Nonlinear Dynamics, Synchronisation and Chaos in Coupled FHN Cardiac and Neural Cells

Physiological systems are amongst the most challenging systems to investigate from a mathematically based approach. The eld of mathematical biology is a relatively recent one when compared to physics. In this thesis I present an introduction to the physiological aspects needed to gain access to both cardiac and neural systems for a researcher trained in a mathematically based discipline. By using techniques from nonlinear dynamical systems theory I show a number of results that have implications for both neural and cardiac cells. Examining a reduced model of an excitable biological oscillator I show how rich the dynamical behaviour of such systems can be when coupled together. Quantifying the dynamics of coupled cells in terms of synchronisation measures is treated at length. Most notably it is shown that for cells that themselves cannot admit chaotic solutions, communication between cells be it through electrical coupling or synaptic like coupling, can lead to the emergence of chaotic behaviour. I also show that in the presence of emergent chaos one nds great variability in intervals of activity between the constituent cells. This implies that chaos in both cardiac and neural systems can be a direct result of interactions between the constituent cells rather than intrinsic to the cells themselves. Furthermore the ubiquity of chaotic solutions in the coupled systems may be a means of information production and signaling in neural systems

Controlled Synchronization Under Information Constraints

The class of controlled synchronization systems under information constraints imposed by limited information capacity of the coupling channel is analyzed. It is shown that the framework proposed in A. L. Fradkov, B. Andrievsky, R. J. Evans, Physical Review E 73, 066209 (2006) is suitable not only for observer-based synchronization but also for controlled master-slave synchronization via communication channel with limited information capacity. A simple first order coder-decoder scheme is proposed and a theoretical analysis for multi-dimensional master-slave systems represented in the Lurie form (linear part plus nonlinearity depending only on measurable outputs) is provided. An output feedback control law is proposed based on the Passification theorem. It is shown that the upper bound of the limit synchronization error is proportional to the upper bound of the transmission error. As a consequence, both upper and lower bounds of limit synchronization error are proportional to the maximum rate of the coupling signal and inversely proportional to the information transmission rate (channel capacity). The results are applied to controlled synchronization of two chaotic Chua systems coupled via a controller and a channel with limited capacity.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

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

Time-Delay Systems

Time delay is very often encountered in various technical systems, such as electric, pneumatic and hydraulic networks, chemical processes, long transmission lines, robotics, etc. The existence of pure time lag, regardless if it is present in the control or/and the state, may cause undesirable system transient response, or even instability. Consequently, the problem of controllability, observability, robustness, optimization, adaptive control, pole placement and particularly stability and robustness stabilization for this class of systems, has been one of the main interests for many scientists and researchers during the last five decades

A stability-theory perspective to synchronisation of heterogeneous networks

Dans ce mémoire, nous faisons une présentation de nos recherches dans le domaine de la synchronisation des systèmes dynamiques interconnectés en réseau. Une des originalités de nos travaux est qu'ils portent sur les réseaux hétérogènes, c'est à dire, des systèmes à dynamiques diverses. Au centre du cadre d'analyse que nous proposons, nous introduisons le concept de dynamique émergente. Il s'agit d'une dynamique "moyennée'' propre au réseau lui-même. Sous l'hypothèse qu'il existe un attracteur pour cette dynamique, nous montrons que le problème de synchronisation se divise en deux problèmes duaux : la stabilité de l'attracteur et la convergence des trajectoires de chaque système vers celles générées par la dynamique émergente. Nous étudions aussi le cas particulier des oscillateurs de Stuart-Landau

Coupled catastrophes: sudden shifts cascade and hop among interdependent systems

An important challenge in several disciplines is to understand how sudden changes can propagate among coupled systems. Examples include the synchronization of business cycles, population collapse in patchy ecosystems, markets shifting to a new technology platform, collapses in prices and in confidence in financial markets, and protests erupting in multiple countries. A number of mathematical models of these phenomena have multiple equilibria separated by saddle-node bifurcations. We study this behavior in its normal form as fast--slow ordinary differential equations. In our model, a system consists of multiple subsystems, such as countries in the global economy or patches of an ecosystem. Each subsystem is described by a scalar quantity, such as economic output or population, that undergoes sudden changes via saddle-node bifurcations. The subsystems are coupled via their scalar quantity (e.g., trade couples economic output; diffusion couples populations); that coupling moves the locations of their bifurcations. The model demonstrates two ways in which sudden changes can propagate: they can cascade (one causing the next), or they can hop over subsystems. The latter is absent from classic models of cascades. For an application, we study the Arab Spring protests. After connecting the model to sociological theories that have bistability, we use socioeconomic data to estimate relative proximities to tipping points and Facebook data to estimate couplings among countries. We find that although protests tend to spread locally, they also seem to "hop" over countries, like in the stylized model; this result highlights a new class of temporal motifs in longitudinal network datasets.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, plus a 6-page supplementary material that contains 5 figures. Accepted at Journal of the Royal Society Interfac

