Elements of Information Theory

As an exile in America during the War, Theodor Adorno grew acquainted with the fundamentals of empirical social research, something which would shape the work he undertook in the early 1950s as co-director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Yet he also became increasingly aware of the ‘fetishism of method’ in sociology, and saw the serious limitations of theoretical work based solely on empirical findings. In this lecture course given in 1964, Adorno develops a critique of both sociology and philosophy, emphasizing that theoretical work requires a specific mediation between the two disciplines. Adorno advocates a philosophical approach to social theory that challenges the drive towards uniformity and a lack of ambiguity, highlighting instead the fruitfulness of experience, in all its messy complexity, for critical social analysis. At the same time, he shows how philosophy must also realise that it requires sociology if it is to avoid falling for the old idealistic illusion that the totality of real conditions can be grasped through thought alone. Masterfully bringing together philosophical and empirical approaches to an understanding of society, these lectures from one of the most important social thinkers of the 20th century will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology and the social sciences generally.

Sound knowledge of the latest research results in the thermodynamics and design of thermoelectric devices, providing a solid foundation for thermoelectric element and module design in the technical development process and thus serving as an indispensable tool for any application development. The text is aimed mainly at the project developer in the field of thermoelectric technology, both in academia and industry, as well as at graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Some core sections address the specialist in the field of thermoelectric energy conversion, providing detailed discussion of key points with regard to optimization. The international team of authors with experience in thermoelectrics research represents such institutes as EnsiCaen Universite de Paris, JPL, CalTech, and the German Aerospace Center.

CRYPTOGRAPHY, INFORMATION THEORY, AND ERROR-CORRECTION A rich examination of the technologies supporting secure digital information transfers from respected leaders in the field As technology continues to evolve Cryptography, Information Theory, and Error-Correction: A Handbook for the 21ST Century is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the secure exchange of financial information. Identity theft, cybercrime, and other security issues have taken center stage as information becomes easier to access. Three disciplines offer solutions to these digital challenges: cryptography, information theory, and error-correction, all of which are addressed in this book.This book is geared toward a broad audience. It is an excellent reference for both graduate and undergraduate students of mathematics, computer science, cybersecurity, and engineering. It is also an authoritative overview for professionals working at financial institutions, law firms, and governments who need up-to-date information to make critical decisions. The book’s discussions will be of interest to those involved in blockchains as well as those working in companies developing and applying security for new products, like self-driving cars. With its reader-friendly style and interdisciplinary emphasis this book serves as both an ideal teaching text and a tool for self-learning for IT professionals, statisticians, mathematicians, computer scientists, electrical engineers, and entrepreneurs.Six new chapters cover current topics like Internet of Things security, new identities in information theory, blockchains, cryptocurrency, compression, cloud computing and storage. Increased security and applicable research in elliptic curve cryptography are also featured. The book also:Shares vital, new research in the field of information theoryProvides quantum cryptography updatesIncludes over 350 worked examples and problems for greater understanding of ideas. Cryptography, Information Theory, and Error-Correction guides readers in their understanding of reliable tools that can be used to store or transmit digital information safely.

Discover the first unified treatment of today's most essential information technologies— Compressing, Encrypting, and Encoding With identity theft, cybercrime, and digital file sharing proliferating in today's wired world, providing safe and accurate information transfers has become a paramount concern. The issues and problems raised in this endeavor are encompassed within three disciplines: cryptography, information theory, and error-correction. As technology continues to develop, these fields have converged at a practical level, increasing the need for a unified treatment of these three cornerstones of the information age. Stressing the interconnections of the disciplines, Cryptography, Information Theory, and Error-Correction offers a complete, yet accessible account of the technologies shaping the 21st century. This book contains the most up-to-date, detailed, and balanced treatment available on these subjects. The authors draw on their experience both in the classroom and in industry, giving the book's material and presentation a unique real-world orientation. With its reader-friendly style and interdisciplinary emphasis, Cryptography, Information Theory, and Error-Correction serves as both an admirable teaching text and a tool for self-learning. The chapter structure allows for anyone with a high school mathematics education to gain a strong conceptual understanding, and provides higher-level students with more mathematically advanced topics. The authors clearly map out paths through the book for readers of all levels to maximize their learning. This book: Is suitable for courses in cryptography, information theory, or error-correction as well as courses discussing all three areas Provides over 300 example problems with solutions Presents new and exciting algorithms adopted by industry Discusses potential applications in cell biology Details a new characterization of perfect secrecy Features in-depth coverage of linear feedback shift registers (LFSR), a staple of modern computing Follows a layered approach to facilitate discussion, with summaries followed by more detailed explanations Provides a new perspective on the RSA algorithm Cryptography, Information Theory, and Error-Correction is an excellent in-depth text for both graduate and undergraduate students of mathematics, computer science, and engineering. It is also an authoritative overview for IT professionals, statisticians, mathematicians, computer scientists, electrical engineers, entrepreneurs, and the generally curious.

