Network coding

The area of network coding was initiated by the work of Ahlswede, Cai, Li, Yeung in a paper entitled "Network Information Flow". It was discovered that flow rates could be improved by using the insight that information is not a fluid or a commodity, to wit, it can be replicated at no cost, and it can also be "mixed" with other information, in the form of functions.

General Results in Network Coding
The Ford-Fulkerson theorem