This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field of pattern mining with evolutionary algorithms. To do so, it covers formal definitions about patterns, patterns mining, type of patterns and the usefulness of patterns in the knowledge discovery process. As it is described within the book, the discovery process suffers from both high runtime and memory requirements, especially when high dimensional datasets are analyzed. To solve this issue, many pruning strategies have been developed. Nevertheless, with the growing interest in the storage of information, more and more datasets comprise such a dimensionality that the discovery of interesting patterns becomes a challenging process. In this regard, the use of evolutionary algorithms for mining pattern enables the computation capacity to be reduced, providing sufficiently good solutions. This book offers a survey on evolutionary computation with particular emphasis on genetic algorithms and genetic programming. Also included is an analysis of the set of quality measures most widely used in the field of pattern mining with evolutionary algorithms. This book serves as a review of the most important evolutionary algorithms for pattern mining. It considers the analysis of different algorithms for mining different type of patterns and relationships between patterns, such as frequent patterns, infrequent patterns, patterns defined in a continuous domain, or even positive and negative patterns. A completely new problem in the pattern mining field, mining of exceptional relationships between patterns, is discussed. In this problem the goal is to identify patterns which distribution is exceptionally different from the distribution in the complete set of data records. Finally, the book deals with the subgroup discovery task, a method to identify a subgroup of interesting patterns that is related to a dependent variable or target attribute. This subgroup of patterns satisfies two essential conditions: interpretability and interestingness.

This book provides a general and comprehensible overview of supervised descriptive pattern mining, considering classic algorithms and those based on heuristics. It provides some formal definitions and a general idea about patterns, pattern mining, the usefulness of patterns in the knowledge discovery process, as well as a brief summary on the tasks related to supervised descriptive pattern mining. It also includes a detailed description on the tasks usually grouped under the term supervised descriptive pattern mining: subgroups discovery, contrast sets and emerging patterns. Additionally, this book includes two tasks, class association rules and exceptional models, that are also considered within this field. A major feature of this book is that it provides a general overview (formal definitions and algorithms) of all the tasks included under the term supervised descriptive pattern mining. It considers the analysis of different algorithms either based on heuristics or based on exhaustive search methodologies for any of these tasks. This book also illustrates how important these techniques are in different fields, a set of real-world applications are described. Last but not least, some related tasks are also considered and analyzed. The final aim of this book is to provide a general review of the supervised descriptive pattern mining field, describing its tasks, its algorithms, its applications, and related tasks (those that share some common features). This book targets developers, engineers and computer scientists aiming to apply classic and heuristic-based algorithms to solve different kinds of pattern mining problems and apply them to real issues. Students and researchers working in this field, can use this comprehensive book (which includes its methods and tools) as a secondary textbook.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field of pattern mining with evolutionary algorithms. To do so, it covers formal definitions about patterns, patterns mining, type of patterns and the usefulness of patterns in the knowledge discovery process. As it is described within the book, the discovery process suffers from both high runtime and memory requirements, especially when high dimensional datasets are analyzed. To solve this issue, many pruning strategies have been developed. Nevertheless, with the growing interest in the storage of information, more and more datasets comprise such a dimensionality that the discovery of interesting patterns becomes a challenging process. In this regard, the use of evolutionary algorithms for mining pattern enables the computation capacity to be reduced, providing sufficiently good solutions. This book offers a survey on evolutionary computation with particular emphasis on genetic algorithms and genetic programming. Also included is an analysis of the set of quality measures most widely used in the field of pattern mining with evolutionary algorithms. This book serves as a review of the most important evolutionary algorithms for pattern mining. It considers the analysis of different algorithms for mining different type of patterns and relationships between patterns, such as frequent patterns, infrequent patterns, patterns defined in a continuous domain, or even positive and negative patterns. A completely new problem in the pattern mining field, mining of exceptional relationships between patterns, is discussed. In this problem the goal is to identify patterns which distribution is exceptionally different from the distribution in the complete set of data records. Finally, the book deals with the subgroup discovery task, a method to identify a subgroup of interesting patterns that is related to a dependent variable or target attribute. This subgroup of patterns satisfies two essential conditions: interpretability and interestingness.

This book provides a general and comprehensible overview of supervised descriptive pattern mining, considering classic algorithms and those based on heuristics. It provides some formal definitions and a general idea about patterns, pattern mining, the usefulness of patterns in the knowledge discovery process, as well as a brief summary on the tasks related to supervised descriptive pattern mining. It also includes a detailed description on the tasks usually grouped under the term supervised descriptive pattern mining: subgroups discovery, contrast sets and emerging patterns. Additionally, this book includes two tasks, class association rules and exceptional models, that are also considered within this field. A major feature of this book is that it provides a general overview (formal definitions and algorithms) of all the tasks included under the term supervised descriptive pattern mining. It considers the analysis of different algorithms either based on heuristics or based on exhaustive search methodologies for any of these tasks. This book also illustrates how important these techniques are in different fields, a set of real-world applications are described. Last but not least, some related tasks are also considered and analyzed. The final aim of this book is to provide a general review of the supervised descriptive pattern mining field, describing its tasks, its algorithms, its applications, and related tasks (those that share some common features). This book targets developers, engineers and computer scientists aiming to apply classic and heuristic-based algorithms to solve different kinds of pattern mining problems and apply them to real issues. Students and researchers working in this field, can use this comprehensive book (which includes its methods and tools) as a secondary textbook.