@article{1925,
  abstract     = {In the past decade carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely studied as a potential drug-delivery system, especially with functionality for cellular targeting. Yet, little is known about the actual process of docking to cell receptors and transport dynamics after internalization. Here we performed single-particle studies of folic acid (FA) mediated CNT binding to human carcinoma cells and their transport inside the cytosol. In particular, we employed molecular recognition force spectroscopy, an atomic force microscopy based method, to visualize and quantify docking of FA functionalized CNTs to FA binding receptors in terms of binding probability and binding force. We then traced individual fluorescently labeled, FA functionalized CNTs after specific uptake, and created a dynamic 'roadmap' that clearly showed trajectories of directed diffusion and areas of nanotube confinement in the cytosol. Our results demonstrate the potential of a single-molecule approach for investigation of drug-delivery vehicles and their targeting capacity.},
  author       = {Lamprecht, Constanze and Plochberger, Birgit and Ruprecht, Verena and Wieser, Stefan and Rankl, Christian and Heister, Elena and Unterauer, Barbara and Brameshuber, Mario and Danzberger, Jürgen and Lukanov, Petar and Flahaut, Emmanuel and Schütz, Gerhard and Hinterdorfer, Peter and Ebner, Andreas},
  journal      = {Nanotechnology},
  number       = {12},
  publisher    = {IOP Publishing},
  title        = {{A single-molecule approach to explore binding uptake and transport of cancer cell targeting nanotubes}},
  doi          = {10.1088/0957-4484/25/12/125704},
  volume       = {25},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1926,
  abstract     = {We consider cross products of finite graphs with a class of trees that have arbitrarily but finitely long line segments, such as the Fibonacci tree. Such cross products are called tree-strips. We prove that for small disorder random Schrödinger operators on such tree-strips have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in a certain set.},
  author       = {Sadel, Christian},
  journal      = {Mathematical Physics, Analysis and Geometry},
  number       = {3-4},
  pages        = {409 -- 440},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  title        = {{Absolutely continuous spectrum for random Schrödinger operators on the Fibonacci and similar Tree-strips}},
  doi          = {10.1007/s11040-014-9163-4},
  volume       = {17},
  year         = {2014},
}

@inproceedings{1927,
  abstract     = {Constrained pseudorandom functions have recently been introduced independently by Boneh and Waters (Asiacrypt’13), Kiayias et al. (CCS’13), and Boyle et al. (PKC’14). In a standard pseudorandom function (PRF) a key k is used to evaluate the PRF on all inputs in the domain. Constrained PRFs additionally offer the functionality to delegate “constrained” keys kS which allow to evaluate the PRF only on a subset S of the domain. The three above-mentioned papers all show that the classical GGM construction (J.ACM’86) of a PRF from a pseudorandom generator (PRG) directly yields a constrained PRF where one can compute constrained keys to evaluate the PRF on all inputs with a given prefix. This constrained PRF has already found many interesting applications. Unfortunately, the existing security proofs only show selective security (by a reduction to the security of the underlying PRG). To achieve full security, one has to use complexity leveraging, which loses an exponential factor 2N in security, where N is the input length. The first contribution of this paper is a new reduction that only loses a quasipolynomial factor qlog N, where q is the number of adversarial queries. For this we develop a new proof technique which constructs a distinguisher by interleaving simple guessing steps and hybrid arguments a small number of times. This approach might be of interest also in other contexts where currently the only technique to achieve full security is complexity leveraging. Our second contribution is concerned with another constrained PRF, due to Boneh and Waters, which allows for constrained keys for the more general class of bit-fixing functions. Their security proof also suffers from a 2N loss, which we show is inherent. We construct a meta-reduction which shows that any “simple” reduction of full security from a noninteractive hardness assumption must incur an exponential security loss.},
  author       = {Fuchsbauer, Georg and Konstantinov, Momchil and Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z and Rao, Vanishree},
  booktitle    = {20th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information Security},
  isbn         = {9783662456071},
  issn         = {1611-3349},
  location     = {Kaoshiung, Taiwan, China},
  pages        = {82--101},
  publisher    = {Springer Nature},
  title        = {{Adaptive security of constrained PRFs}},
  doi          = {10.1007/978-3-662-45608-8_5},
  volume       = {8874},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1928,
