TY - JOUR AB - Clathrin-mediated endocytosis requires the coordinated assembly of various endocytic proteins and lipids at the plasma membrane. Accumulating evidence demonstrates a crucial role for phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P2) in endocytosis, but specific roles for PtdIns(4)P other than as the biosynthetic precursor of PtdIns(4,5)P2 have not been clarified. In this study we investigated the role of PtdIns(4)P or PtdIns(4,5)P2 in receptor-mediated endocytosis through the construction of temperature-sensitive (ts) mutants for the PI 4-kinases Stt4p and Pik1p and the PtdIns(4) 5-kinase Mss4p. Quantitative analyses of endocytosis revealed that both the stt4(ts)pik1(ts) and mss4(ts) mutants have a severe defect in endocytic internalization. Live-cell imaging of endocytic protein dynamics in stt4(ts)pik1(ts) and mss4(ts) mutants revealed that PtdIns(4)P is required for the recruitment of the alpha-factor receptor Ste2p to clathrin-coated pits whereas PtdIns(4,5)P2 is required for membrane internalization. We also found that the localization to endocytic sites of the ENTH/ANTH domain-bearing clathrin adaptors, Ent1p/Ent2p and Yap1801p/Yap1802p, is significantly impaired in the stt4(ts)pik1(ts) mutant, but not in the mss4(ts) mutant. These results suggest distinct roles in successive steps for PtdIns(4)P and PtdIns(4,5)P2 during receptor-mediated endocytosis. AU - Yamamoto, Wataru AU - Wada, Suguru AU - Nagano, Makoto AU - Aoshima, Kaito AU - Siekhaus, Daria E AU - Toshima, Junko AU - Toshima, Jiro ID - 620 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Cell Science TI - Distinct roles for plasma membrane PtdIns 4 P and PtdIns 4 5 P2 during yeast receptor mediated endocytosis VL - 131 ER - TY - CONF AB - We describe a new algorithm for the parametric identification problem for signal temporal logic (STL), stated as follows. Given a densetime real-valued signal w and a parameterized temporal logic formula φ, compute the subset of the parameter space that renders the formula satisfied by the signal. Unlike previous solutions, which were based on search in the parameter space or quantifier elimination, our procedure works recursively on φ and computes the evolution over time of the set of valid parameter assignments. This procedure is similar to that of monitoring or computing the robustness of φ relative to w. Our implementation and experiments demonstrate that this approach can work well in practice. AU - Bakhirkin, Alexey AU - Ferrere, Thomas AU - Maler, Oded ID - 182 SN - 978-1-4503-5642-8 T2 - Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Hybrid Systems TI - Efficient parametric identification for STL ER - TY - CONF AB - Vector Addition Systems with States (VASS) provide a well-known and fundamental model for the analysis of concurrent processes, parameterized systems, and are also used as abstract models of programs in resource bound analysis. In this paper we study the problem of obtaining asymptotic bounds on the termination time of a given VASS. In particular, we focus on the practically important case of obtaining polynomial bounds on termination time. Our main contributions are as follows: First, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for deciding whether a given VASS has a linear asymptotic complexity. We also show that if the complexity of a VASS is not linear, it is at least quadratic. Second, we classify VASS according to quantitative properties of their cycles. We show that certain singularities in these properties are the key reason for non-polynomial asymptotic complexity of VASS. In absence of singularities, we show that the asymptotic complexity is always polynomial and of the form Θ(nk), for some integer k d, where d is the dimension of the VASS. We present a polynomial-time algorithm computing the optimal k. For general VASS, the same algorithm, which is based on a complete technique for the construction of ranking functions in VASS, produces a valid lower bound, i.e., a k such that the termination complexity is (nk). Our results are based on new insights into the geometry of VASS dynamics, which hold the potential for further applicability to VASS analysis. AU - Brázdil, Tomáš AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Kučera, Antonín AU - Novotny, Petr AU - Velan, Dominik AU - Zuleger, Florian ID - 143 SN - 978-1-4503-5583-4 TI - Efficient algorithms for asymptotic bounds on termination time in VASS VL - F138033 ER - TY - CONF AB - The accuracy of information retrieval systems is often measured using complex loss functions such as the average precision (AP) or the normalized discounted cumulative gain (NDCG). Given a set of positive and negative samples, the parameters of a retrieval system can be estimated by minimizing these loss functions. However, the non-differentiability and non-decomposability of these loss functions does not allow for simple gradient based optimization algorithms. This issue is generally circumvented by either optimizing a structured hinge-loss upper bound to the loss function or by using asymptotic methods like the direct-loss minimization framework. Yet, the high computational complexity of loss-augmented inference, which is necessary for both the frameworks, prohibits its use in large training data sets. To alleviate this deficiency, we present a novel quicksort flavored algorithm for a large class of non-decomposable loss functions. We provide a complete characterization of the loss functions that are amenable to our algorithm, and show that it includes both AP and NDCG based loss functions. Furthermore, we prove that no comparison based algorithm can improve upon the computational complexity of our approach asymptotically. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in the context of optimizing the structured hinge loss upper bound of AP and NDCG loss for learning models for a variety of vision tasks. We show that our approach provides significantly better results than simpler decomposable loss functions, while requiring a comparable training time. AU - Mohapatra, Pritish AU - Rolinek, Michal AU - Jawahar, C V AU - Kolmogorov, Vladimir AU - Kumar, M Pawan ID - 273 SN - 9781538664209 T2 - 2018 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition TI - Efficient optimization for rank-based loss functions ER - TY - JOUR AB - We report on quantum capacitance measurements of high quality, graphite- and hexagonal boron nitride encapsulated Bernal stacked trilayer graphene devices. At zero applied magnetic field, we observe a number of electron density- and electrical displacement-tuned features in the electronic compressibility associated with changes in Fermi surface topology. At high displacement field and low density, strong trigonal warping gives rise to emergent Dirac gullies centered near the corners of the hexagonal Brillouin and related by three fold rotation symmetry. At low magnetic fields of B=1.25~T, the gullies manifest as a change in the degeneracy of the Landau levels from two to three. Weak incompressible states are also observed at integer filling within these triplets Landau levels, which a Hartree-Fock analysis indicates are associated with Coulomb-driven nematic phases that spontaneously break rotation symmetry. AU - Zibrov, Alexander AU - Peng, Rao AU - Kometter, Carlos AU - Li, Jia AU - Dean, Cory AU - Taniguchi, Takashi AU - Watanabe, Kenji AU - Serbyn, Maksym AU - Young, Andrea ID - 289 IS - 16 JF - Physical Review Letters TI - Emergent dirac gullies and gully-symmetry-breaking quantum hall states in ABA trilayer graphene VL - 121 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In this paper, we discuss biological effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields in the context of cancer biology. In particular, we review the nanomechanical properties of microtubules (MTs), the latter being one of the most successful targets for cancer therapy. We propose an investigation on the coupling of electromagnetic radiation to mechanical vibrations of MTs as an important basis for biological and medical applications. In our opinion, optomechanical methods can accurately monitor and control the mechanical properties of isolated MTs in a liquid environment. Consequently, studying nanomechanical properties of MTs may give useful information for future applications to diagnostic and therapeutic technologies involving non-invasive externally applied physical fields. For example, electromagnetic fields or high intensity ultrasound can be used therapeutically avoiding harmful side effects of chemotherapeutic agents or classical radiation therapy. AU - Salari, Vahid AU - Barzanjeh, Shabir AU - Cifra, Michal AU - Simon, Christoph AU - Scholkmann, Felix AU - Alirezaei, Zahra AU - Tuszynski, Jack ID - 287 IS - 8 JF - Frontiers in Bioscience - Landmark TI - Electromagnetic fields and optomechanics In cancer diagnostics and treatment VL - 23 ER - TY - JOUR 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, that is, an essential curve in the boundary of X bounding a disk in S3 \ X 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 - 425 IS - 1 JF - Journal of the ACM TI - Embeddability in the 3-Sphere is decidable VL - 65 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Maladapted individuals can only colonise a new habitat if they can evolve a positive growth rate fast enough to avoid extinction, a process known as evolutionary rescue. We treat log fitness at low density in the new habitat as a single polygenic trait and thus use the infinitesimal model to follow the evolution of the growth rate; this assumes that the trait values of offspring of a sexual union are normally distributed around the mean of the parents’ trait values, with variance that depends only on the parents’ relatedness. The probability that a single migrant can establish depends on just two parameters: the mean and genetic variance of the trait in the source population. The chance of success becomes small if migrants come from a population with mean growth rate in the new habitat more than a few standard deviations below zero; this chance depends roughly equally on the probability that the initial founder is unusually fit, and on the subsequent increase in growth rate of its offspring as a result of selection. The loss of genetic variation during the founding event is substantial, but highly variable. With continued migration at rate M, establishment is inevitable; when migration is rare, the expected time to establishment decreases inversely with M. However, above a threshold migration rate, the population may be trapped in a ‘sink’ state, in which adaptation is held back by gene flow; above this threshold, the expected time to establishment increases exponentially with M. This threshold behaviour is captured by a deterministic approximation, which assumes a Gaussian distribution of the trait in the founder population with mean and variance evolving deterministically. By assuming a constant genetic variance, we also develop a diffusion approximation for the joint distribution of population size and trait mean, which extends to include stabilising selection and density regulation. Divergence of the population from its ancestors causes partial reproductive isolation, which we measure through the reproductive value of migrants into the newly established population. AU - Barton, Nicholas H AU - Etheridge, Alison ID - 564 IS - 7 JF - Theoretical Population Biology TI - Establishment in a new habitat by polygenic adaptation VL - 122 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Social dilemmas occur when incentives for individuals are misaligned with group interests 1-7 . According to the 'tragedy of the commons', these misalignments can lead to overexploitation and collapse of public resources. The resulting behaviours can be analysed with the tools of game theory 8 . The theory of direct reciprocity 9-15 suggests that repeated interactions can alleviate such dilemmas, but previous work has assumed that the public resource remains constant over time. Here we introduce the idea that the public resource is instead changeable and depends on the strategic choices of individuals. An intuitive scenario is that cooperation increases the public resource, whereas defection decreases it. Thus, cooperation allows the possibility of playing a more valuable game with higher payoffs, whereas defection leads to a less valuable game. We analyse this idea using the theory of stochastic games 16-19 and evolutionary game theory. We find that the dependence of the public resource on previous interactions can greatly enhance the propensity for cooperation. For these results, the interaction between reciprocity and payoff feedback is crucial: neither repeated interactions in a constant environment nor single interactions in a changing environment yield similar cooperation rates. Our framework shows which feedbacks between exploitation and environment - either naturally occurring or designed - help to overcome social dilemmas. AU - Hilbe, Christian AU - Šimsa, Štepán AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Nowak, Martin ID - 157 IS - 7713 JF - Nature TI - Evolution of cooperation in stochastic games VL - 559 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Can orthologous proteins differ in terms of their ability to be secreted? To answer this question, we investigated the distribution of signal peptides within the orthologous groups of Enterobacterales. Parsimony analysis and sequence comparisons revealed a large number of signal peptide gain and loss events, in which signal peptides emerge or disappear in the course of evolution. Signal peptide losses prevail over gains, an effect which is especially pronounced in the transition from the free-living or commensal to the endosymbiotic lifestyle. The disproportionate decline in the number of signal peptide-containing proteins in endosymbionts cannot be explained by the overall reduction of their genomes. Signal peptides can be gained and lost either by acquisition/elimination of the corresponding N-terminal regions or by gradual accumulation of mutations. The evolutionary dynamics of signal peptides in bacterial proteins represents a powerful mechanism of functional diversification. AU - Hönigschmid, Peter AU - Bykova, Nadya AU - Schneider, René AU - Ivankov, Dmitry AU - Frishman, Dmitrij ID - 384 IS - 3 JF - Genome Biology and Evolution TI - Evolutionary interplay between symbiotic relationships and patterns of signal peptide gain and loss VL - 10 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In continuous populations with local migration, nearby pairs of individuals have on average more similar genotypes than geographically well separated pairs. A barrier to gene flow distorts this classical pattern of isolation by distance. Genetic similarity is decreased for sample pairs on different sides of the barrier and increased for pairs on the same side near the barrier. Here, we introduce an inference scheme that utilizes this signal to detect and estimate the strength of a linear barrier to gene flow in two-dimensions. We use a diffusion approximation to model the effects of a barrier on the geographical spread of ancestry backwards in time. This approach allows us to calculate the chance of recent coalescence and probability of identity by descent. We introduce an inference scheme that fits these theoretical results to the geographical covariance structure of bialleleic genetic markers. It can estimate the strength of the barrier as well as several demographic parameters. We investigate the power of our inference scheme to detect barriers by applying it to a wide range of simulated data. We also showcase an example application to a Antirrhinum majus (snapdragon) flower color hybrid zone, where we do not detect any signal of a strong genome wide barrier to gene flow. AU - Ringbauer, Harald AU - Kolesnikov, Alexander AU - Field, David AU - Barton, Nicholas H ID - 563 IS - 3 JF - Genetics TI - Estimating barriers to gene flow from distorted isolation-by-distance patterns VL - 208 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The Fluid Implicit Particle method (FLIP) reduces numerical dissipation by combining particles with grids. To improve performance, the subsequent narrow band FLIP method (NB‐FLIP) uses a FLIP‐based fluid simulation only near the liquid surface and a traditional grid‐based fluid simulation away from the surface. This spatially‐limited FLIP simulation significantly reduces the number of particles and alleviates a computational bottleneck. In this paper, we extend the NB‐FLIP idea even further, by allowing a simulation to transition between a FLIP‐like fluid simulation and a grid‐based simulation in arbitrary locations, not just near the surface. This approach leads to even more savings in memory and computation, because we can concentrate the particles only in areas where they are needed. More importantly, this new method allows us to seamlessly transition to smooth implicit surface geometry wherever the particle‐based simulation is unnecessary. Consequently, our method leads to a practical algorithm for avoiding the noisy surface artifacts associated with particle‐based liquid simulations, while simultaneously maintaining the benefits of a FLIP simulation in regions of dynamic motion. AU - Sato, Takahiro AU - Wojtan, Christopher J AU - Thuerey, Nils AU - Igarashi, Takeo AU - Ando, Ryoichi ID - 135 IS - 2 JF - Computer Graphics Forum SN - 0167-7055 TI - Extended narrow band FLIP for liquid simulations VL - 37 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Self-incompatibility (SI) is a genetically based recognition system that functions to prevent self-fertilization and mating among related plants. An enduring puzzle in SI is how the high diversity observed in nature arises and is maintained. Based on the underlying recognition mechanism, SI can be classified into two main groups: self- and non-self recognition. Most work has focused on diversification within self-recognition systems despite expected differences between the two groups in the evolutionary pathways and outcomes of diversification. Here, we use a deterministic population genetic model and stochastic simulations to investigate how novel S-haplotypes evolve in a gametophytic non-self recognition (SRNase/S Locus F-box (SLF)) SI system. For this model the pathways for diversification involve either the maintenance or breakdown of SI and can vary in the order of mutations of the female (SRNase) and male (SLF) components. We show analytically that diversification can occur with high inbreeding depression and self-pollination, but this varies with evolutionary pathway and level of completeness (which determines the number of potential mating partners in the population), and in general is more likely for lower haplotype number. The conditions for diversification are broader in stochastic simulations of finite population size. However, the number of haplotypes observed under high inbreeding and moderate to high self-pollination is less than that commonly observed in nature. Diversification was observed through pathways that maintain SI as well as through self-compatible intermediates. Yet the lifespan of diversified haplotypes was sensitive to their level of completeness. By examining diversification in a non-self recognition SI system, this model extends our understanding of the evolution and maintenance of haplotype diversity observed in a self recognition system common in flowering plants. AU - Bodova, Katarina AU - Priklopil, Tadeas AU - Field, David AU - Barton, Nicholas H AU - Pickup, Melinda ID - 316 IS - 3 JF - Genetics TI - Evolutionary pathways for the generation of new self-incompatibility haplotypes in a non-self recognition system VL - 209 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The German cockroach, Blattella germanica, is a worldwide pest that infests buildings, including homes, restaurants, and hospitals, often living in unsanitary conditions. As a disease vector and producer of allergens, this species has major health and economic impacts on humans. Factors contributing to the success of the German cockroach include its resistance to a broad range of insecticides, immunity to many pathogens, and its ability, as an extreme generalist omnivore, to survive on most food sources. The recently published genome shows that B. germanica has an exceptionally high number of protein coding genes. In this study, we investigate the functions of the 93 significantly expanded gene families with the aim to better understand the success of B. germanica as a major pest despite such inhospitable conditions. We find major expansions in gene families with functions related to the detoxification of insecticides and allelochemicals, defense against pathogens, digestion, sensory perception, and gene regulation. These expansions might have allowed B. germanica to develop multiple resistance mechanisms to insecticides and pathogens, and enabled a broad, flexible diet, thus explaining its success in unsanitary conditions and under recurrent chemical control. The findings and resources presented here provide insights for better understanding molecular mechanisms that will facilitate more effective cockroach control. AU - Harrison, Mark AU - Arning, Nicolas AU - Kremer, Lucas AU - Ylla, Guillem AU - Belles, Xavier AU - Bornberg Bauer, Erich AU - Huylmans, Ann K AU - Jongepier, Evelien AU - Puilachs, Maria AU - Richards, Stephen AU - Schal, Coby ID - 190 JF - Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution TI - Expansions of key protein families in the German cockroach highlight the molecular basis of its remarkable success as a global indoor pest VL - 330 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We construct martingale solutions to stochastic thin-film equations by introducing a (spatial) semidiscretization and establishing convergence. The discrete scheme allows for variants of the energy and entropy estimates in the continuous setting as long as the discrete energy does not exceed certain threshold values depending on the spatial grid size $h$. Using a stopping time argument to prolongate high-energy paths constant in time, arbitrary moments of coupled energy/entropy functionals can be controlled. Having established Hölder regularity of approximate solutions, the convergence proof is then based on compactness arguments---in particular on Jakubowski's generalization of Skorokhod's theorem---weak convergence methods, and recent tools on martingale convergence. AU - Fischer, Julian L AU - Grün, Günther ID - 404 IS - 1 JF - SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis TI - Existence of positive solutions to stochastic thin-film equations VL - 50 ER - TY - GEN AB - File S1 contains figures that clarify the following features: (i) effect of population size on the average number/frequency of SI classes, (ii) changes in the minimal completeness deficit in time for a single class, and (iii) diversification diagrams for all studied pathways, including the summary figure for k = 8. File S2 contains the code required for a stochastic simulation of the SLF system with an example. This file also includes the output in the form of figures and tables. AU - Bod'ová, Katarína AU - Priklopil, Tadeas AU - Field, David AU - Barton, Nicholas H AU - Pickup, Melinda ID - 9813 TI - Supplemental material for Bodova et al., 2018 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Bioluminescence is found across the entire tree of life, conferring a spectacular set of visually oriented functions from attracting mates to scaring off predators. Half a dozen different luciferins, molecules that emit light when enzymatically oxidized, are known. However, just one biochemical pathway for luciferin biosynthesis has been described in full, which is found only in bacteria. Here, we report identification of the fungal luciferase and three other key enzymes that together form the biosynthetic cycle of the fungal luciferin from caffeic acid, a simple and widespread metabolite. Introduction of the identified genes into the genome of the yeast Pichia pastoris along with caffeic acid biosynthesis genes resulted in a strain that is autoluminescent in standard media. We analyzed evolution of the enzymes of the luciferin biosynthesis cycle and found that fungal bioluminescence emerged through a series of events that included two independent gene duplications. The retention of the duplicated enzymes of the luciferin pathway in nonluminescent fungi shows that the gene duplication was followed by functional sequence divergence of enzymes of at least one gene in the biosynthetic pathway and suggests that the evolution of fungal bioluminescence proceeded through several closely related stepping stone nonluminescent biochemical reactions with adaptive roles. The availability of a complete eukaryotic luciferin biosynthesis pathway provides several applications in biomedicine and bioengineering. AU - Kotlobay, Alexey A. AU - Sarkisyan, Karen AU - Mokrushina, Yuliana A. AU - Marcet-Houben, Marina AU - Serebrovskaya, Ekaterina O. AU - Markina, Nadezhda M. AU - Gonzalez Somermeyer, Louisa AU - Gorokhovatsky, Andrey Y. AU - Vvedensky, Andrey AU - Purtov, Konstantin V. AU - Petushkov, Valentin N. AU - Rodionova, Natalja S. AU - Chepurnyh, Tatiana V. AU - Fakhranurova, Liliia AU - Guglya, Elena B. AU - Ziganshin, Rustam AU - Tsarkova, Aleksandra S. AU - Kaskova, Zinaida M. AU - Shender, Victoria AU - Abakumov, Maxim AU - Abakumova, Tatiana O. AU - Povolotskaya, Inna S. AU - Eroshkin, Fedor M. AU - Zaraisky, Andrey G. AU - Mishin, Alexander S. AU - Dolgov, Sergey V. AU - Mitiouchkina, Tatiana Y. AU - Kopantzev, Eugene P. AU - Waldenmaier, Hans E. AU - Oliveira, Anderson G. AU - Oba, Yuichi AU - Barsova, Ekaterina AU - Bogdanova, Ekaterina A. AU - Gabaldón, Toni AU - Stevani, Cassius V. AU - Lukyanov, Sergey AU - Smirnov, Ivan V. AU - Gitelson, Josef I. AU - Kondrashov, Fyodor AU - Yampolsky, Ilia V. ID - 5780 IS - 50 JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America SN - 00278424 TI - Genetically encodable bioluminescent system from fungi VL - 115 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The plant hormone gibberellic acid (GA) is a crucial regulator of growth and development. The main paradigm of GA signaling puts forward transcriptional regulation via the degradation of DELLA transcriptional repressors. GA has also been shown to regulate tropic responses by modulation of the plasma membrane incidence of PIN auxin transporters by an unclear mechanism. Here we uncovered the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which GA redirects protein trafficking and thus regulates cell surface functionality. Photoconvertible reporters revealed that GA balances the protein traffic between the vacuole degradation route and recycling back to the cell surface. Low GA levels promote vacuolar delivery and degradation of multiple cargos, including PIN proteins, whereas high GA levels promote their recycling to the plasma membrane. This GA effect requires components of the retromer complex, such as Sorting Nexin 1 (SNX1) and its interacting, microtubule (MT)-associated protein, the Cytoplasmic Linker-Associated Protein (CLASP1). Accordingly, GA regulates the subcellular distribution of SNX1 and CLASP1, and the intact MT cytoskeleton is essential for the GA effect on trafficking. This GA cellular action occurs through DELLA proteins that regulate the MT and retromer presumably via their interaction partners Prefoldins (PFDs). Our study identified a branching of the GA signaling pathway at the level of DELLA proteins, which, in parallel to regulating transcription, also target by a nontranscriptional mechanism the retromer complex acting at the intersection of the degradation and recycling trafficking routes. By this mechanism, GA can redirect receptors and transporters to the cell surface, thus coregulating multiple processes, including PIN-dependent auxin fluxes during tropic responses. AU - Salanenka, Yuliya AU - Verstraeten, Inge AU - Löfke, Christian AU - Tabata, Kaori AU - Naramoto, Satoshi AU - Glanc, Matous AU - Friml, Jirí ID - 428 IS - 14 JF - PNAS TI - Gibberellin DELLA signaling targets the retromer complex to redirect protein trafficking to the plasma membrane VL - 115 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Imaging is a dominant strategy for data collection in neuroscience, yielding stacks of images that often scale to gigabytes of data for a single experiment. Machine learning algorithms from computer vision can serve as a pair of virtual eyes that tirelessly processes these images, automatically detecting and identifying microstructures. Unlike learning methods, our Flexible Learning-free Reconstruction of Imaged Neural volumes (FLoRIN) pipeline exploits structure-specific contextual clues and requires no training. This approach generalizes across different modalities, including serially-sectioned scanning electron microscopy (sSEM) of genetically labeled and contrast enhanced processes, spectral confocal reflectance (SCoRe) microscopy, and high-energy synchrotron X-ray microtomography (μCT) of large tissue volumes. We deploy the FLoRIN pipeline on newly published and novel mouse datasets, demonstrating the high biological fidelity of the pipeline’s reconstructions. FLoRIN reconstructions are of sufficient quality for preliminary biological study, for example examining the distribution and morphology of cells or extracting single axons from functional data. Compared to existing supervised learning methods, FLoRIN is one to two orders of magnitude faster and produces high-quality reconstructions that are tolerant to noise and artifacts, as is shown qualitatively and quantitatively. AU - Shabazi, Ali AU - Kinnison, Jeffery AU - Vescovi, Rafael AU - Du, Ming AU - Hill, Robert AU - Jösch, Maximilian A AU - Takeno, Marc AU - Zeng, Hongkui AU - Da Costa, Nuno AU - Grutzendler, Jaime AU - Kasthuri, Narayanan AU - Scheirer, Walter ID - 62 IS - 1 JF - Scientific Reports TI - Flexible learning-free segmentation and reconstruction of neural volumes VL - 8 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Dendritic cells (DCs) are sentinels of the adaptive immune system that reside in peripheral organs of mammals. Upon pathogen encounter, they undergo maturation and up-regulate the chemokine receptor CCR7 that guides them along gradients of its chemokine ligands CCL19 and 21 to the next draining lymph node. There, DCs present peripherally acquired antigen to naïve T cells, thereby triggering adaptive immunity. AU - Leithner, Alexander F AU - Renkawitz, Jörg AU - De Vries, Ingrid AU - Hauschild, Robert AU - Haecker, Hans AU - Sixt, Michael K ID - 437 IS - 6 JF - European Journal of Immunology TI - Fast and efficient genetic engineering of hematopoietic precursor cells for the study of dendritic cell migration VL - 48 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Insects are exposed to a variety of potential pathogens in their environment, many of which can severely impact fitness and health. Consequently, hosts have evolved resistance and tolerance strategies to suppress or cope with infections. Hosts utilizing resistance improve fitness by clearing or reducing pathogen loads, and hosts utilizing tolerance reduce harmful fitness effects per pathogen load. To understand variation in, and selective pressures on, resistance and tolerance, we asked to what degree they are shaped by host genetic background, whether plasticity in these responses depends upon dietary environment, and whether there are interactions between these two factors. Females from ten wild-type Drosophila melanogaster genotypes were kept on high- or low-protein (yeast) diets and infected with one of two opportunistic bacterial pathogens, Lactococcus lactis or Pseudomonas entomophila. We measured host resistance as the inverse of bacterial load in the early infection phase. The relationship (slope) between fly fecundity and individual-level bacteria load provided our fecundity tolerance measure. Genotype and dietary yeast determined host fecundity and strongly affected survival after infection with pathogenic P. entomophila. There was considerable genetic variation in host resistance, a commonly found phenomenon resulting from for example varying resistance costs or frequency-dependent selection. Despite this variation and the reproductive cost of higher P. entomophila loads, fecundity tolerance did not vary across genotypes. The absence of genetic variation in tolerance may suggest that at this early infection stage, fecundity tolerance is fixed or that any evolved tolerance mechanisms are not expressed under these infection conditions. AU - Kutzer, Megan AU - Kurtz, Joachim AU - Armitage, Sophie ID - 617 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Evolutionary Biology SN - 1010-061X TI - Genotype and diet affect resistance, survival, and fecundity but not fecundity tolerance VL - 31 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Despite the remarkable number of scientific breakthroughs of the last 100 years, the treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability) remains a great challenge. Recent advancements in genomics, such as whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing, have enabled scientists to identify numerous mutations underlying neurodevelopmental disorders. Given the few hundred risk genes that have been discovered, the etiological variability and the heterogeneous clinical presentation, the need for genotype — along with phenotype- based diagnosis of individual patients has become a requisite. In this review we look at recent advancements in genomic analysis and their translation into clinical practice. AU - Tarlungeanu, Dora-Clara AU - Novarino, Gaia ID - 5888 IS - 8 JF - Experimental & Molecular Medicine SN - 2092-6413 TI - Genomics in neurodevelopmental disorders: an avenue to personalized medicine VL - 50 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We prove upper and lower bounds on the ground-state energy of the ideal two-dimensional anyon gas. Our bounds are extensive in the particle number, as for fermions, and linear in the statistics parameter (Formula presented.). The lower bounds extend to Lieb–Thirring inequalities for all anyons except bosons. AU - Lundholm, Douglas AU - Seiringer, Robert ID - 295 IS - 11 JF - Letters in Mathematical Physics TI - Fermionic behavior of ideal anyons VL - 108 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Conventional wisdom has it that proteins fold and assemble into definite structures, and that this defines their function. Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are different. In most cases the structures they form have a low degree of order, even when interacting with proteins. Here, we discuss how physical features common to all GAGs — hydrophilicity, charge, linearity and semi-flexibility — underpin the overall properties of GAG-rich matrices. By integrating soft matter physics concepts (e.g. polymer brushes and phase separation) with our molecular understanding of GAG–protein interactions, we can better comprehend how GAG-rich matrices assemble, what their properties are, and how they function. Taking perineuronal nets (PNNs) — a GAG-rich matrix enveloping neurons — as a relevant example, we propose that microphase separation determines the holey PNN anatomy that is pivotal to PNN functions. AU - Richter, Ralf AU - Baranova, Natalia AU - Day, Anthony AU - Kwok, Jessica ID - 555 JF - Current Opinion in Structural Biology TI - Glycosaminoglycans in extracellular matrix organisation: Are concepts from soft matter physics key to understanding the formation of perineuronal nets? VL - 50 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the 2-Gb genome of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, and the 1.3-Gb genome of the drywood termite Cryptotermes secundus. We show evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality by comparing the genomes and transcriptomes of three termites and the cockroach against the background of 16 other eusocial and non-eusocial insects. Dramatic adaptive changes in genes underlying the production and perception of pheromones confirm the importance of chemical communication in the termites. These are accompanied by major changes in gene regulation and the molecular evolution of caste determination. Many of these results parallel molecular mechanisms of eusocial evolution in Hymenoptera. However, the specific solutions are remarkably different, thus revealing a striking case of convergence in one of the major evolutionary transitions in biological complexity. AU - Harrison, Mark AU - Jongepier, Evelien AU - Robertson, Hugh AU - Arning, Nicolas AU - Bitard Feildel, Tristan AU - Chao, Hsu AU - Childers, Christopher AU - Dinh, Huyen AU - Doddapaneni, Harshavardhan AU - Dugan, Shannon AU - Gowin, Johannes AU - Greiner, Carolin AU - Han, Yi AU - Hu, Haofu AU - Hughes, Daniel AU - Huylmans, Ann K AU - Kemena, Karsten AU - Kremer, Lukas AU - Lee, Sandra AU - López Ezquerra, Alberto AU - Mallet, Ludovic AU - Monroy Kuhn, Jose AU - Moser, Annabell AU - Murali, Shwetha AU - Muzny, Donna AU - Otani, Saria AU - Piulachs, Maria AU - Poelchau, Monica AU - Qu, Jiaxin AU - Schaub, Florentine AU - Wada Katsumata, Ayako AU - Worley, Kim AU - Xie, Qiaolin AU - Ylla, Guillem AU - Poulsen, Michael AU - Gibbs, Richard AU - Schal, Coby AU - Richards, Stephen AU - Belles, Xavier AU - Korb, Judith AU - Bornberg Bauer, Erich ID - 448 IS - 3 JF - Nature Ecology and Evolution TI - Hemimetabolous genomes reveal molecular basis of termite eusociality VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Escaping local optima is one of the major obstacles to function optimisation. Using the metaphor of a fitness landscape, local optima correspond to hills separated by fitness valleys that have to be overcome. We define a class of fitness valleys of tunable difficulty by considering their length, representing the Hamming path between the two optima and their depth, the drop in fitness. For this function class we present a runtime comparison between stochastic search algorithms using different search strategies. The (1+1) EA is a simple and well-studied evolutionary algorithm that has to jump across the valley to a point of higher fitness because it does not accept worsening moves (elitism). In contrast, the Metropolis algorithm and the Strong Selection Weak Mutation (SSWM) algorithm, a famous process in population genetics, are both able to cross the fitness valley by accepting worsening moves. We show that the runtime of the (1+1) EA depends critically on the length of the valley while the runtimes of the non-elitist algorithms depend crucially on the depth of the valley. Moreover, we show that both SSWM and Metropolis can also efficiently optimise a rugged function consisting of consecutive valleys. AU - Oliveto, Pietro AU - Paixao, Tiago AU - Pérez Heredia, Jorge AU - Sudholt, Dirk AU - Trubenova, Barbora ID - 723 IS - 5 JF - Algorithmica TI - How to escape local optima in black box optimisation when non elitism outperforms elitism VL - 80 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The twelve papers in this special section focus on learning systems with shared information for computer vision and multimedia communication analysis. In the real world, a realistic setting for computer vision or multimedia recognition problems is that we have some classes containing lots of training data and many classes containing a small amount of training data. Therefore, how to use frequent classes to help learning rare classes for which it is harder to collect the training data is an open question. Learning with shared information is an emerging topic in machine learning, computer vision and multimedia analysis. There are different levels of components that can be shared during concept modeling and machine learning stages, such as sharing generic object parts, sharing attributes, sharing transformations, sharing regularization parameters and sharing training examples, etc. Regarding the specific methods, multi-task learning, transfer learning and deep learning can be seen as using different strategies to share information. These learning with shared information methods are very effective in solving real-world large-scale problems. AU - Darrell, Trevor AU - Lampert, Christoph AU - Sebe, Nico AU - Wu, Ying AU - Yan, Yan ID - 321 IS - 5 JF - IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence TI - Guest editors' introduction to the special section on learning with Shared information for computer vision and multimedia analysis VL - 40 ER - TY - GEN AB - Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the 2-Gb genome of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, and the 1.3-Gb genome of the drywood termite Cryptotermes secundus. We show evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality by comparing the genomes and transcriptomes of three termites and the cockroach against the background of 16 other eusocial and non-eusocial insects. Dramatic adaptive changes in genes underlying the production and perception of pheromones confirm the importance of chemical communication in the termites. These are accompanied by major changes in gene regulation and the molecular evolution of caste determination. Many of these results parallel molecular mechanisms of eusocial evolution in Hymenoptera. However, the specific solutions are remarkably different, thus revealing a striking case of convergence in one of the major evolutionary transitions in biological complexity. AU - Harrison, Mark C. AU - Jongepier, Evelien AU - Robertson, Hugh M. AU - Arning, Nicolas AU - Bitard-Feildel, Tristan AU - Chao, Hsu AU - Childers, Christopher P. AU - Dinh, Huyen AU - Doddapaneni, Harshavardhan AU - Dugan, Shannon AU - Gowin, Johannes AU - Greiner, Carolin AU - Han, Yi AU - Hu, Haofu AU - Hughes, Daniel S. T. AU - Huylmans, Ann K AU - Kemena, Carsten AU - Kremer, Lukas P. M. AU - Lee, Sandra L. AU - Lopez-Ezquerra, Alberto AU - Mallet, Ludovic AU - Monroy-Kuhn, Jose M. AU - Moser, Annabell AU - Murali, Shwetha C. AU - Muzny, Donna M. AU - Otani, Saria AU - Piulachs, Maria-Dolors AU - Poelchau, Monica AU - Qu, Jiaxin AU - Schaub, Florentine AU - Wada-Katsumata, Ayako AU - Worley, Kim C. AU - Xie, Qiaolin AU - Ylla, Guillem AU - Poulsen, Michael AU - Gibbs, Richard A. AU - Schal, Coby AU - Richards, Stephen AU - Belles, Xavier AU - Korb, Judith AU - Bornberg-Bauer, Erich ID - 9841 TI - Data from: Hemimetabolous genomes reveal molecular basis of termite eusociality ER - TY - CONF AB - Concurrent sets with range query operations are highly desirable in applications such as in-memory databases. However, few set implementations offer range queries. Known techniques for augmenting data structures with range queries (or operations that can be used to build range queries) have numerous problems that limit their usefulness. For example, they impose high overhead or rely heavily on garbage collection. In this work, we show how to augment data structures with highly efficient range queries, without relying on garbage collection. We identify a property of epoch-based memory reclamation algorithms that makes them ideal for implementing range queries, and produce three algorithms, which use locks, transactional memory and lock-free techniques, respectively. Our algorithms are applicable to more data structures than previous work, and are shown to be highly efficient on a large scale Intel system. AU - Arbel Raviv, Maya AU - Brown, Trevor A ID - 397 IS - 1 SN - 978-1-4503-4982-6 TI - Harnessing epoch-based reclamation for efficient range queries VL - 53 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The functional role of AMPA receptor (AMPAR)-mediated synaptic signaling between neurons and oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) remains enigmatic. We modified the properties of AMPARs at axon-OPC synapses in the mouse corpus callosum in vivo during the peak of myelination by targeting the GluA2 subunit. Expression of the unedited (Ca2+ permeable) or the pore-dead GluA2 subunit of AMPARs triggered proliferation of OPCs and reduced their differentiation into oligodendrocytes. Expression of the cytoplasmic C-terminal (GluA2(813-862)) of the GluA2 subunit (C-tail), a modification designed to affect the interaction between GluA2 and AMPAR-binding proteins and to perturb trafficking of GluA2-containing AMPARs, decreased the differentiation of OPCs without affecting their proliferation. These findings suggest that ionotropic and non-ionotropic properties of AMPARs in OPCs, as well as specific aspects of AMPAR-mediated signaling at axon-OPC synapses in the mouse corpus callosum, are important for balancing the response of OPCs to proliferation and differentiation cues. In the brain, oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) receive glutamatergic AMPA-receptor-mediated synaptic input from neurons. Chen et al. show that modifying AMPA-receptor properties at axon-OPC synapses alters proliferation and differentiation of OPCs. This expands the traditional view of synaptic transmission by suggesting neurons also use synapses to modulate behavior of glia. AU - Chen, Ting AU - Kula, Bartosz AU - Nagy, Balint AU - Barzan, Ruxandra AU - Gall, Andrea AU - Ehrlich, Ingrid AU - Kukley, Maria ID - 32 IS - 4 JF - Cell Reports TI - In Vivo regulation of Oligodendrocyte processor cell proliferation and differentiation by the AMPA-receptor Subunit GluA2 VL - 25 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The release of IgM is the first line of an antibody response and precedes the generation of high affinity IgG in germinal centers. Once secreted by freshly activated plasmablasts, IgM is released into the efferent lymph of reactive lymph nodes as early as 3 d after immunization. As pentameric IgM has an enormous size of 1,000 kD, its diffusibility is low, and one might wonder how it can pass through the densely lymphocyte-packed environment of a lymph node parenchyma in order to reach its exit. In this issue of JEM, Thierry et al. show that, in order to reach the blood stream, IgM molecules take a specific micro-anatomical route via lymph node conduits. AU - Reversat, Anne AU - Sixt, Michael K ID - 5672 IS - 12 JF - Journal of Experimental Medicine SN - 00221007 TI - IgM's exit route VL - 215 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Objective: To report long-term results after Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) implantation, characterize complex and standard aneurysms comprehensively, and introduce a modified flow disruption scale. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed a consecutive series of 40 patients harboring 59 aneurysms treated with 54 PEDs. Aneurysm complexity was assessed using our proposed classification. Immediate angiographic results were analyzed using previously published grading scales and our novel flow disruption scale. Results: According to our new definition, 46 (78%) aneurysms were classified as complex. Most PED interventions were performed in the paraophthalmic and cavernous internal carotid artery segments. Excellent neurologic outcome (modified Rankin Scale 0 and 1) was observed in 94% of patients. Our data showed low permanent procedure-related mortality (0%) and morbidity (3%) rates. Long-term angiographic follow-up showed complete occlusion in 81% and near-total obliteration in a further 14%. Complete obliteration after deployment of a single PED was achieved in all standard aneurysms with 1-year follow-up. Our new scale was an independent predictor of aneurysm occlusion in a multivariable analysis. All aneurysms with a high flow disruption grade showed complete occlusion at follow-up regardless of PED number or aneurysm complexity. Conclusions: Treatment with the PED should be recognized as a primary management strategy for a highly selected cohort with predominantly complex intracranial aneurysms. We further show that a priori assessment of aneurysm complexity and our new postinterventional angiographic flow disruption scale predict occlusion probability and may help to determine the adequate number of per-aneurysm devices. AU - Dodier, Philippe AU - Frischer, Josa AU - Wang, Wei AU - Auzinger, Thomas AU - Mallouhi, Ammar AU - Serles, Wolfgang AU - Gruber, Andreas AU - Knosp, Engelbert AU - Bavinzski, Gerhard ID - 398 JF - World Neurosurgery TI - Immediate flow disruption as a prognostic factor after flow diverter treatment long term experience with the pipeline embolization device VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider congruences of straight lines in a plane with the combinatorics of the square grid, with all elementary quadrilaterals possessing an incircle. It is shown that all the vertices of such nets (we call them incircular or IC-nets) lie on confocal conics. Our main new results are on checkerboard IC-nets in the plane. These are congruences of straight lines in the plane with the combinatorics of the square grid, combinatorially colored as a checkerboard, such that all black coordinate quadrilaterals possess inscribed circles. We show how this larger class of IC-nets appears quite naturally in Laguerre geometry of oriented planes and spheres and leads to new remarkable incidence theorems. Most of our results are valid in hyperbolic and spherical geometries as well. We present also generalizations in spaces of higher dimension, called checkerboard IS-nets. The construction of these nets is based on a new 9 inspheres incidence theorem. AU - Akopyan, Arseniy AU - Bobenko, Alexander ID - 458 IS - 4 JF - Transactions of the American Mathematical Society TI - Incircular nets and confocal conics VL - 370 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Sperm cells are the most morphologically diverse cells across animal taxa. Within species, sperm and ejaculate traits have been suggested to vary with the male's competitive environment, e.g., level of sperm competition, female mating status and quality, and also with male age, body mass, physiological condition, and resource availability. Most previous studies have based their conclusions on the analysis of only one or a few ejaculates per male without investigating differences among the ejaculates of the same individual. This masks potential ejaculate-specific traits. Here, we provide data on the length, quantity, and viability of sperm ejaculated by wingless males of the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. Males of this ant species are relatively long-lived and can mate with large numbers of female sexuals throughout their lives. We analyzed all ejaculates across the individuals' lifespan and manipulated the availability of mating partners. Our study shows that both the number and size of sperm cells transferred during copulations differ among individuals and also among ejaculates of the same male. Sperm quality does not decrease with male age, but the variation in sperm number between ejaculates indicates that males need considerable time to replenish their sperm supplies. Producing many ejaculates in a short time appears to be traded-off against male longevity rather than sperm quality. AU - Metzler, Sina AU - Schrempf, Alexandra AU - Heinze, Jürgen ID - 426 JF - Journal of Insect Physiology TI - Individual- and ejaculate-specific sperm traits in ant males VL - 107 ER - TY - CONF AB - In two-player games on graphs, the players move a token through a graph to produce an infinite path, which determines the winner or payoff of the game. Such games are central in formal verification since they model the interaction between a non-terminating system and its environment. We study bidding games in which the players bid for the right to move the token. Two bidding rules have been defined. In Richman bidding, in each round, the players simultaneously submit bids, and the higher bidder moves the token and pays the other player. Poorman bidding is similar