Although, bifurcation theory of equations with autonomous and periodic time dependence is a major object of research in the study of dynamical systems since decades, the notion of a nonautonomous bifurcation is not yet established. In this book, two different approaches are developed which are based on special definitions of local attractivity and repulsivity. It is shown that these notions lead to nonautonomous Morse decompositions.

The theory of nonautonomous dynamical systems in both of its formulations as processes and skew product flows is developed systematically in this book. The focus is on dissipative systems and nonautonomous attractors, in particular the recently introduced concept of pullback attractors. Linearization theory, invariant manifolds, Lyapunov functions, Morse decompositions and bifurcations for nonautonomous systems and set-valued generalizations are also considered as well as applications to numerical approximations, switching systems and synchronization. Parallels with corresponding theories of control and random dynamical systems are briefly sketched. With its clear and systematic exposition, many examples and exercises, as well as its interesting applications, this book can serve as a text at the beginning graduate level. It is also useful for those who wish to begin their own independent research in this rapidly developing area.

The goal of this book is to provide an approach to the corresponding geometric theory of nonautonomous discrete dynamical systems in infinite-dimensional spaces by virtue of 2-parameter semigroups (processes).

This thesis presents a new method for following evolving interactions between coupled oscillatory systems of the kind that abound in nature. Examples range from the subcellular level, to ecosystems, through climate dynamics, to the movements of planets and stars. Such systems mutually interact, adjusting their internal clocks, and may correspondingly move between synchronized and non-synchronized states. The thesis describes a way of using Bayesian inference to exploit the presence of random fluctuations, thus analyzing these processes in unprecedented detail. It first develops the basic theory of interacting oscillators whose frequencies are non-constant, and then applies it to the human heart and lungs as an example. Their coupling function can be used to follow with great precision the transitions into and out of synchronization. The method described has the potential to illuminate the ageing process as well as to improve diagnostics in cardiology, anesthesiology and neuroscience, and yields insights into a wide diversity of natural processes.

Nonautonomous dynamics describes the qualitative behavior of evolutionary differential and difference equations, whose right-hand side is explicitly time dependent. Over recent years, the theory of such systems has developed into a highly active field related to, yet recognizably distinct from that of classical autonomous dynamical systems. This development was motivated by problems of applied mathematics, in particular in the life sciences where genuinely nonautonomous systems abound. The purpose of this monograph is to indicate through selected, representative examples how often nonautonomous systems occur in the life sciences and to outline the new concepts and tools from the theory of nonautonomous dynamical systems that are now available for their investigation.

The Boolean functions may be iterated either asynchronously, when their coordinates are computed independently of each other, or synchronously, when their coordinates are computed at the same time. In Boolean Systems: Topics in Asynchronicity, a book addressed to mathematicians and computer scientists interested in Boolean systems and their use in modelling, author Serban E. Vlad presents a consistent and original mathematical theory of the discrete-time Boolean asynchronous systems. The purpose of the book is to set forth the concepts of such a theory, resulting from the synchronous Boolean system theory and mostly from the synchronous real system theory, by analogy, and to indicate the way in which known synchronous deterministic concepts generate new asynchronous nondeterministic concepts. The reader will be introduced to the dependence on the initial conditions, periodicity, path-connectedness, topological transitivity, and chaos. A property of major importance is invariance, which is present in five versions. In relation to it, the reader will study the maximal invariant subsets, the minimal invariant supersets, the minimal invariant subsets, connectedness, separation, the basins of attraction, and attractors. The stability of the systems and their time-reversal symmetry end the topics that refer to the systems without input. The rest of the book is concerned with input systems. The most consistent chapters of this part of the book refer to the fundamental operating mode and to the combinational systems (systems without feedback). The chapter Wires, Gates, and Flip-Flops presents a variety of applications. The first appendix addresses the issue of continuous time, and the second one sketches the important theory of Daizhan Cheng, which is put in relation to asynchronicity. The third appendix is a bridge between asynchronicity and the symbolic dynamics of Douglas Lind and Brian Marcus. - Presents a consistent and original theory of the discrete-time Boolean asynchronous systems, which are useful for mathematicians and computer scientists interested in Boolean Networks, dynamical systems, and modeling. - Studies the flows and equations of evolution, nullclines, dependence on initial conditions, periodicity, path-connectedness, topological transitivity, chaos, nonwandering points, invariance, connectedness, and separation, as well as the basins of attraction, attractors, stability, and time-reversal symmetry. - Explains the fundamental operating mode of the input systems and the combinational systems (systems without feedback). - Includes a chapter of applications of the Boolean systems and their modeling techniques. - Makes use of the unbounded delay model of computation of the Boolean functions.

