Japlish - English Made In Japan

Foreign residence of Japan frequently chuckle over their discoveries of new forms of Japlish or Janglish, i.e., awkward or ludicrous use of English by Japanese. Other than the ludicrous, there is much of interest to readers of Word Ways; I offer a selection below. A more extensive discussion of the subject can be found in Don C. Bailey\u27s glossary of Japanese neologisms (see References). Although it is a decade out of date and probably out of print, it should be available at universities offering instruction in the Japanese language

I Am Firm, You Are Obstinate

In the August 1969 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman briefly discusses the word game Conjugating Irregular Verbs (I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool), and suggests a Rich man, poor man variant (rich man: tired; poor man: lazy). But such games can also be played in deadly earnest, particularly in religious and political confrontations

General Bounds for Incremental Maximization

We propose a theoretical framework to capture incremental solutions to cardinality constrained maximization problems. The defining characteristic of our framework is that the cardinality/support of the solution is bounded by a value $k\in\mathbb{N}$ that grows over time, and we allow the solution to be extended one element at a time. We investigate the best-possible competitive ratio of such an incremental solution, i.e., the worst ratio over all $k$ between the incremental solution after $k$ steps and an optimum solution of cardinality $k$. We define a large class of problems that contains many important cardinality constrained maximization problems like maximum matching, knapsack, and packing/covering problems. We provide a general $2.618$-competitive incremental algorithm for this class of problems, and show that no algorithm can have competitive ratio below $2.18$ in general. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the inherently incremental greedy algorithm that increases the objective value as much as possible in each step. This algorithm is known to be $1.58$-competitive for submodular objective functions, but it has unbounded competitive ratio for the class of incremental problems mentioned above. We define a relaxed submodularity condition for the objective function, capturing problems like maximum (weighted) ($b$-)matching and a variant of the maximum flow problem. We show that the greedy algorithm has competitive ratio (exactly) $2.313$ for the class of problems that satisfy this relaxed submodularity condition. Note that our upper bounds on the competitive ratios translate to approximation ratios for the underlying cardinality constrained problems.Comment: fixed typo

A Fresh Look at Energy, Materials, and Labor in Agriculture

An understanding of agriculture's energy, material, and labor requirements is essential for achieving economic and ecological sustainability, and for assessing the effectiveness of relevant policy decisions (biofuel subsidies, regulations, labeling, etc.). Previous studies of energy, materials, and labor use in farming have been based on either unverified voluntary reporting or test plots, rather than on the high-resolution measurements of mass and energy flows. Here we present a recursive analysis of 1.25 million data points describing in unprecedented detail the resource transactions on a 60 ha farm functioning for over 6 years. This analysis highlights the importance of accounting for all types of materials, as well as capital equipment, non-field labor, and commuting. The superior energy efficiency of the farm's energy-saving methods, including green manure, crop rotation, composting, and short-duration grazing -- compared with conventional methods -- persists even when the higher labor requirements are taken into account. One of the farm's methods, however -- the use of horses for traction -- is shown to be highly inefficient compared with mechanical tractors

Contractile units in disordered actomyosin bundles arise from F-actin buckling

Bundles of filaments and motors are central to contractility in cells. The classic example is striated muscle, where actomyosin contractility is mediated by highly organized sarcomeres which act as fundamental contractile units. However, many contractile bundles in vivo and in vitro lack sarcomeric organization. Here we propose a model for how contractility can arise in actomyosin bundles without sarcomeric organization and validate its predictions with experiments on a reconstituted system. In the model, internal stresses in frustrated arrangements of motors with diverse velocities cause filaments to buckle, leading to overall shortening. We describe the onset of buckling in the presence of stochastic actin-myosin detachment and predict that buckling-induced contraction occurs in an intermediate range of motor densities. We then calculate the size of the "contractile units" associated with this process. Consistent with these results, our reconstituted actomyosin bundles contract at relatively high motor density, and we observe buckling at the predicted length scale.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Supporting text and movies attache

Computer and Internet Use by Great Plains Farmers

We use data from a 2001 survey of Great Plains farmers to explore the adoption, usage patterns, and perceived benefits of computers and the Internet. Our adoption results suggest that exposure to the technology through college, outside employment, friends, and family is ultimately more influential than farmer age and farm size. Notably, about half of those who use the Internet for farm-related business report zero economic benefits from it. Whether a farmer perceives that the Internet generates economic benefits depends primarily on how long the farmer has used the Internet for farm business and for what purposes.Farm Management, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,