@article{9815, abstract = {The quantum bits (qubits) on which superconducting quantum computers are based have energy scales corresponding to photons with GHz frequencies. The energy of photons in the gigahertz domain is too low to allow transmission through the noisy room-temperature environment, where the signal would be lost in thermal noise. Optical photons, on the other hand, have much higher energies, and signals can be detected using highly efficient single-photon detectors. Transduction from microwave to optical frequencies is therefore a potential enabling technology for quantum devices. However, in such a device the optical pump can be a source of thermal noise and thus degrade the fidelity; the similarity of input microwave state to the output optical state. In order to investigate the magnitude of this effect we model the sub-Kelvin thermal behavior of an electro-optic transducer based on a lithium niobate whispering gallery mode resonator. We find that there is an optimum power level for a continuous pump, whilst pulsed operation of the pump increases the fidelity of the conversion.}, author = {Mobassem, Sonia and Lambert, Nicholas J. and Rueda Sanchez, Alfredo R and Fink, Johannes M and Leuchs, Gerd and Schwefel, Harald G.L.}, issn = {2058-9565}, journal = {Quantum Science and Technology}, number = {4}, publisher = {IOP Publishing}, title = {{Thermal noise in electro-optic devices at cryogenic temperatures}}, doi = {10.1088/2058-9565/ac0f36}, volume = {6}, year = {2021}, } @article{9816, abstract = {Aims: Mass antigen testing programs have been challenged because of an alleged insufficient specificity, leading to a large number of false positives. The objective of this study is to derive a lower bound of the specificity of the SD Biosensor Standard Q Ag-Test in large scale practical use. Methods: Based on county data from the nationwide tests for SARS-CoV-2 in Slovakia between 31.10.–1.11. 2020 we calculate a lower confidence bound for the specificity. As positive test results were not systematically verified by PCR tests, we base the lower bound on a worst case assumption, assuming all positives to be false positives. Results: 3,625,332 persons from 79 counties were tested. The lowest positivity rate was observed in the county of Rožňava where 100 out of 34307 (0.29%) tests were positive. This implies a test specificity of at least 99.6% (97.5% one-sided lower confidence bound, adjusted for multiplicity). Conclusion: The obtained lower bound suggests a higher specificity compared to earlier studies in spite of the underlying worst case assumption and the application in a mass testing setting. The actual specificity is expected to exceed 99.6% if the prevalence in the respective regions was non-negligible at the time of testing. To our knowledge, this estimate constitutes the first bound obtained from large scale practical use of an antigen test.}, author = {Hledik, Michal and Polechova, Jitka and Beiglböck, Mathias and Herdina, Anna Nele and Strassl, Robert and Posch, Martin}, issn = {1932-6203}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {7}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Analysis of the specificity of a COVID-19 antigen test in the Slovak mass testing program}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0255267}, volume = {16}, year = {2021}, } @article{9818, abstract = {Triangle mesh-based simulations are able to produce satisfying animations of knitted and woven cloth; however, they lack the rich geometric detail of yarn-level simulations. Naive texturing approaches do not consider yarn-level physics, while full yarn-level simulations may become prohibitively expensive for large garments. We propose a method to animate yarn-level cloth geometry on top of an underlying deforming mesh in a mechanics-aware fashion. Using triangle strains to interpolate precomputed yarn geometry, we are able to reproduce effects such as knit loops tightening under stretching. In combination with precomputed mesh animation or real-time mesh simulation, our method is able to animate yarn-level cloth in real-time at large scales.}, author = {Sperl, Georg and Narain, Rahul and Wojtan, Christopher J}, issn = {1557-7368}, journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, title = {{Mechanics-aware deformation of yarn pattern geometry}}, doi = {10.1145/3450626.3459816}, volume = {40}, year = {2021}, } @article{9819, abstract = {Photorealistic editing of head portraits is a challenging task as humans are very sensitive to inconsistencies in faces. We present an approach for high-quality intuitive editing of the camera viewpoint and scene illumination (parameterised with an environment map) in a portrait image. This requires our method to capture and control the full reflectance field of the person in the image. Most editing approaches rely on supervised learning using training data captured with setups such as light and camera stages. Such datasets are expensive to acquire, not readily available and do not capture all the rich variations of in-the-wild portrait images. In addition, most