CSC 181 - Advanced Research Topics in Computer Science





Molecular Surface Calculation (SIMS)

Abstract of the paper [Vorobjev 1997]: The SIMS method generates the smooth molecular surface by rolling two probe spheres. A solvent probe sphere is rolled over the molecule and produces the Richards-Connolly molecular surface (MS), which envelops the solvent-excluded volume of the molecule. In deep crevices, Connolly's method of calculating the MS has two deficiencies. First, it produces self-intersecting parts of the molecular surface, which have to be removed to obtain the correct MS. Second, the correct MS is not smooth, i.e. the direction of the normal vector of the MS is not continuous, and, some points of the MS are singular. We present an exact method to remove self-intersecting parts and to smooth the singular regions of the MS. The singular MS is smoothed by rolling a smoothing probe sphere over the inward side of the singular MS. The MS in the vicinity of singularities is replaced with the reentrant surface of the smoothing probe sphere. The smoothing method does not disturb the topology of a singular MS and the smooth MS is a better approximation of the dielectric border between high dielectric solvent and low dielectric molecular interior. The SIMS method generates a smooth molecular dot surface which has a quasi-uniform dot distribution in two orthogonal directions on the molecular surface, and which is invariant to rotation of the molecule and stable to a change in the molecular conformation, and which can be used in a variety of implicit methods of modeling solvent effects. The SIMS program is faster than the Connolly MS program and in a matter of seconds generates a smooth dot MS of a 200 residue protein.



The following data was collected according to the rules set on the project specs web page. Only user-level time was measured excluding any system calls and IO that the kernel might perform on behalf of the process. The reading of the PDBs and the output of the results in the program was not timed but rather the section where the calculations are performed only. For measuring the time, the fortran intrinsic call etime() was employed.

Timing of Various PDB files with SIMS

PDB file
140D.pdb
4INS.pdb
16VP.pdb
1a34.pdb
148d.pdb
1A4G.pdb
1AFV.pdb
4HMG.pdb
1IAS.pdb
1I84.pdb
unknown.pdb
1HVU.pdb
1jmu.pdb
None4.pdb
1h1k.pdb
2btv.pdb
Atoms
527
1181
2637
3479
5856
6641
9024
12243
13181
16580
18236
21416
23657
25977
40008
48336
Time
1.020 s
1.830 s
3.810 s
6.140 s
443.250 s
8.340 s
15.940 s
22.710 s
27.190 s
43.440 s
39.680 s
116.230 s
58.080 s
66.370 s
113.580 s
115.200 s
Output data
140D
4INS
16VP
1a34
148d
1A4G
1AFV
4HMG
1IAS
1I84
unknown
1HVU
1jmu
None4
1h1k
2btv


The data was fitted with the curve fitting software DataFit. The out-of-kilter probes (148d.pdb and 1HVU.pdb) were ignored. 246 models were employed and the results of the fits were compared in the models summary. The specific information for the best fit is available here followed by its graph below:
















Voronoi diagrams (QHULL)

Abstract of the paper [Barber 1996]: The convex hull of a set of points is the smallest convex set that contains the points. This article presents a practical convex hull algorithm that combines the two-dimensional Quickhull Algorithm with the general dimension Beneath-Beyond Algorithm. It is similar to the randomized, incremental algorithms for convex hull and Delaunay triangulation. We provide empirical evidence that the algorithm runs faster when the input contains non-extreme points, and that it uses less memory. Computational geometry algorithms have traditionally assumed that input sets are well behaved. When an algorithm is implemented with floating point arithmetic, this assumption can lead to serious errors. We briefly describe a solution to this problem when computing the convex hull in two, three, or four dimensions. The output is a set of "thick" facets that contain all possible exact convex hulls of the input. A variation is effective in five or more dimensions.

Timing of Various PDB files with QHULL

PDB file
140D.pdb
4INS.pdb
16VP.pdb
1a34.pdb
148d.pdb
1A4G.pdb
1AFV.pdb
4HMG.pdb
1IAS.pdb
1I84.pdb
unknown.pdb
1HVU.pdb
1jmu.pdb
None4.pdb
1h1k.pdb
2btv.pdb
Points
527
829
2457
2969
5856
6072
9022
11862
13106
16492
17896
21416
23268
25224
40008
49061
Time
0.040 s
0.080 s
0.260 s
0.410 s
0.660 s
0.720 s
1.080 s
1.460 s
1.560 s
2.010 s
2.220 s
2.520 s
2.970 s
3.190 s
4.710 s
6.330 s
Output data
140D
4INS
16VP
1a34
148d
1A4G
1AFV
4HMG
1IAS
1I84
unknown
1HVU
1jmu
None4
1h1k
2btv



The models summary shows that the best fit is the one graphed below (see detailed report):











Useful links:


Bibliography:


Other links: