The present invention relates to data mining techniques used for graph-based data, and particularly to a frequent changing pattern extraction device which extracts, from a sequence of graphs having temporal changes, a pattern of change that frequently appears in the sequence.
In recent years, there has been an increase in studies on data mining which is used to discover useful or interesting patterns as knowledge from a massive amount of data. The usefulness varies from one person to another, and is thus difficult to define. However, in general, knowledge to explain many cases is considered to be useful (see Non-Patent Reference 6, for example). Ever since the Apriori algorithm was proposed in 1994, whereby frequent item sets are enumerated from data including plural item sets (see Non-Patent Reference 1, for example), frequent pattern enumeration algorithms have been proposed for various kinds of data structures. Recently, high-speed methods of enumerating frequent substructure patterns that appear in complex structures such as graphs have been proposed (see Non-Patent Reference 9, for example).
Consideration is given to the case where the data combinations which appear at least twice are to be extracted from four data sets, which are {R, Y, P}, {B, Y, G}, {R, B, Y, G}, and {B, G} as shown in
Targets of the graph mining have been mainly graphs which do not change over time.
For example, in a human relation network represented by a graph as one expression, a person who is going to be a hub (a core or center) in the future does not act as a hub person since first participating in the network. This person is moving to a position to be a hub while the network structure is changing over time. Considering an entire graph as one community in the human relation network, the participation and withdrawal of persons respectively correspond to an increase and decrease in the number of vertices, and the changes caused by the resulting relations correspond to an increase or decrease in the number of edges. Similarly, a network structure configured by webpages changes its structure according to an increase or decrease in the number of webpages and hyperlinks over the course of a developmental process. Also, a gene network changes its network structure over the course of an evolutional process including acquiring new genes, deleting genes, and mutating genes. A discussion thread can be considered as growth in a tree or directed acyclic graph where a new message causes a new vertex and a references to a previous comment causes an edge. Studies on changes in network structures as described above are believed to become one of the important subjects in the future.
According to a conventional method of enumerating substructure patterns at high speed, however, frequent changing patterns cannot be extracted from a network structure that changes from moment to moment because the processing targets of the conventional method are static data structures.
The present invention is conceived in view of the stated problem, and has an object to provide a frequent changing pattern extraction device which extracts a frequent changing pattern from a network structure that changes from moment to moment.
In order to achieve the aforementioned object, the frequent changing pattern extraction device according to an aspect of the present invention is a frequent changing pattern extraction device including: a conversion unit which converts a graph sequence into an operator sequence by expressing changes, from a first graph included in the graph sequence to a second graph which is temporally adjacent to the first graph, using operators indicating operations necessary to transform the first graph into the second graph, the graph sequence including a plurality of graphs that show temporal changes in the graphs, and each of the graphs including a vertex corresponding to a data piece and an edge corresponding to a link between data pieces; and an extraction unit which extracts an operator subsequence that appears at least a predetermined number of times in the operator sequence, based on anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm.
To be more specific, the operations indicated by the operators include at least one of a vertex insertion, a vertex deletion, a vertex relabeling, an edge insertion, an edge deletion, and an edge relabeling.
With this configuration, changes in the graphs are expressed using the operators. Thus, the changes in the graphs (i.e., in the network structure) can be represented by the operator sequence. Based on the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm, a frequent operator subsequence can be extracted. Since the operator sequence represents the changes in the graphs, a frequent pattern of change in the graphs can be extracted.
It is preferable that the stated frequent changing pattern extraction device further includes a sequence-for-union-graph generation unit which generates an operator sequence corresponding to a union graph obtained by removing a vertex that is not connected to another vertex from a graph configured by a union of vertices and a union of edges of the plurality of graphs included in the graph sequence, wherein the extraction unit extracts an operator subsequence that appears at least a predetermined number of times in the operator sequence generated by the sequence-for-union-graph generation unit, based on the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm.
A graph which is not connected to a union graph is considered difficult for people to interpret. On account of this, a graph which is not connected to a union graph is removed, so that only the operator sequences included in the union graph become the targets in the processing. As a result, only operator subsequences (the patterns of change in the graphs) which are useful to people can be accordingly extracted. Moreover, the number of operator sequences to be evaluated by the extraction unit can be reduced, and therefore the processing can be performed at high speed.
