Significant Cascading Spatiotemporal Pattern Discovery

Cascading spatiotemporal pattern (CSTP) is a reflection of the underlying mechanism of natural or social processes. Identifying CSTPs provides meaningful evidence for domain experts and government agencies to forecast potential consequences of an event and plan ahead. In a natural disaster such as a hurricane, it normally results in heavy rainfall and strong winds, which will further cause flooding and wind damage and lead to societal issues such as power outage. Early awareness of such consequences is critical to government agencies in order to make a timely reaction to reduce the damage. In criminology, bar closing may lead to drunk driving and assaults in the local areas (Figure 1) [11]. Discovering these types of patterns which have not been uncovered offers important and supportive knowledge in decision making.