UNIT -3 Mining Association Rules in large databases

1. Association Rule Mining

Description:

Association rule mining is a technique used in data mining to find relationships between
variables in large databases. It identifies if-then rules that show how the occurrence of one
item is related to the occurrence of another item.

Application:

Retail: To find patterns like if a customer buys bread, they are likely to buy butter.

Example:

Rule: If a customer buys diapers, then they also buy beer.

Support: 1% of all transactions include both items.

Confidence: 50% of the transactions that include diapers also include beer.

2. Mining Methods

Description:

Different algorithms and techniques are used to discover association rules, like Apriori, FP-
Growth, and Eclat.

Application:

Apriori: Used to find frequent item sets.

FP-Growth: A faster alternative to Apriori.

Eclat: Uses a depth-first search to find frequent item sets.

Example:

Apriori: It starts with single items and extends them step by step.

3. Mining Multi-Level Association Rules

Description:

These rules are discovered at multiple levels of abstraction, such as finding patterns at
category levels like electronics -> computers -> laptops.

Application:

E-commerce: To find buying patterns across different product categories and

subcategories.

Example:

Rule: If a customer buys electronics, they are likely to buy a computer, and if they buy a
computer, they might buy a laptop.

Diagram:

A tree structure where the root is a broad category (electronics) and branches to
subcategories (computers, laptops).

4. Multi-Dimensional Association Rule Mining

Description:

Association rules that involve more than one dimension or attribute, such as time, location,
or customer demographic.

Application:

Market Basket Analysis: To find patterns like customers buying certain products in certain
seasons or regions.
Example:

Rule: If a customer from New York buys a coat in December, they are likely to buy gloves.

5. Mining Correlation Analysis

Description:

Finding patterns where item sets have a correlation, not just co-occurrence.

Application:

Healthcare: To find correlations between symptoms and diseases.

Example:

Rule: Patients with symptom A are likely to have disease B.

6. Constraint-Based Association Mining

Description:

Mining association rules with certain constraints to make the process efficient and
relevant, such as constraints on item sets’ size, support, or confidence.

Application:

Inventory Management: To find association rules that only involve items with high sales.

Example:

Rule: Only consider items that appear in at least 5% of transactions.

 7. Multidimensional Association Rules from Relational Databases (DBS) and Data
Warehouses (DWS)

Description:

Finding association rules in databases and data warehouses that have multiple
dimensions and large volumes of data.

Application:

Business Intelligence: To analyze sales data across different dimensions like time,
geography, and product lines.

Example:

Rule: Sales of product X in the eastern region increase in the first quarter.

Diagram:

A cube representing a data warehouse with dimensions like time, location, and product.

8. Correlation Analysis

Description:

Analyzing how closely two variables are related, not just their co-occurrence.

Application:

Finance: To find correlations between stock prices and economic indicators.

Example:

Rule: There is a high correlation between the stock price of company A and the overall
market index.
9. Constraint-Based Association Mining (repeated, covered earlier)

Description:

Using specific criteria (constraints) to focus on the most relevant patterns in data mining.

Types of Constraints:

1. Data Constraints: Limit the data scope (e.g., by time or location).

2. Rule Constraints: Define conditions for the rules (e.g., must include certain items).

3. Length Constraints: Set the minimum/maximum number of items in itemsets.

4. Support Constraints: Ensure itemsets appear frequently enough.

5. Confidence Constraints: Ensure rules have high reliability.

Applications and Examples:

1. Retail:

- Constraint: Only holiday season transactions.

- Rule: If a customer buys gift wrap, they are likely to buy a greeting card (support > 5%,
confidence > 70%).

2. Healthcare:

- Constraint: Patients with chronic conditions.

- Rule: If a patient reports fatigue, they likely have anemia (confidence > 80%).

3. Finance:

- Constraint: Transactions over $500.

- Rule: If a transaction happens at an ATM, another is likely within an hour (support > 3%,
confidence > 60%).

10. Mining Frequent Patterns

Description:

Identifying patterns that appear frequently within a dataset.

Application:

Retail: To find frequently bought together items.

Example:

Rule: Bread and butter are frequently bought together.

Diagram:

A bar graph showing the frequency of different item sets.

11. Mining Various Kinds of Association Rules

Description:

Mining not only traditional association rules but also negative association rules (items that
do not co-occur), temporal rules (time-based), etc.

Application:

Retail: To find items that are rarely bought together.

Example:

Rule: Customers who buy coffee rarely buy tea.