Depuis que je vis à New York, j’ai compris ce que les occidentaux entendent par geisha. De temps à autre, dans des réceptions chic, on me présente une jeune femme vêtue avec élégance et portant des bijoux. Quand elle apprend que j’ai été une geisha à Kyoto, elle m’adresse un sourire contraint. Elle ne sait plus quoi dire ! [...] A ce stade, hélas, il est absurde d’essayer de communiquer, car la femme pense : «Mon Dieu, je parle à une prostituée ! » Quelques minutes plus tard arrive son cavalier, un homme riche, de trente ou quarante ans son aîné. Souvent je m’interroge : comment peut-elle ainsi se voiler la face ? C’est une femme entretenue. Comme moi, dans le passé.

Reference

Arthur Golden, “Geisha”, 2006, Le Livre de Poche, ISBN 978-2253117957

• Main line path
• Stations with name and number
• Distance of each station from Akihabara
• Electrification system for each station

You can view the KML file on Google maps here or download the KML file here.

The VacMagLev train is a as-yet-unbuilt Maglev train circulating in vacuum tubes.

Advantages

• No friction between the trains and the tracks (magnetic levitation)
• No air drag (vacuum)
• > High speed: up to 20,000 km/h [?] (no penalty of sonic boom)
• > Low operating cost (energy costs to move the train, maintain the vacuum, cool and power the magnets are low compared to energy costs of conventional trains [1]) ?
• Low greenhouse gases emissions (electric)
• Possibility of regenerative breaking
• Possibility of automation
• Quiet operation (vacuum)
• Safe

Drawbacks

• High construction cost. For partial-vaccum tunnels, it costs US$2.95 million/km more than target Maglev lines price in China (US$24.6 million), or 12% of increase [6,7].
• High centripetal forces if bended tubes ? (problem is inherent to any mode of transportation)

Facts

• A laboratory at Southwest Jiaotong University, Sichuan, China, is working on a prototype with an average speed of 500 to 600 km/h running in partial-vacuum tunnels [5].
• Suissmetro proposed to connect in Swiss cities with a VacMaglev running in partial-vacuum tunnels at up to 600 km/h [2].
• F. P. Davidson and Y. Kyonati have proposed a VacMaglev transoceanic line using a tube floating 300 m below the ocean surface and anchored with cables, allowing to go from New York to London in less than one hour [3].
• Dr. J. Powell has since 2001 led investigation of a concept using a VacMaglev system for space launch [4].

Claims

• “ Establishing a Small-Diameter Vacuum-Enhanced MagLev (SDVEML) system would allow for virtually limitless transportation of materials, at significantly lower costs.” – D. Wade,  the Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2011, website.
• “Passengers [...] having paid $54 [can] travel in 54 minutes from the centre of New York to the centre of Los Angeles – R. M. Salter,  Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1978, link.
• “The new technology [...] is expected to be put into operation after ten years.” – Z. Yaoping,  academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, [5].
• “Speed in initial ET3 systems is 600km/h for in state trips, and will be developed to 6,500 km/h for international travel that will allow passenger or cargo travel from New York to Beijing in 2 hours.” – ET3, website.
• “ET3 can be built for 1/10th the cost of High Speed Rail, or 1/4th the cost of a freeway.” - ET3, website.
• “ET3 can provide 50 times more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains.” - ET3, website.
• “Vactrains could use gravity to assist their acceleration.” – R. Salter, LA Times, 06/11/1972.
•  ”The theoretical limit of the speed of the VacMaglev train is up to 20,000 km/h.” – Z. Yaoping ?
• “In peak hours, a Swissmetro runs every 6 minutes with speeds up to 500km/h [...].” – Suissmetro, website.

