@article{3744, abstract = {It is widely acknowledged that detailed timing of action potentials is used to encode information, for example, in auditory pathways; however, the computational tools required to analyze encoding through timing are still in their infancy. We present a simple example of encoding, based on a recent model of time-frequency analysis, in which units fire action potentials when a certain condition is met, but the timing of the action potential depends also on other features of the stimulus. We show that, as a result, spike-triggered averages are smoothed so much that they do not represent the true features of the encoding. Inspired by this example, we present a simple method, differential reverse correlations, that can separate an analysis of what causes a neuron to spike, and what controls its timing. We analyze with this method the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron and show the method accurately reconstructs the model's kernel.}, author = {Gasper Tkacik and Magnasco, Marcelo O}, journal = {Biosystems}, number = {1-2}, pages = {90 -- 100}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Decoding spike timing: The differential reverse-correlation method}}, doi = {10.1016/j.biosystems.2008.04.011}, volume = {93}, year = {2008}, } @article{3751, abstract = {Revealing the spectrum of combinatorial regulation of transcription at individual promoters is essential for understanding the complex structure of biological networks. However, the computations represented by the integration of various molecular signals at complex promoters are difficult to decipher in the absence of simple cis regulatory codes. Here we synthetically shuffle the regulatory architecture-operator sequences binding activators and repressors-of a canonical bacterial promoter. The resulting library of complex promoters allows for rapid exploration of promoter encoded logic regulation. Among all possible logic functions, NOR and ANDN promoter encoded logics predominate. A simple transcriptional cis regulatory code determines both logics, establishing a straightforward map between promoter structure and logic phenotype. The regulatory code is determined solely by the type of transcriptional regulation combinations: two repressors generate a NOR: NOT (a OR b) whereas a repressor and an activator generate an ANDN: a AND NOT b. Three-input versions of both logics, having an additional repressor as an input, are also present in the library. The resulting complex promoters cover a wide dynamic range of transcriptional strengths. Synthetic promoter shuffling represents a fast and efficient method for exploring the spectrum of complex regulatory functions that can be encoded by complex promoters. From an engineering point of view, synthetic promoter shuffling enables the experimental testing of the functional properties of complex promoters that cannot necessarily be inferred ab initio from the known properties of the individual genetic components. Synthetic promoter shuffling may provide a useful experimental tool for studying naturally occurring promoter shuffling.}, author = {Kinkhabwala, Ali and Guet, Calin C}, journal = {PLoS One}, number = {4}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Uncovering cis regulatory codes using synthetic promoter shuffling}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0002030}, volume = {3}, year = {2008}, } @article{3822, abstract = {Dentate gyrus granule cells transmit action potentials (APs) along their unmyelinated mossy fibre axons to the CA3 region. Although the initiation and propagation of APs are fundamental steps during neural computation, little is known about the site of AP initiation and the speed of propagation in mossy fibre axons. To address these questions, we performed simultaneous somatic and axonal whole-cell recordings from granule cells in acute hippocampal slices of adult mice at approximately 23 degrees C. Injection of short current pulses or synaptic stimulation evoked axonal and somatic APs with similar amplitudes. By contrast, the time course was significantly different, as axonal APs had a higher maximal rate of rise (464 +/- 30 V s(-1) in the axon versus 297 +/- 12 V s(-1) in the soma, mean +/- s.e.m.). Furthermore, analysis of latencies between the axonal and somatic signals showed that APs were initiated in the proximal axon at approximately 20-30 mum distance from the soma, and propagated orthodromically with a velocity of 0.24 m s(-1). Qualitatively similar results were obtained at a recording temperature of approximately 34 degrees C. Modelling of AP propagation in detailed cable models of granule cells suggested that a approximately 4 times higher Na(+) channel density ( approximately 1000 pS mum(-2)) in the axon might account for both the higher rate of rise of axonal APs and the robust AP initiation in the proximal mossy fibre axon. This may be of critical importance to separate dendritic integration of thousands of synaptic inputs from the generation and transmission of a common AP output.