Abstract: A speech analysis method and a speech encoding method and apparatus in which, even if the harmonics of the speech spectrum are offset from integer multiples of the fundamental wave, the amplitudes of the harmonics can be evaluated correctly for producing a playback output of high clarity. To this end, the frequency spectrum of the input speech is split on the frequency axis into plural bands in each of which pitch search and evaluation of amplitudes of the harmonics are carried out simultaneously using an optimum pitch derived from the spectral shape. Using the structure of an harmonics as the spectral shape, and based on the rough pitch previously detected by an open-loop rough pitch search, a high-precision pitch search comprised of a first pitch search for the frequency spectrum in its entirety and a second pitch search of higher precision than the first pitch search is carried out.

Abstract: A disk array controller or a disk array system includes a disk array control unit having an MPU 8 and a user data transfer control unit having host interfaces 3 and 4 with a host computer 17, a memory 5 for temporarily storing data, a redundant data generator 7 for generating redundant data, multi-channel disk device interfaces 16a.about.16e and 12a.about.12e and a data transfer control circuit (DMAC) 6 for controlling the data transfer between the host interface, the memory, the redundant data generator and the disk device interface. Internal buses are of at least three-bus structure including a control bus (for MPU) 15, a host data bus 13 and a drive data bus 14.

Abstract: A silver halide photographic light-sensitive material having at least one silver halide emulsion layer formed on a support, wherein silver halide grains in the emulsion layer are reduction-sensitized and contain at least one compound represented by formula (I) below. ##STR1## In formula (I), R is an alkyl group represented as follows. ##STR2## Each of R.sub.a, R.sub.b, R.sub.c, ad R.sub.d represents an alkyl group, an aryl group, a heterocyclic group, an alkoxy group, an aryloxy group, or an amino group, each of Q.sub.a, Q.sub.b, Q.sub.c, and Q.sub.d represents a methylene group, and each of r, s, t, and u represents an integer from 1 to 10.Each of L.sub.1 and L.sub.2 represents a methine group. p1 represents 0 or 1. Z.sub.1 represents atom groups required to neutralize a 5- or 6-membered nitrogen-containing heterocyclic ring. M.sub.1 represents a charge-balancing counterion, and m.sub.1 represents a number from 0 to 10 required to form electric charge of a molecule.

Abstract: A speech encoding method, a speech decoding method and corresponding apparatus capable of outputting non-buzzing spontaneous playback speech in a voiced portion includes a sinusoidal analysis encoding unit on the decoder side that detects the pitch of the voiced portion of the input speech signal. The pitch intensity information, which is a parameter containing the information representing not only the pitch intensity of the input speech signal but also the information representing proximity to the voiced speech or the unvoiced speech of the speech signal, is generated by a voiced/unvoiced (V/UV) discrimination unit and pitch intensity information generating circuit. The pitch intensity data is sent along with the encoded speech signal to the encoding side which then adds the noise component controlled on the basis of the pitch intensity information to the voiced portion of the encoded speech signal in a voiced speech synthesis portion and decodes and outputs the resulting signal.

Abstract: A signal coding apparatus including normalization circuit 101 for carrying out a linear prediction or the like to extract features of an input signal and for carrying out whitening. The signal whitened is transmitted to a T/F (time axis/frequency axis) conversion circuit 102 where the signal is subjected to a conversion such as the Modified Discrete Cosine Transform so as to obtain a coefficient y on the frequency axis. This coefficient y is supplied to a quantization (scalar quantization (SQ) and vector quantization (VQ)) circuit 103. A bit allocation circuit 104 uses the coefficient y and parameters such as a Linear Predictive Coding coefficient and a pitch from the normalization circuit 101 for carrying out quantization bit allocation for each coefficient. The quantization (SQ and VQ) circuit 103, according to this allocation bit, controls whether to carry out the SQ or VQ for each coefficient.

