Abstract
In dendrochronology wood samples are dated according to the tree rings they contain. The dating process consists of comparing the sequence of tree ring widths in the sample to a dated master sequence. Assuming that a tree forms exactly one ring per year a simple sliding algorithm solves this matching task.
But sometimes a tree produces no ring or even two rings in a year. If a sample sequence contains this kind of inconsistencies it cannot be dated correctly by the simple sliding algorithm. We therefore introduce a O(α 2 mn + α 4(m + n)) algorithm for dating such a sample sequence against an error-free master sequence, where n and m are the lengths of the sequences. Our algorithm takes into account that the sample might contain up to α missing or double rings and suggests possible positions for these kind of inconsistencies. This is done by employing an edit distance as the distance measure.
Part of a research project supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grant AL 253/4-2
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Wenk, C. (1999). Applying an Edit Distance to the Matching of Tree Ring Sequences in Dendrochronology. In: Crochemore, M., Paterson, M. (eds) Combinatorial Pattern Matching. CPM 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1645. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48452-3_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48452-3_17
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