Slime mould imitation of Belgian transport networks: redundancy, bio-essential motorways, and dissolution

Belgium is amongst few artificial countries, established on purpose, when Dutch and French speaking parts were joined in a single unit. This makes Belgium a particularly interesting testbed for studying bio-inspired techniques for simulation and analysis of vehicular transport networks. We imitate growth and formation of a transport network between major urban areas in Belgium using the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We represent the urban areas with the sources of nutrients. The slime mould spans the sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. The protoplasmic tubes represent the motorways. In an experimental laboratory analysis we compare the motorway network approximated by P. polycephalum and the man-made motorway network of Belgium. We evaluate the efficiency of the slime mould network and the motorway network using proximity graphs

Bluetongue in Belgium, 2006

Bluetongue has emerged recently in Belgium. A bluetongue virus strain was isolated and characterized as serotype 8. Two new real-time reverse transcription–quantitative PCRs (RT-qPCRs) that amplified 2 different segments of bluetongue virus detected this exotic strain. These 2 RT-qPCRs detected infection earlier than a competitive ELISA for antibody detection

Revisiting the theory of business-to-business advertising

Creating effective business-to-business (B2B) communications is an increasingly complex challenge for marketing managers. It requires a theoretical understanding of a number of puzzling, interacting components of an advertising stimulus. However, few academicians have pursued the goal of integrating and modeling how the B2B advertising process should be conceptualized. Gilliland and Johnston (1997) provided the first comprehensive model of the process, but B2B advertising has changed dramatically since this paper and demands an update to capture the new dimensions of the phenomenon. Using a systematic literature review to summarize recent trends, this paper incorporates the key changes in B2B advertising over the last 20 years. In particular, the authors explore a revised model of B2B effects, including (1) social media, (2) creativity and emotional appeals, (3) national culture, (4) brand equity and credibility, (5) ad experience social context, and (6) competing messages

Slime mould imitation of Belgian transport networks: redundancy, bio-essential motorways, and dissolution

Belgium is amongst few artificial countries, established on purpose, when Dutch and French speaking parts were joined in a single unit. This makes Belgium a particularly interesting testbed for studying bio-inspired techniques for simulation and analysis of vehicular transport networks. We imitate growth and formation of a transport network between major urban areas in Belgium using the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We represent the urban areas with the sources of nutrients. The slime mould spans the sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. The protoplasmic tubes represent the motorways. In an experimental laboratory analysis we compare the motorway network approximated by P. polycephalum and the man-made motorway network of Belgium. We evaluate the efficiency of the slime mould network and the motorway network using proximity graphs

Are motorways rational from slime mould's point of view?

We analyse the results of our experimental laboratory approximation of motorway networks with slime mould Physarum polycephalum. Motorway networks of 14 geographical areas are considered: Australia, Africa, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Iberia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, UK and USA. For each geographical entity, we represented major urban areas by oat flakes and inoculated the slime mould in a capital. After slime mould spanned all urban areas with a network of its protoplasmic tubes, we extracted a generalised Physarum graph from the network and compared the graphs with an abstract motorway graph using most common measures. The measures employed are the number of independent cycles, cohesion, shortest paths lengths, diameter, the Harary index and the Randić index. We obtained a series of intriguing results, and found that the slime mould approximates best of all the motorway graphs of Belgium, Canada and China, and that for all entities studied the best match between Physarum and motorway graphs is detected by the Randić index (molecular branching index)