UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
		 COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM


                "Optics, Fibres and Information Theory"


                         Alexander Shafarenko 
                      (School of Computer Science,
                      University of Hertfordshire)

        	       18 January 2006 (Wednesday) 

                          Lecture Theatre E350
		       Hatfield, College Lane Campus
			       3 - 4 pm

       	       Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.
			 [Catering Permitting]

		    Everyone is Welcome to Attend
			  [Space Permitting]



Abstract:

In this talk I will tell a story about a group of electrical engineers
wondering how to pre-encode a data stream so as to avoid a certain
type of error in optical fibres. I joined them last year as a computer scientist
and helped to build a statistical model based on information theory.
Using that model we have managed to develop some simple but
very effective codes that, while degrading the fibre throughput
by a few percentage points, manage to significantly reduce the bit
error rate.



About the speaker:
Alexander Shafarenko is Professor of Software Engineering
in the School of Computer Science at the University
of Hertfordshire. For details on his research interests, 
publications and activities, 
see http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqas/


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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq