Averages, molecular dynamics results

Molecular dynamics results for restricted pore average density versus pore width. 

Two simulation methods—Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics—allow calculation of the density profile and pressure difference of Eq. III-44 across the vapor-liquid interface [64, 65]. In the former method, the initial system consists of N molecules in assumed positions. An intermolecule potential function is chosen, such as the Lennard-Jones potential, and the positions are randomly varied until the energy of the system is at a minimum. The resulting configuration is taken to be the equilibrium one. In the molecular dynamics approach, the N molecules are given initial positions and velocities and the equations of motion are solved to follow the ensuing collisions until the set shows constant time-average thermodynamic properties. Both methods are computer intensive yet widely used. 

As examples of applications, we present the overall accuracy of predicted ionization constants for about 50 groups in 4 proteins, changes in the average charge of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor at pH 7 along a molecular dynamics trajectory, and finally, we discuss some preliminary results obtained for protein kinases and protein phosphatases. 

Btamp/e Conformations of molecules like n-decane can be globally characterized by the end-to-end distance, R. In a comparison of single-molecule Brownian (Langevin) dynamics to molecular dynamics, the average end-to-end distance for n-decane from a 600 ps single-molecule Langevin dynamics run was almost identical to results from 19 ps of a 27-molecule molecular dynamics run. Both simulations were at 481K the time step and friction coeffi-... 

Simulations. In addition to analytical approaches to describe ion—soHd interactions two different types of computer simulations are used Monte Cado (MC) and molecular dynamics (MD). The Monte Cado method rehes on a binary coUision model and molecular dynamics solves the many-body problem of Newtonian mechanics for many interacting particles. As the name Monte Cado suggests, the results require averaging over many simulated particle trajectories. A review of the computer simulation of ion—soUd interactions has been provided (43). 

Stimulated by these observations, Odelius et al. [73] performed molecular dynamic (MD) simulations of water adsorption at the surface of muscovite mica. They found that at monolayer coverage, water forms a fully connected two-dimensional hydrogen-bonded network in epitaxy with the mica lattice, which is stable at room temperature. A model of the calculated structure is shown in Figure 26. The icelike monolayer (actually a warped molecular bilayer) corresponds to what we have called phase-I. The model is in line with the observed hexagonal shape of the boundaries between phase-I and phase-II. Another result of the MD simulations is that no free OH bonds stick out of the surface and that on average the dipole moment of the water molecules points downward toward the surface, giving a ferroelectric character to the water bilayer. 

Presently, only the molecular dynamics approach suffers from a computational bottleneck [58-60]. This stems from the inclusion of thousands of solvent molecules in simulation. By using implicit solvation potentials, in which solvent degrees of freedom are averaged out, the computational problem is eliminated. It is presently an open question whether a potential without explicit solvent can approximate the true potential sufficiently well to qualify as a sound protein folding theory [61]. A toy model study claims that it cannot [62], but like many other negative results, it is of relatively little use as it is based on numerous assumptions, none of which are true in all-atom representations. 

Monte Carlo simulation shows [8] that at a given instance the interface is rough on a molecular scale (see Fig. 2) this agrees well with results from molecular-dynamics studies performed with more realistic models [2,3]. When the particle densities are averaged parallel to the interface, i.e., over n and m, and over time, one obtains one-dimensional particle profiles/](/) and/2(l) = 1 — /](/) for the two solvents Si and S2, which are conveniently normalized to unity for a lattice that is completely filled with one species. Figure 3 shows two examples for such profiles. Note that the two solvents are to some extent soluble in each other, so that there is always a finite concentration of solvent 1 in the phase... 

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