except that the winner of the bidding pays the “bank” rather than the other player. While poorman reachability games have been studied before, we present, for the first time, results on infinite-duration poorman games. A central quantity in these games is the ratio between the two players’ initial budgets. The questions we study concern a necessary and sufficient ratio with which a player can achieve a goal. For reachability objectives, such threshold ratios are known to exist for both bidding rules. We show that the properties of poorman reachability games extend to complex qualitative objectives such as parity, similarly to the Richman case. Our most interesting results concern quantitative poorman games, namely poorman mean-payoff games, where we construct optimal strategies depending on the initial ratio, by showing a connection with random-turn based games. The connection in itself is interesting, because it does not hold for reachability poorman games. We also solve the complexity problems that arise in poorman bidding games. AU - Avni, Guy AU - Henzinger, Thomas A AU - Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus ID - 5788 SN - 03029743 TI - Infinite-duration poorman-bidding games VL - 11316 ER - TY - JOUR AB - A short, 14-amino-acid segment called SP1, located in the Gag structural protein1, has a critical role during the formation of the HIV-1 virus particle. During virus assembly, the SP1 peptide and seven preceding residues fold into a six-helix bundle, which holds together the Gag hexamer and facilitates the formation of a curved immature hexagonal lattice underneath the viral membrane2,3. Upon completion of assembly and budding, proteolytic cleavage of Gag leads to virus maturation, in which the immature lattice is broken down; the liberated CA domain of Gag then re-assembles into the mature conical capsid that encloses the viral genome and associated enzymes. Folding and proteolysis of the six-helix bundle are crucial rate-limiting steps of both Gag assembly and disassembly, and the six-helix bundle is an established target of HIV-1 inhibitors4,5. Here, using a combination of structural and functional analyses, we show that inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6, also known as IP6) facilitates the formation of the six-helix bundle and assembly of the immature HIV-1 Gag lattice. IP6 makes ionic contacts with two rings of lysine residues at the centre of the Gag hexamer. Proteolytic cleavage then unmasks an alternative binding site, where IP6 interaction promotes the assembly of the mature capsid lattice. These studies identify IP6 as a naturally occurring small molecule that promotes both assembly and maturation of HIV-1. AU - Dick, Robert AU - Zadrozny, Kaneil K AU - Xu, Chaoyi AU - Schur, Florian AU - Lyddon, Terri D AU - Ricana, Clifton L AU - Wagner, Jonathan M AU - Perilla, Juan R AU - Ganser, Pornillos Barbie K AU - Johnson, Marc C AU - Pornillos, Owen AU - Vogt, Volker ID - 150 IS - 7719 JF - Nature TI - Inositol phosphates are assembly co-factors for HIV-1 VL - 560 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The theory of tropical series, that we develop here, firstly appeared in the study of the growth of pluriharmonic functions. Motivated by waves in sandpile models we introduce a dynamic on the set of tropical series, and it is experimentally observed that this dynamic obeys a power law. So, this paper serves as a compilation of results we need for other articles and also introduces several objects interesting by themselves. AU - Kalinin, Nikita AU - Shkolnikov, Mikhail ID - 303 IS - 6 JF - Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems- Series A TI - Introduction to tropical series and wave dynamic on them VL - 38 ER - TY - CONF AB - Approximating a probability density in a tractable manner is a central task in Bayesian statistics. Variational Inference (VI) is a popular technique that achieves tractability by choosing a relatively simple variational family. Borrowing ideas from the classic boosting framework, recent approaches attempt to \emph{boost} VI by replacing the selection of a single density with a greedily constructed mixture of densities. In order to guarantee convergence, previous works impose stringent assumptions that require significant effort for practitioners. Specifically, they require a custom implementation of the greedy step (called the LMO) for every probabilistic model with respect to an unnatural variational family of truncated distributions. Our work fixes these issues with novel theoretical and algorithmic insights. On the theoretical side, we show that boosting VI satisfies a relaxed smoothness assumption which is sufficient for the convergence of the functional Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm. Furthermore, we rephrase the LMO problem and propose to maximize the Residual ELBO (RELBO) which replaces the standard ELBO optimization in VI. These theoretical enhancements allow for black box implementation of the boosting subroutine. Finally, we present a stopping criterion drawn from the duality gap in the classic FW analyses and exhaustive experiments to illustrate the usefulness of our theoretical and algorithmic contributions. AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Dresdner, Gideon AU - Khanna, Rajiv AU - Valera, Isabel AU - Rätsch, Gunnar ID - 14202 SN - 9781510884472 T2 - Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems TI - Boosting black box variational inference VL - 31 ER - TY - CONF AB - Variational inference is a popular technique to approximate a possibly intractable Bayesian posterior with a more tractable one. Recently, boosting variational inference has been proposed as a new paradigm to approximate the posterior by a mixture of densities by greedily adding components to the mixture. However, as is the case with many other variational inference algorithms, its theoretical properties have not been studied. In the present work, we study the convergence properties of this approach from a modern optimization viewpoint by establishing connections to the classic Frank-Wolfe algorithm. Our analyses yields novel theoretical insights regarding the sufficient conditions for convergence, explicit rates, and algorithmic simplifications. Since a lot of focus in previous works for variational inference has been on tractability, our work is especially important as a much needed attempt to bridge the gap between probabilistic models and their corresponding theoretical properties. AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Khanna, Rajiv AU - Ghosh, Joydeep AU - Rätsch, Gunnar ID - 14201 T2 - Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics TI - Boosting variational inference: An optimization perspective VL - 84 ER - TY - CONF AB - High-dimensional time series are common in many domains. Since human cognition is not optimized to work well in high-dimensional spaces, these areas could benefit from interpretable low-dimensional representations. However, most representation learning algorithms for time series data are difficult to interpret. This is due to non-intuitive mappings from data features to salient properties of the representation and non-smoothness over time. To address this problem, we propose a new representation learning framework building on ideas from interpretable discrete dimensionality reduction and deep generative modeling. This framework allows us to learn discrete representations of time series, which give rise to smooth and interpretable embeddings with superior clustering performance. We introduce a new way to overcome the non-differentiability in discrete representation learning and present a gradient-based version of the traditional self-organizing map algorithm that is more performant than the original. Furthermore, to allow for a probabilistic interpretation of our method, we integrate a Markov model in the representation space. This model uncovers the temporal transition structure, improves clustering performance even further and provides additional explanatory insights as well as a natural representation of uncertainty. We evaluate our model in terms of clustering performance and interpretability on static (Fashion-)MNIST data, a time series of linearly interpolated (Fashion-)MNIST images, a chaotic Lorenz attractor system with two macro states, as well as on a challenging real world medical time series application on the eICU data set. Our learned representations compare favorably with competitor methods and facilitate downstream tasks on the real world data. AU - Fortuin, Vincent AU - Hüser, Matthias AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Strathmann, Heiko AU - Rätsch, Gunnar ID - 14198 T2 - International Conference on Learning Representations TI - SOM-VAE: Interpretable discrete representation learning on time series ER - TY - CONF AB - We propose a conditional gradient framework for a composite convex minimization template with broad applications. Our approach combines smoothing and homotopy techniques under the CGM framework, and provably achieves the optimal O(1/k−−√) convergence rate. We demonstrate that the same rate holds if the linear subproblems are solved approximately with additive or multiplicative error. In contrast with the relevant work, we are able to characterize the convergence when the non-smooth term is an indicator function. Specific applications of our framework include the non-smooth minimization, semidefinite programming, and minimization with linear inclusion constraints over a compact domain. Numerical evidence demonstrates the benefits of our framework. AU - Yurtsever, Alp AU - Fercoq, Olivier AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Cevher, Volkan ID - 14203 T2 - Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Machine Learning TI - A conditional gradient framework for composite convex minimization with applications to semidefinite programming VL - 80 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Adaptive introgression is common in nature and can be driven by selection acting on multiple, linked genes. We explore the effects of polygenic selection on introgression under the infinitesimal model with linkage. This model assumes that the introgressing block has an effectively infinite number of genes, each with an infinitesimal effect on the trait under selection. The block is assumed to introgress under directional selection within a native population that is genetically homogeneous. We use individual-based simulations and a branching process approximation to compute various statistics of the introgressing block, and explore how these depend on parameters such as the map length and initial trait value associated with the introgressing block, the genetic variability along the block, and the strength of selection. Our results show that the introgression dynamics of a block under infinitesimal selection is qualitatively different from the dynamics of neutral introgression. We also find that in the long run, surviving descendant blocks are likely to have intermediate lengths, and clarify how the length is shaped by the interplay between linkage and infinitesimal selection. Our results suggest that it may be difficult to distinguish introgression of single loci from that of genomic blocks with multiple, tightly linked and weakly selected loci. AU - Sachdeva, Himani AU - Barton, Nicholas H ID - 282 IS - 4 JF - Genetics TI - Introgression of a block of genome under infinitesimal selection VL - 209 ER - TY - CONF AB - Universal hashing found a lot of applications in computer science. In cryptography the most important fact about universal families is the so called Leftover Hash Lemma, proved by Impagliazzo, Levin and Luby. In the language of modern cryptography it states that almost universal families are good extractors. In this work we provide a somewhat surprising characterization in the opposite direction. Namely, every extractor with sufficiently good parameters yields a universal family on a noticeable fraction of its inputs. Our proof technique is based on tools from extremal graph theory applied to the \'collision graph\' induced by the extractor, and may be of independent interest. We discuss possible applications to the theory of randomness extractors and non-malleable codes. AU - Obremski, Marciej AU - Skorski, Maciej ID - 108 TI - Inverted leftover hash lemma VL - 2018 ER - TY - CONF AB - Two popular examples of first-order optimization methods over linear spaces are coordinate descent and matching pursuit algorithms, with their randomized variants. While the former targets the optimization by moving along coordinates, the latter considers a generalized notion of directions. Exploiting the connection between the two algorithms, we present a unified analysis of both, providing affine invariant sublinear O(1/t) rates on smooth objectives and linear convergence on strongly convex objectives. As a byproduct of our affine invariant analysis of matching pursuit, our rates for steepest coordinate descent are the tightest known. Furthermore, we show the first accelerated convergence rate O(1/t2) for matching pursuit and steepest coordinate descent on convex objectives. AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Raj, Anant AU - Karimireddy, Sai Praneeth AU - Rätsch, Gunnar AU - Schölkopf, Bernhard AU - Stich, Sebastian U. AU - Jaggi, Martin ID - 14204 T2 - Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Machine Learning TI - On matching pursuit and coordinate descent VL - 80 ER - TY - CONF AB - We present layered concurrent programs, a compact and expressive notation for specifying refinement proofs of concurrent programs. A layered concurrent program specifies a sequence of connected concurrent programs, from most concrete to most abstract, such that common parts of different programs are written exactly once. These programs are expressed in the ordinary syntax of imperative concurrent programs using gated atomic actions, sequencing, choice, and (recursive) procedure calls. Each concurrent program is automatically extracted from the layered program. We reduce refinement to the safety of a sequence of concurrent checker programs, one each to justify the connection between every two consecutive concurrent programs. These checker programs are also automatically extracted from the layered program. Layered concurrent programs have been implemented in the CIVL verifier which has been successfully used for the verification of several complex concurrent programs. AU - Kragl, Bernhard AU - Qadeer, Shaz ID - 160 TI - Layered Concurrent Programs VL - 10981 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Flowers have a species-specific functional life span that determines the time window in which pollination, fertilization and seed set can occur. The stigma tissue plays a key role in flower receptivity by intercepting pollen and initiating pollen tube growth toward the ovary. In this article, we show that a developmentally controlled cell death programme terminates the functional life span of stigma cells in Arabidopsis. We identified the leaf senescence regulator ORESARA1 (also known as ANAC092) and the previously uncharacterized KIRA1 (also known as ANAC074) as partially redundant transcription factors that modulate stigma longevity by controlling the expression of programmed cell death-associated genes. KIRA1 expression is sufficient to induce cell death and terminate floral receptivity, whereas lack of both KIRA1 and ORESARA1 substantially increases stigma life span. Surprisingly, the extension of stigma longevity is accompanied by only a moderate extension of flower receptivity, suggesting that additional processes participate in the control of the flower's receptive life span. AU - Gao, Zhen AU - Daneva, Anna AU - Salanenka, Yuliya AU - Van Durme, Matthias AU - Huysmans, Marlies AU - Lin, Zongcheng AU - De Winter, Freya AU - Vanneste, Steffen AU - Karimi, Mansour AU - Van De Velde, Jan AU - Vandepoele, Klaas AU - Van De Walle, Davy AU - Dewettinck, Koen AU - Lambrecht, Bart AU - Nowack, Moritz ID - 280 IS - 6 JF - Nature Plants TI - KIRA1 and ORESARA1 terminate flower receptivity by promoting cell death in the stigma of Arabidopsis VL - 4 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Buffers are essential for diluting bacterial cultures for flow cytometry analysis in order to study bacterial physiology and gene expression parameters based on fluorescence signals. Using a variety of constitutively expressed fluorescent proteins in Escherichia coli K-12 strain MG1655, we found strong artifactual changes in fluorescence levels after dilution into the commonly used flow cytometry buffer phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and two other buffer solutions, Tris-HCl and M9 salts. These changes appeared very rapidly after dilution, and were linked to increased membrane permeability and loss in cell viability. We observed buffer-related effects in several different E. coli strains, K-12, C and W, but not E. coli B, which can be partially explained by differences in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and outer membrane composition. Supplementing the buffers with divalent cations responsible for outer membrane stability, Mg2+ and Ca2+, preserved fluorescence signals, membrane integrity and viability of E. coli. Thus, stabilizing the bacterial outer membrane is essential for precise and unbiased measurements of fluorescence parameters using flow cytometry. AU - Tomasek, Kathrin AU - Bergmiller, Tobias AU - Guet, Calin C ID - 503 JF - Journal of Biotechnology TI - Lack of cations in flow cytometry buffers affect fluorescence signals by reducing membrane stability and viability of Escherichia coli strains VL - 268 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In experimental cultures, when bacteria are mixed with lytic (virulent) bacteriophage, bacterial cells resistant to the phage commonly emerge and become the dominant population of bacteria. Following the ascent of resistant mutants, the densities of bacteria in these simple communities become limited by resources rather than the phage. Despite the evolution of resistant hosts, upon which the phage cannot replicate, the lytic phage population is most commonly maintained in an apparently stable state with the resistant bacteria. Several mechanisms have been put forward to account for this result. Here we report the results of population dynamic/evolution experiments with a virulent mutant of phage Lambda, λVIR, and Escherichia coli in serial transfer cultures. We show that, following the ascent of λVIR-resistant bacteria, λVIRis maintained in the majority of cases in maltose-limited minimal media and in all cases in nutrient-rich broth. Using mathematical models and experiments, we show that the dominant mechanism responsible for maintenance of λVIRin these resource-limited populations dominated by resistant E. coli is a high rate of either phenotypic or genetic transition from resistance to susceptibility—a hitherto undemonstrated mechanism we term "leaky resistance." We discuss the implications of leaky resistance to our understanding of the conditions for the maintenance of phage in populations of bacteria—their “existence conditions.”