13. A computer-based system according to claim 12 wherein said plurality of constraints comprises a mode constraint, said mode constraint configured to: specify permissions on each argument for a given predicate; and specify a maximum number of atoms matching a permission combination allowed in a pattern.
12. A computer-based system for constraint-based mining of activity patterns within a framework, said system comprising: a data input; a plurality of data mining tools within the framework and operable to run on said system, said data mining tools configured to search data received at said data input for one or both of temporal and spatial patterns for activities of interest within one or more scenarios, each pattern including one or more atoms, each atom defined on a predicate that includes one or more typed arguments; a plurality of constraints, said constraints based on knowledge and experiences, and operable to cause said system to determine whether one or more patterns satisfies the said constraints, said constraints organized based on a subsumption relationship among the constraints and including a syntactic filter constraint configured to utilize a sequence of modes to filter patterns and avoid generation of patterns with redundant atoms, a semantic filter constraint having a minimum frequency threshold, a sequence of modes and a Boolean expression on arguments in the modes, and at least one of a generation rule constraint, a maximum length constraint, an extended length constraint, and a complex constraint; and at least one database configured for operation as a pattern repository.