A short historical account of period doublings in the pre-renormalization era

I will shortly review the history of experimental and theoretical findings on period doubling until the discovery of the quantitative universal properties of the infinite period-doubling cascade.     

On a class of new and practical performance indexes for approximation of fold bifurcations of nonlinear power flow equations

Efficient measurement of the performance index (the distance of a loading parameter from the voltage collapse point) is one of the key problems in power system operations and planning and such an index indicates the severity of a power system with regard to voltage collapse. There exist many interesting methods and ideas to compute this index. However, some successful methods are not yet mathematically justified while other mathematically sound methods are often proposed directly based on the bifurcation theory and they require the initial stationary state to be too close to the unknown turning point to make the underlying methods practical.This paper first gives a survey of several popular methods for estimating the fold bifurcation point including the continuation methods, bifurcation methods and the test function methods (Seydel's direct solution methods, the tangent vector methods and the reduced Jacobian method) and discuss their relative advantages and problems. Test functions are usually based on scaling of the determinant of the Jacobian matrix and it is generally not clear how to determine the behaviour of such functions. As the underlying nonlinear equations are of a particular type, this allows us to do a new analysis of the determinants of the Jacobian and its submatrices in this paper. Following the analysis, we demonstrate how to construct a class of test functions with a predictable analytical behaviour so that a suitable index can be produced. Finally, examples of two test functions from this class are proposed. For several standard IEEE test systems, promising numerical results have been achieved.     

Political and economic rationality leads to velcro bifurcation

In this paper political and economic rationality is modelled regarding an economic problem with a four-dimensional dynamical system taking into consideration the information about the problem spread among the people who support the political alternatives. Under special parameter conditions velcro bifurcation occurs, which destabilizes the equilibrium points when information is going to spread. The last stable equilibrium point is related to the economically rational equilibrium point.     

BIFURCATIONS OF ROUGH 3—POINT—LOOP WITH HIGHER DIMENSIONS

The authors study the bifurcation problems of rough heteroclinic loop connecting three saddle points for the case β1 > 1, β2 > 1, β3 < 1 and β1β2β3 < 1. The existence, number, coexistence and incoexistence of 2-point-loop, 1-homoclinic orbit and 1-periodic orbit are studied. Meanwhile, the bifurcation surfaces and existence regions are given.     

一类平面七次多项式系统赤道环的稳定性与极限环分支

本文研究一类平面七次多项式系统赤道环的稳定性和极限环分支，给出了系统的前12个奇点量公式，可积性条件及在赤道附近存在3个极限环的条件，较为精细地指出了极限环的存在位置。     

A mathematical analysis of a fish school model

A model proposed in the literature for fish schools of relatively large size is studied for mathematical and qualitative properties. Existence, uniqueness and positivity of solutions are established and bifurcation properties relative to diffusion and alignment parameters are studied.     

Bifurcation and Isochronicity at Infinity in a Class of Cubic Polynomial Vector Fields

In this paper, we study the appearance of limit cycles from the equator and isochronicity of infinity in polynomial vector fields with no singular points at infinity. We give a recursive formula to compute the singular point quantities of a class of cubic polynomial systems, which is used to calculate the first seven singular point quantities. Further, we prove that such a cubic vector field can have maximal seven limit cycles in the neighborhood of infinity. We actually and construct a system that has seven limit cycles. The positions of these limit cycles can be given exactly without constructing the Poincare cycle fields. The technique employed in this work is essentially different from the previously widely used ones. Finally, the isochronous center conditions at infinity are given.     

Predicting the onset of DNA supercoiling using a non-linear hemitropic elastic rod

Elastic rod models provide a means to interpret single molecule DNA experiments as well as predict DNA behavior under physiological conditions. Here we use an elastic rod model to predict the stability boundary (critical torque vs. applied tension) for single molecule DNA experiments in which the molecule is subjected to applied tension and twist. We discuss the shortcomings of the usual isotropic rod model. We then derive a consistent non-linear material law from the general representation for a hemitropic (chiral) rod. Finally, we present results of a standard bifurcation analysis predicting the stability boundary. We find results from the non-linear hemitropic rod to match the data closely.     

Gradient extremals and valley floor bifurcations on potential energy surfaces

Gradient extremals are curves in configuration space denned by the condition that the gradient of the potential energy is an eigenvector of the Hessian matrix. Solutions of a corresponding equation go along a valley floor or along a crest of a ridge, if the norm of the gradient is a minimum, and along a cirque or a cliff or a flank of one of the two if the gradient norm is a maximum. Properties of gradient extremals are discussed for simple 2D model surfaces including the problem of valley bifurcations.     

Bifurcation phenomena near homoclinic systems: A two-parameter analysis

The bifurcations of periodic orbits in a class of autonomous three-variable, nonlinear-differential-equation systems possessing a homoclinic orbit associated with a saddle focus with eigenvalues ( ±i,), where ¦/¦ < 1 (Sil'nikov's condition), are studied in a two-parameter space. The perturbed homoclinic systems undergo a countable set of tangent bifurcations followed by period-doubling bifurcations leading to periodic orbits which may be attractors if ¦/¦ < 1/2. The accumulation rate of the critical parameter values at the homoclinic system is exp(-2¦/¦). A global mechanism for the onset of homoclinicity in strongly contractive flows is analyzed. Cusp bifurcations with bistability and hysteresis phenomena exist locally near the onset of homoclinicity. A countable set of these cusp bifurcations with scaling properties related to the eigenvalues±i of the stationary state are shown to occur in infinitely contractive flows. In the two-parameter space, the periodic orbit attractor domain exhibits a spiral structure globally, around the set of homoclinic systems, in which all the different periodic orbits are continuously connected.