IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter Vol. 66, No. 4, December 2016 Editor: Michael Langberg ISSN 1059-2362 Editorial committee: Frank Kschischang, Giuseppe Caire, Meir Feder, Tracey Ho, Joerg Kliewer, Parham Noorzad, Anand Sarwate, Andy Singer, and Sergio Verdú President’s Column Alon Orlitsky One should never start with a cliche. So let me that would bring and curate information the- end with one: where did 2016 go? It seems like oretic lectures for large audiences. yesterday that I wrote my first column, and it’s already time to reflect on a year gone by? • Jeff Andrews and Elza Erkip are heading a BoG ad-hoc committee exploring the cre- And a remarkable year it was! Each of earth’s ation of a new publication connecting corners and all of life’s walks were abuzz with information theory to other topics and activity and change, and information theory communities, with two main formats con- followed suit. Adding to our society’s regu- sidered: a special topics journal, and a larly hectic conference meeting/publication popular magazine. calendar, we also celebrated Shannon’s 100th anniversary with fifty worldwide centennials, • Christina Fragouli and Anna Scaglione are numerous write-ups in major journals and co-authoring a children’s book on informa- magazines, and a coveted Google Doodle on tion theory, the first chapter is completed Shannon’s birthday. For the last time let me and the rest are expected next year. thank Christina Fragouli and Rudi Urbanke for co-chairing the hyperactive Centennials Committee. As the holidays ushered in, twelve-shy-one society members received jolly good tidings. Raviraj Adve, Alexei Ashikhmin, Our major centennial project, the Shannon documentary, Huaiyu Dai, Xinzhou Dong, Michael Gastpar, Stephen Hanly, has also shaped up well. Proceeding past the family-, stu- Masahito Hayashi, Amir Khandani, Witold Krzymien, Teng- dent-, and colleague-videos, we are gearing up for the main joon Lim, and Xiaojun Lin were elevated to IEEE Fellow grade. “Shannon interview” at the family’s Winchester house, now Only one tenth of one percent of IEEE members can become anticipated at the end of January. We hired a production de- Fellows annually, which for our society amounts to roughly signer to re-assemble Shannon’s mechanical widgets, and are three. Thrice exceeding our quota attests to the high regard at concluding the Shannon-actor search with hopefully-final au- which the whole institute holds our society. Please join me in ditions planned for the coming weeks. Not long from now, I congratulating our fellow fellows on this deeply deserved and look forward to all of us enjoying the first major documentary warmly welcome recognition of their accomplishments. about the genesis of our field. 2016 was notable in another respect as well. Over the past At the beginning of the year we also set out to increase com- half century, numerous information-theoretic innovations, munication from, to, and within our community. We followed from compression to coding and from modulation to MIMO up with four initiatives: have enabled and propelled the communication revolution. • Matthieu Bloch, Michelle Effros, and other society mem- And this year, two more information-theoretic inventions are bers, have been working with producer Brit Cruise to cre- poised to make worldwide communication even faster and ate short videos explaining information theoretic concepts more efficient and reliable. and contributions, and the first two videos, about MIMO and Network Coding, are expected early next year. Last month, the international mobile telecommunications organization, 3GPP, decided on the standards for the 5G • Suhas Diggavi and Salim El Rouayheb are leading the effort to create an online lecture series similar to TCS+ (continued on page 33) 2 From the Editor Michael Langberg Dear colleagues, The issue continues with a number of regular columns and reports including Tony Ephremides’s Historian’s column; Our winter issue of 2016 opens with our “Students’ Corner’’ column presenting “A Perspective Alon Orlitsky’s final column as Presi- on Implicit Gender Bias’’ by Mine Alsan; the column ``From dent of the IT Society. Please join me in the field’’ by the IEEE Information Theory Society German thanking Alon for his dedication and in- Chapter, Volker Kühn, Gerhard Bauch, and Dirk Wübben; a spiring leadership over the past year, and new regular column that presents a list of recent articles pub- in warmly welcoming our incoming Presi- lished in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and dent Rüdiger Urbanke. We then proceed to in Foundations and Trends® in Communications and Infor- present two excellent technical contribu- mation Theory; and reports from recent Shannon Centenary tions. “The