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Abstract
The present computational power and sophistication of theoretical approaches to nucleic
acid structural investigation are sufficient for the realization of static and dynamic
models that correlate accurately with current crystallographic, NMR and solution-probing
structural data, and consequently are able to provide valuable insights and predictions
for a variety of nucleic acid conformational families. In molecular dynamics simulations,
the year 1995 was marked by the foray of fast Ewald methods, an accomplishment resulting
from several years' work in the search for an adequate treatment of the electrostatic
long-range forces so primordial in nucleic acid behavior. In very large systems, and
particularly in the RNA-folding field, techniques originating from artificial intelligence
research, like constraint satisfaction programming or genetic algorithms, have established
their utility and potential.