Data Mining:

Concepts and Techniques

1
Chapter 7 : Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

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 Research on Pattern Mining: A Road Map

3
 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map
◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space
◼ Mining Multi-Level Association
◼ Mining Multi-Dimensional Association
◼ Mining Quantitative Association Rules
◼ Mining Rare Patterns and Negative Patterns
◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns
◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns
◼ Pattern Exploration and Application
◼ Summary
4
 Mining Multiple-Level Association Rules

◼ Items often form hierarchies

◼ Flexible support settings
◼ Items at the lower level are expected to have lower
support
◼ Exploration of shared multi-level mining (Agrawal &
Srikant@VLB’95, Han & Fu@VLDB’95)

uniform support reduced support

Level 1
Milk Level 1
min_sup = 5%
[support = 10%] min_sup = 5%

Level 2 2% Milk Skim Milk Level 2

min_sup = 5% [support = 6%] [support = 4%] min_sup = 3%

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 Multi-level Association: Flexible Support and
Redundancy filtering
◼ Flexible min-support thresholds: Some items are more valuable but
less frequent
◼ Use non-uniform, group-based min-support
◼ E.g., {diamond, watch, camera}: 0.05%; {bread, milk}: 5%; …
◼ Redundancy Filtering: Some rules may be redundant due to
“ancestor” relationships between items
◼ milk  wheat bread [support = 8%, confidence = 70%]
◼ 2% milk  wheat bread [support = 2%, confidence = 72%]
The first rule is an ancestor of the second rule
◼ A rule is redundant if its support is close to the “expected” value,
based on the rule’s ancestor

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 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map
◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space
◼ Mining Multi-Level Association
◼ Mining Multi-Dimensional Association
◼ Mining Quantitative Association Rules
◼ Mining Rare Patterns and Negative Patterns
◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns
◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns
◼ Pattern Exploration and Application
◼ Summary
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 Mining Multi-Dimensional Association
◼ Single-dimensional rules:
buys(X, “milk”)  buys(X, “bread”)
◼ Multi-dimensional rules:  2 dimensions or predicates
◼ Inter-dimension assoc. rules (no repeated predicates)
age(X,”19-25”)  occupation(X,“student”)  buys(X, “coke”)
◼ hybrid-dimension assoc. rules (repeated predicates)
age(X,”19-25”)  buys(X, “popcorn”)  buys(X, “coke”)
◼ Categorical Attributes: finite number of possible values, no
ordering among values—data cube approach
◼ Quantitative Attributes: Numeric, implicit ordering among
values—discretization, clustering, and gradient approaches

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 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map
◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space
◼ Mining Multi-Level Association
◼ Mining Multi-Dimensional Association
◼ Mining Quantitative Association Rules
◼ Mining Rare Patterns and Negative Patterns
◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns
◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns
◼ Pattern Exploration and Application
◼ Summary
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 Mining Quantitative Associations

Techniques can be categorized by how numerical attributes,

such as age or salary are treated
1. Static discretization based on predefined concept
hierarchies (data cube methods)
2. Dynamic discretization based on data distribution
(quantitative rules, e.g., Agrawal & Srikant@SIGMOD96)
3. Clustering: Distance-based association (e.g., Yang &
Miller@SIGMOD97)
◼ One dimensional clustering then association
4. Deviation: (such as Aumann and Lindell@KDD99)
Sex = female => Wage: mean=$7/hr (overall mean = $9)

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Static Discretization of Quantitative Attributes

◼ Discretized prior to mining using concept hierarchy.

