Description
This dissertation discusses how to write efficient, deterministic programs to infer phylogenetic trees. These programs are based on a theoretically optimal polynomial time algorithm. The programs are practical and efficient.
The problem is to infer phylogenetic trees from sequence data at the leaves. Likelihood approaches attempt to solve an NP-complete optimization problem, and are computationally intense.
Our approach is to apply efficient, polynomial time algorithms which are provably accurate to within a constant factor of optimal.
We present a program which is practical and computationally efficient.