38 Search Results for "Patro, Rob"


Volume

LIPIcs, Volume 344

25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)

WABI 2025, August 20-22, 2025, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Editors: Broňa Brejová and Rob Patro

Document
QuadRank: Engineering a High Throughput Rank

Authors: Ragnar Groot Koerkamp

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)


Abstract
Motivation. Given a text, a query rank(q, c) counts the number of occurrences of character c among the first q characters of the text. Space-efficient methods to answer these rank queries form an important building block in many succinct data structures. For example, the FM-index [Ferragina and Manzini, 2000] is a widely used data structure that uses rank queries to locate all occurrences of a pattern in a text. In bioinformatics applications, the goal is usually to process large inputs as fast as possible. Thus, data structures should have high throughput when used with many threads. Contributions. We first survey existing results on rank data structures. For the σ = 2 binary alphabet, we then develop BiRank, which has 3.28% space overhead. BiRank merges the central ideas of two recent papers: (1) we interleave (inline) offsets in each cache line of the underlying bit vector [Laws et al., 2024], reducing cache misses, and (2) these offsets are to the middle of each block so that only half of each needs popcounting [Gottlieb and Reinert, 2025]. In QuadRank (14.4% overhead), we extend these techniques to the σ = 4 (DNA) alphabet. Both data structures typically require only a single cache miss per query, making them highly suitable for high-throughput and memory-bound settings. To enable efficient batch-processing, we support prefetching the cache lines required to answer upcoming queries. Results. BiRank and QuadRank are around 1.5× and 2× faster than similar-overhead methods that do not use interleaving. Prefetching gives an additional 2× speedup, at which point the dual-channel DDR4 RAM bandwidth becomes a hard limit on the total throughput. With prefetching, both methods outperform all other methods apart from SPIDER [Laws et al., 2024] by 2×. When using QuadRank with prefetching in a toy count-only FM-index, QuadFm, this results in a smaller size and up to 4× speedup over Genedex, a state-of-the-art batching FM-index implementation. Conclusion. Optimizing data structures for high throughput, by minimizing cache misses and branch-misses and adding support for prefetching, can result in significant speedups when benchmarks are adjusted accordingly.

Cite as

Ragnar Groot Koerkamp. QuadRank: Engineering a High Throughput Rank. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 20:1-20:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{grootkoerkamp:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.20,
  author =	{Groot Koerkamp, Ragnar},
  title =	{{QuadRank: Engineering a High Throughput Rank}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260248},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: Rank, Succinct Data Structures, Cache Performance, Prefetching}
}
Document
Random Unitaries in Constant (Quantum) Time

Authors: Ben Foxman, Natalie Parham, Francisca Vasconcelos, and Henry Yuen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)


Abstract
Random unitaries are a central object of study in quantum information, with applications to quantum computation, quantum many-body physics, and quantum cryptography. Recent work has constructed unitary designs and pseudorandom unitaries (PRUs) using Θ(log log n)-depth unitary circuits with two-qubit gates. In this work, we show that unitary designs and PRUs can be efficiently constructed in several well-studied models of constant-time quantum computation (i.e., the time complexity on the quantum computer is independent of the system size). These models are constant-depth circuits augmented with certain nonlocal operations, such as (a) many-qubit TOFFOLI gates, (b) many-qubit FANOUT gates, or (c) mid-circuit measurements with classical feedforward control. Recent advances in quantum computing hardware suggest experimental feasibility of these models in the near future. Our results demonstrate that unitary designs and PRUs can be constructed in much weaker circuit models than previously thought. Furthermore, our construction of PRUs in constant-depth with many-qubit TOFFOLI gates shows that, under cryptographic assumptions, there is no polynomial-time learning algorithm for the circuit class QAC⁰. Finally, our results suggest a new approach towards proving that PARITY is not computable in QAC⁰, a long-standing question in quantum complexity theory.

