In this book for the first time two scientific fields - consensus formation and synchronization of communications - are presented together and examined through their interrelational aspects, of rapidly growing importance. Both fields have indeed attracted enormous research interest especially in relation to complex networks. In networks of dynamic systems (or agents), consensus means to reach an agreement regarding a certain quantity of interest that depends on the state of all dynamical systems (agents). Consensus problems have a long history in control theory and computer sciences, and form the foundation of the field of distributed computing. Synchronization, which defines correlated-in-time behavior between different processes and roots going back to Huygens to the least, is now a highly popular, exciting and rapidly developing topic, with applications ranging from biological networks to mathematical epidemiology, and from processing information in the brain to engineering of communications devices. The book reviews recent finding in both fields and describes novel approaches to consensus formation, where consensus is realized as an instance of the nonlinear dynamics paradigm of chaos synchronization. The chapters are written by world-known experts in both fields and cover topics ranging from fundaments to various applications of consensus and synchronization.

This book brings together two emerging research areas: synchronization in coupled nonlinear systems and complex networks, and study conditions under which a complex network of dynamical systems synchronizes. While there are many texts that study synchronization in chaotic systems or properties of complex networks, there are few texts that consider the intersection of these two very active and interdisciplinary research areas. The main theme of this book is that synchronization conditions can be related to graph theoretical properties of the underlying coupling topology. The book introduces ideas from systems theory, linear algebra and graph theory and the synergy between them that are necessary to derive synchronization conditions. Many of the results, which have been obtained fairly recently and have until now not appeared in textbook form, are presented with complete proofs. This text is suitable for graduate-level study or for researchers who would like to be better acquainted with the latest research in this area. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction (76 KB). Contents: Graphs, Networks, Laplacian Matrices and Algebraic Connectivity; Graph Models; Synchronization in Networks of Nonlinear Continuous-Time Dynamical Systems; Synchronization in Networks of Coupled Discrete-Time Systems; Synchronization in Network of Systems with Linear Dynamics; Agreement and Consensus Problems in Groups of Interacting Agents. Readership: Graduate students and researchers in physics, applied mathematics and engineering.

Far from being separate entities, many social and engineering systems can be considered as complex network systems (CNSs) associated with closely linked interactions with neighbouring entities such as the Internet and power grids. Roughly speaking, a CNS refers to a networking system consisting of lots of interactional individuals, exhibiting fascinating collective behaviour that cannot always be anticipated from the inherent properties of the individuals themselves. As one of the most fundamental examples of cooperative behaviour, consensus within CNSs (or the synchronization of complex networks) has gained considerable attention from various fields of research, including systems science, control theory and electrical engineering. This book mainly studies consensus of CNSs with dynamics topologies - unlike most existing books that have focused on consensus control and analysis for CNSs under a fixed topology. As most practical networks have limited communication ability, switching graphs can be used to characterize real-world communication topologies, leading to a wider range of practical applications. This book provides some novel multiple Lyapunov functions (MLFs), good candidates for analysing the consensus of CNSs with directed switching topologies, while each chapter provides detailed theoretical analyses according to the stability theory of switched systems. Moreover, numerical simulations are provided to validate the theoretical results. Both professional researchers and laypeople will benefit from this book.

This elementary book provides some state-of-the-art research results on broad disciplinary sciences on complex networks. It presents an in-depth study with detailed description of dynamics, controls and applications of complex networks. The contents of this book can be summarized as follows. First, the dynamics of complex networks, for example, the cluster dynamic analysis by using kernel spectral methods, community detection algorithms in bipartite networks, epidemiological modeling with demographics and epidemic spreading on multi-layer networks, are studied. Second, the controls of complex networks are investigated including topics like distributed finite-time cooperative control of multi-agent systems by applying homogenous-degree and Lyapunov methods, composite finite-time containment control for disturbed second-order multi-agent systems, fractional-order observer design of multi-agent systems, chaos control and anticontrol of complex systems via Parrondos game and many more. Third, the applications of complex networks provide some applicable carriers, which show the importance of theories developed in complex networks. In particular, a general model for studying time evolution of transition networks, deflection routing in complex networks, recommender systems for social networks analysis and mining, strategy selection in networked evolutionary games, integration and methods in computational biology, are discussed in detail.

This book brings together two emerging research areas: synchronization in coupled nonlinear systems and complex networks, and study conditions under which a complex network of dynamical systems synchronizes. While there are many texts that study synchronization in chaotic systems or properties of complex networks, there are few texts that consider the intersection of these two very active and interdisciplinary research areas.The main theme of this book is that synchronization conditions can be related to graph theoretical properties of the underlying coupling topology. The book introduces ideas from systems theory, linear algebra and graph theory and the synergy between them that are necessary to derive synchronization conditions. Many of the results, which have been obtained fairly recently and have until now not appeared in textbook form, are presented with complete proofs. This text is suitable for graduate-level study or for researchers who would like to be better acquainted with the latest research in this area.

The focus of this thesis is the interplay of synchrony and adaptivity in complex networks. Synchronization is a ubiquitous phenomenon observed in different contexts in physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, medicine, socioeconomic systems, and engineering. Most prominently, synchronization takes place in the brain, where it is associated with cognitive capacities like learning and memory, but is also a characteristic of neurological diseases like Parkinson and epilepsy. Adaptivity is common in many networks in nature and technology, where the connectivity changes in time, i.e., the strength of the coupling is continuously adjusted depending upon the dynamic state of the system, for instance synaptic neuronal plasticity in the brain. This research contributes to a fundamental understanding of various synchronization patterns, including hierarchical multifrequency clusters, chimeras and other partial synchronization states. After a concise survey of the fundamentals of adaptive and complex dynamical networks and synaptic plasticity, in the first part of the thesis the existence and stability of cluster synchronization in globally coupled adaptive networks is discussed for simple paradigmatic phase oscillators as well as for a more realistic neuronal oscillator model with spike-timing dependent plasticity. In the second part of the thesis the interplay of adaptivity and connectivity is investigated for more complex network structures like nonlocally coupled rings, random networks, and multilayer systems. Besides presenting a plethora of novel, sometimes intriguing patterns of synchrony, the thesis makes a number of pioneering methodological advances, where rigorous mathematical proofs are given in the Appendices. These results are of interest not only from a fundamental point of view, but also with respect to challenging applications in neuroscience and technological systems.