General decay lag anti-synchronization of multi-weighted delayed coupled neural networks with reaction–diffusion terms

We propose a new anti-synchronization concept, called general decay lag anti-synchronization, by combining the definitions of decay synchronization and lag synchronization. Novel criteria for the decay lag anti-synchronization of multi-weighted delayed coupled reaction–diffusion neural networks (MWDCRDNNs) with and without bounded distributed delays are derived by constructing an appropriate nonlinear controller and using the Lyapunov functional method. Moreover, the robust decay lag anti-synchronization of MWDCRDNNs with and without bounded distributed delays is considered. Finally, two numerical simulations are performed to validate the obtained results

Finite-time anti-synchronization of multi-weighted coupled neural networks with and without coupling delays

The multi-weighted coupled neural networks (MWCNNs) models with and without coupling delays are investigated in this paper. Firstly, the finite-time anti-synchronization of MWCNNs with fixed topology and switching topology is analyzed respectively by utilizing Lyapunov functional approach as well as some inequality techniques, and several anti-synchronization criteria are put forward for the considered networks. Furthermore, when the parameter uncertainties appear in MWCNNs, some conditions for ensuring robust finite-time anti-synchronization are obtained. Similarly, we also consider the finite-time anti-synchronization and robust finite-time anti-synchronization for MWCNNs with coupling delays under fixed and switched topologies respectively. Lastly, two numerical examples with simulations are provided to confirm the effectiveness of these derived results

Event-triggered passivity of multi-weighted coupled delayed reaction-diffusion memristive neural networks with fixed and switching topologies

This paper solves the event-triggered passivity problem for multiple-weighted coupled delayed reaction-diffusion memristive neural networks (MWCDRDMNNs) with fixed and switching topologies. On the one side, by designing appropriate event-triggered controllers, several passivity criteria for MWCDRDMNNs with fixed topology are derived based on the Lyapunov functional method and some inequality techniques. Moreover, some adequate conditions for ensuring asymptotical stability of the event-triggered passive network are presented. On the other side, we take the switching topology in network model into consideration, and investigate the event-triggered passivity and passivity-based synchronization for MWCDRDMNNs with switching topology. Finally, two examples with numerical simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results

Impulsive Control of Dynamical Networks

Dynamical networks (DNs) consist of a large set of interconnected nodes with each node being a fundamental unit with detailed contents. A great number of natural and man-made networks such as social networks, food networks, neural networks, WorldWideWeb, electrical power grid, etc., can be effectively modeled by DNs. The main focus of the present thesis is on delay-dependent impulsive control of DNs. To study the impulsive control problem of DNs, we firstly construct stability results for general nonlinear time-delay systems with delayed impulses by using the method of Lyapunov functionals and Razumikhin technique. Secondly, we study the consensus problem of multi-agent systems with both fixed and switching topologies. A hybrid consensus protocol is proposed to take into consideration of continuous-time communications among agents and delayed instant information exchanges on a sequence of discrete times. Then, a novel hybrid consensus protocol with dynamically changing interaction topologies is designed to take the time-delay into account in both the continuous-time communication among agents and the instant information exchange at discrete moments. We also study the consensus problem of networked multi-agent systems. Distributed delays are considered in both the agent dynamics and the proposed impulsive consensus protocols. Lastly, stabilization and synchronization problems of DNs under pinning impulsive control are studied. A pinning algorithm is incorporated with the impulsive control method. We propose a delay-dependent pinning impulsive controller to investigate the synchronization of linear delay-free DNs on time scales. Then, we apply the pinning impulsive controller proposed for the delay-free networks to stabilize time-delay DNs. Results show that the delay-dependent pinning impulsive controller can successfully stabilize and synchronize DNs with/without time-delay. Moreover, we design a type of pinning impulsive controllers that relies only on the network states at history moments (not on the states at each impulsive instant). Sufficient conditions on stabilization of time-delay networks are obtained, and results show that the proposed pinning impulsive controller can effectively stabilize the network even though only time-delay states are available to the pinning controller at each impulsive instant. We further consider the pinning impulsive controllers with both discrete and distributed time-delay effects to synchronize the drive and response systems modeled by globally Lipschitz time-delay systems. As an extension study of pinning impulsive control approach, we investigate the synchronization problem of systems and networks governed by PDEs

