Apriori, Frequent Pattern Mining and Pattern Growth Concepts
**Apriori-Based Approach in Graph Mining**
The Apriori algorithm is a classic algorithm for mining frequent itemsets and association rules in
transactional datasets.
Its basic idea is to use prior knowledge about the problem domain to limit the search space. It is
primarily used in frequent
itemset mining and association rule learning.
Key Steps in Apriori:
1. Generate Candidate Itemsets: Starting from individual items, generate larger itemsets by
combining frequent itemsets.
2. Prune Unnecessary Itemsets: If an itemset has any infrequent subset, it is pruned from further
consideration.
3. Measure Frequency: Calculate the frequency (support) of each candidate itemset.
4. Repeat: Repeat the process for larger itemsets until no more frequent itemsets can be found.
Applications:
- Market Basket Analysis: Identifying products frequently bought together.
- Web Mining: Identifying frequent patterns in web browsing data.
**Frequent Pattern Mining**
Frequent pattern mining is the process of discovering recurring patterns, associations, or
correlations within a dataset.
It is most commonly applied to datasets where items or events occur repeatedly, such as in market
basket analysis or in
biological data analysis.
Key Steps in Frequent Pattern Mining:
1. Identify frequent patterns by finding sets of items or events that occur frequently in the dataset.
2. Generate candidate patterns by combining smaller frequent patterns into larger ones.
3. Calculate the frequency of the patterns to identify which patterns occur with the highest
frequency.
Techniques for Frequent Pattern Mining:
- **Apriori Algorithm**: Uses a breadth-first search approach to identify frequent patterns.
- **FP-Growth Algorithm**: A more efficient algorithm for frequent pattern mining that compresses
the dataset into a compact
tree structure (FP-tree) to avoid candidate generation.
Applications:
- Market Basket Analysis: Discovering which items are often purchased together.
- Biological Sequence Analysis: Finding common subsequences in DNA, RNA, or protein
sequences.
**Pattern Growth Approach**
The Pattern Growth approach is a method used to mine frequent patterns in large datasets. Unlike
the Apriori algorithm,
which generates candidate itemsets, Pattern Growth algorithms directly mine the frequent patterns
by growing them step by step
without the need to generate and test candidate patterns.
Key Concepts:
1. **Frequent Pattern Growth**: The basic idea is to start from frequent single items and grow them
into larger patterns
by adding items that have a high probability of occurring together.
2. **Prefix-Projected Tree (FP-Tree)**: The data is represented as a compact structure known as an
FP-Tree, which helps
efficiently mine frequent patterns by avoiding the generation of candidate patterns.
Algorithms:
- **FP-Growth Algorithm**: This algorithm builds a compact FP-tree structure to store the data and
then uses it to
mine frequent patterns. It is highly efficient because it avoids generating a candidate pattern set
and instead mines
frequent patterns directly by recursively dividing the dataset.
Applications:
- Market Basket Analysis: Efficiently finding frequent itemsets without candidate generation.
- Data Compression: Finding patterns in datasets to help compress data by representing it with
frequent patterns.
Frequent Subgraph Mining:
- Frequent subgraph mining involves the extraction of subgraphs that occur frequently in a graph
dataset.
- This is especially important in the analysis of molecular structures, network data, or social network
analysis where
subgraphs represent meaningful structures, such as motifs or patterns in the graph.
Applications:
- Bioinformatics: Identifying subgraphs that represent recurring molecular structures or
protein-protein interactions.
- Social Network Analysis: Detecting communities or motifs in social networks.
**GSAP Algorithm for Frequent Subgraph Mining**
The **gSpan algorithm** is one of the most efficient algorithms for frequent subgraph mining. The
algorithm is based on
depth-first search (DFS) and tries to mine frequent subgraphs in a graph database without
generating candidate subgraphs.
Key Features of gSpan:
1. **DFS-based Search**: The algorithm performs a DFS traversal to find frequent subgraphs.
2. **Canonical Forms**: gSpan uses a canonical labeling technique to uniquely represent each
graph, making it easier to identify
duplicates and avoid redundant searches.
3. **Efficient**: By leveraging DFS and canonical labeling, gSpan avoids costly computations and
reduces the search space for
frequent subgraph mining.
Applications:
- Bioinformatics: Mining molecular structures and interactions.
- Social Network Analysis: Detecting subgraphs or motifs representing certain behaviors or
communities.
Link Mining:
Link Mining is a type of data mining that focuses on discovering relationships or associations
between entities in a graph
or network. In link mining, the "links" or "edges" in the graph represent the relationships or
interactions between entities.
This field of mining can be applied to a wide variety of networks, such as social networks,
communication networks, citation
networks, biological networks, and the World Wide Web.
Key Concepts in Link Mining:
- **Graph Representation**: Entities are represented as nodes (vertices), and their relationships or
interactions are represented as
edges (links). For example, in a social network, people are nodes, and friendships or interactions
are edges.
- **Link Prediction**: Link prediction is a task in link mining where the goal is to predict missing links
or future links between
entities in a network.
- **Link Analysis**: Link analysis involves studying the structure of the links to understand the
relationships between entities.
- **Graph Data**: Link mining is done on graph data, where entities are connected by links or edges,
and this data can be directed
or undirected.
