Path: rwsys!trsvax!utacfd.uta.edu!utagraph.uta.edu!hermes.chpc.utexas.edu!news.utdallas.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!nntp.uoregon.edu!milton!hlab From: rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: %-) INDUSTRY: Kahaner Report: Advanced Telecommunication Research Message-ID: <1992Feb9.014604.6173@milton.u.washington.edu> Date: 8 Feb 92 03:08:49 GMT Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab) Organization: HIT Lab, Seattle WA. Lines: 724 Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu Crossposted from comp.research.japan. ATR is the leading virtual-worlds research site in Japan, according to many sources. This report may be useful in understanding why. [Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst on sabbatical to the Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR Asia) in Tokyo from NIST. The following is the professional opinion of David Kahaner and in no way has the blessing of the US Government or any agency of it. All information is dated and of limited life time. This disclaimer should be noted on ANY attribution.] [Copies of previous reports written by Kahaner can be obtained from host cs.arizona.edu using anonymous FTP.] To: Distribution From: David Kahaner ONR Asia [kahaner@cs.titech.ac.jp] Re: The Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute (ATR) 7 Feb 1992 This file is named "atr.92" ABSTRACT: A visit to The Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute, (ATR) on 21 Jan 1992 is described. I first visited ATR more than 18 months ago, shortly after its 16K node Connection Machine CM-2 had been installed. See my report "atr", 14 June 1990 for details. My current visit was hosted by Dr. Kazunari Nakane Head: Cognitive Processes Department ATR Auditory and Visual Perception Lab Seika-cho, Kyoto 619-02, Japan Phone: +81-7749-5-1411, Fax: +81-7749-5-1408 Email: NAKANE@ATR-HR.ATR.CO.JP who also provided a great deal of assistance in the editing of this report, and whose patience is sincerely appreciated. The ATR organization is complicated. It was established in October 1985 as a result of the privatization of the Japanese telephone company. At that time the Japan Key Technology Center (JKTC) was set up, funded mostly by the dividends from NTT stock that is owned by the Japanese government. The government now owns 60% of the stock of NTT. JKTC funds about 40 projects, of which by far the largest is ATR. JKTC top management includes representatives of various Ministries, MITI, MOF (Ministry of Finance) and MPT (Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications), although ATR is viewed as the major laboratory associated with MPT (the ETL lab is associated with MITI even more directly). Actually JKTC provides only 70% of the funding for the four laboratories (or projects) that represent the science component of ATR. The labs were established as 7-10 year projects; two will expire in 1993 and two in 1996 although there is every reason to think that they will be renewed, perhaps with slightly different emphasis. NTT and 140 other Japanese companies have also provided private investment and the four labs get the remaining 30% of their funding from this. The same companies also fund ATR International, which supports the labs, provides research facilities and support structure. ATR International has a president and board of directors. It is jointly owned by NTT and the 140 other Japanese companies with NTT holding about 60% of its stock. To make it more complicated, the three key people at ATR International are retired from MPT, the regional Kansai government in which ATR is located, and NTT. Each of the individual labs has a president, two are from NTT, one from KDD and one from MPT. In addition, many of the staff within each lab are part of a particular NTT organization. Thus there is a great deal of vertical information flow, and for similar reasons the labs are rather independent. Practically though, ATR can be considered as part of the NTT family. The four ATR laboratories are co-located in a building in Kansai Science City, a new area about halfway between Kyoto and Osaka. I was told that building costs were about $70M US. Inside the ATR building there is a fifth laboratory (called NTT Communication Science Laboratories--CSL) which started operation in July 1991. This operation is not part of ATR but is just leasing the building space. Right behind ATR, NTT owns land, where they may establish a new building for this lab. If this happens, it will be the only official NTT lab outside of the Kanto area. Almost all the researchers now at CSL were transferred from NTT Labs in Mushashino or Yokosuka in Tokyo area. When I first visited in 1990, ATR was the only building in sight. Now it is surrounded by others in various stages of construction, including several hundred residential town-houses. Across the street a large Sumitomo is going up. Across from that, a big project called the Keihanna Convention Center is under construction. (KEI-HAN-NA is a combination of the abbreviation of three words, Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara.) It will be a convention center with hotel and so on. Those readers who have been to Japan should imagine what Tsukuba Science City (near Tokyo) must have looked like during its earliest days to get a sense of the area around ATR. Like Tsukuba in those days, many ATR staff feel isolated from more established parts of Japan, but this will change as the community develops roots. Almost half the ATR management are on rotational assignment from a couple of NTT's labs or divisions. And the other half are mostly from laboratories of KDD (international telephone company), NHK (semi-national radio and TV corporation), and CRL (Communication Research Laboratory of Ministry of Post and Telecommunication). Most of the staff are also rotational, coming for a few years. About one fourth are from NTT but other Japanese companies are also represented. There are also visiting Western researchers. I met four, three Americans and a Frenchman. Their appointments were temporary, one year at a time, but apparently could be extended several times by mutual agreement. Each of the four labs have a few senior scientists who are either permanent or at least on very long term assignment. These people provide the technical leadership and continuity. Rotation of staff in and out of the labs provides a collection of new ideas, but also leads to some underutilization of equipment that is ordered for use in one near term research project but is of less interest to the next. However, even in such cases there is residual benefit, as the overall research projects are generally well planned and are all heading toward some very long term goals, with natural near term revisions and adjustments. I was told that most equipment will be used in succeeding projects. However, staff turnover is definitely ATR's major organizational concern, and I was told that there are new plans to develop more permanent positions. This is a difficult issue, because the ATR labs are not permanent. If ATR hires any permanent employee they have to provide for their long-term career plan. I was told that one approach is to hire only those that can easily be absorbed back into a sponsoring company, a university, or a research institute when the ATR projects end. Staff experience is also an issue. As is typical of Japanese companies, there are relatively few PhDs. Companies that support ATR clearly use the labs as a place to put younger employees for training. There was some difference of opinion among the Japanese I spoke to as to whether an assignment at ATR was in anticipation of good work to follow (back at the home company), a reward, or a banishment. This is very company dependent. However, most companies send their good engineers because they are representatives of the company and they want them to look good. Researchers who come with definite ideas about what to work on seem to fare quite well. I was told that each and every researcher knows what he will do at ATR because there are negotiations on this subject before he joins. However, there is the usual trial and error associated with research topics. Perhaps Western researchers have even more flexibility in this matter. I believe though, that many of the younger Japanese are assigned to projects. Most new staff will work on a project suggested by an advisor or department head, by joining an existing project, or by doing research alone. There is also the problem of what some of these Japanese will do when their ATR assignment is complete. Of course, most will return to their companies, but several have gone on to universities. One expressed concern to me that the basic research he was doing at ATR might not be supported in his home lab and hoped that he would be able to find a good spot when he returned. On the other hand, some returning employees from Sony, Matsushita and others have been known to get overseas assignments (e.g. to US, Germany, UK, etc) after their ATR assignments. So coming to ATR is a kind of stepping stone for them. And in general, many researchers have been able to make excellent use of the experience, results and ideas, etc., from ATR and, in some cases, were placed in very good positions. This is especially true for NTT. On balance, a few years at ATR seems to be a good thing for the scientists involved. The four labs are mostly independent although they are housed in the same building. The independence is enhanced by giving each lab its own President as mentioned earlier. This was a bit strange to me, as the total staffing of 260 is low enough that there could be a great deal of interaction, although each of the labs is aiming at its own specific research goals. However, given the complicated funding arrangements it is not too surprising. A good example of the independence is the use of the Connection Machine. This was purchased primarily for the computational studies of cognitive processes carried out in the Auditory and Visual Perception Research Lab. While it is extensively used, I was told that some time is available (there might be some differences of opinion about this), but researchers from other labs and even other groups within this lab are occasionally discouraged from using it. Dr. Nakane explained to me that funding for the machine is for specific research jobs (rather than for other purposes or mere interest). This requires careful accounting and designation of users. Still, such a important resource ought to be of great help to scientists throughout ATR. Lab staffing is as follows. In 1990, total staff was 262, and total budget was 7.5B Yen, about $50M US. This does not include the space occupancy fee that ATR International charges to each of the R&D organizations. I mentioned this figure to a colleague who had spent three years at ATR, and he felt that the budget figure was severely underestimated, perhaps because of the complicated funding situation. He thought that a more realistic figure was twice that. NAME OF LAB Communications Systems 37 Interpreting Telephony 52 Auditory and Visual Perception 57 Optical and Radio Communications 40 ATR International 6 RESEARCH STAFF BREAKDOWN Invited international researchers 24 Invited domestic researchers 15 Other researchers 144 Permanent staff researchers 9 OTHER STAFF Assistants 42 Clerks 28 Publications and patents have been growing since the ATR's founding. PAPERS PATENTS International Domestic 1986 5 45 15 1987 21 282 70 1988 80 414 120 1989 140 422 160 1990 169 448 223 The figures above were given to me by Dr. Eiji Yodogawa, President of the Auditory and Visual Perception Lab (AVPL) (Email: yodogawa@atr-hr.atr.co.jp). ATR publishes the ATR Journal, which is mostly in Japanese. However, they also publish annually, a bound collection of the staff's technical reports. Many of these are in English, and all have English titles and abstracts. A list of these reports written in 1991 from AVPL is appended to this report. English reports are so noted. The four labs and their primary activities are as follows. Communications Systems: Main goal: Human-oriented intelligent communication system Communications with realistic sensations, automatic 3-D shape acquisition, recognition, comprehension, modeling, manipulation and display, Nonverbal interfaces, recognition of facial and eye-gaze directions, understanding gestures and hand movements, integration of visual and speech information 3-D image databases Cooperative work environment for design of solid objects Automatic generation of communication software, extraction of real intentions, use of visual language to give specifications accurately, human deliberative mechanisms in software design, knowledge base, easy to use specification description language Security, cryptographic techniques for large capacity (image) communications, secure telecommunication networks Optical and Radio Communications: Optical intersatellite communications, optical beam control, optical modulation/demodulation Advanced antennas, active array technology for mobile antennas, methods of mitigating multipath propagation problems, microwave circuit integration, signal processing Optical and electronic devices, growth and characterization of semiconductors with precisely controlled atomic configurations, nonlinear optical devices Interpreting Telephony: Main goal: Automatic intepreting telephone Speech recognition and synthesis, speech database Interface between speech and language, spoken language processing, knowledge base, speech and language integration Machine translation, grammar for analysis of Japanese, dialog interpretation, contextual processing Advanced dialogue processing, contextual processing My visit was confined to the Auditory and Visual Perception Lab, which has three departments. Its main goal is an improved human-machine interface. Auditory and Visual Perception: Visual Perception Department Visual perception mechanisms: Motion perception, binocular stereopsis, Character and word perception Image concept formation Brain activity measurement (eye movement, etc) Pattern recognition: Neural network models for handwritten characters, spatiotemporal patterns 3D object recognition Cognitive Processes Department Cognitive processes for visual information: Neural computing models of pattern vision and spatial vision Parallel processing mechanism: Mathematical analysis and synthesis of neural net models Information processing using neural net models Learning and motor control mechanisms Neural net models of human motor control Integrated learning of somato sensory and visual information Hearing and Speech Perception Department Hearing mechanism: Auditory peripheral models Auditory preprocessor for speech recognition Speech Perception mechanism Co-articulation model and application to speech recognition Speech recognition using neural nets Speech prosody In this lab one of the most active researchers was Dr. Mitsuo Kawato ATR (address as above) Tel: +81-7749-51452, Fax: +81-7749-51408 Email: KAWATO@ATR-HR.ATR.CO.JP Kawato's background is in biophysical engineering and was previously a faculty member at Osaka University. Kawato is one of the few semi-permanent members of the research staff and he is collaborating with almost a dozen younger researchers on an astonishing variety of projects. This research has generated nearly 50 papers since 1987, most in Western journals or in Proceedings of international conferences. Kawato gave me a long list of the projects that he is currently working on (outlined below), but I had an opportunity to discuss only a few of these with his co-workers. Learning trajectory control. * Learning control experiment of rubbertuator Softarm by feedback-error learning neural net. Inverse statics and inverse dynamics. Six- muscle arm model. Sensor fusion for object manipulation * Feedback error learning for closed loop system. Models of regions of cerebellum. Recognition of manipulated objects by motor learning. Trajectory formation for arm and articulator. * Explanation of Fitts law by neural net. Learning acquisition of forward dynamics of speech articulator on CM-2 using EMG as control input. * Combination of cross validation method and new information criterion to estimate generalization capability of neural net models. Pattern generation and recognition using neural net. * Minimum-muscle-tension-change and minimum-motor-command models based on biomechanical data of monkey musculoskeletal system with 17 muscles. * Human arm movement using Optotrack and recording EMG. * Measurement of EMG, articulatory movement and acoustics for speech articulator and neural net model. Computational model of visual cortices and sensor fusion. * Use of CM-2 to implement Markov random field (MRF) model of images, and learning of potential energies for hidden variables without teachers. * Hierarchical MRF based on conditional probability and application to pattern recognition * Shape from shading based on forward and inverse models of optics * Integration of visual, somatosensory, and motor control information for object manipulation. There is a great deal of neural net research in progress, including new algorithms, and applications to physical situations of speech and vision. The traveling salesman problem is another application being studied. The CM-2 is used heavily now for simulations. (M. Hirayama showed me several very interesting demonstrations.) During my first visit the ATR staff was still learning about this machine and usage was low. I was told, however, that the machine now much busier. It is extensively used as a neural network simulator for the previously mentioned studies of human perception, motor control and some other related topics. Some of the computation/simulation on CM-2 require enormous amount of machine use, say, ten days of continuous time for example. Presently the CM-2 is working in 'exclusive mode' but not in 'TSS mode'. This is partly because of some problems with the TSS Operating System, and partly because of some decrease of computational performance in TSS mode, which seem to decrease the efficiency of the CM-2 usage. However, the newest version of TSS OS seems to have resolved these problems and is to be installed very soon. However, it has been used heavily enough so that request are being heard that it be replaced with more powerful one. The current machine was purchased on a 3-year installment plan, and included 32-bit floating point units. ATR is hoping to get 64-bit floating point in future, but at the current time this has not happened. (I believe that there are three Connection Machines in Japan--one at ATR, a second at the Institute for Computational Fluid Dynamics in Tokyo, and a third at an undisclosed location, probably a private company.) One of the most interesting aspects of ATR's research is how tightly coupled it is to biological models of real sophistication. A significant