specific input distribution that achieves this bound. Finally, numerical results are provided that give valuable insight into the practical implications of optimally using conferencing to maximize the transmission rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though network coding is traditionally performed over finite fields, recent work on nested-lattice-based network coding suggests that, by allowing network coding over certain finite rings, more efficient physical-layer network coding schemes can be constructed. This paper considers the problem of communication over a finite-ring matrix channel \(Y = AX + BE\) , where \(X\) is the channel input, \(Y\) is the channel output, \(E\) is random error, and \(A\) and \(B\) are random transfer matrices. Tight capacity results are obtained and simple polynomial-complexity capacity-achieving coding schemes are provided under the assumption that \(A\) is uniform over all full-rank matrices and \(BE\) is uniform over all rank- \(t\) matrices, extending the work of Silva, Kschischang, and Kötter (2010), who handled the case of finite fields. This extension is based on several new results, which may be of independent interest, that generalize concepts and methods from matrices over finite fields to matrices over finite chain rings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we revisit the structure of infeasibility results in network information theory, based on a notion of information state. We also discuss ideas for generalizing a known outer bound for lossless transmission of independent sources over a network to one of lossy transmission of dependent sources over the same network. To concretely demonstrate this, we apply our ideas and prove new results for lossy transmission of dependent sources by generalizing: 1) the cut-set bound; 2) the best known outer bound on the capacity region of a general broadcast channel; and 3) the outer bound part of the result of Maric, Yates, and Kramer on strong interference channels with a common message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains two main contributions concerning the asymmetric broadcast channel. The first is an analysis of the exact random coding error exponents for both users, and the second is the derivation of universal decoders for both users. These universal decoders are certain variants of the maximum mutual information universal decoder, and they achieve the corresponding random coding exponents of optimal decoding. In addition, we introduce some lower bounds, which involve optimizations over very few parameters, unlike the original, exact exponents, which involve minimizations over auxiliary probability distributions. Numerical results for the binary symmetric broadcast channel show improvements over previously derived error exponents for the same model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a communication network where there exist wiretappers who can access a subset of channels, called a wiretap set, which is chosen from a given collection of wiretap sets. The collection of wiretap sets can be arbitrary. Secure network coding is applied to prevent the source information from being leaked to the wiretappers. In secure network coding, the required alphabet size is an open problem not only of theoretical interest but also of practical importance, because it is closely related to the implementation of such coding schemes in terms of computational complexity and storage requirement. In this paper, we develop a systematic graph-theoretic approach for improving Cai and Yeung’s lower bound on the required alphabet size for the existence of secure network codes. The new lower bound thus obtained, which depends only on the network topology and the collection of wiretap sets, can be significantly smaller than Cai and Yeung’s lower bound. A polynomial-time algorithm is devised for efficient computation of the new lower bound. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The topological interference management (TIM) problem studies partially-connected interference networks with no channel state information except for the network topology (i.e., connectivity graph) at the transmitters. In this paper, we consider a similar problem in the uplink cellular networks, while message passing is enabled at the receivers (e.g., base stations), so that the decoded messages can be routed to other receivers via backhaul links to help further improve network performance. For this TIM problem with decoded message passing (TIM-MP), we model the interference pattern by conflict digraphs, connect orthogonal access to the acyclic set coloring on conflict digraphs, and show that one-to-one interference alignment boils down to orthogonal access because of message passing. With the aid of polyhedral combinatorics, we identify the structural properties of certain classes of network topologies where orthogonal access achieves the optimal degrees-of-freedom (DoF) region in the information-theoretic sense. The relation to the conventional index coding with simultaneous decoding is also investigated by formulating a generalized index coding problem with successive decoding as a result of decoded message passing. The properties of reducibility and criticality are also studied, by which we are able to prove the linear optimality of orthogonal access in terms of symmetric DoF for the networks up to four users with all possible network topologies (218 instances). Practical issues of the tradeoff between the overhead of message passing and the achievable symmetric DoF are also discussed, in the hope of facilitating efficient backhaul utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Integer forcing is an equalization scheme for the multiple-input multiple-output communication channel that has been demonstrated to allow operating close to capacity for “most” channels. In this paper, the measure of “bad” channels is quantified by considering a compound channel setting, where the transmitter communicates over a fixed channel but knows only its mutual information. The transmitter encodes the data into independent streams, all taken from the same linear code. The coded streams are transmitted after applying a unitary transformation. At the receiver side, integer-forcing equalization is applied, followed by standard single-stream decoding. Considering pre-processing matrices drawn from a random ensemble, outage corresponds to the event that the target rate exceeds the achievable rate of integer forcing for a given channel matrix. For the case of the circular unitary ensemble, an explicit universal bound on the outage probability for a given target rate is derived that holds for any channel in the compound class. The derived bound depends only on the gap-to-capacity and the number of transmit antennas. The results are also applied to obtain universal bounds on the gap-to-capacity of multiple-antenna closed-loop multicast, achievable via linear pre-processed integer forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new wiretap channel model is proposed, where the legitimate transmitter and receiver communicate over a discrete memoryless channel. The wiretapper has perfect access to a fixed-length subset of the transmitted code word symbols of her choosing. Additionally, she observes the remainder of the transmitted symbols through a discrete memoryless channel. This new model subsumes the classical wiretap channel and wiretap channel II with noisy main channel as its special cases, and is termed as the generalized wiretap channel for that reason. The strong secrecy capacity of the proposed channel model is identified. Achievability is established by solving a dual secret key agreement problem in the source model, and converting the solution to the original channel model using probability distribution approximation arguments. In the dual problem, a source encoder and decoder, who observe random sequences independent and identically distributed according to the input and output distributions of the legitimate channel in the original problem, communicate a