@article{7742, abstract = {Across-nation differences in the mean values for complex traits are common1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, but the reasons for these differences are unknown. Here we find that many independent loci contribute to population genetic differences in height and body mass index (BMI) in 9,416 individuals across 14 European countries. Using discovery data on over 250,000 individuals and unbiased effect size estimates from 17,500 sibling pairs, we estimate that 24% (95% credible interval (CI) = 9%, 41%) and 8% (95% CI = 4%, 16%) of the captured additive genetic variance for height and BMI, respectively, reflect population genetic differences. Population genetic divergence differed significantly from that in a null model (height, P < 3.94 × 10−8; BMI, P < 5.95 × 10−4), and we find an among-population genetic correlation for tall and slender individuals (r = −0.80, 95% CI = −0.95, −0.60), consistent with correlated selection for both phenotypes. Observed differences in height among populations reflected the predicted genetic means (r = 0.51; P < 0.001), but environmental differences across Europe masked genetic differentiation for BMI (P < 0.58).}, author = {Robinson, Matthew Richard and Hemani, Gibran and Medina-Gomez, Carolina and Mezzavilla, Massimo and Esko, Tonu and Shakhbazov, Konstantin and Powell, Joseph E and Vinkhuyzen, Anna and Berndt, Sonja I and Gustafsson, Stefan and Justice, Anne E and Kahali, Bratati and Locke, Adam E and Pers, Tune H and Vedantam, Sailaja and Wood, Andrew R and van Rheenen, Wouter and Andreassen, Ole A and Gasparini, Paolo and Metspalu, Andres and Berg, Leonard H van den and Veldink, Jan H and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Werge, Thomas M and Abecasis, Goncalo R and Boomsma, Dorret I and Chasman, Daniel I and de Geus, Eco J C and Frayling, Timothy M and Hirschhorn, Joel N and Hottenga, Jouke Jan and Ingelsson, Erik and Loos, Ruth J F and Magnusson, Patrik K E and Martin, Nicholas G and Montgomery, Grant W and North, Kari E and Pedersen, Nancy L and Spector, Timothy D and Speliotes, Elizabeth K and Goddard, Michael E and Yang, Jian and Visscher, Peter M}, issn = {1061-4036}, journal = {Nature Genetics}, number = {11}, pages = {1357--1362}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Population genetic differentiation of height and body mass index across Europe}}, doi = {10.1038/ng.3401}, volume = {47}, year = {2015}, } @article{7741, abstract = {Phenotypes expressed in a social context are not only a function of the individual, but can also be shaped by the phenotypes of social partners. These social effects may play a major role in the evolution of cooperative breeding if social partners differ in the quality of care they provide and if individual carers adjust their effort in relation to that of other carers. When applying social effects models to wild study systems, it is also important to explore sources of individual plasticity that could masquerade as social effects. We studied offspring provisioning rates of parents and helpers in a wild population of long-tailed tits Aegithalos caudatus using a quantitative genetic framework to identify these social effects and partition them into genetic, permanent environment and current environment components. Controlling for other effects, individuals were consistent in their provisioning effort at a given nest, but adjusted their effort based on who was in their social group, indicating the presence of social effects. However, these social effects differed between years and social contexts, indicating a current environment effect, rather than indicating a genetic or permanent environment effect. While this study reveals the importance of examining environmental and genetic sources of social effects, the framework we present is entirely general, enabling a greater understanding of potentially important social effects within any ecological population.}, author = {Adams, Mark James and Robinson, Matthew Richard and Mannarelli, Maria-Elena and Hatchwell, Ben J.}, issn = {0962-8452}, journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}, number = {1810}, publisher = {The Royal Society}, title = {{Social genetic and social environment effects on parental and helper care in a cooperatively breeding bird}}, doi = {10.1098/rspb.2015.0689}, volume = {282}, year = {2015}, } @article{7739, abstract = {Currently, there is much debate on the genetic architecture of quantitative traits in wild populations. Is trait variation influenced by many genes of small effect or by a few genes of major effect? Where is additive genetic variation located in the genome? Do the same loci cause similar phenotypic variation in different populations? Great tits (Parus major) have been studied extensively in long‐term studies across Europe and consequently are considered an ecological ‘model organism’. Recently, genomic resources have been developed for the great tit, including a custom SNP chip and genetic linkage map. In this study, we used a suite of approaches to investigate the genetic architecture of eight quantitative traits in two long‐term study populations of great tits—one in the Netherlands and the other in the United Kingdom. Overall, we found little evidence for the presence of genes of large effects in either population. Instead, traits appeared to be influenced by many genes of small effect, with conservative estimates of the number of contributing loci ranging from 31 to 310. Despite concordance between population‐specific heritabilities, we found no evidence for the presence of loci having similar effects in both populations. While population‐specific genetic architectures are possible, an undetected shared architecture cannot be rejected because of limited power to map loci of small and moderate effects. This study is one of few examples of genetic architecture analysis in replicated wild populations and highlights some of the challenges and limitations researchers will face when attempting similar molecular quantitative genetic studies in free‐living populations.}, author = {Santure, Anna W. and Poissant, Jocelyn and De Cauwer, Isabelle and van Oers, Kees and Robinson, Matthew Richard and Quinn, John L. and Groenen, Martien A. M. and Visser, Marcel E. and Sheldon, Ben C. and Slate, Jon}, issn = {0962-1083}, journal = {Molecular Ecology}, pages = {6148--6162}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Replicated analysis of the genetic architecture of quantitative traits in two wild great tit populations}}, doi = {10.1111/mec.13452}, volume = {24}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{776, abstract = {High-performance concurrent priority queues are essential for applications such as task scheduling and discrete event simulation. Unfortunately, even the best performing implementations do not scale past a number of threads in the single digits. This is because of the sequential bottleneck in accessing the elements at the head of the queue in order to perform a DeleteMin operation. In this paper, we present the SprayList, a scalable priority queue with relaxed ordering semantics. Starting from a non-blocking SkipList, the main innovation behind our design is that the DeleteMin operations avoid a sequential bottleneck by "spraying" themselves onto the head of the SkipList list in a coordinated fashion. The spraying is implemented using a carefully designed random walk, so that DeleteMin returns an element among the first O(plog3p) in the list, with high probability, where p is the number of threads. We prove that the running time of a DeleteMin operation is O(log3p), with high probability, independent of the size of the list. Our experiments show that the relaxed semantics allow the data structure to scale for high thread counts, comparable to a classic unordered SkipList. Furthermore, we observe that, for reasonably parallel workloads, the scalability benefits of relaxation considerably outweigh the additional work due to out-of-order execution.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Kopinsky, Justin and Li, Jerry and Shavit, Nir}, pages = {11 -- 20}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{The SprayList: A scalable relaxed priority queue}}, doi = {10.1145/2688500.2688523}, volume = {2015-January}, year = {2015}, } @article{7765, abstract = {We introduce a principle unique to disordered solids wherein the contribution of any bond to one global perturbation is uncorrelated with its contribution to another. Coupled with sufficient variability in the contributions of different bonds, this “independent bond-level response” paves the way for the design of real materials with unusual and exquisitely tuned properties. To illustrate this, we choose two global perturbations: compression and shear. By applying a bond removal procedure that is both simple and experimentally relevant to remove a very small fraction of bonds, we can drive disordered spring networks to both the incompressible and completely auxetic limits of mechanical behavior.}, author = {Goodrich, Carl Peter and Liu, Andrea J. and Nagel, Sidney R.}, issn = {0031-9007}, journal = {Physical Review Letters}, number = {22}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{The principle of independent bond-level response: Tuning by pruning to exploit disorder for global behavior}}, doi = {10.1103/physrevlett.114.225501}, volume = {114}, year = {2015}, } @article{7767, abstract = {We present a model of soft active particles that leads to a rich array of collective behavior found also in dense biological swarms of bacteria and other unicellular organisms. Our model uses only local interactions, such as Vicsek-type nearest-neighbor alignment, short-range repulsion, and a local boundary term. Changing the relative strength of these interactions leads to migrating swarms, rotating swarms, and jammed swarms, as well as swarms that exhibit run-and-tumble motion, alternating between migration and either rotating or jammed states. Interestingly, although a migrating swarm moves slower than an individual particle, the diffusion constant can be up to three orders of magnitude larger, suggesting that collective motion can be highly advantageous, for example, when searching for food.}, author = {van Drongelen, Ruben and Pal, Anshuman and Goodrich, Carl Peter and Idema, Timon}, issn = {1539-3755}, journal = {Physical Review E}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Collective dynamics of soft active particles}}, doi = {10.1103/physreve.91.032706}, volume = {91}, year = {2015}, } @article{7766, abstract = {We study the vibrational properties near a free surface of disordered spring networks derived from jammed sphere packings. In bulk systems, without surfaces, it is well understood that such systems have a plateau in the density of vibrational modes extending down to a frequency scale ω*. This frequency is controlled by ΔZ = 〈Z〉 − 2d, the difference between the average coordination of the spheres and twice the spatial dimension, d, of the system, which vanishes at the jamming transition. In the presence of a free surface we find that there is a density of disordered vibrational modes associated with the surface that extends far below ω*. The total number of these low-frequency surface modes is controlled by ΔZ, and the profile of their decay into the bulk has two characteristic length scales, which diverge as ΔZ−1/2 and ΔZ−1 as the jamming transition is approached.}, author = {Sussman, Daniel M. and Goodrich, Carl Peter and Liu, Andrea J. and Nagel, Sidney R.