TY - JOUR AB - The performance of glaciohydrological models which simulate catchment response to climate variability depends to a large degree on the data used to force the models. The forcing data become increasingly important in high-elevation, glacierized catchments where the interplay between extreme topography, climate, and the cryosphere is complex. It is challenging to generate a reliable forcing data set that captures this spatial heterogeneity. In this paper, we analyze the results of a 1 year field campaign focusing on air temperature and precipitation observations in the Langtang valley in the Nepalese Himalayas. We use the observed time series to characterize both temperature lapse rates (LRs) and precipitation gradients (PGs). We study their spatial and temporal variability, and we attempt to identify possible controlling factors. We show that very clear LRs exist in the valley and that there are strong seasonal differences related to the water vapor content in the atmosphere. Results also show that the LRs are generally shallower than the commonly used environmental lapse rates. The analysis of the precipitation observations reveals that there is great variability in precipitation over short horizontal distances. A uniform valley wide PG cannot be established, and several scale-dependent mechanisms may explain our observations. We complete our analysis by showing the impact of the observed LRs and PGs on the outputs of the TOPKAPI-ETH glaciohydrological model. We conclude that LRs and PGs have a very large impact on the water balance composition and that short-term monitoring campaigns have the potential to improve model quality considerably. AU - Immerzeel, W. W. AU - Petersen, L. AU - Ragettli, S. AU - Pellicciotti, Francesca ID - 12637 IS - 3 JF - Water Resources Research KW - Water Science and Technology SN - 0043-1397 TI - The importance of observed gradients of air temperature and precipitation for modeling runoff from a glacierized watershed in the Nepalese Himalayas VL - 50 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Himalayan glacier tongues are commonly debris covered and they are an important source of melt water. However, they remain relatively unstudied because of the inaccessibility of the terrain and the difficulties in field work caused by the thick debris mantles. Observations of debris-covered glaciers are therefore scarce and airborne remote sensing may bridge the gap between scarce field observations and coarse resolution space-borne remote sensing. In this study we deploy an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) before and after the melt and monsoon season (May and October 2013) over the debris-covered tongue of the Lirung Glacier in Nepal. Based on stereo-imaging and the structure for motion algorithm we derive highly detailed ortho-mosaics and digital elevation models (DEMs), which we geometrically correct using differential GPS observations collected in the field. Based on DEM differencing and manual feature tracking we derive the mass loss and the surface velocity of the glacier at a high spatial accuracy. On average, mass loss is limited and the surface velocity is very small. However, the spatial variability of melt rates is very high, and ice cliffs and supra-glacial ponds show mass losses that can be an order of magnitude higher than the average. We suggest that future research should focus on the interaction between supra-glacial ponds, ice cliffs and englacial hydrology to further understand the dynamics of debris-covered glaciers. Finally, we conclude that UAV deployment has large potential in glaciology and it may revolutionize methods currently applied in studying glacier surface features. AU - Immerzeel, W.W. AU - Kraaijenbrink, P.D.A. AU - Shea, J.M. AU - Shrestha, A.B. AU - Pellicciotti, Francesca AU - Bierkens, M.F.P. AU - de Jong, S.M. ID - 12636 IS - 7 JF - Remote Sensing of Environment KW - Computers in Earth Sciences KW - Geology KW - Soil Science SN - 0034-4257 TI - High-resolution monitoring of Himalayan glacier dynamics using unmanned aerial vehicles VL - 150 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Switzerland is one of the countries with some of the longest and best glaciological data sets. Its glaciers and their changes in response to climate have been extensively investigated, and the number and quality of related studies are notable. However, a comprehensive review of glacier changes and their impact on the hydrology of glacierised catchments for Switzerland is missing and we use the opportunity provided by the EU-FP7 ACQWA project to review the current state of knowledge about past changes and future projections. We examine the type of models that have been applied to infer glacier evolution and identify knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research in addition to those indicated in previous publications. Common characteristics in long-term series of projected future glacier runoff are an initial peak followed by a decline, associated with shifts in seasonality, earlier melt onset and reduced summer runoff. However, the quantitative predictions are difficult to compare, as studies differ in terms of model structure, calibration strategies, input data, temporal and spatial resolution as well as future scenarios used for impact studies. We identify two sources of uncertainties among those emerging from recent research, and use simulations over four glaciers to: i) quantify the importance of the correct extrapolation of air temperature, and ii) point at the key role played by debris cover in modulating glacier response. AU - Pellicciotti, Francesca AU - Carenzo, M. AU - Bordoy, R. AU - Stoffel, M. ID - 12635 JF - Science of The Total Environment KW - Pollution KW - Waste Management and Disposal KW - Environmental Chemistry KW - Environmental Engineering SN - 0048-9697 TI - Changes in glaciers in the Swiss Alps and impact on basin hydrology: Current state of the art and future research VL - 493 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We investigate the performance of five glacier melt models over a multi-decadal period in order to assess their ability to model future glacier response. The models range from a simple degree-day model, based solely on air temperature, to more-sophisticated models, including the full shortwave radiation balance. In addition to the empirical models, the performance of a physically based energy-balance (EB) model is examined. The melt models are coupled to an accumulation and a surface evolution model and applied in a distributed manner to Rhonegletscher, Switzerland, over the period 1929–2012 at hourly resolution. For calibration, seasonal mass-balance measurements (2006–12) are used. Decadal ice volume changes for six periods in the years 1929–2012 serve for model validation. Over the period 2006–12, there are almost no differences in performance between the models, except for EB, which is less consistent with observations, likely due to lack of meteorological in situ data. However, simulations over the long term (1929–2012) reveal that models which include a separate term for shortwave radiation agree best with the observed ice volume changes, indicating that their melt relationships are robust in time and thus suitable for long-term modelling, in contrast to more empirical approaches that are oversensitive to temperature fluctuations. AU - Gabbi, Jeannette AU - Carenzo, Marco AU - Pellicciotti, Francesca AU - Bauder, Andreas AU - Funk, Martin ID - 12632 IS - 224 JF - Journal of Glaciology KW - Earth-Surface Processes SN - 0022-1430 TI - A comparison of empirical and physically based glacier surface melt models for long-term simulations of glacier response VL - 60 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Glaciers in the Andes of Chile seem to be shrinking and possibly loosing mass, but the number and types of studies conducted, constrained mainly by data availability, are not sufficient to provide a synopsis of glacier changes for the past or future or explain in an explicit way causes of the observed changes. In this paper, we provide a systematic review of changes in glaciers for the entire country, followed by a discussion of the studies that have provided evidence of such changes. We identify a missing type of work in distributed, physically-oriented modelling studies that are needed to bridge the gap between the numerous remote sensing studies and the specific, point scale works focused on process understanding. We use an advanced mass balance model applied