Also, it is preferable that the stated frequent changing pattern extraction device further includes an order changing unit which changes an order in which the operators included in the operator sequence converted by the conversion unit are arranged, so that the temporal changes in the graphs expressed by a resulting operator sequence are represented by vertices that increase in number over time, wherein the extraction unit extracts an operator subsequence that appears at least a predetermined number of times in the operator sequence obtained as a result of the order change executed by the order changing unit, based on the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm.
By changing the order in which the operators are applied, it becomes easier to apply the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm.
It should be noted that the present invention can be implemented not only as the frequent changing pattern extraction device including the characteristic units as described above, but also as: a frequent changing pattern extraction method having, as steps, the characteristic units included in the frequent changing pattern extraction device; and a program causing a computer to execute the characteristic steps included in the frequent changing pattern extraction method. In addition, it should be understood that such a program can be distributed via a recording medium such as a CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) or a communication network such as the Internet.
The present invention can provide a frequent changing pattern extraction device which extracts a frequent changing pattern from a network structure that changes from moment to moment.
The present invention proposes a method of efficiently enumerating frequent changing patterns buried in data of graph sequences that change over time, based on a graph mining technique.
A graph change, mentioned as a target of the present invention, refers to a structural change caused as a result of an increase or decrease in the number of vertices or edges. Information travelling across a network (namely, a graph) and a distance between vertices are also important elements as causes of the structural changes. However, in order to simplify the problem, the present invention is discussed, with attention being focused only on graph structures.
The following is a description of a frequent changing pattern extraction device according to an embodiment of the present invention, with reference to the drawings.
A frequent changing pattern extraction device 100 is a device which extracts a frequent changing pattern from a graph sequence that changes over time. The frequent changing pattern extraction device 100 includes a changing graph sequence storage unit 10, a conversion unit 12, a sequence-for-union-graph generation unit 14, an order changing unit 16, an extraction unit 18, a subsequence candidate generation unit 20, and an appearance frequency calculation unit 22. The frequent changing pattern extraction device 100 is configured by a computer, and the changing graph sequence storage unit 10 is configured by a memory of the computer or an external storage device such as a hard disk. Processes performed by the other processing units are implemented by causing a CPU of the computer to execute programs. It should be noted that intermediate results given by the processing units are stored in memory of the computer. Also note that a processing result is displayed on a not-illustrated display device of the computer.
The changing graph sequence storage unit 10 is a storage device which stores a plurality of graph sequences, each graph sequence including a plurality of graphs that show temporal changes in the graphs, and each of the graphs including a vertex corresponding to a data piece and an edge corresponding to a link between data pieces.
The conversion unit 12 is a processing unit which converts each of the graph sequences stored in the changing graph sequence storage unit 10 into an operator sequence by expressing changes, from a first graph included in the graph sequence to a second graph which is temporally adjacent to the first graph, using operators indicating operations necessary to transform the first graph into the second graph.
The sequence-for-union-graph generation unit 14 is a processing unit which generates, for each operator sequence of the graph sequence, another operator sequence corresponding to a union graph obtained by removing a vertex that is not connected to another vertex from a graph configured by a union of vertices and a union of edges of the plurality of graphs included in the graph sequence.
The order changing unit 16 is a processing unit which, for each operator sequence generated by the sequence-for-union-graph generation unit 14, changes the order in which the operators included in the operator sequence are arranged, so that the temporal changes in the graphs expressed by the operator sequence are represented by the vertices that increase in number over time.
The extraction unit 18 is a processing unit which extracts an operator subsequence that appears at least a predetermined number of times in the plurality of operator sequences corresponding to the plurality of graph sequences, based on the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm. The extraction unit 18 includes the subsequence candidate generation unit 20 and the appearance frequency calculation unit 22.
The subsequence candidate generation unit 20 is a processing unit which generates operator subsequence candidates while increasing the number of included operators by one each time.
