Preface

This second special issue of our journal is also dedicated to our friend and leader Professor Paul L. Butzer on the occasion of his 75^th birthday. Almost all the papers were written by friends of Paul who have been, in one way or another, touched and influenced by his cooperation, guidance, and leadership in our field. So many papers were submitted that we could not include them all in one issue.

To begin, it may be fitting to quote our friend Professor Rowland Higgins from his article entitled “An Appreciation of Paul Butzer’s Work in Signal Theory”, written on the occasion of Paul’s 70^th birthday (which can be found in Result. Math., 34, (1998), 3 - 19):

“Few people have given themselves up to work more fully than Paul Butzer. His life has been dedicated to the work of mathematics and to the encouragement of mathematics in others. The fruits of these labors have been, and continue to be, a large corpus of research and a group of gifted students that he has trained and sent out as mathematicians into the world of higher education, industry, and commerce.”

If I may add to this quote, I would underline the word “dedication”, since Paul has truly dedicated his life to mathematics, and has been devoted to its history and its applications in a multitude of fields – signal analysis being only one of many. It may not be the place here to make a full account of Paul’s accomplishments in leadership, research, and education. However, it is only fitting to have a glimpse at such varied and important endeavors, and more details can be found in the Foreword.

I take this opportunity as the Founding Executive Editor of Sampling Theory in Signal and Image Processing – An International Journal to say how delighted I am that this issue honoring Paul Butzer is now ready to take its place in the world.

Abdul