}, author = {Schmidt-Hieber, Christoph and Peter Jonas and Bischofberger, Josef}, journal = {Journal of Physiology}, number = {7}, pages = {1849 -- 57}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {{Action potential initiation and propagation in hippocampal mossy fibre axons}}, doi = {10.1113/jphysiol.2007.150151 }, volume = {586}, year = {2008}, } @article{3825, abstract = {Fast-spiking parvalbumin-expressing basket cells (BCs) represent a major type of inhibitory interneuron in the hippocampus. These cells inhibit principal cells in a temporally precise manner and are involved in the generation of network oscillations. Although BCs show a unique expression profile of Ca(2+)-permeable receptors, Ca(2+)-binding proteins and Ca(2+)-dependent signalling molecules, physiological Ca(2+) signalling in these interneurons has not been investigated. To study action potential (AP)-induced dendritic Ca(2+) influx and buffering, we combined whole-cell patch-clamp recordings with ratiometric Ca(2+) imaging from the proximal apical dendrites of rigorously identified BCs in acute slices, using the high-affinity Ca(2+) indicator fura-2 or the low-affinity dye fura-FF. Single APs evoked dendritic Ca(2+) transients with small amplitude. Bursts of APs evoked Ca(2+) transients with amplitudes that increased linearly with AP number. Analysis of Ca(2+) transients under steady-state conditions with different fura-2 concentrations and during loading with 200 microm fura-2 indicated that the endogenous Ca(2+)-binding ratio was approximately 200 (kappa(S) = 202 +/- 26 for the loading experiments). The peak amplitude of the Ca(2+) transients measured directly with 100 microm fura-FF was 39 nm AP(-1). At approximately 23 degrees C, the decay time constant of the Ca(2+) transients was 390 ms, corresponding to an extrusion rate of approximately 600 s(-1). At 34 degrees C, the decay time constant was 203 ms and the corresponding extrusion rate was approximately 1100 s(-1). At both temperatures, continuous theta-burst activity with three to five APs per theta cycle, as occurs in vivo during exploration, led to a moderate increase in the global Ca(2+) concentration that was proportional to AP number, whereas more intense stimulation was required to reach micromolar Ca(2+) concentrations and to shift Ca(2+) signalling into a non-linear regime. In conclusion, dentate gyrus BCs show a high endogenous Ca(2+)-binding ratio, a small AP-induced dendritic Ca(2+) influx, and a relatively slow Ca(2+) extrusion. These specific buffering properties of BCs will sharpen the time course of local Ca(2+) signals, while prolonging the decay of global Ca(2+) signals.}, author = {Aponte, Yexica and Bischofberger, Josef and Peter Jonas}, journal = {Journal of Physiology}, number = {8}, pages = {2061 -- 75}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {{Efficient Ca(2+) buffering in fast-spiking basket cells of rat hippocampus}}, doi = {10.1113/jphysiol.2007.147298}, volume = {586}, year = {2008}, } @inproceedings{3878, abstract = {We study the problem of generating a test sequence that achieves maximal coverage for a reactive system under test. We formulate the problem as a repeated game between the tester and the system, where the system state space is partitioned according to some coverage criterion and the objective of the tester is to maximize the set of partitions (or coverage goals) visited during the game. We show the complexity of the maximal coverage problem for non-deterministic systems is PSPACE-complete, but is NP-complete for deterministic systems. For the special case of non-deterministic systems with a re-initializing “reset” action, which represent running a new test input on a re-initialized system, we show that the complexity is coNP-complete. Our proof technique for reset games uses randomized testing strategies that circumvent the exponentially large memory requirement of deterministic testing strategies.}, author = {Krishnendu Chatterjee and de Alfaro, Luca and Majumdar, Ritankar S}, pages = {91 -- 106}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{The complexity of coverage}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-540-89330-1_7}, volume = {5356}, year = {2008}, } @inproceedings{4384, abstract = {Model checking software transactional memories (STMs) is difficult because of the unbounded number, length, and delay of concurrent transactions and the unbounded size of the memory. We show that, under certain conditions, the verification problem can be reduced to a finite-state problem, and we illustrate the use of the method by proving the correctness of several STMs, including two-phase locking, DSTM, TL2, and optimistic concurrency control. The safety properties we consider include strict serializability and opacity; the liveness properties include obstruction freedom, livelock freedom, and wait freedom. Our main contribution lies in the structure of the proofs, which are largely automated and not restricted to the STMs mentioned above. In a first step we show that every STM that enjoys certain structural properties either violates a safety or liveness requirement on some program with two threads and two shared variables, or satisfies the requirement on all programs. In the second step we use a model checker to prove the requirement for the STM applied to a most general program with two threads and two variables. In the safety case, the model checker constructs a simulation relation between two carefully constructed finite-state transition systems, one representing the given STM applied to a most general program, and the other representing a most liberal safe STM applied to the same program. In the liveness case, the model checker analyzes fairness conditions on the given STM transition system.