The Functional Logic of Odor Information Processing in the Drosophila Antennal Lobe

In the early olfactory pathway of Drosophila, Olfactory Sensory Neurons (OSNs) multiplicatively encode the odorant identity and the concentration profile. Projection Neurons (PNs) responses in the Antennal Lobe (AL), in turn, exhibit strong transients at odorant onset/offset and stable steady-state behavior. What is the functional logic the of diverse set of Local Neurons (LNs) in the AL Addressing this question may shed light on the key characteristics of odor information processing in the AL, and odorant recognition and olfactory associative learning in the downstream neuropils of the early olfactory system. To address the computation performed by each LN type, we exhaustively evaluated all circuit configurations of the Antennal Lobe. We found that, across model parameterizations, presynaptic inhibition of the OSN-to-PN synapse is essential for odorant identity recovery in steady-state, while postsynaptic excitation and inhibition facilitate on-/off-set event detection. The onset and offset events indicate changing odorant identities, and together with the identity recovery in steady-state, suggest that the AL is an event-based odorant identity recovery processor.

A Critical Appraisal of the Use and Properties of Nickel–Titanium Dental Alloys

Nickel–titanium (NiTi) archwires are used in dentistry for orthodontic treatment. NiTi alloys have favourable mechanical characteristics, such as superelasticity and shape memory, and are also known as a corrosion-resistant alloy. In specific cases, an archwire could be attacked by certain types of corrosion or wear degradation, which can cause the leaching of metal ions and a hypersensitive response due to increased concentrations of Ni in the human body. A systematic search of the literature retrieved 102 relevant studies. The review paper focuses on three main fields: (i) electrochemical properties of NiTi wires and the effect of different environments on the properties of NiTi wires (fluoride and low pH); (ii) tribocorrosion, a combination of chemical and mechanical wear of the material, and (iii) the biocompatibility of NiTi alloy and its subsequent effect on the human body. The review showed that corrosion properties are affected by microstructure, pH of saliva and the presence of fluorides. A high variation in published results should be, therefore, interpreted with care. The release of nickel ions was assessed using the same unit, showing that the vast majority of metal ions were released in the first few days of exposure, then a stable, steady state was reached. In tribocorrosion studies, the increased concentrations of Ni ions were reported.

Local stability analysis of a low-dissipation cyclic refrigerator

We study the local stability near the maximum figure of merit for the low-dissipation cyclic refrigerator, where the irreversible dissipation occurs not only in the thermal contacts but also the adiabatic strokes. We find that the bounds of the coefficient of performance at maximum figure of merit or maximum cooling rate in presence of internal dissipation are identical to corresponding those in absence of internal dissipation. Using two different scenarios, we prove the existence of a single stable steady state for the refrigerator, and clarify the role of internal dissipation on the stability of thermodynamic steady state, showing that the speed of system evolution to the steady state decreases due to internal dissipation.

Ankle muscles drive mediolateral center of pressure control to ensure stable steady state gait

During steady-state walking, mediolateral gait stability can be maintained by controlling the center of pressure (CoP). The CoP modulates the moment of the ground reaction force, which brakes and reverses movement of the center of mass (CoM) towards the lateral border of the base of support. In addition to foot placement, ankle moments serve to control the CoP. We hypothesized that, during steady-state walking, single stance ankle moments establish a CoP shift to correct for errors in foot placement. We expected ankle muscle activity to be associated with this complementary CoP shift. During treadmill walking, full-body kinematics, ground reaction forces and electromyography were recorded in thirty healthy participants. We found a negative relationship between preceding foot placement error and CoP displacement during single stance; steps that were too medial were compensated for by a lateral CoP shift and vice versa, steps that were too lateral were compensated for by a medial CoP shift. Peroneus longus, soleus and tibialis anterior activity correlated with these CoP shifts. As such, we identified an (active) ankle strategy during steady-state walking. As expected, absolute explained CoP variance by foot placement error decreased when walking with shoes constraining ankle moments. Yet, contrary to our expectations that ankle moment control would compensate for constrained foot placement, the absolute explained CoP variance by foot placement error did not increase when foot placement was constrained. We argue that this lack of compensation reflects the interdependent nature of ankle moment and foot placement control. We suggest that single stance ankle moments do not only compensate for preceding foot placement errors, but also assist control of the subsequent foot placement. Foot placement and ankle moment control are ‘caught’ in a circular relationship, in which constraints imposed on one will also influence the other.

Travelling Wave and Turing Patterns in Subdiffusive Autocatalytic Systems

In this work, we analyse autocatalytic reactions in complex and disordered media which are governed by subdiffusion. The mean square displacement of molecules here scale as tγ where 0<γ<1. These systems are governed by fractional partial differential equations. Two systems are analysed i) in the first a logistic growth expression is used to represent the growth kinetics of bacteria. Here the system dynamics is governed by a single variable. ii) the second system is a two variable cubic autocatalytic system in a porous media. Here each reactant is involved in the autocatalytic generation of the other. These systems have multiple steady states. They exhibit traveling waves moving from an unstable steady state to a stable steady state. The minimum wave velocity has been obtained from phase plane analysis analytically for the first system. In addition, the two variable system also shows Turing patterns in selected regions of parameter space. The stability boundary for Turing patterns for subdiffusive system is found to be the same as that for regular diffusive systems obtained by Seshai et al. [1]. System behaviour as predicted by the stability analysis is verified using a robust implicit numerical method based on L1 scheme.

