Tree algorithms for mining association rules

With the increasing reliability of digital communication, the falling cost of hardware and increased computational power, the gathering and storage of data has become easier than at any other time in history. Commercial and public agencies are able to hold extensive records about all aspects of their operations. Witness the proliferation of point of sale (POS) transaction recording within retailing, digital storage of census data and computerized hospital records. Whilst the gathering of such data has uses in terms of answering specific queries and allowing visulisation of certain trends the volumes of data can hide significant patterns that would be impossible to locate manually. These patterns, once found, could provide an insight into customer behviour, demographic shifts and patient diagnosis hitherto unseen and unexpected. Remaining competitive in a modem business environment, or delivering services in a timely and cost effective manner for public services is a crucial part of modem economics. Analysis of the data held by an organisaton, by a system that "learns" can allow predictions to be made based on historical evidence. Users may guide the process but essentially the software is exploring the data unaided. The research described within this thesis develops current ideas regarding the exploration of large data volumes. Particular areas of research are the reduction of the search space within the dataset and the generation of rules which are deduced from the patterns within the data. These issues are discussed within an experimental framework which extracts information from binary data

Tree algorithms for mining association rules

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Knowledge Discovery in Databases

Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) is a relatively new field of research. Interest generated by KDD has been huge. International companies are looking to KDD techniques to maximise profit and enhance decision support. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview and understanding of the ideas, techniques and applications found within this field. Key words: KDD, Data Warehouse, Data Mining, On-line Analytical Processing. 2 Contents Page No. 1. Introduction 1 2. KDD Background 1 2.1 Induction 2 2.1 Deduction 2 2.3 Supervised Learning 2 2.4 Unsupervised Learning 2 2.5 Statistics 3 2.6 Machine Learning 3 3. The Data Warehouse 3.1 Time Dependent 4 3.2 Non-volatile 4 3.3 Subject Orientated 4 3.4 Integrated 4 3.5 Meta-data 5 3.6 Data Marts 5 4. Modelling the Data Warehouse 6 4.1 Star Schema 6 4.2 Snowflake Schema 7 4.3 Mixed Schema 7 5. Hardware 7 5.1 Symmetric Multi-processing 8 5.2 Massively Parallel Processing 8 6. Data Transformation and Integration 8 6.1 Enrichment 9 7..

Computing Association Rules Using Partial Totals

The problem of extracting all association rules from within a binary database is well-known. Existing methods may involve multiple passes of the database, and cope badly with densely-packed database records because of the combinatorial explosion in the number of sets of attributes which must be considered. We present a new class of methods which use a single pass of the database to perform a partial computation of the totals required, and to store these partial totals in a structure which facilitates computation of the final totals. We describe generic algorithms for computing these totals for which storage and performance characteristics are examined. The method opens the way to a number of strategies for practical implementations, for which heuristics are discussed. KEYWORDS: Association Rules, Partial Support, Set Enumeration 1 1 INTRODUCTION A well-established approach to Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) involves the identification of association rules [1] within a..

Resilience among Nigerian transnational parents in the Netherlands: a strength-based approach to migration and transnational parenting

In this article, we adopt a strength-based approach to transnational parenting. Recent studies have shown that not all transnational parents have a negative sense of well-being. Here, we explore parental resilience over a lifespan to understand how mothers and fathers alleviate the strain of spatial separation from their children. Having established from a quantitative study on the same group that neither men nor women necessarily suffer emotionally from separation from their children, we report the findings of a qualitative study on 18 Nigerian men and women in the Netherlands. We look at the strategies and resources that parents employ to overcome the challenges of migration and transnational parenting, to forge a sense of identity and belonging in a migratory context, to do family' while spatially separated, to deal with the difficult life events associated with migration, and to maintain a sense of agency amid stringent migration regulations. By revealing the importance of cultural and individual resources in fostering resilience, the contribution of our study is to the literature on the influence of structural factors in the promotion of well-being

The impact on health inequalities of approaches to community engagement in the New Deal for Communities regeneration initiative: a mixed-methods evaluation

Background: This study was set in 39 neighbourhoods involved in a government-funded regeneration programme called New Deal for Communities (NDC) that began in 1998. We tested whether or not different approaches to engage residents in decision-making in these areas had different social and health impacts. Methods: First, NDC approaches to community engagement (CE) were grouped into four types. We then assessed the impact of these types and whether or not their cost-effectiveness could be calculated. We used existing data from surveys and from NHS and government sources. New data were collected from interviews with residents of NDC areas and former staff. We have also made these data publicly available so that other researchers can assess impacts over a longer time period. Results: The four CE types included an empowering resident-led approach (type A), in which residents had a lot of control over decisions, and an instrumental professional-led approach (type D), in which CE was more often used to promote the priorities of public sector organisations. Type B was initially empowering but over time became instrumental and type C balanced empowerment and instrumental approaches from the beginning. There were few statistically significant differences in health and social impacts by CE type. However, when there were statistically significant differences, the results suggest that type A, and to a lesser extent, types B and C approaches may have had better outcomes than the type D approach in relation to levels of participation and trust between residents, control or influence over decisions, social cohesion and mental health. NDC areas with a type D approach were the only ones where residents’ ‘sense of control’ deteriorated over time. Residents of these areas were less likely to feel that the NDC had improved their area and to experience improvements in mental health. However, some aspects of cohesion and trust improved in type D areas. The findings of our economic analyses are mixed. It was difficult to cost engagement activities, measures of effectiveness were not robust and relating costs that could be calculated to specific measures of effectiveness was difficult. There were almost as many negative as positive scores, making the calculation of cost-effectiveness an arbitrary exercise. Conclusions: Our results are consistent with a theory that the greater the levels of control that residents have over decisions affecting their lives the more likely there are to be positive impacts. It is plausible that an empowerment approach to CE would help build trust and community cohesion, and that having a greater influence over NDC decisions could lead to more people feeling that the NDC initiative had improved an area. Conversely, our results are also consistent with a theoretical position which suggests that instrumental approaches, which try to engage residents in agendas that are not theirs, will have relatively little positive impact and that community cohesion and well-being may be undermined. The study has not produced firm evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches to CE. However, the findings do suggest that programmes involving CE will be more likely to have positive impacts if the approaches to CE are experienced as more empowering and less instrumental (i.e. less focused on the agendas of external agencies). Future methodological research is needed to develop better measures of empowerment at the collective level and more robust approaches to empowerment on health and well-being at the population level. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme