Similarity-Profiled Temporal Association Mining

Given a time stamped transaction database and a user-defined reference sequence of interest over time, similarity-profiled temporal association mining discovers all associated item sets whose prevalence variations over time are similar to the reference sequence. The similar temporal association patterns can reveal interesting relationships of data items which co-occur with a particular event over time. Most works in temporal association mining have focused on capturing special temporal regulation patterns such as cyclic patterns and calendar scheme-based patterns. However, our model is flexible in representing interesting temporal patterns using a user-defined reference sequence. The dissimilarity degree of the sequence of support values of an item set to the reference sequence is used to capture how well its temporal prevalence variation matches the reference pattern. By exploiting interesting properties such as an envelope of support time sequence and a lower bounding distance for early pruning candidate item sets, we develop an algorithm for effectively mining similarity-profiled temporal association patterns. We prove the algorithm is correct and complete in the mining results and provide the computational analysis. Experimental results on real data as well as synthetic data show that the proposed algorithm is more efficient than a sequential method using a traditional support-pruning scheme.     

Using a hash-based method with transaction trimming for miningassociation rules

We examine the issue of mining association rules among items in a large database of sales transactions. Mining association rules means that, given a database of sales transactions, to discover all associations among items such that the presence of some items in a transaction will imply the presence of other items in the same transaction. The mining of association rules can be mapped into the problem of discovering large itemsets where a large itemset is a group of items that appear in a sufficient number of transactions. The problem of discovering large itemsets can be solved by constructing a candidate set of itemsets first, and then, identifying, within this candidate set, these itemsets that meet the large itemset requirement. Generally, this is done iteratively for each large k-itemset in increasing order of k, where a large k-itemset is a large itemset with k items. To determine large itemsets from a huge number of candidate sets in early iterations is usually the dominating factor for the overall data mining performance. To address this issue, we develop an effective algorithm for the candidate set generation. It is a hash-based algorithm and is especially effective for the generation of a candidate set for large 2-itemsets. Explicitly, the number of candidate 2-itemsets generated by the proposed algorithm is, in orders of magnitude, smaller than that by previous methods, thus resolving the performance bottleneck. Note that the generation of smaller candidate sets enables us to effectively trim the transaction database size at a much earlier stage of the iterations, thereby reducing the computational cost for later iterations significantly. The advantage of the proposed algorithm also provides us the opportunity of reducing the amount of disk I/O required. An extensive simulation study is conducted to evaluate performance of the proposed algorithm     

动态空间网络中的黑洞模式挖掘算法

黑洞模式是人类移动模式研究中的标志性成果,但在移动模式的演化建模方面存在局限性,因此研究具有时间演化特性的黑洞模式。新模式定义需要满足群体规模性、空间区域性和时间持续性3方面要求。提出具有时间演化特性的动态空间网络模型,基于此模型定义新的黑洞模式,并提出相应的挖掘算法。为了提升模式挖掘算法的效率,设计了基于时空划分的候选模式剪枝算法,有效降低了挖掘算法在时空维中的搜索代价。最后,基于真实数据的实验结果表明了该黑洞模式及其挖掘算法的有效性和可行性。     

MINING APPROXIMATE REPEATING PATTERNS FROM SEQUENCE DATA WITH GAP CONSTRAINTS

The rapid increase of available DNA, protein, and other biological sequences has made the problem of discovering meaningful patterns from sequences an important task for Bioinformatics research. Among all types of patterns defined in the literature, the most challenging one is to find repeating patterns with gap constraints. In this article, we identify a new research problem for mining approximate repeating patterns (ARPs) with gap constraints, where the appearance of a pattern is subject to an approximate match, which is very common in biological sequences. To solve the problem, we propose an ArpGap (ARP mining with Gap constraints) algorithm with three major components for ARP mining: (1) a data‐driven pattern generation approach to avoid generating unnecessary candidates for validation; (2) a back‐tracking pattern search process to discover approximate occurrences of a pattern under user specified gap constraints; and (3) an Apriori‐like deterministic pruning approach to progressively prune patterns and cease the search process if necessary. Experimental results on synthetic and real‐world protein sequences assert that ArpGap is efficient in terms of memory consumption and computational cost. The results further suggest that the proposed method is practical for discovering approximate patterns for protein sequences where the sequence length is usually several hundreds to one thousand and the pattern length is relatively short.     

一种基于FP-tree的最大频繁项目集挖掘算法

挖掘关联规则是数据挖掘领域中的重要研究内容,其中挖掘最大频繁项目集是挖掘关联规则中的关键问题之一,以前的许多挖掘最大频繁项目集算法是先生成候选,再进行检验,然而候选项目集产生的代价是很高的,尤其是存在大量长模式的时候。文中改进了FP 树结构,提出了一种基于FP tree的快速挖掘最大频繁项目集的算法DMFIA 1,该算法不需要生成最大频繁候选项目集,比DMFIA算法挖掘最大频繁项目集的效率更高。改进的FP 树是单向的,每个结点只保留指向父结点的指针,这大约节省了三分之一的树空间。     

分布式序列模式发现算法的研究

提出算法FDMSP(fast distributed mining of sequential patterns),以解决分布式环境下的序列模式挖掘问题.首先对分布式环境下序列模式的性质进行了分析.算法采用前缀投影技术划分模式搜索空间,利用序列模式前缀指定选举站点统计序列的全局支持计数,利用局部约减、选举约减、计数约减等方法减少候选序列数,同时将算法分为3个子过程异步运行,使得算法具有较低的I/O开销、内存开销和通信开销,从而高效地生成全局序列模式.实验结果显示,在具有海量数据的局域网环境中,FDMSP算法的性能优于将数据集中后采用GSP算法68.5%～99.5%,并且FDMSP算法具有良好的可伸缩性.     

An efficient approach for finding weighted sequential patterns from sequence databases

Weighted sequential pattern mining has recently been discussed in the field of data mining. Different from traditional sequential pattern mining, this kind of mining considers different significances of items in real applications, such as cost or profit. Most of the related studies adopt the maximum weighted upper-bound model to find weighted sequential patterns, but they generate a large number of unpromising candidate subsequences. In this study, we thus propose an efficient approach for finding weighted sequential patterns from sequence databases. In particular, a tightening strategy in the proposed approach is proposed to obtain more accurate weighted upper-bounds for subsequences in mining. Through the experimental evaluation, the results also show the proposed approach has good performance in terms of pruning effectiveness and execution efficiency.     

A hybridization of mathematical programming and dominance-driven enumeration for solving shift-selection and task-sequencing problems

A common problem in production planning is to sequence a series of tasks so as to meet demand while satisfying operational constraints. This problem can be challenging to solve in its own right. It becomes even more challenging when higher-level decisions are also taken into account. For example, determining which shifts to operate clearly impacts how tasks are then scheduled; additionally, reducing the number of shifts that must be operated can have great cost benefits. Integrating the shift-selection and task-sequencing decisions can greatly impact tractability, however, traditional mathematical programming approaches often failing to converge in reasonable run times. Instead, we develop an approach that embeds mathematical programming, as a mechanism for solving simpler feasibility problems, within a larger search-based algorithm that leverages dominance to achieve substantial pruning. In this paper, we introduce the Shift-Selection and Task Sequencing problem (SS-TS), develop the Test-and-Prune algorithm (T&P), and present computational experiments based on a real-world problem in automotive stamping to demonstrate its effectiveness. In particular, we are able to solve to provable optimality, in very short run times, a number of problem instances that could not be solved through traditional integer programming methods.     

HUC-Prune: an efficient candidate pruning technique to mine high utility patterns

Traditional frequent pattern mining methods consider an equal profit/weight for all items and only binary occurrences (0/1) of the items in transactions. High utility pattern mining becomes a very important research issue in data mining by considering the non-binary frequency values of items in transactions and different profit values for each item. However, most of the existing high utility pattern mining algorithms suffer in the level-wise candidate generation-and-test problem and generate too many candidate patterns. Moreover, they need several database scans which are directly dependent on the maximum candidate length. In this paper, we present a novel tree-based candidate pruning technique, called HUC-Prune (High Utility Candidates Prune), to solve these problems. Our technique uses a novel tree structure, called HUC-tree (High Utility Candidates tree), to capture important utility information of the candidate patterns. HUC-Prune avoids the level-wise candidate generation process by adopting a pattern growth approach. In contrast to the existing algorithms, its number of database scans is completely independent of the maximum candidate length. Extensive experimental results show that our algorithm is very efficient for high utility pattern mining and it outperforms the existing algorithms.     

挖掘最大频繁模式的新方法

由于其内在的计算复杂性,挖掘密集型数据集的频繁模式完全集非常困难,解决方案之一是挖掘最大频繁模式集．该文在频繁模式完全集挖掘算法Opportune Project基础上,提出了挖掘最大频繁模式的新算法MOP．它采用宽度与深度优先相结合的混合搜索策略,能恰当地选择不同的支持集表示和投影方法,将闭合性剪裁和一般性剪裁相结合,并适时前窥,实现搜索与剪裁效率最优化．实验表明,MOP效率是MaxMiner的2～8倍,比MAFIA高2个数量级以上．     

Indexed list-based high utility pattern mining with utility upper-bound reduction and pattern combination techniques

High utility pattern mining has been studied as an essential topic in the field of pattern mining in order to satisfy requirements of many real-world applications that need to process non-binary databases including item importance such as market analysis. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm with a novel indexed list-based data structure for mining high utility patterns. Previous approaches first generate an enormous number of candidate patterns on the basis of overestimation methods in their mining processes and then identify actual high utility patterns from the candidates through an additional database scan, which leads to high computational overheads. Although several list-based algorithms to discover high utility patterns without candidate generation have been suggested in recent years, they require a large number of comparison operations. Our method facilitates efficient mining of high utility patterns with the proposed indexed list by effectively reducing the total number of such operations. Moreover, we develop two techniques based on this novel data structure to more enhance mining performance of the proposed method. Experimental results on real and synthetic datasets show that the proposed algorithm mines high utility patterns more efficiently than the state-of-the-art algorithms.     

Mining sequential patterns across multiple sequence databases

In this paper, given a set of sequence databases across multiple domains, we aim at mining multi-domain sequential patterns, where a multi-domain sequential pattern is a sequence of events whose occurrence time is within a pre-defined time window. We first propose algorithm Naive in which multiple sequence databases are joined as one sequence database for utilizing traditional sequential pattern mining algorithms (e.g., PrefixSpan). Due to the nature of join operations, algorithm Naive is costly and is developed for comparison purposes. Thus, we propose two algorithms without any join operations for mining multi-domain sequential patterns. Explicitly, algorithm IndividualMine derives sequential patterns in each domain and then iteratively combines sequential patterns among sequence databases of multiple domains to derive candidate multi-domain sequential patterns. However, not all sequential patterns mined in the sequence database of each domain are able to form multi-domain sequential patterns. To avoid the mining cost incurred in algorithm IndividualMine, algorithm PropagatedMine is developed. Algorithm PropagatedMine first performs one sequential pattern mining from one sequence database. In light of sequential patterns mined, algorithm PropagatedMine propagates sequential patterns mined to other sequence databases. Furthermore, sequential patterns mined are represented as a lattice structure for further reducing the number of sequential patterns to be propagated. In addition, we develop some mechanisms to allow some empty sets in multi-domain sequential patterns. Performance of the proposed algorithms is comparatively analyzed and sensitivity analysis is conducted. Experimental results show that by exploring propagation and lattice structures, algorithm PropagatedMine outperforms algorithm IndividualMine in terms of efficiency (i.e., the execution time).     

从图数据库中挖掘频繁跳跃模式

很多频繁子图挖掘算法已被提出.然而,这些算法产生的频繁子图数量太多而不能被用户有效地利用.为此,提出了一个新的研究问题:挖掘图数据库中的频繁跳跃模式.挖掘频繁跳跃模式既可以大幅度地减少输出模式的数量,又能使有意义的图模式保留在挖掘结果中.此外,跳跃模式还具有抗噪声干扰能力强等优点.然而,由于跳跃模式不具有反单调性质,挖掘它们非常具有挑战性.通过研究跳跃模式自身的特性,提出了两种新的裁剪技术:基于内扩展的裁剪和基于外扩展的裁剪.在此基础上又给出了一种高效的挖掘算法GraphJP(an algorithm for mining jump patterns from graph databases).另外,还严格证明了裁剪技术和算法GraphJP的正确性.实验结果表明,所提出的裁剪技术能够有效地裁剪图模式搜索空间,算法GraphJP是高效、可扩展的.     

BitTableFI: An efficient mining frequent itemsets algorithm

Mining frequent itemsets in transaction databases, time-series databases and many other kinds of databases is an important task and has been studied popularly in data mining research. The problem of mining frequent itemsets can be solved by constructing a candidate set of itemsets first, and then, identifying those itemsets that meet the frequent itemset requirement within this candidate set. Most of the previous research mainly focuses on pruning to reduce the candidate itemsets amounts and the times of scanning databases. However, many algorithms adopt an Apriori-like candidate itemsets generation and support count approach that is the most time-wasted process. To address this issue, the paper proposes an effective algorithm named as BitTableFI. In the algorithm, a special data structure BitTable is used horizontally and vertically to compress database for quick candidate itemsets generation and support count, respectively. The algorithm can also be used in many Apriori-like algorithms to improve the performance. Experiments with both synthetic and real databases show that BitTableFI outperforms Apriori and CBAR which uses ClusterTable for quick support count.     

Frequent Closed Sequence Mining without Candidate Maintenance

Previous studies have presented convincing arguments that a frequent pattern mining algorithm should not mine all frequent patterns but only the closed ones because the latter leads to not only a more compact yet complete result set but also better efficiency. However, most of the previously developed closed pattern mining algorithms work under the candidate maintenance-and- test paradigm, which is inherently costly in both runtime and space usage when the support threshold is low or the patterns become long. In this paper, we present BIDE, an efficient algorithm for mining frequent closed sequences without candidate maintenance. It adopts a novel sequence closure checking scheme called Bl-Directional Extension and prunes the search space more deeply compared to the previous algorithms by using the BackScan pruning method. A thorough performance study with both sparse and dense, real, and synthetic data sets has demonstrated that BIDE significantly outperforms the previous algorithm: It consumes an order(s) of magnitude less memory and can be more than an order of magnitude faster. It is also linearly scalable in terms of database size.     

基于改进PrefixSpan的序列模式挖掘算法

针对PrefixSpan算法构造投影数据库开销大的问题,提出一种基于改进PrefixSpan的序列模式挖掘算法SPMIP。该方法通过添加剪枝步和减少某些特定序列模式生成过程的扫描,来减少投影数据库的规模及扫描投影数据库的时间,提高算法效率,并最终得到需要的序列模式。实验结果证明在获得序列模式不受影响情况下,SPMIP算法比PrefixSpan算法效率更高。     

基于FP-Tree的最大频繁项目集挖掘及更新算法

挖掘最大频繁项目集是多种数据挖掘应用中的关键问题,之前的很多研究都是采用Apriori类的候选项目集生成-检验方法.然而,候选项目集产生的代价是很高的,尤其是在存在大量强模式和/或长模式的时候.提出了一种快速的基于频繁模式树(FP-tree)的最大频繁项目集挖掘DMFIA(discover maximum frequent itemsets algorithm)及其更新算法UMFIA(update maximum frequent itemsets algorithm).算法UMFIA将充分利用以前的挖掘结果来减少在更新的数据库中发现新的最大频繁项目集的费用.     

String analysis by sliding positioning strategy

Discovering frequent factors from long strings is an important problem in many applications, such as biosequence mining. In classical approaches, the algorithms process a vast database of small strings. However, in this paper we analyze a small database of long strings. The main difference resides in the high number of patterns to analyze. To tackle the problem, we have developed a new algorithm for discovering frequent factors in long strings. We present an Apriori-like solution which exploits the fact that any super-pattern of a non-frequent pattern cannot be frequent. The SANSPOS algorithm does a multiple-pass, candidate generation and test approach. Multiple length patterns can be generated in a pass. This algorithm uses a new data structure to arrange nodes in a trie. A Positioning Matrix is defined as a new positioning strategy. By using Positioning Matrices, we can apply advanced prune heuristics in a trie with a minimal computational cost. The Positioning Matrices let us process strings including Short Tandem Repeats and calculate different interestingness measures efficiently. Furthermore, in our algorithm we apply parallelism to transverse different sections of the input strings concurrently, speeding up the resulting running time. The algorithm has been successfully used in natural language and biological sequence contexts.     

基于CTID序列模式的一种改进算法

提高序列模式挖掘算法效率的关键在于减少发现频繁序列的时间。文中基于CTID概念提出了一种改进的频繁序列模式挖掘算法——SPM，它充分利用频繁项集和中间挖掘结果，得到更多有效的序列模式，并简化了剪枝步骤，从而提高了算法效率。实验证明该算法可行。     

On mining multi-time-interval sequential patterns

Sequential pattern mining is essential in many applications, including computational biology, consumer behavior analysis, web log analysis, etc. Although sequential patterns can tell us what items are frequently to be purchased together and in what order, they cannot provide information about the time span between items for decision support. Previous studies dealing with this problem either set time constraints to restrict the patterns discovered or define time-intervals between two successive items to provide time information. Accordingly, the first approach falls short in providing clear time-interval information while the second cannot discover time-interval information between two non-successive items in a sequential pattern. To provide more time-related knowledge, we define a new variant of time-interval sequential patterns, called multi-time-interval sequential patterns, which can reveal the time-intervals between all pairs of items in a pattern. Accordingly, we develop two efficient algorithms, called the MI-Apriori and MI-PrefixSpan algorithms, to solve this problem. The experimental results show that the MI-PrefixSpan algorithm is faster than the MI-Apriori algorithm, but the MI-Apriori algorithm has better scalability in long sequence data.