Slow Feedback Research Articles

Dissipative fault-tolerant control for nonlinear singular perturbed systems with Markov jumping parameters based on slow state feedback

This paper focuses on the analysis and design of dissipativity-based fault-tolerant controller for discrete-time nonlinear Markov jump singularly perturbed systems (MJSPSs) which are based on Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model. A novel strategy is proposed to improve the upper bound of singular perturbation parameter (SPP) ϵ, and the fault-tolerant design is also introduced, namely the susceptible property of systems is made full consideration, to ensure the specified performance of a system. The aim is to design an optimized slow state feedback controller such that the stability of MJSPSs is guaranteed even in faulty case, and the upper bound of the SPP ϵ is improved simultaneously. Utilizing Lyapunov functional technique, a sufficient condition for the existence of controller is shown. Last but not least, the control issue of a series DC motor model as an illustrated example is given to explain the availability of the presented design scheme.

Robust and tunable bursting requires slow positive feedback.

We highlight that the robustness and tunability of a bursting model critically rely on currents that provide slow positive feedback to the membrane potential. Such currents have the ability to make the total conductance of the circuit negative in a timescale that is termed "slow" because it is intermediate between the fast timescale of the spike upstroke and the ultraslow timescale of even slower adaptation currents. We discuss how such currents can be assessed either in voltage-clamp experiments or in computational models. We show that, while frequent in the literature, mathematical and computational models of bursting that lack the slow negative conductance are fragile and rigid. Our results suggest that modeling the slow negative conductance of cellular models is important when studying the neuromodulation of rhythmic circuits at any broader scale. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Nervous system functions rely on the modulation of neuronal activity between different rhythmic patterns. The mechanisms of this modulation are still poorly understood. Using computational modeling, we show the critical role of currents that provide slow negative conductance, distinct from the fast negative conductance necessary for spike generation. The significance of the slow negative conductance for neuromodulation is often overlooked, leading to computational models that are rigid and fragile.

Pannexin 1 Is Critically Involved in Feedback from Horizontal Cells to Cones.

Retinal horizontal cells (HCs) feed back negatively to cone photoreceptors and in that way generate the center/surround organization of bipolar cell receptive fields. The mechanism by which HCs inhibit photoreceptors is a matter of debate. General consensus exists that horizontal cell activity leads to the modulation of the cone Ca-current. This modulation has two components, one fast and the other slow. Several mechanisms for this modulation have been proposed: a fast ephaptic mechanism, and a slow pH mediated mechanism. Here we test the hypothesis that the slow negative feedback signal from HCs to cones is mediated by Panx1 channels expressed at the tips of the dendrites of horizontal cell. We generated zebrafish lacking Panx1 and found that the slow component of the feedback signal was strongly reduced in the mutants showing that Panx1 channels are a fundamental part of the negative feedback pathway from HCs to cones.

First optics and beam dynamics studies on the MAX IV 3 GeV storage ring

The MAX IV 3 GeV storage ring is the first light source to make use of a multibend achromat lattice to reach ultralow emittance. After extensive commissioning efforts, the storage ring is now ramping up its user program. We present results from beam commissioning of the MAX IV 3 GeV storage ring as well as a summary of the beam dynamics studies that have so for been carried out. We report on injection and accumulation using a single dipole kicker, top-up injection, slow orbit feedback, restoring the linear optics to design, effects of in-vacuum undulators with closed gaps, adjusting nonlinear optics to achieve design chromaticity correction and dynamic aperture sufficient for high injection efficiency and large Touschek lifetime.

Globally Stable Microresonator Turing Pattern Formation for Coherent High-Power THz Radiation On-Chip

In nonlinear microresonators driven by continuous-wave (cw) lasers, Turing patterns have been studied in the formalism of Lugiato-Lefever equation with emphasis on its high coherence and exceptional robustness against perturbations. Destabilization of Turing pattern and transition to spatio-temporal chaos, however, limits the available energy carried in the Turing rolls and prevents further harvest of their high coherence and robustness to noise. Here we report a novel scheme to circumvent such destabilization, by incorporating the effect of local mode hybridizations, and attain globally stable Turing pattern formation in chip-scale nonlinear oscillators, achieving a record high power conversion efficiency of 45% and an elevated peak-to-valley contrast of 100. The stationary Turing pattern is discretely tunable across 430 GHz on a THz carrier, with a fractional frequency sideband non-uniformity measured at 7.3x10^-14. We demonstrate the simultaneous microwave and optical coherence of the Turing rolls at different evolution stages through ultrafast optical correlation techniques. The free running Turing roll coherence, 9 kHz in 200 ms and 160 kHz in 20 minutes, is transferred onto a plasmonic photomixer for one of the highest power THz coherent generation at room-temperature, with 1.1% optical-to-THz power conversion. Its long-term stability can be further improved by more than two orders of magnitude, reaching an Allan deviation of 6x10^-10 at 100 s, with a simple computer-aided slow feedback control. The demonstrated on-chip coherent high-power Turing-THz system is promising to find applications in astrophysics, medical imaging, and wireless communications.

Homeostatic enhancement of sensory transduction

Our sense of hearing boasts exquisite sensitivity, precise frequency discrimination, and a broad dynamic range. Experiments and modeling imply, however, that the auditory system achieves this performance for only a narrow range of parameter values. Small changes in these values could compromise hair cells' ability to detect stimuli. We propose that, rather than exerting tight control over parameters, the auditory system uses a homeostatic mechanism that increases the robustness of its operation to variation in parameter values. To slowly adjust the response to sinusoidal stimulation, the homeostatic mechanism feeds back a rectified version of the hair bundle's displacement to its adaptation process. When homeostasis is enforced, the range of parameter values for which the sensitivity, tuning sharpness, and dynamic range exceed specified thresholds can increase by more than an order of magnitude. Signatures in the hair cell's behavior provide a means to determine through experiment whether such a mechanism operates in the auditory system. Robustness of function through homeostasis may be ensured in any system through mechanisms similar to those that we describe here.

Local sampling paints a global picture: Local concentration measurements sense direction in complex chemical gradients.

Detecting and interpreting extracellular spatial signals is essential for cellular orientation within complex environments, such as during directed cell migration or growth in multicellular development. Although the molecular understanding of how cells read spatial signals like chemical gradients is still lacking, recent work has revealed that stochastic processes at different temporal and spatial scales are at the core of this gradient sensing process in a wide range of eukaryotes. Fast biochemical reactions like those underlying GTPase activity dynamics form a functional module together with slower cell morphological changes driven by membrane remodelling. This biochemical-morphological module explores the environment by stochastic local concentration sampling to determine the source of the gradient signal, enabling efficient signal detection and interpretation before polarised growth or migration towards the gradient source is initiated. Here we review recent data describing local sampling and propose a model of local fast and slow feedback counteracted by gradient-dependent substrate limitation to be at the core of gradient sensing by local sampling.

Middle Eocene CO2and climate reconstructed from the sediment fill of a subarctic kimberlite maar

Eocene paleoclimate reconstructions are rarely accompanied by parallel estimates of CO 2 from the same locality, complicating assessment of the equilibrium climate response to elevated CO 2 . We reconstruct temperature, precipitation, and CO 2 from latest middle Eocene (ca. 38 Ma) terrestrial sediments in the posteruptive sediment fill of the Giraffe kimberlite in subarctic Canada. Mutual climatic range and oxygen isotope analyses of botanical fossils reveal a humid-temperate forest ecosystem with mean annual temperatures (MATs) more than 17 °C warmer than present and mean annual precipitation ∼4× present. Metasequoia stomatal indices and gas-exchange modeling produce median CO 2 concentrations of ∼630 and ∼430 ppm, respectively, with a combined median estimate of ∼490 ppm. Reconstructed MATs are more than 6 °C warmer than those produced by Eocene climate models forced at 560 ppm CO 2 . Estimates of regional climate sensitivity, expressed as ∆MAT per CO 2 doubling above preindustrial levels, converge on a value of ∼13 °C, underscoring the capacity for exceptional polar amplification of warming and hydrological intensification under modest CO 2 concentrations once both fast and slow feedbacks become expressed.