◼ Numeric values are replaced by ranges
◼ In relational database, finding all frequent k-predicate sets
will require k or k+1 table scans
◼ Data cube is well suited for mining ()

◼ The cells of an n-dimensional

(age) (income) (buys)
cuboid correspond to the
predicate sets
(age, income) (age,buys) (income,buys)
◼ Mining from data cubes
can be much faster
(age,income,buys)
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Quantitative Association Rules Based on Statistical
Inference Theory [Aumann and Lindell@DMKD’03]
◼ Finding extraordinary and therefore interesting phenomena, e.g.,
(Sex = female) => Wage: mean=$7/hr (overall mean = $9)
◼ LHS: a subset of the population
◼ RHS: an extraordinary behavior of this subset
◼ The rule is accepted only if a statistical test (e.g., Z-test) confirms the
inference with high confidence
◼ Subrule: highlights the extraordinary behavior of a subset of the pop.
of the super rule
◼ E.g., (Sex = female) ^ (South = yes) => mean wage = $6.3/hr
◼ Two forms of rules
◼ Categorical => quantitative rules, or Quantitative => quantitative rules
◼ E.g., Education in [14-18] (yrs) => mean wage = $11.64/hr
◼ Open problem: Efficient methods for LHS containing two or more
quantitative attributes
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 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map
◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space
◼ Mining Multi-Level Association
◼ Mining Multi-Dimensional Association
◼ Mining Quantitative Association Rules
◼ Mining Rare Patterns and Negative Patterns
◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns
◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns
◼ Pattern Exploration and Application
◼ Summary
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 Negative and Rare Patterns
◼ Rare patterns: Very low support but interesting
◼ E.g., buying Rolex watches
◼ Mining: Setting individual-based or special group-based
support threshold for valuable items
◼ Negative patterns
◼ Since it is unlikely that one buys Ford Expedition (an
SUV car) and Toyota Prius (a hybrid car) together, Ford
Expedition and Toyota Prius are likely negatively
correlated patterns
◼ Negatively correlated patterns that are infrequent tend to
be more interesting than those that are frequent
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Defining Negative Correlated Patterns (I)
◼ Definition 1 (support-based)
◼ If itemsets X and Y are both frequent but rarely occur together, i.e.,
sup(X U Y) < sup (X) * sup(Y)
◼ Then X and Y are negatively correlated
◼ Problem: A store sold two needle 100 packages A and B, only one
transaction containing both A and B.
◼ When there are in total 200 transactions, we have
s(A U B) = 0.005, s(A) * s(B) = 0.25, s(A U B) < s(A) * s(B)
◼ When there are 105 transactions, we have
s(A U B) = 1/105, s(A) * s(B) = 1/103 * 1/103, s(A U B) > s(A) * s(B)
◼ Where is the problem? —Null transactions, i.e., the support-based
definition is not null-invariant!

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Defining Negative Correlated Patterns (II)
◼ Definition 2 (negative itemset-based)
◼ X is a negative itemset if (1) X = Ā U B, where B is a set of positive
items, and Ā is a set of negative items, |Ā|≥ 1, and (2) s(X) ≥ μ
◼ Itemsets X is negatively correlated, if

◼ This definition suffers a similar null-invariant problem

◼ Definition 3 (Kulzynski measure-based) If itemsets X and Y are
frequent, but (P(X|Y) + P(Y|X))/2 < є, where є is a negative pattern
threshold, then X and Y are negatively correlated.
◼ Ex. For the same needle package problem, when no matter there are
200 or 105 transactions, if є = 0.01, we have
(P(A|B) + P(B|A))/2 = (0.01 + 0.01)/2 < є
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 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

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 Constraint-based (Query-Directed) Mining

◼ Finding all the patterns in a database autonomously? — unrealistic!

◼ The patterns could be too many but not focused!
◼ Data mining should be an interactive process
◼ User directs what to be mined using a data mining query
language (or a graphical user interface)
◼ Constraint-based mining
◼ User flexibility: provides constraints on what to be mined
◼ Optimization: explores such constraints for efficient mining —
constraint-based mining: constraint-pushing, similar to push
selection first in DB query processing
◼ Note: still find all the answers satisfying constraints, not finding
some answers in “heuristic search”

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 Constraints in Data Mining

◼ Knowledge type constraint:

◼ classification, association, etc.

