This study investigates the asynchronous controllability of non-homogeneous Markov switch generalized asynchronous Boolean control networks (NMHGABCNs) and random switching signals in these networks, aiming to follow a non-homogeneous Markov process. The controllability of the proposed networks is achieved using the discrepancy between the Markov chain mode and the control mode. Assisted by the semi-tensor product (STP), the algebraic forms of the NMHGABCNs are obtained, and the sufficient and necessary criteria for their asynchronous controllability are derived. The effectiveness of controllability is demonstrated through two examples, which validate the theoretical results.

The consensus control protocol of the cooperative-competitive network requires nodes to transmit their own information to the rival group, which is detrimental to the security of the information. In this paper, we propose a novel node decomposition mechanism, which can prevent the state information from being revealed during the information exchange for multi-agent systems with antagonistic interactions. For each node, one of the two subnodes takes over the role of the primitive node with cooperative neighbors, and the other one is involved in antagonistic interactions. Under this method, the connectivity and structurally balanced of the system are not changed, so it can still achieve bipartite consensus. Besides, although the initial values of the two subnodes are chosen randomly, the average of these subnodes corresponds to the original state value, ensuring precise bipartite consensus. Moreover, we also prove that the privacy of a node can be guaranteed if and only if it has a neighbor in the same group. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by a numerical example.

This paper explores the asymptotic synchronization of drive-response Markovian jump Boolean networks (MJBNs) using an algebraic state space representation. For two switching signals, an augmented variable is introduced, recasting the synchronization problem into an asymptotic set stability challenge. Initially, a criterion is developed to identify all nonnegative solutions of a related equation via stochastic processes. Then, an alternative criterion based on invariant subsets and the largest singular value is proposed, where the equivalence of the proposed two criteria is demonstrated. Contrasting with deterministic BNs, where synchronization methods depend on finite power of state transition matrices, the criteria for MJBNs involve a more intricate approach. Numerical examples are included to validate the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical concepts.

In this article, set stabilization in switched Boolean networks is investigated through link augmentations. Link augmentation is introduced as a selective process for adding specific edges between nodes in the wiring digraph of the network. For the implementation of link augmentation, various variables are integrated into the dynamics governing networks, utilizing basic logical operators. A key aspect of this article is the incorporation of additional functions introduced by the link augmentations into the original dynamics of the system using constrained logical operators. Further, several criteria for set stabilization are formulated, and the link augmentation control strategy is innovatively designed, utilizing theQ-learning Algorithm. Finally, a biological example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

This technical paper utilizes the Lyapunov theory to characterize the event-triggered set stabilizability of Markovian jump logical control networks (MJLCNs). Whereas the existing result for checking the set stabilizability of MJLCNs is only sufficient, this technical paper further establishes its necessary and sufficient condition. First, the Lyapunov function is established to describe the set stabilizability of MJLCNs necessarily and sufficiently by combining recurrent switching modes and desired state set. Then, the triggering condition and the input updating mechanism are designed regarding the value change of the Lyapunov function. Finally, the effectiveness of theoretical results is demonstrated by a biological example concerning the lac operon in Escherichia coli.

Stability maintenance in systems refers to the capacity to preserve inherent stability characteristics. In this article, stability maintenance of large boolean networks (BNs) subjected to perturbations is investigated using a distributed pinning control (PC) strategy. The concept of edge removal as a form of perturbation is introduced, and several criteria for achieving global stability are established. Two forms of distributed PCs, one implemented before perturbation occurs and the other after, are introduced. It is noteworthy that the designs of the controllers are solely dependent on the system’s in-neighbors. The proposed method significantly decreases the computational complexity, reducing it from$O(2^{2|\texttt {V}|})$to$O(|\texttt {V}|+ |\texttt {E}| + \kappa \cdot 2^{K})$, where$|\texttt {V}|, |\texttt {E}|$denotes the cardinality of vertices and arcs of the adjacent graph of BN,$\kappa $is the number of the pinning nodes, and K represents the maximum in-degree of the network. In the worst-case scenario, the computational complexity is bounded by$O(|\texttt {V}|+ |\texttt {E}| + \kappa \cdot 2^{|\texttt {V}|})$. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, results from multiple gene networks are presented, including a model representing the human rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblast, among which only 12 of the 359 nodes are deemed essential.

This brief devotes to investigating the long-run behavior estimation of temporal Boolean networks (TBNs) with multiple data losses, especially the asymptotical stability. The information transmission is modeled by Bernoulli variables, based on which an augmented system is constructed to facilitate the analysis. A theorem guarantees that the asymptotical stability of the original system can be converted to that of the augmented system. Subsequently, one necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for asymptotical stability. Furthermore, an auxiliary system is derived to study the synchronization issue of the ideal TBNs with normal data transmission and TBNs with multiple data losses, as well as an effective criterion for verifying synchronization. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the validity of the theoretical results.

In this brief, stabilization of Boolean networks (BNs) by flipping a subset of nodes is considered, here we call such action state-flipped control. The state-flipped control implies that the logical variables of certain nodes are flipped from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1 as time flows. Under state-flipped control on certain nodes, a state-flipped-transition matrix is defined to describe the impact on the state transition space. Weak stabilization is first defined and then some criteria are presented to judge the same. An algorithm is proposed to find a stabilizing kernel such that BNs can achieve weak stabilization to the desired state with in-degree more than 0. By defining a reachable set, another approach is proposed to verify weak stabilization, and an algorithm is given to obtain a flip sequence steering an initial state to a given target state. Subsequently, the issue of finding flip sequences to steer BNs from weak stabilization to global stabilization is addressed. In addition, a model-free reinforcement algorithm, namely the Q -learning ( [Formula: see text]) algorithm, is developed to find flip sequences to achieve global stabilization. Finally, several numerical examples are given to illustrate the obtained theoretical results.

In this article, minimal pinning control for oscillatority (i.e., instability) of Boolean networks (BNs) under algebraic state space representations method is studied. First, two criteria for oscillatority of BNs are obtained from the aspects of state transition matrix (STM) and network structure (NS) of BNs, respectively. A distributed pinning control (DPC) from these two aspects is proposed: one is called STM-based DPC and the other one is called NS-based DPC, both of which are only dependent on local in-neighbors. As for STM-based DPC, one arbitrary node can be chosen to be controlled, based on certain solvability of several equations, meanwhile a hybrid pinning control (HPC) combining DPC and conventional pinning control (CPC) is also proposed. In addition, as for NS-based DPC, pinning control nodes (PCNs) can be found using the information of NS, which efficiently reduces the high computational complexity. The proposed STM-based DPC and NS-based DPC in this article are shown to be simple and concise, which provide a new direction to dramatically reduce control costs and computational complexity. Finally, gene networks are simulated to discuss the effectiveness of theoretical results.

This article aims to stabilize probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs) via a novel pinning control strategy. In a PBN, the state evolution of each gene switches among a collection of candidate Boolean functions with preassigned probability distributions, which govern the activation frequency of each Boolean function. Due to the existence of stochasticity, the mode-independent pinning controller might be disabled. Thus, both mode-independent and mode-dependent pinning controller are required here. Moreover, a criterion is derived to determine whether mode-independent controllers are applicable while the pinned nodes are given. It is worth pointing out that this pinning control is based on the$n\times n$network structure rather than$2^{n} \times 2^{n}$state transition matrix. Therefore, compared with the existing results, this pinning control strategy is more practicable and has the ability to handle large-scale networks, especially sparsely connected networks. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed control scheme, a PBN that describes the mammalian cell-cycle encountering a mutated phenotype is discussed as a simulation.

This article studies the state estimation for probabilistic Boolean networks via observing output sequences. Detectability describes the ability of an observer to uniquely estimate system states. By defining the probability of an observed output sequence, a new concept called detectability measure is proposed. The detectability measure is defined as the limit of the sum of probabilities of all detectable output sequences when the length of output sequences goes to infinity, and it can be regarded as a quantitative assessment of state estimation. A stochastic state estimator is designed by defining a corresponding nondeterministic stochastic finite automaton, which combines the information of state estimation and probability of output sequences. The proposed concept of detectability measure further performs the quantitative analysis on detectability. Furthermore, by defining a Markov chain, the calculation of detectability measure is converted to the calculation of the sum of probabilities of certain specific states in Markov chain. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the obtained theoretical results.

Analysis and design of steady states representing cell types, such as cell death or unregulated growth, are of significant interest in modeling genetic regulatory networks. In this article, the steady-state design of large-dimensional Boolean networks (BNs) is studied via model reduction and pinning control. Compared with existing literature, the pinning control design in this article is based on the original node's connection, but not on the state-transition matrix of BNs. Hence, the computational complexity is dramatically reduced in this article from O(2n× 2n) to O(2 × 2'), where n is the number of nodes in the large-dimensional BN and r <; n is the largest number of in-neighbors of the reduced BN. Finally, the proposed method is well demonstrated by a T-LGL survival signaling network with 18 nodes and a model of survival signaling in large granular lymphocyte leukemia with 29 nodes. Just as shown in the simulations, the model reduction method reduces 99.98% redundant states for the network with 18 nodes, and 99.99% redundant states for the network with 29 nodes.

In genetic regulatory networks, a stable configuration can represent the evolutionary behavior of cell death or unregulated growth in genes. We present analytical investigations on output feedback stabilizer design of Boolean networks (BNs) to achieve global stabilization via the semi-tensor product method. Based on network structure information describing coupling connections among nodes, an output feedback stabilizer is designed to achieve global stabilization. Compared with the traditional pinning control design, the output feedback stabilizer design is not based on the state transition matrix of BNs, which can efficiently determine pinning control nodes and reduce computational complexity. Our proposed method is efficient in that the calculation of the state transition matrix with dimension 2 n × 2 n is avoided; here n is the number of nodes in a BN. Finally, a signal transduction network and a D. melanogaster segmentation polarity gene network are presented to show the efficiency of the proposed method. Results are shown to be simple and concise, compared with traditional pinning control for BNs.

