# Semantics of negative sequential patterns

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.06920 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06920/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Feb 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A survey on the semantics of sequential patterns with negation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11638/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In the field of pattern mining, a negative sequential pattern is specified by means of a sequence consisting of events to occur and of other events, called negative events, to be absent. For instance, containment of the pattern langle a neg b crangle arises with an occurrence of a and a subsequent occurrence of c but no occurrence of b in between. This article is to shed light on the ambiguity of such a seemingly intuitive notation and we identify eight possible semantics for the containment relation between a pattern and a sequence. These semantics are illustrated and formally studied, in particular we propose dominance and equivalence relations between them. Also we prove that support is anti-monotonic for some of these semantics. Some of the results are discussed with the aim of developing algorithms to extract efficiently frequent negative patterns.