classical capacity of quantum events: Ninoslav Marina describes the journey that lead to a Gaussian gauge-covariant channels: commemorative stamp presenting Claude E. Shannon issued beyond i.i.d.” by Alexander S. Holevo, by the Macedonian Post, Alfred Hero reports on the University of Michigan Shannon Cen- this years Shannon award winner. The ar- tennial Symposium, and Natasha Devroye reports on the “IEEE ITSoc Chicago Chapter ticle extends the Shannon lecture given at Shannon Centennial Event”. In additional you will find a report on the “2016 IEEE Inter- ISIT 2016 and studies a challenging family national Symposium on Information Theory” that took place in Barcelona, Spain by Albert of quantum Gaussian channels. “Sparse Guillén i Fàbregas, Alfonso Martinez and Sergio Verdú; a report by Bobak Nazer on the Regression Codes”, by Ramji Venkatara- IHP program “Nexus of Information and Computation Theories” that took place during manan, Sekhar Tatikonda, and Andrew the early spring in Paris; a report on the “2016 IEEE IT Society Summer School” that took Barron, based on their tutorial at ISIT 2016. place in the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore; a report by Han Vinck on the celebra- The article surveys the topic of sparse re- tion of Piet Schalkwijk’s 80th birthday; and minutes from the IEEE Information Theory gression codes at both an intuitive and for- Society Board of Governors meeting this summer at ISIT. mal level, and includes a list of intriguing open problems. Many thanks to the con- With sadness, we conclude this issue with a tribute to Robert Fano, a pillar and leader of our tributors for their significant efforts! community, who passed away on July 13th; and a tribute to Titsa Panayota Papantoni-Kazakos, continued on page 33 IEEE Information Theory Table of Contents Society Newsletter President’s Column ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 From the Editor . 2 IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter (USPS 360-350) is published quarterly by the The Classical Capacity of Quantum Gaussian Gauge-Covariant Channels: Information Theory Society of the Institute of Beyond i.i.d. ..............................................................3 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Sparse Regression Codes ...................................................7 Headquarters: 3 Park Avenue, 17th Floor, The Historian’s Column...................................................16 New York, NY 10016-5997. Students’ Corner .........................................................17 Cost is $1.00 per member per year (included in Society fee) for each member of the From the Field: IEEE Information Theory Society German Chapter . .18 Information Theory Society. Printed in the Shannon Centenary ......................................................19 U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at New York, IEEE ITSOC Chicago Chapter Shannon Centennial Event .....................21 NY and at additional mailing offices. 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory ...................22 Postmaster: Send address changes to IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter, IHP Program on the “Nexus of Information and Computation Theories” ........23 IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854. 2016 IEEE IT Society Summer School. Indian Institute of Science . .24 © 2016 IEEE. Information contained in this Seminar on Information—and Communication Theory on the Occasion newsletter may be copied without permis- of the ightieth Birthday of Piet Schalkwijk ...................................25 sion provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors Meeting.................26 and the title of the publication and its date In Memoriam: Robert Fano ................................................29 appear. In Memoriam: Dr. Titsa Panayota Papantoni-Kazakos.........................32 IEEE prohibits discrimination, harassment, and bullying. For TM more information, visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/ Golomb’s Puzzle Column : Collection, Part 2 . 34 whatis/policies/p9-26.html. Call for Nominations .....................................................46 Recent Publications.......................................................48 FPO Call for Papers . 52 Conference Calendar �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56 IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter December 2016 3 The Classical Capacity of Quantum Gaussian Gauge-Covariant Channels: Beyond i.i.d. A. S. Holevo, Steklov Mathematical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences Abstract Following ISIT2016, the workshop “Beyond i.i.d. in Information Theory” was held in Barcelona. This note sketches