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Coalescent simulation in continuous space
Get PDFCoalescent simulation has become an indispensable tool in population genetics and many complex evolutionary scenarios have been incorporated into the basic algorithm. Despite many years of intense interest in spatial structure, however, there are no available methods to simulate the ancestry of a sample of genes that occupy a spatial continuum. This is mainly due to the severe technical problems encountered by the classical model of isolation
by distance. A recently introduced model solves these technical problems and provides a solid theoretical basis for the study of populations evolving in continuous space. We present a detailed algorithm to simulate the coalescent process in this model, and provide an efficient implementation of a generalised version of this algorithm as a freely available Python module
Putting holes in holey geometry: Topology change for arbitrary surfaces
Get PDFThis paper presents a method for computing topology changes for triangle meshes in an interactive geometric modeling environment. Most triangle meshes in practice do not exhibit desirable geometric properties, so we develop a solution that is independent of standard assumptions and robust to geometric errors. Specifically, we provide the first method for topology change applicable to arbitrary non-solid, non-manifold, non-closed, self-intersecting surfaces. We prove that this new method for topology change produces the expected conventional results when applied to solid (closed, manifold, non-self-intersecting) surfaces---that is, we prove a backwards-compatibility property relative to prior work. Beyond solid surfaces, we present empirical evidence that our method remains tolerant to a variety of surface aberrations through the incorporation of a novel error correction scheme. Finally, we demonstrate how topology change applied to non-solid objects enables wholly new and useful behaviors
Replacing Competition with Cooperation to Achieve Scalable Lock-Free FIFO Queues
Get PDFIn order to guarantee that each method of a data structure updates the logical state exactly once, almost all non-blocking implementations employ Compare-And-Swap (CAS) based synchronization. For FIFO queue implementations this translates into concurrent enqueue or dequeue methods competing among themselves to update the same variable, the tail or the head, respectively, leading to high contention and poor scalability. Recent non-blocking queue implementations try to alleviate high contention by increasing the number of contention points, all the while using CAS-based synchronization. Furthermore, obtaining a wait-free implementation with competition is achieved by additional synchronization which leas to further degradation of performance.
In this paper we formalize the notion of competitiveness of a synchronizing statement which can be used as a measure for the scalability of concurrent implementations. We present a new queue implementation, the Speculative Pairing (SP) queue, which, as we show, decreases competitiveness by using Fetch-And-Increment (FAI) instead of CAS. We prove that the SP queue is linearizable and lock-free. We also show that replacing CAS with FAI leads to wait-freedom for dequeue methods without an adverse effect on performance. In fact, our experiments suggest that the SP queue can perform and scale better than the state-of-the-art queue implementations
The Complexity of Ergodic Games
Get PDFWe study finite-state two-player (zero-sum) concurrent mean-payoff games played on a graph. We focus on the important sub-class of ergodic games where all states are visited infinitely often with probability 1. The algorithmic study of ergodic games was initiated in a seminal work of Hoffman and Karp in 1966, but all basic complexity questions have remained unresolved. Our main results for ergodic games are as follows: We establish (1) an optimal exponential bound 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); (2) the approximation problem lie in FNP; (3) the approximation problem is at least as hard as the decision problem for simple stochastic games (for which NP and coNP is the long-standing best known bound). We show that the exact value can be expressed in the existential theory of the reals, and also establish square-root sum hardness for a related class of games
Local Shape Analysis for Overlaid Data Structures
Get PDFWe present a shape analysis for programs that manipulate overlaid data structures which share sets of objects. The abstract domain contains Separation Logic formulas that (1) combine a per-object separating conjunction with a per-field separating conjunction and (2) constrain a set of variables interpreted as sets of objects. The definition of the abstract domain operators is based on a notion of homomorphism between formulas, viewed as graphs, used recently to define optimal decision procedures for fragments of the Separation Logic. Based on a Frame Rule that supports the two versions of the separating conjunction, the analysis is able to reason in a modular manner about non-overlaid data structures and then, compose information only at a few program points, e.g., procedure returns. We have implemented this analysis in a prototype tool and applied it on several interesting case studies that manipulate overlaid and nested linked lists
Role of the Arabidopsis PIN6 auxin transporter in auxin homeostasis and auxin-mediated development
