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MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that modulate gene expression transcriptionally (transcriptional activation or inactivation) and/or post-transcriptionally (translation inhibition or degradation of their target mRNAs). This phenomenon has significant roles in growth and developmental processes in plants and animals. Bos taurus is one of the most important livestock animals, having great importance in food and economical sciences and industries.

Often during the analysis of biological data, it is of importance to interpret the correlation structure that exists between variables. Such correlations may reveal patterns of co-regulation that are indicative of biochemical pathways or common mechanisms of response to a related set of treatments. However, analyses of correlations are usually conducted by either subjective interpretation of the univariate covariance matrix or by applying multivariate modeling techniques, which do not take prior biological knowledge into account.

With the avalanche of biological sequences generated in the post-genomic age, one of the most challenging problems is how to computationally analyze their structures and functions. Machine learning techniques are playing key roles in this field. Typically, predictors based on machine learning techniques contain three main steps: feature extraction, predictor construction and performance evaluation. Although several Web servers and stand-alone tools have been developed to facilitate the biological sequence analysis, they only focus on individual step.

ESPSearch is a computer program for rapidly identifying nucleic acid or amino acid sequences of any length within any source sequence from promoters to entire genomes to protein libraries. ESPSearch utilizes a user-constructed database to identify many sequences simultaneously, including target sequences with wildcards and mismatches and user-specified patterns of those recognized sequences.