◼ Data constraint — using SQL-like queries

◼ find product pairs sold together in stores in Chicago this
year
◼ Dimension/level constraint
◼ in relevance to region, price, brand, customer category

◼ Rule (or pattern) constraint

◼ small sales (price < $10) triggers big sales (sum >
$200)
◼ Interestingness constraint
◼ strong rules: min_support  3%, min_confidence 
60%
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 Meta-Rule Guided Mining
◼ Meta-rule can be in the rule form with partially instantiated predicates
and constants
P1(X, Y) ^ P2(X, W) => buys(X, “iPad”)
◼ The resulting rule derived can be
age(X, “15-25”) ^ profession(X, “student”) => buys(X, “iPad”)
◼ In general, it can be in the form of
P1 ^ P2 ^ … ^ Pl => Q1 ^ Q2 ^ … ^ Qr
◼ Method to find meta-rules
◼ Find frequent (l+r) predicates (based on min-support threshold)
◼ Push constants deeply when possible into the mining process (see
the remaining discussions on constraint-push techniques)
◼ Use confidence, correlation, and other measures when possible
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 Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining
◼ Pattern space pruning constraints
◼ Anti-monotonic: If constraint c is violated, its further mining can
be terminated
◼ Monotonic: If c is satisfied, no need to check c again
◼ Succinct: c must be satisfied, so one can start with the data sets
satisfying c
◼ Convertible: c is not monotonic nor anti-monotonic, but it can be
converted into it if items in the transaction can be properly
ordered
◼ Data space pruning constraint
◼ Data succinct: Data space can be pruned at the initial pattern
mining process
◼ Data anti-monotonic: If a transaction t does not satisfy c, t can be
pruned from its further mining
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Pattern Space Pruning with Anti-Monotonicity Constraints

TDB (min_sup=2)
◼ A constraint C is anti-monotone if the super TID Transaction
pattern satisfies C, all of its sub-patterns do so
10 a, b, c, d, f
too
20 b, c, d, f, g, h
◼ In other words, anti-monotonicity: If an itemset 30 a, c, d, e, f
S violates the constraint, so does any of its 40 c, e, f, g
superset
Item Profit
◼ Ex. 1. sum(S.price)  v is anti-monotone
a 40
◼ Ex. 2. range(S.profit)  15 is anti-monotone
b 0
◼ Itemset ab violates C
c -20
◼ So does every superset of ab
d 10
◼ Ex. 3. sum(S.Price)  v is not anti-monotone e -30
◼ Ex. 4. support count is anti-monotone: core f 30
property used in Apriori g 20
h -10 22
Pattern Space Pruning with Monotonicity Constraints
TDB (min_sup=2)
◼ A constraint C is monotone if the pattern TID Transaction

satisfies C, we do not need to check C in 10 a, b, c, d, f

subsequent mining 20 b, c, d, f, g, h

◼ Alternatively, monotonicity: If an itemset S 30 a, c, d, e, f

satisfies the constraint, so does any of its 40 c, e, f, g

superset Item Profit

◼ Ex. 1. sum(S.Price)  v is monotone a 40

◼ Ex. 2. min(S.Price)  v is monotone b 0

c -20
◼ Ex. 3. C: range(S.profit)  15
d 10
◼ Itemset ab satisfies C
e -30
◼ So does every superset of ab f 30
g 20
h -10 23
Data Space Pruning with Data Anti-monotonicity
TDB (min_sup=2)
◼ A constraint c is data anti-monotone if for a pattern TID Transaction
p cannot satisfy a transaction t under c, p’s 10 a, b, c, d, f, h
superset cannot satisfy t under c either 20 b, c, d, f, g, h
◼ The key for data anti-monotone is recursive data 30 b, c, d, f, g
reduction 40 c, e, f, g
◼ Ex. 1. sum(S.Price)  v is data anti-monotone Item Profit
◼ Ex. 2. min(S.Price)  v is data anti-monotone a 40

◼ Ex. 3. C: range(S.profit)  25 is data anti- b 0

monotone c -20
d -15
◼ Itemset {b, c}’s projected DB:
e -30
◼ T10’: {d, f, h}, T20’: {d, f, g, h}, T30’: {d, f, g}
f -10
◼ since C cannot satisfy T10’, T10’ can be pruned
g 20
h -5 24
Pattern Space Pruning with Succinctness

◼ Succinctness:
◼ Given A1, the set of items satisfying a succinctness
constraint C, then any set S satisfying C is based on
A1 , i.e., S contains a subset belonging to A1
◼ Idea: Without looking at the transaction database,
whether an itemset S satisfies constraint C can be
determined based on the selection of items
◼ min(S.Price)  v is succinct
◼ sum(S.Price)  v is not succinct
◼ Optimization: If C is succinct, C is pre-counting pushable

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 Naïve Algorithm: Apriori + Constraint
Database D itemset sup.
L1 itemset sup.
TID Items C1 {1} 2 {1} 2
100 134 {2} 3 {2} 3
200 235 Scan D {3} 3 {3} 3
300 1235 {4} 1 {5} 3
400 25 {5} 3
C2 itemset sup C2 itemset
L2 itemset sup {1 2} 1 Scan D {1 2}
{1 3} 2 {1 3} 2 {1 3}
{2 3} 2 {1 5} 1 {1 5}
{2 3} 2 {2 3}
{2 5} 3
{2 5} 3 {2 5}
{3 5} 2
{3 5} 2 {3 5}
C3 itemset Scan D L3 itemset sup Constraint:
{2 3 5} {2 3 5} 2 Sum{S.price} < 5
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Constrained Apriori : Push a Succinct Constraint
Deep
Database D itemset sup.
L1 itemset sup.
TID Items C1 {1} 2 {1} 2
100 134 {2} 3 {2} 3
200 235 Scan D {3} 3 {3} 3
300 1235 {4} 1 {5} 3
400 25 {5} 3
C2 itemset sup C2 itemset
L2 itemset sup {1 2} 1 Scan D {1 2}
{1 3} 2 {1 3} 2 {1 3}
not immediately
{1 5} 1 {1 5} to be used
{2 3} 2
{2 3} 2 {2 3}
{2 5} 3
{2 5} 3 {2 5}
{3 5} 2 {3 5}
{3 5} 2
C3 itemset Scan D L3 itemset sup Constraint:
{2 3 5} {2 3 5} 2 min{S.price } <= 1
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 Constrained FP-Growth: Push a Succinct
Constraint Deep

TID Items TID Items

100 134 100 13
200 235 200 235
Remove
300 1235 infrequent 300 1235 FP-Tree
400 25 length 1
400 25

1-Projected DB

TID Items
No Need to project on 2, 3, or 5
100 3 4
300 2 3 5
Constraint:
min{S.price } <= 1
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 Constrained FP-Growth: Push a Data
Anti-monotonic Constraint Deep
Remove from data
TID Items TID Items
100 134 100 1 3
200 235 300 1 3
300 1235 FP-Tree
400 25

Single branch, we are done

Constraint:
min{S.price } <= 1
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 TID Transaction
Constrained FP-Growth: Push a Data
10 a, b, c, d, f, h
Anti-monotonic Constraint Deep 20 b, c, d, f, g, h
30 b, c, d, f, g
TID Transaction
40 a, c, e, f, g
10 a, b, c, d, f, h
20 b, c, d, f, g, h Item Profit

30 b, c, d, f, g FP-Tree a 40
40 a, c, e, f, g b 0
c -20
B-Projected DB Recursive
Data
TID Transaction Pruning
d -15
10 a, c, d, f, h e -30
20 c, d, f, g, h B
f -10
30 c, d, f, g FP-Tree g 20
h -5
Single branch: Constraint:
range{S.price } > 25
bcdfg: 2 min_sup >= 2
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 Convertible Constraints: Ordering Data in
Transactions
TDB (min_sup=2)
TID Transaction
◼ Convert tough constraints into anti-
10 a, b, c, d, f
monotone or monotone by properly
20 b, c, d, f, g, h
ordering items
30 a, c, d, e, f
◼ Examine C: avg(S.profit)  25 40 c, e, f, g
◼ Order items in value-descending Item Profit
order a 40
◼ <a, f, g, d, b, h, c, e> b 0
c -20
◼ If an itemset afb violates C d 10
◼ So does afbh, afb* e -30
f 30
◼ It becomes anti-monotone!
g 20
h -10
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 Strongly Convertible Constraints

◼ avg(X)  25 is convertible anti-monotone w.r.t.

item value descending order R: <a, f, g, d, b,
h, c, e> Item Profit
◼ If an itemset af violates a constraint C, so a 40
does every itemset with af as prefix, such as b 0
afd c -20
◼ avg(X)  25 is convertible monotone w.r.t. item d 10
value ascending order R-1: <e, c, h, b, d, g, f, e -30
a>
f 30
◼ If an itemset d satisfies a constraint C, so
g 20
does itemsets df and dfa, which having d as
h -10
a prefix
◼ Thus, avg(X)  25 is strongly convertible
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 Can Apriori Handle Convertible Constraints?