Notes

[1] Comparison between conventional train and vacmaglev train, ET3 website
[2] Suissmetro website
[3] Transatlantic Tunnel, Extreme Engineering. (video)
[4] Startram project website
[5] “China develops record-breaking 600kph maglev trains“, Q. Li, chinadaily.com.cn, 08/02/2010
[6] “Laboratory working on train to run at 1,000kph“, english.eastday.com, 08/03/2010
[7]“Shanghai maglev gets official approval“, M. Qing, China Daily, 04/27/2006

1. Pick up your radiation measurement source :
   - Ibaraki
   - Tsukuba 1
   - Tsukuba 2
   - Tokyo (Hongo, Komaba, Kashiwa)
   - Tokyo (Shinjuku)
   - Average Japan by area
   - Kashiwa
   - Crowd-sourced from all over Japan
2. If the measure is in microsievert per hour (uSv/h), divide by 1000. You obtain a value in millisievert per hour (mSv/h).
3. Multiply by the time of exposure in hour. You obtain a value in millisievert (mSv).
4. Calculate the biological impact of the exposition to the radiation with the chart below.

Example

1. We take average value for Tokyo area (line 13) given by Japanese government on March 17th : 0.05 uSv/h.
2. We divide by 1000 : 0.05/1000 = 0.00005 mSv/h.
3. The time of exposure is 24 hours so we multiply by 24. 0.00005*24 = 0.0012 mSv. If we multiply this value by 365 to compare it with annual values, we obtain : 0.0012*365 = 0.438 mSv.
4. Following the chart, the radiation dose received for an annual exposition to this radiation level is equivalent to the one received for an annual exposition to the natural background (~0.48 mSv). There is no need to take any emergency measure.

Biological impact of radiation exposition

Notes

[1] “As foreigners flee, Japanese lament lack of info“, Megan Towey, CBS News
[2] Pdf here : Radiation levels

Please send me your other radiation level sources. Please translate this post into Japanese. Please broadcast !

[UPDATE: 05/14/2011]

I wish there was a website where NGO could ask for what they need (report, program…) and people could work for them from home #theiwl—
ths1104 (@Ths1104) February 25, 2011

I got some interesting feedbacks. Here is the summary:

• Onlinevolunteering.org – This is exactly what I was looking for. It is powered by the UNDP which is a guarantee of seriousness. The interface is rather classical but clear.  I really wonder why NGOs are not taking more advantages of this website. I even could find some technical projects I would be able to volunteer.
• Catchafire - It could be what I was searching for but it only serves organizations in the Greater New York City area. Moreover I couldn’t find any technical project.
• Nabuur – It focuses on helping communities by putting them directly in contact with specialists. The projects proposed are not necessarily supervised by a NGO so volunteers should take care when applying.
• Social actions – This is a kind of search engine for online volunteering. Nevertheless, the interface is not clear, a lot of results are linking to donation websites and it is difficult to find concrete projects.
• If I ran the world – The concept behind this site is to connect people who need something and people who want to help. It doesn’t seem that there are projects proposed by NGOs but the way they connect people is interesting. “If I ran the world, I would…”
• Sparked – Similar to Aardvark in the way they identify common interests of people to connect them. They just need more projects/people. Great interface. Have a look !

An online collaborative genealogy tree that would connect all the persons who live or have lived. With photos, biography, maps…  The best trial is probably werelate.org.

• History

A Google Earth based collaborative historical atlas with links to sources, illustrations and videos. Should include various maps like frontiers, demography, battles…  Something like that :

• Science

A platform for online collaborative science that would allow everyone to propose a project or to join one. Should include wiki, Tex, peer-review system, bug report, photo gallery, etc. I already discussed this here. Colabscience.com could be a good starting point.

ALL THE RIGHTS OF THE CLIPS BELONG TO THE CHANNEL FOX. This video is used for comment purpose of Bones season 6 episode 8 where it is stated that Gerolamo Cardano wrote a set of mathematical equations to describe the skeleton system. Believing that comment and critique are at the very core of the fair use doctrine as a safeguard for freedom of expression, we claim it is a fair use under copyright law.

I should confess that I wasn’t familiar with Gerolamo Cardano prior to this.  Cardano is a famous algebraist known for his publication of the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations. And as there is no general algebraic solution to polynomial equations of degree five or higher [2], Cardano couldn’t do more. Besides he was the first to publish the use of complex numbers in calculations even if he did not understand their properties. Among his many other contributions, he invented the Cardan shaft with universal joints and published the horoscope of Jesus… Concerning the set of mathematical equations written by Cardano to describe the skeleton system mentioned in this episode of Bones, I found no reference of their existence.

