Cracking the Voynich Code 2015 weekly progress

Weekly progress and questions

This is where you record your progress and ask questions. Make sure you update this every week. The deadline is every Friday evening. However, if you sometimes slip a little into the weekend (so long as you don't do it too often) we won't be too hard on your marks.

Please remember that we make use of this progress section to give you your project mark. Your mark will suffer if you don't complete this section.

Briefly record (i) progress, (ii) problems/questions, (iii) goals for following week.

Semester 1 Week 1

Andrew

1. Week 1 progress:
   • Set up and attended meeting with Lifei and Supervisors.
   • Started research on background information about Voynich Manuscript.
   • Reviewed work completed by the previous Team.
2. Goals for Week 2:
   • Start on project proposal preparation.
   • Plan out Project Plan.
   • Continue research on Voynich Manuscript.

Week 1 Log Book Scans

Lifei

1. Week 1 progress:
   • First group meeting with supervisors.
   • Started reading and collecting the background information about the Voynich Manuscript.
   • Arranged the alphabet which appear in the Voynich Manuscript.
2. Goals for Week 2:
   • Start on project proposal preparation.
   • Continue researching on the Voynich Manuscript and the articles about the Voynich Manuscript.

Semester 1 Week 2

Andrew

1. Week 2 progress:
   • Group meeting with Lifei (Wednesday)
   • Coded pre-processing of the Interlinear Archive into respective transcribers
     • Code available on Google Drive
     • Minor issue with inline formatting (to be fixed)
   • Continued research on Voynich Manuscript
   • Began looking into Research Proposal
2. Goals for Week 3:
   • Complete Interlinear Archive pre-processing
     • Integrate Lifei's code
   • Progress meeting with Lifei and Supervisors
   • Begin MATLAB code for basic Voynich statistics analysis

Week 2 Log Book Scans

Lifei

1. Week 2 progress:
   • Group meeting with Andrew (Wednesday)
     • Discuss the current progress
     • Discuss the content for the proposal seminar
   • Started on the code which use to count the features of a given article.
   • Continued research on past VMS work of word frequency.
2. Goals for Week 3:
   • Meeting with Andrew and supervisor
   • Finish the code of feature count (word length, word frequency, etc).
   • Finish the slides of proposal seminar.

Semester 1 Week 3

Andrew

1. Week 3 progress:
   • Completed Interlinear Archive pre-processing code.
   • Completed MATLAB code for reading all text files within a separate folder.
   • Begun MATLAB code for character and word counting.
   • Held meeting with Lifei, Derek and Maryam.
     • Discussed progress.
     • Went over work to de done (text characterization).
   • Begun MATLAB code for text characterization (character token counter).
2. Goals for Week 4:
   • Complete basic characterization code.
     • Use on VMS.
   • Begin analysis on English Alphabet using basic characterization code.
   • Meet with Lifei.
     • Discuss Proposal Seminar.
       • Slides and Content.
       • Schedule Seminar Time.
   • If time permits, meet with supervisors to discuss findings.

Lifei

1. Week 3 progress:
   • Attended literature search training (Tuesday).
   • Completed c++ code for counting the word and character.
   • Started writing the c++ code for determining the position of giving words in text.
   • Had meeting with Andrew, Derek and Maryam.
     • Discussed project progress and the work to be done.
   • Started making the power point slides for Proposal Seminar.
2. Goals for Week 4:
   • Complete the c++ code for determining word position.
   • Finish the slides of Proposal Seminar.
   • Meet with Andrew.
     • Discuss the slides and content of Proposal Seminar.

