@article{863, abstract = {The origins of neural systems remain unresolved. In contrast to other basal metazoans, ctenophores (comb jellies) have both complex nervous and mesoderm-derived muscular systems. These holoplanktonic predators also have sophisticated ciliated locomotion, behaviour and distinct development. Here we present the draft genome of Pleurobrachia bachei, Pacific sea gooseberry, together with ten other ctenophore transcriptomes, and show that they are remarkably distinct from other animal genomes in their content of neurogenic, immune and developmental genes. Our integrative analyses place Ctenophora as the earliest lineage within Metazoa. This hypothesis is supported by comparative analysis of multiple gene families, including the apparent absence of HOX genes, canonical microRNA machinery, and reduced immune complement in ctenophores. Although two distinct nervous systems are well recognized in ctenophores, many bilaterian neuron-specific genes and genes of 'classical' neurotransmitter pathways either are absent or, if present, are not expressed in neurons. Our metabolomic and physiological data are consistent with the hypothesis that ctenophore neural systems, and possibly muscle specification, evolved independently from those in other animals.}, author = {Moroz, Leonid L and Kocot, Kevin M and Citarella, Mathew R and Dosung, Sohn and Norekian, Tigran P and Povolotskaya, Inna and Grigorenko, Anastasia P and Dailey, Christopher A and Berezikov, Eugene and Buckley, Katherine M and Ptitsyn, Andrey A and Reshetov, Denis A and Mukherjee, Krishanu and Moroz, Tatiana P and Bobkova, Yelena V and Yu, Fahong and Kapitonov, Vladimir V and Jurka, Jerzy W and Bobkov, Yuriy V and Swore, Joshua J and Girardo, David O and Fodor, Alexander and Gusev, Fedor E and Sanford, Rachel S and Bruders, Rebecca and Kittler, Ellen L and Mills, Claudia E and Rast, Jonathan P and Derelle, Romain and Solovyev, Victor and Fyodor Kondrashov and Swalla, Billie J and Sweedler, Jonathan V and Rogaev, Evgeny I and Halanych, Kenneth M and Kohn, Andrea B}, journal = {Nature}, number = {7503}, pages = {109 -- 114}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, title = {{The ctenophore genome and the evolutionary origins of neural systems}}, doi = {10.1038/nature13400}, volume = {510}, year = {2014}, } @article{865, abstract = {Research on existing drugs often discovers novel mechanisms of their action and leads to the expansion of their therapeutic scope and subsequent remarketing. The Wnt signaling pathway is of the immediate therapeutic relevance, as it plays critical roles in cancer development and progression. However, drugs which disrupt this pathway are unavailable despite the high demand. Here we report an attempt to identify antagonists of the Wnt-FZD interaction among the library of the FDA-approved drugs. We performed an in silico screening which brought up several potential antagonists of the ligand-receptor interaction. 14 of these substances were tested using the TopFlash luciferase reporter assay and four of them identified as active and specific inhibitors of the Wnt3a-induced signaling. However, further analysis through GTP-binding and β-catenin stabilization assays showed that the compounds do not target the Wnt-FZD pair, but inhibit the signaling at downstream levels. We further describe the previously unknown inhibitory activity of an anti-leprosy drug clofazimine in the Wnt pathway and provide data demonstrating its efficiency in suppressing growth of Wnt-dependent triple-negative breast cancer cells. These data provide a basis for further investigations of the efficiency of clofazimine in treatment of Wnt-dependent cancers.}, author = {Koval, Alexey V and Vlasov, Peter K and Shichkova, Polina and Khunderyakova, S and Markov, Yury and Panchenko, J and Volodina, A and Fyodor Kondrashov and Katanaev, Vladimir L}, journal = {Biochemical Pharmacology}, number = {4}, pages = {571 -- 578}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Anti leprosy drug clofazimine inhibits growth of triple-negative breast cancer cells via inhibition of canonical Wnt signaling}}, doi = {10.1016/j.bcp.2013.12.007}, volume = {87}, year = {2014}, } @article{892, abstract = {The study of molecular evolution is important because it reveals how protein functions emerge and evolve. Recently, several types of studies indicated that substitutions in molecular evolution occur in a compensatory manner, whereby the occurrence of a substitution depends on the amino acid residues at other sites. However, a molecular or structural basis behind the compensation often remains obscure. Here, we review studies on the interface of structural biology and molecular evolution that revealed novel aspects of compensatory evolution. In many cases structural studies benefit from evolutionary data while structural data often add a functional dimension to the study of molecular evolution.