The Mathematical Theory Of Coding

The Mathematical Theory of Coding focuses on the application of algebraic and combinatoric methods to the coding theory, including linear transformations, vector spaces, and combinatorics. The publication first offers information on finite fields and coding theory and combinatorial constructions and coding. Discussions focus on self-dual and quasicyclic codes, quadratic residues and codes, balanced incomplete block designs and codes, bounds on code dictionaries, code invariance under permutation groups, and linear transformations of vector spaces over finite fields. The text then takes a look at coding and combinatorics and the structure of semisimple rings. Topics include structure of cyclic codes and semisimple rings, group algebra and group characters, rings, ideals, and the minimum condition, chains and chain groups, dual chain groups, and matroids, graphs, and coding. The book ponders on group representations and group codes for the Gaussian channel, including distance properties of group codes, initial vector problem, modules, group algebras, andrepresentations, orthogonality relationships and properties of group characters, and representation of groups. The manuscript is a valuable source of data for mathematicians and researchers interested in the mathematical theory of coding.

Coding theory is concerned with successfully transmitting data through a noisy channel and correcting errors in corrupted messages. It is of central importance for many applications in computer science or engineering. This book gives a comprehensive introduction to coding theory whilst only assuming basic linear algebra. It contains a detailed and rigorous introduction to the theory of block codes and moves on to more advanced topics like BCH codes, Goppa codes and Sudan's algorithm for list decoding. The issues of bounds and decoding, essential to the design of good codes, features prominently. The authors of this book have, for several years, successfully taught a course on coding theory to students at the National University of Singapore. This book is based on their experiences and provides a thoroughly modern introduction to the subject. There are numerous examples and exercises, some of which introduce students to novel or more advanced material.

Algebraic coding theory is a new and rapidly developing subject, popular for its many practical applications and for its fascinatingly rich mathematical structure. This book provides an elementary yet rigorous introduction to the theory of error-correcting codes. Based on courses given by the author over several years to advanced undergraduates and first-year graduated students, this guide includes a large number of exercises, all with solutions, making the book highly suitable for individual study.

Most coding theory experts date the origin of the subject with the 1948 publication of A Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude Shannon. Since then, coding theory has grown into a discipline with many practical applications (antennas, networks, memories), requiring various mathematical techniques, from commutative algebra, to semi-definite programming, to algebraic geometry. Most topics covered in the Concise Encyclopedia of Coding Theory are presented in short sections at an introductory level and progress from basic to advanced level, with definitions, examples, and many references. The book is divided into three parts: Part I fundamentals: cyclic codes, skew cyclic codes, quasi-cyclic codes, self-dual codes, codes and designs, codes over rings, convolutional codes, performance bounds Part II families: AG codes, group algebra codes, few-weight codes, Boolean function codes, codes over graphs Part III applications: alternative metrics, algorithmic techniques, interpolation decoding, pseudo-random sequences, lattices, quantum coding, space-time codes, network coding, distributed storage, secret-sharing, and code-based-cryptography. Features Suitable for students and researchers in a wide range of mathematical disciplines Contains many examples and references Most topics take the reader to the frontiers of research

It is gratifying that this textbook is still sufficiently popular to warrant a third edition. I have used the opportunity to improve and enlarge the book. When the second edition was prepared, only two pages on algebraic geometry codes were added. These have now been removed and replaced by a relatively long chapter on this subject. Although it is still only an introduction, the chapter requires more mathematical background of the reader than the remainder of this book. One of the very interesting recent developments concerns binary codes defined by using codes over the alphabet 7l.4• There is so much interest in this area that a chapter on the essentials was added. Knowledge of this chapter will allow the reader to study recent literature on 7l. -codes. 4 Furthermore, some material has been added that appeared in my Springer Lec ture Notes 201, but was not included in earlier editions of this book, e. g. Generalized Reed-Solomon Codes and Generalized Reed-Muller Codes. In Chapter 2, a section on "Coding Gain" ( the engineer's justification for using error-correcting codes) was added. For the author, preparing this third edition was a most welcome return to mathematics after seven years of administration. For valuable discussions on the new material, I thank C.P.l.M.Baggen, I. M.Duursma, H.D.L.Hollmann, H. C. A. van Tilborg, and R. M. Wilson. A special word of thanks to R. A. Pellikaan for his assistance with Chapter 10.

Coding theory is still a young subject. One can safely say that it was born in 1948. It is not surprising that it has not yet become a fixed topic in the curriculum of most universities. On the other hand, it is obvious that discrete mathematics is rapidly growing in importance. The growing need for mathe maticians and computer scientists in industry will lead to an increase in courses offered in the area of discrete mathematics. One of the most suitable and fascinating is, indeed, coding theory. So, it is not surprising that one more book on this subject now appears. However, a little more justification of the book are necessary. A few years ago it was and a little more history remarked at a meeting on coding theory that there was no book available an introductory course on coding theory (mainly which could be used for for mathematicians but also for students in engineering or computer science). The best known textbooks were either too old, too big, too technical, too much for specialists, etc. The final remark was that my Springer Lecture Notes (# 201) were slightly obsolete and out of print. Without realizing what I was getting into I announced that the statement was not true and proved this by showing several participants the book Inleiding in de Coderingstheorie, a little book based on the syllabus of a course given at the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam in 1975 (M. C. Syllabus 31).

This book grew out of our lectures given in the Oberseminar on 'Cod ing Theory and Number Theory' at the Mathematics Institute of the Wiirzburg University in the Summer Semester, 2001. The coding the ory combines mathematical elegance and some engineering problems to an unusual degree. The major advantage of studying coding theory is the beauty of this particular combination of mathematics and engineering. In this book we wish to introduce some practical problems to the math ematician and to address these as an essential part of the development of modern number theory. The book consists of five chapters and an appendix. Chapter 1 may mostly be dropped from an introductory course of linear codes. In Chap ter 2 we discuss some relations between the number of solutions of a diagonal equation over finite fields and the weight distribution of cyclic codes. Chapter 3 begins by reviewing some basic facts from elliptic curves over finite fields and modular forms, and shows that the weight distribution of the Melas codes is represented by means of the trace of the Hecke operators acting on the space of cusp forms. Chapter 4 is a systematic study of the algebraic-geometric codes. For a long time, the study of algebraic curves over finite fields was the province of pure mathematicians. In the period 1977 - 1982, V. D. Goppa discovered an amazing connection between the theory of algebraic curves over fi nite fields and the theory of q-ary codes.

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.