Cite as

Ben Foxman, Natalie Parham, Francisca Vasconcelos, and Henry Yuen. Random Unitaries in Constant (Quantum) Time. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 61:1-61:25, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{foxman_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.61,
  author =	{Foxman, Ben and Parham, Natalie and Vasconcelos, Francisca and Yuen, Henry},
  title =	{{Random Unitaries in Constant (Quantum) Time}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{61:1--61:25},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.61},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253481},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.61},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum Information, Pseudorandomness, Circuit Complexity}
}
Document
Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems

Authors: Francisco Sena, Romeo Rizzi, and Alexandru I. Tomescu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)


Abstract
A path-covering problem on a directed acyclic graph (DAG) requires finding a set of source-to-sink paths that cover all the nodes, all the arcs, or subsets thereof, and additionally they are optimal with respect to some function. In this paper we study safe sequences of nodes or arcs, namely sequences that appear in some path of every path cover of a DAG. We show that safe sequences admit a simple characterization via cutnodes. Moreover, we establish a connection between maximal safe sequences and leaf-to-root paths in the source- and sink-dominator trees of the DAG, which may be of independent interest in the extensive literature on dominators. With dominator trees, safe sequences admit an O(n)-size representation and a linear-time output-sensitive enumeration algorithm running in time O(m + o), where n and m are the number of nodes and arcs, respectively, and o is the total length of the maximal safe sequences. We then apply maximal safe sequences to simplify Integer Linear Programs (ILPs) for two path-covering problems, LeastSquares and MinPathError, which are at the core of RNA transcript assembly problems from bioinformatics. On various datasets, maximal safe sequences can be computed in under 0.1 seconds per graph, on average, and ILP solvers whose search space is reduced in this manner exhibit significant speed-ups. For example on graphs with a large width, average speed-ups are in the range 50-250× for MinPathError and in the range 80-350× for LeastSquares. Optimizing ILPs using safe sequences can thus become a fast building block of practical RNA transcript assembly tools, and more generally, of path-covering problems.

Cite as

Francisco Sena, Romeo Rizzi, and Alexandru I. Tomescu. Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 55:1-55:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{sena_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55,
  author =	{Sena, Francisco and Rizzi, Romeo and Tomescu, Alexandru I.},
  title =	{{Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245230},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: directed acyclic graph, path cover, dominator tree, integer linear programming, least squares, minimum path error}
}
Artifact
Software
Fulgor

Authors: Giulio Ermanno Pibiri and Alessio Campanelli


Abstract

Cite as

Giulio Ermanno Pibiri, Alessio Campanelli. Fulgor (Software, Source Code). Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@misc{dagstuhl-artifact-24311,
   title = {{Fulgor}}, 
   author = {Pibiri, Giulio Ermanno and Campanelli, Alessio},
   note = {Software, version 4.0.0., swhId: \href{https://archive.softwareheritage.org/swh:1:dir:c9c71b24bc997397673f39f0cb7905660f09ff88;origin=https://github.com/jermp/fulgor;visit=swh:1:snp:f2aa3209d4aa6194f386a03c1d72b6397dc7f594;anchor=swh:1:rev:13cd36de656e27a8082a5fed127598548e79fd0c}{\texttt{swh:1:dir:c9c71b24bc997397673f39f0cb7905660f09ff88}} (visited on 2025-08-15)},
   url = {https://github.com/jermp/fulgor},
   doi = {10.4230/artifacts.24311},
}
Document
Complete Volume
LIPIcs, Volume 344, WABI 2025, Complete Volume

Authors: Broňa Brejová and Rob Patro

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
LIPIcs, Volume 344, WABI 2025, Complete Volume

Cite as

25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 1-430, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@Proceedings{brejova_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025,
  title =	{{LIPIcs, Volume 344, WABI 2025, Complete Volume}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{1--430},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243498},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025},
  annote =	{Keywords: LIPIcs, Volume 344, WABI 2025, Complete Volume}
}
Document
Front Matter
Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organization

Authors: Broňa Brejová and Rob Patro

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organization

Cite as

25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 0:i-0:xvi, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{brejova_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.0,
  author =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  title =	{{Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organization}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{0:i--0:xvi},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.0},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243477},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.0},
  annote =	{Keywords: Front Matter, Table of Contents, Preface, Conference Organization}
}
Document
Lossless Pangenome Indexing Using Tag Arrays

Authors: Parsa Eskandar, Benedict Paten, and Jouni Sirén

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Pangenome graphs represent the genomic variation by encoding multiple haplotypes within a unified graph structure. However, efficient and lossless indexing of such structures remains challenging due to the scale and complexity of pangenomic data. We present a practical and scalable indexing framework based on tag arrays, which annotate positions in the Burrows-Wheeler transform (BWT) with graph coordinates. Our method extends the FM-index with a run-length compressed tag structure that enables efficient retrieval of all unique graph locations where a query pattern appears. We introduce a novel construction algorithm that combines unique k-mers, graph-based extensions, and haplotype traversal to compute the tag array in a memory-efficient manner. To support large genomes, we process each chromosome independently and then merge the results into a unified index using properties of the multi-string BWT and r-index. Our evaluation on the HPRC graphs demonstrates that the tag array structure compresses effectively, scales well with added haplotypes, and preserves accurate mapping information across diverse regions of the genome. This indexing method enables lossless and haplotype-aware querying in complex pangenomes and offers a practical indexing layer to develop scalable aligners and downstream graph-based analysis tools.

Cite as

Parsa Eskandar, Benedict Paten, and Jouni Sirén. Lossless Pangenome Indexing Using Tag Arrays. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 8:1-8:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{eskandar_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.8,
  author =	{Eskandar, Parsa and Paten, Benedict and Sir\'{e}n, Jouni},
  title =	{{Lossless Pangenome Indexing Using Tag Arrays}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239348},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: pangenome indexing, Burrows-Wheeler transform, tag arrays}
}
Document
Invited Talk
We Are What We Index; a Primer for the Wheeler Graph Era (Invited Talk)

Authors: Ben Langmead

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Since the arrival of second-generation sequencing, we have needed to build indexes over reference sequences - e.g. genomes and transcriptomes - in order to solve read alignment and classification problems efficiently [Langmead et al., 2009; Li and Durbin, 2009; Li et al., 2009]. The rule has been: what we can index determines what we can do. When indexing strings, we can use methods like suffix arrays [Manber and Myers, 1993], the Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) [Burrows and Wheeler, 1994] / FM Index [Ferragina and Manzini, 2000], or k-mer indexes [Marchet et al., 2021]. What if we want to index objects more complex than strings? A pangenome, for example, is a large collection of similar strings, e.g. the hundreds of assemblies that make up the Human Pangenome Reference [Liao et al., 2023] or all the bacteria in the Refseq database [Goldfarb et al., 2025]. We may wish to combine these strings into a multiple sequence alignment (MSA) or a graph first. Can we index those efficiently? In many useful cases the answer is "yes," but in others the answer is "no." The story of how we learned exactly when the answer is "yes" versus "no" unfolded through a sequence of insights. Here we review this story, eventually arriving at the definition of Wheeler graphs as discovered and formalized by Gagie, Manzini and Sirén [Gagie et al., 2017]. We will focus on indexes based on the BWT, since these (a) are lossless full-text indexes, (b) are widely used in practice [Langmead et al., 2009; Li and Durbin, 2009], and (c) form the theoretical throughline for all the indexing strategies on the path to Wheeler graphs. We will trace the BWT-based indexing story from the early days of the FM Index, though its step-by-step gobbling up of trees (XBW-transform [Ferragina et al., 2005]) and de Bruijn Graphs (BOSS representation [Bowe et al., 2012]), and to the eventual formalization of Wheeler graphs [Gagie et al., 2017]. Along the way, we will define and update our notions of what it means to track a consecutive range of elements in the structure, and what it means for an index to be efficient. We will also connect these notions to automata [Sipser, 1996], noting how the indexability of Wheeler graphs (also called Wheeler automata) is connected to the mechanics of how to efficiently represent and simulate a finite automaton [Alanko et al., 2021]. With this context, we can imagine improved indexes for the future of genomics and pangenomics. De Bruijn are extremely practical and are the most widely used among the non-string data structures that are also Wheeler graphs. But we might prefer other options. For example, de Bruijn graphs have the undesirable property that they usually encode not only the true longer-than-k substrings of the original text, but also "false" substrings that span repeats. Related to this, paths through the de Bruijn graph can "glue" substrings together that are horizontally distant in the MSA. Could other Wheeler graphs be practical alternatives to de Bruijn graphs? For instance, the original GCSA study by Sirén, Välimäki and Mäkinen proposed a way to convert a multiple alignment into an automaton that either is a Wheeler graph or can be made into one [Sirén et al., 2014]. This warrants further exploration, possibly with the help of improved tools for solving the NP-complete problem of recognizing whether a graph is a Wheeler graph [Chao et al., 2023]. The notion of BWT tunnels [Baier, 2018] gives another route: we can begin with a concatenated pangenome strings and compress it by identifying and collapsing BWT tunnels. This yields a Wheeler graph that is compressed like the de Bruijn graph, but without departing from the exact contents or coordinate systems of the original genomes. The future might need us to explore all these Wheeler-graph indexes, along with the also highly practical and always-improving world of indexes buiover collections of strings [Gagie et al., 2018].

Cite as

Ben Langmead. We Are What We Index; a Primer for the Wheeler Graph Era (Invited Talk). In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 2:1-2:2, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{langmead:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.2,
  author =	{Langmead, Ben},
  title =	{{We Are What We Index; a Primer for the Wheeler Graph Era}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:2},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239288},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Indexing, Burrows-Wheeler Transform}
}
Document
Invited Talk
Recursive Parsing and Grammar Compression in the Era of Pangenomics (Invited Talk)

Authors: Christina Boucher

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Prefix-Free Parsing (PFP) and its recursive variant (RPFP) provide a scalable framework for compressing and indexing large genomic datasets. By enabling efficient construction of succinct data structures, these methods support fast and memory-efficient read alignment across thousands of genomes. Their deterministic and modular design makes them especially well-suited for pangenomics and large-scale sequence analysis.

Cite as

Christina Boucher. Recursive Parsing and Grammar Compression in the Era of Pangenomics (Invited Talk). In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 1:1-1:2, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{boucher:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.1,
  author =	{Boucher, Christina},
  title =	{{Recursive Parsing and Grammar Compression in the Era of Pangenomics}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{1:1--1:2},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239278},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: Prefix-Free Parsing, Recursive Prefix-Free Parsing, Grammar-Based Compression, Succinct Data Structures, RePair Compression}
}
Document
DiVerG: Scalable Distance Index for Validation of Paired-End Alignments in Sequence Graphs

Authors: Ali Ghaffaari, Alexander Schönhuth, and Tobias Marschall

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Determining the distance between two loci within a genomic region is a recurrent operation in various tasks in computational genomics. A notable example of this task arises in paired-end read mapping as a form of validation of distances between multiple alignments. While straightforward for a single genome, graph-based reference structures render the operation considerably more involved. Given the sheer number of such queries in a typical read mapping experiment, an efficient algorithm for answering distance queries is crucial. In this paper, we introduce DiVerG, a compact data structure as well as a fast and scalable algorithm, for constructing distance indexes for general sequence graphs on multi-core CPU and many-core GPU architectures. DiVerG is based on PairG [Jain et al., 2019], but overcomes the limitations of PairG by exploiting the extensive potential for improvements in terms of scalability and space efficiency. As a consequence, DiVerG can process substantially larger datasets, such as whole human genomes, which are unmanageable by PairG. DiVerG offers faster index construction time and consistently faster query time with gains proportional to the size of the underlying compact data structure. We demonstrate that our method performs favorably on multiple real datasets at various scales. DiVerG achieves superior performance over PairG; e.g. resulting to 2.5-4x speed-up in query time, 44-340x smaller index size, and 3-50x faster construction time for the genome graph of the MHC region, as a particularly variable region of the human genome. The implementation is available at: https://github.com/cartoonist/diverg

