Communication channelA communication channel refers either to a physical transmission medium such as a wire, or to a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel in telecommunications and computer networking. A channel is used for information transfer of, for example, a digital bit stream, from one or several senders to one or several receivers. A channel has a certain capacity for transmitting information, often measured by its bandwidth in Hz or its data rate in bits per second.
Regular graphIn graph theory, a regular graph is a graph where each vertex has the same number of neighbors; i.e. every vertex has the same degree or valency. A regular directed graph must also satisfy the stronger condition that the indegree and outdegree of each internal vertex are equal to each other. A regular graph with vertices of degree k is called a k‐regular graph or regular graph of degree k. Also, from the handshaking lemma, a regular graph contains an even number of vertices with odd degree.
Erasure codeIn coding theory, an erasure code is a forward error correction (FEC) code under the assumption of bit erasures (rather than bit errors), which transforms a message of k symbols into a longer message (code word) with n symbols such that the original message can be recovered from a subset of the n symbols. The fraction r = k/n is called the code rate. The fraction k’/k, where k’ denotes the number of symbols required for recovery, is called reception efficiency.
Noisy-channel coding theoremIn information theory, the noisy-channel coding theorem (sometimes Shannon's theorem or Shannon's limit), establishes that for any given degree of noise contamination of a communication channel, it is possible to communicate discrete data (digital information) nearly error-free up to a computable maximum rate through the channel. This result was presented by Claude Shannon in 1948 and was based in part on earlier work and ideas of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley.
Belief propagationBelief propagation, also known as sum–product message passing, is a message-passing algorithm for performing inference on graphical models, such as Bayesian networks and Markov random fields. It calculates the marginal distribution for each unobserved node (or variable), conditional on any observed nodes (or variables). Belief propagation is commonly used in artificial intelligence and information theory, and has demonstrated empirical success in numerous applications, including low-density parity-check codes, turbo codes, free energy approximation, and satisfiability.
Shannon–Hartley theoremIn information theory, the Shannon–Hartley theorem tells the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted over a communications channel of a specified bandwidth in the presence of noise. It is an application of the noisy-channel coding theorem to the archetypal case of a continuous-time analog communications channel subject to Gaussian noise.
Interpersonal communicationInterpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish a number of personal and relational goals. Interpersonal communication research addresses at least six categories of inquiry: 1) how humans adjust and adapt their verbal communication and nonverbal communication during face-to-face communication; 2) how messages are produced; 3) how uncertainty influences behavior and information-management strategies; 4) deceptive communication; 5) relational dialectics; and 6) social interactions that are mediated by technology.
Organizational communicationWithin the realm of communication studies, organizational communication is a field of study surrounding all areas of communication and information flow that contribute to the functioning of an organization . Organizational communication is constantly evolving and as a result, the scope of organizations included in this field of research have also shifted over time. Now both traditionally profitable companies, as well as NGO's and non-profit organizations, are points of interest for scholars focused on the field of organizational communication.
Human communicationHuman communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans communicate. Humans' ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are referencing or thinking about. Because humans are unable to fully understand one another's perspective, there needs to be a creation of commonality through a shared mindset or viewpoint. The field of communication is very diverse, as there are multiple layers of what communication is and how we use its different features as human beings.
Factor graphA factor graph is a bipartite graph representing the factorization of a function. In probability theory and its applications, factor graphs are used to represent factorization of a probability distribution function, enabling efficient computations, such as the computation of marginal distributions through the sum-product algorithm. One of the important success stories of factor graphs and the sum-product algorithm is the decoding of capacity-approaching error-correcting codes, such as LDPC and turbo codes.
Viterbi algorithmThe Viterbi algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm for obtaining the maximum a posteriori probability estimate of the most likely sequence of hidden states—called the Viterbi path—that results in a sequence of observed events, especially in the context of Markov information sources and hidden Markov models (HMM). The algorithm has found universal application in decoding the convolutional codes used in both CDMA and GSM digital cellular, dial-up modems, satellite, deep-space communications, and 802.