confidential key over a public error-free channel using a single forward transmission, in the presence of a compound wiretapping source who has perfect access to the public discussion. The security of the key is guaranteed for the exponentially many possibilities of the subset chosen at the wiretapper by deriving a lemma which provides a doubly-exponential convergence rate for the probability that, for a fixed choice of the subset, the key is uniform and independent from the public discussion and the wiretapping source’s observation. The converse is derived by using Sanov’s theorem to upper bound the secrecy capacity of the generalized wiretap channel by the secrecy capacity when the tapped subset is randomly chosen by nature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the capacity of continuous-space electromagnetic channels is analyzed. We assume the regions confining the transceivers are filled with dielectric that is either lossy or lossless and show how the capacity is affected by the physical loss of the source region. Our analysis is based on calculation of exact power consumption in the presence of mutual coupling and accurate modeling of noise based on fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We also analytically derive the Q factor and show how the capacity is affected by the bandwidth constraint. Finally, we compare our work with the existing literature and analyze the maximum gain of spherical dielectric antennas in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The minimum energy, and, more generally, the minimum cost, to transmit one bit of information was recently derived for bursty communication when information is available infrequently at random times at the transmitter. Furthermore, it was shown that even if the receiver is constrained to sample only a fraction $\rho \in ~(0,1]$ of the channel outputs, there is no capacity penalty. That is, for any strictly positive sampling rate $\rho $ , the asynchronous capacity per unit cost is the same as under full sampling, i.e., when $\rho =1$ . Moreover, there is no penalty in terms of decoding delay. These results are asymptotic in nature, considering the limit as the number $B$ of bits to be transmitted tends to infinity, while the sampling rate $\rho $ remains fixed. A natural question is then whether the sampling rate $\rho (B)$ can drop to zero without introducing a capacity (or delay) penalty compared with full sampling. We answer this question affirmatively. The main result of this paper is an essentially tight characterization of the minimum sampling rate. We show that any sampling rate that grows at least as fast as $\omega (1/B)$ is achievable, while any sampling rate smaller than $o(1/B)$ yields unreliable communication. The key ingredient in our improved achievability result is a new, multi-phase adaptive sampling scheme for locating transient changes, which we believe may be of independent interest for certain change-point detection problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivated by the recent emergence of energy harvesting and wirelessly powered transceivers, we study communication over a memoryless channel with a transmitter, whose battery is recharged at random or deterministic times known to the receiver. We characterize the capacity of this channel as the limit of an $n$ -letter maximum mutual information rate under various assumptions: causal and noncausal transmitter knowledge of the battery recharges, with or without feedback from the receiver to the transmitter. While the resultant $n$ -letter capacity expressions are not computable in the general case, we demonstrate their usefulness by focusing on two important special cases, namely, the binary erasure channel (BEC) and the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, where they lead to some interesting, and somewhat surprising, insights. By focusing on the BEC, we show that output feedback can strictly increase the capacity of this channel, even though the channel is memoryless and the battery recharging process is independent over time. Interestingly, this provides a counter example to an old claim by Shannon stated without proof in his 1956 paper. On the other hand, by focusing on the AWGN channel, we are able to show that the capacity with noncausal knowledge of the battery recharging times at the transmitter is strictly larger than that with causal knowledge, even though the battery recharging process is independent over time and known to the receiver. The $n$ -letter expressions can also be used to derive explicit upper and lower bounds on capacity. In particular, we derive simple upper and lower bounds on the capacity of the AWGN channel with random battery recharges, which are within 1.05 b/s/Hz of each other for all parameter values. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The best-known achievable rate region for the two-user Gaussian interference channel corresponds to the Han-Kobayashi scheme. However, mathematical expressions that characterize the Han-Kobayashi rate region are complicated. This complexity hinders a comprehensive understanding of the rate region. For instance, when interference is weak, the maximum achievable sum-rate of the Han-Kobayashi scheme has been unknown. This paper studies the sum-rate of the Han-Kobayashi scheme with Gaussian inputs and fully characterizes the maximum achievable sum-rate, when no time sharing is used. The optimal power-splitting variables and the corresponding maximum achievable sum-rate are explicitly expressed in closed forms. With the same approach, the maximum weighted sum-rate is expressed that characterizes the boundary of the Han-Kobayashi region without time sharing. Moreover, when time sharing is used, the boundary is expressed in terms of the upper concave envelope of a function of transmitters’ powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most coding schemes proposed for the interference channel take advantage of joint decoding to enlarge rate region. However, decoding complexity escalates considerably when joint decoding is used. This paper studies the achievable sum-rate of the two-user Gaussian interference channel when joint decoding is replaced by successive decoding. First, the strong interference class is examined, and it is proved that if transmitters’ powers satisfy certain conditions, successive decoding is optimal and achieves the sum-capacity. The number of the required splits, the amount of power allocated to each split, and the order of decoding at receivers are explicitly determined. Second, the weak interference class is examined. A novel rate-splitting scheme is proposed that does not use joint decoding. The number of required splits and the amount of power allocated to each split are expressed in closed forms. It is shown that, for a wide range of transmitters’ powers, this scheme achieves the sum-rate of the Gaussian Han-Kobayashi scheme. Moreover, it is proved that the difference between the sum-rate of this scheme and that of the Gaussian Han-Kobayashi scheme is bounded, for all values of transmitters’ powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication complexity investigates the amount of communication needed for two or more players to determine some joint function of their private inputs. For many interesting functions, the communication complexity can be much smaller than basic information theoretic measures associated with the players’ inputs such as the input length, the entropy, or even the conditional entropy. Communication complexity of many functions reduces further when the players share randomness. Classical works studied the communication complexity of functions when the interacting players share randomness perfectly, i.e., they get identical copies of randomness from a common source. This paper considers the variant of this question when the players share randomness imperfectly, i.e., when they get noisy copies of the randomness produced by some common source. Our main result shows that any function that can be computed by a $k$ -bit protocol in the perfect