Speech and crosstalk detection in multichannel audio

The analysis of scenarios in which a number of microphones record the activity of speakers, such as in a round-table meeting, presents a number of computational challenges. For example, if each participant wears a microphone, speech from both the microphone's wearer (local speech) and from other participants (crosstalk) is received. The recorded audio can be broadly classified in four ways: local speech, crosstalk plus local speech, crosstalk alone and silence. We describe two experiments related to the automatic classification of audio into these four classes. The first experiment attempted to optimize a set of acoustic features for use with a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier. A large set of potential acoustic features were considered, some of which have been employed in previous studies. The best-performing features were found to be kurtosis, "fundamentalness," and cross-correlation metrics. The second experiment used these features to train an ergodic hidden Markov model classifier. Tests performed on a large corpus of recorded meetings show classification accuracies of up to 96%, and automatic speech recognition performance close to that obtained using ground truth segmentation

An analysis of break-even prices and yields between dryland and irrigated cropping in Saskatchewan

Non-Peer Reviewe

Irrigation and farm-level risks: an historical analysis of the South Saskatchewan River Irrigation District

Non-Peer Reviewe

Non-minimal coupling, boundary terms and renormalization of the Einstein-Hilbert action

A consistent variational procedure applied to the gravitational action requires according to Gibbons and Hawking a certain balance between the volume and boundary parts of the action. We consider the problem of preserving this balance in the quantum effective action for the matter non-minimally coupled to metric. It is shown that one has to add a special boundary term to the matter action analogous to the Gibbons-Hawking one. This boundary term modifies the one-loop quantum corrections to give a correct balance for the effective action as well. This means that the boundary UV divergences do not require independent renormalization and are automatically renormalized simultaneously with their volume part. This result is derived for arbitrary non-minimally coupled matter. The example of 2D Maxwell field is considered in much detail. The relevance of the results obtained to the problem of the renormalization of the black hole entropy is discussed.Comment: 14 pages, latex. More discussion added, the case of 2D Maxwell field considered in more detail

A comparison of Noether charge and Euclidean methods for Computing the Entropy of Stationary Black Holes

The entropy of stationary black holes has recently been calculated by a number of different approaches. Here we compare the Noether charge approach (defined for any diffeomorphism invariant Lagrangian theory) with various Euclidean methods, specifically, (i) the microcanonical ensemble approach of Brown and York, (ii) the closely related approach of Ba\~nados, Teitelboim, and Zanelli which ultimately expresses black hole entropy in terms of the Hilbert action surface term, (iii) another formula of Ba\~nados, Teitelboim and Zanelli (also used by Susskind and Uglum) which views black hole entropy as conjugate to a conical deficit angle, and (iv) the pair creation approach of Garfinkle, Giddings, and Strominger. All of these approaches have a more restrictive domain of applicability than the Noether charge approach. Specifically, approaches (i) and (ii) appear to be restricted to a class of theories satisfying certain properties listed in section 2; approach (iii) appears to require the Lagrangian density to be linear in the curvature; and approach (iv) requires the existence of suitable instanton solutions. However, we show that within their domains of applicability, all of these approaches yield results in agreement with the Noether charge approach. In the course of our analysis, we generalize the definition of Brown and York's quasilocal energy to a much more general class of diffeomorphism invariant, Lagrangian theories of gravity. In an appendix, we show that in an arbitrary diffeomorphism invariant theory of gravity, the ``volume term" in the ``off-shell" Hamiltonian associated with a time evolution vector field $t^a$ always can be expressed as the spatial integral of $t^a {\cal C}_a$, where ${\cal C}_a = 0$ are the constraints associated with the diffeomorphism invariance.Comment: 29 pages (double-spaced) late

Cross section of the processes e++e−→e++e−(γ)e^++e^-\to e^++e^-(\gamma), →π++π−(γ)\to \pi^++\pi^-(\gamma), μ++μ−(γ) \mu^++\mu^-(\gamma), γ+γ(γ) \gamma+\gamma(\gamma) in the energy region 200 MeV ≤2E≤\le 2E\le 3 GeV

