Feature extraction based on bio-inspired model for robust emotion recognition

Emotional state identification is an important issue to achieve more natural speech interactive systems. Ideally, these systems should also be able to work in real environments in which generally exist some kind of noise. Several bio-inspired representations have been applied to artificial systems for speech processing under noise conditions. In this work, an auditory signal representation is used to obtain a novel bio-inspired set of features for emotional speech signals. These characteristics, together with other spectral and prosodic features, are used for emotion recognition under noise conditions. Neural models were trained as classifiers and results were compared to the well-known mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. Results show that using the proposed representations, it is possible to significantly improve the robustness of an emotion recognition system. The results were also validated in a speaker independent scheme and with two emotional speech corpora.Fil: Albornoz, Enrique Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Milone, Diego Humberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Rufiner, Hugo Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; Argentin

Loop-induced photon spectral lines from neutralino annihilation in the NMSSM

We have computed the loop-induced processes of neutralino annihilation into two photons and, for the first time, into a photon and a Z boson in the framework of the NMSSM. The photons produced from these radiative modes are monochromatic and possess a clear "smoking gun" experimental signature. This numerical analysis has been done with the help of the SloopS code, initially developed for automatic one-loop calculation in the MSSM. We have computed the rates for different benchmark points coming from SUGRA and GMSB soft SUSY breaking scenarios and compared them with the MSSM. We comment on how this signal can be enhanced, with respect to the MSSM, especially in the low mass region of the neutralino. We also discuss the possibility of this observable to constrain the NMSSM parameter space, taking into account the latest limits from the FERMI collaboration on these two modes.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures. Minor clarifications added in the text. Typing mistakes and references corrected. Matches published versio

Primordial Nucleosynthesis

Primordial nucleosynthesis, or Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), is one of the three evidences for the Big-Bang model, together with the expansion of the Universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background. There is a good global agreement over a range of nine orders of magnitude between abundances of 4He, D, 3He and 7Li deduced from observations, and calculated in primordial nucleosynthesis. This comparison was used to determine the baryonic density of the Universe. For this purpose, it is now superseded by the analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation anisotropies. However, there remain, a yet unexplained, discrepancy of a factor 3-5, between the calculated and observed lithium primordial abundances, that has not been reduced, neither by recent nuclear physics experiments, nor by new observations. We review here the nuclear physics aspects of BBN for the production of 4He, D, 3He and 7Li, but also 6Li, 9Be, 11B and up to CNO isotopes. These are, for instance, important for the initial composition of the matter at the origin of the first stars. Big-Bang nucleosynthesis, that has been used, to first constrain the baryonic density, and the number of neutrino families, remains, a valuable tool to probe the physics of the early Universe, like variation of "constants" or alternative theories of gravity.Comment: Invited Plenary Talk given at the 11th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (NN2012), San Antonio, Texas, USA, May 27-June 1, 2012. To appear in the NN2012 Proceedings in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS

Temperature regulates NF-κB dynamics and function through timing of A20 transcription

NF-κB signaling plays a pivotal role in control of the inflammatory response. We investigated how the dynamics and function of NF-κB were affected by temperature within the mammalian physiological range (34 °C to 40 °C). An increase in temperature led to an increase in NF-κB nuclear/cytoplasmic oscillation frequency following Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNFα) stimulation. Mathematical modeling suggested that this temperature sensitivity might be due to an A20-dependent mechanism, and A20 silencing removed the sensitivity to increased temperature. The timing of the early response of a key set of NF-κB target genes showed strong temperature dependence. The cytokine-induced expression of many (but not all) later genes was insensitive to temperature change (suggesting that they might be functionally temperature-compensated). Moreover, a set of temperature- and TNFα-regulated genes were implicated in NF-κB cross-talk with key cell-fate–controlling pathways. In conclusion, NF-κB dynamics and target gene expression are modulated by temperature and can accurately transmit multidimensional information to control inflammation

The Higgs sector of the phenomenological MSSM in the light of the Higgs boson discovery

The long awaited discovery of a new light scalar at the LHC opens up a new era of studies of the Higgs sector in the SM and its extensions. In this paper we discuss the consequences of the observation of a light Higgs boson with the mass and rates reported by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations on the parameter space of the phenomenological MSSM, including also the so far unsuccessful LHC searches for the heavier Higgs bosons and supersymmetric particle partners in missing transverse momentum as well as the constraints from B physics and dark matter. We explore the various regimes of the MSSM Higgs sector depending on the parameters MA and tan beta and show that only two of them are still allowed by all present experimental constraints: the decoupling regime where there is only one light and standard--like Higgs boson and the supersymmetric regime in which there are light supersymmetric particle partners affecting the decay properties of the Higgs boson, in particular its di-photon and invisible decays.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures v2 - Discussion of the impact of LHC data extended, scan statistics increased, a few figures added and typos correcte

Les Houches 2011: Physics at TeV Colliders New Physics Working Group Report

We present the activities of the "New Physics" working group for the "Physics at TeV Colliders" workshop (Les Houches, France, 30 May-17 June, 2011). Our report includes new agreements on formats for interfaces between computational tools, new tool developments, important signatures for searches at the LHC, recommendations for presentation of LHC search results, as well as additional phenomenological studies.Comment: 243 pages, report of the Les Houches 2011 New Physics Group; fix three figure

Light neutralino dark matter in the MSSM and its implication for LHC searches for staus

It was shown in a previous study that a lightest neutralino with mass below 30 GeV was severely constrained in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), unless it annihilates via a light stau and thus yields the observed dark matter abundance. In such a scenario, while the stau is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP), the charginos and the other neutralinos as well as sleptons of the first two families are also likely to be not too far above the mass bounds laid down by the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider. As the branching ratios of decays of the charginos and the next-to-lightest neutralino into staus are rather large, one expects significant rates of tau-rich final states in such a case. With this in view, we investigate the same-sign ditau and tri-tau signals of this scenario at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for two MSSM benchmark points corresponding to light neutralino dark matter. The associated signal rates for these channels are computed, for the centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. We find that both channels lead to appreciable rates if the squarks and the gluino are not too far above a TeV, thus allowing to probe scenarios with light neutralinos in the 14 TeV LHC run with 10-100 fb^{-1}.Comment: 19p, 4 Fig

New measurement of neutron capture resonances of 209Bi

The neutron capture cross section of Bi209 has been measured at the CERN n TOF facility by employing the pulse-height-weighting technique. Improvements over previous measurements are mainly because of an optimized detection system, which led to a practically negligible neutron sensitivity. Additional experimental sources of systematic error, such as the electronic threshold in the detectors, summing of gamma-rays, internal electron conversion, and the isomeric state in bismuth, have been taken into account. Gamma-ray absorption effects inside the sample have been corrected by employing a nonpolynomial weighting function. Because Bi209 is the last stable isotope in the reaction path of the stellar s-process, the Maxwellian averaged capture cross section is important for the recycling of the reaction flow by alpha-decays. In the relevant stellar range of thermal energies between kT=5 and 8 keV our new capture rate is about 16% higher than the presently accepted value used for nucleosynthesis calculations. At this low temperature an important part of the heavy Pb-Bi isotopes are supposed to be synthesized by the s-process in the He shells of low mass, thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch stars. With the improved set of cross sections we obtain an s-process fraction of 19(3)% of the solar bismuth abundance, resulting in an r-process residual of 81(3)%. The present (n,gamma) cross-section measurement is also of relevance for the design of accelerator driven systems based on a liquid metal Pb/Bi spallation target.Comment: 10 pages, 5figures, recently published in Phys. Rev.