sharing model has a 2^{k} -bit protocol in the setting of imperfectly shared randomness and such an exponential growth is necessary. Our upper bound relies on ideas from locality sensitive hashing, while lower bounds rely on hypercontractivity and a new invariance principle tailored for communication protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The capacity region of the $K$ -user Gaussian interference channel (GIC) is a long-standing open problem and even capacity outer bounds are little known in general. A significant progress on degrees-of-freedom (DoF) analysis, a first-order capacity approximation, for the $K$ -user GIC has provided new important insights into the problem of interest in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limit. However, such capacity approximation has been observed to have some limitations in predicting the capacity at finite SNR. In this paper, we develop a new upper-bounding technique that utilizes a new type of genie signal and applies time sharing to genie signals at $K$ receivers. Based on this technique, we derive new upper bounds on the sum capacity of the three-user GIC with constant, complex channel coefficients and then generalize to the $K$ -user case to better understand sum-rate behavior at finite SNR. We also provide closed-form expressions of our upper bounds on the capacity of the $K$ -user symmetric GIC easily computable for any $K$ . From the perspectives of our results, some sum-rate behavior at finite SNR is in line with the insights given by the known DoF results, while some others are not. In particular, the well-known $K/2$ DoF achievable for almost all constant real channel coefficients turns out to be not embodied as a substantial performance gain over a certain range of the cross-channel coefficient in the $K$ -user symmetric real case especially for large $K$ . We further investigate the impact of phase offset between the direct-channel coefficient and the cross-channel coefficients on the sum-rate upper bound for the three-user complex GIC. As a consequence, we aim to provide new findings that could not be predicted by the prior works on DoF of GICs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An index code for broadcast channel with receiver side information is locally decodable if each receiver can decode its demand by observing only a subset of the transmitted codeword symbols instead of the entire codeword. Local decodability in index coding is known to reduce receiver complexity, improve user privacy and decrease decoding error probability in wireless fading channels. Conventional index coding solutions assume that the receivers observe the entire codeword, and as a result, for these codes the number of codeword symbols queried by a user per decoded message symbol, which we refer to as locality, could be large. In this paper, we pose the index coding problem as that of minimizing the broadcast rate for a given value of locality (or vice versa) and designing codes that achieve the optimal trade-off between locality and rate. We identify the optimal broadcast rate corresponding to the minimum possible value of locality for all single unicast problems. We present new structural properties of index codes which allow us to characterize the optimal trade-off achieved by: vector linear codes when the side information graph is a directed cycle; and scalar linear codes when the minrank of the side information graph is one less than the order of the problem. We also identify the optimal trade-off among all codes, including non-linear codes, when the side information graph is a directed 3-cycle. Finally, we present techniques to design locally decodable index codes for arbitrary single unicast problems and arbitrary values of locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algebraic network information theory is an emerging facet of network information theory, studying the achievable rates of random code ensembles that have algebraic structure, such as random linear codes. A distinguishing feature is that linear combinations of codewords can sometimes be decoded more efficiently than codewords themselves. The present work further develops this framework by studying the simultaneous decoding of multiple messages. Specifically, consider a receiver in a multi-user network that wishes to decode several messages. Simultaneous joint typicality decoding is one of the most powerful techniques for determining the fundamental limits at which reliable decoding is possible. This technique has historically been used in conjunction with random i.i.d. codebooks to establish achievable rate regions for networks. Recently, it has been shown that, in certain scenarios, nested linear codebooks in conjunction with “single-user” or sequential decoding can yield better achievable rates. For instance, the compute–forward problem examines the scenario of recovering $L \le K$ linear combinations of transmitted codewords over a $K$ -user multiple-access channel (MAC), and it is well established that linear codebooks can yield higher rates. This paper develops bounds for simultaneous joint typicality decoding used in conjunction with nested linear codebooks, and applies them to obtain a larger achievable region for compute–forward over a $K$ -user discrete memoryless MAC. The key technical challenge is that competing codeword tuples that are linearly dependent on the true codeword tuple introduce statistical dependencies, which requires careful partitioning of the associated error events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the index coding problem a sender holds a message $x \in \{0,1\}^{n}$ and wishes to broadcast information to $n$ receivers in a way that enables the $i$ th receiver to retrieve the $i$ th bit $x_{i}$. Every receiver has prior side information comprising a subset of the bits of $x$ , and the goal is to minimize the length of the information sent via the broadcast channel. Porter and Wootters have recently introduced the model of embedded index coding, where the receivers also play the role of the sender and the goal is to minimize the total length of their broadcast information. An embedded index code is said to be task-based if every receiver retrieves its bit based only on the information provided by one of the receivers. This paper studies the effect of the task-based restriction on linear embedded index coding. It is shown that for certain side information maps there exists a linear embedded index code of length quadratically smaller than that of any task-based embedded index code. The result attains, up to a multiplicative constant, the largest possible gap between the two quantities. The proof is by an explicit construction and the analysis involves spectral techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The best outer bound on the capacity region of the two-user Gaussian interference channel (GIC) is known to be the intersection of regions of various bounds, including genie-aided outer bounds, in which a genie provides noisy input signals to the intended receiver. The Han and Kobayashi (HK) scheme provides the best known inner bound. The rate difference between the best known lower and upper bounds on the sum capacity remains as large as 1 b/channel use, especially around g^2=P^-1/3 , where P is the symmetric power constraint and g is the symmetric real cross-channel coefficient. In this paper, we pay attention to the moderate interference regime where g^2\in ~(\max (0.086, P^-1/3),1) . We propose a new upper-bounding technique that utilizes noisy observation of interfering signals as genie signals and applies time sharing to the genie signals at the receivers. A conditional version of the worst additive noise lemma is also introduced to derive new capacity bounds. The resulting upper (outer) bounds on the sum capacity (capacity region) are shown to be tighter than the existing bounds in a certain range of the moderate interference regime. Using the new upper bounds and the HK lower bound, we show that R\text {sym}^{ }=\frac {1}2\log \big (|g|P+|g|^{-1}(P+1)\big ) characterizes the capacity of the symmetric real GIC to within 0.104 b/channel use in the moderate interference regime at any signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We further establish a high-SNR characterization of the symmetric real GIC, where the proposed upper bound is at most 0.1 b far from a certain HK achievable scheme with Gaussian signalling and time sharing for g^2\in ~(0,1] . In particular, R\text {sym}^{ } is achievable at high SNR by the proposed HK scheme and turns out to be the high-SNR capacity at least at g^2=0.25, 0.5 . We finally point out that there are two subregimes at high SNR in the weak interference regime, where g^2\in (0,1] . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity region of the multicast Cognitive Inter-Ference Channel (CIFC) is investigated. This channel consists of two independent transmitters that wish to multicast two different messages, each to a different set of users. In addition, one of the transmitters—commonly referred to as the cognitive transmitter—has prior non-causal knowledge of both messages to be transmitted. This scenario subsumes some long-standing open problems, such as the interference channel, the broadcast channel, and multicast communications. The aim of this paper is the derivation of optimal interference mitigation techniques under different interference regimes. To this end, two settings, namely the multi-primary CIFC, i.e., $M=1$ and $N \geq 1$ , and its complementary, the multi-secondary CIFC, i.e., $N=1$ and $M \geq 1$ , are investigated as an attempt to build a thorough understanding for the more general multicast CIFC setting. It is shown that, for some interference regimes, well-known coding techniques for the standard CIFC remain still optimal under the constraint of multicasting to multiple users. However, in other interference regimes, capacity achieving coding and decoding schemes prove to be more involved. A careful combination of these coding schemes and new outer bounding techniques allows to characterize the capacity region for several classes of discrete memoryless and Gaussian multicast CIFC under different interference regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Broadcasting $K$ independent messages to multiple users where each user demands all the messages and already has a subset of the messages as side information is studied. Recently, Natarajan et al. proposed a novel broadcasting strategy called lattice index coding, which adopts lattices constructed over some principal ideal domains (PID) for transmission. Using the structure of lattices over PID, they showed that this scheme provides uniform side information gain for any side information configuration, a desired property which essentially guarantees a fair signal-to-noise ratio gain when normalized by the amount of information contained in side information. In this paper, we generalize this strategy to a general ring of algebraic integers, which may not be a PID. Upper and lower bounds on the side information gains for the proposed scheme constructed over some interesting classes of number fields are provided and are shown to coincide asymptotically in message rate. This generalization substantially enlarges the design space and partially includes the scheme by Natarajan et al. as a special case. Perhaps more importantly, in addition to side information gains, the proposed lattice index codes benefit from diversity gains inherent in constellations carved from number fields when used over Rayleigh fading channel. Some interesting examples are provided for which the proposed scheme allows the messages to be from the same field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider the K -user single-input single-output interference channel with delayed channel state information at the transmitters (CSIT). Our main contribution is to show that even with delayed CSIT and distributed transmitters, the achievable degrees of freedom (DoFs) still scale with the number of users. More specifically, we propose a method that achieves K/(2\sqrt {K} - 1) \geq \sqrt {K}/2 DoF. The main idea behind the proposed method is to use interference alignment (IA) at the receiver side in conjunction with repetition coding at the transmitters. Repetition coding repeats the data R$ times while IA makes the interference generated by a given transmitter identical: 1) at all non-intended receivers and 2) all transmission repetitions. Therefore, one retransmission per transmitter is sufficient to cancel all the interference. This reduces significantly the overhead required for interference removal since the number of interference terms is reduced from $RK(K-1)$ to $K$ . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper establishes several converse bounds on the private transmission capabilities of a quantum channel. The main conceptual development builds firmly on the notion of a private state, which is a powerful, uniquely quantum method for simplifying the tripartite picture of privacy involving local operations and public classical communication to a bipartite picture of quantum privacy involving local operations and classical communication. This approach has previously led to some of the strongest upper bounds on secret key rates, including the squashed entanglement and the relative entropy of entanglement. Here, we use this approach along with a “privacy test” to establish a general meta-converse bound for private communication, which has a number of applications. The meta-converse allows for proving that any quantum channel’s relative entropy of entanglement is a strong converse rate for private communication. For covariant channels, the meta-converse also leads to second-order expansions of relative entropy of entanglement bounds for private communication rates. For such channels, the bounds also apply to the private communication setting in which the sender and the receiver are assisted by unlimited public classical communication, and as such, they are relevant for establishing various converse bounds for quantum key distribution protocols conducted over these channels. We find precise characterizations for several channels of interest and apply the methods to establish converse bounds on the private transmission capabilities of all phase-insensitive bosonic channels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The wiretap channel model of Wyner is one of the first communication models with both reliability and security constraints. Capacity-achieving schemes for various models of the wiretap channel have received considerable attention in recent literature. In this paper, we show that capacity of the general (not necessarily degraded or symmetric) wiretap channel under a “strong secrecy constraint” can be achieved using a transmission scheme based on polar codes. We also extend our construction to the case of broadcast channels with confidential messages defined by Csiszár and Körner, achieving the entire capacity region of this communication model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treating interference as noise (TIN) as the most appropriate approach in dealing with interference and the conditions on its optimality has attracted the interest of researchers recently. However, our knowledge on necessary and sufficient conditions of TIN is restricted to a few setups with limited number of users. In this paper, we study the optimality of TIN in terms of the generalized degrees of freedom (GDoF) for a fundamental network, namely, the $M\times 2$ X-channel. To this end, the achievable GDoF of TIN with power allocations at the transmitters is studied. It turns out that the transmit power allocation maximizing the achievable GDOF is given by on–off signaling as long as the receivers use TIN. This leads to two variants of TIN, namely, P2P-TIN and 2-IC-TIN. While in the first variant the $M\times 2$ X-channel is reduced to a point-to-point (P2P) channel, in the second variant, the setup is reduced to a two-user interference channel in which the receivers use TIN. The optimality of these two