Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences

The aim of the study is to evaluate the complexity matching between the HRVs of the group of Healers and the Healee during the various stages of the meditation protocol by employing a novel mathematical approach based on the H-rank algorithm. The complexity matching of heart rate variability is assessed before and during a heart-focused meditation in a close non-contact healing exercise. The experiment was conducted on a group of individuals (eight Healers and one Healee) throughout the various phases of the protocol over a ~75-minute period...

It is a commonplace perception that speed of time subjectively experienced by humans significantly differs from chronological (objective) time and shows a great deal of variability. An often cited example is the phenomenon of the time acceleration with age - subjectively, the time passes faster as we get older. While the exact mechanisms behind it are not yet fully established, here we consider three 'soft' (conceptual) mathematical models that might be applicable to the speeding time phenomenon: two proportionality theories widely discussed in the past and the original model that takes into account the novelty of experience effect...

We have until now focused solely on the non-coding, more precisely the non-protein-coding (npc), part of DNA of man and dog in the search for hidden y-texts written by means of y-words - spelled by nucleotides A, C, G, and T and delimited by stop-codons. In this paper we use the same methods to analyse the whole human and canine genome, but we divide the genome into the genetic part, the naturally occurring sequence of exons, and the non-protein-coding genome according to definitions. By use of the y-text-finder we determine the number of zipf-qualified and a-qualified texts hidden in each of these parts...

Most scholarly discussions of novelty offer only partial or specified views of what it is or how it can be assessed particular to a discipline or are limited to individual studies. This article investigates novelty with the goal of offering a multi-systemic and generalizable definition and assessment process to be applicable across multiple disciplines. Novelty is proposed as a quality and state, which includes both a qualitative view that integrates subjective experience and a quantitative view that addresses nonlinear dynamical systems...

In the analysis of time series data, roughness is sometimes seen as a distinct feature of fractality. This paper seeks to distinguish it from other aspects of that construct (self-affinity and long-range memory processes) and it examines the reliability of the roughness measures currently available, i.e., Gneiting et al.'s (2010) fractal dimension and Marmelat et al.'s (2012) relative roughness. The response of these estimators is evaluated to simulations at varying levels of persistence, as specified by the Hurst exponent, and to the presence or absence of short-range ARMA processes...

Comparison of some experimental data and deterministic dynamical models of heartbeat show that it is essential to consider stochastic mathematical models. The Zeeman heartbeat model is one of the main heartbeat models whose stochastic dynamics is less studied. Especially, investigating bifurcations in stochastic dynamical models can be useful for identifying abnormal cardiac rhythms. This paper is concerned with two essential features of the two dimensional stochastic Zeeman heartbeat model i.e., stability and bifurcation...

This paper is a top-down analysis of the non-protein-coding, canine genome. We demonstrate by use of the y-text-finder method, that the non-protein-coding genome contains lots of hidden y-texts, both short and long, proving that the non-protein-coding genome is the opposite of junk. They are written by means of a y-language of about 28 million y-words separated by stop codons and spelled by nucleotide letters A, C, G, and T. We use the Canis Lupus Familiaris reference genome, Roslin Institute, 2020, from which we select the non-protein-coding part...

Artistic practice can be fueled by a sense of wonder connected with the natural world and all of its layers of color, pattern, texture and movements. As an autodidact I have pursued an understanding of the sciences in the time my life allows, listening to audible sources such as books and podcasts and watching film content. I'm also very comfortable in the outdoors hiking and camping my whole life and experiencing and observing nature is an integral piece of my artwork. Being neurodivergent in some undiagnosed way is my path, I search out what nurtures and excites my brain and I try to bring the beauty and experience to the canvas in acrylic paint...

Issues pertaining to the organization and efficiency of the labor market and to the dynamics of employment and unemployment have always been at the forefront of the concerns of economists. Typically, such issues are approached through the analysis of the conflicting interests of a representative worker and of a representative firm, each of which intending to maximize the corresponding intertemporal objective function. Much of the research undertaken on this subject neglects the fact that each person is unique and endowed with different personality traits that influence their educational attainment, their ability to access jobs, their productivity while employed, and also their willingness to support, through social welfare mechanisms, those who become unemployed...

How does novelty arise? While modern scholarly investigations show that new complex system paths arise due to dissipative structures post-bifurcation, few consider the subjectivity of the observer and fewer describe what can be deemed as truly novel in light of a causal chain of deterministic events. By investigating the 'problem of novelty' (i.e., how something can come from nothing) and adding a subjective appraisal process for a novelty threshold as per complex systems, this paper offers an alternative view of the birthplace of novelty...

