Asymmetry in the Multiprotein Systems of Molecular Biology

Signaling in living systems needs to achieve high specificity, to be reversible, and to achieve high signal to noise. Signaling mediated by multiprotein systems has evolved that avoids the requirement for high-affinity binary complexes that would be difficult to reverse and which, in the overcrowded cell, would lead to excessive noise in the system. Symmetrical structures are only occasionally formed. When they are, it is principally to colocate components, for example, the tyrosyl kinases of growth factors, where dimers form. Symmetry is, however, often broken, presumably to create more sensitivity and specificity in the signaling system by assembling other components, into higher-order multiprotein systems. The binding of a single heparin to two 1:1 FGF:FGFR complexes is an example, as is the binding of a single ligase to the Xrcc4 dimer, perhaps so creating a further DNA-binding site.     

Numerical experiments on billiards

We investigate decay properties of correlation functions in a class of chaotic billiards. First we consider the statistics of Poincaré recurrences (induced by a partition of the billiard): the results are in agreement with theoretical bounds by Bunimovich, Sinai, and Bleher, and are consistent with a purely exponential decay of correlations out of marginality. We then turn to the analysis of the velocity-velocity correlation function: except for intermittent situations, the decay is purely exponential, and the decay rates scale in a simple way with the (uniform) curvature of the dispersing arcs. A power-law decay is instead observed when the system is equivalent to an infinite-horizon Lorentz gas. Comments are given on the behaviour of other types of correlation functions, whose decay, during the observed time scale, appears slower than exponential.     

On the finiteness of optimal partitions

We prove that, under appropriate assumptions on the domain Ω and on the datumg, any optimal partition of Ω (minimizing the sum of the total perimeter and the approximation term is finite. Finiteness result for the problem of image segmentation in Artificial Vision can be deduced.

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Sunto Dimostriamo che, in opportune ipotesi sul dominio Ω e sul datog, ogni partizione ottimale di Ω (minimizzante il perimetro totale in Ω più il termine di approssimazione è finita. Se ne deducono risultati di finitezza per il problema della segmentazione di immagini in Visione Artificiale.

     

Bioaccumulation of vanadium in the epiphytic lichen Parmelia caperata from Liguria (north-west Italy)

The concentration of vanadium was measured in 35 samples of the epiphytic lichen Parmelia caperata collected along the coast of the Ligurian Sea (Italy), in order to detect the possible bioaccumulation of vanadium due to a huge crude oil burning occurred in that area in 1991. The cartographic elaboration of data shows a pattern of distribution of vanadium concentrations according to different degrees of deviation from background condition, showing that 8 years later memory of the accident is still detectable in foliose lichen thalli.     

Excess enthalpies of some aromatic aldehydes in n-hexane, n-heptane and benzene

Calorimetric measurements of molar excess enthalpies, H^E, at 298.15 K, of mixtures containing aromatic aldehydes of general formula C₆H₅(CH₂)_mCHO (with m = 0, 1 and 2) + n-hexane, n-heptane or benzene are reported, together with the values of H^E at equimolar composition compared with the corresponding values of H^E for the aromatic ketones in the same solvents. The experimental results clearly indicate that the intermolecular interactions between the carbonyl groups (CHO) are influenced by the intramolecular interactions between the carbonyl and phenyl groups, particularly for the mixtures containing benzaldehyde.     

Minimal boundaries enclosing a given volume

We prove some facts concerning surfaces of minimal area bounding regions of prescribed volume in ⁿ. The main result we prove is that the mean curvature of such a surface is constant, if possibly a discontinuous function of the enclosed volume. The boundary behaviour of the solutions is also discussed.     

Automatic classification of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis pictures by heuristic clustering analysis: a step toward machine learning

The interpretation of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DGE) profiles can be facilitated by artificial intelligence and machine learning programs. We have incorporated into our 2-DGE computer analysis system (termed MELANIE-Medical Electrophoresis Analysis Interactive Expert system) a program which automatically classifies 2-DGE patterns using heuristic clustering analysis. This program is a step toward machine learning. In this publication, we describe the classification method and the preliminary results obtained with liver biopsy electrophoretograms. Heuristic clustering is also compared to other classification techniques.     

Finding stabbing lines in 3-space

A line intersecting all polyhedra in a setℬ is called a “stabber” for the setℬ. This paper addresses some combinatorial and algorithmic questions about the setℒ(ℬ) of all lines stabbingℬ. We prove that the combinatorial complexity ofℒ(ℬ) has an upper bound, wheren is the total number of facets inℬ, andc is a suitable constant. This bound is almost tight. Within the same time bound it is possible to determine if a stabbing line exists and to find one. The research of M. Pellegrini was partially supported by Eni and Enidata within the AXL project, and by NSF Grant CCR-8901484. A preliminary version appeared in theProceedings of the Second ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 24–31.