The appearance frequency calculation unit 22 is a processing unit which calculates the number of times the operator subsequence candidate appears in the plurality of operator sequences.
It should be noted that the subsequence candidate generation unit 20 increases the number of operators by one for only an operator subsequence candidate, out of the operator subsequence candidates, whose number of appearances calculated by the appearance frequency calculation unit 22 is the predetermined number of times or more, so as to update the operator subsequence candidates.
The processing performed by the frequent changing pattern extraction device 100 configured as described above is explained below.
<1. Problem Definition>
A second problem is to search for a pattern p with what kind of characteristics, the pattern being expressed as p=<gs(1) . . . gs(m)>. For example, when the graph sequence is searched without constraints on each graph gs(t), an enormous number of patterns become subjects of the search. Also, an output pattern may not be always interpretable. In the case where a disconnected graph is allowed as gs(t), for instance, a pattern as shown in
A labeled graph g is defined as g=(V, E, L, f). Here, V represents a set of vertices and is expressed as V={v1, v2, . . . , vn}.
E={(vi, vj)|(vi,vj)εV×V} [Math. 1]
In the above, E represents a set of edges. L represents a set of labels.
f:(V∪E→L) [Math. 2]
Also, f is expressed as above. In the present invention, undirected graphs are discussed according to a proposed method. However, the present invention is applicable to directed graphs. Suppose here that the graph g and the graph gs expressed as gs=(Vs, Es, Ls, f) satisfy the following equations.
[Math. 3]
∀viεVs, f(vi)=f(φ(vi)), 1.
∀(vi, vj)εEs, f(vi, vj)=f(φ(vi), φ(vj)), 2.
When such a function φ exists, gs is referred to as a subgraph of g and expressed as follows.
gsg [Math. 4]
A set of edges connecting from a vertex vi to a vertex vj is called a path. When a path is present between any two vertices of a graph, this graph is called a connected graph. A graph sequence is expressed as d=<g(1) g(2) . . . g(n)>. The object of the present invention is to provide a method of searching for and finding a frequent sequence p=<gs(1) gs(2) . . . gs(m)> when the graph sequence d is given as an input. Here, the following expression is given in the case where 1≦j1<j2 . . . <jm≦n.
gs(1)g(j
Here, p is described as follows.
pd [Math. 6]
A network of webpages has a graph structure where a vertex corresponds a webpage and an edge corresponds to a hyperlink, for example. The graph structure changes whenever an edit is performed. For instance, g(t) has a graph structure in the t-th phase of a certain website. Although each page may be considered to be unlabeled, it may also be considered to be labeled such as “Webpage of University”, “Webpage of Financial Company”, or “Webpage of Manufacturing Company”. A label is set according to the intention of analysis, and is not specifically designated in the present invention.
A union graph is defined in order to discuss what kind of pattern is to be searched for. Each vertex vi of a graph has a unique ID id (vi) that does not change over time. In the aforementioned examples of webpages, URLs correspond to the unique IDs. When a set of graphs expressed as {g1, . . . , gn} is given, Math. 7 described below is defined by Math. 8 as follows.
G=∪igi [Math. 7]
V(G)=∪i{id(v)|vεV(gi)}
E(G)=∪i{(id(v1), id(v2))|(v1, v2)εE(gi)} [Math. 8]
Here, V (gi) and E (gi) represent a set of vertices and a set of edges of the graph gi, respectively.
∪igi [Math. 9]
The number of vertices in the above expression is the cardinality of the unique IDs of the vertices of {g1, . . . , gn}. According to the definition as described, a target pattern in the present invention can be defined as follows. Suppose that a pattern is expressed as p=<gs(1) gs(2) . . . gs(m)>.
Here, a search is made for a graph sequence p where the following is connected.
∪i=1, . . . , mgs(i) [Math. 10]
Note that the vertices included in the graph sequence p that satisfies this condition are “associated with each other”. Although each gs(i) appearing in the pattern may be disconnected, any two vertices in the pattern are associated with each other within a target phase. Hence, each output pattern is readable (i.e., interpretable), which does not violate the aforementioned object.
