AcknowledgementsI am indebted to my husband, Lon Stockton, without whose help, encouragement and patience I would never have gotten this thesis completed and who made it all worthwhile. I would also like to thank my wonderful parents, Patrick and Patricia Creaney, for their support and encouragement and other help throughout. I am also grateful to my brilliant parents-in-law, Margaret and Richard Stockton, who also gave me a great deal of support and encouragement. This work was supervised by Dr. R. N. Gorgui-Naguib at the University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the U.K. I greatly appreciate all his help and guidance. The English Alphabet Database used is the BT Connex S1 speech database provided by British Telecommunications Research Laboratories (BTRL). Special thanks are due to the Physics Department of Hampden Sydney College, Virginia, USA, in particular Dr. Don Kniffen who allowed me the use of some powerful machines without which this work would have taken a lot longer or have been a lot shorter. I am deeply indebted to him and to Bill DeWindt who kept those machines up and running as smoothly as possible. Finally, thank you to all the other people who have supported me during the course of this thesis. To my friends in the Electronic Engineering Department, Parivash, Sanjiv, Nick, Adrian, and Kuh in particular who provided help, suggestions and good company in the long nights spent in the lab. My flatmates, Linda and Wendy who were great friends and made my years in Newcastle immensely enjoyable. My Grandma Mary Scally who has always been an inspiring presence in my life. My friends in Farmville who have kept me (relatively) sane, especially Karlo, all the Leggett/Belk Crew (esp. Glenda, Joan, Melissa and Cindy) and my husband, Lon. |