On the Complexity of Finite Sequences
Lempel, A.; Ziv, J.
Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on
Volume 22, Issue 1, Jan 1976 Page(s): 75 - 81
Digital Object Identifier  
Summary: A new approach to the problem of evaluating the complexity ("randomness") of finite sequences is presented. The proposed complexity measure is related to the number of steps in a self-delimiting production process by which a given sequence is presumed to be generated. It is further related to the number of distinct substrings and the rate of their occurrence along the sequence. The derived properties of the proposed measure are discussed and motivated in conjunction with other well-established complexity criteria.

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