  We explore the influence of a block of excitable units on the existence and
behavior of chimera states in a nonlocally coupled ring-network of
FitzHugh-Nagumo elements. The FitzHugh-Nagumo system, a paradigmatic model in
many fields from neuroscience to chemical pattern formation and nonlinear
electronics, exhibits oscillatory or excitable behavior depending on the values
of its parameters. Until now, chimera states have been studied in networks of
coupled oscillatory FitzHugh-Nagumo elements. In the present work, we find that
introducing a block of excitable units into the network may lead to several
interesting effects. It allows for controlling the position of a chimera state
as well as for generating a chimera state directly from the synchronous state.
