BACKGROUND Bistability is a fundamental property in engineered and natural systems, conferring the ability to switch and retain states. Synthetic bistable switches in prokaryotes have mainly utilized transcriptional components in their construction. Using both transcriptional and enzymatic components, creating a hybrid system, allows for wider bistable parameter ranges in a circuit. RESULTS I...

Two methods of realizing aperiodic stochastic resonance (ASR) by adding noise and tuning system parameters in a bistable system, after a scale transformation, can be compared in a real parameter space. In this space, the resonance point of ASR via adding noise denotes the extremum of a line segment, whereas the method of tuning system parameters presents the extrema of a parameter plane. We dem...

Bistable dynamical switches are frequently encountered in mathematical modeling of biological systems because binary decisions are at the core of many cellular processes. Bistable switches present two stable steady-states, each of them corresponding to a distinct decision. In response to a transient signal, the system can flip back and forth between these two stable steady-states, switching bet...

In a phage λ genetic switch model, bistable dynamical behavior can be destroyed due to the bifurcation caused by inappropriately chosen model parameters. Since the values of many parameters with biological significance often cannot be accurately acquired, it is thus of fundamental importance to analyze how and to which extent the system dynamics is influenced by model parameters, especially tho...

Many studies have used static and non-biologically related stimuli to investigate bistable perception and found that the percept is usually dominated by their intrinsic nature with some influence of voluntary control from the viewer. Here we used a dynamic stimulus of a rotating human body, the silhouette spinner illusion, to investigate how the viewers' intentions may affect their percepts. In...

The concept of binary robotic systems, in which continuous adaptive behaviour is approximated by the motion of a large number of discrete bistable elements, has created the need for fully-actuated structural bistable elements to be designed and manufactured. This paper discusses potential actuator technologies that could be suitable for such a design, and covers in detail the development, analy...

In the presence of the monoamines serotonin and norepinephrine, spinal motoneurons can exhibit bistable behavior, in which a brief period of excitatory input evokes prolonged self-sustained firing. A brief inhibitory input returns the cell to the quiescent state. To determine whether motoneurons differ in their capacity for bistable behavior, intracellular recordings were obtained in the decere...

We prepared nanocomposites of a nematic liquid crystal and nanofibers of a conducting polymer (polyaniline). All the nanocomposites exhibit a discontinuous surface anchoring transition from planar to homeotropic in the nematic phase on a perfluoropolymer coated surface with a thermal hysteresis (≈ 5.3 °C). We observe a relatively large bistable conductivity and demonstrate a light driven switch...

In this paper, we study the diffusive coupling of a network identical bistable switch piecewise-affine systems. We propose control strategy which synchronizes every sub-system towards same steady state.