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Due to the intrinsic uncertainty and variability affecting biochemical reaction networks, it is fundamental to assess their structural stability, i.e., to establish if all the networks having a given structure are stable independent of specific parameter values. For basic motifs in biochemical networks, we show that stability cannot be structurally proved by quadratic Lyapunov functions. However,
We propose a negative feedback architecture that regulates activity of artificial genes, or "genelets", to meet their output downstream demand, achieving robustness with respect to uncertain open-loop output production rates. In particular, we consider the case where the outputs of two genelets interact to form a single assembled product. We show with analysis and experiments that negative autoreg
Molecular systems are uncertain: The variability of reaction parameters and the presence of unknown interactions can weaken the predictive capacity of solid mathematical models. However, strong conclusions on the admissible dynamic behaviors of a model can often be achieved without detailed knowledge of its specific parameters. In systems with a sign-definite Jacobian, for instance, cycle-based cr
We consider a traffic control problem defined on a network graph, whose nodes represent buffers and whose arcs represent flow channels. We consider network models with a peculiar aspect: each element of the flow arriving at each node must be redirected towards a precise other node of the network, hence each buffer is naturally split in several queues, characterized according to statistics about th
We consider the problem of assessing structural stability of biochemical reaction networks with monotone reaction rates, namely of establishing if all the networks with a certain structure are stable regardless of specific parameter values. We investigate stability by absorbing the network equations in a linear differential inclusion and seeking for a polyhedral Lyapunov function proper to the con
This paper focuses on the regulation of RNA production for in vitro synthetic gene networks. We consider the problem of matching the production rate of several RNA species concurrently transcribed to form RNA complexes. We design regulatory feedback loops based on two schemes: negative auto-regulation (which can minimize the potentially harmful amount of molecules not used to form products) and cr
In this paper we consider a set of dynamically decoupled systems interconnected by control agents. We can visualize this architecture as a graph where subsystems are associated to nodes and control agents are associated to arcs. The interconnection between subsystems is determined by their input matrix. The decisions of each control agent can directly affect only the nodes connected by the corresp
This paper addresses set invariance properties for linear time-delay systems. More precisely, the first goal of the article is to review known necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the existence of invariant sets with respect to dynamical systems described by linear discrete time-delay difference equations (dDDEs). Secondly, we address the construction of invariant sets in the original state
Closed-loop positivity of feedback interconnections of positive monotone nonlinear systems is investigated. It is shown that an instantaneous gain condition on the open-loop systems which implies feedback well-posedness also guarantees feedback positivity. Furthermore, the notion of integral linear constraints (ILC) is utilised as a tool to characterise uncertainty in positive feedback systems. Ro
In this paper, we present two distributed algorithms to compute an equilibrium, that is optimal with respect to strictly convex and separable cost functions, for controlled traffic flow dynamics over networks under constant exogenous inflows. The dynamics is modeled in continuous time by the Cell Transmission Model and a non-FIFO Dynamic Network Loading Model, with traffic control. The two algorit
In operating systems, resource managers are developed according to simplicity, low overhead, low memory footprint, extensibility and efficiency. Thread schedulers are designed and developed following these implementation-related guidelines. The performance of the implementation is then tested over a set of benchmarks. However, the ability to provide real-time guarantees of these policies is rarely
Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is a syndrome of respiratory distress triggered by blood transfusions and is the leading cause of transfusion-related mortality. TRALI has primarily been attributed to passive infusion of HLA and/or human neutrophil antigen antibodies present in transfused blood products, and predisposing factors such as inflammation are known to be important for TRALI
Harmonic periods have wide applicability in industrial real-time systems. Rate monotonic (RM) is able to schedule task sets with harmonic periods up to 100% utilization. Also, if there is no release jitter and execution time variation, RM and EDF generate the same schedule for each instance of a task. This property decreases the jitters which happen during sampling and actuation of the tasks, and
Collaboration involving student–industry activities entails a complex interaction between university, students, and industry. The university–student–industry triangle identified here is neither static nor balanced, and each of the three intertwined relationships displays distinguishing characteristics. Each has its own structure; the activity phases of the relationships are not synchronous, and ea
Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) is a radio frequency (RF) technique that can be used to detect the presence of quadrupolar nuclei, such as the 14N nucleus prevalent in many explosives and narcotics. The technique has been hampered by low signal-to-noise ratios and is further aggravated by the presence of RF interference (RFI). To ensure accurate detection, proposed detectors should exploit the
Several tests of human conscious knee proprioception have been described, but there is no consensus or reference standard established. Difficulties remain in the separation of information originating from muscles, tendons, and joints, and the tests cannot discriminate between loss of afferent signals or altered activity in the remaining receptors. There is convincing evidence from several descript
