TY - JOUR A1 - Riedl, Maik A1 - van Leeuwen, Peter Jan A1 - Suhrbier, Alexander A1 - Malberg, Hagen A1 - Groenemeyer, Dietrich A1 - Kurths, Jürgen A1 - Wessel, Niels T1 - Testing foetal-maternal heart rate synchronization via model-based analyses N2 - The investigation of foetal reaction to internal and external conditions and stimuli is an important tool in the characterization of the developing neural integration of the foetus. An interesting example of this is the study of the interrelationship between the foetal and the maternal heart rate. Recent studies have shown a certain likelihood of occasional heart rate synchronization between mother and foetus. In the case of respiratory-induced heart rate changes, the comparison with maternal surrogates suggests that the evidence for detected synchronization is largely statistical and does not result from physiological interaction. Rather, they simply reflect a stochastic, temporary stability of two independent oscillators with time-variant frequencies. We reanalysed three datasets from that study for a more local consideration. Epochs of assumed synchronization associated with short-term regulation of the foetal heart rate were selected and compared with synchronization resulting from white noise instead of the foetal signal. Using data-driven modelling analysis, it was possible to identify the consistent influence of the heartbeat duration of maternal beats preceding the foetal beats during epochs of synchronization. These maternal beats occurred approximately one maternal respiratory cycle prior to the affected foetal beat. A similar effect could not be found in the epochs without synchronization. Simulations based on the fitted models led to a higher likelihood of synchronization in the data segments with assumed foetal-maternal interaction than in the segment without such assumed interaction. We conclude that the data-driven model-based analysis can be a useful tool for the identification of synchronization. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2008.0277 SN - 1364-503X ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zolotova, Nadezhda V. A1 - Ponyavin, Dmitri I. A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Long-term asymmetry in the wings of the butterfly diagram N2 - Aims. Sunspot distribution in the northern and southern solar hemispheres exibit striking synchronous behaviour on the scale of a Schwabe cycle. However, sometimes the bilateral symmetry of the Butterfly diagram relative to the solar equatorial plane breaks down. The investigation of this phenomenon is important to explaining the almost-periodic behaviour of solar cycles. Methods. We use cross-recurrence plots for the study of the time-varying phase asymmetry of the northern and southern hemisphere and compare our results with the latitudinal distribution of the sunspots. Results. We observe a long-term persistence of phase leading in one of the hemispheres, which lasts almost 4 solar cycles and probably corresponds to the Gleissberg cycle. Long-term variations in the hemispheric-leading do not demonstrate clear periodicity but are strongly anti-correlated with the long-term variations in the magnetic equator. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.aanda.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200811430 SN - 0004-6361 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Comment on "Stochastic analysis of recurrence plots with applications to the detection of deterministic signals" by Rohde et al. : [Physica D 237 (2008) 619-629] N2 - In the recent article "Stochastic analysis of recurrence plots with applications to the detection of deterministic signals" (Physica D 237 (2008) 619-629), Rohde et al. stated that the performance of RQA in order to detect deterministic signals would be below traditional and well-known detectors. However, we have concerns about such a general statement. Based on our own studies we cannot confirm their conclusions. Our findings suggest that the measures of complexity provided by RQA are useful detectors outperforming well-known traditional detectors, in particular for the detection of signals of complex systems, with phase differences or signals modified due to the measurement process. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672789 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2009.04.018 SN - 0167-2789 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schinkel, Stefan A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Dimigen, Olaf A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Confidence bounds of recurrence-based complexity measures N2 - In the recent past, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) has gained an increasing interest in various research areas. The complexity measures the RQA provides have been useful in describing and analysing a broad range of data. It is known to be rather robust to noise and nonstationarities. Yet, one key question in empirical research concerns the confidence bounds of measured data. In the present Letter we suggest a method for estimating the confidence bounds of recurrence-based complexity measures. We study the applicability of the suggested method with model and real- life data. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03759601 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.04.045 SN - 0375-9601 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schinkel, Stefan A1 - Marwan, Norbert A1 - Kurths, Jürgen T1 - Brain signal analysis based on recurrences N2 - The EEG is one of the most commonly used tools in brain research. Though of high relevance in research, the data obtained is very noisy and nonstationary. In the present article we investigate the applicability of a nonlinear data analysis method, the recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), to Such data. The method solely rests on the natural property of recurrence which is a phenomenon inherent to complex systems, such as the brain. We show that this method is indeed suitable for the analysis of EEG data and that it might improve contemporary EEG analysis. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09284257 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2009.05.007 SN - 0928-4257 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Braun, Holger A1 - Ditlevsen, Peter D. A1 - Kurths, Jürgen A1 - Mudelsee, Manfred T1 - Limitations of red noise in analysing Dansgaard-Oeschger events N2 - During the last glacial period, climate records from the North Atlantic region exhibit a pronounced spectral component corresponding to a period of about 1470 years, which has attracted much attention. This spectral peak is closely related to the recurrence pattern of Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events. In previous studies a red noise random process, more precisely a first-order autoregressive (AR1) process, was used to evaluate the statistical significance of this peak, with a reported significance of more than 99%. Here we use a simple mechanistic two-state model of DO events, which itself was derived from a much more sophisticated ocean-atmosphere model of intermediate complexity, to numerically evaluate the spectral properties of random (i.e., solely noise-driven) events. This way we find that the power spectral density of random DO events differs fundamentally from a simple red noise random process. These results question the applicability of linear spectral analysis for estimating the statistical significance of highly non-linear processes such as DO events. More precisely, to enhance our scientific understanding about the trigger of DO events, we must not consider simple "straw men" as, for example, the AR1 random process, but rather test against realistic alternative descriptions. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www.clim-past.net/volumes_and_issues.html U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-6-85-2010 SN - 1814-9324 ER -