Title: Beta-Shape vs. Molecular Structure
Speaker:  Deok-Soo Kim
Hanyang University, Korea

Date: Friday, March 7, 2008
Time 11:00-12:00PM
Venue: Room 4480, HKUST

Abstract:
It is a usual understanding that the functions of biological system such as
a protein are critically related with the spatial structure (i.e., geometry
and topology among atoms) of the system. This talk will introduce some
important biological problems which are essentially related to the spatial
structure of proteins. Ever since Richards first employed the Voronoi
diagram of points for the analysis of molecular structure, many studies
have been reported with some successes: for example, the (weighted) alpha-
shape.

In this talk, I will present a new theory of beta-shape as the
generalization of the alpha-shape. The beta-shape, based on the Voronoi
diagram of spheres - often called as an additively weighted Voronoi
diagram, is very recently developed and being applied to the molecular
biology. In this talk, I will show how the beta-shape can solve important
biological problems which can never be solved efficiently with other
computational structures.