This special issue is devoted to the memory of the late Alex B. Gershman whose contributions are a cornerstone of advances in array processing made over the last three decades. Alex was an active member of IEEE SPS. Alex’s seminal work is a pillar, which holds strong and steady the rising volume of sensor array processing research.

The DISPS TC has the mission "to promote and support activities of the IEEE Signal Processing Society in the areas of: i) Design, development and implementation of signal processing systems; ii) Design of algorithms with implementation in mind and iii) the Design of software tools and methodologies to support the design of signal processing systems".

Aiming to make the most of the fast-growing volume of digital data, the Obama Administration today announced a “Big Data Research and Development Initiative.” By improving our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, the initiative promises to help solve some the Nation’s most pressing challenges. To launch the initiative, six Federal departments and agencies announced more than $200 million in new commitments that, together, promise to greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries fro

Steven Kiemyang Tjoa (University of Maryland), “Sparse and nonnegative factorizations for music understanding” (2011), Advisor: Prof. K. J. Ray Liu In this dissertation, the author proposes methods for sparse and nonnegative factorization that are specifically suited for analyzing musical signals. First, two constraints that aid factorization of musical signals: harmonic and co-occurrence constraints are discussed.

The IEEE Signal Processing Society invites nominations for the 2013 Class of SPS Distinguished Lecturers (DLs). The deadline for nominations is 1 June 2012. Each year, up to ten (10) technically diverse and geographically dispersed individuals serve as IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturers. Up to five (5) new individuals are appointed each year, and their formal term of appointment is two calendar years.

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Nominations are due 1 July 2012 for the 2013 IEEE Medals and Recognitions.

We summarize some of the items MLSP TC has been working on during the past five months including our: upcoming MLSP workshop, upcoming Data Analysis Competition, recently elected/nominated/retiring MLSP members, upcoming MLSP TC meeting, and recent MLSP awards.

New tutorials and transcripts expand IEEE training options for the IEEE Xplore® digital library, IEEE the world’s largest technical professional association, has launched 11 tutorials in 7 languages as part of the organization’s online training and support program for the IEEE Xplore® digital library.

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