}, issn = {1744-683X}, journal = {Soft Matter}, number = {14}, pages = {2745--2751}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Disordered surface vibrations in jammed sphere packings}}, doi = {10.1039/c4sm02905d}, volume = {11}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{777, abstract = {In many applications, the data is of rich structure that can be represented by a hypergraph, where the data items are represented by vertices and the associations among items are represented by hyperedges. Equivalently, we are given an input bipartite graph with two types of vertices: items, and associations (which we refer to as topics). We consider the problem of partitioning the set of items into a given number of components such that the maximum number of topics covered by a component is minimized. This is a clustering problem with various applications, e.g. partitioning of a set of information objects such as documents, images, and videos, and load balancing in the context of modern computation platforms.Inthis paper, we focus on the streaming computation model for this problem, in which items arrive online one at a time and each item must be assigned irrevocably to a component at its arrival time. Motivated by scalability requirements, we focus on the class of streaming computation algorithms with memory limited to be at most linear in the number of components. We show that a greedy assignment strategy is able to recover a hidden co-clustering of items under a natural set of recovery conditions. We also report results of an extensive empirical evaluation, which demonstrate that this greedy strategy yields superior performance when compared with alternative approaches.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Iglesias, Jennifer and Vojnović, Milan}, pages = {1900 -- 1908}, publisher = {Neural Information Processing Systems}, title = {{Streaming min-max hypergraph partitioning}}, volume = {2015-January}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{778, abstract = {Several Hybrid Transactional Memory (HyTM) schemes have recently been proposed to complement the fast, but best-effort nature of Hardware Transactional Memory (HTM) with a slow, reliable software backup. However, the costs of providing concurrency between hardware and software transactions in HyTM are still not well understood. In this paper, we propose a general model for HyTM implementations, which captures the ability of hardware transactions to buffer memory accesses. The model allows us to formally quantify and analyze the amount of overhead (instrumentation) caused by the potential presence of software transactions.We prove that (1) it is impossible to build a strictly serializable HyTM implementation that has both uninstrumented reads and writes, even for very weak progress guarantees, and (2) the instrumentation cost incurred by a hardware transaction in any progressive opaque HyTM is linear in the size of the transaction’s data set.We further describe two implementations which exhibit optimal instrumentation costs for two different progress conditions. In sum, this paper proposes the first formal HyTM model and captures for the first time the trade-off between the degree of hardware-software TM concurrency and the amount of instrumentation overhead.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Kopinsky, Justin and Kuznetsov, Petr and Ravi, Srivatsan and Shavit, Nir}, pages = {185 -- 199}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Inherent limitations of hybrid transactional memory}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-662-48653-5_13}, volume = {9363}, year = {2015}, } @unpublished{7779, abstract = {The fact that a disordered material is not constrained in its properties in the same way as a crystal presents significant and yet largely untapped potential for novel material design. However, unlike their crystalline counterparts, disordered solids are not well understood. One of the primary obstacles is the lack of a theoretical framework for thinking about disorder and its relation to mechanical properties. To this end, we study an idealized system of frictionless athermal soft spheres that, when compressed, undergoes a jamming phase transition with diverging length scales and clean power-law signatures. This critical point is the cornerstone of a much larger "jamming scenario" that has the potential to provide the essential theoretical foundation necessary for a unified understanding of the mechanics of disordered solids. We begin by showing that jammed sphere packings have a valid linear regime despite the presence of "contact nonlinearities." We then investigate the critical nature of the transition, focusing on diverging length scales and finite-size effects. Next, we argue that jamming plays the same role for disordered solids as the perfect crystal plays for crystalline solids. Not only can it be considered an idealized starting point for understanding disordered materials, but it can even influence systems that have a relatively high amount of crystalline order. The behavior of solids can thus be thought of as existing on a spectrum, with the perfect crystal and the jamming transition at opposing ends. Finally, we introduce a new principle wherein the contribution of an individual bond to one global property is independent of its contribution to another. This principle allows the different global responses of a disordered system to be manipulated independently and provides a great deal of flexibility in designing materials with unique, textured and tunable properties.}, author = {Goodrich, Carl Peter}, booktitle = {arXiv:1510.08820}, pages = {242}, title = {{Unearthing the anticrystal: Criticality in the linear response of disordered solids}}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{779, abstract = {The concurrent memory reclamation problem is that of devising a way for a deallocating thread to verify that no other concurrent threads hold references to a memory block being deallocated. To date, in the absence of automatic garbage collection, there is no satisfactory solution to this problem; existing tracking methods like hazard pointers, reference counters, or epoch-based techniques like RCU, are either prohibitively expensive or require significant programming expertise, to the extent that implementing them efficiently can be worthy of a publication. None of the existing techniques are automatic or even semi-automated. In this paper, we take a new approach to concurrent memory reclamation: instead of manually tracking access to memory locations as done in techniques like hazard pointers, or restricting shared accesses to specific epoch boundaries as in RCU, our algorithm, called ThreadScan, leverages operating system signaling to automatically detect which memory locations are being accessed by concurrent threads. Initial empirical evidence shows that ThreadScan scales surprisingly well and requires negligible programming effort beyond the standard use of Malloc and Free.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Matveev, Alexander and Leiserson, William and Shavit, Nir}, pages = {123 -- 132}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{ThreadScan: Automatic and scalable memory reclamation}}, doi = {10.1145/2755573.2755600}, volume = {2015-June}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{780, abstract = {Population protocols are networks of finite-state agents, interacting randomly, and updating their states using simple rules. Despite their extreme simplicity, these systems have been shown to cooperatively perform complex computational tasks, such as simulating register machines to compute standard arithmetic functions. The election of a unique leader agent is a key requirement in such computational constructions. Yet, the fastest currently known population protocol for electing a leader only has linear convergence time, and it has recently been shown that no population protocol using a constant number of states per node may overcome this linear bound. In this paper, we give the first population protocol for leader election with polylogarithmic convergence time, using polylogarithmic memory states per node. The protocol structure is quite simple: each node has an associated value, and is either a leader (still in contention) or a minion (following some leader). A leader keeps incrementing its value and “defeats” other leaders in one-to-one interactions, and will drop from contention and become a minion if it meets a leader with higher value. Importantly, a leader also drops out if it meets a minion with higher absolute value. While these rules are quite simple, the proof that this algorithm achieves polylogarithmic convergence time is non-trivial. In particular, the argument combines careful use of concentration inequalities with anti-concentration bounds, showing that the leaders’ values become spread apart as the execution progresses, which in turn implies that straggling leaders get quickly eliminated. We complement our analysis with empirical results, showing that our protocol converges extremely fast, even for large network sizes.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Gelashvili, Rati}, pages = {479 -- 491}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Polylogarithmic-time leader election in population protocols}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-662-47666-6_38}, volume = {9135}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{781, abstract = {Population protocols, roughly defined as systems consisting of large numbers of simple identical agents, interacting at random and updating their state following simple rules, are an important research topic at the intersection of distributed computing and biology. One of the fundamental tasks that a population protocol may solve is majority: each node starts in one of two states; the goal is for all nodes to reach a correct consensus on which of the two states was initially the majority. Despite considerable research effort, known protocols for this problem are either exact but slow (taking linear parallel time to converge), or fast but approximate (with non-zero probability of error). In this paper, we show that this trade-off between preciasion and speed is not inherent. We present a new protocol called Average and Conquer (AVC) that solves majority ex-actly in expected parallel convergence time O(log n/(sε) + log n log s), where n is the number of nodes, εn is the initial node advantage of the majority state, and s = Ω(log n log log n) is the number of states the protocol employs. This shows that the majority problem can be solved exactly in time poly-logarithmic in n, provided that the memory per node is s = Ω(1/ε + lognlog1/ε). On the negative side, we establish a lower bound of Ω(1/ε) on the expected paraallel convergence time for the case of four memory states per node, and a lower bound of Ω(logn) parallel time for protocols using any number of memory states per node.per node, and a lower bound of (log n) parallel time for protocols using any number of memory states per node.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Gelashvili, Rati and Vojnović, Milan}, pages = {47 -- 56}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Fast and exact majority in population protocols}}, doi = {10.1145/2767386.2767429}, volume = {2015-July}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{782, abstract = {In this work, we consider the following random process, mo- Tivated by the analysis of lock-free concurrent algorithms under high memory contention. In each round, a new scheduling step is allocated to one of n threads, according to a distribution p = (p1; p2; : : : ; pn), where thread i is scheduled with probability pi. When some thread first reaches a set threshold of executed steps, it registers a win, completing its current operation, and resets its step count to 1. At the same time, threads whose step count was close to the threshold also get reset because of the win, but to 0 steps, being penalized for almost winning. We are interested in two questions: how often does some thread complete an operation (system latency), and how often does a specific thread complete an operation (individual latency)? We provide asymptotically tight bounds for the system and individual latency of this general concurrency pattern, for arbitrary scheduling distributions p. Surprisingly, a sim- ple characterization exists: in expectation, the system will complete a new operation every Θ(1/p 2) steps, while thread i will complete a new operation every Θ(1/2=p i ) steps. The proof is interesting in its own right, as it requires a careful analysis of how the higher norms of the vector p inuence the thread step counts and latencies in this random process. Our result offers a simple connection between the scheduling distribution and the average performance of concurrent algorithms, which has several applications.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Sauerwald, Thomas and Vojnović, Milan}, pages = {251 -- 260}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Lock-Free algorithms under stochastic schedulers}}, doi = {10.1145/2767386.2767430}, volume = {2015-July}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{783, abstract = {The problem of electing a leader from among n contenders is one of the fundamental questions in distributed computing. In its simplest formulation, the task is as follows: given n processors, all participants must eventually return a win or lose indication, such that a single contender may win. Despite a considerable amount of work on leader election, the following question is still open: can we elect a leader in an asynchronous fault-prone system faster than just running a Θ(log n)-time tournament, against a strong adaptive adversary? In this paper, we answer this question in the affirmative, improving on a decades-old upper bound. We introduce two new algorithmic ideas to reduce the time complexity of electing a leader to O(log∗ n), using O(n2) point-to-point messages. A non-trivial application of our algorithm is a new upper bound for the tight renaming problem, assigning n items to the n participants in expected O(log2 n) time and O(n2) messages. We complement our results with lower bound of Ω(n2) messages for solving these two problems, closing the question of their message complexity.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Gelashvili, Rati and Vladu, Adrian}, pages = {365 -- 374}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{How to elect a leader faster than a tournament}}, doi = {10.1145/2767386.2767420}, volume = {2015-July}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{784, abstract = {We demonstrate an optical switch design that can scale up to a thousand ports with high per-port bandwidth (25 Gbps+) and low switching latency (40 ns). Our design uses a broadcast and select architecture, based on a passive star coupler and fast tunable transceivers. In addition we employ time division multiplexing to achieve very low switching latency. Our demo shows the feasibility of the switch data plane using a small testbed, comprising two transmitters and a receiver, connected through a star coupler.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Ballani, Hitesh and Costa, Paolo and Funnell, Adam and Benjamin, Joshua and Watts, Philip and Thomsen, Benn}, isbn = {978-1-4503-3542-3}, location = {London, United Kindgdom}, pages = {367 -- 368}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{A high-radix, low-latency optical switch for data centers}}, doi = {10.1145/2785956.2790035}, year = {2015}, } @article{802, abstract = {Glycoinositolphosphoceramides (GIPCs) are complex sphingolipids present at the plasma membrane of various eukaryotes with the important exception of mammals. In fungi, these glycosphingolipids commonly contain an alpha-mannose residue (Man) linked at position 2 of the inositol. However, several pathogenic fungi additionally synthesize zwitterionic GIPCs carrying an alpha-glucosamine residue (GlcN) at this position. In the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus, the GlcNalpha1,2IPC core (where IPC is inositolphosphoceramide) is elongated to Manalpha1,3Manalpha1,6GlcNalpha1,2IPC, which is the most abundant GIPC synthesized by this fungus. In this study, we identified an A. fumigatus N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, named GntA, and demonstrate its involvement in the initiation of zwitterionic GIPC biosynthesis. Targeted deletion of the gene encoding GntA in A. fumigatus resulted in complete absence of zwitterionic GIPC; a phenotype that could be reverted by episomal expression of GntA in the mutant. The N-acetylhexosaminyltransferase activity of GntA was substantiated by production of N-acetylhexosamine-IPC in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae upon GntA expression. Using an in vitro assay, GntA was furthermore shown to use UDP-N-acetylglucosamine as donor substrate to generate a glycolipid product resistant to saponification and to digestion by phosphatidylinositol-phospholipase C as expected for GlcNAcalpha1,2IPC. Finally, as the enzymes involved in mannosylation of IPC, GntA was localized to the Golgi apparatus, the site of IPC synthesis.}, author = {Engel, Jakob and Schmalhorst, Philipp S and Kruger, Anke and Muller, Christina and Buettner, Falk and Routier, Françoise}, journal = {Glycobiology}, number = {12}, pages = {1423 -- 1430}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Characterization of an N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase involved in Aspergillus fumigatus zwitterionic glycoinositolphosphoceramide biosynthesis}}, doi = {10.1093/glycob/cwv059}, volume = {25}, year = {2015}, } @article{815, abstract = {The polyprotein Gag is the primary structural component of retroviruses. Gag consists of independently folded domains connected by flexible linkers. Interactions between the conserved capsid (CA) domains of Gag mediate formation of hexameric protein lattices that drive assembly of immature virus particles. Proteolytic cleavage of Gag by the viral protease (PR) is required for maturation of retroviruses from an immature form into an infectious form. Within the assembled Gag lattices of HIV-1 and Mason- Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV), the C-terminal domain of CA adopts similar quaternary arrangements, while the N-terminal domain of CA is packed in very different manners. Here, we have used cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging to study in vitro-assembled, immature virus-like Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) Gag particles and have determined the structure of CA and the surrounding regions to a resolution of ~8 Å. We found that the C-terminal domain of RSV CA is arranged similarly to HIV-1 and M-PMV, whereas the N-terminal domain of CA adopts a novel arrangement in which the upstream p10 domain folds back into the CA lattice. In this position the cleavage site between CA and p10 appears to be inaccessible to PR. Below CA, an extended density is consistent with the presence of a six-helix bundle formed by the spacer-peptide region. We have also assessed the affect of lattice assembly on proteolytic processing by exogenous PR. The cleavage between p10 and CA is indeed inhibited in the assembled lattice, a finding consistent with structural regulation of proteolytic maturation. }, author = {Schur, Florian and Dick, Robert and Hagen, Wim and Vogt, Volker and Briggs, John}, journal = {Journal of Virology}, number = {20}, pages = {10294 -- 10302}, publisher = {ASM}, title = {{The structure of immature virus like Rous sarcoma virus gag particles reveals a structural role for the p10 domain in assembly}}, doi = {10.1128/JVI.01502-15}, volume = {89}, year = {2015}, } @article{814, abstract = {Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) assembly proceeds in two stages. First, the 55 kilodalton viral Gag polyprotein assembles into a hexameric protein lattice at the plasma membrane of the infected cell, inducing budding and release of an immature particle. Second, Gag is cleaved by the viral protease, leading to internal rearrangement of the virus into the mature, infectious form. Immature and mature HIV-1 particles are heterogeneous in size and morphology, preventing high-resolution analysis of their protein arrangement in situ by conventional structural biology methods. Here we apply cryo-electron tomography and sub-tomogram averaging methods to resolve the structure of the capsid lattice within intact immature HIV-1 particles at subnanometre resolution, allowing unambiguous positioning of all α-helices. The resulting model reveals tertiary and quaternary structural interactions that mediate HIV-1 assembly. Strikingly, these interactions differ from those predicted by the current model based on in vitro-assembled arrays of Gag-derived proteins from Mason-Pfizer monkey virus. To validate this difference, we solve the structure of the capsid lattice within intact immature Mason-Pfizer monkey virus particles. Comparison with the immature HIV-1 structure reveals that retroviral capsid proteins, while having conserved tertiary structures, adopt different quaternary arrangements during virus assembly. The approach demonstrated here should be applicable to determine structures of other proteins at subnanometre resolution within heterogeneous environments.}, author = {Florian Schur and Hagen, Wim J and Rumlová, Michaela and Ruml, Tomáš and Müller B and Kraüsslich, Hans Georg and Briggs, John A}, journal = {Nature}, number = {7535}, pages = {505 -- 508}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, title = {{Structure of the immature HIV-1 capsid in intact virus particles at 8.8 Å resolution}}, doi = {10.1038/nature13838}, volume = {517}, year = {2015}, } @article{8242, author = {Einhorn, Lukas and Fazekas, Judit and Muhr, Martina and Schoos, Alexandra and Oida, Kumiko and Singer, Josef and Panakova, Lucia and Manzano-Szalai, Krisztina and Jensen-Jarolim, Erika}, issn = {0091-6749}, journal = {Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology}, number = {2}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Generation of recombinant FcεRIα of dog, cat and horse for component-resolved allergy diagnosis in veterinary patients}}, doi = {10.1016/j.jaci.2014.12.1263}, volume = {135}, year = {2015}, } @article{832, abstract = {Plants maintain capacity to form new organs such as leaves, flowers, lateral shoots and roots throughout their postembryonic lifetime. Lateral roots (LRs) originate from a few pericycle cells that acquire attributes of founder cells (FCs), undergo series of anticlinal divisions, and give rise to a few short initial cells. After initiation, coordinated cell division and differentiation occur, giving rise to lateral root primordia (LRP). Primordia continue to grow, emerge through the cortex and epidermal layers of the primary root, and finally a new apical meristem is established taking over the responsibility for growth of mature lateral roots [for detailed description of the individual stages of lateral root organogenesis see Malamy and Benfey (1997)]. To examine this highly dynamic developmental process and to investigate a role of various hormonal, genetic and environmental factors in the regulation of lateral root organogenesis, the real time imaging based analyses represent extremely powerful tools (Laskowski et al., 2008; De Smet et al., 2012; Marhavy et al., 2013 and 2014). Herein, we describe a protocol for real time lateral root primordia (LRP) analysis, which enables the monitoring of an onset of the specific gene expression and subcellular protein localization during primordia organogenesis, as well as the evaluation of the impact of genetic and environmental perturbations on LRP organogenesis.}, author = {Peter Marhavy and Eva Benková}, journal = {Bio-protocol}, number = {8}, publisher = {Bio-protocol LLC}, title = {{Real time analysis of lateral root organogenesis in arabidopsis}}, doi = {10.21769/BioProtoc.1446}, volume = {5}, year = {2015}, } @article{8456, abstract = {The large majority of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules have been determined by X-ray diffraction of crystalline samples. High-resolution structure determination crucially depends on the homogeneity of the protein crystal. Overall ‘rocking’ motion of molecules in the crystal is expected to influence diffraction quality, and such motion may therefore affect the process of solving crystal structures. Yet, so far overall molecular motion has not directly been observed in protein crystals, and the timescale of such dynamics remains unclear. Here we use solid-state NMR, X-ray diffraction methods and μs-long molecular dynamics simulations to directly characterize the rigid-body motion of a protein in different crystal forms. For ubiquitin crystals investigated in this study we determine the range of possible correlation times of rocking motion, 0.1–100 μs. The amplitude of rocking varies from one crystal form to another and is correlated with the resolution obtainable in X-ray diffraction experiments.