@inproceedings{3215, abstract = {Most cryptographic primitives such as encryption, authentication or secret sharing require randomness. Usually one assumes that perfect randomness is available, but those primitives might also be realized under weaker assumptions. In this work we continue the study of building secure cryptographic primitives from imperfect random sources initiated by Dodis and Spencer (FOCS’02). Their main result shows that there exists a (high-entropy) source of randomness allowing for perfect encryption of a bit, and yet from which one cannot extract even a single weakly random bit, separating encryption from extraction. Our main result separates encryption from 2-out-2 secret sharing (both in the information-theoretic and in the computational settings): any source which can be used to achieve one-bit encryption also can be used for 2-out-2 secret sharing of one bit, but the converse is false, even for high-entropy sources. Therefore, possibility of extraction strictly implies encryption, which in turn strictly implies 2-out-2 secret sharing.}, author = {Dodis, Yevgeniy and Krzysztof Pietrzak and Przydatek, Bartosz}, pages = {601 -- 616}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Separating sources for encryption and secret sharing}}, doi = {10.1007/11681878_31}, volume = {3876}, year = {2006}, } @inproceedings{3217, abstract = {To prove that a secure key-agreement protocol exists one must at least show P ≠NP. Moreover any proof that the sequential composition of two non-adaptively secure pseudorandom functions is secure against at least two adaptive queries must falsify the decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption, a standard assumption from public-key cryptography. Hence proving any of this two seemingly unrelated statements would require a significant breakthrough. We show that at least one of the two statements is true. To our knowledge this gives the first positive cryptographic result (namely that composition implies some weak adaptive security) which holds in Minicrypt, but not in Cryptomania, i.e. under the assumption that one-way functions exist, but public-key cryptography does not.}, author = {Krzysztof Pietrzak}, pages = {328 -- 338}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Composition implies adaptive security in minicrypt}}, doi = {10.1007/11761679_20}, volume = {4004}, year = {2006}, } @inproceedings{3216, abstract = {We prove a new upper bound on the advantage of any adversary for distinguishing the encrypted CBC-MAC (EMAC) based on random permutations from a random function. Our proof uses techniques recently introduced in [BPR05], which again were inspired by [DGH + 04]. The bound we prove is tight — in the sense that it matches the advantage of known attacks up to a constant factor — for a wide range of the parameters: let n denote the block-size, q the number of queries the adversary is allowed to make and ℓ an upper bound on the length (i.e. number of blocks) of the messages, then for ℓ ≤ 2 n/8 and q≥ł2 the advantage is in the order of q 2/2 n (and in particular independent of ℓ). This improves on the previous bound of q 2ℓΘ(1/ln ln ℓ)/2 n from [BPR05] and matches the trivial attack (which thus is basically optimal) where one simply asks random queries until a collision is found.}, author = {Krzysztof Pietrzak}, pages = {168 -- 179}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{A tight bound for EMAC}}, doi = {10.1007/11787006_15}, volume = {4052}, year = {2006}, } @article{3522, abstract = {We observed sharp wave/ripples (SWR) during exploration within brief (< 2.4 s) interruptions of or during theta oscillations. CA1 network responses of SWRs occurring during exploration (eSWR) and SWRs detected in waking immobility or sleep were similar. However, neuronal activity during eSWR was location dependent, and eSWR-related firing was stronger inside the place field than outside. The eSPW-related firing increase was stronger than the baseline increase inside compared to outside, suggesting a “supralinear” summation of eSWR and place-selective inputs. Pairs of cells with similar place fields and/or correlated firing during exploration showed stronger coactivation during eSWRs and subsequent sleep-SWRs. Sequential activation of place cells was not required for the reactivation of waking co-firing patterns; cell pairs with symmetrical cross-correlations still showed reactivated waking co-firing patterns during sleep-SWRs. We suggest that place-selective firing during eSWRs facilitates initial associations between cells with similar place fields that enable place-related ensemble patterns to recur during subsequent sleep-SWRs.}, author = {Joseph O'Neill and Senior,Timothy and Jozsef Csicsvari}, journal = {Neuron}, number = {1}, pages = {143 -- 155}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Place-selective firing of CA1 pyramidal cells during sharp wave/ripple network patterns in exploratory behavior}}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuron.2005.10.037}, volume = {49}, year = {2006}, } @article{3607, abstract = {We apply new analytical methods to understand the consequences of population bottlenecks for expected additive genetic variance. We analyze essentially all models for multilocus epistasis that have been numerically simulated to demonstrate increased additive variance. We conclude that for biologically plausible models, large increases in expected additive variance–attributable to epistasis rather than dominance–are unlikely. Naciri-Graven and Goudet (2003) found that as the number of epistatically interacting loci increases, additive variance tends to be inflated more after a bottleneck. We argue that this result reflects biologically unrealistic aspects of their models. Specifically, as the number of loci increases, higher-order epistatic interactions become increasingly important in these models, with an increasing fraction of the genetic variance becoming nonadditive, contrary to empirical observations. As shown by Barton and Turelli (2004), without dominance, conversion of nonadditive to additive variance depends only on the variance components and not on the number of loci per se. Numerical results indicating that more inbreeding is needed to produce maximal release of additive variance with more loci follow directly from our analytical results, which show that high levels of inbreeding (F > 0.5) are needed for significant conversion of higher-order components. We discuss alternative approaches to modeling multilocus epistasis and understanding its consequences.}, author = {Turelli, Michael and Nicholas Barton}, journal = {Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution}, number = {9}, pages = {1763 -- 1776}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {{Will population bottlenecks and multilocus epistasis increase additive genetic variance?