Abstract: A speech synthesizing method and apparatus arranged to use a sinusoidal waveform synthesis technique provide for preventing degradation of acoustic quality caused by the shift of the phase when synthesizing a sinusoidal waveform. A decoding unit decodes the data from an encoding side. The decoded data is transformed into the voiced/unvoiced data through a bad frame mask unit. Then, an unvoiced frame detecting circuit detects an unvoiced frame from the data. If there exist two or more continuous unvoiced frames, a voiced sound synthesizing unit initializes the phases of a fundamental wave and its harmonic into a given value such as 0 or .pi./2. This makes it possible to initialize the phase shift between the unvoiced and the voiced frames at a start point of the voiced frame, thereby preventing degradation of acoustic quality such as distortion of a synthesized sound caused by dephasing.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for voiced/unvoiced decision for judging whether an input speech signal is voiced or unvoiced. The input parameters for performing the voiced/unvoiced (V/UV) decision are comprehensively judged in order to enable high-precision V/UV decision by a simplified algorithm. Parameters for the voiced/unvoiced (V/UV) decision include the frame-averaged energy of the input speech signal lev, the normalized autocorrelation peak value r0r, the spectral similarity degree pos, the number of zero crossings nZero, and the pitch lag pch. If these parameters are denoted by x, these parameters are converted by function calculation circuits using a sigmoid function g(x) represented byg(x)=A/(1+exp (-(x-b)/a))where A, a, and b are constants differing with each input parameter. Using the parameters converted by this sigmoid function g(x), the voiced/unvoiced decision is made a V/UV decision circuit.

Abstract: The code vector search for vector-quantizing a variable-dimension input vector is to be improved in precision. Via a terminal are entered a variable number of data, that is a variable-dimension vector v, representing, for example, the amplitudes of spectral components of the harmonics of speech. The variable-dimension vector v is converted by a variable/fixed dimension conversion circuit into the vector x of a fixed dimension, such as 44-dimension vector, which is sent to a selection circuit. From plural fixed-dimension vectors, such a code vector as minimizes a weighted error is selected from a codebook. The code vector of fixed dimension obtained by the codebook is converted by a fixed/variable dimension converting circuit into the same variable dimension as that of the original variable-dimension vector v. The converted variable dimension code vector is sent to a variable-dimension selection circuit for selecting from the codebook such code vector as minimizes the weighted error from the input vector v.

Abstract: For realizing high-precision pitch detection even for speech signals in which half-pitch or double-pitch exhibits stronger autocorrelation than the pitch to be detected, an input speech signal is judged as to voicedness or unvoicedness and a voiced portion and an unvoiced portion of the input speech signal are encoded by a sinusoidal analytic encoding unit 114 and by a code excitation encoding unit 120, respectively, for producing respective encoded outputs. The sinusoidal analytic encoding unit 114 performs pitch search on the encoded outputs for finding the pitch information from the input speech signal and sets the high-reliability pitch information based on the detected pitch information. The results of pitch detection are determined using the high-reliability pitch information and the results of decision voicedness/unvoicedness of the frames other than the current frame.

Abstract: To conduct pitch control of a voiced speech signal that is to be coded or decoded, the voiced signal is subjected to sinusoidal analysis coding for each coding unit obtained by dividing the voiced signal on the time axis at a predetermined coding unit. A linear predictive residual of the voiced signal is taken out, and resultant voiced signal coded data are processed. A pitch component of the voiced signal coded data coded by the sinusoidal analysis coding is altered without changing the phonemes by a predetermined computation processing in a pitch conversion unit.

Abstract: Input audio signal is divided on a block-by-block basis. Frequency domain conversion is done on each of the blocks. Voiced bands of the frequency domain data for one of the blocks are searched for a voiced band B.sub.VH with the highest center frequency if it is decided that there are one or more shift points of voiced (V)/unvoiced (UV) decision data of all the bands. The number N.sub.V of voiced bands having center frequency less than that of the band B.sub.VH is found, so as to decide whether a proportion of the voiced bands is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold N.sub.th, thereby deciding one V/UV boundary point. Thus, it is possible to replace the V/UV decision data for each band by information on one demarcation in all bands, thereby reducing data volume and bit rate.

Abstract: Nasalized sound effects during reproduction of low-pitch sounds are suppressed to produce playback sounds of high clarity. Amplitude data is processed with high range formant emphasis of crests and valleys of the envelope of the frequency spectrum on the high frequency range and with deepening of the valley of the frequency spectrum over the entire frequency range, above all, over the low to mid frequency range. Next, the amplitude data is processed for emphasizing the peak values of the formant of the voiced frame in the portion of the speech signal which is rising in magnitude and for unconditionally emphasizing the spectral envelope on the high frequency range. The voiced speech spectrum is generated by synthesizing the cosine wave based upon the emphasized amplitude data.