variants is studied separately. To this end, novel genie-aided upper bounds on the capacity of the X-channel are established. The conditions on the optimality of P2P-TIN can be summarized as follows. P2P-TIN is GDoF-optimal if there exists a dominant multiple access channel or a dominant broadcast channel embedded in the X channel. Furthermore, the necessary and sufficient conditions on the GDoF-optimality of 2-IC-TIN are presented. Interestingly, it turns out that operating the $M\times 2$ X-channel in the 2-IC-TIN mode might be still GDOF optimal, although the conditions given by Geng et al. are violated. However, 2-IC-TIN is sub-optimal if there exists a single interferer which causes sufficiently strong interference at both receivers. The comparison of the results with the state of the art shows that the GDOF optimality of TIN is expanded significantldy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Multicast tree is a key structure for data dissemination from one source to multiple receivers in wireless networks. Minimum length multica modeled as the Steiner tree problem, and is proven to be NP-hard. In this paper, we explore how to efficiently generate minimum length multi wireless sensor networks (WSNs), where only limited knowledge of network topology is available at each node. We design and analyze a simple algorithm, which we call toward source tree (TST), to build multicast trees in WSNs. We show three metrics of TST algorithm, i.e., running and energy efficiency. We prove that its running time is O(\sqrt n\log n) , the best among all existing solutions to our best knowledge. We prove that TST tree length is in the same order as Steiner tree, which give a theoretical upper bound and use simulations to show the ratio be only 1.114 when nodes are uniformly distributed. We evaluate energy efficiency in terms of message complexity and the number of forwarding prove that they are both order-optimal. We give an efficient way to construct multicast tree in support of transmission of voluminous data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper introduces a novel technique that enables access by a cognitive secondary user (SU) to a spectrum occupied by an incumbent primary user (PU) that employs Type-I hybrid automatic retransmission request (ARQ). The technique allows the SU to perform selective retransmissions of SU data packets, whose transmission previously failed. The temporal redundancy introduced by the PU ARQ protocol and by the selective retransmission process of the SU can be exploited by the SU receiver to perform interference cancellation (IC) over multiple transmission slots, thus creating a “clean” channel for the decoding of the concurrent SU or PU packets. The chain decoding (CD) technique is initiated by a successful decoding operation of an SU or a PU packet and proceeds by an iterative application of IC as previously buffered packets become decodable and their interference can be removed, thus making it possible to recover the concurrent data packets, and so on, until no more packets are decodable. Based on this scheme, an optimal policy is designed that maximizes the SU throughput under a constraint on the average long-term PU performance. The optimality of the CD protocol is proved, which determines which packet the SU should send at any given time, based on four basic rules. Moreover, a decoupling principle is proved, which establishes the optimality of decoupling the secondary access strategy from the CD protocol. Specifically, first, the SU access policy, optimized via dynamic programming, specifies whether the SU should access the channel or remain idle, based on a compact state representation of the protocol, and second, the CD protocol embeds four basic rules that are used to select the packet transmitted by the SU. It is shown numerically that CD outperforms by up to 35% other schemes considered in the literature, which do not employ retransmissions at the SU pair and thus do not exploit the full potentiality of IC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For a (single-source) multicast network, the size of a base field is the most known and studied algebraic identity that is involved in characterizing its linear solvability over the base field. In this paper, we design a new class \mathcal N of multicast networks and obtain an explicit formula for the linear solvability of these networks, which involves the associated coset numbers of a multiplicative subgroup in a base field. The concise formula turns out to be the first that matches the topological structure of a multicast network and algebraic identities of a field other than size. It further facilitates us to unveil infinitely many new multicast networks linearly solvable over GF( q ) but not over GF( q' ) with q < q' , based on a subgroup order criterion. In particular: 1) for every k\geq 2 ) but not over GF( 2^{2k+1} ) and 2) for arbitrary distinct primes p and p' , there are infinitely many k and k' ) but not over GF( p'^k' ) with p^k < p'^k' . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we introduce the two-user asynchronous cognitive multiple access channel (ACMAC). This channel model includes two transmitters, an uninformed one and an informed one, which knows prior to the beginning of a transmission the message which the uninformed transmitter is about to send. We assume that the channel from the uninformed transmitter to the receiver suffers a fixed but unknown delay. We further introduce a modified model, referred to as the asynchronous codeword cognitive multiple access channel (ACC-MAC), which differs from the ACMAC in that the informed user knows the signal that is to be transmitted by the other user, rather than the message that it is about to transmit. We state inner and outer bounds on the ACMAC and the ACC-MAC capacity regions, and we specialize the results to the Gaussian case. Furthermore, we characterize the capacity regions of these channels in terms of multi-letter expressions. Finally, we provide an example that instantiates the difference between message side-information and codeword side-information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel “genie chains” approach to obtain information theoretic degrees of freedom (DoF) outer bounds for MIMO wireless interference networks. This new approach creates a chain of mappings from genie signals provided to a receiver to the exposed signal spaces at that receiver, and then the exposed signal spaces serve as the genie signals for the next receiver in the chain subject to certain linear independence requirements. Our approach essentially converts an information theoretic DoF outer bound problem into a linear algebra problem. Several applications of the genie chains approach are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective interference management in the multiuser interference channel necessitates that the users form their transmission and interference management decisions in coordination, and adapt them to the state of the channel. Establishing such coordination, often facilitated through information exchange, is prohibitive in fast-varying channels, especially when the network size grows. This paper focuses on the multiuser Gaussian interference channel and offers a receiver-centric approach to interference management. In this approach, the transmitters deploy rate-splitting and superposition coding to generate their messages according to independent Gaussian codebooks. The receivers can freely decode any arbitrary set of interfering messages along with their designated messages in any desired joint or ordered fashion, and treat the rest of the interferers as Gaussian noise. The proposed receiver-centric interference management approach is applied to two class of problems (outage optimization and fairness-constrained rate allocation), and constructive proofs are provided to establish the following properties for the proposed approach: 1) the optimal set of codebooks to be decoded by each receiver is a local decision made by each receiver based on its local channel