Burrows Wheeler - alternatives to move to front

Summary form only given. The Burrows Wheeler transform is a relatively new approach to text compression and has already proven to produce excellent results. However, there has been much research directed towards improving the efficiency of the move to front algorithm with varying degrees of complexity. A relatively simple technique was examined using a dual modeling system and achieves very promising results. Information loss during the Burrows Wheeler transform is also examined using deterministic information theory measuring techniques. By utilizing the information measurement tools developed by Titchener a clearer understanding of informational changes over BWT has been established. Most importantly, MTF loses information making it amenable for compression, however it also contains little contextual structure and closely resembles the data stream after applying the BWT algorithm.