The IEEE Statistical Signal Processing (SSP) workshop, sponsored by the IEEE Signal Processing Society, brings members of the IEEE Signal Processing Society together with researchers from allied fields such as statistics and bioinformatics. This year's workshop will be held on August 26-29, 2007, in Madison, Wisconsin, a vibrant city situated on a narrow isthmus between two large lakes. Plenary lecturers include Emmanuel Candes, Richard Davidson, William Freeman, Nir Friedman, Jelena Kovacevic, and George Papanicolaou.

The scope of the workshop includes basic theory, methods and algorithms, and applications of statistics in signal processing. Topics to be covered include adaptive systems and signal processing; Monte Carlo methods; detection and estimation theory; learning theory and pattern recognition; multivariate statistical analysis; system identification and calibration; and time-frequency and time-scale analysis. Application areas of particular interest include bioinformatics and genomic signal processing; automotive and industrial applications; array processing, radar, and sonar; communication systems and networks; sensor networks; information forensics and security; biosignal processing and medical imaging; and new methods, directions, and applications. Registration is now open and the advanced registration deadline is July 1, 2007. Further information is available at http://ssp07.org.

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3. Publication News


Upcoming Deadlines for Signal Processing Magazine:  http://www.ieee-spm.org/?i=cfp 

SPM Columns/Forums rolling submission deadlines

Special Issue on Visual Cultural Heritage: white paper due 1 July 2007

The application of signal processing to the analysis of visual Cultural Heritage artworks (man-made or natural) is still a very uncommon practice. Lately, however, there has been a greater interest on both sides for acquiring and processing Cultural Heritage-related image data in order to facilitate their storage, transmission, representation, analysis and fruition. Efforts in these areas have been supported with promising results demonstrated by some high visibility projects and by many initiatives worldwide. Digital signal processing serves as a foundation upon which many applications must rely for optimal results.

This special issue solicits tutorial articles with comprehensive surveys of important theories, algorithms, tools, and applications of signal processing to visual Cultural Heritage. Prospective authors should follow these instruction online to submit a white paper summarizing the motivation, the significance of the topic, a brief history, and an outline of the content.

Special Issue Deadlines of SPS Journals

• Special issue on "New Approaches to Statistical Speech and Text Processing" - Deadline: 15 June 2007.
  (Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing)
   
• "MIMO-Optimized Transmission Systems for Delivering Data and Rich Content" - Deadline: 15 July 2007.
  (Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing)
   
• Special issue on "Multimedia Applications in Mobile/Wireless Context" - Deadline: 31 July 2007.
  (Transactions on Multimedia)
   
• "Genomic and Proteomic Signal Processing" - Deadline: 1 September 2007.
  (Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing)
   
• "Distributed Processing in Vision Networks" - Deadline: 15 October 2007.
  (Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing)

Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (JSTSP) - Call for Proposals of Special Issues: 

J-STSP is a new journal of the IEEE Signal Processing Society that emphasizes emerging technical areas within the discipline. For information on submitting papers to these special issues, or how to propose a topic for the journal, please visit the J-STSP website. Inquiries can be addressed to Prof. A. Lee Swindlehurst, Editor-in-Chief  (Brigham Young University, UT, USA), Email: [swindle AT ee.byu.edu].

SCITOPIA.ORG Research Site Set to Launch in June

IEEE and 12 of the world's leading science and technology societies are launching scitopia.org, a free federated search engine that will enable users to explore research most often cited in scholarly work and patents. More than three million documents, including peer-reviewed journal content and conference proceedings spanning 150 years of science and technology, may be searched through this dedicated gateway.

Search results will present users with a relevant, ranked list of content that will include the article's title, authors and citation. Once a piece of content is selected, the user will be directed to the publisher's digital library site to access the full text. Researchers at institutions with subscriptions to the content will be automatically authenticated and will be able to click through to access the full text. For full details about the service and a full list of participating societies, visit http://www.scitopia.org.

Recent Issues of SPS Sponsored and Co-sponsored Publications

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4. TC News

Image and MultiDimensional Signal Processing (IMDSP) Technical Committee

The IEEE Image and MultiDimensional Signal Processing (IMDSP) Technical Committee promotes the advancement of the field of image and video and multidimensional signal processing. One of the TC’s most important responsibilities is overseeing the organization and the technical program and serving as core reviewers for the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), which is the largest and premiere IEEE conference on image and video. The IMDSP TC also coordinates the paper reviews for ICASSP in the IMDSP area, organizes and operates workshops related to IMDSP, makes nominations for Society awards and paper awards, assists in the selection of SPS Distinguished Lecturers, assists in the development of IEEE standards, and supports various IEEE publications in the area of IMDSP.  Learn more about the IMDSP TC effort through this exclusive in-depth report.

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5. Chapter News and Distinguished Lectures

Do you know?  IEEE SPS provides travel support for local chapters to invite SPS Distinguished Lecturers.  See a list of 2006 and 2007 SPS DLs, and check below for upcoming SPS Distinguished Lectures near you.
 

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6. Standard/Industry News

Standardization Effort on Cognitive Radio for Dynamic Spectrum Access

Dynamic spectrum access provides a suite of spectrum management policies and techniques envisioned to resolve the paradox between the overly crowded spectrum and pervasive idle frequency bands revealed by actual spectrum usage measurements. Such techniques have recently captured much attention. Standardization activities regarding dynamic spectrum access have also taken place. The IEEE P1900 Standards Group was established in 2005, aiming to develop supporting standards dealing with new technologies and techniques being developed for cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access. In March, the IEEE Standards Board approved the reorganization of the IEEE 1900 effort as Standards Coordinating Committee 41 (SCC 41), Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN). Learn more about the standardization effort of cognitive radio from the in-depth report.

