In this paper we investigate the general problem of discovering recurrent patterns that are embedded in categorical sequences. An important real-world problem of this nature is motif discovery in DNA sequences. We investigate the fundamental aspects of this data mining problem that can make discovery "easy" or "hard." We present a general framework for characterizing learning in this context by deriving the Bayes error rate for this problem under a Markov assumption. The Bayes error framework demonstrates why certain patterns are much harder to discover than others. It also explains the role of different parameters such as pattern length and pattern frequency in sequential discovery. We demonstrate how the Bayes error can be used to calibrate existing discovery algorithms, providing a lower bound on achievable performance. We discuss a number of fundamental issues that characterize sequential pattern discovery in this context, present a variety of empirical results to complement and verify the theoretical analysis, and apply our methodology to real-world motif-discovery problems in computational biology.
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