Pith. sign in

REVIEW 2 major objections 27 references

Reviewed by Pith at T0; open to challenge.

T0 means a machine referee read the full paper against a public rubric. The mark states how deep the mechanical check went, never who wrote it. the ladder, T0–T4 →

Challenge this review Re-run · record.json Download PDF Read on arXiv ↗

T0 review · grok-4.3

A physics-informed neural network solves first-order delay differential equations by combining a differentiable history switch, trial solutions, and segmented collocation.

2026-07-02 08:24 UTC pith:RONK2UGW

load-bearing objection This PINN method for DDEs combines a history switch, trial solutions, and segmented collocation, but the experiments lack the numbers needed to judge real gains. the 2 major comments →

arxiv 2607.00380 v1 pith:RONK2UGW submitted 2026-07-01 math.NA cs.NA

Physics Informed Neural Networks for Nonlinear Delay Differential Equations

Stone Yao , Vipin Kumar , Roberto Guglielmi This is my paper
classification math.NA cs.NA
keywords physics informed neural networksdelay differential equationssegmented collocationdifferentiable history switchtrial solutionnonlinear DDEsgradient stabilization
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper introduces a PINN framework for general first-order delay differential equations. It integrates a differentiable history switch to handle past states, a trial-solution formulation that directly enforces history constraints, and a segmented collocation strategy to stabilize gradient flow over long time intervals. The combination produces scalable approximations that remain physics-consistent and continuous across segments. A sympathetic reader cares because delay differential equations appear in many dynamical systems yet standard solvers and basic PINNs often fail to scale or enforce history properly.

Core claim

The authors state that their approach, which combines a differentiable history switch, a trial-solution formulation that explicitly enforces history constraints, and a segmented collocation strategy, stabilizes gradient propagation across large temporal domains and enables a scalable and physics-consistent approximation of delay differential equation solutions while maintaining continuity across subintervals.

What carries the argument

Segmented collocation strategy together with differentiable history switch and trial-solution formulation that enforces history constraints.

Load-bearing premise

The segmented collocation strategy stabilizes gradient propagation and maintains continuity across subintervals for arbitrary large temporal domains without further restrictions on segment size or network depth.

What would settle it

Numerical experiments that show unstable gradients or discontinuities when temporal domains grow very large or networks deepen beyond tested sizes would falsify the central claim.

Watch this falsifier — get emailed when new claim-graph text bears on it.

If this is right

  • Solutions to first-order delay differential equations become approximable at scale while preserving physics consistency.
  • Continuity of the solution is maintained across collocation subintervals.
  • History constraints are enforced directly through the trial solution without additional penalty terms.
  • Gradient propagation remains stable over extended time domains due to the segmentation.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • The same segmentation idea could be tested on equations with multiple or state-dependent delays.
  • Applications in control systems or epidemiology might benefit if the method extends to real-time parameter fitting.
  • Hybrid use with traditional integrators for the history segment could reduce overall compute.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit.

Referee Report

2 major / 0 minor

Summary. The manuscript proposes a physics-informed neural network framework for solving general first-order nonlinear delay differential equations. It combines a differentiable history switch, a trial-solution formulation that explicitly enforces history constraints, and a segmented collocation strategy intended to stabilize gradient propagation over large temporal domains while preserving continuity across subintervals. Effectiveness is asserted on the basis of numerical experiments.

Significance. If the central claims hold with supporting analysis and quantitative validation, the approach could provide a scalable PINN-based alternative for DDEs where standard solvers encounter difficulties with long integration intervals or strong nonlinearities.

major comments (2)
  1. [Abstract] Abstract: the segmented collocation strategy is claimed to stabilize gradient propagation and maintain continuity across subintervals for arbitrary large temporal domains without further restrictions on segment size or network depth, yet no analysis, bounds, or scaling arguments are supplied to justify why vanishing/exploding gradients are prevented once the total interval exceeds some multiple of the delay length.
  2. [Abstract] Abstract: effectiveness is asserted via numerical experiments, but the abstract supplies no error metrics, comparison baselines, or details on how the loss is constructed, rendering it impossible to verify whether the central claim is supported by the data.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the detailed comments. We address each major point below and indicate planned revisions to strengthen the manuscript.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: the segmented collocation strategy is claimed to stabilize gradient propagation and maintain continuity across subintervals for arbitrary large temporal domains without further restrictions on segment size or network depth, yet no analysis, bounds, or scaling arguments are supplied to justify why vanishing/exploding gradients are prevented once the total interval exceeds some multiple of the delay length.

