Course Number: CSS ....
Title: Topics in error correcting codes
Instructor : Mrinal Kumar
Email : first name AT tifr DOT res DOT in
Office hours : Mon 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Grades will be based on problem sets (70%), class participation (10%) and scribing some lecture notes (20%).
Mathematical maturity, familiarity with the contents of a typical Discrete Math and Algorithms Class and comfort with reading and writing proofs.
This is a theory course, so you should be comfortable around mathematical statements and proofs. You are NOT expected to have a background in coding theory for this class and the course will be self contained for the most part.
The course is aimed at studying some advanced topics in the theory of error correcting codes and some applications in computational complexity. For a large part, we will focus on the notion of locality in coding theory and will study the notions of local decoding, local testing and local correction in coding theory. We will also see applications of some of these ideas to problems like private information retrieval and to problems in pseudorandomness.
A tentative list of topics can be found here.