A type of Lienard's equation +µf(x)+x=0, where f(x) is not an even function of x, is studied by Le Corbeiller as a model of various biological oscillations, such as breathing, and called two-stroke oscillators. A distinctive feature of this type of oscillators is that the parameter µ has the upper limit µ0 for the oscillator to have some stable limit cycle. This paper gives a numerical method for calculating this upper limit µ0.

We define a d-matched digraph and propose a recursive procedure for designing an optimal d-matched digraph without bidirectional edges. The digraph represents an optimal highly structured system which is a special class of self-diagnosable systems and identifies all of the faulty units independently and locally in O(|E|) time complexity. The procedure is straightforward and gives a system flexible in network connections. Hence the procedure is applicable to real systems such as the Internet or cooperative robotic systems which change their topology dynamically.