The present study investigated whether fractal dynamics can be observed during single-leg standing on a slackline. We also examined whether the temporal structure differs with skill level. To address these questions, we compared single-leg standing performance between novices (N=5) and experts (N=5) in terms of fractal dynamics in both ankles (i.e., stance and swing legs), center of mass, and head acceleration time series using detrended fluctuation analysis. Participants were required to perform single-leg standing on a slackline...

Previous research identified the stability of wrist position as a performance indicator in a static basketball dribbling task performance under different experimental conditions since professionals displayed higher stability values than amateurs. We hypothesized that the trajectories of this cyclical task may be different between amateurs and professionals under downward peripheral vision occlusion and auditory occlusion. A modified version of the Procrustes analysis was used to quantify the dissimilarity between wrist trajectories along time...

Radically redefining art from static product to idea entwining object, observer and time, Marcel Duchamp essentially prefigured a dynamical systems view of creativity. That was the 1910's; Poincaré was a primary influence. Since then, complex systems theory has immeasurably deepened our understanding of transformative emergent process in all the arts. This paper focuses on the interactive art installation as an instantiated experience of complexity. Specifically it is proposed that viewers, referred to as Participant-Viewers, embody creativity through cognitive-emotional and often physical trajectories within an installation's high dimensional phase space: from perceptual/conceptual disorientation (entropy), to adaptive micro-stabilizations (bifurca-tions), to self-organization of novel understandings or perspectives (emergence)...

We consider the special case of the mathematical model of Keynes' business cycle with the spatial interaction. In this model we assume that macroeconomic factors affect a certain geographical region and economic indicators. The dependence occurs on the spatial (geographical) coordinates in addition to the dependence on the temporal evolution, even if the economic subject is externally homogeneous in space. Spatial interaction led us to analyze a system of two differential equations of the 'reaction-diffusion' type, which replaces a system of two ordinary differential equations...

College students face academic and emotional challenges within and outside of the classroom. There is not a unique way to deal with all of these challenges, however obtaining support from other individuals in their network can be an important factor in their success in dealing with these challenges. Exploratory social support network data from 38 undergraduate students were collected and analyzed to find common network structures and examine the relationship between these structures and student characteristics, GPA, perceived social support, and use of other help resources...

Approach-avoidance conflicts were one of the earliest applications of catastrophe theory. Empirical studies evaluating the cusp catastrophe model for approach-avoidance dynamics have only started to appear recently, however. The present study reviews the extant research and expands the concept to approach and avoidance coping styles. Research participants were 333 adults from the general population recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. They completed measures of psychological symptoms, quality of life (QOL), approach and avoidance coping styles, and COVID-related stress...

Prior studies have demonstrated that anxiety and depression explain the increase of adverse cardiovascular events an failure to modulate cardiac activity. This study of the nonlinear heart rate (HR) variability (HRV) behavior can provide additional information concerning the autonomic recovery of HR after exercise. The dynamics of these indices in exercise-mediated situations may reveal other ways to assess HRV recovery after physical effort. We studied nonlinear HRV recovery after submaximal exercise in subjects with higher Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) scores...

This article is about the discovery of thousands of narrative-like structures, like human corpus-texts, but written by y-words which are nucleotide strings delimited by stop codons in the non-coding part of the human genome. In a previous article these strings were shown to behave like human words. We use a text-finder to search for texts composed of the y-words, forming what we call y-narratives, and demonstrate that the non-coding human genome behaves like a multilayer structure due to the way the text-finder works...

The evidence regarding the relationship between school size and academic achievement is unequivocal as studies have provided support for both linear and nonlinear analytical means. Specifically, we hypothesized that the relationship between high school achievement as measured by the GPA and aptitude is best described by a cusp catastrophe model when simultaneously accounting for the contribution of school size. This hypothesis is based on the premise that as school size increases beyond a functionally optimal size, for a given level in the asymmetry variable (aptitude), high school students' achievement is expected to become discontinuous, erratic, and reach chaotic behavioral levels...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a scar on human society. Growing evidence demonstrates that relationships involving IPV and women's decisionmaking about violence represent complex phenomena, best studied as complex adaptive systems. Unfortunately, that complexity limits our ability to fully understand it. This paper presents findings from a series of agent-based models (ABMs) that were created from studies involving multiple time series of couples' daily reports of violence, perceptions and behaviors. To identify potential influencing variables, we modeled the impact that random stress and intentional behavior of the women could have on men's violence and stalking...