Documents (see Non-Patent Reference 5, for example) have proposed the SIGRAM algorithm whereby frequent subgraphs are mined from a huge graph that does not change over time. Although the SIGRAM algorithm proposes a frequency counting method, the FSG algorithm that is an existing graph mining method (see Non-Patent reference 4, for example) is employed as the pattern enumeration method. In other words, the pattern enumeration method and the frequency counting method can be separately defined, and the same can be said for the problem to be addressed by the present invention. On the account of this, the present invention focuses on a pattern enumeration method and accordingly proposes an efficient enumeration method. Suppose that an input database DB is a collection of graph sequences di and data identifiers tidi, and is expressed as DB={(tidi, di)|di=<gi(1) gi(2) . . . gi(ti)>}. For such a database, the support is defined as follows.
σ(p)=|{tidi|(tidi, di)εDB, pdi}|/|DB| [Math. 11]
A pattern having a specified support threshold σ′ or higher is referred to as a frequent pattern.
Next, a first problem of pattern enumeration is explained.
<Pattern Enumeration Problem 1 (Simple Problem)>
Suppose that a collection of graph sequences expressed as DB={(tidi, di)|di=<gi(1) . . . gi(ti)>} and σ′ are given as inputs.
In this case, the problem is to enumerate each frequent pattern p expressed as p=<gs(1) . . . gs(m)>, where the following is connected.
∪igs(i) [Math. 12]
Each graph gs(t) included in the graph sequence as a pattern is not always connected. The simplest method as the pattern enumeration algorithm is: to activate the frequent subgraph enumeration algorithm whereby disconnected graphs are also outputted; to perform the existing sequential pattern mining, with each frequent subgraph being an item; and then to remove a pattern whose union graph is not connected, in the post-processing. However, this method is inefficient because patterns that do not satisfy the condition that the union graph of the pattern is connected are obtained in large numbers immediately before the post-processing.
Also, consider a method of expanding the pattern by adding an item ik one at a time in the temporal order, as in the case of a conventional sequential pattern mining (see Non-Patent Reference 8, for example). When a pattern desired to be extracted is i1 i2 (i2 i3) i4, the pattern is expanded in order as follows: i1; i1 i2; i1 i2 (i2); i1 i2 (i2 i3); and i1 i2 (i2 i3) i4. A new item always has to be appended to the item that occurs most recently in the temporal order. However, in the case where an analysis target is a graph and it is known in advance that the pattern shown in
Regarding relevance to the problem of the existing frequent subgraph mining, when each ti of Pattern Enumeration Problem 1 is 1, this is the same problem addressed by the algorithms of AcGM (see Non-Patent Reference 3, for example), FSG (see Non-Patent Reference 4, for example), and gSpan (see Non-Patent Reference 10, for example). Moreover, when ti=1, the constraint on the union graph is canceled, and a constraint that to-be-extracted patterns are included as induced subgraphs in the graphs of the database is imposed, this is the same problem addressed by the AGM algorithm (see Non-Patent Reference 2, for example).
<2. Graph Transformation Operators>
The conversion unit 12 holds only differences between g(t) and g(t+1) using one of the methods of determining graph edit distances, in order to express changes in the graphs. To be more specific, the degree of similarity between two graphs is determined according to the smallest number of times in which insertion, deletion, relabeling of vertices and edges are applied recursively until the two graphs become identical. Operators used for performing six kinds of operations shown in Table 1 are referred to as transformation operators.
Holding differences between g(1) and the subsequent graphs is one way. However, considering that g(0) has no vertices, data including a difference between g(0) and g(1) is held so as to process the data uniformly. Hereafter, g(0) is expressed as follows.
⊥ [Math. 13]
Even in the case where each graph is relatively large, data can be concisely held if the changing parts are small in number.
A sequence shown in
When the data di in the database is expressed as di=<gi(1) gi(2) . . . gi(n)>, this expression is referred to as the graph sequence representation.
g(n)=OP[*, o
When expressed as the above, this expression is referred to as the transformation operator representation.
OP[*, o
When expressed as the above, this expression is referred to as the transformation operator sequence representation. Suppose that an operator expressed as below is included in s of the transformation operator sequence representation.
