Automated Structure Solution with the PHENIX Suite

Significant time and effort are often required to solve and complete a macromolecular crystal structure. The development of automated computational methods for the analysis, solution and completion of crystallographic structures has the potential to produce minimally biased models in a short time without the need for manual intervention. The PHENIX software suite is a highly automated system for macromolecular structure determination that can rapidly arrive at an initial partial model of a structure without significant human intervention, given moderate resolution and good quality data. This achievement has been made possible by the development of new algorithms for structure determination, maximum-likelihood molecular replacement (PHASER), heavy-atom search (HySS), template and pattern-based automated model-building (RESOLVE, TEXTAL), automated macromolecular refinement (phenix.refine), and iterative model-building, density modification and refinement that can operate at moderate resolution (RESOLVE, AutoBuild). These algorithms are based on a highly integrated and comprehensive set of crystallographic libraries that have been built and made available to the community. The algorithms are tightly linked and made easily accessible to users through the PHENIX Wizards and the PHENIX GUI

The Taimyr Pidgin Russian morphology enigma

Unlike prototypical pidgins, Taimyr Pidgin Russian (TPR) has adopted almost the complete set of verbal inflexions from its lexifier. This might be indicative of a social setting differing in a significant way from the usual pidginization scenario. Taking into account the ecolinguistic setting under which TPR evolved, a general picture of how TPR may have acquired its unique morphological peculiarities will be drawn. This article will try to piece the relevant sociohistorical evidence together and argue for TPR representing a pidgin of a different type, as it reflects in its morphological frame a less segregated contact history between the indigenous population of northern Siberia and the Russian newcomers. In the end TPR may have more in common with L2-varieties of old-settlers' Russian, like Kamchadal Russian used by Itelmens, than with prototypical pidgins, thus constituting a Russian equivalent in type to pidgins in the colonial sphere of western nations