String Edit Distance, Random Walks and Graph Matching

This paper shows how the eigenstructure of the adjacency matrix can be used for the purposes of robust graph-matching. We commence from the observation that the leading eigenvector of a transition probability matrix is the steady state of the associated Markov chain. When the transition matrix is the normalised adjacency matrix of a graph, then the leading eigenvector gives the sequence of nodes of the steady state random walk on the graph. We use this property to convert the nodes in a graph into a string where the node-order is given by the sequence of nodes visited in the random walk. We match graphs represented in this way, by finding the sequence of string edit operations which minimise edit distance.