}, author = {Guerraoui, Rachid and Thomas Henzinger and Jobstmann, Barbara and Vasu Singh}, pages = {372 -- 382}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Model checking transactional memories}}, doi = {10.1145/1375581.1375626}, year = {2008}, } @phdthesis{4409, abstract = {Models of timed systems must incorporate not only the sequence of system events, but the timings of these events as well to capture the real-time aspects of physical systems. Timed automata are models of real-time systems in which states consist of discrete locations and values for real-time clocks. The presence of real-time clocks leads to an uncountable state space. This thesis studies verification problems on timed automata in a game theoretic framework. For untimed systems, two systems are close if every sequence of events of one system is also observable in the second system. For timed systems, the difference in timings of the two corresponding sequences is also of importance. We propose the notion of bisimulation distance which quantifies timing differences; if the bisimulation distance between two systems is epsilon, then (a) every sequence of events of one system has a corresponding matching sequence in the other, and (b) the timings of matching events in between the two corresponding traces do not differ by more than epsilon. We show that we can compute the bisimulation distance between two timed automata to within any desired degree of accuracy. We also show that the timed verification logic TCTL is robust with respect to our notion of quantitative bisimilarity, in particular, if a system satisfies a formula, then every close system satisfies a close formula. Timed games are used for distinguishing between the actions of several agents, typically a controller and an environment. The controller must achieve its objective against all possible choices of the environment. The modeling of the passage of time leads to the presence of zeno executions, and corresponding unrealizable strategies of the controller which may achieve objectives by blocking time. We disallow such unreasonable strategies by restricting all agents to use only receptive strategies --strategies which while not being required to ensure time divergence by any agent, are such that no agent is responsible for blocking time. Time divergence is guaranteed when all players use receptive strategies. We show that timed automaton games with receptive strategies can be solved by a reduction to finite state turn based game graphs. We define the logic timed alternating-time temporal logic for verification of timed automaton games and show that the logic can be model checked in EXPTIME. We also show that the minimum time required by an agent to reach a desired location, and the maximum time an agent can stay safe within a set of locations, against all possible actions of its adversaries are both computable. We next study the memory requirements of winning strategies for timed automaton games. We prove that finite memory strategies suffice for safety objectives, and that winning strategies for reachability objectives may require infinite memory in general. We introduce randomized strategies in which an agent can propose a probabilistic distribution of moves and show that finite memory randomized strategies suffice for all omega-regular objectives. We also show that while randomization helps in simplifying winning strategies, and thus allows the construction of simpler controllers, it does not help a player in winning at more states, and thus does not allow the construction of more powerful controllers. Finally we study robust winning strategies in timed games. In a physical system, a controller may propose an action together with a time delay, but the action cannot be assumed to be executed at the exact proposed time delay. We present robust strategies which incorporate such jitters and show that the set of states from which an agent can win robustly is computable.}, author = {Prabhu, Vinayak}, pages = {1 -- 137}, publisher = {University of California, Berkeley}, title = {{Games for the verification of timed systems}}, year = {2008}, } @article{2120, abstract = {We consider the linear stochastic Cauchy problem dX (t) =AX (t) dt +B dWH (t), t≥ 0, where A generates a C0-semigroup on a Banach space E, WH is a cylindrical Brownian motion over a Hilbert space H, and B: H → E is a bounded operator. Assuming the existence of a unique minimal invariant measure μ∞, let Lp denote the realization of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator associated with this problem in Lp (E, μ∞). Under suitable assumptions concerning the invariance of the range of B under the semigroup generated by A, we prove the following domain inclusions, valid for 1 < p ≤ 2: Image omitted. Here WHk, p (E, μinfin; denotes the kth order Sobolev space of functions with Fréchet derivatives up to order k in the direction of H. No symmetry assumptions are made on L p.}, author = {Jan Maas and van Neerven, Jan M}, journal = {Infinite Dimensional Analysis, Quantum Probability and Related Topics}, number = {4}, pages = {603 -- 626}, publisher = {World Scientific Publishing}, title = {{On the domain of non-symmetric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operators in banach spaces}}, doi = {10.1142/S0219025708003245}, volume = {11}, year = {2008}, } @article{2121, abstract = {Let H be a separable real Hubert space and let double struck F sign = (ℱt)t∈[0,T] be the augmented filtration generated by an H-cylindrical Brownian motion (WH(t))t∈[0,T] on a probability space (Ω, ℱ ℙ). We prove that if E is a UMD Banach space, 1 ≤ p < ∞, and F ∈ double struck D sign1,p(Ω E) is ℱT-measurable, then F = double struck E sign(F) + ∫0T Pdouble struck F sign(DF) dW H, where D is the Malliavin derivative of F and P double struck F sign is the projection onto the F-adapted elements in a suitable Banach space of Lp-stochastically integrable ℒ(H, E)-valued processes.