On Defining SPARQL with Boolean Tensor Algebra

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) represents information as subject-predicate-object triples. These triples are commonly interpreted as a directed labelled graph. We propose an alternative approach, interpreting the data as a 3-way Boolean tensor. We show how SPARQL queries - the standard queries for RDF - can be expressed as elementary operations in Boolean algebra, giving us a complete re-interpretation of RDF and SPARQL. We show how the Boolean tensor interpretation allows for new optimizations and analyses of the complexity of SPARQL queries. For example, estimating the size of the results for different join queries becomes much simpler

Algorithms for Approximate Subtropical Matrix Factorization

Matrix factorization methods are important tools in data mining and analysis. They can be used for many tasks, ranging from dimensionality reduction to visualization. In this paper we concentrate on the use of matrix factorizations for finding patterns from the data. Rather than using the standard algebra -- and the summation of the rank-1 components to build the approximation of the original matrix -- we use the subtropical algebra, which is an algebra over the nonnegative real values with the summation replaced by the maximum operator. Subtropical matrix factorizations allow "winner-takes-it-all" interpretations of the rank-1 components, revealing different structure than the normal (nonnegative) factorizations. We study the complexity and sparsity of the factorizations, and present a framework for finding low-rank subtropical factorizations. We present two specific algorithms, called Capricorn and Cancer, that are part of our framework. They can be used with data that has been corrupted with different types of noise, and with different error metrics, including the sum-of-absolute differences, Frobenius norm, and Jensen--Shannon divergence. Our experiments show that the algorithms perform well on data that has subtropical structure, and that they can find factorizations that are both sparse and easy to interpret.Comment: 40 pages, 9 figures. For the associated source code, see http://people.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~pmiettin/tropical

Boolean Matrix Factorization Meets Consecutive Ones Property

Boolean matrix factorization is a natural and a popular technique for summarizing binary matrices. In this paper, we study a problem of Boolean matrix factorization where we additionally require that the factor matrices have consecutive ones property (OBMF). A major application of this optimization problem comes from graph visualization: standard techniques for visualizing graphs are circular or linear layout, where nodes are ordered in circle or on a line. A common problem with visualizing graphs is clutter due to too many edges. The standard approach to deal with this is to bundle edges together and represent them as ribbon. We also show that we can use OBMF for edge bundling combined with circular or linear layout techniques. We demonstrate that not only this problem is NP-hard but we cannot have a polynomial-time algorithm that yields a multiplicative approximation guarantee (unless P = NP). On the positive side, we develop a greedy algorithm where at each step we look for the best 1-rank factorization. Since even obtaining 1-rank factorization is NP-hard, we propose an iterative algorithm where we fix one side and and find the other, reverse the roles, and repeat. We show that this step can be done in linear time using pq-trees. We also extend the problem to cyclic ones property and symmetric factorizations. Our experiments show that our algorithms find high-quality factorizations and scale well

Finite Boolean Algebras for Solid Geometry using Julia's Sparse Arrays

The goal of this paper is to introduce a new method in computer-aided geometry of solid modeling. We put forth a novel algebraic technique to evaluate any variadic expression between polyhedral d-solids (d = 2, 3) with regularized operators of union, intersection, and difference, i.e., any CSG tree. The result is obtained in three steps: first, by computing an independent set of generators for the d-space partition induced by the input; then, by reducing the solid expression to an equivalent logical formula between Boolean terms made by zeros and ones; and, finally, by evaluating this expression using bitwise operators. This method is implemented in Julia using sparse arrays. The computational evaluation of every possible solid expression, usually denoted as CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry), is reduced to an equivalent logical expression of a finite set algebra over the cells of a space partition, and solved by native bitwise operators.Comment: revised version submitted to Computer-Aided Geometric Desig