Questions tagged [it.information-theory]
Questions in Information Theory
180
questions
2
votes
0answers
38 views
Approximate (in hamming distance) subset representation
Let us have a set $S$ and a subset $T \subseteq S$. I want to find an approximate representation of $T$, i.e. I want to represent (exactly) a set $T'$ that is close to $T$. That is, I want the ...
7
votes
0answers
151 views
"Looking for help understanding a proof by Gossner (1998)."
Although there is no use of cryptographic protocols in Gossner (1998), the author refers to protocols of communication and he has a main result that I struggle to prove, because he does not use a ...
1
vote
0answers
104 views
Does any physical process constitute a "computation"? [closed]
I am trying to sharpen the convex hull of what seems like a (surprisingly) stubborn concept to enclose based on answers here, as well as conversations with others, around the nature of what actually ...
4
votes
1answer
186 views
Upper bound on the expected number of correct bits via a "lossy compression"
Consider the following "compression problem" for a pair $(C,D)$ of algorithms: $C$ receives a uniformly random $x \in \{0,1\}^n$ and outputs a smaller bit string $y \in \{0,1\}^s$. Algorithm ...
2
votes
2answers
126 views
Information and Coding Theory Texts
I am coming from a pure mathematics (in analysis) background and am curious to learn some information and coding theory. I am after some recommendations on texts. Due to my personal background I am ...
4
votes
1answer
198 views
Does this notion of entropy have a name?
Recently I stumbled upon the following notion of entropy which seems quite natural to me. I am looking for its "real" name and/or any references where it might come up. I tried searching ...
1
vote
0answers
50 views
sophistication or logical depth to detect intelligent extra-terrestrial species
From my understanding, Algorithmic information theory (AIT) gives some ways to define the amount of « structure » in a string: for example sophistication or logical depth (see for instance [1]), can ...
1
vote
0answers
109 views
Deterministic one way communication complexity for message with arbitrary length
Let Alice have a binary string of length $n$ that it wants to send to Bob along a one-bit communication channel. However, Bob does not know the length of the message.
I have been looking into ...
0
votes
0answers
162 views
Error in entropy properties in Mathematical Theory of Cryptography by Claude E. Shannon
I am reading this classic paper by Claude E. Shannon and I think there may be a couple of errors in his description of the properties of Entropy/Uncertainty. The screenshot shown at the bottom of this ...
1
vote
0answers
97 views
On the equivalence of incompressibility and incompleteness in machine learning
Motivation:
Motivated by the question of what problems are suitably addressed using methods in machine learning, I decided to formulate this general problem using Algorithmic Information Theory. My ...
10
votes
1answer
382 views
Is subtractive dithering the optimal algorithm for sending a real number using one bit?
Consider the problem of sending a real number $x\in[0,1]$ using a single bit $X\in\{0,1\}$ in an unbiased manner.
We assume that the sender and receiver have access to shared randomness $h\sim U[-1/2,...
0
votes
1answer
102 views
Why isn’t information-probability relationship linear? [closed]
I am completely new to information theory.
I was learning about information content but couldn’t make sense of why the relationship between information content and probability isn’t linear? And why it ...
3
votes
1answer
142 views
Converting a Bernoulli to a Gaussian
It is not hard to see that, given one sample from a univariate unit-variance Gaussian $X\sim \mathcal{N}(\mu,1)$ with unknown $\mu$ s.t. $0<|\mu|\leq 1$, one can simulate one draw from a
"...
0
votes
0answers
11 views
Capacity of spike-based neuronal code
Assume that a neuronal population $A$ is connected to a neuronal population $B$ by a bunch of synapses - one-directional channels that propagate spikes. For simplicity assume that the current ...
3
votes
1answer
165 views
Generating $k$ random bits from a pdf with entropy $H(p) = k$
All the sources online say that, intuitively, a distribution with entropy $k$ has $k$ bits of pure randomness in it.
So can we formalize this as follows? Suppose I can only sample from my distribution,...
2
votes
0answers
67 views
Damerau–Levenshtein distance with transposition of non-adjacent characters?
Wondering if it's possible to calculate Damerau–Levenshtein distance with transposition of non-adjacent characters (DL distance allows transposition of immediately adjacent characters only). I want ...
1
vote
0answers
71 views
Difference between a lossy encoder and a noisy channel in Information Theory
$S \to X \to Y \to \hat{S}$
$\text{source} \to \text{input} \to \text{output} \to \text{target}$
In information theory introductory books, an encoder is usually defined as a deterministic function $f:\...
1
vote
1answer
180 views
Explicit Bits-back Coding (a.k.a. Free Energy Coding) applied to Gaussian mixtures
I've been trying to understand Bits-back coding (Frey, B. J., and G. E. Hinton. 1997.) a bit more (pun intended), which can be used to encode data with latent variable models. This tutorial by Pieter ...
1
vote
1answer
107 views
Data processing inequality for interaction information
The interaction information is defined as $I(X;Y)-I(X;Y|Z)$. Let $Z-(X, Y) -(X', Y')$ be a Markov chain. Is there an inequality similar to the data processing inequality, relating $I(X';Y')-I(X';Y'|Z)...
2
votes
1answer
118 views
Why Asymptotic Equipartition Property theorem proofs assume the source is memoryless?
I do not understand the assumption $X_1, X_2, \cdots$ are i.i.d. ~p(x) in the AEP proofs I have seen. I have read some different sources for understanding the Asymptotic Equipartition Property. Using ...
5
votes
1answer
178 views
Kolmogorov Complexity of a Decidable Language
The Kolmogorov Complexity (KC) of a string $y$ is the size of the smallest program $f$ and input $x$ that: $y = f(x)$. Let's define a variation of Kolmogorov's complexity$^1$. Suppose a decidable ...
-1
votes
1answer
55 views
Notation in proof for Asymptotic Equipartition Property
In the following lecture notes chapter 3, page 12-13, they state the following
We begin by introducting some important notation:
- For a set $\mathcal{S},|\mathcal{S}|$ denotes its cardinality (...
0
votes
1answer
125 views
Volume of elements mapped to the same codeword is $2^{H(X|\hat{X})}$
In this paper by Tishby, Pereira and Bialek they mention on page 4 in the Relevant quantization chapter the setting is the following; Given some signal space $X \sim p(x)$ and a quantized codebook $\...
0
votes
1answer
103 views
Notation of sequences in rate distortion theory
I have been reading whatever sources I could get my hands on today, regarding this problem.
Most notes online about rate distortion theory come from the book Elements of Information Theory by Thomas ...
7
votes
1answer
205 views
Expected vs worst-case communication complexity
In the set disjointness problem of 2-party communication complexity, Alice and Bob are both given an $n$-bit string as input; denoted by $X$ for Alice's input, and $Y$ for Bob's input. They need to ...
4
votes
0answers
84 views
Strong data-processing inequality: bound $TV(T_{\#}P_0,T_{\#}P_1)$ if $\|T(x)-x\|_\infty \le \varepsilon;\forall x \in \mathbb R^p$
Disclaimer. I've moved this question from MO hoping that here is the right venue. Also, this is my first post on this channel, so please have some patience.
So, Iet $X = (X,d)$ be a Polish space, ...
2
votes
0answers
104 views
Representing data with Shannon entropy predicted bits
Let us assume a file based on a character set where each character has equal probability of occurance. This will result in the maximum entropy for that character set. On calculating the entropy, let ...
4
votes
1answer
404 views
Maximization of Mutual Information
Let $X\in\{0,1\}^d$ be a Boolean vector and $Y, Z\in\{0,1\}$ are Boolean variables. Assume that there is a joint distribution $\mathcal{D}$ over $Y, Z$ and we'd like to find a joint distribution $\...
1
vote
0answers
216 views
Minimum number of hours of speech needed to train a neural net to recognize speech [closed]
From a theoretical computer science point of view, is there a lower limit on the number of hours of speech needed to train a neural net to translate speech to text? An estimate from CMU is 3000-5000 ...
1
vote
1answer
674 views
Chain rule for KL divergence
Is there an inequality to relate the KL divergence of two joint distribution and the sum of the KL divergence of their marginals? Or in particular, is there a proof or a counter example for the ...
2
votes
1answer
153 views
Why not include private randomness in internal communication information definition?
I am using https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~toni/Courses/CommComplexity2014/Lectures/lecture12.pdf as a reference.
This isn't exactly a research question but I can't find a good place to ask it.
Suppose ...
4
votes
0answers
106 views
Expected vs actual amount of information leaked by an $l$-bits message
Say we have a random variable $X$ that contains $k$ bits of information, and a message $M = f(X)$ ($M$ is deterministic given $X$) that is $l$ bits long, where $l<k$. This implies $H(X) = k$ and $...
1
vote
1answer
157 views
Uniqueness of the distribution maximizing the channel capacity
Setting: We look at a discrete memoryless channel which takes an input probability distribution acting over symbols in $\mathcal{X}$ to an output probability distribution over symbols in $\mathcal{Y}$....
6
votes
1answer
331 views
Is a binary sequence computable iff the Kolmogorov complexity of its initial segments is bounded?
