Construct, Merge, Solve and Adapt: Application to the repetition-free longest common subsequence problem

In this paper we present the application of a recently proposed, general, algorithm for combinatorial optimization to the repetition-free longest common subsequence problem. The applied algorithm, which is labelled Construct, Merge, Solve & Adapt, generates sub-instances based on merging the solution components found in randomly constructed solutions. These sub-instances are subsequently solved by means of an exact solver. Moreover, the considered sub-instances are dynamically changing due to adding new solution components at each iteration, and removing existing solution components on the basis of indicators about their usefulness. The results of applying this algorithm to the repetition-free longest common subsequence problem show that the algorithm generally outperforms competing approaches from the literature. Moreover, they show that the algorithm is competitive with CPLEX for small and medium size problem instances, whereas it outperforms CPLEX for larger problem instances.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A comprehensive comparison of metaheuristics for the repetition-free longest common subsequence problem

This paper deals with an NP-hard string problem from the bio-informatics field: the repetition-free longest common subsequence problem. This problem has enjoyed an increasing interest in recent years, which has resulted in the application of several pure as well as hybrid metaheuristics. However, the literature lacks a comprehensive comparison between those approaches. Moreover, it has been shown that general purpose integer linear programming solvers are very efficient for solving many of the problem instances that were used so far in the literature. Therefore, in this work we extend the available benchmark set, adding larger instances to which integer linear programming solvers cannot be applied anymore. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive comparison of the approaches found in the literature. Based on the results we propose a hybrid between two of the best methods which turns out to inherit the complementary strengths of both methods.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

On the role of metaheuristic optimization in bioinformatics

Metaheuristic algorithms are employed to solve complex and large-scale optimization problems in many different fields, from transportation and smart cities to finance. This paper discusses how metaheuristic algorithms are being applied to solve different optimization problems in the area of bioinformatics. While the text provides references to many optimization problems in the area, it focuses on those that have attracted more interest from the optimization community. Among the problems analyzed, the paper discusses in more detail the molecular docking problem, the protein structure prediction, phylogenetic inference, and different string problems. In addition, references to other relevant optimization problems are also given, including those related to medical imaging or gene selection for classification. From the previous analysis, the paper generates insights on research opportunities for the Operations Research and Computer Science communities in the field of bioinformatics

Exact algorithms for the repetition-bounded longest common subsequence problem

In this paper, we study exact, exponential-time algorithms for a variant of the classic Longest Common Subsequence problem called the Repetition-Bounded Longest Common Subsequence problem (or RBLCS, for short): Let an alphabet S be a finite set of symbols and an occurrence constraint Cocc be a function Cocc: S → N, assigning an upper bound on the number of occurrences of each symbol in S. Given two sequences X and Y over the alphabet S and an occurrence constraint Cocc, the goal of RBLCS is to find a longest common subsequence of X and Y such that each symbol s ∈ S appears at most Cocc(s) times in the obtained subsequence. The special case where Cocc(s) = 1 for every symbol s ∈ S is known as the Repetition-Free Longest Common Subsequence problem (RFLCS) and has been studied previously; e.g., in [1], Adi et al. presented a simple (exponential-time) exact algorithm for RFLCS. However, they did not analyze its time complexity in detail, and to the best of our knowledge, there are no previous results on the running times of any exact algorithms for this problem. Without loss of generality, we will assume that |X| ≤ |Y | and |X| = n. In this paper, we first propose a simpler algorithm for RFLCS based on the strategy used in [1] and show explicitly that its running time is O(1.44225n). Next, we provide a dynamic programming (DP) based algorithm for RBLCS and prove that its running time is O(1.44225n) for any occurrence constraint Cocc, and even less in certain special cases. In particular, for RFLCS, our DP-based algorithm runs in O(1.41422n) time, which is faster than the previous one. Furthermore, we prove NP-hardness and APX-hardness results for RBLCS on restricted instances

DNA ANALYSIS USING GRAMMATICAL INFERENCE

An accurate language definition capable of distinguishing between coding and non-coding DNA has important applications and analytical significance to the field of computational biology. The method proposed here uses positive sample grammatical inference and statistical information to infer languages for coding DNA. An algorithm is proposed for the searching of an optimal subset of input sequences for the inference of regular grammars by optimizing a relevant accuracy metric. The algorithm does not guarantee the finding of the optimal subset; however, testing shows improvement in accuracy and performance over the basis algorithm. Testing shows that the accuracy of inferred languages for components of DNA are consistently accurate. By using the proposed algorithm languages are inferred for coding DNA with average conditional probability over 80%. This reveals that languages for components of DNA can be inferred and are useful independent of the process that created them. These languages can then be analyzed or used for other tasks in computational biology. To illustrate potential applications of regular grammars for DNA components, an inferred language for exon sequences is applied as post processing to Hidden Markov exon prediction to reduce the number of wrong exons detected and improve the specificity of the model significantly