XPost: cs.bboard, columbia.general.bboard 
 From: rocco@news.cs.columbia.edu 
  
 Hi all, 
  
 To make up for any theory deficiency you may have experienced over spring 
 break, this week we will have two theory seminars! 
  
 The first will be held at a special time & place:  Tues 2:30pm in 
 Interschool Lab.  Christina Fragouli will give a talk on network coding, 
 an area that has attracted a lot of attention recently; title and abstract 
 are below. 
  
 The second seminar will be held Thurs 1:30pm (note the unusual time) in 
 303 Mudd -- this is a joint seminar with IEOR.  Andrew Goldberg will 
 speak; details to be announced later in the week. 
  
 Hope to see you at both these talks! 
  
 -- Rocco 
  
 __________________________________ 
  
 TALK: 
         Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005 
         2:30 pm -- 3:45 pm 
         Interschool Lab, 7th Floor CEPSR 
  
 SPEAKER: 
  Christina Fragouli 
  EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) 
  
  Information Flow Decomposition for Network Coding 
  
 ABSTRACT: 
  
 Network coding is an emerging area across EE and CS. The main idea is that 
 intermediate nodes in a network not only forward but also process the 
 incoming information flows. The network code is the set of the operations 
 that intermediate nodes perform. This modern application of coding to the 
 theory and practice of communication networks raises novel and exciting 
 research problems, and promises to have a significant impact in diverse 
 areas that include multicasting, network monitoring, reliable delivery, 
 resource sharing, efficient flow control and security. 
  
 In this talk we will start by introducing the information flow 
 decomposition. This method shows that very different networks are 
 equivalent from the coding point of view and allows to identify such 
 equivalence classes. This decomposition not only gives structural 
 properties for network coding but allows us to address several other 
 related questions. These questions include, alphabet size bounds for 
 network codes, throughput benefits by using network coding, and design of 
 decentralized network coding algorithms. 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)