The special issue of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Sep. 2015 is focused around biometrics and privacy protection. Biometrics is the science of recognizing individuals based on their behavioral and biological characteristics such as face, fingerprints, iris, voice, gait, and signature. A typical biometric system may be viewed as a pattern classification system that utilizes advanced signal processing schemes to compare and match biometric data.

As a result of recent advances in MEMS/NEMS and systems biology, as well as the emergence of synthetic bacteria and lab/process-on-a-chip techniques, it is now possible to design chemical “circuits”, custom organisms, micro/nanoscale swarms of devices, and a host of other new systems at small length scales, and across multiple scales (e.g., micro to macro)

There has been an explosion of research in network systems of various types, including physical, engineered, biological and social systems. Its aim is to find answers to fundamental questions about the systems and with them be able to understand, predict, and control them better. To that end, a core area of work is signal and information processing over networks.

The special issue of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (SPM) in November provides an overview of recent advances in signal processing for communication with an emphasis on signal processing techniques that will be relevant for 5G cellular systems. It covers a wide range of topics including modulation, beamforming, cross-layer optimization based on different performance metrics, location-aware communication, cloud computing, and cloud radio access networks.