@misc{5439, abstract = {The target discounted-sum problem is the following: Given a rational discount factor 0 < λ < 1 and three rational values a, b, and t, does there exist a finite or an infinite sequence w ε(a, b)∗ or w ε(a, b)w, such that Σ|w| i=0 w(i)λi equals t? The problem turns out to relate to many fields of mathematics and computer science, and its decidability question is surprisingly hard to solve. We solve the finite version of the problem, and show the hardness of the infinite version, linking it to various areas and open problems in mathematics and computer science: β-expansions, discounted-sum automata, piecewise affine maps, and generalizations of the Cantor set. We provide some partial results to the infinite version, among which are solutions to its restriction to eventually-periodic sequences and to the cases that λ λ 1/2 or λ = 1/n, for every n ε N. We use our results for solving some open problems on discounted-sum automata, among which are the exact-value problem for nondeterministic automata over finite words and the universality and inclusion problems for functional automata. }, author = {Boker, Udi and Henzinger, Thomas A and Otop, Jan}, issn = {2664-1690}, pages = {20}, publisher = {IST Austria}, title = {{The target discounted-sum problem}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:IST-2015-335-v1-1}, year = {2015}, } @misc{5440, abstract = {Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. The structure of the population affects the outcome of the evolutionary process. Evolutionary graph theory is a powerful approach to study this phenomenon. There are two graphs. The interaction graph specifies who interacts with whom for payoff in the context of evolution. The replacement graph specifies who competes with whom for reproduction. The vertices of the two graphs are the same, and each vertex corresponds to an individual of the population. The fitness (or the reproductive rate) is a non-negative number, and depends on the payoff. A key quantity is the fixation probability of a new mutant. It is defined as the probability that a newly introduced mutant (on a single vertex) generates a lineage of offspring which eventually takes over the entire population of resident individuals. The basic computational questions are as follows: (i) the qualitative question asks whether the fixation probability is positive; and (ii) the quantitative approximation question asks for an approximation of the fixation probability. Our main results are as follows: First, we consider a special case of the general problem, where the residents do not reproduce. We show that the qualitative question is NP-complete, and the quantitative approximation question is #P-complete, and the hardness results hold even in the special case where the interaction and the replacement graphs coincide. Second, we show that in general both the qualitative and the quantitative approximation questions are PSPACE-complete. The PSPACE-hardness result for quantitative approximation holds even when the fitness is always positive.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus and Nowak, Martin}, issn = {2664-1690}, pages = {18}, publisher = {IST Austria}, title = {{The complexity of evolutionary games on graphs}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:IST-2015-323-v2-2}, year = {2015}, } @misc{5441, abstract = {We study algorithmic questions for concurrent systems where the transitions are labeled from a complete, closed semiring, and path properties are algebraic with semiring operations. The algebraic path properties can model dataflow analysis problems, the shortest path problem, and many other natural problems that arise in program analysis. We consider that each component of the concurrent system is a graph with constant treewidth, a property satisfied by the controlflow graphs of most programs. We allow for multiple possible queries, which arise naturally in demand driven dataflow analysis. The study of multiple queries allows us to consider the tradeoff between the resource usage of the one-time preprocessing and for each individual query. The traditional approach constructs the product graph of all components and applies the best-known graph algorithm on the product. In this approach, even the answer to a single query requires the transitive closure (i.e., the results of all possible queries), which provides no room for tradeoff between preprocessing and query time. Our main contributions are algorithms that significantly improve the worst-case running time of the traditional approach, and provide various tradeoffs depending on the number of queries. For example, in a concurrent system of two components, the traditional approach requires hexic time in the worst case for answering one query as well as computing the transitive closure, whereas we show that with one-time preprocessing in almost cubic time, each subsequent query can be answered in at most linear time, and even the transitive closure can be computed in almost quartic time. Furthermore, we establish conditional optimality results showing that the worst-case running time of our algorithms cannot be improved without achieving major breakthroughs in graph algorithms (i.e., improving the worst-case bound for the shortest path problem in general graphs). Preliminary experimental results show that our algorithms perform favorably on several benchmarks.