Algorithmically compressed data and the topological conjecture for the inner-core electrons

Eight different properties of three classes of compounds, metal halides, halomethanes, and chlorofluorocarbons, have been modeled with the aim to check the validity of the odd complete graph conjecture suggested for encoding the contribution of the inner-core electrons to the molecular connectivity indices. Modeling using this conjecture is compared with modeling using connectivity indices derived by other well-known algorithms. The conjecture of odd complete graph for the inner-core electrons achieves to improve the modeling quality of the molecular connectivity indices and/or of the molecular connectivity terms. The importance of the recently introduced dual molecular connectivity indices and pseudoindices in further refining the modeling quality of the higher-order terms has also been stressed.     

Encoding the core electrons with graph concepts

The core electron problem of atoms in chemical graph studies has always been considered as a minor problem. Usually, chemical graphs had to encode just a small set of second row atoms, i.e., C, N, O, and F, thus, graph and, in some cases, pseudograph concepts were enough to "graph" encode the molecules at hand. Molecular connectivity theory, together with its side-branch the electrotopological state, introduced two "ad hoc" algorithms for the core electrons of higher-row atoms based, mainly, on quantum concepts alike. Recently, complete graphs, and, especially, odd complete graphs have been introduced to encode the core electrons of higher-row atoms. By the aid of these types of graphs a double-valued algorithm has been proposed for the valence delta, deltav, of any type of atoms of the periodic table with a principal quantum number n > or =2. The new algorithm is centered on an invariant suggested by the hand-shaking theorem, and the values it gives rise to parallel in some way the values derived by the aid of the two old "quantum" algorithms. A thorough comparative analysis of the newly proposed algorithms has been undertaken for atoms of the group 1A-7A of the periodic table. This comparative study includes the electronegativity, the size of the atoms, the first ionization energy, and the electron affinity. The given algorithm has also been tested with sequential complete graphs, while the even complete graphs give rise to conceptual difficulties. QSAR/QSPR studies do not show a clear-cut preference for any of the two values the algorithm gives rise to, even if recent results seem to prefer one of the two values.     

The hydrogen perturbation in molecular connectivity computations

A new algorithm for the delta(v) number, the basic parameter of molecular connectivity indices, is proposed. The new algorithm, which is centered on graph concepts like complete graphs and general graphs, encodes the information of the bonded hydrogen on different atoms through a perturbation parameter that makes use of no new graph concepts. The model quality of the new algorithm is tested with 13 properties of seven different classes of compounds, as well as with composite classes of compounds with the same property and with composite properties of the same class of compounds. Chosen properties and classes of compounds display different percentage of bonded hydrogen atoms, which allow a checking of the importance of this parameter. A comparison is drawn with previous results with zero contribution for the hydrogen perturbation as well as among results obtained by changing the number of compounds of a property but keeping constant the percentage of hydrogen atoms. Results underline the importance of the property as well as the importance of the number of compounds in determining the level of the hydrogen perturbation. Molecular connectivity terms are in some cases more critical than the combination of indices in detecting the perturbation introduced by the hydrogen atoms.     

Core electrons and hydrogen atoms in chemical graph theory

General and complete graphs have recently been used to free chemical graph theory, and especially molecular connectivity theory, from spurious concepts, which belonged to quantum chemistry with no direct counterpart in graph theory. Both types of graph concepts allow the encoding of multiple bonds, non-bonding electrons, and core electrons. Furthermore, they allow the encoding of the bonded hydrogen atoms, which are normally suppressed in chemical graphs. This suppression could sometimes have nasty consequences, like the impossibility to differentiate between compounds, whose hydrogen-suppressed chemical graphs are completely equivalent, like for the CH₂F₂ and BHF₂ compounds. At the computational level the new graph concepts do not introduce any dramatic changes relatively to previous QSPR/QSAR studies. These concepts can nevertheless help in encoding the many electronic features of a molecule, achieving, as a bonus, an improved quality of the modeled properties, as it is here exemplified with a set of properties of different classes of compounds.     

Novel shape descriptors for molecular graphs.

We report on novel graph theoretical indices which are sensitive to the shapes of molecular graphs. In contrast to the Kier's kappa shape indices which were based on a comparison of a molecular graph with graphs representing the extreme shapes, the linear graph and the "star" graph, the new shape indices are obtained by considering for all atoms the number of paths and the number of walks within a graph and then making the quotients of the number of paths and the number of walks the same length. The new shape indices show much higher discrimination among isomers when compared to the kappa shape indices. We report the new shape indices for smaller alkanes and several cyclic structures and illustrate their use in structure-property correlations. The new indices offer regressions of high quality for diverse physicochemical properties of octanes. They also have lead to a novel classification of physicochemical properties of alkanes.     

QSPR modeling: graph connectivity indices versus line graph connectivity indices

Five QSPR models of alkanes were reinvestigated. Properties considered were molecular surface-dependent properties (boiling points and gas chromatographic retention indices) and molecular volume-dependent properties (molar volumes and molar refractions). The vertex- and edge-connectivity indices were used as structural parameters. In each studied case we computed connectivity indices of alkane trees and alkane line graphs and searched for the optimum exponent. Models based on indices with an optimum exponent and on the standard value of the exponent were compared. Thus, for each property we generated six QSPR models (four for alkane trees and two for the corresponding line graphs). In all studied cases QSPR models based on connectivity indices with optimum exponents have better statistical characteristics than the models based on connectivity indices with the standard value of the exponent. The comparison between models based on vertex- and edge-connectivity indices gave in two cases (molar volumes and molar refractions) better models based on edge-connectivity indices and in three cases (boiling points for octanes and nonanes and gas chromatographic retention indices) better models based on vertex-connectivity indices. Thus, it appears that the edge-connectivity index is more appropriate to be used in the structure-molecular volume properties modeling and the vertex-connectivity index in the structure-molecular surface properties modeling. The use of line graphs did not improve the predictive power of the connectivity indices. Only in one case (boiling points of nonanes) a better model was obtained with the use of line graphs.     

