Word of the Day: association rules (in data mining)

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms |June 1, 2017

association rules (in data mining) Association rules are if/then statements that help uncover relationships between seemingly unrelated data in a relational database or other information repository. An example of an association rule would be "If a customer buys a dozen eggs, he is 80% likely to also purchase milk." An association rule has two parts, an antecedent (if) and a consequent (then). An antecedent is an item found in the data. A consequent is an item that is found in combination with the antecedent. Association rules are created by analyzing data for frequent if/then patterns and using the criteria support and confidence to identify the most important relationships. Support is an indication of how frequently the items appear in the database. Confidence indicates the number of times the if/then statements have been found to be true. In data mining, association rules are useful for analyzing and predicting customer behavior. They play an important part in shopping basket data analysis, product clustering, catalog design and store layout. Programmers use association rules to build programs capable of machine learning. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that seeks to build programs with the ability to become more efficient without being explicitly programmed. Quote of the Day "One of the core activities in the maturing data science process is the use of data mining and machine learning algorithms to develop predictive models that aim to forecast customer behavior and other future events." - David Loshin   Trending Terms data mining machine learning decision tree software ad-hoc analysis predictive analytics   Learning Center Three examples of machine learning methods and related algorithms Classification, clustering and affinity analysis are three examples of machine learning methods driven by algorithms that automate the analytics process. Introduction to data mining: Association analysis This excerpt from Introduction to Data Mining offers a crash course on association analysis -- an effective data mining technique. 5 data mining techniques for optimal results Faulty data mining makes seeking of decisive information akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Here are some tips to tweak your data mining exercises. Dealing with association analysis, unstructured data in ER processes In this book excerpt, learn how association analysis and high-performance computing can aid entity resolution and information quality on social network data and other unstructured data types. Comparing the leading big data analytics software options Expert David Loshin examines nine leading vendors of big data analytics software and compares and contrasts the ways their tools help organizations meet their analytics needs. Writing for Business Predictive models of climate change inspired a movement to ______ the situation. a. diffuse b. defuse Answer       Stay In Touch For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com   Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed!   FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2016 TechTarget. All rights reserved.