EAGER: Action in Information Processing

许多通信和压缩场景都涉及到在要进行通信的信道状态或要进行通信的信息源上存在侧信息（SI）。这种科学探究的作用和潜在利益是信息论的中心主题。对于各种源和信道编码系统来说，SI可以是一种有价值的资源，相对于没有SI的情况，SI可以显著提高性能。然而，在迄今为止所研究的问题中，SI的缺乏或可用性及其质量是给定的。这项研究旨在确定基本极限。并为实际方案的建设制定指导方针？在涉及可能采取影响SI可用性、质量或性质的操作的系统的场景中。本研究的一个核心组成部分是从信息理论的角度研究控制理论概念，如动作和致动。具体地说，我们研究了涉及侧信息存在的源编码场景，当系统可以采取影响SI的可用性、质量或性质的操作时。我们首先将带有解码器侧信息的源编码的Wyner-Ziv问题扩展到允许解码器选择影响SI的动作的情况。我们还考虑编码器采取动作的设置。同样，我们研究具有动作依赖状态的信道：给定要通信的消息，发送器选择影响信道状态形成的动作序列，然后根据状态序列创建信道输入序列。在允许通道输入非因果依赖于状态序列的情况下，以及通道输入被限制为因果依赖的情况下，我们描述了这样一个通道的容量。行动的成本可能与其产生的SI质量相称，并且可能会施加整体的每个符号成本约束。我们描述了在这种源和信道编码系统中，在点对点和多终端设置中，速率、失真、功率和成本之间可实现的权衡。我们的模型涵盖了各种新的信息处理场景，从传感和数据采集到计算机存储器的编码。选择。

Many communication and compression scenarios involve the presence of Side Information (SI) on the state of the channel through which communication is to take place, or on the information source which is to be communicated. The role and potential benefit of such SI is a central theme in information theory.In ways that are well understood for various source and channel coding systems, SI can be a valuable resource, resulting in significant performance boosts relative to the case where it is absent. In the problems studied thus far, however, the lack or availability of the SI, and its quality, are a given. This research is geared towards characterizing fundamental limits ?and devising guidelines for the construction of practical schemes? in scenarios involving systems that can take actions affecting the availability, quality, or nature of the SI. A central component of this research is the study of control theoretic notions such as action and actuation from an information theoretic perspective.Specifically, we study source coding scenarios involving the presence of side information, when the system can take actions that affect the availability, quality, or nature of the SI. We begin by extending the Wyner-Ziv problem of source coding with decoder side information to the case where the decoder is allowed to choose actions affecting the SI. We consider also settings where actions are taken by the encoder(s). In a parallel vein, we study channels with action-dependent states: Given the messages to be communicated, the transmitter chooses an action sequence that affects the formation of the channel states, and then creates the channel input sequence based on the state sequence. We characterize the capacity of such a channel both for the case where the channel inputs are allowed to depend non-causally on the state sequence and the case where they are restricted to causal dependence. Actions may have costs that are commensurate with the quality of the SI they yield, and an overall per-symbol cost constraint may be imposed. We characterize the achievable tradeoffs between rate, distortion, power and cost in such source and channel coding systems, in both point-to-point and multi-terminal settings. Our models cover various new information processing scenarios ranging from sensing and data acquisition to coding for computer memories with a ?rewrite? option.