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

Two-domains bulklike Fermi surface of Ag films deposited onto Si(111)-(7x7)

Thick metallic silver films have been deposited onto Si(111)-(7x7) substrates at room temperature. Their electronic properties have been studied by using angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES). In addition to the electronic band dispersion along the high-symmetry directions, the Fermi surface topology of the grown films has been investigated. Using ARPES, the spectral weight distribution at the Fermi level throughout large portions of the reciprocal space has been determined at particular perpendicular electron-momentum values. Systematically, the contours of the Fermi surface of these films reflected a sixfold symmetry instead of the threefold symmetry of Ag single crystal. This loss of symmetry has been attributed to the fact that these films appear to be composed by two sets of domains rotated 60$^o$ from each other. Extra, photoemission features at the Fermi level were also detected, which have been attributed to the presence of surface states and \textit{sp}-quantum states. The dimensionality of the Fermi surface of these films has been analyzed studying the dependence of the Fermi surface contours with the incident photon energy. The behavior of these contours measured at particular points along the Ag $\Gamma$L high-symmetry direction puts forward the three-dimensional character of the electronic structure of the films investigated.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Temperature dependence of the (π,0) anomaly in the excitation spectrum of the 2D quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet

Dedicated to the life and work of Professor Roger Cowley. 22 pages, 8 figuresIt is well established that in the low-temperature limit, the two-dimensional quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice (2DQHAFSL) exhibits an anomaly in its spectrum at short-wavelengths on the zone-boundary. In the vicinity of the (π,0) point the pole in the one-magnon response exhibits a downward dispersion, is heavily damped and attenuated, giving way to an isotropic continuum of excitations extending to high energies. The origin of the anomaly and the presence of the continuum are of current theoretical interest, with suggestions focused around the idea that the latter evidences the existence of spinons in a two-dimensional system. Here we present the results of neutron inelastic scattering experiments and Quantum Monte Carlo calculations on the metallo-organic compound Cu(DCOO)2⋅4D2O (CFTD), an excellent physical realisation of the 2DQHAFSL, designed to investigate how the anomaly at (π,0) evolves up to finite temperatures T/J∼2/3. Our data reveal that on warming the anomaly survives the loss of long-range, three-dimensional order, and is thus a robust feature of the two-dimensional system. With further increase of temperature the zone-boundary response gradually softens and broadens, washing out the (π,0) anomaly. This is confirmed by a comparison of our data with the results of finite-temperature Quantum Monte Carlo simulations where the two are found to be in good accord. At lower energies, in the vicinity of the antiferromagnetic zone centre, there was no significant softening of the magnetic excitations over the range of temperatures investigated.Accepted manuscrip

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Measurement of isolated photon production in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV

Isolated photon production is measured in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energies of 2.76 TeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta|<1.44 and transverse energies ET between 20 and 80 GeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measured ET spectra are found to be in good agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD predictions. The ratio of PbPb to pp isolated photon ET-differential yields, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions, is consistent with unity for all PbPb reaction centralities.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters