152 research outputs found
Theoretical derivation of a bias-reduced expression for the extrapolation of the species accumulation curve and the associated estimation of total species richness.
16 pagesInternational audienceUnder-sampling becomes the current situation for an increasing part of biodiversity surveys, as more and more speciose assemblages and increasingly complex taxonomic groups are progressively addressed. Accordingly, (i) extrapolating the Species Accumulation Curve and (ii) estimating the total species richness of partially-sampled species assemblages (or taxonomic-groups) both become major issues for many naturalists nowadays. Numerous different solutions have been proposed to address these issues. Yet, no general consensus has been reached regarding which particular solution among them should be preferred according to each case. This unsatisfactory situation follows from the empirical nature of traditional approaches, especially regarding the extrapolation of the Species Accumulation Curve. Fortunately, reconsidering the problem on decidedly more theoretical basis, including the consideration of general mathematical relationships universally constraining the expression of any theoretical (or rarefied) Species Accumulation Curves, allows a more relevant modeling for the extrapolation of species accumulation. In turn, this theoretical approach provides a rational key t
La taille de la ponte dĂ©croĂźt-elle avec une plus forte densitĂ© locale des mĂšres et/ou une plus faible qualitĂ© de lâhĂŽte chez les lĂ©pidoptĂšres mineurs de feuilles ? Le cas de trois espĂšces communes
In herbivorous insects having a concealed larval stage, such as leaf-miners and leaf-gallers,
regulating the size of the clutch may be a way for ovipositing mothers to ensure optimal resource availability
for future offspring. Clutch size regulation may thus serve as an adaptive response to either (i) the
average level of quality of host leaves as a food resource for offspring, or (ii) to the local density of conspecific
mothers, so as to prevent scramble competition among larvae. Accordingly, clutch size regulation would
imply the capacity for mothers (i) to recognize the level of leaf quality through an appropriate probing process
and/or (ii) to evaluate the local density of conspecific mothers. Clutch size regulation that may possibly
result from either of the two preceding factors thus needs to be addressed within the guilds of mining and
galling insects. In three common leaf-mining moth species I observed that the average clutch size âncâ is only
weakly, non significantly related to (i) the leaf-acceptance ratio âαâ of mothers, which mirrors the average
foliar quality of the host-individual, and (ii) the density âÎŒâ of mothers making visits to host leaves, which
mirrors the local density of conspecific mothers. Therefore, clutch size is not related to the local density of
conspecific mothers or the average foliar quality of host individuals for these three mining speciesChez les insectes herbivores à développement larvaire sessile (tels que les insectes mineurs ou cécidogÚnes de la
feuille-hÎte), le contrÎle de la taille de ponte élémentaire permet aux mÚres de viser à un approvisionnement
optimal pour les futures larves. La taille de ponte élémentaire peut ainsi constituer une réponse adaptative
aussi bien (i) au niveau moyen de qualitĂ© des feuilles de lâhĂŽte, destinĂ©es Ă la consommation des larves, que
(ii) à la densité locale des mÚres, de sorte à éviter ou au moins limiter la compétition entre larves exploitant
une mĂȘme feuille-hĂŽte. Cependant, un tel contrĂŽle de la taille de ponte suppose Ă©videmment que les mĂšres
pondeuses soient en capacitĂ© prĂ©alable de reconnaĂźtre le niveau moyen de qualitĂ© foliaire de lâindividu hĂŽte
et/ou dâapprĂ©cier approximativement la densitĂ© des mĂšres dans leur voisinage et dâĂȘtre en outre motivĂ©es Ă
tenir compte de ces paramÚtres. Cette hypothétique aptitude des mÚres à adapter la taille de ponte en fonction
des facteurs prĂ©citĂ©s mĂ©rite donc dâĂȘtre testĂ©e au sein de la guilde des insectes fonceurs de mines ou
inducteurs de galles foliaires. Considérant ici trois espÚces communes de micro-lépidoptÚres formant des
mines foliaires, on montre que la taille de ponte élémentaire demeure substantiellement indépendante aussi
bien de la qualitĂ© moyenne des feuilles-hĂŽtes (apprĂ©ciĂ©e au moyen de lâestimation de la proportion âαâ de
feuilles potentiellement acceptables par les mÚres) que de la densité des mÚres (appréciée indirectement au
moyen de la densitĂ© âÎŒâ de visites probatoires reçues par feuille). Pour ces trois espĂšces au moins, les prĂ©cautions
maternelles apparaissent donc se limiter au choix de lâespĂšce-hĂŽte puis Ă la sĂ©lection des feuilles
considĂ©rĂ©es acceptables pour ponte, au sein de lâindividu-hĂŽte, sans que la taille de ponte soit elle-mĂȘme un
levier adaptati
An information theoretic necessary condition for perfect reconstruction
This article proposes a new information theoretic necessary condition for
reconstructing a discrete random variable based on the knowledge of a set
of discrete functions of . The reconstruction condition is derived from the
Shannon's Lattice of Information (LoI) \cite{Shannon53} and two entropic
metrics proposed respectively by Shannon and Rajski.
This theoretical material being relatively unknown and/or dispersed in
different references, we provide a complete and synthetic description of the
LoI concepts like the total, common and complementary informations with
complete proofs. The two entropic metrics definitions and properties are also
fully detailled and showed compatible with the LoI structure. A new geometric
interpretation of the Lattice structure is then investigated that leads to a
new necessary condition for reconstructing the discrete random variable
given a set ,..., of elements of the lattice generated by
.
Finally, this condition is derived in five specific examples of
reconstruction of from a set of deterministic functions of : the
reconstruction of a symmetric random variable from the knowledge of its sign
and of its absolute value, the reconstruction of a binary word from a set of
binary linear combinations, the reconstruction of an integer from its prime
signature (Fundamental theorem of arithmetics) and from its reminders modulo a
set of coprime integers (Chinese reminder theorem), and the reconstruction of
the sorting permutation of a list from a set of 2-by-2 comparisons. In each
case, the necessary condition is shown compatible with the corresponding
well-known results.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure
Formal Security Proofs via Doeblin Coefficients: Optimal Side-channel Factorization from Noisy Leakage to Random Probing
Masking is one of the most popular countermeasures to side-
channel attacks, because it can offer provable security. However, depend-
ing on the adversaryâs model, useful security guarantees can be hard
to provide. At first, masking has been shown secure against t-threshold
probing adversaries by Ishai et al. at Cryptoâ03. It has then been shown
secure in the more generic random probing model by Duc et al. at Euro-
cryptâ14. Prouff and Rivain have introduced the noisy leakage model to
capture more realistic leakage at Eurocryptâ13. Reduction from noisy
leakage to random probing has been introduced by Duc et al. at Euro-
cryptâ14, and security guarantees were improved for both models by
Prest et al. at Cryptoâ19, Duc et al. in Eurocryptâ15/J. Cryptolâ19,
and Masure and Standaert at Cryptoâ23. Unfortunately, as it turns out,
we found that previous proofs in either random probing or noisy leakage
models are flawed, and such flaws do not appear easy to fix.
In this work, we show that the Doeblin coefficient allows one to over-
come these flaws. In fact, it yields optimal reductions from noisy leakage
to random probing, thereby providing a correct and usable metric to
properly ground security proofs. This shows the inherent inevitable cost
of a reduction from the noisy leakages to the random probing model. We
show that it can also be used to derive direct formal security proofs using
the subsequence decomposition of Prouff and Rivain
Side-Channel Expectation-Maximization Attacks
Block ciphers are protected against side-channel attacks by masking. On one hand, when the leakage model is unknown, second-order correlation attacks are typically used. On the other hand, when the leakage model can be profiled, template attacks are prescribed. But what if the profiled model does not exactly match that of the attacked device?
One solution consists in regressing on-the-fly the scaling parameters from the model. In this paper, we leverage an Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm to implement such an attack. The resulting unprofiled EM attack, termed U-EM, is shown to be both efficient (in terms of number of traces) and effective (computationally speaking). Based on synthetic and real traces, we introduce variants of our U-EM attack to optimize its performance, depending on trade-offs between model complexity and epistemic noise. We show that the approach is flexible, in that it can easily be adapted to refinements such as different points of interest and number of parameters in the leakage model
Age-related impairment in insulin release: the essential role of Ï(2)-adrenergic receptor.