}, author = {Ivankov, Dmitry N and Finkelstein, Alexei V and Fyodor Kondrashov}, journal = {Current Opinion in Structural Biology}, number = {1}, pages = {104 -- 112}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{A structural perspective of compensatory evolution}}, doi = {10.1016/j.sbi.2014.05.004}, volume = {26}, year = {2014}, } @article{1629, abstract = {We propose a method for propagating edit operations in 2D vector graphics, based on geometric relationship functions. These functions quantify the geometric relationship of a point to a polygon, such as the distance to the boundary or the direction to the closest corner vertex. The level sets of the relationship functions describe points with the same relationship to a polygon. For a given query point, we first determine a set of relationships to local features, construct all level sets for these relationships, and accumulate them. The maxima of the resulting distribution are points with similar geometric relationships. We show extensions to handle mirror symmetries, and discuss the use of relationship functions as local coordinate systems. Our method can be applied, for example, to interactive floorplan editing, and it is especially useful for large layouts, where individual edits would be cumbersome. We demonstrate populating 2D layouts with tens to hundreds of objects by propagating relatively few edit operations.}, author = {Guerrero, Paul and Jeschke, Stefan and Wimmer, Michael and Wonka, Peter}, journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics}, number = {2}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Edit propagation using geometric relationship functions}}, doi = {10.1145/2591010}, volume = {33}, year = {2014}, } @inproceedings{1643, abstract = {We extend the notion of verifiable random functions (VRF) to constrained VRFs, which generalize the concept of constrained pseudorandom functions, put forward by Boneh and Waters (Asiacrypt’13), and independently by Kiayias et al. (CCS’13) and Boyle et al. (PKC’14), who call them delegatable PRFs and functional PRFs, respectively. In a standard VRF the secret key sk allows one to evaluate a pseudorandom function at any point of its domain; in addition, it enables computation of a non-interactive proof that the function value was computed correctly. In a constrained VRF from the key sk one can derive constrained keys skS for subsets S of the domain, which allow computation of function values and proofs only at points in S. After formally defining constrained VRFs, we derive instantiations from the multilinear-maps-based constrained PRFs by Boneh and Waters, yielding a VRF with constrained keys for any set that can be decided by a polynomial-size circuit. Our VRFs have the same function values as the Boneh-Waters PRFs and are proved secure under the same hardness assumption, showing that verifiability comes at no cost. Constrained (functional) VRFs were stated as an open problem by Boyle et al.}, author = {Fuchsbauer, Georg}, booktitle = {SCN 2014}, editor = {Abdalla, Michel and De Prisco, Roberto}, location = {Amalfi, Italy}, pages = {95 -- 114}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Constrained Verifiable Random Functions }}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10879-7_7}, volume = {8642}, year = {2014}, } @inproceedings{1702, abstract = {In this paper we present INTERHORN, a solver for recursion-free Horn clauses. The main application domain of INTERHORN lies in solving interpolation problems arising in software verification. We show how a range of interpolation problems, including path, transition, nested, state/transition and well-founded interpolation can be handled directly by INTERHORN. By detailing these interpolation problems and their Horn clause representations, we hope to encourage the emergence of a common back-end interpolation interface useful for diverse verification tools.}, author = {Gupta, Ashutosh and Popeea, Corneliu and Rybalchenko, Andrey}, booktitle = {Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science, EPTCS}, location = {Vienna, Austria}, pages = {31 -- 38}, publisher = {Open Publishing}, title = {{Generalised interpolation by solving recursion free-horn clauses}}, doi = {10.4204/EPTCS.169.5}, volume = {169}, year = {2014}, } @inproceedings{1708, abstract = {It has been long argued that, because of inherent ambiguity and noise, the brain needs to represent uncertainty in the form of probability distributions. The neural encoding of such distributions remains however highly controversial. Here we present a novel circuit model for representing multidimensional real-valued distributions using a spike based spatio-temporal code. Our model combines the computational advantages of the currently competing models for probabilistic codes and exhibits realistic neural responses along a variety of classic measures. Furthermore, the model highlights the challenges associated with interpreting neural activity in relation to behavioral uncertainty and points to alternative population-level approaches for the experimental validation of distributed representations.