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Linear codes with few weights have applications in consumer electronics, communications, data storage systems, secret sharing, authentication codes, and association schemes. As a special class of linear codes, minimal linear codes have important applications in secret sharing and secure computation of data between two parties. The construction of minimal linear codes with new and desirable parameters is an interesting research topic in coding theory and cryptography. Recently, Mesnager et.al. stated that “constructing linear codes with good parameters from non-weakly regular bent functions is an interesting problem.” The goal of this paper is to construct linear codes with two or three weights from non-weakly regular bent functions over finite fields and analyze the minimality of the constructed linear codes. In doing so, we draw inspiration from a paper by Mesnager in which she constructed linear codes with small weights from weakly regular bent functions based on a generic construction method. First, we recall the definitions of the subsets $B_{+}(f)$ and $B_{-}(f)$ associated with a non-weakly regular bent function $f$. Next, we construct two- or three-weight linear $p$ -ary codes on these sets using duals of the non-weakly regular bent functions that are also bent. We note that the constructed linear codes are minimal in almost all cases. Moreover, when $f$ is a non-weakly regular bent function in a certain subclass of Generalized Maiorana-McFarland bent functions, we determine the weight distributions of the corresponding linear codes. As far as we know, the construction of linear codes from non-weakly regular bent functions over finite fields is first studied in the literature by the second author in his dissertation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity are important cryptographic primitives in some stream ciphers. In this paper, two methodologies for constructing minimal binary codes from sets, Boolean functions and vectorial Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity, are proposed. More precisely, a general construction of new minimal codes using minimal codes contained in Reed-Muller codes and sets without nonzero low degree annihilators is presented. The other construction allows us to yield minimal codes from certain subcodes of Reed-Muller codes and vectorial Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity. Via these general constructions, infinite families of minimal binary linear codes of dimension $m$ and length less than or equal to $m(m+1)/2$ are obtained. Besides, a lower bound on the minimum distance of the proposed minimal linear codes is established. Conjectures and open problems are also presented. The results of this paper show that Boolean functions with high algebraic immunity have nice applications in several fields additionally to symmetric cryptography, such as coding theory and secret sharing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let m be an even positive integer. A Boolean bent function ƒ on F2m-1 × F2 is called a cyclic bent function if for any a ≠ b ∈ F2m-1 and ε ∈ F2, ƒ(ax1, x2)+ ƒ(bx1, x2 + ε) is always bent, where x1 ∈ F2m-1, x2 ∈ F2. Cyclic bent functions look extremely rare. This paper focuses on cyclic bent functions on F2m-1 × F2 and their applications. The first objective of this paper is to establish a link between quadratic cyclic bent functions and a special type of prequasifields, and construct a class of quadratic cyclic bent functions from the Kantor-Williams prequasifields. The second objective is to use cyclic bent functions to construct families of optimal sequences. The results of this paper show that cyclic bent functions have nice applications in several fields such as coding theory, symmetric cryptography, and CDMA communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ovoids in ${\mathrm {PG}}(3, {\mathrm {GF}}(q))$ have been an interesting topic in coding theory, combinatorics, and finite geometry for a long time. So far only two families of ovoids are known. The first is the elliptic quadrics and the second is the Tits ovoids. It is known that an ovoid in ${\mathrm {PG}}(3, {\mathrm {GF}}(q))$ corresponds to a $[q^{2}+1, 4, q^{2}-q]$ code over ${\mathrm {GF}}(q)$ , which is called an ovoid code. The objectives of this paper are to develop the general theories of subfield codes and to study the subfield codes of the two families of ovoid codes. The dimensions, minimum weights, and the weight distributions of the subfield codes of the elliptic quadric codes and Tits ovoid codes are settled. The parameters of the duals of these subfield codes are also studied. Some of the codes presented in this paper are optimal, and some are distance-optimal. The parameters of the subfield codes are new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the list decodability of symbol-pair codes in this paper. First, we show that the list decodability of every symbol-pair code does not exceed the Gilbert–Varshamov bound. On the other hand, we are able to prove that with high probability, a random symbol-pair code can be list decoded up to the Gilbert–Varshamov bound. Our second result of this paper is to derive the Johnson-type bound, i.e., a lower bound on list decoding radius in terms of minimum distance. Finally, we present a list decoding algorithm of Reed–Solomon codes beyond the Johnson-type bound in the pair metric. 1 A symbol-pair code is referred to a code in the pair metric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel beam alignment algorithm based on the sparse graph coding theory is proposed for millimeter wave (mmWave) time-varying channels. Firstly, a pilot design method is introduced to transform the mmWave time-varying beam alignment into a sparse-graph design and detection problem. Inspired by Low-Density-Parity-Check (LDPC) codes and fountain codes, a multi-stage sparse coding method is proposed for the design of the measurement matrix and the theoretical bound of the probability of success is derived to guide the design of the sparse-graph. A beam alignment algorithm is subsequently proposed to detect the beam index and estimate the carrier frequency offset (CFO). Then, the Carmeŕ-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) is derived. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed beam alignment algorithm achieves significant performance improvements over the conventional counterparts in both the noiseless and noise cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of a quasi-cyclic low density parity-check (QC-LDPC) matrix is usually carried out in two steps. In the first step, a prototype matrix is defined according to certain criteria (size, girth, check and variable node degrees, and so on). The second step involves the expansion of the prototype matrix. During this last phase, an integer value is assigned to each non-null position in the prototype matrix corresponding to the right-rotation of the identity matrix. The problem of determining these integer values is complex. The state-of-the-art solutions use either some mathematical constructions to guarantee a given girth of the final QC-LDPC code, or a random search of values until the target girth is satisfied. In this paper, we propose an alternative/complementary method that reduces the search space by defining large equivalence classes of topologically identical matrices through row and column permutations using additive, structural, and multiplicative transformations. Selecting only a single element per equivalence class can reduce the search space by a few orders of magnitude. Then, we use the formalism of constraint programming to list the exhaustive sets of solutions for a given girth and a given expansion factor. An example is presented in all sections of the paper to illustrate the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study two families of codes with availability, namely, private information retrieval (PIR) codes and batch codes. While the former requires that every information symbol has $k$ mutually disjoint recovering sets, the latter imposes this property for each multiset request of $k$ information symbols. The main problem under this paradigm is to minimize the number of redundancy symbols. We denote this value by $r_{P}(n,k)$ and $r_{B}(n,k)$ , for PIR codes and batch codes, respectively, where $n$ is the number of information symbols. Previous results showed that for any constant $k$ , $r_{P}(n,k) = \Theta (\sqrt {n})$ and $r_{B}(n,k)= {\mathcal{ O}}(\sqrt {n}\log (n))$. In this paper, we study the asymptotic behavior of these codes for non-constant $k$ and specifically for $k=\Theta (n^\epsilon)$. We also study the largest value of $k$ such that the rate of the codes approaches 1 and show that for all $\epsilon < 1$ , $r_{P}(n,n^\epsilon) = o(n)$ and $r_{B}(n,n^\epsilon) = o(n)$. Furthermore, several more results are proved for the case of fixed $k$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the simultaneous partial-inverse problem (SPI) for polynomials and develops its application to decoding interleaved Reed–Solomon codes beyond half the minimum distance. While closely related both to standard key equations and to well-known Padé approximation problems, the SPI problem stands out in several respects. First, the SPI problem has a unique solution (up to a scale factor), which satisfies a natural degree bound. Second, the SPI problem can be transformed (monomialized) into an equivalent SPI problem where all moduli are monomials. Third, the SPI problem can be solved by an efficient algorithm of the Berlekamp–Massey type. Fourth, decoding interleaved Reed–Solomon codes (or subfield-evaluation codes) beyond half the minimum distance can be analyzed in terms of a partial-inverse condition for the error pattern: if that condition is satisfied, then the (true) error locator polynomial is the unique solution of a standard key equation and can be computed in many different ways, including the well-known multi-sequence Berlekamp–Massey algorithm and the SPI algorithm of this paper. Two of the best performance bounds from the literature (the Schmidt–Sidorenko–Bossert bound and the Roth–Vontobel bound) are generalized to hold for the partial-inverse condition and thus to apply to several different decoding algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fields of information theory and network coding, a complete characterization of the almost entropic region is a fundamental but inherently difficult open problem. This paper focuses on the characterization of this region via explicit inner bounds, optimization of functions over this region, and network code construction. One approach to study the entropic region is to put a constraint on the alphabets for involved random variables, enabling us to focus on a specific set of joint distributions. We present the notion of alphabet constrained entropic set and describe its properties, namely, its a closed and path-connected set. Motivated by the properties, a random local search algorithm is designed to find an entropic vector and associated distribution near to a given target vector and extended to optimize functions of joint entropies. We present significantly improved inner bound compared to known inner bounds for the almost entropic region involving four random variables using a refinement of our algorithm. Finally, another application of the algorithm is shown to construct network codes and index codes for a given rate vector in the capacity region. This approach to constructing network codes is novel and has an entirely different flavor than classical coding theoretic construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that the maximum number of bent component functions of a vectorial function F:GF(2)^n\to GF(2)^n is 2^n-2^n/2 . We also show that it is very easy to construct such functions. However, it is a much more challenging task to find such functions in polynomial form F\in GF(2^n)[x] , where F has only a few terms. The only known power functions having such a large number of bent components are x^{d} , where d=2^{n/2}+1 . In this paper, we show that the binomials F^i(x)=x^2^i(x+x^2^n/2) also have such a large number of bent components, and these binomials are inequivalent to the monomials x^2^n/2+1 if 0

MDS codes and self-dual codes are important families of classical codes in coding theory. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate MDS self-dual codes. The existence of MDS self-dual codes over finite field ${\mathbb F}_{q}$ is competely solved for $q$ is even. In the literature, there are many known constructions of MDS self-dual codes for $q$ is odd. In this paper, we present a unified approach on the existence of MDS self-dual codes with concise statements and simplified proof. It is illustrated that some of known results can also be stated in this framework. Furthermore, we can obtain some new MDS self-dual codes, especially for the case when $q$ is not a square. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An involution over finite fields is a permutation polynomial whose inverse is itself. Owing to this property, involutions over finite fields have been widely used in applications, such as cryptography and coding theory. Following the idea by Wang to characterize the involutory behavior of the generalized cyclotomic mappings, this paper gives a more concise criterion for $x^{r}h(x^{s})\in {\mathbb F} _{q}[x]$ being involutions over the finite field ${\mathbb F}_{q}$ , where $r\geq 1$ and $s\,|\, (q-1)$. By using this criterion, we propose a general method to construct involutions of the form $x^{r}h(x^{s})$ over ${\mathbb F}_{q}$ from given involutions over some subgroups of ${\mathbb F}_{q}^{*}$ by solving congruent and linear equations over finite fields. Then, many classes of explicit involutions of the form $x^{r}h(x^{s})$ over ${\mathbb F}_{q}$ are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data shuffling between distributed cluster of nodes is one of the critical steps in implementing large-scale learning algorithms. Randomly shuffling the data-set among a cluster of workers allows different nodes to obtain fresh data assignments at each learning epoch. This process has been shown to provide improvements in the learning process (via testing and training error). However, the statistical benefits of distributed data shuffling come at the cost of extra communication overhead from the master node to worker nodes, and can act as one of the major bottlenecks in the overall time for computation. There has been significant recent interest in devising approaches to minimize this communication overhead. One approach is to provision for extra storage at the computing nodes. The other emerging approach is to leverage coded communication to minimize the overall communication overhead. The focus of this work is to understand the fundamental tradeoff between the amount of storage and the communication overhead for distributed data shuffling. In this paper, we first present an information theoretic formulation for the data shuffling problem, accounting for the underlying problem parameters (number of workers, $K$ , number of data points, $N$ , and available storage, and $S$ per node). We then present an information theoretic lower bound on the communication overhead for data shuffling as a function of these parameters. We next present a novel coded communication scheme and show that the resulting communication overhead of the proposed scheme is within a multiplicative factor of at most $\frac {K}{K-1}$ from the lower bound (which is upper bounded by 2 for $K\geq 2$). Furthermore, we present new results towards closing this gap through a novel coded communication scheme, which we call the aligned coded shuffling. This scheme is inspired by the ideas of coded shuffling and interference alignment. In particular, we show that the aligned scheme achieves the optimal storage vs communication trade-off for $K < 5$ , and further reduces the maximum multiplicative gap down to $\frac {K-\frac {1}{3}}{K-1}$ , for $K\geq 5$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An additive white Gaussian noise energy-harvesting channel with an infinite-sized battery is considered. The energy arrival process is modeled as a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables. The channel capacity $\frac {1}{2}\log (1+P)$ is achievable by the so-called best-effort and save-and-transmit schemes where $P$ denotes the battery recharge rate. This paper analyzes the save-and-transmit scheme whose transmit power is strictly less than $P$ and the best-effort scheme as a special case of save-and-transmit without a saving phase. In the finite blocklength regime, we obtain new non-asymptotic achievable rates for these schemes that approach the capacity with gaps vanishing at rates proportional to $1/\sqrt {n}$ and $({(\log n)/n})^{1/2}$ respectively where $n$ denotes the blocklength. The proof technique involves analyzing the escape probability of a Markov process. When $P$ is sufficiently large, we show that allowing the transmit power to back off from $P$ can improve the performance for save-and-transmit. The results are extended to a block energy arrival model where the length of each energy block $L$ grows sublinearly in $n$. We show that the save-and-transmit and best-effort schemes achieve coding rates that approach the capacity with gaps vanishing at rates proportional to $\sqrt {L/n}$ and $({\max \{\log n, L\}/n})^{1/2}$ , respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Etzion et al. introduced metrics on ${\mathbb{F}}_{2}^{n}$ based on directed graphs on $n$ vertices and developed some basic coding theory on directed graph metric spaces. In this paper, we consider the problem of classifying directed graphs, which admit the extended Hamming codes to be a perfect code. We first consider weighted poset metrics as a natural generalization of poset metrics and investigate interrelation between the weighted poset metrics and the directed graph-based metrics. In the next, we classify weighted posets on a set with eight elements and directed graphs on eight vertices, which admit the extended Hamming code $\tilde {\mathcal {H }}_{3}$ to be a two-perfect code. We also construct some families of such structures for any $k \geq 3$ , which can be viewed as generalizations of some results presented by Etzion et al. and Hyun and Kim. Those families enable us to construct packing or covering codes of radius 2 under certain maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the noncausal relay channel, also known as the relay channel with unlimited look ahead, introduced by by El Gamal, Hassanpour, and Mammen. Unlike the standard relay channel model, where the relay encodes its signal based on the previous received output symbols, the relay in the noncausal relay channel encodes its signal as a function of the entire received sequence. In the existing coding schemes, the relay uses this noncausal information solely to recover the transmitted message or part of it and then cooperates with the sender to communicate this message to the receiver. However, it is shown in this paper that by applying the Gelfand–Pinsker coding scheme, the relay can take further advantage of the noncausally available information and achieve rates strictly higher than those of the existing coding schemes. This paper also provides a new upper bound on the capacity of the noncausal relay channel that strictly improves upon the existing cutset bound. These new lower and upper bounds on the capacity coincide for the class of degraded noncausal relay channels and establish the capacity for this class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Index coding is a source coding problem in which a broadcaster seeks to meet the different demands of several users, each of whom is assumed to have some prior information on the data held by the sender. A well-known application is satellite communications, as described in one of the earliest papers on the subject (Birk and Kol, 1998). It is readily seen that if the sender has knowledge of its clients’ requests and their side-information sets, then the number of packet transmissions required to satisfy all users’ demands can be greatly reduced if the data are encoded before sending. The collection of side-information indices as well as the indices of the requested data is described as an instance \mathcal I of the index coding with side-information (ICSI) problem. The encoding function is called the index code of $ \mathcal I$ , and the number of transmissions, resulting from the encoding is referred to as its length. The main ICSI problem is to determine the optimal length of an index code and instance $ \mathcal I$ . As this number is hard to compute, bounds approximating it are sought, as are algorithms to compute efficient index codes. These questions have