}, author = {Ma, Peixiang and Xue, Yi and Coquelle, Nicolas and Haller, Jens D. and Yuwen, Tairan and Ayala, Isabel and Mikhailovskii, Oleg and Willbold, Dieter and Colletier, Jacques-Philippe and Skrynnikov, Nikolai R. and Schanda, Paul}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, keywords = {General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, General Physics and Astronomy, General Chemistry}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Observing the overall rocking motion of a protein in a crystal}}, doi = {10.1038/ncomms9361}, volume = {6}, year = {2015}, } @article{8457, abstract = {We review recent advances in methodologies to study microseconds‐to‐milliseconds exchange processes in biological molecules using magic‐angle spinning solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS ssNMR) spectroscopy. The particularities of MAS ssNMR, as compared to solution‐state NMR, are elucidated using numerical simulations and experimental data. These simulations reveal the potential of MAS NMR to provide detailed insight into short‐lived conformations of biological molecules. Recent studies of conformational exchange dynamics in microcrystalline ubiquitin are discussed.}, author = {Ma, Peixiang and Schanda, Paul}, isbn = {9780470034590}, journal = {eMagRes}, number = {3}, pages = {699--708}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Conformational exchange processes in biological systems: Detection by solid-state NMR}}, doi = {10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1418}, volume = {4}, year = {2015}, } @article{848, abstract = {The nature of factors governing the tempo and mode of protein evolution is a fundamental issue in evolutionary biology. Specifically, whether or not interactions between different sites, or epistasis, are important in directing the course of evolution became one of the central questions. Several recent reports have scrutinized patterns of long-term protein evolution claiming them to be compatible only with an epistatic fitness landscape. However, these claims have not yet been substantiated with a formal model of protein evolution. Here, we formulate a simple covarion-like model of protein evolution focusing on the rate at which the fitness impact of amino acids at a site changes with time. We then apply the model to the data on convergent and divergent protein evolution to test whether or not the incorporation of epistatic interactions is necessary to explain the data. We find that convergent evolution cannot be explained without the incorporation of epistasis and the rate at which an amino acid state switches from being acceptable at a site to being deleterious is faster than the rate of amino acid substitution. Specifically, for proteins that have persisted in modern prokaryotic organisms since the last universal common ancestor for one amino acid substitution approximately ten amino acid states switch from being accessible to being deleterious, or vice versa. Thus, molecular evolution can only be perceived in the context of rapid turnover of which amino acids are available for evolution.}, author = {Usmanova, Dinara and Ferretti, Luca and Povolotskaya, Inna and Vlasov, Peter and Kondrashov, Fyodor}, journal = {Molecular Biology and Evolution}, number = {2}, pages = {542 -- 554}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{A model of substitution trajectories in sequence space and long-term protein evolution}}, doi = {10.1093/molbev/msu318}, volume = {32}, year = {2015}, } @article{8498, abstract = {In the present note we announce a proof of a strong form of Arnold diffusion for smooth convex Hamiltonian systems. Let ${\mathbb T}^2$ be a 2-dimensional torus and B2 be the unit ball around the origin in ${\mathbb R}^2$ . Fix ρ > 0. Our main result says that for a 'generic' time-periodic perturbation of an integrable system of two degrees of freedom $H_0(p)+\varepsilon H_1(\theta,p,t),\quad \ \theta\in {\mathbb T}^2,\ p\in B^2,\ t\in {\mathbb T}={\mathbb R}/{\mathbb Z}$ , with a strictly convex H0, there exists a ρ-dense orbit (θε, pε, t)(t) in ${\mathbb T}^2 \times B^2 \times {\mathbb T}$ , namely, a ρ-neighborhood of the orbit contains ${\mathbb T}^2 \times B^2 \times {\mathbb T}$ . Our proof is a combination of geometric and variational methods. The fundamental elements of the construction are the usage of crumpled normally hyperbolic invariant cylinders from [9], flower and simple normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds from [36] as well as their kissing property at a strong double resonance. This allows us to build a 'connected' net of three-dimensional normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds. To construct diffusing orbits along this net we employ a version of the Mather variational method [41] equipped with weak KAM theory [28], proposed by Bernard in [7].}, author = {Kaloshin, Vadim and Zhang, K}, issn = {0951-7715}, journal = {Nonlinearity}, keywords = {Mathematical Physics, General Physics and Astronomy, Applied Mathematics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics}, number = {8}, pages = {2699--2720}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Arnold diffusion for smooth convex systems of two and a half degrees of freedom}}, doi = {10.1088/0951-7715/28/8/2699}, volume = {28}, year = {2015}, } @article{8499, abstract = {We consider the cubic defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the two dimensional torus. Fix s>1. Recently Colliander, Keel, Staffilani, Tao and Takaoka proved the existence of solutions with s-Sobolev norm growing in time. We establish the existence of solutions with polynomial time estimates. More exactly, there is c>0 such that for any K≫1 we find a solution u and a time T such that ∥u(T)∥Hs≥K∥u(0)∥Hs. Moreover, the time T satisfies the polynomial bound 0−1. However, there are major spatial differences both between glaciers and within any single glacier, exhibiting a very distinct nonlinear mass-balance profile with elevation. Through analysis of surface velocities derived from Landsat ETM+ imagery, we show that thinning occurs in areas of low velocity and low slope. These areas are prone to a general, dynamic decay of surface features and to the development of supraglacial lakes and ice cliffs, which may be responsible for a considerable increase in overall glacier ablation.}, author = {Pellicciotti, Francesca and Stephan, Christa and Miles, Evan and Herreid, Sam and Immerzeel, Walter W. and Bolch, Tobias}, issn = {1727-5652}, journal = {Journal of Glaciology}, keywords = {Earth-Surface Processes}, number = {226}, pages = {373--386}, publisher = {International Glaciological Society}, title = {{Mass-balance changes of the debris-covered glaciers in the Langtang Himal, Nepal, from 1974 to 1999}}, doi = {10.3189/2015jog13j237}, volume = {61}, year = {2015}, } @article{12631, abstract = {Air temperature is one of the most relevant input variables for snow and ice melt calculations. However, local meteorological conditions, complex topography, and logistical concerns in glacierized regions make the measuring and modeling of air temperature a difficult task. In this study, we investigate the spatial distribution of 2 m air temperature over mountain glaciers and propose a modification to an existing model to improve its representation. Spatially distributed meteorological data from Haut Glacier d'Arolla (Switzerland), Place (Canada), and Juncal Norte (Chile) Glaciers are used to examine approximate flow line temperatures during their respective ablation seasons. During warm conditions (off-glacier temperatures well above 0°C), observed air temperatures in the upper reaches of Place Glacier and Haut Glacier d'Arolla decrease down glacier along the approximate flow line. At Juncal Norte and Haut Glacier d'Arolla, an increase in air temperature is observed over the glacier tongue. While the temperature behavior over the upper part can be explained by the cooling effect of the glacier surface, the temperature increase over the glacier tongue may be caused by several processes induced by the surrounding warm atmosphere. In order to capture the latter effect, we add an additional term to the Greuell and Böhm (GB) thermodynamic glacier wind model. For high off-glacier temperatures, the modified GB model reduces root-mean-square error up to 32% and provides a new approach for distributing air temperature over mountain glaciers as a function of off-glacier temperatures and approximate glacier flow lines.}, author = {Ayala, A. and Pellicciotti, Francesca and Shea, J. M.}, issn = {2169-8996}, journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres}, keywords = {Space and Planetary Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous), Atmospheric Science, Geophysics}, number = {8}, pages = {3139--3157}, publisher = {American Geophysical Union}, title = {{Modeling 2 m air temperatures over mountain glaciers: Exploring the influence of katabatic cooling and external warming}}, doi = {10.1002/2015jd023137}, volume = {120}, year = {2015}, } @article{12629, abstract = {Meteorological studies in high-mountain environments form the basis of our understanding of catchment hydrology and glacier accumulation and melt processes, yet high-altitude (>4000 m above sea level, asl) observatories are rare. This research presents meteorological data recorded between December 2012 and November 2013 at seven stations in Nepal, ranging in elevation from 3860 to 5360 m asl. Seasonal and diurnal cycles in air temperature, vapour pressure, incoming short-wave and long-wave radiation, atmospheric transmissivity, wind speed, and precipitation are compared between sites. Solar radiation strongly affects diurnal temperature and vapour pressure cycles, but local topography and valley-scale circulations alter wind speed and precipitation cycles. The observed diurnal variability in vertical temperature gradients in all seasons highlights the importance of in situ measurements for melt modelling. The monsoon signal (progressive onset and sharp end) is visible in all data-sets, and the passage of the remnants of Typhoon Phailin in mid-October 2013 provides an interesting case study on the possible effects of such storms on glaciers in the region.}, author = {Shea, J.M. and Wagnon, P. and Immerzeel, W.W. and Biron, R. and Brun, F. and Pellicciotti, Francesca}, issn = {1360-0648}, journal = {International Journal of Water Resources Development}, keywords = {Water Science and Technology, Development}, number = {2}, pages = {174--200}, publisher = {Taylor & Francis}, title = {{A comparative high-altitude meteorological analysis from three catchments in the Nepalese Himalaya}}, doi = {10.1080/07900627.2015.1020417}, volume = {31}, year = {2015}, } @article{12626, abstract = {Ice cliffs have been identified as a reason for higher ablation rates on debris-covered glaciers than are implied by the insulation effects of the debris. This study aims to improve our understanding of cliff backwasting, and the role of radiative fluxes in particular. An energy-balance model is forced with new data gathered in May and October 2013 on Lirung Glacier, Nepalese Himalaya. Observations show substantial variability in melt between cliffs, between locations on any cliff and between seasons. Using a high-resolution digital elevation model we calculate longwave fluxes incident to the cliff from surrounding terrain and include the effect of local shading on shortwave radiation. This is an advance over previous studies, that made simplified assumptions on cliff geometry and radiative fluxes. Measured melt rates varied between 3.25 and 8.6 cm d−1 in May and 0.18 and 1.34 cm d−1 in October. Model results reproduce the strong variability in space and time, suggesting considerable differences in radiative fluxes over one cliff. In October the model fails to reproduce stake readings, probably due to the lack of a refreezing component. Disregarding local topography can lead to overestimation of melt at the point scale by up to ∼9%.}, author = {Steiner, Jakob F. and Pellicciotti, Francesca and Buri, Pascal and Miles, Evan S. and Immerzeel, Walter W. and Reid, Tim D.}, issn = {1727-5652}, journal = {Journal of Glaciology}, number = {229}, pages = {889--907}, publisher = {International Glaciological Society}, title = {{Modelling ice-cliff backwasting on a debris-covered glacier in the Nepalese Himalaya}}, doi = {10.3189/2015jog14j194}, volume = {61}, year = {2015}, } @article{12627, abstract = {Spatial evolution of supraglacial debris cover on mountain glaciers is a largely unmonitored and poorly understood phenomenon that directly affects glacier melt. Supraglacial debris cover for 93 glaciers in the Karakoram, northern Pakistan, was mapped from Landsat imagery acquired in 1977, 1998, 2009 and 2014. Surge-type glaciers occupy 41% of the study area and were considered separately. The time series of debris-covered surface area change shows a mean value of zero or near-zero change for both surging and non-surging glaciers. An increase in debris-covered area is often associated with negative regional mass balances. We extend this logic to suggest that the stable regional mass balances in the Karakoram explain the zero or near-zero change in debris-covered area. This coupling of trends combined with our 37 year time series of data suggests the Karakoram anomaly extends further back in time than previously known.