A Scalable Approximation Algorithm for Weighted Longest Common Subsequence

Jeremy Buhler, Thomas Lavastida, Kefu Lu, Benjamin Moseley

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This work introduces novel parallel methods for weighted longest common subsequence (WLCS) and its generalization, all-substrings WLCS. Previous work developed efficient algorithms for these problems via Monge matrix multiplication, which is a limiting factor for further improvement. Diverging from these approaches, we relax the algorithm’s optimality guarantee in a controlled way, using a different, natural dynamic program which can be sketched and solved in a divide-and-conquer manner that is efficient to parallelize. Additionally, to compute the base case of our algorithm, we develop a novel and efficient method for all-substrings WLCS inspired by previous work on unweighted all-substrings LCS, exploiting the typically small range of weights. Our method fits in most parallel models of computation, including the PRAM and the BSP model. To the best of our knowledge this is the fastest (1 - ϵ) -approximation algorithm for all-substrings WLCS and WLCS in BSP. Further, this is the asymptotically fastest parallel algorithm for weighted LCS as the number of processors increases.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEuro-Par 2021
Subtitle of host publicationParallel Processing - 27th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Proceedings
EditorsLeonel Sousa, Nuno Roma, Pedro Tomás
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages368-384
Number of pages17
ISBN (Print)9783030856649
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Event27th International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Euro-Par 2021 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: Sep 1 2021Sep 3 2021

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12820 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference27th International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Euro-Par 2021
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period09/1/2109/3/21

Keywords

  • Parallel approximation algorithms
  • Weighted LCS

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