to one of the best monitored glaciers in the region to investigate four main research issues that should be addressed in modelling studies for a sound assessment of glacier changes: 1) the use of physically-based models of glacier ablation (energy balance models) versus more empirical models (enhanced temperature index approaches); 2) the importance of the correct extrapolation of air temperature forcing on glaciers and in high elevation areas and the large uncertainty in model outputs associated with it; 3) the role played by snow gravitational redistribution; and 4) the uncertainty associated with future climate scenarios. We quantify differences in model outputs associated with each of these choices, and conclude with suggestions for future work directions. AU - Pellicciotti, Francesca AU - Ragettli, S. AU - Carenzo, M. AU - McPhee, J. ID - 12634 JF - Science of The Total Environment KW - Pollution KW - Waste Management and Disposal KW - Environmental Chemistry KW - Environmental Engineering SN - 0048-9697 TI - Changes of glaciers in the Andes of Chile and priorities for future work VL - 493 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Nature has long inspired scientists with its seemingly unlimited ability to harness solar energy and to utilize it to drive various physiological processes. With the help of man-made molecular photoswitches, we now have the potential to outperform natural systems in many ways, with the ultimate goal of fabricating multifunctional materials that operate at different light wavelengths. An important challenge in developing light-controlled artificial molecular machines lies in attaining a detailed understanding of the photoisomerization-coupled conformational changes that occur in macromolecules and molecular assemblies. In this issue of ACS Nano, Bléger, Rabe, and co-workers use force microscopy to provide interesting insights into the behavior of individual photoresponsive molecules and to identify contraction, extension, and crawling events accompanying light-induced isomerization. AU - Kundu, Pintu K. AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13399 IS - 12 JF - ACS Nano KW - General Physics and Astronomy KW - General Engineering KW - General Materials Science SN - 1936-0851 TI - Watching single molecules move in response to light VL - 8 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Nanoporous frameworks are polymeric materials built from rigid molecules, which give rise to their nanoporous structures with applications in gas sorption and storage, catalysis and others. Conceptually new applications could emerge, should these beneficial properties be manipulated by external stimuli in a reversible manner. One approach to render nanoporous frameworks responsive to external signals would be to immobilize molecular switches within their nanopores. Although the majority of molecular switches require conformational freedom to isomerize, and switching in the solid state is prohibited, the nanopores may provide enough room for the switches to efficiently isomerize. Here we describe two families of nanoporous materials incorporating the spiropyran molecular switch. These materials exhibit a variety of interesting properties, including reversible photochromism and acidochromism under solvent-free conditions, light-controlled capture and release of metal ions, as well reversible chromism induced by solvation/desolvation. AU - Kundu, Pintu K. AU - Olsen, Gregory L. AU - Kiss, Vladimir AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13402 JF - Nature Communications KW - General Physics and Astronomy KW - General Biochemistry KW - Genetics and Molecular Biology KW - General Chemistry KW - Multidisciplinary TI - Nanoporous frameworks exhibiting multiple stimuli responsiveness VL - 5 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Organizing inorganic nanocrystals into complex architectures is challenging and typically relies on preexisting templates, such as properly folded DNA or polypeptide chains. We found that under carefully controlled conditions, cubic nanocrystals of magnetite self-assemble into arrays of helical superstructures in a template-free manner with >99% yield. Computer simulations revealed that the formation of helices is determined by the interplay of van der Waals and magnetic dipole-dipole interactions, Zeeman coupling, and entropic forces and can be attributed to spontaneous formation of chiral nanocube clusters. Neighboring helices within their densely packed ensembles tended to adopt the same handedness in order to maximize packing, thus revealing a novel mechanism of symmetry breaking and chirality amplification. AU - Singh, Gurvinder AU - Chan, Henry AU - Baskin, Artem AU - Gelman, Elijah AU - Repnin, Nikita AU - Král, Petr AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13400 IS - 6201 JF - Science KW - Multidisciplinary SN - 0036-8075 TI - Self-assembly of magnetite nanocubes into helical superstructures VL - 345 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In the past few years, spiropyran has emerged as the molecule-of-choice for the construction of novel dynamic materials. This unique molecular switch undergoes structural isomerisation in response to a variety of orthogonal stimuli, e.g. light, temperature, metal ions, redox potential, and mechanical stress. Incorporation of this switch onto macromolecular supports or inorganic scaffolds allows for the creation of robust dynamic materials. This review discusses the synthesis, switching conditions, and use of dynamic materials in which spiropyran has been attached to the surfaces of polymers, biomacromolecules, inorganic nanoparticles, as well as solid surfaces. The resulting materials show fascinating properties whereby the state of the switch intimately affects a multitude of useful properties of the support. The utility of the spiropyran switch will undoubtedly endow these materials with far-reaching applications in the near future. AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13404 IS - 1 JF - Chemical Society Reviews KW - General Chemistry SN - 0306-0012 TI - Spiropyran-based dynamic materials VL - 43 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A compound combining the features of a molecular rotor and a photoswitch was synthesized and was shown to exist as three diastereomers, which interconvert via a reversible cyclic reaction scheme. Each of the three diastereomers was isolated, and by following the equilibration kinetics, activation barriers for all reactions were calculated. The results indicate that the properties of molecular switches depend heavily on their immediate chemical environment. The conclusions are important in the context of designing new switchable molecules and materials. AU - Kundu, Pintu K. AU - Lerner, Avishai AU - Kučanda, Kristina AU - Leitus, Gregory AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13401 IS - 32 JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society KW - Colloid and Surface Chemistry KW - Biochemistry KW - General Chemistry KW - Catalysis SN - 0002-7863 TI - Cyclic kinetics during thermal equilibration of an axially chiral bis-spiropyran VL - 136 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We show that bimolecular reactions between species confined to the surfaces of nanoparticles can be manipulated by the nature of the linker, as well as by the curvature of the underlying particles. AU - Zdobinsky, Tino AU - Sankar Maiti, Pradipta AU - Klajn, Rafal ID - 13403 IS - 7 JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society KW - Colloid and Surface Chemistry KW - Biochemistry KW - General Chemistry KW - Catalysis SN - 0002-7863 TI - Support curvature and conformational freedom control chemical reactivity of immobilized species VL - 136 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The sensitivities of high-harmonic generation (HHG) and strong-field ionization (SFI) to coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics are studied, using the nitric oxide (NO) molecule as an example. A coherent superposition of electronic and rotational states of NO is prepared by impulsive stimulated Raman scattering and probed by simultaneous detection of HHG and SFI yields. We observe a fourfold higher sensitivity of high-harmonic generation to electronic dynamics and attribute it to the presence of inelastic quantum paths connecting coherently related electronic states [Kraus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.111, 243005 (2013)]. Whereas different harmonic orders display very