  abstract     = {In infectious disease epidemiology the basic reproductive ratio, R0, is defined as the average number of new infections caused by a single infected individual in a fully susceptible population. Many models describing competition for hosts between non-interacting pathogen strains in an infinite population lead to the conclusion that selection favors invasion of new strains if and only if they have higher R0 values than the resident. Here we demonstrate that this picture fails in finite populations. Using a simple stochastic SIS model, we show that in general there is no analogous optimization principle. We find that successive invasions may in some cases lead to strains that infect a smaller fraction of the host population, and that mutually invasible pathogen strains exist. In the limit of weak selection we demonstrate that an optimization principle does exist, although it differs from R0 maximization. For strains with very large R0, we derive an expression for this local fitness function and use it to establish a lower bound for the error caused by neglecting stochastic effects. Furthermore, we apply this weak selection limit to investigate the selection dynamics in the presence of a trade-off between the virulence and the transmission rate of a pathogen.},
  author       = {Humplik, Jan and Hill, Alison and Nowak, Martin},
  journal      = {Journal of Theoretical Biology},
  pages        = {149 -- 162},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Evolutionary dynamics of infectious diseases in finite populations}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.jtbi.2014.06.039},
  volume       = {360},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1929,
  abstract     = {We propose an algorithm for the generalization of cartographic objects that can be used to represent maps on different scales.},
  author       = {Alexeev, V V and Bogaevskaya, V G and Preobrazhenskaya, M M and Ukhalov, A Y and Edelsbrunner, Herbert and Yakimova, Olga},
  issn         = {1573-8795},
  journal      = {Journal of Mathematical Sciences},
  number       = {6},
  pages        = {754 -- 760},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  title        = {{An algorithm for cartographic generalization that preserves global topology}},
  doi          = {10.1007/s10958-014-2165-8},
  volume       = {203},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1930,
  abstract     = {(Figure Presented) Data acquisition, numerical inaccuracies, and sampling often introduce noise in measurements and simulations. Removing this noise is often necessary for efficient analysis and visualization of this data, yet many denoising techniques change the minima and maxima of a scalar field. For example, the extrema can appear or disappear, spatially move, and change their value. This can lead to wrong interpretations of the data, e.g., when the maximum temperature over an area is falsely reported being a few degrees cooler because the denoising method is unaware of these features. Recently, a topological denoising technique based on a global energy optimization was proposed, which allows the topology-controlled denoising of 2D scalar fields. While this method preserves the minima and maxima, it is constrained by the size of the data. We extend this work to large 2D data and medium-sized 3D data by introducing a novel domain decomposition approach. It allows processing small patches of the domain independently while still avoiding the introduction of new critical points. Furthermore, we propose an iterative refinement of the solution, which decreases the optimization energy compared to the previous approach and therefore gives smoother results that are closer to the input. We illustrate our technique on synthetic and real-world 2D and 3D data sets that highlight potential applications.},
  author       = {Günther, David and Jacobson, Alec and Reininghaus, Jan and Seidel, Hans and Sorkine Hornung, Olga and Weinkauf, Tino},
  journal      = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
  number       = {12},
  pages        = {2585 -- 2594},
  publisher    = {IEEE},
  title        = {{Fast and memory-efficient topological denoising of 2D and 3D scalar fields}},
  doi          = {10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346432},
  volume       = {20},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1931,
  abstract     = {A wealth of experimental evidence suggests that working memory circuits preferentially represent information that is behaviorally relevant. Still, we are missing a mechanistic account of how these representations come about. Here we provide a simple explanation for a range of experimental findings, in light of prefrontal circuits adapting to task constraints by reward-dependent learning. In particular, we model a neural network shaped by reward-modulated spike-timing dependent plasticity (r-STDP) and homeostatic plasticity (intrinsic excitability and synaptic scaling). We show that the experimentally-observed neural representations naturally emerge in an initially unstructured circuit as it learns to solve several working memory tasks. These results point to a critical, and previously unappreciated, role for reward-dependent learning in shaping prefrontal cortex activity.},