state information (CSI); 2) the globally optimal transmission rates are related to locally optimal rates computed by the receivers based on their local information, which implies that the transmitters do not require explicit knowledge of the CSI and can determine their rates via limited feedback from the receivers; and 3) obtaining the optimal interference management strategy at each receiver has controlled complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conjecture made by Lapidoth et al. at Allerton 2005 (also an open problem presented at ITA 2006) states that the degrees of freedom (DoF) of a two user broadcast channel, where the transmitter is equipped with two antennas and each user is equipped with one antenna, must collapse under finite precision channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). That this conjecture, which predates interference alignment, has remained unresolved, is emblematic of a pervasive lack of understanding of the DoF of wireless networks—including interference and X networks—under channel uncertainty at the transmitter(s). In this paper, we prove that the conjecture is true in all non-degenerate settings (e.g., where the probability density function of unknown channel coefficients exists and is bounded). The DoF collapse even when perfect channel knowledge for one user is available to the transmitter. This also settles a related recent conjecture by Tandon et al. The key to our proof is a bound on the number of codewords that can cast the same image (within noise distortion) at the undesired receiver whose channel is subject to finite precision CSIT, while remaining resolvable at the desired receiver whose channel is precisely known by the transmitter. We are also able to generalize the result along two directions. First, if the peak of the probability density function is allowed to scale as O((\sqrt {P})^\alpha ) , representing the concentration of probability density (improving CSIT) due to, e.g., quantized feedback at rate ({\alpha }/{2})\log (P)$ , then the DoF is bounded above by $1+\alpha $ , which is also achievable under quantized feedback. Second, we generalize the result to arbitrary number of antennas at the transmitter, arbitrary number of single-antenna users, and complex channels. The generalization directly implies a collapse of DoF to unity under non-degenerate channel uncertainty for the general $K$ -user interference and $M\times N$ user $X$ networks as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The best known inner bound for the two-user discrete memoryless interference channel is the Han–Kobayashi rate region. The coding schemes that achieve this region are based on rate-splitting and superposition coding. In this paper, we develop a multicoding scheme to achieve the same rate region. A key advantage of the multicoding nature of the proposed coding scheme is that it can be naturally extended to more general settings, such as when encoders have state information or can overhear each other. In particular, we extend our coding scheme to characterize the capacity region of the state-dependent deterministic Z-interference channel when noncausal state information is available at the interfering transmitter. We specialize our results to the case of the linear deterministic model with ON/OFF interference, which models a wireless system where a cognitive transmitter is noncausally aware of the times it interferes with a primary transmission. For this special case, we provide an explicit expression for the capacity region and discuss some interesting properties of the optimal strategy. We also extend our multicoding scheme to find the capacity region of the deterministic Z-interference channel when the signal of the interfering transmitter can be overheard at the other transmitter (also known as unidirectional partial cribbing). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The compute-and-forward framework permits each receiver in a Gaussian network to directly decode a linear combination of the transmitted messages. The resulting linear combinations can then be employed as an end-to-end communication strategy for relaying, interference alignment, and other applications. Recent efforts have demonstrated the advantages of employing unequal powers at the transmitters and decoding more than one linear combination at each receiver. However, neither of these techniques fit naturally within the original formulation of compute-and-forward. This paper proposes an expanded compute-and-forward framework that incorporates both of these possibilities and permits an intuitive interpretation in terms of signal levels. Within this framework, recent achievability and optimality results are unified and generalized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In index coding, a server broadcasts multiple messages to their respective receivers, each with some side information that can be utilized to reduce the amount of communication from the server. Distributed index coding is an extension of index coding in which the messages are broadcast from multiple servers, each storing different subsets of the messages. In this paper, the optimal tradeoff among the message rates and the server broadcast rates, which is defined formally as the capacity region, is studied for a general distributed index coding problem. Inner and outer bounds on the capacity region are established that have matching sum-rates for all 218 non-isomorphic four-message problems with equal link capacities for all the links from servers to receivers. The proposed inner bound is built on a distributed composite coding scheme that outperforms the existing schemes by incorporating more flexible decoding configurations and enhanced fractional rate allocations into two-stage composite coding, a scheme that was originally introduced for centralized index coding. The proposed outer bound is built on the polymatroidal axioms of entropy, as well as functional dependences such as the fd-separation introduced by the multi-server nature of the problem. This outer bound utilizes general groupings of servers with different levels of granularity, which allows a natural tradeoff between computational complexity and tightness of the bound, and includes and improves upon all existing outer bounds for distributed index coding. Specific features of the proposed inner and outer bounds are demonstrated through concrete examples with four or five messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a bus with $n$ wires, each wire has two states, ‘0’ or ‘1’, representing one bit of information. Whenever the state transitions from ‘0’ to ‘1’, or ‘1’ to ‘0’, joule heating causes the temperature to rise, and high temperatures have adverse effects on on-chip bus performance. Recently, the class of low-power cooling (LPC) codes was proposed to control such state transitions during each transmission. As suggested in earlier work, LPC codes may be used to control simultaneously both the peak temperature and the average power consumption of on-chip buses. Specifically, an $(n,t,w)$ -LPC code is a coding scheme over $n$ wires that (i) avoids state transitions on the $t$ hottest wires (thus preventing the peak temperature from rising); and (ii) allows at most $w$ state transitions in each transmission (thus reducing average power consumption). In this paper, for any fixed value of $w$ , several constructions are presented for large LPC codes that can be encoded and decoded in time $O\left ({n \log ^{2} (n/w)}\right)$ along with the corresponding encoding/decoding schemes. In particular, we construct LPC codes of size $(n/w)^{w-1}$ , which are asymptotically optimal. We then modify these LPC codes to also correct errors in time $O(n^{3})$. For the case where $w$ is proportional to $n$ , we further present a different construction of large LPC codes, based on a mapping from cooling codes to LPC codes. Using this construction, we obtain two families of LPC codes whose encoding and decoding complexities are $O(n^{3})$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the