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The zero-frequency problem: estimating the probabilities of novel events in adaptive text compression

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Witten, I.H., Bell, T.C.·1991·IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

Abstract

Approaches to the zero-frequency problem in adaptive text compression are discussed. This problem relates to the estimation of the likelihood of a novel event occurring. Although several methods have been used, their suitability has been on empirical evaluation rather than a well-founded model. The authors propose the application of a Poisson process model of novelty. Its ability to predict novel tokens is evaluated, and it consistently outperforms existing methods. It is applied to a practical statistical coding scheme, where a slight modification is required to avoid divergence. The result is a well-founded zero-frequency model that explains observed differences in the performance of existing methods, and offers a small improvement in the coding efficiency of text compression over the best method previously known.>

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Metadata

Authors
Witten, I. H., & Bell, T. C.
Venue
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Published
1991-07
Volume
37
Issue
4
Pages
1085-1094
ISSN
0018-9448 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2113641473
Cited by
729
References
0
FWCI
3.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The zero-frequency problem: estimating the probabilities of novel events in adaptive text compression. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1109/18.87000
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Witten, I. H., & Bell, T. C. (1991). The zero-frequency problem: estimating the probabilities of novel events in adaptive text compression. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. https://doi.org/10.1109/18.87000

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