@inproceedings{1481,
  abstract     = {Simple board games, like Tic-Tac-Toe and CONNECT-4, play an important role not only in the development of mathematical and logical skills, but also in the emotional and social development. In this paper, we address the problem of generating targeted starting positions for such games. This can facilitate new approaches for bringing novice players to mastery, and also leads to discovery of interesting game variants. We present an approach that generates starting states of varying hardness levels for player 1 in a two-player board game, given rules of the board game, the desired number of steps required for player 1 to win, and the expertise levels of the two players. Our approach leverages symbolic methods and iterative simulation to efficiently search the extremely large state space. We present experimental results that include discovery of states of varying hardness levels for several simple grid-based board games. The presence of such states for standard game variants like 4×4 Tic-Tac-Toe opens up new games to be played that have never been played as the default start state is heavily biased. },
  author       = {Ahmed, Umair and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Gulwani, Sumit},
  booktitle    = {Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  location     = {Austin, TX, USA},
  pages        = {745 -- 752},
  publisher    = {AAAI Press},
  title        = {{Automatic generation of alternative starting positions for simple traditional board games}},
  volume       = {2},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1483,
  abstract     = {Topological data analysis offers a rich source of valuable information to study vision problems. Yet, so far we lack a theoretically sound connection to popular kernel-based learning techniques, such as kernel SVMs or kernel PCA. In this work, we establish such a connection by designing a multi-scale kernel for persistence diagrams, a stable summary representation of topological features in data. We show that this kernel is positive definite and prove its stability with respect to the 1-Wasserstein distance. Experiments on two benchmark datasets for 3D shape classification/retrieval and texture recognition show considerable performance gains of the proposed method compared to an alternative approach that is based on the recently introduced persistence landscapes.},
  author       = {Reininghaus, Jan and Huber, Stefan and Bauer, Ulrich and Kwitt, Roland},
  location     = {Boston, MA, USA},
  pages        = {4741 -- 4748},
  publisher    = {IEEE},
  title        = {{A stable multi-scale kernel for topological machine learning}},
  doi          = {10.1109/CVPR.2015.7299106},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1495,
  abstract     = {Motivated by biological questions, we study configurations of equal-sized disks in the Euclidean plane that neither pack nor cover. Measuring the quality by the probability that a random point lies in exactly one disk, we show that the regular hexagonal grid gives the maximum among lattice configurations. },
  author       = {Edelsbrunner, Herbert and Iglesias Ham, Mabel and Kurlin, Vitaliy},
  booktitle    = {Proceedings of the 27th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry},
  location     = {Ontario, Canada},
  pages        = {128--135},
  publisher    = {Queen's University},
  title        = {{Relaxed disk packing}},
  volume       = {2015-August},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1497,
  abstract     = {Detecting allelic biases from high-throughput sequencing data requires an approach that maximises sensitivity while minimizing false positives. Here, we present Allelome.PRO, an automated user-friendly bioinformatics pipeline, which uses high-throughput sequencing data from reciprocal crosses of two genetically distinct mouse strains to detect allele-specific expression and chromatin modifications. Allelome.PRO extends approaches used in previous studies that exclusively analyzed imprinted expression to give a complete picture of the ‘allelome’ by automatically categorising the allelic expression of all genes in a given cell type into imprinted, strain-biased, biallelic or non-informative. Allelome.PRO offers increased sensitivity to analyze lowly expressed transcripts, together with a robust false discovery rate empirically calculated from variation in the sequencing data. We used RNA-seq data from mouse embryonic fibroblasts from F1 reciprocal crosses to determine a biologically relevant allelic ratio cutoff, and define for the first time an entire allelome. Furthermore, we show that Allelome.PRO detects differential enrichment of H3K4me3 over promoters from ChIP-seq data validating the RNA-seq results. This approach can be easily extended to analyze histone marks of active enhancers, or transcription factor binding sites and therefore provides a powerful tool to identify candidate cis regulatory elements genome wide.},
  author       = {Andergassen, Daniel and Dotter, Christoph and Kulinski, Tomasz and Guenzl, Philipp and Bammer, Philipp and Barlow, Denise and Pauler, Florian and Hudson, Quanah},
  journal      = {Nucleic Acids Research},
  number       = {21},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{Allelome.PRO, a pipeline to define allele-specific genomic features from high-throughput sequencing data}},
  doi          = {10.1093/nar/gkv727},
  volume       = {43},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1498,
  abstract     = {Fault-tolerant distributed algorithms play an important role in many critical/high-availability applications. These algorithms are notoriously difficult to implement correctly, due to asynchronous communication and the occurrence of faults, such as the network dropping messages or computers crashing. Nonetheless there is surprisingly little language and verification support to build distributed systems based on fault-tolerant algorithms. In this paper, we present some of the challenges that a designer has to overcome to implement a fault-tolerant distributed system. Then we review different models that have been proposed to reason about distributed algorithms and sketch how such a model can form the basis for a domain-specific programming language. Adopting a high-level programming model can simplify the programmer's life and make the code amenable to automated verification, while still compiling to efficiently executable code. We conclude by summarizing the current status of an ongoing language design and implementation project that is based on this idea.},
  author       = {Dragoi, Cezara and Henzinger, Thomas A and Zufferey, Damien},
  isbn         = {978-3-939897-80-4 },
  location     = {Asilomar, CA, United States},
  pages        = {90 -- 102},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{The need for language support for fault-tolerant distributed systems}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SNAPL.2015.90},
  volume       = {32},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1499,
  abstract     = {We consider weighted automata with both positive and negative integer weights on edges and
study the problem of synchronization using adaptive strategies that may only observe whether
the current weight-level is negative or nonnegative. We show that the synchronization problem is decidable in polynomial time for deterministic weighted automata.},
  author       = {Kretinsky, Jan and Larsen, Kim and Laursen, Simon and Srba, Jiří},
  location     = {Madrid, Spain},
  pages        = {142 -- 154},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{Polynomial time decidability of weighted synchronization under partial observability}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2015.142},
  volume       = {42},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1501,
  abstract     = {We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) which are a standard model for probabilistic systems. We focus on qualitative properties for MDPs that can express that desired behaviors of the system arise almost-surely (with probability 1) or with positive probability. We introduce a new simulation relation to capture the refinement relation of MDPs with respect to qualitative properties, and present discrete graph algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation. We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis of two-player games by giving a counterexample guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. We show a tight link between two-player games and MDPs, and as a consequence the results for games are lifted to MDPs with qualitative properties. We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. },
  author       = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Chmelik, Martin and Daca, Przemyslaw},
  journal      = {Formal Methods in System Design},
  number       = {2},
  pages        = {230 -- 264},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  title        = {{CEGAR for compositional analysis of qualitative properties in Markov decision processes}},
  doi          = {10.1007/s10703-015-0235-2},
  volume       = {47},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1502,
  abstract     = {We extend the theory of input-output conformance with operators for merge and quotient. The former is useful when testing against multiple requirements or views. The latter can be used to generate tests for patches of an already tested system. Both operators can combine systems with different action alphabets, which is usually the case when constructing complex systems and specifications from parts, for instance different views as well as newly defined functionality of a~previous version of the system.},