  author       = {Savin, Cristina and Triesch, Jochen},
  journal      = {Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience},
  number       = {MAY},
  publisher    = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
  title        = {{Emergence of task-dependent representations in working memory circuits}},
  doi          = {10.3389/fncom.2014.00057},
  volume       = {8},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1932,
  abstract     = {The existence of complex (multiple-step) genetic adaptations that are "irreducible" (i.e., all partial combinations are less fit than the original genotype) is one of the longest standing problems in evolutionary biology. In standard genetics parlance, these adaptations require the crossing of a wide adaptive valley of deleterious intermediate stages. Here, we demonstrate, using a simple model, that evolution can cross wide valleys to produce "irreducibly complex" adaptations by making use of previously cryptic mutations. When revealed by an evolutionary capacitor, previously cryptic mutants have higher initial frequencies than do new mutations, bringing them closer to a valley-crossing saddle in allele frequency space. Moreover, simple combinatorics implies an enormous number of candidate combinations exist within available cryptic genetic variation. We model the dynamics of crossing of a wide adaptive valley after a capacitance event using both numerical simulations and analytical approximations. Although individual valley crossing events become less likely as valleys widen, by taking the combinatorics of genotype space into account, we see that revealing cryptic variation can cause the frequent evolution of complex adaptations.},
  author       = {Trotter, Meredith and Weissman, Daniel and Peterson, Grant and Peck, Kayla and Masel, Joanna},
  journal      = {Evolution},
  number       = {12},
  pages        = {3357 -- 3367},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Cryptic genetic variation can make "irreducible complexity" a common mode of adaptation in sexual populations}},
  doi          = {10.1111/evo.12517},
  volume       = {68},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1933,
  abstract     = {The development of the vertebrate brain requires an exquisite balance between proliferation and differentiation of neural progenitors. Notch signaling plays a pivotal role in regulating this balance, yet the interaction between signaling and receiving cells remains poorly understood. We have found that numerous nascent neurons and/or intermediate neurogenic progenitors expressing the ligand of Notch retain apical endfeet transiently at the ventricular lumen that form adherens junctions (AJs) with the endfeet of progenitors. Forced detachment of the apical endfeet of those differentiating cells by disrupting AJs resulted in precocious neurogenesis that was preceded by the downregulation of Notch signaling. Both Notch1 and its ligand Dll1 are distributed around AJs in the apical endfeet, and these proteins physically interact with ZO-1, a constituent of the AJ. Furthermore, live imaging of a fluorescently tagged Notch1 demonstrated its trafficking from the apical endfoot to the nucleus upon cleavage. Our results identified the apical endfoot as the central site of active Notch signaling to securely prohibit inappropriate differentiation of neural progenitors.},
  author       = {Hatakeyama, Jun and Wakamatsu, Yoshio and Nagafuchi, Akira and Kageyama, Ryoichiro and Shigemoto, Ryuichi and Shimamura, Kenji},
  journal      = {Development},
  number       = {8},
  pages        = {1671 -- 1682},
  publisher    = {Company of Biologists},
  title        = {{Cadherin-based adhesions in the apical endfoot are required for active Notch signaling to control neurogenesis in vertebrates}},
  doi          = {10.1242/dev.102988},
  volume       = {141},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1934,
  abstract     = {The plant hormones auxin and cytokinin mutually coordinate their activities to control various aspects of development [1-9], and their crosstalk occurs at multiple levels [10, 11]. Cytokinin-mediated modulation of auxin transport provides an efficient means to regulate auxin distribution in plant organs. Here, we demonstrate that cytokinin does not merely control the overall auxin flow capacity, but might also act as a polarizing cue and control the auxin stream directionality during plant organogenesis. Cytokinin enhances the PIN-FORMED1 (PIN1) auxin transporter depletion at specific polar domains, thus rearranging the cellular PIN polarities and directly regulating the auxin flow direction. This selective cytokinin sensitivity correlates with the PIN protein phosphorylation degree. PIN1 phosphomimicking mutations, as well as enhanced phosphorylation in plants with modulated activities of PIN-specific kinases and phosphatases, desensitize PIN1 to cytokinin. Our results reveal conceptually novel, cytokinin-driven polarization mechanism that operates in developmental processes involving rapid auxin stream redirection, such as lateral root organogenesis, in which a gradual PIN polarity switch defines the growth axis of the newly formed organ.},