Synchronization of Complex-Valued Dynamical Networks

Dynamical networks (DNs) have been broadly applied to describe natural and human systems consisting of a large number of interactive individuals. Common examples include Internet, food webs, social networks, neural networks, etc. One of the crucial and significant collective behaviors of DNs is known as synchronization. In reality, synchronization phenomena may occur either inside a network or between two or more networks, which are called “inner synchronization” and “outer synchronization”, respectively. On the other hand, many real systems are more suitably characterized by complex-valued dynamical systems, such as quantum systems, complex Lorenz system, and complex-valued neural networks. The main focus of this thesis is on synchronization of complex-valued dynamical networks (CVDNs). In this thesis, we firstly design a delay-dependent pinning impulsive controller to study synchronization of time-delay CVDNs. By taking advantage of the Lyapunov function in the complex field, some delay-independent synchronization criteria of CVDNs are established, which generalizes some existing synchronization results. Then, by employing the Lyapunov functional in the complex field, several delay-dependent sufficient conditions on synchronization of CVDNs with various sizes of delays are constructed. Moreover, we study synchronization of CVDNs with time-varying delays under distributed impulsive controllers. By taking advantage of time-varying Lyapunov function/ functional in the complex domain, several synchronization criteria for CVDNs with time-varying delays are derived in terms of complex-valued linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Then, we propose a memory-based event-triggered impulsive control (ETIC) scheme with three levels of events in the complex field to investigate the synchronization problem of CVDNs with both discrete and distributed time delays, and we further consider an event-triggered pinning impulsive control (ETPIC) scheme combining the proposed ETIC and a pinning algorithm to study synchronization of time-delay CVDNs. Results show that the proposed ETIC scheme and ETPIC scheme can effectively synchronize CVDNs with the desired trajectory. Secondly, we study generalized outer synchronization of drive-response time-delayed CVDNs via hybrid control. A hybrid controller is proposed in the complex domain to construct response complex-valued networks. Some generalized outer synchronization criteria for drive-response CVDNs are established, which extend the existing generalized outer synchronization results to the complex field. Thirdly, we study the average-consensus problem of potential complex-valued multi-agent systems. A complex-variable hybrid consensus protocol is proposed, and time delays are taken into account in both the continuous-time protocol and the discrete-time protocol. Delay-dependent sufficient conditions are established to guarantee the proposed complex-variable hybrid consensus protocol can solve the average-consensus problem. Lastly, as a practical application for complex-valued networked systems, the synchronization problem of master-slave complex-valued neural networks (CVNNs) is studied via hybrid control and delayed ETPIC, respectively. We also investigate the state estimation problem of CVNNs by designing the adaptive impulsive observer in the complex field

Synchronization of complex dynamical networks with fractional order

Complex dynamical networks (CDN) can be applied to many areas in real world, from medicine, biology, Internet to sociology. Study on CDNs has drawn great attention in recent years. Nodes in a CDN can be modelled as systems represented by differential equations. Study has shown that fractional order differential equations (DF) can better represent some real world systems than integer-order DFs. This research work focuses on synchronization in fractional CDNs.  A literature review on CDNs with fractional order has summarized the latest works in this area.  Fractional chaotic systems are studied in our initial investigation.  Fractional calculus is introduced and the relevant fundamentals to model, describe and analyse dynamical networks are presented. It is shown that the structure and topological characteristics of a network can have a big impact on its synchronizability. Synchronizability and its various interpretations in dynamical networks are studied. To synchronize a CDN efficiently, controllers are generally needed. Controller design is one of the main tasks in this research. Our first design is a new sliding mode control to synchronize a dynamical network with two nodes. Its stability has been proven and verified by simulations.  Its convergence speed outperforms Vaidyanathan's scheme, a well-recognized scheme in this area. The design can be generalized to CDNs with more nodes.  As many applications can be modelled as CDNs with node clustering, a different sliding mode control is designed for cluster synchronization of a CDN with fractional order. Its stability is proven by using Lyapunov method. Its convergence and efficiency is shown in a simulation. Besides these nonlinear methods mentioned, linear control is also studied intensively for the synchronization.  A novel linear method for synchronization of fractional CDNs using a new fractional Proportional-Integral (PI) pinning control is proposed.  Its stability is proven and the synchronization criteria are obtained. The criteria have been simplified using two corollaries so the right value for the variables can be easily assigned. The proposed method is compared with the conventional linear method which uses Proportional (P) controller. In the comparison, the mean squared error function is used. The function measures the average of the squared errors and it is an instant indicator of the synchronization efficiency. A numerical simulation is repeated 100 times to obtain the averages over these runs. Each simulation has different random initial values for both controllers. The average of the errors in all the 100 simulations is obtained and the area under the function curve is defined as an overall performance index (OPI), which indicates the controller's overall performance. In control, small overshoot is always desired. In our work, the error variation is also used as a measure.  The maximum variation from the average of 100 simulations is calculated and compared for both methods. With all the statistical comparisons, it is clear that with the same power consumption, the proposed method outperforms the conventional one and achieves faster and smoother synchronization. Communication constraints exist in most real world CDNs. Communication constraints and their impact on control and synchronization of CDNs with fractional order are investigated in our study. A new adaptive method for synchronizing fractional CDN with disturbance and uncertainty is designed. Its stability is proven and its synchronization criteria are obtained for both fractional CDN with known and unknown parameters. Random disturbance is also included in both cases. Our results show that the new method is efficient in synchronizing CDNs with presence of both disturbance and uncertainty