Mid-infrared multiheterodyne spectroscopy with phase-locked quantum cascade lasers

Fabry-Pérot (FP) quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) provide purely electronically controlled monolithic sources for broadband mid-infrared (mid-IR) multiheterodyne spectroscopy (MHS), which benefits from the large gain bandwidth of the QCLs without sacrificing the narrowband properties commonly associated with the single mode distributed feedback variant. We demonstrate a FP-QCL based multiheterodyne spectrometer with a short-term noise-equivalent absorption of ∼3 × 10−4/Hz, a mid-IR spectral coverage of 25 cm−1, and very short acquisition time (10 μs) capability. The broadband potential is demonstrated by measuring the absorption spectra of ammonia and isobutane under atmospheric pressure conditions. The stability of the system is enhanced by a two-stage active frequency inter-locking procedure, where the two QCLs are pre-locked with a slow feedback loop based on an analog frequency discriminator, followed by a high bandwidth optical phase-locked loop. The locking system provides a relative frequency stability in the sub kHz range over seconds of integration time. The strength of the technique lies in the ability to acquire spectral information from all optical modes simultaneously and individually, which bodes for a versatile and cost effective spectrometer for mid-IR chemical gas sensing.

New Medications for the Treatment of Diabetes.

New Medications for the Treatment of Diabetes.

Stable Control of Firing Rate Mean and Variance by Dual Homeostatic Mechanisms

Homeostatic processes that provide negative feedback to regulate neuronal firing rates are essential for normal brain function. Indeed, multiple parameters of individual neurons, including the scale of afferent synapse strengths and the densities of specific ion channels, have been observed to change on homeostatic time scales to oppose the effects of chronic changes in synaptic input. This raises the question of whether these processes are controlled by a single slow feedback variable or multiple slow variables. A single homeostatic process providing negative feedback to a neuron’s firing rate naturally maintains a stable homeostatic equilibrium with a characteristic mean firing rate; but the conditions under which multiple slow feedbacks produce a stable homeostatic equilibrium have not yet been explored. Here we study a highly general model of homeostatic firing rate control in which two slow variables provide negative feedback to drive a firing rate toward two different target rates. Using dynamical systems techniques, we show that such a control system can be used to stably maintain a neuron’s characteristic firing rate mean and variance in the face of perturbations, and we derive conditions under which this happens. We also derive expressions that clarify the relationship between the homeostatic firing rate targets and the resulting stable firing rate mean and variance. We provide specific examples of neuronal systems that can be effectively regulated by dual homeostasis. One of these examples is a recurrent excitatory network, which a dual feedback system can robustly tune to serve as an integrator.

Random fuzzy slow state feedback control for networked two time-scale nonlinear systems with time-delay and data packets dropout

The random fuzzy slow state feedback control approaches based on a standard discrete-time fuzzy singularly perturbed model (SDTFSPM) are investigated for networked two time-scale nonlinear systems (NTTSNSs). A SDTFSPM is constructed firstly to describe considered TTSNSs. Based on the SDTFSPM, random fuzzy slow state feedback controllers (RFSSFCs) with data packets dropout and the RFSSFC with time-delay and data packets dropout for NTTSNSs are designed, respectively. Controller existence conditions described by a set of ε-dependent LMIs are provided. Simulation results show that presented methods not only can overcome time-delay and random date packets dropout but also can restrain flexible vibration caused by fast time-scales to stabilise NTTSNSs. In contrast to the existing results, the proposed methods can obtain the higher control performance and handle NTTSNSs with high dimension, so they have better practical value.

