First fossil tumbling flower beetle-type larva from 99 million-year-old amber

Beetle larvae often differ significantly in morphology from their adult counterparts. Therefore, it should be surprising that these immatures are often not considered to the same extent as the adult beetles. As an example, the fossil record of most beetle groups is largely represented by adult specimens. Representatives of Mordellidae, the group of tumbling flower beetles, have a cosmopolitan distribution with myriads of formally described species, based mostly on adult male specimens. Mordellidae is also well represented in the fossil record, but again only by adults;not a single fossil specimen of a larva has been reported until now. We report a new well-preserved beetle larva in 99 million-year-old Kachin amber. The larva possesses specialisations not known from the modern larvae of Mordellidae, but otherwise is clearly similar to them in many aspects. It appears possible that the fossil represents yet another holometabolan larva in Kachin amber that is associated with life within wood and/or fungi, and therefore, may have contributed to carbon cycling of the past

The first fossil false click beetle larva preserved in amber

We report a new and unusual beetle larva preserved in ca. 100 million-year-old Kachin amber. Larvae of many modern lineages of beetles are associated with wood, breaking it into smaller pieces or directly digesting it. With such a lifestyle, beetle larvae are important for carbon cycling. We can assume that this is not only the case in modern ecosystems, but was similar in the past. Yet, wood-associated beetle larvae seem so far rare in Kachin amber despite its otherwise rich record of many different ecotypes. Only recently, solid-wood-boring larvae and those living in decaying wood have been reported from this amber deposit. Larvae of the group Eucnemidae, false click beetles, which are also wood-associated, have so far been only known from sedimentary rock deposits. Here we report the first larva of a false click beetle preserved in amber. The fossil larva combines features of different modern lineages of Eucnemidae in a unique morphology that is not known in the modern fauna. The fossil adds to the growing number of wood-associated holometabolan larvae in Kachin amber and with this contributes to a more complete view on this now extinct community and ecosystem

EXPANDING THE RECORD OF LARVAE OF FALSE FLOWER BEETLES WITH PROMINENT TERMINAL ENDS

Beetle larvae contribute to the overall biomass with a great share, yet they often stay unnoticed and underexplored. Larvae of the group Scraptiidae, also called false flower beetles, lead a life hidden in the wood, not easily accessible for observers. There, they contribute to wood decomposition and carbon cycling. Even though their ecological role is of great importance, these larvae have been comparably rarely studied. This is true for extant as well as fossil representatives of this group. It seems that this knowledge gap is not based on the limited availability of material but results from insufficiently studied material. Here we report new specimens, of which seven are extant and twelve are fossil. Fossil specimens are either from 40-million-year-old Baltic amber (Eocene) or 100-million-year-old Myanmar amber (Cretaceous), the latter representing the oldest record of these larvae. All specimens considered here possess a large, elongated terminal end. We performed an outline analysis of the shape of this terminal end for all so far known larval specimens sufficiently well preserved (in total 33 specimens: 17 extant, 14 Eocene, 2 Cretaceous). There is a recognisable difference between Eocene and extant specimens, yet it remains unclear whether this is due to different represented larval stages or an effect of evolution

FORM version 4.0

We present version 4.0 of the symbolic manipulation system FORM. The most important new features are manipulation of rational polynomials and the factorization of expressions. Many other new functions and commands are also added; some of them are very general, while others are designed for building specific high level packages, such as one for Groebner bases. New is also the checkpoint facility, that allows for periodic backups during long calculations. Lastly, FORM 4.0 has become available as open source under the GNU General Public License version 3.Comment: 26 pages. Uses axodra

Systemic TLR2 agonist exposure regulates hematopoietic stem cells via cell-autonomous and cell-non-autonomous mechanisms

Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is a member of the TLR family of receptors that play a central role in innate immunity. In addition to regulating effector immune cells, where it recognizes a wide variety of pathogen-associated and nonpathogen-associated endogenous ligands, TLR2 is expressed in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Its role in HSCs, however, is not well understood. Furthermore, augmented TLR2 signaling is associated with myelodysplastic syndrome, an HSC disorder characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and a high risk of transformation to leukemia, suggesting that aberrant signaling through this receptor may have clinically significant effects on HSCs. Herein, we show that systemic exposure of mice to a TLR2 agonist leads to an expansion of bone marrow and spleen phenotypic HSCs and progenitors, but a loss of HSC self-renewal capacity. Treatment of chimeric animals shows that these effects are largely cell non-autonomous, with a minor contribution from cell-autonomous TLR2 signaling, and are in part mediated by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and tumor necrosis factor-α. Together, these data suggest that TLR2 ligand exposure influences HSC cycling and function via unique mechanisms from TLR4, and support an important role for TLR2 in the regulation of HSCs

Effect of acute copper sulfate exposure on olfactory responses to amino acids and pheromones in goldfish (Carassius auratus)

Exposure of olfactory epithelium to environmentally relevant concentrations of copper disrupts olfaction in fish. To examine the dynamics of recovery at both functional and morphological levels after acute copper exposure, unilateral exposure of goldfish olfactory epithelia to 100 μM CuSO4 (10 min) was followed by electro-olfactogram (EOG) recording and scanning electron microscopy. Sensitivity to amino acids (L-arginine and L-serine), generally considered food-related odorants, recovered most rapidly (three days), followed by that to catecholamines(3-O-methoxytyramine),bileacids(taurolithocholic acid) and the steroid pheromone, 17,20 -dihydroxy-4-pregnen- 3-one 20-sulfate, which took 28 days to reach full recovery. Sensitivity to the postovulatory pheromone prostaglandin F2R had not fully recovered even at 28 days. These changes in sensitivity were correlated with changes in the recovery of ciliated and microvillous receptor cell types. Microvillous cells appeared largely unaffected by CuSO4 treatment. Cilia in ciliated receptor neurones, however, appeared damaged one day post-treatment and were virtually absent after three days but had begun to recover after 14 days. Together, these results support the hypothesis that microvillous receptor neurones detect amino acids whereas ciliated receptor neurones were not functional and are responsible for detection of social stimuli (bile acidsandpheromones).Furthermore, differences in sensitivity to copper may be due to different transduction pathways in the different cell types

Confluence and Convergence in Probabilistically Terminating Reduction Systems

Convergence of an abstract reduction system (ARS) is the property that any derivation from an initial state will end in the same final state, a.k.a. normal form. We generalize this for probabilistic ARS as almost-sure convergence, meaning that the normal form is reached with probability one, even if diverging derivations may exist. We show and exemplify properties that can be used for proving almost-sure convergence of probabilistic ARS, generalizing known results from ARS.Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 27th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2017), Namur, Belgium, 10-12 October 2017 (arXiv:1708.07854

Accelerated Model Checking of Parametric Markov Chains

Parametric Markov chains occur quite naturally in various applications: they can be used for a conservative analysis of probabilistic systems (no matter how the parameter is chosen, the system works to specification); they can be used to find optimal settings for a parameter; they can be used to visualise the influence of system parameters; and they can be used to make it easy to adjust the analysis for the case that parameters change. Unfortunately, these advancements come at a cost: parametric model checking is---or rather was---often slow. To make the analysis of parametric Markov models scale, we need three ingredients: clever algorithms, the right data structure, and good engineering. Clever algorithms are often the main (or sole) selling point; and we face the trouble that this paper focuses on -- the latter ingredients to efficient model checking. Consequently, our easiest claim to fame is in the speed-up we have often realised when comparing to the state of the art

End-to-end verifiable elections in the standard model

We present the cryptographic implementation of “DEMOS”, a new e-voting system that is end-to-end verifiable in the standard model, i.e., without any additional “setup” assumption or access to a random oracle (RO). Previously known end-to-end verifiable e-voting systems required such additional assumptions (specifically, either the existence of a “randomness beacon” or were only shown secure in the RO model). In order to analyze our scheme, we also provide a modeling of end-to-end verifiability as well as privacy and receipt-freeness that encompasses previous definitions in the form of two concise attack games. Our scheme satisfies end-to-end verifiability information theoretically in the standard model and privacy/receipt-freeness under a computational assumption (subexponential Decisional Diffie Helman). In our construction, we utilize a number of techniques used for the first time in the context of e-voting schemes that include utilizing randomness from bit-fixing sources, zero-knowledge proofs with imperfect verifier randomness and complexity leveraging