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From: Konrad Hinsen <hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr>
To: dalke@ks.uiuc.edu
CC: chemistry@www.ccl.net
In-reply-to: <199707220012.TAA11576@bilbao.ks.uiuc.edu> (message from Andrew
	Dalke on Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:12:32 -0500)
Subject: Re: CCL:Re: CCL:Object-oriented means for computational chemistry programming


>   In a non-commercial sense I think most application domains have
> their own set of tools, and it will be very hard to convince     
> mathematicians to give up MatLab/Mathematics and astronomers to
> give up AIPS/AIPS++ and statisticians give up S-Plus and ...

True. So maybe such activities should be more specific to one domain.
But I think the basic idea makes sense: since scientists are not
able to develop non-trivial high-quality code of their own, due to
lack of time and technical knowledge, then some institution should
take care of that task and assemble a team of the right experts.

> If the code is implemented "correctly" there is no reason to do
> this.  When was the last time you needed to upgrade ftp, or      
> telnet, or bc, or yacc?  I use libpdb from the CGL to read PDB files 

That's something else; the programs don't change because the
requirements don't change. I was thinking of programs that are changed
continuously to incorporate new methods. After a while the result is
an big mess. I think I don't have to name examples, we are all using
them...

>   I think the problem isn't that code naturally decays over
> time but that it wasn't well designed in the first place.  Flaws

Exactly!
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Hinsen                          | E-Mail: hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr
Laboratoire de Dynamique Moleculaire   | Tel.: +33-4.76.88.99.28
Institut de Biologie Structurale       | Fax:  +33-4.76.88.54.94
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From elewars@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca  Wed Jul 23 11:12:57 1997
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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:26:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: "E. Lewars" <elewars@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Message-Id: <199707231426.KAA14915@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
To: chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: OBJECT_ORIENTED PROGRAMMING ETC


1997 July 23

Hello,
Regarding the recent discussions on the list about obect-oriented programming
and why no single computer language will please everyone:
there is an interesting article, primarily about Java, in _American Scientist_
(not _Scientific American_), July-August 1997, 304-308, by Brian Hayes
[bhayes@amsci.org].  It begins: "An unfulfilled dream of computer science is
the one true programming language, equally suited to all programs, all
programmers, and all computers."

   E. Lewars
==========================

From chall003@maroon.tc.umn.edu  Wed Jul 23 11:22:56 1997
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From: Matt Challacombe <chall003@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
To: Konrad Hinsen <hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr>
cc: dalke@ks.uiuc.edu, chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: Optimization hinders evolution
In-Reply-To: <199707231304.PAA32729@lmspc1.ibs.fr>
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Dear All,

This OO debate is very interesting.  I have a different perspective 
that I would like to share.  It is nicely summarized in a quote
by Alan Perlis:

                 Optimization hinders evolution.

Thus, if we strive only for optimal re-usable code, we reach a standstill
and risk programming very well engineered dinosaurs.  This is certainly
true of more numerically intensive codes.  Excellent examples of
algorithms superceeding well engineered implementations include linear
scaling electronic structure methods, fast Ewald methods, fast multipole 
methods, multiple time step methods, multigrid, etc etc.

To me, the issue is one of engineering vs science.  If computational
chemistry is to progress, it is important to focus on building physics and
chemistry into our mathematical implementations.

To be fair, some areas, such as the visualization of molecular
structure, appear to be well developed, and can certainly benefit
>from an engineering perspective.  On the other hand, it makes
little sense to quibble over factors of 1-2 between Fortran and C, 
when factors of N and N^2 are still to be had.

With best regards and wishes, Matt

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Matt Challacombe                           mf10111@msi.umn.edu
Minnesota Supercomputer Inst.                  TEL: 612-626-0763
1200 Washington Avenue South                
Minneapolis, MN 55415

--------------------------------------------------------------------




From lestaw.k.bieniasz@uni-tuebingen.de  Wed Jul 23 12:12:59 1997
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From: "Lestaw K. Bieniasz" <lestaw.k.bieniasz@uni-tuebingen.de>
To: Konrad Hinsen <hinsen@ibs.ibs.fr>
Cc: dalke@ks.uiuc.edu, chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: Re: CCL:Object-oriented means
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					Tuebingen, 23.07.97

Hello,

On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> But I think the basic idea makes sense: since scientists are not
> able to develop non-trivial high-quality code of their own, due to
> lack of time and technical knowledge, then some institution should
> take care of that task and assemble a team of the right experts.

