Canard Cycles and Poincar\'e Index of Non-Smooth Vector Fields on the Plane

This paper is concerned with closed orbits of non-smooth vector fields on the plane. For a subclass of non-smooth vector fields we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of canard kind solutions. By means of a regularization we prove that the canard cycles are singular orbits of singular perturbation problems which are limit periodic sets of a sequence of limit cycles. Moreover, we generalize the Poincar\'e Index for non-smooth vector fields.Comment: 20 pages, 25 figure

Melnikov analysis in nonsmooth differential systems with nonlinear switching manifold

We study the family of piecewise linear differential systems in the plane with two pieces separated by a cubic curve. Our main result is that 7 is a lower bound for the Hilbert number of this family. In order to get our main result, we develop the Melnikov functions for a class of nonsmooth differential systems, which generalizes, up to order 2, some previous results in the literature. Whereas the first order Melnikov function for the nonsmooth case remains the same as for the smooth one (i.e. the first order averaged function) the second order Melnikov function for the nonsmooth case is different from the smooth one (i.e. the second order averaged function). We show that, in this case, a new term depending on the jump of discontinuity and on the geometry of the switching manifold is added to the second order averaged function

Orbitally symmetric systems with applications to planar centers

We present a generalization of the most usual symmetries in differential equations known as the time-reversibility and the equivariance ones. We check that the typical properties are also valid for the new definition that unifies both. With it, we are able to present new families of planar polynomial vector fields having equilibrium points of center type. Moreover, we provide the highest lower bound for the local cyclicity of an equilibrium point of polynomial vector fields of degree 6, M(6) ≥ 48

Cyclicity Near Infinity in Piecewise Linear Vector Fields Having a Nonregular Switching Line

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABIn this paper we recover the best lower bound for the number of limit cycles in the planar piecewise linear class when one vector field is defined in the first quadrant and a second one in the others. In this class and considering a degenerated Hopf bifurcation near families of centers we obtain again at least five limit cycles but now from infinity, which is of monodromic type, and with simpler computations. The proof uses a partial classification of the center problem when both systems are of center type

Invariant curves and explosion of periodic Islands in systems of piecewise rotations

Copyright © 2005 Society for Industrial and Applied MathematicsInvertible piecewise isometric maps (PWIs) of the plane, in spite of their apparent simplicity, can show a remarkable number of dynamical features analogous to those found in nonlinear smooth area preserving maps. There is a natural partition of the phase space into an exceptional set, ⋶, consisting of the closure of the set of points whose orbits accumulate on discontinuities of the map, and its complement. In this paper we examine a family of noninvertible PWIs on the plane that consist of rotations on each of four atoms, each of which is a quadrant. We show that this family gives examples of global attractors with a variety of geometric structures. On some of these attractors, there appear to be nonsmooth invariant curves within ⋶ that form barriers to ergodicity of any invariant measure supported on ⋶. These invariant curves are observed to appear on perturbations of an “integrable” case where the exceptional set is a union of annuli and it decomposes into a one-dimensional family of interval exchange maps that may be minimal but nonergodic. We have no adequate theoretical explanation for the curves in the nonsmooth case, but they appear to come into existence at the same times as an explosion of periodic islands near where the interval exchanges used to be located. We exhibit another example—a piecewise rotation on the plane with two atoms that also appears to have nonsmooth invariant curves

Cutting and Shuffling a Line Segment: Mixing by Interval Exchange Transformations

We present a computational study of finite-time mixing of a line segment by cutting and shuffling. A family of one-dimensional interval exchange transformations is constructed as a model system in which to study these types of mixing processes. Illustrative examples of the mixing behaviors, including pathological cases that violate the assumptions of the known governing theorems and lead to poor mixing, are shown. Since the mathematical theory applies as the number of iterations of the map goes to infinity, we introduce practical measures of mixing (the percent unmixed and the number of intermaterial interfaces) that can be computed over given (finite) numbers of iterations. We find that good mixing can be achieved after a finite number of iterations of a one-dimensional cutting and shuffling map, even though such a map cannot be considered chaotic in the usual sense and/or it may not fulfill the conditions of the ergodic theorems for interval exchange transformations. Specifically, good shuffling can occur with only six or seven intervals of roughly the same length, as long as the rearrangement order is an irreducible permutation. This study has implications for a number of mixing processes in which discontinuities arise either by construction or due to the underlying physics.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, ws-ijbc class; accepted for publication in International Journal of Bifurcation and Chao

Is Moodle Accessible for Visually Impaired People?

Proceedings of: 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies. Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, May 6-9, 2011.Most educational centers are currently using e-learning tools to provide the pedagogical resources for the students, especially in higher education. Nevertheless, some students are not able to access to this information because these authoring tools are not as accessible as they should be. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate if one of the most widely e-learning tool used around the world, Moodle, is accessible for visually impaired people. The evaluation shows that the accessibility guidelines provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are not accomplished by the tool. Moreover, it shows that people using screen readers are not able to access to the majority of the functionality of Moodle.The work presented in this paper has been partially founded by MA2VICMR (S2009/TIC-1542), GEMMA (TSI-020302-2010-141) and SAGAS (TSI-020100-2010-184) research projects.Publicad

Chains of infinite order, chains with memory of variable length, and maps of the interval

We show how to construct a topological Markov map of the interval whose invariant probability measure is the stationary law of a given stochastic chain of infinite order. In particular we caracterize the maps corresponding to stochastic chains with memory of variable length. The problem treated here is the converse of the classical construction of the Gibbs formalism for Markov expanding maps of the interval