Vanishing of the atomic form factor derivatives in non-spherical structural refinement - a key approximation scrutinized in the case of Hirshfeld atom refinement.

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.

Accurate crystal structures and chemical properties from NoSpherA2.

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.

Probing the accuracy and precision of Hirshfeld atom refinement with interfaced with .

Hirshfeld atom refinement (HAR) is a novel X-ray structure refinement technique that employs aspherical atomic scattering factors obtained from stockholder partitioning of a theoretically determined tailor-made static electron density. HAR overcomes many of the known limitations of independent atom modelling (IAM), such as too short element-hydrogen distances, (-H), or too large atomic displacement parameters (ADPs). This study probes the accuracy and precision of anisotropic hydrogen and non-hydrogen ADPs and of (-H) values obtained from HAR.

The anatomy of a comprehensive constrained, restrained refinement program for the modern computing environment - Olex2 dissected.

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.

iotbx.cif: a comprehensive CIF toolbox.

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).

Pseudomerohedrally twinned monoclinic structure of unfolded 'free' nonactin: comparative analysis of its large conformational change upon encapsulation of alkali metal ions.

The title compound, C40H64O12, crystallizes in a pseudomerohedrally twinned primitive monoclinic cell with similar contributions of the two twin components. There are two symmetry-independent half-molecules of nonactin in the asymmetric unit. Each molecule has a pseudo-S4 symmetry and resides on a crystallographic twofold axis; the axes pass through the molecular center of mass and are perpendicular to the plane of the macrocycle.

A design strategy for four-connected coordination frameworks.

Reactions of tetrahedral Cu(I) and Ag(I) cations with 2,3,4,5-tetra(4-pyridyl)thiophene allows targeted construction of coordination frameworks with zeolite-like, 4(2).8(4), topologies.

A novel synthetic strategy for hexanuclear supramolecular architectures.

Hexanuclear cage complexes [M6L6X](X)5 [M = Cu(I), Ag(I); L = 6,6'-bis(4-ethynylpyridine)2,2'-bipyridine; X = BF4-, SbF6-] have been prepared using a self-assembly approach; these architectures encapsulate anions in the solid-state and are fluxional in solution.