One possible and evident solution to this problem would be to let the
scientists learn more about programming, and let them be much more
interdisciplinary than they are allowed to nowadays. They could then
produce a quality software without creating additional institution
and additional beaurocracy. I am convinced that nobody can produce
a really useful software for science, without actively participating
in real-life research. This means that only properly educated scientists
can do this. Some people would say that interdisciplinary teams can do
this (for example brilliant chemists together with brilliant
programmers), but I don't agree. Sometimes it takes more time and effort 
to organize such a team that to produce the software. Of course, this idea
requires that the traditional disciplinary structure of science be changed. 
People should be allowed to make scientific careers in interdisciplinary
fields such as for example chemistry-computational science. Otherwise, you
will not find interested, right people for the job. There is much talk
about this, especially in US, where a substantial revision of higher
education programs is suggested, and similar changes are proposed. I hope
they will not remain there but will also come to the conservative Europe. 

Bye,

					L.


*-------------------------------------------------------------------*
|                        Dr. Leslaw Bieniasz                        |
| temporary address: (3rd April 1997 - 31st August 1997)            |
|       Institut fuer Organische Chemie, Universitaet Tuebingen     |
|          Auf der Morgenstelle 18, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.       |
|              E-mail: lestaw.k.bieniasz@uni-tuebingen.de           |
*-------------------------------------------------------------------*
| permanent address:                                                |
| Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences,| 
| Molten Salts Laboratory, ul. Zagrody 13, 30-318 Cracow, Poland.   | 
|                   E-mail:  nbbienia@cyf-kr.edu.pl                 |
*-------------------------------------------------------------------*


From dalke@ks.uiuc.edu  Wed Jul 23 16:13:01 1997
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From: Andrew Dalke <dalke@ks.uiuc.edu>
Message-Id: <199707231919.OAA14690@bilbao.ks.uiuc.edu>
To: chall003@maroon.tc.umn.edu
Subject: Re: Optimization hinders evolution
Cc: chemistry@www.ccl.net



Hello,

  I agree with your statement that emphasis on optimization of
current methods without exploration of alternate approaches
can cause "very well engineered dinosaurs."  What I like about
current advances in C++ (templates) is you get the ability
to organize your data in more complicated ways (with classes
and better data hiding) without the effort it would take to
achieve the same in Fortran and without appreciable performance
loss.
  This yields the chance to develop newer and often more
complicated methods with less effort; aiding just the sort
of exploration into new methods you want.  Adding a well-designed
scripting language (like Python) makes trying new concepts even
easier.

  Now for a real-life example of where C++ is more useful than
Fortran ...

  I was involved in the development of NAMD, a molecular          
mechanics program written at UIUC.  It has two main goals:
 * to run well in distributed memory parallel architectures (like
workstation clusters)
 * to be a viable testbed for new methods in molecular modeling,
both for us and other groups

  We made a deliberate decision to use C++ instead of Fortran
because the problems we want to address are not only those
of computation, but of data management.  We need to shuttle
computations between, say, 32 processors w/o shared memory and
ensure that each processor has the data it needs.  It is a
tricky job, but by turning the computations into objects
and allowing the compute objects to migrate from machine to
machine we can simplify the problem.
  Load balancing can then be achieved by forcing specific
compute objects to migrate to specific machines.  New algorithms,
like fast multipole methods, can be (are!) implemented as new
compute objects while methods like multiple time stepping turn
into a scheduling problem (ie, "when are the different compute
objects called?").
  That's not to say this couldn't be done in Fortran, but
it would be much more complicated implementation, and less
likely that others would use NAMD to develop their own new
algorithms.

  BTW, as another reason for choosing C++; no one in the group
knew enough Fortran to develop a large project.

						Andrew Dalke
						dalke@ks.uiuc.edu

From PDu@synapticcorp.com  Tue Jul 22 09:12:42 1997
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From: "Ping Du" <PDu@synapticcorp.com>
To: chemistry@www.ccl.net
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:45:08 +0000
Subject:  CCL:Object-oriented means for computational chemist
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Hi,

I found the discussions on OO programming very useful!  However, 
there is a point that I would like to bring up.  That is, is it 
possible to implement an OO design using a non-OO language?  The main 
design features of OOD are abstraction, encapsulation, and 
inheritance.  One may achieve abstraction and encapsulation in a 
non-OO language by forcing discipline.  For example, use struct in C 
as if there were classes and access data members through "interface" 
functions.  However, implementing inheritance is impossible without 
an OO language.  Inheritance is pobably the most important feature of 
OO design if you would like your program to be extensible and 
reusable.
 