This book provides an introduction to the interplay between linear algebra and dynamical systems in continuous time and in discrete time. It first reviews the autonomous case for one matrix A via induced dynamical systems in ℝd and on Grassmannian manifolds. Then the main nonautonomous approaches are presented for which the time dependency of A(t) is given via skew-product flows using periodicity, or topological (chain recurrence) or ergodic properties (invariant measures). The authors develop generalizations of (real parts of) eigenvalues and eigenspaces as a starting point for a linear algebra for classes of time-varying linear systems, namely periodic, random, and perturbed (or controlled) systems. The book presents for the first time in one volume a unified approach via Lyapunov exponents to detailed proofs of Floquet theory, of the properties of the Morse spectrum, and of the multiplicative ergodic theorem for products of random matrices. The main tools, chain recurrence and Morse decompositions, as well as classical ergodic theory are introduced in a way that makes the entire material accessible for beginning graduate students.

The book treats the theory of attractors for non-autonomous dynamical systems. The aim of the book is to give a coherent account of the current state of the theory, using the framework of processes to impose the minimum of restrictions on the nature of the non-autonomous dependence. The book is intended as an up-to-date summary of the field, but much of it will be accessible to beginning graduate students. Clear indications will be given as to which material is fundamental and which is more advanced, so that those new to the area can quickly obtain an overview, while those already involved can pursue the topics we cover more deeply.

This volume mainly deals with the dynamics of finitely valued sequences, and more specifically, of sequences generated by substitutions and automata. Those sequences demonstrate fairly simple combinatorical and arithmetical properties and naturally appear in various domains. As the title suggests, the aim of the initial version of this book was the spectral study of the associated dynamical systems: the first chapters consisted in a detailed introduction to the mathematical notions involved, and the description of the spectral invariants followed in the closing chapters. This approach, combined with new material added to the new edition, results in a nearly self-contained book on the subject. New tools - which have also proven helpful in other contexts - had to be developed for this study. Moreover, its findings can be concretely applied, the method providing an algorithm to exhibit the spectral measures and the spectral multiplicity, as is demonstrated in several examples. Beyond this advanced analysis, many readers will benefit from the introductory chapters on the spectral theory of dynamical systems; others will find complements on the spectral study of bounded sequences; finally, a very basic presentation of substitutions, together with some recent findings and questions, rounds out the book.

This volume contains the notes from five lecture courses devoted to nonautonomous differential systems, in which appropriate topological and dynamical techniques were described and applied to a variety of problems. The courses took place during the C.I.M.E. Session "Stability and Bifurcation Problems for Non-Autonomous Differential Equations," held in Cetraro, Italy, June 19-25 2011. Anna Capietto and Jean Mawhin lectured on nonlinear boundary value problems; they applied the Maslov index and degree-theoretic methods in this context. Rafael Ortega discussed the theory of twist maps with nonperiodic phase and presented applications. Peter Kloeden and Sylvia Novo showed how dynamical methods can be used to study the stability/bifurcation properties of bounded solutions and of attracting sets for nonautonomous differential and functional-differential equations. The volume will be of interest to all researchers working in these and related fields.