Drosophila melanogaster as a Model Host for the Burkholderia cepacia Complex

Colonization with bacterial species from the Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) is associated with fast health decline among individuals with cystic fibrosis. In order to investigate the virulence of the Bcc, several alternative infection models have been developed. To this end, the fruit fly is increasingly used as surrogate host, and its validity to enhance our understanding of host-pathogen relationships has been demonstrated with a variety of microorganisms. Moreover, its relevance as a suitable alternative to mammalian hosts has been confirmed with vertebrate organisms.The aim of this study was to establish Drosophila melanogaster as a surrogate host for species from the Bcc. While the feeding method proved unsuccessful at killing the flies, the pricking technique did generate mortality within the populations. Results obtained with the fruit fly model are comparable with results obtained using mammalian infection models. Furthermore, validity of the Drosophila infection model was confirmed with B. cenocepacia K56-2 mutants known to be less virulent in murine hosts or in other alternative models. Competitive index (CI) analyses were also performed using the fruit fly as host. Results of CI experiments agree with those obtained with mammalian models.We conclude that Drosophila is a useful alternative infection model for Bcc and that fly pricking assays and competition indices are two complementary methods for virulence testing. Moreover, CI results indicate that this method is more sensitive than mortality tests

Model checking restricted sets of timed paths

In this paper, we study the complexity of model-checking formulas of four important real-time logics (TPTL, MTL, MITL, and TCTL) over restricted sets of timed paths. The classes of restricted sets of timed paths that we consider are (i) a single finite (or ultimately periodic) timed path, (ii) an infinite set of finite (or infinite) timed paths defined by a finite (or ultimately periodic) path in a region graph, (iii) an infinite set of finite (or infinite) timed paths defined by a finite (or ultimately periodic) path in a zone graph. Several results are quite negative: TPTL and MTL remain undecidable along region- and zone-paths. On the other hand, we obtained PTIME algorithms for model-checking TCTL along a region path, and for MTL along a single timed path. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Model checking restricted sets of timed paths

SCOPUS: ar.kinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Pure Nash Equilibria in Concurrent Games

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Nash Equilibria in Concurrent Games with Büchi Objectives

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Shrinking timed automata

We define and study a new approach to the implementability of timed automata, where the semantics is perturbed by imprecisions and finite frequency of the hardware. In order to circumvent these effects, we introduce parametric shrinking of clock constraints, which corresponds to tightening these. We propose symbolic procedures to decide the existence of (and then compute) parameters under which the shrunk version of a given timed automaton is non-blocking and can time-abstract simulate the exact semantics. We then define an implementation semantics for timed automata with a digital clock and positive reaction times, and show that for shrinkable timed automata, non-blockingness and time-abstract simulation are preserved in implementation. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Robustness and implementability of timed automata

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Exploring the role of neuropeptide S in the regulation of arousal: a functional anatomical study

Neuropeptide S (NPS) is a regulatory peptide expressed by limited number of neurons in the brainstem. The simultaneous anxiolytic and arousal-promoting effect of NPS suggests an involvement in mood control and vigilance, making the NPS-NPS receptor system an interesting potential drug target. Here we examined, in detail, the distribution of NPS-immunoreactive (IR) fiber arborizations in brain regions of rat known to be involved in the regulation of sleep and arousal. Such nerve terminals were frequently apposed to GABAergic/galaninergic neurons in the ventro-lateral preoptic area (VLPO) and to tyrosine hydroxylase-IR neurons in all hypothalamic/thalamic dopamine cell groups. Then we applied the single platform-on-water (mainly REM) sleep deprivation method to study the functional role of NPS in the regulation of arousal. Of the three pontine NPS cell clusters, the NPS transcript levels were increased only in the peri-coerulear group in sleep-deprived animals, but not in stress controls. The density of NPS-IR fibers was significantly decreased in the median preoptic nucleus-VLPO region after the sleep deprivation, while radioimmunoassay and mass spectrometry measurements showed a parallel increase of NPS in the anterior hypothalamus. The expression of the NPS receptor was, however, not altered in the VLPO-region. The present results suggest a selective activation of one of the three NPS-expressing neuron clusters as well as release of NPS in distinct forebrain regions after sleep deprivation. Taken together, our results emphasize a role of the peri-coerulear cluster in the modulation of arousal, and the importance of preoptic area for the action of NPS on arousal and sleep