> > One can DESIGN software based on these principles (OOD) regardless of
> > what language the software is to be implemented in.
> 
> Right. But implementing an OO design in a non-OO language requires
> a lot of experience and discipline - to be expected of a professional
> programmer, but not of a programming scientist.

Ping Du
Synaptic Pharmaceutical

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ping Du, PhD
Senior Scientist, Computational Chemistry   Email: pdu@synapticcorp.com
Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corporation         Tel: (201) 261-1331x642
215 College Road, Paramus, NJ 07652         Fax: (201) 261-0623
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From bruce@cosy.utmb.edu  Tue Jul 22 10:12:44 1997
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From: "Bruce Luxon" <bruce@cosy.utmb.edu>
Message-Id: <9707220851.ZM5417@cosy.utmb.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:51:52 -0500
Organization: Sealy Center for Structural Biology
Reply-To: bruce@nmr.utmb.edu
X-Phone: (409) 747-6802
X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.3 08feb96 MediaMail)
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Iraj,

I use TRANSFORM and PLOT from Fortner Research on Mac and SGI and have
been very pleased with their power and simplicity of use. The URL is
http://www.fortner.com/

Bruce Luxon

On Jul 22, 12:05am, Iraj Daizadeh wrote:
> Subject: CCL:Vizualization of 3-D flow field: mac-win
> Hello.
>
> My new question is the same as the previous one except that it centers on
> software (commercial or otherwise) that can display a 2-d or 3-d flow field
> (vector field) as well as contours for a mac (preferable) or pc environment.
>
> Thanks in advance...
>
> Iraj.
>
>-- End of excerpt from Iraj Daizadeh

-- 

*=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
*  Bruce A. Luxon, Ph.D                                                    *
*  Assistant Professor                                                     *
*  Sealy Center for Structural Biology                                     U
*  Dept. of Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics                          T
*  University of Texas Medical Branch                                      M
*  Galveston, TX   77555-1157                                              B
*                                                                          *
*  (409)747-6802; Fax (409)747-6850              http://www.hbcg.utmb.edu/ *
*  bruce@nmr.utmb.edu                            http://www.nmr.utmb.edu/  *
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From jtgolab@amoco.com  Tue Jul 22 10:12:53 1997
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From: jtgolab@amoco.com (Joe Golab)
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:30:27 -0500
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Subject: SUMMARY - Reaction Pathway Programs, Part II
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Hi CCL:

Below is an updated summary of responses to the "retro-synthesis" question
I asked on 7/21.  Thanks to all who have responded.  I have edited some of
the answers and so I take full responsibility for any errors.  Some good
references are in the replies themselves, i.e. I did not bother to summarize
them.  If I get any more answers, I will re-post summary.

<<Tue Jul 22 08:24:32 CDT 1997>>

Execute Summary of Answers

  1) SYNGEN, Jim Hendrickson, Brandeis University
  2) CAMEO, Bill Jorgensen, Yale  (<-- Reaction Simulation)
  3) SYNTREE, Commerical Software, Vendor?
  4) SYNLIB, Dan Chodosh, may not exist anymore
  5) REACCS, MDL
  6) CAS's reaction data base
  7) Chiron, Steve Hannisan (spl?) of U. of Montreal.
  8) LAHSA, E.J. Corey, Harvard U.
  9) Unknown, Michael Mavrovouniotis, Northwestern
 10) Crossfile, Beilstein
 11) EROS, Dr. Johann Gasteiger, Erlangen University.
 12) ORAC, Pergamon.
 13) SECS W. Todd Wipke, University of California, Santa Cruz.
 14) WODCA, J. Gasteiger.
 15) IGOR/RAIN, Ugi
 16) PASCOP, Gerard Kaufmann, University of Strasbourg
 17) SYNCHEM, H. Gelernter U.S. Stony Brook

______________________________ Original Note __________________________________
Subject: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  chemistry-request (chemistry-request@www.ccl.net) at unix,sh
Date:    7/14/97 4:43 PM

Dear CCL Member:

Do you know of any (engineering, chemistry, biological, etc) program that
given a compound would suggest any and all reaction pathways toward that
compound (no matter how outlandish from a thermodyanmic standpoint)?