Is Weather Chaotic? Coexisting Attractors, Multistability, and Predictability

Since Lorenz’s 1963 study and 1972 presentation, the statement “weather is chaotic’’ has been well accepted. Such a view turns our attention from regularity associated with Laplace’s view of determinism to irregularity associated with chaos. In contrast to single type chaotic solutions, recent studies using a generalized Lorenz model (Shen 2019a, b; Shen et al. 2019) have focused on the coexistence of chaotic and regular solutions that appear within the same model, using the same modeling configurations but different initial conditions. The results suggest that the entirety of weather possesses a dual nature of chaos and order with distinct predictability. Furthermore, Shen et al. (2021a, b) illustrated the following two mechanisms that may enable or modulate attractor coexistence: (1) the aggregated negative feedback of small-scale convective processes that enable the appearance of stable, steady-state solutions and their coexistence with chaotic or nonlinear limit cycle solutions; and (2) the modulation of large-scale time varying forcing (heating). Recently, the physical relevance of findings within Lorenz models for real world problems has been reiterated by providing mathematical universality between the Lorenz simple weather and Pedlosky simple ocean models, as well as amongst the non-dissipative Lorenz model, and the Duffing, the Nonlinear Schrodinger, and the Korteweg–de Vries equations (Shen 2020, 2021). We additionally compared the Lorenz 1963 and 1969 models. The former is a limited-scale, nonlinear, chaotic model; while the latter is a closure-based, physically multiscale, mathematically linear model with ill-conditioning. To support and illustrate the revised view, this short article elaborates on additional details of monostability and multistability by applying skiing and kayaking as an analogy, and provides a list of non-chaotic weather systems. We additionally address the influence of the revised view on real-world model predictions and analyses using hurricane track predictions as an illustration, and provide a brief summary on the recent deployment of methods for multiscale analyses and classifications of chaotic and non-chaotic solutions.

Dynamic Walking Analysis of an Underactuated Biped Robot with Asymmetric Structure

Owing to their nonlinear structures and dynamics, bipedal walking robots are commonly used as appropriate case studies for nonlinear modeling and control. In this study, the dynamics of a point-feet 4-link biped robot having asymmetric structure is studied. This asymmetry appears on the robot’s legs such that one leg of the robot does have an active knee while the other is knee-less. In this way, the style and analysis of each step depends on which leg is the stance leg. Although the stable steady state behavior of the system is purely periodic, the gait cycle does consist of two sequential steps. Since each step includes a continuous phase followed by an impact phase, hence, we need to model the system as a multiphase (4-phase) hybrid system. The main purpose of this research is to find stable gating pattern and employ appropriate controller to make sure that the gating is accomplished in an asymptotically stable manner. A combination of feedback linearization and finite-time controllers is used to control the walking posture, and the stability of the whole behavior is investigated by analysis of a one-dimensional Poincaré map. Simulation results successfully support the modeling and control approach.

Stability of constant steady states of a chemotaxis model

The Cauchy problem for the parabolic–elliptic Keller–Segel system in the whole n-dimensional space is studied. For this model, every constant $$A \in {\mathbb {R}}$$ A ∈ R is a stationary solution. The main goal of this work is to show that $$A < 1$$ A < 1 is a stable steady state while $$A > 1$$ A > 1 is unstable. Uniformly local Lebesgue spaces are used in order to deal with solutions that do not decay at spatial variable on the unbounded domain.

Dynamic Behavior Analysis of an Axially Loaded Beam Supported by a Nonlinear Spring-Mass System

Dynamic analysis of an Euler–Bernoulli beam with nonlinear supports is receiving greater research interest in recent years. Current studies usually consider the boundary and internal nonlinear supports separately, and the system rotational restraint is usually ignored. However, there is little study considering the simultaneous existence of axial load, lumped mass and internal supports for such nonlinear problem. Motivated by this limitation, the dynamic behavior of an axially loaded beam supported by a nonlinear spring-mass system is solved and investigated in this paper. Modal functions of an axially loaded Euler–Bernoulli beam with linear elastic supports are taken as trail functions in Galerkin discretization of the nonlinear governing differential equation. Stable steady-state response of such axially loaded beam supported by a nonlinear spring-mass system is solved via Galerkin truncation method, which is also validated by finite difference method. Results show that parameters of nonlinear spring-mass system and boundary condition have a significant influence on system dynamic behavior. Moreover, appropriate nonlinear parameters can switch the system behavior between the single-periodic state and quasi-periodic state effectively.

Ruler elements in chromatin remodelers set nucleosome array spacing and phasing

Arrays of regularly spaced nucleosomes dominate chromatin and are often phased by alignment to reference sites like active promoters. How the distances between nucleosomes (spacing), and between phasing sites and nucleosomes are determined remains unclear, and specifically, how ATP-dependent chromatin remodelers impact these features. Here, we used genome-wide reconstitution to probe how Saccharomyces cerevisiae ATP-dependent remodelers generate phased arrays of regularly spaced nucleosomes. We find that remodelers bear a functional element named the ‘ruler’ that determines spacing and phasing in a remodeler-specific way. We use structure-based mutagenesis to identify and tune the ruler element residing in the Nhp10 and Arp8 modules of the INO80 remodeler complex. Generally, we propose that a remodeler ruler regulates nucleosome sliding direction bias in response to (epi)genetic information. This finally conceptualizes how remodeler-mediated nucleosome dynamics determine stable steady-state nucleosome positioning relative to other nucleosomes, DNA bound factors, DNA ends and DNA sequence elements.