In this paper, we address the problem of nding frequent itemsets in a database. Using the closed itemset lattice framework, we show that this problem can be reduced to the problem of nding frequent closed itemsets. Based on this statement, we can construct e cient data mining algorithms by limiting the search space to the closed itemset lattice rather than the subset lattice. Moreover, we show that the set of all frequent closed itemsets su ces to determine a reduced set of association rules, thus addressing another important data mining problem: limiting the number of rules produced without information loss. We propose a new algorithm, called A-Close, using a closure mechanism to nd frequent closed itemsets. We realized experiments to compare our approach to the commonly used frequent itemset search approach. Those experiments showed that our approach is very valuable for dense and/or correlated data that represent an important part of existing databases.

No abstract

HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.