Abstract: A pitch extraction method and apparatus whereby the pitch of a speech signal having various characteristics can be extracted accurately. The frame-based input speech signal, band-limited by an HPF 12 and an LPF 16, is sent to autocorrelation computing units 13, 17 where autocorrelation data is found. The pitch lag is computed and normalized in the pitch intensity/pitch lag computing units 14, 18. The pitch reliability of the input speech signals, limited by the HPF 12 and the LPF 16, is computed in elevation parameter calculation units. A selection unit 20 selects one of the parameters obtained from the input speech signal, limited by the HPF 12 and the LPF 16, using the pitch lag and the evaluation parameter.

Abstract: If the same parameter is repeatedly used in an unvoiced frame inherently devoid of pitch, there is produced a pitch of the frame length period, thus producing an extraneous feeling. This can be prevented from occurring by evading repeated use of excitation vectors having the same waveform shape. To this end, when decoding an encoded speech signal obtained on waveform encoding an encoding-unit-based time-axis speech signal obtained on splitting an input speech signal in terms of a pre-set encoding unit on the time axis, input data is checked by CRC by a CRC and bad frame masking circuit 281, which processes a frame corrupted with an error with bad frame masking of repeatedly using parameters of a directly previous frame. If the error-corrupted frame is unvoiced, an unvoiced speech synthesis unit 220 adds the noise to an excitation vector from a noise codebook or randomly selects the excitation vector of the noise codebook.

Abstract: A signal decoding method and apparatus in which the speech signal reproducing speed is controlled without changing the phoneme or the pitch, in which the apparatus has a data number convertor for converting the number of orthogonal transform coefficients entering a transmission signal input terminal from N to M, an inverse orthogonal transform unit for inverse orthogonal-transforming the M number of the orthogonal transform coefficients obtained by the data number convertor, and a linear predictive coding synthesis filter for performing predictive synthesis based on the short-term prediction residuals obtained by the inverse orthogonal transform unit. For an input signal, short-term prediction residuals are found and are orthogonally transformed to form the orthogonal transform coefficients at a rate of N coefficients per transform unit. The frequency positions of the N transform coefficients may be rearranged to M values by M/N or by oversampling to change N to M.

Abstract: A high efficiency encoding method for encoding data on frequency axis obtained by dividing an input audio signal on block-by-block basis and converting the signal onto the frequency axis, wherein V bands are searched for a band B.sub.VH with the highest center frequency if it is decided that there are one or more shift points of voiced (V)/unvoiced (UV) decision data of all bands on the frequency axis, and wherein the number of V bands N.sub.V up to the band B.sub.VH is found, so as to decide whether proportion of the V bands is equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold N.sub.th, thereby deciding one V/UV boundary point. Thus, it is possible to replace the V/UV decision data for each band by information on one demarcation in all bands, thereby to reduce data volume and to reduce bit rate. Also, by using two-stage hierarchical vector quantization in quantizing the data on the frequency axis, operation volume for codebook search and memory capacity of the codebook are reduced.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for reproducing speech signals at a controlled speed and for synthesizing speech includes a dividing unit that divides the input speech into time segments and an encoding unit that discriminates whether each of the speech segments is voiced or unvoiced. Based on the results of the discrimination, the encoding unit performs sinusoidal synthesis and encoding for voiced segments and vector quantization by closed-loop search for an optimum vector using an analysis-by-synthesis method for unvoiced segments in order to find encoded parameters. A period modification unit modifies the length of time associated with each signal segment and calculates a set of modified encoded parameters.

Abstract: Provided is a process for separating (S)- or (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid from a mixture of (S)- and (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid, which comprises (1) reacting the mixture of (S)- and (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid with (S)- or (R)-3-methyl-2-phenylbutylamine in a suitable solvent to form a diastereomer salt of (S)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid with (S)-3-methyl-2-phenylbutylamine or a diastereomer salt of (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid with (R)-3-methyl-2-phenylbutylamine; (2) separating the diastereomer salt from the reaction mixture; and (3) liberating the separated diastereomer salt to give (S)- or (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid. According to the present process, it is possible to obtain optically active (S)- or (R)-2-(3-benzoylphenyl)propionic acid having 99% or more of high optical purity in a high yield. Thus, the present process is a practical and efficient process which can simplify purification steps and can be applied for an industrial production process.