Frequent Item Set Generation

The Association Analysis platform uses the Apriori algorithm to reduce computational time when generating frequent item sets. The Apriori algorithm leverages the fact that an item set’s support is never larger than the support of its subsets. The platform generates larger item sets from combinations of smaller item sets that meet the minimum support level. In addition, the platform does not generate item sets that exceed either the specified maximum number of antecedents or the maximum rule size. These options are useful when working with large data sets, because the total possible number of rules increases exponentially with the number of items. For more information about the Apriori algorithm, see Agrawal and Srikant (1994).