}, author = {Herreid, Sam and Pellicciotti, Francesca and Ayala, Alvaro and Chesnokova, Anna and Kienholz, Christian and Shea, Joseph and Shrestha, Arun}, issn = {1727-5652}, journal = {Journal of Glaciology}, number = {227}, pages = {524--536}, publisher = {International Glaciological Society}, title = {{Satellite observations show no net change in the percentage of supraglacial debris-covered area in northern Pakistan from 1977 to 2014}}, doi = {10.3189/2015jog14j227}, volume = {61}, year = {2015}, } @article{1618, abstract = {CCL19 and CCL21 are chemokines involved in the trafficking of immune cells, particularly within the lymphatic system, through activation of CCR7. Concurrent expression of PSGL-1 and CCR7 in naive T-cells enhances recruitment of these cells to secondary lymphoid organs by CCL19 and CCL21. Here the solution structure of CCL19 is reported. It contains a canonical chemokine domain. Chemical shift mapping shows the N-termini of PSGL-1 and CCR7 have overlapping binding sites for CCL19 and binding is competitive. Implications for the mechanism of PSGL-1's enhancement of resting T-cell recruitment are discussed.}, author = {Veldkamp, Christopher and Kiermaier, Eva and Gabel Eissens, Skylar and Gillitzer, Miranda and Lippner, David and Disilvio, Frank and Mueller, Casey and Wantuch, Paeton and Chaffee, Gary and Famiglietti, Michael and Zgoba, Danielle and Bailey, Asha and Bah, Yaya and Engebretson, Samantha and Graupner, David and Lackner, Emily and Larosa, Vincent and Medeiros, Tysha and Olson, Michael and Phillips, Andrew and Pyles, Harley and Richard, Amanda and Schoeller, Scott and Touzeau, Boris and Williams, Larry and Sixt, Michael K and Peterson, Francis}, journal = {Biochemistry}, number = {27}, pages = {4163 -- 4166}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Solution structure of CCL19 and identification of overlapping CCR7 and PSGL-1 binding sites}}, doi = {10.1021/acs.biochem.5b00560}, volume = {54}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{12881, author = {Martius, Georg S and Olbrich, Eckehard}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on Artificial Life}, isbn = {9780262330275}, location = {York, United Kingdom}, pages = {78}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {{Quantifying self-organizing behavior of autonomous robots}}, doi = {10.7551/978-0-262-33027-5-ch018}, year = {2015}, } @article{12196, abstract = {SNC1 (SUPPRESSOR OF NPR1, CONSTITUTIVE 1) is one of a suite of intracellular Arabidopsis NOD-like receptor (NLR) proteins which, upon activation, result in the induction of defense responses. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying NLR activation and the subsequent provocation of immune responses are only partially characterized. To identify negative regulators of NLR-mediated immunity, a forward genetic screen was undertaken to search for enhancers of the dwarf, autoimmune gain-of-function snc1 mutant. To avoid lethality resulting from severe dwarfism, the screen was conducted using mos4 (modifier of snc1, 4) snc1 plants, which display wild-type-like morphology and resistance. M2 progeny were screened for mutant, snc1-enhancing (muse) mutants displaying a reversion to snc1-like phenotypes. The muse9 mos4 snc1 triple mutant was found to exhibit dwarf morphology, elevated expression of the pPR2-GUS defense marker reporter gene and enhanced resistance to the oomycete pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis Noco2. Via map-based cloning and Illumina sequencing, it was determined that the muse9 mutation is in the gene encoding the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeler SYD (SPLAYED), and was thus renamed syd-10. The syd-10 single mutant has no observable alteration from wild-type-like resistance, although the syd-4 T-DNA insertion allele displays enhanced resistance to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola ES4326. Transcription of SNC1 is increased in both syd-4 and syd-10. These data suggest that SYD plays a subtle, specific role in the regulation of SNC1 expression and SNC1-mediated immunity. SYD may work with other proteins at the chromatin level to repress SNC1 transcription; such regulation is important for fine-tuning the expression of NLR-encoding genes to prevent unpropitious autoimmunity.}, author = {Johnson, Kaeli C.M. and Xia, Shitou and Feng, Xiaoqi and Li, Xin}, issn = {0032-0781}, journal = {Plant and Cell Physiology}, keywords = {Cell Biology, Plant Science, Physiology, General Medicine}, number = {8}, pages = {1616--1623}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{The chromatin remodeler SPLAYED negatively regulates SNC1-mediated immunity}}, doi = {10.1093/pcp/pcv087}, volume = {56}, year = {2015}, } @article{13392, abstract = {The chemical behaviour of molecules can be significantly modified by confinement to volumes comparable to the dimensions of the molecules. Although such confined spaces can be found in various nanostructured materials, such as zeolites, nanoporous organic frameworks and colloidal nanocrystal assemblies, the slow diffusion of molecules in and out of these materials has greatly hampered studying the effect of confinement on their physicochemical properties. Here, we show that this diffusion limitation can be overcome by reversibly creating and destroying confined environments by means of ultraviolet and visible light irradiation. We use colloidal nanocrystals functionalized with light-responsive ligands that readily self-assemble and trap various molecules from the surrounding bulk solution. Once trapped, these molecules can undergo chemical reactions with increased rates and with stereoselectivities significantly different from those in bulk solution. Illumination with visible light disassembles these nanoflasks, releasing the product in solution and thereby establishes a catalytic cycle. These dynamic nanoflasks can be useful for studying chemical reactivities in confined environments and for synthesizing molecules that are otherwise hard to achieve in bulk solution.}, author = {Zhao, Hui and Sen, Soumyo and Udayabhaskararao, T. and Sawczyk, Michał and Kučanda, Kristina and Manna, Debasish and Kundu, Pintu K. and Lee, Ji-Woong and Král, Petr and Klajn, Rafal}, issn = {1748-3395}, journal = {Nature Nanotechnology}, keywords = {Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Condensed Matter Physics, General Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Bioengineering}, pages = {82--88}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Reversible trapping and reaction acceleration within dynamically self-assembling nanoflasks}}, doi = {10.1038/nnano.2015.256}, volume = {11}, year = {2015}, } @article{13394, abstract = {The ability to guide the assembly of nanosized objects reversibly with external stimuli, in particular light, is of fundamental importance, and it contributes to the development of applications as diverse as nanofabrication and controlled drug delivery. However, all the systems described to date are based on nanoparticles (NPs) that are inherently photoresponsive, which makes their preparation cumbersome and can markedly hamper their performance. Here we describe a conceptually new methodology to assemble NPs reversibly using light that does not require the particles to be functionalized with light-responsive ligands. Our strategy is based on the use of a photoswitchable medium that responds to light in such a way that it modulates the interparticle interactions. NP assembly proceeds quantitatively and without apparent fatigue, both in solution and in gels. Exposing the gels to light in a spatially controlled manner allowed us to draw images that spontaneously disappeared after a specific period of time.}, author = {Kundu, Pintu K. and Samanta, Dipak and Leizrowice, Ron and Margulis, Baruch and Zhao, Hui and Börner, Martin and Udayabhaskararao, T. and Manna, Debasish and Klajn, Rafal}, issn = {1755-4349}, journal = {Nature Chemistry}, keywords = {General Chemical Engineering, General Chemistry}, pages = {646--652}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Light-controlled self-assembly of non-photoresponsive nanoparticles}}, doi = {10.1038/nchem.2303}, volume = {7}, year = {2015}, } @article{13393, abstract = {Precise control of the self-assembly of selected components within complex mixtures is a challenging goal whose realization is important for fabricating novel nanomaterials. Herein we show that by decorating the surfaces of metallic nanoparticles with differently substituted azobenzenes, it is possible to modulate the wavelength of light at which the self-assembly of these nanoparticles is induced. Exposing a mixture of two types of nanoparticles, each functionalized with a different azobenzene, to UV or blue light induces the selective self-assembly of only one type of nanoparticles. Irradiation with the other wavelength triggers the disassembly of the aggregates, and the simultaneous self-assembly of nanoparticles of the other type. By placing both types of azobenzenes on the same nanoparticles, we created unique materials (“frustrated” nanoparticles) whose self-assembly is induced irrespective of the wavelength of the incident light.}, author = {Manna, Debasish and Udayabhaskararao, Thumu and Zhao, Hui and Klajn, Rafal}, issn = {1521-3773}, journal = {Angewandte Chemie International Edition}, keywords = {General Chemistry, Catalysis}, number = {42}, pages = {12394--12397}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Orthogonal light-induced self-assembly of nanoparticles using differently substituted azobenzenes}}, doi = {10.1002/anie.201502419}, volume = {54}, year = {2015}, } @article{13395, abstract = {Metallic nanoparticles co-functionalised with monolayers of UV- and CO2-sensitive ligands were prepared and shown to respond to these two types of stimuli reversibly and in an orthogonal fashion. The composition of the coating could be tailored to yield nanoparticles capable of aggregating exclusively when both UV and CO2 were applied at the same time, analogously to the behaviour of an AND logic gate.}, author = {Lee, Ji-Woong and Klajn, Rafal}, issn = {1364-548X}, journal = {Chemical Communications}, keywords = {Materials Chemistry, Metals and Alloys, Surfaces, Coatings and Films, General Chemistry, Ceramics and Composites, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Catalysis}, number = {11}, pages = {2036--2039}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Dual-responsive nanoparticles that aggregate under the simultaneous action of light and CO2}}, doi = {10.1039/c4cc08541h}, volume = {51}, year = {2015}, } @article{13396, abstract = {Photoswitching in densely packed azobenzene self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) is strongly affected by steric constraints and excitonic coupling between neighboring chromophores. Therefore, control of the chromophore density is essential for enhancing and manipulating the photoisomerization yield. We systematically compare two methods to achieve this goal: First, we assemble monocomponent azobenzene–alkanethiolate SAMs on gold nanoparticles of varying size. Second, we form mixed SAMs of azobenzene–alkanethiolates and “dummy” alkanethiolates on planar substrates. Both methods lead to a gradual decrease of the chromophore density and enable efficient photoswitching with low-power light sources. X-ray spectroscopy reveals that coadsorption from solution yields mixtures with tunable composition. The orientation of the chromophores with respect to the surface normal changes from a tilted to an upright position with increasing azobenzene density. For both systems, optical spectroscopy reveals a pronounced excitonic shift that increases with the chromophore density. In spite of exciting the optical transition of the monomer, the main spectral change in mixed SAMs occurs in the excitonic band. In addition, the photoisomerization yield decreases only slightly by increasing the azobenzene–alkanethiolate density, and we observed photoswitching even with minor dilutions. Unlike in solution, azobenzene in the planar SAM can be switched back almost completely by optical excitation from the cis to the original trans state within a short time scale. These observations indicate cooperativity in the photoswitching process of mixed SAMs.