supervised approaches only focus on relighting, and do not allow camera viewpoint editing. Thus, they only capture and control a subset of the reflectance field. Recently, portrait editing has been demonstrated by operating in the generative model space of StyleGAN. While such approaches do not require direct supervision, there is a significant loss of quality when compared to the supervised approaches. In this paper, we present a method which learns from limited supervised training data. The training images only include people in a fixed neutral expression with eyes closed, without much hair or background variations. Each person is captured under 150 one-light-at-a-time conditions and under 8 camera poses. Instead of training directly in the image space, we design a supervised problem which learns transformations in the latent space of StyleGAN. This combines the best of supervised learning and generative adversarial modeling. We show that the StyleGAN prior allows for generalisation to different expressions, hairstyles and backgrounds. This produces high-quality photorealistic results for in-the-wild images and significantly outperforms existing methods. Our approach can edit the illumination and pose simultaneously, and runs at interactive rates.}, author = {Mallikarjun, B. R. and Tewari, Ayush and Dib, Abdallah and Weyrich, Tim and Bickel, Bernd and Seidel, Hans Peter and Pfister, Hanspeter and Matusik, Wojciech and Chevallier, Louis and Elgharib, Mohamed A. and Theobalt, Christian}, issn = {1557-7368}, journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, title = {{PhotoApp: Photorealistic appearance editing of head portraits}}, doi = {10.1145/3450626.3459765}, volume = {40}, year = {2021}, } @article{9820, abstract = {Material appearance hinges on material reflectance properties but also surface geometry and illumination. The unlimited number of potential combinations between these factors makes understanding and predicting material appearance a very challenging task. In this work, we collect a large-scale dataset of perceptual ratings of appearance attributes with more than 215,680 responses for 42,120 distinct combinations of material, shape, and illumination. The goal of this dataset is twofold. First, we analyze for the first time the effects of illumination and geometry in material perception across such a large collection of varied appearances. We connect our findings to those of the literature, discussing how previous knowledge generalizes across very diverse materials, shapes, and illuminations. Second, we use the collected dataset to train a deep learning architecture for predicting perceptual attributes that correlate with human judgments. We demonstrate the consistent and robust behavior of our predictor in various challenging scenarios, which, for the first time, enables estimating perceived material attributes from general 2D images. Since our predictor relies on the final appearance in an image, it can compare appearance properties across different geometries and illumination conditions. Finally, we demonstrate several applications that use our predictor, including appearance reproduction using 3D printing, BRDF editing by integrating our predictor in a differentiable renderer, illumination design, or material recommendations for scene design.}, author = {Serrano, Ana and Chen, Bin and Wang, Chao and Piovarci, Michael and Seidel, Hans Peter and Didyk, Piotr and Myszkowski, Karol}, issn = {1557-7368}, journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, title = {{The effect of shape and illumination on material perception: Model and applications}}, doi = {10.1145/3450626.3459813}, volume = {40}, year = {2021}, } @article{9821, abstract = {Heart rate variability (hrv) is a physiological phenomenon of the variation in the length of the time interval between consecutive heartbeats. In many cases it could be an indicator of the development of pathological states. The classical approach to the analysis of hrv includes time domain methods and frequency domain methods. However, attempts are still being made to define new and more effective hrv assessment tools. Persistent homology is a novel data analysis tool developed in the recent decades that is rooted at algebraic topology. The Topological Data Analysis (TDA) approach focuses on examining the shape of the data in terms of connectedness and holes, and has recently proved to be very effective in various fields of research. In this paper we propose the use of persistent homology to the hrv analysis. We recall selected topological descriptors used in the literature and we introduce some new topological descriptors that reflect the specificity of hrv, and we discuss their relation to the standard hrv measures. In particular, we show that this novel approach provides a collection of indices that might be at least as useful as the classical parameters in differentiating between series of beat-to-beat intervals (RR-intervals) in healthy subjects and patients suffering from a stroke episode.