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Dr. Lara Dolecek

Coordinates

Office: 32-D668

Email: dolecek @ mit.edu

Phone:  (617)  324-0047

Postal address: 77 Massachusetts Avenue, LIDS, 32-D668, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), EECS Dept. at MIT, where I collaborate with Prof. Devavrat Shah. I was previously affiliated with Wireless Foundations, EECS Dept., UC Berkeley where my doctoral dissertation was supervised by Prof. Venkat Anantharam .

My other collaborators include Prof. Martin Wainwright, Prof. Borivoje Nikolic, Prof. Anantha Chandrakasan, Masood Qazi, Zhengya Zhang and Pamela Lee.

Education

Research areas

My research interests include

·         information and coding theory,

·         graphical models, graph theory and sparse codes,

·         mathematical modeling and algorithmic analysis of large scale networks,

·         statistical algorithms and fast simulation techniques for complex systems,

·         design and implementation of high-performance communication, signal processing and storage systems.

Publications

*Nomenclature:  [Jxy] – journals, [Cxy] – conferences, [Txy] – technical reports.

*By topic:

Statistical algorithms for  circuit evaluation and optimization

Contributions include development of a novel statistical viewpoint for efficient evaluation of circuit designs based on the theory of rare events.

[J1] L. Dolecek, M. Qazi, D. Shah and A. Chandrakasan,  “Breaking the Simulation Barrier: SRAM Evaluation through Norm Minimization,” submitted for journal publication, 2008.

[C1] L. Dolecek, M. Qazi, D. Shah and A. Chandrakasan,  “Breaking the Simulation Barrier: SRAM Evaluation through Norm Minimization,” IEEE International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), San Jose, CA, Nov. 2008.

 

Mathematical analysis of large-scale social networks

Contributions include characterization of influence and influential agents in large social networks in terms of the fundamental properties of the underlying graphical models and various temporal scales of information propagation.

[J2] L. Dolecek and D. Shah, “Influence in a Society: Interplay Between Information Dynamics and Network Structure,” to be submitted for journal publication, 2008.

[C2] L. Dolecek and D. Shah, “Social Networks With(out) Influential Agents,”  Third Congress of the Game Theory Society (GAMES 2008), Evanston, IL, July 2008.

 

Iterative decoding of finite length LDPC codes

Contributions include: (1) introduction of the combinatorial object termed absorbing set, shown to govern the low BER performance of LDPC codes under iterative decoding, (2) new deterministic and stochastic methods for the prediction of the LDPC code performance, (3) novel high-throughput decoder architectures based on absorbing sets.

[J3] L. Dolecek, P. Lee, Z. Zhang, V. Anantharam, B. Nikolic, and M. J. Wainwright, “Predicting Error Floors of LDPC Codes: Deterministic Bounds and Estimates,” accepted to IEEE Journal on Selected Areas of Communications, 2009.

[J4] L. Dolecek, Z. Zhang, V. Anantharam, M. Wainwright, and B. Nikolic, “Analysis of Absorbing Sets and Fully Absorbing Sets for Array-Based LDPC Codes,” accepted for journal publication to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2009.

      [J5] Z. Zhang, L. Dolecek, B. Nikolic, V. Anantharam and  M. Wainwright, “Design of LDPC Decoders for Low Bit Error Rate Performance: Quantization and Algorithm Choices,’’ accepted to IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2009.

      [C3]  Z. Zhang, L. Dolecek, B. Nikolic, V. Anantharam, M. J. Wainwright, “Lowering LDPC Error Floors by Postprocessing,” to appear in Proceedings of IEEE Global Telecommunications  Conference (GLOBECOM), New Orleans, LA, Nov. 2008.

[C4] P. Lee, L. Dolecek, Z. Zhang, V. Anantharam, B. Nikolic and M. Wainwright, “Error Floors in LDPC Codes: Fast Simulation, Bounds and Hardware Emulation,” IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Toronto, Canada, July 2008.

[C5] L. Dolecek, Z. Zhang, M. J. Wainwright, V. Anantharam, B. Nikolic, “Evaluation of the low frame error rate performance of LDPC codes using importance sampling,” IEEE Information Theory Workshop, Lake Tahoe CA, September 2007, pp. 202 – 207.

[C6] L. Dolecek, Z. Zhang, V. Anantharam, M. Wainwright, and B. Nikolic, “Analysis of Absorbing Sets for Array-Based LDPC Codes ,”  IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Glasgow, United Kingdom, June 2007, pp. 6261-6268.

[C7] Z. Zhang, L. Dolecek, V. Anantharam, M. Wainwright, and B. Nikolic, “Quantization Effects in Low-Density Parity-Check Decoders,”  IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Glasgow, United Kingdom, June 2007, pp. 6231-6237.

       [C8] Z. Zhang, L. Dolecek, B. Nikolic, V. Anantharam and  M. Wainwright, “Investigation of error floors of a structured low-density parity-check code by hardware simulation,”  IEEE Global Telecommunications  Conference (GLOBECOM), San Francisco, Nov. – Dec. 2006, Gen03-6,  pp. 1-6. Best paper award finalist.

 

 

Communication over asynchronous channels

Contributions include: (1) algebraic-based solutions for overcoming synchronization errors based on the systematic modification of FEC codes, (2) a novel number theoretic construction of the (best known) repetition error correcting codes, and (3) the development of suitable low complexity decoding algorithms.

[J6] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “Repetition Error Correcting Sets:  Explicit Constructions and Prefixing Methods,” submitted for journal publication to SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, 2008.

[J7] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “Using Reed-Muller codes in channels with synchronization and substitution errors,”  IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 53 (4), pp. 1430 - 1443, April 2007.

[C9] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “Prefixing Method for Correcting Repetition Errors,” IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Toronto, Canada, July 2008.

[C10] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “On Subsets of Binary Strings Immune to Multiple Repetitions,” IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Nice, France, June 2007, pp. 1691-1695.

[C11] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “On Communication over Channels with Varying Sampling Rate,” Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA), UC San Diego, La Jolla, Jan.-Feb. 2007.

[C12] L. Dolecek and  V. Anantharam, “A synchronization technique for array-based LDPC codes in channels with varying sampling rate,” IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Seattle, WA, July 2006, pp. 2057 - 2061.

[C13] L. Dolecek and V. Anantharam, “Run-length properties of a Reed-Muller RM(1,m) code with applications in channels with at most one synchronization error,” 42nd Allerton Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing, Champaign, Illinois, 29 Sep - 01 Oct. 2004, pp. 270 -279.

      [T3] L. Dolecek, “On structural properties of Reed-Muller codes and their use in channels with synchronization and substitution errors,” Report No. EECS-2006-43, EECS Department, University of California,  Berkeley, 2006.              

Teaching: In Spring 2006, I was a graduate student instructor for the Introduction to Digital Communications class (EE121).

Reading group: At UC Berkeley, I participated in the organization of a  reading group on coding theory, algorithms, geometry and concentration.   The schedule and topics covered can be found here.