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3. Publication News

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

Special Issue Deadlines

Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (website)

• MIMO Radar and its Applications - Deadline: 20 January 2009
• Compressive Sensing - Deadline: 20 February 2009

IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing (website)

• Signal Models and Representations of Musical and Environmental Sounds - Deadline: 15 December 2008
• Voice Transformation - Deadline: 1 April 2009

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (website)

• Electronic Voting - Deadline: 15 February 2009

IEEE MultiMedia Magazine (website)

• Multimedia-Metadata and Semantic Management - Deadline: 15 January 2009

Recent Issues of SPS Sponsored and Co-sponsored Publications

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4. TC News

Technical Committees Establish Liaisons to E-Newsletter

Through the coordination of the Society's Technical Directions Board, a number of technical committees have established liaisons with the Inside Signal Processing E-Newsletter.  These liaisons will serve as the conduit for TCs to share their activities and initiatives with society members on a regular basis.

• Audio and Electroacoustics - Steve Grant (sgrant AT umr.edu)
   
• Bio Imaging and Signal Processing - Christopher Wyatt (clwyatt AT vt.edu)
   
• Design and Implementation of Signal Processing Systems - Jarmo Takala (jarmo.takala AT tut.fi)
   
• Information Forensics and Security - Pierre Moulin (moulin AT ifp.uiuc.edu)
   
• Industry DSP Technology Standing Committee - Michael Deisher (michael.deisher AT intel.com)
   
• Multimedia Signal Processing - Anthony Vetro (avetro AT merl.com)
   
• Signal Processing for Communications and Networking - Nikos Sidiropoulos (nikos AT telecom.tuc.gr) and Geert Leus (g.j.t.leus AT tudelft.nl)
   
• Signal Processing Education - Engin Erzin (eerzin AT ku.edu.tr)
   
• Signal Processing Theory and Methods - Xiaoli Ma (xiaoli AT ece.gatech.edu)
   
• Speech and Language Processing - Gokhan Tur (gokhan AT speech.sri.com)

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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

Ultra Wideband WiMedia Standard

WiMedia is a radio platform standard that enables short range, high-speed wireless connectivity using ultra wideband (UWB) multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) technology. It
currently enables rates of up to 480 Mb/s in the physical layer and provides an architecture that supports multiple applications via various protocol adaptation layers.  As a result, it is being considered for wireless USB and Firewire as well as the next generation Bluetooth standards.

The Standards in a Nutshell article by N. Kumar and R.M. Buehrer in the September 2008 issue of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine presents an overview of the WiMedia standard - the architecture, the technologies deployed in the standard, the applications enabled by it - and compares WiMedia to existing wireless local area network (WLAN) and wireless personal area network (WPAN) standards.

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Purdue University Honors Four SPS Members with Chair and Distinguished Professorships

Purdue University Board of Trustees ratified in September 2008 the appointments of several SPS members to chair and distinguished professorships.  They are: Charles A. Bouman, as the Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Edward J. Delp, as the Silicon Valley Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Michael D. Zoltowski, as the Thomas J. and Wendy Engibous Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Jan P. Allebach, who is currently Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is also being elevated to Distinguished Professor status, effective in January 2009.

These four SPS members are IEEE Fellows and have been actively involved in SPS activities. Allebach is a former SPS Distinguished Lecturer and Board of Governor (BoG) member; Bouman is serving as Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Image Processing and recently elected to BoG; Delp chairs the Information Forensics and Security Technical Committee, and previously served as BoG member and Chair of the Image and Multidimensional Signal Processing Technical Committee; and Zoltowski is serving as Vice President-Awards and Membership.

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Luis Pérez-Freire (University of Vigo, Spain): "Digital Watermarking Security," July 2008.
Advised by Prof. Fernando Pérez-González.

This thesis presents a performance analysis of digital watermarking and data hiding techniques from a security point of view. In our context, security has to do with the ability of watermarking systems to properly conceal the information that must be kept secret, such as the secret keys and the embedded messages. Our security assessment is inspired in a cryptanalytic approach and it is based on information-theoretic grounds. First, a formal framework for assessing security is proposed, quantifying in a precise manner the amount of secret information that is made available to attackers upon the observation of marked contents. In the second part of this thesis we design estimators and algorithms that exploit the security weaknesses identified in the theoretical analysis, comparing the obtained results with the theoretical security limits. It is also shown how attackers can exploit the non publicly available information after performing a security attack. The presented methodology has been applied to the two main groups of watermarking methods: spread spectrum and quantization-based ones.