  author       = {Marhavy, Peter and Duclercq, Jérôme and Weller, Benjamin and Feraru, Elena and Bielach, Agnieszka and Offringa, Remko and Friml, Jirí and Schwechheimer, Claus and Murphy, Angus and Benková, Eva},
  journal      = {Current Biology},
  number       = {9},
  pages        = {1031 -- 1037},
  publisher    = {Cell Press},
  title        = {{Cytokinin controls polarity of PIN1-dependent Auxin transport during lateral root organogenesis}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.cub.2014.04.002},
  volume       = {24},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1935,
  abstract     = {We consider Ising models in d = 2 and d = 3 dimensions with nearest neighbor ferromagnetic and long-range antiferromagnetic interactions, the latter decaying as (distance)-p, p > 2d, at large distances. If the strength J of the ferromagnetic interaction is larger than a critical value J c, then the ground state is homogeneous. It has been conjectured that when J is smaller than but close to J c, the ground state is periodic and striped, with stripes of constant width h = h(J), and h → ∞ as J → Jc -. (In d = 3 stripes mean slabs, not columns.) Here we rigorously prove that, if we normalize the energy in such a way that the energy of the homogeneous state is zero, then the ratio e 0(J)/e S(J) tends to 1 as J → Jc -, with e S(J) being the energy per site of the optimal periodic striped/slabbed state and e 0(J) the actual ground state energy per site of the system. Our proof comes with explicit bounds on the difference e 0(J)-e S(J) at small but positive J c-J, and also shows that in this parameter range the ground state is striped/slabbed in a certain sense: namely, if one looks at a randomly chosen window, of suitable size ℓ (very large compared to the optimal stripe size h(J)), one finds a striped/slabbed state with high probability.},
  author       = {Giuliani, Alessandro and Lieb, Élliott and Seiringer, Robert},
  issn         = {1432-0916},
  journal      = {Communications in Mathematical Physics},
  pages        = {333 -- 350},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  title        = {{Formation of stripes and slabs near the ferromagnetic transition}},
  doi          = {10.1007/s00220-014-1923-2},
  volume       = {331},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1936,
  abstract     = {The social intelligence hypothesis states that the need to cope with complexities of social life has driven the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities. It is usually invoked in the context of challenges arising from complex intragroup structures, hierarchies, and alliances. However, a fundamental aspect of group living remains largely unexplored as a driving force in cognitive evolution: the competition between individuals searching for resources (producers) and conspecifics that parasitize their findings (scroungers). In populations of social foragers, abilities that enable scroungers to steal by outsmarting producers, and those allowing producers to prevent theft by outsmarting scroungers, are likely to be beneficial and may fuel a cognitive arms race. Using analytical theory and agent-based simulations, we present a general model for such a race that is driven by the producer-scrounger game and show that the race's plausibility is dramatically affected by the nature of the evolving abilities. If scrounging and scrounging avoidance rely on separate, strategy-specific cognitive abilities, arms races are short-lived and have a limited effect on cognition. However, general cognitive abilities that facilitate both scrounging and scrounging avoidance undergo stable, long-lasting arms races. Thus, ubiquitous foraging interactions may lead to the evolution of general cognitive abilities in social animals, without the requirement of complex intragroup structures.},
  author       = {Arbilly, Michal and Weissman, Daniel and Feldman, Marcus and Grodzinski, Uri},
  journal      = {Behavioral Ecology},
  number       = {3},
  pages        = {487 -- 495},
  publisher    = {Oxford University Press},
  title        = {{An arms race between producers and scroungers can drive the evolution of social cognition}},
  doi          = {10.1093/beheco/aru002},
  volume       = {25},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{1937,
  abstract     = {We prove the edge universality of the beta ensembles for any β ≥ 1, provided that the limiting spectrum is supported on a single interval, and the external potential is C4 and regular. We also prove that the edge universality holds for generalized Wigner matrices for all symmetry classes. Moreover, our results allow us to extend bulk universality for beta ensembles from analytic potentials to potentials in class C4.},
  author       = {Bourgade, Paul and Erdös, László and Yau, Horngtzer},
  journal      = {Communications in Mathematical Physics},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {261 -- 353},
  publisher    = {Springer},
  title        = {{Edge universality of beta ensembles}},
  doi          = {10.1007/s00220-014-2120-z},
  volume       = {332},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{468,
  abstract     = {Invasive alien parasites and pathogens are a growing threat to biodiversity worldwide, which can contribute to the extinction of endemic species. On the Galápagos Islands, the invasive parasitic fly Philornis downsi poses a major threat to the endemic avifauna. Here, we investigated the influence of this parasite on the breeding success of two Darwin's finch species, the warbler finch (Certhidea olivacea) and the sympatric small tree finch (Camarhynchus parvulus), on Santa Cruz Island in 2010 and 2012. While the population of the small tree finch appeared to be stable, the warbler finch has experienced a dramatic decline in population size on Santa Cruz Island since 1997. We aimed to identify whether warbler finches are particularly vulnerable during different stages of the breeding cycle. Contrary to our prediction, breeding success was lower in the small tree finch than in the warbler finch. In both species P. downsi had a strong negative impact on breeding success and our data suggest that heavy rain events also lowered the fledging success. On the one hand parents might be less efficient in compensating their chicks' energy loss due to parasitism as they might be less efficient in foraging on days of heavy rain. On the other hand, intense rainfalls might lead to increased humidity and more rapid cooling of the nests. In the case of the warbler finch we found that the control of invasive plant species with herbicides had a significant additive negative impact on the breeding success. It is very likely that the availability of insects (i.e. food abundance) is lower in such controlled areas, as herbicide usage led to the removal of the entire understory. Predation seems to be a minor factor in brood loss.},
  author       = {Cimadom, Arno and Ulloa, Angel and Meidl, Patrick and Zöttl, Markus and Zöttl, Elisabet and Fessl, Birgit and Nemeth, Erwin and Dvorak, Michael and Cunninghame, Francesca and Tebbich, Sabine},
  journal      = {PLoS One},
  number       = {9},
  publisher    = {Public Library of Science},
  title        = {{Invasive parasites habitat change and heavy rainfall reduce breeding success in Darwin's finches}},
  doi          = {10.1371/journal.pone.0107518},
  volume       = {9},
  year         = {2014},
}

@inproceedings{475,
  abstract     = {First cycle games (FCG) are played on a finite graph by two players who push a token along the edges until a vertex is repeated, and a simple cycle is formed. The winner is determined by some fixed property Y of the sequence of labels of the edges (or nodes) forming this cycle. These games are traditionally of interest because of their connection with infinite-duration games such as parity and mean-payoff games. We study the memory requirements for winning strategies of FCGs and certain associated infinite duration games. We exhibit a simple FCG that is not memoryless determined (this corrects a mistake in Memoryless determinacy of parity and mean payoff games: a simple proof by Bj⋯orklund, Sandberg, Vorobyov (2004) that claims that FCGs for which Y is closed under cyclic permutations are memoryless determined). We show that θ (n)! memory (where n is the number of nodes in the graph), which is always sufficient, may be necessary to win some FCGs. On the other hand, we identify easy to check conditions on Y (i.e., Y is closed under cyclic permutations, and both Y and its complement are closed under concatenation) that are sufficient to ensure that the corresponding FCGs and their associated infinite duration games are memoryless determined. We demonstrate that many games considered in the literature, such as mean-payoff, parity, energy, etc., satisfy these conditions. On the complexity side, we show (for efficiently computable Y) that while solving FCGs is in PSPACE, solving some families of FCGs is PSPACE-hard. },
  author       = {Aminof, Benjamin and Rubin, Sasha},
  booktitle    = {Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science, EPTCS},
  location     = {Grenoble, France},
  pages        = {83 -- 90},
  publisher    = {Open Publishing Association},
  title        = {{First cycle games}},
  doi          = {10.4204/EPTCS.146.11},
  volume       = {146},
  year         = {2014},
}

@article{537,
