Excel worksheet for optimization problem

• photosynthetic machinery with light harvesting and enzymatic components "in series"
• molecular efficiency is define as the rate of carbon fixed (or the equivalent amount of ATP and NADPH required to fix a carbon) divided by the amount of carbon in that particular component
• cells that adapt to different light levels by changing the relative composition of these two components (i.e. light harvesting vs. enzyme)
• The exercise:
  • Change the relative composition of Pmemb and Penzy and describe how this changes the curve
  • Determine the optimal composition of Pmemb and Penzy at the following light levels

    light	productivity	Pmemb	Penzy
    10
    20
    50
    100
    200
    500
    1000

  • Describe the algorithm that you used that determined what the optimal ratio of these components

Cell size and shape

• shapes
• 1 um³ of water = 1 pg
• calculating volume and surface area

  sphere	V=4/3pi*r3	SA=4 pi*r2
  cylinder	V= h*pi*r2	SA=2*pi*r2 + 2pi*r*h
  ellipsoid	V=4/3pia2b	SA= 4pi*a*b

• Surface Area to Volume ratio

Bioinformatics of algae & phytoplankton

• The key words for algae and the number of times they occur in the Biosis database are compared to their usage in the Journal of Phycology index. This document is available in a "rich text format".
• Select 3 key words and search Biosis. Make a table of the intersections of your topics.
• For help using Biosis - see the notes from "Computer Applications in Biology"
• For more information on the value of key index words, also see the notes from "Computer Applications in Biology"