The cross section for different processes induced by $e^+e^-$ annihilation, in the kinematical limit $\beta_{\mu}\approx\beta_{\pi}=(1-m_{\pi}^2/\epsilon^2)^{1/2}\sim 1$, is calculated taking into account first order corrections to the amplitudes and the corrections due to soft emitted photons, with energy $\omega\le\Delta E\le \epsilon$ in the center of mass of the $e^+e^-$ colliding beams. The results are given separately for charge--odd and charge--even terms in the final channels $\pi^+\pi^-(\gamma)$ and $\mu^+\mu^-(\gamma)$. In case of pions, form factors are taken into account. The differential cross sections for the processes: $e^++e^-\to e^++e^-(+\gamma)$, $\to \pi^++\pi^-(\gamma)$, $\to \mu^++\mu^-(\gamma),\to \gamma\gamma(\gamma)$ have been calculated and the corresponding formula are given in the ultrarelativistic limit $\sqrt{s}/2= \epsilon \gg m_{\mu}\sim m_{\pi}$ . For a quantitative evaluation of the contribution of higher order of the perturbation theory, the production of $\pi^+\pi^-$, including radiative corrections, is calculated in the approach of the lepton structure functions. This allows to estimate the precision of the obtained results as better than 0.5% outside the energy region corresponding to narrow resonances. A method to integrate the cross section, avoiding the difficulties which arise from singularities is also described.Comment: 25 pages 3 firgur

Inviscid dynamical structures near Couette flow

Consider inviscid fluids in a channel {-1<y<1}. For the Couette flow v_0=(y,0), the vertical velocity of solutions to the linearized Euler equation at v_0 decays in time. At the nonlinear level, such inviscid damping has not been proved. First, we show that in any (vorticity) H^{s}(s<(3/2)) neighborhood of Couette flow, there exist non-parallel steady flows with arbitrary minimal horizontal period. This implies that nonlinear inviscid damping is not true in any (vorticity) H^{s}(s<(3/2)) neighborhood of Couette flow and for any horizontal period. Indeed, the long time behavior in such neighborhoods are very rich, including nontrivial steady flows, stable and unstable manifolds of nearby unstable shears. Second, in the (vorticity) H^{s}(s>(3/2)) neighborhood of Couette, we show that there exist no non-parallel steadily travelling flows v(x-ct,y), and no unstable shears. This suggests that the long time dynamics in H^{s}(s>(3/2)) neighborhoods of Couette might be much simpler. Such contrasting dynamics in H^{s} spaces with the critical power s=(3/2) is a truly nonlinear phenomena, since the linear inviscid damping near Couette is true for any initial vorticity in L^2

Random Convex Hulls and Extreme Value Statistics

In this paper we study the statistical properties of convex hulls of $N$ random points in a plane chosen according to a given distribution. The points may be chosen independently or they may be correlated. After a non-exhaustive survey of the somewhat sporadic literature and diverse methods used in the random convex hull problem, we present a unifying approach, based on the notion of support function of a closed curve and the associated Cauchy's formulae, that allows us to compute exactly the mean perimeter and the mean area enclosed by the convex polygon both in case of independent as well as correlated points. Our method demonstrates a beautiful link between the random convex hull problem and the subject of extreme value statistics. As an example of correlated points, we study here in detail the case when the points represent the vertices of $n$ independent random walks. In the continuum time limit this reduces to $n$ independent planar Brownian trajectories for which we compute exactly, for all $n$, the mean perimeter and the mean area of their global convex hull. Our results have relevant applications in ecology in estimating the home range of a herd of animals. Some of these results were announced recently in a short communication [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 140602 (2009)].Comment: 61 pages (pedagogical review); invited contribution to the special issue of J. Stat. Phys. celebrating the 50 years of Yeshiba/Rutgers meeting

Symmetries at stationary Killing horizons

It has often been suggested (especially by Carlip) that spacetime symmetries in the neighborhood of a black hole horizon may be relevant to a statistical understanding of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. A prime candidate for this type of symmetry is that which is exhibited by the Einstein tensor. More precisely, it is now known that this tensor takes on a strongly constrained (block-diagonal) form as it approaches any stationary, non-extremal Killing horizon. Presently, exploiting the geometrical properties of such horizons, we provide a particularly elegant argument that substantiates this highly symmetric form for the Einstein tensor. It is, however, duly noted that, on account of a "loophole", the argument does fall just short of attaining the status of a rigorous proof.Comment: 11 pages, Revte

The Hyperfine Spin Splittings In Heavy Quarkonia

The hyperfine spin splittings in heavy quarkonia are studied using the recently developed renormalization group improved spin-spin potential which is independent of the scale parameter $\mu$. The calculated energy difference between the $J/\psi$ and the $\eta_c$ fits the experimental data well, while the predicted energy difference $\Delta M_p$ between the center of the gravity of $1^3P_{0,1,2}$ states and the $1^1P_1$ state of charmonium has the correct sign but is somewhat larger than the experimental data. This is not surprising since there are several other contributions to $\Delta M_p$, which we discuss, that are of comparable size ($\sim 1$ MeV) that should be included, before precise agreement with the data can be expected. The mass differences of the $\psi'-\eta_c'$, $\Upsilon(1S)-\eta_b$, $\Upsilon(2S)-\eta_b'$, and $B_c^*-B_c$ are also predicted.Comment: 17 page