The young Arthur Cayley

Arthur Cayley, F.R.S. (1821–1895) is widely regarded as Britain's leading pure mathematician of the 19th century. From his start as a Cambridge prodigy, he built up a formidable record of publication, from incidental notes to extensive memoirs, on a wide range of mathematics. His emergence as a mathematician, before he became the sober–minded eminence of the 1860s and 1870s, is largely unknown. The primary guide to his whole life remains, more than a century later, the obituary written by his student and successor at Cambridge, A.R. Forsyth. The folklore surrounding Cayley's life is dominated by his collaboration with James Joseph Sylvester, F.R.S. (1814–1897). This partnership, tempered by Sylvester's obsession with the apportionment of credit, began in earnest in the 1850s. In this paper, I attempt to signpost Cayley's formative years, when he was at the beginning of his long mathematical journey, the period which ends on 3 June 1852, the date of his election to the Royal Society, when he formally came of age as a Victorian man of science.

Adaptive Learning of Process Control and Profit Optimization Using a Classifier System

A classifier system is used to learn control and profit optimization of a batch chemical reaction. Ability to learn different market conditions and changes to reaction parameters is demonstrated. The profit sharing algorithm is used for apportionment of credit. The greater effectiveness of the use of the genetic algorithm over apportionment of credit alone or the random replacement of low strength rules is also shown. The classifier system is unusual in having more than one action per rule.