No label defined (Q4948155)

The determination of whether a polynomial of positive coefficients can be factored into polynomials of the same type is important in the study of many physiological processes. An efficient method to decide positive irreducibility is very valuable. Criteria currently known for positive irreducible polynomials need knowledge of root location first. In this paper, the authors present a new criterion. It has the property that it only consists of a set of polynomial inequalities defined by the coefficients of the binding polynomial. The problem of factorization here has interesting applications. Protein ligand binding is a process in which the ligand can become bound and interact at a number of sites of a protein macromolecule. It can be described by a certain binding polynomial. If the molecule has \(n\) binding sites, then the binding polynomial \(f(x)\) is of degree \(n\), has constant term 1, and the remaining coefficients are nonnegative. If \(f(x)\) can be factored into two polynomials with positive coefficients, then each factor can be interpreted as a binding polynomial for a subset of the binding sites. The binding polynomials which are positive irreducible imply the important property that all sites are linked. The authors present a criterion for stability for positive polynomials. They describe a criterion for positive irreducibility of polynomials of degree 3 and 4. For example, they show that a positive polynomial of degree 3, say \(f(x)= x^3+ c_1x^2+ c_2x+c_3\), is \(p\)-irreducible if and only if the coefficients satisfy \(c_1c_2< c_3\). For a polynomial of degree 4, a necessary and sufficient condition for \(p\)-irreducibility is given involving seven inequalities.