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus and Goharshady, Amir and Pavlogiannis, Andreas}, issn = {2664-1690}, pages = {24}, publisher = {IST Austria}, title = {{Algorithms for algebraic path properties in concurrent systems of constant treewidth components}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:IST-2015-340-v1-1}, year = {2015}, } @misc{5443, abstract = {POMDPs are standard models for probabilistic planning problems, where an agent interacts with an uncertain environment. We study the problem of almost-sure reachability, where given a set of target states, the question is to decide whether there is a policy to ensure that the target set is reached with probability 1 (almost-surely). While in general the problem is EXPTIME-complete, in many practical cases policies with a small amount of memory suffice. Moreover, the existing solution to the problem is explicit, which first requires to construct explicitly an exponential reduction to a belief-support MDP. In this work, we first study the existence of observation-stationary strategies, which is NP-complete, and then small-memory strategies. We present a symbolic algorithm by an efficient encoding to SAT and using a SAT solver for the problem. We report experimental results demonstrating the scalability of our symbolic (SAT-based) approach.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Chmelik, Martin and Davies, Jessica}, issn = {2664-1690}, pages = {23}, publisher = {IST Austria}, title = {{A symbolic SAT-based algorithm for almost-sure reachability with small strategies in POMDPs}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:IST-2015-325-v2-1}, year = {2015}, } @misc{5444, abstract = {A comprehensive understanding of the clonal evolution of cancer is critical for understanding neoplasia. Genome-wide sequencing data enables evolutionary studies at unprecedented depth. However, classical phylogenetic methods often struggle with noisy sequencing data of impure DNA samples and fail to detect subclones that have different evolutionary trajectories. We have developed a tool, called Treeomics, that allows us to reconstruct the phylogeny of a cancer with commonly available sequencing technologies. Using Bayesian inference and Integer Linear Programming, robust phylogenies consistent with the biological processes underlying cancer evolution were obtained for pancreatic, ovarian, and prostate cancers. Furthermore, Treeomics correctly identified sequencing artifacts such as those resulting from low statistical power; nearly 7% of variants were misclassified by conventional statistical methods. These artifacts can skew phylogenies by creating illusory tumor heterogeneity among distinct samples. Importantly, we show that the evolutionary trees generated with Treeomics are mathematically optimal.}, author = {Reiter, Johannes and Makohon-Moore, Alvin and Gerold, Jeffrey and Bozic, Ivana and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Iacobuzio-Donahue, Christine and Vogelstein, Bert and Nowak, Martin}, issn = {2664-1690}, pages = {25}, publisher = {IST Austria}, title = {{Reconstructing robust phylogenies of metastatic cancers}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:IST-2015-399-v1-1}, year = {2015}, } @misc{5549, abstract = {This repository contains the experimental part of the CAV 2015 publication Counterexample Explanation by Learning Small Strategies in Markov Decision Processes. We extended the probabilistic model checker PRISM to represent strategies of Markov Decision Processes as Decision Trees. The archive contains a java executable version of the extended tool (prism_dectree.jar) together with a few examples of the PRISM benchmark library. To execute the program, please have a look at the README.txt, which provides instructions and further information on the archive. The archive contains scripts that (if run often enough) reproduces the data presented in the publication.}, author = {Fellner, Andreas}, keywords = {Markov Decision Process, Decision Tree, Probabilistic Verification, Counterexample Explanation}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Experimental part of CAV 2015 publication: Counterexample Explanation by Learning Small Strategies in Markov Decision Processes}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:ISTA:28}, year = {2015}, } @article{10794, abstract = {Mathematical models are of fundamental importance in the understanding of complex population dynamics. For instance, they can be used to predict the population evolution starting from different initial conditions or to test how a system responds to external perturbations. For this analysis to be meaningful in real applications, however, it is of paramount importance to choose an appropriate model structure and to infer the model parameters from measured data. While many parameter inference methods are available for models based on deterministic ordinary differential equations, the same does not hold for more detailed individual-based models. Here we consider, in particular, stochastic models in which the time evolution of the species abundances is described by a continuous-time Markov chain. These models are governed by a master equation that is typically difficult to solve. Consequently, traditional inference methods that rely on iterative evaluation of parameter likelihoods are computationally intractable. The aim of this paper is to present recent advances in parameter inference for continuous-time Markov chain models, based on a moment closure approximation of the parameter likelihood, and to investigate how these results can help in understanding, and ultimately controlling, complex systems in ecology. Specifically, we illustrate through an agricultural pest case study how parameters of a stochastic individual-based model can be identified from measured data and how the resulting model can be used to solve an optimal control problem in a stochastic setting. In particular, we show how the matter of determining the optimal combination of two different pest control methods can be formulated as a chance constrained optimization problem where the control action is modeled as a state reset, leading to a hybrid system formulation.