(From YU Ziying of Communication Acoustics Laboratory) 8th International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (ICICS 2011) was held in Singapore from 13th to 16th December, 2011. Professor YANG Jun, with Ph.D. candidates of Communication Acoustics Laboratory JIANG Bin and YU Ziying, attended this conference.

ICICS is a biennial event held since 1997, which attracts participants from different parts of the globe. Proceedings of ICICS 2011 are included in IEEEXplore and indexed by EI.

The theme for ICICS 2011 is Sustainable Infocomm Systems. Doctor Rajiv LAROIA from Sonus Networks and Professor Steve ELLIOTT from Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, United Kingdom presented their keynote speeches on invitation. The topics are "Internet for the social beings -- The future of the Internet?" and "Personal Audio and Active Control of Sound in the Environment".

Prof. YANG Jun, member of the Technical Program Committee of ICICS, was invited to chair the Acoustic Signal Processing Session. Ph.D. candidates JIANG Bin and YU Ziying presented their papers respectively with the topic of "Preferred Frame Length for the Short-Time Magnitude Spectrum on Speech Intelligibility and Speech Quality" and "Development of a Navigation System for the Blinds", which attracted the attention and lively discussion.

Prof. Steve ELLIOTT and Prof. YANG Jun had a heated discussion on the MOU signed by ISVR and IACAS this September. They also talked over details for future cooperation, such as exchange program and joint funding application. Prof. Steve ELLIOTT expected his visit to IACAS for further cooperation in 2012.