◼ A convertible, not monotone nor anti-monotone

nor succinct constraint cannot be pushed deep
into the an Apriori mining algorithm
◼ Within the level wise framework, no direct
Item Value
pruning based on the constraint can be made
a 40
◼ Itemset df violates constraint C: avg(X) >= b 0
25 c -20
◼ Since adf satisfies C, Apriori needs df to d 10
e -30
assemble adf, df cannot be pruned
f 30
◼ But it can be pushed into frequent-pattern g 20
growth framework! h -10

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Pattern Space Pruning w. Convertible Constraints
Item Value
◼ C: avg(X) >= 25, min_sup=2
a 40
◼ List items in every transaction in value
f 30
descending order R: <a, f, g, d, b, h, c, e>
g 20
◼ C is convertible anti-monotone w.r.t. R
d 10
◼ Scan TDB once b 0
◼ remove infrequent items h -10
◼ Item h is dropped c -20
◼ Itemsets a and f are good, … e -30
TDB (min_sup=2)
◼ Projection-based mining
TID Transaction
◼ Imposing an appropriate order on item
10 a, f, d, b, c
projection
20 f, g, d, b, c
◼ Many tough constraints can be converted into
30 a, f, d, c, e
(anti)-monotone
40 f, g, h, c, e
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 Handling Multiple Constraints

◼ Different constraints may require different or even

conflicting item-ordering
◼ If there exists an order R s.t. both C1 and C2 are
convertible w.r.t. R, then there is no conflict between
the two convertible constraints
◼ If there exists conflict on order of items
◼ Try to satisfy one constraint first
◼ Then using the order for the other constraint to
mine frequent itemsets in the corresponding
projected database

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 What Constraints Are Convertible?

Convertible anti- Convertible Strongly

Constraint monotone monotone convertible

avg(S)  ,  v Yes Yes Yes

median(S)  ,  v Yes Yes Yes
sum(S)  v (items could be of any value,
Yes No No
v  0)
sum(S)  v (items could be of any value,
No Yes No
v  0)
sum(S)  v (items could be of any value,
No Yes No
v  0)
sum(S)  v (items could be of any value,
Yes No No
v  0)
……

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Constraint-Based Mining — A General Picture

Constraint Anti-monotone Monotone Succinct

vS no yes yes
SV no yes yes

SV yes no yes

min(S)  v no yes yes

min(S)  v yes no yes

max(S)  v yes no yes

max(S)  v no yes yes

count(S)  v yes no weakly

count(S)  v no yes weakly

sum(S)  v ( a  S, a  0 ) yes no no
sum(S)  v ( a  S, a  0 ) no yes no

range(S)  v yes no no
range(S)  v no yes no

avg(S)  v,   { =, ,  } convertible convertible no

support(S)   yes no no

support(S)   no yes no

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 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

