Compression and Coding Algorithms describes in detail the coding mechanisms that are available for use in data compression systems. The well known Huffman coding technique is one mechanism, but there have been many others developed over the past few decades, and this book describes, explains and assesses them. People undertaking research of software development in the areas of compression and coding algorithms will find this book an indispensable reference. In particular, the careful and detailed description of algorithms and their implementation, plus accompanying pseudo-code that can be readily implemented on computer, make this book a definitive reference in an area currently without one.

Compression and Coding Algorithms describes in detail the coding mechanisms that are available for use in data compression systems. The well known Huffman coding technique is one mechanism, but there have been many others developed over the past few decades, and this book describes, explains and assesses them. People undertaking research of software development in the areas of compression and coding algorithms will find this book an indispensable reference. In particular, the careful and detailed description of algorithms and their implementation, plus accompanying pseudo-code that can be readily implemented on computer, make this book a definitive reference in an area currently without one.

This volumecontainsthe paperspresented atthe 15thString Processingand - formation Retrieval Symposium (SPIRE), held in Melbourne, Australia, during November 10-12, 2008. The papers presented at the symposium were selected from 54 papers s- mitted in response to the Call For Papers. Each submission was reviewed by a minimum of two, and usually three, Program Committee members, who are expertsdrawnfromaroundthe globe. Thecommittee accepted25papers (46%), with the successful authors also covering a broad rangeof continents. The paper "An E?cient Linear Space Algorithm for Consecutive Su?x Alignment Under Edit Distance" by Heikki Hyyr] o was selected for the Best Paper Award, while Dina Sokol was awarded the Best Reviewer Award for excellent contributions to the reviewing process. The program also included two invited talks: David Hawking, chief scientist at the Internet and enterprise search company Funn- back Pty. Ltd. based in Australia; and Gad Landau, from the Department of Computer Science at Haifa University, Israel. SPIRE has its origins in the South American Workshop on String Proce- ing which was ?rst held in 1993. Starting in 1998, the focus of the symposium was broadened to include the area of information retrieval due to the c- mon emphasis on information processing. The ?rst 14 meetings were held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil (1993); Valparaiso, Chile (1995); Recife, Brazil (1996); Valparaiso, Chile (1997); Santa Cruz, Bolivia (1998); Cancun, Mexico (1999); A Corun a, Spain(2000);LagunaSanRafael, Chile(2001);Lisbon, Portugal(2002); Manaus, Brazil (2003); Padova, Italy (2004); Buenos Aires, Argentina (2005); Glasgow, UK (2006); and Santiago, Chile (2007)."