TY - JOUR AB - The induction of a signaling pathway is characterized by transient complex formation and mutual posttranslational modification of proteins. To faithfully capture this combinatorial process in a mathematical model is an important challenge in systems biology. Exploiting the limited context on which most binding and modification events are conditioned, attempts have been made to reduce the combinatorial complexity by quotienting the reachable set of molecular species into species aggregates while preserving the deterministic semantics of the thermodynamic limit. Recently, we proposed a quotienting that also preserves the stochastic semantics and that is complete in the sense that the semantics of individual species can be recovered from the aggregate semantics. In this paper, we prove that this quotienting yields a sufficient condition for weak lumpability (that is to say that the quotient system is still Markovian for a given set of initial distributions) and that it gives rise to a backward Markov bisimulation between the original and aggregated transition system (which means that the conditional probability of being in a given state in the original system knowing that we are in its equivalence class is an invariant of the system). We illustrate the framework on a case study of the epidermal growth factor (EGF)/insulin receptor crosstalk. AU - Feret, Jérôme AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Koeppl, Heinz AU - Petrov, Tatjana ID - 3168 JF - Theoretical Computer Science TI - Lumpability abstractions of rule based systems VL - 431 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The potential to control the composition and crystal phase at the nanometer scale enable the production of nanocrystalline materials with enhanced functionalities and new applications. In the present work, we detail a novel colloidal synthesis route to prepare nanoparticles of the ternary semiconductor Cu2GeSe3 (CGSe) with nanometer-scale control over their crystal phases. We also demonstrate the structural effect on the thermoelectric properties of bottom-up-prepared CGSe nanomaterials. By careful adjustment of the nucleation and growth temperatures, pure orthorhombic CGSe nanoparticles with cationic order or polytypic CGSe nanoparticles with disordered cation positions can be produced. In this second type of nanoparticle, a high density of twins can be created to periodically change the atomic plane stacking, forming a hexagonal wurtzite CGSe phase. The high yield of the synthetic routes reported here allows the production of single-phase and multiphase CGSe nanoparticles in the gram scale, which permits characterization of the thermoelectric properties of these materials. Reduced thermal conductivities and a related 2.5-fold increase of the thermoelectric figure of merit for multiphase nanomaterials compared to pure-phase CGSe are systematically obtained. These results are discussed in terms of the density and efficiency of phonon scattering centers in both types of materials. AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Zamani, Reza AU - Li, Wenhua AU - Cadavid, Doris AU - Gorse, Stéphane AU - Katchoi, Nebll AU - Shavel, Alexey AU - López, Antonioo AU - Morante, Joan AU - Arbiol, Jordi AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 377 IS - 23 JF - Chemistry of Materials TI - Crystallographic control at the nanoscale to enhance functionality: Polytypic Cu2GeSe3 nanoparticles as thermoelectric materials VL - 24 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We summarize classical and recent results about two-player games played on graphs with ω-regular objectives. These games have applications in the verification and synthesis of reactive systems. Important distinctions are whether a graph game is turn-based or concurrent; deterministic or stochastic; zero-sum or not. We cluster known results and open problems according to these classifications. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Henzinger, Thomas A ID - 3846 IS - 2 JF - Journal of Computer and System Sciences TI - A survey of stochastic ω regular games VL - 78 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In this Letter we present detailed study of the density of states near defects in Bi 2Se 3. In particular, we present data on the commonly found triangular defects in this system. While we do not find any measurable quasiparticle scattering interference effects, we do find localized resonances, which can be well fitted by theory once the potential is taken to be extended to properly account for the observed defects. The data together with the fits confirm that while the local density of states around the Dirac point of the electronic spectrum at the surface is significantly disrupted near the impurity by the creation of low-energy resonance state, the Dirac point is not locally destroyed. We discuss our results in terms of the expected protected surface state of topological insulators. © 2012 American Physical Society. AU - Alpichshev, Zhanybek AU - Biswas, Rudro AU - Balatsky, Alexander AU - Analytis, James AU - Chu, Jiunhaw AU - Fisher, Ian AU - Kapitulnik, Aharon ID - 387 IS - 20 JF - Physical Review Letters TI - STM imaging of impurity resonances on Bi 2Se 3 VL - 108 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The directional transport of the phytohormone auxin depends on the phosphorylation status and polar localization of PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux proteins. While PINIOD (PID) kinase is directly involved in the phosphorylation of PIN proteins, the phosphatase holoenzyme complexes that dephosphorylate PIN proteins remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that mutations simultaneously disrupting the function of Arabidopsis thaliana FyPP1 (for Phytochrome-associated serine/threonine protein phosphatase1) and FyPP3, two homologous genes encoding the catalytic subunits of protein phosphatase6 (PP6), cause elevated accumulation of phosphorylated PIN proteins, correlating with a basal-to-apical shift in subcellular PIN localization. The changes in PIN polarity result in increased root basipetal auxin transport and severe defects, including shorter roots, fewer lateral roots, defective columella cells, root meristem collapse, abnormal cotyledons (small, cup-shaped, or fused cotyledons), and altered leaf venation. Our molecular, biochemical, and genetic data support the notion that FyPP1/3, SAL (for SAPS DOMAIN-LIKE), and PP2AA proteins (RCN1 [for ROOTS CURL IN NAPHTHYLPHTHALAMIC ACID1] or PP2AA1, PP2AA2, and PP2AA3) physically interact to form a novel PP6-type heterotrimeric holoenzyme complex. We also show that FyPP1/3, SAL, and PP2AA interact with a subset of PIN proteins and that for SAL the strength of the interaction depends on the PIN phosphorylation status. Thus, an Arabidopsis PP6-type phosphatase holoenzyme acts antagonistically with PID to direct auxin transport polarity and plant development by directly regulating PIN phosphorylation. AU - Dai, Mingqiu AU - Zhang, Chen AU - Urszula Kania AU - Chen, Fang AU - Xue, Qin AU - McCray, Tyra AU - Li, Gang AU - Qin, Genji AU - Wakeley, Michelle AU - Terzaghi, William AU - Wan, Jianmin AU - Zhao, Yunde AU - Xu, Jian AU - Jirí Friml AU - Deng, Xing W AU - Wang, Haiyang ID - 3110 IS - 6 JF - Plant Cell TI - A PP6 type phosphatase holoenzyme directly regulates PIN phosphorylation and auxin efflux in Arabidopsis VL - 24 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A cell membrane can be considered a liquid-phase plane in which lipids and proteins theoretically are free to diffuse. Numerous reports,however, describe retarded diffusion ofmembrane proteins in animal cells. This anomalous diffusion results from a combination of structuring factors including protein-protein interactions, cytoskeleton corralling, and lipid organization into microdomains. In plant cells, plasma-membrane (PM) proteins have been described as relatively immobile, but the control mechanisms that structure the PM have not been studied. Here, we use fluorescence recovery after photobleaching to estimate mobility of a set of minimal PM proteins. These proteins consist only of a PM-anchoring domain fused to a fluorescent protein, but their mobilities remained limited, as is the case for many full-length proteins. Neither the cytoskeleton nor membrane microdomain structure was involved in constraining the diffusion of these proteins. The cell wall, however, was shown to have a crucial role in immobilizing PM proteins. In addition, by single-molecule fluorescence imaging we confirmed that the pattern of cellulose deposition in the cell wall affects the trajectory and speed ofPMprotein diffusion. Regulation ofPMprotein dynamics by the plant cell wall can be interpreted as a mechanism