Rudolf Ahlswede’s Lectures on Information Theory 6
The new book Identification and Other Probabilistic Models (Springer Series: Foundations in Signal Processing, Communications and Networking) is currently in print.
The book by editors A. Ahlswede, I. Althöfer, C. Deppe and U. Tamm will be available in early 2021.
This book is the sixth volume of Rudolf Ahlswede's lectures on information theory, which his former assistants and his son have published. It deals with identification theory. In contrast to Shannon's classic coding scheme for the transmission of a message over a noisy channel, the decoder in identification theory is not really interested in the received message, but only in deciding whether a message is of particular interest or not. There are also algorithmic problems where it is not necessary to compute the solution, only to check whether a given answer given is correct. Depending on the problem, this answer may be much easier to give than to find the solution. "Easier" in this context means using fewer resources such as channel usage, computing time or storage space.
The lectures presented in this book are suitable for PhD students in mathematics as well as those working in theoretical computer science, physics, and electrical engineering with a background in basic mathematics. The lectures can serve as the basis for courses or as a complement to courses in many ways. Students also find research problems, often with conjectures, that offer potential topics for a thesis. Advanced researchers may find questions that form the basis of entire research programs.