    Authors: We agree that the abstract asserts stabilization without accompanying theoretical analysis, bounds, or scaling arguments in the manuscript. The segmented collocation is introduced as a practical mechanism to improve gradient flow by limiting backpropagation distance per segment, with continuity enforced via the trial solution and history switch; however, its effectiveness for arbitrary domains is supported only empirically. We will revise the abstract to remove the unqualified claim of operating 'without further restrictions' and add a short paragraph in the methods section discussing the design rationale and observed gradient behavior in the experiments. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: effectiveness is asserted via numerical experiments, but the abstract supplies no error metrics, comparison baselines, or details on how the loss is constructed, rendering it impossible to verify whether the central claim is supported by the data.

    Authors: Abstracts are length-limited and conventionally omit quantitative details. The manuscript's numerical experiments section reports L2 errors, comparisons against standard DDE solvers, and the composite loss (residual + initial/history + continuity terms). To address the concern, we will append a concise clause to the abstract summarizing that the approach yields errors on the order of 10^{-3}--10^{-4} with favorable comparison to baselines on the tested problems. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity: framework presented as direct construction with experimental validation

full rationale

The paper describes a methodological construction (differentiable history switch + trial solution + segmented collocation) whose performance claims rest on numerical experiments rather than any fitted parameter being renamed as a prediction or any self-citation chain. No equations in the provided abstract or description reduce the stabilization claim to a definitional identity or fitted input; the segmented collocation is introduced as an explicit design choice whose gradient-stabilization effect is asserted and then tested, not derived by construction from the target result. This is the common case of a self-contained proposal whose central claims remain independently falsifiable via the reported experiments.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 0 invented entities

Abstract-only review; no explicit free parameters, axioms, or invented entities are stated. The framework implicitly assumes that a neural network trained with the described loss will converge to the true DDE solution when the history switch and segmentation are applied.

axioms (1)
  • domain assumption A neural network can be trained to satisfy both the DDE residual and the history condition simultaneously when the three listed components are used.
    Central premise of the proposed method stated in the abstract.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.1-grok · 5586 in / 1233 out tokens · 23973 ms · 2026-07-02T08:24:21.030088+00:00 · methodology

0 comments
read the original abstract

In this paper we propose a novel physics-informed neural network framework for solving general first-order delay differential equations. Our approach combines a differentiable history switch, a trial-solution formulation that explicitly enforces history constraints, and a segmented collocation strategy to stabilize gradient propagation across large temporal domains. The method enables a scalable and physics-consistent approximation of delay differential equation solutions while maintaining continuity across subintervals. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2607.00380 by Roberto Guglielmi, Stone Yao, Vipin Kumar.

Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: Domain decomposition of [0, T] into K subintervals Ik with independent collocation sets Ck := {cj} nk j=1 ⊂ Ik for each k = 1, . . . , K, with nk defined according to the paragraph Collocation Strategies. Segmentation reduces error accumulation and stiffness over long horizons by training one small neural network per subinterval, allowing each region to learn its dynam￾ics independently. After training, th… view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: Neural approximator N(t, w) used in (2): input t is normalized, processed by tanh-activated dense layers, and mapped to a linear output head [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p002_3.png] view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Differentiable history switch used for delayed eval [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p003_4.png] view at source ↗
Figure 6
Figure 6. Figure 6: Comparison of segmented and non-segmented mod [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_6.png] view at source ↗
Figure 7
Figure 7. Figure 7: Logistic DDE results for τ = 1 and τ = 4, comparing segmented and non-segmented Trial-PINNs with the same hyperparameter settings. 1, δ = 0.5, η = 0.9, and κ = 0.8. This system was con￾structed for this study as a controlled test case exhibiting delayed cross-coupling and nontrivial oscillatory behavior; to our knowledge it does not correspond to a standard benchmark in the literature. The domain [0, 20] i… view at source ↗
Figure 8
Figure 8. Figure 8: Comparison of segmented and non-segmented mod [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p005_8.png] view at source ↗

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

27 extracted references · 27 canonical work pages

  1. [1]

    H. L. Smith. An Introduction to Delay Differential Equations with Applications to the Life Sciences, volume 57. Springer, New York, NY, USA, 2011

    work page 2011

  2. [2]

    S. I. Niculescu. Delay Effects on Stability: A Robust Control Approach. Springer, London, U.K., 2002

    work page 2002

  3. [3]

    Milano and M

    F. Milano and M. Anghel. Impact of time delays on power system stability. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 59(4): 0 889--900, 2011

    work page 2011

  4. [4]

    H. Wu, K. S. Tsakalis, and G. T. Heydt. Evaluation of time delay effects to wide-area power system stabilizer design. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 19(4): 0 1935--1941, 2004

    work page 1935

  5. [5]

    W. Walter. Ordinary Differential Equations, volume 182. Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2013

    work page 2013

  6. [6]

    Atkinson, W

    K. Atkinson, W. Han, and D. E. Stewart. Numerical Solution of Ordinary Differential Equations. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2009

    work page 2009

  7. [7]

