The Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IITP) was founded on the initiative of Professor A. A. Kharkevich (1909-1965), full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was designed to solve problems bearing upon the progress of information theory and its applications, upon the development of principles of integrated systems of information transmission and distribution (the structures of communication networks and switching centers, the problems of control, the teletraffic theory), and upon automatic pattern recognition (reading machines, recognition of images, speech recognition). The formal birthday of the Institute is December 29, 1961, the date when the decision of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences entitled "On the reorganization of the Laboratory of Information Transmission Systems into the Institute for Information Transmission Problems" was issued. By the same decision, academician A. A. Kharkevitch was nominated director of the Institute.
The first principal fields of research, initiated in the newly founded Institute, were studies in the fundamentals of information and coding theory; formulation and development of the concept of an integrated automated communication network; new approaches in pattern recognition theory; and new approaches in picture processing. 1963 saw the commencement of studies on information processes in living nature after the laboratory of vision biophysics headed by Professor N. D. Nyberg (1899-1967) was transferred to this Institute from the Institute of Biophysics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
After the decease of academician A. A. Kharkevitch, Professor V. I. Siforov, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, became the director of the Institute and held this position since 1966 till 1989. Over these years a number of new laboratories were organized those of complicated information systems, digital methods of information processing, digital optics, learning systems of behavior organization, computer linguistics, and communication networks.
At present the IITP's basic directions of research are the information theory and applied mathematics, computer and communication sciences in technology, management, language, and living systems. Among the most important topics studied by the Institute are problems of the theory of nonlinear analysis of complex systems, multicomponent homogeneous random systems, information transmission, queuing theory, coding and cryptography, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence, information distribution and computer networks, the theory of linguistic communication and linguistic processes (including machine translation), statistical methods of information processing and control, the theory and methods of image processing (including data compression), intellectual partner computing and information systems, information transmission and processing in living objects, sensory systems, motion control in living systems and robotics.
There is a stable scientific body of highly trained and young specialists, composed of mathematicians, physicists, biologists, linguists, programmers, and engineers in the Institute, in all near 324 collaborators in 2000. Now there are 3 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other academies, 214 full professors and doctors of sciences, honorary members of foreign academies, laureates of Russian State and international prizes in the Institute.
The internal structure of the Institute in 2000 included 15 laboratories, 6 sectors, scientific-organization department, some servicing departments and administration.
The financing sources in 2000 were: State budget (through The Russian Academy of Sciences), grants from Russian State Programs (through The Russian Ministry of Industry, Science, and Technology) and other funds (Russian Foundation for Basic Research, International Association for the Promotion of Cooperation with Scientists from the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, INTAS, etc.), some applied agreements.
There are postgraduate courses and doctorates with honors in IPPI for Russian and foreign young specialists.
The Institute's scientific potential was instrumental in giving rise to its collaboration with the well-known universities and scientific centers of such countries as Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Korea, The Netherlands, Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, etc., in all more than 25 Agreements and contracts in 2000. The Institute organizes the all-Russia and international conferences and workshops. In 2000, the 7th International Workshop on Algebraic and Combinatorial Coding Theory was held in Bansko, Bulgaria, June 18-24, 2000 (organized jointly with Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). The Institute has founded and publishes two academic periodicals: "Problems of Information Transmission" and "Automation and Remote Control", which circulate in Russia and abroad. Since October 2000 the Institute was founded the electronic scientific journal "Information Processes".
On the basis of the Institute therewere formed The Information Theory Chapter of IEEE in Russia and two scientific departments of The World Laboratory.
It is hoped that this annual report introducing the scientific activities and results of the Institute in 2000 will assist other organizations to better understand the Institute and also promote exchanges between our Institute and research institutions overseas.