  It is delightful to observe the emergence of synchronization in the blinking
of fireflies to attract partners and preys. Other charming examples of
synchronization can also be found in a wide range of phenomena such as, e.g.,
neurons firing, lasers cascades, chemical reactions, and opinion formation.
However, in many situations the formation of a coherent state is not pleasant
and should be mitigated. For example, the onset of synchronization can be the
root of epileptic seizures, traffic congestion in communication networks, and
the collapse of constructions. Here we propose the use of contrarians to
suppress undesired synchronization. We perform a comparative study of different
strategies, either requiring local or total knowledge of the system, and show
that the most efficient one solely requires local information. Our results also
reveal that, even when the distribution of neighboring interactions is narrow,
significant improvement in mitigation is observed when contrarians sit at the
highly connected elements. The same qualitative results are obtained for
artificially generated networks as well as two real ones, namely, the Routers
of the Internet and a neuronal network.
