Editing Final Report/Thesis 2015 (section)

===Previous Studies/Related Work===
[[File:3D_generated_reconstruction_of_bust_of_Somerton_Man_from_2012_Final_Report.png|thumb|200px|right|'''Fig. 2:''' 3D generated reconstruction of bust of Somerton Man from 2012 Final Report <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Re port_2012</ref>]]
Previous professional attempts to decipher the code were limited since they did not use modern techniques or have access to modern databases.  Another limitation is that some of the characters in the code appear to be ambiguous and previous attempts made fixed assumptions on particular characters <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_report_2009:_Who_killed_the_Somerton_man%3F</ref>.
The Australian Navy’s response was that the letters were “neither a code nor a cipher” <ref>Hub Pages Author. (2014, August 30). The Body on the Beach: The Somerton Man - Taman Shud Case [online]. Available: http://brokenmeadows.hubpages.com/hub/The-Mystery-of-the-Somerton-Man-Taman-Shud-Case</ref>.
The Australian Department of Defence analysed the characters in 1978 using the computer technology available of that era and concluded:
*a)	“There are insufficient symbols to provide a pattern”
*b)	“The symbols could be a complex substitute code or the meaningless response to a disturbed mind”
*c)	“It is not possible to provide a satisfactory answer” <ref>YouTube ABC. Somerton Beach Mystery 1978 [online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieczsZRQnu8</ref> 
Other previous studies into deciphering the code include Honours Projects at the University of Adelaide from 2009-2013.  The previous work undertaken by these groups includes: multiple evolutions of letter frequency analysis of the code on a variety of base texts in a number of languages, initial letter and sentence letter probabilities, the probabilities of known cypher techniques, the likelihood of the code being an ''initialism'' of a poem, the use of various ''one-time pad'' techniques,  the design and implementation of a web crawler, the analysis of text type and genre of the code’s likely ''plaintext'', the implementation of pattern matching software into the web crawler, a 3D generated reconstruction of the bust of the Somerton Man (see Figure 2) and the analysis of mass spectrometer data taken from the Somerton Man’s hair <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available:</ref> <ref>K. Ramirez and L-V. Michael. (2010). Final Report 2010 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2010</ref> <ref>S. Maxwell and P. Johnson. (2011). Final Report 2011 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2011</ref> <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2012</ref> <ref>L. Griffith and P. Varsos. (2013). Semester B Final Report 2013 – Cipher Cracking [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Semester_B_Final_Report_2013_-_Cipher_cracking</ref>.
The main conclusions that past groups have come to in their projects are: that the letters are unlikely to be random, the code is unlikely to be an ''initialism'', it is likely that the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' was used as a ''one-time pad'', the language of the code is likely to be English, the code is unlikely to be an ''initialism'' of a poem and that the ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'' was not used as a straight substitution ''one-time pad'' <ref>A. Turnbull and D. Bihari. (2009). Final Report 2009: Who killed the Somerton man? [online]. Available:</ref> <ref>K. Ramirez and L-V. Michael. (2010). Final Report 2010 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2010</ref> <ref>S. Maxwell and P. Johnson. (2011). Final Report 2011 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2011</ref> <ref>A. Duffy and T. Stratfold. (2012). Final Report 2012 [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Final_Report_2012</ref> <ref>L. Griffith and P. Varsos. (2013). Semester B Final Report 2013 – Cipher Cracking [online]. Available: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Semester_B_Final_Report_2013_-_Cipher_cracking</ref>.
The analysis and extension upon specific elements of previous work that are directly related to the 2015 group’s project are discussed in the 'Method – Specific Tasks' section.