The structure and dynamics of multilayer networks

In the past years, network theory has successfully characterized the interaction among the constituents of a variety of complex systems, ranging from biological to technological, and social systems. However, up until recently, attention was almost exclusively given to networks in which all components were treated on equivalent footing, while neglecting all the extra information about the temporal- or context-related properties of the interactions under study. Only in the last years, taking advantage of the enhanced resolution in real data sets, network scientists have directed their interest to the multiplex character of real-world systems, and explicitly considered the time-varying and multilayer nature of networks. We offer here a comprehensive review on both structural and dynamical organization of graphs made of diverse relationships (layers) between its constituents, and cover several relevant issues, from a full redefinition of the basic structural measures, to understanding how the multilayer nature of the network affects processes and dynamics.Comment: In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Physics Reports 201

Principles and theory of protein-based pattern formation

Biological systems perform functions by the orchestrated interplay of many small components without a "conductor." Such self-organization pervades life on many scales, from the subcellular level to populations of many organisms and whole ecosystems. On the intracellular level, protein-based pattern formation coordinates and instructs functions like cell division, differentiation and motility. A key feature of protein-based pattern formation is that the total numbers of the involved proteins remain constant on the timescale of pattern formation. The overarching theme of this thesis is the profound impact of this mass-conservation property on pattern formation and how one can harness mass conservation to understand the underlying physical principles. The central insight is that changes in local densities shift local reactive equilibria, and thus induce concentration gradients which, in turn, drive diffusive transport of mass. For two-component systems, this dynamic interplay can be captured by simple geometric objects in the (low-dimensional) phase space of chemical concentrations. On this phase-space level, physical insight can be gained from geometric criteria and graphical constructions. Moreover, we introduce the notion of regional (in)stabilities, which allows one to characterize the dynamics in the highly nonlinear regime reveals an inherent connection between Turing instability and stimulus-induced pattern formation. The insights gained for conceptual two-component systems can be generalized to systems with more components and several conserved masses. In the minimal setting of two diffusively coupled "reactors," the full dynamics can be embedded in the phase-space of redistributed masses where the phase space flow is organized by surfaces of local reactive equilibria. Building on the phase-space analysis for two component systems, we develop a new approach to the important open problem of wavelength selection in the highly nonlinear regime. We show that two-component reaction–diffusion systems always exhibit uninterrupted coarsening (the continual growth of the characteristic length scale) of patterns if they are strictly mass conserving. Selection of a finite wavelength emerges due to weakly broken mass-conservation, or coupling to additional components, which counteract and stop the competition instability that drives coarsening. For complex dynamical phenomena like wave patterns and the transition to spatiotemporal chaos, an analysis in terms of local equilibria and their stability properties provides a powerful tool to interpret data from numerical simulations and experiments, and to reveal the underlying physical mechanisms. In collaborations with different experimental labs, we studied the Min system of Escherichia coli. A central insight from these investigations is that bulk-surface coupling imparts a strong dependence of pattern formation on the geometry of the spatial confinement, which explains the qualitatively different dynamics observed inside cells compared to in vitro reconstitutions. By theoretically studying the polarization machinery in budding yeast and testing predictions in collaboration with experimentalists, we found that this functional module implements several redundant polarization mechanisms that depend on different subsets of proteins. Taken together, our work reveals unifying principles underlying biological self-organization and elucidates how microscopic interaction rules and physical constraints collectively lead to specific biological functions.Biologische Systeme führen Funktionen durch das orchestrierte Zusammenspiel vieler kleiner Komponenten ohne einen "Dirigenten" aus. Solche