38
 Mining Colossal Frequent Patterns
◼ F. Zhu, X. Yan, J. Han, P. S. Yu, and H. Cheng, “Mining Colossal
Frequent Patterns by Core Pattern Fusion”, ICDE'07.
◼ We have many algorithms, but can we mine large (i.e., colossal)
patterns? ― such as just size around 50 to 100? Unfortunately, not!
◼ Why not? ― the curse of “downward closure” of frequent patterns
◼ The “downward closure” property
◼ Any sub-pattern of a frequent pattern is frequent.
◼ Example. If (a1, a2, …, a100) is frequent, then a1, a2, …, a100, (a1,
a2), (a1, a3), …, (a1, a100), (a1, a2, a3), … are all frequent! There
are about 2100 such frequent itemsets!
◼ No matter using breadth-first search (e.g., Apriori) or depth-first
search (FPgrowth), we have to examine so many patterns
◼ Thus the downward closure property leads to explosion!
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 Colossal Patterns: A Motivating Example
Let’s make a set of 40 transactions Closed/maximal patterns may
T1 = 1 2 3 4 ….. 39 40 partially alleviate the problem but not
T2 = 1 2 3 4 ….. 39 40 really solve it: We often need to mine
: . scattered large patterns!
: . Let the minimum support threshold
: . σ= 20
: .  40 
There are   frequent patterns of
T40=1 2 3 4 ….. 39 40  20 
size 20
Then delete the items on the diagonal
Each is closed and maximal
T1 = 2 3 4 ….. 39 40
T2 = 1 3 4 ….. 39 40 # patterns =  n  2n
: .    2 / 
: .  n / 2 n
: . The size of the answer set is
: . exponential to n
T40=1 2 3 4 …… 39
40
 Colossal Pattern Set: Small but Interesting

◼ It is often the case that

only a small number of
patterns are colossal,
i.e., of large size

◼ Colossal patterns are

usually attached with
greater importance than
those of small pattern
sizes

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 Mining Colossal Patterns: Motivation and
Philosophy
◼ Motivation: Many real-world tasks need mining colossal patterns
◼ Micro-array analysis in bioinformatics (when support is low)

◼ Biological sequence patterns

◼ Biological/sociological/information graph pattern mining

◼ No hope for completeness

◼ If the mining of mid-sized patterns is explosive in size, there is no
hope to find colossal patterns efficiently by insisting “complete set”
mining philosophy
◼ Jumping out of the swamp of the mid-sized results
◼ What we may develop is a philosophy that may jump out of the
swamp of mid-sized results that are explosive in size and jump to
reach colossal patterns
◼ Striving for mining almost complete colossal patterns
◼ The key is to develop a mechanism that may quickly reach colossal
patterns and discover most of them
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 Alas, A Show of Colossal Pattern Mining!

Let the min-support threshold σ= 20

T1 = 2 3 4 ….. 39 40  40 
Then there are 
 20 
 closed/maximal
T2 = 1 3 4 ….. 39 40  
: . frequent patterns of size 20
: .
: . However, there is only one with size
: . greater than 20, (i.e., colossal):
T40=1 2 3 4 …… 39
T41= 41 42 43 ….. 79
α= {41,42,…,79} of size 39
T42= 41 42 43 ….. 79
: . The existing fastest mining algorithms
: . (e.g., FPClose, LCM) fail to complete
T60= 41 42 43 … 79 running
Our algorithm outputs this colossal
pattern in seconds
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 Methodology of Pattern-Fusion Strategy
◼ Pattern-Fusion traverses the tree in a bounded-breadth way
◼ Always pushes down a frontier of a bounded-size candidate
pool
◼ Only a fixed number of patterns in the current candidate pool
will be used as the starting nodes to go down in the pattern tree
― thus avoids the exponential search space
◼ Pattern-Fusion identifies “shortcuts” whenever possible
◼ Pattern growth is not performed by single-item addition but by
leaps and bounded: agglomeration of multiple patterns in the
pool
◼ These shortcuts will direct the search down the tree much more
rapidly towards the colossal patterns
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Observation: Colossal Patterns and Core Patterns

Transaction Database D
A colossal pattern α
α D

α1 Dαk
α2

Dα1
D α
Dα2

αk

Subpatterns α1 to αk cluster tightly around the colossal pattern α by

sharing a similar support. We call such subpatterns core patterns of α

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 Robustness of Colossal Patterns
◼ Core Patterns
Intuitively, for a frequent pattern α, a subpattern β is a τ-core
pattern of α if β shares a similar support set with α, i.e.,
| D |
 0  1
| D |

where τ is called the core ratio

◼ Robustness of Colossal Patterns
A colossal pattern is robust in the sense that it tends to have much
more core patterns than small patterns

46
 Example: Core Patterns
◼ A colossal pattern has far more core patterns than a small-sized pattern
◼ A colossal pattern has far more core descendants of a smaller size c
◼ A random draw from a complete set of pattern of size c would more
likely to pick a core descendant of a colossal pattern
◼ A colossal pattern can be generated by merging a set of core patterns
Transaction (# of Ts) Core Patterns (τ = 0.5)

