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This book is a nearly hundred percent faithful book adaptation of the author´s Ph.D. dissertation. It narrates, in the style of a scientific report, the history of the development of the protein secondary structure prediction tool SPARROW, the culmination of the author´s doctoral work. The origins of the name, SPARROW, deserve perhaps a few lines for themselves. The acronym was in fact the first to be chosen. It was meant as a sort of fiction-inspired taunt directed at the (probably unaware) author of the main competing software, PSIPRED. Let us hope it will bring it luck.

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Self defined science mercenary, constantly driven by the urge to understand, the author claims to find his incentive not (only) in the salary but (mainly) in the pleasure he derives from learning. Currently researcher at Oslo´s University hospital, he has measured himself with various disciplines before landing in the field of psychiatry genetics.

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