  author       = {Beneš, Nikola and Daca, Przemyslaw and Henzinger, Thomas A and Kretinsky, Jan and Nickovic, Dejan},
  isbn         = {978-1-4503-3471-6},
  location     = {Montreal, QC, Canada},
  pages        = {101 -- 110},
  publisher    = {ACM},
  title        = {{Complete composition operators for IOCO-testing theory}},
  doi          = {10.1145/2737166.2737175},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1505,
  abstract     = {This paper is aimed at deriving the universality of the largest eigenvalue of a class of high-dimensional real or complex sample covariance matrices of the form W N =Σ 1/2XX∗Σ 1/2 . Here, X = (xij )M,N is an M× N random matrix with independent entries xij , 1 ≤ i M,≤ 1 ≤ j ≤ N such that Exij = 0, E|xij |2 = 1/N . On dimensionality, we assume that M = M(N) and N/M → d ε (0, ∞) as N ∞→. For a class of general deterministic positive-definite M × M matrices Σ , under some additional assumptions on the distribution of xij 's, we show that the limiting behavior of the largest eigenvalue of W N is universal, via pursuing a Green function comparison strategy raised in [Probab. Theory Related Fields 154 (2012) 341-407, Adv. Math. 229 (2012) 1435-1515] by Erd″os, Yau and Yin for Wigner matrices and extended by Pillai and Yin [Ann. Appl. Probab. 24 (2014) 935-1001] to sample covariance matrices in the null case (&Epsi = I ). Consequently, in the standard complex case (Ex2 ij = 0), combing this universality property and the results known for Gaussian matrices obtained by El Karoui in [Ann. Probab. 35 (2007) 663-714] (nonsingular case) and Onatski in [Ann. Appl. Probab. 18 (2008) 470-490] (singular case), we show that after an appropriate normalization the largest eigenvalue of W N converges weakly to the type 2 Tracy-Widom distribution TW2 . Moreover, in the real case, we show that whenΣ is spiked with a fixed number of subcritical spikes, the type 1 Tracy-Widom limit TW1 holds for the normalized largest eigenvalue of W N , which extends a result of Féral and Péché in [J. Math. Phys. 50 (2009) 073302] to the scenario of nondiagonal Σ and more generally distributed X . In summary, we establish the Tracy-Widom type universality for the largest eigenvalue of generally distributed sample covariance matrices under quite light assumptions on &Sigma . Applications of these limiting results to statistical signal detection and structure recognition of separable covariance matrices are also discussed.},
  author       = {Bao, Zhigang and Pan, Guangming and Zhou, Wang},
  journal      = {Annals of Statistics},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {382 -- 421},
  publisher    = {Institute of Mathematical Statistics},
  title        = {{Universality for the largest eigenvalue of sample covariance matrices with general population}},
  doi          = {10.1214/14-AOS1281},
  volume       = {43},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1506,
  abstract     = {Consider the square random matrix An = (aij)n,n, where {aij:= a(n)ij , i, j = 1, . . . , n} is a collection of independent real random variables with means zero and variances one. Under the additional moment condition supn max1≤i,j ≤n Ea4ij <∞, we prove Girko's logarithmic law of det An in the sense that as n→∞ log | detAn| ? (1/2) log(n-1)! d/→√(1/2) log n N(0, 1).},
  author       = {Bao, Zhigang and Pan, Guangming and Zhou, Wang},
  journal      = {Bernoulli},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {1600 -- 1628},
  publisher    = {Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability},
  title        = {{The logarithmic law of random determinant}},
  doi          = {10.3150/14-BEJ615},
  volume       = {21},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1508,
  abstract     = {We consider generalized Wigner ensembles and general β-ensembles with analytic potentials for any β ≥ 1. The recent universality results in particular assert that the local averages of consecutive eigenvalue gaps in the bulk of the spectrum are universal in the sense that they coincide with those of the corresponding Gaussian β-ensembles. In this article, we show that local averaging is not necessary for this result, i.e. we prove that the single gap distributions in the bulk are universal. In fact, with an additional step, our result can be extended to any C4(ℝ) potential.},
  author       = {Erdös, László and Yau, Horng},
  journal      = {Journal of the European Mathematical Society},
  number       = {8},
  pages        = {1927 -- 2036},