been addressed by several authors (e.g., see Alon et al. 2008, Bar-Yossef et al. 2011, Blasiak et al. 2013), often taking a graph-theoretic approach. Two interesting generalizations of the problem that have appeared in the literature are the subject of this paper. The first of these is the case of index coding with coded side information (Dai et al. 2014), in which linear combinations of the source data are both requested by and held as users’ side-information. This generalization has applications, for example, to relay channels and necessitates algebraic rather than combinatorial methods. The second is the introduction of error-correction in the problem, in which the broadcast channel is subject to noise (Dau et al. 2013). In this paper, we characterize the optimal length of a scalar or vector linear index code with coded side information (ICCSI) over a finite field in terms of a generalized min-rank and give bounds on this number based on constructions of random codes for an arbitrary instance. We furthermore consider the length of an optimal $\delta $ -error correcting code for an instance of the ICCSI problem and obtain bounds analogous to those described in (Dau et al. 2013), both for the Hamming metric and for rank-metric errors. We describe decoding algorithms for both categories of errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partial MDS (PMDS) codes are a class of erasure-correcting array codes that combine local correction of the rows with global correction of the array. An $\boldsymbol {m}\times \boldsymbol {n}$ array code is called an $(\boldsymbol {r};\boldsymbol {s})$ PMDS code if each row belongs to an ${[}\boldsymbol {n},\boldsymbol {n}-\boldsymbol {r}, \boldsymbol {r}+\textbf {1}{]}$ MDS code and the code can correct erasure patterns consisting of $\boldsymbol {r}$ erasures in each row together with $\boldsymbol {s}$ more erasures anywhere in the array. While a recent construction by Calis and Koyluoglu generates $(\boldsymbol {r};\boldsymbol {s})$ PMDS codes for all $\boldsymbol {r}$ and $\boldsymbol {s}$ , its field size is exponentially large. In this paper, a family of PMDS codes with field size ${\mathcal{ O}}\left ({\max \{\boldsymbol {m},\boldsymbol {n}^{\boldsymbol {r}+\boldsymbol {s}}\}^{\boldsymbol {s}} }\right)$ is presented for the case where $\boldsymbol {r}= {\mathcal{ O}}(1), \boldsymbol {s}= {\mathcal{ O}}(1)$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BCH codes are an interesting type of cyclic codes and have wide applications in communication and storage systems. Generally, it is very hard to determine the minimum distances of BCH codes. In this paper, we determine the weight distributions of two classes of primitive BCH codes $\mathcal C_{(q, m, \delta _{2})}$ and $\mathcal C_{(q, m, \delta _{3})}$ and their extended codes, which solve two problems proposed by Ding et al. It is shown that the extended codes $\overline {\mathcal C}_{(q, m, \delta _{2})}$ have four nonzero weights. We also employ the Hartmann-Tzeng bound to present the minimum distance of the dual code $\mathcal C_{(q, m, \delta _{2})}^\perp $ for $q \ge 5$. Inspired by the idea, we then determine the dimensions of a class of cyclic codes and give lower bounds on their minimum distances, which is greatly improved comparing with the BCH bound. Some optimal codes are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suppose $M$ records are replicated in $N$ servers (each storing all $M$ records), a user wants to privately retrieve one record by accessing the servers such that the identity of the retrieved record is secret against any up to $T$ servers. A scheme designed for this purpose is called a $T$ -private information retrieval (PIR) scheme. In practice, capacity-achieving and small sub-packetization are both desired for PIR schemes, because the former implies the highest download rate and the latter means simple realization. Meanwhile, sub-packetization is the key technique for achieving capacity. In this paper, we characterize the optimal sub-packetization for linear capacity-achieving $T$ -PIR schemes. First, a lower bound on the sub-packetization $L$ for linear capacity-achieving $T$ -PIR schemes is proved, i.e., $L\geq dn^{M-1}$ , where $d={\mathrm{ gcd}}(N,T)$ and $n=N/d$. Then, for general values of $M$ and $N>T\geq 1$ , a linear capacity-achieving $T$ -PIR scheme with sub-packetization $dn^{M-1}$ is designed. Comparing with the first capacity-achieving $T$ -PIR scheme given by Sun and Jafar in 2016, our scheme reduces the sub-packetization from $N^{M}$ to the optimal and further reduces the field size by a factor of $Nd^{M-2}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the design of unequal error protection (UEP) codebooks for sparse code multiple access (SCMA) systems. We propose a joint low-density parity check (LDPC) code and SCMA codebook design approach by incorporating cloud partitioning of codewords in the design of SCMA codebooks with different protection levels. The protection levels of the SCMA codebooks could be optimized based on the existing error correction code. Simulation results show that significant gains could be obtained using code-aware UEP SCMA codebooks, compared to codebooks designed independently of the channel code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, self-dual MDS codes have attracted a lot of attention due to theoretical interest and practical importance. Similar to self-dual MDS codes, self-dual near MDS (NMDS for short) codes have nice structures as well. From both theoretical and practical points of view, it is natural to study self-dual NMDS codes. Although there has been lots of work on NMDS codes in literature, little is known for self-dual NMDS codes. It seems more challenging to construct self-dual NMDS codes than self-dual MDS codes. The only work on construction of self-dual NMDS codes shows existence of $q$ -ary self-dual NMDS codes of length $q-1$ for odd prime power $q$ or length up to 16 for some small primes $q$ with $q\le 197$. In this paper, we make use of properties of elliptic curves to construct self-dual NMDS codes. It turns out that, as long as $2|q$ and $n$ is even with $4\le n\le q+\lfloor 2\sqrt {q}\rfloor -2$ , one can construct a self-dual NMDS code of length $n$ over $ {\mathbb {F}}_{q}$. Furthermore, for odd prime power $q$ , there exists a self-dual NMDS code of length $n$ over $ {\mathbb {F}}_{q}$ if $q\ge 4^{n+3}\times (n+3)^{2}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cages, defined as regular graphs with minimum number of nodes for a given girth, are well-studied in graph theory. Trapping sets are graphical structures responsible for error floor of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, and are well investigated in coding theory. In this paper, we make connections between cages and trapping sets. In particular, starting from a cage (or a modified cage), we construct a trapping set in multiple steps. Based on the connection between cages and trapping sets, we then use the available results in graph theory on cages and derive tight upper bounds on the size of the smallest trapping sets for variable-regular LDPC codes with a given variable degree and girth. The derived upper bounds in many cases meet the best known lower bounds and thus provide the actual size of the smallest trapping sets. Considering that non-zero codewords are a special case of trapping sets, we also derive tight upper bounds on the minimum weight of such codewords, i.e., the minimum distance, of variable-regular LDPC codes as a function of variable degree and girth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an efficient method to construct a good rate-compatible punctured polar (RCPP) code for incremental redundancy hybrid automatic repeat request schemes. One of the major challenges on the construction of a RCPP code is to optimize a common information set which is good for all the (punctured) polar codes in the family. Unfortunately, there is no efficient way to solve the above problem. In the proposed construction, a common information set is simply optimized for the highest-rate code in the family and then it is updated to yield an effective information set for each other code, by keeping the condition that information bits are unchanged during retransmissions. This is enabled by presenting a novelhierarchical(orreciprocal) puncturing andinformation-copytechnique. Specifically, some information bits are copied to frozen-bit channels whose locations are carefully determined according to rate-compatible puncturing patterns. This yields an information-dependent frozen vector in the encoding part. Also, in the decoding part, the effective information sets are obtained by properly combining the common information set and the information-dependent frozen vector. More importantly, the impact of unknown frozen bits are avoided due to the special structure of the proposed hierarchical (or reciprocal) puncturing. Simulation results verify that the proposed RCPP code can yield a significant performance gain (about 2 dB) over a benchmark RCPP code where both codes use the same rate-compatible puncturing patterns but the latter uses the conventional all-zero frozen vector. Therefore, the proposed method would be crucial to construct a good RCPP code efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that for any random variables $X$ and $Y$ , it is possible to represent $Y$ as a function of $(X,Z)$ such that $Z$ is independent of $X$ and $I(X;Z|Y)\le \log (I(X;Y)+1)+4$ bits. We use this strong functional representation lemma (SFRL) to establish a bound on the rate needed for one-shot exact channel simulation for general (discrete or continuous) random variables, strengthening the results by Harsha et al. and Braverman and Garg, and to establish new and simple achievability results for one-shot variable-length lossy source coding, multiple description coding, and Gray–Wyner system. We also show that the SFRL can be used to reduce the channel with state noncausally known at the encoder to a point-to-point channel, which provides a simple achievability proof of the Gelfand–Pinsker theorem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a node in a distributed storage system fails, it needs to be promptly repaired to maintain system integrity. While typical erasure codes can provide a significant storage advantage over replication, they suffer from poor repair efficiency. Locally repairable codes (LRCs) tackle this issue by reducing the number of nodes participating in the repair process (locality), at the cost of reduced minimum distance. In this paper, we study the tradeoff between locality and minimum distance of LRCs with local codes that have arbitrary distance requirements. Unlike existing methods, where both the locality and the local distance requirements imposed on every node are identical, we allow the requirements to vary arbitrarily from node to node. Such a property can be an advantage for distributed storage systems with non-homogeneous characteristics. We present Singleton-type distance upper bounds and also provide an optimal code construction with respect to these bounds. In addition, the feasible rate region is characterized by dimension upper bounds that do not depend on the distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main problem of constant-dimension subspace coding is to determine the maximal possible size ${\mathbf{A}}_{q}(n,d,k)$ of a set of $k$ -dimensional subspaces in ${\mathbf{F}}_{q}^{n}$ such that the subspace distance satisfies $d(U,V) \geq d$ for any two different subspaces $U$ and $V$ in this set. In this paper, we give a direct construction of constant-dimension subspace codes from two parallel versions of maximum rank-distance codes. The problem about the sizes of our constructed constant-dimension subspace codes is transformed into finding a suitable sufficient condition to restrict number of the roots of $L_{1}(L_{2}(x))-x$ where $L_{1}$ and $L_{2}$ are $q$ -polynomials over the extension field ${\mathbf{F}}_{q^{n}}$. New lower bounds for ${\mathbf{A}}_{q}(4k,2k,2k)$ , ${\mathbf{A}}_{q}(4k+2,2k,2k+1)$ , and ${\mathbf{A}}_{q}(4k+2,2(k-1),2k+1)$ are presented. Many new constant-dimension subspace codes better than previously best known codes with small parameters are constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Codes that can correct up to $t$ symmetric errors and detect all unidirectional errors, known as $t$ -EC-AUED codes, are studied in this paper. Given positive integers $q$ , $a$ , and $t$ , let $n_{q}(a,t+1)$ denote the length of the shortest $q$ -ary $t$ -EC-AUED code of size $a$. We introduce combinatorial constructions for $q$ -ary $t$ -EC-AUED codes via one-factorizations of complete graphs, and concatenation of MDS codes and codes from resolvable set systems. Consequently, we determine the exact values of $n_{q}(a,t+1)$ for several new infinite families of $q,a$ , and $t$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Index coding studies multiterminal source-coding problems where a set of receivers are required to decode multiple (possibly different) messages from a common broadcast, and they each know some messages a priori. In this paper, at the receiver end, we consider a special setting where each receiver knows only one message a priori, and each message is known to only one receiver. At the broadcasting end, we consider a generalized setting where there could be multiple senders, and each sender knows a subset of the messages. The senders collaborate to transmit an index code. This paper looks at minimizing the number of total coded bits the senders are required to transmit. When there is only one sender, we propose a pruning algorithm to find a lower bound on the optimal (i.e., the shortest) index codelength, and show that it is achievable by linear index codes. When there are two or more senders, we propose an appending technique to be used in conjunction with the