aspect of the work seems to be associated with modeling and then verifying models with complicated physical measurements. One example of this is related to understanding the mechanism behind the articulatory to acoustic transform, i.e., to understand the process by which linguistic intentions become speech. Speech production entails extraordinary coordination among diverse neurophysiological and anatomical structures. These unfold through time to produce a complex acoustic signal that conveys to listeners something of the speakers intentions. ATR's research has used measured movements of the articulator (upper and lower lips and horizontal and vertical jaws) and EMG data from four separate muscle groups and used these to train a neural net to generate motor commands to the articulators. Another especially elegant example is work by Kawato on studying the trajectory followed by human arms. Kawato proposed that this minimizes the time integral of the square rate of change of the torque. Based on this model he has developed a neural network that reproduced Fitts law (sometimes called speed-accuracy trade-off of arm movement) and also used it to study feedback-error-learning for ill-posed problems. Human sensory-motor control, such as arm movement involves a number of ill-posed problems. I think that it is unusual to find so much biophysical expertise being put to use in modeling, especially coupled with advanced computer hardware and software. In the area of vision, there are projects to automatically generate 3D images from a series of stereo- pairs, and another fascinating project to analyse, quantify, and predict our response to optical illusions. Projects like these require careful eye-movement measurements and distance monitoring, as well as deep understanding of current ideas in cognition. These are difficult mathematical problems too. Our brain essentially solves the inverse problem of reconstructing a 3D visible surface from the data of a 2D image projected onto the retina. (Solutions of this problem are related to extensions of regularization techniques, some of which are very well known in computational mathematics.) There certainly is plenty of hardware available for experimenting. While I was there two technicians from Canada were visiting ATR to help set-up a pair of Optotracks, sophisticated distance measuring equipment costing in the neighborhood of $60K US each. Workstations are everywhere, along with associated peripherals. The ATR building and labs are large, spacious, and very well equipped. One of the only places in the US that I know of, where comparably subtle work is going on is at MIT's brain research department, and there is a substantial flow of visitors between ATR and MIT. (Immediately after my visit, T. Poggio from MIT arrived to give several days of lectures.) My visits to ATR have been cordial and revealing. About ten scientists I met were enthusiastically willing to describe their research, although the independent laboratory structure made it difficult for me to get a full picture. My visits have been highly organized and tightly time- constrained. The lab I visited is doing very excellent basic research, but I still haven't seen the work on interpreting telephony or communications systems in other laboratories, and I would like to go back and learn about these. What I have seen is a group of capable Japanese, supplemented by a substantial number of long term Western visitors. There are still some birth pains both at ATR and in the surrounding area; ATR is barely five years old. Finally, procedures need to be established to insure that ATR is not only a training ground for young Japanese scientists and a temporary or sabbatical station for Western ones, but also to insure that ATR will develop the continuity and world class stature that will enable it to accomplish the major long-term goals it has set for itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Collection of Technical Publications 1991 Vol. 1 of 2 (Jan--June 1991) ATR Auditory and Visual Perception Research Laboratories Note: Authors listed simply as ATR refer to ATR Auditory and Visual Perception Labs Seika-cho, Kyoto 619-02, Japan Phone: +81-7749-5-1411, Fax: +81-7749-5-1408 For email access, try "lastname"@ATR-HR.ATR.CO.JP Unless noted all papers are in Japanese with English abstracts. 1. Visual Perception Hemispheric difference between Japanese Kanji and Kana in a Picture-word Matching Task Chisato Aoki (ATR) Adam Reeves (North-Eastern Univ.) A Camera Calibration Method without a Special Object to be Measured Youji Fukada (ATR) A Discontinuity Detector Based on the Pervasive Noise in Surface Property Data E.B. Gamble, Jr. (ATR) (In English) A New Gaze Analyzer Which Limits the Viewer's Gaze Time and Its Application to the Analysis of a Visual Search Hitoshi Hongo, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Eye Movement Analysis of Visual Search Process - How We Count Patterns Quickly? Hitoshi Hongo, Mitsuho Yamada, Keiichi Ueno (ATR) Objective Evaluation of Hand-Written Character Quality Takahito Kato, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) System for Predicting the Quality of Hand-Written Characters Takahito Kato (ATR) Quality Factors of Hand-Written Characters Based on Human Visual Perception Takahito Kato, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) (In English) Approximation of Nonlinear Dynamics by Recurrent Network and Learning Chaos Yoshihiko Murakami, Masa-aki Sato (ATR) A Recurrent Network which Learns Chaotic Dynamics Yoshihiko Murakami, Masa-aki Sato (In English) Positive Motion After-Effect Induced by Bandpass Filtered Random-Dot Kinematograms Shin'ya Nishida (ATR) Takao Sato (NTT Basic Research Laboratories) Positive Motion Aftereffect Induced by a Bandpass Random Dot Kinematogram Shin'ya Nishida (ATR) Takao Sato (NTT Basic Research Laboratories) Visual Motion Perception and Eye Movement: A Two Stage Model for Visual Motion Perception Including Applicability to Bionocular Depth Perception Masami Ogata, Takao Sato (ATR) Context Dependent Effect in the Image Concepts Formation and its Application Masaomi Oda (ATR) Mathematical Foundation of Wavelets I: Non-orthonormal Wavelets Masa-aki Sato (ATR) Mathematical Foundation of Wavelets II: Orthonormal Wavelets Masa-aki Sato (ATR) A Recurrent Neural Network which Learns Fluctuations in Voice Waveforms Masa-aki Sato, Kazuki Joe, Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) Learning Nonlinear Dynamics by Recurrent Neural Networks Masa-aki Sato, Yoshihiko Murakami (ATR) Monocular Stereopsis After Motion Adaptation Hiroshi Ono (Department of Psychology, York University) Satoshi Shioiri, Takao Sato (ATR) (In English) Third International Conference on Computer Vision Keiichi Ueno Human Visual Perception and Cognitive Processes, Modeling and its Application Keiichi Ueno, Kazunari Nakane (ATR) Binocular Eye Movement Analysis of Stereoscopic Images - In the Case of Showing a Moving Stimulus only to One Eye Kenya Uomori, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Binocular Eye Movement in the Case of Showing a Moving Stimulus Only to One Eye Lenya Uomori, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Objective Evaluation of the Feeling of Depth in 2D or 3D Images Using the Convergence Angle of the Eyes Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Nobuyuki Hiruma, Haruo Hoshino (NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories) (In English) Accuracy of Binocular Disparity Analysis Mitsuho Yamada, Kenya Uomori (ATR) Analysis of Line of Sight During Athletic Sports Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Fractal Dimension Analysis on Binocular Small Involuntary Eye Movements Hiroshi Yoshimatsu, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) (In English) Fractal Dimension of Drift Components of Small Involuntary Eye Movement Hiroshi Yoshimatsu, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) Fractal Dimension Analysis of Small Involuntary Movement Hiroshi Yoshimatsu, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) A Fractal Dimension of Binocular Small Involuntary Movement Hiroshi Yoshimatsu, Mitsuho Yamada (ATR) 2. Cognitive Processes and Behavior Control of Movement, Postural Stability, and Muscle Angular Stiffness - A 17- Muscle Model of the Monkey's Arm Menashe Dornay (ATR) (In English) Characteristics of Moving Distance Estimation in a CG-Space Hideo Fujii, Toshio Inui (ATR) Computational Models for Learning Motor Control in Four Regions of Cerebellum Hiroaki Gomi, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Learning Control of a Closed Loop System Using Feedback-Error-Learning Hiroaki Gomi, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) A Model of Perceiving Shape from Shading in Monocular Depth Perception Hideki Hayakawa, Toshio Inui, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) A Computational Model of Perceiving Shape from Shading in Monocular Depth Perception Hideki Hayakawa, Toshio Inui, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Information Processing using Fine-Grained Parallel Computer Makoto Hirayama (ATR) Contour Extraction by Local Parallel and Stochastic Algorithm which has Energy Learning Faculty (In English) Sadayuki Hongo, Mitsuo Kawato, Toshio Inui (ATR) Sei Miyake (NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories) Contour Extraction of Natural Images Based on a Multi-Layered MRF Model - A Two-Resolution Model Sadayuki Hongo, Mitsuo