User:Tjunier
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Features of Japanese Blades
Note. Obviously some pictures would be useful. If I can't find non-copyrighted material somewhere, I might try a drawing or two. Meanwhile please see the websites mentioned in the references, as they have excellent images.
Type of blade
Parts of the blade
These features are not present on all blade types; for example some blades don't have a yokote, etc.
- kissaki: the tip of the blade, forward of the yokote (when there is one)
- boshi: the part of the hamon that lies inside the kissaki
- yokote: a ridge at right angles to the edge, found near the tip, and which defines the kissaki
- mono uchi: the 10 or so cm (3 in) of the blade nearest to the tip; this is the part normally used for cutting.
- shinogi: a ridge parallel to the edge
- ha: the tempered edge of the blade
- hamon: the pattern of the temperline
- ji: the part of the blade between the shinogi and the edge
- shinogi ji: the part of the blade between the shinogi and the mune
- mune: the back of the blade
- munemachi (also called munamachi by some authors): a notch in the back of the blade; together with the hamachi this marks the beginning of the tang
- hamachi: a notch in the ; together with the munemachi this marks the beginning of the tang
- habakimoto: the part of the blade that is covered by the habaki
- nakago: the tang
- yasurime: file marks on the tang
- mei: the swordsmith's signature, on the tang
- mekugi ana: a hole for the mekugi, the peg that holds the nakago inside the tsuka
- nakago jiri: the butt of the tang
Curvature (Sori)
- koshi zori: the deepest part of the curve is near the hilt. Common in tachi.
- torii zori: the deepest part of the curve is in the middle
- saki zori: the deepest part of the curve is near the tip. Common in naginata.
- uchi zori: the curve is inward rather than outward.
- mu zori: without curve
Cross-section (Sugata)
- hira-zukuri: Blade tapers regularly from back to edge. Roughly Triangular in cross-section. Without yokote.
- kiriha-zukuri: Blade width remains constant for most of the part, then forms a ridge and tapers sharply to the edge. With or without yokote.
- moroha-zukuri: Two-edged, with a ridge in the middle.
- kissaki-moroha-zukuri: Similar to moroha-zukuri, except that only the kissaki is two-edged.
- shinogi-zukuri: Blade first widens, reaches a ridge (shinogi), then tapers to the edge. The shinog is nearer to the back than to the edge. Blade has a yokote.
- shobu-zukuri: Like shinogi-zukuri, but without yokote.
References
Books
- Sato, Kanzan : The Japanese Sword
External links
- Meiboku (http://www.meiboku.demon.co.uk/guide/index.htm)
- Richard Stein's Japanese sword index (http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm)
Sequence Alignments
Quality measure
To find a "good" alignment, we need to have a way of assessing the quality of an alignment. This is done by a scoring scheme. The scheme assigns a score to all positions in the alignment, and the alignment score is the sum of all position scores. The simplest scores assign 1 to matches and -1 to mismatches and gaps (there are other, more complicated schemes). Under such a scheme, the following alignment
att-cccag ||| || || attgcctag
has a score of 5 (7 matches, 1 mismatch, 1 gap).
It should be noted that in some cases the best possible score isn't achieved by a single alignment, but by many ones. As a trivial example, consider the sequences c and ccc, the highest score (under the same scheme as above) is exhibited by the three alignments
c-- -c- --c | | | ccc ccc ccc
Finding the best one(s)
Alignments as Paths
Alignments can be represented as "paths" in a graph. If we represent the two sequences at the sides of a lattice of squares, an alignment is a path through the lattice that starts at some node only "moves" down, right, or both (diagonally). Exactly where it starts and ends depends on the kind of alignment.
For example using the same two sequences as above, attcccag and attgcctag, we may represent the lattice as a table [gotta find something esle than HTML tables for this]:
| a | t | t | g | c | c | t | a | g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | \ | ||||||||
| t | \ | ||||||||
| t | \ | ||||||||
| c | - | \ | |||||||
| c | \ | ||||||||
| c | \ | ||||||||
| a | \ | ||||||||
| g | \ |
There are many ways [some stuff about the exact number here] of aligning two sequences. In fact, there are so many that brute force is out of the question. The most commonly used approach is dynamic programming.
Wasp article
Howdy, I just edited Wasp and found that the I did not register as a user in the page history - am at a public library right now, no cookies?. Please take a look at the opening, am most interested in a read of that first sentence (seems clearer to me this way). I found three useful references prior to making the division changes, will post them next session. --azwaldo 02:55, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)