pruning technique to give a lower bound on the optimal index codelength; we also derive an upper bound based on cyclic codes. While the two bounds do not match in general, for the special case where no two distinct senders know any message in common, the bounds match, giving the optimal index codelength. The results are expressed in terms of strongly connected components in directed graphs that represent the index-coding problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the wireline two-unicast-Z communication network over directed acyclic graphs. The two-unicast- $Z$ network is a two-unicast network where the destination intending to decode the second message has a priori side information of the first message. We make three contributions in this paper. First, we describe a new linear network coding algorithm for two-unicast-Z networks over the directed acyclic graphs. Our approach includes the idea of interference alignment as one of its key ingredients. For the graphs of a bounded degree, our algorithm has linear complexity in terms of the number of vertices, and the polynomial complexity in terms of the number of edges. Second, we prove that our algorithm achieves the rate pair (1, 1) whenever it is feasible in the network. Our proof serves as an alternative, albeit restricted to two-unicast-Z networks over the directed acyclic graphs, to an earlier result of Wang et al., which studied the necessary and sufficient conditions for the feasibility of the rate pair (1, 1) in two-unicast networks. Third, we provide a new proof of the classical max-flow min-cut theorem for the directed acyclic graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a base station that delivers packets to multiple receivers through a sequence of coded transmissions. All receivers overhear the same transmissions. Each receiver may already have some of the packets as side information, and requests another subset of the packets. This problem is known as the index coding problem and can be represented by a bipartite digraph. An integer linear program is developed that provides a lower bound on the minimum number of transmissions required for any coding algorithm. Conversely, its linear programming relaxation is shown to provide an upper bound that is achievable by a simple form of vector linear coding. Thus, the information theoretic optimum is bounded by the integrality gap between the integer program and its linear relaxation. In the special case, when the digraph has a planar structure, the integrality gap is shown to be zero, so that exact optimality is achieved. Finally, for nonplanar problems, an enhanced integer program is constructed that provides a smaller integrality gap. The dual of this problem corresponds to a more sophisticated partial clique coding strategy that time-shares between maximum distance separable codes. This paper illuminates the relationship between index coding, duality, and integrality gaps between integer programs and their linear relaxations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we use entropy functions to characterize the set of rate-capacity tuples achievable with either zero decoding error, or vanishing decoding error, for general network coding problems for acyclic networks. We show that when sources are colocated, the outer bound is tight and the sets of zero-error achievable and vanishing-error achievable rate-capacity tuples are the same. Then, we extend this paper to networks subject to linear encoding constraints, routing constraints (where some or all nodes can only perform routing), and secrecy constraints. Finally, we show that even for apparently simple networks, design of optimal codes may be difficult. In particular, we prove that for the incremental multicast problem and for the single-source secure network coding problem, characterization of the achievable set can be very hard and linear network codes may not be optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For non-binary codes the Elias bound is a good upper bound for the asymptotic information rate at low-relative minimum distance, whereas the Plotkin bound is better at high-relative minimum distance. In this paper, we obtain a hybrid of these bounds, which improves both. This in turn is based on the anticode bound, which is a hybrid of the Hamming and Singleton bounds and improves both bounds. The question of convexity of the asymptotic rate function is an important open question. We conjecture a much weaker form of the convexity, and we show that our bounds follow immediately if we assume the conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the cycle distribution of random low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, randomly constructed protograph-based LDPC codes, and random quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. We prove that for a random bipartite graph, with a given (irregular) degree distribution, the distributions of cycles of different length tend to independent Poisson distributions, as the size of the graph tends to infinity. We derive asymptotic upper and lower bounds on the expected values of the Poisson distributions that are independent of the size of the graph, and only depend on the degree distribution and the cycle length. For a random lift of a bi-regular protograph, we prove that the asymptotic cycle distributions are essentially the same as those of random bipartite graphs as long as the degree distributions are identical. For random QC-LDPC codes, however, we show that the cycle distribution can be quite different from the other two categories. In particular, depending on the protograph and the value of $c$ , the expected number of cycles of length $c$ , in this case, can be either $\Theta (N)$ or $\Theta (1)$ , where $N$ is the lifting degree (code length). We also provide numerical results that match our theoretical derivations. Our results provide a theoretical foundation for emperical results that were reported in the literature but were not well-justified. They can also be used for the analysis and design of LDPC codes and associated algorithms that are based on cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Johnson-type upper bound on the maximum size of a code of length n , distance d=2w-1 , and constant composition \overline w is \lfloor \dfrac \vphantom R^.nw1\rfloor , where w is the total weight and w_{1} is the largest component of {\overline {w}} . Recently, Chee et al. proved that this upper bound can be achieved for all constant-composition codes of sufficiently large lengths. Let Nccc({\overline {w}}) be the smallest such length. The determination of Nccc({\overline {w}}) is trivial for binary codes. This paper provides a lower bound on Nccc({\overline {w}}) , which is shown to be tight for all ternary and quaternary codes by giving new combinatorial constructions. Consequently, by the refining method, we determine the values of Nccc({\overline {w}}) , for all $q$ -ary constant-composition codes, provided