EE 8371 - Information Theory
Spring 2007

Course Information

  • Class Time : Wednesday 6:30-9:20pm
  • Class Location : Junkins 203
  • Instructor : Dinesh Rajan
  • Prerequisite : Basic undergraduate course on probability. A graduate course on stochastic process might be helpful, but is not required.
  • Textbooks: Elements of Information Theory, T. Cover and J. Thomas. Either 1st or 2nd edition will work
  • Office hours: TBD

Grading

  • Home works (30%)
  • Mid term Exam (30%)
  • Final Exam (40%)
    The exams will be open book. However, you are not allowed to look for solutions to problems on the Internet. You are also prohibited from looking at previous years exams/homeworks and their solutions. On the homeworks, you are encouraged to work in teams; however, each one of you should turn in your solutions independently. There will be between 6-8 homeworks.

Topics

  • Basic information theory
    • Measures of information - Entropy, relative entropy, mutual information
    • Asymptotic equipartition property
    • Entropy rates of stochastic processes
    • Data compression
    • Channel capacity
    • Differential entropy and the Gaussian channel
    • Source channel separation
    • Rate distortion theory
  • Multiuser information theory
  • Coding theory

At most a small portion of the last two topics will be covered depending on the availability of time.

* Disability Accommodations: Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first contact Ms. Rebecca Marin, Coordinator, Services for Students with Disabilities (214-768-4557)* to verify the disability and establish eligibility for accommodations. They should then schedule an appointment with the professor to make appropriate arrangements. (See University Policy No. 2.4.)
* Religious Observance: Religiously observant students wishing to be absent on holidays that require missing class should notify their professors in writing at the beginning of the semester, and should discuss with them, in advance, acceptable ways of making up any work missed because of the absence. (See University Policy No. 1.9.)
* Excused Absences for University Extracurricular Activities: Students participating in an officially sanctioned, scheduled University extracurricular activity will be given the opportunity to make up class assignments or other graded assignments missed as a result of their participation. It is the responsibility of the student to make arrangements with the instructor prior to any missed scheduled examination or other missed assignment for making up the work. (University Undergraduate Catalogue)

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