Editing Semester A Progress Report 2012 (section)

===Introduction===
This progress report is designed as a record of the work done by myself and Thomas Stratfold during the first semester on our Final Year Honours Project for Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Derek Abbott and Matthew Berryman. The ultimate aim of our project is to solve the mystery of the Somerton Man case from 1948. In order to do this, we have been tasked to investigate and attempt to unravel a code that was found upon the body - to figure out the language the code is in, what (if any) cipher was used for encoding, or whether the "code" is in fact simply a series of random letters from the mind of a man possibly under the influence of poison.
We have also been set to produce a 3-dimensional model of the victim's head from a bust that was made at the time, in order to provide a method for identifying the unknown man.
Whilst the techniques and programs developed in this assignment are being used to try to solve the mystery of the Somerton Man, they are designed to have a broader application beyond the scope of just this case.
====Background====
At 6.30am on the 1st December 1948, a dead man was discovered on Somerton Beach, South Australia, resting against the seawall. No identification was found on the body, the only items he carried being some chewing gum, cigarettes, a comb, an unused train ticket, and a used bus ticket - for a bus stop just 250 metres from where his body was found.
The pathologist performing the autopsy found that the man's stomach and kidneys were deeply congested and the liver contained excess blood. He suggested the victim died from poisoning, but was unable to identify the specific poison used. A review of the case in 1994 concluded that it was likely the man died from digitalis poisoning.
As is evident from the previous paragraphs and one of the goals for this project, the identity of the man remains a mystery to this day. He was described as being Eastern European in appearance, mid-40s in top physical condition and with his hands showing no signs of physical labour. He was clean-shaven, dressed in a fashionable European suit and his boots were polished, but all the name tags from his clothing had been removed and no record of his fingerprints or dental structure was found in international registries. By February 1949, there had been eight different "positive" identifications of the body by members of the public.
A month and a half after the discovery of the body, a brown suitcase believed to belong to the man was found at Adelaide Railway Station. It contained various items of clothing - again with no name tags - shaving items, and tools such as scissors, a screwdriver and stenciling equipment. The only identifying marks were "T. Keane" on a tie, "Keane on a laundry bag and "Kean" on a singlet, along with three dry-cleaning marks; these have never successfully been linked to anyone.
Many theories have been put forward as to the identity of the mystery man. One of the more popular is that he was a spy, with the lack of identification and the mysterious poisoning pointed to as evidence for this theory.
====The Code====
Around the time of the inquest, a tiny piece of paper was found deep in a fob pocket sewn withing the dead man's trouser pocket. On it was printed the words "Tamam Shud", and public library offcials called in identified it as meaning "ended" or "finished", found on the last page of a book called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. A nation-wide search was then conducted to find a matching copy of the book, but this was unsuccessful until a man revealed he had found a rare first edition copy of the translation by Edward FitzGerald on the backseat of his unlocked car on Jetty Road the night of the Somerton Man's death. This copy was missing the Tamam Shud on the last page, and microscopic tests indicated that the piece of paper found on the body was torn from this book.
In the back of the book were found faint pencil markings of five lines of capital letters, with the second line crossed out. This line's similarity to the fourth indicates a mistake was made, and adds to the likelihood the lines are a code.

WRGOABABD

MLIAOI

WTBIMPANETP

MLIABOAIAQC

ITTMTSAMSTGAB

However there is some debate over several of the letters: It is unclear whether the first and third lines begin with an `M' or a `W'; the struck-through second line could be an attempt to underline; and the `I' of the last line could possibly be a very narrow `V'.
Code experts brought in to analyse the lines in 1978 concluded:
* There are insufficient symbols to provide a pattern
* The symbols could be a complex substitute code or the meaningless response to a disturbed mind
* It is not possible to provide a satisfactory answer
Our aim is to provide more conclusive answers than these, through the power of modern technology and the vast swathes of data available on the World Wide Web.