Random fuzzy slow state feedback control for networked two time-scale nonlinear systems with time-delay and data packets dropout

The random fuzzy slow state feedback control approaches based on a standard discrete-time fuzzy singularly perturbed model (SDTFSPM) are investigated for networked two time-scale nonlinear systems (NTTSNSs). A SDTFSPM is constructed firstly to describe considered TTSNSs. Based on the SDTFSPM, random fuzzy slow state feedback controllers (RFSSFCs) with data packets dropout and the RFSSFC with time-delay and data packets dropout for NTTSNSs are designed, respectively. Controller existence conditions described by a set of e-dependent LMIs are provided. Simulation results show that presented methods not only can overcome time-delay and random date packets dropout but also can restrain flexible vibration caused by fast time-scales to stabilise NTTSNSs. In contrast to the existing results, the proposed methods can obtain the higher control performance and handle NTTSNSs with high dimension, so they have better practical value.

Compensation for booster leakage field in the Duke storage ring**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (11175180, 11475167) and US DOE (DE-FG02-97ER41033)

The High Intensity Gamma-ray Source (HIGS) at Duke University is an accelerator-driven Compton gamma-ray source, providing high flux gamma-ray beam from 1 MeV to 100 MeV for photo-nuclear physics research. The HIGS facility operates three accelerators, a linac pre-injector (0.16 GeV), a booster injector (0.16—1.2 GeV), and an electron storage ring (0.24—1.2 GeV). Because of the proximity of the booster injector to the storage ring, the magnetic field of the booster dipoles close to the ring can significantly alter the closed orbit in the storage ring being operated in the low energy region. This type of orbit distortion can be a problem for certain precision experiments which demand a high degree of energy consistency of the gamma-ray beam. This energy consistency can be achieved by maintaining consistent aiming of the gamma-ray beam, and therefore a steady electron beam orbit and angle at the Compton collision point. To overcome the booster leakage field problem, we have developed an orbit compensation scheme. This scheme is developed using two fast orbit correctors and implemented as a feedforward which is operated transparently together with the slow orbit feedback system. In this paper, we will describe the development of this leakage field compensation scheme, and report the measurement results, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the scheme.

Aerosol climate change effects on land ecosystem services.

A coupled global aerosol-carbon-climate model is applied to assess the impacts of aerosol physical climate change on the land ecosystem services gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) in the 1996-2005 period. Aerosol impacts are quantified on an annual mean basis relative to the hypothetical aerosol-free world in 1996-2005, the global climate state in the absence of the historical rise in aerosol pollution. We examine the separate and combined roles of fast feedbacks associated with the land and slow feedbacks associated with the ocean. We consider all fossil fuel, biofuel and biomass burning aerosol emission sources as anthropogenic. The effective radiative forcing for aerosol-radiation interactions is -0.44 W m-2 and aerosol-cloud interactions is -1.64 W m-2. Aerosols cool and dry the global climate system by -0.8 °C and -0.08 mm per day relative to the aerosol-free world. Without aerosol pollution, human-induced global warming since the preindustrial would have already exceeded the 1.5 °C aspirational limit set in the Paris Agreement by the 1996-2005 decade. Aerosol climate impacts on the global average land ecosystem services are small due to large opposite sign effects in the tropical and boreal biomes. Aerosol slow feedbacks associated with the ocean strongly dominate impacts in the Amazon and North American Boreal. Aerosol cooling of the Amazon by -1.2 °C drives NPP increases of 8% or +0.76 ± 0.61 PgC per year, a 5-10 times larger impact than estimates of diffuse radiation fertilization by biomass burning aerosol in this region. The North American Boreal suffers GPP and NPP decreases of 35% due to aerosol-induced cooling and drying (-1.6 °C, -0.14 mm per day). Aerosol-land feedbacks play a larger role in the eastern US and Central Africa. Our study identifies an eco-climate teleconnection in the polluted earth system: the rise of the northern hemisphere mid-latitude reflective aerosol pollution layer causes long range cooling that protects Amazon NPP by 8% and suppresses boreal NPP by 35%.

Centennial-scale Holocene climate variations amplified by Antarctic Ice Sheet discharge.

