DIMACS Series in
Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science

VOLUME Twenty Three
TITLE: "Global Minimization of Nonconvex Energy Functions: Molecular Conformation and Protein Folding"
EDITORS: P. M. Pardalos, D. Shalloway, and G. Xue
Published by the American Mathematical Society


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PREFACE


In the context of the 1994-1995 DIMACS Special year on Mathematical Support for Molecular Biology, a two-day workshop entitled ``Global Minimization of Nonconvex Energy Functions: Molecular Conformation and Protein Folding'' was held on March 20-21, 1995. One of the most significant and challenging problems in molecular biophysics and biochemistry is that of computing the native 3-dimensional conformation (folded state) of a globular protein given its amino acid sequence, possibly in the presence of additional agents (e.g., drugs). The solution will probably require the use of experimental or knowledge based methods to provide initial guesses for subsequent numerical refinement. The numerical methods require: (a) determination of suitable energy functions that can reliably model protein behavior and (b) optimization methods that can find global minima of energy functions given the many degrees of freedom available to protein structures. This workshop focused on global optimization methods and related problems through an interdisciplinary effort that was represented from computational groups in global optimization, computer science and biochemistry.

The workshop featured about twenty invited speakers who talked about protein folding, simulation and modeling techniques, heuristics and exact algorithms for globally optimizing nonconvex energy functions. This volume contains a collection of refereed papers from the workshop.

The workshop was sponsored by DIMACS, through grants from the National Science Foundation, the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, the National Center for Human Genome Research, the Department of Energy, The National Security Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Rutgers University, and other sources. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the sponsors, the DIMACS staff, the participants, the authors, the referees, and the American Mathematical Society, for making the workshop successful and the publication of this volume possible.

Panos M. Pardalos, David Shalloway, and Guoliang Xue
June 1995


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