A Minimum Spanning Tree Clustering Approach for Outlier Detection in Event Sequences

摘要

Outlier detection has been studied in many domains. Outliers arise due to different reasons such as mechanical issues, fraudulent behavior, and human error. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised approach for outlier detection in a sequence dataset. The proposed approach combines sequential pattern mining, cluster analysis, and a minimum spanning tree algorithm in order to identify clusters of outliers. Initially, the sequential pattern mining is used to extract frequent sequential patterns. Next, the extracted patterns are clustered into groups of similar patterns. Finally, the minimum spanning tree algorithm is used to find groups of outliers. The proposed approach has been evaluated on two different real datasets, i.e., smart meter data and video session data. The obtained results have shown that our approach can be applied to narrow down the space of events to a set of potential outliers and facilitate domain experts in further analysis and identification of system level issues.