Signal processing (SP) is a “hidden” technology that has transformed the digital world and changed our lives in so many ways. The field of digital SP (DSP) took off in the mid-1960s, aided by the integrated circuit and increasing availability of digital computers. Since then, the field of DSP has grown tremendously and fueled groundbreaking advances in technology across a wide range of fields with profound impact on society. 

Apollo 11 was the first manned space mission to successfully bring astronauts to the Moon and return them safely. As part of NASA’s goal in assessing team and mission success, all voice communications within mission control, astronauts, and support staff were captured using a multichannel analog system, which until recently had never been made available. More than 400 personnel served as mission specialists/support who communicated across 30 audio loops, resulting in 9,000+ h of data. It is essential to identify each speaker’s role during Apollo and analyze group communication to achieve a common goal.

Humans can listen to a target speaker even in challenging acoustic conditions that have noise, reverberation, and interfering speakers. This phenomenon is known as the cocktail party effect . For decades, researchers have focused on approaching the listening ability of humans. One critical issue is handling interfering speakers because the target and nontarget speech signals share similar characteristics, complicating their discrimination. 

Linear regression models have a wide range of applications in statistics, signal processing, and machine learning. In this Lecture Notes column we will examine the performance of the least-squares (LS) estimator with a focus on the case when there are more parameters than training samples, which is often overlooked in textbooks on estimation.

One year ago, I was writing the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 2022 May editorial when the Russian army brutally attacked Ukraine. One year after, war is always present… I can’t understand how a single man and his entourage can unleash such a killing spree and be responsible for so many deaths, especially innocent victims like children.