For example, given tolune, the program would suggest:

 1) benzene + methane -> toluene
 2) methylcyclohexane -> toluene + H2
 3) methane + heat/pressure -> toluene + H2
 4) ETC.

Perhaps this is really a database that is part of a program.  Any leads
would be gratefully appreciated!  Thanks.

:Joe Golab, jtgolab@amoco.com

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  lchen (lchen@mdli.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/14/97 5:16 PM

Dear Joe:

Please check the following SYNGEN site:

http://syngen2.chem.brandeis.edu/syngen.html

you may find something interesting you.

-Lingran

**********************************************************
Lingran Chen, Ph.D.
Senior Scientific Programmer
MDL Information Systems, Inc.
14600 Catalina Street
San Leandro
CA 94577

Phone: (510) 895-1313, Ext. 1305
FAX:   (510) 614-3616

Email: LCHEN@MDLI.COM
URL:   http://www.mdli.com
       http://syngen2.chem.brandeis.edu/~chen/lingran.html
**********************************************************

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  eslone (eslone@patriot.net) at unix,mime
Date:    7/14/97 6:32 PM

Talk to Jim Hendrickson at Brandeis University.  He has a program called
SynGen.
___________________________________________________________________

 J. Eric Slone
 Scientific Consulting Services
 5500 Holmes Run Parkway, Suite 501
 Alexandria, Virginia  22304-2851

 Phone:  (703) 461-7078                  mailto:eslone@patriot.net
 Fax:    (703) 751-6639        http://www.patriot.net/users/eslone
___________________________________________________________________

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  dsmith (dsmith@CTCnet.Net) at unix,mime
Date:    7/14/97 9:12 PM

Joe:

I am not familiar with any program that will suggest ALL reaction
pathways... there are just way too many possibilities, which is why we
still have synthetic organic chemists.

You are probably familiar with Bill Jorgensen's CAMEO program (I hope I
have the name correct), which can suggest 'reasonable' synthetic routes to
various types of compounds and functionality.  There is also a commercial
program (not that Bill doesn't sell his programs, ;)) called SYNTREE (I
believe).  There were some papers about this at either the last ACS
National meeting in San Francisco or at the Midland, MI, ACS Regional
meeting in May.  I can look for more information if you wish, but I am at
home and just finishing up a vacation while I write this.

Regardless, both of these programs use a combination (I believe) of data
bases and "expert" algorithms to select likely reactions.  I don't know of
anything that will give you all possible routes, except perhaps an
aggressive undergraduate who has just finished his/her organic final exam.

There was also SYNLIB that came from the late Dan Chodosh... I don't know
if anyone picked up that program so I can't tell you if it still exists.
This was purely data base based and matched based on user-defined
descriptors, if I remember correctly from my postdoc days.  MDL REACCS and
CAS's reaction data base are two others that come to mind.

I would also love to hear from anyone else about similar programs.  Please
post to CCL rather than just to Joe.

Doug Smith

--
Dr. Douglas A. Smith, President and CEO     |  voice: (814) 255-7859
The DASGroup, Inc.                          |    fax: (814) 255-3517
1732 Lyter Drive, 2nd Floor                 |  email: dsmith@dasgroup.com
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assessment for chemistry, materials science, and biotechnology.

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  Willie (Willie@microsimulations.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/15/97 1:12 AM

Joe,

Two programs that can do retrosynthetic analysis,
1. Chiron, from Prof. Steve Hannisan (wrong spelling?) of U. of Montreal.
2. LAHSA, from prof. E.J. Corey of Harvard U.

--
Willie Cui, Ph.D.       voice 201-512-0486
MicroSimulations        fax:  201-512-0489
478 Green Mountain Rd.  email: willie@microsimulations.com
Mahwah, NJ 07430        URL:  http://www.microsimulations.com

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: RE: Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  RICHEYFA (RICHEYFA@ucarb.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/15/97 6:12 AM

Hi, Joe,

I had a similar question when looking for new routes to commodity
chemicals.  I found references to techniques for making expensive
[usually pharmaceutical] chemicals which would take a target structure
and elaborate[!] multistep pathways from known precursors.  I think one
was E.J. Corey's group's product.  At least one of these gave
synthetically viable guesses for transformations so probably weeded out
a lot of the thermodynamically infeasible routes.