Semester 1 Week 4

Andrew

1. Week 4 progress:
   • Completed basic characterization code
     • Used on VMS, output tables available on Google Drive
   • Continued with Proposal Seminar preparation
     • Met with Lifei and discussed Slide composition
     • Worked on Slides
     • Worked on presentation transcript for practice purposes
2. Goals for Week 5:
   • Attend and complete Proposal Seminar
   • Begin actual write-up of Research Proposal Draft
   • Write up Wiki page for VMS characterization results
     • Discuss issues with '*' character within transcriptions
   • Begin characterization of English alphabet

Lifei

1. Week 4 progress:
   • Finish the slides of Proposal Seminar.
   • Wrote a draft for the proposal presentation.
   • Started writing the Matlab code
     • Which Voynich tokens only appear at the start of words and which are only at the end.
   • Had meeting with Andrew
     • Discussed proposal seminar plan and slides.
2. Goals for Week 5:
   • Try to finish the Matlab code about analysing tokens.
   • Present at Proposal Seminar (Tuesday, 31 March).
   • Meet with Andrew.
     • Discuss the progress of project.

Semester 1 Week 5

Andrew

1. Week 5 progress:
   • Met with Lifei
     • Completed Proposal Seminar Slides
     • Practiced Proposal Seminar
   • Attended and completed Proposal Seminar
   • Began Wiki write-up for characterization code and results (very rough, in Code section)
   • Began English characterization.
2. Goals for Week 6:
   • Complete Wiki write-up for characterization code and results
   • Continue English characterization (Phase 2)
   • Continue Research Proposal Draft
   • Hold formal progress meeting with Supervisors

Lifei

1. Week 5 progress:
   • Continued to write the Matlab code
     • Token only appear at the start and at the end.
   • Met with Andrew
     • Completed Proposal Seminar Slides.
     • Practiced Proposal Seminar.
   • Attended and completed Proposal Seminar.
2. Goals for Week 6:
   • Meeting with Supervisors.
   • Complete the Matlab code about analysis token.
   • Start Research proposal and Progress report draft.

Semester 1 Week 6

Andrew

1. Week 6 progress:
   • Held meeting formal progress meeting with Lifei, Derek, and Maryam.
   • Continued Draft Research Project Proposal.
   • Used characterization code on section of "The Hunt for Red October".
2. Goals for Week 6b:
   • Complete and Deliver Draft Research Project Proposal.
   • Determine most relevant UDHR languages and plot against Voynich.
   • Make characterization code more efficient.
   • Continue English Characterization:
     • Bigrams.
     • Alphabet extraction code.

Lifei

1. Week 6 progress:
   • Held meeting formal progress meeting with Lifei, Derek, and Maryam.
   • Completed the Matlab code about analysis token.
   • Started Research proposal and Progress report draft.
2. Goals for Week 6b (Holidays)
   • Finish Research proposal and Progress report draft.
   • Complete Matlab token location code and results.

Semester 1 Break

Andrew

1. Semester Break progress:
   • Completed Draft Research Project Proposal
     • Uploaded hard-copy .pdf to Wiki
     • Attempted basic conversion to wiki page
   • Continued work on English Investigation
2. Goals for Week 7:
   • Complete bigram code for English Investigation
     • Complete re-work of characterization code
     • Plot and analyze bigrams
   • Attempt to extract English alphabetical characters from texts

Lifei

1. Semester Break progress:
   • Completed the Matlab code of counting tokens' position and get results.
2. Goals for Week 7:
   • Improve the Matlab code.
   • Continuing research how to separate tokens from characters.
   • Start Phase 4 Investigate Stylometry.

Semester 1 Week 7

Andrew

1. Week 7 progress:
   • Continued English Investigation - Phase 2 Work
     • Plotted base bigrams
     • Begun attempting English Alphabet extraction
2. Goals for Week 8:
   • Begin researching into morphology analysis techniques
   • Continue English Extraction attempts
     • Run on Voynich

Lifei

1. Week 7 progress:
   • Continued tokens analysis.
     • Using the data from Matlab code.
     • Plot diagram.
   • Continued research of Stylometry analysis (Phase 4).
2. Goals for Week 8:
   • Complete all the Matlab code about tokens analysis.