OP[*, o, l](t) [Math. 17]
In this case, the following expression is given.
OP[*, o, l](t)εs [Math. 18]
Also, the transformation operator sequence representation corresponding to d in the graph sequence representation is described as seq (d).
Transformation Operator Sequence Representation
A sequence s′ that is generated by removing some operators from the following expression is referred to as a subsequence of s.
OP[*, o
Also, the sequence s′ is expressed as follows.
s′s [Math. 20]
The sequence s′ is a subsequence of the sequence s. Let their correspondence relation be expressed using φ, for the following.
OP[*, o, l](t)εs, OP[*, o′, l′](t′)εs′ [Math. 21]
In this case, the correspondence relation is expressed as below.
OP[*, o, l](t)=φ(OP[*, o′, l′](t′)) [Math. 22]
<Assumption 1> A transformation operator is generated according to the shortest edit distance between g(t) and g(t+1). Suppose that the following expressions in Math. 23 and Math. 24 are included in one transformation operator representation.
OP[vi, o
OP[vd, o
Here, note that there is no value combination expressed as t1=t2 and o1=o2, whereby a vertex is inserted and then immediately deleted.
Transformation Operator Sequence Representation
s=OP[*, o
When the above equation is given, a union graph G of s expressed as G=(V, E) is defined as follows.
V(G)={o|OP[q, o, l](t)εs, qε{vi, vd, vr}}
E(G)={o|OP[q, o, l](t)εs, qε{ei, ed, er}} [Math. 26]
Also, for DB={(tidi, di)|di=<gi(1) . . . gi(ti)>}, the support of the pattern s in the transformation operator sequence representation is expressed as follows.
σ(s)=|{tidi|(tidi, di)εDB, sseq(di)}|/|DB| [Math. 27]
The union graph G is generated by the sequence-for-union-graph generation unit 14.
<Pattern Enumeration Problem 2 (Extended Problem)>
Suppose that a collection of graph sequences expressed as DB={(tidi, di)|di=<gi(1) . . . gi(ti)>} and σ′ are given as inputs. In this case, the problem is to enumerate each frequent pattern expressed below in the transformation operator sequence representation, where the union graph is connected.
OP[*, o
This processing is executed by the extraction unit 18.
<Theorem 1> The support has the anti-monotonicity property with respect to a sequence length of the pattern.
<Theorem 2> Suppose that a collection of graph data sequences expressed as DB={(tidi, di)|di=<gi(1) . . . gi(ti)>} and σ′ are given as inputs. Here, let sets of all the patterns outputted in Pattern Enumeration Problems 1 and 2 be P1 and P2, respectively. In this case, the following expression is derived.
P1⊂P2 [Math. 29]
As described above, the object in the present invention is to mine a pattern which is readable and has fewer constraints (namely, a versatile pattern). According to the definition of the union graph in the transformation operator sequence representation, when the union graph in the transformation operator sequence representation is connected, it can be said that the two vertices vi and vj in the transformation operator sequence representation are associated with each other. Hence, the patterns outputted in Pattern Enumeration Problem 2 are readable. Although the proof is omitted due to space limitation, it is considered that, according to Theorem 2, the patterns outputted in Pattern Enumeration Problem 1 can be outputted by imposing (i.e., increasing) constraints on the patterns outputted in Pattern Enumeration Problem 2. Hereafter, a discussion is made on Pattern Enumeration Problem 2.
When the operations OPs were defined above, the order in which the operations are applied was not discussed in detail. In the following, commutative properties of the operators are described. Similarly, the properties including relabeling can be defined, although omitted here due to space limitation. The following explanation is given based on the assumption that t<t′<t″. It should be noted that the order of operators is changed by the order changing unit 16.
<Vertex Insertion→Vertex Insertion>
Consideration is given to the case where vertices with the unique IDs i and j are to be inserted. Suppose that the vertex with the unique ID i is first inserted and then the vertex with the unique ID j is inserted into the graph g (t), so that a graph g(t″) is generated. Here, if the order of insertions is changed as follows, an isomorphic graph g(t″) is generated.
