No Arabic abstract
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the spontaneous generation of self-organized patterns, hypothesised to play a role in the formation of many of the magnificent patterns observed in Nature. In several cases of interest, the system under scrutiny displays a homogeneous equilibrium, which is destabilized via a symmetry breaking instability which reflects the specificity of the problem being inspected. The Turing instability is among the most celebrated paradigms for pattern formation. In its original form, the diffusion constants of the two mobile species need to be quite different from each other for the instability to develop. Unfortunately, this condition limits the applicability of the theory. To overcome this impediment, and with the ambitious long term goal to eventually reconcile theory and experiments, we here propose an alternative mechanism for promoting the onset of patterns. To this end a multi-species reaction-diffusion system is studied on a discrete, network-like support: the instability is triggered by the non-normality of the embedding network. The non-normal character of the dynamics instigates a short time amplification of the imposed perturbation, thus making the system unstable for a choice of parameters that would yield stability under the conventional scenario. Importantly, non-normal networks are pervasively found, as we shall here briefly review.
Realistic examples of reaction-diffusion phenomena governing spatial and spatiotemporal pattern formation are rarely isolated systems, either chemically or thermodynamically. However, even formulations of `open reaction-diffusion systems often neglect the role of domain boundaries. Most idealizations of closed reaction-diffusion systems employ no-flux boundary conditions, and often patterns will form up to, or along, these boundaries. Motivated by boundaries of patterning fields related to the emergence of spatial form in embryonic development, we propose a set of mixed boundary conditions for a two-species reaction-diffusion system which forms inhomogeneous solutions away from the boundary of the domain for a variety of different reaction kinetics, with a prescribed uniform state near the boundary. We show that these boundary conditions can be derived from a larger heterogeneous field, indicating that these conditions can arise naturally if cell signalling or other properties of the medium vary in space. We explain the basic mechanisms behind this pattern localization, and demonstrate that it can capture a large range of localized patterning in one, two, and three dimensions, and that this framework can be applied to systems involving more than two species. Furthermore, the boundary conditions proposed lead to more symmetrical patterns on the interior of the domain, and plausibly capture more realistic boundaries in developmental systems. Finally, we show that these isolated patterns are more robust to fluctuations in initial conditions, and that they allow intriguing possibilities of pattern selection via geometry, distinct from known selection mechanisms.
Certain two-component reaction-diffusion systems on a finite interval are known to possess mesa (box-like) steadystate patterns in the singularly perturbed limit of small diffusivity for one of the two solution components. As the diffusivity D of the second component is decreased below some critical value Dc, with Dc = O(1), the existence of a steady-state mesa pattern is lost, triggering the onset of a mesa self-replication event that ultimately leads to the creation of additional mesas. The initiation of this phenomena is studied in detail for a particular scaling limit of the Brusselator model. Near the existence threshold Dc of a single steady-state mesa, it is shown that an internal layer forms in the center of the mesa. The structure of the solution within this internal layer is shown to be governed by a certain core problem, comprised of a single non-autonomous second-order ODE. By analyzing this core problem using rigorous and formal asymptotic methods, and by using the Singular Limit Eigenvalue Problem (SLEP) method to asymptotically calculate small eigenvalues, an analytical verification of the conditions of Nishiura and Ueyema [Physica D, 130, No. 1, (1999), pp. 73-104], believed to be responsible for self-replication, is given. These conditions include: (1) The existence of a saddle-node threshold at which the steady-state mesa pattern disappears; (2) the dimple-shaped eigenfunction at the threshold, believed to be responsible for the initiation of the replication process; and (3) the stability of the mesa pattern above the existence threshold. Finally, we show that the core problem is universal in the sense that it pertains to a class of reaction-diffusion systems, including the Gierer-Meinhardt model with saturation, where mesa self-replication also occurs.
We present a general scheme for constructing robust excitations (soliton-like) in non-integrable multicomponent systems. By robust, we mean localised excitations that propagate with almost constant velocity and which interact cleanly with little to no radiation. We achieve this via a reduction of these complex systems to more familiar effective chiral field-theories using perturbation techniques and the Fredholm alternative. As a specific platform, we consider the generalised multicomponent Nonlinear Schr{o}dinger Equations (MNLS) with arbitrary interaction coefficients. This non-integrable system reduces to uncoupled Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations, one for each sound speed of the system. This reduction then enables us to exploit the multi-soliton solutions of the KdV equation which in turn leads to the construction of soliton-like profiles for the original non-integrable system. We demonstrate that this powerful technique leads to the coherent evolution of excitations with minimal radiative loss in arbitrary non-integrable systems. These constructed coherent objects for non-integrable systems bear remarkably close resemblance to true solitons of integrable models. Although we use the ubiquitous MNLS system as a platform, our findings are a major step forward towards constructing excitations in generic continuum non-integrable systems.
The structure, linear stability, and dynamics of localized solutions to singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equations has been the focus of numerous rigorous, asymptotic, and numerical studies in the last few decades. However, with a few exceptions, these studies have often assumed homogeneous boundary conditions. Motivated by the recent focus on the analysis of bulk-surface coupled problems we consider the effect of inhomogeneous Neumann boundary conditions for the activator in the singularly perturbed one-dimensional Gierer-Meinhardt reaction-diffusion system. We show that these boundary conditions necessitate the formation of spikes that concentrate in a boundary layer near the domain boundaries. Using the method of matched asymptotic expansions we construct boundary layer spikes and derive a new class of shifted Nonlocal Eigenvalue Problems for which we rigorously prove partial stability results. Moreover by using a combination of asymptotic, rigorous, and numerical methods we investigate the structure and linear stability of selected one- and two-spike patterns. In particular we find that inhomogeneous Neumann boundary conditions increase both the range of parameter values over which asymmetric two-spike patterns exist and are stable.
We design adaptive controller (learning rule) for a networked control system (NCS) in which data packets containing control information are transmitted across a lossy wireless channel. We propose Upper Confidence Bounds for Networked Control Systems (UCB-NCS), a learning rule that maintains confidence intervals for the estimates of plant parameters $(A_{(star)},B_{(star)})$, and channel reliability $p_{(star)}$, and utilizes the principle of optimism in the face of uncertainty while making control decisions. We provide non-asymptotic performance guarantees for UCB-NCS by analyzing its regret, i.e., performance gap from the scenario when $(A_{(star)},B_{(star)},p_{(star)})$ are known to the controller. We show that with a high probability the regret can be upper-bounded as $tilde{O}left(Csqrt{T}right)$footnote{Here $tilde{O}$ hides logarithmic factors.}, where $T$ is the operating time horizon of the system, and $C$ is a problem dependent constant.