Surprises in approximating Levenshtein distances

Baake, Michael; Grimm, Uwe and Giegerich, Robert (2006). Surprises in approximating Levenshtein distances. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 243(2) pp. 279–282.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2006.06.026

URL: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescriptio...

Abstract

The Levenshtein distance is an important tool for the comparison of symbolic sequences, with many appearances in genome research, linguistics and other areas. For efficient applications, an approximation by a distance of smaller computational complexity is highly desirable. However, our comparison of the Levenshtein with a generic dictionary-based distance indicates their statistical independence. This suggests that a simplification along this line might not be possible without restricting the class of sequences. Several other probabilistic properties are briefly discussed, emphasizing various questions that deserve further investigation.

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About

• Item ORO ID
• 5822
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 0022-5193
• Extra Information
• Preprint version q-bio/0601006 available at http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0601006
• Keywords
• global alignment; distance concepts; statistical independence; computational complexity
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Mathematics and Statistics
  Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
• Depositing User
• Uwe Grimm