This work uses genetic programming to explore the space of continuous optimisers, with goal discovering novel ways doing optimisation. In order keep search broad, optimisers are evolved from scratch using Push, a Turing-complete, general-purpose, language. The resulting found be diverse, and their optimisation landscapes variety interesting, sometimes unusual, strategies. Significantly, when ap...

We propose a novel randomized algorithm for computing a dominating set based clustering in wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks. The algorithm works under a model which captures the characteristics of the set-up phase of such multi-hop radio networks: asynchronous wake-up, the hidden terminal problem, and scarce knowledge about the topology of the network graph. When modelling the network as a u...

An indirect fluorescent antibody test for Bartonella henselae, B quintana, and B elizabethae was performed in all 18 children who presented to our paediatric outpatient clinic with cat scratch disease over a six year period. Serum samples were taken on admission, after 15 days, and after six months. Diagnosis was confirmed in 15 patients (83%) and was based on seroconversion or a fourfold chang...

Spinal cord neuronal circuits generate motor neuron activity patterns responsible for rhythmic hindlimb behaviors such as scratching and swimming. Kinematic analyses of limb movements generated by this motor neuron output reveal important characteristics of these behaviors. Intralimb kinematics of the turtle hindlimb were characterized during five distinct rhythmic forms of behavior: three form...

This study compares the level of presynaptic inhibition during two rhythmic movements in the cat: locomotion and scratch. Dorsal rootlets from L6, L7, or S1 segments were cut, and their proximal stumps were recorded during fictive locomotion occurring spontaneously in decerebrate cats and during fictive scratch induced by d-tubocurarine applied on the C1 and C2 segments. Compared with rest, the...

A low-spinal immobilized turtle displays a fictive scratch reflex in hindlimb muscle nerves in response to mechanical stimulation of specific regions of the shell (Robertson et al., 1985). There are 3 forms of the scratch reflex: the rostral, the pocket, and the caudal; each exhibits rhythmic activation of hindlimb motor neurons. Cutaneous stimulation of the distal hindlimb elicits a fictive fl...