Coplanar and collinear quantum mechanical reactive scattering: The importance of virtual vibrational channels in the H + H_2 exchange reaction

We have performed accurate quantum mechanical calculations for the coplanar H + H_2 exchange reaction, using sufficient rotational and vibrational basis functions in the close-coupling expansion to ensure convergence. We repeated these calculations with a converged rotational basis set but with only one vibrational basis function, in analogy to what Saxon and Light and Wolken and Karplus, respectively, did for the similar coplanar and three dimensional reaction. The vibrationally converged and one-vibration results differ substantially for the coplanar as well as the collinear reaction, indicating the crucial role played by virtual vibrational channels

The missing graphical user interface for genomics

The Galaxy package empowers regular users to perform rich DNA sequence analysis through a much-needed and user-friendly graphical web interface. See research article http://genomebiology.com/2010/11/8/R86 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: With the advent of affordable and high-throughput DNA sequencing, sequencing is becoming an essential component in nearly every genetics lab. These data are being generated to probe sequence variations, to understand transcribed, regulated or methylated DNA elements, and to explore a host of other biological features across the tree of life and across a range of environments and conditions. Given this deluge of data, novices and experts alike are facing the daunting challenge of trying to analyze the raw sequence data computationally. With so many tools available and so many assays to analyze, how can one be expected to stay current with the state of the art? How can one be expected to learn to use each tool and construct robust end-to-end analysis pipelines, all while ensuring that input formats, command-line options, sequence databases and program libraries are set correctly? Finally, once the analysis is complete, how does one ensure the results are reproducible and transparent for others to scrutinize and study?In an article published in Genome Biology, Jeremy Goecks, Anton Nekrutenko, James Taylor and the rest of the Galaxy Team (Goecks et al. 1) make a great advance towards resolving these critical questions with the latest update to their Galaxy Project. The ambitious goal of Galaxy is to empower regular users to carry out their own computational analysis without having to be an expert in computational biology or computer science. Galaxy adds a desperately needed graphical user interface to genomics research, making data analysis universally accessible in a web browser, and freeing users from the minutiae of archaic command-line parameters, data formats and scripting languages. Data inputs and computational steps are selected from dynamic graphical menus, and the results are displayed in intuitive plots and summaries that encourage interactive workflows and the exploration of hypotheses. The underlying data analysis tools can be almost any piece of software, written in any language, but all their complexity is neatly hidden inside of Galaxy, allowing users to focus on scientific rather than technical questions

Genome assembly forensics: finding the elusive mis-assembly

A collection of software tools is combined for the first time in an automated pipeline for detecting large-scale genome assembly errors and for validating genome assemblies

16GT: A fast and sensitive variant caller using a 16-genotype probabilistic model

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. 16GT is a variant caller for Illumina whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing data. It uses a new 16-genotype probabilistic model to unify single nucleotide polymorphism and insertion and deletion calling in a single variant calling algorithm. In benchmark comparisons with 5 other widely used variant callers on a modern 36-core server, 16GT demonstrated improved sensitivity in calling single nucleotide polymorphisms, and it provided comparable sensitivity and accuracy for calling insertions and deletions as compared to the GATK HaplotypeCaller. 16GT is available at https://github.com/aquaskyline/16GT.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Quake: quality-aware detection and correction of sequencing errors

We introduce Quake, a program to detect and correct errors in DNA sequencing reads. Using a maximum likelihood approach incorporating quality values and nucleotide specific miscall rates, Quake achieves the highest accuracy on realistically simulated reads. We further demonstrate substantial improvements in de novo assembly and SNP detection after using Quake. Quake can be used for any size project, including more than one billion human reads, and is freely available as open source software from http://www.cbcb.umd.edu/software/quake

Searching for SNPs with cloud computing

Novel software utilizing cloud computing technology to cost-effectively align and map SNPs from a human genome in three

The rise of a digital immune system

Driven by million-fold improvements in biotechnology, biology is increasingly shifting towards high-resolution, quantitative approaches to study the molecular dynamics of entire populations. One exciting application enabled by this new era of biology is the “digital immune system”. It would work in much the same way as an adaptive, biological immune system: by observing the microbial landscape, detecting potential threats, and neutralizing them before they spread beyond control. With the potential to have an enormous impact on public health, it is time to integrate the necessary biotechnology, computational, and organizational systems to seed the development of a global, sequencing-based pathogen surveillance system.https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-217X-1-

Long-Wavelength Instability in Surface-Tension-Driven Benard Convection

Laboratory studies reveal a deformational instability that leads to a drained region (dry spot) in an initially flat liquid layer (with a free upper surface) heated uniformly from below. This long-wavelength instability supplants hexagonal convection cells as the primary instability in viscous liquid layers that are sufficiently thin or are in microgravity. The instability occurs at a temperature gradient 34% smaller than predicted by linear stability theory. Numerical simulations show a drained region qualitatively similar to that seen in the experiment.Comment: 4 pages. The RevTeX file has a macro allowing various styles. The appropriate style is "mypprint" which is the defaul