}, author = {Moldt, Thomas and Brete, Daniel and Przyrembel, Daniel and Das, Sanjib and Goldman, Joel R. and Kundu, Pintu K. and Gahl, Cornelius and Klajn, Rafal and Weinelt, Martin}, issn = {1520-5827}, journal = {Langmuir}, keywords = {Electrochemistry, Spectroscopy, Surfaces and Interfaces, Condensed Matter Physics, General Materials Science}, number = {3}, pages = {1048--1057}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Tailoring the properties of surface-immobilized azobenzenes by monolayer dilution and surface curvature}}, doi = {10.1021/la504291n}, volume = {31}, year = {2015}, } @article{13397, abstract = {Self-assembly of inorganic nanoparticles has been studied extensively for particles having different sizes and compositions. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to how the shape and surface chemistry of magnetic nanoparticles affects their self-assembly properties. Here, we undertook a combined experiment–theory study aimed at better understanding of the self-assembly of cubic magnetite (Fe3O4) particles. We demonstrated that, depending on the experimental parameters, such as the direction of the magnetic field and nanoparticle density, a variety of superstructures can be obtained, including one-dimensional filaments and helices, as well as C-shaped assemblies described here for the first time. Furthermore, we functionalized the surfaces of the magnetic nanocubes with light-sensitive ligands. Using these modified nanoparticles, we were able to achieve orthogonal control of self-assembly using a magnetic field and light.}, author = {Singh, Gurvinder and Chan, Henry and Udayabhaskararao, T. and Gelman, Elijah and Peddis, Davide and Baskin, Artem and Leitus, Gregory and Král, Petr and Klajn, Rafal}, issn = {1364-5498}, journal = {Faraday Discussions}, keywords = {Physical and Theoretical Chemistry}, pages = {403--421}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Magnetic field-induced self-assembly of iron oxide nanocubes}}, doi = {10.1039/c4fd00265b}, volume = {181}, year = {2015}, } @article{13398, author = {Sun, Yugang and Scarabelli, Leonardo and Kotov, Nicholas and Tebbe, Moritz and Lin, Xiao-Min and Brullot, Ward and Isa, Lucio and Schurtenberger, Peter and Moehwald, Helmuth and Fedin, Igor and Velev, Orlin and Faivre, Damien and Sorensen, Christopher and Perzynski, Régine and Chanana, Munish and Li, Zhihai and Bresme, Fernando and Král, Petr and Firlar, Emre and Schiffrin, David and Souza Junior, Joao Batista and Fery, Andreas and Shevchenko, Elena and Tarhan, Ozgur and Alivisatos, Armand Paul and Disch, Sabrina and Klajn, Rafal and Ghosh, Suvojit}, issn = {1364-5498}, journal = {Faraday Discussions}, keywords = {Physical and Theoretical Chemistry}, pages = {463--479}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Field-assisted self-assembly process: General discussion}}, doi = {10.1039/c5fd90041g}, volume = {181}, year = {2015}, } @article{14017, abstract = {The detection of electron motion and electronic wave-packet dynamics is one of the core goals of attosecond science. Recently, choosing the nitric oxide molecule as an example, we have introduced and demonstrated an experimental approach to measure coupled valence electronic and rotational wave packets using high-order-harmonic-generation (HHG) spectroscopy [Kraus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 243005 (2013)]. A short outline of the theory to describe the combination of the pump and HHG probe process was published together with an extensive discussion of experimental results [Baykusheva et al., Faraday Discuss. 171, 113 (2014)]. The comparison of theory and experiment showed good agreement on a quantitative level. Here, we present the theory in detail, which is based on a generalized density-matrix approach that describes the pump process and the subsequent probing of the wave packets by a semiclassical quantitative rescattering approach. An in-depth analysis of the different Raman scattering contributions to the creation of the coupled rotational and electronic spin-orbit wave packets is made. We present results for parallel and perpendicular linear polarizations of the pump and probe laser pulses. Furthermore, an analysis of the combined rotational-electronic density matrix in terms of irreducible components is presented that facilitates interpretation of the results.}, author = {Zhang, Song Bin and Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova and Kraus, Peter M. and Wörner, Hans Jakob and Rohringer, Nina}, issn = {1094-1622}, journal = {Physical Review A}, keywords = {Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics}, number = {2}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Theoretical study of molecular electronic and rotational coherences by high-order-harmonic generation}}, doi = {10.1103/physreva.91.023421}, volume = {91}, year = {2015}, } @article{14016, abstract = {All attosecond time-resolved measurements have so far relied on the use of intense near-infrared laser pulses. In particular, attosecond streaking, laser-induced electron diffraction and high-harmonic generation all make use of non-perturbative light–matter interactions. Remarkably, the effect of the strong laser field on the studied sample has often been neglected in previous studies. Here we use high-harmonic spectroscopy to measure laser-induced modifications of the electronic structure of molecules. We study high-harmonic spectra of spatially oriented CH3F and CH3Br as generic examples of polar polyatomic molecules. We accurately measure intensity ratios of even and odd-harmonic orders, and of the emission from aligned and unaligned molecules. We show that these robust observables reveal a substantial modification of the molecular electronic structure by the external laser field. Our insights offer new challenges and opportunities for a range of emerging strong-field attosecond spectroscopies.}, author = {Kraus, P. M. and Tolstikhin, O. I. and Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova and Rupenyan, A. and Schneider, J. and Bisgaard, C. Z. and Morishita, T. and Jensen, F. and Madsen, L. B. and Wörner, H. J.}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, keywords = {General Physics and Astronomy, General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, General Chemistry, Multidisciplinary}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Observation of laser-induced electronic structure in oriented polyatomic molecules}}, doi = {10.1038/ncomms8039}, volume = {6}, year = {2015}, } @article{14013, abstract = {The ultrafast motion of electrons and holes after light-matter interaction is fundamental to a broad range of chemical and biophysical processes. We advanced high-harmonic spectroscopy to resolve spatially and temporally the migration of an electron hole immediately after ionization of iodoacetylene while simultaneously demonstrating extensive control over the process. A multidimensional approach, based on the measurement and accurate theoretical description of both even and odd harmonic orders, enabled us to reconstruct both quantum amplitudes and phases of the electronic states with a resolution of ~100 attoseconds. We separately reconstructed quasi-field-free and laser-controlled charge migration as a function of the spatial orientation of the molecule and determined the shape of the hole created by ionization. Our technique opens the prospect of laser control over electronic primary processes.}, author = {Kraus, P. M. and Mignolet, B. and Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova and Rupenyan, A. and Horný, L. and Penka, E. F. and Grassi, G. and Tolstikhin, O. I. and Schneider, J. and Jensen, F. and Madsen, L. B. and Bandrauk, A. D. and Remacle, F. and Wörner, H. J.}, issn = {1095-9203}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {Multidisciplinary}, number = {6262}, pages = {790--795}, publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science}, title = {{Measurement and laser control of attosecond charge migration in ionized iodoacetylene}}, doi = {10.1126/science.aab2160}, volume = {350}, year = {2015}, } @article{14015, abstract = {We advance high-harmonic spectroscopy to resolve molecular charge migration in time and space and simultaneously demonstrate extensive control over the process. A multidimensional approach enables us to reconstruct both quantum amplitudes and phases with a resolution of better than 100 attoseconds and to separately reconstruct field-free and laser- driven charge migration. Our techniques make charge migration in molecules measurable on the attosecond time scale and open new avenues for laser control of electronic primary processes.}, author = {Kraus, P M and Mignolet, B and Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova and Rupenyan, A and Horný, L and Penka, E F and Tolstikhin, O I and Schneider, J and Jensen, F and Madsen, L B and Bandrauk, A D and Remacle, F and Wörner, H J}, issn = {1742-6596}, journal = {Journal of Physics: Conference Series}, keywords = {General Physics and Astronomy}, number = {11}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Attosecond charge migration and its laser control}}, doi = {10.1088/1742-6596/635/11/112136}, volume = {635}, year = {2015}, } @article{14014, abstract = {We have studied a coupled electronic-nuclear wave packet in nitric oxide using time-resolved strong-field photoelectron holography and rescattering. We show that the electronic dynamics mainly appears in the holographic structures whereas nuclear motion strongly modulates the angular distribution of the rescattered photoelectrons.}, author = {Walt, Samuel G and Ram, N Bhargava and von Conta, Aaron and Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova and Atala, Marcos and Wörner, Hans Jakob}, issn = {1742-6596}, journal = {Journal of Physics: Conference Series}, keywords = {General Physics and Astronomy}, number = {11}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Resolving the dynamics of valence-shell electrons and nuclei through laser-induced diffraction and holography}}, doi = {10.1088/1742-6596/635/11/112135}, volume = {635}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9719, abstract = {Parasitism creates selection for resistance mechanisms in host populations and is hypothesized to promote increased host evolvability. However, the influence of these traits on host evolution when parasites are no longer present is unclear. We used experimental evolution and whole-genome sequencing of Escherichia coli to determine the effects of past and present exposure to parasitic viruses (phages) on the spread of mutator alleles, resistance, and bacterial competitive fitness. We found that mutator alleles spread rapidly during adaptation to any of four different phage species, and this pattern was even more pronounced with multiple phages present simultaneously. However, hypermutability did not detectably accelerate adaptation in the absence of phages and recovery of fitness costs associated with resistance. Several lineages evolved phage resistance through elevated mucoidy, and during subsequent evolution in phage-free conditions they rapidly reverted to nonmucoid, phage-susceptible phenotypes. Genome sequencing revealed that this phenotypic reversion was achieved by additional genetic changes rather than by genotypic reversion of the initial resistance mutations. Insertion sequence (IS) elements played a key role in both the acquisition of resistance and adaptation in the absence of parasites; unlike single nucleotide polymorphisms, IS insertions were not more frequent in mutator lineages. Our results provide a genetic explanation for rapid reversion of mucoidy, a phenotype observed in other bacterial species including human pathogens. Moreover, this demonstrates that the types of genetic change underlying adaptation to fitness costs, and consequently the impact of evolvability mechanisms such as increased point-mutation rates, depend critically on the mechanism of resistance.