Information Theory and Coding

(Lecture 1)

Dr. Farman Ullah

[email protected]

1
 What is Information Theory about?
It is a mathematical theory of information.
Information is usually obtained by getting some "messages" (speech, text,
images, etc.) from others.
When obtaining information from a message, you may care about:
What is the meaning of a message?
How important is the message?
 What is Information Theory about?
It is a mathematical theory of information.
Information is usually obtained by getting some "messages" (speech, text,
images, etc.) from others.
When obtaining information from a message, you may care about:
What is the meaning of a message?
How important is the message?
How much information can I get from the message?

Information theory is about the quantication of information.

 What is Information Theory about?
It is a mathematical theory of information (primarily for communication
systems)
Establishes the fundamental limits of various types of information
processing
Built upon probability theory and statistical decision theory

Main Focus: ultimate performance limit (usually the efciency of

information processing) as certain resources (usually the total amount of
time) scales to an asymptotic regime, given that the desired task is
accomplished at a certain "satisfactory" level.
Course Overview

Claude E. Shannon
(1916 2001)
Course Overview

Information theory
a mathematical theory of communication
Course Overview

Information theory
the mathematical theory of
communication
Origin of Information Theory
Course Overview
Origin of Information Theory
Course Overview

Shannon's 1948 paper is generally considered as the "birth" of information theory and (modern)
digital communication.
It was set clear that information theory is about the quantication of information.
In particular, it focuses on characterizing the necessary and sucient condition of whether or
not a destination terminal can reproduce a message generated by a source terminal.
 Course Overview General Overview of Information Theory

What is Information Theory

about?
 It is about the analysis of fundamental
limits Course Overview General Overview of Information Theory

1 Stochastic modeling
It is a unied theory based on stochastic modeling (information source, noisy channel, etc.).

2 Theorems, not just denitions

It provides rigorous theorems on optimal performance of algorithms (coding schemes), rather
than merely denitions.

3 Sharp phase transition

It draws the boundary between what is possible to achieve and what is impossible, leading to
math-driven system design.
 Any source of informationChange to an efficient representati
transmission, i.e., error control co
Change to an efficient representation,
i.e., data compression.

Source Channel Channel

Source
coder coder

Channel Channel Source Sink,

decoder decoder receiver

Recover from channel distortion.

Uncompress

The channel is anything transmitting or storing information

a radio link, a cable, a disk, a CD, a piece of paper,
 Fundamental Entities
H Source R Channel Channel
Source
coder coder
C

Channel Channel Source Sink,

C decoder decoder receiver

H: The information content of the source.

R: Rate from the source coder.

C: Channel capacity.
 Fundamental Theorems
H Source R Channel Channel
Source
coder coder
C

Channel Channel Source Sink,

C decoder decoder receiver

Shannon 1: Error-free transmission possible if RH and CR.

Source coding theorem (simplified)
Shannon 2: Source coding and channel coding can beChannel codi
optimized independently, and binary symbols can be used as
intermediate format. Assumption: Arbitrarily long delays.
 What is Coding Theory?
Course Overview General Overview of Information Theory

This will include the following topics: theory of compression and coding of
image and speech signals based on Shannon's information theory;
introduction to information theory (entropy, etc.); characteristics of sources
such as voice and image; sampling theorem; methods and properties of
lossless and lossy coding; vector quantization; transform coding; and
subband coding.
 What is Channel Coding Theory?
Course Overview General Overview of Information Theory

Channel coding refers to the class of signal transformations designed to

improve communications performance by enabling the transmitted signals to
better withstand the effects of various channel impairments, such as noise,
fading and jamming. Usually the goal of channel coding is to reduce the
probability of bit error or to reduce the required signal to noise ratio at the
cost of expending more bandwidth. At the channel codes, redundancy is
inserted into the transmitted data stream so that the receiver can detect and
possibly correct errors that occur during transmission. This course deals with
block codes and convolutional codes.
 Part 2: Stochastic sources
A source outputs symbols X1, X2, ...
Each symbol take its value from an alphabet
A = (a1, a2, ).
Model: P(X1,,XN) assumed to be known for
Example 1: A
all combinations.
each taking it
A = (a, , z, A
Source X1, X2,