for regulating protein interactions in processes such as trafficking and signal transduction. AU - Martinière, Alexandre AU - Lavagi, Irene AU - Nageswaran, Gayathri AU - Rolfe, Daniel J AU - Maneta-Peyret, Lilly AU - Luu, Doan-Trung AU - Botchway, Stanley W AU - Webb, Stephen E AU - Mongrand, Sebastien AU - Maurel, Christophe AU - Martin-Fernandez, Marisa L AU - Kleine-Vehn, Jürgen AU - Jirí Friml AU - Moreau, Patrick AU - Runions, John ID - 3113 IS - 31 JF - PNAS TI - Cell wall constrains lateral diffusion of plant plasma membrane proteins VL - 109 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Auxin is a key coordinative signal required for many aspects of plant development and its levels are controlled by auxin metabolism and intercellular auxin transport. Here we find that a member of PIN auxin transporter family, PIN8 is expressed in male gametophyte of Arabidopsis thaliana and has a crucial role in pollen development and functionality. Ectopic expression in sporophytic tissues establishes a role of PIN8 in regulating auxin homoeostasis and metabolism. PIN8 co-localizes with PIN5 to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where it acts as an auxin transporter. Genetic analyses reveal an antagonistic action of PIN5 and PIN8 in the regulation of intracellular auxin homoeostasis and gametophyte as well as sporophyte development. Our results reveal a role of the auxin transport in male gametophyte development in which the distinct actions of ER-localized PIN transporters regulate cellular auxin homoeostasis and maintain the auxin levels optimal for pollen development and pollen tube growth. AU - Ding, Zhaojun AU - Wang, Bangjun AU - Moreno, Ignacio AU - Dupláková, Nikoleta AU - Sibu Simon AU - Carraro, Nicola AU - Reemmer, Jesica AU - Pěnčík, Aleš AU - Xu Chen AU - Tejos, Ricardo I AU - Skůpa, Petr AU - Pollmann, Stephan AU - Mravec, Jozef AU - Petrášek, Jan AU - Zažímalová, Eva AU - Honys, David AU - Rolčík, Jakub AU - Murphy, Angus S AU - Orellana, Ariel AU - Geisler, Markus AU - Jirí Friml ID - 3114 IS - AN 941 JF - Nature Communications TI - ER-localized auxin transporter PIN8 regulates auxin homeostasis and male gametophyte development in Arabidopsis VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - PIN-FORMED (PIN) protein-mediated auxin polar transport is critically important for development, pattern formation, and morphogenesis in plants. Auxin has been implicated in the regulation of polar auxin transport by inhibiting PIN endocytosis [1, 2], but how auxin regulates this process is poorly understood. Our genetic screen identified the Arabidopsis SPIKE1 (SPK1) gene whose loss-of-function mutations increased lateral root density and retarded gravitropic responses, as do pin2 knockout mutations [3]. SPK1 belongs to the conserved DHR2-Dock family of Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factors [4-6]. The spk1 mutations induced PIN2 internalization that was not suppressed by auxin, as did the loss-of-function mutations for Rho-like GTPase from Plants 6 (ROP6)-GTPase or its effector RIC1. Furthermore, SPK1 was required for auxin induction of ROP6 activation. Our results have established a Rho GTPase-based auxin signaling pathway that maintains PIN2 polar distribution to the plasma membrane via inhibition of its internalization in Arabidopsis roots. Our findings provide new insights into signaling mechanisms that underlie the regulation of the dynamic trafficking of PINs required for long-distance auxin transport and that link auxin signaling to PIN-mediated pattern formation and morphogenesis. AU - Lin, Deshu AU - Nagawa, Shingo AU - Chen, Jisheng AU - Cao, Lingyan AU - Xu Chen AU - Xu, Tongda AU - Hongjiang Li AU - Dhonukshe, Pankaj AU - Yamamuro, Chizuko AU - Jirí Friml AU - Scheres, Ben AU - Fu, Ying AU - Yang, Zhenbiao ID - 3111 IS - 14 JF - Current Biology TI - A ROP GTPase dependent auxin signaling pathway regulates the subcellular distribution of PIN2 in Arabidopsis roots VL - 22 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The dynamic spatial and temporal distribution of the crucial plant signaling molecule auxin is achieved by feedback coordination of auxin signaling and intercellular auxin transport pathways [1, 2]. Developmental roles of auxin have been attributed predominantly to its effect on transcription; however, an alternative pathway involving AUXIN BINDING PROTEIN1 (ABP1) has been proposed to regulate clathrin-mediated endocytosis in roots and Rho-like GTPase (ROP)-dependent pavement cell interdigitation in leaves [3, 4]. In this study, we show that ROP6 and its downstream effector RIC1 regulate clathrin association with the plasma membrane for clathrin-mediated endocytosis, as well as for its feedback regulation by auxin. Genetic analysis revealed that ROP6/RIC1 acts downstream of ABP1 to regulate endocytosis. This signaling circuit is also involved in the feedback regulation of PIN-FORMED 1 (PIN1) and PIN2 auxin transporters activity (via its constitutive endocytosis) and corresponding auxin transport-mediated processes, including root gravitropism and leave vascular tissue patterning. Our findings suggest that the signaling module auxin-ABP1-ROP6/RIC1-clathrin-PIN1/PIN2 is a shared component of the feedback regulation of auxin transport during both root and aerial development. AU - Xu Chen AU - Naramoto, Satoshi AU - Robert, Stéphanie AU - Tejos, Ricardo AU - Löfke, Christian AU - Lin, Deshu AU - Yang, Zhenbiao AU - Jirí Friml ID - 3112 IS - 14 JF - Current Biology TI - ABP1 and ROP6 GTPase signaling regulate clathrin mediated endocytosis in Arabidopsis roots VL - 22 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider two-player zero-sum stochastic games on graphs with ω-regular winning conditions specified as parity objectives. These games have applications in the design and control of reactive systems. We survey the complexity results for the problem of deciding the winner in such games, and in classes of interest obtained as special cases, based on the information and the power of randomization available to the players, on the class of objectives and on the winning mode. On the basis of information, these games can be classified as follows: (a) partial-observation (both players have partial view of the game); (b) one-sided partial-observation (one player has partial-observation and the other player has complete-observation); and (c) complete-observation (both players have complete view of the game). The one-sided partial-observation games have two important subclasses: the one-player games, known as partial-observation Markov decision processes (POMDPs), and the blind one-player games, known as probabilistic automata. On the basis of randomization, (a) the players may not be allowed to use randomization (pure strategies), or (b) they may choose a probability distribution over actions but the actual random choice is external and not visible to the player (actions invisible), or (c) they may use full randomization. Finally, various classes of games are obtained by restricting the parity objective to a reachability, safety, Büchi, or coBüchi condition. We also consider several winning modes, such as sure-winning (i.e., all outcomes of a strategy have to satisfy the winning condition), almost-sure winning (i.e., winning with probability 1), limit-sure winning (i.e., winning with probability arbitrarily close to 1), and value-threshold winning (i.e., winning with probability at least ν, where ν is a given rational). AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Doyen, Laurent AU - Henzinger, Thomas A ID - 3128 IS - 2 JF - Formal Methods in System Design TI - A survey of partial-observation stochastic parity games VL - 43 ER - TY - CONF AB - We propose a new learning method to infer a mid-level feature representation that combines the advantage of semantic attribute representations with the higher expressive power of non-semantic features. The idea lies in augmenting an existing attribute-based representation with additional dimensions for which an autoencoder model is coupled with a large-margin principle. This construction allows a smooth transition between the zero-shot regime with no training example, the unsupervised regime with training examples but without class labels, and the supervised regime with training examples and with class labels. The resulting optimization problem can be solved efficiently, because several of the necessity steps have closed-form solutions. Through extensive experiments we show that the augmented representation achieves better results in terms of object categorization accuracy than the semantic representation alone. AU - Sharmanska, Viktoriia AU - Quadrianto, Novi AU - Lampert, Christoph ID - 3125 IS - PART 5 TI - Augmented attribute representations