(abe) (100) (abe), (ab), (be), (ae), (e)

(bcf) (100) (bcf), (bc), (bf)
(acf) (100) (acf), (ac), (af)

(abcef) (100) (ab), (ac), (af), (ae), (bc), (bf), (be) (ce), (fe), (e),
(abc), (abf), (abe), (ace), (acf), (afe), (bcf), (bce),
(bfe), (cfe), (abcf), (abce), (bcfe), (acfe), (abfe), (abcef)

47
 Colossal Patterns Correspond to Dense Balls

◼ Due to their robustness,

colossal patterns correspond to
dense balls
◼ Ω( 2^d) in population
◼ A random draw in the pattern
space will hit somewhere in the
ball with high probability

49
 Idea of Pattern-Fusion Algorithm

◼ Generate a complete set of frequent patterns up to a

small size
◼ Randomly pick a pattern β, and β has a high probability to
be a core-descendant of some colossal pattern α
◼ Identify all α’s descendants in this complete set, and
merge all of them ― This would generate a much larger
core-descendant of α
◼ In the same fashion, we select K patterns. This set of
larger core-descendants will be the candidate pool for the
next iteration

50
 Pattern-Fusion: The Algorithm

◼ Initialization (Initial pool): Use an existing algorithm to

mine all frequent patterns up to a small size, e.g., 3
◼ Iteration (Iterative Pattern Fusion):
◼ At each iteration, k seed patterns are randomly picked

from the current pattern pool

◼ For each seed pattern thus picked, we find all the

patterns within a bounding ball centered at the seed

pattern
◼ All these patterns found are fused together to generate

a set of super-patterns. All the super-patterns thus

generated form a new pool for the next iteration
◼ Termination: when the current pool contains no more
than K patterns at the beginning of an iteration
51
 Why Is Pattern-Fusion Efficient?

◼ A bounded-breadth pattern
tree traversal
◼ It avoids explosion in

mining mid-sized ones

◼ Randomness comes to help

to stay on the right path

◼ Ability to identify “short-cuts”
and take “leaps”
◼ fuse small patterns

together in one step to

generate new patterns of
significant sizes
◼ Efficiency

52
Pattern-Fusion Leads to Good Approximation

◼ Gearing toward colossal patterns

◼ The larger the pattern, the greater the chance it will
be generated
◼ Catching outliers
◼ The more distinct the pattern, the greater the chance
it will be generated

53
 Experimental Setting

◼ Synthetic data set

◼ Diagn an n x (n-1) table where ith row has integers from 1 to n
except i. Each row is taken as an itemset. min_support is n/2.
◼ Real data set
◼ Replace: A program trace data set collected from the “replace”
program, widely used in software engineering research
◼ ALL: A popular gene expression data set, a clinical data on ALL-AML
leukemia (www.broad.mit.edu/tools/data.html).
◼ Each item is a column, representing the activitiy level of
gene/protein in the same
◼ Frequent pattern would reveal important correlation between
gene expression patterns and disease outcomes

54
 Experiment Results on Diagn
◼ LCM run time increases
exponentially with pattern
size n
◼ Pattern-Fusion finishes
efficiently
◼ The approximation error of
Pattern-Fusion (with min-sup
20) in comparison with the
complete set) is rather close
to uniform sampling (which
randomly picks K patterns
from the complete answer
set)

55
 Experimental Results on ALL
◼ ALL: A popular gene expression data set with 38
transactions, each with 866 columns
◼ There are 1736 items in total

◼ The table shows a high frequency threshold of 30

56
 Experimental Results on REPLACE

◼ REPLACE
◼ A program trace data set, recording 4395 calls

and transitions
◼ The data set contains 4395 transactions with

57 items in total
◼ With support threshold of 0.03, the largest

patterns are of size 44

◼ They are all discovered by Pattern-Fusion with

different settings of K and τ, when started with

an initial pool of 20948 patterns of size <=3

57
 Experimental Results on REPLACE
◼ Approximation error when
compared with the complete
mining result
◼ Example. Out of the total 98
patterns of size >=42, when
K=100, Pattern-Fusion returns
80 of them
◼ A good approximation to the
colossal patterns in the sense
that any pattern in the
complete set is on average at
most 0.17 items away from one
of these 80 patterns