Proxy-based indicators of past climate change show that current global climate models systematically underestimate Holocene-epoch climate variability on centennial to multi-millennial timescales, with the mismatch increasing for longer periods. Proposed explanations for the discrepancy include ocean-atmosphere coupling that is too weak in models, insufficient energy cascades from smaller to larger spatial and temporal scales, or that global climate models do not consider slow climate feedbacks related to the carbon cycle or interactions between ice sheets and climate. Such interactions, however, are known to have strongly affected centennial- to orbital-scale climate variability during past glaciations, and are likely to be important in future climate change. Here we show that fluctuations in Antarctic Ice Sheet discharge caused by relatively small changes in subsurface ocean temperature can amplify multi-centennial climate variability regionally and globally, suggesting that a dynamic Antarctic Ice Sheet may have driven climate fluctuations during the Holocene. We analysed high-temporal-resolution records of iceberg-rafted debris derived from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and performed both high-spatial-resolution ice-sheet modelling of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and multi-millennial global climate model simulations. Ice-sheet responses to decadal-scale ocean forcing appear to be less important, possibly indicating that the future response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will be governed more by long-term anthropogenic warming combined with multi-centennial natural variability than by annual or decadal climate oscillations.

Fast global orbit feedback system in PLS-II

The transverse position of the electron beam in the Pohang Light Source-II is stabilized by the global orbit feedback system. A slow orbit feedback system has been operating at 2 Hz, and a fast orbit feedback (FOFB) system at 813 Hz was installed recently. This FOFB system consists of 96 electron-beam-position monitors, 48 horizontal fast correctors, 48 vertical fast correctors and Versa Module Europa bus control system. We present the design and implementation of the FOFB system and its test result. Simulation analysis is presented and future improvements are suggested.

A mathematical analysis of rebound in a target-mediated drug disposition model: II. With feedback

We consider the possibility of free receptor (antigen/cytokine) levels rebounding to higher than the baseline level after the application of an antibody drug using a target-mediated drug disposition model. It is assumed that the receptor synthesis rate experiences homeostatic feedback from the receptor levels. It is shown for a very fast feedback response, that the occurrence of rebound is determined by the ratio of the elimination rates, in a very similar way as for no feedback. However, for a slow feedback response, there will always be rebound. This result is illustrated with an example involving the drug efalizumab for patients with psoriasis. It is shown that slow feedback can be a plausible explanation for the observed rebound in this example.

Review participation in modern code review

Software code review is a well-established software quality practice. Recently, Modern Code Review (MCR) has been widely adopted in both open source and proprietary projects. Our prior work shows that review participation plays an important role in MCR practices, since the amount of review participation shares a relationship with software quality. However, little is known about which factors influence review participation in the MCR process. Hence, in this study, we set out to investigate the characteristics of patches that: (1) do not attract reviewers, (2) are not discussed, and (3) receive slow initial feedback. Through a case study of 196,712 reviews spread across the Android, Qt, and OpenStack open source projects, we find that the amount of review participation in the past is a significant indicator of patches that will suffer from poor review participation. Moreover, we find that the description length of a patch shares a relationship with the likelihood of receiving poor reviewer participation or discussion, while the purpose of introducing new features can increase the likelihood of receiving slow initial feedback. Our findings suggest that the patches with these characteristics should be given more attention in order to increase review participation, which will likely lead to a more responsive review process.

Lessons on Climate Sensitivity From Past Climate Changes.

Over the last decade, our understanding of climate sensitivity has improved considerably. The climate system shows variability on many timescales, is subject to non-stationary forcing and it is most likely out of equilibrium with the changes in the radiative forcing. Slow and fast feedbacks complicate the interpretation of geological records as feedback strengths vary over time. In the geological past, the forcing timescales were different than at present, suggesting that the response may have behaved differently. Do these insights constrain the climate sensitivity relevant for the present day? In this paper, we review the progress made in theoretical understanding of climate sensitivity and on the estimation of climate sensitivity from proxy records. Particular focus lies on the background state dependence of feedback processes and on the impact of tipping points on the climate system. We suggest how to further use palaeo data to advance our understanding of the currently ongoing climate change.