Related papers: Analysis of an information-theoretic model for com…
We study the robustness of cheap-talk equilibria to infinitesimal private information of the receiver in a model with a binary state-space and state-independent sender-preferences. We show that the sender-optimal equilibrium is robust if…
We study the tradeoff between the statistical error and communication cost of distributed statistical estimation problems in high dimensions. In the distributed sparse Gaussian mean estimation problem, each of the $m$ machines receives $n$…
Zipf's law predicts a power-law relationship between word rank and frequency in language communication systems, and is widely reported in texts yet remains enigmatic as to its origins. Computer simulations have shown that language…
The Gap-Hamming-Distance problem arose in the context of proving space lower bounds for a number of key problems in the data stream model. In this problem, Alice and Bob have to decide whether the Hamming distance between their $n$-bit…
We model the communication of narratives as a cheap-talk game under model uncertainty. The sender has private information about the true data generating process of publicly observable data. The receiver is uncertain about how to interpret…
We investigate the complexity of three optimization problems in Boolean propositional logic related to information theory: Given a conjunctive formula over a set of relations, find a satisfying assignment with minimal Hamming distance to a…
In the communication problem $\mathbf{UR}$ (universal relation) [KRW95], Alice and Bob respectively receive $x$ and $y$ in $\{0,1\}^n$ with the promise that $x\neq y$. The last player to receive a message must output an index $i$ such that…
The privacy-utility tradeoff problem is formulated as determining the privacy mechanism (random mapping) that minimizes the mutual information (a metric for privacy leakage) between the private features of the original dataset and a…
Here we sketch a new derivation of Zipf's law for word frequencies based on optimal coding. The structure of the derivation is reminiscent of Mandelbrot's random typing model but it has multiple advantages over random typing: (1) it starts…
Hella et al. (PODC 2012, Distributed Computing 2015) identified seven different models of distributed computing - one of which is the port-numbering model - and provided a complete classification of their computational power relative to…
Causal processes can give rise to distinctive distributions in the linguistic variables that they affect. Consequently, a secure understanding of a variable's distribution can hold a key to understanding the forces that have causally shaped…
The moderate deviation regime is concerned with the finite block length trade-off between communication cost and error for information processing tasks in the asymptotic regime, where the communication cost approaches a capacity-like…
LZ77-based compression schemes compress the input text by replacing factors in the text with an encoded reference to a previous occurrence formed by the couple (length, offset). For a given factor, the smallest is the offset, the smallest…
We consider an instance of the following problem: Parties P_1,..., P_k each receive an input x_i, and a coordinator (distinct from each of these parties) wishes to compute f(x_1,..., x_k) for some predicate f. We are interested in one-round…
Zipf's law is shown to arise as the variational solution of a problem formulated in Fisher's terms. An appropriate minimization process involving Fisher information and scale-invariance yields this universal rank distribution. As an example…
In this article, we explore two approaches to modeling hypermedia-based communication. It is argued that the classical conveyor-tube framework is not applicable to the case of computer- and Internet- mediated communication. We then present…
Background: Zipf's law and Heaps' law are observed in disparate complex systems. Of particular interests, these two laws often appear together. Many theoretical models and analyses are performed to understand their co-occurrence in real…
We proposed a Least Information theory (LIT) to quantify meaning of information in probability distribution changes, from which a new information retrieval model was developed. We observed several important characteristics of the proposed…
The problem of formulating thermodynamics in a relativistic scenario remains unresolved, although many proposals exist in the literature. The challenge arises due to the intrinsic dynamic structure of spacetime as established by the general…
We exhibit a total search problem with classically verifiable solutions whose communication complexity in the quantum SMP model is exponentially smaller than in the classical two-way randomized model. Our problem is a bipartite version of a…