Finding the Most Uniform Changes in Vowel Polygon Caused by Psychological Stress

Using vowel polygons, exactly their parameters, is chosen as the criterion for achievement of differences between normal state of speaker and relevant speech under real psychological stress. All results were experimentally obtained by created software for vowel polygon analysis applied on ExamStress database. Selected 6 methods based on cross-correlation of different features were classified by the coefficient of variation and for each individual vowel polygon, the efficiency coefficient marking the most significant and uniform differences between stressed and normal speech were calculated. As the best method for observing generated differences resulted method considered mean of cross correlation values received for difference area value with vector length and angle parameter couples. Generally, best results for stress detection are achieved by vowel triangles created by /i/-/o/-/u/ and /a/-/i/-/o/ vowel triangles in formant planes containing the fifth formant F5 combined with other formants

Entanglement and Disentanglement in Circuit QED Architectures

We propose a protocol for creating entanglement within a dissipative circuit QED network architecture that consists of two electromagnetic circuits (cavities) and two superconducting qubits. The system interacts with a quantum environment, giving rise to decoherence and dissipation. We discuss the preparation of two separate entangled cavity-qubit states via Landau-Zener sweeps, after which the cavities interact via a tunable "quantum switch" which is realized with an ancilla qubit. Moreover, we discuss the decay of the resulting entangled two-cavity state due to the influence of the environment, where we focus on the entanglement decay.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Coherence stabilization of a two-qubit gate by AC fields

We consider a CNOT gate operation under the influence of quantum bit-flip noise and demonstrate that ac fields can change bit-flip noise into phase noise and thereby improve coherence up to several orders of magnitude while the gate operation time remains unchanged. Within a high-frequency approximation, both purity and fidelity of the gate operation are studied analytically. The numerical treatment with a Bloch-Redfield master equation confirms the analytical results.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Correlation of Positive and Negative Reciprocity Fails to Confer an Evolutionary Advantage: Phase Transitions to Elementary Strategies

Economic experiments reveal that humans value cooperation and fairness. Punishing unfair behavior is therefore common, and according to the theory of strong reciprocity, it is also directly related to rewarding cooperative behavior. However, empirical data fail to confirm that positive and negative reciprocity are correlated. Inspired by this disagreement, we determine whether the combined application of reward and punishment is evolutionarily advantageous. We study a spatial public goods game, where in addition to the three elementary strategies of defection, rewarding, and punishment, a fourth strategy that combines the latter two competes for space. We find rich dynamical behavior that gives rise to intricate phase diagrams where continuous and discontinuous phase transitions occur in succession. Indirect territorial competition, spontaneous emergence of cyclic dominance, as well as divergent fluctuations of oscillations that terminate in an absorbing phase are observed. Yet, despite the high complexity of solutions, the combined strategy can survive only in very narrow and unrealistic parameter regions. Elementary strategies, either in pure or mixed phases, are much more common and likely to prevail. Our results highlight the importance of patterns and structure in human cooperation, which should be considered in future experiments

Time-Resolved Measurement of a Charge Qubit

We propose a scheme for monitoring coherent quantum dynamics with good time-resolution and low backaction, which relies on the response of the considered quantum system to high-frequency ac driving. An approximate analytical solution of the corresponding quantum master equation reveals that the phase of an outgoing signal, which can directly be measured in an experiment with lock-in technique, is proportional to the expectation value of a particular system observable. This result is corroborated by the numerical solution of the master equation for a charge qubit realized with a Cooper-pair box, where we focus on monitoring coherent oscillations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Effective approach to the Nagaoka regime of the two dimensional t-J model

We argue that the t-J model and the recently proposed Ising version of this model give the same physical picture of the Nagaoka regime for J/t << 1. In particular, both models are shown to give compatible results for a single Nagaoka polaron as well as for a Nagaoka bipolaron. When compared to the standard t-J or t-Jz models, the Ising version allows for a numerical analysis on much larger clusters by means of classical Monte Carlo simulations. Taking the advantage of this fact, we study the low doping regime of t-J model for J/t << 1 and show that the ground state exhibits phase separation into hole-rich ferromagnetic and hole-depleted antiferromagnetic regions. This picture holds true up to a threshold concentration of holes, \delta < \delta_t ~ 0.44 \sqrt{J/t}. Analytical calculations show that \delta_t=\sqrt{J/2\pi t}.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, revte

