astronomy

Kuo-Chen Chou

Kuo-Chen Chou is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kuo-Chen Chou rather than just read about it. In short: Kuo-Chen Chou (周国城; August 14, 1938–July 5, 2021) was a Chinese-American biophysicist and bioinformatician who founded the Gordon Life Science Institute, a non-profit research organization in Boston, Massachusetts. Among other contributions, he developed pseudo amino acid composition (PseAAC), used in computational biology for proteomics analysis and pseudo K-tuple nucleotide composition (PseKNC) for genome analysis.

Key takeaways

Kuo-Chen Chou belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kuo-Chen Chou to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kuo-Chen Chou from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kuo-Chen Chou (周国城; August 14, 1938–July 5, 2021) was a Chinese-American biophysicist and bioinformatician who founded the Gordon Life Science Institute, a non-profit research organization in Boston, Massachusetts. Among other contributions, he developed pseudo amino acid composition (PseAAC), used in computational biology for proteomics analysis and pseudo K-tuple nucleotide composition (PseKNC) for genome analysis. He is the father of James Chou. In 2020, it was revealed that Chou had been removed from the editorial board of the Journal of Theoretical Biology and banned as a reviewer for the journal Bioinformatics for repeatedly manipulating the peer-review process to gain citations to his own papers. The editors of the Journal of Theoretical Biology referred to it as "scientific misconduct of the highest order".

Research In 1972, he and his co-workers, by taking into account the spatial factor and force field factor between the enzyme and its substrate, reported that the upper limit of diffusion-controlled reaction of enzyme or diffusion limited enzyme is one order of magnitude higher than the conventional estimation, and can be used to elucidate some surprisingly high reaction rates in molecular biology. In 1977, he predicted the existence of low-frequency phonons in proteins, followed by developing the theory of low-frequency collective motion in proteins and DNA after it had been confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. In 1995, he proposed and proved a theorem on invariance for addressing some problems often encountered in bioinformatics and cheminformatics. In 1996, he proposed the distorted key theory for guiding how to design peptide drugs.

In 1997, he proposed the wenxiang diagram, a way to show residue properties on an alpha helix similar to a helical wheel. In 2011, he proposed the 5-steps rule, that has been used for proteome and genome analyses as well as predicting posttranslational modification sites in protein, RNA, and DNA sequences. As of December 2019, Chou had published over 720 scientific papers in enzyme kinetics, graphical methods in biology, protein structure prediction and function, low-frequency collective motion in macromolecules, proteome and genome analyses, and identification of posttranslational modification sites in biological sequences.

Editorial roles Chou served multiple editorial roles, including Editor-in-Chief (2008–2019) of The Open Bioinformatics Journal, and as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Theoretical Biology (2005–2019), the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (2008–2014), and The Open Biochemistry Journal (2007–2019), among others. He was an Honorary Editor for The Open Bioinformatics Journal (2020–2021) and Associate Editor for Medicinal Chemistry (2004–2021).

Recognition Chou's papers have been widely cited. According to Web of Science, his h-index is 135. He has been continuously for five years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018) selected by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics as ISI Highly Cited Researcher. However, it is notable that many of Chou's citations may be from manipulation of the editorial and refereeing process, per below controversy.

Editorial misconduct and citation abuse In 2019, the journal Bioinformatics published an editorial detailing the actions of a reviewer who engaged in coercive citations. In 2020, the Journal of Theoretical Biology published a further editorial claiming that the same reviewer was on their editorial board and had also engaged in coercive citation malpractice, and had engaged in further breaches of scientific conduct. The journal Nature later revealed that the unnamed individual was Kuo-Chen Chou.

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kuo-Chen Chou

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kuo-Chen Chou claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kuo-Chen Chou before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kuo-Chen Chou ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kuo-Chen Chou

In research: Kuo-Chen Chou appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kuo-Chen Chou in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kuo-Chen Chou is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1938 births, 2021 deaths, Biophysicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kuo-Chen Chou outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kuo-Chen Chou in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kuo-Chen Chou means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kuo-Chen Chou out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kuo-Chen Chou in simple terms?

Why does Kuo-Chen Chou matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kuo-Chen Chou?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kuo-Chen Chou.