Selbstorganisation durchdringt das Leben auf vielen Skalen, von der subzellulären Ebene bis zu Populationen vieler Organismen und ganzen Ökosystemen. Auf der intrazellulären Ebene koordiniert und instruieren proteinbasierte Muster Funktionen wie Zellteilung, Differenzierung und Motilität. Ein wesentliches Merkmal der proteinbasierten Musterbildung ist, dass die Gesamtzahl der beteiligten Proteine auf der Zeitskala der Musterbildung konstant bleibt. Das übergreifende Thema dieser Arbeit ist es, den tiefgreifenden Einfluss dieser Massenerhaltung auf die Musterbildung zu untersuchen und Methoden zu entwickeln, die Massenerhaltung nutzen, um die zugrunde liegenden physikalischen Prinzipien von proteinbasierter Musterbildung zu verstehen. Die zentrale Erkenntnis ist, dass Änderungen der lokalen Dichten lokale reaktive Gleichgewichte verschieben und somit Konzentrationsgradienten induzieren, die wiederum den diffusiven Transport von Masse antreiben. Für Zweikomponentensysteme kann dieses dynamische Wechselspiel durch einfache geometrische Objekte im (niedrigdimensionalen) Phasenraum der chemischen Konzentrationen erfasst werden. Auf dieser Phasenraumebene können physikalische Erkenntnisse durch geometrische Kriterien und grafische Konstruktionen gewonnen werden. Darüber hinaus führen wir den Begriff der regionalen (In-)stabilität ein, der es erlaubt, die Dynamik im hochgradig nichtlinearen Regime zu charakterisieren und einen inhärenten Zusammenhang zwischen Turing-Instabilität und stimulusinduzierter Musterbildung aufzuzeigen. Die für konzeptionelle Zweikomponentensysteme gewonnenen Erkenntnisse können auf Systeme mit mehr Komponenten und mehreren erhaltenen Massen verallgemeinert werden. In der minimalen Fassung von zwei diffusiv gekoppelten "Reaktoren" kann die gesamte Dynamik in den Phasenraum umverteilter Massen eingebettet werden, wobei der Phasenraumfluss durch Flächen lokaler reaktiver Gleichgewichte organisiert wird. Aufbauend auf der Phasenraumanalyse für Zweikomponentensysteme entwickeln wir einen neuen Ansatz für die wichtige offene Fragestellung der Wellenängenselektion im hochgradig nichtlinearen Regime. Wir zeigen, dass "coarsening" (das stetige wachsen der charakteristischen Längenskala) von Mustern in Zweikomponentensystemen nie stoppt, wenn sie exakt massenerhaltend sind. Die Selektion einer endlichen Wellenlänge entsteht durch schwach gebrochene Massenerhaltung oder durch Kopplung an zusätzliche Komponenten. Diese Prozesse wirken der Masseumverteilung, die coarsening treibt, entgegen und stoppen so das coarsening. Bei komplexen dynamischen Phänomenen wie Wellenmustern und dem Übergang zu raumzeitlichen Chaos bietet eine Analyse in Bezug auf lokale Gleichgewichte und deren Stabilitätseigenschaften ein leistungsstarkes Werkzeug, um Daten aus numerischen Simulationen und Experimenten zu interpretieren und die zugrunde liegenden physikalischen Mechanismen aufzudecken. In Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen experimentellen Labors haben wir das Min-System von Escherichia coli untersucht. Eine zentrale Erkenntnis aus diesen Untersuchungen ist, dass die Kopplung zwischen Volumen und Oberfläche zu einer starken Abhängigkeit der Musterbildung von der räumlichen Geometrie führt. Das erklärt die qualitativ unterschiedliche Dynamik, die in Zellen im Vergleich zu in vitro Rekonstitutionen beobachtet wird. Durch die theoretische Untersuchung der Polarisationsmaschinerie in Hefezellen, kombiniert mit experimentellen Tests theoretischer Vorhersagen, haben wir herausgefunden, dass dieses Funktionsmodul mehrere redundante Polarisationsmechanismen implementiert, die von verschiedenen Untergruppen von Proteinen abhängen. Zusammengenommen beleuchtet unsere Arbeit die vereinheitlichenden Prinzipien, die der intrazellulären Selbstorganisation zugrunde liegen, und zeigt, wie mikroskopische Interaktionsregeln und physikalische Bedingungen gemeinsam zu spezifischen biologischen Funktionen führen

Dynamical Systems

Complex systems are pervasive in many areas of science integrated in our daily lives. Examples include financial markets, highway transportation networks, telecommunication networks, world and country economies, social networks, immunological systems, living organisms, computational systems and electrical and mechanical structures. Complex systems are often composed of a large number of interconnected and interacting entities, exhibiting much richer global scale dynamics than the properties and behavior of individual entities. Complex systems are studied in many areas of natural sciences, social sciences, engineering and mathematical sciences. This special issue therefore intends to contribute towards the dissemination of the multifaceted concepts in accepted use by the scientific community. We hope readers enjoy this pertinent selection of papers which represents relevant examples of the state of the art in present day research. [...