different sensitivities to rotational or electronic dynamics, strong-field ionization is found to be most sensitive to electronic motion. We introduce a general theoretical formalism for high-harmonic generation from coupled nuclear-electronic wave packets. We show that the unequal sensitivities of different harmonic orders to electronic or rotational dynamics result from the angle dependence of the photorecombination matrix elements which encode several autoionizing and shape resonances in the photoionization continuum of NO. We further study the dependence of rotational and electronic coherences on the intensity of the excitation pulse and support the observations with calculations. AU - Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova AU - Kraus, Peter M. AU - Zhang, Song Bin AU - Rohringer, Nina AU - Wörner, Hans Jakob ID - 14018 JF - Faraday Discussions KW - Physical and Theoretical Chemistry SN - 1359-6640 TI - The sensitivities of high-harmonic generation and strong-field ionization to coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics VL - 171 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The cyclopropene radical cation (c-C3H₄⁺) is an important but poorly characterized three-membered-ring hydrocarbon. We report on a measurement of the high-resolution photoelectron and photoionization spectra of cyclopropene and several deuterated isotopomers, from which we have determined the rovibrational energy level structure of the X⁺ (2)B2 ground electronic state of c-C3H₄⁺ at low energies for the first time. The synthesis of the partially deuterated isotopomers always resulted in mixtures of several isotopomers, differing in their number of D atoms and in the location of these atoms, so that the photoelectron spectra of deuterated samples are superpositions of the spectra of several isotopomers. The rotationally resolved spectra indicate a C(2v)-symmetric R0 structure for the ground electronic state of c-C3H₄⁺. Two vibrational modes of c-C3H₄⁺ are found to have vibrational wave numbers below 300 cm(-1), which is surprising for such a small cyclic hydrocarbon. The analysis of the isotopic shifts of the vibrational levels enabled the assignment of the lowest-frequency mode (fundamental wave number of ≈110 cm(-1) in c-C3H₄⁺) to the CH2 torsional mode (ν₈⁺, A2 symmetry) and of the second-lowest-frequency mode (≈210 cm(-1) in c-C3H₄⁺) to a mode combining a CH out-of-plane with a CH2 rocking motion (ν₁₅⁺, B2 symmetry). The potential energy along the CH2 torsional coordinate is flat near the equilibrium structure and leads to a pronounced anharmonicity. AU - Vasilatou, K. AU - Michaud, J. M. AU - Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova AU - Grassi, G. AU - Merkt, F. ID - 14019 IS - 6 JF - The Journal of Chemical Physics KW - Physical and Theoretical Chemistry KW - General Physics and Astronomy SN - 0021-9606 TI - The cyclopropene radical cation: Rovibrational level structure at low energies from high-resolution photoelectron spectra VL - 141 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We present the detailed analysis of a new two-pulse orientation scheme that achieves macroscopic field-free orientation at the high particle densities required for attosecond and high-harmonic spectroscopies (Kraus et al 2013 arXiv:1311.3923). Carbon monoxide molecules are oriented by combining one-colour and delayed two-colour non-resonant femtosecond laser pulses. High-harmonic generation is used to probe the oriented wave-packet dynamics and reveals that a very high degree of orientation (Nup/Ntotal = 0.73–0.82) is achieved. We further extend this approach to orienting carbonyl sulphide molecules. We show that the present two-pulse scheme selectively enhances orientation created by the hyperpolarizability interaction whereas the ionization-depletion mechanism plays no role. We further control and optimize orientation through the delay between the one- and two-colour pump pulses. Finally, we demonstrate a complementary encoding of electronic-structure features, such as shape resonances, in the even- and odd-harmonic spectrum. The achieved progress makes two-pulse field-free orientation an attractive tool for a broad class of time-resolved measurements. AU - Kraus, P M AU - Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova AU - Wörner, H J ID - 14021 IS - 12 JF - Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics KW - Condensed Matter Physics KW - Atomic and Molecular Physics KW - and Optics SN - 0953-4075 TI - Two-pulse orientation dynamics and high-harmonic spectroscopy of strongly-oriented molecules VL - 47 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We report the observation of macroscopic field-free orientation, i.e., more than 73% of CO molecules pointing in the same direction. This is achieved through an all-optical scheme operating at high particle densities (>10(17)  cm(-3)) that combines one-color (ω) and two-color (ω+2ω) nonresonant femtosecond laser pulses. We show that the achieved orientation solely relies on the hyperpolarizability interaction as opposed to an ionization-depletion mechanism, thus, opening a wide range of applications. The achieved strong orientation enables us to reveal the molecular-frame anisotropies of the photorecombination amplitudes and phases caused by a shape resonance. The resonance appears as a local maximum in the even-harmonic emission around 28 eV. In contrast, the odd-harmonic emission is suppressed in this spectral region through the combined effects of an asymmetric photorecombination phase and a subcycle Stark effect, generic for polar molecules, that we experimentally identify. AU - Kraus, P. M. AU - Baykusheva, Denitsa Rangelova AU - Wörner, H. J. ID - 14020 IS - 2 JF - Physical Review Letters KW - General Physics and Astronomy SN - 0031-9007 TI - Two-pulse field-free orientation reveals anisotropy of molecular shape resonance VL - 113 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Energy games belong to a class of turn-based two-player infinite-duration games played on a weighted directed graph. It is one of the rare and intriguing combinatorial problems that lie in NP∩co-NP, but are not known to be in P. The existence of polynomial-time algorithms has been a major open problem for decades and apart from pseudopolynomial algorithms there is no algorithm that solves any non-trivial subclass in polynomial time. In this paper, we give several results based on the weight structures of the graph. First, we identify a notion of penalty and present a polynomial-time algorithm when the penalty is large. Our algorithm is the first polynomial-time algorithm on a large class of weighted graphs. It includes several worst-case instances on which previous algorithms, such as value iteration and random facet algorithms, require at least sub-exponential time. Our main technique is developing the first non-trivial approximation algorithm and showing how to convert it to an exact algorithm. Moreover, we show that in a practical case in verification where weights are clustered around a constant number of values, the energy game problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also show that the problem is still as hard as in general when the clique-width is bounded or the graph is strongly ergodic, suggesting that restricting the graph structure does not necessarily help. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Henzinger, Monika H AU - Krinninger, Sebastian AU - Nanongkai, Danupon ID - 535 IS - 3 JF - Algorithmica TI - Polynomial-time algorithms for energy games with special weight structures VL - 70 ER - TY - CONF AB - We propose a method for visualizing two-dimensional symmetric positive definite tensor fields using the Heat Kernel Signature (HKS). The HKS is derived from the heat kernel and was originally introduced as an isometry invariant shape signature. Each positive definite tensor field defines a Riemannian manifold by considering the tensor field as a Riemannian metric. On this Riemmanian manifold we can apply the definition of the HKS. The resulting scalar quantity is used for the visualization of tensor fields. The HKS is closely related to the Gaussian curvature of the Riemannian manifold and the time parameter of the heat kernel allows a multiscale analysis in a natural way. In this way, the HKS represents field related scale space properties, enabling a level of detail analysis of tensor fields. This makes the HKS an interesting new scalar quantity for tensor fields, which differs significantly from usual tensor invariants like the trace or the determinant. A method for visualization and a numerical realization of the HKS for tensor fields is proposed in this chapter. To validate the approach we apply it to some illustrating simple examples as isolated critical points and to a medical diffusion tensor data set. AU - Zobel, Valentin AU - Reininghaus, Jan AU - Hotz, Ingrid ID - 10886 SN - 1612-3786 T2 - Topological Methods in Data Analysis and Visualization III TI - Visualization of two-dimensional symmetric positive definite tensor fields using the heat kernel signature ER - TY - CHAP AB - Mechanically coupled cells can generate forces driving cell and tissue morphogenesis during development. Visualization and measuring of these forces is of major importance to better understand the complexity of the biomechanic processes that shape cells and tissues. Here, we describe how UV laser ablation can be utilized to quantitatively assess mechanical tension in different tissues of the developing zebrafish and in cultures of primary germ layer progenitor cells ex vivo. AU - Smutny, Michael AU - Behrndt, Martin AU - Campinho, Pedro AU - Ruprecht, Verena AU - Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J ED - Nelson, Celeste ID - 6178 SN - 1064-3745 T2 - Tissue Morphogenesis TI - UV laser ablation to measure cell and tissue-generated forces in the zebrafish embryo in vivo and ex vivo VL - 1189 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We review recent progress towards a rigorous understanding of the excitation spectrum of bosonic quantum many-body systems. In particular, we explain how one can rigorously establish the predictions resulting from the Bogoliubov approximation in the mean field limit. The latter predicts that the spectrum is made up of elementary excitations, whose energy behaves linearly in the momentum for small momentum. This property is crucial for the superfluid behavior of the system. We also discuss a list of open problems in this field. AU - Seiringer, Robert ID - 10814 JF - Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung KW - General Medicine SN - 0012-0456 TI - The excitation spectrum for Bose fluids with weak interactions VL - 116 ER - TY - CHAP AB - The Morse-Smale complex can be either explicitly or implicitly represented. Depending on the type of representation, the simplification of the Morse-Smale complex works differently. In the explicit representation, the Morse-Smale complex is directly simplified by explicitly reconnecting the critical points during the simplification. In the implicit representation, on the other hand, the Morse-Smale complex is given by a combinatorial gradient field. In this setting, the simplification changes the combinatorial flow, which yields an indirect simplification of the Morse-Smale complex. The topological complexity of the Morse-Smale complex is reduced in both representations. However, the simplifications generally yield different results. In this chapter, we emphasize properties of the two representations that cause these differences. We also provide a complexity analysis of the two schemes with respect to running time and memory consumption. AU - Günther, David AU - Reininghaus, Jan AU - Seidel, Hans-Peter AU - Weinkauf, Tino ED - Bremer, Peer-Timo ED - Hotz, Ingrid ED - Pascucci, Valerio ED - Peikert, Ronald ID - 10817 SN - 1612-3786 T2 - Topological Methods in Data Analysis and Visualization III. TI - Notes on the simplification of the Morse-Smale complex ER - TY - THES AB - In this thesis I studied various individual and social immune defences employed by the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus mostly against entomopathogenic fungi. The first two chapters of this thesis address the phenomenon of 'social immunisation'. Social immunisation, that is the immunological protection of group members due to social contact to a pathogen-exposed nestmate, has been described in various social insect species against different types of pathogens. However, in the case of entomopathogenic fungi it has, so far, only been demonstrated that social immunisation exists at all. Its underlying mechanisms r any other properties were, however, unknown. In the first chapter of this thesis I identified the mechanistic basis of social immunisation in L. neglectus against the entomopathogenous fungus Metarhizium. I could show that nestmates of a pathogen-exposed individual contract low-level infections due to social interactions. These low-level infections are, however, non-lethal and cause an active stimulation of the immune system, which protects the nestmates upon subsequent pathogen encounters. In the second chapter of this thesis I investigated the specificity and colony level effects of social immunisation. I demonstrated that the protection conferred by social immunisation is highly specific, protecting ants only against the same pathogen strain. In addition, depending on the respective context, social immunisation may even cause fitness costs. I further showed that social immunisation crucially affects sanitary behaviour and disease dynamics within ant groups. In the third chapter of this thesis I studied the effects of the ectosymbiotic fungus Laboulbenia formicarum on its host L. neglectus. Although Laboulbeniales are the largest order of insect-parasitic fungi, research concerning host fitness consequence is sparse. I showed that highly Laboulbenia-infected ants sustain fitness costs under resource limitation, however, gain fitness benefits when exposed to an entomopathogenus fungus. These effects are probably cause by a prophylactic upregulation of behavioural as well as physiological immune defences in highly infected ants. AU - Konrad, Matthias ID - 1395 SN - 2663-337X TI - Immune defences in ants: Effects of social immunisation and a fungal ectosymbiont in the ant Lasius neglectus ER - TY - THES AB - Phosphatidylinositol (Ptdlns) is a structural phospholipid that can be phosphorylated into various lipid signaling molecules, designated polyphosphoinositides (PPIs). The reversible phosphorylation of PPIs on the 3, 4, or 5 position of inositol is performed by a set of organelle-specific kinases and phosphatases, and the characteristic head groups make these molecules ideal for regulating biological processes in time and space. In yeast and mammals, Ptdlns3P and Ptdlns(3,5)P2 play crucial roles in trafficking toward the lytic compartments, whereas the role in plants is not yet fully understood. Here we identified the role of a land plant-specific subgroup of PPI phosphatases, the suppressor of actin 2 (SAC2) to SAC5, during vauolar trafficking and morphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana. SAC2-SAC5 localize to the tonoplast along with Ptdlns3P, the presumable product of their activity. in SAC gain- and loss-of-function mutants, the levels of Ptdlns monophosphates and bisphosphates were changed, with opposite effects on the morphology of storage and lytic vacuoles, and the trafficking toward the vacuoles was defective. Moreover, multiple sac knockout mutants had an increased number of smaller storage and lytic vacuoles, whereas extralarge vacuoles were observed in the overexpression lines, correlating with various growth and developmental defects. The fragmented vacuolar phenotype of sac mutants could be mimicked by treating wild-type seedlings with Ptdlns(3,5)P2, corroborating that this PPI is important for vacuole morphology. Taken together, these results provide evidence that PPIs, together with their metabolic enzymes SAC2-SAC5, are crucial for vacuolar trafficking and for vacuolar morphology and function in plants. AU - Marhavá, Petra ID - 1402 SN - 2663-337X TI - Molecular mechanisms of patterning and subcellular trafficking in Arabidopsis thaliana ER - TY - JOUR AB - Motivated by applications in biology, we present an algorithm for estimating the length of tube-like shapes in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. In a first step, we combine the tube formula of Weyl with integral geometric methods to obtain an integral representation of the length, which we approximate using a variant of the Koksma-Hlawka Theorem. In a second step, we use tools from computational topology to decrease the dependence on small perturbations of the shape. We present computational experiments that shed light on the stability and the convergence rate of our algorithm. AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Pausinger, Florian ID - 2255 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision SN - 09249907 TI - Stable length