If Cardano didn’t publish such equations, why did the scriptwriters made reference to him there ? They have obviously done some research, but maybe it’s a confusion due to the fact that in Biomechanics, angles named “cardan angles” can be used to describe the kinematic of the limbs [3]. Another plausible explanation can be found looking for the etymology of the word “algebra”. It comes from Arabic al-jebr  and refers to the setting or the straightening out of broken bones, to the “reduction” of a fracture. In Spanish “algebrista”  still designs a bonesetter. In Mathematics, the word has been introduced in 820 by al-Khwārizmī to describe the operations of  ”reduction” and balancing, i.e. the cancellation of like terms on opposite sides of the equation [4]. Nowadays one still talks of “reducing” fractions to lowest terms. Knowing this, Cardano’s 1545 book title Artis Magnæ, Sive de Regulis Algebraicis could be translated by About The Great Art, or The Rules of  Bone Setting… (Mmmmh…) A bit too subtle maybe?

Notes

1. See K. Killgrove comments about that.
2. Abel’s impossibility theorem
3. S. J. Tupling and M. R. Pierrynowski, “Use of cardan angles to locate rigid bodies in three-dimensional space”, Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, Vol. 25, Nb. 5, pp. 527-532, 1987.
4. C. B. Boyer and U. C. Merzbach, “A History of Mathematics”, second edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1991, ISBN0471543977.

The first thing to be done when trying to translate such a text seems to transliterate it. It will then be easier to analyse it with common data mining tools. The text being written in Greek alphabet, we can use tools such as transliterate.com to obtain the transliteration of our text:

euthys de parastas moi Peisandros “andres” ephē “bouleutai, egō ton andra touton endeiknyō hymin siton te eis tous polemious eisagagonta kai kōpeas.” kai to pragma ēdē pan diēgeito hōs epeprakto. en de tō tote ta enantia phronountes dēloi ēsan ēdē hoi epi stratias ontes tois tetrakosiois. kagō — thorybos gar dē toioutos egigneto tōn bouleutōn — [kai] epeidē egignōskon apoloumenos, euthys prospēdō pros tēn hestian kai lambanomai tōn hierōn. hoper moi kai pleistou axion egeneto en tō tote: eis gar tous theous echonta oneidē houtoi me mallon tōn anthrōpōn eoikasi kateleēsai, boulēthentōn te autōn apokteinai me houtoi ēsan hoi diasōsantes. desma te hysteron kai kaka hosa te kai hoia tō sōmati ēneschomēn, makron an eiē moi legein. hou dē kai malist᾽ emauton apōlophyramēn: hostis touto men en hō edokei ho dēmos kakousthai, egō anti toutou kaka eichon, touto de epeidē ephaineto hyp᾽ emou peponthōs, palin au kai dia tout᾽ egō apōllymēn. hōste hodon te kai poron mēdamē eti einai moi eutharsein: hopoi gar trapoimēn, pantothen kakon ti moi ephaineto hetoimazomenon. all᾽ homōs kai ek toutōn toioutōn ontōn apallageis ouk estin ho ti heteron ergon peri pleionos epoioumēn ē tēn polin tautēn agathon ti ergasasthai.

Of course for an unknown script, a transliteration table has to be created.

The next step would probably be to compile some statistics. What could be interesting to know ? What program should I use ?

Suppose Greek is an unknown language. You have found an old document with the following script. You want to translate it. What would you do ?

