The Science of Network Coding

网络编码是世纪之交引入的一个优雅而强大的概念，预计将成为未来通信网络的核心使能技术，彻底改变信息在地理上分散的位置之间的通信方式。网络编码的基本优势体现在网络容量、纠错、能源效率、网络安全、存储效率、传输延迟和算法复杂性等方面。虽然大多数现有的网络编码理论研究都是基于信息论和代数方法，但网络编码科学是一个研究项目，旨在改变人们对网络编码的看法，邀请人们对这个简单而基本的工具提出新的观点，从而对该主题产生新的基本见解，并在实践中更容易、更有效地应用。正如其名称所示，网络编码是在网络中执行的编码，并且自然受益于探索底层网络拓扑、相关算法、复杂性和可实现性问题的计算机科学和数学处理。网络编码科学填补了现有网络编码理论研究的这一空白，与信息论和代数方法互为补充和竞争。**网络编码科学的成功将为互联网、无线网络和分布式存储系统的应用提供高效和有效的网络编码算法，构成一个关键的平台技术，进一步服务于受益于信息通信的高级应用，如云计算、大数据分析、智能电网、生物信息学和环境监测。网络编码可导致在依赖和受益于信息交换的这些系统之间有效、有力和安全地收集和传播信息。

Network coding, an elegant and powerful concept introduced at the turn of the millennium, is expected to be a core enabling technology in future communication networks, revolutionizing the way information are communicated across geographically dispersed locations. Fundamental benefits of network coding arise in network capacity, error correction, energy efficiency, network security, storage efficiency, transmission delays, and algorithm complexity. While most existing studies in network coding theory are based on information theory and algebraic approaches, The Science of Network Coding is a research program that aspires to change the way people think about network coding, inviting new view points on this simple yet fundamental tool, resulting in new fundamental insights on the subject as well as easier and more effective applications in practice. As evident in its name, network coding is coding performed within a network, and naturally benefits from a computer science and mathematics treatment that explores the underlying network topology, and the associated algorithms, complexity and achievability issues. The Science of Network Coding fills such a gap in existing studies on network coding theory, complementing and competing with the information theory and algebraic approaches. **Successes in the science of network coding will enable efficient and effective network coding algorithms for applications in the Internet, in wireless networks, and in distributed storage systems, constituting a key platform technology that further serves high-level applications that benefit from the communication of information, such as cloud computing, big data analytics, smart grids, bioinformatics, and environmental monitoring. Network coding can lead to efficient, robust and secure information gleaning and dissemination among such systems that depend upon and benefit from the exchange of information.