SYSU Workshop on Network Information Theory and Coding
On Sept. 26, 2020, the Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) Workshop on Network Information Theory and Coding went well in the University’s Guangzhou South Campus. This workshop was organized by the IEEE Information Theory Society Guangzhou Chapter, co-sponsored by Sun Yat-sen University and the Chinese Institute of Electronics Information Theory Society. More than 50 scholars and industry partners from mainland China participated the Workshop. A few others from Hong Kong, including the first speaker Raymond Yeung of CUHK, participated online due to travel restrictions. The Guangzhou Chapter experimented resuming the first onsite conference after the outbreak of COVID-19. We were pleased it went well.
Network coding is a technique to improve the throughput of information flow by allowing coding on received data packets, instead of traditional receive-and-forward, at intermediate nodes, which has been widely used in distributed storage, coded caching, etc. This workshop aims to provide a platform for scholars in South China to exchange new research results on network information theory and coding, which will be beneficial for the community, Universities and the graduate students of the area. The workshop was chaired by Li Chen, a Professor of Sun Yat-sen University and the chair of Guangzhou Chapter.
There were seven invited talks in this workshop, with a coverage of multi-source network coding, distributed storage, coded caching, subspace codes, etc. In the morning session, Raymond Yeung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong presented recent results in symmetric multilevel diversity coding system (SMDCS), in which an explicit characterization of the superposition coding rate region was obtained. Then, Xiaohu Tang of Southwest Jiaotong University introduced the placement-delivery array (PDA) and its applications in various distributed models. The morning session ended with the talk by Shutao Xia of Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, which showed some improved bounds and singleton-optimal constructions of locally repairable codes. The afternoon session started with the talk by Hao Chen of Jinan University, with a focus on several constructions of subspace codes. Then, Minquan Cheng of Guangxi Normal University presented in details the coded caching schemes from PDA. Min Ye of Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute presented some new constructions of cooperative MSR codes. The last talk was presented by Congduan Li of Sun Yat-sen University, who shared the latest research results on multi-source multicast network coding rate region.
Finally, Li Chen summarized the workshop and expressed his gratitude to the SYSU team for their efforts in organizing this fruitful event. He advocated holding regular workshops of different themes in future to provide platforms for scholars of the region, in proliferating information theory research and educating younger talents.
