IS2120 Homework 4
Due February 11


Homework 4

1. Consider a symbol set with two symbols, having probabilities p and q, with p>q. Show that the Huffman Code of the second extension has an average length of 2 if q>p*p. Otherwise, the average length is a function of p. What is this function?
2. Consider the probabilty distribution on p.70: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16,... (note that the probability of the LAST symbol is the same as that of the next-to-last). Compare the average lengths with that of a block code for n=2, 4, 8 (as is done for the Zipf distributuion in the first three rows of p.71)
3. For the following Markov process, compute the probabilities for a double transition and give the equilibrium probabilities, p(a), p(b), p(c):
p(a|a) = 0.8   p(b|a) = 0.1   p(c|a) = 0.1
p(a|b) = 0.1   p(b|b) = 0.8   p(c|b) = 0.1
p(a|c) = 0.1   p(b|c) = 0.1   p(c|c) = 0.8
[HINT: The equilibrium probabiolities should be evident by inspection -- no computation required]
4. Find a dynamic Huffman Code for the following process, and compute its average length.
p(a|a) = 0.5   p(b|a) = 0.5   p(c|a) = 0.0  p(d|a) = 0.0
p(a|b) = 0.1   p(b|b) = 0.5   p(c|b) = 0.3  p(d|b) = 0.1
p(a|c) = 0.0   p(b|c) = 0.0   p(c|c) = 0.0  p(d|c) = 1.0
p(a|d) = 0.1   p(b|d) = 0.2   p(c|d) = 0.3  p(d|d) = 0.4