No full textPlant-specific PIN-formed (PIN) efflux transporters for the plant hormone auxin are required for tissue-specific directional auxin transport and cellular auxin homeostasis. The Arabidopsis PIN protein family has been shown to play important roles in developmental processes such as embryogenesis, organogenesis, vascular tissue differentiation, root meristem patterning and tropic growth. Here we analyzed roles of the less characterised Arabidopsis PIN6 auxin transporter. PIN6 is auxin-inducible and is expressed during multiple auxin-regulated developmental processes. Loss of pin6 function interfered with primary root growth and lateral root development. Misexpression of PIN6 affected auxin transport and interfered with auxin homeostasis in other growth processes such as shoot apical dominance, lateral root primordia development, adventitious root formation, root hair outgrowth and root waving. These changes in auxin-regulated growth correlated with a reduction in total auxin transport as well as with an altered activity of DR5-GUS auxin response reporter. Overall, the data indicate that PIN6 regulates auxin homeostasis during plant development
Efficient Synthesis for Concurrency by Semantics-Preserving Transformations
Get PDFWe develop program synthesis techniques that can help programmers fix concurrency-related bugs. We make two new contributions to synthesis for concurrency, the first improving the efficiency of the synthesized code, and the second improving the efficiency of the synthesis procedure itself. The first contribution is to have the synthesis procedure explore a variety of (sequential) semantics-preserving program transformations. Classically, only one such transformation has been considered, namely, the insertion of synchronization primitives (such as locks). Based on common manual bug-fixing techniques used by Linux device-driver developers, we explore additional, more efficient transformations, such as the reordering of independent instructions. The second contribution is to speed up the counterexample-guided removal of concurrency bugs within the synthesis procedure by considering partial-order traces (instead of linear traces) as counterexamples. A partial-order error trace represents a set of linear (interleaved) traces of a concurrent program all of which lead to the same error. By eliminating a partial-order error trace, we eliminate in a single iteration of the synthesis procedure all linearizations of the partial-order trace. We evaluated our techniques on several simplified examples of real concurrency bugs that occurred in Linux device drivers
Pupal cocoons affect sanitary brood care and limit fungal infections in ant colonies
No full textBackground: The brood of ants and other social insects is highly susceptible to pathogens, particularly those that penetrate the soft larval and pupal cuticle. We here test whether the presence of a pupal cocoon, which occurs in some ant species but not in others, affects the sanitary brood care and fungal infection patterns after exposure to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum. We use a) a comparative approach analysing four species with either naked or cocooned pupae and b) a within-species analysis of a single ant species, in which both pupal types co-exist in the same colony. Results: We found that the presence of a cocoon did not compromise fungal pathogen detection by the ants and that species with cocooned pupae increased brood grooming after pathogen exposure. All tested ant species further removed brood from their nests, which was predominantly expressed towards larvae and naked pupae treated with the live fungal pathogen. In contrast, cocooned pupae exposed to live fungus were not removed at higher rates than cocooned pupae exposed to dead fungus or a sham control. Consistent with this, exposure to the live fungus caused high numbers of infections and fungal outgrowth in larvae and naked pupae, but not in cocooned pupae. Moreover, the ants consistently removed the brood prior to fungal outgrowth, ensuring a clean brood chamber. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the pupal cocoon has a protective effect against fungal infection, causing an adaptive change in sanitary behaviours by the ants. It further demonstrates that brood removal-originally described for honeybees as "hygienic behaviour"-is a widespread sanitary behaviour in ants, which likely has important implications on disease dynamics in social insect colonies
The local semicircle law for a general class of random matrices
No full textWe consider a general class of N × N random matrices whose entries hij are independent up to a symmetry constraint, but not necessarily identically distributed. Our main result is a local semicircle law which improves previous results [17] both in the bulk and at the edge. The error bounds are given in terms of the basic small parameter of the model, maxi,j E|hij|2. As a consequence, we prove the universality of the local n-point correlation functions in the bulk spectrum for a class of matrices whose entries do not have comparable variances, including random band matrices with band width W ≫N1-εn with some εn > 0 and with a negligible mean-field component. In addition, we provide a coherent and pedagogical proof of the local semicircle law, streamlining and strengthening previous arguments from [17, 19, 6]
A map of cell type-specific auxin responses
Get PDFIn plants, changes in local auxin concentrations can trigger a range of developmental processes as distinct tissues respond differently to the same auxin stimulus. However, little is known about how auxin is interpreted by individual cell types. We performed a transcriptomic analysis of responses to auxin within four distinct tissues of the Arabidopsis thaliana root and demonstrate that different cell types show competence for discrete responses. The majority of auxin-responsive genes displayed a spatial bias in their induction or repression. The novel data set was used to examine how auxin influences tissue-specific transcriptional regulation of cell-identity markers. Additionally, the data were used in combination with spatial expression maps of the root to plot a transcriptomic auxin-response gradient across the apical and basal meristem. The readout revealed a strong correlation for thousands of genes between the relative response to auxin and expression along the longitudinal axis of the root. This data set and comparative analysis provide a transcriptome-level spatial breakdown of the response to auxin within an organ where this hormone mediates many aspects of development