A number of single-crystal structures have now been solved of the four-stranded antiparallel stacked-X form of the Holliday junction. These structures demonstrate how base sequence, substituents, and drug and ion interactions affect the general conformation of this recombination intermediate. The geometry of junctions had previously been described in terms of a specific set of parameters that i...

A fundamental question in protein science is what is the intrinsic propensity for an amino acid to be in an α-helix, β-sheet, or other backbone dihedral angle ( ϕ-ψ) conformation. This question has been hotly debated for many years because including all protein crystal structures from the protein database, increases the probabilities for α-helical structures, while experiments on small peptides...

Prominent ear is a relatively common deformity of the external ear, with an incidence of approximately 5% in Caucasians [1]. The main anatomical features of prominent ear are protrusion of the upper half of the helix with a wide conchoscaphal angle that results from failure of the antihelix to fold properly, in conjunction with a wide conchomastoid angle, deep conchal bowl, or absence of the he...

The notion of a generalized helix in R3, a curve making a constant angle with a fixed direction, can be generalized to higher dimensions in many ways. In [7] the same definition is proposed but in R. In [4] the definition is more restrictive: the fixed direction makes a constant angle with all the vectors of the Frenet frame. It is easy to check that this definition only works in the odd dimens...

The crystal structure of the synthetic DNA dodecamer d(CpGpCpGpApApTpTpCpGpCpG) has been refined to a residual error of R = 17.8% at 1.9-A resolution (two-sigma data). The molecule forms slightly more than one complete turn of right-handed double-stranded B helix. The two ends of the helix overlap and interlock minor grooves with neighboring molecules up and down a 2(1) screw axis, producing a ...

The tertiary interactions between amide-I vibrators on the separate helices of transmembrane helix dimers were probed by ultrafast 2D vibrational photon echo spectroscopy. The 2D IR approach proves to be a useful structural method for the study of membrane-bound structures. The 27-residue human erythrocyte protein Glycophorin A transmembrane peptide sequence: KKITLIIFG(79)VMAGVIGTILLISWG(94)IKK...

The helix-to-coil denaturation transition in DNA has been investigated in mixed solvents at high concentration using ultraviolet light absorption spectroscopy and small-angle neutron scattering. Two solvents have been used: water and ethylene glycol. The "melting" transition temperature was found to be 94 degrees C for 4% mass fraction DNA/d-water and 38 degrees C for 4% mass fraction DNA/d-eth...

Helical ribbons with pitch angles of either 11 degrees or 54 degrees self-assemble in a wide variety of quaternary surfactant-phospholipid/fatty acid-sterol-water systems. By elastically deforming these helices, we examined their response to uniaxial forces. Under sufficient tension, a low pitch helix reversibly separates into a straight domain with a pitch angle of 90 degrees and a helical dom...

In this thesis we develop a gain-scheduled control law for the quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Techniques from linear control theory are introduced and used to construct adaptive proportional and proportional-integral control laws for use with both state and observer-based output feedback. The controller monitors the yaw angle of the quadcopter and updates a gain matrix as the system ...

A macroscopic model is developed for analyzing the electro-optics of short-pitch uniform lying helix (ULH) cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs). Both flexoelectric effect and dielectric effect make important contributions to the maximum transmittance and operation voltage of the ULH devices. Based on the proposed macroscopic approximation, we derive an analytical expression to quantitatively eval...