}, author = {Wielgoss, Sébastien and Bergmiller, Tobias and Bischofberger, Anna M. and Hall, Alex R.}, publisher = {Dryad}, title = {{Data from: Adaptation to parasites and costs of parasite resistance in mutator and non-mutator bacteria}}, doi = {10.5061/dryad.cj910}, year = {2015}, } @phdthesis{1401, abstract = {The human ability to recognize objects in complex scenes has driven research in the computer vision field over couple of decades. This thesis focuses on the object recognition task in images. That is, given the image, we want the computer system to be able to predict the class of the object that appears in the image. A recent successful attempt to bridge semantic understanding of the image perceived by humans and by computers uses attribute-based models. Attributes are semantic properties of the objects shared across different categories, which humans and computers can decide on. To explore the attribute-based models we take a statistical machine learning approach, and address two key learning challenges in view of object recognition task: learning augmented attributes as mid-level discriminative feature representation, and learning with attributes as privileged information. Our main contributions are parametric and non-parametric models and algorithms to solve these frameworks. In the parametric approach, we explore an autoencoder model combined with the large margin nearest neighbor principle for mid-level feature learning, and linear support vector machines for learning with privileged information. In the non-parametric approach, we propose a supervised Indian Buffet Process for automatic augmentation of semantic attributes, and explore the Gaussian Processes classification framework for learning with privileged information. A thorough experimental analysis shows the effectiveness of the proposed models in both parametric and non-parametric views.}, author = {Sharmanska, Viktoriia}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {144}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Learning with attributes for object recognition: Parametric and non-parametrics views}}, doi = {10.15479/at:ista:1401}, year = {2015}, } @article{1709, abstract = {The competition for resources among cells, individuals or species is a fundamental characteristic of evolution. Biological all-pay auctions have been used to model situations where multiple individuals compete for a single resource. However, in many situations multiple resources with various values exist and single reward auctions are not applicable. We generalize the model to multiple rewards and study the evolution of strategies. In biological all-pay auctions the bid of an individual corresponds to its strategy and is equivalent to its payment in the auction. The decreasingly ordered rewards are distributed according to the decreasingly ordered bids of the participating individuals. The reproductive success of an individual is proportional to its fitness given by the sum of the rewards won minus its payments. Hence, successful bidding strategies spread in the population. We find that the results for the multiple reward case are very different from the single reward case. While the mixed strategy equilibrium in the single reward case with more than two players consists of mostly low-bidding individuals, we show that the equilibrium can convert to many high-bidding individuals and a few low-bidding individuals in the multiple reward case. Some reward values lead to a specialization among the individuals where one subpopulation competes for the rewards and the other subpopulation largely avoids costly competitions. Whether the mixed strategy equilibrium is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) depends on the specific values of the rewards.}, author = {Reiter, Johannes and Kanodia, Ayush and Gupta, Raghav and Nowak, Martin and Chatterjee, Krishnendu}, journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences}, number = {1812}, publisher = {Royal Society}, title = {{Biological auctions with multiple rewards}}, doi = {10.1098/rspb.2015.1041}, volume = {282}, year = {2015}, } @phdthesis{1400, abstract = {Cancer results from an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. Sequentially accumulated genetic and epigenetic alterations decrease cell death and increase cell replication. We used mathematical models to quantify the effect of driver gene mutations. The recently developed targeted therapies can lead to dramatic regressions. However, in solid cancers, clinical responses are often short-lived because resistant cancer cells evolve. We estimated that approximately 50 different mutations can confer resistance to a typical targeted therapeutic agent. We find that resistant cells are likely to be present in expanded subclones before the start of the treatment. The dominant strategy to prevent the evolution of resistance is combination therapy. Our analytical results suggest that in most patients, dual therapy, but not monotherapy, can result in long-term disease control. However, long-term control can only occur if there are no possible mutations in the genome that can cause cross-resistance to both drugs. Furthermore, we showed that simultaneous therapy with two drugs is much more likely to result in long-term disease control than sequential therapy with the same drugs. To improve our understanding of the underlying subclonal evolution we reconstruct the evolutionary history of a patient's cancer from next-generation sequencing data of spatially-distinct DNA samples. Using a quantitative measure of genetic relatedness, we found that pancreatic cancers and their metastases demonstrated a higher level of relatedness than that expected for any two cells randomly taken from a normal tissue. This minimal amount of genetic divergence among advanced lesions indicates that genetic heterogeneity, when quantitatively defined, is not a fundamental feature of the natural history of untreated pancreatic cancers. Our newly developed, phylogenomic tool Treeomics finds evidence for seeding patterns of metastases and can directly be used to discover rules governing the evolution of solid malignancies to transform cancer into a more predictable disease.}, author = {Reiter, Johannes}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {183}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{The subclonal evolution of cancer}}, year = {2015}, } @article{1792, abstract = {Motivated by recent ideas of Harman (Unif. Distrib. Theory, 2010) we develop a new concept of variation of multivariate functions on a compact Hausdorff space with respect to a collection D of subsets. We prove a general version of the Koksma-Hlawka theorem that holds for this notion of variation and discrepancy with respect to D. As special cases, we obtain Koksma-Hlawka inequalities for classical notions, such as extreme or isotropic discrepancy. For extreme discrepancy, our result coincides with the usual Koksma-Hlawka theorem. We show that the space of functions of bounded D-variation contains important discontinuous functions and is closed under natural algebraic operations. Finally, we illustrate the results on concrete integration problems from integral geometry and stereology.}, author = {Pausinger, Florian and Svane, Anne}, journal = {Journal of Complexity}, number = {6}, pages = {773 -- 797}, publisher = {Academic Press}, title = {{A Koksma-Hlawka inequality for general discrepancy systems}}, doi = {10.1016/j.jco.2015.06.002}, volume = {31}, year = {2015}, } @phdthesis{1399, abstract = {This thesis is concerned with the computation and approximation of intrinsic volumes. Given a smooth body M and a certain digital approximation of it, we develop algorithms to approximate various intrinsic volumes of M using only measurements taken from its digital approximations. The crucial idea behind our novel algorithms is to link the recent theory of persistent homology to the theory of intrinsic volumes via the Crofton formula from integral geometry and, in particular, via Euler characteristic computations. Our main contributions are a multigrid convergent digital algorithm to compute the first intrinsic volume of a solid body in R^n as well as an appropriate integration pipeline to approximate integral-geometric integrals defined over the Grassmannian manifold.}, author = {Pausinger, Florian}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {144}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{On the approximation of intrinsic volumes}}, year = {2015}, } @article{1666, abstract = {Evolution of gene regulation is crucial for our understanding of the phenotypic differences between species, populations and individuals. Sequence-specific binding of transcription factors to the regulatory regions on the DNA is a key regulatory mechanism that determines gene expression and hence heritable phenotypic variation. We use a biophysical model for directional selection on gene expression to estimate the rates of gain and loss of transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) in finite populations under both point and insertion/deletion mutations. Our results show that these rates are typically slow for a single TFBS in an isolated DNA region, unless the selection is extremely strong. These rates decrease drastically with increasing TFBS length or increasingly specific protein-DNA interactions, making the evolution of sites longer than ∼ 10 bp unlikely on typical eukaryotic speciation timescales. Similarly, evolution converges to the stationary distribution of binding sequences very slowly, making the equilibrium assumption questionable. The availability of longer regulatory sequences in which multiple binding sites can evolve simultaneously, the presence of “pre-sites” or partially decayed old sites in the initial sequence, and biophysical cooperativity between transcription factors, can all facilitate gain of TFBS and reconcile theoretical calculations with timescales inferred from comparative genomics.}, author = {Tugrul, Murat and Paixao, Tiago and Barton, Nicholas H and Tkacik, Gasper}, journal = {PLoS Genetics}, number = {11}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Dynamics of transcription factor binding site evolution}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1005639}, volume = {11}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1502, abstract = {We extend the theory of input-output conformance with operators for merge and quotient. The former is useful when testing against multiple requirements or views. The latter can be used to generate tests for patches of an already tested system. Both operators can combine systems with different action alphabets, which is usually the case when constructing complex systems and specifications from parts, for instance different views as well as newly defined functionality of a~previous version of the system.