Chairman's Message

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Seattle and to the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP ’98). As a participant in past years’ ICASSP meetings, it has been exciting to watch the growth of research along with the related spread of applications in signal processing. I feel that much of this growth is due to the diversity of our community. We have continued to emphasize this diversity for ICASSP ’98. You’ll have choices of tutorial topics, a wide range of exhibitors to visit, special plenary sessions worth attending, exciting social events, and, of course, the numerous regular sessions. The conference and related events are split between the Washington State Convention and Trade Center and the adjacent Seattle Sheraton our headquarters hotel.

I’d also like to point out that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of our society this year. As detailed within the next page, the main events representing this celebration are going to take place during ICASSP ’98. The conference will officially open at 8:30 am Tuesday, May 12, with our 50th Year Anniversary Plenary Session. We are fortunate in having the best combination of distinguished speakers to provide perspectives on the past 50 years and some windows into the next 50 years of signal processing. Page 8 has more details on these 50th Anniversary events:

Tuesday, May 12, 8:30 am - 3 pm: Special 50th Anniversary Plenary Session in Room 4B of the Convention Center.
Tuesday, May 12, 6:00 - 7:30 pm: A special reception for students to Meet the Pioneers in Room 4A of the Convention Center.
Thursday, May 14, 6:00 - 10:00 pm: Awards reception and banquet in the Sheraton Ballroom.

In closing I’d like to thank the ICASSP ’98 conference committee for their tremendous effort, the IEEE Signal Processing Society, our Sponsoring Exhibitors, and Courtesy Associates.

Les Atlas, General Chair, ICASSP ’98