Source Coding with Fixed Lag Side Information

We consider source coding with fixed lag side information at the decoder. We focus on the special case of perfect side information with unit lag corresponding to source coding with feedforward (the dual of channel coding with feedback) introduced by Pradhan. We use this duality to develop a linear complexity algorithm which achieves the rate-distortion bound for any memoryless finite alphabet source and distortion measure.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

On the Universality of the Logistic Loss Function

A loss function measures the discrepancy between the true values (observations) and their estimated fits, for a given instance of data. A loss function is said to be proper (unbiased, Fisher consistent) if the fits are defined over a unit simplex, and the minimizer of the expected loss is the true underlying probability of the data. Typical examples are the zero-one loss, the quadratic loss and the Bernoulli log-likelihood loss (log-loss). In this work we show that for binary classification problems, the divergence associated with smooth, proper and convex loss functions is bounded from above by the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, up to a multiplicative normalization constant. It implies that by minimizing the log-loss (associated with the KL divergence), we minimize an upper bound to any choice of loss functions from this set. This property justifies the broad use of log-loss in regression, decision trees, deep neural networks and many other applications. In addition, we show that the KL divergence bounds from above any separable Bregman divergence that is convex in its second argument (up to a multiplicative normalization constant). This result introduces a new set of divergence inequalities, similar to the well-known Pinsker inequality

A refined analysis of the Poisson channel in the high-photon-efficiency regime

We study the discrete-time Poisson channel under the constraint that its average input power (in photons per channel use) must not exceed some constant E. We consider the wideband, high-photon-efficiency extreme where E approaches zero, and where the channel's "dark current" approaches zero proportionally with E. Improving over a previously obtained first-order capacity approximation, we derive a refined approximation, which includes the exact characterization of the second-order term, as well as an asymptotic characterization of the third-order term with respect to the dark current. We also show that pulse-position modulation is nearly optimal in this regime.Comment: Revised version to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Authentication with Distortion Criteria

In a variety of applications, there is a need to authenticate content that has experienced legitimate editing in addition to potential tampering attacks. We develop one formulation of this problem based on a strict notion of security, and characterize and interpret the associated information-theoretic performance limits. The results can be viewed as a natural generalization of classical approaches to traditional authentication. Additional insights into the structure of such systems and their behavior are obtained by further specializing the results to Bernoulli and Gaussian cases. The associated systems are shown to be substantially better in terms of performance and/or security than commonly advocated approaches based on data hiding and digital watermarking. Finally, the formulation is extended to obtain efficient layered authentication system constructions.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure

Toward Photon-Efficient Key Distribution over Optical Channels

This work considers the distribution of a secret key over an optical (bosonic) channel in the regime of high photon efficiency, i.e., when the number of secret key bits generated per detected photon is high. While in principle the photon efficiency is unbounded, there is an inherent tradeoff between this efficiency and the key generation rate (with respect to the channel bandwidth). We derive asymptotic expressions for the optimal generation rates in the photon-efficient limit, and propose schemes that approach these limits up to certain approximations. The schemes are practical, in the sense that they use coherent or temporally-entangled optical states and direct photodetection, all of which are reasonably easy to realize in practice, in conjunction with off-the-shelf classical codes.Comment: In IEEE Transactions on Information Theory; same version except that labels are corrected for Schemes S-1, S-2, and S-3, which appear as S-3, S-4, and S-5 in the Transaction

A Simple Message-Passing Algorithm for Compressed Sensing

We consider the recovery of a nonnegative vector x from measurements y = Ax, where A is an m-by-n matrix whos entries are in {0, 1}. We establish that when A corresponds to the adjacency matrix of a bipartite graph with sufficient expansion, a simple message-passing algorithm produces an estimate \hat{x} of x satisfying ||x-\hat{x}||_1 \leq O(n/k) ||x-x(k)||_1, where x(k) is the best k-sparse approximation of x. The algorithm performs O(n (log(n/k))^2 log(k)) computation in total, and the number of measurements required is m = O(k log(n/k)). In the special case when x is k-sparse, the algorithm recovers x exactly in time O(n log(n/k) log(k)). Ultimately, this work is a further step in the direction of more formally developing the broader role of message-passing algorithms in solving compressed sensing problems

Training-Based Schemes are Suboptimal for High Rate Asynchronous Communication

We consider asynchronous point-to-point communication. Building on a recently developed model, we show that training based schemes, i.e., communication strategies that separate synchronization from information transmission, perform suboptimally at high rate.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (Taormina