This article investigates the set stabilization of probabilistic Boolean control networks (PBCNs) under sampled-data (SD) state-feedback control within finite and infinite time, respectively. First, the algorithms are, respectively, proposed to find the sampled point set and the largest sampled point control invariant set (SPCIS) of PBCNs by SD state-feedback control. Based on this, a necessary and sufficient criterion is proposed for the global set stabilization of PBCNs by SD state-feedback control within finite time. Moreover, the time-optimal SD state-feedback controller is designed. It is interesting that if the sampled period (SP) is changed, the time of global set stabilization of PBCNs may also change or even the PBCNs cannot achieve set stabilization. Second, a criterion for the global set stabilization of PBCNs by SD state-feedback control within infinite time is obtained. Furthermore, all possible SD state-feedback controllers are obtained by using all the complete families of reachable sets. Finally, three examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained results.

This paper studies pinning controllers for activation output tracking (AOT) of Boolean network under one-bit perturbation, based on the semitensor product of matrices. First, the definition of AOT with respect to an activation number is presented, where the activation number means the number of active outputs whose logical variables are 1 s. Then, several criteria are established for AOT issue. Further, the impact of one-bit perturbation on AOT is studied, where one-bit perturbation means that only one logical function has one-bit change of its truth table by flipping the value from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1. In addition, if a one-bit perturbation is a valid perturbation on AOT, an output feedback pinning control is designed to recover AOT. The obtained results are effectively illustrated by a D. melanogaster segmentation polarity gene network and a reduced signal transduction network.

In real systems, most of the biological functionalities come from the fact that the connections are not active all the time. Based on the fact, temporal Boolean networks (TBNs) are proposed in this paper, and the fast-time stability is analyzed via semi-tensor product (STP) of matrices and incidence matrices. First, the algebraic form of a TBN is obtained based on the STP method, and one necessary and sufficient condition for global fast-time stability is presented. Moreover, incidence matrices are used to obtain several sufficient conditions, which reduce the computational complexity from O(n2n) (exponential type) to O(n4) (polynomial type) compared with the STP method. In addition, the global fast-time stabilization of TBNs is considered, and pinning controllers are designed based on the neighbors of controlled nodes rather than all the nodes. Finally, the local fast-time stability of TBNs is considered based on the incidence matrices as well. Several examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained results.

This paper investigates the leader-following consensus issue with event/self-triggered schemes under an unreliable network environment. First, we characterize network communication and control protocol update in the presence of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. In this situation, an event-triggered communication scheme is first proposed to effectively schedule information transmission over the network possibly subject to malicious attacks. In this communication framework, synchronous and asynchronous updated strategies of control protocols are constructed to achieve leader-following consensus in the presence of DoS attacks. Moreover, to further reduce the cost induced by event detection, a self-triggered communication scheme is proposed in which the next triggering instant can be determined by computing with the most updated information. Finally, a numerical example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed communication schemes and updated strategies in the unreliable network environment.

This paper investigates the controllability and synchronization problems for identical-hierarchy mixed-valued logical control networks. The logical network considered is hierarchical, and Boolean network is a special case of logical network. Here, identical-hierarchy means that there are identical number of nodes in each layer of logical network and corresponding nodes have the same dimension for any two layers of logical networks. Meanwhile, in each layer of logical networks, the dimensions of nodes are distinct, and it is called a mixed-valued logical network. First, the controllability problem is investigated and two notions of controllability are presented, i.e., group-controllability and simultaneously-controllability. By resorting to Perron-Frobenius theorem, some necessary and sufficient criteria are obtained to guarantee group-controllability and simultaneously-controllability, respectively. Second, based on the algebraic representation of the studied model, synchronization problems are analytically discussed for two types of controls, i.e., free control sequences and state-output feedback control. Finally, two numerical examples are presented to show the validness of our main results.

This paper proposes a new event-triggered scheme, in which each agent has various mechanisms to respectively determine when to exchange information with each of its different neighbors. This kind of event-triggered mechanism avoids two constraints in previous mechanisms: (1) simultaneous event detection; (2) synchronous information transmission to all of neighbors. Thus our proposed scheme can be applied into more general situations. In addition, our scheme is able to guarantee the asymptotic consensus and exclude the Zeno behavior. Furthermore, an alternative self-triggered algorithm is presented to thoroughly exclude continuous event detection. Finally, a numerical example is provided to verify the theoretical analysis.

This brief presents an analytical study of synchronization in an array of coupled deterministic Boolean networks (BNs) with time delay. Two kinds of models are considered. In one model, the outputs contain time delay, while in another one, the outputs do not. One restriction in this brief is that the state delay and output delay are restricted to be equal. By referring to the algebraic representations of logical dynamics and using the techniques of semitensor product of matrices, some necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the synchronization of delay-coupled BNs. Examples including a practical epigenetic example are given for illustration.