The atmospheres of Mars and Venus

Of all the planets which may exist in the Universe, only nine have been studied by man. As a result, one cannot classify planets with the same confidence that one has in classifying stars; there is no theory of planetary evolution comparable in development to the theory of stellar evolution. Nevertheless, many of the goals of planetary science and stellar astronomy are the same: to classify objects according to their most fundamental properties in order to understand their present physical state and their evolution. From this point of view, the terrestrial planets comprise a group which can usefully be considered together. By comparing the similarities and differences between them, we may hope to gain insight into the evolution of the entire group

Knowledge Enhanced Notes (KEN)

To aid the creation and through-life support of large complex engineering products, organisations are placing a greater emphasis on constructing complete and accurate records of design activities. Current documentary approaches are not sufficient to capture activities and decisions in their entirety and can lead to organisations revisiting and in some cases reworking design decisions in order to understand previous design episodes. This paper presents an overview of the challenges in creating accurate, re-usable records of synchronous design activities, enhancing the through-life support of engineering products, followed by the development of an information capture software system to address these challenges. The main objectives for the development of the Knowledge Enhanced Notes system are described followed by the techniques chosen to address the objectives, and finally a description of a use-case for the system. Whilst the focus of the KEN System was to aid the creation and through-life support of large complex engineering products through constructing complete and accurate records of design activities, the system is entirely generic in its application to synchronous activities

On the growth rate of 1324-avoiding permutations

We give an improved algorithm for counting the number of $1324$-avoiding permutations, resulting in 5 further terms of the generating function. We analyse the known coefficients and find compelling evidence that unlike other classical length-4 pattern-avoiding permutations, the generating function in this case does not have an algebraic singularity. Rather, the number of 1324-avoiding permutations of length $n$ behaves as $$B\cdot \mu^n \cdot \mu_1^{n^{\sigma}} \cdot n^g.$$ We estimate $\mu=11.60 \pm 0.01,$ $\sigma=1/2,$ $\mu_1 = 0.0398 \pm 0.0010,$ $g = -1.1 \pm 0.2$ and $B =9.5 \pm 1.0.$Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

A study of information & knowledge generated during engineering design meetings

During the design process, there is a wealth of information generated, and although it may not be obvious at the time, this information can be extremely useful at a later instance when it may be no longer available. Many information capture solutions utilise tools such as video and media capture, incorporating the idea that if you capture all information then you will not miss anything. However, this creates another problem. Not all the information captured will be useful, therefore how can you distinguish the information that is useful from information that is not? The challenge many organisations face is how to capture and store valuable informal information in a way that is both simple and efficient, whilst remaining unobtrusive to the designers involved and without inhibiting the design activities. Through the undertaking of a series of case studies and test scenarios, it is possible to observe, identify and evaluate the various degrees of information and knowledge being generated and passed amongst design engineering teams whilst performing design activities in meeting situations. Using multi-media recording equipment and observation techniques, insight can be gained into the decision making process design engineering teams encounter during the course of a design project, and thus it is possible to evaluate where improved techniques can be applied to enhance the recording of information for re-use

An analysis of New South Wales electronic vote counting

We re-examine the 2012 local government elections in New South Wales, Australia. The count was conducted electronically using a randomised form of the Single Transferable Vote (STV). It was already well known that randomness does make a difference to outcomes in some seats. We describe how the process could be amended to include a demonstration that the randomness was chosen fairly. Second, and more significantly, we found an error in the official counting software, which caused a mistake in the count in the council of Griffith, where candidate Rina Mercuri narrowly missed out on a seat. We believe the software error incorrectly decreased Mercuri's winning probability to about 10%---according to our count she should have won with 91% probability. The NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) corrected their code when we pointed out the error, and made their own announcement. We have since investigated the 2016 local government election (held after correcting the error above) and found two new errors. We notified the NSWEC about these errors a few days after they posted the results

On consecutive pattern-avoiding permutations of length 4, 5 and beyond

We review and extend what is known about the generating functions for consecutive pattern-avoiding permutations of length 4, 5 and beyond, and their asymptotic behaviour. There are respectively, seven length-4 and twenty-five length-5 consecutive-Wilf classes. D-finite differential equations are known for the reciprocal of the exponential generating functions for four of the length-4 and eight of the length-5 classes. We give the solutions of some of these ODEs. An unsolved functional equation is known for one more class of length-4, length-5 and beyond. We give the solution of this functional equation, and use it to show that the solution is not D-finite. For three further length-5 c-Wilf classes we give recurrences for two and a differential-functional equation for a third. For a fourth class we find a new algebraic solution. We give a polynomial-time algorithm to generate the coefficients of the generating functions which is faster than existing algorithms, and use this to (a) calculate the asymptotics for all classes of length 4 and length 5 to significantly greater precision than previously, and (b) use these extended series to search, unsuccessfully, for D-finite solutions for the unsolved classes, leading us to conjecture that the solutions are not D-finite. We have also searched, unsuccessfully, for differentially algebraic solutions.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures (update of references, plus web link to enumeration data). Minor update. Typos corrected. One additional referenc