POTSDAM -- Clarkson University professor emeritus of mMathematics Abdul J. Jerri will speak at the special session on "Inverse Problems and Multivariate Signal Analysis" of the American Mathematical Society annual meeting in Atlanta, Ga., in January.

The title of his lecture is "Multivariate Sampling in Signal Processing."

His invited presentation is dedicated to the centennial (1916-2016) of the great American scientist and "Father of Information Theory" Claude Elwood Shannon. Jerri's 1977 paper, “The Shannon Sampling Theorem - Its Various Extensions and Applications - A Tutorial Review,” is regarded by researchers as an essential reference. It has nearly 2,000 citations.

Jerri outlines basic signal analysis this way: “To send a voice on the phone, we chop it into pieces, or samples, that can be transmitted. Then the receiver will get these samples. There's a mathematical formula that will connect the pieces and make the voice understandable. Claude Shannon used this idea of having voice samples that we connect to create a continuous flow.”

Shannon also had talents not known to many, Jerri reveals. “He was a good juggler. He could juggle four balls while riding a unicycle. He made a machine that juggles, too.”

While signal analysis for voice deals with one dimension, more complex information can be transmitted. For example, to send an image of a face, “We're talking about two dimensions, vertical and horizontal. We take samples and send them and have a formula that will connect the points and show your mom your beautiful face. If we add a third dimension, we can see your nose. Something like a photo of the brain, e.g., medical imaging, adds a fourth dimension for movement in time,” Jerri explains.

Jerri has written seven mathematics texts and research references, but wants to give his profession something while he's retired, so he's making tutorials on signal analysis for multi-dimensions, he adds.