<Vertex Insertion→Vertex Deletion>
Consideration is given to the case where the vertex with the unique ID i is first inserted and then the vertex with the unique ID j is deleted. When i≠j and the graph g(t″) is generated according to this operation, the isomorphic graph g(t″) is generated even if the order of insertion is changed as follows. On the other hand, when i=j, the order cannot be changed because the inserted vertex is to be deleted.
<Vertex Deletion→Vertex Insertion>
The vertex with the unique ID i is first deleted and then the vertex with the unique ID j is inserted. Since the vertex to be deleted is selected from among the vertices with the unique IDs other than i, the order can be changed.
An edge insertion is expressed as follows.
OP[ei, (i, j), l]′(t) [Math. 33]
An edge deletion is expressed as follows.
OP[ed, (i, j), l](t) [Math. 34]
In the present embodiment, the edge change is expressed as follows.
OP[e, (i, j), l](t) [Math. 35]
<Edge Change→Vertex Insertion>
<Vertex Deletion→Vertex Deletion>
<Vertex Deletion→Edge Change>
<Edge Change→Vertex Deletion>
<Edge Change→Edge Change>
<3. Pattern Enumeration Algorithm>
As described in the preceding section, the changes in the graphs can be expressed using the operators. The commutative properties of these operators have been described as well. Before explaining the pattern enumeration algorithm in detail, the conception is first described using specific examples. It should be noted that the pattern enumeration processing is performed by the subsequence candidate generation unit 20 and the appearance frequency calculation unit 22 included in the extraction unit 18. One of the output patterns is shown in
Table 2 shows the operators corresponding to the applications. Consideration is given to the case where the order of these operators is changed within a commutative limit. Table 3 shows one example of changing the order, and this order change is represented in
On the other hand, Table 4 and
A scaffold sequence s′ of s in the transformation operator sequence representation is defined.
Suppose that t1<t2 and o1=o2 in the following expression.
OP[*, o
In this case, s′ is defined as a subsequence of s.
Here, the sequence s is configured by the following.
OP[*, o
The operators from g1 to g8 in Table 3 and the operators from g1 to g8 in Table 4 form the respective scaffold sequences.
<Theorem 3> When a correspondence relation between the pattern s in the transformation operator sequence representation and its scaffold sequence s′ is φ, the following is satisfied.
<Theorem 4> A union graph of the pattern s in the transformation operator sequence representation is isomorphic to a union graph obtained from the scaffold sequence of the pattern s.
Accordingly, as one of the methods to obtain the frequent pattern s expressed in the transformation operator sequence representation, there is a method whereby the scaffold sequence s′ of the pattern s is generated and then a transformation operator is inserted into s′ for expansion without changing the union graph of s′. In fact, it can be understood that the operators subsequent to g9 in Table 3 and the operators subsequent to g9 in Table 4 expand the respective patterns without changing the union graphs of the scaffold sequences. Thus, an algorithm including the following two steps can be considered:
1. first enumerating all scaffold sequences of all patterns to be extracted; and
2. sequentially expanding the pattern by inserting an operator that is not included in the scaffold sequence, without changing the union graph of the scaffold sequence.
In the above step 1, an expand operation in the scaffold sequence s is described as “expand (s)”.
<3. 1 Expansion of Scaffold Sequence>
OP[vi, 1, A](0), OP[vd, 1, A](0), OP[vi, 1, B](0), OP[vd, 1, B](0) [Math. 46]
Note that the unique IDs of the vertices in the patterns are represented by integer values starting from 1.
OP[vi, 1, A](0) [Math. 47]
Next, the above pattern is expanded, so that its child node is generated. The pattern is expanded in such a manner that the union graph of the scaffold pattern is connected, instead of expanding the pattern so as to increase the application order t of the transformation operators. When the expansion method is based on the AcGM algorithm, a vertex and an edge associated with the vertex are inserted. When the expansion method is based on one of the FSG, gSpan, and Gaston algorithms, the pattern is expanded with an edge and a vertex associated with the edge. Here, the pattern is not expanded using a transformation operator that is already included in the scaffold sequence and has o.
Attention needs to be paid to the following patterns.
[Math. 48]
OP[ei, (1, 2), −](0)OP[vi, 2, A](1)OP[vi, 1, A](0)⊥ (2)
OP[ei, (1, 2), −](2)OP[vi, 2, B](0)OP[vi, 1, A](1)⊥ (3)
In the pattern (2), a vertex, where t=0, with the label A and the unique ID 1 is inserted and also an edge is inserted between a pair of vertices (1, 2). Then, in the subsequent pattern, a vertex, where t=1, with the label A and the unique ID 2 is inserted. From this information alone, since the edge (1, 2) is inserted before the vertex with the unique ID 2 is inserted, it seems impossible to insert the edge.
OP[vi, 2, A](2)OP[vi, 2, A](1)OP[ed, (1, 2), −](1)OP[ei, (1, 2), −](0)OP[vi, 2, A](0)OP[vi, 1, A](0)⊥ [Math. 49]
However, when the above pattern frequently appears, the pattern (2) as the subsequence also frequently appears because of the anti-monotonicity of the support. For this reason, the pattern (2) needs to be enumerated as well.
The pattern (3) is generated by expanding the following.
OP[vi, 1, A](0) [Math. 50]
Here, the order in which the vertex with the unique ID 1 is inserted is changed.
OP[*, o, l](t) [Math. 51]
Here, t in the above operator of the pattern shows information of the order in which two operators are applied. Thus, attention needs to be paid to the fact that the order in which the operators in the pattern are applied is changed in this way as the pattern is expanded.
In the search tree, it is not always true that only one isomorphic pattern appears. For example, the following two sequences are isomorphic.
OP[ei, (1, 2), −](0)OP[vi, 2, B](0)OP[vi, 1, A](0)⊥
OP[ei, (1, 2), −](0)OP[vi, 2, A](0)OP[vi, 1, B](0)⊥ [Math. 52]
It is inefficient if the isomorphic patterns in different representations are repeatedly generated. In such a case, when a graph code that is generated from the union graph of the scaffold pattern and the unique IDs of the vertices in the union graph is a canonical code, the present pattern is left in the search space. The graph code depends on the algorithm, such as AcGM, gSpan, FSG, and Gaston, that is employed for expanding the scaffold pattern.
<3. 2 Pattern Expansion from Projection Data>
The scaffold sequence s is generated according to the method described in the preceding section. Then, as described in the present section, the sequence s is expanded by inserting an operator that is not included in the scaffold sequence, without changing the union graph of s. The pattern scaffold ends at g8 in Table 3 and also at g8 in Table 4. In the present section, the processing performed for g9 and the subsequent operators is explained.
Suppose that a correspondence relation between a scaffold sequence s and data (tidi, di) including this sequence s is expressed as φ. In this case, a projection function “project” is defined as follows.
{(tidi, d′i)}=project((tidi, di), s) [Math. 53]
Here, d′i satisfies the following.
Suppose that a scaffold sequence s and sequence data di are expressed by the following equations respectively in the transformation operator sequence representation.
Here, project ((tidi, di), s) is expressed as follows.
The sequence (4) is expressed as follows when the operators having the same application order t are parenthesized and t is thus removed.
OP[vi, 2, A](OP[vi, 3, B]OP[ei, (2, 3), −])OP[ed, (2, 3), −](OP[vd, 2, A]OP[vi, 4, C]OP[ei, (3, 4), −])(OP[vi, 2, B]OP[ed, (3, 4), −]) [Math. 57]
Accordingly, the sequence can be assumed to be in the sequence representation of sequential pattern mining in which an operator is treated as an item. The following is generated from the input database and the scaffold pattern s.
DB′(s)={(tidi, d′i)|(tidi, di)εDB, (tidi, d′i)εproject((tidi, di), s)} [Math. 58]
With the above being an input for the sequential pattern mining, the pattern can be sequentially expanded without changing the union graph of the scaffold sequence s.