In this study, we investigated the significance of Ï (2)-adrenergic receptor (Ï (2)AR) in age-related impaired insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis. We characterized the metabolic phenotype of Ï (2)AR-null C57Bl/6N mice (Ï (2)AR(-/-)) by performing in vivo and ex vivo experiments. In vitro assays in cultured INS-1E Ï-cells were carried out in order to clarify the mechanism by which Ï (2)AR deficiency affects glucose metabolism. Adult Ï (2)AR(-/-) mice featured glucose intolerance, and pancreatic islets isolated from these animals displayed impaired glucose-induced insulin release, accompanied by reduced expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) Îł, pancreatic duodenal homeobox-1 (PDX-1), and GLUT2. Adenovirus-mediated gene transfer of human Ï (2)AR rescued these defects. Consistent effects were evoked in vitro both upon Ï (2)AR knockdown and pharmacologic treatment. Interestingly, with aging, wild-type (Ï (2)AR(+/+)) littermates developed impaired insulin secretion and glucose tolerance. Moreover, islets from 20-month-old Ï (2)AR(+/+) mice exhibited reduced density of Ï (2)AR compared with those from younger animals, paralleled by decreased levels of PPARÎł, PDX-1, and GLUT2. Overexpression of Ï (2)AR in aged mice rescued glucose intolerance and insulin release both in vivo and ex vivo, restoring PPARÎł/PDX-1/GLUT2 levels. Our data indicate that reduced Ï (2)AR expression contributes to the age-related decline of glucose tolerance in mice
Removing the Field Size Loss from Duc et al.\u27s Conjectured Bound for Masked Encodings
At Eurocrypt 2015, Duc et al. conjectured that the success rate of a side-channel attack targeting an intermediate computation encoded in a linear secret-sharing, a.k.a masking with shares, could be inferred by measuring the mutual information between the leakage and each share separately. This way, security bounds can be derived without having to mount the complete attack. So far, the best proven bounds for masked encodings were nearly tight with the conjecture, up to a constant factor overhead equal to the field size, which may still give loose security guarantees compared to actual attacks. In this paper, we improve upon the state-of-the-art bounds by removing the field size loss, in the cases of Boolean masking and arithmetic masking modulo a power of two. As an example, when masking in the AES field, our new bound outperforms the former ones by a factor . Moreover, we provide theoretical hints that similar results could hold for masking in other fields as well
Biogeographic variability of coastal perennial grasslands at the European scale
Question: Coastal environments have often been described as azonal. While this characteristic is clear for the foredune system, it seems less evident for more inland fixed dunes, which host habitats of major conservation concern, whose features seem to be more related to local climatic conditions. We hypothesized that, unlike other coastal habitats, dune perennial grasslands differ floristically and structurally across their European range and that patterns of variation are linked to the corresponding climate. Location: European coasts (Atlantic Ocean, Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Sea). Methods: We used a large data set of phytosociological relevés, representative of coastal grasslands throughout their European range. The role of climatic variables (temperature, precipitation and continentality) in determining the variability in species composition and vegetation structure (by means of life forms) was investigated through CCA, DCA and GLM. The degree of concentration of species occurrences within groups was calculated through the Phi coefficient. Results: Through multivariate analyses we identified seven major types of coastal grassland, corresponding to different geographic areas. The groups significantly differed in their climatic envelope, as well as in their species composition and community structure. Conclusion: Our results confirm the hypothesis that coastal dune perennial grasslands are subjected to local climate, which exerts significant effects on both floristic composition and community structure. As a consequence, coastal grasslands are particularly prone to the effect of possible climate change, which may alter species composition and distribution, and lead to shifts in the distribution of native plant communities. © 2017 International Association for Vegetation Scienc
An annotated checklist of the jumping plant-lice (Insecta: Hemiptera: Psylloidea) from the Mercantour National Park, with seven new records for France and one new synonymy
A total of 68 psyllid species are listed from the Mercantour National Park in Southeast France, where a targeted collecting campaign was conducted between 2009 and 2012, as part of the project "ATBI+M" Mercantour. The insects were collected using Malaise traps, flight intercept traps and sweep nets to sample in the vegetation. Additional information on distribution, biology and host-plants is provided for each species. Seven species are recorded for the first time from France: Craspedolepta artemisiae (Foerster, 1848), Craspedolepta nebulosa (Zetterstedt, 1828), Cacopsylla propinqua (Schaefer, 1949), Cyamophila prohaskai (Priesner, 1927), Eryngiofaga cf. refuga (Loginova, 1966), Bactericera parastriola Conci, Ossiannilsson & Tamanini, 1988 and Trioza flixiana Burckhardt & Lauterer, 2002. Trioza (Trioza) rapisardai Conci & Tamanini, 1984 is a new subjective synonym of Trioza brachyceraea Hodkinson & White, 1979, which was previously known only from the male holotype. The abundance, distribution and introduction status of some species are discussed
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Conservation assessments and Red Listing of the endemic Moroccan flora (monocotyledons)
Morocco constitutes an important centre of plant diversity and speciation in the Mediterranean Basin. However, numerous species are threatened by issues ranging from human activities to global climatic change. In this study,
we present the conservation assessments and Red Listing of the endemic Moroccan monocotyledons according to
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria and categories. For each species, we include basic
taxonomic information, local names and synonyms, uses, a distribution map, extent of occurrence, area of
occupancy, population size and trend, a description of habitats and ecological requirements, and a discussion of the
threats affecting the species and habitats. We assessed the threatened status of the endemic Moroccan monocotyledons
at the species level (59 species) using the IUCN Red List criteria and categories (Version 3.1). This study
shows the high extinction risk to the Moroccan monocotyledon flora, with 95% of threatened species (20% Critically
Endangered, 50% Endangered, 25% Vulnerable) and only 5% not threatened (2% Near Threatened and 3% Least
Concern). The flora is thus of conservation concern, which is poorly recognized, both nationally and internationally.
The study presents the first part and so far the only national IUCN Red Data List for a large group of Moroccan
plants, and thus provides an overview of the threatened Moroccan flora. This IUCN Red List is an important first
step towards the recognition of the danger to Moroccan biodiversity hotspots, conservation of threatened species
and the raising of public awareness at national and international levels
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