Background: Constraint programming (CP) is usually seen as a rigid approach, focusing on crisp, precise, distinctions between what is allowed as a solution and what is not. At first sight, this makes it seem inadequate for bioinformatics applications that rely mostly on statistical parameters and optimization. The prediction of protein interactions, or protein docking, is one such application. ...

Pigs reared in intensive production systems often express abnormal cannibalistic behaviours, such as tail biting (Schroder-Peterson & Simonsen, 2001). The occurrence of tail biting is difficult to predict but is believed to arise from several complex factors, particularly lack of environmental enrichment as well as inadequate food intake (Moinard et al., 2002; EFSA, 2007). The presence of canni...

Simulation models are finding increasing application and acceptance in the field of organizational theory (Carley and Hill, 2001; Cohen, 1998; Liebrand, 1998). While some work in aligning (or “docking”) different models has been done in recent years (e.g., Axtell, 1996), increased attention to this dimension of model validation stands to increase validity of simulation modeling still further (B...

objective(s): alzheimer’s disease (ad) as progressive cognitive decline and the most common form of dementia is due to degeneration of the cholinergic neurons in the brain. therefore, administration of the acetylcholinesterase (ache) inhibitors such as donepezil is the first choice for treatment of the ad. in the present study, we focused on the synthesis and anti-cholinesterase evaluation of n...

interference with microtubule polymerization results in cell cycle arrest leading to cell death. colchicine is a well-known microtubule polymerization inhibitor which does so by binding to a specific site on tubulin. a set of 3',4'-bis (substituted phenyl)-4'h-spiro[indene-2,5'-isoxazol]-1(3h)-one derivatives with known antiproliferative activities were evaluated for their t...

background hymenodictyon excelsum is a medicinal plant traditionally used for tumor treatment as it contains phytochemicals of anthraquinone and coumarin class. objectives the aim of the present study was to unfold the therapeutic value of selected phytocompounds of hymenodictyon excelsum in prostate cancer. materials and methods eight phytochemicals were selected based on the literature search...

Cross-docking is a logistics technique that minimizes the storage and order picking functions of a warehouse while still allowing it to serve its receiving and shipping functions. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm for solving scheduling trucks in cross-docking problems. This algorithm comprises three components: an initial population generation method based on an...

Recent years have witnessed rapid developments of computer-aided drug design methods, which have reached accuracy that allows their routine practical applications in drug discovery campaigns. Protein structure-based methods are useful for the prediction of binding modes of small molecules and their relative affinity. The high-throughput docking of up to 106 small molecules followed by scoring b...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as a complicated and progressive neurodegenerative disorder is the most common form of dementia and memory loss. On account of the multifactorial etiology of AD, the multi-target-directed ligand (MTDL) approach is a promising method in searching new drug candidates for this disease. Here, in this paper more than 500 tacrine-coumarin hybrids have been designed and drug-l...

Molecular dynamics simulations have evolved into a mature technique that can be used effectively to understand macromolecular structure-to-function relationships. Present simulation times are close to biologically relevant ones. Information gathered about the dynamic properties of macromolecules is rich enough to shift the usual paradigm of structural bioinformatics from studying single structu...