The Stability and Control of Stochastically Switching Dynamical Systems

Inherent randomness and unpredictability is an underlying property in most realistic phenomena. In this work, we present a new framework for introducing stochasticity into dynamical systems via intermittently switching between deterministic regimes. Extending the work by Belykh, Belykh, and Hasler, we provide analytical insight into how randomly switching network topologies behave with respect to their averaged, static counterparts (obtained by replacing the stochastic variables with their expectation) when switching is fast. Beyond fast switching, we uncover a highly nontrivial phenomenon by which a network can switch between two asynchronous regimes and synchronize against all odds. Then, we establish rigorous theory for this framework in discrete-time systems for arbitrary switching periods (not limited to switching at each time step). Using stability and ergodic theories, we are able to provide analytical criteria for the stability of synchronization for two coupled maps and the ability of a single map to control an arbitrary network of maps. This work not only presents new phenomena in stochastically switching dynamical systems, but also provides the first rigorous analysis of switching dynamical systems with an arbitrary switching period

Synchrony and bifurcations in coupled dynamical systems and effects of time delay

Dynamik auf Netzwerken ist ein mathematisches Feld, das in den letzten Jahrzehnten schnell gewachsen ist und Anwendungen in zahlreichen Disziplinen wie z.B. Physik, Biologie und Soziologie findet. Die Funktion vieler Netzwerke hängt von der Fähigkeit ab, die Elemente des Netzwerkes zu synchronisieren. Mit anderen Worten, die Existenz und die transversale Stabilität der synchronen Mannigfaltigkeit sind zentrale Eigenschaften. Erst seit einigen Jahren wird versucht, den verwickelten Zusammenhang zwischen der Kopplungsstruktur und den Stabilitätseigenschaften synchroner Zustände zu verstehen. Genau das ist das zentrale Thema dieser Arbeit. Zunächst präsentiere ich erste Ergebnisse zur Klassifizierung der Kanten eines gerichteten Netzwerks bezüglich ihrer Bedeutung für die Stabilität des synchronen Zustands. Folgend untersuche ich ein komplexes Verzweigungsszenario in einem gerichteten Ring von Stuart-Landau Oszillatoren und zeige, dass das Szenario persistent ist, wenn dem Netzwerk eine schwach gewichtete Kante hinzugefügt wird. Daraufhin untersuche ich synchrone Zustände in Ringen von Phasenoszillatoren die mit Zeitverzögerung gekoppelt sind. Ich bespreche die Koexistenz synchroner Lösungen und analysiere deren Stabilität und Verzweigungen. Weiter zeige ich, dass eine Zeitverschiebung genutzt werden kann, um Muster im Ring zu speichern und wiederzuerkennen. Diese Zeitverschiebung untersuche ich daraufhin für beliebige Kopplungsstrukturen. Ich zeige, dass invariante Mannigfaltigkeiten des Flusses sowie ihre Stabilität unter der Zeitverschiebung erhalten bleiben. Darüber hinaus bestimme ich die minimale Anzahl von Zeitverzögerungen, die gebraucht werden, um das System äquivalent zu beschreiben. Schließlich untersuche ich das auffällige Phänomen eines nichtstetigen Übergangs zu Synchronizität in Klassen großer Zufallsnetzwerke indem ich einen kürzlich eingeführten Zugang zur Beschreibung großer Zufallsnetzwerke auf den Fall zeitverzögerter Kopplungen verallgemeinere.Since a couple of decades, dynamics on networks is a rapidly growing branch of mathematics with applications in various disciplines such as physics, biology or sociology. The functioning of many networks heavily relies on the ability to synchronize the network’s nodes. More precisely, the existence and the transverse stability of the synchronous manifold are essential properties. It was only in the last few years that people tried to understand the entangled relation between the coupling structure of a network, given by a (di-)graph, and the stability properties of synchronous states. This is the central theme of this dissertation. I first present results towards a classification of the links in a directed, diffusive network according to their impact on the stability of synchronization. Then I investigate a complex bifurcation scenario observed in a directed ring of Stuart-Landau oscillators. I show that under the addition of a single weak link, this scenario is persistent. Subsequently, I investigate synchronous patterns in a directed ring of phase oscillators coupled with time delay. I discuss the coexistence of multiple of synchronous solutions and investigate their stability and bifurcations. I apply these results by showing that a certain time-shift transformation can be used in order to employ the ring as a pattern recognition device. Next, I investigate the same time-shift transformation for arbitrary coupling structures in a very general setting. I show that invariant manifolds of the flow together with their stability properties are conserved under the time-shift transformation. Furthermore, I determine the minimal number of delays needed to equivalently describe the system’s dynamics. Finally, I investigate a peculiar phenomenon of non-continuous transition to synchrony observed in certain classes of large random networks, generalizing a recently introduced approach for the description of large random networks to the case of delayed couplings