I haven't pursued this very far but was left with the feeling that there
was a lot of work in the 80's and the only thing that has survived
outside academe has been the pharmaceutical part.  I may be wrong in
this.

I never did summarize my work but if you are interested I can send you
references with brief comments.

I wanted this approach to automate the cataloging of possible synthetic
routes including finding the ones that I'd overlook because of my
particular chemical background.

Forrest Richey

Union Carbide Corporation
Technical Center
Bldg 740 Room 4107
S. Charleston, WV 25303
(304)747-4964

Two things happen when you reach fifty, and if I could remember one, I
wouldn't worry about the other two.

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Reaction Pathways
Author:  burkhart (burkhart@goodyear.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/15/97 9:00 AM

Hi Joe,

If I'm not mistaken, Prof. Bill Jorgensen's group @Yale worked
on a program called CAMEO. As I remember it, they were trying
to use it as a reaction chemistry "assistant"--but I'm not
sure how far they got.

----------------------------------+------------------------------------
Papernet:  Craig W. Burkhart      | Baseball & summer--What could be
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_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL-Reaction Pathway Pro
Author:  mnliebman (mnliebman@vysis.com) at unix,sh
Date:    7/15/97 9:59 AM

RE>CCL:Reaction Pathway Program              7/15/97

Joe
try contactine Michael Mavrovouniotis at Northwestern- mlmavro@nwu.edu I
think
Michael
271 7190
_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Your e-mail to CCL
Author:  pierre (pierre@mdli.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/15/97 10:14 AM

Dear Joe,

I received a copy of your e-mail attached at the end of my reply. You may
remember that we talked on the phone a few month ago. Although my answer is
obviously biased by the fact that I work for MDL, my experience after 9
years working with the large pharma and chemical industries in Europe and in
the US is that there seems to be no good way to have a prediction program. A
lot of companies have tried, and they have ended up licensing our databases
or other  (like Beilstein Crossfire). The advantage they have found in our
system, compared to other database systems, (especially since we introduced
ISIS, the client server system we provide now) is the flexibility of our
querying interface. You can search not only on exact reactions, but also on
things like " find an example of a reaction where this fragment is formed".
Or "find an example of a reaction using these conditions where a fragment is
unaltered".

As an example, to address your query below, we would draw the toluene, and
define it as a product, and then we would perform a search known as
"structure as product not as reactant, or "sub-structure as product, not as
reactant". Which basically defines that the toluene has to be formed during
the reaction. You could also refine the query by specifying certain classes
of reactions you do not want (list catalysts that are expensive etc).

Running the query you use as an example on our databases leaded to 113
reactions out of 107 publications. The query was exclusively dealing with
the toluene as product, no substituted toluene was allowed. In some of these
reactions the benzene is a by product, and probably a lot of them are
dealing with cleavage from a larger structure, but these reactions could
still be of interest, you would have to judge.

>> [Parts of Original Message Edited/Deleted] <<

Sincerely

Pierre Allemand Ph.D.
Senior Account Manager

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  chamot (chamot@chamotlabs.com) at unix,sh
Date:    7/16/97 3:28 PM

Hi Joe,

I haven't heard anything about it for a while, but I think you want the
program:

o LHASA (Logic and Heuristics Applied to Synthetic Analysis) is a backward
chaining synthesis planning program which uses a database of specially coded
chemical reactions and definitions for strategic bonds to analyze potential
synthetic pathways for a molecule.  The target molecule is analyzed according
to the number of rules and likely synthetic pathways are produced for
examination. -- Alan Long (last contact I know of), Harvard University.

At the time, it seemed very systematic, and would develop a retrosynthetic tree
(basically, "unsynthesize" the compound), showing all precursors for all
reasonable reactions for however many reaction steps you cared to follow back.
You could control how focused it was by defining minimum expected yields, and
paring branches you didn't want it to follow, or you could let it go
unconstrained.

