A distributed genetic algorithm for RNA secondary structure prediction

This paper presents a new coarse-grained distributed genetic algorithm (GA) for the prediction of the secondary structure of RNA molecules, based largely on a serial permutation-based GA. The benefits of the distributed GA over our existing serial GA are analyzed and demonstrated. We also analyze the impact of the keep-best reproduction (KBR) and roulette wheel selection (STDS) GA replacement techniques. Finally, we verify the increase in convergence speed of our distributed GA. Tests was performed on 241 and 785 nucleotide sequences. Overall, the distributed GA is found to improve upon the serial GA performances, with a much more pronounced impact on the STDS selection strategy. There is also a notable acceleration in convergence speed.