  publisher    = {European Mathematical Society},
  title        = {{Gap universality of generalized Wigner and β ensembles}},
  doi          = {10.4171/JEMS/548},
  volume       = {17},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1509,
  abstract     = {The Auxin Binding Protein1 (ABP1) has been identified based on its ability to bind auxin with high affinity and studied for a long time as a prime candidate for the extracellular auxin receptor responsible for mediating in particular the fast non-transcriptional auxin responses. However, the contradiction between the embryo-lethal phenotypes of the originally described Arabidopsis T-DNA insertional knock-out alleles (abp1-1 and abp1-1s) and the wild type-like phenotypes of other recently described loss-of-function alleles (abp1-c1 and abp1-TD1) questions the biological importance of ABP1 and relevance of the previous genetic studies. Here we show that there is no hidden copy of the ABP1 gene in the Arabidopsis genome but the embryo-lethal phenotypes of abp1-1 and abp1-1s alleles are very similar to the knock-out phenotypes of the neighboring gene, BELAYA SMERT (BSM). Furthermore, the allelic complementation test between bsm and abp1 alleles shows that the embryo-lethality in the abp1-1 and abp1-1s alleles is caused by the off-target disruption of the BSM locus by the T-DNA insertions. This clarifies the controversy of different phenotypes among published abp1 knock-out alleles and asks for reflections on the developmental role of ABP1.},
  author       = {Michalko, Jaroslav and Dravecka, Marta and Bollenbach, Tobias and Friml, Jirí},
  journal      = {F1000 Research },
  publisher    = {F1000 Research},
  title        = {{Embryo-lethal phenotypes in early abp1 mutants are due to disruption of the neighboring BSM gene}},
  doi          = {10.12688/f1000research.7143.1},
  volume       = {4},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1510,
  abstract     = {The concept of well group in a special but important case captures homological properties of the zero set of a continuous map f from K to R^n on a compact space K that are invariant with respect to perturbations of f. The perturbations are arbitrary continuous maps within L_infty distance r from f for a given r > 0. The main drawback of the approach is that the computability of well groups was shown only when dim K = n or n = 1. Our contribution to the theory of well groups is twofold: on the one hand we improve on the computability issue, but on the other hand we present a range of examples where the well groups are incomplete invariants, that is, fail to capture certain important robust properties of the zero set. For the first part, we identify a computable subgroup of the well group that is obtained by cap product with the pullback of the orientation of R^n by f. In other words, well groups can be algorithmically approximated from below. When f is smooth and dim K < 2n-2, our approximation of the (dim K-n)th well group is exact. For the second part, we find examples of maps f, f' from K to R^n with all well groups isomorphic but whose perturbations have different zero sets. We discuss on a possible replacement of the well groups of vector valued maps by an invariant of a better descriptive power and computability status. },
  author       = {Franek, Peter and Krcál, Marek},
  location     = {Eindhoven, Netherlands},
  pages        = {842 -- 856},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{On computability and triviality of well groups}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SOCG.2015.842},
  volume       = {34},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1511,
  abstract     = {The fact that the complete graph K_5 does not embed in the plane has been generalized in two independent directions. On the one hand, the solution of the classical Heawood problem for graphs on surfaces established that the complete graph K_n embeds in a closed surface M if and only if (n-3)(n-4) is at most 6b_1(M), where b_1(M) is the first Z_2-Betti number of M. On the other hand, Van Kampen and Flores proved that the k-skeleton of the n-dimensional simplex (the higher-dimensional analogue of K_{n+1}) embeds in R^{2k} if and only if n is less or equal to 2k+2. Two decades ago, Kuhnel conjectured that the k-skeleton of the n-simplex embeds in a compact, (k-1)-connected 2k-manifold with kth Z_2-Betti number b_k only if the following generalized Heawood inequality holds: binom{n-k-1}{k+1} is at most binom{2k+1}{k+1} b_k. This is a common generalization of the case of graphs on surfaces as well as the Van Kampen--Flores theorem. In the spirit of Kuhnel's conjecture, we prove that if the k-skeleton of the n-simplex embeds in a 2k-manifold with kth Z_2-Betti number b_k, then n is at most 2b_k binom{2k+2}{k} + 2k + 5. This bound is weaker than the generalized Heawood inequality, but does not require the assumption that M is (k-1)-connected. Our proof uses a result of Volovikov about maps that satisfy a certain homological triviality condition.},
