COMP2610 - Information Theory

Lecturers: Dr. Mark Reid and Dr. Edwin Bonilla

Course Overview

• Units: 6
• Lectures: 26 x 1 hour
• Tutorials: 5 x 2 hour

Course Description

Information theory studies the fundamental limits of the representation and transmission of information. This course provides an introduction to information theory, studying fundamental concepts such as probability, information, and entropy and examining their applications in the areas of data compression, coding, communications, pattern recognition and probabilistic inference.

Textbook

The course material will be based on MacKay's book. We will cover material the first four parts of that book, roughly along the lines of the "Short Course on Information Theory" outline given at the beginning of the book. The notion and definitions from that book will be used wherever appropriate.

David MacKay's Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, Cambridge University Press, (2003)