that 3w_{1}\geq w with finite possible exceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binary sequences with low odd correlation have important applications in communication systems to reduce interference. In this paper, using the interleaving technique, we present a generic connection between binary sequences with low odd correlation and quaternary sequences with low even correlation. As a result, some new binary sequences with optimal odd auto-correlation magnitude are obtained. Besides, two sets consisting of 2^n+1 binary sequences of period 2(2^n-1) with the maximum odd correlation magnitude 2^((n+1)/ 2)+2 are derived, which are the first two optimal classes of binary sequence sets achieving the Sarwate bound on the odd correlation magnitude in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An index coding problem arises when there is a single source with a number of messages and multiple receivers each wanting a subset of messages knowing a different set of messages a priori. The noiseless index coding problem is to identify the minimum number of transmissions (optimal length) to be made by the source through a noiseless channel so that all receivers can decode their wanted messages using the transmitted symbols and their respective prior information. Recently (A. Thomas, R. Kavitha, A. Chandramouli, and B. Sundar Rajan, “Optimal index coding with min-max probability of error over fading channels,” in Proc. IEEE 26th Annu. Int. Symp. Pers. Indoor Mobile Radio Commun., Hong Kong, 2015, pp. 889–894), it is shown that different optimal length codes perform differently in a noisy channel for single-uniprior index coding problems. Towards identifying the best optimal length index code, one needs to know the number of optimal length index codes. In this paper, we consider unicast index coding problems and present results on the number of optimal length index codes making use of the representation of an index coding problem by an equivalent network code. Our formulation results in matrices of smaller sizes compared to the approach of Koetter and Medard (R. Koetter and M. Medard, “An algebraic approach to network coding,” IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw., vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 782–795, Oct. 2003.). Our formulation leads to a lower bound on the minimum number of optimal length codes possible for all unicast index coding problems (L. Ong and C. K. Ho, “Optimal index codes for a class of multicast networks with receiver side information,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Commun., 2012, pp. 2213–2218), which is met with equality for several special cases of the unicast index coding problem. Furthermore, for noisy broadcast channels, a method to identify the best among the optimal length codes for unicast index coding problems in terms of minimum–maximum error probability is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, new index coding problems are studied, where each receiver has erroneous side information. Although side information is a crucial part of index coding, the existence of erroneous side information has not been considered yet. We study an index code with receivers that have erroneous side information symbols in the error-free broadcast channel, which is called an index code with side information errors (ICSIE). The encoding and decoding procedures of the ICSIE are proposed, based on the syndrome decoding. Then, we derive the bounds on the optimal codelength of the proposed index code with erroneous side information. Furthermore, we introduce a special graph for the proposed index coding problem, called a \delta s -cycle whose properties are similar to those of the cycle in the conventional index coding problem. Properties of the ICSIE are also discussed in the \delta s -cycle and clique. Finally, the proposed ICSIE is generalized to an index code for the scenario having both additive channel errors and side information errors, called a generalized error correcting index code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define a variable-length code having the property that no (non-empty) prefix of each its codeword is a suffix of any other one, and vice versa. This kind of code can be seen as an extension of two well-known codes in the literature, called, respectively, fix-free code and non-overlapping code. In this paper we present constructive algorithms for such codes and some numerical results about their cardinality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Codes over Galois rings have been studied extensively during the last three decades. Negacyclic codes over \mathop \mathrm GR\nolimits (2^a,m) of length 2^s have been characterized: the ring \mathcal R2(a,m,-1)= {\mathrm{ GR}}(2^{a},m)[x]/\langle x^{2^{s}}+1\rangle is a chain ring. Furthermore, these results have been generalized to \lambda -constacyclic codes for any unit \lambda of the form 4z-1 , . In this paper, we study more general cases and investigate all cases, where {\mathcal{ R}}_{p}(a,m,\gamma) = {\mathrm{ GR}}(p^{a},m)[x]/\langle x^{p^{s}}-\gamma \rangle is a chain ring. In particular, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the ring {\mathcal{ R}}_{p}(a,m,\gamma) to be a chain ring are obtained. In addition, by using this structure we investigate all \gamma -constacyclic codes over \mathop {\mathrm {GR}}\nolimits (p^{a},m) when {\mathcal{ R}}_{p}(a,m,\gamma)$ is a chain ring. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of self-orthogonal and self-dual \gamma$ -constacyclic codes are also provided. Among others, for any prime p$ , the structure of is used to establish the Hamming and homogeneous distances of $\gamma$ -constacyclic codes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Write-once memory (WOM) is a storage device consisting of $q$ -ary cells that can only increase their value. A WOM code is a coding scheme that allows writing multiple times to the memory without decreasing the levels of the cells. In the conventional model, it is assumed that the encoder can read the memory state before encoding, while the decoder reads only the memory state after encoding. However, there are three more models in this setup, which depend on whether the encoder and the decoder are informed or uninformed with the previous state of the memory. These four models were first introduced by Wolf et al., where they extensively studied the WOM capacity in these models for the binary case. In the non-binary setup, only the model, in which the encoder is informed and the decoder is not, was studied by Fu and Vinck. In this paper, we first present constructions of WOM codes in the models where the encoder is uninformed with the memory state (that is, the encoder cannot read the memory prior to encoding). We then study the capacity regions and maximum sum-rates of non-binary WOM codes for all four models. We extend the results by Wolf et al. and show that the capacity regions for the