Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-communication-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/3/c/solution
Past exam of the communication Theory course of the University of Oxford 2009 3 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Let record whether the second stage erased the symbol, and write its output as . The erasure marker is outside the original output alphabet, so is determined by . Independence makes independent of both and the first output . The chain rule for mutual information therefore givesThe erased branch gives zero information because its output is constant; the unerased branch has exactly the original joint input-output law. Maximizing over the same input distributions givesThis includes and . It is the capacity after independent output erasure; input-dependent erasure would not justify the independence step.
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