estimates of tube-like shapes VL - 50 ER - TY - CONF AB - Motivated by topological Tverberg-type problems, we consider multiple (double, triple, and higher multiplicity) selfintersection points of maps from finite simplicial complexes (compact polyhedra) into ℝd and study conditions under which such multiple points can be eliminated. The most classical case is that of embeddings (i.e., maps without double points) of a κ-dimensional complex K into ℝ2κ. For this problem, the work of van Kampen, Shapiro, and Wu provides an efficiently testable necessary condition for embeddability (namely, vanishing of the van Kampen ob-struction). For κ ≥ 3, the condition is also sufficient, and yields a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding embeddability: One starts with an arbitrary map f : K→ℝ2κ, which generically has finitely many double points; if k ≥ 3 and if the obstruction vanishes then one can successively remove these double points by local modifications of the map f. One of the main tools is the famous Whitney trick that permits eliminating pairs of double points of opposite intersection sign. We are interested in generalizing this approach to intersection points of higher multiplicity. We call a point y 2 ℝd an r-fold Tverberg point of a map f : Kκ →ℝd if y lies in the intersection f(σ1)∩. ∩f(σr) of the images of r pairwise disjoint simplices of K. The analogue of (non-)embeddability that we study is the problem Tverbergκ r→d: Given a κ-dimensional complex K, does it satisfy a Tverberg-type theorem with parameters r and d, i.e., does every map f : K κ → ℝd have an r-fold Tverberg point? Here, we show that for fixed r, κ and d of the form d = rm and k = (r-1)m, m ≥ 3, there is a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding this (based on the vanishing of a cohomological obstruction, as in the case of embeddings). Our main tool is an r-fold analogue of the Whitney trick: Given r pairwise disjoint simplices of K such that the intersection of their images contains two r-fold Tverberg points y+ and y- of opposite intersection sign, we can eliminate y+ and y- by a local isotopy of f. In a subsequent paper, we plan to develop this further and present a generalization of the classical Haeiger-Weber Theorem (which yields a necessary and sufficient condition for embeddability of κ-complexes into ℝd for a wider range of dimensions) to intersection points of higher multiplicity. AU - Mabillard, Isaac AU - Wagner, Uli ID - 2159 T2 - Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry TI - Eliminating Tverberg points, I. An analogue of the Whitney trick ER - TY - JOUR AB - Understanding the evolution of dispersal is essential for understanding and predicting the dynamics of natural populations. Two main factors are known to influence dispersal evolution: spatio-temporal variation in the environment and relatedness between individuals. However, the relation between these factors is still poorly understood, and they are usually treated separately. In this article, I present a theoretical framework that contains and connects effects of both environmental variation and relatedness, and reproduces and extends their known features. Spatial habitat variation selects for balanced dispersal strategies, whereby the population is kept at an ideal free distribution. Within this class of dispersal strategies, I explain how increased dispersal is promoted by perturbations to the dispersal type frequencies. An explicit formula shows the magnitude of the selective advantage of increased dispersal in terms of the spatial variability in the frequencies of the different dispersal strategies present. These variances are capable of capturing various sources of stochasticity and hence establish a common scale for their effects on the evolution of dispersal. The results furthermore indicate an alternative approach to identifying effects of relatedness on dispersal evolution. AU - Novak, Sebastian ID - 2023 IS - 24 JF - Ecology and Evolution TI - Habitat heterogeneities versus spatial type frequency variances as driving forces of dispersal evolution VL - 4 ER - TY - CONF AB - While fixing concurrency bugs, program repair algorithms may introduce new concurrency bugs. We present an algorithm that avoids such regressions. The solution space is given by a set of program transformations we consider in the repair process. These include reordering of instructions within a thread and inserting atomic sections. The new algorithm learns a constraint on the space of candidate solutions, from both positive examples (error-free traces) and counterexamples (error traces). From each counterexample, the algorithm learns a constraint necessary to remove the errors. From each positive examples, it learns a constraint that is necessary in order to prevent the repair from turning the trace into an error trace. We implemented the algorithm and evaluated it on simplified Linux device drivers with known bugs. AU - Cerny, Pavol AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Radhakrishna, Arjun AU - Ryzhyk, Leonid AU - Tarrach, Thorsten ID - 2218 SN - 978-331908866-2 TI - Regression-free synthesis for concurrency VL - 8559 ER - TY - CONF AB - Model-based testing is a promising technology for black-box software and hardware testing, in which test cases are generated automatically from high-level specifications. Nowadays, systems typically consist of multiple interacting components and, due to their complexity, testing presents a considerable portion of the effort and cost in the design process. Exploiting the compositional structure of system specifications can considerably reduce the effort in model-based testing. Moreover, inferring properties about the system from testing its individual components allows the designer to reduce the amount of integration testing. In this paper, we study compositional properties of the ioco-testing theory. We propose a new approach to composition and hiding operations, inspired by contract-based design and interface theories. These operations preserve behaviors that are compatible under composition and hiding, and prune away incompatible ones. The resulting specification characterizes the input sequences for which the unit testing of components is sufficient to infer the correctness of component integration without the need for further tests. We provide a methodology that uses these results to minimize integration testing effort, but also to detect potential weaknesses in specifications. While we focus on asynchronous models and the ioco conformance relation, the resulting methodology can be applied to a broader class of systems. AU - Daca, Przemyslaw AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Krenn, Willibald AU - Nickovic, Dejan ID - 2167 SN - 2159-4848 T2 - IEEE 7th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation TI - Compositional specifications for IOCO testing ER - TY - CONF AB - We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) which are a standard model for probabilistic systems.We focus on qualitative properties forMDPs 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 ofMDPs with respect to qualitative properties, and present discrete graph theoretic algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation.We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis ofMDPs with qualitative properties by giving a counterexample guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Chmelik, Martin AU - Daca, Przemyslaw ID - 2063 TI - CEGAR for qualitative analysis of probabilistic systems VL - 8559 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Antibiotics affect bacterial cell physiology at many levels. Rather than just compensating for the direct cellular defects caused by the drug, bacteria respond to antibiotics by changing their morphology, macromolecular composition, metabolism, gene expression and possibly even their mutation rate. Inevitably, these processes affect each other, resulting in a complex response with changes in the expression of numerous genes. Genome‐wide approaches can thus help in gaining a comprehensive understanding of bacterial responses to antibiotics. In addition, a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches is needed for identifying general principles that underlie these responses. Here, we review recent progress in our understanding of bacterial responses to antibiotics and their combinations, focusing on effects at the levels of growth rate and gene expression. We concentrate on studies performed in controlled laboratory conditions, which