}, author = {Savin, Cristina and Denève, Sophie}, location = {Montreal, Canada}, number = {January}, pages = {2024 -- 2032}, publisher = {Neural Information Processing Systems}, title = {{Spatio-temporal representations of uncertainty in spiking neural networks}}, volume = {3}, year = {2014}, } @article{1733, abstract = {The classical (boolean) notion of refinement for behavioral interfaces of system components is the alternating refinement preorder. In this paper, we define a distance for interfaces, called interface simulation distance. It makes the alternating refinement preorder quantitative by, intuitively, tolerating errors (while counting them) in the alternating simulation game. We show that the interface simulation distance satisfies the triangle inequality, that the distance between two interfaces does not increase under parallel composition with a third interface, that the distance between two interfaces can be bounded from above and below by distances between abstractions of the two interfaces, and how to synthesize an interface from incompatible requirements. We illustrate the framework, and the properties of the distances under composition of interfaces, with two case studies.}, author = {Cerny, Pavol and Chmelik, Martin and Henzinger, Thomas A and Radhakrishna, Arjun}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, number = {3}, pages = {348 -- 363}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Interface simulation distances}}, doi = {10.1016/j.tcs.2014.08.019}, volume = {560}, year = {2014}, } @article{1761, abstract = {Metal silicides formed by means of thermal annealing processes are employed as contact materials in microelectronics. Control of the structure of silicide/silicon interfaces becomes a critical issue when the characteristic size of the device is reduced below a few tens of nanometers. Here, we report on silicide clustering occurring within the channel of PtSi/Si/PtSi Schottky-barrier transistors. This phenomenon is investigated through atomistic simulations and low-temperature resonant-tunneling spectroscopy. Our results provide evidence for the segregation of a PtSi cluster with a diameter of a few nanometers from the silicide contact. The cluster acts as a metallic quantum dot giving rise to distinct signatures of quantum transport through its discrete energy states.}, author = {Mongillo, Massimo and Spathis, Panayotis N and Georgios Katsaros and De Franceschi, Silvano and Gentile, Pascal and Rurali, Riccardo and Cartoixà, Xavier}, journal = {Physical Review X}, number = {4}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{PtSi clustering in silicon probed by transport spectroscopy}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevX.3.041025}, volume = {3}, year = {2014}, } @article{1791, abstract = {Acute gene inactivation using short hairpin RNA (shRNA, knockdown) in developing brain is a powerful technique to study genetic function; however, discrepancies between knockdown and knockout murine phenotypes have left unanswered questions. For example, doublecortin (Dcx) knockdown but not knockout shows a neocortical neuronal migration phenotype. Here we report that in utero electroporation of shRNA, but not siRNA or miRNA, to Dcx demonstrates a migration phenotype in Dcx knockouts akin to the effect in wild-type mice, suggestingshRNA-mediated off-target toxicity. This effect wasnot limited to Dcx, as it was observed in Dclk1 knockouts, as well as with a fraction of scrambled shRNAs, suggesting a sequence-dependent but not sequence-specific effect. Profiling RNAs from electroporated cells showed a defect in endogenous let7 miRNA levels, and disruption of let7 or Dicer recapitulated the migration defect. The results suggest that shRNA-mediated knockdown can produce untoward migration effects by altering endogenous miRNA pathways.