<3. 3 Pseudo-Codes>
<4. Evaluation Experiment and Consideration>
An evaluation experiment was carried out for the method described up to the preceding section. The method was implemented in C++, and a personal computer (PC) with a 1.66-GHz Core Duo CPU and 1.5-GB memory was used. For the sequential pattern mining, the PrefixSpan algorithm (see Non-Patent Reference 8, for example) was used. Table 5 shows a summary of meanings and default values of parameters in artificial data used in the present experiment. Firstly, N number of labeled graphs each having an average of |Vavg| vertices are generated. The vertex labels are determined according to equal probabilities from Lv number of labels, and the existence probability of an edge between two vertices is determined according to pe. This is a union graph of a basic pattern. Each basic pattern starts from the following.
⊥ [Math. 59]
Until the union graph of the operator sequence becomes isomorphic to the previously-generated union graph, the operator sequence of the basic pattern is generated by inserting a transformation operator one at a time. The operator is only for inserting or deleting a vertex or edge. A target vertex or edge is randomly selected, and whether to insert or delete the target is determined according to the probability pi. In this way, |DB| number of graph sequences are generated.
Then, one basic pattern is written over each described below.
(tidi, di)εDB [Math. 60]
Some of the results are shown in
As described thus far, the present invention proposes a method of enumerating readable frequent changing graph sequential patterns that are included in labeled graph sequences. Since the graph transformation operations are defined and the order in which the operations are applied is changed, the patterns can be enumerated with efficiency. Moreover, the evaluation experiment was carried out for the proposed method using the artificial data, and the variations in calculation time different depending on the data characteristics were shown.
The present invention allows the graph changes to be expressed using the operators. Thus, the changes in graphs (i.e., network structure) can be represented by an operator sequence. Based on the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm, a frequent operator subsequence can be extracted. Since the operator sequence represents the changes in graphs, a frequent pattern of change in the graphs can be extracted.
Moreover, a graph which is not connected to a union graph is considered difficult for people to interpret. On account of this, a graph which is not connected to a union graph is removed, so that only the operator sequences included in the union graph become the targets in the processing. As a result, only operator subsequences (the patterns of change in the graphs) which are useful to people can be accordingly extracted. Furthermore, the number of operator sequences to be evaluated by the extraction unit can be reduced, and therefore the processing can be performed at high speed.
Also, the order changing unit 16 changes the order in which the operators are applied, thereby making it easier to apply the anti-monotonicity used in the Apriori algorithm.
The above embodiment describes a case where the changing graph sequence storage unit 10 stores a plurality of graph sequences. However, note that the changing graph sequence storage unit 10 may store only one graph sequence. In such a case, the frequent changing pattern extraction device 100 extracts an operator subsequence which appears at least a predetermined number of times in one operator sequence converted from one graph sequence.
Applications of such a frequent changing pattern extraction device include analyzing e-mail messages. For example, a graph g(t) is generated, in which a vertex corresponds to a person (namely, an e-mail address) and an edge corresponds to a connection between e-mail addresses between which e-mail messages have been exchanged. By analyzing the e-mail messages with such a graph being a start point, it is possible to extract a person who is going to be a hub in a community.
The embodiment disclosed thus far only describes an example in all respects and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. It is intended that the scope of the present invention not be limited by the described embodiment, but be defined by the claims set forth below. Meanings equivalent to the description of the claims and all modifications are intended for inclusion within the scope of the following claims.
The present invention can be applied to a frequent changing pattern extraction device which extracts a pattern of change frequently appearing in a network structure that changes from moment to moment. In particular, the present invention can be applied to, for example: a drug-discovery support device which supports drug discovery by extracting a pattern of change frequently appearing in changes in genetic structure; and an executive-candidate discovery support device which supports discovery of executive candidates by extracting a common pattern of change in human relations occurring to persons who are going to become hubs in a human relation network.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2008-044602 | Feb 2008 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2009/000092 | 1/13/2009 | WO | 00 | 8/24/2010 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2009/107315 | 9/3/2009 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
8112440 | Wu et al. | Feb 2012 | B2 |
20100332476 | Buehrer et al. | Dec 2010 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20110004631 A1 | Jan 2011 | US |