Dear modelling community,
thanks to Michael Buck for his reply, unfortunately the only one. I would
assume that there are many modeling problems where it is inherently impossible
to derive at a single "best" set of constraints and consequently a single model
best satisfying these constraints. I can't believe that there is no general
procedure to derive at some mesure of uncertainty associated with the
coordinates of a given residue based on a) degree of conservation among
template(s) and target, and, b) the local properties of the fold, and, c)
variations in the restriants that follow from a) and b). Any helpful thoughts
out there?
Michael: I'm not sure that I understand what a correlation between an
uncertainty (statistical scatter) and error (systematic bias) tells me, or how
the quanity you call "model error" is defined. In my case, the problem is a
lot greater anyhow, as precise beginnings and endings of secondary structure
motifs in target and template are highly likely to vary substantially (beta
fold, low to moderate homology).
Cheers,
margot