We have grown accustomed to performing elaborate queries on textual data, e.g. via online search engines, file system managers and word processors. In the past decade, retrieval methods that also work on non-textual data have become mainstream (e.g. face recognition software). Sadly, these developments have so far not caught on for data mining within geometrical data, e.g. 3D meshes generated i...

Energy and entropy are basic concepts in thermodynamics and elsewhere. The concept of energy emerged in mechanics, the branch of physics which studies the motion of bodies and their causes. In contemporary physics, it appears in classical, relativistic and quantum mechanics. The concept of entropy emerged quite later than that of energy. It was introduced by Rudolf Julius Emmanuel Clausius arou...

The field of cybersecurity is adversarial – the real challenge lies in outsmarting motivated and knowledgeable human attackers. Sadly, this aspect is missing from current cybersecurity classes, which are often taught through lectures and occasionally through “get your feet wet” practical exercises. We propose Class Capture-theFlag exercises (CCTFs) to revitalize cybersecurity education. These a...

To call sodium fluoride an “inert” is Orwellian and defies one of the NOS’s stated principles: producers shall not use “natural poisons such as arsenic or lead salts that have long-term effects and persist in the environment.” Fluoride is clearly in this category. Sadly, the use of fluoride in organic farming could undermine the public’s confidence and safety in organic foodboth here and abroad...

When Game Theory began to take off, the games that propelled it were The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Colonel Blotto. The Prisoner’s Dilemma, perhaps the most popular of games, thrived through much of its history, because of its broad applications. Its lesser known cousin, Blotto, sadly did not fare so well. In this paper, I show that equilibria can be found computationally by playing a large number ...

Worldwide, a large number of people interact with each other by means of online chatting. There has been a significant rise in the number of platforms, both social and professional, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter, which allow people to share their experiences, views and knowledge with others. Sadly enough, with online communication getting embedded into our daily communication, incivil...

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." (Warren Buffett, five years ago.) Last year's Occupy Wall Street movement suggested that people are finally catching on. Note, making war: Buffett meant that there was deliberate intent and agency behind the huge transfer of wealth, since 1980, from the 99% to the 1%. Nor is the war meta...

One fundament. One firework. Plant it and retreat. Sadly, the result seems to have been barely a fizzle. Roger Cooter tried to provoke a debate in these pages about how ‘medico-centric historians’ should engage with what he sees as the fundamentally ‘bio-centric’ contemporary world. Well, I for one feel like I’ve had a firework stuck up the centre of my bio-existence, and I intend to return the...

A changepoint in statistical applications refers to an observational time point at which the structure pattern changes during a somewhat long-term experimentation process. In many cases, the change point time and cause are documented and it is reasonably straightforward to statistically adjust (homogenize) the series for the effects of the changepoint. Sadly many changepoint times are undocumen...

Practitioners and their legal advisers have struggled to interpret the nebulous concept of impairment of fitness to practise since its introduction in November 2004. Impairment of fitness to practise is not defined in the legislation or in the General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004. This has led to competing arguments being raised before Fitness to Practise Panels regarding bo...