Course Info

David Tse(dntse@stanford.edu) Winter 2016-2017

Instructor

Required:

T. Cover and J. Thomas, “Elements of Information Theory”, Wiley, 2nd edition, 2006.

C. E. Shannon, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, Bell Systems Technical Journal, 1948.

Supplementary:

Homework includes weekly problem sets and scribing one lecture.
Problem sets are due 5 pm on Thursdays in the homework box in Packard 2nd floor unless stated otherwise.
Collaboration: You are encouraged to work on homework problems in study groups of size at most 4. However, you must write up the solutions of your own. You must never read or copy the solutions of other students.
Each student has to scribe notes for a single lecture. Each scribe for a given lecture will prepare a LaTeX document written in full prose with figures, understandable to a student who may have missed class. Please use this LaTeX template file and style file. All the relevant files should be submitted to Vivek (vbagaria@stanford.edu) no later than 72 hours after the lecture.
Please sign up to scribe a specific lecture through this spreadsheet.
No late homeworks are accepted, but the lowest scoring homework will be dropped.

2-5pm, Tuesday, 3rd floor, Packard (kitchen area). The course instructor and the assistants will be available to answer questions about homeworks.

You will read a set of papers on a topic and give a poster presentation about that topic. The topic should be a contribution to information theory or a substantial application of information theory to other fields. Your poster should not be just a regurgitation of the papers but should reveal a good understanding of the contribution of the papers to the literature as well as their potential limitations. For example, the poster can include some nicely worked out examples, analytical or simulations. Doing something novel would be a big plus!
We will provide a list of suggested topics and papers, but students are also welcomed to have their own suggestions. The topic and the papers should be chosen in consultation with the course instructor and assistants.
Students should team up in triplets for project.
A one-page proposal is due on Thursday March 2nd, 5pm.
The poster presentation is on Thursday March 23rd, 12:15-3:15 pm (the final exam slot for this course).
A final report, including at most 4 pages one column NIPS format, is due at noon on Friday March 24th. All the relevant files should be submitted to Vivek (vbagaria@stanford.edu) and Farzan (farnia@stanford.edu).

There will be one midterm and NO final. The midterm exam will be in-class on Thursday February 16, from 6-9 pm.

Anyone who has a legitimate conflict with the midterm date must contact the instructor as soon as possible.

Prerequisites: The basic prerequisites for this course are a good undergraduate course in probability or random processes like EE178 or equivalent, and a certain level of mathematical maturity.

Collaboration: You are encouraged to work on homework problems in study groups of size at most 4. However, you must write up the solutions of your own. You must never read or copy the solutions of other students.

Late homeworks: All homeworks are due Thursdays 5 pm unless stated otherwise. No late homeworks are accepted, but the lowest scoring homework will be dropped.