Comparative Study on Algorithms of Frequent Itemset Mining

In this paper, we discuss about the frequent itemset mining which is a type of data mining that focuses on looking at sequences of events and which searches for recurring relationships in a given data set and about the algorithms used for the frequent itemset mining. The comparative study between the algorithms namely Apriori algorithm and FP growth algorithm which gives the details about the efficiency about the each algorithm and thereby helps to decide the most optimum and efficient algorithm. No doubt that Apriori algorithm successfully finds the frequent elements from the database, but FP growth an efficient mining method of frequent patterns with respect to the large database finding the large pattern.  Mining, Frequent Itemset, Apriori algorithm, FP Growth algorithm. I.INTRODUCTION Data mining, the mining of hidden predictive information from large databases, is the most powerful technology which helps companies focus on the most important information in their data warehouses. Data mining tools predict future trends and behaviours, allowing businesses to make proactive, knowledge driven decisions. The automated, prospective analyses offered by data mining goes beyond the analyses of history events provided by tools typical of decision support systems. Data mining tools can answer business questions but which were too time consuming to resolve. Data mining techniques are the result of a long process of research and product development. This evolution began when business data was first stored on computers, continued with improvements in data access, and more recently, generated technologies that allow users to navigate through their data in real time. Data mining is done in many patterns, one among them is the Frequent Itemset mining. Ramya.S.Bhat et al, International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, Vol.5 Issue.1, January2016, pg. 271 275 (c) 2016,  Frequent itemset mining is a type of data mining that focuses on looking at sequences of events.Frequent patterns are patterns (such as itemsets, subsequences, or substructures) that appear in a data set frequently. For example, a set of items, such as milk and egg, that appear frequently together in a transaction data set is a frequent itemset. A subsequence, such as buying first a Laptop, then a digital camera, and then a memory card, if it occurs frequently in a shopping history database, is a (frequent) sequential pattern. A substructure can refer to different structural forms, such as subgraphs, subtrees, or sublattices, which may be combined with itemsets or subsequences. If a substructure occurs frequently, it is called a (frequent) structured pattern. Frequent pattern mining searches for recurring relationships in a given data set. Frequent pattern mining is used for the discovery of interesting associations and correlations between itemsets in transactional and relational database. With large amount of data continuously being collected and stored, many organizations are becoming interested in mining such patterns from the large databases. The discovery of interesting correlation relationships among huge amounts of business transaction records can help in many business decision making processes, such as catalog design, cross marketing, and customer shopping behaviour analysis. A typical example of frequent itemset mining is market basket analysis. This process analyzes customer buying habits by recognizing associations between the different items that customers place in their "shopping baskets" .The discovery of such associations can help retailers develop marketing strategies by gaining insight into which items are frequently purchased together by customers. The Boolean vectors can be analyzed for buying patterns that portray items that are most frequently associated or bought together. These patterns can be represented in the form of association rules. For example, the information that customers who purchase computers also tend to buy antivirus software which is represented in Association Rule as below: computer antivirus software [support 3%,confidence 50% Here, in this association rule support and confidence are two measures of rule interestingness. They respectively reflect the usefulness and certain type of discovered rules. A support of 3% for Association Rule means that 3% of all the transactions under analysis show that computer and antivirus software are purchased together. A confidence of 50% means that 50% of the customers who purchased a computer also bought the antivirus software. Some of the Algorithms used for analysing the frequent itemset pattern are Apriori algorithm and the F P Growth Algorithm. In this paper we conduct a comparative study between the two algorithms and find the efficient among the two. II.RELATED WORK Apriori is an algorithm proposed by R.Agrawal and R.Srikantin 1994 for mining frequent itemsets for Boolean association rules. The name of the algorithm is based on the fact that the algorithm uses prior knowledge of frequent itemset properties. Apriori employs an iterative approach known as a level wise search, where k itemsets are used to explore(k+1) itemsets. First, the set of frequent1 itemsets is found by scanning the database to accumulate the count for each item, and collecting those items that satisfy minimum support. The resulting set is denoted L1.Next,L1 is used to find L2, the set of frequent2 itemsets,which is used to find L3,and soon, until no more frequent k itemsets can be found. The finding of each Lk requires one full scan of the database. The Apriori algorithm is illustrated below: Algorithm: Apriori, Find frequent itemsets using an iterative level wise approach based on candidate generation. Input:D, a database of transactions; min sup, the minimum support count threshold.  L, frequent itemsets in D. Method: (1) L1 find frequent 1 itemsets(D) (2) for (k 2;Lk 1 6= ph;k+ (3) Ck apriori gen(Lk 1) (4) for each transaction t D scan D for counts (5) Ct subset(Ck, t) get the subsets of t that are candidates (6) for each candidate c Ct