Cite as

Ali Ghaffaari, Alexander Schönhuth, and Tobias Marschall. DiVerG: Scalable Distance Index for Validation of Paired-End Alignments in Sequence Graphs. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 10:1-10:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{ghaffaari_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.10,
  author =	{Ghaffaari, Ali and Sch\"{o}nhuth, Alexander and Marschall, Tobias},
  title =	{{DiVerG: Scalable Distance Index for Validation of Paired-End Alignments in Sequence Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239369},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: Sequence graph, distance index, read mapping, sparse matrix}
}
Document
Fast Pseudoalignment Queries on Compressed Colored de Bruijn Graphs

Authors: Alessio Campanelli, Giulio Ermanno Pibiri, and Rob Patro

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Motivation. Indexes for the colored de Bruijn graph (c-dBG) play a crucial role in computational biology by facilitating complex tasks such as read mapping and assembly. These indexes map k-mers (substrings of length k) appearing in a large collection of reference strings to the set of identifiers of the strings where they appear. These sets, colloquially referred to as color sets, tend to occupy large quantities of memory, especially for large pangenomes. Our previous work thus focused on leveraging the repetitiveness of the color sets to improve the space effectiveness of the resulting index. As a matter of fact, repetition-aware indexes can be up to one order of magnitude smaller on large pangenomes compared to indexes that do not exploit such repetitiveness. Such improved space effectiveness, on the other hand, imposes an overhead at query time when performing tasks such as pseudoalignment that require the collection and processing of multiple related color sets. Methods. In this paper, we show how to avoid this overhead. We devise novel query algorithms tailored for the specific repetition-aware representations adopted by the Fulgor index, a state-of-the-art c-dBG index, to significantly improve its pseudoalignment efficiency and without consuming additional space. Results. Our results indicate that with increasing redundancy in the pangenomes, the compression factor provided by the Fulgor index increases, while the relative query time actually reduces. For example, while the space of the Fulgor index improves by 2.5× with repetition-aware compression and its query time improves by 1.6× on a collection of 5,000 Salmonella Enterica genomes, these factors become (6.1×,2.8×) and (11.2×,3.2×) for 50,000 and 150,000 genomes respectively. For an even larger collection of 300,000 genomes, we obtained an index that is 22.3× smaller and 2.2× faster.

Cite as

Alessio Campanelli, Giulio Ermanno Pibiri, and Rob Patro. Fast Pseudoalignment Queries on Compressed Colored de Bruijn Graphs. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 6:1-6:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{campanelli_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.6,
  author =	{Campanelli, Alessio and Pibiri, Giulio Ermanno and Patro, Rob},
  title =	{{Fast Pseudoalignment Queries on Compressed Colored de Bruijn Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{6:1--6:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.6},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239327},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.6},
  annote =	{Keywords: Colored de Bruijn graphs, Pseudoalignment, Repetition-aware compression}
}
Document
Sequence Similarity Estimation by Random Subsequence Sketching

Authors: Ke Chen, Vinamratha Pattar, and Mingfu Shao

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Sequence similarity estimation is essential for many bioinformatics tasks, including functional annotation, phylogenetic analysis, and overlap graph construction. Alignment-free methods aim to solve large-scale sequence similarity estimation by mapping sequences to more easily comparable features that can approximate edit distances efficiently. Substrings or k-mers, as the dominant choice of features, face an unavoidable compromise between sensitivity and specificity when selecting the proper k-value. Recently, subsequence-based features have shown improved performance, but they are computationally demanding, and determining the ideal subsequence length remains an intricate art. In this work, we introduce SubseqSketch, a novel alignment-free scheme that maps a sequence to an integer vector, where the entries correspond to dynamic, rather than fixed, lengths of random subsequences. The cosine similarity between these vectors exhibits a strong correlation with the edit similarity between the original sequences. Through experiments on benchmark datasets, we demonstrate that SubseqSketch is both efficient and effective across various alignment-free tasks, including nearest neighbor search and phylogenetic clustering. A C++ implementation of SubseqSketch is openly available at https://github.com/Shao-Group/SubseqSketch.

