| NSF Org: |
CCF Division of Computing and Communication Foundations |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 17, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 17, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1526771 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Phillip Regalia
pregalia@nsf.gov (703)292-2981 CCF Division of Computing and Communication Foundations CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $249,956.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $249,956.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
520 LEE ENTRANCE STE 211 AMHERST NY US 14228-2577 (716)645-2634 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
NY US 14260-1660 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Comm & Information Foundations |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Advances in modern society are increasingly intertwined with those of our communication systems. Everything from entertainment to business to transportation to healthcare itself relies on our ability to communicate efficiently and reliably. With progress in all of these domains come increasing communication demands. The key to meeting those demands is an ever increasing and growing understanding of how to build better communication networks and how to operate the ones that we have more effectively. While much is known about small parts of our communication networks, surprisingly little is known about how to operate the network as a whole more efficiently. This project sets out to tackle that monumental and critical goal, by seeking to uncover the implications of network design choices, understand the commonalities and differences among these implications, and expand the theory and techniques needed both to operate these systems efficiently and to understand the limits of their performance.
The network information theory literature considers code design and performance limits for communication systems under a wide variety of system models and constraints. While a careful reading of the literature reveals many common tools and strategies, each new problem engenders its own new theory. This work takes a systematic approach towards uncovering the hidden underlying commonalities that connect the solutions of information theoretic problems. Central to this approach are reduction arguments that derive relationships between the solutions to different information theoretic problems. In such, our framework shifts attention from the traditional focus on solving example networks to a focus on building connections between problem solutions. The work is organized in three thrusts. The first examines network modeling assumptions with the goal of determining how much each assumption impacts the information theoretic solvability of networks, distilling out aspects that have little or no impact on solvability, and simplifying broad classes of communication problems down to their essential representative core. The second thrust moves from individual network characteristics to comparisons between characteristics in order to understand the common, unsolved challenges that lie at the heart of a wide range of network information theoretic questions and use these commonalities to develop a taxonomy of problems and solutions. Finally, as the first two thrusts steer attention towards representative examples and common challenges, existing tools for code design and capacity calculation are enhanced and amplified by applying them to new communication scenarios for which reductive arguments demonstrate a connection.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The project outlines a systematic plan for uncovering and explaining both similarities and differences between the solutions of disparate families of problems in the context of network communication. At the heart of the approach are reduction arguments. A reduction shows that a given problem A can be solved by turning it into a different problem B and then applying a solution for B. While the notion of a reduction is extremely simple, the tool of reduction turns out to be incredibly powerful. The key to its power is the observation that reductive proofs are possible even when solutions to both A and B are unavailable. Through the lens of reductive arguments, this project has provided a mechanism for generating new questions and tackling their solutions, with questions inherently different from those that currently lie at the core of network information theory. It has provided a technique for expanding results and propagating tools, ideas, perspectives, and proof techniques from the problems for which they are derived to the array of problems to which they apply. It has provided the tools to argue that certain network communication problems are central in the sense that their solutions would imply solutions for a broad range of other problems. It has provided a framework for generating a taxonomy of network communication problems in which problems that are interrelated by reductions lie in the same class, and the collection of classes form a partial order governed by reductions. Such a taxonomy has the potential to unify and steer future research on network communication.
The proposed research program has provided an excellent platform for creating broader technological, societal, research, and educational impact, with focus on dissemination to the immediate technical community, on education and outreach to the broader public, and on curriculum development activities. The products of this project include 4 journal publications, 1 manuscript submitted for journal publication, 16 conference publications, 1 patent, 1 patent application, and 1 student thesis. The project outcomes have been presented in multiple international academic conferences, in departmental colloquia world-wide, and through outreach activities to the broader public.
Last Modified: 11/25/2019
Modified by: Michael Langberg
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