I don't know much about the following programs, from the list I keep on my web
site for reference, but you may be interested in one of them, too:

o CAMEO (Computer Assisted Mechanistic Evaluation of Organic Reactions) is a
forward chaining reaction prediction program.  Runs on VAX/VMS computer systems
and uses Tektronix graphics. -- William L. Jorgensen, Yale University.

o EROS (Elaboration of Reactions for Organic Synthesis) is a computer assisted
synthesis program developed by Gasteiger et.al. which uses a set of rules to
propose synthetic routes. -- Dr. Johann Gasteiger, Erlangen University.

o ORAC - (Organic Reaction Accessed by Computer) Computer Assisted Synthesis
-- Pergamon.

o SECS (Simulation and Evaluation of Chemical Synthesis) is a retro-synthesis
analysis program in much the same mold as LHASA and SYNCHEM.  The target
molecule is analyzed according to strategic reactions using a database of known
reactions as a guide for predicting single step transformations to simplified
compounds.  Several iterations of the procedure are required to develop a
synthesis plan. -- W. Todd Wipke, University of California, Santa Cruz.

o WODCA - Computer Assisted Synthesis -- J. Gasteiger.

EC
---
Ernest Chamot
Chamot Labs, Inc.
530 E. Hillside Rd.
Naperville, Illinois 60540
(630)637-1559
echamot@chamotlabs.com
http://www.chamotlabs.com/cl

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Re: CCL:Re: CCL:Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  chemistry-request (chemistry-request@www.ccl.net) at unix,mime
Date:    7/15/97 3:18 PM

Programs which perform exhaustive bond reordering for reaction prediction or
synthesis planning, or assemble reaction networks between speicified endpoints,
can do this.  Typically, these programs employ additional constraints to
prevent entering the outlandish domains, but these checks can be disabled :-),
and thus all reaction pathways generated.  Be warned: You quickly generate
truly enourmous numbers of pathways.  Example programs which could work in this
mode are EROS5 (Gasteiger) and IGOR/RAIN (Ugi).  For literature references and
an overview, see Angewandte Chemie, Int. Ed. 1995, 34, 2613-2633.

--
Dr. Wolf-D. Ihlenfeldt
Computer Chemistry Center, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg
Naegelsbachstrasse 25, D-91052 Erlangen (Germany)
Tel (+49)-(0)9131-85-6579  Fax (+49)-(0)9131-85-6566
---
The three proven methods for ultimate success and fame:
1) Nakanu nara koroshite shimae hototogisu
2) Nakanu nara nakasete miseyou hototogisu
3) Nakanu nara naku made matou hototogisu

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: CCL:Re:CCL: Reaction Pathway Program
Author:  chemistry-request (chemistry-request@www.ccl.net) at unix,mime
Date:    7/16/97 4:09 AM

Douglas,

Pure and Appl. Chem. vol.62, 10, pp 1921 "Abstract- An interactive computer
program, CAMEO, has been developed to predict products of organic reactions
given the starting materials and conditions..."

At the beginning CAMEO was a reaction simulator, but is there a new module now
in CAMEO that " can suggest 'reasonable' synthetic routes to various types of
compounds and functionality"?

I don't know if they are all maintained and commercialized but a lots of
Computer Assisted Organic Synthesis (CAOS) programs that works in a
retrosynthetic way have been designed.  I suggest you to have a look at:

"Computer-assisted Solution of Chemical Problems - The historical Development
 and the Present State of the Art of a New discipline of Chemistry" by Ivar Ugi
 and al. in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1993, 32, 201-227

It's a huge review on computer chemistry, but a good part of it deals with
CAOS.

Now if you want a quick answer on one of the commercial products, try
http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/LUK/

Hope it helps

Jean-Francois Marchaland

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ Dr J.F. Marchaland           jfm@mi.leeds.ac.uk              _/
_/ ICAMS, School of Chemistry   UK: 0113 233 6567               _/
_/ University of Leeds          internat.: +44 113 233 6567     _/
_/ LS29JT LEEDS                 FAX: 6563                       _/
_/                                                              _/
_/ http://chem.leeds.ac.uk/ICAMS/people/jfm.html                _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: Retrosynthesis analysis
Author:  jfm (jfm@mi.leeds.ac.uk) at unix,mime
Date:    7/17/97 12:36 PM

CAMEO does not do "retro-synthesis", but reaction simulation.

