University of Luxembourg

About: University of Luxembourg is a education organization based out in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Computer science. The organization has 4744 authors who have published 22175 publications receiving 381824 citations.

The human gut microbiome in health: establishment and resilience of microbiota over a lifetime

Abstract: With technological advances in culture-independent molecular methods, we are uncovering a new facet of our natural history by accounting for the vast diversity of microbial life which colonizes the human body. The human microbiome contributes functional genes and metabolites which affect human physiology and are, therefore, considered an important factor for maintaining health. Much has been described in the past decade based primarily on 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing regarding the diversity, structure, stability and dynamics of human microbiota in their various body habitats, most notably within the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Relatively high levels of variation have been described across different stages of life and geographical locations for the GIT microbiome. These observations may prove helpful for the future contextualization of patterns in other body habitats especially in relation to identifying generalizable trends over human lifetime. Given the large degree of complexity and variability, a key challenge will be how to define baseline healthy microbiomes and how to identify features which reflect deviations therefrom in the future. In this context, metagenomics and functional omics will likely play a central role as they will allow resolution of microbiome-conferred functionalities associated with health. Such information will be vital for formulating therapeutic interventions aimed at managing microbiota-mediated health particularly in the GIT over the course of a human lifetime.

Zeroizing Without Low-Level Zeroes: New MMAP Attacks and their Limitations

Abstract: We extend the recent zeroizing attacks of Cheon, Han, Lee, Ryu and Stehle (Eurocrypt’15) on multilinear maps to settings where no encodings of zero below the maximal level are available. Some of the new attacks apply to the CLT13 scheme (resulting in a total break) while others apply to (a variant of) the GGH13 scheme (resulting in a weak-DL attack). We also note the limits of these zeroizing attacks.

Testing advanced driver assistance systems using multi-objective search and neural networks

Abstract: Recent years have seen a proliferation of complex Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), in particular, for use in autonomous cars. These systems consist of sensors and cameras as well as image processing and decision support software components. They are meant to help drivers by providing proper warnings or by preventing dangerous situations. In this paper, we focus on the problem of design time testing of ADAS in a simulated environment. We provide a testing approach for ADAS by combining multi-objective search with surrogate models developed based on neural networks. We use multi-objective search to guide testing towards the most critical behaviors of ADAS. Surrogate modeling enables our testing approach to explore a larger part of the input search space within limited computational resources. We characterize the condition under which the multi-objective search algorithm behaves the same with and without surrogate modeling, thus showing the accuracy of our approach. We evaluate our approach by applying it to an industrial ADAS system. Our experiment shows that our approach automatically identifies test cases indicating critical ADAS behaviors. Further, we show that combining our search algorithm with surrogate modeling improves the quality of the generated test cases, especially under tight and realistic computational resources.

Single-cell analysis of cardiogenesis reveals basis for organ-level developmental defects.

Abstract: Organogenesis involves integration of diverse cell types; dysregulation of cell-type-specific gene networks results in birth defects, which affect 5% of live births. Congenital heart defects are the most common malformations, and result from disruption of discrete subsets of cardiac progenitor cells1, but the transcriptional changes in individual progenitors that lead to organ-level defects remain unknown. Here we used single-cell RNA sequencing to interrogate early cardiac progenitor cells as they become specified during normal and abnormal cardiogenesis, revealing how dysregulation of specific cellular subpopulations has catastrophic consequences. A network-based computational method for single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis that predicts lineage-specifying transcription factors2,3 identified Hand2 as a specifier of outflow tract cells but not right ventricular cells, despite the failure of right ventricular formation in Hand2-null mice4. Temporal single-cell-transcriptome analysis of Hand2-null embryos revealed failure of outflow tract myocardium specification, whereas right ventricular myocardium was specified but failed to properly differentiate and migrate. Loss of Hand2 also led to dysregulation of retinoic acid signalling and disruption of anterior-posterior patterning of cardiac progenitors. This work reveals transcriptional determinants that specify fate and differentiation in individual cardiac progenitor cells, and exposes mechanisms of disrupted cardiac development at single-cell resolution, providing a framework for investigating congenital heart defects.