Bark and Hz scaled F2 Locus equations: Sex differences and individual differences

This study investigated speaker sex differences in F2 Locus equations (F2 LEs) based on linearly (Hz) and tonotopically (Bark) scaled formant measurements. F2 data based on English monosyllabic words produced by thirteen women and eleven men were tonotopically scaled and F2 LEs were derived for both the linear and tonotopically scaled formant values. Although the overall sex difference in the F2 LE slope values for women and men was significant for both sets of F2 measures, the magnitude of this difference decreased for the Bark (.047) compared to the Hz (.063) scale. The individual data revealed a significant correlation between the slope values of the Hz and Bark scale [r = .974; p<.0001] suggesting a lawful relationship between the two metrics. Further probing revealed that the F2 LE data from women were affected more by the Bark conversion than the data from men

Continuous Damage Fiber Bundle Model for Strongly Disordered Materials

We present an extension of the continuous damage fiber bundle model to describe the gradual degradation of highly heterogeneous materials under an increasing external load. Breaking of a fiber in the model is preceded by a sequence of partial failure events occurring at random threshold values. In order to capture the subsequent propagation and arrest of cracks, furthermore, the disorder of the number of degradation steps of material constituents, the failure thresholds of single fibers are sorted into ascending order and their total number is a Poissonian distributed random variable over the fibers. Analytical and numerical calculations showed that the failure process of the system is governed by extreme value statistics, which has a substantial effect on the macroscopic constitutive behaviour and on the microscopic bursting activity as well.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figure

Nonperturbative aspects of the quark-photon vertex

The electromagnetic interaction with quarks is investigated through a relativistic, electromagnetic gauge-invariant treatment. Gluon dressing of the quark-photon vertex and the quark self-energy functions is described by the inhomogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equation in the ladder approximation and the Schwinger-Dyson equation in the rainbow approximation respectively. Results for the calculation of the quark-photon vertex are presented in both the time-like and space-like regions of photon momentum squared, however emphasis is placed on the space-like region relevant to electron scattering. The treatment presented here simultaneously addresses the role of dynamically generated $q\bar{q}$ vector bound states and the approach to asymptotic behavior. The resulting description is therefore applicable over the entire range of momentum transfers available in electron scattering experiments. Input parameters are limited to the model gluon two-point function, which is chosen to reflect confinement and asymptotic freedom, and are largely constrained by the obtained bound-state spectrum.Comment: 8 figures available on request by email, 25 pages, Revtex, DOE/ER/40561-131-INT94-00-5

The Magellan/IMACS Catalog of Optical Supernova Remnant Candidates in M83

We present a new optical imaging survey of supernova remnants in M83, using data obtained with the Magellan I 6.5m telescope and IMACS instrument under conditions of excellent seeing. Using the criterion of strong [S II] emission relative to Halpha, we confirm all but three of the 71 SNR candidates listed in our previous survey, and expand the SNR candidate list to 225 objects, more than tripling the earlier sample. Comparing the optical survey with a new deep X-ray survey of M83 with Chandra, we find 61 of these SNR candidates to have X-ray counterparts. We also identify an additional list of 46 [O III] -selected nebulae for follow-up as potential ejecta-dominated remnants, seven of which have associated X-ray emission that makes them strong candidates. Some of the other [O III]-bright objects could also be normal ISM-dominated supernova remnants with shocks fast enough to doubly ionize oxygen, but with Halpha and [S II] emission faint enough to have been missed. A few of these objects may also be H II regions with abnormally high [O III] emission compared with the majority of M83 H II regions, compact nebulae excited by young Wolf-Rayet stars, or even background AGN. The supernova remnant Halpha luminosity function in M83 is shifted a factor of ~ 4.5x higher than for M33 supernova remnants, indicative of a higher mean ISM density in M83. We describe the search technique used to identify the supernova remnant candidates and provide basic information and finder charts for the objects.Comment: 40 pages, 15 figures, accepted for ApJ

