The CEO problem [multiterminal source coding]
Berger, T.
Zhen Zhang
Viswanathan, H.
Sch. of Electr. Eng., Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY ;
This paper appears in: Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on
Publication Date: May 1996
Volume: 42,
Issue: 3
On page(s): 887-902
ISSN: 0018-9448
References Cited: 19
CODEN: IETTAW
INSPEC Accession Number: 5270981
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/18.490552
Current Version Published: 2002-08-06
Abstract
We consider a new problem in multiterminal source coding motivated
by the following decentralized communication/estimation task. A firm's
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is interested in the data sequence {X(t)}
t=1∞ which cannot be observed directly,
perhaps because it represents tactical decisions by a competing firm.
The CEO deploys a team of L agents who observe independently corrupted
versions of {X(t)}t=1∞. Because {X(t)} is
only one among many pressing matters to which the CEO must attend, the
combined data rate at which the agents may communicate information about
their observations to the CEO is limited to, say, R bits per second. If
the agents were permitted to confer and pool their data, then in the
limit as L→∞ they usually would be able to smooth out their
independent observation noises entirely. Then they could use their R
bits per second to provide the CEO with a representation of {X(t)} with
fidelity D(R), where D(·) is the distortion-rate function of
{X(t)}. In particular, with such data pooling D can be made arbitrarily
small if R exceeds the entropy rate H of {X(t)}. Suppose, however, that
the agents are not permitted to convene, Agent i having to send data
based solely on his own noisy observations {Yi(t)}. We show
that then there does not exist a finite value of R for which even
infinitely many agents can make D arbitrarily small. Furthermore, in
this isolated-agents case we determine the asymptotic behavior of the
minimal error frequency in the limit as L and then R tend to infinity
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