}, author = {Baek, SeungTae and Kerjan, Géraldine and Bielas, Stephanie L and Lee, Jieun and Fenstermaker, Ali G and Gaia Novarino and Gleeson, Joseph G}, journal = {Neuron}, number = {6}, pages = {1255 -- 1262}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Off-target effect of doublecortin family shRNA on neuronal migration associated with endogenous MicroRNA dysregulation}}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuron.2014.04.036}, volume = {82}, year = {2014}, } @inbook{1806, abstract = {The generation of asymmetry, at both cellular and tissue level, is one of the most essential capabilities of all eukaryotic organisms. It mediates basically all multicellular development ranging from embryogenesis and de novo organ formation till responses to various environmental stimuli. In plants, the awe-inspiring number of such processes is regulated by phytohormone auxin and its directional, cell-to-cell transport. The mediators of this transport, PIN auxin transporters, are asymmetrically localized at the plasma membrane, and this polar localization determines the directionality of intercellular auxin flow. Thus, auxin transport contributes crucially to the generation of local auxin gradients or maxima, which instruct given cell to change its developmental program. Here, we introduce and discuss the molecular components and cellular mechanisms regulating the generation and maintenance of cellular PIN polarity, as the general hallmarks of cell polarity in plants.}, author = {Baster, Pawel and Friml, Jiří}, booktitle = {Auxin and Its Role in Plant Development}, editor = {Zažímalová, Eva and Petrášek, Jan and Benková, Eva}, pages = {143 -- 170}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Auxin on the road navigated by cellular PIN polarity}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-7091-1526-8_8}, year = {2014}, } @article{1816, abstract = {Watermarking techniques for vector graphics dislocate vertices in order to embed imperceptible, yet detectable, statistical features into the input data. The embedding process may result in a change of the topology of the input data, e.g., by introducing self-intersections, which is undesirable or even disastrous for many applications. In this paper we present a watermarking framework for two-dimensional vector graphics that employs conventional watermarking techniques but still provides the guarantee that the topology of the input data is preserved. The geometric part of this framework computes so-called maximum perturbation regions (MPR) of vertices. We propose two efficient algorithms to compute MPRs based on Voronoi diagrams and constrained triangulations. Furthermore, we present two algorithms to conditionally correct the watermarked data in order to increase the watermark embedding capacity and still guarantee topological correctness. While we focus on the watermarking of input formed by straight-line segments, one of our approaches can also be extended to circular arcs. We conclude the paper by demonstrating and analyzing the applicability of our framework in conjunction with two well-known watermarking techniques.}, author = {Huber, Stefan and Held, Martin and Meerwald, Peter and Kwitt, Roland}, journal = {International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications}, number = {1}, pages = {61 -- 86}, publisher = {World Scientific Publishing}, title = {{Topology-preserving watermarking of vector graphics}}, doi = {10.1142/S0218195914500034}, volume = {24}, year = {2014}, } @article{1821, abstract = {We review recent progress towards a rigorous understanding of the Bogoliubov approximation for bosonic quantum many-body systems. We focus, in particular, on the excitation spectrum of a Bose gas in the mean-field (Hartree) limit. A list of open problems will be discussed at the end.}, author = {Seiringer, Robert}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Physics}, number = {7}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, title = {{Bose gases, Bose-Einstein condensation, and the Bogoliubov approximation}}, doi = {10.1063/1.4881536}, volume = {55}, year = {2014}, } @article{1822, author = {Jakšić, Vojkan and Pillet, Claude and Seiringer, Robert}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Physics}, number = {7}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, title = {{Introduction}}, doi = {10.1063/1.4884877}, volume = {55}, year = {2014}, } @inbook{1829, abstract = {Hitting and batting tasks, such as tennis forehands, ping-pong strokes, or baseball batting, depend on predictions where the ball can be intercepted and how it can properly be returned to the opponent. These predictions get more accurate over time, hence the behaviors need to be continuously modified. As a result, movement templates with a learned global shape need to be adapted during the execution so that the racket reaches a target position and velocity that will return the ball over to the other side of the net or court. It requires altering learned movements to hit a varying target with the necessary velocity at a specific instant in time. Such a task cannot be incorporated straightforwardly in most movement representations suitable for learning. For example, the standard formulation of the dynamical system based motor primitives (introduced by Ijspeert et al (2002b)) does not satisfy this property despite their flexibility which has allowed learning tasks ranging from locomotion to kendama. In order to fulfill this requirement, we reformulate the Ijspeert framework to incorporate the possibility of specifying a desired hitting point and a desired hitting velocity while maintaining all advantages of the original formulation.We show that the proposed movement template formulation works well in two scenarios, i.e., for hitting a ball on a string with a table tennis racket at a specified velocity and for returning balls launched by a ball gun successfully over the net using forehand movements.