}, author = {Graff, Grzegorz and Graff, Beata and Pilarczyk, Pawel and Jablonski, Grzegorz and Gąsecki, Dariusz and Narkiewicz, Krzysztof}, issn = {1932-6203}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {7}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{Persistent homology as a new method of the assessment of heart rate variability}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0253851}, volume = {16}, year = {2021}, } @article{9822, abstract = {Attachment of adhesive molecules on cell culture surfaces to restrict cell adhesion to defined areas and shapes has been vital for the progress of in vitro research. In currently existing patterning methods, a combination of pattern properties such as stability, precision, specificity, high-throughput outcome, and spatiotemporal control is highly desirable but challenging to achieve. Here, we introduce a versatile and high-throughput covalent photoimmobilization technique, comprising a light-dose-dependent patterning step and a subsequent functionalization of the pattern via click chemistry. This two-step process is feasible on arbitrary surfaces and allows for generation of sustainable patterns and gradients. The method is validated in different biological systems by patterning adhesive ligands on cell-repellent surfaces, thereby constraining the growth and migration of cells to the designated areas. We then implement a sequential photopatterning approach by adding a second switchable patterning step, allowing for spatiotemporal control over two distinct surface patterns. As a proof of concept, we reconstruct the dynamics of the tip/stalk cell switch during angiogenesis. Our results show that the spatiotemporal control provided by our “sequential photopatterning” system is essential for mimicking dynamic biological processes and that our innovative approach has great potential for further applications in cell science.}, author = {Zisis, Themistoklis and Schwarz, Jan and Balles, Miriam and Kretschmer, Maibritt and Nemethova, Maria and Chait, Remy P and Hauschild, Robert and Lange, Janina and Guet, Calin C and Sixt, Michael K and Zahler, Stefan}, issn = {1944-8252}, journal = {ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces}, number = {30}, pages = {35545–35560}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Sequential and switchable patterning for studying cellular processes under spatiotemporal control}}, doi = {10.1021/acsami.1c09850}, volume = {13}, year = {2021}, } @inproceedings{9823, abstract = {Approximate agreement is one of the few variants of consensus that can be solved in a wait-free manner in asynchronous systems where processes communicate by reading and writing to shared memory. In this work, we consider a natural generalisation of approximate agreement on arbitrary undirected connected graphs. Each process is given a vertex of the graph as input and, if non-faulty, must output a vertex such that all the outputs are within distance 1 of one another, and each output value lies on a shortest path between two input values. From prior work, it is known that there is no wait-free algorithm among 𝑛≥3 processes for this problem on any cycle of length 𝑐≥4 , by reduction from 2-set agreement (Castañeda et al. 2018). In this work, we investigate the solvability and complexity of this task on general graphs. We give a new, direct proof of the impossibility of approximate agreement on cycles of length 𝑐≥4 , via a generalisation of Sperner’s Lemma to convex polygons. We also extend the reduction from 2-set agreement to a larger class of graphs, showing that approximate agreement on these graphs is unsolvable. On the positive side, we present a wait-free algorithm for a class of graphs that properly contains the class of chordal graphs.}, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Ellen, Faith and Rybicki, Joel}, booktitle = {Structural Information and Communication Complexity}, isbn = {9783030795269}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Wrocław, Poland}, pages = {87--105}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Wait-free approximate agreement on graphs}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-79527-6_6}, volume = {12810}, year = {2021}, } @inproceedings{9824, abstract = {We define a new compact coordinate system in which each integer triplet addresses a voxel in the BCC grid, and we investigate some of its properties. We propose a characterization of 3D discrete analytical planes with their topological features (in the Cartesian and in the new coordinate system) such as the interrelation between the thickness of the plane and the separability constraint we aim to obtain.