}, author = {Beneš, Nikola and Daca, Przemyslaw and Henzinger, Thomas A and Kretinsky, Jan and Nickovic, Dejan}, isbn = {978-1-4503-3471-6}, location = {Montreal, QC, Canada}, pages = {101 -- 110}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Complete composition operators for IOCO-testing theory}}, doi = {10.1145/2737166.2737175}, year = {2015}, } @article{1501, abstract = {We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) which are a standard model for probabilistic systems. We focus on qualitative properties for MDPs that can express that desired behaviors of the system arise almost-surely (with probability 1) or with positive probability. We introduce a new simulation relation to capture the refinement relation of MDPs with respect to qualitative properties, and present discrete graph algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation. We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis of two-player games by giving a counterexample guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. We show a tight link between two-player games and MDPs, and as a consequence the results for games are lifted to MDPs with qualitative properties. We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. }, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Chmelik, Martin and Daca, Przemyslaw}, journal = {Formal Methods in System Design}, number = {2}, pages = {230 -- 264}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{CEGAR for compositional analysis of qualitative properties in Markov decision processes}}, doi = {10.1007/s10703-015-0235-2}, volume = {47}, year = {2015}, } @article{1602, abstract = {Interprocedural analysis is at the heart of numerous applications in programming languages, such as alias analysis, constant propagation, etc. Recursive state machines (RSMs) are standard models for interprocedural analysis. We consider a general framework with RSMs where the transitions are labeled from a semiring, and path properties are algebraic with semiring operations. RSMs with algebraic path properties can model interprocedural dataflow analysis problems, the shortest path problem, the most probable path problem, etc. The traditional algorithms for interprocedural analysis focus on path properties where the starting point is fixed as the entry point of a specific method. In this work, we consider possible multiple queries as required in many applications such as in alias analysis. The study of multiple queries allows us to bring in a very important algorithmic distinction between the resource usage of the one-time preprocessing vs for each individual query. The second aspect that we consider is that the control flow graphs for most programs have constant treewidth. Our main contributions are simple and implementable algorithms that supportmultiple queries for algebraic path properties for RSMs that have constant treewidth. Our theoretical results show that our algorithms have small additional one-time preprocessing, but can answer subsequent queries significantly faster as compared to the current best-known solutions for several important problems, such as interprocedural reachability and shortest path. We provide a prototype implementation for interprocedural reachability and intraprocedural shortest path that gives a significant speed-up on several benchmarks.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus and Pavlogiannis, Andreas and Goyal, Prateesh}, journal = {ACM SIGPLAN Notices}, location = {Mumbai, India}, number = {1}, pages = {97 -- 109}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Faster algorithms for algebraic path properties in recursive state machines with constant treewidth}}, doi = {10.1145/2676726.2676979}, volume = {50}, year = {2015}, } @article{1604, abstract = {We consider the quantitative analysis problem for interprocedural control-flow graphs (ICFGs). The input consists of an ICFG, a positive weight function that assigns every transition a positive integer-valued number, and a labelling of the transitions (events) as good, bad, and neutral events. The weight function assigns to each transition a numerical value that represents ameasure of how good or bad an event is. The quantitative analysis problem asks whether there is a run of the ICFG where the ratio of the sum of the numerical weights of good events versus the sum of weights of bad events in the long-run is at least a given threshold (or equivalently, to compute the maximal ratio among all valid paths in the ICFG). The quantitative analysis problem for ICFGs can be solved in polynomial time, and we present an efficient and practical algorithm for the problem. We show that several problems relevant for static program analysis, such as estimating the worst-case execution time of a program or the average energy consumption of a mobile application, can be modeled in our framework. We have implemented our algorithm as a tool in the Java Soot framework. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with two case studies. First, we show that our framework provides a sound approach (no false positives) for the analysis of inefficiently-used containers. Second, we show that our approach can also be used for static profiling of programs which reasons about methods that are frequently invoked. Our experimental results show that our tool scales to relatively large benchmarks, and discovers relevant and useful information that can be used to optimize performance of the programs.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Pavlogiannis, Andreas and Velner, Yaron}, isbn = {978-1-4503-3300-9}, journal = {Proceedings of the 42nd Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT }, location = {Mumbai, India}, number = {1}, pages = {539 -- 551}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Quantitative interprocedural analysis}}, doi = {10.1145/2676726.2676968}, volume = {50}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1607, abstract = {We consider the core algorithmic problems related to verification of systems with respect to three classical quantitative properties, namely, the mean-payoff property, the ratio property, and the minimum initial credit for energy property. The algorithmic problem given a graph and a quantitative property asks to compute the optimal value (the infimum value over all traces) from every node of the graph. We consider graphs with constant treewidth, and it is well-known that the control-flow graphs of most programs have constant treewidth. Let n denote the number of nodes of a graph, m the number of edges (for constant treewidth graphs m=O(n)) and W the largest absolute value of the weights. Our main theoretical results are as follows. First, for constant treewidth graphs we present an algorithm that approximates the mean-payoff value within a multiplicative factor of ϵ in time O(n⋅log(n/ϵ)) and linear space, as compared to the classical algorithms that require quadratic time. Second, for the ratio property we present an algorithm that for constant treewidth graphs works in time O(n⋅log(|a⋅b|))=O(n⋅log(n⋅W)), when the output is ab, as compared to the previously best known algorithm with running time O(n2⋅log(n⋅W)). Third, for the minimum initial credit problem we show that (i) for general graphs the problem can be solved in O(n2⋅m) time and the associated decision problem can be solved in O(n⋅m) time, improving the previous known O(n3⋅m⋅log(n⋅W)) and O(n2⋅m) bounds, respectively; and (ii) for constant treewidth graphs we present an algorithm that requires O(n⋅logn) time, improving the previous known O(n4⋅log(n⋅W)) bound. We have implemented some of our algorithms and show that they present a significant speedup on standard benchmarks.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus and Pavlogiannis, Andreas}, location = {San Francisco, CA, USA}, pages = {140 -- 157}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Faster algorithms for quantitative verification in constant treewidth graphs}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-21690-4_9}, volume = {9206}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1714, abstract = {We present a flexible framework for the automated competitive analysis of on-line scheduling algorithms for firm-deadline real-time tasks based on multi-objective graphs: Given a task set and an on-line scheduling algorithm specified as a labeled transition system, along with some optional safety, liveness, and/or limit-average constraints for the adversary, we automatically compute the competitive ratio of the algorithm w.r.t. A clairvoyant scheduler. We demonstrate the flexibility and power of our approach by comparing the competitive ratio of several on-line algorithms, including Dover, that have been proposed in the past, for various task sets. Our experimental results reveal that none of these algorithms is universally optimal, in the sense that there are task sets where other schedulers provide better performance. Our framework is hence a very useful design tool for selecting optimal algorithms for a given application.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Pavlogiannis, Andreas and Kößler, Alexander and Schmid, Ulrich}, booktitle = {Real-Time Systems Symposium}, location = {Rome, Italy}, number = {January}, pages = {118 -- 127}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{A framework for automated competitive analysis of on-line scheduling of firm-deadline tasks}}, doi = {10.1109/RTSS.2014.9}, volume = {2015}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1633, abstract = {We present a method for simulating brittle fracture under the assumptions of quasi-static linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). Using the boundary element method (BEM) and Lagrangian crack-fronts, we produce highly detailed fracture surfaces. The computational cost of the BEM is alleviated by using a low-resolution mesh and interpolating the resulting stress intensity factors when propagating the high-resolution crack-front. Our system produces physics-based fracture surfaces with high spatial and temporal resolution, taking spatial variation of material toughness and/or strength into account. It also allows for crack initiation to be handled separately from crack propagation, which is not only more reasonable from a physics perspective, but can also be used to control the simulation. Separating the resolution of the crack-front from the resolution of the computational mesh increases the efficiency and therefore the amount of visual detail on the resulting fracture surfaces. The BEM also allows us to re-use previously computed blocks of the system matrix.}, author = {Hahn, David and Wojtan, Christopher J}, location = {Los Angeles, CA, United States}, number = {4}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{High-resolution brittle fracture simulation with boundary elements}}, doi = {10.1145/2766896}, volume = {34}, year = {2015}, } @article{1537, abstract = {3D amoeboid cell migration is central to many developmental and disease-related processes such as cancer metastasis. Here, we identify a unique prototypic amoeboid cell migration mode in early zebrafish embryos, termed stable-bleb migration. Stable-bleb cells display an invariant polarized balloon-like shape with exceptional migration speed and persistence. Progenitor cells can be reversibly transformed into stable-bleb cells irrespective of their primary fate and motile characteristics by increasing myosin II activity through biochemical or mechanical stimuli. Using a combination of theory and experiments, we show that, in stable-bleb cells, cortical contractility fluctuations trigger a stochastic switch into amoeboid motility, and a positive feedback between cortical flows and gradients in contractility maintains stable-bleb cell polarization. We further show that rearward cortical flows drive stable-bleb cell migration in various adhesive and non-adhesive environments, unraveling a highly versatile amoeboid migration phenotype.}, author = {Ruprecht, Verena and Wieser, Stefan and Callan Jones, Andrew and Smutny, Michael and Morita, Hitoshi and Sako, Keisuke and Barone, Vanessa and Ritsch Marte, Monika and Sixt, Michael K and Voituriez, Raphaël and Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J}, journal = {Cell}, number = {4}, pages = {673 -- 685}, publisher = {Cell Press}, title = {{Cortical contractility triggers a stochastic switch to fast amoeboid cell motility}}, doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.008}, volume = {160}, year = {2015}, } @article{1591, abstract = {Auxin participates in a multitude of developmental processes, as well as responses to environmental cues. Compared with other plant hormones, auxin exhibits a unique property, as it undergoes directional, cell-to-cell transport facilitated by plasma membrane-localized transport proteins. Among them, a prominent role has been ascribed to the PIN family of auxin efflux facilitators. PIN proteins direct polar auxin transport on account of their asymmetric subcellular localizations. In this review, we provide an overview of the multiple developmental roles of PIN proteins, including the atypical endoplasmic reticulum-localized members of the family, and look at the family from an evolutionary perspective. Next, we cover the cell biological and molecular aspects of PIN function, in particular the establishment of their polar subcellular localization. Hormonal and environmental inputs into the regulation of PIN action are summarized as well.}, author = {Adamowski, Maciek and Friml, Jirí}, journal = {Plant Cell}, number = {1}, pages = {20 -- 32}, publisher = {American Society of Plant Biologists}, title = {{PIN-dependent auxin transport: Action, regulation, and evolution}}, doi = {10.1105/tpc.114.134874}, volume = {27}, year = {2015}, }