Activity Patterns of Canadian Women: Application of ClustalG Sequence Alignment Software

Sequence alignment procedures and a new software package for creating multiple sequence alignments, called ClustalG, are described and used to identify the activity patterns of Canadian women. ClustalG eliminates the constraint on the size of the event classification system implemented in software developed for biological applications, and this feature allows an analysis of activity sequences in conjunction with their settings, in this example, location and the presence of other people. Work, weekend days, age, marital status, and the presence of children relate to membership in different activity-pattern groups. The addition of data on activity setting to the sequences changes the discriminatory power of the analysis. When the analysis omits settings, the daily activities of elderly women are grouped with weekend activities of younger, family-raising women. Inclusion of settings identifies the activities of elderly women largely on the basis of location at home and isolation from other people. ClustalG is freely available over the Internet at www.stmarys.ca/partners/iatur/clustalG.