Besides you could add:

PASCOP: Gerard Kaufmann, University of Strasbourg
SYNCHEM: H. Gelernter U.S. Stony Brook
http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~ors/Fall-1994/gelern-94.html
SECS: W.T. Wipke UC Santa-Cruz

regards


Jeff

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ Dr J.F. Marchaland           jfm@mi.leeds.ac.uk              _/
_/ ICAMS, School of Chemistry   UK: 0113 233 6567               _/
_/ University of Leeds          internat.: +44 113 233 6567     _/
_/ LS29JT LEEDS                 FAX: 6563                       _/
_/                                                              _/
_/ http://chem.leeds.ac.uk/ICAMS/people/jfm.html                _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

_____________________________Reply Separator_________________________________
Subject: RE: CCL:SUMMARY - Reaction Pathway Programs
Author:  yvonne.c.martin (yvonne.c.martin@abbott.com) at unix,mime
Date:    7/18/97 6:10 PM


There is also CESA from Peter Johnson @ Leeds.  (johnson@mi.leeds.ac.uk)

>-- END Tue Jul 22 08:24:32 CDT 1997

-- 

:Joe
 jtgolab@amoco.com
 (630) 961-7878  <SOCON 231 7878>

 +------------------------------------------------+
 | A man doesn't automatically get my respect.    |
 | He has to get down in the dirt and beg for it. |
 |                                  - Jack Handey |
 +------------------------------------------------+
--MimeMultipartBoundary--


From mckennam@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil  Tue Jul 22 16:12:46 1997
Received: from curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil  for mckennam@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil
	by www.ccl.net (8.8.3/950822.1) id QAA15174; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:07:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: <mckennam@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil>
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	by curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA16725;
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Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:07:27 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199707222007.QAA16725@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil>
To: chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: Insight II [MSI] periodic cell correl. f's
Reply-To: mckennam@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil






	I'm looking for people who are pretty familiar with MSI's
	Insight II application, especially the Amorphous Cell module,
	*OR* who are familiar with how correlation functions are
	computed on periodic systems for chemical research.

	I am trying to reproduce some Insight output, and failing.

My Problem (in brief):
--------------------

    I wrote a program to compute pair and orientational correlation
functions from molecular conformations (e.g., PDB files.)  To test it,
I use Insight II to compute the same functions for the same
conformations.

    When I compare the functions using *NON* periodic systems, I
get the same answers.

    When I compare them using *PERIODIC* systems, our functions
agree  FOR SEPARATION DISTANCES (r) LESS THAN SOME RADIUS (r_a)
(r_a is a bit more than 1/2 the smallest period.) For larger "r"
values, our functions sometimes agree, but sometimes my pair
correlation function is larger.  (Mine is never smaller.)
My program appears to be finding more pairs of atoms than Insight.

When computing the orientational correlation, the results are
also consistent with my program finding more pairs than
Insight for r > r_a.
    


    I need to know (a) if Insight II is doing something unexpected,
and/or (b) whether my idea of how to handle periodic systems is
corect (see below.)

    [Yes, I have contacted MSI about this.  They don't appear eager
    to invest much effort in getting to the bottom of it, which is
    understandable, since it could be my bug or mistake.]



How I Handle Periodic Systems  (or, "Is This Correct?")
-----------------------------

    For non-periodic systems, I consider all pairs of atoms with
one atom chosen from subset A and one from B.

    For periodic systems, I consider subset B to also include
images of atoms chosen from subset B, i.e., for each "parent" position
in B, I also consider "image" positions of the form

    (image pos.) = (parent pos.) + i*v1 + j*v2 + k*v3

where v1, v2, and v3 are the image, or "periodicity" vectors (each has
the same length and direction as an edge of the periodic cell)
and i, j, and k are arbitrary integers.

    Since "arbitrary" i, j, and k would produce an infinite number
of pairs, I use the fact that we are not interested in pairs with
separation (r) more than some r_max, and compute a crude
upper bound for |i|, |j|, and |k| , so we start with a finite
number of pairs.  (Later on, we throw away the remaining pairs that have
r > r_max.)


    As far as I can see, as long as the upper bounds are large enough,
I should get all possible pairs with r < r_max.  Any mistakes should
result in my leaving out a pair I should have.  Such mistakes
would not have the effect that I see -- me getting more pairs than
Insight.


Conclusion
----------

    Please send me any specific suggestions, questions, etc., via
E-mail, and I will summarize what I find out.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan McKenney
Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH
<mckennam@curie.ml.wpafb.af.mil> 


From tvd@msi.com  Wed Jul 23 18:13:07 1997
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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:32:14 -0700
From: tvd@msi.com (Ton van Daelen)
Message-Id: <199707232132.OAA23918@iris69.msi.com>
To: CHEMISTRY@www.ccl.net
Subject: Re: Biosym scripting language



Hello Pieter -

The Insight scripting language is indeed called BCL, which stands 
for Biosym Command Language. The syntax has now been fully documented 
(in the Insight user manual) and we can assist you with any questions
that you still might have. The simulation environment Discover has its own 
scripting language which is based on Tcl. 

