Error Exponent Regions for Multi-user Channels

To my parents, my brother and my sisters. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis co-advisors Achilleas Anastasopoulos and S. Sandeep Pradhan. Achilleas is humorous, brilliant, and creative. My thesis was inspired by his one question-what do the error exponents look like in a broadcast channel? After I plotted a few points on a piece of paper at home, I started to realize that there existed a new degree of freedom-a tradeoff among error exponents. I thank him for his valuable questions and suggestions which went into this thesis. I am grateful to Sandeep for introducing me to multiuser information theory. Sandeep has broad knowledge in multiuser channels, distributed source coding, sensor networks, and other subjects important to me. His insight and perspective in these areas provided many valuable suggestions and guided me in the right direction. Furthermore, he was very patient regarding my progress and gave me a lot of encouragement while I experienced difficulty in my research. Thank you, Sandeep. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, my brother and sisters for their love and support. My mother, who raised four children as a single parent twenty years ago, is a brave and strong woman. A thousand thanks for her endless love and understanding.