Russian Academy of Sciences
INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION TRANSMISSION PROBLEMS (IPPI)
ACTIVITY REPORT 2001
IPPI IN BRIEF
Moscow 2002
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 devel-opment of the concept of an integrated automated communication network; new ap-proaches 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, corre-sponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, became the director of the In-stitute 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 or-ganization, 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, man-agement, 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, infor-mation distribution and computer networks, the theory of linguistic communication and linguistic processes (including machine translation), statistical methods of infor-mation processing and control, the theory and methods of image processing (includ-ing data compression), intellectual partner computing and information systems, in-formation 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 317 collaborators in 2001. Now there are 3 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 212 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 2001 included 15 laboratories, 6 sectors, scientific-organization department, some servicing departments and administration. The Institute is a part of the Department of Informatics, Computer Science and Automation of RAS. The financing sources in 2001 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. The Institute is a licensed educational facility in the domain of professional education and offers high quality post-graduate training that involves versatile Ph.D. programs. It has a Specialized Scientific Council licensed to accept for consideration Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) and Doctor of Science (Ph.D. habil.) dissertations, as well as a Research and Educational Association "Communication - Informatics" and a V. V. Kalashnikov Research and Educational Center "Control of Informational Processes". In 2001, three staff members of the Institute obtained a Candidate of Science degree and another three a Doctor of Science degree. 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, Swe-den, Switzerland, USA, etc., in all more than 25 Agreements and Contracts in 2001. 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 sci-entific 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. Every year, the Institute organizes and holds all-Russian and international conferences, symposia, and seminars. In 2001, several large scientific forums were organized, including the 4th Russian-Israeli conference "Distributed Computer Com-munication Networks" (Moscow, September 2001) and an International Conference on Gibbs Fields (Moscow, August 27-31, 2001), held to commemorate the 70th anni-versary of Professor Robert A. Minlos, one of the founders of the Russian school of statistical physics, and devoted to current issues of mathematical and statistical physics. Within the framework of Days of Polish Science in Russia (Moscow, October 13-18, 2001) the Institute held a Russian-Polish seminar "Formal methods in the de-sign of distributed systems of information transfer and processing". It is hoped that this annual report introducing the scientific activities and results of the Institute in 2001 will assist other organizations to better understand the Institute and also promote exchanges between our Institute and research institutions over-seas. On December 29, 2001, the Institute commemorated the 40th Anniversary of its foundation. A celebration event took place in the Moscow House of Scientists, where the Institute's Scientific Council held an anniversary meeting, in which many representatives of Moscow scientific community took part.