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Abstract Proper cell-type identity relies on highly coordinated regulation of gene expression. Regulatory elements such as enhancers can produce cell type-specific expression patterns, but the mechanisms underlying specificity are not well understood. We previously identified an enhancer region capable of driving specific expression in giant cells, which are large, highly endoreduplicated cells in the Arabidopsis thaliana sepal epidermis. In this study, we use the giant cell enhancer as a model to understand the regulatory logic that promotes cell type-specific expression. Our dissection of the enhancer revealed that giant cell specificity is mediated primarily through the combination of two activators and one repressor. HD-ZIP and TCP transcription factors are involved in the activation of expression throughout the epidermis. High expression of HD-ZIP transcription factor genes in giant cells promoted higher expression driven by the enhancer in giant cells. Dof transcription factors repressed the activity of the enhancer such that only giant cells maintained enhancer activity. Thus, our data are consistent with a conceptual model whereby cell type-specific expression emerges from the combined activities of three transcription factor families activating and repressing expression in epidermal cells. 

Memory-hard functions (MHFs) are a key cryptographic primitive underlying the design of moderately expensive password hashing algorithms and egalitarian proofs of work. Over the past few years several increasingly stringent goals for an MHF have been proposed including the requirement that the MHF have high sequential space-time (ST) complexity, parallel space-time complexity, amortized area-time (aAT) complexity and sustained space complexity. Data-Independent Memory Hard Functions (iMHFs) are of special interest in the context of password hashing as they naturally resist side-channel attacks. iMHFs can be specified using a directed acyclic graph (DAG) $G$ with $N=2^n$ nodes and low indegree and the complexity of the iMHF can be analyzed using a pebbling game. Recently, Alwen et al. [CCS'17] constructed an DAG called DRSample which has aAT complexity at least $\Omega\left( N^2/\log N\right)$. Asymptotically DRSample outperformed all prior iMHF constructions including Argon2i, winner of the password hashing competition (aAT cost $\mathcal{O}\left(N^{1.767}\right)$), though the constants in these bounds are poorly understood. We show that the the greedy pebbling strategy of Boneh et al. [ASIACRYPT'16] is particularly effective against DRSample e.g., the aAT cost is $\mathcal{O}\left( N^2/\log N\right)$. In fact, our empirical analysis {\em reverses} the prior conclusion of Alwen et al. that DRSample provides stronger resistance to known pebbling attacks for practical values of $N \leq 2^{24}$. We construct a new iMHF candidate (DRSample+BRG) by using the bit-reversal graph to extend DRSample. We then prove that the construction is asymptotically optimal under every MHF criteria, and we empirically demonstrate that our iMHF provides the best resistance to {\em known} pebbling attacks. For example, we show that any parallel pebbling attack either has aAT cost $\omega(N^2)$ or requires at least $\Omega(N)$ steps with $\Omega(N/\log N)$ pebbles on the DAG. This makes our construction the first practical iMHF with a strong sustained space-complexity guarantee and immediately implies that any parallel pebbling has aAT complexity $\Omega(N^2/\log N)$. We also prove that any sequential pebbling (including the greedy pebbling attack) has aAT cost $\Omega\left( N^2\right)$ and, if a plausible conjecture holds, any parallel pebbling has aAT cost $\Omega(N^2 \log \log N/\log N)$ --- the best possible bound for an iMHF. We implement our new iMHF and demonstrate that it is just as fast as Argon2. Along the way we propose a simple modification to the Argon2 round function which increases an attacker's aAT cost by nearly an order of magnitude without increasing running time on a CPU. Finally, we give a pebbling reduction which proves that in the parallel random oracle model (PROM) the cost of evaluating an iMHF like Argon2i or DRSample+BRG is given by the pebbling cost of the underlying DAG. Prior pebbling reductions assumed that the iMHF round function concatenates input labels before hashing and did not apply to practical iMHFs such as Argon2i, DRSample or DRSample+BRG where input labels are instead XORed together. 

We measure the branching fraction of the decay$B^{-}\to D^0\rho (770{)}^{-}$using data collected with the Belle II detector. The data contain 387 million$B\overline{B}$pairs produced in$e^{+}{e}^{-}$collisions at the$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)$resonance. We reconstruct$8360\pm 180$decays from an analysis of the distributions of the$B^{-}$energy and the$\rho (770{)}^{-}$helicity angle. We determine the branching fraction to be$(0.939\pm 0.021(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.050(\mathrm{syst}))\%$, in agreement with previous results. Our measurement improves the relative precision of the world average by more than a factor of two.

Published by the American Physical Society2024 

We report a measurement of decay-time-dependent charge-parity ($CP$) asymmetries in$B^0\to K_S^0{K}_S^0{K}_S^0$decays. We use$387\times {10}^6$$B\overline{B}$pairs collected at the$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)$resonance with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy electron-positron collider. We reconstruct 220 signal events and extract the$CP$-violating parameters$S$and$C$from a fit to the distribution of the decay-time difference between the two$B$mesons. The resulting confidence region is consistent with previous measurements in$B^0\to K_S^0{K}_S^0{K}_S^0$and$B^0\to (c\overline{c})K^0$decays and with predictions based on the standard model.

Published by the American Physical Society2024 

We search for the rare decay$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$in a$362{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$sample of electron-positron collisions at the$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)$resonance collected with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB collider. We use the inclusive properties of the accompanying$B$meson in$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)\to B\overline{B}$events to suppress background from other decays of the signal$B$candidate and light-quark pair production. We validate the measurement with an auxiliary analysis based on a conventional hadronic reconstruction of the accompanying$B$meson. For background suppression, we exploit distinct signal features using machine learning methods tuned with simulated data. The signal-reconstruction efficiency and background suppression are validated through various control channels. The branching fraction is extracted in a maximum likelihood fit. Our inclusive and hadronic analyses yield consistent results for the$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$branching fraction of$[2.7\pm 0.5(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.5(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$and$[{1.1}_{-0.8}^{+0.9}(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.5}^{+0.8}(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$, respectively. Combining the results, we determine the branching fraction of the decay$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$to be$[2.3\pm 0.5(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.4}^{+0.5}(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$, providing the first evidence for this decay at 3.5 standard deviations. The combined result is 2.7 standard deviations above the standard model expectation.

Published by the American Physical Society2024