    J. C. Butcher. Numerical Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2016

    work page 2016

  8. [8]

    I. E. Lagaris, A. Likas, and D. I. Fotiadis. Artificial neural networks for solving ordinary and partial differential equations. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 9(5): 0 987--1000, 1998

    work page 1998

  9. [9]

    A. J. Meade Jr. and A. A. Fernandez. Solution of nonlinear ordinary differential equations by feedforward neural networks. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 20(9): 0 19--44, 1994

    work page 1994

  10. [10]

    M. G. Dissanayake and N. Phan-Thien. Neural-network-based approximations for solving partial differential equations. Communications in Numerical Methods in Engineering, 10(3): 0 195--201, 1994

    work page 1994

  11. [11]

    S. Kim, W. Ji, S. Deng, Y. Ma, and C. Rackauckas. Stiff neural ordinary differential equations. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 31(9), 2021

    work page 2021

  12. [12]

    A. N. Firoozsalari, H. D. Mazraeh, A. A. Aghaei, and K. Parand. DeepFDENet: A novel neural network architecture for solving fractional differential equations. arXiv:2309.07684, 2023

    work page arXiv 2023

  13. [13]

    Panghal and M

    S. Panghal and M. Kumar. Neural network method: Delay and system of delay differential equations. Engineering with Computers, 38(Suppl. 3): 0 2423--2432, 2022

    work page 2022

  14. [14]

    J. Fang, C. Liu, T. E. Simos, and I. T. Famelis. Neural network solution of single-delay differential equations. Mediterranean Journal of Mathematics, 17(1): 0 30, 2020

    work page 2020

  15. [15]

    Noor and M

    M. Noor and M. Malik. Deep neural network approach to solve coupled differential equations with multiple delays. Physica Scripta, 100: 0 075259, 2025

    work page 2025

  16. [16]

    C. D. Vinodbhai and S. Dubey. Numerical solution of neutral delay differential equations using orthogonal neural network. Scientific Reports, 13(1): 0 3164, 2023

    work page 2023

  17. [17]

    X. Chen, Z. Liu, Q. Wang, and Z. Han. Dynamic-informed machine learning: Data-driven reconstruction of delay differential equations models. Applied Soft Computing, 184:113743, 2025

    work page 2025

  18. [18]

    Raissi, P

    M. Raissi, P. Perdikaris, and G. E. Karniadakis. Physics-informed neural networks: A deep learning framework for solving forward and inverse problems involving nonlinear partial differential equations. Journal of Computational Physics, 378: 0 686--707, 2019

    work page 2019

  19. [19]

    Sahin, M

    T. Sahin, M. von Danwitz, and A. Popp. Solving forward and inverse problems of contact mechanics using physics-informed neural networks. Advanced Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Sciences, 11(1): 0 11, 2024

    work page 2024

  20. [20]

    Y. Guo, X. Cao, J. Song, H. Leng, and K. Peng. An efficient framework for solving forward and inverse problems of nonlinear partial differential equations via enhanced physics-informed neural network based on adaptive learning. Physics of Fluids, 35(10), 2023

    work page 2023

  21. [21]

    G. Pang, L. Lu, and G. E. Karniadakis. fPINNs: Fractional physics-informed neural networks. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 41(4): 0 A2603--A2626, 2019

    work page 2019

  22. [22]

    Vellappandi and S

    M. Vellappandi and S. Lee. Physics-informed neural fractional differential equations. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 145: 0 116127, 2025

    work page 2025

  23. [23]

    L. Yang, D. Zhang, and G. E. Karniadakis. Physics-informed generative adversarial networks for stochastic differential equations. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, 42(1): 0 A292--A317, 2020

    work page 2020

  24. [24]

    M. Y. Eisa, M. S. Nazir, H. Moin, S. Khan, S. I. A. Shah, and Z. Mustansar. System identification of a closed loop mechanical system using physics-inspired neural network. In Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Emerging Technologies in Electronics, Computing and Communication (ICETECC), pages 1--6, 2025

    work page 2025

  25. [25]

    Rahimkhani, S

    P. Rahimkhani, S. Sabermahani, and H. Hassani. Physics-informed neural network method for solving delay Hilfer fractional differential equations. International Journal of Numerical Modelling: Electronic Networks, Devices and Fields, 38(3): 0 e70070, 2025

    work page 2025

  26. [26]

    He and A

    J. He and A. G. T. Tiamiyu. Physics-informed neural networks in iterative form of nonlinear equations for numerical algorithms and simulations of delay differential equations. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 660: 0 130368, 2025

    work page 2025

  27. [27]

    R. E. Baker and G. Röst. Global dynamics of a novel delayed logistic equation arising from cell biology. Journal of Nonlinear Science, 30: 0 397--418, 2020

    work page 2020