Allostery is an essential property of many physiological mechanisms. Cooperativity together with allostery is observed in the behavior of multisubunit receptors. Here we summarize and compare several approaches to the description and analysis of allosteric phenomena with emphasis on the receptors connected to ionic channels as a model. Several simplified methods are discussed in comparison with...

We have studied a model which has been proposed as a regularisation for four dimensional quantum gravity. The partition function is constructed by performing a weighted sum over all triangulations of the four sphere. Using numerical simulation we find that the number of such triangulations containing V simplices grows faster than exponentially with V . This property ensures that the model has n...

First-principles modeling, experimental, and thermodynamic methodologies were integrated to facilitate a fundamentally guided investigation of quaternary complex hydride compounds within the bialkali Na-Li-Al-H hydrogen storage system. The integrated approach has broad utility for the discovery, understanding, and optimization of solid-state chemical systems. Density functional theory ground-st...

In this communication we report on the self-organising properties of a novel asymmetric bolaphile composed of sugar and steroidal units. The material was found to exhibit unusual phase changes in that it formed a cubic phase upon heating, whereas upon cooling it formed a lamellar phase. This change in property was ascribed to kinetic versus thermodynamic behaviour at the phase transition to the...

We analyze some models of nonequilibrium systems proposed in the past decade which derive the laws of Irreversible Thermodynamics from deterministic dynamics. We find that these models do not posses the crucial property of local thermodynamic equilibrium, since they represent noninteracting particles systems. Hence, these models are not suited for a derivation of Irreversible Thermodynamics. In...

The generalized entropic measure, which is optimized by a given arbitrary distribution under the constraints on normalization of the distribution and the finite ordinary expectation value of a physical random quantity, is considered and its Lesche stability property (that is different from thermodynamic stability) is examined. A general condition, under which the generalized entropy becomes sta...

Supercritical fluids (SCFs) show promise in the separation of high molecular mass compounds as they are able to distinguish between the hydrocarbon backbone length and the type and position of the functional group present. In order to design such a separation process one needs to estimate the number of theoretical stages required and determine the column diameter and height, both of which requi...

We propose a new method for simulating QCD at finite density, where interesting phases such as the color superconductivity phase is conjectured to appear. The method is based on a general factorization property of distribution functions of observables, and it is therefore applicable to any system with a complex action. The so-called overlap problem is completely eliminated by the use of constra...