The radio electric spectrum can be considered a limited natural resource. This is the main reason why its use by different communication systems is locally licensed in each country

Cognitive devices are able to evaluate the electromagnetic spectrum availability, finding the unused regions of this spectrum (known as "white spaces") to transmit information. Geo-location databases are a practical solution to offer monitoring capabilities, and have been recently chosen as the primary tool by the FCC.

Signal Processing in the Encrypted Domain is a novel discipline focused on the development of technologies that allow for the enhancement of privacy in signal processing applications, through the execution of operations directly on encrypted signals, with no access to their clear-text versions. Examples of application of these technologies are secure biometric recognition systems based on encrypted patterns, or secure systems for detecting genetic diseases on the patient's encrypted DNA