***  For details on how to be removed from this list visit the  ***
***          CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk         ***



Yes SFTOOLS can select reflections in thin shells but I must admit I'm not overly enthusiastic about this approach myself and would only use it for high symmetry NCS cases. The problem is that to get a reasonable number of shells covering the full resolution range, they need to be very thin. This puts nearly every RFREE reflection at the edge of the shell. The NCS-related reciprocal space position of an RFREE reflection at the edge of the shell is likely going to be correlated to non-RFREE reflections just outside the shell. I believe one person (Ian Tickle???) suggested to use just 3 or so thick shells which is the more purist approach but I'm not sure refinement programs can derive proper Sigmaa weights for ML refinement when many resolution bins don't include any RFREE reflections.

I've started long ago on an algorithm to select Rfree islands but never completed it. Basically, you select your first Rfree reflection at random and then flag reflections in a small NCS-related reciprocal volume as a "no-take zone" for future Rfree reflection picks. With more complex NCS relationships and the complexities of asymmetric unit definitions this gets real messy real quick. However, now that NCS is becoming so common maybe I should revisit that idea.

Bart

PS: Although the Rfree-bias problem is real, high NCS itself is also a powerful means to reduce overfitting with properly applied restraints and by NCS averaging of maps prior to visual inspection. So high NCS represents both a problem and a solution.



Dean Madden wrote:

*** For details on how to be removed from this list visit the ***
*** CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk ***


Actually, one can use SFTOOLS, which is part of CCP4. However, the selection of a test set can only be done using the stand-alone version of the program. The "RFREE frac SHELL" command is not currently available through ccp4i.

Dean

Jan Abendroth wrote:


A way to avoid biasing Rfree values is to choose the test set in thin resolution shells whenever NCS is present. Currently, this precaution is often ignored. It should become a de facto standard for publication of structures containing NCS.


Hi all,
btw - it would be fantastic and certainly would encourage us to use it more often if the assignment of free reflections in resolution shells was incorporated in a ccp4 program. Yes, one can for instance go through shelxpro, however if one wants to go back to ccp4 this route is a bit painful.

Cheers
Jan



Reply via email to