A general class of unidirectional transforms is presented that can be
computed in a distributed manner along an arbitrary routing tree. Additionally,
we provide a set of conditions under which these transforms are invertible.
These transforms can be computed as data is routed towards the collection (or
sink) node in the tree and exploit data correlation between nodes in the tree.
Moreover, when used in wireless sensor networks, these transforms can also
leverage data received at nodes via broadcast wireless communications. Various
constructions of unidirectional transforms are also provided for use in data
gathering in wireless sensor networks. New wavelet transforms are also proposed
which provide significant improvements over existing unidirectional transforms