. AU - Chaudhry, Waqas AU - Pleska, Maros AU - Shah, Nilang AU - Weiss, Howard AU - Mccall, Ingrid AU - Meyer, Justin AU - Gupta, Animesh AU - Guet, Calin C AU - Levin, Bruce ID - 82 IS - 8 JF - PLoS Biology TI - Leaky resistance and the conditions for the existence of lytic bacteriophage VL - 16 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We present a data-driven technique to instantly predict how fluid flows around various three-dimensional objects. Such simulation is useful for computational fabrication and engineering, but is usually computationally expensive since it requires solving the Navier-Stokes equation for many time steps. To accelerate the process, we propose a machine learning framework which predicts aerodynamic forces and velocity and pressure fields given a threedimensional shape input. Handling detailed free-form three-dimensional shapes in a data-driven framework is challenging because machine learning approaches usually require a consistent parametrization of input and output. We present a novel PolyCube maps-based parametrization that can be computed for three-dimensional shapes at interactive rates. This allows us to efficiently learn the nonlinear response of the flow using a Gaussian process regression. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for the interactive design and optimization of a car body. AU - Umetani, Nobuyuki AU - Bickel, Bernd ID - 4 IS - 4 JF - ACM Trans. Graph. TI - Learning three-dimensional flow for interactive aerodynamic design VL - 37 ER - TY - CONF AB - Fault-localization is considered to be a very tedious and time-consuming activity in the design of complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). This laborious task essentially requires expert knowledge of the system in order to discover the cause of the fault. In this context, we propose a new procedure that AIDS designers in debugging Simulink/Stateflow hybrid system models, guided by Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specifications. The proposed method relies on three main ingredients: (1) a monitoring and a trace diagnostics procedure that checks whether a tested behavior satisfies or violates an STL specification, localizes time segments and interfaces variables contributing to the property violations; (2) a slicing procedure that maps these observable behavior segments to the internal states and transitions of the Simulink model; and (3) a spectrum-based fault-localization method that combines the previous analysis from multiple tests to identify the internal states and/or transitions that are the most likely to explain the fault. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach on two Simulink models from the automotive and the avionics domain. AU - Bartocci, Ezio AU - Ferrere, Thomas AU - Manjunath, Niveditha AU - Nickovic, Dejan ID - 183 TI - Localizing faults in simulink/stateflow models with STL ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider large random matrices X with centered, independent entries which have comparable but not necessarily identical variances. Girko's circular law asserts that the spectrum is supported in a disk and in case of identical variances, the limiting density is uniform. In this special case, the local circular law by Bourgade et. al. [11,12] shows that the empirical density converges even locally on scales slightly above the typical eigenvalue spacing. In the general case, the limiting density is typically inhomogeneous and it is obtained via solving a system of deterministic equations. Our main result is the local inhomogeneous circular law in the bulk spectrum on the optimal scale for a general variance profile of the entries of X. AU - Alt, Johannes AU - Erdös, László AU - Krüger, Torben H ID - 566 IS - 1 JF - Annals Applied Probability TI - Local inhomogeneous circular law VL - 28 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The goal of this article is to introduce the reader to the theory of intrinsic geometry of convex surfaces. We illustrate the power of the tools by proving a theorem on convex surfaces containing an arbitrarily long closed simple geodesic. Let us remind ourselves that a curve in a surface is called geodesic if every sufficiently short arc of the curve is length minimizing; if, in addition, it has no self-intersections, we call it simple geodesic. A tetrahedron with equal opposite edges is called isosceles. The axiomatic method of Alexandrov geometry allows us to work with the metrics of convex surfaces directly, without approximating it first by a smooth or polyhedral metric. Such approximations destroy the closed geodesics on the surface; therefore it is difficult (if at all possible) to apply approximations in the proof of our theorem. On the other hand, a proof in the smooth or polyhedral case usually admits a translation into Alexandrov’s language; such translation makes the result more general. In fact, our proof resembles a translation of the proof given by Protasov. Note that the main theorem implies in particular that a smooth convex surface does not have arbitrarily long simple closed geodesics. However we do not know a proof of this corollary that is essentially simpler than the one presented below. AU - Akopyan, Arseniy AU - Petrunin, Anton ID - 106 IS - 3 JF - Mathematical Intelligencer TI - Long geodesics on convex surfaces VL - 40 ER - TY - GEN AU - Chaudhry, Waqas AU - Pleska, Maros AU - Shah, Nilang AU - Weiss, Howard AU - Mccall, Ingrid AU - Meyer, Justin AU - Gupta, Animesh AU - Guet, Calin C AU - Levin, Bruce ID - 9810 TI - Numerical data used in figures ER - TY - JOUR AB - Lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) release extracellular chemokines to guide the migration of dendritic cells. In this study, we report that LECs also release basolateral exosome-rich endothelial vesicles (EEVs) that are secreted in greater numbers in the presence of inflammatory cytokines and accumulate in the perivascular stroma of small lymphatic vessels in human chronic inflammatory diseases. Proteomic analyses of EEV fractions identified > 1,700 cargo proteins and revealed a dominant motility-promoting protein signature. In vitro and ex vivo EEV fractions augmented cellular protrusion formation in a CX3CL1/fractalkine-dependent fashion and enhanced the directional migratory response of human dendritic cells along guidance cues. We conclude that perilymphatic LEC exosomes enhance exploratory behavior and thus promote directional migration of CX3CR1-expressing cells in complex tissue environments. AU - Brown, Markus AU - Johnson, Louise AU - Leone, Dario AU - Májek, Peter AU - Vaahtomeri, Kari AU - Senfter, Daniel AU - Bukosza, Nora AU - Schachner, Helga AU - Asfour, Gabriele AU - Langer, Brigitte AU - Hauschild, Robert AU - Parapatics, Katja AU - Hong, Young AU - Bennett, Keiryn AU - Kain, Renate AU - Detmar, Michael AU - Sixt, Michael K AU - Jackson, David AU - Kerjaschki, Dontscho ID - 275 IS - 6 JF - Journal of Cell Biology TI - Lymphatic exosomes promote dendritic cell migration along guidance cues VL - 217 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The angiosperm seed is composed of three genetically distinct tissues: the diploid embryo that originates from the fertilized egg cell, the triploid endosperm that is produced from the fertilized central cell, and the maternal sporophytic integuments that develop into the seed coat1. At the onset of embryo development in Arabidopsis thaliana, the zygote divides asymmetrically, producing a small apical embryonic cell and a larger basal cell that connects the embryo to the maternal tissue2. The coordinated and synchronous development of the embryo and the surrounding integuments, and the alignment of their growth axes, suggest communication between maternal tissues and the embryo. In contrast to animals, however, where a network of maternal factors that direct embryo patterning have been identified3,4, only a few maternal mutations have been described to affect embryo development in plants5–7. Early embryo patterning in Arabidopsis requires accumulation of the phytohormone auxin in the apical cell by directed transport from the suspensor8–10. However, the origin of this auxin has remained obscure. Here we investigate the source of auxin for early embryogenesis and provide evidence that the mother plant coordinates seed development by supplying auxin to the early embryo from the integuments of the ovule. We show that auxin response increases in ovules after fertilization, due to upregulated auxin biosynthesis in the integuments, and this maternally produced auxin is required for correct embryo development. AU - Robert, Hélène AU - Park, Chulmin AU - Gutièrrez, Carla AU - Wójcikowska, Barbara AU - Pěnčík, Aleš AU - Novák, Ondřej AU - Chen, Junyi AU - Grunewald, Wim AU - Dresselhaus, Thomas AU - Friml, Jirí AU - Laux, Thomas ID - 158 IS - 8 JF - Nature Plants TI - Maternal auxin supply contributes to early embryo patterning in Arabidopsis VL - 4 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Complex I has an essential role in ATP production by coupling electron transfer from NADH to quinone with translocation of protons across the inner mitochondrial membrane. Isolated complex I deficiency is a frequent cause of mitochondrial inherited diseases. Complex I has also been implicated in cancer, ageing, and neurodegenerative conditions. Until recently, the understanding of complex I deficiency on the molecular level was limited due to the lack of high-resolution structures of the enzyme. However, due to developments in single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), recent studies have reported nearly atomic resolution maps and models of mitochondrial complex I. These structures significantly add to our understanding of complex I mechanism and assembly. The disease-causing mutations are discussed here in their structural context. AU - Fiedorczuk, Karol AU - Sazanov, Leonid A ID - 152 IS - 10 JF - Trends in Cell Biology TI - Mammalian mitochondrial complex I structure and disease causing mutations VL - 28 ER - TY - CONF AB - A model of computation that is widely used in the formal analysis of reactive systems is symbolic algorithms. In this model the access to the input graph is restricted to consist of symbolic operations, which are expensive in comparison to the standard RAM operations. We give lower bounds on the number of symbolic operations for basic graph problems such as the computation of the strongly connected components and of the approximate diameter as well as for fundamental problems in model checking such as safety, liveness, and coliveness. Our lower bounds are linear in the number of vertices of the graph, even for constant-diameter graphs. For none of these problems lower bounds on the number of symbolic operations were known before. The lower bounds show an interesting separation of these problems from the reachability problem, which can be solved with O(D) symbolic operations, where D is the diameter of the graph. Additionally we present an approximation algorithm for the graph diameter which requires Õ(n/D) symbolic steps to achieve a (1 +ϵ)-approximation for any constant > 0. This compares to O(n/D) symbolic steps for the (naive) exact algorithm and O(D) symbolic steps for a 2-approximation. Finally we also give a refined analysis of the strongly connected components algorithms of [15], showing that it uses an optimal number of symbolic steps that is proportional to the sum of the diameters of the strongly connected components. AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Dvorák, Wolfgang AU - Henzinger, Monika H AU - Loitzenbauer, Veronika ID - 310 TI - Lower bounds for symbolic computation on graphs: Strongly connected components, liveness, safety, and diameter ER - TY - JOUR AB - There has been significant interest recently in using complex quantum systems to create effective nonreciprocal dynamics. Proposals have been put forward for the realization of artificial magnetic fields for photons and phonons; experimental progress is fast making these proposals a reality. Much work has concentrated on the use of such systems for controlling the flow of signals, e.g., to create isolators or directional amplifiers for optical signals. In this Letter, we build on this work but move in a different direction. We develop the theory of and discuss a potential realization for the controllable flow of thermal noise in quantum systems. We demonstrate theoretically that the unidirectional flow of thermal noise is possible within quantum cascaded systems. Viewing an optomechanical platform as a cascaded system we show here that one can ultimately control the direction of the flow of thermal noise. By appropriately engineering the mechanical resonator, which acts as an artificial reservoir, the flow of thermal noise can be constrained to a desired direction, yielding a thermal rectifier. The proposed quantum thermal noise rectifier could potentially be used to develop devices such as a thermal modulator, a thermal router, and a thermal amplifier for nanoelectronic devices and superconducting circuits. AU - Barzanjeh, Shabir AU - Aquilina, Matteo AU - Xuereb, André ID - 436 IS - 6 JF - Physical Review Letters TI - Manipulating the flow of thermal noise in quantum devices VL - 120 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Spatial patterns are ubiquitous on the subcellular, cellular and tissue level, and can be studied using imaging techniques such as light and fluorescence microscopy. Imaging data provide quantitative information about biological systems; however, mechanisms causing spatial patterning often remain elusive. In recent years, spatio-temporal mathematical modelling has helped to overcome this problem. Yet, outliers and structured noise limit modelling of whole imaging data, and models often consider spatial summary statistics. Here, we introduce an integrated data-driven modelling approach that can cope with measurement artefacts and whole imaging data. Our approach combines mechanistic models of the biological processes with robust statistical models of the measurement process. The parameters of the integrated model are calibrated using a maximum-likelihood approach. We used this integrated modelling approach to study in vivo gradients of the chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 21 (CCL21). CCL21 gradients guide dendritic cells and are important in the adaptive immune response. Using artificial data, we verified that the integrated modelling approach provides reliable parameter estimates in the presence of measurement noise and that bias and variance of these estimates are reduced compared to conventional approaches. The application to experimental data allowed the parametrization and subsequent refinement of the model using additional mechanisms. Among other results, model-based hypothesis testing predicted lymphatic vessel-dependent concentration of heparan sulfate, the binding partner of CCL21. The selected model provided an accurate description of the experimental data and was partially validated using published data. Our findings demonstrate that integrated statistical modelling of whole imaging data is computationally feasible and can provide novel biological insights. AU - Hross, Sabrina AU - Theis, Fabian J. AU - Sixt, Michael K AU - Hasenauer, Jan ID - 5858 IS - 149 JF - Journal of the Royal Society Interface SN - 17425689 TI - Mechanistic