Smoothing techniques for macromolecular global optimization

We study global optimization problems that arise in macromolecular modeling, and the solution of these problems via continuation and smoothing. Our results unify and extend the theory associated with the use of the Gaussian transform for smoothing. We show that the, Gaussian transform can be viewed as a special case of a generalized transform and that these generalized transforms share many of the properties of the Gaussian transform. We also show that the smoothing behavior of the generalized transform can be studied in terms of the Fourier transform and that these results indicate that the Gaussian transform has superior smoothing properties