Contains reports on four research projects.Associated Press (Grant)Providence Gravure, Inc. (Grant)Taylor Publishing Company (Grant

Allen, Jonathan

Berberian, Hapet A.

Buckley, Robert R.

Chao, Yao-Ming

Garcia, Armando

Khan, Malik M. A.

Livingston, Jay N.

Mishra, Sudhindra N.

Picard, Leonard

Sara, Jason

Schreiber, William F.

Troxel, Donald E.

DSpace@MIT

XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSINGProf. J. AllenProf. F.F. LeeProf. W.F. SchreiberProf. D.E. TroxelDr. S.M. GoldwasserDr. C.W. LynnDr. G.P. MarstonN.H. AnR.R. AtkinsonR.P. BishopR.W. BrownR.R. BuckleyG.J. BunzaI.M. CastineyraY.-M. ChaoA. ChiangW.-C. ChiangN.-A. ChuR.S. DamonR.C. GallingtonA. GarciaAcademic and Research StaffDr. J.M. PierrehumbertDr. K.P. WacksH.A. BerberianJ.,A. CyrM.S. HunnicuttT.R. JohnsonGraduate StudentsR.B. HaagensP.-Q. HoangK. HunterN. IrizaryJ.E. JakubsonM.M.A. KhanL.F. LamelE.A. LeeD.S. LevinstoneJ.N. LivingstonJ. LoftonM.D. MatsonS.N. MishraE. PeynadoL.L. PicardD.L. JuppeC. KonradJ.-S. KungM.B. McIlrathB. RosenbergC.Y. SuenE. YokoyamaJ.N. RatzelJ. SaraJ.-P. SchottA.J. SchulertD.G. ShapiroF. ShapiroR.B. SharpeD.W. ShipmanB. SmithJ.M. TeichV. TomG. VachonR.C.D. YangA.P. Zaremowich1. NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSINGJonathan AllenThe text-to-speech system for converting unrestricted English text to syn-thetic speech has been made available under license, and continues to attract newindustrial and academic users. Documentation for this system has been revisedand extended prior to publication. Since the algorithmic basis for this systemis well established, attention has been turned to implementation considerations.A custom NMOS integrated circuit is being designed to convert parametric infor-mation (updated every 5 msec) to an output speech waveform. The circuitry whichpreviously required 150 dual-in-line TTL packages is now being instantiated onone chip. Consideration is also being given to implementation of the completetext-to-speech system on a single wafer.PR No. 123 171(XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING)As part of a new effort in speech recognition, a unique speech researchfacility has been constructed. Starting with an MIT Artificial IntelligenceLaboratory LISP machine, a comprehensive interactive system has been built. Thisincludes high-resolution black-and-white graphics, a large (24-bit) address space,a 300-mbyte disk, an FPS-100 array processor, A/D and D/A subsystems, and a flex-ible keyboard and "mouse" display pointer. The keyboard, CRT monitor, mouse, andaudio I/0 are placed in a soundproof room. Substantial software has been writtenthat provides the researcher with many convenient subroutines for phonetic anal-ysis and algorithm development. The system is viewed as a powerful "phonetician'sassistant," and is central to our new research in speech recognition.The initial emphasis in the speech recognition area is to construct themeans to acquire and analyze large amounts of speech data, coupled with the studyand codification of allophonic rules in speech reproduction deduced, in largepart, from the study of spectrograms. As these facts are described, they arecast in new formal representations using LISP. These rules can be thought of asa set of local constraints, and current research focuses on programs that canpropagate these constraints in a way that establishes connected sequences ofphonetic segments. The representation of these rules must include a measure oftheir correctness, and both numerical and categorical means for this need havebeen examined and are being evaluated.Finally, since we want our techniques to be extensible to large vocabulariesand "habitable" syntax, we have studied means for lexical representation. Arobust scheme is to mark strong syllables in the lexicon, and focus initialsearch on gross match at these "islands of reliability." Once a reduced set oflexical candidates is obtained, algorithms then focus on a (possibly new) set ofcues to optimally discriminate between these and select the best match candidate.The way in which cues are selected, integrated, and utilized forms a major partof our current research activity.PR No. 123 172(XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING)2. DIGITAL WIREPHOTO SYSTEMAssociated Press (Grant)Donald E. Troxel, William F. Schreiber, Jason SaraSince August 1970, we have been developing a news picture (Wirephoto) dis-tribution system that is entirely new for the Associated Press. It is beingintroduced in stages, in such a way that at least the present standard of qualityand service will be maintained everywhere, with improvements spreading graduallyto all locations.Pictures are stored under computer control. An editor can view any pictureon a TV display in order to select, discard, edit, transmit, or store that imagefor later automatic dispatch. Editing may include cropping, enlarging, reducing,tone-scale enhancement, sharpening, combining, and addition of captions. No addi-tional chemical photographic work will be required for any of these picture-pro-cessing operations.Transmission over the "backbone" system linking AP bureaus and large metropol-itan newspapers that have substantial computer facilities will