A complexity measure for symbolic sequences and applications to DNA

Abstract

We introduce a complexity measure for symbolic sequences. Starting from a segmentation procedure of the sequence, we define its complexity as the entropy of the distribution of lengths of the domains of relatively uniform composition in which the sequence is decomposed. We show that this quantity verifies the properties usually required for a ``good'' complexity measure. In particular it satisfies the one hump property, is super-additive and has the important property of being dependent of the level of detail in which the sequence is analyzed. Finally we apply it to the evaluation of the complexity profile of some genetic sequences.