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• Columns/Forums rolling submission deadlines

Special Issue Deadlines of SPS Publications - Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing

• fMRI Analysis for Human Brain Mapping - Deadline: 15 March 2008
   
• Digital Image Processing Techniques for Oncology - Deadline: 15 April 2008
   
• Visual Media Quality Assessment - Deadline: 30 April 2008
   
• DSP Techniques for RF/Analog Circuit Impairments - Deadline: 1 June 2008

Recent Issues of SPS Sponsored and Co-sponsored Publications

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4. TC News

New Chairs Elected for Technical Committees

Beginning January 2008, several of the Society's Technical Committees (TCs) have new Chairs taking leadership roles. Links and more information about the 13 TCs in the Society can be found at this web link.

Technical Committee	Chair
Audio and Electroacoustics TC	Walter Kellermann
Design and Implementation of Signal Processing Systems TC	Shuvra Bhattacharyya
Image and Multidimensional Signal Processing TC	John Apostolopoulos
Multimedia Signal Processing TC	Anthony Vetro
Information Forensics and Security TC	Ed Delp
Signal Processing Theory and Methods TC	Ali H. Sayed

Activity Update from MMSP TC

The IEEE Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP) Technical Committee promotes the advancement of multimedia signal processing technology with special emphasis on the interaction, coordination, synchronization, and joint processing of multimodal signals (read more about the TC in May'07 eNews).

Since January 2008, Anthony Vetro has begun a two-year term as Chair of MMSP-TC, while Ingemar Cox continues his service in 2008 as Past Chair.

The MMSP TC thanks Adriana Dumitras, Pascal Frossard, Jay Kuo, Shipeng Li, and Mark Liao, whose terms expired at the end of 2007, for their service. Based on the recent election, the MMSP TC welcomes Jeffrey A. Bloom, Yen-Kuang Chen, Touradj Ebrahimi, Carlo Regazzoni and Eckehard Steinbach, as new members of the TC.

This year's International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 2008) will be held on October 8-10, 2008 in Cairns, Australia, home of the beautiful Great Barrier Reef. The paper submission deadline is April 18, and special session proposal is due March 8, 2008. Further details are available online at: http://mmsp08.org/.  The MMSP TC is also pleased to announce that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has been selected as the venue for MMSP 2009. Further details will be at http://mmsp09.org/.

 

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Chapters Congress to be Held in March 2008

A Signal Processing Society Chapters "Congress" will be held on 31 March 2008 in conjunction with ICASSP 2008 at Caesar's Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.  The Chapters Congress is open to all SPS Chapter Chairs, and will be held from 12:00–17:00.  The Chapters Congress will focus on how to encourage more active chapters and how to increase membership worldwide.  If you are a current SPS Chapter Chair and are interested in attending the event, please contact Alex Kot, Chair of SPS Chapters Committee, at <eackot AT ntu.edu.sg>.

Activity Report from Signal Processing Toronto Chapter

The Signal Processing (SP) chapter of the IEEE Toronto Section became a standalone chapter in August 2005. In the past two years, the Chapter held around 24 technical meetings, with topics covering a wide spectrum of signal processing theory and practices in communication systems, medical technologies, multimedia systems, biometrics, and nanotechnologies. Learn more from this exclusive in-depth report.

Do you know?  IEEE SPS provides travel support for local chapters to invite SPS Distinguished Lecturers.  See a list of SPS 2007 and 2008 Distinguished Lecturers, and check each issue of the E-News for upcoming SPS Distinguished Lectures near you.  
 

If you are interested in organizing a new SPS chapter, or participating in activities in a SPS local chapter near you, please check out Local Chapter Resources. Additional questions and comments can be addressed to the SPS Chapters Committee.
 

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6. New Initiatives and Trends

Explore Signal Processing for Life Sciences from SPM January 2008 on
"Digital Brain Atlases for Biomedicine" by J.C. Gee.

Learn Standards in a Nutshell from the latest issue of SPM on
"OpenCable Application Platform" by A. Gordon and D. Hooley (January 2008).

Explore the In-the-Spotlight topic on "Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation"
by R.J. Davidson and A. Lutz (January 2008).
 

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7. New PhD Theses

Matei Mancas (Engineering Faculty of Mons, Belgium):
"Computational Attention: Modelisation & Application to Image and Audio Processing," Sept. 2007.
Advised by Prof. Bernard Gosselin

Consciously or unconsciously, humans always pay attention to a wide variety of stimuli. This thesis deals with a computational approach to human attention and its possible applications.

First, the thesis introduces a rarity-based three-level attention model handling mono-dimensional signals as well as images or video sequences. The concept of attention is defined as the transformation of a huge acquired unstructured data set into a smaller structured one while preserving the information: the attentional mechanism turns rough data into intelligence.

Afterwards, several applications are described in the fields of machine vision, signal coding and enhancement, medical imaging, event detection and so on. These applications not only show the applicability of the proposed computational attention method, but also support the idea that similar to the fact that attention is the beginning of intelligence in humans, computational attention may be the starting point of artificial intelligence.

Click here for more information about the thesis.

Ahmed K. Sadek (University of Maryland, College Park):
"Cross-Layer Design For Cooperative Communications and Networking," April 2007.
Advised by Prof. K. J. Ray Liu

Cooperative communications is a new communication paradigm in which different terminals in the wireless network share their antennas and resources for distributed transmission and processing. Recent studies have shown that cooperative communications can yield significant performance improvement due to spatial diversity gains. The theory of cooperative communications is however still immature to fully understand its broader impacts on the design of future wireless networks.

This thesis contributes to the advancement of cooperative communications by developing and analyzing cooperation protocols at different network levels, with the goal to provide significant improvements in signal reliability, coverage area, network throughput, and energy efficiency with respect to other existing alternatives.

Click here to download the thesis or contact the author <aksadek AT gmail.com> for more information.

Interested in submitting or recommending a recent Ph.D. thesis?
Please prepare the following material and visit the web submission site to provide your input. Contact Associate Editor Prof. Alessandro Piva at <piva AT lci.det.unifi.it> if you have any question.
(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 to Associate Editor at <piva AT lci.det.unifi.it>, 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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8. New Books

Embedded Signal Processing with the Micro Signal Architecture,
by Woon-Seng Gan and Sen M Kuo, Wiley-IEEE, February 2007.

Description from the publisher: This is a real-time digital signal processing textbook using the latest embedded Blackfin processor Analog Devices, Inc (ADI). 20% of the text is dedicated to general real-time signal processing principles. The remaining text provides an overview of the Blackfin processor, its programming, applications, and hands-on exercises for users. With all the practical examples given to expedite the learning development of Blackfin processors, the textbook doubles as a ready-to-use user's guide. The book is based on a step-by-step approach in which readers are first introduced to the DSP systems and concepts. Although, basic DSP concepts are introduced to allow easy referencing, readers are recommended to complete a basic course on "Signals and Systems" before attempting to use this book. This is also the first textbook that illustrates graphical programming for embedded processor using the latest LabVIEW Embedded Module for the ADI Blackfin Processors.

Visit the book's website for more information.

Linear Estimation and Detection in Krylov Subspaces,  by G. K. E. Dietl, Springer, Sep 2007.

Description from the publisher: This book focuses on the foundations of linear estimation theory which is essential for effective signal processing. In its first part, it gives a comprehensive overview of several key methods like reduced-rank signal processing and Krylov subspace methods of numerical mathematics. Based on the derivation of the multistage Wiener filter in its most general form, the relationship between statistical signal processing and numerical mathematics is presented. In the second part, the theory is applied to iterative multiuser detection receivers (Turbo equalization) which are typically desired in wireless communications systems. The investigations include exact computational complexity considerations and performance analysis based on extrinsic information transfer charts as well as Monte-Carlo simulations.

Visit the book's website for more information.

Robust Signal Processing for Wireless Communications, by F. A. Dietrich, Springer, Nov 2007.

Description from the publisher: This book treats the robust design of signal processing algorithms for wireless communications which are based on an incomplete model of the propagation channel. The systematic treatment of this practical problem focuses on signal processing tasks in the physical layer with multiple antennas and relies on a description of the errors and uncertainties in the system's model. It applies principles of modern estimation, optimization, and information theory. Tutorial introductions to relevant literature and mathematical foundations provide the necessary background and context to the reader. The book contains detailed derivations and enlightening insights on a number of topics.

Visit the book's website for more information.

Resource Allocation in Multiuser Multicarrier Wireless Systems,
by Ian C. Wong and Brian L. Evans, Springer, Nov 2007.

Description from the publisher: Many algorithms have already been proposed in the past to solve the problem of allocating resources in a multi-user multicarrier wireless system. Due to the difficulty of the problem, most of the previous work in this area has focused on developing suboptimal heuristics without performance guarantees. This book proposes 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. Adaptive algorithms based on stochastic approximation techniques are also proposed, which are shown to achieve similar performance with even much lower complexity.

Visit the book's website for more information.

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Postdoctoral Position in digital forensics at Dartmouth College

The IEEE Job Site now lets job seekers conduct searches by geographic regions, such as Africa, Latin America, and countries that make up the European Union. Interested members can check out available positions by using the IEEE Job Site Quick Search option.

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Sri Krishnan and Anthony Vetro.