Semester 1 Week 8

Andrew

1. Week 8 progress:
   • Added 'de-voweled' English to Word-Length Distributions
   • Continued English Alphabet Extraction
     • Issues with some punctuation characters (e.g. ")
   • Continued research on Morphology Analysis techniques
2. Goals for Week 9:
   • Complete English Alphabet Extraction
   • Begin Morphology coding
     • Begin, again, using English as a base
   • Hold progress meeting with supervisors

Lifei

1. Week 8 progress:
   • Completed the Matlab code about tokens analysis.
     • Tokens appear at the start of words and at the end.
   • Continued Alphabet extraction.
   • Continued research of Stylometry analysis (Phase 4).
2. Goals for Week 9:
   • Hold progress meeting with Supervisors
   • How to extraction alphabet in English.
     • Matlab code to count token frequency, token recurrence interval

Semester 1 Week 9

Andrew

1. Week 9 progress:
   • Held Progress Meeting with Derek
     • Displayed current progress with phase 2
   • Continued working on extracting English alphabet
     • Could not complete, issues with other characters aside from most lower-case alphabet
     • Compiling Lifei's data into the extraction code
2. Goals for Week 10:
   • Continue and complete the English Extraction code
   • Begin writing up final Research Proposal and Progress Report
   • Continue research on aspects of Morphology

Lifei

1. Week 9 progress:
   • Held Progress Meeting with Derek
     • Displayed current progress
   • Continued working on extracting English alphabet
   • Continued working on token analysis.
2. Goals for Week 10:
   • Begin writing up final Research Proposal and Progress Report
   • Continue research on Stylometry.

Semester 1 Week 10

Andrew

1. Week 10 progress:
   • Continued work on English Token Extraction
     • Adding Lifei's Start/End token data
     • Adding 'cross-checking' between data sets to increase probability of extraction
   • Begun Final Research Project Proposal and Progress Report Document
     • Making Phase 2 Data more 'report-friendly'
   • No significant progress on Morphology unfortunately
2. Goals for Week 11:
   • Continue Final Research Project Proposal and Progress Report Document
   • Test Voynich against Token Extraction Code
   • Begin coding Morphology Investigation (Phase 3)

Lifei

1. Week 10 progress:
   • Begun Final Research Project Proposal and Progress Report Document
   • Completed the Token analysis code
     • Token recurrence interval
     • Token frequency
     • Record all the data
2. Goals for Week 11:
   • Meet with Andrew discuss the final Research Proposal and Progress Report
   • Continue final Research Proposal and Progress Report
   • Continue research on Stylometry.

Semester 1 Week 11

Andrew

1. Week 11 progress:
   • Continued writing Research Project Proposal and Progress Report
     • Adding Implementation and Testing section
     • Setting up data into a more presentable summary
   • Continued English Extraction
     • Mostly completed but have issues with some tokens, specifically:
       • " ' ( - currently considered possible alphabet tokens
       • X x currently considered possible non-alphabet tokens
2. Goals for Week 12:
   • Completed Research Project Proposal and Progress Report
   • Refine English Extraction Results where possible
   • Work on Phase 3 coding
   • Hold progress meeting

Lifei

1. Week 11 progress:
   • Continued writing Research Project Proposal and Progress Report
   • Added content to phase 4
     • Illustration Investigation
     • Started from f102r2 ("frog page")
2. Goals for Week 12:
   • Finish the code which are going to use in phase 4
     • Finding unique word tokens in each pages and sections
     • Determine the location of a given word token
     • Determine the frequency of a given word token
   • Completed Research Project Proposal and Progress Report
   • Continue Illustration Investigation
   • Sorting data of f102r2

Semester 1 Week 12

Andrew

1. Week 12 progress:

1. Goals for Week 13:

Lifei

1. Week 12 progress:

1. Goals for Week 13:

Semester 1 Week 13

Andrew

1. Week 13 progress:

1. Goals for Week 14 (SWOTVAC):

Lifei

1. Week 13 progress:

1. Goals for Week 14 (SWOTVAC):

Semester 1 Week 14 (SWOTVAC)

Andrew

1. Week 14 progress:

1. Goals for Semester Break:

Lifei

1. Week 14 progress:

1. Goals for Semester Break:

See also

• Cracking the Voynich code
• Cracking the Voynich code 2015
• Semester A Progress Report 2015 - Cracking the Voynich code
• Semester B Final Report 2015 - Cracking the Voynich code

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