Wireless Information and Power Transfer offers an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the theory, models, techniques, implementation and application of wireless information and power transfer (WIPT) in energy-constrained wireless communication networks. With contributions from an international panel of experts, this important resource covers the various aspects of WIPT systems such as, system modeling, physical layer techniques, resource allocation and performance analysis. The contributors also explore targeted research problems typically encountered when designing WIPT systems.

Theories and practices to assess critical information in a complex adaptive system Organized for readers to follow along easily, The Fitness of Information: Quantitative Assessments of Critical Evidence provides a structured outline of the key challenges in assessing crucial information in a complex adaptive system. Illustrating a variety of computational and explanatory challenges, the book demonstrates principles and practical implications of exploring and assessing the fitness of information in an extensible framework of adaptive landscapes. The book’s first three chapters introduce fundamental principles and practical examples in connection to the nature of aesthetics, mental models, and the subjectivity of evidence. In particular, the underlying question is how these issues can be addressed quantitatively, not only computationally but also explanatorily. The next chapter illustrates how one can reduce the level of complexity in understanding the structure and dynamics of scientific knowledge through the design and use of the CiteSpace system for visualizing and analyzing emerging trends in scientific literature. The following two chapters explain the concepts of structural variation and the fitness of information in a framework that builds on the idea of fitness landscape originally introduced to study population evolution. The final chapter presents a dual-map overlay technique and demonstrates how it supports a variety of analytic tasks for a new type of portfolio analysis. The Fitness of Information: Quantitative Assessments of Critical Evidence also features: In-depth case studies and examples that characterize far-reaching concepts, illustrate underlying principles, and demonstrate profound challenges and complexities at various levels of analytic reasoning Wide-ranging topics that underline the common theme, from the subjectivity of evidence in criminal trials to detecting early signs of critical transitions and mechanisms behind radical patents An extensible and unifying framework for visual analytics by transforming analytic reasoning tasks to the assessment of critical evidence The Fitness of Information: Quantitative Assessments of Critical Evidence is a suitable reference for researchers, analysts, and practitioners who are interested in analyzing evidence and making decisions with incomplete, uncertain, and even conflicting information. The book is also an excellent textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses on visual analytics, information visualization, and business analytics and decision support systems.

In this path-breaking work, Mark Poster highlights the nature of the newly emerging forms of social life, in the current era. The flexibility of language which the computer allows makes the written word less certain and less concrete. The result of these changes, Poster argues, is a new communication experience, an interaction between humankind and a new kind of reality. Poster discusses the addictive properties of television and arcade video games, as well as the surveillance possibilities which the new communication technologies offer the state. His wide-ranging analysis incorporates the new language-based theories of mathematics, philosophy and literature in Wiener, Derrida and Barthes, among others. This work is a major new contribution to the debate surrounding the future of electronically mediated-experiences.

First issued in translation as a two-volume work in 1975, this classic book provides the first complete development of the theory of probability from a subjectivist viewpoint. It proceeds from a detailed discussion of the philosophical mathematical aspects to a detailed mathematical treatment of probability and statistics. De Finetti’s theory of probability is one of the foundations of Bayesian theory. De Finetti stated that probability is nothing but a subjective analysis of the likelihood that something will happen and that that probability does not exist outside the mind. It is the rate at which a person is willing to bet on something happening. This view is directly opposed to the classicist/ frequentist view of the likelihood of a particular outcome of an event, which assumes that the same event could be identically repeated many times over, and the 'probability' of a particular outcome has to do with the fraction of the time that outcome results from the repeated trials.