Identifying arbitrary topologies of power networks in real time is a computationally hard problem due to the number of hypotheses that grows exponentially with the network size. The potential of recovering the topology of a grid using only the publicly available data (e.g., market data) provides an effective approach to learning the topology of the grid based on the dynamically changing and up-to-date data. This enables learning and tracking the changes in the topology of the grid in a timely fashion. A major advantage of this method is that the labeled data used for training and inference is available in an arbitrarily large amount fast and at very little cost. As a result, the power of offline training is fully exploited to learn very complex classifiers for effective real-time topology identification.

The purpose of this chapter is to set the stage for the book and for the upcoming chapters. We first overview classical information-theoretic problems and solutions. We then discuss emerging applications of information-theoretic methods in various data-science problems and, where applicable, refer the reader to related chapters in the book. Throughout this chapter, we highlight the perspectives, tools, and methods that play important roles in classic information-theoretic paradigms and in emerging areas of data science. Table 1.1 provides a summary of the different topics covered in this chapter and highlights the different chapters that can be read as a follow-up to these topics.

The network densification is one of the prominent solutions for fifth-generation (5G) networks to utilize spectrum resources through intensive deployment of small cells. However, the traffic management in dense networks become a serious challenge for underlying infrastructure supporting the virtual core network. Moreover, 5G will employ different types of communication frameworks: ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC), enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), and massive Internet of Things (mIoT). Each identify standard slice type (STT) that have different performance requirements and enabling technologies. The current network developers do not provide any concise identification on how those logic networks would be administrated on top of physical network. This chapter investigates the 5G sliced networks and study virtual networking options to meet the performance requirements of service-based architecture.