Example 2: A (digitized) grayscale image

 Two Special Cases
1. The Memoryless Source
Each symbol independent of the previous
ones.
P(X1, X2, , Xn) = P(X1) P(X2) P(Xn)
2. The Markov Source
Each symbol depends on the previous one.
P(X1, X2, , Xn) = P(X1) P(X2|X1) P(X3|X2)
P(Xn|Xn-1)
 The Markov Source
A symbol depends only on the previous
symbol, so the source can be modelled by a
state diagram.
0.7 b

a 0.5 A ternary source with

1.0
alphabet A = (a, b, c).
0.3
0.2 c
0.3
 The Markov Source
Assume we are in state a, i.e., Xk = a.
The probabilities for the next symbol are:

0.7 b
P(Xk+1 = a | Xk = a) = 0.3

a 0.5
1.0 P(Xk+1 = b | Xk = a) = 0.7
0.3
P(Xk+1 = c | Xk = a) = 0
0.2 c
0.3
 The Markov Source
So, if Xk+1 = b, we know that Xk+2 will
equal c.

0.7 b
P(Xk+2 = a | Xk+1 = b) = 0

a 0.5
1.0 P(Xk+2 = b | Xk+1 = b) = 0
0.3
P(Xk+2 = c | Xk+1 = b) = 1
0.2 c
0.3
 The Markov Source
If all the states can be reached, the
stationary probabilities for the states can be
calculated from the given transition
probabilities.
Sta
Markov models can be used to represent pro
sources with dependencies more than one kw
step back.
Use a state diagram with several symbols in
each state.
 Analysis and Synthesis
Stochastic models can be used for
analysing a source.
Find a model that well represents the real-world
source, and then analyse the model instead of
the real world.
Stochastic models can be used for
synthesizing a source.
Use a random number generator in each step of
a Markov model to generate a sequence
simulating the source.
 Part 3: Information and Entropy
Assume a binary memoryless source, e.g., a flip of
a coin. How much information do we receive when
we are told that the outcome is heads?
If its a fair coin, i.e., P(heads) = P (tails) = 0.5, we say
that the amount of information is 1 bit.
If we already know that it will be (or was) heads, i.e.,
P(heads) = 1, the amount of information is zero!
If the coin is not fair, e.g., P(heads) = 0.9, the amount of
information is more than zero but less than one bit!
Intuitively, the amount of information received is the
same if P(heads) = 0.9 or P (heads) = 0.1.
 Self Information
So, lets look at it the way Shannon did.
Assume a memoryless source with
alphabet A = (a1, , an)
symbol probabilities (p1, , pn).
How much information do we get when
finding out that the next symbol is ai?
According to Shannon the self information
of ai is
 Why?
Assume two independent events A and B, with
probabilities P(A) = pA and P(B) = pB.

For both the events to happen, the probability is

pA pB. However, the amount of information
should be added, not multiplied.

Logarithms satisfy this!

No, we want the information to increase with
decreasing probabilities, so lets use the negative
logarithm.
 Self Information
Example 1:

Example 2:

Which logarithm? Pick the one you like! If you pick the natural log,
youll measure in nats, if you pick the 10-log, youll get Hartleys,
if you pick the 2-log (like everyone else), youll get bits.
 Self Information

On average over all the symbols, we get:

H(X) is called the first order entropy of the source.

This can be regarded as the degree of uncertainty

about the following symbol.
 Entropy
Example: Binary Memoryless Source
BMS 01101000

Let

Of t e
n de
Then note
d

1
The uncertainty (information) is greatest when

0 0.5 1
 Entropy: Three properties
1. It can be shown that 0 H log N.
2. Maximum entropy (H = log N) is reached
when all symbols are equiprobable, i.e.,
pi = 1/N.
3. The difference log N H is called the
redundancy of the source.
Part 4: Entropy for Memory Sources

Assume a block of source symbols (X1, ,

Xn) and define the block entropy:

That is, the summation is done over all possible combinations of n symbols.

The entropy for a memory source is defined

as:
That is, let the block length go towards infintity.
Divide by n to get the number of bits / symbol.
Entropy for a Markov Source
The entropy for a state Sk can be expressed as

Pkl is the transition probability from state k to state l.

Averaging over all states, we get the

entropy for the Markov source as