Department of Mathematics

The Florida State University

This Week in Mathematics

3 - 7 April 2000

Monday: 3 April 2000

Tuesday: 4 April 2000

Structural Biology/Biochemistry Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 555 IMB

Gijs J.L. Wuite, University of California

Single Molecule Studies of Replication and Exonucleolysis by T7 DNA Polymerase Under Various Template Tensions

The DNA polymerase of bacteriophage T7 (T7 DNAp) is a member of the pol I family of polymerases and exists as a 1:1 complex of T7 gene 5 protein and E. coli thioredoxin. It can catalyze replication in vitro at rates up to 300 bases s-1 and has a 3' ® 5' exonuclease activity centered at a separate active site. X-ray structures of the complex of T7 DNAp with DNA and incoming dideoxy nucleotide have revealed a "right hand" shape common to most polymerases, where the thumb and fingers sub domains wrap around a cleft in the palm that accommodates the DNA. Comparison of polymerase crystal structures with and without the DNA and nucleotide suggests that DNAp flickers between an open-fingers state in which the active site can sample nucleotides and the DNA primer-template slides into position for the next catalytic cycle, and a closed-fingers state in which the nucleotide incorporation takes place. This conformational change is likely to be the step which checks for misincorporation, and that previously had been identified in kinetic studies as the rate limiting step of the catalytic cycle (Fig. 1a). Here we report the effect of mechanical force on T7 DNAp and, indirectly, on this step. Replication by individual T7 DNAp molecules was followed in time under various template tensions, using laser tweezers. Force-velocity curves reveal that template tensions below 6 piconewtons (pN) accelerate replication, whereas higher tensions slow it down, stalling the motor at 34 ± 8 pN. Analysis of the force-velocity curves indicates that T7 DNAp organizes two template bases in the polymerase active site, one of which is released at the end of the catalytic cycle. We identify the entropic and mechanical contributions to the work done by the enzyme during replication under tension, and report a force-induced 100-fold increase in exonucleolytic activity above 40 pN.

Moduli Spaces Seminar, 2:00 p.m., 104 Love Building

Paolo Aluffi, Florida State University

Hilbert Schemes X

Dissertation Defense, 2:00 p.m., 200 Love Building

Denise Szecsei, Florida State University

A Convolution Property of Some Measures with Self-Similar Fractal Support

Math. of Protein Structure & NMR Seminar, 2:30 p.m., A336 NHMFL

Jeffrey Denny, Florida State University

Pisema Powder Patterns

Applied Topology Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Steven Brych, Florida State University

Using Core Mutations in haFGF to Probe Protein Stability and Structure

Financial Mathematics Seminar, 3:40 p.m., 200 Love Building

Patrick F. Maroney, Risk Management & Insurance, FSU

(A discussion of professional standards and ethics.)

Wednesday: 5 April 2000

No Graduate Student Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 204B Love Building

(Real) Analysis Seminar, 1:25 p.m., 204B Love Building

[ go to Denise Szecsei's Dissertation Defense 4/4/2000 ]

Complex/Symbolic Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 102 Love Building

Mika Seppälä, Florida State University

Teichmuller's Extremal Mapping Theorem

Thursday: 6 April 2000

Structural Biology/Biochemistry Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 555 IMB

Harry Noller, University of California at Santa Cruz

[ topic to be announced ] II

Algebraic Curves Seminar, 2:00 p.m., 104 Love Building

Paolo Aluffi, Florida State University

Embeddings in Projective Space III

QUANTUM! Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Phil Bowers, Florida State University

Quantum Mixtures and Tensor Products

Financial Mathematics Seminar, 3:45 p.m., Rm 109, College of Business

[ see Financial Mathematics Seminar 4/4/2000 ]

Friday: 7 April 2000

Colloquium Coffee, 3:00 p.m., 204 Love Building
Colloquium, 3:30 p.m., 101 Love Building

Fred Gehring, University of Michigan

Variations on a Theorem of Fejer and Riesz

This lecture concerns variants of a pair of classical inequalities due to L. Fejer and F. Riesz for harmonic functions. These variants concern hyperbolic geometry, Carleson measures, the level set problem, the higher variation of a function and the one-dimensional heat equation.

