Johan Rohwer wrote:
>At the 1996 BioThermoKinetics meeting in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, Jannie
>Hofmeyr and I submitted a draft discussion document on a revised
>nomenclature and symbolism for metabolic control analysis. This document
>was discussed at the meeting, and we have now amended it to incorporate the
>points raised during that discussion. The revised document can now be
>viewed on the WWW at the URL:
>>http://www.sun.ac.za/local/academic/natural/biochem/mcanom.html>>We welcome any suggestions or comments on the revised MCA nomenclature.
>Please send us an email (details on the above WEB page).
>I'm posting this reply publicly because I think it's important for this
sort of thing that the discussion is as public as possible. Otherwise there
is a danger that there will the appearance of an agreement while actually
not everyone is happy. (After the 1983 discussion there was at least one
person who was present at the meeting in Aberdeen who claimed afterwards
that he hadn't been consulted. Admittedly he didn't utter a word at the
meeting but just sat and scowled, but he had every opportunity.) May I urge
people who have already sent messages to Johan to post them on this ng as
well?
Not surprisingly (given the authors), this is an excellent document, and I
hope all of the main points will be adopted. I have only some very minor
quibbles:
1. I'm not happy with the term "non-ideal pathway" because this implies a
generally recognized and accepted idea of what an ideal pathway is, and I
don't believe there is. I should prefer to omit "ideal" on p. 2 and replace
"non-ideal pathways" on p. 1 with a circumlocution similar to what appears
on p. 2.
2. p. 3, line 4 after Eq. 4. The word "should" should be "may", unless you
want to imply that the symbol suggested is the only acceptable one.
3. Section 2.3, and generally. Is the word "coefficient" necessary in
"elasticity coefficient". Many (most?) people just call these elasticities,
and I'm not convinced the longer form helps.
4. Pi and kappa elasticities. I _agree_strongly_ with the suggestion that
these are just elasticity [coefficient]s, and that the symbolism that
suggests otherwise should be discouraged. I never understood why Henrik was
so keen on these symbols.
P.S. If, like me, you had great difficulty downloading Johan's document on
a normal working day, don't give up hope but try again on a holiday (like
today in France: we have lots of holidays in May) or a Sunday.
Athel
Email: athel at ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr
Site map: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/~athel/sitemap.htm
New Beer in an Old Bottle: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/~athel/buchner.htm
MCA FAQ: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/~athel/mcafaq.htm
MCA chapter from my book:
http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/~athel/mcai.htm