VL - 7576 ER - TY - CONF AB - Let K be a simplicial complex and g the rank of its p-th homology group Hp(K) defined with ℤ2 coefficients. We show that we can compute a basis H of Hp(K) and annotate each p-simplex of K with a binary vector of length g with the following property: the annotations, summed over all p-simplices in any p-cycle z, provide the coordinate vector of the homology class [z] in the basis H. The basis and the annotations for all simplices can be computed in O(n ω ) time, where n is the size of K and ω < 2.376 is a quantity so that two n×n matrices can be multiplied in O(n ω ) time. The precomputed annotations permit answering queries about the independence or the triviality of p-cycles efficiently. Using annotations of edges in 2-complexes, we derive better algorithms for computing optimal basis and optimal homologous cycles in 1 - dimensional homology. Specifically, for computing an optimal basis of H1(K) , we improve the previously known time complexity from O(n 4) to O(n ω  + n 2 g ω − 1). Here n denotes the size of the 2-skeleton of K and g the rank of H1(K) . Computing an optimal cycle homologous to a given 1-cycle is NP-hard even for surfaces and an algorithm taking 2 O(g) nlogn time is known for surfaces. We extend this algorithm to work with arbitrary 2-complexes in O(n ω ) + 2 O(g) n 2logn time using annotations. AU - Busaryev, Oleksiy AU - Cabello, Sergio AU - Chen, Chao AU - Dey, Tamal AU - Wang, Yusu ID - 3129 TI - Annotating simplices with a homology basis and its applications VL - 7357 ER - TY - CONF AB - In this work we propose a new information-theoretic clustering algorithm that infers cluster memberships by direct optimization of a non-parametric mutual information estimate between data distribution and cluster assignment. Although the optimization objective has a solid theoretical foundation it is hard to optimize. We propose an approximate optimization formulation that leads to an efficient algorithm with low runtime complexity. The algorithm has a single free parameter, the number of clusters to find. We demonstrate superior performance on several synthetic and real datasets. AU - Müller, Andreas AU - Nowozin, Sebastian AU - Lampert, Christoph ID - 3126 TI - Information theoretic clustering using minimal spanning trees VL - 7476 ER - TY - CONF AB - We propose synchronous interfaces, a new interface theory for discrete-time systems. We use an application to time-triggered scheduling to drive the design choices for our formalism; in particular, additionally to deriving useful mathematical properties, we focus on providing a syntax which is adapted to natural high-level system modeling. As a result, we develop an interface model that relies on a guarded-command based language and is equipped with shared variables and explicit discrete-time clocks. We define all standard interface operations: compatibility checking, composition, refinement, and shared refinement. Apart from the synchronous interface model, the contribution of this paper is the establishment of a formal relation between interface theories and real-time scheduling, where we demonstrate a fully automatic framework for the incremental computation of time-triggered schedules. AU - Delahaye, Benoît AU - Fahrenberg, Uli AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Legay, Axel AU - Nickovic, Dejan ID - 3155 TI - Synchronous interface theories and time triggered scheduling VL - 7273 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The structure of hierarchical networks in biological and physical systems has long been characterized using the Horton-Strahler ordering scheme. The scheme assigns an integer order to each edge in the network based on the topology of branching such that the order increases from distal parts of the network (e.g., mountain streams or capillaries) to the "root" of the network (e.g., the river outlet or the aorta). However, Horton-Strahler ordering cannot be applied to networks with loops because they they create a contradiction in the edge ordering in terms of which edge precedes another in the hierarchy. Here, we present a generalization of the Horton-Strahler order to weighted planar reticular networks, where weights are assumed to correlate with the importance of network edges, e.g., weights estimated from edge widths may correlate to flow capacity. Our method assigns hierarchical levels not only to edges of the network, but also to its loops, and classifies the edges into reticular edges, which are responsible for loop formation, and tree edges. In addition, we perform a detailed and rigorous theoretical analysis of the sensitivity of the hierarchical levels to weight perturbations. In doing so, we show that the ordering of the reticular edges is more robust to noise in weight estimation than is the ordering of the tree edges. We discuss applications of this generalized Horton-Strahler ordering to the study of leaf venation and other biological networks. AU - Mileyko, Yuriy AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Price, Charles AU - Weitz, Joshua ID - 3159 IS - 6 JF - PLoS One TI - Hierarchical ordering of reticular networks VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Dispersal is crucial for gene flow and often determines the long-term stability of meta-populations, particularly in rare species with specialized life cycles. Such species are often foci of conservation efforts because they suffer disproportionally from degradation and fragmentation of their habitat. However, detailed knowledge of effective gene flow through dispersal is often missing, so that conservation strategies have to be based on mark-recapture observations that are suspected to be poor predictors of long-distance dispersal. These constraints have been especially severe in the study of butterfly populations, where microsatellite markers have been difficult to develop. We used eight microsatellite markers to analyse genetic population structure of the Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion in Sweden. During recent decades, this species has become an icon of insect conservation after massive decline throughout Europe and extinction in Britain followed by reintroduction of a seed population from the Swedish island of Öland. We find that populations are highly structured genetically, but that gene flow occurs over distances 15 times longer than the maximum distance recorded from mark-recapture studies, which can only be explained by maximum dispersal distances at least twice as large as previously accepted. However, we also find evidence that gaps between sites with suitable habitat exceeding ∼ 20 km induce genetic erosion that can be detected from bottleneck analyses. Although further work is needed, our results suggest that M. arion can maintain fully functional metapopulations when they consist of optimal habitat patches that are no further apart than ∼10 km. AU - Ugelvig, Line V AU - Andersen, Anne AU - Boomsma, Jacobus AU - Nash, David ID - 3156 IS - 13 JF - Molecular Ecology TI - Dispersal and gene flow in the rare parasitic Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion VL - 21 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We describe here the development and characterization of a conditionally inducible mouse model expressing Lifeact-GFP, a peptide that reports the dynamics of filamentous actin. We have used this model to study platelets, megakaryocytes and melanoblasts and we provide evidence that Lifeact-GFP is a useful reporter in these cell types ex vivo. In the case of platelets and megakaryocytes, these cells are not transfectable by traditional methods, so conditional activation of Lifeact allows the study of actin dynamics in these cells live. We studied melanoblasts in native skin explants from embryos, allowing the visualization of live actin dynamics during cytokinesis and migration. Our study revealed that melanoblasts lacking the small GTPase Rac1 show a delay in the formation of new pseudopodia following cytokinesis that accounts for the previously reported cytokinesis delay in these cells. Thus, through use of this mouse model, we were able to gain insights into the actin dynamics of cells that could only previously be studied using fixed specimens or following isolation from their native tissue environment. AU - Schachtner, Hannah AU - Li, Ang AU - Stevenson, David AU - Calaminus, Simon AU - Thomas, Steven AU - Watson, Steve AU - Sixt, Michael K AU - Wedlich Söldner, Roland AU - Strathdee, Douglas AU - Machesky, Laura ID - 3158 IS - 11-12 JF - European Journal of Cell Biology TI - Tissue inducible Lifeact expression allows visualization of actin dynamics in vivo and ex vivo VL - 91 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We describe RTblob, a high speed vision