Tue Sep 29 09:16:53 PM -03 2026

Current Positions

Areas of Expertise

  • Approximation Theory
  • Low-complexity Algorithms
  • Signal and Image Processing
  • Probability and Random Processes

Approximation Theory

Since 2001, Dr R J Cintra has been developing algorithms and the theoretical background for low-complexity approximations for discrete transforms and systems in signal processing. He advised several theses on this topic, generating publications in leading journals.

His main contributions include:

  • the invention of the state-of-the-art 32-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) approximation and co-invention of its fast algorithm with Andrade-Silva;

  • the invention of low-complexity 32-point approximate DFT and co-invention of its fast algorithm in collaboration with his former student Suárez-Villagrán (published in 2015);

  • the invention of the 8-point discrete cosine transform approximation, known as rounded discrete cosine transform (RDCT) (published in 2011);

  • the co-invention of large blocklength DFT approximations based on Cooley-Tukey and Good-Thomas (prime factor) algorithms;

  • the creation of a number of approximation methods for DCT, DFT, and discrete Tchebichef transform (DTT) dedicated to 1D, 2D, and 3D data.

Research Group

Scientific Societies

  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE (Senior member)
  • Associação Brasileira de Estatística, ABE (Life member)
  • Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SIAM (Regular member)

Curriculum Vitae

Mini bio

R. J. Cintra earned the Doutor degree in electrical engineering from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil, where he holds a full professor position.

He has held visiting scholar appointments at the University of Akron, Ohio, USA; the Département Informatique, INSA Lyon, France; the INRIA/IRISA Lab, University of Rennes 1, France; the University of Calgary, Canada; and the Florida International University, Miami, USA.

He was a subject editor for IET Electronics Letters; and an associate editor for IEEE Geoscience Remote Sensing Letters; for IET Circuits, Devices & Systems; and for Springer Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing. He currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Communication and Information Systems.

He has been working in the field of approximate transforms since 2000, contributing with several methods and design techniques, including the invetion of the rounded cosine transform. His long-term topics of research include: approximation theory and low-complexity methods for digital signal and image processing, computationally efficient statistical algorithms, and probabilistic methods.

Editorial Boards

Visiting Scholar

Quotations