A global information system (GIS) is an umbrella system that presents a global schema of the data available in its underlying, component, autonomous information systems and provides its users with the capability to ask queries of the global scheme and to receive integrated answers. The major research areas confronting GIS developers are examined. They are: development of global schema; query processing and data access; security; recovery from failure; integration of the user workstation with the GIS; and support for multimedia objects. >

A technique has been developed to locate, define the boundaries of, and appropriately label steady-state voiced non-fricative areas of a continuous speech utterance. It uses advanced methods of pitch and formant tracking to provide the necessary acoustic parameters. The labeling algorithm compares the analyses with vowel-sonorant tables that incorporate some coarticulation phonemena based on current research. The sounds are discussed with respect to the stress of the vowels and the position of the sonorant, i.e., initial or final form. Results for four male subjects are presented.