Spoof detection using time-delay shallow neural network and feature switching

Detecting spoofed utterances is a fundamental problem in voice-based biometrics. Spoofing can be performed either by logical accesses like speech synthesis, voice conversion or by physical accesses such as replaying the pre-recorded utterance. Inspired by the state-of-the-art \emph{x}-vector based speaker verification approach, this paper proposes a time-delay shallow neural network (TD-SNN) for spoof detection for both logical and physical access. The novelty of the proposed TD-SNN system vis-a-vis conventional DNN systems is that it can handle variable length utterances during testing. Performance of the proposed TD-SNN systems and the baseline Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) is analyzed on the ASV-spoof-2019 dataset. The performance of the systems is measured in terms of the minimum normalized tandem detection cost function (min-t-DCF). When studied with individual features, the TD-SNN system consistently outperforms the GMM system for physical access. For logical access, GMM surpasses TD-SNN systems for certain individual features. When combined with the decision-level feature switching (DLFS) paradigm, the best TD-SNN system outperforms the best baseline GMM system on evaluation data with a relative improvement of 48.03\% and 49.47\% for both logical and physical access, respectively

Birefringence analysis of multilayer leaky cladding optical fibre

We analyse a multilayer leaky cladding (MLC) fibre using the finite element method and study the effect of the MLC on the bending loss and birefringence of two types of structures: (i) a circular core large-mode-area structure and (ii) an elliptical-small-core structure. In a large-mode-area structure, we verify that the multilayer leaky cladding strongly discriminates against higher order modes to achieve single-mode operation, the fibre shows negligible birefringence, and the bending loss of the fibre is low for bending radii larger than 10 cm. In the elliptical-small-core structure we show that the MLC reduces the birefringence of the fibre. This prevents the structure from becoming birefringent in case of any departures from circular geometry. The study should be useful in the designs of MLC fibres for various applications including high power amplifiers, gain flattening of fibre amplifiers and dispersion compensation.Comment: 18 page

Nonintegrability of (2+1)-dimensional continuum isotropic Heisenberg spin system: Painlev\'e analysis

While many integrable spin systems are known to exist in (1+1) and (2+1) dimensions, the integrability property of the physically important (2+1) dimensional isotropic Heisenberg ferromagnetic spin system in the continuum limit has not been investigated in the literature. In this paper, we show through a careful singularity structure analysis of the underlying nonlinear evolution equation that the system admits logarithmic type singular manifolds and so is of non-Painlev\'e type and is expected to be nonintegrable.Comment: 11 pages. to be published in Phys. Lett. A (2006

The Many Electron Ground State of the Adiabatic Holstein Model in Two and Three Dimensions

We present the complete ground state phase diagram of the Holstein model in two and three dimension considering the phonon variables to be classical. We first establish the overall structure of the phase diagram by using exact diagonalisation based Monte Carlo (ED-MC) on small lattices and then use a new ``travelling cluster'' approximation (TCA) for annealing the phonon degrees of freedom on large lattices. The phases that emerge include a Fermi liquid (FL), with no lattice distortions, an insulating polaron liquid (PL) at strong coupling, and a charge ordered insulating (COI) phase around half- filling. The COI phase is separated from the Fermi liquid by a regime of phase coexistence whose width grows with increasing electron-phonon coupling. We provide results on the electronic density of states, the COI order parameter, and the spatial organisation of polaronic states, for arbitrary density and electron-phonon coupling. The results highlight the crucial role of spatial correlations in this strong coupling problem.Comment: Final versio

Electron-hole coexistence in disordered graphene probed by high-field magneto-transport

We report on magneto-transport measurement in disordered graphene under pulsed magnetic field of up to 57T. For large electron or hole doping, the system displays the expected anomalous Integer Quantum Hall Effect (IQHE) specific to graphene up to filling factor $\nu=2$. In the close vicinity of the charge neutrality point, the system breaks up into co-existing puddles of holes and electrons, leading to a vanishing Hall and finite longitudinal resistance with no hint of divergence at very high magnetic field. Large resistance fluctuations are observed near the Dirac point. They are interpreted as the the natural consequence of the presence of electron and hole puddles. The magnetic field at which the amplitude of the fluctuations are the largest is directly linked to the mean size of the puddles

All-optical switching of photonic entanglement

Future quantum optical networks will require the ability to route entangled photons at high speeds, with minimal loss and added in-band noise, and---most importantly---without disturbing the photons' quantum state. Here we present an all-optical switch which fulfills these requirements and characterize its performance at the single photon level. It exhibits a 200-ps switching window, 120:1 contrast, 1.5-dB loss, and induces no measurable degradation in the switched photons' entangled-state fidelity (< 0.002). As a proof-of-principle demonstration of its capability, we use the switch to demultiplex a single quantum channel from a dual-channel, time-division-multiplexed entangled photon stream. Furthermore, because this type of switch couples the temporal and spatial degrees of freedom, it provides an important new tool with which to encode multiple-qubit quantum states on a single photon

Ultra low bending loss equiangular spiral photonic crystal fibers in the terahertz regime

An Equiangular Spiral Photonic Crystal Fiber (ES-PCF) design in Topas® for use in the Terahertz regime is presented. The design shows ultra low bending loss and very low confinement loss compared to conventional Hexagonal PCF (H-PCF). The ES-PCF has excellent modal confinement properties, together with several parameters to allow the optimization of the performance over a range of important characteristics. A full vector Finite Element simulation has been used to characterize the design which can be fabricated by a range of techniques including extrusion and drilling

Lithium hydroxide dihydrate: A new type of icy material at elevated pressure

We show that, in addition to the known monohydrate, LiOH forms a dihydrate at elevated pressure. The dihydrate involves a large number of H-bonds establishing chains along the direction. In addition, the energy surface exhibits a saddle point for proton locations along certain O interatomic distances, a feature characteristic for superprotonic conductors. However, MD simulations indicate that LiOH·2H_2O is not a superprotonic conductor and suggest the relevant interpolyhedral O–O distances being too large to allow for proton transfer between neighboring Li-coordinated polyhedra at least on the time scale of the MD-simulations

Heralding Single Photons Without Spectral Factorability

Recent efforts to produce single photons via heralding have relied on creating spectrally factorable two-photon states in order to achieve both high purity and high production rate. Through a careful multimode analysis, we find, however, that spectral factorability is not necessary. Utilizing single-mode detection, a similar or better performance can be achieved with non-factorable states. This conclusion rides on the fact that even when using a broadband filter, a single-mode measurement can still be realized, as long as the coherence time of the triggering photons exceeds the measurement window of the on/off detector.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure