seqeconstraint: Setting time constraints and the counting method

Description

Function used to set time constraints and the counting method in methods (seqe...) for event sequences such as seqefsub for searching frequent subsequences or seqeapplysub for checking occurrences of subsequences.

Usage

seqeconstraint(max.gap = -1, window.size = -1, age.min = -1, age.max = -1,
  age.max.end = -1, count.method = 1, maxGap, windowSize, ageMin, ageMax,
ageMaxEnd, countMethod)

Value

A constraint object containing one item per constraint type.

Arguments

max.gap: The maximum time gap between two events
window.size: The maximum time span accepted for subsequences
age.min: Minimal start time position allowed for subsequences. Ignored when equal to -1 (default).
age.max: Maximal start time position allowed for subsequences. Ignored when equal to -1 (default).
age.max.end: Maximal end time position allowed for subsequences. Ignored when equal to -1 (default).
count.method: By default, subsequences are counted only one time by sequence ('COBJ' method). Alternative counting methods are 'CDIST_O', 'CWIN', 'CMINWIN' or 'CDIST' respectively. See details.
maxGap: Deprecated. Use max.gap instead.
windowSize: Deprecated. Use window.size instead.
ageMin: Deprecated. Use age.min instead.
ageMax: Deprecated. Use age.max instead.
ageMaxEnd: Deprecated. Use age.max.end instead.
countMethod: Deprecated. Use count.method instead.

Author

Matthias Studer, Nicolas S. Müller and Reto Bürgin (alternative counting methods) (with Gilbert Ritschard for the help page)

Details

max.gap, window.size, age.min, age.max and age.max.end. If so, two events should not be separated by more than max.gap and the whole subsequence should not exceed a window.size time span. The other parameters specify the start and end age of the subsequence, it should start between age.min and age.max and finish before age.max.end. Parameters age.min, age.max and age.max.end are interpreted as the number of positions (time units) from the beginning of the sequence.

There are 5 options for the count.method argument. (1) By default, the count is the number of sequences that contain the subsequence ("COBJ" method). Alternatives are (2) "CDIST_O" (counts all distinct occurrences in each sequence including possibly overlapping occurrences, i.e., occurrences sharing a same event occurrence), (3) "CWIN" (number of slidden windows of length window.size that contain an occurrence of the subsequence), (4) "CMINWIN" (number of minimal windows of occurrence) and (5) "CDIST" (distinct occurrences without event occurrences overlap). See references.

References

Joshi, Mahesh V., George Karypis, and Vipin Kumar (2001) A Universal Formulation of Sequential Patterns Proceedings of the KDD'2001 Workshop on Temporal Data Mining, San Francisco.

Ritschard, G., A. Gabadinho, N.S. Müller and M. Studer (2008), Mining event sequences: A social science perspective, International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling and Management, IJDMMM, 1(1), 68-90.