models in which the encoder is informed and the decoder is informed or uninformed in both the $\epsilon $ -error and the zero-error cases are all identical. We also find the $\epsilon $ -error capacity region; in this case, the encoder is uninformed and the decoder is informed and show that, in contrary to the binary case, it is a proper subset of the capacity region in the first two models. Several more results on the maximum sum-rate are presented as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present new parallel polynomial multiplication formulas which result in subquadratic space complexity. The schemes are based on a recently proposed block recombination of polynomial multiplication formula. The proposed two-way, three-way, and four-way split polynomial multiplication formulas achieve the smallest space complexities. Moreover, by providing area-time tradeoff method, the proposed formulas enable one to choose a parallel formula for polynomial multiplication which is suited for a design environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An index coding scheme in which the source (transmitter) transmits symbols over a wireless fading channel is considered. Index codes with the transmitter using minimum number of transmissions are known as optimal index codes. Different optimal index codes give different performances in terms of probability of error in a fading environment, and this also varies from receiver to receiver. In this paper, we deal with optimal index codes, which minimizes the maximum probability of error among all the receivers. We identify a criterion for optimal index codes that minimizes the maximum probability of error among all the receivers. For a special class of index coding problems, we give an algorithm to identify optimal index codes which minimize the maximum error probability. We illustrate our techniques and claims with simulation results leading to conclude that a careful choice among the optimal index codes will give a considerable gain in fading channels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Caching is often used in content delivery networks as a mechanism for reducing network traffic. Recently, the technique of coded caching was introduced whereby coding in the caches and coded transmission signals from the central server were considered. Prior results in this area demonstrate that carefully designing the placement of content in the caches and designing appropriate coded delivery signals from the server allow for a system where the delivery rates can be significantly smaller than conventional schemes. However, matching upper and lower bounds on the transmission rate have not yet been obtained. In this paper, we derive tighter lower bounds on the coded caching rate than were known previously. We demonstrate that this problem can equivalently be posed as a combinatorial problem of optimally labeling the leaves of a directed tree. Our proposed labeling algorithm allows for significantly improved lower bounds on the coded caching rate. Furthermore, we study certain structural properties of our algorithm that allow us to analytically quantify improvements on the rate lower bound for general values of the problem parameters. This allows us to obtain a multiplicative gap of at most four between the achievable rate and our lower bound. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We consider the canonical shared link caching network formed by a source node, hosting a library of $m$ information messages (files), connected via a noiseless multicast link to $n$ user nodes, each equipped with a cache of size $M$ files. Users request files independently at random according to an a-priori known demand distribution q. A coding scheme for this network consists of two phases: cache placement and delivery. The cache placement is a mapping of the library files onto the user caches that can be optimized as a function of the demand statistics, but is agnostic of the actual demand realization. After the user demands are revealed, during the delivery phase the source sends a codeword (function of the library files, cache placement, and demands) to the users, such that each user retrieves its requested file with arbitrarily high probability. The goal is to minimize the average transmission length of the delivery phase, referred to as rate (expressed in channel symbols per file). In the case of deterministic demands, the optimal min-max rate has been characterized within a constant multiplicative factor, independent of the network parameters. The case of random demands was previously addressed by applying the order-optimal min-max scheme separately within groups of files requested with similar probability. However, no complete characterization of order-optimality was previously provided for random demands under the average rate performance criterion. In this paper, we consider the random demand setting and, for the special yet relevant case of a Zipf demand distribution, we provide a comprehensive characterization of the order-optimal rate for all regimes of the system parameters, as well as an explicit placement and delivery scheme achieving order-optimal rates. We present also numerical results that confirm the superiority of our scheme with respect to previously proposed schemes for the same setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiply constant-weight codes (MCWCs) have been recently studied to improve the reliability of certain physically unclonable function response. In this paper, we give combinatorial constructions for the MCWCs, which yield several new infinite families of optimal MCWCs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the Johnson-type upper bounds of the MCWCs are asymptotically tight for fixed Hamming weights and distances. Finally, we provide bounds and constructions of the 2-D MCWCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For any bent function, it is very interesting to determine its dual function, because the dual function is also bent in certain cases. For k odd and \gcd (n, k)=1 , it is known that the Coulter–Matthews bent function f(x)=Tr\left(ax^\frac 3^k+12\right) is weakly regular bent over \mathbb F3^{n} , where a\in \mathbb F3^{n}^{*} , and Tr(\cdot ):\mathbb F3^{n}\rightarrow \mathbb F3 is the trace function. In this paper, we investigate the dual function of $f(x)$ , aiming to determine a universal formula. In particular, for two cases, we determine the formula explicitly: for the case of n=3t+1$ and k=2t+1$ with t\geq 2n=3t+2$ and k=2t+1$ with t\geq 2f(x)$ is regular bent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we solve the open problems raised in [8] and present some examples to illustrate the obtained results. Moreover, we work out the diophantine problem by Shi and Wang and then give the sufficient conditions for the nonexistence of two-Lee weight projective codes over \mathbb Z4 with type 4^k12^{k2} . [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]