Logo And Nick Name Contest

MuPAD-Combinat logo and nick name contest

Original message on MuPAD-Combinat mailing list by NicolasThiéry (7 November 2003):

• MuPAD-Combinat is about to be three years old (I took over the maintenance of the combinat library of MuPAD in december 2000!);
• We are about to make a stable release soon which will be widely distributed with MuPAD 3.0.0;
• The article about MuPAD-Combinat we are writing with Florent is about to be published;

Altogether, this project is becoming mature, and it's really time to have a logo and a nice nick name for it: the name 'MuPAD-Combinat' is really too ugly and impossible to pronounce (my fault).

So, I am launching a nick name and logo contest, and will be happy to invite the winner(s) to some nice restaurant. Please write your propositions below, and be inspired!

Deadline for submissions and votes: 10 juillet 2004

Nick name

Constraints

• It should be short (even terse), and easy to pronounce and to memorize. For example, I am quite happy with MuPACS and GLIP, not so much about PerMuVAR, HTMLPP and MAPITL, and not at all with MuPAD-Combinat.
• It can be an acronym, though it does not have to; in this case, it could for example refer to the following keywords: Combinatorics, Algebraic Combinatorics, Environment, Open Source, Free Software, MuPAD, Research, Computer Exploration, Package, ...
• I'd rather avoid ACE, mu-EC, or even MuC, to keep a clear distinction with those previous projects.

Propositions

• PermuPAD, CombiPAD (François) the PAD subword permits to know that it is a MuPAD packages and permu put in light combinatorial aspect by an usual object: permutations. CombiPAD was built with the same idea.

• Alcom, as Algebraic Combinatorics (François)

  REM: wiki seems to be a good idea very easy to use.

• DOTS for Dimension Of This Space ... or also Discrete Objects Traficoting System FlorentHivert

  Let me advertise a little. DOTS are discrete points by oppositions to continuous line. Dealing with discrete objects is exactly the role of combinatorics. On the other hand the acronyms refer to counting the dimension of an algebraic object which describe perfectly the role of our package. More over this duality between these two faces of DOTS (meaning and acronym) reflect the duality between combinatoric and algebra in our package.

  The only problem is that some other people may have the same idea for a name of a package in enumerative geometry. Does anyone knows about some ?

• TACC (Toolbox for Algebraic Combinatorics Computations) FlorentHivert

  This one is also funny for people that can read Cyrillic letters (hint: in Cyrillic, C means S, and you probably already have heard about the TASS agency...)

• ?JeanNoël: quelques noms au hasard, sans reflechir sans comprendre ce que cela

implique, mais en associant simplement des syllabes des noms suivants

ALCO, ALCOPAD, COALPAD, ALCOPack, ALCOpen, OpenMU, OPALCO

Mais mon préféré est là:

OpenCOAL qui rappelle la structure du carbone voir ici pourquoi: http://chimie.scola.ac-paris.fr/sitedechimie/chi_inorg/elements/carbone.htm

CO comme COmputing , COmputation, ou COmbinatorics AL comme ALgebraics

• du meme genre: OPALE: OPen ALgebraic Environment (FlorentHivert) C'est très joli OPALE. En particulier, le lien avec une structure cristaline (comme dans coal) me paraît intéressante. Dommage que ca ne fasse pas du tout référence à combinatoire (ce qui est quand-même un peu obligatoire) (NicolasThiéry)
• BOCAl: Boîte à Outils pour la Combinatoire Algébrique
• ESCALE: Environnement Symbolique pour la Combinatoire Algébrique, Libre et Extensible (NicolasThiéry)
• ESCAPADE: (NicolasThiéry)
• Some name of famous mathematician? Mac-Mahon? Schütz?
• Lascoux (Library for Algebraic and Symbolic Combinatorics: Open, Unified and eXtensible :-))

Votes

• Teresa: MuPAD-Combinat
• Florent: DOTS, OPALE, BOCAL
• Nicolas: OPALE, BOCAL, ESCALE, ...
• Conrado: CombiPAD
• Eric: MuPAD-Combinat, OPALE, ESCALE

Logo

Constraints

• It should refer to combinatorics, or better to algebraic combinatorics, for example by representing some nice combinatorial object.
• About 4x4cm picture at 300 or 600 dpi, say in png, SVG, or postscript format (there can be a larger version as well)
• If there can be an ascii art version as well (say 10x10 characters), that's all the better.