  author       = {Goaoc, Xavier and Mabillard, Isaac and Paták, Pavel and Patakova, Zuzana and Tancer, Martin and Wagner, Uli},
  location     = {Eindhoven, Netherlands},
  pages        = {476 -- 490},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{On generalized Heawood inequalities for manifolds: A Van Kampen–Flores-type nonembeddability result}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SOCG.2015.476},
  volume       = {34 },
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1512,
  abstract     = {We show that very weak topological assumptions are enough to ensure the existence of a Helly-type theorem. More precisely, we show that for any non-negative integers b and d there exists an integer h(b,d) such that the following holds. If F is a finite family of subsets of R^d such that the ith reduced Betti number (with Z_2 coefficients in singular homology) of the intersection of any proper subfamily G of F is at most b for every non-negative integer i less or equal to (d-1)/2, then F has Helly number at most h(b,d). These topological conditions are sharp: not controlling any of these first Betti numbers allow for families with unbounded Helly number. Our proofs combine homological non-embeddability results with a Ramsey-based approach to build, given an arbitrary simplicial complex K, some well-behaved chain map from C_*(K) to C_*(R^d). Both techniques are of independent interest.},
  author       = {Goaoc, Xavier and Paták, Pavel and Patakova, Zuzana and Tancer, Martin and Wagner, Uli},
  location     = {Eindhoven, Netherlands},
  pages        = {507 -- 521},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{Bounding Helly numbers via Betti numbers}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SOCG.2015.507},
  volume       = {34},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1513,
  abstract     = {Insects of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) use a wide range of mechanisms of sex determination, including genetic sex determination, paternal genome elimination, and haplodiploidy. Genetic sex determination, the prevalent mode, is generally controlled by a pair of XY sex chromosomes or by an XX/X0 system, but different configurations that include additional sex chromosomes are also present. Although this diversity of sex determining systems has been extensively studied at the cytogenetic level, only the X chromosome of the model pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum has been analyzed at the genomic level, and little is known about X chromosome biology in the rest of the order.

In this study, we take advantage of published DNA- and RNA-seq data from three additional Hemiptera species to perform a comparative analysis of the gene content and expression of the X chromosome throughout this clade. We find that, despite showing evidence of dosage compensation, the X chromosomes of these species show female-biased expression, and a deficit of male-biased genes, in direct contrast to the pea aphid X. We further detect an excess of shared gene content between these very distant species, suggesting that despite the diversity of sex determining systems, the same chromosomal element is used as the X throughout a large portion of the order. },
  author       = {Pal, Arka and Vicoso, Beatriz},
  journal      = {Genome Biology and Evolution},
  number       = {12},
  pages        = {3259 -- 3268},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{The X chromosome of hemipteran insects: Conservation, dosage compensation and sex-biased expression}},
  doi          = {10.1093/gbe/evv215},
  volume       = {7},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1517,
  abstract     = {We study the large deviation rate functional for the empirical distribution of independent Brownian particles with drift. In one dimension, it has been shown by Adams, Dirr, Peletier and Zimmer that this functional is asymptotically equivalent (in the sense of Γ-convergence) to the Jordan-Kinderlehrer-Otto functional arising in the Wasserstein gradient flow structure of the Fokker-Planck equation. In higher dimensions, part of this statement (the lower bound) has been recently proved by Duong, Laschos and Renger, but the upper bound remained open, since the proof of Duong et al relies on regularity properties of optimal transport maps that are restricted to one dimension. In this note we present a new proof of the upper bound, thereby generalising the result of Adams et al to arbitrary dimensions.