58
 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

59
Mining Compressed Patterns: δ-clustering
◼ Why compressed patterns? ID Item-Sets Support

P1 {38,16,18,12} 205227
◼ too many, but less meaningful
P2 {38,16,18,12,17} 205211
◼ Pattern distance measure P3 {39,38,16,18,12,17} 101758

P4 {39,16,18,12,17} 161563

P5 {39,16,18,12} 161576

◼ δ-clustering: For each pattern P, ◼ Closed frequent pattern

find all patterns which can be ◼ Report P1, P2, P3, P4, P5
expressed by P and their distance ◼ Emphasize too much on
to P are within δ (δ-cover) support
◼ All patterns in the cluster can be ◼ no compression

represented by P ◼ Max-pattern, P3: info loss

◼ Xin et al., “Mining Compressed ◼ A desirable output: P2, P3, P4
Frequent-Pattern Sets”, VLDB’05

60
 Redundancy-Award Top-k Patterns

◼ Why redundancy-aware top-k patterns?

◼ Desired patterns: high
significance & low
redundancy
◼ Propose the MMS
(Maximal Marginal
Significance) for
measuring the
combined significance
of a pattern set
◼ Xin et al., Extracting
Redundancy-Aware
Top-K Patterns, KDD’06
61
 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

62
How to Understand and Interpret Patterns?

◼ Do they all make sense?

diaper beer
◼ What do they mean?
◼ How are they useful?
female sterile (2) tekele

morphological info. and simple statistics

Semantic Information

Not all frequent patterns are useful, only meaningful ones …

Annotate patterns with semantic information

 A Dictionary Analogy
Word: “pattern” – from Merriam-Webster

Non-semantic info.

Definitions indicating
semantics

Examples of Usage
Synonyms

Related Words
Semantic Analysis with Context Models

◼ Task1: Model the context of a frequent pattern

Based on the Context Model…

◼ Task2: Extract strongest context indicators

◼ Task3: Extract representative transactions

◼ Task4: Extract semantically similar patterns

Annotating DBLP Co-authorship & Title Pattern
Database: Frequent Patterns
Authors Title

Substructure Similarity Search P1: { x_yan, j_han }

X.Yan, P. Yu, J. Han
in Graph Databases
Frequent Itemset
… …

… … P2: “substructure search”

Semantic Annotations
Pattern { x_yan, j_han} Context Units
Non Sup = …
< { p_yu, j_han}, { d_xin }, … , “graph pattern”,
CI {p_yu}, graph pattern, … … “substructure similarity”, … >
Trans. gSpan: graph-base……
SSPs { j_wang }, {j_han, p_yu}, …

Pattern = {xifeng_yan, jiawei_han} Annotation Results:

Context Indicator (CI) graph; {philip_yu}; mine close; graph pattern; sequential pattern; …
Representative > gSpan: graph-base substructure pattern mining;
Transactions (Trans) > mining close relational graph connect constraint; …
Semantically Similar {jiawei_han, philip_yu}; {jian_pei, jiawei_han}; {jiong_yang, philip_yu,
Patterns (SSP) wei_wang}; …
 Advanced Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Pattern Mining: A Road Map

◼ Pattern Mining in Multi-Level, Multi-Dimensional Space

◼ Constraint-Based Frequent Pattern Mining

◼ Mining High-Dimensional Data and Colossal Patterns

◼ Mining Compressed or Approximate Patterns

◼ Pattern Exploration and Application

◼ Summary

67
 Summary
◼ Roadmap: Many aspects & extensions on pattern mining
◼ Mining patterns in multi-level, multi dimensional space
◼ Mining rare and negative patterns
◼ Constraint-based pattern mining
◼ Specialized methods for mining high-dimensional data
and colossal patterns
◼ Mining compressed or approximate patterns
◼ Pattern exploration and understanding: Semantic
annotation of frequent patterns
68
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74
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80
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81