Procedures are described for reducing the speech wave to a specification in terms of the time-varying vocal-tract resonances and source characteristics. The basic method, which has been called analysis by synthesis, involves the comparison of speech spectra with a series of spectra that are synthesized within the analyzer. Each comparison spectrum is generated according to a set of rules based on an acoustical theory of speech production. The result of the analysis of each input spectrum is a set of parameters that describes the synthesized spectrum providing the best match. In one version of the method convergence, towards the best match is controlled by the experimenter; in another version convergence to a match is accomplished automatically without the intervention of the experimenter. All the operations have been programmed on a general-purpose digital computer and have been applied to the analysis of vowels and some consonants. The advantages of the analysis techniques are discussed.

Multis are a new class of computers based on multiple microprocessors. The small size, low cost, and high performance of microprocessors allow the design and construction of computer structures that offer significant advantages in manufacture, price-performance ratio, and reliability over traditional computer families. Currently, commercial multis consist of 4 to 28 modules, which include microprocessors, common memories, and input-output devices, all of which communicate through a single set of wires called a bus. Adding microprocessors together increases the performance of multis in direct proportion to their price and allows multis to offer a performance range that spans that of small minicomputers to mainframe computers. Multis are commercially available for applications ranging from real-time industrial control to transaction processing. Traditional batch, time-sharing, and transaction systems process a number of independent jobs that can be distributed among the microprocessors of a multi with a resulting increased throughput (number of jobs completed per unit of time). Many scientific applications (such as the solving of partial differential equations) and engineering applications (such as the checking of integrated circuit designs) are speeded up by this parallel computation; thus, multis produce results at supercomputer speed but at a fraction of the cost. Multis are likely to be the basis for the next, the fifth, generation of computers—a generation based on parallel processing.

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A vast array of new, highly parallel machines are opening up new opportunities for new applications and new ways of computing.

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