Subject: JOURNALS - Part (4/5) of UK Nonlinear News

From: UK Nonlinear News (uk-nonl_at_ucl.ac.uk)
Date: 09/01/04 

Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 15:29:32 +0100

Subject: JOURNALS - Part (4/5) of UK Nonlinear News

UK Nonlinear News, August 2004

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JOURNAL NEWS

   * Royal Society Publication: The Mechanics of DNA
   * Table of Contents: Nonlinearity Volume 17(5), September 2004

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               Royal Society Publication: The Mechanics of DNA

The July 2004 issue of Philosophical Transactions series A contains
papers
of a theme issue entitled The mechanics of DNA, compiled and edited by
Michael Thompson

Some 50 years after Crick & Watson discovered the helical structure of
DNA,
great strides are being made in understanding how the molecule works.
Immense benefits are now being generated by the rapid progress in genome

science and its applications. These include: new drugs and cures for
many
diseases; new techniques for treating and avoiding cancer; DNA
finger-printing; the building of microscopic circuits and machines; new
light on the evolution, lineage and migration of populations. Sales of
DNA-based products and technologies in the biotechnology industry are
projected to exceed $50 billion within the next four or five years.

DNA represents the memory of life, carrying the genetic information that
is
passed from parents to children, generation after generation. The
genetic
code stored in DNA uses the sequence of bases in a gene to specify how
the
corresponding protein is to be constructed. Less well known is another
type
of coded information which determines the structural properties of the
DNA
double helix. It is this structural code that governs how the molecule
bends, and how its two strands can become separated. These properties
can be
crucially important in deciding when and where in an organism the
genetic
programme is executed.

The DNA in a chromosome is a very long thin thread that is packaged in a

very small volume. For example in every human cell 2 m of DNA are
compacted
into a ball with a diameter of about 2 x 10-6 m. To achieve this, the
DNA
thread must be tightly bent and organised so as to prevent tangling. It
is
the DNA structural code that influences how easy it is for different DNA

sequences to bend, and consequently how they can be organised in the
structure of a chromosome.

It is, moreover, the structural code that determines how easy it is for
different DNA sequences to unwind completely or 'melt'. This can have a
profound influence on how a gene is expressed. For the genetic
information
in a particular gene to be copied, and so become functionally active,
the
two strands of DNA must 'melt' just in front of the start of the gene.

In this volume, the physics of these structural properties of DNA is
examined in detail, and their importance in relation to biological
function
is emphasised. In particular the Watson-Crick helix is analysed as an
elastically stiff backbone twisting and writhing under torsional
stresses or
undulating under incessant thermal motion. The papers elucidate the
forces
and structures that allow the extraction of genetic information from the

tightly coiled DNA found in the nuclei of living cells

This title is available at a special price of £45 (plus postage) by
contacting Debbie Vaughan email: debbie.vaughan@royalsoc.ac.uk. Normal
price
is £85.

           Source: Debbie Vaughan <debbie.vaughan@royalsoc.ac.uk>

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        Table of Contents: Nonlinearity Volume 17(5), September 2004

All articles are free for 30 days after publication on the web.
http://stacks.iop.org/0951-7715/17/i=5

                    Nonlinearity, 17(5), September 2004

PAPERS

1547 Topological obstructions to smoothness for infinitely
renormalizable
     maps of the disc

     F J Moreira

1571 Connecting orbits and invariant manifolds in the spatial restricted

     three-body problem
     G Gómez, W S Koon, M W Lo, J E Marsden, J Masdemont and S D Ross
1607 Growth of the zeta function for a quadratic map and the dimension
of
     the Julia set

     J Strain and M Zworski

1623 Optimal partition choice for invariant measure approximation for
     one-dimensional maps
     R Murray
1645 Convex dynamics: properties of invariant sets

     T Nowicki and C Tresser

1677 Isometric actions of Lie subgroups of the Moebius group

     C Boubel and A Zeghib

1689 Chaotic dynamics of a nonlinear density dependent population model

     I Ugarcovici and H Weiss

1713 Renormalization and shearless invariant tori: numerical results
     D Gaidashev and H Koch
1723 Eigenfunctions for smooth expanding circle maps

     G Keller and H H Rugh

1731 Viscous singular shock structure for a nonhyperbolic two-fluid
model
     B L Keyfitz, M Sever and F Zhang

1749 A `horizontal' hyper-diffusion three-dimensional thermocline
planetary
     geostrophic model: well-posedness and long-time behaviour
     C Cao, E S Titi and M Ziane
1777 Vanishing twist near focus--focus points

     H R Dullin and V? Ngoc San

1787 Rotations by &pi;/7

     A Goetz and G Poggiaspalla

1803 Evolution of slow variables in a priori unstable Hamiltonian
systems
     D Treschev

1843 On the initial value problem for the KPII equation with data that
do
     not decay along a line

     J Villarroel and M J Ablowitz

1867 Ruelle's linear response formula, ensemble adjoint schemes and Lévy

     flights

     G L Eyink, T W N Haine and D J Lea

1891 Exact semi-geostrophic flows in an elliptical ocean basin
     R J McCann and A M Oberman
1923 Dimension dependent energy thresholds for discrete breathers
     M Kastner

1941 A non-linear oscillator with quasi-harmonic behaviour: two- and
     n-dimensional oscillators
     J F Cariñena, M F Rañada, M Santander and M Senthilvelan
1965 Robust normal forms for saddles of analytic vector fields
     W Tucker
CORRIGENDUM
     On the On the existence of conditionally invariant probability
1985 measures in dynamical systems
     of a renormalization operator
     P Collet, S Martínez and V Maume-Deschamps

               Source: Elizabeth Martin (liz.martin@iop.org).

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