Kawato, Toshio Inui, D. Litt (ATR) Computational Theory of Vision Toshio Inui (ATR) Virtual Trajectory and Stiffness Ellipse During Force-Trajectory Control Using a Parallel-Hierarchical Neural Network Model (In English) Masazumi Katayama, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Learning Trajectory and Force Control of an Artificial Muscle Arm - Neural Network Control with Hierarchical Objective Functions Masazumi Katayama, Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) (In English) A Neural Network Model which Recognizes Shape of a Grasped Object and Decides Hand Configuration Naohiro Fukumura, Yoji Uno Ryoji Suzuki (Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo) Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Motor Control by Neural Network Models Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Model of Four Regions of Cerebellum (In English) Mitsuo Kawato, Hiroaki Gomi (ATR) Optimization and Learning in Neural Networks for Formation and Control of Coordinated Movement Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Chronobiology Mitsuo Kawato (ATR) Computational Theory and Visual Cortices Mitsuo Kawato, Toshio Inui (ATR) Self-Similarity Analysis of Images using Schauder Expansion Tsuyoshi Ogura, Noboru Sonehara (ATR) Neural Network Applications to Image Processing Noboru Sonehara (ATR) Neural Network Model Processing on Massively Parallel Computers Noboru Sonehara, Makoto Hirayama (ATR) Relaxation Neural Network Model for Optimal Binary Representation of Images and Its Implementation on a Parallel Computer Noboru Sonehara (ATR) 3. Hearing and Speech Perception Auditory/Speech-Perception Modeling and Its Applications to Speech Processing Shigeru Katagiri, Yoh-ichi Tohkura (ATR) Internal Speech Spectrum Representation by Spatio-Temporal Masking Pattern Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) (In English) A Nonlinear Cochlear Filter with Adaptive Q Circuits Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) LVQ2 Phoneme Recognition using Adaptive Q Cochlear Filter-Banks Tatsuya Hirahara, Hitoshi Iwamida (ATR) Auditory Peripheral Models in Speech Recognition Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) Automatic Speech Recognition and Auditory Peripheral Models Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) Current Research Status of Auditory Peripheral Models Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) Acoustic Characteristics of the ATR Variable Reverberation Room Tatsuya Hirahara, Carl Muller, Yoh'ichi Tohkura (ATR) Frequency Response of Headphones Measured in Free Field and Diffuse Field by Loudness Comparison (In English) Kazuo Ueda, Tatsuya Hirahara (ATR) LVQ Phoneme Recognition Experiments with Spectrum Target Prediction Model Toshiyuki Aritsuka (ATR) Masato Akagi (NTT Basic Research Laboratories) Temporal Characteristics of Effects of "Prototypes" on Within-Category Discrimination for Speech Sounds Minoru Tsuzaki (ATR) Jorge A. Gurlekian (Univ. Buenos Aires) Effects of Typicality and Interstimulus Interval on the Discrimination of Speech Stimuli (In English) Minoru Tsuzaki (ATR) Jorge A. Gurlekian (Univ. Buenos Aires) On the Validity of the Models for Speech Perception Minoru Tsuzaki (ATR) Reviews of the 121st Meeting of Acoustical Society of America Minoru Tsuzaki, Yoh'ichi Tohkura, Yoshinori Sagisaka (ATR) LVQ-Based Shift-Tolerant Phoneme Recognition (In English) Erik McDermott, Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) Large Vocabulary Word Recognition Using an LVQ-HMM Hybrid Hitoshi Iwamida, Shigeru Katagiri, Erik McDermott (ATR) Speaker-Independent Large Vocabulary Word Recognition Using an LVQ/HMM Hybrid Algorithm (In English) Hitoshi Iwamida, Shigeru Katagiri, Erik McDermott (ATR) A New Connected Word Recognition Algorithm Based on HMM/LVQ Segmentation and LVQ Classification (In English) Padma Ramesh, Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) Chin-Hui Lee (Speech Research Department, AT&T Bell Laboratories) Review on Recent Discriminative Training Algorithms - Generalized Probabilistic Descent Method Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) A New Descriminative Training Algorithm for Dynamic Time Warping-Based Speech Recognition (In English) Takashi Komori, Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) Speech Recognition Using a New Minimum-Distortion Segmentation/Discriminative Classification Hybrid Algorithm (In English) Andrew Duchon, Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) Discriminative Training for Various Speech Units (In English) Erik McDermott, Shigeru Katagiri (ATR) Neural Networks as a Model of Parallel Computation Kaoru Nakazono (ATR) -----------------------------END OF REPORT---------------------------------