+This theorem establish a clear link between the existence of a cycle of
+a given length and the convergence of the system. In other words, between
+cycles and order. Conversely, Li and Yorke have established in 1975~\cite{Li75} that
+the presence of a point of period three implies chaos in the same situation
+than previously. By chaos, they mean the existence of points of any
+period: this kind of disorder, which is the first occurrence of the
+term ``chaos'' in the mathematical litterature, is thus related to the
+multiplicity of periods. Since that time, the mathematical theory of
+chaos has known several developments to qualify or quantify the richness
+of chaos presented by a given discrete dynamical system, one of the most
+famous work, although old, being the one of Devaney~\cite{devaney}.
+
+\subsection{Iterative Systems}
+
+In the distributed computing community, dynamical systems have been
+generatized to take into account delay transmission or heterogeneous
+computational powers. Mathematically, the intended result is often one
+fixed point resulting from the iterations of a given function over a
+Boolean vector, considering that:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item at time $t$, $x^{t}$ is computed using not only $x^{t-1}$, but
+potentially any $x^{k}, k<t$, due to delay transmission,
+\item not all the components of $x^{t}$ are supposed to be updated at
+each iteration: each component represents a unit of computation, and
+these units have not the same processing frequency.
+\end{itemize}
+
+These considerations lead to the following definition of an iterative
+system.
+
+\begin{definition}
+Iterative systems on a set $\mathcal{X}$ are defined by
+$$\left\{
+ \begin{array}{l}
+ x^0 \in \mathcal{X}\\
+ x^{n+1} = f^n(x^0, \hdots, x^n)
+ \end{array}
+ \right.$$
+where $f^n:\mathcal{X}^{n+1}\rightarrow \mathcal{X}$.
+\end{definition}