system that detects objects in cluttered scenes based on their color and shape at a speed of over 800 frames/s. Because the system is available as open-source software and relies only on off-the-shelf PC hardware components, it can provide the basis for multiple application scenarios. As an illustrative example, we show how RTblob can be used in a robotic table tennis scenario to estimate ball trajectories through 3D space simultaneously from four cameras images at a speed of 200 Hz. AU - Lampert, Christoph AU - Peters, Jan ID - 3248 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Real-Time Image Processing SN - 1861-8200 TI - Real-time detection of colored objects in multiple camera streams with off-the-shelf hardware components VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The Brazilian Merganser is a very rare and threatened species that nowadays inhabits only a few protected areas and their surroundings in the Brazilian territory. In order to estimate the remaining genetic diversity and population structure in this species, two mitochondrial genes were sequenced in 39 individuals belonging to two populations and in one individual collected in Argentina in 1950. We found a highly significant divergence between two major remaining populations of Mergus octosetaceus, which suggests a historical population structure in this species. Furthermore, two deeply divergent lineages were found in a single location, which could due to current or historical secondary contact. Based on the available genetic data, we point out future directions which would contribute to design strategies for conservation and management of this threatened species. AU - Vilaça, Sibelle AU - Fernandes Redondo, Rodrigo A AU - Lins, Lívia AU - Santos, Fabrício ID - 3247 IS - 1 JF - Conservation Genetics TI - Remaining genetic diversity in Brazilian Merganser (Mergus octosetaceus) VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - How cells orchestrate their behavior during collective migration is a long-standing question. Using magnetic tweezers to apply mechanical stimuli to Xenopus mesendoderm cells, Weber etal. (2012) now reveal, in this issue of Developmental Cell, a cadherin-mediated mechanosensitive response that promotes cell polarization and movement persistence during the collective mesendoderm migration in gastrulation. AU - Behrndt, Martin AU - Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J ID - 3245 IS - 1 JF - Developmental Cell TI - Spurred by resistance mechanosensation in collective migration VL - 22 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Living cells must control the reading out or "expression" of information encoded in their genomes, and this regulation often is mediated by transcription factors--proteins that bind to DNA and either enhance or repress the expression of nearby genes. But the expression of transcription factor proteins is itself regulated, and many transcription factors regulate their own expression in addition to responding to other input signals. Here we analyze the simplest of such self-regulatory circuits, asking how parameters can be chosen to optimize information transmission from inputs to outputs in the steady state. Some nonzero level of self-regulation is almost always optimal, with self-activation dominant when transcription factor concentrations are low and self-repression dominant when concentrations are high. In steady state the optimal self-activation is never strong enough to induce bistability, although there is a limit in which the optimal parameters are very close to the critical point. AU - Tkacik, Gasper AU - Walczak, Aleksandra AU - Bialek, William ID - 3262 IS - 4 JF - Physical Review E statistical nonlinear and soft matter physics TI - Optimizing information flow in small genetic networks. III. A self-interacting gene VL - 85 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Consider a convex relaxation f̂ of a pseudo-Boolean function f. We say that the relaxation is totally half-integral if f̂(x) is a polyhedral function with half-integral extreme points x, and this property is preserved after adding an arbitrary combination of constraints of the form x i=x j, x i=1-x j, and x i=γ where γ∈{0,1,1/2} is a constant. A well-known example is the roof duality relaxation for quadratic pseudo-Boolean functions f. We argue that total half-integrality is a natural requirement for generalizations of roof duality to arbitrary pseudo-Boolean functions. Our contributions are as follows. First, we provide a complete characterization of totally half-integral relaxations f̂ by establishing a one-to-one correspondence with bisubmodular functions. Second, we give a new characterization of bisubmodular functions. Finally, we show some relationships between general totally half-integral relaxations and relaxations based on the roof duality. On the conceptual level, our results show that bisubmodular functions provide a natural generalization of the roof duality approach to higher-order terms. This can be viewed as a non-submodular analogue of the fact that submodular functions generalize the s-t minimum cut problem with non-negative weights to higher-order terms. AU - Kolmogorov, Vladimir ID - 3257 IS - 4-5 JF - Discrete Applied Mathematics TI - Generalized roof duality and bisubmodular functions VL - 160 ER - TY - CHAP AB - The problem of the origin of metazoa is becoming more urgent in the context of astrobiology. By now it is clear that clues to the understanding of this crucial transition in the evolution of life can arise in a fourth pathway besides the three possibilities in the quest for simplicity outlined by Bonner in his classical book. In other words, solar system exploration seems to be one way in the long-term to elucidate the simplicity of evolutionary development. We place these ideas in the context of different inheritance systems, namely the genotypic and phenotypic replicators with limited or unlimited heredity, and ask which of these can support multicellular development, and to which degree of complexity. However, the quest for evidence on the evolution of biotas from planets around other stars does not seem to be feasible with present technology with direct visualization of living organisms on exoplanets. But this may be attempted on the Galilean moons of Jupiter where there is a possibility of detecting reliable biomarkers in the next decade with the Europa Jupiter System Mission, in view of recent progress by landing micropenetrators on planetary, or satellite surfaces. Mars is a second possibility in the inner Solar System, in spite of the multiple difficulties faced by the fleet of past, present and future missions. We discuss a series of preliminary ideas for elucidating the origin of metazoan analogues with available instrumentation in potential payloads of feasible space missions to the Galilean moons. AU - de Vladar, Harold AU - Chela Flores, Julian ID - 3277 T2 - Life on Earth and other planetary bodies TI - Can the evolution of multicellularity be anticipated in the exploration of the solar system? VL - 24 ER - TY - CONF AB - We show a hardness-preserving construction of a PRF from any length doubling PRG which improves upon known constructions whenever we can put a non-trivial upper bound q on the number of queries to the PRF. Our construction requires only O(logq) invocations to the underlying PRG with each query. In comparison, the number of invocations by the best previous hardness-preserving construction (GGM using Levin's trick) is logarithmic in the hardness of the PRG. For example, starting from an exponentially secure PRG {0,1} n → {0,1} 2n, we get a PRF which is exponentially secure if queried at most q = exp(√n)times and where each invocation of the PRF requires Θ(√n) queries to the underlying PRG. This is much less than the Θ(n) required by known constructions. AU - Jain, Abhishek AU - Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z AU - Tentes, Aris ID - 3279 TI - Hardness preserving constructions of pseudorandom functions VL - 7194 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A boundary element model of a tunnel running through horizontally layered soil with anisotropic material properties is presented. Since there is no analytical fundamental solution for wave propagation inside a layered orthotropic medium in 3D, the fundamental displacements and stresses have to be calculated numerically. In our model this is done in the Fourier domain with respect to space and time. The assumption of a straight tunnel with infinite extension in the x direction makes it possible to decouple the system for every wave number kx, leading to a 2.5D-problem, which is suited for parallel computation. The special form of the fundamental solution, resulting from our Fourier ansatz, and