No Joint Applied Mathematics & Scientific Computing Seminar, 4:30 p.m., 200 Love Building

Seminars and colloquia at "that other" university [a.k.a. the University of Florida]

Coming Attractions

Structural Biology/Biochemistry Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 555 IMB

Wayne Hubbell, University of California at Los Angeles

[ topic to be announced ]

No Math. of Protein Structure & NMR Seminar, 2:30 p.m., A336 NHMFL

No Applied Topology Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Wednesday: 12 April 2000

Graduate Student Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 204B Love Building

[ speaker to be announced ]

[ topic to be announced ]

Dissertation Defense, 1:25 p.m., 204B Love Building

Brian Felkel, Florida State University

Decay Estimates on Oscillatory Integrals with Polynomial Phase

Thursday: 13 April 2000

QUANTUM! Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Phil Bowers, Florida State University

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradoxes and Bell's Inequality

Friday: 14 April 2000

Dissertation Defense, 10:00 a.m., 204B Love Building

Hong-qi Jia, Florida State University

Classification of QC Hopf Algebras

Colloquium Coffee, 3:00 p.m., 204 Love Building
Colloquium, 3:30 p.m., 101 Love Building

Slava Matveev, SUNY at Stony Brook

[ topic to be announced ]

Joint Applied Mathematics & Scientific Computing Seminar, 4:30 p.m., 200 Love Building

Hao Shen, Florida State University

3D Simulation of Jet Screech

Tuesday: 18 April 2000

Structural Biology/Biochemistry Seminar, 11:15 a.m., 555 IMB

Dan Adamak/Alex Soares, Florida State University

[ topic to be announced ]

No Applied Topology Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Thursday: 20 April 2000

QUANTUM! Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Phil Bowers, Florida State University

Ensembles and Density Operators

Friday: 21 April 2000

Colloquium Coffee, 3:00 p.m., 204 Love Building
Colloquium, 3:30 p.m., 101 Love Building

Markus Rost, Institute for Advanced Study

On Characteristic Numbers and Galois Cohomology

The Bloch-Kato conjecture states the bijectivity of the norm residue homomorphism. This homomorphism is a natural map from Milnor's K-ring to the Galois cohomology ring of a field. All approaches to this conjecture are based on the investigation of the so called "norm varieties". In some cases these varieties are very classical objects like Brauer-Severi varieties or quadrics. Brauer-Severi varieties were used in proof of the theorem of Merkurjev-Suslin (which settles the Bloch-Kato conjecture in the weight 2). Quadrics associated to Pfister forms play an important role for the Milnor conjecture (which is the special case of the Bloch-Kato conjecture at the prime 2). In general there are no obvious candidates for norm varieties, however in recent years there has been considerable progress based on Voevodsky's observation that certain characteristic numbers of norm varieties should be nontrivial. This way there appeared a fruitful link between Galois cohomology and cobordism theory. In the talk we will explain what Milnor's K-theory is and recall basic facts about Galois cohomology. We will define the norm residue homomorphism and consider various examples of norm varieties.

No Joint Applied Mathematics & Scientific Computing Seminar, 4:30 p.m., 200 Love Building

Tuesday: 25 April 2000

Applied Topology Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

C.C. Lin, MIT

Mathematics and Molecular Biology in the Perception of a Traditional Applied Mathematician

Thursday: 27 April 2000

QUANTUM! Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Phil Bowers, Florida State University

Quantum Probability and Quantum Logic

Friday: 28 April 2000

Colloquium Coffee, 3:00 p.m., 204 Love Building
Colloquium, 3:30 p.m., 101 Love Building

Ilia Binder, Harvard University

Conformal Geometry of Planar Domains

We study the conformal, harmonic and metric geometry of planar domains. To be more precise, we investigate sharp metrical bounds for the rotation of Green lines and the relation to the properties of harmonic measure - so called universal spectra. The theory is well established for simply connected domains, since one can use the conformal mapping technique. One can establish nice connection between the geometric properties of the boundaries of the simply connected domains and the distortion properties of their Riemann maps. The conjecture is that the universal spectra for non simply connected case are the same as for simply connected one. We establish the conjecture for a particular class of planar domains, the basins of attraction to infinity of polynomials.

April [ day to be announced ]: [ date to be announced ]

QUANTUM! Seminar, 3:35 p.m., 104 Love Building

Phil Bowers, Florida State University

Algebraic QM--C* Algebras

Financial Mathematics Seminar, 3:40 p.m., 200 Love Building

Paul Beaumont, Economics, Florida State University

Option Pricing with GARCH Models

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