Click here to access the thesis and related publications by the author, or contact him at <lpfreire AT gts.tsc.uvigo.es> 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 questions.
(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 <alessandro.piva AT 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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Resource Allocation for Wireless Networks: Basics, Techniques, and Applications,
by Zhu Han and K.J. Ray Liu, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Description from the publisher: Merging the fundamental principles of resource allocation with the state-of-the-art in research and application examples, the authors present a novel and comprehensive perspective for improving wireless systems performance. Cross-layer multiuser optimization in wireless networks is described systematically. Starting from the basic principles, such as power control and multiple access, coverage moves to the optimization techniques for resource allocation, including formulation and analysis, and game theory. Advanced topics such as dynamic resource allocation and resource allocation in antenna array processing, and in cooperative, sensor, personal area, and ultra wideband networks, are then discussed. Unique in its scope, timeliness, and innovative author insights, this invaluable work will help graduate students and researchers to understand the basics of wireless resource allocation whilst highlighting modern research topics, and will help industrial engineers to improve system optimization.

Visit the book's website for detailed Table of Contents and ordering information.

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PhD Position on Secure Identification and Authentication Codes
at the University of Geneva, Switzerland

Stochastic Information Processing (SIP) group invites applications for a PhD position on secure identification and authentication codes for multimedia and physical objects protection. The candidate is expected to have strong background in information theory, digital communications, coding or statistical signal processing. Experience in software development using Matlab is mandatory. Excellent skills of speaking and writing English are requested and the knowledge of French is welcome. The salary is about 50'000 CHF per annum. Applications should include a curriculum vitae and names and addresses of two references. The position should start as soon as possible. All applications should be sent to Prof. Slava Voloshynovskiy [svolos AT cui.unige.ch].

PhD Scholarship in Cochlear Signal Detection and Modelling
at Victoria University of Wellington

Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD scholarship to apply advanced signal processing methods to noninvasive detection of the cochlear microphonic signal from the human ear. Techniques used in this project include: blind source separation, array processing - including in non-homogeneous media, nonlinear system identification. This PhD will be supervised by Dr. Paul Teal at the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington, where there is a strong team of signal processing researchers. The team involved in this project also includes Industrial Research Limited and the Audiology Department in the School of Population Health of the University of Auckland. The project is funded by the prestigious Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Qualifications: Applicants must have a Masters or First Class Honors Bachelors degree in electronic engineering or a closely allied discipline, and excellent mathematical, electronic and programming skills.
Funding: The 3-year scholarship will comprise full fees and an annual stipend commencing at NZ$25,000, exempt of tax. The position will commence January 2009, or as soon as possible thereafter. For inquiries and applications, please contact Dr Paul Teal via [paul.teal AT vuw.ac.nz]. The application deadline is 5 December 2008.

• Three-Year PhD Studentship on Variational Bayesian Filtering for Telecommunications at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

• Postdoctoral Researcher Position on Video Event Detection and Retrieval at Columbia University, USA

• Postdoctoral and Ph.D. Researcher Positions on Multi-sensor Signal Processing at Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany

• Ph.D. Research Assistantship to Explore the Potential of DSP for Digital Terrain Elevation Data at the Netherlands Defense Academy and Delft University of Technology

Interested in advertising graduate scholarship, post-doc positions, or funding opportunities?
Please prepare a short text of the announcement (150-200 words) and visit the web submission site to enter your input. It is recommended to include the deadline or valid period of the announcement, and an URL for more information such as group/research description and detailed qualification expectation. Contact Associate Editor Prof. Alessandro Piva at <alessandro.piva AT unifi.it> if you have any questions. Note that advertisements on faculty and other full-time position are in the domain of IEEE job advertisement (http://careers.ieee.org/); the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine also provides opportunities for paid advertisement.

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