Speaker sex effects on temporal and spectro-temporal measures of speech

This study investigated speaker sex differences in the temporal and spectro-temporal parameters of English monosyllabic words spoken by thirteen women and eleven men. Vowel and utterance duration were investigated. A number of formant frequency parameters were also analysed to assess the spectro-temporal dynamic structures of the monosyllabic words as a function of speaker sex. Absolute frequency changes were measured for the first (F1), second (F2), and third (F3) formant frequencies (ΔF1, ΔF2, and ΔF3, respectively). Rates of these absolute formant frequency changes were also measured and calculated to yield measurements for rF1, rF2, and rF3. Normalised frequency changes (normΔF1, normΔF2, and normΔF3), and normalised rates of change (normrF1, normrF2, and normrF3) were also calculated. F2 locus equations were then derived from the F2 measurements taken at the onset and temporal mid points of the vowels. Results indicated that there were significant sex differences in the spectro-temporal parameters associated with F2: ΔF2, normΔF2, rF2, and F2 locus equation slopes; women displayed significantly higher values for ΔF2, normΔF2 and rF2, and significantly shallower F2 locus equation slopes. Collectively, these results suggested lower levels of coarticulation in the speech samples of the women speakers, and corroborate evidence reported in earlier studies

Percolation with excluded small clusters and Coulomb blockade in a granular system

We consider dc-conductivity $\sigma$ of a mixture of small conducting and insulating grains slightly below the percolation threshold, where finite clusters of conducting grains are characterized by a wide spectrum of sizes. The charge transport is controlled by tunneling of carriers between neighboring conducting clusters via short ``links'' consisting of one insulating grain. Upon lowering temperature small clusters (up to some $T$-dependent size) become Coulomb blockaded, and are avoided, if possible, by relevant hopping paths. We introduce a relevant percolational problem of next-nearest-neighbors (NNN) conductivity with excluded small clusters and demonstrate (both numerically and analytically) that $\sigma$ decreases as power law of the size of excluded clusters. As a physical consequence, the conductivity is a power-law function of temperature in a wide intermediate temperature range. We express the corresponding index through known critical indices of the percolation theory and confirm this relation numerically.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Reduced basis catalogs for gravitational wave templates

We introduce a reduced basis approach as a new paradigm for modeling, representing and searching for gravitational waves. We construct waveform catalogs for non-spinning compact binary coalescences, and we find that for accuracies of 99% and 99.999% the method generates a factor of about $10-10^5$ fewer templates than standard placement methods. The continuum of gravitational waves can be represented by a finite and comparatively compact basis. The method is robust under variations in the noise of detectors, implying that only a single catalog needs to be generated.Comment: Minor changes in some of the phrasing to match the version as published in PR

Unequal Mass Binary Black Hole Plunges and Gravitational Recoil

We present results from fully nonlinear simulations of unequal mass binary black holes plunging from close separations well inside the innermost stable circular orbit with mass ratios q = M_1/M_2 = {1,0.85,0.78,0.55,0.32}, or equivalently, with reduced mass parameters $\eta=M_1M_2/(M_1+M_2)^2 = {0.25, 0.248, 0.246, 0.229, 0.183}$. For each case, the initial binary orbital parameters are chosen from the Cook-Baumgarte equal-mass ISCO configuration. We show waveforms of the dominant l=2,3 modes and compute estimates of energy and angular momentum radiated. For the plunges from the close separations considered, we measure kick velocities from gravitational radiation recoil in the range 25-82 km/s. Due to the initial close separations our kick velocity estimates should be understood as a lower bound. The close configurations considered are also likely to contain significant eccentricities influencing the recoil velocity.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "New Frontiers" special issue of CQ

An algorithm to calculate the transport exponent in strip geometries

An algorithm for solving the random resistor problem by means of the transfer-matrix approach is presented. Preconditioning by spanning clusters extraction both reduces the size of the conductivity matrix and speed up the calculations.Comment: 17 pages, RevTeX2.1, HLRZ - 97/9

The Samurai Project: verifying the consistency of black-hole-binary waveforms for gravitational-wave detection

We quantify the consistency of numerical-relativity black-hole-binary waveforms for use in gravitational-wave (GW) searches with current and planned ground-based detectors. We compare previously published results for the $(\ell=2,| m | =2)$ mode of the gravitational waves from an equal-mass nonspinning binary, calculated by five numerical codes. We focus on the 1000M (about six orbits, or 12 GW cycles) before the peak of the GW amplitude and the subsequent ringdown. We find that the phase and amplitude agree within each code's uncertainty estimates. The mismatch between the $(\ell=2,| m| =2)$ modes is better than $10^{-3}$ for binary masses above $60 M_{\odot}$ with respect to the Enhanced LIGO detector noise curve, and for masses above $180 M_{\odot}$ with respect to Advanced LIGO, Virgo and Advanced Virgo. Between the waveforms with the best agreement, the mismatch is below $2 \times 10^{-4}$. We find that the waveforms would be indistinguishable in all ground-based detectors (and for the masses we consider) if detected with a signal-to-noise ratio of less than $\approx14$, or less than $\approx25$ in the best cases.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. Version accepted by PR