Concentration of Measure Inequalities in Information Theory, Communications and Coding (Second Edition)

During the last two decades, concentration inequalities have been the subject of exciting developments in various areas, including convex geometry, functional analysis, statistical physics, high-dimensional statistics, pure and applied probability theory, information theory, theoretical computer science, and learning theory. This monograph focuses on some of the key modern mathematical tools that are used for the derivation of concentration inequalities, on their links to information theory, and on their various applications to communications and coding. In addition to being a survey, this monograph also includes various new recent results derived by the authors. The first part of the monograph introduces classical concentration inequalities for martingales, as well as some recent refinements and extensions. The power and versatility of the martingale approach is exemplified in the context of codes defined on graphs and iterative decoding algorithms, as well as codes for wireless communication. The second part of the monograph introduces the entropy method, an information-theoretic technique for deriving concentration inequalities. The basic ingredients of the entropy method are discussed first in the context of logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, which underlie the so-called functional approach to concentration of measure, and then from a complementary information-theoretic viewpoint based on transportation-cost inequalities and probability in metric spaces. Some representative results on concentration for dependent random variables are briefly summarized, with emphasis on their connections to the entropy method. Finally, we discuss several applications of the entropy method to problems in communications and coding, including strong converses, empirical distributions of good channel codes, and an information-theoretic converse for concentration of measure.Comment: Foundations and Trends in Communications and Information Theory, vol. 10, no 1-2, pp. 1-248, 2013. Second edition was published in October 2014. ISBN to printed book: 978-1-60198-906-

MULTIMEDIA FOR LEARNING: METHODS AND DEVELOPMENT (3TH EDITION) - BOOK REVIEW

Stephen M. Alessi is an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa, on Psychological and Quantitative Foundations Department. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology form University of Illinois in 1979. His principal research interests are Educational Technology, Multimedia Design, Web-Based Learning and Instructional Simulation. Stephen M. Alessi is an active member of American Educational Research Association, Association for Educational Communications and Technology, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction and System Dynamics Society. Stanley R. Trollip is an Associate Professor at Capella University, Minneapolis. His main interests are Higher Education, Educational Assessment and Educational Technology. He has published more than 50 publications on topics like Computer based technology, Education methods and development, Classroom management, Educational Software. Stanley R. Trollip is an active member of American Educational Research Association, Association for Educational Communications and Technology  Article visualizations

Foundations Of Service Science Management And Business

This paper continues with the conspectus of Service Science for academicians and practitioners. It follows the previous paper, entitled Foundations of Service Science: Concepts and Facilities, with the express purpose of defining the scope of the discipline. A thriving flexible service economy has emerged through globalization and digitization, and as a direct result, the modern enterprise has a dynamically changing boundary based on a portfolio of services obtained through make, buy, or rent decisions. Through the application of information and communications technology (ICT), many organizations have adjusted everyday operations enabling them to go through a transformational process to achieve revenue growth by being able to respond more quickly to changing market conditions and by being more effective and efficient in the application of services. The viewpoint taken here is that service management and modern business usually employ a complex computer infrastructure, but their domain is by no means restricted to computer-based services

Philanthropy in the News

Over the last two decades, the quantity of news coverage of foundations has gradually risen, but its quality remains highly superficial, according to this report by Philanthropy Awareness Initiative and University of Minnesota professor David Fan. In fact, nearly 99% of more than 40,000 stories since 1990 have been transactional in their content -- focused on grants made and dollars out the door, not on benefits achieved

New Media Art/ New Funding Models

Investigates the current state of funding for new media artists, with an emphasis on the support structures for innovative creative work that utilizes advanced technologies as the main vehicle for artistic practice