Lossless and near-lossless source coding for multiple access networks

A method of code for X and Y comprising:

• generating a partition pair P(X) and P(Y) such that each partition is a legitimate partition for a side-information, lossless decoding scheme;
• identifying said partition pair as a legitimate partition for general lossless decoding if the two descriptions together give enough information to decode X and Y uniquely.

A method for generating a MASC code comprising:

• generating instantaneous code by:
• generating subtrees Tx and Ty descending from nodes nx and ny (including nx and ny respectively).

A method of generating code comprising:

• obtaining an alphabet of symbols generated by a data source
• determining which of said symbols can have identical code descriptions and which symbols cannot have identical code descriptions;

A method of generating code for data sources X and Y having data rates Rx and Ry respectively, comprising:

• generating a code that minimizes λRx+(1−λ)Ry for an arbitrary value of λ.

A method for encoding and decoding a plurality of data streams comprising:

• encoding said plurality of data streams using a plurality of encoders to produce a plurality of encoded data streams;
• providing said plurality of encoded data streams to a receiver;
• decoding said plurality of encoded data streams using a single decoder.