εὐθὺς δὲ παραστάς μοι Πείσανδρος “ἄνδρες” ἔφη “βουλευταί, ἐγὼ τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον ἐνδεικνύω ὑμῖν σῖτόν τε εἰς τοὺς πολεμίους εἰσαγαγόντα καὶ κωπέας.” καὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα ἤδη πᾶν διηγεῖτο ὡς ἐπέπρακτο. ἐν δὲ τῶ τότε τὰ ἐναντία φρονοῦντες δῆλοι ἦσαν ἤδη οἱ ἐπὶ στρατιᾶς ὄντες τοῖς τετρακοσίοις. κἀγώ — θόρυβος γὰρ δὴ τοιοῦτος ἐγίγνετο τῶν βουλευτῶν — [καὶ] ἐπειδὴ ἐγίγνωσκον ἀπολούμενος, εὐθὺς προσπηδῶ πρὸς τὴν ἑστίαν καὶ λαμβάνομαι τῶν ἱερῶν. ὅπερ μοι καὶ πλείστου ἄξιον ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ τότε: εἰς γὰρ τοὺς θεοὺς ἔχοντα ὀνείδη οὗτοί με μᾶλλον τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐοίκασι κατελεῆσαι, βουληθέντων τε αὐτῶν ἀποκτεῖναί με οὗτοι ἦσαν οἱ διασῴσαντες. δεσμά τε ὕστερον καὶ κακὰ ὅσα τε καὶ οἷα τῷ σώματι ἠνεσχόμην, μακρὸν ἂν εἴη μοι λέγειν. οὗ δὴ καὶ μάλιστ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν ἀπωλοφυράμην: ὅστις τοῦτο μὲν ἐν ᾧ ἐδόκει ὁ δῆμος κακοῦσθαι, ἐγὼ ἀντὶ τούτου κακὰ εἶχον, τοῦτο δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἐφαίνετο <εὖ> ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ πεπονθώς, πάλιν αὖ καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἐγὼ ἀπωλλύμην. ὥστε ὁδόν τε καὶ πόρον μηδαμῇ ἔτι εἶναί μοι εὐθαρσεῖν: ὅποι γὰρ τραποίμην, πάντοθεν κακόν τί μοι ἐφαίνετο ἑτοιμαζόμενον. ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως καὶ ἐκ τούτων τοιούτων ὄντων ἀπαλλαγεὶς οὐκ ἔστιν ὅ τι ἕτερον ἔργον περὶ πλείονος ἐποιούμην ἢ τὴν πόλιν ταύτην ἀγαθόν τι ἐργάσασθαι.

Some precisions :

• No Greek dictionary, no Rosetta Stone…
• Suppose this is the unique document available.
• As the problem to know whether a script is written with phonetic characters or not is already in itself a difficult issue, to simplify things you can suppose to begin that the text you try to translate is actually written with an alphabet. And that’s why I choose a text in Greek.
• I choose this text randomly among the collection of texts of the Perseus Digital Library.  A translation is available but please don’t use it. Don’t cheat with Google translate
• All suggestions are welcome. If you have any idea, whether you have the time to explore it or not, please post it here before.

Edit (Nov 21st, 2010)

It can be argued that even if Greek is an unknown language, some European languages are descended from it. We should then find some graphic analogy between Greek and modern languages. I would probably allow us to translate some words from the original text. But I am not interested in this kind of considerations here because I am searching a general method to translate any unknown language. So let’s say this text has no relation with any known language.

This paragraph is just to remember that I am aware that Greek is inherently close to English, as sentence for example have the same structure in both languages. It will therefore facilitate our analysis. But if the analysis is successful we will try to translate other languages.

I now need to implement this method for my research. But although the mathematical description is complete, the Matlab/Simulink implementation description shows “black blocks”. Actually these “black blocks” are the key of the implementation. So I will probably need about one month to implement this method correctly if I have to figure out how to code these blocks.

I asked my Professor if it was possible to obtain the simulation file by contacting the authors. Here is his answer:

If the file is not available on Internet, it means that this is important for their research to keep it secret. If you want this file, we need to contact them and to sign a research agreement. It would be better if you can implement this method by yourself. 

At the time I just responded that this is an inefficient way to do research. I really don’t get why if someone publish a paper, the simulation file associated is not made publicly available too. When publishing, a scientist gets credit for all the work presented.  This is just not fair to keep something secret and to publish another paper using it, and to get credit another time for the same work.

If you want to keep something secret because it’s important for your research, don’t communicate about it ! Finish your research and then publish !

I should mention that the government is financing my PhD. It means that next month, taxpayers will pay for me to do something that as already been done. Besides the government will probably finance someone else in the future to do exactly the same work… Research could be more efficient by asking journals to force authors to make their data/simulation/program publicly available when publishing a paper. In the meantime, you can act: be an Open Scientist.