Special section: Image/video compression and processing for visual communications

This special section aims to expose to the readers recent advances in image and video compression and processing technologies for visual communications. Given the very broad scope of the field, this special section focuses on the following areas: 1. New theory and algorithms for image and video compression, with focus on compression for image and video databases, very high-quality and lossless image compression, compression of mixed documents, preand postprocessing in lossy compression and communication systems; 2. emerging areas in digital visual communication, including digital watermarking and content-based processing; 3. system level descriptions of applications utilizing above techniques, such as medical imaging,