Joint Audio-Visual Speech Processing ------------------------------------ Special issue of EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing Joint audio and video signal processing has been recently attracting considerable attention in the signal processing community. In particular, the value of joint audio and video signal processing is being demonstrated to improve the robustness and naturalness of human-computer interfaces in a variety of speech applications such as speech recognition, speaker recognition, speech synthesis, etc. Although significant progress has been made in speech and speaker recognition in relatively controlled environments using methods solely based on audio, true environment and task independence still remains a challenge. Environment independence is a key enabler to pervasive deployment of speech applications. Joint audio and visual speech processing is being shown as a promising approach to address this challenge. The benefit of audio-visual speech synthesis is being demonstrated for improved human-computer interfaces and animation applications. To realize the full benefit of joint processing in any of these application areas, several technical challenges have to be addressed. The aim of this special issue is to highlight innovative research in joint audio and video signal processing and its application to improved practical speech recognition and synthesis. Prospective papers should be unpublished and present solid research work offering innovative contributions either from a methodological or application point of view. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - Audio-visual speech recognition - Audio-visual speaker recognition - Audio-visual speaker change detection - Audio-visual emotion analysis - Audio-visual speaker localization - Audio-visual speech synthesis - Face detection, tracking, and region of interest extraction - Visual speech processing - Fusion methodologies and source reliability estimation Authors should follow the EURASIP JASP manuscript format described at the Journal site http://asp.hindawi.com/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the EURASIP JASP^s web submission system at http://asp.hindawi.com/, according to the following timetable. Manuscript Due Oct 31, 2001 Acceptance Notification March 31, 2002 Final Manuscript Due May 15, 2002 Publication Date Third Quarter, 2002 GUEST EDITORS: Chalapathy Neti, IBM T.J. Watson Research Ctr, Rte 134, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA; cneti@us.ibm.com Gerasimos Potamianos, IBM T.J. Watson Research Ctr, Rte 134, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA; gpotam@us.ibm.com Juergen Luettin, Ascom Systec AG, Gewerbepark, CH-5506 Maegenwil, Switzerland; juergen.luettin@ascom.ch Eric-Vatiokotis Bateson, ATR International, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan; bateson@isd.atr.co.jp EDITORIAL BOARD REPRESENTATIVE: Prof. Tsuhan Chen, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Other Special Issues: Space-Time Coding and its Applications Guest-Editors: Dirk Slock, Vahid Tarokh, Xiang-Gen Xia Manuscripts Due: May 30, 2001 Publication Date: 1st Quarter, 2002 Emerging Applications of Multimedia Data Hiding Guest-Editors: Mauro Barni, Franco Bartolini, Jiri Fridrich Manuscripts Due: April 30, 2001 Publication Date: 1st Quarter, 2002 Applied Visual Inspection Guest-Editors: Luciano da F. Costa, Fabrice Meriaudeau Manuscripts Due: July 30, 2001 Publication Date: Second quarter, 2002 Journal Subscription Information: Full subscription information including personal subscription rates can be found at the journal's web page http://asp.hindawi.com/subs.html.