User: Tjunier

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

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)

Open Encyclopedia