}, author = {Muelling, Katharina and Kroemer, Oliver and Lampert, Christoph and Schölkopf, Bernhard}, booktitle = {Learning Motor Skills}, editor = {Kober, Jens and Peters, Jan}, pages = {69 -- 82}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Movement templates for learning of hitting and batting}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-03194-1_3}, volume = {97}, year = {2014}, } @article{1842, abstract = {We prove polynomial upper bounds of geometric Ramsey numbers of pathwidth-2 outerplanar triangulations in both convex and general cases. We also prove that the geometric Ramsey numbers of the ladder graph on 2n vertices are bounded by O(n3) and O(n10), in the convex and general case, respectively. We then apply similar methods to prove an (Formula presented.) upper bound on the Ramsey number of a path with n ordered vertices.}, author = {Cibulka, Josef and Gao, Pu and Krcál, Marek and Valla, Tomáš and Valtr, Pavel}, journal = {Discrete & Computational Geometry}, number = {1}, pages = {64 -- 79}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{On the geometric ramsey number of outerplanar graphs}}, doi = {10.1007/s00454-014-9646-x}, volume = {53}, year = {2014}, } @article{1844, abstract = {Local protein interactions ("molecular context" effects) dictate amino acid replacements and can be described in terms of site-specific, energetic preferences for any different amino acid. It has been recently debated whether these preferences remain approximately constant during evolution or whether, due to coevolution of sites, they change strongly. Such research highlights an unresolved and fundamental issue with far-reaching implications for phylogenetic analysis and molecular evolution modeling. Here, we take advantage of the recent availability of phenotypically supported laboratory resurrections of Precambrian thioredoxins and β-lactamases to experimentally address the change of site-specific amino acid preferences over long geological timescales. Extensive mutational analyses support the notion that evolutionary adjustment to a new amino acid may occur, but to a large extent this is insufficient to erase the primitive preference for amino acid replacements. Generally, site-specific amino acid preferences appear to remain conserved throughout evolutionary history despite local sequence divergence. We show such preference conservation to be readily understandable in molecular terms and we provide crystallographic evidence for an intriguing structural-switch mechanism: Energetic preference for an ancestral amino acid in a modern protein can be linked to reorganization upon mutation to the ancestral local structure around the mutated site. Finally, we point out that site-specific preference conservation naturally leads to one plausible evolutionary explanation for the existence of intragenic global suppressor mutations.}, author = {Risso, Valeria and Manssour Triedo, Fadia and Delgado Delgado, Asuncion and Arco, Rocio and Barroso Deljesús, Alicia and Inglés Prieto, Álvaro and Godoy Ruiz, Raquel and Gavira, Josè and Gaucher, Eric and Ibarra Molero, Beatriz and Sánchez Ruiz, Jose}, journal = {Molecular Biology and Evolution}, number = {2}, pages = {440 -- 455}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Mutational studies on resurrected ancestral proteins reveal conservation of site-specific amino acid preferences throughout evolutionary history}}, doi = {10.1093/molbev/msu312}, volume = {32}, year = {2014}, } @article{1852, abstract = {To control morphogenesis, molecular regulatory networks have to interfere with the mechanical properties of the individual cells of developing organs and tissues, but how this is achieved is not well known. We study this issue here in the shoot meristem of higher plants, a group of undifferentiated cells where complex changes in growth rates and directions lead to the continuous formation of new organs [1, 2]. Here, we show that the plant hormone auxin plays an important role in this process via a dual, local effect on the extracellular matrix, the cell wall, which determines cell shape. Our study reveals that auxin not only causes a limited reduction in wall stiffness but also directly interferes with wall anisotropy via the regulation of cortical microtubule dynamics. We further show that to induce growth isotropy and organ outgrowth, auxin somehow interferes with the cortical microtubule-ordering activity of a network of proteins, including AUXIN BINDING PROTEIN 1 and KATANIN 1. Numerical simulations further indicate that the induced isotropy is sufficient to amplify the effects of the relatively minor changes in wall stiffness to promote organogenesis and the establishment of new growth axes in a robust manner.