The unprecedented growth in the range of multimedia services offered these days by modern telecommunication systems has been made possible only because of the advancements in signal processing technologies and algorithms. In the area of telecommunications, application of signal processing allows for new generations of systems to achieve performance close to theoretical limits, while in the area of multimedia, signal processing the underlying technology making possible realization of such applications that not so long ago were considered just a science fiction or were not even dreamed about. We all learnt to adopt those achievements very quickly, but often the research enabling their introduction takes many years and a lot of efforts. This book presents a group of invited contributions, some of which have been based on the papers presented at the International Symposium on DSP for Communication Systems held in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Australia, in December 2003. Part 1 of the book deals with applications of signal processing to transform what we hear or see to the form that is most suitable for transmission or storage for a future retrieval. The first three chapters in this part are devoted to processing of speech and other audio signals. The next two chapters consider image coding and compression, while the last chapter of this part describes classification of video sequences in the MPEG domain.

Multimedia Source Processing.- A Cepstrum Domain HMM-Based Speech Enhancement Method Applied to Non-Stationary Noise.- Time Domain Blind Separation of Nonstationary Convolutively Mixed Signals.- Speech and Audio Coding Using Temporal Masking.- Objective Hybrid Image Quality Metric for In-Service Quality Assessment.- An Object-Based Highly Scalable Image Coding for Efficient Multimedia Distribution.- Classification of Video Sequences in MPEG Domain.- Error-Control Coding, Channel Access, and Detection Algorithms.- Unequal Two-Fold Turbo Codes.- Code-Aided ML Joint Delay Estimation and Frame Synchronization.- Adaptive Blind Sequence Detection for Time Varying Channel.- Optimum PSK Signal Mapping for Multi-Phase Binary-CDMA Systems.- A Complex Quadraphase CCMA Approach for Mobile Networked Systems.- Spatial Characterization of Multiple Antenna Channels.- Increasing Performance of Symmetric Layered Space-Time Systems.- New Complex Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes of Order Eight.- Hardware Implementation.- Design of Antenna Array Using Dual Nested Complex Approximation.- Low-Cost Circularly Polarized Radial Line Slot Array Antenna for IEEE 802.11 B/G WLAN Applications.- Software Controlled Generator for Electromagnetic Compatibility Evaluation.- Unified Retiming Operations on Multidimensional Multi-Rate Digital Signal Processing Systems.- Efficient Decision Feedback Equalisation of Nonlinear Volterra Channels.- A Wideband FPGA-Based Digital DSSS Modem.- Antennas for 56 GHz Wireless Communication Systems.