combine promising experimental techniques with quantitative data analysis and mathematical modeling. While these basic research approaches are not immediately applicable in the clinic, uncovering the principles and mechanisms underlying bacterial responses to antibiotics may, in the long term, contribute to the development of new treatment strategies to cope with and prevent the rise of resistant pathogenic bacteria. AU - Mitosch, Karin AU - Bollenbach, Tobias ID - 2001 IS - 6 JF - Environmental Microbiology Reports TI - Bacterial responses to antibiotics and their combinations VL - 6 ER - TY - CONF AB - NMAC is a mode of operation which turns a fixed input-length keyed hash function f into a variable input-length function. A practical single-key variant of NMAC called HMAC is a very popular and widely deployed message authentication code (MAC). Security proofs and attacks for NMAC can typically be lifted to HMAC. NMAC was introduced by Bellare, Canetti and Krawczyk [Crypto'96], who proved it to be a secure pseudorandom function (PRF), and thus also a MAC, assuming that (1) f is a PRF and (2) the function we get when cascading f is weakly collision-resistant. Unfortunately, HMAC is typically instantiated with cryptographic hash functions like MD5 or SHA-1 for which (2) has been found to be wrong. To restore the provable guarantees for NMAC, Bellare [Crypto'06] showed its security based solely on the assumption that f is a PRF, albeit via a non-uniform reduction. - Our first contribution is a simpler and uniform proof for this fact: If f is an ε-secure PRF (against q queries) and a δ-non-adaptively secure PRF (against q queries), then NMAC f is an (ε+ℓqδ)-secure PRF against q queries of length at most ℓ blocks each. - We then show that this ε+ℓqδ bound is basically tight. For the most interesting case where ℓqδ ≥ ε we prove this by constructing an f for which an attack with advantage ℓqδ exists. This also violates the bound O(ℓε) on the PRF-security of NMAC recently claimed by Koblitz and Menezes. - Finally, we analyze the PRF-security of a modification of NMAC called NI [An and Bellare, Crypto'99] that differs mainly by using a compression function with an additional keying input. This avoids the constant rekeying on multi-block messages in NMAC and allows for a security proof starting by the standard switch from a PRF to a random function, followed by an information-theoretic analysis. We carry out such an analysis, obtaining a tight ℓq2/2 c bound for this step, improving over the trivial bound of ℓ2q2/2c. The proof borrows combinatorial techniques originally developed for proving the security of CBC-MAC [Bellare et al., Crypto'05]. AU - Gazi, Peter AU - Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z AU - Rybar, Michal ED - Garay, Juan ED - Gennaro, Rosario ID - 2082 IS - 1 TI - The exact PRF-security of NMAC and HMAC VL - 8616 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Kupffer's vesicle (KV) is the zebrafish organ of laterality, patterning the embryo along its left-right (LR) axis. Regional differences in cell shape within the lumen-lining KV epithelium are essential for its LR patterning function. However, the processes by which KV cells acquire their characteristic shapes are largely unknown. Here, we show that the notochord induces regional differences in cell shape within KV by triggering extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation adjacent to anterior-dorsal (AD) regions of KV. This localized ECM deposition restricts apical expansion of lumen-lining epithelial cells in AD regions of KV during lumen growth. Our study provides mechanistic insight into the processes by which KV translates global embryonic patterning into regional cell shape differences required for its LR symmetry-breaking function. AU - Compagnon, Julien AU - Barone, Vanessa AU - Rajshekar, Srivarsha AU - Kottmeier, Rita AU - Pranjic-Ferscha, Kornelija AU - Behrndt, Martin AU - Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J ID - 1912 IS - 6 JF - Developmental Cell TI - The notochord breaks bilateral symmetry by controlling cell shapes in the Zebrafish laterality organ VL - 31 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are a large family of cell surface receptors that sense growth factors and hormones and regulate a variety of cell behaviours in health and disease. Contactless activation of RTKs with spatial and temporal precision is currently not feasible. Here, we generated RTKs that are insensitive to endogenous ligands but can be selectively activated by low-intensity blue light. We screened light-oxygen-voltage (LOV)-sensing domains for their ability to activate RTKs by light-activated dimerization. Incorporation of LOV domains found in aureochrome photoreceptors of stramenopiles resulted in robust activation of the fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and rearranged during transfection (RET). In human cancer and endothelial cells, light induced cellular signalling with spatial and temporal precision. Furthermore, light faithfully mimicked complex mitogenic and morphogenic cell behaviour induced by growth factors. RTKs under optical control (Opto-RTKs) provide a powerful optogenetic approach to actuate cellular signals and manipulate cell behaviour. AU - Grusch, Michael AU - Schelch, Karin AU - Riedler, Robert AU - Gschaider-Reichhart, Eva AU - Differ, Christopher AU - Berger, Walter AU - Inglés Prieto, Álvaro AU - Janovjak, Harald L ID - 2084 IS - 15 JF - EMBO Journal TI - Spatio-temporally precise activation of engineered receptor tyrosine kinases by light VL - 33 ER - TY - CONF AB - We show that the following algorithmic problem is decidable: given a 2-dimensional simplicial complex, can it be embedded (topologically, or equivalently, piecewise linearly) in ℝ3? By a known reduction, it suffices to decide the embeddability of a given triangulated 3-manifold X into the 3-sphere S3. The main step, which allows us to simplify X and recurse, is in proving that if X can be embedded in S3, then there is also an embedding in which X has a short meridian, i.e., an essential curve in the boundary of X bounding a disk in S3 nX with length bounded by a computable function of the number of tetrahedra of X. AU - Matoušek, Jiří AU - Sedgwick, Eric AU - Tancer, Martin AU - Wagner, Uli ID - 2157 T2 - Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry TI - Embeddability in the 3 sphere is decidable ER - TY - CONF AB - PHAT is a C++ library for the computation of persistent homology by matrix reduction. We aim for a simple generic design that decouples algorithms from data structures without sacrificing efficiency or user-friendliness. This makes PHAT a versatile platform for experimenting with algorithmic ideas and comparing them to state of the art implementations. AU - Bauer, Ulrich AU - Kerber, Michael AU - Reininghaus, Jan AU - Wagner, Hubert ID - 10894 SN - 0302-9743 T2 - ICMS 2014: International Congress on Mathematical Software TI - PHAT – Persistent Homology Algorithms Toolbox VL - 8592 ER - TY - GEN AB - Simulation is an attractive alternative for language inclusion for automata as it is an under-approximation of language inclusion, but usually has much lower complexity. For non-deterministic automata, while language inclusion is PSPACE-complete, simulation can be computed in polynomial time. Simulation has also been extended in two orthogonal directions, namely, (1) fair simulation, for simulation over specified set of infinite runs; and (2) quantitative simulation, for simulation between weighted automata. Again, while fair trace inclusion is PSPACE-complete, fair simulation can be computed in polynomial time. For weighted automata, the (quantitative) language inclusion problem is undecidable for mean-payoff automata and the decidability is open for discounted-sum automata, whereas the (quantitative) simulation reduce to mean-payoff games and discounted-sum games, which admit pseudo-polynomial time algorithms. In this work, we study (quantitative) simulation for weighted automata with Büchi acceptance conditions, i.e., we generalize fair simulation from non-weighted automata to weighted automata. We show that imposing Büchi acceptance conditions on weighted automata changes many fundamental properties of the simulation games. For example, whereas for mean-payoff and discounted-sum games, the players do not need memory to play optimally; we show in contrast that for simulation games with Büchi acceptance conditions, (i) for mean-payoff objectives, optimal strategies for both players require infinite memory in general, and (ii) for discounted-sum objectives, optimal strategies need not exist for both players. While the simulation games with Büchi acceptance conditions are more complicated (e.g., due to infinite-memory requirements for mean-payoff objectives) as compared to their counterpart without Büchi acceptance conditions, we still present pseudo-polynomial time algorithms to solve simulation games with Büchi acceptance conditions for both weighted mean-payoff and weighted discounted-sum automata. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Otop, Jan AU - Velner, Yaron ID - 5428 SN - 2664-1690 TI - Quantitative fair simulation games ER - TY - JOUR AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 1887 JF - Zoologie TI - Gemeinsame Krankheitsabwehr in Ameisengesellschaften ER - TY - JOUR AB - The cerebral cortex, the seat of our cognitive abilities, is composed of an intricate network of billions of excitatory projection and inhibitory interneurons. Postmitotic cortical neurons are generated by a diverse set of neural stem cell progenitors within dedicated zones and defined periods of neurogenesis during embryonic development. Disruptions in neurogenesis can lead to alterations in the neuronal cytoarchitecture, which is thought to represent a major underlying cause for several neurological disorders, including microcephaly, autism and epilepsy. Although a number of signaling pathways regulating neurogenesis have been described, the precise cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating the functional neural stem cell properties in cortical neurogenesis remain unclear. Here, we discuss the most up-to-date strategies to monitor the fundamental mechanistic parameters of neuronal progenitor proliferation, and recent advances deciphering the logic and dynamics of neurogenesis. AU - Postiglione, Maria P AU - Hippenmeyer, Simon ID - 2175 IS - 3 JF - Future Neurology SN - 1479-6708 TI - Monitoring neurogenesis in the cerebral cortex: an update VL - 9 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Deposits of phosphorylated tau protein and convergence of pathology in the hippocampus are the hallmarks of neurodegenerative tauopathies. Thus we aimed to evaluate whether regional and cellular vulnerability patterns in the hippocampus distinguish tauopathies or are influenced by their concomitant presence. Methods: We created a heat map of phospho-tau (AT8) immunoreactivity patterns in 24 hippocampal subregions/layers in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related neurofibrillary degeneration (n = 40), Pick's disease (n = 8), progressive supranuclear palsy (n = 7), corticobasal degeneration (n = 6), argyrophilic grain disease (AGD, n = 18), globular glial tauopathy (n = 5), and tau-astrogliopathy of the elderly (n = 10). AT8 immunoreactivity patterns were compared by mathematical analysis. Results: Our study reveals disease-specific hot spots and regional selective vulnerability for these disorders. The pattern of hippocampal AD-related tau pathology is strongly influenced by concomitant AGD. Mathematical analysis reveals that hippocampal involvement in primary tauopathies is distinguishable from early-stage AD-related neurofibrillary degeneration. Conclusion: Our data demonstrate disease-specific AT8 immunoreactivity patterns and hot spots in the hippocampus even in tauopathies, which primarily do not affect the hippocampus. These hot spots can be shifted to other regions by the co-occurrence of tauopathies like AGD. Our observations support the notion that globular glial tauopathies and tau-astrogliopathy of the elderly are distinct entities. AU - Milenković, Ivan AU - Petrov, Tatjana AU - Kovács, Gábor ID - 1913 IS - 5-6 JF - Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders SN - 1420-8008 TI - Patterns of hippocampal tau pathology differentiate neurodegenerative dementias VL - 38 ER - TY - CONF AB - The Wigner-Dyson-Gaudin-Mehta conjecture asserts that the local eigenvalue statistics of large real and complex Hermitian matrices with independent, identically distributed entries are universal in a sense that they depend only on the symmetry class of the matrix and otherwise are independent of the details of the distribution. We present the recent solution to this half-century old conjecture. We explain how stochastic tools, such as the Dyson Brownian motion, and PDE ideas, such as De Giorgi-Nash-Moser regularity theory, were combined in the solution. We also show related results for log-gases that represent a universal model for strongly correlated systems. Finally, in the spirit of Wigner’s original vision, we discuss the extensions of these universality results to more realistic physical systems such as random band matrices. AU - Erdös, László ID - 1507 T2 - Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians TI - Random matrices, log-gases and Hölder regularity VL - 3 ER - TY - CONF AB - Many questions concerning models in quantum mechanics require a detailed analysis of the spectrum of the corresponding Hamiltonian, a linear operator on a suitable Hilbert space. Of particular relevance for an understanding of the low-temperature properties of a system is the structure of the excitation spectrum, which is the part of the spectrum close to the spectral bottom. We present recent progress on this question for bosonic many-body quantum systems with weak two-body interactions. Such system are currently of great interest, due to their experimental realization in ultra-cold atomic gases. We investigate the accuracy of the Bogoliubov approximations, which predicts that the low-energy spectrum is made up of sums of elementary excitations, with linear dispersion law at low momentum. The latter property is crucial for the superfluid behavior the system. AU - Seiringer, Robert ID - 8044 SN - 9788961058063 T2 - Proceeding of the International Congress of Mathematicans TI - Structure of the excitation spectrum for many-body quantum systems VL - 3 ER - TY - CONF AB - Transfer learning has received a lot of attention in the machine learning community over the last years, and several effective algorithms have been developed. However, relatively little is known about their theoretical properties, especially in the setting of lifelong learning, where the goal is to transfer information to tasks for which no data have been observed so far. In this work we study lifelong learning from a theoretical perspective. Our main result is a PAC-Bayesian generalization bound that offers a unified view on existing paradigms for transfer learning, such as the transfer of parameters or the transfer of low-dimensional representations. We also use the bound to derive two principled lifelong learning algorithms, and we show that these yield results comparable with existing methods. AU - Pentina, Anastasia AU - Lampert, Christoph ID - 2160 TI - A PAC-Bayesian bound for Lifelong Learning VL - 32 ER - TY - THES AB - A variety of developmental and disease related processes depend on epithelial cell sheet spreading. In order to gain insight into the biophysical mechanism(s) underlying the tissue morphogenesis we studied the spreading of an epithelium during the early development of the zebrafish embryo. In zebrafish epiboly the enveloping cell layer (EVL), a simple squamous epithelium, spreads over the yolk cell to completely engulf it at the end of gastrulation. Previous studies have proposed that an actomyosin ring forming within the yolk syncytial layer (YSL) acts as purse string that through constriction along its circumference pulls on the margin of the EVL. Direct biophysical evidence for this hypothesis has however been missing. The aim of the thesis was to understand how the actomyosin ring may generate pulling forces onto the EVL and what cellular mechanism(s) may facilitate the spreading of the epithelium. Using laser ablation to measure cortical tension within the actomyosin ring we found an anisotropic tension distribution, which was highest along the circumference of the ring. However the low degree of anisotropy was incompatible with the actomyosin ring functioning as a purse string only. Additionally, we observed retrograde cortical flow from vegetal parts of the ring into the EVL margin. Interpreting the experimental data using a theoretical distribution that models the tissues as active viscous gels led us to proposen that the actomyosin ring has a twofold contribution to EVL epiboly. It not only acts as a purse string through constriction along its circumference, but in addition constriction