}, author = {Sassi, Massimiliano and Ali, Olivier and Boudon, Frédéric and Cloarec, Gladys and Abad, Ursula and Cellier, Coralie and Chen, Xu and Gilles, Benjamin and Milani, Pascale and Friml, Jirí and Vernoux, Teva and Godin, Christophe and Hamant, Olivier and Traas, Jan}, journal = {Current Biology}, number = {19}, pages = {2335 -- 2342}, publisher = {Cell Press}, title = {{An auxin-mediated shift toward growth isotropy promotes organ formation at the shoot meristem in Arabidopsis}}, doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2014.08.036}, volume = {24}, year = {2014}, } @inproceedings{1853, abstract = {Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) composed of low-power, low-cost sensor nodes are expected to form the backbone of future intelligent networks for a broad range of civil, industrial and military applications. These sensor nodes are often deployed through random spreading, and function in dynamic environments. Many applications of WSNs such as pollution tracking, forest fire detection, and military surveillance require knowledge of the location of constituent nodes. But the use of technologies such as GPS on all nodes is prohibitive due to power and cost constraints. So, the sensor nodes need to autonomously determine their locations. Most localization techniques use anchor nodes with known locations to determine the position of remaining nodes. Localization techniques have two conflicting requirements. On one hand, an ideal localization technique should be computationally simple and on the other hand, it must be resistant to attacks that compromise anchor nodes. In this paper, we propose a computationally light-weight game theoretic secure localization technique and demonstrate its effectiveness in comparison to existing techniques.}, author = {Jha, Susmit and Tripakis, Stavros and Seshia, Sanjit and Chatterjee, Krishnendu}, location = {Cambridge, USA}, pages = {85 -- 90}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{Game theoretic secure localization in wireless sensor networks}}, doi = {10.1109/IOT.2014.7030120}, year = {2014}, } @article{1854, abstract = {In this paper, we present a method for non-rigid, partial shape matching in vector graphics. Given a user-specified query region in a 2D shape, similar regions are found, even if they are non-linearly distorted. Furthermore, a non-linear mapping is established between the query regions and these matches, which allows the automatic transfer of editing operations such as texturing. This is achieved by a two-step approach. First, pointwise correspondences between the query region and the whole shape are established. The transformation parameters of these correspondences are registered in an appropriate transformation space. For transformations between similar regions, these parameters form surfaces in transformation space, which are extracted in the second step of our method. The extracted regions may be related to the query region by a non-rigid transform, enabling non-rigid shape matching. In this paper, we present a method for non-rigid, partial shape matching in vector graphics. Given a user-specified query region in a 2D shape, similar regions are found, even if they are non-linearly distorted. Furthermore, a non-linear mapping is established between the query regions and these matches, which allows the automatic transfer of editing operations such as texturing. This is achieved by a two-step approach. First, pointwise correspondences between the query region and the whole shape are established. The transformation parameters of these correspondences are registered in an appropriate transformation space. For transformations between similar regions, these parameters form surfaces in transformation space, which are extracted in the second step of our method. The extracted regions may be related to the query region by a non-rigid transform, enabling non-rigid shape matching.}, author = {Guerrero, Paul and Auzinger, Thomas and Wimmer, Michael and Jeschke, Stefan}, journal = {Computer Graphics Forum}, number = {1}, pages = {239 -- 252}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Partial shape matching using transformation parameter similarity}}, doi = {10.1111/cgf.12509}, volume = {34}, year = {2014}, }