A new type of spatially coupled low density parity check (SCLDPC) code is proposed. This code has two benefits. (1) This code requires less number of iterations to correct the erasures occurring through the binary erasure channel in the waterfall region than that of the usual SCLDPC code. (2) This code has lower error floor than that of the usual SCLDPC code. Proposed code is constructed as a coupled chain of the underlying LDPC codes whose code lengths exponentially increase as the position where the codes exist is close to the middle of the chain. We call our code spatially “Mt. Fuji” coupled LDPC (SFCLDPC) code because the shape of the graph representing the code lengths of underlying LDPC codes at each position looks like Mt. Fuji. By this structure, when the proposed SFCLDPC code and the original SCLDPC code are constructed with the same code rate and the same code length, L (the number of the underlying LDPC codes) of the proposed SFCLDPC code becomes smaller and M (the code lengths of the underlying LDPC codes) of the proposed SFCLDPC code becomes larger than those of the SCLDPC code. These properties of L and M enables the above reduction of the number of iterations and the bit error rate in the error floor region, which are confirmed by the density evolution and computer simulations.

The context tree model has the property that the occurrence probability of symbols is determined from a finite past sequence and is a broader class of sources that includes i.i.d. or Markov sources. This paper proposes a non-stationary source with context tree models that change from interval to interval. The Bayes code for this source requires weighting of the posterior probabilities of the context tree models and change points, so the computational complexity of it usually increases to exponential order. Therefore, the challenge is how to reduce the computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a special class of prior probability distribution of context tree models and change points and develop an efficient Bayes coding algorithm by combining two existing Bayes coding algorithms. The algorithm minimizes the Bayes risk function of the proposed source in this paper, and the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is polynomial order. We investigate the behavior and performance of the proposed algorithm by conducting experiments.

Information-theoretic lower bounds of the Bayes risk have been investigated for a problem of parameter estimation in a Bayesian setting. Previous studies have proven the lower bound of the Bayes risk in a different manner and characterized the lower bound via different quantities such as mutual information, Sibson's α-mutual information, f-divergence, and Csiszár's f-informativity. In this paper, we introduce an inequality called a “meta-bound for lower bounds of the Bayes risk” and show that the previous results can be derived from this inequality.

We treat lossless fixed-to-variable length source coding under general sources for finite block length setting. We evaluate the threshold of the overflow probability for prefix and non-prefix codes in terms of the smooth max-entropy. We clarify the difference of the thresholds between prefix and non-prefix codes for finite block length. Further, we discuss our results under the asymptotic block length setting.

This paper considers universal lossless variable-length source coding problem and investigates the Bayes code from viewpoints of the distribution of its codeword lengths. First, we show that the codeword lengths of the Bayes code satisfy the asymptotic normality. This study can be seen as the investigation on the asymptotic shape of the distribution of codeword lengths. Second, we show that the codeword lengths of the Bayes code satisfy the law of the iterated logarithm. This study can be seen as the investigation on the asymptotic end points of the distribution of codeword lengths. Moreover, the overflow probability, which represents the bottom of the distribution of codeword lengths, is studied for the Bayes code. We derive upper and lower bounds of the infimum of a threshold on the overflow probability under the condition that the overflow probability does not exceed ε∈(0,1). We also analyze the necessary and sufficient condition on a threshold for the overflow probability of the Bayes code to approach zero asymptotically.

This paper investigates the problem of variable-length intrinsic randomness for a general source. For this problem, we can consider two performance criteria based on the variational distance: the maximum and average variational distances. For the problem of variable-length intrinsic randomness with the maximum variational distance, we derive a general formula of the average length of uniform random numbers. Further, we derive the upper and lower bounds of the general formula and the formula for a stationary memoryless source. For the problem of variable-length intrinsic randomness with the average variational distance, we also derive a general formula of the average length of uniform random numbers.

This letter investigates the information-theoretic privacy-utility tradeoff. We analyze the minimum information leakage (f-leakage) under the utility constraint that the excess distortion probability is allowed up to ε∈[0, 1). The derived upper bound is characterized by the ε-cutoff random transformation and a distortion ball.

This letter deals with the Slepian-Wolf coding problem for general sources. The second-order achievable rate region is derived using quantity which is related to the smooth max-entropy and the conditional smooth max-entropy. Moreover, we show the relationship of the functions which characterize the second-order achievable rate region in our study and previous study.

This letter treats the problem of lossless fixed-to-variable length source coding in moderate deviation regime. We investigate the behavior of the overflow probability of the Bayes code. Our result clarifies that the behavior of the overflow probability of the Bayes code is similar to that of the optimal non-universal code for i.i.d. sources.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive neuroimaging technique, suitable for measurement during motor learning. However, effects of contamination by systemic artifacts derived from the scalp layer on learning-related fNIRS signals remain unclear. Here we used fNIRS to measure activity of sensorimotor regions while participants performed a visuomotor task. The comparison of results using a general linear model with and without systemic artifact removal shows that systemic artifact removal can improve detection of learning-related activity in sensorimotor regions, suggesting the importance of removal of systemic artifacts on learning-related cerebral activity.