Disclaimer: I am mostly unfamiliar with theoretical computer science, making it hard for me to navigate literature in the field. I ask the following out of curiosity.
Background/Motivation: Coming ...
5
votes
1answer
186 views
Minimal information needed for determine some function
From calculus, we know that if someone has a continuous function $f$, it is enough to know $f$'s values on the rationals in order to know $f$ on the entire line. In some sense, a "countable amount of ...
11
votes
1answer
348 views
Is algorithmic information theory still evolving?
I am currently looking for a subject for a thesis and encountered the field of algorithmic information theory.
The field seems very interesting for me, but it seems everything is the field was done ...
3
votes
2answers
260 views
How can AIC converge in the limit when even 2 parameter models can have infinite VC dimension?
AIC-based model-selection converges to zero error in the limit, and also has finite-sample convergence that is rate-optimal with respect to worst case minimax error [1]. (Note that AIC refers to ...
1
vote
0answers
65 views
Is there a theoretical guarantee that an autoencoder $g$ has $I(x;g(x)) \approx H(x)$?
I know that in general, a function $g$ can be a good auto-encoder (i.e., $g(x) \approx x$ for $x \sim D$) and on the same time $I(g(x);x)$ is small. This is the case when $g$ forms a good correlation ...
-1
votes
1answer
192 views
Reducing disjoint or indexing or inner-product problem to s-t connectivity problem in directed graph
I am asked to prove that an O(1)-pass randomized streaming algorithm that solves s-t connectivity problem in a simple directed graph $G=(V,E)$ with $|V|=n$ vertices, with sucess possibility $>\frac{...
6
votes
1answer
262 views
Algorithmic mutual information between random string and minimal Kolmogorov sufficient statistic
Regarding notation in the following, the function $\ell(B)$ returns the length of bitstring $B$, and the cardinality of set $S$ is denoted by $|S|$.
A bitstring $B$ is generated by drawing 0s and 1s ...
-1
votes
1answer
73 views
Relationship between worst case length of transcript and entropy of transcript
Consider the two party model of communication complexity where Alice and Bob are given inputs $X$ and $Y$ sampled from some distribution $\mu$, and their goal is to solve some problem $P$ (the details ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
Improving Bloom filter - can we distinguish elements of a database using less than 2.33275 bits/element?
While we usually use large e.g. 64 bit hashes, there are many techniques to reduce this size, e.g. for savings in storage and transmission.
Popular Bloom filter instead of marking just 1 hash ...
13
votes
1answer
2k views
Entropy and computational complexity
There are researcher showing that erasing bit has to consume energy, now is there any research done on the average consumption of energy of algorithm with computational complexity $F(n)$? I guess, ...
4
votes
1answer
129 views
Can entropicly secure encryption algorithms be used on low-entropy messages by adding noise
There exist information-theoretic notions of security like Shannon's "perfect security" that one-time pads exhibit. All methods which achieve perfect security will require long keys, however. If we ...
4
votes
1answer
300 views
The Maxwell's Demon and Computer Science
What is the best source -in terms of quality- that would explain the argument that uses computations concepts to demonstrate that the Maxwell's Demon does not break the second law of thermodynamics? I ...
0
votes
1answer
87 views
Error correction that adapts to different error rates
Say we have $N$ bits that we'd like to store in an $M$-bit error correcting code, where $M > N$. Given $\epsilon > 0$, as long as $N > N_0(\epsilon)$ we can recover the original bits as long ...
4
votes
1answer
701 views
Autoencoders and information compression
Disclaimer: I know very (very) little about deep nets, besides what an introductory course on machine learning would teach on neural networks, and skimming some paper abstracts and introductions.
If ...
1
vote
0answers
55 views
Problem dependent lower bound for stochastic bandits with full information
Suppose you have a $K$ armed stochastic bandit problem but with full information. There are $K$ arms with mean rewards $\mu_1,...,\mu_K$. At each step we have to select an arm, collect the reward from ...
1
vote
0answers
62 views
Parametrically-relaxed Kolmogorov complexity
Consider the following problem:
Input: An integer $n$ and a subset $S \subseteq \{0...n-1\}$ in some representation.
Output: The encoding of some kind of automaton (say, a Turing machine) which ...
4
votes
1answer
627 views
Relation between variance and mutual information
Given two discrete random variables $X,Y$ such that $X,Y \in \mathbb{R}$ and $0 \leq X,Y \leq 1$, is it true that $$|\text{Cov}[X,Y] \leq \sqrt{\frac{1}{2} \text{I}[X,Y]}|. $$
This bound may be ...