  abstract     = {Transgenerational effects are broader than only parental relationships. Despite mounting evidence that multigenerational effects alter phenotypic and life-history traits, our understanding of how they combine to determine fitness is not well developed because of the added complexity necessary to study them. Here, we derive a quantitative genetic model of adaptation to an extraordinary new environment by an additive genetic component, phenotypic plasticity, maternal and grandmaternal effects. We show how, at equilibrium, negative maternal and negative grandmaternal effects maximize expected population mean fitness. We define negative transgenerational effects as those that have a negative effect on trait expression in the subsequent generation, that is, they slow, or potentially reverse, the expected evolutionary dynamic. When maternal effects are positive, negative grandmaternal effects are preferred. As expected under Mendelian inheritance, the grandmaternal effects have a lower impact on fitness than the maternal effects, but this dual inheritance model predicts a more complex relationship between maternal and grandmaternal effects to constrain phenotypic variance and so maximize expected population mean fitness in the offspring.},
  author       = {Prizak, Roshan and Ezard, Thomas and Hoyle, Rebecca},
  journal      = {Ecology and Evolution},
  number       = {15},
  pages        = {3139 -- 3145},
  publisher    = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  title        = {{Fitness consequences of maternal and grandmaternal effects}},
  doi          = {10.1002/ece3.1150},
  volume       = {4},
  year         = {2014},
}

@misc{5411,
  abstract     = {Model-based testing is a promising technology for black-box software and hardware testing, in which test cases are generated automatically from high-level specifications. Nowadays, systems typically consist of multiple interacting components and, due to their complexity, testing presents a considerable portion of the effort and cost in the design process. Exploiting the compositional structure of system specifications can considerably reduce the effort in model-based testing. Moreover, inferring properties about the system from testing its individual components allows the designer to reduce the amount of integration testing.
In this paper, we study compositional properties of the IOCO-testing theory. We propose a new approach to composition and hiding operations, inspired by contract-based design and interface theories. These operations preserve behaviors that are compatible under composition and hiding, and prune away incompatible ones. The resulting specification characterizes the input sequences for which the unit testing of components is sufficient to infer the correctness of component integration without the need for further tests. We provide a methodology that uses these results to minimize integration testing effort, but also to detect potential weaknesses in specifications. While we focus on asynchronous models and the IOCO conformance relation, the resulting methodology can be applied to a broader class of systems.},
  author       = {Daca, Przemyslaw and Henzinger, Thomas A and Krenn, Willibald and Nickovic, Dejan},
  issn         = {2664-1690},
  pages        = {20},
  publisher    = {IST Austria},
  title        = {{Compositional specifications for IOCO testing}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT:IST-2014-148-v2-1},
  year         = {2014},
}

@misc{5412,
  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 theoretic algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation.
We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis of MDPs with qualitative properties by giving a counter-example guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. },
  author       = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Daca, Przemyslaw and Chmelik, Martin},
  issn         = {2664-1690},
  pages        = {31},
  publisher    = {IST Austria},
  title        = {{CEGAR for qualitative analysis of probabilistic systems}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT:IST-2014-153-v1-1},
  year         = {2014},
}

@misc{5413,
  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 theoretic algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation.
We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis of MDPs with qualitative properties by giving a counter-example guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. },
  author       = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Daca, Przemyslaw and Chmelik, Martin},
  issn         = {2664-1690},
  pages        = {33},
  publisher    = {IST Austria},
  title        = {{CEGAR for qualitative analysis of probabilistic systems}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT:IST-2014-153-v2-2},
  year         = {2014},
}

@misc{5414,
  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 theoretic algorithms with quadratic complexity to compute the simulation relation.
We present an automated technique for assume-guarantee style reasoning for compositional analysis of MDPs with qualitative properties by giving a counter-example guided abstraction-refinement approach to compute our new simulation relation. 
We have implemented our algorithms and show that the compositional analysis leads to significant improvements. },
  author       = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Daca, Przemyslaw and Chmelik, Martin},
  issn         = {2664-1690},
  pages        = {33},
  publisher    = {IST Austria},
  title        = {{CEGAR for qualitative analysis of probabilistic systems}},
  doi          = {10.15479/AT:IST-2014-153-v3-1},
  year         = {2014},
}