With many users migrating to the Cerius2 environment, we have developed 
a C2 scripting language based on Tcl, hence called C2.Tcl. This language 
takes advantage of all the Tcl control structures, list functions etc, 
and combines that with Cerius2 commands. In addition you can add a 
simple GUI to a script using a Tk like GUI definition file. 

However, C2.Tcl is designed for relatively simple customization. For an
efficient and flexible integration of an external code, you can choose
to use the C2.SDK toolkit and API set to write a much more interactive
interface to your code.

For more information on C2.Tcl and C2.SDK visit the following URLs:
http://www.msi.com/support/sdk/
http://www.msi.com/support/sdk/pub/scripting/macro_language.html

Regards - Ton


>>That's actually what Biosym has been doing for last couple of years.
>>Their script language was actually Tcl
>>(if I am not mistaken...)
>>
>Discover's scripting language is TCL, but the regular Biosym scripting
>language is an abomination called BCL (Biosym Control Language ?). The
>syntax is not fully documented (kind of strange as there is a BCL
>interpreter), nor does there seem to be anybody at MSI who has anywhere
>near complete BCL knowledge. When we were still actively working on our
>BForce implementation (the MSI version is known as Affinity), we ran into
>many problems, most often related to parameter passing. It would have made
>sense to change from BCL to TCL with specific Biosym extensions if it were
>not for the fact that it can be expected (conjecture on my part) that over
>time users will migrate from insightII to Cerius2 and, therefore, revamping
>insightII does not make sense.
>
> Pieter Stouten

  Ton van Daelen        Product Manager Software Developer's Kit

       __o                                      E: tvd@msi.com
     _`\<,_             Molecular Simulations   P: -1-619-546-5329
    (*)/ (*)            9685 Scranton Road      F: -1-619-458-0136
  /\/\/\/\/\/\          San Diego, CA 92121     W: http://www.msi.com

Check out What's New in SDK on the SDK web pages at http://www.msi.com/support/sdk/


From gbarbeau@eagle.ibc.edu  Wed Jul 23 19:13:01 1997
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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:07:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gina Barbeau <gbarbeau@eagle.ibc.edu>
To: chemistry@www.ccl.net
Subject: Help with the Docking module of Biosym
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Dear CCL members:

In a previous query sent to all CCL members I requested help on docking.
I am trying to use the Docking module of Biosym with little success.  I
have computed the grid using the default grid step size of 0.666.  But
when I go to use the intermolecular evaluation on the grid choosing only
the grid to monitor, to make docking in real time faster I am only able to
get vdW values for the area.  The total energy and elect energy
consistently displays either inf or -inf.  I have tried a larger grid size
and smaller cutoff values, but it still gives me inf or -inf.  How do I
get around this problem?


Unfortunately, the Biosym manual has offered no useful information in
regards to this.

Thanks again.
Gina Barbeau
email: gbarbeau@eagle.ibc.edu



From brian@bert.chem.wsu.edu  Wed Jul 23 20:13:11 1997
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From: brian@bert.chem.wsu.edu (Brian W. Beck)
Message-Id: <9707232336.AA19495@bert.chem.wsu.edu>
Subject: CHM:2^n restriction on parallel
To: charmm-bbs@emperor.harvard.edu (CHARMM LIST)
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 15:34:14 -0700 (PDT)
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	I currently using CHARMM24a3 on a 16node IBM SP2.

	I've noticed that I can only run in parallel if I request
	a power of 2 number of nodes (1,2,4,8,16).

	However, a couple of years ago, I had some runs done on a
	CONVEX which didn't have this power of 2 restriction.

	Am I doing something wrong or is this restriction a function 
	of the parallel environment of the AIX/SP2?

	(The reason I ask is that there are occasionally times when I could
	 grab 12 nodes, but can't because it doesn't work.)

	-Brian


-- 
=============================================================================
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|| \\     WSU || Washington St. Univ|   brian_beck@wsu.edu                  |
|\  -        *|| 639 Fulmer         |  URL  http://elmo.chem.wsu.edu/~brian |
| |           || Pullman, WA, USA   |    VOICE    (509) 335-4083            |
| \___________||       99164-4660   |      FAX    (509) 335-9688            |
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