potential of server waiting before packet transmission in improving the Age of Information (AoI) in status update systems. We consider a non-preemptive queue with Poisson arrivals and independent general service distribution and we incorporate waiting before serving in two packet management schemes: M/GI/1/1 and M/GI/1/2*. In M/GI/1/1 there is no data buffer and a packet is taken to server only when it is idle whereas in M/GI/1/2* there is a single unit buffer that captures the latest arriving status update packet. In both schemes, we introduce “server waiting”: In M/GI/1/1 scheme, the server waits for a deterministic time immediately after a packet enters the server. In M/GI/1/2* scheme, depending on queue state, the server waits for a deterministic time before starting service. In both cases, if a newer arrival is captured, existing packet is discarded with no reset of the waiting period. Different from most existing works, we analyze AoI evolution by indexing the incoming packets, which is enabled by an alternative method of partitioning the area under the evolution of instantaneous AoI to calculate its time average. We obtain expressions for average AoI and average peak AoI for both queueing disciplines with waiting. Our numerical results demonstrate that waiting before service can bring significant improvement in average age, particularly, for heavy-tailed service distributions. This improvement comes at the expense of an increase in average peak AoI. We highlight the trade-off between average and average peak AoI generated by waiting before serving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gabidulin codes are the first general construction of linear codes that are maximum rank distant (MRD). They have found applications in linear network coding, for example, when the transmitter and receiver are oblivious to the inner workings and topology of the network (the so-called incoherent regime). The reason is that Gabidulin codes can be used to map information to linear subspaces, which in the absence of errors cannot be altered by linear operations, and in the presence of errors can be corrected if the subspace is perturbed by a small rank. Furthermore, in distributed coding and distributed systems, one is led to the design of error correcting codes whose generator matrix must satisfy a given support constraint. In this paper, we give necessary and sufficient conditions on the support of the generator matrix that guarantees the existence of Gabidulin codes and general MRD codes. When the rate of the code is not very high, this is achieved with the same field size necessary for Gabidulin codes with no support constraint. When these conditions are not satisfied, we characterize the largest possible rank distance under the support constraints and show that they can be achieved by subcodes of Gabidulin codes. The necessary and sufficient conditions are identical to those that appear for MDS codes which were recently proven by Yildiz et al. and Lovett in the context of settling the GM-MDS conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on recent development by Padakandla and Pradhan, and by Lim, Feng, Pastore, Nazer, and Gastpar, this paper studies the potential of structured coset coding as a complete replacement for random coding in network information theory. The roles of two techniques used in coset coding to generate nonuniform codewords, namely, shaping and channel transformation, are clarified and illustrated via the simple example of the two-sender multiple access channel. While individually deficient, the optimal combination of shaping via nested coset codes of the same generator matrix (which we refer to as homologous codes) and channel transformation is shown to achieve the same performance as traditional random codes for the general two-sender multiple access channel. The achievability proof of the capacity region is extended to multiple access channels with more than two senders, and with one or more receivers. A quantization argument adapted to the proposed combination of two techniques is presented to establish the achievability proof for their Gaussian counterparts. It is illustrated by an example that combining shaping and channel transformation is useful even when the goal of transmission for a subset of the receivers is to recover a linear combination of messages. These results open up new possibilities of utilizing homologous codes for a broader class of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a scenario in which $K$ transmitters attempt to communicate covert messages reliably to a legitimate receiver over a discrete memoryless multiple-access channel (MAC) while simultaneously escaping detection from an adversary who observes their communication through another discrete memoryless MAC. We assume that each transmitter may use a secret key that is shared only between itself and the legitimate receiver. We show that each of the $K$ transmitters can transmit on the order of $\sqrt {n}$ reliable and covert bits per $n$ channel uses, exceeding which, the warden will be able to detect the communication. We identify the optimal pre-constants of the scaling, which leads to a complete characterization of the covert capacity region of the $K$ -user binary-input MAC. We show that, asymptotically, all sum-rate constraints are inactive unlike the traditional MAC capacity region. We also characterize the channel conditions that have to be satisfied for the transmitters to operate without a secret key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a $K$ -user Gaussian interference channel, it has been shown by Geng et al. that if for each user, the desired signal strength is no less than the sum of the strengths of the strongest interference from this user and the strongest interference to this user (all values in decibel scale), then power control and treating interference as noise (TIN) is optimal from the perspective of generalized degrees of freedom (GDoF) and achieves the entire channel capacity region to within a constant gap. In this paper, we generalize the optimality of TIN to compound networks. We show that for a $K$ -user compound Gaussian interference channel, if in every possible state for each receiver, the channel always satisfies the TIN-optimality condition identified by Geng et al., then the GDoF region of the compound channel is the intersection of the GDoF regions of all possible network realizations, which is achievable by power control and TIN. Furthermore, we demonstrate that for a general $K$ -user compound interference channel, regardless of the number of states of each receiver, we can always construct a counterpart $K$ -user regular interference channel that has the same TIN region as the original compound channel. The regular interference channel has only one state for each receiver, which may be different from all of the original states. Solving the GDoF-based power control problem for the compound channel is equivalent to solving the same problem in its regular counterpart. Exploring the power control problem further we develop a centralized power control scheme for $K$ -user compound interference channels, to achieve all the Pareto optimal GDoF tuples. Finally, based on this scheme, we devise an iterative power control algorithm which requires at most $K$ updates to obtain the globally optimal power allocation for any feasible GDoF tuple. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we show that the secrecy function conjecture that states that the maximum of the secrecy function of an l -modular lattice occurs at 1/\sqrt {l} is false, by proving that the four-modular lattice C^{(4)}= \mathbb {Z}\oplus \sqrt {2} \mathbb {Z}\oplus 2 \mathbb {Z} fails to satisfy this conjecture. After this, we indicate how the secrecy function must be modified in the l -modular case to provide a more meaningful comparison for l -modular lattices, and show that this new secrecy function indeed has a maximum at for various two-modular lattices and for C^(4) . We conjecture that this must hold true for all l -modular lattices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We define the common randomness-assisted capacity of an arbitrarily varying wiretap channel (AVWC) when the eavesdropper is kept ignorant about the common randomness. We prove a multi-letter capacity formula for this model. We prove that, if enough common randomness is used, the capacity formula can be given a single-shot form again. We then consider the opposite extremal case, where no common randomness is available, and derive the capacity. It is known that the capacity of the system can be discontinuous under these circumstances. We prove here that it is still stable in the sense that it is continuous around its positivity points. We further prove that discontinuities can only arise if the legal link is symmetrizable and characterize the points where it is positive. These results shed new light on the design principles of communication systems with embedded security features. At last, we investigate the effect of super-activation of the message transmission capacity of AVWCs under the average error criterion. We give a complete characterization of those AVWCs that may be super-activated. The effect is thereby also related to the (conjectured) super-activation of the common randomness assisted capacity of AVWCs with an eavesdropper that gets to know the common randomness. Super-activation is based on the idea of wasting a few bits of non-secret messages in order to enable provably secret transmission of a large bulk of data, a concept that may prove to be of further importance in the design of communication systems. In this paper, we provide further insight into this phenomenon by providing a class of codes that is capacity achieving and does not convey any information to the eavesdropper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Posterior matching (PM) is a sequential horizon-free feedback communication scheme introduced by the authors, who also provided a rather involved optimality proof, showing that it achieves capacity for a large class of memoryless channels. Naghshvar et al. considered a non-sequential variation of PM with a fixed number of messages and a random decision-time, and gave a simpler proof establishing its optimality via a novel extrinsic Jensen–Shannon divergence argument. Another simpler optimality proof was given by Li and El Gamal, who considered a fixed-rate fixed block-length variation of PM with an additional randomization. Both these works also provided error exponent bounds. However, their simpler achievability proofs apply only to discrete memoryless channels, and are restricted to a non-sequential setup with a fixed number of messages. In this paper, we provide a short and transparent proof for the optimality of the fully sequential randomized horizon-free PM scheme over general memoryless channels. Borrowing the key randomization idea of Li and El Gamal, our proof is based on analyzing the random walk behavior of the shrinking posterior intervals induced by a reversed iterated function system decoder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The squashed entanglement of a quantum channel is an additive function of quantum channels, which finds application as an upper bound on the rate at which secret key and entanglement can be generated when using a quantum channel a large number of times in addition to unlimited classical communication. This quantity has led to an upper bound of $\log ((1+\eta )/(1-\eta ))$ on the capacity of a pure-loss bosonic channel for such a task, where $\eta $ is the average fraction of photons that make it from the input to the output of the channel. The purpose of this paper is to extend these results beyond the single-sender single-receiver setting to the more general case of a single sender and multiple receivers (a quantum broadcast channel). We employ multipartite generalizations of the squashed entanglement to constrain the rates at which secret key and entanglement can be generated between any subset of the users of such a channel, along the way developing several new properties of these measures. We apply our results to the case of a pure-loss broadcast channel with one sender and two receivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the linear network coding problem for erasure broadcast channel with user feedback. An innovative linear network code is shown to be uniformly optimal for the system. In general, determining the existence of innovative packets is proved to be NP-complete. When the finite field size is larger than the number of users, innovative packets always exist and the problem of finding an innovative encoding vector with smallest Hamming weight is considered. The corresponding decision problem is shown to be NP-complete. Optimal and approximate network coding algorithms for maximizing the sparsity of encoding vectors are designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate problems of communication over physically degraded, state-dependent broadcast channels (BCs) with cooperating decoders. Two different setups are considered, and their capacity regions are characterized. First, we study a setting in which one decoder can use a finite capacity link to send the other decoder information regarding the messages or the channel states. In this scenario, we analyze two cases: one, where noncausal state information, is available to the encoder and the strong decoder, and the other, where state information, is available only to the encoder in a causal manner. Second, we examine a setting in which the cooperation between the decoders is limited to taking place before the outputs of the channel are given. In this case, one decoder, which is informed of the state sequence noncausally, can cooperate only to send the other decoder rate-limited information about the state sequence. The proofs of the capacity regions introduce a new idea of coding for channels with cooperation between different users, where we exploit the link between the decoders for multiple binnings. Finally, we discuss the optimality of using rate-splitting techniques when coding for cooperative BCs. In particular, we show that rate splitting is not necessarily optimal when coding for cooperative BCs by solving an example in which our method of coding outperforms rate splitting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical problem in a network coding theory considers communication over multicast networks. Multiple transmitters send independent messages to multiple receivers that decode the same set of messages. In this paper, computation over multicast networks is considered: each receiver decodes an identical function of the original messages. For a countably infinite class of two-transmitter two-receiver single-hop linear deterministic networks, the computation capacity is characterized for a linear function (modulo-2 sum) of Bernoulli sources. A new upper bound is derived that is tighter than cut-set-based and genie-aided bounds. A matching inner bound is established via the development of a network decomposition theorem, which identifies elementary parallel subnetworks that can constitute an original network without loss of optimality. The decomposition theorem provides a conceptually simple proof of achievability that generalizes to $L$ -transmitter $L$ -receiver networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the capacity region of the continuous-time Poisson broadcast channel is achieved via superposition coding for most channel parameter values. Interestingly, the channel in some subset of these parameter values does not belong to any of the existing classes of broadcast channels for which superposition coding is optimal (e.g., degraded, less noisy, and more capable). In particular, we introduce the notion of effectively less noisy broadcast channel and show that it implies less noisy but is not in general implied by more capable. For the rest of the channel parameter values, we show that there is a gap between Marton’s inner bound and the UV outer bound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]