Master-stability functions (MSFs) are fundamental to the study of synchronization in complex dynamical systems. For example, for a coupled oscillator network, a necessary condition for synchronization to occur is that the MSF at the corresponding normalized coupling parameters be negative. To understand the typical behaviors of the MSF for various chaotic oscillators is key to predicting the collective dynamics of a network of these oscillators. We address this issue by examining, systematically, MSFs for known chaotic oscillators. Our computations and analysis indicate that it is generic for MSFs being negative in a finite interval of a normalized coupling parameter. A general scheme is proposed to classify the typical behaviors of MSFs into four categories. These results are verified by direct simulations of synchronous dynamics on networks of actual coupled oscillators.

For a resonator in an electrostatic microelectromechanical system (MEMS), nonlinear coupling between applied electrostatic force and the mechanical motion of the resonator can lead to chaotic oscillations. Better performance of the device can be achieved when the oscillations are periodic with large amplitude. We investigate the nonlinear dynamics of a system of deformable doubly clamped beam, which is the core in many MEMS resonators, and propose a control strategy to convert chaos into periodic motions with enhanced output energy. Our study suggests that chaos control can lead to energy enhancement and consequently high performance of MEM devices.

No abstract

The typicality effect describes a phenomenon whereby a typical item is easier to be judged as a member of a category than are atypical items. This effect has been intensively studied in the context of category verification tasks. The present study further investigated the typicality effect using our newly developed category-based deductive reasoning task. Subjects were required to judge whether an incoming stimulus had the properties described in the premise presented before. The stimuli were either typical or atypical members of four target semantic categories or were non-target stimuli. According to the ERP results, three phases were needed to determine whether the object has the property associated with the category in the premise. First, significant amplitude differences were seen between typical and atypical items at N1, which suggested that attention processing was influenced by the expectation in this up-to-down (deductive) process. The premise automatically induced the expectation of the prototype of one concept, i.e. the expectation for the prototype of birds was induced when the premise was "Birds possess the property C". Typical items (e.g., sparrow) were more similar to the prototype; hence, they were easier to be matched with the prototype induced by the premise than were atypical items (e.g., ostrich). Additionally, there was a dissociation between typical and atypical items at P2, which suggested that the participants' early detection of an item's category membership was influenced by the typicality. Thirdly, N400 effect is related to the process of semantic processes and determining whether the object has the property associated with the category in the premise. N400 mean amplitudes during the 300-500 ms epoch were significantly greater for non-target members than for target members, while words of lower typicality (atypical) evoked greater N400 amplitudes during the 350-450 ms epoch than did words of higher typicality (typical).