RESUMEN
When calculating derivatives of structure factors, there is one particular term (the derivatives of the atomic form factors) that will always be zero in the case of tabulated spherical atomic form factors. What happens if the form factors are non-spherical? The assumption that this particular term is very close to zero is generally made in non-spherical refinements (for example, implementations of Hirshfeld atom refinement or transferable aspherical atom models), unless the form factors are refinable parameters (for example multipole modelling). To evaluate this general approximation for one specific method, a numerical differentiation was implemented within the NoSpherA2 framework to calculate the derivatives of the structure factors in a Hirshfeld atom refinement directly as accurately as possible, thus bypassing the approximation altogether. Comparing wR2 factors and atomic parameters, along with their uncertainties from the approximate and numerically differentiating refinements, it turns out that the impact of this approximation on the final crystallographic model is indeed negligible.
RESUMEN
The relationship between the structure and the properties of a drug or material is a key concept of chemistry. Knowledge of the three-dimensional structure is considered to be of such importance that almost every report of a new chemical compound is accompanied by an X-ray crystal structure - at least since the 1970s when diffraction equipment became widely available. Crystallographic software of that time was restricted to very limited computing power, and therefore drastic simplifications had to be made. It is these simplifications that make the determination of the correct structure, especially when it comes to hydrogen atoms, virtually impossible. We have devised a robust and fast system where modern chemical structure models replace the old assumptions, leading to correct structures from the model refinement against standard in-house diffraction data using no more than widely available software and desktop computing power. We call this system NoSpherA2 (Non-Spherical Atoms in Olex2). We explain the theoretical background of this technique and demonstrate the far-reaching effects that the improved structure quality that is now routinely available can have on the interpretation of chemical problems exemplified by five selected examples.
RESUMEN
Invariom partitioning and notation are used to estimate anisotropic hydrogen displacements for incorporation in crystallographic refinement models. Optimized structures of the generalized invariom database and their frequency computations provide the information required: frequencies are converted to internal atomic displacements and combined with the results of a TLS (translation-libration-screw) fit of experimental non-hydrogen anisotropic displacement parameters to estimate those of H atoms. Comparison with TLS+ONIOM and neutron diffraction results for four example structures where high-resolution X-ray and neutron data are available show that electron density transferability rules established in the invariom approach are also suitable for streamlining the transfer of atomic vibrations. A new segmented-body TLS analysis program called APD-Toolkit has been coded to overcome technical limitations of the established program THMA. The influence of incorporating hydrogen anisotropic displacement parameters on conventional refinement is assessed.
RESUMEN
This paper describes the mathematical basis for olex2.refine, the new refinement engine which is integrated within the Olex2 program. Precise and clear equations are provided for every computation performed by this engine, including structure factors and their derivatives, constraints, restraints and twinning; a general overview is also given of the different components of the engine and their relation to each other. A framework for adding multiple general constraints with dependencies on common physical parameters is described. Several new restraints on atomic displacement parameters are also presented.
RESUMEN
iotbx.cif is a new software module for the development of applications that make use of the CIF format. Comprehensive tools are provided for input, output and validation of CIFs, as well as for interconversion with high-level cctbx [Grosse-Kunstleve, Sauter, Moriarty & Adams (2002). J. Appl. Cryst.35, 126-136] crystallographic objects. The interface to the library is written in Python, whilst parsing is carried out using a compiled parser, combining the performance of a compiled language (C++) with the benefits of using an interpreted language.