}, author = {van Neerven, Jan M and Jan Maas}, journal = {Electronic Communications in Probability}, pages = {151 -- 164}, publisher = {Institute of Mathematical Statistics}, title = {{A Clark-Ocone formula in UMD Banach spaces}}, volume = {13}, year = {2008}, } @article{2146, abstract = {We present an analytic model of thermal state-to-state rotationally inelastic collisions of polar molecules in electric fields. The model is based on the Fraunhofer scattering of matter waves and requires Legendre moments characterizing the “shape” of the target in the body-fixed frame as its input. The electric field orients the target in the space-fixed frame and thereby effects a striking alteration of the dynamical observables: both the phase and amplitude of the oscillations in the partial differential cross sections undergo characteristic field-dependent changes that transgress into the partial integral cross sections. As the cross sections can be evaluated for a field applied parallel or perpendicular to the relative velocity, the model also offers predictions about steric asymmetry. We exemplify the field-dependent quantum collision dynamics with the behavior of the Ne–OCS(Σ1) and Ar–NO(Π2) systems. A comparison with the close-coupling calculations available for the latter system [Chem. Phys. Lett.313, 491 (1999)] demonstrates the model’s ability to qualitatively explain the field dependence of all the scattering features observed.}, author = {Mikhail Lemeshko and Friedrich, Břetislav}, journal = {Journal of Chemical Physics}, number = {2}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, title = {{An analytic model of rotationally inelastic collisions of polar molecules in electric fields}}, doi = {10.1063/1.2948392}, volume = {129}, year = {2008}, } @inproceedings{2331, abstract = {We present a review of recent work on the mathematical aspects of the BCS gap equation, covering our results of Ref. 9 as well our recent joint work with Hamza and Solovej and with Frank and Naboko, respectively. In addition, we mention some related new results.}, author = {Hainzl, Christian and Robert Seiringer}, pages = {117 -- 136}, publisher = {World Scientific Publishing}, title = {{ Spectral properties of the BCS gap equation of superfluidity}}, doi = {10.1142/9789812832382_0009}, year = {2008}, } @inproceedings{2332, abstract = {We present a rigorous proof of the appearance of quantized vortices in dilute trapped Bose gases with repulsive two-body interactions subject to rotation, which was obtained recently in joint work with Elliott Lieb.14 Starting from the many-body Schrödinger equation, we show that the ground state of such gases is, in a suitable limit, well described by the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In the case of axially symmetric traps, our results show that the appearance of quantized vortices causes spontaneous symmetry breaking in the ground state.}, author = {Robert Seiringer}, pages = {241 -- 254}, publisher = {World Scientific Publishing}, title = {{Vortices and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Rotating Bose Gases}}, doi = {10.1142/9789812832382_0017}, year = {2008}, } @article{2374, abstract = {A lower bound is derived on the free energy (per unit volume) of a homogeneous Bose gas at density Q and temperature T. In the dilute regime, i.e., when a3 1, where a denotes the scattering length of the pair-interaction potential, our bound differs to leading order from the expression for non-interacting particles by the term 4πa(2 2}-[ - c]2+). Here, c(T) denotes the critical density for Bose-Einstein condensation (for the non-interacting gas), and [ · ]+ = max{ ·, 0} denotes the positive part. Our bound is uniform in the temperature up to temperatures of the order of the critical temperature, i.e., T ~ 2/3 or smaller. One of the key ingredients in the proof is the use of coherent states to extend the method introduced in [17] for estimating correlations to temperatures below the critical one.}, author = {Robert Seiringer}, journal = {Communications in Mathematical Physics}, number = {3}, pages = {595 -- 636}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Free energy of a dilute Bose gas: Lower bound}}, doi = {10.1007/s00220-008-0428-2}, volume = {279}, year = {2008}, } @article{2376, abstract = {We derive upper and lower bounds on the critical temperature Tc and the energy gap Ξ (at zero temperature) for the BCS gap equation, describing spin- 1 2 fermions interacting via a local two-body interaction potential λV(x). At weak coupling λ 1 and under appropriate assumptions on V(x), our bounds show that Tc ∼A exp(-B/λ) and Ξ∼C exp(-B/λ) for some explicit coefficients A, B, and C depending on the interaction V(x) and the chemical potential μ. The ratio A/C turns out to be a universal constant, independent of both V(x) and μ. Our analysis is valid for any μ; for small μ, or low density, our formulas reduce to well-known expressions involving the scattering length of V(x).