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README.TXT
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1993-10-19
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INSTALLATION
o Start Windows
o Run the SETUP.EXE program on the distribution diskette and follow the
directions. This can be done using either the File Manager or the Program
Manager.
RELEASE NOTES
What's New
o A new algorithm for finding ungapped local multiple alignments (blocks),
the Gibbs Sampler (Lawrence, et al., 1993), has been incorporated.
o On-line help has been added. Please note that this replaces the printed
User's Manual that was distributed with previous releases.
o Score tables and color definitions are now specified in a new Summary Info
dialog box instead of requiring the use of the File Open command as before.
In addition, the sequence type (protein, DNA, or RNA) is explicitly
specified in the same dialog box (instead of being inferred from the
selected score table).
o The choice between "yes/no/maybe" and numerical styles of statistical
significance reporting is now a global setting that is selected in the
Summary Info dialog box (previously it was set on a per-block basis using
"Significance Options").
o You can now use the Copy command to put the selected block in the Blocks
Window onto the clipboard as plain ASCII text for pasting into other
applications, such as word processors and graphics applications.
o Many minor improvements in addition to those mentioned above have been
made. Consequently, the menus have been changed around quite a bit, so you
should take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the new layout.
Known Bugs and Limitations
o Although the hard limit on the number of sequences you can load has been
increased (to 32), there is a bug that causes the program to hang on the
22nd (approx) sequence. It is recommended that you limit yourself to 20
sequences until a fix can be worked out.
o The program may crash when using the Segment Pair Overlap method and the
score cutoff is too low. In general, it is a good idea to cancel a search
if the progress monitor stalls at 25% for more than a few seconds and try
again with a higher cutoff.
o The program may crash if you attempt to link a block that is inconsistent
with blocks that are already linked. If you want to link something that,
in the Schematic Window appears to "cross over" a linked block, unlink the
old block first.
MACAW SUPPORT POLICY
Scientists at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
develop a variety of computational tools (MACAW is one example) as part of
their own research and make them available to the scientific community.
Descriptions of software tools and algorithms are published in appropriate
journals, and both executables and source code are available upon request from
the authors. However, the NCBI cannot provide user support for these tools.
If you have questions on the use of MACAW, first consult the on-line help
system as well as the original published sources (see References). As a last
resort, you may send e-mail to Greg Schuler (schuler@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) or
Stephen Altschul (altschul@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), however, you should not expect a
prompt reply.
REFERENCES
Gregory D. Schuler, Stephen F. Altschul, and David J. Lipman (1991). A
Workbench for Multiple Alignment Construction and Analysis. Proteins
Struct. Funct. Genet. 9, 180-190.
Charles E. Lawrence, Stephen F. Altschul, Mark S. Boguski, Jun S. Liu, Andrew
F. Neuwald, and John C. Wootton (1993). Detecting Subtle Sequence
Signals: A Gibbs Sampling Strategy for Multiple Alignment. Science 262,
208-214.
Samuel Karlin and Stephen F. Altschul (1990). Methods for Assessing the
Statistical Significance of Molecular Sequence Features by Using General
Scoring Schemes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87, 2264-2268 (1990)