Taking a practical approach, this modern introduction to the theory of computation focuses on the study of problem solving through computation in the presence of realistic resource constraints. The Theory of Computation explores questions and methods that characterize theoretical computer science while relating all developments to practical issues in computing. The book establishes clear limits to computation, relates these limits to resource usage, and explores possible avenues of compromise through approximation and randomization. The book also provides an overview of current areas of research in theoretical computer science that are likely to have a significant impact on the practice of computing within the next few years.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics, WABI 2001, held in Aarhus, Denmark, in August 2001. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 50 submissions. Among the issues addressed are exact and approximate algorithms for genomics, sequence analysis, gene and signal recognition, alignment, molecular evolution, structure determination or prediction, gene expression and gene networks, proteomics, functional genomics, and drug design; methodological topics from algorithmics; high-performance approaches to hard computational problems in bioinformatics.