}, author = {Parise, Francesca and Lygeros, John and Ruess, Jakob}, issn = {2296-665X}, journal = {Frontiers in Environmental Science}, keywords = {General Environmental Science}, publisher = {Frontiers}, title = {{Bayesian inference for stochastic individual-based models of ecological systems: a pest control simulation study}}, doi = {10.3389/fenvs.2015.00042}, volume = {3}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{10796, abstract = {We consider concurrent mean-payoff games, a very well-studied class of two-player (player 1 vs player 2) zero-sum games on finite-state graphs where every transition is assigned a reward between 0 and 1, and the payoff function is the long-run average of the rewards. The value is the maximal expected payoff that player 1 can guarantee against all strategies of player 2. We consider the computation of the set of states with value 1 under finite-memory strategies for player 1, and our main results for the problem are as follows: (1) we present a polynomial-time algorithm; (2) we show that whenever there is a finite-memory strategy, there is a stationary strategy that does not need memory at all; and (3) we present an optimal bound (which is double exponential) on the patience of stationary strategies (where patience of a distribution is the inverse of the smallest positive probability and represents a complexity measure of a stationary strategy).}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Ibsen-Jensen, Rasmus}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms}, isbn = {978-161197374-7}, location = {San Diego, CA, United States}, number = {1}, pages = {1018--1029}, publisher = {SIAM}, title = {{The value 1 problem under finite-memory strategies for concurrent mean-payoff games}}, doi = {10.1137/1.9781611973730.69}, volume = {2015}, year = {2015}, } @article{9532, abstract = {Genomic imprinting, an inherently epigenetic phenomenon defined by parent of origin-dependent gene expression, is observed in mammals and flowering plants. Genome-scale surveys of imprinted expression and the underlying differential epigenetic marks have led to the discovery of hundreds of imprinted plant genes and confirmed DNA and histone methylation as key regulators of plant imprinting. However, the biological roles of the vast majority of imprinted plant genes are unknown, and the evolutionary forces shaping plant imprinting remain rather opaque. Here, we review the mechanisms of plant genomic imprinting and discuss theories of imprinting evolution and biological significance in light of recent findings.}, author = {Rodrigues, Jessica A. and Zilberman, Daniel}, issn = {1549-5477}, journal = {Genes and Development}, number = {24}, pages = {2517–2531}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press}, title = {{Evolution and function of genomic imprinting in plants}}, doi = {10.1101/gad.269902.115}, volume = {29}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9711, author = {Chevereau, Guillaume and Lukacisinova, Marta and Batur, Tugce and Guvenek, Aysegul and Ayhan, Dilay Hazal and Toprak, Erdal and Bollenbach, Mark Tobias}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Excel file containing the raw data for all figures}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pbio.1002299.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9712, author = {Tugrul, Murat and Paixao, Tiago and Barton, Nicholas H and Tkačik, Gašper}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Other fitness models for comparison & for interacting TFBSs}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1005639.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9714, author = {Gómez Sicilia, Àngel and Sikora, Mateusz K and Cieplak, Marek and Carrión Vázquez, Mariano}, publisher = {Public Library of Science }, title = {{An exploration of the universe of polyglutamine structures - submission to PLOS journals}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004541.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9715, author = {Trubenova, Barbora and Novak, Sebastian and Hager, Reinmar}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Mathematical inference of the results}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0126907.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9718, author = {Friedlander, Tamar and Mayo, Avraham E. and Tlusty, Tsvi and Alon, Uri}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Supporting information text}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004055.