Maximizing the quality factor to mode volume ratio for ultra-small photonic crystal cavities

Small manufacturing-tolerant photonic crystal cavities are systematically designed using topology optimization to enhance the ratio between quality factor and mode volume, Q/V. For relaxed manufacturing tolerance, a cavity with bow-tie shape is obtained which confines light beyond the diffraction limit into a deep-subwavelength volume. Imposition of a small manufacturing tolerance still results in efficient designs, however, with diffraction-limited confinement. Inspired by numerical results, an elliptic ring grating cavity concept is extracted via geometric fitting. Numerical evaluations demonstrate that for small sizes, topology-optimized cavities enhance the Q/V-ratio by up to two orders of magnitude relative to standard L1 cavities and more than one order of magnitude relative to shape-optimized L1 cavities. An increase in cavity size can enhance the Q/V-ratio by an increase of the Q-factor without significant increase of V. Comparison between optimized and reference cavities illustrates that significant reduction of V requires big topological changes in the cavity

Topology synthesis of multi-input-multi-output compliant mechanisms.

A generalized formulation to design Multi-Input-Multi-Output (MIMO) compliant mechanisms is presented in this work. This formulation also covers the simplified cases of the design of Multi-Input and Multi-Output compliant mechanisms, more commonly used in the literature. A Sequential Element Rejection and Admission (SERA) method is used to obtain the optimum design that converts one or more input works into one or more output displacements in predefined directions. The SERA procedure allows material to flow between two different material models: 'real' and 'virtual'. The method works with two separate criteria for the rejection and admission of elements to efficiently achieve the optimum design. Examples of Multi-Input, Multi-Output and MIMO compliant mechanisms are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed procedure to design complex complaint mechanisms

Conditional strategies and the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods games

The fact that individuals will most likely behave differently in different situations begets the introduction of conditional strategies. Inspired by this, we study the evolution of cooperation in the spatial public goods game, where besides unconditional cooperators and defectors, also different types of conditional cooperators compete for space. Conditional cooperators will contribute to the public good only if other players within the group are likely to cooperate as well, but will withhold their contribution otherwise. Depending on the number of other cooperators that are required to elicit cooperation of a conditional cooperator, the latter can be classified in as many types as there are players within each group. We find that the most cautious cooperators, such that require all other players within a group to be conditional cooperators, are the undisputed victors of the evolutionary process, even at very low synergy factors. We show that the remarkable promotion of cooperation is due primarily to the spontaneous emergence of quarantining of defectors, which become surrounded by conditional cooperators and are forced into isolated convex "bubbles" from where they are unable to exploit the public good. This phenomenon can be observed only in structured populations, thus adding to the relevance of pattern formation for the successful evolution of cooperation.Comment: 7 two-column pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in Physical Review

Molecular wires acting as quantum heat ratchets

We explore heat transfer in molecular junctions between two leads in the absence of a finite net thermal bias. The application of an unbiased, time-periodic temperature modulation of the leads entails a dynamical breaking of reflection symmetry, such that a directed heat current may emerge (ratchet effect). In particular, we consider two cases of adiabatically slow driving, namely (i) periodic temperature modulation of only one lead and (ii) temperature modulation of both leads with an ac driving that contains a second harmonic, thus generating harmonic mixing. Both scenarios yield sizeable directed heat currents which should be detectable with present techniques. Adding a static thermal bias, allows one to compute the heat current-thermal load characteristics which includes the ratchet effect of negative thermal bias with positive-valued heat flow against the thermal bias, up to the thermal stop-load. The ratchet heat flow in turn generates also an electric current. An applied electric stop-voltage, yielding effective zero electric current flow, then mimics a solely heat-ratchet-induced thermopower (``ratchet Seebeck effect''), although no net thermal bias is acting. Moreover, we find that the relative phase between the two harmonics in scenario (ii) enables steering the net heat current into a direction of choice.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure