text: A binary string transmitted via a memoryless i.i.d. deletion channel is received as a subsequence of the original input. From this, one obtains a posterior distribution on the channel input, corresponding to a set of candidate supersequences weighted by the number of times the received subsequence can be embedded in them. In a previous work it is conjectured on the basis of experimental data that the entropy of the posterior is minimized and maximized by the constant and the alternating strings, respectively. In this work, we present an algorithm for counting the number of subsequence embeddings using a run-length encoding of strings. We then describe two different ways of clustering the space of supersequences and prove that their cardinality depends only on the length of the received subsequence and its Hamming weight, but not its exact form. Then, we consider supersequences that contain a single embedding of a fixed subsequence, referred to as singletons, and provide a closed form expression for enumerating them using the same run-length encoding. We prove an analogous result for the minimization and maximization of the number of singletons, by the alternating and the uniform strings, respectively. Next, we prove the original minimal entropy conjecture for the special cases of single and double deletions using similar clustering techniques and the same run-length encoding, which allow us to characterize the distribution of the number of subsequence embeddings in the space of compatible supersequences to demonstrate the effect of an entropy decreasing operation.
  @cite_13: The binary symmetric channel, where each bit is independently received in error with probability p, and the binary erasure channel, where each bit is erased with probability p, enjoy a long and rich history. Shannon developed the fundamental results on the capacity of such channels in the 1940's [19], and in recent years, through the development and analysis of low-density parity-check codes and related families of codes, we understand how to achieve near-capacity performance for such channels extremely efficiently [2,13,17].
summary: Perhaps rather surprisingly, the problem of determining the number of occurrences of a fixed subsequence in random sequences has not received the same amount and level of attention from the various communities. The state-of-the-art in the finite-length regime remains rather limited in scope. More precisely, the distribution of the number of occurrences constitutes a central problem in coding theory, with a maximum likelihood decoding argument, which represents the holy grail in the study of deletion channels. A comprehensive survey, which among other things, outlines the significance of figuring out this particular distribution is given by Mitzenmacher in @cite_13 .