The set of parameterized k-covers problem

AbstractThe problem of the set of k-covers is a distance measure for strings. Another well-studied string comparison measure is that of parameterized matching. We consider the problem of the set of parameterized k-covers (k-SPC) which combines k-cover measure with parameterized matching. We prove that k-SPC is NP-complete. We describe an approach to solve k-SPC. This approach is based on constructing a logical model for k-SPC

On the longest common parameterized subsequence

AbstractThe well-known problem of the longest common subsequence (LCS), of two strings of lengths n and m respectively, is O(nm)-time solvable and is a classical distance measure for strings. Another well-studied string comparison measure is that of parameterized matching, where two equal-length strings are a parameterized match if there exists a bijection on the alphabets such that one string matches the other under the bijection. All works associated with parameterized pattern matching present polynomial time algorithms.There have been several attempts to accommodate parameterized matching along with other distance measures, as these turn out to be natural problems, e.g., Hamming distance, and a bounded version of edit-distance. Several algorithms have been proposed for these problems.In this paper we consider the longest common parameterized subsequence problem which combines the LCS measure with parameterized matching. We prove that the problem is NP-hard, and then show a couple of approximation algorithms for the problem

On Distances Between Words with Parameters

The edit distance between parameterized words is a generalization of the classical edit distance where it is allowed to map particular letters of the first word, called parameters, to parameters of the second word before computing the distance. This problem has been introduced in particular for detection of code duplication, and the notion of words with parameters has also been used with different semantics in other fields. The complexity of several variants of edit distances between parameterized words has been studied, however, the complexity of the most natural one, the Levenshtein distance, remained open. In this paper, we solve this open question and close the exhaustive analysis of all cases of parameterized word matching and function matching, showing that these problems are np-complete. To this aim, we also provide a comparison of the different problems, exhibiting several equivalences between them. We also provide and implement a MaxSAT encoding of the problem, as well as a simple FPT algorithm in the alphabet size, and study their efficiency on real data in the context of theater play structure comparison

Enhancing source-based clone detection using intermediate representation

Abstract-Detecting software clones in large scale projects helps improve the maintainability of large code bases. The source code representation (e.g., Java or C files) of a software system has traditionally been used for clone detection. In this paper, we propose a technique that transforms the source code to an intermediate representation, and then reuses established source-based clone detection techniques to detect clones in the intermediate representation. The clones are mapped back to the source code and are used to augment the results reported by source-based clone detection. We demonstrate the performance of our new technique using systems from the Bellon clone evaluation benchmark. The result shows that our technique can detect Type 3 clones. Our technique has higher recall with minimal drop in precision using Bellon corpus. By examining the complete clone groups, our technique has higher precision than the standalone string based and token based clone detectors

Improved algorithms for string searching problems

We present improved practically efficient algorithms for several string searching problems, where we search for a short string called the pattern in a longer string called the text. We are mainly interested in the online problem, where the text is not preprocessed, but we also present a light indexing approach to speed up exact searching of a single pattern. The new algorithms can be applied e.g. to many problems in bioinformatics and other content scanning and filtering problems. In addition to exact string matching, we develop algorithms for several other variations of the string matching problem. We study algorithms for approximate string matching, where a limited number of errors is allowed in the occurrences of the pattern, and parameterized string matching, where a substring of the text matches the pattern if the characters of the substring can be renamed in such a way that the renamed substring matches the pattern exactly. We also consider searching multiple patterns simultaneously and searching weighted patterns, where the weight of a character at a given position reflects the probability of that character occurring at that position. Many of the new algorithms use the backward matching principle, where the characters of the text that are aligned with the pattern are read backward, i.e. from right to left. Another common characteristic of the new algorithms is the use of q-grams, i.e. q consecutive characters are handled as a single character. Many of the new algorithms are bit parallel, i.e. they pack several variables to a single computer word and update all these variables with a single instruction. We show that the q-gram backward string matching algorithms that solve the exact, approximate, or multiple string matching problems are optimal on average. We also show that the q-gram backward string matching algorithm for the parameterized string matching problem is sublinear on average for a class of moderately repetitive patterns. All the presented algorithms are also shown to be fast in practice when compared to earlier algorithms. We also propose an alphabet sampling technique to speed up exact string matching. We choose a subset of the alphabet and select the corresponding subsequence of the text. String matching is then performed on this reduced subsequence and the found matches are verified in the original text. We show how to choose the sampled alphabet optimally and show that the technique speeds up string matching especially for moderate to long patterns

The Graph Pattern Matching Problem through Parameterized Matching

We propose a new approach to solve graph isomorphism using parameterized matching. Parameterized matching is a string matching problem where two strings parameterized-match if there exists a bijective function, on the symbols of the alphabet, that maps one of the strings into the other. Given that parameterized matching is defined for linear structures, we define the concept of graph linearization to represent the topology of a graph as a walk on it. Then, our approach to determine whether two graphs are isomorphic consists of determining whether there exists a walk in one of the graphs that parameterized-matches a linearization of the other graph. Our solution has two main steps: linearization and matching. We develop an efficient linearization algorithm, that generates short linearizations with an approximation guarantee, and develop a graph matching algorithm. We show that this solution also works for subgraph isomorphism, which is the problem of determining whether an input graph H is isomorphic to a subgraph of another input graph G. We evaluate our approach experimentally on graphs of different types and sizes, and compare to the performance of VF2, which is a prominent algorithm for graph isomorphism. Our empirical measurements show that graph linearization finds a matching graph faster than VF2 in many cases, especially in Miyazaki-constructed graphs which are known to be one of the hardest cases for graph isomorphism algorithms. We extend this approach to query attributed graphs. An attributed graph is a graph data structure, in which nodes and edges may have identifiers, types and other attributes. Attributed graphs are used in many application domains, for example to model social networks in which nodes represent people, photos, and postings and edges represent friendship, person-tagged-in-photo and mentioned-in-post relationships. Queries are used to extract information from such graphs. Several graph queries are expressed as graph pattern matching, which is the problem of finding all instances of pattern match query P in a larger attributed graph G. A pattern match query may specify both a graph structure and predicates on the attributes of the graph elements. Clearly, this problem is associated to subgraph isomorphism. Furthermore, we define a more general class of graph queries called generalized pattern queries on attributed multigraphs. The goal of this class is to find paths and subgraphs that satisfy query reachability and predicates. The query language is expressive: It allows (i) using regular expression operators (e.g., Kleene star and union); (ii) specifying structural predicates on graph nodes and edges; and (iii) using attribute predicates on nodes and edges. Pattern match queries, reachability queries, their combination, and even more queries can be expressed through generalized pattern queries. We use our approach to solve this new type of queries. The proposed technique has two phases. First, the query is linearized, i.e., represented as a graph walk that covers all nodes and edges. There are several linearizations for a given query; we derive heuristics to produce a good linearization that is short and places selective predicates early in the linearization. Second, we search for a bijective function that maps each element of the query to an element of the attributed multigraph that satisfies the reachability requirements and the predicates. Specifically, we develop an algorithm that matches the linearization by traversing the attributed graph in a manner similar to a breadth first traversal constrained by the linearization. We evaluate our solution experimentally using a real graph (the DBLP citation network) to assess its practicality and efficiency. Our results show that our techniques and optimizations are effective in querying attributed graphs, offering several factors of reduction in query response time when graph statistics are utilized.Resumen. En esta tesis se propone un nuevo enfoque de solución para resolver el problema de isomorfismo de grafos usando búsqueda parametrizada. La búsqueda parametrizada es un problema de búsqueda de cadenas de texto en el cual dos cadenas coinciden si existe una biyección que mapee los símbolos de una cadena en los símbolos de la otra. Dado que la búsqueda parametrizada está definida para estructuras lineales, se define el concepto de linearización de grafos para representar la topología de un grafo como un camino sobre este. Entonces, la solución para determinar si dos grafos son isomorfos consiste en determinar si existe un camino en uno de los grafos que haga coincidencia parametrizada con la linearización del otro grafo. La solución propuesta tiene dos pasos: linearización y búsqueda. Se presenta un algoritmo eficiente que genera linearizaciones aproximadamente óptimas en longitud, y un algoritmo de búsqueda. Se demuestra que esta solución también resuelve el problema de isomorfismo de subgrafos, en el cual se determina si un grafo H es isomorfo a un subgrafo de otro grafo G. Se evaluó experimentalmente la solución con grafos de diferentes tipos y tamaños. Se comparó su desempeño con el de VF2, el cual es un algoritmo competitivo de isomorfismo de grafos. Los resultados experimentales muestran que la solución propuesta es más eficiente que VF2 en varios casos, en especial en grafos Miyazaki, los cuales se caracterizan por constituir uno de los casos más difíciles para los algoritmos de isomorfismo de grafos. Este enfoque de solución se extiende para resolver consultas sobre grafos semánticos. Un grafo semántico es un grafo en el cual los nodes y arcos pueden tener identificadores, tipos y otros atributos. Estos grafos tienen aplicaciones importantes en diversas áreas, como por ejemplo para modelar redes sociales en las que los nodos representan personas, fotos y publicaciones y los arcos representan relaciones de amistad, etiquetado y mención. Se usan consultas para extraer información de estos grafos. Varias de estas consultas se expresan como búsqueda de patrones, la cual consiste en encontrar las coincidencias del grafo patrón P en un grafo semántico G. El grafo patrón especifica tanto la estructura de las coincidencias a encontrar, como los predicados sobre los atributos que deben cumplir los nodos y los arcos de las mismas. Claramente, este problema está asociado al isomorfismo de subgrafos. Además, se define un tipo de consultas más general sobre grafos semánticos. Estos nuevos patrones se denominan grafos patrón generalizados. El objetivo de estos es encontrar caminos y subgrafos que satisfagan ciertos requisitos semánticos, de estructura y de alcance. Estos patrones son expresivos, pues permiten (i) usar operadores de expresiones regulares (e.g., la estrella de Kleene y la unión); (ii) especificar predicados estructurales en los nodos y arcos; y (iii) evaluar predicados sobre los atributos de los nodos y arcos. Los patrones grafo tradicionales, las consultas de alcance, la combinación de estos y más se pueden representar a través de grafos patrón generalizados. Se usa el enfoque de solución propuesto para resolver los grafos patrón generalizados. La solución tiene dos fases. Primero, el patrón es linearizado, i.e., representado como un camino que incluye todos sus nodos y arcos. Hay muchas linearizaciones para un patrón dado; se proponen heurísticas para producir linearizaciones cortas que ubican los predicados selectivos al comienzo. Segundo, se busca una función biyectiva que mapee cada nodo en el patrón a un nodo en el grafo semántico que satisfaga los requisitos de alcance y los predicados. Específicamente, se propone un algoritmo de búsqueda que recorre el grafo semántico siguiendo una búsqueda en amplitud restringida por la linearización. La solución se evaluó experimentalmente usando un grafo semántico real (la red de citaciones DBLP) para evaluar su practicidad y eficiencia. Los resultados experimentales muestran que las técnicas y optimizaciones propuestas son efectivas en consultar grafos semánticos, ofreciendo un alto factor de reducción en el tiempo de ejecución cuando se utilizan las estadísticas del grafo semántico.Doctorad