Association Rule Learning

Association Rule Learning

• Association rule learning is a rule-based

machine learning method for discovering
interesting relations between variables in
large databases. It is intended to identify
strong rules discovered in databases using
some measures of interestingness
 Support Count
• Support Count (σ)
– Frequency of occurrence of an item set
• σ({2, 5}) = 3
• σ({apple, pear}) = 1
• Support (s)
– Fraction of (records) transactions that contain an
item-set.
• s ({2, 5}) = ¾
• ({apple, pear}) = 1/8
 Frequent Itemset
• An itemset whose support is greater than or
equal to support threshold.
 Association Rule
• An association rule is an implication of two
itemset:
X Y
 Measures of Interest
• Many Measures of interest.
• The two most used are:
– Support and confidence
• Support (as discussed earlier)
• Fraction of transactions that
contain a rule (both X and Y)
• Confidence
• Strength of the association rule
i.e., measures how often items in Y
appear in transactions that contain X