Bioinformatics Project Homepage - Irene Dhong

Team member: Irene Dhong

Project Abstract: To study phylogeny, there are numerous methods, datasets, and analysis tools that aid in the study. In my project, I hope to survey several methods, datasets, and tools in order to identify stronger methods and runtime capabilities of tools in the process.

Plan of Action:
  • Research numerous phylogeny program databases:
    • Mainly - http://evolution.genetics.washington.edu/phylip/software.html
  • Survey several different types of programs which require different datasets or implement the phylogeny in different methods.
  • Method
    • What will you implement
      • Download the programs, run them on computer with associated datasets
      • Make comparisons, based on accuracy, useability, effectiveness
      • Take a look at source code to gage methods used to implement algorithm or what particular algorithm was used (ie. distance matrix)
    • What methods are you going to compare and how will you get them?
      • There are several different algorithms
        • distance matrix
        • parsimony
        • general-purpose
        • computation of likelihood
        • Bayesian methods
    • Which datasets are you going to use and where will you get them from (links if
      possible)?
      • Numerous datasets that are utilized in different programs
        • microsatellite
        • continuous quantative characters
        • RAPDs, RFLPs, AFLPs
    • What kind of experiment will you run and what will you measure (e.g., time, score, p-value etc). 
      • Compare phylogeny tools outputs - such as a visualization of the tree
      • Compare program qualifications
        • runtime
        • datasets
        • output quality
        • effectiveness
Papers:

www.cs.chalmers.se/~yehoshua/BayesSlides.pdf