Peer-to-Peer System and Applications

Development of peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and applications may radically change the way that the Internet is used today. A unique characteristic of the P2P application is that the peers bring with them serving capacity when they join the network. Therefore, as more peers join the system and the demand of a peer-to-peer system grows, the capacity of the system grows too. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional client-server system, where the server capacity is fixed and paid for by the provider. Learn more about the on-going industrial R&D on P2P from the in-depth article.

Learn Standards in a Nutshell from the latest issue of SPM on
"W3C Speech Interface Languages: VoiceXML" by James A. Larson (May 2007, pp. 126-130).

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7. New PhD Theses


Svetlana Monakhova Bachmann (University of Oklahoma):
"Spectral Analyses of the Dual Polarization Doppler Weather Radar Data," March 2007.
Advised by Prof. Tian-You Yu.

The national network of weather radars is undergoing an upgrade to include the dual polarization capability. The time series obtained with the polarimetric prototype of the forthcoming weather radar are used to study echoes in clear air. Clear air echoes have low signal to noise ratios that create a challenge for signal processing techniques. Clear air echoes contaminated by bird returns during migration are usually considered to be worthless for meteorological interpretation. This dissertation presents novel polarimetric spectral analyses that help distinguishing signatures of different types of scatterers present in the same resolution volumes. Spectral techniques for data censoring, wind retrieval, and estimation of intrinsic values/functions of polarimetric variables for different types of scatterers are presented. The possibilities of spectral processing using parametric estimation techniques are explored for resolving contributions to the Doppler spectrum from the three types of scatterers: passive wind tracers, actively flying insects, and birds. A combination of parametric and non-parametric polarimetric spectral analyses is used to estimate the small bias introduced to the wind velocity by actively flying insects.

Click here to download the dissertation, or contact the author for more information.

Patrick Vandewalle (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - EPFL, Switzerland):
"Super-Resolution from Unregistered Aliased Images," July 2006.
Advised by Prof. Martin Vetterli and Prof. Sabine Süsstrunk.

Aliasing in images is often considered a nuisance. However, aliasing can also convey useful information about the high frequency content of the image, which is exploited in super-resolution applications. We use a set of aliased input images of the same scene to extract such high frequency information and create a higher resolution, aliasing-free image. In general, super-resolution image reconstruction can be formulated as a multichannel sampling problem with unknown offsets. This results in a set of equations that are linear in the unknown signal coefficients but nonlinear in the offsets. This thesis concentrates on the computation of these offsets, as they are an essential prerequisite for a high resolution reconstruction. First, a super-resolution method for partially aliased signals is presented. Then, three methods for totally aliased signals are described: two of them use a subspace approach, while the third uses Gröbner bases. These algorithms are tested in simulations and practical experiments.

Click here to download the dissertation, or contact the author for more information.

Ian Chan Wong (University of Texas at Austin):
"A Unified Framework for Optimal Resource Allocation in Multiuser Multicarrier Wireless Systems," April 2007.
Advised by Prof. Brian L. Evans.

The problem of allocating time slots, subcarriers, rates, and power to the different users in an OFDMA system has been an area of active research in recent years. Previous research efforts in OFDMA resource allocation have typically focused on maximizing instantaneous performance, developing sub-optimal heuristic algorithms, and assuming perfect channel state information (CSI) is available at the transmitter. This dissertation focuses on developing a unified algorithmic framework based on dual optimization techniques that have complexities that are linear in the number of subcarriers and users, and that achieve negligible optimality gaps in standards-based numerical simulations. This framework is applicable to continuous/ergodic instantaneous/discrete rate maximization, and assuming perfect/imperfect
CSI with or without channel distribution information.

Click here to download the dissertation, or contact the author at <ian.wong AT ieee.org>.

Interested in submitting or recommending a recent Ph.D. thesis?
Please prepare the following material and email Associate Editor at <piva AT lci.det.unifi.it>:
(1) thesis author's information (full name, contact, current affiliation, URL if available), Ph.D granting institution, thesis advisor's name and contact information;
(2) title, URL, and a short summary of the thesis (100-150 words); and
(3) an email from the thesis advisor confirming that the author has already successfully defended the Ph.D. thesis and that a final version of the thesis has officially been submitted according to the Ph.D. degree requirements of the author's institution.

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Book Description from Mathworks: Written for practicing signal and image processing engineers, this book discusses the implementation of advanced image processing algorithms on resource-constrained embedded DSP systems. Topics covered include spatial processing techniques, image filtering, edge detection, and wavelets. MATLAB is used throughout the book to solve application examples. In addition, the Link for Code Composer Studio, the Image Processing Toolbox, and the Wavelet Toolbox are introduced and used to solve relevant examples. Check out the in-depth book review in the SPM May 2007 issue.

Multidimensional Signal, Image and Video Processing and Coding, John W. Woods, Academic Press, 2006.

MIMO Wireless Communications, E. Bilgieri, A. R. Calderbank, A. G. Constantinides, A. Goldsmith, A. Paulraj and H. V. Poor (eds),  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Multimedia over IP and Wireless Networks – Compression, Networking and Systems, M. van der Schaar, P. Chou (eds), Elsevier, 2007.

Speech Recognition Over Digital Channels, Antonio M. Peinado and Jose C. Segura, Wiley, July 2006.