An Efficient Algorithm for Mining Weighted Frequent Itemsets Using Adaptive Weights

Weighted frequent itemset mining is more practical than traditional frequent itemset mining, because it can consider different semantic significance (weight) of items. Many models and algorithms for mining weighted frequent itemsets have been proposed. These models assume that each item has a fixed weight. But in real world scenarios, the weight (price or significance) of the items may vary with time. Therefore, reflecting these changes in item weight is necessary in several mining applications, such as retail market data analysis and web click stream analysis. Recently, Chowdhury F. A. et al. have introduced a novel concept of adaptive weight for each item and propose an algorithm AWFPM (Adaptive Weighted Frequent Pattern Mining). AWFPM can handle the situation where the weight (price or significance) of an item may vary with time. In this paper, we present an improved algorithm named AWFIMiner. Experimental computations show that our AWFIMiner is more efficient and scalable for mining weighted frequent itemsets using adaptive weights. Moreover, because it only requires one single database scan, the AWFIMiner is applicable for mining these itemsets on data streams.