along the width of the ring generates pulling forces through friction-resisted cortical flow. Moreover, when rendering the purse string mechanism unproductive EVL epiboly proceeded normally indicating that the flow-friction mechanism is sufficient to drive the process. Aiming to understand what cellular mechanism(s) may facilitate the spreading of the epithelium we found that tension-oriented EVL cell divisions limit tissue anisotropy by releasing tension along the division axis and promote epithelial spreading. Notably, EVL cells undergo ectopic cell fusion in conditions in which oriented-cell division is impaired or the epithelium is mechanically challenged. Taken together our study of EVL epiboly suggests a novel mechanism of force generation for actomyosin rings through friction-resisted cortical flow and highlights the importance of tension-oriented cell divisions in epithelial morphogenesis. AU - Behrndt, Martin ID - 1403 TI - Forces driving epithelial spreading in zebrafish epiboly ER - TY - CHAP AB - Im Rahmen meiner Arbeit mit der kollektiven Krankheitsabwehr in Ameisengesellschaften interessiert mich vor allem, wie sich die Kolonien als Ganzes gegen Krankheiten wehren können. Warum ist dieses Thema der Krankheitsdynamik in Gruppen so wichtig? Ein Vergleich von solitär lebenden Individuen mit Individuen, die in sozialen Gruppen zusammenleben, zeigt die Kosten und die Vorteile des Gruppenlebens: Einerseits haben Individuen in sozialen Gruppen aufgrund der hohen Dichte, in der die Tiere zusammenleben, den hohen Interaktionsraten, die sie miteinander haben, und der engen Verwandtschaft, die sie verbindet, ein höheres Ansteckungsrisiko. Andererseits kann die individuelle Krankheitsabwehr durch die kollektive Abwehr in den Gruppen ergänzt werden. AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 1888 SN - 2366-2875 T2 - Soziale Insekten in einer sich wandelnden Welt TI - Soziale Immunität: Wie sich der Staat gegen Pathogene wehrt Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften VL - 43 ER - TY - GEN AB - The classical sphere packing problem asks for the best (infinite) arrangement of non-overlapping unit balls which cover as much space as possible. We define a generalized version of the problem, where we allow each ball a limited amount of overlap with other balls. We study two natural choices of overlap measures and obtain the optimal lattice packings in a parameterized family of lattices which contains the FCC, BCC, and integer lattice. AU - Iglesias Ham, Mabel AU - Kerber, Michael AU - Uhler, Caroline ID - 2012 T2 - arXiv TI - Sphere packing with limited overlap ER - TY - JOUR AB - DNA has become a prime material for assembling complex three-dimensional objects that promise utility in various areas of application. However, achieving user-defined goals with DNA objects has been hampered by the difficulty to prepare them at arbitrary concentrations and in user-defined solution conditions. Here, we describe a method that solves this problem. The method is based on poly(ethylene glycol)-induced depletion of species with high molecular weight. We demonstrate that our method is applicable to a wide spectrum of DNA shapes and that it achieves excellent recovery yields of target objects up to 97 %, while providing efficient separation from non-integrated DNA strands. DNA objects may be prepared at concentrations up to the limit of solubility, including the possibility for bringing DNA objects into a solid phase. Due to the fidelity and simplicity of our method we anticipate that it will help to catalyze the development of new types of applications that use self-assembled DNA objects. AU - Stahl, Evi AU - Martin, Thomas AU - Praetorius, Florian M AU - Dietz, Hendrik ID - 14301 IS - 47 JF - Angewandte Chemie International Edition SN - 1433-7851 TI - Facile and scalable preparation of pure and dense DNA origami solutions VL - 126 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Sweeney, Lora Beatrice Jaeger AU - Kelley, Darcy B ID - 7699 IS - 10 JF - Current Opinion in Neurobiology SN - 0959-4388 TI - Harnessing vocal patterns for social communication VL - 28 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates with attractive interaction, described by the Gross-Pitaevskii functional. Minimizers of this functional exist only if the interaction strength a satisfies {Mathematical expression}, where Q is the unique positive radial solution of {Mathematical expression} in {Mathematical expression}. We present a detailed analysis of the behavior of minimizers as a approaches a*, where all the mass concentrates at a global minimum of the trapping potential. AU - Guo, Yujin AU - Seiringer, Robert ID - 2281 IS - 2 JF - Letters in Mathematical Physics TI - On the mass concentration for Bose-Einstein condensates with attractive interactions VL - 104 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Maximum entropy models are the least structured probability distributions that exactly reproduce a chosen set of statistics measured in an interacting network. Here we use this principle to construct probabilistic models which describe the correlated spiking activity of populations of up to 120 neurons in the salamander retina as it responds to natural movies. Already in groups as small as 10 neurons, interactions between spikes can no longer be regarded as small perturbations in an otherwise independent system; for 40 or more neurons pairwise interactions need to be supplemented by a global interaction that controls the distribution of synchrony in the population. Here we show that such “K-pairwise” models—being systematic extensions of the previously used pairwise Ising models—provide an excellent account of the data. We explore the properties of the neural vocabulary by: 1) estimating its entropy, which constrains the population's capacity to represent visual information; 2) classifying activity patterns into a small set of metastable collective modes; 3) showing that the neural codeword ensembles are extremely inhomogenous; 4) demonstrating that the state of individual neurons is highly predictable from the rest of the population, allowing the capacity for error correction. AU - Tkacik, Gasper AU - Marre, Olivier AU - Amodei, Dario AU - Schneidman, Elad AU - Bialek, William AU - Berry, Michael ID - 2257 IS - 1 JF - PLoS Computational Biology SN - 1553734X TI - Searching for collective behavior in a large network of sensory neurons VL - 10 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The copper-catalyzed diboration of ketones followed by an acid-catalyzed elimination leads to the formation of 1,1-disubstituted and trisubstituted vinyl boronate esters with moderate to good yields and selectivity. Addition of tosic acid to the crude diboration products provides the corresponding vinyl boronate esters upon elimination. The trisubstituted vinyl boronate esters are formed as the (Z)-olefin isomer, which was established by subjecting the products to a Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction to obtain alkenes of known geometry. AU - Guan, Weiye AU - Michael, Alicia Kathleen AU - McIntosh, Melissa L. AU - Koren-Selfridge, Liza AU - Scott, John P. AU - Clark, Timothy B. ID - 15161 IS - 15 JF - The Journal of Organic Chemistry KW - Organic Chemistry SN - 0022-3263 TI - Stereoselective formation of trisubstituted vinyl boronate esters by the acid-mediated elimination of α-hydroxyboronate esters VL - 79 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Selection for disease control is believed to have contributed to shape the organisation of insect societies — leading to interaction patterns that mitigate disease transmission risk within colonies, conferring them ‘organisational immunity’. Recent studies combining epidemiological models with social network analysis have identified general properties of interaction networks that may hinder propagation of infection within groups. These can be prophylactic and/or induced upon pathogen exposure. Here we review empirical evidence for these two types of organisational immunity in social insects and describe the individual-level behaviours that underlie it. We highlight areas requiring further investigation, and emphasise the need for tighter links between theory and empirical research and between individual-level and collective-level analyses. AU - Stroeymeyt, Nathalie AU - Casillas Perez, Barbara E AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 1999 IS - 1 JF - Current Opinion in Insect Science TI - Organisational immunity in social insects VL - 5 ER -