On Wednesday, we looked at the first randomized version of the Generalized Minimum Distance decoding algorithm. This material was from Sections 10.2 and 10.3 in the book.

Today we looked at the most natural decoder for concatenated codes and analyzed its performance. Then we looked at the capability of RS codes to correct errors and erasures. (This material is from Sections 11.1 and 11.2 in the book.) On Wednesday, we will use this capability to design better decoding algorithms for concatenated codes.

On Wed and today, we covered expander codes from Chapter 10 in the book. On Monday we will start with decoding of concatenated codes (Chap 11).

Yesterday, we looked at the Justesen codes (Section 9.3). Next lecture, we will start with expander codes (Chap 10).

Chap 10 on expander codes is now online: comment welcome!

In today’s lecture we formally defined code concatenation and saw we can achieve the Zyablov bound with an explicit code. This material is from Sections 9.1 and 9.2 of the book. On Monday, we will study Justesen’s construction of a strongly explicit asymptotically good code, which is from Sec 9.3 in the book.

Chap 5 is new and improved with your comments!

Yesterday we saw the Elias-Bassalygo bound and we summarized what we have seen so far as well the questions we will answer in the rest of the course. This material was from Chapter 8 in the book. Then we started looking at code concatenation (Sec 9.1). We will continue with code concatenation on Friday.

Chap 4 has been updated with your comments.

I have unfortunately been falling behind on updating the book with your comments. Hopefully I’ll make a sizable dent in the next couple of weeks.

For now, enjoy (thanks to you guys) the new and improved Chapter 3.