the fact, that the calculation of the boundary integral equation is performed in the Fourier domain, enhances the stability and efficiency of the numerical calculations. AU - Rieckh, Georg AU - Kreuzer, Wolfgang AU - Waubke, Holger AU - Balazs, Peter ID - 3274 IS - 6 JF - Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements TI - A 2.5D-Fourier-BEM model for vibrations in a tunnel running through layered anisotropic soil VL - 36 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Viral manipulation of transduction pathways associated with key cellular functions such as survival, response to microbial infection, and cytoskeleton reorganization can provide the supportive milieu for a productive infection. Here, we demonstrate that vaccinia virus (VACV) infection leads to activation of the stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 4/7 (MKK4/7)-c-Jun N-terminal protein kinase 1/2 (JNK1/2) pathway; further, the stimulation of this pathway requires postpenetration, prereplicative events in the viral replication cycle. Although the formation of intracellular mature virus (IMV) was not affected in MKK4/7- or JNK1/2-knockout (KO) cells, we did note an accentuated deregulation of microtubule and actin network organization in infected JNK1/2-KO cells. This was followed by deregulated viral trafficking to the periphery and enhanced enveloped particle release. Furthermore, VACV infection induced alterations in the cell contractility and morphology, and cell migration was reduced in the JNK-KO cells. In addition, phosphorylation of proteins implicated with early cell contractility and cell migration, such as microtubule-associated protein 1B and paxillin, respectively, was not detected in the VACV-infected KO cells. In sum, our findings uncover a regulatory role played by the MKK4/7-JNK1/2 pathway in cytoskeleton reorganization during VACV infection. AU - Pereira, Anna AU - Leite, Flávia AU - Brasil, Bruno AU - Soares Martins, Jamaria AU - Torres, Alice AU - Pimenta, Paulo AU - Souto Padrón, Thais AU - Tranktman, Paula AU - Ferreira, Paulo AU - Kroon, Erna AU - Bonjardim, Cláudio ID - 3289 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Virology TI - A vaccinia virus-driven interplay between the MKK4/7-JNK1/2 pathway and cytoskeleton reorganization VL - 86 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The theory of persistent homology opens up the possibility to reason about topological features of a space or a function quantitatively and in combinatorial terms. We refer to this new angle at a classical subject within algebraic topology as a point calculus, which we present for the family of interlevel sets of a real-valued function. Our account of the subject is expository, devoid of proofs, and written for non-experts in algebraic topology. AU - Bendich, Paul AU - Cabello, Sergio AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert ID - 3310 IS - 11 JF - Pattern Recognition Letters TI - A point calculus for interlevel set homology VL - 33 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The ample chemical and structural freedom of quaternary compounds permits engineering materials that fulfill the requirements of a wide variety of applications. In this work, the mechanisms to achieve unprecedented size, shape, and composition control in quaternary nanocrystals are detailed. The described procedure allows obtaining tetrahedral and penta-tetrahedral quaternary nanocrystals with tuned size distributions and controlled compositions from a plethora of I 2-II-IV-VI 4 semiconductors. AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Zamani, Reza AU - Li, Wenhua AU - Shavel, Alexey AU - Arbiol, Jordi AU - Morante, Joan AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 338 IS - 3 JF - Crystal Growth and Design TI - Extending the nanocrystal synthesis control to quaternary compositions VL - 12 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A high-yield and upscalable colloidal synthesis route for the production of quaternary I 2-II-IV-VI 4 nanocrystals, particularly stannite Cu 2+xCd 1-xSnSe 4, with narrow size distribution and precisely controlled composition is presented. It is also shown here how the diversity of valences in the constituent elements allows an effective control of their electrical conductivity through the adjustment of the cation ratios. At the same time, while the crystallographic complexity of quaternary chalcogenides is associated with intrinsically low thermal conductivities, the reduction of the lattice dimensions to the nanoscale further reduces the materials thermal conductivity. In the specific case of the stannite crystal structure, a convenient slab distribution of the valence band maximum states permits a partial decoupling of the p-type electrical conductivity from both the Seebeck coefficient and the thermal conductivity. Combining these features, we demonstrate how an initial optimization of the nanocrystals Cd/Cu ratio allowed us to obtain low-temperature solution-processed materials with ZT values up to 0.71 at 685 K. AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Cadavid, Doris AU - Zamani, Reza AU - García Castelló, Nuria AU - Izquierdo Roca, Victora AU - Li, Wenhua AU - Fairbrother, Andrew AU - Prades, Joan AU - Shavel, Alexey AU - Arbiol, Jordi AU - Pérez Rodríguez, Alejandro AU - Morante, Joan AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 339 IS - 3 JF - Chemistry of Materials TI - Composition control and thermoelectric properties of quaternary chalcogenide nanocrystals: The case of stannite Cu2CdSnSe4 VL - 24 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A procedure for the continuous production of Cu 2ZnSnS 4 (CZTS) nanoparticles with controlled composition is presented. CZTS nanoparticles were prepared through the reaction of the metals' amino complexes with elemental sulfur in a continuous-flow reactor at moderate temperatures (300-330 °C). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis showed the nanocrystals to have a crystallographic structure compatible with that of the kesterite. Chemical characterization of the materials showed the presence of the four elements in each individual nanocrystal. Composition control was achieved by adjusting the solution flow rate through the reactor and the proper choice of the nominal precursor concentration within the flowing solution. Single-particle analysis revealed a composition distribution within each sample, which was optimized at the highest synthesis temperatures used. AU - Shavel, Alexey AU - Cadavid, Doris AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Carrete, Alex AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 340 IS - 3 JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society TI - Continuous production of Cu inf 2 inf ZnSnS inf 4 inf nanocrystals in a flow reactor VL - 134 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Nanocomposites are highly promising materials to enhance the efficiency of current thermoelectric devices. A straightforward and at the same time highly versatile and controllable approach to produce nanocomposites is the assembly of solution-processed nanocrystal building blocks. The convenience of this bottom-up approach to produce nanocomposites with homogeneous phase distributions and adjustable composition is demonstrated here by blending Ag2Te and PbTe colloidal nanocrystals to form Ag2Te–PbTe bulk nanocomposites. The thermoelectric properties of these nanocomposites are analyzed in the temperature range from 300 to 700 K. The evolution of their electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient is discussed in terms of the blend composition and the characteristics of the constituent materials. AU - Cadavid, Doris AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Gorsse, Stéphane AU - López, Antonio AU - Cirera, Albert AU - Morante, Joan AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 345 IS - 12 JF - Journal of Nanoparticle Research TI - Bottom-up processing of thermoelectric nanocomposites from colloidal nanocrystal building blocks: The case of Ag2Te–PbTe VL - 14 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A synthetic route for producing Cu 2ZnGeSe 4 nanocrystals with narrow size distributions and controlled composition is presented. These nanocrystals were used to produce densely packed nanomaterials by hot-pressing. From the characterization of the thermoelectric properties of these nanomaterials, Cu 2ZnGeSe 4 is demonstrated to show excellent thermoelectric properties. A very preliminary adjustment of the nanocrystal composition has already resulted in a figure of merit of up to 0.55 at 450°C. AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Zamani, Reza AU - Lalonde, Aaron AU - Cadavid, Doris AU - Li, Wenhua AU - Shavel, Alexey AU - Arbiol, Jordi AU - Morante, Joan AU - Gorsse, Stéphane AU - Snyder, G Jeffrey AU - Cabot, Andreu ID - 347 IS - 9 JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society TI - Cu 2ZnGeSe 4 nanocrystals: Synthesis and thermoelectric properties VL - 134 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Hierarchical Timing Language (HTL) is a coordination language for distributed, hard real-time applications. HTL is a hierarchical extension of Giotto and, like its predecessor, based on the logical execution time (LET) paradigm of real-time programming. Giotto is compiled into code for a virtual machine, called the EmbeddedMachine (or E machine). If HTL is targeted to the E machine, then the hierarchicalprogram structure needs to be flattened; the flattening makes separatecompilation difficult, and may result in E machinecode of exponential size. In this paper, we propose a generalization of the E machine, which supports a hierarchicalprogram structure at runtime through real-time trigger mechanisms that are arranged in a tree. We present the generalized E machine, and a modular compiler for HTL that generates code of linear size. The compiler may generate code for any part of a given HTL program separately in any order. AU - Ghosal, Arkadeb AU - Iercan, Daniel AU - Kirsch, Christoph AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Sangiovanni Vincentelli, Alberto ID - 3836 IS - 2 JF - Science of Computer Programming TI - Separate compilation of hierarchical real-time programs into linear-bounded embedded machine code VL - 77 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Energy parity games are infinite two-player turn-based games played on weighted graphs. The objective of the game combines a (qualitative) parity condition with the (quantitative) requirement that the sum of the weights (i.e., the level of energy in the game) must remain positive. Beside their own interest in the design and synthesis of resource-constrained omega-regular specifications, energy parity games provide one of the simplest model of games with combined qualitative and quantitative objectives. Our main results are as follows: (a) exponential memory is sufficient and may be necessary for winning strategies in energy parity games; (b) the problem of deciding the winner in energy parity games can be solved in NP ∩ coNP; and (c) we give an algorithm to solve energy parity by reduction to energy games. We also show that the problem of deciding the winner in energy parity games is logspace-equivalent to the problem of deciding the winner in mean-payoff parity games, which can thus be solved in NP ∩ coNP. As a consequence we also obtain a conceptually simple algorithm to solve mean-payoff parity games. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Doyen, Laurent ID - 2972 JF - Theoretical Computer Science TI - Energy parity games VL - 458 ER - TY - JOUR AB - For programs whose data variables range over Boolean or finite domains, program verification is decidable, and this forms the basis of recent tools for software model checking. In this article, we consider algorithmic verification of programs that use Boolean variables, and in addition, access a single read-only array whose length is potentially unbounded, and whose elements range over an unbounded data domain. We show that the reachability problem, while undecidable in general, is (1) PSPACE-complete for programs in which the array-accessing for-loops are not nested, (2) decidable for a restricted class of programs with doubly nested loops. The second result establishes connections to automata and logics defining languages over data words. AU - Alur, Rajeev AU - Cerny, Pavol AU - Weinstein, Scott ID - 2967 IS - 3 JF - ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL) TI - Algorithmic analysis of array-accessing programs VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background: Characterizing root system architecture (RSA) is essential to understanding the development and function of vascular plants. Identifying RSA-associated genes also represents an underexplored opportunity for crop improvement. Software tools are needed to accelerate the pace at which quantitative traits of RSA are estimated from images of root networks.Results: We have developed GiA Roots (General Image Analysis of Roots), a semi-automated software tool designed specifically for the high-throughput analysis of root system images. GiA Roots includes user-assisted algorithms to distinguish root from background and a fully automated pipeline that extracts dozens of root system phenotypes. Quantitative information on each phenotype, along with intermediate steps for full reproducibility, is returned to the end-user for downstream analysis. GiA Roots has a GUI front end and a command-line interface for interweaving the software into large-scale workflows. GiA Roots can also be extended to estimate novel phenotypes specified by the end-user.Conclusions: We demonstrate the use of GiA Roots on a set of 2393 images of rice roots representing 12 genotypes from the species Oryza sativa. We validate trait measurements against prior analyses of this image set that demonstrated that RSA traits are likely heritable and associated with genotypic differences. Moreover, we demonstrate that GiA Roots is extensible and an end-user can add functionality so that GiA Roots can estimate novel RSA traits. In summary, we show that the software can function as an efficient tool as part of a workflow to move from large numbers of root images to downstream analysis. AU - Galkovskyi, Taras AU - Mileyko, Yuriy AU - Bucksch, Alexander AU - Moore, Brad AU - Symonova, Olga AU - Price, Charles AU - Topp, Chrostopher AU - Iyer Pascuzzi, Anjali AU - Zurek, Paul AU - Fang, Suqin AU - Harer, John AU - Benfey, Philip AU - Weitz, Joshua ID - 492 JF - BMC Plant Biology TI - GiA Roots: Software for the high throughput analysis of plant root system architecture VL - 12 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The BCI competition IV stands in the tradition of prior BCI competitions that aim to provide high quality neuroscientific data for open access to the scientific community. As experienced already in prior competitions not only scientists from the narrow field of BCI compete, but scholars with a broad variety of backgrounds and nationalities. They include high specialists as well as students.The goals of all BCI competitions have always been to challenge with respect to novel paradigms and complex data. We report on the following challenges: (1) asynchronous data, (2) synthetic, (3) multi-class continuous data, (4) sessionto-session transfer, (5) directionally modulated MEG, (6) finger movements recorded by ECoG. As after past competitions, our hope is that winning entries may enhance the analysis methods of future BCIs. AU - Tangermann, Michael AU - Müller, Klaus AU - Aertsen, Ad AU - Birbaumer, Niels AU - Braun, Christoph AU - Brunner, Clemens AU - Leeb, Robert AU - Mehring, Carsten AU - Miller, Kai AU - Müller Putz, Gernot AU - Nolte, Guido AU - Pfurtscheller, Gert AU - Preissl, Hubert AU - Schalk, Gerwin AU - Schlögl, Alois AU - Vidaurre, Carmen AU - Waldert, Stephan AU - Blankertz, Benjamin ID - 493 JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience TI - Review of the BCI competition IV VL - 6 ER - TY - CONF AB - An automaton with advice is a finite state automaton which has access to an additional fixed infinite string called an advice tape. We refine the Myhill-Nerode theorem to characterize the languages of finite strings that are accepted by automata with advice. We do the same for tree automata with advice. AU - Kruckman, Alex AU - Rubin, Sasha AU - Sheridan, John AU - Zax, Ben ID - 495 T2 - Proceedings GandALF 2012 TI - A Myhill Nerode theorem for automata with advice VL - 96 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Understanding patterns and correlates of local adaptation in heterogeneous landscapes can provide important information in the selection of appropriate seed sources for restoration. We assessed the extent of local adaptation of fitness components in 12 population pairs of the perennial herb Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides (Asteraceae) and examined whether spatial scale (0.7-600 km), environmental distance, quantitative (QST) and neutral (FST) genetic differentiation, and size of the local and foreign populations could predict patterns of adaptive differentiation. Local adaptation varied among populations and fitness components. Including all population pairs, local adaptation was observed for seedling survival, but not for biomass, while foreign genotype advantage was observed for reproduction (number of inflorescences). Among population pairs, local adaptation increased with