}, author = {Čomić, Lidija and Zrour, Rita and Largeteau-Skapin, Gaëlle and Biswas, Ranita and Andres, Eric}, booktitle = {Discrete Geometry and Mathematical Morphology}, isbn = {9783030766566}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Uppsala, Sweden}, pages = {152--163}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Body centered cubic grid - coordinate system and discrete analytical plane definition}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-76657-3_10}, volume = {12708}, year = {2021}, } @inproceedings{9825, abstract = {The dual attack has long been considered a relevant attack on lattice-based cryptographic schemes relying on the hardness of learning with errors (LWE) and its structured variants. As solving LWE corresponds to finding a nearest point on a lattice, one may naturally wonder how efficient this dual approach is for solving more general closest vector problems, such as the classical closest vector problem (CVP), the variants bounded distance decoding (BDD) and approximate CVP, and preprocessing versions of these problems. While primal, sieving-based solutions to these problems (with preprocessing) were recently studied in a series of works on approximate Voronoi cells [Laa16b, DLdW19, Laa20, DLvW20], for the dual attack no such overview exists, especially for problems with preprocessing. With one of the take-away messages of the approximate Voronoi cell line of work being that primal attacks work well for approximate CVP(P) but scale poorly for BDD(P), one may further wonder if the dual attack suffers the same drawbacks, or if it is perhaps a better solution when trying to solve BDD(P). In this work we provide an overview of cost estimates for dual algorithms for solving these “classical” closest lattice vector problems. Heuristically we expect to solve the search version of average-case CVPP in time and space 20.293𝑑+𝑜(𝑑) in the single-target model. The distinguishing version of average-case CVPP, where we wish to distinguish between random targets and targets planted at distance (say) 0.99⋅𝑔𝑑 from the lattice, has the same complexity in the single-target model, but can be solved in time and space 20.195𝑑+𝑜(𝑑) in the multi-target setting, when given a large number of targets from either target distribution. This suggests an inequivalence between distinguishing and searching, as we do not expect a similar improvement in the multi-target setting to hold for search-CVPP. We analyze three slightly different decoders, both for distinguishing and searching, and experimentally obtain concrete cost estimates for the dual attack in dimensions 50 to 80, which confirm our heuristic assumptions, and show that the hidden order terms in the asymptotic estimates are quite small. Our main take-away message is that the dual attack appears to mirror the approximate Voronoi cell line of work – whereas using approximate Voronoi cells works well for approximate CVP(P) but scales poorly for BDD(P), the dual approach scales well for BDD(P) instances but performs poorly on approximate CVP(P).}, author = {Laarhoven, Thijs and Walter, Michael}, booktitle = {Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021}, isbn = {9783030755386}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Virtual Event}, pages = {478--502}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Dual lattice attacks for closest vector problems (with preprocessing)}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_20}, volume = {12704}, year = {2021}, } @inproceedings{9826, abstract = {Automated contract tracing aims at supporting manual contact tracing during pandemics by alerting users of encounters with infected people. There are currently many proposals for protocols (like the “decentralized” DP-3T and PACT or the “centralized” ROBERT and DESIRE) to be run on mobile phones, where the basic idea is to regularly broadcast (using low energy Bluetooth) some values, and at the same time store (a function of) incoming messages broadcasted by users in their proximity. In the existing proposals one can trigger false positives on a massive scale by an “inverse-Sybil” attack, where a large number of devices (malicious users or hacked phones) pretend to be the same user, such that later, just a single person needs to be diagnosed (and allowed to upload) to trigger an alert for all users who were in proximity to any of this large group of devices. We propose the first protocols that do not succumb to such attacks assuming the devices involved in the attack do not constantly communicate, which we observe is a necessary assumption. The high level idea of the protocols is to derive the values to be broadcasted by a hash chain, so that two (or more) devices who want to launch an inverse-Sybil attack will not be able to connect their respective chains and thus only one of them will be able to upload. Our protocols also achieve security against replay, belated replay, and one of them even against relay attacks.