}}, doi = {10.1111/j.0014-3820.2006.tb00521.x}, volume = {60}, year = {2006}, } @inproceedings{3683, abstract = {Many algorithms to remove distortion from document images have be proposed in recent years, but so far there is no reliable method for comparing their performance. In this paper we propose a collection of methods to measure the quality of such restoration algorithms for document image which show a non-linear distortion due to perspective or page curl. For the result from these measurement to be meaningful, a common data set of ground truth is required. We therefore started with the buildup of a document image database that is meant to serve as a common data basis for all kinds of restoration from images of 3D-shaped document. The long term goal would be to establish this database and following extensions in the area of document image dewarping as an as fruitful and indispensable tool as e.g. the NIST database is for OCR, or the Caltech database is for object and face recognition.}, author = {Christoph Lampert and Breuel,Thomas M}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Objective quality measurement for geometric document image restoration}}, year = {2006}, } @inproceedings{3685, abstract = {Video compression currently is dominated by engineering and fine-tuned heuristic methods. In this paper, we propose to instead apply the well-developed machinery of machine learning in order to support the optimization of existing video encoders and the creation of new ones. Exemplarily, we show how by machine learning we can improve one encoding step that is crucial for the performance of all current video standards: macroblock mode decision. By formulating the problem in a Bayesian setup, we show that macroblock mode decision can be reduced to a classification problem with a cost function for misclassification that is sample dependent. We demonstrate how to apply different machine learning techniques to obtain suitable classifiers and we show in detailed experiments that all of these perform better than the state-of-the-art heuristic method}, author = {Christoph Lampert}, pages = {936 -- 940}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{Machine learning for video compression: Macroblock mode decision}}, doi = {10.1109/ICPR.2006.778}, year = {2006}, } @article{3750, abstract = {We applied a single-cell assay to characterize how transcription dynamics affects protein expression levels of a tetracycline-inducible gene expression system. Transcriptional activity of the tetracycline promoter in response to a steady level of inducer is steady in ΔacrAB efflux mutant but pulsating in wildtype Escherichia coli cells. We found that the expression level of the green fluorescent protein is several folds higher in ΔacrAB efflux mutant than in wildtype cells.}, author = {Le,Thuc T. and Calin Guet and Cluzel,Philippe}, journal = {Protein Expression and Purification}, number = {1}, pages = {28 -- 31}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Protein expression enhancement in efflux-deleted mutant bacteria}}, volume = {48}, year = {2006}, } @article{3767, abstract = {Models of RNA secondary structure folding are widely used to study evolution in theory and simulation. However, systematic studies of the parameters involved are rare. In this paper, we study by simulation how RNA evolution is influenced by three different factors, namely the mutation rate, scaling of the fitness function, and distance measure. We found that for low mutation rates the qualitative evolutionary behavior is robust with respect to the scaling of the fitness function. For efficient mutation rates, which are close to the error threshold, scaling and distance measure have a strong influence on the evolutionary behavior. A global distance measure that takes sequence information additively into account lowers the error threshold. When using a local sequence-structure alignment for the distance, we observed a smoother evolution of the fitness over time. Finally, in addition to the well known error threshold, we identify another threshold of the mutation rate, called divergence threshold, where the qualitative transient behavior changes from a localized to an exploratory search.}, author = {Anne Kupczok and Dittrich,Peter}, journal = {Journal of Theoretical Biology}, number = {3}, pages = {726 -- 35}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Determinants of simulated RNA evolution.}}, doi = {10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.06.019}, volume = {238}, year = {2006}, } @article{3813, abstract = {Hyperpolarization-activated channels (Ih or HCN channels) are widely expressed in principal neurons in the central nervous system. However, Ih in inhibitory GABAergic interneurons is less well characterized. We examined the functional properties of Ih in fast-spiking basket cells (BCs) of the dentate gyrus, using hippocampal slices from 17- to 21-day-old rats. Bath application of the Ih channel blocker ZD 7288 at a concentration of 30 microm induced a hyperpolarization of 5.7 +/- 1.5 mV, an increase in input resistance and a correlated increase in apparent membrane time constant. ZD 7288 blocked a hyperpolarization-activated current in a concentration-dependent manner (IC50, 1.4 microm). The effects of ZD 7288 were mimicked by external Cs+. The reversal potential of Ih was -27.4 mV, corresponding to a Na+ to K+ permeability ratio (PNa/PK) of 0.36. The midpoint potential of the activation curve of Ih was -83.9 mV, and the activation time constant at -120 mV was 190 ms. Single-cell expression analysis using reverse transcription followed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that BCs coexpress HCN1 and HCN2 subunit mRNA, suggesting the formation of heteromeric HCN1/2 channels. ZD 7288 increased the current threshold for evoking antidromic action potentials by extracellular stimulation, consistent with the expression of Ih in BC axons. Finally, ZD 7288 decreased the frequency of miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents (mIPSCs) in hippocampal granule cells, the main target cells of BCs, to 70 +/- 4% of the control value. In contrast, the amplitude of mIPSCs was unchanged, consistent with the presence of Ih in inhibitory terminals. In conclusion, our results suggest that Ih channels are expressed in the somatodendritic region, axon and presynaptic elements of fast-spiking BCs in the hippocampus.}, author = {Aponte, Yexica and Lien, Cheng-Chang and Reisinger, Ellen and Peter Jonas}, journal = {Journal of Physiology}, number = {Pt 1}, pages = {229 -- 43}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {{Hyperpolarization-activated cation channels in fast-spiking interneurons of rat hippocampus}}, doi = {10.1113/jphysiol.2005.104042}, volume = {574}, year = {2006}, }