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9719, abstract = {Parasitism creates selection for resistance mechanisms in host populations and is hypothesized to promote increased host evolvability. However, the influence of these traits on host evolution when parasites are no longer present is unclear. We used experimental evolution and whole-genome sequencing of Escherichia coli to determine the effects of past and present exposure to parasitic viruses (phages) on the spread of mutator alleles, resistance, and bacterial competitive fitness. We found that mutator alleles spread rapidly during adaptation to any of four different phage species, and this pattern was even more pronounced with multiple phages present simultaneously. However, hypermutability did not detectably accelerate adaptation in the absence of phages and recovery of fitness costs associated with resistance. Several lineages evolved phage resistance through elevated mucoidy, and during subsequent evolution in phage-free conditions they rapidly reverted to nonmucoid, phage-susceptible phenotypes. Genome sequencing revealed that this phenotypic reversion was achieved by additional genetic changes rather than by genotypic reversion of the initial resistance mutations. Insertion sequence (IS) elements played a key role in both the acquisition of resistance and adaptation in the absence of parasites; unlike single nucleotide polymorphisms, IS insertions were not more frequent in mutator lineages. Our results provide a genetic explanation for rapid reversion of mucoidy, a phenotype observed in other bacterial species including human pathogens. Moreover, this demonstrates that the types of genetic change underlying adaptation to fitness costs, and consequently the impact of evolvability mechanisms such as increased point-mutation rates, depend critically on the mechanism of resistance.}, author = {Wielgoss, Sébastien and Bergmiller, Tobias and Bischofberger, Anna M. and Hall, Alex R.}, publisher = {Dryad}, title = {{Data from: Adaptation to parasites and costs of parasite resistance in mutator and non-mutator bacteria}}, doi = {10.5061/dryad.cj910}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9721, abstract = {To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour—either performed towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)—to remove infectious agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants (Lasius neglectus) and the fungal pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host–pathogen systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host–pathogen systems.}, author = {Theis, Fabian and Ugelvig, Line V and Marr, Carsten and Cremer, Sylvia}, publisher = {Dryad}, title = {{Data from: Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies}}, doi = {10.5061/dryad.dj2bf}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9737, author = {Symonova, Olga and Topp, Christopher and Edelsbrunner, Herbert}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Root traits computed by DynamicRoots for the maize root shown in fig 2}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0127657.s001}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9742, abstract = {Repeated pathogen exposure is a common threat in colonies of social insects, posing selection pressures on colony members to respond with improved disease-defense performance. We here tested whether experience gained by repeated tending of low-level fungus-exposed (Metarhizium robertsii) larvae may alter the performance of sanitary brood care in the clonal ant, Platythyrea punctata. We trained ants individually over nine consecutive trials to either sham-treated or fungus-exposed larvae. We then compared the larval grooming behavior of naive and trained ants and measured how effectively they removed infectious fungal conidiospores from the fungus-exposed larvae. We found that the ants changed the duration of larval grooming in response to both, larval treatment and their level of experience: (1) sham-treated larvae received longer grooming than the fungus-exposed larvae and (2) trained ants performed less self-grooming but longer larval grooming than naive ants, which was true for both, ants trained to fungus-exposed and also to sham-treated larvae. Ants that groomed the fungus-exposed larvae for longer periods removed a higher number of fungal conidiospores from the surface of the fungus-exposed larvae. As experienced ants performed longer larval grooming, they were more effective in fungal removal, thus making them better caretakers under pathogen attack of the colony. By studying this clonal ant, we can thus conclude that even in the absence of genetic variation between colony members, differences in experience levels of brood care may affect performance of sanitary brood care in social insects.}, author = {Westhus, Claudia and Ugelvig, Line V and Tourdot, Edouard and Heinze, Jürgen and Doums, Claudie and Cremer, Sylvia}, publisher = {Dryad}, title = {{Data from: Increased grooming after repeated brood care provides sanitary benefits in a clonal ant}}, doi = {10.5061/dryad.7kc79}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9765, author = {Chevereau, Guillaume and Lukacisinova, Marta and Batur, Tugce and Guvenek, Aysegul and Ayhan, Dilay Hazal and Toprak, Erdal and Bollenbach, Mark Tobias}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Gene ontology enrichment analysis for the most sensitive gene deletion strains for all drugs}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pbio.1002299.s008}, year = {2015}, } @misc{9772, author = {Trubenova, Barbora and Novak, Sebastian and Hager, Reinmar}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Description of the agent based simulations}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0126907.s003}, year = {2015}, }