}, author = {Auerbach, Benedikt and Chakraborty, Suvradip and Klein, Karen and Pascual Perez, Guillermo and Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z and Walter, Michael and Yeo, Michelle X}, booktitle = {Topics in Cryptology – CT-RSA 2021}, isbn = {9783030755386}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Virtual Event}, pages = {399--421}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Inverse-Sybil attacks in automated contact tracing}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-75539-3_17}, volume = {12704}, year = {2021}, } @article{9827, abstract = {The Nearest neighbour search (NNS) is a fundamental problem in many application domains dealing with multidimensional data. In a concurrent setting, where dynamic modifications are allowed, a linearizable implementation of the NNS is highly desirable.This paper introduces the LockFree-kD-tree (LFkD-tree ): a lock-free concurrent kD-tree, which implements an abstract data type (ADT) that provides the operations Add, Remove, Contains, and NNS. Our implementation is linearizable. The operations in the LFkD-tree use single-word read and compare-and-swap (Image 1 ) atomic primitives, which are readily supported on available multi-core processors. We experimentally evaluate the LFkD-tree using several benchmarks comprising real-world and synthetic datasets. The experiments show that the presented design is scalable and achieves significant speed-up compared to the implementations of an existing sequential kD-tree and a recently proposed multidimensional indexing structure, PH-tree.}, author = {Chatterjee, Bapi and Walulya, Ivan and Tsigas, Philippas}, issn = {0304-3975}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, keywords = {Concurrent data structure, kD-tree, Nearest neighbor search, Similarity search, Lock-free, Linearizability}, pages = {27--48}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Concurrent linearizable nearest neighbour search in LockFree-kD-tree}}, doi = {10.1016/j.tcs.2021.06.041}, volume = {886}, year = {2021}, } @article{9828, abstract = {Amplitude demodulation is a classical operation used in signal processing. For a long time, its effective applications in practice have been limited to narrowband signals. In this work, we generalize amplitude demodulation to wideband signals. We pose demodulation as a recovery problem of an oversampled corrupted signal and introduce special iterative schemes belonging to the family of alternating projection algorithms to solve it. Sensibly chosen structural assumptions on the demodulation outputs allow us to reveal the high inferential accuracy of the method over a rich set of relevant signals. This new approach surpasses current state-of-the-art demodulation techniques apt to wideband signals in computational efficiency by up to many orders of magnitude with no sacrifice in quality. Such performance opens the door for applications of the amplitude demodulation procedure in new contexts. In particular, the new method makes online and large-scale offline data processing feasible, including the calculation of modulator-carrier pairs in higher dimensions and poor sampling conditions, independent of the signal bandwidth. We illustrate the utility and specifics of applications of the new method in practice by using natural speech and synthetic signals.}, author = {Gabrielaitis, Mantas}, issn = {1941-0476}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing}, pages = {4039 -- 4054}, publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}, title = {{Fast and accurate amplitude demodulation of wideband signals}}, doi = {10.1109/TSP.2021.3087899}, volume = {69}, year = {2021}, } @article{9829, abstract = {In 2020, many in-person scientific events were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a vacuum in networking and knowledge exchange between scientists. To fill this void in scientific communication, a group of early career nanocrystal enthusiasts launched the virtual seminar series, News in Nanocrystals, in the summer of 2020. By the end of the year, the series had attracted over 850 participants from 46 countries. In this Nano Focus, we describe the process of organizing the News in Nanocrystals seminar series; discuss its growth, emphasizing what the organizers have learned in terms of diversity and accessibility; and provide an outlook for the next steps and future opportunities. This summary and analysis of experiences and learned lessons are intended to inform the broader scientific community, especially those who are looking for avenues to continue fostering discussion and scientific engagement virtually, both during the pandemic and after.}, author = {Baranov, Dmitry and Šverko, Tara and Moot, Taylor and Keller, Helena R. and Klein, Megan D. and Vishnu, E. K. and Balazs, Daniel and Shulenberger, Katherine E.}, issn = {1936-086X}, journal = {ACS Nano}, number = {7}, pages = {10743–10747}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{News in Nanocrystals seminar: Self-assembly of early career researchers toward globally accessible nanoscience}}, doi = {10.1021/acsnano.1c03276}, volume = {15}, year = {2021}, } @article{6965, abstract = {The central object of investigation of this paper is the Hirzebruch class, a deformation of the Todd class, given by Hirzebruch (for smooth varieties). The generalization for singular varieties is due to Brasselet–Schürmann–Yokura. Following the work of Weber, we investigate its equivariant version for (possibly singular) toric varieties. The local decomposition of the Hirzebruch class to the fixed points of the torus action and a formula for the local class in terms of the defining fan are recalled. After this review part, we prove the positivity of local Hirzebruch classes for all toric varieties, thus proving false the alleged counterexample given by Weber.