description of spatial processes using integrative modelling of noise-corrupted imaging data VL - 15 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We report quantitative evidence of mixing-layer elastic instability in a viscoelastic fluid flow between two widely spaced obstacles hindering a channel flow at Re 1 and Wi 1. Two mixing layers with nonuniform shear velocity profiles are formed in the region between the obstacles. The mixing-layer instability arises in the vicinity of an inflection point on the shear velocity profile with a steep variation in the elastic stress. The instability results in an intermittent appearance of small vortices in the mixing layers and an amplification of spatiotemporal averaged vorticity in the elastic turbulence regime. The latter is characterized through scaling of friction factor with Wi and both pressure and velocity spectra. Furthermore, the observations reported provide improved understanding of the stability of the mixing layer in a viscoelastic fluid at large elasticity, i.e., Wi 1 and Re 1 and oppose the current view of suppression of vorticity solely by polymer additives. AU - Varshney, Atul AU - Steinberg, Victor ID - 16 IS - 10 JF - Physical Review Fluids TI - Mixing layer instability and vorticity amplification in a creeping viscoelastic flow VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The initial amount of pathogens required to start an infection within a susceptible host is called the infective dose and is known to vary to a large extent between different pathogen species. We investigate the hypothesis that the differences in infective doses are explained by the mode of action in the underlying mechanism of pathogenesis: Pathogens with locally acting mechanisms tend to have smaller infective doses than pathogens with distantly acting mechanisms. While empirical evidence tends to support the hypothesis, a formal theoretical explanation has been lacking. We give simple analytical models to gain insight into this phenomenon and also investigate a stochastic, spatially explicit, mechanistic within-host model for toxin-dependent bacterial infections. The model shows that pathogens secreting locally acting toxins have smaller infective doses than pathogens secreting diffusive toxins, as hypothesized. While local pathogenetic mechanisms require smaller infective doses, pathogens with distantly acting toxins tend to spread faster and may cause more damage to the host. The proposed model can serve as a basis for the spatially explicit analysis of various virulence factors also in the context of other problems in infection dynamics. AU - Rybicki, Joel AU - Kisdi, Eva AU - Anttila, Jani ID - 43 IS - 42 JF - PNAS TI - Model of bacterial toxin-dependent pathogenesis explains infective dose VL - 115 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We propose a new method for fabricating digital objects through reusable silicone molds. Molds are generated by casting liquid silicone into custom 3D printed containers called metamolds. Metamolds automatically define the cuts that are needed to extract the cast object from the silicone mold. The shape of metamolds is designed through a novel segmentation technique, which takes into account both geometric and topological constraints involved in the process of mold casting. Our technique is simple, does not require changing the shape or topology of the input objects, and only requires off-the- shelf materials and technologies. We successfully tested our method on a set of challenging examples with complex shapes and rich geometric detail. © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery. AU - Alderighi, Thomas AU - Malomo, Luigi AU - Giorgi, Daniela AU - Pietroni, Nico AU - Bickel, Bernd AU - Cignoni, Paolo ID - 13 IS - 4 JF - ACM Trans. Graph. TI - Metamolds: Computational design of silicone molds VL - 37 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Fluorescent sensors are an essential part of the experimental toolbox of the life sciences, where they are used ubiquitously to visualize intra- and extracellular signaling. In the brain, optical neurotransmitter sensors can shed light on temporal and spatial aspects of signal transmission by directly observing, for instance, neurotransmitter release and spread. Here we report the development and application of the first optical sensor for the amino acid glycine, which is both an inhibitory neurotransmitter and a co-agonist of the N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) involved in synaptic plasticity. Computational design of a glycine-specific binding protein allowed us to produce the optical glycine FRET sensor (GlyFS), which can be used with single and two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy. We took advantage of this newly developed sensor to test predictions about the uneven spatial distribution of glycine in extracellular space and to demonstrate that extracellular glycine levels are controlled by plasticity-inducing stimuli. AU - Zhang, William AU - Herde, Michel AU - Mitchell, Joshua AU - Whitfield, Jason AU - Wulff, Andreas AU - Vongsouthi, Vanessa AU - Sanchez Romero, Inmaculada AU - Gulakova, Polina AU - Minge, Daniel AU - Breithausen, Björn AU - Schoch, Susanne AU - Janovjak, Harald L AU - Jackson, Colin AU - Henneberger, Christian ID - 137 IS - 9 JF - Nature Chemical Biology TI - Monitoring hippocampal glycine with the computationally designed optical sensor GlyFS VL - 14 ER - TY - CHAP AB - Cells migrating in multicellular organisms steadily traverse complex three-dimensional (3D) environments. To decipher the underlying cell biology, current experimental setups either use simplified 2D, tissue-mimetic 3D (e.g., collagen matrices) or in vivo environments. While only in vivo experiments are truly physiological, they do not allow for precise manipulation of environmental parameters. 2D in vitro experiments do allow mechanical and chemical manipulations, but increasing evidence demonstrates substantial differences of migratory mechanisms in 2D and 3D. Here, we describe simple, robust, and versatile “pillar forests” to investigate cell migration in complex but fully controllable 3D environments. Pillar forests are polydimethylsiloxane-based setups, in which two closely adjacent surfaces are interconnected by arrays of micrometer-sized pillars. Changing the pillar shape, size, height and the inter-pillar distance precisely manipulates microenvironmental parameters (e.g., pore sizes, micro-geometry, micro-topology), while being easily combined with chemotactic cues, surface coatings, diverse cell types and advanced imaging techniques. Thus, pillar forests combine the advantages of 2D cell migration assays with the precise definition of 3D environmental parameters. AU - Renkawitz, Jörg AU - Reversat, Anne AU - Leithner, Alexander F AU - Merrin, Jack AU - Sixt, Michael K ID - 153 SN - 0091679X T2 - Methods in Cell Biology TI - Micro-engineered “pillar forests” to study cell migration in complex but controlled 3D environments VL - 147 ER - TY - JOUR AB - During epithelial tissue development, repair, and homeostasis, adherens junctions (AJs) ensure intercellular adhesion and tissue integrity while allowing for cell and tissue dynamics. Mechanical forces play critical roles in AJs’ composition and dynamics. Recent findings highlight that beyond a well-established role in reinforcing cell-cell adhesion, AJ mechanosensitivity promotes junctional remodeling and polarization, thereby regulating critical processes such as cell intercalation, division, and collective migration. Here, we provide an integrated view of mechanosensing mechanisms that regulate cell-cell contact composition, geometry, and integrity under tension and highlight pivotal roles for mechanosensitive AJ remodeling in preserving epithelial integrity and sustaining tissue dynamics. AU - Nunes Pinheiro, Diana C AU - Bellaïche, Yohanns ID - 54 IS - 1 JF - Developmental Cell TI - Mechanical force-driven adherents junction remodeling and epithelial dynamics VL - 47 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Directed migration of cells relies on their ability to sense directional guidance cues and to interact with pericellular structures in order to transduce contractile cytoskeletal- into mechanical forces. These biomechanical processes depend highly on microenvironmental factors such as exposure to 2D surfaces or 3D matrices. In vivo, the majority of cells are exposed to 3D environments. Data on 3D cell migration are mostly derived from intravital microscopy or collagen-based in vitro assays. Both approaches offer only limited controlla-bility of experimental conditions. Here, we developed an automated microfluidic system that allows positioning of cells in 3D microenvironments containing highly controlled diffusion-based chemokine gradients. Tracking migration in such gradients was feasible in real time at the single cell level. Moreover, the setup allowed on-chip immunocytochemistry and thus linking of functional with phenotypical properties in individual cells. Spatially defined retrieval of cells from the device allows down-stream off-chip analysis. Using dendritic cells as a model, our setup specifically allowed us for the first time to quantitate key migration characteristics of cells exposed to identical gradients of the chemokine CCL19 yet placed on 2D vs in 3D environments. Migration properties between 2D and 3D migration were distinct. Morphological features of cells migrating in an in vitro 3D environment were similar to those of cells migrating in animal tissues, but different from cells migrating on a surface. Our system thus offers a highly controllable in vitro-mimic of a 3D environment that cells traffic in vivo. AU - Frick, Corina AU - Dettinger, Philip AU - Renkawitz, Jörg AU - Jauch, Annaïse AU - Berger, Christoph AU - Recher, Mike AU - Schroeder, Timm AU - Mehling, Matthias ID - 276 IS - 6 JF - PLoS One TI - Nano-scale microfluidics to study 3D chemotaxis at the single cell level VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Light represents the principal signal driving circadian clock entrainment. However, how light influences the evolution of the clock remains poorly understood. The cavefish Phreatichthys andruzzii represents a fascinating model to explore how evolution under extreme aphotic conditions shapes the circadian clock, since in this species the clock is unresponsive to light. We have previously demonstrated that loss-of-function mutations targeting non-visual opsins contribute in part to this blind clock phenotype. Here, we have compared orthologs of two core clock genes that play a key role in photic entrainment, cry1a and per2, in both zebrafish and P. andruzzii. We encountered aberrantly spliced variants for the P. andruzzii per2 transcript. The most abundant transcript encodes a truncated protein lacking the C-terminal Cry binding domain and incorporating an intronic, transposon-derived coding sequence. We demonstrate that the transposon insertion leads to a predominantly cytoplasmic localization of the cavefish Per2 protein in contrast to the zebrafish ortholog which is distributed in both the nucleus and cytoplasm. Thus, it seems that during evolution in complete darkness, the photic entrainment pathway of the circadian clock has been subject to mutation at multiple levels, extending from opsin photoreceptors to nuclear effectors. AU - Ceinos, Rosa Maria AU - Frigato, Elena AU - Pagano, Cristina AU - Frohlich, Nadine AU - Negrini, Pietro AU - Cavallari, Nicola AU - Vallone, Daniela AU - Fuselli, Silvia AU - Bertolucci, Cristiano AU - Foulkes, Nicholas S ID - 283 IS - 1 JF - Scientific Reports TI - Mutations in blind cavefish target the light regulated circadian clock gene period 2 VL - 8 ER - TY - CONF AB - We solve the offline monitoring problem for timed propositional temporal logic (TPTL), interpreted over dense-time Boolean signals. The variant of TPTL we consider extends linear temporal logic (LTL) with clock variables and reset quantifiers, providing a mechanism to specify real-time constraints. We first describe a general monitoring algorithm based on an exhaustive computation of the set of satisfying clock assignments as a finite union of zones. We then propose a specialized monitoring algorithm for the one-variable case using a partition of the time domain based on the notion of region equivalence, whose complexity is linear in the length of the signal, thereby generalizing a known result regarding the monitoring of metric temporal logic (MTL). The region and zone representations of time constraints are known from timed automata verification and can also be used in the discrete-time case. Our prototype implementation appears to outperform previous discrete-time implementations of TPTL monitoring, AU - Elgyütt, Adrian AU - Ferrere, Thomas AU - Henzinger, Thomas A ID - 81 TI - Monitoring temporal logic with clock variables VL - 11022 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Consider a fully-connected synchronous distributed system consisting of n nodes, where up to f nodes may be faulty and every node starts in an arbitrary initial state. In the synchronous C-counting problem, all nodes need to eventually agree on a counter that is increased by one modulo C in each round for given C>1. In the self-stabilising firing squad problem, the task is to eventually guarantee that all non-faulty nodes have simultaneous responses to external inputs: if a subset of the correct nodes receive an external “go” signal as input, then all correct nodes should agree on a round (in the not-too-distant future) in which to jointly output a “fire” signal. Moreover, no node should generate a “fire” signal without some correct node having previously received a “go” signal as input. We present a framework reducing both tasks to binary consensus at very small cost. For example, we obtain a deterministic algorithm for self-stabilising Byzantine firing squads with optimal resilience f<n/3, asymptotically optimal stabilisation and response time O(f), and message size O(log f). As our framework does not restrict the type of consensus routines used, we also obtain efficient randomised solutions. AU - Lenzen, Christoph AU - Rybicki, Joel ID - 76 JF - Distributed Computing TI - Near-optimal self-stabilising counting and firing squads ER - TY - JOUR AB - Inclusion–exclusion is an effective method for computing the volume of a union of measurable sets. We extend it to multiple coverings, proving short inclusion–exclusion formulas for the subset of Rn covered by at least k balls in a finite set. We implement two of the formulas in dimension n=3 and report on results obtained with our software. AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Iglesias Ham, Mabel ID - 530 JF - Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications TI - Multiple covers with balls I: Inclusion–exclusion VL - 68 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Spontaneous emission spectra of two initially excited closely spaced identical atoms are very sensitive to the strength and the direction of the applied magnetic field. We consider the relevant schemes that ensure the determination of the mutual spatial orientation of the atoms and the distance between them by entirely optical means. A corresponding theoretical description is given accounting for the dipole-dipole interaction between the two atoms in the presence of a magnetic field and for polarizations of the quantum field interacting with magnetic sublevels of the two-atom system. AU - Redchenko, Elena AU - Makarov, Alexander AU - Yudson, Vladimir ID - 307 IS - 4 JF - Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics TI - Nanoscopy of pairs of atoms by fluorescence in a magnetic field VL - 97 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background: Natural selection shapes cancer genomes. Previous studies used signatures of positive selection to identify genes driving malignant transformation. However, the contribution of negative selection against somatic mutations that affect essential tumor functions or specific domains remains a controversial topic. Results: Here, we analyze 7546 individual exomes from 26 tumor types from TCGA data to explore the portion of the cancer exome under negative selection. Although we find most of the genes neutrally evolving in a pan-cancer framework, we identify essential cancer genes and immune-exposed protein regions under significant negative selection. Moreover, our simulations suggest that the amount of negative selection is underestimated. We therefore choose an empirical approach to identify genes, functions, and protein regions under negative selection. We find that expression and mutation status of negatively selected genes is indicative of patient survival. Processes that are most strongly conserved are those that play fundamental cellular roles such as protein synthesis, glucose metabolism, and molecular transport. Intriguingly, we observe strong signals of selection in the immunopeptidome and proteins controlling peptide exposition, highlighting the importance of immune surveillance evasion. Additionally, tumor type-specific immune activity correlates with the strength of negative selection on human epitopes. Conclusions: In summary, our results show that negative selection is a hallmark of cell