},
  author       = {Erbar, Matthias and Maas, Jan and Renger, Michiel},
  journal      = {Electronic Communications in Probability},
  publisher    = {Institute of Mathematical Statistics},
  title        = {{From large deviations to Wasserstein gradient flows in multiple dimensions}},
  doi          = {10.1214/ECP.v20-4315},
  volume       = {20},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1519,
  abstract     = {Evolutionary biologists have an array of powerful theoretical techniques that can accurately predict changes in the genetic composition of populations. Changes in gene frequencies and genetic associations between loci can be tracked as they respond to a wide variety of evolutionary forces. However, it is often less clear how to decompose these various forces into components that accurately reflect the underlying biology. Here, we present several issues that arise in the definition and interpretation of selection and selection coefficients, focusing on insights gained through the examination of selection coefficients in multilocus notation. Using this notation, we discuss how its flexibility-which allows different biological units to be identified as targets of selection-is reflected in the interpretation of the coefficients that the notation generates. In many situations, it can be difficult to agree on whether loci can be considered to be under "direct" versus "indirect" selection, or to quantify this selection. We present arguments for what the terms direct and indirect selection might best encompass, considering a range of issues, from viability and sexual selection to kin selection. We show how multilocus notation can discriminate between direct and indirect selection, and describe when it can do so.},
  author       = {Barton, Nicholas H and Servedio, Maria},
  journal      = {Evolution},
  number       = {5},
  pages        = {1101 -- 1112},
  publisher    = {Wiley},
  title        = {{The interpretation of selection coefficients}},
  doi          = {10.1111/evo.12641},
  volume       = {69},
  year         = {2015},
}

@inproceedings{1520,
  abstract     = {Creating mechanical automata that can walk in stable and pleasing manners is a challenging task that requires both skill and expertise. We propose to use computational design to offset the technical difficulties of this process. A simple drag-and-drop interface allows casual users to create personalized walking toys from a library of pre-defined template mechanisms. Provided with this input, our method leverages physical simulation and evolutionary optimization to refine the mechanical designs such that the resulting toys are able to walk. The optimization process is guided by an intuitive set of objectives that measure the quality of the walking motions. We demonstrate our approach on a set of simulated mechanical toys with different numbers of legs and various distinct gaits. Two fabricated prototypes showcase the feasibility of our designs.},
  author       = {Bharaj, Gaurav and Coros, Stelian and Thomaszewski, Bernhard and Tompkin, James and Bickel, Bernd and Pfister, Hanspeter},
  isbn         = {978-1-4503-3496-9},
  location     = {Los Angeles, CA, United States},
  pages        = {93 -- 100},
  publisher    = {ACM},
  title        = {{Computational design of walking automata}},
  doi          = {10.1145/2786784.2786803},
  year         = {2015},
}

@article{1525,
  abstract     = {Based on 16 recommendations, efforts should be made to achieve the following goal: By 2025, all scholarly publication activity in Austria should be Open Access. In other words, the final versions of all scholarly publications resulting from the support of public resources must be freely accessible on the Internet without delay (Gold Open Access). The resources required to meet this obligation shall be provided to the authors, or the cost of the publication venues shall be borne directly by the research organisations.},
  author       = {Bauer, Bruno and Blechl, Guido and Bock, Christoph and Danowski, Patrick and Ferus, Andreas and Graschopf, Anton and König, Thomas and Mayer, Katja and Reckling, Falk and Rieck, Katharina and Seitz, Peter and Stöger, Herwig and Welzig, Elvira},
  journal      = {VÖB Mitteilungen},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {580 -- 607},
  publisher    = {Verein Österreichischer Bibliothekare},
  title        = {{Arbeitsgruppe „Nationale Strategie“ des Open Access Network Austria OANA}},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.33178},
  volume       = {68},
  year         = {2015},
}