Measures of Information for Information Acquisition Optimization

Abstract

The objective of this study is to find suitable methods of information measurement and characterizations to facilitate research on information acquisition optimization. Specifically, this study is to support an approach, which has been acquired in past periods of the research, that can be interpreted as a theory of information exchange between the decision maker and information source(s). It can also be said that the developed approach complements the classical Information Theory. The classical Information Theory describes the transmission of information over some channel, regardless of its content. The proposed approach deals the first and last link of the full information chain: extracting information from a source and using it to obtain the best possible decision. In this approach, a quantitative framework describing information sources, the process of information exchange between the source(s) and the agent, and the relevance of the obtained information for the given problem is developed. The purpose of this thesis is to study and summarize the existing methods of measuring information and evaluate their suitability for the purposes of the proposed approach