QST and local population size for biomass. QST was associated with environmental distance, suggesting ecological selection for phenotypic divergence. However, low FST and variation in population structure in small populations demonstrates the interaction of gene flow and drift in constraining local adaptation in R. leptorrhynchoides. Our study indicates that for species in heterogeneous landscapes, collecting seed from large populations from similar environments to candidate sites is likely to provide the most appropriate seed sources for restoration. AU - Pickup, Melinda AU - Field, David AU - Rowell, David AU - Young, Andrew ID - 498 IS - 8 JF - Evolutionary Applications TI - Predicting local adaptation in fragmented plant populations: Implications for restoration genetics VL - 5 ER - TY - CONF AB - We study the expressive power of logical interpretations on the class of scattered trees, namely those with countably many infinite branches. Scattered trees can be thought of as the tree analogue of scattered linear orders. Every scattered tree has an ordinal rank that reflects the structure of its infinite branches. We prove, roughly, that trees and orders of large rank cannot be interpreted in scattered trees of small rank. We consider a quite general notion of interpretation: each element of the interpreted structure is represented by a set of tuples of subsets of the interpreting tree. Our trees are countable, not necessarily finitely branching, and may have finitely many unary predicates as labellings. We also show how to replace injective set-interpretations in (not necessarily scattered) trees by 'finitary' set-interpretations. AU - Rabinovich, Alexander AU - Rubin, Sasha ID - 496 TI - Interpretations in trees with countably many branches ER - TY - JOUR AB - We solve the longstanding open problems of the blow-up involved in the translations, when possible, of a nondeterministic Büchi word automaton (NBW) to a nondeterministic co-Büchi word automaton (NCW) and to a deterministic co-Büchi word automaton (DCW). For the NBW to NCW translation, the currently known upper bound is 2o(nlog n) and the lower bound is 1.5n. We improve the upper bound to n2n and describe a matching lower bound of 2ω(n). For the NBW to DCW translation, the currently known upper bound is 2o(nlog n). We improve it to 2 o(n), which is asymptotically tight. Both of our upper-bound constructions are based on a simple subset construction, do not involve intermediate automata with richer acceptance conditions, and can be implemented symbolically. We continue and solve the open problems of translating nondeterministic Streett, Rabin, Muller, and parity word automata to NCW and to DCW. Going via an intermediate NBW is not optimal and we describe direct, simple, and asymptotically tight constructions, involving a 2o(n) blow-up. The constructions are variants of the subset construction, providing a unified approach for translating all common classes of automata to NCW and DCW. Beyond the theoretical importance of the results, we point to numerous applications of the new constructions. In particular, they imply a simple subset-construction based translation, when possible, of LTL to deterministic Büchi word automata. AU - Boker, Udi AU - Kupferman, Orna ID - 494 IS - 4 JF - ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL) TI - Translating to Co-Büchi made tight, unified, and useful VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AU - Sixt, Michael K ID - 506 IS - 3 JF - Journal of Cell Biology TI - Cell migration: Fibroblasts find a new way to get ahead VL - 197 ER - TY - CONF AB - One central issue in the formal design and analysis of reactive systems is the notion of refinement that asks whether all behaviors of the implementation is allowed by the specification. The local interpretation of behavior leads to the notion of simulation. Alternating transition systems (ATSs) provide a general model for composite reactive systems, and the simulation relation for ATSs is known as alternating simulation. The simulation relation for fair transition systems is called fair simulation. In this work our main contributions are as follows: (1) We present an improved algorithm for fair simulation with Büchi fairness constraints; our algorithm requires O(n 3·m) time as compared to the previous known O(n 6)-time algorithm, where n is the number of states and m is the number of transitions. (2) We present a game based algorithm for alternating simulation that requires O(m2)-time as compared to the previous known O((n·m)2)-time algorithm, where n is the number of states and m is the size of transition relation. (3) We present an iterative algorithm for alternating simulation that matches the time complexity of the game based algorithm, but is more space efficient than the game based algorithm. © Krishnendu Chatterjee, Siddhesh Chaubal, and Pritish Kamath. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Chaubal, Siddhesh AU - Kamath, Pritish ID - 497 TI - Faster algorithms for alternating refinement relations VL - 16 ER - TY - CONF AB - Computing the winning set for Büchi objectives in alternating games on graphs is a central problem in computer aided verification with a large number of applications. The long standing best known upper bound for solving the problem is Õ(n·m), where n is the number of vertices and m is the number of edges in the graph. We are the first to break the Õ(n·m) boundary by presenting a new technique that reduces the running time to O(n 2). This bound also leads to O(n 2) time algorithms for computing the set of almost-sure winning vertices for Büchi objectives (1) in alternating games with probabilistic transitions (improving an earlier bound of Õ(n·m)), (2) in concurrent graph games with constant actions (improving an earlier bound of O(n 3)), and (3) in Markov decision processes (improving for m > n 4/3 an earlier bound of O(min(m 1.5, m·n 2/3)). We also show that the same technique can be used to compute the maximal end-component decomposition of a graph in time O(n 2), which is an improvement over earlier bounds for m > n 4/3. Finally, we show how to maintain the winning set for Büchi objectives in alternating games under a sequence of edge insertions or a sequence of edge deletions in O(n) amortized time per operation. This is the first dynamic algorithm for this problem. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Henzinger, Monika H ID - 3165 T2 - Proceedings of the Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms TI - An O(n2) time algorithm for alternating Büchi games ER - TY - CONF AB - Two-player games on graphs are central in many problems in formal verification and program analysis such as synthesis and verification of open systems. In this work we consider solving recursive game graphs (or pushdown game graphs) that can model the control flow of sequential programs with recursion. While pushdown games have been studied before with qualitative objectives, such as reachability and parity objectives, in this work we study for the first time such games with the most well-studied quantitative objective, namely, mean payoff objectives. In pushdown games two types of strategies are relevant: (1) global strategies, that depend on the entire global history; and (2) modular strategies, that have only local memory and thus do not depend on the context of invocation, but only on the history of the current invocation of the module. Our main results are as follows: (1) One-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under global strategies are decidable in polynomial time. (2) Two-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under global strategies are undecidable. (3) One-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies are NP-hard. (4) Two-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies can be solved in NP (i.e., both one-player and two-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies are NP-complete). We also establish the optimal strategy complexity showing that global strategies for mean-payoff objectives require infinite memory even in one-player pushdown games; and memoryless modular strategies are sufficient in two-player pushdown games. Finally we also show that all the problems have the same computational complexity if the stack boundedness condition is added, where along with the mean-payoff objective the player must also ensure that the stack height is bounded. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Velner, Yaron ID - 2956 T2 - Proceedings of the 2012 27th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science TI - Mean payoff pushdown games ER - TY - GEN AB - Two-player games on graphs are central in many problems in formal verification and program analysis such as synthesis and verification of open systems. In this work we consider solving recursive game graphs (or pushdown game graphs) that can model the control flow of sequential programs with recursion. While pushdown games have been studied before with qualitative objectives, such as reachability and ω-regular objectives, in this work we study for the first time such games with the most well-studied quantitative objective, namely, mean-payoff objectives. In pushdown games two types of strategies are relevant: (1) global strategies, that depend on the entire global history; and (2) modular strategies, that have only local memory and thus do not depend on the context of invocation, but only on the history of the current invocation of the module. Our main results are as follows: (1) One-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under global strategies are decidable in polynomial time. (2) Two- player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under global strategies are undecidable. (3) One-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies are NP- hard. (4) Two-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies can be solved in NP (i.e., both one-player and two-player pushdown games with mean-payoff objectives under modular strategies are NP-complete). We also establish the optimal strategy complexity showing that global strategies for mean-payoff objectives require infinite memory even in one-player pushdown games; and memoryless modular strategies are sufficient in two- player pushdown games. Finally we also show that all the problems have the same complexity if the stack boundedness condition is added, where along with the mean-payoff objective the player must also ensure that the stack height is bounded. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Velner, Yaron ID - 5377 SN - 2664-1690 TI - Mean-payoff pushdown games ER - TY - GEN AB - One central issue in the formal design and analysis of reactive systems is the notion of refinement that asks whether all behaviors of the implementation is allowed by the specification. The local interpretation of behavior leads to the notion of simulation. Alternating transition systems (ATSs) provide a general model for composite reactive systems, and the simulation relation for ATSs is known as alternating simulation. The simulation relation for fair transition systems is called fair simulation. In this work our main contributions are as follows: (1) We present an improved algorithm for fair simulation with Büchi fairness constraints; our algorithm requires O(n3 · m) time as compared to the previous known O(n6)-time algorithm, where n is the number of states and m is the number of transitions. (2) We present a game based algorithm for alternating simulation that requires O(m2)-time as compared to the previous known O((n · m)2)-time algorithm, where n is the number of states and m is the size of transition relation. (3) We present an iterative algorithm for alternating simulation that matches the time complexity of the game based algorithm, but is more space efficient than the game based algorithm. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Chaubal, Siddhesh AU - Kamath, Pritish ID - 5378 SN - 2664-1690 TI - Faster algorithms for alternating refinement relations ER - TY - CONF AB - We consider two-player stochastic games played on finite graphs with reachability objectives where the first player tries to ensure a target state to be visited almost-surely (i.e., with probability 1), or positively (i.e., with positive probability), no matter the strategy of the second player. We classify such games according to the information and the power of randomization available to the players. On the basis of information, the game can be one-sided with either (a) player 1, or (b) player 2 having partial observation (and the other player has perfect observation), or two-sided with (c) both players having partial observation. On the basis of randomization, the players (a) may not be allowed to use randomization (pure strategies), or (b) may choose a probability distribution over actions but the actual random choice is external and not visible to the player (actions invisible), or (c) may use full randomization. Our main results for pure strategies are as follows. (1) For one-sided games with player 1 having partial observation we show that (in contrast to full randomized strategies) belief-based (subset-construction based) strategies are not sufficient, and we present an exponential upper bound on memory both for almostsure and positive winning strategies; we show that the problem of deciding the existence of almost-sure and positive winning strategies for player 1 is EXPTIME-complete. (2) For one-sided games with player 2 having partial observation we show that non-elementary memory is both necessary and sufficient for both almost-sure and positive winning strategies. (3) We show that for the general (two-sided) case finite-memory strategies are sufficient for both positive and almost-sure winning, and at least non-elementary memory is required. We establish the equivalence of the almost-sure winning problems for pure strategies and for randomized strategies with actions invisible. Our equivalence result exhibits serious flaws in previous results of the literature: we show a non-elementary memory lower bound for almost-sure winning whereas an exponential upper bound was previously claimed. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Doyen, Laurent ID - 2955 T2 - Proceedings of the 2012 27th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science TI - Partial-observation stochastic games: How to win when belief fails ER - TY - CONF AB - We consider two-player stochastic games played on a finite state space for an infinite number of rounds. The games are concurrent: in each round, the two players (player 1 and player 2) choose their moves independently and simultaneously; the current state and the two moves determine a probability distribution over the successor states. We also consider the important special case of turn-based stochastic games where players make moves in turns, rather than concurrently. We study concurrent games with \omega-regular winning conditions specified as parity objectives. The value for player 1 for a parity objective is the maximal probability with which the player can guarantee the satisfaction of the objective against all strategies of the opponent. We study the problem of continuity and robustness of the value function in concurrent and turn-based stochastic parity gameswith respect to imprecision in the transition probabilities. We present quantitative bounds on the difference of the value function (in terms of the imprecision of the transition probabilities) and show the value continuity for structurally equivalent concurrent games (two games are structurally equivalent if the support of the transition function is same and the probabilities differ). We also show robustness of optimal strategies for structurally equivalent turn-based stochastic parity games. Finally we show that the value continuity property breaks without the structurally equivalent assumption (even for Markov chains) and show that our quantitative bound is asymptotically optimal. Hence our results are tight (the assumption is both necessary and sufficient) and optimal (our quantitative bound is asymptotically optimal). AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu ID - 3341 TI - Robustness of structurally equivalent concurrent parity games VL - 7213 ER - TY - CONF AB - We consider probabilistic automata on infinite words with acceptance defined by parity conditions. We consider three qualitative decision problems: (i) the positive decision problem asks whether there is a word that is accepted with positive probability; (ii) the almost decision problem asks whether there is a word that is accepted with probability 1; and (iii) the limit decision problem asks whether words are accepted with probability arbitrarily close to 1. We unify and generalize several decidability results for probabilistic automata over infinite words, and identify a robust (closed under union and intersection) subclass of probabilistic automata for which all the qualitative decision problems are decidable for parity conditions. We also show that if the input words are restricted to lasso shape (regular) words, then the positive and almost problems are decidable for all probabilistic automata with parity conditions. For most decidable problems we show an optimal PSPACE-complete complexity bound. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Tracol, Mathieu ID - 2957 T2 - Proceedings of the 2012 27th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science TI - Decidable problems for probabilistic automata on infinite words ER -