Association Pattern Analysis

 Some of the very earliest work we did in the big enterprise used forms of this analysis.   A classic pattern analysis.    Good basic intro with code.  Is applicable in many areas. 

Association Analysis Explained

How grocery stores are becoming more effective at marketing through data science

By Amanda West  in Towards Data Science

Association analysis is a hot topic in data science right now. By discovering relationships between items within large quantities or networks of data, we can glean insights in many areas. These include uncovering unconscious consumer buying patterns at a particular store or through an app (known as market basket transactions), finding interesting patterns in text mining, or potentially discovering patterns in healthcare, transportation, or survey-based data. These relationships may be represented by what we call association rules, which are typically written in the form {A} → {B}, where the two items A and B exhibit some sort of relationship.

This article is intended for the data science-curious who are passingly familiar with data science, but might not have a deep knowledge of the industry. In this article, you will learn:

Vocabulary / Definitions

Overview of the Apriori Algorithm

Common Association Rules

Implementation in R

Statistical Pitfalls ... " 

Tutorial on Association Rules

Good piece in KDNuggets,  the approach is useful because it is transparent and thus easily visualized. Here is a further technical definition,  from the approach of set mining and rule generation.  Note this applies in many domains.  We used this to generate initial sample expert rule sets.  The method can be extending to the idea of a knowledge graph.  Below the tutorial introduction:

Association Rules and the Apriori Algorithm: A Tutorial
A great and clearly-presented tutorial on the concepts of association rules and the Apriori algorithm, and their roles in market basket analysis.

The (an Example) Problem

When we go grocery shopping, we often have a standard list of things to buy. Each shopper has a distinctive list, depending on one’s needs and preferences. A housewife might buy healthy ingredients for a family dinner, while a bachelor might buy beer and chips. Understanding these buying patterns can help to increase sales in several ways. If there is a pair of items, X and Y, that are frequently bought together:

Both X and Y can be placed on the same shelf, so that buyers of one item would be prompted to buy the other.

Promotional discounts could be applied to just one out of the two items.
Advertisements on X could be targeted at buyers who purchase Y.
X and Y could be combined into a new product, such as having Y in flavors of X.
While we may know that certain items are frequently bought together, the question is, how do we uncover these associations?

Besides increasing sales profits, association rules can also be used in other fields. In medical diagnosis for instance, understanding which symptoms tend to co-morbid can help to improve patient care and medicine prescription.

Definition

Association rules analysis is a technique to uncover how items are associated to each other. There are three common ways to measure association. .... "