essentiality and immune response in cancer. The functional domains identified could be exploited therapeutically, ultimately allowing for the development of novel cancer treatments. AU - Zapata, Luis AU - Pich, Oriol AU - Serrano, Luis AU - Kondrashov, Fyodor AU - Ossowski, Stephan AU - Schaefer, Martin ID - 279 JF - Genome Biology TI - Negative selection in tumor genome evolution acts on essential cellular functions and the immunopeptidome VL - 19 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Aged proteins can become hazardous to cellular function, by accumulating molecular damage. This implies that cells should preferentially rely on newly produced ones. We tested this hypothesis in cultured hippocampal neurons, focusing on synaptic transmission. We found that newly synthesized vesicle proteins were incorporated in the actively recycling pool of vesicles responsible for all neurotransmitter release during physiological activity. We observed this for the calcium sensor Synaptotagmin 1, for the neurotransmitter transporter VGAT, and for the fusion protein VAMP2 (Synaptobrevin 2). Metabolic labeling of proteins and visualization by secondary ion mass spectrometry enabled us to query the entire protein makeup of the actively recycling vesicles, which we found to be younger than that of non-recycling vesicles. The young vesicle proteins remained in use for up to ~ 24 h, during which they participated in recycling a few hundred times. They were afterward reluctant to release and were degraded after an additional ~ 24–48 h. We suggest that the recycling pool of synaptic vesicles relies on newly synthesized proteins, while the inactive reserve pool contains older proteins. AU - Truckenbrodt, Sven M AU - Viplav, Abhiyan AU - Jähne, Sebsatian AU - Vogts, Angela AU - Denker, Annette AU - Wildhagen, Hanna AU - Fornasiero, Eugenio AU - Rizzoli, Silvio ID - 145 IS - 15 JF - The EMBO Journal SN - 0261-4189 TI - Newly produced synaptic vesicle proteins are preferentially used in synaptic transmission VL - 37 ER - TY - JOUR AB - AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 are endosomal Na+,K+/H+ antiporters that are critical for growth and development in Arabidopsis, but the mechanism behind their action remains unknown. Here, we report that AtNHX5 and AtNHX6, functioning as H+ leak, control auxin homeostasis and auxin-mediated development. We found that nhx5 nhx6 exhibited growth variations of auxin-related defects. We further showed that nhx5 nhx6 was affected in auxin homeostasis. Genetic analysis showed that AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 were required for the function of the ER-localized auxin transporter PIN5. Although AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 were co-localized with PIN5 at ER, they did not interact directly. Instead, the conserved acidic residues in AtNHX5 and AtNHX6, which are essential for exchange activity, were required for PIN5 function. AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 regulated the pH in ER. Overall, AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 may regulate auxin transport across the ER via the pH gradient created by their transport activity. H+-leak pathway provides a fine-tuning mechanism that controls cellular auxin fluxes. AU - Fan, Ligang AU - Zhao, Lei AU - Hu, Wei AU - Li, Weina AU - Novák, Ondřej AU - Strnad, Miroslav AU - Simon, Sibu AU - Friml, Jirí AU - Shen, Jinbo AU - Jiang, Liwen AU - Qiu, Quan ID - 462 JF - Plant, Cell and Environment TI - NHX antiporters regulate the pH of endoplasmic reticulum and auxin-mediated development VL - 41 ER - TY - JOUR AB - This study treats with the influence of a symmetry-breaking transversal magnetic field on the nonlinear dynamics of ferrofluidic Taylor-Couette flow – flow confined between two concentric independently rotating cylinders. We detected alternating ‘flip’ solutions which are flow states featuring typical characteristics of slow-fast-dynamics in dynamical systems. The flip corresponds to a temporal change in the axial wavenumber and we find them to appear either as pure 2-fold axisymmetric (due to the symmetry-breaking nature of the applied transversal magnetic field) or involving non-axisymmetric, helical modes in its interim solution. The latter ones show features of typical ribbon solutions. In any case the flip solutions have a preferential first axial wavenumber which corresponds to the more stable state (slow dynamics) and second axial wavenumber, corresponding to the short appearing more unstable state (fast dynamics). However, in both cases the flip time grows exponential with increasing the magnetic field strength before the flip solutions, living on 2-tori invariant manifolds, cease to exist, with lifetime going to infinity. Further we show that ferrofluidic flow turbulence differ from the classical, ordinary (usually at high Reynolds number) turbulence. The applied magnetic field hinders the free motion of ferrofluid partials and therefore smoothen typical turbulent quantities and features so that speaking of mildly chaotic dynamics seems to be a more appropriate expression for the observed motion. AU - Altmeyer, Sebastian ID - 519 JF - Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials TI - Non-linear dynamics and alternating ‘flip’ solutions in ferrofluidic Taylor-Couette flow VL - 452 ER - TY - CONF AB - We study the almost-sure termination problem for probabilistic programs. First, we show that supermartingales with lower bounds on conditional absolute difference provide a sound approach for the almost-sure termination problem. Moreover, using this approach we can obtain explicit optimal bounds on tail probabilities of non-termination within a given number of steps. Second, we present a new approach based on Central Limit Theorem for the almost-sure termination problem, and show that this approach can establish almost-sure termination of programs which none of the existing approaches can handle. Finally, we discuss algorithmic approaches for the two above methods that lead to automated analysis techniques for almost-sure termination of probabilistic programs. AU - Huang, Mingzhang AU - Fu, Hongfei AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu ED - Ryu, Sukyoung ID - 5679 SN - 03029743 TI - New approaches for almost-sure termination of probabilistic programs VL - 11275 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The precise control of neural stem cell (NSC) proliferation and differentiation is crucial for the development and function of the human brain. Here, we review the emerging links between the alteration of embryonic and adult neurogenesis and the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders (NPDs) such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and schizophrenia (SCZ), as well as the advances in stem cell-based modeling and the novel therapeutic targets derived from these studies. AU - Sacco, Roberto AU - Cacci, Emanuele AU - Novarino, Gaia ID - 546 IS - 2 JF - Current Opinion in Neurobiology TI - Neural stem cells in neuropsychiatric disorders VL - 48 ER - TY - GEN AB - This document contains the full list of genes with their respective significance and dN/dS values. (TXT 4499Â kb) AU - Zapata, Luis AU - Pich, Oriol AU - Serrano, Luis AU - Kondrashov, Fyodor AU - Ossowski, Stephan AU - Schaefer, Martin ID - 9812 TI - Additional file 2: Of negative selection in tumor genome evolution acts on essential cellular functions and the immunopeptidome ER - TY - GEN AB - This document contains additional supporting evidence presented as supplemental tables. (XLSX 50Â kb) AU - Zapata, Luis AU - Pich, Oriol AU - Serrano, Luis AU - Kondrashov, Fyodor AU - Ossowski, Stephan AU - Schaefer, Martin ID - 9811 TI - Additional file 1: Of negative selection in tumor genome evolution acts on essential cellular functions and the immunopeptidome ER - TY - JOUR AB - Background: Norepinephrine (NE) signaling has a key role in white adipose tissue (WAT) functions, including lipolysis, free fatty acid liberation and, under certain conditions, conversion of white into brite (brown-in-white) adipocytes. However, acute effects of NE stimulation have not been described at the transcriptional network level. Results: We used RNA-seq to uncover a broad transcriptional response. The inference of protein-protein and protein-DNA interaction networks allowed us to identify a set of immediate-early genes (IEGs) with high betweenness, validating our approach and suggesting a hierarchical control of transcriptional regulation. In addition, we identified a transcriptional regulatory network with IEGs as master regulators, including HSF1 and NFIL3 as novel NE-induced IEG candidates. Moreover, a functional enrichment analysis and gene clustering into functional modules suggest a crosstalk between metabolic, signaling, and immune responses. Conclusions: Altogether, our network biology approach explores for the first time the immediate-early systems level response of human adipocytes to acute sympathetic activation, thereby providing a first network basis of early cell fate programs and crosstalks between metabolic and transcriptional networks required for proper WAT function. AU - Higareda Almaraz, Juan AU - Karbiener, Michael AU - Giroud, Maude AU - Pauler, Florian AU - Gerhalter, Teresa AU - Herzig, Stephan AU - Scheideler, Marcel ID - 20 IS - 1 JF - BMC Genomics SN - 1471-2164 TI - Norepinephrine triggers an immediate-early regulatory network response in primary human white adipocytes VL - 19 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We introduce the notion of “non-malleable codes” which relaxes the notion of error correction and error detection. Informally, a code is non-malleable if the message contained in a modified codeword is either the original message, or a completely unrelated value. In contrast to error correction and error detection, non-malleability can be achieved for very rich classes of modifications. We construct an efficient code that is non-malleable with respect to modifications that affect each bit of the codeword arbitrarily (i.e., leave it untouched, flip it, or set it to either 0 or 1), but independently of the value of the other bits of the codeword. Using the probabilistic method, we also show a very strong and general statement: there exists a non-malleable code for every “small enough” family F of functions via which codewords can be modified. Although this probabilistic method argument does not directly yield efficient constructions, it gives us efficient non-malleable codes in the random-oracle model for very general classes of tampering functions—e.g., functions where every bit in the tampered codeword can depend arbitrarily on any 99% of the bits in the original codeword. As an application of non-malleable codes, we show that they provide an elegant algorithmic solution to the task of protecting functionalities implemented in hardware (e.g., signature cards) against “tampering attacks.” In such attacks, the secret state of a physical system is tampered, in the hopes that future interaction with the modified system will reveal some secret information. This problem was previously studied in the work of Gennaro et al. in 2004 under the name “algorithmic tamper proof security” (ATP). We show that non-malleable codes can be used to achieve important improvements over the prior work. In particular, we show that any functionality can be made secure against a large class of tampering attacks, simply by encoding the secret state with a non-malleable code while it is stored in memory. AU - Dziembowski, Stefan AU - Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z AU - Wichs, Daniel ID - 107 IS - 4 JF - Journal of the ACM TI - Non-malleable codes VL - 65 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In epithelial tissues, cells tightly connect to each other through cell–cell junctions, but they also present the remarkable capacity of reorganizing themselves without compromising tissue integrity. Upon injury, simple epithelia efficiently resolve small lesions through the action of actin cytoskeleton contractile structures at the wound edge and cellular rearrangements. However, the underlying mechanisms and how they cooperate are still poorly understood. In this study, we combine live imaging and theoretical modeling to reveal a novel and indispensable role for occluding junctions (OJs) in this process. We demonstrate that OJ loss of function leads to defects in wound-closure dynamics: instead of contracting, wounds dramatically increase their area. OJ mutants exhibit phenotypes in cell shape, cellular rearrangements, and mechanical properties as well as in actin cytoskeleton dynamics at the wound edge. We propose that OJs are essential for wound closure by impacting on epithelial mechanics at the tissue level, which in turn is crucial for correct regulation of the cellular events occurring at the wound edge. AU - Carvalho, Lara AU - Patricio, Pedro AU - Ponte, Susana AU - Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J AU - Almeida, Luis AU - Nunes, André S. AU - Araújo, Nuno A.M. AU - Jacinto, Antonio ID - 5676 IS - 12 JF - Journal of Cell Biology SN - 00219525 TI - Occluding junctions as novel regulators of tissue mechanics during wound repair VL - 217 ER - TY - CONF AB - Clustering is a cornerstone of unsupervised learning which can be thought as disentangling multiple generative mechanisms underlying the data. In this paper we introduce an algorithmic framework to train mixtures of implicit generative models which we particularize for variational autoencoders. Relying on an additional set of discriminators, we propose a competitive procedure in which the models only need to approximate the portion of the data distribution from which they can produce realistic samples. As a byproduct, each model is simpler to train, and a clustering interpretation arises naturally from the partitioning of the training points among the models. We empirically show that our approach splits the training distribution in a reasonable way and increases the quality of the generated samples. AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Vincent, Damien AU - Tolstikhin, Ilya AU - Ratsch, Gunnar AU - Gelly, Sylvain AU - Scholkopf, Bernhard ID - 14224 T2 - 6th International Conference on Learning Representations TI - Clustering meets implicit generative models ER - TY - GEN AB - Table S1. Genes with highest betweenness. Table S2. Local and Master regulators up-regulated. Table S3. Local and Master regulators down-regulated (XLSX 23 kb). AU - Higareda Almaraz, Juan AU - Karbiener, Michael AU - Giroud, Maude AU - Pauler, Florian AU - Gerhalter, Teresa AU - Herzig, Stephan AU - Scheideler, Marcel ID - 9807 TI - Additional file 1: Of Norepinephrine triggers an immediate-early regulatory network response in primary human white adipocytes ER - TY - GEN AB - Table S4. Counts per Gene per Million Reads Mapped. (XLSX 2751 kb). AU - Higareda Almaraz, Juan AU - Karbiener, Michael AU - Giroud, Maude AU - Pauler, Florian AU - Gerhalter, Teresa AU - Herzig, Stephan AU - Scheideler, Marcel ID - 9808 TI - Additional file 3: Of Norepinephrine triggers an immediate-early regulatory network response in primary human white adipocytes ER - TY - CONF AB - We show attacks on five data-independent memory-hard functions (iMHF) that were submitted to the password hashing competition (PHC). Informally, an MHF is a function which cannot be evaluated on dedicated hardware, like ASICs, at significantly lower hardware and/or energy cost than evaluating a single instance on a standard single-core architecture. Data-independent means the memory access pattern of the function is independent of the input; this makes iMHFs harder to construct than data-dependent ones, but the latter can be attacked by various side-channel attacks. Following [Alwen-Blocki'16], we capture the evaluation of an iMHF as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The cumulative parallel pebbling complexity of this DAG is a measure for the hardware cost of evaluating the iMHF on an ASIC. Ideally, one would like the complexity of a DAG underlying an iMHF to be as close to quadratic in the number of nodes of the graph as possible. Instead, we show that (the DAGs underlying) the following iMHFs are far from this bound: Rig.v2, TwoCats and Gambit each having an exponent no more than 1.75. Moreover, we show that the complexity of the iMHF modes of the PHC finalists Pomelo and Lyra2 have exponents at most 1.83 and 1.67 respectively. To show this we investigate a combinatorial property of each underlying DAG (called its depth-robustness. By establishing upper bounds on this property we are then able to apply the general technique of [Alwen-Block'16] for analyzing the hardware costs of an iMHF. AU - Alwen, Joel F AU - Gazi, Peter AU - Kamath Hosdurg, Chethan AU - Klein, Karen AU - Osang, Georg F AU - Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z AU - Reyzin, Lenoid AU - Rolinek, Michal AU - Rybar, Michal ID - 193 T2 - Proceedings of the 2018 on Asia Conference on Computer and Communication Security TI - On the memory hardness of data independent password hashing functions ER - TY - CONF AB - We introduce a formal quantitative notion of “bit security” for a general type of cryptographic games (capturing both decision and search problems), aimed