Information Theory
What is information
The information content of any message is closely related to the past
knowledge of the occurrence of event and the level of uncertainty it contains
with respect to the recipient of the message •
The amount of information received from the knowledge of occurrence of an
event is inversely related to the probability or the likelihood of occurrence of
the event.
The message related to an event least likely to occur contains more
information. •
What is information
Information I(mk) = log(1/Pk) = -log(Pk)
Example: If two binary digits 1 and 0 occur with equal
probability and are correctly detected at the receiving
end, then the information content in each digit is 1 bit.
I(0 or 1) = -log2(1/2) = 1 bit
Source Coding: Goal is to find an efficient description of
information sources – Reduce required bandwidth – Reduce
memory to store
Source Coding
In a fixed-length code (FLC) each codeword has the same length.
In a variable-length code (VLC) codewords may have different
lengths.
We should represent the more frequently occurring letters by fewer
number of bits and less frequently occurring letters by larger number
of bits.
Prefix Code: It is a variable length code in which no codeword is
a prefix of another codeword.
Source Coding (Example)
Represent first eight letters of English alphabet (A to
H) using FLC and VLC.
The fixed length code for this set of letters would be :
Letter Codeword Letter Codeword
A 000 E 100
B 001 F 101
C 010 G 110
D 011 H 111
Source Coding (Example)
VLC1
Letter Codeword Letter Codeword
A 00 E 101
B 010 F 110
C 011 G 1110
D 100 H 1111
VLC2
Letter Codeword Letter Codeword
A 0 E 10
B 1 F 11
C 00 G 000
D 01 H 111
Source Coding (Example)
“A BAD CAB”
FLC: 000 001 000 011 010 000 001 (bits=21)
VLC 1: 00 010 00 100 011 00 010 (bits=18)
VLC 2: 0 1001 0001 (bits=9)
Huffman Coding (VLC with symbols not
equally probable)
Steps for Huffman Coding
1)Arrange the source symbols in a decreasing order of their probabilities.
2) Take the bottom two symbols and tie them together, add the probabilities of the
two symbols and write it on the combined node. Label the two branches with ‘1’ and
‘0’.
3) Treat this sum of probabilities as a new probability associated with a new symbol.
Again repeat step 2.
4) Continue the steps until only one probability left (and should be 1). This completes
the construction of the Huffman code tree.
5) To find out the prefix codeword for any symbol, follow the branches from the final
node- back to the symbol. This gives the codeword for the symbol.
CYCLIC CODES