Special Session 14

Control, Stability and Delay Effects in Real-Life Mathematical Models

Organizers: Genni Fragnelli (University of Siena, Italy), Elisa Continelli (University of Padua, Italy), Juan Bautista Limaco Ferrel (Fluminense Federal University, Brazil)

MSC codes: 93B05, 93C43, 35B35, 35K10, 35L10, 35Q92

Description: This special session is devoted to the analysis of stability and controllability of dynamical systems inspired by real-world applications, with a particular focus on the influence of time delays. Stability and control are fundamental pillars in modern modeling, shaping robustness, performance, and predictability in physical, biological, and engineering systems. Time delays— arising from memory effects, transport processes, sensing, or actuation—are often inherent to such systems and can dramatically transform their behavior, leading to instabilities, oscillations, and rich nonlinear dynamics. This session brings together researchers studying stability and controllability properties of systems governed by ordinary, partial, and functional differential equations, including both discrete and distributed delay models. Topics of interest encompass spectral techniques, asymptotic and exponential stability, and the role of delays in shaping system dynamics and control performance. A particular attention will be also paid to the stability properties of interacting particle systems, where time delays unavoidably appear as times needed to receive some information or reaction times. By unifying different perspectives, this special session seeks to stimulate dialogue between researchers developing theoretical foundations in control and stability and those driven by practical challenges, with the goal of identifying emerging problems and outlining promising directions for future research.