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Improved algorithms for approximate string matching (extended abstract).

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The problem of approximate string matching is important in many different areas such as computational biology, text processing and pattern recognition. A great effort has been made to design efficient algorithms addressing several variants of the problem, including comparison of two strings, approximate pattern identification in a string or calculation of the longest common subsequence that two strings share. RESULTS: We designed an output sensitive algorithm solving the edit distance problem between two strings of lengths n and m respectively in time O((s - |n - m|).min(m, n, s) + m + n) and linear space, where s is the edit distance between the two strings. This worst-case time bound sets the quadratic factor of the algorithm independent of the longest string length and improves existing theoretical bounds for this problem. The implementation of our algorithm also excels in practice, especially in cases where the two strings compared differ significantly in length. CONCLUSION: We have provided the design, analysis and implementation of a new algorithm for calculating the edit distance of two strings with both theoretical and practical implications. Source code of our algorithm is available online.

SUBMITTER: Papamichail D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2648743 | biostudies-literature | 2009

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Improved algorithms for approximate string matching (extended abstract).

Papamichail Dimitris D Papamichail Georgios G

BMC bioinformatics 20090130

<h4>Background</h4>The problem of approximate string matching is important in many different areas such as computational biology, text processing and pattern recognition. A great effort has been made to design efficient algorithms addressing several variants of the problem, including comparison of two strings, approximate pattern identification in a string or calculation of the longest common subsequence that two strings share.<h4>Results</h4>We designed an output sensitive algorithm solving the ...[more]

PMID: 19208109

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Project description:BACKGROUND: The high throughput of modern NGS sequencers coupled with the huge sizes of genomes currently analysed, poses always higher algorithmic challenges to align short reads quickly and accurately against a reference sequence. A crucial, additional, requirement is that the data structures used should be light. The available modern solutions usually are a compromise between the mentioned constraints: in particular, indexes based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform offer reduced memory requirements at the price of lower sensitivity, while hash-based text indexes guarantee high sensitivity at the price of significant memory consumption. METHODS: In this work we describe a technique that permits to attain the advantages granted by both classes of indexes. This is achieved using Hamming-aware hash functions--hash functions designed to search the entire Hamming sphere in reduced time--which are also homomorphisms on de Bruijn graphs. We show that, using this particular class of hash functions, the corresponding hash index can be represented in linear space introducing only a logarithmic slowdown (in the query length) for the lookup operation. We point out that our data structure reaches its goals without compressing its input: another positive feature, as in biological applications data is often very close to be un-compressible. RESULTS: The new data structure introduced in this work is called dB-hash and we show how its implementation--BW-ERNE--maintains the high sensitivity and speed of its (hash-based) predecessor ERNE, while drastically reducing space consumption. Extensive comparison experiments conducted with several popular alignment tools on both simulated and real NGS data, show, finally, that BW-ERNE is able to attain both the positive features of succinct data structures (that is, small space) and hash indexes (that is, sensitivity). CONCLUSIONS: In applications where space and speed are both a concern, standard methods often sacrifice accuracy to obtain competitive throughputs and memory footprints. In this work we show that, combining hashing and succinct indexing techniques, we can attain good performances and accuracy with a memory footprint comparable to that of the most popular compressed indexes.

Project description:The string-matching paradigm is applied in every computer science and science branch in general. The existence of a plethora of string-matching algorithms makes it hard to choose the best one for any particular case. Expressing, measuring, and testing algorithm efficiency is a challenging task with many potential pitfalls. Algorithm efficiency can be measured based on the usage of different resources. In software engineering, algorithmic productivity is a property of an algorithm execution identified with the computational resources the algorithm consumes. Resource usage in algorithm execution could be determined, and for maximum efficiency, the goal is to minimize resource usage. Guided by the fact that standard measures of algorithm efficiency, such as execution time, directly depend on the number of executed actions. Without touching the problematics of computer power consumption or memory, which also depends on the algorithm type and the techniques used in algorithm development, we have developed a methodology which enables the researchers to choose an efficient algorithm for a specific domain. String searching algorithms efficiency is usually observed independently from the domain texts being searched. This research paper aims to present the idea that algorithm efficiency depends on the properties of searched string and properties of the texts being searched, accompanied by the theoretical analysis of the proposed approach. In the proposed methodology, algorithm efficiency is expressed through character comparison count metrics. The character comparison count metrics is a formal quantitative measure independent of algorithm implementation subtleties and computer platform differences. The model is developed for a particular problem domain by using appropriate domain data (patterns and texts) and provides for a specific domain the ranking of algorithms according to the patterns' entropy. The proposed approach is limited to on-line exact string-matching problems based on information entropy for a search pattern. Meticulous empirical testing depicts the methodology implementation and purports soundness of the methodology.

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Improved algorithms for approximate string matching (extended abstract).

Publications

Improved algorithms for approximate string matching (extended abstract).

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