Fast construction of assembly trees for molecular graphs

A number of modeling and simulation algorithms using internal coordinates rely on hierarchical representations of molecular systems. Given the potentially complex topologies of molecular systems, though, automatically generating such hierarchical decompositions may be difficult. In this article, we present a fast general algorithm for the complete construction of a hierarchical representation of a molecular system. This two-step algorithm treats the input molecular system as a graph in which vertices represent atoms or pseudo-atoms, and edges represent covalent bonds. The first step contracts all cycles in the input graph. The second step builds an assembly tree from the reduced graph. We analyze the complexity of this algorithm and show that the first step is linear in the number of edges in the input graph, whereas the second one is linear in the number of edges in the graph without cycles, but dependent on the branching factor of the molecular graph. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on a set of specifically tailored difficult cases as well as on a large subset of molecular graphs extracted from the protein data bank. In particular, we experimentally show that both steps behave linearly in the number of edges in the input graph (the branching factor is fixed for the second step). Finally, we demonstrate an application of our hierarchy construction algorithm to adaptive torsion-angle molecular mechanics.     

Overall connectivities/topological complexities: a new powerful tool for QSPR/QSAR

Earlier attempts to assess the complexity of molecules are analyzed and summarized in a number of definitions of general and topological complexity. A concept which specifies topological complexity as overall connectivity, and generalizes the idea of molecular connectivities of Randic, Kier, and Hall, is presented. Two overall connectivity indices, TC and TC1, are defined as the connectivity (the sum of the vertex degrees) of all connected subgraphs in the molecular graph. The contributions to TC and TC1, which originate from all subgraphs having the same number of edges e, form two sets of eth-order overall connectivities, eTC and eTC1. The total number of subgraphs K is also analyzed as a complexity measure, and the vector of its eth-order components, eK, is examined as well. The TC, TC1, and K indices match very well the increase in molecular complexity with the increase in the number of atoms and, at a constant number of atoms, with the increased degree of branching and cyclicity of the molecular skeleton, as well as with the multiplicity of bonds and the presence of heteroatoms. The potential of the three sets of eth-order complexities for applications to QSPR was tested by the modeling of 10 alkane properties (boiling point, critical temperature, critical pressure, critical volume, molar volume, molecular refraction, heat of formation, heat of vaporization, heat of atomization, and surface tension), in parallel with Kier and Hall's molecular connectivity indices (k)chi. The topological complexity indices were shown to outperform molecular connectivity indices in 44 out of the 50 pairs of models compared, including all models with four and five parameters.     

Variable connectivity index for cycle-containing structures.

In the early applications of the connectivity index the index was empirically modified for some properties of cyclic structures by subtracting 1/2 from the computed value based solely on valence of vertices in the molecular graph. In this article we looked into the origin of this heuristic adjustment of the connectivity indices for cyclic structures. We have examined the relative role of carbon atoms in cycle-containing structures by differentiating carbon atoms making up a ring and carbon atoms in exocyclic bonds. We found in the case of the boiling points of cycloalkanes and alkylcycloalkanes that contributions of "cyclic" and "acyclic" atoms to molecular additivities differ somewhat.     

Novel atomic-level-based AI topological descriptors: application to QSPR/QSAR modeling

Novel atomic level AI topological indexes based on the adjacency matrix and distance matrix of a graph is used to code the structural environment of each atomic type in a molecule. These AI indexes, along with Xu index, are successfully extended to compounds with heteroatoms in terms of novel vertex degree v(m), which is derived from the valence connectivity delta(v) of Kier-Hall to resolve the differentiation of heteroatoms in molecular graphs. The multiple linear regression (MLR) is used to develop the structure-property/activity models based on the modified Xu and AI indices. The efficiency of these indices is verified by high quality QSPR/QSAR models obtained for several representative physical properties and biological activities of several data sets of alcohols with a wide range of non-hydrogen atoms. The results indicate that the physical properties studied are dominated by molecular size, but other atomic types or groups have small influences dependent on the studied properties. Among all atomic types, -OH groups seem to be most important due to hydrogen-bonding interactions. On the contrary, -OH groups play a dominant role in biological activities studied, although molecular size is also an important factor. These results indicate that both Xu and AI indices are useful model parameters for QSPR/QSAR analysis of complex compounds.     

Novel Indices for the Topological Complexity of Molecules

Abstract

The development of molecular complexity measures is reviewed. Two novel sets of indices termed topological complexities are introduced proceeding from the idea that topological complexity increases with the overall connectivity of the molecular graph. The latter is assessed as the connectivity of all connected subgraphs in the molecular graph, including the graph itself. First-order, second-order, third-order, etc., topological complexities ⁱ TC are defined as the sum of the vertex degrees in the connected subgraphs with one, two, three, etc., edges, respectively. Zero-order complexity is also specified for the simplest subgraphs–the graph vertices. The overall topological complexity TC is then defined as the sum of the complexities of all orders. These new indices mirror the increase in complexity with the increase in the number of atoms and, at a constant number of atoms, with the increase in molecular branching and cyclicity. Topological complexities compare favorably to molecular connectivities of Kier and Hall, as demonstrated in detail for the classical QSPR test-the boiling points of alkanes. Related to the wide application of molecular connectivities to QSAR studies, a similar importance of the new indices is anticipated.