In article <1993Mar22.121811.2388 at crc.ac.uk> k-hatric at nimr.mrc.ac.uk (Kerr Hatrick) writes:
>> the sequence is "puzzledPhDstudent" and the pattern is
> "student" the distance is 0. When the sequence and pattern
Yeah, zero changes to fit student into puzzledPhDstudent.
> are switched, the distance is 10 (using Identity Distance
10 changes to fit puzzledPhDstudent into student. ie delete puzzledPhD.
> Matrix, gap penalty = insertion penalty = 1). The increased
> distance is due to the cost of inserting "puzzledPhD".
or deleting it.
> Can anyone suggest a way of modifying the algorithm so that
> d(a,b) = d(b,a)?
No, not really. Maybe you should consider a local similarity algorithm
where the two sequences are not require to be virtually the same size.
--
Shane Sturrock, Biocomputing Research Unit, Darwin Building, Mayfield Road,
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Commonwealth of Independent Kingdoms. :-)
Civilisation is a Haggis Supper with salt and sauce and a bottle of Irn Bru.
