Laminar distribution of the pathological changes in sporadic frontotemporal lobar degeneration with transactive response (TAR) DNA-binding protein of 43kDa (TDP-43) proteinopathy:a quantitative study using polynomial curve fitting

Aims: Previous data suggest heterogeneity in laminar distribution of the pathology in the molecular disorder frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) with transactive response (TAR) DNA-binding protein of 43kDa (TDP-43) proteinopathy (FTLD-TDP). To study this heterogeneity, we quantified the changes in density across the cortical laminae of neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions, glial inclusions, neuronal intranuclear inclusions, dystrophic neurites, surviving neurones, abnormally enlarged neurones, and vacuoles in regions of the frontal and temporal lobe. Methods: Changes in density of histological features across cortical gyri were studied in 10 sporadic cases of FTLD-TDP using quantitative methods and polynomial curve fitting. Results: Our data suggest that laminar neuropathology in sporadic FTLD-TDP is highly variable. Most commonly, neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions, dystrophic neurites and vacuolation were abundant in the upper laminae and glial inclusions, neuronal intranuclear inclusions, abnormally enlarged neurones, and glial cell nuclei in the lower laminae. TDP-43-immunoreactive inclusions affected more of the cortical profile in longer duration cases; their distribution varied with disease subtype, but was unrelated to Braak tangle score. Different TDP-43-immunoreactive inclusions were not spatially correlated. Conclusions: Laminar distribution of pathological features in 10 sporadic cases of FTLD-TDP is heterogeneous and may be accounted for, in part, by disease subtype and disease duration. In addition, the feedforward and feedback cortico-cortical connections may be compromised in FTLD-TDP. © 2012 The Authors. Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology © 2012 British Neuropathological Society.

Artefactual structure from topographic mappings

DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT

Feed-forward neural networks and topographic mappings for exploratory data analysis

A recent novel approach to the visualisation and analysis of datasets, and one which is particularly applicable to those of a high dimension, is discussed in the context of real applications. A feed-forward neural network is utilised to effect a topographic, structure-preserving, dimension-reducing transformation of the data, with an additional facility to incorporate different degrees of associated subjective information. The properties of this transformation are illustrated on synthetic and real datasets, including the 1992 UK Research Assessment Exercise for funding in higher education. The method is compared and contrasted to established techniques for feature extraction, and related to topographic mappings, the Sammon projection and the statistical field of multidimensional scaling.

Polynomial function intervals for floating-point software verification

The focus of our work is the verification of tight functional properties of numerical programs, such as showing that a floating-point implementation of Riemann integration computes a close approximation of the exact integral. Programmers and engineers writing such programs will benefit from verification tools that support an expressive specification language and that are highly automated. Our work provides a new method for verification of numerical software, supporting a substantially more expressive language for specifications than other publicly available automated tools. The additional expressivity in the specification language is provided by two constructs. First, the specification can feature inclusions between interval arithmetic expressions. Second, the integral operator from classical analysis can be used in the specifications, where the integration bounds can be arbitrary expressions over real variables. To support our claim of expressivity, we outline the verification of four example programs, including the integration example mentioned earlier. A key component of our method is an algorithm for proving numerical theorems. This algorithm is based on automatic polynomial approximation of non-linear real and real-interval functions defined by expressions. The PolyPaver tool is our implementation of the algorithm and its source code is publicly available. In this paper we report on experiments using PolyPaver that indicate that the additional expressivity does not come at a performance cost when comparing with other publicly available state-of-the-art provers. We also include a scalability study that explores the limits of PolyPaver in proving tight functional specifications of progressively larger randomly generated programs. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.

On the sense preserving mappings in the Helm topology in the plane

∗Research supported by the grant No. GAUK 186/96 of Charles University.

On the Hyperbolicity Domain of the Polynomial x^n + a1x^(n-1) + 1/4+ an

∗ Partially supported by INTAS grant 97-1644

Weak Polynomial Identities for M1,1(E)

* Partially supported by Universita` di Bari: progetto “Strutture algebriche, geometriche e descrizione degli invarianti ad esse associate”.

Polynomial Automorphisms Over Finite Fields

It is shown that the invertible polynomial maps over a finite field Fq , if looked at as bijections Fn,q −→ Fn,q , give all possible bijections in the case q = 2, or q = p^r where p > 2. In the case q = 2^r where r > 1 it is shown that the tame subgroup of the invertible polynomial maps gives only the even bijections, i.e. only half the bijections. As a consequence it is shown that a set S ⊂ Fn,q can be a zero set of a coordinate if and only if #S = q^(n−1).

Cerami (C) Condition and Mountain Pass Theorem for Multivalued Mappings

Partially supported by Sapientia Foundation.

Dense Continuity and Selections of Set-Valued Mappings

∗ The first and third author were partially supported by National Fund for Scientific Research at the Bulgarian Ministry of Science and Education under grant MM-701/97.

Dubrovin Type Equations for Completely Integrable Systems Associated with a Polynomial Pencil

Dubrovin type equations for the N -gap solution of a completely integrable system associated with a polynomial pencil is constructed and then integrated to a system of functional equations. The approach used to derive those results is a generalization of the familiar process of finding the 1-soliton (1-gap) solution by integrating the ODE obtained from the soliton equation via the substitution u = u(x + λt).

Stability of the Iteration Method for non Expansive Mappings

The general iteration method for nonexpansive mappings on a Banach space is considered. Under some assumption of fast enough convergence on the sequence of (“almost” nonexpansive) perturbed iteration mappings, if the basic method is τ−convergent for a suitable topology τ weaker than the norm topology, then the perturbed method is also τ−convergent. Application is presented to the gradient-prox method for monotone inclusions in Hilbert spaces.

Subdifferentials of Performance Functions and Calculus of Coderivatives of Set-Valued Mappings

The paper contains calculus rules for coderivatives of compositions, sums and intersections of set-valued mappings. The types of coderivatives considered correspond to Dini-Hadamard and limiting Dini-Hadamard subdifferentials in Gˆateaux differentiable spaces, Fréchet and limiting Fréchet subdifferentials in Asplund spaces and approximate subdifferentials in arbitrary Banach spaces. The key element of the unified approach to obtaining various calculus rules for various types of derivatives presented in the paper are simple formulas for subdifferentials of marginal, or performance functions.

Quadratic Mean Radius of a Polynomial in C(Z)

* Dedicated to the memory of Prof. N. Obreshkoff

A Mean Value Theorem for non Differentiable Mappings in Banach Spaces

We prove that if f is a real valued lower semicontinuous function on a Banach space X and if there exists a C^1, real valued Lipschitz continuous function on X with bounded support and which is not identically equal to zero, then f is Lipschitz continuous of constant K provided all lower subgradients of f are bounded by K. As an application, we give a regularity result of viscosity supersolutions (or subsolutions) of Hamilton-Jacobi equations in infinite dimensions which satisfy a coercive condition. This last result slightly improves some earlier work by G. Barles and H. Ishii.