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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEVELOPING A BIOINFORMATICS UTILITY BELT TO ELIMINATE SEARCH REDUNDANCY FROM THE EVER-GROWING DATABASES By MISHA TAYLOR A Thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2003 Copyright ? 2003 Misha Taylor All Rights Reserved  The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Misha Taylor defended on April 1, 2003. ______________________________ Robert van Engelen Professor Directing Thesis ______________________________ David Swofford Committee Member ______________________________ Theodore Baker Committee Member ______________________________ Steven M. Thompson Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members  This thesis is dedicated to my dear friend Jane Sinagub, without whose support this work could not have been produced. We’ve been through some tough times, but I’m glad that we were able to make it through the years together as friends. I love you dearly Jane, and I’m happy that you decided to let me play a bit part in your life. To Paul, “Brother” Max, and “Ma Petite” Flora, you’re as much as my family as Jane and I love you just as much. Also, thanks to Deena Westbrook for keeping me company after bioinformatics class and entertained with chitchat while writing my thesis. It made the process a lot easier and more fun than it should have been. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Steven Thompson taught me more about bioinformatics in six months than I could have learned on my own in six years. I am still amazed that he was willing to take on a computer science student with absolutely no background in biology whatsoever. He took me out to dinner and slowly introduced me to the field of bioinformatics. All this wit