}, author = {Rychlewicz, Kamil P}, issn = {1469-2120}, journal = {Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society}, number = {2}, pages = {560--574}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{The positivity of local equivariant Hirzebruch class for toric varieties}}, doi = {10.1112/blms.12442}, volume = {53}, year = {2021}, } @article{6995, abstract = {Human brain organoids represent a powerful tool for the study of human neurological diseases particularly those that impact brain growth and structure. However, many neurological diseases lack obvious anatomical abnormalities, yet significantly impact neural network functions, raising the question of whether organoids possess sufficient neural network architecture and complexity to model these conditions. Here, we explore the network level functions of brain organoids using calcium sensor imaging and extracellular recording approaches that together reveal the existence of complex oscillatory network behaviors reminiscent of intact brain preparations. We further demonstrate strikingly abnormal epileptiform network activity in organoids derived from a Rett Syndrome patient despite only modest anatomical differences from isogenically matched controls, and rescue with an unconventional neuromodulatory drug Pifithrin-α. Together, these findings provide an essential foundation for the utilization of human brain organoids to study intact and disordered human brain network formation and illustrate their utility in therapeutic discovery.}, author = {Samarasinghe, Ranmal A. and Miranda, Osvaldo and Buth, Jessie E. and Mitchell, Simon and Ferando, Isabella and Watanabe, Momoko and Kurdian, Arinnae and Golshani, Peyman and Plath, Kathrin and Lowry, William E. and Parent, Jack M. and Mody, Istvan and Novitch, Bennett G.}, issn = {1546-1726}, journal = {Nature Neuroscience}, pages = {32}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Identification of neural oscillations and epileptiform changes in human brain organoids}}, doi = {10.1038/s41593-021-00906-5}, volume = {24}, year = {2021}, } @article{7463, abstract = {Resting-state brain activity is characterized by the presence of neuronal avalanches showing absence of characteristic size. Such evidence has been interpreted in the context of criticality and associated with the normal functioning of the brain. A distinctive attribute of systems at criticality is the presence of long-range correlations. Thus, to verify the hypothesis that the brain operates close to a critical point and consequently assess deviations from criticality for diagnostic purposes, it is of primary importance to robustly and reliably characterize correlations in resting-state brain activity. Recent works focused on the analysis of narrow-band electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) signal amplitude envelope, showing evidence of long-range temporal correlations (LRTC) in neural oscillations. However, brain activity is a broadband phenomenon, and a significant piece of information useful to precisely discriminate between normal (critical) and pathological behavior (non-critical), may be encoded in the broadband spatio-temporal cortical dynamics. Here we propose to characterize the temporal correlations in the broadband brain activity through the lens of neuronal avalanches. To this end, we consider resting-state EEG and long-term MEG recordings, extract the corresponding neuronal avalanche sequences, and study their temporal correlations. We demonstrate that the broadband resting-state brain activity consistently exhibits long-range power-law correlations in both EEG and MEG recordings, with similar values of the scaling exponents. Importantly, although we observe that the avalanche size distribution depends on scale parameters, scaling exponents characterizing long-range correlations are quite robust. In particular, they are independent of the temporal binning (scale of analysis), indicating that our analysis captures intrinsic characteristics of the underlying dynamics. Because neuronal avalanches constitute a fundamental feature of neural systems with universal characteristics, the proposed approach may serve as a general, systems- and experiment-independent procedure to infer the existence of underlying long-range correlations in extended neural systems, and identify pathological behaviors in the complex spatio-temporal interplay of cortical rhythms.}, author = {Lombardi, Fabrizio and Shriki, Oren and Herrmann, Hans J and de Arcangelis, Lucilla}, issn = {1872-8286}, journal = {Neurocomputing}, pages = {657--666}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Long-range temporal correlations in the broadband resting state activity of the human brain revealed by neuronal avalanches}}, doi = {10.1016/j.neucom.2020.05.126}, volume = {461}, year = {2021}, } @article{7551, abstract = {Novelty facilitates formation of memories. The detection of novelty and storage of contextual memories are both mediated by the hippocampus, yet the mechanisms that link these two functions remain to be defined. Dentate granule cells (GCs) of the dorsal hippocampus fire upon novelty exposure forming engrams of contextual memory. However, their key excitatory inputs from the entorhinal cortex are not responsive to novelty and are insufficient to make dorsal GCs fire reliably. Here we uncover a powerful glutamatergic pathway to dorsal GCs from ventral hippocampal mossy cells (MCs) that relays novelty, and is necessary and sufficient for driving dorsal GCs activation. Furthermore, manipulation of ventral MCs activity bidirectionally regulates novelty-induced contextual memory acquisition. Our results show that ventral MCs activity controls memory formation through an intra-hippocampal interaction mechanism gated by novelty.}, author = {Fredes Tolorza, Felipe A and Silva Sifuentes, Maria A and Koppensteiner, Peter and Kobayashi, Kenta and Jösch, Maximilian A and Shigemoto, Ryuichi}, journal = {Current Biology}, number = {1}, pages = {P25--38.E5}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Ventro-dorsal hippocampal pathway gates novelty-induced contextual memory formation}}, doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.074}, volume = {31}, year = {2021}, } @article{7553, abstract = {Normative theories and statistical inference provide complementary approaches for the study of biological systems. A normative theory postulates that organisms have adapted to efficiently solve essential tasks, and proceeds to mathematically work out testable consequences of such optimality; parameters that maximize the hypothesized organismal function can be derived ab initio, without reference to experimental data. In contrast, statistical inference focuses on efficient utilization of data to learn model parameters, without reference to any a priori notion of biological function, utility, or fitness. Traditionally, these two approaches were developed independently and applied separately. Here we unify them in a coherent Bayesian framework that embeds a normative theory into a family of maximum-entropy “optimization priors.” This family defines a smooth interpolation between a data-rich inference regime (characteristic of “bottom-up” statistical models), and a data-limited ab inito prediction regime (characteristic of “top-down” normative theory). We demonstrate the applicability of our framework using data from the visual cortex, and argue that the flexibility it affords is essential to address a number of fundamental challenges relating to inference and prediction in complex, high-dimensional biological problems.}, author = {Mlynarski, Wiktor F and Hledik, Michal and Sokolowski, Thomas R and Tkačik, Gašper}, journal = {Neuron}, number = {7}, pages = {1227--1241.e5}, publisher = {Cell Press}, title = {{Statistical analysis and optimality of neural systems}}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuron.2021.01.020}, volume = {109}, year = {2021}, } @article{9874, abstract = {Myocardial regeneration is restricted to early postnatal life, when mammalian cardiomyocytes still retain the ability to proliferate. The molecular cues that induce cell cycle arrest of neonatal cardiomyocytes towards terminally differentiated adult heart muscle cells remain obscure. Here we report that the miR-106b~25 cluster is higher expressed in the early postnatal myocardium and decreases in expression towards adulthood, especially under conditions of overload, and orchestrates the transition of cardiomyocyte hyperplasia towards cell cycle arrest and hypertrophy by virtue of its targetome. In line, gene delivery of miR-106b~25 to the mouse heart provokes cardiomyocyte proliferation by targeting a network of negative cell cycle regulators including E2f5, Cdkn1c, Ccne1 and Wee1. Conversely, gene-targeted miR-106b~25 null mice display spontaneous hypertrophic remodeling and exaggerated remodeling to overload by derepression of the prohypertrophic transcription factors Hand2 and Mef2d. Taking advantage of the regulatory function of miR-106b~25 on cardiomyocyte hyperplasia and hypertrophy, viral gene delivery of miR-106b~25 provokes nearly complete regeneration of the adult myocardium after ischemic injury. Our data demonstrate that exploitation of conserved molecular programs can enhance the regenerative capacity of the injured heart.}, author = {Raso, Andrea and Dirkx, Ellen and Sampaio-Pinto, Vasco and el Azzouzi, Hamid and Cubero, Ryan J and Sorensen, Daniel W. and Ottaviani, Lara and Olieslagers, Servé and Huibers, Manon M. and de Weger, Roel and Siddiqi, Sailay and Moimas, Silvia and Torrini, Consuelo and Zentillin, Lorena and Braga, Luca and Nascimento, Diana S. and da Costa Martins, Paula A. and van Berlo, Jop H. and Zacchigna, Serena and Giacca, Mauro and De Windt, Leon J.}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{A microRNA program regulates the balance between cardiomyocyte hyperplasia and hypertrophy and stimulates cardiac regeneration}}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-021-25211-4}, volume = {12}, year = {2021}, }