[B.Bidaine]

I am using Sandia's dakota optimization tool (Design Analysis Kit for Optimization and Terascale Applications) and I understood that some of you also do so.

I am wondering about 2 "unintuitive" behaviors of several SCOLIB algorithms.
- The DIRECT algorithm "DIviding RECTangles" can receive a maximum number of evaluations as input. However this maximum is not strictly enforced. Could you explain why?
- The COBYLA (Nelder-Mead extension) and Pattern Search algorithms start to probe the design space "at the bottom left", i.e., for the lower bound of all optimization parameters. Is there some reason for this? Would it be possible to start from another point, e.g., the middle or a user-defined location?

Thanks a lot in advance for your answers!