Communication Complexity [Hardcover]

Eyal Kushilevitz (Author), Noam Nisan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 28, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0521560675 | ISBN-13: 978-0521560672

Communication Complexity surveys this mathematical theory, concentrating on the question of how much communication is necessary for any particular process. The first part of the book is devoted to the simple two-party model introduced by Yao in 1979, which is still the most widely studied model. The second part treats newer models developed to deal with more complicated communication processes. Finally, the authors treat applications of these models, including computer networks, VLSI circuits, and data structures.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a great book! The topics are well-chosen and the presentation is excellent...I spent most of my Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation (and some time in between) reading this book. That I wanted to speaks well of its choice of topics. That I was able to speaks well of its presentation." SIGACT News

"This is an excellent book devoted to communication complexity of two-party protocols introduced by A.C.C. Yao....I believe that it will be very useful in stimulating research in this area." Juraj Hromkovic, Mathematical Reviews

"I strongly recommend this book to everybody interested in this topic, and to researchers...Its readability and good organization also make it a suitable resource for preparing lectures for graduate students in theoretical computer science and mathematics." Computing Reviews

Book Description

Computers can be described as a series of communication processes on many levels. When more than one computer is involved, even more layers of communication are necessary. Communication complexity is the mathematical theory of such communication processes. It is also often used as an abstract model of other aspects of computation.This book begins with simple models of communication and leads up to state-of-the-art theoretical results and applications. It will be an essential resource for graduate students and researchers in theoretical computer science, circuits, networks, VLSI, and information theory.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 205 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521560675
• ISBN-13: 978-0521560672
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,537,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Radically distinctive and without equal, May 15, 2008

By 

Magdy Saeb "book virtuoso" (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Communication Complexity (Paperback)

This book provides a large set of applications that is based on the theory of communication complexity developed by Yao et. al. The material addresses important domains such as covers, randomization and other advanced topics related to two-party communication complexity.

The sections that I found completely interesting are: randomization versus determinism, distributional complexity, protocol rounds and asymmetric communications.

A very enlightening section on communication with partial information is well-presented and explained with examples and exercises. The chapters on "Multiparty Communication Complexity", "Variable Partition Models", and "Networks & VLSI" are exceptionally informative. These chapters provide the mathematical foundation required for the study of several practical systems. For example, the time and area parameters, usually encountered in VLSI design problems, are discussed and a theoretically- efficient chip layout schema is proposed.

The book is radically distinctive and without equal. It provides a large number of applications, examples, and exercises to assist the reader grasp the concepts of the theory of communication complexity.

It is a valuable asset for researchers in computer science, computer engineering and information theory.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THE book to read in this field, August 24, 2000

By 

William Gasarch (College Park, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Communication Complexity (Hardcover)

Communication Complexity studies how many bits ALICE and BOB have to exchange to computer a function. Questinos of this sort are interesting in and of themselves AND also because they help proof lower Bounds on models of computation like circuits and decision trees. THIS book is readable and gives you all the basics that you need. The authors present clean proofs of basic theorems on how many bits are needed, and also supply links to other models nicely, and proof lower bounds on those models. This should be in the library of every theoretical computer scientist and every computer scientist that works on communication protocols. ([e-mail])