Discovery Through Gossip

We study randomized gossip‐based processes in dynamic networks that are motivated by information discovery in large‐scale distributed networks such as peer‐to‐peer and social networks. A well‐studied problem in peer‐to‐peer networks is resource discovery, where the goal for nodes (hosts with IP addresses) is to discover the IP addresses of all other hosts. Also, some of the recent work on self‐stabilization algorithms for P2P/overlay networks proceed via discovery of the complete network. In social networks, nodes (people) discover new nodes through exchanging contacts with their neighbors (friends). In both cases the discovery of new nodes changes the underlying network — new edges are added to the network — and the process continues in the changed network. Rigorously analyzing such dynamic (stochastic) processes in a continuously changing topology remains a challenging problem with obvious applications. This paper studies and analyzes two natural gossip‐based discovery processes. In the push discovery or triangulation process, each node repeatedly chooses two random neighbors and connects them (i.e., “pushes” their mutual information to each other). In the pull discovery process or the two‐hop walk, each node repeatedly requests or “pulls” a random contact from a random neighbor and connects itself to this two‐hop neighbor. Both processes are lightweight in the sense that the amortized work done per node is constant per round, local, and naturally robust due to the inherent randomized nature of gossip. Our main result is an almost‐tight analysis of the time taken for these two randomized processes to converge. We show that in any undirected n‐node graph both processes take rounds to connect every node to all other nodes with high probability, whereas is a lower bound. We also study the two‐hop walk in directed graphs, and show that it takes time with high probability, and that the worst‐case bound is tight for arbitrary directed graphs, whereas Ω(n²) is a lower bound for strongly connected directed graphs. A key technical challenge that we overcome in our work is the analysis of a randomized process that itself results in a constantly changing network leading to complicated dependencies in every round. We discuss implications of our results and their analysis to discovery problems in P2P networks as well as to evolution in social networks. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 565–587, 2016     

Controlling chaos: Stabilization of unstable orbits using exponential control for maps and flows

We demonstrate that chaos can be controlled using multiplicative exponential feedback control. Unstable fixed points, unstable limit cycles and unstable chaotic trajectories can all be stabilized using such control which is effective both for maps and flows. The control is of particular significance for systems with several degrees of freedom, as knowledge of only one variable on the desired unstable orbit is sufficient to settle the system onto that orbit. We find in all cases that the transient time is a decreasing function of the stiffness of control. But increasing the stiffness beyond an optimum value can increase the transient time. We have also used such a mechanism to control spatiotemporal chaos is a well-known coupled map lattice model.     

Control of chaos

We review the subject of control of chaotic systems paying special attention to exponential control. We also discuss the application of synchronization of chaotic systems to security in communications.     

A generalized Schrödinger formalism as a Hilbert space representation of a generalized Liouville equation

A generalized Schrödinger formalism has been presented which is obtained as a Hilbert space representation of a Liouville equation generalized to include the action as a dynamical variable, in addition to the positions and the momenta. This formalism applied to a classical mechanical system had been shown to yield a similar set of Schrödinger like equations for the classical dynamical system of charged particles in a magnetic field. The novel quantum-like predictions for this classical mechanical system have been experimentally demonstrated and the results are presented.