}, author = {Hainzl, Christian and Robert Seiringer}, journal = {Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics}, number = {18}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Critical temperature and energy gap for the BCS equation}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.77.184517}, volume = {77}, year = {2008}, } @article{2377, abstract = {We prove that the critical temperature for the BCS gap equation is given by T c = μ ( 8\π e γ-2+ o(1)) e π/(2μa) in the low density limit μ→ 0, with γ denoting Euler's constant. The formula holds for a suitable class of interaction potentials with negative scattering length a in the absence of bound states.}, author = {Hainzl, Christian and Robert Seiringer}, journal = {Letters in Mathematical Physics}, number = {2-3}, pages = {99 -- 107}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{The BCS critical temperature for potentials with negative scattering length}}, doi = {10.1007/s11005-008-0242-y}, volume = {84}, year = {2008}, } @article{2378, abstract = {We derive a lower bound on the ground state energy of the Hubbard model for given value of the total spin. In combination with the upper bound derived previously by Giuliani (J. Math. Phys. 48:023302, [2007]), our result proves that in the low density limit the leading order correction compared to the ground state energy of a non-interacting lattice Fermi gas is given by 8πaσ uσ d , where σ u(d) denotes the density of the spin-up (down) particles, and a is the scattering length of the contact interaction potential. This result extends previous work on the corresponding continuum model to the lattice case.}, author = {Robert Seiringer and Yin, Jun}, journal = {Journal of Statistical Physics}, number = {6}, pages = {1139 -- 1154}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Ground state energy of the low density hubbard model}}, doi = {10.1007/s10955-008-9527-x}, volume = {131}, year = {2008}, } @article{2379, author = {Frank, Rupert L and Lieb, Élliott H and Robert Seiringer}, journal = {Journal of the American Mathematical Society}, number = {4}, pages = {925 -- 950}, publisher = {American Mathematical Society}, title = {{Hardy-Lieb-Thirring inequalities for fractional Schrödinger operators}}, doi = {10.1090/S0894-0347-07-00582-6}, volume = {21}, year = {2008}, } @article{2380, abstract = {The Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) functional has recently received renewed attention as a description of fermionic gases interacting with local pairwise interactions. We present here a rigorous analysis of the BCS functional for general pair interaction potentials. For both zero and positive temperature, we show that the existence of a non-trivial solution of the nonlinear BCS gap equation is equivalent to the existence of a negative eigenvalue of a certain linear operator. From this we conclude the existence of a critical temperature below which the BCS pairing wave function does not vanish identically. For attractive potentials, we prove that the critical temperature is non-zero and exponentially small in the strength of the potential.}, author = {Hainzl, Christian and Hamza, Eman and Robert Seiringer and Solovej, Jan P}, journal = {Communications in Mathematical Physics}, number = {2}, pages = {349 -- 367}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{The BCS functional for general pair interactions}}, doi = {10.1007/s00220-008-0489-2}, volume = {281}, year = {2008}, } @article{2381, abstract = {We determine the sharp constant in the Hardy inequality for fractional Sobolev spaces. To do so, we develop a non-linear and non-local version of the ground state representation, which even yields a remainder term. From the sharp Hardy inequality we deduce the sharp constant in a Sobolev embedding which is optimal in the Lorentz scale. In the appendix, we characterize the cases of equality in the rearrangement inequality in fractional Sobolev spaces.}, author = {Frank, Rupert L and Robert Seiringer}, journal = {Journal of Functional Analysis}, number = {12}, pages = {3407 -- 3430}, publisher = {Academic Press}, title = {{Non-linear ground state representations and sharp Hardy inequalities}}, doi = {10.1016/j.jfa.2008.05.015}, volume = {255}, year = {2008}, } @article{2382, abstract = {We show that the Lieb-Liniger model for one-dimensional bosons with repulsive δ-function interaction can be rigorously derived via a scaling limit from a dilute three-dimensional Bose gas with arbitrary repulsive interaction potential of finite scattering length. For this purpose, we prove bounds on both the eigenvalues and corresponding eigenfunctions of three-dimensional bosons in strongly elongated traps and relate them to the corresponding quantities in the Lieb-Liniger model. In particular, if both the scattering length a and the radius r of the cylindrical trap go to zero, the Lieb-Liniger model with coupling constant g ∼ a/r 2 is derived. Our bounds are uniform in g in the whole parameter range 0 ≤ g ≤ ∞, and apply to the Hamiltonian for three-dimensional bosons in a spectral window of size ∼ r -2 above the ground state energy.}, author = {Robert Seiringer and Yin, Jun}, journal = {Communications in Mathematical Physics}, number = {2}, pages = {459 -- 479}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{The Lieb-Liniger model as a limit of dilute bosons in three dimensions}}, doi = {10.1007/s00220-008-0521-6}, volume = {284}, year = {2008}, }