Cite as

Ke Chen, Vinamratha Pattar, and Mingfu Shao. Sequence Similarity Estimation by Random Subsequence Sketching. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 7:1-7:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.7,
  author =	{Chen, Ke and Pattar, Vinamratha and Shao, Mingfu},
  title =	{{Sequence Similarity Estimation by Random Subsequence Sketching}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239332},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Alignment-free sequence comparison, Phylogenetic clustering, Nearest neighbor search, Edit distance embedding}
}
Document
Human Readable Compression of GFA Paths Using Grammar-Based Code

Authors: Peter Heringer and Daniel Doerr

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Pangenome graphs offer a compact and comprehensive representation of genomic diversity, improving tasks such as variant calling, genotyping, and other downstream analyses. Although the underlying graph structures scale sublinearly with the number of haplotypes, the widely used GFA file format suffers from rapidly growing file sizes due to the explicit and repetitive encoding of haplotype paths. In this work, we introduce an extension to the GFA format that enables efficient grammar-based compression of haplotype paths while retaining human readability. In addition, grammar-based encoding provides an efficient in-memory data structure that does not require decompression, but conversely improves the runtime of many computational tasks that involve haplotype comparisons. We present sqz, a method that makes use of the proposed format extension to encode haplotype paths using byte pair encoding, a grammar-based compression scheme. We evaluate sqz on recent human pangenome graphs from Heumos et al. and the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC), comparing it to existing compressors bgzip, gbz, and sequitur. sqz scales sublinearly with the number of haplotypes in a pangenome graph and consistently achieves higher compression ratios than sequitur and up to 5 times better compression than bgzip in HPRC graphs and up to 10 times in the graph from Heumos et al.. When combined with bgzip, sqz matches or excels the compression ratio of gbz across all our datasets. These results demonstrate the potential of our proposed extension of the GFA format in reducing haplotype path redundancy and improving storage efficiency for pangenome graphs.

Cite as

Peter Heringer and Daniel Doerr. Human Readable Compression of GFA Paths Using Grammar-Based Code. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 14:1-14:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{heringer_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.14,
  author =	{Heringer, Peter and Doerr, Daniel},
  title =	{{Human Readable Compression of GFA Paths Using Grammar-Based Code}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239395},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: pangenomics, pangenome graphs, compression, grammar-based code, byte pair encoding}
}
Document
Average-Tree Phylogenetic Diversity of Networks

Authors: Leo van Iersel, Mark Jones, Jannik Schestag, Celine Scornavacca, and Mathias Weller

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 344, 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)


Abstract
Phylogenetic diversity is a measure used to quantify the biodiversity of a set of species. Here, we introduce the "average-tree" phylogenetic diversity score in rooted binary phylogenetic networks and consider algorithms for computing and maximizing the score on a given network. Basically, the score is the weighted average of the phylogenetic diversity scores in all trees displayed by the network, with the weights determined by the inheritance probabilities on the reticulation edges used in the embeddings. We show that computing the score of a given set of taxa in a given network is #P-hard, directly implying #P-hardness of finding a subset of k taxa achieving maximum diversity score and, thereby, ruling out polynomial-time algorithms for these problems unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. However, we show that both problems can be solved efficiently if the input network is close to being a tree in the sense that its reticulation number is small. More precisely, we prove that we can solve the optimization problem in networks with n leaves and r reticulations in 2^{𝒪(r)}⋅ n⋅ k time. Using experiments on data produced by simulating a reticulate-evolution process, we show that our algorithm runs efficiently on networks with hundreds of taxa and tens of reticulations.

Cite as

Leo van Iersel, Mark Jones, Jannik Schestag, Celine Scornavacca, and Mathias Weller. Average-Tree Phylogenetic Diversity of Networks. In 25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 344, pp. 15:1-15:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{vaniersel_et_al:LIPIcs.WABI.2025.15,
  author =	{van Iersel, Leo and Jones, Mark and Schestag, Jannik and Scornavacca, Celine and Weller, Mathias},
  title =	{{Average-Tree Phylogenetic Diversity of Networks}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Algorithms for Bioinformatics (WABI 2025)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-386-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{344},
  editor =	{Brejov\'{a}, Bro\v{n}a and Patro, Rob},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239405},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WABI.2025.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: phylogenetic diversity, phylogenetic networks, network phylogenetic diversity, algorithms, computational complexity}
}
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