at capturing the intuition that a cryptographic primitive with k-bit security is as hard to break as an ideal cryptographic function requiring a brute force attack on a k-bit key space. Our new definition matches the notion of bit security commonly used by cryptographers and cryptanalysts when studying search (e.g., key recovery) problems, where the use of the traditional definition is well established. However, it produces a quantitatively different metric in the case of decision (indistinguishability) problems, where the use of (a straightforward generalization of) the traditional definition is more problematic and leads to a number of paradoxical situations or mismatches between theoretical/provable security and practical/common sense intuition. Key to our new definition is to consider adversaries that may explicitly declare failure of the attack. We support and justify the new definition by proving a number of technical results, including tight reductions between several standard cryptographic problems, a new hybrid theorem that preserves bit security, and an application to the security analysis of indistinguishability primitives making use of (approximate) floating point numbers. This is the first result showing that (standard precision) 53-bit floating point numbers can be used to achieve 100-bit security in the context of cryptographic primitives with general indistinguishability-based security definitions. Previous results of this type applied only to search problems, or special types of decision problems. AU - Micciancio, Daniele AU - Walter, Michael ID - 300 TI - On the bit security of cryptographic primitives VL - 10820 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Motivated by biological questions, we study configurations of equal spheres that neither pack nor cover. Placing their centers on a lattice, we define the soft density of the configuration by penalizing multiple overlaps. Considering the 1-parameter family of diagonally distorted 3-dimensional integer lattices, we show that the soft density is maximized at the FCC lattice. AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Iglesias Ham, Mabel ID - 312 IS - 1 JF - SIAM J Discrete Math SN - 08954801 TI - On the optimality of the FCC lattice for soft sphere packing VL - 32 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We give a simple proof of T. Stehling's result [4], whereby in any normal tiling of the plane with convex polygons with number of sides not less than six, all tiles except a finite number are hexagons. AU - Akopyan, Arseniy ID - 409 IS - 4 JF - Comptes Rendus Mathematique SN - 1631073X TI - On the number of non-hexagons in a planar tiling VL - 356 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Reciprocity is a major factor in human social life and accounts for a large part of cooperation in our communities. Direct reciprocity arises when repeated interactions occur between the same individuals. The framework of iterated games formalizes this phenomenon. Despite being introduced more than five decades ago, the concept keeps offering beautiful surprises. Recent theoretical research driven by new mathematical tools has proposed a remarkable dichotomy among the crucial strategies: successful individuals either act as partners or as rivals. Rivals strive for unilateral advantages by applying selfish or extortionate strategies. Partners aim to share the payoff for mutual cooperation, but are ready to fight back when being exploited. Which of these behaviours evolves depends on the environment. Whereas small population sizes and a limited number of rounds favour rivalry, partner strategies are selected when populations are large and relationships stable. Only partners allow for evolution of cooperation, while the rivals’ attempt to put themselves first leads to defection. Hilbe et al. synthesize recent theoretical work on zero-determinant and ‘rival’ versus ‘partner’ strategies in social dilemmas. They describe the environments under which these contrasting selfish or cooperative strategies emerge in evolution. AU - Hilbe, Christian AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Nowak, Martin ID - 419 JF - Nature Human Behaviour TI - Partners and rivals in direct reciprocity VL - 2 ER - TY - CONF AB - We provide a procedure for detecting the sub-segments of an incrementally observed Boolean signal ω that match a given temporal pattern ϕ. As a pattern specification language, we use timed regular expressions, a formalism well-suited for expressing properties of concurrent asynchronous behaviors embedded in metric time. We construct a timed automaton accepting the timed language denoted by ϕ and modify it slightly for the purpose of matching. We then apply zone-based reachability computation to this automaton while it reads ω, and retrieve all the matching segments from the results. Since the procedure is automaton based, it can be applied to patterns specified by other formalisms such as timed temporal logics reducible to timed automata or directly encoded as timed automata. The procedure has been implemented and its performance on synthetic examples is demonstrated. AU - Bakhirkin, Alexey AU - Ferrere, Thomas AU - Nickovic, Dejan AU - Maler, Oded AU - Asarin, Eugene ID - 78 SN - 978-3-030-00150-6 TI - Online timed pattern matching using automata VL - 11022 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We replace the established aluminium gates for the formation of quantum dots in silicon with gates made from palladium. We study the morphology of both aluminium and palladium gates with transmission electron microscopy. The native aluminium oxide is found to be formed all around the aluminium gates, which could lead to the formation of unintentional dots. Therefore, we report on a novel fabrication route that replaces aluminium and its native oxide by palladium with atomic-layer-deposition-grown aluminium oxide. Using this approach, we show the formation of low-disorder gate-defined quantum dots, which are reproducibly fabricated. Furthermore, palladium enables us to further shrink the gate design, allowing us to perform electron transport measurements in the few-electron regime in devices comprising only two gate layers, a major technological advancement. It remains to be seen, whether the introduction of palladium gates can improve the excellent results on electron and nuclear spin qubits defined with an aluminium gate stack. AU - Brauns, Matthias AU - Amitonov, Sergey AU - Spruijtenburg, Paul AU - Zwanenburg, Floris ID - 317 IS - 1 JF - Scientific Reports TI - Palladium gates for reproducible quantum dots in silicon VL - 8 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Ants are emerging model systems to study cellular signaling because distinct castes possess different physiologic phenotypes within the same colony. Here we studied the functionality of inotocin signaling, an insect ortholog of mammalian oxytocin (OT), which was recently discovered in ants. In Lasius ants, we determined that specialization within the colony, seasonal factors, and physiologic conditions down-regulated the expression of the OT-like signaling system. Given this natural variation, we interrogated its function using RNAi knockdowns. Next-generation RNA sequencing of OT-like precursor knock-down ants highlighted its role in the regulation of genes involved in metabolism. Knock-down ants exhibited higher walking activity and increased self-grooming in the brood chamber. We propose that OT-like signaling in ants is important for regulating metabolic processes and locomotion. AU - Liutkeviciute, Zita AU - Gil Mansilla, Esther AU - Eder, Thomas AU - Casillas Perez, Barbara E AU - Giulia Di Giglio, Maria AU - Muratspahić, Edin AU - Grebien, Florian AU - Rattei, Thomas AU - Muttenthaler, Markus AU - Cremer, Sylvia AU - Gruber, Christian ID - 194 IS - 12 JF - The FASEB Journal SN - 08926638 TI - Oxytocin-like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity VL - 32 ER - TY - JOUR AB - L-type Ca2+ channels (LTCCs) play a crucial role in excitation-contraction coupling and release of hormones from secretory cells. They are targets of antihypertensive and antiarrhythmic drugs such as diltiazem. Here, we present a photoswitchable diltiazem, FHU-779, which can be used to reversibly block endogenous LTCCs by light. FHU-779 is as potent as diltiazem and can be used to place pancreatic β-cell function and cardiac activity under optical control. AU - Fehrentz, Timm AU - Huber, Florian AU - Hartrampf, Nina AU - Bruegmann, Tobias AU - Frank, James AU - Fine, Nicholas AU - Malan, Daniela AU - Danzl, Johann G AU - Tikhonov, Denis AU - Sumser, Maritn AU - Sasse, Philipp AU - Hodson, David AU - Zhorov, Boris AU - Klocker, Nikolaj AU - Trauner, Dirk ID - 159 IS - 8 JF - Nature Chemical Biology TI - Optical control of L-type Ca2+ channels using a diltiazem photoswitch VL - 14 ER - TY - CONF AB - Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition probabilities to account for stochastic uncertainties of the environment such as noise or input disturbances. We study pMDPs with reachability objectives where the parameter values are unknown and impossible to measure directly during execution, but there is a probability distribution known over the parameter values. We study for the first time computing parameter-independent strategies that are expectation optimal, i.e., optimize the expected reachability probability under the probability distribution over the parameters. We present an encoding of our problem to partially observable MDPs (POMDPs), i.e., a reduction of our problem to computing optimal strategies in POMDPs. We evaluate our method experimentally on several benchmarks: a motivating (repeated) learner model; a series of benchmarks of varying configurations of a robot moving on a grid; and a consensus protocol. AU - Arming, Sebastian AU - Bartocci, Ezio AU - Chatterjee, Krishnendu AU - Katoen, Joost P AU - Sokolova, Ana ID - 79 TI - Parameter-independent strategies for pMDPs via POMDPs VL - 11024 ER - TY - GEN AB - A common assumption in causal modeling posits that the data is generated by a set of independent mechanisms, and algorithms should aim to recover this structure. Standard unsupervised learning, however, is often concerned with training a single model to capture the overall distribution or aspects thereof. Inspired by clustering approaches, we consider mixtures of implicit generative models that ``disentangle'' the independent generative mechanisms underlying the data. Relying on an additional set of discriminators, we propose a competitive training procedure in which the models only need to capture the portion of the data distribution from which they can produce realistic samples. As a by-product, each model is simpler and faster to train. We empirically show that our approach splits the training distribution in a sensible way and increases the quality of the generated samples. AU - Locatello, Francesco AU - Vincent, Damien AU - Tolstikhin, Ilya AU - Rätsch, Gunnar AU - Gelly, Sylvain AU - Schölkopf, Bernhard ID - 14327 T2 - arXiv TI - Competitive training of mixtures of independent deep generative models ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider the two-dimensional BCS functional with a radial pair interaction. We show that the translational symmetry is not broken in a certain temperature interval below the critical temperature. In the case of vanishing angular momentum, our results carry over to the three-dimensional case. AU - Deuchert, Andreas AU - Geisinge, Alissa AU - Hainzl, Christian AU - Loss, Michael ID - 400 IS - 5 JF - Annales Henri Poincare TI - Persistence of translational symmetry in the BCS model with radial pair interaction VL - 19 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Recent developments in automated tracking allow uninterrupted, high-resolution recording of animal trajectories, sometimes coupled with the identification of stereotyped changes of body pose or other behaviors of interest. Analysis and interpretation of such data represents a challenge: the timing of animal behaviors may be stochastic and modulated by kinematic variables, by the interaction with the environment or with the conspecifics within the animal group, and dependent on internal cognitive or behavioral state of the individual. Existing models for collective motion typically fail to incorporate the discrete, stochastic, and internal-state-dependent aspects of behavior, while models focusing on individual animal behavior typically ignore the spatial aspects of the problem. Here we propose a probabilistic modeling framework to address this gap. Each animal can switch stochastically between different behavioral states, with each state resulting in a possibly different law of motion through space. Switching rates for behavioral transitions can depend in a very general way, which we seek to identify from data, on the effects of the environment as well as the interaction between the animals. We represent the switching dynamics as a Generalized Linear Model and show that: (i) forward simulation of multiple interacting animals is possible using a variant of the Gillespie’s Stochastic Simulation Algorithm; (ii) formulated properly, the maximum likelihood inference of switching rate functions is tractably solvable by gradient descent; (iii) model selection can be used to identify factors that modulate behavioral state switching and to appropriately adjust model complexity to data. To illustrate our framework, we apply it to two synthetic models of animal motion and to real zebrafish tracking data. AU - Bod’Ová, Katarína AU - Mitchell, Gabriel AU - Harpaz, Roy AU - Schneidman, Elad AU - Tkacik, Gasper ID - 406 IS - 3 JF - PLoS One TI - Probabilistic models of individual and collective animal behavior VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Temperate bacteriophages integrate in bacterial genomes as prophages and represent an important source of genetic variation for bacterial evolution, frequently transmitting fitness-augmenting genes such as toxins responsible for virulence of major pathogens. However, only a fraction of bacteriophage infections are lysogenic and lead to prophage acquisition, whereas the majority are lytic and kill the infected bacteria. Unless able to discriminate lytic from lysogenic infections, mechanisms of immunity to bacteriophages are expected to act as a double-edged sword and increase the odds of survival at the cost of depriving bacteria of potentially beneficial prophages. We show that although restriction-modification systems as mechanisms of innate immunity prevent both lytic and lysogenic infections indiscriminately in individual bacteria, they increase the number of prophage-acquiring individuals at the population level. We find that this counterintuitive result is a consequence of phage-host population dynamics, in which restriction-modification systems delay infection onset until bacteria reach densities at which the probability of lysogeny increases. These results underscore the importance of population-level dynamics as a key factor modulating costs and benefits of immunity to temperate bacteriophages AU - Pleska, Maros AU - Lang, Moritz AU - Refardt, Dominik AU - Levin, Bruce AU - Guet, Calin C ID - 457 IS - 2 JF - Nature Ecology and Evolution TI - Phage-host population dynamics promotes prophage acquisition in bacteria with innate immunity VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Many animals use antimicrobials to prevent or cure disease [1,2]. For example, some animals will ingest plants with medicinal properties, both prophylactically to prevent infection and therapeutically to self-medicate when sick. Antimicrobial substances are also used as topical disinfectants, to prevent infection, protect offspring and to sanitise their surroundings [1,2]. Social insects (ants, bees, wasps and termites) build nests in environments with a high abundance and diversity of pathogenic microorganisms — such as soil and rotting wood — and colonies are often densely crowded, creating conditions that favour disease outbreaks. Consequently, social insects have evolved collective disease defences to protect their colonies from epidemics. These traits can be seen as functionally analogous to the immune system of individual organisms [3,4]. This ‘social immunity’ utilises antimicrobials to prevent and eradicate infections, and to keep the brood and nest clean. However, these antimicrobial compounds can be harmful to the insects themselves, and it is unknown how colonies prevent collateral damage when using them. Here, we demonstrate that antimicrobial acids, produced by workers to disinfect the colony, are harmful to the delicate pupal brood stage, but that the pupae are protected from the acids by the presence of a silk cocoon. Garden ants spray their nests with an antimicrobial poison to sanitize contaminated nestmates and brood. Here, Pull et al show that they also prophylactically sanitise their colonies, and that the silk cocoon serves as a barrier to protect developing pupae, thus preventing collateral damage during nest sanitation. AU - Pull, Christopher AU - Metzler, Sina AU - Naderlinger, Elisabeth AU - Cremer, Sylvia ID - 55 IS - 19 JF - Current Biology TI - Protection against the lethal side effects of social immunity in ants VL - 28 ER -