IEEE Communications Magazine Issue on:

        Wireless Technology Advances and Challenges for Telemedicine

   Background
   Telemedicine employs telecommunications to provide medical information and
   services  via secured communication channels. Telemedicine systems can
   utilize well established and developing wireless technologies and standards
   such as various IEEE 802.1x based networks for the reliable delivery of
   medical information and provision of life-saving services. A wide range of
   medical applications can be supported by technological advancements in
   wireless communication systems in conjunction with biosensors. These systems
   often operate in harsh outdoor environments, especially when accidents are
   often caused by heavy rainfall, where the wireless communication link can be
   severely affected by various conditions. Under any situation, they must
   operate reliably at all times in order to support mission-critical services.
   Such diverse range of services can only be reliably supported by having the
   appropriate quality assurance methodology and information security in place.
   As a result, advancements in wireless networking technology provide a vital
   link to enhancing telemedicine services.

   Scope  of  Contributions 
   We solicit papers covering various aspects of
   telemedicine system including, but not limited to, the following:
     * Wearable medical devices and sensors
     * Reliability and quality assurance for telemedicine
     * Optimization of various stages of communications systems, such as source
       coding and channel coding, for telemedicine
     * Medical data coding and compression
     * Biometrics for telemedicine
     * Standards activities in support of telemedicine
     * Security/privacy issues in sensor networks and the Health Insurance
       Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for telemedicine

   Papers should be of tutorial nature or contain state-of-the-art research and
   development materials. Authors must follow the IEEE Communications Magazine
   guidelines regarding the manuscript format. For further details, please find
   information for authors at the IEEE Communications Magazine website at
   http://www.comsoc.org/pubs/commag/sub_guidelines.html.  Papers will be
   submitted through Manuscript Central at:
   http://commag-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com/. Choose "February 2006/Wireless
   Technology Advances and Challenges for Telemedicine" from the Topic or
   Series drop down menu.

   Tentative Schedule 
   Manuscript Submission: June 15, 2005
   Acceptance Notification: September 1, 2005
   Final Manuscript Due: October 15, 2005
   Publication: February 2006

   Guest Editors 
   Nirwan Ansari
   Advanced Networking Lab
   Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
   New Jersey Institut of Technology
   University Heights
   Newark, NJ 07102, USA
   Phone: +1-973-596-3670 Fax: +1-973-596-5680
   Email: Nirwan.Ansari@njit.edu

   Bernard Fong
   School of Engineering
   Auckland University of Technology
   Private Bag 92006
   Auckland 1020
   New Zealand
   Phone: +64-9-917-9999 Ext. 5345
   Fax: +64-9-917-9973
   Email: bfong@ieee.org

   Yuan-ting Zhang
   Department of Electronic Engineering
   Chinese University of Hong Kong
   Shatin NT, Hong Kong
   Phone: +852-2609-8459
   Fax: +852-2603-5558
   Email: ytzhang@ee.cuhk.edu.hk