ITR: Information Representation for Cooperation Across Networks

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ITR: Information Representation for Cooperation Across NetworksWe define cooperation among the nodes of a network to include any activity where the action of a single individual relies on information from other individuals in a shared environment. Using this broad definition, information aggregation in sensor networks, group activities performed by autonomous robotic devices, internet exploration and modeling, and establishment of ad hoc networks are all examples of tasks involving cooperation among the nodes of a network. An essential feature common to cooperative tasks is the need to share information across a distributed system. Thus cooperation requires the flow of information. In environments limited by constraints on power, bandwidth, time, or memory, efficient information flow requires efficient data representation. We are currently studying strategies for efficient information representation in network systems. When we speak of information representation for a network, we consider the network as a whole, asking questions about where information resides in the network, where it is needed, and how to most efficiently represent the information to make it accessible where it is needed. Current topics of investigation include network data compression, functional source coding for networks, and joint source-channel coding for networks.