The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the agency was created in February 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957. By collaborating with academic and government partners, DARPA formulates and executes research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science beyond immediate U. S. military requirements. DARPA-funded projects have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer networking and the basis for the modern Internet, graphical user interfaces in information technology. DARPA is independent of other military research and development and reports directly to senior Department of Defense management. DARPA has about 220 employees, of whom 100 are in management; the name of the organization first changed from its founding name ARPA to DARPA in March 1972 changing back to ARPA in February 1993, only to revert to DARPA in March 1996.

Their mission statement is "to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security". The creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency was authorized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 for the purpose of forming and executing research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, able to reach far beyond immediate military requirements, the two relevant acts being the Supplemental Military Construction Authorization and Department of Defense Directive 5105.15, in February 1958. Its creation was directly attributed to the launching of Sputnik and to U. S. realization that the Soviet Union had developed the capacity to exploit military technology. Initial funding of ARPA was $520 million. ARPA's first director, Roy Johnson, left a $160,000 management job at General Electric for an $18,000 job at ARPA. Herbert York from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was hired as his scientific assistant. Johnson and York were both keen on space projects, but when NASA was established in 1958 all space projects and most of ARPA's funding were transferred to it.

Johnson resigned and ARPA was repurposed to do "high-risk", "high-gain", "far out" basic research, a posture, enthusiastically embraced by the nation's scientists and research universities. ARPA's second director was Brigadier General Austin W. Betts, who resigned in early 1961, he was succeeded by Jack Ruina who served until 1963. Ruina, the first scientist to administer ARPA, managed to raise its budget to $250 million, it was Ruina who hired J. C. R. Licklider as the first administrator of the Information Processing Techniques Office, which played a vital role in creation of ARPANET, the basis for the future Internet. Additionally, the political and defense communities recognized the need for a high-level Department of Defense organization to formulate and execute R&D projects that would expand the frontiers of technology beyond the immediate and specific requirements of the Military Services and their laboratories. In pursuit of this mission, DARPA has developed and transferred technology programs encompassing a wide range of scientific disciplines that address the full spectrum of national security needs.

From 1958 to 1965, ARPA's emphasis centered on major national issues, including space, ballistic missile defense, nuclear test detection. During 1960, all of its civilian space programs were transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the military space programs to the individual services; this allowed ARPA to concentrate its efforts on the Project Defender, Project Vela, Project AGILE programs, to begin work on computer processing, behavioral sciences, materials sciences. The DEFENDER and AGILE programs formed the foundation of DARPA sensor and directed energy R&D in the study of radar, infrared sensing, x-ray/gamma ray detection. ARPA at this point played an early role in Transit a predecessor to the Global Positioning System. "Fast-forward to 1959 when a joint effort between DARPA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory began to fine-tune the early explorers’ discoveries. TRANSIT, sponsored by the Navy and developed under the leadership of Dr. Richard Kirschner at Johns Hopkins, was the first satellite positioning system."During the late 1960s, with the transfer of these mature programs to the Services, ARPA redefined its role and concentrated on a diverse set of small exploratory research programs.

The agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972, during the early 1970s, it emphasized direct energy programs, information processing, tactical technologies. Concerning information processing, DARPA made great progress through its support of the development of time-sharing. DARPA supported the evolution of the ARPANET, Packet Radio Network, Packet Satellite Network and the Internet and research in the artificial intelligence fields of speech recognition and signal processing, including parts of Shakey the robot. DARPA funded the development of the Douglas Engelbart's NLS computer system and The Mother of

The Xiamen–Chengdu Expressway referred to as the Xiarong Expressway is an expressway that connects the cities of Xiamen, Fujian and Chengdu, Sichuan. When complete, it will be 2,192.2 km in length. The expressway is under construction for a small section between Zhangzhou and Xiamen. Motorists who wish to continue to Xiamen from the expressway can use the G15 Shenyang–Haikou Expressway northbound; the rest of the expressway in Fujian is complete. The expressway is under construction from the Fujian border to just west of Ruijin, complete from just west of Ruijin to the Hunan border; the entire Hunan portion of the expressway is under construction. The entire Guangxi portion of the expressway is under construction; the entire Guizhou portion of the expressway is under construction. In Sichuan, the expressway is under construction from the Guizhou border to Luzhou and complete from Luzhou to Chengdu

The National Center for Voice and Speech, is a multi-site research and teaching organization dedicated to studying the characteristics and enhancement of human voice and speech. The NCVS is located in Salt Lake City, Utah with the Lead Institution located at the University of Utah. NCVS is a Center at the University of Iowa where it has laboratories in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. In addition, the NCVS has collaborators at many institutions around the United States, its focus is the science and practice of voice habilitation. Conceived as a "center without walls," the NCVS was formally organized in 1990 with the assistance of a grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, an institute of the National Institutes of Health; the NCVS was organized on the premise that a consortium of institutions would be better able to conduct and disseminate research than a single organization. NCVS members, although geographically separate, were linked by a common desire to understand the characteristics and enhancement of human voice and speech.

In 1999, NIDCD discontinued the Multi-Purpose Research and Training Center funding mechanism for the entire institute focusing instead on single-project research awards. In a July 2000 meeting, however, NCVS investigators voted unanimously to continue the concept of a national resource center for voice and speech, to be driven by a variety of single-project research awards, as well as health communication and training grants. In 2001, the NCVS moved its central location to Denver, where the otolaryngologist Dr. Wilbur James Gould had founded a center to study the voice and speech patterns of stage performers; the NCVS team of investigators, led by Ingo Titze, studies the powers and enhancement of human voice and speech. The investigators are scientists, educators and musicians who use diverse backgrounds to work together on voice and speech investigations; as a direct outgrowth of their work, NCVS members teach other investigators and practitioners who work with voice, as well as speech clients and the general public.

One example is the Summer Vocology Institute, which trains voice coaches and vocal health professionals in the study of Vocology. Occupational Safety in Vocalization Biomechanical Modeling Simulation of Vocal Production for Research and Therapeutic Interventions Computer Simulation of Phonosurgical Procedures Voice Treatment for Adults Suffering from Parkinson’s Disease Voice Treatment for Children with Down Syndrome Voice Forensics & Speaker Identification Laryngeal Tissue Engineering Voice Academy Vocology Phonation Human Voice NCVS YouTube Channel The Voice Academy's official website National Center for Voice and Speech's official website The NCVS's Summer Vocology Institute's official website The Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of Iowa's official website