Propositions

• As a first attempt, François will make a 3D version of the following picture (or something similar), with each cell of the skew tableau represented by a 3D cube similar to MuPAD's cube (btw: what about a 3D pretty printer for MuPAD someday ? :-))

                              /     +---+         \ 2
                              |     | 4 |         |
                              |     +---+---+     |
                              | X + | 2 | 3 |     |
                              |     +---+---+---+ |
                              |         | 1 | 5 | |
                              \         +---+---+ /

Walter likes this one. With Oliver they confirmed that it was no problem to reuse in part the MuPAD logo.

• ?JeanNoël suggested that our pictures, in particular those concerning representations of the Hecke algebra on ribbons, looked like patterns of Touareg jewlery or of Kilims

  • http://iquebec.ifrance.com/bijoux-touareg/Galerie.html
  • http://www.issaran.com/
  • http://www.kilim.com/about_kilims/motifs/index.asp

  Florent: on this last page, one of the motif is called "the Hook". It is not the most beautiful, but it fits happily in our context. Moreover It is designed to work against evil eye :-) (Nicolas: I like that :-))

  

  It can also be adapted to give something like

                 _____
                /     \
              /         \
            /             \
           +---+       +   +
           | 6 |       | 5 |
           +---+---+   +-+-+
               | 3 |     |
               +---+---+
             |     | 2 |
           +-+-+   +---+---+
           | 1 |       | 4 |
           +   +       +---+
            \             /
              \         /
                \_____/

which is certainly good for the combinatorics and against the evil.

Question: This reminds me (ccr) pretty much of a dollar symbol - is that really against evil? :-)

Emilia propose the same figure rotated 90deg. The question is in which direction? The other question is: does this rotation cancel, or worse invert, the power against the evil ? NicolasThiéry: no, I don't think so. Those symbols appear on kilims; that is some kinds of carpets. So, it seems difficult to force ones guests to look at them always from the same direction :-) ?JeanNoel: Ce schéma final est tres bien. Il suffit de mettre le futur nom en vertical sur le coté droit pour inscrire le tout dans un carré ou approchant et c'est parfait.

• Given that MuPAD-Combinat is largely a collection of small tools which users can and should combine in creative ways, Christopher Creutzig proposed the following logo, which tries to achieve a Scrabble-effect

  

  Some variations of the above for other suggested names

  

  (Obviously, all of these are drafts only.)

• Teresa: Even I have a new proposition, what about TAKIN (prononced as taquin in french)? The K is just to do a bit of "underground" and the pronunciation to confuse everybody. I think that the images from CCR and from Francois are very nice and that they could be combined to do a "taquin" image with the pieces from CCR images and the colors and disposition from Francois', and the letters of TAKIN. The next context could be then to find a nice combinatorial phrase to fit "takin". I have also see that "takin" is the name of a "Budorcas taxicolor tibetana", so very gnu as well. Here is an idea (without numbers on the letters)

   +---+---+---+        +---+---+
   | T | A | K |        | T | A |
   +---+---+---+   or   +---+---+
       | I | N |        | K | I |
       +---+---+        +---+---+
                            | N |
                            +---+

• Another idea is to use "Lascoux" as filling. Nicolas: cool idea! it's short, sounds well, and the jeu de taquin represents well the kind of mix of algebra and combinatorics we want to do. I am not much convinced by the K though, as I have the impression that mathematicians might not react that well to it (what do you think?) on the other hand, the reference to the animal is cool.

  Otherwise: TAQUIN: Toolbox for Algebraic Qonbinatorics; any idea for the UIN?

Votes

• Nicolas: I love that proposition from , CCR
• ...