be via high-speeddigital links and will originate and terminate generally at computer-controlleddigital storage devices. Transmission to subscribers will be analog or digitaland at speeds and scanning standards appropriate to the existing transmissionfacilities. Complete control will be exercised by the New York network monitor.In the absence of manual interventions, transmission to all points among thebureaus, from point to point, and to regional networks, will be accomplished auto-matically.We have implemented some of these procedures in the laboratory, using aPDP-11 computer (300-megabyte disk). The input may be a picture from the AP net-work, from a local analog transmitter, or from magnetic tape, and is stored on adisk. Pictures may be transmitted from the disk to comparable receiving points.Pictures stored on the disk may be viewed on a TV display utilizing a full-framestorage system. Editing facilities already in operation include cropping, en-larging or reducing, combining several pictures into one, addition of captions,and sharpening.PR No. 123 173(XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING)The multitask software operating system permits new picture-processing rou-tines to be integrated easily, and we plan to keep incorporating additional pic-ture-processing routines into the system.We are particularly interested in picture-processing operations in which theprocessing depends on the local content of the picture. That is, the detailedparameters of a coding or enhancement scheme vary for different local areas. Inthis type of processing it is of prime importance to avoid artifacts such as con-tours outlining these local areas. We are also accelerating our interest in colorpicture processing, both from the viewpoint of coding for bandwidth compressionand enhancement or manipulation.The Associated Press has now installed the computer-based image processingsystem in New York City. It is initially being used to coordinate the newsphototransmissions between the domestic and international Wirephoto networks.3. DATA PROCESSING FOR THE GRAPHIC ARTSProvidence Gravure, Inc. (Grant)William F. Schreiber, Donald E. Troxel, Leonard Picard, Robert R. Buckley,Malik M.A. Khan, Sudhindra N. Mishra, Hapet A. Berberian, Jay N. Livingston,Armando Garcia, Yao-Ming ChaoThe aim of this project is to explore the feasibility of digital processingand computer manipulation of graphic arts quality images which are intended to beduplicated on printing presses. Specific areas of investigation include datacompression, tone-scale reproduction, enhancement, input/output hardware andsoftware, and the economical storage and retrieval of very large amounts of pic-torial data.PR No. 123 174(XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING)4. IMAGE PROCESSING FOR THE GRAPHIC ARTSTaylor Publishing Company (Grant)Donald E. Troxel, William F. Schreiber, Jason SaraTaylor Publishing Company is developing a computer-based system for producingprinting plates for yearbooks and similar publications. This type of printing ischaracterized by a very large number of different pages, most containing many pic-tures, and by small runs compared with most other publishing. Thus the cost ofplate preparation is a high proportion of the total production cost. The purposeof the MIT project is the development of an improved system for the input and pro-cessing of the graphical elements - pictures and other nontypographical matter -to be included in the final pages. The improved system is to feature lower cost,higher speed, and no loss of quality through the application of interactive compu-ter techniques.The work to be done at MIT consists of the design of a scanner station andits operating system. Physically, the station, which itself will be a satelliteof the Taylor Publishing Company's publishing system, comprises a small computerwith associated peripherals. These include a picture display, full-frame memory,disk memory, tablet and Autokon scanner. The operating system will permit thestation operator, sitting in front of the computer console, to perform, interac-tively, the following operations:1. Receive layout instructions for each page, from the central system, in-cluding location and size of graphical elements.2. Scan pictures into the system using parameters derived from the layoutinformation.3. View scanned pictures on the display and perform aesthetic corrections,if required. View entire page on display to verify layout.4. Organize graphical data in local memory as required by page layout andinitiate data transfer to the central system.The novel features of this system revolve around the use of a small computer,in combination with a graphics arts quality laser scanner and some special-purposePR No. 123 175(XXV. COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING)digital hardware, to permit input of graphic elements, aesthetic corrections, andthe organization of data for each page according to layout information, all on aninteractive basis, and in a cost-effective manner.PR No. 123 176

Cognitive Information Processing

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Cognitive Information Processing

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